Preternatural (Worlds & Secrets) (30 page)

“
Actually, who are they?” Liam quickly corrected.

Mychaela gestured to the bleach blonde,
“this is Aemilia – she’s from the London whereabouts on Vernaesce.” She then pointed to the other, whom I realised Robbie could not keep his eyes off of, “and this is Jordan from the Norwegian whereabouts.”

“
Of all the names in the world, she had to have
my
middle name,” I muttered.

“
We’re here for the explanation I guess,” Aemilia spoke.

“
See that’s our problem right there, what explanation?” Jojo seconded. Tammy sighed and she quietly walked over to the group formed with Mychaela and Tarmo in front of the fireplace whilst Jordan and Aemilia walked on over to us.

Mychaela took o
ff her mask and sat herself down – but Liam seemed to find it hard to not focus on Mychaela. He gave her too much attention.

“
I’m a Psiokinetic and a Hypnokinetic,” Tarmo started.

“
What’s that?” I quickly interfered.

“
I can control sleep and chakras,” Tarmo seemed to be in a haste to explain, he couldn’t stop flapping his hands by his side, “so that allows me a certain range of telepathy. Tammy has not told you this, but I clashed ranges with her once. While meditating, her omniscient ability extended her telepathic range. I got in contact with Mychaela – which, as you gathered, is the princess – and we spoke to each other. Now, since all our parents work at the Supremacy, we’re
allowed
to know about the Barons of Corlévati.” He clapped his hands resonantly.

“
Which brings us to the main point: each of our parents in this building, have been keeping things from us lately. We’ve all seen it, they’re all
being suspicious and keeping a specific piece of information from us. As children of people who work at the supremacy, it’s not that we’re
allowed
to know, we’re
required
to know – it’s for our safety. But that rule is sort of rendered invalid due to these circumstances. But we, alone, have been able to possibly figure out what’s going on – along with the adults’ information about the tearing of the Barons’ Prison,” Tarmo spoke.

“
Is that why it was so important for all of us to come?” Jordan asked.

“
Yes. But we needed you guys here. There are many more kids but I needed you guys because, well –” Tarmo broke off into a deep sigh and looked at Tammy and Mychaela. They nudged him and urged him to continue.

“
Well, because it was critical that I got the children of the Blue and Roxeth family here. Plus we are the only hybrid children out of the entire community of Supremacy workers – apart from Jaden and Mychaela of course, but Jaden is a Blue child and Mychaela is the princess,” Tarmo hurriedly spoke.

“
What about me?” Jojo was quick to ask.

“
Your father’s the only
soldier that survived the revolution,” Tarmo finished. We looked at Aemilia and Jordan.

“
So, you guys are hybrids? What can you do?” Robbie asked. Aemilia sniggered. She turned to the fireplace and shot out her hand. A blizzard of icy frost shot out from her palm and the room went dark as the fire went out with a hiss and sizzle. Our eyes were like hovering torches glowing in the dark. I stretched my fist out and the fire reignited itself.

“
Cryokinetic,” she muttered. Convenient – she could control ice.

“
What about you?” Robbie asked Jordan.

“
I can’t display them now, but I’m an Ergokinetic; I can manipulate and generate energy.”

“
Look, there’s no time for that
now
. The reason we tried to contact you guys is because – Aden, I know what you’ve been seeing, what you’ve been going through,” Tammy said sincerely. I inhaled lengthily.

“
Then what does this have to do with us?” Jaden asked on edge.

“
Because, they’ve decided to kill Aden – I will be as honest as I possibly can: I have
no
idea why. But, Aden, believe it or not, I have been in the mind of that person. The one only you can see –”

“Aden?” Jaden asked me as he turned to stare
into my eyes. I gulped fearfully.

“I know, Aden
. I do not know what he is but it’s enough to tell me that the Barons want you dead. They have marked you with him. Meaning you will die regardless. But listen to me, Jade, they’re going to target you afterwards and then they’ll try to kill Jaden. It’s an agenda that’s been set out and they’re planning to go by it.” We looked at each other, petrified. So we were
destined
to die.

“How do you
know
this for sure?” Aemilia asked. The explaining group looked at Tammy and she sighed.

“I’m the o
mniscient in training, remember? I can’t control myself, but at times I can see almost everything in a split second – then it disappears. I just
know
this, but I am nowhere near strong enough to tell you the outcome of what will happen or of what is going on in their prison,” Tammy spoke honestly. “Out of one hundred percent, I’m only probably five percent strong and familiar with my ability. You cannot imagine the power required to be what I am.”

“
Since it is Samhain,” Mychaela began speaking “they’ll try and send all manners of evil to chase after you. Truth is, if possible – we might have to find their prison and reseal it.”

“
Are you mad?!
” Robbie quickly interrupted.

“
How are we to fight them off? There are only eleven of us – but despite the fact that there are six of them, there’s only so much we can do. They’re too strong –
we’d be killed
,” Jordan spoke openly.

Well
that was reassuring.

“
I forgot to mention,” Mychaela recommenced, but by the tone of her voice, I could tell this wasn’t going to be pleasant.

“
By Christmas, they’ll have broken free from the void prison.” My heart sank and I felt like my world had collapsed.

“
So resealing their prison is one of the limited options that we have to keep them away. But it’s okay – they’ll be trapped behind the cover cloud if they should break free,” Tarmo was quick to mention.

“Fat lot of good some stupid cover cloud will do!” Jaden outburst; his voice deepening to a low animal grumble uncontrollably.

“Yeah, what if it isn’t strong enough? What if I’m killed just like our dad was?” I spoke rigidly and hesitated.

“
Trust me, buddy, it’s much stronger than you could possibly imagine. There’s a bridge in between the cover cloud and their prison,” Tarmo spoke quietly.

“
Somehow like a limbo,” Tammy added.

“
The shadow realm,” Jojo whispered.

“
Yeah –
that
. So if they find their way through the shadow realm, they’ll be left in a trance behind the cover cloud,” Tarmo answered.

“But what
is
the cover cloud?” Jaden asked.

“You can’t see it. It’s invisible. But it’s there, all around Vernaesce. It is what divides us from Earth yet is also what link
s us. It’s as existent as wind; you can’t see it, but you can feel it and you know it’s real,” Tarmo further added. I swallowed hard. I still wasn’t satisfied with a form of protection I couldn’t see.

“
So, what do we do?” Jade asked, gripping my hand just for comfort.

“
There’s an upside. Their reincarnation hall – which is where their prison is – is open at the moment. It can only be closed or opened from the exterior and so if it’s shut from the outside, they’ll be permanently trapped. Unless, of course, someone else should open it. But no one would want such evil to get back out. We should venture there and close it,” Mychaela quickly answered.

“
At least that way you’d be saved from death,” Jordan spoke to us.

“
What if they just send a Grinner to open it from the outside?” Aemilia asked.

“
Well, the doors of their reincarnation chamber would be closed, so therefore they wouldn’t even be able to get out in the first place,” Mychaela answered.

I gulped.
My brain was strained, trying to interpret a string of patterns that I didn’t recognise. Everything was falling into despair. There was no hope.

“
But
where
in the shadow realm is the chamber?” Aemilia asked.

“
I’m not sure, but –”

At that moment, everything went black
and Tarmo was cut off immediately. The fire quickly died with a hiss but none of us had inflicted any means of diminishing it. The orchestra downstairs had stopped playing all together. We looked around and our breaths became silent. However, our chests tightened with panic. The only lights apart from our eyes were sourced from the window, showing us the dark area we were in and the luminous universe-sky. We looked at each other curiously and through the dark, Mychaela whispered “oh my goodness. Guys, I think we ought to go downstairs.”

“Why, what’s going on? W
hat’s wrong?” Aemilia breathed.

“It’s the ghosts,” Mychaela answered. A series of loud monotonous gasps sounded downstairs, accompanied with low, but very audible awkward murmuring.

“There’s no time to walk.” Jojo sprang to her feet and forced us all to lock hands together. In an instance we were teleported downstairs to the ballroom. We noticed that the majority of the hall was empty. We looked towards the main entrance and we realised that everybody was still, just as silent and petrified at the ominous darkness and dark light that fell from the universe above. The guests were blocking the enormous towering doors and the large ceiling-to-floor Vernaescian windows. It seemed that the ghosts were only on one side. I wasn’t as stunned as everybody else, who had never in their hundreds of years of living witnessed these mythical beings. We knew it would probably have been impossible to bustle our way through the crowd and see the Samhain ghosts upfront.

“
You
really
need to get to the front; you and your siblings.
You have no idea how much
,” my doppelganger suddenly spoke. I didn’t understand. It was Samhain; the time when everybody could see the ghosts – so
why
didn’t anybody see
him
? But I came to realise what he had just said. After all, every single time he’s spoken about something yet to happen, he was always right. But this time if a Grinner was to attempt to destroy me, I would at least be in the midst of many Vernaescians who would help in a very appetising battle.

“
I’m going in. Jaden, Jade, you need to come too.” With that I had already sprang off through the crowd.

“
Aden, wait!” Jade cried, but it was too late. I was suddenly swallowed into the swarm of people who exclaimed as I treaded on their trains, robes and overalls. But I didn’t care – no matter what,
I knew I would have to get through. I was almost there; I could see the clearing through a gap of people.

“
What is he doing?” Aemilia asked worriedly.

The snow had become
slow-falling ashes from the sky and up ahead stood more than an army – a nation if you will – of Samhain ghosts; all wallowing in auras of black, smoke-like ashes. Everybody could see their auras around them and up above. They all stared piercingly at us. The thin black smoke swirled in the still air. As more ashes fell, more ghosts slowly appeared from their auras. Jaden stood in between Jade and me and gripped our hands. The majority of the Samhain ghosts in front grew faint smiles. Tantrus stood a few feet away from us.

“
Why are they smiling?” Mychaela asked. Tantrus seemed stunned – his mouth had lightly dropped open.

“
All those ghosts that are smiling…they’re the warriors I fought with. I can see Hugh,” he mumbled to himself. Anne clung to her husband and comforted him.

“It must be hard,” she soothed.

“No, you don’t understand. This is
not
supposed to happen.
They
can’t appear like this, something is dreadfully wrong,” he mumbled again. Suddenly, the warriors parted themselves in two; they moved aside and left a long aisle in the middle to a man at the back. We couldn’t see him clearly until the cloudy air dissolved into the atmosphere and left mum paralysed in fear as she stared at the stranger at the end of the smoky road – dad.

Jaden, Jade and I advanced as the whispers of everybody behind
us grew louder. As we went further down the path of ghosts and as the audience at the back shrunk into the distance, I began to realise that this was really happening. The waters below the bridge were new underneath a sheet of curling mist.