Noah's Adventure - 10. Not What They Seem

I felt like I was watching a home movie—one I had no business seeing. Awe tangled with something darker in my chest as memories poured through me, memories that weren’t mine. Images, emotions, pieces of someone else’s life.

I had more questions than answers…

A steady beeping dragged me back. My eyes cracked open. Someone was sitting beside me, and I could hear my grandmother’s voice sharpening like a blade as she interrogated someone nearby. God, I hoped it wasn’t Shiloh. This wasn’t his fault.

“He’s awake,” Shiloh said softly.

That made me blink fully awake.

“How do you feel?” the doctor asked, shining a small light into my eyes. “You took quite a tumble.”

“What… happened?” My voice came out rough.

“You fainted. Though I suspect it was a bit more than that—you were out for over an hour.”

“Oh.” That was all I could manage. “I need to talk to Grandma.”

“We should run a few tests—” he began, but after one look at me, he stopped. “We’ll… revisit that.”

When the curtain finally closed around us, I turned to Shiloh. “You can stay if you want.”

He nodded without hesitation.

A second later, Grandma slipped in, sliding the curtain shut behind her. “How are you feeling?” she asked gently.

“Fine,” I muttered. “Grandma, what happened? I remember talking to Caleb. And Shiloh. I reached for his hand to stop him from walking away and then—bam. Family secret. Memory reels. Like someone took a sledgehammer to my brain.”

I watched several emotions flicker across her face—shock, resignation, something like fear.

“First… thank you, Shiloh, for calling Luca,” she said, steadying herself. “It was appreciated. And… I did have a heads up before all of this started.”

“A heads up?” Shiloh and I said together.

“Yes.” Grandma shifted, uncomfortable.

“Mom?” Uncle Matt’s voice called through the curtain.

“Yes, dear?” She pulled it back.

“They’re releasing him. I convinced the doctors we could monitor him at home and bring him back if anything changes.”

“Alright.” She turned back to me. “We’ll continue this conversation at home.”

The drive felt endless. A thousand questions pinged around my skull like angry hornets.
And none of them had answers.

Back at the house, everyone swarmed—questions, worry, noise. Too much noise. I needed Grandma. I needed Shiloh. I needed to understand what I had just seen, and why I had seen it.

My uncles must’ve sensed it because they ushered us upstairs to my room. I climbed onto my bed and wrapped myself in the quilt of my dad’s clothes. It grounded me instantly.

“There’s no easy way to begin,” Grandma said. And then she did.
She told me everything.

About our family.
About magic.
Abilities.
Generations of secrets I never even knew existed.

Telepathy.
Teleportation.
Healing.
Shape-shifting.
Empathy so strong it bordered on mind-reading.
Abilities rare and unpredictable, scattered unevenly across branches of the family tree.

“Some people can sense emotions, even before others feel them,” Uncle Matt said. “That’s how I knew you were about to lose it at your party.”

“I got mine late,” Uncle Nathan added. “I can read emotional signatures. Pretty useful in my line of work.”

“What about my dad?” I whispered.

Silence. Heavy. Suffocating.

Finally Grandma spoke. “We don’t know. We had family with healing abilities at the accident scene. They tried… but they couldn’t save him.”

“Why?” My voice cracked as tears spilled over and Grandma pulled me close.

“We don’t know,” she whispered. “He never made contact after he passed.”

“So why did Tristan reach out to me?”

Grandma let out a long, exasperated breath. “Because he’s a meddling pain in the—” She stopped herself. “He knows I wanted you and your cousins to have a chance at a normal life.”

“Normal,” I scoffed. “Good luck with that.”

The adults chuckled, though it was thin, strained.

“He also knows you’re going to need your abilities,” Uncle Nathan said. “To help Shawn, Shane, and Shiloh.”

“Help them how?”

Grandma leaned forward, studying me. “What did you learn?”

She knew. I could tell she already knew and was testing me.

“Well…” I swallowed. “They’re not triplets. They’re… quadruplets.”
I paused. “And Caleb is their cousin.”