by Nicole Thorn
“I didn’t need to hear it,” Verin said.
My sister looked at me. Nothing in the room whispered, except for Verin. I didn’t need to trigger whatever vision that would’ve given me. I took the mail up and concentrated on it. After a moment, I felt the pull of a vision, and allowed myself to sink into it.
Same route. Always the same route, with the same faces. Tired of seeing these faces. They always look right past him. He hates that but doesn’t know what else to do. He couldn’t get a real job, because that would’ve required degrees that he didn’t have, because of money he couldn’t earn, because of people that didn’t look at him.
Stopped at the mailbox and started stuffing envelopes and packages inside. A girl of medium height came jogging up to him. When she saw him, she gave a huge smile that lit up her gray and blue eyes. “Hello!” the girl chirped.
He couldn’t help but smile. “Hello.”
“How’ve you been?” the girl asked, as he pulled her mail from the bag. He didn’t know which kid she was but wished he did. She always seemed so kind when he brought the mail.
“Good, thank you,” the man said, and handed Miss Nelson her mail. She bounced back to her house, such a cheerful ray of light that he felt a little better.
I pulled myself out of the vision and shook my head. “Yeah, we’re good. It’s only you, Jazz.”
She frowned again, shifting around on her feet. “Okay, well, unless Juni’s pregnant, there is no reason for me to be unable to have visions.”
Juniper’s cheeks turned scarlet in an instant, but Verin said, “She’s not. I’d like to think she’d tell me first, right, luv?”
“Of course,” Juniper said. “And I’m not pregnant. I’m never getting pregnant, because triplets. Little, tiny, crawling triplets, that will rip the whole house apart, because they got his genes too!” She flung her hand at Verin, who caught it, and brought her knuckles to his lips. My sister turned an even darker shade of red. “Besides, if that were the reason that you couldn’t have visions, wouldn’t we all be in trouble?”
“I don’t know,” Jasmine said, shrugging. “Mom didn’t stick around long enough to tell us that.” Only three seers at a time ever existed. When the seer that could see the present had children, it was always triplets, and the power would pass from the parent, to the children. My mother had us when she’d been seventeen, as soon as she could get pregnant. Then, she had taken off. I couldn’t remember the woman at all, and my sisters only had the vaguest recollections.
“Then what’s going on?” I asked.
Jasmine looked around the room, at all of us staring at her. She had nothing to say, because she didn’t know what happened. None of us did.
Kezia cleared her throat. “The last time this happened, it had been affecting Callie as well. Maybe we should go talk to her?”
Jasmine snapped her fingers and pointed at my girlfriend. “Good idea. Give me but one second.” She pulled her phone out and dialed the number. We all listened to the phone ring, and ring, but no picked up. Jasmine frowned and tried again, only to get the same results.
“We should just head over there,” Zander said, standing up.
“We’ll all go,” Kezia interjecting, also standing up. He didn’t argue, though he could have. We had no reason to all go with him. Still, about five minutes later, we had climbed into two cars. Someone should’ve invested in a van, because Zander’s SUV couldn’t hold everyone anymore.
***
Callie, the Oracle, lived not too far away from us, in a richer neighborhood. We probably could have afforded to live there as well, but my sisters and I liked the house that we chose. We pulled up outside a house that shamed ours. It had neatly trimmed grass, and carefully manicured bushes. Everything about the house looked put together, down to rocks in the flowerbed.
The only thing that didn’t look normal was one window. I couldn’t tell what had been done to it from where I stood, but I thought someone had covered in Post-It notes. It certainly looked lime green. Callie’s bedroom window, to be exact. I wondered how she dealt with that, not being able to look outside.
Kezia followed my line of sight and frowned. “That’s not good, huh?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t think it is.”
We headed up the steps, to the front door. Jasmine rang the doorbell to the tune of a SpongeBob song, and I raised my eyebrow at her. She grinned without shame, and stepped away from the door.
I expected Callie’s father or mother to answer. They had always been the ones to do so before, at any rate. Instead, Callie pulled the door open herself, and looked up at us with large, black eyes. Orange hair fell around her face in crazy curls, and dark circles had formed underneath her eyes. Other than that, though, she looked perfectly fine. She had on a t-shirt with a cartoon cat, flipping everyone off, and jeans with holes in the knees.
She barely stood over five feet, and looked her age. Barely seventeen. When she saw us standing there, a huge smile spread across her face. “Hi guys!” she shouted and bounced forward. It looked like she would hug Jasmine, but my sister dodged around Zander, keeping him between her and the Oracle.
“Sorry,” Jasmine said, peeking around Zander. “I’m not in the mood to go flying. I’m sure you understand.”
Callie sighed. “That’s right. I do understand. I wouldn’t want to give either of us a concussion.”
“Callie?” Zander said, getting the girl’s attention. “May we come in?”
“Sure!” she chirped, stepping into the house. We all followed her inside, and she closed the door.
“Where are your parents?” Kezia asked, looking around.
“Oh, they had to go out of town,” Callie said. “They said something . . . birth? Funeral? Marriage? Oh, that’s right. My second cousin is getting married to her ex-husband again, and they have to attend. They didn’t want to put me on the plane, so I get to stay here, all by myself. They gave my so much pizza money . . . mmm . . . Pizza.” The girl closed her eyes and sighed.
I wondered what Callie had been like before the gods had picked her as their Oracle. Having their voices in her head all day had driven Callie insane, or as close to it as a person could get. She talked freely about the gods, which naturally worried her parents. They didn’t know what to do about it, or what to think. Therapists hadn’t diagnosed her with anything. They said she just had an active imagination.
It seemed like such an inadequate thing to think.
“Can we talk to you about something?” Kezia asked.
“Oh, sure!” Callie said. “I actually have something for you. C’mon!” she ran up the stairs, leaving us to follow her. She led us to her bedroom, threw the door open, and then paused. “Actually, we have a bit of a problem,” she said, turning around. She frowned at me, then Zander, then Verin. “I’m not allowed to have boys in here anymore.”
“Why?” Kezia asked, a frown pulling her lips down.
Callie rolled her eyes. “You make out with one demigod, and your parents get so upset. He was so cute, though. He kept making awkward comments, and then trying to cover up for it. And his lips were soft.” She closed her eyes and rocked back on her heels. “I miss him.”
“Aw,” Jasmine said.
“Anyway, your fellas have to stay out in the hall. Stay.” She pointed at us, and then dragged the girls into her room, and closed the door.
“What . . . the hell . . . ” Verin said.
“I know,” Zander said. “I’ve saved her life and gotten hit by a car for her, and she’s booting me out of her room, first of all. Second of all, she’s two years younger than me, and that feels like a lot of time. Third of all, I’m happily with another woman. This is just rude. I have to stand out here in the hall, like some kind of peasant.”
Verin shook his head. “I don’t even know what to do with myself.”
I tucked my hands in my pockets and leaned against the wall. In front of us, I saw family pictures, stretched all across the wall. With a sigh, Zander held
up the wall next to me, and then Verin took up the space next to him.
“This is so wrong,” Zander said.
CHAPTER FOUR:
Nowhere to Turn
Kezia
I LOOKED AROUND at the room that bled crazy, worrying about the girl in front of us. The room looked worse than it did before, more notes and things all over the floor. I doubted she ever cleaned it, but at least last time it looked livable. Now, with her mind filled constantly with the voices of other people, maybe she found it harder to focus on human things like that. The gods wouldn’t give her a break for as long as she lived, even knowing it would eventually make her insane. Like, really insane. It felt cruel to me, but I didn’t think those up above would have cared.
Callie couldn’t keep still, and her eyes went around her bedroom. She plucked a green note from her window and looked at it grimly. I almost didn’t want to know what it had to say. Oracles never had any good news.
“What?” Juniper asked.
The girl looked up at her. “I told you the other mountain would come. I told you, and he’s here. He’s out there, actually.”
I shivered a little, remembering the prophecy she had told us when we were here last time. It had insinuated that half of my family would die. “Callie . . . ”
“Hush,” she said. “And get that scared look off of your face. It’ll be fine. Probably. Eventually. Not now and not for a while, but eventually. So, calm down.”
“I’m calm,” I said. “You’re the one who’s not calm.”
Jasmine gave me the side eye. “You sound less than calm.”
“Don’t sass me.” This was about her end, as well as her sister and brother.
Juniper jumped in. “What did you need to tell us, Callie?”
She held her hands up, Post-It between her fingers. “The wind will be here soon, but a different wind. A less windy wind, but a wind nonetheless. It’ll hurt, they say. I hear whispers, but only from a few. The gods don’t all know, and they won’t make it clear for me. Very annoying.”
“I can only imagine,” I sighed. Why did we even bother popping up here when it did nothing but stress everyone out?
The girl took a deep breath, holding it, then letting go. “Here’s what I know. Eyes. Eyes are going to not do so well, but they are . . . so . . . Hmm. I don’t know how to describe it. Everything is okay, but bad too. The whispers make me feel icky, but I don’t know all the reasons why, and they won’t tell me. But mountains, they said you’ll cry. Cry so much. And they said that someone sits by a river. Sits and waits. It made someone smile. But the mountains are so afraid. It’s fine, because there are going to be six in the end. Even when the wind shows up, there will be six. There will always be six.”
I stared at her blankly, trying to make sense of the senselessness that came from her mouth. “Anyone? Anyone get this?”
Juniper shifted uncomfortably on her feet. “It all sounds bad. Rivers are dirty.”
“Crying,” Jasmine said. “The mountains are the demigods. They’re crying. Eyes, that’s us. We’re not going to do so well?”
Callie reached out to her, then stopped before they could touch. “Not really, but also yes. They didn’t say how, but it’s fine. It’s not the gods. They don’t know. I think. Someone else knows, but they don’t talk to me. I only hear what the gods hear, and the gods don’t mess with the fates. No point, and it’s dangerous.”
Of course, the fates knew it all. They had answers that we didn’t get until life unfurled. I really hated that, especially when my family was involved.
“I wouldn’t worry,” Callie said. “Things get bad, then they get good again. Since the start of time, that’s how it works. No matter how bad it gets, the sun keeps coming up. Trees grow. Life moves.”
I got defensive. “Trees grow because of my mother. We need something more than things are bad and they’ll be good. Jasmine can’t have visions.”
Callie cocked her head at the girl. “Oh, I didn’t hear about that. For how long?”
Jasmine answered with, “Somewhere around a week, I guess.”
“Hmm. I’ll listen and see if they know why. Then I’ll call you. I just wanted to let you know that everyone says you’re all very important so, you should feel special.”
Jasmine smiled. “Well thank you very much. I always feel special.”
Callie smiled back. “I like you guys a whole lot, so I hope you don’t die.”
I sighed. “Thanks, sweetie. Call if you get anything, or if you need us. I guess I have something I need to do.”
I left the room with the girls, letting Callie stay with her Post-Its and confusing whispers. Not that I had thought for sure she would have been able to help, but I’d had my fingers crossed. I shouldn’t have been so short with her, but I got set on edge. All I needed was for things to stay good. I had everyone I cared about all in one house, and things got quiet. I knew that one day, I would lose Jasper and his sisters. A long time from now, and I didn’t want to hurt myself thinking about it. So, when Callie brought it up, I wanted nothing more than to leave.
“Anything helpful?” Zander asked as we started down the stairs.
“No,” Jasmine answered. “Just that prophecy again.”
Me and Juniper took one car so that Jasmine could fill the boys in on the way home. We still had things to discuss, and I felt like she was better able to explain the meeting than me or Juniper. She still seemed a little upset over the mess that Callie’s room always ended up being, so she sat in the car, relaxing. I felt like I would have gotten snippy, so this worked out.
When we all got back to the house, we gathered in the living room, all the couples sitting with each other. I ended up on Jasper’s lap, his hand on mine while I told myself that some prophecy didn’t mean anything. They were only words, and we made our own futures. I could protect him from most anything.
“It’s rubbish,” Verin said. “No one is dying.”
“I agree,” I responded.
Zander shifted beside Jasmine, giving the girl occasional glances. “This whole thing makes me uneasy, but we’ll figure it out. Jasmine’s visions could be anything, and we’re not seeing it. Doesn’t mean some prophecy is coming true.”
“But maybe,” Jasmine said. “We don’t know.”
“We don’t,” her brother added. “But we can find out.”
I nodded. “Every other thing that’s come at us, we took care of. This is probably some asshole who wants to take us down for this reason or that. They could be starting with blocking Jasmine’s visions so that we don’t see them coming. Doesn’t mean anything.”
“Nothing,” Verin agreed.
“I’ll kill them,” Zander said. “So, it’s all good.”
For every bit of convincing, I felt no better. It sounded like I lied to myself, and I really couldn’t tell. I tried to keep my hand from shaking, because Jasper’s laid over it. Instead of feeling peace, I only worried about the day I wouldn’t have him there anymore. When I wouldn’t wake up in bed with him.
Soon, I would start seeing it coming for me. A slow-moving storm, or rising water. I would watch Jasper as his eyes started getting wrinkles. As he started slowing and wasn’t as strong. I would see him change, getting older. I would watch his hair turning gray as he began to fade. I could kill any monster that came for him, but I couldn’t undo old age. I couldn’t make him stay with me.
His lips went to my ear then, and his voice was so quiet. “I love you. Don’t be afraid.”
I squeezed his hand, turning my head so I could look at him. “I don’t know how to be anything but afraid.”
I caught my brother looking at me, his expression hard. Then his eyes found Jasmine, and he turned thoughtful. He didn’t say anything.
“It’s all bullshit,” Verin said. “So why are we worried? Jasmine will get her visions back, and it’ll be fine.”
“You don’t know that,” I whispered.
“I do, because I’m not letting anything happen to
anyone in this room. I couldn’t keep Mum alive, but that’s not something I’ll let happen twice. You hear me? No one else dies. My father is the damn god of the underworld, and I’m telling you, no one is going anywhere.”
He said it with such positivity that I wanted to buy it. I wanted to nod my head and tell him he was right. Instead, I stayed leaning on Jasper, silent. I didn’t want to talk anymore, but I knew we needed answers. We couldn’t get them sitting around and speculating. I didn’t feel like waiting for someone to come and attack us. Juniper would have preferred her house stay in one piece anyway.
“Zander,” I eventually said. “We need to call in our mothers.”
My brother nodded. “Yeah. Verin, you wanna bring your dad in?”
“No,” he said quickly. “Because he won’t tell us anything for one, and two, he would only point out that all this worry is for nothing. I’m not bothering him with the ramblings of a mad girl.”
“That mad girl is the Oracle,” I said. “I suggest you have a little reverence for her and her role in all this.”
“No.”
I rose from Jasper’s lap, and walked into the kitchen with Zander. Juniper ran ahead of us, getting things out and placing them where she wanted them. I tried not to do too much cooking, because I knew it made her uncomfortable when I got messy. Even if I planned on cleaning it. Most of the time, she started cleaning before I even finished cooking. I let her, because if it gave her comfort, who was I to take it from her?
I had a little pot I used for such an occasion, but I had to keep in it my room. Juniper didn’t want dirt in the kitchen, and I understood that. I went with Jasper to gather up some freshly grown apples to bake into a pie for my mom. I stared at them as they grew, and I closed my eyes.
“It’ll be okay,” Jasper said. “I promise.”
“Don’t make me promises. Please.”
Jasper took me by the hips and turned me to him as I opened my eyes again. “But I will, because we’ll be all right. It’s too early to go full blown darkness right now. Jasmine’s visions are blocked, and that’s all. It’s weird, but not a sign of our impending doom.”