The New Power and an Ancient Contract

Kriystalynn woke up in a cold sweat as she tossed herself, accidentally, onto the floor in the trashed hotel room as she pushed herself up slightly. It didn’t take her long to realize that the only thing she didn’t have on were her sandals that went with her costume. She looked around the room and growled at the mess she was going to have to shift through to pack up all that she could salvage from the wreckage. Kriystalynn managed to pick herself up as she noticed the shooting pains in her leg muscles and some of the muscles in her stomach, arms, and neck.
She moved to the closet on the opposite side of the room with much more effort than should have been needed to make the trip. She found the boxes she had put in there when she had unpacked all the stuff that had now been thrown all over the floor. She closed her eyes as she grabbed a couple of the folded down boxes and headed back toward the bed. She threw what was on it onto the floor and unfolded the biggest of the three she had grabbed and started putting the clothes that she had around her on the floor.
She heard the familiar tune of Chick Habit as she started to fold the clothing. She took the phone and thought about silencing the phone, but knew what the conversation would be about and decided to face it sooner than later. As she answered the phone she heard Cara telling herself that she hated Kriystalynn for not telling her about her cousin, Bradon, without realizing that Kriystalynn had picked up the phone.
"Lovely to talk to you too, Cara? What is it that you need? Or should I say what is it that I can give you information on?"
"Hmm. I wonder, Kriystalynn. What could I possibly want information on?"
As she was still seeing the multiple colors of the wallpaper that had been blurry before she placed the folded shirt into the box and said, “That is a broad subject considering the nature of the usual phone calls.” She knew she was just trying to avoid it.
"There's nothing 'usual' about this phone call and ya know it"
"They called you?" The Irish accent that she detested was coming back as she spoke to Cara and seemed to remain unusually calm.
"Damn right they called me. I may just be a cousin but I'm still family."
Kriystalynn made a move to grab another shirt and said, "So you know that there is nothing that can be done?" She figured Cara might know about Kriystalynn getting over the same thing when she was little, but they both knew what she had just said was the truth. "There is no way for him to just get over this."
“Ya survived it and yer telling me that there is no way for that sweet brother ya love so much to survive it!” Cara was more pissed off at Kriystalynn than when she called her.
“Cara, I would do anything I could if there was a way to help him. Me surviving it was just a pure…nothing short of a miracle.”
“Find a…”
“Cara? Cara, are you there?” Kriystalynn asked before she saw that the call had been ended.
Kriystalynn shrugged her shoulders as she sat her phone back done and went back to packing up the items that weren’t beyond repair. She picked up on item before she started to cry as she noticed that the glass ballerina was shattered. She placed the ballerina on the dresser and picked up the picture that had been knocked on the floor before she sat the picture with the cracked glass on beside the shattered ballerina. Kriystalynn looked down at the pieces and then walked back to where she had been to start cleaning again.
A knock at the door several hours later made Kriystalynn aware that her hotel room had been trashed pretty badly. As she looked around and found that she had also gotten most of the mess cleaned up there was another rap upon the door. Kriystalynn walked slowly over to the door, but before she opened it she turned and saw her picture that she had turned right side up turn face down. The opened door revealed Collin standing in the doorway about to knock again.
He smiled at her and received her hug graciously. She thought a second before she stepped aside to let him in. Kriystalynn waited for him to state why he was there, but when he didn’t she watched him pick up packing where she left off. As he finished up the box she had been working on she slowly walked over to him. He didn’t seem to notice until she plopped down on the bed. She thought that there was something weird about him.
“So what exactly are you doing here, Collin?”
“Cara told me about your brother and I cam by to see if you were, well if you are, all right,” he said with a smile that was creeping her out.
She thought what he said was out of character for Cara, seeing as Cara usually left most of the personal family business within the actual family. “That doesn’t explain why you are packing my stuff for me.” She raised an eyebrow at him in complete suspicion.
“Just figured I’d be helpful. You don’t mind do you?”
“Actually I appreciate the help, but,” she paused and sighed, “I do mind. There are things I don’t like people touching or seeing. It’s a pet peeve of mine. I really do appreciate you trying to help though. It was really, really sweet,” she said as she pushed down the feeling that he was looking for something.
She noticed his attention move toward the broken ballerina and the face down photograph as he said, “Everyone has secrets and some prefer for them to be kept in silence or possibly even hidden.”
Is there some hidden meaning behind all that? She thought to herself then shook her head and responded with, “Not everyone hides things. Some of us prefer them to hide out in the open so if and when someone finds out they can say that it was right there all along.” She got up and moved the framed photograph to a box that had others framed in a similar casing.
“So you are leaving?” Collin asked as he went back over to her stuff, but Kriystalynn moved the newly started box with the finished ones before Collin could start packing her things once more.
“I’ve got to be out of this hotel, but I am n…Yes I am,” she said as she opened the door. “I have some things to do now, Collin, so I must ask you to leave unfortunately.”
“All right, hope you come back,” He leaned down and kissed her lightly, but hard enough to make her want to gag and object.
After Collin left her phone rang again, and as she answered it she heard her friend’s familiar voice on the other end. She couldn’t help but tell him how much she missed being in her home town and that she was coming back, but she wasn’t sure when she was going to make it.
She noticed he was trying to make it so she felt that she didn’t need to miss home, because it was boring. She faked a laugh as she heard the almost invisible saddened tone that let her know that they wanted her to come home just as much as she wanted to be there.
“You suck at lying, Tyler, but thanks for trying. It’s really appreciated.”
“I tried. So have you talked to…”
“No I haven’t. I have tried though. I just don’t seem to get a hold of him.”
“That sucks. How much more do you have to pack?”
She looked around and moved the box back to where it had been originally before she intercepted Collin’s attempt to pack her stuff again. “It wouldn’t be so much if someone hadn’t decided to play ‘trash-the-room’ and take all my shit out of the boxes. They did break the down and put the neatly in the closet with the ones I had done, but I didn’t unpack everything because I wanted to just be able to ship them where ever I go.”
“Damn that’s fucked up. Sorry, Reid moment. Hey, I have to jet. Tell Nicky you said hey?”
“Yeah, most definitely tell Nicky hey. Tell everyone I miss them. Love you, Baby Boy, and I hope to see you soon.” She threw in a bad impersonation of their friend Reid as she called him “Baby Boy”.
“Love you also, Angel. I’ll tell them. Keep looking up and take care of yourself. Bye-bye, Baby Girl.”
“Yours was worse than mine.” She Laughed. “Bye.”
As she hung up her phone she proceeded to pack again. She let her mind focus on what she had dreamt. All she saw was ACJ carved on to what she now knew to be her brother’s arm. She only knew it was her brother’s arm because last night she had seen the hospital band with his name on it.
The image of the arm with the initials ACJ carved into it with, what appeared to be, old quill marks at certain points. The ink was a blood red as if it had been taken directly out of the vein. It had started to weird her out as the time passed and she stayed on that one image. She couldn’t figure out the meaning of it and it was killing her. A stumped Kriystalynn completed the box before her and heard another knock on the door. She looked at it and said come in, forgetting briefly that she had to let them in.
“It took ya forever to answer the damn door,” she heard the angry blonde say as she walked in and planted herself on the comfortable bedding. “What were you doing? Having sex with some unknown male?”
“I was packing and you just happened to show up while I was doing so.” She glanced around and noticed that her finished box pile had gotten bigger and the room seemed emptier than it had been just a few moments ago. “Which I seem to be almost done with?” She tried to hold back her shocked expression and it seemed to work, because Cara didn’t notice it.
“I came over here to ask what the fuck was yer problem in not telling me that Bradon was in the hospital.”
“Look, Bradon is the world to me when it comes to family, and also when it comes to them he is the center of the universe. I couldn’t deal last night with it long enough to tell you. It’s hard enough facing the fact that I survived it and can’t tell you or anyone else the medical behind it. I couldn’t even if I tried.”
“He is my family too and I deserve for ya to tell not someone from there.” She seemed to be calming down.
“I understand. I just couldn’t tell you last night. It was too hard on me and it drained me just to try and hold everything back.” Kriystalynn turned to look at her cousin and didn’t realize her eyes had changed to their orange color.
“OK…What is it with the changing colored eyes?”
“What?” Kriystalynn looked in the mirror and saw their color. She gave an old Irish Curse. “It comes with being a Dream Seer.”
Cara cocked her head to the side and looked at her cousin in a confused manner.
“A Dream Seer is some on who sees the future through dreams. They mostly get cryptic as the Seer gets older, but it all is passed down to the female line on mom’s side. So dad’s family never really knew about it until I was five. Mom never had the orange eyes though.”
“I thought ya just said…”
“I said it is passed down the female line on mom’s side and it certainly true that everyone of them has potential to be one, but not everyone knows what they are given or how to decode the dreams. Those who figure it out early on learn how to control it, so to speak. It’s more of how to keep the dream fresh all through the day or until it occurs again so you can see the details to figure out what is going to happen or what you need to find.”
Cara groaned. “It’s so complicated.” She made a pouting face as she put her head in her hands. “So yer a Seer? Like in the movies?”
“Similar to those ones, but not exact. The prefer term is Dream Seer. It’s more of an insult other wise, at least to those ancestors who have given it a name to go by. Cara, you need to do what is usually done and keep this between us. We are our only family over here and between us is where it stays?”
“Ya got it. Now let’s see about getting the rest of this stuff packed.”
“By the way, I am leaving tonight to go back.”
“When was this decided?”
“Just now. It’s something I feel I need to do.”
“I’m starting to thing ya are just as cryptic as yer dreams, Kriys.”