by L M Lacee
She was not that woman who could cry or have normal emotions any more. As she looked at the food, she wondered what or who she was now.
Olinda slowly took a bite of her sandwich and chewed looking out the bus window.
As she had done repeatedly over the last few months she asked the voice within her mind if this was a good idea and got back a resounding. ‘Yes!
So she stayed sitting and slowly ate her food. In between bites she sipped her coffee enjoying the taste. Her memory said it was not the best coffee she had ever had but it was far from the worse.
Watching as the red haired woman, named Prudence, fluttered from one person to another. She seemed to really like the little ones and there were plenty of them. They outnumbered the adults who consisted of mainly women, a few males were there but they were teenagers or in their early twenties, they looked sad and beaten down by life. She could relate to that.
Olinda found herself pondering who and why they were there as the bus drove along. She had still not come up with an answer by the time, as Prudence had promised, the bus stopped for the first of their two more stops.
More women and children got on, no one got off and it was a puzzle her tired brain could not work out. No one approached Olinda.
In truth she could not blame them she had a good idea what she must look like; scratched, bruised, hair dirty, well dirty all over really and blood crusted on her clothes that probably smelled. They were so old they were threadbare.
She knew her eyes would be tired and shuttered. They alone would be enough to give anyone pause unless they had red hair apparently. It seemed Prudence did not see or smell what the others so obviously did.
She came to Olinda with another sandwich and cup of coffee saying. “One more stop, then home!” She sounded so damn joyful about it, Olinda felt her face smile for the first time in so long. It felt strange.
Eventually the bus joined up with three more buses just like the one she was riding on and together they were making their way to Dragon’s Gap.
Three hours after Olinda had boarded the bus they drove into a town. One minute they were driving along a dusty road and the next they were in the middle of a cobblestone street and climbing a little hill towards a large building that looked like an old town hall.
Olinda turned around and looked out the back window of the bus. The scene showed her a tunnel made entirely of trees, she knew she had not slept or blinked overly long and yet they were in a town.
Prudence came to where she sat and stood by her seat as Olinda muttered. “It looks like something from a storybook.”
Prudence smiled. “It really does, that is the registration hall.” She pointed to the old building. “Every person who comes to town has to register, then housing and everything else you need will be provided for you.”
Olinda turned from her contemplation of the town to face Prudence. “And for all that you want, what exactly?”
Prudence frowned. “Nothing!” Hesitantly she asked Olinda. “Why do you think you are here?”
Olinda shrugged. “I had nowhere else to go.”
Prudence gasped out in what Olinda thought was surprise but before she could say anything else she was called by two young women, who for some reason, seemed to think that Prudence was their information guru. Which worked in Olinda’s favor as they kept Prudence busy peppering her with questions, making it impossible for her to return to Olinda, which she was profoundly glad of.
Prudence made her uncomfortable she had no idea why. She just felt like she was incomplete for some reason as though there should be more to her, like she wasn’t completely dressed and the feeling annoyed Olinda.
She tuned the women and Prudence out along with the rumblings of the other passengers. And when the bus stopped she quickly got off and went into the building to be greeted by a young teen, named Clint or at least that was the name on his name tag. He seemed like a teenager but he too looked incomplete, like he was wearing a coat or something.
Olinda’s annoyance meter almost red lined. Sensing more wrong than right with the people she was encountering.
At this rate she would be at angry sooner rather than later. She felt in her jacket pockets for her knife and gun. Reassured by the feel of her weapons she nodded to the teenager as he handed her a clipboard with a form on it and asked her to fill in the questioner.
Then he asked her name and wrote it down on a tag handing it to her and telling her to put it on. She said she would and as the room started to fill with other passengers he directed her to a small table and chair by a door on the side wall.
Olinda wandered past him as he rushed off to the next woman. She walked towards the table, sat and placed the tag on the table along with the clipboard and just looked around at all the people who now filled the hall.
There were so many different nationalities, amazingly not every voice she heard was American. It seemed like there were English, Canadian even French people entering the hall.
Although the people who came to greet them and offer them assistance were like Prudence and the teenager. They felt incomplete, like they were wearing their human skins.
What a strange notion to have, Olinda thought. It all looked so normal except as she did a head count and saw there were far more women than men, and even more children. Frowning she tried to understand where she was and who these people were but her tired brain just would not allow her too.
Curious she read over the form and apart from her name, age, who her parents were and as many ancestors as she could name, and what city or town she grew up in, the rest of the form made no sense.
It wanted to know about her parents and what shifter they were or if only one was, what were they. Why would they be a shifter? She asked the voice in her mind and got no reply. Again she asked. What am I? And still received no reply. Every other time she had asked the same question over the months, the voice had remained quiet. It was frustrating and aggravating.
Olinda filled in what she could and then raised her eyes when she felt she was being stared at. After all this time she knew when she was being hunted or someone had an interest in her.
She saw Prudence with the same young man she had talked to on arrival looking at her and frowning. It didn’t take much to know they were discussing her. When they saw she had seen them they hurriedly turned away and it was then that Olinda realized the feeling of the voice, that had always been with her, was not there.
She tried prodding it. Hey wake up! I could be in trouble. Hey you! In there. Where did you go?
As she hunted around in her mind she came to the real understanding that for the first time since she could remember she was alone in her head. It was a disturbing sensation.
CHAPTER FOUR:
D ispirited Olinda bent her head over the form until she felt the young couple move off.
Thankfully no one approached her but the noise from the people seemed to get louder and louder, yet when she looked up the hall was emptying out.
Realizing one sound rose above the others irritated Olinda. Closing her eyes she did as she had practiced when out in the mountains and concentrated. Eventually eliminating one sound at a time, she was able to narrow the noise down to one sound.
It kept getting more intense and desperate the longer she concentrated. Turning her head one way and then the other she located the direction that it seemed to be coming from.
Something or someone was calling to her not in words but in waves of sadness and loneliness, they tugged at her heart.
Now that she understood what was calling her the feelings swamped her senses and washed along her nerves. Finally she stood from the table and pushed her way through the small crowd of women and children.
She left the building by the side door following the call. It lead her along a brick path that ran next to the building. She turned a corner and came to a set of glass doors.
Pulling them open she entered a small foyer of what seemed like a hospital. Another set of glass doors were
between her and the urgent cries of desperation.
With a cry of her own she flung the doors open and marched into a long room with cots and beds. A hospital ward of some kind.
Olinda kept on moving like a steam roller. She dodged around children playing on the floor and people walking or coming to a stop. As they watched what they must have thought was some crazed woman, they were partially right.
Olinda felt like she was a magnet being pulled towards her target, a small cot half way down the room. She had found the first source of desperation and loneliness. A small baby lay on his side, his cries going unanswered.
Someone came at her and she knocked them back, her senses filled only with the sound of the babies cries.
She tenderly picked him up and cuddled him to her. He instantly became quiet, her mind felt his joy as her arms surrounded him, allowing him to relax for the first time in his short life.
Then she moved further down the room to the next sense of loneliness and desperation to another cot and another almost identical baby boy who cried pitifully in his bed.
She scooped him into her arms along with his brother and the sounds disappeared. Happiness drifted from both babies. An overflowing rightness filled her heart and soul, her mind sang with sunlight.
These were her babies, not of her body but of her heart and soul, her heart felt full for the first time in her life. Hatchlings!
The voice in her mind whispered. Olinda snapped. Oh now you speak! Out visiting were you?
A sense of amusement assailed her as the voice answered. In a way!
With trepidation filling her mind Olinda asked. Am I meant to stay here?
She sensed humor and anticipation as the voice said. You are meant to be where you are meant to be!
Olinda sighed. I’ll take that as a yes then!
She was sure she sensed laughter as she heard. I would! Then there was nothing again and Olinda knew she was once more alone.
She looked around until she saw what she wanted, a bay window with a wide seat that the sun bathed in its light.
Taking the babies she walked over, sat and laid each one down in the sun on their backs. She stripped them of their clothes and diapers turned them onto their stomachs allowing the sun to reach their skin.
Her fingers started a movement all of their own running up and down the babies’ spines as she hummed a lullaby. Both little boys sighed and closed their eyes.
Pleasure like she had never experienced before filled her mind, theirs, hers she did not know or care she just soaked up the feeling. Not once did she stop the movement of her fingers.
Edith and Ella had rushed into the room just as Olinda knocked the young nurse Marie to the floor. Blood poured from her nose and lip. “I thought she was going to hurt the hatchling. I did not know they were hers.” she cried to Edith.
Edith soothed the girl. “It is alright Marie, you did nothing wrong, are you hurt seriously?”
“Not that bad, just a bloody nose. I will be alright. I don’t think she is in her right mind, Lady Edith. The lady is not well, I am thinking.”
“I think you are right, let Ella heal you and then go home Marie. We will manage for the rest of the day and if you feel unwell call me or Ella, okay?”
“As you say Lady Edith.”
Ella did a quick heal on her and then like Edith she advise her to go home.
Turning her attention to the female and babies, Ella stared in fascination at the female and the twins. Edith stood beside her. “So what has you so fascinated, you have seen this sort of thing before, minus the violence of course. That was new?”
“No Edee, I have not seen this. No one has. This....This is something different! So rare that it has only been hinted about in our history books. Who did you call?”
Edith shrugged. “Sharm.”
“I wish Keeper was here.” Ella whispered, he was away on the hunt for new books, for his library. She said to Edith. “He could tell you better what I suspect. What we all will, when they see this. You better call them all Edee. Sage, Lord Rene’ and Lady Verity.”
She dragged her eyes from the scene at the window seat to Edith as she swept her hand towards the window and its occupants. “You are witnessing history Edee. We are in the presence of an impossibility and our world is about to change once more.”
Edith swore under her breath, she was trying not to swear as much these days, the kids kept telling on her. She was determined to not put any more money in the friggin swear jar.
A stupid idea. She should have shot herself when she came up with it. Although Charlie had swollen its contents lately and she had seen Claire and Reighn sneaking some money in there as well.
Just as she was thinking about calling Sharm again he arrived, his arm automatically going around her, his lips caressing her head while in his other hand he held a phone to his ear. She watched his eyes as they took in the scene by the window and saw her shadow become still as Ella had seemed to do after telling Edith to call everyone.
They seem to stop moving as though a spell had been cast. It was as though they and their dragons had forgotten to do anything other than breathe.
The hair on Edith’s body stood on end, she was not sure if it was just because this was the eeriest thing she had ever seen or there was magic at work!
Edith gently removed the phone from her shadows hand and heard his father frantically calling to his son. She stopped him with. “Papa Rene come quickly, bring everyone. Hurry!”
Then she disconnected she had no idea what else to do, she could not explain this, it had to be seen to be believed.
When she looked around she noticed Prudence and Clint, who must have only just come in while she had been on the phone, she waved them over. “Do either of you know what this means?”
Prudence shook her head no. Clint moved up beside Ella and breathed one word. “Impossible!”
Edith growled. “Yeah we got that already! Anything else?”
Then the room filled with noise as people raced in. Edith and Prudence watched Rene’ and Verity, Johner and several of his guards with two or three other dragons arrive and just come to a complete stop.
Statues had more movement she thought. “They are breathing right?” she asked Prudence who nodded. “They are Edee, it seems to make no difference if they are male or female, they suffer the same!”
“Looks that way to me.” agreed Edith. “We shifters and obviously you faeries seem to be immune.”
Sage hurried in and came to a stop by Edith and Prudence. Her eyes traveled over the people standing caught in some spell and then to the female and two babies. Her eyes widened as she asked. “So what do we have here?”
Edith gave a brief run down on what had happened. Prudence then told how they had found the female on the road and she pulled the form from her pocket. “Her name is Olinda Keaton from Wisconsin, she is twenty eight. Mothers name Lina Keaton, deceased. No known father. That is all she filled in!”
“Well someone is going to have to talk to her and break this spell these guys are under.
Prudence can you call the Queen?” asked Sage. Prudence was shaking her head even before she finished speaking. “No they are not in residence, they are visiting the High Grove for a week.”
“What about Charlie?” Edith asked.
Prudence once again answered. “No she and Lord Storm and the young ones went as well.”
“Damn! Well what do you suggest? What about you Prudence?” Asked Edith.
Prudence fluttered her wings in agitation. “No this is not faerie magic. I do not know what it is?”
Sage was a witch but this did not feel like her magic, it did not feel like dragon magic either. Well not fully, maybe something more.
“It is Dragon magic?” asked Edith. “Right?”
Prudence and Sage looked at each other and both shook their heads. “It does not feel like that.” said Sage and Prudence agreed. “No it is different.”
“Elemental then?” asked Edith. Both S
age and Prudence shook their heads no again.
Sage did not want to voice what she sensed but she could not hold back. Prudence must have been thinking along the same lines or she too sensed what Sage did, they said at the same time.
“Goddess Magic!”
Edith wanted to scoff but the whole time they had been standing there the dragons had not moved and the female and babies were still in their own space as though they were not entirely here.
“That cannot be, you told us the Goddess had left?”
“I know but that is what it feels like.” replied Sage.
Prudence nodded in agreement. “It is what I feel as well Edee.”
“Well okay you would know, so what do we do? I don’t think any of us should go near her in case we set her off. I am fairly sure she has weapons in her pockets and we may hurt the hatchlings?” worried Edith.
“Who do we know that could help?” asked Sage. Then all of them looked at each other as though a guiding hand had slapped them upside their heads, they chorused together. “ASH!”
Edith handed Sage the phone. “Speed dial three.”
Sage put it to her ear and when he answered. “Sharm what can I do for you?” She had to swallow her instinctive shiver of awareness that his voice always caused.
“Ash it is Sage, can you come to the children’s ward?”
“Of course Lady Sage, what is wrong? Is it the twins?”
“In a way it is. Ash we will meet you outside. “As you wish, I am on my way.”
CHAPTER FIVE:
A sh said. “Let me get this straight!” As he came back from looking through the glass doors for the second time in the five minutes since he had arrived. At the immovable dragons and the female who had his twins.
“She just walked in, hit a nurse and then took the hatchlings from their cots, stripped them and is now sitting in the sun with the two naked hatchlings as some of our family of dragons stand doing nothing?”
“Yep! That about sums it up!” said Edith.
