Carmiabell: The Black Apple

Chapter 20

At the bottom of a whole page of shrinked names, was Carmiabell’s name in the same sinister, rigid, official font.

A million thoughts a drop would just be an understatement of the pandemonium that occurred in her brain. Hyperventilation crawled into her, panic surging all over her body invasively.

“Who are these people?” Simon asked Wilfred who was about to take his leave to a drunken paradise.

He stretched his hand, Simon giving him a coin. 

After returning his glasses on and grazing through the hundreds of names, he only seemed to recognize one. George Snowdust Williams. 

“He died in a fatal accident thirty years ago.” That was all he could manage to recall, or all he knew. They couldn't blame him. He probably couldn't recall Simon's name either. Plus, not much of the things that happen in the South were disclosed to the North and vice versa. “His carriage crashed into a tree or something. I can't remember. I don't know these other strangers.” He probably meant even Carmiabell.

Without a glimpse back, Wilfred stumbled out of his overaged tent before Damon stretched a handful of coins. Simon was drops away from getting kicked out of the next bar.

“Don't tell me you stole those,” Zuina was the first to recognize. 

“Having a goblin for a cousin teaches you many things.”That could explain how he got the apple in the first place but not his lanera.

Zuina took a bunch for herself while Phoebi borrowed some.

“If we are going to work together, I need to know your laneras,” Carmiabell boldly introduced the topic. As far as she knew,  Damon or either of the others but Zuina could be walking them in a stray path just so to get them on a hook. Liking them or not, her life was at stake.

It wasn't the best thing to say to a group that had literally signed up for suspension for her.

“Green,” Zuina didn't sound offended, but Carmiabell knew better. She was always in heels adorned in green gems.

“Yellow.” Hence the admirable pendant around her neck. Phoebi.

Next in the line was Simon. “I'm not working with you, I just want my baby back.” No one blinked. They all stared at him. “Red, okay.” With a candle burning all around, it was clear.

Damon was last. By the sigh, he was not expecting such a question coming his way. “Crimson,” he answered, withdrawing a crimson piece of paper from his pocket. “The school walls are painted crimson, so I don't have to carry anything, sometimes.”

It's a shame Carmiabell had to know it this way. Crimson was not of the highest rank. It had a spot above gray.

If it was a century or so past, he would have been guaranteed failure in life, but the present was changing and man for hard work was a mortal that was working. Even though, some trapped individuals in the past still looked down upon the lowly ranked dreamers.

Maybe he was embarrassed of it. Carmiabell couldn't blame him.

“Can we go now?” I bet Zuina was hungry.

Just in time for the last train, the five boarded.

It hadn't been the best day for Carmiabell but with Damon this time next to her, it was getting better.

They had to know who the enlisted individuals were, and one of the best ways was through newspapers. If George Snowdust Williams died in a tragic accident he had to be in one and so could be others from the list. If they could manage to find what linked them all and her together, that would be a great start.

“Do you think we should confront her?” Damon was stupid if he was actually contemplating the idea. ”I mean Mrs Tuth.”

“Ooh, you mean an animal who drinks human blood to make it over two hundred years old, with potential black dreamers special abilities, yeah sure we should try that. Maybe she has a whole pun book waiting to crack our ribs in jokes,” Carmiabell skeptically remarked.

“You don't have time, remember,” he said in a low tone after a short chuckle.

By saying that, Carmiabell turned to her hand. Black veins had evolved towards some part above her elbow: Beginning to feed up on her biceps.

His amount of concern was consoling, but he was telling the truth. She did not have time. At least not with school on their way.

“We should ditch classes tomorrow,” Carmiabell suggested. Damon must have been as surprised as herself after hearing the words.

“As you wish.” He grinned.

And that my friend is how you double a two-week suspension.

Alighting the train, Carmiabell announced to the others. It was fine by most but of course Simon. He was taking Damon to his place, getting the stick for himself, and pretending that nothing ever happened. After that maybe he would go back to his malevolent magic book search.

They all parted ways, Phoebi strolling the same path with Carmiabell. She had never ran out of fuel to tell stories no matter how much she was ignored.

She got Carmiabell to her door step and proceeded to her house after waving her goodbye.

Carmiabell opened their door only to meet her mother seated on a rocking chair waiting for her in sheer anticipation.

“Where were you?” She questioned calmly, probably keeping her feelings at bay.

“At a friend. Doing homework,” she lied.

“Next time please tell me before you leave.” Luckily, she did not know about the detention ditching thing. She would have swallowed her alive.

After dinner, she jumped on her bed, recapturing the fancy moments that the day had given to her for free.

Speaking of moments, she withdrew the four sheets from her bag and skimmed through them.

It was a diary for sure but a morbid one.

She had a sick admiration of spiders, deaths, blood, and other dangerous pets like baby dragons. That was like being obsessed with burning down your own house. Anyway, she couldn't expect anything less from her.

She had a talent in barley and was a good poet too. She had sampled some of her poems. Most of which were as morbid as her taste. 

Like every other vampire, blood from over a mile could summon her. Luckily,  Ellialand had invented a potion that made wounds smell unpleasant to vampires but yet heal faster, preventing outsiders from digging in.

Her entire diary sounded lonely. She had never been in a relationship before or mentioned any relative, friend, or family, adding meaning to the fact that she was two times as old as Carmiabell's great great great grandmother.

There was nothing to do with how or where she got blood from to keep her so young. It was like she knew someone someday would find it and left out all the important information.

It portrayed more questions than answers. It was a puzzle itself. An unfathomable puzzle that she could not iron out.

Drowsily, she almost set one of the sheets on fire in an attempt to place it on the bedside table. A rattling sound thrusted her back to reality before she noticed that the sheet could not burn. 

Half her senses drifted off to sleep, she could only think that it was Wilfred's trick. Hidden texts mushed within the existing paragraphs began distinguishing themselves letter after another.

They glowed in an orange like that of the sun but vanished immediately after the sheet's proximity to that of the candle was increased.

Taking it closer to the flame, the words reappeared.

Carmiabell did not have to think twice. She took a pen and a paper writing down the words.

Always death end is. The first page read so. Putting the words together ‘death is always the end’ sounded like the message conveyed.

She went to the next sheet. To her dismay, it read the same ‘death is always the end.’ The third one and the fourth one stated the same.

DEATH IS ALWAYS THE END.