Chapter Six

                “You know... maybe we should have a seat,” the green eyed boy had said moments prior. “We've got a whole lot to cover.”

                 With a friendly hand on the back Vee guided Nicolle to two couches by the window; they took one couch for themselves and the green eyed boy took the other one, sitting across from them. Several of the remaining members hovered around nearby, watching, though not all: the taller of the two red eyed boys went to the door and stood in front of it, like a bouncer, arms clasped behind him. And Elijah Beaumont set up camp across the room, lifting a window and letting a cool breeze in. Nicolle couldn't read him, his hair blowing in the wind, that movie star stare into the horizon.

            The green eyed boy cleared his throat and looked right at Nicolle. He didn’t come across to her as a marshmallow; complimented by his aged leather jacket, he had the look of a hardened crusader.

            “Looking a little shell-shocked,” he said, half-smiling. “Been there, done that.”

            “We all have,” Vee grinned, placing a comforting hand on Nicolle’s own.

            “I’m Dom,” the green eyed boy said. “Dominic, really, but you’re not my mother, so it’s Dom. I’m the co-founder of the Chess Club. Nice to meet ya.”

            Nicolle nodded back at him shyly.

            “By now you probably got things figured out, don’t you?” He said, and looked to Vee. "Does she?"

            Vee nodded and spoke confidently. “She knows we are not really a chess club… that we’ve been hiding everything from everyone. Other than that, she’s confused about the details. About our eyes.” After a moment Vee looked at Nicolle, whose expression was comically but sincerely stunned, and then added: “Now she’s wondering how I could possibly know what she’s thinking.”

            “You’re right,” Dominic said to Nicolle. “We’re not a chess club. Most of us don’t really know how to play… we know the basics, just in case, but we don’t come to this room for that reason. We meet here because

            He’s about to tell me something I will remember for the rest of my life, and he knows it,Nicolle thought, I can see it in his eyes.

            we’re Artists.”

            “A-Artists?” Nicolle stammered.

            “Mmhm. If you’re an Artist it means you can use one of the seven Artistries. You are an Artist, an Artist of the Black. I am an Artist,” he pointed to his face, “an Artist of the Green. Vee’s a Blue, Elyse,” he gestured to the amber eyed black girl behind him, “is an Artist of the Yellow… you get the gist. Everyone in this room is an Artist, each with an Artistry that allows us a different skill-set.”

            “Different abilities,” Vee affirmed.

            Nicolle’s eyes wandered to the window nearest them, trying to comprehend what she was hearing. Specks of dust floated in the morning light

            and made Nicolle think of being underwater. But she wasn’t underwater; she and her brother were on his bed, flopped out on their bellies, legs kicking behind them, their imaginations afire with happiness. For some children being left home alone was a fearful thing; for the Darling duo, it was reason to celebrate.

            A notebook was open between them, and Nicolle was drawing.

            “What kind of superpowers are you gonna have?” Nicolle asked her brother.

            “Wolf-like power,” Adam said. “I’m Wolf Boy. Like… wolfkinesis.”

            “Wolf…kaneesis…” Nicolle sounded out, not knowing the word, drawing little fangs and dog ears on the paper version of her brother.

            “Like… I can run super fast. And bite super hard.”

            “Okay.”

            “And I can sniff stuff out… you know? And I have good eyes. And I can howl.”

            “I,” Nicolle said with importance, “am Salem. Like a princess and also a fighter, and… she can breathe underwater, and fly, and has super muscles, and can’t get hurt. And… super speed!” To illustrate this, Nicolle drew lines behind her paper Salem, showing her running fast.

            “How did we get our powers, you think?” Adam said.

            “From fairies,” Nicolle said. Adam shook his head.

            “Nah… how about, we got them from our real parents… not Ghost Man and Fire Woman, but the ones that lost us in the forest when we were little.”

            “Huh?”

            “In the story, say we have other parents, and they are looking for us, to take us away from here, you know? They had powers and so we do too.”

            “Okay,” Nicolle said. “Were they nice?”

            “Yeah,” he said. “Draw them too.”

            So Nicolle did. Four drawings on the page, two short figures, one with a wolf tail, the other with a dress, and two tall figures, a woman and a man, smiling and holding hands. After they were drawn no one spoke for a few moments.

            “Eddy Concord told me he has a superpower,” Nicolle said, scratching her head of unkempt hair.

            “If he has a superpower I’m George Washington,” Adam said.

            “He said he could mash a button in his jacket and turn into a girl, if he wanted.”

            “That’s dumb,” Adam said.

            “Are superpowers real?” Nicolle asked him, and he smiled.

            “Superpowers,” Nicolle breathed, her eyes on the floating sunlit dust. The six year old within her felt a blossoming near her heart, an explosion of awe, the child-like wonder of discovery. Yes, Adam had answered her that day. But he was just being hopeful, like she was; even he would never have suspected that he was right.

            “Not superpowers... no, not quite,” Dom said. “That makes us sound like something from a movie. We’re Artists. Not superpowers… Artistries.”

            “But… how?” Nicolle asked, overwhelmed. This is actually real.

            “We don’t know,” Vee said, shrugging. “Eli has theories…”

            “It doesn’t make sense for the human body to change like this overnight,” Dominic said, “but it happened to each and every one of us. My story probably isn’t a whole lot different from yours. A few years ago I woke up noticing a change… I’d fallen asleep in my room but I woke up in my father’s study, and my eyes were like this.”

            Elijah, off by himself, shifted uncomfortably. Dominic continued.

            “Sleep walking, right? Wrong, my friend... my dad’s study stayed locked, three-hundred and sixty-five days of the year. Vee did the same… she woke up at the sound of her mother’s voice. But her mother wasn’t talking to her… she wasn’t even on the same floor, if I remember it right.”

            I woke up and heard Adam’s voice, Nicolle thought. And he wasn’t even living.

            “What… what can all of you do?” Nicolle asked. Vee had told her on the computer that she couldn’t see the dead, so Artistries were clearly different with each eye color. She felt a bit silly asking this question -- what kind of superpowers are you gonna have? -- but no one reacted as if she had asked something childish.

            “Vee has the various Artistries written down in her secretary notebook,” Dominic said. He nodded to Vee, saying get it out. She rummaged through her bag for a moment before pulling out a notebook with the words TOP SECRET written in glitter on the front. She flipped it open and shoved it over to Nicolle.

            “See?”

           

The Seven Shades of Artistry

             

--- Blue: The nature of Blue is Fellowship.

They are mostly telepathic, able to communicate with other living things and benefit from relationships.

 

--- White: The nature of White is Life.

Apparently do not age. Can heal others by touch. Apparently more physically fit.

 

--- Green: The nature of Green is Time.

Can alter time flow somewhat. It’s possible to teleport small distances.

 

--- Black: The nature of Black is Death.

Supposedly can see the dead, foresee deaths, and kill on touch. Unconfirmed.

 

--- Red: The nature of Red is Power.

Grow tired more slowly than most. Can charge either defense (take hits easier) or charge offense (give hits harder).

 

--- Yellow: The nature of Yellow is Emotion.

Can sense emotions of others. Detect lies sometimes. Knows where others are, like a radar. Effect emotions of others a little.

 

--- Purple: The nature of Purple is Knowledge.

Can touch things and absorb knowledge, i.e. books. Stronger memory and ability to learn.

 

            Nicolle lifted her head and looked around her.

If what she just read was true, the boy sitting across from her could teleport. The girl Elyse could, according to the book, detect lies. If the words on the page were really real, Vee could actually hear people’s thoughts. And Elijah Beaumont was what... immortal?

            Nicolle was tempted to think it was all a joke of some kind, that the Chess Club wasn’t a club for “Artists” but was some kind of pranking society. But it was right there: supposedly can see the dead, foresee deaths, and kill on touch. Unconfirmed. It was now confirmed. If Nicolle knew that her part of it was real, she was inclined to think the others were real, too.

            Everyone stared back at her with of wonder (save for the second blue eyed girl, who was staring into her phone, and Elijah), curious as to what was going through her mind. Everyone but Vee, who, it seemed, knew what was going through her mind.

            “It’s all true,” she said. “No pranks here.”

            Nicolle considered this, holding her breath, thinking it all over, the ramifications, what it could all mean. Then, biting her lip, she turned to Vee.

            “Can you show me?”

 

            Somewhere below class went on as it always had every other Friday of the school year; students attempting to cling to sleep, teachers lecturing without an audience, all eyes on the hatefully slow hour hand of the clock. Doodles born of boredom filled textbooks, unfinished homework was quickly and errantly improvised, hidden snacks were munched on; the everyday monotony of Maple Hill High School went undisturbed, few noticing the ten empty seats among them.

            In Room 44, the hideout of the Chess Club, Nicolle witnessed a human being vanishing from one spot and reappearing in another spot for the first time.

            The Green Artistry, Dominic had said, disappearing from his seat on the couch to the top of a bookshelf. Users of space and time. Darius, also an Artist of the Green, slung a book across the room, flying an easy thirty feet, and was suddenly standing in front of it to catch it as well.

            “You're doing pretty stinkin' awesome,” Vee said, bumping Nicolle with her elbow, “Maria, the Purple Eyed girl over there, passed out the first time.”

            The scene was chaotic and phenomenal, Artistries being used all around the place; the skinny emo boy, one Red eye covered by a lock of black hair, lifted a waist-high bookshelf, full of books, as if it were made of paper; the second jock in the room, the short haired Artist of the Red that had been guarding the door, lifted the couch Vee and Nicolle were sitting on over his head with a laugh.

            “Jackson!” Vee yelled. “Stop!”

            He did, laughing still, and Nicolle thought Artist of the Red… the nature of power…

            Maria did not have physical prowess to demonstrate. The Purple Artistry, is… well… it’s, um… it’s not as obvious, I guess. Her voice gave her away as incredibly shy; her Artistry gave her away as incredibly gifted.

            Pulling a random book from a bookshelf (“Not that one, I haven’t read that one in a while,” Maria had said) Vee flipped to a page in the middle and asked what the character Victor had said to the character Emily about youth. Maria shrugged, as if about to take a guess, and said:

             “‘Emily, we won’t be young forever,’ he said. ‘Even as we sit in this very garden, the place where our lives intersected, old age is searching for me like Orion for its hunted. We’re still young, true, but we are getting older; our hearts are warm, oh yes, but they are getting colder. So forsake your rationality, I beg you, and flee old age with me, hand in hand.’”

            “Perfecto,” Vee said, “Word for wor--”

            “Page three-eighty-four, paragraph two,” Maria finished and then shrugged again, but this time with a sweet smile. “I think.”

            Nicolle was willing to bet that Maria’s ACT score had been nearly perfect; did she ever have to miss questions on purpose to keep from drawing too much attention to the Club? Nicolle couldn’t help but think: Maria did not seem to her, at least on first impressions, to be a particularly intellectual girl. Before her eyes turned Purple she had likely been an average student, albeit somewhere close to Nicolle on the food chain in terms of popularity. How great a boon those Purple eyes must have been on the morning she awoke with them. She did not come to school crying from fear of the dead; she had come to school and found a future of scholarship.

            The dark skinned girl with the Yellow eyes -- Elyse -- carried herself with the grace of a dignitary and spoke with the eloquence of a politician. My Artistry is subtle as well, but very useful. Where Vee can read the minds of others, I can read their emotions, tasting their exact mood. I can sense when one is lying, I know the exact location of everyone within about two football fields, and can even lock one in an emotional state for a brief time. And, if I see eye to eye with someone…

            Her bright eyes met Nicolle’s own and Nicolle felt it, like a light jacket placed over her shoulders in the winter; a feeble yet clear sense of calm came over her, taking a bit of the edge off her nerves.

            …  I can control their emotions a little. Flashing a practiced yet genuine smile, she returned to her seat.

            Nicolle believed she understood the Blue Artistry well enough -- it was more or less reading minds -- but:

            “Not true, Darling, not true,” Vee said, though Nicolle hadn’t uttered a word; what kind of paranoid existence was surely going to come from being close to Vivian van Valen? “It’s not just telepathy, it’s all about relationships. Fellowship and stuff. Like… if I want to, I can see the kind of relationship one person has with another. How one person feels about another, kind of.”

            “Really?” Nicolle asked, and thought CRAP. With all of her might she attempted to suddenly feel detached from the boy by the window; no one knew that her crush existed, they could not know, she would just die.

            “I can,” she said. “But you can turn it off and on, you know, it’s not always up and going.”

            Nicolle nodded, and very nearly responded with “good.”

            “Something to keep up with,” she grinned, pointing across the room, “not every Artist of the same color can do the same thing. Your Artistry seems to depend on who you are, it changes from person to person. Like the relationship seeing thing, Brook over there, the girl on the phone… she can’t do it at all. So… you see? It can differ between Artists.”

            And the telepathy…?

            “Can’t turn that off,” she said, shaking her head and biting her bottom lip. “But! But there are limits. I can only hear what you are currently thinking, and if you’re mind is addled, you know, or you are thinking really complex things, it can be hard to follow entirely. Like that thought you just had… something about… Heaven, am I right?” She laughed. “And… wind?”

            Close; Elijah looked almost heavenly, his impressive form sitting in the windy opening, and Nicolle wondered if he would do the same as everyone else. If she would see him demonstrate his… talents.

            Vee looked to the window. “Eli!”

            He barely turned his head. “Hm?”

            “Come join the party, we’re showing Nicolle all the cool stuff we can do,” she said.            

     He shook his head and spoke just loudly enough to hear. “No.”

            “We gotcha, you’re brooding, you’re cool,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Now come on over.”

            This time he didn’t answer at all, and for the second time that day Nicolle wished she had the Blue eyes instead; why was he just sitting in that window, waiting out the remaining time? Why wouldn’t he participate? Nicolle was paranoid that it was herself that repelled him, but surely not, right…? What would he have against her? Was he still angry about the smashing-into-Presley thing…?

            Vee waved her hand dismissively in Eli’s direction. “Doesn’t play well with others… come on, let’s leave him be.” She winked at Nicolle, took her by the hand, and began dragging her back toward the rest of the Club. But Nicolle still took a last look back, just out of curiosity, allowing herself a free peek since he was facing away from her.

            He was staring, watching them go. Nicolle actually jumped in surprise, turned back around, and kept her head down, wondering if Vee could hear Elijah Beaumont’s name throbbing in her head.

 

            Nicolle was in a kind of reverie. All around her she saw the impossible, "Artistries" being used; it came to Nicolle like images in a dream. She had once read an article on the internet about overexerting the mind, or “taking in too much at once”. She was fairly sure that had just happened to her. She felt dizzy.

            Something else she had once read kept returning to her as well: The Peacetime and Wartime of Beatrice Daws. It was a fiction series Nicolle had read since her early teenage years, a kind of urban fantasy-slash-romance book that would have been discussed with her friends if she’d had any. Beatrice Daws was raised by her aunt and uncle for the first thirteen years of her life -- her ordinary, teenage girl life -- until one day they sat down with her and explained the truth: her parents were supernatural beings who had passed on their otherworldly powers to her. For the first several days after that Bee Daws was overwhelmed by the truth.

            Nicolle was living that, like a fiction book, and it was changing her outlook on everything. Her parents weren’t supernatural (not unless her mother was uncommonly good at sitting on the couch) but her fellow students were. Changing realities in an hour’s time was a mind trip, an experience both uncomfortable and exhilarating.

            Bee Daws eventually found her balance again, accepting things, and once she did she was able to begin living in her new world. Nicolle hadn’t gotten her balance back, not yet… but once she did, Nicolle knew, things would be so different.

            She could hardly wait.

 

            “The Chess Club is a clandestine society with powerful ideals and powerful secrets. Through us the school will be changed for the better. Through us this entire world will be changed for the better.”

            The shades were back on; the class period was almost over. The feeling was akin to getting on a train in the snow and getting off in the sunshine, a whole new world. Nicolle held her sunglasses in her hand; she was about to walk out of Room 44 and into her own new world. 

            Orientation was nearly complete. She wasn’t sure what was left; she was almost expecting to say a pledge of some sort. Dominic was speaking now, and everyone listened; though he had, for a time, acted like everyone else, with the sunglasses back on he had reverted to leader once more, a role Nicolle felt suited him.

            “We do not allow boring lives in our Club, Nicolle. In becoming one of us, your life is going to be fundamentally changed from the very bottom to the very top. Bad grades are going to become awesome grades. Bullies?" He smirked. "They're no match for us. You have life goals? Consider them reached."

            “The only condition, really,” Vee said, “is that you keep our secrets. Easy stuff, right?”

            “We have rules, but that’s really the only big one,” Dominic said. “We can’t have Artists running around using abilities out in the open, freaking out first graders and all.”

            “Big brother’s watching, in other words,” Darius said with a humorless smile. “Taking away all the fun.” There was a familiar tone to his words; he’d clearly expressed that sentiment before.

            “There’s no fun to be had when the police show up wondering how you did what you did, and then more powerful people show up and cart you off someplace,” Dominic said. Then, his words no longer aimed at Darius but Nicolle: “We want our Artists to be able to live as they really are, but we have rules that keep them from stretching too far. Seem fair?”

            It did, but that peace lily had not fallen to pieces because she had skillfully used her Artistry to kill it; she wasn’t sure what she had done to pull that off. It would be a flat out disaster to break the Chess Club’s only “big rule” by accident as soon as she joined.

            “No need to fret, Darlin’,” Vee said, waving concerns away with the flap of her hand. “We don’t join you up with us and then, you know... throw you to the wolves or anything. We train you.”

            “Really?”

            Vee nodded, and then shrugged. “It’ll be a little tougher than usual, though, since you’re the only Black Artistry in the Club.”

            “You’re uncharted territory,” Jackson said, smiling from the side, arms crossed.

            “Maria still hasn’t fully taken hold of her Artistry yet, since she’s new and is one-of-a-kind, too,” Dominic said. “But it’s not a problem. We’ll help you along. After all, we have mind-readers...” he nodded to Vee and Brooklyn, “... and a comforter, to keep your nerves in check while you train...” he nodded to Elyse, “... and a healer, in case you slip up and, you know...”

            “Blow somebody’s fuse,” Darius said, and Jackson laughed.

            Elyse likely felt Nicolle’s anxiety spike; she gave them both the evil eye. “Not helping, guys.”

            “For the next two weeks you’re gonna be paired with one of us,” Dominic said. “That way we can be sure nothing bad happens. And we can also show you the ropes about the Club and everything. They’ll have the same classes as you, probably be around you outside of school...”

             “Okay,” Nicolle said. Timmy was going to flip out. Flip. Out.

            Her eyes scanned the Club, wondering who she was going to be attached at the hip to. Would it be too optimistic to hope for Elijah? That would be too fairy-tale, wouldn’t it? Things like that never happened. But neither did things such as being invited to join the Chess Club.

            “Bell’s about to go off,” Dominic said, checking the time on his phone. “Grab your book, Vee... time to finish up.”

            Finish up. In other words, make Nicolle official. When she walked back down those steps to her next class, it would be as a member of the Chess Club. People would stare, but not from revulsion or amusement. They would stare from envy, or perhaps intimidation, or maybe even awe. She would be surrounded by students who not only hold powerful social statuses but also possess abilities that would make scientists faint.

           Everyone began to encircle her, preparing whatever ritual was about to happen. Dominic suddenly vanished reappearing beside Elijah at the window. Nicolle could not hear what they were saying but Elyse was watching them with concern. Regardless, after a moment Dominic disappeared and reappeared back in his place in the circle. Elijah remained at the window.

            Vee cleared her throat and began to read from her glittery notebook. “One comes before the body of the Chess Club seeking acceptance... Nicolle Sabrana Darling. She needs companionship.”

            “She needs patience,” Dominic answered.

            “And knowledge,” Maria said.

            “And strength,” Peter answered quietly.

            “And courage,” Elyse said.

            From the window, face still looking away, Elijah said, “she needs healing.”

            “Are we correct?” Vee asked.

            Nicolle was shaking again. “Y-yes.”

            “These things we give you,” Vee said. “Place your sunglasses over your eyes.”

            Nicolle fumbled them onto her face.

            “Repeat after me,” Vee said. “I, Nicolle Sabrana Darling.”

            “I, Nicolle S-Sabrana D-Darling.”

            “Artist of the Black.”

            This was actually happening. “Artist of the Black.”

            “Dedicate my life.”

            “D-dedicate my life.”

            “To the secret society...”

            “To the secret society.”

            “... known as the Chess Club.”

            “Known as the Chess Club.”

            Vee smiled. “Sign here, Darlin’.”

            Nicolle took from her the glittery notebook and a glittery pen; the page before her was full of signatures.

 

            Terms of Agreement

 

            I, _____, vow on my life to protect the secrets of the Chess Club, to obey its decrees, honor its methods, and fulfill its goals. I vow on my life to use my Artistry responsibly and within Club restrictions. I recognize that I will be subject to OVERWHELMING PUNISHMENT should I choose to act out of line.

            By everything I hold dear and treasure, I commit myself to a lifelong membership of the Chess Club.

 

            Dominic Beaumont (Artist of the Green - Grand Master of the Chess Club and Co-Founder)

            Eli (Artist of the White - Co-Founder)

            Vee (Artist of the Blue - High Secretary of the Chess Club)

            Elyse Robinson (Artist of the Yellow)

            Jackson McKay (Artist of the Red)

            Darius Geldart (Artist of the Green)

            Peter Bones (Artist of the Red)

            Brooklyn McKenna (Artist of the Blue)

            Maria Friendly (Artist of the Purple)

 

            An open space was available at the bottom of the page. Nicolle looked at it with a growing feeling of something in her heart, something big. Never before had Nicolle really given much thought to her future, but now she did. She wondered what life had in store for her.

            She wrote her name, her trembling hand making the opening N a wild zigzag.

           

            Nicolle Darling

 

            She thought for a moment before continuing.

 

            Nicolle Darling/Salem (Artist of the Black)

 

            That was it; Nicolle laid the pen down and felt an adrenaline explosion through her veins. The others began to applaud. Nicolle Darling - the girl who hid in the bathroom, pitied by some, ignored by most, unpopular, unattractive, alone - was the newest member of the Chess Club. 

Reviews

[journeyous]

Cool :) I read half the chapter straight without knowing anything about any of it. Not a small feat considering the impatience of my attention span. Love the imaginative, true to Nature premise, flows well, very readable and enjoyable -- good job on the narration of concepts, too. I like it! Keep it up :)

[ScottWinchester]

lol Heh... well thank you! You've not read the prior five chapters...? That's kinda funny.
read morelol Heh... well thank you! You've not read the prior five chapters...? That's kinda funny.

In any case, thank you dearly for the kindness :)