The Vaticinator

by Namita Singh

sip from her drink.

  I snort, “Centaur? What are you, five?”

  She huffs, “Whatever the hell is it that we shift into.”

  “A hybrid horse.Parahuman. Anything. But a ‘centaur’? Please.” I say. Thenshrugging, continue, “But it’s pretty useless to get horsy legs.”

  “Not to mention, ugly.” She nods.

  I roll my eyes. Even in the animal form Faith wants to look pretty.

  “Animal legs are only marginally faster than our human legs.” I continue, “I prefer to flux only my arms, for defense and offense purposes.”

  “Like Nikolai uncle does.” She gives me a deadpan stare.

  “Hey,” I defend, “Dad doesn’t have any fixed animal copyright. Sometimes he converts fully too. I, on the other hand, prefer my arms in the form of talons. They are sharp, swift, painful, for the others obviously,” I give off a sadistic grin,“and it allows the rest of my body to remain fairly human. Not to mention, I don’t have to get naked to revert to that form.”

  Faith shakes her head, “Ugly.”

  I roll my eyes again, “It’s not ugly.” In fact, I find it a beautiful sight but I refrain from mentioning so. “I’d show you, but…” I trail off, looking sideways, urging Faith to follow my line of vision.

  Aakir and Silvia are sitting next to each other in plastic chairs.The bonfire, in the center of our custom made circle of the yard illuminates their faces as they talk and laugh. I was surprised when Aakir announced that his partner will be joining us for the night. Since she is a human and fairly new to us, there are strict orders to not display our therian nature. Don’t want to scare the human partner now, do we?

  Faith grins, nodding, “She is pretty.” She says, approvingly, “And quite sensibly mature.”

  I laugh, “Aakir disdains that. She treats him like a kid, he says. I do not know how he managed to persuade her to join us tonight.”

  Faith shrugs, “I am not surprised, save for the fact that she agreed to visit on a Monday night.”

  “You’re here on a Monday night,” I point out, “And why not surprised otherwise? She is four years elder to Aakir. Even as a guy, I’d think five times before dating someone four years younger to me.”

  “First of all,” Faith starts, “I do not think she has come as Aakir’s date tonight. She made that pretty clear before the start of supper.”

  “But she is here because of Aakir. Obviously they’ll end up dating in future.” I reason.

  “Yeah, that’s because, second of all, she can’t resist the bond. She may be human, but that doesn’t mean she can’t sense the compatibility she is acquiring with Aakir. Or is going to acquire thereof.”

  “Uh…” I falter, “The…if the partner is human,” I ask her, knowing she’d know best as her own partner is human, “Does she feel the same sort of attraction as we do?”

  “Should be asking me that.” Says Rahul, as he drags his chair next to Faith. Faith gives him a sweet smile and a quick peck on the lips.

  “Well, yeah, did you feel attracted to Faith from the start?” I ask him.

  He nods, “Yup. The fact that she is beautiful helped a lot.” He grins.

  I reply with an awkward grin of my own. I may be curious, but not for the mushy things. Especially if it concerns my elder female cousin’s love life. I have never been particularly romantic, so it just gets a little weird as I witness how much Rahul is enamored with Faith.

  “I am sure,” Rahul continues, “that Silvia must be feeling attracted to Aakir, despite the age difference.”

  “She wouldn’t be here otherwise.” I nod understandingly. Then I grimace, “I still wanted to show-”

  “-how well you’re adapting to your new abilities. We know, we know.” Faith says, “We are seeing that since yesterday. So, don’t fret, that you can’t show us because of a human here.”

  I scowl at her, “I was talking about the talons, Faith. I hadn’t showed you that.”

  Rolling her eyes, Faith says, “Let’s join them.” Then she gets up and makes way towards where Aakir and Silvia are sitting. Rahul and I sigh simultaneously. We get up and follow Faith.

  My family’s idea of a ‘party’ is just a simple gathering, with munificent dinner and a bon fire to extend the night as everybody continue with their endless gossip. We are allowed to invite our friends if we wish. Faith and Rahul can’t really call their friends all the way from Riga. They just decided to overstay and will be leaving first thing in the morning tomorrow. Aakir and I may be having a magnificent friend circle at school, but we still do not feel any predisposition to include any one of them in our family unions. Plus it’s eccentric to invite high schoolers for a decent party on a Monday night. I did consider inviting Natalie, but digressed. I may like her but she is part of the cliché crowd in our school and is not particularly trustworthy. I do not wish my family matters to be publicized. Also, Neal’s warning has been ringing in my ears incessantly. He is not wrong, if I think with an open mind. Natalie has definitely become friendlier towards me since the last week when my popularity has been reaching the sky. I do not think the reason behind her friendliness is unbeknownst to me anymore. I still will not give up on a date with her if I get a chance. I do plan to ask her in the week. Anything is better than nothing, right?

  Aakir and I did not go to school today. I am too excited to not keep testing my newfound abilities and Aakir is too anxious to not be in the good books of his newfound partner. Taking pity on us, our elders allowed us to remain at home and instead planned a gathering for the night. By the looks of it, I do not think Aakir and I will be able to make it to school tomorrow as well. Both of us are not complaining.

  The night flows by, everybody quite impressed with Silvia. She definitely is something to be looked up to. Pretty, bold and plenty sensible. By the talks of it, she is quite fascinated by Aakir’s eye color, as everyone always is. For the first time, Aakir is happy for his weirdness because of his partner’s attention. He’ll look proud every time Silvia is complimented.

  I find it too soppy for my taste.

  As predicted, we bail school on Tuesday as well. Aakir’s plans of meeting Silvia are squished when the latter informs she’d be busy in her college. I am sadistically glad as I get to practice my newly discovered powers against Aakir. I have realized that our sense of aura is quite helpful during a fight. But the annoying part is that Aakir’s astral form doesn’t contain his aura. Only his physical body does. So in a parry against him, I have to rely on my other senses.

  I’ll admit, sensing all the powerful auras of the therians in my house, it is quite overwhelming. There is not a single moment when I cannot sense another presence around me, even if the said company is thirty feet away. And yes, there is no way to distinguish between those auras. The only difference may be the intensity of those auras, but that is also not significant enough to secernate. By far, I can only distinguish my father’s aura. His aura is much stronger, much more overwhelming. It is difficult to focus on anybody else’s aura when he is around.

  And everybody is right about the humans too. Their aura is too much diluted, coming off as feeble waves. On concentrating hard enough, I can slightly distinguish between different humans. Like my mother’s aura exudes plain happiness, while Rahul’s aura is tamer. Silvia’s aura is rather fascinating, in respect with it exuding contentedness. She is definitely one hell of a woman, I decide. That should be blatant as Aakir doesn’t deserve anything less.

  Come Wednesday, the sudden waves of auras of hundreds of students in school deluge my senses. It becomes implausible to make out which aura belongs to whom; distinguishing between any two is inconceivable. I am twitchy within two minutes of being in the school premises. The amount of waves burdening my senses keeps me keyed up and unusually alert as we walk through the corridor.

  “Steady…” Aakir says from beside me, “Don’t look so astounded. You’ll get used to it.”

  I immediately rearrange my features, not having realized that I have starte
d expressing my overwhelmed state.

  “Now I understand why you used to be on edge all the time when you got matured.”

  Aakir chuckles, “Yeah, it gets a little distracting. But, as I said, you get used to it.” He halts in the corridor suddenly.

  “What?” I ask him.

  He points towards the empty rack in the corridor, “Where do I get the Monday’s Plutocracy from?”

  I roll my eyes, “You’ll not die if you don’t read a week’s full of gossip.”

  “Do they keep copies in the library?” he asks, ignoring my retort.

  I shake my head, walking ahead. But I only succeed in taking five, maybe six steps, before halting again. I may havespent all of ten minutes in the school as of todayand within the last few minutes I had become certain that my senses will be loaded with the insignificant, attenuated auras of all the students around. The least I was expecting to be sensing something rather distinctive. Something that catches my attention right away, forcing me to stop dead in my tracks. No doubt it is somebody’s aura that has me turning into a statue. The reason for my entire cognizance to be focused on this aura is because of how exceptionally different the aura is.

  It definitely isn’t anything like the weak auras of humans that I have assumed and witnessed them to possess. This aura is deluging, almost begging to be noticed. The heightened form of a human aura at its best. It gives off a felicitous sense,