To all the giants whose shoulders I stand on.
Chapter One
I wasn’t always doing exercises in the rain, jumping around with my feet submerged in mud. The water dripped into my shoes a long time ago, and when I’m finally allowed to come in, I know I’m going to smell like damp earth for the next week or so.
I was just like any other teen. I had a family, I went to school, and I used to go out. Then my family moved to this little town and I met Kian on my first day of my senior year.
I’m telling this story all wrong. I should probably start from the beginning. My name is Gwen Carlisle, and I’m still a little mad about never getting to high school.
Last summer was rough. Global warming was going full speed, and every other week someone was predicting the end of the world. Washington State was hit by a giant tsunami. Then some houses in Florida were carried away by hurricanes. Small towns were levelled in moments. Honestly, I didn’t know where half of these places were before they were destroyed.
We lived in San Francisco, right near the water. Mom and Dad had CNN on in the kitchen all the time. Tornadoes popped up everywhere from Arkansas to Vermont, and the California coast was hit by an earthquake practically every week. Finally, my parents had had enough. They decided to uproot and work from home amidst what they liked to call nature.
They were both veterinarians and hated the commute to their downtown clinic. They wanted to get away from the shakes of San Fran, and I guess we were pretty lucky we could. Tons of people were stuck in the rubble, and though people still lived their lives from day to day, the sound of sirens was getting a little too familiar.
At first I couldn’t imagine leaving the city. I loved my hometown of San Francisco: the nightlife, the sights … okay, so I was only seventeen and didn’t get out much, but I liked looking at that stuff from my window. We had a little house with a great view, and I still miss the city very much. Now that I look back on all the things I’ve seen since then, it’s strange thinking I never wanted to leave. But it was home.
My parents decided to make a new home a few hundred miles up the coast, in a little town in Oregon called Astoria. The trees grow tall and untouched there, balanced precariously on the precipice of North America and the Pacific Ocean. Wood-chip trails lead to wooden homes, and the town’s skyline is kept low on purpose, all the better to admire the grey ocean. It’s also known for being the setting of movies about a whale.
Most houses in Astoria are built along the ocean. Ours was no exception, and my parents were extremely proud of their successful relocation. My room was on the third level of a little old house, and my former view of the bay was replaced by trees, the ocean, and the formidable garage.
With such a tumultuous summer, I wasn’t angry with my parents for moving me out to the middle of nowhere. In fact, for the first few days, I liked the quiet. But after a few weeks, I realized we weren’t leaving — so I tried to make the best of it.
This fall was supposed to be different. I was prepared for a new high school, new friends, and a new life. I was going to make an effort to be more sociable and connect with my classmates. Join groups and toss Frisbees during break. Needless to say, I had never in my life done any of this and had no real desire to. I was once locked in the library, and had my mom not given every administrator she could find a thorough tongue-lashing, I daresay no one would have been the wiser when I walked out of there the next morning. But like I said, this year was going to be different.
My last high school hadn’t been receptive to my hobby of archery, the one thing I could do well. It wasn’t as high-profile as cheerleading, and was even lower on the social ladder than field hockey. I had been resentful in San Francisco, but my era of high school was running out. This year, I vowed to stop being so invisible.
The night before the first day of school, I arranged all my pens and pencils and sorted my notebooks by subject into my backpack. I made a lunch and put it in the fridge, and laid out my clothes for the morning. I was excited, what can I say? I even dragged a brush through my sandy hair, effectively ending up with a lion’s mane.
My parents were large people. Larger than life in personality and bigger than most in size. They held the attention of anyone around them, and when they weren’t on the latest fad diet, they were always in good humour. And even in my teenage years, I still liked my mom and dad pretty darn much. However, I was a little different. A head shorter and a fourth the width of either of them, I held no attention at all.
I surveyed with distaste the clothes in my closet — I hadn’t gotten anything new in ages. That’s what happens when you’re the same size for years on end … still waiting for that growth spurt. I was a little too skinny, and a little too short. My reflection in the window was a ghostly kind of pale in the moonlight. The San Francisco sun was fading off of my skin, and my grey eyes looked dusty out of my newly pale face. After a short bit of excitement and thinking I wouldn’t be able to sleep, I was passed out by ten thirty.
It was raining when morning came, of course. My parents had already started setting up shop in another area of the house, so I got my umbrella and trudged the two blocks over to where the school bus would pick me up. The wind was stronger here because we were right on the coast, and it made it rain from all angles. Disgruntled and dishevelled, I made my way down the driveway and onto the road. There were no sidewalks in these parts.
My rain boots were covered in mud within seconds, and my coat was doing nothing to keep the rain out. After a few steps away from the house, my hair was already dripping and any make-up I had bothered with was gone.
Only yards from the house, I was already considering the opportunity to reinvent myself gone. I hadn’t ever bothered to make friends at my last school. If I showed up looking like a wet cat at this new one, I didn’t really see a bright light at the end of my dark social life tunnel.
Slosh. Slosh. Slosh.
I trudged on, convincing myself I was better off continuing as the recluse I was by nature. A few more yards and I was in a deep funk. I had never turned any heads. I mournfully noted that I didn’t even have any brothers or sisters I could rely on to marry and have children, so that I could come to their dinners and be that crazy spinster aunt. I could chat about the cats I would inevitably own, and give them socks for Christmas.
When my thoughts had turned as dreary as the day, it happened. It was like a twitch in my chest, a shaking in my eyes, and goose bumps all at once. I had never felt anything like it before, and it made me stop dead in my tracks. I thought I was having a heart attack and clutched at my chest through my soaking wet jacket.
Something was off. Something somewhere was strange, and today was going to be different. I felt it in my bones, even with all that rain. It was like the rain fell on my face from one direction, but the wind blew from another. My senses were buzzing. After a few seconds of standing still, internally examining what the hell was wrong with me, I decided I wasn’t getting any dryer in this weather.
I had to think about moving. A strange feeling washed over me, like an emotion that makes you want to know all of the world’s secrets at once. I felt like my brain was trying to jump out of my head, and my heart out of my chest. I tried a foot forward, then another, and then I was walking. Happy with my success, I realized I was going crazy.
Walking while under this spell, for lack of a better word, felt like an accomplishment. I was uncoordinated, tripping, and it began to feel like when I had two glasses of wine at my uncle’s second wedding. I didn’t handle it well then, and I probably wouldn’t handle it well now.
A prickling on the back of my neck made me turn around, and of course I lost
my umbrella immediately to the wind. It flew away in a turned-out mess, like the antithesis to Mary Poppins, leaving me in the rain and mysteriously incapacitated.
When I turned at first there were only leaves all around, swaying with the awful weather. And that’s when I saw him. The moment that would change my life forever.
I had to stare at the trees like I would at one of those abstract images, where if you cross your eyes and squint, you see a unicorn. But there he was. Standing a little into the trees was a man I had never seen before. He was older than me, but his face was so clear I could see every feature, even with the wind and rain.
I felt off balance, my eyes becoming like a telescope and zeroing in on his features while seeing my surroundings, all at once. His eyes shone out at me as he stared in my direction. His dark hair dripped with rain, and he wore a stern expression that forced his eyebrows to link together in a frown just over his nose, which was just slightly too long. His brown eyes stared me down even over the yards that separated us. With my new vision, I could see every raindrop as it fell from his eyelashes onto his cheek.
In the cold weather, he wore a jacket and jeans. Plain. But something about him was very different. I watched him for only a few seconds, because that’s how long it took me to realize he had followed me ever since home. I just knew it.
Panicked, still wobbly, I decided to keep walking as if unsuspecting. My heart racing, I stupidly turned down a bunch of random streets and away from the main road to make sure he was indeed following me.
When I turned back and saw he was nearer than before, I couldn’t help it. Even in my inexplicable state, I started to run down the lane, tripping and teetering every few feet. I had no idea where I was. I could hear the ocean on my right, and steep mountainside climbed up the left. All I could focus on was moving my feet forward, which resulted in staring stupidly down as I tried to run.
My instincts were going crazy. I could have sworn that in those moments, I could feel his running footsteps echo in the asphalt behind me as he closed in on his prey — me.
I was soaked and the rain pricked my face as I moved down the leafy road. Continuing my total stupidity of that morning, I decided to turn around to see if the stranger was still there. To my absolute horror — my heart was beating nearly out of my chest by now — he was only a few yards behind me.
I panicked and turned too quickly. The edge of the cliff edge must have been closer than I thought, and I tripped over my own feet into the ravine below. The last thing I saw clearly was him coming closer, reaching out to stop me toppling, head over feet, down a cliff. But topple I did.
Oddly, as I fell and fell and fell, I could only think about that look on his face. He didn’t look much older than me, but his face seemed ancient, like some kind of Roman statue. When he reached out to stop my fall, it was the first time his eyebrows had un-knit, and a genuine look of worry came over that strange face. It seemed ridiculous that I had been frightened of him.
Falling hurt a lot, and some injuries I can still see and feel today. As I was going downhill at top speed, I didn’t see much but the sleeves of my red coat flopping around like a rag doll. It was the kind of pain where all you can do is wait it out. The branches cracked near my ears as I rolled, and the leaves were a pleasant respite from sharp rocks that stuck out of the hillside at painful angles.
I only vaguely remembered that the ocean lay at the bottom. The rocky, deep, dangerous ocean. I shielded my face with my arms, tried not to land on my neck, and rolled until all of a sudden I was airborne. There was a bit of a drop, and then a crash.
I was on my hands and knees, eyes shut tight and already holding my breath, waiting for the cold to come and sweep me away. But nothing happened.
Slowly, I opened one eye at a time. To my extreme surprise, I was on the water. That’s right, on top of it. I had stopped my fall with my hands and knees and now crouched on top of the Pacific Ocean. My hands were just in the water, and I could see a trickle of blood dripping down my arm — the sleeve had torn — and landing in the water between my fingers. I knelt there, gasping, for longer than I care to remember.
My hands and legs were freezing. They were submerged in the water, and waves much smaller than the ones that were hitting the bluffs broke against my legs. But I could only stare, afraid to move.
My first thought, naturally, was to wonder if I had died and become a ghost. But my heart was pounding and I was way too cold for that. I couldn’t feel any of my injuries just then. I think I had too much on my mind.
I crouched there, on top of the water, afraid to move a muscle. My hands, knees, and feet were numb by the time I looked up. I heard my named being called.
“Gwen!”
While his voice reverberated even among the bluffs and waves, he was not yelling. The one who had been following me, who had driven me down the hill and into the water, was standing at the edge of the cliff. He was cut up on his arms a bit but otherwise seemed to have come down the ravine unhurt, probably following in my path of destruction.
I was still too afraid to move. My teeth chattered. I didn’t answer.
“Gwen Carlisle,” he called, “you can stand!”
I did not trust him and was too scared anyway. So I just knelt there some more. He waited patiently for a few minutes. My eyes were set straight ahead at my hands on the water, somehow kneeling on it as if it was hardwood flooring. Cold and wet hardwood flooring.
Suddenly, I heard a little splash, and two shoes came into my vision, standing in front of me, walking on the water. I dared to move slightly and tilted my head upwards to look at him, and he was staring at me, stern but concerned.
“Gwen Carlisle, I am called Kian,” he told me in a voice as cool as ice. “You need to come with me.”
Chapter Two
I don’t remember any more than that. My body gave in to pain and exhaustion and I promptly passed out. I couldn’t make sense of what was happening, or what Kian had said. He picked me up off of the ocean and swung me over his shoulder like a child.
I opened my eyes briefly to see his feet gingerly walking on top of the water, every now and then getting a splash from the waves. I was wet and freezing. His body only warmed me slightly. I didn’t realize I was being kidnapped. I hung there lazily, drifting in and out of consciousness. Way to go, Gwen.
My mind came back to me slowly. As soon as I began to feel my body again, I felt restrained, tied up, and tried to sit up in a fit. I couldn’t remember exactly what had happened, only that it had been something very stressful.
I gasped as soon as I tried to move. I hadn’t been tied up, it was just that everything hurt, especially all the parts in my torso that had to move in order to go from sitting to standing. The pain was too much and I lay back down. I felt trapped in my clothes, which had dried hard and stiff from the sea salt.
“Hello!” Kian exclaimed happily.
We were in a tiny little shed, which was more of a hovel than anything. The wood on the walls was peeling, and even as I stared directly up at the ceiling, trying to keep the tears from my eyes, I saw a dozen little bugs crawling in and out of the low roof.
The walls were bare and thin but looked to have whole ecosystems going on inside them. Other than that, the only furniture in the place was a little fire pot and three chairs that I lay across. Definitely a shed.
And then, to my surprise, there was a sleek little suitcase in the corner and Kian coming towards me. He was wearing a plain white t-shirt and was carrying a mortar and pestle. He was too tall for the little shack; his head brushed up against the ceiling and sent a few spiders cascading over his forehead. He didn’t even flinch.
Forgetting earlier events, in that moment, I was sure a serial killer had abducted me. You don’t know panic until you wake up in a shack with a serial killer. I was in too much pain to move and had been brought to some hovel in the woods. My heart beat so hard against my ribs that even that was painful. I grimaced in a most unattractive way.
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��Don’t move,” he told me. It was a suggestion, not an order. “I am Kian,” he added when I stared at him in confusion. He pointed to himself to make it clear. “Remember?”
His voice was deep and I liked it, despite myself. I slid my eyes over to what he was doing. Holding a big bowl in one hand, he was mashing something that smelled earthy. He scooped up what he had made and started towards me. My eyes must have widened, because he stopped.
“This is salve for your wounds. You have a lot.”
I eyed his bright green concoction for a moment then nodded, resigning myself. I was in too much pain to run away anyway. His presence calmed me a little bit. At least I wasn’t alone, but the mystery of the entire situation did more to unnerve me. Kian spoke soothingly, almost pityingly, and I was sure it had something to do with how I looked after taking that fall.
When I remembered falling down the mountain, I recalled bits and snippets of other things — wetness, falling through the air, landing in the water. It had hurt. My knees and wrists felt as if I may as well have landed on concrete. But I landed on the water. I couldn’t make sense of it so I pushed the thought to the back of my mind.
Less than three feet away, the same person who had terrified me this morning was busy creating a green paste. My stomach did somersaults. As soon as I realized I had no idea how long I had been unconscious, my panic doubled. The shack had no windows, only a little mosquito lantern and the small flame in the fire pot. No rain crashed down on the roof. Enough time had passed for the storm to subside.
Kian came towards me with that green stuff in his palm, but first put another hand just underneath my throat. Before I could ask, a soothing feeling swept over me and I relaxed. His touch convinced me everything was okay. The situation didn’t seem so bad anymore. My mind, frenzied, had to surrender to the calm that came over my body. I was totally conflicted.
He smiled, more to himself than to me, satisfied with his work, and gently picked up my arm. As I looked down, I realized it was the last bit of me that wasn’t covered with the stuff. Kian’s goo was being absorbed by my body through my clothes. He hadn’t undressed me, though at that moment my salty, damp jeans were getting increasingly uncomfortable.
Lives of Magic (Seven Wanderers Trilogy) Page 1