by Sara Preucil
He seethed quietly, sitting on a bench as he tied his shoes, his anger growing as he watched the older boys shove the sophomore back and forth between themselves. They were pushing him, fully clothed, toward the running showers.
Hearing the boy’s pleas, Dylan could no longer passively sit aside. Rage boiling over, Dylan shot to his feet. At that exact moment, a faucet on one of the showers shot off, and a jet of steaming water erupted forth, slamming into the ring leader, pitching him back against a wall of lockers.
Dylan thought nothing much of this isolated incident and passed it off as a freak accident.
However, the second episode was not so easy to ignore.
A storm had blown into town about a week later. Dylan stood just inside of the glass doors of his high school at the end of the day, watching the torrential downpour with a frown. His Jeep was parked on the far side of the parking lot, and he had been hoping for a brief reprieve in the weather before making his mad dash to it. But as the rain showed no signs of letting up any time soon, he steeled himself and stepped out into the storm.
He hurried to his Jeep, unlocked the door, and jumped inside. It wasn’t until he was jamming the key into the ignition when he realized that he was completely dry.
Confused, Dylan looked at the windshield. Small rivers of water were streaming down the slanted glass. This made absolutely no sense.
Astonished, he touched an index finger to the glass. On the opposite side of the glass, separated by millimeters, the water where Dylan touched immediately stopped its descent. A small pool, about the size of a quarter formed on the glass. Dylan swiped his finger to the right and, defying gravity, the pool followed. He swiped to the left and it followed, collecting more water as it did so.
Dylan pulled his finger away from the glass and the small pool broke, washing away with the rest of the rain.
In an odd state, somewhere between confusion and denial, Dylan drove straight home. Immediately heading for his room, he sat down on the carpeted floor, his back against his bed, and opened his laptop.
Over the next couple of hours, Dylan followed link after link, directing him to crudely made websites on witchcraft, pagan practices, and DIY spells for wiccans. Nothing helpful came across his screen until he found himself on one chat forum.
One username, Aegaeon, kept popping up, and as Dylan reviewed Aegaeon’s responses to other’s questions, it seemed to him that this person was also trying to sort out the real from the bullshit. About three weeks ago, a MoonPrincessXX typed into one particular thread:
Anyone else feel like they have power over the elements?
Aegaeon responded:
How so?
MoonPrincessXX typed:
Like when you’re sad it rains. Or like really pissed and a storm starts. Or, omg, like this other time, I so didn’t want to go to color guard practice, but then like half the girls got sick from gross lettuce from our cafeteria and it was cancelled. Lettuce…plants…earth…coincidence? I think not!
Aegaeon appeared to have left that thread.
Another conversation, dated four days ago, a Dark_Prince_2003 said:
Been having vivid dreams lately.
Aegaeon replied:
Describe them.
Then Dark_Prince_2003 went on to illustrate a gruesome dream in which he shapeshifted into a wolf and went on a killing spree. He ended his entry by expressing concern over the approaching full moon.
Aegaeon did not reply.
The queries that drew Dylan’s eye all seemed to have one thing in common. This Aegaeon person. Dylan took a leap.
I think you can help me.
He typed this into a private message option next to Aegaeon’s username. Not expecting an immediate reply, Dylan set his laptop aside, wondering what kind of weirdo he may have just contacted. No sooner had he done so, when the ping of a new message sounded. Dylan grabbed his laptop.
Oh?
This was all Aegaeon typed.
Dylan frowned. He knew how crazy this whole thing would sound. He considered shutting his laptop and forgetting this whole ridiculous thing.
On the other hand, so what if a stranger on the internet thought he was nuts?
After a few minutes of mental debate, he would up describing what had happened in the locker room and again in his Jeep.
Can you meet me?
Aegaeon’s response appeared almost immediately after Dylan hit “send.”
Dylan knew how messed up and dangerous it was to meet someone he found on the internet, but the next day, against his better judgment but desperate to figure this out, he found himself driving to Houston.
He had agreed to meet Aegaeon at a fountain in the courtyard of a mall in Houston at noon. Dylan arrived at the mall fifteen minutes early. He found the courtyard easily enough and its large circular fountain. A couple of teenage girls sat on its edge, taking selfies. A mom tried in vain to keep her curious toddled from completely drenching himself in the water. But they were the only ones around.
Dylan sat on the fountain’s ledge and waited. After a while, he checked his phone. 12:06.
“Anon1263?”
Dylan looked up. That was the automated guest username the forum had given him. He eyed the kid in front of him. He was on the short side, probably a few years younger than Dylan, and had dark hair and tan skin. His round, brown eyes reminded Dylan of a puppy. He smiled easily at Dylan.
He wasn’t at all what Dylan was expecting.
“Aegaeon?” Dylan asked, skeptically.
“That’s me.” He sat down next to Dylan on the edge of the fountain.
He’s just a kid, Dylan thought. He started to get up. “I think this was a mistake.”
“Wait.” Aegaeon held out a hand. Slowly, Dylan sat back down. “Look.” The kid pointed to a droplet of water on the fountain’s edge between them. Dylan watched as he touched the droplet with a single finger, then withdrew his hand.
The droplet had frozen into a tiny crystalline dome. Dylan tested it with his own finger. It was solid, and cold. He looked at the kid.
“How?” he whispered, feeling more certain that he had made the right choice in meeting him.
But the kid didn’t say anything; he just looked at Dylan with an expectant expression. It was clear that Dylan wasn’t going to get any answers until he somehow proved himself. There was only one problem.
“I don’t know how to control—” he began, dipping his hand into the fountain. When he pulled it out, water ran off his skin as usual, leaving behind small glittering specks.
“What do you want to happen?”
“Huh?” Dylan frowned at the kid.
“Nothing is going to happen unless you tell it to.” Aegaeon said this as if it were obvious.
Dylan remembered how he didn’t want to get wet in the downpour after school, so he had climbed, completely dry, into his Jeep.
Tell it what to do. He thought, and then mentally commanded: Pool into the center of my palm.
No sooner had he thought this, the water began to travel, droplets collecting and absorbing one another down the length of his fingers, forming a small, singular pool in the divot of his palm. Dylan looked up at Aegaeon. He was smiling.
“The name is Brooks,” Aegaeon held out his hand. “Nice to meet you...”
“Dylan.”
They shook.
Brooks then took Dylan to a house in a nice suburb about a forty-five minute drive from the mall.
“This is one of our safe houses,” Brooks explained, climbing out of the passenger seat of Dylan’s Jeep.
That afternoon, Dylan met two other “elementals,” as they called themselves, one with the ability to manipulate air currents, the other—Brook’s sister Bay—could also control water.
“Your dreams aren’t actually dreams but memories of past lives. The first life, you’re born into an elemental family. That’s how we are created. One or both of our parents have to be elementals. After that we can be reborn into any family, but we eve
ntually regain the memories of our past lives.” Dylan felt numb as he listened to Brook’s glossed-over summary. He was still having difficulty believing any of this. “Bay and I, our parents are both water elementals, so this is our first life. We’re brand-spanking new!” He beamed at Dylan.
Within the next month, Dylan had dropped out of school, which was of “no surprise” according to his wildly unsupportive father. And since he was already eighteen, he was not legally bound to stay. He moved into a room at the safe house and began learning all he could about his new life.
So, when the pull began—first as an odd restlessness, and then increasing to an urgent need—the resident elementals knew exactly what was happening.
“For lack of a better term, your soul is trying to find its mate,” Aura, a twenty-year-old air elemental who, like Dylan, had found the others online, explained one afternoon when Dylan could no longer keep this weird feeling to himself. He sat at the counter, watching Aura stir a large pot of chili at the stove. “Maybe it is because we are rare, but the spirit within us kind of goes into overdrive to find us our partners. It doesn’t happen all the time, but when soulmates happen to be alive at the same time and around similar ages, that’s when we feel the pull.”
If it hadn’t been for his increasingly frequent dreams—memories—about this girl, Dylan might not have believed what Aura was saying. He was having a difficult enough time slowly coming to terms with everything about his new supernatural reality without the idea of soulmates to add to this list. But as it was, he found that he couldn’t deny it; the ache without her in his waking life was too real.
✽✽✽
The gas pump clicked off, and Dylan went inside the convenient store and grabbed some jerky, chips, and a soda. He hopped back inside his Jeep, and—following nothing but an intense gravitational pull that emanated from somewhere deep within him—he found the on-ramp to the freeway and continued heading north.
Toward her.
Chapter 6
The heat, intense and savage, warmed Kenna’s face. Thick, orange flames spread through the village, hungrily consuming the wooden structures, and spreading with unquenchable tenacity along the dusty streets. Shouts of fear and alarm pierced through the pandemonium as men, women, and children ran from their burning homes.
Kenna smiled at the sight.
Once more, she found herself standing on the dais, with its raised vantage point of the town square. Structures collapsed all around her, sending showers of sparks high into the smoky air. The smell of burning wood and livestock hair was heavy in the breezeless night.
The flames crept closer to the platform, their roaring and crackling stirring a deep feeling of satisfaction within her. Kenna reluctantly pulled her gaze away from the beautiful destruction, glancing to her side where Kai stood. His blue eyes met hers. Her beautiful, water-wielding guardian angel.
Kenna’s choice of vantage point served another purpose than from which to view her retaliation. She was looking for someone. Her eyes flicked back and forth between the terrified faces of fleeing foreigners. But as she stood on the dais, watching the panicked villagers, it became clear that her sister was not among them.
“Let’s go,” she murmured, the feeling of satisfaction for her long-awaited vengeance had been eclipsed by the disappointment of not finding Codi.
Kai’s hand found hers, and she experienced that same electrifying shock of rightness, of completion that she felt whenever he touched her. She let him lead her off the platform, and they disappeared together, into the night.
Chapter 7
Under the hot shower, Emmy closed her eyes and drooped her head forward so that the pounding water gently massaged her neck. She breathed in the thick steam, trying to force her nervous system into a state of relaxation.
She was having difficulty shedding this morning’s dream.
Emmy had woken before her alarm went off. Her heart was beating fast in her chest, and the camisole she slept in clung to her damp skin. She replayed the dream, reliving every little detail with perfect clarity. The heat of the flames against her face; the stranger’s hand in hers. She could still feel the way his presence affected her. It was so strong, the completeness she had felt, that it actually made her chest ache as she remembered it.
Then she thought of Austin, and immediately felt guilty that she was pining after a dreamt-up phantom.
Feeling foolish, she got up, preemptively turned off her alarm, and headed for the bathroom.
Even now, as she watched the remnants of shampoo suds wash down the drain at her feet, she felt that pull, and was immediately consumed by guilt.
She knew had to get out of the shower eventually, so, reluctantly, she turned off the water and reached for a towel.
The high school halls were peppered in black and red banners, lockers were decorated in players’ numbers, and students were milling around dressed in school colors.
“Ta-da!”
Emmy jumped at the sound of Mariah’s voice. She had been bent over, putting books inside her locker, and narrowly missed hitting her head on the tin shelf as she suddenly stood up. Emmy spun around to glare at her friend.
Mariah was smiling and gesturing to her outfit. She was wearing a black Raider’s football t-shirt with bright red leggings under her frayed jean shorts. Her hair was pulled up into two buns at the top of her head, like two copper pom-poms.
“What’s the occasion?” Emmy asked sarcastically.
“Ha-ha,” Mariah responded dryly. “Where is your school spirit?” She raised an orange eyebrow at Emmy’s ripped up jeans and black sweater.
“What? I’m wearing black.”
“Yeah, like almost every other day.”
“Well, I’d say that means I have more school spirit than most.”
“That’s some dedication.” Mariah laughed.
Austin appeared out of the crowd then, wearing his red football jersey with the number five on it in bold, white lettering.
“Nice outfit,” he said to Mariah.
“Gooo Raiders!” she said in her best cheerleader impression, the buns on the top of her head bouncing.
Austin laughed and looked at Emmy.
“Go…football…” Emmy flashed some pathetically weak jazz fingers as she tried to sound upbeat. It was a miserable failure.
“We’ll work on her.” Mariah vowed, before skipping off in the direction of her first period drama class.
As they walked to bio, Emmy wondered if Austin was at all bothered by her lack of interest in sports. What if he decided that her lack-luster attitude grew to be more tiresome than charming? What if he left her for one of the cheerleaders that were constantly hanging around the jocks?
As if on cue, Ainsley—one of these very girls—pranced up in her short, pleated, red and black skirt. Her ridiculously high ponytail bounced as she walked. She stopped them right outside the biology classroom.
“Good luck today, Austin!” She smiled at him, without acknowledging Emmy.
“Thanks, Ainsley.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Actually, I’m a bit nervous.”
“You’ll do great,” Ainsley assured him. “I’ll be cheering for you.”
Emmy had to step between them to get into the classroom.
“Your bow is crooked.” She pointed at the girl’s perfectly placed oversized bow at the base of her perky ponytail. Looking horrified, Ainsley threw up her hands to check. Emmy smirked at her before walking into the classroom, Austin chuckling quietly from behind as he followed her in. Apparently, he still appreciated her weirdness. But still, Emmy decided that she would try harder to be more supportive.
As was the case for Fridays, classes dragged on endlessly.
Following up on their Shakespearian unit in English, they transitioned into poetry. Emmy inwardly groaned at the prospect of having to write her own poems. In gym, Ainsley glared at Emmy and Mariah while they were running laps. Emmy rolled her eyes and Mariah stuck out her tongue; their giggling led their teacher, Mr.
Thorp, to believe that they weren’t exerting themselves to their full potential, so he ordered them to run an extra two laps. Fortunately, their world history teacher, Ms. Grant, also seemed to be feeling the effects of the week and put in a crudely made documentary about the making of the pyramids for them to watch.
After school, Emmy went over to Mariah’s house, where they watched trashy reality television, did some homework, ate dinner with Mariah’s parents and little brother, Eli, and then went up to Mariah’s room to get ready for the game.
Mariah dug a red beanie out of her closet for Emmy to wear. Emmy sat on Mariah’s pink bedspread as Mariah applied red lipstick to her. She then found an old Halloween makeup kit and drew black and white stripes on their cheeks under their eyes.
Keeping true to her promise to herself, Emmy didn’t complain as Mariah painted her face. She was determined to try her best, and although she wouldn’t admit it, she was having fun getting ready like this.
Faces ready and school colors on, they headed back to the high school.
Fortunately, when seven o’clock rolled around, the overcast sky had held, and the metal bleachers, although cold, were unusually dry. Emmy, under multiple layers of clothing, was wrapped in a wool blanket that she and Mariah were sharing. Next to her, Mariah squealed and clapped every time Tyler, the star receiver, made a play. She cheered especially loud—Emmy hurried to cover up her ears—as he made yet another touchdown.
The high school band clumsily ran through their fight song, and the cheerleaders accompanied it with their dance routine, pom-poms sparkling in the stadium lights. Their shimmering red streamers caught the light in such a way that they appeared almost like small flames.
A scene came to Emmy’s mind, disappearing too quickly for her to recall, but there had been a small flame, burning in the cupped palm of a child.