“Yeah… I know.”
“You do? Has someone tried to come after you, Elijah?”
“Well… sort of. Last night, in the park… A girl in black. Her eyes glowed like mine, but they were red. She could control the trees, too.”
Joni cringed. “Red magic—that’s what Messalina used against my family. Her eyes glowed red, too.”
“The girl in black, do you think it’s her? Messalina, I mean?”
“Couldn’t be her. But it might be someone like her. Someone who wields maleficium.”
“Male… what?”
“Maleficium. Magic itself, you see, is neither good nor evil. It just is. But used in certain ways, it can be very dark. Dangerous. Red magic, it’s called maleficium.”
A chill shuddered down my spine. “And should I be worried about that?”
“I don’t know. I’ve really only seen a very little aside from Voodoo. Witch doctoring, mostly. But if you can learn to handle your abilities, Elijah… I really don’t think anyone could challenge you.”
I noticed Joni’s toes gently grazing my skin beneath the table. Her flirtation wasn’t at all unwelcome, I just wasn’t sure what to make of it. Was she really interested in me, or just in my odd Druid-like abilities? Did it even matter? She had information and experience that I needed. And if she really was interested in me… for me… would I ever be able to reciprocate those feelings? Something to worry about later. Questions I was too distracted from seriously considering on account of her foot gradually sliding up my leg. I simply stayed still until it passed my knee to my inner thigh.
I quickly jumped from the table. I said the first thing that came to my mind. “I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of this already. One second, I have something in the car to show you.” I grabbed the inhibitor necklace and replaced it on my neck. In my mild state of… arousal… I didn’t want to accidentally turn Joni’s well-manicured lawn into a rain forest.
Joni nodded as I stepped out of the room and went to my car. A few moments later, I returned with the metal case and stone I had received earlier. Was it wise to show this to Joni? No clue. But until I knew what the stone was, I wouldn’t know what was wise or unwise. It was probably nothing, I figured. Some kind of heirloom. But it was a good excuse to break the awkwardness of the moment. It might also be something important.
When I opened the case and showed Joni, she let out a subtle gasp.
“Elijah, do you know what this is?”
“No… I was hoping you might…”
“Definitely Druidic in origin. Now we know for sure. Where did you get this?”
“My father. He left it for me in his will.”
“She traced the strange symbol with her finger. “This symbol is very similar to the sigil for the order of Druids, Bards, and Ovates today. But this is older. I’ve only seen this exact sigil once. It was attributed to Merlin himself.”
“What does it mean?”
“I don’t know. It’s said that ancient Druids were averse to writing. Druids could decipher the will and intent behind one’s written words…”
I immediately though of my midterm exam. It fit. Brilliantly. “Yeah, I think we can…”
“You can do that now, too? You can hear the will invested in people’s words?”
“Not everyone’s. Just during my midterm exam the other day. I could swear I heard Ms. McDowell’s voice as I read the questions. It kinda creeped me out.”
Joni nodded, biting her lip for a moment before continuing. “So this stone, then… The ancient Druids, having discovered that stones could store great quantities of magical energy, sort of like I use salt, devised a way of communicating without written words. They learned to channel their will into certain kinds of stones. If the spell is done right, the message within the stone could only be extracted by its intended recipient.”
“You think my dad left me a message?”
Joni shrugged. “That’s my best guess.”
“Any clue how it works?”
“None at all. But I would wager so long as you wear the inhibitor, you’ll have a hard time with it. I don’t know much. No one knows much about Druids. And what your father left… it was probably personal. Not for my ears, hon. At least, not unless you choose to share it. Wait until you have some time alone, undisturbed. Remove the necklace and try to focus. Focus deep inside your will. If this is a Druid’s stone, it will speak to you eventually. It’ll be something that happens naturally, like having a conversation. It will happen more by instinct than intention…”
I laughed. “Maybe you should just throw it at my face.”
She smirked. “If that’s what it takes.”
I returned a smile and stood to leave. Joni stepped up and grabbed my hands. Her eyes focused on mine.
“Thank you,” I told her. “I don’t know what I’d be doing right now without you. I just hope I can figure out how this all works… How to control it.”
“We will figure it out,” Joni said as she stared straight into my eyes. “I promise.”
We…she said we. Her hand tightened on mine. Our eyes connected. She raised herself up by her toes slowly as her face drew closer to mine. Did I want this? Only one way to know… Our lips met. It began softly and sweetly. Then it grew more passionate. A sensation of electricity passed between our lips. Everything I was holding in—my fear, my anxiety, my excitement—was released into this single, unrestrained embrace. I took her in my arms as her fingers tangled into my hair. Yes. I wanted this. All doubt went out the window. Resistance… is… futile (leave it to me to recall a Star Trek reference in a moment like this). Her breasts pressed against me. I longed to reach for them. But this was a first kiss. Slow down, boy. Somehow I managed to gather my urges as our kiss slowed and our lips separated.
“Wow,” Joni said with a deep exhale as our eyes still held one another’s in a lovers’ stare.
“Wow is right,” I agreed.
“Happy birthday, darlin’.” She gave me a wink and placed one more soft kiss upon my lips.
“A birthday I’ll never forget, that’s for sure.”
She blushed a little. I’m sure I was blushing, too. We said our goodbyes for the night and I headed for the car. My father’s sigil stone was tucked under my arm.
My thoughts drifted to Emilie. To Tyler. Could our trio become a quaternary? Would there be room for Joni? Better question… would there be room for Joni and me? An item. Mixed in with all the history… all the feelings. All I knew was I needed them all. Tyler and Emilie were my bedrock. I couldn’t stand facing this without them. But Joni had me under some kind of spell—metaphorically speaking (I hoped). I liked her. Could I really fall for her? I didn’t know. Too soon to tell. Either way, I needed Joni in more ways than one. And I couldn’t deny it. That kiss was incredible.
6. Ancestral Memory
THE REMAINDER OF my birthday was hearteningly predictable. My favorite meal—homemade mac ‘n’ cheese topped with potato chips—was followed by chocolate cake. Each member of the Harley family sang “Happy Birthday” in their own, personal key. Lois’s voice was particularly piercing. And Gene’s idea of singing was to try and throw his voice as low as possible. The result was a cacophonous but somehow endearing serenade. I extinguished all eighteen candles with a breath and a half. I held back on the first one, afraid I might inadvertently germinate the wheat-flour within.
Birthdays were always intimate affairs with the Harleys. As a twin, my childhood birthdays were always shared with my sister, Lily. My parents were sure to go above and beyond the call of their normal parental birthday duties to ensure our celebrations were obnoxiously excessive. Celebrating for two meant double the extravagance. It was fun. But there was something special about these intimate family birthday celebrations that the Harleys threw together. It was less about the party and all about the people. As a kid, of course, I thought they were just lame penny pinchers who didn’t understand a good time. As I matured (if you could call my current state of mind a
nything that approximates maturity) I’d come to appreciate it more.
It was an eventful day. The predictable and intimate celebration to round it off, however, gave me a sense of peace as I settled into my room for the night. Still, I couldn’t take my eyes off the sigil stone which I had removed from its case and now sat beside my bed. Would it speak to me, like Joni thought? Would it communicate a memory, a message, some last words that might enlighten me to my “Druidic” origins? I tried to focus. I tried to ask it to speak. No response.
I’d normally call Emilie at this time, and we’d rehearse the last few hours of our day. I’d tell her of our little celebration, and she’d tell me about all the things she had to do in order to cope with her mother’s drunkenness. For the moment, though, I simply sat cross-legged on my bed as I grabbed my phone and the stone, placing each in front of me. I reached out one last time to trace each of the three beams embossed upon the stone. They were smooth to the touch, slightly warmer than the stone’s rough, though weathered, surface. My mind began to wander. At some point, my mother and father had held this stone. They had a purpose for it. They knew it meant something. They knew something about me, too. They knew I was something more—maybe a Druid, if Joni was right—and they longed to tell me about it someday. I let my eyelids gently narrow and finally close as I carried myself into a fantasy. I envisioned my birthday. The birthday that would have been had they never died. I saw Mom and Dad as Lily and I were celebrated together for having successfully navigated the hazards of adolescence. The day would not have been as chaotic. They would have prepared me for these changes. They surely would have known what it all was, and what it would mean. Things would make sense.
Then I opened my eyes. Nothing. Though I hadn’t turned off my bedroom lights, the pitch-black darkness I beheld was so impenetrable I couldn’t even see my hand as I brought it to within an inch of my face. Suddenly, a blinding flash of light violently dispelled the darkness. I instinctively tried to blink, but my eyelids wouldn’t respond. The bright, white light struck my eyes and, as if refracted through a prism, began to divide into its constituent colors. Roy G. Biv.
The rainbow swirled as the colors alternately faded and became still more radiant. It was as though the colors were being guided by an intelligence, an artist. It was a visual symphony. A masterpiece too beautiful to put into words. The colored lights coalesced into what began to take the shape of a human face. A face within a frame. As the image crystalized, the frame was clearly a mirror. The face, though, was not my own.
As the man’s features became more defined, I gasped, startled by who I saw looking back at me. Salt-and-pepper hair receded back to the crown of his head. His kind brown eyes sat relaxed beneath a distinctively arched, bushy brow. A subtle jawline was accentuated by a neatly trimmed beard. The nose, the mouth, and the rest were all familiar… too familiar.
It was my father’s face.
I also recognized the room behind his reflection. It was my parents’ old bathroom, adjoined to their master bedroom. I thought I had forgotten what the room looked like, but the brassy blue-and-gold floral pattern wallpaper flanking each side of my father’s reflection was unmistakable.
I was overwhelmed by a wave of competing emotions. Disbelief. Shock. Love for the face staring back at me. A tear fell from his eye. I had never seen my father cry. I tried to reach for the sink to splash water into my... my father’s face, but I could elicit no voluntary movement from my… his body.
As he looked into the mirror, his eyes were more focused, more determined, than someone who might simply be checking to see if a hair was out of place. He was looking beyond his reflection, peering into an image in his mind’s eye.
He was looking at me.
He wiped the tear from his eye and drew a long, agonizing breath into his lungs. As he turned his gaze toward the door, my own view shifted with his glance. I noticed a wet towel pressed into the gap at the bottom of the closed door. Then I noticed the smell. I experienced all his senses as if they were my own. The odor was strong and unmistakable. It was smoke. This was the fire… the one that had taken him—all of them—from me.
My vision, and his, returned to the mirror. He began to speak. “Elijah… my son.” His voice was shaky, but urgent. His normally steady, confident tone was now broken and rattled.
I tried to cry out to him. I tried to shout, “Dad!” but I could neither speak, nor could he hear my cries.
“If you are seeing this, then I didn’t make it. I am so sorry. I wish I could have been there for you. But there is hope, son. You are the only hope. I wish you didn’t have to bear this burden. It isn’t fair. I wish I had more time to explain.”
He lifted an object into sight. The stone. The very same stone I was holding, with the same distinct symbols embossed upon it. “I have invested this stone with visions. Memories. Memories you will find hard to believe were my own. I assure you, son, they are all real. You can trust what I will show you. If you were able to access this memory, then you have the gift as your mother and I were convinced you might. It has also been six years since this memory you now see occurred. I have arranged for this memory stone to come into your possession on your eighteenth birthday. Guard the stone carefully. I hoped to be able to tell you more, but the memories I have already invested into the stone are fragile. They will explain everything… the changes you are experiencing, where we, your family, have come from… who we are, and what you need to do. Again, trust these memories. The visions I prepared are more… elaborate… than this one. I have tried to anticipate questions you may have. My will, my entire memory, is contained within the crystalline interior of this stone…”
Again, he raised the stone into view. “Ask, and I will answer… if I can.” A smile forced its way onto his otherwise serious and desperate demeanor. “Yes, I stole this idea from Superman. Sorry I couldn’t leave you a fortress for your solitude.”
I tried to laugh… I would have, if I could…
“I love you, son. Never forget that. I love you. Even more importantly, I believe in you.” He winked at me in his reflection.
I had almost forgotten how he used to wink at me. In spite of all this… weirdness, the wink was comforting. Something I understood. Something I trusted. I would trust my dad with my life—as he had apparently entrusted me with this… and the risk which ultimately cost his own life.
As he held the sigil stone in plain view of the mirror’s image, I felt a familiar tingle across my—his—brow. Not as intense as the sensation I had experienced before, but the same sort of tingle.
My father’s eyes began to glow, a brilliant green emanating from his irises. The green light was channeled somehow into his palm, and settled into and was absorbed by the sigil stone. As the last bit of orange radiance disappeared into the stone, my vision went black.
This wasn’t merely darkness. It was nothingness. A void. I sensed nothing. I felt nothing. Only my mind was active. It was both a disconcerting feeling, but a peaceful one at the same time. Before I could decide on one feeling or the other, however, the darkness was interrupted by a flash of light. It was like when you’ve been sleeping and someone turns on the light suddenly—but even more jarring. As before, the light refracted into its constituent colors.
Shapes and images began to form around me. I was standing in the middle of a field. Green grasses were growing wildly all around, stirring haphazardly with the breeze. I tried to turn my head to survey my surroundings. This time, my body responded to my intentions. I lifted my right hand, touching my face. It was my face. My hands. I reached toward the tall grasses, still dancing around my shins with the shifting winds. I felt a sort of resistance as my hand passed through the blades of grass, but I was unable to really feel the grass, grab it, or pull it. I was some sort of specter—here, but not really. I was able to perceive the world around me, even feel it, but not affect it or engage it in any way.
A large, weathered boulder nearly my height stood in the distance. I went to it. I
touched it. I hesitantly leaned against it, and it pressed back against my body—if I really had a body here at all—as I would expect it to under usual circumstances. Of course, nothing about this came close to approximating normalcy.
The air was clean. Pure. A subtle scent of pollen brought me to the verge of a sneeze, but I was able to fight it off. That is, until I noticed the bright, rising sun on the horizon.
Ah-choo! Ah-choo!
The sun always makes me sneeze. Always twice. It’s weird; I can’t explain it.
“God bless you,” my father’s familiar voice echoed… from somewhere.
I looked all around, but he was nowhere in sight. “Dad?”
“Yes, son.”
“Where are you?”
“I don’t know. Heaven, I hope!” He chuckled.
“Dad, seriously. I know this is just a memory… but where are you here?”
“In your mind. All of this is in your mind. I am not me. Not really. I tried to imprint as much of my memory, my will, my personality into the stone as I had the power to do. This might seem like me, but since you’re here, I must have died. You have been alone. Something I, too, knew as a child. Something I never wanted for you.”
I was too distracted by all I was seeing to get sentimental with my dead father’s memory. “But where is this place? What are you showing me?”
“As important as where this is, is when.”
Suddenly everything froze. The stirring breeze stilled. The long grasses stood stiff. All fell silent. Then the rising sun reversed course, falling from the horizon. The sky darkened. Soon the sun reappeared on the western skyline, moving quickly across the sky. Then it did it again, but more quickly. Again… Again… more quickly each time until the sun appeared not as a single ball of light, but as a luminescent streak traveling from one horizon to the other. The moon appeared and traversed the sky as well, quickly evolving through its natural phases. Other streaks of activity sometimes came into view, but they passed too quickly to identify. A forest of trees appeared, suddenly. Great oaks. Other varieties, too. Each slowly shrank into a sapling, disappearing into the soil.
Gates of Eden: Starter Library Page 7
