Chapter 3: Weakened Power

Joanna was at the end of her rope, no clues that pointed towards Aliciae and none towards the other girl that was now dead and most likely forgotten.

"I don’t know why but I feel people want to forget" Joanna said to herself "Maybe this girl used her power against others"

As she had sat on the docks of the woodtick she had thought for at least 2 hours long and hard about Aliciae and her roots. She hadn’t remembered the other children well though they had been born in different locations, Katie she remembered.

Katie was born fairly weak though and had relied heavily on Aliciae she rarely left her side maybe due to a fear that no one seemed to understand not even Joanna who had devoted her time to studying the children. She herself would love to be able to understand Aliciae’s thoughts and what little feeling she had inside her, why Aliciae thought the way she did no one knew. She hadn’t had a bad upbringing Aliciae’s mother had been Joanna’s friend Danielle. Danielle had tried to raise Aliciae as best she could trying to ignore how ‘unique’ Aliciae was.

Joanna was so deep in thought she had lost herself for quite some time only when she felt the ice-cold wind against her back she shook herself into reality. The weather was freezing, Joanna knew she had no where to go to find answers. Instead she would have to just look for Aliciae and ignore the distant almost faded rumours of the other girl. The other girl had to be Lucy, the only child that Joanna hadn’t known the location of but only heard about. Thinking this to herself Joanna was slightly pleased with herself.

Elaine was clouded with anger but other feelings were starting to creep in too. She didn’t know what they were but she couldn’t find Aliciae to find out. In fact before she could have sensed Aliciae but it was like the bond between them was weakening, Elaine in a way hoped this was true maybe Aliciae didn’t want to know the supposed secret and was starting to leave Melee Island. In another way Elaine wanted the bond to stay she was curious herself to what Aliciae was searching for and even more curious towards her power and why she had such power. It was confusing in her head she went through several reasons why she thought the girl could have such power but none made any sense.

"Links to Lechuck?" she said to herself "No"

"Wandered in the gates of Big Whoop?" she sighed "No, she wasn’t as ugly as the others who passed through"

None of it made any sense at all. She thought she had better get back to the mansion, this whole thing was making Guybrush more concerned over Elaine’s safety than anything.

"Elaine" a voice said behind her, Elaine spun around expecting to see Aliciae but relaxing when she saw it was the voodoo lady.

"Elaine, I would like to speak to you and Guybrush" she said plainly

Elaine nodded and headed back towards the mansion, she had never seen the voodoo lady not seated on one

of her special chairs.

When they got back Guybrush was up and standing by the front door about to leave and look for Elaine, when he saw Elaine enter he was full of relief.

"Elaine, you’re alright" he said quickly "You went looking for her didn’t you?"

"Clearly she did and Aliciae is a big concern for Elaine at this time" Guybrush hadn’t noticed the voodoo lady let herself in and stand in the middle of the room.

"I do need to talk to you, if you are willing to listen" she said bluntly, Elaine and Guybrush nodded together and waited for her to start.

"Elaine I realise you are worried about Aliciae and what she is searching for" the voodoo lady started, "what is she looking for?" Elaine quickly said.

The voodoo lady lifted her hand "No, let me talk first" she continued "Aliciae is certainly unique as I am sure you know her power being that different to most. Although she is or was not totally unique there were others sort of brothers and sisters, they are actually not related but very much alike but that is not really important. They were all born in different locations, one was born right here"

"Really right here?" Guybrush gasped

"I said let me talk" the voodoo lady replied glaring at Guybrush "There were in fact 6 but Aliciae only knows of 5 since one of them was miscarried. They all had the same power but for 4 of them the power inside them weakened and they died leaving Aliciae alone. She was bitter about it even though no one could tell through her cold emotionless face. She came here looking for the one who she knew had died a young girl called Lucy she just wanted to see the body as far as I believe for some sort of closure. I am not entirely certain though" she paused for a moment and tilted her head as if listening for something and then continued "I suppose you are wondering how these children got such power?"

"Yes" Elaine, said quickly and loudly before the question could make it to Guybrush’s mind.

"Very well" the voodoo lady bowed her head for a brief moment "It is mostly the parents of which they inherited the parents but in the case of all the children only one of the parents had such power. For the one child I believe was Mark the mother was the one with power but for all the others it was the father. These parents are in fact from another world not that different of our own but where there powers are needed. 6 of these people passed through but did not plan on returning, they couldn’t get back and they knew if they stayed in this world for more than 2 years they would die. So what did they do? They decided that if they could produce children then those children may be able to survive in our world but still have the inherited power"

"Another world?" Guybrush almost laughed "You expect me to believe that there is another world where people with strange powers come from?"

"You saw Aliciae’s power did you not?"

"Well yes I did"

"And also you have heard of Big Whoop? That is the gates to hell, hell is another world as well you know why would there not be more than one world?"

"I guess you have a point," Guybrush said to himself

"But what is she so anxious about finding" Elaine pleaded

"Like I said before I thought she was looking for the body of Lucy but it seems she is looking for something involving someone else" the voodoo lady narrowed her eyes at Elaine "she is trying to find something about you, something links you"

"Nothing links us, we are not related"

"That is what I do not understand, you are not related to her and you have no power that is alike to hers. You have never known her before nor the mother that carried her"

"No I didn’t" Elaine said

"Then it is something I cannot work out, can you sense her now Elaine?" the voodoo lady asked

Elaine closed her eyes for a minute and her eyes kept squinting like she was in pain "No" she said flatly

"This is strange I was detecting a heavy bond between Aliciae and you I don’t know why it is weakening so unless…" she trailed off

"Unless what?" Elaine asked desperately

"Well I said that the others of her kind there power weakened and they died, all of the others I think it has something to do with their power not being able to function in this world. They could never sleep because their minds would not function if their eyes closed for too long. They could barely do anything else and they got headaches often from the overtaking of other peoples thoughts. When they died the bonds obviously broke between them but before they died the bonds weakened. If the link between you and Aliciae can no longer be detected. Well I know Aliciae is currently still alive but if such a strong link has gone then it means Aliciae is dying"

Elaine put a hand over her mouth.

Aliciae sat as still as a statue her body ached she couldn’t stand up straight in fact she could barely move without something really hurting. Her senses seemed to be slowing down too, she could no longer detect Elaine or hear anyone’s thoughts even when a few people staggered by, and she couldn’t hear anything. She opened her mouth a couple of times trying to speak but nothing coming out.

‘Why is this happening?’ one of the extremely rare times she thought to herself instead of speaking ‘This is what Katie was like before she died, although she was born weak but she couldn’t move for a few days the bond weakened and she died’ Aliciae breathed heavily and noisily. ‘This can’t happen to me, why would I die so many years later than the all the others? I was exactly the same’.

Aliciae shifted slightly then jerked as a sting pain went up her spine, sometimes she thought what it would be like to have emotion. She had pain, everyone did but she couldn’t express it she couldn’t cry, couldn’t moan and couldn’t scream. It wasn’t enough pain to make anyone scream but still it had been there for so long she would have liked something to help her escape if just for a moment.

She turned to look at the only ship that was in the dock, she had sat there for over an hour just looking at it. She couldn’t get up because of the pain and she had tried using her power but it just seemed to fade in her eyes like it was dying inside of her. ‘If my power dies, will I die?’ she thought, she didn’t know she was only half powerful her mother had never had such power but her father had.

Although she had only seen him once at the age of 3 days because of course he had died after the 2-year mark and before she was born he had been there for 1 and a half years she still knew he was the powerful one.

The power had to come from somewhere and when she first got to know her mother and her mothers smile instead of the cold emotional face she knew it wasn’t the mother that had such power.

She coughed slightly, her throat was dry and looking at the sea wasn’t helping one bit. She instead looked the other way at the palm trees, they were swaying slightly. The wind was bitter cold but in Aliciae’s pain she could barely feel it.

She tried to get up she needed to move, getting herself ready she lifted herself only to be met with what felt like hitting a brick wall. The pain pushed her back down to sitting and she breathed out losing patience fast but there was nothing she could do about it, her powers were now useless. She was just like a perfectly normal person except her emotions that stayed away. It nearly gave her a slight tint of concern that she may not survive without her powers especially if approached by another.

Joanna was onto Phatt Island before she knew it, she had no choice but to get on the same ship as before but waited inside the ship instead of staying on.

Although lucky for her she had heard the captain talking about Melee Island which was his home. They were planning to go there next, he had talked about Governor Marley and Joanna thought to herself this was somebody who knew everything about the Caribbean.

She would have to have heard of Aliciae and should know her location. Joanna’s head was drooping she was so sleepy, she couldn’t keep herself awake for too long but would have to get off at Melee Island. It would probably be a few hours though, she didn’t know if she could wait that long.

This is too much trouble, that was all Joanna could think about and how really she should have just stayed home and forgot about Aliciae. Aliciae could probably have been dealt with if they knew of Lucy being born then they should have been slightly familiar with the power Aliciae possessed. ‘They could have dealt with her alone’ Joanna thought her eyelids feeling really heavy.

‘I will not go to sleep, be strong Aliciae you can go without sleep for just a couple of days’ she thought actually it had been about 5 days but thinking that wouldn’t have helped in the least.

" I am sure of it" the voodoo lady was getting a little impatient of Elaine asking ‘are you sure?’

"I know you are getting annoyed but the link may not be breaking it may be just that Aliciae is slightly weak or that she has gone far away"

"She is still somewhere around here and I know it" the voodoo lady replied "I sense some stress too"

"Stress?" Elaine frowned "I thought she had no emotion"

"Its not stress on her part" the voodoo lady closed her eyes "I can sense new things, something to do with Lucy not her weakening but she has figured out something probably what she is looking for"

Elaine shook her head slightly "What is it?" she suddenly cried out "If she is found out the thing that is linking us please tell me, please!" Elaine pleaded

"I cannot" the voodoo lady opened her eyes again "The link with you two is weak and the link with me and her is weaker"

"You have a link with her?"

"Not a link like yours, I can link minds with anything that has the power to control others minds but yours is something special and I cannot see what Aliciae has found out"

Elaine groaned "I have to find out what is linking us, Aliciae is not dying and I will not hear of it. Maybe what she has found out has nothing to do with us so the link has unlinked" Elaine was speaking so fast Guybrush hadn’t followed a word of it.

"It is something to do with you two" the voodoo lady replied "I must go, I will try to discover the secret that links you" she slowly walked out through the door.

Aliciae had discovered it, all she had been doing was sitting trying to ignore the pressure upon her when suddenly it was like a wave hit her. A wave of new knowledge and within it was the link that put her and Elaine together.

‘Elaine Marley’ she thought to herself her throat still in too much pain to be able to use ‘Elaine Marley and Lucy’ she thought hard. It was there but the pain remained, now there was genuine concern there it looked near the end for the power and probably for her but the link hit her, she knew it.

‘Elaine Marley mother’ she thought to herself

‘Elaine Marley Lucy’s mother’ she relaxed slightly but the pain hit her head again and she closed her eyes not wanting to overstrain herself.