Tangled Minds (Society of Exalted Minds Book 1)

by A. M. Mahler

  I nodded. She stood up and leaned over me, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “Get some sleep. Let me know if you or Olivia need anything.”

  Willow closed the curtain behind her. After hearing the toilet flush, I heard her climb up into her bunk, the mattress and wood creaking as she settled in. That had become a familiar sound of our tiny home.

  Willow’s visions seemed sort of erratic. Some things she saw off in the distant future and others she saw minutes before they came to fruition. I wondered if there was some way that we could hone in on them. Miles seemed to be working on that with her. He was kind and gentle when he’d coaxed the vision of Pippa out of her.

  I already knew Miles had the hots for my sister, but he was also resolved to go slow and give them another year to get to know each other. He seemed to think he could make it, but I wasn’t so sure, though I appreciated his attempt.

  I switched the light overhead off and cranked the window behind us open. All without moving as I continued to lay with Olivia splayed across me. After adjusting our position so my head was on a pillow, I pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I love you, Supergirl,” I whispered. “Take your time. I’ll be here.”

  Hooking my hand behind my head, I looked up at the ceiling. My thoughts were going a mile a minute. What we’d learned tonight was horrifying. All Livvy’s life, she had thought Jeremiah was her grandfather. She knew that he’d changed her name when her parents died, but to think the man that raised her might have had a hand in her parents’ death ... I drew her closer when I thought about it. At any time, he could have killed her, and I never would have known what happened because I didn’t know who she was.

  Jeremiah had given me his power. I believed that whatever his reasons for taking off with Livvy, he’d grown to love her and wanted her protected from the Order. Since he’d contacted the Society and came up with this elaborate plan to get her back there, his concern was genuine. What his original intentions were and what had changed his mind would probably always be a mystery.

  My current theory was that when Jeremiah contacted the Society, they’d told him about these others, and that was why Pippa was sent to meet us. Except that theory was flawed because how would they have known about Miles and whoever we were supposed to meet in New York?

  Unless, of course, Miles wasn’t who he said he was, but I don’t think he could have hidden that from us. Not with two telepaths and an oracle.

  At some point, we had to start trusting people and hope it didn’t bite us in the ass later. At the very least, we had a lot to learn about the world we were born into and the war being fought within it.

  It was quiet inside our little home. Outside the crickets’ lulled me into relaxation. There was a chill in the end of summer air. It would be nothing compared to the weather in Maine. Willow had the foresight to grab our winter coats, but we’d need to buy more cold weather clothing. Livvy didn’t have a winter coat and we’d all need boots. We had so little storage in the RV. Maybe we could put something on top of Miles’ Jeep to store more.

  The summer had flown by. Olivia and I should have started college already. Willow should have been entering her senior year of high school. The life we’d run away from seemed like it was years ago instead of a mere season. All the things that were so important to me back in May, were ridiculously insignificant now. Hanging out with the right friends, dressing the right way, liking the right things—all of it was bullshit. Just someone else’s contrived idea about what life should be like for people our age.

  Olivia and I were eighteen years old and had no job prospects. Not that we needed them. My trust money would keep us set up for the rest of our lives, but what would we do with our time? Would we want to live in Maine? I felt like the answer would be yes. There was safety in numbers and all of that. Only Willow didn’t have access to her trust fund. Bringing her with us had been a last-minute decision. That made me responsible for her well-being. It was fine. I could handle that until she made a plan and wanted to be independent of us. I continued to remind myself that not only was I here to protect her, but to give her the space she needed to grow.

  I held Livvy close all night. I drifted off here and there, but I knew real sleep wouldn’t come tonight. Not when she was vulnerable, not when she needed to be protected, and not when she counted on me the most.

  Olivia

  I don’t know what finally brought me out of my state of suspended animation, but I slowly came to sometime around dawn. I could see the sun peeking through the canopy above. Birds were chirping their morning song. The RV was a little cold from the early September chill. Jagger lay beneath me, one hand in my hair and the other on my arm. My eyes were heavy. My body was heavy. My heart was heavy. Even my mind was heavy. I lay there all night trapped in a vacant room in my brain with no doors or windows. I knew what was going on around me, but I was a prisoner in my own psyche. What I’d heard about my grandfather—or whoever he was—was too impossible to comprehend. I was in a constant state of disbelief.

  I refused to believe he was evil. Maybe he wasn’t playing for the right team, but I don’t think anyone could fake the feelings I knew he’d had for me. Maybe I didn’t know who he really was, whether or not he had a hand in killing my parents or what his original intentions for me were, but he’d raised me with love. He had protected me all our lives. He never told me from whom, but now that I knew, I could see why he’d kept it to himself. I would have been terrified if I knew of these two organizations. Not that I excused his decisions, just that I understood why he had made them. And in understanding, I hoped it would help me forgive him.

  I’d always thought it was the government chasing after us to study our brains in some sort of lab and that we were to be prisoners. I never dreamed there were two warring factions of, well, I didn’t know what. Were they all telepaths or did they have other talents, too? Were their powers all mind-based abilities? I knew then that the answers to our questions were in Maine—whether or not we stayed there remained to be seen. After all, the Society was just who had got to us first. It could very well have been that they were the bad ones and the Order was good. Either way, going to Maine had to be our next step.

  My body ached from laying in one position for so many hours. I needed to get up and stretch, answer the call of my bladder, and rummage up something to eat. Also, I really needed a big mug of caffeine. Unfortunately, we only had regular sized mugs. I would need a couple cups to shake me out of my brain fog.

  As soon as I moved barely an inch, Jagger’s eyes flung open and were on me.

  “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

  I am. Sorry, I melted down. I need to get up. You get some sleep. I’m fine. We can talk later. He looked skeptical, but he had heavy bags under his blood shot eyes. He hadn’t slept at all overnight and it was my fault.

  “I’ll get up, too. I don’t want you to have to face Madame Mysterious by yourself.”

  My hero. Seriously, please get some rest. You did your job and watched over me all night. Now I’ll return the favor. I may not even go outside, but if I do, I’ll stay on our site.

  I didn’t have to read his thoughts to see that he was having an inner battle. I gave him a quick morning peck on the cheek and pushed off the bed, leaving him to his decision making. When I got out of the bathroom, he was snoring.

  I gave a little laugh. He was amazing, and I wouldn’t have gotten through any of this without him. All my life he had been there supporting me, holding me up, even when he had no idea who I really was or what any of this could be. He was terrified when I did my wax statue impression, but he gave me exactly what I needed. Time to process, though I really didn’t know if I had accomplished any of that. Willow was still sleeping in her bunk, arms flung over her head, and a mask over her eyes. Me, I was afraid of the dark and would never wear one of those things to bed. The last thing I ever wanted to be was blind, even though I did have an extra sense to use if that situation ever presented itself.

  In my wildest imagin
ings, I didn’t think of anything close to these two warring entities hunting me. Admittedly, there were long stretches of time when I thought my grandfather—sorry, Jeremiah, it was important I started thinking of him as someone not related to me—had been making everything up. If it wasn’t for my extra abilities, I would have assumed that he was deranged or lived in some delusional world.

  As quietly as I could, I took a teabag out of my little tin, filled my mug with water, and set it in the microwave to heat up. I missed my kettle at home, but there just wasn’t space in this little kitchen to hold such a bulky item. I never thought I’d see the day when owning a proper tea kettle would be considered a luxury. I made a vow to myself then and there that once we settled down someplace, wherever that may be, I was buying myself a proper tea kettle. That and I was buying good tea. No more pre-made store bought bags.

  Pulling the microwave door open before the timer went off, I silently closed it and discarded the bag after dunking it a few times to move around the water and blend in any hot spots—a downfall of microwaving tea.

  Burrowing down into the bench at the small dinette, I took that first heavenly sip, closed my eyes in thankfulness, and opened the blinds of the little window I now sat next to. Miles was outside starting a fire. He was an early riser. Given the chance, Jagger, Willow, and I would sleep until at least noon. It was rare that we allowed that to happen though. Our sleep schedule was thrown off by the constant threat of capture.

  I frowned as Pippa suddenly appeared behind Miles. It was like I blinked, and she was there where nobody had stood a second ago. Sensing her, he turned around and jumped, clutching at his chest. She smiled in return. He didn’t look amused.

  I, however, was curious. I rose from my seat and tip toed into the bedroom, grabbing a sweatshirt of Jagger’s that was laying on the end of the bed. It happened to be his Alpine Valley Football one. I smiled to myself, thinking of what it would have been like to wear this particular sweatshirt while walking down the halls of the school holding his hand.

  There definitely would have been a riot among the girls.

  Even if we stayed, I knew I never would have worn this to school. That would have put added attention on me, and I had perfected being a wallflower. My wanting to blend in didn’t change when Jagger insisted on going public in school.

  Taking a deep, cleansing breath, I stepped out into the crisp autumn morning. Miles and Pippa looked up at the same time.

  “She came out of freaking nowhere,” Miles said, gesturing behind him where Pippa still stood. “Did you see?”

  “I did,” I settled down into a camp chair, pulling my legs up and under Jagger’s sweatshirt to stay warm. Holding the mug with both hands, I set it on top of my knees. “I’m curious how you weren’t there, I blinked, and suddenly you were. Is that one of your abilities you won’t explain?”

  Cocking her head to the side, Pippa smiled demurely. “You look much better than you did yesterday.” She was deflecting. I could let her for now. I wanted an answer to my question, but I could wait.

  “Well, I don’t feel much better,” I answered honestly before taking a sip of my tea. Miles’ fire was just starting to catch, and the soothing sound of the snapping wood became a background soundtrack. Pulling up a chair next to me, Miles sat down.

  “The big guy is still sleeping, so I’ll be by your side.” He nodded to me, and I smiled tiredly back. I wished I were sleeping, but that didn’t appear to be in the cards for me this morning. Miles was sweet, and although it took him a few weeks to really feel comfortable with us, he fit right in now almost like he had always been there. I should clarify, he had felt comfortable with Willow since day one. It was Jagger and me that he had to warm up to. It was hard to think of anyone not instantly liking Jagger. He was such an affable guy. At least he used to be. Now though, he was always on guard.

  I wanted my happy-go-lucky guy back. Maybe we could relax and let our guard down in Maine.

  “Tell me more about the Society,” I said, taking another sip of tea.

  “Without the others?” She furrowed her brow.

  “We’ll fill them in,” I said. “I think I deserve to know. After all, I’m supposedly a council member with at least one living relative whom I knew nothing about.” Nor did I even know what being a council member meant or entailed.

  Pippa took one of the empty chairs on the other side of the firepit and sipped at her coffee mug. The flames reached about three feet high and her image flicked in between them. I didn’t know how old she was, but she couldn’t have been much older than we were. Dressed in baggy sweatpants and a hoodie, her blonde hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun. Although where I wore chunky socks to keep my feet warm, hers were bare in a pair of black flip flops. Miles leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, ready to listen to what she had to say.

  “The Society of Exalted Minds dates back hundreds of years. Our first records were in the twelfth century in Ireland. The members branched out to various countries in Europe—always in secret. Eventually, they came to the colonies with the Puritans and based themselves in Salem, Massachusetts. I’m sure you have an idea of what happened to a few of our kind there.”

  The Salem Witch Trials. Even if I didn’t remember the particulars, they were an iconic event in American history. It was a leading example of what happened when mass hysteria kicked in.

  “Our kind?” Miles asked, sitting back up. “Telepaths? What is our kind?”

  Pippa turned her head giving him the long stare I was beginning to associate with her. “Witches,” she said nonchalantly as if we should have known. “Telepathy is a form of witchcraft.”

  Miles burst out in laughter. Shaking his head, he stood up. “This chick is something, all right.” He looked to me, but I wasn’t laughing. At this point, anything would make sense and I wanted to hear her out. “Don’t tell me you believe this shit?”

  I don’t know what I believe right now. But I know we have a lot to learn. I want to hear everything she has to say. We need all the information we can get. You are free to think and feel what you want—go where you want if you don’t trust this. We’re stronger with you, but we’d never force you into anything you were against. You didn’t have any more answers than we did when we met. It doesn’t hurt to hear her out.

  “I can’t believe this crap.” He tossed a hand up in dismissal and did a one-eighty turn, now facing the RV. Willow’s face floated in his mind and his sharp disbelief softened. He resolved to stay for her. He loved her, and he knew her path was with her brother. He would go where she went to protect her.

  It was sweet, really. Willow and I were lucky to have these guys. These boys that were growing into men right before us. They were skipping right over their wild college years, knowing that life would never be for them. It broke my heart and filled it up at the same time.

  Miles sat back down. Linking his fingers, he set his hands in his lap. Then he broke them apart, ran a hand down his face, and relinked his hands. “Okay,” he said. “I’m sorry for interrupting. Please continue.”

  Pippa looked like nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. As if she didn’t tell us we were witches and Miles didn’t just have an outburst of denial. She was a cool cat, this ... witch.

  “Olivia, I don’t know if Jeremiah ever told you your birth name.”

  “I know he changed our names after my parents died. He didn’t hide it, I don’t know what my last name was, but I know my first name was Sarah. He never told me what his was, and I never had a reason to ask him.” It was a relief to hear that some of the things Jeremiah told me were corroborated. It was comforting to think that whoever he was he cared for me. Maybe I hadn’t spent my entire life in real danger of death or abduction at any second by the very person I depended on to protect me, shelter me, see to all my needs growing up.

  “You’re a descendant of Martha Corey, a member of the Salem Church who was accused of being a witch. It was the accusation against her that starte
d the hysteria. You were born Sarah Corey.” I rolled the name around in my head. It didn’t fit me. Olivia Miller was the only name I remembered. It was my legal name now, and I would stick with it.

  “Jeremiah Miller,” Pippa continued. “Was named Justin Mather. The Mathers were more scientific in their thinking. His direct descendant, Cotton Mather was a respected minister, and he beseeched the magistrates not to rely on spectral evidence. He urged them not to consider things like dreams and visions. They couldn’t be proven. As a result, many of the accused were released. Cotton, and his father, Increase, saved many lives.”

  I smiled when I learned that. That sounded like the Jeremiah I knew. He had been a scientist. Maybe he didn’t believe in the witchcraft aspect of telepathy, but just like his ancestor, he had worked to protect me. This discovery meant everything in the world to me.

  “There’s a lot of history you need to learn, obviously, but I’m sure you’re most interested in the highlights.”

  The door to the RV opened then and Jagger stumbled out, pulling on a long-sleeved Henley and shoving a hat on his head. I had heard him stir, but I hoped he would go back to sleep.

  “You weren’t going to tell me there was an extremely important conversation happening out here? What the hell, Livvy?”

  Arching a brow, I took in his adorably disheveled appearance and forgave the crankiness. He only got about half an hour of decent sleep.

  I was going to fill you in when you woke up. I wanted you to rest.

  He walked over and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Sorry for being an asshole. Let me get some coffee going. I can’t imagine Miles is all that friendly yet either.”

  “I’m not.”

  He’s not.