it to make up for whatever they feel was done to them.” She pauses. “Although Griffon thinks that she wants more than that.”
“Her essence feels dark,” he says. “I don’t think she’s been Akhet for all that long—a hundred years maybe, but sometimes newer Akhet are the most dangerous. Like baby rattlesnakes that don’t know how to control their poison. Whatever happened between you in the past, I don’t think she’ll be satisfied with a bump on the head.”
Janine frowns. “It’s just so unusual for a rogue to be after an Akhet who’s so young.”
“But it happens,” Griffon insists. “Remember that girl who was kidnapped—?”
“No need to scare her,” Janine interrupts, smiling at me. “Cole has enough going on without you piling horror stories on top of it.”
I look back and forth between the two of them. “So what do I do now?”
“I think you should confront her on your terms,” Janine says. “See if you can get some information yourself. That might give you an idea of how dangerous she really is, and what your connection might be.”
I think about the vision of the concert. “You mean, like, physical contact?”
“It doesn’t take much,” Janine says. “Shake her hand. Let your knee brush hers when you’re practicing. Let the physical connection open up the possibilities of your psychic connection. Haven’t you ever heard the saying ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer’?” she says, taking another bite. “Makes a lot of sense.”
“But won’t she block her essence?” I ask, the words feeling awkward in my mouth. I realize as I say them that I’ve been acting like I believe everything they’re telling me. Like talking about Akhet and reincarnation is the most natural thing in the world.
“Not if she thinks you don’t know what you are,” she answers. “And for much of your relationship, you didn’t. Blocking your history and your essence takes a lot of work. Few can keep it up for very long, and most won’t if they don’t think there’s a compelling reason for it.” She tilts her head toward me. “I can tell that you have strong abilities, even if your awareness is new.”
“Really? Like what?”
“I don’t know exactly, but it’s all based on advanced physiology. When I touched you, I felt that your ability to connect with others is exceptionally strong. It will grow and refine with time, until you can control these connections at will.”
Griffon smirks. Even that looks good on him. “Janine’s working on her emotional intelligence. Some Akhet think that empathic skills can be learned. Stuff like reading people’s emotions and information, knowing whether they’re telling the truth. Sounds good, but I doubt it.”
I remember the sensations when Janine grabbed my hand. “That’s weird, because I felt something when you touched my arm at the door.”
“Like Akhet vibrations?” Griffon asks.
“No,” I say. “It was different. More like some kind of energy. Like emotions that were coming from Janine.”
“You did?” Janine looks pleased. “Hmm. I must be getting better at it, then.”
“In any case, it’s not safe for you to see Veronique by yourself,” Griffon grumbles. He catches my eye.
“Won’t she think it’s weird if you start sitting in on her lessons?”
“I don’t care what she thinks,” he says.
“Cole may be right,” Janine says. “Veronique doesn’t suspect anything right now. Seems like she’s just biding her time. No need to raise her suspicions unnecessarily.”
“Almost causing Cole to fall down an entire flight of stairs isn’t exactly biding her time,” Griffon says.
“You don’t know that she had anything to do with that,” I say. “It could have just been me.”
“So you don’t think that Veronique was involved in the fall?” Janine asks, her dark eyes intent on mine.
“I don’t know,” I say. “She had the opportunity I guess, but the case could just be defective. It might have been an accident. No one’s fault.”
“Right,” Griffon says. “You keep thinking that.” He stands up and begins gathering plates. “I’ll do the dishes. You two go relax in the other room.”
“Coffee?” Janine asks. I nod. “I’ll be right in,” she says. “Go through and I’ll bring your cup.”
“Thanks,” I say, and walk into the living room. One whole wall is a floor-to-ceiling bookcase with family photos resting on stacks of books and crowding many of the shelves. Wandering over to take a closer look, I realize that I recognize some of the faces in the pictures. Next to the normal family photos—Griffon at the Grand Canyon, Griffon playing soccer, Griffon on the baseball team—are pictures of people I recognize from the news and the Internet. There’s one of Janine shaking hands with Nelson Mandela, and another with Al Gore. An adorable young Griffon in a suit and tie hugging a woman who looks a lot like Oprah Winfrey. Guess that really was one of his two truths.
There’s one of Griffon surrounded by a smiling Janine and his dad, still recognizable even without his Warder’s uniform. They made a funny couple—he’s all buttoned-up and English and she’s borderline hippie, and I wonder what drew them together. I pick it up to get a better look.
“Perusing the wall of fame?” Janine asks, setting a steaming mug on the coffee table.
I quickly put the photo back, feeling guilty for snooping. She comes over to join me at the bookcase and glances at the family picture. “You wouldn’t exactly put the two of us together, would you?” she says, making me feel a little bad for thinking the same thing.
“I don’t know,” I say, looking at it again. “Don’t they say that opposites attract?”
Janine laughs out loud. “Lord, I hope so. I think the two of us will be under the official Wikipedia definition of opposites.” She nods and looks a little more serious. “I still feel bad about how things worked out. Goes to show that you can’t always use your memories of past lives to make things work out in this one.”
“But Griffon said that his dad isn’t Akhet,” I say.
“He’s not,” she says. “But I could still see our connection. We met at a party when I was an exchange student in Scotland, and I recognized him immediately.”
“So you’d been together in the past?” That is
She nods. “We’d been lovers a long time ago. I tried to reconnect that thread, but there were too many things separating us in the end.” She pauses. “He’s been a wonderful father for Griffon, though. And he understands and accepts things in a way that a lot of people wouldn’t.” Janine shakes her head, as if to get rid of the memory.
A framed drawing to the right of the bookcase catches my eye. It looks like a map of New York City, but it’s drawn as a sphere, as if the whole thing is actually a 3-D globe. Hundreds, maybe thousands of buildings, bridges, water, and parks all drawn with detail so sharp I can practically see the trash on the streets. “This is amazing,” I say, stepping closer. At first it looks black and white, but as I study it, I see the tiny green squares that are the neighborhood parks and the blue of the river that surrounds the whole thing.
“Isn’t that cool? Completely accurate, too,” she says. “You could give this to a new cabbie and they could use it to get around the city.” She looks closely at it again. “Griffon was only ten when he did this.”
“Griffon drew this?” I’m speechless. It’s like something that should be hanging in a museum, not as a piece of kid art in a family room.
“He drew it from memory,” she says. “We took a helicopter tour of Manhattan one time, and he came up with this a few weeks later.”
“That’s amazing,” I say, but even as the word comes out, I know it’s not totally correct. “Amazing” is what you say when someone does a backflip or sings “The Star-Spangled Banner” all the way to the high note in the second-to-last verse without their voice cracking. This is something else entirely.
“That,” she says, “is part of being Akhet.”
We stand in silence, looking at the photos, until she reaches up to pull a silver frame off a high shelf. “And this is one of my favorite people.” She hands it to me—a picture of Janine with her arm around a tall white guy with glasses.
“Who is he?”
Janine brushes some dust off the glass. “Only the man who’s going to save us from ourselves,” she says, placing it carefully back on the shelf.
