The Reckoning

by M. K. Easley

  “Why don't you come upstairs with me and I'll tell you all the things you can do for me?”

  “OK, see you around Beckett,” Olivia said, beating a hasty retreat as Emmeline started to pull him out of the kitchen.

  “Alright, I am not drunk enough and you're too drunk for this,” Beckett said, peeling Emmeline's hand off of his arm once they got into the hallway by the stairs. “Why don't you go find the girls?”

  “But I want you, not them.” Emmeline pressed up against Beckett, pinning him against the wall. Her red dress was short, low-cut, and skintight, her lipstick the exact shade of the fabric.

  “I wore this for you,” Emmeline told him, her lips inching closer to his. “We had such a good time together, didn't we Beckett? We can do that again.”

  Beckett was sure any mortal man would be tempted by Emmeline. He was completely over her and was still having a hard time remembering why that was in that moment.

  “Ah, sorry.” Evander Wallace turned the corner and then immediately turned back around.

  That broke the spell. Beckett eased Emmeline away from him and ran a hand through his hair.

  “I don't think so, sorry Emmeline.”

  “No, you'll be sorry,” Emmeline said, her face flushing. She began to stomp off, then stopped, turning back to Beckett, who'd gone back into the kitchen. “And this better not have anything to do with that witch Tristan. I see the way you've been looking at her!”

  “I promise it has nothing to do with her and everything to do with you,” Beckett said dryly, and Tyler Daniels, another footballer who was fixing himself a drink, whooped.

  "Shut up, Tyler!” Emmeline yelled, once again stomping away.

  “Somethin’ goin’ on with Tristan Wallace, bro?” Tyler asked, grinning cheekily at Beckett as he drawled in his direction. Tyler's accent always seemed to increase threefold when he was drinking. “Didn't think you were into the blood-drinkin’, howlin’ at the moon types. That's what she is, you know. One-a them Twilight vampires.”

  “Tyler?” A sweet voice spoke from the other side of the kitchen, and Beckett and Tyler looked over to see Olivia leaning against the door jamb. “Did you know the very definition of an idiot is someone who treats unsubstantiated rumor as fact?”

  “Olivia.” Tyler put his hand to his chest as he sauntered over to her. “You're callin’ me an idiot? I'm wounded. I thought what we had was special.”

  Tyler knuckled Olivia under the chin, knowing she’d had a crush on him for a long time, and Olivia fought off a grin. What Beckett wasn't sure if she knew was that Tyler also had a long-standing crush on her.

  “I was just teasin’ my buddy Beckett, I promise,” Tyler said earnestly. “I meant no offense to you and yours.”

  “Keep my sister's name out of your mouth, teasin’ or not,” Olivia told him, looking up at him with wide eyes. She walked her fingers up his arm, her voice still sweet as can be. "Or you'll never, ever get a chance with me.”

  Olivia leaned in, whispering something in Tyler’s ear before smirking and strolling away. Tyler stared after her, dumbfounded, and Beckett grinned into his cup, rejoining the party.

  ***

  “How was the party last night?” Tristan asked Olivia and Evander late the next morning at breakfast.

  Evander, who was staring dumbly at his plate, merely grunted, while Olivia arched a perfect eyebrow.

  “It was fine. Kind of lame, kind of not, same as usual.”

  Tristan nodded, trying to play it casual.

  “Sounds about right. Who was there?”

  Olivia just stared at her.

  “What?”

  “Are you seriously asking me about a party thrown by one of your classmates?”

  “Yes, why? Is there some rule that says I can't?”

  “No,” Olivia said slowly. “It's just, you usually deliver some kind of sarcastic commentary on how you think it went and never bother to listen to a fact-check, you know, since you're better than all of us and all.”

  “Oh my gods, fine, forget it,” Tristan snapped, just as Sol and Umbris entered the dining room. “I don't care; you're right.”

  She gathered her plate and utensils and left the table in a huff, and Olivia looked around for the hidden cameras.

  “Have I gone crazy?” Olivia asked Evander, bumping his elbow. “She never cares about these parties, right?”

  Evander just grunted.

  Tristan flopped back on her bed, absentmindedly looking at the model of the solar system that hung above her bed. She really didn't care about the party, wasn't sure why she'd asked. Well, that was a lie. At the time, she really just wanted to know about Beckett, but the moment had quickly passed. Beckett was interfering in too many of her thoughts, and if she wasn't careful, she'd make a fool of herself because of it. Besides, how pathetic was it that she was practically obsessing over him after two brief interactions? The downsides of shunning the typical high school experience continued to reveal themselves.

  A knock on her door. Tristan looked over to see Olivia standing in the doorway, twirling a long strand of copper hair around her finger. She was still in her pajamas -- slim black sweatpants and a faded T-shirt -- and she looked much younger than her sixteen years. In fact, if Tristan squinted just a little, she could see Olivia at various ages standing just the same way in just the same spot.

  “Can I come in?”

  “The door was open,” Tristan replied, and Olivia crossed the room, sinking down onto Tristan's bed. Tristan shifted over to make some room.

  “I didn't mean anything by what I said,” Olivia said, observing Tristan with her owl-like eyes. “I mean… I wasn't wrong, was I?”

  Tristan laughed in spite of herself. “No, you weren't wrong.”

  “The party really was the same as they always are. Loud music, loud people getting drunk, hookups, breakups, the usual.”

  “You better not have been hooking up,” Tristan said, raising her eyebrows.

  Olivia rolled her eyes, but blushed just slightly. “Of course I wasn't.”

  “Hmm,” Tristan said, still eyeballing her.

  “Don't even!” Olivia very suddenly became unreadable, and Tristan grinned.

  “If you can seal, I can seal.” Olivia crossed her arms.

  “You know I can't read your thoughts anyway,” Tristan said. “Thank the gods.”

  “Ha ha,” Olivia said, stretching her legs out.

  “So who broke up last night?”

  “Christie Dobell and Davison Hench, again. No surprise there. Oh but ew, I think Beckett Benson and Emmeline Strandquest hooked up again.”

  “What?” Tristan pushed herself up on her elbows, trying to keep her expression neutral.

  Olivia nodded, wrinkling her nose.

  “Yeah. She took him upstairs with her I think, if they even made it up there -- I didn't stick around to find out.” Olivia mock shuddered, and Tristan lowered her head back down onto her pillow.

  Olivia chattered on about the party, but Tristan had stopped listening. Beckett and Emmeline, hooking up? Why now? Why at all?

  “I'm gonna go get a shower,” Olivia said finally, oblivious to how Tristan had been ignoring her.

  “OK. I'll be here.”

  Olivia left and Tristan resumed staring at the solar system, trying to get her thoughts in some kind of order. She was irrationally bothered by the idea of Beckett and Emmeline, but mostly she was worried about what it would mean for her senior project if their hookups turned into round two of a relationship. She laid there, lost in thought, until she noticed that the solar system had begun to move. It spun in a slow circle, gradually picking up speed. Tristan pushed up onto one elbow, frowning. She was not doing that… was she? A whir filled the air as the mobile spun so fast, it was merely a blur. As suddenly as it had started, it stopped, and Tristan jumped off of her bed, her heart pounding.

  She hurried down the hall and knocked on Olivia's door. Olivia opened it, her hair half blown dry, and Tristan pushed past her,
pacing back and forth.

  “What's wrong?”

  “My solar system was spinning. Is something bad coming?”

  “What?” Olivia frowned.

  “My model of the solar system, above my bed. It was spinning, Oceana. I didn't do it.”

  “What way?” Olivia's face was grave. “What way was it spinning?”

  “Clockwise, I think? Yes, clockwise.”

  Olivia blew out a breath, relief flooding her features.

  “An omen would have been counterclockwise. You're coming up on your crash, that's all.”

  “What?”

  “Your crash, before the gathering? You know, when you get a burst of pure energy and it signals that in five days you're going to crash? It usually coincides with the gathering. Trinity? Does this…” Olivia trailed off, looking curiously at Tristan. “Does this not happen to you?”

  Tristan shook her head, as confused as Olivia.

  “I get tired around gathering time, but I've never had an energy burst and I've never had a crash. It happens to you every month?”

  Olivia nodded. “Yes. But I use my abilities. You don't. Have you been, recently?”

  Tristan shook her head again. “I haven't.”

  “Well then you're unsettled. Is that why you sealed?”

  “I… maybe.”

  Olivia nodded. “You're unsettled. That's why it happened. OK, sit down. You need to know what to expect now with the crash. Ugh, suckage -- it'll be Halloween for you. You'll spend the drive to the gathering sleeping, most likely, since you won't feel better until you get there and get your energy infusion; make sure you tell Mom and Dad you need to ride with us. I think they think you were finally going to try driving yourself this month.”

  Tristan sat apprehensively on the edge of Olivia's bed.

  “OK. So the crash is like…” Olivia thought for a moment. “It's like the most tired you've ever been, times one hundred, plus the worst flu you've ever had, times fifty. You won't feel sick necessarily, like your stomach won't be bothering you or anything, but you'll feel like you're half-dead and you'll look it, too. And it's hard to think. So, so hard. It's like this fog settles in your brain and you don't have the energy to clear it. Me and Ember are gonna have to drive you to and from school, unless you stay home.”

  “I can't. I have two pretty big tests that day. Oh gods, am I going to fail?” Tristan's eyes widened in horror, but Olivia shook her head.

  “All of your knowledge will be there, you're just going to have a hard time accessing it. I know you don't like to use your abilities, but if you can remember how to transfer energy, you can borrow some from your classmates to help you cut a path through the brain fog.”

  “Oceana, you know we don't bring our abilities to school with us,” Tristan said seriously. “That's like, the only rule. We don't use them there.”

  “There are exceptions to every rule, Trinity, and besides, it's just borrowing energy. There will be plenty to go around; you're not going to harm anyone.”

  “I don't like this.”

  “Well, look at it this way,” Olivia said, shrugging. “At least you won't be bored at the gathering this month.”

  “I don't get bored,” Tristan said, but she couldn't come up with an alternative descriptor. She just didn't usually get much out of the gathering -- she didn't use her abilities and didn't practice regularly, and the residual energy in the air that she picked up was nice but not necessary. Most months she ended up people-watching instead of participating, or going for a walk with Celes once he'd gotten his infusion. It'd been years since she'd gotten an energy infusion herself, something else to prepare for, but the memories she had were pleasant enough.

  “Mom and I are heading into town today, do you want to come?” Olivia asked, pulling a mustard yellow cardigan on over her floaty, dark green dress.

  “No thanks.”

  “You're too young to be a shut-in, Trinity,” Olivia said disapprovingly.

  “I'm going to walk down to the river,” Tristan replied. “I can avoid people and get out of the house. Win-win.”

  Olivia put on a pair of chunky heeled brown booties, shaking her head.

  “Suit yourself.”

  Tristan followed her out of her bedroom and went back into her own, gathering her toiletries for her own shower. When she'd finished, she braided her wet hair and dressed in her favorite pair of skinny jeans and a plain white v-neck shirt. Tristan slipped into her black canvas sneakers, sprayed herself with bug spray, and then made her way downstairs.

  “I'm going for a walk!” Tristan called, not waiting for a response.

  She left through the back door, stepping into the sprawling yard that backed right up to the woods. The house she and her family occupied sat dead in the middle of three acres of land -- a long, winding driveway stretched before it, and a long, lush yard stretched behind. The house itself was fairly unremarkable, at least as far as Tristan was concerned. It was a Tudor style home like others in Lavelle, just large enough for their family of five, and, when looked at with an objective eye, charming in a fairytale kind of way. Unfortunately, the general oddness of The Wallaces that most people in Lavelle picked up on, helped along by Emmeline's smear campaign, made it seem like something out of a more sinister fairytale -- like perhaps just in the basement were Hansel and Gretel, waiting to be rescued or otherwise devoured.

  In spite of that, or maybe because of it, the family saw a ton of Halloween traffic, and fairly frequently found local kids creeping around their property after dark. Umbris and Sol were always gracious towards the trespassers, but the younger Wallaces could never manage to pass up an opportunity to put on a little show -- after all, it was what the creeping kids had come for. The last group had been treated to Tristan backlighting Olivia with a green light while Evander had blasted a thunder effects track through his phone’s Bluetooth speakers. Olivia had cackled into the perfectly windy night, having donned a long black cape, and the siblings had laughed for hours after the kids had run off screaming.

  Smiling to herself, Tristan entered the woods, the trees offering a welcome respite from the beating sun, which had decided to come out from behind the clouds as she'd crossed the yard. She felt herself relaxing as she walked, not realizing until that moment how tense she'd been. She unsealed her thoughts and breathed in the heady scent of the fall foliage. For not the first time, she wished she lived somewhere that experienced real autumn -- turning leaves, biting mornings, chilled evenings. It was one of the reasons she was hoping for an acceptance letter from a college, any college far North, if not her dream choice of the prestigious Ward Livingston University, perched on the Chelsea River right on the edge of Boston, Massachusetts. Time seemed to crawl in Lavelle, Louisiana, but Tristan knew it couldn't be that way everywhere.

  After walking a while through the peaceful woods, Tristan came upon a part of the Mississippi that wound its way through Lavelle. The woods leading to that particular area were terribly overgrown and buggy, which meant there was never anyone there -- which made it a perfect, undisturbed thinking spot for Tristan. She sat on the grassy riverbank, taking off her sneakers and digging her toes into the soft soil. She tilted her face up to the sun, closing her eyes, and she evened her breathing, letting the rays recharge her soul. It was tiring, sealing her thoughts, and it didn't help that she felt guilty doing it. Being able to sit here and let go was exactly what she needed to re-center herself.

  ***

  Over in his neck of the woods, Beckett climbed out of his bedroom window, dropping down to the roof below, where he stretched out on his back. Inside the house, his parents were fighting again. Something about money this time, though Beckett was sure they'd fight about anything they could. He stared up at the sky, wondering how long his parents would stay together once he'd left for college. The sun beat down on his face and he closed his eyes, becoming pleasantly drowsy. The voices in his house faded until all he could hear was nature, as though he'd stepped back in time. There was someth
ing comforting about lying in the sun, something soul-cleansing, which was why this little piece of roof was his favorite spot in Lavelle. It was completely unshaded, completely undisturbed, and perfect for thinking.

  Chapter 3

  Tristan and Evander drove to school together on Monday. Usually, Evander and Olivia carpooled, but Olivia's crash had come that morning; she had chosen to stay home in order for Sol to administer a mini-infusion, which would hold Olivia over until the gathering.

  “What a way to wake up this morning, huh?” Evander asked as they drove, referring to their entire household being awakened by Olivia groaning like she was on death’s doorstep.

  “I know; Oceana totally shattered my zen after my walk in the woods yesterday. She said she crashes every month, but I swear I’ve never heard her making the noises she was making this morning. I know I wouldn’t have missed it before.”

  “Because she hasn’t. She thought her crash was coming tomorrow, since she and I usually end up on the same schedule, so she had no time to prepare.”

  “How do you prepare? Apparently I’m in for my first on Thursday.”

  “Ah, Halloween? Suckage.”

  Tristan smiled.

  “Oceana said the same thing. You guys know I’m not crazy about Halloween though, right? And it’s not like I have plans.”

  “What do you mean?” Evander asked, looking surprised. “Every year you’re out front or inside jumping out at anyone who approaches. You don’t enjoy that?”

  “Not really,” Tristan admitted. “I do it because I know you all get a kick out of it, and, OK, sometimes if someone I don’t like comes up it’s fun to scare them, but otherwise… not really.”

  “Well you’ve fooled me then,” Evander said, looking out the window. “I mean, you painted yourself silver last year. That’s dedication from someone who doesn’t enjoy it.”

  Tristan laughed.

  “So how do I prepare for this crash?”

  Evander shook his head.

  “There’s no real way to prepare. Nothing you can do will make it any better. Oceana’s version of prepared is to know it’s coming and to brace herself, that’s all.”