The crosswalk sign read walk and he crossed with a few other people. Walking into a nearby building, he was greeted by a gloomy, smoke-filled club. Loud laughter came from one of the large corner booths as it echoed throughout the empty space. He walked over to see Chaz and a few of his employees in a thunderous chatter. A burst of laughter came from the group as he approached, almost startling him. It seemed a daily ritual for all of them to hang out before getting their day started.
“Hey there!” Hotan stopped at the edge of the table, slouched with his hands in his pockets. “You got a minute?”
“Hey Hotan! What are you doing here so early?” Chaz’s loud voice echoed through the empty bar as he held his mug of beer high, cigar gritted in his teeth. “Come to join us?”
“No, actually, I needed to ask you about doing me a huge favor.” Chaz sat his mug down and puffed on his cigar a moment as he listened. “It’s not too big of a favor to be honest.
“No, no favors, not to the likes of you.” A cocky guy smirked, taking a puff of his cigarette, bellowing the smoke into the air towards Hotan. “You’re just a brat.”
“Why don’t you shut up, Erik.” A bartender sitting across from him flicked a peanut shell at him and giggled. “Stop teasing the kid!”
Chaz leaned back in his seat, ignoring the others. “What’s the favor first off?”
“I need to hold auditions for a bassist this weekend. Preferably, Saturday morning, before you open up if you don’t mind. We plan on entering in the Big Band competition, but my current bassist is only seventeen.” Hotan huffed his lungs clear of smoke. “But if you can’t, I understand. We’ll just have to see where else we can do it, since I’ve had better luck on the weekends for auditions.”
“Hmm,” Chaz rubbed his chin with his left hand. “Let me think.”
“Oh let them do it, Chaz.” The bartender took a bite out of her sandwich. “You know they deserve to compete!”
“No. They’re not going to make it in the competition anyway.” Erik put his cigarette out in the glass ashtray grinning. “Not like they can really play or sing. They don’t have what it takes, I would know from experience. No one will want to sign a contract with a high schooler.”
“How about you light yourself another cigarette and shut your trap before I shove that ashtray up your ass.” Hotan shot him warning glance. “We play just fine. I want to see how we measure up, not aiming to win.”
He’s been angry ever since his band failed to get past the first round and broke up before trying again.
“What’s wrong? Did I hit a nerve?” Erik leaned back a sheepish grin across his face. “Not aiming to win is like saying you’re aiming to lose.”
“Nerve? Never,” Hotan countered his grin with a casual smirk. “But how about you stop before you fall on your face again? Better yet, how about doing yourself a huge favor and take that grin off your face and show some respect for a fellow musician.”
“Ok, enough already.” Chaz broke the tension, clearing his throat. “You can hold auditions, as long as you’re out of here before 2 PM and before I get here to open at 4. Makes sure it’s clean, deal?”
“No Problem. Thanks a lot Chaz.” Waving, he turned heading out the door. “See you guys later.”
Backtracking his route, Hotan made his way across the busy street to the front of the old bookstore. A gust of cold wind blew pass him with the scent of rain on it. The sky was filling with dark gray clouds that sped past, slowly darkening the town. Taking in a deep breath, enjoying the smell, he turned to the bookstore walking inside.
“Hello?” Once more, no one was within sight.
He walked over to the counter where he first had met Tina, the Bookstore owner. Cautiously he leaned over it, but found the other side empty. Nothing more than an old cushioned stool. Taking a long steady stare down the web covered aisle way, it was hard to make much out with it overran by books. Rubbing the back of his neck, he braved to get a closer look. Down its dark canyon light from the front of the store and windows failed to penetrate the dust covered shelves.
Jerking, books fell off the shelf near his face on his left. Stifling backwards, he smashes into the rock solid shelf behind him.
“You!” Tina’s voice rasped sending chills across his body.
Slowly opening his eyes, her face glared at him from an opening in the shelf where the books had fallen. “How’d you get on that side?”
Tina grinned wide. “It’s my store! I can go where I want!”
He tried to focus on what he was going to ask. “Are you familiar with, well, the whole powers thing?”
She has to know. Between the book and the way she acts, I get the gut wrenching sensation she is aware of everything.
“Powers? If you are asking if you are sane, yes. You are very sane.” Busting out laughing caused him to flinch, but she abruptly stopped, her wild grin gone. “Why you ask that? You’re so silly. You know what they are, what you are. Are you crazy or something? Oh! Did you lose yourself? I do that all the time…”
“I don’t know exactly how our elemental powers work. I figured you might know something since last time you said you were one of us.” He started picking up the books he had knocked off the shelf he had slammed into. “I can’t feel anything.”
“Ok.” She nodded, pinching her bottom lip with her top teeth. “What do you know so far? I still don’t understand why you are asking me though. Oh! OH-oh! A friend is coming, they can explain!”
“A friend? Who can explain?” He could feel his pulse race. “I don’t know if that’s a-”
“You know him!” Tina spun in circles, still imprisoned behind her own bookshelf. “He speaks in my head too!”
“Callan? The one that talked to me in my head.” There was no change to Tina’s spinning. “What could he help me with?”
Hotan slid to the ground, covering his face with his hands.
Why did I think someone so mentally off-balance would be coherent enough to give me answers? She’s asking random questions, and I am only assuming she knows what I am talking about.
The bell on the front door jingled. Hotan’s pulse raced as he heard the door close again. Reluctant, his nerves and muscles taut, he looked to see who had entered the long forgotten bookstore.
A tall, pale man in his twenties stood blocking the entrance. His straight, long black hair was pulled back in a low ponytail and he stared at Hotan with eyes the color of a silvery blue. His attire was gothic in styling with a black shirt with fishnet sleeves and his baggy jeans covered in chains.
Thank God it’s not Geliah…
“Hotan,” The man crossed his arms, his voice familiar. “I wanted to meet with you in person, but my time will be short.”
“Callan?” Scrambling to his feet, Hotan knew that had been the voice that had echoed through his head earlier. “If you are here, then, where is Geliah.”
“Indisposed for the moment.” Stress riddled his face and voice as he spoke, “Now that I am here, I can see what you were trying to express to me. I’m sorry to have burdened you, but perhaps I can aid you in some way.”
“I don’t think anyone can help me at this point. Talib seemed clueless on what exactly is going on with me.” He stared down at his hands, feeling disconnected with his own body. “I cannot be the person all of you need me to be. He’s gone, and I am left with powers I can’t even feel.”
“You are feeling them, but the element of rebirth is not in balance.” A glow came from Callan’s out stretched hand and an orb of water formed. It took a moment before a flawless sphere of water floated there. “Our powers are normally smooth, balanced. Like this sphere of water. Constantly in motion, but never conflicting with itself. Your power feels like this,” The sphere contorted and started spiking out randomly everywhere and spun in a wobbled motion. “It’s as if the element of Rebirth is in a tug of war or even half open. Something is interfering with your powers, but there is nothing that any of us are aware of that could disrupt any of the
elements in such a way.”
“Even so, being that chaotic, shouldn’t I be able to feel it?” He watched the ebb and flow of chaos the water sphere stood for.
My whole life looks like that.
Callan’s water ball evaporated in a blink of an eye and he placed a knuckle on his chin, deep in thought. “I think you can only feel the parts that spike out, as if something deeper inside you is blocking the power. Those spikes are barely noticeable, as if a breeze passing by.”
“Voice, voice in my head? Gah!” She scrunched her eyes and fell from his sight, wailing. “No! Go away! Not you! I no like you anymore!”
Hotan backed away. “What’s wrong? Are, are you ok, Tina?”
“He won’t stop talking to me!” The shelf shook as she banged into it. “Damn you! Stop singing that song! Gah! No! Not this again!”
“Callan?” He mumbled, backing into the other shelf again. Looking over, Callan had left as if he had been a phantom. “Where? What’s happening?”
“Geliah!” Her face popped back up in the opening in the bookshelf, smiling. “Now where were we? Oh yes, umm, power!”
Swallowing he tried to relax again. “Is there anything else you can tell me?”
“I don’t,” She stopped a moment as the tattering of rain started to fill the silence of the store. “Is it raining?”
“Umm,” Glancing out her glass door he saw it had started to pour down hard. “Yeah, it’s raining.”
“Gah!” Her head twitched to the left as her right eye squinted. “My books! They’ll all be wet! Must protect books from rain!”
She started shrieking and hissing as she shook the shelf. Books were falling into the aisle and onto Hotan. Stammering out of the way and towards the door, it was clear that asking questions out of Tina was not a viable option. Her screams and slurs of unrecognizable words were pounding at his ear drums.
The rain and wind of the storm hit him, his eyes squinting to keep it from obscuring his sight as he attempted to cross the street. Hurrying out of the rain into the restaurant, he shook the water from his shirt and hair. Shellie was sitting at their usual booth eating a hamburger.
“So how’d it go?” She had paused from her meal as he sat down, soaked from the rain.
“Chaz said we could use the club Saturday morning.” Hotan took a fry from a side plate.
Hopefully this makes her feel better if I eat something. I hope I can manage to meet with Callan again. He might be able to help me balance and unlock the chains on the element of Rebirth if he’s that sensitive in sensing it within me.
“That’s good.” Shellie took a sip of her coke. “What about the bookstore? How’d that go?”
“I was wondering about that too.” Kyle slid back into the booth from where ever he had disappeared to. “Did that bookstore loon have any more information?”
“Oh.” Hotan creased his forehead and looked out the window where the bookstore was hazed out of sight by the rain. “Not so well. She’s not having a good day at all, and I got no answers.”
Shellie took a bite of her food looking over at him a moment, swallowing she asked, “Why’d you bother to walk in there? No one ever does.”
“Foosh,” Kyle managed to swallow his food then cleared his throat. “She’s the one that had a rare book we were looking for. We were hoping she could give us some more information on who the author was and where it came from.”
“Really?” Shellie turned to the bookstore, the rain was starting to soften. “I suppose she would have some rare and unique books.”
Hotan sighed taking a sip of Shellie’s drink. “I’ll let you know more later, Shellie, promise. I just have to clear my thoughts. Get everything in some sort of coherent order.”
“It’s already confusing.” She snuggled closer to him, but grimaced when she was reminded how wet he was. “Ah! You’re soaked!”
“Heh,” Hotan smiled looking down at her. “I love you too! Just don’t worry yourself to death over me on this. Let me take care of it on my own. Plus, I’ve got Kyle to help me on this one.”
“Fine.” She huffed at him, but the worry on her face didn’t subside.
Chapter Thirteen
Hotan knocked at Annie’s apartment door and waited a few minutes. He looked at his cell phone seeing that the time was 7:28 PM. Still, no one answered. Leaning his back against the door, crossing his arms, he started zoning out. Staring at a crack in the far wall, he let his thoughts trail off.
One of these weekends, I need to see about going around fixing those, possibly repainting the yellowing white halls. Annie needs to start making a no smoking policy around here so I don’t feel like I have to paint every year. Maybe she can just pick out a darker color, anything but white would help. This building isn’t getting any younger I suppose. School’s almost over, and like I promised her, I’ll start doing heavier repairs this summer to get this place back up to speed.
Today has been frustrating and confusing. It’s been too long of a day for all that has gone on back-to-back. A quiet dinner would be nice. I can forget about sleeping tonight. Callan, Tina, this whole concept of power being locked up. What is going on inside of me? What could be holding these abilities back with so much force?
Hopefully tomorrow won’t be chaotic. Hell, I can’t believe the last few weeks. Seems like everything’s starting to blend together. It’s all rushing by much faster and I can’t keep track of what day it is anymore. I can’t handle several days like this in a row, not when I am having a hard time deciphering what’s real anymore.
“Hey there!” Annie’s voice broke his thoughts as she came around the corner carrying two grocery bags. “Sorry, had last minute shopping to do. Jake should be on his way.”
“Jake?” Grabbing the bags from her, she managed to get her keys in order so she could unlock her door. “You mean Jacob?” Great, now she’s got a casual nickname for this guy.
“Yeah, Jake, Jacob, no big difference, it’s a nickname.” She pushed the door open and flipped on the lights to reveal her Japanese themed apartment. “Here we go.”
“So, what’s for dinner?” Following her to the kitchen, he laid the bags on the counter. “Is it something simple or fancy?”
“Umm,” Annie threw her jacket on the coat rack and slipped her sandals off next to it. “Does spaghetti sound ok, with some Garlic bread and meatballs?”
“Sounds good to me,” Shrugging, he headed over to the coat rack to take off his boots. “Can’t remember the last time I had an actual home cooked meal.”
“Well, it’ll be a good change for you then. It’s been a while since you’ve been over for dinner.” Annie pulled a frying pan off its hanging place, setting it on the stove as she turned on two of the burners for the setting of high. “Are you going to be ok with eating dinner with Jake and me? Because if you’re going to feel uncomfortable say so, I’ll just give you the leftovers. Don’t feel forced to be here, Hotan. I think he said he has a friend tagging along anyhow. Guess it’s hard for him to break from his job.”
“No it’s fine.” Watching her rhythm in the kitchen was intriguing. Annie was the queen of multitasking as she boiled the water, rolled balls of hamburger meat adding various spices and herbs to them while chatting to him. “Want me to set the table while you do that? Anything you need help with?” She always seems to be doing a million things at once, but it never seems to break her focus for it all.
“Yeah, the plates are in the cabinet behind me and the silverware is in the drawer by the sink there. I appreciate the extra set of hands, I am running so late today.” She smiled, turning the heat on the frying pan up and adding olive oil to it. “And if you don’t mind, when you’re through with that, I’ve turned the oven to 450 so when it beeps, pop that frozen garlic bread in the oven. You can find a flat baking pan in the cabinet below the sink.”
She’s going to make an awesome mom later in life. “Sounds fair enough,” Pulling out four plates and cups, he headed to the large dinner table. “Thanks for
making all these arrangements so I can get to know my sponsor. It’s very awkward and with you here maybe it’ll smooth things over.” But there won’t be a chance to talk about anything. Not unless… no. I don’t know how to talk to someone in telepathic manner like Callan.
“Aw, no problem.” She plopped the meatballs in the frying pan, poured the noodles into the bubbling water on the back burner and continued buzzing about the kitchen. “You’re like a little brother to me, we’re practically family.”
“So, are you and Jake serious about each other?” Glancing over at Annie, he continued placing each plate and cup in its proper spot. She was smiling to herself, her cheeks growing red. “I take it I was right on that notion.”
“Hotan, it’s the most serious relationship I’ve had in a long time. Then again, we haven’t been seeing each other long enough for me to say if it’s just for fun or a solid deal. We have so much in common. Besides the fact he’s a workaholic, he always wants to do stuff together when he has the time.” Washing her hands in the sink, she continued, “And the- well, never mind I kind of lost my train of thought there. I told him he needed to spend some of that free time with you. Figure out a way to get to know you. I’ve told him a lot about what I know you’ve been through; hope that wasn’t over stepping it.”
“No, you didn’t overstep. Got to live a little I suppose.” Smirking, he walked up beside her, pulling out some silverware to head back to the table with. “You’re a big girl, Annie. Running an apartment complex and a caretaker of a teenage orphan. You can say you’re a workaholic as well.” So Talib and them are aware of my past after all.
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