Downcast

by Cait Reynolds

  There was silence around the table.

  "So unappreciated," Morris grumbled. "Only my code loves me. Anyway, The Proserpine Puzzle was written as a Victorian parlor game riddle once his poem became famous. Here's what it says:

  I am half of life but not Life.

  I am half of death but not Death.

  Winter is my joy.

  Summer is my joy.

  Yet my seasons bring despair in halves.

  I have a garden that never grows,

  Yet yields the fruit of winter.

  I have a garden that grows all things,

  Yet there is none of summer's bounty for me.

  All that sustains me are the seeds of love.

  Who am I?"

  "Too bad Swinburne named it 'The Proserpine Puzzle'," Helen remarked drily. "He gives away the answer right there: Proserpine."

  "Don't be too hard on him," Morris said, still scanning his laptop. "Apparently, it was called something else, but his mistress, Katherine Jones, found it after his death and published it as 'The Proserpine Puzzle.’"

  "So, why is this a clue?" I asked. "Does it have something to do with the weather? I mean, that's supposed to explain summer and winter, right? Is there some kind of weird super-secret Proserpine weather conspiracy or something?"

  Morris gave me a withering look.

  "Right, never mind," I mumbled, laying my head back down on Haley's shoulder.

  Helen remained silent and frowning.

  "Ugh, I don't know how I'm going to make it through work tonight," I whined. "All I want to do is nap for a week."

  "Are you really going to work tonight?" Morris asked, clearly surprised.

  "Um, yeah. Especially if Mom hasn't been showing up at work, someone has to pull in a paycheck for the bills and stuff." I was so tired that it was easier to worry about things like bills than trying to take in the idea that my mom had tried to kill me. In fact, it was best for me to just shove that whole concept in some deep dark closet so I could function and not break down into hysterical tears.

  "It's almost time for class," Helen interjected as she packed up her stuff and stood up. "And, I agree with Stephanie. She needs to act as normal as possible, including going to class and showing up for work."

  "Babe, are you seriously considering going to class after all this?" Zack exclaimed, scrambling to his feet.

  Helen threw him a dangerously sweet smile. "What? You can't go to physics and save the world at the same time? Amateur."

  "Total amateur," Morris echoed before getting up and following Helen out, leaving a slack-jawed Zack staring after them for a moment before he sprinted after them.

  "I don't suppose you would consider skipping work and staying with me this evening?" Haley murmured in my ear, his breath tickling my skin. That was such a dirty trick, turning my heart into a rocket-propelled yo-yo.

  "No," I replied, fighting the rush of longing that ached deep inside my heart. "I wish I could, but I have to go to work."

  He made that low rumbling sound in his chest that was somewhere between a growl and a purr and skimmed the backs of his fingers against my cheek.

  "Always so responsible," he said. "Always looking for balance."

  I blinked, my tired brain connecting something with his words. It was there for just a moment—a big, blazingly bright answer—and then it slipped away to hide in my stupid, uncooperative subconscious.

  "Perhaps a compromise?" Haley suggested, shifting me on his lap so that he held me even more tightly against his chest.

  "Mmmh," was my distracted answer as his voice lulled me further into drowsiness.

  "Skip the rest of your classes this afternoon. I'll help you find a safe place to take a nap, and then I will take you to work afterwards."

  “I’ll get in trouble if I skip,” I mumbled.

  “No, you won’t. I’ve got…an ‘in’ with Mr. Applebee, remember?”

  "'Okay. Sounds goo..." My voice trailed off as blessedly cool wave of darkness washed up on the shores of my thoughts and swept everything out to a tranquil river of nothingness.

  ***

  My pillow was not very comfortable. It was also moving. I pondered this as I leisurely swam up from the soft darkness into a fluffy world of pink cotton candy contentment.

  Buttons. My pillow had buttons...and ribs. Blindly, I rubbed my fingertips over the fabric of a shirt to feel muscles and bones before I realized that it was Haley's shirt and the lines of his chest that I was tracing.

  I opened my eyes, but my brain needed a moment to catch up. The rest of my body became aware as well, absorbing arms and legs wrapped around me.

  Lifting my head, I saw we were sprawled out on one of the couches in the reading area in the library. I lay on my side between Haley's legs, resting against his chest. I had managed to hook one of my legs around his in my sleep, and he had lightly crossed his free leg over mine so that we were completely entwined. I had one arm stretched out above me to hold onto his shoulder, and my other hand pillowed my face on his heart. My shirt had ridden up slightly as I was sleeping, and I realized that Haley's cool fingertips rested on bare skin. His other hand was playing with the stray tendrils of my hair.

  "Oh," I muttered. "Wait, what time is it?"

  "It's a perfect time," Haley replied, pressing his lips to my forehead. "I have waited forever to hold you in my arms like this."

  He chuckled and pulled me upwards so that our faces were level to each other. He abandoned my hair and ran his hand over my hip. Every nerve in my body shivered with the bright, cold anticipation of heat.

  "I would hold you much closer," he said with a ghost of a smile. "But I'm in enough trouble with Miss Jones as it is."

  "Oh no!" I exclaimed, flailing about with elbows and ankles to try and sit upright. "I thought you said we wouldn’t get in trouble? Who else saw us?"

  "Nobody saw anything...at all."

  "Except Katie Jones."

  "Except her, but she is most likely more relieved than irritated, truth be told."

  I looked at the clock on the wall, shocked to see the school day was almost over.

  "How do you feel?" Haley asked, gently helping me untangle myself and get to my feet.

  "Fine," I replied automatically. "Actually, I feel really good. Much better than this morning. In fact, I think that's the best sleep I've had for weeks, since...uh...school started."

  I shot Haley a suspicious glare. He didn't even try to defend himself. He simply grinned and pulled me into his arms.

  "You are adorable when you become paranoid," he said, the humor in his voice falling away as his eyes zeroed in on my lips.

  As easy as breathing, I molded myself to him and tilted my face up to his, matching him move for move. I felt the first zing of his cool lips touching mine.

  "Steph! Hey, Steph! Oh. Whoa. Sorry, there."

  I'm pretty sure that this time, the rumbling growl came from my chest, as I turned in Haley's tense grip to face a blushing Morris.

  "This," I enunciated with deadly emphasis. "Had. Better. Be. Good."

  "Totally," Morris replied, unfazed. "I think I've got an idea about what this whole thing could mean. It's the only explanation that fits all the facts together."

  "You do? It does?" I exclaimed.

  "Yeah, even Helen is willing to consider it."

  "You know that means she doesn't believe you, but is too nice to tell you," I shot back.

  "Usually, yes, but this time, she actually thought about it and said, 'Interesting.' If that isn't a ringing endorsement, I don't know what is."

  "Wow," I agreed.

  "What is your theory?" Haley asked, stepping around to stand next to me and slip his arm around my waist.

  "Basic X-Menology," Morris proclaimed. "Stephanie's a mutant."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  "BASIC WHAHOOSIT?" I sputtered.

  "The X-Men, you know, comic books, mutants?"

  "And how exactly does this explain everything?"

  "Patien
ce, grasshopper," Morris said. "All will be revealed."

  "Perhaps you should reveal it as we walk to the car," Haley suggested. "It would be a shame for Stephanie to be late for work."

  Oh, like he wasn't hoping that was exactly what would happen and I would decide to blow off work and spend the evening with him?

  "Better yet, I'll drive her to work and explain on the way there," Morris said. "It's on my way home. Besides, if we leave Zack to catch a ride with Helen, she's going to spend the rest of her bright future in jail for vehicular homicide."

  Haley tensed beside me, but I smiled up at him reassuringly.

  "It’s a good plan," I said to him. "Save Zack. Save Helen."

  "This better be a damn good explanation," he said with a reluctant smile and left.

  ***

  The wind had picked up outside, alternating hot and icy blasts of air that carried drops of warm rain and feather flakes of snow. Black clouds rolled across a hazy sky, with sharp shafts of sun slicing through in places.

  "Okay, explain your Basic X-Menology," I ordered once we were buckled into Morris' car, and he was pulling out of the parking lot. "And just for the record, I'm not a mutant."

  "Well, maybe mutant was a little exaggerated," he admitted, leaning forward to peer out the windshield at the sky. "I don't see any spandex in your future or anything like that. But, certain things make sense."

  "Like what?"

  "Well, according to the X-Men, new genetically-related abilities come out when a person goes through adolescence and has a major emotional upheaval or traumatic experience."

  "Got anything that isn't based on a comic book?" I gripped the seat hard and set my teeth against any reasonableness in his explanation.

  "So, how about this morning? You know, when you went all glow stick and hard to look at?"

  "Glow stick?"

  "Well, it's not like you were shining light, but it kind of felt painful to look at you, like looking right at the sun."

  I had no comeback for that.

  "Don't forget, Haley cracked the countertop in the bathroom, and what you did to the armrests of the chair in Katie Jones’ office. Not to mention the fact that all of them, and even your mother seem to notice physical changes about you that Helen and I can't see. Like your eyes and your skin."

  "So, what is that all supposed to mean?"

  "Well, this is kinda where you have to leave probability behind and just go with classic logic."

  "I'm not so great at either, so go on."

  "Logic says that there is something different, but common to you, Zack, Haley, Katie Jones, and your mother. Everything I've seen shows that this difference has something to do with, um, enhanced abilities."

  "Translation?" This was no time for comic book euphemisms.

  "Normal human beings shouldn't be able to crush wood with their bare hands. Normal human beings don't turn into glow sticks. Normal human beings don't fight three guys in a parking lot with barely a flick of their fingers or disintegrate metal with their bare hands. So, if you and Zack and Haley aren't normal human beings, then..."

  "Yeah," I whispered. "Then what are we?"

  Morris pressed his lips together in a thin, tight line.

  My mind rebelled against his impossible theory, but at the same time, there was something horribly, inexorably rational about it. I groped around for excuses to overthrow it.

  "What about the weather?" I asked, finally breaking the awful silence in the car. "How does all this relate to the weather?"

  "I know," he sighed. "It's one of the weak points of my theory. It also doesn't exactly jive with The Proserpine Puzzle either. The only thing I can think of is that, maybe, you guys emit some kind of weird energy that is attracting all this weather."

  "The Proserpine angle is weird," I mused. "What do Persephone and Hades have to do with any of this? I mean, I get that it's a code for weather and stuff, but that just brings me back to what does any of this have to do with Haley and Zack?"

  "What if..." Morris trailed off.

  I waited, counting telephone poles as we drove.

  "Just a wild what if," he started again. "What if you guys are playing out the myth without realizing it?"

  I opened my mouth to object, then snapped it shut.

  Possible?

  Preposterous.

  "Here's your stop," Morris said. "Come by after work if you want. Helen's coming over to work on this stuff, too. The restaurant will still be open."

  "Eggrolls and destiny?" I hazarded, trying to smile but feeling like I grimaced instead.

  "Be glad it's not Moo Goo Gai Pan and destiny. Hoisin sauce stains like a bitch."

  ***

  Work was not the refuge of normalcy I was hoping for. Within ten minutes, I wished I had taken Haley up on his offer to skip work and spend the evening with him.

  "Hey, Steph, where's your mom?"

  "How's your mom? We haven't seen her for a few days?"

  "Stephanie, I know this is awkward, and I hate putting you in the middle of the situation, but I can't seem to reach your mother. We need to talk."

  "Yo, Steph, where's the parental unit?"

  I was too upset to prune the orchids, which required a calm mind and steady hands with the pruning clippers. Instead, I opted to change out the water in the bouquet buckets.

  Grappling with heavy buckets full of rank water and slimy flower stems in the back work area is the worst possible time and place for your subconscious to cough up an important insight. But naturally, that's exactly what mine did, making me drop the two buckets in my hands and slosh water all over myself.

  I repeated the answer in my head several times, and every time, it rang true. Facts and details lined up behind the revelation, jostling haphazardly for order.

  "I'll be right back," I gasped to no one in particular, and ran out the back of the store and across to my graveyard. I needed open space and air to think, to surround me when I said the answer out loud for the first time.

  My breathing was as shaky as my body. I stood in the middle of the graveyard, soaking in the dying sunlight.

  "I am Persephone," I breathed out in a rush.

  A hundred million pinpricks stung under my skin.

  "I am Persephone," I repeated.

  A buzzing breeze enveloped me, lifting my hair and making my fingertips tingle.

  "I am Persephone," I said once more, tensed at what would happen next.

  A great force rose up within me, exploding outwards and infinitely from the seed of a single atom at the center of my being. Power filled me, twisted and twined its electrons and strings around my DNA, and became me.

  I blinked and when I opened my eyes, it was as if a veil had been torn from the entire world. I saw everything in its fundamental form and perfection. Sounds, matter, motion, all weaved together in an invisible net that we were all caught in, moving through the oceans of air and trailing ribbons of energy behind us.

  More than anything, though, I felt all around me the grinding, crushing cycle of life and death. I heard the silent explosions of cells ripping apart, the stuttering stop of an ant's heart as it returned to the earth, the new harmonics that burst into existence with the creation of new life.

  There was no fear. Why should I be afraid? I was the center of all of this, integral as if endless threads of life and death spun out from my soul, swinging all of existence through great circles of waxing and waning.

  I laughed and the sound was still me, still the voice of Stephanie Starr, but it had a million tones echoing behind it. I laughed again, thinking that once again, Morris Chow had been right about me being different, just like Katie Jones had said he would be.

  I was Persephone. Okay, maybe not the real deal Greek goddess thing, but I was overflowing with life and energy, practically soaking the ground I stood on with the power of new life.

  The dead flowers caught my eye, and a wild urge to discharge some of this excess energy came over me. I went over to them and knelt down to touch
the rotting stems and withered leaves. The moment my fingertips made contact, the plants revived. Well, that’s putting it mildly.

  Like a boulder being dropped into a still pond, bright green life raced into every cell, of every plant, pushing new life into them so fast and with such force that the flowers went from dead to blooming within the blink of an eye.

  But it wasn't just the flowers I touched. The rush of new life spread like a blessed virus, at light speed, through all of the plants all around the graveyard. Vines became green and firm again. Wild grasses shot up high and bloomed their seeding flowers. Buds detonated on the bushes, and the tangled undergrowth around each grave grew firm and springy again.

  My second blink made me wonder if I had overdone it. Everything kept budding and ripening, getting bigger, taller, and stronger. It was like my touch had spread some kind of divine fertilizer that was turning the graveyard into a kind of greenhouse from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

  Everything was growing out of control now, and I was pushed back, off my feet, landing heavily on my butt and grabbing hold of a gravestone to catch myself.

  Big mistake.

  If my lightest touch had done all that to the plants and flowers, grabbing onto a gravestone was the equivalent of setting off a nuclear bomb of life. I felt my energy spill into the stone, flowing into the ground, spreading out and calling together atoms and molecules that had long separated from their original form and integrated into their new environment.

  My power was commanding them to reassemble into cells, tissue, and bone. I tried to let go of the gravestone, but I couldn't. It was like I was magnetized to it, and whatever was happening underground was draining me, demanding more and more energy until I began to feel limp, floppy, and dizzy. The edges of my vision grew dark, and I sensed my heart slowing, working harder for every pump.

  A figure cloaked in shadow walked out of the forest and came toward me. He gently touched the towering plants, and instantly, they sank back into wilt and death. My eyelids fluttered with the struggle to see him, but all I could make out was his tall silhouette as he came closer.