well, couple of things. Why do you think I’m supposed to sit back and let you try to steal my boyfriend? What makes you so special that we all have to drop everything and come wait here for you to have your birthday? And why are you having us dress up for a dinner that only you can eat, it seems pretty stupid.” She was seething by the time she finished.
Sawyer remained calm after the outburst and waited while the staff poured wine for the table and served her a bowl of soup. When they left, she took a sip of wine and tried to answer the questions.
“The reason for the dining room is simply so we can all sit and talk. You obviously won’t eat, but you can sit and talk. As for why we dress for dinner, that is a simple answer really. We are not at a county fair eating hotdogs on sticks. If we were, then your earlier attire would have been just fine. We, however, are in my home, and in my formal dining room, we dress for dinner here. If you don’t like it, don’t come next time. I don’t need you here.
“The answer to your other question is more complicated. This decision to have these four men here was made before I was ever born. One of them and I are fated together. It can be hard to accept that your fate has been decided without anyone asking your permission. To accept the fact that your fate was written long before you were born. I understand this better than most. One of these men is my soul mate, and I have no choice in the matter, and neither will he. If it happens to be Liam, then you must come to accept that he was never meant to be your fate and a different life awaits you. That is the basis of why everyone is here now. Two of us are connected, and we must find out who it is,” she answered.
“How will we know who this person is?” Lucas asked.
“My birthday is in two months. On the full moon after my birthday, I will sing a song. When I sing on that night, our ethereal energies will seek one another out and combine,” she said.
“Why don’t you just sing now then and get it over with?” Julius asked fascinated by what she was describing.
“I can’t. I won’t know the song until the moment I start to sing it, and it won’t fill my soul until the full moon, after my powers have come to me fully. If I could have sang it before, believe me, I would have. It will come when the full moon shines at its fullest, and only then will my voice know how to sing my soul song,” she said, looking at him.
“What will you do if on that night no song fills your soul?” he asked her, and their eyes locked for a moment. She thought his brown eyes looked so familiar, and she knew she had seen them before, but she couldn’t place them.
“I have a song, Julius, it has always been there, and I can feel it just under the surface of everything. When I sing, one of you will connect to me in a way that will be a perfect love, and we will share eternity together,” she answered.
“So why won’t this Mother person just tell you who he is? Why do all of them have to be here?” asked Brexley.
Sawyer looked at the young vapid blonde. She knew Hunter had brought her along as moral support for the coming days. She also knew that even though she and Hunter and Brexley were the closest in age, they all had nothing in common. Brexley and Hunter had gone off to college together. Their lives had been an endless cycle of popularity and a good time. Neither had any real concern for their futures or what it might hold. Even their change had been done on whim. They refused to hold anything of substance in their personalities and were never concerned with anyone else but themselves. They remained immature and still clung to human ideals. She knew she needed to exercise patience when dealing with either of them, because while they were all the same age, they had different priorities. She chastised herself for speaking harshly to Hunter earlier. She would have to try to be more understanding to these two. If they made it past a century in the change, she would be very surprised.
“She won’t say because she will not speak of a future only she can see. She wants me to have the chance to know him before we are connected. She believes to fall in love sight unseen would be unfair to either of us. It is hard to love a stranger. She chose both sets of brothers to come because all four of them somehow will affect my future. Before you ask, she won’t say how, but I will need all four of them someday. The bright side of this is I gain new friends in the process, and hopefully you all will to,” she answered optimistically.
Liam laughed at the last part. He was certainly not making friends with the trio across the table.
Marcus gave him a stern look and then turned to Sawyer. “May I ask what your powers are, and how long will you live? Our lives are indefinite, will you live as long as your soul mate, or will you have to be changed?”
“Excellent question, I was waiting for one of you to ask. My powers are often mistaken for a witch, and we pull from the same energy. I just have more access to it than everyone else. If you will allow me, I will lift the veil from your sight and I can better explain the power of the fae, but you must all agree,” she asked and then waited for everyone to nod in agreement. When they had all nodded their heads, she waved her hand and waited.
Instantly they noticed everything was surrounded in silver light almost like a shimmer. The light was constantly flowing in and out of itself and around everything and everyone. Sawyer was absolutely soaked in it, and the light around all of them was very weak. Sawyer stood up and asked them to follow her outside.
They stepped out and were mesmerized. The sun had set, and the moon absolutely glowed in silver light. It shined down rays of silver light, and they touched the earth. They could see silver strings connecting everything. They saw a bee attached to a flower with a silver string, and the tree was attached to the soil with silver strings. It seemed Sawyer was attached to everything with silver strings flowing from her body to the moon, trees, flowers, and soil.
She let them walk around wordlessly for a while and explore the silver light. They tried touching it, and their hands went through it like it was a mist. They were all amazed. Everything was alive with this energy, and it flowed all around them. They couldn’t feel it or see it, but it had always been there.
When they all turned to look at her, she finally spoke. “This is the ethereal energy, and it connects everything. This is the power of the fae. We can see it, and we can harness it.” She opened her hand, and in the palm, a small ball of silver light formed. It seemed to come flowing from everywhere into her hand.
A few of them opened their own hands to see if it flowed to them. It did not. Julius bent over to study the bee and the flower and reached out a finger to see if he could touch the string. Marcus had bent over to the rocks and was turning them over. Liam was running his hand in the water of the fountain, and Lucas was touching a tree. She knew it must be incredible to see for the first time and let them take their time with it. Finally she said, “Come join me by the flowers and I will show you how my powers work.”
When they had gathered around, she continued, “This silver string you see is connected to absolutely every living thing on the earth. Everything on the earth is alive, even things you don’t think about, like rocks or metal. Most people don’t think of them as alive because they never see them die. A flower can be plucked, and you can see it wither and lose its connection, but rocks are harder. We the fae call this the life force. Only fae can see it, and only a few humans can feel it. We call these humans witches, and the power of the life force has to be concentrated for them to feel it and use it in their spells. On rare occasions like an eclipse, for example, it becomes so concentrated they can cast a powerful spell. It is usually women who are witches, and the fae believe something in the female energy is more attuned to it than in males. The fae are female, and no male has ever been born to us.”
She then opened her hand again and let the energy ball up again. She then let it overflow, and the silver light began to wrap around her hand. She waved her hand at the fountain, and the silver strings began to immerse in the water. She then moved her hand, and the water moved with the direction her hand was pulling the silver string. She did it slowly, like she had been taught as a child when learning to use it. The water went up and then began to fold in on itself in swirls, and soon all the water from the fountain was above it and swirling around.
She returned the water and pointed her hand