by Sara Preucil
“Keep your voice down.” Eileen scolded her husband.
Red faced, Briana’s father got up from his place at the table. “Going to go tend to the animals,” he muttered, and headed for the front door.
After dinner, Briana helped her mother wash the dishes, and then went over multiplication tables with Liam while her brother fidgeted endlessly. Giving up, she eventually dismissed him, and he ran out the door to help their father tend to their handful of chickens and their pig. With nothing else to do, Briana fetched a wool sock from the room she and Liam shared, sat at the table with a needle and thread, and began to mend a small hole in its heal. Her mother joined her at the table and, by the oil lamp’s yellow light, began to read aloud from the family’s Bible.
Once it got dark, Liam and their father came back inside and joined the women at the table. Only a few verses later, Liam fell asleep, his head coming to rest on top of the table. Briana got up, coaxed Liam to a level of consciousness in which she could help him into their bedroom and onto his bed. She then crossed the room to her own bed and sat down on a patchwork quilt that she and her mother had made. In the dark, she sat listening to her mother’s soft reading voice filter through the thin wall until she too fell asleep.
Chapter 30
Tara sat in a desk at the back of the classroom, absently fingering her necklace as she tuned out the trigonometry teacher’s lecture on tangents.
She hated school; she spent the hours at Sehome High School alone and friendless. Not that she wanted to make friends here; it was difficult to connect with others her age when she served a higher purpose of which they knew nothing about. How could she pretend to care about who was rumored to be asking whom to the approaching homecoming dance when she was part of an ongoing centuries-old crusade to cure the world of unnatural forces? Like she could be bothered about good grades or picking a college when she knew perfectly well what the predestined course of her life would entail. She would be fully initiated into the Order at eighteen, only two short weeks away, and then be expected to dedicate her life to serving its cause. Like her parents did, and their parents, and the preceding generations going back hundreds of years. It was her purpose in life. A cause that had been ingrained in her since birth, providing certainty and direction.
At least, it had.
Before the dreams.
Tara pinched the silver pendant of the two overlapping triangles between her thumb and forefinger, willing its representational balance to exist in her as well. In truth, it still may, she consoled herself. They were only dreams after all. Nightmares no doubt brought on by the fear of the unnaturals.
Tara had grown up on stories of the devastation wrought by the unnaturals. Whether intentional or unintentional, given their unbalanced systems, they were capable of great calamity. The San Francisco earthquake of 1902 (blamed on the fault line), the Great Fire of 1910, which burned three million acres (explained away by unusual dry seasons and an electrical storm), the floods and tornadoes in the southeastern United States of 1998 (said to have been caused by El Nino) were all examples of destruction in which the unnaturals were responsible.
Of course, the general population knew nothing of the reality of the true causes of these disasters. History had proved time and again that the minds of the mundane couldn’t accept the truth. Members of the Order had, in the past, tried to appeal to those in power, each attempt ending badly. They had been laughed at, discredited, and even institutionalized.
Even the infamous European witch trials were more focused on framing and prosecuting people with religious differences that the truest kin to witches went completely unnoticed. In the US, the Salem witch trials sparked a moment of hope for the Order, but they turned out to be nothing more than accusations made by jealous neighbors hoping to extend their land if their neighbor ended up being sentenced, or spurned wives angry over the attention that young, single women drew. During these trials, one woman of the Order attempted to supply evidence against an actual unnatural, but the court ruled her a witch, believing that the fire-conjurer she saw meant that she was being possessed by demonic forces. She was drowned the next day, along with other innocents, and the Order vowed to carry out their mission in private.
So there Tara sat, pretending to be a normal teenager and hating every second of it. She had begged her parents to homeschool her, but they were far too busy with the Order to do so.
She watched the backs of her oblivious classmates. Most of them were hardly giving the teacher any more attention than she was. There were whispered conversations, note passing, and others simply staring off into space with who knows what kind of teenage drama on their minds.
As if on cue, a girl two seats in front of Tara leaned over to show her friend something on her phone. Tara recognized it immediately, it was the video that was spreading around the school like wildfire. It featured a baffled reporter at the scene in which firefighters, after being alerted to a security break, found two men frozen in a block of ice in front of the offices of Modern Alchemy. From two seats back, Tara watched the firefighters chip away at the ice, knowing full well what the actual cause was.
Tara rolled her eyes and slouched farther down into her chair. With her teeth, she uncapped her pen. She closed her trig book—it wasn’t like she was on the correct page anyway—and began doodling on the brown paper bag slipcover. She absentmindedly drew as she listened to the droning voice of their teacher. When Tara finally took notice of her doodles, she realized that her book was now spattered with the image of an odd symbol of three interlocking spirals drawn over and over in varying sizes and boldness.
She frowned at the drawings, unsure of why that particular image had come to her. There was something about it. A strange nostalgic feeling came over her, and she tried to cling to it, to figure it out. But the then bell rang out shrilly, and she collected her things and headed out into the hall for her next class, soon forgetting all about the odd symbol.
Chapter 31
That evening, Tara stood shaking under a black, hooded ceremonial cloak, but she doubted anyone noticed. At least, she hoped not.
The horrible nightmares that had been plaguing her for the past few sleepless nights had her feeling their effects now. She was exhausted and unfocused, but worse, she was afraid.
She took a deep breath, steadying herself. She let it out, causing the flame of the white candle that she held to flicker angrily.
This was the first official meeting of the Order that Tara was allowed to attend. Sure, she had been to smaller gatherings hosted by local elders, but tonight’s meeting was to be conducted by the regional councilor.
The meeting had been a total surprise; her father received the summons only an hour prior, and they had rushed over to the Whitlocks’ to eagerly await the councilor’s arrival.
And still they waited, in quiet anticipation, in the Whitlocks’ candle-lit basement. Everything was set, everyone was in place.
Tara, along with the other initiates too young to be considered members, wore a black cloak and stood at the back of the gathering, forming a loose outer circle around the perimeter of the room. Austin Whitlock stood off to her left. He was also wearing the black initiate cloak, and he was looking quite put out. He had been charged with a special assignment: pacifying the fire unnatural, Subject 2381, in an attempt to keep her abilities from developing. But it hadn’t worked. Much to the Order’s displeasure.
As Tara watched Austin sulk, she couldn’t help but find joy in his failure. Even though it meant a failure to the Order’s greater mission, she thought he could stand to be knocked down a peg.
She smirked, and continued her survey of the room, her eyes drifting to the inner circle of the official members of the Order.
The elders, clad in emerald cloaks, formed this inner ring which surrounded a large depiction of the Order’s symbol inlaid in what appeared to be gold in the mahogany floor. At about ten by ten feet, the symbol, what would look to the untrained eye as a six-pointed star, shimmere
d in the candle light. But those gathered here knew what it truly represented: upright triangles for fire and air, inverted triangles for earth and water. Overlap them and you have all the elements represented in perfect harmony
A proper balance. As nature intended.
Tara’s stomach clenched at the thought. What if her dreams persisted? Could what she feared even be possible?
She pulled her eyes away from the symbol, casting them around the room. Her parents stood next to the Whitlocks; she could see the excitement in their faces. Her mother, as if sensing Tara’s gaze, looked over to Tara from under her emerald cloak and smiled. Her eyes, a slightly lighter shade of green than Tara’s shone brightly in the light of her candle. How quickly her smile would disappear if Tara’s fears were confirmed. If it was proved that she too was, in fact, unbalanced.
An unnatural.
But Tara didn’t have long to contemplate this, because suddenly, the basement door opened.
Two more elders entered, followed closely by the councilor.
Councilor Nadine King was dressed in her cloak of navy blue, her platinum-blonde bob covered by her hood. She was without her smear of red lipstick tonight, but Tara could hear the clacking of her usual stilettoes against the polished wood floor.
Four men in black suits entered after Councilor King. They had with them a teenage girl. Her shoulder-length white-blonde hair was disheveled, her clothes and face filthy. Her tiny frame was being weighed down by heavy chains and shackles at her thin wrists and ankles. She stumbled with every step, the chains clanking loudly, and had to be picked off the ground more than once as her slender legs gave out from under her.
A squat, fat, man dressed in violet robes—the ceremonial garb of the minister—followed immediately after the procession. Minister Campbell Perkins worked directly under Councilor King and was usually the one who conducted the local meetings of the Order, so whatever was going on tonight had to be important if it involved the regional councilor, Tara surmised.
The group made their way to the center of the two rings of Order members to stand along the edge of the golden symbol on the floor. Tara expected the meeting to start then, but they all appeared to be waiting for something. She watched as Minister Perkins pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at his sweaty, bald head. He seemed nervous.
And then, someone else appeared at the door. Not only was the significance of tonight’s meeting confirmed, but made all the more momentous, when this last figure entered the room.
A tall man draped in scarlet walked slowly into the room. The sound of his footsteps against the hardwood floor seemed to echo around the otherwise still room. From shock or awe, or a combination of the two, everyone stood completely frozen. As he made his way toward the circles, the Order members recovered from their amazement and parted, black and green robes swirling as they hastened to move out of the man’s way. He strode into the circle, coming to stand in the center of the two large glinting triangles.
The room was silent. Tara could hardly breathe.
Why was the chancellor here?
Chancellor Jeremiah Tavish was the head of the entire Order; every faction in the country was under his jurisdiction. What could he possibly be doing here?
Tara had never before laid eyes on the chancellor. Sure, she had looked him up in the database at Modern Alchemy—the front for the Order’s Bellingham chapter—but it was nothing like seeing him in person. From under her hood, her eyes fixated on him now, as did everyone else’s in the room. He looked like any other middle aged, handsome man. He smiled mildly at the crowd, but Tara noticed how his smile didn’t meet his gray eyes; they were left expressionless and cold.
An unease trickled through Tara, and she pulled her eyes away from his face. She turned her attention, instead to the prisoner. Tara watched, around the emerald cloaked shoulder of the Elder in front of her, as the girl was led to the center of the room by Minister Perkins, to stand near the chancellor over the large golden insignia. The enfeebled girl didn’t even look up, just stared at her bare, dirty feet.
Councilor King then stepped forward. With a generous bow, she greeted the chancellor.
Chancellor Tavish inclined his head in the merest of gestures. “You may proceed, Councilor.”
She bowed once more to the chancellor and then addressed the rest of the room.
“This unnatural,” Councilor King said, her gray eyes flashing as she gestured to the filthy girl, “wields an unholy power over the element of air, which isn’t hers to control.”
Murmurs of righteous assent rose from around the two circles.
“As you know,” she continued, “we have been battling this impurity for centuries, but without much victory. We have long believed that using the opposite of whichever element a particular unnatural is predisposed is the key to quelling that dominance. However, that alone has not stopped the rebirth of the unnatural. We have found that ending an unnatural in a sudden manner—say, setting a water-user on fire—is not enough to prevent its return. That, my friends, appears to have changed.”
The girl swayed on her feet, the heavy chains jangling.
“Thanks to the innovative work that Chancellor Tavish and his father—our late, esteemed Chancellor Alexander Tavish—started over two decades ago, we believe we have made a breakthrough. Their groundbreaking work with Subject 0 has proved to have been effective, so we, behind the guise of Modern Alchemy, have been working very diligently to correctly and permanently erase this imbalance from the world.”
Excited whispers rose from the Order.
Navy robes swirling, the councilor then turned to look at the girl. “We have been following the chancellor’s notes meticulously in our approach with this unnatural. You see, first the spirit must be weakened by its opposite, so much so that it loses its affinity before parting from the body.” She gave the girl a satisfied look. “Only then, it seems, it will be unable to return.”
Tara was starting to feel uneasy. Her mouth had gone dry, and she tried, but failed, to swallow.
“You will turn your attention, then, to our demonstration.” Councilor King stepped to the side, and Minister Perkins moved into the center of the floor.
“Over the past two weeks,” his mousy voice squeaked out, “we have immersed this creature in its natural opposite element.”
That explains the dirt, Tara thought, examining the girl. She couldn’t have been much younger than herself.
The minister’s violet robes swished around his feet as he swayed back and forth, clearly uncomfortable with being so close to an unnatural.
“Our scientists have been conducting various experiments led by our chancellor’s notes, and have discovered that total submersion has been greatly efficient in correcting its unbalance. For the past two days, it has been buried up to its neck in a mixture of the purest earth for hours at a time.”
Tara stared wide-eyed, not quite processing what Minister Perkins was saying. Did they actually bury this girl?
“Since her extraction, she has been unable to exhibit any wrongful control over air. Observe...” He turned to face the girl, a look of utmost disgust on his pudgy features. “You!” He barked at the unnatural. “Use your ability.”
Finally, the girl lifted her eyes—an eerily light blue—to stare defiantly at the minister. Nothing happened.
“This does not prove anything,” Chancellor Tavish snapped impatiently. “The unnatural could simply be refusing you.”
“Perhaps we need some incentive,” Councilor King simpered. She snapped her thin, red manicured fingers, and one of the men garbed in black stepped forward. From within his pocket, he pulled out a small object. Tara saw a strand of cobalt blue dance across two metal prongs right before he jabbed the girl in the back.
The girl let out a surprised shriek and fell to her knees. She shook for a moment as the electricity ran its course through her body, the metal cuffs at her wrists clanking together uncontrollably. Quickly, she stopped convulsing, but stayed hunched over,
breathing shakily.
“Feel like a demonstration now?” the councilor asked acidly.
When the girl neither moved nor spoke, Councilor King ordered, “Again.”
For the second time, the girl was hit with the stun gun; again, she cried out as she convulsed, but nothing further happened.
“You see, it is unable to conjure.” Minister Perkins crossed his arms across his round chest, looking pleased with himself.
In a flash of scarlet, Chancellor Tavish moved forward. Snatching the weapon from the guard’s hand, he pushed the prongs to the side of the girl’s neck. Tara heard the crackle of electricity right before the girl’s screams tore through the Whitlocks’ basement. The chancellor didn’t remove the device. The girl screamed and screamed as she writhed under the currents that pulsated throughout her small body.
He’s killing her, Tara thought, horrified. She suddenly felt sick, and desperately wanted nothing more than to leave.
All of a sudden, there was a shift in the air. Tara felt it like the ebbing of the tide. It was being sucked into the center of the room, pushing against Tara’s back, catching the fabric of her cloak, as it moved around her like a strange, backward gust. She tried to breathe, but realized that she couldn’t.
The girl fell silent, and Tara looked up at her and saw a rippling, clear orb the size of a basketball hovering in front of her dirty, outstretched hands. It tightened, condensing itself into the size of a baseball, and then it imploded.
The first wave hit like a blast of high wind, blowing back Tara’s hood and extinguished all the candles the members were still holding. The second wave knocked Tara off her feet.
“Hold her!” She heard someone yell, and then the basement flooded with fluorescent light. Someone had turned on the overhead lights. Tara blinked, adjusting to their sudden brightness, and looked around. Nearly everyone else had been knocked over by the blast. Minister Perkins was wrestling with his violet robes, trying to get them back over his rotund stomach. Two of the guards were helping Councilor King to her feet; she tottered uneasily on her stilettoes.