Magic Children

Chapter 10 Lyons, Colorado-17 years earlier - Aurora

When I step out of my house just before midnight, I don't entirely expect to make it up to Button rock and to the top of the dam and to jump off. That is my plan, but I do expect that something might get in the way. I don't even mind if it does. Anything is better than the nothing that is my existence. Dating nice boys in high school. Marrying one of them. Never leaving here or being anything other than myself.

But when I step out of my house just before midnight, I find three boys in silver jump suits trying very ineffectively to steal my father's car. They claim to be mutants on their way to New Mexico. I don't believe them, about the mutant's bit anyway. My father works out at the Research Center and he says it's all plants. Anyway, naturally I agree to help them in their quest. I've seen enough movies to know I'll like how this going to end.

The boys introduce themselves as Arthur, Angel, and Sam. Those may or may not be their real names. And they prove very quickly they are mutants or wizards or whatever word we have in this moment to encompass what we don't understand.

They all three can make things levitate and float around, and they do so at will. The small precious one can read minds. They are all very happy to tell me what they can do so that I'm as comfortable as possible with this car-jacking experience.

Arthur is the littlest, a young boy, maybe ten, not much older, with fat cheeks, dimples, and big precious eyes. He's kind and clever and quite talkative once you get him going. He reads minds and can move things with his mind. He's very polite about it, promising not to read my mind without permission. I didn't really believe he could do it, but he was more than happy to prove it to me. While I was driving.  I kind of freaked out when he took my bracelet off and dangled it in the air and he apologized for twenty minutes and cried for good measure.

The other boy is Sam. That's all they've called him. He's broody and quiet and fiercely protective of the little one. I don't know if they've been like just raised together and kept together but they don't act like boys. Sam will hug Arthur if he's crying and fix his sweater for him, like a parent because he's only a little bit older. He's got watchful eyes and I feel like he doesn't trust me. He says he just 'moves stuff' but Arthur said he was really good at it. I don't think Sam necessarily likes me, but based off of his resting face he doesn't necessarily like anyone. I suspect when he actually completes a full sentence around me it will be very sarcastic.

Then there's Angel. Damn. I've never been romantic nor overly interested in boys.  But damn. But all I can think of is I would really like to get him out of that silver jumpsuit. He's about my height, with dark hair and beautiful black eyes. But beautiful feels like a bad word to describe the handsomest boy ever to get anywhere near Lyons Colorado. Most boys go through that chubby fat cheeked leggy phase where they're all boney and think they're men, but they're obviously thirteen. Not Angel. He was apparently born with biceps and perfect hair and a jawline that could convert a nun. It should be criminal to lock something this perfect up away from the world.

I don't know what weird things he does. I was attempting to regain brain function when the boys were doing introductions. It didn't work. But I was trying. He also didn't offer any demonstrations. He didn't have to the way he slicks his hair back with both hands is more than enough of a magic show for me.

But other than the fact that I've picked up an actual god who was trying to steal my mom's car, or rather have his little friend steal my mom's car, the trip is fairly uneventful. It's a good ten hours if I drive right, apparently, and there's no end of entertainment from Arthur who's more than happy to chat and answer all my questions. Angel is quieter, but he'll answer if he's addressed. Unlike Sam. For example:

"They keep you in cages? What your whole lives?" that's horrible, Angel should not be in a cage. The world deserves his beauty.

"No, we get to go out to train and do lessons in the yard and if we're very good then we get candy and things and we get to request toys to play with from a catalogue but they get taken away if we're bad," Arthur, bouncing and looking out the window, "I've been with them since I was little, but I think I remember my family. They were upset with me a lot."