by Ryan Schow
In my ear, she says, “What is this?”
“It’s a truce,” I say, stepping back, smiling.
“We saw you change though,” she says, “and then you disappeared.”
“I changed but then I fell apart. I came back as Abby Swann, the first semester version, not the slutty second semester version.”
“That was you?!” she says, shocked.
“For the first semester, yes. But the second semester of Abby was not me. When I came back that semester I was Raven.”
“Who was Abby?”
“A girl named Janice. She was a stand in, but not a very good me.”
“I’ll say!”
Now she steps back, still reeling. She remembers me using my mind to slam her down in her seat when she was with Brayden.
“Well isn’t this some Scooby Doo shit,” she says with genuine bemusement.
“I don’t recommend it,” I say.
“You have some sort of…something. Like, special powers or something.”
I bring a soft breeze through her hair, run a little wisp across her cheek. Then I smile not just with my mouth, but with my eyes.
“What the…?” she says, looking at her hair. “Is that you?”
I only smile wider.
She has no idea how to take me, which is fine so long as she’s not leaving.
“Why are you being nice to me?” she finally asks.
“Because I have this thing called ‘sight.’ It allows me to see in the future, if I want.”
“No way,” she says, her guard down.
“Yep.”
“So…what do you see for me?”
“You’re going to be a really good mother,” I say, causing her eyes to tear up. “You need to stop pushing Emery away, though. You love him, right?”
She nods her head, dabbing her eyes.
“And you love Constance?”
She tries to shake her head no, but it sort of comes out odd at first, then it becomes a yes because she knows I’m with Chloe, which is why I said that in the first place.
“So you need to get that apartment with them after school. And you need to tell your parents.”
“I don’t want them to split up.”
“They won’t. It will just be weird at holidays, and maybe three hundred other days of the year for a few years. The baby will change them, though.”
“Oh, that’s all?” she says, laughing, half crying. “A few years?”
“You need love in your life, Julie. You deserve it.”
“I don’t think I do,” she admits, looking away because these tears are getting away from her now and she’s worried about her makeup.
“You do,” I say. I lean forward, give her a kiss next to her mouth and say, “You live a very, very good life, Julie. It’s not only possible. I see it. You do it and you do it well, and all this shit around here, it’s such a non-issue it’s not even funny.”
With that, she shakes her head, unable to swallow, and then she says, “Thank you, Savannah. And I’m sorry for being…me, to you.”
“I just put my number in your phone, so call me if you need anything, okay? Anything at all.”
“You put your…what?”
“You have my number in your phone now,” I say. “Don’t be afraid to use it if you need a friend, or just someone to lean on.”
And with that we say a strange good-bye and I rejoin my friends feeling like I’ve come full circle here.
After the graduation ceremony is over, our entourage as well as Cicely, Tempest and Georgia’s families, head down the hill to Sacramento where we all sit down at a gigantic table in Buca di Beppo, an Italian-American restaurant big enough to handle our party. With August on my right and Chloe on my left and all my friends near, I have to say, this is just about perfect.
“So seriously, how come all your friends are like, ridiculously hot?” Chloe finally asks. I felt the question coming like two hours ago.
“That’s how they make them at Astor Academy,” I say with a smile. She laughs it off, accepts the answer the same way she accepts the few other answers she knows it’s best not knowing.
“Well, you seriously have the hottest friends ever,” she says.
Looking at her I say, “It’s true, right?”
Just then I’m given a slight nudge inside, one that makes me sit up straight.
“Can you two excuse me for a moment?” I say to August and Chloe, who are getting along famously, as they have from the very start.
I head outside the restaurant, look left and see the white Audi S5 Sportback with the license plate that says WTUNCRN. I laugh. White Unicorn.
Only in California…
I walk to the passenger side of the car, hear the locks disengage, then slide inside.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hey,” I say back. This is weird.
“It’s really strange seeing you in my car,” she admits to me. “I don’t have any other versions of me in my universe.”
“Yet instinctually you knew to steal an Audi? Something subtle no less?”
“Too much?” Amanda, my multiverse counterpart says.
“No, it’s just right,” I reply.
“So, are you ready?” Amanda asks.
“Not yet.”
“You don’t have to go, you know.”
“I know.”
“But you want to come try out my universe, right?” she asks.
I think about it, then say, “I kinda do, but I kind of want to wait for a bit. I mean, I just got everything squared away over here. And I’m head over heels right now.”
“My universe isn’t much different than yours,” she says. “It’s mostly like yours, but there are more…exceptions to the rule over there.”
“Such as?”
“What is paranormal to you is normal to us.”
“So you have magicians, sorcerers, vampires, shifters and mages? Things like that?”
“We do,” she says.
“How?”
“Holland helped advance you here,” she says. “But we have ten Hollands all advancing all kinds of different species where I’m from.”
“Sort of like multiculturalism,” I say, “but with creatures rather than races, religions and ideologies.”
“Something like that, whatever the hell that is.”
“It means Fae have an understanding and a tolerance for things like werewolves, goblins, sorcerers, that kind of thing.”
“Oh, hell no. We don’t have that at all. But we do have some measures of civility.”
As I’m looking at my multiverse self, I’m thinking about her life, what it must be like, how her world is similar to mine but so very different, and suddenly I’m not ready.
“How do I get in contact with you?” I ask.
She pulls my hand to her forehead, leans forward and projects something of herself into me. I understand. It’s like scenting. Once I have the essence of her, I can reach across universes to find her.
“Now you know,” she says. “Go enjoy your friends and your man. You’ve earned it.”
Smiling, I say, “I have.”
Leaning forward, she hugs me tight and says, “You did good, girl. You did really, really good.”
We say good-bye and she takes off as I’m walking back inside.
We wrap a wonderful evening, promise to stay in touch with each other, and then I say good-bye to my sisters, Sebastian and Netty.
On the drive home, I say, “I didn’t expect our lives to turn out like this,” to no one in general.
“Different is good,” Chloe says. She’s playing Miss Daisy right now; August is up front with me in the driver’s seat. He reaches out and takes my hand, looking at me with so much love in his heart, his soul is nothing but flat out gorgeous.
We take Chloe home because it’s late, kiss her good-bye, then head home ourselves. August is tired, so am I, but not so tired that we can’t partake in the pleasures of each other. I went so long without meaningful sex before him I’ve
felt it prudent to catch up.
He doesn’t mind.
When we’re sweating and spent and wrapped in this blissful, euphoric haze, August starts to doze off. I roll over, kiss him and tell him I’m going to jump in the shower. When I’m done, he’s asleep. With the towel wrapped around my waist, I walk to the large closet.
Moving my clothes aside, I stare at the spear I took from Mount Calvary. The one that pierced Jesus’s side.
They call it the Spear of Destiny, and according to legend, he—or in this case, she—who holds the spear holds the power to control the destiny of the world for either good or evil purposes. Or if D.C. comics is right, I will now have the power to reshape reality.
I reach out, touch the lance, run a finger down its bloody metal tip. Memories of that day still haunt and move me, for being with Christ when he died was beyond traumatizing. But the spear is now with the right person. Me.
How can I say that?
For starters, I have all the power I need. And now I have the actual blood of Christ in me. I didn’t need his blood from the spear, and it doesn’t feel like a talisman with mystical power. Thinking about it, maybe the power I now yield is not the power to destroy, but the power of patience, of forgiveness, or kindness and love. Perhaps the spear is just a spear.
Maybe I’m the true Spear of Destiny.
When I think of what I got in my time with Jesus, with God, I realize I should be the example of that which I wish to see more of, and what I want is more peace, more love, more moments like these.
Yes, the spear is with the right person.
Changing into a fresh pair of underwear and a tank top, I head to bed, crawling under the covers and snuggling up against my man. While I lay there, drifting off, I think about who I am, about what I am, and I know: I’m just me, and me is all I’ll ever need to be.
Me is perfect.
THE END BOOK IX
Afterword
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