The Forces

Chapter One

"Nasty fall."

I heard water dripping, being squeezed out of something. I pried my eyelids open.

It was a woman. Bone-thin, dressed in grey scrubs, with bright red lipstick and dark brown, old and tired eyes. A nurse? But why would I be in a hospital?

"Where's Jenna?" I demanded instantly, pushing myself up on my palms.

"She's with your grandfather," the nurse told me, and tried to coax me back down by placing a wet washcloth over my forehead. I denied her attempt and squirmed my way out of the bed to the side opposite of her. I didn't look at her. She sighed.

"James, you're making this harder than it has to be."

"It's Peter. And he's not my grandfather," I said. "He's the one who hit my head. He's the one who knocked me --"

"He didn't hit you on the head, James," she said, seeming bored. "And he is your grandfather."

"It's Peter. And how do you know?" I spit. My head hurt. I wanted to lie back down, but I didn't want her to think that she'd won.

"Because I'm your grandmother," she retorted.

I didn't flinch. "What's your name?"

"Delilah Greene," she said simply.

"Why should I believe you?"

"You don't have to. But Shawn and I are all you have, so if you want somewhere to go, you shouldn't argue with me much longer."

"Bring me back to Acre Prep."

"They won't take you." She used that same casual voice she'd been using the whole time, as if this wasn't a strange situation at all and that everything she was telling me was completely obvious and should be easily comprehended. "Will you lie back down now?"

I wouldn't. She sighed again and looked away, setting the cloth back into a bucket full of water. She turned to me, with her hands on her hips, and said, "You are too like your mother."

I didn't want to hear it. She sighed for a third time and crossed her arms. "You're like your mother, and yet you've got cold blood like your father."

"If I lie down, will you stop?"

She frowned, but nodded and motioned to the bed. I didn't lie back or relax. I set myself rigidly upon it and looked up at her.

"Why don't you want to hear about your parents?" she asked after a moment.

"Because I didn't know them."

"Don't you want to?"

I didn't answer.

She sat down on the bed beside me and looked up to the sky. Her red-stained lips looked dry and cracked. She licked them.

"Your mother was born on August 3rd, 1976. Your father was born seven months before her, on January 10th."

I wanted to cover my ears, but I didn't.

"They both grew and went to Laibertson in 1988. They didn't know each other then. She was confident and alive and free, and he was reserved and quiet and cold."

She paused.

"But naturally, they got married in 1998. That's how those things work, of course -- you hate each other your whole lives and then you fall in love."

She laughed. I wanted to laugh. The room felt too cold to laugh.

She sighed and smiled to herself. "And then, on October 31 of 2002, they had you two," she said, beaming at me. "It was such a beautiful thing. Twins! Boy-girl twins."

Her expression changed and I knew what would come next.

"And now, thirteen years later, you're here," she said instead, turning to grin at me.

"And they're not," I reminded her.

Jenna came in then, with the old man trailing behind her. Her face flushed with relief when she saw me, and came over to stand next to the bed.

"That one's like her mother," the old man said tiredly. "She wouldn't sit still."

Delilah smiled and stood up to hug the old man hello. Jenna watched them intently, and then looked down at me eagerly. "They knew Mom and Dad," she whispered. "He told me all about them."

"Hello, James," the old man said to me.

"I'm Peter."

The temperature of the room dropped about another hundred degrees.

The old man looked at Delilah for a minute and then said, "What do you remember from the night that your parents died?"

"Shawn," she hissed at him, but he brushed her off and looked at me intently.

My heart skipped a beat. "I don't remember anything important."

"He's lying," Jenna whispered.

"James," the old man pressed. "It is crucial that you tell me this information."

"Why?" I narrowed my eyes. "You won't even tell me who you really are."

The old man seemed baffled. I tuned out the rest of what he said.

We left the hospital room then. We were in a school, and I figured out rather quickly (most likely from the obnoxious banners that coated every spare corner of a wall) that the school was Laibertson. It was crummier than I'd expected, with vampiric-dark-castle decor seemingly sheltered by smart-kids-academy ornamentation. The pillars were crumbly, the doors were molding wood, and the cracks in the walls were covered with pompous, brightly-colored signs advertising art clubs, football games, sorting ceremonies, and lunch menus.

Jenna and I were led to our dorms, where we met our roommates, where I found out from mine that Delilah was the school nurse and that Shawn was the botany professor.

I pulled apart the suitcase that I hadn't packed myself. My roommate's name was Luke. He talked a lot.

"What prep school did you come from?" he asked me.

"Acre," I told him.

"What's your name?" I hadn't introduced myself yet.

"Peter," I answered.

"Peter what?"

"Peter Ever," I replied. I knew where this was going.

He paused for a minute. "Like James Ever?"

"No."

He knew I was lying. I think it hurt his feelings. He went to bed.