Of Delicate Pieces

by A. Lynden Rolland

Skye nearly fell over. Kaleb held out his arms to support her, leaving his hands on her hips because she was too preoccupied to notice. “Can I help, too?”

  “Sure.” Yazzie chuckled. “Even though I suspect your interest is not so much in this task but for the girl beside you.”

  Yazzie hobbled along the pathway until he reached the edge. A few more bricks added themselves to the road. The path grew with the memories. Alex stood with Chase and Gabe as Skye and Kaleb squatted by Yazzie.

  “The hole doesn’t need to be wide,” he instructed, handing them a shovel the width of a child’s plastic beach toy but the length of a pole vaulting stick. “But it needs to be six feet deep.”

  Kaleb got to work digging the hole while Skye nestled the memory in her hands. “Why six feet?”

  “Always seemed like the right amount.”

  Gabe watched in wonder. “Do you know who it belongs to?”

  Yazzie nodded. “I’ve been getting many from this particular source.”

  “Today?”

  “In the past few months. Memories are like the fish in the Klamath River down there past those trees. The salmon cruise the river, laying eggs before they die, leaving them behind. When the fish are born, they swim free, kind of like our memories after we die. Not all the memories are strong enough to find something to latch onto. But many make it here.”

  “Was it the bodied or the spirited?” Gabe asked.

  “Spirited.”

  Kaleb gritted his teeth as he dug, more justified in his task now. Skye looked up at Yazzie, the memory still in her hands.

  “I know him, don’t I? I can feel it.”

  Yazzie’s mouth became a thin line.

  “Who is it?”

  “That memory belonged to your own Professor Van Hanlin.”

  Alex gasped. “You told me when you found my mother’s memories, you knew she had died. Van Hanlin is gone?”

  Yazzie shrugged. “I report every memory to the Office of Mental Health. They haven’t declared him dead yet. Guess we have to wait to find some more.”

  Alex bowed her head in respect. Chase knelt on a knee, and Skye curled the memory into her chest.

  Gabe refused to look at anyone, pinching the bridge of his nose and turning away. It could have been him. Van Hanlin had been attacked at the same time he was.

  Kaleb stopped digging. “How could there still be an investigation against him?”

  “Because many of his memories haven’t reached me. There are less of them than there should be. Could be a cover-up.”

  “You said there were a lot.”

  “An entire life and death of memories should be more than a dozen. They might not have traveled here yet. Time will tell. Sometimes, memories take their time and latch on to other things first.”

  Skye mumbled a prayer under her breath before she tossed the memory down into the earth.

  Yazzie scooped up a handful of dirt and let it trickle through his fingers into the grave. He muttered, “For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

  They each took their turns sprinkling dirt down into the darkness, paying their respects. Kaleb took the shovel and began the process of replacing the ground. “They haven’t reported much about Van Hanlin.”

  “It would scare people,” Gabe said. “They’ve kept the focus on Alex.”

  Skye sat down in the middle of the road and hugged her knees. “Out of sight, out of mind.”

  Kaleb kept shoveling. The group was quiet for so long that when he said, “Finished.” Alex jumped.

  When they left, she considered reaching out to touch one of the flowers, but it scared her. This place was a cemetery, and although she knew what was buried under the ground couldn’t reach her, that didn’t mean it couldn’t affect her. Harm her.

  It’s the things you can’t touch that hurt the most. She’d learned that a long time ago.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Sigorny L.

  The Voice of the Newburies

  Happy midweek. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Broderick Square for attempting to avoid an overexaggerated game of telephone, and prevent you from receiving false information. I’m pleased to announce that I’ve been given an opportunity to work closely with such wonderful minds and provide you with more information than ever. As always, I’m honored to be your voice of reason.

  I do hope everyone enjoyed the eventful sleepover otherwise known as a lockdown. I know I did. There are several pieces of knowledge I gained from the experience, and it’s my pleasure to share them with you.

  Only one gifted soul made it into the city. Rumors are circulating about a group. Representatives from Broderick Square want you to know that this is false. I repeat, false. There was only one, and the Patrol is on top of finding out who it was.

  Our gates do not allow entry for the bodied. So how did he/she get in? I went to our very own Ardor Westfall about this one. He informed me that the gates surrounding Eidolon are indeed secured. The only possible entry would be through meditation tactics, and the perpetrator must be pretty skilled to succeed in this feat.

  He/She was only seen for seconds at a time. If you’ve been paying attention in Dr. Philo’s class, you should know the reason for this. But for those of you who are ignoring your accelerated brainpower and writing love notes in class, here’s your answer. Haven’t you noticed that we can only flicker in and out of our meditative states for several seconds? This is why the bodied believe that spirits are invisible. Even the most practiced meditation specialists can only leave their projective bodies and travel elsewhere for a matter of seconds. I spoke with Dr. Philo specifically:

  “Meditation is only momentary. Anything else would be unnatural. We shouldn’t be in two places at a time.”

  My next question: what would happen if we could, to which he replied:

  “I suppose the mind would get used to it. Why would it return to its projection when it likes being free?”

  The witnesses who spotted the gifted last week saw only flashes, but it was enough.

  The saga of our tattered relationship with the gifted seems to be the theme of this very peculiar year.

  ***

  Alex decided to focus on Sigorny’s latest article during her monthly brain scan. Chase memorized the Invisiball Field Rule Book and said he’d recite it over and over. They hoped if they kept their thoughts separated, whatever the doctors inspected wouldn’t show a link between their mental activities.

  Each time they reported, the white-coated doctors attached sticky suction cups all over their heads. Multicolored wires and visible current connected Alex and Chase to clunky devices and high-tech monitors. The lines, dots, and shapes on the screens looked more like video games than a scientific study.

  In December, the doctors evaluated them in the same room, but Alex couldn’t concentrate. In January, they were separated. Chase’s doctor took him to a different floor, making Chase more suspicious than ever. In February, their devices waited for them side by side. Alex was pleased, but Chase grinded his teeth as the doctors arranged the gadgets. He leaned into Alex’s ear and urged her to only think about Sigorny.

  When they were finished, Chase grabbed her hand, and they left. He looked back only once as they exited.

  “Good,” he muttered. “They seem upset.”

  “What if they really are just making sure we’re okay?”

  Chase snickered. “You don’t see them bringing back every patient who ever had a head injury, do you?”

  She poked her head through the doorways of every room they passed, hoping to see another spirit hooked up to a mind machine. She found something better. She pulled away from Chase and marched into a room without hesitation.

  “What are you doing?” Chase called from the hallway. “I don’t think you’re supposed to—”

  He must have seen Reuben, too, because the second after Alex reached the bedside, Chase appeared next to her.

&n
bsp; “He’s not sleeping.”

  “I’m sure he’s not,” she said. “What color is around him right now?”

  “Dishwater gray, like usual.”

  “Wake up, Reuben. You owe me.”

  Reuben opened one slit of an eye.

  “Can you see me?” She asked.

  “I don’t need to open my eyes to see. You’re bright enough as it is.”

  Chase leaned forward. “Meanwhile, you have no light around you. Let down your guard, Reuben. Show us your true colors.”

  “Ain’t you guys done enough to me? Leave me alone.”

  Alex could have smacked him. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Because of you, we have to come back here every month like a bunch of lab rats. So no, we won’t leave you alone.”

  Chase’s mouth fell open.

  “What?” she asked.

  Never heard you make demands like that.

  Reuben sniffed. “You feel like a lab rat? What do you think they’re doing to me?”

  Alex glanced around the stark-white room. Besides his bed, it was empty, lifeless. No energy lived here. She couldn’t imagine what he did all day without any entertainment.

  “Did the gifted kid knock you out?”

  “They,” he corrected. “I didn’t get taken out by one witch. They ganged up on me.”

  Alex nudged Chase’s foot. Sigorny had lied. Or been misinformed. “Did they say anything to you?”

  “Yeah,” he snorted, “we sat down for a nice cup of tea before they beat the crap out of me.”

  Two chairs appeared behind Chase and Alex. Plain and plastic, they unfolded themselves and scooted forward.

  “Did you do that?” Chase asked Alex.

  She shook her head; she wouldn’t conjure something so uncreative.

  Chase sat and folded his arms. “Lonely, Reuben? I’m willing to bet that none of your little Eviar buddies have come to see you.”

  Alex sat, worrying that the chair might bite.

  “Did Jack come?”

  Reuben didn’t answer.

  He’s letting down his guard, Chase thought to her. The ideas swirling around him are turning black.

  What does that mean?

  I see a lot of black when we’re in group therapy.

  Nothing good?

  Hurt or loss. But it’s something. Nice to know he has emotions.

  “I’m sorry they attacked you, Reuben,” Alex said.

  “You should be. Wanna know why Jack hasn’t been by? Because I don’t agree with him anymore. He thinks we should be trying to get you into trouble. He wants them to take you away somewhere. Like Calla. Me, I’m only trying to stay away from you.”

  Alex tucked her hands into her lap. She didn’t know what to say.

  A monitor attached to Reuben began to beep until he shook his head around. “I’m damned if I do, and I’m damned if I don’t.”

  Chase propped one leg over the other. “Reuben, you’re a witch hunter. They are witches, excuse my choice of words. You can’t blame them.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “Am I wrong?”

  “My family hunts witches. I never fitted in with them. Look at me.” He spread his arms wide and tried to sit up, and Alex noticed a thin thread trailing along his forehead, which explained why he hadn’t lifted his head higher than a few centimeters.

  “I never killed one of them.”

  “How did they know who you were?”

  “Can sense me as much as I sense them. I don’t remember all of it; I don’t wanna. It comes back when they talk to me here though. Don’t know how they do it, but I end up swiping the air and fighting nothing.”

  “Sounds like PTSD,” Chase said.

  Alex frowned. “Not the same at all.”

  “Isn’t it? It’s all in our heads. It happens to me, too. Things we fight to forget but can’t because the memories remind us.”

  After months of Chase being angry at her for refusing to hate Reuben, now he was the one defending him?

  Reuben twisted and untwisted the sides of the sheet beneath him.

  “Why are they restraining you?” Alex asked.

  “You noticed that, eh?”

  Chase’s eyes searched the bed. Alex drew an invisible line across her forehead to indicate where it was.

  Reuben touched his fingers to the string. “Like I’m dangerous or somethin’.”

  “You’re a Seyferr,” Chase argued.

  “I’ve never belonged, like I said already. Do you see danger when looking at me? Yeah, me neither. Seyferrs are natural born hunters. But not me. I had asthma. I’m fat. I’m weak. Other hunting families, they used to call me ‘Bakery’ because of my dough rolls.” He rubbed a hand along his belly. “My mom gave me different food, and she got up early with me to run around the property while no one else was watching because I was slower than a slug, and when I’d breathe my chest would burn.

  “When I found a witch at the glen by my home, I thought it was a stroke of luck. The girl couldn’t reach her bike pedals, and she was old blood, like a trophy. But she already found her gifts because she snapped my neck like a chicken before I even pulled my weapon.”

  Reuben still didn’t look at them. He scratched at his arms and kept his gaze on the ceiling, telling the story to himself. “I was nothing in life. That’s why I aimed to be better as a spirit. Thought being in the afterlife meant I was special after all. Couldn’t wait to tell my dad. After I got here, I broke the rules and went home with the proof I’d been searching for all my life, that I was a Seyferr through and through.

  “But my grandpa told me, he said, ‘Sure other Seyferrs could have lived on too, but they made the right choice. You shamed your family.’ Hunters are supposed to keep the unnatural out of the world. They said I was no better than the witches.”

  “They didn’t let you stay?” Alex asked. “Your family?”

  Chase interrupted with a huff. “What makes us unnatural? The fact that we are different from them? Just because you don’t understand something, doesn’t make it unnatural.”

  Reuben regarded him for a moment, stone-faced. Then he continued without addressing Chase’s comments. “I came back to Eidolon to face my punishment. Would rather be dead than here. That’s why I wanted Eviar to be real. I would have done anything to stay in that group. They gave us tasks, and I knew I could lead them. I knew better than anyone how to hunt a person. I knew your face the second I saw you,” he said to Alex. “To kill you would be a reward. I could have gone home with that star on my record and been forgiven by my family.”

  As Reuben went on about his desire to kill Alex, Chase’s hands clenched the sides of the chair.

  Reuben stared hard at Alex. “I should’ve known better. A face like yours is impossible. Unless you been cursed.”

  “What?”

  Reuben wore smugness like a prize. Alex was sure he enjoyed this moment of being needed.

  He pointed at Alex but spoke to Chase. “I haven’t felt a heartbeat in a long time, but even now looking at her face … ” He stopped to pat his pudgy hand over his chest. “My heart, it goes so fast. Instincts.”

  “Why?”

  “She has some sort of magic in her, even if she is a Havilah.”

  “We know that at least one of the Havilahs was gifted,” Alex said.

  No, Chase warned her in their minds. Reuben’s face glowed. “Yeah? That’s something new.” He drummed his fingers together. “My family has known the Havilahs a long time, but that’s a piece of their history I never heard.”

  There was plotting in his voice, and Alex regretted giving him any verbal ammunition.

  “We’re getting off topic,” Chase intervened. “What did you mean by cursed?”

  Reuben scratched his forehead under the thread. “You’re the last Havilah.”

  “And?”

  “Havilahs die young. I know that clear as the sky is blue. The gifted made it their
business to turn them into what they hate.”

  Alex suddenly understood. “The gifted wanted the Havilahs to become like them.”

  Reuben scrunched his red nose. “My dad always said that the worst thing you could ever do was become something you hate. If only I’d understood that on the day I died, I might not be suffering now.”

  “The Havilahs are cursed because of Parrish?”

  “Parrish is a devil town. They do the buying and the selling. Esker Havilah was a boss for the hunters. His town made him a killin’ by selling witches to the highest bidders and blamed the profit on something called an Anil plant or indigo, whatever it’s called.”

  Reuben kept twisting his head—as much as he could under the wire—to scrutinize Alex from different angles.

  Chase cleared his throat. “What were you saying about her appearance being a curse?”

  Reuben grimaced and rolled his eyes to the ceiling.

  Chase sighed. “What will it take for you to tell us?”

  “I’m needin’ to get out of here.”

  “Out of the medical center?”

  “No.” Reuben glared at them. “Out of Eidolon.”

  “No offense, buddy. But I think you’ll be sorted in a few months anyway.”

  “They won’t let me go. Even to a colony. Those places are all the same. Jack says it’s Eidolon’s offspring.”

  Alex’s emotions seesawed in regards to this boy, and it was exhausting. She didn’t have the energy to play games.

  “What specifically are you asking?”

  Reuben looked at her, and for a moment he flinched like he used to. “Figure out something, some place for me to go.”

  Alex cocked her head, trying to make sure she understood. “And if we promise, will you tell us what you know about curses?”

  “Yessss.”

  Alex looked to Chase for reassurance. He had his hand covering his mouth in thought, but he shrugged one shoulder. Why not.

  “Fine.”

  “Great.” Reuben made small circles in the air around her face. “Chances are if you look like her,” he crinkled his nose in distaste, “then the curse was made by her.”