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I had to admit, I wasn’t as concerned about telling Tempest my story as I was about getting to Jade, Nadia, and the rest of the Struzapans.
However, I did try my best to fulfill my promise to Tempest. It helped that there was the added benefit that it kept Tempest relatively calm while I was still trying to figure out what was going on myself.
☆☆☆
At one point in time, I had two parents that loved me dearly. My mother was never supposed to be able to have any children and my father was ecstatic that, when he finally got a child of his own, I was a boy. I was their everything - their little miracle. That all changed when I started having my visions.
I was less than a year old when I started having them and by the time I was two I was having them at least once a day, though usually two or three times. When I was two, my parents began pleading with the doctors to figure out what was wrong with me. They told them that I would be perfectly fine and then the next minute I would be staring off into space or lashing out at someone. They began pushing for more tests than were humane for any child as young as I was to go through and they pushed for even more as time went on.
By the time I was five, I had started attacking the other students in my kindergarten class. When I was asked why I did it, I would try to tell them about my visions - about the dead people that I saw, about the abhorrent scenes that I saw so frequently in my mind. They called me a liar, suspended me for a few days, and told my parents that they needed to get me some help.
I’d never been a liar, but who would believe a boy that was prone to aggressive outburst like I was? I learned early on that it didn’t matter whether or not I told the truth, but I still always did what I could to make sure that I was telling the truth.
I was kicked out of three schools during my kindergarten year and that summer I was put in the hands of yet another psychiatrist. I’d never been the kind of person to believe that one bad experience with someone in a particular profession spoke for everyone in that profession, but that psychiatrist left a bad taste in my mouth nevertheless. I swore I would never discuss what happened behind the closed door of the psychiatrist’s office (not even when I objected to Serena and Maya taking Tempest to see a psychiatrist when his anxiety was at its peak) and I didn’t plan to break that promise to myself now.
That summer and following fall were lined with tests upon tests. Schizophrenia, psychopathy, to name just a few of the disorders that they thought I had, though they were arguably the worst. They never listened to me and by the end of that year, they just looked at me parents and shrugged. They never cared to ask me what I thought. They just listened to what was on the screen.
My parents did what they could, but things really took a turn for the worst when I was about eight years old and got into a fight with a classmate in the sandpit on the school playground. He’d been playing “guns” on the playground with a group of boys and making light jokes about war. Like death was something to joke about.
I don’t even remember exactly what he said, but I do remember how angry I was. I ended up tackling the guy and I gave him a black eye and a bloody nose. I was expelled from school and that same day my parents asked me why I did it and I told them what I’d always told them.
That was the final straw for my parents. Despite it being the dead of winter, they kicked me out onto the streets with nothing but the clothes on my back and a small sack of food that held nothing but an apple and a loaf of stale bread. They never reached out to me again and I never bothered to reach out to them. To this day, I wasn’t even sure if they were still alive or even in Wolf’s Hollow.
It was then that I swore to myself that I would never tell anyone about my visions. Even after I was rescued by Serena and Maya, I kept them a secret. I stopped acting out quite as much, but it took a long time and a lot of scolding from Serena and Maya (and a lot of times being on the receiving end of Serena’s hand or a whip) for that to happen.
I was eighteen when I started going against what Serena asked me to do and I was in my thirties when I finally discovered what I was.
I met Jade and Spencer when I was sixty-eight (though I appeared to be fifteen) and when quickly became close friends. I was the leader of our little group and continued to be as we met Nadia and the others. However, when Jade turned eighteen, I was given the privilege of getting to see her blossom into the leader she was today.
The time before I met them was lonely and bleak. I didn’t have Tempest back then and I was becoming increasingly closed off from Serena and Maya because I felt like there was less and less that I could share with them. I was deemed “too scary” by most of Wolf’s Hollow’s residents to be a companion to anyone. Jade, Nadia, Spencer, and Tempest changed everything.
That is, almost everything.
When I was seventy, I attempted to take my own life. Fortunately, I didn’t succeed thanks to Tempest being nosey and barging into my bedroom unannounced. But it was still hard. I knew that I was significantly older than the others and that it was odd that I’d been living so long.
We were now well into 2125 and I hadn’t died since 2045 (my new and current life then began in 2050). Age was but a number, I supposed, but it was still strange. Struzapans weren’t supposed to live this long and there was a point in time where I would’ve done everything in my power to leave this earth - at least for a little while. There was a point in time where I threw caution to the wind and didn’t care whether or not I lived to see the next sunset or sunrise.
But they all changed that.
With Jade, Nadia, Tempest, and even Spencer (as annoying as he was) around, I didn’t want to die anymore.
And, for a being that has lived countless lives, I find myself during this life being genuinely afraid of death.
☆☆☆
I told Tempest everything I was comfortable with telling him and remembered. This was the first time I’d ever mentioned my life before Serena and Maya to anyone - including Serena and Maya themselves. I never felt comfortable enough around them to tell them, especially since telling them did, in a way, require me to either tell them about my visions or lie. I didn’t lie back then and I still didn’t.
“I’m sorry all of that happened to you,” Tempest told me as we finally approached the Struzapan Manor.
I shrugged slightly as I looked around, trying to figure out what was going on, “It’s in the past now.”
After a few more moments, I finally locked onto Jade and the others around the back of the house. This wasn’t going to be good if I didn’t get in there quickly.
I looked back at Tempest as I started to go towards them, “Stay here, stay hidden,” I ordered before taking off.
Tempest tried to call after me, but I ignored his protests. I met Jade, Nadia, and Spencer at the back of the house where they were trying to ward off the largest group of shadowy figures I’ve ever seen. I knew what they were, Tempest knew what they were, but I still wasn’t about to let him near them. Not if I was correct with who was controlling them.
They were Synthetics: dark figures with bright red eyes. They were essentially cameras and only a handful of witches could cast them, but they gave the original caster a full view of what was going on in a given area without actually having to be themselves. We were used to Synthetics at the False Manor, but this was new.
The good news was, they were really easy to slice right there if you had the right kind of knife. They were pretty satisfying to kill, too.
☆☆☆
It took us almost an hour to get rid of all of the Synthetics and another hour for Spencer, Nadia, and I to get Jade and the other Struzapans (including Tempest) to calm down. Once they were calm, the five of us convened in the living room.
“Something’s going on with the barrier,” Jade told us, pausing to take a sip from the cup of hot tea she had in her hands, “Did you see the ripples in the barrier?”
“We saw one, but was there another?” I asked.
Jade nodded, “Just before the Synthetics showed up. The ground shook like there was some kind of earthquake, there was a glare on the barrier like before, and the barrier even dipped a little bit like it was about to burst.”
“The barrier’s never done anything like this before,” Tempest commented, “I wonder why it’s doing it now.” As he spoke, he pulled his knees up to his chest and leaned slightly against my shoulder. I opted not to get onto him for it since I could tell he was getting worked up again, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that Nadia was softly giggling again.
She wasn’t used to seeing me with Tempest, I supposed, and even I had to admit that I was an entirely different person when I was with him. Tempest seemed to have this uncanny ability to change anyone’s general behavior, though.
“Maybe we should go find out,” Spencer suggested.
Jade and I exchanged glances.
If we did that, then everyone would more than likely get suspicious. No one got that close to the barrier without picking up some kind of attention.
Jade shook her head, “No, we can’t do that. It’s too risky. We’ll just have to find another way to figure it out without going directly to the barrier.”
A broad grin appeared on Nadia’s face as she started to speak, “Lucky for you, Jade, you have a fortune teller among your numbers.”