Heirloom: Six of One, #6

By DeAnna C. Zankich

Every sixth generation of the Broch family produces a vessel and outcaster pair. Kathryn and Kellan are the current spiritual warriors guiding lost souls to their destinies beyond the veil. In his teens, Kellan and his first love, Gigi, accidentally started the next generation of the Broch bloodline. Too young to keep the child, they had to give her up. Not wanting to lose her entirely, the vessel added his DNA to every ancestry site he could find, hoping that one day their little girl would search for them.

 

That day has finally come.

 

But her arrival coincides with unimaginable events in the lives of the active Six. The spirits of the forest never leave them in peace for long. Newlyweds Kathryn and Evan don't get much time to enjoy their honeymoon before all hell breaks loose. Kellan and Gigi's daughter never had any sort of spiritual experience in her young life, but upon turning eighteen … the dreams began. She is drawn to Mount Iolite where she not only meets her birth parents, but also begins to discover that her unique parentage makes her far more than an ordinary young woman.   

• Language: English
• Publisher: DeAnna C. Zankich
• Release date: Nov 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781736061305

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© DeAnna Zankich 2020. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or were used fictitiously. No portion of this book may be reproduced by any means without prior written permission from the copyright owner.

For more information or to contact the copyright owner visit:

www.deannaczankich.com

ISBN: 978-1-7360613-0-5

CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Acknowledgements

I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea;

But we loved with a love that was more than love,

I and my Annabel Lee.

~Edgar Allan Poe

Continued from Six of One: Elemental

CHAPTER ONE

THE WEEK OF her eighteenth birthday, Larkin Ayers received the gift she’d been wishing for.

She sat on her bed for almost fifteen minutes staring at the cellophane-wrapped box from the DNA testing company You + Yours. Larkin was keenly aware of how challenging it was for her best friend, Paige, to afford the kit on her part-time paycheck from Starbucks, and she wanted to show proper appreciation for the generosity. But since the dreams had started, the possibilities that test represented were as exhilarating as they were terrifying. Larkin was speechless with apprehension.

Her life with her adoptive parents, Claire and Thaddeus Ayers, had been happy and fulfilling. She’d never wanted for anything; had mostly been a spoiled, doted-upon only child who had their support through all her childhood joys, trials, and experiments. Larkin adored them.

Not wanting their daughter to find out any other way, Claire and Thad told her she was adopted as soon as Larkin was old enough to grasp the concept. They’d talked everything through many times. Those discussions brought them to a place of gratitude and appreciation for one another—an added layer of bonding on top of their strong family connection. Though Thad would have preferred to leave well enough alone, Claire had insisted they share what little information they had about Larkin’s birth parents just in case she ever wanted to try to locate them.

They were teenagers in love who got pregnant accidentally and were far too young to care for a child. They loved their little girl, though, and wanted her to have the best possible life. It had been a blind adoption so no names had been exchanged. Neither party had been given any personal information about the other.

A month before her eighteenth birthday, Claire handed Larkin a faded envelope that had been sealed with a blob of black wax. The image pressed into the wax was a dragonfly. Claire’s palpable concern upon handing that envelope to her daughter gave Larkin pause.

What is this?

Her mother said, I’ve almost given it to you a thousand times, but something always stopped me. You’ve grown up so much in the last year, though. I felt it was finally okay for you to have it. For the record, your dad didn’t want to give it to you. He was concerned it would upset you, so ... Claire took a steady breath. If anything goes sideways, remember this decision was all me.

Larkin regarded the envelope uneasily. Okay ... it’s not going to explode, is it?

Claire breathed a laugh. "I honestly don’t know what it is or what it might do. We were told by our adoption agent that this is a letter from your birth parents. You see that it’s sealed—Thad and I have never opened it. It’s entirely up to you whether or not you want to, as well. You don’t have to, honey. But this letter belongs to you and no one else. You’re almost eighteen so it’s time you had it—just in case there comes a time when you do want to read it."

Knowing what she was holding made Larkin tremble. She stared at the small, gently yellowed envelope like she’d never seen such a contraption in her life and had no way of knowing it could be trusted. Of course she’d known her birth parents were out there somewhere, but holding something they wrote to her with their own hands affected her in a way she’d never expected. It felt like a light had been switched on in an inner room she hadn’t even known was dark.

The words ‘our melody’ were written across the front of the envelope in lower case. Her middle name was Melody. She’d swallowed and her dry throat clicked. Is that ... did they name me Melody?

The agent told us they had named you Melody, but it wasn’t listed on your birth certificate. Thad objected to us accepting this letter at all, but even when you were an infant, I kept putting myself in your place and trying to make conscious decisions for you with that in mind. I knew that if I were in your position, I would want to have this letter when the time was right. Claire pulled out two chairs at the kitchen table and they sat down across from each other. She nodded to the envelope Larkin held with a wan smile. Do you think you’ll open it?

In the family room, the television clicked on and the volume went up. Thad had gone in there as soon as he saw Claire with the envelope. In his mind, Larkin was better off not knowing anything about her birth parents and carrying on as though they’d never existed. She had a good and happy life. That was all that mattered. Larkin understood his point of view and made a promise to herself to proceed with the utmost care—whatever she was going to do. She never wanted to hurt the kind, excellent people that raised her.

Part of her wanted to open the envelope right there with Claire at her side for support, but she’d only been able to place it on the table in front of her where she’d stared at it for a good five minutes. Torn between wanting to be alone to read it and wanting to stay with her mother in case the letter’s contents upset her, Larkin had been immobilized into doing nothing with the envelope for almost a week.

She kept it on her dresser, propped up against the mirror beside snapshots of her and Paige and their school friends. Larkin sat with the envelope in her hands every day, waiting for a mysterious internal switch to flip that would allow her to open it.

When that moment finally came, she’d been home alone. She’d noted the stillness in the room, like the house was holding its breath along with her. Larkin heard her heart pounding in her ears as she carefully broke the black wax seal.

The cream-colored stationery inside had scalloped edges and a faint background print of a dragonfly soaring over a sea of blooming lavender. The writing was in blue ink, a confident mix of print and cursive, but easily legible. It looked like a girl’s writing. Larkin felt herself shaking as she began to read. At the top of the page was the date of her birth.

––––––––

Dearest Little One,

My name is Gigi Perez. I am your mother. You grew inside me for nine months until today when you were finally born. I live in a small town in Central California called Mount Iolite. When I graduate from high school next year, I plan to attend cosmetology school in Reno, Nevada.

Your father’s name is Kellan Broch. He lives in Los Angeles and he’s a wonderful musician. He is beautiful. We have been close friends since we were children. We love each other very much and we both love you, too. We want you to have the best life you can. Unfortunately, we are too young to provide for you. The only thing we can do to make sure you are safe is to give you to a family who can take great care of you.

Please know that it breaks our hearts to let you go. We would give anything to keep you with us and raise you together, but we just can’t. We hope you will one day be able to understand why we had to do this and, hopefully, find a way to forgive us.

We don’t know who will be lucky enough to adopt you, but we believe with all our hearts that they will be wonderful people. They will take excellent care of you and give you a great life. This isn’t just a wish or a prayer, this is something we know in our bones. We’d never let you go otherwise. We hope to meet you one day, if you would like to, so we can see what an amazing person you grew into.

For now, we send you into your bright future with all our love and hope for your dreams to come true.

Be happy, angel. Always remember we love you.

You are our melody.

Gigi & Kellan

Larkin had memorized every word of that letter and murmured it to herself as she turned the DNA kit over and over in her hands. Paige had been sitting semi-patiently next to her on her bed waiting for Larkin to react to her gift. Extended internal ruminations were common for Larkin, but she felt Paige’s growing concern the longer she sat silent.

"You did say you wanted one of those, remember? It’s all you’ve been talking about since your mom gave you that letter. Paige placed a gentle hand on Larkin’s arm. And especially since you’ve been having those ... weird dreams."

Larkin nodded, then hugged her friend tightly. Thank you so much for getting it for me. I know how expensive they are. This is amazing of you.

You’re so welcome. Paige’s light blue eyes gleamed with affection under her close-cropped platinum-dyed hair. I can’t wait for you to do it, actually. I’m dying for you to find them. I mean, even with the creepy dreams, it’s not everyone who has a hot rock star for a dad.

"If that’s the same Kellan Broch, Larkin said. We don’t know that for certain yet."

"But the bio on their band website said he and his sister are from LA and that they have a cabin in Mount Iolite—there’s all those pictures of it that we cross-referenced with Google Earth. It has to be him."

Larkin shrugged but not because she didn’t agree with Paige’s assessment, only because she didn’t want to get her hopes up. The two of them had been madly researching Kellan Broch and Gigi Perez online and they’d found a great deal of information—including multiple social media platforms for both. Larkin had spent countless hours combing over the website for Kellan’s band, KKB. She’d practically memorized the entire site, including all the songs and all the faces in the photographs posted there. She’d just started to feel like she knew those people—especially his beautiful sister, Kathryn, who would be Larkin’s aunt—when the first dream came.

On a warm afternoon, she’d dozed off on the sofa in their suburban Phoenix home while Thad and Claire were still at work. The television had lulled her into a deep sleep and Larkin found herself standing at night on a clean-swept plateau overlooking a dark body of water. Behind her, a group of small, pretty cottages flanked a large courtyard that edged up to a dense pine forest. A bonfire burned high in the middle of the courtyard; long, straight logs rested against each other like a teepee, all blazing bright with orange flames reaching toward the starry sky. She smelled the sweetness of the burning wood and felt cool alpine air on her skin, moving gently through her long auburn hair. The details were so vivid. A full, bright moon gleamed overhead.

In the dream, a large shadow blocked the moonlight to Larkin’s left. She’d gasped and recoiled reflexively from what her instincts told her was a gigantic animal. She had turned, expecting to see a massive bear or some other terrifying forest beast looking for a meal, but it wasn’t an animal at all; it was a bird. A colossal crow the size of a small airplane with shining feathers of black, indigo, and inky green. It acknowledged her but passed by her to walk a slow circle around the bonfire. Its size dwarfed the scale of the huge fire, like King Kong had done with the Empire State Building. The crow came back to where she stood, riveted and frantic with uncertainty, and tilted its enormous head down to Larkin’s sight level. The dark orbs of its eyes glinted like black oil and in the depth of their reflection, she saw another image forming.

A tiny dot at first, it seemed to move forward in the crow’s eyes like the space inside was hollow. Larkin realized she was looking into the face of another creature altogether. A wolf made up of blazing red and orange light, with eyes sparkling emerald green.

She’d awakened with her heart hammering, surrounded by the scent of night blooming Jasmine even though the sun was still out and blazing in Phoenix. The fragrance faded almost immediately, and in its wake, Larkin knew a certainty like none she’d ever felt. She knew those mysterious creatures; she knew them in her blood. She was somehow part of them, and they of her.

That exact dream had come to her every day since. It never progressed beyond the point where she locked eyes with the red wolf, but each time she found herself in that dream scenario, she remembered new things about the environment of it. After having the dream so many times, Larkin began to feel at home there—almost at ease in that mystical, subconscious space.

Until the flaming red eyes appeared in the forest.

That happened for the first time two days prior to her eighteenth birthday; two days prior to receiving the ancestry kit from You + Yours as a gift, and two days prior to her sending off her saliva sample for analysis. The instructions on the package said it would take up to a month to get results. Larkin registered for the site and checked it every day, until the morning she awoke to two new emails from You + Yours.

The first announced that her test results were in. The second contained a link highlighted in bright green and told her they’d found a DNA match of 51%.  

With trembling fingers, Larkin clicked the link.

CHAPTER TWO

ONE CROW CAWED outside the window, then another. Still another answered until they all merged into one shrill, scratchy chorus—a murderous chorus. Kellan couldn’t remember how many crows it took to equal a murder. He knew that random fact at some point; maybe just more than one.

As he slowly regained consciousness, he became aware that he was lying on his back on a reasonably soft surface, but he had no idea where he was. Or how long he’d been wherever he was. Kellan struggled to recall what had happened.

The last thing he remembered was Sandie. When she’d first approached him toward the end of Kath and Evan’s wedding, she was drunk and overly affectionate, hanging on him and laughing, telling him how much she’d loved the songs he’d written for the couple. He’d made her cry but in a good way, or so she said. He’d glanced across the room at his pretty lady Sonya, engaged in animated conversation with Henry near the bar, and thought he’d go join them. But Sandie lingered.

After she’d made a few hilariously inappropriate comments and was standing way too close to him, he’d guided the wobbly Rhino Bar waitress to a table and got her to take a seat. Kellan sat with her to talk for a few more minutes, but then excused himself to hit the head before joining Sonya. The restrooms were behind the kitchen in the Silver Aspen’s banquet hall. It had been quiet back there, even on the ladies’ side. He’d slipped into the men’s, done his business, and came back out—nearly crashing into Sandie in the doorway.

Sandie was a big girl—as tall as Kellan in flats and taller in the heels she wore with her bright blue dress to the wedding. Standing at the door to the men’s room, she’d stared at him with an eerily fixed gaze. A sheen of perspiration glistened on her forehead. For a moment, he thought the intoxicated woman might puke on his shoes, so he took a step back into the men’s room. Her vacant blue eyes followed him, locked on him, as she stood with her arms hanging at her sides. He noticed she was not carrying her handbag. Didn’t women always bring their handbags to the restroom? Sandie remained just outside the men’s room door, gaping at Kellan with unsettling focus.

Sandie? he’d said. Are you okay, hon? You gonna be sick? Can I help you into the ladies?

She hadn’t blinked but her brow lowered in a frown. Sandie tilted her head and her nose ring caught the overhead hallway light. She seemed to be hearing a sound Kellan could not, but she hadn’t responded to his questions yet. He’d tried again, but stayed a few steps away from her holding onto the men’s room door handle. Something crawling in his gut told him he might need to create a physical barrier, and soon.

Sandie? It’s Kellan. Talk to me.

Slowly, she drew her large hands toward each other in front of her ample chest, linking the fingers together. Sandie cracked her knuckles. The sound of the popping joints echoed off the tiles in the men’s room, but still she said nothing—just stared. Kellan frowned.

Can you hear me, girl?

Sandie finally blinked and a tiny tear tracked down her right cheek. Her arms went back to her sides briefly and then the overhead lights flickered in unison. On and off, fluttering, on and off again. Kellan kept his gaze trained on hers, but began drawing his vessel energy into his core. Something was very wrong and getting wronger by the second. Sandie seemed to be gathering strength from the energy sources available in the environment—a thing non-human entities did before a manifestation or display of force. The hairs on his arms tickled and raised as the nearby currents and volts were redirected toward her.

Kellan remembered taking another step back into the men’s room and releasing the door so it would close between him and Sandie. But just before the latch caught, she’d burst into the room at impossible velocity.

After that, everything went dark until he woke up there ... wherever he was.

His eyes were covered by a crude blindfold. Kellan assessed his physical condition and sensed no injury, but he was definitely bound. He lay on his back with his feet tied together and his hands tied over his head. When he tried to move his arms, he was unable. His wrists were secured to something, but his legs seemed to be free.

Tuning his senses outward, he took a deep breath. The air around him was a bit musty but there were no strong, identifiable smells that would help him figure out where he was. Indoors certainly, and he could see light through a pattern in the fabric of the blindfold. The cloth over his eyes was a bandana; a blue one. A shuffling sound to his left made him flinch.

Who’s there? His voice came out in a dry croak telling him he hadn’t spoken in many hours. What time was it? What day? Where the hell was he? Hello?

The response came in something that resembled Sandie’s husky, throaty voice, but there was no emotion or lilt, as though she were talking in her sleep. And something else was braided together with her voice—more of a vibration than another tone. Combined, the sound wormed over Kellan’s bones and left cold slime in its wake.

Vessel, you have not been harmed and will not be.

A shadow blocked out what little light he could see through the bandana and then Kellan felt tugging on the cloth over his eyes. A second later, he was blinking against daylight filtering in through some dusty gray curtains.

Sandie stood over him still wearing the blue dress she’d donned for Kath and Ev’s wedding. Her make-up had smeared and smudged leaving dark circles around her pale blue eyes, and crimson stains around her wide lips. Kellan saw dried, cracked blood inside both Sandie’s nostrils.

But this wasn’t exactly Sandie. It was something using her physical form, wearing her like a coat.

Kellan tried to clear his throat but it was painfully dry. Who are you? I know you’re not my friend Sandie.

Sandie’s body remained still, but her head tilted at an odd angle in response to that. Those pale eyes stared into Kellan’s face.

Not Sandie, it said. But Sandie is here. She has not been harmed. Won’t be. Borrowing.

Okay. Kellan tugged his arms again, bending his head back to see what he was tied to. It was a plain, small wooden headboard that one might find in a child’s bedroom. He noted that he was lying on a single bed, but the room he was in was bare except for some boxes stacked outside a small closet. Was this Sandie’s home? He’d never actually visited her or hung out much outside of the Rhino, so he didn’t know what her dwelling looked like. He knew she lived down canyon, though, not in the village. If this was her home, there wouldn’t be too many close neighbors to hear him yell for help.

He tugged again, then sighed. Why am I tied up?

Safer, the thing using Sandie said. You move much. Restless.

And that’s a problem because ...? Kellan tugged again, shifting the headboard a little with the force. Maybe he could