Of Breakable Things

by A. Lynden Rolland

  Alex Ash gaped at her classmates when she saw that they were scribbling notes on their papers. Certainly floccinaucinihilipilification was not a term she used in regular conversation. He watched her glance at the word again, and then her expression became one of surprise. “Oh,” she murmured. He imagined the sensation that rippled through her head was much like watching the pages of a flipbook. Such was always the case with him. The images appeared and disappeared so quickly it was like shuffling at warp speed through a card catalog.

  “Write what you see,” he advised her. After minutes of drumming his fingers on his pedestal, he invited Alex to share what she’d written.

  Mr. Jackson in seventh grade science discussing “‘pili.”

  A tree.

  Misspelling “purification” as ‘pilification.”

  Sitting in church with the Lasalles.

  Nihilistic themes in a song?

  He was pleased. “I think you were rather successful with the activity. Your brain now has more potential than you could imagine, a fact justified by what you saw in your head when you merely glanced at this word. Your mind conjured up everything you’d ever experienced with the word or pieces of it.”

  Or even, he thought to himself, future experiences.

  “Can anyone wager a guess as to what the term means?”

  Madison Constance raised her hand. Of course. A normal teacher would probably admire her vigilance, but Van Hanlin found her to be bothersome.

  “I saw a science classroom just like Alex did,” Madison chirped, perched on the edge of her seat. “Is it something to do with science?”

  “No,” Van Hanlin responded curtly. “Pili is plural for pilus, or cellular organelles. Wrong association.”

  “What about history?” Joey Rellingsworth asked. “I saw my old history teacher.”

  Van Hanlin smiled at Joey. Upon receiving his list of newburies to mentor, he’d been pleased to find the name Rellingsworth. Joey was multigenerational. He came from a long line of spiritual chemists.

  “Often the word is used in political circumstances.”

  “And nothingness,” chimed in another girl. He didn’t remember her name, and he didn’t care.

  “Nihil in Latin means nothing,” he explained. Kind of like your significance, he wanted to add. This girl was a first-generation spirit.

  “Why did I see the weather channel?” Joey asked.

  “Flocci I’m guessing is the plural of floccus?” Madison added. She glanced at Van Hanlin for affirmation, but he decided not to give any. It didn’t discourage her. “I was in PSAT prep when I died, and we were learning all sorts of Latin. I don’t even remember learning the word, but for some reason my mind is telling me that a floccus is a small tuft of a cloud.”

  “You may not have even realized your brain had filed away that information,” Van Hanlin said, slightly impressed with the brownnosing girl in spite of himself.

  Alex appeared to be gobsmacked by the conversation. He wondered what was hiding in that mind of hers. Incontestably something powerful. Yes, he was lucky indeed to have this batch of newburies. He began to consider the possibilities greedily.

  Madison lifted her finger to her chin in thought. “A bunch of words that mean small or insignificant. Is that the actual meaning of the word?”

  “The meaning is to deny the value of something, so yes, it is the same to regard something as insignificant. Well done.” He took a coin from his shirt pocket, which he flicked over his right shoulder. It ricocheted off an overhead lamp and landed directly on the light switch, brightening the room.

  “Now that your brains are warmed up, let us begin. This afternoon, we are going to delve into the topic of travel. If you try hard enough, you can use your mind to see that things travel past you constantly, the most obvious of which being sound. You need only look for it. We are going to focus specifically on transportation. Of course, you can float, walk, or run without tiring easily, but there are much more practical means.”

  A hand shot up in the air, and he acknowledged it through gritted teeth. “Yes, Madison?”

  “Can we still drive cars or ride on planes?”

  “Yes, of course we can, but we do not usually choose to do so. It’s simply unnecessary because it’s so much easier to ride the waves.”

  Madison, who was transcribing his words furiously, said, “Huh?”

  “Radiofrequency waves,” Van Hanlin said briskly. “Or in layman’s terms, cell phones. How many of you had cell phones in life?”

  He watched all five hands rise into the air. Times had certainly changed.

  “Ever had a prank call? A hang up? Those were probably quick trips. We don’t need much time to travel, but the further the distance, the longer we need to keep the connection. Ever been called by a telemarketer? Half of them aren’t even selling anything. They are simply working for us.”

  Van Hanlin wrote Gramble on the chalkboard. “The founding family of modern day travel. Al Gramble was a man who perfected the method of transportation through electrical wires. Before we gave the idea of cell phones to the bodied—oh, don’t look so shocked! Of course we contribute to the physical world’s technology when it suits us. Anyway, back in the day, we had to travel through landlines. It was quite frustrating because there were so many unnecessary stops to reach one’s destination. Al Gramble’s great-nephew, Will, invented wave travel. Has anyone seen the turn for Gramble Lane off of Lazuli Street?”

  Each of their faces displayed identical expressions of bewilderment. He presumed no one had mentioned it to them yet. They wouldn’t see the road until their minds knew to look for it.

  “The parapets on the top of the building on Gramble Lane are like cell phone towers. They give us the ability to ride the radiofrequency waves.”

  “What are parapets?” the tall girl asked.

  “Those things on top of buildings that look like giant swords at attention,” Joey said. “I heard that teachers sometimes take the newburies on a field trip. Can we go?”

  Van Hanlin shook his head.

  “Is it because of that kid who keeps leaving campus?” Madison groaned.

  Alex Ash looked up so abruptly her neck made the sound of a whip cracking.

  “Aren’t there emergency exits in the school?” Joey asked, swaying his body to peek out into the hallway.

  Now that it was mentioned, his newburies would have the ability to find the secret stairway outside his classroom if they opened their minds to search for it. The parapets on the learning center led to the travel waves. How interesting that the children had not heard of Gramble Station or the road leading to it, but they knew of the emergency travel access in this building. Van Hanlin’s mind began to reel.

  “I’m not at liberty to show you how to travel outside of the city. That would be illegal unless warranted.”

  “Professor?” Madison interrupted.

  He sighed heavily and waved a hand to indicate she should hurry up and ask another of her infernal questions.

  “Is it still possible to travel through the electrical wires?”

  “Of course.”

  “Are we ever going to try it?”

  Van Hanlin shook his head. “Please turn to chapter four: Traveling Overseas and Enduring the Discomforts of Water in the (Frequency) Waves.”

  He watched to make sure Alex had the correct book and allowed his eyes to linger once more. He wondered how much surveillance they’d place on her, bearing in mind what had happened to her mother.

  And more importantly, what had happened to those before her.

  Kaleb and Gabe sat at the center of the Grandiuse, an unordinary hall impersonating the interior of a grand library. Two poker-faced girls guarded the door, but they each wrote so feverishly in their notebooks that they didn’t bother to address anyone who entered or exited. Millions of multicolored book bindings snugly clustered the walls, which zigzagged and waved magically to make room for all the information. Even the lamps curved over the tables insipidly like
fields of drooping flowers.

  Kaleb rested his cheek on his fist and picked at his customary football jersey while Gabe thumbed through a book. Upon Alex’s entrance with Jonas, they shifted their eyes to one another, mirroring an expression of suspicion.

  “Where’ve you been, Jo?” Kaleb asked without removing his cheek from his hand.

  Gabe stood up and tugged at Alex’s elbow, leading her to the opposite end of the table. She could sense Jonas’s annoyance thickening the air.

  Jonas tossed his bag to the ground. “I found Alex wandering around like she was lost.”

  “How helpful of you.”

  Jonas muttered something inappropriate and unnecessary, but Gabe, who was always one step ahead of Jonas, coughed loudly during the comment so Kaleb wouldn’t hear.

  Alex sat on the bench and took some time to ogle at the rippling walls. “What is this place?”

  Gabe used his finger to hold his place in the book. “It’s just where professors brief newburies on upcoming events and campus concerns. You can come here to ask questions and get help with workshops, too.” He flipped his book upright and continued reading.

  The chipped letters of the title read: Notorious Ghost Stories: Legends throughout the Ages.

  Alex rested her elbows on the table. “Is Parrish mentioned in there?”

  Gabe grinned. “Why else would I be reading it? The only downfall is that now I have that ridiculous song about the Cove Ghost stuck in my head.”

  They had grown up in a town obsessed with its legends. The Cove Ghost was the most famous. Some poetic tourist had visited the town in the late 1800s and written lyrics about waiting on the beach for her to appear. The creepy song became a children’s jump rope rhyme. Alex had sung it frequently on the playground in grade school. The SyFy channel had even done a piece on the ghost. For weeks, their vans had popped up around town like wild mushrooms, unwanted nuisances.

  Gabe had bookmarked one page, and he pointed to a word that made Alex’s stomach drop. The Jester. She tugged the book closer to get a better look, and Jonas leaned in.

  The original Eskers Institution was home to many broken-minded souls, both dead and alive, but due to an arson attack in 1901, the building became condemned. The new Eskers Psychological Rehabilitation Center, constructed at the west end of the Esker woods, adopted softer methods for treatment. Many lingerers and wanderers still rely on the west-end Eskers to provide psychological assistance. While the physical world might consider The Jester to be a mere attraction, the spiritual world knows better. He frequently diverts the bodied from approaching the grounds by frightening them away before they get too close.

  “So there really were ghosts in the woods?” Alex asked.

  “Guess so.”

  “What are lingerers and wanderers?”

  “Just what you’d suspect them to be. Lingerers linger and hang out in their old towns, and wanderers wander. They move from town to town. Or so I’ve read.”

  Van Hanlin called the Hall to order, and Gabe closed the book and hugged it close to him.

  The various lecturers droned about the importance of punctuality, methods to alleviate headaches from retaining the overload of information, and improvements in executive function. Jonas seemed to find it as boring as Alex did because he spent the duration of the meeting trying to annoy her by staring and making faces. Gabe kicked him under the table, and Jonas glowered. “Whatever.”

  ***

  Pleased her first day had gone so well, Alex gladly accepted when Jonas hurried away from his brothers and offered to chaperone a tour of the city before curfew.

  They ventured down Lazuli Street to where it forked at the fields. Trees bowed over the ascending path with branches intertwining overhead and creating natural archways. The hill took them to what Jonas called the heart of the city, with intimidating buildings of concrete masonry and brass detail. A combination of Times Square and a Halloween town, the dark shadows of modern architecture obscured the ancient roads and knurled lampposts. The hustle and bustle of spirits skirting past them disturbed the fog, which haughtily puffed its way upward. It traveled over the chaos and past the lights of the city.

  The dancing building she’d seen from her window stood guard over everything. Up close, the government Dual Tower, as Jonas termed it, twisted so high it seemed never-ending, attempting to pierce the sky itself. She hadn’t seen the rest of ‘Broderick Square’ until Jonas told her it was there. She gasped each time a building suddenly materialized from the fog. He assured her this was normal because she hadn’t known what to look for.

  The road traveled toward the Dual Tower but separated twice, breaking into an endless knot and stopping several feet away from the tower. “What is the point of having a walkway that doesn’t even lead to the front door?”

  “Maybe that is the point.” Jonas grinned, and with the removal of his scowl, it was difficult to believe that he was supposed to be the black sheep of his family.

  Alex was momentarily stunned by how much a genuine smile transformed his face. “Is it exhausting to be bipolar?”

  “What?”

  “I’m just kidding.”

  Spirits eyed her as they traveled to and fro, craning their heads to follow her movements. Was insecurity visible to them? Was inexperience? Even the window frames of the gigantic buildings arced high like presumptuous eyebrows. She yearned for refuge and immediately found a new street sign. She tugged at Jonas’s sleeve and tilted her head in the direction of Scalae Lane.

  This quiet road was much better. The redwoods neighbored them to the left, facing older buildings that didn’t seem so nosy. Alex noticed several tunnels and spirals of both ascending and descending stone stairways that led to nothingness, or just places still invisible to her apprehensive eyes.

  A chirping bird jumped into their path, rippling its indigo feathers. Jonas picked up a stray branch. “This morning was quite the debacle.”

  “Were you in the entryway too? I didn’t see you there.”

  “Those lure birds were in every hallway, Alex.”

  “Oh. I think they’re pretty.”

  “You would think that,” Jonas said. “I just can’t figure out how someone got all those birds to flock into the school.”

  “What do you mean?” Alex remembered how easily that strange boulder of a man had scooped them up to escort them out.

  “Watch this.”

  Jonas advanced on the bird, lifting the branch in his hand, ready to swipe it across the road. Abruptly, the bird retreated with a high-pitched hiss. Its feathers spread, along with its talons, which were silver and sleek like six butcher knives.

  Alex jumped back in alarm and covered her mouth with her hands. “That’s horrible!”

  “You still think they’re pretty?”

  Alex studied the bird with new eyes. Oversized teeth glistened under the deceptively beautiful black beak, bared and jagged like the peaks of an ugly little mountain range.

  “They live in the rosebushes between the walls surrounding the city. It must have been nearly impossible for someone to get them into the building.”

  “Why would they bother?”

  “You got me. But whoever the prankster is, I’d like to shake his hand.”

  They stopped in front of a tableau of the architects involved in the construction of the city. Alex easily recognized Van Hanlin in a combat uniform. Madame Paleo, her new history teacher, stood front and center, wearing a mantua with elbow-length bell sleeves, a petticoat, and an apron. On the outskirts of the group a man stood scowling, arms folded.

  “You don’t know who that is, do you?”

  Jonas squinted at the picture. “No. Why?”

  “He was the one who rounded up the birds.”

  “Really?” Jonas shrugged. “I’ve never seen him before. Maybe he’s some sort of groundskeeper.”

  Not likely. The man had been too powerful, like he was built to withstand an earthquake. Alex doubted his time was spent pruning bushes.
/>   “And what about Calla Bond? Do you know her?”

  “Where did that come from?”

  “She was next to me during the bird incident.”

  “I know of her. The Bonds are one of the old families. The multigenerational ones. Heredity is a big deal around here.”

  Alex traced her finger over the carvings on the tableau. “If it’s such a big deal, why were people treating Calla like … ” She didn’t quite know how to word it.

  “They were avoiding her?”

  “Afraid of her,” Alex corrected.

  “They aren’t afraid of her. They’re afraid of the Darwins. Tess and her brothers hate the Bonds. And around here, whatever the Darwins say, goes.”

  “Why would they pick on her?”

  “The weak are always the prey, aren’t they? Calla makes herself an easy target.”

  “Are they punished?”

  “Who? The Darwins? No way. They’re multigenerational, too. They must have some sort of genetic disease, because Eidolon is crawling with them.”

  Alex stood quiet in her thoughts. Here, the trees couldn’t block all the light from the sun, as it tucked itself in for the night, swaddled in the comfort of a fluorescent pink sky and periwinkle clouds. Serenity whirled like a lullaby around them.

  “I love when the sky shows off.”

  Jonas blinked upward. “I heard the sky only changes color because of pollution.”

  Alex stared at the multihued heavens, mortified. So this beauty was toxic? “Thanks for ruining it for me.”

  “That’s not what I meant to do,” he said. “But one thing you’ve never learned is that appearances can be deceiving.”

  “Nice cliché,” she replied. Two could play at that game. “But you also shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. That’s something you never learned.”

  He shook his head. “This is a mental world, one that can easily be manipulated. That sort of optimistic thinking will get you killed.” He paused. “Again.”