Forgotten Pages

By Leonard Petracci

A Places of Power Prequel Novella

Dedication

To my family, friends, and online community —without them, this would not be possible.

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars —mere globs of gas atoms. I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more?

-Richard Feynman

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

INTRODUCTION

Superpowers are based on the topography of where someone is born.

Chapter 1

Cane had known the nameless man for as long as he could remember, though he had existed far before that. And since he was four, he knew the nameless man’s story as well.

Before his father’s time, before his father’s father’s time—for four generations, the memory of the nameless man persisted. But the nameless man’s own memory—well, that reached even before that. Not even Cane’s father knew how long.

It had been Cane’s great-great-grandfather who met the nameless man—no, not met—found. Discovered.

Back then, the man had been both naked and nameless—his skin cherry from sunburn, the points of his ribs threatening to poke through skin, facedown and sprawled across the sand. Cane’s great-grandfather spent his nights as a fisherman and found the pale form as he scoured the rocks for sea urchins visible only in the light of the moon, a variety possible to harvest only with his family’s special power. A power passed down through the years, accessible only through birth in a secret sea cave off the coast, which washed away the cretin clinging to its rocks each morning with the foam of the ocean.

As he unloaded the bags of urchins, coupled with nets full of pufferfish, Cane’s great-great-grandfather spotted the body and rushed over fend off impatient crabs already lined up to pick at the limited meat. He felt the man’s pulse—one that was faint, but present. And as he prepared to carry him into town, the nameless man’s eyelids fluttered open, and he drew in a deep breath of air.

There Cane’s great-great-grandfather stood as the sun broke over the edge of the horizon, and the waves lapped at the nameless man’s toes. The light illuminated their faces as their stares met—one who fished above the waves, and the other appearing as if he had been born by the sea itself. Cane’s great-great-grandfather froze, transfixed as he looked into those eyes—the pupils larger than any he had ever seen, entirely eclipsing the iris, with a depth that seemed to go beyond comprehension. Salt crusted the wrinkles in the nameless man’s face, falling like dust to intermingle with the sand as he opened his mouth and spoke, gripping Cane’s great-great-grandfather’s arm with fingers so strong, they nearly broke skin.

“John,” he rasped, attempting to pull himself to his feet but instead pulling him low enough to speak into his ear. “I’ve been looking for you, John.”

John tried to pull back, but the grip was too strong to break, and the man only dragged him closer, until he could feel the gristle rubbing on his cheek.

“How-how did you know my name?” John asked, the words stumbling out. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he thought back to his boat bobbing just offshore, where the fish needed to be gutted, the nets mended, and the urchin pickled. As if those repetitive tasks were more real than the man who croaked once again, his voice desperate.

“I know many things, John. Too many things, I know more than I should know.”

Then the man lowered his voice, turning to an urgent whisper. John’s heart thudded as the nameless man started speaking his secrets, sentences that made John flinch as they were exposed to the air.

“I know of the man you killed, John. Nine and a half beers in you were, and every night you wish it were more, so you wouldn’t have to remember. You just meant to push him off the boat, didn’t you? Didn’t expect his head to hit the railing. But damn, were you happy for that storm the next night, so you could claim the sea had taken him.

“I know you pretend that your wife never had an affair with the baker. It was easier to just move, wasn’t it? Or how about your second son—his eyes look just like your neighbor’s. But not like yours.

“I know you still love the Angela who went on to be the mayor’s wife. You wonder if she thinks about you. I know she doesn’t.”

The man kept speaking—and with each flurry of words, he uncovered something new, touching upon secrets of his own so deep that John barely knew of their own existence in his mind—fears and prides, loves and hates, the very stones from which his consciousness was built. A calling so apt that it seemed to take him by the soul.

“Who are you?” breathed John when the nameless man finished, his eyes still dilated despite the rising sun, which had just reached a half circle. “And what do you want?”

“Of all that I know, myself I do not,” came the answer. “But what I want is you, John. I need your help.”

Chapter 2

Cane’s father had shown him how to use his power at a young age—as he had once learned, he demonstrated on their family’s old trade, the pufferfish and the urchin.

“People pay dearly to stand at the edge of death,” said his father, setting down a pufferfish on the cutting board. “And we, we provide the means. Any fisherman can pull this variety of pufferfish from the water. Any cook can slice it up, fillet it, serve it. But few besides us can do it without killing anyone—only we can separate the poison from the flesh in this fashion.”

With a knife, he cracked the fish’s neck, then sliced it expertly, cutting the meat away in clean strips. Cane watched in fascination as his father worked, preparing five at once, discarding the entrails and leaving the edible portions in strips along his cutting board.

“The marble is porous,” said his father, tapping the edge with the knife’s steel tip. “With every fish, it draws in more poison. And with every fish, it reaches a further degree of maturity, offering flavors that none but us can match. Like our power, this board has been passed down time and time again. The highest quality is the fish that has been permeated by the poison, undergone its effects, been changed—and leaves that behind for the human to taste. A cliff on the edge of death, but we remove the cliff.”

Taking Cane’s hands, he guided them over the raw fish and marble, holding them six inches above by the wrist. Cognizant of his father’s warning about the fish, he tried to jerk away, but his hands were held fast. He drew a quick breath as his father’s voice came behind him, as sharp as the knife’s edge.

“Before you is enough poison to kill a thousand men. Think about that—an entire village, motionless in moments. More destruction than even the highest powers can accomplish, god forbid. Feel it beneath you, sense the pungency, the concentration of it. The strength.”

Closing his eyes, Cane steadied himself, flexing his forearms to quell the quivering that stretched to his fingertips. At first, there was nothing—just the cold emanating from the marble and the smell of the sea. But then, something pricked at him, as if it were digging into the crevice between his fingerprints. It sank through skin, almost an oozing, a black tar that reached all the way to his bones.

“There, that’s it,” whispered his father. “Now pull at it. Soak it up into yourself, take it upon you—and leave no traces behind.”

Cane’s fingers arched, and it was like drawing a thick milkshake through a straw, the essence resisting his command. Opening his eyes, he squinted, the bones on the back of his hand bowing upwards, straining, pulling.

He never saw it, but he felt it—like a twister, the pool of poison spiraled upwards and into the center of his palm, digging just beneath his calluses. For a moment, his vision darkened, and he gasped, stumbling backwards before catching himself on the back wall. A current raced under his skin, like adrenaline but duller, a throbbing that held weight.

Before he could recover, his father stepped forwards, pulling off a small piece of the raw fish and popping it into his mouth, his cheeks puckering inwards as he chewed. Then he sighed and placed a hand on Cane’s back. Cane took a wobbling step forwards, simultaneously dizzying and exhausting.

“The best I’ve had,” said his father, and squeezed his shoulder. “And so the talent continues. Perhaps stronger now than ever.”

Chapter 3

Cane knew that the other kids at school spent their time with their fathers in sport—tennis was popular in their community, as was baseball—and he often saw them playing catch. But for his father, that was too sedentary.

Instead, they took up running.

After each night of working the nets and gathering urchins, finished with a grueling session of detoxification, he’d tie his shoes and stretch on their porch. Then his father would join, and they’d shrug off the day at a trot. On lighter days, they ran eight miles. On harder days, sixteen.

Of course, it all depended on the size of their pufferfish catch.

“Do we really have to today?” Cane complained once as they rounded eight miles and showed no sign of stopping. Already, it had been an hour of running, and with winter rapidly approaching, the cold air burned his lungs while darkness descended. This was his least favorite part of the run—a final hill that bore down on them, their house perched at the top, safe from the floods that came during the hurricane season.

“The ability to remove toxins does not come free,” Cane’s father puffed, his shoes slapping the ground. “When you take in the toxins, they do not disappear. Rather, the body converts it to fat, storing it away until it can be processed. Something to remember, in case you are ever in a survival situation—you’ll be hungry, but you shall not perish so long as you can find poison. But without running it off, in our profession, it would be a matter of weeks before we’d be lucky to walk! It’s best to stay in the habit.”

Cane groaned as they reached the top of the hill then continued past his house. At the pace his father was going, they would be running sixteen. But he had anticipated that—whenever his father met with the nameless man, it was always sixteen. Sometimes even more.

As the years passed, his father brought him to additional workouts—he kept the variety high, including swimming, as well as a variety of martial arts. For Cane, he had little use for fighting—but earning the belts burned calories faster than most other ways and taught him the discipline his father said he would one day need.

***

When Cane was twelve, his father allowed him to start coming on fishing expeditions.

“Stand there, on the prow,” his father commanded as they made their way into open water. “Arms wide, hold your fingers open, feel the wind pass between them. Breathe the salt. And with each trough of the waves, as the boat reaches its lowers point, concentrate. Remember the feeling of the poison that I taught you. Now sense it below you, and find it.”

Cane followed his father’s command, nearly losing his balance as the water churned. He knew his father would find him if he fell, but it was night, the water was deep, and not too far behind, the propeller whirred with blades that would turn him into sushi. He found his way once more, then directed his thoughts below, probing the darkness with his mind.

Down there, nothing existed but an abyss, an infinite void of turbulent silence. Then there was something else—a glimmer, almost like a shooting star, so dim that he might have imagined it. So quick that he only identified the streak, not the shimmering particle itself.

Another flash streaked by, strobing in a whip-like pattern in an arc underneath the boat, darkening as it took a sudden downturn. Two more danced by in tandem, repelling off each other like elastic before making way for a third. Deep below, farther than the dancing streaks, other presences called to Cane from the ocean floor, immovable coals in the sand that he knew to be urchins.

“There are two parts to being a fisherman,” said his father as Cane continued to absorb the world below. “There is the part I have already shown you—the cleaning and removal of poison, the preparation. But just as important is the catching of fish—or more important, their selection. You may have wondered why we do not hire others to fish for us—anyone with a lick of skill can cast a net into the water and bring us the result. The answer is this—our quality starts from the beginning, and we alone can hunt the best.”

Cane’s father stilled the boat, and Cane heard the rustling of a net behind him as he gathered the cords, then continued to speak.

“Search below and feel for the strongest poisons. Separate those out—they will be the ones we target.”

And as Cane sensed, he found one moving streak that seemed to pull far more weight than the others, and his face tracked it as it slipped through the water. His father pushed the net into his hands as his eyes were still closed, and he waited for the perfect moment, when the streak stilled for a half second. With a lunge, the weights hit the water, dragging the cords down in a trap, as below, the pufferfish panicked.

“It is only the most poisonous that are worth your time,” said his father as they dragged the net upwards. “The others, the lesser fisherman, can have the rest. But us? We alone can realize their full utility.”

Chapter 4

By the time he was fifteen, Cane handled the nets on his own, then filleted and detoxified half the pufferfish. At sixteen, his father taught him how to handle the urchins, which were more difficult to find due to their diluted volumes of poison and required far more finesse. At seventeen, he ran nearly the entirety of the family business, expanding his reach to all the pufferfish, and completing the necessary cardio on his own even on days his father no longer needed to participate.

But it wasn’t until eighteen that his father brought him to work with the nameless man.

Cane had known the nameless man, of course. Throughout his youth, the man had always been present. He lived with their family, but more than that, he was a storyteller, Cane’s primary source of entertainment in a household without cable.

Every Sunday night, and sometimes more if Cane pleaded hard enough, the nameless man would stay at the table after family dinner. Next to him, Cane’s father would be seated, and with a brush of his hand, the nameless man would stir. Eyes that were otherwise glassed over focused, and he straightened up in his seat, blinking as if he had just awakened. Then he’d launch into a story, the words repeated with cadence as if they were memorized, as Cane leaned forwards so far that his knuckles bruised against the tabletop.

Each week brought a fresh story—some from hundreds of years back, referencing the times of kings and queens. Detailing how the old wars were fought over not just resources and land, but sites regarded then as holy, places where the most desired Special powers were born. There was the battle of Snowshard Peak, which produced Blizzarders with the unique capability of producing shards of ice, optimal for battles across open planes. Then there was the two hundred years’ war of Healer’s Hill, fought for a sacred mound discovered on a plot of farmland that delivered powers so strong, they could resurrect troops of soldiers from the brink of death, extending the conflict until a particularly massive battle finally destroyed the site. There was the tale of King Joshom, a Telepath with enough talent he could sense ill will towards him from dozens of miles away, sentencing all who had a shred of resistance to his ideas to death, and resulting in the overrun of his kingdom in a matter of months when no one was left to protect it.

But Cane’s favorite story from the nameless man was ancient, over a thousand years old.

“There are few accounts left of Pieli,” the nameless man began when he first told it, stretching his neck as he sipped on tea provided by Cane’s mother, and Cane’s legs drummed under the table as he waited. “And fewer that are accurate. Many dispute his existence, saying it was mere folklore and legend—but a primary source exists to corroborate the claims.

“Pieli was said to be the finest carpenter of his time—he was born an orphan, but recognized at a young age for his abilities as a Vibrant, allowing him vast control over plants. Seeing the potential applications of his power, a fabrics guild adopted him, using him to grow varieties of dye that were not available in the climates of the region. After a few years, Pieli grew so talented that he surpassed the tasks given to him by his supervisors—at the time, blue and yellow were the sought-after colors in fashion, but this was because they were the brightest from the materials at hand. By the time he was a teenager, Pieli had nurtured his own strains that expanded into every color imaginable—he brought violets and greens, hues that could only be seen in the wildest flowers, and he quickly made his guild masters rich as their designs became the most coveted in the country. After earning their favor, he turned his eyes to the composition of their fabrics, and within a year, they became far more durable yet softer than their competitors’, singlehandedly turning the region’s cloth into the most popular in the world.

“But Pieli knew there was more he could accomplish—while his power was strong, he could only modify existing plants, and there was a limit to how much he could change them. So using the fortune of his guild masters, Pieli desired to travel the world, with the promise that the seeds he could find would bring them wealth beyond their imagination.

“And so he did. From the farthest reaches of the desert, he discovered cacti that naturally produced sweet water, and under his hand, it was used in everything from medicine to cooking. Diving deep into the ocean, he found seaweeds that had tensile strengths stronger than steel, a strain long lost to us though the remains exist to this day. He discovered plants that would only grow in certain soil compositions high in silver, which led his guild to not only control fabrics, but to extend into mining and prospecting as well. And by thirty years of age, he was a genius, a legend, a name so well known that merely stamping it on a product quadrupled the value.

“That is, until he met the tempest.

“Often, he travelled by sail—and back then, the technology was far less capable. The storm ripped the ship into splinters, casting the crew to their deaths at sea. Of them, Pieli was the only to survive, growing a raft from his seaweed as he was bucked through the waves. As the storm subsided, he floated for three days before finally coming adrift on an abandoned island.

“There, no trees grew, only grasses and bushes—even with his advanced abilities, he could not secure the lumber necessary for a boat. For weeks, he subsisted off of roots and sea life alone, his eyes on the horizon for a passing vessel, but seeing none. And it was only then that he developed a plan.

“With his power, Pieli sank the roots deep into the soil and drove the grasses into the ocean. They he commanded them to burrow deep into the sediment, carving their way under the island. For months they grew, his own beard reflecting their spread, until finally they met in a knot far underground. Then they squeezed, and with a pop, the island disconnected, now more vegetation than rock, and started to float.

“Pieli rode the currents, making the mass constantly larger. And with each passing day, he carved it to his liking—he added towers and bridges, blessed the life with wild colors, building it into his own small kingdom, until by the time he reached land, the island itself was the size of a city, making the other boats look like minnows.

“Pieli collected his vast fortune from the mainland, but returned to his island—and he made it into a workshop. Its fame spread, and the peoples of coastline cities would gather in crowds simply to watch it pass, waving as his wonderous creations floated their way ashore as gifts. Until his death, the island sailed around the world over ten times, and when he did die, it curled up in upon itself, sinking in a tomb that has not been found to this day.”

As usual, when the nameless man finished his story, his eyes returned to a glassy state, his animation lost, like a record player that has reached the end of the recording. But Cane asked many times for that same story, and each time the nameless man obliged, giving him the account of Pieli, until after several years, when something unforeseen occurred.

“Pieli!” cried Cane at the nameless man’s blank stare. “I want Pieli!”

“Pieli?” came the answer, along with a searching look., “I don’t know anyone by that name. Perhaps you mean Hippel, general of the Sandblasters?”

“No,” said Cane, drawing out the word. “You know, Pieli! The craftsman with the floating island.”

The nameless man stared back, his breath caught in his throat. For a moment, a look of panic crossed his face, until Cane’s father touched him on the arm, and he blinked it away.

“No, that can’t be right,” the nameless man said. “I have no recollection of a Pieli. But Hippel, that’s a story worth remembering.”

Then he launched into a story, one captivating and adventurous. But to Cane, it failed to measure up to his favorite. And no matter how many times he asked, Cane never heard the story of Pieli again.

Chapter 5

It was the off season—when the numbers of pufferfish dwindled from schools to stragglers, and the size of urchins dwindled, making excursions into the deep not worth the time and effort. Whatever Cane managed to pull up during this time had less meat and tasted bitter, so even if he could catch them, the prices plummeted. So instead, Cane and his father used these three months to mend the nets, reinforce any weakening in the hulls of their fishing boats, and catch up on handiwork around the house.

And they took the nameless man on his travels.

The month leading up to the off season was characterized by nervous fidgeting by the nameless man from his chair in front of the fire. No matter the time of year, he spent his days there, whether the fire was extinguished in the dregs of summer or roaring as the wintry gusts scoured the land. But in that last month, he stirred—often pacing or staring out the window—and Cane was reminded of how the family’s dog would act right before serving dinner, pawing that the bowl and whining.

Usually, his father would pack two large suitcases, one for himself and the other for the nameless man, then kiss Cane’s forehead as he instructed him to watch the family in his absence. Then they’d depart to the train station together, and anywhere from two to eight weeks, Cane would continue the handiwork alone, the house quiet, devoid of stories as his father’s running shoes sat idle at the door.

When they did return, his father had always taken on weight, and the nameless man’s eyes were sunken. They’d always carry a third suitcase, rather, a briefcase, one that they whisked away into the cellar and into a locked closet that Cane had never been able to force open. During their disappearances, he tried to pick the lock, spending nights down there in curiosity, careful not to leave scratches on the metal with each unsuccessful attempt.

At eighteen, his father instructed him to pack his own suitcase as they prepared, and Cane’s voice caught in his throat as he hurried to comply.

“What do I pack for?” he asked after rushing down from his closet. “Warm or cold? Where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” his father answered, glancing once at the nameless man, whose fingers were resting on the windowsill. “But pack for both, yet stay light. Whatever you can’t manage, we’ll acquire on the way.”

At his father’s word, Cane mixed shorts with workpants and overcoats with undershirts, adding both his fishing sandals and boots. He rummaged through his top drawer, emptying out the hard-earned bills from years of allowances he kept hidden in a sock and adding half to his pocket, then the half to the lining of his suitcase. It wasn’t much, but it was all he had—and he’d be keeping it split up in case of pickpockets or lost luggage. As his father said, it’s best to keep fish in separate nets.

His mother took them to the train station, a tear forming in her eye as she bid them goodbye. But with a touch from Cane’s father on her cheek, her eyes dried and she smiled, waving them off as they made their way to the destination map.

“So now can I know where we’re going?” asked Cane as the nameless man strode to the map board.

“Now we find out,” his father answered, watching the man as he studied the destinations. After a moment, he raised his head into the air, his eyes closed, chewing the side of his cheek as the wind tugged at his wispy hair. Then he nodded to the tracks departing to their right, and Cane’s father turned to him, pulling him forwards by the shoulder.

“North it is,” his father said, stopping only a moment to purchase three all-day tickets. And as they waited for the next train, he handed Cane a stack of bills, far more than what crumpled at the bottom of his pocket.

“We’ll be needing warmer clothes,” he said as the money weighed down Cane’s jaw more than his hand. “When we stop, pick some up for each of us. The sizes are in there. Spend it all.”

Chapter 6

Smoke trailed from the cottage chimney twenty miles from the main road, along a dirt path with trees that threatened to nudge the fenders of their car, and two frozen streams that cracked under their tires. From the back seat, Cane shivered—he’d just helped dig the car out from loose snow, and the melted slush permeated into his gloves and where his undershirt tucked into his pants.

Four days they had been traveling—the first three by train, taking a zigzagging pattern through the countryside, stopping at each major station and waiting for the nameless man’s judgment. They’d forgone planes, because he wouldn’t set foot inside them unless absolutely necessary. Too new, his father had explained when Cane brought up the idea at a stop, and then they’d continued onwards.

That last day, Cane bought the clothes while his father found a rental car, and Cane’s eyes grew wide as he saw the thickness of his father’s wallet as it reemerged. He’d always known that the pufferfish and urchins they sold were expensive, but he always thought the money went to things that held only a relative value to him—things like the mortgage, or medical insurance, or car payments. He’d never heard his parents quibbling about financials and they always seemed to earn just enough, to live simply with ease but not to live like the Warringtons down the street, who kept two sports cars polished to a bright sheen in their driveway and debt collection letters hidden in their mailbox.

As his father instructed, Cane found clothes that were not just warm, but of higher quality than they owned at home. Stick to black, his father had said, and the store clerk directed him to heavy overcoats and dress boots, which his father had approved. And now, as they parked their car outside the cottage and his father rapped on the door, his knuckles muffled on the wood by leather gloves, Cane realized they looked less like passersby and more like police inspectors.

The door cracked open, more to shield from the cold than from caution, and a young woman peered out, a fire dancing behind her in the hearth and casting her shadow out onto the snow. Her eyes narrowed as she saw them, pupils darting left and right between the three.

“Evening, Miss,” started Cane’s father, and the crack in the door started to slide shut before he could wedge in a shoe. But then the nameless man spoke, the words coming in a flurry of sounds that Cane vaguely recognized as French. The woman’s face whitened, and her fingers clutched at the door jamb, but the crack remained just wide enough for her to hear the words. Imploringly, the nameless man spoke a few more syllables, and she backed away, sliding the door open to give them passage.

“What’d he say?” whispered Cane to his father as they slid inside.

“The right thing,” his father answered as they stomped the snow off on the doormat and hung the coats on the waiting hooks. “Always the right thing.”

The woman disappeared, returning with cups filled to the brim with warm apple cider. After a few more words from the nameless man, she disappeared again, this time into a side room, returning with a boy that rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

He couldn’t have been more than six or seven, with a red one-piece pajama buttoned up to his chin and a bowl-cut halfway obscuring his eyebrows. He mumbled a few French sentences that even Cane could tell were broken, before his mother brought him before the nameless man, and he took the boy by the shoulders with a smile, speaking in a reassuring voice. Then, turning to Cane’s father, he said an order in plain English.

“It’s time.”

From a briefcase at his side, Cane’s father pulled out a leather bound journal, as well as a fountain pen, handing them both over. The nameless man picked a page from the middle, flittering past dozens of handwritten ones and through even more blanks before settling on one of his liking. Then he nodded to Cane’s father, who drew a deep breath, squaring his shoulders before extending an open palm over the nameless man’s face.

Cane saw the wrinkles on the nameless man’s face flare, the veins widening and pulsating with each heartbeat. His pupils dilated, taking the entire real estate of his eye, blocking out any white. And his hair stood on end, as if electrified or underwater, moving in slow waves like a field of grain.

But more than what Cane saw, was what he felt.

The familiar dark shadow passed between them, once hidden within the nameless man but now pricking Cane’s senses like a thousand needles. It slammed into his father as he stumbled backwards, an inky recoil he just managed to catch between his hands, holding it in space as it bled into his palms. His breathing turned labored, his eyes wide, and the hairs on Cane’s neck pricked as he felt more poison than an ocean of pufferfish.

Chapter 7

It was as if a lead blanket had been lifted from the nameless man. There were the straight shoulders, the back that arched upright instead of slumping, even the wrinkles that seemed to resist drooping. But more than his stature, there seemed to be a glow that emanated from him, a feeling opposite the blackness of poison. But instead of darkness, here was light.

It was the same man Cane saw a glimmer of during the storytelling—but now, the twinkle was replaced by a flood that washed over him like warmth from an open oven.

Before him, the young boy’s eyes turned wide, but no fear showed upon his face as the nameless man spoke a string of words in French.

Mesmerized, the boy spread his hands, his mother watching from the kitchen door frame. He angled one towards the fire, palm open, the heat and light drawing towards him in a tight vortex. Then, in his other hand, something white as snow started to form, almost like condensation. For a moment, the boy’s face scrunched, then the flakes started to coalesce, twisting together almost like a plant. Colors blossomed as the surface crackled, red liquid veins splitting down the sides, and crystals forming around them in small clusters. And slightly out of breath, the boy held his creation up to the nameless man, his face filled with a fierce pride.

With a smile, the nameless man accepted the object, which Cane could now see was a pastry, still steaming as if fresh from the oven, belonging far more in a baker’s window than in the cabin. The crystals had been sugar that crusted the top, the red a river of strawberry, the flakes the pastry itself. The nameless man took a small bite before setting it on the table, then started to write in his journal, speaking aloud as he did so, this time in English.

“A revision to the entry of Foodies.

“Born in tropical climates, namely islands of the Pacific, Foodies are among the rarest of powers. Only five cases are documented, though legends abound from times of famine or war, when wishful thinking may have inspired their existence more than reality itself. In four of the cases, sunlight provided the energy to produce consumable material—but in the fifth, an example of heat conversion from combustible material was observed, wherein the energy appears to be provided from a purely thermal source. Likely, this differentiation occurs due to the location difference, a far colder climate, barren, with short growing seasons due to the frigidity and a lack of sunlight.

“Due to their rarity, Foodies have been utilized infrequently, but their primary function has occurred upon ships, where they could provide for the crew. Such is the example of Ganesh, from the fourteenth century, who served under multiple pirate ships as their most valuable (and most plundered) cargo. In modern day, applications can be imagined for space travel where travelers would need simply a heat collector to be sustained.

“With insufficient data, it is suspected that Foodies can be power-rated by their efficiency in energy conversion, the volume of consumables that they can produce, and the variety of such consumables. But with the introduction of the fifth known Foodie, another dimension should be included—on demonstration of powers, a type of food never before seen by the subject was generated, indicating that Foodies may have a subtle telepathy allowing them to determine the tastes of their subjects.”

Then, with a flourish of his pen and a snap, the nameless man closed his book, and Cane’s father rushed forwards. Between his hands, the ball of poison had grown too heavy to bear, and he threw it back with urgency. It spread as it flew, drawn like a magnet, seeping back into the skin where it belonged, claiming him as its own. The nameless man sighed, his eyes dulling over once more, his stance faltering.

Cane’s father thanked the mother for her time, leaving a few bills on the counter for her as they walked from the cottage and back into the car. As he entered the back seat, Cane could now feel the lump of poison sitting directly ahead of him, something he’d managed to overlook for years—perhaps he had been used to it his entire life, perhaps he had always simply associated it with the man and thought nothing more of it, or perhaps the man had hidden it from him.

But he’d had plenty of time to sense it as his father held it, understanding just how large and pure it was, just how heavy it felt. And he was certain of one thing as they pulled away, the snow crunching under the tires, the wind howling through the trees.

As large as the poison had been when his father removed it, it was now just slightly larger.

Chapter 8

The nameless man brought them back to the train station, and Cane boarded with his father, staring at him with a new form of caution as he took a seat. Now the man insisted south, and there was an urgency to his step as he constantly checked his watch. But the second hand no longer ticked, and the nameless man had not wound it in years.

Cane waited until the train picked up speed, until the trees flashed past the windows and their cups of tea rattled on the small table in front of him. Then he turned to his father, as the nameless man stared out the window with a blank expression.

“So that—that’s what you do when you leave? That’s what Grandfather did, and I’ll have to do too? What’s the point? I don’t understand. Why?”

His father drummed his fingers on the table and paused before answering.

“As you know, we did not find him, he found us,” he started, clearing his throat. “At first, that was a mystery. How had he found us, and for what purpose? What could some fisherman in a small sea town offer a passing vagabond? But over time, it became more clear—clear that he needed us. And that he was too valuable to ignore.

“Having two powers is rare, Cane, and often comes at a great price. I’m sure you remember some of the stories of people with multiple abilities—when they don’t descend into madness, they can be physically rent apart by the forces within them, and some even develop multiple personalities for each power that bicker, causing them to fight themselves. And like the stories, he is no different.”

The nameless man continued to stare out the window, oblivious to their discussion. Cane’s father waved on a cart of refreshments that appeared beside them, then continued.

“Over the years, we discerned a few things about his powers, and that’s led to nearly everything we know about him. From our observations, he has a form of advanced perception—an ability of knowing, of opening his eyes far wider than we ever could. Simply by looking at a man, he knows their secrets—and more importantly, as you just saw, he can sense undiscovered knowledge, and is compelled to root it out.

“But in addition to this, he has another power—that of a perfect memory. Not just to know, but to experience. Everything he learns, he relives; it becomes a part of him. Imagine reading a book, the saddest book you’ve ever read—but as time goes on, the sadness never diminishes. It lingers. But for him, the book is real people, real secrets he has seen but can never forget. All the horrors and wonders of the world, contained within one mind.

“From hints, he’s alluded that this almost destroyed him, though whether from suicide or stroke, we do not know. What we do know is this—eventually, he discovered a way to store these memories outside his head, to reduce his knowledge of them to a written word. To flatten memories to text. But even this process is not perfect, and the knowledge still takes a toll, still burdens him—and that is where we intervene.

“Knowledge holds great power—the power to create and to destroy. While he holds both, the destructive power is too much, a poison that holds his mind captive except for the few moments I can bear to hold it. For those few moments alone, he is free, and he uses them to collect more knowledge, to build the most advanced set of catalogued memories the world has ever known.

“Remember the stories he told you? He lived those, he saw them with his own eyes, recorded them. Then read them back to you from his mind, long after the rest of the world has forgotten and moved on. And for him, they exist as little more than historical records he has memorized. To retain any more would be to grow the poison within him.

“We are his guides, his guardians, Cane. Because one day, one day the world will need his knowledge. We protect him from those who could use that power to unforgivable ends, and we consult him when great good has been accomplished. Already, he has saved hundreds of lives—he provided a cure for a plague rampaging across the country after consultation by your grandfather, because it had occurred a thousand years before, but the means to eradicate had been long forgotten. We even released one of his books, The Directory of Powers, under a lackluster professor who was all too eager to steal the credit, which contains his own work and the compilation of experts around the world, to better those discovering their own abilities. But those are simply minor examples, and one thing is certain.

“He speaks of a day when his knowledge will not merely save hundreds of lives, but something far greater. He calls it the reason he was born. The reason he’s never died.”

Chapter 9

They rode for three days, and the weather turned warmer as Cane packed away their winter clothes, keeping only the underlayers at the top of the luggage. As they travelled, the nameless man grew more agitated, his foot tapping, his lip developing a scab as he chewed it and Cane’s father chastised him.

Cane looked on with wonder as his father ordered food for the nameless man, or bought tickets, or tapped his shoulder when he became too nervous. For someone who was supposed to hold so much knowledge, for someone that they supposedly served, he seemed little more than a child trapped in a man’s body. But then Cane remembered the change when the poison had been removed, and his brow only furrowed deeper.

When they reached the final stop, the nameless man practically leapt off the train, turning left and right as he glanced down the station. Without consulting a map, he barged forwards, and Cane’s father hailed a cab. The man pointed, the cab’s ticker began, and they ducked in and out of traffic, lurching around cars as they exited the city center. Gradually, the stops became more infrequent as traffic thinned and lights disbursed, the tall buildings giving way to the regular rows of subdivisions, with picket fences replacing guardrails.

The nameless man gripped the cabby’s shoulder when it was time to stop, the man grunting with annoyance as he stomped on the brakes. Cane’s father pushed bills forwards to soothe the driver, like putting out a small fire with water, and they stepped out into the open street.

“This right?” Cane’s father asked the nameless man. He was met with a curt nod and turned back to face the driver, waving another stack of bills through the window.

“Collect us here in three hours,” he said.

“And what the ‘ell am I supposed to do til then?” came the gruff response. “Three hours is a long time.”

“And this is the biggest tip of your life,” answered Cane’s father, folding the notes seductively and placing them in his wallet. “Go drink for all I care. We just need a car back.”

With a skeptical eye the cabbie drove off, but Cane saw him mark down their address before leaving, his eye on Cane’s father’s bulging pocket. He left them there, on one side of the small highway a thick forest, on the other side neat rowed houses.  The nameless man took another look at his broken watch, then crossed the street, avoiding the 55 MPH speed limit sign as he stepped into the forest. There he drew into the shadows, his back against an oak tree strangled by vines, his eyes pointed back towards the subdivision. From his briefcase, Cane’s father pulled out a leather journal, this one separate from the first, but the same fountain pen. As the nameless man flipped it open, Cane saw the title written in thick ink that bled into the cover.

The Breaking of Titans

He flipped the pages, settling this time on one about a quarter of the way through, picking one that had nothing already written on it but a date and time. Today’s date, and based on Cane’s own watch, ten minutes in the future. The pen tip poised above the paper, and Cane’s father reached out, preparing to draw the poison, his hand frozen in the air.

Cane’s heart beat in tune with the second hand of his own watch as they waited, thumps so loud he thought his father would hear them, that the passing cars ripping by the highway would pull over to investigate the nuisance. With five minutes left, they had been so still that the squirrels returned to the nearby trees, chattering and arguing over territory. With two minutes, it felt as if they had become part of the forest itself.

And with one minute left, Cane felt an outpouring of poison so potent, he nearly retched.

His eyes darted towards the neighborhood, searching the brightly painted house, the cats rustling in the window frames, the distant sound of laughing children and creaking swing sets. A woman walked a golden retriever down the lane, and the mailman took a lazy loop around a cul-de-sac, pausing to move a trash bin that stood in the way of a closed mailbox. Everything seemed in order, everything seemed normal.

Except for the singing.

The notes came muffled at first, just on the edge of Cane’s hearing—but even without the words, he could sense that they were the source of the poison. And when the door nearest to them flew open, and a man in work clothes walked out, a father accompanied by his daughter, a girl no more than sixteen, Cane stumbled backwards from the impact. His father’s hand caught him on the back to prevent him from falling, then in a smooth motion, he ripped the poison out of the nameless man. Cane heard the scratching of the pen behind him, the sound frantic, and his back warmed from the glow emanating from the nameless man just as his front chilled. Just then, the girl opened her mouth, loosing a chorus of fresh notes.

And her father started walking directly towards them.

Chapter 10

A third figure appeared behind the girl and her father, a suited man that stood on the porch, his hands clasped at his waist. He stood silently, watching as the girl followed behind her father, her voice growing in volume with each step, the pitch reaching higher and higher levels.

No this, no that, is what you say,

Rules to trap me under your palm,

Here and now it ends today,

One step, two step, stay calm.

Keep your gaze now straight ahead,

Seek those double yellow lines,

Oh, what might have happened if instead,

Had your thoughts been more aligned.

With shaking steps, her father continued to walk forwards, not only towards them, but also towards the highway. The cars came frequently, but spaced far enough to allow large gaps in the traffic. From one side was a straightaway, where they could see them receding into the distance—but from the other, there was a sharp turn, the trees blocking the viewing, creating a blind spot around the bend. He paused on the edge, where fingers of grass spilled over onto the asphalt, nipped back by the wind of passing tires.

Cane could see him swallow as the musical notes faltered, his Adam’s apple bobbing, his face leaching all color to leave it pale as chalk. At his sides, his fingers twitched—once, twice, as his daughter’s voice caught in her throat. His head started to turn slowly, the pupils racing ahead of the motion of his neck. But before eye contact could be made, the suited man placed a heavy hand on the girl’s shoulder, squeezing as he nodded.

The final notes flew out like water spilling over a dam, the river coursing around her father, the words catching like hooks that dug into his skin and ripped him along with them.

“To buy my freedom, and with great fun, I command you now, to run!”

He stumbled into the road, and behind him, the girl’s lips curled upwards in a smile, her faltering hesitation replaced with a surging moment of triumph. The car that was whipping around the bend never had time to stop—even if they had seen him, he was too close; the brakes would merely have lessened the blow. But when even the lesser blow results in death, the difference is immaterial.

Cane never saw the impact —his eyes closed at the last instant, and for that, he would never forgive himself. His father kept his eyes open. His father could handle the poison of the event.

In the future, Cane vowed to never hold the poison back again.

But even with his eyes closed, he still heard it—and he’d never forget the sounds of impact, the whoomph absent of any scream, the skidding of locked tires and late blare of the horn. And when he looked up, the girl and the suited man were nearly gone, the door closing behind them at the house, as the driver ran out to inspect the body.

“What—” breathed Cane, his voice low after two minutes, the sirens in the distance drowning him out. “What was that.”

From behind him, the pen paused in its scribbling, and the nameless man spoke in a voice reminiscent of his storytelling—but heavier, thicker, more concentrated.

“There are people who hold powers that are weak, and those that hold powers that are strong,” he said. “And then there are powers that hold people. Those are the titans. Someone more power than human, a force of nature, one consumed by the ability itself.”

The pen started scratching again, but the nameless man said one more sentence before closing his book, jutting his chin at the girl, who shut the door softly behind her, and Cane’s father returned the poison.

“And that—that’s a titan. A small one, but a titan no less.”

Chapter 11

The sun had nearly set when the cabbie picked them up—by now, the ambulance had come and gone, removing the body while the tow truck removed the bloodied metalwork. The police filed their reports and knocked on the young lady’s door to inform her of the news. At first, she’d screamed in shock—then fat tears rolled down her cheeks, and her uncle arrived to whisk her away from the scene so she could be with family.

Except her uncle was the same man who had been in a suit, and as his car puttered away, the cascade of tears ceased to flow.

As it passed, they had hidden among the trees. Silent and unnoticed, and subject only to a passing glance from an officer whose corner of an eye caught Cane shifting, then dismissed it as a squirrel. Cane shook as he recalled the event on the way to the station, but refused to speak with the cabbie’s curious looks at him in the mirror.

“Did you know that was going to happen?” Cane asked his father when they arrived, “Why, why didn’t we try to stop it? We just watched, we could have—”

“No, I didn’t know what was happening,” his father said, cutting him off. “He did, but he refuses to tell beforehand—and even he is somewhat unsure. Rather, he knows when and where, and he can feel its importance. These events he senses, they are moments in history, these are the tales he told you after dinner, his power drawing him to them due to their importance. And no, we shouldn’t interfere—and if we did, I suspect he would no longer seek them out. We are but recorders, watchers, gatherers of knowledge.”

“Well, if he already knows about them, then why did we just come see them?” Cane asked. “Why can’t he just sit in our basement and write them? Why does he have to come here?”

“For him, he has an intuition—but to truly know, he has to experience it. When he watches something, he does not see like you or me—he sees everything. Who they are, what they are, their thoughts, desires, deepest wishes, their very souls. He’s compelled by knowledge—he’s compelled to know the story. To record it. To extract that moment from history.

“Here, now, we help him build this knowledge. It’s not just his—it’s ours. All of ours. Humanity’s. And to interfere would not only corrupt that knowledge—to interfere would ensure that we never gain more of it.”

Cane swallowed, thinking back to the sound, as his father put a hand on his shoulder.

“Cane, there is more poison in all the world than we can ever hope to extract. We can only hope that by helping him, we do more good than by intervening.”

***

When they arrived at the station, the nameless man turned away—heading not towards the trains, but down a side street. His fingers trailed along the brick sides of the buildings as he walked, tapping the mortar spaces, the boots Cane bought him clicking against stone. Wind rushed past Cane, diverted downwards through the shape of the building arcing high overhead, roaring through his ears while tugging him forwards by his shirttail.

The alley grew narrower, and the wind grew stronger—the city maintenance dwindling as entire bricks were missing from the side of buildings, and glass crunched underneath Cane’s heel. The windows bore the same fogged-up look as year-old chocolate, and any plants that once clung to the side of building in desperation had now given up hope as their leaves were stolen by the wind.

The nameless man paused as he reached a particular grating in the stone, one that should have led into a cellar—but as he reached out to the handle, Cane saw it was actually positioned between two buildings, right at their edges, such that neither could access it. The grating itself seemed wedged, held down by poor construction that caused the materials to overlap, and the metal to shriek against rock as the nameless man took hold of it. But he twisted it, and like one of those puzzles with two interlocking metal pieces that seem permanently combined, the halves of the grating split. These he pulled away, setting them aside softly against the brick wall, and without a word, stepped back into darkness.

Cane’s father nodded, and after a moment’s hesitation, Cane followed, coughing as the air stilled to a mixture of humidity and mold. The nameless man plowed forwards into what appeared to be a small concrete tunnel, the water stains on the bottom showing it for drainage, and impossible to walk without crouching. He disregarded the spiderwebs that pivoted backwards into Cane, as well as the puddles still thick with sludge from the last rain.

They descended thirty feet before he stopped, looking up a small ladder bored into the concrete. Above, a manhole waited, and similar to the grating, it was locked in place, seemingly stuck fast until the nameless man inserted two fingers in holes on either side, breaking the metal apart across a hidden seam. Then he stepped upwards into the darkness, and by the time Cane followed, he could see the flickering of a candle flame in the man’s hand.

When he stuck his head through the hole, a slight breeze ruffled Cane’s hair, the smell the same as the air outside—he could even pick out the sizzling mozzarella from the pizza restaurant down the street. Squinting, he could just barely see vents circling the ceiling of the room, holes poked through the otherwise immaculate concrete cylinder. Besides the manhole, there was no in or out —rather, it resembled the inside of an enormous pen cap, or a bucket turned upside-down. As his father arrived, movement turned nearly impossible in the confines, and Cane took special care to avoid the walls.

Carved into the concrete, shelves spiraled upwards—shelves that carried at least a hundred books. Some were as thin as a dinner menu—others, so thick that they were wider than his fist. Their titles raced around him—names like On the Arrival of the Mayflower, Powers in Process: Evolution of Powers with Technology, and The Rise and Fall of the Flamethrower Prince. Blinking, Cane even caught sight of Hippel, General of the Sandblasters, a title that stirred his memory. Each of the books had the same bindings, and as Cane stared, he realized that each of the titles bore the same calligraphic handwriting.

Standing on a stool pulled from the corner, the nameless man motioned for Cane’s father to remove one of his journals from his briefcase, the same that he had written in at the northern cottage. Tracing his finger along a shelf, he found its home—in a space that was just wide enough for it to fit, as if the void was writing to be filled.

Cane could just make out its name as the nameless man stepped down —The Directory, Revision 18. Then the nameless man closed his eyes, appearing to bask in the center of the written word, before disappearing down into the tunnel once more.

Chapter 12

When the train pulled into their home station, more confusion circled Cane’s mind than when they had departed. It seemed that fresh answers were but the seeds to new questions.

Had this been the life mission of his father? The passion of his family? Was this, too, his own future? To serve a man who could barely feed himself, yet claimed to hold the secrets of the world, stretching back throughout human history?

And as Cane’s own eyes had shown him, actually did.

When they arrived home, it felt different to Cane—tight, confined, foreign. Like so many of the hermit crabs he had seen crawling the beaches, it was as if he had entered a new shell, one more coarse around the edges. That his preconceptions of his family, as moderately well-off fishers no different from their neighbors, was entirely wrong.

Instead, they had money. They had history. They had a secret.

Cane’s mother was out, and his father led them both to the cellar. Taking a key from his pocket, he unlocked the closet that Cane had tried to break into so many times in their absence, revealing a small room of shelves, bearing the same types of books that had populated the library in the drainage pipes. He unzipped his briefcase and removed the two other books from within, handing them to the nameless man. The nameless man selected shelving spots for them, careful as he placed them down to leave exact spaces in between for books yet to come.

“These are the ones that are unfinished,” said Cane’s father, closing the door. “One day, you’ll see them completed. And then you’ll help them store them.”

“Why do you move them from here to there?” Cane asked. “Why not just keep them all in one spot, whether they’re finished or not?”

“Because it’s not just there,” answered his father, then gestured in a circle around him. “What you visited today is just one spot of dozens, maybe hundreds. It’s the first time I’ve been to that one—personally, I’ve only visited fifteen. All of them form one giant interconnected library, with him at the center.”

“I still think it would be easier if we kept them all in one place, no?” said Cane. “Why go through the trouble of acquiring knowledge if you’re just going to bury it!”

“Two reasons,” responded his father, holding up his fingers. “One is that there are secrets in those books that are incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands, secrets that could be used to sow discord or create weapons. And two, it diversifies risk. Say the library burns, or there is a flood, or a type of insect devours your pages—in one swoop, all that knowledge is lost. And to him, that knowledge is more precious than gold.”

“Well, he’s still going to remember it, so he can just rewrite it down then. He’s got plenty of time on his hands anyways,” answered Cane, throwing up his hands.

“No, Cane—that’s where you’re wrong. Those books aren’t images of his memories—they are his memories. And if they are destroyed, it’s gone from his mind. That’s why they must be protected.”

Cane remembered the time that the nameless man had forgotten his favorite story, that of Pieli. That meant that somewhere out there, something had happened to the book, destroying it. And with it so too was the memory.

“Now, there’s one last thing left to be done—and I suspect this was the major reason the nameless man sought out our family. You see, Cane, with the gift of knowledge, he understands capabilities. He knows our own powers greater than you or me. And he knows how to bend them in ways that are unexpected.”

At the other end of the room, the nameless man took a seat at the small table, putting his hands in his lap, waiting as Cane’s father strode over to join him.

“We are drawers of poison—but there’s more than one type of poison. There’s the physical variety, the emotional, even the spiritual. All slowly kill if they are not addressed, and depending on the strength of our power, we have the ability to remove any. But time also kills, Cane. So for him, we remove time.”

Closing his eyes, Cane’s father took the nameless man’s hands in his own. And when he drew out the poison, it felt different this time to Cane. It was like a metal wire—thin, but compact, holding great weight but in a small space.

As his father pulled, Cane saw the wrinkles crossing over the nameless man’s face fill themselves in. The grey in his hair diluted, and his eyes brightened, the iris showing off more color. His arms seemed to put on weight, more muscle filling in the layer above bone, and the color of his skin turned uniform, splotches fading away as if evaporating from the surface.

“It’s not much time,” gasped his father, breaking contact and sweat beading off his brow. “Only two years here. I’d advise doing it every few weeks instead, but I wanted to show you the effects of removing age. How time can be stripped.”

When he turned, Cane could see the weight he had put on—at least forty pounds, his cheeks fleshed out, his chin wobbling, his shirt stretched tight across his stomach and pants button already undone.

“Go fetch your shoes,” he said, grunting as he stood, his hands pressing on his knees to help himself balance. “It’s time we went for a run.”

Chapter 13

On his second trip, Cane’s father let him share the load of the poison, splitting it into two as he drew it from the nameless man. It called to Cane as he held it, the weight like a bowling ball, tendrils of darkness seeking weaknesses in his power to rush into his skin. Tentatively, he opened himself, allowing a sliver through, a tiny piece that he absorbed.

He retched, his nostrils filling with the smell of sulfur, needles racing along his skin like niacin. For an instant, his fingers slipped, and he almost lost his grip on the ball, recovering just before it slammed back into the nameless man like a magnet. He stirred from where he had been writing as he watched a new child displaying a power, this one of an ability to rust metal with a touch, then continued as if nothing had happened. Cane’s father shot him a warning glance, raising an eyebrow, and blood rushed to Cane’s face as he steadied the darkness.

But as they stood there, Cane couldn’t help but notice the trickles of sweat that poured down his father’s face, the way his arms shook as he waited, how his veins stood out on his forehead even under half the regular amount. For Cane, it was tiring, but in the same way a jog was tiring —while easier to stop, he could keep going nearly indefinitely.

The next year, his father gave him a greater proportion of the poison. The year after that, Cane held the entirety of it, his muscles bulging but not shaking, still in full command. But the year after that, as Cane grew accustomed to the trips and started leading their travels, his father allowed him to take age upon himself for the first time. Cane was grateful—for as the years continued, his father’s own age had started to show, and the weight seemed to fall slower and slower off his frame, until some remained even after the full year.

“This, this is separate than anything else you have tried. The technique is subtle—had my own father not taught me, and his father him, back to the nameless man, I doubt it would ever have been discovered.”

“How come you never tried this on Grandfather?” Cane asked suddenly before his lesson could start. “How come you never tried to strip away his age so he never died, and then he could do the same back to you?”

“We absorb poison, Cane. It’s not in our nature to give it up,” his father responded. “Besides, every time you draw in the poison, some traces of it remain. That age you pull from him—some will still be there on you. To help anyone else, you slowly give up years of your own life, plus the fluctuations in weight for anything substantial is just as problematic for your body as the accruing years. If you were to, say, play tennis with age with another possessor of our power, you would simply end up throwing a ball of greater and greater years between you two, until it is enough to kill you on impact.”

“So immortality then—”

“Is impossible,” his father answered, then glanced at the nameless man. “At least not for free, not even for him. Age elongation—maybe. But as far as I know, that too carries a price.”

Cane’s father directed him to sit across from the nameless man in the same chair he usually took, then had them clasp hands. With the poison just under the surface, his palms felt cold, hollow—almost like the bark on an already dead tree.

“Now this poison is subtle, difficult to grasp. Simply by reaching for it, you can’t draw it out. You need more. You need to fish for it, you need a hook instead of a net. Patience and bait.”

His father put his palms on Cane’s forearm and squeezed.

“I want you to feel out in space—there’s poison all around us, Cane. Poison we constantly fight off, that which makes us age. Collect it, draw it in—form a tiny bead of it, form a tiny bead of time itself.”

“And how should I do that?” Cane said, finding the nameless man’s grip distracting.

“Focus. Expand yourself. Collect it as a cold glass brings in condensation.”

Cane took in a deep breath, relaxing the muscles in his back, then neck, then face. He felt himself spread outwards, diffusing into the air itself.

Below, he could feel the thin layer of carbon dioxide covering the basement floor and a brick of rat poison in the cabinet ten steps behind him. He sensed the mercury in the fluorescent lights above, coupled the thin layer of lead on the walls under several coats of paint. Asbestos too he could feel, trapped away in behind the drywall, no danger to him at the present time. He could even sense the poison in his father’s body, the worries that flitted around his mind, the excretions of bacteria along his digestive tract, the acid in the battery of the watch that ticked on his wrist.

But then, he felt the swirls about him, the very air—a sort of flux, a river that seemed to drift through the room, so slight, he could barely tell it was there. Lighter than a breeze and moving with the ticking clock. He drew it in, directly between the two of them, condensing it into a point a millimeter wide.

“That’s it,” said his father. “Now use that —touch it to him, connect it to what resides just under his skin, and reel them in together. Slowly, lest you risk it snapping.”

Cane did as commanded, and the poison obeyed, stretching in a thin line as tight as a guitar string. He grit his teeth, the string slipping through his fingers like a greased shoelace, requiring constant pressure. And he found he could not hold it in space—rather, he had to absorb it, had to pull it into himself before it snapped back to the nameless man.

With each inch, he felt himself grow heavier, his heartbeat turn more laborious, his eyes grow unfocused. After only a few moments, he let go, the sensation too strong to continue, losing his balance. A headache thrummed across his temple, and he felt his father put his hand on his shoulder, his grip strong.

“Sixteen weeks, by my count,” his father said, his voice filled with pride. “And to think, the first time I tried, I could only manage nine days.”

Chapter 14

On his twenty-fifth birthday, Cane’s father presented him with one gift. Receiving any gift at all at that age was strange, so the small box in his hands came as a surprise. Though it was easy to lift, there was a weight to it—not physical, but one of importance.

He’d been given it after dinner, one they shared around the same table that the nameless man had told the stories over the years. His father had prepared a spread that day—pasta rich with garlic and shellfish, cooked in wine, with fresh bread, cheeses, sautéed mushrooms, and roasted asparagus. For dessert, they shared a cordial, the thick liquor heavy with the flavor of lemon, paired with sweetened strawberries in cream.

So when his father pushed the box to him, Cane had been filled nearly to bursting with food, and a light buzz raced around his mind from the alcohol. He pulled the ribbon, popping the box open, and a key fell into his palm. The key that opened the downstairs closet.

“I’ve grown old,” his father said as Cane clenched it in his palm, the teeth biting into his skin. “It’s your time now. I can still help with the mending of nets and the fishing—but the important part is now in your hands.”

Cane nodded, and his father continued.

“I was your age when I took the burden on my shoulders. And I believe you will carry it better than any of us—you’re stronger, and should you falter, I will be here to help you. To fill the gaps, to steady your pace.”

After that dinner, when his father retired for the night, Cane let himself into the locked closet. He ran his fingers over the dusty books, examining their titles, trying to predict what was in store for the years to come. To know which passages he might fill in, what parts he would be there to witness. As he left that closet, he saw the nameless man waiting for him silently, his eyes clouded over.

Cane did something his father never had. He reached out, and in their own house, he pulled the poison away from the nameless man. He felt it, separated it in his hands, the memories of pain and burdens of knowledge. As he held it, the nameless man once more came to life, his wits sharpening, his thoughts stirring.

“You,” said Cane, under the weight of the poison. “We wake you up every year for a few days. We strip you of the poison so you can complete your duty. But do you want to be awake for more?”

“The brightness of this world is unbearable, without that shade to cover my eyes,” came the reply, deep and rumbling, which made Cane’s skin prickle. “If the price of sanity and stability is sleep, then let the world be dull. Let me see less rather than breaking as I see more.”

With a frown, Cane let the poison flow back to the nameless man, but he felt how it covered him. How it not only blocked his power, but his consciousness as well —his mind’s eye and his physical eye. He could sense the shape of it now, which parts were necessary, and which parts were simply added weight that kept him bogged down. Weight his father had not been skilled enough to remove.

But Cane would.

On that day, the first day the responsibility transferred to him, Cane made his first chip away at the poison. It would take years for him to shape it, to sculpt it—but even as he started now, he could tell that he’d raise the bars on the nameless man’s consciousness. And that though he might not be completely free, there were pieces he could liberate while leaving the beast within tamed.

Even with the deepest memories and power suppressed, he could release a personality. He could give the nameless man control over his actions once more, autonomy. He could make him a person, rather than a receptacle of knowledge no different from the many libraries he had hidden.

Chapter 15

“And where did you manage to put your hidey hole this time?” Cane asked as the nameless man led him along the side of a riverbank, the mud pulling at their boots with each step, popping with dismay as their heels came away. Ripples stirred the water as it coursed over rocks hidden just beneath the surface, but no white foam broke out—only swirling navy and sediment, and the glint of the occasional fish.

“And how come we didn’t take the road?” Cane continued, grimacing as muck crawled up his pants leg. Now that he was in charge of the finances, a ruined set meant little —but before handing over the bank account number, his father drilled its importance into him. This is not yours—you are a steward. This will be needed in the grand event, and you’ll want every last penny. Spend what you must, but only what you must.

“Road wasn’t here last time,” the nameless man said back, and Cane thought he saw a smile. A smile. Words were progress, but a smile—a smile was more than that. It was a sign of humanity. Of consciousness. Of two years of sculpting that were finally paying off. His own lips tugged upwards, even as he rolled his eyes and loosed a reply.

“Oh, because the mastermind of the universe didn’t know there’s a road thirty yards up the bank?”

“Road’s not important. No reason to know,” the nameless man replied, his voice a monotone.

“Apparently, our clothes aren’t important either. Maybe we should just remove those too if we’ll be slogging through the swamp.”

The nameless man turned slowly, and Cane suddenly remembered the story of how his family had discovered him nude on the beach all those years ago. He threw up his hands just as the nameless man reached up to his collar.

“No, no, no! That was a joke! Keep them on.” He shook his head, then thought he caught a smirk off the side of his mouth. “Was that—are you messing with me on purpose?”

The nameless man turned back around before Cane could catch his face, but his hand fell and Cane breathed a sigh of relief. Then they reached a turn in the river, and Cane caught sight of a building just on the river’s edge, the masonry crumbling into the water. Where there had once been a waterwheel, there was now only a spoke and splinters, and the surrounding grass shingles were scattered from years of storms. Above it all, a single arch of woodwork was charred black, the spiderwebs of a lightning strike just visible against the grains.

Together they entered, the padlock covering the door long rusted away, the hinges grating along their path as the corner of the door’s edge scraped a semicircle into the floor. The nameless man walked to the back of the building, where the millstone had long rested on the floor, the size of an enormous tire.

The nameless man reached inside the hole at the center, his fingers brushing against the inner circumference, until Cane heard the click of a latch. He strained, and the entire lid came loose, the stone revealing to be hollow with a thin top covering. Inside, the rock had been chipped away, revealing a circle of books protected from the elements.

“Pretty skilled with your hands, aren’t you? Must’ve taken you years to build all these,” Cane remarked, leaning against the wall. Even with only a half a chance at an answer, the conversation was better than silence. Over the years, he’d found that quips had the best chance of a reaction.

“Your grandfather,” came the response, and the nameless man gestured to a chisel that still hung on the wall. “Clever man.”

“And lucky, considering the last flood,” said Cane, and nudged millstone with the side of his foot where a waterline reached halfway up. “Just a little more and we’d be staring at a pile of soggy pages.”

“Seventeen years,” said the nameless man as he nestled a book among the others, as always careful of its placement.

“What’s that?”

“Seventeen more years,” he repeated, and pointed to the waterline, then gestured upwards. “Important to know.”

“Yes, yes it is,” said Cane with a shake of his head, wondering how he still managed to be surprised after so many trips. “Here, take the next one.”

“Not here,” the man said, replacing the lid, setting the hatch, and waving away the book Cane offered. “Somewhere else. A different collection.”

Chapter 16

“You know, the last place would have been just as good,” Cane complained after two days of driving. “There was plenty of space at the last one. I could see the area between the books.”

“Not the right home,” the nameless man answered. “Too much in one spot.”

“Ah, right,” said Cane. “Wouldn’t want them to get so crowded they stop paying rent, would we?”

In response, the nameless man only stared at the windshield, and Cane sighed. Progress could only move so fast, and sarcasm seemed to be the only language the nameless man could not speak. Perhaps that was why he answered to it so often—as a correction, not a conversation.

In another hour, they pulled off the highway to a side road, then continued another forty miles, the potholes growing worse with each minute. When Cane stopped, they were on the coast, at the base of an old lighthouse. A tourist attraction now, with a small shack where tickets could be purchased, and a souvenir shop specializing in miniatures.

Cane bought two from the lady working the window—with it being a Tuesday and shortly after lunch, she fought to keep her eyes open during the transaction, and they fell shut before they had reached the door. The nameless man led the way up the stairs, a tight circular column with a handrail that looked thin as a wire. The steel rang out with each step, and Cane started to breathe hard—though he kept up his father’s running habits, he had drained the nameless man of age only a few days prior and still needed to work off the pounds.

They emerged on a circular overlook, with half peering out to sea and the other half just barely able to catch the spires of a city far in the distance. Pay binoculars lined the rim, and a small roped-off section in the center surrounded the lens, which was currently pointed towards land. The nameless man stepped over the rope, to where the long-extinguished fire should be—and raising a hand, he pulled loose a stone in the ceiling with a slight twist.

The hole formed a space slightly larger than his head, and he stood on a crate, thrusting himself upwards to peer into the darkness. Fumbling at his pocket, he pulled out a matchbook, struck one, and pushed it through at eye level.

The following screech was so loud that Cane stumbled through the small area searching for a fire alarm, afraid that the nameless man’s match had set it off. But after a moment, the screeching warbled, and Cane realized that not only was it alive, but that it came from the nameless man himself.

“What the hell is going on up there?” he shouted, trying to pull him back down. Instead, he tripped, knocking over the crate and taking the nameless man down with it, catching him just before he could topple back down the spiral stair. The nameless man stared upwards at the hole, his eyes wide, his face pale—and any humanity that Cane had managed to put into him now seemed absent, washed away in the panic.

Cane fixed the crate, then climbed atop it himself, sticking his head inside the hole. The match still glowed from where the nameless man dropped it in the ceiling, just bright enough for Cane to make out the shapes in the darkness as the dust around it smoldered.

It wasn’t the largest library he had seen, but the shelf space was substantial —he could count eight, each with the ability to hold ten books. They were built into the sloping roof, layered upwards like an upside-down stairway, with a wasp nest nestled into the corner of one.

But where there should have been books, there was nothing—instead, a thin layer of dust were all the shelves now possessed, coupled with a dead beetle and cobwebs. Cane blinked, checking each of the corners to make sure he wasn’t missing another set of shelves, or perhaps volumes that had fallen over. Never before had he seen a library with less than five books, let alone empty.

He descended, the nameless man’s eyes still glued to the hole, and he spoke in a voice hoarse from screaming.

“Gone,” he said, blinking. “Destroyed.”

“What do you mean by that?” Cane asked, leaning down. “As in stolen? Which books were taken?”

“I can’t remember them,” came the reply, “They’re gone from my memory. Completely gone, so much knowledge lost.”

“Who took them? And how come you didn’t know this was coming? I thought these were supposed to be safe.”

Then the nameless man whispered a phrase Cane had never heard from him before. One he never expected to hear.

“I don’t know,” he said, his face managing to somehow turn one shade paler. “It’s important, but—but I don’t know.”

Chapter 17

“The lighthouse? Been there three times during my stay, I believe, nearly full the last time I remember. You’re saying there was nothing?”

“Nothing,” answered Cane, meeting his father’s eye. He’d returned home, and they stood in the kitchen together, sipping on a bottle of wine his father had pulled from the top cupboard. Below, the nameless man had retreated to the basement, and though he was always quiet, the silence now seemed thicker than before. Cane took another swallow before continuing.

“The dust looked even, like they had never been there. You’re sure it used to be occupied? And that you never packed them up on your last trip?”

“Absolutely,” his father answered, rubbing a hand across his face as he consulted his memory. “Actually, I remember that I was wondering what we would do once it was full. I’ve never seen any that reached that point, though that could be because there’s no reason to return.”

Cane frowned and drummed his fingers on the table. He had yet to remove age from the nameless man since they had returned, and the thought weighed down on him. In this mood, the poison would be especially dense tonight. He closed his eyes for a moment and pushed the thought away before speaking again.

“So, say they were stolen. You always said that the knowledge was valuable, but it seems like they were stolen to be destroyed. Which, to me, makes no sense, unless they were taken by accident, by someone who didn’t know what they were.”

“Well, we don’t know they were destroyed, first of all,” his father corrected.

“Yes we do; he said he can’t remember anything. You told me that’s because the memories, or books, are gone.”

“Or hidden,” said his father, pacing. “Let me explain—there was a time when I lost one of the books in our travels. On a train, I dropped one beneath the seats when it came out of my briefcase and didn’t realize until a day later. But he could sense it, he could track it. It took us a week, but we were able to find the exact train, re-board, and remove the book where it had been sandwiched between cushions. All this without glancing once at the tickets or documentation—it is like a homing beacon for him, just like finding the libraries.”

“Right, which means he should be able to do that now too,” retorted Cane, his fingers tightening around the glass of wine in frustration.

“Ah, but that’s only the first story. You would think so, yes, but after we returned home, I grew paranoid about my mistake. I wondered what would happen if there was a house fire, and the books in the cellar went up in flames. Or what if as a child, you entered the room, the dog entered and tore the books to pieces? What would happen then? Would the decades of knowledge be lost, all at my own lack of preparation?

“So to ensure their safety, I build a prototype—a fire safe that could carry one of the books. Back then, I overdid it—its construction was more than solid, and I lead-lined the box. Must have weighed fifty pounds just to hold a single book, but my thoughts were, after testing, I could convert the entire room in the same way. After completion and some initial testing, I put one of the smaller books inside it and tested it. It worked perfectly—the book survived simulated fires, floods, and drops. But there was something I didn’t expect, that when I asked the nameless man to remember the stories inside, they were gone. Completely forgotten, and he panicked in the same way he is now. That box was so protective, it seemed to lock even him out.”

“So you think someone might be hiding them in the same way?” Cane asked, his eyes following his father’s pacing.

“It’s impossible to tell,” came the answer as his father poured more wine. “But if I were to find some old books, I wouldn’t burn them. And if they were simply unkept, or thrown away, the nameless man should at least be able to recall fragments. As far as I can tell, he should have known that someone would stumble upon the books, and have been able to move them beforehand. Or perhaps the motivations of humans are more difficult to sense than those of nature, like the flood he knows to avoid. But again, this brings us to the question of why they were destroyed, and not simply stored, if this were the case.”

“And if they are stolen, that means someone has sole access to that knowledge,” said Cane with an edge to his voice.

“Not only that, but it means that this action was premeditated. It means they knew where the books were, that they could conceal the action of stealing them, that they would be missed, and that they would be tracked down. It means they know far more about us than we know of them,” his father frowned, a line of worry crossing his forehead. “We’ll need to be more careful, moving forwards.”

“They might know about the books, but there’s no way they know about him,” responded Cane, “If they did, they would have taken him instead. Why steal a shelf if you can take the entire library?”

“Perhaps,” said his father. “Perhaps. Either way, this means the two of you should leave, disappear in the night. Restart until we know what’s going on. I’ll investigate what I can here, but otherwise, the risk is too great. Who knows what they stole, what they now know? Every hundred years or so, it seems humanity finds another unspeakable way to use powers—and those books are full of chapters that history has forgotten. I think they knew what they were looking for.”

Cane swirled the wine in his glass, his eyes on the floor, where the nameless man waited below. He sighed, then drained his glass, rolling out his neck before starting to walk towards the stairs.

“Then it’s time to pack,” he said before descending and preparing himself for what came ahead. All night, he would sculpt—for if he were to flee with the nameless man, it would be with a person who could help solve this mystery, not a walking vegetable.

Chapter 18

Cane continued to sculpt long past that night—for the next five years, as they travelled continually across the country and beyond, in search of new passages to flesh out the nameless man’s books. Each session brought across a refinery of character, a change in the nameless man’s personality as Cane brought him to life.

Memories were the first major change—when the nameless man recalled visiting somewhere with Cane and spoke of it not as a passage in a book, but an actual experience. When they visited a restaurant twice because he recalled he had enjoyed the meal the night before.

“The soup—the mushrooms, I’ve never had anything like them. They were new,” the nameless man had said. In the past, it would have been “Morchella esculenta, salted and soaked with peppered cream to produce a strong flavor pleasing to the tongue.”

Then there was the first time the nameless man used Cane’s name, something that made him stop in the middle of the street and almost drop his briefcase.

“What was that?” Cane had whispered, clutching the handle, turning his head to hide his suddenly watering eyes.

“I said, hurry up, Cane, or we’ll be missing the train. Move your feet, boy, there’s things to learn!” said the nameless man as if it were his everyday speech, completely unaware of the change. But Cane had not missed it, had not missed the man being reborn before his eyes.

And by that fifth year, the nameless man changed into something else than Cane’s charge—now he was a companion. A man still full of stories and knowledge, but no longer with the stuffiness of a book or historian who had forgotten his own humanity.

“So how exactly do you know where we are going next?” Cane asked, just after they checked into a hotel, and they watched the sun set while enjoying a plate of roasted honey almonds. The nameless man popped a handful into his mouth and bit down on them with a satisfying crunch before answering.

“Well it’s different now,” he answered, washing the mouthful down with a hearty swig of lemonade. “I think I knew more back then, before all that sculpting. It’s all like a dream, like I’m grasping at the coattails of thoughts. It’s all down there, waiting, slightly beyond my reach, and the part of me that’s me floats just above it. Things like where I’m from, or how I found your family. But now, now it’s like an instinct. A feeling. I can’t always tell what it means, but it’s there from underneath, an undercurrent.”

“What do you mean by that?” Cane asked, shielding his eyes from the sun. “Can’t you just use your power to retrieve the memory?”

“That layer of poison has always covered my power, like a blocked pipe,” said the nameless man. “What you’re doing now is scraping pieces away, I believe—but only when the drainage is cleared can I actually use it. Voluntarily, at least, flashes will still come through.”

“Maybe we can try something, then,” suggested Cane, reaching out with his mind. He could sense the layer of poison still covering the nameless man, though it had been scraped much thinner in areas. There was the part that covered humor, that he’d nearly completely excavated. Then the part of memory, of thought and consciousness, and personality with only minor coverings. But at the center, the poison was like a well, covering something much deeper that was only exposed when he removed it entirely and held it.

“What if we drilled through the piece holding your power? Like a pinprick, enough so that you can use it when you call it, and we don’t have to rely on instinct alone?”

The nameless man grimaced and folded his arms across his chest.

“We can try, Cane—but I’m not sure we’ll like what we find down there. You don’t know what I am—I don’t know what I am, despite knowing all the world around me.”

So Cane reached out and started to chisel, consuming the poison which each strike, the nameless man flinching. Weight accumulated on him rapidly, and when their waitress returned to bring them an appetizer, she took a double look at Cane before retreating. He persisted and then he felt it—as if he were breaking through a dam, and one more strike would let the pressurized water through.

“Ready?” he asked as he prepared.

“Ready,” the nameless man answered, his face steel.

As Cane broke through, he felt the air around him turn cold, as the nameless man’s pupils ballooned the size of saucers, his fingers gripped the table’s edge, and his muscles turned rigid. He bit his lip so hard, it bled, and when he spoke, his voice grated, as if shouted from several blocks away.

“Close it,” he commanded, the words sending chills up Cane’s spine. “Close it now.”

With a smooth motion, Cane spread the remaining poison back over the hole, plugging where he had exposed him. Slowly, the nameless man returned to normal, shaking and coughing into a napkin on the table.

“Never again,” he managed to say after a minute. “It’s too much, like viewing the sun through a telescope. Either I exist or the part of me underneath exists. Together, without a dam between them, only one survives. We’ll never do that again.”

Chapter 19

On a sunny afternoon during the fifth year, the nameless man stopped as a stiff breeze blew over him, his head tilted towards the sky as if he might sneeze. He sniffed, his eyes narrowing, turning around on the city block on which they had been walking. He held up a hand as Cane started to speak, then broke out in a triumphant smile, his finger in the air.

“I found them,” he announced, throwing his shoulders back in triumphant laughter. “I can feel them, here somewhere. Close.”

“Found what?” asked Cane, tilting his head. They were supposed to be returning to the hotel now, just after the nameless man had made an entry on a particularly strong Flamethrower an hour before, whose flames were tinged by a rainbow of colors dependent on emotion.

“The stolen books! Ah, I can almost remember them. The titles, I have some now, they’re coming back—Theory of Power Imbued Objects, and The Secrets of the Deathguard, and Power Restraints. There’s more there, the whole lot of them, I think! Come—this way!”

The nameless man took off at a trot, and Cane kept up with ease, his marathon-length runs making the task easy. The nameless man wound them through the city, sometimes turning in circles, sometimes returning back to intersections. But slowly, they forged a direction, and it grew more present with each passing minute.

“It’s faint,” he explained, barely able to contain the excitement in his voice. “I’m almost losing it, and it wavers, like a candle flame. But we’re almost there.”

They took the next mile at a brisk walk as the nameless man pinpointed the location, then came to a stop outside a sprawling building surrounded by yard, walled in with a chain link fence. Cane could see the faces of schoolchildren through the windows, heads down and intent on books, while two guards in white jackets watched over the entrance. Walking around to the front, Cane read the sign at the school’s drive, the words freshly painted.

Rehabilitation Facility

Turning Troubled Specials to Exemplary Citizens

“In there,” said the nameless man, nearly out of breath. “They’re all in there somewhere. And not just that—I feel something else. An event is coming near here. Something we’ll want to record.”

“How far in the future?” asked Cane, sizing up the guards at the entrance. He’d inherited his father’s size and still remembered the martial arts classes he’d taken as a child, but to fight two men with unknown powers only invited disaster.

“Can’t say—not too close. Might be a few years. But we’ll want to be there then, to observe. And more importantly,” he said, his expression fierce, “I want my books back. To me, that is not interference. We have to know what they took, what they’re doing. Knowing, I can rely on problems when I know them—but it’s the unknown that is the most dangerous.”

***

“We’re going to need to find you a name,” said Cane as he filled out the applications for both of them that afternoon in a hotel lobby. “Any preference?”

“I wouldn’t know,” came the answer. “It’s not proper for things to name themselves.”

“Well, in that case,” said Cane, “it’s up to me.”

He paused, thinking, before settling on one he liked.

“I remember learning in school, back when they were just discovering evolution, there was this man named Carl Linnaeus. Known as the father of modern taxonomy, he was a classifier of animals —he named them, categorized them just as you have done with the Directory. I think it would be an appropriate namesake.”

“Carl Linnaeus?”

“Let’s shorten it, eh? How about, hmm, how about ‘Linns’? Professor Linns, since you’ll be teaching.”

“An adequate fit,” Linns responded as Cane finished the last blank on the application. Their credentials were forged, but he was confident Linns could cover for any knowledge tests. On their salary requests, he left the section extraordinarily low for his supposed past experience. For himself, he applied for Physical Education—after the years of running off poison, he was more than qualified, and his figure certainly looked the part.

“Once we’re inside,” Cane said, folding the applications and sealing them, “we’ll find the missing books. And we’ll experience this event you’re speaking of. Then, well, I suppose then we’ll move on.”

“Perhaps,” said Linns, tapping the table to emphasize each word. “What’s happening here—I think it’s the start of something. There might be more than we expect to record.”

“Then we’ll play it by ear,” answered Cane, and together they stood. Each of them held their application, and they walked from the hotel towards the rehabilitation facility, smiling at the guards as they approached.

“Hello!” Cane said, waving at the two men, who returned only scowls. “Can we speak to the principal here? We’re interested in applying.”

“Applying for what?” asked one of the guards, not moving from his post, his voice suspicious.

“For being the bearers of knowledge, and passing the torch to future generations,” Linns spoke up, his voice invigorated. “After years of traveling in the pursuit of education, it’s time to settle to help others learn. And who better to teach than the least fortunate?”

The guard’s eyes narrowed, but then he nodded to his companion, who disappeared inside the school. After a few moments, they heard the clicking of shoes walking down the tiled hallway, and a woman appeared in a blue blazer, with a face Cane could never forget.

“We’ve only just opened, we’re not—” she started, but Linns interrupted her before she could speak.

“Please, please review our qualifications!” he said, thrusting his application into her hands. “With our experience, you’ll have talented Specials practically breaking down the door to attend here. And I assure you, we can help them reach their highest potential. We desperately need the position—I’m finishing a study of special births in the area, namely Decomposers, and without the funds, we’ll be on the streets!”

With a casual flick of a finger, she opened the envelope, her eyes scanning the page. They lingered for a moment on the salary section, as well as the list of experience under Linns’ name. Then she nodded and beckoned for them to enter.

“Perhaps we can have a conversation, and maybe secure an opening. I’m the headmistress. Please call me Siri,” she said as they stepped inside. “We’re flexible, especially for anyone who can turn our students into perfect citizens. I’m assuming you’re a good listener?”

“Of course, and it would be our pleasure.” Linns beamed.

As they walked down the hall, Cane’s mind flashed back to the last time he had seen her. Many years ago, on the first expedition he had taken with his father and Linns.

When she had murdered her father.

Continue reading the Places of Power series here, with Book 1, Star Child!

Star Child

Chapter 1

It was an accident, of course.

My birth, my being in space, and well, I suppose I was an accident as well. An accident from the director of engineering screwing the fat janitor after hours when the rest of the shuttle team had retired; the odds that my mother had been able to hide her baby bump for nine months, the chances that she had been a nurse before being selected from the program and knew how to give birth herself, in a maintenance closet, mere days before the mission was to return to earth. Keeping me hidden was difficult in the small confines of the ship, but the other hundred and fifty crew members had been too busy to pay a mere maid much attention. After all, many insisted that it had not been worthwhile to bring her along, that a maid had been a waste of tax dollars. I suppose that makes me a waste of tax dollars as well.

But there were those that spoke to her unique abilities as a maid. For she had been born deep in the snow of the north, during the first blizzard of winter, that like the first snowfall, she could smooth over any differences in her environment and make it appear uniform. As a maid, it meant that she had an extraordinary sense of cleanliness. As a mother, it meant she could ensure I was overlooked, that my crying was muffled, and later in life, that I appeared no different from anyone else.

Star Child, she had called me as she smuggled me back into the atmosphere, tucked deep in her suit like a kangaroo would carry her young. Star Child, she whispered to me when the project disbanded, and she took me to the inner city apartment where I spent my early life. Star Child, she reprimanded whenever I started pushing and pulling at the equilibrium of our apartment, when she would arrive home from work and all the furniture would be clustered at the center of the room, pulled together by a force point.

“When will I go to school?” I asked her when I was eight, watching the uniformed children marching up the street through the wrought-iron gates of the academy, one of them flicking flames across his fingers like a coin while another left footprints of frost in the grass.

“You already go to school, Star Child,” she said. “And your teachers say you've been learning your numbers well, and your reading has been progressing.”

“Not that school,” I had said, pulling a face. “I want to go to the academy. The special school, for the others like me!” I held up a fist, and items on the desk in front of me flew towards it, pens and papers and pencils that stuck out like quivering quills out of my skin.

“Star Child, listen and stop that at once,” she said, her eyes level with mine. “There are no others like you. Those children; they are all classified, they are all known. You are not like them, you never will be. And they can't know, do you understand me?”

“I guess,” I answered with a huff, watching as one of the children cracked a joke and the others laughed. “But I don't like my school. Everyone there knows we can't be like them, that we can't be special.”

“Star Child, you are special. One day, they'll know that too. But not now – if they knew, they wouldn't take you to the academy. They'd take you somewhere else, somewhere terrible.”

And as I grew older, I realized that she was right. That when our neighbor started developing powers, a police squad showed up at her front door and classified her on the spot. That they left her with a tattoo on her shoulder, a tattoo of a lightning bolt, symbolizing the storm during which she had been born. Just like the tattoo of a snowflake on my mother's shoulder, colored dull grey, to indicate a low threat potential.

So instead of going to the academy, I created an academy of my own, in my room. Mother made me turn the lights out at ten, so during the day, I collected light outside, keeping it in one of the dark holes I could create when I closed my fist hard enough, and letting it loose at night to read books I had stolen from the library. From the section for the special children, that I could only access if the librarians were distracted.

But distractions came easy to me.

As I grew older, the city streets became more populated with the blue uniforms of police. The academy became increasingly harder to attend, and the gifted girl next door disappeared one night without a note. Mother stopped letting me outside after dark, and the lines for the soup kitchens grew longer. The skies grew darker, the voices accustomed to speaking in whispers, and the television news seemingly had less and less to report. It was as if there was a blanket thrown upon us, but no one dared look to see who had thrown it.

But I would. And when I did, I realized the earth needed a Star Child.

Chapter 2

“Why can’t anyone else know?” I asked my mother after school when I was thirteen. “Is something wrong with me?”

“Quite the opposite, Star Child. Let me tell you a story, the story of my early career in medicine,” she responded as she set dinner down on the table. My stomach grumbled – I had skipped school lunch that day, preferring to deposit it in the waste bin rather than my mouth. Though he tried his hardest, our school chef had little control of his own powers, weak as they were. He claimed he was from Rome, one of the cities that produced the greatest chef power types, and that our meal was Chicken Parmesan, but neither of those statements held much merit. As I started shoveling food into my mouth, my mother continued to speak, her chair squeaking as she shifted.

“Before you were born, I was a nurse, specializing in the delivery of children. This was back in the north, near my home. But unless your power has a direct medical property, hospitals fear the effect it can have on children, so I was eventually removed from service. But by that time, I’d seen enough to make me want to leave.

“Not everyone is lucky enough to have powers, Star Child. But those who are, their power is altered, depending upon where they are born. Think of it like the seasoning in the meal you are eating – the food holds energy, but with the right spices, it can become enhanced. Similarly, a location can make a power pop. And people are willing to pay dearly for the locations.

“The fee my hospital charged was three times my personal salary per child. If there were twins, the couple was stuck with double the bill. And if there were no powers, the bill was still due. This particular hospital was high in the northern mountains, in an area statistically proven to produce the best powers of snow, ice, and weather. If your child had a power, here they would be the strongest. And if they didn’t, well, I’ve heard too many stories of children entering orphanages after the parents wasted a fortune.

“The name of every child born in our hospital was placed on a list submitted to the police, who tracked them for the next two decades. Should a child commit a petty crime and have their name on the list, it was the same as committing a felony since these children were considered high risk. Unless you were still wealthy, of course. And it was strange, those names identified as having strong powers but belonging to a lower class, it seemed like they always committed a crime, without fail. That the police just happened to be waiting, watching them for when it happened. Ready to take them in and to send them to rehabilitation camps, where they would enter the military or the guard, after several years of conditioning, to sacrifice their lives on the front lines. And the more powerful you were, the more likely you were to be classified as a delinquent.

“So listen to me, Star Child. The hospital I worked at was a level three facility out of five. Level twos are even more dangerous, and level ones require a massive fortune to even step in the door. And as you know, having a baby in an unauthorized location is a crime punishable by death. Where you were born, that would be off the scales, a level zero location. Fortunately, you’ve been overlooked, but my power can only do so much. They’d use you or kill you, as a weapon or as a precaution. And you are destined for neither fate. You were fortunate enough that the space program that employed me ended early, due to solar flare activity, otherwise you would already be in the hands of the government. So you listen to me, and you tell no one, do you understand?”

“Yes,” I answered, sighing as I finished my plate, and her hand rested heavily upon my shoulder. And that night, when I retired for sleep, I pulled out the first book I had ever stolen from underneath my bed. Opening my palm, I called forth the small black orb from where I had kept it hidden, in a small pocket just above my wrist. Not an actual pocket, but almost like the void under my tongue, or behind my ear. A place where it almost felt as if I had turned the space inside out, and could reach inside with my pinky.

Taking the orb, I unwrapped it slowly, letting the light trapped within escape in a small beam. Over time, it would grow smaller, until eventually with a flash, it would collapse, and I would have to make a new one during the day.

A Directory of Known Powers, the book was titled. Capabilities and Locations.

Introduction:

Little is known about what, precisely, determines the chance that a child will develop any abilities. Conversely, the factors playing into the type of power innate in a child are well studied and well documented within the pages of this directory.

There are many dimensions in which a child’s power can be analyzed, but for simplicity, the following shall be mentioned due to their high correlation with observable outcomes: locations, power strength, and power type. Other minor effects include genetics, location and passion of conception, and diet during pregnancy. Environmental factors at the time of birth are also known to play a role in power development, though less documentation exists to confirm claims.

Yawning, I flipped through the pages to the pictures section, where a compilation of artists had depicted powers in use. Some were copies of pictures over a hundred years old, documenting powers that had not been seen in so long they were rumored to be myth. Others had so many occurrences that I skipped them, having seen them so often in real life, they now bored me.

Entry 348, Speaking in Tongues, read the title, while the picture showed a girl surrounded by people of all ethnicities, their ears tilted towards her.

Description: A condition in which languages no longer bond speech. Those born with this power have the ability to converse in multiple languages at the same time to multiple audiences.

Strength: Typically a lower level, measured by number and variety of languages that can be spoken, and whether the power can be extended to the written word. Owners of this power are also susceptible to side effects of Silver Tongue (see entry 427) and Pied Piper (see entry 201), which can increase the power by an order of magnitude.

Location: Documented cases occur in hospitals near border regions or in countries with multiple spoken languages.

I flipped backwards to an earlier entry and read another, yawning again as I felt sleep coming soon.

Entry 56, Diamond Exterior. This picture was of a glinting man, half his skin sparkling, the other half normal flesh.

Description: The ability to change portions of the body to rock or diamond, often razor sharp.

Strength: Typically a medium to high power level. Power is measured by mobility after transformation, as well as ability to change objects outside of their own body. Nearly indestructible and difficult to contain, those with strong abilities of this power are weighted extremely high.

Location: Documented cases occur in volcanic regions, with high frequencies at Magmar hospitals (LVL 1), located just above active Hawaiian volcanos. Prior to civilization, it is documented that entire islands once held this ability.

With a small pop, my reading orb exploded, illuminating my room like a camera flash for a split second before immersing me in darkness. I frowned – I was just getting to the section where hospitals of all levels were listed, but I’d only stored one orb today, as I had used most of mine reading the night before.

I lay back on my pillow as I drifted to sleep, dreaming about the academy despite my mother’s words. Where I could maybe even see some of the rarer powers, where I’d be able to share my secret. Just like the other special children.

But before I had the chance to apply, when they accepted new admissions entering higher education, the academy moved.

Chapter 3

“You know, you would have to be an idiot to be caught here,” said the voice behind me, and I nearly fell out of the tree branch where I perched.

I’d been skipping school, again, a regular occurrence now that I was fifteen – this time, during a career fair where parents of the children arrived to show us opportunities for our futures. Jim, the short kid with glasses held together by tape so old it had started to dry rot, had turned a bright red when his father pulled the garbage truck into the school lot like a massive show-and-tell.

“You see here,” said his father, his new school-provided name tag reading Jim already tarnished with a fleck of grease, “ev’ry day, we cart the trash away. That trash goes to the Calorie Exchanger teams, typically born near peat swamp regions, who convert what they can to petrol. Which keeps the lights on, kiddos. So next time you think of garbage, remember what you throw away always has value.”

The class nodded, several staring towards the next location we would be herded to by Mrs. Whip, a low level Distraction Attenuator. Of course, she had never received any training for a power so minimal, but she was a Saturant, so she didn’t have to – for Saturants, powers were involuntary. They simply flowed from the wielder like a type of charisma that could only be slightly enhanced with focus.

Turning right, I saw the Secretary Career location was next, and as we walked over, one of the parent's head snapped up as his face twitched.

“Kids! Oh, kids, futures! You have futures,” he said, and his eyes jumped rapidly between each of us, yet never seemed to focus properly on any of our faces. This was Jessica’s father, and she forced an encouraging smile as he entered a silence too many seconds long to be acceptable, his face strained as he fought for his next words. “Oh yes, futures! As a secretary, you are one of the most well, most well, most well paid out of all…”

He stopped, entering another silence, and Jessica spoke up, biting her lip.

“Go on, Daddy, out of all the Regulars,” she prompted, and his face lit up, having found another train of thought as he continued, blinking several times in rapid succession.

“Like anyone would take that job,” whispered Stephen from next to me, one of the children Mrs. Whip’s effect seemed have no effect on, and who lived in an apartment several doors down from my own. “Working for the Specials, writing down every word at their important meetings, then having appointments with a Memory Drain at the end of each month to make sure you don’t retain any information. By the looks of this one, he must work for someone really important. I bet they memory drain him every day.”

I shook my head as Jessica prompted her father again and found myself losing interest, my eyes wandering to the fence at the edge of school property. Behind us, Mrs. Whip was quietly laughing as she spoke to Mr. Lynch, the muscular gym teacher who sometimes drove her home after school, and his eyes were practically glued to her own.

“I’m heading to use the restroom,” I said to Stephen as I felt my focus falter again, Mrs. Whip’s tinkling laugh sounding behind us as other members of the class shuffled their feet. “I’ll probably just join the class behind us so I don’t miss anything. If anyone asks, let them know that.”

“Hey, you can fool them, but you can’t fool me,” he answered with a wink. “I’d join ya, but Mum said I won’t get dinner if she catches me skipping again.”

So I made my way to the restrooms, and from the restrooms out the shattered window in one of the back classrooms that had been on the school repair list since last September. And I walked to something more interesting, something I could only see when I skipped my own lessons around this time.

The academy, at recess. Where I had found the perfect spot, high up in a heavily leaved rhododendron tree, where I could just barely see through the vegetation to the children my age playing over the fence. Placing a few well-aimed force points toward the outer edges of the tree, I pulled the branches apart just enough to make a small window, just enough for me to have a clear look.

Powers, as I could tell from my position, were not to be used at recess under threat of punishment. But it was similar to the busy intersection outside my apartment, viewable from my window – if you watched long enough, something would happen. And I’d spent hours in that tree, waiting, nearly always to be rewarded.

Just last week, a skirmish had broken out over a hotly contested game of whiffle ball, the two teams shouting about whether or not the ball had landed across the foul ball line. From my position, I could hear Anthony, the right fielder, being accused.

“He used his powers again, and that’s cheating!” shouted a girl with the bat still in her hand, who made the ground tremor just noticeably when she stomped. “We should use a heavier ball so he can’t just blow it out of bounds.”

“Did not!” retorted Anthony, a reed of a boy who stood six inches taller than anyone else on the team. “You just can’t hit straight, what with the earth never being flat underneath you. Wendy Waddles, everyone calls you, because you can’t keep your feet straight!”

Wendy’s jaw tightened as she approached Anthony, and I saw Anthony was indeed correct – slight depressions or footprints were left in the dirt where she stomped, dirt that should be hard packed over years of use.

“You take that back!” she hissed. “Or I’ll, or I’ll—”

“Or you’ll what?” he teased, sticking out his tongue.

“Or I’ll do this!” she shouted and stomped as hard as she could where his foot had been an instant before he moved it, fluttering backwards like a piece of paper caught in the wind. Wendy shrieked as her foot crashed through the dirt until her right leg was submerged up to her knee, her eyes flashing with anger.

“Get back here!” she shouted, trying to yank her foot out as teachers rushed to subdue the fight. “Before I come after you!”

“Doesn’t look like you can waddle anywhere, Wendy!” he taunted back.

From my position, I saw both students were reprimanded with detention slips. It took the teachers forty-five minutes to dig Wendy out, the time significantly lengthened when she stomped her other foot in frustration and now had both jammed deep in dirt.

And today, I watched closely, trying to determine what would happen next. Too closely, as the voice behind me nearly made me jump out of the tree to the ground thirty feet below.

“I’m no Telepath, so I don't know,” said the voice again as I searched the branches, trying to find the source, “but I’d say you probably are an idiot. You should be in school. I wonder what the punishment is for skipping? For us, it’s three detentions. What's your name?”

Then I found her, floating just outside the branches, a mass of brunette hair with two brown eyes that squinted towards me. With nothing holding her up, except for her nose looking down on me, and her voice thick with mockery.

“Essie,” I choked, attempting to recover.

And I swallowed, realizing that she wore the same uniform as those playing at recess.

Chapter 4

“Essie?” she sniffed, hovering. “That’s a girl’s name, you don’t look like a girl to me.”

“That’s because it’s S-C,” I said, slowly reaching out to remove each of the force points, letting the tree branches collapse back in around me. “Like JD or EJ.”

“Well, Essie or SC, it certainly doesn’t explain what you are doing in this tree,” she retorted and noticed the branches moving. “Hey?! Are you doing that? Are you a Special?”

“No, I’m absolutely not,” I said hurriedly. “Just a nosy Regular, and now, I’ll be on my way, thank you. Just, erm, got lost.”

“You absolutely are!” she said, trailing me from the outside of the tree as I started to climb down, realizing I knew her as one of the girls that frequented hopscotch and jump rope on the other end of the playground. With her abilities, I bet she cheated too. “And this isn’t the first time I’ve seen you up here. I tend to keep my eyes on the sky. This is just the first time my teacher turned her back long enough for me to look!”

“Nope, definitely first time I’ve been here, Arial!” I repeated, now practically falling from the tree in my haste, cursing as I realized my slip-up.

“You know my name! You’ve been spying on me, on us, listening to us? Who do you think you are? Stop, stop right there or I’ll report you in before you make it down the block. I’m sure the police would want to know why you aren’t in school!”

I froze, clinging to the branch halfway down, considering my options.

I could set a force point above her, one that would drag her upwards and away while I escaped. But it would likely do more harm than good – creating a force point was kind of like kneading dough, or playing with putty. It was as if I was pushing into that area of space, contorting it, stretching it downwards, and letting objects fall in. The problem, however, was that anything nearby would be attracted to it, not just her. It would draw far more attention to me than she ever could by calling the police, and she might be able to fly away before she could be sucked in.

I frowned, thinking quickly as she questioned me again, her voice hard.

“I said, what are you doing here?” she repeated, whizzing in closer, sticking her head inside the leaves, a branch tearing her sleeve. “Now look what you’ve made me do! Mother is going to be irate.”

“I’m, well, I’ve only just arrived a few days ago,” I said, an idea taking root in my brain, “But I’m trying to determine if the academy is worthy for someone like me. My parents sent me here, you see, to live with my aunt, since schools aren’t the best where I’m from. Since, well, they don’t exist where I’m from.”

“Don’t exist?” she asked, craning her neck forward. “What do you mean, don’t exist? Schools are everywhere.”

“Not when your parents are researchers in the Arctic!” I said, thrusting out my chest. “But I suppose you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, city girl?”

“I wouldn’t, and you wouldn’t either. Because it’s obviously a lie,” she snorted, inspecting the tear in her sleeve, trying to press the fabric near her elbow back together.

“Hmm, a lie? You’re right, I did lie. I am a Special, from farther north than you’ve ever seen, where it’s light outside for entire days at a time.”

“Oh yeah? What type are you, then?”

“A Boreal,” I stated, brushing a piece of bark off my shirt. “But I doubt someone from around here would be familiar with those.”

“A Boreal!” she exclaimed, eyes wide. “Of course I know what those are. I saw one when I was young! The city booked him out for an entire night. I’ve never seen a show like it! It was as if the sky came alive with colors!”

“I suppose if you aren’t used to it, it might seem pretty amazing,” I responded and started climbing down the tree again, giving her a sideways glance. “Guess I’m just used to it by now.”

“Hold it, I’m not done with you,” she said. “Prove it. Boreals are incredibly rare, and I’d know if one entered the city. We'd all know.”

“Rare, but not powerful. I don’t need any sort of permits, I couldn’t hurt a fly. There's no reason for me to enter announced.”

“Either way, prove it, or I’m still calling the police.”

“If you wanted a private show, you should have just asked,” I drawled and held up a hand palm up towards her. “I’ll need to keep it small, though, and you’ll have to keep it a secret. No one is supposed to know I’m here yet, since I don’t start school until next week.”

Slowly, I coaxed one of the black orbs out from above my wrist, peeling away several strands of light from it while keeping the sphere hidden behind my hand. Light played around the inside of the enclosure, sparkling against the leaves, and Arial’s mouth fell open as strands of it danced in vibrating streams, like tiny arcs of fire.

“Do more colors,” she breathed, transfixed, practically perched in the tree now instead of floating. “It’s beautiful.”

“Can’t, not yet at least. That’s why my parents sent me to school, to train me. And I wanted to see if this school was capable. I’m not so sure, if they can't keep track of all their students.”

“Oh, they are, they are! My father knows, he can tell your parents all about it. He would love to meet you too. He loves seeing the rarer types. You should come over for dinner and show him! Here, take this,” she said, fetching a pen and paper from her side. “This is my address. I’d love to introduce him to you.”

“We’ll see. I still have a few other schools to inspect,” I answered. “Can't make my decision until I've considered all my options.”

“A Boreal, here,” she said to herself. “He would be so pleased, and he'd be happy with me for bringing you. No, don’t even look at the other schools. Enroll here.”

“We’ll see,” I repeated and jumped the rest of the way to the ground. “I don’t want to promise anything yet.”

In the distance, over the fence, I heard a whistle and saw Arial turn back towards the school.

“I must be going, recess is over, but keep this address!” she insisted and pushed the paper into my palm. “Anytime, you are welcome for dinner. Anytime, SC.”

“Anytime,” I answered casually, starting to walk away as she flew back over the fence. I kept a slow wandering pace weaving up the street, letting my feet shuffle along as I peered into shop windows with my hands in my pockets.

Then I turned a corner at the end of the block, lost a direct line of sight with the academy, and ran.

Chapter 5

“What are you doing home so early,” demanded my mother as I entered the apartment, my breath still coming in quick gasps.

“It was career day at school, so there was early dismissal,” I lied as she raised an eyebrow.

“Star Child,” she reprimanded, “there is only so much I can do to keep you hidden. The more you act up, the more attention you draw to yourself, and the more difficult it will be for both of us. Go on, fetch your homework – it’s too late for you to return to school now, but I won’t see that mind of yours go to waste.”

Then she turned to the sink and continued the dishes, shaking her head. After cleaning the sweat off, I returned to the kitchen, opening my books on the table, positioning myself near a window where sunlight streamed inside. Placing my index finger in the webbing under my thumb, I flicked my nail against the skin, concentrating as I imagined pulling the space in that region together, tying it into a swift knot with my mind. Then, in my palm, a black orb formed and started to absorb the sunlight, growing slightly larger with each passing minute.

In that time, our apartment was quiet save for the tinkling of dishware as I fell into the book, practicing the mathematical equations on the pages for a quiz the next day. The air was near still, the air conditioning turned off either from being broken or to save money, as each week it seemed to alternate between the two. And occasionally, I caught the sound of my mother humming an old tune softly, one that I recognized but could not quite identify, fading in and out of my perception as she moved.

But then, the three knocks on the door nearly started me out of my seat.

These were not neighborly knocks, like those when Stephen’s mother visited to borrow the salt, or even strained knocks like when our landlord came to collect the rent, and my mother sent me to raid the couch cushions for spare change while she rummaged together the last dollar. No, these were sharp, quick raps, staccato bursts that didn’t wait for my mother to reach the door before opening it.

“Police,” stated the square-faced man at the front of the trio as he stepped into our kitchen uninvited, a younger man to his left and a middle-aged woman to his right. “We’re looking for a Ms. Alcmene; do you know her?”

“Speaking,” said my mother and forced a smile. “May I ask why you have entered my kitchen, and whether I can offer you any refreshments?”

Cold washed over me as my breath caught in my throat, and the trio squinted at my mother. Somehow they knew, somehow they had found me from spying on the academy. But how? That Arial must have told them or trailed me back. I thought I had been careful, but it must not have been careful enough.

I stared as the head policeman looked about the kitchen, his eyes gliding over me as my mother’s wrinkles deepened and a vein throbbed her temple, but still managed to smile.

“Yes, you live alone, then? Good,” he said, and pulled out a stack of papers, consulting them. “You are the Ms. Alcmene that served as a delivery nurse and exhibit Snuffer powers, correct?”

“Yes, yes,” my mother responded, wiping dishwater off her hands. “A weak form of powers, nothing to be noticed.”

“Nothing to be noticed indeed,” came the reply. “If I recall, that’s the exact purpose of a Snuffer. It's written here that you are measured to be one of the stronger Snuffers, not that that means much. Regardless, your unique services to the state are requested, Ms. Alcmene. You’ll be coming with us at once. We’ve seen to it that your rent has been paid, that your crucial belongings will be transported. Come along.”

“And if I choose not to come?” she inquired, leaning back against the counter. “I already served the state once, quite some time ago.”

“Ms.,” he said as the woman behind him reached to the handcuffs on her belt, “don’t make me change this request into an order.”

“What?” I shouted, pounding my fist on the table. “You can’t do that!”

A bead of sweat trickled down my mother’s neck and the muscles around her smile tightened. For a second, the lead officer’s brow creased, and he looked her over once more in annoyance, tilting his head in slight confusion.

“Ms., there is no time to mumble, and I suggest you show us the respect of enunciating your words. Are you coming of your own volition?”

“The hell she’s not!” I shouted, springing up from the table as my mother’s vein looked like it was about to burst, and she shouted, her voice filled with strain, her face directed at the policeman but her voice at me.

“Shut up and leave! You owe me that!”

I froze, watching as the slap from the officer caught my mother square across the jaw with the back of a gloved hand, knocking her hard against the cabinet.

“The state owes you nothing,” he hissed as the woman turned my mother around to fasten the handcuffs behind her back, forcing my mother’s face to meet mine as it was flattened against the cabinet.

Leave, she mouthed, her eyes pleading, her lip bleeding as I felt myself preparing to cast a force point stronger than I had ever done before, to crush the officers together while we escaped. But her eyes began to water, and she whispered once more as they started to pull her away, and I found myself paralyzed by her command.

“No, leave.”

The police left the door open, and I watched them enter the squad car from the window. I heard the officer’s final words as I memorized his face, just before the car pulled away.

“We’ve found a far better use for you than a maid, Ms. Alcmene. And I suggest you cooperate. You’re still far enough from Special to be considered a Regular, and I do have witnesses of you putting up a fight. In these circumstances, an accidental fatality would hold up well in the court of law.”

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