How do I change my future? Stop the Tether from making it as dark as the ink in the fountain?
“How do I end the witch’s curse?” I ask, fear twisting inside me.
“Challenging the witch could kill you,” the librarian warns.
“Life means nothing if you’re spending it in shackles,” I reply, pointing toward my Tethered ankle. “I can’t stay trapped and tugged along by the whims of a curse and the evil witch behind it. I’ll beat her. Somehow. I can’t fail.”
“Young Emma, people often fall. They lose, learn, and repeat, until they discover how to win. Failure is not the opposite of success. It’s part of it.”
“Well, I’d love to avoid that part.”
“Love,” the librarian flickers. “A powerful magic indeed.” She fiddles with the glowing buttons on her thick silver bracelet again. Another book flutters over. Pages flip and spread like butter. A cone of yellow light beams up from the book, displaying 3D images and daguerreotypes from the past that hover in the center of the light above the pages.
The first is an image of a woman with fire-red hair styled in a messy bun. She has sharp angular features and icy blue eyes that follow me as her image rests inside an oval trimmed in metallic gold that glimmers in the light, like dew on a rotting leaf. A black box appears under her face. Letters twirl: the first is a curly blackSwritten in calligraphy. Eventually, black looping script spells “Sabine Blanchard.”
The librarian shifts, and the pages of her book dress rustle. “As a chaos witch,” she explains, “Sabine thrives on hurt and division. She sows strife and turmoil so she can feed on it. Make her power stronger. Unity is aweapon. To survive her Tether, you first must fight to find yourself. Then you must find what can’t be broken in the midst of what has always been shattered.”
“What does that even mean?” I shiver. The librarian doesn’t reply. “Explain further!” I demand.
Tilting her holographic head in confusion, she pixelates again. “I’m not certain how to.”
Pushing away my fear, I say, “I’ll need to be smarter and stronger, so I can break something… Right?” I snatch a floating book bound in leather that glows violet out of the air.
“Many have made similar assumptions,” she warns. “And yet they find themselves cold and still as stone at the Tether’s end.”
Gripping the orchid leather binding, I say, “What are the most important elements in this?”
She taps at her thick silver bracelet, and the book I am holding flutters out of my hand and opens to project an image that flows like an old movie:
Sabine is on the black sand of a beach under a full circle of silver moonlight. Dark, churning waters stir into waves that crash against the shore, kissing her bare feet and sending sprays of salt water into the air. She puts her palm up, and a massive raven with piercing red eyes lands on her palm. Sabine looks at the bird, and the blue pools of her eyes swirl into red.
The librarian leans close, adjusting her square glasses and speaking with her voice low. “Legends state that the witch possesses feathered familiars—powerful ravens that serve as her eyes across time and space. They bring her messages and information. With their assistance and her magical talent, she is said to be impossible to defeat.”
“Nothing’s impossible,” I shoot back, trying to murder my own doubts. The weight of my ancestors’ struggles against the curse of oppression presses against my shoulders. But remembering what I’d read in a book by Maya Angelou assures me that I carry the gifts of my ancestors and that I am the hope and the dream of the slaves that birthed my bloodline. So I raise my head, determined to rise to the occasion and defeat Sabine. “I’ll outwit the witch and give my family freedom from the shackles of this curse.”
I have to tell Malcolm what I’ve learned. I think of the thoughtful note that he’d sent me in the magical post office box this morning and grin. His kindness and determination warm me as I picture his beautiful brown face and his crooked smile.
“Help me find a way to break the Tether,” I say. My voice shakes as I add, “I have to free us from this murderous game.”
The librarian’s blue hair pixelates as she speaks. “The answers you seek lie within these walls and inside of you.” She gestures to a scroll, and it floats across the room, slinking and spiraling on the air before landing in my palm. She adds, “This ancient document lists all we know about the witch and the Tether.”
The librarian’s blue hair wavers, the bell-shaped bottom of her gown’s pages ruffling.
“That can’t be,” I whisper, looking down at the scroll. “It’s blank.”
The librarian tinkers with the glowing buttons on her thick silver bracelet, and ink rises from the waterfall. Its dark fluid splashes up from and off of the pearly rocks to float above us in a midnight stream. The dark waves lift and splash down in the floating current until drops of ink rain down, bleeding only onto the yellow page of the scroll and twisting into dark curly letters. I squint and read the words: “The Tether does not occur on a traditional timeline.” I add, in a whisper, “It says the witch calls for a Gambit and Tethers one Baldwin and one Davenport when she’s weak.”
With a tap of her bracelet, the librarian sends the ink river that was overhead back to the pearly rocks in the corner of the room below us. It splashes back into the waterfall.
“Sabine…” The librarian’s brows furrow behind her square glasses. “She uses conflict and blood to feed her immortality and increase her power.”
The scroll’s edges are frayed by age. Tiny rabbits made of ink hop across the bottom of the yellowing page. My heart drops as I scan the scroll again. “It doesn’t say how to defeat her here.”
“We have yet to discover how. Sabine’s a dangerous and formidable enemy. One that a child like you shouldn’t take on.”
“Thanks for your help,” I reply.
“Of course.” She adjusts her square glasses and looks at the circularwindow across from us. “Stay safe. Let the sun and stars guide your journey, Emma Baldwin.”
