The Keeper's Curse Read Free Page A

the
eyes.
    “ I love you,” he said, enunciating clearly to make sure she
understood. “If I could do it all over again I would still choose
this. I would still marry your mother. I would still choose you and
Alex. I would choose you over a lifetime with anyone else. Do you
understand?”
    She
didn’t, but she nodded anyway. Her vocal cords were growing tighter
and tighter, nearly frozen.
    Her
parents exchanged another “I love you” and embrace. Reluctantly
Annalise tore away from him, grabbed Emmy’s arm, and turned towards
the globe.
    Before
Emmy could give her father one last goodbye, Annalise cupped the
globe with her hand, and the world fell away.
    Her body
turned to jelly as she was dragged into what felt like an
implosion. From what she could gather, she was being pulled inside
the globe. The only thing holding her steady was her mother’s arm.
The world began to swirl around her like a manic merry-go-round in
a prismatic kaleidoscope of colours. Her stomach heaved, emptying
its contents. While she was aware she was on her feet, she felt the
sensation of falling, vertigo, and lack of air, causing her to
throw up a second time.
    After a
minute or so it finally stopped, and she yanked her hand out of her
mother’s. She didn’t realize how weak she was without her because
for the third time that night she fell to the ground, shaking
uncontrollably.
    Her
mother fell to her knees beside her, her face tearstained. Emmy
looked down, noticing the red and black tartan carpet beneath them.
She raised her head, looking around. They were somewhere else. Not
her house. The place was unrecognizable, but she knew all she
needed to know. She was no longer at home.
    “ I’m sorry,” her mother cried. “If I had warned you, you
wouldn’t have come.”
    Emmy
couldn’t speak, but her eyes must have indicated that she was only
wondering one thing. “He couldn’t come with us, Emmy,” said her
mother.
    Emmy
scrunched up her face, pleading silently with her mother who only
gave her a look of desperation. Emmy started to cry before her
mother confirmed what she already knew.
    “ I’m sorry, Emmy. You can never see your father again. You
can’t go back home.” She smiled bitterly. “This is your home
now.”
     
     
     

Chapter 2
    Methelwood
     
     
     
    When
Emmy’s eyes adjusted, she noticed they were in a dome-shaped room
reminiscent of a hotel lobby. To her left was a pair of heavy oak
doors with golden knockers, and on the right, a grand staircase
with plush, dark, red carpet. At the top of the staircase a hallway
tunnelled so that Emmy couldn’t see the end of it. She rolled on
her back, seeing the sky through the ceiling made of glass, and
realized vaguely that wherever they were it was no longer the
middle of the night. It was sunset.
    “ Get up,” her mother’s harsh whisper ordered.
    Emmy
opened her mouth to ask what had just happened, but her throat was
still frozen, and all that came out was a whistling sound. She
seemed to have lost her voice.
    She heard
footsteps behind her and suddenly realized they weren’t alone. Two
enormous men headed towards them, clad entirely in black, but this
was not what got Emmy’s attention. They had the strangest faces she
had ever seen; the edges of their faces were sharp enough to cut,
and had eerily bright eyes with luminous, almost transparent, skin.
They looked, Emmy had to admit, exactly like her mother.
    “ Greetings from Methelwood,” one of them boomed from the other
side of the room. He spoke in an accent Emmy had never heard
before, comparable only to that of an Irish lilt with a lisp.
“What’s your business, Madam?”
    “ I live here,” Annalise said tersely. “Now please, there’s
someone I have to see, so if we could skip the interrogation
–”
    “ Sorry, Ma’am, rules are rules,” the other one said, trying to
appear apologetic. “This should only take a minute. Do you have
some identification with you?”
    “ Look, I’m really in a