Seeing with the Shadows

Chapter 22

“Atuck the Seer was Slade and Vanessa’s cousin. When Slade and Vanessa were young and in training, Atuck, a young Vampire herself, though not as young, about 21, could sense an aura of darkness around the two of them, about the way they handled their lives. Rejected by the two main kinds in the world, and they certainly didn’t want to join the Humans. Slade was mentored by a Sorcerer, but Vanessa had no one who would take her, making her even more bitter about life. Her mother finally took her and mentored her, but without the hate of w=Werewolves she had learned, and there was no hate of Sorcerers at the time.

When they came into their late teens, they killed their parents and the first Sorcerer, Slade’s teacher.

Later in their careers, when Atuck was near the end of her life, she planned an attack on them. Followed by Vampires and Werewolves alike, Atuck led them all to the fortress, and, getting in easily, proceeded to try and rid their generation and future generations of Slade, Vanessa, and their followers. They almost won, to Slade and Vanessa’s horror, but when they collected their most prized belongings, including their most devoted followers, they disappeared, literally, off the face of the earth. It is widely believed they stayed a few hundred years on Pluto and then came back to Earth, making an army. Since then any Vampire child suspected of being a Seer has disappeared or died shortly after birth.’” Calista closed the book, “See? But they never found you, Lena... How?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? I was living with my mother, a Human, and since Half Moon didn’t find me until Year Two, middle of it, since I was late in showing being a Vampire, they couldn’t find me as a child! No one could! But how... how am I related? My mother’s full Human… I do have a dad out there somewhere, though... probably... unless he’s dead...” Lena trailed off, after an excited spray words. She had always wondered about her dad, who he was and what he looked like.

At that moment, though, Lena’s phone rang. “It’s me! It’s me!” said a recorded version of her mom. Phelicia flew over to the vibrating purple phone and raised her beak, about to shatter the screen. She obviously thought it was an enemy.

“NO! Don’t do that, Phelicia!” Lena yelled. Phelicia looked up, puzzled, and then flew away, perching on Lena’s bed. Quoim crossed the room and handed Lena the phone. Lena grinned hopefully and slid her finger across the ‘accept’ button. “Hello?” She asked nervously.

“Lena! It’s your mom.” Lena smiled, imagining her mom standing in their kitchen, clutching the phone in that way she did with that red hair of hers trailing down her back.

“Mom, I know who you are!”

“Oh.” she sounded worried.

Oh, yeah, I wonder why she’d be worried! It’s not like you just disappeared in the middle of the school day or anything... “Mom... okay, um... how do I say this...”

“I know, I know.” Her mom said sadly, “I know that you’re part of another world, someone told me when you were about six months old.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, how are you, wherever you are, anyway?”

“Oh... that... well, I’m at a- Vampire school, I’m a Vampire...” Lena said hesitantly.

“Oh, come on Lena! You’ve pulled a better prank on me before! Where are you? We both know who you are!”

“Mom, I am a Vampire!”

“Honey, it’s okay, you can come home if you want to, you don’t have to pretend to be something else that you aren’t!”

Lena started freaking out. Quoim was staring at her, open-mouthed. Calista was trying to tell her something, but obviously didn’t want to be hear, so was using hand symbols and opening and closing her mouth. “Um, Mom, let me have a second, okay?”

Lena pressed the phone’s speaker hard into her leg, then hissed, “What, Calista?”

“Tell her to do something and then you’ll see it for her!”

“And that just makes me look like a wizard, Calista, not a Vampire!” Calista shrugged, giving her a that’s-the-best-I-can-do-got-a-better-idea? look. Lena sighed, and picked the phone up again.

“Mom. Do something, and leave the phone on speaker. I’ll tell you exactly what you’re doing. I have a Power, and it’s being a Seer... I’m the second one ever, but never mind, just do something!”

“Oh, Lena. Fine.” She could hear the hint of amusement on the other end of the line, and stifled the urge to shout. There was a click as her mother pressed the speaker button, and then Lena heard her footsteps fading.

Lena’s head was spinning as she used the most Power in her life to zoom across the country, 3, 000 miles until she found the house. Her mother came into view, and she clicked the play button on a movie, as it slid in, Lena had the time to see the title: Alice in Wonderland. It had been one of her personal favorites as a little kid, not the cartoon version, but the one with ‘real people’, as she used to define it to people very loudly and clearly. Previews were fast-forwarded, and the logos of companies flashed by. Then the ‘off’ button blanked the screen out. Lena’s head started to whirl, and she started to feel like throwing up again. She quickly came back to Half Moon.

“Lena? Lena? Well?” was coming out the phone.

“You sat on the couch, put Alice in Wonderland, the one with real people in, fast-forwarded the previews, and then turned the TV off.”

There was a high intake of breath on the other end of the line which might have been classified as a shriek. “Okay... great, I’ve got to go!” the phone went dead.

“Well, that went well!” Lena managed to say, and then hit the bed, dead tired because of all of the Power she used.

“Leena? Lena? Leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeena?” Calista’s voice faded, and the room collapsed into darkness.

The vision was from someone else’s point of view, she wasn’t sure at first, but then it was clarified: Atuck’s. A crying sound she was moving to. The first Human growing up in her care. Leaving her, uncaring. Unhappiness turning to hatred, bursting, an oath she swore to herself never to trust one again. Slade and Vanessa, so unlike her, so different and cold. Then the killings of their parents, and the first Sorcerer, who had been her friend. Once again, she swore an oath never to trust them, and this time to hunt them down until they could harm no one else. Slade and Vanessa, feared throughout the world, more and more joining their ranks, but more slowly joining hers, too. Plotting the attack on the fortress, mapping it out on paper, walls, the floor, the ground, her mind, and her nervousness becoming greater and greater and time neared closer to the attack. Many Vampires and Werewolves behind her as they swarmed the walls, almost winning, but not. Bitter disappointment, and then the world fading out, forever. The journey to the Death, and finally, the discovery that her own Power, the Seer, had finally been unearthed once again, and the happiness knowing that this could mean the end of Slade and Vanessa forever. The only problem was the father.

Lena blinked her eyes, and looked around. “Who is my father? Who is my father? What’s wrong with him?” She whispered.

“You know how to do it... you know... in your heart... you know... if you truly wish to find out... then you know... already...” said a cool musical voice that Lena knew could only be Atuck’s.

    She did know, Lena realized. It was in her heart. In her Heart, and she could See it through her own body if she wanted to, but she was afraid, again. What if her dad was some mass murderer? Some lord of a distant land who hated her? What if he was a random person who didn’t care a single thing about her because he’d never even known her mom and he just had provided the sperm at a hospital? And what, just what if … what if her father was Slade? She shook off the chilly thought, but then realized it could be true: Slade was Atuck’s cousin. And she had to be related to Atuck by blood.

AUTHORS NOTE: yay chapter done VOT E COMMENT FAN

<3

tova