Scintillate (12 page)

Twenty-Two

T

he pilot announced our descent to the Emerald Isle, but when I looked out the window, there was nothing but a sea of white clouds below. It didn’t seem fair. I should be able to see Ireland coming at me. I should be able to get a good look at my adversary, the one that swallowed up the people I love.

As soon as my father got wind of what I’d done, he’d probably call out the Irish version of the FBI. I swore Mari and Dun to secrecy, or at least enough quiet to give me a head start, but was sure Mami Tulke would also give them hell for being my accomplices. Besides going online on her phone and buying my ticket, Mari had slipped me some additional cash. Because I was seventeen and had my passport, I was good to go.

I don’t know why, but when I hugged them, tears spilled over. I found myself staring at them, memorizing their unique and beautiful lights.

Hopefully I would find my mother’s hidden papers in a mystery library before my father found me. I wanted to hate him, but I had an abnormally sized fairness gland. I couldn’t blame him for what he did. Her letter
was
ominous, and she had vanished as she had feared. She had been very clear he should protect me above all, and he’d kept his promise. But if he’d just been honest with me, maybe I’d be better at protecting myself.

I couldn’t help thinking of Dad as a coward. If someone I loved disappeared, I’d turn over every mossy rock in Ireland to find them. That’s what I intended to do. She might not be in Ireland. She might not even be alive. I knew that. But I was determined to be brave, braver than my dad, braver than he ever let me be. I thrilled at the step I’d already taken, claiming the freedom to do what I had to do.

As we dropped into the misty clouds above Ireland, I thought of Finn. How could I
not
think of him? I tried to ignore the crushing heaviness in my chest. I fought stinging tears. I missed him like I’d been split in half. But I wouldn’t contact him. Even if I saw him again, we were another good-bye waiting to happen. I didn’t want that. Our one good-bye was hard enough.

The plane dipped below the clouds and suddenly the lushness of Ireland came into view. It was flatter than I’d imagined, but undeniably beautiful, a patchwork of green and gold floating in a universe of blue.

I was born here
.

There had to be an inner bell that rang when you stepped on the soil of the country of your birth. I wondered if it would ring for me.

Right after we landed, I ducked into the bathroom to splash my face, brush my teeth, and tidy my nest of hair. I was so tense, my ears felt like they were riding on my shoulders. My stomach was queasy.
Suck it up, girl.
Quests sure weren’t for sissies. I was in a foreign country without a soul in the world to guide me.
One step at a time. I’m a big girl. I can get a cab, get to a hostel.
I’ll be all right. I’m going to be all right.
Be brave.

The customs counter experience made me woozy. I was sure there must be an APB out on me already, but the clerk stamped me back into my birth country, and I was on my way. The baggage carousel snaked lazily past me. I realized too late that my bag had already gone by. I didn’t have the energy to chase after it. It would come back around eventually. The crowd became a sea of legs and movement and color, and I, I was a still stone in the river.

Until a flash of silver darted past.

My head snapped up. My whole being startled. Silver! An aura like mine!

On the other side of the baggage carousel stood a guy maybe two or three years older than me. It was hard to tell. Some people have faces that carry the shadow of their young selves forever. Finn was like that—half rock-star man, half boy poet. Others, like this guy, had a man face, mature, all traces of the boy gone. He had probably looked twenty when he was thirteen. His silver aura shone like a beacon in the current of colors.

My hand came away from my mouth. I hadn’t realized I’d covered it in astonishment. I couldn’t help staring unabashedly at the pewter flares leaping from his skin. It was beautiful. Breathtaking.
Is that what I look like?
My heart pounded as I watched him gather his suitcase and head for the exit.

I had to talk to him.

I pushed through the migrating crowd to get my bag and dragged it to the exit, then burst through the doors into the drizzle. I looked left and right but couldn’t find the silver guy anywhere amid the travelers and cars. I kicked my bag. How could I lose the only other person I’d ever seen with a silver aura? With a throbbing toe, I hauled my luggage along like a reluctant mule, looking for the correct shuttle bus to take me to the youth hostel Mari had e-mailed for a reservation.

I’d brought no umbrella, having packed for the summer sun in Chile, so I pulled my hoodie over my head, tucking my misbehaving curls into the sides. “No wonder this place is so green,” I remarked irritably to an elderly couple who stood with me, waiting for the buses.

The old man grinned, showing a flash of a gold tooth as he tipped his hat to me. As quick as his smile came, it disappeared. His expression switched to alarm, his gaze froze. He collapsed at my feet.

I gasped and knelt down to him. “Mister? Are you okay?”

Just as suddenly as he had fallen, his companion’s body dropped on top of him, her arm smacking my shoulder hard as she fell. Her eyes were fixed open, their blue irises exposed to the rain. I felt for their pulses, but my ability told me everything. Their auras were gone. Doused.

They lay in a tangled heap at my feet, bodies contorted haphazardly, rain falling softy on their colorless forms. They’d just dropped dead. A choking fear gripped me and adrenaline surged through my body. My muscles pumped with fire and every sense heightened. “Help!” I screamed into the rain.

Suddenly, a hand grasped my forearm and hauled me to my feet. Shocked and confused, I blinked at his silver aura. I’d lost him and now he was here, tugging urgently on me. “We’ve got to get out of here.” His English was swaddled in a thick accent. I followed his anxious gaze across the busy street. A man in a trench coat and a flat tweed cap walked with his back to us in the other direction, but his white aura blasted more terror through me.

“Come!
Andiamo!
” I grabbed my bag. The guy gripped my arm as we ran down the sidewalk puddled with rain, leaving those two poor people, fatally stilled, behind.

Twenty-Three

W

e were soaked by the time a bus screeched to a stop in front of us. He pushed me in front of him onto the stairs. I fought for breath and scanned the aisles for an empty seat. Auras rose in waves above the passengers’ heads like steam off their soaked bodies. With my silver shadow behind me, I made my way through the mist of colors to the rear of the bus.

The mysterious guy openly watched me as, vibrating with shock, I took off my backpack and sat down. His silver aura wreathed his head and cascaded over his wide shoulders. Drops of water darkened the tips of his sandy hair before slipping to slanted cheekbones. He slid into the seat next to me. I removed the hood from my head, wiping rain from my cheeks with my sleeve.

“You are cold.” It was a comment more than a question. “And afraid.”

“Yes,” I answered. Those deaths and the sight of a white aura chilled me to the bone. “Those poor people,” I whispered.

I could feel his eyes on me, his intense
energy
on me. It was all I could do not to stare. Not because he was attractive. I mean, he was, in a classic statue sort of way. But what attracted me was his metallic aura. I appeased myself by looking at his hand resting on his thigh. I placed my own hand on my leg as well, trying to appear as normal as possible. I wanted to see our hands next to each other. To compare the glows radiating from our skin.

Our auras were identical. Silver beams leaped from our hands in spikes and flares. The longer I stared, the more pronounced the flickering became. All the hairs stood up on my arm.

It reminded me of the time my dad and I had watched a lightning storm a few miles away from our home in Santa Cruz and felt an electrical charge surge through the wire fence we were leaning on. I remember him grabbing me by the waist and running frantically into the house.

The stranger’s aura and my own shot toward each other. My arm buzzed like electrically charged ants marched all over it. Sitting next to him was like being plugged in. His fingers tensed and dug into his jeans. I jerked my hand away but found myself staring at his face, and he at mine. Searching blue eyes. Hair like the beach. Waves of wet sand. He was all rolled rocks, sea glass, and wind.

I tore my gaze away and faced the window, pretending to be absorbed in the city I’d always wanted to see, when really I had never wanted to stare at anyone more in my life. I was so excited to see an aura like mine. It made me feel…less alone. I looked at him again, trying hard to keep my eyes on his and not above his head, or over his broad shoulders, where I could see his silver flashing in time with my own pulse.

He looked at me, knowing and sad. “I believe we are here together because like attracts like.”

I raised my eyebrows. It was either the most arrogant come-on ever or completely, cosmically right. But my breath caught at his next words.

“You see it, of course?”

My response rushed out in an awed whisper. “Yes.”

He nodded. A lock of curly hair fell across one of his eyes. “I’ve been searching for someone like you.” He blinked slowly and smiled with a secret thought. “For someone like me,” he said, holding his hand out to shake mine. “I’m Giovanni Teso.”

I couldn’t deny an instant tie to him. I knew what it was like to be searching, too. “Giovanni.” I rolled his name around on my tongue.

“You can call me G if you like.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to call him G. Giovanni sounded much more exotic. His name was like gelato, cool and flavorful. We shook hands and a palpable shock wave ran up my arm and into my body. Not painful, but startling. He must’ve felt it, too, because we both snatched our hands back.

“
Chrísto
,” he whispered.

I sat on my hands. “I’m—I’m Cora.”

“Well, Miss Cora. I think we have much to talk about.”

I leaned back in my seat and tried to calm down. I was having major trouble getting the dead couple off my mind. I told myself they were gone even before we ran. There was nothing I could have done to help them.

Now here I sat with the silver guy. My head was a little dizzy and I fought for equilibrium. “Okay, but can we start with the basics so I can catch my breath? Where are you from?”

“Italy.”

It did explain his accent and his straight, prominent nose. The high cheekbones. He had a proud face. Imperious. I could practically envision a Roman toga and a laurel crown over his curls. “But you’re a blond with blue eyes,” I blurted stupidly.

Giovanni smiled and gave a slight nod. “My mother, she was Danish. I take after her a bit on the outside. But on the inside, I’m pure Italian.”

He sure was. Mix a young Nordic Viking with a Roman emperor and you’d have Giovanni Teso. “How old are you?”

“Nineteen. You?”

I gave him my basics. Born in Ireland but grew up in California with my dad. Came here to work on a special, er, project. But all too soon the topic turned to the obvious.

“How long have you been able to see auras?” he asked me matter-of-factly, as though he could be asking how I took my coffee.

“Um. Only a couple of months. I’m still trying to figure it all out. You?”

“Always. Ever since I can remember.”

“Wow.” I tried to imagine what it would be like to be a child who saw auras all the time. How long before he realized it wasn’t normal? I had a million questions. Suddenly, a rogue memory filtered out the way memories sometimes do, lying dormant until triggered by a smell or kicked up by an offhand comment. I had forgotten all about it, until now. “When I was little, I used to have dreams that there were rainbows around people.”

“How do you know it was dreaming?”

I pondered that. “I guess I don’t. But it stopped when I was four or five.”
Right about the time my mother disappeared.
“Recently, I got incredibly sick, and then the colors started up. I thought something was wrong with me. Like maybe the fever gave me brain damage or something.”

He nudged my shoulder softly with his own. “There’s nothing wrong with you. Except I think, perhaps, you have no idea how rare you are.”

I stared into his eyes, then let my gaze roam, exploring his aura. “How rare
we
are.” I shifted slightly away so that his shoulder would stop kindling against mine. “You are the only other person I’ve met whose aura is—”

“Beautiful?”

I bit my bottom lip. He was a wily one. “Silver.”

Giovanni leaned his face close. I could see silvery-gray specks in his blue eyes. I tried to ignore the obvious merging of our auras when he was that near. Happy agitation skipped through me, but I couldn’t tell if the thrill I felt was his or my own at finding another silver person.

“
Scintilla
.”

“What? What does that mean?” The word was wine-red and silky. It sounded like
schinteeela
in his accent
.

“It’s what we call people like us.” His sky-blue gaze traveled over my face, to my aura above my head, and then slowly raked over my body. His nostrils flared a touch before he added, “
Spark.
”

Twenty-Four

A

mighty flame follows a tiny spark.

My fingernails dug into the seat cushion. After a few stuttering attempts at speech, I found my voice again. “There’s a name for people with silver auras? Are there more of us somewhere? Why do we have no color?” Questions tumbled from me. This was better than any book from Say Chi’s.

Giovanni held up his finger, hovering just over my lips as if to quiet me. I wanted to be offended, to swat his hand away, but I couldn’t seem to conjure up enough insult to override the other sensations I felt. “Do you know why we have this little indentation above our lips?” he asked in a hushed voice.

My lips snapped with electricity. I could hardly breathe. “No,” I murmured against the shadow of his finger, which slid slowly away from my mouth.

“My mother told me that when we are new babies, needy and helpless, an angel comes to quiet us. Presses its finger to our lips and forever marks us with the touch of an angel. You are like that baby now.”

I bristled. “Does that make
you
the angel?” I asked with a bit of shaky sarcasm.

“Hardly. But I can see you feel very alone. I do as well. I’ve been alone most of my life.”

I leaned away from him. It was one thing for me to see into people’s energy, read their emotions. But I’d never had anyone do it to me. It was creepier than the naked-in-school dreams.

Giovanni looked away, as though he knew I needed a break from his gaze. “I’ve spent my life studying this,” he said. “And searching for people like myself. I couldn’t believe it when I saw you. I’m afraid we are extremely rare. I think, Miss Cora, we are an endangered breed.”

Fear and incredulity slithered into my body, raising every blade of hair on the way. He meant it literally. It brought to mind my mother’s letter about changing our very beliefs about humanity.

“But we’re humans, not breeds. We may have differences, but there isn’t more than one kind of human.”

Giovanni’s head rolled against his seat. His eyes were serious and unwavering. “You are wrong about that.”

I could have argued, but my notions about humanity had already been rocked. I looked down at the clover tattoo around my finger. I had to be willing to concede there was a lot I didn’t know.

“Why endangered?” I didn’t like that word. It made me feel like I was surrounded by hunters, with red dots of lasers trained on my skin. It made me feel one shot away from death.

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. There are so few of us. I’ve heard of Scintilla hiding in pockets around the world, but I can’t seem to find them.”

“I think I’m looking for one myself.”

His gaze shot back to me, blond eyebrows raised. “Yes?”

I rubbed the smooth bed of my thumbnail over and over. “My mother.”

“How long has she been missing?”

“More than twelve years.”

He studied me with a haughty expression. I narrowed my eyes. I didn’t know this guy. I only knew we were the same. And he had more information than me. Information I might need. The muscles in his jaw tightened. “Well, good luck to you.” His tone was a bitter young apple, hard and sour. “She is likely gone forever.”

The bus rolled to a stop. He rose, but I pulled him back down.

“Where do you get off quashing my hope like that, you—?”

“This is my hotel,” Giovanni said calmly, pointing to an old but classically lovely building on a busy street corner. “Where are you staying?”

I looked around with no idea where I was or where I was supposed to be. I’d been so absorbed in talking to Giovanni that I hadn’t paid attention to our route. He smiled sympathetically and stood again. “You are not alone, Miss Cora. Come with me, and I will buy you something to eat. We can talk more. Then I’ll help you find your lodging, yes?”

Somewhat reluctantly, I followed him through the elegant lobby of his hotel, which gleamed under tiered chandeliers. Polished marble floors reflected everything, like I could dip down into it, into an alternate reality. I took off my wet hoodie, squished my damp self into a leather chair, and watched Giovanni as he checked in and arranged for our bags to be taken to his room. I leaped up and rushed to him.

“Don’t assume you can send my bag to your room,” I fumed, staring up into his eyes.

“You misunderstand—” His hand swept to my shoulder. A charge ran down my arm. “I merely wanted to give you the opportunity to have a hot shower, maybe warm your chill.” His fingers traced the goose bumps on my skin. I shrugged his hand from me, unsure whether the shiver came from the rain or from his energy. “Perhaps you’d like to change into dry clothes before we eat. I’m going to stay down here and have a drink until you return.”

“Really? I—well, I—” There was the uncomfortable chill of my wet clothes pressing against my skin. I glanced at the clerk behind the desk, who tried to look as though she wasn’t listening. “Thank you,” I said with as much grace as I could muster. Giovanni handed me his room key.

Once in the room, I bolted the door shut. There was something too knowing and canny about him for his age. Giovanni Teso was worldly, as if he had walked this earth for hundreds of years.

The hot water did warm me, though, and I was grateful for his thoughtfulness. I slipped into jeans, a soft emerald-green cardigan, and my favorite polka dot scarf. From the looks of this hotel, I’d need something better than a wet T-shirt for dinner.

Downstairs, I could see through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the lobby that the rain had washed the day away and night had fallen in its place. I found Giovanni in the bar as he’d said. He was on his cell phone but uttered a hasty good-bye and clicked it shut as I approached.

“My God, that was no time at all,” he said, taking in my new appearance. “You get ready faster than any woman I’ve ever known.”

“Yeah, I pitch my tent in the low-maintenance camp.”

He appraised me with his silver-blue eyes. “Not all women are so blessed. Please, sit. I’ve ordered a cheese and fruit plate for us to start.”

I’d never had the experience of being with someone other than my father who was so in command. I wasn’t sure I liked it. I’d spent the last six months, and certainly the last day, breaking free of my father’s imposing will.

Then again, I’d never had much experience with guys, other than Finn. It stung to think of him, mostly because I’d never understand his abrupt departure. I sighed and sat, deciding it wasn’t such a bad thing that Giovanni ordered fruit and cheese for me after the long and dramatic day.

“I want to say,” Giovanni began, “that I am sorry about earlier, about your mother. I only said it because both of my parents disappeared when I was a boy and were never seen again. They were both Scintilla, and now they’re gone. I had to face it long ago.”

His parents disappeared? My mother’s parents had disappeared, as did she. “Oh.” Shocked breath rushed out of me. “Wow. Both of them? Who raised you?” I asked, fighting the urge to comfort him but knowing I couldn’t. Not really.

He smiled sadly, shaking his head. His stormy eyes said I couldn’t possibly understand. “I did,” he answered with a proud lift of his chin.

It was the first hint of the boy in him.

Raised himself? What kind of lonely life had he led? No wonder he seemed so worldly. Sympathy surged in me for Giovanni Teso, and admiration as well.

Domineering as my dad could be, at least I’d had him. We’d had each other. “I’m sorry, too.” I touched his hand softly, and we both jolted at the current of energy spilling into our skin.

“Very intriguing. I haven’t touched another Scintilla since my parents. I don’t remember it feeling quite that way. I like it very much.”

I blushed. It was impossible to speak on just a surface level with him. Everything seemed deeper. “You definitely speak your mind.”

We gazed hard at each other before he spoke again. “I see no point in trying to hide from someone so like myself. I assume you can see the truth.” Then he looked at me with scrutiny. “But this is new to you. Perhaps you’ve not yet learned all you can do.”

“I bought some books—”

He waved his hand dismissively. “The best teacher is experience. I will help you.”

My toes tapped excitedly on the marble floor even as my stomach crackled with jittery energy. With it came a smattering of guilt. I felt strange about this sudden alliance. But that was probably because I liked the exhilaration of putting my hand on the wire.

“Any idea where you’ll begin your search for your mother?”

“I have some ideas, yes. I need to go to a library. A big one.”

“There is, of course, the library at Trinity College.”

My mouth hung open. “Of course. Trinity!” I’d seen pictures of it. That’s why it looked familiar. And my God, the name…

“Pardon my asking, but why would you think any information about your mother would be hidden at Trinity College?”

I nibbled a square of sharp Irish cheddar and a tangy green grape. “Because she put it there.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw it.” I expected Giovanni to question me further, and I didn’t know how, or even if, I could answer, but he simply nodded his head in acceptance. “I’m going to go there tomorrow.”

He took the last bite of the cheese and fruit. “Would you like more to eat?”

I rocked my head from side to side, stretching my tight neck. “Honestly, no. I think I’m ready for massive sleep.”

Having settled the bill, we stood to go. I thanked him, but Giovanni’s eyes latched onto something over my shoulder. Behind me, a television hung in the corner of the bar. Many of the patrons stopped talking to watch the big news headline of the day about the mysterious deaths at Dublin Airport. The newscaster spoke of the couple who had collapsed outside the airport, and then footage from an airport security camera showed the scene: their bodies buckled on the ground, and a side view of me, kneeling among them with my hood over my head. All that could be seen of Giovanni was his hand grabbing my arm. Our silver auras were invisible, of course. We looked normal. Well, except for the fact that dead bodies lay at our feet. It was surreal to watch the scene from an outside perspective, like it wasn’t us. I could almost pretend it wasn’t. Until now.

Above the reel read a caption: “Authorities seeking witness for questioning about mysterious deaths”.

And then the newscaster’s voice:
“Authorities are searching for the person seen on this airport security footage, who inexplicably ran from the scene where an unfortunate elderly couple mysteriously collapsed and died outside Dublin international airport today.”

I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. My legs went numb. “They’re looking for—”

Giovanni wrapped his arm around my waist and led me from the lobby bar out into the cold night. It wasn’t until we were a good block away that one of us finally spoke. “It’s not just me, Giovanni. You were on there, too. They showed you grabbing my hand and running.”

His jaw was rigid. “I realize.”

“What do we do? I can’t let them find me. Oh God. If my father sees the footage, he might recognize me.”

Giovanni stopped and turned me to face him. “You mean he doesn’t know you’re in Ireland?” When I shook my head, he nodded decisively. “Well then, luck would have it you had your hood partially covering your face.”

I gave Giovanni the address to my hostel, and I followed him toward it. “Do you not wonder how those two people died at the same time like that?” he asked me. “And why
you
didn’t?”

“Of course I wonder. There was a man there with a white aura. You saw him, too. We’re obviously rare, being nothing but silver, but the pure white ones are also different from everyone else. They scare me. I think he had something to do with the deaths. I don’t know. This is,” I said with a sigh, “it’s all new to me. I wish I knew more.”

“I saw him, yes, and I have reason to share your fear about the people with all-white auras. I have a contact, a doctor, who is very keen to help us know more about ourselves. Perhaps you would consider coming with me to see him? He’s one of the reasons I’ve come to Ireland.”

I nodded. I wanted to meet anyone who knew about the Scintilla.

“But first, I will help you find information about your mother.”

I stared hard at the silver halo of light around him, suddenly frustrated that I couldn’t see more of his true temperament like I could with other people. If he thought my mother’s case was hopeless, what was his motivation to help?

“Why do you want to help me?”

“I have an interest in doing so.”

I’m sure my eyebrows shot up about a mile.

“Survival,” he added.

I began to ask him what he meant, but he stopped walking and pointed to a modest brick building on a side street. “This is your place here,” Giovanni said. “I will come by in the morning, yes?” He looked at me intently and added, “Meeting you, Miss Cora, has been a delightful surprise. To have met another like myself is… Well, I was beginning to feel quite solitary in the world.”

I would have said the same, though maybe in a less aristocratic way.

Giovanni went into himself for a moment, thinking. “I believe it’s important we help each other. It’s our best chance against them.”

“Them?”

He smiled, ruefully. “There’s always a
them
, isn’t there?”