Preternatural (Worlds & Secrets) (32 page)

“
What are you waiting for, the great flood?” she asked with a smile. I smirked and slowly walked towards her familiar whilst he busily licked his cotton-white paws. As I climbed onto the animal’s back, it looked back at me then looked forward. At that point, Mirabelle exclaimed loud enough for Tiki to hear, the word: “vai!” which I had a feeling probably meant ‘go’.

Tiki stood up from his squatting p
osition and slowly turned. He began galloping forward through the long grass, causing his large paw prints to be left imprinted in it as he dashed forward fast and heavily. The wind rushed against my face and Mirabelle’s but she seemed to be used to all of this raging wind. The tail of her messily-braided, long French plat dangled in the air and whipped my face as the wind gained strength.

Tiki galloped faster and faster
. As we drew further and further away from the hill on which ‘The R.W.B. Residence was perched, we seemed to be getting awfully close to the end of what I thought was an endless valley. I could see that the long grass stopped at a certain point and opposite, I could see a continuing forest of less intimidating trees and grass on another long strip of land. I realised that there was a steep gorge that descended unevenly for a mile between the land we were on and the opposite cliff. With a forceful push off the ground, Tiki leapt and we were gliding in the sky graciously, ascending higher and higher up.

I looked below
, all the way to the depths of the cliff. I could see the long grass swaying and even though shrinking in the far distance, my home was still standing majestically, wedged into oak trees on its mountain. I looked up ahead, blinded by Vernaesce’s sun that marginally peeked behind a few starch-white clouds. Vernaesce’s two moons were placed in the heavens like still oil paintings, barely visible during this bright daylight.

Tiki was
still ascending and the wind gradually calmed as his flight became more of a gentle glide. Mirabelle smiled and then steered Tiki by slowly tilting him to the right.

Suddenly, he
flew straight upwards with force and speed. My ears started torturing me with pain as the pressure mounted. A large white cloud floated up ahead and as soon as we flew through it, we were no longer facing upwards in the sky but downwards, deep into a valley with boulders and a large ravine that cut through. It pertained somewhat of a stream flowing down it. It looked beautiful, covered in shimmering green moss and algae scattered all over the faces of the ravine’s structure. The green glowed underneath the sunlight and the droplets of crystal clear precipitation magnified the light they were hit with.

As
we descended, my eyes had an electric blue gleam in them. Tiki flew lower and when we reached a few feet off the ground, he took a light gallop before stopping on top of the large mountainous area. He squatted and I slid off his back, falling to the ground lightly whilst Mirabelle came off with ease. She obviously had more experience riding her pet Tigrobal.

“
That was brilliant!” I spoke with a hiccupping giggle. “Where are we again?”

“
Welcome to the Gordale Scar in the Yorkshire Dales,” said Mirabelle, throwing her arms open and embracing the beautiful environment that surrounded us. Tiki sat down and licked his paws casually. His white and black striped tail was flung up in the air and coiling into different shapes.

“Okay, let’s start. I suppose you’ve been introduced to the basics of –”

“
– blending your aura with the element you’re controlling;
yeah, yeah
.” This explanation was getting monotonous and increasingly annoying.

“
Hmm…” Mirabelle spoke satisfyingly.

“
Now, Hydrokinesis is very easy –”

“
– Mirabelle I have the strangest suspicion that it’s going to be harder for me. When I practise Pyrokinesis, it’s as easy as breathing. But that’s precisely why it might conflict with my Hydrokinesis.” Mirabelle sighed and crossed her arms as she stared at me.

“
Aden, you haven’t even tried. How would you know it’s –?”

“
I’m not saying I won’t try, but I’m just telling you that I’d probably fail at it.” At that point, Mirabelle threw me a vicious grin and her hair immediately streaked to blue.

Suddenly, with a loud and terrifying uproar, Mirabelle
and I were surrounded by water that I thought was rushing upwards from the ravine encircling us. But I soon came to realise that it didn’t surface from there, but was rather being brought into existence from nothingness. The blue water was violent, ruthlessly reducing rocks to powder within seconds. I could see nothing past it.

Mirabelle continued giving me a piercing and stern look.

“You’re
really
sure it’s going to be as difficult as you think?” she spoke frighteningly as she advanced towards me.

“
I just –”

“
There are some things some Hydrottes could do that would blow…your…mind. Your father; for instance.” I grew slightly timorous.

“
What do you mean?”

“
I could teach you how to duplicate one particle of water into billions. You could generate your own water – and hardly anybody knows how to do that. And against the most powerful Hydrokinetics, your Pyrokinesis won’t stand a chance.” I immediately lit my hands with snarling fire upon the end of her statement.

She squinted her eyes
at my hands and my fire was extinguished forthwith with a few flickering sprays of the aquamarine rushing ocean that stretched into the sky. Mirabelle sighed and her hair returned to its fiery orange. The water that spiralled around us and raged into the skies immediately ceased in a second, leaving the area completely dry. I gulped and watched as she practically stared at me with an analytical look in her eyes.

“
If you know about the auras and blending, then you should have no problem if I asked you to create a dome over us.”

“
But I would have to use a lot of water for that – I can’t
duplicate
them yet.”

“
I’m not asking you to. I’m asking you to manipulate the stream, just try,” she urged. I sighed hopelessly and finally gave in. When I activated my aura vision, the aura of water wasn’t as I had expected; it was difficult to pinpoint it or to understand where its source was from. I couldn’t seem to find a connection between us unlike the others. I could see it moving about even though that’s not what it was doing at all. At this point, the water was as active as a rock. My hair and eyes were naturally blue so they barely changed.

I clenched my fists and attempted to push past my threshold. It was brutal work as I felt the water around us
weakly shield Mirabelle and I, but I could only do so much. The thin strip of water I hurled over us kept tearing. I had to attempt to repair it again and again and overlap it with
more
water.

By the time
the dome had been stretched over us – despite it being undoubtedly feeble, thin and weak – I looked as if I were suffering. I was breaking out in sweat and my eyes were clamped shut as I kept my hands up and stood in an awkward, uncomfortable-seeming squat with my hands hung over my head like a broken doll.

It felt, somehow, like I was do
ing weights – only I did them with my mind and the weight was the water. Whenever I felt that I was about to give in, I had to attempt to push harder. Even the stance and the way I stood seemed pathetic.

Mirabelle looked at me and sighed. S
he raised an arm up and she gently flicked the air. Suddenly, the dome of water shattered like a million pieces of crashing glass. I exhaled out of fatigue and fell to my knees before collapsing, heavily panting and sweating excessively.

“
I don’t understand. Why is it so
hard
for
you
?” she asked, contemplating with her hand on her chin, then cupping my face as she examined me, turning my head to the left and right and checking features on my face.

“
I ‘dunno’,” I moaned as I rolled on the floor in exhaustion. “Maybe it’s not in my nature.”

“
Come on, get up!” she ordered. I was tired but I would eventually
have
to learn this. Better now than later.

“
It could be possible that you’re trying too hard.” What could she have meant? If I didn’t try at
all
, the H-2-freaking-O wouldn’t budge!

“
So I should just let loose?” I asked, struggling to find my strength.

“
Pretty much,” she replied, followed by my subsequent sigh. Mirabelle made it seem too easy. My aura was still fixed on the waters. This time I didn’t try. I simply raised a hand. Then, out of the depths of my mind, I realised that maybe I had something the others didn’t, something that permitted me to control my elements as a hybrid with mass aptitude, something not
only
for fire. Maybe the extra nerves of ‘fire’ in my hands weren’t necessarily
solely
for fire.

I flexed them once and suddenly – being too quick for my
eyes to have foreseen – I was hosed away with a large current of water. I marched back to Mirabelle weakly.

“
I don’t understand. Why did that just happen? I was loose.”

“
A.J., There’s a way to go about it. It’s a bit like controlling air. But in the case of water, you’re meant to not try at all, yet attempt to make it do your will; if that makes any sense. Somehow like –” I had enough of meaningless explanations. I clamped my fists shut and flexed the nerves again. The water came rushing towards me but immediately stopped as I twisted it around into a dome around Mirabelle and me.

I had rendered her speechless midway of her sentence. I was hardly struggling this time. I just seemed to be panting heavily
with a few aches in my biceps.

“
Like this?
” I asked her, my hands held up with my Celtic patterns glowing sapphire blue like my eyes and hair. Mirabelle grew a smile as she noticed that the water overlapped in thick layers. She shot her arm up with a clenched fist.

A quavering ripple was formed in the dome but was quickly healed by the mass of water my extra nerves permitted me to control. She smiled again. This time she shot out
both
her arms. A small crack in the dome was made but was once again immediately sealed up by a thick quantity of water.

“
Well done! I knew you could do it,” Mirabelle praised. Finally, I let go and the water cascaded down to us. As it was about to clearly fall on Mirabelle and me, it parted and landed in a splash.

The end of the year approached. Now that we knew the Barons would be breaking free by then, Christmas just seemed to be accelerating towards us faster than we could say
‘Aden’s assassination’
. It was unfortunate that a time of joy for most people would be a moment of danger and terror for my siblings and me. Since we knew that this year’s Christmas was going to be hell-on-Vernaesce, it was sprinting to arrive. Whereas on Earth, people were impatiently waiting for it. My lessons were going smoothly and I gained more control over my abilities. My defence increased and my Pyrokinesis became threatening. The forest on the side of our house continued to howl at night as usual.

Porto-Pyro
would soon be covered in a blanket of snow. The sky was still, shadowy and looked like a cross between a misty night and an angry dawn. Cold, rigid air swept in from the rims of the long window and underneath the doors. Instead of signs of the first snow, constant deluge and thunder often broke out. The echoing rumbles in the sky came with a flash of blinding light above the clouds. Though, I won’t deny, morning rain in Porto-Pyro was both comfortable and beautiful with the landscape of our home.

The adults were talking and laughing
monotonously. The girls were in their room gossiping – I had no doubt – and I suspected they were treating themselves to manicures and pedicures, whereas we, the boys, stayed in our room doing nothing more than cracking jokes, whilst watching television. Well, they were. I couldn’t help pondering on the events that were yet to come. However, Tammy and Jaden weren’t with us; they sat side-by-side downstairs researching as much as they could through the vast bookshelves of ancient books the adults had compiled over the years.

Jaden did
well enough to memorise most of the Transmarkers of ordinary everyday creatures. The legendary ones gave him a bit of difficulty, persistently forcing him to look into the book every so often to Shifftocast. Robbie was sprawled over his bed whilst ogling at the television with most of his head buried in a pillow.

Liam was sitting on the
computer desk’s swivel chair and was looking out of the silver telescope into the thunder and blistering rain that was shattering down on us like broken pieces of glass. I
was merely sitting on my bed with a bottle of water and looking inside a book Mirabelle had given me on simple mind ranging effects for my Hydrokinetics class which would help me sway and control the water to my will.