I raised our hand in an imitation of Kara’s attention getting method and both women yelled, “What?”
James slammed the side door shut with a click to plop on the seat next to us with a relieved expression because I’d distracted the two women. Silver took the floor since she was the one who handled the burnout of Shiva’s presence in David and Cora.
“Cora and David should be fine. Shiva can’t get back in without us knowing and whatever those black tendrils are that he hooks into a host are gone. Destroyed. Their Web presences are probably healthier than they were to begin with. As far as physical wellbeing goes, I didn’t detect anything amiss in either of them. Psychological trauma is a whole ‘nother ball of wax and I’m no shrink. Cass is better at hand holding than I’ll ever be.”
I thought, “Gee, thanks for throwing me under the Dear Abby bus.”
James and Kara stiffened at our full on reveal. We’d meant it earlier with Chavarria. No more hiding. That included trying to disguise the fact that Silver and I were a two-for. Being The Doublemint Twins in one body wasn’t ideal, but it was what it was. Other people needed to start getting used to our reality, not just close family and friends.
Silver threw in, “Ehhh, they’ll get over it.”
Corinne’s voice travelled like a cool, cutting sliver of sound from beside her mother. “If you aren’t Cass, then who are you?”
I turned our body awkwardly to the side to avoid straining our neck so Silver could answer. In the process we knocked James in the thigh with our knee. He smiled absently as he reached out a hand to unfold our legs across his lap. Pausing in annoyance, Silver smacked James’ knuckles as he tried to leave a hand too high on one of our legs. Maggie made Reb and Ray sit down to face the front as Gerome started the engine, then put the van in gear.
Our coat was twisted in our sideways position and Silver turned our head aside to murmur at Kara, “Can you help me pull this off?”
The suspension was pretty good with respect to the rutted road but there’s only so much a vehicle can resist on a severely grooved surface. We were all jiggling and jostling against one another as soon as our forward motion began.
When Kara was in mid tug with the shoulders of our coat, Cora erupted verbally as if Silver’s prior words had finally sunk in.
Her eyes bulged and the bags under them became more pronounced. “How would you know if Shiva tried to invade me again? We don’t have an attachment! What do you mean you didn’t detect anything ‘amiss’ in our physical being?”
Silver’s irritation was about to pop as she struggled to get our arms free of the fitted sleeves and compensate for the rough road. James held our legs tight together when we started to slide to the floorboard after a really good jounce. Faintly from the front I could hear Gerome apologize for the bumps. Reb and Ray held their arms over their heads and squealed with joy like they were on the coolest of thrill rides every time the frame dipped and rocked.
I spoke for my twin to ease the tension level. “I’ll answer the questions in the order they were received. Corinne asked who was talking if I wasn’t. Silver is my sister—my twin to be exact. We’ve got the most bizarre case of chimerism on record. In a normal twin pregnancy, either fraternal or paternal, sometimes one of the fetuses is absorbed by the other. That happened with us, but since I carry her DNA in my body, her mind and soul continued to exist as a Weaver.”
Finally, with an awkward downward pull at our wrists that made our shoulders scream, we were free of our coat. As the tips of our fingers brushed the edge of the silky lining I felt a tiny filament keep the leather garment attached to our shield. Interesting.
We were going to have our own questions for Corinne when this was over. Her eyes met ours over the seatback as we peeled the malleable veneer of energy back from our discarded duster and settled it more evenly over our body. Corinne registered our manipulation of the complex energy encasing everyone in the van but Malcolm. It felt wrong somehow to leave the big man out but I wasn’t really sure why the shield was still up anyway. I’d ask Corinne in a minute if her mother ever zipped her lips.
Cora snapped her fingers to interrupt the visual connection, and said, “That fails to answer my questions. Don’t ignore me. I deserve to know.” The councilwoman’s eyes blazed with an inner fervor.
If she didn’t seek mental help sometime in the near future I had a doubt to her continued sanity. Corinne flicked her gaze to the side as if to acknowledge our silent observation…even more interesting still. Silver jumped into control to press our upper body full against the seat back and extend an arm to point an index finger at Cora’s face.
Silver edited her angry retort for listening three-year-old ears before she snarled, almost spitting like a furious wet cat, “I’ve saved your butt more than a couple times today and I’m not taking any manure off you, woman. We might as well just spill all the beans while we’re at it. Cass isn’t responsible for Calvin. I am.”
Both Harris women blanched at the abrupt change in subject, shocked into silence.
Before either one could come to enough to speak, Silver bulled on. “Furthermore, Cora, I think you knew something was up with your boy. It was self-stinking-defense and we almost died anyway. If I didn’t have the ability to heal this body on a cellular level we’d just be another one of his victims. The real person to blame is Shiva. He got to Calvin and twisted him.”
Corinne flipped from inert fast. “Are you sure it was Shiva?”
Silver nodded. “As sure as I can be with the brief glimpse we got before I burned his presence out of the Web.”
James was squeezing our legs so hard the bony parts of our knees started to burn painfully where they were pressed together.
Silver slapped one of his arms. “Quit strangling our appendages, dummy. You break ours, I break yours.”
He said, “Silver you should really shut up now.”
Cora launched herself forward in her seat, just barely halting her lunge at the last second as she thought better of it. Verbal scrapping this woman could definitely do, but we’d wipe the floor with her in a physical altercation and she knew it. We could see the knowledge simmer and boil into hatred as her mouth trembled and she punched her seat in frustration.
The councilwoman stilled as she collected herself. It was scary watching a person fall apart and piece themselves back together this fast. Cora pulled her hands into her lap and clasped them together until her knuckles turned white as the tendons stood out on the inside of her wrists. When she lifted her bowed head all traces of her emotional turmoil were wiped clean. The mask was superficial, but I wasn’t about to poke at it and neither was Silver. Corinne tried to reach out and place a hand over her mother’s desperately clenched ones only to be coldly rebuffed.
In an aloof hard voice somewhat ruined by the rocking of the van as it bounced, Cora said, “Are you responsible for robbing me of my son’s life memories?”
Silver let out a breath and steeled our spine with resolve. “Accidently, but yes I’m responsible. Would you like to go in the Web right this second and share the memory we have of his death? Is that what it’ll take for you to let go? You can’t unsee some things, though. Think hard.”
Corinne interjected, “If she goes I go, but I don’t think this is a good idea.”
Her mother’s head turned and her eyes bulged into a stare. “You don’t think it’s a good idea? Why is that? Do you believe what they said about Calvin? Have you turned away from me completely? I guess so if you’re dating that Outsider, Smith!” With that last sentence Cora’s upper lip curled in disgust.
Corinne gave a pained sigh before turning to us as if she’d built a wall in the air between herself and her mother, blocking her from existence. I checked the shield and she had. An invisible wall was stretched upright, growing like a piece of poster board from the filament that connected the Harris women. David slid a hand from his lap discreetly and wove his fingers in between the petite blonde girl’s. Corinne might have pulled aw
ay if David’s expression hadn’t been so fragile.
This van was full to the brim with damaged goods. Kara was a mess just waiting to be cleaned up later. Cora was an emotional time bomb counting down to explode crazy all over. Corinne had lost everyone in her family one way or another. David was traumatized. Gerome had almost died yesterday and he had a whole compound of displaced Weavers to protect thanks to sabotage from within and without. Maggie had to deal with light bending three-year-olds and minister to everyone’s health. Silver and I were always moving from one disaster to the next, dragging the weight of the world behind us. The only individuals that seemed to have it halfway together were James and Malcolm.
Cora turned away from her daughter.
The van hit another bump and everyone braced in their seats. Maggie pulled Reb and Ray into her lap and their joy filled faces gazed at us from either side of our aunt’s frizzy red hair. I was sick to death of conflict. Fighting should only be done for a purpose, as a tool, and then that tool should be put away for the next job. My niece and nephew deserved to live in a world that felt safe, but I was tired already.
Silver thought at me, “This too shall pass, Sister. Maybe one day we can have our own children and not worry so much about…everything.”
I didn’t answer but she knew her reassurance sounded hollow. Cora’s voice yanked us out of our pity party.
Cora barked, “Well? Are we doing this or not?”
Sparing a glance to James I nodded in Cora’s direction and closed our eyes in silent answer to her question. It was a relief to leave the physical complications of life behind and enter the cool vacuum of the mindscape that made all things seem possible. Silver’s comfort level increased and I could feel her pleasant, relaxed mindset bleed over into mine. Here in this vast infinity of scattered sentience my twin was most at home.
James showed up to immediately drift so close we almost collided. His normally cool green light had streamers of neon yellow pulsing through it and I could feel waves of anxiety flowing at us.
Silver pushed at his emotive leakage and snarked, “Hey, Romeo, slow your roll. You’re spewing worry wart juice all over the rest of us.”
The neon streamers flared on James’ surface, indicating his embarrassment and then he shrunk, brightening into a tight ball before expanding out again. As his surface area enlarged, the more vivid hues dissolved and faded into his normal light green.
James thought back, “Better?”
Usually we could see Kara’s light drifting off in the distance, tethered to James with their familial attachment. This time her violet light was closer. All three of us noticed at the same time.
Silver, James and I all thought, “Kara?”
Her surface threw out explosive loops of lavender like a coronal mass ejection after a solar flare. We all watched dumbfounded as she struggled to calm her rising panic.
Silver cajoled, “You aren’t going to explode and fly off into a gazillion different pieces, Kara. I told you I’d never let you get lost in the Web again. Settle in and feel. James is holding you here even if you start to drift. We’re as real in this place as we are any other. You don’t dissolve into nothingness on Earth if you quit reminding yourself your feet are on the ground, right?”
James laughed, reservations temporarily forgotten. “Sure, I try every method short of torture to get you in the Web and all it takes is Silver and Cass being reckless to get you here. By the way, per our agreement, I’ll give you access to your inheritance as soon as we get back.”
At that last remark Kara’s surface pulled inward just as her brother’s had earlier. When it enlarged to its prior size only faint sparkles of fireworks littered the outer crust. Her mental voice was tremulous with an undertone of quaver but her words came out strong. “I couldn’t leave you alone while you relived this for Cora and Corinne. You aren’t invincible. You need us just like we need you.”
Silver’s emotional signature staggered for a second and then reasserted its steady confidence. I caught the reaction. My twin flicked a finger of thought at me like a horse’s tail at a fly and I backed off. I pushed a piece of myself away as I’d done when I went to see Mez and looked down at our gathered luminescence. We had drifted into a vaguely trapezoidal shape, with my sister and me making up the corners on the shortest side.
Gruff, Silver replied, “Yeah, we need you.”
From my vantage I saw when Cora and Corinne manifested. The councilwoman’s presence was a roaring, raging red akin to a volatile mixture of blood and fire. In direct opposition to her mother, Corinne’s essence resembled a frozen planet covered in icy blue interlocking landmasses filled with an inner core of rotating mercury.
I sank back down to join the fray reluctantly. Being honest was one thing. Shoving the reality of their deceased homicidal family member’s last moments of existence in their metaphorical face was quite another. Heavyhearted, I rejoined the part of myself I had ghosted away with Silver and the Lees.
Hate and fury poured from Cora in waves so intense it became difficult to gather our thoughts. From Corinne we felt nothing but a blessed stillness.
Whether it was by design or a happy coincidence the Harris women were polar opposites. Corinne rotated around to put herself in the lead and her light dampened the unpleasant emotional discordance emanating from her mother. It reminded us of the scene in Maggie and Gerome’s living room when Corinne had put herself between us. Maybe her shadowing of Cora wasn’t just for the councilwoman’s protection. There was something else going on here that the Harris’s weren’t sharing.
As if Corinne had caught the suspicious cerebrations, a blast of bitterly cold toned thought beamed outward. “Let’s get this over with. Give us the memory and I’ll pass it to my mother. Don’t try anything funny.”
Silver’s back got up quick but I soothed her anger down with a pass of my theory about Corinne and Cora’s interactions. It was enough to make my sibling stop and think. My twin was the undeniable leader in Web navigating skill so I pushed her to take point. We would really need to share two memories for the Harris’s to get the full picture.
Sharing a memory wasn’t giving it away. In essence, your mind let you make a copy and push it outside of its natural environment to be absorbed by another mind or to disintegrate into the open space of the Web, floating off to gather with other clouds of loosed memories. Just to experiment once, Silver put us in the middle of a jumbled cloud of vagabond thoughts. The disorientation was so severe and the influx of so many different thoughts and feelings at once so overwhelming I’d made her promise to never do it again. Certainly it didn’t seem like anyone ever wanted to ‘lose’ a good thought.
My twin accepted the chain of remembrance I pushed to the forefront of my mind for her to take. A flash of Calvin’s face right before he plunged the screwdriver into our chest and the utter helplessness of accepting death zoomed out as Silver drew it into herself and matched it side by side with her own memory of that day five years ago. A shudder passed through us as I concentrated on stilling our surface and controlling any emotions that might leak out unintentionally. I could feel Kara drift closer to Silver and my connection to James was filled with calm like an ocean of feather-soft beds just waiting to catch you as you dove from a cliff.
Reassured and bolstered by the Lee’s presence, Silver balled up our entwined remembrance, then streaked them toward Corinne as a red hot comet. Most Weavers shared memories by coming into close proximity and letting their minds ‘touch’ lightly. We had no such requirement and Corinne’s astonishment was obvious as she tried to decide if it was an attack.
Instinctively I did something I didn’t know I could do. Reaching out a mental loop of will I slowed my sister’s blazing ball and paused it before saying for everyone to hear, “Silver, next time give a little warning. The Harris’s aren’t used to your methods. This could’ve gone badly if they thought you were trying to harm them.”
Silver flared momentarily with embarrassment and then got grum
py for being called out. “Yeah, yeah I see your point…sorry, my bad.”
Somehow predictably she managed to not really sound sorry at all. I’d caught her off guard by catching her memory missile. I turned my mental attention to Corinne. “Would you like me to release it? It’s only memories and nothing else. No harm will come to you beyond having to remember something unpleasant.”
The plates of ice on Corinne’s outer shell shifted like icebergs crashing into one another and I almost imagined I could hear them.
Her voice was cool and controlled once more as she assented.
“Send it.”
With an almost pleasurable sensation of release I let the ‘comet’ resume its intended course. When it struck Corinne’s surface it didn’t explode or crater the ice. Instead a hole opened up and swallowed our memories. Under the blue-tinted layer of her outside, the mercury core began to spin faster until the red ball was sucked into it like a planet being sucked into the sun. Flecks of red spun in the silvery inner orb only to be spat out the other side in a stream at her mother’s red giant presence.
Silence reigned and respectfully we all decided to keep it. Cora Harris really did resemble a dying star and maybe that wasn’t coincidental. She’d lost her husband to cancer; she thought she was losing the battle to save her people; her son was dead; and not to mention it looked as if her own daughter was growing a backbone to distance herself. Sympathy wasn’t in short supply, but it’d be easier to feel if Cora wasn’t such an unpleasant person. Her inner hate fire was going to burn her out before her time. We didn’t really have a hope the sharing of this memory would solve anything, but there would no longer be secrets and that was a step forward as far as it went.
VECTOR (The Weaver Series Book 3) Page 24
