by Gareth Otton
“So that’s it? Unless we find you another ghost you’ll stay this way?”
“As far as I know,” Tad said, and though he tried to hide it, she could tell he was terrified. He’d dreaded this for years. “I don’t know why it works this way when ghosts heal everything else, but for some reason my eyes were always reliant on them. I think it’s like Jen’s back, not the sort of injury the body can heal naturally so there’s nothing the ghosts can do. It’s actually strange that my eyes work when ghosts were with me. I’ve never really understood it, but didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth. I’m kind of regretting that thought now.”
“I see. Then it’s clear what we need to do. We need to get you another gho—”
“No. I already told Tony. I’m not Joshua King. I won't take on another ghost just because of what they can give me.”
“Tad, be serious. You’re blind. Think about that for a second. This is a game changer. You won’t be able to help at work, you won’t be able to do half the things you normally do. And think about Jen. You will hardly be able to look after her when you can barely look after yourself.”
Tad’s already fading smile vanished and he stopped fussing Growler, making the little dog look up to see what was wrong. He nudged Tad’s hand to get his attention, but Tad’s vacant gaze was fixed as he was lost in thought.
“That was a low blow,” he whispered.
“It’s true though. Like you said, you haven’t been blind since you were a kid. You’ll have to adjust to it all over again. And even when you do, you will still be at a serious disadvantage. Jen will end up looking after you more than you look after her.”
Tad flinched from her words and Stella hated herself for having to say them, but he needed to see the truth.
“Do it for her sake, if not for your own. You need another ghost.”
Stubbornly he shook his head. “I’m. Not. Joshua—”
“King. I know. We all do.” Stella tried coming at this from another angle. “Why does taking on new ghosts make you like him? He forced ghosts to stay with him just for their talents. You wouldn’t be doing that. You would do what you’ve done all your life, give ghosts an opportunity to stay here and get their talents and your eyesight as a reward. There’s nothing wrong with that when it’s freely given.”
“Unless you are doing it just for the reward and for no other reason. Then it’s using them and I’m not okay with that.”
“Even for Jen?” Stella snapped, unable to keep her frustration out of her voice. She took Tad’s good hand in both of hers, squeezing hard to make him understand just how much emphasis she was putting on this. “Tad, you’re being selfish thinking this—”
“Where is Jen?” he interrupted, stubbornly wanting to change the subject. “Has there been any news of her?”
Seething, Stella threw his hand away in disgust and abruptly stood, walking to the window as she tried to get hold of her temper. She’d been on the wrong side of his stubborn streak before, but this was the first time she felt like strangling him. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to calm down and actually think.
This fear that he would turn into Joshua King was ridiculous. Everyone knew it, just as everyone knew the real reason he was afraid of bringing on new ghosts. Kimberly had helped her understand just how big a loss it must have been when Charles and his other ghosts moved on. After accidentally sharing her mind with Tad, she wondered what it would take for her to open herself up to that experience again. Would she trade her sight for to never have to go through that again? Especially considering that sharing her mind with Tad had been one thing, but a complete stranger… She shuddered at the thought.
Her anger ebbed a little. She was still convinced she needed to get him to take a new ghost, or talk to Tony again, but she understood more now why he was being so stubborn. Besides, she would never change his mind in a day. She’d just have to keep working at it.
With a sigh of defeat, she turned her attention to the question he’d asked and allowed him to change the topic.
“I’ve got people looking for her, but I’m not holding my breath. She’s a dreamwalker, Tad. You know as well as I do that if she doesn’t want to be followed, there’s little we can do to help.”
“I just wish I knew she was alright,” Tad said, sounding more worried about that than he was about his eyes.
“She’ll be fine. She’s not the girl she was last November when she went running off like this. With the look on her face when she stormed out of your hospital room, I’m more concerned about anyone who gets in her way.”
Tad let out a reluctant chuckle and Stella couldn’t hold her own in either. To say Jen was angry when she’d seen Tad hurt yet again would be an understatement. She’d taken one look at him in the hospital bed being examined by doctors and then she’d vanished. The look on her face as she left frightened even Stella.
If there was one thing Stella had learnt over the last few months it was that there were hidden depths of strength in Jen. In many ways she was as stubborn as Tad and Tony put together, and when her mind was set on something it was probably best not to be in her way. That’s not to say she didn’t have people watching out for her, of course.
Tad was about to reply, but was interrupted by a knock on the door.
“I bet that’s Lizzie,” Stella said, turning to face the door. “I knew she wouldn’t settle for me not letting her see you in the hospital. She’s probably raced here to try again.” She didn’t need to look to know Tad’s expression and she spoke before he could tell her off again. “I know, I should have let her in. But I didn’t want her letting the world know you’re blind via her little show, and it weirded me out that she turned up with Miles of all people. You know that’s the second time I’ve seen them togeth—”
“It won’t be them,” Tad interrupted. “If it was Lizzie, she’d just let herself in.”
“The door’s locked,” Stella said as she reached the living room door.
“I doubt that would stop her,” Tad answered, only half joking.
Stella snorted at that, though didn’t quite believe it. However, when she finally opened the door, she found that Tad was right. It wasn’t Lizzie.
Two people Stella had never seen before stood on Tad’s doorstep, both of whom looked strangely familiar despite Stella having never seen them before. One was a young man, probably in his early twenties, with dark hair, tanned skin, sparkling blue eyes and the kind of looks that probably got most women giggling and tongue tied around him. The woman was possibly the oldest person Stella had ever seen. She was short and stout, wrinkled so heavily Stella wouldn’t be surprised to find she was a century old at least, and sharing the tanned skin of her young companion. It wasn’t the only aspect she shared, though. There were also her eyes. Clear, crystal blue that were so familiar it made Stella’s insides do somersaults.
Evidently she wasn’t the only one thrown off balance. Both visitors had been wearing stern expressions as Stella opened the door, now their eyes widened and the young man stepped back in surprise. It was the old woman who Stella was watching, though.
Tears welled in that old woman’s eyes and she started shaking.
In a sound barely loud enough to be called a whisper, she asked a single question that made Stella nearly lose the strength in her legs.
“Sophia?”
That one name was all Stella needed to put the clues together and figure out just who these people were. That they were here of all places confirmed other suspicions she had been having lately about how Tad had been spending what little free time he had. However, considering the flood of unfamiliar and overwhelming emotions that washed through her, she couldn’t even be mad at him right now. She could only struggle to believe her senses about who was standing on this doorstep and speaking a name she rarely let herself think of anymore.
It was the name of a woman she’d never met but wished more than anything that she had. How different would her life had been if that woman su
rvived long enough for Stella to know her? It was a question she’d asked endlessly in her teens and forced herself to forget as an adult. It was a dangerous question that opened a door to past pains she thought long buried. However, since she’d known Tad she was starting to realise that they weren’t buried as well as she thought, just locked away behind a wall that was slowly crumbling.
Faced with these people and that name, the wall vanished entirely, and it was all Stella could do to keep from shaking.
Sophia Arriana Galanis was Stella’s mother. For this old woman to look like she does and to know that name, Stella knew she could only be one person.
“Grandmother?” she whispered, and the old woman almost collapsed.
22
Thursday, 14th July 2016
15:50
Growler kept a cautious distance as Stella led their guests into the living room, while Freckles jumped straight in with enthusiasm, throwing himself at the young man Stella could only assume was the woman’s grandson.
What does that make him to me? A cousin?
For some reason the thought was alarming.
“Stella, who is it?” Tad asked.
“He can’t see us?” the young man asked in surprise.
“Leon?” Tad asked, confirming Stella’s suspicions about his role in this.
“You know him, Tad?” she asked in what she thought was a neutral tone.
“I can explain,” he answered quickly as he visibly paled.
“That’s the story of your life. Those three words and the phrase I didn’t think it was important, accounts for half of everything you’ve ever said to me.” Her frustration at Tad cut through her mental fog and she turned back to the old woman and her grandson who sat on the nearest sofa. “Can I get you a drink?” she asked, deciding she needed a coffee for the upcoming conversation.
Leon declined, but the old woman asked for water. Stella didn’t bother asking Tad, he could die of thirst for all she cared. She marched into the kitchen as her anger spiked. Part of her couldn’t believe he’d gone behind her back, while another part was kicking herself for not expecting this. After all, he was Tad.
A final part of her had been quiet within Stella for a long time. It was a little girl tucked away in the corner of her psyche, scared and alone. She wanted what all little girls wanted, her mother. Failing that, she wanted answers. Why was her father’s extended family the only family she’d ever known? Why, when things were awful, had no one from her mother’s family come looking?
That little girl didn’t care what Tad had done, she only cared that finally she might get answers.
By the time her coffee was made, the little girl’s voice was drowning out her thoughts. Stella had to pause at the living room door to calm the voice and keep from shaking.
“…should have been patient,” Leon said to Tad, sounding frustrated as many did when they spoke to the irritating dreamwalker. “Not break into our home.”
“I didn’t break in,” Tad protested. “I just wanted a closer look at the picture.”
“And you broke in,” Leon snapped. His frustration only lasted until he noticed Stella.
“What’s he gone and done now?” Stella asked.
“You didn’t have to phrase it like that,” Tad protested.
Stella ignored him and handed the water to the old woman, who accepted it with shaking fingers. She didn’t say thank you, instead just sipping the cool liquid.
“He broke in to our home and took something that—”
“I didn’t mean to take it,” Tad interrupted, then winced as Stella smacked his shoulder to shut him up before sitting beside him. She was furious with him for what he’d done, but the little girl who was in charge right now needed a comforting presence for the conversation that would follow.
“What did he take?” Stella asked.
“A photo of yia-yia. This photo.”
Leon fished his phone from his pocket and tapped the screen a few times before handing it to Stella. She reached for it, but hesitated when she recognised the face. It was her face, or close enough that she would need to look twice from a distance. With fingers that wouldn’t stop shaking no matter how hard she tried, she accepted the phone and looked at it up close.
“This was you?” Stella asked the old woman.
“It was,” she answered, her words whisper quiet.
“Hang on, you speak English?” Tad asked. “All this time—”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” Stella interrupted, nudging him with her elbow to show just how much the question meant.
“I was going to,” he started, but she interrupted him.
“If you tell me you didn’t think it was important, I swear to God…” She left the threat hanging, but Tad understood.
Taking a breath and speaking carefully, he said, “I was going to, but I found all this out half a second before you came to tell me about the Campbell twins.”
Stella was about to yell about that being a day ago, but hesitated. Since then, they’d both been so busy with the raid and the aftermath that they’d barely had chance to talk. Letting him off the hook for now, she handed the phone back.
“So you’re my grandmother?”
“Great grandmother,” the woman answered. “Sophia’s father’s mother. I was fifty in that photo, but years are kind to our family.”
So many questions rushed through Stella’s mind, but the little girl inside grabbed onto one and wouldn’t let go until Stella asked it.
“Did you know about me?”
The old woman hesitated, then nodded.
“It was long after you were born, but before… this,” she motioned around herself and then at Tad, making it clear what she meant. Everyone who came out of the ruins of King Tower had become a household name the world over.
“How long have you known?” Stella asked.
She hesitated again, and this time she might not have spoken had it not been for Leon prompting her.
“She deserves to know, yia-yia,” he said.
“Yia-yia?” Tad asked as the old woman was making up her mind about whether to speak. “Her name?”
Leon shook his head. “It’s like grandmother,” he said. “Her name is Dorothea.”
“How long have you known?” Stella repeated, not wanting to get sidetracked.
“Twenty years,” the old woman admitted.
The little girl in Stella froze. Without thinking, Stella rubbed her wrists, running her fingers over scars that no longer existed. Twenty years ago she was six, miserable and alone with a drunken man who was quickly turning into a monster. Ten years later she was sixteen and little more than a scared girl looking for a permanent way out. She’d always hoped there was family out there who would come rescue her. Now she knew better.
Her logical mind asked what they could have done, but Stella wasn’t interested. The little girl dominated her thoughts, and rationality wasn’t welcome. She didn’t know how to respond and who knows which way it could have gone had Tad not squeezed her hand to remind her she wasn’t alone.
Part of her wanted to throw his hand away, but the little girl was in charge and how she had yearned for such support all this time, for someone to lean on. She gripped Tad’s hand with all the strength she had and wouldn’t let go.
Stella put her drink down on the coffee table and wiped her eyes before the tears could form. Then, as though using Tad’s hand as a syphon for the emotions raging inside, she used the skills she learned as a detective and forced a blank expression on her face.
“Twenty years,” she said. “Did you ever try to get in touch?”
Again the old woman hesitated before shaking her head. It was another blow, but Stella was ready this time.
“Then why are you here? Just to confront Tad?”
“It was time,” Dorothea answered. “His visit was a surprise. But we’re not here for him. There are things you must know.”
Stella wanted to demand why she had to wait twenty years to
hear these things, but remained silent. The old lady was offering information and good detectives listened when information was offered. Tad wasn’t so patient, but when he tried to speak, Stella squeezed his hand and willed him to stay silent.
“You have seen changes recently, yes?” Dorothea asked. “You are stronger. Faster. Think quicker.”
Tad squirmed, clearly eager to jump on her words, but again Stella squeezed his hand for silence.
“Obviously you are very pretty,” the woman continued. “Even prettier recently, I would guess.”
“How do you know all this?” Stella asked.
“Because we’re like you,” Leon said, his voice excited and eager.
“Because you are what we are,” the woman spoke over him. “You are Galanis. You are our blood. Ours is an old family, maybe the oldest. Like all old families, we have secrets. Ours is just larger than most.”
“What secret is that?” Stella asked.
“We are Eidolon,” she said as though that word should have significance. “Today you would call us Idols.”
“And that means?” Tad asked, unable to stay silent.
“We are gods,” Leon answered quickly, grinning from ear to ear.
“Not gods,” Dorothea hissed. “We were wrong to think that. Leon speaks of old gods, of Greek and Egyptian pantheons. They were Eidolon like us, like you.”
“Stella’s a god?” Tad asked. Stella rolled her eyes.
“Of course I’m not,” she snapped.
“We were never gods. We were Eidolon. It is different,” Dorothea said. “We are what people think we are. We are born like people, grow like people, and unless special events happen, we live normal lives. We live longer than most people, we are sick less, are stronger, faster, smarter… More advanced in most ways. We are born perfect, so we are prettier than normal. But under the right circumstances, we can become much more.”
“What circumstances?” Tad asked.
“When enough people believe something of us, that belief takes root. Like Leon. He is an excellent athlete. He was top of his class and was seen to be fast and strong. Soon, people on Hydra believed this strongly, so he became faster and stronger. Show them Leon.”
