SWNOVELS Frostbite: Chapter 21
FOR THE NEXT few weeks we worked hard inside the library. The boys even came to our dorms to carry on the last couple of days before our board meeting.
Cheng had drawn up a plan. It was a really good one but we had to mention Tanya’s name in order to get the board members’ attention. We racked our brains about how we could do that without telling them that we knew who she was and then it hit me.
My dream about the queen. He’d said it was just like a foretelling from the Viden. If you dream of someone really important that guides you on a path, it could lead to greatness, your destiny.
So we all helped with making up this story about how Becky had started to dream about Tanya Le Frey as if it was her and George that would go and find her. I volunteered but since I had declared my hatred for Blake, and was still not sure about how I felt about killing him, Sammy didn’t trust me entirely.
Cheng worked on all the ins and outs. He thought about every possible question they could have, the only thing we couldn’t answer was what she looked like, so he even took care of that by saying she came to Becky wearing a big cloak that covered every inch of her body from head to toe.
“It should work,” I said when we were finally done with everything.
“It must, this is our only chance,” Cheng said.
“No pressure there,” George joked and we all laughed.
“Just leave all the talking to me,” Becky said.
We said goodnight to the boys and they all left.
I picked up Lucian’s journal again and read a couple of entries. I found the foretelling that the Viden had given him about the date. It sounded Shakespearian and I had no idea how he could make head or tail of it.
I couldn’t stop thinking that in eight months Blake would turn evil. I felt as if I hadn’t slept in a year but when my head hit the pillow I couldn’t shut off the whirlwind of thoughts inside my mind.
I froze as I felt someone climbing onto my bed. When I opened my eyes Lucian was back. His journal skidded off my bed and landed with a thud on the floor. Both my arms were around his neck and we shared a long kiss.
“I could get used to that.” He spoke softly against my cheek.
“Where were you? It’s been months.”
He frowned. “I visited you last night.” I shook my head and he huffed. “Guess time is different on the other side.”
“It’s not fair,” I sulked.
His eyes found his journal lying on the floor. “You read that?”
“It’s all I have of you. Why didn’t you tell me about you and Arianna?”
“It was ancient history.”
“About me?”
“I didn’t want you to have all the authority in our relationship. If you knew how I felt…” he sighed.
“I would’ve loved you more, even though I doubt it was possible.”
We lay down on the bed and it felt good to be in his arms again.
“So did you change your mind yet about helping out?”
“Yeah, I know the answer lies with Tanya but I’m scared for Becky and George’s sake.”
He jumped straight up. “I told you that you needed to discover the truth.”
“Sammy doesn’t trust me. Becky and George have got it.”
“Elena…”
“Please just let them go. They’ll find out the truth.”
“No they won’t. I ….” The words didn’t seem to want to come.
“Oh for crying out loud, what is this?”
“I can’t tell you. You need to find the truth. Not them.”
“I told you I can’t. Sammy doesn’t trust me. We already spent a lot of time on this plan to present to the board members. Starting over now will mean another month, if not longer; what if they reject us, then it’s another don’t know how many months and Blake will turn despite our efforts.”
“I got the date wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“He could turn anytime, Elena.”
“What?”
“The answer to the date lies in my foretelling. That’s all I can say. Ask for help.”
I woke up. I didn’t want to and I looked for Lucian but he was gone. Reality kicked in and these dreams, as wonderful as they were, were going to make me sick. My eyes found the journal on the floor. He said the answer lies in the date. It didn’t make any sense.
I looked at his foretelling again. I paged through a couple of pages further and I couldn’t find anything else that was linked to this stupid riddle. There wasn’t an answer. Ask for help.
THE BOYS WERE already searching like mad when we entered the library. I gave Cheng the journal.
“I don’t think the date was about Blake turning. I’ve got a funny feeling it’s about something else,” I lied but I couldn’t tell Cheng that I was dreaming about my dead boyfriend who was helping me.
“Elena,” Sammy asked. “What is that?”
“It’s Lucian’s diary.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you had that?” she said using a harsh tone.
“Because it’s all I have of him. I didn’t think there was anything that could help us, until last night. His riddle doesn’t make sense.” I sat down across from Cheng who was paging through the journal. “You have to help me to find the answer, Cheng.”
He nodded and I took him to the page where the riddle was written in Lucian’s handwriting. He read it a couple of times to himself and then looked up at nothing. He was thinking really hard, I could tell. He looked at the riddle again and then at Sammy. “Elena is right. It’s not the date Blake will turn, Sammy. Look.” He showed her the journal. “You see how many question marks there are next to the foretelling. He even underlined the date a couple of times.”
Sammy stared at the foretelling. “He kept questioning the date.”
Cheng took the journal back from Sammy and read the foretelling out loud. We all listened to it.
“Everything is written in the past tense.” Dean said.
“What!” We all looked at him.
“The date is not the future, it’s in the past.” He turned his chair around and started typing away again.
Plenty of 23rd of Augusts filled the screen, and it scrolled as each new one appeared.
“It’s going to take forever to go through them,” Becky said.
“So what does this mean? Blake is already evil?” Sammy asked.
“I don’t know sweetheart.” Dean gave her a hug. “But one thing is for sure, it’s definitely linked to him.”
“How do you know that?” Sammy asked.
“The Viden, she spoke using the past tense. Her riddles are never past tense. It’s a date alright,
but a date that matters. We need to go find out what happened on the 23rd of August.”
“So we have to go through all those dates?” George sulked.
Cheng got up and hit the print button. “I think it’s time to work full speed guys. The meeting is only a couple of days away.”
We each got a couple of pages and started to go through them. We took turns asking one another if a date and what happened there meant anything to them, but none of them did.
“We need help,” Cheng said early Saturday morning. We’d spent an entire night searching and came up with nothing.
“What kind of help?” I asked.
“Leave this to me,” he said. “But first we all need to sleep.”
We agreed and went to bed. I felt bad for Blake. Ever since they had sedated him, I no longer had a feeling of wanting to kill him. It was gone and a part of me was ashamed of how badly I’d wanted him dead.
I fell asleep and hoped that I would wake up with Lucian again, but nothing. If a month felt like a day, I’d probably see him again next month, which was eons away.
The three of us woke up around three. Becky made us all a mean cup of coffee before going to the library to meet Cheng.
I couldn’t help but stare when we found Tabitha sitting next to him.
“Are you insane?” Becky hissed.
“She won’t tell, but she can help.”
Tabitha looked at me. “Just as long as you promise not to kill him.”
“I said I’ll try my best to help find a way to stop him from turning. When he’s dark and destroys everything, I can’t stand by and watch, Tabitha.”
“Swear you will help,” she spat.
“I’ll do everything in my power,” I grunted back.
“Fine.” She turned her chair and started typing away. She came to the website of the Wall and archives.
“We already tried that,” both Becky and I said.
Cheng held up his hand.
“Please, you haven’t done shit yet,” Tabitha said.
Cheng suppressed his smile and I stared at him.
He tapped his forehead and I watched Tabitha typing away codes and keys. “What are you doing?”
“Shush, for Blake, I’ll do anything. Now shut up, I need to concentrate.”
“She’s hacking into the system,” I mouthed at Cheng.
He nodded.
We all just stared at her as she typed away like a crazy person. The codes appeared and disappeared followed by more codes and in ten minutes she stopped. Another archive file filled the screen.
“Tada,” she said and I stared at her. “What do you want, what is that date again?”
“23rd of August. No year.”
“First just a name and now no year.”
I rolled my eyes at her knowing she was referring to when she’d tried to help find my dad.
There were six August dates and two that landed on the 23rd.
“Matt entered on the one, and someone named Tanya Le Frey exited on the other one,” Tabitha said.
We all cheered and the entire library shushed us. We giggled as we flinched and went back to silence.
“Tanya Le Frey, I guess.” Tabitha sounded sarcastic and I found Becky shaking her head softly.
“So the answer does lie with Tanya. Lucian was right.”
They all looked at me.
“You know what I mean,” I said, hoping they didn’t see through that one either. “Can you find a picture of Tanya?” I asked Tabitha.
Tabitha didn’t reply but she typed away like mad. She stopped and we all stared at the computer watching the codes disappear.
“What is it?” Cheng asked.
“I don’t know. It is un-hackable. I’ve never seen anything like this,” Tabitha answered as she tried one more time. We watched again as her codes disappeared. “Whoever this Tanya was, they didn’t want anybody to know about her.”
“Yeah, we know,” Becky said in a sarcastic tone.
Tabitha just glared at her. “You need me for anything else?” She looked at Cheng.
“Nope, that’s it.”
“Remember our deal, Cheng.”
“I’ll remember.”
She got up and walked away.
“What deal?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about it. It won’t come to that.”
We now knew that Tanya Le Frey was the key to Lucian’s foretelling and Blake’s destiny. In what way, George and Becky still had to find out.
THE BOARD MEETING was set for this afternoon and we all worried about the outcome.
Cheng gave them a really good reason to give to the board members, but if they didn’t see fit to grant permission to go on this quest, then they wouldn’t even reconsider it. The truth was far from the reason though.
“I wish we had a stupid foretelling inside that book,” Cheng said.
My head snapped to him. “Why?”
“Because then they don’t have a choice.”
“Really?”
“It’s linked to Paegeia, Elena. Everyone who has a foretelling inside that book has to make it known the minute they discover it. It’s law,” Becky said.
My heart stopped for a couple of minutes. I so didn’t know that. Shit, what if they were going to find out about mine? I could never tell them about it now.
“Are you okay?” Sammy asked me.
“You have a foretelling inside the book?” Dean made a joke.
“Hahaha, if she did she would’ve told us a long time ago,” Sammy joked back.
I giggled with them. They were so wrong about that last part.
“What is it, Elena?”
“It’s nothing. It’s just crazy with all these foretellings and stuff. I mean, Victoria went on one and she isn’t even back yet.” I sighed. Victoria, or Vicky as Becky called her used to be one of their roomies. I got her spot while she went on her self-discovery quest.
Cheng chuckled. “She hasn’t found what she needed to find. They won’t let you come back until you find it.”
I looked at Becky and George.
“Oh, please Elena,” Becky said. “Have some faith. We are not that stupid. Besides we are dreaming about someone remember,” she joked.
“I hope it will be enough,” Cheng said.
“You and me both. These knots inside my stomach are driving me insane.”
“Says the most incredible and fierce dragon alive,” Becky joked and we all laughed again.
Cheng went over the plan one last time as we went to the location of the board meeting which was to be held in the hall right next to Constance’s infirmary.
“We get it, Cheng. Don’t worry,” Becky was starting to sound annoyed.
“I’m just saying, Becky. These are key points and you can’t forget about them.”
We waited outside for a couple of minutes before a girl in her mid-twenties came out and called George and Becky’s names. They disappeared and Cheng caught the door right before it closed.
“Come,” he said softly.
“Cheng, are you insane?” I whispered.
“They can’t mess this up, Elena.”
Sammy and Dean stayed behind as Cheng and I crawled inside.
We hid in the small hallway and could hear Becky starting to describe her quest. She was really good, she spoke loud and clear and they all gasped as she told them that she was dreaming about a woman in a cloak named Tanya Le Frey. Then the question came of how much money they wanted for the quest and what went with it.
“This is good, usually they throw it out before they ask questions like these,” Cheng smiled.
They broke for a short while and Becky and George had to wait.
“I think they got it,” Cheng whispered and gestured for us to leave.
Just as I took that first crawl, the members came back and Cheng took his post again right at the door.
“What is it?”
“They never make a decision that fast.”
“We’ve come to a decision.” One of the board members spoke. “We do consider this dream important, but it’s not life threatening and it’s not written in the Book of Shadows, so I’m sorry. We can’t grant you this…”
“No, but you don’t…”
“Our decision is final, Miss Johnson.”
I looked at Cheng. His eyes were closed and he clenched hard on his jaw.
We’d worked too hard on this to just get a ‘no, sorry’. It was time and I’d just have to deal with my friends’ wrath later.
I touched Cheng softly on his knee and his eyes flew open.
“I got this,” I whispered, got up and went into the board meeting.
“Elena!” I could hear Cheng’s whisper behind me. Becky and George’s eyes flew up when I came in and I gave both of them an unsure look, but turned to the board members that were halfway out of their seats ready to leave. Master Longwei was one of them.
“My name is Elena Watkins. They were here on my behalf,” I lied. “I’m sorry for the trickery, but I couldn’t deal with all of this. I’m ready now.”
Through the corner of my eyes I could see Becky’s mouth gaping slightly. She had that disappointed look frosted on her face, the one I really hated.
“Elena?” Master Longwei asked.
“I have a foretelling.” I spoke softly.
“What?” A couple of people asked at the same time.
“I have a foretelling,” I almost yelled.
The Viden’s head snapped up. “I don’t recall…”
“It was the first day we met.” I looked at her. “It’s in the Book of Shadows.”