The Unwanted Winter - Volume One of the Saga of the Twelves (72 page)

They all watched stunned,
horrified to the core, as the words spewed forth from
Joaquin.

Then, without preamble, he
passed out, unconscious. Before any of them could react, he folded
to the floor in a heap.

~~~~~~~~<<<<<<{ ☼
}>>>>>>~~~~~~~~

Realization

Day One, Thursday, 1:11
pm…

After the rest of them had
determined he’d merely fallen asleep and wasn’t in mortal danger,
they decided rest was the best thing for him.

Mugzy and Mr. Patas had
just returned from placing Joaquin upon one of the temporary beds
when Andrew asked, “So, if Joaquin is right, then where does all of
this leave us?” He said it to the group, but he was finding it
difficult to take his eyes off Anthony, who was sitting next to the
gorgeous babe, Sophie. He sought him out through the tops of his
eyes. His head he held in his hands, as if he could no longer hold
it up, too overwhelmed with everything to want to move.

“
I think,” began Sophie in
a sweet sounding, measured tone.

It made Andrew breathe
deeply, putting him at ease, though he wasn’t certain as to
why.

He listened.

She went on.

“
We should search for the
other four kids still out there in the storm. That has got to be
our first goal, because of the weather. From what you all have told
me is pursuing us, they are going to need our help. They are going
to need the protection of the ‘pets’. Without them they’ll be
defenseless, wide open, especially if they’re little like Anthony’s
sisters and Louis.”

“
The Fist, my dear,”
corrected Kodiak. “We are the Fingers of the Lord of the Light,
together we make a Fist.”

“
Sorry, Kodiak,” she
mumbled.

Anthony looked down at his
hands in thought, turning to look at the girl. “I agree with you,
Sophie, but that is in the short term, something we have to do now.
I think Andrew is talking about is our ultimate task. Now, that we
are here in this place, that we know we represent some sort of
special group, chosen specifically for something, Andrew means:
‘what are we going to do about that’? How are we going to deal with
our enemies?’ Is that right, dude?” specified Anthony
gently.

Andrew looked between the
two of them, nodding, knowing in that moment, his friend
liked
the girl.
Wow, so fast, but then again, how could he not
like her?
He asked himself.
S
he was so freakin’ fine!

A silence stretched for a
time.

“
We are going to fight,”
announced Kenai, speaking for the first time in a long while. She
held her head high, sitting on all fours, looking at all of them
through massive brown eyes.

Kodiak gazed over at her
daughter.

Andrew could’ve sworn he
could see a proud expression cross the older bear-dog’s face,
though he was uncertain how he was able to see it.

“
Yes, we are going to
fight,” said Kodiak, her voice so deep it was like an earthquake,
rock rubbing upon rock, miles beneath the surface of the
earth.

“
But how?” asked Jason,
clearly unnerved.

“
With our powers, silly,
why else do you think we were chosen?” asserted Mikalah as if the
others were children and she was the teenager.

There was a profound
silence, lasting for nearly a minute. None of them moved or
breathed - it seemed - each was lost in the tangled morass of their
own thoughts.

“
OH, MY GOD!” shouted
Anthony with such vehemence it practically startled Andrew out of
skin. “Why didn’t I see that before! It makes perfect sense! Crap,
I am such an idiot!”

“
Why are you an idiot?
What are you talking about, Anthony?” queried Sophie. Her voice
faltered, her look dismayed, confounded. Anthony’s reaction to
Mikalah’s unexpected reply had left her mind reeling with
misunderstanding.

“
When we first met Joaquin
and Jason,” Anthony explained.

The memory floated to the
surface of Andrew’s brain. Suddenly, it all fit together for him as
well.

“
A Swüreg warrior had me
clean in his sights with his bow,” continued Anthony. “I mean, I
was toast. When he loosed the arrow, I knew I was dead. There was
nothing I could do. I had three feet of steel and wood coming my
way at over a hundred and fifty miles an hour. ”

Sophie glowered with
misinterpretation, trying to understand what Anthony was trying to
explain.

Andrew could see she was
wondering if she should take his friend literally or not, trying to
balance what he’d said with the fact, he was standing before her
unscathed, unhurt. The creature he was describing should’ve harmed
him in some way, right?

“
Then,
out of nowhere, came Mikalah from an impossible distance, hurtling
across the landscape faster than she should’ve
ever
been capable of moving.”
Anthony shook his head, still having a hard time believing what
he’d seen atop the La Loma footpath.

Sophie didn’t appear to
understand, her head tilted to one side.

Elena laughed, curled up
once again in Mugzy lap. “She knocked me down.”

Andrew nodded at the
thought, because she’d knocked him down as well. The kinetic energy
she had unleashed when she left his side had been so explosive, it
had tossed him to the ground like a ragdoll and covered him in half
a foot of debris.

Anthony went on, “She came
so fast, it was like she literally vaulted out of the ground and
flew. Before I had even begun to blink my eyes, before I had moved
a muscle, my baby sister snatched the arrow out of the air with her
hand and hit the ground like a meteor hitting the earth. I think
she even left a crater where she landed or something like that,
because the ground around her was all overturned and splattered in
every direction.” He stuck out his hand and mussed up Mikalah’s
hair. She was still in Sophie’s lap, within easy reach.

Mikalah laughed, pulled
her head out of his grasp.

Sophie looked down at the
little girl with her brilliantly blue eyes. “You did that,
Mikalah?”

“
Yeah, I did, but I didn’t
know what I was doing. I was just afraid the arrow would hurt my
brother, badly. Before I knew it, the arrow was in my hand. I was
on the ground all full of dirt and snow and junk. I don’t know how
I did it, but I did. That is why I know I was chosen. I have a
power inside me that makes me go fast, real fast - faster than
anyone else on this planet, maybe even the whole solar system.” She
said it all as a matter of fact, though it was an amazing
proclamation.

Andrew knew it for truth.
He’d seen the girl in one place and then in another, faster than
his ability to think.

“
Mine allows me to call
light,” stated Elena, condemning them all to silence with her tiny
voice.

“
Really?!?” asked Anthony,
shocked. He whipped his head in her direction, so the longer
portions of his hair flew over his shoulder and lay across his
clavicle, despite being synched in a ponytail.

“
Yeah, I asked for a light
once when I was in my closet. It came, although it wasn’t very
bright. It was sort of an ugly yellow, but it was there. I saw it
with my own eyes. I called and it came,” replied the girl twirling
a lock of Mugzy’s salt and pepper hair between her thumb and
forefinger.

“
Have you been able to do
it again, child?” asked Kodiak without a doubt in her voice. To
her, Elena would have no reason to lie.

“
I sort of forgot about it
with everything that has been going on. Until Mikalah said the
thing about having powers, I hadn’t remembered I had done it
before.” Andrew watched the girl shrug her shoulders, speaking in
her tiny voice. She was shy again.

“
Call the light to shine
before my eyes, Little Flower,” solicited Mugzy in the soft version
of his formally sounding voice.

Elena wasted little time
doing what her beloved pet asked. Andrew observed as the girl close
her eyes, steady her breathing, still holding the lock of Mugzy’s
hair, and uttered a single word - “Come.”

Before he could take
another breath or feel another beating of his heart, the fire they
had kept up the entire day seemed to dim for a second. A wink
later, it regained its’ former luminous strength. Yet, when Andrew
glanced back at the girl, there was a pulsating, yellow-orange ball
of light, dancing a few inches above Mugzy’s head. It was the same
color as the blaze beside them, but clearly not of the fire itself.
Rather, it seemed to be the very essence of the
light
the fire emitted. Andrew felt
his jaw drop to his knees as the girl opened her eyes. Her gaze
followed the bobbing and weaving, sphere of light she’d created, a
proud smile chiseled on her delicate face.

“
There you go, Poochers. I
light just for you.”

Mugzy peered up at the
glowing ball, an awestruck grin spreading from ear to ear. “You are
incredible, Elena, a treasure among treasures.” He cooed to the
girl. She seemed to melt inside.

“
Well, I guess that solves
it, huh? Now, all we have to do is figure out what the heck the
rest of us can do and we should be ok against these jerk-offs that
are messing with us,” jibed Andrew as if the entire thing was a
small matter.

Elena mouthed a
silent
“Go”
. The
flame-colored light winked out of existence.

Mugzy gave the girl a
thankful squeeze, which made her giggle.

Anthony huffed with mild
sarcasm. “Yeah, that shouldn’t be too hard, considering the number
of the possible miraculous things a person can do. How many
superheroes do you think have been invented and written or drawn in
the last hundred years?”

Andrew glanced over at his
friend at the same time Sophie, Mikalah, Jason and Elena did as
well, already knowing where Anthony was taking them on this
specific train of thought.

“
Jeez Louise,” began
Jason, “the possibilities could be endless.”

Smart
dude
, agreed Andrew.

Shit, what’s this crap
really all about?

“
We need more
information,” stated Sophie with a mournful tilt of her head at
Andrew’s friend.

“
Yeah, we sure do – a
whole lot more…”

There was some movement at
the entrance of the cave. The furniture pad Andrew and Joaquin hung
to keep out the cold air from outside was moving inward, pushed to
the side as something large entered the cave.

They jumped to their feet,
the animals forming a protective wall before the
children.

Relief spread like
wildfire when they saw it was only Garfield, poking his head into
the chamber. In his gruff way, he said, “The way remains clear.”
Whether he noticed their reaction to his return or not, he gave no
indication. He wove his way to the fire and began to warm himself
before it as if nothing had happened.

Then, Kodiak, looking at
Kenai, spoke: “Daughter, I believe it is your turn to watch for
enemies.” It was an order, but given in an easy, motherly
fashion.

Kenai smiled through her
snout and teeth. “Yes, mother, you are correct.” With no more said,
she quickly bound for the portal and vanished behind the heavy
blanket keeping the warmth of their fire within the room. Most of
them peered after her, orbs riveted to the billowing movement of
the furniture pad she’d left in her wake.

Until we know more, there
ain’t a whole lot we can do. We’re sure in The Shit
now
, thought Andrew, resigned.

~~~~~~~~<<<<<<{ ☼
}>>>>>>~~~~~~~~