Gifted (Awakening Book 2)

by Jacqueline Brown

  A gull cried in the distance. I inhaled the frigid salt air. The wind whirled around me, tousling my hair. I longed to be part of the wind. To float through the trees, unafraid.

  My feet began to move. I was going uphill. Before I realized it I had abandoned the scarred remains of the inn. I was beyond it, among the trees, climbing up. The sun was beginning to fade, the day nearing its end. The earth below me was darkening, the mountain blocking the rays of the setting sun. I raised my head. Above me the sun glowed brightly on the slope, lighting my path, beckoning me to continue climbing up the slope that I hadn’t climbed in eight years. The same slope Thomas had climbed in minutes. It would take me longer, but it was not taking me as long as when I was young … when my mother was beside me, guiding me.

  Now I was alone with the wind. The wind was pushing me forward—begging me to become part of it. To be part of everything and nothing at the same time.

  When I reached the sunlit area, the rays instantly warmed me as my feet crunched against the thin ice formed around rocks and tree roots. The wind wasn’t cold—it wasn’t my enemy. It was lifting me higher and higher, freeing me from the guilt of Thomas’s death and the pain of my mother’s. She and I had shared this place, the same place that had set him free.

  The breeze died, its enchantment fading as I neared the top. One of my ankles twisted on a root and my knees slammed hard against the rocky slope. The pain grounded me, reminding me that I was bound to this earth by my body. I pushed myself up and brushed the icy pebbles from the palms of my hands and the knees of my pants. My knees ached; I could feel the bruises already forming. The pain made me happy. It was a strange feeling, one I didn’t understand, yet there was gratitude in it. My gratitude was for the cold, the sun, the wind, and the pain.

  The discomfort didn’t stop me, though I felt every step more intensely. I reached the top of the slope; my cliff overlooking the ocean lay in front of me. The sun enfolded me like the shadows had when I stood inside the inn. The earth here was not scarred—the past didn’t bind it.

  I went to the edge, the part of the cliff where my mother and I used to eat our snacks. I stared down at the rounded boulder. I envisioned us there: her auburn hair pushed behind her ears, the wind playing with it and with mine. I crouched down, reaching my hand for it. A feeling of warmth and love spread over me. It was as if my mother was there, her arms embracing me. I lay down, wanting to feel her, my cheek pressed against the tiny pebbles that rested on the boulder—a boulder that must have extended deep inside the mountain.

  Above me a bird soared. I raised my head and watched. Its white head and tail reflected brightly in the late afternoon sun.

  “An eagle,” I said to myself.

  There were eagles all up and down this coast. People saw them all the time, but we didn’t. Never on our property. It was always a mystery to us. Why, when we had so much land and eagles were so prevalent, did we not have at least one nesting pair?

  The bird circled gracefully. It cried out. As I turned to look behind me, another eagle soared closer. The first moved to be nearer to its mate. They were united, emotionally connected—that could be sensed even from where I sat.

  “Siena.”

  I jerked up my head, turning to see behind me.

  “Luca?” I said, surprised he was coming toward me. My face felt damp. I wiped at my eyes. Had I been crying?

  As he moved toward me, I called over the wind: “What are you doing here?”

  “Taking a … stroll,” he answered, out of breath.

  “Up a mountain?”

  “Can I … sit down?” he asked before collapsing beside me.

  “Are you okay?” I asked with concern.

  “I’ll be … fine.” He lay beside me, his chest rising and falling quickly. “I ran. … That’s all.”

  “Ran from where?”

  He held up a finger, asking me to wait. His thick curly hair, covered in a sock hat, lay against the damp boulder. I shifted my gaze toward the heavens, where the eagles had been. They were gone, probably to the other side of the mountain. I wondered how long that side would remain free and wild.

  After his breathing slowed to a more typical rate, I asked, “Why are you here?”

  “I was taking a walk,” he said, still breathing heavily. “And I thought I’d come up here. The climb was more than I expected.”

  I watched him quizzically. “You were taking a walk after working all day, even though it was going to be dark soon and getting colder—which you hate?”

  “I wasn’t that tired after work,” he said, pushing himself to a sitting position.

  “So you were taking a walk, and you decided to sprint up a mountain.”

  “I decided to climb a mountain.”

  “I climbed the mountain and reached the top still breathing,” I said.

  “You’re in better shape than me,” he answered quickly.

  “Do you often go for walks after work?” I asked. The shadow of the mountain appeared far behind us.

  He hesitated. “Not often.”

  “Ever?”

  “There’s a first time for everything.”

  “Uh-huh. Did my dad tell you to come look for me?”

  “Your dad? I haven’t spoken with him. I told you, I left work and thought a walk would be nice.”

  I studied him. No one knew where I’d gone. I doubted if anyone besides my dad even realized I was gone. I was sure he’d watched me enter the trail, so if I wasn’t at the jobsite or the pond, it was a relatively easy guess I’d be at the beach. But if Luca hadn’t spoken with him ….

  “How did you know I was up here? That’s why you’re here, right? You were looking for me, but if you haven’t talked to my dad, then who told you I wasn’t at home?”

  “That’s a funny story,” he said, after I refused to look away from him.

  “Funny ha-ha or funny strange, as in demons are hunting your family?”

  He shuddered. “Somewhere in between. Somehow,” he said, raising a hand, “I have no idea how, but somehow I can sense where you are.”

  I tilted my head, my eyebrows pulling together.

  “It started after … after Thomas died. I don’t try to do it or anything,” he said, defending his actions against my imaginary attack. “Your presence is sort of … there.” He raised his left hand and circled it above him. “It’s like … maybe like a magnet or something. When I get closer to you, the sense of you gets stronger, and when I move away from you, it gets fainter.”

  He waited for me to react. When I didn’t, he continued. “So when I got off work, I started for your house, but you got fainter. I debated what to do. Since it was going to be dark soon, I figured I could go for a walk and sort of accidentally run into you. I followed your presence to the beach and then—” His voice caught.

  I sensed the fear. He’d been scared.

  “I could sense you were up here, but I couldn’t see you. I, ah ….” He lowered his eyes.

  I said, “You thought I’d jumped.”

  He pinched at his eyes.

  I reached my hand for his. “I’m sorry I scared you,” I said softly.

  He nodded, trying to push the fear away. “I didn’t think you did, but I couldn’t understand where you were. And this place—”

  “Is where I used to come with my mother,” I said, taking his hand in both of mine. “She and I used to climb up here together. Ever since she died, I’ve been afraid to make the climb. But today it was like I had no choice. I had to be near her. I’m sorry I scared you.”

  He inhaled and exhaled, turning away from me to hide the emotion that was overwhelming him. “I thought—” He broke off.

  “It wasn’t about that,” I said. “It was about my mom. I needed her.”

  He nodded and pushed his lips together in a slight upward movement of exhausted relief.

  I touched the side of his face. “I don’t want my life to end before it’s really begun.”

  He leaned into my touch. “This
place is just …. I’m sorry I followed you here. This place is special to you. I had no right to intrude.” His eyes studied mine.

  “It’s okay,” I said. The tips of my fingers grazed the thin layer of dark stubble on the side of his face. The heat from his skin warmed my hand. I reluctantly pulled my fingers away, aware that I’d left them there too long already.

  I said, “I’m sure if I could somehow sense you, and knew you were on a cliff but I couldn’t see you, I would probably freak out too. Though, of course, I’m completely ordinary and would never actually have any sort of gift like that to begin with.”

  “That’s not a bad thing, Siena,” Luca said, sensing my annoyance at being ordinary.

  “It sort of feels like it, with you and Sam around. It’s like you two have superpowers the rest of us don’t.”

  “I’m grateful for who I am,” he said, “for who God made me to be, and I trust in his wisdom. But before, when I had no sense of God and no understanding of his plan for me, these abilities seemed far more like curses than gifts.”

  “That’s hard for me to believe,” I said.

  “It’s the truth, and if you ask Aunt Sam, she’ll tell you the same. Being different isn’t easy.” He zipped his coat in an attempt to keep out the wind.

  “Can she feel anyone?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure. I haven’t told her about my newest … gift.”

  “It is a gift. Don’t say it like it’s not,” I said, watching him with tender eyes. “Who else can you sense?”

  He sat taller, his body becoming tense. He cleared his throat, looked away, and then back to me like he was stalling. He cleared his throat again.

  “What is it?” I asked, half amused by how nervous he was acting. “Who else can you sense?”

  He looked deep into my eyes. “Just you,” he said softly. “I can sense only you.”

  Twelve

  My face flushed hot despite the dropping temperature.

  “Only me,” I said. “Why?”

  Luca shook his head. “I don’t … I don’t understand any of it.”

  I kept still.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t try to sense where you are. Most of the time I sort of push it away and pretend I can’t feel it, I mean you … I mean it,” he said, embarrassed. “Normally I ignore where you are, but it’s going to be dark soon and the temperature will keep dropping. … I couldn’t go back to the house when I knew you were out here. I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  “I’m not,” I said, into the wind. “You and I … it makes sense in some weird way.”

  His shoulders relaxed, the sides of our bodies touching.

  “Yeah,” he said, staring at the world beyond the cliff. “In some weird way it does make sense.”

  We sat in silence; his breathing slowed to match mine.

  I sat straighter. “We should go before it gets too cold,” I said, pushing myself up off the rock.

  He got up. Each of us stared at the spot where Thomas last stood. Neither spoke as the wind enveloped us. Luca shivered, reminding us that night was falling and, with it, below-freezing temperatures.

  We began silently retracing our steps from earlier. Every step took us closer to the darkness. When we entered the woods, the sun’s bright rays were gone. The vibrant colors of a few seconds before were replaced by the faded blues and grays of twilight.

  The wind pushed strong between us, the cold making my eyes water. I ducked down into the trees, the wind calming as I did so. Luca followed, his hand briefly touching mine as we used the same tree to help maneuver down the side of the cliff.

  I paused, wondering how much of myself to share with this boy who already knew more than anyone else. “Was … was anyone else up there?” I asked.

  He looked at me quizzically.

  “I felt such a draw to be there, to be by my mom. Was she …. I mean, was there, maybe, a presence of someone else around us?” I was both hopeful and embarrassed for asking such a question.

  “No, we were alone, as far as I could tell,” he said slowly.

  “Can you always tell?”

  After a moment of reflection, he said, “I sense what God allows me to. There could be more there. I’d never know.”

  I was silent for a few steps, thinking over his words.

  “It was stupid of me to ask,” I said, embarrassed that I’d revealed such a childish hope to Luca.

  “It isn’t stupid to want to know about someone you love. Lots of people do that.” He’d said the last few words under his breath, making it difficult to hear.

  “What?” I asked.

  He raised his voice. “Nothing. A conversation for another time.”

  “Another time, like the next time you magically sense my presence from miles away, go out into the night, and climb a frozen mountainside to find me?”

  He chuckled. “I didn’t go out into the night. I simply took a detour on my way back to your house.”

  “A detour that extended your time in the cold, which you hate,” I countered.

  “I’m starting to get more used to it, but back to your original question,”—his voice changed a little—“I was hoping another time might be tomorrow night.”

  “Fine with me. You know where to find me.” I giggled at my joke.

  “That’s true, I guess I do.” He laughed, probably more at the corniness of the joke than the actual joke. “I was sort of hoping we could plan where you would be, and that it would be having dinner with me at a restaurant,” he added hurriedly.

  “A restaurant? Just you and me, or everyone?”

  “I was hoping not everyone. I mean just you and me, if that’s okay.”

  My heart beat faster as a sweet smile formed on his perfect lips.

  “That would be …very nice,” I said calmly while my emotions were twirling.

  Luca’s expression matched my own; his whole being radiated joy.

  “Good,” he said simply as we continued down the slope, carefully making our way in the dim blue light that remained of the day.

  “And don’t worry,” he said, “we won’t go anywhere in town. We can go a bit south of here to avoid meeting anyone who might recognize you.”

  His thoughtful words reminded me of what I’d momentarily forgotten.

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” I mumbled, shoulders falling as the weight of life returned.

  “It’ll be fine. There’s a restaurant the guys I work with told me about. They said it’s a good ways from here and locals don’t tend to go there.”

  “What’s its name?”

  “The BayTree.”

  I’d been there once when I was a kid. In general, he was right; not many people from our town drove that far for a meal, especially not in the winter when the roads could be unpredictable. That reality brought me some peace. It didn’t feel right to go out with Luca, but it didn’t feel right to keep hiding from life, either. My mom didn’t want me to do that. Perhaps that was why I climbed the cliff. Perhaps she was telling me to return to her, to return to life.

  “What time should I be ready?” I asked with determination.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  “I get off work at four.”

  “I’ll be ready a little after four,” I answered. I was excited, but mostly nervous. Not because I’d be alone with Luca, but because I’d be away from my sanctuary.

  The moon was rising, causing the water to sparkle like a million diamonds.

  “It’s breathtaking,” he said.

  Both of us stopped to watch the water twinkle in the still night air. The wind had faded, causing the night to feel warmer than the day.

  “Nature is so majestic,” he added as he inhaled the damp forest air.

  “Yes. And then there’s what people create,” I said as the ruins of the inn appeared beneath us.

  “A few people, not all,” he said.

  “Those few cause so much pain,” I said, the night suddenly feeling cold again.
>
  “It can’t hurt us anymore,” he said.

  He led the way down, not bothering to avoid the ruins. He stepped into the footprint of where the inn had stood.

  “Just memories,” he said, and offered me his hand to help step down from where the mountain had been carved away.

  I released his hand when we stood by the fireplace. The stones were ragged, hewn—like all the stones of our home—from the landscape around us. It’s the reason the cliff was so sheer near our house. Trees and moss covered the scars, but the memory of their loss remained.

  I took my hands from the pockets of my jacket; the rough stones were calling for me to touch them. I gently slid my fingertips against their ragged, frozen surfaces. I wanted to pull my hand away to warm them in my pocket, but for some reason I didn’t. Instead of retreating from the cold, I welcomed it, pressing my palm against the stones.

  “They feel so sad. Like the dampness isn’t caused by the weather but by their tears,” I said sorrowfully.

  Luca moved to my side. “They’re stones. They don’t have feelings.”

  I closed my eyes. “They do feel,” I said, the sadness increasing.

  “Maybe it’s your emotions you’re feeling,” Luca said, his body now close enough to touch mine.

  I shook my head. “It isn’t coming from me. It’s from outside of me. Touch them.”

  He did as I instructed, his fingers beside mine.

  “Do you feel the sorrow?” I asked, barely keeping myself from crying.

  “There’s a long-ago darkness,” he said, “but it’s only the hint of a memory. There’s no emotion.”

  He watched me focus on the cold stones. I pressed my palm against their damp surfaces. I inhaled the scent of the inn’s ashes. A moment flashed in my mind. A moment that was not mine. It was of a thin white arm, held high above the orange glow of a fire. Its flames felt hot against my frigid fingers. A silver knife glided across the pale arm, blood dripping from it. I pulled my hand away from the heat of the flames. The image was gone. In its place, the cold, empty stones.

  I knelt, shaking, in the ashes of the inn. My fingers timidly felt along the base of the fireplace, where I saw the blood drip from the arm. The stone in the center was missing. My finger traced the slight bit of nothingness. It had been removed. The stone that would have caught the blood had been chiseled out. I studied the stones. Removing this piece would not have been difficult. It wasn’t a large gap and many of the stones were loose. Though all the others remained in place.