by Nicole Thorn
Jasper nodded. “I figured. They made it sound like a big deal.”
She smiled again. “I didn’t know it would happen like this. Six mountains will stand when the wind comes blowing,” Callie said. “That was the prophecy. I knew you would be strong, but I didn’t understand how. I’m glad it’s like this. You get to have immortal babies and name one after me.”
I laughed, and then peeked out the front door. “Um, does that belong to you?” I pointed to a boy parked out front of the house. He looked young, and sat in the front seat of a car, reading a book.
Callie got a happy look on her face. “Yeah, he’s mine. That’s my fella, Aster. I told him I needed to come see you guys to make sure you were all okay. Everything is a mess upstairs, and I needed to know my friends were all right.”
“We’re doing a lot better,” Jasper said. “And me and Kezia are getting married.”
Callie nearly screamed, jumping up and down. “Yay! That’s so great. Do I get to go?”
“Of course,” I said. “You can bring Aster too.”
“Do you have a date?”
“This happened four minutes ago,” Jasper told her. “You’re the only person who knows. Though don’t tell my sisters if you run into them. I can’t imagine Jasmine would be that happy to find out she wasn’t the first to know.”
That got me thinking about what a Zander and Jasmine engagement would look like. I could only imagine it would have been constant competition to see who was better at being engaged. While no one else in the world would have done something so insane, it felt right for the two of them. With Verin and Juniper, I figured in his head, they were already engaged, and it didn’t come up with Juniper yet. When we lost them, he told us all the reasons he wouldn’t let it stay that way. He had plans in his mind, and I was sure he intended on carrying them out.
“No problem,” Callie said. “I’m happy for the two of you, and I’m glad everything worked out. Otherwise I would have had to cause a lot of damage to the world.” She said it with a smile, but I didn’t think she was joking around about that. Callie didn’t have a lot of people in her life, and I didn’t think she would have handled loss all that well.
Her eyes went blank, and Jasper and I both knew what that meant. Our friend slipped into her own mind, probably hearing too many voices to be able to focus on only one. We stayed quiet, letting her work it out for a few minutes.
Before she started speaking, the blankness turned to worry. “I don’t know who’s saying it, but I keep hearing someone talking about a storm. Something happening soon.” She blinked, rubbing her temples. “They’re so focused on it. The gods are preparing for something bad, and they’re talking about you.”
“What about us?” Jasper asked.
“They need you. I can’t understand what they mean, but I think someone is planning it out. The storm is coming, and they want to be prepared for it. They want to win. How do you win in a storm?”
I really didn’t like all the gibberish, but the gods weren’t nice enough to let us know anything about our own lives. That would have been too easy, and they liked making things hard on us. Never mind how we helped them all the time, or that they needed us. Why make life easier?
Callie rubbed her eyes, taking a moment to breathe. “It’s getting closer, and I can hear the thunder in my ears. It’s loud, and the wind feels cold.”
“Wind,” I said. “Like the same kind of wind that’s going to blow on us?”
“Maybe. I don’t know what any of this means. I’ll have to keep listening so that I can put the pieces together. Once I have them, I can come back here. Can you tell the others that I said hi? I don’t want them thinking I took off without a reason.”
“Not a problem,” I said. “Thanks for trying to help.”
She gave me another hug, and I saw the strained look in her eyes. “I just need to do something relaxing, and then I can focus better. I hear the gods clearer when my head is settled.”
“Good luck,” I told her, and she went out the door.
I shuffled over to Jasper, deflated from the new thing we had to worry about. I put my arms around him, and he did the same thing for me. I felt pouty, and I had been so happy a few minutes before.
“It’s always something,” I complained. “Why couldn’t we just go have sex and be happy for a while?”
“Because the world is a cruel place. We can still have sex if you want.”
I smiled, deciding that needed to be the way to end this sad morning, since nothing else would have made me feel better. Then the door opened, and my brother showed up to ruin all of our plans. The gods must have been punishing us for talking shit about them earlier. I couldn’t see any other option, and it sounded like something they would do.
“Um,” Zander started as Jasmine followed behind him. “Was that Callie outside, sitting on the lap of a boy while they go at it?”
Ah, so that was how she relaxed herself. I peeked out to see them in the car, and she had climbed onto her boyfriend. They . . . they were really going at it.
“Young love,” Jasmine sighed softly.
“Yeah, that’s Callie,” I said. “She came by to check on us, and then she sort of had a bad vision. She said something about a storm coming, and I assume that means we’ll all have to fight. I’m too tired to even think about it right now, and since Verin and Juniper are upstairs, I’m taking this as a break.”
Zander frowned. “Storm . . . I just had to listen to a god as he shoved a whole burger in his mouth. Like . . . all at once, Kiz. I’ve seen horrors. Don’t give me more.”
Jasper attempted to make it a little better, directing himself at his sister. “Well we do have some good news, if you guys want to hear it.”
His sister brightened. “Sure. Lay it on us, buddy.”
Jasper kept his arm around me, and he had the happiest look on his face. It made me feel all warm inside. “Kezia and I are getting married.”
Jasmine gasped, her mouth falling open. And then she started screaming.
CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Well . . . Crap
Jasper
“I GET TO PLAN A WEDDING!” my sister screamed at the top of her lungs. She flailed her arms, and jumped up and down as well, making the entire scene even more insane than it had been moments before.
Zander held his hand up. “Um, excuse me,” he said. “What makes you think I’m going to let you ruin my little sister’s wedding?”
Jasmine narrowed her eyes. “Ruin it? I think you meant, rock it out like nobody’s business. It would only be ruined if I was dumb enough to let you plan the thing. You should know by now that I am an expert wooer, and that means that I have to be good at all things romance. There is nothing more romantic than a wedding.”
Zander snorted. “Exactly. So you should let the actual expert handle it. This shit runs through my veins, and you can’t beat me, no matter how much you might wish you could.”
Jasmine scoffed. “Don’t make me show you how wrong you are, Zander. It’d be an embarrassment to everyone involved.”
“Excuse me?” I said. “I get the two of you have something to prove to each other, but, actually, neither of you get to decide this.”
Kezia nodded. “No offense, or anything, but I don’t need this to become a competition between the two of you. Do you remember the last time you made an event into a competition?”
“Are you referring to the bake-a-thon?” Jasmine asked. “Where I totally annihilated Zander?”
“You didn’t do anything like that,” Zander said. “I won that, and you can’t deny it. I baked twice as many things as you did.”
“But mine tasted better,” Jasmine said. “And I made bonus truffles, to stick on my chocolate cake with ganache frosting. You can’t even begin to complete with the skills that I have.”
“See,” Kezia said, “I remember that as the weekend where Jasper almost went into a sugar coma, because you kept forcing food on him. I would rather not have a repeat of that
. We’d end up with two weddings, and I only need to marry Jasper once, because we’ll get it right the first time.”
“I agree,” I threw out there, because I didn’t actually want to see Jasmine and Zander turn my marriage into a competition.
“Don’t worry,” Jasmine said, reaching for my arm. “I’ll make sure that this wedding is wonderful, and, because I’m such a great sister, Zander can be my lovely assistant. Who doesn’t wear a shirt . . . and carries around a sword, so that he can do sword things with it.” She closed her eyes.
I sighed and looked at Kezia for help.
“No,” she said, flatly. “Nope, we aren’t going to play this game, no matter how much you might want to.”
Jasmine pouted.
“No,” Kezia said.
Jasmine crossed her arms over her chest and pouted some more. When that still didn’t get her anywhere, she said, “Well, you can’t stop me. I’m a god now, and I know that Jasper would feel guilty if I planned an entire wedding, and it didn’t go anywhere. So, if you’ll excuse me, I have to start figuring this out.”
Zander laughed. “And you’ve proven that I’ll be better at this than you. I’ve already got plans in my head. I know precisely what the menu will be, and what flowers I’ll have picked out, and I’m starting to design Kizzy’s wedding dress in my head.”
“No,” Kezia said, and went ignored.
“You can’t just design a dress without the woman’s consent,” Jasmine said, rolling her eyes. She started going into the kitchen, and Zander followed her. “And you’re starting in the wrong place. First, you have to decide who all is getting invited. Obviously, we have to invite Medusa . . . ” I blocked her voice out, because it started giving me a headache.
Kezia frowned. “We should have told them after we got married.”
“I agree,” I said. “We would have gotten hell for it, but that would have been better than the chaos of watching them try to plan our wedding and getting everything wrong. Jasmine is . . . Well . . . ”
Kezia touched my shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’ve met her. I love Jasmine.”
“Yes,” I said.
Before we could do more, Juniper came downstairs at warp speed. Verin came after her, shouting something that I couldn’t understand. Juniper giggled but came to a screeching stop when she heard Jasmine slam her hand down on something, followed by a crack.
“What was that?” Juniper asked, wide eyed.
Verin came up behind her and snagged her around the waist. “Surely nothing that they can’t fix on their own, right?” he called.
“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” Zander called back.
“I have to make a point about planning things!” Jasmine yelled. “This wasn’t supposed to happen!” I could picture her flailing as she said the last words, and I could only imagine Zander trying to stop her from breaking something else.
Juniper whimpered.
“Planning?” Verin asked, still holding my sister around the waist. “What could she be planning?”
“Our wedding,” I said.
“You and me?” Verin asked. “I mean, this is so sudden. I haven’t even had a chance to think it over.”
Kezia’s eyes narrowed, and she punched Verin in the shoulder. “No, you dork. We’re getting married.”
Verin made a face. “Well, Aunt Kizzy, I’m very flattered, but I think I’ll have to decline that offer as well, despite the generosity of it.”
Juniper squirmed out of Verin’s arms and pushed him. He stumbled back a step, laughing as he did so. Then my sister turned back to me. “You and Kizzy are getting married?”
I nodded.
Juniper grinned, hugging me. “I’m so happy for you, and also so scared, because Jasmine can’t even plan a barbecue.”
“When are you going to let that go?” Jasmine shouted.
“You nearly burned the neighbor’s house down!” Juniper shouted. “I’ll never let that go! Never!” She turned back to me and put her hands on my shoulders. “I’ll make sure that she doesn’t ruin this for you, no matter what I have to do.”
“Thank you,” I said.
Juniper straightened out her shirt and went into the kitchen with a look of determination on her face. I didn’t know how this would end, but I wished both my sisters luck, hoping they walked out of this alive.
Verin rubbed the back of his neck. “I suppose I should go in there, to make sure they don’t wring each other’s necks.” He wandered off, leaving me with Kezia. I sighed, turning to look at her. She stared back at me with wide eyes. “That was . . . Um . . . ”
“Yeah,” I said. “On the bright side, Jasmine and Zander will spend so much time trying to one up the other, you and I will be married long before it becomes a problem.”
She smirked. “We haven’t even picked a date yet.”
“Does that matter?”
We heard something else crack in the kitchen. Juniper whimpered, and screamed, “I’m gonna kill you!” I heard the boys shouting to each other, followed by the distinct sounds of a sister fight.
“No . . . no, it doesn’t,” Kezia said, taking my hand. The two of us went upstairs, to finish what we started in the kitchen.
***
Juniper knocked on my door the next morning. An interesting side effect of being turned into a god, was that I could recognize people by their scent sometimes. Kezia, I knew, because her scent had been branded into my brain. Juniper used a flowery soap, so I recognized her when she knocked on the door.
Groaning, I climbed out of bed, and went over to the door. I doublechecked that I wore pants before pulling the door open. Juniper stood there, holding a folder to her chest, and wearing a frown on her face. “Hey. I think it’s time that we decided who to pick to be the next seers.”
My shoulders slumped, and I rubbed the back of my neck. “Right. Let’s head downstairs.”
Juniper retrieved Jasmine, and the three of us convened in the kitchen. Juniper set her folder down and messed with the edges for a couple of seconds. “I’ve been thinking about this since we got back. I thought that it would be easiest to pick another set of triplets, just so the bloodlines didn’t get all mixed up.”
“Makes sense,” Jasmine said. “Though, this entire thing feels weird to me. I have to pick someone to give a curse to. At least you guys have control over your visions, but I have to pick someone who will randomly get images in her head that can range from the best news someone could get, to watching someone else die. And none of it will touch their lives.” She rubbed her temples. “That didn’t turn me into an alcoholic, but it sure as hell didn’t help me, either.”
“No,” Juniper agreed, and squeezed our sister’s hand. “I don’t want to do this anymore than you do. But, just because being the seers wrecked our lives, doesn’t mean that it’ll do the same for someone in this folder.”
“No, but there’s a good chance,” I said.
Juniper nodded. “That’s why I’ve spent the last several days trying to make sure that we pick someone with a really good family. Not someone with a family like ours. Our mother was so interested in getting rid of her visions, she didn’t care what happened to us, and Dad . . . ”
We all looked away from each other. Our mother had gotten pregnant at sixteen, because she wanted to rid herself of her visions. Our father had been in his twenties, which said a lot about him. We’d never met our mother’s parents. Dad always said that they had died.
As for our father . . . he’d used us for our visions. And he abused us because of them, as well. He could keep us under control, and would do whatever it took to maintain that control. It always seemed like a miracle to me that we had managed to keep ourselves alive at all, let alone for as long as we did.
“We aren’t just picking the next three seers,” I said. “We’re picking an entire bloodline to pass this burden on to.”
Jasmine nodded, wrapping her arms around her middle. “If our ancestors were anything like our mother, then I can only imagine w
hat that means for this bloodline. We might as well tell them they’re fucked, and then walk away.”
Juniper ran her hands over the folder. “I don’t know what to think of this. Any of it. I just know that we have to do this, or the gods will punish us. I don’t know about you guys, but I’d rather not learn how much stronger they are than us.”
“Open the folder,” I said, nodding to it.
Juniper took a deep breath. “I’ve looked around the Seattle area for triplets. I’ve found a few viable candidates, mostly thanks to Verin. He’s been helping me with this.” Her cheeks turned a slight shade of pink, and I chose not to wonder why. I already had to live with being able to hear everything that happened in the house. I didn’t need it to get worse than that.
My sister opened the folder, and took out a packet of papers, stapled together. The first page showed three teenagers. One girl and two boys. They looked on the younger side, and happy. The girl smiled, while the boys laughed at something. The picture had been taken on their way home from school, and I chose not to wonder how my sister managed that. Probably stalking their social media.
“These are the Jacobs triplets. They’re fourteen, and live with their parents, and two other siblings. The two other siblings are older, and their parents seem like very nice people. Their mom works in a restaurant, and their father spends his days crunching numbers,” Juniper said.
Jasmine turned the picture to look at her and flipped through the rest of the packet. “This says that the girl has straight As, and that the boys have been getting into robotics, whatever that means. Like, good enough to maybe get a scholarship one day.”
“Yes,” Juniper agreed.
Jasmine shook her head. “If we gave them visions, it would throw their entire life off course. I’m not saying that someone else would deserve it more, but I’m saying that they’re on a good track, and I don’t want to mess that up.” She set the papers aside, and said, “Next.”
