It must be the tangibility, the palpability of my legacy, manifesting, rooting, festering deeper in me that has dislodged the emotion to fear, to feel anything right now. I look at Ezra, standing before Sebastian yelling so hard that his face is turning purple. The words he is shouting no longer have meaning, just the movement of his mouth. Sebastian’s eyes are down cast as he takes each verbal blow. Monica has angled herself between the two of them, hand on Ezra’s chest, just in case his swelling temper gets the best of him.
I mutter, “We need to go.”
Each of them looks at me, but Monica is the one that speaks, “We need to leave in the dead of night. It is our only shot of being camouflaged.”
Ezra staggers back from Sebastian and Monica, sitting back on the bed. Monica, steps in fr
ont of him and guides him to lie down on the bed. She runs her hand over his forehead; the gesture is intimate in a way. “You are still fatigued. Rest, we will need you strong when we move.”
Ezra closes his eyes and nods, succumbing to her suggestion. I swallow hard, slight jealousy of Monica’s and my father’s interaction. He belongs to Anna, my mother. I interrupt the moment between them. “Tonight. It has to be tonight. Michael is already headed for Georgia.”
I move around the bed to leave.
Monica calls to me, “Where are you...”
Without breaking my stride, I answer her as I twist the knob on the door. “I need to see it for it to be real.”
As I pull the door open, I am met by two striking blue-green eyes. I pull the door shut behind me and just stare at him, stunned to see him in front of me when just moments ago I thought he had died. Nate is leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest
. His voice is deep, but gentle, “Hi there.”
My intention was to respond back, but before I realize it, I am colliding with him, arms wrapped around his shoulders and burying my face in his neck; eucalyptus and mint. His arms close around me, like a cocoon, and the familiar warmth within that Nate has always been able to conjure within me is evoked. I feel, even with the link gone, I still feel. The realization of losing Nate hits me and is greater than I ever expected. I stifle a cry and bury my face deeper in the crevice between his chin and shoulder. I feel his mouth rest on the side of my head and he delicately hushes me, while running his hand down the back of my head. My words are chopp
y and muffled, but I don’t care, “I thought you died.”
I feel Nate shake his head slightly and whisper, “No, not without a fight.”
The clearing of a throat from behind us startles me. I angle my head to see Xander standing, stoically, in the shadows watching us. Feeling the weight of Xander’s intrusion on Nate’s and my private moment, I pull away from him and create distance between the three of us. It is a standoff of sorts. Both Nate and Xander are looking at me, studying me.
“Are you trying to read me?”
I scoff, “Won’t work. With the link gone...”
Nate pipes in,
“It doesn’t change everything.”
I look at Xander to see if he shares the same sentiment. Grinding his jaw he says, “He’s right. Even though our link is gone, I still care about his sorry ass.”
Nate cocks his head in Xander’s direction. “Thanks, Xander.”
X
ander cocks his head back, “Anytime.” Xander steps toward me. “And you! It doesn’t change the fact that we care about you.”
Chest getting extremely tight right about now.
Nate responds, “Bottom line, Jes, the link was just a temporary bond. The bond we share now will never be broken.”
Xander
adds, “No matter what choices are made.”
His words make me focus on him. Those hazel orbs already seem so sad and I haven’t made a choice yet. Choices. The ever looming c
hoice between Xander and Nate, two men that I love, both the same and differently. Nate, so sure that our bond, his and Xander’s, mine to each of them, will never be broken. When I make a choice, something within each of us will break, I know it. I can’t have that privilege right now. The world is dying, our race is dying. I will not choose between them, that is my choice. In that moment I promise myself that I will not widen the gap of our singularity by choosing.
“I choose to not choose.”
Both of them look at me like I have lost my mind.
I cross my arms over my chest as I dig for firmer ground in my decision. I nod, showing my solidarity, raise my chin to appear firmer behind my choice. “That is my decision.”
Xander crosses his arms over his chest, working his jaw over time. Nate leans back against the wall, head resting against it, and looks up at the ceiling. Silence lingers among us for a few moments, the sound of the fluorescent lights flickering above the only audible noise; no thoughts or wanderings being exchanged between us. Singularity.
“We leave for Georgia tonight. I’m going to pack.” I turn on my heels and swiftly walk down the hall. I wait until I pass through the double doors of the next wing, to release the air in my lungs and tears in my eyes
. I walk fast and hard, no knowing my destination, repeating to myself, “It is the right thing to do. It is best for all of us. It is the right thing to do. It is best for all of us.”
Ezra
Monica hands me a glass of water. “Drink. Don’t need you getting dehydrated.”
I ignore her commanding tone and take the glass, still absorbed by what I have been kept in the dark about. I prop myself up on my elbow and drink, eyes trained on Sebastian. “What truths don’t I know, Sebastian?”
Sebastian pulls a vacant chair over to sit. “Our lineage in Georgia. Our legacy there is deeper than what I led you and the others to believe when we were protecting the Etowah Mound site.”
He has known the whole time.
Sebastian stares off. “The mounds, they had always fascinated me. I visited them briefly as a child, but it was the dreams, premonitions, that kept me marveling over them. Dreams of living among the mounds long ago in ancient times.” He blinks, snapping out of his hypnotic reflection of the dreams. “While attending university, my late night studies would land me in the library much of the time. It would start with the intended coursework, but I would drift and become charged with the research of the mounds. Night after night, I would collect pages and pages of notes from book after book. The ancient mound builder’s living patterns in the Georgia area. Names of tribes. The librarian liked me and even divulged some of the rarer books regarding the local tribes. Then, one night a name stood out among the data. One possessing the last name Onoch. That was the proof I needed to link the ancient Indian mound builders and my bloodline. I started digging up the Onoch genealogy in local records. Living relatives on the Onoch side of the family were dwindling and I would have asked my mother and father about our family, but they had their hands full with my sister’s crippling headaches and sleep afflictions.”
Sebastian looks at me questioningly, making sure I knew what he was referring to. I knew that he was referring to the trademark affliction that Sebastian, Anna, and Jesca all possessed; sleep paralysis and the premonitions. The genealogy and the documentation lined up, but I needed the confirmation that my conclusions were absolute. That the Onoch bloodline mingled with the very Indian mound builders’ blood that once occupied the Etowah Mounds. An expert. I asked around campus and the name that kept surfacing in regards to knowledge with my professors and fellow classmates was Jaegar Sanderson, professor of Ancient Indian History and Culture.”
Monica mumbles, “Sanderson. Michael...”
Sebastian nods.
“Yes, Michael Sanderson’s father.”
Sebastian scratches his forehead, eyes
downcast shifting left to right. “I met him, showed him everything I found, how I thought my family was linked to the mounds. I even divulged the premonitions I have had since I was a small child. He made it so easy to talk to him, because he was intriguing. His knowledge of the mounds, the rituals and ceremonies performed among the tribes honoring the cosmos was just as captivating and a little uncharacteristic for a history professor. That was my first concern. The second was when he made the comment that he knew the bloodline of the ancient mound builders would surface again when the world was approaching an evolution.”
I swallow hard. “Your bloodline resurfacing was a prophecy of this.”
Sebastian nods quickly. “Yes.”
“Why your bloodline? You said that Jeager spoke of rituals and ceremonies performed by your ancestors honoring the cosmos.”
Sebastian eyes are steady on me now. “Jaeger said the rituals were done to link beings that were once here, but had transcended our world.”
“You mean other humans?”
Sebastian tilts his head. “And others. He said that the ancient Indians thought they could seek protection during times of war from “these gods” above. The protection would come in the form of abilities, gifts, to act as guardians, and when the time came, to protect our world during an apocalyptic evolution. As the ancient Indian blood thinned, mingling with the growing Anglo-Saxon population, the ideology of the ancient Indian mound builders transformed to one of survival among the growing population.”
My throat suddenly became extremely dry, realizing the co
mparison of us and the ancient Indians. “Adapt, evolve, survive.”
Sebastian intertwined his fingers and rested them behind his neck. “When Jaeger Sanderson warned me that it would be best for me to leave well enough alone, finish school, and forget about the past, I knew the opposite was my destiny. I led him to believe tha
t I was not going to pursue anymore. Told him that I had to concentrate on finishing school in two years, find a job, and focus on my career. That, along with keeping my continued research on the ancient Indian mound builders of Georgia to myself, was enough to get him to back off. I also did some research on Jaegar Sanderson. I couldn’t ask around for fear he would catch wind of my questioning others about him. So, I broke into his on-campus office one night. I was careful and cautious, making sure not to leave any evidence of having broken in. In the dead of night, I flipped through file upon file of every culturally significant event known. With that being the pattern, I was stumped to find a document within a file among the stacks revealing Jaegar Sanderson as an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency.”
It is ironic to think that the Sanderson family had influence and deceptive control over our government’s involvement both then and now.
Did we ever have a chance of steering clear of them or was it destined to always be the case?
I shake the thought out of my head and focus on learning how Jesca is really, truthfully, at the center of all of this. “Look, I get that Jesca has Onoch blood running in her veins. She is her mother’s daughter and your second niece. How does that make her the sacrificial lamb meant to save our world? Why wasn’t it Anna? Why not you? You had the premonitions of the mounds just as Jesca.”
Seb
astian rises and starts to pace. “No, not like Jesca. She has seen something that I never have. Orion’s Belt at the apex of the largest of the three mounds.”
Sebastian stops abruptly, his head snapping in my direction. His eyes search the room and land on the white sheet lying on the floor. He scurries to pick up the shee
t. He looks at Monica. “Pen please.”
Monica stares at him, confused.
More agitated now, Sebastian raises his voice, “Please, pen, now!”
Monica reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out a pen, slapping it down in his hand.
Sebastian lays the sheet on the lower half of the bed and smoothed it out a bit. He takes the pen and begins drawing. “The Andromeda constellation, it’s a black hole.”
Hover
ing next to me, Monica whispers, “Yeah, black hole from hell.”
I look at Sebastian, just as he stops drawing and looks at me. We both look at Monica, and she shrinks back a little.
Sebastian goes back to drawing the representation of the Andromeda constellation, above is the Andromeda galaxy. Below is Orion’s belt and Orion the hunter constellation. Sebastian draws a definitive line through the center of the Orion constellation then creates a hemisphere encompassing Orion and the line. “That line through Orion is the celestial equator, basically cuts the universe in half.”
I was aware of what it was, but I let him continue to explain. Sebastian traced over the hemisphere encompassing Orion. “This is our galaxy, the Milky Way.”
He then draws a small sphere below Orion and within the Hemisphere. He taps his pen on the sphere. “This is us, our world.”
Then his pen moves just below Orion’s belt and the celestial equator. He makes a dark, filled in circle and says, “This is a black hole within our galaxy.”
I reach for his pen and quickly sketch Sagittarius off in the far distance. Near the constellation I create another small black circle. “That is the super-massive black hole in our galaxy. You are telling me that there is another one.”
Sebastian nods and snatches back his pen. Looking down at his rendering he says, “See how everything lines up?”
He taps the black hole in Orion again, “Orion is perfectly positioned to stand guard between our world and the Andromeda galaxy’s black hole.”