She didn’t say another word and continued
walking steadily in the direction he guided her. He had never
appreciated her matter-of-fact manner more. His fingers linked
tightly with hers.
“Amber!”
The sound of her name in this remote location
had both of them turning. He watched with no small amount of
astonishment as the female dancer who had tugged at his curiosity
bounced in their direction. She had removed her beaded headband and
the leather and fur jacket she had been wearing, leaving her
dressed in just the costume’s black leather pants and a black
cotton tank top. Her hair was also nearly black and hung unbound
down her back. She had a few black ink tattoos on either side of
her neck and a single silver stud pierced just below the center of
her bottom lip. Filled with interest and excitement, her light blue
eyes flashed between them even as she hurried over and threw her
arms around Amber.
“I’m so happy to finally meet you!” she
declared.
Gabriel watched the display in confusion. He
instinctively wanted to protect Amber, knowing she hated to be
touched, especially by complete strangers. But this girl came
across as a familiar friend, making him hesitate.
And, outside of her deeper skin-tone and eye
and hair color, she looked disturbingly like Amber.
“Hey,” Amber said gruffly, releasing his hand
and not so gently pushing the newcomer away. “I think you’ve gotten
me confused with someone else.”
An expression that might have been hurt
flashed across the dancer’s features, but she quickly rebounded
with her bright smile. “Sorry—I wasn’t thinking. I forgot you
haven’t learned about me yet.”
Now understanding that Amber had no idea who
this person was, Gabriel took her arm and pulled her closer to his
side. A few of the audience members had stopped to watch the
exchange. He knew the attention was the last thing Amber
wanted.
“Look, uh…”
“Skye,” the dancer offered, still smiling
with outrageous cheer.
Gabriel began to wonder if she was mentally
off-balance. After seeing the blond businessman again so
unexpectedly, her behavior had him highly on edge. He took a step
back, his hold on Amber’s arm prompting her to move with him.
“Yeah, okay. Look, Skye, we really enjoyed the performance. Great
work there and all. We have somewhere else to be, so—”
“I know you’re wondering what’s going on,”
Skye interrupted with a laugh and a careless wave of her hand.
“Nick told me to wait, but I just couldn’t. You must be Amber’s
friend, Gabriel.”
Amber glanced over and caught his gaze. They
exchanged a look that clearly said, “
What the…?
”
“Or maybe…” Skye continued, eying them
thoughtfully as though she didn’t notice their perplexed and
concerned expressions. Then her eyes widened. “Oh! Definitely more
than a friend.”
Now she leaped forward and threw her arms
around them both. “Congratulations, you two!”
This time, Amber pushed at one shoulder and
Gabriel pushed at the other until they managed to distance
themselves from the dancer. They didn’t bother to mask their
discomfiture over the exchange.
“Okay,” he said firmly, “I don’t know what’s
going on here, but this isn’t funny. Have you been following us
around or something?”
“Of course not,” Skye replied indignantly.
Her features formed a pout that looked foreign on a face so like
Amber’s.
“I warned you not to go about this in this
way,” came a deep, accented voice from behind Gabriel and
Amber.
They turned again and both of them had to
look up. The very tall and muscular man standing only a couple of
feet behind them had the characteristically dark coloring of a
native Alaskan. The gray in his long hair and the deep lines around
his brown eyes indicated that he was of a certain age, but his face
was utterly expressionless. He had folded his arms over his broad
chest as he looked past them to the dancer. The chinos and plaid
button-down shirt he wore looked comfortable, but didn’t suit his
overall appearance. Gabriel couldn’t help but think it was kind of
like seeing the Venus De Milo in a miniskirt. He looked like he
should be wearing something much more rugged.
“I’m sorry, Nick,” Skye said, her laughing
eyes belying the words. “I couldn’t help myself.”
The older man sighed. Catching Gabriel’s
gaze, he unwound his arms and held out a large hand. “Nick
Tomaganuk.”
Uncertainty warred with good manners, and in
the end, manners won. Gabriel reached out and took Nick’s hand. “It
seems you already know who we are.”
“Yes,” Nick agreed easily, his face still
unreadable. “But I hope you’ll forgive Skye’s tendency for being
dramatic. We’re here to help.”
“Ah…” Gabriel looked around and noticed that
the crowd had dispersed. He no longer saw the blond businessman,
either. Amber remained completely silent beside him, her troubled
gaze shifting from Nick to Skye. His own anxiety around the strange
encounter had eased a bit due to Nick’s calm and straightforward
manner. Finally, he said, “I really wasn’t aware that we needed any
help.”
“I understand. But the fact is, you do. It is
time that you and Amber learn the truth.”
“The truth about what?” Amber spoke up at
last. She had once again taken hold of Gabriel’s hand.
Nick glanced behind them again, apparently a
silent signal. Amber and Gabriel turned to see two females emerge
from behind a cluster of trees. A white cat inexplicably trailed
behind them. One woman appeared to be in her mid-forties, tall and
blonde; the other was much younger with medium-brown hair,
intelligent green eyes…and a familiar face.
“The truth,” Nick explained, “about your
sisters.”
Amber decided that Gabriel had certainly gone
out of his way to arrange this elaborate prank. Where he managed to
find two girls who looked a lot like her, she couldn’t guess, never
mind why he would do so. She almost laughed at the senselessness of
it all.
Then she caught his gaze. He looked troubled,
and she knew immediately that he hadn’t arranged any of this.
“Uh, hi,” said the new girl. Wearing a gray,
dark-green and black argyle sweater over a crisp, white collared
shirt, pressed gray khaki pants and black loafers, she looked like
she had just stepped out of a prep school ad. Contributing to that
image, she wore her chestnut brown hair back in a tight knot at the
base of her neck. She carefully assessed Amber’s body language with
her ivy-green eyes. Then, rather than launch herself into a hug as
Skye had, she extended a hand. “I’m Olivia Murdoch. This is my
adoptive mom, Jean.” Her accent pegged her as heralding from the
Midwest.
Almost robotically, Amber extended her free
hand and accepted the handshake. She couldn’t think of a single,
rational thing to say.
“I know this is weird,” Olivia acknowledged
with a half-smile as the large white cat wound its way through her
legs. “I’ve known for a little while now and I’m still getting used
to the idea. Meeting you really kind of seals it for me,
though.”
As Amber pulled her hand away, another
shudder went through her. An intense, almost painful tingle made
its way from her fingertips up her arm, causing her to shake her
hand as if to wake it up from sleep. Seeing and feeling her
reaction, Gabriel watched her in concern. Then he took her chin and
lifted her face so that he could look into her eyes.
“Gold,” he said.
When another, more violent shudder coursed
through her, Amber didn’t even think. She just grabbed Gabriel
behind the neck, pulled him closer and kissed him thoroughly.
“Wow,” Skye breathed from a short distance
away. Nick cleared his throat.
Amber ignored them, the panic of having
another Incident pushing her into self-preservation mode. When she
finally pulled away from Gabriel, he kept his eyes closed briefly,
then opened them and looked at her. Because he was still catching
his breath and trying to regain his composure, he merely
nodded.
“Thanks.” She touched the side of his face in
a further show of appreciation.
Then she sighed and dared to glance around,
trying to stifle her blossoming embarrassment. Skye and Olivia were
both trying—unsuccessfully—not to gape, and the two adults looked
considering.
“Have you been having these kinds of episodes
frequently?” Nick asked after a moment.
Surprised that he was reacting to her
behavior with such calm, Amber wondered what to say. She wasn’t
exactly sure what he was referring to. Did he think she was prone
to seizures? Or was he referring to her jumping her boyfriend in
public? He couldn’t possibly know about The Incidents…could he?
Uncertain, she shrugged.
Frowning, Nick said, “This just tells me how
very important it is to move forward. I’m sure you both have many
questions. But this isn’t the place to address them. You need to
speak with Ini-herit as soon as possible. We should go back inside
the museum.”
“Wait a minute here.” Amber looked
disbelievingly at each of the people surrounding her. “You think
we’re just going to go off with a group of strangers making wild
claims? You people must be out of your minds.”
Now Jean, dressed very similarly to her
daughter in a camel-colored sweater and matching khaki pants, spoke
up, her expression earnest. “We understand that this is a lot to
take in. You don’t yet realize how important the timing is for all
this.” Because she obviously noted their remaining doubts by
gauging their expressions, she continued, “Look, we have to make
you believe and understand. Ini-herit can explain better than any
of us, but the truths he’ll reveal to you aren’t for public ears.
How can we convince you that it’s in your best interests to meet
with him?”
Even as Amber raised an eyebrow and took a
breath in anticipation of issuing a sarcastic response, Olivia
stepped forward. She looked from Skye to Amber. “We should link
hands.”
“What?” Amber defensively crossed her arms
and tucked her hands out of sight. “Why would you think that would
be a good idea?”
As Skye gamely glided forward, Olivia
explained, “You don’t believe we’re sisters or that we’re telling
the truth. We’re trying to convince you otherwise. You had a
reaction when I shook your hand.”
“Uh…I don’t think this is a good idea,”
Gabriel said, pulling Amber a step back from the other girls. “Let
us have a minute.”
“Sure.”
Olivia and Skye turned and walked a few feet
away. The white cat continued to stay near Olivia wherever she
walked. It was a little creepy, Amber thought.
“They’ve got such great accents, don’t they?”
Skye observed in a voice that carried.
Amber rolled her eyes. When Gabriel ushered
her a short distance away, she didn’t protest. A sense of unreality
had settled over her senses, almost as though she was viewing
everything from someone else’s perspective.
This had certainly turned into a very strange
birthday.
“There’s something big going on here, Amber,”
he whispered when they were far enough out of hearing distance from
the others. She felt curious eyes on them and shifted
uncomfortably. He continued, “You’ve had two physical reactions
since coming into proximity of these girls. They look just like
you. It’s…”
“Eerie,” she finished in an equally low
whisper. Glancing over at them, she added, “Even saying out loud
that I have sisters I’ve never known about comes across like come
kind of bad soap opera episode. It sounds absolutely
ridiculous.”
She paused, trying to assess her own
reaction. She felt as though the normal response to all of this
would have been to blow off all of their absurd claims and leave
with Gabriel, maybe even reporting these lunatics to the local
authorities as scam artists.
So why did she feel instead that this wasn’t
a hoax? It was almost as though this was where she was meant to be
at this time.
And then The Dream again flashed through her
mind.
“
I am not human.
”
Shaking her head at herself, she said, “These
girls look like they’re my age. We’re not identical, so I don’t see
how we can be the same age if we’re supposedly sisters.”
“Maybe…fraternal triplets?”
“Is that even possible?”
“Sure it is. Triplets can be a mix of boys
and girls. Fraternal is definitely possible.”
“So then, why are we just finding each other
now? And in this location?” She realized even as she spoke that she
was indirectly giving weight to their story.
Gabriel shrugged. “I don’t have any idea. I
just have this sense that we’re going to have to talk to this
Ini-herit guy to get the answers.” He reached for her hands and
gave them a squeeze. “These people all seem pretty believable. And
they didn’t bat an eye over your eyes changing colors or the
tremors. I think they know something pretty important, and we need
to hear it, too. Maybe we can find out why you’re having these
Incidents and how we can stop them.”
She sighed. “Yeah. This is just crazy. But I
guess in the scheme of things, it kind of goes along with the rest
of my life, doesn’t it?”
Squaring her shoulders, she nodded at him.
“Okay. Let’s do this.”
They walked as a group back to the museum,
leaving Olivia’s odd cat curled under a tree near the entrance.
Nick gave a quick nod to the security guard as they walked in, and
they were passed through to a part of the museum reserved for
administrative functions. The walls in this area were a neutral
beige and the doors were of the white and hollow variety. Covered
in flecked brown industrial carpet, the floors offered little
cushioning but kept their footfalls from echoing. A smattering of
windows along the left side of the hallway allowed in some natural
light, with glaring overhead fluorescents lighting the rest of the
area. Motivational posters in cheap plastic frames decorated the
right-hand wall where there weren’t office doors. There was hardly
any noise with the exception of a copier in action behind one of
the closed doors.