21
SERENA
It all happened in the fifth grade.
We’d been watching the Red Badge of Courage. English class, Mr. Reilly. As usual, I was in the front of the class — put there because I’d probably been caught goofing off with my friends. I was sitting a little too close to the screen, and leaning back in my chair to see better… and that’s when everything changed for me.
Forever.
From what I was told, I lost my balance and fell backward. I sure as shit don’t remember. The fall must’ve made some impression, because even years later they still talked about it, every one of my classmates — the hollow sound of my skull cracking against the floor.
I hit so hard I went into convulsions, and ended up in a full-blown seizure. Mr. Reilly aged a whole decade that day, or so he told me later, long years after I went back to visit him before he passed away.
In any case I woke up in the hospital some forty hours later, dizzy and disorientated, but no less worse for wear. Other than having the worst headache in the history of headaches, I felt totally fine. In fact, I actually felt clearer than normal. Much clearer, as if some kind of a film had been lifted from my cognitive perception and I could see everything with a stark new clarity.
It was weird, because I got better grades after that too. My parents joked that the fall must’ve jarred something loose, or maybe knocked something back into place that suddenly made me smart. I saw it differently thought. To me, it always felt like something inside my head had been… realigned. Put somewhere it had originally meant to be, but for some reason, never was.
Other than that, there was no way to know what I could really do. Not until I actually did it. That part happened a few months later, and again at school. A kid named Scotty Howe thought it would be funny to unhook my legs while I was hanging upside-down on the monkey bars. I fell to the sand and hurt my shoulder a little, but the real damage was from the other kids’ laughter, which hurt my pride.
I saw him later in the week, on the swing, pumping as high as he could. Trying to do that thing kids do, where they actually believe if they swing fast enough they’ll pull off that magical ‘full loop’.
Watching him there, smiling and laughing, made me intensely angry. I wanted him to fall, wanted him to eat the dirt face-first, just like I had. I began imagining it in my mind’s eye. Saw it actually happen, and the visual made me smile. I even pointed my arm at him, swinging it back and forth like a pendulum, as if I could somehow make the disaster unfold.
At the very apex of his next swing I flicked my fingers outward, as hard as I could.
And then I pushed.
Scotty didn’t just slip off the swing, he went flying. I watched in abstract disbelief as he sailed through the air and slammed into the back fence, which had to be a good twenty yards away from the swingset. He tried to scream, but all the air had been knocked from his lungs.
A whistle blew. The teacher’s aids came running. And a whole crowd of kids swarmed quickly around him.
The grim satisfaction I thought I’d enjoy was spoiled by worry. Not worry for Scotty — he could fuck off, really. Worry that someone would know it was me.
Scotty broke his collarbone in three places, and became playground legend from that moment onward. On my end, it took another day or two for the whole thing to really sink in.
Scotty hadn’t done this, I had. I’d been the one responsible for what happened.
I couldn’t believe it myself, until I went outside and tried it again. First on an empty bottle, then on a pile of bricks my father had intended on laying a path with.
Then on a car.
That part scared the shit out of me. It scared the hell out of the guy driving past my house, too. I didn’t flip the car over or anything, but I pushed it hard enough to kick the rear end outward and make him fishtail as he turned the corner.
I also pushed it hard enough to make my nose bleed.
Over time, I found out there were limitations as to what I could do. But not many, though. I considered lots of options as I grew older, one that included driving down to Atlantic City the moment I turned twenty-one and pushing the roulette ball around until I got rich.
That never happened. On the summer after my eighteenth birthday the old lady showed up, and over the course of some very expletive-riddled conversations, convinced me to ride with her to Blackstone Manor.
Fuck you Xiomara.
In the end though, it had been good for me. Joining the Hallowed Order gave me structure. Purpose. It opened doors to a world I’d never known about; a world I developed a love for, and wanted to study.
And it was a world I was a part of, too. In that sense, I myself was a case analysis. I learned I was telekinetic, and powerfully so. There were books in the archives that spoke of other people who could move objects — coins, pencils, even stones. But no one in the Order — previously or now — had seen abilities anywhere near the extent of mine.
The Order gave me everything I needed — at least for a while. I read voraciously. Learned everything I could, went on every assignment I was given and then tagged along on others. I wanted to see everything. Every shining pinnacle and darkest corner of the paranormal world.
Even what happened in Savannah.
It was Xiomara who brought me in though. Xiomara’s people who taught me how to control and focus my abilities. Blackstone Manor became a second home for me, and its members my family. And then the Order gave me something more, too.
It gave me Alex.
I told all of this to Broderick, as we lay basking warmly in that peaceful orange glow. Everything about my life, my abilities, my origins. All of these things I’d never told anyone else, not completely anyway, not even within the Hallowed Order.
Everything but Alex. That part I kept just for me.
“Wow. That’s some story.”
I whirled, and there was Damien, standing in the doorway. I had no clue how long he’d been there, how much he’d heard. But for some strange reason, his presence didn’t seem an intrusion at all.
“I knew you’d get away,” said Broderick, without looking up.
“Oh I did more than get away.”
He held something up, something that dangled on a leather thong. In the dim light I could barely make it out: a carved jade pendant, in the shape of a wave.
I gasped. “Your totem!”
Damien nodded, his long hair bouncing against his shoulders. “Christophe was wearing it. The asshole.”
Broderick sat up abruptly, and the little blanket we’d been sharing between us fell off. He didn’t seem to even notice his nakedness. “And what about Christophe?”
“He got away,” said Damien. “Or rather, I got away. From the two of them.”
I noticed he was scratched up also, but not badly. And he had some clothes on too. Not the same ones he’d been wearing before though.
“Wanna hear even better news?”
Broderick nodded.
“I got here without returning to the surface.”
I didn’t know what that meant, but Broderick seemed pretty excited about it. His eyes widened visibly. “So there was a connection? And you found it?”
“Yes. I even remembered to mark the tunnels, too.”
Broderick stood and practically hugged him, pulling the rest of the blanket off me in the process. Damien looked down at me knowingly.
“I see you finally mated her,” he smirked.
Broderick said nothing. He really didn’t have to. I on the other hand, rolled my eyes.
“You guys and this mated stuff!” I sighed. “I still don’t get it.”
“Fine,” Damien allowed. “You had sex.”
“We fucked, if that’s what you’re asking.”
He shrugged and crossed his arms, still grinning. “The point is, I’m off the hook now.” He smacked Broderick in the shoulder. “Right?”
Broderick winced at the contact. “We’ll see.” He grabbed his shorts again, then began tossing me my clothes. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
I stood up, and both men’s eyes went immediately to my naked body. Humorously, I found that I didn’t even care. They could look at me all they wanted. It wasn’t anything they hadn’t seen before.
Damien’s eyes in particular crawled down my legs. When they reached my feet however, his expression changed to one of grave disappointment.
“Oh man,” he groaned. “You had to do it in my bed?”
This time it was Broderick’s turn to laugh. “Fine,” he winked at me. “Maybe I was wrong about him being mad.”