Coming Home: The Finders Series

By Dana Terrell

On the surface, Kim and Kevin appear to be two ordinary kids when the Donaldson family adopts them. Things soon change, however, as they begin to exhibit unusual powers.Then, when Kevin turns twenty, something happens that will turn his whole world upside down forever. Now, Kevin is in a race to find out who he is and where he belongs as he races across the US, looking for others like himself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662425356

Book preview

Chapter 1

It Begins

It had been almost six years since I arrived here, in the colony our people set up when we got here—to your world, I mean. Yes, I am what you would call an alien. The thing is, I look just like you but with a few minor differences. For starters, when I get angry, my eyes tend to glow a bit. The more upset I am, the more they glow. This means that for a very long time, my eyes never stopped glowing, but more on that later. Another curious difference is not noticeable at first glance, but I have two small growths near the base of my skull that are hidden by my hair. It turns out that all my people have them, but we have no idea what they are for. I guess they are like your appendix in that regard.

My sister and I both have an unusual birthmark on our upper arm. It is in the shape of a double star. That is something that I later learned we all have, so that is the final way that we are different in appearance from you humans. However, that is not where the differences end. Oh no, not by a long shot. You see, we also have abilities, or what you might call powers. Telepathy, or the ability to communicate only with our mind, is common among us all. Telekinesis is another ability that is common among us all. This is the ability to move objects with our thoughts.

Along with telekinesis is the ability to manipulate matter and change its appearance and shape. We can also see into another’s mind and be able to tell if the person’s intent is noble or evil. Besides these abilities, there are unique gifts that are specific to the individual. For example, I have future sight, which is the ability to see things that are about to happen. My sister had creature speak, or the ability to communicate with animals. Kim and I also could hear over great distances.

The problem is that since we are different, we were always seen by our classmates and the neighborhood at large as freaks and strange. Some of the parents would not even let their kids talk to us, let alone play or hang out with us. This also meant that the Donaldsons, our adoptive family, was under constant ridicule as well for taking us in. But let me go back and tell you about the Donaldson family, and then you will see what makes them different from most humans and why it was so hard for Kim and me to be with them.

Chapter 2

The Family

After the police discovered us and took us to Child Welfare, the most we could tell them was our names. We could not remember anything about where we were from or how we came to be on the road alone in the middle of nowhere. That was when we got adopted by the Donaldson family. There was Bob and Lil, and they had a son and daughter named Mike and Susan. Bob was an average-sized man with a dark complexion that he got from working outside all the time. He was a carpenter and had his own remodeling business. He was a strong man but never really showed his strength as a bodybuilder does.

Lil, on the other hand, was a small woman. She had worked as a waitress in her youth and had even worked as a nurse’s aide, but now she took care of the house and the family. She had long salt-and-pepper hair that she generally wore in a braid hanging down to the small of her back. I used to love brushing her hair and trying different styles, but we always ended up with a braid.

Mike was just a year older than I was, and it was common for the two of us to be in some sort of trouble. I don’t think a day went by that we were not getting yelled at for some kind of mischief. He was about the same height as I was, but his hair was a chestnut brown, and his eyes were a wonderful sea green. He loved having his hair long, a lot longer than mine. When he smiled, Mom used to say that you could see the devil dancing in his eyes. It was not until I was much older that I understood what she meant by that. Unfortunately, that meant a lot of wasted time trying to get him to smile so I could see the devil dancing just one time.

Susan was more of a tomboy growing up. She loved to play baseball and football, and she was an excellent runner. We all thought she should join girls’ track, but she never did. She was two years younger than Kim was, and those two were always trying to hang out with us. We would try to ditch them every chance we got, and sometimes it worked.

Mike and Susan both thought that it was neat, all the stuff we could do. Susan especially liked it when we were out in the woods, and Kim would call the animals to us. Susan loved animals and would always beg Kim to call them around so she could pet them. They were always asking us if there was more we could do, but we really didn’t know—that was until Johnny Phelps, the neighborhood bully, started picking on Susan.

See, Johnny was the leader in this neighborhood gang, and they did everything he told them to. Well, this one day, Tony, who was one of Johnny’s buds, was picking on this little girl. Susan saw it and made Tony stop. Tony got mad and went to hit Susan, but she ducked the punch and hit Tony in the mouth. This angered him because a girl had bested him. He went to tell Johnny some sort of lie to get his help with Susan.

Johnny was a good eight inches taller and sixty pounds heavier than Susan. When he started hitting her, she was hurt bad. Well, I saw it, and that was the first time I had gotten angry. Johnny went from standing over Susan and pounding on her to flying through the air and landing on his back. I had not punched him or even touched him. I only thought about pushing him, and he went flying. I was marching right up to the rest of the crowd when the other kids started screaming. I did not realize that my eyes were glowing. All I knew was that I wanted to hurt Johnny bad. As Johnny got up off the ground, I could tell he was mad, but I think I was madder. What happened next scared everyone, including Susan. A fireball appeared a few feet in front of me and went flying toward Johnny. He jumped to the side and landed in some bushes just in time to miss it. I did not know how I had done it. All I knew was that I was the one who made that fireball. Now I was scared.

Susan and I started running, and we did not stop until we were back home. Several parents came to the door over the next few days. They were angry and wanted to know what kind of freaks Mom and Dad were raising. Mom managed to smooth things over by asking, How can you rationally believe that someone could create fireballs in midair and then have them go sailing towards anybody? Susan and I kept quiet about that one, but I did share the story with Kim. Kim was always up late, and we would talk even though her room was down the hall from mine. No one ever heard us, so we never got in trouble.

About a week later, Kim, Susan, Mike, and I were in the woods, and I was trying to recreate the fireball, but nothing I did was working. I was afraid that Kim and Mike would think we had made the whole thing up. Susan was the first to mention my eyes glowing. That was the first time I found out that my eyes glowed. I tried to get them to glow again, but not knowing what made it happen the first time meant that I was not successful this time. Mike became a little more standoffish with me after hearing all this. I guess he was starting to think a bit like the other kids. There were a few more times when I got angry, and one of them, I was angry at Mike himself.

Holy crap! he said. Your eyes really do glow! How are you doing it?

I don’t know! I just know that your attitude of late has me angry as ‘All get out right now!’ I just want to knock the crap out of you!

That must be it! Think about it. You were mad at Johnny, and your eyes were glowing then too. You have to control your anger, or you won’t have any friends left at this rate!

I did think about it, and what he said made sense, at least about my eyes glowing and the connection to my anger. Kim tried getting angry one time, and her eyes started glowing too. Great! One more thing that made us different from everyone else.

There was one time when I was able to use my powers, and no one was scared of me. Mike and I were in high school, but the girls were not there yet. The school had a talent show, and they were asking kids to sign up if they wanted to perform. I got an idea, and I signed up!

Are you crazy? You want to be a magician at this talent show! What are you thinking? was Mike’s response when he saw that I had signed up.

What are they going to think when I am signed up as a magician, and I levitate on stage, or I tell them what card they picked, or I do any of the things I can do? Will they be scared? Or amazed?

Mike thought about this for a minute and realized