Light from Darkness

Chapter 9- New and old acquaintances

“So what you’re saying is she can possess birds?” Ella asked with doubt edging her voice.

“No, if you’d listen then you’d know that what I’m saying is she can create swifts and talk through them.”

“It’s true.” The bird chirped on Rowland’s shoulder.

“Why doesn’t she talk normally?” Aran questioned. 

The silvery black bird replied “It’s difficult to speak in that body and remember.” Kara winced at some sort of pain. “It hurts to think and do things, everything’s so piercing and harsh even in the darkness.”

“It sounds like some form of autism.”

“I read a book about a kid who was autistic.” Rowland commented unaware of Ella’s present bitter feelings against her brother as always. She readied a verbal assault about how reading a book is completely different than actually dealing with an autistic person when she looked over at Aran shaking his head. She instead said “I’m sure you can look after her well enough, after all you’re the only one she’ll let touch her.” 

Rowland smiled in appreciation of the compliment and for a fifteen year old Rowland could act quite childishly but this was not one of those times.

“We need to talk about skeleton and something Kara knows.”

“Go on.” Ella authorized.

“Well we have been reluctant to chase Skeleton by using the bone but I think I have to agree with what you were saying before about killing him now. You see Kara apparently had a dream a couple of days ago and in it a girl showed up proclaiming the coming of a war of powers, she called on everyone who was useful to travel to London and join with a woman called Mellissa.”

“You think Skeleton has gone?” Aran asked.

“Kara says the dream touched everyone who has powers so it definitely reached him-” Rowland corrected himself “It.”

“If that’s true why didn’t we get the dream?”

“Kara doesn’t really know the answer to that either and while she had difficulty explaining she says that she could sense what the girl in her dreams was thinking. At one point the girl was going over a list of people who would join the fight and those who were unlikely to. She also sensed that we were on the list of those unlikely to. Somehow the girl knew we were smarter than to get involved with a fight that isn’t ours and she knew that Kara was unstable and could maybe be swayed to join them.”

“But if that’s the case, why did they want to recruit an eight year old girl who can only make birds?”

“Actually yeah, why is that? Unless there’s something you’re not telling us about your power Kara?”

The swifts and Kara creepily turned their heads in synchronicity to look at Rowland and the bird sitting atop Kara’s shoulder was the one to talk this time.