“Your intentions are good, but I have seen greater minds crumble,” Magda said. “Be careful with whom you place your loyalties and your might. And remember, when you accept the help of those who walk beside you, all fear will dissolve, and all tasks will be completed with ease,” Magda said. She walked into the birch trees and faded from view.
This had become more than Skylar could ever have dreamed when she brought the Book of Akasha to Ronnie all those months earlier.
“Let’s hope I’m worthy, huh, Mom?” she said to the clouds.
Cheveyo returned to her side as if summoned. “It’s time to go back, my friend,” Skylar said, patting his flank. “We have work to do.”
The next day, Skylar drove to her dad’s house. When she pulled up, Rachel was standing in the driveway.
“My, all that horse work is giving you quite a physique!” Rachel said, chuckling. “You could try out for Ms. Olympia or something.”
Skylar smiled. “Is Dad home?”
“No. He said he had some big project and it could go into the night.” Rachel seemed uneasy. “I was heading out too. There’s a casserole in the fridge,” she said, rummaging through her oversized handbag.
As her stepmother walked to her car, Skylar quickly removed her sunglasses to catch a glimpse of her aura, but her new power was failing her at the moment. She couldn’t see Rachel’s aura, just Rachel. She replaced her glasses. “Rachel, do you have a minute?” she asked.
Rachel’s hand paused on the handle of her Mercedes. “Mmhmm?”
“Do you know Milicent Grayer?” Skylar blurted out.
Rachel dropped her purse on the driveway, and its contents spilled everywhere. She scrambled to clean it up, and Skylar bent to help. “Of course,” Rachel said offhandedly. “Who hasn’t heard of the Grayers? And now the run for the White House! It’s so exciting!” She got everything into her bag and stood up.
“No, I mean personally,” Skylar said. “Do you know Milicent personally?” She was unsure why she was bringing this up. She just had a feeling. She was getting a lot of these feelings lately.
Rachel paused longer still. “It’s funny you ask. We overlapped years ago in school. We were never friends, though.”
“I thought Milicent went to Rosen?”
“Right. I meant private school, before college.” Rachel hopped in her car. “So sorry, Sky, I have to go. Enjoyed our chat!” Rachel started the car and sped away, leaving Skylar standing in the driveway, her mouth gaping open.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
At a quarter past midnight, Joel walked through the door, and Skylar donned her sunglasses. She had been waiting for him in his favorite leather recliner.
“Hey pumpkin, you shouldn’t have waited up for me,” he said. “But I’m happy to see you. What’s with the shades?”
“Don’t freak out,” she said.
“I’m still recovering from the last time you said that to me.”
“I need your help.” She got up from the chair. “I’m just going to take off my sunglasses—but don’t freak out. I am really okay. Better than ever, actually. Just . . . don’t freak out.”
“Stop saying that!” Her father visibly braced himself against the entry table.
Skylar took a deep breath and removed her sunglasses. Her eyes had lessened in intensity in the last week but could still light up a room.
“Jesus Christ,” Joel gripped the table even harder. “What happened to you?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Another story, or the same one?” Joel’s knuckles were turning white.
“Yeah, a continuation of the same one.” Skylar approached him. “Dad, I need you to take my blood again. I think it might be . . . different now.”
“It was already different, pumpkin,” he said, easing up on the table slightly.
“Yes, but I think now even more so. Will you help me?” She stared at him, now seeing the colors of his aura swirling in concentric circles. He was a simple man and that served him well, aurically speaking. Ocean had told Skylar that if all of a person’s chakras were humming along as they should, their aura would be white—that humans were all white light in their truest form. Joel wasn’t true red like most people she had seen; he was a light orange, a combination of the red, orange, and yellow of the three lower chakras. Skylar figured his science background hindered a true pathway to his tenth gate, making a connection to the higher chakras challenging. She made a mental note to work on that one day.
“Of course I’ll help you, pumpkin,” he said wearily. “But it’s pretty late. Tomorrow?”
“Sure, Dad.” She threw her arms around him. “You’re really taking this all in stride. Thank you for not kicking me to the curb.”
“What? You’re my girl. Even if you look a bit different now, you’re still the same inside.” He looked quizzically at her ice-blue eyes. “Right? Same inside?” He smiled nervously.
“I don’t know, Dad.” Skylar felt honesty was the way to go. “I don’t have a guide book on all this. I do have a mentor . . . or two.” Skylar was unsure she wanted to bring up Magda right now. “They help explain the changes, but they don’t understand my feelings. It’s quite isolating. I don’t fit anywhere anymore. Not that I think I ever did.” It felt odd to be so open with her father. But things were different now. She was facing a vast unknown, and there was no support group on the planet to help her. She craved the comfort only her father could give her.
“Sky, most people have a cookie-cutter image of what their life should look like. It involves the good job, the house in the ’burbs, and a healthy IRA. And that’s fine. That’s what we have been groomed to believe is the successful life. But sometimes it’s not in the cards to have that life. Sometimes a person’s path involves twists and triple strands and glowing eyeballs and looks nothing like the life we think we’re supposed to have—and those people are the heroes we write stories about.” He smiled. “The extraordinary life is a gift. It’s an adventure to look back on and say, I did that. My advice is to go find out what’s possible. And then report back to the rest of us.”
Skylar and her father spent most of the following day in his lab. “Remarkable,” was all Joel could say. “I’ve never seen anything like it. No one’s ever seen anything like it.” Joel continued to squint one eye into his microscope.
“What?” Skylar asked.
“All twelve strands of your DNA are lit up like a Christmas tree. Remarkable.” He looked at Skylar with his mouth hanging open. “I don’t know which one to analyze first.” He returned to his microscope as Skylar paced the lab. “And that’s not the only extraordinary piece,” he said. “Do you remember much about DNA from your biology classes?”
“Umm . . . not the specifics,” Skylar confessed.
“Skylar! You are going to have a medical degree. Just because this isn’t your area of focus doesn’t mean you can forget this stuff!” he chided her. He held four fingers up. “The four bases of DNA, thymine, cytosine, adenine, and guanine”—he wiggled his fingers—“are made up of a subgroup of four: hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon. Those four elements are the lifeblood of every human. They make us who we are.”
“Right, that sounds familiar,” Skylar said as she hopped up on a file cabinet to stop herself from pacing.
“But this . . . you . . .” He looked at her and ran his fingers through his hair. It stayed sticking up in spikes. “Carbon is missing in all of your bases but one. Your thymine retained its carbon. But the others have replaced the carbon element with . . . nitrogen. Which isn’t physically possible. With this going on in your body, you . . . shouldn’t even have a body.” He gave her a weak smile. “I don’t know what to make of this.” He walked in circles about the room. “But to have this happen to my own daughter—to be studying it in my own house? Remarkable!” Joel could hardly contain his excitement. His pace picked up. “Where is a pen? I need a pen!”
Skylar was relieved the scientist in Joel was trumping the
father. “So no breakdown from the shock of all this?” she asked.
Joel stopped his frantic search for a pen and looked at Skylar. “Breakdown? Heavens, no. Pumpkin, this is a wonderful gift. A gift!” He looked into her eyes with fatherly love. “I will use all of my resources to get you answers. The more you know about what’s going on in your body, the better equipped you’ll be to handle it.” He gave her a smothering hug. “Now, a pen!” He resumed his search and found a dull nub of a pencil. “This will do.” He sat at his desk and began to scribble. “Tell me everything. Start at the beginning.”
Skylar took a deep breath. For the next two hours, she recounted every detail of her life since she started at Rosen. She figured if her dad was being so open-minded about her physical changes, he might be all right with the rest of it.
Skylar waited to see her father’s reaction to the incredible story she’d just told him—one she knew she herself wouldn’t believe if someone else told it to her.
Joel took a deep breath. “That’s quite a story.” The nub of pencil was sticking out of his mouth. “I would guess most people wouldn’t believe you, huh?”
Skylar shrugged.
“Well, I believe you, pumpkin,” he said. “I really do. I’m on your side.” He gave her shoulders a squeeze, and Skylar lost focus for a moment. A vision of her mother flashed in her mind:
“Joel, you have to help Skylar navigate this,” Cassie said.
Joel nodded.
Skylar looked at her dad. “Mom told you this would happen,” she said, astonished.
Joel glanced away. “She . . . might have mentioned something.”
“Dad?”
“I wasn’t privy to much, pumpkin, really,” he said. “She only gave me a few clues. I did some research on my own throughout the years, but I never could have predicted the changes I see here. She just said you were destined for great things and I needed to help you in any way I could. All parents assume that for their children. I wasn’t expecting x-ray eyeballs.” He smiled. “I’ll bet your new strands have put your endocrine system into overdrive. You need to take exceptional care of yourself.” He returned to his microscope and the half dozen tubes of blood sitting beside it. He picked up one tube, shook it vigorously, and held it to the light. “I want to run more tests to look at what your glandular system is doing.”
“Okay,” Skylar said. “I have to go to the barn for a few hours, but I’ll bring home dinner. Will Rachel be here?”
“Nope, still at her mom’s. It’ll be just us.”
“Good!” Skylar’s face brightened. “Oh, I mean—”
“It’s all right, pumpkin. I get it.”
“Dad, are you guys, uhh, happy?” Skylar was feeling abnormally brave with her father.
“Sure, we’re good. She has her hobbies, and I have work. We don’t overlap too much.”
“That doesn’t sound like a marriage.”
“What am I going to do, Sky?” Joel stared at the floor. “I don’t want to be divorced again. That is an ugly road. I’m content; she’s content. It’s an ordinary life, and it works for us.”
“Okay.” Skylar decided to let it go for the moment. “If I can help with anything . . . you’ll let me know, right?”
“Of course, pumpkin. Now go to the barn, but don’t overexert yourself, and when you get back I’ll have more info.”
Skylar kissed her father on the cheek and headed out the door. They had shared more in the last half day than they had her whole life, and it felt good.
It had been a few days since Skylar had seen Ocean, so she stopped into the yoga studio on her way to the barn. When she walked in, Ocean studied her face.
“You’re taking to your new DNA quite nicely,” she said.
“You’re coming around to science now?” Skylar asked. “I thought you liked to stick to the mystical side of things.”
“I’m open to new ideas.”
Skylar let out a chuckle before she could help herself. “Sure you are,” she said. “Although, FYI, DNA isn’t really a new idea.”
“It’s all relative,” Ocean said, sitting in lotus.
“Have you talked to Ronnie?” Skylar asked as she came back with a yoga mat and joined Ocean on the floor. Her legs had never quite made it into full lotus in the past, but today she managed with ease. “I didn’t want to bother her.”
“We talked yesterday,” Ocean said. “She sounds horrible. Really depressed. She and Fagan are in India. That country brought her great peace once before. She’s hoping it can do something now—though she’s not expecting peace.”
The two women moved through a few sun salutations and the warrior series.
“I hadn’t planned on breaking a sweat here. I gotta go,” Skylar finally said, out of breath.
Ocean reached out and swiped at Skylar’s collarbone.
“Problem?” Skylar asked, looking down at her chest.
“Your henna is flaking.” Ocean wiped the mark with her finger, and the rest came off.
Skylar shrugged. “Time to reapply.”
“Yes, it is,” Ocean said sternly.
Skylar gathered her things, and Ocean catapulted herself into a headstand.
On her way out, Skylar stopped in the doorway. “Do you think you would like to meet my father?” she asked, holding her breath. “I mean, he’s done a lot in the last week testing my blood and is very knowledgeable, and you two could, I mean—”
“I thought you’d never ask,” Ocean said, still standing on her head.
Skylar had only left Ocean and her father alone for five minutes, but when she came into the lab with a tray of drinks, they were already arguing.
“The changes to her base elements are irrefutable!” Joel practically shouted. “You can’t deny what you see with your own eyes!”
“I most certainly can,” Ocean said calmly. “You are forgetting a crucial part, as all men of science do.”
Joel’s face started to redden. “And that is?”
“Her soul bond.”
“What is a soul bond?” Joel asked slowly, clearly trying to keep the condescension out of his voice, albeit unsuccessfully.
“The part of her DNA that controls her karmic patterns and those of her ancestors. That bond is the strongest of them all,” Ocean said. “It doesn’t give a shit what her base elements are doing!”
Skylar stared at the pair with wide eyes. Yeah, this is going well. She put down the tray and retreated back to the kitchen. Neither of them noticed.
Back upstairs, she looked for any excuse to stay in the kitchen as long as possible. The thought of playing referee made her stomach wrench. She started tidying up the kitchen to pass the time, organizing piles of mail. She took some recycling out to the garage. Thankfully, the dishwasher had just been run; she could take her time clearing it out, especially since she had to open every cabinet and drawer multiple times. Rachel relocated dishes and glassware with every kitchen remodel, and Skylar didn’t know where anything went anymore.
Holding a fistful of forks, Skylar opened a drawer that once held utensils but now took up use as a catchall. Skylar smiled at the trip down memory lane. Bouncy balls, Chinese fortunes, and gold tokens from Pirate’s Cove Mini Golf all took up residence in the drawer. She appreciated the fact that neither Joel nor Rachel got rid of the junk that represented simple yet poignant scenes from her childhood.
As she pushed the drawer back in, a stuck piece of paper vibrated in the back. She tried to jam the drawer closed, but it kept rolling forward. She reached in but couldn’t free up the paper. Skylar gave up. She let the forks clatter to the counter, then removed the drawer from its track, and placed it on the counter. Finally free, the stuck paper fell to the floor. She knelt to retrieve it from under the butcher-block island. It was a folded-up picture. She flattened it and stared at the two teenage girls in cutoff jean shorts smiling in the photo. They were arm in arm, on the shore of a lake. It looked like a camp photo.
Skylar sat on the floor in shock, s
taring at the young faces in the picture. It was Cassie and Rachel. Her hands trembled, and she could hear her own heart pounding in her ears. She got up and ran downstairs.
Skylar barged in on Ocean and Joel, who were cozied up to a microscope. “Explain this!” she barked as she threw the photo at her father.
It landed on the table. Joel looked down at the photo and froze.
Ocean, always one for good drama, dove at it and grabbed it off the table. “Your mother,” she said, studying the photo.
“And my stepmother. Way before he knew either of them,” Skylar said, crossing her arms like a pouty child.
“That’s . . . not . . . true,” Joel said slowly, as if to buy some time. “I did know them then.” He took a sip of day-old coffee.
“Looks like you have a few secrets of your own, Dad,” Skylar said.
Joel stared back at her, wordless.
“Helloooo!” Rachel’s voice called from the top of the stairs. Skylar glared at her father. “I’ll get the truth out of Rachel.” Anger fueled her as she ran up the stairs, and she didn’t even think to put on her sunglasses before confronting her stepmother.
“Sky, what the hell happened to your eyeballs? They’re missing!” Rachel exclaimed.
Skylar still couldn’t see any aura around her stepmother, but she read her immediately. “You aren’t surprised,” she said. “You know what’s happening to me.” She walked closer, until she was within a foot of her.
Joel and Ocean emerged at the top of the stairs, breathless.
Rachel looked at Skylar, and her hands started to shake. “Yes,” she whispered.
Skylar’s eyes widened, and she held out the old photo to Rachel. “Tell me!”
Rachel picked up the photo. “I can’t do this anymore,” she said, walking toward the sunlight streaming through the French doors. “It’s killing me.” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Skylar. I’m so sorry.”
“There will be plenty of time for apologies later,” Skylar said, softening. “Please, just tell me what’s going on.”
Rachel sat on a kitchen stool. “Cassie and I were friends. We met at boarding school.”
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