The Gifted Ones: A Reader

by Maria Elizabeth Romana

  Ellie met her halfway there. “Aunt Grace,” she whined. “Why’d you do that? I saw the whole thing. You broke his little heart. Mr. Sunset turned into Mr. Cloudy Skies right before my eyes. You could’ve at least talked to the poor guy for a few minutes. You probably crushed his confidence forever. He’ll never approach another woman. He’s going to live in a monastery.”

  Grace started laughing. “Oh, the drama! El, you are so funny. C’mon, I think he’ll survive. Let’s get home.”

  The two women stopped at their table to pick up their abandoned cups. Grace grabbed hers and turned to walk out, but Ellie didn’t move. Grace turned back around. “Ellie? What is it? What’s wrong?”

  The girl was staring out the window. She pointed toward the street outside. “That man…”

  Grace tried to follow her direction. “Which man? The Cutie Pie?”

  “No, not him. Another guy. Watching us. Closely. He’s gone now.” Her eyes were still fixed outside the window.

  “Another warm-as-sunset face?” Grace grinned at her niece.

  Ellie turned toward her, but she wasn’t smiling. “No, not warm at all. Cold as ice.”

  # # #

  “You didn’t see anything? You followed them for eight hours and saw none of the things we told you to look for?” Archer Orucov sounded incredulous as he dropped back into the soft leather sofa.

  Kumika Asano, seated beside him, was not so easily frustrated. She remained upright, her long legs tucked under her, and narrowed her eyes at the tall man in the chair opposite them. Her tone was brusque, “I gave you a list, Wyatt. Surely, you saw something. She’s sixteen; her Gift must be manifesting by now. Come now, think! Was she friendly or snotty? Outgoing or awkward? Who did she talk to? What did they do all day?”

  Wyatt bristled under her rapid fire questioning. “I told you, they shopped—street vendors, mostly. Vintage clothes, starving artists, an antique bookseller, stuff like that. Then they went for coffee. The aunt talked to one guy in the coffee shop for like, ten seconds. End of story. The kid did nothing out of the ordinary. Seems like a totally normal teenager to me.”

  Archer grunted. “Like you have any idea what a normal teenager does.”

  Kumika ignored his input and continued probing, “Well, what kind of art did they look at? Which books? Fiction? Non-fiction? Bestsellers? Did they end up buying anything?”

  Wyatt dug into his rear pocket and pulled out his phone. He scrolled through a few pages. “Uh, they spent a long time talking to a lady who makes earrings out of scrap metal, and…” He thumbed his phone a couple times. “The kid was drooling over some books in a locked case. Somebody Brantee? Bruntay?” He looked up at them and shrugged.

  Kumika rolled her eyes. “Brönte. Emily Brönte. Or Charlotte or Anne.”

  Wyatt wrinkled up his nose. “Who?”

  “Oh, dear God, do you even know how to read?”

  Wyatt started to rise in his chair. “Hey look, you little—”

  Archer sat forward and spread his hands out between them. “Children! Cool it. This is getting us nowhere.” He gave Kumika a sidelong glance and spoke under his breath, “Not everyone has had the benefit of a classical education.” Then he looked back at Wyatt. “Did they actually buy anything? Jillian can get us the details.”

  “Sorry, Arch.” Wyatt sat back down, pushed his bangs out of his eyes, and consulted his device again. “Yeah, they bought one book, paperback. His sign said Harlan’s Books, somewhere on Twenty-ninth.”

  All eyes shifted to a short, curvy woman sitting cross-legged on the floor. She was typing rapidly into one of several devices she had arranged in front of her on the coffee table. She spoke without looking up, “Harlan’s Fine Books and Antiquities, 342 West Twenty-ninth Street in Little Five Points.”

  “Yeah, that sounds like it.”

  She typed a few more strokes, scanned the results on her screen, and reported back to them, “He’s got 2,312 antique books in the store right now, and 10,845 inexpensive, used books. He also has a very valuable first edition collection of the Brönte sisters, as well as twenty-seven individual first editions—ten from Emily Brönte, two from Anne—”

  “Jill!” Kumika interrupted her diatribe. “Just get to the freakin’ point! What book did they buy yesterday?”

  Jillian shriveled a bit, then spoke quietly, still staring at her screen, “One sale for six dollars and thirty-four cents at one ten PM on March twenty-third. It was a 2007 printing of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, published by Anthem House, and with complete annotations by Dr. Mary—”

  Archer waved a hand at her, cutting her off. “Thank you, my dear. That is sufficient. Oh, and when you get a chance, find out what he wants for that Brönte Collection. Then offer him thirty percent less, in cash.” Kumika gave him an odd look, so he shrugged. “I thought it might make a nice birthday present.”

  Kumika made the wise choice not to respond, and instead addressed the group, “Okay, so she bought the Shakespeare book for school. So we’re back where we started—which is nowhere.” Speaking almost to herself, she added, “Are we absolutely sure this kid’s got the gene? No baby-switching at the hospital or anything?”

  Archer turned toward her with an amused look on his face. “Baby-switching, seriously? Aside from the Coke-bottle glasses, that young lady is the spitting image of her beautiful mother, with only the slightest hint of Daddy’s eyes. She has the gene.” He reached toward the table for his scotch and took a healthy swallow, then continued, “The only question is, how many copies? One…or two?”

  Jillian piped up, finally lifting her eyes to face them, “Statistically speaking, Dr. Orucov, the child has a fifty percent chance of—”

  Archer gave her a patronizing smile. “Yes, Jill, I am well aware that she is equally likely to be a One or a Two.”

  “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

  Kumika stifled her annoyance. She had little patience for Archer’s charity and diplomacy, particularly with that well-fed techno-fiend or the brain-dead muscle man. Still, she had to admit, the little chubbette was Gifted. No question about it. Talking to Jill was like talking to a lamp, but the girl could make any database give up its secrets. Kumika supposed she would tolerate Jill as long as the little twit never forgot her place.

  Archer looked up into his head, then focused on Jillian again. “Jill, you’ve been keeping up with Ellie’s school records, right?”

  “Yes, sir. I check on her progress weekly, even daily sometimes.”

  “Good, good. Are you seeing any patterns? Any signs of a preference or particular ease with a subject? Math? History? The Sciences? I wouldn’t be surprised at all if she turned out to be another Marie Curie.” He grinned as he tossed back more scotch. There was a note of pride in his voice.

  Jillian grabbed a tablet off the tabletop and ran her finger down the screen. She read the information off without looking up. “As you know, she’s a very good student, Dr. Orucov. She makes good marks in all her classes and belongs to a variety of clubs. She also recently took part in the school play.”

  “The play? Really? Was she any good?”

  “Mmmmm…” Jillian returned to the computer, her fingers flying across the keyboard. After a moment, she summarized, “Apparently not. She had a small part in the chorus, and at the third and final performance, she tripped over a footlight and fell off the stage.”

  Kumika started laughing out loud but stopped herself when Archer mumbled, “Creatives…useless Gift anyway.”

  Wyatt, who had been quiet for several minutes, made a suggestion. “What about sports? That’s where I found my Gift—football, baseball, fishing—”

  Kumika gave him a look of disgust. “Fishing is not a sport. It’s a pastime for old men.”

  Wyatt spat back, “It is so a sport! Have you ever seen—”

  “Enough!” Archer commanded their attention. “Kumi, just because you have a Gift for communication doesn’t mean you always have to use it.”

&n
bsp; Kumika set her chin, folded her arms across her chest, and shot daggers at Wyatt with her eyes.

  “Anyway,” Archer continued, “we’ve already covered the sports issue. The kid tried tennis, swimming, and golf. It’s just not her thing. So…she’s not physically Gifted, and she’s not creatively inclined. Maybe she’s a Healer or a Nurturer.”

  Kumika shook her head. “Doubt it. She’s afraid of cats. Hates ’em.”

  Wyatt shrugged. “Nobody likes cats.”

  But Jillian contradicted him, “Oh no, Wyatt, that’s not accurate. Research shows that over sixty percent—”

  “Jill!” Kumika threw her an aggravated look.

  “Sorry.” She shrank back into her shell.

  “All right, fine.” Archer was apparently ignoring them all and moving on with the discussion. “We’ve established that Elodie is most likely a Scholar of some type, like her mother. We don’t need to know exactly what her Gift is. We just need to make sure that we’re the ones to nurture it. She needs to know who she is and what she can become. It’s time to get planning. I know what we have to do, and we can’t let that dim-witted aunt of hers get in our way. Her work is done. Elodie is ours now.”

  Chapter Two: The New Kid in Town

  “You ready, El?”

  Ellie was seated at her aunt’s white, antique dressing table, leaning in toward the mirror and struggling to insert a contact lens into her eye. “Hang on, Aunt Grace, I’ve almost got it.” Ellie dropped her hands, sat back in the chair, and blinked several times. “Whaddya think?”

  Grace, who was now standing behind her, met her eyes in the mirror. She smiled softly. “It does make a big difference, honey. Now people can see those beautiful hazel eyes of yours.”

  “Thanks so much for letting me get them, Aunt Grace. I know they were expensive, but at least now I don’t have to be a total freak.”

  Grace laughed and picked up the curling iron. As she wrapped the first section of Ellie’s hair, she began, “Okay, honey, so tell me again, exactly where are you girls going tonight, and who will be there?”

  Ellie let out an exaggerated sigh. She had long since accepted that the death of her mother Lucy had left baby sister Grace fearful of the world and everyone in it. She answered dutifully, “We’re going over to Nathan’s house to eat pizza and watch The Vampire Duchess III, and then we’re just gonna hang out for a while and play foosball and stuff, okay? And before you ask, yes, Nathan’s parents will be there.”

  Grace rolled the next section of hair and held it carefully away from Ellie’s head. “Good. I like them.”

  “You should; they’re even stricter than you are.” Ellie gave her aunt a devilish grin in the mirror.

  Grace gave her one back. “I know. That’s why I’ve always encouraged your friendship with that boy. So who else will be there?” She unrolled the iron and laid the curl along Ellie’s neck.

  “Well, me, Karen, Wanda, and Liane, of course. And Liane’s baby brother, ’cause otherwise her parents wouldn’t let her come, and Nathan and Tommy and Jammer, and this other kid, Aiden.”

  Grace looked up in her head. Ellie assumed she was mentally matching faces with names. “Tommy, I remember, and Jammer…is he the boy who wants to be a professional surfer?”

  Ellie giggled. “Uh, yeah. Not the sharpest bulb in the chandelier, but he’s really funny.”

  “Okay, now I remember. You know, I think he has a crush on you—”

  Ellie cranked her head around and looked directly up at Grace, nearly yanking the curling iron out of her hand. “Aunt Grace, get real! Surfer Boy forgets I’m alive until he needs help in Geometry. He only chases cheerleaders.” She turned back toward the mirror and picked up one of Grace’s lipsticks. She spoke matter-of-factly as she played with it, “Guys don’t go for dorky girls like me. I mean, not that way. Especially not ones wearing big ugly glasses and with a face full of stupid freckles.” Ellie wrinkled up her nose, studying her reflection in the mirror.

  Grace rolled some loose tendrils around Ellie’s face. “Honey, you just wait. You’ve already gotten rid of the glasses. The rest will come. Believe me, your science-geek mom was a bit awkward in high school, too, but she was extremely popular in college, and fighting them off with a stick after that.” She leaned over, placing her face right next to Ellie’s, and spoke into the mirror, “And you look just like her.”

  “Oh, yeah, I wish.” Ellie reached across the dressing table. She touched the photograph that sat just below the mirror, a youthful shot of her mother. In it, Lucy’s strawberry-blonde hair fell gently over her shoulders, surrounding her oval-shaped face and accenting her pale skin. Her clear blue eyes jumped out of the image, as though she could see right through to the present day. Ellie felt her nose tickling and saw it turning red in the mirror. She quickly shifted her eyes over to some of Grace’s jewelry and make-up. Anything to get her mind off her mother.

  She supposed that Grace had noticed it as well, since she promptly changed the subject. “So, uh, who was that last boy you named? Aiken?”

  “Aiden. Aiden Orcutt.”

  “Right. I’m having trouble placing him. When did I meet him?”

  Uh-oh. Ellie bit her lip. She’d been so hoping that lack of familiarity would slip by unnoticed. “Um, I don’t think you have. He’s new. He just moved here from, uh, Kansas, I think. But he’s really nice, Aunt Grace. Nathan said so. They’ve been hanging out.”

  Grace set the curling iron down. “Now, wait a minute, Ellie. You know our rules—”

  “I know, I know, but I haven’t had a chance—” The doorbell interrupted them, and Ellie jumped up. “Please, Aunt Grace, just this once, okay? I promise you can meet him at school next week, when you come pick me up. I’ll make sure. And I won’t be late coming home, not even five minutes. And I’ll text you every hour. Okay? Please?”

  Grace sighed deeply and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she gave her head a little shake. “Okay, sweetheart. Go on. But I do expect to hear from you, every hour, on the hour.”

  Ellie grinned, giving her aunt a quick kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, Aunt Grace, you’re the best!”

  She raced out of the room and started down the stairs, but not without hearing her aunt’s final helicopter warning, “And grab your sweater on the way out. I know it’s April now, but it’s still chilly!”

  # # #

  As Ellie bounded down the stairs, Grace hurried across the hall to watch out the front window. The street below was lined with tightly-packed row houses, mostly early twentieth century in soft pastels with ornate trims. The tall skinny houses with their minimal lawns and scraggly trees—often ringed with black iron fences—gave the neighborhood a semblance of small town community, despite being minutes from the big city of Atlanta. Grace was happy enough here. She wasn’t a fan of densely populated metro living, but if one wanted to disappear, it was a swell way to do it.

  Ellie’s friend Wanda had pulled up right out front, double-parking long enough for Ellie to run out and hop in. Grace could see the three other girls and the tag-along baby brother packed into the car as they drove off. She scanned the street, of course. Nothing out of the ordinary. Reluctantly, she stepped away from the window, hoping that Ellie understood that all her Mother-Henning had nothing to do with trust; it was just about keeping the girl safe.

  Grace made her way down the stairs and into the parlor, stopping for a moment to admire the way the setting sun was bouncing around the room as it passed through the stained glass bordering the front window. This pretty old Victorian had so many layers of charm, no one would ever guess the kind of security system that lay beneath it. Nor would she want them to; if people knew how well-protected their home was, they might start wondering what there was to be protected.

  Grace walked over to the old rolltop desk in the corner. The top stuck, as usual, as she tried to unroll it, but she liked to think of that as just one of the many charms of an antique. She’d learned a lot about antique furniture since
moving to this artsy-fartsy section of Atlanta—mostly which pieces were truly valuable collectibles, and which pieces, like the rolltop desk, looked just as nice, but could be had for a song. Once she got the rolltop to behave, she pulled up the matching chair, opened her laptop, and headed straight for Ellie’s school website. She used her parent login to do some basic recon on Aiden Orcutt, then started a wider search. She found his FacePlace page and ferreted out some general information—previous schools, sports, friends, a few awards, a few photos. He appeared to be a good student, respectful, articulate, and apparently, never in trouble. Not a bad looking kid, either. Maybe he and Ellie would hit it off a bit, and Ellie would stop thinking that “boys don’t like dorky girls.”

  So good, she could let it go now and relax. Well, almost. She took her search just a little deeper, to Aiden’s parents. That is, she tried. But she couldn’t find a name or a picture or even a reference to an occupation or employer. Odd. But not that odd. Not everyone wanted their whole life story on the internet for all the world to see, especially folks in Grace’s generation. Maybe Aiden’s parents weren’t into social media, or maybe they had different last names, or maybe they were dead, like Ellie’s parents. Now wouldn’t that be an unfortunate thing to have in common?

  Grace shook her head, clearing out the morbid thought, and pushed herself away from the desk. Surely, she was just being her usual paranoid self. She felt it was a forgivable trait, considering the experiences that had led her to this life.

  She decided she needed to take her mind off of it, and headed into the kitchen. A bowl of popcorn and a couple movies would do the trick—maybe for once, she could indulge in a silly comedy or a chick flick, instead of those classic black and white films that Ellie adored. By the time she was finished watching, Ellie would be home again, safe and sound. Grace walked into the kitchen, got out the popcorn, and poured some oil into the popper. She stared absently out the kitchen window at their tiny backyard while she waited for the oil to heat. It was almost dark out now. She glanced at the kitchen clock. Not quite time for Ellie’s first text.