CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

I wake in the morning, tired and confused. Under the light of day, the ghostly events of last night feel dreamlike and fantastical. But the message the ghost gave me remains, a swirling enigmatic remnant of the previous night.

I don't say anything about it to Katherine as we prepare for the day. It rests on the tip of my tongue but never quite manages to push its way past my lips. Instead I suggest we return to the original location of the missing farm.

Katherine looks up from packing her things to offer me a dubious stare.

"I just want to give it one more shot," I persist. "Just to be certain."

She purses her lips, considering. "I suppose that's fair. But afterwards I want to search further south. There's every chance we took a wrong turn on the way up." We both know that's not true, but nonetheless I agree, and we exit the minute motel room.

It's a surprisingly warm day for winter, warm enough that for the smallest of moments I forget I've swapped back; in a blink, I am transported back to a time of unfeeling, my old disease shrugging itself back onto my soul like a person donning a jacket. A second later, I return to the present.

At the bottom of the stairs, my gaze snags on the patio light which had been blinking furiously last night. It's been switched off now, and hangs dormant, refusing to share any of its secrets. I realise I'm subconsciously hoping for concrete proof that last night happened – some physical sign that it wasn't all a dream. But there's none to be found.

We pack up into the car and head back the way we came. The morning sun is covered in a thin, misty layer of clouds and the resulting light is white and muted, like the world itself is still tired, unwilling to subject itself to the harsh shadows and glary shine of morning. It makes the golden landscape almost illusory, as much a dream as last night, and suddenly the events of the past few weeks feel very, very distant.

After a good half hour, we return to the place we started yesterday afternoon. Again we're presented with empty hillside, no property or dirt road in sight.

Katherine pulls off onto the shoulder of the road and puts the car in park. "We'll take a look on foot. It could be behind one of these hills."

I nod in agreement, but secretly I know exactly where the property once was – and its absence is so painfully obvious that her suggestion strikes me as ridiculous.

The clouds have started to thin, and as I cross the tarmac road the sun beats down on us, heating me up like a microwave. I strip off my outer jacket and tie it around my waist. Even then the sunlight is still achingly hot, which makes the cold winter breezes all the more relieving.

We move across the field, our feet taking us to a home that's no longer there. With every step on golden grass, I grow more and more certain of our location. Memories start returning to me – times I ran up that hill or tripped by that pond – and with them, a deeply suppressed longing for this quiet open space.

We've been walking up a gradual incline for several hundred metres, but now we stop, both of us unable to take another step forward. Our bodies know the answer, even if our minds take a while to process it. Not five metres from the tips of our shoes, the front stairs once resided – and beyond that, a quaint wooden patio with white balustrades, a front door the colour of ochre, and a modest but still sizable home that held a family now torn apart.

"Maybe after you sold it, the later owners tore it down."

Katherine looks dead ahead at the ordinary dry grass, which offers not even a hint of what used to live here. "Michael never let us sell," she breathes.

The use of my father's name ignites a memory of last night, of the riddle the ghost offered. And at last, understanding begins to dawn.

"The house of the curse is a cursed house," I recite under my breath, the words welling up from some unnameable place within me.

"What was that?"

But I don't answer her. Instead I let my feet take me forward. I am all instinct now, a mere passenger in my body. "Search for the unknowable, and you will know it," I continue. I have traversed a metre. Now two. "Walk far enough into the invisible, and it will become visible."

At three, the house I thought lost erupts into existence. Even all these years later, it remains perfectly preserved, as if while I've lived and grown up, it's stood still, trapped in a bubble of stagnant time. The unknowable made known. The invisible made visible.

"The house of the curse permits only the blood of Michael." I mount the steps and pause on the patio. When I turn back, Katherine is missing, as though she has been hidden from my sight by an invisible wall. But I can still hear her calling my name, asking for me. I must be as invisible to her as she is to me – as the house was to the both of us not half a minute earlier.

I refocus on what's before me, reaching for the doorknob. The metal is cool in my grasp, and agonisingly familiar. I turn and pull the door open. My voice echoes into the cool, dim-lit interior. "And only by blood may the future become."

Stepping inside, knowing washes over me in a rush. Of course Michael wouldn't sell. Of course he cursed this house, rendering it invisible and unchanging. It hides the stone that preserves the Curse – the one thing between the Anarkks and all out war.

I am no longer concerned with Katherine knowing my whereabouts. In a flash, I am running through the house and out the back door, emerging into an unchanged backyard, where the garden still grows, the lawn is still mowed, and all of those memories from childhood – the ones I had forgotten for so long, erased from my mind by the people who ruined my life – were made.

I move for the garden, dropping to my knees at it's edge. I recall the freshly returned memory of the evening my father and I buried the stone. It feels like history repeating itself as I draw closer to the white rose bush, still perfectly flowering, ignorant of the season. With my hands, I start digging at the base, pulling up dirt and twigs until at last my fingers touch something round, cool and smooth. The stone is unearthed easily, falling into the palm of my hand like it was meant to fit there. It's so incredibly ordinary that if I hadn't retrieved it from the spot it was buried in all those years ago, I wouldn't have recognised it as anything more than a stone. In fact, no one alive could possibly guess its significance. No one at all, save for me.

In that moment, an idea occurs to me. A deceptive and possibly extremely dangerous idea that could put everyone's lives in jeopardy.

Even as I am going through with it, I know it's crazy. As much as I doubt the council's methods, to forgo them altogether is one hell of a risk. It was a risk a month ago when I stole off to the Anarkk headquarters and ended up a prisoner. It's just as much a risk now. But still, I slide the stone into my pocket and pick another at random from the garden bed. If history repeats itself, then we are destined to make the same mistakes, over and over. If I go through with this alone, I am no exception. But for the slim chance that I might save the lives of those I love and escape this escalating feud, I would make the same mistake a million times over. Even if it means losing the rest of my powers, or my shot at a normal life, I would make this mistake. Sometimes the only way to win, is to lose. And I will happily take this loss.

When I emerge from within the invisible veil surrounding the house, my mind is set. Katherine rushes at me, relieved and upset. She wants to know where I went, what happened. Instead I only open up my palm and hold it towards her, letting her see the duplicate stone resting within.

"You found it?" She looks from the stone to me with a mixture of disbelief and wonder.

"Michael must have put a curse on the house when he left it," I explain. "It's hidden to everyone, and unreachable except for those who share his blood. Meaning, me. This was hidden exactly where I last saw it."

Gingerly, Katherine takes the stone from my hand, holding it up to the light. "It doesn't look like much."

"I suppose that's its greatest advantage."

She snaps it up in a fist. "We should get going then. I have much to discuss with the council."

We walk back down to the car and each step causes the stone to bounce soundlessly in my pocket, a physical reminder of what I've done – and what I'm continuing to do. There's a little guilt buried somewhere in my heart, but it's swamped by my fear of losing Caden and Sarah and my determination to get them back safely. And while I can't say whether I'm doing the right thing, it feels right. And that's enough for me.

-:-:-:-:-

The following day, I wake to hear Katherine on the phone, talking in hushed tones. When I pass by, she not-so-subtly falls silent before voicing a hurried goodbye and hanging up. As I move into the kitchen for breakfast, she disappears down the hallway without a word.

It's not long after that she reappears, dressed and ready for the day. "I'm meeting up with some people," she tells me, "but I should be home sometime in the afternoon. Will you be okay on your own today?"

I look at her and nod. She smiles, and exits through the front door.

Sarah was right. There is a gulf growing between us teenagers and the adults of the council. It seems they're doing everything in their power to keep us out of the loop, and now Katherine has grown just as secretive. I understand their motives – they want to keep us safe and out of harm's way – but they're too little too late. I am just as wrapped up in this as any of them, if not more, and keeping me separated from things is forcing my hand.

I eat my breakfast and head for my room, beyond grateful that I swapped out the real stone for a fake. It rests at the bottom of my shirts drawer in the far back corner. Gently I slip it out, placing it on the wooden table top. Even though it is ordinary in appearance, the knowledge of what it truly is makes it glow and expand in my mind, until the whole room seems to be thrumming with it's innate power. It's a power I have to access if I want to save the lives of those closest to me. But with no connection to the council, I have no one to turn to for help – and no way of contacting someone who might be willing to go behind their back.

Katherine doesn't make it home until it's already dark. She says nothing to me of her day, and when I ask her what the plan is, she replies, "Don't worry, it will all work out fine."

I sleep with the stone grasped tightly in hand, my mind stuck on thoughts of Caden. I think back on all the time I spent trying to distance myself from him, propelled onwards by my fear of losing him. How stupid I had been. In doing so, I was only causing myself pain. It isn't until now, in this very moment, as I lie in bed more isolated than ever, and with everything I hold dear on the brink of being violently torn away from me, that I realise the truth: Caden doesn't make me weak, he makes me stronger. Having something to lose only makes me hold onto what I've got just a little tighter. My fear of losing him isn't something to be fought through distance and isolation. It's meant to be stared down and challenged. There is strength in vulnerability, and my only regret is that it took me so long to see it.

I may be on my own, but I will break this curse.

And with the peace of this knowledge, I drift off to sleep.

A/N

Hey again, here with a new chappie!

Radish still has 3 more chapters than wattpad, available to read for free. I didn't write anything new this week because I've been buried in university assessments, but I'll be returning to my Tuesday updates on Radish next week. 

Thanks for reading,
Shaye xx