by India Amare
Chapter 10
“Have you ever meditated before?” Gigi sat across from me on my bed, cross-legged, hands on her knees.
“No, but I had a doctor give me some breathing exercises once.”
“That’s a great place to start. Take some deep breaths and clear your mind. Try to relax your shoulders and close your eyes. Find your center.”
I tried to do it but everything felt wrong. I was too conscious of myself, felt too awkward.
“Okay forget everything I just said,” Gigi laughed. “Sit however you feel comfortable. Put your hands in your lap or lie down. Whatever feels natural.”
I closed my eyes and tried to picture what felt normal. Lying down seemed too vulnerable. I moved my hands to my lap and felt my shoulders finally relax. It was easier to breathe.
“There it is. Keep doing that.”
I liked this position, but after a minute I got bored and started fidgeting.
“Take a long breath in and then let it all out through your mouth,” she instructed. “Now long inhale, long exhale.”
I continued to follow her instructions, realizing I was indeed drifting away from my body, from the constant string of thoughts and anxieties.
“Now turn your inner gaze from yourself, outward.”
The room was dark and the air cool. Downstairs I heard the clink of dishes as breakfast was prepared. Then to a darkness on the edge of everything that seemed to glimmer and ripple. In my mind I reached out to touch this black blanket. A rush of power filled my veins, images I didn’t understand flipped through my mind, and the whispers I heard before returned, only now there were hundreds of them talking at once.
And they were loud.
I gasped and threw my hands over my ears. The connection instantly dropped and I sighed with relief.
“So that’s the Plane,” Gigi said. “The way you interact with it will be different than anyone else, and how you get there might be meditation, or it might be something else.”
I shook my hands because they tingled. “That was...a lot.”
“What was it like for you?”
I blinked my eyes fully open, staring at my hands. “I heard the whispers again.”
“Again?”
“When I first met you...I heard whispers whenever Dray was near. Wake up, wake up, wake up. I haven’t heard them since the Awakening.”
“Oh...anything else?”
“Lots of images. It will take me awhile to figure out what I saw. And my hands. It was like they had electricity in them.” I couldn’t stop staring at them. It was as if they weren’t mine anymore. As if they belonged to a stranger.
“Your mother’s magic is strong in you.” She wrapped her hands around mine, finally calming the tingles. “That was a good start. Let’s get some food in you.”
The kitchen was exactly what I expected with a large family all together. Bethany arranged a variety of juices and coffees, Kris was flipping pancakes on the griddle, and Bo had stacks of plates and silverware. Everyone was speaking at once and I didn’t understand how anyone heard anything at all.
“I need to apologize,” Dray said low beside me. I had no idea when he arrived.
“For what?”
He pulled me to the side and away from the commotion. “The way I introduced you to drinking...it was necessary because you needed so much but...it’s not what you’ll see today. Regular drinking is boring, mundane, chaste stuff. The complete opposite of what I showed you.”
The instinctive, mind-altering, sexual drinking? Yeah, I wouldn’t be forgetting that experience ever. “All right. I’ve adjusted my expectations.”
He smiled a little. “Let me show you.” He led me into the living room with the enormous stone fireplace. Inside it a large fire burned because even with summer approaching, the morning mountain air was chilly. Above it, the television played The Empire Strikes Back. On the enormous brown leather couch sat Cass, Bridge, Vic, and Leena buried under fluffy blankets, still in their pajamas.
All of this made for a totally normal, sweet family picture. What was totally different, however, was the fact that Bridge was taking long pulls from Cass’s wrist, Vic from Bridge’s, and Leena from Vic. Like they were eating popcorn and sipping sodas, only their version was blood.
“See what I mean?” Dray asked.
I nodded slowly as he pulled me into the hallway. “So what we did before is…” I didn’t know what I was asking. Was it normal? Was it strange?
“Is intimate,” he finished. “I didn’t expect it at first but it quickly became clear we weren’t going to be able to do anything else.” He shook his head. “How can I explain this better?” He chewed on his lip. “It’s hard to describe something that has always been what it’s always been to you, you know? Think of it like love. There are different kinds, right? Mothers and children, siblings, friends, and intimate partners. That love is different in each situation. Friends sharing secrets bonds them together. Siblings growing up together and sharing the same experiences bonds them. Lovers share the most intimate parts of themselves to bond. For us that bond also must include the sharing of our blood, and so the ways we experience that bond vary based on the type of relationship we have.”
That mostly made sense. “So if I go sit down next to Cass?”
“If you offer your wrist she’ll take a drink.”
“And I’ll feel…?”
“Warm, happy tingles through your soul. The same way you feel when a friend watches a movie with you and you’re laughing at the same parts...but more.”
I nodded a lot as I processed all of this. “So the blood component amplifies everything?”
“Yes. You’ve only experienced the most extreme situation but you can see why our ancestors may have leaned into something that made them feel so good.”
Even though I was scared, I took a seat next to Cass.
“Hey! Come to join the party? Which Star Wars is the best?” she asked.
Was this like a password to get into a clubhouse? “Empire, obviously.”
Everyone turned and glared at Vic. “See? You’re wrong.” Then Cass turned back to me. “He thinks Revenge of the Sith is a masterpiece.”
“It is!” He licked Bridge’s wrist and patted her hand. “One day you’ll see past all your warm fuzzy memories of seeing Empire in the theater and realize you’re a bunch of nostalgic saps.”
Oh god. They saw these movies in the theater. What an experience that must have been, hearing “I am your father” for the first time.
Gigi slid in next to me, filling the couch to bursting. “Come on newbie. Drink up.” She waved her wrist in front of my face.
I swallowed down my nerves and offered my wrist to Cass. “Like this?”
Cass smiled warmly. “Just like this.” Then she licked my wrist and lightly sank her teeth into my skin. It was an entirely different experience. There was no shocking sudden heat surging through my veins. I wasn’t turned on or overwhelmed. Just as Dray said, a warm tingling bubbled up inside me making me feel happy and fuzzy.
“Hello!” Gigi waved her wrist closer. “Let’s go!”
Feeling a little less nervous I took her delicate wrist, licked and bit. The warm fuzzies grew warmer and my mind became a little unfocused. I smiled up at the movie and drifted away in the clouds. When I was really lost, I licked away and let her wrist go. Cass had already released mine. I snuggled into the blankets and enjoyed the warm afterglow until Kris bellowed that breakfast was ready and to get our asses to the table.
In a room by the stairs sat an enormous dining table with platters of food lined down the middle. Everyone grabbed seats that seemed to be “theirs” so I waited to see where I fit. Bridge and Cass came in last and grabbed me, planting me in a seat between them.
“Do not be polite,” Bridge explained, “or you will starve. Family meals are survival of the fittest.”
Breakfast was chaos of the best kind. Dishes were passed around with someone occasionally lunging for the last croi
ssant or piece of bacon. Bethany sat at the head of the table smiling and sipping coffee while Vic and Bo loudly fought over football predictions, Leena, Gigi, and Aethel gossiped about someone I didn’t know, and everyone else jumped in and out of other conversations.
I mostly ate quietly and listened. It was fascinating to see them all together, happy even when teasing or disagreeing. Half were in pajamas; half were dressed for the day.
“How did it go?” Dray asked as he passed by on his way for a coffee refill.
“You explained it perfectly. I felt high, actually. Warm and fuzzy just like you said.”
“Good. Gigi said you were able to access the Plane this morning. Are you okay?”
I was actually really glad I went right from freaking out about that to the couch where all my worries disappeared. It gave me time to get some distance and process it all. “I am. It was a shock but I’m processing it.”
“Good. Your lessons today will help too.” Then he patted my shoulder and walked away, leaving me wishing he'd sit down and kiss me for the rest of the day.
But knowing that was not going to happen, I finished my breakfast and let Gigi take me to the library. It had been transformed into a makeshift classroom. A chalkboard was rolled in and stood off to the side. A large globe I didn’t remember was front and center, piles of books were stacked on a table, along with charts, maps, and some of the armor I saw from the secret basement.
“I hope you’re ready for samhain bootcamp. You have nine lecturers lined up, each with something different to teach you or show you. Buckle up buttercup, because here we go!”
Chapter 11
Gigi opened a window, letting the breeze inside. And then she was gone. Well, not gone, but she was there and then she wasn’t. A yellow butterfly flitted around me a few times. It was beautiful. A delicate shade of yellow that reminded me of Gigi’s hair.
Then the butterfly became Gigi. “See? Shifting. Sometimes I think being a butterfly is the lamest thing to shift into but it’s come in handy several times. One time I was out with friends at a bar and these two guys would not stop flirting with me no matter how many times I told them to back off. I decided to leave and you know what these numb-nuts did?”
“They followed you out.”
“Exactly! I’m lucky enough that I had a way out.” She shuddered. “Anyway, I shifted right away and watched as they whirled around trying to figure out where I went.”
“She mostly uses her ability for evil though,” Leena said. “She used to spy on us all the time. She’d even use the air vents. Evil!”
Gigi shrugged. “Making use of my resources is not evil.”
Leena turned her eyes on me. “Evil.”
“And what do you shift into?” So far I knew Gigi could become a butterfly and Bo into what she called the “traditional bat.”
I blinked and a cat appeared where Leena had been. She arched her back and stretched her front paws, then back into Leena.
“Nice. What about Dray?”
You would have thought I poured a bucket of cold water on the women the way they reacted. Finally Gigi answered. “Dray chooses not to shift. And that’s all I’m going to say about that. It’s his decision and it’s personal.”
She didn’t leave space for me to dwell or ask any more questions, moving right on to her specialty: genetics.
“Approximately 300,000 years ago we had this crucible of human evolution going on. We were nearing the end of Homo Erectus, giving rise to the Neanderthals and other variations...including what would become Samhain. While other species were either out competed or bred into what became modern humans, we survived. Keeping separate but living alongside them. Like humans, we grew and migrated around the world. That’s how and why the different houses came to have different connections to the Plane. We adapted to the places we lived and to the connection to the Plane that existed there.”
Leena bounced her eyebrows. “There’s even a group that isolated way up north and they—get this—are so sensitive to light it causes them physical pain.”
I saw why she found this fun. “They don’t go out in light, stick to the darkness, basically the source of the vampires only come out at night mythology?”
She grinned and spun to Gigi. “I like her.”
“I told you.” She continued her lesson. “It’s basically Founder Effect, but for samhain. Founder Effect is when a relatively small population is isolated together and one genetic mutation or recessive gene becomes common. Like everyone having blue eyes or the prevalence of extra fingers or toes in the Amish population. For us, it means an extra sensitivity to the Plane eventually became the predominant and characteristic feature of each house. The House of Wren’s unusual fertility may be the result of this as well.”
I glanced down at my hands, remembering the tingling sensation I felt when I tried to access the Plane. “You said my mother’s house, the House of Nala, are sort of like witches in that they can make things happen with words.”
Leena flipped through a book and laid open pages with diagrams on them. “Humans see magic as creation from nothing because they can’t access the Plane, but it isn’t creation from nothing. It’s creation from things they can’t see, feel, or hear. When someone has a sensitivity to the Plane that allows them to Form—with words or thoughts or whatever—it looks like magic.”
“I think you may have this gift,” Gigi said. “I know you just barely touched the Plane, but your description and knowing your background, there is a strong possibility you can Form from the Plane.”
This felt...right. Like it made sense somehow. Like hearing a song you’d never heard before but it explained something you always knew inside yourself.
“I think it’s good you’re taking it slow. Accessing the Plane is as normal as turning on a television when you’ve grown up feeling it around you. But going from nothing to everything would be a lot more like getting electrocuted by plugging in that same television.”
They go insane.
“Hoo, girl. What on earth are you thinking right now? Your aura just went all nasty,” Gigi said.
“Dray told me about how samhain in the House of Axl can bring back the dead.”
The women traded a look. Leena reached for me. “You won’t succumb to it. We’ll make sure of it. Besides, you’re genetically a samhain so you have a lot more going for you than a poor human who is being transformed against their will and having their DNA rewritten.”
It all sounded horrifying.
Over the course of the day Aethel taught me some tai chi, hoping it would help me learn to manage the Plane. She shared that she also had a psychic sensitivity, or Sight, but unlike Gigi, she didn’t see it in pictures, but in symbols.
Bo was really good with electrical fields and finding lost things. Kris could morph the Plane to move himself and other things using the natural flow of the Plane. Vic could manipulate the state of matter. He demonstrated this by walking out of the library through a wall of books. Bridge and Cass had the gift of Luck. They sensed good and positive things in the same way Dray could sense evil. So they were really good at finding the right people, just the right spot, the right numbers.
The last person to enter the library wasn’t Dray. It was Aunt Bethany. Dray avoided me all day. Even lunch.
“I don’t think you’re going to like me very much, unfortunately,” she said as she sat beside me on the couch. “Give me your hands.”
I did so without question. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. I felt an overwhelming urge to do the same. The next thing I knew my mind was filled with pictures. Memories of Bethany’s of my mother. I knew it was her based on the stunning red hair. She was right, it was the most beautiful shade of red. The woman I saw in my mind was young and happy. She smiled. Then a man appeared. They hugged and smiled at each other with complete happiness. He had dark hair the same shade as mine and his profile was very similar to Antyne’s.
My father.
Then those images disapp
eared and all I saw was black. It felt like I was being pushed somehow deeper, into the darkness. A rush of energy hit me again. I tried to pull away but Bethany held me firm. I had no choice but to take it this time. It hit me like a wave, and it was as if I was taken away by it, tumbling through nonexistent water.
I washed up on a glimmering beach where the sun and moon were both muted by a blue veil. The sand was more like glitter the way it sparkled beneath my feet. I took a step. It was as if the whole world tilted on its axis and I was back in the water.
The whispers returned. This time they were quieter and more distant, not overlapping quite so much. I tried to listen.
There’s a crack, a crack!
They’re here, here.
Things change. We’re changed. You changed.
He has the answers. The answers you need.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I yanked my hands free and gasped as the real world slapped me hard back to reality.
Bethany gasped too, blinking her eyes open. “Hate me?”
I assessed my body from top to bottom. My head was a little fuzzy and there was a faint headache in the background and my heart was pounding pretty hard, but I was physically okay.
“You showed me my parents?”
She nodded. “They loved each other very much. For a while, they were very, very happy.”
“Do you know who did this to me? Hid me?”
She shook her head slowly. “I don’t. I was as surprised as anyone that they had a child. I never saw your mother pregnant.”
“After the memories...that was the Plane?”
She nodded again. “Don’t be afraid of it. You’re ready. That’s why I pushed you. Sometimes that’s what we do as parents...we push the ones under us when they need it. I hope you don’t hold it against me.”
I didn’t like that she did it without asking me, but I appreciated that she cared. “Next time just ask. I’m not a child.”
“Deal.” Then she stood up. “After all that you’re probably starved. The boys should have dinner prepared.”
