I woke up the following day with a headache from hell. I reached for that ball of power inside of me. "Noo," I screamed as my hiss of pain turned into a yelp. Today, I would have to lay off my powers as much as possible. There was no way I was going to be able to handle it. Luckily I didn't overdo it as bad as the night the asshat brigade tried to intrude.
I stepped outside to feed the animals and check on the plants. I didn't last long but had enough strength to do the basics.
I lay down in the cold, frostbitten grass when I was done, unable to stop my eyes from closing. The stiff, cool grass tickled my face, and I inhaled sharply when I felt a flush of energy invade my body. I sat up, enjoying the energy shot. This was the second time I'd absorbed vitality from plants, but I'd never put energy into the grass. Did that mean I could take energy from any plants? The influx of theories that sprung from this excited me. It could be due to yesterday's exploration or just another facet of my abilities to explore. My stomach prompted me to drop this line of questioning and go back inside. My brain was still sleepy, but I was awake enough now to eat food.
I decided to cook breakfast instead of pulling something out of my space. I went all out making a spinach omelet for Grandpa Evans and myself. It was made from spinach grown in the renovated greenhouse. We watched a British cooking show as we ate.
Today was Thursday, which meant tomorrow was Friday. Adam was coming over for a sleepover! Mary was supposed to come over with Wyatt and the siblings as well. I nibbled on my lip. While it was a good idea, I wanted the two visits to be separate from each other.
With the morning chores done, I put all that to bed and laid on the couch, drinking coffee with Grandpa Evans. It was easy to just nap the day away. Which, funnily enough, I ended up doing. I got up only to go to the bathroom and make food for us. Then I laid back down and fell asleep.
Friday morning was quiet until Wyatt and the twins came over. Bill dropped them off with a note from Mary. She could not come over, and while I was disappointed, I was also relieved. Mary dropped everything for days to take care of me. She had a lot already on her plate.
There was less for the crew to do this time around. I was still a little sleepy. So we spent time getting to know each other.
To my delight, it was Lucia who proposed this. No one asked background questions. We discussed favorite colors, food, holidays, and other simple, noninvasive things. Bill came to pick them up after lunch, which Lucia and Lucas had put together. I sat nervously, eyeing the door for Adam to arrive.
Sitting on the couch watching TV with Grandpa Evans was the best trap in our home. Something about him was comforting, and the living room made one sleepy. So soon, I found myself fighting the desire to sleep.
I heard a knock at five past five and dashed to the door.
An Adam I've been waiting to see since our first encounter greeted me. He was in casual wear! I grinned at him and grabbed his hand to lead him inside. I was surprised to see that his bodyguards weren't right behind him.
I didn't ask him about this and instead started showing off the improvements he hadn't seen before.
"I brought this for you," Adam said once I slowed down. He held a small pink box in his free hand, and I stiffened. Small boxes were usually jewelry, right? That's what Grandpa Evans's favorite Turkish love show said.
I shook my head as I refused it. "You being here is gift enough. I'm making Japanese curry for dinner. Have you had it before?" I tried to stir the conversation to a new topic. "I learned it from..." Adam opened the box as I tried to distract him, and my mouth hung open. Inside was what looked like the perfect lemon tart. A dab of cream was erected in the center of the tiny dessert.
"It's for dessert. I have a cherry one for your grandfather." I could feel my cheeks stain with hunger and embarrassment.
I hope he didn't notice, as I thanked him profusely. Who put dessert in tiny boxes like that? Apparently, rich people.
My mouth salivated at the bright tart, and I leaned forward. "After dinner." I fought a cry of sorrow when Adam closed the box. He had a half smile on his lips, and my cheek stain deepened. Was he laughing at me? Did he understand my misunderstanding?
I looked into his eyes and saw he had warmth and humorous light dancing in his deep eyes. What a butter! He was laughing at me!
I should have been outraged and maybe planned a little vengeance, but I was too happy. This playful moment showed how close we had become. Friends played pranks and had little jokes at each other's expense. Crap, now I was sounding like Wyatt.
A loud banging sound came in from the TV, and I looked at it. How strange. I tried to look at Adam, but the thumping sound from the TV was followed by a doorbell. The black screen of the TV greeted me, as did the absence of Grandpa Evans. That's strange; it's five, which means Grandpa Evans' favorite Korean talk show should be starting. Where did he go?
"Wendy. This hasn't happened yet." Adam's soothing voice drew my gaze towards him. "So wake up."
As if on cue, my brain did just that. I was startled off the couch and fell to the floor with a thump. As I sat up, blinking and trying to gain my bearings, I noted that Grandpa Evans was, in fact, watching his favorite Korean show.
I dreamed that Adam came over? As I rubbed my head, I heard loud knocks at the door. Instead of the excitement I felt in my dream, all I could taste was dread in my mouth.
The last vivid dream I had was when I dreamt of being hurt. The next day, I got hit by a car. This dream also felt real. This time, I was transported into the moment with Adam. Gus said he gave me premonitions, but I hadn't had any luck triggering them.
Dreams could be the answer. Premonitions could arise from a need to protect oneself, like with the car accident. What did this one mean? Or was I just overreacting? That dream may be a lucid one with no definitive meaning. I had little experience with lucid or vivid dreaming in my natural body. My daydreams would take over my sleeping moments. They never got my heart pumping with tangible emotions or made it hard to discern reality.
The repetitive knocks at the door slapped me out of my thoughts. I'd have time to deal with that later. For now, I needed to figure out who the guest was. It should be Adam, given the time, but why did I fear the opposite? The knocks at the door were mildly worrying due to their fierce pounds. Adam wouldn't knock like that. So, it was likely one of the impatient bodyguards.
I gathered my courage from the pit of my stomach and walked to the door. The peephole was uselessly dirty on the outside. Huh. That's the one part of the house I didn't think to clean. People wouldn't usually show up here, though, that I wouldn't know. A terrible excuse but the only one I had at the moment.
I pulled a metal bat from my space and hid it behind my back as I opened the door.
A man I didn't recognize stood on the front porch looking excessively out of place. My eyes blinked as I fought the inappropriate desire to laugh. His dark brown hair was slicked back in a familiar style. The black wool suit he wore was likely worth more than the house I was peeking out of at him. That estimate didn't include the cufflinks customized with the letters CRW. He looked like Adam, only more stiff. Also messier than I've ever seen Adam. This man's presumably once impeccable suit was littered with little leaves and tiny brambles.
Still, I couldn't help but lift my eyes to meet his dark, turbulent gaze. My expression shifted into confusion as I laughed at him internally and asked, "Are you lost, sir?"
The man stiffened with unwarranted ire. As I suspected, my words were salt to the torn edges of his fine suit. He was the type used to people knowing his name and status. The man was obviously here with a purpose. I'd have to be an idiot not to see the familial connection with Adam. I should have expected a visitor from Adam's family at one point. Was this his father or uncle?
"I'm Charles Wickham, Adam's uncle." The man said slowly with incredible difficulty.
There dies that irrational minuscule hope he was just a random rich dude who got lost in my forest; I sighed mentally. Adam's uncle being here meant the odds of Adam appearing tonight were even lower. I put the bat I held behind my back into my space ring. My posture relaxed as a result, and as if mirroring me, so too did Adam's uncle.
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Wickham. I'm Wendy Evans." I said with a bright smile that didn't feel as genuine as I wanted. I played dumb and tried brightening my smile as I asked, "Where's Adam?"
Mr Wickham attempted a smile in return, but his eyes were more forthright and displayed his disdain. "Adam won't be able to make it to your sleepover. There was a family emergency, I hope you understand." He said, his eyebrows moving on his face as if to help convey his sorrow and support his words.
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My own eyebrows knitted on my face with far more conviction and genuine emotion, "Is Adam okay?"
"Thankfully, my nephew is safe." Mr. Wickham said.
There was a moment of awkward silence as I waited for him to elaborate. He didn't, and we stood there looking at each other for an excruciatingly long time.
Jerky Dickham.
To break this monotony, Mr. Dickham looked at his watch and began to fuss about time. It was good he broke the silence because I wasn't going to for a jerk. "Adam wanted me to pass this on to you. I have to leave now." He said, then with abrupt rudeness, he thrust something into my arms before taking off.
I watched the man dash undignified towards a couple of familiar suited men lingering near the forest entrance. The bodyguards Adam usually has around. Did they help guide Mr. Dickham? I snorted as I watched them inelegantly try to leave. They crashed, almost tripped, and looked like a mess as they tried to navigate the trees.
The laughter helped because the last thing I wanted to feel was the crushing pain of disappointment. Which is what came over me the moment the suit circus was out of sight.
I bit my lip and looked at Adam's gifts.
I inhaled sharply when I realized there were two cute decorative velvety boxes. One was a soft pink, and the other a bright yellow, just like the two in my dream. I opened the pink box with shaky hands and saw a note and a dessert.
In scrawled cursive, I read, "Wendy, I must express my regret about canceling today. I hope the dessert I planned is to your liking."
The overly formal tone of the note worried me. I thought I made more progress in helping him become more childlike?
I changed gears to something I could directly take action upon. I looked back at the pink box and studied the flower-shaped cookie inside.
Huh, so it's not a lemon tart. Damn, after that dream, I really wanted one. Still, this cookie looked too lovely to devour. The delicate pink icing raised the edges into realistic-looking petals. The gold-speckled sugar pearl in the center gleamed at me and brought it all together.
I closed the box and put it into my space. I opened the second and saw a ginger snap cookie. Grandpa Evans would like it. Maybe next Friday, when Adam comes, he'll bring a lemon tart like in my dream.
It took me some time to realize that neither Adam nor his snobby uncle had said anything about when I'd see Adam again. It would be even longer after this realization that I would see him.
The following week ran smoothly like a well-floured rolling pin. Wyatt, Lucia, and Lucas came over every other day that week. It was pumpkin time, so most of our time was spent toiling away. At the end of the day, the trio walked away with their own barrel of pumpkins and some of my experimental vitamins.
I still found it strange how the trio preferred working on my farm over staying at the church that cared for them. Of course, I appreciated it, but my curiosity increased as we got along.
The only tangible change, aside from this fattening nosiness that swelled my brain with ideas, was Adam's absence.
The note he courteously crafted gave no clue if he would show up the following Friday. I expected Adam to come but received a phone call the night before. The brief one-minute call confirmed that Adam would not come for the foreseeable future.
That hurt.
Another week passed, and we were done with the fall harvest. The four of us kids got it done remarkably fast. Of course, it helped that there was only so much land to cover. It was Wednesday, and Lucia, Wyatt, and Lucas were over. With most of our work done for fall time, we split into separate activities when they came over. Wyatt began canoodling with the breaker of hearts Nips in the front yard. Lucas disappeared, likely finding work to do
Lucia stuck to me and joined me in the living room with Grandpa Evans. Grandpa Evans was knee-deep in a whodunit marathon. Aside from the overdramatized cutscenes, we all did our thing in amicable silence. I was doing my damndest to create an embroidered rose on a handkerchief when Lucia tapped my shoulder.
"Are you okay?" Lucia asked me. Her soft, worried eyes made me look away.
"I'm a bit tired, but okay," I said with a small smile. I couldn't bring myself to break into a wide grin. My dreams haven't been getting any better lately. Unlike the strangely vivid scene with Adam, my current dreams ran on a loop of despair. Even though I put my all into growing and storing as much as possible, my slumbering brain decided it wasn't enough.
"You keep looking at the door. Are you expecting someone else?" Lucia asked persistently, which was odd for the soft girl.
Adam. The answer came to my mind before I could stop it. Instead of saying that, I shook my head and changed the topic.
It worked because Lucia wasn't one to push boundaries. Or at least that was what I thought. The next day, when the trio wasn't supposed to show up, they did. As did Adam.
The morning started off like any other until after breakfast. The stormy feelings I stifled within made me long for weather powers. I wanted the skies to reflect my turmoil. Instead, the sky was calm and unbothered by my personal problems. It even showed off by being a bright robin blue.
Grandpa Evans pulled me out of my funk as the morning's highlight.
"Thank you." A gruff, familiar voice said to me after breakfast. Startled, I turned around and met Grandpa Evans' watery eyes.
My own eyes grew wet as I slapped on a smile, "Of course, Grandpa Evans." It was the first almost complete sentence he had spoken to me! I rode high on that cloud until the door was knocked on a few hours later.
Lucia, Wyatt, and Lucas stood outside, the crisp air carrying their breath and bringing a chill into my home.
"What are you guys doing here?" I asked, bewildered that they came on a day we hadn't arranged.
"Well, gee, that's one way to talk to your friends," Wyatt said with a grin before he bent down to greet Nips, who came lopping over at Wyatt's scent.
"We just thought we could come over to play." Lucia smiled, trying to smooth over the tension in the air.
"Unless you're expecting someone else?" Lucas spoke up then, and I blinked at the boy. He was hardly one for words, and with a sister like Lucia and a friend like Wyatt, he didn't need to be.
"I'm not, but you can come in." I stepped back and gestured for them to enter. One by one, they trekked in.
I led the trio upstairs so that Grandpa Evans could enjoy his German news show without us being loud.
We entered my library, and I settled on my favorite chair. Lucia sat in a seat closest to me, and it was then that I noticed she was carrying a bag half her size.
"I brought some board games." She said as she opened her bag and started bringing them out. "It's going to get colder, so I was hoping we can still come over when we're not needed. We can play instead."
"What if you get snowed in here? Would the church be upset?" I asked. I tried never to bring it up, but why were these kids allowed to roam all over town with little supervision and protection?
Wyatt snorted, "They'd be grateful to have fewer mouths to feed." I couldn't read his eyes as he spoke, but he began to play fight with Nips after those words.
"Are you guys asking to stay here during winter, then?" I asked as my brow furrowed in thought. Was this why my dreams kept haunting me that what I was doing wasn't enough. Were there going to be more mouths to feed?
Lucia's cheeks flushed red at my blunt question before giving a little nod. "We wouldn't be much trouble. And we can help with the winter chores you need to be done…"
Why didn't they ask other homes or farms this? Was it because I was a kid as well? How awesome would it be to have more people to talk with and play with? If I were reading this passage, I would shake the Wendy in the story just to say yes. Can't she see how nervous they are and how they're trying to hide it?
Small doubts sprouted up, and I held up a hand. "Give me some time to think about it. I need to…" Think of how to hide my powers. When they visited, it was hard to stop myself from lazily slipping things into my space ring. When harvesting, planting, or watering, I constantly told plants to stop reaching for me around them. Just the thought of doing that 24/7 brought upon waves of exhaustion.
That was the negative aspect of it, but what about the positive? It was simple, really. I would have people I could converse with easily every day. People with whom I could feel connected and be friends with. How strange the old me, who first joined this world, would jump at this chance.
Was I over seeing people, or did I just like being close but having distance?
Grandpa Evans is another factor to take it slow, but he didn't hide when they came over. It would be a good idea if he was okay with their company. "Let me ask Grandpa Evans what he thinks." I finally said after some deep soul-searching. "It should be fine; we have the rooms up here that you guys already use. It would make more sense than three trekking back and forth in the cold."
The tension in the room dissipated, and I watched them relax. "Let's play some games," Lucia said brightly with a warm smile.
Lucia pulled out one game at a time and explained it as she did so before putting it down to explain another. The first was Payton's Payday. Payton's Payday was a turn-based game where you relied on cards to dictate your placement on the board and how much money you lost each paycheck. Way too realistic, I thought, turning that one down as I heard how it was played.
Gaolbreak was about a prison break. Each player had a team consisting of four pawns. The bright colors distracted a younger person from the dark, undercurrent adult theme. Your goal was to move your collective crew to home base, i.e., freedom. In your attempt to move across the board, you could send others' pawns back to prison, i.e., the starting zone.
Consortium sounded much like Monopoly but was far more cutthroat and seemed to have a mafia twist. Your pawn piece choices on the board were an assortment of paraphernalia.
The last was the strangest one of all. Lucia made a face when she pulled it out of her bag. "I don't remember this game. Wyatt, did you put it in the bag?" She turned to ask him, and he shook his head. Ha, I wasn't alone in assuming he did something when things changed course.
"I've never seen that game before." Wyatt's denial was met by skeptical looks from everyone in the room. Only Nips seemed to believe in Wyatt.
"Neither have I," Lucas said. When Lucia repeated the same thing, I reached for the game. Lucia passed it on to me quickly, and so I inspected it.
Even the box was strange. The previous games had bright colors and kids on the cover having a good time. This game's box was brown and dark; it didn't exactly scream family-friendly. The brown made it look like it was bound leather. Holding it, I saw the light play with it, making it shimmer. The word Effaced was scrawled in big, bold cursive that looked burned into the box. Instead of a company name I could recognize in a moderately corporate world, all I found was: From the one who brought you destiny, Keeper Mordecai.
I tried to rack my brain; who is Keeper Mordecai? While I didn't know Mordecai, the title of Keeper rang a bell. I could feel my mouth go dry, but the doorbell downstairs rang before full actualization could hit.
"I'll get that. Why don't you guys pick a game and set it up." I hurriedly said before I ran out, clutching Effaced to my chest. Before anyone could react, I was long gone and had closed the door.
In the hallway, I looked at the box, closed my eyes, and touched it with my senses, fearful I was wrong. There was something else about this box…or rather what was coming from it. Power was pouring out of the box, and I knew I was right when I used my other senses. It wasn't just any powerful energy, but magic, to be exact. Magic that felt and smelled similar to my own. This game came from my world somehow from the Keeper of all beings.
I slipped it into my space, or I should have attempted to, but it flickered as if it rejected being concealed. Shitballs, how is that possible? I had to find another way to hide it until I could figure out what it was.
The knocking at the door startled me into moving. I ran down the stairs, taking only a pitstop to stuff the board game under my pillow on my bed.
When I went to the front door and opened it, I was surprised to see Adam.