The Garden of Shadows

“You’re right. It’s about time I do it. I’m going to do it,” Emma sounded determined as she paced the room nervously with Leslie sitting on the bed in front of her.

“Going to do what?” I asked curiously. I had just entered the bedroom after finishing breakfast and happened to walk into their conversation.

“Confessing to her crush,” Leslie replied with a smile. She looked genuinely excited and showed no indication of malicious intent.

“You’re confessing to Salamander?” I was surprised that Emma chose not to be passive about it for once.

Emma nodded shyly. “Remina, you’re the person closest to him. Do you think I have a chance?”

“I honestly don’t know, Emma. I never talk to him about these things.” I sat on my bed. “But I’m sure you’ll do fine. I mean, what’s not to like about you?”

And then came the sudden realisation that Salamander knew all about Emma’s past thanks to me. I began to doubt my own words.

She smiled. “Thanks, Remina. I hope he’ll give me a chance.”

At the very least, she’s very pretty, but how much Salamander actually valued external beauty was something I didn’t know either. It gave me something to think about after Emma and Leslie left the room to wait in the lobby.

We were going on a trip to the art museum that morning. It was a full day tour, so we weren’t expected to go to our apprenticeship places. We’d be spending the day attending tours and lectures, then slaving the night away writing essays about it.

The art museum was a very modest building on the outside, but stepping inside gave you no doubt that a good chunk of the city’s funds had been allocated to making the place a suitable home for rare artworks. A plethora of red drapes and colonnaded halls seemed a bit excessive, but did the job of achieving the grandiosity they wanted.

During the initial tour, Emma was staying close to Salamander, so I dragged the clueless Elliot away to give them some space. She shot me a nervous glance, to which I replied with a thumbs up for moral support. After taking a deep breath, she went back to giving him her full attention.

As I glanced at both of them making small talk over the gallery artworks, I began to feel uneasy. What if Salamander did give Emma a chance? What if things did work out between them? Just imagining it gave me a strange feeling I couldn’t understand. Was this jealousy? Worry?

“Are you alright?” Elliot must have sensed my uneasiness.

I nodded solemnly. “Yeah. I was just thinking about some things.”

Suddenly, we heard a low, gurgling croak and noticed a raven on the floor, staring at us. It was rather peculiar. A raven in an art gallery? How did it get in when all the windows were closed?

When it flew away, I felt compelled to follow it like any protagonist of a horror story who soon regretted ever following her whims. Thankfully, I did not end up at death’s door, but in front of a large painting of the horned serpent itself. Whoever painted it definitely saw the real one. I checked the artist’s name: Anonymous.

“This painting…” I muttered.

Elliot stood beside me and examined it. “It’s a nice painting of the wooded hills. A bit dark and empty in some areas, but still looks good.”

“The wooded hills?” I looked closer and noticed the background behind the snake.

“Yeah. What else could it be?”

I wondered whether Elliot could even see the serpent in the painting, so I decided to find out. “What do you think this painting is about?”

He shrugged. “To show off the nice scenery? I’ve never been an artist, so it’s difficult for me to see things in that perspective.” I was convinced that he couldn’t see the serpent at all.

“You don’t have to be an artist to interpret art. Leo Tolstoy once wrote in his essay that the consumption of an artwork is about receiving the artist’s expression of feeling through external signs and experiencing it. The true quality of an artwork can be judged by how much this feeling is transmitted to its viewers.”

He appeared almost enlightened by the information. “Do you read essays often, Remina?”

“Not really. I’m just quoting the museum brochure.” I held up the brochure in question.

As I looked over the painting again, I noticed some words lightly painted on it with red:

A fair trade do they declare and from the serpent’s platter they feast!

Toss the ring into the sea! Fortune comes to those who want the least.

It was signed with the name Ophelia. Could it be the Meister Ophelia or just someone with the same name as her?

The horned serpent often spoke in riddles and poetry. I figured this must be a message to whoever bore its mark. A warning.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” I was caught off-guard by the voice of the hotel owner, Mr. Crowe, who was standing just a few metres away from us. Everything about him was shrouded in mystery, but then again the academy was filled with these types of characters who turned out to be perfectly sane people.

“It’s a rather unique painting,” I replied out of politeness.

“Indeed. There is no other like it.” His scrutinising gaze shifted from me to Elliot. There it lingered, as if the boy was an enigma to be unravelled. “What is your name?”

“Elliot Russell,” Elliot replied.

“Mr. Russell, I can sense that there is another inside you.”

The boy was surprised. “How can you tell?”

“To a trained eye, it is a simple process.”

Elliot stared into Mr. Crowe’s eyes for a moment. His face morphed into an expression of disbelief when he realised the truth. “You’re like me. You have something inside you too.”

Mr. Crowe nodded in confirmation. “Your professors must have placed enchantments to contain it, but it will stop working eventually. That thing grows with you. The more powerful of a mage you become, the more powerful it also gets.”

“What should I do?”

“Face it. Conquer it. Make it bend to your will.”

“How do you do it?”

“I could assist you. Just leave me a message through the front desk.” Mr. Crowe then bid us goodbye and left the museum.

“Do you think I can trust him, Remina?” Elliot asked in an uncertain tone. He was certainly tempted by the chance to overcome the monster inside him.

“I don’t know much about him to give a proper answer,” I replied. I had my own doubts about Mr. Crowe, but if the professors trusted him enough to allow us to stay at his hotel, perhaps he might not be a bad person.

During lunch time, we ate at the museum’s cafeteria meant for staff members. I sat at a long table with Salamander, Emma, Elliot, and Leslie. Only Emma was forcing herself to do most of the talking and appear interesting in front of Salamander. Elliot and I were much too distracted by the recent events to even concentrate on the conversation.

I wanted to drag Salamander to the painting so badly, but I didn’t want to ruin Emma’s chance to talk to him. I wondered if we’d have a chance to return to the art museum on a different day.

Suddenly, Salamander stood up and said, “I need to borrow Remina for a minute. Please excuse us.” Like before, he grabbed my arm and dragged me away from the table, leaving the rest confused.

“You looked terribly obvious. What’s going on?” he said when we were out of earshot.

I was actually thankful that he was observant. “There’s something you have to see.”

“Show me.”

I led him to the painting where I saw the horned serpent. Strangely, there was no trace of the serpent nor the red writing on the painting. I almost began to question my memory.

“It was here earlier! How can it just disappear like that?” I checked the painting for any sign of logical trickery, but found none. I probably looked like I’d gone mad in his eyes.

“What disappeared?” He was rather calm about it.

I pointed at the artwork. “The horned serpent was there in the painting. There was also a couplet signed with the name Ophelia.”

He raised a brow. “Ophelia? Like the Meister?”

“I don’t know which Ophelia is this, but this is really bizarre. Almost targeted.” Frankly, I was a little creeped out by the whole thing.

“Give me your hand.”

I held my hand out without hesitation and showed him the memory.

“You talked to Mr. Crowe?” His face was serious.

“He showed up out of nowhere. I’m not sure if it was intentional,” I replied.

“Leave Elliot to me. It’s easier to keep an eye on him as his roommate. I still don’t think we should trust Mr. Crowe just yet. Nobody just offers help like that out of nowhere. He must have a motive.”

“Is everything alright?” Emma approached us and asked.

We both turned our heads. I quickly took my hand back, but it was probably too late. She must have already seen us holding hands.

“Yes. We were just discussing art. Right, Remina?” Salamander said with a smile.

I didn’t want to lie to Emma, but neither was I ready to let her know about my connection to the serpent. “We’re trying to settle a debate about how the quality of art should be measured.”

She wasn’t buying it. “But why couldn’t you just do it at the table?”

“We didn’t want to drag everyone else in. You know how intense we tend to get when we argue,” Salamander reasoned.

“Oh,” she said with a forced smile. It was just a single expression, yet it carried more emotion than the rows of paintings in the hall.

“We’ll return to the table once we settle this argument,” he assured her.

“Alright.” She quietly walked back to the cafeteria.

I sighed. I felt like I just did something terribly wrong, even more wrong than all the other morally questionable things I’ve done before. “Come on, Salamander. Let’s just go back.”

He stayed still. “Let’s stay here a while longer. There’s a weird mood at the table that makes me rather uncomfortable.”

I thought about Emma and felt bad for her. “Come on, let’s go back.”

“Just a few minutes longer?”

“We’re going back now.” I sounded very insistent, driven by the mix of guilt and uneasiness inside me.

He frowned. “Fine.”

For the rest of the day, I concentrated on the lectures and had no further interactions with Salamander. It was a fruitful day for educational pursuits, but the air hung heavy with feelings of guilt and apprehension. When I returned to the room at the hotel, I found Emma sobbing in bed with Leslie beside her.

“Emma? Why are you crying?” I asked out of concern.

“I got rejected.” Her voice was sad and muffled as she spoke with a pillow on her face.

“What exactly did he say to you?”

She placed the pillow aside and sat up. Her eyes were red from crying. “He said he already has someone he likes.”

Was that just an excuse or did Salamander really like someone?

I immediately turned around and briskly walked to the door.

“Remina? Where are you going?” She stood up.

“To go beat Salamander up for breaking your heart, of course,” I replied. With all the mixed feelings inside me, I really just needed an outlet for them.

“What? No!” She pulled me back before I got to the door.

“Why not?”

“You’ll get in trouble!” She was genuinely concerned.

“Don’t worry. I’ll ambush him at some isolated area where nobody is lurking. I’ll be fine,” I assured her.

“Don’t do it, please! It’s fine. I don’t want to force anyone to love me. I think a part of me just wanted to hear his reply so I can finally give up on him. I knew deep inside that it would never work out anyway. No matter what I did, he never looked my way.”

“Alright, Emma. If that’s what you want.”

Emma hugged me and started sobbing again. “I just really need a hug right now.”

Leslie also joined in the hug, which felt weird because just a few months back I disliked her enough to get her attacked by wild snakes. I awkwardly waited for the two to finish before I could finally move again.