I didn’t know about everyone else, but by the time we started making lunch, I was ready to lose it. Laura, Paige, and Bri had taken Bri’s car to go get Roxberry, and I was sitting on the couch, unoccupied. Mikayla, Magaret, and Kensey were cooking pizza, while Lacy and Sara made salad. I tried to help Rachelle set the table, but she was adamant that I do nothing to aggravate my arm. Which by her definition meant sitting on the couch.
But I couldn’t stand it. I needed to help, to keep my mind and hands busy. I was jumpy, and instinctively kept checking the windows. The same scenes were replaying in my mind; the gashes appearing on my arm, Laura’s phone call, Sara collapsing, and the tiger closing in on us. I shuddered. I could still see its eyes. I had never seen eyes like that. They were evil, intelligent, and a deep, sparkling violet.
Violet! I shot off the couch. “Guys!” I said, a little too loud, perhaps, as they all jumped. Just as I opened my mouth to continue, Bri, Laura, and Paige returned bearing fruity goodness. We hurried to get the food on the table. After we had prayed and begun eating, I ventured bringing up my discovery again. “Um…” I wasn’t sure where to begin. What did it mean, anyway? “I just thought of something, something that proves that tiger wasn’t normal.” They all stopped eating. “When it was closing in on us,” Marci shuddered at this, “I noticed its eyes. They weren’t normal cat eyes. They were a dark, sparkling violet.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Lacy, “I stared into those evil eyes as much as you. They were evil, yes. Hungry? Yes. But purple?” The others looked at me curiously. Bri studied me through thoughtful eyes as she sipped her Roxberry. With a curiosity in her gaze, she stood up, went over to Rachelle’s computer, and sat down. We all watched her in confusion. She typed for a bit, scrunched her face in thought, then smiled. “Voila!” she said, “I’ve got it. Come here, you guys.”
Lacy shrugged and walked over to where Bri was. We all followed, food forgotten. Well, except for Paige snagging her smoothie as she walked by. We all crowded around the computer, trying to see what Bri was talking about. But she minimized the window and swung the chair around to face us. She looked at me. “Jen, do you know what your name is a derivative of?” I shrugged. It was another one of those pieces of information I just knew. “Sure, it comes from Guinevere, Gaelic.” She smiled. “You’re half right,” she informed me, “It is from Guinevere, but it’s not Gaelic, it’s Welsh. And do you know what it means?” I shook my head, confused what this had to do with my discovery. Bri had the look of a proud student presenting an A report card to their parents. “Guinevere,” she continued, “is Welsh for white phantom.”
***********
Bri explained her theory. “Think of it this way. You saw the tiger’s eyes as being violet, but Lacy just saw a crazed jungle animal.” Here Lacy interrupted with a comment with the fact it was a tiger in Cedar Hills, and that on its own was freaky enough. Brianna glared at her, then continued, “and you were the first to see the tiger, first one attacked. There’s something different about you, Jen. Something the rest of us aren’t seeing.” At this, I backpedaled.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I said, “hold up. What are you getting at? That this is somehow my fault? I don’t know what’s going on anymore than anybody else in this room.” Bri shook her head and began to talk again, but Magaret interrupted. “I don’t think that’s what she’s saying at all, Jen. I think it’s like what Mikayla said earlier. About the reason why our phantoms are real. That our phantoms were made real to fight an evil that already existed. You’re the leader. White is always the good side, right? You were the one who created the phantoms in the first place.” Bri nodded in agreement.
“The leader? No. No way, no how. Besides, we’re all equal here. Why do we have to have a leader?” Laura looked at me in a strange way. She then turned to the others. “Who thinks Jen’s supposed to be the leader?” They all nodded or raised their hands. “then it’s settled,” she said, giving me the look that made me think twice about questioning her. “Arrrrgggghhh!” I said, throwing my hands up in frustration.
Since apparently I had no say in the matter, I let it drop. Grumbling, I suggested we return to lunch before I decided to eat something else nearby. While eating, we discussed why the tiger’s eyes would be purple, why our phantoms looked almost like shadows, and why Paige’s phantom had a name. That one confused us, as it wasn’t really a name that she would have picked out. I drummed my fingers on the table. Nuka. Why did that sound familiar? It nagged at my thoughts but refused to become clear. Soon lunch was over, dishes were washed, and we were back in the living room.
McKensey sat in the middle of the floor, playing with her bunny. “They can’t simply be shadows,” she said, “I mean, I can pick her up and pet her, feel her warm fur. She feels just like any other bunny.” To prove her point, Kensey picked up the little black creature and nuzzled her. Mikayla looked at her. “Can I pet her? I need a calming influence right now.” In reply, Kensey held out the bunny. Mikayla happily reached forward, only to whip her hand back moments later. “That’s not normal!” she said. Surprised by her reaction to the cute cuddler, we asked for an explanation.
She explained that her hand had passed right through the bunny, as though it was made of nothing but light or shadow. McKensey claimed this could not be true, as she was obviously holding a live creature. Rachelle was the first to come up with an idea. “maybe it’s because our phantoms are a part of our own imaginations. We can all see each others' phantoms, but we can’t touch them because they aren’t a part of us, just the person to whom they belong.” Paige liked this idea, except she pointed out something grim. “But if that’s true, then whose imagination created the tiger phantom?” Horrified looks swept across the room. None of us had thought of that. Out of nowhere, Laura randomly added, “my phantom’s name is Qimmi.”
We all stared at her. “What are you talking about?” Sara asked. Laura looked kind-of confused. “I don’t know,” she said, “It was like all of the sudden I just knew. It just came to me.” Paige jumped in. “That’s the same thing that happened to me! It was just like WHAM and I knew it was my phantom’s name.” she turned to the rest of us. “Do your phantoms follow commands? Like verbal commands?” Puzzled, I watched as the others admitted, no, not really, more just like sending thoughts out. I had always used both verbal and non-verbal commands with my wolf. It had never occurred to me that this might not be the case for the others.
Paige continued, “Well ever since I knew my phantom’s name she has followed both verbal commands and the thought sending thing you guys do. She’s developed her own personality, now that I think about it.” Intrigued, Magaret asked her to demonstrate. Paige brought out her bear and asked it to do a few things, like sit and stand and come.
I wasn’t that impressed, but the others were. Sara brought out her hawk and asked it to fly to the window. It didn’t move. But when she looked like she was concentrating, apparently asking the hawk mentally, it immediately flew to the window. Hmmmm, interesting, I thought, my phantom doesn’t have a problem with verbal commands, but it doesn’t have a name. I decided to keep it to myself for the time being. I didn’t want another thing to point me out as different from the others. I was still trying to convince them that I wasn’t supposed to be the leader.
I was brought back to the conversation by applause. The others were watching Laura ‘train’ her phantom to follow verbal commands. It seemed to be going well. I smiled and laughed with the others as it looked at her in a confused way when she asked it to come. The dog tilted its head to the side, cocked its ears, and sat patiently awaiting a command that it understood. Laura sighed, concentrated, and the dog bounded over to her. “Well, it’s a start,” she said, “but maybe it’ll get better.”
All of the sudden a thought hit me like a battering ram. I said it before even registering what it was. “They’re not phantoms anymore. They’re viri.” I slapped my hand across my mouth. What had I just said? What the heck was a viri? But as soon as I had the thought, my mind confirmed it as truth, settling it into my brain as though it had always been there. Unfortunately I had to explain to the others, and Laura nodded in approval. “See? I told you that you were meant to be the leader. You know things, things that none of the rest of us know.” I sighed. There was no getting out of it, the others had accepted it. But why? I wasn’t the smartest, cleverest, strongest, or even nicest in the group. Out of the ten people in this room, I was probably the least qualified.
Mikayla slid next to me and wrapped her arms around me. I hung onto her, eager for comfort. But, lucky me, about two seconds later I jumped off the couch. “My phantom’s name is Ama.” Excited, the others encouraged me to try verbal commands. I brought out my viri, as it was apparently now called, and tried a few simple commands. I knew they would all be obeyed, Ama had always been totally obedient and loving, and now that she had a name, her enthusiasm was unrestrained. I had to command her to be still so that I could wipe all the wolf slobber off my face after I told her to ‘come’. She had enjoyed that command thoroughly.
After playing with all of our phantoms in the living room, and laughing till our sides hurt, we all slumped to the floor in exhaustion. “Let’s go play in the backyard,” Marci suggested, “It’s fenced and the rain has stopped.” Feeling much safer than we had just hours ago, we agreed. The yard proved a much better place to romp with our animals, and soon we were running around in a fierce game of tag. It was a little complicated since we couldn’t actually feel any of the viri but our own, but we made it work.
It was all fine until the ball went over the fence during our dodge ball game. I volunteered to go get the ball, and when the others expressed concern, I reassured them. I would take my viri with me, and the tiger probably wasn’t going to come back for a while. Opening the gate, I saw the ball sitting in a flower bed a few feet away. Calling back to the others, I started towards it. That was when Ama rushed in front of me and started shoving me frantically towards the gate. I took the hint and abandoned the ball, running for the backyard. Scared, I took my viri back inside me. I was inches from safety when I heard the roar, and everything went black.
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