Chapter 14
Back in the house, I grabbed the box of pizza and settled in at the kitchen counter with some water. The food was cold by now, but it was still awesome. I heard the front door open and close.
“Hi Siri, I’m home!” my mom called.
“In the kitchen,” I yelled back.
She came in carrying the bag of forgotten poppers, holding it up. “What are we having?”
“Pizza, Jalapeño poppers. We should probably nuke the poppers for a minute. Rowan delivered them a couple of hours ago.”
She took them out of the bag and popped the container in the microwave. “Everything alright? The school nurse called and said you had to lie down for a while.”
“Yeah, I guess. I don’t know. I sort of passed out in class.”
“What?!” She sat down next to me and brushed the hair out of my eyes, peering into my face intently. “Are you sure you’re not sick? I can’t believe the school didn’t tell me!”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. At first I thought it was just a cold or something. I’ve actually been feeling a little off all week. But then today when I came home I heard about the earthquake in Rio…” I trailed off, not quite knowing what to say.
“Oh.” My mom took a deep breath, like she was preparing herself for something.
“Yeah, so the thing is,” I stared down at my plate and steadied myself. I had always told my mom everything. She was my best friend in the world. And I had to tell someone what was happening to me. I just hoped this wouldn’t buy me a ticket to the therapist’s office. “When I saw the images on the news, I…well, I sort of remembered them. Like I had seen it all before. When I passed out in class, I saw the earthquake, Mom. I saw it happen. I’ve been seeing it for days, actually. Except I didn’t really remember until it happened.”
“Oh, Siri.” My mom looked at me with tears in her eyes, reached out, and gathered me in her arms.
As soon as she held me, I broke down. “I saw it, mom. I was there. I felt the earth shaking, and then I heard…I heard all those people dying. I saw them all die. And I couldn’t do anything about it.” She rubbed my back and soothed me.
“Oh, Siri, I am so, so sorry. I had no idea.”
“Well, how would you?” I wiped my eyes, giving her a weak smile. “It’s not like I have a big sign over my head saying ‘Crazy girl, step right up to see the freak show,’ right?”
“Don’t say that. Ever. You are not crazy.”
“Well, then what else am I?”
She sighed. “I should have told you before. It’s just, I thought we had more time. This shouldn’t have started for months.”
That got my attention. I stopped feeling sorry for myself and stared at her. “What are you talking about?”
“Do you remember when you had that family tree project in fourth grade and your teacher asked you to map out your genealogy going back several generations, and to check out the meanings of your names?”
“Yeah?” I looked at her, not getting at all where she could possibly be going with this.
“Do you remember how excited you were to find out what your name meant? You were still young enough to not have completely grown out of your Tinkerbell addiction, and when you found out that Alvarsson means “Child of the Elven Warrior” you ran around for weeks in your old fairy wings, chasing me with a sword. You thought that was just about the coolest thing you’d ever heard.”
“So? What does this trip down memory lane have to do with anything?”
“It’s not just a name, Siri. It’s who you are.” I just stared at her, not comprehending. She sighed again. “Look, Siri, the people we are descended from, our family, we are fae. We don’t have wings or pointy ears, and we don’t really fly, but we are fae.”
I gaped at her. This had to be some kind of joke.
“Our people are what all the old legends are about,” she continued. “Our family, in particular, has a strong tradition of defending the Earth. It’s part of why you are so good at fighting, and why I started training you at such an early age. All the companies I work for, they all have connections to our people. At least the owners do. And I help protect them. I make sure that our race stays safe among the humans.”
“I’m sorry, what? You mean we’re not even human? Are you kidding me?” I looked at my hands. They looked normal to me. Why was she saying these things? None of it made any sense, and I said as much.
“We can’t be fairies. They’re just stories. I don’t know why you would even say something like this to me,” I frowned at her. “Here I am, thinking I am all kinds of crazy, and now you’re messing with me? Why would you do that?”
“I promise you, Siri, I am not messing with you. You’re human, but you are also fae. We both are.”
I snorted, not ready to believe any of it.
“Look,” she sighed, “it’s a long story, one that I think calls for some hot chocolate.” She got up and set the tea kettle on the stove to boil after filling it at the sink. She continued talking while she opened a container of high-end dark cocoa mix, pouring equal amounts into two mugs, bright poppy pink for me and clear cerulean blue for her.
“The ancient fae were like all those magical people you loved in the old Celtic stories I used to read you. They lived hundreds of years, sometimes even thousands. They were incredibly strong. But then there was a fight for power among the ruling families, a disagreement about how to live. Some of the fae decided they wanted more power, and the easiest way to do that would be to use humans to their advantage – they turned Dark, and lost their respect for the natural order of life. The Light fae, they decided to close off part of their domain in order to protect themselves from the dark. That meant that they also had to close themselves off from the rest of the world. But we didn’t want to just leave the humans at the mercy of the Dark, either, to be manipulated and enslaved.”
She reached out and held my hand. “A large contingent of fae guardians stayed behind – our family was just one among them. There are many stories about this time throughout the world, especially in Celtic, Tibetan and Norse mythology, since there are several main gateways to the fae domain in those areas. Over the generations, humans joined our family, so most of us are really only part fae now.”
She paused, and I looked at her, stunned. As strange as everything sounded, I could hear the ring of truth in what she was telling me, almost as if the universe had just shifted slightly to the left, and suddenly everything was clicking into place.
“What does that mean for me?”
“Well, normally our fae side starts to develop after we finish maturing, after the age of eighteen.” The water started boiling for our cocoa, and she poured it into our mugs, gave it a stir and topped it off with a couple handmade vanilla marshmallows shaped like cats.
“But how could you not have told me before?” I shook my head, wondering what else she’d hidden from me. “Don’t you think I deserved to know?”
“I guess I waited too long,” she gave me a sorry look as she handed me my mug. “I swear I was planning on talking to you about all this soon, but I wanted to give you a chance to settle in first. Like I said, I figured I still had plenty of time, at least a few months.” She sighed.
“I guess that makes sense,” I granted.
“Anyhow, part of what it means for you is that you’ll always be healthier than a regular human. Fae have much stronger immune systems so we almost never get sick. Viruses that take down regular people for a week or more will manifest in young fae as a mild twenty-four-hour bug, or in mature fae not at all. And because our body is stronger and continually repairing itself, we don’t age as quickly as humans or get more serious diseases like cancer, either.”
“Like, how quickly?”
“The Ancients lived nine hundred years or more. Some still do, if their blood is very pure. Most fae on earth live around two hundred years. As I said, your fae DNA kicks into gear when your hormones stabilize and you stop maturing, so by the time you reach twenty five your
aging process will have slowed to be no more than one-third the rate of a normal person.”
“Wait so that means you’re actually…?”
“Fifty eight. I joined the army when I was thirty seven, although my license said I was twenty two. I couldn’t have a full military career because they would have noticed that I wasn’t aging.”
“Oh my God, you could be my grandma!” I stared at her in horror, the full implications of what she was telling me hitting me like a ton of bricks. She laughed nervously but quickly sobered up.
“Actually…”
“Oh please, now what?”
“You’ve met your grandmother. Aunt Jade’s not really my older sister.”
“Oh, wow. You weren’t kidding all those times you said we had good genes.”
She laughed. “No, definitely not.”
I took a cautious sip of my cocoa. “So, then, what does this have to do with my visions?”
“The fae are ancient, as I said. We were here before the humans. Our stories tell that we came from the stars to create the earth itself, and we became its keepers. As humans evolved, we took care of them, too. Part of our innate ability as fae is to be in tune with the earth. It’s a part of us, and we love all of it as we would a child. At least, the Light do. The Dark have turned away from their duty, and over the years have lost much of their ability to connect with Nature the way we can.”
I raised my eyebrow at her in question.
“Our heartbeat is the beat of the earth – we are her pulse, and she is ours.” My mother looked sad for a moment.
“The darkness some fae have nurtured, it is the source of so much of the strife and degradation of the planet right now. Their inner distortion creates the darkness you see in the world. They are angry, power hungry, greedy, and the disease of their thoughts infects everything around them and spreads through the world like a virus. The Alvarsson line is descended from Tyr, the son of Odin. Just as Odin had visions, many of us know when the earth is rising up in cataclysms to cleanse away the darkness. We can feel all the pain of the earth, all the joy of the earth, and of all beings on the earth. It is why we have always defended against the darkness. Our empathy made us the finest warriors, and legend has it that the strongest among us can decide entire battles. We can feel the beauty and the love we protect. We will do anything to keep it alive,” she finished fiercely.
“My visions…” I murmured while she gingerly took a bite of one of the marshmallow cat’s ears. “There was a man there, more of a dark blurry shadow, but I couldn’t really see him. He said, ‘It has begun.’”
My mother looked at me, stunned.
“It can’t have… You…”
“What, Mom? What is it?”
“Well, are you saying that there was another person sharing your vision?”
“Yes, that’s what it seemed like. I didn’t like the way he felt, either. He made me feel, I don’t know, icky. Dirty, somehow, just hearing him.”
“There are old stories about Ragnarok. The end of the world. It is something the Dark have tried time and time again to bring about, but they always fail.” She shook her head and sat up straighter. “Listen, he was probably just talking about the earthquake itself. We can’t know what he really meant. I’ll call my mother and see if she has heard anything, but I am sure it’s not a big deal.” She pasted an overly bright smile over her face.
“Awesome. I feel totally better now.” I retorted and looked at her skeptically. “So what about you, did you have the same visions? I mean, if this is a fae thing and all?”
“No, I don’t get too many visions anymore. And I never had visions so far ahead of the actual occurrence of an earth event. There may be more going on with your visions than we can understand yet. But I can teach you to control them better – I’ve learned to only tap into the earth when I need to, if I’m in battle or I need to send a message to someone. Or if I need to check up on someone I love,” she winked at me.
“You can spy on me through the earth?!” I flashed back to the hard cider at the falls and wondered if she’d been there then. She seemed to know just what I was thinking, because she smirked at me and nodded her head.
“Yep, if I feel the need. Thank god you are such an angel.” She drawled out the last word sarcastically.
“Yes, you are very lucky I am so perfect.” I grinned at her. “So, what about healing? Or animals? There was this squirrel that I thought was dead last weekend at Mt. Snow, but after I picked it up and held it for a while, it got up and ran away. And I swear I saw it behind the house today, too.”
My mom looked at me speculatively. “I don’t have any special healing abilities, but there have been those who do, mostly pure fae who still live in Valhalla. Perhaps your father…”
“Wait, Valhalla? You mean as in Valkyries? We’re descended from Valkyries?” My voice rose in excitement. The old Norse tales about the Valkyries had always been my favorite, and I had dressed as a Valkyrie warrior at least three times for Halloween over the years. My mom laughed, again knowing just what I was thinking.
“There are many names from the domain of the fae that are recorded in human history as legend. As I said, we created the earth. The heart of the planet was our most protected, purest land. Although we have always shared the outer realms of the Earth with them, humans have almost never been allowed to enter within our domain. There are many stories about man crawling out of the earth or being created from earth, and about the “little people” living underground.”
I nodded, remembering all the stories she’d read me over the years.
“Every story contains echoes of the truth. This planet is actually quite hollow inside, with a vast land that is inhabited by the Fae and an inner energy source that warms and lights the lands beneath.”
“Shut. Up.” I deadpanned. I couldn’t really think of anything else to say. I mean, come on. Hollow Earth? Could this get any weirder?
She gave me her best sit-down-and-be-quiet look. “We call it Aeden, which is of course where the original story of Eden comes from, as well as tales of Asgard, and the Elysian Fields. The ruling city of the realm is called Valhalla, and it is where their most able warriors have always been trained.”
“So? What does that have to do with my dad?”
“It is, most likely, where your father is from. We recognized each other as fae when we met, our hearts let us know right away,” my mom said in a soft voice, getting all starry eyed. “But we were on a black op and we had very little time to talk about who we really were and where we were from. We never even learned each other’s real names, because the army insisted we use code names. I always figured he would turn up eventually, but I haven’t been able to find him. Either he is very good at hiding, or he is living within Aeden. You’d be surprised at how large the fae world really is, both above and below.”
“Wow.” I looked in my mug and realized that all the chocolatey goodness was gone.
My mom peered over my shoulder and sighed. “All done, huh?”
I nodded, suddenly feeling oddly bereft, as empty as my cup.
“Look, Siri, I know this is a lot to take in. It’s getting late. How about we turn in, and you can google your heart out for the next few days, like I know you’re going to, and anything you want to know more about, no matter how silly it seems, you come and ask me. How’s that sound?” She opened her arms for a hug, and I fell right into them.
“It sounds great, mom,” I mumbled thankfully into her shoulder.
Pushing away, I laughed. “You know, if I didn’t know you better, I would be sure this was all some elaborate joke. But you’re just not that funny!” I cracked.
“Ha. Watch out, Siri, because guess where you got your sense of humor from?” She winked at me and put the mugs in the sink. I groaned and went to my room. My brain really couldn’t process everything I’d just heard. I lay in bed for a few hours in the dark, trying to make sense of it all until I just gave up and fell asleep. Google would have to
wait.