by Lily Cahill
It was not, however, a flattering one. Ivan was here to help her, just as June was. Looking at the pair of them, hands clasped together on Henry’s back stoop, Ruth tasted the bitter tinge of regret in her mouth. Despite the fact that she had never done anything for him, Ivan was here for her. It was the kind of goodness she’d always aspired to and yet had somehow never reached. Looking back at the years, she wished she’d been kinder, braver, more loving—she wished she been the kind of things she suspected God wanted her to be.
Maybe that was why she had her powers.
Ruth shook her head. She was done thinking of these abilities of hers as a curse. They may not have been a blessing, but they were not insurmountable. The others were learning to take ownership of what they could do; it was high time that Ruth joined them.
Henry tugged at her wrist, light and playful, bringing her back into the world. She smiled at him, nervous and small, and he leaned down to kiss her. It was chaste and sweet, and Ruth could feel her cheeks burning, knowing that Ivan and June could see.
She wasn’t used to public displays of affection, but there was something about the kiss—a gentle reminder that he was hers and she was his—that warmed Ruth from the inside out. She thought she might be able to adapt to them.
The walk to the mine usually took about twenty minutes, but keeping Ruth’s need for secrecy in mind, the three of them took a roundabout path, away from the main road. They crossed the bridge to the other side of town and headed south, following the course of the river until the mine loomed up before them. Each step felt like it was through sand. Adrenaline coursed through Ruth’s veins, making her feel hotter than usual. Would she be able to control herself?
She thought of the handprint on Henry’s chest and shuddered. It had already faded, just like he’d said it would, but it still lingered in her mind, reminding her that she was capable of far worse.
“I’m not sure who will be here tonight,” June whispered, keeping her voice low even as she stumbled over a snarled weed.
Ivan broke in. “Frank, definitely,” the way he said it made Ruth think he’d meant unfortunately. “And Clayton and Cora. Maybe Matt.”
The wheels in Ruth’s head started turning. “Matt—Matt Harris?” She and Henry had been so caught up in each other they had sort of lost track of this particular part of their plan. Maybe she could speak to him tonight, if there was time.
“Matt’s new like you,” June said, squeezing Ruth’s shoulder. “It’s only his second meeting.”
The information comforted her slightly. She wasn’t the only one who was behind.
In the dim light, Ruth barely made out the scrunch of June’s nose. “Although if Matt does come, I hope Evie isn’t here. I don’t think I can stand a second night of the two of them sniping at one another. They’ve been at each other’s throats since they broke up, and that was months ago now.”
“I think you’ll probably survive.” Ivan pressed a fond kiss to June’s temple before he began to lead them to the far side of the mine.
Ruth had never been before. People liked to say it was haunted, although she knew that was a silly superstition perpetuated in order to keep the local kids from breaking in. Not that it had ever worked. Parties had been thrown there all the time when she and June were growing up.
The mine had been abandoned for years, and it was in a constant state of disrepair. It was the perfect place for a secret meeting, and as Ruth followed June and Ivan through the broken slats in the wall, she tried to calm the butterflies in her stomach. There was no need to be nervous. Everyone had to have been new at one point or another.
Although that didn’t change the fact that she was still newer.
The mine was surprisingly well lit, three fire barrels casting warm light from the center of the room and a series of oil lamps lining the walls. There was already a large group gathered inside, the faces familiar to her, even if Ruth had never actively spoken to them. Clayton and Cora Briggs were off in a corner, laughing quietly amongst themselves. Cora had always been beautiful, although no one had been particularly keen to see it when she lived down the street from Ruth. Now, newly married and in love, she was flourishing. She looked like she stood straighter, smiled more. It was good to see.
Frank’s hands were both emitting soft light as he helped Will Briggs light a few more lamps. Matt Harris, one of the town police officers, was leaned against the wall, talking to Will’s fiance, Meg Fields. Ruth had to squint in order to make out Evie Sharpe, pouting to Meg’s left. It must have been the dim light, Ruth reasoned. Evie was too pretty a girl to go unnoticed for long. Ruth watched as Evie sent a glare in Matt’s direction and hoped that June’s prediction about their constant fighting would not come true.
Aways from the group, Veronica Clark and Kent Michaels stood talking quietly. Ruth noticed more than a few glances cutting their way.
June leaned in close and whispered. “Kent and Veronica fought with Butch.”
“But they’re trying to make up for it,” Ivan added, sharing a look with June. “We need to give them a chance.”
June pressed her lips together, but nodded. “Don and Ralph though …,” she shook away whatever she was about to say. “Come on, Clay looks like he wants to start.”
Clayton stepped forward, his hair shining in the flickering lights. Everyone around him stopped talking as he entered the middle of the room, and he smiled. “Thanks, everyone, for coming. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we have someone new here with us!”
Ruth felt her stomach drop to meet the ground. She shook her head and nearly stumbled over her own two feet as June nudged her forward.
“Don’t be shy, Ruth,” Clayton said. He took a step closer to her, the same kindly smile fixed on his face. “It’s all right. We’re all like you here, and we all need to practice. Can you tell us a little bit about your powers?”
Ruth opened her mouth to reply, but the words got stuck in her throat. Try as she might, she couldn’t spit them out. She felt herself heating up—from embarrassment or the fire in her veins or both—and then shook her head, unsure what to do. She wanted the ground to open and swallow her up to save her from the embarrassment of being here. Why had she let Henry and June convince her this was a good idea?
June cleared her throat when she realized Ruth wasn’t going to answer. “She showed me her powers yesterday. Ruth can make fire.”
Matt Harris let out a low whistle, and everyone chuckled.
“I don’t want to put you on the spot,” Clayton said, shooting Matt a look. “But this is important. We need to be able to work together,” he nodded at Kent and Veronica still hovering at the edges. “Work together again … and to be able to use our powers on demand. Think of this as your first test.”
Everything inside of Ruth protested. She didn’t want to do this—what if it turned out wrong, what if she lost control? Her eyes roamed around the mine, looking for an exit, when she noticed the crowd of people staring at her. They didn’t look upset or impatient or judgmental.
They were … smiling. Encouraging her.
Blowing out the breath she’d been holding, Ruth held up her arms. Thankfully, she’s worn a dress with cap sleeves. It was easier now, to feel the fire inside of her, to let it flow hot and to push it where she wanted it to go.
One second she looked normal, the next her hands were alight. All around her, people gasped.
Part of Ruth was tempted to let the flames grow bigger, show them just how much she was capable of—but she thought of the shape of her hand on Henry’s chest and let the fire die.
Clayton smiled at her when she was done, and Ruth fought the urge to flush. “What if you work with Cora tonight?”
Ruth racked her brain, trying to remember Cora’s power. Nothing came to mind. Still, the last thing Ruth wanted to do was hurt someone. She gnawed at her lip and turned to look at Cora; it was times like these she wished she hadn’t lopped off her hair. She would have appreciated something to hide behind. “
Will you be safe? I don’t want to hurt you.”
Cora’s smile was gentle. She held out her hand toward a bucket pressed up against the wall of the mine, and suddenly its contents were forced into the air. The water hovered, still holding the shape of its previous container, and then Cora motioned it closer and closer until it was hanging directly in front of Ruth’s face. Through it, she could see Cora, looking confident and pleased. The water moved back to the bucket a moment later; not a drop spilled.
“I feel pretty good about my chances,” Cora said. The grin on her face was infectious. Ruth felt herself returning it.
An hour later, Ruth was misted in sweat and convinced she was going to need to sleep for one hundred years to recover from her exhaustion. Physically, she felt all right, but mentally, she was fatigued in a way she had never before experienced. An hour of practicing her powers was the equivalent to spending an hour doing calculus. While simultaneously running up hill. Blindfolded.
“Come on,” Cora encouraged, sitting cross-legged in front of Ruth. “One more try!”
It had been a productive evening, even if Ruth felt like she could collapse at any moment. She’d started off easy, showing Cora what she was already capable of: She’d generated the fire, letting her arms go up in flame before she didn’t feel like she had enough control, and then quickly doused her own flames. Cora had then asked if Ruth had tried to pull the fire from any other part of her body.
An hour later, and she could successfully set her legs aflame without hurting herself. The first time, she’d been so nervous that she hadn’t concentrated. There was a small burn on her ankle that Henry would have to deal with. When Ruth had gotten distracted by her fear, Cora had instantly doused her with the water from the bucket.
Knowing there was someone who could keep her in check, who knew how to help her, made Ruth feel more comfortable with her abilities than she had felt so far. She was woefully behind all the other Independents—everyone else had been attending these sessions for weeks, and they were all able to call up their powers without any of the fatigue Ruth was still experiencing. Though it seemed Meg was not eager to practice her ability.
Officer Harris could lift hundreds of pounds without blinking, and Clayton could launch balls of energy with pinpoint accuracy. Even Frank could call up the lights in his fingertips at will. He’d been glaring at her for the past half-hour as she lit the room brighter and brighter. He didn’t seem to have much else to work on.
It was embarrassing, to have so much catching up to do, but no one seemed to mind. In fact, everyone who stopped by their little corner was very encouraging.
“I don’t know if I can do it again,” Ruth moaned. Her brain was protesting. She could feel the beginnings of a headache in her temples. Cora sent a small spray of water in Ruth’s direction, and with a laugh, Ruth relented. “Okay, okay. Fine. I’ll try one more time.”
Cora nodded. “I still have water, so you don’t need to worry.”
Knowing that helped. Ruth leaned down and tied up the edge of her skirt above her knees, then took a deep breath and let it out slowly as her eyes fell shut. The power in her veins seemed to thrum with energy and intensity, as if it knew she was about to use it. She imagined the flames sprouting from her feet, licking up her legs, growing and growing.
She was concentrating so deeply that she almost missed it when Cora gasped.
Ruth blinked and glanced down. Flames covered the skin of her legs to just under the hem of her dress, where they licked at the fabric, turning it dark and charred. Her arms were alight to the bottoms of her cap sleeves. There was no pain, no fear. She let herself burn brightly and then imagined the fire going down, petering out to nothing. The flames receded, disappearing altogether and leaving nothing but a faint glow that faded over the next few seconds.
“Wow,” said Ruth. She hadn’t expected that to happen; she hadn’t realized she was capable of that much control.
Cora’s arms were around her a moment later, the other girl laughing excitedly. “That was so amazing! I’m really impressed by how fast you caught on! You should be proud of yourself.”
And to her surprise, Ruth was proud. She’d always actively avoided pride, as it was a deadly sin, but this didn’t feel as morally perilous as she’d expected it would. It didn’t come from a place of vanity or self-indulgence, she reasoned. It was the pride of knowing she was growing. There was nothing sinful about being better, so long as she knew there was always room for improvement.
Ruth was miles away from where she needed to be in order to have full control of herself, but there was something pleasing about seeing how far she had come in so short a time. Despite everything she’d always been taught, Ruth could not find it in herself to believe this feeling of accomplishment was wrong.
“Thank you so much. I don’t think I would have felt comfortable doing this without you,” Ruth told Cora. It made the other girl hug her again.
June was by Ruth’s side as the two women pulled away from each other. She quickly took Ruth’s arm up in her own. “Sorry, Cora, but it’s getting late, and Ivan and I are heading back. We’re going to walk Ruth home.”
Cora frowned. “But Ruth lives on this side of town. She’s not on your way.”
June’s mouth gaped, and she stumbled over her words as she tried to find a reply. Ruth felt her face going up in flames—the metaphorical kind, thankfully. She hadn’t thought about how to handle the Henry situation with the other Independents.
The other Independents. She was an Independent. These people were the ones she could trust. In the course of the night, they’d shown themselves to be a tight-knit group dedicated to safeguarding each other’s secrets. Even Kent and Veronica had stopped by to welcome Ruth. If anyone was going to protect her, it was them. She had no doubt of that.
Ruth put a hand on June’s shoulder. “It’s fine,” she said. She turned to look at Cora. “I ran away from my father’s house. I’ve been living with Dr. Porter.”
The news was shocking, but Cora recovered quickly. She blinked in surprise and then smiled genially. “Oh, I see.”
Ruth nodded. The compulsion to be entirely truthful and to explain herself was strong. Her father had never let her out of a conversation with anything less than all the details of her sins. But she was not living with her father anymore, and she owed no one her secrets, even if she trusted them to keep them.
“Well, I’m glad to hear it,” Cora said. “No one ever approved of how he treated you.”
“I know.”
Ruth looked out over the faces of the Independents as they started to pack up their space, chatting amiably. Between her time with Henry and their warm welcome, she felt more comfortable in her own skin than she had in years. Since she was small, she’d felt like every step she had taken could have been done better. Religion was not supposed to make one feel small, it was supposed to connect one to others.
Her father had never wanted her to connect with anyone, had made her feel alone and worthless. There was no shame in not being like him, she realized. And there was no shame in having gotten away from him, either.
Maybe … maybe she would talk to Officer Harris tonight and do whatever she could to keep her father away from her. Then, she could do what she wanted, go into own, love Henry in public. What was stopping her, really? Her fear for her reputation? She’d lived in fear for so long. Maybe it was time to stop.
“We better get going,” June said.
“Thanks again, Cora,” Ruth called as June tugged her away. They passed Matt Harris at the entrance, and Ruth pulled back. “Hold on. I need one more minute.”
June frowned, her eyes traveling between Ruth and Matt, and then she seemed to understand. She nodded and took a step back, giving Ruth some space.
Although Ruth had never spoken to Officer Harris before, he couldn’t have helped but notice her exchange with June. He looked at her, eyebrows raised. “How can I help you, Ruth?”
“I want to talk to you about ways we
can legally keep my father away from me,” she said. The words cost her a lot, cut her deeply, but the wound was clearing, and she stood tall.
Matt joined the three of them on their walk home, listening intently as Ruth talked about her need to escape her home life. His brows were drawn, face serious in the dim moonlight.
“Well,” he said, as they crossed the bridge, the river rambling underneath their feet. “I have bad news, some more bad news, and then some good news.”
Ruth’s heart sank. “Start with the worst, I guess.”
“Any sort of legal action—a restraining order, that sort of thing—is going to have to go through the district court, and that will take up to a month. And I’ve been put on unpaid leave, so there’s not much I can help you do with filing a complaint.” Matt paused, frowning. “I wouldn’t even bother with the police chief, if I were you.”
On Ruth’s left, June gasped. “Matt! You were forced to take leave?”
The Riverview neighborhood was immediately to the right, and Matt paused and nodded that direction. “I live this way.” He sighed. “And yeah. Barton—sorry, Captain Barton—claims I misfiled some evidence from the fight, but everyone knows it’s because I have powers. The chief just took his claim at face value and kicked me out.”
“He can’t do that,” Ivan cut in, angry and abrupt. “That’s an abuse of his power.”
Matt shrugged. “And who is going to stop him? The mayor’s barely addressed the whole powers thing, and the town hates us, so when she does, I don’t expect her to come down on our side.”
For the first time, Ruth realized she was never going to be wholly safe, no matter what. It wasn’t just her father and his congregants who disliked and feared the Independents. Nearly everyone was scared of them. It seemed preposterous—when had Ruth ever scared anyone in her life? Nevertheless, it was the truth.
