by Nicole Thorn
Jasmine frowned. “The two of you really need to work on your sympathy. Less criticizing, more love. You know. Like proper siblings.”
Juniper and I looked at each other. Normally, we would be very sympathetic and loving. Normally, Jasmine didn’t come home in the arms of some random dude. That was terrifying. The idea that she got into a perfect stranger’s car, with no regard for what could happen to her. Absolutely terrifying. I wasn’t worried about it this time, since Zander and Kezia both seemed like genuinely nice people. Next time, though, they could be anyone from a mass murderer to a pervert looking for an easy score.
Instead of saying any of this and upsetting her more, I just shrugged and sat down on the couch. Juniper put a burger on my plate and another on Jasmine’s. The biggest thing of fries I’ve ever seen was next and that too went onto Jasmine’s plate, with enough barbecue sauce that I was actually worried what would happen to her if she ate it all. Of course, my sister looked nothing if not thrilled.
Juniper pulled out her tiny salad and perched on the edge of a chair. She opened the container and squirted the smallest bit of dressing on as she could manage and began stirring it carefully. I unwrapped my burger and stared at it. It’s not that I don’t like fast food, or burgers. I just wasn’t hungry.
At the same time, I could feel my sisters looking at me from the corners of their eyes. I had to at least eat a little bit. I picked up the burger and took a bite. It tasted good. Would have tasted better if my stomach didn’t immediately feel full. Oh well. I could choke down another couple of bites, to make them happy.
Jasmine dragged a handful of fries through barbecue sauce, stuffed them into her mouth and started talking. “They weren’t bad. They were nice, actually. Zander, especially. And he was just the right amount of soft to make laying on him really comfortable.”
Juniper and I stared at her. “I’m going to pretend that you didn’t say that, for many reasons, not the least of which being I don’t want to know how you’ve Goldilocks’d this.”
“I’m on his side. As long as it didn’t happen in this house, then I’d rather not know,” Juniper agreed. She pushed a piece of chicken to the side of her container and took a bite of lettuce. She had draped a napkin over her lap to keep her tan pants clean and hunched over to prevent dressing from falling on her white t-shirt.
In contrast, Jasmine had already dribbled barbecue onto her rainbow colored shirt, but it was one of the dark patches, so it was hard to see. Her purple skirt was similarly a mess. Not that I was one to talk. I was covered in clay from working through the night on a project. It was almost done and I liked it much better than I had my last one. Which meant that I probably needed to go back to that one and see about fixing some things up.
“They sure did leave in a hurry,” Jasmine said thoughtfully. “I wonder why.”
“Probably because they had finally dropped the crazy girl off and didn’t want to deal with her equally crazy relatives anymore,” Juniper said. She scooped a nut onto her fork and moved it over, so that it was sitting with the slice of chicken. Then she popped a tomato into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully.
I took a second bite of my burger. I really wished that we had a dog, so that he could finish this off for me. Alas, all we’ve got is Nemo. Though, he might like the burger. Through strange incidents over the years, we’ve learned that he likes beer and Cheetos and he absolutely loves steak. Don’t ask how we know these things, or how the fish managed to survive eating them.
I blame it on the fact that I won him at a carnival for Jasmine when she was feeling down. That was three years ago and he was still going strong.
Jasmine finished off her fries before she even touched her burger. Then she started in on it like she worried it would wander off if she didn’t finish it in under a minute. Juniper closed her salad container. All the nuts, most of the chicken and some of the tomatoes were still in it. I took a third bite of my burger and decided that was all I could do.
I stood up, careful to keep the wrapper up, so that my sisters couldn’t see how little I ate and offered to take their trash. Juniper got squirmy, but handed hers over. Once in the kitchen, I buried my food at the bottom of the trash can so they wouldn’t immediately notice. I would eat more at dinner.
I planned on making a quick escape back to my studio, but Juniper stopped me when I got to the living room. She dragged me out back, so that I could help her with the yard. The grass was mowed every other week, so it was very neat. All the bushes were perfect circles and the flowers were all white. It was a rare sunny day, so she decided to take advantage and pull the weeds that marred her perfect yard. The trees were also kept in a circular pattern, but required less maintenance than everything else.
After an hour of pulling weeds, I was pretty much done with it. I yanked the last couple out and was happy that I could go back inside and get back to work. Listen to music and zone out while my sisters did whatever they did during the day. Jasmine mostly slept, I think. Juniper… Well Juniper kept busy.
Inside, Jasmine was hovering over the opened lid to the fish tank. She had a Cheeto in her hand and was dragging it along the surface of the water. Nemo, as if sensing the delicious snack, came out of his hidey hole and went straight for the cheesy goodness. Jasmine let him have that one because it was tiny, but the next one was large and would require some crushing for him to eat.
“Stop giving him human food!” Juniper said. “You’re going to kill him and then what am I supposed to do with that tank?”
Jasmine pouted. “He likes it. He looks so sad when he doesn’t get any treats. I don’t want him to be sad. He’ll commit betacide! Do you want to be the reason Nemo commits betacide?”
Juniper took a deep breath. “Fine. Give him Cheetos. But no more beer! I’m serious.”
Jasmine frowned. “He likes beer…”
“Jasmine Ellen Nelson, do not give that fish anymore beer,” Juniper said. “Or I will be forced to take serious action against you. Such as locking the top of that tank so that you can’t play with him anymore.”
“Juniper Elle Nelson, you wouldn’t dare!” Jasmine screamed. I smirked, wondering if they were about to middle name me as well. Then Jasmine froze. The Cheeto she had been holding fell into the water. Nemo zoomed up, snagged it and then he and the Cheeto disappeared.
I rushed over to my sister. Juniper on my heels, their sort of fight forgotten. Jasmine’s hand was still in the air and her eyes were far away as she watched something that the rest of us couldn’t see. I pulled her away from the tank, so that she wouldn’t tilt face first into the water. Sometimes she lost control of her muscles while she was having a vision.
I had barely managed to sit her on the floor when she sucked in a startled breath. Her eyes got a pinched look and her lips compressed into a thin line. Yet, still, her stare was distant. I looked up at Juniper. Her grim face no doubt matched my own. This wasn’t a good vision.
Juniper fidgeted for a second before she needed to move. She closed the top of the tank and snatched up the Cheetos bag. She and it disappeared into the kitchen, before she returned. A gray rag clenched in her hand. I imagined that was just in case any Cheeto dust got on the furniture.
Finally, my sister jerked, like she was surprised. The motion caused her to bump into me, since I was still holding her. Acting on instinct, her hand latched onto my wrist and her fingers turned white with the pressure she was holding on with. Then she turned her head and stared right at Juniper.
Our sister ran up to us, putting her arms around Jasmine. “What was it?” She demanded. No room for argument in her voice.
Jasmine’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. She did that three or four more times, before finally managing to speak. “Bad.” Her voice cracked. “It was bad. I, uh, I think I need to throw up.” The second the words were out of her mouth she was struggling to her feet. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen her throw up, so I was right on her heels, Juniper just behind me.
She barely
managed to get to the bathroom. Her knees hit the white tiles and then she was vomiting in painful sounding heaves. Everything she had eaten or drank that day came up and into the toilet. When she was done retching and then dry heaving, I lifted her off the floor and put her on the counter. She didn’t bother fighting me. I flushed the toilet, while Juniper grabbed another gray towel, dampened it and handed it to Jasmine for her face.
“Better?” Juniper asked, her voice soft and sweet.
Jasmine nodded, holding the dampened cloth to her face. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “Didn’t mean to do that.”
“What did you see, Jazz?” Juniper asked, while gathering a toothbrush and toothpaste, because she knew our sister well. Without waiting, Jasmine stuck the toothbrush into her mouth, scrubbing away the icky taste of vomit.
She spoke around the toothbrush. Luckily, Juniper and I are very adept at the language of the full mouth. Jasmine is fluent and therefore, so are we. “I saw people dying. It was horrible. At first I didn’t know what was going on. I thought I was just seeing them because I had been thinking about them minutes before.”
“Who?” I asked.
She leaned over and spat. Rinsed her mouth with water, spat again. “Zander and Kizzy,” she said. “I figured it was a coincidence, because I had just met them.” That happens sometimes, with her. Her environment doesn’t always effect the visions she has, but it’s impossible for it never to.
“Those people from yesterday?” Juniper asked, suspicion her voice. “What did you see? Were they the ones dying or were they the ones killing?”
Jasmine rolled her eyes. “The fact that they struck you as vicious killers says more about you than it does them,” Jasmine said. “They were the ones dying. They were leaving an apartment and then,” she paused to swallow hard, “Then there was blood. Like a lot of blood. Pouring down the front of Kizzy’s chest. She was screaming, because it hadn’t hit her heart, but she didn’t scream for long. And Zander was screaming too. The look on his face…”
“What then?” I asked, offering my hand at the same time that Juniper did. Jasmine took each offering, squeezing so hard that I lost feeling in the tips of my fingers.
“Kizzy fell down. Not like in the movies, where they hit their knees and then their face. She just stopped standing. She crashed to the ground, like she was a puppet whose strings have been cut. No more life in her, but she was still pouring blood onto the ground. It soaked into everything.
“And Zander was still screaming. Looking around and screaming so loudly. Then he wasn’t. A red line appeared around his neck. At first, I didn’t realize what happened, but then his head… His head…” She swallowed hard, not finishing the sentence, not needing to. “That wasn’t just because I met them yesterday,” she whispered.
“What do you mean?” Juniper asked.
“It wasn’t a human death and they did things that humans can’t do.”
“Okay…” Juniper said. We looked at each other. We knew what she was getting at, but neither of us wanted her to say it.
“I don’t know what killed them, but it wasn’t a human. No human could have done what I saw. As for Zander and Kizzy. They felt… Different. Kind of magical. Kind of like the gods would.”
“Damn it,” Juniper said. “Don’t tell me what I know you’re going to tell me. Please, don’t.”
“I think they’re demigods.”
Ψ
“This is a Bad Idea. Capitals on both words!” Juniper said, buckling her seatbelt. Jasmine was in the passenger’s seat and I was in the back. After telling us of her visions, Jasmine decided she had to warn the two people who helped her out last night. Naturally, neither Juniper nor I wanted to leave her alone for that.
Which led to an argument. Which led to us getting in Juniper’s car. Jasmine and I shared one and it was next to Juniper’s. No one but her drove this car and that was reflected by the fact she didn’t have to adjust the seat, mirrors, or radio, which played music at a volume low enough that we could barely hear.
“I can’t let them just die!” Jasmine said. “I’m not even sure when this is supposed to happen! Today? Tomorrow? A week from now? A year? I don’t know, but if I tell them now, maybe they can avoid it.”
“Yeah, I’m sure they’ll welcome a bunch of strangers into their house and let us tell them they’re about to die.”
“They’re demigods,” I said. “The chances of them knowing what we are, are pretty high considering last night.” More than pretty high. I remembered the girl’s eyes getting wide when she saw me. At the time, I figured it was because I was covered in clay, but now I wonder. For those in the know, we’re pretty easy to spot for what we are. All Seers have the two different colored eyes. While a lot of people have something like that, the chances of meeting three siblings, all clearly around the same age, even if it’s not clear we’re triplets, with the left eye being gray and three different colors for their right eyes?
For people in the know, there was no denying we were Seers.
“Then why didn’t they mention it last night?” Juniper asked. “Admittedly, we’ve never met demigods, but wouldn’t they mention something, or try to get information out of us?”
That gave us all pause. Tentatively, like even she thought it was stupid suggestion, Jasmine said, “Maybe they didn’t want to use us for what we can see?”
There was silence, but the quiet had the quality of disbelief. We haven’t had much experience with people knowing what we can do, but the experiences we do have… Let’s just say it was hard to believe that someone wouldn’t want to take advantage of our abilities.
“Can we just try?” Jasmine asked. “Please?”
Juniper sighed. “Fine. Give me a second.” I watched her close her eyes in the rearview mirror. Seconds later she started talking. She described a living room. Then an apartment building. Finally, she rattled off some numbers and opened her eyes. Jasmine typed the address into her phone and hit navigate. A robotic voice started directing us and we got moving.
“We don’t even know what kind of demigods they are. What if their father is Hades or something?” Juniper asked.
“First of all, we have no proof that Hades is a bad fella,” Jasmine said.
“He kidnapped his wife,” Juniper pointed out.
“Love makes you do crazy things,” Jasmine said.
“You’re not allowed out of the house anymore,” I said.
“Second of all, even if he were their father, that doesn’t make them bad people. Third of all, they’re probably Zeus’s kids. You know that guy can’t keep it in his pants,” Jasmine finished.
“Oh, so we’re just inviting the wrath of Hera into our lives. Fantastic,” Juniper said. But she was driving and that’s the only thing that mattered.
I had a more important argument anyway. “How do we know they don’t deserve whatever’s coming to them?” I asked. “I’m not saying that anyone deserves to die, but how do we know they didn’t do something terrible, which is bringing this down upon their heads?”
Silence. Jasmine turned around to look at me. “I just feel like they don’t deserve it. Can’t that be enough?”
I sighed and sat back. “Yeah. That’ll be enough for me.”
The rest of the drive was quiet, with only the mechanical voice directed us towards the apartment building. We parked outside of it and stared at the façade. “Do you remember which apartment they live in?” Jasmine asked, unbuckling her seatbelt and reaching for the door handle.
“Yes, I do. Let’s do this before I lose what little courage I have,” Juniper said. Together we marched up to the apartment. There was a buzzer, but that’s easy to get around when you’re Jasmine. She hit buttons until someone answered and then she sweetly got us inside by claiming to be the tenant’s granddaughter. This place should have better security than that.
We all stood stiffly in the elevator. Juniper and I didn’t leave the house very often. I did the grocery shopping once a week, but that was pretty much
it. Juniper only left when she absolutely had to. Jasmine was new to this kind of thing as well. Essentially, this meant we looked super awkward and a tad bit shady.
The elevator stopped and we stepped out. Juniper walked down the halls, looking at the doors, until she found the one that we needed. Jasmine knocked and then we all stood there. I was prepared to catch Juniper when she made a run for it and that was just good enough for me.
We were only there for about thirty seconds before the door swung open. The guy was from last night answered. A few inches taller than me and large enough to look intimidating, if it weren’t for his face. His blond hair was normal, but his eyes weren’t. Now that I knew about his demigod status, they looked inhuman.
He blinked and pulled back in surprise. He opened his mouth, but didn’t get a word out before Jasmine barged into his apartment, talking. “All right, let’s cut to the chase. You’re both demigods. I don’t know who your parents are, so if you decide to smite me there isn’t jack shit I can do about it, but I promised my brother and sister that you wouldn’t, so please don’t make me look like a fool. They’ll never let me live it down. I’m a Seer. They’re Seers. You both know that. I can see the future, she can see the present which is how we found you and he can see the past. There. I’ve laid it all out. Now can we talk?”
Zander blinked. Which was really the only good response to a rant like that.
I nudged Juniper into the apartment. She was so tense that I half expected her to fall over. When she stepped over the threshold, I followed her and gently closed the door behind me. Something said that a human walking by at this moment would cause nothing but trouble.
The girl who’d been in my house yesterday was standing by the couch. Kezia. Her almost pink hair was hanging loose and she was in a shirt way too big for her. Those mostly green eyes were darting back and forth between us. Again, now that I knew she was a demigod, I could see the inhuman parts of her. Of both of them. They were both prettier than a human had a right to be. Their eyes were just a little off. Their skin too smooth. Their features too perfect.
