by Melissa Kuch
“Newton, get down,” Mrs. Xiomy commanded. She put her lips together and blew a high pitched whistle. Boreas seemed fascinated by her red lips when she puckered them together. Aurora grabbed him and yanked on his arm until he was on his feet.
“Sorry about that. He has a mind of his own. Don’t you, Newton baby?” She rustled his tousled hair.
“Um, we’re not going to class today, Mrs. Xiomy,” Aurora said, hating herself for having rehearsed this in her head the entire walk over and then forgetting everything.
“Why? Are you ill? If it’s contagious get out quick so that I can disinfect. Newton is susceptible to germs. But you both look healthy. A bit out of sorts, perhaps. But then again, it’s not often that I get visitors.”
“I’d love to visit you anytime you’d like,” Boreas exclaimed heartily, and Aurora elbowed him violently in the chest.
“I can make you some tea. You both are early birds this morning.”
They followed Mrs. Xiomy into her kitchen, which was wedding white and so pristine that Aurora could see her reflection in the tiled floor. The teacher put some water in the tea kettle and ignited the stove.
“I didn’t realize that you were friends.”
“Oh, we’re not really,” Boreas said hurriedly.
“I mean, we just really talked for the first time yesterday,” Aurora added, finding it difficult to get comfortable on the wooden stool where the seat consisted of geological rocks digging into her behind.
Mrs. Xiomy adjusted her glasses on the edge of her pointed nose and got out two mugs and teabags. “I know what this is about.”
Boreas and Aurora stared at each other hurriedly. “You do?”
She sat down and set the mugs in front of the two teenagers. “I mean there’s nothing to worry about. This happens to people your age and I am glad that you trusted me enough to come to me during this time. There are options that we can explore together, and I can be there when you tell your parents.”
“Excuse me?” Aurora’s words stumbled out of her mouth.
“It’s a difficult decision, especially when you are not married…but a baby can change your life, not that I would know, but from what I’ve heard.”
“Wait, wait,” Aurora interrupted her teacher. “Do you think I’m pregnant?”
Mrs. Xiomy stared back at her, “I mean, it’s nothing to be ashamed about.”
Aurora felt her blood boil and stood up abruptly, “I knew this was a mistake.”
Boreas was falling over from laughter as the tea kettle erupted with an earsplitting whistle. Mrs. Xiomy jumped up and turned it off hurriedly.
“I am sorry, but I think that I am confused. I just thought that you two were here together and before class…”
“I didn’t knock her up,” Boreas said, nearly hiccupping. “I mean, unless there’s another father, Aurora?”
She gave him a dirty look and resumed her seat on the bench, readjusting her butt so that it was more comfortable.
Mrs. Aurora was red in the face as she poured the tea water and handed the mugs to the teenagers. “I apologize that I jumped the gun. So let’s please start over. What can I help you both with?”
Aurora took a sip of her tea, and the steam resonated on her face as she gathered her courage. “We just were curious—well, more than curious—and it’s for a project of sorts that we are working on together and need information about…do you know anything about something called a Geometric Storm?”
“Eloquently put,” Boreas mumbled, his voice echoing through the tea mug.
“A Geometric Storm? What class is this for?”
“Um, our math class.”
“Mr. Strident shouldn’t be teaching anything about astronomy. I will speak with him once I get to the classroom. Now you can forget this project because I am going to give him a piece of my mind before the principal finds out.”
“So wait, do you know what this storm is?” Boreas quickly interjected.
“Of course I know what it is, but the Geometric Storm is not on the mandated curriculum set for us by the Common Good government. Mr. Strident is trying to get himself and the rest of the faculty into trouble, and I am not going to deal with the Inspector. Not for something like this!”
She stood up, grabbed her peanut-shaped purse off the counter, and flung it over her shoulder.
“Mrs. Xiomy, we’re not being honest with you,” Aurora exclaimed, feeling the truth was the only way they were going to pry this information out of their teacher. “There is no project. Well, no school project for that matter. Boreas and I are helping someone get to the northern lights. He says he needs to get there when the Geometric Storm hits, but we don’t know anything else—what this storm is, when it is coming, and the exact coordinates we need to get to. Are you able to help us?”
Mrs. Xiomy dropped her purse onto the countertop, and it ricocheted off the tiled floor with a tremendous bang. Her face turned as white as the kitchen counter.
“It’s impossible,” she gasped.
“What is impossible?” Aurora pried, standing up and facing her teacher.
Mrs. Xiomy’s eyes bulged wide. She removed her glasses and flung them down to her side. She continued to stare at them, from one to the next, her eyes growing wider and wider. Her finger pointed from one to the other as if she were in a hypnotic trance.
“Aurora Borealis,” she whispered. Before Aurora could say anything, Mrs. Xiomy fell straight backward. Boreas dove and caught her head before it banged against the tiled floor. She had passed out, her eyes rolling to the back of her head.
“She fainted!” Aurora exclaimed, running to grab a cold compress and water.
Boreas lifted her to the couch, and they put her head against a pillow. Aurora draped the cold compress on her forehead and lifted her legs onto the ledge of the couch to get blood circulating to her brain.
“Well, that went well,” Boreas said, fanning her face. “Now our names cause teachers to faint. What is going to happen next?”
Aurora shrugged and checked her pulse. Mrs. Xiomy finally came around and opened her eyes as the color returned to her face. She shrieked slightly when seeing the youths, but Aurora quickly reassured her that she was okay and had fainted. Her head did not hit the floor, and there was no need to rush to the hospital. She just needed to rest until she felt better.
“Aurora Borealis,” she repeated, staring from one face to the other. “This is impossible. I am going mad. Yes, I am mad.”
“Maybe all of us are mad,” Boreas agreed, patting a pillow for the teacher who was weighing the situation.
“Get out of my house! Both of you! Conspirators! Are you spies of the Common Good?”
Aurora reached into her backpack and pulled out the article that she had stolen from the library with Mrs. Xiomy’s picture on it. “We are not against you. We think you are someone who can help us!”
She thrust the picture into her hands, and Mrs. Xiomy stared at it, not comprehending how this article was discovered. She methodically traced the outline of the man being led away by the authorities with her finger.
“He was your husband, wasn’t he?”
Mrs. Xiomy nodded solemnly. “Yes, he was my husband.” She crumpled the photograph in her clutch and unraveled her scarf from around her neck. Like a lioness attacking her prey, she wrapped the silk scarf around Boreas’s neck and started choking him with all her force, strangling him.
“Who are you working for? Who are you helping? Tell me or I swear I’ll kill him.”
Boreas was gagging for breath, and Aurora quickly tried to grab the scarf, but Mrs. Xiomy instead pulled on it tighter, causing Boreas to gag for breath, falling to his knees. Aurora stood there helpless as her teacher held all the cards with a maniacal glow shining in her eyes. She clutched her hands tighter around his neck, and Boreas reached out for help, but his arms collapsed hanging nearly lifeless at his side.
“Answer me, Aurora, or he dies!”
Aurora cried out, “Otus. His name
is Otus.”
“Who or what is Otus?”
“Please stop it! You’re killing him.”
“Who is he?”
She turned from Boreas back to her teacher and then back to Boreas again. His eyes pleaded to not give up the information, but she couldn’t help it. They were in this together, whether he liked it or not.
She blurted out, “A giant. He’s a giant.”
Mrs. Xiomy released her hold on Boreas, and pushed him to the ground. Aurora ran to his side and quickly unraveled the scarf from around his neck. She checked to make sure he was okay, but he pushed her away from him as his lungs were filling with air once again.
“She’s crazy,” Boreas stammered, getting to his feet and holding onto Aurora for support.
Mrs. Xiomy rose, knocking all the pillows off the couch, and marched over to her where the phonograph was sitting. She put her hands down on the mantelpiece and started murmuring to herself, “You were right, David! I can’t believe you were right after all this time.”
Aurora still held Boreas by his arm and eyed the door. They started inching their way toward it, and she said fearfully, “Look, we’re just going to leave now, okay? Please just forget everything we said.”
Mrs. Xiomy turned toward the two teenagers, and her maniacal face had transformed into one of congeniality. “Please take a seat. I’ll be just a minute. Need to pull a book from the library.”
They both obediently sat back down onto the couch, staring at this now angelic woman standing before them.
“I never thought I’d say this, but I’m terrified of this woman,” Boreas whispered, and Aurora nodded, clenching her teeth and trying to think how they were going to get out of this mess. Otus was still in the caves waiting for them and most likely wondering what was taking them so long. It wasn’t like it was nighttime when he was able to roam freely. During the day he was bound to cause a panic throughout Candlewick.
Mrs. Xiomy removed the record and then pressed a button on the machine. Instantly the wood paneling on the staircase gave way to reveal a large bookshelf lined with books. Aurora’s mouth opened wide in shock at this secret hiding spot. Mrs. Xiomy was whistling and pulling books off the shelf, and finally Aurora was done being afraid. She stood up with the silk scarf wrapped around her wrist.
“Look, are you going to help us or not? Because if you dare attack me or Boreas again, we will take you down together. There are wanted posters of us plastered all over town so don’t think that we have anything to lose. And at this point my parents have read my letter and think either I’ve gone crazy or that I am eloping right now. So don’t piss me off again!”
Mrs. Xiomy sat down on the pink sofa and applauded Aurora. She replaced her purple glasses onto her nose but couldn’t hide the stoic expression on her face. “You’ve got courage yet, Aurora. Good. You’re going to need it, both of you, if you are going to help your giant. Because the Common Good will kill you before you have a chance to. Mark my words for that. They have no problem with sacrificing two little teenagers in order to save the world as they know it. That’s what we’ve all been taught. The greater good is for the common good. That is the message drilled into our brains since the Last Straw Protest failed.”
She bent down and picked up the crumpled piece of newspaper. She smoothed it out until there was hardly a wrinkle over the man’s face.
“This is the only picture that was ever taken of him. In fact, I didn’t know that this picture still existed. I was so young then. A little older than the two of you. Protesting with my husband David Xiomy, better known as IMAM.
“You kids found out about my past life. Yes, I was a protestor against the Common Good and was a part of the religious protestors. I was in the Last Straw protest in which fifteen people were killed and forty people arrested, including myself and David. I was tortured, and to spare my husband’s life, I gave away crucial information about the revolution that ultimately lead to its demise. And Inspector Herald repaid me handsomely. He went back on every word he promised and ended up executing my husband anyway. Told the media that it was for everyone’s benefit that he not live while this world thrived.
“But there was a loophole in that plan. Before David died, there was a professor who was administering a new scientific drug to torture him. This professor eventually grew to admire David, like so many did, and was the last person to see him alive. David told him to spread the word to me and to others like me. He spoke about a Geometric Storm. The professor thought he was confusing it with the geological storm, space disturbances, or explosions that cause electrical outages on Earth close to the polar caps. But my husband was insistent. He told the professor to find me and together to find this book that would speak about a Geometric Storm that would cause massive destruction and loss of human lives throughout the country. He said that the book also tells of a force that could prevent massive pandemonium, a spiritual force of a giant amongst men. This giant will be able to prevent this catastrophe. That he will be at the Aurora Borealis and, sided with the chosen two bearing the same name, together they will uncover the balance of equilibrium and save the Earth from destruction. The past and the future tied together hand in hand.”
“Where is this book?” Boreas exclaimed, sitting on the edge of the seat.
“There is no book. At least I never found it. If such a book did exist, the Common Good has destroyed all traces of it.”
“Maybe the professor has it?”
“The professor died ten years ago. Along with your mother, Boreas. The two of them, along with many others, died in the Candlewick Prison burning. They were friends, the professor and your mother.”
“Did you know my mother?” Boreas asked slowly.
Mrs. Xiomy nodded. “Yes, I knew Fawn Stockington. She was my best friend, until…”
“Until what?”
She closed her eyes as if reminiscing on a painful memory but snapped out of it, saying, “It’s not important. What is important is that both of you, sharing the same name of Aurora Borealis and speaking of a giant…it just makes me wonder if there was some truth in the prophecy my husband foretold.”
The three of them sat staring at each other, taking in this information of a prophecy that was coming true.
“We need to speak to Otus.” Aurora stood up resolutely. “He knew about the Geometric Storm. Maybe he knows about this book too.”
“Otus? You mean the giant?” Mrs. Xiomy asked, enthralled.
Boreas grabbed Aurora to the side. “Do you think this is a good idea? I mean the woman is positively nuts. I mean she tried to kill me!”
“Oh yeah, and you’re welcome, by the way.”
“For what? Standing there like a paraplegic as she tried to suck the life out of me?”
“Whatever. Next time I won’t be so generous. I’ll let whoever it is suck the life out of you and stand by and urge them to finish you off, you ungrateful runt.”
He laughed uncontrollably. “Now I’m a runt. This is getting better and better. Stuck with two women. Thank God Otus is a guy or I’d jump off a cliff and save the Common Good a load of trouble.”
Mrs. Xiomy pulled open the garage door. She had a purple Fiat smart car that could sit only two people comfortably. Aurora recalled reading about these small compact cars. She had never seen one up close before and turned to her teacher, concerned.
“Mrs. Xiomy, are we all riding in that car?”
“You two need to squeeze in the front seat, and I’m going to cover you with Newton.”
She pulled the passenger seat as far back as it could go, which left about six feet for them to cram into.
“I think this is physically impossible,” Boreas protested, examining the car. “I don’t think that your dog could fit in that car, let alone three of us.”
“Well, it’s either that, my young friends, or you walk, and at this hour Wishbone Avenue is going to be crawling with the Common Good officials who you said are in hot pursuit of you and your giant friend Otus. I thi
nk I would prefer squeezing into a smart car than into one of their vehicles. Newton!”
She whistled, and Newton came bumbling toward her. He sat waiting for Boreas and Aurora to make the first move.
Boreas smiled, “After you.”
Aurora shook her head. “No, by all means. You go first.”
Mrs. Xiomy opened the door and exclaimed, “I’ll push you both in and make Newton pee on you if you don’t get into that vehicle in the next ten seconds.”
Boreas reluctantly made the first move, probably more out of fear of Mrs. Xiomy than out of being a chivalrous gentleman. He crouched down onto the floor of the smart car until he couldn’t scrunch any more. Aurora sat nearly on top of him as she maneuvered her way into the car. Mrs. Xiomy the whole time was relaying a story of how nineteen teenage women were able to fit into one of these cars at one point in time. Aurora looked around and didn’t think that was physically possible.
Newton jumped onto the passenger seat, and Aurora hoped that he would sit still and not squish them, which really would cause her to hyperventilate. Mrs. Xiomy, as a finishing touch to her masterpiece and gushing at her brilliant idea, threw a blanket over the two teenagers, just in case they got stopped on their way to the Candlewick Park.
“Can’t take any chances,” she beamed, turning the key. The little Fiat roared to life and maneuvered its way down the manicured driveway.
Boreas kept trying to shift, saying that his foot was falling asleep. Aurora tried shifting her weight but then he complained that his other foot was falling asleep. Getting aggravated, she put all of her weight on both of his legs so that he would shut up. They headed down Wishbone Avenue and hit a huge bump, which resulted in Boreas hitting his head against the glove compartment and Aurora nearly flying directly into the passenger seat. Her head was cushioned by the soft fur of Newton, who barked a “you’re welcome” in dog language. It seemed like an eternity, and Aurora felt as if her body would be stuck in that position forever, clamped to Boreas’s knees and having to be stuck to him like Siamese twins when Boreas took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. Aurora looked at him quizzically, but he murmured that he needed to remind himself that he still had feeling in his body. Aurora squeezed it back, but her hand was clammy, so she quickly pulled it away.