Otherkin Read Online Free PDF Page A

appreciative glance and nodded. “Exactly, smart girl.”
    “Okay,” I said, settling into my seat. The white line down the center of the 15 freeway ran for what seemed forever before me, and stretched out into the darkness behind. “Tell me everything. From the beginning.”

CHAPTER 4
    “The many worlds lie alongside each other like spoons in a drawer,” said Caleb. His voice took on a singsong intonation, as if he’d been told this story himself many times. “Although some would say they lie heaped in a messy pile, like kittens in a basket. One world lies closest to our own, and through the years it has been known by many names—the Dreamtime, Valhalla, the Underworld, or as we call it, Othersphere. From the earliest days it cast its shadow into our world. Not a shadow of darkness, but a power shadow, a vibration.
    “The first people to recognize this were called by different names too—shaman, wizard, medicine man, seer, druid, witch. They found and called forth the shadow in certain people, and the animal forms of the first shifters came forth. They sought the shadows of plants, of animals, of stone and earth. Today we are referred to as callers of shadow. And for a long time, we were the only source of what might be called magic, but which we call shadow.”
    “It all comes from this Othersphere?” I said.
    “Yes. No one has ever traveled between worlds, except perhaps in dreams, but the worlds affect each other. We can’t know what our world does to Othersphere, but a caller can sense Othersphere’s potential effect on this world.”
    “Then why did you say thanks to the moon?” I glanced over at him. The lights from the dash caught the dark glint of his irises and outlined the bruise around his eye.
    “Certain circumstances make it easier to call the shadow forth.” He frowned, thinking. “When the moon is full, the conditions are optimal for a caller to bring forth shadow, and for a shifter to change to their animal form. There are other things that make it easier too—certain locations are more closely connected to Othersphere. The ancients called them faery mounds or built henges and temples to mark a place of power. My mother also said that places where huge bursts of energy took place, like Hiroshima and Mount St. Helens, lie very close to Othersphere. She thought events like that tear at the veil between this world and the other.”
    “Is your mother a caller too?”
    He hesitated. Pain flickered across his face. “She was,” he said. “She’s dead.”
    “I’m sorry,” I said.
    “It was a while ago.” He turned his head to look out his window, so I could only see the strong line of his jaw. “I learned everything worth knowing from her.”
    “And your father?” I asked.
    “Don’t know him.” He kept staring out at the sky.
    The road rumbled beneath us as we sat in silence. The moon had risen, shrinking to a dime-sized pool of pulsating light, shining down through the BMW’s moonroof. It cast Caleb’s eyes into shadow.
    “What about the Tribunal?” I asked after a few minutes.
    “What about it?” His velvet voice sounded distracted.
    “Well, you said that in the beginning were the callers, and they called forth the shifters. Where do the members of the Tribunal come from? Lazar did something with his voice.... It made me feel awful. That’s kind of like what you do, right?” He didn’t reply, so I pushed on. “I mean, you did the opposite. You helped me, but you did it with your voice too. Same with that ridge of rock you conjured out there.”
    “Vibration.” He relaxed into his seat. “Callers use the vibration in their voices to bring out the shadow form of an object. The Tribunal refers to its callers as objurers now, but they were callers once.”
    “So they think using shadow to get rid of shadow is okay, but not for anything else.”
    “Exactly. Hey!” He pointed to a green sign that read G AS , F OOD , L ODGING by the side of the road. “You still