Chapter 17
T he large, ceramic pot lifted itself off the hanging hook and gently floated down until it was hovering in front of my face. The plant was some type of vine, with yellow streaks running through the green leaves and tiny white flowers budding from the stems.
Jaw open, I watched while it spun around itself and bobbed from side to side to a silent soundtrack. The vines moved like individual octopus arms with a mind of their own, yet completely in sync with the movements of the roots.
“What the fuck?” Tris said into my earpiece. “Wylen! Do you see that?”
I couldn’t hear the fae’s response to the magic I was witnessing in front of me, but I did see Saoirse’s glare at the man sitting on my left.
“Donald,” she said in warning.
Donald squeezed my hand quickly just before the pot shot straight up toward the high ceiling and then smashed into the ground in the center of the circle.
I jumped, and some of the others leaned back in their chairs as the dirt sprayed us in the face and shards of orange terra cotta skittered across the floor.
“Donald!” Saoirse yelled. “That wasn’t necessary!”
I whipped my head around to see the man called Donald.
He was probably in his early sixties with a head of wispy gray hair, wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, and wearing an outfit that suggested he did some kind of manual labor.
Completely unfazed by Saoirse’s glare being tossed his direction, Donald scuffed his work boots in the dirt piled around him and shrugged.
“I couldn’t help it. It’s stronger when she’s here.”
Several others in the room nodded despite the glares they were getting from their leader. “One step at a time,” she grumbled. Then, looking at me, a smile danced across her lips. “Perhaps we should start at the beginning.”
With everyone ignoring the fact that Donald just controlled a plant through telekinesis, I shook my head. Speechless and a little in shock, I settled back into my chair and brushed the dirt off my lap.
“That was insane,” Tris whispered to me. “Wait them out, Sosie, and let them do all of the talking.”
Rolling my eyes to myself, I really wanted to remind Tris that I was the one who gave him that advice. That was my key to getting the information I needed. Everyone eventually wanted to share their story.
“Yes, let’s start at the beginning,” I finally replied to Saoirse.
With a graceful smile, she stood and gestured to the others in the room. “As you know, we all have a common ancestry line, and it’s one that we can’t talk about outside of this room.”
Not sure if that was a threat or a statement of fact, I crossed my legs and positioned my body so there was a clear view with the camera.
“Many of us never knew who we really were. Orphaned, adopted, abandoned…the fae never once thought about what they were leaving behind with their poor decisions.”
The girl next to me cleared her throat. “Not all of them are like that.”
Saoirse bit her lip and let out a deep breath before continuing. Rubbing her fingers over the leaves of one of her hanging vines, she replied without looking at the girl. “Yes, Maren. I know your story is different.”
Maren turned to me, her bright red curls bouncing against her light skin and blue eyes. “My father used to visit me in my dreams.”
A few of the halflings across the circle made a noise.
“Yes, we all know that.” This came from a younger man who appeared to have had a rough life.
Dark circles under his even darker eyes suggested he was sick, but the greasy hair and haggard clothing had me thinking that maybe he didn’t have a permanent home to go to.
And when he focused his intense gaze on me, my breath hitched in my throat.
“ My father didn’t do jack shit for us. He knocked up my mother, took all her money, and left us to die.”
“Brodie,” Saoirse said with a hint of warning.
“What? She should know the truth!” Turning back to me, he continued. “Those fucking faeries don’t care at all. My mother was convinced she loved him, and when he introduced her to the wondrous world of opioids and hallucinogens, she thought she was visiting fucking Ashtabulah with every trip.”
“I…” I didn’t know what to say.
Brodie shook his head and leaned back in his chair. “And when he left for good, she injected herself with that shit every single day trying to get back to him until it finally killed her.” His eyes shimmered with the unshed tears, and I found that I needed to swallow the lump in my throat as well.
“My parents knew something was wrong with me by the time I turned two.” A middle-aged woman with blond hair mixed with grays spoke quietly. Her nametag identified her as Aurora. “You see,” she continued, looking directly at me, “I was a changeling.”
“A stolen baby?” I whispered.
She nodded. “Still a halfling but given to my parents in exchange for the human baby my birth mother really wanted.” Everyone watched as she picked at her cuticles.
“They think it was one of the nurses. Had an affair with a fae, got pregnant, and then couldn’t handle the pressure of raising someone that reminded her so much of him. ”
“What happened?” I asked.
With a sigh, Aurora continued. “They dropped me off at an orphanage and never looked back.”
“Same for me,” another man said.
“Yeah, me too.” That came from Saoirse. “It’s why I formed this group.
We all have a history, most of it troubled, with the way the fae disrupted our lives, but no one would believe us if we spoke to other humans.
So, I try to help make it better. A safe space for us to air our grievances and learn to accept the hand we were dealt. ”
“What about you?” Maren asked me as the others seemed to lose themselves deep in their thoughts.
“Oh, well, I…” Clearing my throat, I tried again. “My father was fae. But I just learned about it a few days ago.”
“Your mother told you?” Donald asked.
“Yes. She…” I didn’t want to give them too much information, so I carefully selected my next words. “She’d kept it from me but decided that I was old enough now to know the truth.”
Saoirse studied me for a bit too long, but it was Brodie who spoke. “Why now? What made her decide to finally tell you the truth?”
“My dad, the man who raised me? He’s sick, and she wanted me to know before things got too bad.
” The lie came out of my mouth like a smooth glass of wine, and I worried I’d just jinxed the world and my dad’s health.
But the explanation seemed to satisfy everyone in the group.
And that opened the door for me to ask my next question.
“So, what was that all about?” I pointed to the broken pot, dirt, and vine sprawled out across the floor.
“That,” Maren snapped, “was Donald trying to show off for you.”
The older man huffed a laughed. “I don’t show off for anyone,” he said in a gruff voice.
“Yes, you do,” about three of them replied at the same time.
“Part of accepting who we are,” Saoirse started to explain, “is by understanding what we can do.” She bent forward and scooped up the damaged vine, leaving the roots hanging over her arms like a decoration.
Sitting back in her chair, she gently waved her free hand over the plant like she was petting it without actually making contact.
“While our fae lineage may have given most of us a difficult path with our families, we did inherit gifts that make us very special.”
I didn’t understand what she was talking about at first…
until I saw the broken stems of the vine snap back together and start to grow.
New leaves sprang out of buds that hadn’t been there a few minutes ago.
The white flowers bloomed, closed, and bloomed all over again.
Above me, the other plants hanging from the ceiling began to move.
Not the pots like before, but the actual greenery itself.
They twisted and turned, reaching toward the windows and the fading sunlight.
And as my gaze focused on the windows, those little beads of water I’d noticed when I first arrived began to shake.
They vibrated against the glass, moving ever so slowly toward the center until they formed a perfect circle.
The circle then changed into the shape of a heart, then a smiley face, and then finally a peace sign.
In total awe, I snapped my head around to see Aurora grinning from ear to ear, her fingers dancing in her lap as she controlled the water.
“Wow,” I breathed. “How are you doing that?”
Aurora shrugged. “I don’t know, but it’s something I’ve always been able to do.”
“When did you first know?”
She looked up at the ceiling and the ever-growing plants. “I think I was about five. There was a fountain at the orphanage.” She hung her head in embarrassment. “I didn’t have good control at first, but I practiced every day.”
I scooted my knees around to my left and focused on Donald. “What about you? Is it telekinesis or something like that?”
With a grin, Donald lifted his palm in the air…taking my pu rse with him. The thing floated up to my head before I even noticed, and scared that my recorder was going to fall out, I quickly snatched it from the sky.
“Something like that,” Donald said with a smirk.
I laughed. “Donald, I have a feeling you’re a handful.”
He chuckled. “Some have accused me of such.”
Turning to my other side, I asked, “Maren?”
She gave me a demure smile and then focused her attention on the dirt on the floor. Much like the water droplets Aurora had controlled, Maren squinted hard until the dirt particles pulled themselves back together in a nice little pile. “Earth element,” she said proudly.
“And you can control plants?” I asked Saoirse.
“In a way, yes.”
“This is crazy,” I said more for Tris than anyone else.
Brodie suddenly jumped to his feet and raised his arms out to the side.
Spreading his fingers wide and wiggling them back and forth, a breeze started spreading across the room.
The dirt pile Maren built blew apart, and the plant in Saoirse’s lap flapped around like it was trying to hide. “Air element,” he said with a smirk.
“Impressive.”
That made him laugh, and once he dropped his arms, the wind died down enough that I could get my hair back under control. “So, everyone has something…magical in them?”
“Yes,” Saoirse replied. “It depends on who our sire was, but we have abilities not seen in pure humans. I suppose it was some kind of cruel thank-you left by those who abandoned us.”
“Well, have any of you, other than Maren, met your sires before?” I looked around the room to see a couple of hands raised.
“What about you?” Saoirse asked, bringing the meeting back to her control. “What’s your gift?”
“Oh…I…um…I don’t think I have one.” I didn’t want to discuss my suspicions right now.
Saoirse laughed. “Yes, you do, and I know what it is.” She stood and walked around inside the small circle of chairs. “Do you feel somewhat compelled to talk to Sosie here?” After everyone nodded, she turned back to face me. “You have the power of persuasion.”
A chorus of agreements filled the air, and I did my best not to show too much emotion. I mean, if they believed this was my gift, they might be less inclined to answer my questions. “I do?” I asked innocently.
“You do.” She chuckled, and I didn’t like the sound of it. “Go ahead, ask us something.”
“No, I don’t think?—”
“Please,” she demanded.
“Okay,” I breathed. Ask them something. Knowing what I really wanted to say, I tried to decide in that split second of a moment if it was worth it.
And in that same split second, something inside of me took over and the words spewed from my mouth before I could stop them.
“Have any of your sires gone missing recently?”