August 1982
1407 Graymalkin Lane, Westchester County, NY.
Those were the words in big, cold, harsh letters etched into the high, stone wall next to the hulking, metal gate. Under the address was engraved, Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters in a solid gold plate.
"I think this is it, miss," said the cabbie, Nasir, putting the car in park. He was a middle-aged, Pakistani man with a big stomach and a thick mustache and he was wearing a New York Giants cap that held his unruly, jet-black hair under it.
He had been very nice to her, chatting her up about how he couldn't wait for football season to come back around again. He told her all about his two kids, one of whom was on the fast track towards becoming a neurosurgeon, while the other was on the honor roll in high school. She hadn't really cared about the details of his everyday life, but she understood how unbearably silent and uneventful it could be driving a cab so she responded with the expected 'Wow!' or 'That's so great!' because she knew that was what he wanted to hear.
Her mind was very much elsewhere, probably back in the City.
"There's an intercom. You want me to click it and see if someone will open up this gate? The house seems like it's pretty far away from the gate. I wouldn't want you to walk it with all your bags," said Nasir.
"Thank you," she said.
He stretched his arm out and pressed hard on the button that had a little bell icon on it.
"Yes?" said a high-pitched voice, emanating from the intercom in a thick, Russian accent. "May I help you?"
The beautiful, red-headed seventeen-year-old in the backseat of Nasir's rundown cab in the bright yellow, v-neck sweater, denim mini-skirt and vintage, white go-go boots wound down the glass and leaned out the window.
"Hi, good morning. I'm Jean Grey. Professor Xavier should be expecting me."
"Oh, yes. Miss Grey," was the response. The gate slowly began to open. "Do come in."
Nasir slowly drove through the gate, admiring the vastness that was this estate: there seemed like an endless expanse of greenery but at the center of the field, just in front of the mansion, was an overdone, ostentatious fountain that spouted water high into the air. Inside the fountain, marble cherubs were at play with vases spewing water.
But that marvelous fountain couldn't light a candle to the Neoclassical mansion that Nasir stopped in front of. The mansion itself looked like it had two fully extended wings and was at least four stories tall. Pillars descended from the overarching ceiling down to the staircase that led up to the tall door. The building itself looked like it was made of solid marble. The windows were all large and Jean wondered with total bewilderment what was housed within.
A little woman who looked about seventy busily made her way down the staircase. Her grey hair was swept back into a messy chignon. She was wearing a shirt with a large flower pattern that she'd shoved into some worn mom jeans and she had on a pair of what could only be called sensible shoes.
Nasir got out of the cab and started offloading Jean's luggage from the trunk while Jean reluctantly and hesitantly dragged herself out of the cab. The little woman thrust her hand in Jean's direction.
"Good day, Miss Grey," she said, in that stern, Russian voice of hers. Jean took her hand and the woman pumped it twice with more force than Jean expected. "I'm Mrs. Makarov, housekeeper here at Xavier's. I've been here for many, many years. Since Professor Xavier was a boy."
"I see," said Jean, tucking some of her wine-colored hair behind an ear.
"And so has my husband, Vlad. He's the butler," said Mrs. Makarov. She looked to her right, where a man was busy cutting the hedges near the house. "Caesar, stop what you're doing a minute, please, and come take Miss Grey's bags."
Jean paid Nasir and thanked him for his hospitality while Mrs. Makarov led her up the staircase and into the mansion.
Jean knew that wealth and excess would have been inside but she wasn't prepared for the endless portraits of Xaviers from years gone by: women with big hair and oversized dresses; men on horseback in dapper suits; children playing with dogs. There were Persian rugs scattered over the hardwood floors and a grand staircase that led up to the second floor of the cavernous home.
"I call it the X-Mansion," said Mrs. Makarov. "Since it's been in the Xavier family for ten generations now. Down here, on the first floor, you find the library, where you and your classmates do all your classes, several sitting rooms, the music room, the dining room, the breakfast room, the Professor's office, the gym and the game room. The kitchen is in the back but Chef Devereux doesn't like too many people in there all the time. Breakfast is served promptly at eight every morning, lunch at twelve and dinner at seven. You're allowed a snack later in the evening but you'll have to make that yourself, I'm afraid, because by then Chef Devereux is already gone. Otherwise, if you'd like any other food during the course of the day, you should feel free to call down to the kitchen."
"Thank you," said Jean, nervously running her hand against her stomach. She looked down at her watch: it was only nine o'clock so she'd narrowly missed breakfast.
Mrs. Makarov led her up the staircase to the second floor. "Here you'll find the Professor's room, Mr. Eisenhardt's room, Miss Eisenhardt's room, Young Mr. Eisenhardt's room, Miss Dane's room, Mr. Summer's room, Mr. Worthington's room, Mr. McCoy's room and Mr. Drake's. I've prepared a room for you on this floor. Miss Alexandra Xavier's room. She was a famous socialite in the late eighteen-hundreds."
"So what's on the third floor?" asked Jean, curious.
"Oh, just more bedrooms," said the old woman, with a shrug of her slender shoulders. "But we don't have that many students yet. So they're vacant. And on top of that is the attic that we use as a greenhouse. The gardeners take care of them. We have a collection of beautiful and exotic flowers there. Gardening was a past time of the Professor's mother's. She loved beautiful plants. You're welcome to go up there anytime. In fact, there's an elevator right here."
She pressed a button on the wall in the hallway and the wooden wall simply opened up, a simple, metal elevator with heavy, fluorescent lights on top appearing seemingly out of nowhere.
Mrs. Makarov led her down the hallway and opened a solid mahogany door. "And this is your room, Miss Grey."
Jean ran over to the window and was amazed at how beautiful the estate looked from this vantage point. Her room was directly above the fountain as well and she wasn't exactly sure when she would be able to adjust to that noise but she supposed that she would eventually. The floor was entirely carpeted in velvet. Near the tall window stood an antique dressing table with a large, oval mirror and a lovely bench that Jean couldn't wait to christen; on another side was an open door to what looked like a walk-in closet that Jean had far too little clothes to even fill. Not even if she'd brought all of her clothes from back home would she have been able to fill it.
But the highlight of the room for her was the queen-sized, antique, four-poster canopy bed that regally stood at the back of the room. There were about six, big, fluffy pillows on it and sheets that looked like they were Egyptian cotton.
Like most girls, she had always wanted a canopy bed but New York City was a place where space was an expensive luxury that most New Yorkers couldn't afford. And while her dad was a college literature professor at Metro College and her mom was an editor at Trend Magazine, they weren't exactly one-percenters. They'd managed to get a three bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side many years ago so Jean and her sisters Sara and Julia shared one, her two brothers Liam and Robbie shared another and her parents had the master bedroom.
It wasn't much but it had been her home for her entire life.
Directly across from the bed was a portrait of a beautiful young woman who didn't look that much older than Jean herself. She was elegantly sprawled out on a chaise longue with a little pug in her lap and she was smiling ever so slightly. That must have been Miss Alexandra Xavier herself, overseeing who was the new occupant of her room.
Caesar rushed into the room and placed her bags next to the bed and then quickly ran back out, heading back out to finish his work.
"I hope you enjoy your room," said Mrs. Makarov. "I know you must be hungry so I'll have Chef Devereux make you a light snack before lunch today and he'll call when it's done." She pointed to the old-fashioned phone on a mahogany table next to the bed. It was gold and black and had one of those. "Just dial one and it will call the kitchen directly. For me, dial two. The Professor told me that he wants to see you after you're settled in. He'll be in his study down on the first floor." From her pocket she pulled out a folded up sheet of paper and handed it to Jean. "That's a map of the house. So if you get lost you can find your way. I'd give you the grand tour but I have to go help the maids dust off some of the rooms on the first floor now. Have a good day."
With a slight bow, Mrs. Makarov was gone.
Jean tossed herself on the bed and rolled around for a good three minutes. This was unbelievable. Maids, a French cook, a butler. This was the kind of life that she'd only dreamed of. She felt like a princess in a fairy tale.
Sans the prince, of course.
Jean, are you coming to see me? she heard the Professor say in her head. She hated when he communicated telepathically. It felt like an intrusion.
Of course, Professor, she responded, with a slight roll of the eyes. I'll be there soon.
Jean pulled herself out of her fairy tale reverie and headed out the door but when she stepped out she ran into a gorgeous young man with cascades of long, blonde hair that he'd slung over one of his broad, swimmer's shoulders. He was taller than she was by a good few inches and he had smoldering, deep-set, sky-blue eyes that were looking down at her in what she assumed was surprise. His lips were a rosy pink—rosier than hers, and she was wearing lip gloss—and he had a long, straight, patrician nose and a strong, classic jaw.
He had a T-shirt hanging over his shoulder and he was wearing a pair of really short exercise shorts and sweat dripped down his six pack. He gave Jean a smile as he placed his hands on her shoulders and attempted to steady her.
But the most startling thing about this gorgeous Adonis of a boy in front of her was the outspread, white wings that all but took up the spacious hallway. They looked like they belonged on some graceful creature, not an adolescent boy.
Professor Xavier has his own personal angel? Jean thought.
"Sorry," he said, in the silkiest voice Jean had ever heard. It made her knees weak. "I'm all sweaty from working out in the gym. I didn't see you there."
"No," she said. "It's my fault. I should have watched where I was going."
"Let's just say it's both our faults," he said, with a saucy wink at her. "I'm Warren, by the way. Warren Worthington."
"I'm Jean," she mumbled, still in awe of him. She felt her cheeks getting warmer by the second and beads of perspiration spiraling down her face. Which said something since the entire mansion was air-conditioned. "Jean Grey."
"Nice to meet you, Jean," he said, in that smooth voice of his. "I guess you're the new girl the Professor told us to expect. Me and some of the other students were going to the lake at the back. Would you like to join me?"
"I would," she eagerly admitted, "but I have to go meet with the Professor first. So maybe after?"
"Sure," he said. "See you then."
He gave her one last smile and then stepped around her, heading to his own room.
Jean giddily made her way down the staircase and unearthed the map from her back pocket. She followed it to the word and found herself in front of a tall, imposing, wooden door. She knocked silently and then she heard someone tell her to come in and she followed the instruction.
Professor Xavier was hunched over a wooden desk, writing something on a sheet of paper. He was wearing a black turtleneck and a grey blazer. He was about fifty and had the debonair look of Yul Brynner, the guy who had played the Pharoah in The Ten Commandments. The sunlight streaming into the room from the window behind him cast him in an otherworldly glow but all Jean could see was the sheen that reflected off his perfectly bald head.
Back when she was eleven, she'd asked him why he had cut off all his hair. He'd told her that it was a side effect of his vast psionic powers coming into their own. Powers not so different from her own. She'd immediately worried that her own burgundy hair would start to fall out soon. But he'd assured her that that wouldn't be the case. He'd put his fingers against her temples, told her to relax her mind and he'd proceeded to put a series of psychic barriers within her mind that would prevent her from using her telepathy until she was ready.
Back then she hadn't been ready for her telepathy. Not after what had happened with Annie.
"Jean," said the Professor, plastering a smile onto his face. "Have a seat, dear."
She sat down in one of the club chairs across from the Professor and looked around the room: the walls were chock full of diplomas and certificates; there were shelves full of awards he'd won; there were endless books in bookcases, some of which had his name on them, strewn about the room.
"I'm so glad you're here," said the Professor.
I'm not, Jean thought. And then she covered her mouth with her hand, as if she'd said it and not thought it.
The Professor chuckled slightly and then shook his head. "I understand that you had to give up a lot. But I hope you understand that I only asked your parents to send you here for your own good. The cacophony of the City would have only made dealing with your telepathy worse. And obviously it's been developing if it was able to break down my psychic walls."
Jean nodded in understanding. She knew exactly what he meant. She had been feeling her telepathy growing at an exponential rate over the past year and once or twice she would pick up a stray thought—sometimes mundane like her Dad planning a shopping list for when next he went to the grocery; sometimes something serious, like one of her classmates considering suicide—and she would get frustrated. She wasn't ready for her telepathy.
"I know you don't think you're ready," he told her, "but there's nothing I could do for you now if you broke my walls."
"But I didn't break them, Professor," she mused.
"Maybe not consciously," he said. "But your powers have obviously been growing. And I don't mean to sound proud, but I consider myself to have the most powerful psychic mind on the planet. A seventeen-year-old girl with almost no telepathic training shouldn't be able to break through my defenses."
Jane bit her bottom lip and looked away from him, casting her emerald green eyes to the hardwood floors. That was a scary notion, that on a subconscious level she had ousted his shields. She didn't want to have to hear everything everyone thought. Feel what everyone felt. It was something that had traumatized her for an entire summer when she was eleven and the Professor had come in to save her. Granted, that was six years ago. But she didn't want her telepathy.
He had helped her to master her telekinesis. She could lift multiple things at the same time, even the Professor and he was a grown man. Telekinesis was a like a muscle: the more she worked it out, the stronger it became.
Was telepathy the same way? Or would she feel a rush of emotions all the time like she did that day?
There was a knock at the door and then Scott Summers opened it and entered the room.
He'd gotten taller since last she'd seen him and he'd obviously been working out. His pecks pressed against his red, Ralph Lauren polo, which he'd tucked into cargo shorts, and he was wearing a pair of black loafers. His chestnut-brown hair was parted at the side and elegantly combed and he was wearing his ever present, red, ruby-quartz glasses that kept his destructive optic blasts at bay.
"Jean?" he said.
"Scotty!" she yelped, getting out of her chair and running over to him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and he carefully placed his arms around her little, waist.
All at once Jean felt a rush of emotion wash over her. And it wasn't hers either: it was Scott's. It was an intense feeling that was indescribable to her. All she knew was that she felt her heart start to race and her cheeks start to warm like it had with Warren.
Scott had been a long-time friend of hers. Professor Xavier used to bring him with him to New York when Jean had her sessions and he'd ask if she could take Scott around the City. They would often end up spreading a blanket in Central Park and she'd tell him all about school and he'd tell her all about living in Westchester. They'd also formed a little book club. The Professor used to come see her once a week to tutor her in her telekinesis so when he brought Scott and she and Scott went off on their own after her lesson, they'd talk about a book that they'd both read that week.
But Scott hadn't come up to Manhattan in the past year, for some reason.
"It's so nice to see you, Scott," she said, pulling away from him. The emotions dissipated almost instantaneously.
"Hi, Jean," he fumbled.
"It's been too long," she said. "And it's so nice to see yet another familiar face."
"Yeah," he said nervously. "Professor, I just wanted to return this book to you." He walked over to a shelf and replaced the book. "Sorry for interrupting."
He made a quick escape.
Jean, puzzled by her longtime friend's distance, used her telekinesis to close the door behind the long-gone Scott Summers and assumed her seat across from Professor Xavier.
"All I have to tell you is that you're not alone, Jean," he said. "In your class you have a number of students with other abilities. It's only Labor Day so classes haven't resumed. I think the students are all at the lake now soaking in the last remnant of summer. So I suggest you go get to know them."
"I already met one," Jean said, blushing at the thought of Warren again.
"I'm aware," said the Professor. "And I'm concerned. Be careful with Mr. Worthington, Jean. He's a...troublemaker."
Jean pulled herself up from her seat. "Don't worry, Professor X. I think I can take care of myself."
If you enjoyed this, please also read my other story Rachel Summers: Daily Globe Reporter. They're set in the same universe.
