Mum was like me although not exactly like me. We both had dreams, visions but while she was only able to foresee the future, I also saw past events. I suppose it had something to do with the differences in the birds on our backs. Mum’s bird was a dove in flight, calm with its wings spanning the centre of her back.
Mine was bigger, there was a diagonal shape at the centre rounding towards my right shoulder blade and thinning as it ran down my back before fanning out to form the tail. What we had thought would be the head had ballooned into a wing puffed out with air opposite the second wing which ran along my right rib cage. The head was not as defined as the other features but there was a splodge over the left wing, almost as if the bird was looking back. It was different from Mum’s bird alright, mine was not at peace.
According to mum, everyone like us had a bird on their backs. I did not know anyone like us except Jim. And at eighteen months, all Jim had was a circle about half an inch wide under his shoulder bone, just like mine had been until I was eight and the dreams started.
By the time I was nine, I lived in a world of déjà vu with major events of my daily life a replay of my dreams. The bird on my back had grown with me. The year I was twelve, the blob had grown across my back like ink spreading over paper. In the past seven years, it had acquired features that put me in the good company of the sibyls, in case we were ever in doubt. We were not, time surfing was genetic and it took only one parent who was a time surfer to pass it on to their child.
Our superpower was cool, it helped me with pesky exam questions and I was studying for a career that would build on my ability. The avalerion on the other hand was a whole different ball game. According to the legend, avalerions used our ability to project our thoughts and our visions, to control others. While I could only share my dreams and memories with mum, avalerions could do this with anybody at all.
I know, it sounds too much like a myth but people who knew my story would probably think I was a myth too. Sibyls feared the avalerion’s ability but not as much as the Eagles. This is what we called the Convocation, the governing council of sibyls and the term had a negative undertone in my family, with good reason.
A birth of an Avalerion could only be foreseen by his mother and the Eagles mandated that it be reported the moment a mother saw the vision, they would then take the avalerion into custody once he was born.
About forty years ago, it was time for another avalerion to be born and when a birth was not reported, the Eagles carried out a fact-finding ritual to determine if one had been born. They did not find out who he was, where he lived but they did find out his enormous power and that he had reached maturity. They also found out some information that struck fear into the Eagles’hearts.
You see, he was not your average avalerion. He was born as a twin, each an avalerion but his twin died at birth and he absorbed his power such that the bird on his back had two heads and his power as a mind-controlling fiend was doubled.
The genius idea of the Eagles was then to get rid of every Sibyl above eight years old and below thirty five, the age of the last reported avalerion. This was where the legend became personal and tragic for mum. Her parents and her two siblings fell into the age bracket, and she lost all of them in a night.
Every time she told me the story, she would try and fail to hide her tears but she never attempted to hide her fear.
“I don’t know if something like that will ever happen again, and I have made sure they will never find us if it does. But you have to help me, you must never tell anyone except me about your visions or show anyone the bird on your back.” She had added the first time she told me the story.
Back then, I was like every other kid who listened to their parent’s warning one minute and forgot about it the next but I saw the terror in her eyes, I knew this was a warning I had to remember for the rest of my life. And I did. I needed no coercion to keep my dreams secret and my back hidden, so no bikinis, no close girlfriends and no boyfriends.
After the warning, I saw the vision of the avalerion for the first time and I knew I had to keep it a secret from her. I knew how terrified she would be. And there was nothing much to hide, the man’s back was always turned to me in the beginning of the dream and the bird on his back fit mum’s description of an avalerion’s bird. Every inch of his back was covered with the image of a bird so lifelike, it seemed the wings would take over the man’s arms and lift him into flight at any moment.
I would approach him and he, sensing my presence, would turn towards me. As if happy to see me, a smile played around his lips. I always woke up at that moment, having seen only a part of his face.
The incomplete dream piqued my interest and I had tried to find out more about the subject of my dreams but I had not achieved much. It is not like there was a written guide about Sibyls, much less an avalerion.
Now that mum had found out, she was as worried about it as I was about her. To me, the avalerion was a legend but it was a symbolic threat to mum, one that reminded her of all the people she had lost.
I wondered who she had called and what truth she accused the person of hiding from her. I stayed up through the night, scared of sleeping, scared of dreaming of her dying.
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