Of Delicate Pieces

by A. Lynden Rolland

  “I’m more interested in what she knows,” Gabe said.

  “Yes, she does kind of have a big nose,” Kaleb joked.

  “I’m serious. Skye told me that someone had news about Jonas.”

  Alex sat up on her board. “Xavier Darwin said Pax’s family runs the Interactions Department.”

  “Interacting with people he shouldn’t be? That sounds like something our darling brother would do, doesn’t it?” Gabe asked.

  Kaleb flopped to his stomach and began paddling in frenzied strokes to get to the beach. Gabe thought practically and projected himself to shore.

  Chase didn’t budge. “Let them go.”

  Alex slouched on her board and lifted her palms as if to say, Really? “Are you ever going to forgive him?”

  “That depends. Are you ever going to blame him?”

  She didn’t know. She watched her board bob up and down.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I feel. He set us up. He set me up at least.”

  “He’s still your brother.”

  “I don’t need to be reminded of that. I held his hand when we crashed in that car. I watched him slip out of life, and it ripped me apart. But he didn’t hesitate to put me in harm’s way. That’s not a brother. That’s not love.” He splashed the water and held the droplets in midair with his mind, merging them together and letting them fall. “Not love for me or for you, no matter what he might have said to you.”

  Jonas never said those words to her unless it was part of a joke. Come to think of it, she never heard Jonas say he loved anyone.

  She rocked up and down with the water, thinking about the concept of it all. “What do you think love is?”

  Love. The word hung in the air, twinkling, lightening the bitterness of the previous topic.

  “It definitely isn’t selfish. So I’m not sure if it’s something Jonas will ever truly choose to experience.”

  Alex leaned back to stare at the sky. “Oh, I don’t think it’s something you choose.”

  Chase rolled off his board and made no sound when he fell into the water. “Whoops,” he said when he emerged. “I wasn’t concentrating on that.”

  “No one is paying attention to us,” Alex noted with a careless wave of her hand. “If they already know what we are, does it matter anyway?”

  “I think this is like a practice arena for the real world. We should be trying to be normal when we’re here whether it matters or not.”

  Chase remained in the water but rested his forearms on the side of Alex’s board. Water droplets sparkled on his long eyelashes, and he glistened under the light from the sun. She couldn’t help but reach out and touch him. Make sure for the millionth time that he was real. Her fingertips touched his energy, and his warmth was more powerful than the light from the sun.

  She lifted her head to meet his lips, and he wrapped an arm over her, accepting, and through her lips he answered, “That is love.”

  He kissed her again, sliding his hand underneath her head to raise her closer to him. “That energy. That pulse.” He turned his head in the other direction. “I know you can feel it. I always could. Since the moment we were born. Maybe before then. And now I can even see it.”

  A small piece of her could see it, too, through the colors in Chase’s mind. His hand lowered to her abdomen and whatever heartbeat was left in him transferred straight to her belly.

  That song of the ocean, it wasn’t so sad anymore. It was louder, faster, as though they had the power to alter its mood. It fed off of them.

  Chase straightened, breaking their kiss. “Whoa.”

  Little Gossamer perched on a board beside them. She lifted her sunglasses and placed them on her head. “Hi, I’m Gretchen.”

  “Nice timing,” said Chase.

  “Sorry.”

  “You don’t look sorry.”

  Her jovial expression didn’t falter.

  “I thought your name was Little,” Chase said. “That’s what my brother calls you.”

  “Kaleb?” she squealed. “He does? Call me Little, then. I like that.”

  Alex thought the name suited her better anyway. “Did you project yourself out here?”

  She waved it off. “Yeah.”

  Chase tightened his grasp on Alex’s board, bobbing up and down in the waves.

  “Is she with you?” Little gestured to the beach where Rae was turning cartwheels. Kaleb and Gabe were gone, and Skye’s rock was also vacant.

  Alex sat up. “Our friends were down there with her. I don’t know where they went.”

  “I’m not judging.” Her cheer was musical. “She’s beautiful. Lost Ones don’t usually cling to spirits though. I wanted to introduce myself the other day, Alex, but Pax stole you away. I’ve heard all about you.”

  Alex propped up on her elbows. “Yeah, I got into some trouble last year.”

  “No, I mean I knew about you before I died. You’re famous.”

  “Huh?”

  “I grew up gifted.”

  Chase let go of Alex’s board and projected himself onto his own. “You’re gifted? And they let you in?” He seemed to realize what he said. “I’m sorry. That didn’t sound right.”

  She grasped her board with both hands as a wave pushed them back. “It’s okay. I didn’t live in one of the isolated gifted towns. Those witches know better than to choose the afterlife. They never do. Except Duvall, I guess. She was pretty excited to meet me, but I think I disappointed her because I don’t know anything about the gifted life. My parents wanted me to have a normal childhood, but they still told me the stories.”

  Good thing she didn’t need to breathe because the girl rambled in one long breath.

  Chase ran his fingers along the edge of the water. “You’re so young. I thought the gifted lived longer than most of the bodied.”

  She shrugged. “Being gifted doesn’t save you from cancer.”

  For a second, her projection withered, her hair vanished, and her face sunk in. In a flash, she was back to being beautiful.

  “If you’re gifted,” Chase said, “it’s kind of weird that you’re best friends with the biggest advocate for the Interactions Department.”

  “Pax was so nice to me the first day I died. She wants me to help with the Truce March.”

  There it was again. The idea of a Truce March gave Alex a funny feeling. “I always heard that the gifted and the spirited weren’t friendly.”

  Little laughed and small pings lifted from the water like fish jumping. “It depends on who you ask.”

  Chase cleared his throat. “She gathered her information from the Bonds.”

  “That explains it. That family is nuts. My parents always said the spirited don’t bother the gifted, and the gifted don’t bother the spirits. Those are the rules.”

  Chase ran his hands along the surface of the water. “Then why did your parents keep you away from the others?”

  “I didn’t know there were others, or that there were colonies, until I died.”

  “You knew about Alex though?”

  She wagged her finger. “I knew about Sephi Anovark. My parents told me bedtime stories about the revolutionary who made the world a better place.”

  “Why are the gifted celebrating Alex’s death, then? If everything is so perfect already?”

  “Wouldn’t you celebrate if someone who made the world better returned? Do you have any clue what it used to be like? How the gifted were treated? Sephi gave us what we have today. She’s the reason for our freedom.” Several uncomfortable seconds passed. Little bent toward Alex as if waiting for her to say something. “Do you really know nothing about life before Sephi Anovark?”

  “Something Sigorny L. hasn’t already shared with the world?”

  Little’s eyes lit up. “I’m heading to Main Street in a little bit. There’s this guy who has a shop with all sorts of cool stuff: antiques, trinkets, valuables. It might explain some things for you. If you
want to know how the gifted used to be treated, I think you’ll want to come see this place. It’s right by the surf shop, and you’ll need to go there to return your boards anyway.”

  Chase glanced at Alex, who shrugged as if to say Why not? She didn’t think it was possible to find out anything she hadn’t already heard or suspected.

  She should have realized by now that there’s always more.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Moribund felt staged to Alex. Like the set of a movie town, it was real but not. The locals on the sidewalks treated them like any other bodied children, and the shops waited with open doors and waving flags.

  Chase slowed his pace. “Little said it was right by the board shop. There’s nothing else on this street.”

  Rae kept walking, even after the sidewalk ended, treading down an overgrown path that snaked to the right and led to a slump of interconnected stores, supporting one another lest they might crumble. Alex wondered why they wouldn’t give these abandoned stores a facelift to match the rest of the town. A rickety sign dangled over a hunched building called Walt’s Plastics.

  “Maybe we’re not looking at it right.” Chase bent down next to Rae. “You know, don’t you?”

  Rae shimmied her tiny shoulders and her cheeks grew pink.

  Chase held out a hand as he straightened, gesturing to the line of shops. “What is a plastics store? Sounds to me like no one would ever go in there, and if they wanted to, how would they get in? There’s no entrance!”

  His words were like magic, opening their minds. Alex focused all her attention to the shops, this time looking through willing eyes, and in place of Walt’s Plastics was a sign that read: Maori’s.

  Alex took Rae’s hand. “There’s still no door.”

  Chase walked forward. “Will you ever get used to being dead?”

  As if this was an easy feat. She placed her other hand over his to absorb the shock of stepping through the glass, the pins and needles that stabbed her being as she crossed through anything solid. Alex worried about Rae, but the transition didn’t seem to bother her. Rae ran the width of the entryway, breathing deeply.

  The store smelled musty and dank. There were three archways, each protected by a curtain of dangling stones and bones. Behind the noosed objects, clusters of lights greeted them; it was like a vineyard of fireflies.

  Rae let go of Alex’s hand and eagerly pushed her way through the closest curtain, trotting down the center aisle with her windblown hair and wrinkled, sandy dress.

  “Don’t get lost,” Alex warned, and Rae poked her head back through the curtain with a childish smirk that read, Yeah right.

  “Hoarders, eat your heart out,” Chase joked. “I’ll check out the far wall.”

  Alex started toward the left, and then she understood Chase’s comment. The “fireflies” were actually tiny spotlights illuminating millions of trinkets for sale. The objects could have belonged in Duvall’s classroom: rusty jars and distorted minerals. Alex came to a stop midway down the aisle and read the caption glowing behind a black rock: Bloodstone 100%; Value 5/10; Origin: India. From vials to masks to jewelry, everything had a bright, hanging caption with a rating of its worth and its origin. The brightest light in the aisle spotlighted a red shield.

  Authentic coral from the Witch Wars; Value 9/10; Origin: Astor, Oregon.

  “Hi, there.”

  Alex jumped in surprise, and a few of the lights flickered.

  “Al?” Chase’s voice was muffled, hidden by the maze of walls in the store.

  “I’m fine,” she called as she stared into the pretty face of Little Gossamer.

  “Sorry to scare you.”

  Clattering disrupted the silence. Above the tips of the shelves, brass chimes swayed from the rafters.

  Alex felt Chase appear behind her, and she reached back for him. For a moment, everything flashed to black and white. Alex had to blink several times before color returned to her vision.

  “So, is that guy here?” Chase asked.

  “I haven’t seen him yet. Isn’t this place cool though? Maori gets his hands on the rarest items.”

  Looks like a garage sale, Chase thought to Alex.

  Little tilted her head to the side. “What?”

  “Nothing,” Alex replied. “This place doesn’t exactly look like Tiffany’s.”

  Little’s attention lowered to Alex’s feet.

  Alex didn’t realize Rae had found her until she slung a protective arm around Alex’s thigh. “Oh. This is Rae.”

  The room tinted yellow and orange when Rae dipped her head and her hair fell over her face.

  Are your eyes playing tricks on you? Chase asked.

  With colors? Yes. I thought that was you.

  Definitely not me.

  Little’s head shook back and forth between Alex and Chase as they spoke to one another. “Whatever you’re doing right now, stop. It’s weird. You guys have strange energy.”

  “Sorry,” Chase said without a hint of remorse, “but colorblindness doesn’t exactly make me feel comfortable.”

  Little’s hands went to her cheeks. “Oh. I’m sorry. I might be doing that. Duvall says it’s a gifted thing. I get kind of excited when I’m in here because all of these items are trying to tell me something. They have so many stories.”

  Skye would get along grand with this girl, Alex thought to Chase.

  They’re built from the same weird mold.

  Little stretched her hand between them.

  “What?” Chase asked.

  “There was another weird sizzle of electricity between you guys. Did you feel anything?”

  “No,” Alex lied. Chase shook his head.

  Little squinted at them.

  Alex felt a tug at her shorts. Rae shook her finger at the door. Professor Darby stood outside on the other end of the glass. Madison hurried down the street to join him, and Tess followed.

  “We’re going to be late for curfew. What is it that you wanted us to see?”

  Little slapped her hand to her head. “I almost forgot!” She hurried to the front of the store. “I saw it the first time my parents brought me here. It’s why they chose to live away from the gifted society.”

  Little stopped beside a document, thick and yellowed. The caption read:

  Official offer from representatives from the Union Army. Currency offered for Josephine “Sephi” Anovark. Sale completed.

  Signed by:

  Arthur Havilah, witness, and Edwin Stanton, United States Secretary of War.

  Value: 10/10.

  Origin: Parrish, Maryland.

  For several moments, they each stood silently staring at the old paper. “Does currency mean what I think it means?” Chase asked.

  Alex stepped even closer. “Money for Sephi?” She inwardly begged that this document had no others like it.

  “This used to happen all the time. That’s why I was so surprised you didn’t know. Before the Truce, the gifted were traded like property. They were servants sold to the highest bidder.”

  “Who would buy them?”

  “Whoever had enough money. The gifted were used, abused, and then slaughtered like magical cattle.”

  Alex didn’t know what was worse: seeing Sephi’s name on the paper or seeing the name of her family and her hometown right next to it.

  “They were slaves.”

  Alex knew her family’s reputation to be strict and unforgiving, but Parrish treated the Havilahs like royalty. If anything, they were monsters.

  Chase shuffled back down the aisle, and with each step documents illuminated from both sides. There had to be hundreds of them, none as bright as Sephi’s. Alex couldn’t bear to look at the rest.

  “This is what the Havilahs did. This is what Jack was talking about.”

  Little’s nose pressed against the glass, reading the paper. “Sephi was sold to the Union. No wonder they won the Civil War. They had a prophet on their side.”
/>   “You’re gifted,” Alex blurted out. “Little, why don’t you hate me?”

  She angled her head forward. “You didn’t sell people. Besides, I can’t possibly look at your face and hate you. It was that face that ended this mess.”

  Alex crouched down and buried her head in her hands. Which was she? Anovark or Havilah? When she finally wiped her face and straightened up, Chase had returned. He lifted a finger and placed it over a part of the glass.

  “You notice this part, Al?”

  Of course she saw it. Although she wished she hadn’t. She wished they hadn’t come into this store at all.

  The mediator listed for the trade was a woman named Abigail Frank.

  Chapter Fifteen

  During the next few days, Alex couldn’t think of anything without Sephi’s contract invading her mind. The more she tried not to think about it, the more it tortured her. Alex’s projection suffered: her hair tangled like a rat’s nest and her mismatched clothes hung loose and sloppy.

  Sale completed. Currency offered. Sale. Sephi was bartered, and the Havilahs were to blame. And the Franks. Liv’s family. Alex’s life continued to haunt her in death, the coincidences piling up like a stack of teetering books ready to topple at the slightest nudge.

  Alex rested her chin on the railing of the seventh floor. She observed the crowd in the vestibule below; most spirits had already left for Lazuli Street. She could hear the ruckus beginning outside. The festival was in full swing.

  “Happy birthday.” A square, wooden box appeared in front of her. Next to it, Chase set down a large Ex cup with a candle balanced on top.

  “It’s not my birthday.”

  “Death day, I guess.” He kissed the top of her head before sitting down opposite her.

  “I didn’t even think about it.”

  “The beginning of the festival leading up to All Soul’s Day. A celebration of death. You couldn’t have timed that any better.” He sat back in his chair and studied her.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  She wanted to know what he saw when he looked at her. She tried to jump into his mind, but he blanked out his thoughts.