by Jess Bowen
What was she going to say? Hey, I watch you a lot and I know everything you feel, and I was just wondering if you were okay with that. If that didn’t get her arrested, it would be a miracle.
She had so far been smart enough not to mention her special ability to any of her friends, because she was sure that would have caused a fair amount of gossip. Although, she wondered, if she was carrying a secret like this, how many others were as well? Could there be more people out there like her? What purpose did this gift have? She had to hope there was something to give it meaning.
Phoebe watched the boy for a while longer. His friends gave up on passing the Frisbee to him, and he stood off to the side. Her phone buzzed, and she hastened to answer it. She glanced at the caller ID.
“Hey, Kate,” she greeted as she flipped open the phone.
“Hey, you want to hang out around the shops today? I don’t really feel like anything else,” Kate replied.
The shops would be perfect since they were only a block away and Phoebe had promised her mother she wouldn’t go far. “Yeah, sure. You going to pick up Carmen on your way?” She, Kate, and Carmen had been friends since kindergarten.
“Yeah, I’ll grab her. Meet you in twenty!”
“Okay,” Phoebe said and snapped the phone shut. There was no need to ask her where to go; they always met at the same spot.
Phoebe finished writing her last thought in her journal and stuffed everything in her bag, then got up off the wooden chair and started toward the sidewalk. As she walked, something hit her calf.
She turned to see that the Frisbee had bounced off her leg and was now lying on the sand beside her feet. A quick glance as she turned revealed that the boy she’d been watching was headed in her direction to gather it up. With anxiety building, she thought quickly. Should she stay and talk to him? Or should she just walk away? Conflict played within her, and she wondered why this was such a big deal. It was just a person coming to retrieve a Frisbee.
Phoebe leaned down to pick up the Frisbee and heard his footsteps getting closer, so she turned and waited. Time seemed to move forward in slow motion as the boy jogged over to her. She noticed that his face was shaped much like hers with nearly the same hair color. His eyes were dark, though, a dark, earthy brown. He smiled as he got closer, and a wave of déjà vu hit her like a ton of bricks.
She knew him! There was no doubt about that. Yet, just as she had forgotten why her nineteenth birthday was so significant, she couldn’t remember how she knew this boy.
“Hey, sorry about that. Lousy aim,” the boy said as he arrived in front of her.
Phoebe felt a wave of embarrassment, but she couldn’t tell if it was his or hers. She felt she must have looked like an idiot as she stood there staring at him. “No problem. No harm done,” she replied and smiled.
2. Story
Confusion. Phoebe felt it and saw it in the boy’s eyes as he stood directly in front of her. Then she noticed something else, something that completely diverted her attention from his face and emotions altogether. There, dangling around his neck, was a charm exactly like hers.
“Your necklace,” she gasped, pointing to it. “Where did you get it?”
He looked down as if he had forgotten he was wearing it. “My mother gave it to me several years ago. Why?” he asked innocently.
Phoebe’s brain was frozen in shock. “Because I have one exactly like it, and my mother gave me mine as well. She said it was a symbol of the power inside of me, but I never did figure out what that meant.”
She knew she was talking way too much; who cared about this seemingly ordinary piece of jewelry? She reached up and pulled her own necklace out. As it lifted free of her shirt, she saw…No, she thought, it was just a glint from the sun. Charms don’t glow.
The boy’s eyes narrowed, suddenly suspicious. “That’s exactly what my mother said.”
Phoebe realized she was leaning forward, toward him. She was on the edge of something clicking into place, something she was missing. She just needed the other piece of the puzzle and couldn’t find it. She felt his emotions—he was intrigued—but at this moment, she very much wanted to know his thoughts. Feeling impatience seep into her awareness, she glanced around him to see his friends calling out, waving him back to the game, in addition to catcalling and nodding in her direction. Boys could be so obtuse.
“You should probably get back to your game,” Phoebe finally said, although she hated to leave him. He was the missing piece to her puzzle. She just didn’t know what the right fit of the piece was.
If she could find the right question, the other pieces would fall into place, but she needed time to think about it. “What’s your name?” she asked. Maybe something as simple as a name would do it.
“Ethan Smith,” he replied, still staring at her charm, which Phoebe held aloft in her hand. “And yours?”
The name sounded familiar. Ethan, Ethan, Ethan…Dim memories seemed to appear, but they were so vague that she couldn’t get a hold of them.
“Phoebe Johnson. Will you be here tomorrow?” she asked, hoping she would have an answer by then.
“Yes.” His brow furrowed in concentration.
“Hopefully I’ll see you then.” She didn’t want to give him a definite “I will see you tomorrow.” Then he might have thought he had a crazy stalker on his hands, which probably wasn’t that far of a leap at that point.
Ethan took the Frisbee and started to jog toward his friends. Phoebe stood still for a few minutes longer before remembering she was supposed to meet Kate and Carmen. She put Ethan out of her head for now; she would have plenty of time to think about him later.
***
Phoebe walked back to her front door after the long day out. When Kate had said she didn’t feel like doing anything, that meant anything other than spending an outrageous amount of money on a new summer and fall wardrobe. Now that Phoebe was away from the three-way mirrors, her mind was already wandering back to Ethan. She tried to hold off until after dinner, but she couldn’t.
The necklace was the biggest puzzle piece. The charms were exactly the same. She had never before seen one anywhere that even resembled hers. That was one reason she liked it so much. The charm consisted of four strange symbols interlocked around a stone that changed colors. These colors shifted from silver, red, green, and blue.
She realized she had been standing at the door with her hand on the knob for almost five minutes when she felt a wave of curiosity pressing against her mind. She looked up and saw her neighbor peering over the hedge hesitantly. He was obviously wondering if she had lost the ability to move.
She waved at him and smiled before turning the knob, vowing to set aside her thoughts until after dinner. As soon as she walked in the house, the tension from her mother and father was enough to make her twitchy and nervous. Curious, she walked toward the living room, and the feeling intensified with every step. It made her skin crawl. She had reached the living room when she realized she didn’t smell any food cooking. Hadn’t her mom said they were having dinner? Phoebe’s father sat on the couch, examining the mantle on the other side of the room, while her mother methodically twisted her wedding band around her finger.
As they each realized Phoebe had returned home, the tension left the room and was replaced by oppressive sadness. Its weight pressed down on her, making her chest tighten. There was a small book bag at her father’s feet. The first thought that crossed Phoebe’s mind was divorce, but that was impossible. There weren’t two more happily married people anywhere. Phoebe wondered if she had missed a report of a war or something, which was the only reason she could think of that her father would leave. Her stomach clenched nervously, and her heartbeat quickened.
“Mom, Dad, what’s going on?” Phoebe asked. “Are you leaving or something, Dad?”
Her father didn’t turn to look at her. “No.” Phoebe’s relief flooded out the feelings of sadness for a few moments as her stomach unclenched. Then he continued. “You are.” Her hear
t flopped and then raced; blood rushed in her ears, and she felt like she had been punched in the stomach.
She frantically searched her mind for an explanation. Were they so angry with her for leaving in the fall that they were making her leave now? No. That didn’t even make any sense. Her mother and father had helped her fill out every college application meticulously, even ones that meant going across the country or even over to Europe.
“Please don’t kick me out. I’m sorry for whatever I did,” Phoebe pleaded desperately, scared, suddenly aware she wasn’t ready to leave them.
She didn’t know what she had done wrong, but she would fix it. Her father turned to look at her; his gaze alone held almost as much sadness as his actual emotions, and she understood why he had been looking away. It was heartbreaking.
“No, dear,” he said, “we’re not kicking you out, not out on the street at least. Where you’re going you’ll be well taken care of. It’s just time.”
The sadness. It made sense now, sort of. Her father spoke as if these had been long-standing plans, something her parents had been dreading.
“Time? Time for what? Mom?” Phoebe asked, turning to her.
Sadness radiated from every pore of Elizabeth’s small figure. She walked over to Phoebe and put her arms tightly around her. “I can’t explain everything to you now; there isn’t time. You will be leaving soon, six o’clock to be precise. We probably won’t see you again for a very long time. Dorian and Cassius will explain everything to you. I am so proud of you.” Her voice was a whisper by the time she finished talking.
“Mom…I…” Phoebe’s brain froze for the second time that day. She knew she had questions, but her mind was completely blank. She couldn’t even hug her mother back correctly because she was so lost.
Her father’s stern voice took over where her mother’s and hers had failed. “Phoebe, there’s no time now. We’ll explain what we can when the others arrive shortly.”
Mom seemed to regain her voice. “Now, you have your charm?”
Phoebe pointed to it numbly.
“And the stories, you remember the stories?” her mother continued.
Childhood bedtime stories? Phoebe wondered. “Yes, Mom, but I…”
“I’ve written them all down and put them in your sack anyway, just in case you forgot some of the details. They’ll be important soon, I expect,” her mother said while picking invisible specks of dust off of Phoebe’s shirt.
Phoebe’s brain was still focusing on her father’s comment. “Others?” she asked weakly.
As if in answer to her question, there was loud knocking at the front door. Her father rose from his chair and headed to the door. Phoebe couldn’t move.
“Who’s there?” she heard her father ask.
A deep, gravelly voice sounded from the other side of the door, but Phoebe couldn’t decipher what was being said.
She couldn’t believe that this could be real. But judging from the depth and sincerity of the emotions swirling around her, she couldn't believe it wasn't real, either. The door opened slowly. A rustle of fabric. Happiness.
“My dear brother, Richard, it’s good to see you again,” her father said.
“And you, my brother. It has been a long wait,” the deep voice answered.
“Helena, again, it has been too long. You’re still looking as elegant as you ever have,” Phoebe’s father added as she heard light pats indicating that the adults were embracing one another.
Shuffling footsteps. Squeals of delight. The reappearance of the sadness. Phoebe’s brain was functioning in small bursts, just enough to take in necessary information and nothing more. Four figures strode into the room. One was her father, and she recognized the boy from the beach—Ethan. He was as bewildered as she was. His expression was blank, but his confusion was strong. A slight blond woman accompanied Phoebe’s mother. Her mother was small, but this woman had to be no more than five feet tall and was thinner than any woman Phoebe had ever seen.
Then Phoebe turned to Richard. He was tall and powerfully built, much like her father. Both men’s hair was the exact same shade of brown, and they had the same square jaw line and deep-set eyes. Despite their imposing physique, the laugh lines on their faces gave an impression of gentleness and patience.
Phoebe’s gaze landed on Ethan, and as her eyes met his, the charm around his neck flashed. There was no mistake this time. She had seen it, and judging by the look on his face, hers had done exactly the same thing. Phoebe realized the room had been quiet as all four adults waited for Ethan or Phoebe to speak. Phoebe was waiting for someone to yell “April fools” even though it was long past the first of April.
Slowly, as the minutes ticked on, her brain finally unbound from its protective shell, and she was able to formulate thoughts again.
“What is going on?” she asked as politely as possible. She had thought about adding some expletives to strengthen her question, but it probably would have just slowed things down as she’d then receive a lecture on manners, propriety, and proper behavior in front of guests.
“The time has come,” Phoebe’s father said kindly. “Some of this information you may recognize, but probably not most. We don’t have much time left. We will give all the information we can, and you may ask questions until it’s time for you to leave. First of all, Phoebe, this is Richard and Helena Smith and their son, Ethan.”
Phoebe nodded. His emotion was serious, businesslike. This was important and in no way a joke. He waved his hand to Richard, and her attention turned toward him.
Richard took a deep breath and thought over what he was going to say before speaking. “I know this won’t be easy to hear, and for that you must know we are truly sorry. It seemed the best way was to tell you now, immediately before you have to leave.” Richard glanced around at the three other adults before continuing. “There are several Realms of Existence; we are in what is known as the Realm of Non-Magic. There is also the Realm of Magic, along with several others, some known, and still more we believe have yet to be discovered. We are originally from the Realm of Magic. We crossed over to this realm to protect you from the dangers there until you were old enough to return and begin your training. This day and time were agreed upon for your return to the Realm of Magic.”
Richard paused briefly, his eyes looking down in sadness. “Unfortunately, we will not be able to accompany you there; we cannot return yet. However, you must understand that you have to go. The king and queen in power there have destroyed too much of our world already.” He shook his head slowly. “If there was another way…” He sighed. “We wouldn’t want to place this burden on anyone, let alone our own children, but you’re the last hope that they have.”
Richard was apparently done with his story. Phoebe desperately hoped that his emotions would betray him, that he would give some sign of humor or sarcasm, but he was serious, sad, his emotions betraying nothing. She could argue with words, but not with emotion, not when it was that powerful.
Even if she would have known that people truly believed things like this, they would have been last on her list of what had been bringing sadness into her house for over a week now.
Then she had a crazy moment of her own, and she gave in to this way of thinking. She wondered if it was really so hard to believe. Had she not spent all this time wondering how she was able to read others’ emotions? Was this the answer?
“Why do we have to go?” Ethan beat her to the question.
Helena spoke up this time, placing her tiny, china-doll-like arms around her son. “My son, you both have the power to master a certain Element. Yours is Earth, and Phoebe’s is Water. Dorian is Master of Wind, and the king and queen are Masters of Metal and Fire. They have taken over the Realm of Magic and enslaved all the people there, and you two are the key to bringing them down.”
“Why can’t you go back?” He beat Phoebe again; his brain must have been working better than hers, although his emotions vibrated with angry disbelief.
“B
ecause we’ll die. We were cursed before we left, and remaining here where the magic can’t affect us keeps us alive. Only the destruction of those who cursed us removes their magic,” Helena explained.
Phoebe had to get a question in. “No one thought some advance warning was in order here?”
Richard’s expression softened. “You have to understand, the less you knew until it was time, the better. Even here, you never know who could be watching. If you knew and let even the slightest thing slip, everything we’ve done to protect you here would have been wasted.”
“We wanted you to live a normal life and be happy for as long as you could. We didn’t want you to have to bear this burden until it was necessary,” Elizabeth added, her voice breaking. Phoebe could feel a hint of despair from her.
Her mother was silently pleading with her eyes for Phoebe to understand. But how could she? An hour, really? An hour? That’s all the warning they thought was necessary? A day, maybe, or a week. Possibly a month would have been a good timeline, Phoebe thought. That was assuming she was even going along with this story. She couldn’t accept that everything she’d worked for her whole life was going on hold.
Phoebe thought about whether or not she would go back and change her life if she could, and the answer was no. Her mother had given her a great blessing, an unburdened, carefree existence for as long as possible, and she had filled it with every bit of life, love, and happiness that she could. Her father had given her knowledge, the knowledge to appreciate these blessings, the knowledge that would keep her strong and give her hope. They had been preparing her; she just hadn’t seen it, not that anyone could have. This was all pure speculation, anyway.
Her father glanced at the mantle clock and hoisted the book bag into his arms. Phoebe didn’t look at the clock. She would not count down the last minutes that she would have with her family. But she would see them again; whatever lay ahead of her, she was determined of that. Because she wasn’t really going anywhere. Once this was over, she would take her mother and father to the nearest hospital to make sure they hadn’t eaten something funny this morning.
