My flannel pajamas and Avengers tee had been replaced by a soft lavender gown. As I swung off the bed, I found a pair of slippers at my feet. Slipping them on, I got up to investigate my surroundings. Before I could though, the door swung open. A thin woman with brown lifeless hair and a gaunt face greeted me.
“Ready to face the day, dear?” She had a thick English accent and was carrying a tray full of fresh fruit, yogurt, bacon, eggs scrambled with cheese, a stack of pancakes, and orange juice, along with a single sunflower sticking out of a vase.
“Where am I?” I asked. “Where’s Casper?”
She sat the tray on a table by the door and smiled. “You’re in Weathersby, of course. And your friend is fine. I assume he’s still sleeping. It’s quite early yet.”
“Where are my clothes? I want to leave.”
She frowned. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible, at least not yet. Mr. Echo will want to talk to you first. I’ll let him know you’re up. In the meantime, try and eat something, won’t you dear? I suggest the juice. There’s a splash of mango in it, and it’s just divine.”
“I want Casper and I want to leave!” I huffed, but the thin lady just smiled and left, closing the door behind her.
I was determined not to eat from the platter she had left but, as the minutes passed, it became more and more difficult to pass up. I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten anything, and it turned out my stomach couldn’t either.
A half an hour after the thin woman left it, the smell of the food became too tempting. By the time Mr. Echo came to see me, I was finishing a fistful of bacon.
“Making yourself at home, I see. That’s good.” He was more dashing than he had been the night before; dressed in a suit. His beard even seemed to be better tended, though I’m not sure how much of that was accurate. My eyes had been playing tricks on me lately.
I pushed the platter away and folded my arms. He circled the room and sat on chair across from me.
“I do hope the color is to your liking,” he motioned to my gown. “I’m afraid we had to do away with your clothes. They were- Well, they were covered in blood.”
“It wasn’t mine,” I said. “I don’t, I’m not hurt.”
“I know. I ordered a physical on you and your friend. Aside from a few bumps and bruises, you’re perfectly fine.”
I looked down at the gown, suddenly very aware that someone had to remove my clothes in order to put it on.
“I didn’t perform the physical myself, nor did I change you. We have people better suited for that,” he answered, as though he was reading my face. “It does beg the question though, how did the blood get there, Cresta?”
“How do you know my name?” I tensed up.
“It’s on your driver’s license,” he explained. “Plus, Casper was screaming it in our general area.”
It sounded strange to hear our names coming from his mouth, like he was trespassing on what it meant to be us.
I reached for my locket, wanting to twist it up between my fingers, before I remembered that it, like everything else, was gone. “What is this place? It’s not a juvie.”
“It isn’t,” he conceded, drumming his fingers along the nearby dresser as he had his desk last night. “It’s-It’s a school of sorts.”
“What does that mean?” I folded my arms again.
He leaned forward. “I told you last night that I knew what you were. That’s because I’m one too. We’re the same, you and I.”
“And what is that?” He was starting to sound like one of those crazy evangelicals from TV, but I was sorta trapped, so I might as well listen to him.
“You’re evolved ,Cresta. “
“Evolved?” I repeated.
“Your mind,” he reached toward my head, but when I flinched away, settled his fingers on his own temples. “There are people in this world; there have always been people in this world, who are special. We are genetically superior; bred so that our minds and bodies are more advanced than the general population. Because of our genetics, we’re able to do certain things. We can make people see things, make people forget things, move objects with little more than a thought.”
Suddenly, my arms started to lift from the bed. Before I knew it, and without my consent, they stretched out straight in front of me. The smile on Mr. Echo’s face told me he was the culprit.
“Stop that!” I said, trying my best not to let my voice shake.
As suddenly as they had lifted, my arms fell.
“My apologies.”
“So, you’ve got superpowers?” I asked.
“No,” he answered. “We’ve got superpowers; you, me, and, with the exception of your red haired friend in the next room, everyone in Weathersby.”
I relaxed a little. Even with all the crazy he was dropping on me, it was good to know Casper was in the next room.
“Though we are all capable of things like that,” he pointed to my arms.”Each of us have special abilities, things we’re more naturally inclined towards. Some of us are illusionists. They’re the ones that make sure you see or don’t see certain things. There are empaths, who control the feelings of those around them. Some of us can reach into your head and pull out a memory, or plant one there. There are even those who can read everything about you with a single touch.”
I turned my hand over. Looking at my palm, I remembered the way Owen looked when he touched me. And then, what he said in Mrs. Goolsby’s basement.
“The lines,” I muttered.
Mr. Echo’s eyes narrowed. “Cresta, tell me what happened to get you here?”
“I’m not one of you,” I said, still looking at my palm.
“You are,” he answered. “That’s why you could see through the illusions.”
His lip didn’t move as he spoke and his voice echoed as though it was inside of my head.
:That’s why you can hear me now:
“Stop it!” I clutched at my temples. “So what if I am one of you? What, am I just supposed to move in here and sit around your school all day?”
He laughed. “Is that what you think we do? Cresta, people like us have a higher calling. Have you ever heard of the Free Masons?”
I nodded. Casper had always been a fan of conspiracy theories. In addition to never ending talks about the Mayans, Shakespeare being a woman, and Kennedy’s real assassin (FBI agents who were afraid he was going to give away the secrets of Area 51), Casper also told me about the Free Masons. From what I remembered about the parts I wasn’t able to block out, the Free Masons were a secret society dating back to the founding fathers who were really powerful and who guided the world in whatever direction suited them.
“Well, we’re not the power hungry manipulators people would tell you we are.”
Great, so I listened to Casper for nothing.
“You’re a Free Mason?” I asked.
“In a way,” he stood now, and started pacing. “For hundreds of years, evolved people like us have been saving the world. How, you ask?”
I hadn’t actually, but go on.
“The most powerful of our kind have the ability to glimpse into the future. Seers, we call them. Using the intel these seers give us, we’re able to create a roadmap of the future. And, with that roadmap, we’re able to make sure the world doesn’t devolve into disaster, as it’s so prone to do. We avert disasters, whether they be natural or manmade. We are the last line of defense against the horrors of fate, the only thing standing between the world you know and constant and utter chaos. We break away from the horrible things that could be. We are the Breakers.”
He seemed really proud of himself just then.
“So you do manipulate things?” I asked.
Mr. Echo stammered. “I-I don’t think you’re listening. What we do is save the world, over and over again. There was a missile crisis. We just saved it last week.”
“Right. Whatever,” I stood. I had had quite enough, thank you. Super evolved or not, this was getting old, and it wasn’t getting
me any closer to Morgan Montgomery.
“Cresta, you’re one of us.” He grabbed my arm, as though he thought I was going to run again.
“Why, because I can see through your stupid illusions?” I jerked my hand away. “You ever think maybe you’re just not as good as you think you are?” I straightened the front of my lavender gown. “Besides, if everything you’ve said is true, wouldn’t I have powers too?”
The wide smile that appeared on his face made me uneasy.
“I have a theory about that.” He dipped to the floor and came up with a silver square. It wasn’t just any silver square though. It was mine; the suitcase Mom gave me before the house blew up. I thought I had lost in the ruckus. Casper must have picked it up when he drug me out of there.
“That’s mine!” I reached for it.
“I know,” he said, and flung it on the bed before I could grab it. Maybe it was the way the suitcase hit or maybe it was his weird evolved person- Breaker powers, either way the suitcase popped open as it hit the bed. Inside was a fresh pair of clothes (something I desperately needed), a stacked cube of hundred dollar bills, and at least two dozen inhalers, and a phone.
This was Mom’s going away present. In case we ever had to leave, God forbid in case we ever got separated, like we were now, she wanted to make sure I’d be okay.
“You’re asthmatic, I presume?” Mr. Echo said. He didn’t make a grab for anything. He didn’t even look at the money.
“You guys did the physical. You tell me,” I said bitterly.
“That’s just it. While you’re results showed effects of the symptoms of asthma. It didn’t show the actual condition. Cresta, you are one of us. You have the genetic markers. I’ve seen them.”
Now he did go for the case, but it wasn’t the money he was after. He picked up one of the inhaler and studied it.
“We did a chemical analysis on your medication. It doesn’t treat asthma. In fact, it causes your body to mimic the symptoms of asthma.”
“What? Why?” That didn’t make any sense.
“Because it also stymies a third of your neurological pathways. It negates the evolved nature of your mind, strips you of who you are. Whoever is giving you this medicine, whoever gave you this suitcase, has been drugging you.”
“No!” I yelled. “That’s not true! I don’t believe you.” Mom gave me that suitcase, that medicine. Mom always gave me my medicine. She wouldn’t drug me. She wouldn’t.
“Believe it or not Cresta. That’s your prerogative. But it’s been cleansed from your system, and I bet you haven’t felt this good in years; free of closed throat and shallow breathing. Soon, your mind will open up, and you’ll understand what I’m talking about. You’ll start to notice little things at first, but then your abilities will awaken, and the whole world will change. I can help you through that if you let me. I can teach you how to do these things. I think that’s why Ash sent you to me.”
Suddenly, I found myself sitting on the bed, going through the inhalers, money, and clothes; the last gifts my mother would ever give me. “I wasn’t sent to you. I was sent to Morgan Montgomery. But he-he’s gone.”
I felt tears, as hopeless as they were useless, well up in my eyes. Mr. Echo reached into his jacket pocket. I thought he was going to offer me a tissue, but what I saw instead was a photograph.
“I want to show you something,” he said, and handed it to me.
It was an old photo with the kind of faded color that only existed before everything went digital. A boy, about Casper’s age, with shaggy brown hair was posing for the camera, obviously trying way too hard to be cool. He wore a leather jacket and his hair was slicked back. He had his arm slung over a girl’s shoulder. She was close to my age, with dark brown ringlets and angular features that looked familiar. She almost looked like a younger version of-
No. It’s not. I couldn’t be.
“That was me,” Mr. Echo pointed to the too cool boy. “When Breakers are called out into the field, they’re given new names, new identities. We’re called to leave our old lives behind. I’m Echo now, but there, in that life, I was called Morgan Montgomery. And the girl beside me,”
He was going to say it.
“She was Ash.”
Of course. The girl in that picture; Ash, she was the one who sent me here. She was my mother.
“Oh God,” I said before I could stop myself. That was my mom; young, with a different name, in a different world, but it was my mom nonetheless.
“You said Ash sent you here Cresta, but that’s impossible. Ash, this girl, she died years ago.”
“She didn’t,” I said flatly, running my thumb over her faded image. “She died yesterday, and she was my mom.”
He seemed shocked as he sat beside me. Both of us were silent for a while, both of us looking at the picture. A few times, Mr. Echo turned and I thought he was going to ask me something. I’m glad he didn’t. I wasn’t sure where I would start or how much about my mother, about my life, was even true.
Instead, it was me who spoke first. Holding the picture tightly, like it was a lifeline to something I never knew existed but was desperate to explore, I asked, “Did you know her well?”
He scoffed, and the answer he gave shocked me so much that I almost fell off the bed.
“I should. She was my wife.”
Chapter 8
G in Chains
SHE WAS MY wife.
I sat there, rolling those words around in my head. She was his wife, and not just his wife, but his dead wife.
“She was a Breaker?” I asked. My mouth was dry and the word felt strange on my tongue.
“She was a hell of a Breaker,” he said in a tone that made me think he was going to smile, though he didn’t. He looked down at the picture again, still in my hands.
My mother had a whole life before me, and not in the way all parents did. She was a different person, with different friends, a husband I never knew about, and secret superpowers.
Wonder if Hallmark makes a Mother’s Day card for that.
“How did-“
The door flung open, cutting me off. The blond woman who put me to sleep in the common area stood on the other side. From this close, I could see that her hair, still wrapped in its severe bun, had flicks of gray in it. She looked around Echo’s age, around my mother’s age; maybe a little younger. Still, there were lines on her forehead and around her mouth, the sort Mom always said stress would give you. She wore a formal looking brown dress and white blouse. A red pendent added a splash of color on her chest. It was shaped like a flower; not a rose. Maybe it was a blossom or a-
“Dahlia,” Echo identified the woman. “This girl, Cresta, she’s-”
“A handful,” Dahlia finished, making her way into the room. “I gathered that last night, while she was making a mockery of our curfew.” A proper, cold smile graced her face, accented by blood red lipstick. “Though that’s nothing that can’t be forgiven, I’m sure. I hear you’re one of us, and a late discovery at that. That is quite a rarity. I do hope we can convince you to stay with us.”
She extended her hand to me. I took it, admiring the way every one of her crimson fingernails arched perfectly.
“Now if you’ll excuse my husband, there’s some rather pressing business we need to tend to.”
“Husband?” I asked, looking from one to the other.
“Dahlia, she’s Ash’s daughter,” Mr. Echo said.
Dahlia’s hand froze, and then parted with mine. Her face glazed over, losing its smile along with what little color it had.
“I don’t-How is that possible? Ash died almost twenty years ago.”
“Apparently not,” I said.
Dahlia’s mouth hardened as she looked me over. Turning back to her husband, she said, “Be that as it may, we still have a facility to run. I need to see you in your office. Now.”
She turned and marched out of the room. Mr. Echo stood, sighing. I stood too, offering him his picture back.
“I didn�
��t think she liked pictures,” I said through glassy eyes.
“Apparently she had her reasons for not taking them,” he answered. “Why don’t you keep that, at least for now?”
I pulled it back in, still dazed about everything.
“Thanks, Mr. Echo,” I said.
“Echo will be fine, Cresta. I have to go. I know you have more than a few questions. I have questions myself, but there will be time to talk later. For now, you should get yourself acquainted with Weathersby. I believe your friend will be out and about by now and, if you’re so inclined, I’m sure most of our students would be thrilled to make you feel at home. As a late-to-the-party Breaker, you’re practically an oddity.”
“Lucky me,” I mumbled.
“That’s not always a bad thing,” he said, gave me a wink, and walked out.
I found a change of clothes in one of the dresser drawers. A white shirt and a pair of brown pants, it was a bit bland for my taste and looked too much like what Dahlia was wearing, but it fit and there was no caked up blood on it, so I figured it’d do.
The common area was bustling when I walked out into it. Kids as young as ten and as old as twenty five, of every color and ethnicity; Breakers, as I now knew them, busied themselves with all sorts of activities. A handful of them were taking advantage of the archery range. There was girl in the corner putting green and orange abstract stripes onto an otherwise blank canvas. Two boys worked busily on what I can only describe as a life-size virtual jigsaw puzzle. One of them grabbed a green cube made of light while the other moved a few red triangles, scrambling to make room.
I flinched when two of them shot past me jousting in full attire.
“Your left!” One of them yelled as they passed me. Which, coincidentally, was the arm she would have sliced off if I’d have been a few inches closer.
I smiled when I saw him; the first time I had smiled in hours. Casper was at a ping pong table in the distance, celebrating as he knocked the ball past his opponent (Who couldn’t have been more than eleven).
“Another point for the master,” he yelled and threw his hands up in the air.
Paranormal After Dark: 20 Paranormal Tales of Demons, Shifters, Werewolves, Vampires, Fae, Witches, Magics, Ghosts and More Page 367
