Karma rose. “Think about it. How would you feel if you were yanked into a courtroom and put on trial for falling in love? That’s all they did. They happened to fall in love with humans, and only after they knew they could trust them completely did they share their paranormal status. Nothing bad happened.”
Gaia scratched her head. “I hadn’t thought of it like that. Okay, okay. I’ll think about apologizing. I’m not guaranteeing I will. But I promise I’ll consider it.”
“That’s a start,” Fate said. “I think you are changing for the better.”
“Now, if only human beings would change for the better and treat my beautiful planet the way it should be treated, a lot of my anger would dissipate.”
Karma put her arm around Gaia. “I know what you mean. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. And we’ll do it together.”
* * *
Gaia thought and thought about it. She sat on a rock overlooking one of her favorite spots in Maui. The water was warm and softly lapping at her feet. She was trying to ignore the volcano on the next island. So she went to the other side. “I had nothing to do with that,” she mumbled under her breath. “That was all Pele.”
Gaia was wondering if she should confront Pele or if the goddess had a good reason for blowing her top. Either way, she was tired of confronting everyone, especially now that she had done it badly and had to think about apologizing. It was something she had never done before. Of course, she hadn’t lost it like that before either. She had never yanked a bunch of her special children into a courtroom, set them on bleachers in midair, and then unleashed a frightening tirade.
She dropped her head in her hands. “Okay,” she sighed. “I guess I do owe them an apology. But for what? I have one rule, and every one of them violated that rule. Is my rule unfair? Is it too difficult?”
After pondering that, she decided it was absolutely not impossible to continue obeying her rule. Such a simple thing.Just don’t expose your powers to humans.What was so hard about that?
Some paranormals had even found out what happened when they did expose those powers. A few years before in Boston, a merman had been captured in a net. A bunch of science nerds from the local university called MIT had kept him in a giant saltwater fish tank in a warehouse in Cambridge—and then did experiments on him! He had given them information on other paranormals, hoping they’d leave him alone and turn their attention to other, more powerful paras.
She had only met him briefly, but that was enough. He had spilled the Boston baked beans about the whole paranormal community. The nerds had invented a way to detect paranormal energy and found the bar on Beacon Hill called Boston Uncommon. Apparently, their meter had gone crazy as soon as they walked in.
Gaia had known that place was a bad idea and had suggested repeatedly that the owner shut it down. The vampire hadn’t listened. He had insisted his staff, who were human, had no knowledge of their paranormal patrons. He had said if the paras got to know each other, they would get along better. His theory had proved somewhat correct. The tensions between shape-shifters and vampires had diminished significantly. There was much less possibility of humans discovering paranormals through some kind of local war where they might be tempted to use their supernatural powers.
But once the unusual creatures were discovered, they risked capture. The humans had discovered paralyzing drug darts would allow them to grab paranormals, stick them in a van, and bring them to their lab in Cambridge, where they had incredibly strong cages waiting. It had been a disaster.
It hadn’t been until the still free paranormals had located the lab and chosen to work together that they had been able to dismantle it and completely erase all knowledge of the scientific findings—withherhelp, of course. That had been too close for comfort. Perhaps all she had to do was share that scenario with the paras who hadn’t been a part of it. They would have to understand the importance of secrecy then, right?
She liked that idea—a lot. Not only could she apologize, but she could also express her reasoning for her one and only rule. If her concern made sense to them, they wouldn’t mind following the rule as much. She understood how hard it was to find love, and that made her a little sad, but that was Fate’s department, not hers. All she could do was take responsibility for her own mistakes.
She rose and gazed out at the hills.I know what I’ll do. I’ll have a party! A huge party where I can invite everyone I brought to court that day. And then I’ll be able to apologize—just once—to everyone at the same time, which shouldn’t be too painful.
Just the thought of apologizing to each one individually left her shaking, and a drop of sweat rolled down her face. Then she squared her shoulders and continued her thoughts out loud. “I can put their minds at ease. I’ll let them know that there’s a good reason behind my only rule.”
It was for their safety. The danger would seem obvious to her. But one thing she had learned was that humans and paranormals alike didn’t always get it without full and complete explanations. Even then, some of them failed to learn before repeating mistakes. She was just attempting to avoid a recurrence of the mistake that happened in Cambridge.
Okay, how do I go about inviting all these people? I know! My muse of email can help! I will simply ask her.She looked up at the sky and called out, “Bliss! Bliss!”
A human riding a bike along the Hana Highway glanced over and called out, “It really is blissful, isn’t it?”
Gaia chuckled and wondered how many times her modern muse had problems with a name like that. She was happy to see that Bliss was waiting to appear. She was obeying the law…herlaw.
As soon as the human had bicycled around the corner where he could no longer see Gaia’s spot, the brunette called Bliss appeared.
“Mother Nature! What can I do for you?”
“I understand there’s a thing, some kind of card that can be physically mailed or emailed to invite people to an event. I guess it’s a nicer way of doing things than just calling out like I usually do.”
Bliss grinned. “You’ve come to the right place. I used to make cards for a living. What you’re describing is called an invitation.”
“Oh. That’s perfect. Can you make an invitation and send it to the following people: Nicholas Wolfensen, your husband, Drake Cameron, and many Fierros? Let’s see, there’s Miguel, Gabriel, Dante, Noah, Luca, and Antonio. Yes, I think that’s all of them. Those are the ones I caught violating the law who hadn’t been dealt with yet. I brought them to the paranormal court and…well, I’m afraid I need to apologize for that.”
“You regret calling your tribunal?” Bliss asked.
“Don’t look so surprised. I can rethink my actions.”
Bliss just bit her lower lip.
