37. Joy
JOY
“Nothing mattered more than getting home to our family.”
- JOY’S JOURNAL ENTRY
Iran from my line of cells, sprinting to the source of Jodie’s voice. And then I saw him, skinner than before and dirtier than ever, but wholly Jameson.
“Joy,” Jameson whispered from where he stood at the door of his cell. Disbelief and astonishment painted on his soot ridden face. Tears sprung in my eyes without warning, streaming down my face as I ran toward him, attempting to wrap my arms around him and the bars. A half-hearted chuckle racked him as he attempted to hug me back.
“Are you alright?” I whispered, tears clogging my voice. I catalogued his face, noticing how his protruding collarbone peaked out of the top of his tunic. The same tunic he wore the day he was taken, all those weeks ago.
“Much better now,” he smiled, smudging the dirt around his forehead with the back of his hand.
“Stop being so loud, Jameson!” a male voice whispered, his figure staggering up from where he was once laid, sleeping.
“It’s the middle of the night!” His voice was scratchy but clear, almost regal. Jameson’s eyes hooded slightly at the sight of him.
“You must be Rafael.” I smiled as the man joined Jameson at the bars, confusion painted on his face. Scenes played out behind his eyes, hope and fear mixed like a cocktail of confinement.
“Jameson, what’s happening?” Rafael turned to Jameson, ignoring my words, and placing his hand on the bars.
“We’re getting out,” Jameson’s tears continued to fall. “We’re going home.”
I stared at Rafael, smiling brightly at him, then he let out a huge breath.
And scoffed.
Turning back to his makeshift bed, he sat with a huff and took out a bent paperback novel from his pocket, once that must have been read a hundred times.
My eyebrows crumpled as Raya and Khol finally made their way into the room. The latter severely out of breath.
“Is he alive?” Khol panted.
“I hope so,” I said, throwing a thumb in Jameson’s direction. Khol rolled his eyes, getting closer to the bars in effort to see into the darkness. He dragged a hand through his hair.
“Not him, I need to… if he’s alive…” Khol’s breathing became more and more shallow.
“Calm down,” I stated. “Give me a moment to pick… or break the lock.”
Khol wrapped his hand around the decaying bar, not taking his eyes from mine.
The bars turned to dust in front of our very eyes. Jameson fell into my arms, his quiet sobs echoing in the huge dungeon.
“You’re a MindWonderer,” Erin spoke as Khol stepped over the threshold into the cell.
“Rafael?” Khol whispered, as though he was afraid of his own voice. I understood his fear, the fear of the unknown.
‘Hope is dangerous’ my mother used to say. I had said it once, to Florence, on a day when the ocean was still and the sky clear.
She asked me about my parents.
“I was nine when the sea swallowed my parents and I,” I told her, my back straight, “I can still feel the scrape of salt against the inside of my throat,” I whispered.
And the sounds of my parents dying screams.
“They were so young.” I smiled at nothing in particular.
“We were swimming,” I scoffed at the story, how pathetic it sounded in my feeble voice.
“The ocean turned on us, the waves rose, and the rain poured.” I looked up at her. “I couldn’t do anything to stop it, we drifted apart, they screamed for me and I for them.” Wetness blurred my vision. “I must’ve passed out because when I woke up, I was laid on driftwood, washed up on the beach,” I said in a matter-of-fact voice, aggressively wiping a tear drop from my cheek.
Florence stared at me, lifting her hand, only to drop it again. A familiar ache bloomed in my chest. Waves of physical pain slammed against me as I recalled my parents’ death. I lived every day with the guilt of my parent’s demise staining my hands. They drowned trying to save my life.
“Happiness does not thrive in the cruel water, it suffocates and withers,” I said, meeting Florence’s eyes.
“And yet you spend more time in the ocean than anyone I’ve ever met,” she argued, not the first to question my time in the ocean.
I still heard their whispers.
“Because I am not afraid,” I stated and we both remained quiet.
“I command myself not to be afraid,” I whispered to myself.
And there was nothing more to say. My parents were gone, and they had been, for a long, long while.
I blinked back the tears as Rafael stood from his makeshift bed.
“Khol?” His voice was hesitant.
Khol stood dead still at the threshold, where the bars used to reside. He took a deep breath, tears already wetting his deep, brown skin. Rafael took a step forward and then another and another, arms outstretched.
It happened in slow motion, the two striding toward each other, arms reaching. Their embrace was fierce and strong and everything in-between. A pang of sorrow resided within me; I missed my crew more than words could say. I missed my family.
“Brother,” Rafael whispered. And the words hit me like a battalion ship heading into war. I hugged Jameson closer.
What was Khol’s brother doing in the dungeon? Who were these people? Staring at the fine clothes on Khol and Raya’s back, I had assumed they were part of the party that raged on above us.
“What are you doing down here? I thought you dead!” Khol’s voice cracked as he embraced his brother again.
“I think it is time for some answers,” I murmured in Khol’s direction, the brothers still embracing.
“I think it’s time we leave,” Raya interjected. “Answers later.” She looked up, the faint sound of footsteps carried down through the room.
We moved as a group, weaving through room after room until we found ourselves in the place in which we started.
“This way,” I called over to them. “This is the way we came in, over the wall.” Khol shook his head.
“It’s too risky.” Khol’s gaze met mine before landing on Raya’s, he lingered for a moment before shaking his head and looking away, something akin to hurt in his eyes.
“Elijah is waiting, he has a way out for us.” A smile of relief spread across Raya’s face.
I paused; distrust now so common within me it was like an extra limb.
“We don’t need to leave together,” Raya spoke, reading my body language. “If you do not wish the travel with us, we will not stop you from leaving on your own.”
Silence engulfed the dungeon, dripping water, and scrambling rodents the only sounds. I rested my hand on Jameson’s shoulder. His gaze trained on Rafael.
“Then we must go,” I spoke. The sisters and I turning toward the door.
“Thank you,” Khol spoke, breaking the silence. “For bringing my brother home.”
I nodded.
“Thank you for helping me find mine,” my words were barely a whisper.
Khol turned to a set of stairs in the corner of the damp dungeon, Raya following close behind. An unfamiliar ache pounded into my chest as Raya turned away from us, almost like a string pulling taut between us. I took a small step forward and at the same time she stopped walking. Turned on her heel and looked right at me.
And then her hand caught ablaze.
“Raya,” Khol said through gritted teeth. She remained still, staring only at me. Without thinking, I walked towards her and grasped her inflamed hand. But the flame did not burn me.
Smoke whirled around us, our hair floating above us although we were one with the water. My heart slowed, beating softly like footsteps in sand. Thoughts poured into my head, but they did not belong to me.
I can feel your emotions, Raya whispered into my mind. What are you?
A bright sky bloomed overhead, the blue giving birth to electric oranges and reds. I knew this sky; I had seen this sky before.
Images blurred past me. Memories that had once been locked away, the key swallowed.
Manacles on thin wrists, skin rubbed raw. Two girls, tears dripping like melted candle wax. Death coating the very walls around us. Then pain, not physical, something stronger. A pain that felt as though my heart would explode. As though I was being ripped away and a new person was forming in my absence.
And then darkness, a lantern lighting the way. A decision made.
“Raya…”
Light blinded me as we found ourselves in the dungeon again. Khol placing his hand on Raya”s shoulder, extinguishing the fire.
With our hands still clasped, we stared at one and another. Our breaths sounding at the same time.
“We must go, Raya,” Khol’s voice was filled with hurt. “Elijah will think something has happened to us.”
“I’d say something has happened…” Jodie whispered under her breath. “Or are we going to pretend that Joy didn’t just offer her hand up to be barbecued.”
Raya stared at me; our hands still joined.
“What was that?” she whispered.
“I have no idea,” I whispered back.
In that very moment the words from the old crone in the marketplace came running back to me.
If you find what you seek, and seek what you find, the lines will blur, and your paths will become entwined.
Did she speak of Raya and I? Did she know that when I found Jameson, I would find Raya too?
“We can’t stay here,” Raya spoke, breaking my trance and turning to Khol and Rafael.
But Rafael stood still, as though his feet were stuck to the floor.
“Raf, we need to go,” Khol spoke in a gruff voice.
“I won’t leave without Jameson.” His voice was stern and unmoving, his gaze not breaking from Jameson’s. Khol glanced from Jameson to Rafael, dragging a hand through his hair, again.
“Come with us, please,” Khol begged. “There is a river that runs under The Temple, it will bring us out at the next town. We have boats,” Khol pleaded in my direction.
“The river?” Rafael asked, at the same time Erin asked,
“What the hell is The Temple?” from behind me.
All the unanswered questions bubbled up inside me as the footsteps above us became louder and hurried. We were running out of time, and I couldn’t leave without Jameson or without answers. We had been in the dungeon for all of ten minutes but all of our lives had changed in that short time.
I looked at Khol, my lips a flat line.
“Okay,” I glanced from him to Raya and then to Jameson. “Let’s go.”