Mateo comes in with a bottle of coke, and he hands it to me. “I thought you were studying?”
“I was about to,” I defend, flicking through the pages. Mateo sits on the edge of the desk, grabbing the journal I was looking at the other day, while I look through the newer one, which I haven’t checked out yet.
“You would think there would be more, wouldn’t you?” Mateo asked, making me look at him.
“More what?”
“More people cursed. I mean, there’s no way your family is the only one who has cursed out the Moon Goddess?”
“She probably has it in for my family, why not? Everyone else does.” I shrug.
“The Moon Goddess doesn’t hate you, Kat.”
“Well, she cursed me, that says otherwise, she could always take it away, but where is she?” I ask him.
“It is a blessing, being a healer is a blessing,” he replies, flicking through the pages.
“I am cursed with death by everyone around me, doesn’t sound like a blessing to me,” I scoff.
“Shit, I think I just tore it,” he groans, and I roll my eyes, about to take it from him before Mathias decides to curse me for letting him destroy his precious artifacts. “Hey, at least you don’t have it as bad as this guy did,” Mateo mutters, pointing at the book, and I look over his shoulder at what he is looking at.
“Who is that?” I ask, not remembering seeing the drawing of the man in the book last time.
“Some Gemini Healer”
“Where did you find it?” I ask him.
“Stuck upside down on the page, I thought it was blank and went to turn the page when I felt it tear, the pages must have been stuck together,” he replies with a shrug and hands me the pieces of old weathered paper. The outside is stained yellow, and it has watermarks on the edges, it looks like it has been through hell, with how yellow and orange it is. The drawing on it is still visible, despite the appearance of the paper. The paper is soft like tissue paper, threatening to wither away in my hand, and I’m extremely careful as I study it.
The man in the picture was drawn with what looked like pastel or some charcoal paint, I wasn’t sure. By the look of the drawing, he looks crazed, his eyes are pitch black, and hard lines are drawn on his face with hollow cheeks. He looks dead, but right next to his neck where a mark should be, was that strange symbol from the page before, but in this drawing, they are different and slightly more detailed.
The drawing I saw before was like two crescent moons back-to-back with a circle around it, making it appear like a pentagram, but in this drawing, it looks more like two overlapping bite marks, the curve of the teeth did resemble two crescent moons back to back inside a circle.
“No name?” I mutter, hoping there was one.
“Nope, but from the page it was stuck to, he could kill with one bite and was believed to be mad after the loss of his mates and killed himself,” Mateo relays, and I hand him the paper drawing back.
“Mates, as in two or more?” I ask.
“Yes, said he had two mates, both died from the plague, and without them, his mental health deteriorated. Also says his ability to heal died with them, that he could no longer heal, before he killed himself, his blessing turned back into a curse without his mates.”
“Can I have a look?” I ask, taking the book from him. I look at the old page, and the writing is so old it looks like gibberish to me, and might as well have been in a foreign language.
Patient showed signs he caught the madness and could no longer recall his name, and was received to hast gone mad after the loss of his mates, both died from black perpetual wink plague, and without them, he deteriorated into onset madness. He showed ere signs of corporal decline. His ability to heal died with them, inability to shift even on a full moon, and could no longer heal. It is received his physic ability for others depleted ere he took his own life, injuries discover he used his venom to end his life, the benison bestowed upon him by the Moon Goddess not deterred ere his demise was actually a beshrew without his beloved mates to keep him firm-set.
I read the passage again before looking at Mateo. “You understand what it says?” I have a headache just from reading the old text, and figuring out what it meant. Let alone understand it.
“I’m not just a pretty face, Kat, I swear you only use me for my God-like appearance,” he pouts.
“Yeah, all I get from that is an eye twitch and headache,” I admit, some of the words I don’t even know what they mean and would require a dictionary to figure out the meaning.
“I told you I like history, love this sort of stuff and find it fascinating.” He boasts, looking over the book’s pages before looking up again when Ezra finally returns and comes in.
“Angie?” I ask.
“Gone home, what are you looking at?” Ezra questions, stealing my coke and taking a sip while sitting on the edge of his desk next to Mateo.
“Mateo found this and said it is about the Gemini healer. Apparently, he can read whatever that is,” I tell him, handing Ezra the book.
“Yeah, Mateo is secretly a nerd. Who do you think did your English Essay? He probably knows more about my family history than I do,” Ezra chuckles.
“What, for Mr. Nagi? That was you? I thought it was Ezra,” I gasp, and he shakes his head.
“Nope, I did it. Eziah Mathers is actually Ezra’s great-grandfather on his mother’s side, Mathers was her maiden name. Mr. Nagi was once my teacher, horrid man, smart but horrid.”
“But you were at Jasmine’s that night,” I object.
“Yep, didn’t mean I didn’t come home, Ezra mentioned it when he asked if I was coming home, it’s why I mindlinked you to see if you finished it. When I realized you hadn’t, I came home early in the morning and typed it up and stuck it in your book before going on patrol duty,” he says with a shrug.
“So it wasn’t you?” I ask Ezra.
He is reading the same passage, brows wrinkled before he looks up, and he shakes his head. “It wasn’t me.”
“See, not just a pretty face,” Mateo chuckles, crossing his arms over his chest.