Episode 23

I turned to find Thea's eyes again, meeting mine and immediately snapped my head forward. Yeah smooth. Really smooth. You are an idiot, Ryn. A complete and total idiot! I could see her through the corner of my eye, staring me down. She's not an immediate threat. Your life isn't in danger. You need to chill out. My mind wondered as my sight shifted back to the window. It's like I don't even know how to talk to them, you know? Women. And this one? Sheesh. I don't know. She made me feel some type of way that was for sure. What kind of way? Not exactly sure. I'm sure she makes me wet. Thea let out a cough next to me. I shook my head gently to reframe my thoughts. I could see the sun coming up on the horizon. Darkness slowly receding, revealing what would soon be the blue sky.

Philomena didn't speak again after the introductions. She was probably exhausted, poor woman. I glanced at the clock. We'd only been driving roughly thirty minutes, but the white noise of the ride now made me way more aware of how exhausted I was. Our little community was just outside of old Modesto. We were about to hit the larger road they used to call I-5. I only know this because a few of the signs were still intact. It should be roughly fifteen hours to get to the old Canadian border if we don't stop off anywhere. There used to be separate countries that had different policies. At one point in time, there were over three hundred different ones. Could you imagine? People had to pass through checkpoints to pass an imaginary line that divided them, making it extremely difficult to travel to other countries on the same land mass. They used to be a novelty to traveling tourists. There were photo booths and tours, much like any other major border stop out there. Now all relics of the past. What's left of them anyway, if anything.

"Well..." Granny broke the silence finally, pulling me from my internal dwelling, "As I'm sure you already know, I've got witches' blood in me. More than that, I've inherited a gift or two..." This instantly got everyone's attention. Even Thea looked invested. She tried to give us her full attention, but because of her bad back, Granny had to turn back to face the front. Looking someone directly in the eyes was something she always made a point to do. She pulled down the visor to look at us through her mirror as she spoke, "I saw you coming quite some time ago, Thea. Tried to see if I might be able to change it but your awakening was a fixed point in time." She paused to take a few breaths while Lark and I exchanged glances in the rearview.

"A fixed point?" I had intended to wait and hear her out, but the question betrayed me and was out before I realized my mouth was moving.

The old woman's voice lowered to just above a whisper; her stare looked blank as she looked on in her mirror. "Immovable. Finite. It's entirely unchangeable."

Thea looked over at me, and her expressions were as soft as her voice when she spoke, "Think of time and events objectively on a spectrum. Every decision you've made in your life, there are always multiple options to choose from, yes? Most events are malleable... A simple decision could change the entire course of events to occur. Think of time in a line. Each decision available to you branches this line into a new path. You choose one, and the other paths are severed, leaving you with your original line stemming from that decision made. Very rare are points in time where no matter what course of action is taken, no matter which path is traveled, the end result and product of your actions will all reconverge at the same point on your original path. Some call this fate or destiny. Many are free to choose their own. Some must face a fate already chosen for them."

To this Gran simply nodded to her before she continued. "Saw every possible outcome. Tried my darndest to change it. Didn't want to alter anything in any major way... just wanted to try to pull Alaric and Raelynn's involvement. No matter which direction, always was these two. When I finally accepted that it was unchangeable, I tried to delay it, but that was also in vain." She shook her head after, no doubt trying to push back memories of the past that flooded her brain. "Always. Anyway, darling. Now that you're here, what are we to do with you? I could never see past you waking up. Not much, anyway. Bits and pieces but not enough to help I'm afraid. Might come in handy in the time they come to happen, but not much in the way of getting where we need to be."

Philomena was full of surprises, it seemed. A witch and a dang seer to boot. What other secrets did she have? This was news to Lark too. I could tell by the way he kept shifting his vision from the rearview to Granny and back. It was practically unheard of. If you were lucky enough to develop any kind of ability from your DNA, there was never more than one trait, and it was usually weak or superficial physical features. Plainly speaking, she shouldn't be able to see that far ahead, even if it was her only ability. A week or two at best and not entire events. This was way too much at once for me. So many questions were spinning around my brain that I didn't even know where to begin. Each question I asked was answered, but those answers kept leaving me stuck with a million more questions. There was a lot more she wasn't telling us, but I was too tired to care. I knew that she would expand on it eventually, and at the time, that was enough for me.

Still, the whole situation with Thea nagged at me. No one said anything else, and the silence was killing me inside. I had to get some kind of hold on what was going on around me. Put the future on the burner and the present on the table. "So." I turned to look at Thea, "You said to go North, which is a general direction. Can you elaborate a bit on where we're going and why?" It was a question we needed an answer to, and I'm sure everyone else was thinking the same thing. Everything had happened so quickly. We probably all felt the whiplash.

She sighed, and I could hear the twinge of annoyance in her voice, but she smiled at me as she spoke, "If we are where I believe that we are, I have a place we can stay for a bit. It is a small fortress. The elements are very rough." She frowned and shook her head, "Not ideal at all for the clothing that everyone is wearing and generally inhospitable for life, but the fortress is secluded and blends with its surroundings perfectly."

"Okay. That's fine and everything..." Thea was being purposefully vague, and I could tell. She was so fine and a giant distraction to my ability to think clearly, but she wasn't getting off that easily. "But what are we running from? Why are we running from it together? Maybe I'm the only one thinking it, but what if we're on the wrong side here?" All we had to go on was her word and horrible bedtime stories. Why should we even trust her? They were very good questions. Thea didn't speak at first, only looking at me, obviously offended. I mean, utterly taken aback. Her brow formed a small v between them.

The vixen closed her eyes, removed the scowl from her face, and took a deep breath in and out. "If I were to do anything untoward, I would have done so already. You all know of David, yes? Then I would hope that you would know that he would not and cannot tell a lie. He can withhold information, however. So, while what was spoken of may not be the entirety of the picture, it is true, and it is as much as I know thus far." Finally, she opened her eyes. I watched her as she paused, and I had that feeling again. She was withholding some information intentionally. "Exactly who, I am not certain. I do believe by his tone that there are some factions working together who did not do so previously, but this is purely speculative on my part."

I didn't know anything she was talking about. I didn't know they couldn't lie. I mean, why would they? I knew of David, absolutely. Khaleel had talked about him before but not much, and I had assumed it was just a David. Not the Archangel Michael's first child, David. Soon as I saw him, I knew, though. I didn't think any of the purebloods were around anymore, and they had arrived at Granny's so quickly that it was concerning. Everything that I knew and was taught by my family, though, was that they were the good guys. Warriors of God. If they were against her, then I should be too. Thea said they'd take what they wanted, and they wouldn't be gentle. Basically, our brains could be turned to soup, and they wouldn't give a damn. That couldn't be right, could it? No. I refused to believe it.

She held my gaze for a moment, and I broke it as I turned back to the window. We weren't extremely religious in my household per se, but the principles of God and being godly had been talked about and practiced. I'd never thought much about it, I suppose. I had to believe, didn't I? We were proof of his existence, essentially. Angels and witches made Fae. We wouldn't exist without Angels. Angels wouldn't exist without God. So how could we be on the right side right now? It made me feel extremely unwell, with that queasy feeling rising in my stomach. Thoughts of possible punishment mimicking the old bible times started passing through, and I fought to push them out. It was taxing, and at the end of it, all I knew for sure right now was my brain was hurting.

A weakness started to replace the nausea, and soon my stomach started to growl. "I'm starving guys. We gotta stop somewhere." Maybe food would help stop the thoughts that were spinning around inside my head. I couldn't hold onto one certain thing for too long, or I'd begin to feel a slightly disorienting sharpness on the top of my head. Lark nodded and I sank back down in the seat. That was enough now for all of us, I suppose. No one said much else for a long time. I peeked at my watch. It was eight fifty-two now. Didn't even feel like four hours had already passed in the short time since we were told we needed to leave.

Luckily, we'd just reached Redding, and Lark pulled off the interstate. It was tucked away in the north end of this state in a valley twenty miles out from the old border checkpoint. The sights were so bright and welcoming. The landscape was very lush and green, even in early November. Was a bit colder up here, though. Trees of all different kinds littered the horizon with varying shades of green with dots of red, yellow, and orange here and there. Its sun was bright and shining. Redding was where you wanted to go if you needed fresh outdoors away from the city without actually leaving a city. It was one of the fifty places on the planet deemed to be under environmental protection and sealed off from the ozone. Nice and temperate all year round. Views as far as the eye can see. Not that Collingwood was too close to a blast zone, but it was still affected. Time has healed some places, and Collingwood was lucky in that way. Me and the family loved the trails for hiking and the waterfalls. There are no skies clearer. Mom always used to say that. Thinking about them made bits of mist return to my eyes. I wiped at them slyly. I needed to think about anything else. Anything.

That 'anything' seems to default back to Thea. I needed to get out of this car and away. It was frustrating how hyper-aware of her I was. My stomach gurgled silently in protest. The line to pass through the barrier seemed to take longer than necessary for this time of year, and all I could think about was eating and Thea. Maybe eating food and eating Thea, if I'm being honest. Get your head out of the trash can. I attempted to rub away the goosebumps beginning to form on my arms as the Jeep seemed to crawl in line behind the many other visitors trying to enter the city. The air I was sharing with Thea in the back seat was getting hot, and with it, I grew increasingly uncomfortable. When we made it to the entrance, the man looked at us all in turn. I could feel my underarms starting to dampen from her heat. Finally, he scanned Lark to let us in. Traveling took a permit. Applying for one takes time in advance. Luckily, Lark has a travel permit from work he can pull up right on his HOLO 12. The guard gave it barely a glance before he waved us in. I looked down at my hands and realized they, too, were sweaty. Everything felt so incredibly hot to me. Everyone else seemed unbothered. I never got sick... hopefully not now either. That would be very inconvenient.

Lark pulled off into a small diner. It was cute. Looked like one of those places that they used to go back in the 2500s. This whole little section of businesses did. Just a bit down the road was the Hologram XXX. First three-dimensional adult store in history. Finally old enough and not even in the mood to go check it out. Next to the diner was the familiar coral color leading to the burnt orange colored round rooftop of Bay's Pizza. Color contrast back then must've been so wild. He parked the Jeep, and immediately, I jumped out and stretched. My lungs welcomed the cool fresh air. I hated being on the road for too long, even without a literal scorching hottie next to me. Was the worst. Just a closed space with other people. Yeah sure. Small trips. No big deal. Hours? This entire trek to God only knows where up north was going to be unbearable for me. Especially if I'm doomed to the back seat the entire time.