by Lisa Beeson
Skylar wanted to be like them in every way. She could not hold back her excitement any longer. “You were people the whole time!” she accused in outrage, jumping out from behind Val. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
The two with the war paint smirked in amusement.
Skylar looked up at Val, brimming with vindication. “I told you they were helping me find treasures.”
Val swallowed, never taking her eye off the silver, warrior women. “Yeah... you told me,” she admitted. “Who the hell are you?” she asked the women, the familiar steely bite returning to her voice.
“My name is Badb,” the middle one said. “And these are my sisters, Anann,” she gestured to the woman on her right, “…and Macha,” she said gesturing to the one on her left.
“Sorry for the deception, little lioness,” Macha said, and Skylar preened with delight that the nickname was catching on. “But it wasn’t the right time to reveal ourselves.”
“You got the same eyes and hair as Adam,” Soren said, stepping out from behind Val.
“And Jean-Baptiste,” Skylar added.
“We are all part of the Xjaamin Order,” Anann explained.
“As Ari was in our Orders’ care,” Badb continued, “my sisters were tasked with protecting the Rileys and the people of Paradise Glades while I trained Adam and Jean-Baptiste to become Guardians.”
“So that’s where she was this whole time?” Val asked. “With your Order?”
Macha gave her a strange piercing look before answering, “After she defeated the Shades, or demons as you refer to them, she called out for help and found her way to our Garden and brought Adam and Jean-Baptiste with her.
“It was Ari that demanded Jean-Baptiste be sent to you,” Badb said. “She heard your call for help as she was regaining her memories.”
“She came into my dream,” Skylar chirped.
“Mine too,” Soren added.
“You are all very important to her. Never forget that,” Macha said.
“Now, we have mission for the three you, if you choose to accept it,” Badb said with a wink.
“I accept!” Skylar shouted with no hesitation.
“What kind of mission,” Val asked, wary. “What are you talking about?”
Anann went down to a knee in front of Soren, meeting his and the two girls’ eyes in turn. “You need to take care of each other. And have each other’s backs.”
“We will,” Skylar chirped eagerly, grabbing Val’s hand. “We’re family.”
Val squeezed her hand and didn’t let go this time, which made Skylar’s heart happy.
“Good,” Macha said. “Because we need you to make sure this place stays a refuge for those who need it. And to help make this place and its people a pinnacle of ethical advancement for a crippled and decaying world. To be the lighthouse in the storm.”
“What does ‘ethical’ mean?” Skylar asked.
“Morals, ideals, and standards,” Val explained. “But it sounds like you want us to be the Cause,” she said to the sisters.
“No,” Badb said with a steely gaze. “We want you to be everything the Cause was not. We want you to continue Diana’s legacy of being a lantern in the darkness. You also need to be the watch dogs, the ones keeping people accountable, making sure the vision stays true.” She looked at Val and Soren purposefully. “You know the horrors that can happen otherwise…”
Soren nodded solemnly, and took something from out of his pocket. He opened his hand and held it up to them. “We will do better.” He looked over at Val and she nodded too, accepting the mission.
Skylar had already accepted the mission a while ago, so she nodded absently as she inspected the coin on Soren’s palm, and then recognition clicked in her brain. “Hey, that’s Joshua’s brother’s coin! Alvaro had a vision about that.” Skylar looked back up to Macha. “So the vision was about Soren! That’s why you guys and Armand got me to follow Alvaro.”
“We just pointed you in the right direction, you did the rest,” Macha answered with a wink.
Anann closed Soren’s fingers back around the coin. “How about you take it back to Eric so he knows that it’s not lost, and you can tell your sister all about what it means and where you got it.”
Soren nodded. “Come on Skylar, I got a lot to tell you.”
“Me too,” she agreed, excited to hear what happened to her twin while they’d been separated and to tell him all that happened to her.
The two of them eagerly clasped hands and ran off to find Eric.
*****
Val made to go after them.
“Wait,” Badb said, “Hold on for a minute.”
“You just told me to look out for them,” Val said, biting back her frustration. Make up ya minds.
The three of them smirked, as if they knew what she was thinking. Creepy.
“They’ll be fine,” Badb assured her. “We were just wondering if you’d like your real eye back.”
Val scowled. “Of course I would.” But why even wonder something as stupid as that? It’s not like it could ever happen.
“But what if it could?” Badb asked in answer to Val’s internal thought, her face alight with an impish arch of her brow.
“Don’t do that,” Val warned, shaking away the memories of Blake’s mental violations. “Just stay out of my head, okay. Please.”
The three Xjaamin nodded in respectful deference, as if they understood.
“Would you mind taking off the eyepatch,” Macha said.
“And eat this,” Badb held out a small white cube like the one Jean-Baptiste had given her earlier.
“I already had one of those and it didn’t bring my eye back.”
“Trust, little porcupine,” Badb teased. “J.B. was only trying to restore you, he’ not on our healing level yet.”
Val had a hard time trusting anybody, let alone shapeshifting-warrior-chicks. But Jean-Baptiste was pretty cool, and all the Xjaamin people were supposedly on their side, so…
Val let out a resigned sigh before slipping off the eyepatch and trading it for the white cube.
As soon as the sweet deliciousness hit her tongue, Macha and Anann each put a hand on one of Badb’s shoulders. Their tattoos, eyes, and the stones on their necklaces began to glow as Badb reached out her hand and placed it on Val’s forehead. A bright light washed over her with what felt like a current of static electricity. The wave of energy encompassed her from head to toe, then settled and concentrated in her left eye socket. There was no pain, only a strange pulsing pressure. After what felt like only a moment, the pressure waned, and when the light faded, her vision cleared to its familiar panoramic scope. There was no digital strangeness, only beautiful, clear, organic sight.
Val’s hand whipped up to left eye socket, carefully touching the soft orb inside.
“Careful with that,” Badb said with a slight grimace. “I’m not making you another one.
“It’s really real?” Val asked, trying not to become hysterical. “It’s like the one I had before?”
“You have an exact matching pair again,” Badb said, tossing the robotic eye in the air and catching it in her hand. “Can I have this?” she asked, holding it up between her thumb and forefinger.
“Sure,” Val answered, slowly spinning, taking in everything with her two perfectly good eyes and smiling like an idiot. “You can throw it into the ocean for all I care.” She stopped to turn back to the Xjaamin sisters. “Thank you for… for giving me this.”
Tears spilled down her face and Val quickly wiped them away. Arrggh! I thought I was done with this!
“You deserve it,” Anann said with a significant look in her eyes.
“Now, before you go frolicking through the hills with the Sound of Music,” Badb said with a teasing grin. “There is someone who you should talk with first.”
“Who?” Val asked, unsettled by the Sound of Music reference. Was it a random joke or was she alluding to her love of musicals? You never knew with mind readers.
“You didn’t answer my question!” Val shouted after them, and they let out obnoxious caws in response.
With a sigh of frustration, Val chose to give the strange trio the benefit of the doubt. They did just give her a brand new eye and all.
Taking her time, Val decided to walk around the backside of the pond and use the moment of peace and solitude to mull everything over.
Had it really only been this morning that she’d woken up in The Facility to Conejito sitting on the desk? She had faced her father, she had faced her demons, and she had overcome. She had learned that her mother had loved her in her own way, and that she had died sacrificing her own life for someone else. She was free. Now Val was alive and safe in a place she could thrive, with people who could actually make this world a better place. Being vulnerable and trusting didn’t have to be a bad thing. She didn’t have to just survive anymore, maybe now, in this place, with these people, she could actually live. Maybe her life could have more impact than she ever thought possible.
Night descended and finally met the horizon as she made her way around the pond. Fireflies flickered through the trees as she neared where the dock extended out into the dark, placid water. The female voices she could hear belonged to Ellie and Brenna, as Ari had called her. Ellie seemed to be handing Brenna a floating spark of light that matched her own.
Val stayed out of view, hiding by a tree holding up one side of an old hammock to give them a sense of privacy.
After finishing their conversation, Ellie walked back down the dock.
Badb had said that it would be a “her” that she should talk to, but Val wasn’t sure which “her” it would be. So she walked into view as Ellie came closer, eliciting a small squeak of surprise in response.
“Oh, Val, it’s you,” Ellie said with a chuckle of relief. She held up her spark higher to get a better look at Val. “Oh my god, your eye’s back!”
Val nodded, ducking her head self-consciously.
“How did that happen?”
“A trio of Xjaamin women just did it a moment ago,” Val said, pointing over to the other side of pond.
Ellie’s mouth fell open. “You mean there’s more of them?”
“Apparently,” Val said with a shrug.
“And they’re girls?”
Val nodded.
“Are they still around?” Ellie asked, looking back towards the farmhouse.
“I don’t know. They sort of turned into a bunch of crows and flew off.”
“Well, that’s… bizarre,” Ellie said, not quite knowing how to react to that, “But pretty par for the course for this bunch, huh?” Her eyes went back to Val’s and her face broke into a genuine smile. “Well, the eye looks great. I’m glad you got it back.”
Val nodded and gave an awkward half-grin in response, unsure how to take the compliment without feeling weird.
“Um, thanks.”
“Here,” Ellie said, coming closer and producing another spark in her hand. She held it out to Val. “Take it. I’m giving them out to everyone.”
Val cautiously put her hands around the spark of light and was surprised to see that it stayed when Ellie took her hand away. It wasn’t warm, like she’d expected. In fact, it gave off no heat. She felt only a little static field around it, like the light the Xjaamin had used on her. “Wow, that’s so cool,” Val said under her breath.
Ellie’s face spread into another happy smile, but it quickly faded as remorse filled her eyes. “Val, I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Val kept her eyes on the spark, passing it from one hand to the other. It was like having her own little Tinker Bell.
“…For not being a better friend. Maybe I could hav-”
“Don’t worry about it,” Val said, cutting off her misplaced sense of guilt with a dismissive shrug. “I wouldn’t have let you anyway.”
“But I should have tried.” She bit her lip with a grimace of guilt.
Val could see Ellie struggle with her need to give Val a hug while trying to respect Val’s boundaries. She knew Val well enough to expect rejection at any show of affection, but she also needed some kind of outlet for her need to comfort with physical touch.
Appreciating her consideration and restraint, Val reached out and gave Ellie’s shoulder quick squeeze as a compromise. “Like I said, don’t sweat it. What’s past is past. We’re good now.”
Ellie’s smile returned. “Good,” she said fighting the urge to bounce in place with happiness and relief. She looked over her shoulder to where Brenna still sat at the edge of the dock, playing with her own spark of light. “She’s been asking about you.”
“Me?” Val asked, wondering how Brenna even knew about her.
Ellie nodded.
Val looked back over to the girl, curious and fighting her knee jerk reaction to say something negative, to find a flaw before the girl found one in her. It was too easy to fall back into old patterns.
“You should get to know her,” Ellie suggested. “She’s nice.” She gave Val a quick, friendly pat on the arm. “If you get hungry come back up to the farmhouse, there’s plenty of food.”
Val nodded absently, not really in the mood to eat after stuffing herself earlier. Ellie bounced off into the night, looking for others to give sparks of light.
Val turned back to the water and swallowed with a suddenly swollen throat, forcing herself to move towards the dock. Chatting amicably with strangers was definitely not her forte. But this girl had been one of Diana’s friends. She had been a prisoner in the same hell Val had been. This had to be the “her” she was supposed to talk to.
The old boards creaked in protest as she stepped onto the dock, moving slowly towards the stranger playing with a spark of light. The brilliant glow illuminated her pale face. A face that had not seen the light of day for weeks, yet still held a youthful beauty. She was older than Val was, but not by much. She was Marin’s sister yet Val knew nothing about her.
The creaking of the boards drew Brenna’s attention, and her eyes widened when she looked back over her shoulder. “Val?”
Val tried to cover the hitch of surprise in her step at the instant recognition. “How do you know me?”
Brenna smiled. “Diana would talk about you all the time. And the hair kind of tipped me off.”
The hand that wasn’t holding the spark went up to self-consciously rub the stubble on her head. “Right.”
Brenna scooted over to lean against the piling at the end of the dock, letting her bare left foot swing as it skimmed across the water. Her face turned thoughtful as she brought her arm around herself. “Val I-” she began, struggling for the right words. “Your mother saved my life today… ‘thank you’ and ‘I’m sorry’ don’t seem to be the appropriate thing to say but, I… I feel horrible that you had to lose her in order for me to live. But I’m thankful to be alive, and I’ll be forever grateful to your mother.”
Val sat down to lean against the other piling, crossing her legs and facing the girl who her mother had sacrificed her life for, the one she had seen in the vision that had kept her going for so many years.
“It’s okay,” she said, unable to meet the raw emotion in Brenna’s eyes. “I understand. She’s free now. We all are.”
Brenna nodded and a tear escaped as she closed her eyes.
“When did Diana talk to you about me?” Val asked after the silence between them had stretched beyond enduring.
A ghost of a smile crossed Brenna’s face as she thought back. “We shared a room when we lived at the compound in New Mexico. Jonah and I were still kids when they brought us there after our parents died. Marin was only there on holidays while they were putting her through co
llege. They were covering the bills and expenses so she could finish her teaching degree, while simultaneously putting us in their debt. They bunked Jonah with the boys and put me with the girls. I was only nine. I was young, scared, and lonely, especially at night. So Diana would try to cheer me up by telling me about this little seven-year-old girl that she watched remotely, who was the bravest person she had ever known. She said that the girl was so young and so little, but she never let anyone push her around. And no matter how bad things got, little Val never let it break her down, she never let the goodness in her heart fade. She only got stronger, more adaptive, and fiercer.” Her eyes rose to meet Val’s, a shy smile lifting the corner of her mouth. “Even though you were younger than me, I wanted to be like you. Your example gave me the courage to swallow my fear and fight back for what was right.
“When we were brought to The Facility, when they isolated and imprisoned us… I kept myself from caving to them by thinking of what you would do. I told myself that Val would never give in to these evil pricks. She’d probably curse them out and give them the finger if they even tried to break her.”
“Accurate,” Val mumbled with a huff of laughter, trying to mask her uneasiness. She was used to being the black sheep, the bad example, never someone’s hero. It was a strange feeling.
“Knew it,” Brenna said with a light chuckle. Then her face fell. “When Diana said that they had brought you to The Facility… and told us everything they were doing to you… I nearly broke. They weren’t torturing us like they were you. They only put us down there to break our ‘rebellious spirits’, and keep us out of the way so we wouldn’t ‘hinder the progress of the Cause’. But what Schweinhardt did to you… it was just evil. I begged Diana to keep me updated.”
“She visited you guys too?” Val asked in a shocked whisper.
