The Naming

My father forced me into a dress for my brother's Naming. I would not be named today. For the rest of my life, I would be Janice. He did not know what his new name would be. He had plumbed mythology, but he would not be given a vote when he stood at the dais. He knew this, but guessing was among the things he did in part to annoy me. The Interlocutor would name him what they decided, no matter his obnoxious speculation.

The moment his abilities manifested, speaking his given name aloud was forbidden. I tested this by saying words that shared syllables or rhymed, for which my father had gone from glaring to yelling to, finally, smacking me in the head for giving him sass. That was enough for me. I would try never to offend him again, not wanting to see what else might come if I continued being outwardly resentful. I fessed up what I was doing, but that honesty did not soften how my father felt I was trying to flout tradition.

Before he manifested, our father had treated us equally. That we were different genders meant nothing to him because we were his children. That seemed the only category that he understood. I was not sorry for it. Our father was strict, but I never believed he did not love us to the best of his ability, no matter the cost to him of our birth.

If he was ashamed that we were both normal, he never made any sign of it, even when one of his friends would boast about how her Adonis lifted her car to change her tire. What did it matter that we were born the same as our father was, just another ordinary person?

Months after our fourteenth birthday, my brother began levitating. Not far, only two and a half inches above the ground for three minutes at a time. He did not have conscious control over this. It would happen, surprising him, though he learned to hide this reaction as undignified.

I had watched him try everything he could to increase his height and extend the duration whenever it happened. When he did not know that I could see and hear him, he nearly gave himself an aneurysm forcing it. His gasp of delight when rose again, owing to nothing he had done, made me like him better for a little while each time.

Once, he jumped off the back porch to try to force his ability to appear on his command. It did not. He limped for days, except when he was floating in place, looking as pleased as a pig in poop, as our father would say.

He might never float higher, longer, or be able to control it. Countless blessed had no control over what they could do, rendering these abilities closer to a handicap for some. Erupting into a full-body flame without a way to stop it limited your movement in polite society. Reading everyone's mind without any form of forcing silence was enough to drive one into becoming hermits or to suicide. Still, these people were supposedly my betters, though I had never burned through my clothes or lost my mind listening to the songs stuck in a thousand heads.

My brother acted as though none of this bothered him. He was two and a half inches taller than I would ever be.

Already, despite my posturing, I had tried never to think of his name. I did not consider him my brother any longer. Not my twin. The gods had blessed him, and he would take one of their names. I would remain Janice. We would diverge until we were near strangers. Why wait until this happened? Why not pull away from him now to spare me him leaving me behind?

Everything would be given to him in time. Better schools, better jobs, better lovers. There were laws against favoritism, but forward-facing businesses with any sense wanted the blessed on their rosters. (Though not someone whose skin--and nothing else--was permanently invisible.)

I would make do with the scraps. It pissed me off to see people bow and scrape, as though lowering the temperature of a mug by seven degrees was anything special. They treated that freak with exactly as much reverence as those could fly or heal. Why were we so desperate to worship someone who had done nothing more than being born lucky?

He would no longer be my brother once he was named. On paper, he could belong to his clan. He would live with us, at least until Academy in a couple of years, but the state would no longer consider him ours.

He was self-satisfied, but partly from relief that he was finally not normal. He was something better. Better than the rest of his erstwhile family. Better than me, even though I pulled down higher grades and could beat him in a fair foot race.

My father insisted that I should be proud for him, but what had he done? All he had accomplished was not dying before he manifested. Even now, it was not as though he could do anything useful unless you needed a jar off a slightly higher shelf.

On the walk to the ceremony, held at the high school auditorium, my brother showed off his floating. He had yet to master moving forward in the air, so he resorted to clinging either to my father's or my shoulder. It did not increase our weight, but it felt like I carried a lead balloon behind me whenever he touched me.

He was chatty, which I almost preferred. It was all speculation about names, but it was better than solemn silence. If he took this more seriously--and he was not the type to take much seriously--it would only have made me hate him a little bit more than I already forced myself to. Hating him made me want to cry and vomit, but I could not think of a better way to speed up our coming disconnection.

Teenagers demonstrating powers to astounded kids and doting adults peppered the auditorium. I took a seat in the back. My father glared at me, but I had worn him down in my sullenness. He did not ask me to move to the front with them. I would have if he had asked, but I hid in the back, in the dark.

The back rows were nearly empty but for a few people around my age. I looked at a girl with frizzy black hair. We did not exchange a word at first, but in a conversation of rolled eyes and flared nostril, she confirmed what I suspected. Here we were, the siblings of the gifted who would be abandoned after the Naming.

I nodded my head toward a boy in another seat halfway across the auditorium. She shrugged as if to say, "I don't see why he wouldn't be as screwed as we are."

There was no other reason to come to a Naming and not sit as close to the stage as you could unless you were forced to be here. The auditorium was populated not only by those who had manifested and their families but also those in the tri-county area who saw this as a spectacle, a performance. For the first time, here gathered the teenagers who would one day be their bosses and leaders. I had been fourteen long enough to know that anyone admiring us was lying, either to themselves or us.

The kids who manifested made their way to the stage. You could tell by the way they walked who was full of themselves. A few slouched, knees almost shaking in fear, and these are the ones I liked. The other ones who strutted to the stage, and especially the couple boys who signaled for the crowd to cheer for them simply for having managed not to trip over themselves, made me burn in hatred and envy. One girl tossed a fireball the size of her fist in the air and caught it without looking. She was already effortlessly beautiful and would only grow more so for the next two decades. Now, she also had manifested a flashy power over which she had obvious control. I hated her most of all until I saw my brother floating behind some red-haired girl. He had a smile, but it was less sure now. Halfway up the steps, his levitation gave out, and he tried to recover from this stumble.

The adults acted as though they had not seen it or did not care beyond an initial gasp of concern. Maybe it was okay to them that his power gave out. They were kids. You could screw up, supposedly, if you were a kid, unless adults decided otherwise.

After he lined up at the back of the stage, my brother began floating once more. His confidence filled him again as though it had never left.

The Interlocutors stood before the kids. No matter how obnoxious they had looked on the way to the stage, all the blessed became quiet and polite.

Interlocutors were not intimidating on sight--they were adults in muted clothing with an air of authority, bearing the seven-pointed star--but they were by reputation. They were supposed to be exceptionally gifted enough that they didn't make a show of it. They were too dignified. At every Naming, it was a different roster of them. I thought this might be so that the attention was less on them than the children. I heard there was a Naming in Detroit where the Interlocutors put on a show of their powers to hush the audience. I don't believe that. They are too somber by far for something like that.

Then again, this was my first Naming. We asked when we were little, but our father made excuses for how we were too busy or would find it boring. Maybe he was right. If you weren't here to drool over awkward teenagers, there wasn't much of a point in taking the time.

To my left, I heard one of my fellow back-row dwellers boo. Half the auditorium turned and stared at him for the audacity of making a sound out of turn. He tried to hold onto his impudence a full ten seconds, earning my awe for each, before he slumped down into the seat.

My brother fell to the ground, stutter-stepping on his landing. One of the Interlocutors glanced at him, either in gentle concern or veiled warning against further disruptions. Twelve minutes of speechifying about the importance of Naming later, he ascended his two and a half inches.

When the kids were called forward to the dais, Interlocutors asked som to show their newfound abilities. Fire manipulation, telekinesis, melting and reforming solid objects, turning invisible, inflating body parts (provoking my back-row buddy to whisper a dirty remark my way). When the Interlocutor didn't ask a kid to do this, we understood that this was because the ability was not photogenic or might be a burden. The red-haired girl accepted a circlet with a small curtesy, and her name they announced her as Kotys of Aphaea. She flinched back from the Interlocutor's touch, from the name itself, and he nodded in understanding. Such an unassuming and, frankly, kind of plain girl should not be saddled with that name. What could her power be to deserve that?

They called my brother. His levitation failed him, so he walked the few steps to the podium. The Interlocutor held a bracelet in his hand, his nails pointed, but did not attach it to my brother's wrist. He did not name him.

"Step forward, young lady."

The next kid in line was not a girl or did not look like one at least. Gender-swapping powers, shapeshifting, were not improbable. He began to step forward anyway, but another Interlocutor held up her hand to halt him.

"Young lady," another voice said, seeming right beside my ear, "step to the stage."

I did not understand, so I did not move. The wind whipped around me, tangling my hair until it shoved me up the stairs.

"Why were you sitting in the audience?" asked the Interlocutor firmly. Every eye in the room was on me. I blushed so hard that it scorched my cheeks. I could not look anywhere by my own feet.

"My brother" -- I stopped myself from speaking his name from reflex, all but clamping my hand over my bitten tongue. Instead, I pointed to him, floating once more.

The Interlocutors whispered urgently over my head. I was too abashed even to try to listen.

"Why are you doing this?" another asked me, the tone sharp and worried.

I felt a dread of ignorance. They all seemed to know something dire that I did not. I was to blame for this, somehow. I had done something horrible.

"It happens to girls, you know," one said, defending me from charges.

"What happens?" I begged. "What did I do?"

Their eyes fell to me. I was already the center of attention and curiosity for the auditorium. All their focus made me wish I could melt.

Assistants rushed me off stage, a tall and broad-shouldered Interlocutor following.

"Do you wish today was your Naming?" she asked.

"No," I said. "I'm not special."

"Put your brother down."

I stood, uncomprehending. She tapped me once on the forehead. I turned in time to see my brother fall from his lofty perch, grunting as he hit the stage. Other assistants appeared and led him off the other side of the stage. When he was nearly lost to the darkness of the wings, he began to fight them, but the strength of his pride had drained.

Interlocutors pushed me off the stage to a poorly lighted room. No one stayed with me. There was a lock on the door, but I did not dare leave my chair to check it.

I was in trouble. I knew what this should mean, but I didn't believe it. If I were the special one, what did that mean for my brother? I could not face him, not after the literal fall from grace.

Did he know by now that it was my fault?

It was an hour before I saw anyone. The ceremony went on. None of the Interlocutors could be spared to deal with me. Where would I go anyway? Where did I belong?

The woman who led me to the room returned. She sat across from me, appraising me, making me smaller than I was. She did not say anything to me for some minutes, only scrutinizing my face, arms, and chest.

"Your sex life?" she asked.

It would not pay to disassemble or stay silent. "I'm fourteen," I said. "I have nothing like that."

"Nothing?"

She could make me say it. I knew her ability all at once. She could compel me, but she was giving me the option of telling the truth on my own. "Not even a kiss. Why?"

"Repression," she said more airily than the word deserved. "It could lead to your displacing. You don't want this to be in you, so you projected it onto your brother."

"I wouldn't do that."

"Oh, not consciously," she said in half-apology. "If you meant to do it, you never would. That's how it works."

"I manifested then?"

"Is that a question?"

"No," I replied, chastened. I didn't need her confirmation. "My brother--"

"Trevor," she corrected.

Hearing his name was a profanity of finality, answering my question before I could ask. He was not gifted. He would be devastated, especially given his recent boasting. Would the Interlocutors have any sympathy for him? Would they have done anything for him, his ego, when pushing him from the stage?

I couldn't envision it.

"You don't need to concern yourself with Trevor. He will get over this in time."

"Can you read my mind?"

"Of course not," she said, sounding almost offended that I had asked, "but you are not the first to experience this. The siblings pout, but it is not the end of their worlds," she said. "Now, there is the matter of your naming."

"I don't want a different name."

She laughed. I couldn't be sure if it were at my expense. "You came to the Naming. You will be named." She sat back in her chair, folding her arms over her chest. "Cassandra of the Le Fay."

"Cassandra is not my name," I said. "I am--" My name was not where it belonged; its obvious place on the tip of my tongue. I searched my memory without success, my stress spiking.

"You won't find it. We have given you your name, Cassandra. The other one was only something you were called until we knew better."

My wallet. I had my student ID.

...And both were missing from my pocket. When did that happen?

My name--my actual name--was written everywhere in my home, on art I made as a child, in bubble letters on my bedroom door. They could not do this to me for long.

But they knew this. I watched my father purge anything that betrayed Trevor's name--how strange even to think his name now. When I returned, every line of my name would have been expunged. Cassandra would be all I ever was.

I clenched my jaw. There was no sense in hiding my emotion from this Interlocutor. She knew. They had erased me, had stolen from me.

"You will be a special case," she said.

"Because of my powers."

She did not laugh now, but the quirk of her lips might as well have been a guffaw. "No, Cassandra" -- She took morbid pleasure in calling me this -- "because you hate this. You believe you despise me. It would be neither safe nor wise to return you to your home or family. Soon, we hope, but we need to protect you from yourself."

The gall. "What do you mean?"

"The Academy, for a while. We won't press you. You are too young by a few years, but this is not in deference to any advanced aptitude on your part. You are close to useless when it comes to any abilities at present."

Impossible. They couldn't. Trevor would despise me until his last breath. Not only did I show myself to be the special one, not only did I lead to his mortification, not only did my father enlist him in purging the house of any trace of my name (and he surely did). Now, I would go straight from Naming to the Academy.

"I refuse. You cannot make me go against my will. I do not consent."

"Your consent does not matter much here. Your father agrees with our perspective and has already signed the necessary forms. That's why you sat here an hour, though he was eager for everything we suggested." She shrugged. "Parents almost always are."

The air left my lungs, and I wished I would never inhale again. I tried to imagine how my abilities worked, what they even were. I could barely accept that this was something inside me.

"When will you take me?"

They had defeated me, at least for now. My family had abandoned me, condemned me.

"With the hour. We are squaring away a room and a way to get you there."

"The Academy is half an hour away. Can't my father drive me?"

Was that sympathy on her face? "Your father said you would try to escape if we let you do this. You will go to an Academy across the country until such a time as you convince us that it is appropriate to transfer you." She patted my hand. "Most students prefer a bit of distance from their parents."

"Can I see them before I go? My family?"

She shook her head. "We all agree that it would not be wise." Already, I had come to hate the sound of that word, "wise."

"I don't agree."

"Well," she said, "you aren't given a vote. Your father has gone home to pack a bag. Once we have examined it for contraband, it will be made available to you to provide you some comfort." She stood, laying a hand on my shoulder, one I failed to shrug off. "It will be far better than you are imagining. This may be the beginning of your actual life." She stood to go. "Someday, I hope soon, you will come to love me for presenting you this opportunity."

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