by Shaye Easton
I tell Caden as much as he pulls into Rand’s driveway and parks the car. He doesn’t even blink.
“How could you even think that?” I ask him.
He turns in his chair. “It’s not just about having a specific power. We knew you had chrono vision, that you were the prophet, even before today. Even before the day we found out you possessed multiple abilities, a marker of all prophets, we knew.”
“How?”
“Because powers are linked to bloodlines. And the last prophet was your great grandfather, Maxwell Eller.”
I sink back further into the car seat, mentally exhausted. “This is crazy. Is this why I was swapped?”
“I can’t say.”
“You can’t say or you don’t know?”
“I don’t know.”
I can’t believe this. “I can’t stop a war!”
“Well, everyone seems to think you can. It’s the whole reason I’m here right now.”
“Everyone?”
Caden looks uncomfortable all of a sudden. “I’m not supposed to tell you yet. It’s all part of the slow integration into our world. We can’t rush it.”
I stare at him. “You’re kidding me. I’m the supposed prophecy girl who’s meant to save everyone’s arses and I don’t even get to know whose arses I’m meant to save?”
“Yet,” Caden corrects. “You don’t get to know yet.”
I can’t sit here and listen to this. My blood is bubbling with pent-up frustration—with rage. I’ve lived my whole life the freak, lived with my cold skin, lived with the daily pain of my heat surges. Now I’ve been saddled with a truth I never would have believed, and Caden doesn’t think I can handle an explanation? I throw open the car door, adrenaline pumping through my veins. I could run for a mile. I could kick down every door in the neighbourhood. I could punch him.
Caden gets out after me and closes the door, keeping the car safely between us. “Melissa—”
“No,” I interrupt, “let me talk. I want to get this straight if that’s okay with you?” He watches me, blank-faced. Finally, he nods. “So basically,” I say, forcing myself to modulate my voice even though all I want to do is scream, “there’s a group of people out there who swapped me with my childhood friend, gave me this disease, and are now threatening my life. I have a bunch of supernatural powers for some reason because that makes complete sense. And I’m meant to stop a war between two groups of people who I know nothing about. On top of all this, I don’t get to know anything about anything because some people I don’t know anything about told you not to tell me anything!” My voice rises at the end. I release the breath I’d been holding and gulp down another lungful of air.
Caden is looking at me like he’s afraid I’m going to explode. “They don’t want to overwhelm you with new information,” he says cautiously, slowly. “Or cause you to panic, like you are right now.”
“I’m not panicking!” I screech, emphasising his point.
Sure you’re not, his eyes say. Annoyed, I reel in my temper and cross my arms.
“With all the threats to your life right now,” he continues, “it’s important that you’re thinking clearly.”
“Thinking clearly? How could I possibly think clearly if I’m kept half in the dark?”
“It’s for your own good.” He locks the car and moves for the house. I follow behind him, blatantly disregarding the gate and stepping over the miniature wall instead.
“Do you really believe that, or are you just repeating what someone else said?”
“I believe,” he says, thinking carefully about his word choice, “it’s in our best interests to keep you safe. Now more than ever.”
“Because of the vision.”
We stop at the door and Caden digs around under the welcome mat until he produces a key. “And because of the other night. You almost died, and somehow they know exactly where you live.”
He doesn’t knock, which means he must know Rand isn’t home. The door swings open and he turns to me. “You can’t stay there anymore.”
“What about my parents, then? I’m meant to just abandon them? What happens when someone comes to harm me and finds them instead?”
“They’ll be fine,” he says, stepping into the house and starting down the hall.
He’s so calm. It’s driving me insane. My blood, once bubbling, is now boiling, all my rage churning just under the surface of my skin. I refuse to move past the doorway. “You didn’t see these people, Caden. The man said, and I quote, ‘Whatever you have to do, do it’. He could use my parents to get to me. He could kill them!”
Something snaps. “They didn’t have to see them!” Caden yells suddenly, spinning around, throwing me into the shadow of his dark, storming eyes. I realise I’ve touched a nerve. “I know them. I’ve dealt with them, again and again. They don’t give two fucks about your human parents, trust me.”
If things were different, I would have picked up on the obvious pain behind his words, on the way he seems to be talking about something other than just my current predicament, but—
“Did you just say my human parents?”
Caden shuts his mouth immediately. He knows he’s told me too much. He moves the rest of the way down the hall. Only this time, I follow him.
“What did you mean by that?”
He doesn’t answer. We emerge into the living room. Caden walks all the way up to the sliding glass doors leading to the backyard and stops.
“Who are they, Caden?” I ask him. I stop a couple steps into the room, not daring to get any closer.
Then something truly terrifying occurs to me. “Who are we?”
Silence. Dead, ugly silence. I’m drowning in the space between words, consuming the nothingness that lingers after speaking, the nothingness that presents you with all the possibilities, hanging in the air like apples hanging off a high tree, and inviting you to pick the one you like even though you’ll never be able to reach.
Caden’s got his back to me. His head is hanging low, looking down on the floor. I can hear a clock ticking somewhere. I can hear our breathing. I can hear my heart punching at the walls of my chest. The sounds bite at me, tear me apart piece by piece as I wait for an answer, a response, something. It’s been a minute, an hour, a day. I’m floating through a timeless void where things can both be single seconds and lifetimes—a place where waiting for things to happen and realising they’re over is one and the same.
And with every passing moment, my fear grows, expands, transforms into a raging monster waiting to devour me whole. What can be so hard to say that it takes a lifetime to form the words?
I see the moment he realises there’s no getting around this; he turns around, raises his head, meets my eyes. My heart jumps into my throat and squeezes the air from my lungs.
“Who are we?” I repeat.
And he tells me: “Spectres.”
Chapter Fifteen
“I’m sorry, we’re what?”
“Spectres,” Caden repeats, moving back around the couches. “Would you like some tea?”
“What? No, I wouldn’t like some tea. I want you to explain.”
“Well, I’m making earl grey. I’ll be back in a second.” I stare, mouth open, incredulous, as he disappears down the hall. Did he just leave me here? After dropping a bomb like that? It’s no wonder he and Rand get along. They’re both excellent at leaving people in states of cruel and completely unnecessary suspense.
When he returns with two steaming mugs of tea, I’m pacing the length of the living room, my mind racing faster than the speed of sound. He places a mug down on either side of the coffee table and takes a seat on a couch. I find it in myself to sit opposite him, though my hands still twitch in my lap.
“I don’t… I don’t understand. Aren’t spectres like ghosts?”
He picks up his mug and takes a drink. “It’s a misconception.” He puts the mug back down. “A ‘spectre’ is half-human, half-otherworldly being. The word evolved from the Latin �
�spectrum’ which meant apparition—hence the misconception—and had its origins in ‘specere’, meaning ‘to look’ or ‘to see’. ‘Specere’ itself came from the Indo-European root ‘spek’, meaning ‘to observe’. But what most people don’t know is that ‘spek’ is derived from an ancient legend.”
“You sure know a lot about this.”
He shrugs. “The legend is long forgotten to everyone but our kind. It told of a creature that was human in form but could turn invisible at will. The creature would vanish just before it attacked, and would often kill countless people in a night. The natives called it a ‘spek’. The word then took on the meaning of, ‘to observe’, as you had to be able to see the monster to survive it.
“Over time, the true meaning of the word has been lost to the history books. But the creature from the legend was one of us, half-human, half creature of the otherworld. And when I say that, I mean half-original spirit.
“A hell of a long time ago, twelve Original Spirits escaped the otherworld, which is where our souls go after death. Original Spirits were never once people, they were never flesh and blood like we are, and never existed on earth. They were, in a way, born straight into the otherworld, as guards and protectors. But somehow twelve of them found their way here, to the realm of the living. We call these spirits ‘the Twelve’, or the ‘Original Twelve’, and we are their descendants.”
I stare at him. “So we’re…not human?”
“We are human—more human than Original Spirit—we just have otherworldly talents encoded into our DNA. Even on earth, the Twelve were connected to the otherworld, and this allowed them to do extraordinary things. They then passed this connection onto their descendants, creating twelve different bloodlines. The merging of the human and spirit blood manifested differently in each of the twelve bloodlines, creating different powers, and then through the generations, through different combinations, those powers evolved even more until we had hundreds, possibly thousands, as we do today. This is what we call the Origins.
“There are, however, two distinct branches of spectres. The first are known as overwalkers, so-named because they place emphasis on their humanity over their connection to the otherworld. They consider spectres and regular human beings to be one and the same, and value the continuation of human life here on earth. We’re overwalkers,” he adds.
“Then there’re underwalkers. They value their human side under their supernatural connection. They hold the belief that spectres are not, in fact, human, but the next step in human evolution. They believe we cannot coexist with humans, and that humanity prevents spectres from progressing and living freely. The man who tried to hurt you the other night, and the people in your vision, they’re underwalkers.”
I let out a breath, my mind spinning. The room tilts and I have to lie back further on the couch, eyes on the ceiling, as dizziness washes over me. It’s like someone’s taken a hammer—no, a nuclear bomb—and blasted my world right open, obliterating every truth about reality I thought was stone-solid and unbreakable.
“How are you doing?” Caden asks me.
I raise a finger. “Gimme a sec.”
It takes a few minutes for the spinning to stop. When it finally does, I lean forward to take a drink from my tea. It’s lukewarm, though I can’t tell if that’s because I left it too long, or if my dulled senses won’t allow my tongue to feel the heat.
I take a few sips—and then a few gulps—and place it back on the table. “Okay,” I say. “Continue.”
Caden gives me a look like, Are you sure?
I roll my eyes. “Go.”
“Alright, then. So you’re either born an overwalker or an underwalker, and you accept their inherent beliefs as you grow up. But because it’s a belief, and not something physical, you can change sides. Overwalkers can become underwalkers and vice versa. This doesn’t happen as often as you would think. Beliefs are highly ingrained and almost impossible to deny. And for overwalkers, there’s an even bigger deterrent for changing sides.
“As a consequence of escalating tensions between the two groups a little over a decade ago, a curse was placed on the underwalkers. Everyone knew the time of the prophecy was drawing closer, creating a deeper rift than ever between our two sides. If not for the Curse, we probably would have ended up in a war.
“The Curse targets anyone who shares the underwalker belief, regardless of what bloodline they come from. It draws from their life-force every time they use their powers, weakening them. If they were to use their powers too much, or pour too much strength into one action, they could fall unconscious or even die. It is a heavy price to pay for their beliefs, and as a result, they tend to steer clear of using their abilities. The Curse may very well be the only thing that’s keeping us alive.”
“So that’s why the guy—the underwalker—tried to strangle me the other night instead of using his powers?”
Caden nods. “No underwalker in their right mind would risk using their abilities for something they could do unaided. Just like no overwalker would be even remotely interested in switching sides, because they’d also be placed under the Curse’s effect. I suppose it’s a testament to the underwalkers’ strength of conviction that they aren’t flocking to join us.”
He gives me a moment to digest the new information, taking a drink from his tea. I do the same, except I finish it all in three large gulps. Spectres, powers, curses: it’s like stepping into a whole other world. I run a nail over my hand to test if I’m really here. Like usual, I don’t feel much, but I do feel something. Which means this is real. It’s all real.
“Regardless of all that,” Caden says, continuing, “what’s most important to understand is that we don’t completely exist in this world. We stand with one foot in the spirit world and one in ours, so to speak, and as a result, our close connection with the otherworld allows us to see and feel things others can’t.”
“Like ghosts and spirits,” I say, another piece of the puzzle falling into place.
Caden nods. “And because we’re so connected to this other realm, we’re destined to slip through this world unseen. I know you’ve wondered about how I can come and go without anyone noticing—how people forget me when I’m not around. It’s not a me thing; it’s a spectre thing. We can will ourselves to disappear from the minds of humans—although it doesn’t always work. It definitely doesn’t work on other spectres, which is why you never forgot me like everyone else. And it doesn’t work on people you’re close to, or who keep you in their thoughts.”
“People never forgot me,” I point out.
“Yes, but you’ve been swapped. You’re in a human body. It makes sense that it wouldn’t work.” He pauses to collect his thoughts before continuing. “To sum it all up, our connection to the otherworld allows us to tap into the supernatural elements of nature, usually only possible in the otherworld, hence our abilities. We can do things normal people can’t because we can access the unseen parts of life.”
It’s all so much. It’s ridiculous. It makes so much sense. “How can I be sure you’re telling the truth?” I ask, because at this point, I’m looking for anything to prove to me he’s lying, that this was all one big awful joke. “You could be making this up for all I know.”
Caden shakes his head. Seriously? His eyes ask. “Look at your life, Melissa. Your body strips the air of heat to keep you alive. You can see spirits and ghosts. You heal faster than anyone I’ve ever seen—faster than humanly possible—and you’ve smashed a window with just your eyes. Today you had a vision. A vision.”
“But what about you?”
“What about me?”
“You’re a . . . spectre. Can’t you prove it? Don’t you have any powers?”
As I watch he shuts down, the expression on his face crawling back under his skin. His features turn into a blank canvas, inviting me to try and add my own interpretation. Only his eyes betray him, revealing the smallest notes of bitterness, of desolation, of shame.
“No,” he says
, and the painful truth spreads from his eyes, drags itself down over his face. It’s him, deciding to open up, to hand me a secret of his soul. It is an exercise in trust—and he has trusted me. “I don’t.”
Chapter Sixteen
When I wake the next morning, my parents are back to acting normal. Any outward evidence of what they went through is gone, even if it might still lurk under the surface.
But while they’re back to normal, I feel like I’ve just dived a million miles deeper into the unfamiliar. Now, with all this strange water between us, their faces come to me shaky and blurred, distant and unrecognisable. All their words are muffled and hard to understand. Do I want breakfast? Where’s my coat? Have I cleaned my room yet?
How do I answer these questions when all I can think about is the growing distance between us? When I’m filled with the fear that soon I won’t be able to see them at all?
School is only slightly better. It’s a dark, gloomy sort of day, the clouds looming like angry grey giants in the sky, threatening the world with thunder and rain. All the faces I see in the halls are those of strangers. I never took it upon myself to get to know my peers; I never really thought that I could belong. But now even the ones I recognise are aliens, foreign entities I can never hope to reach.
I see Caden in my morning classes. At one point he tries to make eye contact, but I quickly look out the window instead, where the clouds are growing ever darker. He doesn’t try again, which I take to mean that he understands. Everything I understood about the world, and about myself, has been washed away. And in these new, unfamiliar waters, I am still learning how to swim. Or rather, learning how not to drown.
I sit with Lauren’s group at recess and lunch, but I am only there as an observer, an outsider permitted to hang around the edges of their conversation. Once, Lauren asks me what’s wrong. I shrug. There’s nothing I can say to her. I can’t tell her how my world is falling apart, how everything that I once considered normal has been flung out of my reach, how I’m not even me anymore. Melissa Croft doesn’t exist. She isn’t real. I can’t say any of this, and it’s all that really matters. So I don’t say anything at all.
