Page 22 of Muted Voices (Broken Ashes #1)

I awake the next morning having absolutely no memory about how I got into bed or even how I got into the big shirt that I ended up sleeping in the first night. At least I made it to the bed and changed before I crashed. I don’t want to ruin this bed, it’s too nice. When I glance around the bed and don’t find Winston, I can’t decide if I’m grateful or disappointed. He’s a curiosity, sure, but he didn’t feel like a threat and now that Raiden confirmed it, I know for sure that I’m right.

Since I don’t have anything else to wear, I quickly get dressed in what I wore yesterday, minus the jacket since I’m not leaving the house. I’ve just finished pulling on my top when my stomach makes its need for food very loudly known.

Breakfast: I need food and coffee.

I’m also hoping that Raiden has managed to come up with someone who can help us find out why Winston has apparently attached himself to me. As I walk into the kitchen, where all the guys are already up and bleary-eyed, a thought occurs to me.

“Hey, you know Winston was one of the creatures that accompanied me here?” I ask with absolutely no preamble as I pour myself a cup of coffee. When they don’t reply but just look at me, I take that as a sign to continue, “Well, all the majority of the animals that came with me as well were really big. What if they’re hanging around somewhere too, but couldn’t fit in my room? Or Winston was just misbehaving and doing something that he shouldn’t? He seems like the type that would do that?”

There’s a beat of silence before Griff says, or rather grumbles, “Have you just woken up?”

I nod.

Before I can reply though, River does, following my thought process easily despite the fact that it’s early and came from nowhere, “That’s actually a really good point, although I don’t know how we could prove it to be true?” he frowns and then suddenly jumps up, walking around the table to where I am he grabs my hand and starts leading me toward the front door.

Everyone, of course, follows.

“River what the fuck are you doing?” Van asks.

“Remember she’s human,” Reed grumbles, his morning voice like gravel and so damn attractive.

“I know, jeeze,” River replies with a smile and a roll of his eyes as he leads me out of the front door.

I just sip my coffee and go along for the ride, trying not to notice how nice it is to have my hand held.

River stops when we get to the edge of the woods and looks down at me with a smile that’s full of excitement and anticipation and that I can’t help returning even though I've got no idea what he’s so excited about.

“Well?” Ransom asks, surprisingly grumpy.

“Dude, you need to tell us what your plan is?” Raiden adds, sounding amused.

River rolls his eyes, “Shit, sorry. Neith, call them.”

I pull a confused face as my nose scrunches, “What? How do I do that?”

River shrugs, and frowns himself, “I don’t know, actually, Raiden! How does she summon them?”

Raiden, who is standing right next to River, puts his finger in his ear and wiggles it while grimacing, “Dude I’m standing right next to you; there’s no need to shout.”

River, bless him, winces and says, “Sorry, I got excited.”

“I know,” Raiden grins, “it’s a good idea, but I actually don’t know. If I knew that, we could’ve just immediately summoned Winston back and asked him for answers.”

“Oh,” River replies looks so forlorn that despite the fact that I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing and that I’m wildly underqualified considering I’m not even a supernatural I feel like I have to try.

“Let me try something,” I tell him, squeezing his hand.

Those simple words have him smiling again, and I feel better about my decision to try, even though it's incredibly unlikely that it will work.

“What are you going to do?” Griff asks curiously.

I shrug, “I was just going to ask them?”

Raiden frowns but replies, “Well, it can’t hurt.”

“Here goes then,” I say, and then, feeling like an absolute idiot, I clear my throat and say louder, “If the spirit animals that accompanied me here are still around, could you please make yourselves known?”

There’s silence, not even a hint of movement and I have to admit that I was actually hoping that they would be here still, there’s no denying that I felt some kind of connection to them and I would like to thank them properly.

“Shit,” I exclaim loudly as they all suddenly appear in front of me.

“Well, I’ll be damned. They’re all still here,” Reed says in awe.

“I didn’t expect it to actually work,” River exclaims, sounding proud and letting go of my hand to high-five Raiden, who looks slightly shocked.

“Well, now what do I do?” I ask them as I glance at all of them to see if they have any idea how I should proceed now that they’re all standing there staring at me.

“Where’s Winston?” Van asks.

I frown as I look over them again, all of the ones that I remember escorting me here are standing there, watching me curiously, but Winston is nowhere to be seen.

“I have no idea,” I reply.

None of the guys have given any great insight as to how they think that I should proceed. Not even Raiden, who in theory should know the most about how to interact with spirit guides, although I don’t know enough about Reapers to know whether they actually have any interaction with spirit animals, it’s kind of ignorant to assume that just because Raiden has a gift that deals with the spirit realm that he knows everything about it. Just like the Underworld, the spirit realm has a lot of layers and levels to it, so Raiden could deal with just one level, and the spirit guides could be on another one entirely, which means that he knows about the other levels but not as much as he knows about his own level.

It’s like how demons know more information about hell than other supes because that’s where they come from, but they’ll know more than other demons about the particular area that they come from.

I don’t know much about the spirit realm, but I do know that there are a lot of levels. I understand that the level where humans go after they’ve died is a different level to the one that supes go to, so it makes sense that the spirit guides are on a different level as well.

The guys are still discussing what we should do, and the spirit guides are still watching me, waiting for me to do something. I’m surprised that they’ve been so patient actually, and haven’t just disappeared. I don’t know if there are rules on how I address them, but I know that the most important thing to me now is that I thank them. I am very aware that I wouldn’t have made it here without them.

With this in mind I just move forward, ignoring the guys while they discuss, and head straight toward them.

“Be careful,” Reed says, silencing the other guys.

I glance over my shoulder to see that they’re all now watching me closely, they all look ready to come after me if something goes wrong but none of them try to stop me or tell me that it's too dangerous for me, and I appreciate that. I get about half way across the space between us before the spirit guides start to move to meet me.

I can feel the tension coming off the guys behind me, but they all stay silent and don’t get involved.

The spirit guides quickly surround me but I don’t feel threatened, quite the opposite actually, I feel at peace, like I’m surrounded by friends. None of them say anything, and I get the feeling that they’re different than Winston, that they are more in the spirit realm than here, so they can’t communicate with me, whereas Winston somehow has a stronger foothold in our realm and, therefore can communicate with me, at least that’s my best guess.

“Are you okay, Neith?” Griff asks, his voice full of concern.

“Yeah, I’m good. They’re not going to hurt me, they wouldn’t have gone to all of the effort to get me here alive only to hurt me now,” I reply, pointing out the obvious to Griff because I know that it will help him relax.

I reach out and stroke the fur of the wolf who rubs up against me, “Thank you all so much for getting me here. I don’t know why you chose to help me, but I do know that I wouldn’t have made it without you, so thank you.”

My worry that they won’t understand me is dispelled as soon as they all bow their heads in acknowledgment of my words, and the bear actually nudges my other arm so that I lift my hand and stroke him, making me smile. you’d think I’d be scared of bears after one tried to eat me, but I’m not. It helps that this isn’t a real bear.

“Are you seeing this?” Reed asks.

“Yeah, she shouldn’t be able to touch them, they’re spirits,” Raiden replies, and I raise my eyebrow.

I swear the moose winks at me and somehow looks amused.

“You are ginormous,” I say to it as I look up because, really, I never expected a moose to be really that big.

The moose shocks me, as it gets closer, and the bear moves out of its way and as the moose ducks its head so that it is looking into my eyes. Somehow, I know that it wants me to touch his nose. I lift my hand and gently lay it on its soft face.

“I am bigger than the average moose,” a gentle voice says into my mind.

I don’t know whether he will be able to hear me if I speak in my mind, so out loud, I say, “Whoa, that is really cool. I don’t suppose you can tell me why you’re all hanging around. Or even why you helped me?”

“Are you talking to them?” Ransom asks incredulously.

“I’m talking to the moose,” I reply and then add to the moose, “I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”

“What’s he saying?” River asks excitedly.

I roll my eyes, and I swear the spirit guides are all amused when I reply, “I don’t know yet; you keep talking to me.”

“Oh shit, sorry,” River replies, making my smile widen.

When it stays silent, the moose answers me, “I cannot answer the first question. You’re not supposed to know yet.”

I pull a face, “Yeah I keep getting told something similar.”

I’m slightly exaggerating. I mean, the only one who has said something along the same lines is Navy.

The moose’s voice is kind as it adds, “I can answer your second question though, we helped you get here because you called to us.”

“I called to you?” I ask in shock, looking around at them all, and they all nod.

“Yes, you asked for us to come and we did,” the moose confirms.

“I don’t remember doing that,” I tell them honestly.

“It wasn’t a conscious thought; it was your magic,” the moose replies.

“I don’t have magic,” I shoot back immediately because I don’t, that’s been proven over and over again. “I’m just a strange human.”

The moose looks at me, his eyes full of understanding as he takes a step back so that I can no longer hear his thoughts. He obviously communicates something to others because they all start to turn around and head back into the woods, the bear and the wolf rubbing against me and having a couple more pats before they follow after the others and disappear from view as I just stand there and stare after them.

The voices seem subdued, further away than they have been for a while, and more like white noise that I can easily ignore rather than something that is right there and so close to being discernible that it drives me nuts trying to figure it out and thinking that I can hear words when I can’t.

“Are you okay?” Van asks, appearing at my side and wrapping an arm around my shoulders.

I lean into him allowing myself to sink into the comfort that he’s offering me.

“I think so. I mean, they didn’t tell me why they’re still hanging around or what their presence here means, and they didn’t mention Winston at all although I think that was deliberate on their part. All they, or rather the moose, said was that I called them, and that’s why they helped me to get here. The only problem with that is that I wasn’t aware that I did it, and I have no idea how I did it.” I explain to them.

“Let’s head back inside, it’s going rain, and I didn’t finish my breakfast,” Reed suggests, “we can talk more in there.”

We all start heading back inside and Griff says, “I think that it's safe to assume that even if you are human there is something supernatural going on. I’m sorry but I just can’t accept that you are human.”

“I agree,” River adds as we all take seats at the table again, “You smell human, and you have no magical signature, not to mention that the tests that HID have done have all come back as you are human, but there’s so much other stuff, and that’s just what we’ve observed over the last couple of days, if it weren’t for that other stuff I’d say without a doubt that you were a supe.”

“But the tests?” I reply.

“Maybe you have a small enough amount of magic that it doesn’t show up?” Van suggests.

“That’s a possibility, I guess,” Ransom muses.

“Look, I think the best way to get any answers about the mystery that is Neith is to figure out why she has a link to the spirit guides and particularly Winston. He could talk to all of us, not just you.” River suggests.

“Yeah, that was actually my suggestion,” Raiden starts, “so I was trying to think of someone that could help us, that knows more about that particular level of the spirit realm.” He looks at me and asks, “Do you know about the levels?”

I nod, “Yes, well I know there are several levels but I don’t know what they are.”

He nods, “Good, that’s a super long conversation that we can have another time but I wanted to make sure that you knew they existed so that what I’m suggesting makes sense.”

“Okay,” I reply.

“Did you think of anyone?” Reed asks curiously.

“Yeah, actually, what about Sloane?” Raiden suggests.

“Well fuck yeah, we should’ve thought of that, there’s very little that he doesn’t know,” Evander replies.

“So, lets go and see this Sloane guy then and see if he can tell us why a spirit guide would attach themselves to a human?” I suggest starting to stand up.

“We’ve got a couple of hours yet, he has a nocturnal schedule, and he can be a bit prickly, to say the least. He’s a scary bastard who may not even want to help. He seems to like us, but that doesn’t really mean much,” River explains, sounding quite excited at the prospect.

“Okay, is there anything I should know?” I ask, probably not as worried as I should be.

“Let us do the talking unless he asks you a question, I have no idea how he’ll respond to a human. Although I’m sure he will most likely just ignore you. Where we’re going to meet him is full of other supes so stay on your guard.” Evander explains.

I grin, “Ooo, okay this sounds like so much fun.”

Ransom shakes his head, “You never react the way that I think you’re going to.”

“Good, at least it will keep you on your toes,” I reply with a smile and then point out, “Besides, I’d be pretty shit at my job if I was afraid of supernaturals.”

“Yeah, okay, that’s a good point,” Ransom concedes, and then tilts his head as if listening to something, “Your welcome packet just arrived.”

I jump up, “Where?”

He chuckles and replies, “It’s on the small table by the front door.”

“Awesome,” I grin and then add, “if it’s okay with you guys, I’m going to take it upstairs and go over it. In case you haven’t guessed I get distracted really easily, so if I have any hope of absorbing what it says I need to read it where there are very few distractions.”

Evander smiles, his eyes happy as he replies, “Yes, I know. Don’t worry, you go and read it, and we’ll come and get you when it’s time to get going.”

“Thanks, Van,” I reply.

“We’ll also bring you lunch in a bit. Doc just messaged and reminded us we needed to give you lunch; he also said that he’ll meet us to see Sloane,” Reed says, with an amused smile.

“Awesome, tell him I said hi, and he better have rested since last night,” I call back, already leaving the room.

I’m excited to read exactly what’s expected of me, and that I have a job considering that I’m dead. I’m strangely sad that I’m not going to be working at Bobby’s anymore. I mean the hours were a killer but I’m going to miss my regulars. I grab the surprisingly weighty letter and jog up the stairs to my room, pushing the door closed behind me and only doing a quick scan for Winston.