Appointed Read online

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Cheyenne said.

  “Yeah, it sucks, but at the same time, I mean, I’m happy to be alive. You know what I mean? Dad never held it against Anj and me. Maybe at first he thought we were his, but even after they figured it out? He still gave us names from his heritage.”

  She smiled at him. “I was wondering where your names were from. So they’re what?”

  “African. My full name is Zesiro, which means oldest of twins, and Anj’s full name is Banji, which is second born of twins. It’s pretty cool. Dad’s side of the family is into naming with a purpose. Dad’s name was Ilo, which means joyous light, or something like that. He believed a name defines a person. And he was definitely a joyful person.” Zes returned her smile sadly.

  It’d been a long time since he’d last gotten to talk about his father in such detail, the ones he could remember, at least. Cheyenne hugged him from behind.

  “So you’re the older one?”

  “Six minutes and fifty-seven seconds. The only thing I’ve beaten my brother at. Oh, and I was bigger in size too. Had about a pound and a half of weight on him.”

  Cheyenne shook her head. “Boys. Why do you always have to make everything a competition?”

  He shrugged. “Just what we do, I guess.”

  “What about your mom’s family? I’ve only met your dad’s side,” she said, and helped him put the mashed potatoes into a bowl.

  “Mom’s parents died while she was in college. She’s an only child. I don’t know a whole lot about her side, to be honest.”

  “Outside of your mom being a sprite?” Her blue eyes glittered under the lights. He adored her thirst for knowledge. The enthusiasm she had made it easier for him to talk about things that were otherwise uncomfortable.

  “Yeah, she’s one who can control all of the elements. Anj and I only got one a piece, but I’m not going to complain. I don’t think I could handle more than one.”

  “She’s powerful. I mean, controlling a lot of elements would make her strong, right?”

  “Yeah, she’s pretty potent.”

  “So are you. Isn’t that what you always tell me?”

  “Only in earth magic, but yeah.” He grabbed a stack of plates and handed them to Cheyenne. “Want to help set the table?”

  She took them from him and kissed his cheek just as the oven timer went off. Perfect timing, because Zes definitely did not like to discuss his magic. It scared him a lot, but he’d never admit to it.

  “Soup’s on,” he called to everyone, bringing out the dishes one at a time.

  Grandma came up to him and ruffled his hair. “It smells amazing, like always. You taught this one well, Cynthia. I don’t know how many times I tried to get Ilo to do anything in the kitchen. Always a disaster.”

  “Zes is like a sponge. He picks up on things fast,” his mother said, and actually smiled. If only he could freeze the moment so he could sit in it a little longer.

  Shrugging sheepishly, he finished setting the table then helped his mother, grandma, and Cheyenne into their chairs and took a seat next to his brother. Cheyenne was across from Anj, and Jewl was across from him as if they had played girlfriend swap for the night. At least he could see Cheyenne this time. Thanksgiving, she’d been placed in between his mother and Anj on the opposite end of the table from him.

  “Okay, honey, do you want a lot of potatoes, or just a little?” his mom asked as she prepared to serve Anj. Zes was surprised she was even asking what he wanted. Usually, she just plopped things onto the plate.

  Anj tapped his fingers on the tabletop, which he only did when he was annoyed. “I can—” he started, and then sighed. “Somewhere in between. The potatoes are my favorite.”

  “And ham too?”

  “Yes, ham too.”

  At least there wasn’t anything on the menu either of the twins didn’t like. Zes had taken the initiative to create the perfect dinner years ago, and it stuck. Green bean casserole, garlic mashed potatoes with cheese, ham, and candied yams made up the selection. Sometimes their mother would also add in a salad of some kind, and his grandparents were responsible for bringing dessert.

  Everything went much better than at Thanksgiving, which had almost been disastrous. Their mother had practically spoon-fed Anj the entire meal. Sometimes her depression got the better of her. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the food had been better. Neither of the twins was particularly fond of corn, cranberries, or turkey, three things she loved and had tried to make Anj love just as much that day. Her random behavior was why Zes tried to control as much of what went on in the house as possible. He couldn’t control her mouth, though.

  “Cheyenne, do you celebrate any holidays with your family?” his mother asked. An innocent-enough question, but from her mouth it was only filled with agenda. She had some kind of strange obsession with Cheyenne’s parents because they were Divine.

  “I used to,” Cheyenne said, and ate more food, clearly not wanting to talk about her family situation.

  Zes certainly wouldn’t if he were in her shoes. She’d just found out she had been raised by a foster mother her entire life, a woman posing as her real mom. Cheyenne had only met her birth parents one time and only for a handful of days. Everything she had ever known had become a lie and at record-breaking speed.

  “You need to invite them to join us sometime. It’d be the perfect way to spend the occasion. Then you wouldn’t have to be away from my boy or them.” His mother smiled, batting her eyelashes like she was the one trying to woo Cheyenne.

  Zes couldn’t help but roll his eyes and shoveled more potatoes into his mouth to keep from speaking. Convenient of her to say “my boy” instead of use my name like she’s still holding out on Cheyenne hooking up with Anj. He scowled.

  Cheyenne eyed him from across the table, taking a pause from eating to speak. “I’ll mention it to them next time.”

  What Cheyenne didn’t tell everyone was how she had tried to get her parents to spend more time with her over the holiday, but they had declined. Zes had been with her when she called the phone number they’d left to “keep in touch.” After a run-around with a number of her mother’s staff, Cheyenne finally reached her only to receive a cold shoulder and lots of excuses. Her mother, the goddess Persephone, was a known recluse amongst the Divine. It was a shame Cheyenne had to be on the receiving end of it too.

  Anj came to the rescue. “You know, Mom, you never did tell us about your business meeting in Chicago.”

  “It went well,” their mother replied, still watching Cheyenne.

  “What’s the city like? Is it as big as I hear?”

  “Bigger than I can describe, dear.”

  “Please try? I’d really like to know.” And he was able to keep her engaged for the rest of dinner by asking her a plethora of annoying questions, like what being two-thousand feet high looked like and what colors she had seen in the river. Zes couldn’t have been more grateful when it came time to clear the table.

  He gathered up the dirty plates from everyone and brought them to the kitchen.

  “Oh, Cheyenne honey, don’t worry about helping. Zes can handle it,” he heard his mother say.

  Cheyenne was forcing herself to be polite, he could tell. When she responded, her voice was terse. “It would make me happy to be of assistance, but thank you.”

  When she walked into the kitchen and their eyes met, he laughed. “You sure told her. Not afraid to pull the diva card, huh?”

  “I wasn’t being a diva. Okay, maybe a little, but there’s only so much more of her I’m going to be able to take.” Cheyenne nudged him away from the sink and got busy.

  “You don’t actually have to help. You know that, right?” He rinsed a plate she had given him.

  Cheyenne sighed heavily. “I know. This was always my favorite chore back home. I like it. It’s—”

  “Therapeutic?” he finished for her, and she nodded.

  Zes chewed on his lower lip as he debated whether or not he s
hould say what he wanted to. The last thing he needed to do was keep talking about a sore subject, but he was worried about her. Maybe she was finally ready to start talking about “back home” more.

  “Did you call your foster mom?” he asked casually, testing the water.

  “No,” she replied.

  “Just wondering, since it’s Christmas,” he said. Then he quickly added, “You know, in case you were feeling sort of generous and forgiving enough to at least wish her that much. But I know you’re still mad at her for lying to you.”

  “It’s more than just her lying to me. She was purposefully trying to keep me away from my real family. Now I’m nothing more than a stranger to them, and they don’t want anything to do with me.” She sniffled then ran a hand over her eyes.

  What could he say to make her feel better that wouldn’t be a lie? As much as he wanted to tell her that wasn’t true, he didn’t know for certain. “If they didn’t want anything to do with you, they wouldn’t have fought so hard to protect you this fall.”

  “Before disappearing completely, you mean?”

  He shrugged. “If that’s the case — and I don’t think it is — it’ll be their loss.” He let the conversation end there. “I’m sorry my mom is so… the way she is.”

  “You don’t need to apologize or make excuses for her. I get it.”

  He nodded, hoping she did. As much as he wanted to press and make sure Cheyenne was, in fact, okay, he decided to stay silent. Some of their best moments together were when they were being quiet. Sometimes there was no need for words. Any further explanation he gave for his mother’s behavior wouldn’t have made things better anyway. The obsession with Cheyenne being Divine was getting old fast.

  Being of the Divine gave Cheyenne a lot of political power, a higher status, and made her like a princess. He could see why his mother was excited to have one of her sons date someone of such standing. The woman took it to a whole new level, though, and he couldn’t help but wonder if there was more to it than he knew. Whatever the case, Zes needed to nip it in the bud quickly before his mother drove Cheyenne away.

  Chapter Five

  The distraction of having everyone over for Christmas Eve dinner was enough for Anj to stop thinking about his waking vision from the day before. Not only had he not been dreaming, but he’d seen something from the past. As far as Anj knew, he could only see things from two different time frames: the future and the present. So how was he all of a sudden seeing things from the past? And more importantly, why?

  He’d tried not to think about it too much, to avoid worrying his mother. She could tell when something was wrong way too easily. Being with his grandparents was hard, though. Their presence brought back a lot of memories about his father, and that made him think about his vision all over again. When they left, it was a bittersweet moment for him.

  That night he expected to have a vision or visit with the Elders. Nothing came, and he slept deeply. It’d been a while since he last had such a pleasant sleep without any kind of magical assistance. Upon waking, the experience left him slightly disoriented. He wasn’t used to such good rest.

  After feeling around for his clock, he pressed the button on the top.

  “10:35 a.m.,” the automated voice said.

  Anj closed his eyes and groaned. “I’m late.”

  He quickly got out of bed and threw on a fresh pair of jeans and a T-shirt before rushing downstairs into the kitchen. His mother was already cooking breakfast. The smell of eggs, bacon, cheese, and cinnamon all blended together.

  “You should have woken me up,” he said in the doorway while he tried to figure out how many people were in the room and where they were. Two people were by the stove. He just about died from shock when he figured out one of them was Jewl and not Zes, like he had originally thought. She sneezed and gave herself away.

  “Jewl, honey, can you please hand me the salt,” his mother said. There was a pause. “Anj, you can sit down if you want. When I went in to check on you this morning, you were sleeping so soundly I didn’t want to disturb you. Besides, you hardly ever sleep in.” She paused. “I always tell him, he never sleeps enough.”

  “Don’t worry, I will defile your eggs with ketchup,” Jewl added.

  He went to his usual seat in the kitchen, wanting to pinch himself because he must have entered some kind of alternate dimension. Why were those two getting along? Had his mother finally come around to the idea? Or was she just having one of her good days?

  “Hi, um… ” a familiar voice said from across the table. It belonged to a young man, and his voice cracked slightly as he spoke.

  Anj suppressed a groan. “Hi, Teague. I didn’t realize you’d be joining us today.”

  “You said I could come over for the holiday so I could give you presents. Actually, you said to come over whenever I wanted. Am I wrong?” Teague asked, his voice shaky as though he were nervous.

  “No, you’re right, I did say that. How about calling next time though, so we can have a little warning first?” Anj was trying hard to not have a short temper with the boy. Rumor had it he was sixteen, but most of the time he acted like he was twelve. He more or less drove Anj up a wall, but Anj had never been good at being patient.

  “He’s adorable,” his mother said. “Jewl tells me he’s her little brother.”

  “Yep!” Teague said with an awful lot of enthusiasm.

  Someone must have clued him in on the secret. I’m pretty sure he didn’t know that bit of information the last time we spoke. Anj rubbed at his eyes, removing the crumbles of sleep from his eyelashes. “Are the others awake?”

  “I sent Cheyenne down to get your brother off his lazy butt,” Jewl said. “That was about an hour ago, though. She probably got sucked into the black hole that’s his bedroom.”

  Anj shook his head. “I told him to clean. I hear the TV on. My guess is, he’s looking for a good save point on his game.” Footsteps came up the stairs, and soon after a hand ran through Anj’s hair in a playful sort of ruffle. He recognized instantly that it belonged to Zes.

  “You know me so well. I just got done with this epic boss battle I had started when Chey came down, and then there was about another half-an-hour’s worth of cut scenes and—”

  “Sweetie, you know we don’t like to hear about your video games,” his mother said. “Can you please go set the table?”

  “Yeah, no problem,” Zes mumbled.

  More like she doesn’t enjoy hearing about what Zes did. Anj didn’t quite understand video games. He’d tried to play a few of them, but the fast movements gave him motion sickness. There were a few he enjoyed, the ones which were deep in story and involved a lot of reading and strategy, but those took up a lot of time, thus making it difficult to use his magic to see. He tended to only use it for small amounts at a time, saving it for things like reading for school or staring at Jewl.

  On average, he had maybe an hour of sight a day, and maybe an extra half an hour if he ran himself completely dry. But one of his favorite things to do when they were younger was sit, listen to Zes play the game, and have his brother read the text as well so Anj could follow along with the story. He loved the music, and sometimes Zes would take the time to describe the kind of monsters he fought against or what the scenery looked like. The two had so few hobbies in common, Anj needed to take advantage of the ways he could connect with his brother whenever he had the chance.

  The table set, they ate breakfast, mostly making small talk. Teague proved himself useful by hogging the conversation. Anj’s mother couldn’t get enough of the kid. He made a note to invite Teague over more often.

  Soon it was time to open presents.

  They all settled in front of the tree, and Anj took a moment to admire its beauty, using his magic to do so. There were multicolored lights on it this year. An arrangement of personal ornaments hung on the branches, and wisps of tinsel added a mystical touch. The tree was fake, but there was a soft pine spray covering it, adding a little touch of h
oliday spirit. Following tradition, Zes handed out all the gifts from under the tree, putting them into nice, neat piles. Then the opening began.

  Three new audiobooks from Jewl, a pair of sunglasses with hologram eyes on the lenses from Teague, a beautiful coffee-table book full of landscapes and places of the world from Cheyenne, a gift card from Zes to get more audiobooks along with a note that he’d have Anj’s real present for him later, as was their tradition. The things they sometimes got for each other were not always the kinds of things their mother would approve of, with her overprotective nature.

  Anj himself was not good at shopping, so while his brother gave everyone else deep and meaningful gifts, Anj had given out gift cards. Except to Jewl, who also had a private gift coming. Teague didn’t have any gifts from anyone, but he didn’t seem to mind. The polite thing to do would be to give him a belated gift once they got back to school.

  From their mother was the usual round of new clothing, more books for Anj, video games for his brother, and new music. Each year she bought them each a big present, too, which was generally reasonably expensive.

  “You got me a tablet? Wow,” Zes said after the sounds of paper ripping had ended.

  “Tablet?” Anj asked, because for the most part, new technologies were lost on him. He knew about laptops and digital music players. In fact he had each of those and found them to be great tools. But tablet was fairly new terminology for him. He’d heard it a few times but never quite understood what it meant.

  Zes was flipping the box over in his hands, shuffling the contents inside. “It’s kind of like a laptop, only it’s flat, and there isn’t a keyboard. They’re touch screen. I showed you them last time we were at the mall.”

  “Oh, that thing.” Anj shrugged. Not something he was interested in learning how to use. His phone had a touch screen, and that had been a huge leap and a headache to learn. The feel of solid keys was much preferred.

  “Thanks, Mom!” Zes said, and it was clear he was beaming.

  Their mother placed an envelope into Anj’s hands. “And this is for you.”