Natural Selection (8 page)

IT WAS LATE, but I wasn’t tired. I
crawled out my window onto the flat roof. My parents knew I did it,
and so long as I didn’t try jumping off or sneaking out, they
weren’t too concerned. I liked to be out there with nothing between
me and the world. I would watch the cars go by or simply feel the
night wind in my hair while listening to the whisper in the trees.
All in all communing with nature, I guess. My need to be outdoors
made sense now that I knew what I was—even though I didn’t know
what that meant. The frustration of not knowing was starting to
make me feel ill. I was running a low-grade temperature and having
difficulty sitting still. I curled my knees to my chest and laid my
cheek on them, feeling sad and a little depressed.

It'd been four days since the tension
with Evelyn and things still weren’t the same with her. We tried to
ignore what happened, but we both knew the other had a secret, and
neither of us knew how to move past it. I wondered what her secret
could be. Were there really things I couldn’t tell my best friend?
Hell, even if I told her there was no guarantee she'd believe me.
I’m not sure I believed me. I was certain there was more to this
story, so I crawled back into my room.

I knew my mom would be awake. She was
a nurse and had been working a lot of late shifts at the hospital,
so she tended to be awake pretty late. I found her curled up on the
sofa with a book. I couldn’t help but smile when I recognized the
cover of my latest supernatural-related novel by H.P. Mallory—it
was one of my favorites. She tucked it behind her with a guilty
grin as she noticed me.

I looked like a younger version of my
mom. We had the same red-gold hair, though hers had more curl than
mine, and the same grey eyes. I wondered if I would look like her
when I finally matured. It suddenly occurred to me that perhaps the
reason I still looked like a ten year old had something to do with
being Gaia. Maybe we matured more slowly. Xander had said demons
matured faster than humans. It made sense that I could take longer
to mature. I hoped that was it. I really wanted to nail down a
timeline on when I could expect to look more like a woman. I didn’t
want to be at Evelyn’s wedding in a flower girl’s dress.

Mom raised a questioning brow at me,
and I curled up at the other end of the sofa. “Tell me about gaia.”
Thanks to Wikipedia, I knew about the Greek goddess, how she arose
from Chaos, the primordial universe, and is considered the mother
of all the gods. She supposedly created everything without the
“sweet union of love.” Not quite sure why they felt the need to
throw that gem in. I looked up the entry for Mother Nature and got
a blurb about how the early Christians insisted God, not some
mythological woman, created nature but that was about it. The only
other things I could find were on nature spirits like pixies,
dryads, nymphs and sprites.

“
What do you want to know?”
Mom asked, her face guarded.

“
Seriously? How about
everything! All this cryptic crap is frustrating and scaring me. I
won’t tell a soul, not even Xander, if you don’t want me to, but
seriously, Mom, you gotta give me something!”

Mom’s face was hard for a long moment,
but she finally gave a single nod of her head in assent. She took a
deep breath before she began. “Gaia have been around as long as the
earth. When I heard the old stories my grandmother told, I imagined
it like Tolkien’s hobbits, all dirt mound houses and plants
everywhere.” Idly she toyed with the pendant she always wore, a raw
fluorite point with an amethyst flower and peridot butterfly set on
the silver wire wrapping it. “But then the Industrial Revolution
came, and our isolated retreats were no longer safe. Many of our
people lived among the tribes here in the America. As one by one
they fell, we began to live with men in their cities. Soon we found
our place in the modern world.” She reached up and twisted her
hair, her eyes in a place long ago and far away.

“
Male and female Gaia are
very different. We, the women, have all the nurturing gifts of
nature.” My mom pulled the small ivy plant off the coffee table and
held it in her lap. She stared at the plant and it began to grow,
the vines spreading. One of them reached out and wrapped around my
foot, slowly winding up to my ankle. Another one went up and gently
tugged a lock of my hair. To say I was stunned might be the
understatement of a lifetime. I watched as she uncoiled the vines
from me and set the plant on the table, where they still stood up
and formed unnatural shapes, spelling out words and making hearts
and peace signs. Finally, the plant lay normally, though I
suspected it would need to be repotted, as it was now more than
twice its original size.

Tons of questions popped up in my
head, but I decided to let Mom continue before asking them. I
wanted everything she was willing to tell me, and I wanted it now.
Fortunately, Mom turned from the plant back to me and
continued.

“
The men have the more
destructive powers of nature: storms and earthquakes. Each man has
a different strength. Your father’s is weather. Have you ever
noticed our picnics never get rained out?” Mom asked with a smile.
“But for us to use our abilities, we need strength. All
Otherworlders are alike in that. It’s a give and take. Demon’s get
it by feeding off humans. We get it from the Earth herself. When
you’re hurt or weak, you need soil and plants. Trees are the best
since they have lots of strength to draw from without killing them.
When we draw energy, we have to be careful or we could kill what
are drawing from. Even soil can be drained. Legend has it that
Death Valley wasn’t always a desert. Once it was a lush forest of
redwoods until a male Gaia found his village massacred centuries
ago. He was so enraged he drank in all the energy around him to
cast the wrath of the Earth on them, turning the forest into the
desert we know. The earthquakes and volcanic eruptions he brought
against his enemies were so great they still plague the west to
this day.”

I was completely enthralled by her
story—I’d almost forgotten to breathe. I could picture it like a
movie. A male Gaia—who looked a lot like the Jolly Green Giant in
my head—returned to find all his people gone and lashing back in
rage. I wondered if I would have done the same thing, how much
remorse I would have felt. I think if it would have brought my
family back, I’d sacrifice the whole planet. But just for revenge,
I don’t think I could kill even a single plant.

“
There’s something else you
need to know about Gaia, Lia,” Mom said. All smiles and
storytelling were gone from her voice, and I knew this was serious.
“We mature differently than other people.” I knew it! “We stay
childish longer than humans, then we will suddenly transform. I
don’t want to go into it too much tonight, since it’s late. It
rarely happens except in spring and summer when the earth is more
alive, and around the time we turn sixteen, unless something
interferes. So you should be looking for the signs in a few months.
But you have to be careful. Exposure to certain things can bring it
on suddenly, and that can be painful and dangerous.”

“
What kind of things can
bring it on?” I asked, a mix of emotions going through me too fast
to even begin to identify any of them. “And what kinds of signs
should I be looking for? How long before the change will they
start?”

“
The signs you should look
for are unexplained high fevers, strange cravings, and you will
start to notice plants reacting to you, wilting strangely or
suddenly shifting towards you in a room.” I nodded and thought
about the low-grade temperature I was running but dismissed it,
since she said high fevers. Besides, I’d had no weird cravings or
weird plant antics, so nothing to worry about yet. “The signs
generally start to show up a week or two before the change, so you
probably don’t need to worry until school’s out.”

The mention of school brought back the
conversation I overheard, and it suddenly occurred to me what my
parents had been talking about. “You wanted to send me to G-ma’s so
I wouldn’t show up changed overnight, didn’t you?”

“
I thought you had
overheard us. And yes, it gets a little hard to explain. We never
want humans looking too closely at us. You have to be careful, Lia.
There are humans out there who don’t understand us. They fear what
they don’t understand so they do whatever they can to destroy us.
The Salem Witch Trials are just one of many examples of what can
happen when humans get a glimpse of all the things they think
couldn’t be. There are people today, who call themselves hunters,
who do nothing but search for us. They will kill you if they figure
out what you are.”

That put the fear of God into me. I
couldn’t imagine killing anyone because I didn’t understand. Hell,
Nate electrocuted me and… The train of thought derailed as several
of the things I just learned fell into place like puzzle pieces.
Nate said I’d been struck by lightning. Dad could control the
weather. Lightning was part of weather. And he had changed
drastically over the summer—gotten all manly and made me tingle
down to my toes. I knew before I said it, but I wanted my mom to
confirm it. “Nathanial Peplow. He’s a gaia, isn’t he?”

My mother’s mouth tightened, but she
just nodded, giving me a hard look I didn’t understand. “I know
it’s hard, Lia, but you have to try to stay away from him—at least
for right now. He is gaia, and he’s very dangerous for you right
now. You want to stay away from him as long as you can. Someday
it'll make sense, but I won’t talk about it anymore
tonight.”

“
You never explained what
can set my change off sooner than it should be,” I said,
desperately trying to keep her talking so I could learn as much as
possible. Her features softened, and I knew I had successfully
prolonged the conversation.

“
You need to avoid any
areas where a natural cataclysm has happened recently: a hurricane,
a major earthquake, etc. The forces of the earth can waken your
slumbering nature, so be careful.” I gave her a definitive nod,
since I couldn’t imagine it being an issue. The closest I’d ever
been to a natural disaster was the tornadoes that destroyed a huge
chunk of the state the previous summer, but it hadn’t really gotten
close to us. “Just be careful, Lia. It’s a dangerous world for the
humans, and you have so much more to worry about.”

My mom got up and walked to her
bedroom, but I stayed on the couch for a long time lost in thought.
I couldn’t help but remember Nate’s words, “I had no idea you were
so close.” I hadn’t really considered it at the time, but now I
couldn’t help but wonder if he knew something more. I decided to
corner him at the Halloween party tomorrow and find out.

SARIAH CURLED AND sprayed my hair to
perfect soft wisps, applying way too much eye makeup. Once I
slipped on the skimpy costume Evelyn had picked out, I figured
there was no way my parents would let me out of the house. Mom made
the "my-baby’s-growing-up" face and took about a zillion pictures
before telling Sariah to drive safe. I felt betrayed and cursed
myself for being such a good girl. If I’d gotten in trouble once in
a while, I wouldn’t have to show my face—and possibly my arse—in
public. I was wearing garters, petty coats, and stockings, oh
my!

The annual party at the Rec Center was
kind of a big deal. It had to be one of the most redneck ideas this
town had ever had to make that the official name for the YMCA-type
facility, housing the town pool, a gymnasium, a baseball diamond,
and a soccer field. Located on the edge of town, next door to the
high school, it was built on the remaining land donated to the city
long ago. A few years back the town started the Halloween party
hoping to curtail the teenage hijinks that ensued every year. It
was kind of school dance lame but always fun, and I enjoyed it the
last two years—but I’d actually gotten to wear clothes those years.
There were always costume contests, giveaways, games, dancing,
food, and a somewhat cheesy haunted house. I remembered being
terrified when Xander drug me in there the first time. I was beet
red and denied my fear as we came out the other side laughing at
the pathetic scare tactics. We went through three more times that
night.