Watery Friends
Nix
I was beginning to suspect that water was following me. I'd been noticing an increase in puddles all morning, starting with an extra damp awakening. I'm no stranger to cold sweats, but my pores had outdone themselves in spectacular fashion, dripping all over the floor. Gross, I know.
By fourth period a pool had gathered under my desk, clinging to my knock-off Chucks with sticky desperation. I glanced at my feet, hoping the water would roll across the room in silent streams like it should on uneven tile. But no, it actually mocked me by shivering like an anxious puppy as the scent of ocean rain rose from the stalkery, stubborn pondlet.
"What the? Stop." I whispered the words, trying not to call attention to myself and my bizarre predicament. My prosthetic left hand clenched and unclenched over and over again in quick succession and then spun around in a circle like a poltergeist prop, hissing and buzzing with the electric motors. It responds to nerves in my shoulder and forearm that I must have tensed without thinking. I took a deep breath and calmed down.
High school wasn't the place to act bat-shiz crazy, especially when you're the newly arrived, one-handed foster kid with cheap clothes that fail to hide star-shaped scars covering half your body. Sorry about the "shiz." It doesn't sound right, but I promised Cindy I'd work on my language. She has no idea how hard it is to quit.
I moved my backpack away from the growing puddle, and the water took advantage of my distraction, climbing rubber soles and licking up canvas. I swore, lifted my feet, and put them on the wire basket attached to my chair. The pond bulged upward.
Maybe I could encourage it to go away. I pushed at the puddle with the edge of a shoe. A globule rolled off my foot, did a u-turn, and strolled back to join the rest. The puddle rippled and bulged higher. Streams spiraled up the metal legs.
My hand shot up, spinning to get more attention.
Twenty seconds later, I was waiting to take the graffitied toilet seat from the teacher—talk about a stupid hall pass—while the lake under my desk broke apart and trickled toward the front of the room. It had grown larger and I heard drippings and tricklings as more liquid found its way into the room
Other kids had noticed too. One raised a hand as water splattered across her desk and rolled to the floor. "Um, Mr. Crossley, there's a leak or something."
"What?" Mr. Crossley let go of the hall pass, leaving the full weight of the monstrosity in my hand. "What the? This school is practically falling apart. Is it even raining?"
I swallowed hard, feeling hot blood rising in my cheeks. The pond spiraled around me like water going down a drain. They were going to notice I was the focus any second.
Mr. Crossley glanced my way and opened his mouth, but before he asked any questions I was ill-prepared to answer, a loud groaning from above made him stop and turn away. We all stared upward as a section of the ceiling exploded. Water rushed into the room, flooding over the heads of half a dozen kids and splashing across the floor in all directions.
I held my prosthetic up. It doesn't play well with water.
#
Cinder
The bus smelled faintly of talcum powder, rust, and urine as it carried me out of town and toward the most recent crime scene. I wasn't happy about ditching school, but I'd be back by lunch, and my godmother had excused me after all.
I didn't like her lying for me and I was certain that every adult eyed me with distrust and contempt for daring to escape school grounds, like some criminal. I'm not the skip school type, if you can't tell, but this trip wasn't a typical teenage joyride.
I was headed toward the twenty-fifth confirmed disappearance since they'd begun six months earlier, just five years after the initial murders. The news was buzzing with excitement over it all. Sick vultures.
The Scorcher was suspected, of course, but the police thought it could also be some sick copycat with a slightly different MO. I bit the inside of my cheek as I imagined what I might find inside the house.
The bus stopped, and a man with sandpapery skin sat next to me, even though there were plenty of empty seats. He tried to strike up a conversation, asking me about my job and my dating life as though I didn't look way too young to even be out and about on a Thursday morning in March.
I ignored him, flickering hot flames along the exposed skin on my legs out of his direct line of sight. That raised the temperature around us degree by degree, until he started tugging at his collar a few minutes later, even as he kept chatting and looking at my knees. Finally he grumbled something about the heater being broken, and took a seat closer to an open window. He stopped trying to chat when I turned back to the window and continued to ignore him.
Tiana had offered to drive, but I wouldn't put her in any more danger. Taking me in was plenty. I had told her I had to go it alone, that I didn't want her to see me cry. The lie came easier than I expected, so maybe there was some truth to it. She relented.
I scratched at a palm that itched to feel fire. The sandpaper man stepped off at my stop came. I didn't move, but not because I wanted to avoid the guy. I just couldn't get up. Another stop came. I sat. Two stops later, I willed myself to my feet and stepped shaking down the aisle and out into the cool morning air.
Ten blocks took me to the house. I don't remember the walk. It was a blur of feet moving, my head fuzzy with emotion, fear, and a weird undercurrent of excitement. The house was a simple thing, nothing magical about it whatsoever. There were no weaves anywhere. Why would the Scorcher be taking normal people? It might be a copycat after all, but I had to be certain.
I slipped around back, sliced through a lock with a pulse of my hottest purple flame, pushed the back-door open, and stepped into the darkness where I knew a family had disappeared only days earlier, a suspected kidnapping. I should have brought Tiana. It was so very stupid to pretend to be brave and go alone.
I ignored the urge to run and stepped farther inside, making my way through a mudroom into a beautiful, modern kitchen. The smell of soot and ash hit me, too familiar in ways that tore me apart inside.
The sounds beneath the odor are what sent me to my knees, the grinding of gears, crackling of burning paper, thin echoes of bitter laughter, my synesthesia reacting to the magic. It's more than sound really. Weaves defy reality. To a weaver, they burn through our nerves, not just our optical nerves either, but buzzing through skin, teeth, hair follicles. They blast past pores and pour their way through the nervous system in all directions.
I think the synesthesia is a defense mechanism, my brain hammering the unimaginable colors of magic into something I can understand. Sometimes the music of magic can be pleasant. Sometimes they are a cacophony of discordant noise. These weaves hurt. I'd heard them before, only once, while digging through the ruins of my childhood home, certain my fingers would be stained with the ashes of my parents forever.
As I knelt in some stranger's kitchen, staring down at the cold, marble tile, I knew it would be there before I looked up, the mark of a serial killer. My eyes turned upward almost of their own volition, tracing the symbol that had been burned into one wall of the kitchen.
To a null, it would look like it had been drawn with a blowtorch. To me, the symbol glowed with red threads that smoldered, seeming to be just on the edge of bursting into flames once more. There was no doubt. The disappearances were linked to the person who had killed my parents.
The expected tears didn't come. I just blinked, too numb to cry as I stared at the same image I'd seen burned into the only wall left standing after the fires took my home. The flaming red eye within a triangle of orange winked at me, mocking as it sang the same sick melodies to my synesthete mind. "He's back. He's taking people. He's taking nulls. Why would he be taking nulls?"
#
Nix
We milled around the hallway while the principle and a janitor walked through the room. All of us had puddles forming around our feet, dripping from soggy clothes. I tried not to call attention to the fact that I did not drip or that my puddle ran deeper and clung harder to my shoes. I still had the hall pass in my hand, so I slipped away as quickly and quietly as squeaking wet rubber soles allowed.
I carried the inked toilet seat like a shield as I entered the doorless bathroom, bending to glance under the stalls, feet squelching. I was relieved to find it empty, even if it did smell of stale marijuana and rancid burritos. Some pothead hadn't eaten well.
I slammed the toilet seat down on the stainless-steel countertop next to a sink, disgusted with it. Was I supposed to hold it while I used a urinal? Hug it while I pinched a loaf? Hand it back to the teacher covered in my unique brand of bacterial smearage? How many kids hadn't washed their hands after manhandling the sick thing?
I pushed it farther away from me with a flick of my middle finger, knowing I could sanitize the rubber that covered carbon fiber and metal later if I had to. I leaned against the counter and stared at the mirror, trying to see if going crazy showed in some way. Guess what? It does.
My eyes have always been this muddy, warm brown, somewhere between chocolate and caramel. I hated them as a kid, but learned to like my birth-given hue by junior high. Somehow, they'd gone hazel overnight, blue streaking through my irises. Freaked me out.
I hit the button next to the sink with the same finger I'd used earlier, thinking I'd wash my face, clear my eyes, and look again. I don't know what I was thinking, inviting water near me after what happened earlier. I plead the teenage boy defense. Sometimes we're just plain stupid for no reason.
Water poured out into my right hand and immediately began crawling up skin and flowing into the white, star-shaped indents childhood trauma had gifted that arm.
I stepped back, shaking the droplets free with a shiver. The faucet kept flowing, the button refusing to depress after the frustrating two seconds it would normally run. The stream of water didn't fall straight down into the sink either. It leaned toward me in an unnatural arc. I took a step to the side and it followed me. To the other side, and it swung its arc in my direction. I took another step back. Water poured from the faucet next to it, and then another and another until the entire row let loose, each jet leaning my way.
I had an idea. I waved my hands, gesturing to the streams and then back at myself. Nothing happened. Was I expecting them to respond to my gestures like I was some blue robed magician out of a cartoon? Yes, yes I was.
I'll admit to being disappointed when the water didn't flow out of the sinks and rotate around me in rings like I'd stepped out of some awesome mutant movie. It just kept falling in slight curves, but any splatters that had fallen to the counter or the floor did roll across steel and tile toward me.
I rolled my eyes. "I'm a water magnet. Worst superpower ever. Yay."
Bubbling came from behind me. I spun to find the urinals had become more active. "No! Not cool, not cool at all! Stay!"
Water poured over the edge of the gleaming porcelain of the fullest urinal, where someone obviously hadn't flushed. Frothy water, piss, and saliva rolled along the grout in my direction, creating dark, circuitry-like lines along tile. Another urinal overflowed. I scooped up the stupid painted toilet seat and ran as the bell rang for lunch.
#
Cinder
I stepped over puddles as I made my way from the office to my locker. I'd checked in, again feeling like a criminal as I'd smiled at the secretary and said that my dentist visit had gone well. Lies all lies. Nothing about the day had gone well.
I'd made it back in time for lunch and to see the mess in the halls where pipes had burst. Kids were splashing in the puddles and some had folded paper boats to race down the streams that janitors were desperately trying to mop up. I'd missed some craziness, but I didn't care about a broken pipe as I made my way to the cafeteria.
Our school had an arrangement with several local restaurants, and I picked up a few of my favorites even though nothing sounded good. I wasn't sure if I'd ever be hungry again. The pit in my stomach continued to grow. Would he come for me? I texted Tiana as soon as I sat down at a table outside to let her know I'd made it back safe. No need for both of us to worry.
She replied with a simple, I know, sweetie. Of course she did. She'd probably been parked outside the house and followed me back to school. A moment of anger flashed through me. It's a typical red reaction, but then it shifted to a sense of comfort. It was nice of her to let me think I'd done it all on my own, and I liked the reassurance that I hadn't been completely alone when facing that mark on the wall.
#
Nix
I left the toilet seat in a puddle by the door as janitors ran wet-vacs inside. I found my locker pleasantly dry, deposited my moist backpack inside, and pulled out my lunch. My left eyelid twitched as I carried the brown paper bag through the cafeteria. My shoes still left wet prints everywhere I went, but I wasn't the only moist person in the school, which helped me fly under the radar.
Someone off to the left spilled milk across a table. A spattering came from my right. Water dribbled out of a drinking fountain. I decided the lunchroom was a minefield of watery explosions waiting to happen, so I headed outside.
I pushed my way past a group of kids who smelled of cigarette smoke onto the grassy area some of the cooler kids claim during the break, my lunch clutched close to my chest with my prosthetic. Janet had written my name on it, something I told her wasn't necessary, but the magic marker and the mermaid doodle on dry paper didn't fill me with annoyance like her attempts to be silly and fun usually did. Maybe they meant I could survive the great day of wettening too.
My real hand found the door-shaped pendant that hung on a strip of old leather around my neck. It's all I had left of my parents, and I treat it a bit like a good luck charm, even if it hasn't been all that effective. The warm, dry wood against skin was still a comfort. I rubbed it between my thumb and a finger as I checked the grass for any sign of bubbling sprinklers or an open table.
Rubbing the charm is a nervous habit, like my swearing. I'm not proud of either, but both are better than biting my nails, being a sexist prick, or picking my nose and eating it. Some people just shouldn't breed, you know?
I spotted an empty table near the top of a hill, but someone called my name. It was a sociable, "Hey, Nick," that made me turn, a smile forming on my lips for the first time all day, but it transformed into a snarl when I whirled to face the perfect example of natural selection's failure.
"Oh, hi, Tommy," I said it without a hint of the disdain that bubbled inside me.
The viperous ash-hat leaned against a brick wall with his usual entourage of obsequious lackeys, laughing at a joke I hadn't heard. Tommy must have noticed my failed reaction because he shared it again, louder. "Wow, Nick, still wearing the same hoodie from yesterday? Unless you have two ugly gray hoodies with identical holes and stains? Did they have a buy one get one sale at the dumpster behind S-Mart?"
The group of kids that flanked Tommy laughed again, despite having to endure the same sad joke twice. I need to thank his parents someday for blessing us with their cancerous progeny.
Tommy kept going. "You'd think he'd wash it once in a while, or at least have someone wash it for him. Do you not have people who do that for you?" He grinned, suspecting he'd get a rise out of me while unaware I'd heard far worse from people far more intimidating.
I rolled my eyes and was about to walk away when someone else spoke up behind me.
"Tommy, that's enough. Leave Nick alone," Cindy rose from a picnic table a few feet away, pulling free from a friend's restraining hand. She'd convinced me not to beat the bully senseless three times since I'd come to this school. Such a peacemaker.
Cindy's no supermodel, but her odd mix of blue eyes, dark skin, and red-black hair usually managed to distract me away from acting on some of the uglier impulses I've cultivated over years in foster care. She reminds me of my mother, even though she looks nothing like my delicate, wisp of a mom. Maybe it's the kindness in her eyes. But that kindness and her similarity to my mother worked against her after the day I'd had.
I wanted to be angry. I wanted to hurt someone.
My intentions to walk away vanished. I met Cindy's eyes and shook my head, swallowing down a bitterness that filled my mouth as it boiled up from deep inside, a reservoir I knew existed, but not one I'd thought burned so hot. I shoved my sack lunch into the front pocket of the large gray hoodie, squeezed the door pendant at my neck one last time, and spun my hand menacingly as I made my way toward the wall. "Not today, Cinds. I'm done ignoring Tommy's ignorance."
"Oh, look. The trash heap is coming this way," Tommy sneered it and didn't move, but his friends all took steps to the side, sliding along the wall away from their leader.
"Nick, he's just being a jerk. Don't let him get to you," Cindy stepped between us.
Her eyes flickered purple, as though filled with red flames that mingled with the deep ocean of her irises. That caught my attention. I slowed and blinked as the purple faded back to blue, but I was left with the scent of singed wiring and fresh blueberries.
I shook my head to clear the smell and to break eye contact before I let her talk me out of anything. "You keep saying that, and yet he remains a jerk. If he's incapable of stopping, I'm more than happy to help him learn another way. Sorry." I put a firm hand on her shoulder and made her move enough to let me by. "I learned long ago that letting a bully keep being a bully serves no one."
She opened her mouth as if to protest, but then closed it with a nod as I strode past.
"Look, guys, the cyborg isn't letting the girl fight for him today." Tommy continued leaning casually against the wall, but his lower lip quivered. He hadn't expected me to stand up for myself. His friends slid farther away.
I smiled, cordial-like, beyond sick of his smarmy BS at that point. "She can fight for me any day. I'm not afraid to admit Cindy is smarter than I'll ever be. She's also the only reason I didn't knock those perfect teeth out when I first met you, so you shouldn't make fun of her."
"Oh, I remember. You were wearing that dumpster stained hoodie and shivering like a little girl." The kids around Tommy laughed again as they slid another step or two along the wall.
I laughed with them, which made their laughter peter out. "Do you actually think little girls really shiver more than anyone else? Half of what you say makes no sense. The other half is sexist, racist, or just plain idiotic." I unzipped my hoodie as I talked and let it fall to the ground. "Does it make you feel better about yourself, making fun of kids who have less than you?"
Tommy shrugged, the movement tense and awkward. "It really does. It's not my fault I'm better than so many."
"No, it's not, but then you let your mouth remind us that, despite your money, you're a huge bag of stinking—" Cindy shouted a warning as Tommy sprang from the wall, but she called too late. Tommy's fist connected. I spun around, landing on one knee and rubbing my face, while my cordial smile grew into a grin. I should've seen that coming. I stood slowly and finished my sentence. "I was going to say sunshine."
I licked at my stinging lip, tasting blood and burnt onions, my nostrils filling with hints of diesel. Weird. I spat, but the flavor clung to my tongue and wormed its way through my sinuses. "It may surprise you to know that's not my first sucker punch. Not bad actually. Better than most. You have a stronger arm than I would have guessed."
Tommy stood with his fists up. "I box. You aren't allowed to hit me with that one. That wouldn't be fair." He pointed at my prosthetic.
"That's fine." I shut it off, pulled at the velcro, and slipped it from my arm, handing it back to Cindy. She took it without hesitation, which was a nice surprise. I rolled up the sleeve, enjoying his wince as he took in the knot of scars and skin where my arm ended several inches before my wrist. "You do look like someone who enjoys beating someone senseless just for the fun of it."
"And you look like a one-armed hobo. Doesn't your mom ever buy you new clothes? Oh, I forgot, you don't have one."
Cindy gasped, "Tommy, that was too far!"
"Agreed." I might have laughed off the insult any other day. Not like I haven't heard it or a variation of it a million times. But my nerves had been wound tight dodging water all morning. So I lunged, grabbed Tommy's right wrist with one hand, and pushed him off balance with the nub of my other arm. A second later, the jerk's face slapped against the brick wall, perhaps a touch harder than I intended.
Tommy grunted as I twisted his arm behind his back. "You know what, Tommy? You're right, I do need to upgrade my wardrobe. Give me the jacket."
"What? No! This is worth more than your whole closet. Wait, do they make closets out of cardboard?"
"Funny." If also a little close to home. I didn't have a closet. My foster parents hadn't finished building one yet, so all my clothes were split between an old dresser and a cardboard box. I twisted harder, and Tommy yelped. "Real funny."
The skin on the back of my neck prickled. One of Tommy's friends had circled around him, trying to catch me unaware. I held the bully against the wall with the end of my amputated arm, just needed pressure on his wrist in this position, and caught the boy behind me with my hand, tugging him into view by his shirt. "You may want to give me a minute here. If you want a go after, I'm more than happy to oblige, but you'll have to wait your turn. Do they not teach you manners in this craptastic town?"
The boy's eyes widened and he held up his hands, backing away. "No, I'm good. Sorry, Nick."
I turned back to the still squirming Tommy. "You, my wealthy butt pustule, like to make fun of people who've lost something. But you should know us types are dangerous. I've lost more than you can imagine. I watched my house, my parents, and one hand," I rubbed the end of my nub on his face for emphasis, "turn to ash in front of me when you were being pampered by nannies."
He hissed and tried to pull away, which may have hidden my voice cracking.
I managed to clear my throat and gain control of my emotions. "You think my parents' murder is something to mock, so I'm going to give you a tiny lesson in loss. Here's hoping it makes you a better person." I pushed Tommy harder into the bricks. "The jacket or the arm, you choose, but you only get to keep one. I can tell you losing the latter isn't fun. And you may not get a fancy prosthetic donated to you by a wealthy burn victim like I did."
No answer came. I twisted his arm close to the breaking point. "Any farther and I'm afraid it's going out of the socket. I've seen it happen before. It isn't pretty. Hurts like hell going back in too."
"Okay, okay, take it. I don't like it anyway. You're doing me a favor, really."
I peeled the jacket off the boy, sliding it from the locked arm last and dropping Tommy as I stepped away. "Don't forget I can take one of your cheap face tickles, and still take you down with one hand missing. I've been fighting for years. You think you're tough? I've been beaten with broomsticks and wire hangers until I bled, until I couldn't stand the next day. I put the last man who tried in the hospital."
Tommy slumped against the wall, rubbing his shoulder. His eyes tightened, his nostrils flared, and his upper lip curled upward. He opened his mouth to say something, but I cut him off.
"Don't." I pointed my nub at the bully, my voice coming out low and cold. "Not a word. You say one more thing and I'll snap that arm off and make you chew on the blood-spurting stub. That's a promise I don't make lightly. And never say anything about my mother again!" As I spoke the last word, a surge of anger boiled up from my hidden reservoir.
Cold fire rolled through my body. I could almost see it, dark blue and icy, as it wove itself into a thick strand of hate, loss, pain, and sorrow. That strand crawled up and into what was left of my arm. My eyes widened as a visible rope of color burst from the scarred end. These blue threads flew from me and slammed into the brick wall just above Tommy's head.
The wall exploded as a flood of water gushed from the bricks, pelting Tommy with pieces of broken mortar and fired clay. It drenched him in seconds. My mouth fell open.
It must have been cold, because Tommy squealed and ran out onto the grass. His group of minions followed, trying to dry him with sweaters and jackets as he cursed and swore he'd sue the school for damages. He gave me one last dirty look before stomping away, his group of lackeys toweling him the whole way.
Cindy stayed, standing only feet from where the water sprayed from the brick like a broken hydrant, but she and my prosthetic, thank goodness, remained dry. Steam rose around her in the cool air, her eyes flickering purple again. I just blinked at her, stunned, my mouth still open.
Cindy's mouth hung open too. She blinked back at me, and then turned to stare at the water pouring from the wall. She gained some control, but stuttered as she spoke. "Y...you're a weaver? I was beginning to think I was the only one left."
I managed to close my own mouth, swallow, and open it again. "What?"
She sprang toward me, wrapped her arms around me, and hugged me tight, my electronic arm dangling from her hand behind my back. "I'm not alone. I've been so alone."
#