Page 43 of Let It Snow (Eden’s Omegaverse #7)

One year ago

The day I learn the first stage of influencing upcoming events feels just like any other.

Nothing hints at a change. I’m sitting on the patio, playing a lazy tune on my harmonica, watching my brothers gather for our dad’s sixty-first birthday.

No one pays me any attention; I’m just the quiet background of this family, and my music is part of that backdrop, familiar but ignored. For them, this is a simple get-together on the patio, eating the cake Dad and Jordan made. Everyone chatters, trading opinions.

I have seven brothers, but only six are still part of my life. The oldest, River, ran away as a teenager and now lives far from the family with his husband.

Next in line is Winter, my only beta brother, and then there’s me, the oldest alpha and the only single one among them. Theo doesn’t count, of course. Nor does Dennis. They were never mine to begin with. So single it is.

Storm cracks jokes as usual, and his husband, Tom, isn’t far behind, doing his best to be the star of the party. He tells ‘funny’ stories from the modeling world, snidely commenting on his colleagues’ behavior or even their looks, which feels nastier than funny.

But the picture visible to everyone else here isn’t what I see.

My world is completely different from theirs, and I can compare it because I’ve seen the photos and videos that show the version of reality everyone else sees. To me, it’s plain, empty, unmoving, almost frightening in its one-dimensionality.

I suspect the way I see things is some kind of echo of how our alien ancestors once saw the world. Living submerged in deep oceans, they evolved extra senses to perceive energy, electric fields, and magnetic currents. In me, mixed with human genes, it shows up as what the doctors call synesthesia.

My senses are woven together, colors have their own sounds, sounds have their own scents, and emotions pulse and ripple around people like flashes of light.

All of it exists in another layer, a dimension I’ve perceived since I was a child but never knew how to handle or interpret.

For years I’ve struggled to make sense of what I see, of what comes and goes.

Everything that’s about to happen looks to me like waves rolling toward me, like folds of energy in the surrounding time-space continuum.

At first, they appear at the far edges of my sight, like distant hills on the horizon, hazy and impossible to read. They’re just the first hints of what’s coming.

Then, slowly, they rise taller, curving and swelling into real waves that move toward me, gliding past, sometimes brushing me, sometimes brushing the people I care about.

This pulsing landscape has been part of my reality since childhood. For years it confused and isolated me. It was hard to talk to someone when I saw a trembling sea of energy around them, waves like quantum probabilities cresting, breaking, and manifesting into real events in the here and now.

How was I ever supposed to explain that, to tell them that behind every emotion there was a tiny wave born from some past event? How did I tell them something was coming toward them, but I didn’t know whether to say that it was light or dark, gentle or heavy? They wouldn’t have understood.

So I stayed silent, and some of them thought I was slow or stunted. The truth is, I was overloaded, drowning in information I couldn’t process.

But today, something inside me shifts as I sit at Dad’s birthday gathering…

…my eyes settle on my middle brother, Rain.

For the first time, I notice a kind of coherence in what I see around him. He’s freshly divorced from his husband, and his whole aura looks like a twisted black jellyfish, membranes fluttering, collapsed inward, his aura unhappy and sunken in depression.

I know one of the dark waves has caught him, broken over him, weighing him down with its heavy energy, swirling around him like storm water around a reef.

Not far away, my brother Storm sits with his annoying husband, Tom.

At first glance, the energy around Storm looks fine, but at the very edge of my perception I see it: a dark, rising ridge of a wave. Heavy. Grim. Inevitable.

A shiver runs through me because…

A few months ago, it looked similar around Rain!

Darkness is moving toward Storm, about to engulf his life. His husband seems to drag a piece of that energy with him, almost like he’s pulling a dark hood over my brother’s head.

I narrow my eyes, watching him. How could I tell Storm about this? How could I warn him? No idea.

I’m already the family freak.

But I keep analyzing the energy around my brothers, taking advantage of the fact that everything feels sharper today.

So I turn my gaze to my brother Skye, sitting with his boyfriend Martin, and I see almost the same thing: a swelling dark wave behind him.

The similarity strikes me.

I realize both Storm and Skye are endangered by the same thing that crushed Rain not so long ago, and is now drowning and torturing him. Suddenly, I know with absolute certainty they’re about to enter hard times.

They’re going to suffer. Suffer deeply. And I can’t stop it.

Finally, I look at my brother Bay.

Nothing. Silence. Around him, I see nothing. It’s always like a dark hole, no wave, no energy, almost as if he doesn’t exist.

He catches my gaze and narrows his eyes, almost maliciously, like he knows I’m watching him.

I quickly look away.

The waves around Storm and Skye have to be tied to their partners, to their love lives, as it was with Rain, who got divorced. All of them carry the same result: you could call it a broken heart.

Then I turn to Winter. He’s the only one not surrounded by upcoming dark waves. His energy is muted, ashy blue, like low regular waves. Only far, far away, when I really focus, can I see the outline of something coming. Something complicated, huge, like a giant tsunami, but still a long way off.

And then I look at the youngest of us, Sun.

With him, I’d already seen such a dark wave a year earlier, when his boyfriend dumped him. Though at the time, I wasn’t sure what it meant. But it’s another clue that proves I’m now reading the waves correctly.

I feel a flicker of excitement.

I’ve never had such a consistent, certain picture of the meaning of the energy around my family.

At the same time, a chill runs through me. My brothers’ lives over the next two years are about to turn into dark, painful paths.

Some powerful, negative shift is heading toward the Nolan family.

Unsettled, I stop playing my harmonica. Its soft green and blue notes, shimmering in the air like the fins of a betta fish, freeze and crumble into silence.

Bay glances at me briefly, the only one who seems to notice I’ve stopped playing. No one else comments; they joke and laugh, completely unaware of the storm coming.

But… I don’t want my brothers to suffer because of these waves. They’re my family, and their misery will be reflected in my parents.

I glance toward my dad, who is cutting the cake and smiling brightly.

Never before have I tried to do anything with these waves of events swirling around.

But what if I tried?

What if I used the massive momentum of a dark wave to draw something good to them instead? Something healing? Something that could bring them happiness—like, for example…

Their True Mates!

This bold, crazy thought isn’t new to me. Sometimes I fantasize about it, considering different approaches and thinking through my options. But this time, the need to act rises with tremendous force.

Because now I know with absolute certainty these events can’t simply be avoided. They’re already written into the structure of the universe. Darkness and pain are rushing toward my brothers, and the energy is way too heavy to stop. But not too heavy to… modify.

I squeeze my eyes shut.

Who should I start with? Maybe the one currently caught in the trough of the wave, in that swirling dark tide.

His face is pale, his back slightly hunched. He’s staring blankly at the lake.

Rain is an unshakable romantic. He believes in love that lasts forever, and his divorce nearly broke him.

I just know, simply know, there is someone perfect for him somewhere, who believes exactly what Rain believes: in ‘once in a lifetime’.

Maybe it’s not too late to use the momentum of that dark energy and turn it back on itself.

But how? I reach toward him clumsily with my energy, feeling like an uninvited guest sliding tendrils across someone else’s aura. My energetic form grabs the ‘edge’ of that dark wave, clinging to it with tiny hooks.

I feel its closeness almost physically—an incredibly strong surge, like tapping into a raw, powerful source.

I realize I can use part of that power, its primal, unrestrained force. I look at the rolling ocean of quantum possibilities rising and breaking around Rain.

Suddenly, I see thin, delicate strands of potential rippling above us, not yet taking material form. One thread catches my eye, very faint but clearly connecting to Rain, like a fragile astral umbilical cord.

An umbilical cord?

Wait… could that be Rain’s True Mate?

I have to try. Using the rolling strength of the negative wave, I start pulling it toward Rain. The thread tightens, and I suddenly notice it’s dragging a cluster of other strands behind it. The events around him are far more complex than I had estimated.

That stiffness, that resistance… could it mean Rain’s True Mate is currently tied up in another relationship? I feel the thread straining, refusing to yield. I can’t pull harder without snapping it.

What can I do?

I’m stuck. I realize bringing them together won’t be easy. The universe hasn’t placed them on the same path naturally, hasn’t carved out a clear road for them. But maybe I can?

I shift my gaze to the end of the thread. It’s bound tightly with another, knotted.

A knot of a relationship, that much I’m sure of. If I pull too hard, would I rip it apart? Cause a tragedy? If that thread snapped, would it mean someone’s death? No… I don’t want to bring misfortune to an innocent person.

I focus, still drawing energy from the swirling darkness around Rain, and follow the thread that holds his True Mate’s partner. Suddenly I see another connection, impossibly fine and delicate as a spider’s silk, leading to yet another thread.

Wow.

Could this be… that other person’s True Mate? Interestingly, that second thread is looser, easier to shift. Maybe their paths could actually be woven together? I grab hold and pull. The strands tighten lightly and… glow, as if they’ve caught the scent.

Excitement rushes through me.

What have I done?

Could I be solving two problems at once? Rain would find his True Mate, and that person’s partner would find their own.

Perfect symmetry?

But the side effect is immediate; the moment the threads light up and vibrate, clinging to each other… suddenly dark waves start rolling toward Rain’s fated mate.

A devastating breakup? Something else?

Still, I know it will pass. It’s my only hope. I know Rain will meet him within… three months. Their suffering will end. True, I meddled where I shouldn’t, but it was just too tempting. The end results were too beautiful in perspective.

The energy I used to bind those threads is now being drawn out of the dark whirlpool around my brother.

I look at him closely.

His aura seems just a little lighter. As if I have used part of the darkness, making his energy lighter.

He leans back against the rattan sofa and gazes at the sky, drawing a deeper breath.

Is he starting to let some acceptance in? Of his marriage’s collapse?

I smile to myself. Soon, Rain. Don’t worry, brother. You’ll meet him. And you’ll find the happiness that will brighten the rest of your life.

Already, after my manipulation, I can see on the far horizon behind Rain and his True Mate a glowing, pastel-gold wave spreading out.

Rain’s gray, sad eyes meet mine. He gives me a small, muted smile.

I want to tell him it’s going to be all right, but small talk isn’t my style. So I just lift the harmonica to my lips and play, tuning it to his aura, shaping the notes to soothe and smooth its jagged edges.

My brother closes his eyes and visibly relaxes.

"Nice tune, Snow. You’ve got talent, man," he murmurs suddenly.

I take the compliment. If he only knew I’d been playing with his fate, with the currents of his life, maybe he wouldn’t be so casual about it.

Then the exhaustion hits me. Wrestling with the energetic currents of the universe is draining.

With some disappointment, I glance toward Storm and Skye.

Their suffering is closest on the timeline. Could I use it? Not yet… unfortunately.

Only when it grows strong enough to envelop them fully.

It’s a little tragic, waiting for their circumstances to crumble just so I can harness that power to draw the shimmering rainbow threads of their happiness closer their thin threads still far, far away, and I’m not yet able to touch the ends of their destinies.

You’ll have to wait a little longer, brothers… but I promise I’ll help you too, I whisper to myself.

Just when I’m about to step back from this whole demiurge game of connecting people’s fates, something flickers at the edge of my perception.

A flash, like a glint of a mirror turned toward me.

And suddenly I understand, in a heartbeat.

There’s someone else.

Someone watching me from afar, observing what I’m doing, or at least that’s how it feels. Someone with a gift like mine.

Some eyes are reaching toward me through the void. I try to reach back, to understand who they are, but all I see is two small moons, one gold and one silver, spinning around each other. Strange. I can’t interpret it yet.

I’m almost certain it’s tied to my own future, something far off, still beyond the horizon line, a vast front moving slowly toward my life.

But for now it’s too distant for me to grasp even a fragment.

Still, I promise myself that over the next year, I’ll spend every day trying to read that trembling landscape of uncertain scenarios and possibilities, working to help my brothers, and maybe even to draw that front of light closer to myself, the faint glimmer of it I see shimmering just beyond the curve of time.