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Moxie followed Rada down the hallway. “Where are we going?”
“To my room.” She arched a brow but continued to follow him. Did he really want her picture that much?
Once they entered his room, all thoughts of her picture left. His room was a massive suite. They walked into a living room with a wall of windows that let the light in and a fireplace. The furniture was old but sturdy. If she were to take it to an antique show, she bet everyone would be sporting a boner looking at it. It was in pristine condition.
“Um, wow. Your suite is beautiful. Did you stay here in your beast form?”
“I did, but most of my time was spent in this room.” He opened the door to show a room without furniture. “Take your shoes off.”
They walked into the room, and her feet sank to the floor. It was so soft.
“This is amazing.”
“This is the room for my beast; when he wants out, I still sleep in here.” He took the picture he carried in to one of the far walls.
She took a step back to look at the picture. It was perfect, which made no sense, but this is where it was supposed to be. She sank down on the floor, watching the picture looking for something. It was elusive, evading her senses.
Rada changed forms before sinking down next to her. She reached out to run her fingers through his fur without thinking about it. Her hand stopped as she looked at him. When had this become normal? A month ago, she wouldn’t touch a male even if you paid her. Now she couldn’t keep her hands off him.
She wanted to say something to break the tension she felt, but the bullet moved. Jumping up with a pained groan, she went to the picture Rada by her side. Her fingers sank into his fur. He stood as tall as she did in this form.
“I know you can’t talk like this, but that bullet moved.” She pointed the moving bullet out. “Can you see the way it keeps changing course through the picture? I’ve never seen a bullet do that before.”
Reaching out to touch the bullet, her hand went through the painting. Something tugged on her pulling her all the way through. She clenched Rada’s fur taking him with her.
“You’re late,” a very impatient older man told them.
Moxie opened and closed her mouth, unable to find her voice.
“You look like a guppy; stop doing that,” he barked out. “You have things to learn and don’t have much time. I see you brought the beast; well, I guess you need him. Let’s go.”
“Let’s go? How about who are you?”
“Who am I? Didn’t they teach you anything on that plane?”
“That plane? You mean Earth?”
“Yes, yes, what’s wrong with you? Are you mentally challenged?”
“What, no! Where are we? How did I get here? Why do I need Rada?”
“The first question of who I am should have been taught by the parent that passed you the gift. The second question should have been answered in school. Even life should have taught the answer. Opposites attract. It’s simple science two objects with the same charge, positive or negative, will repel the other. Thus opposites attract; thus, you need someone who will ground you. That someone is your beast. Understand?”
“No, I don’t understand.”
“I don’t have time to go over basic science with you. Come along. Beast, as long as you are here, we will hear your voice when you want to speak.”
“His name is Rada, not beast.” She almost blew a gasket.
“Moxie, we can’t go back. We need to find out what he’s talking about.”
“Finally, the voice of reason.” He started walking away. “Follow me, or you’ll stand out here all night.”
“I heard you.”
“Why is it always so difficult with the ones from earth?” he muttered. “I told you he could talk when he felt like it.”
They walked to a large door. It almost looked pre-historic in design, being made of large uncut rocks. It opened when they got close.
He took them to a small hut. “This is where you’ll be staying. I took the liberty to redesign the inside.”
She eyed the outside, wondering if he gave them grass as a floor. They walked in, and she almost swallowed her tongue. Turning around, she ran outside. It was a small hut; she walked around the hut twice just to make sure. She walked back in to find that she was in someone’s upscale condo.
“How?’
“It’s what I do. It’s also lesson number one.”
“Don’t believe my eyes?”
“Yes, better put, what you see isn’t always what you see. You saw a hut, so you expected a hut. A weaver may have taken advantage of you and showed you a hut.”
You’re a weaver?”
“I am, so are you.”
“I would have sworn weavers had things called looms.”
“They do; yours is up here.” He tapped the side of his head.
“How am I supposed to not believe what I saw outside was a hut?” She needed more clarification on what he meant by a weaver, but the hut was a clear-cut thing she could focus on.
“Come.” He walked out. “There are two types of realities, the real and the perceived. Humans deal with both realities every day. Someone walks past you without acknowledging you. This is perceived to be an insult. Wars have started on your plane for less. The truth is that person just found out some news that blinded them to their surroundings.”
“Being upset because you think someone is slighting you is different from a hut not being a hut.”
“Have you ever looked at something from a distance or maybe with sleep in your eyes and thought you saw one thing, but the closer you got, it turned out to be something different?”
“Yes, I’ve done that. I almost killed an innocent man. I swore he was my target. He looked like him, dressed and moved like him. I don’t know why I hesitated, but I decided to get closer. When I did, not only wasn’t it him. This other guy looked nothing like my target.”
“Eureka, that’s perceived reality. There are people, demons, and humans that can make you see what they want you to see.”
She looked at Rada, who was by her side, but silent.
“How do I tell the difference?”
“You want to start looking for the things that don’t make sense even if your eyes tell you there’s nothing wrong with it.”
“Use this.” He popped her in the forehead. “That’s your inner eye. Start using it.”
She wanted to tell him exactly what she thought of his double talk when the edges of the hut faded out of existence.
“Are you doing that?”
“No, whatever your seeing is your vision.”
The hut was gone. She was looking at a large one-story condo.
“Perceived reality using reality as a base?”
“Yes, that is lesson two.” He walked back into the condo. “There is no way you can have perceived reality without there first being a reality.” He walked over to the bar to pour himself a drink before sitting.
“Sit. This is your home while you are here.”
Moxie went to the bar. She wasn’t much of a drinker, but anytime she had to deal with two different realities and a science lesson, she needed a drink. Rada shook his head no before changing back to his humanoid form.
“Are you sure?”
“I am. A drunk beast is an uncontrolled beast.” She took her glass and went to sit by Rada.
“Back to our first example. If the person has not walked past you, then you wouldn’t have perceived the slight.”
Perceived reality could almost be like jumping to a conclusion. It was like asking yourself when is two plus two something other than four.
“I get it.”
“Then let’s take our perceived reality and build on it. You’re looking for a man with jet black hair that prefers to dress in jeans and a polo shirt. He has a distinctive tat on his neck, and you’ll be able to see it because he dresses to show it off. You’ve been paid to kill him, but he’s hired someone to protect him. You with me so far?”
“Yeah, he hired a bodyguard.”
“I didn’t say that. It’s another taste of perceived reality.”
He was right. She jumped to conclusions and came up with the wrong one.
“I’m listening.”
“He hired a weaver. This person will take someone who has been close to him and manipulate or weave his image onto theirs. You take the shot killing the wrong person while the right person goes into hiding.”
“Okay, but there’s one thing wrong with that explanation. No one can do that.”
“Are you sure?” The bullet, the one from the painting, was back. It moved instead of going straight or even spinning, it moved in a side-to-side path while going straight forward, never letting you know where it would lodge.
“Come.” She looked at Rada before following the man into a large bedroom with a floor-length mirror. “Stand in front of it. You too,” he told Rada.
Her reflection in the mirror began to change. Her brown hair became black, and it grew halfway down her back. The shape of her face became more heart-shaped. She grew taller, and her brown eyes changed to the color of the windswept sea. Rada lost height and muscle. His back hair with white tips became gray. His eyes became a drab brown. She reached her hand out, needing confirmation it was her. The hand in the mirror reached back. When she touched it, she knew it wasn’t magically infused.
She stared at herself until she could see where the picture of her had been replaced with the faulty one.
“Why are you showing me this?”
“You have recently come to our attention. It took a while to find you, but we did. You register as being untrained.”
“And you want to train me?’
“No, but I am. Without training, you will either get yourself killed, your friends, or worst-case scenario scorch your plane, making it uninhabitable.”
“Why would I do that?”
“You are going to fight a demon. Going meekly into the night is not one of your attributes. If it were, you wouldn’t be here.”
She bobbed her head in agreement. That demon had the boy that might be her son. She wasn’t sure, especially after finding out about weavers. It didn’t really matter, though. He needed saving, and she needed to save him. They took innocence chewed it up and spit it out like yesterday’s news.
“We’ve already started. Your homework is to walk around this plane and find the perceived reality I left for you. I’ll be back tomorrow with your next lesson.” He disappeared.
She stood staring at the space he had been in and then covering the front room with her eyes.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to see if he is still here but blended in with the light and the shadows or if he did Silas’ disappearing trick.” There was laughter in the air. Then the condo felt empty.
“He’s gone.” She nodded her head. Rada was right; the male who didn’t volunteer a name was gone.
“Shall we go do homework?” He cocked his arm, and she slid hers through.