Chapter 16. The Necklace

Jules came back to the empty bedroom and lit a single candle. The little flame danced on the wick and its warm, golden light played with shadows in the dark room. The boy walked to his bed - the shadows moving along with him - and put the candle on his bedside table. He'd found Melissa's bag in the infirmary, and now he tossed it onto the mattress. Rubbing his eyes, he went to check the jug that still stood on the table.

He expected to find some cold coffee on its bottom, but the servants had already filled it with tea. It was still pleasantly warm and he emptied his mug in one gulp.

"Rosalie? Are you anywhere here?" He strained his Sixth Sense, searching for her. "We can see what's in the bag if you want."

She didn't respond to his summon and he couldn't sense her presence in the room. He left the mug on the tabletop and went back to his bed. Sitting down, he took Melissa's bag into his hands. As he focused on it, his eyes flashed with gold. He didn't feel anything - not a hint of the darkness that Rosalie had mentioned. Frowning, he spilt the bag's content onto his blankets.

Only one thing fell out. A necklace. A crystal, irregularly shaped, attached to a silver chain. Jules took it in his hand a gasped when a sharp point spiked his skin. Blood drained from the small wound on his finger.

"Damn it," he put the finger into his mouth and then wiped the few scarlet drops that had fallen onto the crystal.

Then he saw it - a little piece of paper sticking out of the bag. He unfolded it and read a short message written in black ink.

If you ever find it, please don't use it. You may hate me, but I did it because I love you.

Yours M.

This 'M.' must stand for Melissa - it was the only explanation. But how such a piece of jewellery could be owned by a wandering healer? The crystal was not polished, but something so lucid couldn't be cheap. And the chain itself, it was made of silver.

Jules sat on the bed, kicked off his shoes and lay back. He raised the necklace; the candle's flame lit up the crystal up and golden glints danced on the boy's face. He smiled to himself and stretched lazily. Rosalie must have been wrong. How could something so beautiful be dangerous?

Jules yawned and rubbed his eyes. He lay the necklace on his bedside table and crawled under the blankets. If he had to wait for Ravin, he could as well take a nap.

He closed his eyes and rolled onto his side, but then he felt something prickly under his shoulder. He reached out with his other hand to smooth the sheet, but his fingers dug into something loose and warm. Sand?

He opened his eyes to see a crystal blue sky over his head and the endless sea stretching in front of him. He lay on sand under a withering pine; its needles irritated the skin on his shoulder.

"No way," he looked around frantically. He knew this place. Seagulls squawked, the flock of them circling above him. They built their nest in the holes in the cliff's wall.

"No, no, no.." he took a grip on the linen bag that hung over his shoulder. It was still empty; he would fill it with seagull's eggs.

"No!" he tossed the bag away. How could he be back here?! This very day... No, it must be another nightmare. They would never stop haunting him. He didn't deserve to be freed of them - it was his fault after all. If he had only taken Maya along that day...

"Wake up!" he ordered himself. He couldn't be deeply asleep - he tried to force himself to open his eyes, but found himself googling at the seascape, his eyelids twitching.

Jules looked around - behind him, above the crowns of the groove, dark smoke soared into the blue sky, the wind carrying distant cries.

He would not go there, he didn't want to see it again. He turned back, toward the sea. Down below, waves crashed against the cliff.

There was a way to wake from a nightmare. He rushed toward the edge of the cliff and jumped. The fall brought a sickening feeling.

And then, he found himself lying flat against an earthen floor. He blinked a few times before he could see clearly. There was a bed leg in front of his face; a grey blanket that fell from the bed disturbed his view.

"You'd better hurry," a velvet voice whispered into his ear. Jules jumped and hit the top of his head. "Or are you going to let them die again?"

The boy pushed the blanket away and peeked out from under the bed at the shadowy room he had been born in. Fire cracked on the hearth. Fish soup boiled in the black, heavy kettle. A faded wall-hanging, a sea landscape, caught his attention - it was his mother's pride and joy, her wedding gift from his father.

"Have you gathered all the peasants on the beach?" a hoarse, unpleasant tone sounded from outside. Jules cringed. "I'm getting sick of the wretches' sobbing. We should gag them, pack them on the boats and come back to the ship."

"The Captain ordered us to search the cottages," another voice answered. "Take your men and make sure we left nobody."

The pirates. Jules balled his fists. Tears of helplessness came to his eyes but he fought them back. Even in his dreams, he was still as powerless as that day.

"No, again, not again..." he crawled to the nearest window. The two pirates walked away. Their steps receded, but he still didn't dare to take a deep breath.

It was exactly what he did those five years ago. It wasn't just a nightmare - it was his memories - and he was trapped. He clenched his hands on the windowsill and looked out.

The square was paved with blood and bodies. His neighbours, the fishermen, and craftsmen, their oldest sons, and apprentices – all the men of the village, lay there, killed, one by one.

He jumped out of the window and ran down the street. He fixed his gaze on the strip of the beach, and on the still, dead sea. The babies cried no more, the pirates weren't shouting to each other. Panic raised in his chest, radiating through his body, making his blood-freezing cold and every heartbeat painful.

"Why won't you go and fight them?" the velvet voice mocked. "Have you trained for all these years for nothing? You want to be a hunter to atone for the coward you were, yet you cringe in terror again while your little sister is being murdered?"

"Shut up!" Jules barked, his legs trembling as he pulled himself up. This made no sense. A dream couldn't be that real. The memories of that night had never played before his eyes with such vivid detail before.

He grasped the butcher's knife that lay on the windowsill - where did it come from, because it surely hadn't been there before? - and stormed out of his parents' hut. The voice, whoever it was, was right - Jules was not the scared nine years old anymore. He could save Maya, he had to save them - to see her face this one, last time. To say the goodbye he had never had a chance to say.

He reached the beach and fell on his knees.

There was a row of bundles wrapped in blankets and bedsheets, just as he remembered. And like five years ago, once he managed to stand up, he plodded on weak legs towards two bodies lying at the end. He knelt by them, grasped the blood-soaked sheet covering the smaller one, and tugged it down.

"Maya," he stammered, gazing at the dead, pale face of his little sister. Her big, hazel eyes were closed, brown locks tangled. He wiped clotted gore from her cheek. Her skin was cold.

His vision blurred as his eyes watered. He couldn't stop the tears from falling. Spasms were shaking his body, and he reached to grasp the hand sticking from under the other sheet – the cold hand of his dead mother.

"A little too late, aren't you?" Jules heard a voice coming from behind. He looked around, but he was alone between the corpses. "What a pity they died, leaving you alone. And there's no one to wipe these tears."

"But they still should be there," the boy choked out. What was happening now was not his memory, he realised. It was made up - because those five years ago, he had not been alone between the corpses. There had been knights that had slaughtered the pirates, heading back to the castle, and the soldiers, that had laid the villagers' bodies in rows. And when Jules had been crying over his mother and little sisters' bodies, Raimont had been there kneeling by him, patting him awkwardly on the shoulder. Then, before the soldiers started wondering what to do with the only survivor, Ravin had come and picked him up, put him on Opal's back, and they had ridden away before people started asking questions.

"Who are you?!" Coldness settled inside Jules' bones. It was a dream, yet he was not alone in it. That velvet voice didn't come from him. He had been foolish of him to ignore Rosalie's warning, to open Melissa's bag. There must have been something in there, something he had been unable to recognise. "What are you?! Reveal yourself!"

"I'm your lucky day," the voice sounded just by his ear. Jules felt a hot breath on his neck. "I know your heart, your thoughts, your deepest desires. Five years have passed since your mother and sister deaths, and it still hurts, you still miss them. And you know it's your fault that she's lying here," the sheet fell off Maya's body, blew by non-existent wind, unrevealing a deep cut that ran across her linen dress. "She wanted to go to the cliffs with you that day, didn't she? If only you had taken her along, she would have survived."

Jules clenched his hand on his mom's palm. It was bitterly cold, but he couldn't make himself let go of it. His heart ached, and it was almost physical as if every piece of his body and soul was writhing in agony.

"It didn't have to happen," the voice hummed into his ear. "Wouldn't you like them to be alive again?"

"That's not possible," Jules whispered through hot tears, which streamed down his cheeks and dripped onto his sister's face. "They're dead."

"What if I told you can have them back? You can save them."

The scenery changed. He was still on the beach, but all the corpses vanished. The evening was warm and peaceful, children played on the paths between the huts, and the wind blowing from the land carried the echo of laugh and chat from the village.

"If it's not possible, why this is happening?" the strange voice sounded again near Jules' ear. "Turn around."

Jules did, driven by curiosity and the unknown force that brought him here.

His heart almost stopped. A few meters before him, just where the beach ended, stood a young girl with hazel eyes and brown hair. She was older than he remembered – five years older – but she had changed little. Her eyes were still big and bright, and her smile could make a block of ice melt.

"Jules!" she waved at him. "What are you doing? The dinner's ready! We're all waiting for you! Come on! Dad needs our help with the fishing net."

"Maya!" he reached out for her. He wanted to hug her tightly and never let her go, but his legs couldn't move. "This is only a dream," he remembered. "Only a dream!"

"But it doesn't have to be," the voice played with him, lured him. "Doesn't it look so real? I can give it to you. I only need a little favour."

Jules gazed at his sister. A warm feeling displaced the coldness and pain that had nestled in his heart. It was hope. Hope, which grew stronger every second he watched her smiling.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked. A voice inside his head whispered its warning, but he silenced it. "I'll do everything if you can really bring them to live."

"You know what to do, young hunter," the voice sounded pleased. Melissa's necklace materialised in Jules' hand. The crystal shined. "Free me, boy. Free me, and I'll fill your deepest wish."