Chapter 30 #2
“I‘d forgotten my family…” Big Trev said.
How fucking horrible. I’d never heard him talk about his family at all.
After a few more puffs of her pipe, Roseanne plucked the cauldron from the air. “Are you ready?”
“I’m ready.”
“Then come here.”
Young Trev moved across the mattress, smearing the blue mark beneath him.
The shaman dipped her fingers into the cauldron.
They came out blue. “Here lies the power of hope.” Her voice sounded different—deeper, more robotic.
Kind of like mine. “He shall counter the rise of destruction. From here the seeds are planted. Growth is not guaranteed. Hope is never set in stone. Only time will tell.” She drew the mark of the oracle on Young Trev’s forehead.
He went to say something, passing out on the mattress.
“Into the world you go,” the shaman whispered.
Roseanne poured the rest of the blue liquid onto the sleeping troll, then tossed the cauldron across the room.
“Good luck. You’re going to need it.”
With one last puff, her pupils dilated, and she collapsed.
“Roseanne?” Big Trev said, approaching the mattress.
A green troll with orange hair entered the house. “Oh, no.”
“That’s her husband, Sammy,” Trev said.
“Roseanne?” Sammy checked his wife’s pulse. “Baby?”
But she was dead.
The scene began to flicker.
“She died,” Trev whimpered, falling to his knees. “She died to make me the oracle.” Tears rolled down his big face. “She gave her life. She changed my life. But what now? Where’s the rest of it? What comes next?”
I crouched beside him, hand on his back. “Take your time.”
“I remember this now,” he said after several deep breaths.
“Roseanne. My home. I remember shamans being born every time a shaman dies, always leaving us with a good sixteen years without one. That’s why we started coming out of our villages centuries ago, getting out there to learn how to survive without relying on a shaman’s medicines.
” He held up his hands. “I helped repair her roof with my brother. She always gave us honey lollipops.” He got to his feet.
“I never spent much time in her house, but she used to come and play with us kids over by the duck pond. The yo-yo was her thing. She was the queen of cat’s cradles.
” He went to the window, his hand passing through the glass.
“This village was one of the nicest places to live. A world away from pain, pollution, all that shit. A sanctuary. I always thought I’d marry Kathy from next door, start my family here, only venture out for work.
Get a house over by the pond or something. It’s a really nice pond.”
I wished there was something I could do for the poor guy, but my own anxieties were pressing down on me.
The shaman’s house vanished, light pulsing behind a curtain of shadows.
“I’m so sorry, Trev,” I tried for reassurance.
The troll put his arm around me. “I should be sorry.”
“What for?”
“For dropping this on you.”
“This isn’t on you.”
He shook his head. “Fuck this.”
I put my arm around him. “If it wasn’t for you and Roseanne, we wouldn’t know about Dunstable.”
He sighed. “Shit, mate. But how are you holding up after hearing this?”
“I don’t know what to think right now.”
Malorie appeared before our huddled bodies. “It’s time for the next part. I sense glimpses through time, which may come in a random order. So please be wary of that.”
New images came in, bright and metallic. A clinically white and chrome room, a baby wrapped in a yellow blanket inside an incubator.
My parents.
Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.
Here we go.
A younger Mum and Dad stood beside the sleeping child, a man in a white coat holding a clipboard smiling at them like a crocodile who’d caught a zebra.
“Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Reyes. I’m so happy for your success.”
“You guaranteed it,” Mum answered coolly.
“I did, madam. I did.”
“Is it done?” Dad asked, adjusting his glasses.
What was this place?
“Yes, sir. The money has been transferred into your account. Congratulations again.”
Dad started to cry.
“No need for tears, sir. You have the best of the best. And you’re helping a great cause.”
Mum faced the man, face blooming with crimson rage. “Leave. Now.”
“There is no need for rudeness.”
“Please,” she bit out.
“Much better.”
The scene changed, quickly spinning through various scenarios as if someone pressed rewind.
“Dizzy shit,” Trev said, voice cracked with sadness.
“Yeah,” I agreed, stomach roiling with nausea.
The rewind stopped on a pregnant Mum crying in our family home’s kitchen, Dad’s arm around her, the same man standing by our sink.
That was me in her belly. Through the doorway leading to the dining room, Carmelita and Tala played with some toys on their favorite cloud-patterned mat without a care in the world.
My heart lurched, longing for the days when my big twin sisters used to both tease me and protect me. Two forbidding personalities, my two rocks. They got me through so many hard times, saved me from school bullies, cheered me on when I got my growth spurt at fourteen and bulked up.
No bully ever fucked with me again after that. Especially after I trapped the worst bullies in a headlock under each arm without breaking a sweat.
“We can’t do this,” Mum said. “We can’t…” She sniffled, looking so tired.
I wanted to hug her like I used to.
Dad stroked her back, speaking in Filipino. “We have to, my love.”
“I…” She didn’t get any further than that, breaking down into frantic tears.
“I understand your concerns.” The man spoke smoothly, like a door-to-door salesman. “I really do.”
I waited for Mum to go off on him, but she didn’t.
Dad shook his head. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this.”
“Then you will lose your son.”
Ice filled my veins.
Lose me?
Mum sniffled again, breaking away from Dad to get herself a glass of water.
“He will die within three years,” the man added. “The werewolf gene is killing him.”
“What—”
The scene rewound again to a doctor’s office.
“I’m very sorry Mr. and Mrs. Reyes, but he will not withstand the first shift when he turns three.”
I looked back at Trev and Malorie, my mouth hanging open.
What the hell was this shit?
“Is there anything we can do?” Mum asked, her hands on her belly.
“There is no medical solution, I’m sorry to say,” the doctor said, a compassionate expression on his face. “I wish I had some better news for you.”
Mum’s grandma was the previous werewolf in my family, the gene returning in me.
“I don’t understand why this happened,” Mum said. “It’s not fair.”
“Sometimes the shifter gene finds the wrong host.”
Mum got up. “I have to get out of here.”
Dad stood. “Okay.”
“Right now.”
“Okay, my love.” He took her hand.
The doctor stood. “I’m truly sorry. Let me refer you to a counseling service. They will help.”
But Mum stormed out of the office.
The scene moved again, fast-forwarding this time judging by the growth of Mum’s belly.
I didn’t know what to think. This was a dream. Some weird conjuring from the murky parts of my stupid fucking brain.
Only, I knew that to be bullshit.
Dad opened the front door to the smug man. “Hello, sir. My name is Henry Hayes.”
“What do you want?” Dad appeared to be properly sleep-deprived.
Henry smirked. “I’m here to give you the son of your dreams.”