THE HEALER WHO COULD NOT SAVE HER BROTHER

THE RESERVOIR

 Silence enveloped the group as they walked. It was not because there was nothing to talk about. There was too much to say. Thoughts consumed Aria. The circular route around the reservoir. The writings etched on Daren's arm. The expression plastered across Rowan's face. And worst of all, her father. Once again. All of the questions resurfaced with him. A man who had been dead almost two decades. A man who with each day, continued to surround himself with even more mystery. Finally, the silence was disrupted by Nyra. "I get the feeling that now your father owes all of us an explanation." One of the guards burst out laughing. Rowan looked indifferent. Aria almost smiled. Almost. The moment was over. The reality was that Nyra was not wrong. The further Aria investigated, the more her father surfaced, like clues left behind by a phantom. By nightfall, they arrived at the ancient city archives. These were not the public records. The real archives. The inaccessible archives. The abysmally decaying archives. The archives house the history of the most powerful people and their darkest secrets. The elderly archivist was already irritated before he even had to deal with us. According to Rowan, that was his usual state. "I've already said no." The old man hadn't even asked what we wanted. Quite a feat. "You don't know why we're here," Rowan replied, "But I do." The archivist crossed his arms. "You are here to bother me." Nyra leaned toward Aria. "I like him." Aria ignored her. A few minutes of what Aria thought were some threats of a mild bribe to the archivist later, he finally caved.

"You will get one hour." "Thanks." "Already regretting this." All seemed to be expected. The archives smelled of ancient secrets and dusty papers. Aria walked among the many rows of shelves. Searching, reading, and cross-referencing the dates. At first, they came up with nothing. Then, less than nothing. Then, somehow, even less than that. Most of the official documentation regarding the reservoir had been taken away. Not lost, taken away. Aria understood. Pages gone. Entries seen and altered. Sections rebuilt. Someone had been scrubbing the logs. Meticulously and professionally. "Not suspicious at all," Nyra whispered. "You’re getting more cynical." "You're the reason I am." That was alarming. Hours slipped away. The more time that passed, the more frustrated they became. Then Rowan finally stopped moving. Aria noticed immediately and asked, "What is it?" Without an answer, he gave her a document. Old and very much so, the year on it made her stomach twist. The year her father had gone missing. Her eyes did not move from the document and were frozen in their place. It was not a document about the reservoir. It was a request. A request made by Elias Voss, her father. Aria began reading the request and the room began to spin. "No." Nyra asked, "What?" and Aria gave the single page to her. Nyra read the document and then looked up quickly with an unimpressed, "Oh." Rowan, too, looked frustrated. The request was brief and simple. But the implications were mind boggling. Request for permission to access restricted healing research beneath the old reservoir. Aria was in shock. Restricted healing research. Not research that was planned to happen near the reservoir or the research that was planned to happen around the reservoir. The research was planned to happen beneath the reservoir.

There was a secret facility hidden beneath the reservoir. Nobody told her about it. Nobody told Liam, and nobody told anyone. Why hide this? Nyra asked, her voice barely above a whisper. No one could think of a reason to hide it. Why would they try to hide it if there was nothing dangerous down there? The question hung in the air. The archivist spoke first, coming from behind them, unexpectedly, and his voice barely above a whisper. "Because people died." Everyone turned to him. The old man looked uncomfortable, probably the closest thing to fear he'd ever felt. "What people?" Rowan asked, interrupting the silence. The old man hesitated once again. "Healers." The room became still.

"How many?"

Aria's heart raced.

"When?"

"During the last years of the facility."

"How?"

The archivist shrugged.

"I don’t know."

He wasn’t completely honest.

Aria could hear it.

So could Rowan.

But the old man said before they could ask more:

"Your father was looking into it."

Aria froze.

Again.

It was all about her father.

"What do you mean by looking into it?"

The archivist focused on her.

His irritation was gone.

"He thought there was an issue."

Aria continued.

"Did he get to the bottom of it?"

The answer he didn’t say meant yes.

He did.

Aria believed he did.

Her father.

Did something.

Found something.

Something that needed to be kept a secret.

Then the archivist said something that made Aria shiver.

"He went to the reservoir and came back a different man."

"I want to know what that means."

The old man deflected.

"He was scared."

Aria's heart sank.

Her father and fear should never go together.

The Elias Voss that Aria saw in her memory was always calm. Always brave.

Never scared.

The archivist stepped away and went to a different side of the room.

Aria thought he was about to end their conversation.

He opened a very old, very dusty, and very locked wooden box.

He placed it on the table, and Aria’s heart stopped.

The carved designs on the wooden box.

The box with a cracked corner and eroded edges.

Her father’s.

The archivist fidgeted with his hands. "What is this doing here?" 

  

 "He left it with us." 

  

 "When did he leave it with you?" 

  

 There was a pause. 

 

 “The day before he disappeared.” 

  

 The room was silent, stiff, and thick with tension.

 

 The little wooden box seemed to swallow the room with its mass.

 

 Careful, reluctant, Aria reached towards the box and placed a hand on the lid. It was her first move towards the box and immediately then, Aria noticed something. 

 

 Something tiny carved into the lock, almost missed all together. 

 

 It is a mark of a serpent. The serpents that had been symbolically harassing her ever since Daren.

 

 Suddenly, she had a thought.

 

 “What if the serpent was a warning, and not a threat?” 

 

 It was a thought she had only the moment she opened the box. 

 

 With the box open, new, devastating, horrific news greeted her.

 

 There was a photo. 

 

 A photo of her dad with a man Aria had never known. The man had a serpent ring.