Scintillate (15 page)

Twenty-Eight

F

inn wanted to walk me back to my hostel, and he wrapped his arm around my shoulder as we strolled. We came to a bridge over the river Liffey, and I got momentarily lost in the sight of it. I was in Ireland! Bronze seahorses reared under the bridge lampposts. The city lights glowed on the river’s flat, wide surface like gold wax dripping into the water. I gawked and swiveled my head, relishing the sights of Dublin at night, disbelieving that I was actually there.

The journal in my bag waited like a bomb, ticking off the minutes. I was eager to get back to the small room, crawl into bed, and read it. Was it too much to hope that it might lead me to my mother?

Faye’s words about people wanting to find someone like me played over and over in my mind. So did the strange man’s yearning eyes and haunting threats. His white aura had already hooked mine, and I never wanted to experience that again. I hoped the journal would tell me more about myself, tell me about people with white auras, maybe how to protect myself so I didn’t become one of the vanished.

As soon as we crossed the bridge, something familiar caught my eye. “That’s the church where my parents were married.”

“No
shite
?”

“I recognize it from the postcard in my mother’s things. C’mon,” I said, slipping my hand from his. I started for the intersection. A horn blared. Finn reeled me back by my elbow.

“Mind your step. You were looking the wrong way, luv. We drive on the opposite side of the road here.” We crossed the street and descended the stone steps leading to the front of Christ Church. A bush with bright yellow flowers glowed in the moonlight in front of the large Gothic structure.

“This place is like something out of a storybook,” I said, craning my head to see the peaked roofs, medieval turrets, and arched windows of the ancient gray stone building.

“It’s a grand old place,” Finn said. “One of the oldest buildings in Dublin, I reckon.”

“I’ve got to see inside,” I said, pulling on the handles of the huge wooden door, overcome with the need to see the place where my parents vowed to love each other until death claimed them.

The door didn’t budge. “Past hours, I’m sure. Tell you what, we’ll come back. I’ve got to work all day tomorrow. I tried to get out of it, but Clancy needs me to mind the pub while he looks into a new distillery.”

“No problem. I’m a big girl. I can do a little sightseeing on my own. I briefly saw something in my mother’s notes about Newgrange. I still can’t believe I’ll get to see it with my own eyes. I’ve dreamed forever about going there.”

“It’s impressive,” Finn said. “And not far from my house. No one knows for sure who built it. There’s much mystery and speculation about the place, makes me curious about your mum’s interest with it.”

“She seemed to have a lot of interesting ideas.” I’d told him that she was researching something here in Ireland, that she was worried about me and my dad, that she disappeared, but I stopped short of the absolute truth.

“Ideas such as?” he asked. “And are you saying she disappeared because of whatever she was researching?”

I chewed on the tip of my thumb, trying to decide how to answer. “She thought she was on the verge of discovering something about humanity, something that would upset what we think we know about ourselves. Something that someone wanted to keep a secret.”

His head jerked up. “That’s a mighty notion, all right.”

“I know. What could be so important that she’d keep looking into it even if she knew she was in danger?”

Finn blew out a big breath and wrapped his arm around my shoulder again. His apparent uneasiness fueled my own. “Makes me worried for you. She disappeared, luv. You said her parents did, too? That’s not a coincidence. Maybe her work is something you ought not to be poking around in. Maybe,” he said, gazing skyward and blowing out a big breath, “if it means your safety, then some secrets are better left buried.”

“I have to poke around. I need to know what happened to her.” I found myself thinking of Giovanni losing both his parents as a young boy and wondered how old my mom was when her parents disappeared. “Who’d want to hurt my mom to hide whatever truth she was uncovering?”

“Depends entirely on what that truth was. Conspiracies against knowledge…,” muttered Finn. “It’s ridiculous. I guess it’s easy to speak of keeping secrets buried forever when it’s
you
I’m worried about. Easier to think of someone anonymous, somewhere out there in the world, doing the uncovering.” He paused, deep in thought. “There’s something very brave about people like your mother and”—he touched my face—“like you, Cora. I mean, how can mankind evolve if we aren’t searchers of truth?”

“My dad would actually like you right now if he heard you say that,” I teased. My aura flashed with infinite love toward him. He thought my mother was brave. He thought
I
was brave.

Finn walked with a purposeful gait, his eyes focused on the sidewalk in front of him. I continued talking out my theories.

“The world is full of powerful organizations, religions, that all need us to swallow their existing beliefs about humanity in order to keep their machines running. I don’t think they’d let go of that power lightly. Look at how the church threatened Galileo after he suggested that the sun, not the earth, was the center of our solar system.”

Finn said nothing. I wondered if he’d even heard me. His aura, which was usually so generous, was reined in tight to his body. I slipped my hand over his on my shoulder. “You okay?”

“Aye. Just thinking maybe the world would be a more beautiful place if we didn’t have so many secrets. If we could share the truth of who we are with each other.” He smiled apologetically.

“You’ve got a beautiful soul, Finn Doyle.” I wished I could tell him how beautiful. His aura expanded around him a bit, puffing up with the compliment. But I noticed he still held a ball of quivering yellow in front of his solar plexus, and I wished I could peel back the layers and know what he protected. I laid my hand on his arm. “Really, Finn, is something wrong?”

“Can’t you wait to go to
Brú na Bóinne
until I can go with you?” he asked, concern pursing his full lips into a thin line.

“I don’t know how many days I’ll have before my dad comes looking for me. He could be on his way now. I don’t want to waste a day.”

“Right, but be careful. At least let me pick you up after. I’ll be at the visitor center around five? We’ll get a bite?”

“Deal. And don’t worry. I’ll be okay. It’s a big tourist attraction with lots of people, and I befriended a fellow traveler who wants to go, too. I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

Twenty-Nine

I

pored over my mother’s journal into the late hours of the night. I had suspected, but now knew that she was Scintilla. She confirmed it with her writings about “silver” and about seeing auras. We were the same, and she had felt just as alone in her differentness.

Brú na Bóinne
, or Newgrange, was mentioned numerous times. Excitement fluttered in my belly. No doubt the place was critical to my mother’s investigations. The words “Origin story” were written in bold letters on the back of a postcard of the triple spiral. What could she have meant by that?

I thrilled at following a trail my own mother had blazed.

When Giovanni came to meet me at my hostel with a rental car, he was still miffed at how I had left him at the park the night before. I had called him right away when I ran into Finn, so I didn’t get why he was still upset.

His eyes crackled with intense earnestness as he explained. “Finding another Scintilla was a miracle. Even a few moments of thinking I’d lost you was agony. I thought the worst. I’m not quite ready to face the world alone again.”

I’d have told him that I understood more than he knew, but it wasn’t necessary. That was the thing with Giovanni—he knew. Neither of us wanted to go back to being
the only one.
Our shared understanding rapidly connected us in a unique bond.

“I promise I won’t worry you like that again,” I said. To my surprise, he pulled me into a hug. The incredible whirling force of dynamic energy between us caused us both to step back. We exchanged awkward smiles. Hanging around another Scintilla was going to take some getting used to.

The
Brú na Bóinne
Visitors Center was a very busy place. We parked the car and got the last two tickets for the next time slot on the bus that ran between the visitors center and the historic site. I was relieved to get the tickets. I had to see as much as I could before my dad arranged for a military-style SWAT shakedown of Ireland to find me.

The photos of Newgrange I’d collected back home looked like big mounds of grass-covered dirt with some rocks around them, but in person they were enchanting. The very earth felt hallowed. Ancient energy rose up around me, grounding me in its history.

We tromped up the path toward the largest burial mound, a giant grass-covered dome with intricately carved rocks around the base like a stone diadem. There were over a hundred of the large stones, called kerbstones, all engraved with ancient megalithic art of spirals, zigzags, and drawings. I was intrigued to learn that exactly three kerbstones were never found. That number again.

Giovanni strolled ahead of me, taking pictures of the 5,000-year-old stones and touching them respectfully. I slipped around a corner to the steps that led up to the top of the largest mound, delighted to actually walk atop this ancient temple. I pulled out the red journal and turned to one of my mother’s entries about Newgrange. The paper fluttered lightly in the breeze.

I am led again to this home of the Triple Spiral, like a compass pointing me to my true North. Could Gabriella have been right? Is this just one of many places in the world that was a base for people like me? It’s not what we know about it that intrigues me. It’s what we don’t. Who built it? What are the true meanings of the markings in the stones? Why did the inhabitants mysteriously disappear, sometimes for hundreds of years, before another group would settle, only to also disappear? A theory is that the tomb was a solar temple for a prehistoric race of supernatural people. Doesn’t seem so far-fetched right now. Our Irish mythology taunts me like King Nuada, the Silver Hand…Silver. Could the legends have only told part of the story? Too often in history that is the case. There are so many signs telling me this was once a place of people like me. And too many like me have vanished. I feel I’m on the edge of a discovery. One that could answer all of my questions.

The passage gave me chills. I shared her feeling—on the edge of discovery. I looked around at the green valley below. Satellite mounds dotted the fields in the distance. The river Boyne meandered past the great mounds. Ireland stretched out beneath me in all directions. The beauty of it created an alchemy inside me, transforming my curiosity into a deep affection. Ireland struck me as wild. A restrained wild, though. Not the messy abandon of a jungle. A tame fury simmered under every green blade.

Seeing auras was considered
supernatural
. When I pulled the word apart, examined it, I thought it meant natural but different, extraordinary. It didn’t mean it wasn’t real. From my inquiries online, I learned that auras were considered real by many people, doctors and scientists included. All over the world, people conducted research to prove and measure and study their existence. So that couldn’t have been my mother’s big discovery.

No. There was more to this. Being what Giovanni called Scintilla was just one part of the puzzle. If Scintilla was one race, were there others? If so, my hunch was they had white auras.

“What happened to you, Grace Sandoval?” I whispered into the wind.

Giovanni found me atop the tomb. His aura was so strikingly beautiful, it made me see mine in a new light. If only everyone could see the beauty radiating from our bodies, the truth of who we are, and how our energies merged, maybe the world would be a nicer place.

“Come, Miss Cora,” Giovanni said, waving me over. “They say we can go inside the tomb now.”

We went together to the doorway, first climbing stairs to get over an enormous oblong stone with spirals carved in its surface that was blocking the entrance, and then ducking under a flat lintel stone over the door. A slit above the doorway made it possible for the sunlight to penetrate deep inside the chamber for twenty minutes every winter solstice.

I’d finally found my way here.

Inside, a large pillar stone welcomed us, and I sucked in a breath. The actual triple spiral! This iconic stone saw sunlight only once per year on the solstice, and our guide said it was possible the original inhabitants believed it to be a connection from our realm to other realms of existence. It was pure mystery and magic. I wanted to sweep my fingers over the pattern that curled like tender new fronds, but a few people in front of us blocked our way. I remembered vividly how the picture of it spun in my mind’s eye along with the other images when I unearthed the key. And I also vividly remembered the first time I saw its pattern tease me from under Finn’s shirt.

“What does it mean?” Giovanni asked.

“It’s called the triple spiral. It’s known over the world as a Celtic symbol, though that’s completely misleading because the people who built this place were here three thousand years before the Celts arrived. It’s older than the Great Pyramids and older than Stonehenge. There are all kinds of theories about the triple spiral, but no one knows for sure. Some say it celebrates the sun since so many of the stones are astrology-based. Others call it the triple goddess: maiden, mother, and crone.” My face heated. “And I might have slipped into know-it-all mode.”

“Creator, destroyer, sustainer,” offered an elderly woman from behind us. “I’ve read that interpretation as well.”

“Life, death, and eternity,” said someone else in a voice hushed with awe.

“A tale with no beginning and no end,” I whispered to myself.

Giovanni’s hand rested between my shoulder blades as we walked through the narrow passageway toward the small chamber room. I didn’t know if it was the place or his hand causing the strange sensation, as though my heartbeat had shifted, settling closer against my back, beating hard against his hand.

“There is Viking graffiti in these tombs,” Giovanni said, pointing excitedly. “Do you see?”

“I see,” I said, smiling.

We entered the narrow cruciform passageway that led to a ceremonial chamber where cremated remains had once been found. The winter solstice event was simulated for us with lights. I shuddered in the cool cavern. The hair on my arms stood on end. “You can feel history blowing on you here.”

The sun gifted us with its presence when we walked outside the tomb. I turned to Giovanni. “What did you mean the other day when you said I may not know what I’m capable of?”

Giovanni sucked his bottom lip when he concentrated. “How do I say it?” His blue eyes squinted as he searched for the words to explain. “People, they go around giving and taking of energy.”

“That much I
do
know.” Even before I knew about auras, I could sense it. It seemed to me it was the most widely used form of communication, whether the people were aware of it or not.

He frowned slightly. “Did you also know the Scintilla are a source? We,” he said, holding his head up proudly, “are the spark that ignites the flame.”

“I don’t understand.” But I’d heard similar words…
A mighty flame follows a tiny spark.

Giovanni looked around. He zeroed in on a grandmother who was struggling with a very unhappy toddler currently in full meltdown mode, screaming, arms and legs flailing on the ground. “Watch,” he said, leaving me leaning against a tree as he strode over to them.

I could not hear what he said to the woman or the child. But I could clearly see his silver aura flow out of his body and swaddle the little girl in its glow as he chatted with the elderly woman. The kid suddenly stopped crying and looked up at him like he was Santa Claus. Then his energy shifted a bit and wound around the elderly woman as well.

“Oh, gracious!” the old woman said. “I was at my wit’s end. You have the magic touch with children, sure enough. How can I ever thank you?”

Giovanni patted the girl’s head and walked back to me with a conceited smile. “You see?” he asked. “You can give them the spark. It’s what they want. Their greedy bodies take it like candy.”

I thought of the man in the park, who didn’t give of himself. He took. Ruthlessly. “It seems like a violation to tamper with people’s auras,” I said.

Giovanni’s brows pinched together. “It is not a crime to make people happy, Miss Cora. I’ve spent most of my life alone on the streets around the world, and I’ve learned you can get nearly everything you need—food, money, a place to sleep—in exchange for the one thing everyone in this world wants most: to feel good.”

“But aren’t you manipulating them?”

“Such an ugly word. I consider it currency, not manipulation. You should be asking how to do it. Not judging me for giving of myself. It’s my choice who to give to.”

Just as I was ready to tell him about the man with the white aura and argue about people’s choice to receive or to be taken from, the bus pulled up in front of the waiting area, and we had to run to catch it. Giovanni and I sat next to each other, but he was brooding and silent for the drive. Twice now, I’d upset the one person who could tell me more about myself. But when we got off the bus he surprised me by asking me to walk with him.

“I’m sorry,” I admitted as we stood outside the back of the visitors center on a small footbridge over a stream. “I shouldn’t have judged. It’s just that I’ve seen very violent attacks on people’s auras. What you’re doing is definitely not the same thing. You do what you have to do, and you make people happy. My best friend, Dun, does that, and I don’t even think it’s conscious.”

Giovanni tilted his head in a charming, inquisitive way, and when he accepted my apology with a bright smile, I found myself thinking,
he hardly needs special energy to make people feel good.

“Finn is picking me up, but if you don’t mind, I’d like to talk to you again soon. I have so much more I want to ask. You showed me how you can give of your aura, but can you teach me how to block energy or”—my throat closed around the words—“stop someone from taking energy against my will?”

Concern and something like understanding registered in Giovanni’s eyes, and he nodded gravely. “The people with the white auras…you wish to protect yourself in some way. I wish I could tell you how. I don’t know the answer to that, but I will answer as many of your questions as I can.” His hand ran from my elbow to my wrist. “Please call me. I’m desperate to see you again,” he said, his tone pressing, his stormy eyes insistent. I couldn’t look away. “You scared me to death when you disappeared yesterday. You have no idea how rare you are.”

“That she is,” Finn’s voice said from behind Giovanni.

Finn strode toward us with an almost predatory gait. His tiger eyes never left Giovanni’s face. The yellow-green aura was a color I’d never seen on him. Distress but with something else mixed in. Jealousy?

I walked over and took his hand. Finn curled me into his arms. His warmth was different. Infused with the fire of possessiveness. I mumbled an embarrassed introduction, then moved back to Giovanni to say good-bye. Finn’s gaze raked my back.

“Thanks for everything, at the library and today.” I held out my hand formally, which Giovanni took, giving it a jolt of energy. I gritted my teeth. “I’ll call you.”

Giovanni stepped forward and, much to my dismay, kissed each of my cheeks. Little circles of residual energy swirled on my skin. He whispered urgently in my ear, “Careful. You are not safe with him.”