secrets of the prophecy

Redwood trees blurred, becoming a long streak of auburn brown as the winding road took us out of the forest, away from the twins’ house and from everything I didn’t want to think about or admit. Unfortunately, the distance didn’t seem to ease the familiar pressure building in my chest. 

An image of my mom suddenly came to mind. She was bent over some paperwork in the living room wearing her disappointed face—or had it been sad? With my new perspective, I challenged the memory and thought that maybe I’d been wrong. It had been a few weeks before her death and I’d assumed that she’d been grading papers, which often made her irritated. I’d avoided her that night. Had she been writing a letter to Caroline? Or to me? I’d never know now. 

Recently, I’d discovered my mom’s hiding place where she’d stored secret letters to her sister and pictures of them. It was an old pottery jar with carvings on it; images of a wolf, a dragon, and a bird. Today, Caroline told me that it had been a gift from her to Mom. Funny how quickly something that I’d barely glanced at twice before could take on new meaning and become so significant to me. 

Dr. Frankler, the school counselor, had been visiting me in my home when I’d almost broken the pottery jar. She told me that she had one like it in her school office. Then she’d shared the Greek story of Pandora’s Box with me, which had been eerily prophetic. When Pandora opened her jar—yeah, it was really a jar, not a box—and accidentally freed all kinds of evil, hope was the last item to fly out. Dr. Frankler said it was a good thing, but after what happened this morning at the Efoti’s house, I decided that it wasn’t. 

Hope and truth had only brought me misery. They were like double agents, playing for both sides, the side of good or evil, depending on their whim. Right now, their fickle nature was placing them squarely on the side of evil.

Why? Hope had led me on a search for the truth about my mom’s death and the truth that I’d discovered today was way worse than not knowing. Ignorance had been bliss and I’d never appreciated it until today.

But there was no hiding from the truth now. 

My mother’s murderer was her own sister. However, she hadn’t been herself when she did it. What was the point of enacting revenge against someone who’d been tortured until she’d gone crazy? Making her pay for Mom’s death didn’t feel like justice.

I’d also discovered that my mom had kept me a huge secret from her sister, believing that she was protecting me. Again, how could I blame her when I probably would have done the same?

In hindsight, the truth could have been the salvation of these two sisters. Instead, both women had kept secrets from each other, believing they were safeguarding those they loved. Ultimately, their secrets had led to a lot of pain, and then death.

Perhaps the most difficult truth for me to digest was that Lydia Parker wasn’t really my mother. Her sister, Caroline Dubois, was. A supernatural healer who could transform into a wolf was my freaking mother! 

Even my Dad—I clenched the material of my shirt over my heart—he wasn’t my real father. How was I going to be able to look him in the eye ever again?

As damaging as this knowledge was, there was more.

Truth was also messing with my love life. It had failed Zander and me, alienating us and causing us physical pain because some mystical or biological force, called the aramusatu, bonded us together. The longer we stayed apart, the sicker we became. Ruthie called it aramu-sick. Currently, that was about right.

Zander had vowed to keep me a secret from the Nasaru, a supernatural government led by his father. Also, he’d promised to protect me from anyone and everything that might hurt me, particularly the Collector, the mysterious person trying to hunt me down and take me away to some freaky supernatural zoo. 

At least, that was before he found out that the Collector was his father. Yeah, I should have told him about that sooner. How long was he going to stay mad at me?

I reminded myself that he had come to my rescue yesterday when an akharu attacked me. But apparently, those few minutes with him hadn’t been long enough to take away the gloomy feelings that had surfaced during his long absence. Why hadn’t he come to me earlier like he’d promised? 

It was enough to make a person give up. 

Mate withdrawals were a huge downside to the stupid aramusatu bond. But knowing that was the cause of my mood didn’t alleviate the despair I felt, not even a little bit. Zander should be feeling the same thing and if he did, he’d try to get to me for sure, right? That little thought was stirring up another worry. I was afraid that something really bad had happened to him. What if his brother, Peter, had figured out that Zander was different, like me, and taken him back to Eden, the Nasaru’s hidden underground city? I might never see him again.

Man, if that had happened, how would the both of us survive this pain, which could only get worse? Would I go crazy like Caroline? My thoughts were looping in a vicious cycle that was only making matters worse. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to think of anything else but Zander. 

Unfortunately, the last image of the Efotis popped back into my mind, this time in high definition color. They stood in front of their house, each of their poses telling a story. I saw Isaac’s iron grip on the wood railing as his glittering eyes watched us drive away. He wasn’t the same guy I’d been crushing on at the start of the school year, nor the goofy kid in drama class with a natural flair for comedy. He lived in a house full of usemi, supernaturals that turned into wolves, and I was certain he could, too. Was that why he’d been so intensely possessive of me and so jealous of Zander? 

Then there’d been Phoebe’s apologetic face staring at us as we’d walked to Ruthie’s car. It was so unlike her normal confidence and poise. While I could easily imagine Isaac as a “werewolf,” I couldn’t do the same for Phoebe. Did she regret us finding out their secret or was she sorry that she’d kept this clandestine life from Ruthie? They were close. Not as close as Ruthie and me, but I realized that Ruthie was the closest thing to a best friend that Phoebe had.

The twins’ father had been standing stiff and tall like the redwood trees surrounding us, his hand resting on his tiny wife’s shoulder as she stared at us with cold black eyes. They were the oddest couple I’d ever known, like repelling ends of magnets always pushing toward each other but never able to meet.

Then the final two, the tragic true mates Caroline and Iosefa. Caroline’s eyes had glowed an eerie yellow, her body leaning forward as if she wanted nothing more than to race after us. Perhaps she would have if not for Iosefa’s grip on her. He had bent to whisper something in her ear and whatever he had said must have calmed her, for we made it out of the driveway without any further confrontations. 

Guilt, betrayal, and pity fought a war in my gut, their sharp swords slicing through a year’s worth of vengeful intentions. 

When I’d finally found the answers I’d been looking for after my mom’s death, I’d vowed to myself that I would make her murderer pay. But the thing was, she was already paying for it. When I’d stared into her face, I knew that she was punishing herself more than I ever could. I could see that she’d suffered like that Job guy in Ruthie’s Bible, for she had endured the extermination of her family, more than a decade of captivity, and untold abuse. 

My other burning question—the why? The answer made me feel small and petty. With her remaining scraps of sanity, Caroline had turned to Lydia, her sister—my mom—for the comfort that only family brought. She’d found her raising me as her own flesh-and-blood daughter. When they’d met, my mom hadn’t comforted her at all. She’d been suspicious and distant and she’d kept me a secret. Caroline hadn’t needed much to push her over the edge, and the moment she’d discovered that I was still alive and that her sister was hiding me from her, she had truly lost herself. Giving into her animal instincts, she’d killed Mom. 

It was twisted. 

I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that the woman who raised me, the woman I called “Mother” was really my aunt. Biologically, she was not my mother. Biologically, Caroline was.

Biologically. Did that even matter?

I squeezed my eyes shut. Why hadn’t Mom and Dad told me? I couldn’t remember my life before them, which was troubling on a different level, because I should remember if it was real, right? To let someone else call me Daughter? To call someone else Mother? It was too weird. 

For over ten years, I hadn’t remembered Caroline. But now I was beginning to recall something, feelings I didn’t understand. Was there a fragment of myself that wanted to recover that past and open the door to another mother? No. Allowing that … well, it felt like I would be choosing Caroline over Mom and Dad. 

They were my family. Not her.