The Violet Awakening (The Elementum Trinity Book 2) (5 page)

“I’m sorry—” I began.

“Reagan? Angie? What are you doing back here?” I turned toward the voice, finding a very accusing-looking Cora behind us. Her artic eyes pierced me in a way that Al’s never had. They were cold and empty.

“I was showing her the garden,” Reagan said protectively, refusing to break Cora’s gaze.

“You really ought to be getting back to the gathering,” Cora said, the slightest sneer creeping out at the corners of her mouth.

“Of course,” Reagan agreed, wrapping an arm around me as she began walking toward the front of the house. Cora didn’t follow, but I could feel her eyes on our backs as we reached the path.

“Don’t be sorry,” Reagan said, responding to the apology I’d been attempting to make before Cora cut me off. “Just be careful.”

Lily and Al, along with many others, had already retired from the party by the time I’d found Lakin and assured him that Gabe and Reagan hadn’t brainwashed me or inducted me into some sort of Satanic cult. We’d thanked those who had lingered, once again, for the gifts, and hauled armfuls of jars and bags and boxes back to the house. Seeing that the lanterns had already been doused, we’d assumed Lily and Al were fast asleep, and we’d situated ourselves on the living room floor, stacking our gifts neatly next to the couch. Lying just a few inches in front of me, Lakin’s eyes had clouded over as he relived my conversation with Reagan.

“You trust them,” he had said, voice weighed down with sleep.

“I do.”

“Is that really necessary?” I awoke to the sounds of Lily’s irritated voice.

“Yes,” Gabe said sternly. “She baked twenty batches, last night. Do you have any idea how many cookies that is? That’s, like, a thousand cookies.”

“You’re really bad at math,” Al said, mouth full of, what I could only assume was, cookie.

“Only for dramatic effect.” Gabe defended himself. “She didn’t sleep at all. She’s getting worse. I think it needs to happen.”

“Well, it’s your house. You can do whatever you want,” Lily said nonchalantly.

“That’s the thing,” Gabe said, sounding as if he didn’t want the words to come out of his mouth. “She can’t move in with us.”

“What?” Lily asked in a low tone.

“Reagan is allergic to cats, and mom’s not going to leave Jackie behind.”

“So, you think she should move in here?!” I’d never known a whisper to be so loud.

“She’s your mom, too.”

“She doesn’t even know me, Gabriel! The last time I talked to her, she called me Donna,” Lily said, a tinge of hurt flooding her voice.

“Then she’ll have to go into one of the joint houses.” Gabe’s words seemed to sink in to Lily’s heart and cast an anchor.

“Fine. We’ll move her in tonight.”

“Good, thank you.”

I didn’t sit up until I heard the door shut, and was sure Gabe had left, for fear of intruding on personal matters that weren’t any of my business. Al and Lily were sitting at the kitchen table in silence, staring at each other with looks of uncertainty over a very large plate of snickerdoodles.

“Oh, good morning, Angie. I hope we didn’t wake you,” Lily said, abruptly returning to her sweet, cheery self. I thought I saw her brush a tear from her cheek as she wandered to the stove.

“No, not at all,” I said, faking a yawn and a stretch. I looked down at Lakin, who was still fast asleep, arm flung up over his face, and a trickle of drool dampening his pillow.

“Would you like some bacon?” She asked, firing up the stove before I could answer.

“Bacon?” Lakin shot upright, eyes still half-shut, and hair sticking out at every angle imaginable. We all stared at him in shock, even Lily popped her head around the wall to eye him curiously.

“Bacon,” I laughed, pushing myself to my feet before reaching down an arm to the boy next to me. “C’mon, sleeping beauty.”

Al kicked one of the chairs out to me, and I helped the incredibly-tired Lakin to sit. My nose instinctively wrinkled itself up as Lily reached for her tea-jar.

“Not to be picky, but… do you have anything other than tea? Coffee, maybe?” I’d had more tea in the last couple days than I’d probably had in my entire life. Oh, what I would have done for a cup of coffee.

Lily blinked at me for a moment, as my request took its own sweet time to sink in.

“Of course! I’m sorry,” she said, frantically searching the cupboards. “I sort of go on auto-pilot in the mornings.”

“It’s okay, really. If you don’t have—” I began, feeling a bit guilty for upsetting her routine.

“No, no, no… I know I have coffee around here, somewhere… Aha!” She said, retrieving a dusty jar of dark grounds from the highest cupboard.

I leaned over to Al with apprehension. “How old is that?”

“I didn’t even know we had it,” he whispered.

“You know, now that I think of it, tea is fine. Really,” I said.

“You sure?” she asked, brushing a thick layer of dust from the lid of the jar.

“Definitely,” I said as convincingly as possible.

“Okay,” Lily shrugged, returning the jar to the cupboard and going back to the stove.

Just as she was pouring Lakin’s tea, the floor shook violently beneath our feet. The rumbling lasted only seconds, but was severe enough to force photos crashing from the walls. Lakin's mug had tipped over, and scalding liquid ran across the table in a haphazard stream, sketching a dark labyrinth into the wood. I looked from face to face, finding the same confusion and fear that riddled my insides.

“Al?” Lily's voice wavered, as her bond slowly opened the front door.

Doors from each house around the underwater-town opened, the heads of curious residents poking out like prairie dogs for answers. Lakin and I followed Al onto the porch, looking to the water above our heads, but not finding anything unordinary... other than the water above our heads, of course.

“What was that?” an older, disheveled-looking man asked from the house across the walkway. I didn’t recognize him from the gathering.

“Earthquake?” another man, whom I did recognize, but whose name I could not remember, responded from two houses down the path.

“Didn’t feel like an earthquake to me,” the unfamiliar man said grumpily.

Lily’s generation came running up the pathway, stopping just inches in front of us. Lakin and I nervously backed up against the house, noticing other groups gathering around in the same manner. Lily stepped out from the safety of the doorway, her eyes emitting a ghostly white light. Soon, beams of light connected one person from each group, in a scene that looked not unlike an alien abduction. I quickly concluded that these people, the ones with light shooting out of their eyeballs, were the Oracles of each generation… which did not make the experience any less weird.

“Nixon, take Cora into town with you. Get some answers,” she said sternly, after the light had finally subsided.

Nixon nodded, taking Cora’s hand. Al’s eyes followed after them with concern, as they headed toward the tunnel that would lead them into civilization.

Al led us back into the house after the crowds had finally dispersed. Silence weighed down the air as we helped clean up the spilt tea and broken glass. Lily sighed as she emptied a skillet of burnt bacon into the trashcan. I wondered how common it was for food to be wasted in the Eden, and then suddenly realized why the trashcan looked so familiar. But Al spoke up before I could say anything.

“Did you have to send Cora?”

Lakin and I stopped picking up shards of glass, halted by the abrupt tenseness of the room.

“You know the decision was not only up to me,” she said quietly, her tone a sort of disturbingly calm rage.

Al let his broom fall against a wall, locking eyes with Lily. Judging by their facial expressions, the words they were exchanging inside their heads were not about dandelions and rainbows. They seemed to have such a peaceful relationship, it felt unnatural to see them argue. It probably would have felt unnatural to watch anyone argue without actually speaking, but especially so for them. Since I couldn’t hear where they were at in their fight, it took me by surprise when Al hastily made his way for the door.

“Angie, Lakin... come with me,” he ordered, not stopping to look back as he left the house.

Lily didn’t try to stop us, but I glanced cautiously at Lakin, who was already halfway to the door. I felt an undeniable loyalty to Al, having spent so much time with him in The Facility, and feeling that I owed him so much for my escape… but I sensed that Lily was one of those people whose bad side you would not want to get on. And, well… the bacon smelled really good.

“But,” I griped, looking mournfully at the stove as Lakin dragged me by the hand from the house, “bacon...”

Lakin and I followed silently behind Al, passing cottage after cottage. The underwater town reminded me of something from a fairytale that Eddie had read to me when I was younger, something that couldn’t have possibly existed in real life. Now and then, a familiar face would pop up in one of the windows, grinning as we passed. Finally, Al came to a stop at a house that looked fairly similar to all the others.

“Do you have your gems?” he asked, face still hard with anger.

I nodded, retrieving the cool stones from deep within my pocket. I had forgotten how beautiful they were, turning them over in my fingers as the light danced from their blue and orange facets.

He knocked on the old wooden door of the house in front of us. The disgruntled-looking man, whom I hadn’t recognized earlier, propped open the door just enough to peak through with one dull, gray eye. Up close, he looked much more frail and elderly than he had before, and there was something different about him from the rest of the Elementums; he was not happy. He looked irritated at the sight of visitors, and his age suggested he was from a generation that had already recycled. I wondered if he felt the same as I did when I was in The Facility, surrounded by people so different from himself.

“What?” the old man asked sharply.

“Curtis, we have some stones for you.”

He eyed us with suspicion, before nodding his head and opening the door wide enough for us to scrape by. The outside of Curtis’ house may have been like all the others in the Eden, but the inside was quite different from Al’s. With the curtains closed and only one small lamp in the living room, dark and miserable shadows lingered in every corner. The tools on the kitchen table reminded me of the things they used for manicures at the spa in The Facility. I smirked at the thought of an angry Al, taking us to have our nails done by a crabby old man.

The blanket and pillow on the couch caught my eyes. As I began to realize there were no signs of a second person living in the house, I understood Curtis’ bitterness; his bond was gone. Maybe she hadn’t retained her memories after being recycled, maybe she had died of old age. He was left powerless and alone in a place full of wonder and love. My heart burned as I looked at Lakin, unintentionally imagining life without him. I couldn’t comprehend how this fragile old man was able to survive that kind of pain.

“Angie,” Al began, startling me out of my state of mild depression, “your stones?”

I didn’t want to give them over, like I needed to protect them, but I nodded and reluctantly handed them to Curtis. It felt like we were intruding on something private as he rolled the stones over in his palms, delicately inspecting them with what was surely less-than-perfect vision.

“Hmph,” the old man grunted, taking a seat at the table. He held a dull, brass loupe to his face, squishing up his wrinkly eye to hold it in place.

I felt awkward, standing silently in the home of a man to whom we hadn’t even been introduced. Lakin and I exchanged nervous glances, while Al focused his attention on Curtis’ curiously twitching face.

“Spera Lapis,” the old man announced, returning his loupe to the table. He looked at us with eyebrows raised, as if expecting some sort of response. With a sigh of exasperation, he proceeded with an explanation. “The Hope Stone. I am assuming one of you is an Oracle?”

“Supposedly,” I grumbled.

Curtis glared at me as if I were mocking his religion. I was surprisingly intimidated by him, and couldn’t hold his creepy, lop-sided gaze for long.

“Yes, well… it’s incredibly rare. It is also rare to see bonds form matching stones. If this is an accurate representation of the rest of your generation, I am confident in saying you are going to bring big changes—not just to our kind, but to the world.” Curtis’ words did not contain much emotion, but I had a feeling he wasn’t the kind of person to get all choked up at family reunions. He was the type of person to say what he meant to say, and to say it with a purpose. Probably not a hugger, either.

“What makes you think that?” Al inquired. The skin on Curtis’ neck wobbled as he chuckled at the question, and it was reassuring to see that he was not made of stone—maybe just a soft metal.

“Alvin, if you ask any of the Oracles, they’ll tell you the last Elems to form Spera Lapis, let alone matching stones, were the first body-born generation,” he said, leaning back in his chair with a look of satisfaction on his face.

“What does that mean, exactly?” Lakin asked.

“Well, son, the first body-born Elementums were the most powerful in our history,” Curtis explained. “That’s not to say they were the brightest… Quite the opposite, really. They had a lot to learn, what with being the first to grow up with fleshy appendages, and all. But if they had known everything we know now? The world wouldn’t be the giant mess it’s turned into. We certainly wouldn’t be hiding under a lake. Probably ought to wait and see what stones the other bonds in your gen form, though. Don’t want to be jumping to conclusions.”

The old man had a glint of certainty in his eyes, and he fully believed in what he was telling us. We stared blankly as the information soaked in. Was that what everyone was hoping for? Were we supposed to be some sort of saviors? Saving a planet sounded like an awful lot of effort. I didn’t like it.

“Will you work on the stones for them?” Al seemed preoccupied, staring into space.

“Like I have anything better to do with my time,” Curtis muttered, reaching for one of the small grinding tools. “It’ll be about an hour, or so.”

“What’re you going to do to them?” I asked, possessively staring at our gems on the table.

“Hard to say, really. They’ll become whatever you need them to become.”

I didn’t find any comfort in Curtis’ words, but it felt like I didn’t have much of a choice as Al waved us toward the door.

“He seems… nice,” Lakin said, after we had cleared the hearing-range of the house.

“Curtis is a good man, but… well, he’s seen a lot,” Al explained, leading us further toward the far end of the Eden. He still seemed preoccupied, but most of the anger had dissolved from his face.

“Al?” I asked quietly, watching my feet as we walked. “What happened earlier, between you and Lily?”

He looked at me with the kind eyes I had seen so many times in The Facility. A smile pulled at the corners of my mouth as he sighed.

“I was just worried about my sister. I’m sorry you had to see me act like that. I’m… I’m very protective of the people I love,” he said, raising an eyebrow at me.

My mind wandered back to the quake I had caused at The Facility, when Mr. Gray was saying something about how I should be brutally murdered, or something. Al had fought for me with the same intensity I’d seen in his eyes when Cora rushed toward possible danger. He nodded at me with the ghost of a smile, warming my heart. I already knew I had a brother, but it suddenly felt like I had a second one.

We walked the rest of the path in silence, ending at three houses. There didn’t seem to be any lights coming from the windows, and cobwebs laced the corners of the doorways. The warm feeling in my heart faded into a sinking chill. Surely, Lakin already knew the answer to the question he felt the need to ask.

“What’re we doing here?”

“These are your parents’ houses.”

My eyes shifted from house to house, wondering which one Bryant and I should have grown up in. Which one we should have learned to walk in. Which one we should have fallen asleep in, listening to our parents tell stories.

“Angie…” Al pointed to the middle house, and my breath caught in my chest as I nodded. “Lakin,” he continued, pointing to the house on the right.

Lakin and I gripped each other’s hands tightly, curiosity flooding through our bodies. I wondered which house to enter first, or if we should split up, but my thought was answered soon enough as Lakin released my hand and walked toward his door. I did the same, resting my hand on the cool handle of the door that should have protected my childhood memories.

With the creak of the hinges, the musky smell of abandonment instantly reached my nose. I could barely see through the darkness—through the shadows of my alternate past.

I jumped at the click of Al’s lighter, as he sent flames to the small lanterns throughout the house. The rooms were dimly illuminated, and the thick layer of dust gave everything an eerie, muted glow. It felt surreal, like I was looking through a stereoscope, but there wasn’t some old gadget I could remove from my face to escape back to reality—this was my reality.

I dragged my finger across the table, leaving trails through the dust in their wake. I noticed the dishes in the drying rack on the counter, and glanced at Al.

“Nobody has really touched anything since they’ve been gone. It’s exactly how they left it.”

I nodded absentmindedly and continued my path around the abandoned house. Branching off from the hall were three small bedrooms, one slightly larger than the others. The layout was nearly identical to Al and Lily’s place. The largest room contained one full-size bed covered in simple floral linens. On the mirrored-dresser sat a silver, delicate-looking hairbrush, and a rose-colored bottle of perfume. I misted the fragrance into the air and stepped beneath it, letting the scent of lavender and sunflowers drift around me.

“Gah!” I screeched at the sight of a little black spider scuttling across the dresser-top. It stopped at my scream, and appeared to be staring into my soul—probably deciding on its best plan of attack.

“What’s wrong?!” Al shouted, running to my rescue, before setting eyes on the terrifying villain and immediately bursting into laughter.

“It’s not funny,” I huffed, keeping a wary eye locked on the spider.

Al shook his head as he moved toward the tiny, evil devil. I inhaled sharply, holding my breath as he lowered his hand to let the spider crawl into his palm.

“Are you crazy?” I whispered, afraid if I spoke too loudly, the spider would attack and lead Al to his untimely death.

“Angie, there’s nothing to be scared of. We’re in tune with nature, with all living things, if we allow ourselves to be.”

“Yeah, I’d like to see you say that while holding a hungry lion in your hand,” I mumbled, cautiously stepping around him into the hallway.

The middle bedroom held only two small mattresses, propped up against one wall. Al’s laughter faded into the back of my mind as I came to a halt in the doorway of the last room, at the end of the hall. Two cribs sat side-by-side beneath the far window; clean, tidy, and still awaiting the babies who had already outgrown them. I ran my hand along the cool wood of the crib that held a pink blanket. It felt like my only options were total numbness, or to break down into a heaving puddle of sobs—I chose the numbness.

‘Angie,’
Al’s voice whispered soothingly inside my mind.

I shook my head and left the room that should have held so many memories. As I walked down the hallway, back toward the living room, my eyes fell on a picture hanging next to the door of the first bedroom. How could I have missed it before? My lungs forgot how to breathe, and my heart forgot how to beat. I was barely aware of Al’s hand on my shoulder as the cheery, sepia faces gazed back at me from their frames.

The woman was exactly how I remembered her from the memories I thought I’d fabricated. Her eyes squinted with her smile, and her hair flowed gracefully down to her elbows. Something tugged at the back of my throat as my eyes skimmed over her outfit—shiny black pants, and a gray patterned T-shirt. I touched my hand to the cool stone on my chest; perfectly identical to the one around her own neck. For a moment, in wearing the things that she’d worn, I felt closer to my mother. She wasn’t alone in the photo, though. I knew the man next to her was not my father, but I recognized his face all too well.

“Is he—?” My throat protested against the words. My body didn’t want to believe it.

“Yes,” Al said with regret.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I choked, eyes wide and watery.