Silent Orchids (The Age of Alandria: Book One) (11 page)

Then there was Finn, pretty much always in black; black shirt, black jeans, black jacket, and when he didn’t wear black he at least wore something dark, but Kaeleigh had to admit it worked for him. They harassed him but concluded that he would get lost in their craziness if he wore anything else. He would reply by saying that he just did it to give them the background to stand out—as if they needed any extra help in that arena.

“Good morning! Sorry I’m late,” Chel said as she scooted Finn over to sit next to him on the bench.

“Hey! Why don’t you go sit by Kaeleigh?” Finn grumbled at Chel.

“Because look at us! We totally clash. Don’t you want to sit by me?” She batted her eyes in a falsely flirtatious way at him. He just grunted and scooted over to give himself as much room as he could. Chel laughed and looked at Kaeleigh curiously. “So... spill.”

She cocked her head and looked at Kaeleigh curiously, then leaned in to get a closer look at Kaeleigh’s face when Chel’s eyes got big. “Whoa! Your eyes were just super vivid green then faded back to normal... must have been the sun reflecting in them, or I’m seeing things. Strange.” She kept staring at Kaeleigh.

“Quit staring at me! You are weirding me out. It must have been the sun or your imagination,” she replied self-consciously. Then she remembered Chel’s perceptive question. “Spill what?” Kaeleigh asked a bit nervously. Chel had a way of always knowing when she needed to talk.

“You look like you’ve got something to say. You’re making me feel all anxious and on edge. I already chewed off all my finger nails waiting to yell ‘surprise’ for you last night.”

“Okay, well… Yesterday at Antonia’s this guy came in—a really hot guy I might add—and asked for me specifically... by name! He said something weird about watching me and how I was unaware of who
I
 was. Then while I was trying to figure out what he was talking about, he got up and left. Just like that—he was out the door. How weird is that? He must have been confused... or got the wrong Kaeleigh... or I don’t know. What do you guys think?” Kaeleigh knew she was rambling, but she was nervous for some reason. She watched both their responses. 

“That
is
really weird, but I don’t think it’s anything to get worked up over,” Chel replied first—too nonchalantly for Chel—then leaned forward with her elbows on the table. “So this guy was really hot, huh?” She winked at Kaeleigh, obviously trying to change the subject.

Finn’s turn. Kaeleigh simply raised a questioning eyebrow at him. “It was probably a mistake, but keep an eye out just in case he comes back.” Finn sounded distracted yet concerned.

“That’s not the only thing that I haven’t told you guys,” Kaeleigh said, wringing her hands, suddenly scared to share one of her longest-held secrets. 

“What else happened?” Finn questioned, now with an edge in his tone. Kaeleigh looked at him sharply. What was up with his responses lately? It was like she didn’t even know him these days.

“Okay, okay. So this is all going to sound silly”—
might as well rip the Band-Aid off, right?
—“but I’ve been having these weird um... flashes... of places and things I’ve never seen before but they seem so real. I can’t figure out what they are trying to tell me and I can’t always remember them. They aren’t dreams, that much I’m sure. Sometimes they happen in the middle of the day.” Kaeleigh started biting her nails, anticipating their reactions.

“Wait, you’ve had more of these dreams slash flashes? And this is the first time you’ve said anything?” Finn almost angrily interrupted her.

“Yes, I’ve had them since I was little actually. Why would I tell you when it just makes me sound crazy? I knew well enough back then not to draw attention that way—I would have ended up in the psych ward on more than one occasion. I learned to live with them. It’s not like they mean anything; at least, I didn’t think they did, but I’m not sure now—they’re getting stronger. Why else am I telling you now?” Kaeleigh started thinking out loud to herself before she realized they were both staring at her, waiting for her to finish.

Finn looked pale.
Seriously, what is going on with him?
 

“Well, what are these ‘flashes’ about?” asked Chel, obviously trying to remain calm as her eyes shifted back and forth between Kaeleigh and Finn.

“Once, I saw images of a wedding in a forest with a crowd of people and creatures I didn’t know or had never seen before. This last one, there was some kind of battle.” Kaeleigh looked over at Finn, silently asking if she could tell Chel about last night, but before she could even say anything, he looked at her and nodded as if he knew what she was going to ask. 

“I already told Finn about it because he had some kind of premonition or something that I was in trouble and came over to check on me. Or maybe I screamed and he heard me, but whatever,” she said with an embarrassed shrug. “Apparently, my flash had me in some kind of comatose state that he had a hard time waking me out of. I was pretty shaken up so he stayed the night.” Kaeleigh quickly glanced at Chel from under her lashes to see how she was going to react to that last part.

“Wow, that’s intense. I’d have hit him if he had left you like that. Wait!... Oh man, that means you guys had a slumber party without me. Sad,” she said with a pouty face. “It’s okay, I had a slumber party of my own, if you know what I mean,” she unabashedly said as she winked at Kaeleigh AGAIN. Kaeleigh blushed, which she was sure was Chel’s intent, and hit her hand against her forehead. Only Chel would change the subject like that. Kaeleigh just shook her head.

“What’s with all the winking today, or does your eye just have a twitch going on?” Kaeleigh bit out, slightly irritated as she exaggerated a wink back at her.

“If he comes back, let me know RIGHT AWAY, and for god’s sake stop dreaming or flashing—or whatever it is!” Finn got up and stormed out of The Station. Chel and Kaeleigh both looked at each other, dumbfounded.
Again with the walking away?

“What the F was that about? What is going on with him?” Kaeleigh asked Chel, but didn’t expect her to have an answer.  

Chel stared out the window for a minute, deep in thought, then shrugged and kept drinking her coffee. “He’s just moody, maybe it’s his time of the month,” she said, laughing into her cup. “And did you just say ‘what the F’?” Chel laughed out. 

“What can I say, I didn’t want to dirty the loveliness of this space.” She shrugged.

“Well then, I guess you better stop flashing too,” Chel laughed out again, causing Kaeleigh to laugh too which was of course her point. Taking a deep breath and a more serious tone she added, “He is right, though, you should let us know if he comes back.” Chel paused with a vacant expression on her face then snapped out of it, adding, “Well, at least me because I want a good look at him.” She purposefully winked yet again.

Ugh! She really shouldn’t be allowed to have her own ‘slumber parties’—she’s much too chipper
.

Chel, suddenly serious, asked, “Do you think the flashes really might mean something, or maybe they are some kind of self-imposed coping mechanism that your imagination created to deal with stress?” Chel vacantly stared into space then shrugged, offering a sly smirk.

“Wow. Well,
doctor
, I hadn’t even thought of that until you so subtly pointed it out,” Kaeleigh said sarcastically, yet sobered at the thought of its possibilities. 

“Please keep us posted if you have more. Don’t shut us out, okay, Kaeleigh?” Chel said softly, pleading with her eyes. Kaeleigh nodded. 

“I mean it’s not like you can just ‘stop flashing.’ What’s the matter with him?” Chel said with a smirk, trying not to laugh while she gathered her things to leave. “You know, it must have been the sun shining on your face. Your eyes seem their normal green now.” Shrugging it off, she added, “Hey, don’t you have to get to work?”

“Yep, sure do. Big second week on the job!” Kaeleigh fist pumped sarcastically, gave Chel an exaggerated wink, then took off for Antonia’s.

Chapter Twelve

Daegan was sitting high up in an oak tree—though to his knowledge not one of the NaNai. There were very few of them in the mortal realm, but they did exist and contained some of the old magic. An Elder had the ability to draw from that magic, from that energy if it was needed.

Daegan was frustratingly trying once again to communicate with The Orchids, whoever they were. He was about to give up when there was a flash of white light that threatened to blind him, bringing before him the bedtime stories—the legends—his grandmother used to tell him when he was very young. Stories of another realm filled with beauty and ancient magic ruled by the Council of the Kings. Her stories were of course filled with intrigue and good versus evil and dark versus light. Races of magical beings he had only thought to dwell in myth lived freely, until the darkness destroyed everything. 

With the Council of the Kings eliminated, a group of beings comprised of all the races banded together to do what they could to save the realm. They united their individual magic along with the magic of the realm—magic the likes of which no one had seen before or since. Releasing the ancient magic to the extent they did required sacrifice, but death did not come to them all. No, the magic had had a mind of its own, the results of which still had yet to be seen. An escape portal to an unseen realm opened. As many went through as possible, but a small group took their stand, pouring everything they had into the portal to keep it open. They tried to send all the life and earth magic that they could through the opening to start again. The Elves of the forest took with them saplings from their great NaNai in order to preserve the ancient magic, but something went very wrong. The opening threatened to collapse as the darkness searched for a weakness within their protective shield. Those keeping the portal open were failing in life and magic. They knew what they had to do. The sacrifice made. The opening closed, but not before a shower of orchids fell from the sky, slipping through. The darkness had been contained... for now.
 

Daegan jerked out of his flash, gripping the tree he was sitting in so that he wouldn’t fall to the ground. Breathless, he looked around, making sure nothing had slipped past his defenses for however long he was trapped in memory not his own. He had had flashes before, but never quite like that. Looking at the tree he sat in, he wondered if perhaps it was one of the NaNai after all. The ancient oaks were harder to distinguish in the mortal realm. He knew now that his flashes real. Somehow, the spirits of The Orchids were alive and they were trying to speak to him. Why he didn’t know.

✾✾✾

He jumped out of the tree and leaned against his well-kept black Ford Bronco. In the parking lot of Antonia’s, where the girl, the Sol-lumieth, worked, he thought of how easy it had actually been to find her.

The gateway from Alandria into the mortal realm opened into the mountains of Montana. He had been on scouting missions into the mortal realm on several occasions, and part of blending in was learning how to adapt with twenty-first-century mortals. Daegan spent time educating himself on their history, their technologies, their behaviors, and their customs. Looking at his truck that was kept at the Faerie safehouse in the mountains for this very purpose, he definitely appreciated this particular modern form of transportation, although he could never replace the power and the feel of true horsepower. 

Hours after entering the snowy forested mountain and trying to make contact with The Orchids, he was greeted by a wisp. They were rare, especially here in this realm, but magic did exist here, mainly in concentrated areas throughout this world hidden usually in plain sight as the mortals refused to see it, to believe in it. In the form of a glowing ball of blue light, the wisp stopped right in front of him. Playing images like a movie before him, the wisp showed him what he needed to see. It showed him a map of Montana (which coincidentally he was already in) highlighting Highway 93 from Whitefish ending in Missoula. Suddenly, the image changed to one of three friends—two females and one male—in a café. Two of them had magical energies pulsing from them signifying
other
, although purposefully suppressed by a glamour. But the other girl offered no energy of any kind, which was odd. Even humans gave off subtle vibrations of life energy. The scene transitioned to the one girl—the one offering no energy—walking into a restaurant called Antonia’s. With that, the wisp vanished, leaving Daegan to find his way and the Sol-lumieth.

The closer he had gotten, the more he could feel his energy being pulled by the girl’s two companions. After that, it was quite simple to locate her. He had followed her, watched her, learned her name—
Kaeleigh
. Daegan couldn’t understand this girl and why she had been chosen. She was nothing like what he expected. What could
she
possibly do to alter the state of his realm? There was a mystery to her; that he couldn’t even pick up base-level energy from her was extremely unusual.

Why can’t I read her? Is she hiding something? Or is something hiding her? 

✾✾✾

Leaning against the tree at the edge of the parking lot in front of Antonia’s restaurant, he waited for her. The truck was not the only thing he had picked up to blend in; he also used glamour—an elemental magic that most Faeries and Elves alike learned how to use—to hide his true appearance. Not a lot changed, but he did change his hair; not that he really needed to in this century, but he could so he did, from blackish-blue to simply black, and also shorter, especially on the sides. Being a Faerie, his ears weren’t as pointed as the Elves, but what little point he did have rounded out. Clothing became more modern, with T-shirts and jeans that were not as flexible and comfortable as the soft materials he was used to that allowed for hunting and riding. Nevertheless, he liked the clothes, even though he couldn’t care less if he actually fit in; he just needed to not stand out.