by Oxford, Rain
Dad started calling my brother “Hell” when my brother inadvertently scared Dad about wanting to leave. Hail may roll his eyes on occasion, but I knew he secretly loved it. When his powers first developed, he didn’t know the difference between a vision, a nightmare, or reality. One bright spot of his babyhood was that he saw Dylan and Mordon in his visions. Thus, when he finally met them, he already trusted them explicitly. To my brother, Dad was always his one and only father.
“I thought this was his first time in public school.”
“No, actually, he spent a few days in a small villiage school when he was six.”
“I understand that he was defending his brother, but he sent a student to the hospital. I have to suspend him for fighting.”
“If that is your policy, go for it, but every one of those eighth graders who were bullying Drake gets suspended, too. Bullying is against school policy.”
The principal sighed and nodded. “Some days aren’t worth getting out of bed,” the man thought.
“So we’re staying home?” I asked.
Dad nodded. “I can’t make you go to school when Hell is suspended. How long has he got?” he asked.
“Three days. It’s the minimum I can give him for fighting.”
“Okay. They’ll be back on Monday. I assume work will be sent home for them?”
“For Samhail, yes. Ronez doesn’t need to miss school; he wasn’t fighting.”
“If you hadn’t noticed, the boys stick together. If I send Ron to school, either Hell will break in or Ron with skip out. I’ll save us both the trouble.”
“If you have a minute, can I speak with you in private?” the principal asked.
“I don’t have a minute; I have to get back to the hospital. You want to talk about them being homeschooled and being too close. Yeah, they were homeschooled and no, they weren’t socialized properly, but they’re not dogs and they’re not feral, so they’ll figure it out. As far as being too close, oh well, they’ll stay that way. They’re only two years apart and grew up together; they are best friends. There is nothing wrong with either of them. Now, can you send them home on the bus or do they need to leave early?”
“I think it’s best they leave early.”
“Then I’ll have to call my neighbor to pick them up.”
“What about their mother?”
“She’s at work,” Hail, Dad, and I all said at the exact same time.
Dad left to get back to the hospital, which he had to have flashed from to make it here so fast. About ten minutes later, Stacy walked into the office and took all three of us home. Hail and I explained to her what happened as Drake cried with his head in her lap. His red hat was all muddy, but his mom had a bright blue one in the car for him.
She took us into her apartment and got a bubble bath for Drake. While he was playing in the tub, Stacy told us that Drake had to go through chemotherapy to get rid of his cancer and it made his hair fall out. I looked at Hail’s beautiful red hair and shuddered at the thought of him bald. Poor Drake. I made a mental note to ask my FACS teacher if we were going to do any knitting because I wanted to learn to make a Superman hat for Drake.
Once again, nobody came home until very late. Even when Dad did come home, we stayed at Drake’s for a little while. Dad and Drake’s parents talked in the kitchen as we did homework. Well… Hail and Drake did homework while I scribbled mathematical formulas in my science book. Science could be so much fun if they weren’t teaching boring stuff. My dad walked in and took my book to look at it.
“Why are you doing physics in a fifth grade life science book?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know what physics is. All I’m doing is trying to find the math to explain the dimensions. That’s science, and this is a science book.”
“You’re trying to explain string theory, sweetheart, but nobody’s taught you how to do the math. You can see it, but you don’t know how to explain it. Try this,” he said, taking my pencil and adding a few pieces to my work. “I’ll start teaching you physics tomorrow.”
“What about work?” I asked, taking my book. The top three buttons of Dad’s business suit were undone and his tie was open like a scarf. He was obviously tired, but he needed Mordon to heal him, not me.
“I’m off tomorrow. We’re going to go do something fun, but it’s a surprise.”
“We’re going swimming!” Hail yelled, his eyes vaguely glowing purple.
He never meant to ruin surprises, but he didn’t try to prevent his visions, either. Mom had to use magic to stop him from seeing our birthday and Christmas presents. One Christmas, every time he tried to see our Christmas presents, he would only see coal. We thought it was some kind of trick, but when we opened our presents that was actually what was in them. After everyone laughed forever over our disappointment and shock, they brought out our real presents, which Hail hadn’t seen because of the fake ones.
Mordon would scoff every Christmas that we celebrated something we didn’t even understand, but we did understand; Dad explained it to us. Christmas was a time of love, giving, and peace, where families joined together in their homes, ate way too much food, and told stories about family history. The parents would feed the kids tons of sweets to fatten them up and leave them underneath the chimney as sacrifices. Apparently the goal was to put them in a sugar coma. Of course, only the rich and noble houses had chimneys, so some children had to be left out on the doorstep.
A giant named Santa would roam the Earth, every Christmas Eve night, looking for the worst children, which he would then take to his factory at the North Pole. The selected children would be his slaves, forever making toys for the more well-behaved boys and girls. He magically knew who was good or bad and watched them when they slept. Children prayed for months before Christmas to get presents instead of being taken as slaves. The giant only lived on Earth, but now that we were on Earth, we would have to build a magical defense to protect ourselves.
At this point, Mom explained that we would bring a special tree into the house and decorate it with lights and ornaments. If we decorated it very well, it would please the giant and he would be more likely to leave a present instead of taking us.
Dad assured us both that once we were old enough to defeat Santa in battle, he would stop coming to our home and we would stop believing he even existed. According to Dad, it was a magical form of self-defense that once a person was too old or strong for him to kidnap, they would suddenly stop believing in him. That way, people wouldn’t attack him. It occurred to me to ask why parents would put their children out as sacrifices if they didn’t believe in Santa, but I was a little afraid of the answer. Either way, Hail and I avoided eating a lot of candy or going anywhere near the chimney during the holiday.
“That’s right,” Dad said.
Wait… that was too easy. I knew that look. Dad had something else up his sleeve, something my brother missed. The problem with Hail’s visions was that they were based on decisions made and fateful paths. He could see the consequences of a choice somebody made, or even things that weren’t chosen, but his visions weren’t very specific. If Dad decided we should go another day to swim, Hail could actually see that.
“I don’t get this!” Drake exclaimed, throwing his book away from him.
Dad took the book, glanced at the page, and saw that Drake had to add fractions with unlike denominators. He sat down next to Drake and took a piece of scratch paper before drawing a few circles. “At the hospital, they ordered a few pizzas… Two of them were large, but one of them was small.” Dad went on to patiently explain the reason he had to find the common denominator and how to do so.
“You should have been a teacher,” John said, handing Dad a soda.
Dad gave him a scowl. “No way. I’m not that brave; far too much bloodshed. I’ll stick to being a doctor, thank you.” There was a knock on the door and Dad grinned.
I wasn’t surprised when John opened the door to reveal Mom. Dad always knew when Mom or Mordon were near. After Mom w
as introduced to Drake and his parents, she sat next to Dad. Stacy offered to warm her up some dinner.
“That would be nice if it isn’t too much trouble,” Mom said tiredly, leaning her shoulder against Dad’s.
“I’ll help!” Hail said, jumping up and running into the kitchen after Stacy. I scoffed, irritated that he left my side.
“Poor kid,” Dad said, shaking his head.
John laughed. “Give it a couple of years. Girls will be breaking your door down to get to him. With boys, I think if you can keep teach them to treat women right and not get a girl pregnant before they graduate, you’re doing a good job.”
I was growling before I realized it annoyed me. They both frowned at me. “Hail is mine!” I explained loudly.
“You realize he’s going to grow up and want to get married someday, right?” Dad asked.
The darkness stirred in my chest, like a soft hissing. I stood with anger. “No girl is going to take Hail away! He’s my brother; he’ll never leave me! We still have to decide if we’re going to rule Raktusha together.”
Dad sighed and John looked confused. Having heard my shouting, Hail ran back into the living room and hugged me. I could feel him searching the room with magic for the source of my anger.
John patted my dad’s shoulder. “Good luck,” he said before joining Stacy.
Feeling awkward for my outburst, I sat down and pulled Hail down with me.
“Are you not mad at me for fighting at school?” Hail asked Dad.
“I know you would only fight to protect or defend someone, especially your brother. The principal didn’t tell me why you were fighting, but I assumed you were protecting Drake from someone, since he was crying when I arrived.”
“Those boys were making fun of Drake for being sick. Then one of them tried to attack Ron. I wouldn’t kill anyone, but if he comes at Ron, Drake, or any of our friends, he will have more than a bruise next time.”
“You broke his arm and bruised his ribs.”
“I was holding back.”
“I know very well that you held back. So, no, I’m not mad at you. I was thinking… they teach martial arts for kids at the after-school care. Maybe you both should do that instead of coming straight home.”
“Martial arts like what Mordon taught us?” I asked.
“No, that was combat.”
“What Granddad taught us?” Hail asked.
“Yes, it’s very much like what your granddad taught you. Do you know the difference?”
Hail shook his head, but I nodded. “What Mordon taught us and what Granddad taught us was very different. Combat is how to strike and how not to get hit in turn. Martial arts is how to avoid a fight and how to end it if there is one.”
“That’s excellent, Ron.”
“So, I need to be a master of martial arts and Hail needs to be a master of combat. That way, we have all our bases covered.”
He laughed.
“You have to be very careful, though,” Mom said to Hail. “If people realize you’re too strong to be human, you’ll bring suspicion to our family.”
“Hey, what happened?” Dad asked, holding up Mom’s hand. Around her wrist was a bad rash, almost like a burn mark. “You’ve been in the void?”
“What?”
“The only way you can’t heal yourself is if you’re injured in the void. Why the hell would you go there? Every single doorway to the void needs to stay closed.”
“How do you know that? I’ve never told you that.”
I wanted to know, too, since I had no idea a god could be injured in the void.
“I don’t know. I must have heard one of the gods say it. Iadnah magic and the void are on opposite ends of the spectrum. It’s like how a demon can’t heal himself from Iadnah magic, a god can’t heal himself from damage done in the void.”
He covered her wrist with his hand and Mom winced. When he removed his hand, her skin was healed.
“What are you talking about? Opposite ends of the spectrum? That doesn’t make any sense. Iadnah energy is superior to the void. We can’t harm it because it is an absence of life, but we can keep gates closed,” Mom insisted.
“That’s wrong. The Land of the Iadnah is a piece of the universe inside the void, protected from it. Iadnah can manipulate and destroy universes, but they are ruled by the balance. The universes, dimensional space and time, that’s all in little bubbles inside the void. The Iadnah, every universe, even time and space can be destroyed, but not the void.”
“So there can be more bubbles like the Land of the Iadnah?” Hail asked.
“That I don’t know.”
“Does that mean that the balance is more powerful than the gods?” I asked. This was both a worry and a relief. Right off the bat it had been my intention to develop my mind and powers until both were superior to a god’s. Then it would be easy to control the balance inside me and everything that follows. To discover that the balance inside me was superior to my Iadnah power was worrisome because I didn’t want it to rule me. It was also a relief, because it meant as soon as I mastered the balance, I was automatically superior to the other gods.
“Not exactly,” Dad said. “The balance cannot be controlled by the gods, but they can hold it off.”
I scribbled some more math in my science book. “Mom, when I flash, I’m tearing a whole through the universe, into the void, and back into the universe at a different point in the third dimension, right?”
“You’re not going through the void, but through the Land of the Iadnah. Other than that, you’re correct.”
“But the bright light is void light,” I argued. I realized as I said it that Mom was getting irritated. She was a god, supposedly all knowing, but she believed her brothers and the idea that gods were higher to everything else. It was my greatest power to know my weaknesses and how to overcome them. I knew I didn’t know everything, and that’s why I could learn. Dad was the same, but Mom didn’t want to hear anything that made her feel less like the most powerful force in the universe. Then again, I guess that was all Moms.
“Flashing is Iadnah magic.”
Of course, but I couldn’t see with my mind how any being could cross from one universe to the next without using the void. I understood that there were many magical and mundane ways to travel across one universe, but even flashing from one point to another in the same universe meant exiting and reentering the universe.
“Okay, but my point is, does that mean I can flash from the third to the fourth dimension?”
“I think it’s time for bed,” Mom said.
Dad sighed. Obviously, he didn’t agree with her, but he wasn’t going to say anything. Although, in sago culture, the father laid the law on the sons and the mother was in charge of the daughters, this was not the rule in our house since our mother was a god.
Hail took my hand. “We can ask Vretial about it later.”
“Goodnight, Drake,” I said.
* * *
My uncle stood facing my father with blood across his chest and dragon claws exposed. I felt cold and lonely and the worst part was that I couldn’t sense Hail with me. This was Hail’s vision, so he should have at least been in it with me. I couldn’t understand why it was so dark or cold or why I felt a deep, bone-chilling sense of despair. Something was inconceivably wrong. I had to stop it.
* * *
I woke up to Hail gasping in blind panic. The nightlight was flickering from the Iadnah energy flooding the room. While his visions did not use god energy, his fear made his energy go nuts. I flipped on the light beside my bed and scooted over to the wall just in time for him to get up, run to my bed, and dive under my covers. This was the routine every time Hail had a bad vision.
He hugged me, shaking, for the next hour. We didn’t speak about the vision because there was nothing to say. We didn’t know what it meant. My only suggestion was to ask Vretial for help, and my brother hated Vretial looking into our minds. After he finally relaxed and fell back to sleep, I got up to m
ake breakfast.
Mordon was asleep on the couch in the living room, which suggested either he was too tired to make it to his room, or he felt like he needed to guard Dad for some reason. I turned on the kitchen light, pulled out my pans, and got to work. I had learned how long it took for Dad’s coffee to brew so it was ready when the food was. Everybody seemed to have impeccable timing whenever I made breakfast. My little family piled into the kitchen and all took seats around the kitchen table.
Mom wore a red plaid shirt that was snug around the waist and loose on the shoulders and short jean shorts with tall leather boots. She tried to braid her hair at the table, obviously still half asleep, but Dad reached over and undid her work every couple of minutes. Mom didn’t seem to get the hint.
Dad’s clothes gave us no clue as to what was in store for us today. He wore a dark green t-shirt with black jeans and a black leather jacket. Mordon wore a simple black t-shirt and blue jeans, which he seemed to be getting used to.
“So, what are we doing today?” Hail asked. Unfortunately, my brother was wearing a gaudy orange and green Hulk shirt with grape-purple jogging shorts. If he thought I was letting him out of the house like that, he had another thing coming.
“It’s a surprise, honey.” That knowing grin told me more than anything we weren’t going swimming. “I’m taking the kids for a day out. Do you want to come?” Dad asked Mom.
She shook her head with regret. “I have something I need to take care of. Sort of a missing person. Nothing to panic about, but I definitely need to get it sorted out.”
“There’s a national park a few hours from here, I’m going to see if I can…” Mordon started before Dad shot him a glare. “I mean… I’m going with you and the boys?”
“That’s great, Mordon; the more the merrier,” Dad said.
Mom laughed as Mordon grumbled something under his breath. The subtle silence between Dad and Mordon hinted that they were talking to each other, probably about Dad’s plans for the day. If it was anything like his normal plans, it would sound absolutely dreadful until we actually did it, and then it would turn out to be really fun.