by Kade Cook
The retelling tires Rachael and begins to drain the buoyancy of her happy bubble she normally dwells in. Seeing her mood darken and lull into a sullen state, Gabrian decides to distract her and revisit her previous and seemingly harmless question. Rachael’s odd reaction to it has her curious as to what is truly whirling around in her friend’s head.
“So, since you dodged it the first time, I will ask you again. What is new?”
Racheal stops chewing on her greens for a moment, grabs the neck of her nearing warm drink and washes down her feed. Her eyes cloud over and wander out across the water, surfing the waves with her thoughts.
“Rachael.”
Rachael swallows down the warm liquid and sighs at her friend persistence. “I’m fine, nothing new to tell.” She pulls her fingers through her wild curls and flops them over to the side of her head then re-lodges them deeply within the crimson locks—leaning her head onto them and sighs again. “That’s the problem.”
Gabrian stares at the quiver building within her friend’s bottom lip and feels ashamed for not noticing Rachael’s gloomy state sooner. She is so caught up in her own misery that when she finally does notice, she still made it all about her—how selfish she has been. She gets up, jogs across the deck, and returns with her prize. Stretching out her slender, sun-kissed arms and swiping at all the uneaten food dishes on the table, she pushes them to side—clearing a direct path between them. Setting down a tall slender bottle of golden liquid in front of Rachael, Gabrian returns to her perch—straightening her spine and arching her left eyebrow as she stares directly into her eyes.
“The doctor is in the house.” Gabrian scouts her head around, taking in her surroundings. “Or in this case, is on the deck, but whatever. It is irrelevant, let’s see what the good old doc can unravel today.” Gabrian winks at her friend and wrings her hands together as if she has some sinister plan in store.
Rachael rolls her eyes, trying not to grin, but her attention darts back out across the water, sinking in her misery. “It’s stupid,” she says, sitting back and curling her knees up against her chest. “Forget it.”
“If something is making you this upset. Which it is, obviously, then it is not stupid—far from it.”
Rachael wraps her fingers tightly around the neck of her bottle and draws it to her pressed lips. She tips it up and lets the remnants of her beer drain into her mouth, pushing against the bridge of her sunglasses, and readjusts them to cover her teary eyes. “It’s Orroryn.”
“Orroryn? You mean our Orroryn, Mr. Redmond from Manhattan, Orroryn?”
“Yes, that is the one.”
Gabrian struggles to find the connection between the elder of the Schaeduwe Fellowship, who is always well-mannered and considerate to most everyone around him, and Rachael’s aggravated mood. Her mind sifts over any interaction she can remember where Rachael had been involved with him but realizes she probably has only seen the tip of that iceberg in their encounters. She recalls one instance where Rachael’s demeanor toward him was different and a remark made by her just before Gabrian’s whole world got flipped upside down.
“It’s too bad that we don’t date our clients, because he is hot.”
And the lights come on. “Ah, Orroryn.”
“He drives me crazy,” Rachael mumbles over her beer.
Gabrian’s brow furrows, maybe she is misunderstanding again. Did she hate this man or was she in love with him? Gabrian is not sure but she is betting on l’amour.
“He looks at me like I am a child. Even though he treats me with the utmost respect, I know he can’t see me as anything other than a youngling.”
“Well, in his defence, from what I gather, he is a considerable amount of years older than you.”
“I know but only in continuous years dwelling in the same body. I think if I put all my lives together, it would be a pretty close score and that should be taken into account.”
“Oh, of course.”
“Damn right, it should.,” Rachael growls, reaching her arm out to set the bottle down in defiance. “I also know that being a Schaeduwe, they only love once and that he has already spent his heart on a human many years ago.”
“Yes, that is the story that Shane shared with me too.”
“Exactly, I know all of this. I do.” Rachael’s glasses slide down the bridge of her nose as she sits up a bit, her hands flailing about her, cutting through the glittery sparkle of her aura as she speaks. “So, why is it that I can’t stop thinking about him? About how he smells like summer rain, about what kind of tea he prefers to drink, about how I am aware of how his body shifts with every move he makes, and how my pulse races through my body like wildfire every time the man enters the same room I am in?”
Gabrian chuckles at her friend’s tormented plea for answers as she plays through all her own emotions she felt for Shane in the beginning and how her skin still tingles whenever he is near.
“Yeah, they do have that way about them, don’t they?”
“No, I mean yeah, I mean no it’s not like that. It’s different. It’s much more than that.”
As Rachael rattles on and on about all the strange familiarities and the idiosyncrasies that she has incurred with Orroryn, Gabrian tips her beer up to wet her mouth in the hot, dry summer air, taking a sip, and realizes her beverage has grown unpleasantly warm in the sun. Her light grey aura expands around her and sways playfully as she smiles and nods while Rachael continues her tirade, trying to figure out what she is going to do about her unfixable predicament, but all Gabrian can think of is how she wants her beer to be cold, how she wishes she could put it into a bucket of ice to cool it again and make it taste better—warm beer is not exactly super yummy. But she remains still, unmoving other than the gentle sway of her essence. She does not want to be rude and interrupt her friend’s needful rant to go find one. So, she sits patiently listening, dreaming of cool, fragmented ice crystals she used to watch grow across her bedroom window in the winter as a child and how it covered the pane of glass with an exquisite chaotic display of flawless art.
“Gabrian,” a voice calls out, muffled in the distance, “Gabrian!”
Gabrian jumps, snapping out of her daydream, and forces her eyes to focus at the sudden loud roar of her name.
“What the hell, Gabrian?”
Gabrian’s eyes widen in confusion. Seeing Rachael’s face contort into a horrified open-lipped expression, she wonders if the fury on her face is because she was caught off in la-la-land somewhere, not listening while her friend poured her heart out in front of her.
But her guess changes—quickly. Dropping her eyes to follow the path to where Rachael’s unblinking stare is cemented, she soon discovers the reason for Rachael’s abrupt outburst. Where her warm and unpleasant tasting beer once sat, brewing within her hand into a new level of grossness from the sun’s almighty rays, now stands absolute with a modest layer of ice encasing it. Not only had it wrapped flawlessly around the bottle but managed to encroach its way down beneath her fingers to the glass surface below—reaching halfway across the table— to glisten like diamonds as it melts in the heat.
Gabrian stares blankly at the anomaly that has manifested before her. Quiet, barely breathing, and becoming unhinged with every second that passes, she wiggles her fingers, removing them without effort away from the bottle now filled with ice cold beer. Her head lifts and her pupils dilate until the blue that normally encompasses them is nearly impossible to see.
With her aura flaring wildly in all directions at once, Gabrian manages to surface from her swirling vortex of overload and her eyes seek out Rachael as she exhales a ragged breath. “We need to call Ethan.”
23
EXPLODING HEADS
After receiving a very odd and unusual telephone call from Rachael, Ethan pulls on his favourite Yankee’s ball cap and heads for the Shadwell’s main house. Not yet understanding what the statement ‘new development’ actually entails, he is not sure what to expect when he gets there.
Pulling up into the crushed stone driveway, he passes the garden gate and the usual cold rush of silent warning rakes across his soul—like he had crossed through an invisible barrier. Ethan has a feeling that this was the ward that Cera had placed upon her home so many years ago to protect the child she would never know. Feeling a twinge of sadness begin to plague his heart, he hurries his trek and throws his truck into park at the edge of the stone steps that lead to Gabrian’s front door.
Rapping lightly against the wooden grains of the entry, he is met with an overly-excited crimson-haired Rachael. Not even barely getting the door open, she thrusts out her tiny hand and grabs on to the front of Ethan’s East Coast grey T-shirt, hauling him into the entry with conviction.
“You are not going to believe this,” she says, continuing to drag him by the arm across the house, and almost face-planting him into the closed French doors leading onto the patio.
“What is going on, Rachael?” Ethan twists his head away from the small pane of glass that he’s being pushed into and crosses his arms across his chest. Then with a lifted eyebrow, he focuses on the short fireball bouncing at his heels, waiting for him to explain what is going on.
“Look.” She tugs at his arm to refocus his attention on what is happening on the deck and points her finger to where Gabrian sits.
“What exactly am I supposed to be looking at?” Ethan sighs and does as he is told. He sets his sights to his young Borrower friend and colleague to find out what all the huff is about. But he doesn’t notice anything unusual other than the way she stares at her beer.
“I don’t understand the problem here, Rachael. All I see is someone sitting in the sun on a beautiful wooden deck, overlooking the harbour and enjoying a beer.” Ethan unfolds his arm and rubs his chin with a freed hand, then squints his eyes at the tiny titan beside him and chuckles. “If this is what you consider an emergency then I think I need a few issues myself.”
Rachael growls at his lack of observational skills and snarls at him. “Look...harder. Don’t you see anything that seems a little peculiar about the table in front of her?”
Ethan halts his playful banter and revisits his survey of the crime scene. There is nothing too unusual about it—except for maybe the dark patch on the decking just below the table. His eyes climb upward for the culprit of the mess. He spots a glimmer as the reflection of sunlight sparkles on the surface surrounding Gabrian’s beer—littering halfway across the table.
He presses closer to the glass, getting a clearer view, and notices the strange glimmer seems to climb oddly up the side of the bottle onto its neck, except for an outline that resembles the imprint of where fingers might fit. He studies it, lost in the moment, trying to conclude what it is that he is actually seeing. This oddity is not glass or plastic of some sort, this is ice.
“That is ice,” he whispers to himself but the words slip off his lips loud enough that Rachael hears them.
“Took you long enough.” She huffs at him, giving him a knuckle rap against his tucked bicep.
Ethan rolls his eyes at her cattiness but doesn’t release his stare on the girl at the table. “What the…” his voice trails off.
“That is what I said,” Rachael adds, sliding in beside Ethan, behind the door as the two stand silent to take in the oddity.
“When did this happen? I mean how long has she been sitting there like that?”
“It happened just before you got my call.”
“How long has this been going on?” Ethan recalls the last couple of interactions with Gabrian—the lack of vigor in her words, the dark circles under her eyes—and wonders if she has not been dealing with uncertain things for some time now.
“From her frustrated reaction and the obvious shock that she is in, I would guess since, um, now.”
Ethan nudges Rachael’s tiny form to the side and cracks open the barrier between Gabrian and himself, slowly idling toward her with Rachael tiptoeing in his shadow behind him. Gabrian looks over her shoulder and watches them approach her, but she shares little expression on her face. Her eyes glaze over with the only sign of emotion that she can muster right now as a small droplet of understanding surfaces and curtsies its way down her cheek.
“I think that I am a ‘Grey,’” she expels in a ragged breath.
Ethan’s brow furrows at her statement as he tries to understand her meaning. She pushes the replay of images into his mind of the conversation they once had back when they first met and he had helped her understand what she was and how her Borrower gifts worked. The discussion about whether or not a being could have more than one gift or a ‘Grey’—a being that was not of a definite Fellowship but somewhere in between. He grins in his immediate enlightenment and pats the top of her head with familiar kindness, then curbs around the side of the table, pulling out a chair that isn’t damp from the melting ice, and rests his old Borrower bones.
Maybe so, he breathes out in silent understanding. You okay kiddo?
Yes, I am fine. Just a bit out of sorts is all. I never once thought of the possibility of me having another gift. I was getting comfortable with all madness and trying to get a handle on my life again… and now this?
I know and I am sorry that you had to find out the way you did but don’t worry. We will figure this all out. Okay?
Okay. She sighs, letting out some of the anxiety she had bottled up inside.
Rachael watches the two of them conversing in their silent private language that she is not privy to and searches their faces in a tennis-match, looking for a sign of something she can understand as well. Not finding anything, she becomes highly annoyed and lets the duo know about it. “All right you two, enough of the invite only crap! Can someone please tell me what is going on?”
Ethan’s lips pucker at the side in a boyish grin. Once Rachael is let in on the fact that her best friend is one of the unique members of the Realm that has the capacity to embody two gifts, she makes the appropriate connection, with Ethan’s assistance, to Ashen—the Elder of Isa, the Ice Fellowship.
Knowing that he is way out of his league with understanding how to guide Gabrian through this particular portion of her learning process, he insists that she pursue her training in person. Since summer is upon them, Ethan graciously takes it upon himself to maintain the workload at the office and handle her clients for the month of July so that she can have the time she needs to at least attempt an understanding of this new path she must take.
Hesitantly, she agrees to go to Ashen’s home in Canada where Gabrian would have her undivided attention with little interruption. But the guilt begins to itch at her—Ethan is taking on too much because of her—but with a firm pat on the back and a smirk on his lips, Ethan pushes her toward the car and assures her that everything will be okay.
24
ROAD TRIP
With arrangements having already been made, all Gabrian has left to do is sit quietly and enjoy the ride. Rachael volunteers to be tour guide on the trip north of the border and Shane insists on coming along as well, since he never strays too far from her side—not since she awoke from the coma.
Shane offered to escort them to Ashen’s promptly through the Shadow’s Veil, but since Gabrian had never been to any part of Canada, Rachael had insisted she skip the uneventful shadow jaunt to their destination and make it a road trip like she and Gabrian used to do when they were in school. Remembering how much fun they had, Gabrian agrees with her. Gabrian also picks up a bit of anxiety running through Rachael’s aura when the suggestion of shadow travel was an option so to still her friend’s jitters, and her own desires to step away from magic for a few moments, good old road trip it is.
The summer sun is just a midnight’s dream when the trio begins their voyage. With luggage stashed snugly in the trunk, and what seems like a ton of snacks neatly packed away in a to-go box Rachael set on the floor in the back of Gabrian’s car, they all pile in and kiss Northeast Harbor a fond farewell for a while.
Rachael grins and reaches
into her burgundy leather purse tucked under her seat, pulling from it an Ipod that she quickly plugs into the car’s stereo system. The upbeat notes of Cyndi Lauper bounce merrily around the car as “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” fills the small tin space.
Shane’s massive form bolts upright, scraping his head on the ceiling of the car in a prompt effort to end this sudden madness. “Oh, hell no!” he says, reaching out—nearly capturing the little device in Rachael’s hand—but she moves just in time to thwart his attempt to burst her happy bubble.
She flips her head around in a curt and snappy fashion, giving him a defiant stare down. “Listen here, Mister I-can-walk-through-shadows, if you are going to be on this road trip then you need to suck it up, buttercup, and get your groove on or find yourself a shadow to disappear into ‘cause this is happening whether you like it or not.” Turning her back to him, her smirk grows across her face and slips Gabrian a side-wink that causes her to grin.
Shane sinks back into his seat with his eyes narrowed. A very audible growl resonates through the music—an obvious attempt of making his displeasure known to the girls in the front. Rachael’s smile slips a little wider as her fingers press the volume button higher in order to drown out the pouting Schaeduwe in the backseat.
It is due north for them now—only a few hours travel to the east coast of New Brunswick—and once they hit the Canadian border, they are halfway there.
No more than an hour into the trek, with Shane’s size, his lack of appreciation for small confined spaces begins to get the better of his usual chipper demeanor. Hunching down and laying off to the side in order for his head not to go through the roof wears on him. Gabrian had considered using her mom’s car to drive them but left it tucked under the canvas wrap in the garage, undisturbed. She couldn’t bear to go near it, let alone drive it again since her parents were taken away from her. It was too painful so her little green Beetle was just going to have to do.
