Atlantis Rising

by Gloria Craw

  Ian smiled wickedly. “You’re right, but when this is over, I’m going to kiss you again.”

  “You keep telling yourself that,” I said.

  I left him lying there to rest while I went to explore Brandy’s newly decorated living room. The room had undergone a complete transformation. An enormous oriental rug in shades of red covered the tile. On top of it, the sofas had been rearranged to face each other. Four sophisticated-looking club chairs joined the seating group. A large leather ottoman sat in the middle, and lamps were artfully arranged around the perimeter.

  A flat-screen television had been mounted to the wall above the fireplace. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases flanked it, with chic decor items adorning the shelves. An enormous table complete with leather-upholstered chairs sat under the dining room chandelier. Pottery had been arranged in the center to look carelessly artistic.

  “Holy cow,” I muttered.

  “I agree,” said Katherine from nearby. “I’m glad you’re feeling a little better. Spencer wants to start on your training first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “You’re staying to help?”

  She took my hand and led me to one of the sofas. “If the five of us work as a team, we should be able to get you up to speed in no time at all.”

  “I need all the help I can get,” I said sincerely. “Couldn’t you use your futuretelling to see if we’re still alive after Sebastian buys it? That would really motive me.”

  “My joining doesn’t work that way,” she replied. “As much as I want to know certain things, I can’t decide what the future will tell me.”

  “Oh,” I said dejectedly.

  Katherine studied me for a moment and then said, “Your eyes are so much like hers. Her hair was the opposite color, of course, but her eyes were the same unusual shade of gray. Would you like to hear more about her?”

  “I would.”

  She patted the back of the sofa encouragingly, so I settled in to listen.

  “About seventeen years ago,” she began, “Sebastian kidnapped several dewing children. One from each of the fourteen clans opposed to his actions. He offered a choice to the clans—disband and pledge our loyalty to him, or he would kill our children and continue kidnapping and executing others.

  “He took your mother as the Laurel hostage. It was a strange choice because she was a lot older than the rest, and being a thoughtmaker, she was dangerous, too. You see, thoughtmakers are unique. If their energy is strong enough, they can use their joining on other dewing. Sebastian probably took her because your grandfather was the Laurel clan chief and he wanted that leverage in particular. He had to have regretted the choice immediately, because he put her under heavy guard with special precautions to make sure she couldn’t use her joining to escape.”

  Katherine paused in her story when Ian came in rubbing his eyes. “Hello, sweet boy.”

  He waved at her and plopped down in front of a bunch of cords hanging from the television on the wall. “This is going to take forever,” he muttered.

  “Need help?” I asked.

  “No. Go ahead and listen to my mom,” he replied.

  Katherine smiled at him as he bent his head over his work. “Your mother did get free,” she continued, “and if she had run, she would have stood an excellent chance of getting far away before anyone figured out she was missing. She didn’t run, though. Now that I know she was a new mother herself, I can better understand her choice. She stayed long enough to free the rest of the kidnapped children. They varied in age from just a couple of months to fourteen years old. What she did next, no thoughtmaker had ever done before or has ever has since. She mind-cloaked the Truss. None of them sensed her or the children as they left the compound they’d been held captive in.

  “Spencer and I, along with the rest of the clan chiefs, were meeting not far away. We were all emotionally wrecked by the kidnappings, but we had to consider our options at that point. Given our population, you understand how we feel about bloodshed. Some saw giving in to Sebastian as the best way to stop the killing. Others thought that would only make it worse. A loud argument was in swing between the Ormolu and Dawning clan chiefs when someone knocked at the door.

  “She must have followed our vibrations, because she walked in followed by twelve bedraggled children. She was holding Ian, only six months old at the time, in her arms. I still get chills when I remember her gray eyes, wild from the rebound, as she handed him to me.”

  Across the room, Ian cursed, waving a pinched finger in the air.

  We turned to him. “Sorry,” he said. “Go on.”

  Katherine chuckled softly. “Your mother gave us a gift that day,” she continued. “Obviously, we were overjoyed to have our children back, but it was more than that. She gave us a taste of victory, too. She renewed our determination to stand against Sebastian and all the evil he stands for.

  “When Sebastian found the children gone, he was out of his mind with rage. He wanted to punish Grace, to see her suffer for what she’d done. Overriding his longing for vengeance, though, was his desire to control her power. He put his energy into setting a trap for her. A year or so later, he captured your father to lure her in. Even then, she wouldn’t give him what he wanted. She wouldn’t use her thoughtmaking for him.

  “In a fit of anger, Sebastian made the mistake of seeing her alone. She was very young, but she was extremely powerful. With no one around to intervene, she engaged him in an essence fight. She wounded him in some physical way. The strange thing is that whatever she did didn’t heal right.”

  “I thought we can heal from anything,” I said.

  “Typically we can. That’s what makes Sebastian’s injury so difficult for us to understand. No one but his closest advisor knows what exactly is wrong with him. He hasn’t been seen in public for years.” Katherine’s eyes filled with tears. “My son Jack was a gifted healer and physician. That’s why Sebastian had him captured. He wanted to be healed.”

  It was completely out of character for me, but I reached out and patted her hand awkwardly. She smiled through her tears. “Since your mother’s death, no other thoughtmaker has been able to duplicate the thought cloak she pulled off,” Katherine continued. “Sebastian has spent the last decade hunting them down and making them try.”

  In awe of the mother I’d never know, I asked, “What joining does Sebastian have that makes him so powerful?”

  Ian swore again and raised another pinched finger in the air. “He’s a freaking shapeshifter,” he said.

  “That’s right,” Katherine said. “He put his joining to good use two hundred years ago by providing séances for royalty in Europe. During the course of an evening, he would appear as dead relatives to those that tipped him highly enough. It isn’t his joining that makes him powerful. It’s the power of his essence. Sebastian’s mind energy is very strong.” She watched her son with profound love and sadness. “We hope Ian’s is stronger.”

  “What will happen to the Truss when Sebastian is gone?” I asked.

  “No one knows for sure, but we hope his followers will disband.”

  “So risking our lives to kill him might be for nothing,” I said quietly.

  “No,” she said, “Sebastian has to be removed from power. If his followers continued to give us trouble, we’ll deal with them. That part won’t be as difficult.”

  I wasn’t convinced, but I heard Spencer’s voice over my shoulder ask, “How’s the patient?”

  “I can move now,” I said. “Thank you for your help.”

  “It was the least I could do. If it weren’t for your mother, we wouldn’t have Ian around to connect the television to the sound system.”

  I looked at the boy my mother had carried in her arms seventeen years ago. His hair was curled up at his collar and his oddly colored eyes were alight with aggravation as he struggled with a bunch of knotted cords. “Did you know about all of this?” I asked.

  With his gaze still locked on the cords, he replied, “I grew up hearing a
bout it.”

  I wondered then if my mother had gone back for the other kidnapped children that day because she thought I might need Ian and the Thanes in the future.

  In the back of my mind I heard the word “yes.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “You’re a decorating genius,” I said when Brandy walked in later. “The transformation this place has gone through is amazing.”

  “Brandy has a PhD in art history,” Katherine said proudly, “but she’s been working as an interior decorator for the last couple of years.”

  “No wonder shopping with you was so easy,” I commented. “You actually know what you’re doing.”

  Brandy shrugged. “I had grand aspirations for this place. I wanted to leave one last mark on the world, even if it was only an interior decorating mark. Time has handicapped my efforts, though. It will be a miracle if I get the basics how I want them before people start arriving.”

  “What can I do to help?” Spencer asked.

  Brandy nodded toward the mess of cords hanging from the television. “Can you help Ian finish the electronics?”

  He looked doubtful but said, “I’ll try.”

  Katherine and I followed Brandy into the kitchen. “I bought some more plates,” Brandy said. “They need to be washed.”

  “I can do that,” I volunteered.

  Brandy handed me a stack of plates wrapped in tissue paper. “I stopped by your house and picked up some clean clothes for you. No offense, but you look like you slept in those.”

  “No offense taken,” I replied. “I did sleep in them.”

  She pointed to a bulging suitcase by the door. “Voilà.”

  “It looks like you packed enough clothes for a week.”

  “Enough for a few days. You are officially our houseguest through Labor Day.”

  “My mom is okay with me being away from home for three whole days?” I’d never even been away for more than a night.

  Brandy winked at me. “I think she trusts me.”

  “She didn’t make a fuss about me calling home at regular intervals or anything?”

  “No. Why would she? I explained you were busy working on your presentation for English class and helping me with things here.”

  “You are very good,” I said with admiration.

  She smiled like what else did I expect, and then removed a set of rust-colored pillows from a shopping bag.

  A furniture delivery team called to be let through the gates as I was rinsing plates.

  Brandy didn’t seem pleased. “That’s cutting it close,” she grumbled.

  “Choosing furniture for four bedrooms takes time,” Katherine replied patiently. “We promised to pay the delivery people twice their usual fee to get it here quickly.”

  The first items carried in were for Brandy’s room, two nightstands, a dresser, and a bed, all in a light wood that looked cheery even wrapped in plastic. “No more funky inflatable mattress,” she said bounding down the hall after the deliverymen.

  “It was my idea to furnish the bedrooms,” Katherine explained. “I think she planned to close all the bedroom doors so people wouldn’t know they were empty. But we’re going to keep the house, so it seemed right to get the furniture now. She wasn’t happy about my interference. I told the delivery team to bring her stuff in first, hoping she’d like what I got for her enough to forgive me.”

  “I think it worked,” I said.

  Still untangling knotted cords, Spencer said, “One of Katherine’s greatest talents is diplomacy.”

  She winked at me. Ian’s mother was a gentle manipulator. “I think we’ll have to put you in one of the smaller rooms,” she said. “Your things should be brought up next.”

  An hour later, I sat on the new bed in my temporary room and looked around. Like the rest of the house, the walls were painted a neutral putty color. A thick white carpet covered the floor. Windows and a set of French doors let in the plentiful Las Vegas sunlight. The furniture Katherine had chosen for the room was dark and contemporary looking. I liked the clean, hard edges of the pieces and the stark contrast between the wood and lighter tones in the room much more than the fluffy Pepto-Bismol pink of my room at home.

  Katherine knocked on my door and came in carrying a comforter set. “I wasn’t sure what colors you like,” she said, unzipping a bag and dumping a bundle of linens out. “Going on nothing but a guess, I chose this blue gray for you. The shade matches your eyes.”

  I was touched by her thoughtfulness. “They’re beautiful, but I could have made do with one of the air mattresses and a sleeping bag.”

  “Believe me, you’re going to need a nice place to sleep tomorrow night.”

  I was already nervous about my training, so the foreboding tone in her voice didn’t help matters. Picking up on my feelings, she reassured me, “You’re going to be tired more than anything else.”

  I hoped she was right. “Thank you for helping me feel so at home here.”

  I’d set to work making my bed when there was a brief knock on my door. It opened and one bright turquoise eye peeked in. “Come in,” I said.

  Ian pushed the door open and hauled my luggage into the room. “I brought your suitcase,” he said. “This thing weighs a ton.” He hefted the bulging bag to the top of my dresser. Then he looked around the room. “It’s nice in here,” he commented. “Suits you in a way. You’ll appreciate having a real bed to sleep in tomorrow.”

  “I wish you people would stop saying that.”

  He looked apologetic. “It wasn’t in my plan to throw everything at you at once, but my dad thinks it will work better this way. Don’t misinterpret that as him calling all the shots. He thinks he’s the boss, but I’m the one running this show. I’ve been doing it from the start. I gave in to him on this because the more you know, the safer you’ll be.”

  I laughed softly. In some ways the two of them were so much alike. They were both confident, determined leaders and because of that they would always butt heads.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  “I was just thinking about you and your dad.”

  “Anyway, he thinks the tiger might have talked about you before I killed him. Not to Sebastian. To someone else in the Illuminant clan. If they come looking for you to finish what the tiger started, you’ll need to be able to protect yourself. You’re going to get a crash course in thoughtmaking, mind defense, and essence fighting over the next two days.”

  “And it’s going to hurt,” I deduced.

  “I told you the learning curve would be steep. Pain will help you climb it faster. Which gives you all the more reason to enjoy yourself at the party tonight.”

  Brandy passed by the open door of my room. “Better get a move on, you two,” she said. “People will be here soon.”

  “Promise me you’ll try to have fun tonight,” Ian insisted. “No thoughtmaking yourself into invisibility.”

  “I promise. Now, go away.”

  He complied, whistling some random tune as he left.

  I closed the door and went to inspect the contents of my suitcase. I found the only two dresses I owned laid out on top of everything else, a subtle hint from Brandy to dress up, not down. The first was the bright sundress my mother bought during our school shopping trip last week. It was formfitting until the waist, then it flared like a parachute and ended at midthigh. The length was all wrong for someone as tall as me. It made my torso look too short compared to the rest of my body.

  Tossing it onto the bed, I inspected my second option, a shirt and skirt combo. The shirt was a pale pink chiffon over a darker pink shell. The skirt was dark gray and fitted. I’d worn the combination to a Christmas party for my dad’s business the year before. I’d looked like a librarian. No way was it right for a high school get-together. Catching a glimpse of the embellished pocket on my favorite pair of jeans poking out from under another of my shirts, I pulled them out and held them up. They were worn in and did great things for my butt. I’d never worn them to sch
ool for exactly that reason. I set them next to the chiffon shirt and liked the dressy against the casual. I settled on that option and checked in my suitcase again.

  Brandy had packed my set of hot rollers. I’d owned them for two years and never so much as plugged them in. What the heck, I thought. It was time to find out if my hair had the ability to curl. After sorting through the other clothes, I noticed my neglected cosmetics case stuffed into a corner. Curling my hair with hot rollers was one thing—I couldn’t really mess that up, or so I hoped. Applying makeup was another matter entirely. I’d probably come out looking like a clown. Hoping not to overdo things, I retrieved the pink lip gloss I’d used the day before and some mascara.

  Thirty minutes later I stood on the edge of the tub to get a full-length look at my efforts toward self-beautification. To be honest, I didn’t recognize the girl staring back at me from the mirror. She was tall and slender, with loads of shiny hair that lay across her shoulders and down her back in soft waves. She had wide gray eyes framed by thick lashes. Her bottom lip was full and there was a nice blush in her cheeks.

  For the first time since enrolling at Fillmore, I felt really good about how I looked. Jumping down from the tub, I went to find my sandals.

  No one in the crowded living room noticed me at first, so I had a few seconds to study the battlefield before throwing myself into the mix. The girls were in the kitchen and the boys were sitting in various places around the television. “Sudden Death” by Megadeth blasted through the sound system Ian had hooked up. I saw Connor’s head bobbing among the other male heads in the room. He was playing Guitar Hero.

  There was no route around the boys, so I put my game face on and stepped into the middle of them. If I hadn’t been so nervous, I might have found their reaction funny. Face after face turned toward me with interest but without a speck of recognition. Contagious silence spread among the group until all conversation stopped.