UnCommon Origins: A Collection of Gods, Monsters, Nature, and Science (UnCommon Anthologies Book 2)

by P. K. Tyler

  Of course he can see it! Feeling myself sway, I pull out the chair and drop into it.

  He bends, places the water back on the side table, then stands up, again in that curiously smooth movement; and, crossing his arms, he waits.

  He doesn't sit this time and, for some reason, that bothers me. It's something in the way his body simply settles into lines which are alert and yet at rest. As if he can stand there forever. Patient. Waiting. Watching. Like a.... a...

  Guardian. That's the word you are looking for, isn't it?

  I recoil, my neck snapping back against the high-necked chair. Had I just said that? But the voice didn't sound like mine. It isn't my voice, is it?

  "No, it wasn't your voice," he says aloud this time. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. And while I know you need to come to terms with what you really are, surely it is not all a surprise to you. You must have known—"

  He takes a step forward and immediately the bubbling in my womb thrums up a notch.

  "Wait," I gasp out. My fingers protectively creep around my stomach. "Wh—What do you mean?"

  "What do you think you're feeling right now?" he asks, parrying my question with another of his. Again.

  Is he ever going to answer me straight?

  And why am I reacting like this to him?

  "So you do feel it, then?" He asks. His lips relax, that tenseness around them easing.

  "Wait! So you're reading my mind right now?" My voice comes out half shocked, half surprised.

  He sighs and runs his fingers through his hair, making it stick up, "I am sorry. Old habit. One I don't normally indulge in with those who I have just met. But with you, I am already breaking rules."

  It's his turn to fold his arms over his stomach. The movement causes his half buttoned shirt to stretch and the frayed grey T-shirt he's wearing inside peeks out.

  "Meeting you, the Golden Womb—the one I've been waiting for for so long—has thrown me off balance." He half bows and I cringe.

  "Don't call me that," I say in a tight voice. "Don't."

  “Why?” He looks at me in amazement. “It's an honor, a once in a millennium happening. There has only been one before you.”

  “So, there was another one of this—“ I can't bring myself to say it, not when a part of me completely resists having any part of my future mapped out for me. And who are these people: Ascendants, Guardians? An alien species that look like us?

  A light whisper as if something or someone was brushing up against my mind, and then I hear his words again in my head, So you know nothing about us? Didn't Sofia tell you?

  "You're doing that again," I say, "reading my mind. Don't. It's quite intrusive and wrong. And really impolite."

  He bows his head. When he looks up again, the light, almost phantom presence in my head is gone. And along with it, the lingering tug from the cord at the base of my womb.

  He was there all along, trying to read me all along.

  I already miss his presence.

  A part of me wants to reach out and tug that cord back into place. Almost like an umbilical cord. A connection, but more sexual. Just by thinking that, an overwhelming feeling of wanting to go to him drops over me. I gasp as it goes right through me, jerking me upright. It also makes me very, very wary.

  "What is this?" I ask, crossing my legs, my voice tight, rigid. "What is happening between us, what is happening to me?"

  "It’s normal, Fia."

  How does he know my nickname is Fia? What else has he picked up in the casual brushing against my thoughts?

  "You're feeling better now, aren't you? Awake? More energetic?"

  I nod, hesitant. What is he getting at?

  "No thanks to you," I say, my voice grim. "Now that you're not doing that thing," I point to the space between us, moving my palm back and forth to indicate the cord.

  "On the contrary, it is because of our connection that you feel more aligned, more in tune with yourself and your surroundings; your broken energy lines have been repaired."

  Everything he says makes sense in a weird kind of way and yet, yet I don't want to believe it.

  "So what am I? What are you?" I ask, my voice abrupt.

  Why are we pretending to be people having a 'normal' conversation when there is so much unsaid between us?

  "Why don't we go for a walk? And I can try to explain?" He nods to where the pale pink dawn creeps in through the window.

  And that tips me over an edge. I am tired of people predicting my future, telling me what is good for me. Asking me to fall in line. I can't do this. Not. Any. More.

  "No." Blue-black anger spurts through me.

  He looks at me, startled.

  "No?" he asks.

  I shake my head, "I haven't come all this way to go for a walk."

  "Have you been here before? To Bombay?" He grins and his face lights up.

  This time, there’s a tug in my belly—a real tug. Not the other kind where I'd felt him pull on me with a cord. No, this one's different, more real somehow. And he's distracting me. Again.

  "You're stalling," I say in a flash of insight. "What are you hiding from me?"

  He takes a deep breath, runs his hand through his hair once again, messing it up even more. He sits down on the bed before replying, "I am a Guardian."

  I nod. "That's what, an honorary rank among Ascendants?"

  He nods, "There are only a dozen of us."

  "So should I be privileged that I met you?" I sneer, trying to get a rise out of him, but he chooses to ignore it.

  "Sofia was an Ascendant," he says.

  I nod again, "She told me that much."

  "And you are the Golden Womb. The girl—" He corrects himself. "The woman who will birth the new world." He shuts his mouth and looks at me as if to say, ‘You get it right?’

  "Right. Okay." I jump to my feet and begin to pace at right angles to him. Back. Forth. Back. Until he says, so softly I can just about hear him above the chaos in my head, "It's okay, just ask. Ask me what you're thinking."

  I am grateful this time he's not in my head. I know because I can't feel him doing that 'thing' where I feel his presence brushing up against the edge of my consciousness.

  "So I am just going to immaculately birth a new race?"

  "No, not exactly."

  I growl, "So what then? You want me to read your mind, is that it?" And it's as if saying it aloud is a trigger and I am already reaching out to him with my mind. A silvery whisper of my shadow which zooms in on him and scans his thoughts. The images roll as if I've flipped a switch.

  Me, and him.

  Him, and Me.

  And it's not a race I am going to give birth to. No. It's just one person. A child who will, who might change the world.

  "How? How can one child bring about this shift? How?" I demand.

  "Just by being born, he or she will reconfigure the energy. It will make humans open. So they search for answers in themselves, rather than opt for quick, external fixes. Just the mere act of looking inward changes everything. Do you understand?"

  No, I don't. It sounds unrealistic. Too far away from the life I've planned for myself.

  "The most adventurous journeys are the ones we take inside," he adds, his eyes not leaving my face.

  I know he’s right, and yet I can't rid myself of the doubt that crawls at me. Telling me to wait. Wait. Wait 'til I know more, 'til I can rationalize, justify everything I have heard. 'Til I can prove it to myself.

  "What if I don't want to birth this being? To be with you."

  "But you do, don’t you?" He takes a step towards me. And another, and another. He's almost halfway to me.

  But I don't move away. Not even when he is right in front of me.

  Holding out his hand, palm up, he asks, "Why do you resist? When you can already sense what is between us."

  He gestures to where I had last seen that cord. The one which binds me to him. The one I cannot see, because he's reined it in.

  He's close enough f
or me to see his eyes go light and when he swallows, the chords of his throat move. It draws my attention to that hollow at the base of his throat. And I notice for the first time the making of a tattoo, which peeks above his T-shirt.

  His chest rises and falls, his muscles stretching the fabric.

  I reach out to him with my being. My unseen touch shivers over those muscles down to his flat stomach. Edging lower, lower, over the front of his jeans.

  He groans and my eyes dart back to his face.

  Eyes shut, he tilts his head and bites down on his lower lip, "Not fair." His voice comes out heavy, deep, so thick I taste the desire in them.

  And then in the next breath, he reaches for the hem of his T-shirt, pulling it off, and I gasp.

  Heat plumes off him, hitting me in the chest, flowing over me, enveloping me as if he’s physically covered me with his body.

  I touch his chest, tracing my finger over the tattoo that covers his upper arm. It creeps up towards his throat before flowing over his shoulder, down his back.

  He groans again, the sound torn out of him. It ripples up his throat, pulling at me, tugging me.

  "Don’t stop," he says.

  Desire spools off him and I can smell him now. Smell his arousal. A musky vanilla tinged scent which yanks at my belly. But, it's too late.

  I pull back.

  His eyes fly open. The pain in them reaches out to me, a swirling purple of desire, unmistakably sexual and deep and shot through with patches of red. As if he's in pain and holding himself back.

  The cord between us snaps into place, tugging deep inside my womb, and I gasp as a wave of nausea washes over me and my knees almost give out.

  "Stop it," I scream, "Stop. I'm not ready for this."

  I can't go through with this, whatever the prophecy may say, whatever my connection is to this man. I can’t be just the vessel. I want … need to have control over my own life. Surely I can claim that much for myself, can’t I?

  Brushing past him, I half stumble my way out of the way through the silent corridor to the living room, collecting my backpack from where I'd dropped it on the floor near the bed.

  I reach the street, noticing for the first time that my feet are still bare.

  With every inch of distance I put between us, the nausea gets better. But the pain, that gut-wrenching feeling of something not being quite right is still there. A coiled ball of heat in the pit of my stomach when I fly out the next day.

  5

  Three years later…

  I drag the carry-on suitcase up the short flight of steps of the Victorian house. Finding the keys in their designated pocket inside my handbag, I open the front door and step inside, kicking off my heels.

  Tonight, I'll sleep in my own bed. After a week of seeing the insides of various hotel rooms in different cities across Europe, the thought of a long hot shower and a glass of wine makes me moan with pleasure. Hell, it's 5 pm, I'll have the glass of wine now.

  Dropping my handbag on the little table by the door, I leave the wheelie next to it. Reaching the kitchen, I barely stop to pour a glass of wine from the bottle chilling in the fridge before stepping onto the patio. The wild flowers in the backyard dance blue and yellow, and the roses have bloomed while I was gone.

  Weeks, years, spent climbing the ladder at my firm. Breakfast-meetings, business trips, dinners spent wooing clients, and in between all that somewhere, some little bit of squeezed time with my boyfriend.

  It's what I wanted, right? And if I keep this pace I'll make partner by the end of the year. The youngest partner ever in the history of the firm. Yeah, it's what I want. It is. Besides, there's James.

  Handsome James. An investment banker who is not just successful, but also caring. He's set up a fund that invests in the work of up-and-coming artists. Yeah, he's one of those rare finance people who's kind. Gentle. Compassionate.

  Boring.

  I am one lucky woman.

  Draining the wine, I turn and step back inside when a giggle floats down the stairs and I freeze.

  Then a low voice—a male voice—James' voice, vibrates through the room above me. I can't make out the words but it's followed by the sound of a woman's laugh. Cut off. She's being kissed. He's touching her, feeling her, caressing her. A female moan, followed by the unmistakable squeak of bedsprings. Of a couple passionately making love. Upstairs. In our bedroom. In our bed.

  I look around the kitchen, noticing for the first time that James' wallet and his keys lie on the dining table. Next to a half empty champagne bottle.

  Gripping the stem of the wine glass, I walk towards the stairs.

  The sounds get louder. A gasp, another moan, she cries out his name then and I shrink back. But I can't leave. There's a macabre pleasure in hearing your boyfriend of two years make love to an unknown woman.

  Is that how I sound? Do I moan his name like that too? Do I scream out when I am about to come? And does James groan like that? Does silence descend over us as we lie there spent? The smell of sex ripe in the air, skin slick with sweat, limbs wrapped around each other as he nuzzles her shoulders, still inside her, her legs gripping his waist. Refusing to let go.

  My breath comes out shallow, breasts rising and falling as I try to make sense of what I am hearing. Know what I am hearing. And accept it just like that.

  I don't have to pretend I feel something for this man. Not anymore.

  All I feel is a cold fist in my chest where my heart should be. The ice crackles out, slamming against that coiled ball of warmth in my belly and I shiver as they collide. The impact shudders down my spine.

  The sound of bare feet hitting the floor of the bedroom above startles me. I look down at the blood trickling down my palm. The snapped stem of the wine glass is still gripped in my fingers. The top half has rolled onto the carpet, staining it with the last remaining drops of red. I turn, grabbing my keys and handbag, slipping into my heels at the same time.

  Slamming the door behind me, I walk out onto the street, up the path towards the main road. Raising my hand to flag down a cab, I let the broken stem finally fall by the roadside.

  6

  The noise in the bar pushes against my eardrums, pressing in on my skin, going right through me 'til I feel I've become but a pale shadow of myself. Picking up the shot glass, I down the clear liquid and welcome the hum of the alcohol as it burns its way down. My stomach churns, nausea lapping at the edges. I bite my lips, swallowing down the bile, and ask the bartender to top me up.

  Of course, this feeling of being physically sick has nothing to do with my walking in on that little scene earlier. No, it's because I've been mixing my alcohol over the last few hours. Another glass of wine, then whiskey, and finally tequila shots. I'd asked the cab to bring me to this bar in the city. One where I hang out with colleagues after work.

  Perhaps the comfort of the familiar drew me here. Or maybe it was just the first place I could think of. A concrete destination to give the cabdriver, so I could just get away from that place.

  Either way it doesn't matter.

  All that matters is getting my next drink. Getting plastered so I can crawl into bed.

  Another hotel bed.

  Fuck! There's no way I can go back home now.

  No, it'll have to be a hotel room tonight while I figure out what to do next.

  I swear again and let my eyes run up the hair-sprinkled forearm of the bartender who tops up my shot glass. I don't have to be alone tonight, though. I am free. FREE. Can take any guy I want to bed.

  My eyes continue their journey up, over the tattoo which crawls around the left side of his neck, to disappear over his shoulder. This time, the nausea rises in a wave and hits the roof of my mouth. I down the tequila and gasp when the alcohol swirls with the acid in my stomach. Bile rushes to my throat.

  Why am I so queasy?

  That small ball of heat which had stayed dormant since Bombay has been restless all week. And when I'd landed in London this morning, it'd cranked up a notch, leapin
g to life at intervals all through the day. As if waiting... waiting... for him. Still him. It always comes back to him.

  And this is what shattered me.

  More than the crazy hours on the job, more than the cheating boyfriend, this is what got to me. This growing feeling I've felt only once before. When I'd seen Kris.

  Maybe it’s because I am so tired. So run down, any barriers erected between me and him have been swept away.

  Somewhere over the past few years, the euphoria of success has drained away to be replaced by a gnawing emptiness.

  When had the adrenaline of closing another deal been replaced by a feeling of something missing? Of wanting, needing, to feel something more?

  Something that would push past the face I showed the world to touch the 'me' inside? That part of me which I’ve managed to kept hidden from everyone.

  Everyone except Kris. He’d seen it right away. Connected with that light inside of me that had recognized him too.

  And had been in anticipation since.

  Waiting for me to catch up.

  A raging thirst washes over me and the hair on my forearms stand on end.

  The nausea fades, to be replaced by a longing so intense, so powerful, I double over, clutching my womb.

  It's not a tug anymore, but a pull. That slim cord is now a heavy, silvery rope, grown stronger over the years, more powerful with time. Used my hunger to feed itself.

  And I know, I just know he is here. Somewhere close by.

  His presence reaches out to me, brushes up against my mind, and I shiver. It's not even an intimate touch. Not half as invasive as it could be if he were to just slide that silver cord lower, down my chest, my waist, towards my womb.

  Do you want me to?

  My eyes spring open.

  I jump off the bar stool and look around. At the couple next to me kissing, the thrum of bodies rubbing up against each other on the dance floor, at the haze of longing, desire that clouds me, pours over me, on me, through me.

  I need to find him, ask him what he's doing to me. Why despite my turning him down he never left me alone all these years. All through these empty—no, successful—years of climbing the ladder, the youngest to be considered for partner, and having a perfect boyfriend, and getting a mortgage and on the property ladder. Empty. Empty. Empty.