Part 2- Chapter 9

Harper chose to walk to her destination, a mistake she regretted as the snow began to pile on her hat. She had an earbud in to let her GPS speak to her without pulling her phone from her pocket. She found it after an hour of walking. The Sanders house.

Edwin’s family home was small, only a single story with black paneling and a wire fence keeping the snow covered lawn in check. Two cars sat in the driveway looking as if they had recently been used, the snow light on their surfaces.

Harper hesitated as she knocked on the wooden door, no doorbell was visible to Harper. It was silent for a moment before the sound of walking echoed from behind the door. It opened with a creak, revealing a homely woman with amber hair and piercing eyes.

“Hello? May I help you?” The woman asked. She wore jeans and a plain tee shirt, it looked as if she was cleaning recently.

“Hi, are you Mary Sanders?” Harper asked, the heat escaped from the house and reminded Harper of how cold she was.

“Yes, who might you be?” The woman, Mary asked.

“My name is Harper Powell. I am dating your son Edwin.” Harper said, sneaking a peek into the house. The living room had a lazy boy chair as well as a three person couch that faced a TV along a wall. A hallway curved beyond where Harper could see, a man emerging from around the corner.

“Oh please come in.” Mary said, stepping aside for Harper to come in.

The man stood in the door, his hair reflected Edwin’s in color. He had a glare in his eyes, and a grizzled chin. He was clearly a blue collar worker, though Harper had no idea of his profession.

“Who is this?” Edwin’s Father, Clint, asked.

“This is Edwin’s girlfriend.” Mary said, closing the door behind Harper as she kicked off her shoes on the door mat.

Clint gave Harper a scoffing look. “What, he sent you to ask us something?”

“Honey.” Mary said.

“No, what's that boy want?” Clint said, his patiences short.

Harper hesitated. “He didn't tell me anything to ask you, I came on my own.”

Clint scoffed, then walked past the living room into the nearby kitchen. “Sure, just let him know he won't get a dime out of me if he can't ask himself.”

“Don't mind him, please tell me what's going on with Ediwn.” Mary said, leading Harper to the kitchen area that doubled as a dining room.

Harper had just pulled off her boots and walked across the carpeted floor that showed signs of cigarette burns. She took a seat and noticed Clint pulling out a bottle of beer and popping it open, taking a long deep drink.

“Um, so I was wondering why you two havent come to see Edwin?” Harper asked. “He said he hasn't seen you two since he started college.”

“Oh well that is because.”

“The boy doesn't want to see us.” Clint said abruptly, interrupting his wife. He crossed the kitchen and sat in his lazy boy, turning on the TV to a local news station.

“Sweetie, don't act like that.” Mary said. “It's a little complicated.”

Harper watched the father, she had an inkling about this man from the way Edwin hesitated at a touch. But it was the mother who worried her more, because she caused the larger damage to Edwin.

“What's that boy doing?” Clint asked, not bothering to look at Harper. “Failing school or something? If he wants to come back he better get a job.”

“You're making a lot of assumptions.” Harper said, feeling very annoyed with this family already. “Like I said, Edwin didn't tell me to come here. I came on my own.”

“Yeah because he is too cowardly to ask us outright for anything.” Clint said, staring at the screen. “What, he took up drugs at that college of his? You pregnant? Want our help covering the abortion costs or something?”

Harper felt her grip tightening on her knee. She took a deep breath, not realizing how hopeless of a task she had taken up.

“I wanted you two to talk to Edwin.” Harper said. “He is going through a rough time and needs as much support as we can give him.”

It was at that moment that Harper spotted the true side of Mary. Her mask broke for a fraction of a second, showing the disgust that she hid to the public. This woman was beyond scum, Edwin never had to tell Harper about it to know it was true. She had seen the effects that this woman's manipulation had on her son clear enough. Harper felt her teeth grinding as Mary corrected her face.

“What is it that is happening?” Mary asked kindly, though now Harper could see the cracks in her mask.

“He was recently recruited into the Peacekeepers and forced to drop out of school.” Harper said.

“Hah.” Clint laughed. “Told him that school was just a pipe dream, he shouldn't have even bothered.”

“Why do you dislike him so much?” Harper said, holding back her annoyance.

Clint gave Harper a look. “He is a good for nothing who wants the world, kid is stupid, thinking he can change the world and shit. Looking down on others like they are below him. He is a waste of space.”

“Cause he is a Mageye?” Harper asked, eyes locked on Clint. She had seen these types before, people who found Mageye’s detestable. She could see the look in Clint’s eyes as she said the words and realized how true she was. “You can't help how he is. Neither can he, he is proud of what he is, why cant you be proud of him?”

“Proud of him?” Clint yelled out. “What is there to be proud of huh? He gets a special power and gets forced to be a lesser police officer? Oh wow how amazing, he didnt work for shit, it was handed to him.”
Harper stood up and stared down at the man. “He was handed it? He didnt work for it? Have you not been watching the news? He saved people! He was willing to throw away his life to protect people and you have the audacity to say he didnt work for it? Being a Peacekeeper is tearing him apart, I came here to ask you to be a parent and all you can do is talk down on him? Your own son? You are scum.” Harper felt her chest heaving in frustration. “I change my mind, do me a favor and don't talk to Edwin, he doesn't need some piece of shit bringing him down any more.”

Harper marched over and began to put her boots on. She still had a chill to her body, but didnt care. She could walk to her home from here, probably only a twenty minute walk.

“Can you tell him something?” Mary said. Harper could feel Mary forcing herself to say anything to cover her own ass. “Tell him I will always love him and he can come to me for anything.”

Harper stood up, both boots on. “If you actually meant that you wouldn't have to tell him.” With that, she left back into the snow.

Harper had never felt so frustrated about something like this. Edwin rarely spoke about his parents but now she understood why, they were not good people. She had loving parents who had accepted her when they discovered her powers, even if she didn't accept her own abilities. She had a happy life and couldn't see how a parent could treat their own child so terribly. She was a fool, a close minded fool.

“Gah!” She screamed. She stood in an alleyway and hit the brick wall of the building. The cold did not affect her as her body was hot with anger.

She felt it slip for just a moment, and she conjured a knife. It was said that anger could trigger powers to activate if a person is not mentally stable, and Harper just proved it. She felt the knife form in her hand, but let it drop to the ground. It took a moment for her to look at it. The knife was far larger than any other knife she had made before, and the tip of the blade pressed into the concrete ground below her, held up. It was sharp. Harper stared blankly at her creation for a moment, unsure what to think.

She let the knife vanish and it melted into mist. Harper then held her hand out and summoned another. Normally it required a lot of concentration to even make a butter knife, yet this one appeared easily, and it was sharp and long. She then held out her other hand, and summoned another. Harper had never managed to hold two knives at the same time for long, normally they exhausted her. Yet here she was, holding two with no difficulty.

The knives fell to the ground and vanished to mist at Harper's feet. Her eyes wide with disbelief. What had she done? How had she done it? Two years she tried to improve it, why now? Studies still weren't clear on why some people developed powers faster than others. Some people just had a talent for magic, others just didn't. Harper always assumed she didn't have the stuff to be good at magic, yet now suddenly it felt easy to use her own ability, why? She stood in the snow for a long moment, wondering why.