Legacy of the Lost

by Lindsey Fairleigh

  I toss JoJo aside and hold my arms out to her. I need a mommy hug so bad right now, it hurts.

  My mom hesitates, just for a second.

  I whimper, reaching for her.

  She sits on the bed and wraps her arms around me, but the comfort I seek evades me. The deluge of fear and worry is instantaneous. It pours into me, filling me up and drowning out everything else.

  I cling to my mom, sobbing as agonizing tremors and spasms wrack my body. Images flash through my mind—my mom and Emi, running, fighting. I can’t make sense of them.

  A scream builds in my chest. It claws its way up my throat and erupts from my mouth, raw and piercing. Breath after breath, the scream renews. I can’t stop it.

  Until, finally, my muscles cramp up and body goes rigid, and darkness blots out the world.

  I float in that darkness for what feels like eons. I’m not a little girl anymore. I’m me, now—twenty-six years old and wise to the dangers of the world. I know what made five-year-old me scream. I know not to touch people anymore.

  In a blink, the darkness is gone, and I’m somewhere else. Somewhen else.

  I’m sitting at a kid-sized drawing table in a doctor’s office. At least, I think it’s a doctor’s office. It’s weird, because there’s no exam table, and the floor is carpet, and the doctor isn’t wearing a white coat and she doesn’t have a stethoscope hanging around her neck. A rainbow of crayons is scattered on the table around the drawing I’m working on. It’s of my mom and me, the day we left school forever.

  The doctor is kneeling on the floor a few feet away, watching me draw.

  I finish the curly cues that are my mom’s hair, then set down the brown crayon and pick up the red one.

  “That’s very good, Cora,” the doctor says. “You’re a very talented artist. Do you draw often at home?”

  I glance at her, my shoulders bunching up. “I draw sometimes,” I say, then return to my drawing.

  The doctor moves closer. “What are those, Cora?” she asks. “What are you drawing on your mom?”

  “Fear,” I whisper. “Spikes of fear.”

  “Is that what your mom feels like to you—like she’s covered in spikes of fear?”

  I nod.

  “And do you actually feel the spikes poking you?”

  My crayon stills, and I nod again, eyes glued to the drawing. I can still remember the feeling of the fear stabbing into me.

  “I see,” she says. “And when is the first time you noticed the spikes?”

  I add smaller spikes to the drawing of my mom and shrug. “They used to be smaller . . . and softer,” I say. “They used to just tickle, like feathers.”

  “I see,” she says again. She reaches out, her hand hovering near the edge of my drawing. “Tell me, Cora, what do I feel like?” Her hand covers mine, and my entire body shudders as a jolt of agonizing sadness zips up my arm. I see flashes of images in my mind.

  A girl with no hair.

  The doctor sitting beside a hospital bed.

  A bunch of daffodils lying on a grave marker.

  I jerk my hand out from under hers so quickly that I fall out of my chair, but the tremors don’t stop. The images—the sadness and pain—don’t stop. I curl into a ball on the floor and hug my knees to my chest. The darkness is already creeping in at the edges of my consciousness. I wish it would hurry up.

  “Cora?” The doctor says.

  My teeth chatter, and my body shakes. My eyes are closed, but I can sense the doctor moving closer. The sadness swells as she nears, the pain overwhelming me.

  The darkness is so close now. I reach for it. Welcome it. Embrace it.

  I sigh, my body already relaxing as the darkness carries me away.

  Again, I float in that peaceful darkness, aware of the present but reflecting on the past, on the forgotten memories resurfacing from the deepest recesses of my mind.

  Without warning, I’m sucked into another moment from my childhood. Another visit with a specialist. Another suppressed traumatic memory. I skip through moment after moment, like flipping through channels on a TV. I relive the experience of seeing dozens of experts, from psychologists to psychics, neurologists to shamans. I haven’t thought about that period of whirlwind trips off the island for years; it’s a blur to me, a hazy point in my memory, clouded by the trauma of pain and the frequent loss of consciousness as we tried to get a handle on what my mom and Emi called my “condition.”

  The moments flash past, faster and faster, and I lose track of where one ends and the next begins. The shift from memory to memory is dizzying, and I feel mental whiplash settling in. Until, suddenly, it stops.

  I’m in the library, hiding under my mom’s desk, reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The late afternoon light filters through the stained-glass window, making blue and orange shapes on the pages of my book.

  Hushed voices drift into the library, and I stop reading and tilt my head to the side, listening. It’s my mom and Emi, talking quietly as they make their way up the hallway leading to the library. I can’t tell what they’re saying, but I can hear their footsteps now that I’m listening for them.

  Grinning, I close my book and curl up deeper into the recess under the desk so they won’t be able to see me. When they get close enough, I’m planning to jump out and surprise them.

  “. . . need to stop,” Emi says, her words becoming discernable as they enter the library. “It’s not fair to her. She thinks there’s something wrong with her.”

  “I hear you, Em, I really do,” my mom says, “but we’re close. I can feel it. I’ve been emailing with a Yogi who says he’s seen these kinds of episodes afflict those who unlock siddhi powers prematurely—”

  “Diana,” Emi says, voice raised slightly. They’re maybe halfway to the desk, now.

  I can feel my grin wilting on my lips. They’re talking about me. About my condition. About what’s wrong with me.

  “I’ve done some research into the siddhis,” my mom says. She’s much closer. Almost to the desk. “Here, look at this book—some of the powers it describes sound just like what Cora has been—”

  “Diana,” Emi repeats, even louder, “stop!”

  They’re standing on the other side of the desk—so close that I’m afraid they’ll hear my shallow breaths, my pounding heart. I hug the book to my chest, making myself as small as I possibly can.

  “Listen to yourself,” Emi says. “You’re grasping at straws and getting nowhere.”

  They fall silent for a moment, and I hold my breath.

  “I get that you need to feel like you’re doing something to help her,” Emi continues. “I get it, Diana, I really do. But this isn’t helping her. It’s helping you.” After another long moment of silence, she adds, “But it’s hurting Cora.”

  My mom makes a sobbing sound that crushes my heart. “I don’t know what else to do.” She makes that sound again, and tears well in my eyes. “How am I supposed to help my little girl, Em? How am I supposed to comfort her when I can’t even touch her? I can’t just leave her like this. I have to do something . . .”

  “I know,” Emi says. “I know. I’m not saying we stop trying to help her. I’m saying we go about it another way . . . a way that leaves Cora out of it. She’s only eight years old. There’s a good chance she’ll forget most of what’s happened so far.”

  My mom clears her throat. “So, what do you suggest?”

  “The Atlanteans couldn’t have survived to become the advanced species we know they were if they’d been as debilitated by their innate gifts as Cora is,” Emi says. “They must have come up with some way to regulate the sensory input.”

  “Some way—like what?” my mom asks.

  “Honestly, I don’t know,” Emi admits. “The best analogy I can come up with for what Cora is experiencing is like when a human stares directly into the sun without eye protection—only now, the whole sky is the sun, and Cora can’t go outside without being blinded.”

  “So, you’re saying we ne
ed to find the Atlantean equivalent of psychic sunglasses,” my mom says. Her voice sounds more distant, like she’s walking away from the desk.

  Emi laughs softly, dryly. “Yeah, Diana, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  9

  I woke with a gasp, heart hammering in my chest, and sat bolt upright. It took my sleep-addled mind seconds to register Tila growling and scratching at my bedroom door. Her hackles were raised, the short fur fluffing her shoulder blades and forming a ridge that ran the length of her spine.

  I shot a quick glance at the clock on the nightstand. It was half past midnight; I couldn’t have been asleep for more than thirty minutes, an hour at the most.

  Trembling, I moved painstakingly slowly, slipping my legs over the edge of the mattress. Just as my toes touched the cold hardwood, my mom’s journal slid off my lap and onto the floor, landing in the pool of golden light from the lamp on the nightstand. The noise seemed as loud as a gong in my adrenaline-fueled state of hyperawareness.

  I stared at the journal, my thoughts returning to the insanity my mom had written on the first few pages. To the things she’d written about me. Her story—it was impossible. Science Fiction. Not real. It couldn’t be. I couldn’t be something else. Something alien. Something other.

  But then I thought of the strange trip down memory lane I’d just taken in my dreams, of the long-suppressed memories that had resurfaced, and I wasn’t so sure. In that last memory, it had been pretty obvious that both Emi and my mom believed I was one of these Atlanteans.

  An explosive crack made me jump. A gunshot. Inside the house.

  Tila was no longer growling. She was now emitting a string of barks laced with a vicious snarl that set my teeth on edge and reverberated in my bones.

  I stood beside the bed, immobilized by fear. I was so scared, I could barely draw in a shaky breath.

  Someone was in the house. An intruder.

  . . . if they figure out what I’ve done—if they learn about you, they’ll come after you . . .

  Had my mom predicted this? Was it them? Was it the Order—the Custodes Veritatis—if the Order was even a real thing? Was this linked to my mom’s disappearance? Or was it possible that her going missing weeks before our remote estate was broken into was just a crazy coincidence?

  Two more quick crack of gunfire made me flinch. I could hear shouting and what sounded like muffled grunts.

  Another couple gunshots in quick succession, and the house fell silent.

  With a disgruntled whine, Tila turned away from the door and trotted across the room, back toward me. She circled around me, hackles still raised as she sniffed at my legs, intermittently emitting something that sounded like a cross between a low growl and a whine.

  Was it over? I couldn’t hear anything happening out there. All I could hear was Tila, along with my own hammering heartbeat and raspy breaths.

  I counted to sixty, silently mouthing the numbers, then ever so slowly, slid my foot forward over the smooth teak floor. It took me at least a minute to make it to the bedroom door, and another thirty seconds to work up the nerve to reach for the doorknob. Just as my fingers closed around the handle, it started to turn.

  I pulled my hand away from the doorknob like I’d been burned, and backed up a step. But as the door started to inch open, I froze.

  Relief flooded me when I saw the face peeking in through the crack. Raiden.

  His jaw was tensed, his brows drawn together, and his eyes were opened wide, alert. The left side of his face was spattered with blood, and he was holding a black handgun positioned down by his thigh. He lifted his free hand, holding a finger up to his lips telling me to be quiet, then raised his eyebrows. He was asking if I understood.

  I swallowed roughly and nodded.

  Raiden opened the door just enough that he could slip into the room, then eased it shut. “You need to hide,” he said, his voice the faintest whisper as Tila widened her orbit to include us both.

  I understood his words, but I could no longer get my feet to move. Terror had fused them to the floor.

  “Now, Cora,” Raiden hissed, curling the fingers of one hand around my arm, just above my elbow, his palm flush against my bare skin.

  Raiden’s hand. On my arm. He was touching me. His skin on mine.

  My eyes bulged, my stare locking on his hand. But before I could pull free, he tightened his hold. I couldn’t get away.

  And yet, there was no pain. No terrifying hallucinations. No vertigo, no pounding headache, and no hint of the darkness creeping in on the edges of consciousness. Just Raiden, staring down at me, his features taut with worry.

  The spike of panic slowly decreased, and I fell still under Raiden’s touch. My chest heaved with each too-quick breath, but I could feel my heart rate already slowing as the receded, coherent thought returned. Raiden was here, but his mom wasn’t.

  “What about Emi?” I asked, voice hushed.

  “Who do you think sent me up here?” Raiden whispered and gave another tug on my arm, pulling my thoughts back to the very real and present danger.

  I let him lead me across the room toward the bed. With his help, I eased down to the floor on my belly and, feet first, slid underneath the bed’s wooden frame. At the last second, I reached for my mom’s journal and dragged it under the bed with me.

  Raiden held a hand down in the gap between the floor and the bedframe, fingers splayed wide as if to say, “Stay here.”

  Fine with me. In the virtual world, I might have been all about the fight, but here in the real world, I was a run-and-hide kind of girl.

  From the middle of the floor, Tila watched me curiously, head cocking to the side. She took a step toward me, then paused, looking from me to Raiden as he silently crossed the room, heading for the closed door.

  If she followed him, I had no doubt that she would resume the growling and door-scratching routine. Whoever was still in the house was sure to hear that and head straight for us.

  I snapped my fingers twice, signaling for her to come to me.

  She didn’t budge.

  I snapped again, hissing, “Come here, Tila, now,” as firmly as I could without raising my voice above a whisper.

  She stared at the door for a moment longer, chuffed, and then padded toward the bed.

  “Come on,” I whispered.

  She chuffed one more time, then dropped to her belly and crawled under the bedframe, coming to rest beside me. Her presence had always had a calming effect on me, and even now, scared as I was, I felt a little better having her next to me.

  I shifted the journal out from under my arm and eased it shut, carefully wrapping the leather cord around its cover to hold it closed, then laid my head down, resting my cheek on the worn leather. Strangely, it made me feel closer to my mom, almost like she was there with me, at least in spirit. She would’ve been a stand-and-fight kind of girl. Not a doubt in my mind.

  Despite everything I’d learned about her in the past few hours, thinking of her courage brought a tiny smile to my lips.

  From my limited vantage point, I watched Raiden’s bare feet as he closed in on the bedroom door. For such a large man, his ability to move in near silence over the house’s creaky old floors was incredibly impressive.

  The door was shut, and Raiden flattened himself back-first against the wall beside the door frame like he expected bad guys to burst through the door at any moment. He became absolutely, completely still.

  My already racing heart gave a frightened skip, and my body started to shake as a second wave of adrenaline flooded my system. Sweat gathered on the back of my neck and under my arms. I pressed my palms against the floorboards, and closed my eyes, focusing on taking deep, even breaths.

  Sensing my mounting panic, Tila nestled closer. She tucked her face in the crook of my neck, her breaths tickling the hairs that had escaped from my loose, messy bun.

  At the sounds of a scuffle coming from some other part of the house, I sucked in a breath.

  There was
only one other person in the house, only one other resident of the estate to fend off intruders—Emi.

  My fingernails dug into the teak floor as my fingers formed claws. Emi sparred regularly with my mom, and they were both highly skilled fighters. I had always thought it was a leftover of their military days, but now I knew better. They’d never been in the military. At least, not in any traditional military.

  Emi had been teaching me a discipline she called “pankration” since I was eight or nine, but my mastery of the grapple-heavy form of martial arts was hindered by my inability to touch anyone. I dabbled in knife throwing and sparring with a wooden staff, but mostly Emi and I just did Tai Chi together. It kept me in decent shape, and helped me concentrate and center myself, but that was about it. I knew she could take care of herself—between Emi and my mom, Emi was the better fighter—but she was quite petite, and she was no spring chicken. If the intruder was young, skilled, and even average in size, then she might not have the upper hand.

  Raiden’s thoughts must have gone to the same place as mine, because he reached for the doorknob, like he was intending to go help his mom. As he twisted the knob, the sounds of the scuffle died out, and he froze.

  My whole body tensed. Vivid images of Emi lying on the floor, body bloody and broken, flashed through my mind. I would never forgive myself if my last words to her had been spoken in anger. I feared the worst, and my gut twisted into knots, making me feel nauseated.

  Footsteps. I could hear them, faint but audible, like someone was trying to move as quietly as Raiden, but not quite managing. They were on this floor, slowly moving down the hallway in the direction of my bedroom. And from the sound of the footsteps, there was more than one person.

  Beside me, Tila tensed up, her stocky body becoming a hard bundle of coiled muscle and barely restrained power.

  Ever so slowly, Raiden pulled his hand back from the doorknob.

  The footsteps paused, and I heard the distinctive creak of the door to the empty bedroom beside mine being pushed open. The room was used for storage and entered so rarely that nobody ever bothered to oil the hinges.