Read Nightwish (An Echoes of Eternity Novel Book 1) for Free Online Page A

and I’m constantly afraid that she’ll lose her mind.”
    At first, upon hearing my sister’s voice barge into my mind without consent, I wanted to shake her, but I disregarded my discomfort because I was far more concerned about Celestina than myself. I had no idea the torture she surely endured: seeing countless possibilities that struck with barely any notice. Had she suffered an attack in school? If so, at her age, she must have been horrified that others looked on without any background, thinking she was probably insane.
    “Yes, she has had narcolepsy at school. She tried to explain it to other kids, but they called her a freak and now they avoid her. I’ve spoken with her teachers, and they’ve allowed her to sit near the door in every classroom in case she feels it coming on. That way, she can hurry to a bathroom stall and let it happen privately. She has no friends I know of, she has poor social skills, and she’s naive. Sometimes she acts ten instead of thirteen. So please don’t mention that gift too much.”
    Gift? I’d never call those visions a gift! After completing that thought, I felt an incoming sound wave attempt to enter my mind, followed again by an even louder pluck than before. “Stop doing that!” I shouted.
    Alexis cradled her daughter’s head, brushing the hair from her forehead. “At first blood,” she said audibly, “Celestina inherited her abilities.”
    So she has more than one ability? I hadn’t considered that. But then, if her mother could read minds and push her own thoughts into the minds of others, why couldn’t Celestina have more than one “gift”? And why does she fall asleep before a prophecy appears? Did she have these visions often? Another sound wave came rolling toward me and knowing that an annoying ping would follow, I concentrated on clearing my mind to give my sister nothing to learn.
    “She’ll be fine,” Alexis said. She turned to her daughter. “Right, kiddo?”
    Celestina rolled her eyes. “Really, Mom? Kiddo? You’re so embarrassing!” She spun around and headed toward her grandmother, who held out a hand while glaring at me.
    Alexis watched after her daughter before setting her gaze on mine. “Because you seem to care about Celestina, I’ll tell you this: the first female in our line gets her abilities the moment she first menstruates. Every other female receives her gifts at twenty-one.”
    “But if I had any abilities, wouldn’t I have figured it out earlier today?”
    “Beats me. Maybe you noticed one of them, but explained it away as something else. Either that, or your gifts may be so diluted that they weren’t strong enough to make a big impact on you.”
    “How do you know they might be…diluted?”
    “Every firstborn female in our line receives three abilities. But every succeeding female in any line has only one-third the power of her oldest sister.”
    “So you can read minds and push your thoughts into my head. Two powers down. What’s the last one?”
    Alexis chuckled. “It doesn’t matter if I’m reading your mind or putting thoughts in your head. File both away as mind control. That’s just one power. The other two abilities?” she asked with a mischievous smile. “You’ll find out soon enough. But no one knows which one of us was born first. Not Mom, because she passed out during the delivery, or Lorraine.”
    The ‘Lorraine’ comment told me that either my sister didn’t like Grams or she wasn’t very familiar with her. Either could be true, not that Grams would expound on their relationship, given her strange behavior. But too many more urgent questions came to mind, so I didn’t continue with that line of thought.
    “We never found out,” she said.
    “But one of them has to know. We didn’t come out side by side…at the same time.”
    “When Mother asked to see anyone who helped deliver us, she was told that everyone had ended their shifts and gone home. She tried to find out again later, but she hit a