ORDER OF SEVEN

•◊ ORDER OF SEVEN ◊•

BETH TELIHO

Order of Seven
Copyright ©2015 Beth Teliho

This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, events, and incidents are from the author’s imagination, and any similarity or resemblance to actual happenings or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Any real locations are used fictitiously and with creative license.

All rights reserved — no part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.

Published by Branches & Ink Press (
www.branchesandinkpress.com
)

Cover design by Seedlings Design Studio (
www.seedlingsonline.com
)
E-book production by E-books Done Right (
www.ebooksdoneright.com
)

KINDLE EDITION • ISBN 978-0-9861577-1-4 • VERSION 1.4
Also available in paperback (ISBN 978-0-9861577-0-7)

Learn more about the author at
www.bethteliho.me

To Jim. 
Because twelve years ago, you wrote
I believe in you
on a sticky note and left it on my desk, and you never stopped.

•◊
1
ץ

INTRODUCTION

M
y older brother, Nodin, remembers more than I do. But I have something he doesn’t.

I have the dream. A snippet of life before our adoption; a single event played over and over while I sleep. Hundreds of times, I’ve woken up with a scream in my throat and a name on my lips. The dream is always the same. Pounding drums. A tribe surrounding a fire. A night that starts as a celebration but ends in panic and chaos.

Now the dream is changing. For the first time, it’s revealing new details. Nodin says it’s a suppressed memory trying to reconcile itself in my subconscious. I think it’s more than that.

I think it’s trying to tell us something.

Mom and Dad were always open with us about our adoption. They made sure we understood that once we were both adults, information would be available to us if we wanted to learn about our biological parents. Two weeks ago, I turned eighteen and, at our request, Mom gave us the paperwork. There wasn’t as much information as we had hoped for, but what we did learn was disheartening.

In the right column, a box labeled
Biological Mother
had one word typed inside:
Deceased.

The rest of the page has more blank spaces than filled, but the most obvious are our birthdates. The case worker at the facility told Mom and Dad these weren’t provided and they could choose birthdays for us. Nodin was around three years old, they said, and because he was taller, probably a little older than me. Mom decided my birthday was November 2nd, in honor of her father’s birthday, and Nodin’s approximately eighteen months earlier, April 21, 1991.

Ian and Elaine Bennett, our adoptive parents, flew to Johannesburg, South Africa, in February 1994 and signed the papers to make us legally theirs. They kept our birth names, Devi and Nodin, which I’ve always thought was cool. They brought us home to Odessa, Texas, where they loved and nurtured us. We lived in a safe neighborhood, went to good schools, attended church on Sundays, and had family dinners every night around a table overflowing with as much laughter as food.

We could easily leave things as they are, but Nodin and I want to know what happened the night I relive in my dreams. We want to know what two white children were doing with a dark skinned native African tribe. We want to know how our mother died and why we were given up for adoption. But there’s another reason we want to explore our roots: our paranormal abilities.

My brother Nodin can feel and influence the emotions of others. I find myself sometimes aware of things before they actually happen. Intuitive sensitivities are not common, yet we both possess them. These gifts—if you can call them that—are poorly understood and certainly not accepted in society as a whole. We suspect the only way to fully understand our abilities is to find our family.

•◊•◊•

I’m in a woman’s lap. We’re sitting on the dirt ground, across from a fire. The earthy smell of sage dominates the air. Embers spit high and fast from their log nest, snapping an arc of light as they go. The woman braids my hair. My pudgy toddler hands play with the tassels at the end of my dress. It’s dusk. I can already see the moon, faded by the orange creamsicle sunset.

Dark skinned men sit with us, completing our circle around the fire. Their faces are decorated in bold stripes of black and white paint, making their appearance more mask-like than human. Each has a drum in their lap which they beat in unison; a quiet, slow rhythm. They wear strips of red cloth around their waists. Thick gold chains hang from their necks and ankles, dancing with the yellow and orange reflections of the fire.

The women are beautiful. Shortly cropped hair frames ebony faces with high cheekbones and full lips. One eye is encircled with intricately placed swirls, dots, and dashes of bright blue, yellow, white, and red; each woman with their own unique design and color palette. They stand on the outskirts of the circle, smiling, moving to the rhythm of the drums. Like the men, they wear a red wrap around their waist, but theirs continues up over one shoulder, leaving a breast exposed.

A man wearing a bear mask stands at the head of the circle holding a tall, decorated stick. He’s dressed differently than the other men. He wears a vest of reeds, interlocked with beads and feathers. The skin on his arms and legs is covered in yellow paint. I stare at him, suspicious I know who he is and hoping I’m right.

I love him. I trust him.

I look at the man sitting directly to my left. He doesn’t have a drum, and is wrapped in a brown hooded robe, leaving only his face and hands visible. The whites of his eyes glow and there’s something unnatural about his jet-black skin. His strange eyes peer at me, making me uncomfortable. I wiggle in the woman’s arms under the discomfort of his stare. I want to stop looking at him, but can’t.

The drums beat louder and faster. The man with the bear mask tilts his head to the sky. All eyes are on him. The air is electric with anticipation, but for what I don’t know. I squirm again, uncomfortable with the noise. The woman squeezes me, tussling my hair. I know she is trying to comfort me.

I don’t relax.

The bear-masked man holds his stick out in front of his chest. The drums cease, creating instant silence. The man looks directly at the woman holding me and points his stick in our direction. She nudges me to stand.

I hesitate.

He booms, “Mandah.”

I stand, wobbly in the knees, with the woman’s hand at the small of my back to support me.

With his stick still pointed at me, his deep voice reverberates through the air, “Dakahn manyan mah pih tah nili hasi.”

Gasps pierce the silence. I hear his words repeated, fluttering around the group. Eyes wide with wonder and awe gaze upon me, and arms reach out to touch my hair and face. The creepy man next to me is nodding, smiling. I’m confused by all the attention, but am certain of one thing: this ceremony is for me and I’ve been given a name.

In an instant the energy changes. A scurry, a commotion, and then shrieks break out. Happy faces transform to panic. Men take defensive stances, shouting from all directions. The creepy man moves toward me and the woman. I scream and look for the bear-masked man. He’s gone.

The woman shoves me into the arms of another. As I’m pulled backward, I see the creepy man dragging the woman away from me and lay eyes on her for the first time. Her skin is not black, but brown, like milk chocolate. She wears a dress of yellow leather with tassels on the end, just like mine. Long braids of brown hair fall past her shoulders. There is terror in her eyes.

I wake like I always do. Like I have a hundred times: clutching my sweat-soaked sheets, face damp with panicked tears, calling out a name. A bastard name with no identity.
Nami.

•◊
2
ץ

NOVEMBER 12, 2010

“H
op in,” Nodin shouts from the window of his blue Ford Bronco.

I just finished a four-hour shift at the university bookstore and he’s giving me a lift since my heap-o-shit pickup-truck is in the shop, again. Bad timing, because tonight we have special plans.

My brother and I both attend the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. I’m a freshman, without the slightest idea what my major will be. Nodin’s a sophomore. With his grades he could have gone anywhere, but I feel like he opted for the flat, dry lands of Odessa he dislikes so much just so he could stay near me.

Nodin is following in our dad’s footsteps, studying archeology. Dad’s been the professor of archeology at UTPB for twenty-four years. My mom earned her Master’s in art history there. She ran a gallery in town for more than a decade, but retired after they sold our house to move a little outside of town where they could have some land. Horses are her new hobby.

“Thanks again for the lift.” I wince as vibrations from my tree travel through the ground into my legs, summoning me to it. A demand, not a request.

I’ve spent hundreds of hours in my tree’s branches, connecting to its energy, experiencing sensations so mind-blowing everything else in life seems dull, or muted in comparison.

It doesn’t happen with any tree, just the one in the backyard of our childhood home. I receive visions there, sometimes of events that haven’t happened yet. Like when I knew Nodin was going to fall off his bike and sprain his wrist a week before it actually happened, or how I knew Aunt Lily was pregnant before she announced it. Other times, the vision is from long ago or feels like déjà vu.

There’s no ignoring the tree’s calling. Not just today, but ever. The longer it takes me to respond, the more punishing the calling gets. But I can’t always bolt the minute I feel it. I have school and work, for fuck’s sake.

Sensing my tension, Nodin leans forward and makes eye contact. His brows lift with understanding; he knows I’m being called by the tree. Nodin is an empath, which is the term for the type of intuitive ability he has. He’s highly sensitive to his surroundings, particularly other’s feelings. As a child, being in public would make him physically ill. It took years of practice to control the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. But there’s no one he’s more in tune with than me.

“I need to take you to the tree now?” he asks. It’s more a statement than a question.

“Yeah. Just drop me off and I’ll call you when I’m ready, okay?” I pat the cell phone in my jacket pocket. I don’t carry a purse. I prefer to keep things simple.

He turns the car toward our old house, the one we grew up in, just a few miles from the college. His shoulders relax and his hands loosen their grip on the steering wheel as he sheds my anxious feelings.

“Are you excited about Baron and Ben coming?” I ask.

In his youth, Nodin endured months of intense traditional therapy and testing to find a reason for his emotional distress. One day, after a particularly harrowing group session where Nodin fell to the floor and vomited, a doctor discreetly handed Mom a card for a place specializing in children with paranormal abilities: the Center for Intuitive and Sensitive Children, or CISC.

Two weekends a month, Mom drove Nodin all the way to Dallas to see Steve Beckman, a therapist at CISC, where he was first diagnosed as an empath. They trained him on how to manage the emotions he absorbs, and taught our parents ways to help accommodate his extra sensitivities, like keeping rose quartz in his room and smudging the house with sage. Not all parents would’ve been that open-minded. I have to give them props.

At CISC, Nodin met other kids with sensitivities, two of which became life-long friends: Baron and Ben. Ben, a psychic, has visited Nodin countless times over the years. I’ve never met Baron, but I’ve heard stories about him. He can see and manipulate energy. A shaper, trained as a healer.

Nodin smiles. “Yes. I can’t wait to show Baron around here.”

“So, I finally get to meet the famous Baron Latrosse. Why has he never visited before? Is he too good for Texas?”