Location: Three years later, Connecticut, USA

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Even after living in the big white house for the last few years, it was difficult to get used to. Not because she was in a small town on the coast of Connecticut, instead of gallivanting around the globe. Not even because she had given up her life in the military to concentrate on being a mother and the inside of this place had become her universe-cum-prison. No, this was strange because it was her Godfather’s house. The place that she had called home growing up, at least when not moving from base to base. This was Benjamin Lloyd’s home. And while he languished in prison, he had offered it to her.

The smells were the same. The walls were the same. Even the way the fifth stair creaked was the same. Sometimes, walking from the drawing room to the kitchen, she’d see a little ghosted-version of herself running past, calling out to Benjamin to come see the pond she’d made in the garden. And then of course, closely following her memory, a three-year-old little boy scurried behind, clutching his latest artwork. Today was no different.

“Mommy! Mommy, I made you another picture.”

“Come show me, sweetheart.” Freya dropped to floor, resting on the balls of her feet, to meet her son. Her hair was pulled back in an efficient pony tail as always, but she’d swapped military gear and corporate, tight-fitting, skirts for a pair of comfortable jeans and oversized wool pullover that hung off one shoulder.

“Do you like it?” he asked, a smile fixed from ear to ear, his bright blue eyes shining from behind a mop a wavy chestnut hair.

“Do I like it?” she asked with mock indignation. “Kelly Junior Nilsson, since when have I never liked one of your pictures?”

The young boy giggled.

“But I must confess, I don’t know what this one is.” Freya took the picture and examined it, cocking her head and rotating the paper this way and that. A black crayon had been used to haphazardly cover almost the entire surface.

“It’s a hole!” he said, beaming with pride.

“Of course it is! And what a lovely hole it is, too.”

“Can we go and see it one day, mommy?”

“The hole?” she asked, confused.

“Yes.”

“Sure we can. Where is it, honey?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Far away. In another place. It would take a long time if we walked there. Shall I draw you a map, mommy?”

“That’s a great idea, my little Mr. Man. Go draw me a map.”

Kelly Junior giggled and ran off to his room.

Freya got to her feet, groaning as she did so. She held up the picture, crinkled her nose, and studied it. He never drew normal things. Trees. Other children. Cats or dogs. They were always abstract. The sky. The bottom of the ocean. A hole. But of course, little KJ wasn’t normal. She’d known that from the moment he was born. From the moment he’d opened his eyes to reveal a sparkling, iridescent blue that she’d seen only once before. In his father’s eyes when he was bonded to K’in. Whatever had happened to Kelly then had changed him on a genetic level, and he’d passed it on to his son.

Sure, KJ in many ways was just like any other three-year old. He ran and jumped and played. Cried when he couldn’t get his own way. He was also a little carbon copy of his father. Cheeky and charming, and well on his way to becoming a womanizer, despite Freya’s best efforts. Already a local celebrity in the small town, almost every shop keeper knew him and every female patron fawned over him whenever they crossed paths. KJ would even make noise, bat his eyelids and smile as wide as he could at a specific pretty woman or girl he’d scoped out nearby—just to get attention. And of course it was only the pretty ones.

But there were subtle differences. Small things that perhaps only a mother would notice about her son. His tendency to sink into his own thoughts to the point that no amount of calling his name could draw him from his trance. The fact that he would sit for hours at a time in the garden playing circus with a host of local wildlife, birds, rabbits, voles, that seemed to follow his instruction to crawl and jump over the obstacle course he had made. Any other mother might think that cute. For Freya, it screamed of K’in’s and Wak’s ability to bond. To control. All she could do was observe. Sit and wait to see how these little nuances would manifest as he grew.

Freya sighed, then pinned the picture to the refrigerator with the twenty-six other drawings he’d made that week. It was a rolling board of artwork. Time to make his lunch. She flicked on the kitchen TV, but kept the volume low. It wasn’t that she wanted to watch anything, only that the deep, soft voice of a man narrating some documentary was comforting.

Cutting the crusts of yet another piece of wholemeal bread on autopilot, Freya prepared her son’s favorite: peanut and jelly sandwiches. But even this reminded her of him. Of Kelly. She didn’t really know why, but sandwiches always did. Whenever she made them, all she could see was his face, mouth full of sandwich, pointing the rest at her as he explained the next hare-brained part of his ill-thought out plan. Flicking the hair out of her eyes for the fifteenth time, she thought, damn I miss him.

A shrill squeal broke her train of thought. Coiled and ready to sprint to her son’s room, she was cut short as he came careening around the corner, his arms held high, tears streaming down his face.

“Ow!” he cried.

Freya dropped down to the balls of her feet and held out her arms for a cuddle, which was gratefully received. “What happened, Mr. Man? Did you hurt yourself?”

KJ sniffed, and held out his right hand revealing a clean one-inch cut across his index finger. “The paper cut, cut me,” he stammered between sniffs and sighs.

“Okay, okay. Remember what to do?”

“Yes,” he whimpered.

“Here we go.”

KJ held up his finger to Freya’s lips. She lightly blew across the fresh wound as he counted to ten.

“One, two, free, four ...”

By five, the wound was already closing, zipping up from one end to next.

“Eight, nine ...”

And by ten it was sealed. Only a faint pink line remained which itself would eventually disappear. Another gift he’d from K’in. But one she definitely had to keep secret from everyone else. KJ had the ability to heal, like an axolotl. Perhaps to even regrow limbs, like Victoria had done. This would scare the children. Hell, it would scare the other mothers. So instead, Freya pretended that she was magic and that a kiss or other gesture could make things all better. KJ bought it, for now.

His face still wet with tears, but now smiling, KJ threw his arms around her neck and laid his head on her shoulder. He silently requested to be picked up. Freya hoisted him up and twisted her body from side to side, rocking her little man. Then it caught her eye. The giant black space in the middle of a snow-covered land projecting from the TV. She picked up the remote control with one hand and turned the volume up.

“... global warming has over the last few years begun to defrost many parts of Antarctica and Siberia, revealing enormous sink holes and even underground lakes and cavernous systems. Many of these holes are several miles deep and the caverns many hundreds of miles long. Scientists are still investigating what secrets to our past these natural time capsules may hold.”

Siberia. The original corpse. K’in. Freya’s mind raced.

KJ turned his head to see the TV. “Look, mommy. My picture. The hole.”

Freya locked her gaze with her son’s, his bright eyes shining back at her. Cobalt flames danced within. “Your picture? Is that what you drew?”

He nodded enthusiastically. “Uh-huh. Can we go?”

She held him closer to her chest and pressed his head to her shoulder, adrenaline coursing through her veins. She didn’t want to think why he wanted to go. Or what they would find there. But she knew it was inevitable. Necessary even. To protect him, she had to understand him. And maybe the answer was in a sinkhole thousands of miles away in Siberia, where it all began.

“Maybe, sweetheart, when you’re a big boy,” she whispered. “When you’re a big boy.”