Copula Chronicles: The Complete Collection: Origin, Descend, Ascend, Legacy

by Venessa Kimball

  Corinna climbing into the truck draws everyone’s attention from the conversation at hand.

  Monica asks her, “Where are Sam and Nate?”

  Just then, the truck’s engine ignites and I hear Briggs hollering. Corinna sits on the nearest open seat next to Elicia. She doesn’t look at any of us as she says, “They are coming. Talking to Briggs about our route.”

  Why would they need to talk about the route?

  She looks across the aisle at me, concern in her eyes. “You all right?”

  I nod. “I am now.”

  I was fine after Nate pulled me to him, then Ira and the other Rephaim came. Did they scare him off? I peer out the windows through the sliding raindrops on the metallic glass. What if he is still here? “We should probably get moving,” I say.

  Ezra grumbles furiously all of a sudden, “You were paralyzed, Jes! I want to know everything that happened to you out there!”

  Not able to hide it now that Ezra has called me out, I tell the guardians what happened, the feeling of not being able to walk, speak, the feeling of a presence, the whispering of my name. I don’t tell them it’s Michael though.

  Ezra says, “I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

  I shake my head and look at him. “It’s not your fault.”

  Ezra won’t hear it. He closes his eyes and leans his head back against the window, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What if it was Michael?” he says angrily.

  Shocked by Ezra’s unperceived intuition, I look at Xander, just as he runs his hand nervously over his forehead and diverts his eyes to the floor of the truck, refusing to look at me or Ezra.

  Daniel speaks up, “If he didn’t get help immediately after entering our world from beyond the veil, he would have died within minutes, half hour tops. There aren’t many active Sondians out there in the world at this point.”

  The clatter of Sam and Nate climbing into the truck steal our attention from Daniel. Both he and Nate look frustrated with something as they close the doors to the truck and latch it tightly. Sam looks at Corinna as he sits next to her. Corinna glances at Nate just as he sits down on the other side of Ezra.

  I hear Ezra mumble something to Nate, but my focus is on Sam as he cups the back of Corinna’s head and places a small kiss on her forehead. Sam silently mouths two words against her forehead, “It’s fine.”

  What is that about?

  He buckles his safety belt in place, just as the truck lurches forward, jumping a bit then smoothing out into a steady pace.

  They weren’t talking about some route out there with Briggs. I play my question wisely, as I direct it at Sam to try to snuff out more information. “Everything all right with the route?”

  Corinna and Sam both look at me, then Corinna looks at Sam wearily. His brows furrow curiously, as he answers slowly, unsure of my question, “Yes, it is fine.”

  Sam is involved obviously.

  I notice Nate lean forward and look down the aisle beyond me at Xander. He tries to disguise it as he rests his elbows on his knees and tightly intertwines his hands into a fist.

  “What?” Sebastian’s surprised question distracts me from my stirring concern. He and Ms. Olivia are examining the back of Elisabeth’s neck. Puzzled, Olivia announces, “She isn’t implanted!”

  Elisabeth is oblivious to the inspection Sebastian is performing as she silently chews a piece of food Olivia placed in her mouth.

  Sam shakes his head in denial. “That isn’t possible. She would be dead by now.”

  I remember what Tom had said about the dogs, and the idea of others being out there without Copula implantation.

  Monica beats me to the punch. “It is if she is an anomaly.”

  Daniel starts, “She’s right. Tom said—” He stops himself before he carries on realizing his mention of Tessa’s father.

  Tessa tenses in my arms from the mention of his name. I rub her arm and rest my head on hers to try to calm her. In response, she squeezes my waist tighter and buries her head deeper into my chest.

  Daniel continues carefully, “He had mentioned the dogs and other people. He called them natives.”

  Monica adds, “Their unique genes have helped them survive the evolution.”

  Ezra takes inventory, “She is wheezing, coughing, lethargic.” He looks at Tessa, then back at all of us. “Like the mother.”

  I realize he is trying to make the comparison to Tessa’s mother and sister. Ezra continues, “She is near death, she is not an anomaly.”

  I look at Elisabeth. She has taken the bag of food from Olivia and is chewing faster. She takes the canteen of water Sebastian held for her and drinks from it without a problem. I look at Ezra and say, “She seems to be doing much better. Definitely doesn’t look like she is near death.”

  Ezra casts his eyes on her now, visibly surprised as his brows arch. “You’re right.”

  Sebastian leans forward to try to catch Elisabeth’s fixed stare. “Elisabeth,” he calls.

  Like the sound of her name has raised her from the dead, she swallows her food, drinks from the canteen and then looks over at him cautiously.

  Sebastian takes that as her acknowledgement of his call. Sebastian keeps his eyes on her as he touches his own lips. “Lips aren’t quivering. She is able to hold the canteen and food on her own. Her eyes are not as dull, and she isn’t shaking anymore.”

  I follow the checklist manner he is inspecting her and can’t help comparing it to the checklist of issues I had moments ago. “Just like I was,” I say.

  Sebastian and Olivia both look at me as they realize my observation.

  Sebastian turns her face toward his and searches her eyes. “Can you speak, Elisabeth?”

  She moves her lips slightly then says in a gentle voice, “Yes.” She seems surprised by her accomplishment.

  Sebastian looks beyond Elisabeth at Olivia, then his eyes dart to Ezra and Daniel before returning to her.

  She continues speaking, “I was walking to the orchard to collect peaches.”

  Sebastian asks, “Orchard?”

  Elisabeth ignores his question. “Gabe used to go, but since he left—”

  Sebastian pats her hands gently. “Elisabeth, where did Gabe go?”

  Nick asks, “Who’s Gabe?”

  Without missing a beat, Sebastian answers, “Her husband.”

  My grandfather.

  Ignoring our questions and comments, she continues to speak, “I’ve had to be more careful now that the beings are coming more frequently. But I knew their frequency meant that something was changing. It was stirring them up. I thought it was Anna.”

  Elisabeth looks across the aisle at me, her jade eyes fixed on me. “I see Anna when I look at you. Who are you?”

  I clear my throat before I answer her, “Jesca, Anna’s daughter.”

  Her eyes widen and she looks at Sebastian. He nods and confirms my words. “This is your granddaughter.”

  She looks back at me, somewhat lost again in a state of confusion as she murmurs, “It was never going to be me or Anna.”

  Everyone looks at each other, thrown by her words.

  Sebastian asks, “What do you mean, Elisabeth?”

  She blinks her eyes rapidly, like she is waking from a dream. “The legacy. I thought it was me it wanted, that is why I took her to you, Sebastian. To protect her from me. ”

  I can’t believe what I’m hearing. My grandmother, mute moments ago, is revealing her knowledge of the legacy that we have been chasing. She is admitting she sought Sebastian to take my mother. Her knowledge makes me consider that she may be the messenger among us that Ira told us about.

  She looks down at the bag of food she holds and whispers, “From the moment Gabe and I left Anna in your care all those years ago, we have hidden.”

  Sebastian asks, “Where?”

 
; Elisabeth looks out the window briefly. “At first we were not going to return to Georgia, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave. Something was keeping me here.” She looks back at Sebastian and shakes her head gravely. “As my visions have become more vivid, so has my affliction. They are so powerful — paralyzing. Can’t speak or move. Just now, it was different.”

  I remember Sebastian mentioning Elisabeth as a young girl having the afflicting headaches, but hearing her speak about their intensity concerns me. Is that what held her captive when we met her or was it something else all together? Am I doomed to follow in her footsteps?

  Elisabeth continues, “The village, the young girl and the gentleman in love, the legacy transforming, progressing with every divination I had.”

  Ezra, Sebastian and I look at each other, realizing that this girl and gentleman were most definitely the ones I’d been seeing in my own visions. I look away from them, feeling self-conscious of their scrutiny suddenly, and I notice that we have begun passing through a town, the blur of vacant buildings and cars.

  Elisabeth goes on, “We settled here in Dalton.”

  Sebastian shakes his head, shocked by his sister’s explanation thus far. “I didn’t think you knew about the legacy. Mom and Dad hid it from us.”

  Elisabeth nods. “They tried, but it couldn’t be hidden forever. When you started researching it, poking around and asking them about it, I started to question them too. They told me that it was nothing, a made-up story, a legend. I believed them then.” Elisabeth snickers and shakes her head. “When you left for college, things settled for a while. Mom and Dad put an end to the questions I had.” She looks at Sebastian tenderly. “You and I discussed them so many times late at night. Do you remember when you would tell me the stories? What you had learned about our family in your research?”

  Sebastian smiles gently and bows his head, remembering their conversations.

  Elisabeth continues, “When you left, you took the stories with you. I graduated high school, Gabe and I married, and we had Anna. After she was born, the visions spiked and the headaches became unmanageable. At first Gabe thought it was woman issues, but then I explained to him the best I could what I thought it was. God bless him, he listened and believed me.” Elisabeth looks down at her hands in her lap. “He was a good man. He passed a year ago.” She peers back up at Sebastian with saddened eyes. “I wanted to be her mother. I wanted to love her and protect her, but I couldn’t even protect myself.”

  Elisabeth stares off for a moment. “As Anna grew, she resembled the girl in my vision more and more. That is when I knew that it couldn’t be me. The legacy had skipped me and chosen her. I knew that if I could get her to you, you would know how to protect her.”

  Everyone is quiet, intently listening and Sebastian takes hold of Elisabeth’s hand and places his other on top. “I did everything to keep her safe,” he tells her. I see the shine of tears threatening in his eyes. “She had a husband.” He looks at Ezra. “Ezra Kahn.”

  Elisabeth tips her head, acknowledging him.

  Sebastian gestures to me. “And a daughter, Jesca.”

  Sebastian looks back at her, a tear drops from his eye and lands on his shirt. “She was taken from our world too soon, Elisabeth,” he says consolingly.

  Elisabeth realizes what his words mean; Anna was killed.

  She looks at me with a visible weight of sorrow crippling her. “You have the visions?” she asks.

  I nod once.

  Elisabeth shakes her head slowly as she wells up with tears. Her eyes bounce between Ezra and me. “I’m sorry.”

  I’m not sure if she is apologizing for my mother’s death or the fact that I’ve inherited the legacy she believes was meant for her daughter. I dip my head; signaling my silent reply, then pull Tessa closer to me.

  Elisabeth looks down at Tessa, then back to me. “Is this your daughter?”

  I whisper, not wanting to make Tessa stir again, “No.”

  Sebastian suddenly shakes his head, “Why are you not implanted, Elisabeth?”

  Elisabeth swallows a drink of water, coughs, and then responds curtly, “Don’t need it.”

  Ezra leans forward, his elbows on his knees now. “You sound like you do.”

  Elisabeth answers, “You mean the cough? I’ve had that since the first climate shift. The one that took Gabe.”

  Out of nowhere, Nate asks her something completely off topic. “Your inability to speak and move back there, was that your headaches, your affliction? Were you having a vision?”

  He is fishing for something.

  Elisabeth’s eyes widen and she shakes her head. “No, that was not my affliction. Something else was at work just then.”

  She quirks her head and looks back and forth between Nate and Xander a few times. “You two are brothers?”

  Xander and Nate look at each other past Ezra and me. They stare a little too long. Long in the sense that they are saying something to each other without words. They are reading each other’s thoughts! How do they have that ability and I don’t? Xander is the first to look away from Nate and back at Elisabeth. “No, we are cousins.”

  Elisabeth furrows her brow, her eyes jumping between them still. “You both look so much like the gentleman in my vision.”

  Her eyes snap back to me. “Your visions of the girl, what do you see?”

  Is she talking about Onawah’s gentleman in my vision? I look between Nate and Xander and Ezra notices my quick assessment.

  “You mean Onawah?”

  Elisabeth turns to me. “That is her name? I never heard her name in my vision. It was always just her, the young man and the cave.”

  Daniel asks eagerly, “The cave, what did you see?”

  Elisabeth focuses on the floorboard of the truck as she thinks, “Fire, an old man, the girl. The man is dressed in traditional native garments and he is chanting as the girl sits before him. It is a ritual.”

  I wondered if she experienced the vision as I had in the past. “Were you the girl in your vision?”

  Elisabeth swallows the bit of food she is chewing. “No. You?”

  “I’m her in the vision.”

  Elisabeth shakes her head in awe of my admittance. Suddenly, her eyes widen as she mutters, “The legacy was never meant for her or me. It was always meant for you.”

  She takes in all of the guardians. “It is waiting for all of you.”

  CHAPTER 28: DISENGAGE

  Jesca

  Elisabeth’s awareness of all of our involvement in this is both intuitive and eerie being that she has just met us. She has seen the connection between all of us instantly. Her comment quiets the truck quickly as everyone busies themselves by trying to eat something. I shift to look down at Tessa still resting in the crook of my arm and run my hand along her forehead. She opens her eyes and stares up at me.

  I take the bag of food Ezra has been feeding me and put it in front of her before whispering, “You need to eat, Tessa.”

  She looks down and shakes her head. “I’m okay.”

  I glance to my left at Ezra.

  He hands me the canteen of water he is holding and says, “She needs to drink at least.”

  I take it from his hands and open the lid. I hold the bottle close to her lips and say, “Please just drink then.”

  She looks at the bottle, then me before she takes it from my hands. She takes a long drink, tipping it back bit by bit as she drains it.

  She finally comes up for air and I smile at her lightly. “You were thirsty.”

  Already, her eyes seem brighter and the color of her skin has perked up.

  I try nudging her with the bag of food again. She hesitates, but I see the want in her eyes. I whisper, “I’ll have one if you do.”

  Her gray eyes brighten and she smiles faintly before reaching into the bag to grab a nugget of food. He
r smile suddenly dissolves as she seemingly thinks about something. I prepare myself for a question about her dad or about where we are going when she leans closer to me like she wants to ask me something in secret. I play along and lean into her, placing my ear close to her small mouth as she speaks. “Jesca, who is Michael?”

  As soon as the poisonous name leaves her innocent lips, I pull away just a hair and whisper back. “Where did you hear that name, Tessa?”

  My scrutiny frightens her a bit; her whispering answer quivers, “He told me.”

  “Who?” I probe.

  “Michael.”

  Still hunched over Tessa, I look dead center at Sam and follow the path of his inspecting eyes. They lead right to Nate.

  A procession of thoughts run through my head; Nate’s behavior since being back from beyond the veil, Xander’s and Nate’s secrecy, their appearances, the random sickening feeling of a Dweller’s presence when either of them are near. I hear Sam interrogating voice in my head when I asked Nate if he was all right and Sam’s immediate response asking if he was sure.

  Sam knew then that something was going on with Nate and Xander. He saw it because he had been controlled by Michael.

  Is that what is going on here? Is Michael controlling Nate and Xander? I look at Nate. His head is tilted back against the window panel, his eyes closed.

  Shiva was barking like crazy at the entrance of the tunnel just before Nate found Tessa and me. As soon as Nate appeared, Shiva stopped barking. She even started wagging her tail. The nauseous feeling hit me before he found us, but went away as soon as he walked through the doorway.

  I angle to peer at Xander. He is leaning forward in his seat, elbows resting on his knees and hands folded. Xander telling me to back off when I approached them about their behavior. He was trying to hide it. In Tom’s compound, he looked just as ill as Nate, and then moments later he looked fine.

  What about Elisabeth? I peer across the aisle at her. Xander and Nate were holding her captive when we met. It could have transferred to her easily. She is chewing her food quietly now, but she couldn’t walk or talk earlier. It could have gotten to me when Nate and I were arguing by the bus. He touched me. Does it move between us through touch? I didn’t see anything though. No inky, black being approaching. I just felt the sensation of being frozen, stagnate. I look at each guardian. He could hide among any of us with little detection. How is he doing it?