Chapter 2 – Seeing isn’t believing, believing is seeing

“You must think I’m stupid,” Sasha says as we’re heading to the parking lot after work.

“Because you can’t keep your balance, or because you can’t keep your cool?”

“You don’t think I noticed.”

“Noticed what?”

“Don’t play daft, it doesn’t suit you.”

“So now I’m the dumb one? Thanks a lot. What exactly are you talking about?”

“When I fell, I noticed you. You did something with your hand. Some kind of weird movement. You slowed down time.” I’m 25, this isn’t my first rodeo, and I certainly didn’t slow down time, that is the sergeant’s gift.

“That was an odd time to be focused on me,” I evade.

“Fine, whatever. If you don’t want to trust your best – and only – friend, then fine. Do as you please.” She storms off to her car.

“Sasha…” I call after her, but she starts her car and drives off. I watch her leave. She’s a good friend, but she’s rash and short-fused. Even if I was ever going to tell anyone about my abilities, I wouldn’t want to tell her. She’s my best friend, but she’s not that good a friend. I turn back and go inside again. You can never count on when the day might begin here, so people come in at all hours, but the end of the day is clear (unless you are unfortunate enough to have a late meeting with the Mat in attendance, but that happens rarely) and the office empties quickly. I have the place to myself. She’ll calm down eventually. I turn on my home computer and open the email program.

“Hey Hale, I’m at the office. Got a minute?” Hale can make inanimate things do his bidding, sort of like turning them into robots. Since he’s been gone he’s been using it mostly to make pens write messages on the whiteboard for us at home, or ‘hacking’ my computer for a quick chat. Of the six of us siblings, the two of us are the most alike, ability wise at least. I can move objects, and he can make them dance. The difference is he can do it from across the world, and I can do the dishes and read Hamlet at the same time.

“I’m here, what’s up Lizzy?” The little paperclip thingy from 90’s pops up on my screen. I smile to myself and open a text document.

“Had a close call today. Sort of,” I type.

“What did you do?” The paperclip asks.

“Stopped my friend from breaking her neck, that’s all,” I defend myself against his accusing tone.

“Lizzy…”

“I know, I know. It was a reflex.”

“Mother is not going to be happy with you.” Tell me something I don’t know.

“Not planning on telling her,” I decide. With the wedding and everything, she has enough to deal with without worrying about me.

“Lizzy – don’t be stupid.”

“I’ll work late, grab a bite to eat here and come home when she’s fast asleep.”

“Won’t she think that’s weird?”

“Nina is staying at the house.” There is no better excuse for staying out all night than having a bride to be in the house.

“She will get to you sooner or later,” the paperclip warns, but I know Hale is smiling at my stupidity.

“And by that time, I will simply have too many other things to think about for her to ever notice this.”

“She’s not the enemy you know, she’s just trying to protect you.”

“Yeah, I know. She’s just so overprotective sometimes. How did you ever manage to get them to let you move out?”

“In case you forgot I’m staying with family too.”

“Yeah, but none of them are mind readers.”

“Aunt Veronica can see through walls,” he reminds me.

“I still say mind reading is worse.”

“As did I – before I moved here. Go home Lizzy, talk to her.”

“Go home to the mind reader, the fire-breather, the time stopping sergeant, the flying baby, the girl with mind control, and the guy with super hearing marrying the woman who can walk through walls. Sounds like a blast.”

“If she bothers you too much just move five walls in front of her, she’ll get tired of it soon enough.” If I knew how to move walls without destroying the house, I would.

“Or I could stay here and work to prove myself worthy of the promotion I’ll never get and don’t want.”

“Have you ever considered getting a job you actually enjoy.” There is no sound, but I can still hear his deep laugh from across the world.

“Are you telling me such a thing exists? Where, how do I find one of these mystical things?”

“Don’t mock me, I’m your favorite brother.”

“Only because you’re the one not living at home.”

“And that would be my cue to leave. See you at the wedding.” The paperclip waves a foam finger reading “Go Crina!” at me and disappears. He’s wrong, it should be “Niss”, much more fitting for her temper. I look at the new assignment waiting for me – a report on how best to market leather socks. Well, as long as I call the public idiots and put some fancy looking diagrams in there, Mrs. Foot will be happy, and if the foot is happy so is the mat. I pack up and go to my car instead, the report can wait. I turn the key and listen to the engine come to life. Andy taught me a bit about cars when he got his license. I had had mine for a while at that point, but thanks to him I now save a bit of money on gas – he showed me how everything worked, so now I just move the parts myself and only keep the engine running for the lights (and appearances sake – don’t want to get pulled over for driving a car that isn’t running). Mother has been bugging him to teach me about TVs too, but it’s as if it’s slightly harder to get a physical grip on the signal for those.

After half an hour of deep concentration (on both traffic and making the car run) I am home and can park in the crowded driveway. Nico is the only one not driving yet, and we all like to have our own cars – the struggle is real. We had talked about tearing down the garage to make just a little more space, but then Criss found Nina and decided to build an apartment over it instead. He’s been talking about going to work for the family, so they don’t want to put down an expensive deposit on a place they might only keep for a year or two. Nina seems to think we’ll all act as babysitters when that time comes, so she doesn’t really mind.

“I’m home,” I call to the house as I open the door.

“About time! Get in here!” Nina shouts. Mother makes her way out of the living room and greets me with an apologetic smile.

“The seamstress made a mistake on the dress, can you help us fix it?”

“The seamstress made a mistake, or the bride changed her mind?”

“Can you, Lizzy please, you’d be a lifesaver.”

“How long has she been like that?”

“She tried it on this morning, convinced she’d lost weight with all the stress and would have to have it taken in.”

“And?”

“And stress eating doesn’t work like that.” She smiles. I laugh, and she hushes me. “Don’t mention that to her, she’ll tear you limb from limb. Come in and take a look for yourself instead.” I follow her in.

“What took you so long!”

“Let her get in the door first, she’s had a long day at work.”

“What do I care about her work, she doesn’t even care about it. The seamstress ruined my dress, fix it. Now.” I take a deep breath to calm myself – and perhaps just a little bit to keep from laughing. My advice would be to get a new dress – something less decorated and more elegant.

“What is the problem?”

“Can’t you tell? And here your mother was promising me you were an artist, a magician with needle and thread! It’s all promises and promises around here, no one ever delivers on them!”

“Tell me what you want fixed, and I’ll take a look at it.” That wasn’t the right thing to say, at least not by any sane standards. I spend the next half hour listening to how the corset is completely wrong, because the idiot seamstress had used plastic boning instead of the more expensive steel ones (I had warned her about that back then), how the pearls on the front by no means resembled the rose she had ordered, there wasn’t enough puff in the skirt, and the silver buckle wasn’t shiny enough, and so on and so on.

“I’ll get the steel boning through work tomorrow, I’ll rearrange the pearls as you like them, if you can arrange the skirt neatly instead of stepping on it we can figure out if it needs an extra layer, and the buckle will look shiny in natural light, I promise you that.”

“Fine, fine. Get to work then.” The prerogative of being a Langdale is that rather than using your powers to stop supervillains you get to spend your evening playing Cinderella to your new sister in law. Of course, sisters in law are easier to come by than supervillains, especially with four brothers, three of which are of ‘marrying age’. Although maybe I could step out and have a chat with whoever gave Nico the black eye the other day, that definitely seems like the work of a supervillain.

“I guess that will do,” Nina finally says at 1 AM. “If you can’t do any better.” And she storms off through the wall. Mother looks at me and smiles.

“Thank you,” she says quietly and helps me pick up my tools.

“Mother, can I ask you something?” I try hesitantly.

“No, you can not throw her to the north pole. Your brother likes her, and she’s of good family.”

“She of our family.” A distant cousin or something. Only our family has these gifts, all the other bloodlines died out long ago, so we stick together, stick with those who understand us. “But that wasn’t it. I was wondering, what would happen if someone found out about us. The way you’ve been talking about it, for as long as I can remember, it seems as if the consequences are real and concrete to you. Like you know exactly what would happen.” She hesitates, probably deciding whether 25 is old enough to know.

“Do you remember my brother Howard?”

“No,” I say hesitantly, trying to think back. The name doesn’t ring a bell. “I don’t remember you ever mentioning him.”

“That’s what happens.” She looks down and closes the lid of my sewing kit.

“What happened? Did he disappear, did the family disown him, what?”

“He drew attention to himself, and they found him. There was nothing we could do for him.” She hands me the kit.

“They took him?”

“And we had to find somewhere new to hide.” She leaves the room and goes to bed. We moved a few times when I was young, but that was whenever we ran out of room for the growing sibling flock. Perhaps they didn’t tell the 5-year-old everything. If it’s so dangerous to let people know who we are, it does kind of make sense that we never use the name Langdale in public. Our mailbox reads “The Lester family”. Probably better to drop the subject, for now, take it up again after the wedding. After all, she must have read some of today’s events in my mind, and if she chooses not to comment on something like that she must be exhausted. Plus, it’s not like anything actually happened.