Hyacinth (4 page)

“Not really.”
Lila grinned, unrepentant, and moved to join them. She turned to Ellie and took
her hand, letting Ellie take over her power. “Watch. The truth in her words is
obvious, but it’s also in her emotions.” She turned to Selene. “Say it again.
The end of it.”

Selene repeated
her story and her apology, willing to do or say anything if it helped. When she
stopped, tears were silently slipping down all three of the girls’ cheeks.

Ellie hopped up,
moved around the coffee table, and wrapped her arms around Selene in a tight
embrace. “I forgive you,” she whispered.

“
What
is
she
doing here?!”

The bitter rage
in Griffin’s voice startled them. Selene’s heart sank into her stomach even as
it was trying to jump out of her throat.

Ellie left one
comforting hand on Selene’s arm as she turned to her brother. “She’s not
dangerous, Griffin.”

Composed, and
with all her walls back up, Selene met his gaze. No one watching her—
especially Griffin—would ever guess her true feelings at that moment.

“You don’t know
that.” He glared at Selene and moved to stand directly in front of the three.

“I do,” Ellie
replied stubbornly, her chin tilting up. “Look…” She reached for his hand, but
Griffin jerked out of her grasp.

“Anything you’re
seeing about her could easily be a lie,” he insisted. “Her family killed ours.
And she was part of that.” Griffin shifted his intense glare from Selene to his
sister. Selene could tell they were using their powers to speak to each other
telepathically.

After a few
minutes of tense silence, Ellie sighed and shook her head. She turned to Selene
and opened her mouth to speak, but Selene stopped her by placing a gentle hand
on her arm.

“I think I can
see how things are, Ellie,” she said softly, taking care not to look at
Griffin. With her free hand, she patted the hand Ellie still had on her arm. “I
don’t want to cause any trouble in your family. I’ll go now.” Selene dropped
her shield just for Ellie, saying into her mind,
“Griffin can’t hear me.
I’ll let you tell him about where I’m attending college. He needs some time to
cool down first. And you don’t have to worry… If I see any of you on campus,
I’ll walk the other way.”

Ellie shook her
head vehemently, but Selene couldn’t hear her thoughts since she’d already put
her guards back up.

With a small nod
at Lila, Selene picked up her purse and walked out the door.

“Griffin.”

Through a grey
swirling mist, Griffin heard Selene’s cultured voice calling his name. He
realized he was dreaming.

“Go away!” he
called out to the emptiness surrounding him, as his head swiveled around
looking for her.

“Griffin,
please,” she pleaded.

He clenched his
jaw. “You’re the one who controls dreams, Selene. You clear this up.”

“I don’t control
dreams, really. I just visit. Let me in, and you’ll clear it up yourself.”

The wisps of
cloud and fog drifted away. Rays of sunlight broke through. Suddenly, Griffin
was standing in a field of wheat with a brilliant blue sky above him. He felt
no heat or cold or breeze and saw no movement and no end to the vast golden
landscape. He glanced down and realized he was clothed in casual jeans and a
t-shirt—similar to what he’d worn earlier that day.

“Well?” he
prodded. “Come on. Show yourself.”

“I’m right here.”

Griffin spun
around at the sound of Selene’s voice directly behind him. She stood placidly,
adorned in a flowing, pale purple sundress that perfectly highlighted her delicate
bone structure.

Selene smiled.
“Thanks for the pretty dress.” But her face froze when she caught Griffin’s hostile
expression. She sighed. “Won’t you talk to me? We could always talk here… in
our dreams.”

Griffin crossed
his muscular arms over his chest and scowled, attempting to disguise the fact
that his silence was due in part to Selene’s unexpected beauty. “But these
aren’t
our
dreams, are they?” he muttered. “This is
you
invading
my
dream.”

“Mmmm…” Her grey
eyes never wavered from his handsome face. “I’ve missed our conversations,
Griffin. I hadn’t realized how much we used to talk until I couldn’t visit you anymore.”

“You could’ve
talked to me.”

Selene tipped
her head to the side, taking in his closed-off body language and unwelcoming expression.
“Would you have even let me in? I had to yell pretty loudly to get past all
your mental barriers tonight.”

Griffin
shrugged. “Probably not.”

With a heavy sigh,
he dropped his arms to his sides and made his way over to a nearby bench swing.
He could’ve sworn that it hadn’t been there only seconds before, and if he had
really thought about it, a swing in the middle of a field of wheat was odd. And
yet, somehow, its existence seemed completely natural now.

After a brief
hesitation, Selene joined him.

“So what do you
want to talk about?” Griffin asked.

Selene shivered
and then twirled the tassel on the end of the shawl she was suddenly wrapped in.

When’d she get
that?
Griffin wondered.
Huh. I forgot how stuff just appears when I talk to Selene
in dreams.

“It’s probably
ridiculous to ask, but would it be possible to talk like we used to? Kind of…
make this neutral ground?” Selene asked in a quiet voice.

Griffin was
reluctant to admit how much that idea appealed to him. Here, where they’d been
meeting for so many years, the real world didn’t exist. And he really had
missed his conversations with his dream girl. Maybe they could suspend reality
just for a while.

He racked his
mind for something to talk about. Something safe. “So…” Griffin lightly tapped
his fingers on the silvery rock. “Ellie mentioned you’re starting college. Have
you decided on a major yet?”

“History,” she
responded promptly.

“Yeah? What do
you plan to do with that?”

“Learn something?”
She grinned.

Griffin leaned
over to bump his shoulder into her. “No… really.”

Selene shrugged.
“I’m actually a little serious about that. I didn’t get a chance to experience
much of the world while my brother was alive. And maybe by studying history I
can learn and save myself from some mistakes others have made.”

“So when you’re
done, you’ll go back to the Vyusher?” Griffin tried really hard to keep that
suspended reality mentality and not let his suspicion creep back in.

Selene twiddled
the fringe of her shawl some more. “I don’t know yet. It’s… complicated.”

“Huh. I guess it
would be.”

“You don’t know
the half of it.” Selene’s lips twisted in a bitter grimace. “I remember that
you always enjoyed movies. Seen any good ones lately?”

Griffin noticed
the abrupt change in subject and decided to let it slide. “A couple. How about
you? Seen any you liked?”

“Well, I’ve been
limited on time. But I’ve squeezed in one or two.” She gave him a lopsided
grin.

“Okay, here’s
one for you… now that I know who and what you are. Who in the Vyusher do you
think has the coolest power?”

Selene couldn’t
conceal her shock. She hadn’t expected Griffin to want to even say their name,
let alone talk about them.

“You’re
surprised?” Griffin asked.

Selene’s
eyebrows shot up. Normally people couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

“Um… well, we
don’t have anything as cool as a dragon,” she said, referring to the unique
power Ellie had used to kill Gideon last year. “But we do have someone who
controls the earth. He can cause earthquakes and rip giant chasms in the
ground. It’s pretty terrifying, actually.”

“Griffin,”
Ellie’s voice
echoed through the fields as though they were in a hollow room.

Griffin looked
around, thinking he’d see his sister standing there.

Selene’s hand on
his arm pulled his attention back to her. “She’s calling for you. I guess you
should wake up now.”

His mouth fell
into a slight frown. He didn’t want to leave this place… or her. “Okay.”

The grey mist
started to intrude on their golden field. As the images started to blur and disappear,
he heard a soft voice whisper, “Thanks for letting me in, Griffin.”

Jerking awake,
he sat up and found himself back in his own room with Ellie calling from the
other side of his bedroom door. As the feel of the dream receded and reality
came crashing back, so did Griffin’s earlier bitterness. He flopped back on the
bed with a huff and flung his arm over his eyes.

“What the
hell
was I thinking!?”

Griffin stood
beside a tree and gritted his teeth. Across the campus quad, Selene was headed
toward a bench, clearly planning on taking advantage of the lovely weather. It’d
been over a month since she’d visited him in the dream. He hadn’t let her in
again, even though she’d tried twice more. Other than that, she’d stayed true
to her word and hadn’t contacted any of them.

Griffin hadn’t
left it at that. His hostility toward Selene refused to go away. She’d managed
to block his mind reading, so he had to use other methods to keep tabs on her.
He’d hacked into the school computer system and pulled her class schedule. He’d
then made sure to align his classes so that he could stay close by and keep an
eye on her without being too obvious.

After the first
day of school, he’d shifted into the falcon form he sometimes borrowed from
Ellie. The twins had a link that allowed them to access each other’s powers.
One of Ellie’s was the ability to morph into several different animals. The
only one he’d ever been able to master was the falcon.

 He’d followed
Selene to see where she lived and found she’d rented a small apartment in Estes
Park. That alone worried him. Why hadn’t she just rented a place in Fort
Collins, closer to the school?
But no, she’d decided to remain close to
his family.
Too close
.

A small part of
him felt guilty for stalking her, invading her privacy like this. But a bigger
part felt that Selene was not to be trusted, despite what his overly-optimistic
twin insisted.

Griffin had perched
himself in a tree outside her apartment. Selene had quite thoughtfully left the
blinds open, so he had a perfect view of the apparition of the man who’d
appeared in her living room. Life-sized and ghost-like in a weirdly transparent
way… but definitely there. And Selene had talked to him.

He couldn’t hear
her telepathically. Ellie had told him that Selene had the ability to actually
block
others’ powers that were being used directly against her—not just turn them
off. He could hear other people’s thoughts in the area, so he knew she was
blocking him specifically. She was using her power against him, and that was
just another cause for concern.

Despite the
advantage of his falcon’s hearing, with the door closed to her balcony, he
hadn’t been able to listen to the conversation. But what was evident, at least
to Griffin, was that Selene wasn’t as alone as she’d led Ellie to believe. She
continued to hide things from them. Deceit remained at the heart of who she
was. Griffin was sure of it.

*****

Selene settled
herself on the bench and pulled her history book and a highlighter out of her
backpack. She tipped her head back, closed her eyes, and enjoyed the sensation
of the warm sun on her face and the light breeze ruffling her hair. She’d lived
much further north most of her life, and beautiful weather like this was a rare
treat for her. She intended to make the most of it, studying outside as much as
possible when she wasn’t in class.

She opened her
eyes and blankly stared at her book, not seeing the pages, her mind miles away.
Oren had visited her last night, using his astral-projection to appear in his
specter-like form. Selene ran through their brief conversation for what must’ve
been the hundredth time that day.

She’d been in
her bedroom studying when she heard the familiar “My Lady” coming from the
living room. She finished washing her face and then went to find him. Selene
hadn’t been too surprised to see Oren standing there. Of all the Vyusher, she
was closest to him. He’d guided her through her childhood the best he could,
despite Gideon’s constant manipulations.

“Hi, Oren.”

He gave her a
small, respectful bow. “I just wanted to check on you. Make sure you’re happily
settled in.”

Selene smiled.
Happy was a subjective term. “I’m fine. All set in my apartment. Thank you for
arranging it so quickly for me, by the way. It’s perfect.” She waved a general
hand at the charming space.

“How are your
classes progressing?” he asked.