Becoming (20 page)

“Big ones?” Olivia echoed weakly.

“Yeah. You know…love, passion, humor. Those
kinds of deep emotions.” Then, finally noting Olivia’s expression,
Skye added hastily, “But, well, our father obviously fell in love
with our mother or we wouldn’t be here, right? So, um, I think it’s
just the ones who’ve been around for a long while who kind of
forget about those kinds of feelings.”

Surprisingly, that made sense. Olivia relaxed
a bit. She couldn’t say that she had ever sat around thinking about
a future with a human male any more than she had considered what
life among Estilorian males would be like. With Jean, a college
professor, as her role model, she had always imagined going to
college, earning her MBA and then becoming a successful
professional. She hadn’t been foolish enough to pin herself into
one field. Keep your options open, she thought. But certainly at
some point she had imagined getting married and starting a family.
The thought of living among males like Ini-herit made such a thing
seem completely unachievable.

Her gaze again shifted to Amber and Gabriel.
She could only see the back of Gabriel’s head, but she noted that
it was tilted toward her sister with obvious attention to whatever
it was she was saying. And Amber’s eyes were more avid, more filled
with emotion when she focused on Gabriel than they were otherwise.
Their love for each other was painfully obvious.

And Olivia had to ask herself as she studied
them whether it was better to have never experienced a love like
theirs…or to have experienced it only to face losing it.

They landed in Fairbanks almost exactly an
hour after they had taken off. The airport where they landed was
definitely not a large one. Gabriel released his seatbelt and
pressed closer to Amber so he could look out the window as they
taxied to the gate. All he saw was a line of trees.

Her scent floated up to him. Unable to
resist, he bent down as she leaned toward the window so he could
kiss the side of her neck. She turned slowly to look at him over
her shoulder, the look in her eyes both interested and amused. The
amusement faded to seriousness when she saw his expression.
Thinking only that they didn’t have much time left on this plane of
existence—and what a crazy thought that was—he leaned the remaining
couple of inches between them and kissed her.

He was still kissing her when the plane
rolled to a stop. Only the loud clearing of a throat finally got
through enough that he pulled away. He glanced over his shoulder
and saw Olivia and Skye staring at them with huge grins.

“Time to disembark,” Skye said
cheerfully.

“Thanks.” Glancing back at Amber, who caught
his gaze with one eyebrow raised, he repeated, “Time to
disembark.”

He waited for the girls to get up and move
toward the front of the plane and then he followed them out the
door and down the stairs. Since they only had to wait for Olivia’s
cat to be retrieved and a quick bathroom break for everyone, it
wasn’t long before Ini-herit led them to a shiny, new-looking,
black Land Rover. Ini-herit opened the rear hatch and the pilot
settled the pet carrier in the back. As Olivia crooned wordlessly
to the cat before stepping back to allow the door to close, Gabriel
exchanged a look with Amber.

“Okay,” he said, waving his hands as if in
defeat. “I have to ask. What the heck is up with the cat?”

Olivia smiled. “I wondered how long it would
take you to ask. The short answer is that she’s my feline friend,
Aurora.”

“Oh! Like the princess in
Sleeping
Beauty
?” Skye asked.

“Uh…no, actually,” Olivia answered as though
the thought had never occurred to her. She moved around the side of
the car when Ini-herit indicated they should get in and clarified,
“Aurora as in Borealis. I’ve always had a fascination with the
Northern Lights.” Her gaze shifted to the sky, where the powerful
light energy swirled, hidden by the continuing sunshine. “I guess
now I know why.”

There was a moment of discussion about the
seating arrangements since Amber couldn’t touch her sisters without
having a reaction. She ended up in the front passenger seat while
Ini-herit drove. Gabriel sat in the back with Olivia on his left
and Skye on his right. They were so closely pressed together that
the fuzz from the electric blue sweater Skye had put on for the
trip clung to his hoodie’s sleeve and Olivia’s elbow kept poking
him in the side. Oh, well. Nothing to be done about it.

In an effort to distract himself from feeling
penned in, he looked over at Olivia. “So, what’s the longer version
of the story with your animal friend back there?”

She had been staring out the window and
turned back to him at the question. “Well, thanks to my recent
power surge, as Ini-herit calls them, I now share a mental bond
with Aurora. Ini-herit believes she’ll cross the planes with me.
The Scultresti are apparently even now finishing the creation of
her Estilorian form.”

“Really?” His eyebrows winged up.
“That’s...um. Interesting. So, you can tell what she’s
thinking?”

“Sometimes. If the thoughts are loud and
direct enough.”

“
Loud
thoughts? Huh.” He let his mind
drift back to the time in Nick’s office when he thought he had
heard Amber’s voice in his head. Even as that memory crossed his
mind, she turned in the front seat and caught his gaze. He nodded.
“Very interesting.”

Can you hear me?
he thought while he
held Amber’s gaze.

Her eyes widened.
Yes!

Too. Cool.

She broke into a smile. He glanced up and saw
Ini-herit’s eyes on him in the rearview mirror. He realized that
Olivia and Skye were also studying them. Amber turned back around
with a laugh and a shake of her head.

Grinning, he asked, “So, what if Aurora can’t
cross the planes with you?”

A troubled look crossed Olivia’s features,
making him want to kick himself. She answered, “Then she’ll be on
her own in the wilderness, because I won’t be here to protect
her.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, trying not to
wince.

Good one!

Reaching to the front, he lightly smacked
Amber’s upper arm in response to her thought. She laughed again.
Choosing to ignore her, he turned to Skye. “So, what about you? Did
you bond with anyone—or anything—when your power surged?”

Skye shrugged casually. “Nothing more than
usual. I’ve always had the ability to communicate with the spirit
of Sky Tomaganuk, the elder whose name I share. He’s with me still.
Maybe a bit clearer in my mind, I guess.”

“Your powers are all growing,” Ini-herit
said, drawing their attention to him. “But we have no way of
knowing what these links will do on the Estilorian plane. They
could become stronger or disappear altogether.”

What a ray of sunshine
, Gabriel
thought toward Amber.

A humored snort issued from the front seat.
Ini-herit again looked at him in the rearview mirror, so Gabriel
kept his face blank.

“I should tell you all a bit more about this
transition,” Ini-herit continued when he returned his attention to
the road. He had no map or GPS and Gabriel had to wonder how he
knew where he was going. “You should not be entirely unprepared for
what is about to happen.”

“Is it going to hurt?” Skye asked.

The quickness of the question made it
apparent that she had been thinking about it for some time, and
Gabriel looked over at her. Her eyes were downcast and she was
fiddling with the cuff of her sweater in a young and endearing
way.

“I do not know. You girls were wailing
newborns when you made the initial transition between the planes.
There was no way for your Corgloresti to know whether your cries
were from pain or some entirely different reason.”

Rolling his eyes over Ini-herit’s frank
response when Skye inhaled sharply beside him, Gabriel reached over
and patted her on the hand. “You have tattoos on your neck and a
stud pierced through your chin. Why are you worried about pain? If
anything, that should be me. We all know guys don’t handle pain as
well as gals.”

She relaxed a bit at that. “Hey, you’re
right! Thanks.”

“It should not—”

Knowing that Ini-herit was about to point out
that it wouldn’t hurt Gabriel at all because he was an Estilorian
whereas the girls were only half, he interrupted, “Why don’t we
avoid dwelling on that part of this experience? Whether it hurts or
not, we’re going through with this. So…tell us about the other
side.”

Nodding, Ini-herit turned the vehicle off of
the main road and onto a narrow dirt path into the forest. The move
had them all bouncing in their seats on the uneven surface. He
said, “Very well. One of the first things of which you should be
aware is that your appearance will be different on the other
side.”

“Different how?” Amber asked, her brow
furrowed.

“You have to understand that what exists of
you on the Estilorian plane right now is mostly a nebulous being.
The exact form of your Estilorian self will not develop until your
full essence reaches that plane, so it is impossible to answer your
question,” he explained.

Of course it is.

Gabriel fought back a grin in response to
Amber’s sarcastic thought as Ini-herit continued.

“Zayna, the Scultresti elder who created your
human forms, did her best to mimic your predicted adult physical
characteristics. But she had never done such a thing for a newborn
baby before, so she was really working off of experience and
instinct. You will note, for example, that each of you girls has a
different shade of hair. She knew it would be brown, but exactly
what color she could only guess. The same applies to most of your
other physical characteristics. Thus, our prediction is that you
will look similar to your current forms, but more likely a
combination of each of your physical traits.”

There was a moment of silence as they
processed this new information. Then Skye spoke up.

“I want Amber’s hair. All those blonde and
red strands mixed in—I’ve wanted hair like that for most of my
life!”

Olivia laughed as Amber blushed. “Can I have
Skye’s nose?” she asked, her green eyes twinkling. “I’ve always
thought mine was too big.”

Say something about Olivia
, Gabriel
thought toward Amber.

She turned and caught his gaze. Then she
looked briefly at Olivia with an assessing eye. “If I had a choice,
I’d want Olivia’s eyebrows and forehead. I’ve never liked
mine.”

The three sisters smiled at each other.
Ini-herit caught Gabriel’s gaze in the mirror. “Indeed,” he said.
He evidently sensed enough not to tell them that they had no real
choice in the matter. “It will be interesting to see what human
traits you carry over to the Estilorian plane.”

Another heavy pause in the conversation.

As he maneuvered around a nearly blind turn
in the thickening forest, he continued, “The Estilorian form can be
impacted by damage done to the human form. If a Corgloresti is
killed while in human form, for example, the Estilorian being is
also killed.”

“So, I could still have a scar on my neck and
a healed break in my left arm from my fall out of a poplar tree
when I was five?” Olivia asked.

“You could,” he acknowledged. “Or no impact
from that at all. We don’t really know.”

“You say that a lot,” Amber said dryly.

“Well, you are completely unprecedented,”
Ini-herit replied. “How are we to know anything about you?”

He had her there.

“We are operating off of the assumption that
your human personality traits will transfer into your Estilorian
forms,” Ini-herit said. “As I have explained to each of you, we
have no way to—”

“Confirm this,” all three girls said at the
same time.

Startled, Gabriel looked around at each of
them. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up at the surreal
sound of their three voices chiming simultaneously. He again caught
Ini-herit’s gaze in the mirror and realized the Estilorian was as
unfazed as ever.

“That is correct,” he agreed. “I can tell you
that Estilorians assume a large variety of forms on the human
plane. As Estilorians, we often look nothing like the human forms
we assume. In the case of you girls as well as Gabriel, we tried to
stay as consistent with the Estilorian form as we could in an
effort to make the transition between the planes have less of a
psychological impact upon you. It seemed…the right thing to
do.”

They rode along quietly for a moment, bumping
up and down in their individual seats as the vehicle hit jagged
bumps in their path.

What if I look completely different?

The thought came through as clearly as a
voice. His expression softened. He was all too aware of Amber’s
insecurities. Focusing, he thought toward her,
Do you think I
fell in love with your appearance?

He heard her sigh.
No. But it’ll be weird,
won’t it?

Raising a corner of his mouth, he thought,
Only if I can’t tell you apart from your sisters.

As he had predicted, she laughed. The sound
was a welcome break to the substantial silence. Ini-herit glanced
beside him at Amber and then looked again in the rearview mirror.
Gabriel would have thought his gaze was disapproving if it hadn’t
been so devoid of emotion.

“We are here,” Ini-herit said. And stopped
the vehicle.

The Land Rover jerked to a shuddering stop in
the middle of the woods and Ini-herit turned off the engine. After
a moment of almost stunned silence, they all watched him open his
door and get out, leaving the keys in the ignition. Olivia quickly
followed suit, so Gabriel exited on her side of the car and walked
over to the passenger side. Since neither Skye nor Amber had
emerged, he walked around and opened both passenger side doors.