The Elementals (23 page)

"Yes ma'am." Terra replied.

           
"Why, it's your mother, dear.”

           
It could have been her stomach, or her heart. Maybe it was both, or all of her insides. They came crumbling down.

           
Judy went on, ostensible in regards to the turmoil that was going through her auditor like a whirlwind of a storm. “Your mother made the prophecy when that little one with you was born. You were there, but I dare say you were too young to remember it. I hoped though, that you would have."

           
"My mother?" Her throat could barely croak out the words. The world around her took on a dream - like – state. Nothing seemed real anymore. Had it ever? For growing up with humans away from the communities of the Kin, she was acutely aware of what and who she was, and she never thought of herself as normal. It all had to be some kind of twisted dream.

           
"Yes, your mother. Yours and that small one with you."

           
"Marissa..."

           
"That's her name, right, curse my old memory. She is adorable,” she added as if it would soften the blow of forgetting her name, which was not a blow, it was hardly noticed. “You and her take after your mother. She was a beautiful woman, full of life and love."

           
She tried to smile, but she lost the control of the muscles in her lips. It was set into a frown, like a doll with a painted mouth; she thought it would never change. She wanted someone to pick her up, or not so much her but the pieces that she felt that she was falling into. She was a
China
doll, fragile.

           
It was funny, she always thought of Marissa that way. They took extra care of her, despite the fact that she could very well take care of herself, but it was Terra who was the delicate one, and with anymore surprises she would crumble. A worthless doll....

Depression of worries and fear. It was a literal punch in her gut and it winded her. She didn't have time to direct it and learn to turn the ocean and crashing waves into small controlled lakes, for Marissa turned a pale green, and suddenly, she collapsed.

           
The mattress was folded into the couch, and they all proceeded to sit down on it. Terra, Era, Marissa, and Bryne in a circle. Marissa cried silently, Era wiping her tears with the edge of her long sleeved dress, the one she bought that day when they were out shopping. Terra had changed the clothing they brought home to her. It was refreshing to be in clean jeans and a t-shirt, though it was two sizes too large for her. Still, it was clean and that was what mattered.

           
"Mom... The prophet was mom all along?" Marissa shook her head in disbelief. "Why would Aunt Gwen hide this from us all this time?"

           
"She probably thought it was best." Terra shrugged unsurely. The news of her mother was a shock, but it seemed to fit. Who else would be better to know their future than the woman who gave them life? That was not the reason but it was how her mind came to terms with it, she liked to accept that as a legitimate reason for why. Otherwise, she'd be asking why forever.

           
"That's not good enough," Marissa nearly screeched, but the emotion in her voice kept it as a high pitched gasp. "She should've told us! It was our right to know! She was
our
mother!" She wrenched her cell phone out of her pocket, flipping up the ear piece and LCD screen with such force that it almost snapped closed again.

           
Bryne twisted the cell phone from her grip and threw it to the other side of the room. It hit the wall and broke in half, little bits of it scattering and skittering all over the floor. "Stop it. We know and that's all that matters, calling and bitching out your aunt isn't going to do anyone any good."

           
Marissa wheezed, trying to catch peace, breathing in the air hoping that it would cause her tears to cease, her cheeks were red and blotched. "You don't know how this feels, Bryne!"

           
"Stop it," Era said breathlessly. "There's no use setting blame. Marissa, wash your face, calm yourself."

           
She stood and stormed off. The bathroom door slamming and shaking the walls.

           
"She has a temper," Bryne commented.

           
Terra touched her gemstone thoughtfully. "Only when you're around."

           
Bryne noticed how she fiddled with the Amber, moving it over in her fingers, feeling the facets, the smoothness. It became a part of her, and it was about to become more. She couldn't avoid it for much longer, he would make her take all of their powers. It came close to feeling like it was stealing. She was taking what had been a huge part of themselves. It was more important than an arm or a leg; it was like taking a heart. She thought of how she would feel if one of them took her powers, granted it was singularly elemental, she would feel vulnerable. If she hadn't had her powers when she dropped from the ceiling into the pit of the fire, she would have died. The fall in itself would have caused broken bones.

           
"Terra."

           
In her fist she held onto her stone. "Not yet. No one is ready for this."

           
"That doesn't matter."
Bryan
slipped off his Carnelian and held it into his own first. It illuminated a lively red, the light shining from the cracks of his fingers. When he released it the red stayed, burning the stone. He handed it to her and it nearly scalded her flesh. It drained, soaking into the skin of her palm, into her body, into her blood. It set her on fire, she felt hotter, dangerous, as though she was a stove on the verge of combustion. Was that what he'd been feeling all of his life? She looked at him, and he appeared to have been drained of the little color he had left.

           
"Bryne, are you okay?"

           
"I'm fine," he said weakly. "It's... cold. It'll take some getting used to." He noted her expression and winked. "I'm still me. I'm still hot headed, just... I don't have the power to act it out." He chuckled lightly.

           
Era smiled and sighed. "I suppose it's my turn." She peered fondly at the tiny stone in her hand. "I'm going to miss my power."

           
"Era, we can figure something else….”

           
"There's nothing else," Bryne argued flatly. "This is the only way. You heard my grandmother."

           
Terra clenched her teeth together, her right hand running through her tresses.

           
"He's right," Era said and the stone illuminated a heavenly blue.

           
Terra put Bryne's stone around her neck and accepted Era's. As the energy of Air floated lightly in her palm, it flowed in her veins in a way that Fire had, except she felt light, free, and purposeful.

           
"Now all you have to do is take Water's."

           
Take from her own sister. It wasn't right. It all felt wrong.

           
"This is the only way," Era told her, the lightness still in her voice as if it had never left. She was too drained of her color, looking much like an old woman than ever with her white hair. It was unsettling though the voice was comforting, to know that the taking of a power didn't have an effect on their personality.

           
It was true then, that Era was right. The power wasn't their personality; it was simply that, a power. It just seemed to match, as if a higher existence knew what they were doing. That was good, because they didn't, no matter what it was that Bryne said.

           
"Will you two be okay?"
           
Era nodded, but held her head, and her eyes for a moment became unfocused and tired. Terra had never seen her tired and it was unsettling to witness. "We'll be fine, go see Marissa, she needs you."

           
Terra left reluctantly, her sights shifting from Bryne to Era who looked too sick to have been sitting up the way they were. Each second that ticked past, their eyes became more dull and lifeless.

           
When she knocked on the bathroom door, Marissa opened it up and turned quickly back to the sink, her hands on each side of the basin, her head hung low over it, her hair a curtain shielding herself from her older sister and the teary eyes that Terra had seen.

           
"Issa..." She tucked the strands of her hair, so similar to her own behind her ear. "Aw, Issa..."

           
She sniffed, wiping her nose viciously on the sleeve of her new gown, her mismatched shorts underneath. "I'm just... I'm so..."

           
"Let it out," Terra encouraged lovingly.

           
"I'm so
angry
." Marissa wheeled to face her, her expression livid. "She was our mother! She was the prophet! And all this time Aunt Gwen
never
bothered to tell us! It was our right! We're the ones saving the world!"

           
Terra brought her in her arms, holding her tight, feeling the exasperated breezes, the gasps, the hot soaking of her shoulder. Marissa felt thinner, she could feel her ribs, and that frightened her. How much had she been eating? She should have been paying more attention to her diet. Marissa had been handling things so well; it should've been a red light that something was wrong. Marissa never dealt with bad situations well and something had to lack. In this case, it was apparently the amount of food she had been eating, or lack of.

           
"How much have you been eating," Terra asked as she thrust her sister at an arms length away from her. "You look... Sickly."

           
Indeed, she did. Her outfit of dark blue was baggier, thin and useless on her. Terra touched her rib and could feel the contours of it sticking out of her thin flesh. It turned her stomach.

           
"Oh, Issa. Let’s get something to eat, please."

           
"No. I…I'm... I'm not hungry."

           
"You're worrying yourself sick."

           
"You're not worrying at all! Why do you seem fine with this? You have to take on everything by yourself. Why? Why can't we help? What if all of this is a plan to overtake us? Bryne might not be what he seems, him and his grandmother. She could be just acting ill….”

           
A headache threatened to pound her brain into mush, and Terra lowly and firmly ordered, "stop. That's not true, and you
know
it better than any of us."

           
Tears flooded her kind and terrified eyes. "Yeah, I know it. But... I'm sorry, Terra... I'm sorry that it's taken me this long to use my visions and feelings. I feel that I've wasted all this time and haven't gotten us very far. Maybe….”

           
"No, no maybes, Issa. Please."

           
Savagely, she pulled her necklace off, and held it in her hand as she gathered the energy, like one would gather a stream of water in a vase. A gorgeous deep blue lit up the small room.

           
Terra took it in her hand, and it flowed into her. It was overwhelming, to feel what she was feeling from Marissa. Depression of worries and fear. It was a literal punch in her gut and it winded her. She shakily put it on, the stone clinking with the three others, but she didn't have time to direct it and learn to turn the ocean and crashing waves into small controlled lakes, for Marissa turned a pale green, and suddenly, she collapsed right into her arms, the dead weight of her forcing her down to her knees.