A Place Worth Living

by B D Grant

  She stares in her glass, moving the glass so that the liquid swirls. Her face darkens as she watches the swirling liquid as if it’s showing her the scene she’s describing. “They had never left the bodies out in the open before. A “statement” is what they called it, because my father was the one that brought everything to light.”

  “Your brother, did they kill him too?”

  She takes another drink. “I ran to my neighbor’s house after I jumped out of the window. He had three sons; two were around my age. The youngest was a year older then my brother. When it was determined that they had taken my brother my neighbor left. He and his family were the first ones I saw leave Aurora,” She finishes the glass in one gulp. “Sometimes I wish they would have killed my brother too instead of taking him.”

  I look from the glass to her face expecting her to be crying. The eyes that return my gaze are cold.

  “You two ready for something to eat?” Clairabelle asks leaning through the door. Cassidy sets her glass down and walks out the room past her.

  “You’re not hungry?” Clairabelle asks me.

  “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  She pauses at the door. I think she wants to come in the room with me but she just looks at me, “Okay well just follow the smell of food.”

  I sit on the couch thinking about what Cassidy just told me. The Rogues killed her family and could have killed her too if they were given the chance. I replay the little I saw in Jake’s front yard. Jake laying on the ground is what keeps coming to mind but I try to focus on more. There isn’t any blood visible on Jake. He is unconscious on the ground with my dad standing over him. He is mad but containing it with his fists at his sides. He looked unharmed. Aunt Beth looked like a wreck. She was alarmed, looking like she was crying. Jake’s dad was holding her like he was protecting her maybe or keeping her from Jake. I wish I had looked more at the people I didn’t know. There was Dad, standing over Jake. Jake was on the ground. Aunt Beth with Uncle Chuck standing next to two other people closest to the SUV. It had to have been Aunt Beth I heard scream first, then my dad, which made me run after them.

  I leave the room walking down the hall when Mom and my new uncle walk out the room next to the living room. They don’t see me at the end of the hall when they come out.

  “I don’t recognize the name. Was he in the same class as me in school?” Mom asks.

  Uncle Will shakes his head saying, “He was a year ahead of you.”

  They walk down the hall toward the living room. I open my mouth to tell them what I remember but when I see how relaxed Mom is I shut my mouth. She is the most relaxed I’ve seen her since this nightmare started.

  “I might know him when I see him but I never spent much time with upper classmates, especially Dyna. Does Cass know him?”

  Uncle Will’s pace slows not answering immediately.

  “That’s right,” Mom says rolling her eyes. “She only talked to the top five in other classes.”

  Uncle Will grins and says, “I think he was around tenth in his class if memory serves me right.”

  Mom narrows her eyes. “I think that’s the closest I’ve heard you come to saying out loud what a snob she is.”

  He shakes his head again at Mom. “She was never a snob but she doesn’t go out of her way to be nice to people.”

  “That’s a snob… or maybe a politician. She only gets to know people she can use.” They walk in the living room. I silently follow.

  “She only got to know the top in each class because her father expected her to. She got to know me and I ranked fairly average every single year.” He tells her.

  Mom picks up the remote in the living room and turns off the T.V. She’s still on mom-duty even at other peoples’ homes.

  “You just prove that the school didn’t always get it right with placements. They never would have guessed that you would be the youngest Dean The Southern Academy has seen.”

  “Only by default,” he says, “Once Dean Graves was found taking part in Rogue activity no one wanted the position. Some of the teachers went as far as to take his picture down and burn it before the school shut down. If I wasn’t the one getting all the support to build a new academy then I wouldn’t have been given the position.”

  “You were the best candidate. Stop thinking so little of yourself. It sounds like you have already done more for our people than most council members did their entire term.” “Don’t judge them too quickly. Council members have a short life expectancy these days.”

  “You can tell me all about it while I eat,” Mom tells him.

  He lets Mom go ahead of him into the dining room. The smell of good food is strong where I’m lingering at in the living room until the coast is clear.

  “You can come eat too,” Uncle Will says turning around in my direction.

  He can’t see me where I am behind the corner of the living room.

  I walk out from behind the corner. “How did you know I was here? I didn’t make a sound.”

  “My childhood was spent being as quiet as possible. And knowing when people are around has been heightened now that I’m at the academy surrounded by sneaky teenagers. We didn’t really meet earlier. I’m William McBride, your uncle.” He extends his hand to me.

  I shake it feeling awkward with how formal this feels. “I’m Taylor Jameson.”

  “You look a lot like your mother. She said you’re a Veritatis.” Cassidy had called my mom a Veritatis too.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Veritatis are Seraphim that know when they’re being lied to.”

  “That’s me then. My mom can’t do that though,” I tell him.

  He looks confused for a minute then smiles. “She can tell when someone is lying just by looking at them as they say it. Most Veritatis have to hear them but not Catherine. We need to eat or we’ll hurt Clairabelle’s feelings,” he says then walks in the dining room.

  Sitting at the table with everyone eating, I can’t look my mom in the eye. She doesn’t notice because they are all talking about some Mitchell guy calling other Seraphim asking for information about the new school.

  Mom never let on that she was like me, not once. I have lied so many times to her and Dad thinking I got away with it. I told my parents one time I had to stay late at a friends house to work on a project. We really went to a party Jake’s friend was having while his parents were out of town. I got home at midnight smelling like smoke from the bonfire worried they would catch me but neither of them said a word. The next morning I even told Mom how much work we got done on the project.

  Yes, there were times when it was like she knew I was up to something but all of my friends talked about their parents being the same way. She always told me I was so special to have been given this gift. Despite what she told me, I never felt special. I felt weird and alone trying to not call people out as my head was blowing up with each and every lie.

  “So you were just going to let me be a freak my whole life?” I blurt out.

  It was out of my mouth before I knew what was happening. Miles puts his cell phone down. Clairabelle looks as astonished by my outburst as my mom. Cassidy passes my uncle the rolls.

  Mom swallows her food finding her voice, “What are we talking about?”

  With her tone I know I’ve opened a can of worms. Can I just act like I didn’t say anything? I stare at the food on the table.

  “Taylor?” she asks in a tone of insistence. She’s not going to let it go.

  “If we would have never been found would you have told me that you are just like me?”

  “You are my child so you are like me, not the other way around.”

  I look at Uncle Will for reassurance but he’s busy checking his cell phone between bites, ignoring me.

  I straighten my back in the chair. “Can you or can you not read people like I can?”

  She looks at her plate and says nonchalantly, “I can.”

  No apologies or explanations follow just silence ot
her than the sound of Cassidy and Uncle Will eating. Miles looks disappointed and starts eating too.

  Mom’s silence pushes my aggravation up a notch. “That’s it? Is Dad like us too? What about my new uncle, can he start fires with his farts?”

  Clairabelle snaps, “You will not talk to your mother like that in this house!” I jump in my chair. She calms herself with a deep inhale then finishes with an air of stability, “You have no idea what they have been through, young lady.”

  Miles’s cell phone rings. He answers with, “He called you too, didn’t he?” He looks around the table stopping at me. “Good luck,” he whispers to me.

  He gets up from the table. “Yeah man can you believe he’s doing this again?” he says walking out the room.

  “Tell me then,” I say to Mom. “What happened for you to not tell your daughter she isn’t the only mutant in the family?”

  “When I was growing up everything we did was wrong. It was more important for me to know you felt accepted and loved. It was never my intention to keep it all from you, but I, we, wanted you to have a normal childhood. When you began exibiting your ability we only asked you not to talk about it with other people. You could always tell us anything. If you would have known your dad and I had abilities ourselves do you know how different your life would have been?”

  “Much cooler and less confusing.”

  Uncle Will puts his fork down, “Knowing your mother has you on every lie would be cool? How about when they want you to do something that would normally piss you off but you get excited instead because your dad wants you to feel that way?”

  Mom looks at him with a thankful expression for speaking up.

  “My dad can do that?”

  “Answer my question,” he says.

  I think about it. It would have been very different growing up knowing what they could do. I would probably question my emotions any time I was with Dad if I knew he could control them. Having only the option to tell the truth would be pretty absurd too.

  “I guess not.”

  “I’m sorry if you ever felt like you were alone,” Mom says softly.

  Uncle Will looks mad. “Don’t apologize, Catherine.”

  He points angrily at me, “And don’t you for one second think your mother didn’t give you anything but the best life she could.”

  We haven’t known each other a full day and he’s already lecturing me. When I look back at my mom I expect to see the same stern expression but she’s not mad. She’s looking at me like she wants to give me a hug and tell me how much she loves me.

  “So it doesn’t seem fishy to you that in the same week your brother-in-law is taken Mitchell pops up on the radar?” Clairabelle asks my uncle, breaking the silence in the room.

  I’m playing with my food then decide to start making myself eat despite not having an appetite because my uncle looks at me like he doesn’t want to answer with me in the room. I put more food on my plate so he knows I don’t plan on going anywhere soon. I’ve learned more since he and Cassidy showed up than all of my time with Mom.

  “He has a good enough reason. He’s worried about a teen he knows.”

  “So he hunts down a guy he hasn’t seen for over a decade to talk about teenager problems?”

  “It’s a long story but he just recently found out about him. The boy knows nothing about being Seraphim so Mitchell kept an eye on him because he was becoming a troublemaker. He didn’t get into that too much. Anyways, the person that was raising the boy winds up in the hospital so Mitchell plans on taking him in when a social worker shows up to take him.”

  “They won’t keep him in the system if there’s family that wants custody,” my mom says matter-of-factly, not looking concerned.

  “Mitchell may not be family necessarily and the social worker was a Seraphim, Catherine,” Uncle Will tells her. Mom’s eyebrows rise.

  “What’s the chance of another Seraphim showing up in all this?” Cassidy asks.

  Uncle Will closes his eyes as if he’s tired. “I plan on telling you everything I know if you two will stop interrupting me.”

  He looks at them and neither of them says anything. Clairabelle picks up everyone’s plates except mine and takes them to the kitchen.

  “Okay, so she shows up telling him that she’s from The Southern Academy. He asks questions and she tells him her job is to find Sera kids outside our community. He said she even had brochures of the academy and the picture looked just like the old Southern Academy.”

  “But how did she find him?” Mom asks. He looks at my mom not saying a word. “Sorry,” she says as she rolls her eyes just like I do to her.

  “I was getting there. She was already in the area getting a girl out of foster care. She told him she has a strong sense which is why the school chose her to locate.”

  “A strong sense of what?” I ask forgetting I am suppose to be busy eating.

  He doesn’t look too annoyed being interrupted by me. “All of us have one major ability, like you being a Veritatis, but we all share another ability we call the “Sense”. This ability is fairly new compared to the others because for a long time we didn’t consider it its own ability until people like me came to light whom only had that ability.

  I’m a Sensaas. You’ll learn that the original Seraphim. They were said to be gifted with the four abilities we call: Veritatis, Cachelerie, Tempero, and Dynamar. For a time Seraphim believed they were the only ones that had Seraphim children. I don’t know exactly when or who but Seraphim began popping up outside, in the world beyond our cities.” He stops to give Cassidy and Mom a chance to add something but they remain silent. “The more time you spend among us you will notice your Sense ability, if you haven’t already. The best way I describe it to students is that it’s like meeting family. You don’t recognize their faces nor do you necessarily look like them but you know inside that you’re family.

  That is what this woman used to find the girl when she ran into Mitchell. The Southern Academy has taken in students found on the outside, but I know this woman isn’t with my school because we’re small, and I know every Seraphim on the payroll. When he told me her name I knew his fears were well placed.”

  Cassidy shoves her chair back and stands up clearly frustrated. “You know who she is? Why the hell wasn’t that the first thing out your mouth? You should’ve sent people after her already.”

  Uncle Will calmly stands up with her and says, “Can you let me finish?” He keeps talking so she can’t get a word in, “He believed that we had rebuilt The Southern Academy and the rogues were no longer the threat they once were. He wanted this boy to have the same level of education he did. He was convinced she was telling the truth until he started questioning some things due to how she treated him before they left. The people he called trying to get in touch with the head of the school didn’t take him seriously until he told them it was Lia Heincliff who took them.”

  Cassidy sits back down in her chair with a thud, “Heincliff, Council member Heincliff that son of ..” She looks at me and stops before the good part.

  Mom shifts uncomfortably in her chair, “He only had a son. Unless she’s his daughter-in-law.” She looks at Cassidy, “What happened to him? I thought he was one of the good guys.”

  Cassidy shakes her head saying, “Once my family was murdered the council closed ranks, stopped being so open about what they knew. The remaining members thought my family was the beginning of a bigger plot to stop the council from finding out who was involved in the murders. They didn’t replace my father on the council. They worried it would just put a target on someone else’s head. Three of them with children went into hiding with their families. They didn’t stop working though. That was probably their mistake because two of the three in hiding were killed.

  The updates that were being sent from those two members stopped but no one knew they were dead until the third came back to the city. Four men had broken into Lynn Angelo’s house one night, killed her husband, took her seven
year old daughter, and would have killed her if she wouldn’t have gotten away.

  Only Heincliff knew where all three had been staying. He took off before Lynn and the remaining council could confront him. They sent a group of Dyna after him but they were too late. He’d committed suicide, the coward. His family maintained his innocence but they were treated like pariahs after that. They didn’t abandon ship but they did move from the center of city to the outskirts. Mrs. Heincliff has even asked me of all people, if the rumors about the Southern Academy being rebuilt were true. She said, if it was that her son would make a great Sensaas instructor. She wouldn’t stop talking about how she owed her sanity to him for keeping her strong through such a dark time.” Cassidy’s hard look turns to a smile. Looking at my uncle she says, “She must not know she has a daughter-in-law because she told me he was single and that maybe having a younger man in my life would help me… heal too. He’s keeping a big secret if he hasn’t told his own mother that he’s married.”

  “Or,” Mom says, “she thinks you’re an idiot.”

  “You should have taken her up on the offer. He could be a great guy,” my uncle replies standing up, taking my plate that I haven’t touched since Cassidy started talking, and goes to the kitchen.

  Cassidy follows him out, “A great married guy from the sound of it. For all I know the guy’s father could have helped get mine killed.”