PANDORA

by Rebecca Hamilton

  Suddenly, I found myself sitting on the bed, going through the inhalers, money, and clothes; the last gifts my mother would ever give me. “I wasn’t sent to you. I was sent to Morgan Montgomery. But he-he’s gone.”

  I felt tears, as hopeless as they were useless, well up in my eyes. Mr. Echo reached into his jacket pocket. I thought he was going to offer me a tissue, but what I saw instead was a photograph.

  “I want to show you something,” he said, and handed it to me.

  It was an old photo with the kind of faded color that only existed before everything went digital. A boy, about Casper’s age, with shaggy brown hair was posing for the camera, obviously trying way too hard to be cool. He wore a leather jacket and his hair was slicked back. He had his arm slung over a girl’s shoulder. She was close to my age, with dark brown ringlets and angular features that looked familiar. She almost looked like a younger version of-

  No. It’s not. I couldn’t be.

  “That was me,” Mr. Echo pointed to the too cool boy. “When Breakers are called out into the field, they’re given new names, new identities. We’re called to leave our old lives behind. I’m Echo now, but there, in that life, I was called Morgan Montgomery. And the girl beside me,”

  He was going to say it.

  “She was Ash.”

  Of course. The girl in that picture; Ash, she was the one who sent me here. She was my mother.

  “Oh God,” I said before I could stop myself. That was my mom; young, with a different name, in a different world, but it was my mom nonetheless.

  “You said Ash sent you here Cresta, but that’s impossible. Ash, this girl, she died years ago.”

  “She didn’t,” I said flatly, running my thumb over her faded image. “She died yesterday, and she was my mom.”

  He seemed shocked as he sat beside me. Both of us were silent for a while, both of us looking at the picture. A few times, Mr. Echo turned and I thought he was going to ask me something. I’m glad he didn’t. I wasn’t sure where I would start or how much about my mother, about my life, was even true.

  Instead, it was me who spoke first. Holding the picture tightly, like it was a lifeline to something I never knew existed but was desperate to explore, I asked, “Did you know her well?”

  He scoffed, and the answer he gave shocked me so much that I almost fell off the bed.

  “I should. She was my wife.”

  Chapter 8

  G in Chains

  She was my wife.

  I sat there, rolling those words around in my head. She was his wife, and not just his wife, but his dead wife.

  “She was a Breaker?” I asked. My mouth was dry and the word felt strange on my tongue.

  “She was a hell of a Breaker,” he said in a tone that made me think he was going to smile, though he didn’t. He looked down at the picture again, still in my hands.

  My mother had a whole life before me, and not in the way all parents did. She was a different person, with different friends, a husband I never knew about, and secret superpowers.

  Wonder if Hallmark makes a Mother’s Day card for that.

  “How did-“

  The door flung open, cutting me off. The blond woman who put me to sleep in the common area stood on the other side. From this close, I could see that her hair, still wrapped in its severe bun, had flicks of gray in it. She looked around Echo’s age, around my mother’s age; maybe a little younger. Still, there were lines on her forehead and around her mouth, the sort Mom always said stress would give you. She wore a formal looking brown dress and white blouse. A red pendent added a splash of color on her chest. It was shaped like a flower; not a rose. Maybe it was a blossom or a-

  “Dahlia,” Echo identified the woman. “This girl, Cresta, she’s-”

  “A handful,” Dahlia finished, making her way into the room. “I gathered that last night, while she was making a mockery of our curfew.” A proper, cold smile graced her face, accented by blood red lipstick. “Though that’s nothing that can’t be forgiven, I’m sure. I hear you’re one of us, and a late discovery at that. That is quite a rarity. I do hope we can convince you to stay with us.”

  She extended her hand to me. I took it, admiring the way every one of her crimson fingernails arched perfectly.

  “Now if you’ll excuse my husband, there’s some rather pressing business we need to tend to.”

  “Husband?” I asked, looking from one to the other.

  “Dahlia, she’s Ash’s daughter,” Mr. Echo said.

  Dahlia’s hand froze, and then parted with mine. Her face glazed over, losing its smile along with what little color it had.

  “I don’t-How is that possible? Ash died almost twenty years ago.”

  “Apparently not,” I said.

  Dahlia’s mouth hardened as she looked me over. Turning back to her husband, she said, “Be that as it may, we still have a facility to run. I need to see you in your office. Now.”

  She turned and marched out of the room. Mr. Echo stood, sighing. I stood too, offering him his picture back.

  “I didn’t think she liked pictures,” I said through glassy eyes.

  “Apparently she had her reasons for not taking them,” he answered. “Why don’t you keep that, at least for now?”

  I pulled it back in, still dazed about everything.

  “Thanks, Mr. Echo,” I said.

  “Echo will be fine, Cresta. I have to go. I know you have more than a few questions. I have questions myself, but there will be time to talk later. For now, you should get yourself acquainted with Weathersby. I believe your friend will be out and about by now and, if you’re so inclined, I’m sure most of our students would be thrilled to make you feel at home. As a late-to-the-party Breaker, you’re practically an oddity.”

  “Lucky me,” I mumbled.

  “That’s not always a bad thing,” he said, gave me a wink, and walked out.

  I found a change of clothes in one of the dresser drawers. A white shirt and a pair of brown pants, it was a bit bland for my taste and looked too much like what Dahlia was wearing, but it fit and there was no caked up blood on it, so I figured it’d do.

  ***

  The common area was bustling when I walked out into it. Kids as young as ten and as old as twenty five, of every color and ethnicity; Breakers, as I now knew them, busied themselves with all sorts of activities. A handful of them were taking advantage of the archery range. There was girl in the corner putting green and orange abstract stripes onto an otherwise blank canvas. Two boys worked busily on what I can only describe as a life-size virtual jigsaw puzzle. One of them grabbed a green cube made of light while the other moved a few red triangles, scrambling to make room.

  I flinched when two of them shot past me jousting in full attire.

  “Your left!” One of them yelled as they passed me. Which, coincidentally, was the arm she would have sliced off if I’d have been a few inches closer.

  I smiled when I saw him; the first time I had smiled in hours. Casper was at a ping pong table in the distance, celebrating as he knocked the ball past his opponent (Who couldn’t have been more than eleven).

  “Another point for the master,” he yelled and threw his hands up in the air.

  Good to see he’s handling all this better than me.

  “I’m guessing you’re the master,” I said, tapping him on the shoulder.

  “Cress!” He spun around and scooped me up in a giant bear hug. ”Can you believe this place? I mean, turns out I was wrong about the Free Masons, but whatever. I mean, can you believe it?”

  “They told you everything too?” I asked when he finally put me down.

  “Yeah. I mean, Jackson did. Technically they’re not supposed to, ‘cause I’m not some evolved Breaker person or whatever. But Jackson said if they didn’t want me to know, they’d just mind wipe me later. Which doesn’t sound like something I should want to happen to me, but I kinda do anyway.”

  He started bouncing the pin pong ball up and down agains
t his racket, like one of those balls connected to a paddle with string.

  “Oh! This is Jackson.” He pointed to the young boy beside him.

  Jackson was all of four feet tall. He had dark skin, close cropped hair, and a smile that said that not only did he understand Casper’s specific brand of oddball, but that he enjoyed it.

  “Sup Cresta? Sorry about your mom. Sup? Casper just taught me that. Sup?”

  “Turns out they don’t get out much,” Casper explained.

  “Later he’s going to teach me about something called extreme couponing,” Jackson said, and they both smiled.

  Great. Now there are two of them.

  The day inched by. Every once in a while, someone would approach me, introduce themselves, and asked me questions I either couldn’t or didn’t want to answer.

  “I don’t understand how you couldn’t have known. How didn’t you know?”

  “Do you hate your mother? I think I would hate my mother if I were you?”

  “Was it weird being normal?”

  My story, it seemed, was out, and it was safe to say that it was the talk of Weathersby.

  “Don’t be mad at them. They’re just curious. All of our new people are old. We all grew up with each other in the Hourglass. You’re the first new new person we’ve ever seen.” Jackson told me over lunch, a feast of roasted chicken smothered in mushrooms, roast beef in gravy, mashed potatoes, crisp green beans cooked with ham, baked apples with cinnamon, and at least three different kinds of bread.

  “No worries. I get it,” I said, though I wasn’t sure I did. “What’s the Hourglass?”

  “Wow,” he said through a mouthful of mashed potatoes. “You really are a greenie, aren’t you? The Hourglass is our home. It’s where we all come from.”

  “All the Breakers?” Casper asked, his mouth similarly full of potatoes.

  “Right,” Jackson stabbed at a piece of chicken, careful to miss the mushrooms, and drug it through his mashed potatoes before shoveling it into his mouth. “We don’t leave for training until ten. Before that, we get to live with our families and friends in this huge hidden community called the Hourglass.”

  “So you just got here?” I asked. Still full from breakfast, I barely picked at my food.

  “Yeah,” he sighed. “Plus, most of my friends won’t go to training until next year, which is why I’m not, you know, super popular around here. I hope at least a few of them get assigned to Weathersby. That would be . . . trippin’?”

  He looked to Casper for confirmation. Casper shook his head. “Not the right word dude. Don’t worry. You’ll get the hang of it.”

  I looked around. There were cliques here too. I could see it from the way the tables filled out; pretty, vapid looking girls at one table; a quiet group with their heads buried in respective books; large muscular guys laughing way too loudly. It seemed even the world’s most evolved couldn’t escape the stigma of jock, geek, and everything in between.

  The lights flickered overhead and, as quickly as they stopped, everyone got up from the table as one.

  “Sorry, gotta get to class,” Jackson, pushed his plate to the center of our table. “I’ll see you later guys, okay? Good to meet you Cresta,” he said and, for the first time since I got here, I actually believed somebody was happy I came.

  ***

  As soon as the students were gone, a cleaning crew filtered into the cafeteria, headed by the lady from this morning with the breakfast tray and the ‘simply divine’ OJ. Casper and I went back into the common area, afraid we’d be asked to help or something. He suggested that we explore the rest of Weathersby, calling it ‘definitely the most awesome of awesome places’, but that idea was short lived. No sooner had we walked past the archery range and toward the general couches; completely empty seeing as how everybody was in class, we were approached by Echo and Dahlia.

  “I think it’s time we had a conversation,” he said. His voice was calmer, more formal than before. Dahlia, for her part, stood silently, glaring at us. “To my office, shall we?”

  Echo’s office was the same as I remembered from last night, minus the then present archers. But Casper reacted as though he was seeing it for the first time, which I suppose, he was.

  “This is unbelievable! It’s like an ancient Mayan cave or something, except with ‘W’s everywhere,” he said wide eyed.

  “It’s good to see that your new mental cues are working. We can’t have you bumping into the furniture again,” Echo cracked a small smile.

  “This room is preserved from Weathersby’s original iteration. It’s over two hundred years old. The rest of the facility has, of course, been updated. But, as the heart of the place, it’s customary that head Breaker’s office remain untouched,” Dahlia said, though she didn’t look at either of us.

  “Take a seat,” Echo said. Sitting behind his desk, his fingers immediately went to drumming. Dahlia stood behind him, her arms crossed over her chest like a shield.

  “It’s time you tell us exactly what brought you here,” Echo said when we were seated.

  I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to relive it, not so soon anyway. But now was the time, with the details so fresh in my memory. Besides, if I was going to be in this; put my trust in Morgan Montgomery as was my mom’s wish, I might as well go in all the way.

  I told him everything; about Owen, Mrs. Goolsby, the empty house, the black Sedan, all of it. When I was done, Echo handed me a tissue. I took it, not realizing that I had been crying.

  “She’s telling the truth. It’s all true,” Echo looked back to Dahlia.

  “What are you, like a human lie detector?” Casper shuffled in his seat.

  “I’m known as a Reader.” Echo’s fingers drummed along. “When people lie there are things that instinctively happen, mostly within the left side of the brain. As a reader, my mind is attuned to picking up that activity. In some cases, I can shut down the activity, making it physically impossible for someone to lie to me.”

  “That’s scary,” Casper gulped.

  “Only if you’re planning on being dishonest with us,” Dahlia circled the desk, her hand tracing a large steel sword that hung on the wall.

  “I rarely do it,” Echo answered. “It’s not something I enjoy.”

  “That’s enough,” I said louder than I intended. “I was honest with you. Now it’s your turn to be honest with me.”

  I saw Dahlia’s brows arch, but I continued anyway. “I wanna know about my mom, why she lied to me for so long, and what you plan on doing with me now.”

  “Yeah,” Casper grinned nervously. “Me too. Not to be an ingrate, but I can’t help but notice that I’m the only, you know, normal person here. No offense.”

  “We exist as part of the United States government, though we don’t necessarily answer to them. Our laws and traditions are older than your country,” Dahlia said. “We are run by a tribunal of elected Breaker elders known as the Council of Masons. Your situation has been relayed to them, and we’ve been given leave to house you until more information is available. Both of you.” She looked from me to Casper.

  “”The consensus is that, with the identities of your attackers still unknown, sending Casper back home presently might put him in danger, especially considering the whitewashing that’s been done.”

  “Whitewashing?” I sat up in my seat.

  Echo’s hands stopped drumming long enough to press a button on the inside of the desk. The room went dark and, just when I thought classes were about to change again, the visage of a woman appeared. She was see-through, like a ghost. Except she wasn’t a ghost, she was a reporter.

  Sandra Adams was Crestview’s most popular (and only) on the street reporter. She’d always go around town for Channel 6 to talk about the major news topics of the day; most notably the time Mae Warner tried (and failed) to bake the world’s largest chocolate chip cookie, or when the senior citizens on the Greenview Hills Rest Home took to the streets to protest the home’s move to glass coffee ta
bles in the television room (How would they see them?).

  Today through, streaming live from my street into the cloaked office of a Breaker somewhere in Florida, she had a darker story to tell.

  “Here, at the crime site, people are livid.” Her back was straight, her face bright. It was obvious that she enjoyed actually having something to talk about.

  Mr. Colburn appeared on the screen, scratching his bald head. “I just can’t believe somebody would do something like this. Drugs, I tell ya. It was drugs. Theys always makin’ good people do bad things.”

  The scene changed again. This time Sandra stood in front of a smoldering pile. It didn’t take a second glance for me to know what it was. The black wreckage behind her was what was left of my house.

  “Police say the arson happened sometime last night and was, as Mr. Colburn surmised, likely a drug related accident. The culprit, Casper Rhodes, is a known drug addict and is currently on the run,”

  A picture of Casper replaced Sandra. It was from the photo booth session he and I took last year at the corn carnival, except I was missing from the shot.

  “What?!” Casper shot up. “I’m not a drug addict. I sooo couldn’t afford drugs!”

  “Crestview residents describe Casper as a loner, saying he had no friends and was always by himself,” Sandra continued.

  “That’s not true!” Casper answered.

  “Casper’s father, Carlton Rhodes, had this to add.”

  Casper’s dad popped on the screen, in his usual trucker’s hat and lip full of Skoal. “That boy was always no good. I never liked him.”

  “That part’s true,” Casper said.

  “Luckily,” Sandra appeared before us again, speaking to her town wide audience of dozens. “The house in question was abandoned, so no one was hurt in the incident. If anyone has information that may lead to the arrest of Casper Rhodes, the police ask that you contact them at-“