Preternatural (Worlds & Secrets) (37 page)

I opened my eyes briskly. I was inches away from the dark ground.
Suddenly, in an absolutely
thrilling
manner within a second that elapsed, I gasped and my body became weightless. I was as light as a feather. In a split second, my azure eyes shone and I found it electrifying how my body was rushed with freezing air through the pores of my skin. My bones had suddenly opened up and air seeped in nonstop. Then, my body acted like a parachute; as soon as I was filled that raging invisible element, I was lifted back up; snow trailing after me as I rose higher and higher. Finally, when I returned to the height of the mountain on which we had landed earlier, I hovered. The cold air rushing through my body was sensational – although, it was
confusing as to where
I should channel it through. If I channelled the air I took in to my left hand, I would glide to the left, as though my hand was my entire body’s gravity. The speed at which I would move was determined by how much air I channelled to an area. Vala looked at me through the wild winds encircling me.

“
Okay, now land safely,” she told me. I guess flying wasn’t as hard as I imagined. I channelled air to the upper part of my body and I dived down, now steering with my chest. I swooped downwards and landed with my knees sturdily bent. I rose and looked at Vala with a beam.

“
So
,” she began excitedly “how was it?”

“
The most thrilling thing I have felt so far. My body was like a parachute before I hit the ground.”

“
You’re a natural at this. Phase two,” she started cheekily, “I’m very fast and your job is going to be to keep up with me.” On that note, Vala kicked off the mountain top with a wild gale and dived for the sky. Snow trailed after her and air was spiralled around her streamlined body, most probably due to the intake and venting out of the wind. She rushed through the sky with precipitous speed. I non-hesitantly followed. I continued to absorb the invisible element and push it out, repeating the process again and again which caused me to fly faster. The basic principle that determined your speed was pretty much how much wind you could intake and expel from your body at a given second and with how much energy you could do it. I’m guessing Vala was a pro because she flew faster than I could imagine, darting through the sky like a military jet.

M
y large diamond eyes were suited for the air that came rushing towards me – they were, more or less, windscreens. My gleaming white hair rustled behind me as I got closer and closer to Vala. Finally I overtook her and dived down into the valley below as she
then trailed after me. My body was streamlined. I kept my arms glued to my sides and my legs were straightened out with only a slight
gap between them. I spent the rest of that day learning as much as I could about flying the way a Vernaescian alien does.

“
Right, since you’re able enough to now levitate boulders, let’s see how you do to levitate yourself,” said mum.

“
It isn’t really all
that
difficult,” mum began again, “your body is a vessel and you are the water carrying it, in its simplest terms.”

Jade
spat out her chewing gum boldly. Her eyes started brightening to purple and her silver lip stud shone to red as it began sizzling, almost as if it were being heated.

She
strapped her arms by her side and suspended her hands. She softly
raised them and as her hands heightened, her body lifted itself off of the ground. Mum’s crystal eyes widened in surprise. She seemed staggered and overwhelmed at Jade’s progress. Jade clenched both of her fists and commenced gliding around the hall at her own gracious pace; spinning, turning, rotating and waving through the air like a piece of thread weaving itself delicately through the atmosphere. She finally landed with a soft tap of her feet on the wooden floor and a blasé look on her face

“
How did –”

“
–Tammy’s been giving me pointers,” Jade quickly interrupted.

“
I’m impressed.” Jade didn’t need as much training; she was a fast learner. For certain things that she was interested in, she didn’t need to be told twice about them. Her training in telekinesis and telepathy was the perfect example.

We planned on waiting out the days, making sure we could figure out a solution to the Cavern of Worlds. But even if we
did
, how would Mychaela, Tarmo, Aemilia and Jordan know? Tammy could always contact them but what we planned would be way ahead of schedule. Would the princess of Vernaesce be okay with this? Even
if
she were to disagree,
my
life was on the line – not hers…

Jaden
had healed from his Shifftocastan illness and his immune system was stronger than ever – always rolling around in the mud like the pig he was becoming. But he was lucky to have gone through that change. We found out that this metamorphosis of his was special. It made him cold-blooded. He could now regulate his temperature and live in any kind of weather. The days were only filled with our usual physical and psychological training and then came that longed-for Sunday night – the Beowulf movie which Robbie impatiently howled for. Well, ‘impatiently’ was an understatement, since all he would do is spell Beowulf with his bacon and make fortified stands of a warrior (blatantly Beowulf) from crisps and gum. Lunatic.

Porto-Pyro was
soundless. It was one of those rare nights where it wouldn’t rain; we had an early night as we were all shattered from our pathetic lives. There were these strange moments where I honestly felt that my life had no meaning. All that I noticed we were doing, was practise, go to school, return home, practise some more, sleep and the dreadful cycle kept repeating. I didn’t even know what I wanted to do in future. I was this isolated block of uselessness looking at the world from outside the universe. The adults were already asleep and we too were lost in our dreams. It was eleven thirty in the night and the sky was still, with nothing more than the whispering wind weaving through the trees and brushing against the thick-paned windows.

Our doorknob
creaked open. Anne popped her head in gently to check on us. Robbie turned and hurled his duvet tighter over him. The lava lamps, on each of our bedside tables provided a warming touch to the room, emitting a spectacular glow to it. Anne retracted her head from the bedroom and when she did, our pyjamas – which were peeking out of our duvets – were immediately reformed to our casual, outgoing clothes; Tammy had set up an illusion for whoever came into our room that night to make them believe that we were cosily asleep in our beds.
We’re so bad, flouting the rules.

We were suddenly woken up by the grabbing phrase
: “wake up!” It was a feminine voice. But the soft sound was too forceful and shook us awake at once. Robbie rubbed his eyes vigorously as did Liam.

“
‘Gah’, my eyes!” exclaimed Liam.

“
I’m so tired,” Robbie complained.

“
I’m brushing my teeth,” Jaden spoke, totally zombiefied as he prompted us all to do the same afterwards. We were all dressed casually for the occasion. Moments later, the girls slowly crept inside. Tammy had on her charm and pearl bracelets that she received a few days ago and her Tartalum pendant around her neck, which she fiddled with in her hand.

“
Hello,” Jojo whispered.

“
Ready to go?” asked Tammy.

“
Yeah, are the adults asleep?” Robbie replied.

“
They
should
be. Their rooms are just
down the hall though so we’ve got to be
really
quiet,” Jade whispered through the comic silence. We went outside of our room and closed the door gently, taking hurried silent steps. Well, we tried to at least. We weren’t exactly quiet; we kept treading on each other’s feet and different people
shhhh
’d the crowd, thereby making even more noise in addition to our ‘
ow
’s, ‘
quit it
’s,  ‘
watch where you’re going
’s and ‘
oh my goodness, this is so exciting
!’(that could only be one lunatic and we know who it is, so let’s skip my insulting him.)
I found this so childishly hilarious, though. We crept down the stairs and finally made it to the bottom floor. We leaned over to the front door, on the verge of placing Jade’s bangle into the dent when a voice
suddenly paralysed us all.

“
And you are going; where –?” The voice came from the dining room. We peeked through the archway entrance. The held-up newspaper covered the face of the deep-voiced man. It couldn’t have been Liam – he was with
us
. So that only left –

“
Dad,” Jojo began as Tantrus lowered the newspaper. “Um we were just – well you see…” as soon as Jojo began looking at us, Tantrus
knew
she had lost her quavering confidence, which had shattered into pieces as soon as she even began stammering.

“
Here,” Tantrus reached into his pocket and we grew puzzled.

“
What’s this?” Jojo asked, her face becoming less pale from anxiety and fear. We advanced towards Tantrus in the dining room.

“
Well, if you’re going to see Beowulf, you might as well enjoy yourself. While you can of course.” We watched, befuddled, as Tantrus pulled out a whole wad of money.

“I don’t understand; how did you know?” Jojo asked her father. He scrunched up his face as he pondered before his wise answer: “well
, with the racket Robbie was making the day it appeared on television, it was bound to happen. The whole household was full of his screaming. So I, you know, teleported outside your door and listened in.” Tantrus grew a large smile to his daughter which made her flush to pink and grin in return. Although it was completely harmless, I had been so traumatised by the Demon Grinners that Tantrus’ smile reminded me exactly of one. My heart skipped a beat and I rigidly took a sharp step back.

“Sorry,” I
mumbled to Jade. She stared back, severely scrutinising me and clearly wondering if I had gone insane. I would never apologise for something as small as treading on her foot by accident.
Never
. To her, it was almost an act of crime that violated the brother-sister relationship.

“Are you o
kay?” she subsequently asked me. I nodded in timidity and bowed my head.

Tantrus passed the wad of money to Liam,
“he’s the eldest.” He tried to justify his decision of allowing us to sneak out at this time.

“
Thank you! We’ll be back as soon as the movie’s finished!” Jojo thanked.

“
Mm-hmm, keep telling yourself that, darling,” Tantrus mumbled, lifting the newspaper back up to his face and taking a sip of his golden whisky. We walked outside and stepped underneath the canopy, zombiefied.

“
Hey, you guys, would you mind if I tried something?” Robbie asked timidly.

“
Well, it depends on – ow!” I was interrupted by a sudden pinch Jade had inflicted on me.

“
Of course you can,” she answered politely.

“Well, I was reading a bit on something Mr Tarchall had given me to go through after Tammy’s tuition and I came across a certain spread. It talked about a certain type of teleportation that could be possible, but not using a factor of time like the Time-Morphers do, but rather inflicting a portal on yourself to have technically already gone through it, ergo, directly transporting you to your desired destination in the form of teleportation. And since I can open wormholes…” he spoke regally with his matured stance and well-spoken voice
, gesticulating heavily with his hands. We were all left stumped and simply gaping at him like fools whilst Tammy patted him on the back with a slight snigger.

“Huh?” I mumbled.

“Right, just…get in a circle,” he ordered as we shuffled about and treaded on each other’s feet. “And hold hands.” I scoffed.

“
There’s no way I’m touching his
hand; the rat is diseased,” I childishly spoke towards Jaden.

“A.J., if you really want me to go and get a rat, I can catch one and I swear I’ll
shove
it
so
far down your –”

“
Enough
!” Jade interfered, ceasing Jaden’s ramble and my petty squawking.

“
Just cooperate and do it. We haven’t got much time until the film starts!” exclaimed Jojo in a hushed tone.

“
Fine,” I succumbed. I took Jaden’s hand and stood still. We stood in a perfect circle with our hands linked. Robbie seemed assertive as to what he was doing.

“
On second thoughts stretch your arms inwards,” he said. We sighed exasperatedly. We broke out of the circle and stretched our right hands in the middle. Robbie’s first, overlapped with Jojo, then Liam, Tammy, Jaden, Jade and finally, me. Robbie closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Robbie was at the top of the circle and Jade was his opposite. Jojo was Liam’s and Tammy was Jaden’s. So I was alone.