by Jade Frances
“She can hear you, she’s awake,” an unfamiliar voice made its way to my ears.
Not as graceful as the wind chimes, but it had the same effect. A homely sound, like I should know the person it belonged to. I didn’t want to open my eyes. I would have to face the reality of whatever was going on. Right now, it seemed too much to bear, but I had no choice. Couldn’t lie here forever. They knew I was awake. The cold wet thing on my head was catching my attention more strongly now. Lifting my hand, I felt the soft material. A flannel, maybe. How long had I been out for? Slowly I opened my eyes, the light hanging directly above my head made it harder for me to focus. As I took everything in, I could see the small spectres of dust surrounding the light. The voices I had heard were now distant. Then there was silence. All I could hear was the sound of my breathing and the gentle hum of the light. I slowly lifted myself onto my elbows. My eyes having finally adjusted to the light, allowing me to look around. I could see that I was in a living room, laying on a sofa. Right next to me was a beautiful, massive, real fireplace. Totally alone. The voices I heard weren’t even in the room with me. The door in the far corner slowly opened. I held my breath, waiting for whoever it was to hurry and walk in.
A hand curled around the door, followed by half a face. I heard a gasp. The door was pushed open wider and in came two girls. One had short black hair and olive skin, she was small framed and stunning. As was the blonde who followed silently behind, she had fair skin, slightly taller than the other and again, stunning. They walked towards me slowly. I was aware of every step that brought them closer to me.
“Hello Evangeline, I am Rosemary, this is my sister Sandra. I understand that you might feel overwhelmed, but I assure you we will explain. Would you join us for dinner?” the dark-haired one asked.
Rosemary. She had introduced herself confidently, with no hesitation. There was a sense of authority in her voice, making me believe she was the more dominant of the two. Sandra stood behind her as if hiding, her eyes flickering nervously from Rosemary to me, and back again. They didn’t look like sisters to me. Rosemary held her hand towards me, waiting for mine. She smiled politely and edged closer to me. Sandra edged closer but always stayed a step behind.
“Come eat, you need all of your energy.”
I swung my legs off the sofa so fast; I startled them. Looking toward them, I noticed Sandra was over near the door. Rosemary had stayed in the same spot, still edging closer. Turning towards Sandra, it looked like she was giving her a reassuring glance. I reached towards her, putting my hand in hers. Hesitating slightly, I could feel the heat coming off her as she curled her fingers around mine. Why did everyone feel like this? Did I feel this way to others?
“Avetta mentioned that you weren’t quite in control yet,” Rosemary blushed as she spoke, trying to explain Sandra’s behavior, I guess.
Rosemary turned and started to walk, keeping a tight grip on my hand. Sandra, I could see, had already left the room. She made me uncomfortable. I got the sense she didn’t want me here. Hostility radiated from her. Was I really that much trouble? Obviously, I’m not normal, but I was still just a person. Supposedly an important person to them, the last connection they had said. Rosemary pushed a door open, drawing me from my thoughts. We walked into a brightly lit room, which was decorated much the same as the one we were just in. Except this one had a massive dining table and an unfamiliar face. A boy. Well, I say a boy, but he seemed taller than me, with big muscles. He was clearly very toned. Sitting still and silent, he was hunched over his plate of food. As I walked in, he looked up. A look of pure hatred in his eyes made me flinch.
“I’m eating in my room,” he muttered and walked out.
A small gust of wind blew my hair as he stormed passed me. Slamming the door behind him. I could hear him talking to himself as he walked away. Then another door slammed. Making me flinch.
“Don’t worry about him, he has trouble adapting. He will come around soon enough,” Rosemary said.
She held out a chair for me in the middle of the table. It was candlelit, cute. Sandra walked into the room carrying a massive tray, silent and elegant. Placing food on the plate in front of me and the other two that were placed opposite. I had lost my appetite but tried to pick away at it just to be polite. We sat in silence, I just wanted to know what was going on. Why was I here and why was I attacked when I arrived? I looked at the two people’s faces that accompanied me at the table. First at Sandra who was staring at her plate, twirling her food around with her fork, expressionless. Then I looked towards Rosemary who stared straight back at me, smiled, and then stuffed a chip in her mouth. The action should have been rather manly, but it looked completely graceful when she did it.
The silence was making me more frustrated. How could they act like there was nothing weird about this? I picked up my fork again and started stabbing at the food on my plate. On the other hand, they were taking me in and I’m sure they will explain things in time, but how much longer would I have to suffer this silence? This was just ridiculous. Too much. Too overwhelming! Everything happened so fast after that. I felt the heat rushing through my body, the fork bent in my hand under the high temperature. I let my instincts take over, snarls ripping from my chest. As I rose from my seat, I heard the both of them gasp.
“I want to know what’s going on,” I shouted through gritted teeth.
I looked at Rosemary and Sandra, both had a look of fear in their eyes. I didn’t want to be forceful, but if this was the only way to break the silence, I was prepared to do it.
“Calm down. We can sit down and talk right away. Evangeline please!” Rosemary was barely whispering but her voice was steady.
I stared into her eyes, studying them for any show of emotion, then I saw it. The quick glance towards Sandra confirmed it.
“You. Are. Lying,” the tone in my voice shocked me, it was very aggressive, this wasn’t me… what was I doing?
I could still feel the heat running through my body, but I tried not to focus on it as I sat back down in my seat. Calling my energy back in like Avetta had taught me, I looked up into Rosemary’s face. Ignoring Sandra, who was hovering behind her.
“Your eyes are the passageway to your soul, I can pretty much read your thoughts just by looking into them. Avetta taught me that. Why are you lying to me?” I asked her directly.
I watched as her expression went from anger to defeat. She bowed her head.
“I will explain when you calm down, this situation is very normal to us but it won’t be to you, could you please pour water on the napkin you just set alight before it gets out of hand,” Rosemary said very matter of fact.
I looked towards the table where my hand was and saw the small flame forming in the center of the napkin. Picking up the glass of water from the table, I tipped it over the top and listened to the flame sizzle out.
“There’s nothing normal about any of this,” I mumbled to myself.
“But its normal to us, to us you’re the only thing that’s not normal. With your feeble attempt at being human. It’s pathetic and I’m not about to start acting like I want to be here to protect you,” Sandra shouted across the table.
It shocked me she heard me. Then she turned to Rosemary.
“Rose, I’m out, you’re on your own.”
I looked towards Sandra, a shiver going down my spine. She was so hostile. Rosemary looked so angry, infuriated even.
“If you think this is all just going to go away because you’re having a childish tantrum, then you’re wrong! We are all family now, so just get used to it! If not, then go ahead and leave!”
Rosemary’s face had now smoothed out, as had Sandra’s, both showing no emotion. Damn, they were good at masking what they felt when they wanted to. As Sandra moved towards the door, I noticed Rosemary look towards the floor and when the door slammed; she flinched. A tear silently rolled down her cheek, I didn’t want to cause this. I couldn’t bear the pain of falling out with Ava and she was just a friend, let al
one a sister. We sat in silence for a little while; I stared at the remains of the napkin I had set alight and tuned everything else out, which was when I heard the voices.
“Come on Darryl, you can’t stay here just move it, get a grip.”
‘I’m not going anywhere just leave me alone, this is your war not mine, I might grow to like her.”
“Fine, it’s your funeral.”
I recognized the first voice as Sandra’s but the second one, Darryl, must have been the boy who had attacked me. I looked towards Rosemary who was politely smiling at me, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Rosemary smiled weakly at me and headed toward the door. “Evangeline. Let’s go to the family room and I will explain anything you would like to know.”
I followed quickly behind her. The dark hallway seemed to last forever. I wasn’t really paying attention to where we were heading until Rosemary halted in front of me at the last door. With an element of surprise on her face, her body had gone stiff and suddenly she seemed defensive. Only for a second, though. I watched as her shoulders relaxed. Slowly she turned to look at me with an enormous grin on her face. I looked back confused but watched as her hand stretched towards the door handle twisting it. The loud creaking noise made me jump. As the door opened wider, I could see half of the room. The wide fireplace in the center lit the room magically, armchairs were arranged around it in a semi-circle, the room was beautiful. As I walked in, the heat hit me like a wave. There was more than one magical thing about this room, the person sitting on the chair furthest away from the fire.
A gasp escaped my mouth.
“Taylor,” I screamed running towards him.
Within two steps I had closed the gap between us and had landed on his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck. A tingling feeling running through my arms, I didn’t realize that I would see him ever again. Let alone the same day! I heard him laughing into my hair.
“Eve, calm down, didn’t think you would miss me that much.”
I could feel his hands around the back of my neck, pulling my face off his shoulders. I looked at him as he stared back. His fingers lightly brushed my cheek, then he cupped my face in his hands. Someone clearing their throat interrupted our reunion, and I sighed, looking down into my hands. I felt Taylor’s eyes moving across the room.
“Sorry to interrupt, but I believe there are more important things to discuss.” She waved her hands around, “like now.”
With that Rosemary smiled and sat in the chair opposite us with one eyebrow raised as if she was waiting for something.
“Oh,” I said and moved to the seat next to Taylor rather than on his lap. Not that I wanted to sit on his lap anyway, was too intimate for my liking. I had only been in shock to see him.
“Before we start Evangeline, we need you to know that you will never be alone, ever,” she smiled at me again, but this time a reassuring smile with an extra gleam in her eyes.
“Let’s jump right in! I’m sure Avetta has told you about The Veil. They are very forceful and if they want you to be part of them, they will do whatever they can. They will bribe you and feed you anything you want to know, just to suck you into what they believe is the correct way of living our kind of life.”
She seemed heated as she was speaking each word, whilst staring into the fire. She looked up at me for a split second and then carried on.
“Unfortunately for those they don’t want, or that choose not to follow, the penalty is death.” Again, she paused. “They have wanted you since the day you were born, we don’t know why, but we know that you are very blessed to have survived this long with no idea of what was going on. Let’s just say someone in heaven is looking out for you, if there is an upstairs for us that is.”
I shuffled uncomfortably. How much more information could I take about a life I had no memory of, seriously.
“They have never given up on you, they have sent many people over the years. It seems your energy was restricted for quite some time. Until you released it, that is, with no knowledge of what or who you are and the dangers you could have encountered.”
“We all felt the surge. You were sleeping. It was after Avetta had told you who you are, that’s how she figured your dreams were your subconscious trying to tell you.”
Yet again she stopped talking and stared distantly into the fire. The light was casting shadows across her face, seeming to add to the darkness of what she was saying.
“But that’s not the point, the fact is they are working hard to get you and if it comes to it, they will leave their posts. This means that they will ALL come, we can’t even imagine how many there are. Obviously, Taylor has insight, but no one gets close to the elders and they must have some layers of protection which means more gifted than we would like. All we know is there are layers of defense, Taylor’s the highest we have in there. He was the third form and there are nearly 50 of his kind.”
After saying this she threw an apologetic look towards Taylor as if she had said too much. I took this as an opportunity to speak.
“Avetta had said they had been after me as a child. Did they never give up? And how come she told me who I was? Surely she knew my energy would increase and send out a beacon?”
These were the only questions that had been going through my mind that I could form just now, the only ones I wanted the answer to at the moment, anyway. I looked towards Rosemary awaiting the answer, but it didn’t come from her, it came from Taylor.
“Now don’t get upset, I never meant to lie to you,” he sighed, and then took my hands in his, gently stroking my palms. Taking a deep breath, he continued.
“At the time, you were being monitored so closely just to make sure it was you. You barely let off any energy, not something they would expect from a powerful Siren. They could sense that you were growing slightly stronger by the day, even when you didn’t know it. Your emotions were developing and getting stronger and as you may know by now, your emotions seem to pilot your gift. At first, I had no idea it was you they had sent me for. I really didn’t want it to be you. I probably wouldn’t have agreed to go, but I was just the experiment, expendable to them should I say. I had to keep you safe. They already knew you would be undeniably stronger than me. Your gift gave you an advantage. We were lucky it was me they sent, it gave Avetta a heads up and well, for me, it was the perfect get-out clause.”
He paused, looking at me for a second like he was studying my face to see if I was understanding what he was talking about, but I was just confused. So I would have an advantage over him, but why would this matter? Satisfied I wasn’t going to interrupt, he carried on.
“If we were to go head to head. If you were to harm me, that would prove you would be worth pursuing. It would mean that you were stronger than a third form, which is damn strong,” his words shocked me.
I knew he was cutting down the details to spare my feelings, and I knew that he had meant if we went head to head and I survived, it would mean I had killed him. I flinched as these thoughts ran through my head; it was a lot to take in. But I had to be strong, it was my life and other people were now involved, whether or not they wanted to be. I felt Taylor squeeze my hand, reassuring me. If he wasn’t here, then I would have broken down by now. It was ironic that the one who was sent as a test for my strength ended up being the one keeping me strong.
“Right I understand, but why am I here? What do you all have to do with me?”
This time I directed my question straight towards Rosemary, I had just found out why Taylor was, partly.
“This is what we don’t understand ourselves, you are the last connection, we don’t know why or how, but somehow you are connected to us, but it’s just me and Sandra.”
We don’t have a third, I thought, puzzled. Avetta specifically said she thought I was the fourth.
“Sandra should be here to tell you this but seeing as she isn’t, I’ll tell you myself. Sandra’s gift is very much like yours, all of ours are, but
she can control and manipulate water. I can move things, I control the earth and air but only the elements like the ground, sand, rocks. You seemingly can control fire, that’s why we think they want you specifically.”
Shuffling closer to me, Rosemary stared straight into my eyes. I was completely engrossed in what I was being told.
“You control two elements? Perhaps that is why there are only three of us not four. We cover all the elements between us,” I delved. But Rosemary had already carried on.
“You control light with your fire Evangeline, with you, you can bring darkness. Put all three of us together though and we control all elements. To us there is no fourth. With all three of us together, well, we could be very strong, maybe even unstoppable.”
Again, I was shocked by what I was hearing; not that I was finding it hard to take in because I wasn’t, but it was still a surprise. All these years I had been alone and now it seemed like I had a non-biological connection to these girls, just a slightly dysfunctional one.
“But why would they want just me? Surely they would want all three of us if we are stronger together?” I tried to breathe evenly to keep my heartbeat steady. I had to stay calm.
“Somehow it slipped through their radar, they have no knowledge of Sandra or Rosemary and the connections you have to each other, that’s why it’s so important that you stick together. If they find this out, we will have an even bigger war than we do now. This is a prominent element of surprise that we can use against them. They would never expect it.”
The excitement in Taylor’s voice made me feel uncomfortable. This wasn’t a battle I wanted to happen. I looked over to Rosemary and saw her quickly wipe her face, but she wasn’t fast enough. I saw the shiny droplet falling down her face. Then I remembered Sandra had left because of how she felt towards me. I walked over slowly, unsure of what to do. Sitting on the arm of her chair, I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and felt her head drop onto my lap. Finding peace in how easy it was for me to connect to Rosemary.
