GUESTS
Destiny gained. Destiny lost. Destiny returned.
If anything, one could describe destiny as a fickle mistress. Much like memory, fate, karma and every other abstract force that governed man. One minute you could grasp them and the next they're gone. Vanished without a trace. Like walking on air.
Paul felt like he could grasp his. At least, before the events with the demon. If he could just hold himself in check, constrain his being, maybe just maybe, he could hold back the worst parts of himself. Be normal. But he couldn't. His Umbra, as his father called it, had completely overwhelmed him. Or at least, that was what he told himself.
His eyes fluttered open. Sneezing sitting up. His head rang with a terrible headache as his eyes adjusted to his surroundings. He spotted a lamp on the desk across the room. Golden, and Victorian. An antique and his 17th birthday gift. Why anyone would give a 17-year-old a lamp for their birthday still astounded him.
His father collected such things. Trinkets and small things from the past. He had a fascination for such; things he was much older than. The room itself was a testament to that — every corner of it shaped by his father's stubborn sentimentality and his mother's reluctant surrender to it. He had insisted on keeping the house the way it was when his wife had pushed for a remodel.
"It's too ominous" She pouted. She stood with her hands on her hips, surveying the sitting room with the particular expression she reserved for things she had already made up her mind about.
"What do you mean? It's perfect" He coaxed, massaging her shoulders. "The kids love it" He added for good measure.
"The kids will love whatever we give them" She replied as a matter of fact.
"Then let them love this."
She had cut him a look sharp enough to draw blood, but the smile tugging at her lips betrayed her. It always did. Their father had a way of disarming her, a quiet patience that wore down every wall she put up — not because he was persistent, but because she wanted to be disarmed. Paul had noticed that even as a child. It was a strange and tender thing to witness.
Though Mrs. Okonkwo seemed serious then, she never did have the heart to change much of the landscape. She grew up here and had so many memories, both good and bad. This was her home, and she realized not long after that she would have it no other way.
Paul, therefore, had his sentimental mother and collector father to blame for the back-from-the-past room that he called his, and just like his mother, he would have it no other way.
The random thoughts that hazed his mind could only do so for so long. He wondered. Where was she? His sister. And how had she managed to drag him back alone? How did she make it back away from the prying eyes of those strangers?
Paul sat up with his feet planted on the ground. He was bandaged all around his thorax. He should have been in pain. Anyone normal would have been writhing in agony with just a breath. As the world was now, they themselves wouldn't die; that didn't stop their body from giving them hell though. He, however, was different. Underneath all that dressing he knew that he was good as new.
Grace knew of their unique composition so why would she go through the effort of bandaging him? He thought. The mat was soft under his bare feet, feeling almost like a foot rub. Steadying himself, he walked to his desk to put on his watch. A note waited for him there, right next to the lamp.
It was Grace's writing. A rough attempt at cursive handwriting, with barely any regard for the margins left behind by the manufacturers of the paper. How anyone could read anything she wrote was, in and of itself, a miracle.
"Paul, don't be mad, but we kind of have guests. I tried to ditch them but they insisted on escorting us home. Believe me, I tried everything to ditch them but they insisted that it wasn't safe for me to drag you home on my own. I couldn't keep on refusing them, or they may have followed me anyway, so I led them back here. Trust me I took the longer route – not the tunnels and I've been keeping them in the living room all this time. I also bandaged you myself, so they don't know anything. Try to act injured when you come down."
Paul felt so many emotions as he read through the note. Most of which was anger. Not the hot, explosive kind — he had learned to be wary of that in himself — but the cold, settling kind that sharpened his thoughts like a blade being drawn slowly across stone. He was going to find out exactly what they wanted, and if it ever came to dire straits, he believed he could handle it. He hoped he could.
He set the note down and stood there for a moment. Strangers in their home. Their sanctuary. The one place that was supposed to be separate from everything that had been happening to them. He breathed in slowly through his nose, then out. He needed a clear head. He couldn't afford anything less.
---
Paul's steps echoed softly as he made his way to the living room below. The stairs creaked beneath him, each one announcing him whether he liked it or not. He moved hastily but cautiously, one hand trailing the wall, his ears straining ahead of him into the silence of the lower floor. He pictured Grace. He pictured what he would do if anything had happened to her. The thought sharpened into something with edges.
A duster rack behind the stairs was all he armed himself with as he inched closer to the room. It was laughable, he knew. Given what he was capable of, a duster rack was entirely ceremonial. But it kept his hands busy, and busy hands kept him from reaching for something worse.
What Paul heard, the closer he got, was beyond anything he could have imagined.
Laughter.
He stopped. The fear he had carried down the stairs shriveled and was replaced with something more disorienting — confusion. His brows scrunched up as he halted involuntarily, listening harder, as though his ears had reported something impossible and needed a second opinion.
Grace and one of the twins — the girl — seemed to be giggling about something he couldn't make out. It was unguarded laughter, the kind that didn't perform itself, and that unsettled him more than silence would have. Beyond those two, the general and the other twin were silent, but Grace wasn't careless enough to lose track of them. She never was.
He stood there a moment longer than he needed to. Listening. Mapping the room in his mind before he entered it. Four people. One he trusted with his life. Three he didn't know at all.
He stepped in.
The red lights of the living room filled his sight again, casting a faint glow across his guests. The room looked almost normal in that light — almost. Grace and Nessa stopped the game of cards they were playing and raised their heads to greet the figure that had stepped in. The general and Franklin stared too from the opposite side of the room. From the slight fluster on Franklin's face and the way he straightened almost imperceptibly, they had been in the middle of something. A discussion. Paul filed that away.
"Paul, you're awake!" Grace stood up almost immediately and made quick strides to her brother. Halfway to his side she noticed the duster rack in his hand, raised as if to hit someone. He wasn't looking at her; his eyes moved deliberately across each guest, taking inventory.
"Limp a bit, dummy" Grace whispered, snapping him out of it.
She was right. He had neglected his "injuries" and stood too straight, too alert. He let his shoulders drop and introduced a heaviness to his right side, using Grace as his support as he made his way to the long couch, adding a cough or two for good measure. Grace sat on the arm of the chair beside him, a habit that had gotten her in trouble numerous times with their mother. Paul had much bigger problems at hand. Much larger than etiquette.
He took a moment to look at them properly now that he was seated. The twins sat almost as straight as the general, their discomfort plain even through the dim lighting. They were young. Younger than he had perhaps registered before. The girl — Nessa — had an open face, the kind that chose to be. The boy, Franklin, was the opposite. There was something tightly wound about him, something coiled just beneath the surface. He was watching Paul the way Paul was watching him.
The general was a different matter entirely. He sat with the ease of a man who had never once walked into a room and felt like he didn't belong in it. His presence occupied more space than his body. That kind of comfort, Paul had learned, was either the sign of a man with a very clear conscience or a man with none at all. He couldn't tell which yet.
"Thank you, for your help" Paul addressed them after clearing his throat.
"The pleasure was ours. Although, one could say you helped us too" General Philip replied, stiff-backed. His voice carried the particular flatness of someone who chose their words before they spoke them. Paul could wager that the "General" title was genuine. Everything about the man suggested military — not just the posture, but the economy of it. Nothing wasted.
"You flatter us. We only made it out of that situation because of you three" Paul responded with a cautious smile. He kept it measured. Warm enough to be polite, cool enough to keep distance.
Philip studied him for a moment. Not unkindly, but thoroughly. It was the look of a man taking a measurement. Paul held his gaze and smiled just enough.
Philip gave a hearty laugh, sudden and full, making Paul shift slightly in his seat. The man's voice was as gruff and bulky as the rest of him. It filled the room in a way that seemed to push against the walls. Paul couldn't tell what the laugh meant. Whether it was the laugh of a man who found something genuinely funny, or the laugh of a man who had decided something. He glanced at the twins. They hadn't laughed. Franklin in particular looked like laughter was a language he had temporarily forgotten.
The general's laughter didn't last long — or better put, was halted by Grace's words.
"I guess that makes us even now."
Something shifted almost imperceptibly in Philip's expression. Gone before Paul could name it. "Yes, yes it does" he said.
"Then, I guess you should all be on your way" Paul said. He kept his tone light. Friendly, even. The sooner they left, the better.
Philip looked at him for a moment with an expression Paul couldn't quite parse. Then he nodded slowly, as though Paul had confirmed something he already suspected.
"Hmm… Cadets!" He called out, military fashion. The twins stood up instantaneously, arms snapping to a salute.
"Please, if you could show us out" He requested.
Grace searched Paul's face for instruction. "We'll go together" He whispered.
Coughing and limping, Paul stood and made his way to the door using Grace as support. Their guests trailed behind them. He counted each step to the door. He wasn't a fan of turning his back to potential threats. The space between his shoulder blades felt exposed the entire way. His anxiety dropped by miles the moment they arrived at the door. He nodded for Grace to open it, as they side-stepped to let their guests through.
The twins were the first to exit. Philip trailed slowly behind, in no apparent hurry, which Paul found more unnerving than if he had rushed. The man felt too comfortable for comfort. Halting at the door frame, he turned and faced Paul and Grace.
He looked at them both for a long moment. Whatever he was thinking, he kept it behind his eyes.
"I don't know who or what you are," he said finally, "but one thing is certain — you're on the right side." He reached into his jacket and pulled out a piece of paper, holding it up between his index and middle finger. "If you ever get tired of holing up in here, you could join us instead. We could really use the help."
Philip stretched his hand and placed the note into Paul's breast pocket. Paul didn't flinch, but it took effort. The man had crossed the threshold of their home and was now close enough to touch him. He held himself very still.
"Ka chi fuo!" Philip said warmly in Igbo, raising his hand in a wave as he turned and joined the twins outside.
Paul held the words for a moment — a farewell, warm and unhurried, from a man who had no reason to offer either. He wasn't sure what to make of it. He wasn't sure what to make of any of it.
He and Grace stood at the door and watched until the three of them had passed through the gate. Only then did Paul let out a slow, quiet breath.
---
"Sir, are we really letting them go?" Franklin whispered in code as they passed through the gate. They all spoke in code whenever they felt they were being watched.
"Alternative to what?" Philip asked, perking up an eyebrow.
"I don't know… apprehend them?" He said with spite. He clearly hadn't gotten over the incident with Paul.
"I don't think that's necessary" Nessa said, her frustration with her brother beginning to show.
"You could have died!" He replied curtly, rounding on her.
"And we would have died without them." Her voice didn't rise to meet his. It was flat and certain, the way truth tended to be. "We didn't plan for a god to show up. Yes, we had a contingency, but that would have meant nothing if we couldn't slay the demon." She held his gaze. "You know that."
Franklin grumbled and looked away. She was right and he knew it, and yet he couldn't accept it. There was something else beneath his frustration — something personal — but he wasn't ready to name it, and Nessa wasn't going to do it for him.
"Stop it." Philip's voice was quiet but it landed like a full stop. He glanced back once at the house, something unreadable moving briefly across his face before it settled again into its usual stillness. "We couldn't do anything right now even if we wanted to." He paused. "There's something weird about this place."
He said it the way someone states a fact they haven't yet figured out what to do with. Then he turned and walked into the distance, and the twins fell into step behind him.
They walked in silence for a while, each of them carrying their own version of the evening. Above them the sky was doing what it always did now, indifferent and vast, offering no answers to questions nobody had quite figured out how to ask yet.
Franklin was the last to stop looking back.