We show off our different scarlet letters.
Trust me, mine is better.
Would you like to know a secret?
Come closer. Closer. Don’t worry, I won’t bite. I wouldn’t hurt a fly. A spider, however… that’s another story.
The story I’m about to tell you involves spiders. Hundreds, if not thousands of them. Little ones no bigger than a fingernail, and some as tall as your or I. Taller, even. Some have eight legs, some have two. Some spin webs, and some twist minds. Some have eight eyes and some… some cannot see at all. But, silly me, I’m getting ahead of myself. You wanted a secret first. My secret is this: Chance and Fate are the best of friends.
I know. Not much of a secret, right? It sounds like something you’d find in a fortune cookie. But it’s true, I swear it. I’m living proof. Fate and Chance have been best friends, enemies, lovers, and everything in between since the very first inkling of existence. You and me? We’re the entertainment. And they do love to play their games.
The game they began with me started in a sleepy town in Oregon. I’m not sure of the name and to be honest, I’m not even sure how Henry Silvia and Amelie LaFollette met. No one from those days is around anymore to tell me… But they did meet, and fell in love, and got married. They bought a little yellow house with a red door and a meadow off to one side, and they filled the house with books and the smells of baking and planted chrysanthemums by the mailbox. His police cruiser was parked in the driveway and it always sparkled, and she liked to sing lullabies to their two little girls. The first had her father’s blonde hair and her mother’s blue eyes. Blair. And then there was the baby, with curling red hair, like Amelie’s. They called me Rosel. But, for whatever reason, most have always called me Ro.
My sister, however, called me Rosie. The four of us did quite nicely in our home. Blair was one year older than I, and therefore we became eachother’s playmates. She was never particularly gentle. Her impatience with my wobbly steps when she could already run was evident. Games of tag usually wound up ending in a petulant scream when she shoved me over. She never quite grasped the concept of sharing and therefore our toys were really her toys, and if I dared touch them she threw a fit. I’m not sure why. Typical older sister, maybe. I’m sure she would have grown out of it, if we had had the time. One day Fate decided to poke me, though. I’d been playing with a toy castle I got for my birthday, and Blair pushed it off the table. It broke and I shrieked and suddenly the couch went flying into the wall. Oops? The wall held, but, there was a crack my mother had to cover with one of our great aunt’s quilts for a while.
Cookies flew off the too high counter-tops, my mother’s china dishes rattled as I passed, and my dolls danced with me in dizzy pirouettes around my room. It was magic! It was fun, and amazing, and a secret. My first, of many. Momma and Papa were very stern and very clear. No one could know what I could do. I mustn’t use my powers outside the house. I was too little to really understand. Surely, the meadow was safe? Surely my playmates at daycare wouldn’t tell? I did try to keep the secret, and perhaps Chance was kind that no one of real importance ever learned of the force hiding behind a toddler’s laughing smile and twinkling eyes. I didn’t know then, what I was. I merely thought I was a superhero. A magical fairy ballerina princess. Who would have guessed, that little Rosie Silvia down the street, was a Kinetic?
The next secret was my sister’s. Not even my parents knew, and for a while I was too young to put two and two together. Blair had a superpower, too. I don’t know when she first got it...maybe she had it before mine, or maybe it was right after. All I know is that suddenly she no longer took interest in our toys. They were boring, and stiff, and thoughtless. But I… I made the perfect toy. The perfect doll. I could laugh and walk and talk and cry, and all she had to do was listen and she’d know just what button to push or twist. Not by my spoken words. By my thoughts. We were children. We didn’t have a clear concept of sharing, or ownership, or being fair. Blair simply took things, and if she gave them back, they were never as they were.
There were so many tricks. Feathers tickling my sides. Whispers in my ears. Thoughts that weren’t my own… telling me to take one more cookie, touch the candle, open the door, hold my breath just a few seconds more… Little things. Innocent things. I wasn’t afraid of the dark, but, what if that shadow was a monster? If I moved, I would shatter like glass. I couldn’t touch my toys, or else they would burst into flame and melt in my hands. The butterflies in the field were all wasps. The treats Momma made us were ash. My arms itched and though I knew there was nothing there, I had to check to make sure that there weren’t spiders. There never was but once I could have sworn… I saw something crawl out of the corner of my eyes.
Harmless, right? They were only tricks.
I didn’t tell. I wish I had. I grew so upset with her once, I pushed her. Hard enough to send her tumbling backwards into the mud, while I stood clear across the yard. She was furious. She dragged me into the treeline by my hair and made me stand behind a pine. For hours. Until the sun went down and she’d long gone inside and the air got colder and colder. I could hear my mother frantically calling for me, I could see my father talking on his radio to his policemen brothers… and I didn’t say a word. I couldn’t. I mustn’t. I had to stand right there, in the dark, and keep my mouth shut and Not. Move. A. Muscle. If I moved, I’d be lost. When my father finally found me my lips were blue, but my small voice stoically told him that, “I’m only playing a game, Papa. Hide and seek.” I hadn’t meant to say anything, but the words came nonetheless. I don’t think I met Blair’s eyes for days.
It would have continued like that for forever, I have no doubt. My parents would have eventually found out and scolded her, if she let them… but they never got the chance. Instead they got into a car on a snowy December night, and went to a party. Blair and I were at home with the babysitter, and it was way past our bedtime when she got the call. Momma and Papa hit a patch of ice on the bridge. But anyone who has ever spoken to me about it assures me that they wouldn’t have felt a thing. It was all very quick. I suppose I am thankful for that. I was five, and Blair was almost seven, and we went into the foster system.
Blair was adamant, or as adamant as a seven year old could be, that we keep our powers a secret. No one would want us if they knew we were magic. I was only a kid, but I was scared of her enough to keep my mouth shut. I did my best to be good. I spoke quietly, I played gently, I said all my please’s and thank you’s and yes ma’am, no sir’s. Everyone loved Blair. She’d always been the center of attention, with her curly gold hair and big blue eyes and sweet smiles. Everywhere we went, people fawned all over her. Me? If I was good, they would keep us. That’s all I knew to do. But they never did. There was always an excuse. This family only wanted one little girl. Blair was allergic to that family’s dog. This one wasn’t ready to commit, this one didn’t quite fit, and these lovely folks really wanted a boy. For some reason, it never worked out. I started to notice Blair’s frowns. If she frowned too much, we’d inevitably leave and be on to the next place. Like clockwork. I never said a word about what I was starting to suspect. The years flew by, and as long as Blair was frowning at whatever new home we were in, she wasn’t smiling at me. Her smiles were sugary sweet and angelic, and petrified me.
The tricks, from before? Child’s play. I think of them now and laugh. The ones she came up with during our stint in the foster system were… were the stuff of nightmares. I became her very favorite game. I inhaled smoke. Food was dirt in my mouth. Glass sliced my skin and my hands froze and splintered, right in front of my eyes. Demons crooned in my ears and my reflection screamed and tried to burst from her mirrored cage to sink her claws into my heart. When I slept I woke with my own fingers at my throat and I was sure that if I opened my mouth to scream I would choke on snakes. It was madness. It was torture, and cruel, and I don’t...I don’t think I’ll ever be quite right again. She wasn’t my sister. She was a twelve year old girl, and she was my hell. I don’t know what I did to deserve it. She must have made me forget. That’s the only explanation. Her voice in my head was enough to make my hands shake and my hair to stand on end. And then… she would stop. For days or weeks, there would be nothing. Just long enough for me to start to relax and think, That was the end. It’s over. Until her voice would laugh in answer, Oh, Rosie. Never.
I snuck away one day. When we were at the Robertson’s house, with their little girl called Cassie. I wasn’t very masterful with my powers just yet, and I took all the opportunity I could to play in secret, when I was sure Blair wouldn’t find me. Silly, as I am now sure that she knew, given her ability to read my thoughts. I was behind the shed in the garden making pebbles dance and spin like little planets in the air. I didn’t notice Cassie Robertson watching from around the corner.
That night at dinner, Cassie asked me to make her teddy bear fly, too. Then she excitedly told my foster parents all about my magic powers, and how I could make things fly. It went very quiet. I didn’t dare look up from my carrots, but I could feel Blair’s glare. She wasn’t saying anything, in my mind or outside it, and she didn’t say a word as Mr. and Mrs. Robertson hurriedly excused themselves to the bedroom to talk. I was apologizing before they’d shut the door down the hall, and I was still trying to get out a coherent, ‘I’m sorry!” by the time she had me by the hair, yanking me out into the backyard. She was silent. There was nothing, nothing, nothing, except my crying and Cassie’s confused questions behind us in the kitchen.
I didn’t know what to do. She dragged me to the swingset and threw me to the ground and I did my best to brace myself but there was just...nothing. She still wasn’t talking or rooting around in my head, from what I could tell. She only glared at me with a mute expression of utter hatred. Until she started smiling.
I had scrambled to my feet. I was thinking of running and hiding in the shed. I could barely bring myself to meet her eyes but as I dragged my eyes up to her own, I saw something. Quick, out of the corner of my eye. Again, and again, and in the other, as well. My hair twitched, tugged by something. Something tickled my cheek and I reached up to wipe it away and when my hand came back… black. Writhing. Covered in hundreds of little spiders. I could feel them, then. Running across my brow and tangling in my eyelashes and digging into the roots of my hair and falling on my nose and lips. They weren’t just in my peripherals, they were blotting out entire chunks of light. Pressing my lips and tickling my eyes with their little legs.
It was just a trick. Just a trick. I tried to stay calm and remember that…. It would have to end. She couldn’t keep it up forever. But...but they were making my eyes water. They were burrowing. They were trying to get into the corners of my eyes and I couldn’t see around their wriggling bodies and I ...I…. I had to get them off. I had to dig them out, claw them away. What else could I do? I was screaming and she was laughing and they were working beneath my eyelids, so…
My powers broke loose, somewhere in all this. Was it before I started? Or after my hand began to come away bloody? I don’t know. It hurt. Everything hurt. I don’t even… I don’t know how else to describe it to you. I wanted to stop but I couldn’t. Every rake of my nails down my face tore away spiders and skin. I could see her, standing proud and tall beyond all the hot red and crawling black, and giggling. My powers latched onto the playset, the shed, the tree. Ripped it all to pieces. Rammed into the house. The Robertsons were screaming. I was dizzy with pain and blood-loss by the time the Enforcers showed up. I remember their lights...blurry and faded in the driveway. And Blair. Blair was the last thing I saw, distorted and peering down at my drenched hands. My fingers came to my eyes once more and then… that was it.
Baby, I could build a castle
Out of all the bricks they threw at me.
I woke up in the hospital with bandages wrapped over most of my face. It was a couple days later. Between the trauma, drugs, and surgeries, I was only barely coherent enough to discern voices. I thought I recognized my foster parents and our case agent, talking a ways away in the hall, perhaps. They were discussing me. A psychotic break, a new voice said. The stress of being found out as Special, on a fragile mind. The doctors asked the Robertsons if they could afford a Healer. Reconstructive surgery would be invasive. There was little chance of my sight returning, lest a Healer Special get involved. I knew they could afford it. They went on cruises every year. They each owned an Audi, aside from the family Land Rover. Their house was a small mansion.
“No,” Mrs. Roberston said, “What’s the point? She’s just a Special. She’s not worth it.”
They left shortly after. They didn’t say a word to me. Blair went with them, and I heard later they adopted her. No one came back for me. The day after they turned the Healer away, I was registered in my hospital bed as a Class Four Kinetic, Number 2985795309. Silvia, Rosel Elaine. Age 11. They gave me so many painkillers, I couldn’t even feel the tears that inflamed what was left of my eyes.
There were surgeries. I don’t know how many, honestly. I lost count and gave up trying to figure out which ones even merited counting. They put what they could back together. Ocular reconstruction is no easy thing, but my tear ducts were fixed enough to produce tears, and my eyelids were pieced back. They did what they could about the gashes and claw marks. They itched so badly, and for a while they made me wear gloves to keep from irritating them. I had salves and lotions to help with the healing, but it did little use. By the time I was deemed suitable enough to leave emergency and intensive care, I had white eyes and a mask of scars. I could feel them, silk soft and raw and still healing beneath my fingertips. But not for long... I didn’t trust my hands upon my skin, you see. And I knew it must be awful, what was left of my face. The nurses whispered and the other patients talked. I wasn’t deaf. I was blind.
They moved me to psych, and I stayed for...god, it felt like a lifetime. Lots of talking. Lots of itchy uniforms and rooms with soft walls and so, so, so many drugs. They made my head feel heavy and I had a hard enough time walking with my damned cane as it was without my hands and feet feeling so pleasantly tingly. It would quell the voices, they said. The phantom touches, the giggling, the breath on the back of my neck. It didn’t. Nothing worked. I spoke when they asked me questions and if they didn’t like the answer, I got a new room or a new cup of pills or a new therapist who wanted to try some new exercise. But the other patients were nice, for the most part. Loud and rude and grabbing at me just to watch me flinch, but nice enough. I kept to myself. Kept to the corners and the sides of the rooms, with my hand on the wall to guide me. By happenstance and a botched attempt at wandering my prison, I ran into boys. I couldn’t tell if they were cute, of course, but they were very friendly. Chase and Gunari, and Guni’s mother Mirela. It was almost… pleasant, to have friends, even in there. My powers were banned. I edged a chair from my path once and spent a week in solitary. They were worried, they all said. What if I triggered another episode?
I tried to tell them. I told anyone who would listen. It wasn’t me, it was Blair. She was still in my head. Giggling and jeering and whispering. The doctors really didn’t like that. Years ticked by. I was vaguely aware of holidays passing, and the cupcake I got on my birthdays, and other patients coming and going. It was hard to keep track by sound and touch alone. But I could hear things… and I heard enough to grow curious.
The odd thing about being blind, or having any disability I suppose, is that people ignore you. Or do there very best to pretend you don’t exist because you make them uncomfortable. Me, being tiny and pale and grotesque? People somehow forgot I existed sometimes. You would be amazed what I heard. This nurse hooked up with this doctor (or patient, sometimes.) This one was stealing drugs. This one was smuggling in cards and sweets for this patient. That patient had a cellphone. The doctor with the accent had a heavy, lingering hand. And the orderly, with the lisp… he liked to wait in the corner of my room while I undressed and be as quiet as possible. How was I to notice him? I didn’t, for a long time, until he forgot to turn the sound off on his camera.
I waited one night, and listened as hard as I could. I let my powers out, tentative and unsteady, until those tendrils brushed him just lightly. Like a pair of ghostly hands. I felt around, careful to keep up the facade of oblivious teenage girl, until I felt the phone in his hands. I turned toward him and yanked it from his grasp, and it flew into my hand. He tried to stand and run, or maybe take it back, but I had him rooted to the floor. Unable to move or so much as twitch.
He tried to yell, but I got him to shut up pretty quick. What would it look like if someone came in here and found half undressed me, with his phone, set to the camera, and him...doing go knows what. I’m blind, remember? He begged me not to tell or hand his phone over. I said I wouldn’t. On one condition. Alright, a few conditions. No more pictures, of me or anyone else. Extra orange slices. More time outside in the little yard. No more showers, I only wanted baths. And not a single more pill. I didn’t care what he did with them, as long as they disappeared from my cup long before they reached me. He obeyed. He was an idiot, but, even idiots can be taught.
Was it...bad, that I enjoyed it? This newfound talent? I collected secrets and scandals like some of the other patients collected yogurt cups and crayons. A whisper here, a warning there...and suddenly I knew what it was like to have control. I was careful. Nothing big. Nothing but simple favors and helping other patients out when possible. But it was addictive. Empowering, to know that even scarred and blind and worthless, I could be in control.
The giggly voice in my head remained, but I learned to ignore it. Kept my mouth shut and offered the right answers whenever anyone asked about how my broken head was doing. And maybe, in a weird way, forcing myself to be normal is what did the trick. By the time I was twenty one and old enough to sign myself out, I was… well, god, as normal as I was ever going to be. My powers were almost entirely mastered, I had the run of the hospital, and I had found a new hobby. Now, what to do with it in the real world…
The rumors are terrible and cruel,
But, honey, most of them are true.
Once out, I found myself on the streets. It took a lot of doing, but I managed to claw my way into a small apartment. (You wouldn’t believe what the landlord had in the basement… and neither would the cops, I assured him.) I met and befriended a woman called Amanvir, and if it wasn’t for her I surely would have died in some ditch a long, long time ago. My apartment was small, but, when she visits it almost feels homey. And how can anyone despair, when a girl like Ama takes your hand and runs you all over town shopping and giggling about hot guys and describing the movies you could no longer see?
It’s not a simple thing, blackmail. It’s intricate. I talk with as many people as I can, and make friends and connections whenever possible or profitable. My secrets cost a fortune or a secret in return, and people know better than to double cross me. I don’t do it for money or personal gain. I don’t require much to survive. No, my goal is to help people like me out. Specials, down on their luck and just fighting to survive. I know, I know… I don’t look like much. Tiny, soft voiced, blind Ro, walking down some dark alley and threatening blackmail? Who would taken that seriously? It’s alright, though. I’ve learned what gets people talking. My methods are… well. Nothing says, “Do what I say, or else.” like being dragged by invisible hands and dangled off buildings, or thrown into walls, or strung up like a marionette. I’m a nightmare, they say. I keep my eyes covered behind sunglasses, but some must have seen… there are whispers. I should know, I’m the duchess of whispers, aren’t I? They see me coming and I listen to them run but, poor things... They never get far.
They call me Harbinger. A fateful omen of misfortune.
Dramatic, I know… I can practically hear you rolling your eyes. But there’s something so deliciously mysterious about it, don’t you think? I’m not the bad guy, I swear, but I certainly won’t correct them. If the real bad guys want to wet themselves avoiding my attentions, then let them. It’s a game, you see. A game of Chance and Fate, and if I play them right they’re my friends, too.
So. Want to play? I’ve heard so much about you...
