Elemental Origins: The Complete Series

by A. L. Knorr

  "Of course it is. How many people do you know who can actually feel someone else's emotions?" There were those who were more empathetic than others, but far as I knew, the fact that Jack could feel my heat and hear my fire sent him rocketing way outside of normal.

  "Yeah, but what good is it? I can't make flames, like you." He gave me a lopsided grin.

  I laughed. "I think your ability will turn out to be much more useful than mine in the long run."

  "I doubt it," he mumbled. He wrapped his arms around the chains and clasped his hands in front of them. "It's hard to tell where my own feelings end and the other person’s starts. That's why I had to leave the table that night that you told us what happened to you. I could feel Mom’s heartbreak, RJ's amazement. He thinks it’s really cool, by the way." He shot me a side-eye. "And he’s kind of jealous."

  "Really?" But my mind had caught on something else. "Mom is heartbroken?"

  "Yeah, of course!" He looked surprised that I didn't know this already. "You're not her little girl anymore. She feels like your future has been stolen from you. In a way, she feels like she's experiencing a death. Dad's really angry, or at least he was before you went to England. He came back feeling way better. He had some really violent feelings about what he would have done to Dante if he had been there." He stopped suddenly, catching the horror on my face. "Sorry, Saxony."

  My heart was pounding and I was gripping the cold chains tightly. My breathing had gone shallow. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

  "I shouldn't have said all of that, I'm sorry."

  "No, it's okay," I said. "Better to know the reality. Do you think Mom will agree to let me go to England?"

  He nodded. “Dad’s already convinced her. They were up late last night. I could feel the conflict go like a heat wave through the house. I couldn’t sleep until they came to an agreement.”

  “But they did come to an agreement?”

  We got up and began to head back towards home.

  Jack peered over at me. “They did. Looks like we have to say goodbye again.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. I guess we do.” I threw an arm over my brother’s neck and kissed his forehead. “I’m glad you’re not mad at me anymore.”

  When I released him, he rubbed his temple, looking pink and embarrassed. “Do that again and I will be.”

  “Oh, whatever,” I said and shoved him sideways into a bush.

  That evening, Jack was sitting in the overstuffed armchair and I was curled up on the couch in our basement rec room listening to the popcorn maker going off in the kitchen above us. It was our family movie night, a tradition we’d had for as long as I could remember. Through the small windows in the top half of our basement, rain pelted the glass and the wind whipped the leaves of the trees.

  "I've been thinking, maybe I should come with you to England," Jack said, tossing the remote up in the air and catching it.

  "Oh, yeah? Why's that?"

  "Well, I'm probably a supernatural, too. Maybe I should be getting trained also."

  "You're not a fire elemental." I smiled.

  "No, I'm not as cool as you, but I think I could have my uses," he said dropping the remote and steepling his fingers. He smiled like an evil villain.

  "Like what?"

  "I could be your sidekick. I can tell you how the other kids in your class feel about you. I can tell you who you shouldn't trust."

  "Hmm." I put on a thoughtful face. "On second thought, that could be very handy. I think you should come, too. I'll call Basil in the morning and ask him if he's got a room you can have."

  Jack smiled. Slowly it faded.

  "What?"

  "You'll be gone soon," he said. "You won't be here at all this school year."

  "I'll come home for visits."

  He glanced at the stairs to where my parents’ voices were drifting down from the kitchen. "Yeah, but as soon as you get a taste of freedom, I just think you won't have a reason to come home. Not for good. Why would you? Of all the places in the world you could be, why would you come back to Saltford?"

  I blinked at this calculating suggestion and realized that he wasn't wrong. I had to reassess what I wanted for my future. It wasn't like I'd had a good grasp of what I wanted to be before I'd been given the fire, and now I had to evaluate it from an entirely different vantage point.

  "Well," I began, "it's not like you'll be here for much longer, either. Another three years and you'll be facing Uni, or college, or whatever you decide."

  He frowned. "I don't like change."

  I looked at my little brother. He'd changed so much in the last few years, it was difficult to imagine him hating it. A wave of nostalgia swept over me and I realized that he was probably right. My days under my parents’ roof were limited, and like most teenagers, I couldn't wait to spread my wings. But there was also something to be said for just being in the moment. Jack had always been good at that.

  He interrupted my thoughts with a change of topic. "When is your sleepover?"

  “Saturday night," I replied. My stomach gave an excited flutter at the thought of it. I couldn’t wait to get together with my friends and hear all about their summer adventures.

  As we heard Mom and Dad's footsteps coming down the stairs, Jack got off the chair and came to sit beside me on the couch. I raised my eye brows at him. "I thought I was too hot and too loud for you to sit beside?"

  He gave me a sheepish grin. "The sound is kind of like white noise now, or a fireplace." He shrugged. "I don't mind it."

  Mom plopped down beside Jack with the overflowing popcorn bowl and Dad sat down beside me.

  "RJ!" Dad called over his shoulder.

  "Coming!" He emerged from his room and plopped down in the chair Jack had just vacated.

  "And the heat?" I asked Jack, popping a few kernels of corn into my mouth.

  "It's cold in the basement," he said with a grin.

  "Oh, I see how it is," I said, laughing. I poked him in the side. "You're just going to use me as your own personal space heater."

  Jack pulled the bowl of popcorn onto his lap and shoved a handful into his mouth. "Pretty much." He crunched the kernels and said through his full mouth, "Are you going to tell your friends about your new superpower?"

  I frowned and stopped chewing. He'd just nailed the one question I had been avoiding answering for myself.

  "Of course she's not," said Mom, as though he'd asked if I was planning to shave my head. She picked up the remote control.

  "You guys going to share the popcorn or what?" asked RJ. "Growing man starving to death over here.”

  Mom handed him the bowl and pressed play. As the cheesy music began and the movie credits rolled, my dad said, "I've think I've seen this. It looks old." He took a bite of popcorn. "What are we watching?"

  "Firestarter," said Jack with a lumpy chipmunk-cheeked grin at me in the glow of our TV screen.

  I rolled my eyes and bounced a popcorn kernel off his forehead. "Never putting you in charge of movie night again."

  <<<<>>>>

  When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house when I came out. And whence he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.

  Luke 11: 24-25

  Prologue

  I have never been a diary kind of girl. Yet here I sit, laptop open, fingers flying. I'm imagining you are my future child or grandchild, it helps to think we’re related and that maybe these words will help you.

  It's the end of the most mind-blowing, amazing, disruptive, life-changing summer of my life. I am not sure how I could have understood the happenings and changes I faced these past two months without the scribblings of an ancestor. And with that, I have become… a diary girl.

  In a few days, I’ll see my best friends - friends who have
become my family. I haven't decided how to tell them what happened to me, who I’ve become, what I am. I’m still trying to figure that out myself. I don’t want to spook them, especially with what I've learned about Saltford, our hometown. I guess I’ll worry about that when time comes. For now, I’m going back. Back to the evening I last saw them, and back to a place of blissful ignorance.

  Chapter 1

  I closed the front door and leaned against it, sighing. Alone again. Our gigantic foyer echoed with the sound of my footsteps as I crossed the marble expanse in my Jimmy Choo flip flops, past our restaurant-sized but mostly un-used kitchen, through our quadruple sliding patio doors and into our perfectly-kept-by-complete-strangers back yard.

  I dumped the melted ice from four used iced-tea glasses, stacked them, and folded the blankets, still warm from the bodies of my best friends - Targa, Saxony, and Akiko. My friends were gone for the summer. Our goodbyes had been said.

  These are the girls who know that all it takes to make me cry is a video of a horse running in slow motion - I'm not kidding - the waterworks just start. These are the girls who know how to get me laughing so hard I get cramps. These are the girls who know that I left anonymous love-notes inside Gregory Handler’s shoe in Grade 4.

  A hollow feeling buckled my knees. The familiar metallic glint of loneliness soured in my mouth and I plopped down in one of the deck chairs. The dark sky, so beautiful in its star-speckled glory while my friends were here, now looked like it was going to swallow me in its cold gaping maw. I stared into the dying embers. The insects had stopped singing and the fire had run out of heat. Silence stuffed my ears in one of those moments where you wonder if you've actually gone deaf. The dwindling fire gave a snap and confirmed I hadn't lost my hearing, just my besties for the summer.

  The grinding hum of our garage door alerted me that Liz was home. Liz was about to get some happy news. Targa's last-minute opportunity to go to Poland with her mom meant that I'd be leaving, too. Decision made. Ireland, here I come. I hadn't been planning on leaving. It had been twelve years since I’d been to visit my Aunt Faith, she's practically a stranger. Then again, so is Liz. So what's the difference? Stay home in Saltford with my laptop? Or get on a plane and visit the Emerald Isle for the summer?

  I loaded my arms with the blankets and took them inside. "Liz?" I closed the patio door behind me with my toes.

  "In here, Poppet," she answered from her home office, in her manufactured aristocratic English accent. Poppet. Why is it that when a term of endearment isn't delivered with any actual affection it sounds like you're calling over a barnyard animal? Perhaps a piglet?

  Liz should have an Irish accent, like my Aunt Faith does, but not long after she made partner she took classes to train herself to sound British. Why? No idea. Maybe she thinks legalese comes out better in an English accent.

  I dumped the smoky blankets in the laundry hamper and padded down our plushly-carpeted hallway, silent as a panther. I swear you could drop a dead body down our stairs and you wouldn't hear a thing. Targa takes off her socks just so she can feel the thick softness of our carpet with her toes. I can't bring myself to do the same, I hate the feeling of bare feet. My soles are too sensitive. Every little piece of dirt, pokey bit of carpet, or blade of grass feels magnified.

  "Hey," I poked my head into Liz's office. She was already pecking away rapid-fire on her laptop, a stack of file folders at her right hand, her Prada bifocals perched on the end of her nose. Her hair looked like it hadn't budged since she left at 5:45 on the nose this morning. "Got a minute?"

  "Just. What is it?" She didn't look up from the keyboard, and her fingers flew faster if that was possible. Any moment now, they could start smoking.

  "I'm going to go to Ireland for the summer. Like you wanted."

  That got her attention. She looked up. Lines creased her forehead as she peered over her glasses, her bionic fingers momentarily paused. "You are? What happened, I thought you and Targa were going to hang out, camp, that sort of thing. Isn't that what you said last week? I'm sure that's what you said."

  Camp? I hate camping. Seriously?

  She took off her glasses and put the end bit in her mouth. I could see the gears turning, the drawers of files opening and closing in her mind as she searched for the most up to date information. "Did you and Targa have a falling out?"

  Targa and I never fight. If Liz had ever observed us together or ever asked me anything about my best friend, she'd know that.

  "No. Targa is going to Poland, last minute decision. No point in me hanging about the house by myself all summer. I thought you'd be happy." I stepped inside and sat in one of the two matching leather chairs facing her desk, like a client. I crossed my ankles and folded my hands in my lap. Might as well play the part, make her feel at home. My physical sarcasm was lost on her.

  "I am happy, Poppet. That's great. Call Denise on Monday and she'll set you up with flights. She's updated your passport already, so you're good to go." She put her glasses on and attacked her keyboard again. Denise is Liz's secretary. She makes sure I don't miss a dental cleaning, a haircut or a manicure (I don’t do pedicures. Ugh). They all happen like clockwork. Thanks, Denise.

  "Are you going to talk to Aunt Faith? I mean, she already said I can come, right?"

  Liz didn't look up. "Yes, Poppet. She's good with it. Denise will settle everything with her next week. She'll even pick you up from the train station. Faith, not Denise, obviously." Liz was especially adept at clarity-to-go. I think it’s a lawyer thing.

  "I have to take a train?"

  "Fly to Dublin, train to Anacullough. You don't remember?" Type. Type. Type.

  "I was five.”

  "Denise will explain, it's easy. Ireland's public transport is excellent."

  "Excellent." I watched her type. I cleared my throat.

  She blinked up at me, then back down. "You'll have fun. Jasher will be there too, your cousin. You'll have a friend to play with."

  Wow. Did she really just say that I'd have a friend to play with? What was I, three?

  "What's he like?"

  She frowned. "I don't know, never met him. You know that. I'm sure he's lovely."

  "Well, how old is he? I know he's older than me but by how much? What does he do? Is he a baseball kind of guy, or a movie-buff?"

  She blinked. I'd bewildered her with these questions about her adopted nephew. She wasn't prepared. She hated not being prepared. "Ah," she said, holding up a finger. She opened one of her many desk drawers. Rummaged. Closed the drawer. Opened another one. Rummaged. She pulled out a stack of envelopes wrapped with an elastic band. She plopped them on the edge of her desk with a thwack and set her shoulders back triumphantly. "There you are."

  "What are these?" I crossed the expanse to her desk and picked up the stack of letters. Elegant handwritten scrawl. Postmarked from Ireland.

  "Letters from your Aunt Faith. Once you've read those you'll know everything I know about Jasher, and you'll be all caught up on the goings on over there." She waved her fingers as though doing a spell. Embarrassment over her lack of information, magically averted.

  "Looks like I'll know more than you, Liz. Half of these aren't even open." I thumbed through the stack.

  "Good!" She looked up and flashed me one last winning smile.

  "Good," I echoed. I stood there for a moment, bathing in the sound of typing. In her mind, I was gone already. "Okay, I'm going to go numb myself with technology now."

  She glanced up as briefly as blinking. "Okay, Poppet. Have fun."

  I left, the carpet muffling the sound of my exit.

  Chapter 2

  My room looked like a bomb had gone off. I was sitting on my bedroom floor, suitcase open, stacks of clothes around me sitting in 'yes', 'no', and 'maybe' piles. I kept checking the weather in Ireland and trying to pack appropriately. So far all I had learned was that Irish weather in summer was as predictable as the stock market. Layers it would be.

  The stack of letters on my dre
sser caught my eye. I had packing fatigue anyway, so I pushed myself up from cross-legged, unfolding myself on what Saxony called my stork legs. I grabbed the stack and went to make a cappuccino from our one-of-a-kind espresso machine. Liz had imported it from Naples. It looks like a spaceship.

  I sat in our bright, airy kitchen, with only the sound of the ticking clock for company. I took a sip of my frothy drink and pulled the elastic off the stack of letters. The rubber band broke, snapping against my fingers. These letters must have been in that drawer for a while. At least Liz was kind enough to stack them chronologically before she hid them away from the light for all eternity. I shook my head as I shuffled through the letters, the majority with unbroken seals. No wonder Faith had stopped writing. Why bother?

  There was no word of Jasher until several letters in. So far, it was mostly about her work as a nurse and then her struggles with the medical establishment, her desire to change occupations. She espoused a strong wish to bring together modern technology and 'ancient wisdom,' as she called it.

  I came across a photograph of the property in Ireland. It looked exactly as I remembered. The Victorian house that Faith and Liz referred to as Sarasborne was old but well kept, white with sage trim. There was something regal about that house. The yard was severely manicured - topiaries perfectly trimmed, closely clipped grass, well-pruned shrubs and carefully monitored borders of domestic flowers in alternating colors. According to Liz, my grandmother Roisin (pronounced Rosheen) had been a clean-freak inside the house, and my grandfather Padraig (Patrick) had been a rabid gardener on the outside, wielding his control over nature like a dictator. It showed in the organized perfection of every detail of the yard. The date on the back of the photo was 2000, the year after I'd been born and the year my grandfather had passed away. Our family had been whole at that point and we had gone to Ireland together for the funeral. I don't remember anything about the trip. The next time we'd gone was for my grandmother's funeral. I had never gotten to know my grandparents very well, but I was sufficiently grief-stricken for the visit because my dad had just abandoned us. Liz and Brent had divorced but agreed on joint custody. Turned out my dad didn't even want that, because in less than a year he was gone in a puff of cigarette smoke, leaving only a cell phone number for emergencies. Liz was never the same. She tried to be a good mom, for a while. We did pretty well together until I was eleven. But then she started making real headway at work, made partner, and that, as they say, was that.