The Awakening Series: Volumes 1 - 3

by Dean Murray

  "You seem like you know a ton about what's going on. Is that just a fairy thing too? Are you born with all of this knowledge?"

  "Nope. You—I mean past you—told me most of what I know. I've learned a few things since then. Hanging around Jace hasn't exactly been the highlight of my existence so far, but there have been a few benefits. Most of that stuff didn't stick very well, though. You, however, are something else entirely. I remember every word you said to me, and since Jace found you and I've been hanging out around you things have gotten a lot better in the memory department."

  "Wow, that had to be hard—I mean flying around Jace, waiting for him to track me down, not remembering what happened from one week to the next…"

  Bethany shrugged. "It wasn't exactly a bed of roses, but I made it work."

  She flitted around me, checking my appearance and then nodded. "So are you going to go out there or what?"

  "I guess it's time."

  "Just don't eat so much that your tummy pokes out above your shorts. I'm pretty sure that's not one of Jace's turn-ons."

  "Gee thanks. Remind me to return the favor some time when you're obsessing about some hot fairy guy."

  "Yeah, it's not going to be a problem. You'll have probably forgotten all about this conversation by then."

  That shut me up instantly. She was right. I suddenly felt a profound need to start writing down everything I could remember about my life. I was about to start burning memories. It could happen any time, maybe even today, and once that started I was going to lose pieces of what made me the person I was. I was going to lose my memories of my mom.

  Bethany buzzed around and then stopped on my shoulder. "I'm sorry, Selene. I didn't mean to go too far. I've heard Kat and Jace make those kinds of jokes for years now. I thought it was just what you people do to each other."

  "Yeah, I'll bet they joke around like that a lot. Probably someday soon I'll be joking along with them; I'm just not quite there yet. Somehow I never realized that I was going to forget my mom. It was staring me in the face this entire time, but I couldn't see it."

  "I'm sorry, Selene. I wish I could have known her. I heard you and Ari talking about her that first night after we found you though. Years from now, after you've forgotten all about this conversation, I'll still be able to tell you what you and Ari said, word for word. I know that you Awakened are fond of your journals, but if there is ever anything that you want to know later on, you can tell me and I'll relate it to you whenever you want, as often as you want."

  I felt like crying. Before it had been just because I'd been sad about my mom, but now it was at least partly because I was so moved by Bethany's offer. I tried to tell myself that it was too soon to start trusting her, that I needed to confirm that she was Seelie before I let myself open up to her, but it was too late. I could feel myself latching onto her emotionally, grabbing at the one person in my new life who would still remember things two or even three hundred years from now.

  "Would you really do that for me?"

  "Of course. That's one of the roles that fairies have served for thousands of years. Even when you forget, we don't."

  "But you have no reason to be loyal to me. You said it yourself, I'm not your creator. I'm just a shadow of her."

  "When you don't have anything else, even a shadow will do, Selene, but you're more than that. I'm sorry about what I said earlier. I'm not going to betray the secrets that I promised to keep for you so long ago, but I do value you. I'm going to value you forever. All of us Seelie fairies value our creators—we never leave you, but eventually you all leave us. It's just one of those things. Nobody has light incarnations forever. Not even Jace."

  Chapter 23

  I stepped out of the bathroom with Bethany floating next to my ear, and had the satisfaction of seeing Jace's eyes go wide as he took in my swimsuit and shorts. Mission successful.

  Breakfast went by in a flash. Ari agreed to do the cleanup—probably hoping to win some points with Jace—and then frowned when Jace headed outside to pull the SUV off of the trailer. I thought about staying inside the RV to avoid pissing Ari off even further, but then Jace knocked on the window and asked for help.

  I'm pretty sure that Jace could have done it all by himself, but I wasn't going to complain about the chance to spend a little time with him, even if it was still crazy cold outside.

  As soon as the SUV was down on the ground I jumped inside and turned the heat on full. Jace stowed the ramps back on the trailer and then disappeared inside the RV again. I wanted to follow him, but I wasn't quite up to facing the cold again. When he reappeared ten minutes later he was wearing board shorts and carrying a black hoodie.

  A few minutes later Ari was done with the dishes and both vehicles were on their way to the lake. It was a short drive, and once we arrived Kat parked the RV and Jace proceeded to move the trailer over to the SUV while she changed into her suit.

  Within fifteen minutes of our arrival Jace was using the SUV to back the jet skis down into the water and Ari was bouncing up and down in excitement. Kat reappeared with life jackets as I was pushing both watercraft into the water. She tossed the second life jacket to Ari and then jumped on the closest jet ski and took off like a bat out of hell. Ari was only a few seconds behind her and Bethany was a glittering green streak zipping around Ari's head.

  "I'm sorry you're not going to get much time on the lake, Selene."

  "Are you kidding? As cold as it is out there, I'm not in any hurry to get on the water."

  Jace grinned. "We are far enough south now that it will warm up pretty quickly, but you're right, if either of them go overboard right now they're going to turn into popsicles. Let me get the SUV parked and then I'll meet you over on the beach."

  It wasn't much of a beach, but it was big enough that there was a chance nobody would be bothering us this late in the year. I walked across the cold, wet sand until I found a spot where the sand went up high enough that it was dry.

  Jace appeared a minute later with towels, drinks, and a bottle of sunscreen. "I parked the SUV in a different spot so if your dad shows up it will look like I showed up at a different time."

  "That's a good idea—I wouldn't have thought of that."

  He laid the two towels out next to each other and handed me a bottle of water. "Yeah, well, I've got a few centuries of experience at being sneaky under my belt. I am sorry though that we backed you into lying to your dad."

  I shrugged. "I don't like it, but I need to get comfortable with the idea that I'm going to have to do a lot of deceiving over the next little while. As long as I'm unwilling to tell them everything about what's going on with me, there just isn't any other option."

  "I'm sorry, Selene. That really sucks."

  "Yeah, it feels like every step I take lately puts an even bigger rift between my family and me, but there just isn't a good way to tell them this. I guess I should just be grateful that I have you and Kat. I can't even begin to imagine how much it would suck to be finding this all out through trial and error, all the while not having anyone to talk to about what was going on."

  Jace nodded. "Obviously neither Kat nor I remember that far back, but some of my earliest journal entries seem to indicate that was what it was like for me. It doesn't sound like it was much fun. There are however some offsetting benefits."

  He pulled a thin silvery bar out of his pocket and dropped it into my hand. "Like this."

  "What is it?"

  "It's a bar of solid platinum. That particular one is worth about eighty thousand dollars."

  I'd had a good hold on the bar, but when he said how much it was worth I nearly dropped it. I tried to give it back to him, moving like it was hot to the touch and burning me, but Jace refused to take it. He seemed amused, which just made the whole thing even more frustrating.

  "That's worth as much as my dad makes in two years of working, Jace. Please take it."

  "Why?"

  "Because I don't want to break it. There's no way I could ever
replace it and I don't want to be even further in debt to you."

  "You're not going to break it, Selene, it's a solid bar of metal. Besides, it's not mine—it's yours."

  I shook my head as his words started to sink in. "No, it's too much. It's a nice sentiment, but I can't accept a gift like this. Really, the clothes were too much, but this is—"

  "It's not a gift, Selene. It's yours. It was in the box of stuff that you gave me to hold onto before you died. There are five more in there, but it's a moot point because you're going to be able to make them all by yourself shortly."

  I held up the bar and shook my head in amazement. "You're just giving me a half-million dollars' worth of platinum? Do you know how crazy that sounds?"

  "It's just money, Selene. How did you think that Kat and I maintained our lifestyle?"

  "I don't know. Kat talked about successful stock investments. I guess I figured that was basically right, that you had spent the first part of your lives working and earning money so that you could invest it and then live off of the interest and dividends."

  "Yeah, there's a little of that, but mostly we're careful not to tie up too much of our money in stuff like that because no matter how careful you are there is always a way for someone to tie it back to you. Mostly we just transmute clay into platinum, silver or gold, and then sell it on the black market. Like I said, you're almost to the point where you'll be able to do that yourself, at which point you'll never have to worry about money again—at least not in the long term."

  For the second, or maybe third time that day I wanted to cry. "I don't even know what to say. You have no idea what this means to me."

  "Actually, I do. Kat and I have hired private investigators to look into each girl we found online who looked like you. Nothing too intrusive, but enough that we would know the lie of the land if it turned out that you were…well, you. We know that your dad is up to his eyeballs in debt right now and that he's maxed out his earning potential there at the factory. I was planning on doing something for your family even if you turned out not to be who we thought you were, but this is even better because it's the old you helping you out—so there's no reason not to accept the assistance."

  That soured my mood. "What if you're wrong, Jace? What if I'm not really the latest incarnation of the girl you knew? Maybe all the signs that you think point to me being her are just dumb luck."

  He grabbed my hand before I could get all of the way to my feet. "They aren't. I knew they weren't all along, but Bethany's arrival seals the deal. Fairies aren't wrong about their creators. Besides, you've stopped sleeping as much and I can feel your gift flaring up from time to time as it tries to make the switch to being fully active."

  It was hard to say whether his words or his touch was more calming, but the two combined were more than sufficient to do the trick. I relaxed back down to the beach towel he'd laid out for me and took a couple of deep breaths.

  "Okay, sorry for freaking out."

  "It's perfectly normal at this stage. It gets easier to accept everything once you use your power for the first time."

  "I guess we'd better get started training then. There's no telling how long the jet skis will keep Ari entertained and I'm making us waste time."

  "I could always do a minor time bend—something like two or three times normal speed wouldn't cost me much in the way of baseline memories and it would make a big difference with regards to how much time you have to practice…"

  "Nope, I've wised up to your tricks now. There isn't any reason to bend time. It would just mean that I'll end up falling asleep at the same time as Ari. We'll probably have to do that kind of stuff later, but not right now—not since my dad isn't expecting us home before he goes off to work again. What do you want to start with?"

  "I was thinking we should try a transmutation. We can always change things up later if the transmuting doesn't work. Go ahead and immerse yourself in your new default emotion."

  I blushed. Unlike Kat, Jace didn't seem to mind that I'd picked a positive emotion for my new default, but he would mind if he realized that I'd stopped practicing. There had been a lot more excitement and disruption than normal over the last twelve hours or so, but I still needed to hold up my end of the bargain.

  I closed my eyes and let the memory of Jace saving me from Sandra well up inside of me until it had pushed the embarrassment away. I felt a surge of relief at how easily the memory came back to me and at how strong the feeling was, but the relief was just a flicker around the edge of the happiness. It didn't interfere—I was ready.

  "Okay, I'm feeling it."

  "How strong is it?"

  "Um…strong? How do you describe the strength of an emotion?"

  Jace's laugh was so clear and happy that it actually managed to add to my sense of wellbeing and happiness. The feeling spiked to new heights and for the briefest of instants I almost reached out and took his hand. I was pretty sure that would make me even happier, but there was also a possibility that doing that would introduce other feelings that would overwhelm the happiness I was trying to cultivate. I decided not to risk it.

  "What next?"

  "Okay, hold the platinum bar in one hand and hold out your other hand so I can put some sand in it."

  I waited while Jace picked up some sand and poured it into my palm. Under other circumstances I would have felt silly sitting there with my eyes closed, but with my default emotion surging through me I was perfectly content to just sit there and wait.

  "There you go, enough to get excited about, but not so much that it should be a hard transmutation. Now, keep your eyes closed and think about the differences between the two materials."

  "What, like one is a bar and the other is a bunch of tiny granules?"

  "Sure, that can be part of it, but if that's all you notice, it will just mean that you'll fuse the sand into one piece. You're trying to fundamentally change the nature of the sand—that means that the more differences you notice, the more likely you are going to be to succeed in making the change."

  I nodded and started trying to catalogue the differences. Texture, density and color were all easy. I already know what sand tasted like from playgrounds as a child, but I put the platinum bar up to my mouth and carefully licked it. Taste, check; smell check. After that I didn't know what else to try. Did they conduct electricity in a different fashion? Did platinum respond to magnets?

  I gently knocked the platinum bar against my other elbow, trying to establish if it carried any kind of vibration, and then shrugged.

  "That's all I can think of. Is there anything I'm missing?"

  "Probably, but that's okay, it works best if this all comes from you rather than trying to hold a bunch of stuff in your head that Kat or I tell you. Now think about how sand makes you feel."

  "Happy, and relaxed. Sand feels like playtime, but a little like I need a shower."

  I felt silly saying it, but verbalizing my thoughts was making it easier to keep the sand feelings from knocking my default emotion off of kilter.

  "Good, Selene, that's good progress. This is where we started having problems last night. Now try to hold the physical differences in your mind at the same time that you're holding onto your default emotion and your feelings about sand."

  "It's difficult, it all just wants to squish together, or barring that my mind wants to think about something else."

  "I know, but you're almost there. Now think about how platinum makes you feel."

  "Happy, secure, safe—it's like knowing that nobody can ever touch me again. Sandra won't have any power over me anymore, her dad won't be able to force my dad to work himself into the grave, it's like a little piece of heaven."

  "Okay, now amp your default feeling up as high as you can and then take all of the platinum attributes and feelings and force them to overwrite the sand feelings and attributes."

  I felt like my mind was trying to split itself into five different pieces, but I gritted my teeth and yanked on the sand feelings, squishing t
hem into the platinum feelings. The attributes followed almost as if of their own accord, and I felt something break free of my mind, streaming out the front of my head like steam from a kettle.

  It was so surprising that my focus wavered at the last second and the sand in my hand went hot for a split second before exploding out of my hand.

  Jace yelped in astonishment, and I looked down to see that my entire torso was splattered in white gunk.

  "Crap, I thought I almost had it."

  "You did it, Selene, that's great!"

  I took a sniff of the stuff coating my right arm and made a face. "I'm pretty sure that platinum doesn't stink like this."

  "Oh, you're right, that isn't platinum—in fact we'd better get cleaned up in case it's caustic—but you did manage to transform something. That means your ability is fully functional and it's just a matter of practicing."

  I started to respond and then realized that he was right, my skin was starting to itch. I jumped to my feet and charged to the icy water, jumping in and scrubbing at my suit and body in attempt to get it all off. Jace followed along at a more sedate pace, chuckling.

  "Hey, it's not funny. I think this stuff is burning me!"

  "You're right, I shouldn't be laughing, it's just that I've never seen you move that fast. I was going to suggest running back to the RV and having you shower there, but I guess you're right, the water here is a lot closer and this way we don't have some kind of unknown substance trying to eat a hole through the plumbing system."

  "Is any of it on my face or in my hair?"

  I was already starting to drop further down into the water, but Jace had waded out far enough that he was able to grab my arm and pull me back up.

  "You're fine. It didn't get on your face or in your hair."

  Jace calmly washed the white splatters off, but even after they were gone there were red spots on his chest.

  "I'm so sorry, Jace."

  "Don't be, watch, I can make it disappear."

  He concentrated for just a second and a handful of red splotches faded away—it was like watching a time lapse sequence of someone healing.