Wild-born

by Adrian Howell

  “Addy, wake up.”

  I opened my eyes and looked at the dashboard clock. It had only been an hour, and the sun had just begun to creep up. Alia had woken Cindy too, and they were outside the car where Cindy was just finishing helping Alia change her clothes. I smelled something funny.

  “She wet herself sleeping?” I asked Cindy as she toweled off the back seat.

  Cindy shot me a look that clearly said, Keep your mouth shut! and I looked away, embarrassed.

  Once Alia was comfortably seated in the back again, though much more awake than Cindy or me, Cindy sighed and said quietly to me, “It’s not like I wasn’t expecting it. She only stopped doing that last year. Hopefully, it won’t go on for a long time.”

  “Yeah, well, I guess we just have to give her time,” I said mildly.

  “Glad you agree. Well, I’m going back to sleep,” said Cindy, lying back in her tilted seat and pulling a blanket over herself. “You, Adrian, give her time.”

  “But Cindy–”

  “No buts, Adrian,” said Cindy, closing her eyes. “I’m the one who has to drive again tonight. You watch Alia. And don’t cross the river. That’s where the bubble ends.”

  And with that, she went back to sleep, leaving me yawning in the early morning sunshine.

  Alia asked me to sit in the back with her, so I did, but she wasn’t in the mood for talk or games. Instead, leaning her back against my right side, Alia sat silently staring out the window. I asked her twice if she was feeling alright, but she didn’t answer. I didn’t let that bother me too much. It wasn’t the first time Alia had been like this, and I knew it would pass. Sure enough, after about an hour, she quietly turned her head and gave me a smile.

  Once the sun had risen higher, I took Alia out of the car. It snowed lightly off and on during the day, and the river was icy cold, though that didn’t stop Alia from sticking her hand into it and flicking the water at me. Alia healed my various bruises from the previous night, and I taught her how to make snow angels.

  Cindy woke up in the late afternoon. We were out of food, but Cindy didn’t want to leave our hiding place until after dark. There was some sugarless gum in the glove compartment, most of which we gave to Alia. If Alia complained about being hungry, she did it exclusively to Cindy as we sat in the SUV waiting for the sun to set. I don’t know exactly what time we left the riverside to continue on our journey because by then I was asleep in my seat.

  The next dawn found us driving through a quiet university town to the other side, where there were some rolling hills covered by a pinewood forest. According to Cindy, at the top of one of these hills lived her friend, Mark Parnell.

  “Father Parnell, actually,” explained Cindy.

  “He’s a priest?” I asked.

  “I do hope Alia remembers him. She hasn’t seen him in a year and a half.”

  “A priest?” I repeated, looking past Cindy at the shattered door mirror.

  Cindy frowned at me. “Adrian, he’s one of the good guys. Not every church person is a Slayer.”

  “If you say so…”

  Chapter 10: Everything that Matters

  We had driven for about half an hour up a narrow dirt road from the edge of the university town. There were a few patches of snow here and there. The bottom of the hill was all forest, but the trees tapered out near the top, and I imagined that if the hill was properly covered with snow, it would look like the back of a circus clown’s top-bald head. Cindy parked the SUV near the top of the hill, about forty yards away from where a lonely redbrick house sat facing the dirt road. There was a rusty red pickup truck parked in the driveway.

  “You two stay in the car,” said Cindy as she got out. “Mark’s truck is there, so he’s probably still home, but I’ll go knock on the door and make sure.”

  “Why can’t we all go?” I asked.

  “Because I want to introduce you properly,” Cindy said simply, which I took to mean that she wasn’t sure how Alia was going to react to Father Parnell after not seeing him for so long.

  Cindy stepped up onto the porch and knocked. A minute later, the front door opened and Cindy stepped inside. I couldn’t see the person who opened the door.

  Alia tensed up when Cindy disappeared into the house. I felt a bit nervous too. After all, it was only two days ago that I nearly had my head blown off by a couple of priests or rabbis or monks or whoever they were. I started to wonder whether Cindy’s decision to leave us in the car had been prompted by her fears about Alia or about me.

  The front door opened again. Cindy came out with a thin, blond man wearing a short beard and round glasses. He looked about the same age as my father. Alia opened her door and got out of the SUV, so I followed her.

  “Is that Alia?!” exclaimed the man as he came closer. “My, how you’ve grown!”

  Alia did remember him, probably because there were just so few people in her life. As soon as she recognized him, she sprinted up the road and jumped into his arms. I breathed easier. Anyone Alia treated like that could be trusted.

  Carrying Alia in his arms, Father Parnell walked over to me and said, “You must be Adrian. Uh… nice bear.”

  I glanced down at the teddy bear on my pink sweatshirt and grinned sheepishly.

  Father Parnell chuckled and whispered, “Cindy once gave me a strawberry-patterned apron.”

  I laughed.

  “Nice to meet you, Father,” I said, shaking his hand.

  “Please. This is my home, not my church. Call me Mark.”

  Father Parnell, or Mark as he insisted on being called, turned out to be a gentle and kind man. He did not pester us with church teachings or quote the Bible to us. His manner was quiet and subtle. Aside from the fact that he was almost as good a cook as Cindy, he reminded me a lot of my own father. When he was at home, he often spent his time reading silently, sometimes from his Bible, sometimes from other books.

  There was only one guestroom in his house, which Cindy and Alia bunked together in. Mark offered to sleep in the living room so that I could have his bedroom, but I declined and took the living-room couch myself.

  Mark lived alone, but did not seem at all bothered by the sudden intrusion of three unexpected fugitives. He played with Alia and took me around his house, showing me little trinkets he had acquired during his many travels when he was younger. He told me lots of fascinating stories about life in different countries. When he asked me about the pendant I wore, I already trusted him enough to tell him about Cat and how guilty I felt having let her run off by herself. Mark didn’t comment, but just listened to me and smiled sympathetically. A few days into our stay, I told him how little he resembled my image of a priest, and he answered, “I try not to preach, if that’s what you mean. Jesus led by example. It is the best way.”

  Alia slept in Cindy’s bed every night. More than once, Mark suggested buying a cot for her, but Alia obstinately refused. Our run-in with the Slayers and Ralph had left her very shaken. Back at home, Cindy only let Alia sleep with her when Alia had particularly bad nightmares, but Cindy made no objections at Mark’s house, saying, “She can be like this sometimes. I’ll coax her out of it once she’s calmed down.”

  Alia wet her (and Cindy’s) bed twice just in the first week, and while I felt grateful having the couch to myself, I really felt sorry for Alia. Having gotten used to her playfulness at home, I was painfully reminded of how fragile she was. Alia’s telepathic voice was noticeably quieter, and on her worse days, she would sit silently for hours in the guestroom, tightly gripping her stuffed unicorn and staring up through the window at the drifting clouds. Cindy just reaffirmed her “give it time” tactic.

  Meanwhile, I wasn’t exactly living in Neverland myself. Once the initial shock of all that I had learned wore off, despite having promised Cindy that I wouldn’t do anything rash, I often found myself entertaining ideas about how I might go about finding Cat. I couldn’t concentrate on my meditation, and with each passing day, I grew ever more restless.

 
“Cindy, how long are we going to be here?” I asked after dinner one evening.

  “I’m working on it,” answered Cindy.

  Cindy was working on searching for a new place to live in hiding. I wanted to do some finding. And for that, I had another concern.

  “Why do I only have one power?” I asked. “Everyone else seems to have at least two, and sometimes more.”

  “Not everyone has more than one power,” answered Cindy. “And besides, psionics develop at different paces. You could easily end up with another in a few years.”

  “Even Alia has two,” I grumbled.

  “Feeling jealous?” laughed Cindy. “I always thought that you considered your psionic power a curse.”

  I did, of course. I wished I had never gained it, because then my family would still be together. But since I knew that there was no going back, I found myself wishing I had more powers, such as the ability to search for other psionics – something Cindy adamantly refused to do for me.

  “I’m not going to help you get yourself killed!” was Cindy’s furious reply when I first suggested to her a plan that I had been formulating in my distracted mind during our meditation sessions.

  My plan was to capture a random psionic. If the Angels were the largest psionic faction, then there was a good chance that whoever we caught would be an Angel. With a fair amount of luck, I might be able to get more information about Cat’s whereabouts, and just as importantly, Queen Larissa Divine’s. It was a stupid plan, I admit, and I felt embarrassed even mentioning it to Cindy, but it was the only one I could think of. Cindy was entirely unimpressed.

  “Besides, I’ve already told you, Adrian,” Cindy said in an irritated tone, “the Angels, like all factions, live in groups that cover each other’s weaknesses. You’ll never find a psionic living alone.”

  “But they travel alone sometimes,” I pointed out, thinking of Ralph.

  “And what about your promise to Alia?” demanded Cindy.

  “What promise?” I asked.

  “She told me that you promised to protect her.”

  That telepathic blabbermouth! I had only said that to calm her down after our fight with Ralph.

  Cindy asked imploringly, “You did mean it, didn’t you?”

  “Well, I…”

  “Adrian! You know how hard it is for Alia to trust people. Please don’t make promises if you’re going to break them.”

  I glared at her. “I didn’t say I was breaking any promises, Cindy!”

  With a sinking feeling in my gut, I realized that I had just walked into a big bear trap. But now that I thought about it, perhaps I did mean my promise to Alia. I had lived with her for nearly five months, and I certainly didn’t want to see her hurt. But Alia didn’t really need my protection. After all, she had Cindy. And speaking of promises…

  “What about your promise to help me find Cat?” I asked accusingly.

  Cindy sighed. “I never made that promise, Adrian.”

  “You did!”

  “I said I’d help you go back to your hometown to look for her. If you still want to do that, fine! I’ll even drive us all there.”

  “That’s not fair, Cindy!”

  “Maybe not,” Cindy replied fiercely, “but that’s the way it is!”

  I started to protest again, but Cindy cut me off, saying sharply, “Give it up, Adrian! I know I can’t stop you from going off and getting yourself killed, but I’m sure as hell not going to help you!”

  So I spent the rest of the day sullen and angry with Cindy, who I knew could help me if only she would try to understand how I felt.

  The next day, after giving Mark’s place enough hiding protection to cover the entire hill and then some, Cindy left in her SUV, telling me that she might have found a place we could move to, and that she’d be gone overnight. I was left to take care of Alia, who clung to me all the way to bedtime. While I flat-out refused to share her bed, I did end up sitting with her until she fell asleep.

  I wondered why Cindy didn’t take us with her. If forcing me to take care of Alia like this was a ploy to make me feel more needed in her family, well, I can’t say it didn’t work at all, but it did little to relieve my frustration. Cindy returned just before noon the next day, but told us that we would have to stay at Mark’s for a while longer.

  After lunch, I tried again to convince her to help me search for the Angels. It turned into another heated argument, and after a good deal of shouting, I spent the afternoon sitting alone and furious outside on the wooden bench in front of Mark’s house. It was a clear day, but nevertheless quite chilly outside. I sat there looking down the road that led into the forest below and entertained thoughts of just walking out of Cindy’s protection. That way, perhaps an Angel would find me.

  I saw Mark’s pickup making its way up the dirt road. Mark was back from his church earlier than usual. Parking his truck in the driveway, he asked me what I was doing outside, but I just shrugged and didn’t answer. Mark went into his house, and a few minutes later, he came back out holding two steaming mugs of…

  “Hot chocolate,” announced Mark, handing me one and sitting next to me on the bench.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled.

  “Mind if I speak with you a bit, Adrian?”

  “Did Cindy ask you to talk some sense into me?”

  Mark grinned. “I’ll try not to preach.”

  “I’d appreciate it,” I said as I sipped my drink.

  “You may not want to believe this,” Mark began gently, “but I do know what you’re going through.”

  “How’s that?” I asked in a slightly harsher tone than I intended.

  “I lost my twin brother when I was about your age,” said Mark. “I think he was kidnapped, but I don’t know because I never saw him again.” Mark paused for a moment before adding, “We had a fight during school that day, and went home by different roads. But he never came home.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, staring down into my mug.

  “I spent a lot of time feeling guilty about that, Adrian,” Mark continued quietly. “I blamed myself for starting the argument. I wished I could trade places with my brother. I often thought of running away from home so that I could go look for him. Please don’t think I don’t know how heavy that stone around your neck is.”

  I looked down at the pendant I had been unconsciously fingering, and quickly pulled my hand away, feeling embarrassed. Watching me, Mark smiled slightly and said, “In the end, Adrian, family is everything. Everything that matters, anyway.”

  “What about God?” I asked.

  “God is family too,” Mark answered simply. “But God can take care of himself. It’s you that I’m worried about right now. Cindy really cares about you, and while I understand how very frustrating it can be, I hope you’ll try to smooth things out with her.”

  “I just wish she could understand how important this is for me.”

  “Believe me, Adrian, she does. But you have to accept that she knows a lot more about the Angels than you do. She knows how much danger you would be in if you went looking for them.”

  I turned my face away from Mark. I didn’t want to hear this, but when I felt Mark’s hand on my shoulder, I forced myself to look at him again.

  “Cindy understands your pain perfectly, Adrian, because it’s exactly how she would feel if she lost Alia,” said Mark, looking into my eyes, “or you. You, like Alia, are her family now, and she could no more risk you than you could your sister.”

  “I care about Cindy too, Mark,” I said. “She saved my life. She gave me a home. But she can’t ask me to give up Cat. It’s not fair.”

  “I know it’s not,” said Mark, shaking his head slowly. “I’m sorry if I’m not being much of a help here.”

  “It’s okay,” I muttered, sipping some more hot chocolate.

  “Will you at least have dinner with us?”

  “Sure, Mark.”

  As Mark stood up, I asked, “What was your brother’s name?”

 
He turned around and smiled at me. “Is, Adrian,” he corrected. “My brother’s name is Jacob. I never really gave up on him.”

  I actually did feel slightly better after talking with Mark, even if nothing was resolved. I went back into the house and mumbled an apology to Cindy, whose eyes, I noticed with a twinge of guilt, were red from crying.

  Mark did his best to cheer us up over dinner, but as I lay on the couch later that night, my frustration crept back upon me. It wasn’t like I didn’t appreciate the dangers involved in fighting the Angels, even if I didn’t understand them as well as Cindy. As much as I didn’t want to hurt Cindy, I decided that if ever I had a chance to corner an Angel, I would take it even without Cindy’s help. After all, Cindy wasn’t the only one who could sense power.

  A week later, just past mid-February, what I was hoping for finally happened.

  I hadn’t had any more serious rows with Cindy since my talk with Mark, but nor had I given up trying to convince her to help me find an Angel. It was the day after Cat’s eleventh birthday, and I was meditating with Cindy in the living room after lunch. Alia was upstairs taking her nap, and Mark was at his church.

  Sitting on the floor across from Cindy, I wasn’t concentrating at all on my meditation, still upset after yet another failed attempt during the morning to convince Cindy to help me. My eyes were not even completely closed, so I saw it when Cindy’s shoulders suddenly became tense. What had she noticed? If it was imminent danger, she would have stopped meditating.

  I calmed myself, closed my eyes, and felt my way through the orchestra of senses until I found the subtle new note. It was a telekinetic. I couldn’t tell the direction, but he was probably right in the town below! I could walk there in a couple of hours. And as far as I could tell, he was alone.

  I opened my eyes again, and found that Cindy had already opened hers too, looking at me worriedly.

  “You felt it, Adrian?” she asked.

  “I did,” I answered quietly. “Is he alone?”

  Cindy started to open her mouth, but then closed it for a second before saying, “No, he’s with some others. They’re not destroyers, so you can’t sense them, but they’re powerful.”