A Dreadful Thing

15: MYTHICAL HISTORY

FIFTEEN: MYTHICAL HISTORY

Orla

"I've never seen her before. My mother, I mean. I've never seen her or any of my family before."

Orla leaned her back against the shelf and gazed at the book left open on her crossed legs. The cold seeped into her limbs from the floor underneath her, covering her new uniform pants in a healthy layer of dust. Vera sat against the other wall, watching Orla, having retreated there once Orla regained her breath and stopped crying. Quite a bit of time had passed, and Orla wagered dinner had started, and yet neither had made a move to leave.

"I didn't know," Vera repeated, keeping her voice soft. "When you said your grandfather hadn't told you about this, I hadn't realized you didn't have pictures of your family. I thought—well, I thought you might like to read how well-regarded your mother was."

"There probably are pictures," Orla replied, her tone growing bitter. Her fingers on the book tightened, and the laminated pages rumpled. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wondered how the Seraphium created lamination if they didn't use machines. A Talent, maybe? "Mr. Byrne didn't tell me about any of this, and he never told me he was my grandpa. Master Porter told me."

Vera gaped. "Why would he—? Oh." She released a small breath of realization, proving quicker than Orla on the uptake. "It's because of how they—we—age, isn't it? Especially if he's a powerful Seraphium; they retain their youth much longer than a normal human. You would have asked questions if you'd known he was your grandfather."

Orla's jaw ticked as she nodded. "That's what he said. It's not an excuse."

"No, I guess it isn't."

Her fingertips brushed over the page again, her eyes taking in every detail of her mother's image. The light spun in slow revolutions above her head, a tiny star pouring a warm, shifting glow over the book. Morty sat with her, quiet and still, his own legs folded beneath himself like a kid.

"Do you know anything about—." She hesitated, throat tightening, then loosening. "The Morsath Massacre?"

Vera lowered her eyes and reached up to give one of her curls an anxious tug. "I know what a few of the textbooks have said," she replied, hesitant. "But I—I might not be the right person to ask, being demi-human."

"It's more than I know." Orla laughed, and it came out as a hiccup, pitiful and broken. "Master Porter told me everyone died because of a Seraphium?"

Vera nodded, one small dip of her chin. "A group of them, really, but their leader is attributed most of their crimes." Again, she tugged on a curl, winding glossy hair around her index finger until it was too tight, and she released. "They're called the Ominous."

"The followers?"

"No, the leader, the—." Vera paused to gather her thoughts, then stood, flattening her skirt. She went to the lectern, pronouncing the words, "The Ominous: nineteen-eighties anarchist."

Several books tumbled from the towering shelves, falling like meteors until they slowed and gently rested upon the podium. Vera picked one with the ease of someone who'd already read the material and came over to Orla, settling on the floor in front of her. She cracked the leather book open and searched the contents until she found what she sought and turned it for Orla to see.

The picture painted there best resembled something Orla might find on a horror movie poster outside the Dirgemore theater. It involved a lot of black ink splashed across the page, leaving only a vaguely human shape in a robe or coat, the place where the head should be taken by a strangely blurred streak of white.