by August Arrea
“He doesn’t need to know you, only where you come from,” said Leos still offering no parting of the clouds for Jacob.
“What does Cain’s Corner have to do with it?”
“We’re not talking about Cain’s Corner,” said Ethan which only confused Jacob all the more.
“Let me break it down for you, alright?” Kairo interjected. “It’s like a game of chess, follow? Creed’s father is an archangel, which in most cases is like a queen.”
“Better not let him hear you call his father a queen,” Max warned, playfully.
“And being queen might be all well and good,” continued Kairo, “but Gotham, on the other hand, is legend around here, or what most people would consider king.”
Jacob traded looks with the other three boys in the room to see if they were catching what he obviously was not.
“I must have missed something in that analogy,” he said turning back to Kairo. “What do chess pieces have to do with me?”
Kairo rolled his eyes and let out an exasperated groan.
“Don’t you get it? Everyone knows while the queen might be the most powerful piece in a game of chess, the king is hands down the most important,” he explained. “And in the eyes of most Nephilim, at least the ones I know, the son of a legend definitely trumps a Creed Maggert.”
Finally, it began to make sense, but only the words.
“But...I’m not Gotham’s son,” Jacob managed to sputter.
Now it was the other boys’ turn to share in a look of confusion.
“What d’ya mean you’re not his son?” asked Max. “Earlier tonight in the Hall he said he was one who brought you here.”
“That’s right.”
“And all Nephilim are brought here by their fathers.”
All Jacob could manage was a shrug. “I don’t know anything about that, only that he’s not my father.”
“Then...who is your father?” asked Ethan somewhat hesitantly.
The question brought a familiar embarrassment to Jacob as it had whenever the subject had found its way to him in the past.
“You’re guess is as good as mine,” he said with another shrug. “I’ve never known who he was. Sorry to disappoint you.”
“Well, hey…,” said Max who sensed they were breaching a topic Jacob would rather side-step as he would any land mine lying in his path, “look on the bright side. At least no one can call you a Weed.”
“Weed?” asked Jacob who was beginning to ponder retrieving his journal from his bag and jotting down some of the terms being thrown at him for future reference.
“Just a name used to refer to Nephilim whose fathers are Fallen,” explained Leos.
“They’re called Weeds because they’re outcasts—undesirables,” added Max. “No one wants weeds in their garden, especially this Garden.”
“Makes sense,” said Jacob. “Glad to know I’m in no danger of being sprayed with weed killer.”
~~~
A notable quiet came over the room and Jacob searched desperately for something—anything—to steer toward a new topic of discussion that didn’t have to do with family trees or garden pests. He quickly found one in Max’s face.
“So, that looked like it had to sting a bit.”
Max shot him a curious look. “What’s that?”
Jacob brought a finger to his own cheek just beneath his left eye which was the same spot Max sported his scar.
“Oh, that,” said Max, fingering the permanent gouge to his flesh. “Yeah, well, you should see the other guy.”
“Kid from school?” guessed Jacob, figuring Max might have suffered the same taunting he had in recent years, especially while noticing the familiar-looking protruding curves fixed to Max’s back beneath the T-shirt he was wearing.
“Fury,” replied Max.
Jacob’s face instantly tightened with surprise.
“You had a run-in with a Fury?”
“Few weeks ago before I came here. I was coming out of a movie theater.”
“So, what did it look like?”
“Not a pretty sight, I can tell you,” answered Max. “Ugly as a box full of blowflies, in fact.”
I guess that would be pretty ugly, thought Jacob to himself. Not that he would know what a blowfly looked like if it landed on him, much less a box-full.
“Luckily you had someone with you to fight it off,” said Jacob.
“You got that right,” Max shot back. “Me, myself and I.”
Now Jacob was impressed. Even though Max looked to be the same size as himself and able to take on a garden variety bully, Jacob had been schooled firsthand by Gotham and Johiel on how wickedly strong and ravenous Furies were. And while Jacob only had the experience of being in the clawed grips of an Infector and surviving the ordeal by the skin of his teeth, it was enough to know he never wanted to endure a face-to-face with the much worse Fury. How, he suddenly wondered, did this kid manage to fend off such an attack and walk away with just a scar?
“Luckily, my father taught me from a very young age to keep my eyes and ears open for these nasty creatures, so I was prepared to fend it off,” said Max.
“I wish I had been as lucky,” said Jacob with a sigh.
“No kiddin’, you’ve tangled with a Fury, too?” asked Max.
“In an alley on my way here,” said Jacob. “Although, not so much a Fury as an Infector.”
“Equally nasty buggers.” Max narrowed his eyes on Jacob and gave him a closer once-over. “Looks like you managed alright. Not a mark on you that I can see.”
“Well, you know how it is,” said Jacob flexing his arms confidently before allowing his body to deflate where he sat. “To be honest, if it wasn’t for Gotham coming to my rescue, I’d still be doing a pretty good impression of a shish kebab.”
Jacob’s way of taking a self-deprecating jab at himself over something so serious in such a humorous way made Max smile appreciatively.
“If you want know the truth,” he leaned in closer to Jacob to whisper so the others wouldn’t hear, “I owe my narrow squeak to nothing more than the fast pair of feet I was born with and am lucky all I’ve got to show from it is this scar—not to mention a soiled pair of grundies.”
The two boys shared a hearty chuckle over the truthful disclosure.
“My father wanted to heal the scar and make it disappear, but I didn’t want to. At least not yet,” Max continued. “I see it as a kind of badge of honor. I went up against a Fury and I lived to tell about it.”
“I’m not sure which I’d rather choose to go up against if I was forced to do so,” Kairo pondered out loud.
“I sure as heck know the answer to that scenario: Neither!” Ethan replied emphatically.
“What if you didn’t have a choice, which would be your pick?” pressed Leos. “Odds are we’ll each of us be visited with that unavoidable introduction at some point in our lives.”
“If I didn’t have the option to avoid both, I guess I’d have to go with a Fury,” Ethan answered though with great reluctance.
“Really? A Fury?” said Max.
“You said I had to pick one! Besides, even though my father warned me for as long as I can remember how vicious and monstrous Furies are, I just think Infectors are way worse. I mean, they’re the actual Darkness come to life.”
After experiencing a swarm of these dark demons up close and not having the unfortunate luck of witnessing a Fury in the flesh like Max, Jacob couldn’t help but agree with Ethan.
“Besides,” Ethan was quick to add, “it really gives me the willies that they have the ability to get inside you and control you.”
“I can tell you this, whether it’s another Fury or a hideous troll of an Infector, none of those buggers are going to get another opportunity to leave a mark on me,” Max vowed confidently. “Especially once I find out what my Grace is.”
“You’re grace?” Jacob, instantly intrigued, asked. “What’s that?”
Max shot him an odd glance. “You know…Grace.”
&
nbsp; Again Jacob found himself thrown by unfamiliar jargon that seemed so familiar to the others.
“I know grace before meals, and that’s about it.” he said.
“Grace,” said Max, as though repeating the word would somehow unveil its meaning to Jacob. When it was clear the blank look in Jacob’s eyes wasn’t going to leave, he took a seat on the edge of his bed. “There are two things Nephilim look forward to the most in coming to Eden: the first is flying, no question, and the second is learning what one’s Grace is. You see, each Nephilim has a special power passed on to him from his father. That’s what’s known as your Grace. But the only way to find out what that power is by coming here.”
Jacob could feel a surge of excitement rise up inside himself. “What kind of power?”
“We’re not told what the option of these powers are until right before our Grace is revealed to us. Hopefully we find out tomorrow when training starts,” said Max. “Personally, if I had my pick I’d love to be able to make myself invisible. To be able to go anywhere in the world, and do anything without anyone having the slightest clue I was there. Not to mention make those Furies and any other creature from the Underneath think twice about messing with the stealthiest weapon they’d ever have the displeasure of tangling with.”
“Reading minds.” Everyone’s eyes turned to Leos who was quietly lying stretched out on his bed pondering the prospect. “It’s the one thing I always envied my dad of being able to do. I would love to be able to know what other people were thinking and plotting whenever I wanted. Either that or having super strength.”
“You already have strength beyond what regular people have,” said Kairo.
“I know…but I’m talking super, super strength,” said Leos.
“I’m not sure I’d want to read people’s mind,” Ethan remarked with a sour look on his face. “I know a lot of stupid people who I would have no interest in knowing what’s going on in their heads. Having the power to manipulate what’s going on in those heads—now, that’s a different story.”
“Who cares about other people’s thoughts?” said Kairo, dismissively.
“Alright, what would you pick if you had the choice?” asked Ethan. “And don’t say become the world’s greatest soccer player.”
“Football!” Kairo shot back. “It’s football, man!”
“Whatever…what power would you want?”
“Easy. To fly,” Kairo quickly responded with a smile. “The other powers I don’t care about. All I’m looking forward to is the day I get my wings and I am able to take to the sky like a bird. When that happens I don’t think I will ever allow my feet to touch the ground again.”
Jacob couldn’t help but share Kairo’s smile while catching the dreamy, far-off sparkle dancing inside his eyes.
“Well, those are all pretty good, but I’ve got the ultimate power wish,” Ethan announced coyly.
“Oh let me guess, Obi Wan Ka-dopey. You’d want to have the power of a Jedi,” Max remarked sarcastically, drawing a snicker from Leos and Kairo.
“A lot you know. Jedi Knights don’t have powers,” Ethan shot back. “They have The Force. Big difference!”
Max leaned toward Jacob to fill him in on the joke. “You’ll find out soon enough for yourself, but our bloke Ethan here is a real dag when it comes to Star Wars, he is.”
“Dag?” Ethan and Jacob asked in unison.
“You know, a member of the nerd society.”
Jacob looked to Ethan and grinned. It wasn’t hard to see Ethan possessed in spades that certain geeky quality shared amongst the costume-wearing Comic Con crowd, and all Jacob could think was how all this—Nephilim, Havenhid, and pondering mysterious Graces—must have been to Ethan like a Dungeons & Dragons wet dream come to life.
“So let’s have it,” coaxed Jacob, curious to hear what fantasy Ethan was mulling about inside his head.
Ethan glanced around the room, and only when he had everyone’s full attention did he finally disclose it. “If I could choose anything…it would be the power to make any woman I so desire to fall helplessly and madly in love with me,” he said, “and become the world’s true Casanova.”
The answer instantly sparked a muffle of suppressed giggles that eventually erupted into full-blown laughter.
“What’s so funny about that?” Ethan, looking a tad wounded, asked.
“Brother, that’s not just a Grace, that’s a full-blown miracle,” said Kairo with a chuckle.
“Yeah, I’m not even sure all the angels of Heaven could help you with that one,” Leos chided.
When the laughter finally began to subside, Max looked to Jacob.
“What about you? You didn’t say what power you’d like to have.”
Jacob felt every eye in the room move onto him and he drew quiet with thought continuing to carefully mull over the question he first began pondering from the moment the revelation of Graces was first made known to him.
“I think it would have to be the ability to control time,” came the answer when he finally spoke. “I’d like to be able to move time forward. But especially turn it back, at least for a few moments, to when my mom was alive and well.”
He hadn’t meant for his answer to draw the weighted silence it did, and for a moment he had wished for that time-controlling power, if only a couple seconds, so he could change his answer to something light and meaningless like shooting lasers from his eyeballs.
After a few awkwardly silent moments, Max turned to him with a forlorn look fixed upon his face.
“Well, if you were ever able to do that, may I just offer you a friendly piece of advice?” he asked, looking as though he was about to voice a heavy offering of solace. “Just make sure Ethan here is nowhere around at the time to sweep her off her feet.”
His face melted instantly into unrestrained giddiness and together with Jacob they collapsed against one another in uncontrollable laughter that quickly spread to Leos and Kairo.
“Ha, ha, very funny!” Ethan muttered unamused beneath his breath.
~~~
The boys talked and laughed well into the deep hours of the night when one by one they slowly began drifting off to sleep until eventually Max and Jacob remained the only ones awake. Jacob had still yet to settle in and he grabbed his pack. Unzipping the bag, he started to pull out articles of clothing stuffed inside beginning with Gotham’s thick overcoat. Tossing it aside, he continued rummaging through the bag until he found his journal and phone buried between his T-shirts and socks.
“You know that’s not going to do you much good here for too long, don’t you?” said Max who looked on quietly while lying comfortably stretched out across his bed.
“Why’s that?”
“Look around you. This place isn’t quite equipped with electricity to recharge it once it goes dead,” said Max. “That is, unless someone finds out their Grace is mastering lightning like Thor.”
“I guess I’ll just have to be judicious with the battery life I’ve got left,” said Jacob.
“You think that’s bad, you should see a few guys down the hall already twitching at the thumbs from going through texting withdrawals…poor buggers,” said Max. “You’d think the Garden of Eden in this day and age would at least be wired for wi-fi.”
Jacob smiled at the idea and took a seat on the ledge of a large open arched window shaped within the wall constructed by the branches of the trees. He checked to see if the plastic bag had managed to protect his phone from the waters of the Van Gölü during his wet journey into Eden, and was happy to see when it lit up with life. A rustling of the leaves in the trees outside caught his attention and, as he peered outside, his gaze happened upon the silhouette of a figure moving across the ground below. As he took a closer look, he could see it was Gotham and he watched him cross to the far edge of the Garden grounds and disappear into the dark blanket of forest.
“Have you been to see the Tree of Life yet?” he asked to no reply. “Max?”
When Jacob received no
answer he looked and found Max had finally succumbed to sleep. Jacob turned his gaze once more to the spot where he’d seen Gotham disappear into the shadow of the trees and he wondered many things. He then looked upward to the night sky and was quickly taken aback by the sight of the moon shining big and bright above the towering mountain peaks without any planetary shadow to blight the fullness of its presence. So big was it, Jacob was sure he could reach out and graze it with the tip of his fingers, and so clear, he could make out its cratered surface in startling clarity. The silvery blue light it cast down illuminated Eden in a dreamlike gauze.
Slipping the buds of his phone into his ears, he scanned a rolling list of his downloaded songs until the title he was searching for scrolled into view, and he pressed play. The familiar music began followed by the even more familiar voice of Stevie Nicks singing her song “Sanctuary,” the words of which Jacob had somehow in his repeated listenings of the song managed to commit to memory. He sat there in the frame of the window and as he gazed out into the Garden he thought of the last time he had heard the song, inside the gymnasium of his school where he slow-danced with Wray. And he remembered the sweet smell of perfume on her neck as he held her close knowing it would be a long time—if ever—before he would see her again. It was then, for a brief moment, he felt the first pangs of homesickness since leaving Cain’s Corner.
He abruptly turned the song off and pulled the buds from his ears. He had only wanted a moment to return to the world he had left behind, but he knew the Garden was going to be his world for the near foreseeable future, and he readily accepted it. In fact, there was no place else he wished to be at that moment, even enclosed in Wray’s arms. And despite the lull of sleep beginning to settle its heavy weight upon him, Jacob wanted to spend the rest of the night sitting on the window ledge staring out at the beauty surrounding him, afraid that if he were to close his eyes to sleep he might awaken and discover it had all been a dream. A wondrous, sometimes terrifying dream, but a dream, nonetheless.
He reached for his journal and opened it. And in the moonlight he was just able to make out on the blank page he stared at the faint scratches pressed into the paper from earlier writings made by the boy who first owned the journal; Gotham’s son David. Jacob knew the scratches—not legible enough to read— were all that remained of the lost pages mysteriously torn free from the journal, and he found himself wondering what secret thoughts was this journal the keeper of at one time. What untold experiences were scribbled down in these pages only to be ripped free so as to never be shared with another pair of eyes that might crack open the book? As he wondered these things with the sound of snoring from his sleeping roommates serenading him, Jacob took his pen and placed the tip against the thick paper, and for some time he sat there without writing a word as he relived in his head the events of the day.
