by Amade, Melle
I don’t dare turn on my phone flashlight, but I don’t think I need to. There’s the Ravensgaard statue. I approach it cautiously. Its features imposing in the light, but now, in the darkened room, it looks almost alive. The mosaic is on the wall, but impossible to see in the shade of the statue. I press the button on my phone and activate the screen so it glows with a dim light. I shine it on the mosaic and step closer to peer at it as I pull the tile from my wall out of my pocket.
I hold it up against the first empty space, it doesn’t fit, but then, as I move the tile around in front of the mosaic, it becomes obvious. The tile is a perfect match in the upper right hand corner of the mosaic.
My lungs fill with air I didn’t know I needed. The previous owners of our house were shifters. I’m sure of it. And, if mom inherited the house, then… Are we shifters, too?
The question rattles around in my head as my eyes scan the prints next to the mosaic. There’s a papyrus with birds that fly over a man while animal headed humans anoint him. Another has the goddess Isis as a human with wings. She looks like an angel. These must be early representations of the first shifters.
Then there are paintings of Greek and Roman gods. Half-man, half-goat Satyrs dancing with naked nymphs, and the painting I saw on the internet of Zeus as a swan seducing a woman. Humans must’ve worshiped these beings that could turn into animals. Shifters must’ve had such great, great power during the times of superstition and fear.
My steps are soft in the majestic hall as I move forward with the shifters. I stop in front of a painting full of animals finally together in a peaceful group, in pairs, preparing to go on Noah’s Ark.
“You’re quite a brave girl.” I drop my phone facedown, startled by Aiden’s dad.
“I came to see Aiden.” I choke the words out.
A match flares in the darkness as he inhales deeply on his pipe. “That may be true,” he says, “but, it’s not the only reason you’re here.” He nods at the tile that is still clutched in my hand. “Where did you get it?” he asks.
My gaze moves from him to the tile to the wall as my brain spins. “The wall in my dining room,” I say.
“I didn’t think it was such a good idea when Aiden allowed you to come to the wake,” he nods. “But, I was hardly in a condition to do anything about it that night.”
“Mr. Van -”
“Lord.” He turns his golden gaze on me. There’s a depth of sadness that was impossible to see through his drunken stumbling at the wake. The smell of whiskey drifts through the air, but he holds himself steady. “I am Lord Van Arend, Edelman of the Kortsrijk, the High Seat of Topanga and the Western Region.”
“Lord Van Arend.” I nod my head once because I don’t know how to curtsey or do anything else appropriate right now. “Is - I - Aiden -”
“An incident was reported to me,” he says. “I know you were in the woods when they shifted. The question they are waiting to prove is; who did you see shift first? That cut throat Vasquez that Murtagh brought here to ‘clean things up’ or my son, who does everything he’s supposed to do, except follow his heart.”
“Does your position as the Edelman depend on my answer?” I ask. “Yours and Aiden’s?” His laughter is soft and catches me off guard.
“Maybe.” He waves his pipe towards my foot. “But, if I really thought my son was in danger, I would have you killed.”
I take a step backwards, my fingers gripping the tile. I know I’m no match for him, but I will fight if I have to.
“It’s okay.” He waves his pipe towards my foot. “You are in no danger from me tonight. I am not a senseless beast.”
“But, the tile?” I hold it up to him. “Doesn’t it prove I’m a shifter?”
“So, you live in a house that was owned by shifters at one point. It proves nothing,” he shrugs. “That tile only proves the past, like everything on these walls. I come down here in the evenings and walk through our history. I wonder what will be the next story on the wall.” He steps closer to me, but it’s mostly to peer at the painting behind me. Sweet tobacco and sour whiskey swarm me, but it’s not unpleasant.
“The Ravensgaard swearing fealty to the Van Arends and becoming a Ridder, a Knight. The Lord’s right hand man,” he nods. “Very popular mosaic. There are thousands of prints of this in circulation. You can turn on the light on your phone but no greater than you had before, the Ravensgaard are on watch, but they’ve gotten pretty lazy over the years. They know I don’t like them much. They give me the creeps. They won’t come in here to disturb me in the evenings. You were lucky enough to slip past them one time but you’ll never make it twice.”
“Is it all real?” I ask, waving my arms past the paintings of Zeus and Pan towards the sculpture of the Ravensgaard.
“Indeed,” he nods. “The glory days gone by. Now we hide behind money or in cottages. We live under the fierce rule of the Order who are plagued by fear and superstition. They are afraid of the extinction of shifters so they have made laws to rule us, probably in the same way that we made laws to rule humans,” he shrugs. “It’s a cycle. Now we suffer retribution for past mistakes and live in small narrow places controlled by small narrow laws that insist we kill each other at the slightest infraction.”
“But, you just threatened to kill me!” I exclaim.
He shrugs. “I am a shifter, my dear. I might not like everything about us, but I live in the shifter world. We leave ourselves open to domination by fear, but truthfully it’s only the fear in our heads that dominates us. We insist it’s valid to be afraid of humans, but it’s not their fault we are afraid of them. In truth, we’re just haunted by the massacre we attempted that didn’t work.” He stares at a dark, stormy painting of people drowning in the flood. I read the gold plate on the frame: The Deluge. It follows the painting of the animals in harmony headed to the Ark.
“The plan?” I ask
“The flood,” he says. “The attempted massacre of all mankind.”
I look at the painting and then I look back at him and I don’t get it. “Noah’s Ark?”
He nods dragging deeply on his pipe. “We were going to rid the planet of humans and just live in a shape shifter world. We convinced Noah he had to do this - it was God’s will. Only, Noah didn’t know it was the shifters playing God.”
He takes a step further and points his finger at a small painting after The Deluge. It’s two girls holding a dove and kissing it. I read the small brass plate on the frame “Return of the Dove to the Ark” by Sir John Millis.
“Were the doves killed for the humans kissing it?” I ask.
“That kiss is the true culprit,” he says. “It was when man stopped being our greatest enemy and when we began to hate each other. And, even though we’ve killed off all the ones who weren’t like us, the Passiefs, the need for an enemy still dwells within us. With a common enemy we bond together. Without a common enemy, we fight each other.”
“I don’t understand,” I say.
“When we entered the arc all the shifters knew we would kill Noah and his family when the storms abated. We knew there could be no trace of humans left in the world. That was the plan. However, in the course of the one year and ten days that we inhabited the Ark, certain shifters became friendly with the humans. In fact, they grew to love each other in a completely compassionate and friendly way. There was nothing wrong. No abominations were brought forth on the vessel. But, often the bond of friendship can be stronger than romantic love.”
Van Arend’s words drift off into the darkness as his gaze falls across the room. He’s staring at a painting of a blond, delicate woman standing next to the stately man with long hair. It must be Aiden’s mom – he looks just like her; Van Arend drags deeply on his pipe, the orange glow of the burning tobacco warms up his face and highlights the gloom in his eyes that has nothing to do with the darkness around us.
“What did the dove do?” I can’t have him slip away now. I need to know more.
“Dove?” He turns his att
ention back to me, but he’s lost his train of thought.
I raise my phone to the painting. “Noah’s daughters? The dove? What happened?” I ask.
“Ah,” he nods. “The Rift. The doves secretly swore to never let harm come to Noah’s family. They chose humans above their own kind. They were joined in this pact by other shifters and this group became known as Passiefs.”
“Passives?” I ask. He nods.
“It was believed they were slaves to humans and that ultimately humans would make them do their bidding. The rest of the shifters who insisted on death to humans became known as Plunderaars or Predators in English. We were proud of that title though the Passiefs thought we were little more than animals.”
“You’re a Plunderaar?” I ask.
“We all are,” he says. “Passiefs are extinct. Over a thousand years after this,” he waves his pipe at the painting of Noah’s daughters and the dove, “we finally killed them all.”
“Because they let the humans live?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says. “When the flood stopped and the waters receded, the Passiefs succeeded in saving Noah’s family. It kept humans on Earth and made a permanent rift between Plunderaars and Passiefs.”
Questions rattle my brain. What happened to the Passiefs? How did the Plunderaars eventually kill them out? There’s another two thousand years of shifter history on the walls of this room, but I can only see what’s directly in front of me.
I look at The Deluge and my biggest question slams to the foreground. “How is it even possible?” I ask.
“How is what possible?” Van Arend asks, reaching into his smoking jacket and pulling out a flask of whiskey. His thumb expertly pops the lid and he takes a swig. “That humans can love animals? Or, that animals can hate each other so much? Or, that Passiefs saved Noah’s family.”
“No,” I say. “How is it possible that shifters could create the flood?”
“Shifters did not create the floods.” Van Arend says rising up to his full height. I can see the shadow of the proud man he once was. “In my house we do not call it ‘the flood.’ We do not call it ‘the deluge.’ In my house we call it what it was: the Eagle’s storm.”
“Rain is the bird song,” I murmur. “You caused the rains that covered the earth with water?”
He tips the bottom of his flask up and drains his whiskey. “My ancestors did.” He laughs a hollow, sad laugh that means nothing in the empty hall full of bitter memories. “You’ve never heard of the Thunderbird? The great rain god worshipped on the north of this continent?”
“You can make rain?” I ask.
“My ancestors could,” he says, the sad creases on his face deepen.
“Why are you telling me all this?” I ask.
“Why not?” He looks at me and smiles in the orange glow of his pipe and suddenly he doesn’t look like the warm, friendly man just sharing a few stories. “Either you are one of us and it is fine to know, or you are not and it was my son’s fault. Then, I will kill you.”
“Enough, Dad." Aiden storms into the room.
“Perfect timing, Aiden.” Van Arend is unfazed by Aiden’s approach. “I was just thinking this young lady needs a safe escort home. Perhaps you can do the honors.”
“What are you doing here?” He turns on me.
“Don’t you think I deserve to know about these people trying to kill me?”
“These people are not trying to kill you,” Aiden says. “One crazy shifter is. And, no. No you don’t. You just need to leave.”
“My pleasure,” I say ignoring the tightening in my chest. Whatever his dad muttered earlier about Aiden ignoring his true feelings it certainly wasn’t about me. Aiden definitely doesn’t want me around.
“Go to bed, Dad,” Aiden says. “I’ll take care of her.” But, he makes it sound like taking out the trash.
“I found this tile in my house tonight.” I hold out the tile to him. He needs to know I wasn’t up here trying to hit on him. He takes the tile and frowns, rubbing his fingers along the broken edge. Then he hands it back.
“My family’s been in this town since it started, more or less,” he says. “It’s not surprising shifters lived in your house.”
“I think we inherited the house,” I say. “What if I’m a shifter?” But, Aiden isn’t listening. He walks through the gray light that seeps through the windows.
“Finding a tile in your house doesn’t mean you’re a shifter,” he says. “It means you found a tile in your house.”
He holds open a small door for me and steps aside. The passageway beyond is narrow and dimly lit with sparsely placed wall sconces.
“Is this the way to the dungeon?” I ask.
“No.” He shakes his head. “That’s through the secret door by the fireplace.”
“Seriously?” My eyes widen.
He chuckles softly and places a hand on the small of my back, pressing me into the passageway. “No. There’s no dungeon. This is the way to the garage.”
“Didn’t realize Baroque manors had garages,” I say.
“We’re not completely medieval anymore,” he says. “We converted the stable.”
“Of course you did.” It seems commonplace compared to the fact that they can turn into animals.
The silence grows and then we’re sitting in the tight confines of the cab of his truck. “Stay low until we clear the front gate,” he says. “The Ravensgaard shouldn’t be watching me too closely, tonight. But, Murtagh is up to something.”
All I want to do is touch him. I went to the manor to see the mosaic, to see if there was a deeper connection between me and this strange world I’ve discovered. But now, sitting next to Aiden, I know the ‘love sick girl’ isn’t just an act. I lean my forehead on the cold window and lose my gaze into the dark night. He’s Zan’s boyfriend. He is one hundred thousand percent off limits.
“What was the ceremony you did?” I drag myself away from my heart. “That turned you into a shifter?” If there’s a chance I’m a shifter, I need to know.
“It was nothing,” Aiden said.
“C’mon. Was there chanting, singing, dancing naked around a bonfire?” I try to make it funny, but my voice falls flat.
He glances at me sideways as he pulls his truck onto my road. “Something like that,” he mutters.
“It must be nice to just go through a ceremony and be able to transform into something else,” I say.
Silence fills the cab.
I stretch my fingers out, imagining them turning into eagle feathers. Flying high in the sky. Away and free.
I want that.
A lot.
14
“How did we get the house?” My back pack slams down on the kitchen counter with a little more force than I expected. My books make a solid thud against the cracked tiles.
“Good morning to you, too.” Dad smiles and grabs a travel mug out of the cupboard.
“I’m serious,” I say.
“I can see that,” he says.
“So?” My fingernails are clicking together rapidly.
Dad’s brow furrows as he screws the lid on my coffee and nestles it into the pouch on the side of my back pack. “Your mother inherited it,” he says.
“From who?” I say.
“I don’t know her name,” he says.
“Were we related?” I ask. My fingers have switched to drumming on the side of my coffee mug.
“We were living in New York. Your mom got a certified letter to go to this lawyer’s office,” he said. “When we showed up, only your mom was escorted into the office. I tried to follow but I was specifically told I was not allowed in to the meeting. When your mom came out, she said, ‘we’re moving to California’ And, that was that.”
“That was that? You never asked her any questions?” I ask.
“Of course, I did.” He pushes my backpack towards me. “But, you know your mom. She wasn’t in the mood to answer questions, so she wasn’t about to.”
I roll my eyes and
swing my backpack over my shoulders.
Fine.
I’ll talk to the guys at school and even ask Mom if I have to.
The screen door slams on my way out.
“Don’t forget you’re on Henry duty this afternoon!” Dad’s voice bellows after me.
***
The early morning light dances in and out of the trees as I race down Topanga Canyon and into the small cluster of gingerbread houses turned into stores that make up our little downtown. Well, cute houses and the two-story strip mall. Mom’s yoga studio is in the strip mall. You’d think her sanctuary would be more private, but they didn’t have any money when they first got here. The landlord agreed to let Dad fix up the building in exchange for Mom to have a small shop front in the corner for her yoga studio.
This morning she has an early class, but it’ll end just in time for me to corner her before I have to get to school.
I wait around the corner as Mom’s class gets out. All the chatting housewives with their yoga mats rolled up under their arms and their hair pulled back in ponytails head in clusters to the café just down the way. They all look happy. It amazes me how Mom can do her job so well, bring so much comfort and relaxation to these women and men who do her classes. My respect is tinged with a snap of resentment. I push it away.
I only need to find out one thing; if we’re related to the person who used to own our house.
The bells tinkle as I push the doors of the yoga studio open. It’s almost like Tinkerbell should come flying out of the forest of green plants that grow on the living wall. But, this isn’t a Disney story. The beast isn’t going to suddenly turn into a charming prince. He’s going to rip me apart given half a chance. Well, I don’t intend to give him that chance.
The lavender, lemon grass and clove of Mom’s aromatherapy brings me to a cozy place that’s a mix of an outdoor field in spring and a warm kitchen in autumn. Mom says the lemon is to brighten the soul, but it always fills me with the tang of lemon squares. It all relaxes me.
A living wall abundant with green leafy plants overlooks a small stream that gurgles in its copper bed. I glide my hand along the smooth wood counter. Dad did an amazing job on this studio. He really made it someplace special for Mom. It’s more her sanctuary than the room at the top of our house. That’s where she hides out. This is where she expands, where she feels safe.