After finishing his social chatter, he began his lesson. It was a continuation of yesterday's. We were reading the Odyssey; about how bravely Odysseus fought all those monsters and gods to come home ten years later to his faithful wife. Blah, blah, blah. I had a tendency to ignore Mr. Myles's lectures. Only because I didn't feel he was qualified enough to teach and because he was dating Sera. I thought he was Mr. Preppy, Blonde, All-Star before I had him as a teacher. Now, I realized that the man was clueless, a total airhead, who thought he was better than everyone else and untouchable. The most useful thing he had ever done was to encourage Sera to accept a second year at Erie High School. Maybe I should have thanked him, but she could do so much better.
I was still stuck in my head when a messenger came into the room with a pass for me to the library, which again drew attention. Everyone in the room from students to teacher glanced in my direction when my name was read off the pass. I gathered my books and other supplies as quietly and inconspicuously as possible, sneaking past other students as they watched me leave. It had always been that way. Once I was in a room, I was able to become invisible, but as soon as attention was drawn toward my direction, people had a tendency to stare as if they couldn't help it.
I was heading toward the library, but the wall of windows that were on the outside wall across the library drew my attention. Part of me was a little surprised that the sky hadn’t lightened with morning yet. And yet, it was dreary, like Ohio weather can be in the fall, or the winter, or . . . Okay, so it was Ohio weather. At least the gardens were beautiful. The black-eyed Susans and different colored pansies against the lone young willow tree looked so serene. Oh, how I want to be outside even if it was rainy, I thought.
I looked away from the windows to the “fishbowl” that was the library. When I did my rescuer from the morning caught my attention. Under the library lights, he didn’t seem as golden god-like as what I had initially thought. He even looked almost average; typical height, perhaps six foot and a regular build. He was heading out the opposite door of the library; the area that was strictly for the teachers.
I entered the library, walking down a couple of steps toward the offices, wishing my feet didn’t seem so loud. Everything was quiet. No one was in sight, except the elderly, library attendant at the circulation desk. She raised her white, bushy eyebrows at me. I held up my pass and pointed toward Sera’s office, to which she rolled her eyes. She had become accustomed to me being excused from class by Sera, and it seemed that she was becoming annoyed.
I mentally shrugged. Sera usually only got me out of the common room study hall; and really, I spent that time doing homework at a table in the library within view of Sera’s office. Speaking of which, I saw Sera’s office door, straight ahead and shut. I crept over to it almost as if I was walking on thin ice. I raised my hand to the door to knock. There it stopped, unable to complete the motion. The two parts of my brain were arguing within my head.
On the one side, what did I have to fear? I had been waiting for this moment to talk to her. After all, I had demanded answers from her this morning. And Sera was one of the most understanding and supportive people I had ever known. She wouldn’t judge me for the weirdness that happened this morning. She didn’t judge me about the weird dreams.
But she wasn’t exactly helpful either though, which was why I was feeling uncomfortable. She was more than awkward this morning and aloof when I mentioned the dream, Flora, and Summerland. And then the situation this morning, which I’m sure that guy told her, would only make the situation more awkward. Fortunately and oddly enough, I had noticed in the reflection of the windows, my cuts did, in fact, heal into deep scratches. Mr. Myles wasn’t exactly wrong when he compared them to cat scratches.
Events from the morning replayed in my head; Flora’s words, the monster on the pathway, Meredith’s voice echoed in my head, “you’re different from most people.” Sure, I was different. Most people had differences. If we were all the same, the world would be quite boring. Alright, so there were a few minor “differences” that I had noticed about myself growing up, but nothing others had picked up on, not even Sera knew. Although, most people had kept their distance from me anyway, thinking I was universally odd.
So there I was with my hand raised, ready to embrace the strangeness which surrounded me. I had demanded it this morning, anyway. And after all, I would have to go home to Sera, and I would want to talk about it. I felt sick to my stomach. To be so close to the truth and yet I was afraid of what I would find. I still stood staring at the closed door when it opened.
“So are you going to tell me what happened to your cheek?” She said nonchalantly as she saw me in the doorway.
“Are you going to finally tell me what’s going on?”
She sighed in defeat and signaled for me to enter her office. There were dark shadows under her hazel eyes that I hadn’t noticed before and her thick, long black hair was frizzy down her back to her hips, instead of the extreme straightness that she usually styled it; as if she had been running her hands through it over and over. She was beyond stressed as she shut the door and took a seat in her office chair. I plopped down across from her.
“So are you going to tell me?” I inquired, leaning back against my chair lazily.
“Tell me what happened to your cheek first." Her tone was suddenly clipped and to the point. She was using her “mom” intimidating voice on me.
“Oh, well I . . . brushed it against a branch which had thorns while I was walking,” I shrugged a shoulder and avoided Sera's eyes, lying very purposefully and unconvincingly; aware that the stranger had probably told her everything.
I looked up at her when the pause was longer than I had expected. She had narrowed her eyes at me.
“Sucks being lied to, doesn’t it?” I challenged her.
Her eyes flared with anger, and she opened her mouth to scold me, but I cut her off.
“Hey, Sera, who’s the new teacher?” I prompted, placing my feet on her desk.
She stared back at me stunned and slightly annoyed with my feet being on her desk. I had successfully deflected her anger.
“You know how I hate when you put your feet on my desk.” She gestured for me to put them back on the ground, which I did since I really was trying to diffuse her anger from my nasty retort. “And what are you talking about? What new teacher?”
"That god-like bronze man that was just in here."
She folded her hands on her desk, putting on a professional air. “I’m glad you brought him up.”
I felt queasy. "That stranger told you everything didn't he."
Sera nodded.
“It would be too easy for him to be a random good Samaritan wouldn’t?”
“Afraid so.”
“Does all this have anything to do with what’s going on?”
She sighed. “It does.”
“So are you going to tell me?”
Her forehead furrowed. “I’m trying to find a way to tell you that doesn’t make me look crazy.”
“Crazier than a man with fangs, and smelled worse than the dead mice we would find under the kitchen sink?”
Sera’s office door shut behind me and I jumped.
“Death,” a familiar male voice replied from behind me.
I glanced back at the man from earlier this morning. I had not heard the door open, but apparently, it had. "I'm sorry, what?"
“He smelled like death to you. More specifically, he smelled the way a Scelestus would. An evil being.”
The mention of death and evil made my stomach churn. “Who are you?”
“My name is Finn. I’ve been asked to help you.” He took the empty seat next to me, across from Sera, looking a little hesitant and fidgety toward me, as though he was impatiently awaiting my reaction.
I remembered Flora’s words, I have sent someone . . . “Did Flora send you?”
Sera paled at the thought of the dead communicating, but Finn’s lips quirked at the mention of Flora.
“So, she didn’t come to you in a dream?”
“She didn’t come to me at all. She found other ways. Besides, she wouldn’t have been able to come to me in a dream anyway. I do not have her bloodline to receive her.”
"In our tribe, some people could walk the realms between death and dreams," Sera started to explain.
“Summerland?” I questioned, remembering Flora’s words.
Sera nodded, “Yes, Summerland. They could only communicate with the people of our blood. These people were called Walkers. Mom saw it as a sign that dad's last name was ‘Walker.'"
A wry smile appeared on both of our faces, knowing how superstitious our mother was. She would have completely thought it was a sign that she was meant for Martin.
I took a moment to process everything before I felt the anger start to rise. This man, who had been asked to keep an “extra set of eyes on me” could have completely filled in the pieces of my life that had been missing from me for so long.
I stared at Finn. “So you are here to fill in parts of my heritage that have been missing for fifteen years. But since you knew Flora, you have known about my heritage for perhaps just as long? Maybe longer?”
Anger began to show on his face from the acerbity of my tone.
“And now, not three years ago, but now, you come into my life with the ‘you may have actually been related to Flora and Martin Walker’ speech because I can communicate with Flora in death.”
I glared in Sera’s direction, my anger moving on. “You both have been keeping things from me. Things that might have been important to me since I know nothing. Things that might have kept me from being attacked. Like today-”
“You were not told to keep you safe. To keep you hidden,” Finn reprimanded, the look on his face was akin to a father being furious with his daughter. “There are far greater dangers out there besides that monster. But now that you have been discovered, I am here to make sure you are headed in the right direction.”
“Flora had mentioned that I was hidden for a reason. You are saying that I have been discovered. What makes me so important?”
“Too much makes you important. But foremost, you are a preternatural being, unclaimed in the Mundus Noctis. That makes you a very tempting pawn for the Scelesti or the Casti.”
I held up my hands. “Okay, wait. I don’t understand any of this. Preternatural? Is that Supernatural? Mundus Noctis? And what’s a Scelesti? Casti? And what the hell does it mean to be ‘claimed’?”
“Language, Caden,” Sera admonished.
Finn ignored my cursing, as he continued, “Preternatural, meaning outside of nature and that’s what the Mundus Noctis is. A world outside of the human world that you see and are a part of. And you are a preternatural creature. Someone not precisely Supernatural, but with some Supernatural abilities and more than human.
And when preternatural beings are born, they are usually claimed by their own group: Scelesti, Latin for ‘wicked ones’; Casti, Latin for ‘the pure ones.' These children are tattooed and injected with a substance to make them aware of other preternatural and supernatural beings, as well as their abilities. Those that are preternatural and not claimed can be claimed by the Scelesti to increase their ranks of evil or claimed as an opponent in their rituals. You were unclaimed, but Flora’s magic kept you hidden until her death. When she died, you were up for grabs.”
“When was I ‘claimed’?” I exclaimed. “I think I would have noticed a tattoo.”
“It’s nice to see that your cuts are healing,” Finn pointed to my cheek, which I felt with a hand reflexively. “Did you notice anything different after you were cut?”
I deliberated over the incident. “A lot of things were different. You gave me a zing with your hands,” I accused, glaring at him.
He shrugged. "Not purposely. My magic recognized the magic in you. What else? Any noises? Smells? Did you see things?"
“I got dirt in my eye. I couldn’t see things clearly for a little. Meredith was haloed and a little glowy.”
Finn smirked, and from the corner of my eye, Sera fidgeted in her seat.
“That wasn’t dirt. That vampire must have had the serum on his nail,” Finn said more to Sera than to myself. “Caden, what you believed was dirt in your eye, actually wasn’t. Because of your preternatural ability, once claimed, that’s how you recognize other Casti.”
My heart stopped for a second. If this was true, then Meredith was a part of this strangeness. Did she know about herself? About me? About this?
“And Casti means the good side?” I questioned, cautiously, wanting to make sure that Meredith wasn’t some evil that was out to secretly recruit me.
Finn shrugged. “They are opposite of Scelesti. I suppose what the Mundus Noctis would call ‘Good.'"
“And the tattoo?” Sera demanded, her motherly side peeking through.
“It’s a little unfair, but that cross-looking cut is the tattoo.”
“What?!” Sera and I questioned at the same time.
“Well,” Finn began, running a hand through his hair, “the serum keeps the tattoo from fading, which means that although those cuts will heal, they will scar. And unfortunately, having that cross-looking scar on your cheek will visually mark you as a target for Evil, the Scelesti, since he didn’t try to recruit you.”
“No, he called me a Venatrix and then tried to take a bite out of my neck.”
“So now it’s all out in the open. I knew it would happen eventually. Mom said it would eventually. ‘Fate always catches up,' she used to say. Although, I was told to keep you safe. To keep you hidden. That it was a matter of life and death. She told me an ancient darkness was after you. ”
“Is that why we kept moving?”
Sera nodded. “Every time you told me about the nightmares where the darkness was trying to suffocate you, I worried that you had been found on the physical plane. So we moved, and the nightmares went away.”
“And this time? I told you about them and how come we didn’t move?”
Sera looked chagrined. “Joanna Weber figured it out immediately.”
“How?” I questioned, feeling like a piece of lead was just dropped into my stomach.
“She identified mom’s necklace as a Praesidis, a member of the Casti. And she told me what I needed to know. What I should do.”
“Those meetings? That was with her? Is that why you were okay with me being over there so much?”
Sera nodded.
“So what is this Venatrix thing?” I asked. “Is my special ability just that I can identify others?”
“You are a Venatrix Malorum,” Finn chimed in.
I blinked a couple of time, speechless. “Is this something I am supposed to know?”
“Literally from the Latin, a huntress of evil things,” he clarified.
It dawned on me then why that scary man had said how ironic it was after calling me “Venatrix.” Here I was supposed to be the hunter, not the prey.
“Don’t they teach Latin here?” Finn snarled.
I shrugged my shoulders. “Probably, but I haven’t taken it. What does that have to do with anything?”
Finn grumbled. “It’s not a coincidence that the Mundus Noctis, or in Latin, Night World, uses Latin. Latin and ancient Greek are the oldest languages known to men that still exist today. The Mundus Noctis has been around beyond the time of men. Who do you think humans got their language from?”
“But Latin is dead?” I scratched my head. “And no one speaks ancient Greek anymore.”
"Latin isn't dead," Finn spat. "It's immortal, and there's a reason why it is. Along with ancient Greek, which scholars still study today. The Mundus Noctis were the original users of your ancient Greek and Latin, but it’s a muddled language between the two. As men spread ou
t, they heard dialects from place to place, and eventually, the language of the Mundus Noctis was split into two in your human world: Latin and Greek. And even after Greece was conquered and Rome fell, the Mundus Noctis kept it alive."
“That’s really fascinating and all, but what does any of this have to do with me?”
“You should know these languages because you are part of Mundus Noctis,” Finn declared.
“This is insane! You guys are talking about things that shouldn’t exist. That can’t be true!” I exclaimed, feeling like I was losing my grip on reality.
“You know we are telling the truth,” Sera asserted. “You can feel it in your bones. You see it in your nightmares, honey.”
I shook my head, vehemently, before looking up at Sera and Finn. When I looked at Sera, I felt like I was looking at someone I had never met before. “Who are you people?!”
“Caden, I’m who I have always been. I have just always known that there was something special about you that I was supposed to protect,” Sera said.
“And him? Where does he fit in my new crazy world?”
“I told you, my name is Finn. And I am your guide. Guide to the supernatural.”
I felt like pulling my hair out. “What if I don’t want to be involved in all of this craziness? How do I stop being this Venatrix thing?”
Finn’s mouth drew down into a frown. “There’s nothing you could do to cleanse yourself of the supernatural being you are. Not without dying. Your mother and father tried hiding you. But the Powers-that-be on both sides felt your supernatural existence the minute you were born. They might not have known who or what, but they could feel the magic since your own conception is supernatural. Born from a Venatrix warrior. I know this sounds ridiculous. Almost unreal. But think! You know it’s true!””
“No! I’m fifteen! I’m going through teenage hormones, not taking on the supernatural! I may be experiencing some schizophrenic hallucinations, and probably need some medication, but… ”
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