Then my eyes break open violently. I am frightened, at least the headache is presently a dull sensation floating out of reach but persisting in memory. With a deep, sobering breath I convince myself it was just an anxiety attack because of the long morning, at all the new things happening and having been so hungry. I almost believed my own story too, but then I notice three sets of eyes piercing into me. My eyes sneak towards the table in the fashion of a shady trader. Are those pets accusing me of something?
“Isn’t that right Carmina?” I hear Jarrod’s teasing tone.
“Uh?” I stumble not having a clue what he was talking about. All eyes are now on me, and I gather I’m the anecdote to an inside joke.
“Course it isn’t,” I defend out of habit, not knowing what else to say as I was marginally distracted by a ninja hijacking my own brain. I must have given the expected answer however. Several fingers points at me, others lifts their hands in a high five motion and the courtyard, including Jarrod, is roaring with laughter.
“You cheeky minx!” Jarrod pretends to scowl. I am still disorientated by the commotion running rampant where I should have a brain. I offer a feeble smile and pretend to be targeting my food for a revenge re-match. While breakfast goes without further incident, there was still a static energy flitting between the family members.
After adults and children alike were done eating, Momma stands up and then leans both her hands on the table, like she does in the event of announcement or final words of parting.
“Thank you all for being here, sharing this meal with us. I believe our Ancients are satisfied with their investigation for now. We will take further discussions in private.” A calculated nod to her brother Darious. “I declare the rest of the day a family day. It has been emotional and I think our clan can do with a bit of togetherness. We’ll have a bonfire night. Let’s work together and make it happen. Of course, your young ones will be present for as long as is appropriate. Lunch will be on the go, but Lilly and Carmina can see to the little ones as always.”
The Elders all nod in agreement and excitement flairs up amongst the children. Their enthusiasm pertaining to the word “Lilly”, nothing more.
This was the final word on the matter. Momma holds her left hand out with the palm up by way of inviting the Elders to join her; we wait for them to leave before getting into the day’s groundwork. I watch in awe as the Bearded Vulture majestically lifts off, circles twice and then vanishes, leaving just a screechy call reverberating in our ears. The Lynx turns to pad off with big, soft paws making no sound at all. He jumps over the wall gracefully and naturally with a soft rasping growl and is gone in seconds. The wolf seems to hover longer, nudging Momma who walks with him to the gate. Momma embraces the massive wolf without having to lean down or kneel, her whole body practically lost in his beautiful silvery pelt. A soft yipping sound, gray eyes fleetingly turn in my direction and he too is gone.
I excuse myself and retire to my room shortly after. I hardly notice or care for the investigative looks passing among the clan. I need to be alone, and figure out what is going on. The images from earlier are still fresh in my mind’s eye and I feel lost. The eyes of the animals are also haunting me, as if there’s something about them I need to know. I imagine my life turned on a dime to become a mystery and I am the single uninformed person in this backwards story.
In an effort to relax, I close my eyes just to see pale white, green and gray sets staring back at me. I sing the Dublin song loudly until exhaustion whisks me off into sleep.
** The dreams are nightmares are dreams and nightmares**
I drift towards the darkness. Chaos.
There is someone behind me, pushing me ahead
I try to dig my heels in but I find the ground is no longer there to support me.
I am falling.
Falling.
I feel the air whipping past my head and I know the ground is approaching.
In an effort to brace for impact, I put my hands out. Instead of crashing bones, I feel myself sink into a pool.
Dunked under, I fight for air and push hard to swim to the surface. It is so thick, the water…
The wetness is sticky and dense making my progress slow. I am struggling for air and make it to the surface just in time.
The sweet smell is overwhelming, causing me to convulse.
Strained by the sticky mass, my eyes refuse to open.
Wiping at them with the back of my hand, I manage to see a shred of light pouring on the pool I landed in.
It’s a thick brownish red mass. I heave when I realize what I’m floating in.
BLOOD? No no no no!
I scream towards the light. “LET ME OUT! Please! Let me OUT! “
I don’t want to swim through this, but my solitary salvation is the ledge on the opposite side. I whimper all the way to it, begging as I go.
“Please, please, I don’t want this. Please.” Nobody comes to rescue me.
After what feels like hours, I make it to the ledge. Covered in blood.
I look back at the pool by my feet and gasp seeing the faces looking at me.
Everyone I have ever met, ever known, is drifting in the pool like suspended dolls. They look happy, content.
“No!” I cry out again. I feel the ache in my wrist and then notice I am the one bleeding!
It is MY blood filling the pool. Pouring from my knees, my palms, the soles of my feet.
“NO! “The faces in the pool of blood is smiling at me, grateful.
“NO, I don’t want to die! “ I scream again.
I am not afraid of death, I am afraid of suffering life.
I stand on the ledge, take a deep breath, holding it, I dive.
Sinking, sinking deeper. I hear a voice calling me, I am not interested.
The darkness can have me.
I am not afraid of death, I am afraid of suffering life.
I will not suffer life.
The pain in my chest gets harder to bear, but I hold my breath.
I will not breathe.
“I am not afraid of death, I am afraid of suffering life!”
CARMINA WAKE UP NOW!
The dream does not change again after this. Over the period of a month, I wake up in the morning with a raw scratchy voice and sore throat. Momma and Lilly take turns to leave a warm cup of herbal tea, lemon and honey for me to find at daybreak. I constantly have this abnormal sense of someone dreaming and waking up with me. I put my hand out to reach for the cup feeling colder than it should be, I’ve overslept!
***
Boy next Door.
Liam regards his mother with the desperation of a son in trouble. “Mother I can’t go to there. Why is father being so difficult about this?”
Esmeriska Moretti places her hands on her hips. “It is not your father being difficult Liam, it is you! You have been moping for a month’s cycle; getting tiresome. What is your problem?” The woman’s gray eyes narrow as she searches her son’s face.
“Girl problems!” shouts a younger male voice from the next room. William pulls a pained face and throws his hands up in the air.
“I ought to knock your teeth out,” he threatens his brother, who is shuffling through the saloon doors. It does not require much for a burly boy-fight to ensue.
“Why on earth do I bother?” Esmeriska mumbles, slamming a cup onto the table.
“You bother, my sweet wife, because you have a kind heart and they are our own.” A calm, grating voice speaks closely behind her. Like a ballet dancer, she leaps towards her husband in a warm embrace.
“You’re right Will. I do care, but a trivial matter as trivial a matter as girl problems should not set Liam in such a wayward mood.” She sulks.
The jostling boys end their robust game the minute they hear their father’s command.
“Boys! Front and center in three…. two… one… ” Will walks his wife to the dining table and pulls out a chair for her before he does the same for himself. Two motion blurs appear as the
countdown ends at the far side, opposite the parental pair.
Esmeriska points a sharp, pale finger at the two boys, casting a sour look at her husband.
“We’ll be the laughing stock! You would think after 142 years in our care we’d manage to keep them civil!”
Will puts his hand over his wife’s in a show of support and then turns to the two boys.
“What is going on here? Liam, you refuse to shift into wolf, and you’re keeping your link closed against us. Certainly nowhere near customary behavior. Why are you doing this?”
John opens his mouth but the warning grunt from his father has him shrug and sit his muscled body down heavily.
“I-I cannot explain it Father.” Liam is honest and respectful. He has changed so much in a month, looking muzzled and haunted. The handsome strong jawline in a permanent vice: “Not good enough Son. Try to explain yourself. Is it girl problems like your brother suggests?” Will commands in a fatherly firm manner.
“I-it is private Father, please. Can we not talk about it?” Liam protests, his eyes begging his father not to press the matter.
Will holds his gaze and as soon as he speaks again, his tone is supportive but also chastising.
“Son, nothing is private when you are behaving like a runt alpha with no pack. I have been patient about this but no more. It’s particularly unhealthy for you and for your mother, brother, me too. “
Liam looks at his family with a shameful twist on his face. The dimples at the corners of his mouth are sunken and gets deeper as he clench his jaw tighter. His beautiful golden eyes a smoldering fire waiting to burst into flames. The vein in his neck visibly tightens while speaking through clenched teeth.
“Remember the girl, the one you went to investigate living with the Fire Clans?” He starts with caution.
“Told you! Girl probl-…” John licks back his words under his mother’s scowl. Her light purple lips are pursed together in a firm warning.
“Yes. What about her?” Will tilts his head towards his son.
“She’s my girl problem. I-She-We’ve met.” He stops talking, recognizing the expression on both his parent’s faces. The silver haired male and black haired female are visibly shaken.
“This is what you’re hiding from our House? Our family?” His mother’s wild hair bristles.
“I am sorry. I … Mother please don’t be upset,” he pleads with her. The silver head of his father leans against his mother’s and two globes filled with parental care fix on him.
“Show us Son, choose what you wish, but show us in order for us to help you with this predicament; it is keeping you away from us. We miss you. Please show us.”
“Alright, I’ll show you.” Liam feels humiliated by his role in this family’s pain, now understanding Carmina’s shame about her dreams.
Carefully, he takes them on a visual journey. The connection between them is robust and they can feel precisely what he feels, see all he sees and smell accurately what he smells. The whole memory plays as if it is re-created and re-lived by the group as a whole.
A Memory
The scent on the air is befuddling the wolf into an irritated turmoil. One moment it smells human and the next of home, cinnamon, rain and fresh cut flowers. He’s been following the vexing scent for all of five minutes. He feels the hunger pains in his gut, doing nothing to progress his mood. The smell fascinates him, though, and he cannot let it go. He has to find what it belongs to! His keen wits pick up on movement just beyond the tree line. For a moment he thought to turn away, as it is close to the Fire Clan’s daily trail to and from work. They’re not really a ‘Fire Clan’ but because of their location so close to the spout of the volcano, Margarith’s clan adopted the name.
The gentlest draught carries the aforementioned aroma to him again and he breaks into a sprint towards it. Free from the trees, a small movement brings him to a skidding halt. Loose stones and shallow-rooted grass skid along with his massive paws. Superbly long, flaming red hair attached to an uncanny body is sitting on a clearing made of sharp, cold lava. Frustrated at seeing a person so late, he turns onto a well-trodden path taking him to his cabin where he changes shape and gets dressed. The trouble with being a shape-shifter is that your clothing doesn’t magically transform into a pelt, no matter how hard you try. The sun’s shift in position allows him to move freely in his human form. There is no chance of the imperfections on his skin betraying him in case he is seen by someone not of his own kin.
He circles back, surprised to pick up on the scent so quickly and strongly again. Upon reaching the place where he saw the red-head, astonishment washes through him. Seeing her maddens him all over again as somebody is getting in his way of finding the bothersome smell! Approaching the patch, he can smell tears, and the ugly mixed scent of herbs and spices. He is held in place by her thoughts drifting to him as if he’s dreaming. He marvels at her humble approach to nature and the sadness in her contemplations. The sun catches her long rubicund hair, lighting it up like a small burning bush. Something about her views draw him closer to her. Her mind drifts from one moment to another and he smiles at the sweet analogies she contributes to her environment.
She seems wholly absorbed in inspecting her palms and knees, and this is the moment he chooses to walk right up to her, revealing himself unconditionally. He didn’t know what to expect but he wanted her to notice him. To adore him. He wanted to be in her mind with every sinew holding him together. The sadist residing inside him also wanted to scare her. He never expected the offended look and the thought of him being a bother to her leaps into his mind with a scathing vehemence.
Before he could make sense of anything, three new voices assault his senses leaving him confused and tense. He cannot see anyone so how can he hear them?
“Run!” and “Hit it!” and “Stay calm dearie, for your safety.”
The girl appears totally unaware of the fact and just after he points it out to her, worried about her safety, she blatantly lies to him.
“I’m not afraid.”
He wants to tell her what a liar she is, but then he catches her scent mildly breaking through the mess of smells surrounding her.
“You are human?” he asks her and instantly regrets doing so, foreseeing she might not know he isn’t! Instead of her answering, the sound of her singing an absurd folk song – High Kings? - breaks down each reservation he may have had about this girl.
The world seems to freeze in at the moment around him and his family pushes along for an audience. An onlooker would not notice their conversation as they speak internally through their tie with one another.
“You met Carmina?” Will whispers.
“I did, as I said.”
“But Son that is not anything to hide from us! It does explain why you were so distracted at dinner hunt.” Esmeriska looks between the frozen image of this intriguing red-headed girl and her son.
“She is beautiful bro! No wonder you kept her a secret.” John pipes up, circling inside the vision in front of them.
Liam clenches his fists and then the memory flits back into motion after the pause. The small group snorts at him carrying her off by the arm, and her thoughts seem to amuse them to no end. The three commentators are persistent in their effort to command her. Each moment with this girl is enchanting. All but the nightmares. Those were horrific in nature and her small features unfairly set against the enormity of those visions.
Arriving back to the clearing, the trio felt and watches him struggle against his nature and his desires. They know how much he wanted her, and wanted to kill her. They observe as he asserts immense control over his natural instincts and shower this girl with a safe, distanced passion.
When she passes out, her conscious thoughts are sheltered from them and they thought he had frozen the memory - he didn’t. The sun rises and sets five then six times in utter silence, Liam only moving to bring dew-drops to her lips. Eventually he sets the fragile body down on the ground and walks off. Not before he heard t
hose terrible nightmares start up again. His chest feels as if someone has punched a hole in there and filled it up with sting nettles. The feeling stayed with him over the past month.
Fully aware of their surroundings again, they sit in silence for a few moments, enthralled. Liam does not close his link from them and thus the loop to his family consciousness stays intact.
“All this time my son, you’ve walked about feeling like this and you would not let us help?” His mother sounds incensed.
“I didn’t want it to go away mother, it is the one way I stay connected to her.”
“What do you mean…?” His father’s attention pins on him.
“I-She does not remember the time she slept, or having met me.” He sounds sad at the thought. “And when she dreams I dream with her. It… I can’t explain it.”
Esmeriska puts her hand out to touch her son’s arm. “You soul-branded a human girl Liam, it should not be possible…”
“But I did, and I could have saved you the trip to the Fire Clan. She does not know a thing about us… or any of our lives. And… she doesn’t remember me.” The thought makes him cringe in pain again.
“Liam… she’s human my boy…” His mother whispers.
“I know.”
“She knows nothing of us.” His father speaks in hushed tones too.
“I know. You said.”
“Let’s go fetch her.” John is happy with his solution.
“Wha’? John, have you lost your mind? We can’t just fetch her!” His mother and father both objects.
Hidden Carmina Page 4
