Natural Selection (25 page)

Sariah rubbed my knee, and I saw the
pain in her face. “You know we can’t Lia. How would we even begin
to explain what happened?”

“
If he dies, I won’t
survive!” I wailed. I prayed for a miracle. I wasn’t sure which
scared me more—dying or living without him. I pulled on the energy
I could feel all around me and fed it into him, trying to imagine
his skin knitting together. Maybe there was a chance she missed the
heart. There had to be a chance.

Nate stirred in my arms and I glanced
down at him. The color had returned to his face, though he was
still damp with perspiration. “You need to stop Lia,” he croaked in
a hoarse voice. I didn’t listen, just kept pulling all the energy
around me and feeding it into him. I felt movement under my hand. I
pulled it away watching in amazement as the gaping wound in his
chest slowly got smaller and smaller. Nate sat up and grabbed my
shoulders. Shock made me stop pulling energy more than anything
else. I took him in my arms and cried in relief. I couldn’t stop
touching him, my hands running through his hair, down his face, his
chest. I noticed a small puckered scar that looked like it was
years old where his gaping wound had been. Only then did I notice
Sariah getting weakly to her feet, leaning on Xander.

“
You have to be careful
when you do that, Lia. You could have killed them.” Nate said,
holding my shoulder and meeting my eyes with a very serious
expression.

All around me the once vibrant
greenhouse was a wilted ruin, every single plant dead. Worse, I had
nearly killed my brother and sister trying to save Nate. The idea
of living with myself after that left my belly feeling a bit oily.
I glanced at Sariah, then Xander, my eyes as wide as they would go.
Not knowing what I was doing was no excuse. Who was I to choose one
life over another? Xander took my hand and squeezed it, shaking his
head and Sariah gave me a weak smile. I knew in that moment what my
parents had truly done by picking them to be my brother and sister,
and I thanked them silently. They had given me a rock I could
always lean on, and I had no doubts how much they truly loved me.
We might not be a conventional family, but we were still a family.
As we walked out of that greenhouse I knew that whatever the future
held for us, we would face it together.

No one really noticed the dirt and
blood on us as we wondered across the lobby of the Holiday Inn.
There was a new spring in our step, a lightness that belied the
truth of what we had just come through. Nathanial wrapped his arm
around my shoulders, I clutched Xander’s hand in mine while Sariah
threaded her arm through his. We went up to our room and one by one
we showered, changed, and crawled into bed. As I lay contentedly
wrapped in Nathanial’s arms, I wondered what we would do now. Our
home was gone, and we could never go back. Even if I didn’t look
like I’d aged ten years in the last few months, I didn’t think our
old lives would fit us any longer. So much had happened I felt like
a different person, but I was ok with who I was becoming. As looked
at my mate I embraced the new me ready for whatever was to
come.

I’M NOT SURE how long we slept that
night. Sobbing woke me in the grey light of dawn. Disentangling
myself from Nate’s arms, I saw Sariah sitting on the floor in the
corner crying. Xander told me they would fall apart when it was all
over, and my heart ached for her. Sitting on the floor next to her,
I placed my head on her shoulder and laced my fingers through hers.
I let myself linger on Mom and Dad, and how much I was going to
miss them. The same familiar sadness welled up, but it finally
seemed manageable. I could feel the pain and breathe through it. A
few silent tears fell, but not the unending stream from before.
Sariah had not had the luxury of falling apart yet. She buried her
face in my hair and sobbed so hard I feared she might pass out from
lack of oxygen. This must have been what it was like for everyone
else to watch me fall apart. It must have been so hard for Xander
and Sariah to stay enough in tune with their emotions to give me
what I needed without this happening.

I’m not sure when it happened but at
some point Xander got up and joined us. He laid his head against my
back and cried as I held Sariah. Movies and books say men shouldn’t
cry, but I truly thought more of my brother for his endless tears.
I stretched awkwardly over my shoulder to pat the top of his head,
but couldn’t reach. I shifted so Sariah cried on my left shoulder
and Xander my right held my family like that for a very long
time.

I don’t know how much time it took for
them to cry it all out, but tears can only last so long. We checked
out of the hotel and headed out. We drove to Springfield to get our
mother’s body. She would want to rest with my father, and I was
determined to see it happen.

Awkwardly, I climbed out of the car
and headed up to the witch’s apartment building. Once inside I
didn’t know which door to knock on, so I stood by the door staring
helplessly, occasionally starting in one direction, then another,
but always hesitating and stepping back. I never came to a decision
because the witch from that night came out of an
apartment.

“Blessed be, earth sister,” She said,
spreading her arms to hug me. “Your mother lies in stasis in the
lilacs, ready for her Grounding. May the goddess watch over her on
her final journey.”

“I thought none of the Wicca stuff was
real—you either have the gift or you don’t.”

“It’s true the craft is born in you,
but a healthy respect for the Earth Mother is a good thing to have.
Besides, no one looks too closely at a self-proclaimed witch. We
are probably the only Otherworlders who can be out of the broom
closet and the world simply accepts it. I love the twenty-first
century.”

I smiled. I could probably be friends
with this witch. If she wouldn’t actively try to kill my brother
and sister out of blind hatred, that is. “Ding, dong, the witch is
dead,” I said, trying my hardest not to sing like a Munchkin in the
Wizard of Oz.

“Then it is as it should be. She could
not break us the other night as we protected the young witch, but
she had much power. I do not know where she drew her power from,
but it was more than any witch I have ever met. She collapsed when
we attempted to sever her from her stolen power, and we thought her
harmless. Your mother, knowing her time on this plane was at an
end, went to check on her. The woman with the stolen craft lurched
up and stabbed her. We joined hands and said a spell of protection
against her, but she turned and disappeared into the shadows.” Her
face was grim.

“I still don’t understand how a mother
could do something like that to her own daughter. I might not be
blood, but she’d always treated me like I was, and she tried to
kill me.”

“When she first performed the ritual
to channel the young witch’s power, she was doing it out of a
misguided attempt to protect her. The young one told us of the
killings, and we forgive her because she did not know. We will
teach her the truth and explain who the enemies are.” I felt a
little sad knowing she was lumping Xander and Sariah in that group.
“But if you are not born with the gift, you are ill-equipped to
handle it. We believe it was the theft of the power that drove her
mad, but there is no doubt that she was crazy. No sane person could
channel that much hatred.”

I nodded and started to leave, but she
stopped me. “Know me, earth sister. I am Amber. I am leader of the
Capital City Coven. War is coming, and the sides are clear. You
will have to choose one. If you are not our friend, you will be our
enemy. You should be with your own people, not them!” She
practically hissed the last word, narrowing her eyes at the van
where Xander and Sariah waited.

“Know
me
, Amber. I am Amelia Hoffman,
and
that
,” I said
emphatically, gesturing towards them, “is my family. And if you or
anyone does anything to harm them, I will turn the wrath of the
Earth Mother on you. I will turn this entire town into a desert
waste if I have to, but I will protect my family. If that makes us
enemies, then I will weep for you when you are dead.”

She looked taken aback by the venom in
my voice, but I didn’t give her time to react as I tore the door
open and headed to the van. If my life were a movie, dramatic music
would have been playing. I would slide on sunglasses in slow motion
and climb into the van in fluid movements. Sadly, my life is a lot
less perfect than a movie, and there was no music—I didn’t even
have sunglasses.

We gathered Mom’s body and laid her
across the back seat She looked almost like she was sleeping, lying
with her hands folded on her stomach—except the large gory hole
where the stake had been pulled from her chest. We took her home
and laid her beneath the lily bushes.

The news was all over about what
happened. They decided a homeless person had broken into the Luthy
Botanical Garden greenhouse and the cold Midwest winter air had
killed all the plants overnight. After days of debate, they finally
concluded the human remains belonged to a victim of spontaneous
human combustion, which made me laugh. After a week it stopped
being news and they moved on to the next story. If nothing else
could be said about Central Illinois, there was always violence to
keep the scent of blood fresh in the air.

Peter Mathews was in fact very much
alive, though still in a coma. His heart had been damaged by the
lightning, but they thought he was going to be ok. I wondered if we
would have to worry about him, but I figured we would cross that
bridge when we got there.

Xander made the arrangements for Mom’s
Grounding. Grandma and Grandpa came, as did Nate’s aunt. The same
earth sprite said a few kind words before the earth swallowed her
body, forever resting with our dad. I imagined them in the
afterlife holding hands and smiling down on us. We stood for a long
time around the site blinking back tears as we said goodbye one
last time. I added a lily to Mom’s grave, growing them both until
they merged into one, feeling it was appropriate.

We packed up the house, slowly packing
away a life that no longer fit. In the basement, hidden behind the
furnace, we found a locked door. When I touched it I sensed
something strange and organic react to me and the door opened,
revealing a safe. After several attempts to open we figured out the
combination was our birthdays and pulled it open. Inside, the safe
was about the size of my closet, and it was filled floor to ceiling
with cash, some modern and some old. I suppose it had been
accumulating over the years, but it was a lot to take
in.

We gave the keys to Grandma, who
promised to send movers when we finally settled somewhere. Too many
people knew where we were, and we should probably be further away.
We had no idea where were going, we just knew we couldn’t stay
here. Nate wanted to go to Washington with the American
rainforests. Sariah wanted somewhere sunny and warm like Florida.
Me, I was thinking Denver. I remember my time in the mountains with
much fondness.

Before we headed out, Grandma
performed the proper ritual for Nate’s and my formal Mating. As the
matriarch of my family, it was a duty that fell to her. It was a
somber affair, and we were all too aware of the conspicuous
absences. We held the ceremony under the cherry tree, next to the
lilies that marked their final resting place. I think Mom and Dad
were there in spirit.

With a heavy heart we packed
everything we could fit into Sariah’s Escape and headed out,
destination unknown. The plan was to each drive for two hours with
no real destination. At the end of it all, we would figure out
where we were and where we were going. With one last long look at
our home, I climbed into the car knowing I would never see this
place again. I was surprised by the lack of sadness this time, but
perhaps I had already said my goodbyes. I didn’t look back as we
drove away, just took Nate’s hand in mine. As long as I was with my
family, I would always be home. And that was enough. For
now.