Chapter Five:
The Story Writes Itself
Atlas
The boys were lost in their own world upstairs, laughing so blissfully that all of us could do nothing but smile. We let the sounds of their laughter consume the house for a long time, but finally, Galaxy broke the agonizing silence. “So, what was the real reason you hid him from us?” He asked with a flat, unamused scowl, “Because as far as I can tell, he’s a pretty normal kid.”
Ashlynn had her head down as she whipped mashed potatoes, her whisk smacking the sides of the pot. She whipped the potatoes so fast that clumps were shooting from the inside of the pot and coating the stove top. I watched them splat against the countertop, making small squish sounds when they hit the granite. I crossed my arms and pressed my mouth to the edge of my coffee cup, not looking at Galaxy, but through him. “His Shadows… You heard their names, didn’t you?”
“Hard to miss them…” Blaine whispered painfully, gripping his own glass tightly. “Is it really… them? The other Gods?”
“You tell me. You saw Alice standing right beside him, didn’t you? I thought you’d recognize your old mentor.” I shot back, not rudely, but not exactly nicely either.
Blaine swallowed harshly and began to stir his drink with a spoon; this made the ice cubes inside clink against the sides of the clear cup. “It’s been well over eighteen hundred years since we last saw them, and somehow, they become your sons Shadows? Do they… I mean to say, do they remember who they were?”
“Clearly,” I reached across the counter to pour more coffee in my mug, and whipped in salted caramel creamer so it would be nice and sweet compared to the black cup I had prior, “I asked them to not disclose their true identities to Nick until I was ready to do so myself. With them being his Shadows… I can’t begin to imagine what that means for his status in the Elemental world. He has four Shadows, and they’re the souls of the Gods before us… Now do you see why we were so terrified?” I breathed, my words hanging in the air lifelessly.
Galaxy slid his face into his hands and exhaled slowly, taking in full breathes to give himself a moment to think. I waited without a word, really let my own sink in for him, before he finally raised his neon eyes to me. “I still think this is something we should have known beforehand. We could have protected him together, nurtured him as a team…”
“The moment he steps into the Elemental world, the entire balance will turn upside down.” Zephyrine shot over him, which made him pause midsentence. She cast her lilac eyes over me with a simple nod, “I would have done the same with my children, had I been in Ash and Atlas’s position. He is beyond anything any living Elemental can understand, including us, and we are the Gods. If we cannot comprehend his abilities… someone else will try for us. This is much more serious than we ever expected.”
“You think we’re that incapable of handling this?” Deveraux asked, not defensively, but seriously, “I mean, who else would be tasked to handle this if not us?”
“There is always someone lying in wait, always a being looking to challenge us. Now a new Elemental comes into the fray, one who is more powerful than his father, who himself is a God… You put two and two together.” She answered despondently.
Ashlynn slammed her whisk down, which made everyone flinch. She stared into the pot as she spoke, utterly refusing to look at any of us head on. “There is no question in my mind that Nicodemus is Atlas’s replacement. With the exchange in hands of the Gods upon us, it is more than obvious that he will replace his father. That in itself is enough for me to keep him secret. Add in that his target is so large, that he is so vulnerable… I simply could not see him surviving his childhood had we not done what we did. As much as I love you all, as much as I would have loved for you to love him the same as we do… I don’t think any of us are strong enough to stop whatever is going to hunt my son down.”
Elizabeth crossed the room to gently lay her hands on her sister’s shoulders, trying to turn her around, but Ashlynn wouldn’t budge. “How can you be so certain something stronger than us is looking for him?”
“It’s impossible to deny there is something extraordinary about him, well beyond being an strong Elemental. We’ve been… discussing, why Nicodemus is so much more advanced.” I nodded to Blaine stiffly, “You noticed it outside, when he said he could heal demons?”
“I… well, yes. I thought that was something only Grim could do…?”
I finally crossed the room and took a seat between Blaine and Zephyrine, “Not to mention, he can reap souls and kill demons. What is the number one rule amongst Death Elementals?”
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“No single Death Elemental can do both beyond the Grim Reaper… Holy shit, Atlas. He really is it, then? He is your replacement, isn’t he?” Blaine scoffed in disbelief.
I let my head fall, so I was staring down at the lines in the oak dining table. A single stream of tears rolled down my cheeks, and hit the table beneath me to form a small puddle. “Nicodemus is showing all of the signs that he may in fact be a being of higher power than we will ever know, and I would be a fool to not recognize this.” I replied, and as I did, the air in the room froze.
Deveraux slid a hand up and over his mouth, so his words were muffled as he spoke, “I, too, have been thinking about that chapter as my own children grow. Sebastain especially has shown numerous signs of these… advancements… and I cannot ignore the facts.”
“Whoa, wait a moment here. We are getting way too ahead of ourselves!” Elizabeth cut in, and slammed her fist on the table to shake us out of our morose states of horror. “We simply do not know enough about the situation yet to make claims like this, especially claims that Nicodemus could be Atlas’s replacement. We have a lot of time before that point, and for now, we should be focusing on him and him only.” She exhaled loudly before reaching over to hold my hand, “I know you’re scared, but please, trust us enough to protect him. He deserves to be with other Elementals, to be with kids his age. Listen to how much fun he’s having now? He needs this, Atlas.”
I let go of her hand and stood fluidly, “I’m going to go for a walk. I need a moment away from this. Please call me when dinner is ready.”
“Atlas…?” Elizabeth sighed, though no one stopped me from gliding through the backdoor and down the path. The door slammed shut behind me with a powerful thud, and left the house in an intense silence.
╪
The lake just beyond our backyard moved methodically as the wind knocked some debris into it, breaking ripples across it’s surface. I used my own stick to draw figure eights in the water, trying to drown out any and all sounds outside of the birds that chirped in the branches above me. I was going to miss this, the cool Vermont breeze that had welcomed me so lovingly since Ashlynn and I came to the Human world. I would miss the small towns we shopped for groceries in, the book shops we stole kisses in, the playgrounds Nick would traverse when he was little. I would miss our small graveyard and our lake, and above all else, I would miss the innocence Nicodemus would be leaving behind when we left this Realm.
I curled into a ball and hugged my knees to my chest so I could bury my face in them. The overwhelming guilt was back to strangle me once more, and the longer I sat in it, the harder it became to breathe. What had I done, not only as a father, but as a God, to prohibit his progress? Did I really make the right decision, keeping him away like this? What strain was this going to cause on our family, or with the other Gods? Really, was I ready to share him with the world, when I was so used to keeping him for myself? Could the world handle him, and really, could Nick even handle the real world?
A set of footsteps intruded my serenity and made me growl to myself until a familiar hand laid on my shoulder and gave it a tight squeeze. “You know… we work better when we work together. Storming off when you’re upset isn’t going to change our reality.” Ashlynn said as she crouched beside me on the rickety old dock.
I shrugged stiffly, “I couldn’t stand being around them any longer than I have.”
“Is it them that’s the problem, or you worrying about Nick?”
“Take a guess,” I sniffed.
She chuckled sweetly and tugged some loose strands of hair back from my face, tucking her hands under my chin so she could pull me up to face her. “You’re being grumpy, you know?”
“I like being grumpy…” I grumbled.
She smooshed my cheeks to make me smile, “Atlas, everything is going to be ok. We knew this day was coming, and if we keep preventing it, things will only get worse. Nick needs this, and so do we…” she cast her eyes back to the house momentarily, “Being with the other Gods… it made me realize how much I’ve missed them. You should hear Nick up there; he’s having the time of his life with the boys…”
“I know, I can hear them through the window. It’s making me feel worse, admittedly.” I nestled into her hands with a frown, “We should have done this sooner, Ash…?”
“Well, there’s no use crying over spilt milk now. We have a ton to do in the meantime, starting with getting this house packed. We can worry about the rest of the world later, ok?”
I kissed her palm with a small nod, “Promise me we’re going to be ok? That Nick will be?”
Ashlynn shrugged stiffly, “We kept him alive this long, haven’t we?”
I swished my hand in her face as she laughed, “Way to boost my confidence, Jerk.”
She leaned in and laid a tender kiss to the corner of my mouth, one that made my cheeks flush pink despite how long we had been married. “I don’t like when you get this upset, so please, try and think of the positives. If I have to, so do you. At the end of the day we are doing this for Nick; we can’t keep him locked in a bedroom the rest of his life. He needs friends, someone to look after him when we’re gone. This is a good thing… At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.”
I nodded finally, giving into her lull of a voice, “I hate when you’re right, because you always are. Can’t you let me sulk once in a while?” We shared a soft chuckle before I kissed her again, longer and more passionate then before. Our lips were still close as I spoke, “I know I can conquer the world, so long as I have you at my side.”
“And luckily, I have nowhere to be.” She stood and held her hand out to me, “Come on, dinner’s almost ready, and I need help cutting the ham.”