Nightwish (An Echoes of Eternity Novel Book 1) Page 18

  I could relate to wanting to make a maternal figure proud, but I speculated that Alexis had lived a much tougher life than I had, and I couldn’t tell if she’d acted out of earnestness or dishonesty. Because I wanted to know the truth, I heeded Brandon’s unspoken suggestion.

  “I think you’ve gotten the wrong impression about me.”

  Alexis stared at me hard and tried to ascertain if I’d set a trap for her. She spent a long time in silent mode, attempting to determine if she should trust me.

  “We should talk.”

  “I’m sure someone called the cops.” Alexis glanced around but, seeing no one, she shrugged. “All right, we have a few minutes. Let’s do it, sister.”

  The emphasis on “sister” told me that she still doubted my motives, but that she was willing to give me the benefit of the doubt. I took some time to analyze her features, but once again, I couldn’t identify a single negative intention. My sister was probably a pro at lying, and that knowledge obviously didn’t make me feel any more comfortable around her. A perfect example: I still suspected that she wanted to kill me.

  “After you,” Alexis said, gesturing toward the exit.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Ten minutes later, as we sat down across from each other at a circular table at the back of Starbucks, I couldn’t get over the idea that my sister said she had no qualms about killing me. I scrutinized her face, but no matter how hard I tried to infer whatever feelings she might convey, I failed.

  Alexis stared at me with a blank expression. “Well, here we are. Twin sisters. With nothing to talk about.” She glanced at the six or seven people at the other end of the shop before turning her attention back to me.

  “That’s not true. I don’t know anything about our family’s past. I’d say I deserve some answers. So why not start from the beginning.” Nerves that jutted to the surface, demanding that I keep talking, made it difficult for me to remain quiet. I told myself to shut up and let Alexis reveal whatever she felt like discussing.

  “Zephora,” Alexis said, meeting my gaze with an impenetrable stare. “She was the first witch in our line. She must’ve been a fluke of evolution.” She sat back, relaxing in the contours of a plush, leather armchair. “Most aspects of her DNA got passed along to every female in our line who came after her.”

  I wanted to say something to break the silence, but doing so would reveal my nervousness, so I just stared at her and waited.

  “She was the reason the Witch Trials took place in Salem. The villagers suspected that a number of witches existed in Massachusetts. It’s the reason everyone in our line forsakes religion.” She notched an eyebrow. “Do you?”

  “I believe in God, but I’m not necessarily religious.”

  “Believing in God means you’re religious.”

  I disregarded the statement. “God exists,” I said, leaving that statement to stand-alone.

  Alexis snickered. “If you say so.” She leaned forward. “I’ve given it some thought. Actually, more than a little and this is what I’ve come up with: you and I can control molecular structure. Has God given that ability to others? No. Only we have that ability. So ask yourself: why?”

  “What makes you think God gave us that ability?”

  “Exactly. If He was so fair, why didn’t He allow everyone to have some type of supernatural ability?” Alexis sat back like a lawyer, resting her case.

  “You’re saying God didn’t give us these powers. So who did?”

  “Lucifer,” she said without hesitation.

  “You’re serious? You think Satan gave you the power to freeze matter?”

  “Of course.”

  I noticed that no one paid us any attention, so I lifted a hand toward her, calling upon all of the energy that I spent so much effort trying to repel and sent a blast of heat her way.

  Immediately, she raised her hand, sending a torrent of frost toward me.

  The streams of divergence met in the middle. Our powers cancelled themselves out: my heat meeting her freezing capabilities, drawing crackling energy between us.

  “It seems,” I said, lowering my palm to avoid drawing attention, “that we can use our powers to hurt each other.”

  She retracted her hand as a cocky smile entered her expression. “I guess so. Makes it interesting, doesn’t it?”

  Her arrogance made it difficult to meet Alexis on her own level. “What does that mean?”

  Her grin widened. “That I can kill you. And you can kill me…if I allowed it.”

  Once again, I couldn’t overlook her egotistical nature. But what made her rely on it to such a great degree? “What makes you think I couldn’t take you down?”

  She picked up her latte and glanced around the mostly empty shop. “Because I have fifteen years of experience on you. Oh, don’t feel bad. It’s not your fault Mother Dearest gave up on you.”

  I tried not to take offense. “And why do you think that was?”

  Alexis smirked. “She sensed that I had more power than you.”

  “In what way?”

  “You were given more toward emotion. I’m not.”

  “In other words, you’re more heartless.”

  She laughed. “If that’s the way you need to see things…then go right ahead.”

  “So you don’t agree?”

  “Hell, no. Look, I have a daughter that I love, a mother that I’d do anything for, and a sister who I can’t relate to.”

  “In other words, you don’t trust me.”

  “That sums it up. I don’t trust you. But you feel the same way, so it doesn’t bother me.”

  I found her honesty refreshing. “So you don’t want to kill me?”

  That question gave her pause. “Mom sensed you last night, so I decided to have some fun with you. Why not? You weren’t invited in our house and you were trespassing.” She cocked her head to the side and raised an eyebrow. “An intruder? For a goody-two-shoes? My, my, not what I expected from our Little Miss University.”

  I didn’t give any indication that her nickname got under my skin, even though it did. “It’s not like I planned for it to happen. I was sleeping and the next thing I knew, I was in your house.”

  Surprise entered her expression. “So, you don’t know how to turn it on or off?”

  “Nope. I’ve only done it once. I just think about a place and a second later, I end up there. If that’s all it takes, it shouldn’t be too hard to control it.”

  “If that doesn’t work, you’re saying that you might drop in on us again?”

  “It’s possible.”

  Alexis nodded, accepting that statement with aplomb. “You see why I have a problem with that, right?”

  “Of course.” I sipped my cappuccino. “I’d feel the same way.”

  “Thanks for your honesty. I hate liars.”

  “So, you don’t lie?”

  Alexis eased forward, setting her gaze on mine with complete sincerity. “I will never lie to you.”

  As much as I wanted to discount her statement as a fabrication, I couldn’t. I believed her. But that only applied to what she might tell me. It didn’t include what she might omit. It certainly didn’t include what she might do.

  “I want to earn your trust,” she said.

  Why? So she could break it later? Besides, who actually said they wanted to earn another person’s trust? It told me that people didn’t trust her and that she needed to work hard to get others to believe in her. Still, I would have loved to have a family, to be part of something bigger than myself. And having an identical twin, I might have found exactly that. I already regarded Celestina as family. So why couldn’t I duplicate that inclination with my sister?

  “You don’t trust me,” Alexis said. The vulnerable look in her eyes vanished. “I get that. But I saw the connection you share with my daughter.” The word ‘daughter’ made her voice crack, and she looked down, disappointed to have allowed another to see how much she cared for another person. “And I’m willing to trust her b
elief in you.”

  I analyzed her expression, scanning her for any sense of a lie or misgiving, but the deeper I looked the more I trusted her. It comforted me, settled some of my uneasiness. Alexis kept looking at me as though expecting another line of questioning, but she was unwilling to provide answers until I raised a question. More than that, she realized how awkward I felt about the topic, and she enjoyed watching me squirm.

  “You asked me not to ask, but I’m asking. Celestina’s father?”

  “A man who dated Mother…one time. He arrived for their second date, but Mother hadn’t gotten home from work yet.” She paused, swallowed, and it took her a moment to regain her composure. “He raped me.” Her dispassionate voice revealed that she distanced herself emotionally from the incident. While not one muscle on her face budged, which lent the impression that she spoke without feeling, Alexis’s glistening eyes disclosed that no matter how hard she tried, she’d never be able to discuss the subject without feeling…something.

  Hearing that shocking revelation, I forgot about my comfort level and wanted to reach out and comfort her. But instinct told me that Alexis would brush off any compassion. Even more so, she would consider me weak for giving in to sentimentality. Heat turned my cheeks red in shame for making her recall such a painful experience. At the same time, I couldn’t help but want to say that no one deserved such agony, much less a living embodiment of the memory, but thankfully, Celestina turned out to be virtuous.

  “I wanted to get an abortion,” Alexis continued, “but Mother…” she trailed off, biting her lip in distaste. “Mother wouldn’t let me. She didn’t explain why at the time, and I hated her for it. But the moment I gave birth, I was glad that I kept my daughter.” A beautiful smile touched her lips. “I knew she was special. Celestina is my everything.” She shook her head as tears shimmered in her eyes. “She gives my life meaning. I’d be lost without her.” She looked down and cleared her throat as if something had been lodged in her throat, and she’d tried to clear it.

  Given my sister’s powers, however, I doubted that she allowed the rapist to go free without punishment. “How did you deal with…”

  “The man who raped me?” she asked, holding her head high, unwilling to let the memory overshadow her mind.

  “I didn’t do a thing. But when I told Mother, I’d never seen her so furious. I didn’t see what happened, but…I heard the screams.” She looked off to the side. “I can still hear his shrill voice now. Begging. Pleading. But Mother showed him no mercy.” A malevolent smile appeared on her face. “I imagined that she’d frozen him, then before he died from hypothermia, she’d melt the ice with heat that scorched his skin. His screams were so savage. I loved listening to them. It felt like he finally understood what he’d put me through, what he made me endure. I only wish Mother spent a few more hours making him…uncomfortable.”

  I stared at her, startled by everything I’d heard, mostly because as Alexis said…she hadn’t seen the torture take place, she had only heard it. And I couldn’t lie; a miniscule part of me approved of the measures our mother had taken to seek justice.

  “Because you and my daughter have a special relationship,” Alexis said in a bitter tone that made it obvious that she divulged more than a bit of jealousy, “I’ll trust that you won’t hurt her in any way…even if you haven’t mastered your abilities.” Her eyes bore into mine.

  “I’d never hurt her.”

  “I believe that.” She looked down as though ashamed to admit that. “And that’s the only reason I feel that your grandmother did a decent job of parenting...you, at least.”

  Since Alexis hadn’t any experience with Grams, she must have picked up that same devotion to familial bonds from her mother, despite alluding to the poor job our mother did in guiding her throughout childhood and adolescence. I couldn’t speak to that, of course, but since Alexis obviously knew more about our mother’s upbringing that than I did, I said, “Maybe Grams tried to raise me the way she would have preferred to raise Delphine.”

  “Maybe, but from what I’ve heard, I did a better job parenting as an eight-year-old than Lorraine did at four times my age. How could I respect that?”

  “No one’s perfect. Not you. Not me. But we learn from our experiences. I think we have that in common, but I can’t say the same about our mother.”

  Alexis’s upper lip curled with distaste for a fraction of a second before settling into a frown. “I can’t blame you. I’d feel the same way about her if she abandoned me. So you can astral project and create fire. What’s your final ability?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Astral projection: that’s supposed to be a big deal. In my opinion? Totally overrated. You can’t touch or move things. No one can hear you or see you.” She grinned, looking pleased to have me at a disadvantage. “Who cares if your spirit can travel around? Hopefully, your last gift isn’t so lame. Take my ability to read minds. At first, all these voices kept bombarding me, and I couldn’t do anything to stop them. But I learned how to control which voices I let in. Once I got that down, there’s nothing better.” She leaned closer. “Because when you think about it, your mind is the ultimate prize: you store all your memories there, all your hopes and fears.” She smirked. “It only takes me thirty seconds to know everything about anyone.”

  “I doubt that,” I said.

  Alexis’s face went slack, unemotional.

  Ping! I felt my sister examining my mind the way a person paged through a book, skipping forward, disregarding uninteresting aspects before slowing down upon spotting something of interest.

  “You’re scared about your future,” Alexis said. “You’re the bandleader, but you’re afraid of letting your friends down. You think your new guitarist is totally hot…” Alexis produced a genuine smile. “Ooh, I’m already looking forward to meeting him.”

  I tried to clear my mind, but images kept popping up, no matter how hard I’d tried to clear them from my thoughts. “You won’t,” I said, pushing my chest against the table quickly enough to stop her from talking.

  “Ooh,” Alexis said. “You’ve got my interest.” She grinned. “Who’s this guitarist?”

  “None of your business.”

  “People are rotten,” my sister said. “They have disgusting thoughts.”

  The curious tickle in my brain vanished. I presumed she ended her analysis so quickly to show me how easily she could enter and exit my mind.

  “So many of them should be hospitalized for mental disorders.” She noticed I was about to counter that statement, so she cut me off from speaking. “I took the bus last week. I heard thoughts from eighteen people on that trip. One man contemplated various ways to kill his wife: lopping off her head with a baseball bat, pushing her off the top of the building, or even suffocating her while asleep; a woman almost climaxed while daydreaming about her boss bending her over her desk and giving it to her doggy style; a couple sat together, but apart, both of them thinking about different sexual partners. I’ll grant that two women and one man either thanked the Lord or appreciated that they found people those loved. That was comforting.” She nodded sincerely. “But they were the only ones. The others had dark visions, evil thoughts. One woman fantasized about plunging her sister’s head into the toilet bowl.” She smirked as she met my gaze. “No need to read into that.”

  But how could I not? Had she just added that for effect? Was she making up these stories, or did they actually form in other people’s minds?

  “One man worried about losing his job. Another wondered whether Dunkin’ Donuts coffee tasted better than McDonalds coffee. A nine-year-old girl tried to guess how many dollars in coins she had in her piggy bank at home. A five-year-old girl, who just finished eating a Twix bar wished she’d had another one, while her mother wondered whether she could afford to buy them dinner that night.”

  “What do you do with all those thoughts?”

  “Most of the time? Nothing. But on my way off the bus, I passed the girl wh
o ate that Twix bar. I pretended to pick up a $20 bill from the ground, handed it to her mother, and said it must have fallen out of her purse. And do you know what that woman did? She gave me this disgusted look as if she’d rather lick gum off her shoe than take a handout from me. The world is a cold place.”

  That viewpoint told me a lot about my sister. “The world is what you make of it. If you expect it to be cold, that’s what you’ll get.”

  “Whatever you say, little sister. I can snatch thoughts and memories from your mind like…” She snapped her fingers. “So far, you’ve done a decent job of trying to stop me, but if I wanted to...” She sliced a hand through the air.

  My thought process went blank. It’s as though Alexis severed my brain activity.

  “You know what?” she asked. “After today, I’m going to do exactly that…whenever I want. Soon enough, I’ll be honing in on whatever thought enters your mind the moment it occurs to you.” She grinned. “How does that sound?”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “I don’t trust you.” Her cheek twitched with indignation.

  “How could you say that?”

  “You infiltrated my home. You listened in on a conversation between Mother and me. Whether or not you knew what you were doing, you’ve proven yourself untrustworthy. You disregarded our privacy. So after today, I’ll disregard yours.”

  “But it was an accident. I fell asleep. I dreamed about you, your daughter, and our mother because I’d never had a family before. I just wanted to know what it felt like. I had no idea how to astral project.” I stared at her, hoping she understood me. “It just happened.”

  Alexis glared at me for a long moment and stayed quieter for even longer. “You know what? I believe you.” Although she appeared surprised by that admission, she didn’t offer anything beyond that statement.

  “So you won’t read my mind?”