PANDORA

by Rebecca Hamilton

  “Yes and no,” Dahlia said, turning back to Echo.

  He took over. “Cresta, the people you knew as your parents-”

  Oh God. This was it, when he told me that he was my father, that the man I lived with my entire life, the man I watched die, was little more than a placeholder.

  “You’re my dad?” The words were small and quiet, but I couldn’t stop them from coming.

  He jerked back, pulling his fingers from his desk. He looked at me for a long moment; deeply, like he was reading something in my eyes. “Oh darling, if only it were that simple. I’ll admit, the possibility crossed my mind, but no Cresta, I am not your father.”

  I breathed heavy, though I was unsure exactly how relieved I was. He had still said those words, ‘the people you knew as your parents’. What did that mean?

  “Sir,” I said, more breathlessly than I intended. “Would someone just tell me what’s going on?”

  Dahlia set herself. A flicker of something, maybe sympathy, moved across her eyes. As quickly as it came though, it left, and she started. “Given that Owen spent the most time physically in Crestview, it was his psionic energy that was most deeply embedded in town. As you know, we already got everything we could from that.”

  Owen nodded, rubbing the back of his head, where his memories had been extracted.

  “There were a few others though. The ones that gave us the most to go on originated from a man called Allister Leeman.”

  “Allister Leeman? The Raven?” For once, Owen seemed as confused as me. “Isn’t he a lunatic; some end of days nutjob? He’s a laughing stock.”

  “He may be,” Echo rubbed at his temples. “But he’s a laughing stock who’s garnered a small yet extremely loyal following since you’ve been away. We also believe that he may be the one behind your deception in the first place.”

  “That’s impossible,” Owen stood now. “There’s no way the Raven did this. I’d have seen through it.”

  “Yes, we’re all aware of how intuitive you are,” Dahlia motioned for him to sit back down, which he did. “That said, the fact that the Raven was there at all is very telling. And it’s not the only evidence we have.”

  “Stop,” I waved my hands. “I’m sure this story’s really fascinating to you guys, but we don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” I pointed back and forth between Casper and I, comfortable enough to speak for him. His expression, as dumbfounded as my own, told me I was right.

  “You’ve heard of our end of days prophecy, about the Bloodmoon and the dragon?” Echo looked at me.

  “Yeah, I won that capture the flag thing you guys had the other day,” I answered.

  “Really? This year’s recruits must be particularly disappointing,” Dahlia said.

  Echo gave her an impatient look and continued.”Allister Leeman is a rogue Breaker. He believes that the end times are upon us, that the Bloodmoon already walks the Earth.”

  “Walks?” Casper was beside me now with a hand across my shoulder. “How can a moon walk? Oh! Like moonwalk!”

  He started sliding backwards across Echo’s office.

  “This is what I have to treat with respect?” Merrin shook her head.

  Dr. Static shot past the still moonwalking Casper. He had been shuffling through a stack of books and had apparently found what he was looking for. Slamming a tattered old red book on the desk he pointed at a passage with fingers so long and thin that the slightest wind would certainly snap them in two.

  “Prophecies are rarely that straight forward, especially world changing prophecies. How a seer sees-Well, who knows how they see actually, but you can bet it isn’t the way the rest of us do. As a result, their reports usually take a little deciphering. This is often times more true with bigger prophecies, and you don’t get much bigger than the end of the world, do you?”

  A slight grin graced his painfully thin face, but it disappeared just as quickly when he saw no one else was smiling.

  “Anyway,” he shook his head. “Blut and Luna.”

  “Blut and Luna?” I repeated.

  “Yes. Blut is the German word for blood, while Luna is the Latin term meaning moon. That, in itself, means absolutely nothing, but when you take into consideration that they are also the surnames of two of the oldest Breaker bloodlines in existence-Well, it all makes sense doesn’t it?”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Casper answered. He had stopped moonwalking and was sitting cross legged on the floor. “I know you’re really into it and everything and you were hoping it would, but it really doesn’t.”

  Dr. Static blustered. “In the prophecy, the Bloodmoon is generally thought to be the product of these two bloodlines joining. Blut and Luna; the blood and the moon. It’s so widely believed within the Breaker community that those two houses have been forbidden from ever procreating, regardless of even matching genetic testing.”

  “And this Allister dude thinks he’s the Bloodmoon?” I asked, brushing blond hair out of my eyes. “What does that have to do with me?”

  “No, no,” Dr. Static said, jamming his finger against the open book repeatedly. “He thinks he’s the Raven. According to the prophecies, the Raven is joined with the Bloodmoon in the bindings of matrimony. He thinks you’re the Bloodmoon.”

  Ezra’s words the day my mom died flashed through my mind.

  He’s looking for his wife.

  He meant-He was talking about me.

  I heard Owen choke back a gasp and watched as the tips of his fingers dug into the arms of his chair.

  “Me?” I balked. “Why the hell would he think that?”

  “Because in all likelihood, it’s true.” Dahlia’s eyes were violet steel burning into me.

  “No,” I shook my head. “That’s ridiculous.”

  Echo sighed loudly, and I could tell from the way his lips curved down at the ends, that he didn’t want to say what he was about to. Oddly enough, that made me want to listen even more. “Cresta, when Ash left for her final mission, the mission we all thought she died on, she didn’t go alone.” His fingers had stopped, hovering silently above the cherry wood of his desk. “There was an entire team with her. Two of those people were Breakers whose given names were Abram Blut and Laurel Luna.”

  As before, when images of the Crestview newscast appeared as big as life in front of us, the lights in Echo’s office dimmed. Two images appeared before us in stark clarity. A man and woman, or given the ages, a boy and girl walked through brick laden streets. Their clothes were plain and timeless, brown sack pants and white shirts, but their hairs dated back to what looked like the late nineties. They were surrounded by other passersby in a place that I quickly recognized from my time sifting through Owen’s memories as the Hourglass. They weren’t talking to each other though. In fact, it looked like they were taking pains not to interact with each other at all.

  The man was tall and handsome, with silvery blond hair and bright blue, almost purple eyes. The woman was less striking, though still pretty in her own way. She was short but lithe and the way her brown hair curled in the breeze pricked at me familiarly.

  “There were rumors that these two were lovers,” Echo said. “And, given their respective families, you can understand why that would be a problem.”

  Of course. It made sense to me now. The way they were walking side by side and not talking, not even looking at each other. They were trying so hard to make sure that no one suspected them of being together. That made me sad somehow; that those two young people were so in love and, because of some ridiculous prophecies and the fears of the lunatics they were unlucky enough to be born into, they couldn’t be together like normal people. Still, what did that have to do with me?

  “They were paired off and married to others,” Echo continued. “But rumors of their continued affair made their way to the Council of Masons. Of course, their perceived deaths silenced whatever concerns the Council had.”

  The striking man in the hologram before us stopped to talk to someone. The girl paus
ed and pretended to take in her surroundings, though it was clear she was waiting for him. She put her index finger in front of her lips and tapped absentmindedly.

  “That’s funny,” I said without thinking. “That’s the same thing-“

  Oh God. That’s why she looked so familiar. Her thin frame, her friendly face, the way her brown hair settled into soft ringlets; the girl in front of me that everyone knew as Laurel Luna was actually Dr. Conyers.

  “That’s my therapist,” I said breathlessly.

  “You went to therapy?” Owen looked at me, his brows scrunched.

  I didn’t answer.

  “I told you she was still alive,” Dahlia shot a superior look to her husband.

  “It’s more than that, I’m afraid,” Echo gritted his teeth. “We found DNA samplings in our database from Laurel and Abram and ran them against the ones from your physical. They were a match.”

  I stood, sure I didn’t want to hear the next words he was about to say. That didn’t stop him though.

  “Cresta. These people are your biological parents.”

  I stared at the moving image in front of me; at a young Dr. Conyers, at the striking man she loved. There they were. The similarities I had tried not to look for in Echo’s face were all over these two. He had my nose. She had my eyes and, when the man he was talking to told a joke, I realized he had my laugh too.

  But that couldn’t be right. That meant that not only was my dad not my dad, but my mom wasn’t really my mom either.

  “No. No,” I mumbled and started backing away. “It’s not true.”

  “Cresta, I know this is a lot to take in,” Echo stood. “Damnit! Lights.”

  With his words, the lights flared back up and the hologram disappeared.

  “I promise it’ll be all right. It doesn’t mean you’re the Bloodmoon,” Echo made his way around his desk, but I was close to the door. It was just like my first night at Weathersby , with Echo telling me I’d be okay and me backing away from him, too stunned to do anything else.

  He had told me the truth that night, but could I really trust him now?

  “Echo, I know my parents.”

  “I know you do sweetheart,” he answered. My back was against the door now, but this time, I didn’t open it. Where would I go anyway?

  “Your mother was a wonderful woman, and I have little doubt she loved you with everything in her.” He reached out and wiped a tear from my face. “It doesn’t matter who gave birth to you. Julie Karr was your mother. Ash was your mother, and you were the most important thing in the world to her. So important that, when she realized she couldn’t keep you safe, she sent you to me. I would never betray a trust like that, Cresta. Your mother died so that I might keep you safe. So please, let me honor her memory by protecting you. Come, sit down, and let’s get to the bottom of this; for your mother.”

  I wiped my eyes, took a deep breath, and did as he asked. I sat back down with Casper and Owen on either side of me. I could tell both of them wanted to reach out to me, but I bristled, so they didn’t.

  “We went back to the explosion site, where your parents allegedly died all those years ago,” Dahlia picked back up. The fact that she was using the words parents and not talking about the people who raised me, the people I loved more than even myself, sent a dagger into my heart. And the tone she used while saying it, like an IRS agent going through a list of deductibles, twisted that dagger. “Once I knew what I was looking for, it didn’t take long to work past the shades and anchors. The mental images I picked up from the ruins led me to their mission hideout, and once there, the entire thing opened up.”

  She sat atop the front of Echo’s desk and crossed her legs. “The Luna girl and the Blut boy had continued their relationship. It was selfish, it put everyone at risk, and it broke the sacred vows they took when accepting their genetically ideal matches. But I suppose all that paled in the face of young love.” She scoffed, cleared her throat, and continued. “A few weeks before their fateful mission, the Luna girl found out she was pregnant. Since she was less than physically thrilled with her sanctioned spouse; her perfect, she had little doubt about whose child it was. This left them in quite a bind. Once the child was born, the requisite tests would prove that it belonged to the Blut boy. They would both be severely punished, and the baby-Well, the baby would be the Bloodmoon. So, the Council would have done what it had to in order to avert the apocalypse. To stop that from happening, the Luna girl concocted a plan. She had always been friends with your mo- with Ash, so once she got her assigned to the Moscow mission, the rest wrote itself. They would set off the explosion, fake their deaths, and ensure your survival.”

  I opened my mouth to respond, but Dahlia silenced me with a palm. “You couldn’t be raised by your birth parents though. That was too risky. Instead, your mother left you in the care of her best friend, my Echo’s first wife; who, it turns out, left him for you.”

  She glared back at her husband. Echo gave her a look that was halfway between frustration and exhaustion.

  “It doesn’t mean that you’re the Bloodmoon though,” he looked at me. “It’s possible that you’re just a girl, just the product of two Breakers’ forbidden love, and not-“

  “What? Not the antichrist?” I scoffed and stood up. “Are you people even serious. I’m nothing. I’m nobody. I’m an asthmatic girl who’s barely five feet tall. I don’t weight a hundred pounds soaking wet.”

  “You never had asthma,” Dahlia said. “And you’re not an ordinary girl. You’re a Breaker; a Breaker who’s had no training and whose powers have not only been suppressed for years, but have also gone unchecked. I can’t think of anything more dangerous.”

  “This-this doesn’t matter,” Dr. Static said, finger pressed against his still open book. “There are other prophecies, other prerequisites that she’d have to meet before we could even entertain the idea that Cresta might be the Bloodmoon.”

  “Prerequisites that we’ve already accounted for,” Dahlia said. She plucked Dr. Static’s book from his hands and started reading from it. “Consumed by the dragon and joined to the raven, her body is marked with the tears of those who will die beneath her foot.”

  “Yes, I’m well aware of that stanza,” Dr. Static crossed his arms, giving him the illusion of having a bit of physical depth.

  “The physical we ran on Cresta showed that she has three teardrop shaped moles along her inner thigh.” Dahlia seemed to be relishing proving her case so easily.

  “The world will linger in darkness on the day of her birth. The sun will hide from her coming,” Dahlia turned to me. “That, lingering in darkness, is believed to speak of your birthday; the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. What’s more, the winter solstice of fifteen years ago was followed by a solar eclipse that further delayed sunrise for seven extra minutes.” She closed the book triumphantly. “The sun will hide from her coming.”

  “Wait a sec!” Casper stepped forward. “Cress’ birthday is in March. Is the winter solstice in March? Is winter even in March?”

  Clumsily made, but it was a point nonetheless.

  “Her birthday isn’t in March,” Echo said, looking at his desk.

  “Yes it is,” I answered.

  “They lied to you,” Dahlia said. She grabbed at a manila folder on Echo’s desk and handed me a slip of paper from inside. “This is your birth certificate, your real one. A baby Jane Doe was left on the doorstep of a hospital on the night of the winter solstice almost sixteen years ago. She was reported as being stolen from the hospital three days later. You showed up in Chicago three months after that, but all records of your birth in March are falsified. Ash led you to believe you were born in the spring because she knew your actual birthday was further proof that you are, in fact, the Bloodmoon.”

  My fingers curled up into fists. Dahlia’s lips, though not quite smiling, were certainly ticking up at the ends. She loved this; proving that Ash’s daughter was nothing but trouble, proving that Ash herself was a tra
itor of apocalyptic proportions. “I’m not some damn moon,” I said through clenched teeth.

  “None of us control fate, my dear,” Dahlia hissed at me. The forms her hands take as they wrap around our lives are of her solitary choosing.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I asked, not caring how much disdain slipped into my words.

  “It means that we are what we are,” Dahlia answered. She had taken a cue from me and was now visibly upset. Her eyes flashed with anger and her mouth pursed together violently. “And like it or not, you’ll have to get used to it.”

  “No it doesn’t,” Owen stood up beside me. “We are Breakers, after all. Isn’t that what we do, change what is? It’s our entire reason for being.”

  “This is a fixed point. You know that,” Dahlia’s eyes shot over to him.

  “A fixed point?” Casper asked when he saw I wasn’t going to.

  “Some events cannot be changed regardless of how much we try,” Echo said in a surrendering voice. “They’re called fixed points because they have to come to pass. Breakers have been trying to avert the Bloodmoon for over a hundred years now, but regardless of our efforts, the prophecies never change. The Bloodmoon will come.”

  “The Bloodmoon is here,” Dahlia answered defiantly.

  “We don’t know that,” Dr. Static looked up from his book.

  “How much proof do you need Silas?” Dahlia asked him.

  Silas Static? Really?

  “The events of her birth were enough to convince Ash and the two lovebirds to run away from the only lives they’d ever known. They were enough to get Allister Leeman sniffing around her very well hidden doorstep. He even manipulated this one into doing his dirty work for him,” Dahlia pointed to Owen.

  “But why?” Dr. Static rubbed at his pointed chin. “We know Allister Leeman believes that Cresta is the Bloodmoon, but what purpose did he have for plucking young Owen away from the Hourglass? He has plenty of followers of his own who could have done the job just as efficiently, and whose allegiance wouldn’t have to be fabricated.”