The Fates (Book I) - 2014 Watty Award Winner!

5.9 - Awakened

“Relax?” he parroted. “What makes you think I’m not relaxed?”

Beneath raised brows, her eyes fell to his foot, still thumping furiously. He promptly stopped. Started chewing on his lower lip instead.

Charliese crossed her legs, clasped her hands over her knee. “So,” she began. “I’d been meaning to tell you more about the girl you met last night. Atria. Why I recognized her, and why she matters to me.”

Trevor nodded. “I was hoping you would explain soon.”

She carried on as if he hadn’t interrupted. “She is my niece. The daughter of my late sister Analiese. There is a long and complicated story, surrounding Atria’s birth, and Analiese’s death. Which I will spare you now.”

He wanted to protest. Wanted to know more, to know everything.

“That story can wait,” she proclaimed with sharp finality. “But there’s another story which cannot. Now that you’ve met all three, there is no cause to keep this from you any longer.”

The furrow in his brow deepened. “All three…?”

She calmly unclasped her hands and reached toward the table. Past her glass of water, to the pile of pamphlets and magazines with which this hotel furnished each suite. She set aside the room service menu, the stacks of travel brochures, revealing a large hardbound book at the base of the heap: a coffee table book devoted to the Greek pantheon. Trevor’s nerdy eyes lit up at the sight. The volume was beautifully illustrated, its glossy pages filled with photos of classical sculptures and ancient Grecian urns painted with images of gods.

Charliese thumbed through, colorful pictures flashing in a blur before their eyes, until she found what she was seeking. Stopped and sat back in the sofa. Leaving the book flat on the table, open to a page with an illustration of three elderly women. The heading read ‘Moirai’ with an English subtitle: ‘The Fates’—though Trevor had not needed that caption to recognize the image, or the Greek term for this group of three.

A faint frown fell over his fiancée’s face. “Artists have been all too unkind to them, throughout the years. Portraying them as ugly hags. It’s silly.”

Trevor grabbed his glass of ice water, grateful now that she had poured it for him. This conversation was already making him very confused and uncomfortable. He only wished it were a stiffer drink.

“You recall the young woman we met this morning?” Charliese continued, as if the transition made sense. “Who took our picture, in front of the Parliament Building?”

He intended to nod after downing a big gulp of water, but she was proceeding before he was done, knowing his answer to be yes.

“Her name is Lacey Weaver,” she informed him. “Well, Campion now—but née Weaver. And of course you know dear Cloe Turner.”

Trevor was able to manage a nod this time.

“And Atria’s last name is Shearer,” Charliese stated plainly.

“Honey, what—”

“Put the pieces together, Trev. The names.”

He paused. The connections were easy to see, but he had no idea what they signified. “Is this all supposed to mean something?”

“It means much more than you would probably believe. But you've promised to believe me, anything I tell you truthfully—haven’t you, love?”

He avoided eye contact now, knowing that looking into her mesmeric greys would elicit a dumbfounded nod from him, as always.

“Trevor,” she addressed him solemnly. “What I am about to say will evoke a great many reactions from you, but I hope you’ll please hold your questions till the end. Do you think you can do that for me?”

He stared at the ice cubes afloat in his glass, himself struggling to stay afloat above the surface of his senses. He was seriously spooked.

Charliese looked at her fiancé and almost pitied him. Almost. But the burden of this new knowledge for him would be so small, compared to the cost of continuing to keep him in the dark.

Though he had not affirmed, she knew that he would hear her out. And that, before the day was done, he would believe her.

She drew in a deep sigh, and then released it with the truth. “They are the Fates,” she declared. “These three young women, here on earth today, are the three Fates. Existing in the present time in mortal form. Though mortal now, they yet retain some traces of their powers—awakened, in this life, after their first contact with me.”

His hazel eyes flashed instantly toward her in curious bewilderment.

Her steely gaze silenced all inquiry. “Atria can cause death at will. Lacey determines how lives intersect. And Cloe… Cloe’s powers go beyond the task of Clotho in the mythical tradition, for reasons that I will explain to you later. In short, she can write the future.”

Trevor had set down his glass and was now massaging his temples.

“There are, of course, limits on all of their powers. Significant limits. Especially on Cloe’s,” she stated. “And the—”

“Do they know?” Trevor butted in all of a sudden.

Charliese blinked, mildly displeased but otherwise unruffled.

“If what you say is—if—if any of this is true,” he stammered, “do the girls know who they are? Know of these… powers?”

She shook her head. “They know nothing. Something serious happened, over the course of the thousands of years that have passed, since they first came to earth. Something that caused them to lose all memory of their immortal identities, of their previous existences.”

Something involving a man, the train of thought continued silently inside her mind. A certain man whose heart belonged to one Fate, while his life upon the Loom was bound in matrimony to another… Charliese was the only one who knew, about the role of the rider’s immortal soul in all of this. Trevor needn’t know. Not now; perhaps not ever.

“And how—how would you even know any of this, if it is true?” he asked.

She reached for the book again. Flipped to a page featuring an image of the very first primordial deity, the gaping void in all its glory.

Then gazed squarely at her fiancé, with stormy greys yet darker than the clouds outside, and watched as realization fell across his face.

And as his lips parted, and whispered words escaped. “Hell, no…”

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So there you go! Some hints as to what Chaos/Charliese knows, in her modern-day form, which she has now shared with her fiancé. Hope you're intrigued to find out even more as the series goes on :)

Next scene will take us somewhere we have not yet been, with some new faces we have not yet seen - though a familiar name just may be mentioned... and that's all I shall say for now ;)

And if you liked this one, please don't forget to vote! :)