Saving Rose —Prologue— A woman stood, tied to a tree. Beside her stood three muscular men, armed and armoured, and a boy with a thin sword. The boy was fairly ordinary-looking, for the most part, with curly black hair and tan skin. But his mannerisms were different. He didn’t seem uncertain or scared, despite his surroundings. Instead, he was calm. He gazed at his gleaming sword, never looking at the others, but the three soldiers knew he was aware of everything around him. “He’s coming.” The boy said softly. “Get into position.” Two of the men moved out in either direction and hid behind trees. The third stayed by the woman. A middle-aged man, bearing a strong resemblance to the tied-up woman, walked up to them. “I brought the keys, like you asked.” He said curtly, holding them out. His eyes flickered between the man, the boy and the woman. “They’ll let you through the gates. Now, give me back my daughter.” The boy sheathed his sword and stepped up to the man, meeting his eyes. The man gasped, seeing dark pupils surrounded by white. “You’re not human!” He exclaimed. “Not completely.” The boy replied, and held out his hand. “Give me the keys.” The man did so. As soon as the boy’s hand closed on the keys, he repeated: “Let my daughter go, now!” “I didn’t say I’d let her go if you brought me the keys.” The boy said, stepping back. He drew his sword with one hand and pocketed the keys with the other. The two men in hiding silently moved out behind the doorman, blocking his escape. “I just said you’d see her alive. Well, you’ve seen her alive. And now you see her die.” On cue, the soldier standing beside the woman raised his sword and slit her throat. The woman’s father let out a choked cry and turned to run, stopping as he saw that his escape was blocked. “Don’t run away.” The boy said, and the man’s tension eased. He turned back to look at his daughter. “I want you to watch this.” The man watched, feeling no emotion, as the boy untied his dead daughter and used his sword to pry her head open. He felt no emotion as the boy started eating his daughter’s brain, because the boy was feeding on the man’s emotions as surely as he was feeding on the woman’s brain. When he was done with the woman, he did the same thing to her father. —Dancer— When I first saw Rose, I was hooking, walking along my usual beat. She was a well-dressed kid with a backpack, a look of fierce independence mixed with hurt, and a black eye. I knew without needing to ask that she was a runaway. I talked to her a bit and sent her to a friend of mine, meeting up again when I was off work. She said she was 13, an obvious lie – she looked more like 8 or 9. My friends and I took her in, paying for her needs and forbidding her to hook like we did. She was so cute – a bundle of youthful innocence that pretended to be grown up, while clearly grateful to be looked after by someone. She wasn’t the only kid we looked after like this. In fact, we had a group of around six to ten kids – some of them came and went – who we looked after as well as we could. All of us had hard lives, and we did whatever we could to make it easier for them. When your life is hard and it’ll never get any easier, knowing you have the power to make someone else’s life a little bit less hard can give you the will to go on. That’s why we took care of those kids. One day, a strange rich lady walked into our lives. She started taking the kids and us for nice meals, and buying them nice things. I would usually have been really suspicious, because clearly she wanted something from us, but there was something about her. When I was around her, it was like all my suspicions just drained away. Thinking back on it after she’d left, I’d wonder what was up, but in her presence, I couldn’t help but trust her. Then, one day, the rich lady took Rose to a concert put on by her favourite band and didn’t bring her back. I started to get worried, but asking around didn’t help – no one knew where she’d gone. On the street, you get used to people going missing, but Rose was my responsibility, and I was determined to find her. Rose had been gone for almost a week when Flash, the youngest if you didn’t count Lily’s baby, had his seventh birthday. And even though I was getting frantic about Rose, I decided to set that aside briefly, for Flash’s sake. I was hanging out, trying to act cheerful – and doing a great job, you have to learn how to hide how you feel if you’re a hooker – when Rose walked in. “Rose!” Lily jumped up. Indicating me, she added: “Dancer’s been so worried about you! It’s great to see you’re OK!” It was surprising how different Rose looked. She was dressed in nice clean clothes, her eyes hidden by a pair of dark sunglasses, and she’d put on some weight in the past week. But that’s not all that had changed. She had a sort of bewildered, distant look, and her mannerisms were ‘off’ somehow. “Rose, what happened? When you didn’t come back, I was really worried.” I exclaimed, putting my arm around her. She tensed up a bit, and then seemed to relax and looked up at me. “Don’t worry.” Rose said, and suddenly I wasn’t worried. “Glad to see you’re doing well.” I commented. “Come on, Seera managed to whip up a cake!” Rose didn’t seem that excited by the prospect of cake, but she did follow me to where everyone was clustered around, getting ready to sing for Flash. Rose joined in the singing willingly, but not very enthusiastically. I relaxed for a moment and looked around. Flash was practically bursting with delight, Lily was trying to keep the kids under control while keeping her baby calm, Seera was beaming with pride as she presented her masterpiece, Cat was eyeing the cake hungrily, Quicksilver was sneaking up behind Rose to try to surprise her, and Joralin was adding her own silly lyrics to the birthday song – in other words, everyone was acting like they usually did, except for Rose, who was looking spaced out and overwhelmed. “Happy birthday, Flash!” The song finished with that exclamation. “Surprise!” Quicksilver poked Rose, who jumped and then relaxed when she realized it was him. “Oh, Quicksilver, you scared me!” Rose exclaimed, sounding much more like herself. Seera started dishing out the cake, giving Flash the first piece. “Yeah, you looked spaced out, I figured you needed a jolt.” Quicksilver replied with a grin. “Hey, have some cake!” “Rose!” Trina, one of the younger kids, called out to her. “Wait until you see what I got Flash!” “He’s always wanted a water-tattoo.” Rose smiled back at her. “How did you guess?” Trina asked. “Is it that obvious?” Rose’s smile vanished, and for a moment she looked scared. I immediately got concerned. “Good instincts, I guess.” Rose said awkwardly, trying to act calm. “Oh, Seera, can I have the next piece?” Seera smiled and gave Rose her share of the cake. “So, did you like the concert?” I asked, to change the subject, and was gratified to see Rose’s face light up. “Yeah, it was awesome! Never experienced anything like it!” She grinned somewhat ruefully. “Although it was overwhelming after awhile.” Just then, a fight broke out between Cat and Dodger, which turned out to be because Cat wanted Dodger’s piece of cake. After Seera and I had sorted that out, it was time for Flash to open his presents. One thing happened after another, and since Rose seemed to be doing all right, I didn’t watch her too closely. But after awhile, I noticed her sitting in the corner, rubbing her temples and looking strained. I hurried over to her. “Rose, are you OK?” I asked her. She didn’t seem to hear me. “Rose!” I said sharply, shaking her shoulder. “No, I don’t want to play with you right now, Flash. I’m really tired.” Rose replied faintly. “Rose, it’s me, Dancer.” I told her, turning her so she was facing me. She looked so out of it, and I was getting really anxious. Was she on drugs? “Let me see your eyes.” I said, taking her sunglasses off. Then I stopped, staring at her eyes in shock. She certainly wasn’t on drugs. Her eyes had changed too much for this to be anything but magic. For a moment, I thought her irises had disappeared completely, but on closer examination, they were still there – but they’d turned pure white. Only her little black pupils disturbed the whiteness. White eyes – I’d heard of some kind of creature that had white eyes, but I couldn’t remember what it was. As I was staring at her, Rose seemed to process what was in front of her. She screamed, grabbing her sunglasses and putting them back on as quickly as possible, and then pushed herself up and fled. “Rose!” Lily exclaimed, setting her baby aside and getting up, but she’d already left the building. Lily looked at the rest of us. “I’ll go after her.” Seera said, hurrying outside. She was gone for only a few minutes, and then she returned. “Sorry, I lost her. Why’d she run out like that, anyway?” Later on, when the kids weren’t around, I told the others what she’d seen. “I’m pretty sure I’ve heard of something with white eyes, but I can’t remember what.” I finished. “Whatever it is, I think she’s turned into that.” “The general had white eyes.” Lily said. I looked at her in horror. Of course, that’s where I’d heard of it! The general was a monster who’d led an army of soldiers almost 20 years ago. By all accounts, he’d appeared to be a young boy, but he had the ability to read minds and could eat a person’s brain to gain the person’s abilities and knowledge. He’d been an adept fighter and a fearsome, ruthless killer. “She’s turning into whatever the general was?” I exclaimed. “I’ve got to stop this somehow. There’s got to be some way to undo it!” “How did it happen, anyway?” Seera asked. “Well, clearly the rich lady had something to do with it.” I replied, thinking. “I assume there’s some sort of spell or whatever that she did. Maybe she wants Rose to be some sort of superpowered servant or something.” “Yeah, sounds plausible.” Seera agreed. “So what do we do about it?” —Rose— “I really messed up. I’m sorry.” I told the leader. “Dancer saw my eyes. I couldn’t stop her.” “Unexpected light.” The boy who fed on dreams commented grimly, shaking his head. “The hiders-in-shadows are revealed.” “Yeah, exactly.” I agreed, and looked at the leader. “Are you angry?” I asked. “No, I’m concerned, can’t you tell?” She corrected. Yeah, I should have been able to tell that – she was harder to read than most people, but I could still sense her emotions if I tried to. “It’s too late to wipe their memories now, and if the princess hears about you… I told you it was a bad idea to go to that kid’s party.” “Well, Dancer won’t tell the princess.” I told her. “Our kind don’t expect nobles to care about us. They’ll be worried she’ll just kill me, and Dancer would do anything to protect us kids.” “So, you know her. What will she do?” The leader asked me. “She’ll try to undo it.” I realized. “She’ll try to change me back.” “I doubt there’s any way to do that.” The leader commented. “But if she tries to, that could be a big problem.” “If there’s any way to undo it, Dancer will find it.” I warned. “She’s really determined. She’s like a detective or whatever for our group. She saved Flash from a vampire who was going to drain him dry – that’s how they met.” I wasn’t sure if I was warning the leader or reassuring myself. Did I want the spell undone? Reading minds was really cool, and I felt safer being able to tell if someone meant me harm. But I didn’t like that I had to hide what I was. And sometimes I got overwhelmed with too many people feeling emotions around me. It wasn’t unpleasant to get immersed in a crowd if I didn’t want to pay attention to anything other than reading minds, but even interacting in a crowd was difficult. The big thing that was hard was feeling like I was no longer myself. I didn’t think like I used to. I would sense how someone was feeling, and it was almost irrelevant to me if they were happy or sad – just as long as it was intense. I still cared about people, but I no longer had a visceral sense of sympathy for someone suffering. For example, I knew Dancer must be really upset right now, but it didn’t really affect me. If she was crying right in front of me, my primary reaction wouldn’t be like someone seeing their friend upset, but like someone seeing a nice cold drink when they’re kind of thirsty. “Dancer may be a problem.” The leader said thoughtfully. “But she doesn’t know where I’ve set you up, and after all, she’s just a regular human. Still, I should probably drill you in using your powers for self-defence.” For the rest of the day, that’s exactly what she did. She had me work on quickly and accurately projecting/enhancing emotions, as well as draining as much as possible as fast as possible. My biggest problem was accuracy – I had trouble controlling who I was reading, so it was hard to control who I affected. Working on that really tired me out, especially since Flash’s party had already overloaded me. After the leader left, I decided to go have a nap. Before I fell asleep, though, the dream boy talked to me. “An ally can be useful.” He commented. “The window is open to me. Want me to look in?” “You mean Dancer’s dreams? Sure, find out if she told the others about me.” I replied, smiling gratefully. He nodded and left me to sleep.
Copyright © 2010 Ettina Satot |