Henry (Sneak Peek for Book 2 of Dynasty of the Enhanced)

This little flashback serves as a prelude to Book 2 in Dynasty of the Enhanced, which I am slowly working on as we speak.

2006.

Henry Stephens’ mother Adelaide and her younger brother Terry got along very well, something that the latter often described as nothing short of a miracle, frequently accompanied with a sad look in her eye. At the time Henry was far too young to even attempt to navigate the minefield of family politics, so, like many other young children, he dutifully ignored it until he grew older, when he learned more about the events that transpired in his mother’s childhood to cause such distance between her and her family.

For some time in the early 2000s Terry also lived in the West Vancouver area, eventually moving out of the province in 2008 when work took his life in another direction. During that time it wasn’t unheard of for Terry and Adelaide to visit each other on a Saturday afternoon simply to hang out, watch movies or whatever else they had in mind. Whatever it was, Terry always found time to hang out with his favourite – and only – nephew. The two of them got along like a house on fire, and Adelaide often joked that she thought Terry was seconds away from adopting Henry for himself.

One staple of Terry’s visits to Henry’s home was him bringing over old photo albums every so often to tell his young nephew stories of when he was younger and, as Henry’s mother was fond of saying, more full of life. Terry’s stories were usually entertaining, and frequently embellished with apocryphal details that were designed to make Terry look more macho than he really was in the situation. Henry had grown accustomed to Terry telling the same story more than once, but he found they didn’t become any less entertaining – like a song he’d heard a thousand times, he loved every moment of them.

It was one such Saturday afternoon when Terry came over with a photo album Henry hadn’t seen before, one that looked a little dustier than the others. “I can’t believe I lost this one, Addie,” he’d said when he’d come in the door, “I’ve been looking for it for years!”

From there he and Henry had settled down on the couch and Terry had opened the album, leafing through it and telling stories that Henry hadn’t heard yet. The most memorable one from that afternoon was one where Terry told Henry with no short order of exaggeration about the time he had gone skydiving, when he and Adelaide had ganged up on Henry’s father Will to make him go skydiving with them. Had Will been there he might have been able to peer-review Terry’s version of events, but he wasn’t, so as far as Terry was concerned he was allowed to tell the story in any manner he wanted to.

It was as Terry was finishing this story that Henry’s eyes fell on another picture in the album, one of four people. Immediately Henry was able to identify Terry and his mum and dad, but the other person…

She looked to be about the same age as Terry was in the picture. She was beautiful in an almost cosmic sense, in much the same way that he found the pictures of planets and nebulae that his friend Jack had hung all over his room beautiful – not that he’d ever tell Jack that, of course. Despite the fact that the photo itself was kind of fuzzy – the person who’d taken the photo was clearly not a pro – he could still see that her smile was warm and genuine, and that her eyes sparkled like the stars in the night sky.

For a moment Henry was truly captivated, then he tugged on his uncle’s shirt, pointing at the photo. “Who’s she?” he asked.

Terry looked down at the photo, and Henry watched as a look crossed his face that he’d never seen on anybody else. He was smiling, but his eyes communicated a deep sadness, more than Henry had ever seen in a person at all.

“Wow,” Terry breathed after a moment of silence, “I forgot we had any photos of her.”

Henry had no idea what to do with this bag of emotions that had been opened, so he fell back on his usual reaction to these things, that being humour.

“Was she your giirrrrrrrlfriend?” he asked, putting on the same voice he used to taunt Jack on the playground on the rare occasion that he ever said more than one syllable to a girl in their class.

Terry chuckled at his nephew’s response, but the sadness didn’t leave his eyes. “Yes, I suppose she was.”

“Ooooooh. What was her name?”

“Stardust. Her name was Stardust.”

Henry grimaced at this. “Whaaaat? Was she a hippie or something?”

“No, not quite. She was a bit strange, though. But she was wonderful. Out of this world, in fact.” Terry smiled to himself at this comment, but if there was a joke there, Henry didn’t get it at all.

“So,” he said, deciding to continue his inquiry into Terry’s girlfriend, “Did you hold hands?”

Terry nodded. “We did.”

“Ooh.” If his uncle had held hands with this girl, it must have been serious. “Did you kiss?”

“Lots of times.”

Henry’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “Did you have sex?”

Terry’s eyebrows shot up. “I think someone’s been watching too much TV!”

Henry shook his head. “No. Hamish at school says that’s what grown ups who like each other do.”

“Well, I wouldn’t be telling your mother what Hamish from school’s been saying,” Terry chuckled.

“But if she was your girlfriend,” Henry said, dramatically changing the topic back to what it was, “Why didn’t you marry her? Did she dump you?”

“No, umm…” Any hint of a smile was gone from Terry’s face. “She died.”

Henry blinked. This was not something he thought he’d be talking about on a Saturday afternoon. “Oh.”

Terry nodded. “Yeah. Killed in the Blow Out.”

“Huh?”

“Big energy explosion that happened before you were born. Made all the electricity in the city switch off.”

Henry frowned. “How does that kill someone?”

“Some people got into accidents. Some were in the hospital on life support. But Stardust… she was right next to the thing that caused it when it went off. She was trying to stop it from happening. Then it went off, and it disintegrated her.”

“Disintegrate?”

“Turned her into dust.”

Henry searched his mind for something to say, something that would sum up the depth and complexities of everything that story held emotionally.

“That really sucks,” he finally said.

Terry nodded. “It did suck. But, she did stop it from doing more damage. If she hadn’t done anything, the entire city might have been destroyed. She was a hero.”

“Just like I’m gonna be when I grow up!”

Terry nodded. “You will indeed, little man. You will.”

At that moment Henry heard his mother calling for him from the kitchen, and he leapt to his feet and willed himself to go to her. In that instant his vision became cloudy, and a soft poof filled his ears as he was instantaneously transported from the living room to the kitchen, reappearing with the same poof. He looked up at his mother as she leapt instinctively, startled by her son’s appearance.

“Henry!” chastised Adelaide, “I’ve told you a thousand times not to do that in the house!”

“Sorry, Mum,” Henry replied, as casually as a child might apologise for knocking a glass over.

Adelaide sighed, a gesture known to all mothers worldwide, then bent down to address her son at eye level. “Food’s nearly ready,” she said, So go wash up, OK? With soap and water.”

“OK, Mum.”

“And walk to the bathroom. No running, and no… whatever that thing is that you do.”

Henry nodded earnestly. “OK, Mum.”

With that Henry turned and began walking to the ground floor bathroom, rolling up his sleeves as he did. By the time the water was running and his hand were in the water the topic of Stardust was completely gone from his mind, now instead focusing on the late lunch he was about to have with his family.

She was, however, not gone from Terry’s mind.

The rest of the day passed without any real incident, barring Henry getting told off by his parents for walking through walls again – “one of these days you’re going to get stuck in one” was his father’s common refrain. Terry had gone home a bit later in the evening, and by eight thirty it was time for Henry to go to bed, much to his complaints. It was as he was being tucked into bed that he asked a question, one that Adelaide knew was coming from the moment he’d first presented his powers.

“Mum,” he said, “Am I an alien?” He asked it as casually as if he was asking if it was sunny outside.

Adelaide chuckled, amused by her son’s cavalier approach to the topic. “I can think of a few months of my life that prove you’re my human son.”

The reference to pregnancy went completely over Henry’s head. “Huh?”

Adelaide shook her head. “Never mind, Henry. You are human. You just have a gift, that’s all.”

“But why?”

Adelaide paused at this question, memories flooding over her. All the things that had happened in those months when Stardust was there, the New Wave incident, the Blow Out… it was a long story, and an infinitely complicated one that she knew was probably too much for a six year old to absorb.

“For a long time,” she began, “I wasn’t able to have kids.”

“Why not?”

“Some people just can’t. It happens sometimes. But it made your father and I sad because all we wanted then was a child.”

“So, what changed?” Henry leaned forward. “Wait a minute. Am I adopted?”

Adelaide shook her head. “No no. It was… an angel.”

This seemed the best way of telling half the truth to her son, but from his face it seemed Henry wasn’t believing it. “An angel?” he said, doubt in his voice.

Adelaide nodded. “An angel. She was on Earth for other reasons, but when she saw how sad your dad and I were that I couldn’t have kids… she fixed it for me. And then… you came along. But because she helped, it meant that you would be special. That you would have gifts that no other little boy could have.”

Adelaide watched her son’s face as he evaluated the story. He eventually nodded, seeming to decide that the story at least wasn’t a lie, even if it wasn’t the whole truth. As he absorbed this information a smile crossed his face as he thought of something else.

“So, if it was an angel…”

Adelaide could see the trap coming a mile away. “Just because an angel helped make you doesn’t mean you can’t do any wrong, kiddo. But you are a miracle.” Adelaide smiled. “You’re our miracle.”

Henry smiled. “Thanks, Mum.”

“Anyway,” Adelaide said, deciding a topic change was in need, “You want a story tonight?”

Henry nodded. “Yeah. I like the funny voices you do.”

“Mine are better!” called Henry’s father from the other room.

“Are they, though?” Adelaide shot back.

Henry giggled at the sound of his parents playfully making fun of each other, and seconds later he was laying back in his bed, listening as his mother read from a book she’d read a thousand times, putting on amusing voices for every character that appeared.

As Adelaide read her mind stayed on the conversation she’d had with her son. She knew this explanation was a temporary fix to the question, and that at some point Henry was going to want to know what actually happened.

To some extent, she wasn’t sure she understood what had happened herself. The only thing she had to go on was what had happened to her on the day of the Blow Out, when Stardust had died to save the city – and possibly a large amount of the province – from certain destruction.

She’d been in the city when it happened, and had seen the light erupt from near the city’s football stadium. She’d felt the energy from the explosion blow through her, a hot burst that had knocked her off her feet and made her feel dizzy. As she’d fallen to the pavement below her she’d heard a voice in her head, one that was undeniably Stardust’s:

With the last of my power, I give you this gift. Goodbye, Adelaide.

A month later, she’d found herself in the doctor’s office, learning that she was going to have a baby, news that shocked her to her core. And yet, somehow, she’d known the whole time that it was a possibility, somewhere in her subconscious. Briefly she had wondered if Henry was actually an alien, but a quick DNA test done under the guise of a paternity test proved to her that Henry was hers and her husband’s son.

Neither her nor Terry ever found out exactly what Stardust was, as when she’d been alive she’d never been particularly specific to either of them, only that she was from the stars. After she died there was no way of finding out, and for all Adelaide knew, she had really been an angel.

We’ll never know, she thought to herself, we’ll never know.