by M. Street
I moved forward, touching the tip of her rounded snout near her bulbous melon dome. Her skin was as smooth as glass and hot to the touch.
“We desperately need your help,” I said, revealing the vulnerability of our condition. The great orca vibrated in confusion, sending a flywheel of electricity around her head. She opened her mouth, making surprisingly loud noises.
Straight away, I knew her language of clicks, whistles, and cracks. The complex communication conveyed more context. They were like sung words. Through my touch and light, she intrinsically knew I was Esther and Cal’s pregnant daughter. Ahnah’s overwhelming surprise over me and the twins went beyond anything I had experienced. I narrowed my ear canals, plugging them from her piercing pops.
The Cetacite queen beckoned for me to follow and cornered sharply with her pectoral fins. She propelled upward with each stiff tail thrust. We broke the surface with great expectation. The patchy black-and-white orca launched into the air, complementing the striped black-and-white sabertooth stalking low in between the ocean swells. Falling through Hula-Hoops of nickel light, the massive whale formulated into a slender, elderly Eskimo woman. She landed flawlessly on the waters, keeping her yellow backlit eyes riveted on me. Long, pure white hair parted around her round face. She wore minimal clothes, exposing her smooth, yet weighted with age, skin. The nails on her fingers and toes resembled sharpened teeth. Her forehead moved as though her skull was made of flexible bone, waving like a bed sheet drying in the wind. My eyes did triple-takes taking her all in.
Dev formulated, greeting me with pink.
“Extraordinary, my lady.” Ahnah’s low, gravelly voice graced my eardrums. Her emotional state was whisper quiet with her supercomputing thoughts forming storms of thinking swarms. “I’m not often surprised.”
She came closer, quieting her sorrow with a flickering hope. Her eyes blurred into yellow dashes, ping-ponging between Dev and me. “My assumption as to why the Arbitri have been looking for me was incorrect,” she stated in a thick, rattling voice.
“Please mask,” Dev requested respectfully, cautiously looking into the starry night colored mustard from dark energy. Before I put on my mask clogging my senses, I grabbed a sense of uncertainty directed toward Dev from Ahnah. The queen hung the three chained rubies from her pierced belly button, going ghostly.
“Yes, of course,” she replied, curiously inspecting Dev like a suspect. “The Arbitri will be here shortly. I have a hidden place off the northern islands of Antarctica. There is much to uncover. This way.” She dove into the sea, formulating into the enormous orca.
Dev took my wrist as I lifted us into the air, heading south. “She is going to help us,” I said to Dev, thinking about the twins. A cautious hope interlaced with his loving devotion, lifting me higher. He had confidence in Ahnah.
I tracked the fin waking the sea’s surface at a phenomenal speed. It didn’t take long before a chain of islands crested the horizon. The orca queen rolled on her side, squeaking and clicking directions.
“She wants us to follow her under the water,” I interpreted for Dev. I pulled him close, cutting into the sea in close pursuit.
I shortened the distance between us as we entered a large tunnel beneath one of the islands. A heavy kick from her fluke jutted the whale out of the water. Swooping down, I spied the exit from below the wavy surface. Dev and I rose up from the waters into a pyramid cave of sizable proportions.
The walls were polished incredibly smooth, emanating an admiral blue. The pointed shape and frictionless canopy created an umbrella effect, keeping our light obscured. Very little was in the space. A pod of fabric hung in the corner making a hammock. The place looked and felt like a temporary hideaway. Ahnah unmasked, formulating herself with layers of swarming, glittering nickel. Large trains of light circled the queen’s head. Her intellect was magnetic, easily captivating me without choice.
“Life is infinitely unpredictable,” Ahnah said, showing excitement despite her somber state. The engines in her brain were working so hard that her temples waffled in and out. “Esther was pregnant with you when she was cast barren under the Avian spell.” Her heart fell below her deep voice, displaying her hurt over Mom’s loss. Showing her emotional muscle for the first time, her nickel ripened to bruised blue. She drifted clear, back into exponential thought.
“I did not see this,” she spoke as though the mistake was cardinal. “I could have helped.” Her aura slightly reddened.
“You did,” Dev said sincerely, stepping closer to Ahnah. He took off his mask to convey the soul behind his intentions, spiking glittering silver into the room. Warm feelings from smoldering sentiments rose in his royal aura, showering him in soothing yellows. “Esther did not want to involve you any further. You sacrificed enough.” Dev showed his admiration for the queen in his gorgeous silver.
Ahnah dampened from heinous feelings of loss from her eradicated race, but the raw pain from the imprisonment of her son, Prince Malik, dried my throat. The longtime hurt was relentless and without solace.
“You became her guard. That is why you disappeared,” Ahnah said to Dev, piecing together more of the puzzle. “Your mother was brilliant,” she said reverently, facing me. “She knew that you could bring about a new beginning. She had to protect you above all else.” Her words reminded me of Dev’s request to forsake all others, ruffling my disposition. “That is why she birthed so unexpectedly and without goodbye.”
“And now we are trying to protect our new life.” I took off my necklace, baring my truth. I set the place on fire with my pearl. The emerald green twin sat on my right side and the violet twin on my left. All my worries over Safe, Raven, Jeremiah, Ozwald, and the dire circumstances surfaced in the face of help, causing my aura to glow hot.
“Who is the father?” she asked frankly.
“Dev, of course.” I leaned into him, sparking pink.
“Another unexpected,” Ahnah said methodically, coming closer. Her thoughts were in hyperdrive. “Yes, a most atypical cycle has begun. I must read you,” she said urgently.
“What?” I asked.
“Then you,” Ahnah said mechanically to Dev.
“It’s ok.” Dev nodded in agreement, knowing what she meant.
“It is what you seek,” Ahnah said confidently. “Only through your past and current energies can I accurately predict your future.” The nickel in her aura and the yellow in her solid brown eyes began to swirl, increasing in intensity.
“I’ll be right here next to you,” Dev promised, making me think I was going on a trip.
A new kind of force pulling from the center of my brain drew me behind her Ferris wheel eyes. She took both of my wrists. Like a magnet to iron, I latched onto her wrists, going weightless. Incredibly fast, we were transported down a long tunnel into pitch-black nothingness. It felt like we flew a million miles in a second, but I knew we had not moved because I could feel Dev next to me. Although Ahnah and I felt welded together, she stood alone and detached about twenty feet away. Paired together, we aimlessly drifted in a giant void.
“Where are we?” I asked, not feeling my lips move. I could tilt my perspective up and down, but my body was as solid as cement. Experiencing the bizarre immobility in this new world raised my guard.
“You are in my mind,” Ahnah answered back without voice. “Relax, there is nothing to fear. Breathe slowly and deliberately.” She infused me with tranquility. “Think nothing.” A repetitive, vibrating lullaby helped disengage my mind, inducing an intoxicating peace I willingly wrapped myself in.
As more of my fear dissipated in the peaceful resonances, pinpricks of light formed below us as though we were on the dark side of the moon. The countless twinkling orbs were everywhere, differing in size, shape, and color. Groups congregated into constellations, while some glittered solo like gems on fire. Conversely, there were black holes indiscriminately sinking light from neighboring stars. Whatever was happening, it was divinely celestial. My awareness feasted, taking in the fa
r-out view.
Not being able to move, I couldn’t see everything below my feet or above my head, but Ahnah could. She had panoramic views of me. Just above in my fading peripheral, rivers of pearl nebulas rose upward like incense into a black sky. The glittering trails of light grouped together, forming countless directions. The endless trails split, fingering into ghostly trees. The sparkling lights below were majestic, like a starry night, but there was something about the shifting, graceful flow overhead that drew my attention. I felt like a kid again, lying face-up in a soft meadow, imagining places, people, and things in the billowing clouds rolling across a summer blue sky.
“This is beautiful. What is all this?” I asked Ahnah silently.
“You,” Ahnah delightfully revealed.
“What?” I proclaimed, dizzy from the new perspective of myself.
“Below you are all the energies experienced in your life to this very moment. The happy and the sad, the strong and the weak, the smart and the simple, seen apart and together. I can see them in relation to each other,” she revealed impartially. “They are your feelings during the memorable events and choices in your life. It’s a simultaneous version of you.”
My eyes darted around at the beautiful lights so fast I couldn’t focus. I was overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of it all.
“Above you lie the infinite possibilities of future paths,” Ahnah explained, seeing above me what I could only glimpse. “Paths combine as choices are made and chances are set, pointing to the most likely future based on your present and past. The nickel in a Cetacite is capable of refracting light around space. We can prism a soul, showing the future paths.”
Having nickel in my pearl, I wondered if I possessed the same abilities.
“Let’s see what your past is saying.” Without sensation of movement, the universe below our feet moved up in front of us, placing all of my past in view. Synchronously, the rising layers of pearl moved down behind us, completely out of scope.
“You are easily ruled by your heart,” Ahnah determined, scouring the innumerable emotional points scattered in the huge field that was my life. Front and center, gigantic constellations and nebulas of pink riddled my skies. Dev infused my psyche, gazing into twinkling pink, coral, and fuchsia remembrances.
“Your love with the Vampacoti prince is unique. He is your beginning and end,” she said, looking behind me at my future.
“What do you mean?” I asked, not knowing how to take her simple words.
Ahnah ignored my question, refocusing on the voids of light of my past. The areas acted like sinkholes, consuming all. “Worry is stifling the very creativity and reasoning you seek to stay in this life. It is jeopardizing the change the world so desperately needs,” she said seriously.
I fussed, seeing the number of lightless occurrences dimming my field of vision. Keeping Dev and the life we’d created out of danger seemed impossible. Safe’s capture and subsequent silence carried heavy on my heart and mind. The good intentions for taking Charlie were quickly evaporating, leaving an increasingly sticky situation over his safety. The Canites suffered unmeasurable losses that could not be undone. Raven and Ozwald going missing after leaving Oak Creek made no sense, raising dark conjecture. My friend Josh’s pending metallic transformation into maturity added to my concern. Not having my daily dose of Lisa was turning chronic. Dev’s widening worry over not hearing anything from Valbeth was now mine as well. The races were segregating, polarized by historical conflict, and there was fatal evidence that a traitor was among us.
Peculiarly draining bright in the close distance were two equidistant spheres in my collection of stars. They absorbed light, but emitted brilliance out of the darkness. The birth of a lifetime of worry over my children had begun. Not only was I unprepared to be a mother, but I could hardly guarantee their survival.
“You are indeed pregnant with the future,” Ahnah said prophetically, loading on weight to my self-deprecating woes. Her yellow eyes flamed into circular glasses, sweeping through the star fields of my life.
“Your son will be the next Guardian prince and your daughter will be the next Vampacoti princess.” Her use of the twins’ titles made them more real. “That is, if they come to be.” She snapped her attention behind my view of my future.
“Your path is clouded.” Ahnah scanned sharply, causing trickling sensations in my brain. “Rapid changes are causing chaos, forking your future.” She closed her eyes, going inside. “I’m only able to perceive impressions. This is most unfortunate.” Her disappointment dissolved some of my view.
“You’ve met someone recently that is going to be instrumental in keeping you alive.” Her forehead moved. “You are related to this person. Theia, of course,” she answered, opening her eyes.
“Yes, my dad’s sister, but she isn’t going to help us. Theia captured Olo,” I said. “I have to save him. He’s been with me from the beginning.” She didn’t flinch at my determination.
“I tell you,” Ahnah gave me all her attention, dismissing my plea, “your future depends on Theia.”
Seeing my aunt with her flashing crystal, floating above a critically injured Safe, rushed up from a brilliant, red memory in front of me. “She confirmed the presence of an Arbitri informant within my mom’s confidants,” I said, wanting to believe Theia would help us.
Ahnah turned my past world on my left, putting my future on my right. “Yes, there are Arbitri informants among you,” she said, reading the scattered lights of life.
“More than one?” The plurality blew me away, sending shock waves of sadness and betrayal.
“Yes. Your heart is blocking the identities,” Ahnah said, intrigued. “One is motivated by power, the other by fear.” Before she could speak another important word, a vile agony tore through both of us. A super black hole appeared below her, emitting an ache I knew was over her son, Malik. The power of her pain ejected us out of her mind.
Our consciousnesses snapped back into the pyramid grotto under the sea. Dev was poised, ready for the incoming wrong. From the intense temperature of the call coring through Ahnah, I knew our circumstances were crashing and burning.
34
The Blue Whale
“W
hat’s wrong?” Dev asked anxiously, not knowing what kind of bomb had been dropped. I couldn’t pull my eyes away from Ahnah’s breakdown. Her son, Prince Malik, screamed out in their native nickel valence, leaving her frozen. The elderly intellectual was shaken to the core, stunned by the sharp shrill for help. A child-to-parent bond was something that was perceptible to me now, the roots of which had no bottom. I held her, grounding the many sorrowful exceptions leaving her blasted.
“It’s her son, Malik,” I interpreted the Cetacite plea to Dev. He jittered in response, having witnessed the extermination of the Cetacite race.
“It’s been seven hundred and nineteen years since I felt his call,” Ahnah spoke in a whisper. She wiped the tears from her sea-weathered face. The span of silence sank my soul. Her hardened desperation to see and free her son painfully transferred in the open auras of the pyramid room. “Eli must feel your pregnancy. That is the only reason why he would allow Malik to call. If I do not go, Eli will birth my child.” The queen moved toward the watery exit.
“Please reconsider,” Dev urged, putting us first.
“I will not help Eli,” Ahnah said proudly, “but if there is anything I can do for my son, I must try. If I can see him again …” She trailed off down an emotionally charged road, growing younger. Her hair peppered with black traces, her skin ran smooth, and her figure fortified.
“It also buys you more time,” she said to Dev. “Eli is unstable by nature. The fear of his birth will drive him beyond his normal insatiability. His desperation will grow exponentially.” She paused, facing Dev head-on. “Find Theia.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“She will help you,” Ahnah said with conviction.
Ahnah turned to me. Her temples fluttered like acoustical d
iagrams. “Your connection to everything can save you, your children, and the world. Bridge the unseen to the seen. What is yet to be discovered is more powerful than light.” Another high-pitched screech from Malik tore through Ahnah and me, further perforating our souls. Her nickel aura shivered with the coldness of the polar seas, reflecting the tug-of-war going on inside her.
“There is much more to uncover,” Ahnah glanced at Dev, swirling the glitter in her nickel, “but I must go.” The queen put her masking rubies into her pierced belly button, fading her light and surfacing anguish.
“We will meet again,” Ahnah said like she knew the time, date, and place.
“Yes, we will. Please go.” I added heart in nickel and pearl. As much as I wanted her to stay, my heart knew she had to leave. The only thing keeping her from willfully birthing through all the centuries of isolation was knowing her son was out there under lock and key. Ahnah dove into the watery blue, disappearing into the depths.
“Theia?” Dev asked disbelievingly.
“Yes. Our present is changing too fast for her to see any future clearly, but she said Theia would help us,” I answered, frustrated, leaning into Dev. I pressed my face into his chest. The cry of her child was shattering. The future found no solid footing. “Ahnah also said there is more than one person against us.” The sharp words stabbed.
“What?” Dev wrapped his arms around me, burning walls of silver rage and fear. I looked up, blinking back my cracking heart. From his increase in light, I knew he took Ahnah’s belief for fact.
“Just us from now on.” Dev held me tightly. My eyes fell down to the twin lights extending from my abdomen. Keeping them safe steered and powered my purpose. My life was no longer about me or my aching heart anymore.
“Ahnah said we were having a Guardian prince and a Vampacoti princess.” I picked up my mood, finding beauty among the storms. Dev sighed sweetly, releasing some of his pressure. Pink, pearl, and silver danced around us.
