by Eden Winter
“Please don’t leave me,” she whispered. That made me cry all the more.
“Where would I go?”
“Malcolm?” Isabelle said, jerking her head up. I screamed. I wasn’t expecting that at all.
Malcolm was coughing and spitting water out of his mouth. He sucked in as much air as he could and tried to breathe in a slow and steady way until his breathing pattern could return to normal.
“You’re okay. You’re okay,” Isabelle said with more tears streaming down her face. I moved away from them so that Malcolm could hug her.
“Isabelle?” he asked.
“You know me?”
“I know you through… There was someone else inside my mind. Someone was controlling my life, and…”
“It’s okay. He’s gone now, right?” Isabelle looked over at me.
‘He is gone,’ I heard Cesar say. I nodded at my sister.
“You won’t ever have to worry about him again,” I said. Peter came up from behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. I took his hands and enjoyed the way his body felt pressed up against mine.
“I know you don’t really know me. But I think I know you. Was any of what he said and did anything like the real you?” Isabelle asked Malcolm.
“A lot of it was. But I never got a chance to say any of those things. He used my memories and my words, and I couldn’t stop him. It just feels so good to be alone inside my mind now. And it feels good to finally meet you, Isabelle,” Malcolm said. He sat up slowly and took my sister in his arms. She tried not to cry, but I could see her shaking and hear her soft sobs into his chest.
“And what happens now?” Peter asked.
Epilogue
“TanTan, get away from there!”
My cat, Tangerine, was eyeing the tiny goldfish that was swimming around in a bowl in my living room. Her blue eyes followed every motion of the little fish. She had been trying to get to the poor thing since the day I brought it home.
“Time to say goodbye, Tangerine. This little thing is going back to the sea.”
Tangerine mewed softly at me. I had been waiting for the perfect day to release the goldfish. He had asked me to wait a while before I did so. He had to adjust to the way the world was now, and he had to awaken his family.
‘That may take a long time. We have all been asleep for so many years,’ he told me. When he was ready, he said, he was sure to let me know.
It was amazing to me that this urban legend had turned out to be true. There was a creature out there with the ability to do anything for the person that it was bound to, and to think that there was more than one fish out there surprised me even more. I wondered if there was a chance that I could one day meet the rest of his family.
He had also kept his word about my visions. Alex had slipped me several potions that made it so that I could have pseudo-premonitions while I dreamt, but Cesar had made sure to rid me of any of the toxic substance. The visions that I had were normal now. There was no dizziness or strange quakes within my core, and I soon got used to possessing the power.
Cesar was also right about Alex. He was really gone. He had been swallowed up by the powers of the lake. There was nothing that could awaken him or bring him back to the surface. He would be trapped there for all eternity. I felt a new kind of peace in my heart. I knew I would never have to worry about Alex King ever again.
We were now in the middle of autumn. The grass that lined the entire wall on the outside of my house was now golden and dry, and most of the leaves from all the trees had either turned into browns and yellows and oranges or fallen to the ground.
“Are you ready?” Eli peeked his head into the living room. His left arm was still in a sling. Mr. McLarry said it would take another week or so before he could take it off. After Eli had been shot, Baylee and Delilah had managed to take him to the car where Philomena drove like lightning to Mr. McLarry’s. Apparently, he and Eli had a special bond. Even though Eli was a nurse, he was also a practitioner of alternative medicine. Mr. McLarry had been sneaking out of work to teach Eli so that Eli could help him with the mystical potions that Mr. McLarry did a terrible job of hiding from me. It was Mr. McLarry’s potions and Delilah’s devotion to his recovery that saved him. Thanks to those two, Eli was going to be just fine.
To answer his question, I nodded at him and picked up the fish bowl.
“Are you ready?” I said down at the little fish.
‘I am ready,” I heard him say.
“Okay, let’s go,” Delilah called from the next room.
“We’ll be out in a bit, babe,” Eli called back to her. She stepped into the archway where Eli was standing, and she folded her arms to glare at me. I guess Phil and Baylee were right—it was going to take a long time for Delilah to ever warm up to me.
“I can’t believe we’re going to the ocean to set free a tiny bowl of water,” Delilah said with a frown.
“Hey, Samantha, Peter, and that cat thing can see that there’s a goldfish in there, so I’m going to believe that there’s a goldfish in there,” Eli said. He pinched her cheek and Delilah moved her face away so that she couldn’t see me smiling. She was a big softy, and no amount of her snark was going to convince me otherwise.
It was funny how everything had a way of working itself out. Delilah and Eli had found a common bond, and they were exploring what that meant to them. I now had people in my life whom I trusted and cared about and I knew trusted and cared for me too. I didn’t have to second guess how they felt about me because they had shown me not too long ago that they were willing to help and even be hurt for me if it meant being able to save my sister.
I may not have been in control of every facet of my life, but I could still control how I felt about them and how it was that I chose to move forward. Every decision I made was up to me, and based on that, a premonition would occur. Not every vision was set in stone. It still had a lot to do with what I thought and how I maneuvered through my own life.
The others were all waiting in their cars, and by others I meant Baylee, Philomena, Reginald, Peter… and of course Isabelle and Malcolm. Their new start was the best thing that could have happened to them. My sister got a chance to fall in love all over again, and Malcolm was just as cheesy and sweet and wonderful as she had first known him to be—even more so. It took some getting used to, because in the back of my mind Alex could have been lurking there, but that wasn’t the case.
Everyone agreed to meet me at my house this morning when we set Cesar free to go and meet with his family somewhere in the middle of the ocean. We all wanted to say goodbye to him. He had saved us from peril, and the least we could do was to return the favor to him.
He had asked us if there was anything we each wanted. We had offered to take him to the sea so that he was free to become any creature and live the life he had been denied for so many centuries. He wasn’t going to be trapped or dormant anymore, and I told him I would make sure for as long as I had my abilities he would never need to be trapped or dormant ever again.
Cesar was surprised by the answers we gave him. He had asked us all individually—though I had to be the one to communicate to each of them since they weren’t able to see or hear him—and each one of us said that there was nothing that we wanted or needed from him. We could have asked for money, power, fame, or even a lifetime supply of McLarry’s potions, but we didn’t. None of us wanted anything in our lives to change. We all chose to let life happen to us and to flow through it.
Cesar understood, but he said that since he and I had a connection, if there was anything I needed, I could call on him. Anywhere in the world, he would find a way to reach me. I told him that from time to time I would like a visit and to be able to meet the rest of his family, but I would let him know if there was something any of us needed.
“Seriously, Sam? Let’s go!” Delilah growled.
“Delilah, I swear to god,” I growled back at her.
“Okay, okay. No fighting you two. Let’s just get out of h
ere,” Eli said. He tossed his head to take some of his bronze hair out of his face. He was just like his cousin. They were always the ones who tried to deescalate any kind of situation. I was lucky to have them both in my life. He headed out the door first and Delilah followed him. I scratched Tangerine on her head and stepped outside last before locking the door behind me.
We all walked into our respective vehicles, and I hopped into the back of the pickup truck where Peter was sitting. He took the fish bowl from me and smiled at it.
“Everybody buckle up because we are out of this bitch!” Baylee screamed from the driver’s seat of the other car. Philomena was sitting in the back with Reginald and Delilah, and she shot me a terrified look. Baylee wasn’t the best driver in the world.
“Please don’t kill us, Baylee,” Philomena purred.
“And don’t mess up Phil’s car,” Reginald grumbled from the other side of the car.
“Oh, my God, can we just go?” Delilah shrieked.
“Hold your pretty horses, we should be out of here in a second,” Malcolm called out from inside of the pickup truck.
“Baylee’s right, everyone put on your seatbelts. Be careful in the back, you guys,” Isabelle said.
“We’re good. So, we’re meeting you by the beach?” Eli called from the passenger side of Philomena’s car. He figured that there was no way we would arrive as a convoy. Baylee would probably drive like the wind and leave Malcolm’s pickup truck behind.
“Yes. There’s a big tree on the beach. You can’t miss it,” Isabelle said.
And so, we were ready to go. Peter looked down at the tiny glass bowl in his hands and smiled inside it.
“Hey, little guy,” he said. Cesar glug-glugged back and spun around in his bowl.
The air was chilly, and I snuggled up to Peter. I traced the lines of some of the tattoos he had on his arm, and he grinned at me.
Our fresh start had been the best thing for us too.
I was free to love him without worry or fear. My anxiety wasn’t cured. It would still take some time to manage that. But I wasn’t afraid to be myself around him or any of my new friends anymore. And they were patient with me and my process—everyone but Delilah, that is. But I wasn’t scared of her and she knew it. I would give it another year before she and I were proper friends.
“You look very beautiful today,” Peter said to me. I leaned over to him and gave him a kiss as my way of saying thank you. It was a long and sweet kiss. His lips were tender and welcoming, just like his embrace. I never wanted to pull away from him, but the pickup truck started, and Philomena’s car pulled away from the front of my house. We were driving on the road, and we were ready to get a move on.
“Thank you for believing in me,” I said. I had thanked him before, but no amount of thanks ever felt like enough. I couldn’t even describe how grateful I was to have Peter in my life.
“I will always believe in you,” he said. He smiled, and this time with teeth. That was the smile that was my favorite. It was the one time his face didn’t look entirely serious. The whites of his eyes all but disappeared, while the glimmering white of his teeth shown bright. It made me giggle to see him so happy.
I know I said in the beginning that knowing what was going to happen meant that life wouldn’t have as much meaning as I would have liked it to have. But now I see that there was nothing that would take away what life meant to me. The visions I had were still little surprises to me. Even though I knew that Peter and I would be bound for life because of my powers, it did not take away the excitement I felt whenever I saw his face or felt the warmth of his skin. Each moment spent with him was new and wonderful, and I didn’t need to be clairvoyant to see that.
Whatever happened next, whether I knew it was coming or not, I would be happy. With Isabelle, Malcolm, Baylee, Eli, Reginald, Philomena, Delilah (well maybe not Delilah—yet), and Peter, I had found my place. I had found myself. And I wouldn’t trade that feeling for the powers that I had.
I rested my head on Peter’s shoulder, and he hummed me a sweet tune. We locked arms, and I used my thumb to stroke up and down his arm. He always felt so good to me.
I smiled to myself and let his humming take me into a peaceful sleep.
THE END
A Note From The Author
Hello, this is Eden Winter. Thanks for reading my book! I hope you enjoyed the read. If you did, I would be super grateful if you could leave a little review on Amazon?
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Kindest Regards,
Eden Winter
