36. WONDERFUL DAY
LEESA AND HER PERFECT GUY lay side by side again, this time on a dark gray cotton blanket they had spread out in the middle of Brennan Field, a wide, grassy meadow a short distance from the Weston campus. They lay on their backs, Leesa’s head cushioned by Rave’s arm, looking up at a bright blue sky striped with wispy cirrus clouds. Dral and Bain sat comfortably on the ground on either side of them, twenty feet from the blanket. No one expected any trouble with vampires on a bright sunny day like this, but the two volkaanes maintained their vigilance nonetheless.
Leesa had seldom felt so happy and relaxed. She wanted to try to mimic last night’s dream as closely as possible, to extend the wonderful feelings it had brought her, and Rave had readily agreed. Of course, there were no meadows filled with flowers within a thousand miles this time of year, so the thin green and brown grass of Brennan Field had to do. That was okay with her, though. An outing like this would normally have been impossible in the middle of winter. The ground beneath the blanket was frozen solid and the temperature of the air lingered somewhere in the mid-twenties, with a bit of wind adding to the chill. No girl in her right mind would want to lie out on the ground like this on a cold January day—unless the boyfriend she was snuggled up against happened to be a volkaane, of course.
Rave’s inner fire provided all the heat she needed, somehow even keeping the blanket underneath her warm. She felt as if it were July, not January. Now if only she could roll over and kiss Rave deeply, she would be in paradise. Still, she would happily settle for this, for now.
“This is wonderful, Rave,” she said, turning onto her side so she could look at him. “I’m so happy to see you. You couldn’t have picked a better time to come.”
“I had such a strong feeling last night that you needed me. Almost like you sent a message through Max, but I knew you hadn’t. I have never felt anything quite like it.”
Leesa smiled. “Maybe that’s what love does. It syncs two people’s hearts and minds, linking them.”
“Perhaps,” Rave mused. “I’ve never been in love before, so this is new to me. Whatever it was, it was pretty strong last night.”
“I’ve read stories of parents and their children, or identical twins, who said they’ve known what the other was thinking or feeling despite being miles apart. Maybe this is something like that.”
Rave eased his arm out from beneath Leesa’s head and propped himself up on his elbow so he could look at her more easily. “Do you remember that first night we walked together?”
Leesa smiled as the memory flooded into her. This time, the warmth flowing through her body had nothing to do with Rave’s inner fire.
“How could I forget it? I was walking home from the library. You’d been stalking me and finally decided to say hello.”
Rave grinned, remembering how Leesa had teasingly accused him of stalking her. “Not stalking,” he reminded her. “Just keeping an eye on you.”
“That was a wonderful night. I’ll never forget it.”
“This may sound a bit strange, but do you remember if you wanted me to hold your hand that night?”
Leesa let her mind drift back to that unusually warm October evening. New England had been enjoying a few days of Indian summer, and she was wearing only a light sweatshirt and shorts. She remembered noticing how silently Rave walked, even over fallen leaves, while she seemed to crunch every dead leaf in sight. She had been afraid he would think she was a clumsy oaf, with her limp and all that noise. And yes, she remembered wishing desperately for him to take her hand.
“Yeah, I did,” she said. “Very much.”
Rave’s brow furrowed in thought. “Hmmmmm…what would you think if I told you that part way through our walk, I suddenly had an almost irresistible urge to hold your hand? The only thing that stopped me was I could not allow you to feel my heat. Not back then, before you knew what I was.”
Leesa swung herself up into a sitting position and crossed her legs loosely in front of her. Rave did likewise.
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” she asked.
“Yeah, I am. I think what happened last night has happened before. It’s like sometimes I can hear your thoughts…or feel them, anyway.”
“How is that possible?” Leesa asked. If what Rave was saying was true, then she possessed magic—or something close to it. She thought about her strange dreams, and the wastebasket and Red Bull can. Who—or what—was she? And what good were any of these powers if she had no control over them?
“I’m not sure,” Rave said. “But maybe this connection explains why I was so drawn to you, right from the start. I have always known it was more than just your beautiful face.”
Leesa blushed. She remembered Rave teasing her about being drawn to the vampire blood in her veins, courtesy of the grafhym bite her mom had suffered. She had thought there might be some truth to that, but this was something more, much more. What if Rave wasn’t really in love with her, but was just pulled to her by some kind of magic she couldn’t understand much less control?
Rave must have guessed what she was thinking by the look on her face, because he reached forward and took both her hands in his.
“It doesn’t matter what pulled me toward you in the first place,” he said. “I’m not in love with you because of any of that. I’m in love with you because of who you are, because of the way we are when we’re together. Can you understand that?”
Leesa nodded. She could understand it very well, because something similar was going on inside her. She did not love Rave because he was a volkaane, and not because his very touch filled her with magical warmth. She loved him for his gentleness, his thoughtfulness, his sense of humor. His magic was just a bonus. And a danger, too, she reminded herself.
“Yeah, I do get it. It’s the same for me. But where does my magic, if that’s what it is, come from? My grafhym blood? Stefan’s bite?”
“Not Stefan’s bite,” Rave said. “That happened way too late. And not from the grafhym, either. The one-fangs have fewer powers than other vampires, not more.”
“Then where?”
Neither of them had a ready answer, so they sat in silence for a few moments.
“I wonder…?” Rave said finally.
“What?”
“The guy who claimed to be your father. What if somehow he really is your father? Maybe you got something from him.”
Leesa thought about it. She still could not believe the guy could actually be her father, but she didn’t have any better answer to offer. She suddenly wished she hadn’t dropped her phone that day. For the first time, part of her began to hope he would find her again. She had so many questions, questions maybe he could answer.
“There’s some stuff I haven’t had the chance to tell you yet,” she said.
“More nightmares?” Rave guessed.
“Yeah. And something else, too.”
Rave looked surprised. “Start with the dreams.”
“I’ve had two more. In one, there’s a vampire with a girl chained behind her. I’ve had it twice so far, which really bothers me. The girl seems familiar—I think I should know her—but she’s never clear enough to recognize. It’s very frustrating and disturbing.”
“I’m surprised you don’t dream about vampires more often,” Rave said sympathetically, “with everything that’s happened to you. What about the other dream?”
“It’s another zombie nightmare, but this one is different from the first two. This dream was much more frightening and seemed so much more real. I swear, I could almost smell one of the zombies. In this one, they actually attack a couple of families camping in the woods. The fathers try to fight them off to save their kids, but I don’t know if they survive or not. The dream ended before I could see.”
Rave shifted around so he was sitting next to Leesa. He put his arm around her back.
“That does sound scary. I hope you’re not going to tell me you saw this one on the news, too.”
“No… not yet, anyhow. I just had it last night. I was so upset when I woke up I couldn’t get back to sleep. That’s when I really started wishing you were here.” She rested her head on his shoulder. “Maybe that’s what you felt.”
“Perhaps,” Rave said. “I wonder why it hasn’t happened more often, though.” He grinned, wanting to lighten the mood. “Maybe most of the time you don’t miss me enough.”
“Ha! You know that’s not true,” Leesa said, smiling back at him. “I miss you all the time—like crazy!”
Rave gave her a gentle squeeze. “I know. Me, too.”
“Dr. Clerval says this stuff might have to do with strong emotions combined with fatigue. He thinks somehow being tired breaks down some of my logical defenses and lets out whatever might be inside me.”
“That makes sense. Most humans have trouble truly believing in anything magical or supernatural. Look at you. You spent eighteen years being skeptical of your own mother’s story. Maybe all your encounters with the supernatural in the last few months have started weakening your psychological defenses. Then when you’re tired and feeling strong emotions, whatever is inside you manages to break through.”
“Maybe,” Leesa agreed. “But that still doesn’t tell us what the heck is inside me, if anything.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Rave pursed his lips, thinking. “You said before there was something else, besides the dreams?”
“Yeah, there is.” Once again, as Leesa got ready to talk about the incidents Professor Clerval had called telekinesis, she began to feel foolish and unsure. It seemed so impossible, that she was moving objects with only her mind, but was it really any more unlikely than any of the other things she had seen and experienced?
“You’re hesitating,” Rave said. “Do I detect those ‘logical defenses’ coming into play again?”
Leesa flashed a sheepish grin. “Yeah, you do,” she admitted. She paused for a moment. “I think I may have moved a couple of things with my thoughts,” she said finally.
Rave’s eyes widened. “Really? Tell me about it.”
Leesa told him what had happened with the Red Bull can and the wastebasket.
“I can’t really be sure of either,” she said when she was done. “I don’t know if that stupid can actually moved, or whether or not my foot might have hit the basket. But I’m pretty sure it didn’t.”
Rave’s gaze seemed to drift off into the distance.
“Waziri,” he said after a moment, only half aloud.
“What?” Leesa asked, not sure if she had heard the word correctly.
“Waziri,” Rave said, more clearly this time. “A clan of wizards. Some of them had the power to move things without touching them. Others were said to get glimpses of the future in their dreams, or to see things happening far away. My people had dealings with them far in the past. There’s been no word of them for more than a hundred years, though.”
“I’ve never heard of them. Are you sure they were real?”
Rave smiled. “You had never heard of volkaanes, either. But we exist, and so did they. Like most of those who don’t prey on humans, they chose to remain out of sight, the waziri even more so than most. That’s why you have few, if any, stories about them, unlike creatures such as vampires, werewolves and zombies.”
“Are you saying that I somehow have some of these waziri powers?”
“I don’t know. I don’t see how you could, but your stories brought the waziri to mind. And I have always known there is more to you than meets the eye.”
This was all too much for Leesa. Nervous energy filled her. She needed to move, so she stood up. The cold air immediately assailed her, until Rave stood up close in front of her and his heat enfolded her once more.
“Let’s walk for a bit,” Leesa said.
Rave took her hand and they began walking across the field, not really heading anywhere, just walking. Dral and Bain fell into step behind them.
Moving helped calm Leesa a little. “I don’t understand any of this,” she said after a few moments. “How would I get wizard powers, if that’s even what they are? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“I have no idea,” Rave said. “It was just a thought. Who knows if there’s anything to it.”
“Were the waziri good wizards or bad wizards?”
“They were good, for the most part, at least until the end.”
“What happened to them?”
“I’m not certain. I was very young then. Some kind of strife within their ranks, I think. Like a miniature civil war. It is said they wiped each other out. Balin would know more.”
Leesa was more confused than ever. If the waziri had wiped themselves out, how on earth could she have gotten any of their powers a hundred years later? A sudden thought struck her. She stopped walking and turned to face Rave.
“I always thought wizards were men,” she said, “and that women with magic were witches, or sorceresses. Were there any female waziri?”
She could see her question caught Rave off guard. It was obviously something he had not thought about.
“Not that I know of,” he said after a few seconds. “They were all men, I think.”
“Well, there goes your theory, then. Unless you think that somehow I’m the first female waziri.”
“It does seem a bit far-fetched,” Rave admitted. “But stranger things have happened.”
“Ha! Name one.”
Rave smiled. “I fell in love with a human.”
Leesa rose up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “Well, there is that.”
Rave wrapped his arms around her back and she nuzzled her cheek against his chest. Whenever he held her like this, all her worries seemed to melt away.
Finally, she stepped out of his embrace.
“I guess we’re back where we started,” she said, a half smile on her face. “We don’t really know a darn thing.”
“I’ll talk to Balin. Perhaps there were female versions of the waziri I am not aware of. Or maybe hearing about the things happening to you will trigger some other idea in him.”
“And maybe the guy who claimed to be my father will find me again. This time, I’ll make sure to ask him some questions, to see what he might know.”
Leesa took Rave’s hand and they began walking back across the field.
“I’m supposed to go back tonight,” Rave said when they reached their blanket. “But I don’t like leaving you, especially with all that’s going on.”
“Don’t worry. None of this stuff seems really dangerous—not yet, anyhow.” Leesa picked up the blanket and began folding it. “If the dreams start getting scarier and begin coming true, I’ll tell Max. Besides, you need to go back to New Hampshire so you can talk to Balin about the waziri.”
“I know. But that doesn’t mean I have to like the idea.”
“That’s good,” Leesa said, smiling. “I don’t ever want you to like the idea of leaving me.”