“Have ya nae found those boxes yet, Graeme? Hurry up now, you’re dawdling!” She nodded at the back of the shop. “Young people these days, no idea how to work! And now, his school friend’s arrived to chat. I dunno how I put up with it. If it weren’t for the fact that my grandchildren are staying with me for the summer and they seem to love him, I’da sent him packing ages ago.”
They loaded the car and were just starting to pull off when Gaiah thought of her father and checked her phone. There were two missed calls. Trying to return the call, a voice told her she had insufficient credit. “Oh, would you mind just hanging on a sec while I run back and see if I can buy credit here?”
“No problem.” Alasdair stopped the car again.
She ran back and stopped in her tracks just inside the door. There was no sign of the woman. But there were two guys who seemed to fill the space. She stared at the one behind the counter, who was facing her.
He was gorgeous. Really gorgeous, well up there. He was tall, with the darkest brown eyes she had ever seen, and those, put together with floppy black hair, made an unbeatable combination in Gaiah’s book. But at this moment he was looking up angrily at the much bigger bloke looming across the counter at him. Tension filled the small shop. Gaiah could only see the back of this figure, a ponytail of thick, dark brown hair and broad shoulders.
Everything seemed to recede into the background as this form lent forward and said, “I told you I’d had enough! This isn't the place for you. I'm serious, Graeme. You should go back to where you came from!”
Having so recently been a victim of bullying herself, Gaiah’s blood boiled. All that had happened in the last few days had given her a new view of herself, and a fast-growing confidence that she could never have imagined. She was not going to stand back and watch this intimidation. Stepping closer, she hit the guy hard in the back with her mobile.
“You big jerk! Leave him alone!”
He whirled around, already crouching into a fighting stance. His broad, tanned face was tight with anger and his green, green eyes were bright with rage.
“Who the hell are you?” He stopped and his expression changed. He straightened and gazed at her. She knew him. The guy from the shop in Inverness. Was it? She wasn’t sure. He seemed familiar, he towered over her as she looked up at him. His almond-shaped eyes, narrowed in fury, seemed fathoms deep. The smiling face of the shop guy came in between them.
“Hi, I’m Graeme, don’t pay any attention to Neal, my overly-dramatic friend here,” his smile revealed deep dimples at the sides of his full mouth. Then he put his arm around her shoulder and led her around Neal to the counter. His eyes lingered appreciatively on her. “What can I do for you? Oh wondrous stranger, what is your name, where do you live and are you staying long?” His grin was so open and infectious that Gaiah couldn't help smiling back and there was nothing offensive in his bantering tone.
“Gaiah. I’m starting school here on Monday. Twenty pounds of credit.” Oh God! She was mortified to hear such a stupid sentence coming out of her mouth. Colour flooded her face. Where was the sassy big city chick, the urban cool?
This was pure country bumpkin stuff!
He was looking at her and laughing. She noticed his Johnny Depp cheekbones and as if this wasn’t enough his eye lashes were so long they nearly brushed his cheeks when he blinked. Her search for composure was halted by Neal.
“Hey! I meant what I said Graeme.” Neal took a step closer to Gaiah and a frisson of fear ran through her. He looked at her and held her gaze. She was being pulled into a whirlpool.
“Oh fuck off, Neal.” Graeme’s voice broke the spell and Neal just turned and left without a word. Graeme grinned, “Take no notice of Neal–I don’t. Right, let’s get you sorted with your credit.”
Gaiah wondered how a situation which had sounded so serious and tense was dismissed so easily. Graeme keyed in the transaction and said, “Well there’s no question about when we three shall meet again.”
“Huh?” Gaiah could come up with nothing better.
Graeme laughed, “Monday. We’ll see you in school.”
“Him too?” Surprise gave Gaiah voice and she nodded her head towards the door.
“Yup, ‘fraid so. He’s repeating yet another year. Never mind him, I’m suddenly looking forward to Monday!” He leant across the counter, those amazing eyes were serious, belying his flippant tone.
Gaiah coloured; she still couldn’t think of a witty or clever comeback. She just nodded, muttered, “Thanks,” and almost ran out of the shop.
Alasdair and Kaley smiled at her as she rushed into the car and continued their discussion about dinner. She used the pretext of messaging her father to calm down. Aaaargh, I hope he didn’t think I meant ‘thanks’ for saying he was looking forward to Monday. How weird. I've been told that the world is nothing like I always thought it was, that I’m a half-breed offspring from another dimension and I'm dealing with it, kind of. But those two guys really rattled me. She closed her eyes, leant her head against the cold window and tried to will her brain into neutral.
Chapter Six
When she next looked out of the window, her heart jumped. Although it was getting dark, she could see a familiar laneway. It had the same hedges, the same rose bushes and there, in the clearing, was the one-storey house with the wooden porch she remembered so well.
“How the hell can this be here? We drove every inch of this place, I know we did.”
Kaley looked at her, eyes soft with sympathy. “I know, my dear, I know. It’s just that this house was, and is, a construct from Gaiana. I’m sure you learned in physics class that the world is constructed from atoms. Everything, and I mean everything, people included, are atoms held together by various forces. And inside each atom, its nucleus is rattling around in its own space like a ping pong ball perpetually bouncing around a football stadium.”
Gaiah did indeed remember. For a long time after that particular science class she had been convinced if she put her ear down on the table and had complete silence, she would hear the nuclei moving.
Kaley continued, “On Earth now, they are discovering things get even smaller, now they have quantum physics which make atoms look like sardines in a tin. But the energy holding things together is still the same. And, as Alasdair said, Gaianans are beings of energy. We can affect the forces holding matter together, we store energy and use it as we need.”
They’d parked beneath the huge lilac tree Gaiah remembered so well. Kaley got out of the car, gesturing at the scene that was Gaiah's memory come to life. “Our house here was held together by Gaianan energy and when we returned to Gaiana we simply released the energy holding the atoms and–poof–they all slowly dispersed; tiny, tiny, invisible atoms going to a billion different places. Now we need a house again, so we reassemble atoms and supply energy and here we are. It’s not identical but it’s basically the same.”
Different atoms or not, it still felt like home to Gaiah. Alasdair opened the front door and stood back to let Gaiah in. The same yellow, cream and ochre colours surrounded her. She almost ran around the house, finding the same carved armchairs and sofas with their richly-coloured upholstery and cushions in the pleasing arrangement of rooms. Yes, these were the heavy, ivory brocade curtains she remembered. They were pulled across the windows in every room, shutting out the dark highland night and making a bright, cosy haven of the cottage.
The kitchen hummed and purred as the bright red Rayburn whooshed into life. Kaley turned on the dishwasher and a new addition, an American retro fridge, crackled on with its ice making.
“All on Gaianan energy?” queried Gaiah.
“Oh no, dear–special delivery from Harrods! I do believe in spending as much as I can when I shift Earthways. It helps the economy.”
“But surely not if it’s…if the money is…y’know, fabricated somewhere?” Gaiah was studying economics for her A levels and was quite sure first principles stated money had to be backed up with real cash value, and not
spun into existence out of the blue.
Kaley looked shocked. “Powers no! We’d never do that. We have several small but extremely lucrative businesses here on Earth staffed by Gaianans on Earthways sojourn. We make more than enough to spend what we like while we are here. In Scotland we have a luxury cashmere shop. It’s mostly mail order but with some retail. Perhaps we’ll get you a weekend job there? You will have to be seen out and about, you know. Some things have to be open and above board. I’m sorry about the short notice for school, but we really needed to get you up here now.”
Oh God! School! She knew she had to go but hadn't wanted to think about it. “Do they know I was thrown out of my last school?”
“Of course! The whole file was faxed to the head, Mrs. Patterson, but I encognated her after she read it, so now she thinks it was wonderful and she’s looking forward to greeting a high-achieving, well-liked student, coming to finish her A levels in her school–a most welcome addition.”
“You...what-ed her?” Gaiah was almost speechless at the implications of this sentence.
“Encognate. It's an ancient word that means ‘influence thinking’. Gaiah, you know you have that ability too. In fact, that’s why we had to get you here so suddenly, you were encognating so wildly and strongly, we felt it. It was only a matter of time before others noticed. Our brain patterns are more energy-than electricity-based and therefore are capable of influencing the human thought pattern.”
Of course, Gaiah knew exactly what Kaley meant, if not the whys and hows. But to hear it spoken about so casually, astonished her.
“But don’t you need eye contact? That’s the only way I could do it. Are you doing it to me now? Is that why I’m not freaking out?”
“No eye contact needed. That’s just the way you developed it on your own, which is extraordinary anyway. And no, we can’t encognate each other or, unfortunately, the Or’kans. And in your case, you can’t encognate your father because he’s family. But I was able to, when I spoke to him on the phone. I told him it was okay to send you here, and he should keep working. I can’t help him create, and he lost his extraordinary ability when he lost Nia, but he’s still a very talented artist.”
“And the policewoman?”
“Yes. She took some time to encognate. Doing it down the phone takes a lot more energy. Your father was easy enough because I know him so well. But Bryant is a zealous and thorough woman. I had to do quite a bit of work there.” Kaley smiled at the memory but a shadow crossed her face. “I do feel bad for asking her to bring you up here, poor woman.”
Gaiah nodded. ”She was really nice, I hope she’s okay.” She looked at Kaley. She could hardly believe she was having a conversation about ‘suggesting at’ people. This was brilliant. “So I suppose you encognated the idea of an open day too, as a focus for getting me up here”?
“Oh no. That was all Patterson’s doing. She’s very keen on the idea of student participation. She runs that at the start of every year.”
“You know, any time I tried suggesting...well, encognating, it just seemed to make trouble when I was younger, and when I was older, I felt as if I was cheating or something. It never made me feel good.”
Alasdair had started to make dinner while they talked. “We’ll show you how to guard your thoughts," he said, “so you’re not encognating random ideas at passing strangers. It’s not difficult, just a sequence of thoughts to go through before you encognate someone. Very quickly your brain gets used to this and won’t encognate unless this pattern is completed first.” He was beating eggs when suddenly he stopped; there was a noise outside the window. Kaley and Alasdair jumped.
“Surely not,” Kaley whispered.
“Stay here.” Alasdair ran to the door.
It could be a dog, a cat, or even a fox or deer up here, but surely nothing threatening enough to warrant those expressions?
Gaiah watched her grandmother’s anxious face.“I’ll just go and help.” Gaiah started for the door.
“No! No,” Kaley’s voice rasped in an urgent whisper. “Just wait.” Alasdair had gone out the front door and around the side to the kitchen.
Gaiah ran to the window and pulled the curtains open. Warm kitchen light flooded out into the courtyard and illuminated Alasdair, who was looking over the low wall into the garden. A figure darted through the dark towards him.
“Grandpa!” She banged on the window. “Look out!”
Alasdair turned as the shape lunged and tackled Alasdair to the ground. They grappled and rolled across the cobbled courtyard to just under the window. Her grandfather’s fists smashed into the attacker's face with such force she actually saw teeth flying and the man choke on blood from his battered nose. It didn't stop the attacker. He lurched to his feet. Alasdair picked himself up from the ground, as he straightened the assailant kicked him violently in the stomach.
Alasdair doubled over, the man’s fist caught him under the chin, rocking him upwards and backwards so that he crashed, poleaxed to the ground.
“Grandma! Do something!” shrieked Gaiah. But her grandmother wasn't in the kitchen; she was standing in the courtyard pointing a gun. Even in her panic, Gaiah registered another level of shock, at her grandmother, holding a gun with such ease. Its dull metal looked menacing in her hand. The tall, thickset intruder took a step forward.
“You misbegotten waste of energy,” cursed Kaley. Swiftly bringing the weapon up with both hands, she fired at his stomach. The gun jumped upwards with a sharp crack, the man staggered but didn't fall. “Take that unfortunate human somewhere else to die and when you are returned to Or’ka, tell your masters we have Gaiah and she’s safe. None of your tricks worked to stop her getting to us.”
The man smiled hideously through his broken mouth, the blood glistening darkly down his face, “I've no master. I’m one of the Five and we’re nearly there, we nearly have it perfected. No melding’s spawn will stop us.”
“If you thought that was true, you wouldn't be here tonight trying to kill Gaiah.” Kaley spat out the retort and turned her attention to Alasdair, who was stirring on the ground. The intruder's clothes were dripping blood, soaking down his trousers and trailing on the ground as he shuffled from sight.
Gaiah’s legs wouldn't support her; she collapsed trembling into the wooden armchair. She wanted to throw up, and much as she was scared and worried about her grandfather, she just couldn't get her legs to move. “For Christ’s sake!” I can't believe this. I'm sitting in a picture-book house, the sight and smell of a delicious meal all around me and my grandmother has just shot someone outside the kitchen window! When the hell did I go through the looking glass?
She sat in the chair fighting off nausea. She was vaguely aware of Kaley helping Alasdair past the kitchen and into the bathroom. Okay Gaiah, get a grip, either all this is real or you’re mad, locked up somewhere dribbling and hallucinating. If it’s real, well, Alasdair and Kaley aren’t bad people, they’d never do anything wrong–although shooting someone does rather seem to fall into that category.
Her black humour seemed to give her strength and she got to her feet just as Alasdair appeared at the kitchen door. He looked pale and worried, but apart from the blood on his sweater he seemed unhurt. Gaiah couldn't believe her eyes.
“Have you got super healing powers?”
He smiled. “No, not really. If I had such a violent accident on Gaiana, I probably would have to spend time in a curing centre, but our Earth forms do respond quickly to Gaianan energy focused on healing.”
“So, why didn't Mr. Attacker guy do the same?”
“Because he wasn't in his Earthways form, he was inhabiting a human.”
Gaiah flopped back down into the chair. It looked as if a whole new level of weird was about to be added to what she had already discovered.
Alasdair made three mugs of hot chocolate and generously added some Glenmorangie whisky to two of them. The sounds of scrubbing and hosing carried in from outside. Gaiah thought of what her grandmother was doing
.
“Oh, God. How gross.”
“Here, drink this,” said Alasdair.
She gulped, and the hot, sweet chocolate warmed its way inside her, heating and soothing. They sipped in silence; there were no coherent thoughts in her mind at this moment. She looked up as Kaley came in, her hair escaping from its plait and her face flushed, her cotton trousers and white jumper stained and splattered with...
Stop! Gaiah didn't even want to think about it, so she wrapped her hands tightly around the 'I love Inverness' mug, and drained the cooling chocolate.
“Is there any normal way of explaining any of this?” she asked hopefully.
Alasdair smiled ruefully. “No, and we’re not even going to try!”
Gaiah looked at them in amazement. “What?! That’s a biiiith…I mean...a bitch...a...a bit...oh…whaat?” And her voice slurred into silence. Alasdair and Kaley were moving to catch her when her legs became useless and she collapsed into their arms. They carried her into her room, which had been considerately reconstructed at almost twice the size as the last time she lived there. She hazily felt them lay her on a bed, carefully remove her boots and socks and pull the thick, squishy quilt well up over her shoulders.
“Let’s leave the light on and the door open, just in case she wakes in a panic,” Kaley's whispered voice carried.
Alasdair's voice came faint and wavery. “There’s no way that’s going to happen, after the dose I gave her, she’s out for twelve hours exactly–she won’t stir ‘til nine tomorrow.”
“She looks so like Nia. It's difficult, isn't it?” Kaley spoke gently.
“Yes, but it's also wonderful.”
“Poor girl! That was an awful experience for her. I was hoping she’d have more time to assimilate things before being faced with the horror of the Or’kans.” The words reached Gaiah's ears but she couldn't get them to make sense. Alasdair sighed. “Yes, we have to tell her everything tomorrow. However, I think we can all sleep safely now, if that was indeed one of the Five we sent back. No-one else will be shifting Earthways from Or’ka now.”
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