by JM Guillen
“No,” he huffed. “That would be silly.”
“So you don’t want to watch the door for assassins?”
“Of course not.” Simon gave Rehl a look, as if to say, “Assassins? Can you believe her?” Then, just like every time he took a seat, he sat in the back corner.
So he could watch the door.
I sat next to him with Baxter, Rehl, and Alicia on the opposite side of the table, their backs to the door.
But my friends were worried about more than assassins.
“I don’t care who starts talking, but they start now,” Alicia blurted in a rush, her panic shifted to anger. “What the fuck was all that?”
“A mistake,” I mumbled. “I never should have come here. I didn’t mean to get you guys involved.”
“That’s not very,” Simon cleared his throat and twirled one finger as he searched for the right word, “informative, little bird.” He grinned. “I reckon you oughta start about six years back.”
“Six years?” Rehl’s incredulity was almost funny. “So, you’ve been up to some kinda comic-book bullshit for six years now?”
“Maybe?” I furrowed my brow as I thought. “I guess so.”
“I need a beer.” Rehl turned to look for the barman. “I don’t have a lot of cash, but I can afford one. I think I’m going to need it.”
“On me. An evening of beers.” Simon pushed himself up. “I’ll go tell Jonathon.” He pointed to me. “You get started.”
“Fine.” I gave my friends a weak smile.
“So.” Alicia’s tone wasn’t exactly chilly, but she wasn’t happy. “Six years ago is just after your folks divorced and you left the city.”
“Yeah, about then.” I nodded agreement. “Mom and I had just moved out to Syracuse, and I was mad about it.” I grinned and remembered my youthful fury. “I promised myself I was going to keep practicing parkour, even if the four of us probably weren’t going to start our own team.”
“Parkour?” Rehl chuckled. “You mean ‘Dark Thunder,’ our badass free running team?”
“You chose that awful name.” I stuck my tongue out at him. “But yeah.”
“How does free running figure into—” Baxter gesticulated toward the hotel, several blocks away. “Disemboweled spectres who speak through a theatre screen?”
“Parkour fits in very neatly, as a matter of fact.” I cut off as Simon returned and helped him pass out the drinks. “You see, Bax, it was about six years ago I discovered I wasn’t actually that great at parkour.” I gave him a mischievous grin. “Turns out, I’d been cheating.”
2
June 12, 1991- Six Years Ago
Syracuse, New York
“Yer doin that wrong.”
Who—? I stopped mid-leap, frozen in place. I had checked the alleyway only a moment before, and it had been entirely empty.
I turned and braced myself to run. An older man with a cane stood less than three steps from me. He had long grey hair, a tarnished bolo tie, and smiling blue eyes.
“I get why a’course. Pro’lly got used to doin’ it that way. Made it easier,” he drawled in a deep Texan basso.
“Doing what wrong?” I’d been coming here for a week or so to practice my vertical jumps. The fire escape in this alleyway hung just a bit low, and I’d found with some practice and focus, I could leap up and catch it.
“That jump.” He pointed at the fire escape with his cane.
“Oh,” I sneered a bit. “Can you do better?” I made a point of glancing at the stranger’s cane, then his legs.
“Nope.” He grinned. “Ain’t about what I can do. Thing is though, you’ve been coming here a while.”
“Yeah,” I sighed and cocked my head at him. “So?”
“Most little missies won’t stick with a thing.” He rolled his eyes, just a bit. “They’ll bounce to the next shiny bauble just as soon as they get bored. So, since you’ve been comin’ a while, I assume you want to get better.”
“Of course I want to get better.” I fixed the odd man with a skeptical eye.
“So,” he paused and added almost magnanimously, “you’re doin’ it wrong. If someone doesn’t tell you about it, you won’t get better.”
“Whatever.” I turned my back to him. “I have a vertical jump of about thirty-five inches, which is considered astounding for my age.”
“Astounding for almost any age.” He nodded agreement. “But you’re cheating. I was pretty sure you didn’t know it, but now I’m certain.”
“Yeah?” I swung my arms and took another leap, and grasped the cool iron of the fire escape. I hung there for a second, dropped, and then did it again. “How am I cheating?”
“That’s a good question. May I show you?”
“Sure.” I dropped to the ground, and turned to face him again. “You wanna come over here and give it a go?”
“No,” he chuckled. “My vertical jump might be somewhere around eight inches. Also, I think it might be foolish for me to approach a strange young woman in an alleyway.” He paused. “You might be an assassin.”
“What?” I blinked.
“Here’s what I suggest. I’m going to guess you have made that particular jump a few dozen times today.”
“I do ten cycles of ten. I’m about halfway done.”
“Have you missed yet today?”
“No,” I replied smugly. “It’s been several days since I missed even one.”
“Here’s what I’m going to do.” The odd man reached into one of the pockets of his faded jeans where he pulled out a crisp bill. “This is a fifty dollar bill. I’m going to set it here, beneath this rock.” He did exactly that, simply bent over and placed the money beneath the stone. Then, he took several steps away.
“Weird.” I furrowed my brow at him.
“You say you’ve made dozens a’ these jumps. You also think you’re doin’ it properly.” He raised one bushy eyebrow at me. “I’m tellin’ you right now you’ll miss the next one. If’n you do, you have to admit there might be somethin’ going on that you don’t understand.”
“And if I don’t?” I couldn’t help but let a bit of sarcasm trace its way into my words.
“If you don’t, if you catch the next jump exactly as you have the last several dozen, you can have this fifty dollar bill.”
“That’s it?” I shook my head. “Mister, you must be looking to lose fifty bucks.”
“Show me,” his tone dropped an octave into a commanding bass. “Put up or shut up.”
What a weirdo. Still, no way was I going to pass up an easy fifty bucks. I took a few extra moments to prepare for this one, rocking back and forth on bit on my knees as I swung my arms like pendulums.
Just before I leapt, an insectine buzz whirled around my head. I paused just before the jump, swiping my hand frantically.
“Something wrong?” The man’s deep bass remained, but now sounded caramel sweet.
“No,” I practically spat and swiped again for the bug I could not see. “Just a horse fly or something.”
“Oh, I thought you might have changed your mind.”
Could he be responsible? He seemed to be playing ignorant awfully hard. I shot ol’ Tex a dirty look, thinking about the convenience of the sudden distraction. When he shrugged his shoulders, radiating innocence, I turned back to my leap.
One, two… I rocked myself back and forth, though I knew full well I didn’t truly require it. I had been loosening up for over an hour, and by now this vertical jump was easy—
Except that I missed.
My hands scrabbled for the rung but I got nowhere close.
“What the fuck?” I stumbled when I landed, stunned at my monumental failure. I must’ve missed by over ten inches!
“Language.” The older man warned. “I know you’re disappointed, but that’s not how a lady—”
“What the hell did you do?” I whirled on him, my temper already flaring. “How did you do that?”
“How did I do what?” He shrugged, and then bent over to
pick up his money. “I was all the way over here the whole time.”
“That’s just bullshit,” I muttered as I glared at the fire escape. I bent my knees again and rocked myself into position before I took another leap, this time fueled by a combination of righteous anger and a not so subtle shade of teenage embarrassment.
I missed again.
“I’m gonna leave now.” I could hear the grin in his voice before I turned around. “Good news is, here in about ten minutes you’re gonna to go right back to bein’ able to cheat, just like you were before.”
“You did do something!” I was still angry, but my curiosity had started to win. “How did you do it?”
“Here’s what we’re going to do.” He gave me a rakish grin. “Tomorrow, I’m going to be havin’ lunch at Merkin’s. It’s a little diner over on Fayette Street.”
“Okay.” I didn’t understand what he was getting at.
“If you wanna know more, then you should show up.” He shrugged. “I’ll tell you all about it.”
“Why don’t you tell me now?” It was difficult to keep the irritation out of my voice.
“Because I don’t have to.” He smirked. “By the way, my name is Simon. Young ladies shouldn’t be meeting strangers in alleyways.”
“This is ridiculous,” I muttered beneath my breath.
“You’re free to do whatever you want.” He turned away from me. “I’ll be at Merkin’s at twelve thirty. If you want your answers, you’ll be there too.”
3
August 29, 1997-Present day
New York, New York
“Wow.” Baxter shook his head so hard he had to readjust his glasses. “I remember that girl. I’d bet that pissed her right off.”
“Oh, it did,” I chuckled. “I stopped training for that day. I walked around for hours, fuming.”
“I still can’t believe you kept training, even after you moved away from New York.” Rehl encompassed the entire city with one sweep of his hand. “I never guessed you would keep trying to practice free running.”
“Well, I was right pissed off. I had no control over the hair-brained crap my parents did, but I could control parkour.”
“So you just went and ate with a weirdo you met in the alley.” Alicia flushed as she glanced at Simon. “No offense.”
“Well, yeah. I knew that Simon was up to something.” I elbowed him.
“To be fair,” Simon paused to take a drink of his beer, “I was up to somethin’.”
“So, you’d figured out that she was doing something… magical?” Alicia shoved reddened hair behind her ears with one savage swipe. “She wasn’t just using her natural talents?”
“It’s very important that we establish our terms, early on.” Simon eyed Alicia. “If you start usin’ words like ‘magic’ or ‘spirit,’ things get messy.” He took a longer drink of his beer. “The difficult bit is the baggage that comes along with certain words.”
“I saw what she did.” Alicia set her jaw stubbornly. “That wasn’t natural.”
“Well.” Simon grinned. “The thing is—”
4
June 13, 199-Six Years Ago
Syracuse, New York
“The thing is that it’s difficult for you to understand what’s happening.” Simon sat across from me, his greasy burger halfway eaten. “There are all kinds a’ stories about this kind of nonsense. Myths and the like.” He took a bite. “This is completely natural.”
“This doesn’t seem natural to me.” I sat and stared at my strawberry shake. When I glanced up at the clock, the time blew me away.
Two-thirty? How long had we been talking? I’d expected to walk in and find out it had all been some kind of con or that he was a clever pervert with a sick sense of humor.
Instead, when I had walked in the door ready to tell the crazy old man he was full of shit, he had held out an old ball cap to me, ready with another challenge.
“Here’s the game,” he smirked. “Yesterday, I was able to tell you I felt certain you weren’t gonna make a jump.”
“It was a trick.” I slid into the booth across from him and gave him a confident smile. “I don’t know how you did it, but I’m certain it was bullshit.”
“Language.” He looked at me with genuine disapproval. “If I’m gonna teach you, I need you to at least attempt to be a young lady.”
“Teach me?” I scoffed. “What do you possibly have to teach me, Simon?”
“Here’s how it works.” He set the hat between us on the table. “I want you to put this ball cap on.”
“Why?” I glanced down at the blue and white cap, bewildered.
“Remember yesterday when you couldn’t even catch that fire escape?” He favored me with a wicked grin. “Well, today will be different. Today, you’re gonna break all your personal records.”
“Yeah?” I took the old cap in hand and tried to see anything special about it. “Why should that be?”
“I’ve already told you the way things are.” He took a long drink of his soda. “Up to you now. If you wanna know more, then you’ll put the ball cap on.”
“Fine.” I pulled my hair back into a ponytail, and put on the old beaten cap. “My God, it’s amazing.” I rolled my eyes.
Yet—
It was. That cap fit perfectly. The moment I had it on my head, I felt the wild and tumultuous storm, deep in my heart stir. Something…
It just felt right.
“My goodness. Someone’s lost their sass.” Simon raised an eyebrow.
“Have not.” I glared at him.
“Why don’t you step outside?” He took another sip of his cola. “There’s an alley just to the side of this place. Step back there and see how good your vertical jump is today.”
“Whatever,” I sneered. “Like a ball cap is going to make a difference.”
5
August 29, 1997-Present Day
New York, New York
“I don’t know how much you remember about parkour.” I took a sip of my beer, and gazed at my friends. “But I wasn’t exaggerating. A thirty-five inch vertical jump is kind of a big deal.”
“That’s true,” Rehl agreed. “There are basketball players who would kill to hit that mark.”
“Gotta be a nineteen dexterity at least,” Baxter added.
“So there I am. Fifteen-year-old Liz, in an alleyway behind a greasy diner. I’ve got a shitty blue ball cap on my head, and, probably, a pissed off look on my face.”
“Language,” Simon muttered then favored me with a smile. “You had more than a little spit and fire to you, I’ll agree.”
“I don’t know if you recall,” I confided to my friends, “but I was really proud of the progress I’d made.”
“Like I don’t remember,” Rehl scoffed. “You were all about trying to get us to practice three hours a day after school when you still lived in the city.”
“When I stood in that alleyway and pulled off a vertical jump almost three times as high as anything I had ever done, I flipped my shit.”
“Hmm,” Simon harrumphed, but didn’t say anything about language.
“Three times?” Alicia fixed me with an uncertain glance.
“I could literally jump higher than I was tall.” I shook my head, remembering. “Like I suddenly had a dexterity of…” I glanced at Baxter. “Twenty-two.”
“That’s…” Baxter trailed off, his voice more than a little awed.
“Wonderful,” I admitted. “It was like flying. On my first jump, I could almost see the roof of Merkins. I must have looked like a goofy idiot.”
“An hour passed before she came inside,” Simon said.
“It’s not just the jumping, though.” Rehl affixed me with a shrewd eye.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“There’s more to what you did in the anime room.”
“Wind. There was wind in there,” Baxter stated.
“I’ll get to the wind.” I drew in a deep breath to say more, but Alicia interrupte
d.
“How does it work?” She leaned forward, a bit eagerly, I thought. “It must be some kind of psychic ability or mystical power.”
“Again.” Simon affixed her with a stern eye. “Words, and the names we give things, truly matter.” He sighed. “As soon as we decide what Liz does is some kind of ‘magic,’ all kinds of other problems pop up along with it.”
“Like what?” Alicia sipped her beer, obviously not convinced.
“There are all kinds of urban fantasy stories that are popular now.” He favored her with a grin. “People acquainted with vampires and werewolves and such. Also, a lot of the old religions are re-surfacing.” He gestured to the pentacle hung about her neck.
“Yeah? So?” She leaned back with a huff, almost offended.
“So let’s say you decided what Liz does qualified as some offshoot of ‘magic.’” He gave her a soft smile. “That means one thing to you, but somethin’ entirely different to, say, Father O’Callahan at the local parish. Or Miss Julliette, a Baptist in Jacksonville, Mississippi.”
“Prejudices.” Alicia pointed at Simon.
“More’n that.” He turned to regard me. “A lot more.”
“Believe it or not, broom-stache here really knows his weird physics.” I elbowed Simon. “Father O’Callahan is doing more than just railing on about sins and hellfire. Everyone has their own contribution to the reality we experience.”
“So we create our own reality.” Alicia, freshly anointed in the logic of two dozen New Age books, nodded slowly.
“Yes,” I hedged hesitantly.
“No,” Simon stated firmly. “Liz is capable of shifting some of the laws of physics, literally altering reality along a few parameters. Yet neither you, I, nor anyone we know can really explain how that happens. Therefore, it’s kinda ignorant to simply lump it into ‘magic.’”
“Magic is just a mental shorthand anyway,” Rehl muttered thoughtfully. “Altering reality with your will sure looks a lot like magic.”
“Great point!” Simon agreed. “Maybe it’s better to use ‘altering reality’ as the idea for what people like Liz do.”
