I look at Sebastian. “He is using Transfiguration to appear as An
na and he is leading them to my house.”
Sebastian pushes off of the tree trunk and moves toward us. “Your old house?”
I rise slowly to keep the dulling headache from spiking again. “I know it sounds crazy, but this place...it is an exact replica of Marietta, Georgia. These beings have used our thoughts, our memories to create a false reality.”
Xander tries to get his footing to stand. “How is that possible?”
He stops abruptly, grabbing his head. “Ahh! That hurts, that hurts!”
Sebastian and I reach toward Xander and take hold of him for support. Sebastian looks around us suspiciously. “It’s like they have constructed an alternate Marietta in their world based off of yours, Ezra’s, and Michael’s recollection.”
“Michael’s recollection? When was Michael in Georgia?”
Sebastian stands stunned before us as the question lingers in the air. The type of customary silence that comes when someone is withholding information. My stare must stir the need for words. Sebastian starts, “While I was out, Michael got into my head. The illusion...”
Sebastian’s voice begins to shake with emotion and he shakes his head to try and rid the feelings flooding him. “He grew up in Georgia.”
Sebastian turns away from Xander and I
, giving us the hint that he has nothing more to say. The rest of the illusion must have been very upsetting based on his reaction.
I shake my head, resentful that he had direct influence on their illusions as well as mine “Michael knows about my premonitions, my dreams.”
Sebastian hastily grips my shoulder, shocking me at his urgent reaction. “What?”
I watch Sebastian’s reaction intently as I speak. “When I was unconscious, I had a premonition about the Etowah Mounds in Georgia. Anna, the real Anna, tried to stop me from following through with the illusion, to keep it from Michael, but she was too late. He saw what I saw. He is going to try and stop us from getting to those mounds.”
I pull away from Sebastian’s grip. “Back in Kyoto at the facility, you dodged Xander’s questions about why you chose the Etowah Mound site. What is its significance?”
Sebastian runs his hand over his mouth and taps his finger on his lips as he thinks. “What did you see?”
“A creek, the outlet above a lake, in the distance I see the mounds. I follow the creek down to where it joins a rushing river.”
I close my eyes to conjure the image in my head as I speak. “The ridge is high above the river. It is dusk, but the profile of the three mounds is vivid. There are stars, three of them above the largest of the three visible mounds.”
I open my eyes slowly. “That is what I saw before Anna came to me. The stars, it looked like Orion’s Belt.”
Sebastian stops tapping his finger on his lips. “I have had premonitions of the mounds, but you have seen something that I have not.”
“All I saw were the mounds and three stars. It isn’t that big of a deal.”
It really wasn’t. It was just a constellation in the night sky.
Sebastian, “In all of my visions of the mounds over my lifetime, I have never seen Orion’s Belt above them. You have seen it above those mounds for a reason.”
“What the hell does a bunch of stars have to do with saving our world?”
Saving my father and Nate, ending Michael, getting all of us the hell out of here, sealing the veil, and saving our world. My chest constricts from the pressure of knowing that the events of my purpose are upon me and closing in fast. I turn away from both Sebastian and Xander to try and calm down.
I feel Xander’s hand rest on my shoulder. “Hey, you are not going at this alone remember.”
I nod my head acknowledging his support, while I bite my lip to hold my opposing words for what I know he would be willing to do to protect me. What both him and Nate would be willing to do; anything.
I look up to hold the tears in my eyes for as long as possible. I can’t let Xander and Nate risk themselves for me; another item to add to my growing checklist of things to do.
Sebastian’s somber voice interrupts my internal rant, “I thought it would be me. The one to have the visions that you have. I sought the uncharted territory in the first place. I challenged the boundaries of our world, our universe. I wanted to find what was beyond us, what created us, originated, possibly what had occupied our world at one time before us. We can’t be the only ones that have been here. This should be my burden, not yours.”
Sebastian covers his mouth with praying hands and closes his eyes. He breathes in deeply then moves his hands away to speak. “I have burdened my wife, my sons, my niece, my grandson, you, all of you. Dobria, she would still be here if I was home when they came for me. They murdered her because of me.”
“She was murdered?”
Sebastian nods.
“Because of what I had discovered about our family, our ancestral legacy in Georgia, we are not just guardians. That is only the destiny of our origin because of who we are, our abilities, and what we can do. Yes, part of our abilities are because of the Copula. But much of it is inherently because of our lineage.”
Our lineage?
Sebastian continues, “The men in suits came for our family. Michael’s father...” Sebastian shakes his head, like he is trying to shake off a bad dream; bad illusion.
Not able to read him and wanting to break the anguish on his face even for a moment, I whisper, “It was only an illusion Sebastian.”
He turns away from both Xander and I. “Truths lie within the illusions, Jesca. Sometimes we try really hard to bury those illusions, but they plague our reality and will always resurface. Our legacy could only be buried for so long. I exposed it, dug too deep, to the root of our legacy and it has transformed everything around us. I should be the one to seal the veil and save our race, not you.” Crestfallen, Sebastian turns his gaze to the ground. “I was not chosen to see what you have seen. Know what you have learned. The calamity of our family’s legacy has fallen on you, Jesca.”
I turn away from both of them now, swallowing the golf ball sized lump of trepidation in my throat. When I speak, I expect my voice to be s
trong, but it sounds so…so weak, “What am I supposed to do? I don’t know how to save us.”
I look up at the sky and hope Michael can hear me and realize that it is a lost cause to try and kill us. “I don’t know how to seal the freaking veil! I don’t know how to save our world!”
I feel Xander’s body move closer behind me, his chest barely touching my back.
Sebastian
explains, “The premonitions, they will guide your path.”
I snicker,
“My path.”
That phrase keeps coming back to bite me in the ass, doesn’t it?
I hear a familiar voice in my head and it makes me smile like only he can, “You are thinking too hard. Keep it simple, love.”
Ezra.
Hearing those words in my head give me the renewed spirit I need. I turn around to face both Xander and Sebastian. “Right now, getting Ezra and Nate from Michael is my path. After that, well, I will just have to figure it out as I go. I need to keep it simple. Anna, has gone after Ezra and Nate, but she won’t stand a chance against Michael, Sam, and the beings wanting to keep us here.”
Xander interrupts, tensely, “Jesca, Ezra and Nate are bait to draw us in! You are doing what Michael wants you to do!”
I look from Xander to Sebastian. “Balthazar says sometimes to catch you have to be caught. This is one of those times.”
Sebastian nods. He can’t argue his son’s wise words. It is not a confident and optimistic nod by any means, but I will take what I can get. I look back at Xander. The condescending look in his eyes fuel the fight building quickly within me. “What? It is what it is, Xander! There is no other option!” Xander shakes his head and works his jaw back and forth. I start to move around Xander.
He steps in front of me, blocking me from passing. “I can’t let you do this
, Jesca!”
“Then don’t!”
In that moment, I turn and run like hell. The only way to get Sebastian and Xander to follow through with my bright idea is to force it upon them.
Ezra
Anna walks ahead of Nate and I, leading us out of the thinning wood. I watch Anna’s movement, the way her body shifts, it’s different. Maybe it has been so long that I have forgotten the way she moves. I have Nate walking beside me. I didn’t like the way his body reacted to Jesca making contact. It made him vulnerable. It is nearly dusk and my eye is caught by the light beyond the brush ahead. Without warning, I see a small figure pass in front of the light from one side of the opening to the other. I react quickly, put my arm out, and grab hold of Nate’s shirt, bringing him to a halt. His eyes dart from me back to the opening. I hear his thoughts as he contemplates what he could have seen just now. Anna is still walking. I call to her in my mind, “Anna,” but it has no effect on her as she keeps drudging on. I whisper, “Anna.”
She stops, crouches, and turns to face me. “What?”
Why couldn’t she hear me? “Didn’t you hear me?”
She looks down, like
she is thinking. “No, I guess it is this place trying to block our connection. What? Did you see something? ”
How could she not see it? I whisper, “Ahead of you in the opening.”
She turns back to the opening and waits, watches, like a predator. I have never seen Anna like that.
Nate leans into me and whispers,
“Something is off, Ezra.”
I look over at him. He shakes his head from side to side, looks at Anna, then back at me. No, Anna is fine. She is trying to protect us, get us to Jes. I shake my head and hiss barely above a wh
isper, not wanting Anna to hear, “No, don’t even go there, Nate. Nothing is off. She is fine.”
Nate looks away, runs his hand over his mouth, then looks ahead at Anna. “Fine.”
Anna looks back at us. “We need to move fast. I think the beings here are getting restless.”
That is all we needed, to have the beings attacking us as well as Michael.
Anna looks at Nate. “Are you getting anything else from her?”
Nate looks down, like he is thinking, taking inventory,
and then looks up at her annoyed. “No, damn it, I can’t feel or hear anything. All I hear is random thoughts running through my head.”
Anna looks from Nate to me. “Stay close. Let’s go.”
Sam
When the fog lifts from the hold Michael has on me, I take inventory of what is around me. I see lampposts ahead lining a suburban-like neighborhood. To my right is heavy brush and trees; the woods. It is beyond dusk now. I must have been under his complete control for a couple of hours. The sound of rustling within the trees makes my heart quicken. The beings here, what if they have discovered me? I quiet my deep breathes and listen. It could be Anna, Ezra, and that kid Nate. I need to try and warn them.
Suddenly, my body acts on its own and moves swiftly, arms and legs pumping in an animal-like stride; low to the ground. When my body stops and I get my bearings, I see that I have sprinted a good two hundred feet down the street in a matter of seconds and I am hunched behind the front end of a parked car. I look down at my hands, bloody from gripping the ground beneath them. They don’t even resemble human hands any more.
Michael’s
thoughts violate my mind again,
“They aren’t yours anymore Sam. They belong to me and the beings here. With your tainted past, they couldn’t be more pleased with their acquisition.”
No, I’m still in here. I feel it. You are just trying to make me think they have taken my soul. I can still make things right.
My body crumbles flat against the concrete, then jerks me backward and I am moving again, animal like, along the sidewalk, then up a driveway and into a nearby yard. I come to a stop, crouched next a cluster of trees. My vision is tunneled and focused on the front of the house. I hear foot movement coming from my right and I, the me inside, want to look, but I have no domain over myself. My body crouches lower and closer to the trunk of a tree, eyes still focused on the doorway of the house.
Three bodies come into my tunneled area of vision, to
the doorway of this house.
Whose house is this?
They slowly climb the steps. The young kid, Nate, seems to lag behind Ezra hesitantly; he knows something is wrong. I try and use my mind to will my body to move, become my own again.
Michael’s thoughts break into my m
ind again, distracting my focus,
“Not going to happen, Sam. Between me and these hungry, lost, souls here, your soul being so appealing, you don’t stand a chance.”
The three, Anna, Ezra, and Nate open the door, cross the threshold, and close the door behind them. I think,
What are you going to do to them?
Michael thinks,
“Me?”
His cackling laughter fills my head,
“You and I.”
My eyes are still fixed on the front porch of the house, when I see a person running down the road toward the driveway. Anna? How can that be? She just went in there with Ezra and the kid.