The Stelter City Saga: Ultranatural

by Stefany Valentine Ramirez

  Lee flipped through the first pages, her eyes lingering over the shrunken birth certificates. Haileigh Grace Stelter born in Tarrillian City nineteen years ago… Lambert Christian Stelter…

  “What about Lambert?” asked Lee. “Is he…?”

  Lotus shrugged. “He died in that fire, but then again so did you…” her voice fell once more and for a moment all that could be heard was the rumbling of a speeding car in a glass tunnel. Then Lotus picked up with a smile. “Finding you gives me hope that he’s out there too.”

  Hearing Lotus say that gave Lee hope also. To have a sister...parents… and a big brother. Could living get better once she had everything she always wanted?

  “Is that Lambert?” asked Lee once she flipped to the next picture.

  The boy might have been Lee’s age, but it was hard to tell. His golden hair was well kept, short and gelled over with a crisp part on one side. Lee could have easily mistaken that goal oriented gleam in his green eyes for that of an entrepreneur in his early twenty’s. The one thing that gave away his age was the sheer amount of acne covering his face making him look like a white cookie with pink chocolate chips.

  Lotus didn’t have to glance over. With a nod, she said, “Yeah, right before the fire he was eighteen. He was always following dad around. Dressing like him, talking like him… We never really saw eye to eye like you and I did. But Lambert loved you. We all loved you.”

  Lee raised an eyebrow, “Really? Why?” Her finger slid under the last page of the scrapbook, but she was too busy watching the clear water dance off the car window just past Lotus’s ear.

  Lotus exhaled and rubbed her shoulders thoughtfully, “I guess it was just your charisma. You’re so full of life. Everyone needs a Haileigh.”

  Lee beamed, “Now I really know you’re my sister. You know me too well and we just met. Well, re-met.” She turned back to the scrapbook, flipped to the last page.

  And froze.

  Concrete angel, shallow pool, iron fence…

  “Ace…” Lee called when the shock dissolved.

  The boy leaned forward and when his eyes rested upon the image, he felt his entire mouth go numb. That was impossible, but in the blink of an eye, it all made sense. “Grace! Lee do you remember?”

  Of course she remembered. One never forgets their first kiss, and in this case, Lee never forgot every detail leading up to it. The gang had gone up to their cabin in East Side when Ace stumbled upon a picture that sparked a sliver of remembrance. Lee had gone with him to the place in the picture and under the oak tree were the letters HGS and MD carved between three vertical lines. The G stood for Grace; Haileigh Grace Stelter.

  “We knew each other!” Lee exclaimed. She wasn’t sure if she was informing Ace or Lotus. But at this point any doubt that she was related to Lotus vanished at the sight of this one picture. “Lotus, you mentioned you can’t remember who our childhood friends were. Ace is one of them, he has to be!”

  Lotus raised an eyebrow then glanced at him through the rear view. “Uh, huh… can you explain why you think that?”

  Yes, Lee could, and so she did. She started from the very beginning, not just of the day they went to the garden, but from the very first moment she met Ace. She skipped through the Krome parties and the car races, and even incorporated bits about her life; about how she couldn’t remember anything. Lotus bit her tongue at that. How does one not remember their childhood? How can they have a gap of memories involving more than half of the years they’ve been alive?

  Then Lee mentioned that Ace was the exact same way as she dove into the part about the garden and the photograph. She said he remembered playing in the garden as a child and having a friend he called Grace. Finally, Lee wrapped up her story by incorporating how Lotus couldn’t remember their childhood friends. When Lee said that, Lotus finally concluded something.

  “This was set up.” She muttered as the scene around them began to change. “This is too much of a coincidence. There’s something else none of us know yet, and this is just too weird that right after we come together, we are learning about this.”

  They had driven across the dark cavern now. Up ahead, Lee could make out more of the light colored sand. It was similar to the scene by Oahu, but at the same time, far too different. Steel poles dug themselves into the sand and protruded from the ground like metal roots branching out from the city they still couldn’t see. Heleow was just above them now, and when she cast her eyes up through the windshield, she barely had time to catch the blurry sight of tall glass towers before they entered another tunnel.

  This time, the tunnel into Heleow was different from the one beneath Oahu. When the mountain hardly had a light, this one was entirely illuminated with several strips of brilliant white above their heads. As they sped along, the lights sent Lee’s shadow sliding from the windshield to the back. But the one thing that appeared most fascinating to Lee was the fact that she couldn’t figure out what the tunnel was made out of. All she could tell was that it the material looked like silky milk. It was a spotless glossy white that would never be seen in a filthy and crammed place as a tunnel. But there it was, right in front of her.

  “I know this is going to sound really weird,” began Lotus. She had driven to and from Heleow so many times that she forgot how interesting every little detail was to a new comer. “But, I got this letter from a friend named-”

  “Mirage,” Ace finished. He was too caught up on their conversation to even look past the windshield.

  Lotus stared at his reflection in bewilderment, “How did you…?”

  “We were friends too.” Ace remarked, “She gave me a letter the night she…”

  “Died,” This time Lotus finished. “I got one too…” her voice faded as she pondered to herself, “You are familiar with the street legend then? Both of you?”

  Ace chuckled. At the sound of his laughter, tension seemed to be lifted from the air for the first time. “There’s one thing your sister failed to mention.” He began glancing over at Lee, “I am a supernatural.”

  “What?!” Lotus shrieked. She was so startled; Lotus almost slammed into the side of the tunnel. “Hails! You, him- he’s…what?”

  “You don’t believe him?” Asked Lee. “Because Mirage was one too. She could see into the future, that’s how she was able to write those letters.”

  Lotus inhaled a deep, calming breath. “Yeah, I know. Mirage and Shadow were my friends for the longest time. Actually Mirage was the one that told me I had a sister. I just didn’t know they were members of the Counsel until Michael told me.”

  “Counsel?” Ace inquired, “What is that?”

  “Well you know the street Legend right? The one about the King ruling all gangs and whatnot. The Counsel is what helps him do it.” Explained Lotus.

  Up ahead, they were beginning to near the end of the tunnel. A gigantic hole of white Hawaiian light began to grow until Lee had to shield her eyes. When she pulled back her fingers, it was like pulling back the curtains to the most amazing scene she had ever seen.

  Dark blue water filled every space not inhabited by massive silver towers. They hadn’t reached the city yet. In fact the tunnel had spit them out on a simple steel bridge and they were climbing over the dark blue water. As the bridge began to level over the Pacific, it eventually split into three separate roads, like a trident. One road curved around to the north of Heleow, one to the south, and the other straight through the heart. That was the one Lotus took.

  Lee had never officially toured the heart of North Side, but even from a distance, she knew nothing in Tarrillian City could relate to Heleow. Where all of Tarrillian’s towers seemed to be squared and tall, Heleow flaunted the most bazaar shapes. There were towers that grew in spirals, buildings that were topped with spheres; there was even one that caught Lee’s attention because it looked like a giant steel and glass A. But like Tarrillian, Heleow seemed to be made of mostly glass. However, instead of incorporating steel with the glass, a majority of Heleow seemed
to be mixed with the strange milky looking metal from the tunnel.

  But it was definitely a Stelter City. The closer they got, the more of Stelter’s iconic bright lights began to glitter across the city like a night sky in broad daylight. As they approached, Lee began to make out that some of those lights were moving, and they weren’t attached to any skyscraper. They looked like miniature UFO’s sailing over pedestrian heads like a military of marching lights.

  Another thing she noticed, as they continued to drive closer, was that the towers weren’t quite as big as the ones in Tarrillian. They weren’t even close, and as her eyes scanned the shore line, she saw that the number of crazy looking buildings came to a stop sooner than she thought. It lacked the powerful feel Tarrillian had, that sort of firm unmovable foundation. But the thing that gave Heleow its invisible shine was the potential. Regardless of its current size, Heleow was going to grow into something magnificent.

  “Welcome to Heleow, sissy.” Lotus remarked. “This is the most beautiful city in the world.”

  Lee couldn’t pick her jaw off the floor. She hadn’t realized how far forward she was leaning until the seatbelt caught to her shoulder and even that didn’t keep her from removing her gaze.

  “Are your parents here?” asked Ace. He too had leaned forward for a better view if the city, but he wasn’t as speechless at its sight as Lee was.

  Lotus shook her head. “I don’t even think we have a home any more. The three of us haven’t even been in the same room for years now.” She hesitated for a moment, “But now that you’re here, maybe they’ll have a reason to come back. Oh my gosh! I forgot about Kasper!”

  Lee finally tore her eyes from the city, “Who’s Kasper?”

  “My manager,” said Lotus as she frantically dug through her massive granny tote, “He told me to call when I found you…”

  “Do you need help?” Lee offered reaching for the bag.

  Lotus peered into her tote then sighed, “No, I guess I can call him later. But right now I want to know what you know about the supernatural.”

  Ace leaned back in his seat and peered out the window. They were approaching the city now and he felt the slight decent of the bridge to sea level. Between the towers of silver mirrors he was beginning to make out the almost neon blue of Heleow’s flooded alleyways. “I didn’t know about the Counsel until you mentioned it. But it makes sense. I remember Mirage and Shadow spending a lot of time in Hawaii. Was that because of you?”

  Lotus shrugged. “They were in Heleow a lot, but they also did some traveling with Michael. I didn’t understand that until Michael told me he was the King.”

  “What?!” Lee exclaimed her eyes doubling in size. “Michael… Caster? He’s the King?”

  Lotus nodded, “I’m not sure if I was supposed to say, but your boy’s a supernatural so-”

  “Wasn’t Michael the one we saw on the plane?” interrupted Ace grasping onto the back of Lee’s seat to lean in closer. He was speaking more to Lee now and almost cutting Lotus out of the conversation.

  Lee spun around just as Lotus exclaimed, “You met Michael on a plane?”

  Lee nodded but hardly acknowledged her sister as she pondered, “That makes no sense… Why would he try to kill me?”

  “Michael tried to kill you!!” Lotus had burned through several shades of red so that she was practically the same color of Lee’s sunburn.

  “No, no, it doesn’t make sense.” Sputtered Lee. “He didn’t even know who we were on the plane-”

  “Woah, time-out!” Lotus exclaimed, “Go back to the beginning. Who tried to kill you?”

  The bridge had morphed into a strip of asphalt licking across the white sand surrounding Heleow. In no time at all, Lotus had driven up the shore and into the base of Heleow’s metropolis canyon. For the first time, people appeared on the streets in a strange way. Business suits were combined with swimwear and traditional Hawaiian clothing. Jewelry stores, coffee shops, and café’s littered the clean streets but even then, the traffic and the amount of pedestrians lacked the numbers in Tarrillian City. That was just one of the many things that appealed to Lotus. Heleow was a beautiful and roomy city and she didn’t have to share it with many people. Yet.

  “The man that tried to kill me said he worked for the King.” Lee began, her voice mumbled by layers of aww as her eyes scaled a nearby building. She practically had to press her cheek to the glass as she searched for the top and even then, the building seemed to melt into the sky.

  “And you met Michael on a plane?” continued Lotus. “On a plane to Hawaii? So this was recent?”

  “Yeah, we met him yesterday.” muttered Lee. “What are those things?” she asked pointing at the small army of moving lights above their heads.

  Lotus didn’t have to look up. “Some sort of robot thing DiAchi Tech and Stelter invented. Some of them monitor the weather, others are security cameras.” She replied as they drove across one of the minty blue channels of ocean water. Lee managed to glance down and see that a family had climbed into the waterway with their fishing poles and played on the glass looking ledge to make memories. “I don’t really know what they are.” Lotus confessed as the oceanic alleyway disappeared behind the dark granite columns of a bank. “I’ve never really cared to know. But they look cool don’t they?”

  Lee watched as a row of them hurried overhead in organized lines. “Yeah, really cool…”

  “How is Michael the King?” asked Ace snapping the two back into their previous conversation.

  “He’s an international rock star so that alone gives him enough fame.” Explained Lotus, “He can teleport. It makes it easier for him to keep track of global gang activity-”

  “That explains how he knows Dohnalello!” gasped Lee. “Remember how he didn’t want to tell us how he got on the plan?! For once something makes sense.” Lee let out a relieved breath and sank back in her seat. “But he didn’t know who I was. Why would he kill someone he didn’t know?”

  “Why would he want to kill someone ever is what I want to know.” mentioned Lotus as they came to a stop at an intersection.

  “Isn’t he your boyfriend?” asked Ace.

  Lotus scoffed, “Ha! Nope. Not anymore. I think we’re still friends, but I’m not going to call him up and be like: Hey bestie, I was just wondering if you have been plotting to kill my baby sister recently. Let’s piece this stuff together before we reach out to other people. I have a feeling this is going to get really complicated, really fast.”

  Lee clasped her hands together as the light turned green. “Okay, so what do we know?”

  “You’re my sister.” Began Lotus flatly. “Your boyfriend’s a supernatural; my ex is the King and he…” Lotus put a peculiar emphasis on the next word, “tried to kill you. Am I missing anything?”

  “Somehow we’re connected by that garden.” Added Ace as he nodded to the picture still in Lee’s grasp. “Lee and I don’t remember anything about our childhood, and you’re having trouble remembering pieces of the past too.”

  “No pun intended,” began Lee, “But there’s something supernatural about that. You can’t tell me this is all coincidence. This must have been planned and someone doesn’t want us to remember something.”

  “But what would they want us to forget?” asked Lotus, “And who has the power to do that?” the heiress was so caught up in the conversation that she nearly missed her turn.

  Ace shrugged from the back seat, “I have no idea. I don’t even know where to start. Once more we’re left with more questions than answers.”

  A moment of silence lingered in the car as Lotus pulled up to the Stelter Hotel. Lee gaped out the window. The front was a simple space with an expensive stone driveway and an elegant white fountain on either side of the front doors. Lotus left her key in the ignition when she stepped out and the valet hurried around to take her car. Lee slid out with her eyes glued to the several iron balconies and large glass windows. Her eyes squinted as she peered at the very top where the large
st balcony sat and the roof of Lotus’s penthouse just poked over.

  “Come on,” Lotus exclaimed grabbing onto Lee’s hand before the bellhops could stare too long.

  They bounded up the wide stone steps and hurried through the automatic doors. A cool rush of air conditioning greeted them as they entered the lobby, along with the faint smell of cleaning supplies and freshly sliced pineapples. Lee gaped at the scene before her. The hotel’s shell had given the impression of simple elegance, but the inside blew Lee’s mind.

  A thirty foot gold statue sat right in the center of the lobby just under an even more massive stain glass dome. As the trio continued across the charcoal colored tile; that was all Lee could stare at. Poseidon in golden mermaid form sitting on a rock with his trident mounted beside him. Lee wasn’t sure how the sculptor did it, but the powerful yet welcoming expression was captured perfectly in his solid eyes. Dolphins leapt up from behind as golden waves collided with Poseidon’s rock. Every detail down to the thin wisps of his hair, to the tension in his arms appeared so dramatically, it was as if the statue were a golden snapshot of a moment in time.

  Lee was so mesmerized, she ran into a luggage cart. When she collected her footing, her eyes met with the glaring family posing before the statue as a bellhop waited with a camera in his hands. Lotus hurried her sister along, and they managed not to catch the attention of too many guests. But Lee still couldn’t stop looking at the amazing space before her.

  Above the statue was an even larger dome with blue stained glass pieced together like several gigantic bubbles held up by thick black columns. The sight seemed almost Greek inspired since there was a collaboration of pillars and the gold statue and Lee wondered what the rest of the hotel looked like. Between several of the pillars, Lee watched as guests pulled luggage through the hotel’s grand archways. Maybe some other time she would take a tour, but for now, Lotus was leading them up a set of steps.

  Beside the grand staircase sat the front desk. The clerks recognized Lotus, Lee could read it in their faces but for some reason, they didn’t acknowledge her. Perhaps it was a policy of some sort, but Lee didn’t question it too much. She was too mesmerized by the first bright thing to break the dark and gold lobby. The staircase, Lee noticed, shaped in the letter Y and reminded her of something she might see off the Titanic except it was made of the same glossy solid as the tunnel had been and up close, it almost appeared to be plastic. But that was silly. Who in their right mind would structure durable things out of plastic?