Free Don't Label Me! by Arwen Jayne Page B

they met. They seemed more like three year olds than
a year and a half but then they were reincarnated goddesses or at
least Arion and John’s sisters from a former Malakim incarnation.
They’d already achieved immortality but decided to incarnate as
John and Sally’s children for reasons best known to themselves. Try
rattling your head around that one. The sheer enormity of family
trees when you took rebirth into account became decidedly three
dimensional. A genealogist’s worst nightmare, perhaps. Or maybe an
exciting challenge. He’d met a couple of genealogists in his time
and they’d both had a peculiar obsession with details about the
major events that defined people’s lives and their connections with
others. Not his thing. He had better things to do, like saving
Orea. “Wait here a moment while Doc and I go and grab a couple of
things and then we’ll travel the non-local to the spot that’s
marked on the map. Hopefully it won’t take too long to do what we
have to.”
     
    “ Um, there’s nothing here!” George
looked forlornly at the seemingly vast expanse of jungle. They’d
climbed the escarpment to get a better view but nothing indicated
which way to take. He’d assumed that when ‘x’ marked a spot on a
map then that would be the exact spot to be but that clearly wasn’t
the case. Yet he trusted his friend and boss. “Simon wouldn’t send
us on wild goose chase.”
    Melissa looked through different eyes, eyes
that saw a sea of energy, otherworld and etheric beings westerners
called faeries. She didn’t know if the Indonesians had a term for
them. “Hang on a sec. I think I see something. Look, there’s a gap
in the escarpment. The energy is stronger there. I think that’s
where we need to go.”
    Rob shrugged his shoulders at the
questioning look from George. He wasn’t in any doubt about his
wife’s abilities. “Let’s go then.”
    They scrambled back down to the base of the
escarpment. By the time they reached the bottom again they were
sweaty and covered in grit and leaves from pushing through the
thick scrub. Doc looked in the direction Melissa had indicated.
“Lead the way Melissa.”
    To ordinary human eyes the jungle would have
looked the same in all directions: a dark green tangle of vines and
undergrowth. To her vision, which their resident geneticist Jnarn
called some fancy name, tetrachromatic or something, the jungle
took on a dance of light and vibrating particles. She’d hemorrhaged
giving birth to Adin. After Sally and Simon had brought her back
from the edge of death she’d awoken with the enhancement to her
vision. The additional set of light receptors in her eyes perceived
a vastly greater palate of color than any ordinary human could see.
In the distance was a special sparkle. It was just a hunch that
what glowed the brightest would lead them to what they sought but
it was all they had to go on. “This way.”

    8 They did what?
     
    Journalist Phoenix O’Halloran hung up in the
phone in frustration. An alert from her bank had given her her
monthly balance on her second savings account, the one she she kept
as a safety net. All the message said was that none of it was
available. The bank’s support staff didn’t seem to understand what
the problem was, she’d gotten her monthly sms alert hadn’t she? Yes
but why did it say she couldn’t access it. Oh well, you’ll have to
go into your local branch and get them to fix that. Only they can
take the block off it. Gah. Why had she just wasted twenty dollars
making that long drawn out mobile call? Because you panicked didn’t
you? Again. Gods, why did she have to be so reactive to everything?
She knew it was what always got her into trouble, that inability to
pause before she took her next breath. It was how salesmen conned
her, every single time. Of late she’d taken to never making big
purchases without thinking about it for a day, even when the
salesman said the great deal wouldn’t be there tomorrow. She