Anansi's Web

Some people like to take long walks for exercise, or just to enjoy the scenery, but I doubt they would enjoy any part of my life today. Most of my walking has been inside, and the scenery has been boring office rooms that smell so sweet you want to claw your nose off.

I haven’t seen a window since we left the king’s office, and I doubt that I would by the time we got to the guest hall because we had gone so far down, we might even be on a single digit floor. We walked down a hall, and when we reached the end of the hallway, we stepped into a room with a white door, labeled: guest room.

The man opened the door with a key, and the handed the key to Ember along with a folded up map, and some quick instructions on how to leave if we wanted to. He left after that, moving so quickly he was a blur from the moment he stopped talking.

The room was simple, and that was really all that you could say about it. The only good thing was that there were three separate beds, something we haven’t had on all of our trips to small hotels in the middle of strange towns.

We sat on our beds, and relaxed, turning on the TV, and taking turns showering. When we were all together, just doing nothing, I asked Ember if she could teach me anymore magic.

“In here, it might be dangerous, but maybe tomorrow, if we can find an empty spot.”

“So Ember, how exactly do you know the king of Othal?”

“It’s not important really, nothing you two would be interested in. He met me one day, and he paid to get me into the same collage as him, because he thought that I was smart, and we became friends.”

“Close friends?”

“It doesn’t matter, its history just forget it.”

Cara gave me a look from her bed, and I shrugged. Ember was looking down at her bed sheets, while playing with a strand of her hair. She seemed eager to drop the subject. I wonder if anything happened between her, and the king.

“So how long are we going to be here? I really want to go home, and I can’t let Drason know where I am because my phone isn’t charged.”

“We can call the woman at the front desk, and she might be able to get you a charger. Or, we could go out tomorrow, and get one ourselves. You just have to be patient Cara.”

Cara folded her arms across her chest, and fell back on her bed, staring at the ceiling.

“Are you sure there is nothing that you could teach me about magic? I mean, there has to be something safe we could practice.” I said, trying my hardest to sway Ember. “Or, you could tell me about what shadow magic is. I heard a lot of people talking about it.”

“Well, shadow magic is magic for people without powers, but it’s an incredibly slow process to set up, and preform, and even to work. The idea behind magic is that you use energy from inside yourself, but with shadow magic, you take the energy from the atmosphere, which slowly hurts the plants, and everything around you. There was a story I heard about an island where they used so much magic, and shadow magic that the sand there turned black.”

“Everything here looks fine, I mean, look at the front garden.”

“It depends on where the magic is happening. I doubt people sit in the kingdom’s garden, and use shadow magic. I bet some places here though, are probably completely drained of life.”

I looked out of a tiny window that was covered up by a thick curtain, and thought about exactly what was out there in this kingdom.

“I wonder how Vince is doing.” Ember said.

I rolled my eyes. “He’s probably still in the mountains.”

“Yeah, but I want to know if he’s doing well you know? We don’t know if he got back to his camp safe or not.”

I didn’t know why Ember was bringing this up now; I couldn’t care less what that pirate was doing. I just wanted my parents here, or better yet, I wanted to be back at home, with my parents, and I wanted everything to go back the way that it was. The only upside to being here was that this would make a killer story to tell, but I doubt anyone would might even believe me.

The next day, we had been out since morning, and my legs were exhausted. First we set out to get Cara a charger for her phone, but she wouldn’t be able to use it until we got back to the room, which we hadn’t once. We traveled around, sight-seeing, and stopping to get something to eat every now, and then. We only took two canals during the entire day, lily’s stream, and capitol stream, because those two were the ones that led through the west part of the kingdom, which was the liveliest, and of course the most crowded.

There was a city sized area to the far west called the capitol, which was packed, but still beautiful with cool architecture, and statues that must have been there since the kingdom was built. When we got back to the castle, I was tired, but for some reason I wanted to keep moving. So, I asked Ember if we could see the backyard of the castle, which I heard was a huge green field. She agreed, and we dragged Cara with us to see it.

The back of the castle was as huge as the garden in the front. The grass there was incredibly green. The sun that was beginning to set was letting the horizon toss the warm colors over the ground, and over our faces. Ember seemed to glow, while Cara was trying to swat away the sunlight, and cover her face. I squinted, and used my hand to shield my eyes.

“It’d be perfect if we had a soccer ball, or a goal.” I said.

“Oh right, you did play soccer didn’t you?” Cara remembered.

“Yeah, but I stopped.”

“Why?” She asked.

“Well, it got old. I felt like I was too old for it, I mean, a lot of my friends stopped, and I did too.”

“That doesn’t mean that you have to quit.” Ember said.

“Yeah, but nobody in Othal pays that much attention to soccer anyway. I can’t go back now, it’s been so long.”

“That doesn’t matter, we can ask a servant for a ball, and you can show us what you remember.” Ember said with a smile. “It helps with reflexes you might need for magic. Think of this as a lesson.”

I kind of wanted to, but I also felt kind of embarrassed to tell my story. I was always interested in soccer, and I did quit just because of my friends. I’m probably no good anymore.

After Ember asked a servant for a ball, and he brought it to us, I stood in the middle of the field, with a black and white soccer ball right in front of me, with Ember, and Cara whooping, and waving their hands in the air. It made me feel worse rather than better.

I began to mess with the ball a bit, trying to see what I remembered, and I began with some drills that I remembered from when I was younger. I actually won a few trophies for this, I reminded myself. I was actually still okay at it. I hopped the ball from my foot, to my knee, and from my knee all the way to my head, where, I bounced it twice before I lost control. Ember and Cara clapped, and laughed as I tried to do the trick again.

The sun seemed to stay frozen, killing my hopes of suggesting we go back inside because it was getting dark. I kept playing with the ball, as the memories of how much fun I had when I played returned to me. I took the ball all the way to the other side of the field, without losing control, and then, I shot the ball at the huge wooden fence, where it hit, and bounced back to me, rolling on the grass until I stopped it with my foot. I wasn’t even tired actually. I smiled at Ember and Cara as I walked back with the ball under my arm. The whistled and clapped. I actually felt happy for the first time since I left Sraff.

“Keeping yourself happy makes your energy stronger.” Ember said, ruffling my hair. She laughed when I lightly swatted her away.

We walked back into the castle, and the sun actually started to set again. We joked, and laughed as we walked back in. When we got back to the room, Cara charged her phone, and was shocked to find fifty messages from Drason. She texted him, but he didn’t answer back, and she started to get worried, but Ember convinced her that he was okay, without hexing her.

Ember taught me some more about the history of magic, and how it was a secret of these ancient winged people called Amunites who lived in Amedia, but she told me about how they are almost completely gone today except for a few who are determined to kill the pirates, because the pirates are ‘traitors’ from Amedia.

That night, I went to bed smiling. Ember was asleep, and Cara was on her phone, with the blueish light illuminating her relieved face. I curled up in the bed, and took a deep breath as the charm of the night drizzled over me like feathers, bringing me into a restful sleep.

We woke up, and Cara gave me her charger to let me charge my phone. She of course, was on hers for the whole morning, texting her friends, and looking through the internet. I couldn’t wait to let my parents know how I was doing, I almost couldn’t stand the wait for my phone to reach over one percent.

After messaging, and calling my mom I spent half of the day waiting for a reply, but getting nothing except for “we’re fine.” It was strange, but when I asked Ember about it she told me it was a part of the curse she put on them. I wanted to feel bad, but somehow I couldn’t get mad at Ember. She was just doing what she had to do at the time to keep them safe.

We went out into the kingdom again, and this time we spent a little more money than we had planned. We got some more new clothes, including pajamas, and we got a pretty big lunch at one of the most popular restaurants in the kingdom. I was starting to feel like an actual guest, but every time I started to feel really comfortable I remembered that I was here because I was being chased, and the director could pop out of the shadows at any moment.

On our way back to the castle, we took a brief walk across a bridge called the grand bridge. It was a mistake, but of course we didn’t know that then. The grand bridge connected the capitol to the east, and that was one of the places that you did not want to go in Neptia. There was crazy stuff, and just bad people. Of course we could take care of ourselves pretty well, but it was still dangerous.

The kingdom wasn’t quite so amazing in this area. It was pretty bland with simple buildings, and a few old, and rotting homes. We passed a very small convenient store with no one there, and bars on the windows. The curtains were down too, preventing us from looking inside. I felt terrible, and I wanted to turn back. Ember agreed with me, but then we could hear some really beautiful music.

The melody was coming from a blonde boy sitting on the sidewalk, with a guitar. He had his eyes closed, and was playing so smooth you could almost see the sound floating through the air. There was a sizeable crowd around him; they were standing transfixed on him. It was so strange I had to use a big word to describe it.

The boy opened his eyes to reveal two bright blue irises. He searched through the crowd until he found Ember. His eyes locked onto her, and he changed his song to something a little more chaotic, but still beautiful.

Everyone was clapping with the rhythm, and dropping coins into his guitar case, but when I looked over at Ember, she was taking steps back, and looking around. She looked nervous, almost scared. Her face had gone slightly red. Her eyes turned wide. When I looked back to the boy he looked as calm as ever, looking at Ember. I noticed then that his eyes had taken on the same kind of glow that Ember’s did whenever she used magic.

Ember turned, and walked away, covering her ears with her hands. She took them away, and turned to us when we were so far away that we couldn’t hear his music.

When stopped where the only sounds were cars and the wind blowing through the sad streets. Ember was breathing heavily, and her face was still red.

“He was hexing me.”

“But, what was he doing? Was he trying to control you?” I asked.

“No, he was just going through my memories, I watched them play in front of me like a movie, I could feel all of those old emotions. He must go through memories and make people subconsciously remember something happy so they give him money. He…he did it almost undetected by me, but when he knew I was noticing he got sloppy.”

“What made you so upset though? Was it the memory?” Cara asked.

“No it’s just…yes, but I lost control. He just made me so upset; I can’t believe…That’s what it feels like to be hexed. It’s never happened to me before. I felt like I lost control.”

Hexing is what she does to people, it’s her specialty. She seemed to be feeling remorse for doing that, but without her we wouldn’t be near where we are now. I was going to say this, but she was starting to regain her composure, and I didn’t want to bring it up.

We got back to the castle; the entire journey was in complete silence. I made a mental note to let my doubts known every time I had them because I didn’t want anything like that to happen again. I can see why people don’t like to go there.

We still had some time in the day, but we didn’t do much other than sit around. The whole mojo we had going on was thrown off course by that one thing happening. I was upset, but more than that I was worried about Ember. She seemed a lot calmer now; maybe a little too calm. She was very quiet. We watched TV in the room as the day slowly slipped through our fingers.

That night, before we all went to sleep, I left the room. I told Cara and Ember that I just wanted to walk around a little bit before I went to bed, and Ember gave me some directions back to the room in case I got lost, and I left with a little warning not to wonder off too far.

I tucked the directions to the room into my pocket, and slowly took off down the hallway. I needed some time to think, and I didn’t feel like I could do it in that small room. Then, I heard a noise in the walls.

I stopped, and tapped the wall. I heard the noise move. I kept doing this further, and further down the hall. I remembered a lot of stories about Gremlins that live in homes. I wondered if this was an actual gremlin. I think there were a few stories of those in Neptia. I kept following the noise slowly.

I followed the noises carefully, and I tried to mark where I’ve been in my mind, but I’m not the best person in the world when it comes to memory.

Sometimes I lost the trail, but I always heard the noise whether it was in the walls, or from the ceiling, or the floor. I carefully tapped on the wall whenever things went silent, and I would hear something move again.

I remember my dad telling me stories about how gremlins lived in machines, and messed with the mechanics. I was always scared of them, because he said that they were ugly and part cat, with sharp claws, and monkey tails. It was kind of a sudden decision to go after a sudden noise that I heard, but so far I feel like I’ve been right about it.

I finally stopped at a small closet. I looked at the directions and realized that I had gone out of the area that I was allowed to go by Ember, but I expected that to happen. I think I can find my way back, but if I get lost I can just find a servant.

I tried to open the small door to the closet with the word custodian placed on the door. The door was locked, and I groaned, because I had gotten too close to just get stopped by a locked door.

I tried to use magic on the door, but all that managed to do was turn the knob, until I realized that I could turn the knob more than it should be turning. Eventually I turned the small golden door knob so much that it unscrewed from the door, and fell onto the carpet.

I smiled, and put my fingers into the hole that the doorknob had left. I pulled the door open, and I saw a small creature sitting on the top shelf of the custodian’s closet. It had the shape of a small monkey, but it had dark green fur, with cat eyes, and fangs that stuck out of the corners of its mouth.

The small gremlin raised its small hand to reveal sharp claws, and I backed away. Then, I noticed something strange. It had a small blinking red light on top of its head. Then I noticed that the red light was coming from a tiny camera. I almost moved up to grab the gremlin, but I was kind of scared, and I didn’t want to get clawed up.

Remorsefully I let the small thing go back into the wall, with the red camera still blinking on top of its head. Somewhere deep inside I knew that it could mean nothing good. Someone was spying on the castle, and they were using this little gremlin to do it. I was going to tell the king about it, but I decided to save the information for tomorrow.

I found my way back to the area that Ember had allowed me to go, and I found Cara standing there, looking around.

“Ember sent me to find you, where did you go?” Cara asked.

“I was following something. It was a gremlin, and it had a camera on its head.”

“Why did you follow it?”

“That’s not important. Cara, this means someone is spying on the castle.”