The Changeling's Ghost (Thirteen Gates #1)

We Should Have Stayed Lost

I find some solace in the fact that I had apparently gotten on Gus's nerves, even if it was only a little. Was I a little cold towards him? Absolutely. Did he sell out my brother to Sheryl? No doubt he was involved somehow. It was wrong but seeing the happy look drain from his face had brightened my mood ever so slightly. I wanted to believe he deserved it, as far as I was concerned, right now, Gus and I were enemies.

Before I was so rudely interrupted, I had been gathering more information about Conway. I had visited countless different fae in the last few hours and it was so much easier without me dragging around Gus's silent prejudice. A lot of things were easier without him except, well... being without him. Even now, with the seething rage boiling under my skin, I guess I missed him. Every time that feeling came up I thought of Conway and the disappointed faces of my parents and promptly squished it under my heel as if it were no more than an insect of an ideal. Gus Washington was a road that led nowhere and would only bring my family and Imore shame by walking down it.

Thankfully I had received some help from Auntie, because none of the local fae had seen my brother recently. Either Conway was just good at hiding (which he was) or he actually managed to get out of this town and this life. I don't think that's what happened, because nothing was more bittersweet than the irrefutable fact that neither would ever escape our personal hell that was our gatekeeping destiny. Conway was still here because he never saw it that way.

Auntie had made a cup of tea for me and her while I was there. I had been specifically instructed to never drink anything while over at Auntie's but I'm British so instead of kindly declining her offer, I pretended to sip it. It was a small price to pay for the information I got. She had taken my hand and something glimmered in her old eyes: magic.

"You're looking for your brother?"

  "Yes." I replied.

She nodded and hummed under her breath. I began to feel the anger flow out of me in anticipation for an answer. I would have come here sooner if it hadn't been forbidden by my mum. I was past the point of following her rules, I just wanted my brother back.

"He's lost," She tapped my palm. "and surrounded by the past. Not all of it is good in fact... death follows him like a dog."

Chills ran down my spine and I felt a queasy sensation in my gut. "Can you tell me more? About where he is? Or where he will be?"

Her eyes glassed over. "There are books... and objects. It's looks like a museum dear."

That was the intelligible part of the conversation, and then Gus ruined it. Fortunately, I had figured it out. Con had gone where he always went when he needed to get away. I ashamed it took me this long to remember. He gone had to the Bodleian Archives. The Bodleian had an archive in our quaint little town, only it wasn't like any of the other off-campus storage sights connected to the largest library in Europe. This one had a section you could only access with an integral, full of gatekeeping history: The books and artifacts belonged to fae and human alike. Con loved it there, because instead of seeing only his miserable future like I did, he could soak in this knowledge and feel powerful. I hated him for it.

I walked up to my house and shrugged off my coat, I don't know where Gus was and I didn't care. I needed to talk to Bain. Conway would never hurt me but I wasn't sure whatever happened to Greta wouldn't. (Better to be safe than sorry.) I wandered around the halls and nearly crashed into Mum coming around a corner.

"Have you seen Bain?" I asked.

  "She's in her room dear, slow down. What are you and Gus up to today?"

I faked a smile. "Oh, you know, the usual."

She looked pained, but merely ruffled my hair and bid me off. "Have fun, love you."

"Yeah, of course." I rolled my eyes and moved past her.

Bain's room was full of posters of undiscovered metal and punk bands, with her guns slung up on the walls and college textbooks perched like cats hazardously around the room.. It used to be a lot more colorful until Mum discovered she had been using spray paint and had her paint over it because "it was still the guest room" even though Bain's been living with us for years.. She was sitting at her down desk with headphones on with I leaned in the doorway. She looked up at me with her one normal cerulean eye and the other a startling pale blue, her blind one.

  "What's up, kid?"

  "I need you on the clock." I announced.

Her eyebrows flew up. "Oh, are you and Gus having a domestic?"

"Shut up." I scoffed, only partially joking.

She smirked. "Alright, what time?"

"Tonight."

"Cool. Hey listen, Asher?" Bain called, as I was about to run out the door once more.

I stopped and looked back at her. "Yes?"

"Stay safe, kiddo."

I nodded and left.

The library stood before me like a fortress. I pushed open the doors and went up the front desk where the startling face of The Librarian stared down me, her fae features visible from my position in the second gate. She scowled upon seeing me but I didn't back down. I had a shaking, stammering fire running through my veins but it was still fire. Nothing scared me, and I would live to regret that.

I placed my keychain on the counter before her. "I want to visit the Bodleian Archive."

She scowled, but I could have sworn something flashed in her eyes, something close to fear. "Come with me."

She dangled her own set of keys and led me into the back, past the fiction and the nonfiction, past my history of breakdowns and misery and memories all the person I had been closest to... the one who left me here, alone. The librarian opened up one of the newer doors and gestured inside.

"You know the rules." She didn't bother following me in, I had been here often enough.

The room was filled with rows and rows of bookshelves, nothing special here. We were just a small town in urban England, among so many other small towns. We didn't have anything that was special on the human side of history, save some nice pubs. Oh, don't think about him now... I gripped the keychain in my hand and felt my many keys dig into my palm. There was a door in the back of the room that was only visible from the gates. When I stepped closer, the iron ring created a new key. My hands were sweating and I could smell the metal and magic in the air. I slowly pushed the new iron key into the slot and felt the heavy lock click and turn.

The first thing that hit me was the smell. The air was rancid with the scent of old paper and... oh God something else. I closed the door behind me before reaching for the lights, which flickered on slowly before lazily casting their ancient yellow light upon the room. As soon as I could see, my integral dropped to ground in shock.

The whole place had been ripped apart like a gutted fish. The shelves were thrown against the walls and there was paper, splinters, and broken bits of different artifacts strewed across the floor like playthings. Most importantly, I could see the broken and beat form of something that resembled a girl. Her clothes were in tatters and scraps of skin and green blood hung off her skeleton.. Her ginger braid was loose and crusted over with a dark red stain, clinging to the skull with everything it had left. I felt my stomach turn over as I spotted the branch that broke through her rib cage and grew straight into the ground, also covered in dried blood.

I could feel my ears ring and I covered my mouth with my jumper in attempt to block out the stench as I took a few steps closer to her, hoping beyond hope that I wasn't. Oh God please don't let that be her. I placed my finger on her bones and tried not to recoiled from the cold, clammy, feeling of death alone. Gently, I pulled her towards me so I could see her face.

Greta Ersteche's cold, dead, sunken skull stared right back at me.

I jumped away from her body and bent down against the wall and vomited everything I had eaten recently onto the piles of rubble. My whole body shook, and I could barely move my fingers. Greta was dead. She was really dead and this was all my fault. This was all my fault. She had been dead for almost two months and I couldn't save her, because I couldn't put my own family's needs in front of mine like she did. It wasn't supposed to be me, it was supposed to be Conway. They trusted me and I let my whole family down.

I started sobbing and shaking and could only sink against the wall in horror and stare at her lifeless body. Oh God. Greta had looked me in the eyes just about two months ago and told me she thought my freckles were stupid. She had laughed two months ago. She had run off with Conway two months ago and the two of them had disappeared, my betrothed and my brother.

I remember the look she gave me when we first met, like I was a hare and she was a wolf. She was the last of her kind in England and willing to do anything to eat and live another day.

"Don't screw this up," I remember she said to me the day Mum and Dad announced the big news.

I remember hiding in my room later and just crying for hours while my parents' incessant, claustrophobic nagging about my betrothal rung in my ears.

I started hyperventilating, hugged my knees, and pushed down the feeling of nausea again. She was really dead. What was I going to tell my parents? Do I have to tell my parents? They would never forgive me for this. I would never see the proud smile on my Dad's lips or the approving nod from my Mum because I had killed Greta Ersteche and with her died my last chance for an enjoyable future.

  "Asher."

My heart skipped a beat. My head whipped back around towards the doorway and the old wooden door had been opened again. I could barely make out the figure there, save for a smattering of ginger and a long, tall familiar form...

"Conway?" I blinked, not daring to trust my eyes.

He didn't move from the doorways, standing like an unknowable shadow. Whatever clothes he was wearing, they didn't suit him at all. It looked like he was carrying something against his side, and his arms were covered in some kind of fabric... not to mention the two spines rising from his head. "I need you to let me in. There's a spell on the room that's keeping me out."

  "C-come in." I forced out, scrambling to my feet.

He stepped in the doorway and glanced around at the wreckage, looking tired. I froze in my spot, standing there and staring him. It was like watching a ghost, he was so much thinner. I stared him up and down and realized the spikes coming out of his head were horns and long tipped ears. I thought his hands were swollen but I see now they were actually wood, his arms were branches. He looked like a monster.

  "C-Conway?"

"I saw you came in and snuck past the librarian." He started. "I wanted to... I wanted to explain."

"What are you- What? Why do you look like that?" I stammered, swiping my thumb over my knuckles.

He didn't move. "I... this is what I look... I think you know what it means."

I felt like throwing up again but I wasn't sure I had anything left in me. "You look like... a changeling."
He didn't say anything, just stood there and blocked whatever light seeped in from the doorway with his dark, scary eyes.

I wrung my hands together hysterically, feeling tears well up once again. "C-Conway, I don't understand."

"Oh come on, Asher, don't be thick," he snapped.

I felt his words hit me like a hammer to the gut and I remembered what it was like having Conway around again. "I don't... I don't understand."

I blushed in shame because my voice came out of my throat barely more than a whisper, because I was scared and I couldn't stop shaking and if he pushed me anymore I would start crying. I hated crying in front of him. I could barely stand to meet his eyes right now.

"I'm a changeling," he hissed.

  My whole body froze and I could feel the warm tears fall down my face. "N-no.... no. You're my brother..."

I wiped my eyes, which did nothing, and tried to close the yawning void of fear and confusion opening up inside me and eating everything in its path. Con's face twisted up in pain and I could have sworn I saw fangs under his lip. He didn't have to say anything, and opted to watch me breakdown in front of him like I always did.

"I'm not your brother." He spoke with all the apathy his twisted body could muster.

"You are-" I insisted.

"I'm not part of your family," Con seethed once more. "I'm a faerie they switched out for your real brother at birth. I'm a monster and I killed an innocent girl."

My back hit the broken and splintered bookshelf, I glanced over at Greta's rotting body and fought against nausea. I shook my head and stared at him through the tears, the only sensation I felt other than the looming numbness of shock was the pain from digging my nails into my palms. Conway was stalking towards me like... like a predator. Oh God, I couldn't breathe.

"Why did you do it?" I managed.

  "She was going to..." he grabbed onto his arm and grit his teeth. "Tell people."

I stared at him. Conway was shaking slightly and grimacing at me, like he was in pain. So much was going on and I didn't have enough time to process it. This whole room felt like a ticking time bomb, something was going to explode and I had a horrible feeling it would be Conway.

"It's g-going to be okay." My voice was barely a gasp. "We can figure this out."

  "No, you can't." He bared his teeth. "I shouldn't have come here. We should have stayed lost."

"Conway." I spoke. "Please don't go."

He paused, one moment away from disappearing forever. "Why not? Why shouldn't I go and leave this all behind?"

"Because... because I love you." I glanced up at him. "Because no matter what you say or think, you're my brother."

His eye twitched. "No I'm not."

"Yes, you are." I took a step towards him.

He shot one look at me, then down at the step I was going to take towards him, then drew back his arm and punched me in face. I wasn't expecting it. I fell backwards against the bookshelf, ancient manuscripts falling down with the force of my impact. I gasped and my hand flew up to my face and came away with specks of red human blood and... splinters? Conway stood above me like an eclipse.

"You don't love me, you never even knew me!" He cried.

There was real anguish in his voice for once. My heart was hammering in my chest like the hooves of a racehorse as I grabbed onto the bookshelf to pull myself back up. My knees shook but I was sure Conway wouldn't hurt me.

  "You are the only thing I loved about this family," I choked out. "And I hated you for that."

He let a strangled noise like a trapped animal and flew at me, his living wooden hands slammed against my wrists and started growing down my arm, holding me in place. "I'm not your family!"

Conway screamed out in pain as he bent his arm until the wood crack and splintered, breaking off the growth holding me in place from his own body. He was crying now, and I could have sworn his eyes were nothing but angry slits.

"You are my brother," I said once he was free. I was still trapped against the cracked bookshelf.

His eyes flashed with pure rage and he punched me in the gut. I gasped in pain as the air rushed out of my lungs, the shelf dug uncomfortably into my lower back. I could feel the rotting wood pierce my skin. My whole entire lower body was on fire. My vision swam from the tears streaming down my face and I started hiccuping through the agony.

  "I'm not your brother!" He screamed, and his tree stump swung around again.

"Conway stop!" I sobbed, hanging there helplessly, wheezing for breathe.

  "I'm not your brother." He slammed into me again.

I screamed, unable to form words as black spots danced in vision.

"I'm not your brother!"

His limb swung around again and I felt the sharp splinters sink into my abdomen, ripping open my skin as blood poured down my body. Conway stood above me, gasping for his own breath. The last thing I was aware of was the pure spasming agony in my whole body before finally, everything went black.