Dissever (Unbinding Fate Book One) (3 page)

Addy slipped on her sunglasses and adjusted her chair.
“You want another bottle of water?” She held out a dripping bottle from the
cooler.

Kim reached over and took it by the lid.

 “I expect an apology for your constant questioning of
my choice in car,” Addy said, reaching over and nudging Kim in the arm.

Kim made a face at her back. “Never gonna happen.”

Addy couldn’t wait to get her new drivers license and
plates on her car so she could drive it with the top down. When she turned 18,
her grandfather let her pick any car she wanted as her gift. She picked a black
convertible sports car, which completely sucked in the snow, and she’d taken a
lot of teasing about it.

Addy pointed to their friends. “Wow, they actually got
the net up.”

Noticing her pointing at them, Matt pointed back and
shouted to them. “Let’s play!”

Reluctantly, they got up and joined the group. There
were twelve of them ranging in age from 15-25, all Akori except Kim and Addy.

 “You guys are captains.” Matt’s sister Renee told him
and Gage. “Pick your teams.”

They went back and forth picking players.

Matt pointed at Addy. She was his second choice because
he had picked Kim first.

They stood six on each side.

“Do you even know how to play?” Gage asked, shaking his
head at Matt, who was busy shouting out orders to his team.

Matt acted offended and peered over the top of his
sunglasses. “Dude, I watch bikini volleyball all the time.”

Gage tipped his head back and served the ball. He’d
been Matt’s best friend since they met and learned to just put up with Matt’s
ridiculous comments like Addy had. He worked for her grandfather, and despite
only being five years older than her, Fate relied on Gage for tasks he’d
usually assign to the older Akori. He came to live at Tremain with his mother,
Molly, when he was five. It was the same week Addy was born.

 “Don’t run from the ball!” Renee shouted at Penny,
one of the younger girls. “It’s not gonna bite you.”

Addy ran to the net, jumped up, and spiked the ball to
tie the game.

“Nice,” Gage said, nodding to her from the other side.

“No fraternizing with the enemy up there,” Malcolm said
from behind her. He was another Akori who worked for her grandfather.

The game seemed to take forever and Addy’s team ended
up losing when the youngest member tripped and did a face plant in the sand.
They all agreed the comedy value was worth taking the loss.

Addy and Kim headed back to their chairs, collapsing
as some of the others packed up and went to the estate. The sun was getting
lower in the sky.

Kim frowned as she put the cap back on her water
bottle. “I gotta get ready to go, I’m on kitchen duty.”

“I’d rather be in the chore rotation than spending every
day in the library.” Addy grabbed her phone from her bag to check the time. It was
nearly seven pm. “How’s shelving
books
teach me to run this place
anyhow?”

“Maybe it’s a
wax on, wax off
kind of thing.” Kim
tipped her head at Addy and smiled. “Besides, you’d wash
one
baked on
pan and be
begging
to shelve a book.”

“
Anyway,
Fate wants to see me in the library,
but after that I’ll be back down. Matt said we’re having a bonfire tonight.”
Addy brushed sand off her towel and looked at Kim, who was shading her eyes
with her hand, staring off into the distance. “Hello? Are you even listening to
me?”

“See that guy over there?” Kim pointed to a man, maybe
in his early twenties, standing with his back to them. “He’s been hanging out
over there all day. Sometimes he just looks over at us and at one point, I saw
him staring at Tremain. I think he was just taking pictures of it with his
phone.”

 “Go talk to him,” Addy said, encouraging her with a
smile.

Kim tossed her empty water bottle at Addy and smiled. “Not
my type.”

“Right, your only type is
Matt.”

“
Wrong
. Remember the rule against Akori and
humans dating?”

Addy rolled her eyes. “Kind of hard to forget it when
you remind me
constantly
.”

Pounding sounds caused them to turn back to their
group of friends. Josh, Matt and Renee’s uncle, had made his way down to the
beach and was securing the poles for the volleyball net the others haphazardly
assembled.

Josh stopped using his powers so he could be around to
raise Renee and Matt, his sister’s children, after their parents Scattered. The
down side for Josh was that Akori who didn’t use their powers aged like humans.
He looked about forty in human years after not using his powers for the past
fifteen years.

“Seriously Addy—that guy’s creeping me out.” Kim
pointed at the man again. “He’s not dressed for the beach. He’s looks totally
out of place.”

Kim was right about him not looking like he belonged
at the beach. It was a pretty safe assumption he wasn’t out there to enjoy the
sun and surf wearing torn jeans, black boots, and  a black concert t-shirt. Long
messy brown hair pulled back into a ponytail hung out of a well-worn baseball
cap.

“No worries. I’ll mention it to Fate when I meet with
him.” Addy slung her bag over her shoulder and they headed back to the estate.

Candles were always lit in the library because it had
no electricity. It looked particularly dim after spending the day in the
sunlight. The brightest light in the room was coming from the Overseer’s Stone
that was sitting on the table in front of her grandfather.

The library was typically the center of all the
activity that took place at the estate. Her grandfather spent most of his time
holed up in there. The ceiling was three stories high and only the outer wall
was lined with windows. The wall directly across from the windows had a
fireplace large enough for Addy to stand in. A long
red chaise
lounge was placed in front of it on an oval rug with a circular
pattern.
The rest of the rectangular shaped room was rows of books. The
open area between the windows and the fireplace had the long solid stone table
they always sat around.

Addy strolled into the library eating a chicken
sandwich she’d snagged from the kitchen on her way in. She gave her grandfather
a kiss on the cheek and told him she was glad he was feeling better. He gave
her a smile, and her sandwich a disapproving look.

“I know, no food in here, I’m almost done.” Addy
smiled sweetly. “I thought Bernard and Stubbs were joining us?”

“They’ll be along soon.” Fate placed his fingers on
the symbols etched into the stone; blue symbols glowed on the tops of his
hands. After several seconds he pulled his hands away and the glowing stopped.

“What were you doing?” Addy asked, popping the last
bite of her sandwich into her mouth.

Fate stood up very slowly and she could tell just how
weak he really was. He shifted his eyes to meet hers and smiled. “Making sure
the cloaking symbols on the estate are working properly. We wouldn’t want
anyone to realize we don’t actually
belong
here.”

He walked carefully over to the case above the
fireplace where the Overseer’s Stone was kept and placed it inside. He latched
it and pressed one of his fingers on the lid. There was a small flash of a blue
light indicating the case was sealed.

She’d never held the Overseer’s Stone, but it looked
heavy. It was about the size of a piece of notebook paper, except it was nearly
two inches thick with symbols etched into both sides and the edges.

Eva and Andrew, the oldest Akori, gave the Overseer’s
Stone to Oren Sanders when they made him the first Overseer in Addy’s family.
It had been used by the oldest male Sanders ever since. Fate taught her that
touching different symbols did different things. Someday, when Fate was gone,
Addy knew she’d have to try to claim the stone herself. He’d shown her what
symbol to touch to start the process during the training he’d been giving her.

Once she claimed it, providing she was even able to, the
stone would gradually give her the knowledge and power it contained. The entire
process would take several days and she would be unconscious while it happened.
It didn’t sound very appealing, but she wasn’t worried about it because she
didn’t think she’d be able to successfully claim it anyway.

Addy stood up and walked over to help her grandfather
uncork a bottle of wine. The Akori who traveled often sent Fate bottles of his
favorite kind. There was one particular type he enjoyed the most and every
Akori knew when they came across it to send some to the estate.

They walked back to the table together and she placed
his glass down in front of him. As she watched him take a sip, she couldn’t
imagine being there without him. He did so much and she didn’t know how she or
anyone else could possibly fill his shoes.

“We have a few things we need to talk about,” Fate
said, sitting his wine glass down on the table.

Addy felt a serious discussion coming on and tensed.
“Ok. Well,” she said before he could speak, “I finished sorting and shelving
the first four boxes of books that arrived this week. I’ll finish the last two
when our meeting is over.”

Book sorting was a task Addy absolutely despised.
Along with the wine, many Akori sent books they collected along their travels
to the estate. Fate recently delegated the responsibility of sorting and
shelving them to her. Some were written in the ancient Akori language which
Addy always had a hard time with. It made shelving them a nightmare because
she’d have to find other books just to translate the names.

“That’s wonderful. We need to—”

“Oh
wait
,” she said, sitting up straight in her
chair. “There was some creepy guy hanging around at the beach today when Kim
and I were out there.”

Her grandfather took a deep breath and seemed to be
thinking. Really, she didn’t think the beach guy was an issue, but used it as
her attempt to derail Fate’s discussion until Stubbs and Bernard got there.

 “He kept looking at us and staring at the estate. Kim
even thinks she saw him taking pictures.” Addy dragged her nails along the
rough surface of the stone tabletop. “Do you think he noticed the estate popped
up overnight and doesn’t really belong here?”

“No, the symbols are working perfectly.” Fate put his
hands up and waved her off. “I’m sure he was just some local man spending the
day at the beach, but I’ll send Gage out to have a look.” He opened his mouth
to say something else but the door opened at the same time.

Bernard and Stubbs came in, her grandfather’s oldest
and closest friends. She was relieved to see them.

“Good evening,” Bernard said, greeting them with a
smile.

She smiled at the men, thankful they were finally
there.

Fate nodded to them. “Any issues with the relocation
so far?”

“No complications yet,” Bernard said. “I made a few
calls to get new identification and plates for the cars. I also spoke with the
West family today as you requested, and they’ll be expecting your visit this
week.”

Addy sat back and watched the men talk. She knew that
like her and Kim, Bernard and Fate became friends when the estate moved near
Bernard’s home when they were boys. They remained friends after Tremain moved
on.

Bernard joined the Marines and ended up with a
high-ranking position at the Department of Defense. When Bernard retired, he
and his wife Doris became permanent residents at Tremain. They were the first
humans who weren’t part of the Sanders family ever permitted to live there.
After living at the estate for 30 years, at seventy-nine, Bernard handled all of
their business with the human world.

Bernard’s voice snapped her back to attention.  

“Did you enjoy the beach, Addy?” he asked, raising his
eyebrows.

“Absolutely, I could stay here forever.” Her words
caused their faces to tense and as soon as Addy said it she wished she could
take it back. “I mean—
well
, you know what I mean.”

There was a good chance they really might be staying
there forever. Only the oldest male in the Sanders family had ever been the
Overseer. That’s the way it’d been since Oren Sanders agreed to become the Overseer.
Unfortunately, Fate’s son was killed and his only child was Addy, a girl.

 “We know what you mean, sugar,” Stubbs said, winking
at her. “In these uncertain times we just have to watch how we say things.”

He’d been unusually quiet up until that point.

Addy wasn’t as close to Stubbs as she was Bernard. He
was an Akori who chose not to use his powers, and instead lived at the estate
for almost forty years helping Fate. Doris, Bernard’s wife, taught things like
English and Math while Stubbs taught Akori related subjects to the kids who
lived at Tremain.

In addition to being a teacher, Stubbs was also a
barber which was how he got his nickname. His snow-white hair, beard, and
mustache were always well groomed. He looked to be about seventy-five in human
years, but Addy had a feeling he’d been around a lot longer than that. Akori
men didn’t age as poorly as human men and for his age, Stubbs was still very
handsome and pretty physically fit.

His two dachshunds, Winkie and Brutis, followed him everywhere
except into the library. When Stubbs was in the library, the dogs were waiting
for him in the dog bed placed outside the door in the hall.

 “How are you feeling tonight, my friend?” Bernard
reached over and patted Fate on the back as he sat down next to him.

Addy remembered the three men being loud and talking
fast when she was younger. They just cut right to the chase, saying whatever
was on their minds. Using the power of the Overseer’s stone over the years made
Fate weak and damaged his heart. Bernard and Stubbs were taking things a little
slower with Fate, which seemed to irritate him intensely.