by Jen Crane
I nodded my agreement, though I knew very little about the politics of Thayer. I’d not thought much about it. I knew leadership was determined by who held the most power, rather than by election. I supposed Gaspare’s successor could be a really powerful bad guy. Yes, I could see the dilemma.
Emelie had continued to talk while I considered the political landscape. “…we remain separated, for now at least. It’s not so bad. Tracing makes everything easier. He pops in and out, and I sometimes join him in his private quarters at the PM residence.”
An embarrassed but mischievous smile spread across her face. “We were caught once by the butler.”
Gaspare’s burst of laughter made me that much more curious. “What happened?”
“Gaspare put on like I was a prostitute! Like I was there for services rendered. We laughed about that for days. We’re still laughing about it!”
“Poor Hamilton,” Gaspare shook his head and wiped his eyes.
“Well, what are you working on? What’s so important?” I asked.
She looked to Gaspare, who nodded his encouragement. “I’ve worked all these years to find a way for children to be possible for interspecies couples.”
“No kidding,” I breathed. “That’s amazing. Something like that has the potential to change…everything. Are you close to finding an answer?”
“Sadly, no. But I continue my work. I have to.”
I nodded, my mind racing at the implications of such a discovery. If she found a way, Boone and Timbra could have children someday. Would that make the current stigma of marrying outside one’s species better…or worse? I didn’t know, but I did know the two deserved every chance at happiness.
“How do you like Pearl so far, Stella?” Emelie asked. “Gaspare tells me you’ve met Forster and the Tremaines, and done some exploring.” She leaned toward me and laid her hand on top of mine, her gray eyes sympathetic. “I know you’re not thrilled to be here, but I hope you’ll give it a chance. You’ll not find better people anywhere, and the island is, literally, a tropical paradise.”
I nodded but didn’t say anything.
“This may not be ideal,” she went on, “but you have an opportunity for a fresh start, to pursue anything you’ve ever desired. You could throw yourself into astronomy, if you like. Pearl is ideal for an observatory.”
“Actually,” I looked at Gaspare and Emelie, both so eager to please me. “What I’d really like to do is learn everything I can about my abilities. About magic, about being an omni.”
“I’d love to help you with that,” Gaspare began. “We can continue what we started back in Thayer. It may take a while, but you’ll get there.”
I rocked my head from side to side while I searched for the right words. I had to tread lightly not to hurt his feelings. “Well, I really think I need a crash course, something intensive. And you just don’t have time for that. Forster mentioned someone he thought could help me.”
He didn’t seem too wounded when he asked, “Who’s that?”
“Someone named Abia Pike?”
Emelie drew her mouth back in a knowing grimace, but Gaspare was, as always, cool. He’d learned to school his reactions and rarely betrayed any physical signs of his true feelings. But at the mention of Abia Pike’s name, his eyes widened for an infinitesimal moment, hinting at some great secret or inner turmoil.
“Abia Pike is an unconventional choice, to be sure,” he said. “Forster suggested her?”
“Yes. Said she’s incredibly knowledgeable, and meets my specific needs because she’s one of the only omnies he knows, besides you.”
Gaspare laughed nervously and snuck a look at Emelie.
What is up with them? “Which got me thinking. Are there any more omnies? The only ones I’ve ever heard of are you, my father, and Gresham.”
“And you,” Gaspare added.
“Right. Me. So? What do you think? Do you know this Abia? Is it a good fit? Is she as weird and scary as everyone says?”
“She’s neither weird nor scary,” Emelie said with a frown. “She’s misunderstood. People fear what they don’t know, and she lives alone on Topaz. It’s more fun to spread a spooky story than to spread the truth. She’s a kind but tough lady who lives alone on the island. End of story.”
My interest was definitely piqued. “You’ve met her?”
Emelie’s eyes shot to Gaspare’s in a distressed plea. Again with the insider info.
“Stella,” Gaspare said in an overly-nonchalant tone, “let’s you and I visit Topaz tomorrow. You can decide for yourself.”
Chapter 14
Topaz was a long, relatively thin island with steep, cragged cliffs on one side and wide, smooth beaches on the other. In the middle was a wooded slope. Gaspare traced us to the edge of a cliff at the most level point of the plateaued terrain, where a narrow waterfall plunged into a pool of fresh water below.
“Stella, I haven’t been completely honest with you,” he said and took a hesitant seat on a nearby boulder.
“What do you mean?” My heart rate didn’t even spike. Sadly, I was growing far too accustomed to surprises.
“I know you came to this world only ever knowing your mother as your family. And then of course you met the Drakontos side. Then me. I’m sorry you’ll never know your father, or grandfather. But you have a living grandmother besides Bay.”
That did it. If a heart’s pounding could bruise a chest, mine certainly suffered contusions. I sped through the implications of his words. If Bay was my maternal grandmother, the only other possibility was my father’s mother. And as my father’s brother, Gaspare must be referring to his own mother.
“Your mother’s alive?” I asked in disbelief. “Where?”
“Here.”
“Wait,” I said, jerking back in disbelief. “No. This Abia Pike is my grandma?”
He nodded.
“Why haven’t you told me before now? Is she evil? Crazy? Have you two had a falling out? Ohhh…” I breathed. “Did my father know she was alive?”
“Of course your father knew! We adored our mother. I still do. She’s not evil or crazy, and Topaz isn’t haunted. But there is an explanation. And a long, sad history here.”
“What is it? Wait. Do I have more family? Does she know about me? What’s she like?”
Gaspare laughed at my enthusiasm. “Let’s go meet her. We’ll get to all the answers in due time.”
“Mother,” Gaspare called as we stood behind the rock wall surrounding a thatched roof house. The home’s thick walls were constructed of the same rocks comprising the border wall around it. The wall, the house, the roof—they were all shades of brownish gray. A bit dreary. Not run-down so much as impossible to dress-up.
“Mother?” he called again, but there was no answer. Gaspare stuck his head into a small storage shed and backed out again. “Ah. She must be diving. Let’s go find her.”
“Diving?”
A sly grin began at Gaspare’s mouth and spread all the way to his eyes.
“Get ready. You’ve never seen anything like Abia Pike before. And you never will.”
Curiosity sent my mind racing. Was she some kind of sky diving granny? Did she leap from cliffs? That made sense. The island’s rocky terrain fell into the ocean.
On our walk to the beach, not a word was uttered between us. I tried to relax, to free my mind of any bias caused by what the Tremaines and Forster had said. I wondered what Gaspare’s mother—my grandmother—would look like. God only knew how old she was. If Gaspare was old, she had to be ancient. But age worked so differently in my new world and it was hard to know.
The air was thick with the briny smell of the ocean. I licked my lips, savoring the salt that weighed down the ocean breeze.
From the blue waves of the sea, a head emerged. I squinted to see. The eyes and nose were covered by a wide glass mask. Her body— it was a her—was covered in a thick black wetsuit, and a high-pitched wheezing bounced across the water to us.
“That
’s her,” Gaspare said. “That’s Abia. That’s your grandmother.”
“Is she sick?” I asked.
“Sick? No. Oh, you mean that sound. It’s a breathing technique. She’s diving for shellfish.”
Abia Pike emerged from the water with a pouf-shaped buoy slung over her back and a fishing net at her side. She lifted the mask to reveal an aging but lovely face and a crooked smile.
“Mother,” Gaspare nodded and offered his arm as she exited the water.
She looked at his arm, at his face, then pointedly back to his arm. “What am I supposed to do with that?” The sienna skin of her face scrunched into a cackle before smoothing back to its serene mask.
“And who’s this?” She looked me up and down, and then sharply back to Gaspare. “You and Emelie don’t have children. She vowed not to until there was a way for the others. This one has your coloring. Your mouth. She has my hands, Gaspare. Tell me she’s not what I think she is.”
“What? No, Mother. This…this is Stella. She’s Gabrio’s.”
Abia fell to her knees in the sand. She reached for my hand and I gave it to her, sinking down too. Walking on knees toward her, I let her wrap me in a very tight, very wet hug. She pushed my frizzy, saltwater-dampened hair from my face with shaky hands. Her eyes lighted on every square centimeter of my face, like she was memorizing it.
“I didn’t know,” she whispered fiercely. “I didn’t know about you. My Gabrio’s child. Where have you been?”
Chapter 15
We told Abia everything over cups of very bold tea in her thatch-roofed home. She was too tough to cry, but her eyes brimmed with sadness, then with joy, with hope, with love. She asked me questions about my childhood, about my dreams. She was starved for details.
Then it was my turn to ask questions.
“You’re nothing like everyone said. Why do you live here alone? Why does everyone think this island is haunted? Why do they think you’re crazy?”
Abia took a breath so deep she coughed up dust from her soul. “I’ve been here a very long time. I could not leave, you see?”
She recounted a story from a time so far removed it hardly seemed like a time at all. As she weaved the faded tapestry of her story, it felt like a faded memory, a thought difficultly remembered.
“Three thousand years ago, omnies were as common as any other forms. As wolf forms, as birds,” she looked at me sadly when she said, “as dragons.”
“Our families were large and we were happy. But after a long, bitter battle, a young new omni became leader of Thayer. He was powerful, but also vengeful, vicious. A villain in every sense of the word. I knew him well. We were childhood friends, and in fact I once saved his life.”
“Saved him how?” I asked.
“We were young, in our twenties, exploring in the woods when we became caught in a wildfire. It approached from all sides, the smoke making it difficult for us to see, to breathe. Talbot froze. I screamed for him to change into a bird and fly—anything, but he just stood there as the fire licked at his feet. When I realized he was incapacitated by fear I mimicked a dragon form, grasped him with talons and flew us to safety.”
Abia took a sip of her steaming tea. “After that he changed, his paranoia and some irrational fear overriding any goodness within him. We never again spoke of that day.
“Time passed and he worsened. He used his power to rise through the ranks, all the while suspecting everyone was out to get him. Once he became ruler, he barely left his home, surrounding himself with the largest guard ever assembled.
“Only another omni would be powerful enough to defeat him. And it was a poorly kept secret that his trusted advisor had had a vision in which Talbot was killed by another omni. After that, Talbot began killing omni families. First, those that opposed his rule, and then simply those he deemed had become too powerful. He framed families, pitted them against one another. By the time anyone figured out who was behind it all, he’d done too much damage for an effective defense. Those that were left, including my own family, were eradicated.”
“My God!” I’d clenched my fists during her story and they had cramped. I stretched and wiggled them. “I’m so sorry. How did you survive?”
“He let me live.”
“What do you mean, ‘let you live’?”
“I was alone, gathering wood for our fire when I heard a disturbance at the house. I ran toward it, but Talbot jumped from a hiding place and held me around the waist. I screamed for my mother and father, for my brothers, but he covered my mouth. I tried to change, to use what little magic I knew, but his power had become too great. He prevented any move I tried to make. He held me from behind, his forehead pressed to my shoulder while I cried and fought, while I screamed through his hand, while I watched the smoke of my burning house cloud the sky.
“After a while, he released me. ‘It’s over, Abia,’ he said. ‘They’re gone.’ I tried to fight him, to kill him, but it was pointless and I sank to the ground and mourned my family, everyone I’d known and lost. He leaned against a tree, catching his breath and watching me disintegrate.
“I’ve never hated anyone like I hated him at that moment. ‘What are you waiting for?’ I screamed at him. ‘Get it over with!’
“He pushed off the tree and approached me gently, like he’d comfort me. ‘I can’t kill you,’ he said so softly. ‘You’re my friend. You saved my life. Killing you would be like killing a part of myself.’
“He professed to love me, though he was set to marry another. He flinched when I dry-heaved at his words. ‘I’m sending you away,’ he said with finality. ‘I cannot kill you but you cannot be here. I won’t take that risk. An omni will kill me someday. It’s been foretold. You cannot return—I’ll make sure of that—but you’ll be alive.’
“Then, and for years after, I wished he’d killed me. I survived, but barely.
“Luckily for me, he didn’t know there were natives on Topaz. It took a while for them to warm up to me, but once they saw I intended to live, they taught me how to survive. They taught me to dive for shellfish, like I was doing when you arrived. They showed me how to build a hut. Through their kindness, I learned how to provide for myself. I even had friends, of a sort. It wasn’t a life I chose, and it was tough, but it was a good life.
“But,” I interrupted, blinking as I tried to comprehend, “I thought Topaz was uninhabited. Where did these people go?”
Abia's head fell forward and I lost sight of her eyes. She continued her story that way, with her head down, gaze cast to the floor. “Talbot was furious the first time he saw evidence I wasn’t alone. I was afraid, and I hid from him. He became enraged. I never imagined,” her voice cracked with emotion and Gaspare moved to stand beside her. “I never imagined he’d destroy them, too. Every last one of them. Even the tiny children.”
I closed my eyes, bile rising in my throat at the events of so long ago. Abia turned away from us, as if in shame, but went on with her tragic tale.
“Why do people think I’m crazy?” she asked. “Why do they think this place is haunted? Because every time someone stumbled upon Topaz after their boat went aground or they thought it would be fun to explore, I scared them away. I knew what would happen if Talbot discovered I’d made friends again. He’d destroyed two sets of people I loved before my very eyes. He would have done it again without pause.”
“But,” I sputtered. “Well. How did my father and Gaspare come to be? You had to meet their father…my grandfather?”
Abia’s eyes softened at the memory. “Now that’s a story I like to tell. I was diving one day like the natives did—topless, with only a cloth around my middle and a knife at my side. It wasn’t long after Talbot had killed my friends, and to tell you the truth, I stayed under the water longer than was good for me. I thought about giving up. I thought it would be easier and sort of lovely if I took my last breath under water. But self-preservation is a powerful instinct, and I couldn’t do it. I rose to the surface, coughing and gasping for bre
ath.
“I heard a splash and turned toward the sound, to see the legs of someone diving into the water. To save me. Only, he’d worn his boots and jacket, and his weapons, all of which combined to weigh him down. He swam toward me, but tired quickly.
“I caught my breath and asked just what he thought he was doing.
“‘Saving you,’ he answered with confidence.
“I told him in no uncertain terms that I didn’t need saving, that I was perfectly capable of providing for myself.
“‘I see that now,’ he said with a smile.
“He had the most beautiful blue eyes I’d ever seen. I was instantly infatuated with him, I admit it. I agreed to let him take me ashore, and when I pushed myself from the water into his boat in only my loincloth, he nearly swallowed his tongue. He tried not to look, but like me, he was instantly enthralled. He offered me cover, and we sailed ashore.
“Just a bit longer, I kept thinking. I was so lonely. Just a bit longer. I’ll make him one meal for his trouble. Then the rain came and he couldn’t sail safely home for several days.
“The rest, as they say, is history. Philippe and I lived for months together so happily. So free. So in love. It was when I became pregnant that I began to worry.
“We worked hard not to leave a trace, in case Talbot visited again. But when the boys came, I knew they had to go back to Thayer. If Talbot found them I’d lose them, too, and I loved them far too much for that. Philippe and I fought about it so many times. He wanted to fight Talbot, but had never seen up close the evil Talbot was capable of. It simply wasn’t possible.”
“I’m sorry,” I interrupted her reverie. “I don’t understand. How did Gaspare and my father become omnies if you were the only one left?”
She smiled slyly at me. “It only takes one, dear. Philippe was a tiger, but together our offspring were omnies. That’s how it works.”
“I see,” I mumbled. “That’s so strange.”