Prodigy

Time to think

Kate slid out of the flier. Before her feet touched the ground, she was wearing hiking boots, shorts, and a tank. Adrian shook his head. How had she kept such abilities secret for thirteen years? He looked at Danika who was watching Kate disappear into the forest.

“She will be fine. I don’t think there is anything in the forest that can hurt her.” She said as she turned to him. “She wants to give us time to digest what she has already shown us, both directly and indirectly.”

He nodded. “I’ve been a bad father. I should have seen the pain she was going through.”

Danika took his hand. “Is that what you think? Kate doesn’t think that. She showed the world what she wanted them to see.” She turned towards the house.

Adrian paused as Danika pulled him towards the cabin. He hadn’t been here with anyone since Linda died. Danika slowly turned back to him, searching his eyes. “What is it?”

“This was mine and Linda’s spot. We came here on the anniversary of our meeting every year and no one else has ever been in the house. He paused and felt the smile spread across his face. “Well, I guess Kate has been here.”

The first step towards the cabin was difficult. This place was a shrine. Maybe that is why Kate brought him here. “It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen a cabin built of petrified logs.”

“We found it the weekend we met. We didn’t know who owned it…so we sneaked in. It’s quaint, but we fell in love with it. When we got back to the city, we found that the land had been abandoned for over two hundred years, so we purchased a thousand acres around the cabin.” He reached the porch and walked up the seven steps to the polished planks of petrified wood. These planks had silver and gold swirls where the wood had absorbed the metals as it decayed. He paused when he reached the door. “Open it.” He said, looking at Danika.

Danika looked up at him for a moment. She understood the significance of that directive. “Are you sure?” She asked.

He placed her hand on the knob and nodded.

***

Kate climbed a large hill, or a small mountain and sat looking over the forested valley. Three different valleys, each with their own river, merged here and fed into a pristine lake to the south. She could just see the edge of the lake. She stood focusing on the lake and her gifts, and the lake approached her, not physically, but her vision shifted so that it was like this hill was at the edge of the lake. Her parents had met there and a few years later she had been conceived on that very lake. This was her beginning and she had needed to see it. At times it was hard for her to separate herself from the other memories, experiences and voices that were in her mind.

While she had wanted to give Danika and her father time to discuss their perceptions of the experiences she had shared with them. No one witnessed an event the same. She knew that from hard experience, but she needed her father to understand her core.

She smiled and turned her back on the lake. As much as the water called to her, she wasn’t here for that. It was time for her to become what she was meant to be, if only to her father and Danika. She paused when the cabin came into view. She had only been gone for an hour. Had that been enough time? She sighed and walked to the cabin.

The cabin was very rustic, it didn’t even have network access. This is another reason she had chosen this location. It was far enough away from everything that no one would feel her demonstrations. She had also made a circle around the cabin verifying that no one was close and had set up a string of wards to protect them.

She opened the door of the house and stepped into a small family room. This whole cabin would easily fit into half her suite at home. Danika and her father were sitting on a couch that looked out a large window to the nearest river. She would swim in that river tomorrow. Even in this heat, she knew how cold that water was. She could feel it from here.

Her father turned to her and smiled. “We have dessert in the kitchen.” His smile warmed her.

“You know I don’t do desserts,” Kate said.

“You will do this one,” Danika said as she stood.

Kate followed her into the kitchen. Her father followed them. She paused at the fruit salad. It wasn’t a typical salad. It was using her special fruits, and the sauce smelled different. She instinctively dissected the scent to its root components. She was impressed. It was correct for the fruits selected.

“You made this. You’ve never seen these fruits before, nor the seasonings used.” Kate said.

“It’s all about texture and taste. This one,” Danika stabbed a blood fruit. “Is tricky. I made the glaze with it. Though I am sure it could have other functions.”

"It’s a blood fruit. It is usually taken alone. It was developed for…vampires. It curbs our thirst while giving us the nutrition we need.” Kate took a toothpick and speared a Yuana fruit. The glaze covering the fruit called to her. She placed the small chunk in her mouth. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she felt her fangs extend. She sighed in pure ecstasy. The blood-fruit was designed by vampires who had left necromancy behind. It provided the nutrients of blood without having to hurt an animal.

Her father walked around and looked at her. “I thought the fruit was good, but this is…if you ate that in public, would you have that reaction?”

“I have excellent control of myself, but I will no longer hide what I am from my family.” She replied, opening her eyes.

Her father made a plate of the fruit. “These fruits are amazing. Where did you get them?”

Kate started making her own plate and her teeth retracted. “When mommy was still alive you two agreed to allow me to have a garden of my own in my suites. I’ve kept it up, but over the past five years I’ve used it to experiment with plants that don’t exist in our section of the world, but that I have knowledge of. I started making these plants as a way to test the memories I have. You both saw a hint of memories that weren’t quite mine.”

Her father nodded as he sat at a small wooden table. “The baby on the stone table.”

Kate nodded. “That was Caligan. His father was the King of Kaytia. He’s smart and now, even at our age, he is already larger than you.” Kate paused. “I don’t think we need to cover them at the moment.” She replied.

Danika joined them at the table. “They make you uncomfortable.” She said.

Kate shrugged. “I don’t know that they are real.”

“We can circle back to them. What are you comfortable sharing?” Her father asked.

Kate lifted the fruit. “We could discuss my garden. It is ten square kilometers but fits inside a room that is twenty by thirty meters.”

“What! You could have destroyed our house…”

“Daddy, you’re overreacting. I understand the physics of what I am doing perfectly. Yes, you have read theoretical papers by scientists who are on the verge of being able to bend physical space, but they don’t understand how space is built. I do.” She stated calmly. “My tallest tree is also a kilometer high and twenty thousand years old.” She added as an afterthought.

Danika smiled. “So you want me to know you are more than a weapon.”

Kate shrugged. “Aren’t you? Most magua prefer to build. It requires more skill than killing. Any fool can kill. Now priests and priestesses act on the whelms of their gods. Destruction, Chaos, and death…well, their followers are very violent.”

Kate looked at them. “I am close to solving the disease that killed my mother. I want to heal, but part of me feels like that is a betrayal.”

Danika reached across the table and took Kate’s hand. “It isn’t a betrayal, you wish to save others from the pain you felt, the pain you still feel. Kate, despite your power, or maybe because of it, you are a selfless person.”

Kate used her free hand to take another bite of the fruit salad. “This is good. I am impressed.”

“Do you expect so little of normal humans?” Danika asked.

Kate shook her head. “No, like a magua you are capable of anything. What surprises me, is how well you mixed unknown ingredients without the perception of a magua. That is a talent.”