Preternatural (Worlds & Secrets) (36 page)

After a while, we began stifling yawns and felt
it was time to return to sleep. “I don’t know about you guys, but I cannot bothered to go all the way back inside. I’m just going to crash here,” Jaden pointed out.

“You know what, that may just be the smartest thing you’ve said all week – good idea,” I muffled in between yawns. Before we realised it, everyone had agreed
to remain outdoors – or rather remained unbothered to go back inside.

“
I’m going to create a barrier,” Tammy stood up unsteadily as she walked out of the canopy.

Liam
followed her, ready to help in whatever she was going to do towards the protection of our new shelter. They looked at the trees and foliage. Finally, Tammy placed her hands forward in front of her and held them there, making it look as if she were resting her arms on a curving surface.

She focused all her teleki
netic powers to her hand and we watched, spellbound, at how a small purple and blue light began to emit from her hands. It glowed in the same manner my hands did: glow, dim and then glow with more force and brightness. Every time the light from her hands intensified, it looked as if it were shaping into a large dome over the trees that created the canopy. The final luminous glow from Tammy’s hand branched out with purple and blue light. The bright colours settled down to form a rough outline of the now transparent shield protecting us. Tammy had created a thin, but immensely efficient telekinetic dome around us which seemed completely invisible from a distance.

“
Quickly, put your hands on it,” Tammy instructed.

“
What?”

“
Now,” she whispered back hastily. None of us hesitated to obey. Tammy and Liam, who were on the outside, put their hands on the dome whilst Jojo, Jaden, Jade and I did the same. When our hands touched it, it wavered like a bubble with ripples emerging from the edges of our hands.

“
Okay, take them off,” she ordered, retracting her own as she instructed us to do the same. When our hands left the force-field, our fingerprints were left branded into it for a second before slowly fading away. They were each the usual glow of our eyes and Celtic patterns

“
Right, that should be all.” Tammy walked through the dome and into the canopy.

“
Why did we have to put our hands on the force-field?” I asked.

“
So it recognizes our DNA, enabling only those whose DNA is imprinted on it to traverse through the shield at will,” Tammy answered. Jaden quickly Shifftocasted into a small cat with blue fur, three tails and green eyes He climbed into a tree, stayed perched on a branch with his tails wrapped around him as he nuzzled into position and  then fell asleep with soft, drifting ‘meow’s.

“
It’s becoming hard to lure them to him,” the voice sounded through the dark.

“
Why’s that?” the invisible figure responded.

“
I’m becoming more attached to him. Harming him will be harming
me
if I’m not careful.”

“
Then
be
careful. You do
as I command. He
must
die! Or have you forgotten who will
end
you if you do not? This is no joke, the times are beginning to darken once more. The threat is surfacing. The time is getting closer.”

“
Yes, but –”

“
You
do
realise that if he and his siblings don’t die, we don’t stand a chance against what’s coming. You
know
this.” A silence fell between the two conversing voices in the irrepressible darkness, almost as if one of them was mulling over thoughts, before finally
responding “fine.”

The sun wasn
’t completely exposed yet, but the works of art created by the beams of sunlight would have helped us acknowledge that it was dawn – the beautiful light blue and purple mist mixed with tinges of green. The air was very moist. With one sharp thought of what seemed to be muddled sounds and dying yells, my eyes opened. I could feel
my own pupils dilating and then quickly constrict. I looked up; my hair was disoriented and messily spread over my face and my cheeks were covered with creases as my doppelganger sat at the foot of the tree trunk closest to me.

But he looked different. Despi
te looking as broody as normal, his eyebrows made him seem like he was showing slight sorrow and sadness.

“
Guys! Guys, where are you?” mum and Anne called out through the house, screaming out our individual names. They were becoming worried and desperate whilst their hearts began to fall heavy in their chests. Mum gave a hefty sigh of relief and then called Anne, seeing us all sound asleep underneath Tammy’s force-field. They could see something
moving in the grass underneath the shield which was most probably my blue-haired head.

Though I still lay
sprawled and glued to the ground, flat, and even though I could see the doppelganger when nobody else could, my head was busy looking around until I caught sight of mum and Anne, at which point I found the remaining strength in my biceps to languidly get up.

Mum
’s icy-blue eyes intensified and lit the Celtic patterns on her right arm. She raised her hand to the dome and a breeze of wind suddenly swept over the shield, fading it away like gentle dust.

She
walked through the canopy and nudged Jaden awake first (who had fallen out of the tree and was knocked back into his normal state). He moaned and groaned several times before taking the first peek of the day. Strangely enough, something was different about him. He was a sickly green and he kept sniffling. He was huddled up; his knees brought up to him as he quavered with strands of his hair floating to the ground and stuck to his face with the sweat that beaded down his forehead as glue. Mum merely made a
‘tut’
sound as the others were being woken.

“
What’s wrong with him?” Jade asked after a lengthy yawn. I walked around to Jaden as my stalking double again mysteriously disappeared.

“
He’s a Shifftocastan. That means he has to get his flu. It’s like chicken pox. You need to have it to immunise your system against all diseases known to humans,” Jade and I grew dumbstruck upon the end of mum’s explanation. Never getting ill? Well that must be amazing!

“
Benefits of being a Shifftocastan,” Robbie muttered “the
best
benefit.” None of us seemed particularly worried about Jaden. It wasn’t so much that we didn’t care, but if it was like chicken pox then it wouldn’t be as harmful.

“
Okay, step aside,” Liam spoke as he puffed out a breath of air. He picked up Jaden and Jaden’s arms automatically wrapped themselves around Liam – or at least where electricity wasn’t flowing. The poor animal was quavering like a cold dog.

“
Just put him on his bed, I’m going to go and attend to him soon,” mum said gently, patting Liam on his back as he disappeared through the door with Jaden trembling in his arms.

We
felt much more light-hearted and happier on account of what we had found out yesterday. But I was nervous. Tammy still had no clue as to why the Barons wanted me so badly. We wouldn’t have been as curious if it wasn’t for the fact that
they
had attached my doppelganger to me as a sign to mark my death. But the reassurance that we could do something to stop this madness was able to allow us to feast heavily. Unfortunately for Jaden, his basic breakfast consisted of doses of cough syrup, muesli, paracetamol tablets, a variety of oddly-coloured concoctions (made by Tantrus no doubt) and glasses of warm water. Thick locks of his once luscious hair still fell out and his skin was still a sickening green. The majority of us weren’t to learn anything new today except Jade and me, who were each going to learn how to fly – Jade specifically being able to levitate herself at will.

I waited outside whilst everyone else had begun their lessons of defence training and Jaden being too pathetically sick to even reach for the television remote on his nightstand. My eyes drifted to the sky and I could see something descending our way. The figure’s silhouette widened as it gently landed on the compound with an elegant breeze. It was the casual, teen-dressed Vala. She hugged mum and Anne as her way of saying good morning. “Ready A.J.?” she asked, beaming
at me with her perfect dimples.

“
To tell you the truth, I’m a bit –”

“
Okay, let’s go!” she said, ignoring my frightened stammer. She grabbed me by the wrist and we departed. All I knew – since the motion was too fast for me to have observed – was that my feet were off the ground and that I was dangling from mid-air. Vala gripped my wrist, almost breaking the bones there. 

“
YOU’RE AMAZINGLY STRONG, YOU KNOW THAT!” I shouted through the rampant gale. “WHAT?” she yelled back.

“
I SAID – NEVER MIND!” I avoided speaking. Vala began lifting herself higher and higher up in the air and she flew through the clouds. Miraculously, after a short journey, we were facing downwards on huge ranges of snow-covered mountains. A blizzard of backbiting snow was attacking us as we smoothly descended.

The first words to slip out
of my mouth were “where are we?” upon our descent. Vala flew down onto the mountain surface and let go of me.

“
We’re in the Himalayas.” She smacked her hands together and then spoke: “okay,
SO
!” she excitedly commenced. “Flying isn’t that hard –” I threw her a glance of intimidation.

“
– okay, well, maybe it’s tricky. But you just have to concentrate and only focus on the air lifting you up through your hollow bones,” she finished.

“
Hollow bones; I’ve got hollow bones?” I mumbled.

“
Of course, every Aerokinetic has them. How else would we fly?” she retorted. How in the blazes was I to do this? Last time, I already had a lot of difficulties with Aerokinesis – the air was just too stubborn for me to make do my will, so how much more flying?

“Now, the basic idea of flying is the air you channel through you. You intake the air through which ever part of your body you prefer,” Vala instantly began to hover as wind circled her feet with spiralling snow beneath her, “and you move that current of air with
in you to whatever part of your body you like. Whichever part of your body you channel the air to, is what will determine what direction you go. Like so.” She stretched out her left arm and gently glided to her left with the spiral of wind quickly circling her. It moved to her left arm as it was now the part of her body she was using to steer the air she had taken in.

“
I’ll leave you to attempt. But once you’re airborne, it’ll feel as easy as breathing,” she reassured. I stretched out an arm as my hair lightened to starch white with glowing aquamarine eyes. I clenched my fist as I steadied myself. As my aura merged with the particles of air around me, I felt my palm suddenly behave as a vacuum, absorbing a gale of air whose sub-zero temperature had me standing stiffly on the spot. The air was in my bones; I could feel the numbing cold in my arm. A gale of air encircled my forearm and only seemed to climb higher as the breeze within me ascended. I gulped and blinked, remembering that
I
was supposed to be controlling
it
.

“Okay, okay,
” I reassured myself. I channeled the air and changed its course, letting it flow downwards to my foot as air began circling my lower leg.

“I’ve sort of got the hang of it. But I can’t really make it lift me,” I mentioned.

“The only way the instincts will kick in is if you jump off the mountain,” she mumbled underneath her breath.

“
Dear,
dear
, Vala. Are you deluded?” I simply asked.

“
It’s the only way you’ll fully adapt to the environment.” I sighed and looked back out to the mountains.
I was going to die
… she was trying to get me to kill myself and tell everyone I died in training. She just wanted my Adherings, I’m sure. If I kept convincing myself that, it would come true and then this world wouldn’t be as insane as it seemed.

“
Don’t worry, I’ll be right behind you,” Vala added.

I
took a few steps back and my foot sunk into a pile of snow. I shook off the cold ice and took a stance that would enable me to take flight. The aura of the air continued to cloud me; I was instantly surrounded by the frosty mist, clouding my vision. I flexed the nerves in my hands and the air stood still, just like my mind wanted it to be. I wouldn’t have done this, jumping off a mountain. But the nature of my Vernaescian self must be what keeps urging me to do things that I would normally think twice about before doing.

I took in a breath of cold air and
clamped my eyes shut. I ran as fast as I could – not looking back and not letting any thoughts follow me. I got caught up in the heat of the moment and let my body, and that alone, take its course of flying. I didn’t take anything else. Not my mind, not my heart, but only my soul. I had gone mad. I kept repeating to myself that I would never
ever
do this. I leapt and dived down. The pressure rushed up against me and whistled past my ears. My heart thudded and through my head, flashes of disturbing images showed; the doppelganger, what seemed to look like dad in a war and black-winged figures.