The Awakening Series: Volumes 1 - 3

by Dean Murray

  Jace waited until my dad turned towards him and then held out his hand. "Mr. Jenkins, I'm glad you were able to make it as well. Ari and Selene have both told me a lot about you and Kat spoke highly of you after your meeting yesterday. I'm Jace."

  Dad shook Jace's hand and gave him a nod. "I appreciate the invitation to come join you and your sister, Jace. Where are Ari and Kat?"

  "They are both out on the jet skis right now. I'm afraid that Kat is almost as much of a speed demon as Ari is, so poor Selene hasn't even had a chance to get out on the water yet."

  My dad rolled his eyes. "Somehow I'm not surprised. That child has had an unhealthy obsession with all things fast for almost two years now. I'm sorry that she's monopolizing your watercraft."

  Jace waved away the apology. "Not at all. I'm just glad to see Kat unwind a little. Did you bring a swimming suit? You're welcome to change in the RV. With any luck Kat and Ari are almost out of fuel again and when they come back, if all three of us work as a team we can probably pry them off of the jet skis so that you and Selene can take them out."

  "No, that's okay, I didn't come to deprive you of the use of your jet skis—I just wanted to spend some time with Ari and Selene. You and Kat should go out on them."

  "I'm afraid that I actually need to start setting up for lunch, sir. Do hotdogs and hamburgers sound okay?"

  I pulled on my dad's hand as he nodded in response to Jace. "Come on, Daddy. You did bring your suit, right?"

  "Yes, but…"

  Jace smiled again. "I think you should probably just quit while you're ahead, sir. I'm starting to figure out that if Selene really wants something she'll probably get it."

  "All right, I'll go get my suit."

  "Thanks, Dad."

  Normally I would have just walked back to the pickup with my dad, but this time I hurried into the RV to straighten up the bathroom. I came back just as Jace was pulling a grill out of the side of the RV. Jace unobtrusively gestured at Bethany, who was once again buzzing around my head.

  "Bethany is visible now. You should ask her to go out and signal Kat down."

  "Good idea, the busier we keep my dad the fewer questions he's likely to ask."

  "Actually, I was just thinking that your dad needed to unwind. He looks like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. If it helps keep our secrets then that's just a nice bonus."

  I wanted to give Jace a kiss on the cheek, but even that felt like too much with my dad headed back in our direction.

  "Thanks, Jace. For all of this."

  "It's been my pleasure."

  I looked up at Bethany, but she just threw me a jaunty little salute. "Aye, aye, captain. I heard Mr. Muscles. Heading off to flag down the dangerous duo now."

  A few minutes later Dad had finished changing and Jace was in the middle of mixing ingredients into some kind of thick paste that presumably would go in with the hamburger when he made the patties. Bethany came streaking back a few feet ahead of Kat and Ari, both of who were flushed and laughing.

  "Dad, you're here!"

  Ari jumped off of the watercraft and into Dad's arms before it had even finished moving.

  "Yes, I am—what's this I heard about you monopolizing the water toys?"

  Kat pulled up and jumped off her jet ski so she could grab Ari's before it started floating off. "She's totally fine, Mr. Jenkins. Please don't let Jace convince you otherwise. He hardly even gets on them anymore. The only person who's been missing out is Selene, and I figured there would be plenty of time for her to play around on the water after lunch."

  "You should totally take one out, Dad. Selene too. It's the most fun I've had in months."

  Dad looked hesitant, but Kat had just finished muscling the front of both jet skis up onto the beach so they wouldn't float away.

  "It's really no imposition, Mr. Jenkins. Ari and I will just go grab some fuel and then you and Selene can go buzz around until lunch is ready."

  Ari went splashing along the waterline in the direction of the RV even before the words were out of Kat's mouth, which was odd. All I could figure was that she'd finally realized that I'd had Jace all to myself for several hours already this morning and wanted to get some time in herself.

  I only noticed that in passing though because I was much more focused on the transformation that had overcome Kat. She obviously hadn't had a chance to redo her makeup or anything out on the water before coming back, and she was still wearing the same light-blue two-piece, but she no longer looked like a seventeen-year-old.

  All I could figure was that it was something about how she was holding herself because she easily looked twenty or twenty-one now. I had to hand it to her, I hadn't even began to worry about the complications of Dad arriving without any notice and seeing her as something other than the mature, responsible adult who had convinced him to let his teenage daughters head off on a water trip without any other adult supervision.

  Kat gave my dad a brilliant smile and then followed along behind Ari, but even then she didn't scamper or bound like Ari had, she walked like a woman who knew that everyone would wait for her.

  When the two girls returned they not only had a couple of gas cans, they also had two more life jackets so that we wouldn't have to put on the wet ones that Kat and Ari had been wearing. I waited until my dad was busy filling up the gas tank of one of the jet skis before slipping off my wrap and into a life jacket. Less than five minutes later Dad and I were pushing off of the beach and racing across the glassy surface of the lake.

  It took a little while for Dad to get comfortable enough to really open up the jet ski, and I never quite got to that point, but I still had a good time and really enjoyed seeing Dad smile without the undertone of stress and worry that had seemed a constant part of our lives ever since Mom had died.

  We must have been out there for nearly an hour before I finally saw Bethany come skipping across the surface of the water towards us. I cut the engine and waited for her to get close enough that I would be able to hear her.

  "Jace says that the food is ready to go, so you're both wanted back at the RV."

  I checked to make sure that Dad was far enough away that he wouldn't be able to hear me and then nodded. "Thanks, Bethany. Have you already eaten?"

  "Nope, but Kregor has promised to show me a field of wild flowers that he passed on his way here with your dad."

  "Wow, I didn't realize that fairies lived off of flower nectar…"

  "Selene, the things you don't know about fairies still would fill libraries. Try not to get into any trouble while I'm gone."

  Dad pulled up next to me as she zipped off.

  "Everything okay, sweetie?"

  "Yeah, Dad. I just thought I could see Jace and Kat waving at us from the shoreline."

  Dad squinted back in the direction of the RV. "Wow, maybe it's time for me to finally give in and make a trip to the eye doctor. I don't know how you can make out anything that far away. You're right though, we've been out plenty long enough."

  We sped back over to the shore and beached the jet skis less than twenty feet away from the picnic table where Jace had set up the food. It only took one sniff for me to realize that he'd gone all-out on the food again.

  I could go back and relive that first ambrosia-smothered hamburger at any point, but I still felt my mouth watering for this burger. I was exceptionally hungry after spending so long trying to throw my heavy jet ski through turns in a vain effort to keep up with my dad, but I was also excited to see what new flavor combination Jace had in store for us. I still didn't recognize half of the toppings he had laid out and waiting, but I was pretty sure a big chunk of them weren't the same as last time.

  Ari bounced over and grabbed Dad's arm. I noticed with relief that she'd had the good sense to put a t-shirt on over her tiny red swimsuit. Dad was a lot more likely to let us do this again if he didn't think that we were spending most of our time with Jace and Kat all tarted up.

  "Dad, you are in for a rare treat. Kat has told
us at least a dozen times how good Jace's cooking is."

  I flinched. It was a good thing that Ari was doing most of the talking—I would have said something about how awesome the burgers had been last time, and promptly ended up in a ton of trouble because Dad didn't know that we'd spent Thursday evening at Jace's house.

  Kat looked up from a camp chair where she'd sequestered herself with a textbook. "Indeed I have. My opinion, Mr. Jenkins, is that for your first encounter with Jace's cooking you should let him pick out the toppings."

  "Please, call me Peter."

  Kat's smile doubled in wattage. "Very well, Peter. Feel free to tell Jace if there's anything you despise, but other than that just trust him to do right by you—my little brother has incredible taste."

  That last was said innocently enough, but she gave me a knowing look as soon as my dad turned away. I nearly died in embarrassment, but it was an interesting look into what made Kat tick. Even now, when she was playing a role, the teasing undertone that so readily made itself felt in normal conversation was waiting in the wings.

  Dinner was amazing—even better than the last time. I would have said that wasn't possible, but apparently there really was some magic to his normal recipe that Jace had been forced to forgo last time because the burgers had burned.

  The best part was watching my dad's face as he bit into his burger for the first time. He'd relaxed while we'd been out on the water, but it wasn't until I heard his heartfelt sigh of contentment that I realized even eating had become nothing but another chore for him.

  Mealtimes had definitely taken a turn for the worse after my mom had died. Seeing Dad actually enjoy a meal was like watching the last five years melt away and seeing him how he'd been before Mom had died. I wanted to hug Kat and Jace, but there wasn't any hurry, we had all of the time in the world.

  Once lunch was over, Kat convinced Dad to head back out on the water with Ari. He tried to refuse, but it was like she knew exactly the buttons to push to bend him to her will. I watched the two of them jet away and then turned and gave her that hug.

  "Thank you, Kat. I really appreciate you and Jace making this weekend happen, and for convincing my dad to come here today. I haven't seen him like this in years—it was the best gift that anyone could have given him, which means it's the best gift anyone could have given me."

  Jace came up behind us and wrapped his arms around the two of us. "The best part of it all is that this is just a preview of things to come. Once we get you that metal detector and you 'find' that massive nugget of solid gold, your dad will finally be able to relax and enjoy himself a little more. Just don't be surprised if it takes him a while to adjust."

  "You've seen it before?"

  "Yeah. Based on what's survived of my early journals, I even experienced it for myself when I first realized that I wasn't going to have to worry about money ever again. It's funny how much our jobs and the battle to provide for those closest to us can come to define us. Your dad is probably going to need some time to figure out what he wants to do with his life."

  "Well, I guess there are a lot worse problems than that to have."

  Jace shrugged. "There is an awful lot that I don't know, but it sure seems like people default back to the same level of happiness regardless of their circumstances. Hopefully your dad is one of the rare individuals who can rise above that and just realize how fortunate he's been."

  Chapter 26

  While Dad and Ari were out on the lake I took the opportunity to practice trying to maintain multiple effects at once for longer blocks of time. I hadn't expected it to be easy, but I also hadn't expected it to be quite so exhausting.

  It wasn't just physically tiring, it was emotionally exhausting. Summoning my default emotion with enough strength to weave in more than one effect and then sustaining that depth of emotion wore me out in ways that it was hard to describe.

  Kat happened on me a few minutes after I finally managed to sustain a strength-, circulatory- and skin-strengthening effect for an entire sixty seconds. She looked at me and shook her head.

  "Jace told me that you were some kind of savant, but I had to see it to believe it. You really are something."

  "Thanks, but I'm having a harder and harder time making stuff work. This last time it was like pulling teeth to get my emotions strong enough to start working effects."

  "So take a break. It's not like you're behind schedule or anything. Most people don't realize how much work it is to build up emotional muscle because they are so much more focused on trying to get the effects working in the first place. You're in the opposite situation, you're making effects work left and right, but it's going to take some time before your emotional reservoir gets big enough to spend the whole day working effects like this."

  "I guess that makes sense."

  "Of course it does, everything I say always makes sense."

  That earned her an eye roll, which just made her laugh, but she'd succeeded in making me feel like it was okay to call it a night. I ended up going into the RV for my backpack and then put a camp chair out next to Jace and worked on my homework while he wrote in his journal.

  I was way past understanding why Jace and Kat spent so much time writing in their journals, but I'd been reluctant to start myself because it just felt like such a big task. I was starting to realize though that I couldn't afford to put the task off, even if it was incredibly intimidating. I'd already lost a couple of hours' worth of my life after just my first day as a full Awakened.

  Jace caught me staring. "Does that mean you're ready to start one of your own?"

  "Yeah. I'm just not sure where to start even if I had a journal to start writing in."

  "Well, there's a blank journal and your favorite brand of pen waiting for you inside the RV."

  Jace looked out onto the water as though trying to make out the details of what was happening with my dad and Ari before finally shrugging.

  "As for the other part of your challenge, that's something you'll have to figure out on your own, but a lot of us do one journal that is just the high points of our lives, the most important things that you would want yourself to know if the worst happened and you ended up losing all of your memories. Then once that is done we tend to start two more journals. The first one is a daily record of our lives from the time we start journaling, the second picks up from our earliest memory and works its way forward until it matches up with the other detailed journal."

  My mouth went dry as I realized what he was telling me. "Is that what's back in that box that I asked you to give me? Is that the high-point narrative of my life?"

  "I don't know—it's been hard not to look at it, but I promised you that I wouldn't. It might be the high-point journal, or it might be your final research journal. I know you're probably hoping for the former, but we never found anything in writing concerning your last set of discoveries, the stuff that you were working on just before you died."

  "But you found some of my research…"

  "Yeah, like I said earlier, it was so far beyond us that frankly I'm surprised that you decided to continue running with Kat and me. You could have used even just your earlier stuff to bargain your way into almost any pantheon in the world. I can only imagine what must have been in the last journal."

  I wasn't sure what to say, so I just nodded and returned to my homework as I made a mental note to grab the spare journal later and get started on the highlights version that Jace had suggested.

  A few minutes later Ari and I got the biggest surprise of our day when Dad came back from his time on the lake and told us that we could stay there for another night if we wanted. It happened after a twenty-minute discussion between Dad, Jace, and Kat while Ari was refueling the jet skis and I was inside putting the dishes away from lunch, so there was no way to know what the three of them had talked about, but as I came outside with my new journal tucked under my arm, Dad walked up and gave me a kiss on the forehead.

  "I need to go if I'm going to make it home in ti
me for work, but if you and Ari want to stay here for one more night that's okay. Just make sure you're home by two o'clock tomorrow so I can say hi to you both before work."

  I wrapped my arms around my dad's chest and gave him a hug. "Thanks, Dad. That sounds like fun, but I don't want to miss our Sunday together."

  "It's okay, sweetie. I think that I'll actually get next weekend off for a change and we'll spend both days together then. Jace says that there's a tent and sleeping bag in the SUV he drove up this morning, so he'll be sleeping in that. No spending the night together—you or Ari either one. I want your word."

  I nodded. "Of course, Daddy."

  "Okay, there will be plenty of time for that kind of stuff later."

  I'd already let go of him, but he pulled me back in and gave me a hug that made my ribs creak, just like he'd done when I was little, back before he started treating Ari and me like we were made out of spun glass, before he started worrying that we would disappear on him like Mom had.

  "Let's go tell your sister."

  Chapter 27

  Ari was predictably stoked to be staying with Kat and Jace for another day. Dad went in and changed back into his jeans and flannel shirt and then Ari, Kat, Jace and I stood and waved goodbye as my dad drove away in his tired, old yellow pickup.

  Ari wanted to go back out onto the lake right away, this time with Jace instead of Kat, but the three of us told her that there wouldn't be any more jet ski fun until her homework was done. She pouted for fifteen minutes before deciding that it wasn't winning her any points with Jace, and then she finally just buckled down.

  Really there wasn't a good reason for her to have been complaining. Sitting in the sun made even doing homework feel like a vacation. Still, I hated to be wasting the sunlight doing homework. For once I was tempted to do a little time-bending myself just because I would have vastly preferred for my extra, non-sleep hours, to have been more sunlight and warmth than cold darkness. Although now that I really thought about it, that still wouldn't have done it because I would have just been going to sleep earlier and waking up while it was still dark out.