The Reckoning Read online

  “No,” Tristan said immediately, shaking her head. “You know Celes. He’s upstanding through and through -- if he thought we were up to anything dishonest, he’d narc on us in a second.”

  “Loser,” Evander muttered, and Olivia elbowed him.

  “OK. I was thinking that, but I wanted to confirm. So I’m going to ask Hydran, then. I think he’d agree to help and agree to keep quiet about it.”

  “You think he’d agree? O, he’d walk across hot coals and never even question your motives if you asked him to. I think it’s safe to take the I think out of your sentence.” Evander rolled his eyes.

  “Have I told you lately that you’re annoying?”

  “Only like three times today.”

  “Well here’s a fourth.”

  “OK,” Tristan said, trying to get them back on track. “What are you going to say to Hydran?”

  “Watch and learn,” Olivia said, pulling out her cell phone.

  “You’re calling him now?” Tristan’s eyes widened. “Oceana, it’s Thanksgiving!”

  “So?” Olivia held the phone up to her ear, speaking just a few seconds later. “Hydran, hi. It’s Oceana Wallace. Oh right, of course you knew that, silly me.”

  Tristan and Evander exchanged a look at Olivia’s sweetened up tone.

  “Everything is fine. Yes, I will see you next weekend. Me too. Things have been just fine here, and for you? Good. Listen, I’m so sorry to bother you on Thanksgiving; is this a bad time?” Olivia nodded and shot a wink at her siblings. “Perfect. We just got done eating, too. I’m actually outside going for a walk right now because I ate so much. Anyway, I was wondering if you know anything about Orion, the Elder?”

  Olivia was quiet for a moment.

  “He’s just so mysterious, you know? I know they said he’s been ill and away, but they didn’t really say anything else, and a lot of people seemed to know he’s a big deal, but I don’t. I don’t get it.”

  More silence.

  “Yes,” Olivia said slowly. “He is our grandfather. My Mom won’t talk about him. I was hoping you knew something, or could find something out, anything that would sort of help prepare us since I’m sure at some point he’s going to come looking for my Mom and want to meet her kids. Yes. That would be amazing, thank you so much Hydran. Can you just do me one favor? Can we keep this between us, just our secret? I don’t want word getting out that we’re trying to get intel on the all-powerful Orion.”

  Olivia tinkled a laugh, and Evander raised his eyebrows at Tristan, impressed.

  “Great. Thanks again, Hydran. I’ll see you next weekend.”

  Olivia disconnected, looking smugly at Tristan and Evander.

  “Done. He’s going to see what his parents know, play it off like he’s asking for his own interests. He’ll get back to me ASAP.”

  “You are conniving,” Tristan said, but she was clearly impressed, and Olivia just grinned.

  “Poor Hydran. Sucker doesn’t even know he’s being used.”

  “Oh stop,” Olivia waved her hand. “We’re friends.”

  “You’re not friends. He follows you around like a puppy and you let him because you like the attention.”

  “Oh my gods, you guys, can you give it a rest?” Tristan said, before Olivia could fire back at Evander. “If Hydran doesn’t mind doing this, he doesn’t mind doing it, and Olivia isn’t wrong for asking him. I was joking.”

  “Thank you,” Olivia said, shooting a look at Evander, who rolled his eyes.

  “Do you know when your crash will be?” Tristan asked, a few minutes later, looking between them.

  “Mine will be on Tuesday. Had my energy surge this morning,” Evander replied.

  “Don’t know yet, so I guess after Tuesday. I’m hoping for Friday. You?”

  Tristan shook her head.

  “I don’t think it’s going to happen again this month. Celes said my crash was because I was sealing constantly, not because I was unsettled, and sealing drains energy, but not a ton, so it’s a gradual drain. After the infusion, he said I probably won’t have another crash for a few months.”

  “Lucky,” Olivia muttered darkly.

  “Am I?”

  The trio walked in silence as darkness began to fall. They strolled around the empty downtown, then headed back home, Olivia and Evander chatting about school while Tristan half-paid attention. She was thinking about Orion, thinking about the dream she’d had about him ordering Beckett’s execution. It had been chilling at the time, but now it just seemed absurd. Beckett and Orion would never cross paths; Tristan couldn’t think of a way it would ever happen short of Beckett coming to her house while Orion was there visiting, but since Sol would pack up the family and move them to the Bahamas before she’d ever allow Orion to set foot on their property, even that scenario would never happen.

  Still, as the cool night air chilled her skin, Tristan couldn’t shake the feeling that the vividity of that dream had meant it had been more than just a dream; it had come with a sense of foreboding that she hadn’t felt in a very, very long time.

  That night, Tristan found herself tossing and turning once again. When she finally fell asleep, she again dreamt of Orion, but this time the dream was much more horrifying, much more realistic. In it, Tristan watched a young Sol get dragged up to the top of the clearing, in front of everyone who had gathered. Orion stood looking at her with eyes completely devoid of emotion, speaking words Tristan could not hear. The dream itself was soundless, which made it that much more terrifying. Young Sol was held in place by two giant hooded guards, and though she struggled with all of her might, they barely flinched. She was screaming, her face red, tears streaming down her face, but no one would help her. She looked over, across the crowd, and her panicked gaze met Tristan’s. Tristan startled awake, screaming herself; she was trapped in her comforter, the fabric wrapped around her legs, and she forgot to stop screaming as she tried to wrestle herself out of it.

  Footsteps thundered down the hall and Tristan’s bedroom door flew open, her entire family pouring in.

  “What happened?”

  “Trinity!”

  “What’s going on?”

  Tristan looked up, breathing hard, in a full-blown panic attack.

  “She’s stuck in her blanket!” Olivia cried, and Sol and Umbris rushed to Tristan’s bedside, extracting her from the offending comforter.

  “What happened?” Umbris knelt before Tristan, and Sol sat beside her, smoothing back her hair as though she was seven and not seventeen.

  “I’m fine,” Tristan said, deeply embarrassed, as she began to calm down.

  Evander made a noise of disgust and shuffled back to bed, but Olivia hovered nearby, biting her nails.

  “What happened?” Umbris asked again, and Tristan shook her head. There was no way she was going to talk about her dream, possibly ever, and definitely not at two in the morning.

  “It was one of those weird dreams combined with real life things. I don’t know how I got so tangled up in my comforter, but the sensation must have crossed into the nightmare I was having and I panicked.”

  Everyone’s shoulders sagged with relief.

  “I thought someone had, like, broken in and tried to kill you!” Olivia said, yawning. “Gods. OK. Goodnight again, everyone.”

  She left, and Tristan looked at her parents.

  “I’m OK.”

  “You’re as white as a sheet,” Sol said, and Tristan avoided her eyes.

  “I’m just going to go back to sleep.” Tristan said, running her hands over her face.

  Sol kissed the top of her head and Umbris squeezed her arm, and they quietly left the room. Tristan laid back down, kicking her comforter off of her bed. Of course she wasn’t going back to sleep, how could she? How could she ever close her eyes again without seeing Sol’s terrified face, screaming silently in her mind?

  Chapter 11

  Tristan was dozing on the living room couch the next afternoon after work when a knock sounded on her
door. She jumped, then stood and yawned before going to see who was there.

  “Beckett,” Tristan said, surprised and no longer tired. “What are you doing here?”

  “Sorry to just show up, but I don’t have your number so I couldn’t text first. I think I left something in your trunk yesterday.”

  “Oh,” Tristan said. “Oh sure, OK. Hold on, I have to find my keys.”

  Leaving the door wide open, she disappeared into the house, realizing too late she should have invited Beckett inside.

  “Trinity!” Evander bellowed from the top of the stairs. “Who knocked?”

  “It’s for me!” Tristan called back up to him, finally locating her keys halfway down the couch cushions.

  “What?”

  “It’s for me! Nothing!”

  She stepped back outside, giving Beckett a frazzled smile.

  “Sorry. Right this way.”

  Beckett grinned, following her off the porch.

  “Did your brother just call you Trinity?”

  “Yes,” Tristan replied. “We go by our middle names around here, and to our community friends. School is really the only place me and O and Evander go by our first names. File my parents under, why didn’t they just name their kids what they actually planned on calling them?”

  Beckett chuckled.

  “So you’re Tristan Trinity Wallace. And Olivia is…?”

  “Olivia Oceana. Evander Ember.”

  “Huh. Evander Ember is kind of awkward, but the other two are nice. Elemental.”

  Tristan gave him a tight smile, saying nothing.

  “The double initial thing is very Southern, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know, is it?”

  “I think so. Almost everyone I know, including myself, has a double initial name. Well, I guess I have a triple, but still.”

  “Oh?” Tristan turned to Beckett before she opened her trunk. “What’s your middle name?”

  Beckett shook his head.

  “That’s confidential information.”

  “That bad, huh?” Tristan’s eyes sparkled. “You have to tell me now.”

  “I’ll take it to my grave.”

  “You won’t.” Tristan opened her trunk, finding a bike lock that did not belong to her.

  “There we go.” Beckett scooped it up. “It must have fallen off when I was jamming my bike in there yesterday.”

  Tristan laughed, closing the trunk, and she walked Beckett back over to the house.

  “How was your Thanksgiving dinner?”

  Beckett laughed humorlessly.

  “It was just me and my Mom. We had leftovers from the night before.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “It was better that way,” Beckett said cryptically, a frown creasing his brow. He shook his head, his face clearing. “How was yours?”

  “It was nice, thanks. I’m sure if we had known it was just going to be you and your Mom, you two could have eaten with us.”

  Beckett looked at her for a long moment, and then appeared to decide against whatever he’d been thinking about saying. He shrugged.

  “It was fine. I better get going. Sorry again to have bothered you.”

  “It was no bother. I was just falling asleep on the couch. I worked from five to one-thirty today, and didn’t really sleep well last night.”

  “Well then I will let you get back to napping,” Beckett said, giving her a charming smile. He started to go, then turned back. “Did you want to give me your number, though? Just in case something like this happens again, or if we need to talk about the project or something?”

  “Sure,” Tristan agreed. “Good idea.”

  She gave Beckett her phone number, and he let her know he’d text her so she could save his. Waving, he jumped on his bike and took off down the driveway, Tristan watching him go. Seeing him had been unexpectedly nice, and she felt a pang that he’d left so soon. Apparently she wasn’t the only one who ran away from conversations she didn’t want to have.

  Umbris arrived home from work shortly after Beckett had left, and he, Evander, and Tristan sat down at the dining room table, brainstorming ideas for how to decorate for winter solstice. Actually, to call it decorating for winter solstice was a misnomer; the family celebrated Yule, as did everyone in the community, leaving up their decorations for as long as others left up their Christmas decorations -- usually for just over a month. The Wallaces official Yule festivities began on December 21 this year, solstice, and would last through January 5, the twelfth day of Christmas, but they chose to decorate early so they could enjoy the season for as long as possible.

  “I think we should do an all white theme this year,” Tristan said, nodding. “Frosted yule log, frost covered branches, white candles, icicles, wreath, everything. Sort of like a Narnia vibe.”

  “Or like a black and white photograph,” Evander added, also nodding. “I like it.”

  “That sounds easy enough,” Umbris replied. “We’ll see what Mom and Oceana think when they get home and we’ll go from there. Should we get started bringing up the bins?”

  The three of them headed down into the basement, forming an assembly line in order to get the boxes upon boxes of decorations up into the living room. Once they were finished, Tristan began opening them up, her favorite part of the day. A pleasant, musty scent emanated from each box, and Tristan briefly closed her eyes. It was the smell of nostalgia, of years past and prior celebrations of Yule. It was baking cookies, making a solstice tree in the yard for any animals passing by in search of food, exchanging small gifts, flipping through the radio stations with her siblings to find the most awful Christmas song they could. It was watching the sun rise and set on the solstice with her family, spending the between-hours in the quiet house, reflecting on all that the year had brought them, and then running wild outside with Olivia and Evander when they could no longer take the silence. It was ending the night by lighting five candles, one for each of them, and blowing them out, and then all of them using a long matchstick to light one fat, central candle of unity, in the glow of which they’d eat dinner.

  Yes, this time of year was Tristan’s favorite, and she had never felt as though she’d missed out on anything by not celebrating Christmas like her non-secular or secular peers. She was unsure of how she’d get to participate in Yule in the future, as soon as next year!, and the thought took her breath away. She figured the community celebration, usually held the weekend before the solstice, would obviously be out, but would she still be allowed to celebrate the way she always had with her family? If she could wish for nothing else to be spared from the consequences of deflecting, she would wish for it to be Yule. Tristan knew rationally that once her decision was made she’d be free to celebrate on her own, to start her own traditions, but having her family celebration ripped away from her would be a wound that would take years to heal.

  Once they’d arrived home, Sol and Olivia readily agreed to the theme their family had cooked up; they all got started on picking through the boxes to find what they already had, what they could paint over, and what they would need. The project took up the bulk of the day, so, when evening fell, Sol and Umbris decided to order dinner in instead of cooking. They ate their spicy Thai favorites as a family in the living room, watching mindless TV and laughing together, and Tristan looked around, drinking it all in and committing this night to memory. If this was to be her last Yule season with her family, she was going to remember every moment.

  Olivia’s cell phone rang a while later, and she quickly looked at Tristan and Evander before leaving the room to answer it. Tristan and Evander followed her outside, waiting on the porch while she paced in the driveway, listening.

  “Thanks Hydran,” Olivia finally said, her face grim. “I really appreciate you getting back to me about this so fast.”

  Olivia hung up and stared at her phone for a few beats, then looked up at Tristan and Evander, who could feel the dread rolling off of her in waves.

  “What did he say?
” Tristan asked nervously.

  “Come with me.” Olivia gestured, and Tristan and Evander followed her down the driveway and around the edge of the perimeter to the very back of the yard.

  “I don’t know how to tell you guys this, or where to start,” Olivia said finally, looking at them. She looked worse than she had when she’d gotten off the phone, and Tristan’s stomach tied itself into knots.

  “Just say it,” Evander said, his jaw working.

  “Did you know Mom had a sister?” Olivia asked.

  There was a brief, stunned silence before Tristan and Evander confirmed they did not.

  “Her name was Adara. She…” Olivia trailed off, then took a deep breath. “She tried to deflect from the community, years ago, when it was still a law that you couldn’t, and Orion…”

  “Holy shit,” Tristan whispered, her eyes going wide.

  It hadn’t been Sol she’d been dreaming about. It had been Adara.

  “What?” Olivia asked nervously, and Evander looked at Tristan sharply.

  “Orion had her killed.”

  “How did you know that?” Olivia asked, looking more scared than she had been.

  “I dreamt about it. Last night, that’s what was happening when I was screaming. I thought it was Mom, but it must have been her sister. I didn’t see what happened, I woke up before she died, but in my dream there was a gathering, and everyone was watching while two of these giant guards held her in place and Orion was standing there talking. She was screaming and crying, begging for help, but no one would help her.”

  Tears spilled out of Olivia's eyes as she nodded. “That's exactly what Hydran said. She was executed, right there in front of everyone. Hydran didn't know the details, he said it was so horrific that no one will talk about it.”

  The three of them descended into an uncomfortable silence.

  “What else aren't you saying?” Evander asked, looking curiously at Olivia. “Why are you blocking me? What could be worse?”

  “Mom was there,” Olivia whispered, her eyes shimmering in the evening light. “She saw it happen.”

  Tristan covered her mouth. She couldn't fathom it, didn't want to try.