Nightwish (An Echoes of Eternity Novel Book 1) (4 page)

Celestina bit her lower lip with indecision. She wore a black T-shirt featuring numerous white dots, which formed a stellar constellation and blue jean cutoffs. Her hesitance and discomfort reminded me of… well me, to be honest. And for that, I immediately gravitated toward her. I stepped forward and smiled. “Hi, Celestina. I guess…I’m your aunt.”

That idea made me smile. When I looked into her eyes, a comforting sensation took hold of me: acceptance. While I had a difficult time recognizing Delphine as my mother, and to a lesser extent acknowledging that I had a twin sister, I felt a special kinship with Celestina that words could not explain. Her presence set me at ease in a way. Instinct told me that we’d come to care a great deal for each other, and seeing her smile the moment that thought crossed my mind, made me feel that I should trust that foresight.

I offered my hand awkwardly, because how do you greet a teenage family member you never knew existed.

But instead of taking my hand, Celestina went to my left hip and enveloped me in a hug. Caught off guard, but touched by her gesture and the emotion behind it, I wrapped my arms around her, taking in her scent, which reminded me of pinecones and pumpkins, of the winter holidays and… what I always imagined having family would feel like. A ray of sunshine shot into my heart. I held her tightly, just as Grams had always done with me before her illness stole her memory.

“Okay,” said Alexis, irritated. “Enough of that. Get back here.”

Celestina left my embrace. She craned her neck to the side, glancing at her mother and grandmother, seeking assurance and hoping for acceptance. But she got neither, so she lowered her head, as though silently punished for acknowledging my existence.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

Alexis let out an exasperated sigh. “She doesn’t know you.
I
don’t know you.” She looked down at Celestina and curled a protective arm around her shoulders, pulling her into a hug. “I just don’t want her to get her hopes up about someone who…may not play a role in her life.”

“Who says I won’t?”

She opened her mouth to speak but paused for a long beat, as though reconsidering the response that came naturally in favor of one with more prudence. “We just met. Let’s take things slowly.”

“You don’t trust me. Is that it?”

“You got it, sister!” She glanced at Delphine. “I don’t like this. Any of it.”

“On that, I agree.” Then it dawned on me that if Celestina was a teenager and Alexis was my twin sister, that meant my sister gave birth at…eight years old! But how could that be possible?

As though understanding my insight, Alexis’s cheeks became as puffy and dark as a storm cloud covering the sun. “Do. Not. Go. There!”

Shocked by her outburst, I almost wavered in place at the barely bottled fury that crossed her face. I found it both startling and frightening that, a moment after contemplating the age at which my sister delivered her child, I felt like someone had plucked my brain with a spoon, as though trying to carve out my thoughts.

It was as if Alexis had read my mind! That thought left me unexpectedly gasping for air. Of course, the idea was ludicrous. But was it any more unheard of than surviving a demon attack?

I set my eyes on Alexis, but she looked up at Delphine, who gave her full concentration to Grams. How odd! In contrast to my sister, who shrugged off my existence as of little consequence, Delphine looked at Grams with great respect. This seemed out of place because, Grams once admitted to wishing she’d had a chance to correct the mistakes she’d made in raising my mother. Based on that response, I had presumed that Grams had inadvertently driven Delphine out of her life.

Therefore, it surprised me to see Delphine look at Grams with reverence. I’d always imagined that they never understood each other, resulting in countless arguments and fights. Of course, my interpretation was based on very little information and lots of conjecture, but I would never have expected my mother to regard Grams with anything but spite. So to see Delphine giving her the utmost respect made it nearly impossible for me to speak. But sensing that she’d kept in contact with them behind my back loosened my tongue quickly.

“Why didn’t you tell me about them, Grams?”

Grams removed her gaze from Delphine, but looked at Alexis instead of me.

“My mother and sister want nothing to do with me, so why am I here?” Despite that realization, I was hurt that Grams kept this part of
our
lives from me.

It seemed she’d kept a lot from me, especially an insignificant fact that… I’m a witch! But again, why? Something must have dissuaded her from revealing the truth. So why had she introduced us now, only to remain silent? It didn’t make any sense.

Coming from a place without power (in the sense of information), I needed to establish myself and demand that the trio recognize me. I looked at Alexis. “How long have you known about me?”

“All my life.”

Even though her response made it difficult to swallow, I did my best to appear unmoved by that revelation. “What’s your last name?”

She took a deep breath and let it out, annoyed. “Sykes.”

Well, at least, Grams hadn’t lied about my last name. Alexis didn’t wear an engagement ring or wedding band, so if she’d gotten divorced, she still used her maiden name. Another pluck hit my mental synapses.

Alexis glared at me, obviously thinking that I’d inquired because of Celestina, as though she’d had a one-night stand, which resulted in her daughter’s birth.

But I hadn’t spoken a word! Either she could read my thoughts or…no—there was no other explanation! Alexis had the ability to read my mind. Looking at her smile now, a pang of nausea hit my stomach, but rather than submit to self-consciousness, I catered to curiosity. “Okay, congratulations. You can read my mind. But I never invited you inside my head.”

“So?” She smirked unapologetically.

I looked for some measure of insincerity, but Alexis clearly believed that she had approval to use her powers whenever and however she chose. Rather than contemplate that distorted point of view, I said, “You can’t read me
clearly
can you? I didn’t ask your last name because I have a twisted need to hurt you. I asked because I wanted to know if Grams lied about my last name.” I turned my attention to Grams. “You know, since you’ve lied about a family I never knew I had.”

Delphine clucked her tongue against the bridge of her mouth, eliciting a tsk-tsk sound.

“How would you know? You never gave me a chance. You gave me away. So
you
don’t get an opinion.”

My mother clenched her teeth and couldn’t hide the hint of a snarl.

“Oh, you disapprove?” I asked, feeling fury churning inside me. “You don’t get to judge me either. So take your mind-reader and leave.”

Delphine gave me a condescending half-smile before it disappeared a second later. “Yes, we should get going. Congratulations again on your accomplishment.” She centered her attention on her daughter and grandchild. “Come along, children.”

Disobeying her grandmother, Celestina took a few steps toward me and with a downcast expression until she stopped just inches away. “The first prophecy is… clouded.” She glanced at Grams, whose expression soured.

Aghast, Celestina shook her head in disarray. “Oh, no! It’s coming.” Her eyelids faltered. She yawned.

An innate sensation throttled me to her side, but her mother and grandmother certainly knew how to deal with whatever affliction haunted Celestina. Although Delphine didn’t budge a muscle, Alexis ran to her daughter’s side with an urgent, compassionate expression just as her daughter collapsed into her arms, asleep.

Within ten seconds, Celestina opened her dazed eyes, as though she’d just taken a long nap, and settled them on her mother’s gaze until she regained her focus.

Alexis pressed close to her daughter. “Okay now?”

Celestina nodded. She placed her attention on Grams and winced before moving on toward me. She cringed and lowered her gaze to the floor.

“What did you see?” Alexis asked.

“It was dark, horrible.”

I recalled Celestina talking about a prophecy before narcolepsy had gripped her. It seemed that my niece could see the future! My pulse rocketed.

“My daughter,” Alexis said, “has premonitions of potential futures.”

I felt the familiar pluck in my mind: my sister had once again read my thoughts, but this time I didn’t admonish her intrusion. “Potential futures? But the possibilities are endless!” That knowledge alarmed me. “But how can she take all that in? Or know which one will happen? Or even know what’s real and what’s not?”

Alexis cringed at the barrage of questions.

The pinging sensation clicked louder in my mind.

“Please don’t talk about this in front of my daughter.”
Sincerity made Alexis’s eyebrows close, making it obvious that she loved her daughter a great deal.
“Her visions are exhausting, and I’m constantly afraid that she’ll lose her mind.”

At first, upon hearing my sister’s voice barge into my mind without consent, I wanted to shake her, but I disregarded my discomfort because I was far more concerned about Celestina than myself. I had no idea the torture she surely endured: seeing countless possibilities that struck with barely any notice. Had she suffered an attack in school? If so, at her age, she must have been horrified that others looked on without any background, thinking she was probably insane.

“Yes, she has had narcolepsy at school. She tried to explain it to other kids, but they called her a freak and now they avoid her. I’ve spoken with her teachers, and they’ve allowed her to sit near the door in every classroom in case she feels it coming on. That way, she can hurry to a bathroom stall and let it happen privately. She has no friends I know of, she has poor social skills, and she’s naive. Sometimes she acts ten instead of thirteen. So please don’t mention that gift too much.”

Gift? I’d never call those visions a gift! After completing that thought, I felt an incoming sound wave attempt to enter my mind, followed again by an even louder pluck than before. “Stop doing that!”
I shouted.

Alexis cradled her daughter’s head, brushing the hair from her forehead. “At first blood,” she said audibly, “Celestina inherited her abilities.”

So she has more than one ability? I hadn’t considered that. But then, if her mother could read minds and push her own thoughts into the minds of others, why couldn’t Celestina have more than one “gift”? And why does she fall asleep before a prophecy appears? Did she have these visions often? Another sound wave came rolling toward me and knowing that an annoying ping would follow, I concentrated on clearing my mind to give my sister nothing to learn.

“She’ll be fine,” Alexis said. She turned to her daughter. “Right, kiddo?”

Celestina rolled her eyes. “Really, Mom? Kiddo? You’re
so
embarrassing!” She spun around and headed toward her grandmother, who held out a hand while glaring at me.

Alexis watched after her daughter before setting her gaze on mine. “Because you seem to care about Celestina, I’ll tell you this: the first female in our line gets her abilities the moment she first menstruates. Every other female receives her gifts at twenty-one.”

“But if I had any abilities, wouldn’t I have figured it out earlier today?”

“Beats me. Maybe you noticed one of them, but explained it away as something else. Either that, or your gifts may be so diluted that they weren’t strong enough to make a big impact on you.”

“How do you know they might be…diluted?”

“Every firstborn female in our line receives three abilities. But every succeeding female in any line has only one-third the power of her oldest sister.”

“So you can read minds and push your thoughts into my head. Two powers down. What’s the last one?”

Alexis chuckled. “It doesn’t matter if I’m reading your mind or putting thoughts in your head. File both away as mind control. That’s just one power. The other two abilities?” she asked with a mischievous smile. “You’ll find out soon enough. But no one knows which one of us was born first. Not Mom, because she passed out during the delivery, or Lorraine.”

The ‘Lorraine’ comment told me that either my sister didn’t like Grams or she wasn’t very familiar with her. Either could be true, not that Grams would expound on their relationship, given her strange behavior. But too many more urgent questions came to mind, so I didn’t continue with that line of thought.

“We never found out,” she said.

“But one of them has to know. We didn’t come out side by side…at the same time.”

“When Mother asked to see anyone who helped deliver us, she was told that everyone had ended their shifts and gone home. She tried to find out again later, but she hit a dead end.”

“What do you mean?”

“Two doctors and a nurse carpooled on the way home that night and got into a car wreck. They all died.”

“That’s horrible!”

“The bigwigs at the hospital admitted that they had each worked thirty-six hours straight, and the judge ruled that the doctor who was driving had nodded off while driving.” She shrugged. “But who knows what really happened.”