Page 57 of Sunflower

“Screw you, Callum! I’m doing my best here,” I whined as I came to a stop in front of him and thumped him on the chest. “This is a lot to take in!”

His laughter drifted away as he stood up and wrapped me in his arms, his blanket draping over mine. One of his hands held the back of my head and tucked it in against his neck.

I gloated a little when I felt him flinch away from my cold nose. Served him right for info-dumping on me like this. He’d hadyearsto take all this information in. I’d haddays.

Breathing in his delicious scent forced my system to calm down and relax, so I burrowed in. After a few minutes, I pulled back and continued asking questions, but in a much less emotional way, and in more of an analytical way. “Tell me what sort of powers fall into the Apollo abilities. Like, what’s something that’s in the past family line, what’s something in the present family line, and what’s something in the future family line?” I looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “I’m guessing that George falls in thefuturefamily line, right?”

“Yup.” Callum nodded. “George has precognition, meaning he can see into the future. His side of the family can see the future, but not manipulate it. His direct line has always been particularly powerful, because he can have visions without touching his target. Other lines need to be touching the subject of their vision to get an accurate read.”

“You saidnot manipulate. Is there a branch in his family thatcanmanipulate the future?” I asked, not just a little wigged out by this thought.

He tipped his head to the side. “Not anymore. There used to be, a long,longtime ago, but things started getting really messy only a few generations in, and it resulted in wars and famine in different regions. From what our records tell us, it seems that an incredibly clever and powerful young woman saw what her parents, siblings, and extended family were doing with their ability, and was horrified enough to do something about it. She manipulated the future just enough that everyone that had the power died within about a year, herself included. Some family historians have speculated that Apollo helped her in her endeavor, mostly because she was still so young when it all happened and the immense power and effort it would have taken to accomplish what she did was far greater than anything the families had seen before or since.”

I blinked. “That is both incredibly comforting and frighteningly disturbing.”

Dipping his head to acknowledge me, he shrugged. “Her name lives on even now, although, like most myths and legends, her actual history’s been bastardized and largely lost.” Callum sighed as if pained. “You know of the three Fates? One young, one middle-aged, one elderly? Altogether, they spin the thread of life of every living being.”

I nodded. The Fates were common in popular culture and had been for eons.

“Collectively, they’re known as the Moirai. Originally, though, there was only one: Moira. That was her name, and she’s why we have the popular myth of the Fates today. She sacrificed her life and the lives of all those in her family for the benefit of the world, and her true history has been lost to the annals of history, now spoken only in whispers by family historians.”

Looking up at the stars above us, I let out an unhappy sigh as I snuggled into him a little more. “That’s so sad.”

“That’s life.” Callum hugged me tightly before loosening his grip to run his hands up and down my back. “I’ll tell you more about her one day. Her life was brief, but it was extraordinary.”

“I’d like that.”

“Getting back to your original question, Mam and I largely fall in the past family line. Our ability is psychometry, the power to read past information from a person or an object. Other branches of our direct line deal with memory and dream reading, and to a lesser extent, memory manipulation.”

Slowly nodding, I said, “That makes sense, although I have to admit that the idea that memories can be manipulated by someone else creeps me out.”

“Why? Hypnotists and some therapists do it all the time. Even our own brains can mess with our memories without our direct influence if they’re traumatic enough. I agree that used in the wrong way, things can get very messy, but used in therightway and for therightpurposes, that power could do a lot of good.”

Frowning, I took a deep breath and held it. I wasn’t sure if I wholly agreed with Callum, but I could see where his argument came from. My concern was how could you be sure that the memory manipulator was doing it for the right reasons? It was going to have to be something I’d think about later. “That leaves the present family line. Based on what you’ve just told me about the past and future family lines, I’m assuming there’s reading and manipulation here, too.”

Callum hummed in agreement. “The present family line has the biggest spread of unique abilities. Empathy, telepathy, scrying, boosting, dream walking, shielding… even telekinesis falls into this category.” He chuckled. “I have a theory that the line is so widespread in variety because it all comes from the Helenus line. Apollo trusted him, so allowed his direct line more scope than the others.”

“Yeah, based on what you’ve told me, that does make a lot of sense.” I snickered. “Apollo really held a grudge, didn’t he?”

Humming again, he nodded, his head rubbing against my forehead. “He did let it go. Eventually. Took a few hundred years, though.”

“Yeah, cause who can hold on to a grudge for that long, right?” I grinned into his neck. “Immortal beings. They’d get so bored if they didn’t let go of their old grudges so they could have space to put new ones.”

Callum laughed. “Can’t say that I disagree.”

Minutes went by as we stood there holding each other while I let his family stories sink in. They were all so fascinating, and some of it was so close to what we knew of the old Greek myths and legends it was unnerving.

Then a thought occurred to me that made me a little confused. “Wait. If you’re related to only one of the three family lines, then shouldn’t you only haveonepower? Past, present, or future?”

I felt the corners of Callum’s lips twitch in the beginnings of a grin. “Why do you ask?”

Chewing my bottom lip, I pulled back from him and started pacing again, ignoring the look of amusement on his face. “George made a big deal earlier aboutfamily powers mixing. Something about it being catastrophic in the wrong hands?”

Shuffling to a stop, I looked at Callum in confusion, only for him to nod in encouragement, so I went back to pacing. “If everything you’ve just said is true, and what George said earlier is right, then you should only have one power. You’ve said that you have psychometry and classified that as a past family power. But both you and Erin also have telepathy, and you listed that as a present family power. How can you and Erin have both? And you can see our future. How is that possible?”

Chapter Twenty

Joey

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