A little bit of time has passed since the last chapter. Jolie is fourteen, the quints are eleven and Ry in the next chapter will be seven years old.
"Jo-Jo, wake up." Hands shook her shoulder and she groaned, burying her face in her pillow.
"Five more minutes, Aunt Amy. I don't wanna get up."
"It's your birthday, kiddo! You have guests coming over."
"I'm getting up. Leave me alone." Jolie mumbled into her pillow.
"Okay. There's a dress and a timer on your desk. The dress is for you. The timer is because we need a little extra time to set stuff up. Okay?"
Jolie groaned, waiting until she heard her aunt close the door before she got up.
Her room hadn't changed very much from when she was eleven. Pastel walls and crown moulding around the ceiling. She had a dormer in the wall, with her few stuffed animals arranged on the window seat. The pastel pink shag rug around her bed was as fluffy as the day she'd bought it and it kept her feet warm when her pale pinewood floors got cold in the Los Angeles winter.
Her desk, a simple white rustic writing desk, was against the wall at the foot of her bed and on it was a light, flowy chiffon dress with a floral pattern and thin gold faux leather belt. She pulled herself out of bed and got dressed. The dress fell about mid-calf and the neckline was just low enough to keep the moonlark pendant necklace from falling under the fabric.
Life was a lot different now. She was free from most of the restrictions and fear in the Lost Cities. She had friends. People liked her and they didn't give a crap about her eyes. Other than the occasional idiot trying cliche pickup lines on her, they weren't commented on. It was nice. Sometimes, people asked about her necklace and all she had to say was that it was a gift from her mother.
The timer didn't have a lot of time left on it. To use up the rest of it, Jolie decided to do some minimal makeup. Aunt Amy let her have a little every once in a while and her fourteenth birthday was probably important enough.
Her Aunt Biana probably would have been shocked at how small her collection was. Jolie didn't remember her ever wearing as much makeup as her mother said she used to, but for formal events, she still made the effort.
All Jolie needed was a clear 'mascara' that was actually an elvin product meant to work the same, but for people that had heavy, thick lashes already, a little bit of concealer under her eyes since she wasn't sleeping well, and her favorite lipstick. She smacked her lips staring at her reflection in the mirror hanging on the back of her door.
Objectively, she looked amazing. The dress complemented her figure, her face had sweet, delicate features and perfect skin and contour without any makeup. But it reminded her too much of her mother's funeral, three years and four days ago. Every time she saw the colour green, it trapped her in the memories.
Green was supposed to represent life, but to her, it meant nothing but death.
The green dress her mother had died in, the green-tinted flames that brought her death. The gas that had killed her father, aunts and uncles had been green. Every time Aunt Amy had been injured and ended up in the hospital from being wounded on duty, somehow the wrapping on the wound was always green. One time, a classmate had gotten horribly sick after they drank marjiuana-infused water, which turned the liquid green.
Yeah. She hated the colour green.
The timer went off, startling her. Jolie pressed the button to turn it off and opened her door.
The house where she lived with her aunt was small, more like an apartment then a house. There were three doors going off the stairs, one to the bathroom and two to the bedrooms. Her room was directly across from the stairs.
As soon as she closed her bedroom door behind her, she was mauled by two small children, a seven-year-old brunette girl and a four-year-old red-headed boy.
"SURPRISE!" the girl yelled in Jolie's ear.
"You two do not understand the point of a surprise party." Heavy footsteps brought a familiar dark-haired man into sight.
Jolie detached the her cousins from her body. "Hi Uncle Alvar. I didn't know you were coming. I thought you were out-of-state."
Her parents had never talked about her father's older brother. They only mentioned him in passing and quickly changed the subject whenever she or her siblings asked about him. So when Aunt Amy had introduced her to him, back when she'd first gone to live with her, she hadn't had much against him, besides the usual stranger-I'm-related-to-but-never-met. And he'd been as supporting as he could be from the long distance, since he was in Montana and she was in California and neither of them had leaping crystal to each other's locations. Phone calls and Skype played a prominent role. It was nice, having someone who really understood. Apparently, her mother had given him some of her memories so that he could pass on some of her knowledge.
"I am out-of-state. I'm here."
She giggled. "You know what I mean." But she walked down the stairs and hugged her uncle tightly. "I'm still glad you're here."
He hugged her back. "I'm glad to be here."
"Y'all gonna come over here and give me a hug or not?" Her other human aunt, Annie, shouldered Alvar aside and wrapped her arms around Jolie, squeezing her ribs way too tightly. "Good ta see you, squirt."
"Aunt Annie, can't breathe."
"Sorry." She let go. "How you been doing?"
Jolie coughed, rubbing her sides. "Pretty good."
"Cousin!" She had about two seconds before two more strong pairs of arms, toughened by hundred-pound hay bales and stubborn horses attempted to choke the life out of her.
"Alright, let the poor girl down!" Aunt Amy called.
Delilah and Adam let her go, grinning. Della ruffled her hair. "Y'all got tons of presents. You gonna open them?"
The youngest girl wrapped her arms around her waist. "I'm seven now!"
"And I'm four!" A redhead sat on her foot, holding tightly to her knee.
Jolie finally got a word in around her cousins. "Hi! It's great to see all of you, but please detach yourselves from my body. I will open presents, but let me say hi to everyone first."
Uncle Alvar leaned down and pulled his son off Jolie's leg. "Kiddos, why don't you go help your mom. Not all of you doing one thing at the same time! But go find ways to help your mom."
There was a general grumbling, but they filtered out of the space, either outside or into the dining room or kitchen.
Once everyone had dispersed, leaving Jolie and Alvar alone, her uncle motioned to the couch. "I have something I need to give you." His voice was grave and his eyes were weary.
"Okay." Jolie sat next to him on the edge of the couch. This had to have something to do with her mom.
"Before she died, about four years ago, your mom gave me a book. It was a memory log of all the information you would need to know. Some of the pages are excerpts from books, others are her own writing, or detailed images of martial art forms. All the information you need to harness the power of the moonlark. She told me I would probably never need it, but she wanted me to have it just in case. I'm glad she took that precaution." Alvar muttered a word under his breath and a book popped out of nowhere into his lap. He handed it to her. "She tucked it away in the void for me to retrieve at will. I wish I'd known before she left that I would never see her again."
Jolie took the book and set it in her lap. It was simple, with gold decorative plates set on two corners and bound with a leather strap around the middle. It had no true spine, opting for a simple look resembling a traveler's journal, were it not for the gold edging on the strap holding it closed and the plates in the corners. She unfastened the buckles and opened the book.
A note fell out with Alvar's name written on it in a familiar loopy, but surprisingly readable for all its messiness, style.
Alvar,
There is an Evenglen leaping crystal hidden behind the false back of the highest drawer in the entertainment center, out of children's reach. In case you ever need it. Also, if you have any more children past the twins, contraceptives are a thing in the human world (Do elves have any form of birth control at all?) and you should use them. As darling and wonderful as your children are, four is plenty. I myself wanted to stop at two, but the universe had other plans in the form of quintuplets.
Sophie
Jolie handed the note to her uncle. He read it and burst out laughing. "Oh how I wish I could tell her we really tried."
The first page was a handwritten letter in the same messy cursive.
To my wonderful daughter Jolie.
If you are reading this letter, I will have passed away. As I am writing this, you are fast asleep, curled up on your father's chest in our bed. It pains me greatly to think that my precious little girl may have to face the reality that everything she knows and loves is gone. But that is our current reality. If, somehow, if the wretched war does not start again, you have no need of this letter, I will happily burn it and this book I have complied. Yes, it is a valuable store if information, but it is dangerous information. If it were to fall into the hands of ANYONE who does not have the same conditioning and hardening we had, it could mean the end of our world, and certainly our lives.
Whatever may happen, if you are still living in the Lost Cities, do not let the Council know this book exists. As far as they know, the moonlark power ends with me. Be absolutely sure it stays that way. Above all. As much as it pains me to have to force you to keep your power hidden, there are beings at work who have had control of the Lost Cities for tens of thousands of years. I am a threat to that power. You are a threat to that power. Biana and Dex are a threat to them. They will do whatever it takes to stay in control of their picturesque world.
I really think the word 'picturesque' fits the Lost Cities well. When you first look at it, it is the perfect world. Everyone is happy where they are, there is no prejudice, no grief and no sorrow. Then, when you take a second look, that is when you see everything they don't want you to see. The cracks, the falsehoods, the people swept into alleyways because they refuse to keep up the charade. And you realize this is not a picture, it is only the semblance of one. Thus, the meaning of the word, picturesque. Something that resembles perfection, but is only its echo.
Forgive me for rambling on. Fitz says I do that sometimes. I hope I didn't take too long.
Inside this book is all the knowledge I, your father, and your extended family have amassed over the years. Most of this information does not exist anywhere else. If it is elsewhere beside our minds, it is in the library of Adeala, thousands of lightyears away from you, where no one can access it. Here you will find the secret to the many disciplines the Lost Cities calls abilities. I have not believed this in many a year.
Most of the things I have recorded are illegal or could be very soon. If you reach far enough, you will be trained to hunt and kill. This is not something I ever want you to learn. You should never have to feel the burden of having taken a life. I should never have killed cleaning up a muckup older than the Vacker name. You shouldn't either. But as I have said, if you are reading this letter, you are being forced to. So I will pass on as much information as I can put in writing. I will continue updating this book until the Banished Seven take their toll in blood. It will be nice to finally know rest, to finally know true peace. But if I know true restful peace, then it can only mean the world is tearing itself apart.
I am sorry, my dear daughter. I am so sorry. Sorry that you find yourself picking up a mess you had no part in. Sorry that I could not protect you from the dangers that claimed my childhood. It is my hope you are at least fourteen. I was five when I first felt the power I bear in my blood weigh heavy on me. When I was twelve, I was kidnapped and tortured along with my cousin, your uncle Dex. It is my prayer that you will get to be a child first and foremost. You may be angry at me for keeping this from you, but I hope you understand I only wanted to protect you.
The Banished Seven are your greatest danger. Even the strongest of the Neverseen cower at their feet. I pray that you will never hear the name again, but I am forced to explain who they are and why they are doing here.
The Banished Seven are seven Titan dragons of the clans Nightbearer, Seadancer, Lightbreath and Cliffbreaker that commited vile acts of treason against their Clans and the King of Dragons. They were banished to a remote realm and bound to mortal forms. It was hoped that without their great and powerful draconic abilities, they would eventually die. However, they found a way to grow their power by leeching the life from others. Together the three of them wove an energy-sapping web around the globe. It only shortened the lives of humans a year, but with the amount of humans already here, the sheer volume of the energy was enough to strengthen them beyond belief. They were able to bend the elvin race to their will in one fell swoop.
They have held power ever since. They are some of the most powerful people in the elvin world. Anyone you think of that has influenced the elvin world dramatically is almost certainly one of the Banished Seven. Their names are Tyrginth, Nova, Rovass, Luminance, Iazer, Arbane and Eimmod. All but Eimmod have taken elvin names. I only know one of them. The dragon Iazer, of Clan Lightbreath, took the alias of Fylson Redek. The other six you will have to find for yourself.
You are a threat to them. They will stop at absolutely nothing to kill you if they find out you have my power. Do not let anyone know that you have this book, if I have not already made that clear.
Tell your Aunt Amy I love her and I'm sorry.
I love you with all my being, my little moonlark.
Much love,
Sophie Elizabeth Vacker
Jolie squeezed her eyes shut, unable to stop her tears from dripping onto the page, but the ink didn't smear.
Her uncle scooted closer to her and gently hugged her. Jolie wiped her eyes, sniffling, as she gently turned the pages. Most of them were text in a variety of hands. Some she recognized, others were foreign to her. Some had a page in a language she didn't know, next to the translation. Every so often, as she flipped though it, were other smaller letters and notes from her family. She took time to read all of them, smiling at the kind words and encouragement from beyond the grave.
Footsteps ran up the outside steps and Alvar moved to close the book, but Jolie beat him to it. She refastened the buckle and ran it up to her room, hiding it under the false panel under her bed, where she also kept an emergency pathfinder, a few of her Uncle Dex's gadgets, and a knife.
Her aunts and cousins were waiting for her when she got back downstairs. Jolie did her best to concentrate on the celebration and she genuinely enjoyed it. But every so often, she and her uncle shared a worn look and she remembered the responsibility that lay upstairs.
Five hands flung silver throwing stars in perfect sync and hit five targets in the exact same place. Sandor sighed and removed them. "It has taken you five all of two minutes to perfect this. I am starting to not believe Sophie didn't teach you anything."
"Have we convinced you yet?" Hope said, grinning.
He sighed again, putting the throwing stars. "No. You may not learn the ogre style of hand-to-hand combat."
"Oh we don't want to learn that." Mira said.
Lucky smiled. "We want to see what we can do.
"And he's sturdier than you are." Dessy finished.
Sandor groaned. "My answer is still no. If you want to fight someone, you can fight me."
"But we've already fought a goblin." Faith countered.
"We sparred with Grizel." Hope confirmed.
Dessy smiled. "She lost in five minutes."
"One for each of us." Mira finished.
"Fine." Sandor growled. "Spar with Bo. But don't get hurt."
They grinned and said in unison, "Okay."
Bo stomped onto the the training field, shaking his head. "If you girls really want to spar, I will oblige you, but do not blame me when you lose."
They grinned. "Only if you will be a good sport about losing to five ten-year-old elves." Dessy agreed.
He sighed, not bothering to draw his weapon.
Miracle's thoughts whispered across the back of their minds, solidifying a connection between all five of them. They had their own tasks and each trusted the other four to perform as needed. Hope, as the oldest and physically strongest, though not by a large margin considering they were all genetically identical, controlled their physical movement, making it fluid, smooth and completely in sync.
The five of them slid into back stances, hands out and ready. Faith and Destiny held back mentally, leaving the battle to their sisters, as Faith controlled telepathic defense and Destiny telepathic offense, neither of which was needed at the moment.
Go for his legs. Lucky whispered. He's not expecting it. He thinks we're easy pickings. She was the strategist. It was her job to chose the best course of action for Hope to employ.
The eldest quint raised their arms and clenched the fist. The ground under Bo's feet dissolved into quicksand, sucking him down and cementing him waist-deep in solid rock. Because of ogre proportions, his arms were also stuck from the elbow down. Hope and Miracle released their hold on the others and all of them returned to an at-ease position.
"Do you admit defeat?" Hope asked.
Bo grumbled. "Elves and your abilities. Why did I have to pick such strange charges?"
Mira shrugged. "Well, we're the daughters of the moonlark."
"Our whole family is strange." Dessy agreed.
"Were we supposed to be normal?" Lucky asked.
Faith grinned. "Apparently we didn't get the memo."
Bo sighed.
Jolie stared out the plane window at the green and brown expanse that was Montana. A month after her birthday, her aunt had gotten a surprise week off and suggested they go up and visit Alvar and his family. Her uncle had insisted on paying all costs for them.
They landed in the Helena airport and retrieved their baggage. They were expecting the whole horde, but only Alvar was waiting for them outside, leaning against a silver truck. Jolie wasn't great at telling brands, makes, and models apart, but it looked sturdy and there was mud dried on the tires where it hadn't come off.
"Jolie, Amy! Glad you could make it."
"So am I." Aunt Amy shook Alvar's hand in a firm grip. "You're missing a few family members."
"Sophia and Frederick lost the privilege of coming after they left the pasture gate open and all the cows got out and then David got stuck up a tree. So Annie is consoling the youngest and the middles are grounded. The older ones are rounding up the cows and Bianca didn't want to come alone."
"Understood."
Jolie set down her bag and accepted her uncle's hug. When he pulled back to ruffle her hair, his eyes landed on her necklace pendant and turned sad. "Is that a moonlark necklace?"
"Yeah. It was a gift from my mom for my tenth birthday."
"I like it." He picked up their luggage for them and put it in the back of his truck. "Who's got shotgun?"
"You can have it if you want, Jo-Jo." Aunt Amy got into the seat behind the driver.
She smiled, walking around the front of the trunk and got in. It was a bit of a struggle, since the truck was much bigger than she was and the seat was almost level with her chest.
Uncle Alvar chuckled. "Sorry. This truck was not bought with short people in mind. I bought it for myself to drive back and forth from the light leaping spot."
"It's okay, just give me a little bit to get myself situated."
Blood Creek was actually a pretty town. There wasn't much money there, but the small shop fronts were well-maintained and the people waved at them as they drove by. Almost everyone appeared to recognize Alvar's truck and called out greetings to him. He rolled down the window to return the hellos.
"You know a lot of people here."
"It's a very tightly knit community. There's a few big families and a lot of smaller ones. I think the population is around four thousand, forty-five hundred at the most. There's not a ton of outside influence. We don't have to order a lot of things from outside, except for major appliances and that kind of thing. All the food is grown in or around town and we generally trade for what we need. It's a nice system. Annie's family makes up a good chunk of the population. She has a crap ton of relatives."
Jolie smiled. "It feels really welcoming. Do you know everyone?"
Alvar smiled. "Close to, at least on my side of town. It really is an everyone-knows-everyone kind of town. The Brodwick family is pretty prominent. My father-in-law, Clay Brodwick, produces most of the hay and feed everyone else needs for cattle and horses and such. Annie's taken over the cattle runnin'. I do horses. I don't breed, but I hold onto 'em for the people who do. Some of 'em have problem stallions who keep gettin' in with the mares."
"I'm not seeing any sort of police force. Do you not have one? I've noticed that on my other trips here, but figured your kids probably wouldn't know." Aunt Amy asked.
"Not really. We have plenty of cops, but they're all small-town cowboys like us. We have our own set of rules and don't really pay attention to the law. We've never been caught out on it and I doubt we ever will." Alvar waved at an old Chinese woman watering flowers outside, turning onto a wider, more trafficked street.
Amy chuckled. "I don't think so either. I'd never heard of Blood Creek before Sophie mentioned it to me."
Jolie sighed, smiling. Of course her aunt, so dedicated to her job as a police detective, would notice the lack of legal structure immediately. Then she remembered something strange in her aunt's phrasing. "Wait, what do you mean, 'other trips here'? This is your first time." When the adults didn't answer, she said. "Right?"
Aunt Amy chose her words carefully. "This is not my first time in Blood Creek. I've actually known about Alvar and his family for a while. I spent a fair amount of time up here before you came to live with me and often shuttled his kids from one place or another, since Annie's relatives were taking care of their own kids. Hey, how did standardized testing go? Della said it went well."
Alvar grinned. "It went great. Top of the class, again. She's been on the honour roll every year since sixth grade and so have Adam and the twins."
"Do multiples run in your family or something? You've got twins, Sophie and Fitz had quintuplets out of nowhere, and Biana couldn't seem to have singletons."
"Yeesh, I don't know. I don't actually know if my parents have siblings, but I believe they are both only children. I don't have a ton of information and it's probably outdated by now, but I don't think there's ever been a set of multiples in the Vacker family ever, well until we showed up and ruined the party. Who knew, alllll three of us, all in bad matches, all with multiples, the whole nine yards. I even married a human and half my kids are probably going to end up Talentless! It's hilarious!"
Jolie accepted the quick subject change. Her aunt and uncle probably didn't want to talk about it.
"From what Sophie told me, it was a scandal of epic proportions. Biana and Dex both straight-up never registered and when the Council tried to get involved, I was told your sister flipped them the bird and walked out. Fitz and Sophie weren't matched so what he did was throw a Winnowing Gala and then she showed up and he refused to pay attention to any other girl there for the rest of the night. Apparently it was a huge point of gossip. I don't understand the point of it, but I thought it was funny. Your parents made a point of saying your sibling's decisions were their own and it had nothing to do with them. Then Biana had twins in her first pregnancy and there goes the gossip mongers again."
Alvar laughed. "That sounds like my siblings. It must have been hilarious. I'm glad that some of the traits from when they were younger eventually÷ came out. Now everyone gets to see what I had to deal with, every hour of every day until I moved out. When I came back for dinner for one occasion or another, the time I met Sophie, it was like 'Where has all this maturity been for the last fourteen years? You guys are not this smart!' I'm thinking they were paying attention to their behavior for once. What was even funnier was my poor brother and Sophie had such obvious crushes on each other and yet it went over everyone's heads but mine. Although my parents probably knew more than they let on."
"Uh, Uncle Alvar, you should probably concentrate on driving, there's a cow in the road."
Alvar muttered a nasty elvin curse word under his breath and jerked the wheel, steering around the cow. "Oh, I'm so sorry. Language is generally looser around here and I forget to watch my tongue sometimes. The first time I cussed around Sophie, she may have slapped me, I don't remember. I'm sorry."
"Don't worry." Aunt Amy answered. "Honestly, Sophie shouldn't be getting on anyone's case for that. I've heard her let fly some pretty nasty words when she thinks no one can hear her. But why is there a random cow in the road?"
He shrugged. "Honestly, it's cattle country out here. Who knows. There's a hundred different reasons. I know Annie raises beef cows and that is a Jersey, mainly dairy, so I won't worry about it. Somebody else's cow, somebody else's problem."
Aunt Amy laughed. "What happened to that close-knit community you were just talking about?"
"While you make a fair point, you don't mess with someone else's cattle. Horses can usually be caught pretty easily and most are branded or have some identifying mark so you can return them. But to catch a cow, I need at least a rope and most of the time a horse, neither of which I have. And I don't know whose cow it is. I'd never be accused of trying to steal it, because why would I steal it if I could walk up to the owner and he'd probably give me five? But you just don't mess with someone else's cattle."
They turned onto Sky Country Road. Alvar slowed down considerably, constantly looking around. "There are a ton of families with kids, so you have to be really careful on this road. I usually park at Annie's parent's place, which is at the end of the road, but they are moving equipment around right now and I don't want to take up any space they might need."
The street was surprisingly kid-free. Jolie smiled when she saw most of her cousins gathered in the front yard, playing some sort of rough-and-tumble game with a ball. It looked more like an excuse to pummel each other into the ground than a game. She wouldn't join in, but she would happily watch.
Uncle Alvar turned the truck off. "We're here. Y'all are staying in the guest house over there. Annie's house wasn't built for the amount of people we have in it. She and her siblings are all pretty spaced out, so they only needed three bedrooms total at any given time. But we have six all close together, so they're squished. David stays with me and Annie, the girls are in one room and the older boys in the other. It would just be too tight a squish."
"I understand." Aunt Amy said.
Jolie opened the truck door and slid down to the ground. She was almost immediately surrounded by her cousins, who acted like they hadn't seen her in years, as opposed to less than a month ago.
"Jo-Jo!" Freddie wrapped his arms around her shoulders. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to come to your birthday, I was sick with the flu."
"Hey, Freddie." She hugged him back. "It's okay."
"Boys, please be gentlemen and get their bags." Aunt Annie nudged her middle son out of the way and hugged Jolie. "How are you doin', kiddo?"
"I'm good, Aunt Annie."
"Did Dad say what kinds of things he'll be teaching you?" Adam retrieved Jolie's pick flower covered suitcase. "He's a martial arts Grandmaster who can kill someone with just the pressure points below the elbow."
Jolie smiled, feeling a bit queasy at her cousin's proclamation. "I'm not here for him to teach me anything. I'm here to visit you guys because you're family."
"Oh." He looked disappointed.
Annie rolled her eyes. "Adam, leave her alone. Be happy your cousin is visiting."
"Sorry Ma."
Jolie turned to her uncle as her male cousins hurried their luggage to the guest house. "Are you going to be training me? Adam mentioned it."
Alvar sighed. "My son is overexcited. Annie and I teach all our children self-defense, hand-to-hand combat, and the use of certain handguns and rifles regularly. He has assumed that since you're here for the week, you will be joining us. I am not opposed to the idea, though many of the things you need training it will need to be taught privately, for your mother's sake, may she rest in peace, and by someone a little more qualified than me, who hasn't Vanished in so long I'm not sure I remember how. But it is up to you."
"I'd be okay with it. Adam also said you can kill someone just using the pressure points below the elbow. Is that true?"
Alvar laughed, leading them toward his house. "I don't think I'm that good. I was in the past, but that was a good forty years ago. I'm eleven years older than your dad, you know. Which means I'm almost fifty! Sheesh!"
"Ha! I'm only thirty-four!" Amy cackled.
"Now don't y'all start!" Aunt Annie shouldered past them and opened the door. "I got pot roast cookin'. You not one of the elves who won't eat a good cut a' meat jus' cause it's meat, right?
Jolie shook her head. "Mom and Dad used to say 'We acknowledge that the elvin world has decided not to eat meat and given that it's a stupid decision, we have elected to ignore it.' They didn't serve it out of respect when we had certain people over but Uncle Dex and Aunt Biana were half-dragon, and dragons are messy carnivores. So I'm not super picky about that."
"Good! I wouldn't be too upset if y'all didn't, cause that's jus' more for me!"
Uncle Alvar sighed, staring wistfully after his wife as she went to check on the food. "Sometimes I wonder how I survived without her."
"You certainly did get lucky." Aunt Amy said.
Jolie wasn't impressed by the inside of their house in any measure, but as soon as she crossed the threshold, she felt the aura of comfort and familial love that lived inside these wooden walls. The couch that sat under the large window in the wall to the direct right of the door was worn and probably passed down from Annie's parents. But it was well-loved and there were several places were it had been patched, probably with elvin techniques, to keep it looking semi-presentable. The entertainment centre was directly across from the couch and in between two doors. The one to the right, hanging open, went up the stairs to the bedrooms. She didn't know what was behind the closed door.
The shelves of the entertainment centre had a lot of pictures on them. Jolie guessed there was one shelf for each child.
The entrance to the kitchen was on the left side of the room. The wall was completely open and there were two dark wood faux pillars on either side of the opening. They complimented the light wood counters running along the kitchen wall. A large open window sat above the sink with flowy white curtains, cut short to keep them out of the water and out of reach from small hands.
Jolie smiled. "Your house is really nice."
"Thank you." Alvar bent down and picked up a few Hotwheels off the carpet. "Sorry if you step on anything. I told David to pick up his toy cars last week and he still hasn't done it." He opened the closed door to the left of the entertainment centre and tossed them in, telling someone inside, presumably his son, "Hey kiddo. We have guests over, so if you're gonna have all your cars out, move them in here so nobody steps on them and hurts themselves."
"Yes Daddy." David answered.
"Mom's gonna have dinner ready soon. Start putting away what's not being played with in about five minutes, okay? Make sure you get your cars and Legos."
"Okay."
Alvar closed the door. "All the toys are supposed to stay in there unless it's for a specific reason, but that hasn't really happened."
Amy smiled. "I get that. I used to visit Cliffside a lot before things got hairy. Sophie and Fitz did their best to keep all toys upstairs, but when you've got seven kids, it's hard to hold to the rules."
"I understand that. You guys are welcome to sit down," -he gestured to the couch- "dinner will be ready when Annie says it is. But it should be almost done."
"I think we'll unpack, unless food is ready, now-now."
"Not that fast." Annie called. "Y'all go unpack, it should be ready by the time you get done. I'll send someone to get you when it's ready."
Jolie and Amy left. Sophia showed them where the guest house was. She didn't talk beyond what was necessary, apparently a little sour about her grounding.
It was smaller than the main house, with a small living space, and doors leading to a bathroom, downstairs bedroom, and narrows staircase up to a loft room. Adam had left Jolie's suitcase in the loft.
It had a sloped wooden room with a bed on the left side. There were windows under each gable, giving her a view of the large Brodwick property either side. It had a small closet to the right of the front facing window. Like the rest of both houses, it was rather plain, but in a town where there wasn't much money to go around, she wasn't going to complain. She was surprised they had a guest house in the first place, but that probably had something to do with Alvar's birth fund.
She didn't have a lot of clothes, so if they had to leave and move in a hurry, it would take less than an hour to pack up her room. So all she'd brought were a few less loved dresses, two pairs of jeans, and a few shirts. Now that she saw the amount of dust, dirt, mud, and horse manure that got everywhere, she was glad she'd chosen not to bring her new dress.
"Jo-Jo, dinner's ready!" Bianca yelled from downstairs.
Training with her uncle and cousins was not what she expected. Alvar used and taught a strange conglomeration of elvin and human techniques and ideals. There were heavy influences from both taikwondo and kung fu. She also recognized a lot of, shall we say, unorthodox uses of elvin skills. She was surprised that her uncle not only knew these things, but was teaching them to his children. Alvar laughed when she pointed the fact out.
"I agree, they're not the most sporting of tricks. But they've saved my life and they might save yours. Even the Neverseen hold themselves to some code of conduct. I figured out a long time ago that everyone's going to assume I'll keep of the unspoken rules the elvin world tries so hard to instill. Well, if it's my life or my family's lives on the line, it's a sucker's bet I'll be playing dirty and there's nothing anyone can do about it. These are tricks I taught Tam in his short bout with us before I dumped him off with his parents and pretended he'd given me the slip. It wasn't hard, the entire organization was convinced I didn't have two brain cells to rub together at that point. But my point in all that was I know the Neverseen. They know that in an effort to appear like the greater species, any elf will try to be sporting in a fight. Don't do that. If dirty tricks are what get you out of bad situations, then that's what it took. I can honestly say if you give me the opportunity, I will have no problem putting a bullet in Vespera's head, even if she's sleeping. Some of the guys in town say you shouldn't kill someone while they're sleeping or otherwise vulnerable. Yeah, how about no."
Della rolled her eyes fondly. "So what was your point there?"
"Right, sorry. Yes, dirty tricks aren't sporting but they still work."
Jolie sighed. "Mom and Dad told me they didn't want me doing stuff like that."
Adam looked up from where he was sitting on the ground, whittling a small stick. "They were probably talking about fights at school and with your siblings. There's no such thing as cheating in war. If it saves your life, it saves your life."
Jolie couldn't stop herself from tearing up when she heard the word 'war'. She knew that since her mother was gone, it was her job to take up the mantle of moonlark. She also knew that the title had landed Sophie in heaps of trouble. Kidnapped, poisoned, a potentially lethal ability restrictor. Then there was all the legal drama, the attempts at control and the general crap the elvin world put her through. Then she'd taken an apprenticeship and learned the art of war. It hadn't broken her mind the way the elves told her it would. It had hardened her. Changed her. Scarred her. And all her mother had wanted was to live in peace. Even that was denied to her.
"Adam, be a little gentler with her." Alvar gently squeezed his niece's shoulder. "I understand, Jolie. You've got a big responsibility you don't know what to do with. Just concentrate on learning the moves and you'll either have to use them or you won't. Or if you feel done for today, Annie could probably use some help with the horses and there's probably some wood that needs chopping if you need to get some feelings out."
Adam grumbled something under his breath about girls. Alvar's gaze snapped to his son. "Care to repeat that, loud enough for Jolie to hear?"
He cringed. "No sir."
"That's what I thought. You ought to know by now, no matter how quiet you think you're being, I can still hear you." Alvar tapped the top of his ear. "Enhanced hearing, kiddo."
"Yeah. Sorry, Jo."
Uncle Alvar crossed his arms. "You're still going to repeat what you said loud enough for your cousin to hear. Alternatively, I could say it for you and you can go work on mucking out Daisy's old stall. Your choice."
Adam grumbled and chose the former option. "I said, 'Why do the city kids always get special treatment?'"
Jolie cringed.
Alvar sighed. "Adam, you remember that old book of your mom's? Go find the page on the moonlark. Not the bird, the person. And remember that Jolie has inherited that power and position."
"Yes sir." Adam folded his knife after cleaning the wood shavings from it and stuck both it and the stick into his back pocket. He stood and walked back to the house.
Della smiled at Jolie. "Sorry about the stupidhead, Jo. I get it. Powerful weird bird stuff that you need to save the world."
Alvar pinched the bride of his nose in between thumb and forefinger. "Della, what have you mother and I told all of you and your siblings about name-calling?"
"It's only allowed if the person gets drunk before the age of twenty-one?"
"Exactly. You are not wrong, but you still should not call your brother names."
"Sorry Dad."
Jolie grinned at Della's description. "You're not wrong about the moonlark powers either. But it's a little more complicated than that."
"A lot more complicated. If you want, Jolie, we can start working on it today."
"It's okay, Uncle. I think I'll go look through my book again. Maybe tomorrow." Jolie left her uncle and cousin to work and retrieved her mother's book from her luggage. As important as secrecy was with it, she didn't want to be alone.
Inside the main house, it was mostly empty, except for Aunt Annie baking something in the kitchen.
Jolie sat down on the couch and opened the book to the place where her moonlark-embossed bookmark lay. The chapter she was slowly working though, slowly because of the many heartfelt notes, sometimes more than one per page, making her cry too hard to continue.
The chapter only had one page left. It was supposed to be a continuation of the page before it, but the paper was covered in a scribbled conversation between her mother and Uncle Keefe. It apparently hadn't been vital information, because it was never actually relayed.
Jolie carefully turned the page, noting where a tear near the binding had been repaired. There were no true chapter headings, just an abrupt subject change and sometimes a different handwriting. This time it switched to the graceful swoops and curls of her Aunt Biana's cursive.
There is a very well-kept secret surrounding Project Moonlark that was never meant to come to light, but it is something you should know. The Back Swan knew exactly what they wanted in their moonlark and they almost had to end the project because the genetic sequence required for it was impossible to create artificially. It was creatable with two parents with very specific sets of DNA, but not in a laboratory. No one in the Black Swam was willing to control two lives in order to get their moonlark.
They were ready to give up when they realized that one of the DNA strands already existed, in my brother. The Vacker line holds an enhancing gene not found in any other elf. That, combined with your mother's created ability to mend broken minds, was hoped to create a power unlike anything the Lost Cities has ever seen.
The Black Swan created their moonlark after taking great care to hedge their bets history would fall in their favour. They dropped the hint to Alden specifically, knowing he would send my brothers to look for her. It was their hope that Sophie and Fitz would fall for each other, and they were right.
Jolie quickly turned the page, hoping to see the rest of the story and sighed. It was just projected research to give her more information about Project Moonlark.
"Whatcha got there, kiddo?"
Jolie jumped, closing the book quickly. "Aunt Annie. I didn't see you there."
"That an interesting book?"
"Well, yes. My mother made it for me. I'm supposed to keep it a secret. She didn't want it falling into enemy hands."
"Oh, I get it." Annie went back to the kitchen. "I'm not supposed to know. It's okay. If you're done, you can run along and hide it and I'll pretend I never saw it. If yer not busy, I could use somebody to peel the potatoes."
"Thanks, Aunt Annie." Jolie returned to the guest house to put the book away and went to help her aunt.
Even though she was only fourteen, she was already taller than four-foot-ten Annie. She took the potato peeler and began peeling them over the trash can as Annie washed them. Sometimes David would run in and drag either his mom or his cousin into the play room to see his race car track or his Lego build. Occasionally, he and Bianca would run in squabbling over who had won the race with their Hotwheels. They soon decided to stop asking their mother about if after she tried to get them to clean their rooms.
"How's Amy doin'? Did she get the detective job she wanted?"
"Aunt Amy said she did. I think she's waiting on the background check to go through, even though she's just changing from the New York police department to the San Diego one. We're not worried since Mom made sure we'd always be taken care of even if Aunt Amy can't find a job."
Annie handed her the last of the potatoes and began chopping the ones Jolie had already peeled. "That's awesome."
There was a brief pause and silence, broken only by the sound of Annie chopping and the bickering of Jolie's two younger cousins in the playroom.
"Aunt Annie?"
"Eh?"
"Why do you hate elves so much?"
Annie sighed, setting down her knife. "I don't hate elves. I can say with all certainty I do not hate them. For a very long time, most of my life, I was terrified that one of them would come and take Alvar away. It was a very real threat, even after he told me it was over. As my kiddos got older, I was scared someone would find out and we didn't know what would happen to them if we got caught. All we knew was that elves were dangerous and would probably get my family killed. Your ma didn't trust the Council, did she?"
Jolie shook her head. "Mom didn't trust anyone that wasn't affiliated with the Black Swan."
"Then it's not too out of the blue that we wouldn't either. Alvar wasn't sure the Black Swan wouldn't out him to the government or not because of bad blood between them, so it was safer for all of us to not trust anyone."
"I understand. Where do you want the potatoes?"
"In the pan. I'm going to fry them to give them a crispy skin and so they don't disintegrate in the pot. Grab some carrots out of the fridge while you're over there."
"Okay." Jolie picked up the cutting board after her aunt was finished chopping and dumped the potatoes in the pot. She reached in the fridge and grabbed two or three carrots. "Do you need anything else out of the fridge?"
"Hmm. What do you think would go good with beef?"
"Maybe an onion? I don't have a lot of experience with human vegetables. Mom didn't do a lot of stuff with them."
"Yeah. Grab an onion and some celery if there's any in there. There should be, I just bought some yesterday. Alvar goes through the stuff like nobody's business. Honestly, he's more trouble about eating vegetables than the kids are, except for celery and lima beans, which he goes through like candy."
Jolie laughed. "You're right, there isn't any in here. He must have finished it off."
"That man." Annie muttered. "Well, the onion will have to do and I'll find some spices."
Special fancy moonlark powers! Don't forget to drop a review before you go, even if it's just screaming at me for being a horrible sadistic person. Every review gets a teaser for the next chapter. (Let me know if you don't want one.)
Shine brightly!
Ruby
