ATN: THE ELEMENTS OF BEAUTY

WE TALK, AND FIND OUT STUFF

To all of you who, after reading the heading, had frowned, saying, "Really Jay? You and your cousins get the whole house all by yourself, and all you do is talk?", no. We didn't just talk.

In the morning, maid Soni made our breakfast and lunch. We ordered Biriyani in dinner. We watched movies, played different games all day, went for a walk in the compound. Then, later, when we got tired of having fun, we decided to go to bed. HAHAHA!!! ABSOLUTELY NOT. We sat down on the couch, to, you guessed it, talk.

Riya started it. She picked up the photograph of me, Dad, and Mom from the table, and asked, "I have always been told Aunt Helia was Greek. Is that true?"

"Yes." I said, "We are all mixed breeds."

That was true. Riya and Hiya's father, Tristan Posey, or Uncle Tris, was American. He met Aunt Kia in Mumbai, when he was visiting the place, and Aunt Kia was living there due to work (She is a fashion designer). Dadai and Abhro's mother, Aphria Hales, or Aunt Aphria, was British. She had met Uncle Sankalp in London, when he had to go there to sign a big deal for his business. These two couples got together, just like my parents did. Mom died in the Amazons when I was two. Aunt Aphria fell off the London Bridge while visiting her family when Dadai was three, and Abhro was one. Uncle Tristan, being a sailor, took a sea voyage, and his ship drowned, when Riya was two and Hiya wasn't even one. We had had a lot of hardships in our childhood. But it had made us strong. It has taught us the importance of having each other. I was confident that we could make it out of darkest times if we stuck together.

"Dadai," Hiya asked, "In seventeen years of your life, you never got to know anything about her?"

"Only the things Abhro knows. Like she was a very beautiful woman, and was proud of it. She also loved romantic movies and stuff. That's all."

"You saw her in photos?" I asked.

"I have a distant memory of her face. She was fair skinned, I remember that. She had golden hair. That's all I remember."

"That's it?" Hiya asked.

"Yeah! I was just three."

"And what Uncle Tris? You got any memories?" I asked the girls. Riya smiled, took out her phone, moved her fingers on its screen, and then handed it to me. There was an age old photo of the girls and their family. Riya looked like a two year old (maybe because she was), she wore a small red dress. She was held by Aunt Kia, while Hiya, totally wrapped in a towel, except for her tiny  face, was held by Uncle Tris. He was one buff man. He had blue eyes, black short hair and a clean shaved face. He was much taller than Aunt Kia. He was wearing a white sleeveless T-shirt, and a sailor's cap.  

"Its weird how one of each of our parents died at the same year." I said, "Now, whatever it is, I need to show you guys something." 

"What?" Abhro asked.

"Please don't freak out. Because its super weird." I said.

"We have seen a lot of weird in our life. Try us." Riya answered.

I smiled at her, and put on a little show of my secret. I flicked my fingers and moved the table towards the wall. I repeated that and lifted Hiya's ponytail high. She let out a soft scream. Then, I told them all about the incidents that happened on my sixteenth birthday and afterwards. To my surprise, my cousins didn't seem much surprised. Instead they looked pleased and were smiling. I asked, "Why are you guys looking at me like that?"

"Because you are just like us." Riya said, "See." She got up, and went to the kitchen. She filled a tumbler with water and brought it on the table. Then, she looked at Hiya, and said, "Show him." Hiya pulled out her right hand, and started moving her finger. And believe me, the water started moving in the pattern of her moving fingers. It was as if she was controlling the water. I had my eyes widened, while my cousins were all amused by this.

"Alright, my turn." Riya said, and stepped up. She looked at the water in the tumbler, now peaceful and still, and brought her head closer to it. Then, she took a long breathe, and blew on the water. Suddenly, the water became violent, waves were created and a bit of water spilled on the ground. Riya put her finger on the water, and it stopped. I would have lost it, if it hadn't been four months of me doing some supernatural stuff. I simply turned to my brothers and said, "Do you guys have something to show too?"

"I thought you would never ask." Abhro said. He closed his eyes, and suddenly, I wasn't looking at my little brother. Rather, I was looking at a really tall and buff guy with perfect cheekbones and brown hair. Except for his eyes, my brother looked nothing like himself.

"So, you can change your looks?"

"If its a male human, then any male human. And then, there is the affectionate look. Both me and Dadai share that power." Abhro said. I looked at Dadai. He smiled at me, and said, "You wanna see?"

"Hell yeah!"

Dadai looked into my eyes, and said, "Take up that tumbler and pour the water on your head." All I saw was that his eyes glowed bright orange, and my mind go blank. Then, I felt water on my head, and my mind cleared. I found myself holding the now empty tumbler, and looked at Dadai bluntly. "I can compel people into doing stuff. And then there is the affectionate look."

"Okayyyy...what is with that affectionate look?"

"Tell us yourself. Think." Dadai put on a compelling voice again.

With that, I started thinking. Since childhood, Dadai and I, or Abhro and I, never fought. I had argued with Riya and Hiya. Mostly Riya. But never with them. Every time a situation like that came up, they would just give me a stare of affection and we would stop fighting. Even the last night, the two had given me such a stare, and I had opened my arms for a hug. Till then, I found that completely normal. But now, I understood.

"You vile foxes. You had been using that on me ever since we were kids." I said.

Dadai nodded. Hiya answered, "Not just you. Us too. And Uncle Sankalp too, and literally everyone whoever wants to fight them."

"Nice. But how did you know of your powers, all of you?"

And then, we sat again. This time, they did the talking, and I just listened. Apparently, Dadai and Abhro had been using the stare since childhood. Dadai had also been using his compelling since childhood, but it took him fifteen years to finally understand that. Abhro, however, found out about his look changing power two weeks ago, while he was thinking about Shah Rukh Khan, and turned himself into something very close to SRK, but not exactly SRK. Hiya had just looked at her house's fish aquarium long enough and started making the water move with her eyes, and then her hands. Riya had just finished watching X-Men: First Class where she had seen Banshee just blow at the aquarium to scare away all the fish. She had thought it would be cool and tried it herself. She could only produce waves. In later days, she had figured out the way of stopping that.

"Why didn't you tell me any of this?" I asked.

"We figured these out like a week or two ago. We told each other, and decided that we would tell you when get here." Dadai said. I nodded. He had made a point.

"Alright." Riya said, "Now that the confessions are done, lets sleep. Its midnight."