Bluejays

Brother

A Year Later

Kalyn woke up slowly on a summer morning, and got out of bed. Her parents were talking at the table downstairs, while eating breakfast.

"Why are you up this early?" she asked. "I'm always the first one up."

Her mother looked at her. "It's a big day," she said. "We're going to pick up your brother."

Kalyn frowned. "Alan?"

"No," her mother said. "His name is Phoenix, and he's lived with someone else all his life. I don't like it, but we really didn't have any other choice." She shrugged. "Maybe they've raised him properly; I don't know. I don't really know anything about him. I've been told he likes music. He plays the clarinet. He's quite good at it. I think it's too feminine an instrument for a boy, but whatever. If he doesn't bother me with it, then I'll deal with it."

This was all too fast for Kalyn. "Wait, wait, wait," she said. "Why has he been living with someone else, and why have I never heard of him until now?"

"We were told to wait as long as reasonable," her mother said. "Phoenix has these...powers. We're told that he can run faster than any other human, read minds, and create electricity in the palm of his hand. He has them because I did an experiment to try and give people superhuman powers. It seems that all the people involved later had children, and then they had given birth to babies with the powers we should have gotten. It was completely random. Phoenix got lucky. Or unlucky, I suppose, depending on how you look at it."

"Why are we getting him today?" Kalyn asked.

"It's his fifteenth birthday," she said. "We're going to pick him up because the people who raised him think he can control his powers well enough."

"He's fifteen?" Kalyn asked. "Alan's older than him. He'd remember him, right?"

"Alan was two years old at the time and nothing's been said to him since," her mother responded. "He's forgotten."

_

Later that day, Alan woke up. Their parents explained the same thing to him, and he went upstairs. 

Kalyn was sitting on the couch, watching a movie, when her brother came into the bonus room. "I remember Phoenix," he said. "Or at least, I remember her being pregnant. I remember asking about her baby, and she said that it wasn't important. It's been kind of buried in my memory. I think I just assumed he'd died."

"Not important," Kalyn grumbled, as Alan sat on the other couch and got out his phone. "She's got some weird thoughts on what's important."

Alan shrugged and put in his earbuds. "I hope he's cool. But he's lived his life only interacting with some adults, and four other kids, so I don't think so."

"Maybe he's going to be the coolest, most interesting person you've ever met!" Kalyn said. Alan gave her a look.

"I doubt it," he said.

"You don't know!" Kalyn told him.

"You don't know what I consider to be cool," Alan told her.

"A law-breaking jerk, as long as they play a sport?" she asked.

He put in his earbuds.

_

Kalyn watched the world go past. She loved looking out car windows and watching this, listening to music on the radio. Of course, she'd love to stream music from her phone over the car's speakers, but her mother didn't like the idea of streaming music. She wouldn't let them stream anything over Bluetooth. So they didn't.

She watched excitedly as the house started appearing through the trees. The car was moving at a reasonable pace, but it seemed excruciatingly slow.

They pulled up to the house, and got out of the car.

They went to the front door, where they were greeted by a man that introduced himself as Asher and invited them in.

"You're Phoenix's family?" he asked.

"Yes," her mother replied.

"Well," Asher said, "I'll go and get the kids, then."

Asher returned with five people following him. There were two girls, and three boys. One of the boys and one of the girls were carrying bags, and the boy also had what looked like an instrument case. The younger of the two girls looked directly at Kalyn, and she smiled.

"Are you Phoenix's sister?" she asked eagerly. "He told me about you, and said you were around my age. I wanted to meet you!"

"Don't form connections," Asher told the other girl. "You have five years and a week before you leave here." He looked at one of the boys. "Phoenix," he said, "Your family."

The boy looked at them all. Then, he turned to the girl who had been helping him carry his bags. She looked older than the girl who'd greeted Kalyn. She was pretty, with long, platinum blonde hair and blue eyes. "Lydia, can you help get that bag to the car?" he asked.

"Of course," she replied. "I'm happy to help you. I want to be with you for longer, since I'll miss you."

Kalyn noticed her mother's eyes narrowing. "Are you two dating?" she asked.

"No," Phoenix said. "But we love each other like siblings. We'd never date each other! Our relationship just isn't like that."

Kalyn noticed the younger girl looking at him weirdly. She was beautiful, she thought. The other girl was pretty. The younger, though, had slightly wavy black hair that looked like the sort that fell into place without styling, high cheekbones, but not a thin face as a result. She also, interestingly, had purple eyes. Kalyn had seen pictures of Elizabeth Taylor, and her eyes looked almost grey. But these eyes were much more purple.

Her mother also looked at the girl. "You shouldn't change your eye color," she said.

"But this is my natural color," the girl protested.

"Ashlyn has always had purple eyes," Phoenix said. "Now, let's head to the car. I wanna put this stuff up, then come and say goodbye to the others."

He and Lydia went to the car, and they put up the bags. Kalyn, Alan, and their parents went with the pair. At the car, Phoenix and Lydia hugged each other. "Bye, I hope you do well," Lydia whispered.

"Bye, take care of yourself and the others and give Ashlyn her usual flowers on her birthday. You'll still get the ones I usually gave to you," Phoenix said.

"You're so sweet, making sure we'll get taken care of after you're gone," Lydia whispered. She sniffled, then made a little noise that was slightly reminiscent of a sob. "I'll miss you so much."

"I'll miss you too," Phoenix replied. "You at least have the others."

Lydia smiled at him, with tears in her eyes. "Bye, Phoenix," she said softly, turning and walking back into the house.

Phoenix had similar goodbyes with the other three kids, and hugged Asher as well. Asher ruffled Phoenix's hair, then Phoenix turned and walked back to the car.

***

Please vote and comment if you like these chapters! I know it's been moving fast, but it'll go slower now.