Adamant Spirits

Swept Away-1

Swept Away

Drips of apple juice sloshed out of the corner of his mouth and down his cheek, carrying tiny chunks of white flesh which quivered and twitched on the tip of his chin. That was horrifying enough on its own, but pair that with the fact he was eating the apple from the bottom up, seeds and all, and I decided right then and there he was very likely a psychopath. Even if he was a handsome psychopath. The lecturer flopped the overhead sheet with a crack, startling my attention back to the front of the auditorium. Forty students stared with glazed eyes toward Professor Bracken Borkle, but my eyes kept drifting, ever-widening, to the brown-haired monstrosity as he worked through his apple on the other side of the room.

Xavier Winters.

Xavier appeared to be every bit the miscreant my father had always said he was. Despite his well-proportioned body structure and appealing symmetrical facial features, Father had told me his family history, about their overreaching, meddling, and overall lack of intelligence. His apple eating seemed like confirmatory evidence. I counted my blessings: I’d never had to work with him directly.

The droning from the front of the room continued. I was tempted to slump in my seat, but the imported and tailored silk blouse would hardly let me inhale fully, not to mention bend at the waist. So, I sat upright, eyes fixed ahead, the droll voice of the professor pushing all my intelligence and attention out my ears, while I rolled the silver ball on my palm.

The push and pull of my giftings were soothing. Centering. I curled and straightened and twisted and flattened and balled up the solid silver, mesmerized by the beauty. Though the giftings were not technically allowed in class, my meddling with metals didn’t seem to bother my neighbors, barely alive as they were from the death-by-boredom technique our professor was applying. Plus, playing with the metal was the only thing that kept me fully engaged in Modern Ecology and Supporting Structures - Summer Semester 1982.

“…and that is why you will all be camping this week!”

I bolted straight up in my chair. What did he say? Camping?

“For some hands-on education, you will be shadowing civil engineers to observe modern day dam inspections. You will get to see natural science in practical life! Unfortunately, not every engineer is gifted, so be wise and do not reveal yourselves,” the professor said, his thumbs taut on his suspenders.

Camping. Dams. What new level of educational hell was this?

The class shifted in their seats, the allure of working outside tempting to almost all Mineras. Most of those with elemental giftings tended to thrive in chemistry, cellular microbiology, and geology. Most were outdoor enthusiasts. I was not one of them.

“You’ll be working in groups. Listed here.” The crack of the overhead felt like a slap. I quickly found my name and winced. “Please move to your groups now and arrange a driver. I expect you to meet with the engineers tomorrow. The TA’s will pass around your assignments and paperwork.”

Most of the class rose and shifted around while I gaped at the board. Give me a lab and a chemical equation any day, but not this. Not bugs and dirt. And definitely not them.

The whiny voice slithered behind me as my two new partners sat behind me. “Ugh, great. Paired with the princess.” An icy dread slid down my spine. “Hey Thracus,” Callum spoke at me again. “You get to work with me and Zee. Have your daddy buy us an A too, ‘kay?”

I squeezed my eyes shut, my cheeks heating despite my attempts not to react.

“Titania Thracus, I’m talking to you.” A hot gust of wind blew my hair into my lip gloss. I pressed my eyes shut, rallying some inner strength.

“Callum, dude. Seriously, stop,” Xavier stage-whispered.

Professor Borkle cleared his throat. “Groups A through D will go to the Dillon Reservoir. E through H will go to Cheeseman Dam. And Group I will go to Lawn Lake.”

“Group I, that’s us.” Callum leaned forward. “Special treatment again? Estes Park for the Rich and Famous. Is this by your third vacation home?”

I turned back to the guys behind me. Callum – the rude one, built more like a pipe-cleaner than a human – was grinning with all his teeth. Beside him was the heathenish apple-muncher, Xavier. We had shared classes before, although we had mostly stayed in our own cliques, the preferred arrangement. Xavier’s eyes flashed an arresting green, which stopped my treacherous heart in my chest. Shaking off the distraction, I determined the eyes to be more gross. Bile-inducing. Like pond slime. Definitely not like aspen leaves. Or like a meadow. And definitely not beautiful.

“Looks like we are up there for an estimated five days,” Xavier said as he studied the papers.

“Isn’t there a hotel?” Callum peered over Xavier’s shoulder. “I hate camping.”

I frowned, unhappy to actually agree with Callum. I had no equipment; I’d have to go shopping. “How far up is the campsite?”

Xavier flipped to the map. “There are three sites on the way up, but the lake is at 11,000 feet. We are meeting a Mr. Timothy Martin at the trailhead tomorrow at 5 a.m. Looks like we are backpacking!” He looked frighteningly gleeful.

“Five a.m.?” Callum squawked. A sharp, swift breeze fluttered my hair again. I glared at Callum’s loose control over his Aeron, his atmospheric and, apparently, windy, giftings. He was full of hot air in all meanings of the phrase.

“Well,” I said, “we should probably go tonight so we are ready on time.”

Xavier’s green eyes crinkled on the sides as his lips parted in a wry smile as he stood. “Dinner’s on me. Meet back here at four.” I opened my mouth to protest, but Xavier had walked away.

Callum stopped as he passed behind me, leaning low, his voice hot and acrid. “Don’t expect me to carry your pedestalled, princess butt up the mountain. You better hold your weight, Thracus.”

A flash of anger burst in my chest and I met his gaze with a steely glare. “We’ll see who the princess is after this.” Callum scoffed and stormed after Xavier, his twiggy arms swishing double time at his sides.

I settled my head in my hands. Now, I would actually have to show up and demonstrate my camping prowess. I wasn’t out of shape, per se, but neither was I a Fourteen-er climbing, marathoning, fitness guru. Even still, I was determined to carry my weight, carry my load, and carry the team.

Just like I always did in group projects.

Xavier was driving the oldest Subaru station wagon I had ever seen. The trunk/extra seats in the back were covered in our camping gear. Callum had sprawled out in the backseat, and I sat awkwardly in the passenger seat, trying not to pick at the prickly leather cracks under my legs.

Xavier must have said something to Callum since the biting comments had almost stopped.

Almost.

“I can’t believe your daddy let you go into the big scary woods,” Callum said, leaning forward.

I shrugged a shoulder, trying to look laisse faire. “It’s just camping. I’ll admit Father isn’t much of a backpacker, but he’s really busy with his work.”

Xavier looked over. “What exactly does he do?”

I glanced at his expression, ready to fly to my father’s defense, but Xavier simply looked curious. I knew his parents had tried to come after Father’s lab for some extraneous environmental concerns. He had to know that history, too. But I saw no evil glint or shifty subterfuge. He looked … open.

I took the chance to talk up Father’s work. “Various bio-medical research projects. Last year they were working on prosthetic limbs, trying to fuse the human parts with the not human parts. Using a combination of physiology fusion from the Faunas and electricity from the Aerons. This year…” I patted my chin with my fingertips as I tried to remember, “I think he said it was some bone marrow issue, trying to insert a little platelet factory inside living bone.”

“Sounds very interesting and important.” Xavier said, surprisingly without condescension.

I glanced at him, eyes narrowed. “It is. The medicine aspect is interesting to him. I prefer–”

“Spending daddy’s money.”

“Dude!” Xavier glared into the rearview. “Stop. Play nice in the sandbox.”

“Fine.” Callum collapsed back in his seat with a huff, arms crossed and all. Petulant child.

“Please, go on,” Xavier said. “What were you going to say?”

I fiddled with my necklace. I had wrapped two copper strands around the steel stem before looping it around the black string that wrapped around my neck. “I like metals.” My giftings surged to my fingertips; I pulled the copper wires from the cord and twisted the molten-like fluid around my fingers. The steel curled and pooled like wax in my palm. My insides warmed, the prickles of feedback tingling my arm to the center of my core. I let out a slow breath. “I just find them very centering and beautiful.”

Xavier was looking at me with that penetrating stare again. I felt my cheeks flush, and thankfully he looked away. “I don’t know many people who have that much control over metals.”

I brushed off a speck of dust off my jeans. “It’s not that impressive. I’m actually a terrible Minera—I have a black thumb when it comes to soil science and botany. I can’t save even a dinosaur plant.”

“But those are unkillable,” Callum interjected from the back. “Wow, you are awful.”

Xavier smiled. “That’s the joy of the giftings though. Each one isn’t the same as any other. You’re uniquely you.”

I flushed again, my chest warming under his praise. “Well. My Father”—I ignored Callum’s snort—“hopes I can go to MIT or something and study nuclear science. There is a great future there, a secure career.”

“Are you good at that, too?” Xavier asked.

“Not really, but the job security can’t be beat, what with Russia and all. The Cold War makes everyone skittish, skittish people mean funding, funding means jobs…”

“So, your family exploits fear.” Callum leaned forward again. “That fits.”

“Callum—” Xavier said in a low voice.

My fist clenched around the ball of metals in my hand which churned and boiled under the surge of my anger. “What is your problem?” I twisted slightly in my seat to look at him. “What did I ever do to you?”

“You didn’t need to do anything. Your family did it all for you.”

“What did they do?”

“You know.”

“I don’t know!”

“If you don’t know, then I’m not going to tell you,” Callum snapped.

“You’re going to blow us off the road.” I brushed my hair behind my ears as Callum’s fury caused the air in the car to whip around. A hot-headed air-based Aeron like Callum could easily create tornados or hurricanes, but we had time for neither. He was rapidly losing control. Yet, I couldn’t help but continue arguing. “What are we, five? I can’t fix it if you don’t—”

“No, you can’t fix it.”

I rallied another retort, but Xavier slipped his hand over mine on the center console. His eyes begged as he shook his head. I clicked my teeth shut and took a breath. A pulse of warmth filled the car but it was too brief to identify. Callum had turned to the side, his shoulders curled as his arms and legs folded across his body. Defeated. But, strangely I felt no victory.

I turned back to the front of the car. The silence ticked by slowly as we wove around the mountain peaks on the windy road.

Xavier spoke quietly, “My gifting is mostly Fauna.”

“Mostly?”

“Mostly. Unfortunately, I have great skill with water creatures, but … we live in Colorado.”

It took me a minute to put together why a person skilled at sensing, directing, and caring for water creatures would struggle here. “Oh. An alpine desert.”

“Yup. And trout don’t have much to say.”

“So why don’t you go to school near an ocean somewhere?”

He shrugged. “I’m good at aquatic Fauna, and can work with a few more species, but my passion is social justice. I’d like to be a lawyer one day, to help people. This school is a good one to jumpstart that career.” I peered at him, reluctantly curious. His parents were also lawyers; Father had always called them ‘the local cockroaches.’ Poking their noses in everything and meddling and needing to be squished. But social justice … seemed … kind.