[Insight 01.0] Crown of Insight: Godly Games

by Jamie Magee

  “What does that have to do with us?”

  The tension in the room was so thick that I could barely breathe.

  “There has never been another couple—both from our dimension—with the same insights as the pair of you,” Ashten answered.

  “So…is this bad or good?”

  Ashten and my father exchanged wary glances. The strain between Landen and his father intensified within seconds.

  Suddenly, Landen stood up. “Your silence gives me a reason to leave now.” I stood to chill him out.

  Ashten stood and said, “Landen, it took you two days to get here, do you want to put that little girl upstairs through that? We need to wait for the storms to grow calm, or at least for Livingston and Marc to arrive.”

  “You know Livingston? Who is Marc?” I asked, using our new gift.

  “Livingston is my uncle, and Marc is his son,” Landen answered in the same manner.

  Landen looked into my eyes, then to the stairs that led to where Libby was playing. Through his emotions, I felt him weigh each consequence. He sat back down. The room filled with relief.

  Slowly I sat down next to Landen, trying to place all the names and faces with the story my father had told me.

  The tightness in the room broke when Libby appeared at the top of the stairs. “Is it time for dinner? I’m hungry,” she asked as she walked down the stairs, smiling innocently at Landen. It was like she knew him and loved him already.

  “Yeah, baby. We were just deciding what we’re going to have,” Mom said “Let’s have some dinner and get some rest. I’m sure everything will be clearer in the morning.”

  Dad and Ashten excused themselves to the back porch—I’m sure to discuss Landen and me in private. Libby walked over to Landen’s side and slid her small body under his arm. They stared at each other, and the emotion between them seemed familiar to me. Libby reached her tiny hand to Landen’s face, and when he smiled at her, she giggled. “I like the name Landen. Do you like the name ‘Libby’?”

  “I feel like I know her. How does she know my name?”

  “It’s her insight. She started using it today. She doesn’t know that she has it yet.”

  His eyes filled with disbelief. “It has to be more than insight,” he thought quietly.

  “I do. It’s one of my favorites,” Landen said.

  “Is Willow your princess?” Libby asked, looking back and forth between us.

  “Yes, she is,” Landen agreed with a boyish grin.

  “I told you princesses have green eyes,” Libby said, crossing her arms, proud of her prediction. She then looked at Landen and said, “Daddy wants to talk to you.” Landen looked down at his watch, and we waited. Fifteen seconds later, my father opened the door.

  “Landen, can you come out here please?”

  Landen reluctantly stood and walked to the door, he smiled back at me as he stepped outside. I knew they weren’t saying anything upsetting because calm came over the cabin.

  When dinner was ready, Landen and our dads came back in; the calm emotions were still with them. For Libby’s sake, the conversation had no stories of other dimensions. Instead, we listened to stories of my father and Ashten’s childhood. I felt closer to my dad. I’d never realized how little I knew of him before my mother came into his life.

  Everyone was trying to act like this was ordinary, just two families hanging out. It worked until just after dinner when we ran out things to clean and small talk.

  “It’s been a long day, and a longer one awaits us,” Ashten said. “I’m going to sleep in the living room in case anyone makes it through tonight. I don’t want any false alarms.”

  Dad walked over to his medicine bag, pulled out a white tube, and handed it to me. “This is for the burn on his shoulder. It’ll get infected if he doesn’t treat it,” he said, glancing to Landen.

  “You’re hurt?

  “It’s nothing,” he thought.

  I raised my brow, doubting his words, but he just gave me a playful grin.

  “Good night,” mom said over her shoulder as she carried Libby up the stairs.

  I left Landen in the living room. I could tell that he wanted to talk to his father.

  I changed into my pajamas—some simple cotton shorts and a white T-shirt. My sketchbook was lying across my bed with Landen’s portrait facing up. Mom must have brought it up. I pulled out the photo album the girls had given to me, wanting to tell them all about Landen. The boy that stole my heart without a single word.

  I scooted to the center of the bed, turned to the sketch of flowers, and placed it next to a picture of the five of us. I realized that our lives were now like the flower: all original, beautiful, and living side by side, yet unaware of one another.

  Sensing Landen coming up the stairs, I glanced to the hallway and saw him stop at Libby’s room. As he gazed in and watched her sleep, I could feel his confusion and turmoil; I wondered what he was thinking. He looked down, wrestling with his thoughts before walking to my room.

  “Are you okay?” I thought when he got closer.

  He smiled at me, closed the door, walked over to the bed, and slid by my side. “What happened? Why is Drake looking for you?” he thought.

  I looked down at my wrist to the star that rested in the loop of the ankh. Landen followed my gaze, then looked back up at me.

  “I didn’t see his face when I dreamed, but I’m sure that Drake did this.”

  His anger rose so high that I could see the heat behind his dimples. I knew then not to tell him that Drake had been in all my nightmares.

  “How did he do it?”

  “He touched my wrist, that’s all.”

  “You told your dad, and he decided to run home,” he guessed.

  “He saw the star, then left. I never said what happened.”

  “That was four nights ago, right?” Landen thought, sitting forward a little.

  I nodded. “Why?”

  “Four days ago, Livingston came crashing into my father’s house and pulled him away. They left, and only my dad came back. He told us he’d found Jason and needed help bringing his daughters home.”

  “They found my dad a long time ago when I was six.”

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” Landen thought, running his hands through his dark hair.

  “Did you know about Drake? His parents, Adonia and Justus?” I asked.

  Landen stiffened his jaw. “Marc and his brother, Chrispin, lost their mother that day. That’s all we talk about when we’re alone.”

  His thoughts grew silent. I folded the album closed, set it on the side table, and reached for the sketchpad. When I picked it up, Landen slowly touched my arm and reached for the pad, pulling it closer and looking at the details of the flowers.

  “How do you remember them so clearly?”

  “It’s easy,” I tried to hide my blush.

  I reached my finger to the pad and traced the outline of the blue and green flowers, each with different petals.

  “I think they represent you and me,” I thought, as the emerald of my eyes met the blue of his.

  A sexy smile emerged as he eased his fingers through mine. He clutched my hand the subtle move rocked my body, my pulse quickened, heat flushed in my chest.

  “Where were we? Whose house was that?” I thought.

  “Ours,” he said softly.

  A smile touched my lips. Landen leaned closer to kiss me, his lips feathered across mine, before his arm reached around me to pull me against him, when he drew me forward I felt him tense at the pain coming from his shoulder.

  “Can I see?” I asked.

  “It’s nothing,” he thought, flashing an embarrassed grin.

  I knew it was something. I could see the pain in his eyes. “I need to put the medicine on it anyway.”

  Landen gave me a wary look then began to unbutton his black shirt. I swallowed nervously. His body was godly—his skin was tan and lush, his muscles were like a warrior's, or an archangel. Pristine, too perfect t
o touch, yet it took all I had to hold myself back.

  Underneath the black shirt was a white tank top. Landen pulled it over his head. At first, I didn’t see the damage; my eyes raked over his chest. I had no idea how I was managing to look so calm.

  I gasped at the sight of his shoulder.

  “I told you it’s nothing,” he thought, trying to downplay it.

  He was wrong. The burn started at the top of his shoulder and curved around his shoulder blade. “How did you do this?” I reached for the medicine my father had given me and gently rubbed the cool cream across his blazing skin.

  “It’s just the storm. I wasn’t paying attention. I was careless.” His breath whooshed out in relief as I gently rubbed the cool cream over the wound, then he lay on his side, allowing the medicine to dry. His eyes drifted up to mine with the same hungry desire.

  The air around us was so warm, so numbingly calm that I felt like I was locked in a world with him.

  “What did they want with you outside?” I asked.

  Landen stared up at me through his thick eyelashes. “Your father told me that he’d never shown you how to travel, that you didn’t go the way the rest of us do.”

  He reached for my hand and let his fingertips glide across my skin.

  “How do I do it differently?

  “The rest of us travel through the strings, like the one you saw me come from tonight. Your dad said that you use people, that you see them through emotions.” He tilted his head, finding it somewhat amusing.

  I made a face. “How weird am I?”

  I felt a fluttering kiss on my hand, and then he leaned up to trace the side of my face with his fingertips.

  “It’s not weird.” He pulled my chin up, so I’d have to look him in the eye. “It has to do with your insight. The insight of emotion is not a common one. It’s unique that you, your father, and sister all have an insight.”

  “But, they’re all different.”

  “You still all have one,” he said raising his brow to stress his point.

  “Do you have one?” I asked.

  “I do,” he thought as he leaned down to the quilt at the end of the bed, pulling it over him.

  “Way to be cryptic,” I teased.

  He let out a quiet laugh. He was enjoying keeping me in suspense. He reached for me. I crawled into his arms as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  We had held each other like this for years; he knew how to make me feel safe. This time though, he reached for my chin and guided my lips to his. “I should’ve kissed you forever ago,” he murmured.

  “What is it?” I thought as loud as I could, knowing he was distracting me on purpose.

  His kiss slowed, then stopped. Doing his best to suppress a grin he stared into my eyes as his fingertip traced my bottom lip then eased down my neck and settled just beside my collarbone.

  “It’s not as interesting as all of yours.” His voice was so deep that when he spoke aloud I felt the words hum through my body.

  “I can determine truth or intent, but it’s flawed. People can change their plan in an instant.” The wicked smirk on the corner of his lips stopped my breath.

  What was he saying? Could he feel my intent? This internal war I had going on right now.

  “How does it work?” I asked as I told myself to stop blushing.

  Landen lay back down, still staring at me. “I feel it. I can feel if they believe what they’re saying. The intent is harder to explain. I don’t see it or hear it, but I know what they intend to do.”

  “Does Ashten have insight?”

  “No. That’s why your family is rare. There is usually one insight every other generation.”

  I realized that I didn’t know anything about his mother or whether or not he had any brothers or sisters. We were backward. Everyone I knew built a relationship with words, the emotions drifted in with time. I knew his soul inside and out, but not his life.

  “Where is the rest of your family? Are they in Chara?” I asked, watching him grin as he tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear so he could see my face more clearly.

  “Mom, Aubrey, and my sister, Clarissa, took a cab from an airport in New York to a hotel and had been shopping, using your mother’s credit cards. My brother, Brady, is in Washington, using your father’s credit cards.”

  “Why?”

  “They’re just trying to leave a paper trail for your world. We needed to fade you away.”

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about fading away from all the people I loved here.

  “It was just a precaution,” Landen thought, seeing the effect that his words had on me.

  I nodded shyly, forcing myself to focus on the wins of my life, not the losses. “What did you talk to your father about?” I asked needing to change the subject.

  “It wasn’t a talk. I asked if Dad if knew you were the one I dreamed of when he told me to come here.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He was silent.” Landen paused then glanced up at me. “He understands my insight. He knows if he doesn’t answer, I won’t be able to tell if he’s telling the truth.”

  “What is his intent?”

  “All I can see is that he wants us safe at home,” Landen thought.

  “None of this makes any sense to me.”

  Landen pulled himself up on one arm and gazed at me. “Everything has its reason. It may not be clear to us tonight, but one day it will be. You and I have proved beyond any doubt that our beliefs are not false. We are meant to be with someone, the one. I found you. No one can keep us apart now. Our love will now be the story told to define how sacred love is.”

  I smiled. “I do love you,” I thought as I settled into his arms.

  “What are you thinking...what do you want to know?”

  “Everything. Tell me about your family. Are you sure your family is okay with running around this dimension for us?”

  He grinned. “My sister loves Infante. She says her beacon is here, that she can feel it.”

  “Infante…is that what they call this dimension?”

  Landen nodded “It means ‘young.’”

  “How is it young?”

  He smirked. “Travelers consider it young because the cultures are still divided, and war still occurs here.”

  “What does Chara mean?”

  “‘Joy,’ ‘happiness.’”

  I smiled, thinking of how beautiful the people in Chara must be. “Has your brother, Brady, found his soul mate?”

  A proud grin consumed his image. “Felicity. She’s at home. Their first child will be here soon. Trust me she’s going to be thrilled to meet you.”

  Just the thought of meeting new people put me on edge, but it was hard to worry about that at this moment. “How old are they, Brady, and your sister Clarissa?”

  “Clarissa is twenty and Brady is almost twenty-five. That’s why my father didn’t believe me when I told him about you. He thought I was too young.

  “Thought,” I pointed out.

  I was struggling to keep my eyes open. “How come we need so many travelers to get us home?”

  “I think my father and I can do it. You and your dad can travel, and Libby is close enough she wouldn’t need a lot of help so that only leaves your mother. We’re just waiting on the storms to settle.”

  “What causes the storms?”

  He grinned as I set the intent to fight sleep so that I could hear his voice in my thoughts. “It’s a disruption in the energy near the strings. They say the storms have only happened in the last two generations. One theory is that all the technology is disrupting the natural energy around us.”

  “Are they dangerous?” I asked. I was having second thoughts about taking Libby through something like that.

  “They’re more confusing than dangerous. It’s like being out in open water—then all of a sudden a mass of waves turns you, and you lose your direction.”

  “How did you get hurt?”

  “I thought there was
a passage where there wasn’t one, and I pushed through with my shoulder. I was just in a hurry to get here.”

  We lay in absolute silence, studying each other, lost in our thoughts. I felt my eyes close against my will, and without hesitation, Landen was there beside me as we stood in the doorway to our home.

  He smiled down at me, then wistfully picked me up and carried me across the threshold, kissing me gently as he sat me down inside. I walked through the house with him at my side.

  We walked up the wide staircase into a large room, our room. A gentle breeze flowed through the long white curtains, framing the wide double doors; the sun glided over them, making them seem as if they were satin. We then passed through the open doors and stared into a field of beautiful flowers, the sun dancing across them. I honestly did feel like I was home. Home was at his side.

  Chapter Six

  “Love is much like a wild rose, beautiful and calm, but willing to draw blood in its defense.” Mark Overby

  The sunlight peeked through the open window, warming my face. I smiled before I opened my eyes. When I reached for Landen, though, I didn’t find him. Libby’s small frame was under my hand. I opened my eyes to see her tiny sleeping head on my pillow. I hesitated, searching my memory. Then I frantically rose. Was it all a dream? Did I not find Landen?

  I reached my senses out. Relief swept through me. He was downstairs with the others, maybe someone new?

  Their emotions were giving me no alarm. I lay back down and traced Libby’s small features as she slept at my side. I couldn’t recall when she’d come in there. Hoping that she hadn’t had a nightmare, I shuddered as I remembered mine once again. Whatever the case, Libby seemed calm enough now, so I decided to get ready for the day.

  When I returned to my room, Libby was sitting up in my bed. A smile filled my face; her hair was nothing less than a savage nest, though she did look well rested.