“I was just thinking of heading your way,” River said, giving Aidan’s hand a friendly squeeze in welcome.
“Mother Aeros came to ask me to see if Skyla would be able to come early today,” Aidan said.
I whirled around to face him, almost coughing as I swallowed a large lump of half-chewed crust. I hurried to compose myself, unsure of why I suddenly felt nervous.
The twists in my belly and the burning by my ears evaporated in the next moment, as Aidan and River continued to talk.
“I have also been sent to ask if River would come and assist with the Learning Ceremony setup,” Aidan said. “Lady Sula said it is good for us to help out today.”
“The Lead Elder asked us to help?” River’s eyes widened with excitement.
“We are well aware of how important the Ceremony is to our incoming members,” Aiden replied.
“That is true. I imagine it is also very helpful for the new members, knowing as they do about the Ceremony,” Mother Annika agreed. “What a good way to channel your efforts to help those who are so innocently eager.”
I almost frowned at her remark. What did she mean by that?
Before I could ask—or even think of asking—Mother Annika waved her arm, gesturing toward our house’s daily ration of bread and a container of purified water. “Can I offer you anything to eat or drink before you go?”
“No, thank you.” Aidan looked back at me, as I quickly wiped off my dishes into the sink. “Once Skyla is ready, we should head out. Mother Erika is eager to help set up for the Feast that will take place after the Learning Ceremony.”
“Your House Mother is the Community’s best baker, Aidan,” River said.
There was a silent second where we all seemed to be holding our breath, and then Aidan spoke.
“She is just as gifted as your own,” Aidan replied, covering for my brother’s crudely worded statement.
“Thank you,” Mother Annika said. The shard in her forehead glimmered, this time colored with a strange mix of contentment and contrition; a second passed, and then she smiled brightly, but somehow blandly, too.
River began talking about what he’d heard about the Ceremony, and I finished setting up the dish sanitizer.
“I’m ready,” I spoke up, diverting their attention back to me. River sighed as he was interrupted, but Aidan was as calm and welcoming as he had always been. On some level—the same deep, hidden level inside of me, the one where I kept the secret of my morning shadows and how I could see things that never truly happened—I wondered why Aidan got along so well with my brother. River was energetic and always enthusiastic; he always had something to say. As long as I’d known Aidan, he’d been quiet and thoughtful. His words seemed well-chosen, picked as carefully as a House Father might prepare a friendship bouquet for his chosen House Mother.
They were both good, but still so different. I had to wonder if they were truly compatible, even though I knew everyone in the Community tolerated and supported each other.
I put down my towel just as River started peppering Aidan with questions regarding the Ceremony. They left our residence while I said my farewells to my House Mother.
“Goodbye, Mother Annika,” I said, leaning over to give her a quick kiss on the cheek as she packed up our remaining ration.
Mother Annika paused, letting her fingers slide over the skin where I’d kissed her. She cleared her throat a moment later, and then, with tears in her eyes, she nodded. “Goodbye, Skyla,” she whispered. “You’ve always been such a good girl.”
“Thank you.”
She tucked a stray half-curl of my hair behind my ear. “I will see you after the Learning Ceremony is over.”
“Yes, Mother.” I waved once more and then skipped out the door to our domicile, hurrying to catch up to River and Aidan.
“Come on, Aidan, can’t you just tell me what the big surprise the Elders have for us in the Learning Ceremony is?” River’s voice was a high-pitched whine, and a hearty giggle escaped me as I came up behind them.
“Calm down, River,” I said. “I’m the one who has to watch over the baby today, not Aidan.”
Before I could say anything, that feeling overcame me again, and life that should not have happened came to pass.
In the blink of an eye, River glared at me, looking as furious as any of the pictures of the Imperfect Past leaders. He kicked out his foot, splattering my new dress with a slosh of mud. I felt the tears form behind my eyes, before they were shuffled away by an unseen hand.
I stared ahead, forcing myself to watch, as River’s body paused, his foot still in mid-air from his supposed kick; the next half-second he righted himself, and the mud was lifted off my skirt as if nature was reversing its actions.
A moment later, River beamed at me, all friendliness and smiles once more.
“You’re so funny, Sky,” he bantered back. “You know you’ll always be the baby between us!” He reached out to affectionately pat my head, and then he continued walking, as if nothing happened.
Which, I reminded myself, as I looked down at my dress, was true.
Nothing happened.
Nothing happened, and that was what I was content to believe.
Until I saw Aidan.
There was a look on his face that made my heart begin to race as my feet stayed still.
“You saw it, didn’t you?” he asked. His voice was slightly cracked with incredulity, but the consistent lull of his words remained.
I nodded, and I saw the jewel in his forehead—a fiery amber, almost like a flame frozen in rock—burn with forbidden anger.
And then before I could say or do anything else, Aidan grabbed a hold of River by the upper arm, dragging him back to face us.
“What is it?” River asked.
Aidan’s fingers balled into a fist. He launched his punch into River’s jaw, and at the sight of blood in my brother’s mouth, I felt the scream rise inside of me.
My cry was killed almost instantly, disappearing as quickly as it had come. A second later, Aidan was only standing there, giving River a high-five while they laughed.
“What’s this about?” River asked. “Did Sky forget how to congratulate someone?”
I looked from River—no longer bleeding, no apparent evidence of what had not happened—to Aidan, who looked at me intensely, more provocatively and more intently than I had ever been looked at before.
“I know your House Mother is waiting.” I heard myself speak the words, even if I did not feel them come out of my mouth. “I will see you at the Ceremony later. Goodbye, and have a good time setting up everything!”
My eyes were still wide as I hurried away. My feet seemed to carry me with a will of their own. I did not want to believe what I’d thought I’d seen. I did not want to think that Aidan was the kind of person who would hit my brother, or that my brother was the kind of person who might have deserved to be hit. I’d never seen such intentional harm caused by a human, and I was aghast at the terror I felt.
It was worse, too, because I’d had such high respect for Aidan.
“Skyla, there you are.” Erika, Aidan’s House Mother next door, waved to me as I approached. She gave me a smile, and the trauma I’d felt over Aidan’s actions dispersed at once. “Storm has been waiting for you! She’s excited to see you.”
“I’m sure she would rather have you,” I replied, trying to force myself back into the normal routine. There was a pounding between my eyes, just behind the shard in my forehead.
“Oh, of course not!” Erika’s eyes filled with mirth as she handed me her baby girl. “She knows her House Mother needs to go and help with the Festival.”
I forgot about anything terrible as I held baby Storm. She was nearly six months old, still a baby, but growing so well. She already had curlier hair than I did, but her eyes were close in color to mine. I wondered if they made Aidan think of me.
And then I felt terrible again.
“You’ll be a full Community Member after today,”
Erika said. “Do you think you will want to be a House Mother, too, Skyla? You do very well with Storm.”
“I will wait to be assigned and approved by the Community,” I said. It was an automatic answer, one I was eager to fulfill. I did not yet know what my place would be in the Community, but I knew it was something they would need, and that was enough for me to be eager to embrace it.
“The Community Elders will know what is best for you,” Erika said.
“Yes, I am sure they will,” I agreed.
“This means you will choose to stay in the City by the Sea after the Learning Ceremony, then.”
“Where else would I go?” I asked the question facetiously, with a playful grin, having no other answer for myself. I had forgotten about that part of the Learning Ceremony.
Each Community Member was someone who had chosen to stay in the City by the Sea. There were some who choose to walk away from the City after the Ceremony, but I did not have any inkling as to why they would.
The City life was perfect, and all of my family was here—River, Mother Mercer, my House Father, Albert, Aidan, and all of my peers at school. I did not know of life without them or without this place.
All of who I am is here, and this is where I belong.
Where could I go?
Where else would I go?
“You’re so adorable,” Erika cooed as she patted the baby on her head. “You’re such a good girl, my little Storm. I will see you later!”
Storm merely gurgled back as her House Mother left. She did not make any fuss. The small shard on her head changed in a whirlwind of color, shining different shades of red, blue, and yellow as I tended to her.
Storm was a gift, to me as well as the Community, and over the next several hours, I could forget all the things that might have weighed me down. She would giggle and gurgle and coo and cuddle, and I was lost the moment I looked into her young and innocent eyes.
I had just finished up her afternoon feeding when the door to the Aeros house opened, and Aidan walked in. Immediately, I recalled my earlier troubles.
“Aidan.”
My body went stiff, as if I was trying to figure out if I was going to be brave or if I was merely going to wait for my uncertainty to pass.
“Skyla, can you come with me?” He held out his hand to me, and I bristled.
“No,” I snapped, before I could think through anything else. “Not after what you did earlier.”
Aidan seemed shocked at my tone, and even I was a little surprised at how forceful I sounded. He frowned, but there was a hopeful look in his eyes that made me pause.
“I am surprised you remember what happened,” he finally said.
“How could I forget?” I put my hands on my hips. “You hit my brother!”
“I didn’t,” he said, but when I shook my head, he sighed. “Okay, I did, but he didn’t feel it, and he doesn’t remember it, does he?”
“That doesn’t make it good,” I huffed, although I was not sure if that was true.
“I’m surprised you remember this morning at all,” he said softly. “You never remember anything that happens between us.”
My cheeks began to burn, and I suddenly began to wonder if those earlier moments—those dreams, those imaginings—were more. And, from the expression on his face, I had a feeling there were a lot more.
“What is going on?” My voice was a desperate whisper as I dared to voice my uncertainty.
“You’ve grown up,” Aidan whispered back, taking another step toward me.
“But I haven’t been to the Ceremony yet,” I said. “I mean, I know it’s today, but—”
“Who decides what it means to grow up?” Aidan asked. “There are other things that happen in our lives that let us make those choices besides… besides things like the Community.”
I saw the shard on his forehead begin to flicker, reminding me of how I had fallen and broken my nose, but I did not really fall—I thought of those things again.
Have Aidan and I talked about this before?
Storm screeched loudly, more loudly than I’d ever heard her, and began to wriggle uncontrollably. I had to set her down in her baby chair. Instantly, she calmed down and went back to her bubbly self.
My mind was only focused on getting her to be as happy as she could be for the next moment. It was so unusual for her to be upset at all. As I comforted her, everything else fell to the side; I forgot everything we discussed, and I was unable to be distracted.
Only when Storm was finally back to her happy self did I look back at Aidan. He was gazing out of the window, staring at the sunlight. He seemed to be mulling over a decision. A second before I could ask him what he was thinking, he snapped his attention back to me.
“Can you come with me?” Aidan asked. He held out his hand out to me, his palm facing up.
My mind was blank. “What we were talking about?”
“You were going to come with me,” he said.
“No, I wasn’t,” I said, suddenly indignant. I remembered how he hit River again, although I could not exactly remember why. “You hit my brother.”
“I’ll hit him again if you don’t come with me.”
“Excuse me?” The direct starkness of his words, and their uniqueness among my memory, conveyed enough gravity that I balked.
“Please, Sky,” he whispered again. His eyes were suddenly soft and gentle, and his voice was full of urgent pleading. “I need you to keep fighting. Please, come with me.”
I did not know what he meant, but I was determined to find out. I slowly gave him my hand, and the instant I did, a flicker of warmth and other memories—shadows?— stirred inside of me.
“All right.” I barely registered my lips moving. “But what about Storm?”
“My other House Sister, Stella, can take over for you. I will tell the rest of my family I am going to take you to register as my choice for a House Mother.”
My heart jumped excitedly. “You are?”
“Not right now.”
“Oh.” I pulled my hand free from his, brushing back my hair so he could not see my distress. “So you don’t want me to be your House Mother?”
“You’re so close. I know it’s hard, but you have to fight it.” Aidan came up next to me, so close my skirts were brushing up against his pants. He leaned over and pressed his lips against mine, and for a moment, nothing else ever seemed more real.
The moment began to flicker away even before that second was over, and my subconscious began to fight as the memory tried to leave.
No, let it stay. Let me keep this one.
I did not know who I was begging, or if there was anyone listening, but the power of my hidden self—that center of my being, the one at the core of every secret I’d kept from the world, and maybe even myself—won, and I fell into Aidan’s arms a second later.
The taste of him, coupled with his embrace, felt more than familiar to me—less like a dream, and more like a dream come true. As he pulled back from me, my fingers curled around his sleeves.
“How many times have we done that before?” I asked.
“None. But I’ve been thinking about it for a long time.”
My cheeks flushed. “You have?”
“Yes.” He brushed back my hair, pressing a kiss on the side of my neck. It was just like that moment before, when I had imagined him brushing up from behind me, when I’d been washing out Storm’s baby bottles. “I’ve thought about it, ever since I was fourteen and you asked me if I ever saw shadows in the early morning. Do you remember?”
No part of me could recall telling him about the shadows, but that was the moment when I knew he was telling me the truth.
At my silence, Aidan stepped back, letting me slide out of his arms as he nodded. “I had a feeling you’d forgotten,” he said. “You only remember our talks when it’s something that causes a strong, emotional reaction.”
“I’m…” For a long moment, I stared at him, and I tried to form the words I wanted to say.
>
I’m sorry.
The old history books talked of the Imperfect Past, the time when there was a need for apologies, but I had never uttered the word with the full weight of its meaning behind it.
“There’s something wrong here, Skyla, and you have to see it.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
As soon as I was able to drop Storm off with Aidan’s sister, he took me by the hand and led me down to the Festival.
At the sights before me, my eyes widened with pleasure, my vision overflowing with happiness. The Festival was full of so many fun rides, there were animals ready to ride, and, oh, how the smell of baked goods wafted up from the different dessert ration stations! It was perfection, and I was never so glad as I was in that moment that I would get to be a part of it.
The whole City Center, from the top of the tower by the shoreline to the fields of flowers that blended into the horizon, was ablaze with colorful, shiny happiness.
Off to the side, I saw River helping to put up a tent.
“River!” I called, waving furiously. “River, over here!”
Aidan grabbed my hand. “Stop it. We’re not supposed to be here.”
“Why not?” I asked. “There are plenty of others around. And you are supposed to be helping them get ready for the Learning Ceremony.”
“You’re not supposed to be here. And what I am about to show you is forbidden, too.”
“What is it?”
He ducked around a hedge, one that was just outside the tower by the seashore. I followed close behind him, as quietly as I could. It was then that I felt the onslaught of pain and tiredness like never before, and the shard in my forehead seemed to pulsate with pressure.
I rubbed my head with my one hand, refusing to drop Aidan’s hand as he pressed onward.
A few moments later, we reached the door to the inside of the tower. Aidan jiggled the lock and opened the door a crack, before he pulled back.
“This is the surprise for the new graduates,” Aidan said, his shoulders rigid and his voice tense. “This is what you will see at the Learning Ceremony.”
A sudden thrill raced through me, enough that I hardly noticed the stab of pain emanating from my shard.
Magic Underground: The Complete Collection (Magic Underground Anthologies Book 4) Page 24
