The Initiate

Chapter 1 Part 1

Evelyn had nothing else left to do but to start packing her bags in a rush. She just found out that her fiancé Noah decided to cut his visit to Baltia island short and return to Laurentia on the first available flight. He sensed something wasn't quite right. He had known for a while that Evelyn was aware of the covert side of Andromagus's activity, but he couldn't figure out how much she was aware of or how she felt about it. She was very elusive. Actually, she was as elusive as he was when it came to all the dealings with his organisation.

He became suspicious of her behaviour when he caught her a few times in his study allegedly searching for stationary. He was supposed to stay in Baltia until the end of August to make progress with all the necessary arrangements in the aftermath of the Ten Years' World War that had finished only a year earlier.

Eleven years after the war broke out the world was desperate to set up a proper framework for continuous peace. Noah, as the youngest ever chair of Andromagus, was one of the main players in this arena. His father Joshua Van Sool was the founder of the Overture conglomerate, whose reins he now took over. And Evelyn, as his fiancée, was supposed to support him and create productive space for him to conduct his business. And this arrangement worked well in the first year of their engagement, that is u1ntil she realised there was another layer, a second bottom, to Noah's projects. She convinced him to postpone their wedding under false pretences, blaming it on the illness of her mother. But what she really needed was time to figure out what was really going on.

But then Noah got adamant that they should be getting married immediately. It was going to be the second marriage for both of them, he was in his early forties and they were already living together - quite an unorthodox arrangement for that time. And even though he didn't trust Evelyn one hundred percent, he thought it was still the right thing to do.

But one night when he was in Baltia, on a warm evening on the seventeenth of August 1947, when speaking to her on the phone, he suddenly felt that his trust was completely betrayed. She couldn't have been more avoidant when talking to him, so he decided on a whim to make his way home to find out what was going on.

When Evelyn discovered he was on his way back, she knew right away it was her time to go. She had no desire whatsoever to continue this parade of loyalty and proper social conduct, knowing what Andromagus was really up to and ways in which they were planning to achieve their goals.

When she first uncovered the truth, she started having very strange experiences that no-one else understood. Once she made a mistake of giving in to her fiancé's demands and attending a psychotherapy session with a world-renowned doctor who was friends with Noah.

He prescribed her pills and convinced her that all the unexplainable experiences she was enduring were just artificial constructs of her psyche and she had to learn to control it. But when Evelyn started taking the pills and dismissing all the impressions, visions and sensations that were constantly happening to her, she felt like she turned into an empty shell of a human and decided to kill herself.

Until one night she woke up at 3 a.m. and felt the urge to go to Noah's study. There, she found a piece of paper under a pile of files. It looked as if Noah hurriedly jotted something down during a phone conversation. The paper contained a list of about ten countries, and by each country there was a name, presumably a contact. She recognised one name, Albert Gediminid, from a guest list for one of Noah's famous gentlemen's soirees. She remembered this man specifically because he walked past her in the hallway when he was making his way to the soiree in the east wing of their mansion. And as they locked eyes, it was like time slowed down, the world stopped existing, and it was just her and him, undergoing some weird exchange of energy through their gaze. And it didn't feel good to her. In fact, it felt quite scary. So now, when she saw his name next to 'Baltia', alarm bells started ringing.

She went back to bed, and the following morning when Noah was away in meetings she went back to his study, but the piece of paper from last night was nowhere to be found. The whole pile of files was gone now too. She regretted not spending more time going through the papers the night before, but the thought of Noah waking up and looking for her at night made her feel too tense.

Then on the seventeenth of August 1947 something happened. Something that Evelyn could not logically explain even if she really tried to. She suddenly felt the nudge to go back to Noah's study, and as if being guided by some invisible force, she made her way to one of the book cases, and picked up a red box with a lock. Then, as if in trance, she made her way to his desk, opened the third drawer from the top on the right-hand side, felt a nudge to pick a particular key lying in a little case, put it in a lock on the red box, and voila! The box opened. And in it... Were things a part of her wished she never saw. But a part of her knew it was of utmost importance to see it and act on it. In that moment it felt as if the cogwheels in her mind started turning at the speed of light and click! Everything all of a sudden came together.

So when Noah phoned her that day, she wasn't even able to properly pretend anymore that everything was fine and that she wasn't aware of anything he was up to. And she knew that he knew. She made a titanic effort to end the conversation on a very casual note, but somehow construed from Noah's tone of voice and long silences during their phone chat that he was anxious and suspicious.

So as soon as they hung up, she started packing. She packed the heavy red box and the key safely in a big bag. She was used to travelling comfortably with a trunk, but this time she knew it wasn't an option. One big bag, one small bag, that's it. She felt so bare, but also relieved. She knew that leaving the old life behind was necessary, and that somehow she was going to be fine, even though it seemed like all the odds were against her. She hurriedly walked past the maid in the hallway and told her she had to go away for a bit. Luckily the surprised look on maid's face didn't translate into her asking any questions. Evelyn looked into a mirror hanging by the main door, fixed her wavy hair dyed classic red, put some brick-red lipstick on and left her place of residence of the past year. She imperceptibly threw her house key into the yellow rose bush growing by the entrance, got into a taxi and left.