by Gloria Craw
I took a deep breath and dove in with a question. “There aren’t any adults living here, are there?” I asked.
“That depends on your definition of an adult,” he replied with an Australian accent.
“Wow. You’re Australian?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Is that a problem?”
“No. Just a surprise.”
“Using an American accent when I enrolled at Fillmore simplified things,” he explained.
“What sort of alien-species business brings you here?”
He laughed. “We came looking for a young thoughtmaker who was being raised by humans.”
“And you think that’s me?”
He reached over and turned my hand. Tracing the faint lines in my palm with his index finger, he said, “I’m pretty sure it is.”
I didn’t deny it further. “Why have you been looking for me?”
“Because we need your help.”
It was my turn to laugh. “In what way could I possibly help you? As you so insightfully point out, I’ve been raised by humans. I know almost nothing about…whatever we are.”
“Dewing,” he said.
“Right. As if ‘children of Atlantis’ wasn’t creepy enough.”
Smiling he collapsed onto the sofa next to me. “I’m not sure if it was naïveté or just hope,” he said, “but I didn’t expect to find you so…human. I stood next to you in line at registration last week and thought you were just another human girl. Even when I helped you up after your fall at school, I never suspected you were dewing. When I used my joining on you in the sickroom and then again that night in the car, it worked. It shouldn’t have. Not on another dewing. Of course, I sensed Lillian the first time I walked into the Shadow Box, but she didn’t confirm my suspicion about you until last night.”
I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. “Lillian is a dewing?” I asked in a whisper.
“Yes, but she’s an odd one. She’s gone rogue. She doesn’t interact with others of our kind on a regular basis. She’s even stopped going to her clan gatherings. She’s chosen to isolate herself, so she’s become less sensitive to our clan affiliations. She took you for a human at first, same as Brandy and I did, but when she tried to read your emotions, like she would any other human, she couldn’t get a clear picture of them.”
“Why didn’t she say anything to me?”
“Your skittish behavior made that difficult. She didn’t know how or why you ended up with a human family, but she sensed you were afraid of someone discovering you were dewing. She determined later that you were a thoughtmaker like her sister. Maybe because of that, she felt a connection with you. She helped you in the only ways she could, by keeping you close and not asking questions.”
I was newly grateful for Lillian’s silent presence at the Shadow Box.
“I’ve been dying to ask,” Ian continued. “How did you come to live with a human family in the first place?”
“I wish I could tell you. All I know is that I was left at a state hospital when I was three. I bounced around between foster homes after that. I’d been in system for five years when the McKyes came along and adopted me.”
He pondered that and then asked, “And you haven’t interacted with any dewing for all these years?”
“Only one. I met a guy three years ago who told me he saw human emotions. He was the one who warned me.”
Ian leaned back. “What exactly did he warn you about?”
“He said I was valuable to a powerful man and that man would want me to do thought transference for him. He told me to use my ability to become invisible in order to protect my family.”
“Did you the two of you talk a lot?”
I laughed ruefully. “We had one conversation that lasted less than ten minutes. I was like a disease he didn’t want to catch. He practically ran from me. Basically he messed up my entire life and left me alone to deal with it.”
“Considering the tension among us, he could have gotten into a lot of trouble if he’d been caught talking to you.”
That tidbit was less than comforting. I sighed. “You can’t know how worried I’ve been. The idea that someone would hurt my family in order to get to me has been my constant companion for the past three years.”
“So you turned yourself inside out and tried to stop existing in order to protect them.”
“After what you said today, I realize I took it too far, but at the time, I thought I was doing the right thing.”
Ian nodded. “I won’t sugarcoat it,” he said. “The reader told you the truth. As a thoughtmaker you are valuable, especially now that so many others with your ability have been killed. You are right to fear for your family, too. They could be used as a means to control your thoughtmaking.”
“That’s another problem,” I replied. “Even when I want to do thought transference, it only takes a minor roadblock to stop me. I would probably have to watch my whole family suffer and die before anybody realized I can’t do stuff the way other dewing can.”
“That’s only because you haven’t been taught,” he said.
“Well, I can’t endanger my family any longer,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I have to leave Vegas tomorrow.”
He put a reassuring hand on my shoulder, and I tried not to flinch. Without success.
“What’s with all the touching?” I asked. “Is that like a genetic thing? If so, I’m missing that gene.”
He laughed. “Maybe we are a little more affectionate than the average human. It’s because there are so few of us. We have to draw strength from each other.”
“At the moment, I don’t have much strength for you to draw from, and I’m better able to think when no one touches me.”
He moved his hand away. “It’s kind of sad that it bothers you so much, but it’s not the only thing that’s different about you. You don’t have a vibration.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“We feel a kind of energy, or vibration, coming off of each other. Except you don’t vibrate at all. You feel completely human.”
“But something about me made you curious anyway?”
“It had more to do with how you acted than anything else. If you hadn’t been so edgy, I probably wouldn’t have given you a second thought.”
It was a good segue into the most important question I had. “If you knew enough to come looking for me, and I’ve got someone following me, are others coming for me, too?”
“I’m not sure. Only a few of us believe you really exist. I didn’t believe it myself until my mom told me. And it wasn’t easy to find you. I did months of research and still would have come up empty if it weren’t for…a friend who pointed me in the right direction.”
“What friend?”
“Just someone who suggested I look for you in Vegas. We got lucky when we started school at Fillmore. If it weren’t for that, I’d still be looking.”
“That’s some pretty amazing luck.”
“Call it destiny, then.”
“Either way, you found me. If you did it, someone else could, too. I could spend the rest of my life running and never be able to hide well enough to ensure the McKyes are safe.”
“Except that other than us, there’s only one man who wants to find you. Which brings us back to the original plan. When I started searching for you, I assumed there would be things you didn’t know or understand about us. I was prepared to teach you, but now that I know how human you think, I realize the learning curve would be really steep.”
His words were like a bright ray of light breaking through the clouds of my miserable day. “So there are things you can teach me,” I said. “Things that would help me keep my family safe.”
“It would be easier to leave the McKyes and relocate somewhere else, like you planned. My dad has connections. He can arrange a place for you to stay while you figure out what you want to do next.”
Leaving would be so much easier with help, but I could see com
plications now. When I was reported as a missing person, the McKyes would be all over the news asking for the public’s help finding me. If anyone suspected who I was, my ties to them would be public knowledge and…so much for hiding in the shadows. Not to mention that I’d wondered for years what I’d be able to do with my abilities if someone explained how they worked. It was an opportunity I didn’t want to miss. I didn’t want to live in fear and vulnerability forever. I needed to be strong for myself and for my family.
“I’m a fast learner,” I assured him. “You said you needed my help. If you teach me, I’ll do anything you want me to.”
He was softening but not fully convinced teaching me was the best option. “I can help you understand how to use your joining better,” he relented, “and how to fight and defend yourself in our particular way, but I would have to ask for something in return later.”
“Anything,” I repeated.
He let out a long breath. “You won’t like it, but I won’t ask you to give anything I haven’t already committed to give myself.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I kept quiet while he considered what to do. Various emotions played across his face, but I knew the moment his decision was made. “Okay, Brandy and I will teach you. How much do you know about the dewing?”
“Not much,” I admitted.
He smiled. “Are you up for a dewing history lesson, then?”
“History is my best subject,” I replied with an internal sigh of relief.
Chapter Eight
Ian sat back into the sofa for what I hoped would be an informative lecture. Instead, I got silence and a look of disbelief. “The history lesson will have to wait,” he said. “We’ve got company.”
Seconds later, three men and two women entered the room. They’d been talking loudly, but catching sight of me, their conversation died away. Ian got to his feet and said, “Hi, Dad.”
I respectfully got up from the sofa. The only light in the room came from the wall of windows and the sunset outside. The low light cast strange shadows across the faces of the people in front of me. As my eyes adjusted, I could see the tallest man in the group looked a lot like Ian. He was likely the one Ian had referred to as Dad.
The woman standing next to him was striking. Her hair was a deep nut brown, her skin a light creamy tone, and her green eyes turned up at the outside corners. She came forward to embrace Ian. “What are you doing here, Mom?” he asked.
“We had an unexpected layover, so we decided to have dinner with some friends in town,” she replied.
“I mean, what are you doing here at the house?” Ian clarified. “You called me from the airport an hour ago. I told you everything was fine.”
It was strange that Ian seemed so irritated with his parents, but I figured he must have had a reason. The lovely woman brushed this comment aside. “You’re being rude. You should introduce us to your friend.”
Ian glanced my way. “Alison McKye, this is my mom, Katherine Thane.” Then he nodded toward the man who looked so much like him. “Spencer Thane, my father. Bruce and Amelia Dawning and Luke Stentorian.”
By the way they watched me, I could tell the people in the room knew more about me than my name, which made me uncomfortable.
“Let’s sit so we can get to know each other,” Spencer suggested.
“Yes,” Katherine agreed. “Have a seat, everyone.”
Their language was more formal that I was used to, but it was charming in a way. Kind of old-fashioned.
There were only the two sofas in the room, so Luke sat next to me. He was a thin man, so thin that his Adam’s apple stood out, and I could see the blood pulsing in the veins of his neck. There were dark circles under his eyes and he kept sniffing and clearing his throat like he had a cold. Hoping I wouldn’t catch whatever he had, I scooted a few centimeters away from him.
“You’re in the presence of greatness,” Ian commented cynically. “My father and mother are the Thane clan chiefs. Bruce and Amelia are the Dawning clan chiefs and Luke heads the Stentorian clan. He hasn’t found his life partner yet.”
“Clan chief” wasn’t a term used in everyday conversation, so I assumed it was a dewing term and that everyone in the room was a fellow nonhuman.
Ian read my train of thought. “Yes, we’re all dewing.”
“So, you’re not Ian Palmer,” I said. “You’re Ian Thane, and your parents are just dropping in?”
“This is our house,” Katherine replied before Ian could. “We bought it a couple of months ago, but we’ve never actually stayed here for more than a few hours.”
“My parents travel a lot for business, so they have houses all over the world,” Ian explained.
“You don’t mind that two teenagers live here alone?” I asked.
Maybe the question wasn’t as politely formed as it could have been, but Katherine wasn’t offended. “Brandy is older than she looks,” she replied.
Amelia’s eyes narrowed. “It’s obvious who your mother was, but I can’t feel a single vibration coming off you.”
As an introduction to a painful subject, it wasn’t tactful. As a conversation starter, it worked. “You knew my mother?” I asked her.
“We all did,” Katherine acknowledged. “She did our families a great service once.”
In that one sentence, I learned more about the woman who’d given birth to me than I’d ever known before.
For years, I’d been haunted by the fact that I couldn’t remember anything about my biological parents when I could remember even the most minute detail of everything else. I’d spent many dark nights searching my memory for a lingering shadow of them. I’d yet to find a single one. “I was three when I was placed in the foster-care system,” I replied. “I have no memory of anything before that.”
Clearing his throat and shifting his posture, Luke said, “That’s normal. Our recall develops slowly. It isn’t fully functional until we’re about eight.”
I gave the awkward man a smile. I was grateful for the explanation, and the small degree of guilt it freed me from.
“She doesn’t know much about our kind at all,” Ian admitted. “I was just about to give her a history lesson when I felt you guys coming in.”
“We’re just in time, then,” Spencer said enthusiastically. “I can fill in anything you miss.”
Ian was annoyed. Maybe because his father was set on taking over the conversation. “You love this sort of thing, Dad,” he said. “Go ahead and tell it all. Knock yourself out.”
“We’ll all tell it,” Katherine interjected. With a nod toward Spencer, she said, “You can start, but don’t monopolize the conversation.”
That was all the okay Spencer needed. He stood up and posed like a professor teaching a class. “We are what’s left of the people that lived on the island of Atlantis,” he began. “Our race, if that’s what you want to call it, has been around since before the first human civilization. We were reading, writing, calculating math formulas, and curing diseases while humans still existed as hunter-gatherers. What they know about Atlantis in this day and age is mostly fiction, but the island was never a myth. Plato was the first to record what he knew of us, and he got some parts right. Atlantis did disappear into the ocean. What he didn’t know was that our ancestors made it disappear.”
I gave a short laugh. “Are you telling me, people living thousands of years ago had the know-how to sink an entire island?”
“As crazy as it must seem to you, they did,” Spencer answered, pacing a bit. “Eleven thousand years ago, the original inhabitant of Atlantis divided into two separate groups, the Rorelent and the Tenebros. These two groups formed because of opposing political views. The Rorelent, which in our ancient language means ‘the dew,’ lived by a highly ethical standard. They respected the rights of the weaker species, humankind, to exist undisturbed. The Tenebros were led by Tenebrosus, a power-hungry and greedy man. He campaigned for the people of Atlantis to use their mind abilities on humans. He wanted to
turn them into a slave race.
“Tenebrosus convinced many that his idea was the better and more humane approach. According to him, human suffering would be alleviated if they existed only to do the will of our people. Of course, humankind would have lost their free will, too, but he and his followers didn’t see that as a problem. Eventually, he gained enough support to put his idea to a vote in government. The vote came back against him, but he wouldn’t accept defeat. He continued to campaign for human enslavement, breaking all sorts of rules along the way.”
“He was smart about it,” Ian interjected. “He never broke a rule until he’d gained enough supporters to make it worth his while.”
“Yes,” Spencer said. “As the number of Tenebrosus’s supporters increased, they began attacking northern African countries, even going into Egypt. They killed and enslaved people along the way.”
“You mean they went around reading human emotions and making thought suggestions to them?” I asked in confusion.
Next to me, Luke chuckled.
“It’s good that you know something of our joining,” Spencer answered with a smile. “I believe you are referring to the abilities of a reader and a thoughtmaker. We call these abilities ‘joinings.’ There are many different kinds.”
“There are sensationmakers like me,” Amelia chimed in with pride. “I can join a human mind and make them feel almost anything, both pleasant and unpleasant.”
“And there are healers like me, who can fix and rewire problems in the human brain,” Spencer explained. “There are futuretellers, like Katherine, who get glimpses of what’s to come through the minds of humans. And thoughtseers, like Bruce, who can see human thoughts when two or more of them talk with each other. Then there’s Luke. He’s rather unique, but we’ve nicknamed him the Eraser. His joining can remove specific human memories.”
Something about that ability disturbed me, but no one else was bothered by it, so I just nodded that I understood.
