Flutter (The Discover Series) (13 page)

After a few minutes, once I knew the ice would be firm enough for me to walk on; I would take Sara out to the middle. Using the clips I had put on her wetsuit, I secured her arms to her chest so her hands would be in front of her, just in case. Taking a deep breath, I would drop her feet first into the ice cold water and watch as the ice froze before she hit the bottom of the lake. Knowing she was secure, I would take my spot and jump in next.

I had been doing this long enough that I had no longer noticed the icy sting, as my body collided with the water. Freezing wasn’t really something that could be described in full detail. Once we hit the water and the rush of the water encased in a frozen mold, you weren’t aware of anything else. Our bodies went into shock, the breath was knocked from you, and any thought requirement was gone. The brief spurt of amnesia when we woke was the result of that.

After each Freeze she used her abilities less and less frequently, and that made them weaker, until finally they stopped altogether. She was as normal as someone like her could be. I had worried endlessly about her at first; that I was damaging her mind, diminishing her powers, but I knew I was just feeling guilty at having to deceive her year after year. I had a lot of experience with Freezing, and there were never any signs of long term or permanent impairment to us. It was in our nature to do this and survive.

This was the first year that things had not gone as planned.

I had been shocked to see her waiting on the ice. I had expected to have to tunnel her out myself. I knew she was strong and she could have easily called on the sun without even knowing it, but too many clues had quickly diminished the idea that she had used her powers: The sun being lower, the fact that the ice had been melted from the surface down rather than from below, and then her uncertain confession of seeing someone, had been enough for me to be sure. Using her abilities would have definitely freaked her out, but her mind would have reasoned with her that she had made it all up in her head, like it did with the
Illusion
she had created. This only increased my certainty that she was still as strong as ever.

It didn’t surprise me that she had sub-consciously used the sun as a means to escape. Nor did it surprise me that her
Illusion
had been so vivid, so strong – that was only a fraction of what she was capable of. It took most of our kind years to create Illusions that advanced. It was amazing that it was so effortless for her. She had never produced Illusions as a child, but I knew she had possessed the strength to do it.

I had been there the first time she had ever done it.

That was the night she saved us.

That memory left an emptiness inside of me that I didn’t want to feel right now, so I pushed it out of my mind.

Brin
g
ing myself back to reality, I listened to Sara’s sluggish footsteps. The longer we walked, the more tired she got.

“
Como
te va sobrina?”

I heard her footsteps halt for two beats before continuing, taking her steps one at a time. The snow crunched slowly beneath her tentative footsteps.

I smiled to myself, glad we had the diversion of the Spanish language to keep us from realizing the last of the light was disappearing with each step we took. I had never taught her, her native language; I hadn’t wanted to take any chances.  But she had taken a Spanish class in school and had picked it up better than most of the students in her class. She knew enough to answer a few of my questions, but it had never interested her enough to speak it fluently. She had never questioned how I knew it or why she didn’t. By the time she was old enough to realize that I spoke it, trying to pick up another language was not on her list of teen-age priorities.

“How am I doing?” She asked

I smiled. “
La sobrina de
muy buena.”

“
Thanks,
and to answer your question: I’m doing okay…for now.”

I didn’t want to focus on the last part, we still had about forty-five minutes before we reached the shed and darkness had finally settled.

Suddenly, I didn’t have to think about anything, because Sara was screaming.

Adan

I had gone back to pacing.

             
It seemed to be the only thing that calmed my nerves and right now they were buzzing. I was having a hard time focusing on one specific thought at a time. They were swirling around in my head, each one trying to push its way through to the front. Standing still only gave them the power to take over, so I kept pacing so I could try to keep some kind of control inside my head.

It didn’t quite seem to work out the way I wanted though.

             
So many things had happened tonight, it was almost impossible to focus my attention on just one event, but I tried anyway. I couldn’t get the image of Sara laying there on the ice, alone, out of my head. I hadn’t wanted to leave her there unconscious. I had wanted to stay there until I saw her beautiful eyes open. I wanted her to see me. I wanted to see if she felt for me, what I felt for her, as strongly as I felt it for her. I wanted it more than I wanted to breathe.

I was there for a reason though, and that reason made me get up and walk slowly away from her. I knew her Watcher would be there any time, and things would get a lot more complicated than they needed to be. I couldn’t help what I felt for her. In all these years I couldn’t change what was beyond my control, and that complicated things. I didn’t want to admit to myself that leaving her before she had woken, was my coward way of not having to face the possibility that she wouldn’t feel the same way I did.

I had watched her from the woods, wanting to stay there until she wasn’t alone anymore, but knew I couldn’t afford to. Her Watcher shouldn’t have been able to sense me, but if Aaron could, the Watcher might be able to as well, and I couldn’t chance that. I watched her long enough to see her to catch sight of the hole she had been tunneled out of.  I saw the fear in her entire body as she realized where she had been. I wanted to be there with her, but that would have freaked her out more.

I could see her concentrating while she looked at something on the ice and then she reached out to touch it. At the same time as I watched her hand snap back, I felt the shock run through my entire body. It was like an electric energy. When I looked up I found her staring at me, well in my direction, but I pretended it was at me. I held my breath for the longest time. I didn’t want to break the connection. She was the first one to look away. I heard the sound too, so I turned around and sprinted through the trees.

I hadn’t gotten far before I heard her scream. I came to an abrupt stand still, my stomach twisted and I kicked myself for leaving her there. As I slowed down I could feel the muscles in my legs, like they were on fire. I was a fast runner, but I had never pushed myself like this before. I had gotten half way back when I could hear their voices. As I listened to the conversation I knew why she had screamed.

The Watcher was out.

I waited until my heart resumed its normal pace, listening to the conversation that was taking place between them. Her voice was loud and clear inside my head. The sound of her voice was soothing, it calmed my nerves, and I didn’t mind it in my head like the others of my kind. It was possible to tune out the others, but I didn’t want to tune hers out.

My hearing was impeccable and I could hear The Watcher’s voice just as clearly as hers. It was kind of weird, hearing them that way: Sara’s voice in my head, her Watchers with my ears. I waited there listening to them talk, I didn’t want to eavesdrop, but I was also curious to the answers to her questions.

She remembered him, and being sick, really sick. I listened to her thoughts, but they sounded remote. I closed my eyes trying to focus on what she was thinking, but something else happened altogether.

I could see her memories.

She was remembering being sick and I could see exactly what she saw. She was lying in bed –
her
bed. It was faint, blurry, but I was able to make her out. Her hair was a black, tangled mess that framed her face; standing out against her green pillow. I might have smiled at her tousled hair, if it weren’t for the fact that the strands around her face stuck to her damp skin.

Sweat from her fever beaded across her forehead, and made the caramel skin of her neck and shoulders glistened. The nightgown she wore was dark green and clung to her damp skin. Her blankets had been pushed down the bed and tangled around her bare legs. Her eyes were closed and her beautiful face was masked in a frown. She tossed and turned, while little moans escaped her slightly parted lips. I hated seeing her like that, but something felt odd about the memory….

Then there was nothing. The memory, her thoughts, her voice…everything was gone. I focused harder, but I couldn’t bring any of it back. I frowned and listened with my ears. The conversation continued, but I no longer heard anything inside my head. I didn’t have time to try and understand something that should have never happened in the first place. Turning in the other direction, I fled from them, up the mountain to the camp where Aaron was waiting.

I found him pacing. He had been out of his mind with worry for his Princess. He blamed himself for her almost drowning.  I wanted to blame him too but, out of good conscious, I couldn’t. We had over looked the obvious, and in truth I blamed myself more than I did Aaron. I should have made sure I knew every possible outcome to waking her up this early in the year, with a weak sun. Because I had been careless, she had almost died.

The thought made me nauseous.

I had let this pull to her distract me.  And that was something I couldn’t let happen again.

I tried to give Aaron an encouraging smile. He accepted my gesture. Dropping his head, he sulked over to a big boulder at the entrance of our camp and planted himself there. I had expected him to punish himself in silence for the rest of the night, but he surprised me when he finally asked,

“So that thing you did with the Princess, that was…strange…right?” He tilted his head to look at me.

I was kneeling, and I plucked at a weed that had pushed its way through the snow.

“Yeah it was strange.” I answered him, pulling at the weed until it was no longer part of the earth.

“And you don’t know how you did it?”

I shook my head, pulling at pieces of the weed.

“Has that ever happened to you before? I mean with someone other than your own kind?”

I shook my head again, pretending to be fascinated with my weed. I had been just as shocked and confused as he had by my silent conversation with Sara. Not that anything that had to do with her, or how I felt about her, made sense to me. If I couldn’t explain it to myself I wasn’t about to try and explain it to Aaron. He was going to have to remain perturbed.

“I’m kind of jealous.” He confessed not looking at me.

That needed a verbal response, “You’re what?”

“Jealous.” He repeated.

“Why?” I asked flicking away the weed.

“You seem to have a very strong connection to her, and she seems to have the same connection to you.”

“Why do you think that? Because of what you said earlier? I thought you said she could just sense me?”

“She could, but it was also something more than that. The energy between the two of you was intense. It was very distracting.”

“Do you think she could feel it?”  Was that hope in my voice?

“She probably did, but she doesn’t know what it is or what it
means
. She isn’t use to our world. All this supernatural stuff doesn’t exist to her. She wasn’t meant to know until she was ready to come to her kingdom and rule.”

“Do you know what it means?” I asked, hoping he could shed some light on this, and maybe find a cure.

Was a cure what I really wanted?

“I can’t even begin to explain it.” Aaron answered and I believed him.

Sighing, I had dropped my head back against the tree I had been kneeling against.

“I guess it remains a mystery my friend.”

We lapsed into silence.

“So the other thing that happened…” it was my turn, “What was that? You said something about a trap?”

“It’s called a
Trance
. I don’t know many of our kind who can do it, but I realized what was happening when I saw your face. She uses it as a shield, a way to protect herself when her body senses danger. The shimmery effect of her skin captures you, you become mesmerized by her. If you know what’s happening, it can be fought, but if you don’t realize, which most people don’t – it’s impossible to ignore and you become bound to her.”

I nodded.
That was good to know!
I was definitely going to have to be careful with that.

We didn’t expect them to be back for another half hour or so, and I resorted to pacing again. The bright streak of lightening that lit the sky, followed by the low angry rumble that echoed above, had me worried about the weather and how Sara was adjusting to it. Sara’s kind seemed to do fine when they changed, but when they were human they were just human, and I knew the cold would be affecting her. The cold didn’t bother me but I could feel it, and if I could feel it, Sara would be feeling it ten times more. She only had on the wetsuit she had been frozen in, and the blanket I had made Aaron go back to our camp for it. Once we had found the shed, I had rummaged through it and seen the blankets and had taken one just in case. But in my haste to get to Sara, I had forgotten it.