"Those sound like Gem powers!" Steven exclaimed, his excitement ringing tinnily through the phone.
Connie continued flipping through the hardcover omnibus of the Edgar Rice Burroughs' Martian Novels. In the time it had taken her to recount the morning's antics to Steven, she had paged through the majority of the book. Now she closed its back cover, and every single word of it remained in her mind with perfect clarity. "Maybe the wind stuff," Connie hedged. "But reading? That seems like a weird power."
She could practically hear him shrugging. "Gem powers can get pretty weird. Remember when we met?"
A smile cracked through Connie's worry. "I remember it a little bit," she teased.
"And that was one of the less crazy times. Wait until you turn into cats. Or a baby! You were around for that one too." His blushing was so deep that it seeped crimson and bright into his voice.
Running her hand across the smooth, glossy letters of the omnibus cover, Connie felt her smile fading. "Jade did say that she read all of my books in one night," she admitted.
"Maybe this is just your gemstone's powers coming in. Like mine came in for me!"
Memories slipped through the lids of her clenched eyes, and she relived the early days of Jade's reawakening. The bodiless Gem had only her winds to herself back then. She had been helpless, voiceless, and when Connie had traded places with her for just a few hours, it had felt like torture. Now even Jade's winds had been taken from her empty stone.
Her hand shook, raking her knuckles across the book cover. "It's not my gemstone," she muttered.
The other end of the call hung silent for a long moment. Connie silently cursed herself for saying that. Steven was trying to help her. The last thing she wanted to do was foist her mountain of guilt onto his shoulders.
Forcing her tone to brighten, she continued, "But maybe you're right. This could just be happening because the gemstone is still inside of me. I'm just worried now about what's going to happen. I mean, if I can blast a wind chime at ten paces, what else can I do?"
Steven's voice came back with even more cheer and confidence. "You just need to practice, like I did! You can get a handle on it when you come over for sword training. There's lots of air up there to blow around! Or, I guess there's air pretty much everywhere, but the only people you could knock off would be me or Pearl. And we'd be okay if we fell."
An imaginary windblown Steven floating to the ground was a pretty cute thought, far cuter than a plummeting Pearl. But then that thought made her think of the explosive nose-blowing on the night after Jade's…on the night after the battle. The next time something like that happened, her parents might be in the line of fire. "Jade used to brag that she could take a building right off its foundation. Am I gonna do that by accident?" she said, as much to herself as to Steven.
"Oh, yeah," Steven said, as if that thought hadn't occurred to him either. "It's too bad you don't live out on a beach. There's plenty of room for big mistakes without anybody getting hurt. That's why my Dad and the Gems built the house on the front of the temple. Stuff gets broken around here all the time, but it's no big deal."
Connie's mouth quirked as she tried to imagine her parents being as blasé about property damage as the Gems were. During their previous cross-country move, her father had hired movers for the furniture, and ended up with a scratch on the antique grandfather clock that had led to a weeklong argument and desperate attempts at do-it-yourself fixes that had led to more arguments and hurt feelings. If Connie accidentally blew out the windows, it would send her whole family, Connie included, into hysterics.
Frankly, everyone would be a lot safer if Connie just stayed somewhere where an accidental gust wouldn't be a tragedy, somewhere like the b—
A sudden realization struck Connie dumb. As the details of the idea took form, she realized that it was accidentally brilliant, solving almost every problem caused by these burgeoning powers all at once. It made perfect sense.
But it also felt unbelievably selfish, and ridiculous, and impossible, and it scared Connie with how much she had wanted it all along without realizing it.
Her ongoing silence made Connie realize that Steven hadn't spoken for nearly a minute either. She checked to make certain that their call hadn't dropped, and then waited to see if he would repeat some question or comment she had missed. But his wordlessness in the phone seemed to vibrate with the same kind of excitement she could feel jittering in her own body. "Steven?" she said. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"I think so." He spoke in a hush, but there was a growing excitement straining to burst through the words.
Connie's heart beat faster. "Would…" She swallowed hard. "Would that be okay?" she asked, and then held her breath.
Somehow Connie could feel Steven grinning through the phone even before he shouted his enthusiastic reply directly into her ear.
"Huh. When did this happen?"
Connie watched from the corner of her eye as her father stood on tiptoe to run his thumb against the kitchen wall, feeling at a nigh-imperceptible scratch in the paint behind where the wind chime hung. She couldn't quite stifle her wince as she realized one of the chimes must have struck the wall during her windy incident—windcident?—earlier that day.
Glancing sidelong, Connie caught her mother staring curiously at her, and wondered if she had been busted already. But her mother seemed more concerned with the plateful of untouched dinner Connie was scraping into the garbage can instead. "Not in the mood for stir fry?" her mother asked.
Offering up a weak smile, Connie said, "It tasted great, Mom. I just…had a big lunch."
"Mmm-hmm," her mother hummed noncommittally, and stacked the dinner plates in the sink.
Connie's heart thundered in her ears. She wasn't eager to jump into the night's looming discussion, but anything had to be better than listening to her mother fuss over Connie's lack of appetite again. "Actually, I've kind of had something on my mind. Would it be okay if we had a family meeting?"
Now both of her parents eyed her with mild suspicion. "Family meeting" was the polite term they had always used to announce some unpleasant decision beyond Connie's control. They were the words that proceeded each new relocation, or a doctor's appointment. But this was the first time Connie had turned the phrase back on them. "Okay," her father drawled, and set aside the dirty pans from dinner.
They followed Connie into the living room and settled onto the couch. Beneath their open curiosity, Connie could sense a hint of concern. It was probably warranted, given everything they had been through in the last few months, but it made Connie nervous all the same. Luckily, she had written down her talking points and read them ahead of time, so she wouldn't forget them. Ever.
"First, thanks for coming," Connie said in what she hoped was a mature, adult tone.
"Thank you for hosting the meeting," her father replied, a tiny smile pulling at the edge of his mouth.
Her mother remained all frowns and business. "Connie, is everything alright?"
Connie steadied herself with a deep breath. That was the very question she had been dreading, and the one for which she was most prepared. Bending, she drew out the cardboard box given to her that morning and set it on the coffee table. The box's top was open, and all of her new books were neatly stacked inside it. "I finished all the books," she announced.
Concern turned to parental skepticism in her mother's expression. "Connie," she said, sounding reproachful, "I'm glad you're excited about the possibility of space camp, but we expect you to do the work before we have that discussion. It doesn't count if you skim the books and look up summaries on the internet."
She couldn't have scripted a better setup if she'd tried. Showtime, Connie told herself. Then, with a carefully straight face, she said, "You don't understand. I didn't just read all of these books. I read every book in the house today. And I know all of them."
That got the reaction she'd been looking for. Her mother shed the last of her concern to appear wholly skeptical, while her father perked up, intrigued. "Like, 'all the books,' all the books?" he asked, and looked at the bookshelf at the far end of the room.
She nodded. "Pick a book and tell me the page number," Connie told him.
Her father leaned forward and grinned. She could tell he was expecting some kind of trick or prank. Her mother, though, rose from the couch and went to the bookcase, alternatively searching through its volumes to find a suitable challenge and glancing back at Connie in confusion.
Connie's father was faster on the draw, and had a book from the box opened in front of him. "Show me what you got, Lady Library," he said, and then gave her a page number.
Connie didn't need to think for even a full second before she began to recite: "As he was about to descend, he heard a voice from a distance, hallooing. 'Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle!' He looked around, but could see nothing but a crow winging its solitary flight across the mountain." Then she paused, raising her eyebrows in a silent question, asking if she should proceed.
He nodded as he read along with her, then snapped the book shut to reveal an eager face. "Okay, what's the trick? Did you memorize a little bit from each of the books? Use subliminal hints to make me pick this one?"
"Connie," her mother called, commanding the room's attention with her no-nonsense tone. She had one of her old textbooks opened and was looking down to a page Connie couldn't see. "Chapter Nine-Point-Three," she said, pointedly omitting the page number.
So Connie supplied it. "Page two-seventy," she said, and then recited: "Humans have a large surface area over which to exchange gases with their environment. The respiratory system actively moves air in and out, or ventilates, the lungs and then exchanges gases with cells in the blood."
Her mother's eyes grew wider as Connie read. Before Connie could go on, her mother slammed the book shut and stared. Her confusion broke the smile in her husband's face. "Connie, what's going on?" she demanded.
Connie tried to smile and look at ease, even though she felt more nervous than she ever had presenting a report at school. "Something happened today. Something woke up," she said, and touched the gemstone at her collar.
A moment of stunned silence followed the admission. Then, in a small voice, her father asked, "Is Jade back?"
She had been expecting the question. Even still, it landed like a punch to the stomach. "No," Connie murmured, shaking her head. "But I think her powers are. Back, I mean. In me."
Her mother put the textbook back on the shelf. Hand lingering, she touched at the wood. Connie could tell her mother had noticed the dust disturbed in front of each book from when they had been pulled earlier. "This happened today?" her mother asked, and the real question behind it was obvious.
"I promise," Connie insisted, lifting her hands. "Jade was an Archivist in space. It was her job to remember everything. So now I guess I can too. Or at least everything I read. And I can read super-fast. It's actually pretty cool. I mean, I did all my summer homework in a few minutes."
Already Connie could see the wheels turning in her mother's head. There was concern and uncertainty, of course. But Connie knew there was a tiny spark of calculation behind those feelings. Her mother was seeing grade point averages and college applications. Maybe even early acceptances. Prestigious institutions vying for Connie through scholarships and more.
You sold the razzle, Connie told herself, and allowed for a tiny smile. Now sell the dazzle.
Connie retrieved her next prop from under the coffee table, hefting it a few inches over the floor with her whole body. It was a large dumbbell, rusted at its edges and stamped with a prominent number at each end.
Her father stood up for a better look. "Hey, is that one of my old free weights? You know, your old man was pretty buff back in college. I've been meaning to get back into it," he said, and flexed a bicep. "Just gotta find a good time to start."
Folding her arms, her mother quipped, "Yes, it's been a hectic couple of decades."
Connie drowned out their banter and stared down at the dumbbell. She hadn't gotten to practice this part as much as she would have liked. Thinking muscular thoughts, Connie reached down, grasped the dumbbell in one hand, and hoisted it over her head.
The two adults went silent immediately.
The reaction made Connie grin, and she felt her body surge with whatever power let her lift the weight. It was heavier than her sword, and much more cumbersome, but she hefted it without any real effort.
"See?" she said, and held the weight straight out in front of her, and her arm remained utterly motionless. "I can't exactly stop a runaway train, but I'm way stronger now than I was. Sometimes." She swung the weight straight up again and began twisting its ends from side to side above her head. "I kinda found out when I sort of, a little bit, broke my bedroom door—"
Her mother's eyes, already saucer-wide, went bigger still as Connie released two of her fingers from the weight's grip. "Connie, you put that down this instant before you hurt yourself!" the woman snapped.
The commanding tone startled Connie. Suddenly all of the weight rushed back into Connie's arm, which couldn't handle it by half. She yelped and ducked out from under the plummeting dumbbell. Its end clipped the corner of the coffee table on the way to the floor, and a large divot crumbled out of the wood, leaving splintery edges and a dusting of shards on the floor.
Horrified, Connie stared at the crushed tip of the table. Her worst fears about her meeting, or presentation, or whatever she was trying to do stared back at her with ugly splinters. This was the scratched grandfather clock times a million. Now they would never listen to her.
"The Moron's Guide to Home Repair," Connie mumbled to herself, kneeling down to touch at the splinters. "Maintenance is key but for those times when preparation and lacquer won't do, you have to get your hands on some tools. See Table Six-One for essential must-have tools for your home." The page in her mind loomed large, and she wondered if maybe, perhaps, if only she could fix this, that her parents might still listen to her.
"Connie?" her father said.
"Lacquer," Connie continued, and suddenly she was living in a Ficklepedia page. "The term lacquer is used for a number of hard and potentially shiny finishes applied to materials such as wood." Then she tried to shake the page away. She didn't need to know about lacquer, she just needed the right kind from the store.
"Connie," her mother said, sounding upset. Or so Connie thought. It was hard to hear either of her parents for some reason. Was something wrong with her ears?
"The ability to feel an object, hear sounds," said Connie, at once buried in her mother's textbook again, "and maintain balance results from the stimulation of sensory receptors, called mechanoreceptors, located in skin and ears."
Maybe she could buy a new table? And a new doorknob. How much would that cost? She could read a flyer for a local hardware store, and then she would always know, forever. And her parents wouldn't be mad at her anymore, and she could tell them her plan, and they would listen.
"Connie!" Her parents' voices together barely reached her. They sounded afraid. And looking up from the table, Connie could see why.
The living room shook in a tempest. Fierce winds circled around them, tearing at the pictures on the walls and rattling the furniture. The books on the table flipped open and rifled their pages in a cacophony of rattling paper. Her mother and father stood together, squinting against the wind, their hair twisting and clothes fluttering and snapping. Even in the relative calm of the tempest's eye, Connie could feel her hair tug at her, trying to draw her into the storm's current.
Clutching at her temples, Connie tried to will the tempest silent with her mind. "No, no, no!" she cried.
"Connie," her mother shouted above the roar, her stern voice thready with panic. "We're not mad, but we are concerned. We need you to stop all of this right now!"
"I'm trying!" Connie protested. She even scooped at the wind with her hands, as if that would do anything. For all she knew, it would. But it didn't. "I'm sorry!"
Her mother put on her hospital face, the expression Connie knew could send the toughest nurses scurrying for cover. "Connie you stop the wind this instant!" But the expression cracked, and Connie could see her mother's gambit for what it was. She felt as lost and scared as Connie did.
Then her father wrapped his arms around her mother, bracing them both against the wind, and shouted, "Connie, I've had gust about enough of this wind nonsense!"
Connie blinked. Squinting through the storm and noise, she traded looks of confusion with her mother.
Furrowing his brow, her father raised his voice even higher. "Young lady, if you're trying to make a point, you're really blowing it right now!"
She had to be hearing things. The house was about to fall down around them, and he was cracking jokes? Connie wondered if she, or her father, or both of them had gone crazy.
"Did you think we would like all of this wind? Well, we're not big fans!" he hollered above the tempest.
Connie couldn't help it. Despite her fear, and the anger she felt at herself, she started giggling.
In seconds, the wind began to die down. The books, the furniture, and the rattling pictures all settled, and her parents' blown-out hair laid sideways as the air finally calmed around them. Connie felt her own long hair easing back over her shoulders, five times its normal volume but blissfully still.
Her giggling petered out, and Connie leaned against the coffee table, her palm pressing absently at the broken corner. She didn't think the sight of it would set her off again, but she didn't want to take any chances.
Sagging, her father collapsed back into the couch, dragging her mother to his side. He looked relieved, but his face was drawn, and his hand was laced into his wife's, clenched to quell their shaking. "Nothing," he said, "stops a room dead quite like a Dad Joke."
"I am very glad I married you for your looks," her mother intoned tiredly. But she kissed the back of his hand, then dropped their clasped hands back to the couch. Looking to Connie, she said in a cautious tone, "Are you alright?"
Connie shook her head. "I'm sorry," she said in a tiny voice. "I didn't mean to do that."
Her mother and father exchanged a wordless look. Then they slid apart and each held out a hand. Relief flooded through Connie as she practically hurdled the coffee table to sit between them on the couch. The feeling of both of them squished around her on the small couch was already easing the churning sensation in her empty stomach.
"We know you didn't," her mother assured her, and stroked at Connie's windblown hair. "But this is…an issue. I think we need to… We need to…"
A helpless silence tumbled after her faltering words. It seemed to last forever, until her father broke it for a humorless chuckle. "Let's be honest," he said. "We don't know what we need to do. There aren't any books on what to do when your child starts making tornados." He glanced down, only half-kidding as he asked Connie, "There aren't any books on that, right?"
She shook her head. "I checked," she told him.
Her mother sighed and wrapped a possessive arm around Connie, drawing her even closer. "I never liked that table anyway," she said. "The important thing is that we keep everyone safe until we figure this out."
Connie felt a flicker of hope returning. Her careful planning had blown up in her face, but maybe that had worked to her advantage. "Actually," she admitted, "Steven and I have been talking, and we had some thoughts about that…"
