**DISCLAIMER: The concept of the Night World belong to L.J. Smith, not me. But my characters, namely Elise, the Morgan twins, and Sinael are mine. Please don't steal them.**
Author's Notes: Hi everyone. This takes place in the Night World universe but before Circle Daybreak is formed and therefore before the Night World books take place. Please send some feedback or review! Enjoy reading!
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"In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two."
~Erich Fromm~
Amulet of Artemis
by: The Silver Princess
8
Xander paused just outside her door, allowing himself a moment to simply grin before he started home. Goddess, he had nearly lost her. But she was strong enough to accept him and actually make the first move to save their love. A miracle, a smiling, loving, glittering miracle. He loved her with every molecule of his body. He laughed, almost giddily as he turned the corner onto his street.
He reached home and found his sister waiting solemnly for him. Poor Leilani, he thought sympathetically. She loved life so much, hated seriousness and avoided it whenever possible. Before whatever was up with Sinael was over, she would be forced to remain serious for much longer.
With worried fire-green eyes, she asked, "How's Elise? Did she say anything? Is she . . . taking it well?"
"She's fine. Unnerved, but she's accepted it. Things should be fine between all of us."
Leilani broke into a relieved grin. "Thank the Goddess."
The twins just sat there smiling in relief for a minute, before Leilani broke the momentary peace and suggested, "Perhaps you should See again." She did not need to voice her concerns about Sinael aloud for him to infer her reasons.
A presaging disquiet pricked at his consciousness as he nodded and fetched the candle. He carefully cleared his mind and murmured the spell, falling deep into the ebony center of the flame.
* * *
Elise spent the rest of the day attempting to catch up on homework, clean up, and watch television—trying to do all sorts of normal things.
Witches are real. Witches are real. Witches are real.
It was a strange catchy little chant that would suddenly pop up out of nowhere and distract her whenever she was about to succeed in concentrating on something else. Finally, she slammed shut her enormous biology textbook in irritated frustration and stalked towards the bathroom to soak in a long relaxing bath, something she hadn't done in a long while.
God, witches were real. There it was again. She groaned, glaring around her bathroom as though she could blame the blue tiles or the shelf of toiletries. Everything was so familiar, so everyday. There lay her half-gone tube of toothpaste and her toothbrush. They were so devastatingly normal and mundane; how could everything seem suddenly different in her eyes when it was obviously unchanged? She glanced at herself in the mirror. She was different as well. She was—what was the word?—Elemental. Descended from spirits of nature. Her beauty was otherworldly. She gazed at her reflection. She did notice differences in herself suddenly, especially her eyes. Veiled somewhere in those cerulean depths, there was something else, something she had not noticed or had ignored, something not completely human. Proof.
Unexpectedly light-headed, she clutched at her counter, feeling the solidarity of the cold ceramic. Get a grip, she ordered herself. You already dealt with all this morning. Stop being an idiot.
Taking a deep breath, she calmed down and, as if to prove her self-control to someone absent or invisible, added a good dollop of fragranced bubble bath to the tub.
Later, as she was making spaghetti, there was a knock at her door. Remembering Sinael and her little henchman, she stifled the welcoming shout in her throat. It was doubtful that either of those two would knock or wait, she knew, but she felt certain that trickery was not something with which they were unfamiliar. She turned off the stove and, hefting a frying pan, padded over to see who was at the door.
With relief, she saw the Morgan twins standing at her doorstep. Setting aside the pan, she flung the door open and let them in.
Leilani stood there awkwardly, waiting for Elise to say something.
As she looked at her best friend's uneasy face, she burst out laughing. "I always knew you had to be less than normal to hang out with me!"
Leilani grinned and the two friends hugged warmly. "I knew you wouldn't care," she responded happily.
Xander came forward now that the girls were comfortable again. He snaked his arm around Elise's waist and drew her to him with a kiss.
When they parted, Leilani said mockingly, "I see we're getting much less modest these days."
Elise laughed, still heady from the kiss, and invited them inside, as Leilani graciously explained that they had already eaten dinner but that that should not stall her.
"So, I'm assuming there is a purpose behind visiting me this late today when you'd said you would swing by tomorrow," Elise said as she filled her bowl and one as well for Xander who, when realizing there was food around, had tackled her with his best puppy-dog face despite his sister's disapproving frown.
Sitting down across from Elise and Xander, Leilani said, "Actually, yeah, there is a reason. Xander Saw this morning after he returned from walking you home and…" She paused thoughtfully. "Well, he should tell you."
She turned to him and gave him an inquiring look.
He looked up from his meal, frowning. "You can't even wait till I've finished my spaghetti?" he asked, throwing his hands up in mock exasperation. "Oh, all right," he conceded. "Basically, my vision is still being very vague, clouded, but I am getting something more than I had previously." He turned to face Elise directly, locking eyes with her. "There's a reason that you're more than Elemental. It's not coincidence. It's very closely related to whatever power is here. Somehow, there's a connection. So Leilani and I started thinking. Elise, is there anything you can think of that's weird about this town? Here in specific? Any strange phenomena, residents, places? It may give us an idea what is going on and how you're connected to it."
Elise frowned, trying to think of something that fit that description, but her mind kept drifting to other peripheral ideas. Funny, she thought, we all automatically assume we're going to do whatever possible to fight Sinael, to stop her. Though I, at least, have very little choice in the matter. She'll keep coming after me. She shivered as she logically followed that line of reasoning. She'll keep coming after me until she's caught me, killed me, and I can't count on—
"The earthquakes!" Elise exclaimed.
Leilani and Xander jumped at the sudden break in the patient silence.
She tapped her fingers on the counter animatedly, proud at solving the riddle—or at least feeling as though she had. "I mean, all the geologists keep saying they're physically impossible! We've had dozens of different scientists up her trying to explain them, but no one can…" She faltered uncertainly as her initial burst of inspiration faded. "Doesn't that fit what you were saying?" she finished uncertainly.
Leilani's fiery green eyes flared excitedly as she turned over an idea in her mind. Elise could practically see her mind placing pieces of a mentalpuzzle together. "Elise," Leilani said thoughtfully, "do you remember where you were when these quakes hit?"
Taken aback she stammered, "Um, some, some of the big ones, yeah." She glanced cautiously at Xander and, with an identical excited gleam in his emerald eyes, he nodded. She continued, "Well, there was one on my first day of school. Umm, another in November three years later. I remember that because . . . well, I kind of beat up a kid that day." She blushed and hurried on. "There was another about six years later, the first week after winter vacation. Now that was a bad one, which just my luck, compounded one of the worst days of my life." Her face darkened at the memory. She shook off the mental cobwebs. "And of course," she appended, "the recent ones you already know about."
The twins glanced at each other, and Xander said, "This is just a theory, but have all the earthquakes happened when you were really upset or excited or just emotional?" Elise nodded, staring at him uncomprehendingly. Xander broke into a grin hugging her closely. "I know this sounds crazy, but I think that means that you're behind the earthquakes!"
She stared back and forth at the two of them, before she burst into unbridled laughter. "Me?" she asked incredulously. "No way, not even possible. I can buy the whole witch thing, but this? It's completely ridiculous. You have to know how ridiculous that sounds!" She tried to say more, but her sides were starting to hurt.
Leilani's dry voice cut into her mirth. "But I'm willing to bet that this town never had any earthquakes eighteen years ago."
Elise's laughter dwindled as she thought about that. She frowned. "You know, I think you're right," she confessed reluctantly. "Yeah, I think the first one was about that time ago." She shook her head, still unwilling to give credence to their theory. "But that notwithstanding, the idea that I'm behind the quakes? It's…ridiculous."
Xander said, "Even so, it's a clue, and we should probably follow it up."
Elise managed to resist the urge to roll her eyes at their obvious folly and asked resignedly, "Where to?"
With a happy grin, Leilani said, "The library."
The twins had her bustled through the door before she could finish saying, "Is the library even open this late?"
* * *
"Are we looking for something specific or are just wandering aimlessly around the library?" Elise asked irritably.
"Want some bread with that whine?" Leilani asked equally cross. They glared at each other.
Xander made a noise.
"Xander, did you just snarl at us?" Elise asked incredulously as she turned her hostility on him.
They had been wandering futilely around the library without finding anything helpful. Plus, she felt increasingly idiotic looking for something to prove that she was causing the earthquakes. The three of them had been griping and sniping at each other, the first time since they had met, the entire time.
"You know, we're never going to find anything here. These books don't even mention our town. We don't even make a dot on the map," Elise pointed out for what felt like the millionth time.
"Do you have any better ideas?" Leilani snapped back, their argument already monotonous. She pulled down a book, flipped through it, and put it back with a sigh.
There was something else bothering Elise beyond her companions' behavior. She had never liked the library—it had always felt musty and forgotten and she had always feared becoming lost and unremembered there as a child—but she knew there was something important that would help. . .
"That's it!" she exclaimed. At the glare of the librarian, she lowered her voice and said, "Newspaper articles."
At a questioning look from the witch twins, she explained, "The library always keeps a record of the newspapers published. That's where we'd be most likely to get information about the earthquakes and anything else weird like that going on here."
The fire of an actionable plan cleansed away the antagonism, and with directions from the librarian, the trio found the computer with the articles stored on it. "See if you can find the first earthquake," Leilani suggested as Elise settled before the machine, she being the most familiar with such technology.
With a grumble, Elise complied. After a minute, she said, "Here it is. 'Yesterday our town was rocked by what seemed to be an earthquake' blah blah blah damage, injuries, blah, blah 'Geologists are being called in to investigate this phenomenon. They will attempt to ascertain if this is a new fault.' And so on and so forth." She looked up to the twins flanking her.
"What else happened that day?" Leilani asked.
"I don't have to look," Elise answered quietly, a strange thumping in her chest that echoed in her ears. She had disregarded the import of the date momentarily, but the question brought its relevance to her full force. She wondered vaguely how much further her resilience to shock would be tested. "The day of the earthquake was the day I was abandoned here," she said finally. Then, admitting unhappily, "Looks like your theory might be right."