Published at 12th of August 2024 7:19 am

Chapter 63 Emissary

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“Thank you,” Ms. Edna said to Kate as the young lady brought heat onto the room by lighting up the fireplace and sending the crackling sound of burning logs of wood through the space.

The light which also came as a result of that action was good and all, it granted them the ability to see through all the darkness that had arrived with night, but Elmer was more thankful for the warmth that had taken the place of cold on his body instead.

He had known the downpour was coming, although he had not expected it to be such a heavy one. Even now, after having escaped the beating of the rain successfully, he could still hear it raging against the sloped roof of Ms. Edna’s bungalow. It was as though it wanted to tear through the slates stacked over his head and attack him in here.

Why do I feel like this night will be anything but pretty…? Elmer took a moment to wallow in his thoughts as he let his eyes peruse the moldings of gypsum plaster that made up the ceiling.

“Here,” he suddenly heard the gentle voice of Kate and took his eyes down to dimly see her stretching a small piece of cloth at him, one seemingly crafted out of cotton. It was a towel.

“Thank you,” he said as he took it from her palm—immediately recalling the moistness that had taken control over his hair—and did the same thing she was doing, draping the towel over his head and rubbing hard.

After a few seconds of using her towel to dry her hair, Kate went to a small wooden shelf at the edge of the space, which Elmer had now noticed to be a parlor, and brought three two-pronged candle stands all bearing tapers.

She lit up each of them at a time using the fire from the fireplace while handing them one after the other to Elmer as she did.

Her hand could only hold one at a time after all, and she had to be careful with the way she was stretching them into the fireplace so she did not get caught on fire.

Elmer was with two of the candle holders when Kate finally straightened away from the fireplace and turned to him with the last one in hand, allowing the light that emanated from the flickering flames on their tapers to give Elmer a glimpse of what made up her countenance in all the wetness.

The towel on her head was halfway behind, exposing the frontal part of her dampened hair and how they had fallen somewhat alluringly over her face.

Elmer’s eyes hovered over them, each strand of red that was separated from the other and frizzled in such a damp manner that his fingers were itching to touch them. It was as though he was admiring something new—like a beautiful antique crafted intricately from porcelain—and the only things that were keeping him from taking such an action were the candle holders in his hands.

All of a sudden, it seemed he could hear his heartbeats pounding slowly, but he knew he had not heightened his hearing in any way. So what even was happening to him? He had no clue. Was this some sort of new ability that came with being beaten by the rain? One that enabled him to notice every single thing about a person’s countenance?

Elmer swallowed a lump of spit, and it was then that a drop of water, which had been lodging at the tip of a strand of hair close to Kate’s ear, suddenly dropped and forced him to follow it with his eyes.

Only, he did not go with it all the way.

The remnant of the rain dropped onto the floor, but Elmer’s gaze remained on the route it had passed through.

His muscles abruptly lost all tension at the sight of how Kate’s clothes had become firmly attached to her body—exposing her figure—that he almost dropped the candle holders in his hands.

And it was at this moment he understood that what he was going through was not in any way as a result of a new ability from being a victim of the rain.

This was completely different. A whole new feeling in its entirety.

He instantly gasped himself back to life and peeled his eyes away from the young lady before him, turning his head to the side to glimpse Ms. Edna walking into a curtained partition.

Oh… I did not just… How come…?

“Is there a problem?” Kate asked, and as Elmer reluctantly turned to look at her, he instantly shuddered as though he had seen a ghost.

It was good that she had not noticed since his reaction had been indistinct, he would not have been able to explain his reason for acting in such a way.

“No,” he said silently.

“Alright,” Kate shrugged. “Could you place those two on the table there, please.” She pointed at the small round table with a flower vase neatly placed at its center, which bore its position in the middle of a couple of seatings formed into an arc a few steps away from them.

Elmer nodded and went ahead to put the candle holders on the table, using that as an excuse to scurry away from a close proximity with her.

He sighed exasperatedly at what had just happened with him as the light shrouding the parlor spread out more into a considerable distance. It was then that Ms. Edna returned from the partition she had walked into with another lit up candle holder in hand. Elmer’s brows dropped at that.

She went in there without a light to see, how did she find a candle holder in the dark and a match to light it up…? Does she have night vision or something, like an owl…? Wait… Could that be her heightened sense…? Sight…?

“Katherine,” Ms. Edna called out to her daughter, but Elmer did not dare look back. “Do you mind holding off on your piano studies for now and studying for your written exams instead?”

“I don’t mind doing either first,” Kate answered almost immediately. “Why though?”

“Work,” Ms. Edna replied cryptically, and after a few seconds Elmer noticed a range of light dwindling slowly, so he turned his head to his side hesitantly just in time to glimpse Kate vanishing into the other curtained partition which had a small piano tucked into the corner to its left.

“Alright, Mr. Elmer,” Ms. Edna called his attention back to her immediately. “Let’s get to work, shall we?”

Elmer nodded and straightened himself from where he had still been leaning over on the table he was before.

“What—”

“Oh,” Ms. Edna cut him off unintentionally as he was about to speak. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have any male clothes to spare for you to change into. Will you be alright?”

Elmer smiled. “I’m fine.” At least a bit. He had already taken off his boots at the entrance, so that had ruled out the uncomfortability that came with walking around with a soddened pair covering up his legs. Well, his socks were dampened too, but he had stressed his mind to just think of them as his feet. They were embracing each other wholeheartedly after all.

The thing that worried him the most was moving around in someone else’s home in such a manner. He was practically soiling everywhere he came in contact with. No doubt it was the same for the house owners as well, but it was not his to begin with, so he could not place himself on the same pedestal as them.

If only there was a way to dry himself up faster. It would probably be useless though. He was still going to go out into this rain, seeing as it was giving no signs of letting up.

Elmer breathed out a sigh.

“And you?” he directed his question at Ms. Edna who had already been coming close to where he was. “Aren’t you going to change or something? You’re badly soaked as well.”

“Give that little thought,” she said as she graced the table Elmer stood before, granting him the leeway to catch a view of what was in her other hand held below her waist. A bunch of candles which seemed to be of gray colors, they were, and she then placed them all on the table. “It doesn’t matter since I’m going to be going out with you.” Elmer’s face squeezed and she looked up at him from her bent over position. “Or have I guessed wrong that you are planning to go after the corrupted one tonight?”

Don’t tell me…

“Wait. Are you planning to go after him with me?” Elmer’s voice did little to hide his shock.

“That’s what I just said.” Ms. Edna straightened herself after she had put down her candle holder, her most recent words causing the surprise on Elmer’s face to disappear, and his brows furrow, while his eyes narrowed somewhat.

If Ms. Edna comes with me wouldn’t that be detrimental to my plan of using ‘The Warlock’s Torch’ for myself…?

Her tagging along with him on the job had its pros and cons, but Elmer did not care one bit about the pros if its major con was ruining his chance of joining the Pathway of Time.

Surely he could not let that happen. No way would he let that happen.

“Why?” Elmer blurted in a way that it would almost seem like he was ungrateful for the help Ms. Edna was about to offer him, and the extra hand she had said to help him with later on. “I was already wondering what made you not to try talking me into dropping the job after you said all those things about the corrupted ones. Should I take it that this is the reason?”

“No,” Ms. Edna answered instantly, not giving the overbearing tone he had spoken those words with to linger in the air for even a second. “As soon as you take on a job it’s impossible for you to drop out of it. So there was no way I could have talked you out of it. It is your job, you have to do it. Although, it’s my mistake that brought about this whole scenario, I have to take responsibility, and I also think it would be better if more experienced people went with you.”

“People?” Elmer blurted with a disoriented expression that spelled confusion.

“Yes.” Ms. Edna picked each of the gray candles she had dropped and lit them using the light dancing from the top of the normal ones, before setting them up on the table in some sort of diamond shape. “I’m going to ask Eddie for help. He’s more suited for the field than I after all.”

Elmer’s stomach hardened.

It’s not only you, but Eddie as well…?! And also, you’ve never gone out into the field before, would you even be fine…? What if something goes wrong…?

His mind suddenly became a sea of chaos. But in order not to sound rude and ungrateful, he kept any word that would make known his troubles bottled inside, and simply muttered, “How are you going to ask him for help?”

He had to find a way to stop them from coming with him, that was the obvious action he should’ve been taking, but that was in no way going to be possible without him sounding and behaving like an immature whippersnapper. And that would ruin everything, as Ms. Edna would probably end up not divining the location of the maggot-faced man for him out of newfound spite for that sort of personality.

In that regard, Elmer made up his mind to cook up a plan that would separate the maggot-faced man from both Eddie and Ms. Edna, and would grant him some alone time with the man, just enough so that he could use ‘The Warlock’s Torch’. At least in that way he would also keep Ms. Edna’s chastity pure from coming in contact with the field.

He needed to start thinking now and make tweaks as he learned more on what the situation entailed.

“I’m going to summon an emissary,” Ms. Edna said as she finished her set up.

“An emissary?” Elmer asked, his expression flying from one of stress into curiosity.

“Just think of it as a messenger that passes through the supernatural plain. It’s faster and more efficient than any telegraph system. But of course, this mode is only available to those of us who have ventured into the supernatural, so let’s not talk badly about the one that normal people use.”

That’s very convenient… It’s a handy ability to have…

“How does it work?” Elmer was looking for a way to dip another ability into his pocket for his use in the future.

“Four gray blessed candles set up in a diamond shape, just like I’ve done,” Ms. Edna answered. “The rest, watch and see.”

And after those words, Ms. Edna heaved out a deep breath, closed her eyes, and recited in a tone that caused Elmer to shuffle a few steps away,

“I summon the emissary bequeathed to me, Edna Smyth, by the Heavens. Come to my aid and take my words to whomever I deem fit to receive it.”

There was a breeze, one warmer than the warmth the fire of the fireplace gave forth, and as well colder than the one that came with rainfall. The uncanny feeling might have thrown a normal person’s body into utter chaos, but Elmer was able to distinguish between the two sensations simultaneously, and it caused his mind no harm.

Ms. Edna, on the other hand, just stood watching the center of the diamond placed candles, whose flames had gone from yellow to blue, with a gaze that seemed like she was staring at an entity manifest. Elmer knew then that something was happening, something he could not see with the way his eyesight was at the moment.

And now of that notion, he quickly recited in his mind,

The watchful eye of the Heavens that sees all, I plead for your vast gaze, show me what I seek, Edna Smyth’s emissary…

And just as it had been when he had used this ability for the first time against Lev’s curse, he felt a burning sensation storm his eyes for barely a second before it turned into a tender warmth. Then after, his vision turned blurry, spreading out so far as various streaks of colors were brought into his view. It was then that he saw it.

The center of the diamond shaped candles had sunk in some sort of a deep black whirlpool manner, and out of it slowly sprouted the hand of a skeleton, pristine white and unstained. Bones it was all it was supposed to be, devoid of all flesh, but that was not the case for this thing.

Flesh graced its palm, one that breathed life. If it was not for the rest of it, Elmer would not have guessed it was a skeleton’s hand, but rather that of a living and breathing human.

In the space between its thumb and index finger rested a quill, one whose tip was dripping with something red and thick, which with every second Elmer looked at it seemed more and more like blood.

Ms. Edna picked up the quill, wrote on the skeleton’s palm, and returned it back to its position. After she was done, she said, “Eddie Dick.” And the skeletal hand slowly vanished the way it had come out, causing the uncanny breeze of air that had been shrouding the room with its presence to recede as well. The flames were no different, they turned into their luster of golden yellow once again.

Elmer’s eyes returned back to their normal state at that moment.

“Alright. Tweak the prayer for yourself and that’s all there is to summoning an emissary.” Ms. Edna exhaled and turned toward Elmer. “Eddie will be here soon with a private carriage. Let’s find out the location of this corrupted one before he arrives.”

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