Embody (8 page)

“Well, it’s close to what we saw. I don’t
think I captured it completely,” I said, critiquing my work.

“I’ve meditated all the time. I’ve never
seen anything like this,” my mother said, returning her gaze to the
painting.

“Maybe you need to meditate a little bit
deeper,” I said in a teasing manner.

“You want to hear something weird?” Landen
asked.

My mother looked at Landen. “I don’t
know...that depends on what you call ‘weird,’” she said quietly.
The only way my mother could deal with mine and Libby’s gifts was
by letting my father explain them to her in his own way.

“It’s not bad,” Landen said, laughing, “We
can see colors around people now.”

“What do you mean – Auras?” my mother asked.
I looked at Landen; my mother had given us a valid name to refer to
the colors.

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said, smiling a
little.

“So, what’s mine?” my mother asked,
excited

“Pink,” Landen and I said at the same time.
My mother looked down to her dark green top.

“Do I match?” she asked me, almost serious.
I shook my head in disbelief.

“I’m just kidding,” she said, laughing, “I
think I have a book somewhere on Auras. I don’t know if it survived
the fire, but I’ll bring it over to you if I can find it.”

“It would be nice to know what they mean,”
Landen said, looking at the painting again.

“You guys should be able to figure it out.
An Aura is the energy we put off, and I would think that our
emotion would impact the shade,” my mother said, looking humbly at
me. I could feel that she was proud of all my gifts.

“Well, look, I need to get back to Jason and
Libby. I want to see some paintings of those other dimensions you
two ran off to,” she said, hugging me, then Landen. She looked back
at the painting before she left the room and shook her head in
amazement.

“Are you hungry?” I asked Landen

He smiled. “Starving,” he said, pulling me
out of the room.

I was making plates for the two of us when I
felt Olivia and Chrispin getting closer. Olivia opened the back
door for Chrispin, who was carrying three large dishes. When Olivia
saw the plates I had fixed, her shoulders fell.

“You cooked?” she said in a disbelieving
tone.

Landen laughed out loud at my
expression.

“What are you laughing at? Olivia has seen
me cook,” I said defensively, smiling.

Landen raised his hands, letting me know he
was only joking.

“Not lately,” Olivia added. “We can still
eat together,” she said, pulling out two more plates from the
cabinet. Olivia’s Aura was violet and purple, and a glow of white
connected her to Chrispin, whose Aura was a golden color. Landen
looked at me, then to them; love had never looked so beautiful.

“Did you see Marc today?” Chrispin asked
Landen as he sat at the kitchen table. Landen nodded and took a
seat next to him. “What’s his deal, man? He’s so uptight,” Chrispin
said, running his hands through his curly dirty blond hair. Landen
shrugged his shoulders. We sat all the food on the table, and
Landen got up to get everyone a drink.

“You need to make him go look, Landen. He’ll
listen to you,” Chrispin said, getting up to pull out a chair for
Olivia. She looked up at Chrispin, almost annoyed, like she had
heard this over and over.

“No, you guys need to leave him alone. When
he’s ready, he’ll go,” Olivia said to all of us.

Landen sat down at the table and elbowed
Chrispin. “You should listen to the better half of your soul -
she’s right,” he teased.

Chrispin sighed and picked up his fork and
knife. “I just don’t see why anyone wouldn’t want to be in love,”
he said, holding his argument.

“There’s a time for everything, and a
reason. You know that,” Landen said, looking at Chrispin, then
smiling at Olivia.

I believed in my heart that Chrispin would
have found Olivia on his own, but it was still eerie that he had
found her through the adversity that we’d just endured. Olivia was
taken by Drake and rescued by all of us, and the love between
Chrispin and Olivia brought Olivia’s sight back without the power
of magic - proving that love is the most powerful thing in the
universe.

“Yeah, I do,” Chrispin said, reaching to
kiss Olivia. “We wanted to talk to you two alone,” he said, looking
at Landen.

Olivia looked at me and smiled a shy smile.
I froze in mid-bite; I could feel that they were planning to tell
us something that they thought would shock us, and quite frankly it
took a lot to shock us these days.

“Olivia has been having strange dreams. We
thought maybe you guys could help us understand them,” Chrispin
said, reaching for Olivia’s hand.

“What kind of dreams?” I asked, concerned. I
looked at Landen, then back to Olivia.

“They’re just weird,” Olivia answered,
blushing a little. “They always start off black and white – well,
almost gray.”

Chrispin looked back and forth between me
and Landen; the color gray brought only one place to our minds:
Esterious.

“Everything is still, then I feel a rush of
energy, and a wave of color comes out of nowhere and washes over
everything,” Olivia finished

“Are there people, buildings?” I asked.

“Sometimes they’re all different. At times,
I’m in a field; other times, I’m on a city street - but I’m never
alone. All of us are there.”

“What are we doing?” Landen asked,
completely taken in by Olivia’s dream.

“I don’t know. I don’t always see you, but I
know that you’re there,” Olivia answered, confused by her own
words.

“Do you think it has anything to do with
this Mercury thing?” Chrispin asked.

Landen looked at me for an answer.

“I don’t know, but if it does, at least
Esterious will have more color than a simple Willow tree,” I
answered, longing to see the mark that I’d left in Donalt’s center
court.

“I don’t want Olivia to have anything to do
with this; she’s already played her part,” Chrispin said
sternly.

“It’s just a dream,” Landen said, trying to
calm Chrispin down.

“Maybe so, but we all saw where Willow’s
dreams took her,” Chrispin said, looking at me, referring to the
nightmares that I fought to forget. I knew that not all dreams were
bad, though; I’d seen Landen every night of my life.

“We do… Landen,” I said, understanding that
sometimes we have to live through the darkness to see the
light.

Chrispin saw that he had offended me and
nodded. “Sorry,” he said quietly.

“You’re fine,” I said, trying to reassure
him that his words couldn’t hurt me - not with Landen as my
reward.

“Anyways,” Olivia said, “tomorrow we’re
going to Paris; my aunt thinks I’m living there with you. I need to
check the voice mail and take some pictures to send to her. Will
you guys come?”

I wanted to go so bad. I looked at Landen,
who was pushing his food around on his plate. We all knew he was
worried that Drake would find me, using my star in my Ankh. There
was no doubt now that he was alive and well.

“Landen, he’s not stupid enough to try
something with me and you there. Even if he was, he wouldn’t get
anywhere. Dane and Clarissa are coming, too, and we’ll all make
sure that you two are safe,” Chrispin said, trying to reassure
Landen.

Landen looked at me.
“Do you want to
go?”

“
Can we just go for the day?”
I
asked.

Landen nodded and smiled at me, then leaned
over and kissed me.
“You are almost impossible to say no
to,”
he thought.

“
Almost,”
I mocked. His grin
widened.

Olivia and Chrispin were looking back and
forth between us, watching our wordless communication.

“Do you think it’s possible for us to learn
how to do that?” Chrispin asked, full of envy.

Landen laughed. “I’m sure the two of you
communicate without words more than you know,” he answered.

“Are you guys going to come?” Olivia asked,
seeing that we hadn’t answered her.

“Yeah, we’ll go - but only for the day. We
need to spend some more time with Preston and Libby,” Landen
said.

“I would stay close to them, too, especially
if they can still see your future,” Chrispin said, realizing
Landen’s concern about us being away from them.

“It’s just a day. I’ll call Clarissa,”
Olivia said, getting up from the table to clear away the dishes. I
stood and helped her. I didn’t want to be accused of being unable
to clean; cooking was bad enough. When everything was cleared away,
Chrispin and Olivia gathered their dishes.

“You think we should leave around seven?”
Chrispin asked Landen.

“Yeah, that’ll be good. It won’t take us
long to get there,” Landen answered. I hugged Olivia goodbye and
watched them leave.

“Have you ever been to Paris?” Landen asked
me.

“No. I’ve always wanted to go, though,” I
said with a longing in my voice.

“Well, when this Mercury thing is over, we
should go there for a month or so. I can see you happy there,”
Landen said, wrapping his arm around me.

“So what should we do now?” I asked, seeing
that the night had come.

“Give it a minute. I’m sure we’ll have more
company,” Landen said, looking out the door. A second later, the
phone rang. “Told you so,” he said, winking at me.

“And you thought I was crazy when I grabbed
our travel bags and ran a few weeks ago,” I said, tilting my
head.

“Not crazy...a little hormonal, maybe,” he
said, teasing me.

I pushed him back playfully. He reached for
the phone, catching it on its fourth ring. I walked through the
front of the house to the front porch and waited for whoever was
calling to come over.

Chapter Five

Landen came out the front door with four
glasses and a picture of tea. “So who’s coming?” I asked, getting
up to help him.

“Your mother called Rose, asking her if she
knew anything about Auras, then Rose called August. They want to
come over and teach us what they mean.”

“Everybody’s coming?” I asked, looking down
at the four glasses and wondering how many more I would need.

“Just August and Rose. Karsten and Nyla are
staying home,” Landen said, sitting down and reaching for me to
come to his side.

“I feel like I don’t even know Karsten or
Nyla; it would be nice to visit with them,” I said, sitting down
next to him.

Karsten was my grandfather, Rose’s soul
mate, and Nyla was Landen’s grandmother, August’s soul mate.

“You know them,” Landen said, playing with
my long dark hair. “They’re kinda like our moms. They were raised
in another dimension. They respect what we do and try not to
interfere. Even though Nyla and Karsten have seen almost every
dimension, they’d prefer to just live here in their own personal
world and leave the adventure to the rest of us,” he said, grinning
mischievously.

I sighed, seeing their point of view. They
weren’t doing anything different from the rest of the universe;
most people preferred to live in their own space. I smiled,
realizing how shocked the universe would be if they realized we
were all connected. August and Rose pulled up in front of our
house. We stood to greet them.

Rose had three dishes in her hand. “Did you
guys eat? I brought you some food,” she said to me.

Landen couldn’t hold back his laughter as he
saw my mouth drop open.

“What did I say?” Rose asked, confused.
Landen took the dishes from her hand and walked in the house.

“Nothing. You’re just the third person to
bring us food. Landen thinks it’s funny that you guys think I can’t
cook,” I said, pouring her a glass of tea.

“We know you can cook. You have enough on
your plate without having to keep up with an appetite of a man.
Besides that, there’s no need for all of us to cook every night,
not when we live so close,” Rose said, taking a seat next to me and
hugging me.

“Well, I’m glad I forgot to bring the cake
Nyla made,” August said, leaning in to kiss my cheek before he took
a seat in one of the wicker chairs.

Landen came back out on the porch and sat
across from me on the long couch, still smiling profusely.

“So, did you guys learn a lot today?” August
asked

Landen nodded. “It was the most amazing
thing we’ve ever seen.”

I looked over my shoulder; I could feel
Brady coming.

“I wonder what he’s doing?” Landen said,
noticing it, too.

“Getting air, I’m sure,” August said,
grinning.

Brady stepped up on the porch, walked over,
and took a seat next to Landen. It still amazed me how much Brady
and Landen looked alike; the only real difference was their eyes.
Brady’s are light blue and usually stay that way; Landen’s are a
deep blue and changed shades with his mood. People had a hard time
believing that they weren’t twins; if I didn’t know that there were
years between them, I’d have thought they were twins as well.

“Am I interrupting anything?” Brady asked,
letting out a deep breath.

“Not really. What are you up to?” Landen
asked, looking over Brady’s orange Aura.

“Mom and Clarissa are over at the house. I
decided to let them have some ‘girl’ time.”

“Where are Dad and Dane?” Landen asked.

“Dad’s trying to teach Dane to see the
passages; he’s getting better at it,” Brady said, raising his
eyebrows. He was proud and confused all at once. If Dane mastered
the string, he’d be the first person that Chara has successfully
taught; it would be a huge breakthrough for all of us. I had no
doubt Dane would find his way; I could just feel that he was meant
for this destiny.

“I heard about Mercury. Is that what this
meeting is about?” Brady asked, looking at August and Rose.

“Not entirely. Landen and Willow learned to
meditate today,” Rose said proudly.