Crowned. Cheryl S. Ntumy

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СКАЧАТЬ large it is; in the damp, grassy field there’s nothing to compare it to. I’d say it’s roughly the size of my head. Something black and heavy comes crashing down on top of it, driving it deeper into the ground. And then I wake up.

      I’m not a fan of weird recurring dreams. The last one I had warned me that the man I called my grandfather was in fact my enemy, but it took me way too long to figure it out. By then the Puppetmaster – telepath, sorcerer, shape shifter and all-round sociopath – had masqueraded as my grandfather for months, taught me to build a full-time psychic barrier, persuaded my boyfriend, Rakwena, to overdose on anti-drifter serum and led me to discover a magic box containing one of my own milk teeth. In other words, the damage was done.

      This new dream is far more esoteric. A rock buried in a postcard-friendly scene is not enough to go on. Am I supposed to go on a treasure hunt? Do I look like Indiana Jones?

      I sit up in bed and rub the sleep from my eyes. It’s the third time I’ve had this dream in the week since Dad and I came home to find the Puppetmaster and Ntatemogolo locked in a magical battle. I promised the Puppetmaster three meetings so he would leave my grandfather alone. He still hasn’t come to collect, but I know him. He’s lurking nearby, plotting and biding his time.

      I don’t know what to make of the dream. I climb out of bed, walk over to my desk and open the wooden chest in the corner. It was a birthday gift from Ntatemogolo, containing three magical tools. One of them is around my ankle – an ancient string of wooden beads passed down through my family for generations. It protects me from deception – but only the supernatural kind. Inside the box are a small jar with a stopper and a brass bell with a gong. The jar sucks up negative energy and the bell clears my mind. I remove the bell, close the box and sit on the edge of my bed.

      I tap the gong against the side of the brass bowl and a pure sound rings out, chasing away the remnants of sleep. The cobwebs fall away and my head feels light and clean. I wait for the insight to strike. I ring it twice more, but nothing happens. I get up and put it away, then climb back into bed and stare at the ceiling. Maybe my mind doesn’t need clearing. Maybe the reason I’m not getting any profound insight is because there’s none to get, and the dream is just a dream, idle thoughts that I’ve given far too much significance.

      Eventually my eyes close and I start to drift off. Once again I find myself on that damp, grassy field, but this time there are no rocks. Someone is lying on the ground, writhing in agony. I run towards the figure and drop to my knees. I reach out to touch the long cloak that covers the person. It’s wet.

      The figure turns to face me. It’s a woman, with eyes that burn bright green with energy. I’ve never seen a psychic signature like this before. The face is young, but the person strikes me as being old, very old, as old as it’s possible for anyone to be.

      She grabs my arm. “The gifted are dying,” she gasps.

      I touch her face and something plunges into me, something red and bright and laser sharp, and splits me open.

      This time I wake up screaming. The scream dies abruptly as my stomach heaves, and I fling off the duvet and flee to the bathroom, colliding with my father, who’s just come barrelling out of his room.

      I push past him, throw open the toilet door and retch into the bowl. It feels as though I’m throwing up all my internal organs.

      “Connie! Bloody hell…”

      “I’m fine,” I tell Dad weakly, when the nausea passes. “It must be something I ate.”

      He fusses. I hardly get sick, so I understand his concern, but this is something I need to figure out alone, in peace. Finally he retreats to his room and I sink to the cold tiles, my head swimming, my stomach raw. Something’s wrong. Not wrong like an intruder lurking about, or a fire about to break out, or an accident involving someone I care about. Wrong on a level I can’t even comprehend. The kind of wrong that slides inside your bones and eats away at the marrow, dissolving you from the inside out. Freaky wrong, the worst kind of wrong there is.

      I pull myself to my feet, rinse out my mouth, flush the toilet and walk back to my room on shaky legs. The gifted are dying. What does that mean? I lie awake in bed till morning, turning the two dreams over and over in my mind like pebbles, hoping the friction will smooth out the baffling edges.

      I sense that today is the start of something, but I’m not sure what. I keep my eyes and ears open all day for rumours and whispers, and by the time I get into bed again I’ve discovered only one interesting piece of news. Prominent businessman Henry Marshall vanished from a shopping mall parking lot yesterday. The driver’s door of his car was wide open, but he was nowhere to be found.

      * * *

      Johannesburg, South Africa

      Rakwena looks out across the tables set on the expansive lawn, listening to the chatter and laughter. Serame, the clan’s matriarch, flits between tables like a dragonfly in her sparkly suit. How many dinner parties has he attended in this house now? Too many – Serame is a born hostess and calls the clan together at the slightest excuse. He doesn’t even remember what they’re celebrating today. A promotion? A birthday?

      “What are you so happy about?” A sharp elbow nudges his arm and he turns. Elias is smiling at him around a mouthful of pork ribs.

      Rakwena shrugs. “Do I need a reason?”

      “He’s at the best table, with the best people,” says Spencer. “Of course he’s happy.”

      “You have lettuce in your teeth,” Rakwena replies with a grin.

      Spencer peers anxiously into his glass. “Ag, no. Top or bottom?”

      Elias starts to cackle, and Reetsang, his twin, can’t help but join in. The twins don’t laugh like normal people – they make sinister hacking, gasping sounds as though they’re in death throes, and after a minute Temper leans over and slaps the back of Reetsang’s head to make him stop. Reetsang falls silent instantly, sending Spencer into a chuckling fit, and before long Rakwena and his six cell brothers are laughing.

      Rakwena laughs a lot these days. It’s unavoidable – since he joined his cell brothers they’ve been almost giddy with good spirits. All his life he’s had trouble connecting with people – especially other boys. It wasn’t just because he was a half-drifter living among ordinary humans. He grew up away from the cell and the clan, and never learned the easy rapport between siblings. Technically the six young men at his table are his cousins, but in all the ways that matter they’re brothers, and it’s a bond deeper than anything Rakwena has experienced before…except with Connie.

      His smile fades as he thinks of her. In his mind she’s always the same – crazy kinky hair, blue jeans, sneakers and a knowing expression on her freckled face. Beautiful. Not drifter-beautiful, in that photo-ready way everyone in the clan seems to be, but unique-flawed-human-beautiful.

      He feels a familiar tug at his heart. As much as he longs to see her, he knows he’s where he should be. He has finally accepted his drifter nature.

      Drifters are the youngest supernatural creatures in existence. They can only trace their roots back a few generations – a little over a century. To this day their origins are uncertain. Their numbers, though increasing, are small. For them the nuclear family is the cell, seven drifters born in the same seven-year cycle. Drifters don’t choose their cells. A powerful bond forms as though governed by a higher power, drawing the seven members together. Sometimes, as in Rakwena’s case, the cell is made up of blood relatives. The cells СКАЧАТЬ