Thea's birthday was very exciting. She was very happy about getting to spend it with her friends, which made me happy too.
I had decided to come clean about the Golem thing, especially since last night's talk made me understand how lucky I was to live in a house with people I cherished.
Still, all of it wasn't enough to keep Joe at bay.
Joe was very angry with me and my lack of understanding his needs and he decided to take it all out on Thea, my former best friend, not to mention the only one I'd ever had.
Vits and Chaim had asked me to bake Thea a cake, since it used to be my full time job. The chocolate birthday cake looked very pretty, especially after I'd covered the top layer with cherries.
Vits and Chaim gave Thea new clothes and new stuff for school and Saba gave her a painting. When I got closer, I realised she had painted a picture of Thea and me. It made me blush, for some reason.
James and Jimmy thought about their gift together, James got him a peculiar book with recipes for strange potions in it and Jimmy got him some of the ingredients.
I finally approached Thea and I gave her my present. It was the latest Andy Baker book, wrapped up so badly it looked about as misshapen as Joe.
"Thanks", she said. "However, you didn't have to. You had already baked me the cake".
"I didn't have to, but I wanted to. I'm your best friend" I replied weakly. I hadn't exactly been acting like one, lately.
Thea smiled back, which made me want to hug her, but before I got the chance, Joe walked into the room.
Joe immediately headed towards the cake and took a big chunk. Jimmy stared sadly at the whole scene.
"I'm starting to get tired of that thing ", he declared.
"It's no big deal" Thea offered, even though the cake was now falling apart.
"It kind of is" I coughed. "And about that..."
I took a deep breath. It was now or never, I knew.
"I created this Golem" I announced.
Jimmy laughed out loud, probably thinking I was just kidding. Well, I wish I was.
"You can't be serious" Chaim said, with a trembling voice.
"Why?" I raised an eyebrow. "Because creating a Golem is too difficult, I guess. Well, maybe I am more experienced than you think".
Thea stared at me with a deadly look in her eyes.
"I remember I have read some things about Golems" she said. "If you really created it, then why don't you tell it to stop?"
While we were talking, in fact, Joe had started trashing the room.
"I wish he would listen to me" I snapped back.
"Well, if he's your creature, he's bound to obey you" Chaim pointed out.
His eyes went wide. "Has he ever?"
"Well," I started explaining, suddenly feeling dizzy. "We talked a lot about the fact that I was his master but, no, I don't think he has ever obeyed me".
"That's really weird" Vits said. "Golems are like robots, they are supposed to do just what they're told, nothing else".
"I thought he was alive" I said, panicking. "I thought he had free will".
Chaim stared at Joe blankly.
"No", he said after a few minutes of silence. "He doesn't. Or, at least, he's not supposed to".
"Then why does he do everything he wants?" I asked, meekly.
Vits coughed. "If he's not obeying you, then...".
"Then what?" I asked. I was starting to feel really scared.
"Then he's obeying someone else", Chaim completed, with an angry edge in his voice.279Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPx9WUolosc
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"I know it probably doesn't even matter", James added, "but why are you calling it a he? Especially now, since you know it isn't a real person".
"He asked me to" I replied.
"He actually asked me", I added, suddenly remembering. "If I wanted to be called a he as well. That's the first time someone has ever asked me and it felt strange".
"I bet it did" James pointed out, "it's not something you go around asking people".
"No" I tried to explain, not even knowing why. Maybe I was just tired of hiding things from my friends. "It felt a good kind of strange. It actually felt like something you should go around asking people. What was really strange about it is that I thought I knew. I mean, I thought I knew I felt like a boy, because I thought I couldn't feel otherwise. But now I'm not so sure, I mean, if Joe does feel like a male, even though he has no private parts in his body and he's not even human, then why I just...don't?"
I blushed. I always had the tendency to say too much.
Chaim looked at me very sweetly. "Do you feel like a girl, then?" he asked. His voice was serious, there was no embarrassment or fun in it.
"No" I said. "Look, I'm probably still confused about my identity, I just know that he made me feel better by asking me this question. He made me feel like the way I felt about my body or my identity mattered. I'm not really sure, but I guess that's kind of the reason I kept him hidden from you this whole time. I didn't want him to get in trouble after that, because no matter all the crazy things he's done, he had actually cared about me. I'm not trying to say all you guys don't care about me. I'm really not. I had actually fought with Joe a couple of times because I had to make him understand that he wasn't as good of a friend as you guys. But I'm saying that the fact he even cared enough to ask, well that was friendship material".
"You have to consider that maybe the person who's giving Joe orders, whoever he is, has been talking to you this whole time. So maybe it's this person who, let's say, he's a male, the one who replied to your question and then asked you about you. Maybe it has nothing to do with how Joe feels about his body. Maybe it was his master all along" Thea suggested, not unkindly.
"When I found out someone's been giving Joe orders this whole time, I thought about that. But it doesn't matter to me. He asked to be referred to as a male and that's what I will continue to do. And the fact he asked me what I wanted to be referred to as, is still important. Joe being a fraud doesn't make any less real what he made me realize I felt about me".
I just knew I had to tell my friends this kind of stuff before it got too unbearable, and I was also morally obliged to tell them as much I knew about Joe as possible, but I still felt a little sick. What if what I just said was too much? Maybe they thought I was crazy or something. Maybe they felt uncomfortable talking to me now. What if I was to become an outcast? After all the stupid things I'd done, I guess I deserved it.
Vits grinned and broke the tension.
"Well, however you feel, Oliver, is perfectly okay. Angels are really powerful and beautiful creatures and they're genderless, even though it is often forgotten. I guess you don't want to talk about it now, but whenever you feel like it we're here for you. And I'd like to say to our other students that maybe Chaim and I may appear cold sometimes, especially Chaim", he chuckled. "However, we are here for your every need or question. Becoming a sorcerer is hard and having to do that while you're growing up, well it's at least twice as hard. Not to say being an adult is that much easier, because it isn't. But we know what you're going through, we've been there".279Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXHj1UlM24p
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The rest of the day went smoothly, but there were still a lot of questions that were waiting for an answer. I decided to ask the most important one while we were having dinner.
"If I created the Golem, how come he obeys another master? And I think that the other master meant to trick me or spy me because he knew the Golem was mine and he didn't simply take over - he actually used him to try to befriend me".
I still felt uncomfortable talking about Joe, I had the crazy fear he could hear me and punish me for revealing his secrets, even though Chaim and Vits had managed to lock him away in the attic hours ago.
"First things first. We need to figure out why the Golem didn't obey you. The master should be the one who created him, it's unheard of that somebody else may be in charge, unless the Golem changes his loyalty over time. But even that hardly ever happens, especially since you're still alive, so the Golem is still useful to you. Did you do everything right in the procedure, when you built him? Did you learn the words of the spell carefully? Maybe you mispronounced some of them and you gave power to another individual to take over".
Chaim was very clever indeed, but somehow I didn't think the solution would be so simple.
"I guess I did everything right, except for the shape. I practiced a lot to get the words right, but maybe my pronunciation wasn't so good. Do you want to hear them?"
"We'd rather not". Vits clarified. "We have to trust you on this, because, even though technically it doesn't exist a dangerous spell that you can mumble at dinner with those exact words, words are still powerful and I wouldn't say them aloud like that. Especially since we're already in a tricky situation, who knows what might happen".
"Anything else I may have done wrong?" I asked.
"Well, the spell is a hard one but the rules aren't that complicated to understand" Chaim mused.
"It's very important, though, that you are pure while doing it. Did you check your own purity or the one of the ingredients?"
"I did" I replied. "Maybe, it's because I was doing the spell out of spite. Maybe my intentions weren't pure".
"It would be an interesting turn of events, but trust me, you'll have to practise a lot more than that, I'd say years and years, before you can change any spell just because of your intentions" Chaim reassured me. "And, anyway, nobody needs to have pure intentions to be the master of a Golem. Whoever is using Joe now, he's using him to spy you and make you afraid, trash our rooms and so on. I doubt his intentions are much purer than yours".
That was true. I couldn't understand how it could have happened, though. I was also a bit disappointed in myself: after all, the only reason I had ever created the Golem was to show my friends that I was more experienced than they thought I was and I had failed.
"Which day did you say you created the Golem?" asked Thea. You could tell she was doing her best to help me out, plus she liked challenges and she wanted to be the one to find out the truth.
"The day you all went out and I said I couldn't because I had just cut my hand while washing the dishes".
"Well, that much was true. I remember when you cut it, I was there too".
"It is true, but it was just a minor scratch, I could have gone out if I wanted to".
"Did your hand bleed?" Chaim inquired.
"A lot, at first, but by the time I was creating the Golem it was healed. Like I said, it wasn't serious or anything. At best, while I was shaping the Golem, I may have lost a tiny drop of blood when I started squeezing the clay because my hand was already irritated".
"YOU MAY HAVE DONE WHAT?" Vits screamed at me. "Do you have the slightest idea of how something, anything, can change a whole spell completely? Especially when it's something as powerful as blood. Blood is one of the most powerful ingredients in the whole universe, and since it's also hard to come by, unless you take it in a painful way, is usually just required for the darkest spells".
Chaim's black jet eyes were pondering the idea of my blood infecting the clay, if that's what had really happened. I couldn't be sure of that.
"Blood is powerful and dark", Chaim conceded, "however, it does not explain how come the Golem is tied to another master. Our blood is our identity. If anything, Joe should be closer to Oliver's wishes than ever. Maybe a dark and twisted Joe, but an obedient one, that's for sure. It's almost like...but that's impossible".
His eyes darkened and he finished his dinner without saying another word.
Finally, when I couldn't take it anymore, Jimmy spoke up.
"If something's wrong with Oliver, I think I am speaking for all of us when I say we would really like to know. So, please, I don't care how bad it sounds like, tell us and we will all help him".
"You say you don't care how bad it sounds, but what about him?" asked Vits. "Maybe he does and he doesn't want to hear it".
"Who, me?" I laughed out loud. "Of course I want to hear it, you always said so yourself, curiosity is my special trait".
I tried to say it in a lighthearted way, but Chaim's eyes were dead serious when he stared at me and finally spoke.
"It's almost like...your blood is someone else's blood".279Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjhelTWDtbF
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Everybody in the room went quiet after this consideration. It was impossible but it was also the only logical explanation. Just before going to bed, I figured out I had to say something to break the silence, after all it was all my fault.
"I guess we need to kill him now", I suggested sheepishly.
"We'd love to, but we don't know who he is" Vits growled.
"Joe, I mean. We can't keep him around forever, especially if we can't control him".
"I agree with you, but I would love to get him to tell us something about his master first" Chaim admitted, with a tired voice.
"I want to be there when it happens" I said, without even realising it. I hoped I didn't sound rude or anything. I just really cared about the whole Joe situation.
"I don't know about that", Vits twitched his mouth. "We were kind of thinking, you know, to do it now".
"Perfect, I don't feel sleepy at all". It was true, I had never felt so alive and ready in a long time.
"If it's not a problem, I would like to come too" Thea said shyly. "I wanna know more about this".
James, Jimmy and Saba politely declined. They all wanted to go to bed, or at least that's what they said. I suspect they were planning to stay up late planning something mischevious like we often did.279Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsDeCGqLNfJ
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Getting Joe to talk was harder than I thought. He was enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame and he was acting like he was annoyed by all our questions. If he was trying to cover up some deep dark secrets, he was a good actor because he only looked like a spoiled brat who hated us for locking him up in the attic.
"Who is your master?", Chaim asked him for the hundreth time.
"I'm not obliged to tell you anything, you're not my master" Joe snapped. "I might tell you, if you get me a bottle of Coca Cola".
"I should ask him" I suggested, "after all, he has called me his master a couple of times. It might work out".
"It won't work out" Joe snapped. "You're not my master either".
Even though I already suspected I wasn't his master, my insides still turned.
"I-I don't understand" I stuttered. "You thought I was your master, you said so yourself. You even asked me what I wanted of you".
"And you wanted a friend and then you didn't want it. Anyway, I was specifically instructed to lead you on".
"By whom?" asked Vits.
Joe bit his non-existent lip. Then he finally said, talking to Vits and Chaim.
"The kid I can understand, but what about you two? Do you really not know the first thing about Golems? Even if I wanted to tell you, I wouldn't be able to, unless my master orders it".
"He's right you know. You know it as well, as I do, Chaim, why did we even try?" Vits sounded disgusted. I wondered why. Then Chaim's reply only made me even more confused.
"I know I don't know a way to make him talk but I was hoping you did. As long as his master controls him, I fear he is a valuable spy. He's worth nothing to us, unless he tells us what he knows, but somebody else is using him and they're doing it well. There's nothing left for us to do but turn him off".
I almost choked with a mixture of relief and horror.
"You're telling me there is a way to turn him off and nobody told me?"
Chaim raised his eyebrow "I thought the book where you got that spell from mentioned it".
"It didn't. Maybe you were supposed to work on the spell with a teacher or someone who would know. Those school books are not easy to understand on your own" I blushed.
"Besides, if Oliver knew, he would have turned off Joe by now. Perhaps even before we could find out about him" Thea pointed out.
"Not really" Vits grinned, "in order to turn him off, you have to scratch off the first letter on his forehead, where Oliver wrote EMET. And, when they're this big and strong, it's not an easy task. Even an obedient Golem is not really up for being turned off, imagine what an unruly one could do to stop you. One who's not only this big and strong, but also this mean and violent".
There was another problem, that Thea quickly pointed out. Since Joe was a very little being when I wrote the word EMET on his forehead, while now he was just about as big and as misshapen as it was possible, the writing was almost impossible to read.
That meant that in order to embark ourselves in the crazy mission of removing the E from his forehead, we had to get as close as possible.
I smiled at Thea. "Wanna try? Since it's your birthday and everything, I thought you might want to take this chance. Consider it a present".
She giggled and snapped back, which meant we had our usual chemistry back in full force. I instantly felt like we could defeat even the worst enemy we could think of, as long as we were together.
"Now that I think about it Oliver, I always thought dying the same day I was born was quite...poetic, you know?"
"Come on, Joe would never kill you" I teased her. "He would just murder you nice and slowly because you get to be my best friend".
We both stopped laughing when we saw the looks on our teachers' faces. Even Vits looked incredibly pale and, when he spoke up, his voice even trembled a little.
"There is a real person, somewhere, who's using this Golem. They're a very powerful magician of whom we know nothing of. The only thing we know for sure is that they went a long way just to spy on us. They tried to divide us and to hurt us and they will try again, unless we stop them now. Even if we did stop them, this Golem might be just the first one in a long list of curses they could send upon us. Now, I understand if you want to make fun of this situation because you feel scared, I mean, humor as a way to cope with trauma is my specialty, it's healing and it makes everything funnier, but do not think, even for just a second, we haven't got a real problem here".
He stared at us, waiting for a repy that did not come. "Sorry for being so hard on you guys, I guess I'm scared too".
"You were right" I acknowledged. "This person did something to my blood. It's serious. Maybe I am the cursed one who was sent upon you. Maybe I shouldn't be here".
All the color left Vits's face in a second and he looked so shocked he was about to pass out. I suddenly remembered Chaim's diary and the way Vits loved Chaim, how protective he was. No doubt he was probably thinking about how Chaim was born cursed and he was hating me for having said those words, for letting Chaim doubt of himself. Even if he didn't know that I had read the diary, he would still be mad at my arrogance.
But Chaim himself looked way steadier and calmer than Vits and, mostly, he didn't look doubtful at all. Even though in his eyes I could see he was slightly hurt, he still stood strong and held out his hand for Vits to take.
Vits, however, was soon back on his feet and he scoffed at me like I had just said something that didn't make sense at all and that he didn't believe in, not for one second.
"There's no such thing as cursed human beings and that's that. The worst thing that can happen to a human being is to be possessed or cruel or intentionally ignorant. Remember that, you may be unlucky or a troublemaker, or, in your case, probably both, but human beings cannot be cursed. That's because the light is stronger than the dark, as we always say. Those who are very powerful can bless other human beings but to curse them is so unthinkable that no one is able to do it, even if they would wish it".279Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiRv0a4f4HN
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The next day, we talked about our struggle with the other boys. Maybe somebody would have a bright idea on how to remove to letter.
Jimmy looked thoughtful as he wrote something on his notebook. That morning, Chaim had decided to make us study Golems in order to know what we were up against.
Finally, Jimmy spoke up "We...uhm, could, you know, just keep him locked in the attic forever".
"Not happening", Vits ruled out.
"Well, you're the adults" Jimmy muttered. "You should come up with something".279Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOz2Nks1Xn3
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"What bothers me" Timmy told me later that day, "is that you created him. Yes, there might be something wrong with your blood and yes whoever is using Joe knew about that and took advantage of it, but at the end of the day, you are Joe's creator. I can't believe he doesn't care about that. It would be like not caring about your parents at all. It would be too hard".
He blushed. He never talked about his parents, none of us did. We didn't know much of them, we didn't remember anything about them either.
"It's not exactly like that, Golems don't have souls. They don't feel things".
"You're right but they're not robots either. Joe is capable of making his own choices and I can't believe he doesn't want your approval".
"Remember what Chaim told us, Timmy. We don't know how much of Joe is in there. The things he does, the choices he makes, the things he says...it could be his real master using him. You can't be sure he's not a robot".
Timmy bit his lip. "I think we should ask Chaim more questions before we can come up with a real plan".
And so we decided we'd talk to Chaim as soon as possible.
Finding him wasn't hard, he was in the garden tending to his pomegranates. Vits was there as well, they were always together.
"If Joe isn't alive, how come he looks like he is?" Timmy wanted to know.
"Joe is not alive per se, but someone's magic is keeping him alive".
"I wouldn't say magic" Vits interrupted rudely. "I'd say belief, faith, if you want. All the words we use during the spells are powerful because they used to be holy. They used to be like a prayer to the first sorcerers who said them aloud. Magic and faith both believe words can actually change the world. And they do. When Oliver pronounced the spell, he made Joe come true. He didn't create a human being or anything alive for that matter, but he gave his power through words to something useful and intelligent".
"So Joe is still useful because Oliver's power is still fueling him?"
"It's not as simple as that, once something is done, it stays done. But yes, in a way, it's Oliver's power the one that gave Joe a purpose in the first place, not somebody else's".
"If words are so important" I inquired "Can't we learn some words to destroy him?"
Vits' eyes flashed angrily. "We do not teach dark magic here. And Golems are very powerful, especially once they've grown to that size. If we can erase one letter from his forehead then, trust me, we won't just decide to take him down with magic".
I was about to ask why we should complicate the situation instead of using dark magic, since Chaim had learnt it as an apprentice, but then I sobered up and I realised how out of place it would have sounded.
"If the only thing that keeps him from obeying Oliver's wishes is Oliver's blood", Chaim spoke up after being lost in thought for a while.
"Then we gotta get rid of Oliver's blood".
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