The Academy of Mortal Mysteries – by Pamela DuMond #2
“Medieval times were rough around the edges.” Penelope smoothed an errant wisp of silver hair back into her chignon. “When you journey to a more civilized era, someone will notice if you confuse the soup spoon with the dessert spoon.”
I placed the larger spoon on the far right and the teaspoon next to the knife. “Better?”
“Perfect.” She smiled.
But Winston Coleman had the most challenging job of all: teaching me how to dance. Similar to horseback riding, knowing the fundamentals of social dancing was important in whatever era one time traveled to.
“One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three.” Mr. Coleman held my hands in his enormous, manicured ones as he maneuvered me around the creaky dance floor at the Starlight Dance Studio. “Pick up the pace, Madeline. Anyone can learn the waltz. It’s a simple box step.”
I did, and it paid off.
A few weeks ago, I went to senior prom with Samuel, a boy I’ve loved in too many lifetimes.
But on that fateful night, I feared I’d lost the young man I’d met and fallen for in so many incarnations.
I set off on a mad journey to the ends of the earth to talk to the oldest and wisest members of each tribe, looking for answers, searching for ways to make things right.
Some of the puzzle pieces came together, my life took a one-eighty, and I’m still trying to make sense of it all.
But just when I thought I was in the clear, I realized I'd ventured into unfamiliar territory. I learned I am a Seeker, a person who is half Messenger, half Hunter. New danger comes with a whole other set of rules, most of which I have not been mentored or schooled in yet.
Life was confusing enough when I first discovered I belonged to a tribe of time travelers—Messengers.
In those early days, I bounced through the years like a pinball, clueless and terrified I'd either kill someone or die myself.
Only when mentors offered to train me did I finally calm down.
Now, I needed to learn what being a Seeker meant and how it differed from being a Messenger.
But first things first.
In a few weeks, I’ll graduate from Preston Academy, where I’ve spent four years enduring history, algebra, and physics under the tutelage of teachers who were inspiring or insufferable.
I landed here on a partial scholarship—not because of wealth, but because of legacy.
My mother, Rebecca Blackford, walked these halls decades ago.
She never got to see me follow in her footsteps. She vanished after an accident that was anything but accidental when I was six years old. I survived but was never quite the same. I suffer from nightmares, anxiety, and migraine-like headaches.
I’ve endured CT scans, MRIs, EEGs—all the brain tests—but they can’t pin down a diagnosis.
Some readings look a little abnormal, almost charting spikes and waves like a petit mal seizure, but not quite.
Whatever it is, the specialists don’t think it will kill me, and so I am examined and scanned once a year.
These conditions baffle me, as well as the people I trust enough to tell. Those I can count on one hand.
I remember the accident when I was six years old.
It rolls through my memory in unsettling flashes and occasional dreams that don’t play like a movie—more like a video that glitches, skipping parts.
And yet, through all that distortion, I remember most of the words my mother and that man exchanged as if they’d spoken them moments ago.
Strapped into a booster seat in my mother’s hatchback, we were on the way back from ballet class when I saw her grip the wheel tightly. Her eyes darted to the rearview mirror. “Hold on, Madeline.”
I glanced at her in that space between the two front car seats, and watched as she gripped the steering wheel tighter, her knuckles blanching white.
“Mama?”
In the rearview mirror’s reflection, I spotted a hulking black SUV that seemed to be on our tail.
“We have to move now,” she said, her voice tight, “and we have to move fast.” She stomped on the gas, and we lurched forward.
I froze as she veered left, then right, weaving between cars, running orange lights, tapping the brakes just enough to dodge collisions. Horns blared. Engines roared. And yet my mother didn’t stop, navigating toward a quieter, non-trafficked part of town.
Unfortunately, the SUV didn’t either.
She took a sharp turn into a construction site, gravel spitting beneath the tires, and braked hard behind a pile of debris.
We lost the SUV, watching it continue down the road we’d left behind.
An abandoned parking garage loomed ahead.
She entered the dim structure and gunned the engine up the spiral ramp, my stomach flipping with every dizzying turn.
On the top level, she pulled in beside a truck still parked up there, as if that would keep us hidden, and killed the engine.
She stepped out of the vehicle, her breath ragged, and reached for the back door, pulling it open to get me out, when the SUV appeared as if out of nowhere. It hummed along until the vehicle sped up and slammed into us with a BANG!
Our hatchback lurched forward. My head snapped back, the seatbelt cutting into my chest as my mother’s scream pierced the air and I squeezed my eyes shut.
Moments later, I re-opened them and saw a man hop out of the SUV’s passenger door.
He strode toward our car, stopping feet from my mother.
He was tall and lean, wore a worn leather jacket, his face shadowed beneath a ball cap.
“How did you find me?” she asked, a hand flying to her chest.
“That doesn’t matter. Look, I’m sorry, Rebecca,” he said. “This isn’t what I wanted. The tribe voted to take Madeline now, while she’s still young—before you train her.”
“Over my dead body.” My mother’s body went rigid. “They will never train her in the ways of your people.”
“Leave now, and Madeline lives.” His jaw tightened, lips pressing into a firm line. “No questions asked. Stay, and they’ll claim her.”
“No.” She shook her head. “They’re out of their minds.”
“I spoke for you in council,” he said. “I advocated for both you and Madeline and pushed for a compromise.”
“Rich.” She laughed. “Your people don’t compromise.”
“Things aren’t what they were centuries ago,” he said. “We’ve changed.”
“Spare me the history lesson. I know what your people are: hunters, killers, assassins.”
“Not all of us, Rebecca,” he murmured. “My tribe agreed to a concession: if you leave—” He took a step closer, reaching out a muscular hand toward her arm.
She recoiled. “What do you mean, ‘leave’?” she asked, her jaw tightening.
“Travel.” He flinched. “If you leave now, they’ll let Madeline go. They swear they won’t touch her. She’ll have the Messenger blood, but not the knowledge you would pass on. She’ll have the inclinations, but she won’t know what to do with them.”
“You’re delusional.”
“I’m practical,” he said. “She’ll think she’s daydreaming or having strange headaches. Nightmares. But she’ll never realize she’s a Messenger, Rebecca, unless you guide her, teach her.”
“You walked out on me,” she said, planting her fists on her hips, glaring at him.
“You walked out on me,” he said, the muscle in his jaw twitching. “You told me we needed to talk. We fought. And then you vanished, Rebecca. You didn’t play fair. You disappeared.”
“You never wanted a mixed-blood child, Malachi. You never wanted to threaten your status as an up-and-coming soldier in the Hunter pact to be seen with a Messenger woman.”
The winds picked up, buffeting the car, and I wailed.
My mother turned her back on the man and reached to free me from the child seat.
“Listen to me,” he said. “If you stay, they’ll take her. And I don’t want to think about what they’ll do to either of you.”
“She’s only six,” my mother said, wringing her hands. “I can’t go anywhere. She needs me.”
“I know.” His voice cracked. “But they won’t allow you to train her. If you leave, she’s free. If you stay, I can’t protect her or you.”
“And if I don’t?” My mother’s lower lip trembled. “Who will protect Madeline?”
“Me.”
She laughed. “You? A Hunter protecting my daughter? You’d teach her to fight. To kill.”
He shook his head. “I’ll watch from a distance. I swear I won’t train her, nor turn her into one of us. The last thing I want is for her to bear that burden. She’ll have free will.”
She blinked back tears. “I don’t believe you. You’ll teach her the dark arts. You’ll arm her with blades and weapons and teach her to fight.”
I didn’t know what the dark arts were back then.I know now.
The men waiting in the black SUV stepped out of the car and walked toward ours.
“Give me a minute,” he said, holding up his hand, and they paused.
He placed that hand on her shoulder. “Please, Rebecca. Please, for all of us. I know it’s a tough call.
But this is the best I can do, and I’m scared—actually, no, I’m terrified of what’ll happen to you both if this doesn’t go down the way I need it to. ”
She started crying, wiping tears away. She leaned into the back of the car and took my face in her hands. “I love you, Madeline. I’ll always love you. I might not be here for you in person, but I will be in your thoughts, and you will be in my prayers.”
I felt her sorrow inside me and panicked. “Mama?”
“You’re going to be brave and strong, and if we’re both lucky, one day we will see each other again. I promise you, baby girl.”
“Rebecca, now ,” the man said, looking over his shoulder at the men who were approaching.
My mother kissed me on my forehead, squeezed my hands in hers, then turned and walked away.
She left.
Her body was never found. Police speculated she grew overwhelmed with being a wife, a mother, and took a “get out of Dodge free card.” That somehow, she’d escaped her mundane life and started life over some place far from Chicago.
Little did they know …