“Of course, Ma’am,” Donny answered, bowing his head. “Whatever you ask.”
She opened the door to leave, but he spoke up again right before she exited.
“Anything else you have to say, Ma’am?”
“About?”
“Just asking.”
“No, that’s all,” she said curtly, shaking her head as he continued to prepare the lunches. But one of the brown bags now was crushed under his palm, and the second slowly succumbed to a closed fist.
Chapter 16
“No wonder he hasn’t returned. Looks like Darian’s moving right up in the world. Straight from bench to first string by the looks of it. And the butler would smell like him, if he lives here. Probably kisses his ass for breakfast.” Slugger looked upwards, scanning the windows that would be the bedrooms, searching for a familiar face.
“You’d be right, if he lives here,” Lucio answered, “But I haven’t seen him yet.”
“And I don’t think he does,” I said, squinting as Donny repacked the lunch bags then wrote a name across each. Sally. Mathis. Andrew. “See? He doesn’t have a lunch.”
“Well, ah, that would be odd,” said Slugger, “If he found himself a benefactor, lunch should be in the deal.”
“Darian was never one for sticking around,” Lucio remarked, his face still suspicious, stepping back to get a better view of the house. “Even if he would fall in love with somewhere as nice as this, he wouldn’t fit. I think something else is going on.”
“So we nab the butler?” suggested Slugger, his voice almost hopeful as they both looked towards me.
“We nab the butler,” I confirmed, and we fell back to make plans.
***
We waited three hours for him to depart, suffering through the majority of it listening to Sally practicing scales on the piano, though it sounded more like dropping bird chimes onto an active highway. We were well hidden from view of the house—the bench we occupied was shrouded by a lower hedge, making us only visible from the street. Fortunately, the day was chilly, so we wore our hoodies, concealing our faces while we pretended to consult a two-day-old newspaper that Lucio had fetched.
“I don’t think it would be possible for us to look more out of place,” I said as a shining car rolled past, the windows tinted, and the chauffeur giving us a raised eyebrow.
“That’s where you’re wrong, SC,” countered Slugger. “These rich folks have all sorts of servants; they’re practically outnumbered. We blend right in and even give them a reason to peer down their noses. I call that a win-win.”
“We look more homeless than servants,” said Lucio, “and I guarantee you I’m the last person you would want doing your dishes. I reckon I caused more harm than good with my chores at the rehabilitation facility. Malicious compliance is my specialty.”
“Homeless? Then you should feel natural, eh?” prodded Slugger, and Lucio prepared a sharp response just before I cut him off with a hand. He stopped, following my gaze to where the Donny had just exited the building and was idling away, consulting a small list he carried on folded paper. We checked that our hoods were tight, waited for him to have a minute’s head start, then followed, our sneakers silent as we darted across concrete.
“First dead end alley without cars,” I hissed as we drew closer. “Got it, Lucio?”
“Oh, I got it. Dropped his wallet down there?”
“Should work perfectly. Slugger, I’ll need you to make that alley have just one car, right at the entrance.”
“Aye, shouldn’t be a problem.”
“And we’re live! Action!” exclaimed Lucio, his face blurred in concentration, as the butler ahead slowed. He checked his back pocket, his fingers searching for a wallet that wasn’t there—that had, in fact, never been there but in the memory that Lucio broadcasted to him. Then he turned right, his eyes on the ground and scanning, searching for the lost article.
Lucio and I ducked behind him, stopping as the butler turned around, his face confused. Behind us, Slugger lifted a parked car and dropped it just in front of the exit, bouncing it on its hydraulics as it blocked any escape. Then he picked up a moped in his right hand, brandishing it like a club as he climbed over the car, waving it with nearly no effort from the handles.
“I’m warning you once to back off,” warned Donny, his voice low as fire erupted up his arms, racing up to his elbows, then stopping in a pair of twin whips that drifted towards the ground. “Whatever it is that you want, you won’t be getting it without a fight.”
“You’re outnumbered,” I said, the words coming hard, my face shadowed in the hood, “And outmatched.”
Two dark orbs leapt into existence above my palms, growing in size as I fed them the contents of a nearby dumpster. Slamming them down in front of me, they distorted the visual field between us as they warped space itself, twisting reality to conform to their shape. Then they carved out asphalt as I slid them across the ground towards Donny, letting them release menacing explosions of light from their surface that danced at his feet before he could leap backwards.
“Damn, I should’ve known. Just can’t keep to yourselves, can you?” He sighed, slinging off the twin fire whips and dropping them into the orb in front of him, where the darkness absorbed the flames. “Go ahead and lose the hoods. I’ll do the same.”
Lucio tilted his head, watching as Donny reached a hand towards his face, then seemed to wipe it away as if scrubbing at a dirty dish. His skin folded inward, morphing as cheekbones changed while hair erupted out of his scalp. Gone were the wrinkles and the moles, the crow’s feet and the sagging bags under the eyes. In their place was a face we all knew.
“This what you’re looking for?” sighed an annoyed Darian, pointing to himself. “Because you’ve found it.”
Chapter 17
“What the hell? So we did all that fighting to get you out of being a servant, just so you could hop back into it? Is this where you’ve been, pretending to be some rich family’s assistant instead of checking back in with us?” Lucio’s words left his mouth in a flurry, shocked, while Darian flinched backwards.
“Lucio, calm down. It’s not like that. I can explain,” he said, backing away.
“Well, you better!” Lucio exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air. “Because this is outright insane. How could you forget about us?”
“Let’s start with the haircut schedule for baldy,” I added, “and move on from there.”
“Alright, relax,” Darian said, his face fallen. “And, SC, put the orbs away before you draw the attention of the neighborhood watch. You can’t just go whipping out powers here without expecting people to notice. I’m surprised we haven’t been spotted already.”
With a motion of my hand, they retracted and I decreased their size, holding them hidden by my hip. Then Darian took a deep breath and leaned back against the wall before starting to speak.
“As you know, I can hold powers for a limited time. The fresher they are, the more potent and easier they are for me to use. The Specials on this side of town don’t just go to any barber, no, they’re too good for that. They go to a Special barber. Meaning that before your hair is cut, he can show you exactly what it’s going to look like with his own power. He’s a Morpher, so he can change to look just like you with the hairstyle that you want, then once you approve, he’ll bring it to life. To be Donny, I had to refresh the power every few days, and the barber was my source. Every time he cut my hair, I mimicked him, and he was happy to take the money.”
“Why’d you have to pretend to be Donny? Why go to the barber in the first place?” asked Lucio, impatient.
“Getting there, getting there. Anyways, that house you saw me leaving needed new help, so I became Donny and applied. The job was pretty easy to get, with fake credentials, and honestly, I’m surprised they haven’t kicked me out yet. Didn’t stop them before.”
“And what do you mean by that?” Lucio pressed, turning his head to the side.
“I tried visiting a fe
w weeks ago as myself, and I didn’t make it far. They’re pretty… uptight there. They care a lot about who you are and where you’re from. About your pedigree. And I just didn't fit the bill. Never have, never will. And neither will Donny, once they start finding out more about him.”
“Yeah, but why do you care what some rich people think about you? This is pretty strange, Darian. And I’m supposed to be the weird one,” said Lucio. Darian looked him directly in the eye, his gaze level.
“Because they’re my parents.”
For a second, all was silent, and Lucio stood slack-jawed, at a loss for words since the beginning of the conversation.
“Where do you think I always want to go, Lucio? I found the orphan papers years ago from my old supervisor when she told me the tale of my Mimic power, so I knew the address. I’ve watched them, my parents, caring for my siblings. Sending them to the best schools. With packed lunches. Teaching them piano and reading to them before bed.”
He swallowed, his throat tight, kicked at an rusty can my orbs had pulled near his feet, and kept speaking.
“But no, I came along first, years before any of them. Me. When my mother had an affair with one of the servants, and neither of my parents could stand to have me in the house. So they gave me away. I thought maybe it would be different, now that I’m older. And I came back, hoping that maybe I’d be a part of the family now, after the rehabilitation facility. Instead, they practically threw me to the streets. You should have heard them arguing, my father yelling they should have never let me be born. I felt that if they just knew me, that maybe they would change their minds. That they would realize that I was a son they wanted.
“So I became Donny. I thought maybe I could learn to be like them, to live with them without them knowing. I tried to mesh in, doing their chores, caring for my snot-nosed siblings. Listening to my bitch of a mother complain about shirt creases. Cleaning up the empty beer bottles my father hides before bed. But it isn’t working. Not at all.”
His fingers clenched, and he bit the inside of his cheek.
“And I don’t think it ever will. Because I don’t want to be like them anymore.”
“You don’t have to,” I said, reaching across and putting a hand on his shoulder, "You've got us instead."
Chapter 18
“Come on, let’s go.” I said. “You’re better than them, Darian. We know it and you know it. And you’ll have far more purpose with us. So what’s it going to be?”
Darian paused, casting a glance back towards the house, biting his cheek again. Lucio spoke up, his tone completely changed since Darian’s revelation.
“Darian has a better ring to it than Donny. And you’ll like it. SC’s mother cooks a mean breakfast. Especially if I give her some false memories about how much bacon we need; one day, we had a pound each! And you should have seen the leaning tower of pancake day!”
Slugger set the moped down on its side with a soft crunch. Then he picked up the can that Darian had kicked and placed it in the other boy’s hand.
“Before my ma passed, she left me a piece of advice about why we left Ireland. About why we came here. You see, her whole life was there—or it used to be. Her dead parents, my asshole of a father, her sister that stole the family inheritance.”
Slugger reached forwards and touched the can, the metal starting to press down in Darian’s hand as it grew heavier.
“Everything she knew and everything she loved was there. Some of it was true and wonderful, but most of it was shit. And shit gets heavy, because shit builds up. Shit don’t clean itself.”
He touched the can again, and Darian’s bicep began to strain.
“But for some reason, it seems to be the last thing that we want to let go of. It pulls us down, and we have two options. Leave the shit behind or it’ll pull you under.”
He tapped the can again, and it slipped through Darian’s fingers, slamming against the ground in a shriek of metal. The ground shook and the concrete cracked, while the can itself flattened to the thickness of a nickel.
“That’s what she said to me when I suggested I go home to find my father. She was in the hospital at the time, must have been one of her last breaths. And the very last thing she wanted was for me to return to him after her death. I think she’d say the same to you now. Besides, we’ve got what the baddies want, and my instinct prevents me from utilizing every possible source of power to piss on their parade.”
Darian looked downwards at the can and smiled, shaking his head.
“Slugger, for being such a asshole, you’ve got a way with words. I’m in.”
We laughed, and Darian stepped forwards.
“And you’re just going to leave me out of this?” Lucio pried. “No words for me? No I’m so excited you’re back, Lucio, and thanks for finding me?”
“Someone has to keep you from getting too carried away,” said Darian. “I think I’m the right one for the job.”
“Yes! And you know what job you’re also right for? Actor Number 2! With Lola, that brings my total cast up to five. Sure, the talent might be lacking, but with the right filming techniques, we can cover that right up. By the time we hit the festival—”
“Lucio, no, we have a lot more to worry about than a film.” I stated, and we started our way home, Slugger shoving the car that he had used to block the alley aside as if it were made of cardboard. “Besides, Darian, we’ll need to catch you up. Our team has grown.”
We spoke as we walked, filling him in on the details. It took the entire trip to the subway to bring him up to speed, and it was only as we descended that he started asking questions.
“So we’ll plan a rendezvous with Roland, then? Figure out what the police want with Lola? Assuming she won’t tell you, of course.”
“You can try to crack her, but it didn’t sound like she wanted to share.”
“Well, considering that she’s right on our doorstep, seems like a good place to start. Call me crazy, but I don’t see Roland being excited to see you.”
“I think you might be surprised. He’s less than happy with his current situation,” I responded.
As promised, my mother arrived at dinner time, her eyes widening as she took in Darian and she placed a palm against her forehead.
“Every time I turn around, you multiply. Child, did you travel to the past for those clothes? Looks like tomorrow I’ll be shopping again. Alright, everyone come here, we’ll need proper introductions. Lola, tonight you’ll be in my room until yours is set aside. Newcomer, you’ll share with Star Child.”
“Darian,” he said. “And thank you for the hospitality.”
“It’s nothing, dear, nothing at all. The least I can do.”
“You’d be surprised,” he muttered as my mother gestured for Lola to speak.
“Lola, though you all already know me. I’m just here until I can secure passage for my way home, and that might be a while. SC mentioned it, but there are those who want to find me—those who want to prevent me from going back.”
My mother sighed, turned to the stove, and started dinner.
“One problem at a time, one at a time. Starting with how I’m going to feed all of you.”
Chapter 19
“So… Lola,” Darian said, the words hanging. We were huddled around the television again, our increased count throwing off the group dynamic. Almost no one had spoken in the past half hour, though the questions were heavy in the air.
“So… Darian,” she answered as she snacked on a handful of peanuts, a mortified Lucio watching from the other end of couch as she separated the nuts from the shells. She accomplished this by poking her index finger through the shell until the nut popped out the other side, the morsel seeming to materialize into the air. When she was finished, the shell was still whole and indistinguishable from an unopened one except for its weight.
While we slouched, she sat up straight, making her taller than us despite her mousy appearance. Though we had claimed the couches and she had joined us af
terward, her posture made it feel as if we were invading her space. As she ate, she cast no glances at us—pointedly ignoring us, as if we were beneath her attention. Instead, she read a book in her lap, one thick enough to be a brick. When Slugger had asked the title, she simply pursed her lips and flipped the page, then continued reading.
“Since I seem to have missed your grand entrance, what’s your story?” Darian asked when she did no more than acknowledge him.
“Darian, if you’re curious, you just have to say it. You don’t have to hide it. Of course the rest of you put him up to this to try to be clever. So, my story. My narrative. You want the unraveling, a synopsis in under a thousand nights?” she asked, still reading.
“Yeah.”
“All the minute details of why I’m here?” she continued, and flipped another page.
“Yes, those would do.”
“And my origination as well?”
“Well, they would go together,” he said, refusing to show impatience on his expression, though frustration carried through his voice.
“I would too,” she said and sat backwards, snapping the book shut and blowing a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Well, I know most of it, of course. But there are parts I don’t know. Parts that you can find out for me. Let’s start with those, then we can trade bits and pieces of my history. Sound fair?”
“Not exactly, considering it’s your history.” Darian stated, but she rolled her eyes.
“And there’s three of you, so the exchange rate of information is three times higher! Every three things you tell me, I’ll give you one.”
“How, what—”
“After all, that’s how theaters work. Pay per ticket. Most theaters have a trailer as well, so I’ll provide a free tidbit to elicit your imagination. One detail to rev the creative engine. You get to hear where I’m from.” She drew a breath, staring around and meeting our eyes. Waiting.
Negative Film (Star Child: Places of Power Book 2) Page 6