by Abra Ebner
“What?” Greg’s voice was eerily calm. “I thought we had something here, and now you’re just going to change your mind? Forgive him?” His tone began to build in a jealous way I’d heard before.
“Had something? What did we have?” Avery sounded intrigued yet fearful.
I heard Greg snort, the sound of his feet pacing as it echoed in my head. “We are a team, Avery. We were going to do this together.”
“But why, Greg? Why me? There are plenty of others just as angry as I am.”
Greg chuckled. “Don’t try to make something of this. I picked you because you too where cheated by my brother, but you seem to have forgotten that. We have, or rather had, a common enemy.”
“Not everything is permanent. I can have my life back.”
Greg laughed loudly this time. “Have it back? Are you serious? What has gotten into you today?”
Their voices were beginning to fade, but I didn’t want them to. I leaned forward and gripped the edge of the table, trying my best to listen hard.
“You can have your life back, too,” Avery offered.
Greg laughed again. “What life . . .?” His voice faded.
I was left with my eyes squeezed together, fingernails digging into the table. I’d tried my best to hold onto his voice but it was useless. I came out of the trance, coming back to my reality and out of Avery and Greg’s.
“What does that mean?” I stammered. I felt weakened by the drugs. My eyes opened, gaze locking with June’s as he stared back at me, mouth parted.
“It worked. I can’t believe your idea worked, Gen,” he barked, again dropping the figurines he had been trying to gather off the ground.
Gen stepped forward, hand outstretched between June and I. “Quiet, June,” she said harshly.
June cowered.
I was confused. “What worked?” I challenged. “What made her change her mind like that?” I demanded, standing from my chair as it tipped backward onto the grassy earth. I wasn’t a prophet, I was just a seer, but her mind and that of June’s was so tightly locked away, there was no hope for my feeble abilities to break through. They knew something, but they didn’t want me to know.
“It’s not your concern,” Gen addressed me like she would a child.
That irritated me as I tried to take a step, the world still swirling around me. I thought hard, trying to put the pieces together when my mind refused to cooperate. “Where is Max? What did you make him do?” I had a sinking feeling that Max, though he loved my sister, was so hungry to save the magickal world that he would sacrifice that love in order to do it. Would he be the type of man to lie to Avery, tell her he loved her, just to end the coming fight? Perhaps I was wrong, but that’s what I would probably do. I know it sounded harsh, but given the choice between the two I would. I loved Wes, but—but, then again . . .
I looked at Wes.
. . . maybe I didn’t know what true love was.
Standing there, the world swirling, a bout of exhaustion smothered me. All I can remember was the golden sky turning black, the cold chill of the ground as I hit it, and the way that blue light danced over my head as Jake failed to catch me. The light followed me into darkness, and there it remained to comfort me. As long as it was here I wasn’t lost. As long as it was here, I was loved . . .
STELLA:
Still leaning against the locked door, I was now an owl again. I was slumped in a very human fashion on the floor, tired, discouraged, and angry. I looked up at the handle, cursing at it with my thoughts.
I was wrestling with the realization that all I could do was wait. I took a deep breath and sighed, but as I did so, I heard the main doors to the temple open. A flood of light filtered through the yards of fabric, streaking across the floor toward me. I hopped up, coming to my feet as I fluffed my feathers. Quickly, I looked to the golden altar and flew up into the shadows to hide.
Footsteps approached.
“Srixon?” A man’s voice asked.
I remained silent, not wanting him to hear me rustling about. The temple doors finally shut behind his approach, sealing the room in the dim light offered by the few torches at the altar. Soon, the man appeared through the yards of fabric, coming to a halt before the door.
He was tall, his features dark. He wore a leather coat that looked dull and soaked. His dark hair was combed with wind and his face kissed with white chill. He casually tucked his hands into his pockets.
“Where is he?” he whispered to himself. He turned, backing his way to the steps that led up to the altar base. Here he sat.
I watched as his hands moved to his face. He swept them over his eyes and through his hair. He looked tired. Leaning forward he dropped his head between his knees, arms resting on his legs. He stayed like this for some time as I remained as silent as possible, mind as closed as I could manage. I did not know if he had the same abilities to read thoughts as Jake. I had to protect myself. Moments passed as pain soon found its way to my frozen legs. Stupidly, I moved one talon to position myself better. It proved a foolish thing as I heard my nail scratch across the soft gold of the wall I clung to.
The man turned his head abruptly and looked up in my direction. My only hope now was that I was deep enough in the shadows that he couldn’t see me.
“Who’s there?”
I was naïve to think he couldn’t. I didn’t move, still hoping that perhaps his question was for the sake of asking it and not because he’d seen me.
“Who are you? Come down here.”
Unfortunately, he was looking directly at me and right into my eyes. There was no hiding it now, he could see me.
I rustled my feathers a little.
“Yeah, you. Come down here.”
I shifted into the light a little.
His eyes became confused. “You.” His tone was accusing.
I was curious. Mostly, I was curious what his reaction meant. Was it good or bad? How had he known me and in what way?
I remained where I was, afraid because he was a massive man. If I had been an enemy to him in my former life, I wasn’t about to find that out here and now.
He stood from the step and turned to face me, head tilted back. “You’re Lacy’s owl, right?” He laughed to himself. “You’ll have to excuse me for talking to you like this. I know you’re just an owl. Knowing Wes and Lacy, however, I guess you could say I’ve gotten used to talking to animals. I thought you died?”
I wanted to answer, so I opened my mind. No, I replied.
The man seemed to freeze suddenly. “Excuse me?”
Had I said the wrong thing? No, I didn’t die. I repeated. I mean, perhaps I did but . . . My mind continued to ramble on uselessly. I stopped when I noticed the look on his face had grown further shocked, frozen as though he had turned into a statue.
“Jane?”
Just then the door to the left of the alter room opened. I jumped, my heart skipping a beat as Jake, Wes, Emily and the white-haired man entered the room. I became as frozen as the man below me on the steps.
“Max!” Wes gasped. “Where have you been?”
Max didn’t seem to care or notice the question at all. His gaze remained on me. What about my voice had scared him so?
Wes, the only person I cared about, began to look perplexed. His gaze followed that of Max until it met mine. “Wait, what?” Wes looked as confused as the man named Max did. “Stella?”
He knew me! I swallowed hard. Yes, Stella! My mind screamed back at Wes, hoping he could hear me. There was an owl on his arm that instantly took flight in my direction. She was the owl I’d seen flying above their car earlier. She landed beside me, and not knowing what to expect, I was surprised when she began nuzzling me in a loving manner. Was I supposed to know her?
Jake shook his head. “I told you to stay at home,” he hissed.
Emily burst into tears then. I began to wonder why as I tried to put space between me and the owl beside me. So many things were happening at once.
“Great,” Jake
muttered.
Max was now shifting his attention between the both of us. “Jake, what’s going on?”
The girl named Emily was crying harder now than before. I disliked her crying because Wes was now clinging to her, comforting her—it made me angry.
“What’s wrong?” Wes spoke to Emily, just loud enough for me to overhear.
“Okay!” Jake clapped his hands together before him, taking a step forward.
This whole situation had grown awkward and I was relieved to see someone take a leadership role.
“I was going to tell you, all of you,” Jake continued. “I just found her today, I swear.” Jake went on the defensive, eyeing Emily. “Obviously I never meant to spring it on you like this.” He spoke directly to her. “Or on you, Max.”
“And why does she sound like Jane but look like Lacy’s bird?” Max pressed through clenched teeth.
Emily sobbed louder as Max said the name ‘Jane’. There was an obvious keynote there. I assumed it had something to do with the voice in my thoughts sounding like this girl I did not know.
“Srixon.” Max’s attention shifted. “Did you know about this?”
The white-haired man named Srixon shook his head, but even I could see he was lying.
Max looked disappointed. “I can’t trust you,” he mumbled under his breath. His attention turned back to me. “Alright, owl, Stella . . . Jane?” He shook his head. “Whoever you are. Come down here.” He coaxed me with his hand but I wasn’t about to budge. He saw that and looked to the owl beside me. “Lacy, can you lend a hand?”
The owl beside me came to life once more, nipping at my feathers. I tried to back away from her but she was persistent. I chortled at her but still she did not cease. Finally, I gave up, spreading my wings and taking flight. This owl named Lacy followed after my escape. I considered trying to leave the building all together but knew that in this form it would be impossible. She nipped at my tail for a while until I made the descent toward the ground—she’d broken me that easily. I landed a good distance from the crowd, Lacy landing beside me, still chortling loudly.
“Can we get her some clothes?” Max demanded of Srixon.
Srixon tipped his head, and without a sound, a white-haired man no older than me appeared from the shadows and came to Srixon’s side. Had he always been there? Srixon whispered something to the man. The man looked at me as though sizing me up. He nodded with a smirk on his face. Had he seen me naked when I tried to open the door? Despite my fear I was now also embarrassed. Luckily, no one could see me blush under the feathers.
The man receded back into the shadows, leaving me the only thing to look at, or so it seemed. I felt my heart pounding in my tiny chest. What were they going to do with me? What did they know about my past? My only hope was that this was what I set out to find—I didn’t want to die—not again.
JANE:
“Where is he?”
Eliza and I sat along the river picking wildflowers as we had before. I couldn’t place just how long ago that had been but I assumed it had been days, though it felt like mere moments. It was going to take some time to get used to all this. All I knew for certain was that time was not fast enough in this moment. I wanted to see Max right now.
“Max will be here soon. I can feel it.” Eliza chimed in.
I bit my lip. “How reliable are your feelings?”
Eliza shrugged, arranging the hem of her yellow dress as she sat in the grass. “Pretty reliable, give or take a few days.”
“A few days? I gasped.
Eliza giggled. “Like you’ll really notice. You hardly noticed the passing of the last few.”
I dropped the flowers from my hands, growing bored. “So, refresh me. You can’t foresee the future of the human world anymore, right?” I was still hoping.
She tilted her head, organizing the small flower arrangement in her hand. “No. You can imagine how detrimental that would be given my job here. People are always asking me what to expect when they go back. I don’t have any answers for them. Their best bet is to ask the newest arrivals but it’s not always obvious who they are, and even then there’s no saying they’re ready to talk about their previous life, let alone accept the fact that they’re dead.”
“So then how is it you know Max is coming at all?” I challenged. “He could never come for all you know.”
Eliza didn’t like my doubts on her abilities. She dropped her hands, still holding her bouquet tightly. “Give me some credit. I can see the future of this world and I can tell you that he is in it, very soon.”
“Oh. Right.” I felt stupid. Of course that made sense. “So, then, you already probably know a little of my future here, don’t you?”
She smiled. “To some degree, though it keeps changing given the fact that you’re still adapting to life here. That makes sense. I can’t count on anything I see, but I do put a lot of merit in it.”
I didn’t like that fact. She knew my every thought, and now my every desire as well. What dirty secrets was she also getting from that?
Eliza giggled in response to this thought. I just ignored her.
“How long are we supposed to wait?” I barked, now yanking grass out of the ground and throwing it into the air mindlessly.
Eliza looked at me, her brow raised. “However long it takes. What’s with the impatience?”
I snorted. “I don’t think I have to give you an answer to that, though you probably know already with the tap you’ve got going directly into my head,” I replied tartly. My mind was anxious to see Max, afraid that his elongated absence was just the beginning. Soon, it would become weeks before I saw him, then years. He would move on—he had to. Soul mate or not, no one waits as long as he has without eventually giving up, right?
Eliza was still smirking to herself, enjoying my turmoil.
I kept yanking at the grass. What I needed to decide was whether or not I could handle that. There was going to come a point where I needed to think about myself and find my own way back to him. I had never been one to wait around while someone else did all the work—this time was no different.
EMILY:
Stella and Jane? Are you for real? I was on an emotional roller coaster standing here, gripping Wes’s arm like a helpless maiden, sobbing like a freak. I wiped my tears, feeling so many things cycling from jealousy to hate to pure sadness and hysteria. Hearing Jane’s voice like that, coming from Stella—the owl Lacy had brought into my life I swear just to taunt me—was not what I expected. Jane was dead. Stella was dead—or so I had thought. Yet, here they both were, melded as one?
I shuddered at the thought of finding out what she looked like when she changed out of owl form. She would look like Jane, wouldn’t she? It was the only thing that could seal this catastrophe up like a nicely packaged nightmare. It wasn’t enough to feel jealously toward what Jane and Wes once had, but now what Wes and Lacy’s pet once had? Would that cute animal infatuation carry over to this—this imposter?
My hearing was a curse. I craved a pill of anything to make this nightmare go away—God was truly testing me today.
As much as I wanted more than anything to hear Jane’s voice again, I didn’t want it like this. This wasn’t my sister. If it were, she would have been different, happy, at the very least wrapped up in Max’s arms. Max wasn’t showing it, but I bet he was just as heartbroken as I. How was it he could remain so calm? I allowed my previous suspicions to return. Maybe he didn’t love my sister anymore, or maybe he did but he saw more importance in burying that to save our world, but what did that entail? Loving Avery? I almost stopped breathing at the thought.
Who would save Jane, and what of Jane’s body? I thought they had it kept here? There was no way this shifter could look like Jane at all, that would be impossible, wouldn’t it?
At last the male pixie returned with a stack of neatly folded clothes in his hands. This was it. This was the moment of truth.
Srixon took the clothes from the man and approached the owl. “Fol
low me,” he said lightly.
The owl had no choice but to follow as Srixon led her just behind the screen of the golden altar. He stood as Max stole a glance in my direction. For a brief moment I got something from him. His gaze grew weepy, his dark, ocean eyes full of apprehension—he was scared, too. I was a little surprised to see such a look from him. Though it only lasted a moment, all my previous accusations disappeared. Who was I to try and understand him when he’d done so much to help me?
MAX:
Emily was the only person that could understand how I truly felt in this moment. What if it were Jane? What would that mean?
Srixon stood by the gold screen with his arms crossed, looking at me with an emotionless stare. He gave nothing away and it only angered me. His lack of surprise toward this development told me he knew it was coming. I wanted nothing more than to see him dead, though that seemed harsh. Leadership like this was counterproductive. I was once again reminded why I left the priory to begin with.
Soon, a hand found its way around the screen, followed by a weepy set of eyes—eyes I was relieved to find much different than Jane’s. Jake sighed and turned away, looking nervous. Though I was certain it wasn’t her in the sense I wanted her to be, I felt my whole body quiver as my mind struggled to adjust to the person that stepped out. She wore pixie clothes, her brown hair falling in loose tendrils over her shoulders. She was breathtaking, she was real—and except for the eyes—she was Jane.
Her gaze swept over all of us, failing to halt as they met mine—as I hoped they would. Though Jane did not reside there, I wanted for a moment to pretend, just to see Jane alive again. What I did see, though, made me want to believe in revival. But, the window to this soul was not revealing the soul that mattered to me. This Jane was just a shell—just as the Jane held at the Memorial grounds was. How could there be two of them?
I looked to Srixon for answers. “How is this?” I demanded, hiding any signs of emotion, trying to find it’s way through, though it couldn’t.
