Orphan of Mythcorp (3 page)

All three Morai received titters as their
names were called. They had it easy; at least their names sounded
tough. When everyone was declared present, the teacher’s peepers
fell on me. “Um, Morgana?” The classroom grew decidedly warmer. As
Mr. Bick stared and everyone else laughed, I unbuttoned the top of
my blue flannel shirt.

“
That’s a typo,” I lied smoothly. “It’s
actually just Morgan.”

“
Sure, okay,” Mr. Bick said.

“
He looks like a dick,” a dumpy looking
fat boy announced. “I think we should call him Dick.” Laughter
erupted from his cronies and from smaller boys who were likely his
victims trying to get in his good graces.

“
That’s enough,” Mr. Bick snapped his
fingers. “Mister Groothius, I’ll see you after class.” So, the punk
obsessed with dicks was Bruno Groothius. (Mr. Monmouth had given us
a student manifest.) With a name like Bruno Groothius, was it any
surprise he was the school bully?

“
Just one announcement,” the teacher
roared as first period bell rang, “Water Purification Society
students, you will need to bring your blood-water samples in by
Friday. We’ll test for Wormwood levels then. That’s
all.”

And so it began. Off to my first class. Bruno
made a point of shoulder-slamming me on my way out. Having poured
over all the YA novels at the Home, I knew I needed to handle this
immediately.

I swiveled on my heels, fought a wave of
cowardice, and faced Bruno the goon.

“
Apologize.”

“
Ha! Get a load of Dick here,” he
fist-bumped his secondary goon. But when he brought his hazels back
to me, I gazed into them, unblinking, unwavering. The Mesmer. I’d
only attempted it twice before, with mixed results. I’d become
convinced three-word phrases were the key to making a Mesmer really
shine.

Bruno shut up quick and did not blink as I
sent my will plummeting into his mind. For a glimmering tick I felt
the hallow nature of his noodle, the pointless inane existence he
called a life. And I pitied him. And I had him. I pulled away
before his laughing pals could catch me in the act. Blinked four
times to dispel the unpleasant aftertaste of Bruno’s psyche. I
wondered if the Morai suffered likewise.

‘
Ooh, look at the fat one,’ Marie burst
onto the scene, skipping and weaving among the boys like a ballet
dancer on speed. ‘He looks set to cry. What did you say to him, you
big cur?’

I restrained a come-back and was about to
leave, when Bruno gripped my shoulder. “I’m sorry about the
shoulder thing, and the dick stuff.”

‘
Dick stuff?’ Marie wondered. ‘What did
I miss?’ She resumed her dancing, floating up and away.

“
No worries.” I fled before his pals
could ask me what the fug had just happened. At this point they
likely figured I was just an orphan who’d hitched a ride with the
Morai, and not a Mythcorp product with extra-human gifts. It was
best if I let them continue thinking that.

Feeling weak and disgusted, I made my way to
room 214 on the second floor. Internet History with Mrs. Deem. I
didn’t know jack about the Internet except that accessing it
without Mr. Monmouth’s supervision would earn you three stripes and
a week in Solitary.

Chatter and laughter. Rumors and lies. Mrs.
Deem ordering the class-holes to sit down.

Ash was in this class too. I was beginning to
think I was in the middle of a conspiracy. When we were all seated
and the teacher had taken roll call, giving everyone another
opportunity to laugh at my girlie name, we got down to the
important business of learning.

‘
Why they teach Internet History?’
Charles, the hairy spook who appears whenever I am feeling
particularly glum, asked. I hate old Charles most of all the spooks
who haunt (annoy) me because he insists on running around in the
buff. It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out what he was
doing when he croaked.

What a charming life I lead.

Thirty minutes in: we were learning
interesting stuff—like the fact that Bill Gates didn’t actually
invent the internet, and that civilization existed long before the
advent of the computer. Who knew? Just as I was starting to nod
off, Ash spoke up.

He was using his usual caressing voice,
sounding like a girl. No one spoke when he did.

“
Mrs. Deem, do you think it would still
be open and operational if the Mythicon Tom Sawyer had been allowed
to continue running Mythcorp?”

A collective sharp wheezy as he mentioned the
no-no word. What was Ash thinking?

“
Um,” said Mrs. Deem. It was the usual
response to Ash. “Ash? Listen dear. We don’t mention . . . that
place. Now, as I was saying, according to the Zuckerburg
Principle—”

“
What if someone were to forge another
Tom Sawyer,” Ash persisted in that same tranquil manner. “And they
reopened Mythcorp with him in charge. Wouldn’t that be like . . .
okay? Wouldn’t it be better to have a corporation around that could
forge Mythicons—Morai, even—who could protect us? With all the
bombings going on and the Tesla Arms Race, it just seems we could
use people who have real power to keep the peace.”

Jeez frigging Louise, even I was buying it.
It wasn’t a Mesmer, not exactly. But with the innocent timbre of
his voice, the baby cheeks, and his wise words, who could argue
with Ash?

Mrs. Deem, apparently. “That is quite enough.
No more talk like that or I’ll send you –”

“
He’s right,” Gareth said. “I always
wondered why they didn’t just put someone else in charge of
Mythcorp after the end of the war.” His long white locks danced as
he gestured. “And if they’re never going to reopen it, why haven’t
they razzed the place? The real estate’s got to be
primo.”

Mrs. Deem exhaled loudly. “We are not having
this conversation.”

“
You should send them all to the
principal’s office, Mrs. Deem,” a pretty brunette said. “They’re
Alexander-lovers. Bringing them here was just stupid. I mean, their
parents worked for that despot.”

Impressive. Who knew snide high school girls
had such vocabularies.

More voices joined in until the entire class
was sharing their opinions in the loudest, most annoying debate I’d
ever heard. ‘Look at him,’ Marie chimed beside me. ‘Look at Ash.
He’s smiling. Do you think he intentionally provoked this little UN
summit?’

I turned my head to peep at Ash. The little
zipperdick was sitting just as calm as you please, not a care in
the world. His whites bore into Mrs. Deems blue peepers. She blew a
whistle. Everyone shut up lickety-split. “Okay class. Ash has a
point. Perhaps with someone else at the helm, M-Mythcorp could be a
useful safeguard.”

And then someone uttered the dreaded phrase:
“He’s mesmerized her!”

The teacher raised her hand, tucked strands
of golden hair behind her ears. “No, no he has not. I am completely
in control. I just think he has a good point.”

The bell rang, proving there was a god.

The debate raged on though as everyone exited
room 214. Mrs. Deem received numerous sharp looks, questioning
glances. Hushed whispers of “Do you think she’s been mesmerized?”
accompanied the class as they bustled away.

‘
Maybe you won’t be sleeping on them
grungy cots after all’ Marie tittered. ‘Maybe it’s back to the Home
for you.’

On the way out I asked Ash the obvious
question.

“
Of course not.” The lie rolled right
off his tongue, like liquid butter. “Mrs. Deem just happens to be
smart enough to get where I’m coming from.”

“
Right,” I cinched the backpack around
my shoulder. “Ready to tell me what that kook in the Park said to
you?” Ash paused in the hallway, inhaled, and then looked up at me.
“I told you. Now don’t ask again. See you around.” He may or may
not have called me a dick as he picked up the pace. I might just
have been hearing one of my spooks; Castor, probably. He loves
cussing me out.

I could still hear the Internet History
guru’s debating down the hall as I checked my schedule. “Debate
Team,” I groaned.

‘
At least you know how it’s done now,’
Marie pointed out. ‘Holy freaking crap,’ she said. I looked up. For
once she was not dancing among the living. I followed her gaze to a
chestnut-haired guy. His stoic expression, unnatural good posture
and the close proximity of his eyes to each other were all very
interesting, but these things paled in comparison to what
surrounded him.

“
Are those . . .
all
spooks?” I asked Marie. Her jaw was drooping
in awe—as was mine, no doubt.

‘
I’ve never seen such an assembly on
this side before. Even around you,’ Marie said.

“
Yeah, no kidding,” I agreed. “What
does it mean? Can
he
see
them?”

Marie didn’t answer. Her aura or ectoplasm or
whatever it is that comprises her existence, was flickering. It
does that whenever she’s about to disappear. “Hold up,” I grabbed
at her shoulder. Sheesh. Fifteen years and I still had the
occasional brain-fart. “Go and talk to them.”

Marie hesitated. Meanwhile, it occurred to me
that I was standing here chatting away with a woman no one else
could see while staring at some guy. If I wasn’t careful, I’d come
off as a complete loony-tune.

‘
They look angry,’ Marie said in a
scared little girl voice. ‘I think I’ll just go back to
Limbo.’

“
Don’t you dare—hey! Stop that
flickering! I’ll start ignoring you again unless you float over
there right this instant and talk to those spooks.”

As she reluctantly floated over to the
cluster of spirits, I yanked the student manifest out of my back
pocket and scanned it. Ten ticks later I found the picture of the
spook-magnet and read his name below it. “So, what is your deal,
Charles Henri Sanson?”

Sanson

Being unoriginal, my parents christened me
Charles Henri Sanson, the sixth in my family line with this name.
Or maybe the seventh. I can never remember. Either way, the name is
cursed and everyone knows it. Students avoid me in the halls.
That’s fine. It means I don’t have to avoid them. All I want is to
find a way to lift this curse so I can get me a girl who won’t run
screaming or get stricken with a sudden bout of lesbianism when she
learns my family history.

Oh, and technically, I’m dead. Not
six-feet-under dead. Just an
extremely-rare-disorder-has-left-me-pulse-less dead.

I was situating my books in my locker—number
666, naturally—when I happened to look up. Some black-haired
black-jeaned yahoo was staring at me. I’d never seen him
before.

I grabbed my copy of advanced Theorics and
stole down the hall towards the yahoo. He caught me approaching,
swiveled, and began to flee the opposite way. I picked up my pace,
and shuffled around in front of him. There was something strange in
his expression.

“
Were you watching me?” I asked. He
didn’t answer. “What’s your name?”

His head dropped and he sighed. “Morgan.” He
seemed embarrassed—understandably.

Strangely, he was not looking at me but at
something over my shoulder. I turned to follow his gaze. The hall
was vacant. “Why were you staring at me?”

He hesitated before leaning forward and
whispering, “Do you . . . see them?”

I mimed his gesture and tone. “See who?”

He straightened up. “Nothing. Sorry I
gawked.” He then did an about face and raced away. It was only then
that I remembered Principal Steck’s assembly, when he’d informed
the student body of the impending arrival of those freaky Mythcorp
orphans. That must’ve been who Morgan was. Some orphan. I’d thought
they were supposed to be like a bunch of grotesque albino’s,
More-eyes or something like that.

Later that day, at lunch, I was sitting alone
sensing I was not alone. Always I sense others who chill the air
around me. I don’t feel this chill; I see it in faint
breath-clouds. Just another inexplicable aspect of the Sanson
family curse. Gramps referred to it as the Sanson Chill. Dad calls
it free AC. I call it BS.

By now it was clear who the orphans were.
Twelve snow-white yahoos with eyes the shade of crystallized milk
and platinum ponytails running down to their bums sat together at
the long table in the center of the cafeteria, along with Morgan.
Lexi, princess of the Goths, strode up to the long table with her
slightly-less-Goth girlfriends Missy and Misty, whose personalities
were as interchangeable as their pink-highlighted hair and names.
“Mind if we join you?” Lexi asked Morgan. He offered a look of
surprise before nodding.

As he shimmied over to make room, the
smallest orphan, whose name—Ash—I’d overheard someone mention,
stood. It was a very old gesture I’d seen in some movie. Ash sat.
The girls giggled.

Lexi and Misty and Missy dropped their
conversation with Morgan after only two minutes. Their occasional
glances at Ash had become more and more obvious and lingering. Now
they were completely focused on the pint-sized Morai. More than
focused. They seemed mesmerized, heads leaning on fists, elbows on
table, eyes unblinking, tongue’s tracing lips.

If I was cursed, this Ash was blessed.

Throughout the conversation—or soliloquy, as
Ash did all the talking—the girls laughed and smiled and shifted
closer and closer to Ash. Meanwhile I watched Morgan talk to
himself in hushed tones while I downed some Nanex, the medical
solution designed to keep my joints lubricated. I was going to like
these orphans. They made me look normal.