Chapter 19 #2
“I know you think shifting is some sort of punishment or curse, but sometimes, it’s the opposite.
Sometimes, there is a blessing in the trials,” Mom continued.
“When you were a boy, you told me you felt a pull toward a graveyard. You used to hate going into those things, said you could feel the dead surrounding you, and you didn’t like it.
There were times when you would do whatever you could to avoid them, even walking a block out of your way. That day was different.”
“I remember. I stopped in the middle of crossing the street to go the opposite way of the cemetery, and something called to me. I thought I heard my name. So, I turned around, and before I knew it, I was standing over a freshly dug grave and found another kid. I wound up shifting and flew home to get help. Dad was the only one home because you were at some auxiliary meeting. I didn’t want to leave him. I felt bad that he fell in.”
“He didn’t fall in,” Dad said. “Someone pushed him in.”
Anger raced through my entire being. What the hell was wrong with me? That kid had been a stranger, and after that, I never saw him again. When I believed I had control over my emotions, I demanded, “What does this have to do with me?”
“This morning, you had a weird reaction to the maid, correct?”
“No, I thought I would panic everyone and enjoy a round of twenty questions,” I deadpanned.
“Was it the same as that day?” my father asked.
Groaning, I rolled my eyes. “Maybe?” I remembered my reaction, but time had skewed it all.
“Think about it,” my mother urged. Was it me, or were they trying to tell me something without actually telling me?
I leaned back in the chair and tilted my head back to rest against the hard wood that reached far higher than any part of my body, staring up at the ceiling, praying it would save me from this ordeal.
It didn’t. “I don’t know.” I sat there for a few minutes, comparing my reaction to the boy with that of the woman.
“No. With the kid, I felt the need to shift, but I didn’t necessarily want to leave him.
Today, I wanted to run away and hide. I’ve felt a little like that around Mrs. Jeffries, but not that extreme.
More like a be careful vibe instead of a we need to escape now vibe.
What does this have to do with anything? ”
“Pat Jeffries?” Mom gasped, her eyes immediately going to my father, her hand covering her mouth.
“Yes.” That one word was spoken hesitantly, and as more of a question than anything. Didn’t my dad feel the same things I did?
He answered my unspoken question himself, “Not everyone has the gift you do. All of us can sense other shifters or when someone or something is different. Your gift exceeds that. Your grandfather noticed it first. He was concerned we would try to cocoon you and warned us against that. He didn’t have the gift, but his father did.
With Pat, I knew she wasn’t a normal person, but that’s the extent of what I could tell you.
She’s been a good friend to your mother, and I was friends with her husband, Harry, before he passed away. ”
I still didn’t understand what they were getting at, but learning my father couldn’t sense everything I could, surprised me.
Then again, it would also explain how the mystery maid had been able to come over to their house on more than one occasion without being thrown out.
“I didn’t say she wasn’t good, I just say I always felt odd around her.
So, what does this have to do with anything? Why bring up that kid?”
“What do you know about swans?” Dad questioned.
Was I really about to get a biology lesson?
“They migrate, there are several different kinds, varying in color and size. Mute Swans, which we transform into, are the less vocal of the swans, but they can still make noise when they want or need to. In England, only the queen is allowed to eat them, although there is no record of her or any of the royal family doing so for over a century. In the United States, they are considered an invasive species. At one point, in Europe, swan populations were on the decline, but not any longer,” I repeated what I’d learned years ago in a bored tone.
“What about their mating habits?”
I squirmed. I suspected I knew where he was going with this, but it didn’t mean I was comfortable with it.
Mom and Dad loved each other more than life itself.
My grandparents were the same. But they had each found their mates, and when you found your pair, you didn’t want to live without them.
It was the same as swans in the wild. “They mate for life. While the majority of them are male/female pairings, all female and all male pairings have been seen. They don’t care about gender.
When they find their mate, that’s usually it for them.
There have been times when a pairing will divorce or separate for a short period of time.
Also, if a swan loses its mate, after a mourning period, the swan could try to find a new pair.
It doesn’t always happen like that, though.
” Did my voice really sound as breathless and choked as I thought it did?
“When you find your mate, the urge to shift and show off is too much to resist, and after, this all-encompassing peace takes over,” my father explained.
A thrumming pulsed in my ears, and I felt hot.
Dad stared pointedly at me. “What if I told you, the boy you found was Lorde?”
Forgotten was the panic, and instead, I sat up a little straighter.
Lorde? My Lorde? Well, not mine…but Lorde?
Lorde was in the hole. Lorde had been pushed in the hole by someone else.
The fury rampaging within me had me gripping the arms of the chair, my fingers digging into the dark wood, my nails clawing through the varnish coating.
“What?” I snarled, unable to swallow my emotions this time.
The urge to find whoever had done that to him and to teach them a lesson overwhelmed me.
It mattered not that he had grown up and was an adult now, someone who could more than likely take care of himself.
Fizz dropped his hand onto my shoulder again. “Calm down.”
Just as I opened my mouth to argue with him, my father spoke, “He’s your mate.”
I stared at him like he’d lost his mind. If the boy was indeed Lorde, yes, I had the urge to shift, and now, my swan was entirely at peace around him, but… No, it couldn’t be right. He couldn’t be my… It wasn’t possible. I didn’t believe in that stuff. It wasn’t going to happen for me.
Yet, even as I thought of every reason why it couldn’t be true, the swan inside me preened and assured me it was. It was what he had been waiting for me to realize since the moment I set eyes on Lorde again.
“No, you told me to stay away from him,” I tried to argue, to find some way to disavow everything they said.
“I only did that because there were other circumstances at play. We had already been receiving threats, and after looking into Lorde, I discovered he tended to find himself in a lot of trouble. Bullies attacked him repeatedly, he got into multiple fights, and one of his bullies threw him into the grave. I knew you would be drawn to him, but I didn’t know at the time whether he was being used to trap you or just had a string of bad luck. ”
The swan agreed and begged me to listen to reason. Panic welled within me, threatening to take me down.
“I have to go.” I couldn’t breathe, and the entire room was folding in on me, crushing me. I had to get out of there, to escape.
“We’re not done,” Dad yelled.
I didn’t listen and yanked open the door. I ran through the house as if the hounds of hell were biting at my feet. Hearing them follow me, I ran faster and out the front door. Knowing I didn’t have the keys to the car, I shifted and flew away, thankful for once I could transform at will.
A mate.
I had a mate.
Lorde was my mate.