The Goddess Twins Read online

  “Welcome to the goddess club, twinsies!” Lilo says, shaking her head as if she, and only she, suddenly hears a techno beat.

  “But, okay, how come I always felt completely normal? Like, I got the chicken pox. I’ve broken bones before. And I only just experienced my powers last night.” I think of Devin’s visions and can’t help the heat that rushes to my face.

  “Oh yeah, about that. Thank you so much for sharing your burgeoning psychic abilities with me, dear Arden,” Aurora sneers.

  “Like how you explained that you can move things with your mind? That was a great heart-to-heart we never shared,” I stick my tongue out at her.

  “Hey kids, no scrapping on the Tube,” Liberty clucks her tongue at us. “Gran Gran foresaw that your mom would suppress your goddess abilities from birth, to keep all of this a secret, so you would experience life as a regular human.”

  “Wow,” Aurora says, sitting back and folding her arms. “What a flipping liar.”

  “Hey! None of that ’tude, missy, ya hear? Anyway, Gran Gran also saw that one day, Selene would make a hard decision to leave you two, and that decision would trigger your powers to return,” Liberty explains. “And that just after that, we would finally all meet. Oh! We’re coming up to our stop, ladies.”

  We gather our things and are told to mind the gap repeatedly on our way out. We follow Liberty and a skipping Lilo down a street lined with manicured gardens and cheerful houses. The sky is now a deep lilac with the setting of the sun.

  “This sky! This is my favorite sky!” Lilo squeals, waving her arms in glee.

  “Our building is just around here, but we actually really want to show you guys a little something first,” Liberty grins.

  “Is it another man child to fall in love with Arden?” Aurora snaps.

  My face flushes with embarrassment.

  “Maybe men can’t help but be drawn to her pleasant personality,” Lilo answers in my defense. “You might know what that’s like, too, Aurora, if you tried having one.”

  “Nailed it,” Liberty squeals as she and Lilo slap high-and low-fives.

  “There’s nothing wrong with my personality,” Aurora sputters, her eyes wide.

  “You mean, that can’t be fixed by a lobotomy?” Lilo supplies.

  I choke on a laugh and Liberty covers her mouth, but we all hear her chuckling.

  Lilo bursts into her signature dance, singing, “Aurora could use a lobotomy and then she’ll smile at you and me,” until Aurora lunges at Lilo, chasing her down the street into a park lined with trees, manicured lawns, and a smattering of colorful flowers growing out of thick bushes.

  “Oh, watch. This’ll be good,” Liberty says as we walk behind them.

  I have never seen anyone cut through Aurora’s attitude like these two have. Since they found us in the airport, it’s been a roast on Rora. It’s literally a cause for celebration. Through the trees, I see the rippling reflection of the streetlights flashing on as the sun has nearly set. Liberty links her arm in mine. Our arms slide into place as if we’ve been connected for years. I hear the bubbling sound of running water as we approach a wooden bridge over a flowing creek. Arms still threaded together, Liberty and I lean forward to see the reflection of ourselves.

  “You’re beautiful, Cousin,” Liberty smiles at my blurred reflection revealed by the water.

  “Heh, thanks. Aurora and I got lucky in the looks department, I guess,” I say shyly, turning away from my image. I never quite know what to say or how to feel after receiving a compliment. Especially about something I feel I had no hand in.

  “No, you, Cousin. You, beyond your looks, are beautiful. Your sister looks the exact same way, but you can tell she’s just overflowing with anger, like the world owes her something. But you? You just want to understand and love everything. You’re afraid that your big heart makes you vulnerable, that you have to hide it away, but it’s actually what makes you so beautiful.” I see it, clearly. Liberty’s voice says softly in my head. How are you not able to? Huh?

  She nudges my ribs, but I just bite my lip and continue looking at the creek, ignoring my constantly shifting reflection. After a few minutes, Rora circles back to us, breathing heavily, a worried look on her face.

  “I was right behind Lilo, but then she just disappeared. I yelled for her, but I can’t find her anywhere.”

  “Yeah, I figured that would happen,” Liberty laughs. “She most likely did something like this.” In a breath, Lib’s body begins to shrink and grow feathers. Her mouth stretches outward and hardens. Her long blue hair transforms into a feather tail.

  Aurora and I stand frozen, watching Liberty finalize her silent metamorphosis into a small, navy-colored, tealtailed bird that flies around our heads and begins to sing.

  “What the hell is going on?” Aurora screams, but I laugh and clap my hands.

  “Mysterious powers and magical relatives,” I say, echoing Lilo’s words.

  In a moment Liberty is joined by another bird. This one is dark grey with a violet-colored streak down the center: Lilo. The two sister birds sing and dance around each other, flitting playfully over our heads. Aurora and I turn and turn, trying to keep up with their flight. They continue their song and are soon joined by five, then ten, then 20 or more birds who match their joy. I never heard anything like it before—a song melodic and lovely, like a community greeting. I want to cry from wonder as the birds join up to form the word “welcome” in the sky above the water.

  “Wow!” Aurora says softly, breaking from her skepticism for a moment.

  I nod in agreement. Our cousins are creative and loving and fearless. I’m overwhelmed to be their family. Lib and Lilo fly down and materialize next to us. The other birds flitter away into the night sky.

  “How did you like your official welcome, twinsies?” Lilo asks, dancing around us, waving her arms. It’s clear she’s unable to confine herself to any single spot as either human or bird.

  “That was absolutely amazing, beautiful, lovely! Just perfect!” I sputter. How do I explain that, watching them, I felt as though I completed a transformation, too? That watching them made me believe I can do amazing things, too? “You two are pretty incredible.”

  “So, but wait, you can both change into animals? At any time?” Aurora shakes her head in confusion, and I roll my eyes. Can’t she just sit in a moment of appreciation? Why must we know how the magician performs the trick?

  “It’s actually Lilo’s power,” Liberty says with a slight bow to her sister. “My special mojo is mentally connecting and communicating with animals. We’ve worked on our connection for a while and now, so we can share our powers when we’re together. It helps us protect ourselves when we need it. And it means we can do cool stuff like put on a lil show to tell our cousins how excited we are to finally have them here.” Liberty winks at me. “Anyway, we have a lot to tell you about our family and how you can control and grow your powers, back at our place. Tomorrow we’ll go to Gran Gran, and she will let you know how to find your mother. We’ll start strengthening and practicing your powers tonight. Or, right this very moment, if you’re ready.”

  I nod immediately, one hundred percent more than ready to begin embracing the power within me. I’ve always been drawn to fantasy tales starring amazing heroines. Each time the heroine uncovers the magical destiny awaiting her, my heart races in excitement for the adventure ahead. As I remembered watching my cousins flying over the water, with no fear of falling or needing to be saved, I think of how they are their own heroines—goddesses in control of their fates. And they’re telling me I’m capable of all of that? It seems like the whole universe has conspired to show me it’s the perfect time to become my own heroine. This is my story. This is my time.

  “Aurora?” Liberty asks. “Ready?”

  Aurora nods slowly, full of hesitancy.

  I feel I need to make up for her lack of enthusiasm, so I speak for both of us. “We’re ready,” I say. “Let’s become goddesses.”

&nbs
p; 4

  Aurora

  THEY NEED ME

  Arden has been deeply secure in Sleepland for hours, but my jet lag has somehow been reabsorbed into my body. Even after an entire night of questions, answers, and power strengthening exercises with the cousins, I’m still not able to keep my eyes closed for a second. Electrified questions and answers continue to flood through my body, as if every cell has been jolted with lightning and I’m still buzzing from the surge.

  How can I rest easy after hearing nearly everything I knew about my existence has been a lie? Arden snores softly in the bunk above me, while I’m staring blankly at the corner of the ceiling in my cousin’s darkened guest room. I’m at war with a host of things I don’t fully understand but desperately need to master.

  Before landing at Lilo and Liberty’s apartment, we stopped at a late night Chinese spot for take-out. Then, seated in our cousins’ wood paneled living room, surrounded by containers and chopsticks, Lilo and Liberty began unravelling the story of our family.

  So, apparently Gran Gran and our grandfather had five kids: four girls, all goddesses with a range of talents that connect them to the island and nature, and one son, Taresh, who disappeared years ago. He has no beyond-human abilities other than extended life. Liberty pulled out an aged black-and-white family photo that was taken in Jamaica, in the 1840s, by a French photographer. In it I saw a handsome black couple standing on the porch of a white, two-story house in a field, their five children gathered in the patchy grass in front. A shirtless teen boy, Taresh, crouched, staring aggressively at the camera. A girl around ten, our mother, beamed with a young toddler at her hip. Finally, two young girls, aged around four and five, clutched at the preteen’s skirts, peering shyly at the camera.

  Mother, we learned, is the eldest and most powerful of Gran Gran’s daughters. She gave up most of her abilities in order to live as human, but the cousins shared what they know.

  “Gran Gran won’t talk about what she could do, your mother, but we know she was terribly gifted as a child,” Liberty said in a whisper. “From what we’ve pieced together over the years, we think she could control water and manipulate emotions. Kind of like your powers, Arden.”

  “And her powers were amplified by the moon and sea,” Liberty added.

  Lilo and Liberty’s mother, Martique, is next in line. She can control animals, like the cousins, but also weather and air. “Mom is wicked smart and doesn’t put up with anything,” Lilo said proudly. “She’s the person you want around if there’s trouble.”

  “Well, where is she now?” I interjected like a hostile prosecutor, leaning forward on the black leather couch. “Doesn’t she care? You say you know for a fact that our mother has been kidnapped. Well? Where is dear Aunt Martique?”

  “She’s in Jamaica right now, and yes, of course, she cares. She’s with our other aunts, on their own missions, living their lives, and keeping things together as only they can. I know you can’t appreciate this now, but this?” Liberty pointed to the four of us with her finger. “We are the ones who need to be here, now, on this mission. We’ll make an incredible force in getting your mother back safely.”

  “But how can you even say that when you don’t know exactly where she is or who kidnapped her?” I slapped the couch cushion next to me, wanting to toss this whole fourway team into the nearest garbage heap. Of course, with my powers still being semi out of control, I sent a stack of magazines flying against the wall. Lilo, Liberty, and Arden looked at me measuredly, and I just knew they were thinking I’m the one most likely to blow this whole plan—a ticking time bomb at the very least, a monster in goddess clothing.

  “I wish I knew who kidnapped her or where she is right now,” Liberty said. “I don’t, but I do know we’ll figure it out together because Gran Gran told us so many years ago that this is how it would be, how it needed to be, to get your Mother back to us all. I can say it because Lilo and I are more than ready to do whatever we can. We’ve basically been training all our lives for this very moment. I can say it because look at your twin. Arden is charged up and ready to launch.”

  Arden nodded, cracking her knuckles like a boxer moments from the fight. I rolled my eyes. Ever the eager student, my sister. The good one—leaving me to be the bad one.

  I figured that was all she was going to say, but after another long pause, Liberty cocked her head at me and says, “And you’re nearly there.”

  I scoffed. Who gave her authority to judge me so casually?

  “I know, but, really, you are! Your true self is in there, all right. But it’s like we need to untangle all the crap you’re wrapped up in, like unwrapping a mummy or something. But you’re definitely in there. You’re one of us.”

  “The worst of us,” Lilo muttered underneath her hand, but I heard her clearly and marked this as the five hundredth time I have wanted to punch her solidly in the mouth.

  “Our Aunt Victoria is next oldest,” Liberty continued. “She has abilities over the earth and metal manipulation. She’s so funny and tells the absolute best stories about her life. She’s actually the one who will tell us things our Mom or Gran Gran don’t think we should know. She also makes this gorgeous jewelry, like these,” Liberty and Lilo held up their quartz necklaces, “and she fills them with protection and healing and cloaking powers for the wearer.” As Lilo rubbed the purple stone, it shifted colors and glowed from within, pulsing as if awakened by touch.

  “Wow, those are beautiful,” Arden said, swallowing a mouth full of shrimp fried rice.

  I nodded and stuffed my face with noodles. The powers, the pictures, the jewelry—it was hard to deny this fantastical story in the face of all this evidence.

  “And finally, there’s Aunt Larissa,” Liberty said. “She’s a healer, and she has the ability to communicate with plants. She’s pretty quiet and keeps to herself. But if you’re around her enough, she might open up to you and teach you some amazing things.”

  LYING SLEEPLESS IN bed now, I accept the fact that Arden and I come from a long line of baddies, that our mother is a goddess, and we are, too. But how did all this goddess family stuff even get started? Well, to say the story is surreal would be an understatement, but Lilo and Liberty swear this is how our family came to be.

  It all started over two hundred years ago. The Fates, along with a group of elder Celestial Beings, had been envisioning and weaving the lifelines of every soul on Earth for eons. One day, they all got bored and plotted to basically make their own reality TV show. They decided to choose one couple on Earth and send them challenges. They would hide the couple’s futures from themselves so watching them in real time would provide the maximum entertainment. Together they would view this couple and bet on how they would deal with circumstances and who they would evolve into over time.

  The Fates quietly chose Gran Gran, or Ghani, and our grandfather, Ezekiel, a young, freshly married couple in a small parish in Jamaica. Ezekiel and Ghani were deeply in love, having known each other since they were just kids. Ezekiel was strong and smart, and very protective of his love, Ghani. Ghani was beautiful, witty, and kindhearted. Together they laughed and talked from day to night, planning the beautiful life and family they just knew they were destined to have together. Unfortunately, things did no go as they had hoped.

  The Fates sent them sickness, hurricanes, temptation, riches, destitution, drought, you name it, but the couple weathered every challenge, becoming stronger together. Their first child, a boy they named Taresh, suffered from many ailments and barely made it through his childhood. Despite their many troubles, they remained a tight family, grateful for what they had.

  When they reviewed the footage, the Fates and Beings saw that Ghani was the spine that truly held the family and even their entire village upright. She was resourceful and determined, sassy and kind, loyal and loving. She was their favorite character to watch. As the years slowly passed, they decided to reward her for who she had become. They made her a Seer, giving her the discernment of souls, or the
ability to read a person’s life force and receive visions of their life, past, present, and future. The Fates and Beings also gave Ghani premonitions of the future and threw in direct access to communicate with the Fates on occasions, just to round out the prize package.

  Apparently it went something like this: One day, Gran Gran was your normal kick-butt Jamaican mother and wife, then the next day she woke up supercharged, calling out liars, seeing crimes before they happened, and able to go into trances to receive downloads of information from the Fates and Celestial Beings. Ghani suddenly became a superhero. At first, she used her newfound gifts to bless everyone she met. People came from all around to visit her. They carried their problems and prayers, but also their jealousy and ill will. Ghani became famous and beloved throughout the island, but secretly a force was building against her.

  Many men of the parish and beyond felt threatened by the celebrity and power of a woman, mother, and wife. When rumors surfaced of plots to execute Ghani, she brushed them off. Her husband Ezekiel was publicly supportive of his wife and threatened anyone who would plan to harm her. But slowly, Ezekiel fell prey to the persuasive nature of evil. He felt he had less and less of a role in society. People who used to come to him for help and advice now only wanted to speak with his wife. Like rot, jealousy and resentment set into his heart. In secret, he began to agree that there was something wrong with a woman who had too much power.

  When Ghani became pregnant again, things started to go sideways at home. Ezekiel began showing his true colors. While Ghani prayed for a healthy baby, the Fates and Celestial Beings were angered to see Ezekiel demanding from the gods another boy, this time a gifted, strong son who would make him proud. His heart yearned for Ghani’s powers and growing prestige, and he viewed the new child as his chance for prominence. He figured he could easily control this youngest child and eventually manipulate the abilities of both the child and Ghani.