━━━ ꧁ད ✶ ཌ꧂ ━━━

CHAPTER 26

━━━ ꧁ད ✶ ཌ꧂ ━━━

"What?" I rejected the idea completely, but life didn't seem content with my existence, as after a moment, I found myself urgently grabbing onto his arm because everything started spinning.

I didn't like this feeling. It was the same one that dragged me into seeing tragic memories.

"Zara... You're wearing a ring. I think you're doing it unconsciously, and that's why you feel so unwell. Zara, can you hear me?"

It was too late. I couldn't speak, and everything faded away, once again engulfing me in a blurry whirlwind.

Inside the new place, the silence feels unbearable, but I can also sense a tremendous sorrow. The curtain near where I am sitting is forcefully pulled, striking against the foundation and causing a noise similar to dropping a bag of sand on the ground.

I find myself inside what appears to be a small tent, with synthetic walls alternating in red and white, resembling a lollipop, the gift, and the main circus tent.

"How can you be sleeping at a time like this?" Reidar approaches. He is furious. He looks just like that Canopus poster I found in the railroad container. But suddenly, he stops. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to yell at you. It's just that..."

He sits on the floor next to me.

"There's nothing I can do," I say, looking towards the set of bowling pins stacked on a table. Next to them, on the floor and leaning against the synthetic material, are also two unicycles.

"Of course, there's something you can do. Because you know... You know who did it. But why aren't you doing anything?"

"Because everything is already falling apart. Everything went to hell."

"No, not yet. It's just you, falling apart along with everything else." He pauses. "It was Ellinor. It was your daughter, and you just let her die!" The anger urges him to leave just as quickly as he arrived.

A new bicolor whirlwind dissolved everything around it, and in an instant, I found myself in a different place. I was back in the attic, sitting on the floor with my head resting on Ashton's shoulder, feeling drowsy.

At least the dizziness had disappeared, but there was something else. My right hand felt numb, and when I looked down, I discovered that my fingers now bore a total of five rough, silver rings. Clinging to my hand, they all had identical engravings of the letter Z in various poses. Each gemstone had a unique shape. On the thumb, one looked like a navy-blue diamond; on the index finger, a small gem resembling a black hole in space; then, a white oval; and finally, an orange stone that looked more like a marble dome.

"A second after you stopped listening to me, they automatically transferred to your fingers. Can you stand up?" Ashton asked in a low voice.

I nodded, and he helped me reach the sofa. On my way there, I noticed Mikkel next to the table, grinding herbs with a mortar and pestle.

I hoped he wouldn't give me more of that stuff.

"What did you see?" he asked me, and I looked at him confusedly. "Those gadgets are invasive; I know them well."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Thanks to the turquoise ring, you can relive any experience, memory, or dream, or even find something important in the minds of those you last looked into the eyes of. And in this case, it was mine. You skipped the whole process up to the third ring without going through the first two, and that's why you passed out."

"Impossible!" I exclaimed, and his forehead creased with a deep wrinkle. "I mean, at the gym, I looked into the puppeteer's eyes, but what I saw in his mind... I witnessed Ashton's death."

"Dallas wasn't present when that happened," he replied sharply.

"Does he know the puppeteer?"

"I don't know him; I heard of him because he was the same age as..." He stopped midway and looked around, probably searching for Ashton. "Anyway, he was also nineteen and about to inherit his father's gadgets. It's a shame he died that way. He was a skillful puppeteer."

Surprise overwhelmed me when I found out that Dallas was now dead.

Behind me, I heard Ashton inhale with difficulty, and it was easy to deduce why: he hadn't been lucky enough to inherit his father's medallions. Death took everything from him in the blink of an eye, though he tried to be strong.

"It's a curse," Mikkel stated. "The separate medallions... It wasn't until Reidar came in yelling that one of them was stolen that everything started to spiral out of control."

"Ashton told me he saw his father give a medallion to Reidar."

"Then someone took it as far away from the circus as possible and unleashed the curse, which is all about shadows. And based on what you're saying, Reidar couldn't have caused it. Ellinor had just died, and he kept pestering me because all I did was sit and watch. They weren't his best days, nor anyone else's." He spun the chair around on one leg. "Now, all we have left is to continue being part of a performance that no one can, or will, ever witness again. We know what awaits us in the afterlife: the shadows. Ashton has been strong to endure for so long."

"Did you know who ended Ellinor's life?" I asked, and Mikkel abruptly stopped his fidgeting, returning the chair to its normal position.

"I didn't know," he said irreverently. "Do you think if I had all the answers, we would still be stuck here?"

Anger sparked inside me, and my already shaky and timid patience fled under the table like a dog with its tail between its legs.

"Why are you so rude? You bear a striking resemblance to your deceased daughter, and that's fine, but I didn't do anything to deserve that attitude."

"I knew who killed Ellinor, right?" I persisted.

His face twisted in anger as he said, "You should learn to control what you do with those rings; otherwise, you'll be jumping into everyone's heads you come across. You need to start from the beginning, girl. From the first one."

"It's not like I asked for this, nor did they come with a user manual," I grumbled.

He got up from the chair and breathed like an angry bull. He circled the table while lighting a pure cigarette he unearthed from somewhere in his old, wrinkled pants. He took a puff, and finally, he stopped next to the trapdoor and opened it with his foot. Ashton jumped to his feet when a powerful beam of whitish light burst in, marking an elongated rectangle on most of the ceiling for a couple of seconds.

Mikkel started to descend, but before disappearing completely, he paused. He hit the floor twice with his hand, and Mango appeared out of thin air, climbed onto his arm, and the little door closed behind both of them.

"What's his damn problem?" I exclaimed.

"You both have the same explosive character," Ashton remarked.

"Oh, great, that means we'll have to wear explosion-proof vests whenever we're together."

He shook his head, and at the same time, a loud noise from the lower floor sounded like a massive hammer smashing a wall. The attic shook and screams mingled with the complaints of the trembling foundations.

"That was Mango," I pointed out. I became aware that I was now on my knees, opening the trapdoor.

"What are you doing?" Ashton stopped me.

"I won't stay here waiting for everything to collapse on us, if there's even a possibility of that happening," I said with determination. I looked out, and, to my surprise, we were above the lighthouse.

Beyond Port Fallen, there were only a few hills and dense forests. All the ports were at the lake's edge, each with a lighthouse rising from the top of a cliff. However, they were different from typical coastal lighthouses. They resembled gigantic lamps or fixed beacons that automatically lit up every night.

I knew exactly where ours was located. A path wound through the trees surrounding the school, leading to a gorge where the ancient lighthouse stood. Until that moment, I didn't know of anyone interested in visiting this place.

For Mikkel to have covered the entire distance with me as if I were dead weight, he must have been hiding an enviable physical condition beneath his large body.

The light completed one turn in a radial shape, and for a brief moment, it blinded me as it shone directly on my face. It was so intense that it illuminated the entire floor below.

Attached to the trapdoor was a metal ladder leading down to a ramp, which then connected to the start of a stone staircase. The darkness extended just beyond that point.

"The light is between two floors," I assured Ashton. "We can meet on the next one."

Ashton agreed with the plan, and I started to descend the ladder. I tried to protect my eyes from the intense glare and quickened my pace down the ramp because the heat was unbearable. Although the light wasn't yellow, it felt like it was burning my back.

I reached the stone staircase that spiraled down, but I stopped my progress. The steps disappeared in front of me, leaving a great void and then continuing. That must have been the noise we heard from the attic, but there was no trace of Mikkel or Mango.

I looked fearfully into the abyss that seemed endless as if it were connected to hell itself. I didn't dare lean over to see how deep it was. Imagining it to be about five or six floors deep made me dizzy, so I backed away and leaned against the wall, wishing I could merge with it.

The good thing was that there were no windows or other light sources that could endanger Ashton. The only glow was concentrated in the place we left behind and ended where we are now.

"Zara, are you there?"

I swallowed before replying softly, "Yes." I think I was starting to run out of air, especially since the staircase now seemed narrow.

"I can't reach you all the way there," he announced. "You have to jump."

"Jump?" Without moving away from the wall, I stretched my arm and grabbed the metal railing firmly. Then I took a deep breath.

"Willpower. One is their obstacle." That was what the coach recited in one of her gym classes when we climbed a rope tied to the ceiling. It was a phrase that stuck with me. From then on, I would recite it whenever something required all my effort.

"I'll keep my arms extended. I'll catch you."

"Sure you will."

He said he would hold on to me.

Encouraged by his words, I moved closer to the railing, just enough to see the debris of the staircase below. I was trembling now, as I had imagined the height to be abysmal.

The lighthouse rose majestically. Its cylinder stretched from top to bottom. Ashton was quite far from me, exactly halfway around the circumference, where the stairs continued, disappearing into the darkness.

I had never felt so limited compared to him as I did at that moment. Fear made it a challenge to move. The steps looked like a thin, unstable line.

From the space that had the bad luck to give way, debris still fell, and when the lighthouse's echo returned, the sound multiplied.

"Don't look down; just look at me," Ashton kept encouraging me.

My fingers gripped the railing tightly as I moved my legs to the other side and kept looking at him the whole time. Ashton had his arms truly extended.

My lungs refused to breathe as anxiety took over. Without hesitation, I threw myself into the void with my stomach in knots. At that very moment, a shadow emerged from nowhere and rushed at great speed, carrying Ashton in its enigmatic embrace. I saw him disappear behind the wall, and the shadow struck him with force, then collided with the staircase, knocking down more steps. It was as if it were made of a poorly molded, deformed, and eerie mass.

Everything spun around me, and suddenly, I found myself upside down, looking at the ceiling. My jeans had saved my life by catching on a metal arm of the railing, but I couldn't breathe with relief; everything was shaking, including me. I was hanging by a thread.

The shadow leaped from where I last saw it, flying towards the opposite wall and knocking down the steps I was hanging from.

As we fell, I thought I heard Ashton's voice just before the shadow pounced on me, taking the form of a man. I could make out his mouth, nose, and eyes as if they were sculpted from black stone.

For an instant, that eerie gaze stayed clear in my mind, but then the whirlwind engulfed me, pulling me into another memory.

This time, the memories are blurry, and dark, and jump in small increments of time, as if it were a reel from some old horror movie.

In one of them, I can recognize the costume tent just before stopping at the entrance. Then I hear a murmur and quickly hide inside, behind a mound of what appears to be some bags.

This must have happened before it caught fire; that's the only thing I can think of.

Ashton's father enters the company of Reidar; they walk together as the former hands the medallion to the latter. Shortly after, I found a way to escape the tent without being seen or needing to use the main entrance.

Ashton said he witnessed the same scene, but I can be sure that these memories don't belong to him.

Everything fades around me, and when new images reconstruct in front of my eyes, another memory places me during the night. I feel dizzy, and the smell of alcohol reaches my nose as I douse everything with the same substance.

Soon, after a slight spark, the costume tent started to burn.

Staggering, I escape as best as I can. But halfway through my escape, I passed by an unconscious body lying on the ground, meters away from where I just fled. He looks similar to Ashton, but his figure is that of someone older.

Although my mind urges me to stop and help him, my body doesn't yield to its commands.

Again, another jump to the next memory. This time, I find myself locked in a dimly lit room with liquor bottles scattered everywhere. I even bring one to my lips and take a sip, and everything inside me burns simultaneously.

In the next memory, I am fleeing. My chest hurts, and my legs keep moving swiftly through the woods.

For some reason, I look down at my hands. In them, I hold the medallion with a monkey engraved on it.

"There's no going back," I hear myself say. "I caused the lights to go out. I killed Ellinor."

The lights flicker and go out, intertwining with my nervous laughter.

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