Isolation Page 2

  I headed for the back of the room and checked the cupboards for provisions. Imagine my surprise when I found them stuffed full of all sorts of food. Even a small fridge was hidden behind one of the cupboard doors stocked with fresh meats, milk, and many odds and ends!

  “What the hell? Apparently this place is not abandoned.”

  The fact that the place appeared very clean when I arrived hadn't fully registered, although the lack of dust or musty smell should have been my first clue. Now to find fresh food in the fridge and cupboards, I knew someone had been here recently. Maybe my mother?

  At my outburst, he opened one eye and raised his brows at me. "This is ridiculous," I chastised myself. "I'm talking to a cat. And the sad thing is, if I didn’t know better, I'd say that said cat has at least some of the answers I need. I just don't know how to get them out of him!" He made a chuffing sound and jumped off the chair, headed straight for me.

  “Whoa, buddy! Back on up... I didn't mean to offend you!" Slightly panicked that my original assessment had been wrong, and he had decided to eat me after all, I scrambled to the opposite side of the small table, tripping over and knocking down a chair in my haste. He sat back on his haunches, looking as amused as a cat could get. Even though I couldn't hear it, I'd swear he was laughing at me.

  I sat on the floor, being silently ridiculed by a damn cat. What on Earth had my life come to? From my vantage point on the floor, we were practically eye to eye, just a few feet apart.

  Both of us sat absolutely still, neither moving a muscle. As he stared at me, I got the inkling he was trying to convey a message. I could almost hear it in my head but couldn't quite wrap my brain around it. After sitting on the floor long enough to start getting sore, I slowly backed up, using my legs to scoot across the ground and leaned against the cabinets behind me.

  “Okay, I need food. I'm going to get up, and you are going to stay there, agreed?” He looked at me and nodded once. “Just to clarify, you aren't going to eat me, right?” If a cat could look exasperated, he did. Then he shook his head side to side, and I pulled myself up off the floor.

  “Look. I'm sorry if I offended you.” I hoped we'd be able to work out a better method of communication. “I'm new at this. Very new. I'll take all the help I can get. Is there a way for us to communicate in more than a one-sided conversation?”

  He nodded, then slowly raised a massive paw as if he was reaching out to me. For a second, I just stared at him. Slowly, I extended my hand, palm toward him. As soon as we made contact, some kind of natural instinct took over. I closed my eyes, and in my mind, I saw a beautiful teal “thread.” I knew instinctively it represented me.

  Expanding my awareness, I managed to locate the thread that belonged to him. His shimmered a gorgeous golden yellow, and I reached out, attempting to touch it. Of course, being as it was an intangible thing, I couldn't. Guided entirely by my instincts, I reached out mentally.

  With my mind, I took both threads and wound them together. Hoping that my efforts were creating the right thing, I let my mind weave and tie, forming a two-strand braid of sorts. As they tied off at the end, there was an inaudible popping sound, and I opened my eyes to see him staring at me.

  “Hello, Everleigh. I am Xavier. I am a friend of your mother. I am here to guide you, help you discover what you need to know, and keep you safe.” His mouth never moved, and his deep voice seemed to come from within my head.

  I jumped a little, startled. “Uh, hello?” I surreptitiously glanced around the room, half expecting to see someone else had arrived. We were still the only two there, though.

  “That was impressive. I've never seen someone create a bond so quickly.” His voice in my head was smooth and sure.

  “Is that what I did? Is that why I can hear you now, when I couldn't before? And how do you know my name? Do you live here?” Surprised by his statement, I couldn't quite grasp what exactly I had done, but curiosity about the current situation outweighed everything else for the moment.

  “Yes, and yes. I know your name because your mother has been awaiting your arrival since the moment you left her. And yes, I live here now.”

  Unable to let him get any other words out, questions burst forth. “My mother? You know my mother? Where is she? Does she know I am here then?” As I paused long enough to take a breath, I heard his chuckle in my head.

  “Slow down, child. I will answer your questions as best I can. She is taking care of other business at the moment but will return soon. She prepared me for your arrival in case she was gone when you got here.”

  “Do you know what I am? I know I'm different. I've known it since I was just a little girl. I keep it hidden, but there are times when it’s damn near impossible to control. I've done my best to keep it pushed down inside me and out of sight.”

  “You are Everleigh. Daughter of Amara. And you are mostly human. A very special, magical, one, but still human. There will be many things you will learn about yourself on this journey, and I will help you in any way I can. There will be some questions I am unable to answer for you, as that right belongs to another. There will be many more that I don't even have the answer to. But, together, we will gather as much knowledge as we can.”

  Amara. My mother's name was Amara. But what about my father? Before I could even voice the question, Xavier continued.

  “I do not possess any knowledge of your father. Amara kept that information exclusively to herself. I have a few suspicions, but I will not disseminate guesses. Only information that I know to be fact will I share with you. Whoever he was, or is, I have no doubt he is very, very powerful, and you have received much of that.”

  Dumbfounded, all I could do was stare at him. Me, powerful? Seriously? All of my little parlor tricks, as I sometimes referred to them, were actually tiny pieces of a much bigger picture. Still, though, I had so many questions.

  My mother. I craved knowledge of her. What was she? Where did her -our- power come from? What did she look like; did she look like me? Maybe we had the same color hair and eyes, or were we the same height? How old was she? I needed a picture. I wanted to see her. I asked him if there was a photo available of her. Of course, there wasn't, because that would have been too easy.

  “However, if you are up for an experiment, I could try to show you a vision of her from my memories. I do not know if it will work, but seeing as how we have no idea what you are capable of, it won't hurt anything to give it a try, right?”

  Of course, I wanted to try it. Duh. He may as well have offered me the moon. After a short debate about the best way to go about it, we decided to try connecting the same way we did earlier and go from there.

  We settled comfortably on the living room floor, facing each other. I waited, maybe not so patiently, for his instructions.

  “Okay. In this case, I am going to project the image I want you to see. You focus on whatever you did to make the connection last time while being receptive to whatever I am trying to send you.”

  I placed both hands on his shoulders and closed my eyes again. I could see both our threads intertwined tightly. I focused on bringing them even closer together, weaving an intricate pattern, and tying knots at regular intervals. The more I focused on strengthening our thread, the more I could feel his essence. Before long I could see a hazy image forming in my mind.

  An opaque form shimmered into view, almost ghostly in its appearance. Color and contrast began to bleed its way in, and suddenly it looked almost as if she stood in front of me. Tall and lithe, she had black hair cascading over her shoulders in waves. The greenest almond eyes I had ever seen, practically matching my own, stared back at me. Our eyes were the only feature that truly “matched,” but we shared a number of similar features and you could see the relation.

  My heart seemed to beat irregularly, and I yearned to stretch out my hand and touch her. I could have stared at her forever, but Xavier pulled away gently and broke contact. I hadn't realized until that moment that tears had coursed down my face. My mothe
r. My mom. The woman who had birthed me and given me life. She still lived, still existed out there, and I would be able to see her.

  “Why?” I asked him. “Why did she give me up? Why did she leave me?”

  He sighed. “It's not my place to explain that decision to you. Know this, though. She loves you with every fiber of her being. What she did for you most likely saved your life.”

  I nodded, knowing he would tell me what he could as we went along, but that the real information would come from my mother when we finally reunited. Hopefully that would be sooner rather than later.

  “Your mother will be able to give you most of the answers you seek when she arrives. Until then, she did her best to be sure you got off on the right foot. You have a file folder with you?”

  I nodded. “It's in my backpack.” I returned to where I had left it by the front door, and rummaged around, pulling out the folder. Taking it back to the table, I sat and opened it. Flipping through, I came to the first of the blank pages. “Do you know why these are here?”

  Looking at the sheets in the folder, I took a moment to reflect on what it represented. So much of my first few weeks had been shrouded in secrecy, and the anticipation that the answers to some of my questions were imminent almost overwhelmed me.

  I had never understood how such specific instructions could have been left for the way I needed to be raised, while still keeping my mother’s identity a secret. I sighed, letting my tense shoulders droop for a minute.

  The mental gymnastics I had been performing to use my magic were terribly draining. Between that and the emotional rollercoaster I had been riding, I was absolutely beat. But there were so many more things I needed to do. So much I wanted to know. I stared out the front window of the cabin, noticing for the first time the hummingbird feeder hanging there. “Has that always been there?” I asked Xavier.

  He shook his head no. “As you may have noticed, this cabin is special. A number of things are responsible for that. One is its location. These waterfalls are a very important magical place. The second is the amount of magic your mother, and your ancestors, have imbued within it to make the cabin itself what it is. It appears that some of that magic has attached to your soul signature, and it is making small changes based on you. You may begin to notice small changes in yourself as well.”

  “My soul signature? Like my thread, you mean?” I'd never heard that term before and had no idea what he was referring to.

  It became his turn to look confused. “Your thread? I think you need to explain this more.”

  Okay then. I tried to describe to him how I'd originally formed the bond between us, about “seeing” our different colored threads and weaving them together so we could make the mental connection. I described the color and hue, their sparkle and shine. All he could manage was to stare at me incredulously.

  “You can SEE the soul threads?”

  “Um… yes?” Oh boy, this sounded like a big deal, and I wasn't sure I was ready for any more of those just yet.

  “It seems there is a very complicated situation that needs to be explained here, and I'm not sure I am the best for the job. However, we may not have much choice if your mother doesn't make it here soon. The best thing we can do now is to start your education. You must uncover the writing on these pages the same way you decoded the original note. Your mother wanted to be sure that you had a way to begin learning whether she was present or not.”

  I smacked my forehead and hung my head, sighing in exasperation. Huh. It didn't occur to me to treat these blank pages the same as the one with the original note. Hadn't even crossed my mind, in spite of the fact that the instructions regarding them made it painfully obvious that they mattered. I don't know how long it would have taken me to come up with that, if ever. I looked at him and apologized. Apparently, I'm not as smart as I thought.

  I could practically feel him smiling in my head. “Could it be, just maybe, because you have had a whole lot crashing down on you in a very short amount of time, and you need a little more time to process it?” Considering how odd it was to hear another voice inside my head, I now found it comforting. I could almost imagine what his facial expressions would be, if he had a human face.

  And speaking of… “Can I ask you something?” His sideways look told me he knew exactly where my train of thought had headed, and he sighed.

  He nodded his furry head and didn't even wait for me to ask. “Yes,” he explained to me, “I had a human body at one time, however, I am not a shifter by nature.”

  I had no idea those really existed! There were so many things in this world that I never had a clue about!

  “I am a cat today because I was cursed. Once upon a time, a very long time ago, I lived my life as a Fae prince, part of a supremely powerful family. My mother died during the birth of my youngest sister. My father, the king, older brother, and two younger sisters were slaughtered in a battle with black mages. They came as a large group and were the only beings who had somehow managed to find a way through our defenses to kill the royal Fae in our realm, as we had many protections, and I ended up captured.”

  He took a deep breath, and looked down at the floor as he continued his story.

  “For many years, I remained a prisoner of the mage who killed my family. She was, or is, evil and sadistic. She found torturing me fun. Since Fae are pretty much immortal, and mages live exceedingly long lives, there seemed to be no end in sight. I became desperate to escape, in spite of the fact that she had taken my blood and, she claimed, could kill me from anywhere in their world if I left her side.”

  While cats don't have the same facial expressions as humans, the slope of his shoulders and the hanging of his head made it clear this story caused him great pain to tell. I felt guilty for even asking about his past.

  “I decided even death made a better ending than the existence I had been living with her. After endless plotting and planning, lasting months, maybe years, I made my bid for freedom in whatever form it would come.

  “On the night of the blood moon, when my powers were strongest, in spite of all she had been doing to keep me weak, I managed to escape. It took her hours to notice, since she kept me locked in a cell in the dungeon. As soon as she did, however, I knew it.

  “I can still hear her shrieking in my mind. It became so loud I passed out on the forest floor, tangled in the brush I had been creeping through. Had I never woken, I would have died happy. I was free. I had thwarted her misery, and no cost was too great for that victory.”

  He was quiet for a few seconds, and then continued. “I did wake up though, looking just as you see me now. She hadn’t killed me after all. It turns out she wasn't as powerful as she had led me to believe, and the best she could do from a distance was curse me. So she did. Cursed me to remain a cat for the rest of my living days, which, for me, is just about forever. She also managed to strip me of some of my magic, but not all. Although, I don't believe it's actually gone. I can still feel it inside me, but I can't access it. Perhaps another of her games to frustrate me for the duration of the years I have left.”

  I hugged him impulsively, burying my face in his soft fur. “A curse is fixable though, right? We can break it and give you your life and your body back.”

  He just shook his head gently. “Even your mother couldn't break it. And she tried so many times. If her powers cannot penetrate the magic that the mage set upon me, I have doubts that there are any that can. She at least brought me here to Earth so I could live in peace without looking over my shoulder constantly. That was gift enough.”

  I wanted to cry tears of frustration and anger. What the hell was wrong with someone that they could do this to another living thing? If I ever met this mage, there would be hell to pay. “Is she still alive?”

  He gave me the cat equivalent of a shrug and sighed. “I have no idea. I traveled across the realms to get as far from her as possible. Thanks to your mother, I managed to put enough distance between us that I can no longer sense her prese
nce. I never want to feel that evil again. It's been so many years, I've almost lost count at this point. I just quit keeping track.”

  I peered at him curiously. “Wait a damn minute. How old are you?”

  He chuffed at my question, which I'd come to equate with his version of laughter. “I just told you I quit keeping track, and now you want me to do the math! My birth happened many Earth years ago, in the summer. Time flows differently in my realm, so it is hard to say exactly how old I am on your time schedule.

  “I was taken captive in my thirty-first summer, which was quite young in our world, and I am unsure exactly how long I remained captive. Well over a century of your time, I believe. I have been free now for eighteen of your Earth years. I could be even older than I think.”

  My brain cells worked furiously to do all the math he had just laid out before me, and in the end, I just wound up staring at him. Seriously? Holy crap.

  I giggled a little and couldn't resist teasing him just a tad. “Well, now, old man, you don’t look a day over one hundred!” He chuffed at me and gently knocked me upside the head with a massive paw, pushing me backward. “You shush, child.”

  I smiled, then looked at him seriously. “Someday, you will be your old self again. That is my promise to you. You said yourself I am powerful. When I reach the point that I am capable of ending this curse, I will do it. I will end her, as well, and restore you to the form that is rightfully yours.”

  Chapter Three

  We needed to get back to the business of the blank pages within my folder. I had gotten sidetracked by Xavier's story, and then by his age, but we had to be focused. We needed to make as much progress as possible toward increasing my knowledge and abilities while we waited for my mother to contact us. I opened the file and flipped through until we came to the first of the completely blank pages. I had pulled the second chair up next to me and Xavier sat beside me, waiting to see what the page read.