CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I was only at Rachel's for about an hour when something surprising happened. Brooke knocked on the front door quietly. I opened the door, surprised. "Brooke," I said. "What's going on?"
She ran her hand through her hair, and pulled a piece of a leaf out of her somewhat tangled strands. "Well," she said. "A lot."
"C'mon," Rachel said, gesturing her inside. "Come into the kitchen, the kids are watching a movie."
We sat down at the kitchen table together; I could still see Eila from my seat. "Okay," Brooke said. "So basically we were out in the woods, and we were running a bunch of places. We were trying to show them all of the places that we go, all the places we've found, and a bunch of other stuff. That was how we spent like the first three hours. That wasn't the crazy part though." She took in a deep breath. "Do you guys remember what Dan was saying last night about his uh…cousin, Michael?"
"Yeah…" I said.
"Do you remember when he said he would know if Michael changed?"
"Oh my gosh…" I said, plopping my head in my hand. This couldn't have happened… "He didn't change did he?" I asked, already knowing the answer.
"He did," Brooke confirmed. "They all freaked out. All of the sudden they started flying all over the place and panicking. I don't even want to know what their thoughts were like." She took in another breath. "We didn't really know what was going on until Adam changed back to try and explain to us what had happened. He was still really confused about everything, but he at least got the point across. At the time, we weren't really aware that it had been Michael who had changed. Adam hadn't known that either."
"So what'd you guys do?" I asked.
"Well," she said. "We followed underneath them to where Michael was. He looked absolutely terrified… or as terrified as a bird can get. Dan eventually got him to change back… and that's when things got really weird. We were all so confused still about what was going on… and this just made it worse. You see…" Brooke said. "Leah and Lyssie had got back from wherever they went and met us in Kim and Jared's backyard at eight…"she paused. "Are you putting the pieces together yet?"
I thought about what she was saying, but came to no conclusions. "No…" I said. "What happened?"
Brooke sighed. "Lyssie and Michael imprinted on each other," she said bluntly.
I choked on my spit as I was swallowing. "What?" I screeched through my coughs.
"You heard me," Brooke said. "It took us a good ten minutes to get everyone calmed down before Lyssie woke up. Let me tell you, it was confusing. I wasn't even sure what was going on all the way. We didn't even realize that it had been Michael who had changed until after he had imprinted on Lyssie."
I let this information sink in. Imprinting was supposed to be rare…. They were way off the mark on that one. "Wow," I said a minute later. "Where's everyone else now?"
"Different places," Brooke explained. "As far as I know, Lyssie and Michael are still sitting on the forest floor where we found Michael. The younger guys and all of their girls are all over… Some of them might still be in the woods. Lauren and Kaylie never made it out of bed this morning because they're both puking their guts out, so Brady and Collin went home to take care of them. I have no idea where Seth is, but he better be at home if Abbey's puking. Jacob, Sam, Jared, Paul, Quil, and that dear husband of mine are all out walking and hiking through the woods with the eagles. They're all a little overwhelmed right now if you can believe it or not. Leah and Joel… I actually think that they were going home. And me, well, I came back to let you all know what's going on. I was hoping I could catch some of you together."
"Wow," I said. "That's crazy."
"Yeah…" Rachel agreed. "That's… oh wow, that's our life."
I laughed and so did Brooke. "Yep," she said. "That's us. We're just the crazies." She laughed again, and then stood up. "Well," she said. "I have to go tell the others where everyone is. I'll see you later."
"See you," I said. I thought it was funny how quickly something could happen that could change your life forever. My life had always revolved around Jacob… there had only been about five minutes in my life where Jacob hadn't been everything that mattered. It didn't seem possible to me that there was ever a world without Jacob, or that there could be one without him in it. I loved Jacob more than I loved anything else in the world, except for maybe Eila of course. In one moment… your whole world could change.