by Shayn Bloom
from my house. Oscar dashed forward and back impatiently to the extent that his leash would allow.
I felt bad for reprimanding my friend. Todd was a guest after all, a winged guest, but a guest nonetheless. Feeling responsible for his mood, I decided to ask more questions. “What did you mean by a byproduct of manifestation?”
“That’s where our energy comes from,” Todd said.
I nodded thoughtfully. “It’s like that for all Utopians?”
“Yeah.”
“So Coraline’s wings feel like that?” I asked. “What about Adia’s?”
“Yes,” Todd answered. “And it’s not just our wings. Here, touch my hand.” He extended his palm.
Touching his dark skin, I immediately felt the voltage beneath my fingers. “Whoa,” I breathed, staring at his hand. The current was even stronger than what I had felt in his wings. A million synapses were going into hyperspace beneath my touch. “This is crazy.”
His smile was cream filled. “Crazy awesome?”
“Crazy awesome,” I agreed.
“We all have varying degrees of wattage,” he continued. “For lack of a better word.”
“Who has the most?” I asked.
“Sis,” he answered. “She’s the most powerful Utopian in the Holurn.”
Darkness was pressing in now, its shadows ghosts in the all encompassing night. Moonlight alone encouraged our journey forward. My house was far behind us now as our path twisted upward. The patter of Oscar’s paws on the dirt path relaxed me as fireflies tickled the bushes, their bodies glowing ahead like guiding spirits.
“Todd?” I asked.
“Huh?”
“How is your sister responsible for many deaths?”
He was silent for a moment. I bit my lip anxiously. I usually felt like I had so many questions and so little nerve with which to ask them, but perhaps this time I had gone too far.
“Do you really want to know?” Todd asked.
“Yes,” I breathed. “I’ve wanted to know for so long. You wouldn’t tell me last time. You kept me in the dark.”
“I never keep people in the dark,” Todd said, his tone defensive. “That would be against my Creed.”
“So then?” I pressured. I could hardly restrain my impatience, for unrestrained excitement was flooding my system and making it difficult for me to breathe. I was going to learn Adia’s secret at last.
“Has Ash told you much about Dreamdrifter history?” Todd asked.
“Oh,” I said in surprise. “He’s told me about Wilhelm. About him being the first Holan of your Holurn and everything.”
“Nothing about the Second Great Manifestation?”
“No,” I breathed, already fascinated. “What was that?”
His expression was solemn. “It’s a hard story to hear,” Todd said. “And a harder story to tell. Annie, did Ash ever tell you why he and his siblings are orphans?” I shook my head, shocked by this unexpected turn. I was feeling more ashamed, however, than shocked. How had I never asked? “Ok,” Todd said sadly. “I will tell you the story. Maybe you already know this,” he began. “But Utopians have the privilege of prophecy.”
I nodded briefly. “Ash told me.”
Todd’s face was pained. “Adia is the most powerful and prophetic of our Holurn,” he said. “It seems ridiculous now that Mom and Dad thought she was an Awaker at first.”
The word confused me. “What’s an Awaker?”
His smile was halfhearted. “An Awaker is a Dreamdrifter with no Dreamdrifting ability. Two Dreamdrifter parents usually mean a Dreamdrifter child, but not always. Sometimes there’s a dud. They’re called Awakers because they awake every time they attempt to enter the subconscious mind. Having an Awaker child is socially devastating for the prominent families of some Holurns.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “It is.”
“Do I know any Awakers?” I asked.
His smile was revealed by moonlight. “We both do.”
“Who’s that?” I was suddenly breathless.
“Jonathan Boliers.”
“You’re kidding,” I said.
“Nope,” he said. “He’s an Awaker. I swear.”
“Whoa,” I breathed, feeling stunned.
Todd scratched his dreads. “Anyway, we were talking about Adia.”
“Right,” I agreed. “So –”
“So Adia is our most prophetic Utopian,” Todd began. “And her prophecies are held in the highest regard.” I nodded, following closely. “Years ago,” he continued. “Adia had a vision. She saw that our kind would flourish anew under the leadership of a Newcomer, a new Dreamdrifter who would become the greatest Utopian our world had ever seen. This Newcomer, she said, would rise above the cultural and historical limitations of the Holurns and unite our kind, bringing hope and healing to humanity and Dreamdrifters alike. That was her prophecy.”
“It sounds wonderful,” I said, fascinated.
“It would have been,” Todd sighed. “The Holan at the time, Coraline’s father, took Adia’s advice and prepared for the Newcomer in the most risky way possible. He gambled and lost.”
I stared at him. “Lost?”
Todd’s face was blank. “Annie,” he said quietly. “That was the Second Great Manifestation. They performed it six years ago and so they didn’t share the details with me. The adults handled the preparations.”
He fell silent beside me.
“Todd,” I asked slowly. “What happened?”
“We’re orphans too,” he said quietly. “Me and Adia. See, my sister told the Holan that another great manifestation had to be performed to ensure the Newcomer’s survival. The First Great Manifestation had bestowed wings upon the Utopians. This time, Adia instructed him, the manifestation had to give the Utopians the power of invisibility.”
“Yes,” I breathed.
The moonlit reflection vanished in his eyes as he blinked. “You know?”
“Ash told me about the invisibility,” I said. “And about how the Holurn had only had it for six years.”
Todd nodded. “All the Utopians of our Holurn gathered in the Holan’s study for the manifestation,” he continued. “Adia and my parents, Coraline and her parents, Cassie, Julian, and a few others were all there. They joined their hands and then they…”
“What?” I pushed. “They?”
“Destroyed themselves.”
I gasped. “What!”
Todd shook his head. “I was not yet realized,” he explained. “Or else I would have joined them.” He wiped his eyes. “Super manifestations require many Utopians and are very difficult. They can go horribly wrong. It was a nightmare, a massacre, a terrible dream.”
I squeezed his shoulder. “Todd, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t do anything wrong. It’s done. It happened. Twelve Utopians climbed that spiral staircase. Four walked from the room. The Holan, may he rest in peace, had died.”
The night was silent. Even Oscar had gone quiet. We walked without speaking for several minutes before Todd continued. His voice was calm. “That was the worst day of my life. Julian, Cassie, Coraline and Sis were the survivors. Coraline became Holan that evening.”
I was overwhelmed. “That’s so sad.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “And nobody has suffered more than Sis,” he said vehemently. “She has carried the weight of their deaths for all these years, carried the weight of her Holan’s death.”
“I don’t understand something,” I admitted. “The Second Great Manifestation was obviously successful. So didn’t the prophecy come true?”
Todd closed his eyes. “That’s the worst part,” he said. “It never happened. The Newcomer never came. Adia must have imagined the idea. I used to hold it against her,” he added bitterly. “I even hated her for awhile, but I was a child then. She has suffered too much for hate. Anyway, somebody who hates their only remaining family is a fool. All I have l
eft for her is love.”
“I had no idea about any of this,” I confessed. “Forgive me for prying.”
At last, Todd smiled. “No worries,” he said. “Hey, don’t you have an exam tomorrow?”
“Yes!” I exclaimed theatrically. “And whoops! I forgot to study!”
Todd winked as he took Oscar’s leash from my hand. “You’re welcome,” he said. “I hope you’ve been studying that exam.”
My phone beeped in my pocket. Retrieving it, I opened the text. We’ll begin your training tomorrow after the exam. Meet me half an hour early and we can study a bit. Love Ash. Excitement pumped in my veins like carbonated blood.
Tomorrow it would all begin!
10. Eli
“That first question,” I began, hiding my smile. “Who is considered the father of modern psychology? That was Carl Jung, right?”
Ash looked at me in horror. “Did you really!”
Laughing, I climbed the steps up to the deck. “No, I didn’t. I said Freud.”
“That’s a relief,” Ash said. “That would have been really bad.” Walking to the kitchen door, Ash led me inside.
“Cookies!”
Ash’s enormous kitchen, having been so clean before, was positively stirring with baking hoopla now. Jars of everything littered the marble countertops and cookie laden baking sheets were spread over the island, irresistibly wafting the smell of deliciousness.
“Welcome!” Wayfara cried, revealing himself from behind the open fridge door. “Come sample some of our fine, fresh cookies!” His dirty blonde hair was tied back into a ninja ponytail and he was wearing a flowered apron.
Cassie’s apron was pink. She was standing by the stove and pouring hot water into a cone-filtered coffee pot. She coughed obviously. “You should try my cookies before
