Blue Violet

chapter 5



Ellie and Griffin were made even more exceptional by their ability to use each other’s powers. Ellie suspected it had something to do with their being twins.

Griffin eyed his sister as she made her way around the kitchen cleaning up from dinner.

“Stop worrying,” Ellie suddenly spoke up, interrupting his thoughts.

“I can’t help it if I’m concerned about you. It’s obvious that you’ve put a lot of hope in these people. What happens if it doesn’t work out? Are you prepared for that?”

“I’m prepared for anything at this point. Anything is better than nothing.” She dried her hands on the dish towel, walked over to where he leaned against the kitchen island, and gave him a hug. “It’s time,” she whispered in his ear. “We knew we’d have to come out of hiding eventually.”

After a slight hesitation, Griffin hugged her back. “Like I said… okay.”

They moved into the living room and sat down. She quickly filled him in on what had happened during the few weeks they’d been apart. After Ellie had finally discovered where the Jenners lived, she and Griffin had had a huge fight about tracking them closer. Ellie, thrilled she’d found the people she had dreamed about and fed up with waiting for her brother, had taken off for Estes Park without him.

“I’m guessing it was Claude who called you?” she asked.

“Yeah, that’s how I found you.”

Claude was their lawyer who’d handled the purchase of the house for her. Ellie and Griffin had benefited from the fact that their family had amassed a large fortune, including investments in land, mines, and other continuously producing sources. It also helped that a member of their clan had possessed the ability to turn anything she touched to gold. Humans, in various roles, had managed the money, communicating long distance with the Aubreys through various media… online being the method these days.

Periodically Ellie or Griffin would pretend to die and will their fortune to themselves. Their great-grandfathers had set up this system long before, although Griffin, good with technology, had advanced things through the years, as well as adding to their investments.

“Well, you can’t say this is a show piece house at least.” She flashed him an impish grin.

“Huh,” Griffin looked around. “Definitely not drawing any attention here. That’s for sure.” They tried not to flaunt their wealth, fearing it would bring too much attention both from humans and from Vyusher. Hence the rather unassuming house she’d purchased here. “So,” he prompted, “let’s get on with you telling me about your day.”

Ellie took a deep breath and told him about meeting Adelaide, Lila, and Nate. About Adelaide’s mystifying actions in the lunch room. About them befriending her. And finally, about her encounter with Alex and with Adelaide’s power.

“She felt the shock, I know it.” Ellie dropped her head into her hands.

“Did she seem to think anything of it?”

“I don’t think so, but I can show you. I need to show you what I saw when I touched her, anyway.”

Ellie eyed her brother, unsure if he would go that far. She felt lucky that he was listening to her at all, given his reluctance to be involved. But beyond a tightening of his lips, Griffin didn’t object, and gave a brief nod for her to go ahead.

Ellie closed her eyes and concentrated on her memories of that afternoon in the school parking lot. She knew Griffin would be using his mind reading skills to watch her thoughts along with her.

She started with the shock she’d given Adelaide when she’d touched her arm briefly. She knew that people felt something similar to a charge of electricity when she used her power manipulation on them. Usually she could control it so that they wouldn’t feel the shock, and therefore wouldn’t know what she was doing. But when she wasn’t paying attention…like today…zap!

Ellie tried her best to remember Adelaide’s reaction accurately.

Griffin closed his eyes and whispered, “It looks like she didn’t really notice the shock. She seemed too preoccupied with something else, but I couldn’t tell what. I think you dodged a bullet there. You touched her though. What’d you see?”

“I didn’t touch her long enough to get any clue as to what I was seeing. It looked like glittering, almost electrical, strands of light in different colors…Like this…” Ellie concentrated on the image so Griffin could see it in her mind. She would’ve needed to hold the touch longer to be able to understand what the colors meant, but she’d seen a thick silvery strand between herself and Adelaide. And she’d seen a bright red line that shimmered and faded and then grew stronger, almost in waves, which connected Ellie to Alex. She felt fairly sure those glittering lines, and not the feel of shock, had made Adelaide gasp.

“I can’t be sure, but I’m guessing that Adelaide has the ability to see relationships between people, and that’s what those sort of shimmering strands of light were.” Opening her eyes, Ellie tried to gauge her brother’s reaction. “What do you think?”

Griffin wandered to the couch as he mentally walked through what she’d just shown him. While he’d been able to watch everything Ellie thought, it was a little like a game of telephone. He’d seen it all through Ellie’s eyes, through her emotions and her filters.

“That was quite a shock you gave Adelaide,” he started.

Ellie blinked. “Wait… you felt it?” she squeaked.

“It surprised me too,” Griffin admitted, allowing himself a small grin at his sister’s obvious astonishment. “One minute I’m driving through the mountains on my way here, the next… Ouch! I didn’t know what it was until you showed me just now.”

Ellie frowned and joined him on the couch. “You’ve never felt things through our link before. If the shock was that powerful, Adelaide surely would’ve noticed.”

“I don’t think she did.”

Ellie took a deep breath of relief.

“You’d be the best judge as to Adelaide’s abilities and what those strands of light mean,” Griffin continued.

“I didn’t touch her long enough to determine much,” Ellie muttered.

Seeing ideas starting to form in Ellie’s eyes, Griffin said, “I think you should wait a while before you try to figure that out.”

Ellie wrinkled her nose. “Fine,” she grumbled.

Griffin paused for a second. “They don’t know about me yet, right?”

Ellie shook her head.

“Okay.” Griffin fell silent.

Ellie didn’t push him; she just felt grateful that he seemed to want to help. They were at their best when they acted as a team, and she needed him now.

After a couple of minutes, he said, “Let me think about this for a while. We can talk again in the morning.”

With a nod of agreement, Ellie hopped up and headed upstairs to work on her homework and do some more thinking herself. Ellie hadn’t shown Griffin what had happened to her when she’d first seen Alex. It was too new. Too unclear to her how she felt and what it meant.

…but she knew she definitely felt something... and she felt both terrified and oddly eager to find out what.