by Shelly Crane
Greed was the first one.
I saw them working so hard to have their mansions built, to drive their fancy buggies down the street, parading themselves as self proclaimed royalty and prophets. I didn’t know these people but I knew they were Aces from long ago. Then I was shown them passing others in the street, others who were poor and hungry and not privileged like we were. They laughed and one used her ability to spill a man’s cup of shillings to the ground. They laughed harder as the vision faded.
A new word formed and my tongue tasted bitter air, pride.
I saw more Aces, beating slaves and workers, smirking as they used their magic on others in torture and to scare them into submission of their ways, feeling they had the right to do so. Then different Aces. One who, horrendously, killed a servant maid for burning a piece of her hair with an iron as she tried to curl it. She held her throat in her hands without touching her until the servant stopped moving. She threw her down to the expensive rug as if it were something that could be replaced, as if she was nothing.
Another new word formed, ignorance, and my mouth felt like paper and grit.
I saw Aces playing and running, going to school for things only to earn money and be important. They were abusing their gifts to get ahead and claim fortune, never learning, or striving to keep record of their kind or keep family close. They never felt the need nor wanted to learn from past mistakes nor had a desire to avoid making new ones.
A man became a senator by tricking his voters and using glamours. A magician at a vaudeville house using his control of earthly objects to throw food, leaves and other objects into the air and juggle without touching them causing people to call him a messiah or wizard. A woman who lured men away with her charm and then stole their money, leaving them penniless and unknowing of what had happened to them when she used her magic on them.
Then, complacency was another word formed. The feel of my tongue was like water, tasteless but consuming, like I was drowning.
I saw old and new. It was everyone I knew and didn’t know. I saw the Watsons. Their Champion before Sikes standing by and watching his clan become something that went against everything he knew, yet he did nothing to stop it.
I saw another clan, a young girl and her cousins spending thousands a week on trinkets and parties, and giving their bodies and morals away freely to be popular and special in the world’s eyes. Their parents watching as they did so and thought it was common teenage behavior, as the times had changed.
Many more clans flashed before me, their transgressions laid open for me as if I were a judge. Then the Jacobson clan came to me and I held my breath. Their only transgression laid to me was not taking charge, not saying something and letting it all happen around them, though they held themselves in check. Many years ago, the Jacobson clan was the leader of all Virtuoso. They organized the meetings in London. They were the historians and record keepers for all. They watched over the years as each family was slowly destroyed by their magic, their use of greed for personal gain, their flaunting it in their pride, their ignorance of how to control themselves and their children...their ignorance of how to use a power that was given to them.
The power was a gift, not a birth rite. Not a power to parade and abuse for our entertainment and pleasure.
A gift that was taken away because of those reasons and now returned to the one family, the Jacobson’s, who were deemed worthy of redemption.
And that was the last word I felt. Redemption. The taste on my tongue was sweet and fluffy, like whipped cream.
It showed me that Caleb and I were the ones to put an end to it all and return the Virtuoso back to what they once were, a selfless, caring, outreaching, helpful people. They were people who were given gifts to help not to hurt, and to build up and prosper each other not tear down in power play and hatefulness. Caleb and I were to be the key, the new leaders of the new Ace order and keepers of the right way.
In the glimpses I saw Caleb and I fought side by side, sometimes literally. Hand to hand. Sometimes we mentally fought a battle of wits with others, sometimes, a battle of wills, always together. The last vision was of us, old and gray and blissfully wrinkled as we smiled at each other. He kissed the end of my nose as he sometimes did now and said he loved me. Still.
I gasped as I felt the cold air in the room and I came back to myself. I was oddly tired and drained feeling but it wasn’t in a bad way, just a productive feeling. I was still sitting in the library. I had no idea how long I’d been there but I felt a new sense of something. A purpose. I looked down and saw under my hand there were words written. The page that had been empty before the vision now held the words, written in an old antique pen, the words that I felt so much feeling for.
Greed.
Pride.
Ignorance.
Complacency.
Redemption
Then under that it read: The fate of all rest in the hands of all.
I knew it was a warning, I even felt heat go through my body. If we didn’t straighten this out, it would be bad for all of us, all clans, and all Aces. I knew my purpose now, to speak to the Reunification coming up in a few weeks in London. I was supposed to address them, warn them.
My heart beat steady in anticipation of it, and a scared but slow rhythm of having to be the messenger but nothing to alarm Caleb with it. I didn’t know if I was ready for all that. I was no one. I was a newcomer. How would they feel with a person who’d only been in the clan for a couple weeks and only a teenager at that, coming in and telling them to stop being greedy, prideful, ignorant people who take everything as it comes and doesn’t fight back?
I’m sure that would go over just swell.
I kept the book. I felt like I had some claim to it now. I didn’t know if anyone would mind but for some reason, I felt that it was supposed to be with me and Caleb. I set it on my bag in the upstairs bedroom and made my way downstairs. I was lost. Lost in translation. Trying to figure out how to decipher everything I’d been shown and where to go from here.
I heard the doorbell. I was starving, I knew that, and I didn’t smell anything cooking so I figured I must not have been gone as long as it seemed. Maybe someone had called for take out but it had seemed very long. Every vision was detailed and precise. It was like it all happened in real time but that couldn’t be true.
As I hit the bottom step I saw Caleb make his way to the kitchen with boxes in his hands. Kyle was coming from the den and stopped mid-stride in a halt. He stared at me in wonder.
I was puzzled. Could he tell I’d had a vision? His mind was empty.
He came slowly towards me and smiled. He took my hand, kissed the back of my fingers and then touched his head to them in an odd bow.
“You’re the Visionary,” he said reverently as he looked at me like he was seeing me for the very first time.
“What? Kyle, what are you doing?”
“You have no idea, do you?” he asked. “You have no idea what you are.”
I shook my head in confusion.
“Come on, guys. Eating...time,” Caleb mumbled as he came around the corner. He too stopped and looked at me with a weird new look of admiration. He came forward, just as Kyle had done, took my hand and kissed my fingers, and then touched them to his head before looking back to me. “Oh, wow, Maggie.” Cautiously he touched the side of my neck, as if he wasn’t sure he had the right to anymore. “You’re the Visionary.”
“What does that mean? How do you know that?”
His fingers hovered over the side of my neck.
“You have a mark here, a symbol indicating who you are.”
“And what am I?” I asked softly.
“You are the Visionary,” he repeated. “The One who sees all, knows all.”
“I don’t...” I mumbled. “Caleb, please stop looking at me like that.”
“I’m sorry.” That seemed to knock him out of his trance. “What happened, Maggie?”
“I was in the library. I found your Grandpa Ray’s o
ld record book. It had all your family‘s births and marriages in it. Then I had a vision-”
“What vision?” Bish barked in. “What are you talking about?”
We all looked at Bish in alarm. We’d been running our mouths, forgetting about our other guest.
“Nothing, it was in a book I was reading upstairs,” I half lied and grabbed Caleb’s hand to tow him. “Let’s eat.”
We ate our Chinese at the barstools at the counter. Caleb and Kyle couldn’t keep their eyes off me, like I was the queen of frigging England sitting at their table or something. It was really starting bug me. I gave them a look that said so. They both looked away bashfully. I wondered if Bish could see the mark on my neck but I guessed not. He hadn’t said anything about it and I figured since the family crest tattoos on the wrist were only seen by Aces that this probably was too.
I was anxious to see what it looked like but didn’t want to as well. Caleb and Kyle’s behavior about it all was strange and a little scary.
We heard the doorbell again and Kyle cursed as he shot up to get it. I heard him dismissing Amber with a half-hearted apology and then he came back to finish his meal.
After supper Bish said he was tired and was going to head to bed. As soon as he was gone, I grabbed both their arms and pulled them into the den, closing and locking the bay doors and pulling the shades down. I turned to look at them.
“What? Explain.”
“Well,” Caleb said and blew a breath and sat on the ottoman across the room. “We’ve always been told a story, a bedtime story you could say, about a prophetess who would come. She will be a light in the dark to our people. She would wield the sword of justice and the shield of fortification. She would speak all tongues, know all things, see all, be all that we needed her to be. She would bring a new order.” He smiled in awe at me. “I always thought it was just a story, a fairytale.”
“Yeah,” Kyle chimed. “Nobody ever believed it. It was just fun to joke about. Like the Y2K bug or the supposed end of the world in 2008. But this- you’re real...”
“But I’m still me.”
“Yes,” Caleb assured, “you are. But you are the Visionary because you’re you.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re special. Even more so than we thought before.” I sighed and he held his hand up. “Now wait. Just listen. God controls us, watches over us and has called you. Chosen you to be the Visionary because of who you are, inside. The kind of person you are. It’s a position of privilege and responsibility and power.”
“We’ve always been told,” Kyle stated, “the person who came would change everything. They would be the most important person we’d ever meet and we’d be lucky to see her in our lifetime.”
I nodded and pursed my lips. I was suddenly very upset...and even a little pissed. Things would never be the same now, I could see that. Caleb would look at me with that goofy grin of reverence every day and never touch me again and Kyle would bow at my feet every time I said good morning. I had enough of this whole ‘she’s special thing’ before this, and now...
It’s a great honor. You were chosen for this. Not only are you young and human and the first person to imprint in a long time...but you’re the Visionary. The one we’ve been waiting for.
I glared at him.
“You are not helping.”
It was the first time I could remember being mad at him.
“I’m sorry,” he said quickly and actually lowered his head, like in shame.
That lit the fire.
“Ok! Enough! I will not be some deity for you to worship.” They both looked stunned that I had yelled so forcefully. I closed my eyes for my admission. “I am this Visionary, ok. I feel it. The things I saw upstairs are going to change the way things are. But that doesn’t make me anything special, it makes me knowledgeable. I’m not an angel or a goddess or a prophetess or whatever else. I’m me. I’m still your soul mate. I am the same person I was before all this and if you’re going to treat me different just because I...I-” I stopped.
If I said another word I was going to cry. Burst into tears. I just wanted to be normal, to be with Caleb and now all that was over. I felt the loss of my life as I had known it. I sucked in a ragged breath and buried my face in my hands.
“Maggie, you have to understand. You are special. You’re different. Things can’t just go back to us sitting, playing Halo with you in my lap everyday, ok? Things are going to change. You’re going to have to be ready for that.”
I lifted my head and saw them both looking sternly at me like I was a child throwing a temper tantrum. Caleb heard my mind, knew what I was gonna do. I saw his hand snake out to grab my arm but I pulled away forcefully and went right out the front door.
I was livid.
I ran to the Jeep and slammed the door right as I saw him step off the porch. I didn’t see the keys anywhere but I searched in a mad rush. I locked my door so he couldn’t stop me just as he reached my door and banged on the window.
“Maggie, stop. Where are you going?”
“Away,” I said as looked in the visor and still didn’t see them.
I beat my palms on the steering wheel in frustration and the Jeep roared to life. Just like that. It was like I willed it. I looked at Caleb through the window and he was just as stunned. He pulled the keys from his pocket and looked at them and then back at me in wonder.
I didn’t wait any longer. I put the Jeep in reverse, no matter how it cranked, it was drivable and that’s all I cared about. I pulled onto the highway with Caleb in my rearview mirror, his hands going in the air in a frustrated move before he ran back into the house. My heart pounded and ached. It didn’t want me to leave, not mad and not like this. We weren’t made to fight, I remembered our first fight in Kyle’s back yard, how it hurt me, but I didn’t turn around.
I had no doubt he was going to call his father. And mine. And then Caleb and Kyle would contemplate on how to bring me back and why I was acting insane. Did he really not know? He was supposed to be my equal, my love, my life. And now he was treating me as if I was someone he no longer deserved and needed to be groomed for a life of privilege. I was someone to be managed and bowed down to as if in obedience.
Maggie, don’t do this. You need to come back and face this-
I pushed him out and blocked him.
How dare he treat me like some spoiled prodigy who was on the warpath or something? I was me! I am me! Wasn’t that the whole point of everything I was shown upstairs in that vision was that their race was spoiled and unclean in their actions and past thoughts: Greed, Pride, Complacency. Those weren’t minor offenses and there they were trying to worship me. This was every girl’s dream, right? Not mine.
I hated it. I begged for God to take it all back. I didn’t want to be the Visionary, I just wanted Caleb.
I drove for a while and then pulled into an ice cream place off the main highway. I tried to breathe and calm down so Caleb wouldn’t call a cab and follow my heartbeat to me.
I got a text from Bish.
Caleb said you left. I heard all the shouting. WTH Mags? Get your butt back here and answer me right now.
Then a call from Caleb came in. I pressed the red button to send it straight to voicemail and didn’t bother to listen. I wasn’t really angry at him. Not really. I was just angry. I just wanted my life back. My chest begged for Caleb, my fingers twitching. I pushed it away.
I pulled the visor down to look in the mirror. I saw the telling mark they had seen. It was a half sun half moon that put together made a whole with the line where they met blurry and gray, fading into each other. The sun half was white with wide slithering rays protruding. The moon half was black and smooth. It was small, about an inch and half maybe, right on the side of my neck. I ran my fingers over it. It wasn’t really a tattoo, it looked more solid than that but my skin felt smooth to the touch. It was odd.
The two guys behind the counter at the deserted ice cream place were giving me odd looks for
sitting it the parking lot and not coming up so I sighed and got out. I had seen Caleb stash a few bills into the ashtray. I retrieved them and went to the counter. It was one of those outdoor places with benches and umbrellas and you ordered through a walk up window.
“Hi.”
I tried to sound normal.
“Hi there, what can I get for you?”
“Um...” All the flavors were crazy celebrity names. I had no idea what was in them. “Which one is the most like rocky road?”
He looked amused.
“Rocky Balboa, of course.”
“Oh. Ok. Well then I’ll take a small Rocky Balboa.”
I gave him his money and waited as they made it. He handed it to me and smiled.
“Anything else?”
“No. Thank you.”
“You sure, you look kind of...upset.”
“I’m fine. Thank you though.”
“Ok. Have a nice night, miss.”
I scoffed at miss. I couldn’t be more than a year older than him and he called me miss. It was the ascension’s fault that I looked different.
I went to a table and sat down. My phone sat on the table in front of me. I had two more texts from Bish and Caleb called me three times. Then one missed call from Dad already. Great.
I pushed it aside and ate a spoonful of the gooey goodness in front of me. I was winding down now. Thinking I had overreacted now that I had a chance to really think about it. But I didn’t! They were the ones acting crazy.
They bowed. Bowed to me!
After all my ice cream was gone, I threw my cup away and decided to walk around. I know, it was dark and late, in California no less, but I couldn’t go back in the Jeep and head back to the house yet. In fact, I was sure I couldn’t even remember how to get to the beach house again.
I saw a cleared area set off to the side of the stand, like it was important. As I got closer I saw it was a small enclave of big rocks in a circle. The sign said it was a memorial to the men and woman who’d served our country. I sat there on a bench in the middle of those rocks, in the dark and cried. I cried for everything, all the right reasons and even the wrong ones. The petty and silly ones. I was already going so I might as well get it all out.
