Broken Visions

Chapter 30

It’s so dark it makes the air thick and heavy, bearing down on me and crushing my body. I have to be dead. There’s no way I could be alive with this much pain. But then I open my eyes and see the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen before me, like I landed outside of the world, where the stars shine. They are everywhere. Above me. Below me. As far as my eyes can see.

“It’s so gorgeous,” I whisper in wonderment. But as I start to wander across the stars, my heart sinks in despair. There is no sign of memories or anything that will lead me to it.

But as if answering me, one of the stars just in front of my feet illuminates. I hop back as light flows out of it and casts against the darkness like a movie screen. At first it’s blank, but then people appear on it. A man probably about twenty years old with dark brown hair and violet eyes—my dad. He’s talking to an older woman with flowing auburn hair, wearing a pressed tan dress—Sophia.

“Well, I don’t see how that would be possible,” Sophia tells my father as they hike up the grassy hill toward the grey stone castle at the top. “Jocelyn’s too busy with things. And she’s supposed to be taking her Keeper’s test soon.”

“I understand your concern,” my dad replies, attempting to dazzle her with a charming smile. “But I promise you, I won’t keep her out too long.”

Sophia fixes him with a stern gaze, one that I had seen many times, not at all affected by my dad’s charm. “Well, I’ll have to think about it and discuss it with her father, but we’ll see.”

My father stops on the hill, beaming. “That’s all I’m asking for.”

Sophia gives him a curt nod and then hurries to the front door of the castle, leaving him on the hill. My father turns, picks up a rock, and chucks it into the lake, making the water ripple. He looks happy, not like someone who is about to cause the end of the world.

“He couldn’t have always been evil,’ I say. “There’s just no way.”

The scene swirls back into the star. Not the vision I’m looking for, but it was interesting to see my dad, just a normal guy, wanting to ask my mom out.

Suddenly, another star lights up against the darkness just a few feet away. On the screen, my father is the main focus, about the same age as he was in the last one. He’s sitting next to my mom who looks around the same age as him. Her makeup is done and her hair is curled up and they’re in the corner, huddled together, with a stack of books by their feet.

“I still don’t understand why you have to help him,” my mother says to my father. “It doesn’t make any sense.

My father takes her hands in his. “Everything will be okay, Jocelyn. Stephan assures me that once I help him, we can be together; that he’ll make it so your parents won’t have any problems with us wanting to get married.”

My mother swallows hard. “Julian, please don’t do this... I’m begging you”

“It’ll be alright.” My dad cups her face in his hands and leans closer. “Stephan just needs my help with something and then this will all be over. And you and I can begin our happy life together.”

She looks like she wants to say something but can’t. “Help you with what? Has he even told you?”

“He hasn’t, but I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

My mother itches at her wrist, right where the Mark of Malefiscus is now, but her long-sleeved shirt covers it up. She keeps scratching and scratching like she’s trying to claw her skin off.

“Please don’t go, Julian,” she pleads. “I’m begging you not to.”

“I have to otherwise, I’ll never have this.” And then he kisses her.

I let out a shaky breath as the picture fades back into the star. They seemed so normal and in love, not evil or marked, not about to end the world.

I move to the next star and wait for it to light up, wondering what I’m going to see next. When the screen shines across the blackness, my body tenses. Stephan is sitting at a long mahogany table, dressed in black, his hair slicked to the side, and he’s grinning. Across from him, is my dad with his arms on the table, the sleeves of his blue shirt rolled up revealing that his arms are mark free.

“I have to say, Julian, I’m surprised you showed up.” Stephan says. “Jocelyn must mean a lot to you.”

My dad shifts in the chair and then tucks his arms underneath the table, anxious. “Is it true you can create marks? Can you really mark me as a Keeper?”

I nearly fall to the ground. That’s what he wanted? He wanted Stephan to make him a Keeper?

“Hmmm...” Stephan grazes his finger across the scar on his cheekbone, musing. “Is it true there’s a way for a Foreseer to change a vision?”

My dad’s expression plummets. “I—I don’t think so.”

Stephan slants forward in his chair toward my father. “You know what I hate more than anything, Julian?” he asks in an icy tone, his eyes darkening. “People who lie. I can’t stand fucking liars.”

“I’m not lying, sir,” my dad says, his voice faltering. “I swear, I’m not.”

Stephan digs his fingernails into the wood of the table, as if channeling his anger there. “I understand there are rules that the Foreseers have that forbid you to tell me.” He scoots back and then rounds the table, halting in front of my father. “Give me your arm, Julian.”

“What?” My dad gapes up at Stephan. “Why?”

“Give. Me. Your. Arm,” Stephan repeats in a firm tone.

My dad exhales loudly then extends out his arm. Stephan retrieves a knife from the table and without warning, plunges it into my father’s forearm. “Vos es venalicium!”

My dad whimpers out in pain, his fingers moving for the knife. But it’s too late. A mark appears on his wrist as blood seeps out of his skin and dribbles onto the floor. “Why did you… I don’t understand,” my father stammers, pressing his hand to the wound.

Stephan tosses the knife onto the table, grinning. “Now you have no choice but to help me.”

My father removes his hand from his arm and gasps in horror. Along his forearm, there’s a black triangle outlining a red symbol.

“But you said you would give me the Keeper’s mark.” My father turns his arm toward Stephan. “What the hell is this?”

“Oh, you’ll soon find out,” Stephan says darkly.

The light diminishes into the star as my knees give out and I sink onto the starry ground. My mother lied. My father didn’t want power. He wanted to be with her. He thought he was becoming a Keeper. Why did my mom lie about this? Or didn’t she know the truth? Was the only story she knew from Stephan’s point of view?

But then Stephan had told me that a person had to possess evil blood for the mark to work, so either my father has some sort of evil hidden in him, or Stephan was lying about that and he can put the mark on anyone. Both scenarios make me shiver.

The man has ruined too many lives and it’s time to stop him. Filled with determination, I push to my feet. I need a way to find out a way to figure out which star held the right memory. I sort through my memories, trying to think of something that may have been mentioned in the past. Nicholas and my dad both said something about my mind having the answers. If I could just see which one holds the right memory… I get an idea as I think of the Foreseer book and concentrate on not seeing the stars, but seeing the one that carries the memory of my dad when he altered the vision that will lead to the destruction of earth. The stars begin to glimmer, playing a melody of color, and then a silver cloud rises from the ground. I move back as it slithers across the stars like a snake and into the darkness and I chase after it, weaving around stars, until it finally comes to a stop above a lavender one that shines brighter than all the others. The magical cloud swoops into the air and then swan-dives down into the star. I stop and wait for the screen to light up, but no light or movie clip appears so I lean over and peer into it. There’s a faint light emitting from the center and hesitantly, I bend down and brush my fingers against it. Energy jolts through my body and the ground trembles. The ground below my feet cracks and then begins to break. I let out a scream as the entire starry area around me crumbles, taking me with it.