“Look at you in the black and red uniform!” Lorna hugged me, then held me at arm’s length for a better look. “It suits you.” I’d brought my scythe with me, although I wasn’t sure why, and Lorna touched the handle with the tips of her fingers. “It’s a beauty. When I heard the Academy had taken it from you, I was so mad.”
I laughed. “They said it wasn’t healthy for a teen to have a scythe in her bedroom closet.”
“Bullshit. You weren’t a teen, you were a hero.”
I shrugged. “They thought I wouldn’t live long enough to reclaim it. Joke’s on them.”
Lorna laughed out loud, and her beautiful voice filled the cave, the tunnels, and all the spaces those tunnels led to. As far as I knew, no one had explored the caverns under the Academy in their entirety. Who knew what other dark secrets they hid?
Lorna was as beautiful as ever. Radiant, with long black hair and blue eyes. A straight nose, slightly upturned at the tip, high cheekbones, and full lips. She hadn’t changed one bit. Just like Mila, she’d been offered immunity from death. The difference was that once she retired and that immunity was taken away, she’d age very slowly, while Mila… Well, no one was sure what would happen to Mila if I did succeed in banishing Yig next year. Mages lived long lives. Not as long as angels and demons, but long enough to not complain about their lifespan.
“Come on, let’s do this,” Mila said as she eyed the blade of her scythe. “This thing will start glowing any minute. I can never take a break.”
Lorna rolled her eyes, which wasn’t lost on Mila.
“What do you care?” my cousin mumbled. Then, to me: “Did you know that the Righteous Reapers work ten times less than the Violent Reapers? Even the Merciful ones get called more often.”
“Oh, knock it off,” Lorna sighed. “I work just as hard as you do. You don’t know because I don’t complain like you.”
“Still, let’s get it done,” Mila said in a lower voice, this time. She eyed the well in the middle of the cavern. And I knew she wasn’t in a hurry because she might be summoned to reap at any moment, but because she was uncomfortable being here. “The sooner, the better.” She turned to me. “Have you tried to dream jump?”
“No. I was afraid I might get lost again, so I thought it best to wait.”
“Good.”
“Alright, the ritual is pretty simple,” Lorna said as she removed her Reaper cloak, folded it, and set it next to her scythe in a niche in the rock. “Find somewhere to sit.”
I looked around me. There weren’t many places. My boots were in the warm, rusty water up to my ankles. Corri flew around, found a rock that was big and smooth enough to do just fine, and called me. I sat down, my knees trembling a bit and my hands sweating. Lorna was about to erase my memories of Lovecraft’s dream, as well as those from when I’d traveled to the cosmic spawns’ network of universes. To say I was nervous would’ve been an understatement. My main concern was… Once my memories were gone, would I be the same? Wouldn’t parts of me be missing? But then again… Parts of me were probably missing. I couldn’t be sure that the infusion of Akkadia Aeterna had put me back together completely. There were moments when I felt like I was outside of my body, watching myself do things I knew I would’ve never done a year ago. Like confronting Domina Wingblaze. But it had felt good, so maybe I wasn’t the same person I used to be. Maybe I was a better, bolder version of myself.
Lorna took out a couple of things she had brought in a bag with her – a small jar that contained a black substance, a knife with a beautifully decorated handle, and a stick made of bundled up plants that I knew she was going to burn. There were already lit candles everywhere, so the atmosphere was set. She proceeded to spread the black substance around me, in a circle, and I noticed it seemed to be made of ash and crystals.
“Black salt. For protection.”
“Oh.”
Next, she lit the herbal stick, and in no time, a heavy smell permeated the air. She walked around me, clockwise, chanting something under her breath. I watched her with curious eyes. A few feet away, Mila and Corri did the same, except I could tell that Mila was impatient. With her arms crossed over her chest, she looked like she was fighting the urge to tap her foot. Lorna paid her no mind. She placed the stick in a niche, and soon the candles burning there started dripping onto it, claiming the aromatic herbs as their own. Next, Lorna took out the knife, pointed it at me, and started drawing things in the air. She closed her eyes, chanted in a language that could have been Italian, and when she opened them again, they were filled with blue energy. I gasped. The energy seemed to be liquid. It poured out of her eyes and onto her cheeks like tears. She started chanting louder, and when she made a cutting gesture with the knife, the circle of salt she’d created before blew up in flames. Blue, iridescent flames. I couldn’t even understand how it was possible, but then again… Lorna was a powerful mage, and nothing that she could do could be explained by physics. At least, not the physics I’d learned in the human world.
“Yoli, think about the things you want to forget.”
I didn’t understand her at first. She repeated the request. It took me a minute to realize she was talking to me, and in English. I nodded and tried my best. I brought up the memories connected to Mr. Lovecraft, his horror short stories, his notes, and what he’d told me about his dream. Then, one by one, I tried to bring up the memories of the first time I’d jumped to what I’d thought was the point of neutrality. The memories of the island, of the black tower, and the stone with the moving symbols. It wasn’t easy. Every time I focused on a detail, it seemed to slip away from me. I furrowed my brows, keeping my eyes tightly shut. It was as if my memories of that place were fluid, so fluid that every time I tried to grasp them, they slipped through my fingers.
“Let them go now,” Lorna whispered.
“Err… how do I do that?”
“Just relax. Open your eyes, relax your mind. Breathe in, and when you breathe out, imagine them leaving your body with your breath.”
I did as she instructed. After a few minutes of breathing in and out, I didn’t feel any different. The blue flames were starting to die down around me, and Lorna’s eyes were going back to normal. It was as if the energy that had poured from them was being absorbed into her skin. She made one last cutting gesture with the knife, then entered the circle and touched my face. The blue flames were gone.
“How do you feel?”
I shrugged. “The same.”
“That’s good.”
“But nothing happened.”
She chuckled. “What did Professor Lovecraft tell you when you saw him in his office last year?”
“He…” I furrowed my brows. “He showed me his notes.”
“And what were the notes about?”
I tried to bring the memory to the forefront. I knew what the notes were about. They contained his research on the Great Old Ones, drawings and stories he’d collected from the people he’d talked to. But every time I conjured the image of said notes, every time I imagined myself back there, at his table, looking through the papers, the papers were… blank. I couldn’t remember one word, one drawing… Completely and utterly blank.