Then the darkness behind her eyes changed.
There were not so much rules to a Seer’s abilities as there were ranges. Five, to be precise. Some Saw the past, some – like her father – Saw the future. And some, the present. The fourth category were Death Seers, who only ever saw visions of death. And the last, the rarest, was the Prophet or Prophetess, the one rare Seer capable of Seeing the past, presentandfuture.
None could easily See the future of someone they loved. Not without a type of training that had been lost eons ago. Probably because the process could drive them mad.
But most, with the right training or connection, were able to See someone’s memories if they were replayed in the person’s mind while there was physical contact.
So, when Bells’ eyes opened, she was in their childhood nursery.
From what she’d been told of this place, it was one of the locations they’d settled in the longest as a family. Sometimes, when they returned here in Dylan’s mind, the place was unlit, nothing but the gloom of an eerie twilight. Other times, like now, it had a soft, cosy feel, its lamps casting the tiny blue flowers in the wallpaper in a warm glow. Here, his memories gave details to a room Bells had been too young to recall: the cream carpet and cot, a rocking chair and dresser.
Bells appeared in the memory just as she was in the present, sixteen years old and dressed in pyjamas. It allowed her to walk it; take in the rest of the room.
The trio of her and her siblings would always materialise after the room itself. She knew the sight of them now, huddled on the carpet of the walk-in wardrobe, the slatted door partially open. The door of the nursery sat to its right. Above, the room had a sloped ceiling, and there was one small window opposite them. Nowhere near big enough for someone to have climbed in.
No, the Empyreal that was about to kill their mother would use the front door.
Bells scanned the room before she went to young Dylan, searching for something she might have missed previously, but nothing had changed, even if she felt more unease today.
He was only four years old here, Nicole only three. Bells was clutched by Nicole at barely a year old, one of Dylan’s little handscovering her. Her heart ached sharply. Even at that tender age, he’d tried to protect them.
It looked like a movie that had been paused, parts of it blurred out until he focused. But he always focused on this part last, reluctantly. And she knew why.
Across from them their mother appeared, as if in a simulation.
After the first few times doing this and telling her father what she’d seen, Bells had learned that the strange, wall-like shimmer that separated the young versions of them from their mother was their mother’s Influence, hiding him and the others from the intruder.
Bells took in the shocking clarity of her with a rush of fear and awe: the dark hair, the beauty, yes. There was a sharpness to her features that was so similar to Nicole’s. Bells couldn’t help but wonder what similarities she might have. The child who had never even spoken her first words before their mother was taken. Who had no obvious similarities. Who was soft and shy, where her mother was honed and confident. Who echoed more of her father’s Seer abilities than those of her mother.
She was intimidated by a woman she’d never known. Felt like a cuckoo chick in a nest of Morrígan-blessed crows.
Their mother had just finished with the Influence when the intruder broke into the room and tried to take her out.
The killer’s form was a giant blur, their face obscured. The pair fought in an uncanny, partially blurred slow motion. Their mother managed to lead the fight out of the nursery and down the stairs to the living room.
But Dylan had moved, got up and scampered out of the wardrobe. He ran out to the small landing at the top of the stairs, and in her more adult form, Bells followed, rebelling at the idea that Dylan should see any of this, tempted every time to shield him. Tochangethis.
But she couldn’t change a memory, only see it.
So she crouched behind him. So tiny. Soreal. And brought her hands up to lightly touch young Dylan’s temples and the downy gold hair.
‘Show me who it is,’ Bells said softly. ‘You can do it. Don’t be afraid. This is just a memory. It can’t hurt you—’
Her words were interrupted by a ripple of somethingelse.
‘What is it?’ came their father’s distant voice.
For a moment she’d almost forgotten what was real and what wasn’t. But Bells couldn’t articulate what was wrong, and didn’t even know if she needed to. She was watching the death of her own mother through the spindles supporting the bannister, perhaps that was all this uneasy feeling was.
Yet something snarled to her left at the edge of the vision, down where the front door faced the stairs and was hanging open to the night. She forced her eyes back to their mother and strained to somehow bypass Dylan’s memory and see the face.
Then she felt something where her pinkie touched Dylan’s cheek, something wet.
Tears.
Their mother turned. This was the moment her eyes would widen as she spotted Dylan.
Instead—
