The Secret of Spruce Knoll (5 page)

Chapter 10

A terrible cramping in her stomach awoke Eren and sent her running to the bathroom. But it wasn’t Aunt Sylvia’s awful dinner like she thought, not by a long shot. Apparently, she wasn’t just a year older today, she was a woman. This didn’t thrill or excite her as it had her ex-friends. She was reaching this milestone about three years later than was average. More than that though, she knew this would change and complicate her life in ways she wasn’t ready for. And her mother wasn’t here to share it with her.

The only consolation was that Aiden was away with his adopted father this weekend. Seeing him while dealing with this was not something she wanted to do. Of all days, did she really have to start her period on her sixteenth birthday? Luckily, her aunt seemed prepared for every circumstance and had stocked the bathroom cabinet with what Eren would need.

Prepared, but nonetheless disappointed, she returned to her room to find something to wear. Today was going to be bad enough without Mother Nature interfering. Almost immediately after she turned fifteen Eren and her mom had begun planning a huge bash for her sixteenth birthday. They had gone back and forth over decorations, talked about caterers, and even window shopped for dresses. It brought tears to Eren’s eyes just thinking about it.

An annoyingly loud bird serenaded her as she slipped her shorts on. It sounded like it was right on her windowsill but when she turned to look nothing was there. Curious, she leaned onto the daybed and looked outside. Her eyes were drawn to a tree that stood about ten feet from her window. A robin was perched among the branches, its brown chest rising and falling in time to the tune. It was surrounded by a bluish hallow of light. She blinked several times but the odd colors didn’t disappear. Somehow she knew the colors were energy.

Eren backed away from the window, shaking her head. That was impossible. Not only should she not be able to see that, she could have sworn that her eyes were drawn to it so quickly because she felt the pulse of its energy. That had never happened before. 

She jumped off the bed and stumbled backwards, suddenly dizzy. Her legs gave out and she went to her knees on the hardwood floor. It should have hurt, but it didn’t. It was as though she had fallen onto a cushion of energy that slowed her impact. Her body felt like it was going to vibrate right out of her skin. She fell forward onto her hands and took deep breaths until the world stopped shaking. When it did she heard the rattle of pans and silverware and smelled burning hash browns. Though she couldn’t see her, she could feel Aunt Sylvia—or rather, her energy. Her aunt’s happiness permeated through the floor. 

She hadn’t paid much attention in health class, but Eren was pretty sure these things didn’t accompany a girl’s period. Cramps, uncontrollable emotions, yeah, seeing and feeling the energy of people in another room or animals outside, no. The weird vertigo and crawling sensation under her skin were definitely not normal either.

“Eren?” her aunt said.

It felt like there was a pressure between the two of them and it was building as Aunt Sylvia came closer. Eren heard her footsteps as her aunt swiftly crossed the living room and dashed up the stairs.

No way! Impossible!
her mind screamed.

Maybe she had some strange virus that was making her hallucinate and made her feel like she was going to jump out of her skin. Yeah, that had to be it. Or, she had just been reading that book too much. Those were the only things that made sense. Wouldn’t it be just like her to get her period, and get sick, both on her birthday!

Sylvia flew into the room so fast that the door slammed back against the wall. A wave of energy preceded her, washing over Eren in a scalding rush. It made the pressure between them almost unbearable. Sylvia cursed and suddenly the heat was gone, blown away as though a breeze had whipped through the room, or like Sylvia had pulled the energy back into herself. No, that was crazy thinking. Eren wondered if she was a bit delirious. That would explain a lot.

“Eren honey, tell me about the Sistine Chapel,” Sylvia insisted as she went to her knees beside her.

Eren wasn’t sure she had heard her right. It didn’t make sense. Couldn’t her aunt see that she was sick? What a bizarre thing to ask.

“Come on Eren, it will make you feel better. What are some of the paintings called? Tell me!” she demanded, no longer her gentle, bubbly aunt. Now she was commanding and powerful.

It made Eren think about the paintings. The moment she did the disorienting feeling began to fade. It no longer felt like she was going to explode. When she started thinking about the names of the paintings even her nausea began to go away. She rattled off the names and found she could sit up. Weird.

“That doesn’t make sense. How did that make me feel better?” she asked.

Sylvia took a deep breath and settled into a more comfortable cross legged-position. From the look on her face Eren knew she wasn’t going to like the answer.

“It helped ground you. You’re starting to come into your power,” Sylvia said.

She’d never heard anyone refer to puberty as ‘coming into your power’. Maybe it was some weird ancestral saying. Or maybe her aunt just didn’t know how to phrase it. After all, she didn’t have any children and had never had to have this talk before.

“Because it’s a thought that reminds you of mundane things,” her aunt sighed.

Reluctance wrinkled her brow and her eyes were filled with a grudging acceptance. Eren liked that look about as much as she liked Sylvia’s reasoning. She looked like she was about to tell her that she was dying from an incurable plague.

“Your parents should have been the one’s to tell you this, to help you through it. And I know they wanted to. Things don’t always work out the way people plan them though,” Sylvia said.

There were tears in her eyes now. Her head fell into her hands and she sniffled. Eren reached out tentatively and touched her shoulder. Then she realized she could not only see Aunt Sylvia’s pain, she could feel it. Her hand began to tremble. She was quickly becoming freaked out.

“Tell me Aunt Sylvia,” she said, not liking the way her voice trembled.

“Okay, but this is going to sound crazy, and it’s going to freak you out,” she warned her.

That would be a short trip. She was pretty much already there. Eren did her best to look brave. Maybe this had something to do with her parents’ deaths. What else could have Sylvia so upset and saying such strange things?

“You’re sensing the energy of other people and living things,” Sylvia stopped, looking as though she wasn’t sure how to go on.

How could she know that? Then a simple—completely wrong—explanation occurred to Eren. Sylvia must have this cold or virus already and knew its symptoms. Eren nodded.

“Your parents took you from Spruce Knoll so you could be raised among normal people. It was the only time in your life that you’d have a chance to really be a part of their world, to feel like you belonged in it. They wanted you to experience that,” Sylvia paused again.

Eren dropped her hand from her aunt’s shoulder and sat back. The bizarre twist this conversation had taken was making her uncomfortable. As much as she wanted to believe Sylvia was joking, she looked completely serious. The tears and anxiety on her face were definitely real. Sylvia clearly believed what she was saying.

“When our kind reach puberty, they come into their power. Being around so many of your own kind probably sped up the process. Once we’re able to feel the energy, we can never truly belong in the civilized world again,” Sylvia said.

Eren was afraid she really didn’t want to know, but she had to ask. “What do you mean, ‘our kind’?”

Taking a deep breath, Sylvia swallowed hard, and fixed Eren with an intense gaze. She’d never seen her look so serious, it was frightening.

“Channelers, though others would call us witches or sorcerers,” she said.

Eren just stared at her, wondering if she’d heard her wrong. Yes, she must have. Or, maybe this was a joke meant to cheer her up on her birthday. If so, it wasn’t funny and she wasn’t in the mood. It was better than the alternative though, so she decided to try and play along.

“I’m sorry, what?” Eren asked. The beginning of smile worked at the corners of her mouth. Maybe this was a joke about the book.

“It isn’t a joke Eren. You’re parents were both channelers and so are you. Everyone in this town is.”

She was absolutely serious, to the point of being scary.

Eren’s smile died on her lips. Her aunt believed the book was real, which made her insane, there was no other explanation. Eren flew to her feet so fast that she staggered and immediately became dizzy again. This couldn’t be happening, not after everything else she had been through in the last eight months. How could her aunt seem perfectly sane for weeks and then all of a sudden flip out like this?

“We’re witches, like spellcasting and all that?” she asked.

Aunt Sylvia shook her head. “No, nothing like that. What we do is very different from what the fairy tales say. We’re not witches,” she said.

Eren’s heart drummed in her chest as if it were trying to keep beat to a heavy metal song and her blood burned through her veins like hot oil. The vibrating feeling returned with such force that her vision blurred. She didn’t want to hear any more. She had to get out of here, had to clear her thoughts.

Darting around her startled aunt, she shot out the door and down the stairs. There would be no catching her, she was like the wind and she knew it.

“Eren wait!” Sylvia cried.

Before her aunt could say another word, she was out the front door and running down the driveway. Gravel flew as her bare feet ate up the road. She didn’t feel the painful bite of the rough terrain as she should have and that realization scared her and fueled her speed. The tall evergreens whipped by, leaving her head filled with their overwhelming scent. Everything was too loud and smelled too strong, it pushed her even faster.

In what felt like a few heartbeats she was already to the pavement. Without hesitating she turned west, away from town, and kept running. Minutes later, she was past the bridge. Though her heart continued its furious rhythm and her pace was blindingly fast, she wasn’t even becoming winded. The world shook and it felt like she was going to explode.

Off in the distance she heard a car approaching. Pace never slowing, she dove into the forest on the south side of the road. Soon the underbrush and aspen trees swallowed her up and the road disappeared. The vibrating became so bad that she slowed and eventually stumbled to her knees. Ferns and moss softened the landing. There was something inside her that wanted out. The horrible feeling that she was going to explode gripped her again.

Suddenly blue energy started to leak from every exposed bit of skin she could see. She screamed in wordless denial and rage. Rational thought was beginning to slip away. Even her fear was fading. A moment later all she could think of was how great the dirt and greenery beneath her feet smelled, how wonderful it had felt to run across it. The blue energy was seeping into the Earth like a falling mist.

“No! This is not happening!” she screamed.

The noise drove a flock of black birds from the trees above her. Their wings were like thunder and their passage through the leafy canopy sounded like the applause at a Friday night football game. She knew the heightened sounds meant she was undergoing some kind of stress reaction but she couldn’t stop it. Tears dripped from her chin to land on the back of her freakishly blue hands.

Then she remembered something her aunt had said. Mundane thoughts had made her feel better, it had pushed back the—she could hardly think the word—power. Her mind struggled to picture the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. At first she had trouble even remembering what a chapel was, then very slowly it started to form in her mind. She pictured the architecture first, which made her think of Aiden. With a desperate determination, she forced her mind to see the ceiling, then at last, the details of the painting.

The energy covering her hands disappeared, taking the disconcerting vibrations with it. Eventually her heart slowed and the dizziness passed. A breeze blew through the trees, lifting her hair and cooling her sweating skin. She could feel the life energy of countless tiny birds, squirrels, and rabbits. Then she realized she could easily discern which energy belonged to a feathered creature, and which belonged to a furred one, even though she couldn’t see them. Being able to sense such things made her feel like some kind of freak or monster. Using the word channeler instead of witch didn’t make her feel any better about it.

Eren leaned back against a tree, pulled her knees to her chest, and tucked her head between them. Sobs shook her body as she wept for the world she’d lost.

Chapter 11

She felt them coming for her like different pressure spots approaching through the forest, but she didn’t move. What would be the point? Sanity and logic had fled her world and there was nowhere else to run. Reality had been stripped away and she was left wrapped in nightmares. She was a freak. What did it matter if the other freaks found her? It was selfish thinking, she knew. But, she wanted to wallow in her selfishness for just a little bit longer.

There were several sets of footsteps. Her aunt must have brought help. A part of Eren knew she should feel bad but she just couldn’t bring herself to. She wanted to sit here and pretend her world hadn’t gone completely mad. When they found her she would have to face reality. That thought made her laugh. The laughter gave way to hysterics which soon gave way to more tears. Slowly, the selfishness was turned into remorse.

One spot of pressure drew closer, heading straight for her. Sniffling, she swallowed the lump in her throat and tried in vain to wipe her tears away. The footsteps stopped directly in front of her. Brushing the dark curtain of her long hair aside, she looked up.

A man who looked to be in his early fifties stood over her. He had a full head of salt and pepper hair, kind brown eyes, and darkly tanned skin. No, not tanned, Eren realized. He was Maya, and he looked remarkably similar to her mother.

“Eren, please come home,” he said as he extended a hand to her.

Hope and disbelief battled within her.

“Grandfather?” she asked.

The title caused a look of pain to flash across the man’s features. His hand trembled before her. Joy lit his eyes as he smiled and nodded.

A staggering relief bubbled through Eren. She launched to her feet and straight into his arms. False hope held no hooks in her heart, though. As much as she wanted to hear it, she knew he wasn’t going to tell her it had all been a mistake or a joke. The blue energy that had leaked out of her and threatened to make her explode had not been a hallucination.

It was not illusions of an old reality that made her cling to her grandfather as he scooped her into his arms. Nor was it hopes that he would contradict her aunt’s story. It was joy and desperation wrought from the knowledge that she had a grandfather. With him and Aunt Sylvia she now had a family again. However strange or supernatural they may be, they were hers. That thought scared her as much as it comforted her.

***

The cup of hot chocolate was warm and comforting in Eren’s hands, but she had yet to take a drink. After the worry she had caused she wasn’t about to be rude by telling Sylvia she’d prefer coffee. She sat with Sylvia, and her grandfather, at the dining room table, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Sylvia had been apologizing for the last fifteen minutes. At first Eren had tried to stop her, insisting that she was the one who should be sorry. But then she’d realized she would just have to let her aunt get it all out.

Finally, when she started babbling, Eren reached over and put her hand atop Sylvia’s, stopping the flow of words. Though she wanted to run screaming from the room, Eren managed a gentle smile.

“There’s no way you could have said it that wouldn’t have freaked me out. Stop blaming yourself,” she told her.

When she began to protest Eren squeezed her hand and shook her head. Sylvia closed her mouth and smiled. Eren’s grandfather—Zolin, he had said his name was—reached out and put his hand atop both of theirs. They were so caring and concerned that it made it hard to be cold to them.

“You must have questions,” he said. His voice was deep and rich, thick with an accent that wasn’t quite Spanish, but was similar.

That accent made Eren wonder what his age really was, it sounded very old world. Her first impression had been that he was in his early fifties. But now that she got a closer look at him he looked far too vital and fit to be that old. Not that she thought people in their fifties were broken down and decrepit, that wasn’t it at all. The color of her grandfather’s skin was too even, its texture too smooth and healthy looking. He had crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes and laugh-lines around his mouth, but that was it. His shoulders didn’t hunch even the slightest bit and his joints didn’t have that too-tight look.

Now that she really looked, she thought he appeared to be in his early forties. This would make sense considering her aunt looked to be in her early twenties. The problem was there was something deep in both of their eyes that looked much older than either of them could possibly be. It was hard to identify, something Eren felt more than saw.

“Actually, I do,” Eren said after a moment.

There were so many questions to ask that she had no idea where to begin. All the books she’d read and all the movies she’d seen sprang to mind and only muddled things. Well, almost all the books. Every myth and legend she’d ever heard on the subject brought up a new question or a new fear.

“That book wasn’t fiction was it?”

Her grandfather looked confused but Aunt Sylvia dropped her head and hid behind her short hair, which only partially obscured the look of guilt on her face.

“No it isn’t. I was afraid you might have found it. I wanted to tell you before you read that, so I wouldn’t sound like a crazy woman,” she said.

Everything sounded crazy to Eren right now but she didn’t want to make matters worse by saying that aloud. 

“Which book?” Zolin asked.

“Life In A Society,” Sylvia said as she lifted her head. She still wouldn’t meet Eren’s gaze though.

Grandfather smiled and nodded.

To distract herself from the anger that was starting to rise within, Eren asked, “How much can we control the energy?”

Her grandfather looked impressed, as though he hadn’t expected her to ask something like that. She might feel proud if she wasn’t so freaked out.

“Completely, eventually. But such control must be learned, we’ll help teach you,” he said.

She felt her brow crease as her stomach clenched into knots. Though that certainly sounded better than the often dangerous way movies portrayed magic, it still wasn’t encouraging. Since she didn’t know how to control it, did that mean she might feel the need to explode at any time? She was too afraid to find out the answer to that, so she asked a different question instead.

“What happens when I release it?”

Sylvia and Zolin exchanged a look.

“That depends on what kind of channeler you are and how powerful you are,” Aunt Sylvia said.

“What kind?”

She recalled the book saying something about two kinds of channelers, but she hadn’t got to a part where it said what that meant.

The hard look Eren gave her must have been too much because her aunt looked down at her hot chocolate. Grandfather met her gaze and held it though. The gentleness was gone from his eyes and he suddenly looked all business.

“The more powerful channelers can hurt or heal people with their energy. You may be able to push or move things or people, how hard depends on how powerful you are. Rector channelers can even command and use the energy of other channelers and creatures. We are strongest during the full moon because it and all the celestial bodies affect our power just as they affect the Earth,” Zolin explained.

“Dad, not too much at once,” Sylvia protested.

Eren was stuck on the first part of what he’d said. “Hurt and heal people?” she asked.

Aunt Sylvia shook her head. “Not both, dear, one or the other. We are either warriors or healers. Which one will reveal itself when you let the energy out,” she said. 

Eren’s eyes dropped to her hot chocolate. She swirled the melted marshmallow around with her finger. “Am I even human?” she whispered.

Aunt Sylvia’s hand gripped her arm tight. “Of course. We are just tapped into the Earth’s energy and are in tune with it more than most. If anything that makes us more human, not less,” she said.

Eren wanted to be comforted by that but she wasn’t. She looked up at her aunt. Part of her wished her parents had told her the truth a long time ago. Another part of her understood why they hadn’t and was grateful that she had the chance to feel normal at least for a little while.

Sylvia must have read the look on her face because she shook her head and said, “no honey, there are no silly questions. Please don’t feel bad for asking.”

“Don’t worry. You will be able to control it completely some day,” her grandfather said.

Finally, something encouraging. That made it sound a bit less like she was going to be a freak who couldn’t even function. In fact, that almost made it sound kind of cool. Except that the moon was bound to be full soon and he had said their power was the strongest then. She had to learn to control it, fast.

“How do I control it?” she asked so fast she almost tripped over the words.

“You’ve already started to learn. Mundane thoughts help,” Sylvia said.

“Yes, I heard you did a remarkable job, better even than some who’ve had months to work on it,” her grandfather said with a raise of one eyebrow.

Maybe there was hope that she could remain normal a bit longer. Or at least, pretend she was. She’d lost so much. Did she really have to lose that too? As Aiden had said, ‘you can’t really lose something you never had’. Sure, he’d been talking about something else, but it still applied.

“If we’re human then can anyone be a channeler?” she asked.

Aunt Sylvia and her grandfather exchanged an amused look. So much for no silly questions. They probably thought she was just a naïve girl who had seen one too many movies.

“Yes and no. The potential is there but their minds have been closed off for so long the possibility is almost non-existent for them. Our family has been channelers for as far back as anyone can remember. We nurture the power and learn to control it. We’ve never forgotten and shut it off like most people have,” Zolin explained.

That was
so
not comforting. She wanted to shut it off and forget.

“You said some of us are warriors. Do we kill people?” She practically had to choke out the word ‘kill’.

Just thinking about it raised such an intense fear within her that she felt dizzy again. Since the dizziness was usually followed by the weird vibrating feeling that had something to do with the energy, she fought to control her fear. Was it possible the thought on killing triggered it? That idea made her nauseous for an entirely different reason. Turning into a freak she could handle, turning into a killer she could not.

“No! We can, but we don’t. We’re no more killers than regular people,” her grandfather insisted. He looked like he wanted to say something more but wasn’t sure if he should.

So if the idea of killing hadn’t caused the feeling, what had? Then it hit her. Anxiety brought it on. Great, that was almost worse. No wonder it happened with puberty. She thought that if she could control the energy maybe she could deal with this. That thought helped to calm her a little.

Eren soaked it all in and tried to think of her next question, but there was just too much cluttering her mind. Obviously they weren’t immortal or her parents wouldn’t be dead. Staring off into the kitchen at nothing, she drank her hot chocolate and tried to think. A deep weariness was settling over her and scattering her thoughts even worse.

“Is it just our family or are there more?” she finally asked.

“It’s the entire town dear,” her grandfather said.

Her eyes widened and her face flushed as her blood began to race.

The entire town? No way!
She just couldn’t wrap her mind around it. Earlier, when all this had started, Aunt Sylvia had tried to tell her that but she’d blocked it out. Hearing it again made it terribly real. It would explain the whole territorial thing, according to the book at least.

“Every last person. Though the Irish call themselves druids,” Aunt Sylvia said.

Eren wasn’t sure if she should feel comforted by that or intimidated. It did kind of help to know that Aiden was one too. At least this way there was a good chance he wouldn’t run screaming from her.

Sylvia took the mug from her and told her, “You should get some sleep. You look exhausted.”

That was exactly how Eren felt. Going to bed sounded like a very good idea. She was until she stood up and the world swayed. Zolin was at her side in a second, an arm around her waist to support her.

With ease, her grandfather more than half-carried her up the stairs and placed her into the queen sized bed. It shouldn’t have been as easy as he made it look. Eren was slender to be sure, but she had a solid, athletic body that tipped the scale over one-twenty. How old was he really? Those questions faded away as he bid her good night and promised to talk more in the morning. 

As soon as he eased the door closed Eren remembered something, the gift from her mother.

Oh God, where did I put it?

Strength returned to her in a rush and she sprung from the bed and ran to the closet. Throwing things everywhere, she dug through her backpack. It wasn’t in there. Close to hyperventilating, she sat still and took a few deep breaths. Her jacket, the one she hadn’t touched since she’d arrived here! Springing up, she grabbed it off a hanger and pulled it back to the floor with her. There it was, right where she’d left it in the pocket. Her hands shook as she retrieved the tiny box wrapped in pink and gold paper.

After a deep breath she tore the box open. Inside was a milky white round pendant in a silver setting. The closet was dark so she popped back up to turn the light on. It was a moonstone. Eren knew because her mother had a necklace similar to it, only her mother’s was in the shape of a crescent moon. A few tries later, her shaking fingers drew it out of the box. The chain of silver and white beads was long enough she was able to slip it over her head and it hung down past her bra line.

Sobs seized her again as she realized her mother was probably going to tell her their family secret when she gave her this necklace. Now she’d never be able to talk to her about it.