Order of Vespers

by Matilda Reyes

  Shouting from the antechamber to the office was music to my ears. My lawyer had arrived and was about to tear the local police new ones. When Jude had come by earlier, I had given him my list of issues to relay to Olivia, our older sister and attorney-at-law. She’d been practicing law for a year and I was her best client.

  “You’re holding her without cause! This isn’t a jail, Officer. My sister was unconscious, and the only person you’ve let in is the school nurse. You can bet your badge that your unconscionable behavior will be included in the lawsuit we plan to file. Wanna try to keep me from her, too?”

  I loved my sister.

  “Ma’am,” I heard Detective Bryant say, “Jasper has been defiant and uncooperative.”

  Olivia used her best ice queen voice on the officer, the kind that made even the bravest, most confident person shrivel into a ball and question their self-worth. “If you were walking down the street, were rendered unconscious and woke up in the midst of a crime scene, you’d be upset. Then imagine you’re denied medical attention and are treated as a terrorist. I’d be pretty pissed off too.”

  The hallway filled with the clacking sound of Olivia’s heels coming toward me, although her perfume arrived first. That overbearing floral scent that smells like the tissue paper that comes in every perfume box made me double over as my stomach tried to crawl out of my stomach.

  It suited her. Olivia was a damn good lawyer whose reputation preceded her. She didn’t threaten lightly, and when provoked, Olivia annihilated the enemy. It was annoying to be a little sister with a penchant for getting into trouble. I harbored a strong dislike that only a little sister can maintain. But as her client? Considering her skills as my pro bono legal counsel, it was worth trying to maintain that sisterly love.

  The heels clacked down the short hallway. Hope flared in my belly. My heart of hearts appeared in the doorway, one hand on her non-existent hips and the other clutching her briefcase.

  Olivia was terrifying in her perfection. Her black pageboy haircut brought out the otherworldly paleness of her skin.

  Lawyer-slash-part-time-assassin. Olivia, or Livie as I called her, reminded me of one of those hitmen in the movies. Deadly calm, physically imposing and badass.

  “Well?”

  “They have my laptop and notebooks. My cell phone, too.” I raised my hands in a helpless shrug. “I didn’t read it on the list of things psychotic bombers should leave at home.”

  “Shut up,” she hissed. “You’re not exactly making it easy to defend you, idiot. Pack up your stuff and meet me at the secretary’s desk. Don’t dawdle.”

  I gave her a thumbs-up and picked up my scattered belongings. My messenger bag was lighter than it should have been, but that made sense since my gadgets were gone.

  “Was there anything incriminating on the laptop, Detective?” Livie was in flighty sweetheart mode. He was so screwed.

  Detective Lattimeir’s first week with a golden shield was ruined, or made, by my untimely fuse shortage. Every time he came into the principal’s office to interrogate me, the corners of his mouth fought to stay in place. He was the one who rifled through my bag and confiscated everything. The good detective took my phone apart because he was convinced that I had an incendiary device hidden somewhere. I was close to giving him a reason to arrest me when he knelt, grabbed my foot, and tugged on my boots as if I’d hidden something there.

  Detective Lattimeir’s eyes darted around the room in an effort not to look at Livie. Small beads of sweat appeared on his upper lip, and his hands trembled.

  Livie and I exchanged incredulous looks. Not many people lasted this long when she laid on the mind games. I nodded my approval and watched her work.

  “Is there something wrong, Detective Lattimeir?” she asked in a practiced, sultry purr. “I really don’t want to keep you any longer. You’ve been here all day.”

  “I, uh,” he stuttered, “I decided it was better to keep her in the school instead of at the station. We have enough protection here, and, well, look at her. She’s tiny. Any of us could take her out.”

  Olivia flashed the smile that wrapped most men around her pinky, took my arm and led me out. “Ew. If you tell anyone I flirted with him,” she told me as soon as we were out of earshot, “I’ll murder you.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  The ride home was silent, and by the time Livie parked her silver Jetta in our driveway, fear had crawled its way into my stomach. Without the need to maintain my bravado, I was left with the sickening realization that I could have hurt someone. Killed them.

  I didn’t know how to keep these explosions from getting worse. Hell, I didn’t even know how to control them. Most of the time, I wasn’t even conscious when they happened.

  Jude had a theory that stress heightened my nerves and caused a buildup of kinetic energy. When it reached a critical level, my body expelled it with explosive force. It was an interesting concept. The why made perfect sense. It was the how that still eluded us, despite Jude witnessing the ordeal on more than one occasion.

  Olivia shut off the engine with a world-weary sigh. “Mom and Dad are freaking out, Jas. Have you thought about what you’re going to say? Do?”

  I shrugged uncomfortably. “No idea. This is bad, Livie, with the police involved.”

  “Yeah, it is. I’ll spend the next few days meeting with everyone associated with the case and, with luck, they’ll blow it off and move — ”

  Those damn psychotic giggles burst out again. “Dude, you just said blow it off. Get it? Explosions? Blow it off?”

  “You’re such a child,” she snapped as she opened the door and stepped out of the car. She waited for me to follow suit and picked up her tirade. “I thought you were working on controlling yourself. And you know you’re not allowed to show off your abilities.”

  “Of course I’m working on it. The problem, in case you didn’t notice, is that I was unconscious. Unless you know something I don’t, there’s no good way to control anything when you’re not awake.” I crossed my arms and stomped toward the house.

  Olivia grabbed my arm, her talon-like nails digging into my skin hard enough to draw blood. “I don’t think you understand the severity of what happened or the implications for the rest of us. You know damn well what’s going to happen.”

  We stared at each other balefully, neither of us willing to back down. She poked at the corner of my mind, silently pleading for permission to handle Olivia. The courtesy amused me; She only asked for permission when it came to my family. But since I didn’t want my lawyer walking around with a black eye, I politely refused the offer.

  “Let go of me,” I warned. “Livie, She has been itching to do something since I woke up.”

  “Don’t you think manifesting a split personality right now might not work in your favor?” Olivia released me and frowned at the droplets that formed. “Sorry,” she murmured.

  “You should be sorry. Look, I’m not oblivious to the impending shit-storm coming our way. But the other stuff? Livie, that’s just boogieman crap that mom says to scare us.”

  “Is it?”

  My eyes were drawn to the bay window of our Cape Cod style home with its blue paint and white trimmings, through which I could see my mother pacing and yelling into her cell phone, unaware that I was a few feet away. While most of the conversation was unintelligible through the glass, Olivia and I caught a few words.

  Must get her out of here.

  Too dangerous.

  They can help. They have to help.

  Hiding. Make her anonymous.

  Olivia made a sweeping gesture with her right hand. “Are you sure this isn’t a big deal?”

  “Shut up,” I snapped and stormed up the stairs and into our kitchen. There was no food on the stove, and no takeout bags, which meant I had to fend for myself. My cooking skills were sub-par at best. We had nothing of the heat-and-eat variety. I hated being sent to my room without dinner.

  “Jasper Lee,” my mother snarled from behind. “You
are in so much trouble.”

  I turned around slowly, finally afraid. My mother was a nice woman if prickly. But when she was angry, her shout echoed in my head for days. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Hi, Mom? Hi, Mom? You blow up your school, have an attitude with the police, and all you can say is hi, mom.” Her voice kept going up, finishing about two octaves higher than it started.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, ducking my head. “Mouthing off to the police was poor form. But Mom, She wasn’t thrilled with the way the police treated me.”

  Mom inhaled sharply. “She made an appearance? At school? Did She do this?”

  “Doubtful. She didn’t emerge until the police interrogated me.” I leaned back against the refrigerator. “There’s the possibility that She was around earlier, but I wasn’t aware.”

  “Okay,” she said, her shoulders sagging. She crossed the kitchen in three strides and hugged me harder than she had in years. “My baby girl. I’m so sorry.”

  “Mom, stop squeezing me.”

  She let go with a laugh, then opened the refrigerator. “What would you like for dinner, sweetheart?”

  I narrowed my eyes. We didn’t do mushy, affection in my family. Mom almost never asked me to decide on dinner. My tastes were experimental at best, and I was a vegetarian at the moment. The other shoe dangled and waited to drop.

  “Why?”

  “Because I need to cook and you’re here.” Mom pulled out an armful of vegetables, washed and set them on the counter, and diced with enviable precision. “The spring pasta you like. Is that okay?”

  “Yeah, sure. So, are you going to keep me hanging? What’s my punishment?”

  Mom’s eyes, the same chocolate brown color as mine and Jude’s, blinked rapidly as if to rid themselves of grit. “Honey, we’ll deal with punishments and such over dinner. Why don’t you go to your room and relax?”

  When she hugged me this time, I sensed something disconcerting. Sadness. Regret. It felt like she was saying goodbye.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  “Jasper!” My dad’s voice boomed across the house and up a flight of stairs. “Dinner’s ready.”

  I bookmarked the website on kinetic energy manifestations, shut my laptop and made my way downstairs with the naïve hope that things would be okay. Dad tried to smile as I walked into the dining room and held out a chair for me.

  Holy crap. I’m still unconscious. Maybe this has all been a dream. Dad never holds out my chair anymore.

  “Hey, Dad,” I said uneasily. “How was work?”

  “Fine, sweetie. How’s your head? Livie told me that you were injured in the… accident today.”

  “Daddy? What’s happening? Something’s off. You’re acting weird.”

  Mom put a pause in our conversation as she served generous portions of pasta, salad, and my favorite biscuits. “Hope you’re hungry, sweetheart. Jude and Livie are out for the evening, so it’s just the three of us.”

  “What the hell is wrong with you? No one has yelled at me or punished me for the next century. You’re making my favorite foods and calling me pet names. Can someone please tell me what’s happening?”

  “Eat,” Dad said, his tone an unspoken threat.

  Ah, yes. Back in familiar territory.

  Without thinking, I put a napkin on my lap and began to inhale my food. The explosion had left me famished, and it occurred to me that the only thing I’d had was the melted candy bar and a can of pop.

  “Jasper,” my mother said quietly. “What happened today, it’s a problem. Olivia won’t be able to manipulate the entirety of people involved.”

  My father cleared his throat. “Your mother—”

  “Mark,” my mother snapped. “We are afraid of the attention that this will bring to the family. Jasper, this has put us all in danger. Do you remember the stories I used to tell you about our people? My mother’s distant family? My aunt and her friends?”

  My mind raced as I thought of the countless tales of our boogieman, cautionary stories about a group of people who hate people like us. A group whose sole purpose is to find and kill those with our abilities. People like me, Jude, and Olivia.

  “Some of them. But those people aren’t real, Mom. They can’t be real.”

  “Jasper, honey.” My father wiped his face with his napkin yet managed to miss the bit of tomato in his beard. Despite everything, I smiled. My dad was the epitome of absentmindedness, barely keeping track of our schedules and letting my brother and I come and go as we pleased. He was also my biggest cheerleader as if he forgot the severity of my problems until the next incident came along. I knew my father would fix this.

  “Dad, your beard,” I said as I reached over and picked out the food stuck on his face. The normalcy was the thing that turned this all around. I was sure of it. If I pretended everything was okay, then fate had no other choice but to make things right again. “Okay, okay. These people. Even if they’re real, which I don’t believe, they can’t just come and kill us. They’d be exposed.”

  “My point is that we’re no longer safe here. More importantly, you’re no longer safe.”

  “What does that mean? Dad, do you agree?” I turned to my father, but he refused to meet my eyes, staring down at his plate.

  “Yes, Jas. And I agree with your mother. Our safety… you can’t stay here anymore. We’ve been trying to reach some of your mom’s family who has closer connections to a group that can protect you. Hide you.”

  “No,” I exclaimed. “Mom, no. You can’t just send me away. It’s the beginning of senior year. My college applications are ready to send out. I have a calculus test tomorrow.”

  My lungs couldn’t get enough air, nor could my eyes or ears take a second more of this ludicrous conversation. Bile rose in my throat and the world grew darker, quieter until I was gone.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Minutes or hours later, I surfaced from the glorious realm of unconsciousness, where reality simply didn’t exist. But reality had come for me, and I had no choice but to deal with it.

  Someone had tucked me in properly; the lilac quilt brought up to my ears and my favorite pink teddy bear in my arms. My shoes had been removed, and in their place were fuzzy socks.

  They’d gone through my belongings. Everything was out of place, stacked into neat piles against the wall across from me. I jumped out of bed and took stock of the changes.

  Someone had stacked my underclothes, organized by type and color.

  Mom.

  My father was still too weirded out after two daughters to touch my unmentionables as he called them. Only Mom was capable of this type of organized chaos.

  Socks according to thickness and length.

  Long-sleeved shirts, short sleeves, tanks, sweaters. Jeans. Skirts. I suspected she organized my shoes by season, starting with my winter Uggs and ending in a pair of flip flops I loved. Next to all of that sat my camping bag, my big messenger bag, and a suitcase.

  And on my desk was a note held in place by a new cell phone still in the evil clamshell plastic that would take me hours to open. I picked up the note with shaking hands.

  Jasper, we love you so much. You’re a wonderful young woman whose generosity, humor, and sharp brain make us proud. Please know that if there were any other way of keeping us safe, we’d do it.

  We’ve managed to get in touch with your great-aunt Jody. She made some calls, and someone will be here tomorrow evening to take you somewhere you’ll be safe.

  I’d love to say that this was just until this mess blows over, but I can’t. You can’t come back to this town. Between the police and these awful people, you’d be hunted.

  We started to pack for you but figured you’d want to have the final say. Fill up the camping bag with the most essentials. The suitcase is for items that aren’t pressing - like your fifth favorite pair of jeans. The cell phone is pre-paid. It’s not safe to have a way to trace your location.

  Come downstairs when you’re ready to talk.

  Nope. Not happenin
g. I refused to believe that twelve hours ago, my biggest concern was my calculus exam and now my parents were sending me away with strangers. I thought of every spy show I could imagine to find the right phrasing.

  Jack Bauer, James Bond, Nikita.

  They were going to disappear me. Tuck me into the shadows somewhere, make me an anonymous face in the crowd.

  My eyes swept the room wildly as if each pass would reveal my belongings back in place. But nothing changed. Nothing would change.

  No more school. No more falling asleep in the room next to my best friend and the biggest pain in my ass. No more arguing with Olivia when I borrowed her clothes. No more ogling at Adam, Jude’s closest friend, and hoping he finally asked out. Images of what would never be flashed across the back of my eyelids.

  I exhaled and began to organize my belongings according to Mom’s instructions. My barely used camping bag stored my basic toiletries, clothes I could layer and carry over seasons, two boxes of tampons because my mother is a planner like that, a small makeup bag, my Converse All-Stars sneakers, and accessories like gloves, a winter hat, scarves, and a pair of fluffy pink earmuffs.

  The suitcase filled up just as quickly with a few versatile dresses and skirts, sweaters of varying weights, my favorite pajamas, and swimsuits.

  My mother and I clearly had different ideas of what sending your youngest child to live with strangers meant. I had a feeling that, wherever I was going, it wasn’t going to be a five-star resort.

  Exhaustion began to overwhelm me. I climbed back into bed, reread the note, closed my eyes, and succumbed to the darkness.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  “What?” I yelled at the door. “Sleeping!”

  The fist knocked again. “Open the goddamn door, Jas.”

  I sat up and brightened. Jude was home, and he’d distract me from the disaster that was my life. My brother was a pain in my ass, but he was the best. He was the guy who beat up my ex-boyfriend for talking smack about me. He’d also dragged me out with him and his friends on the weekends if I didn’t have plans. Jude had some idea that it was unhealthy for me to go more than a day or two without spending time with friends.