Divinity Rescue Corps
95- Meet The Fletchers

The doorbell rang, and all three of my family members darted glances to a sleepy Brayden before looking at me.

“Of course, there was still the situation in Glumpdumpkin to deal with, but I’m going to put that away for now. I’ll get it.”

My mother had a look of hopeful terror written on her face that broke my heart. She knew exactly what was coming, and how it would change our lives forever… again.

I hopped up off the sofa in my parents’ cozy living room and opened the front door. The girls all stood on my small concrete slab of a front porch, crammed shoulder to shoulder.

“I’m so glad to see you guys,” I said.

“Well?” Regina asked. “You gonna invite us in or not?”

“I didn’t get to the part where I tell them the plan,” I admitted. “I barely got me back to the camp and the afterparty after the Blake incident.”

Cinzy rolled her eyes and patted me on the head. “We’ll take over from there, I guess.” Then she pushed past me.

“Been taking your time then,” Tara said, and also strode past me. She immediately fixated on Sarah and her big round belly, and began asking questions. Seconds later she was kneeling and had her hands all over Sarah, including putting her ear up to her belly button. The look on Tara’s face was kind of scary, and now that I looked at her… she seemed different. She normally wore some bulky leather armor over earth tone clothes, for camouflage, but… in this scoop neck t-shirt, she seemed bustier than before.

My mouth began to drop open.

“Did you tell your parents…” Ivy asked, “…everything?”

“Of course not!” I said.

“He was just enjoying the chance to be back among his family,” Isabelle explained, and gave me a companionable hug. Every time Isabelle did something reassuring like that, both Ivy and I would lock eyes and smile in relief. “Now let’s see your adorable toddler nephew.”

I strode back into the living room to find Brayden already balanced on Regina’s feet. She was on her back and giving him the airplane treatment, while Sarah watched in astonishment. Cinzy was chatting animatedly to my mother and father, while Tara was studying all the family portraits on the walls and the fireplace mantel.

“Sarah,” I said, “This is—”

“Ivy!” Sarah said. “And Isabelle. It’s so nice to meet you!”

Unexpected. But welcome. Also… worrisome?

Both of them were careful to avoid smashing into Sarah’s pregnant belly, but a lot of hugs went around. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am that all of you are really real.” Some laughter followed. “I knew it couldn’t be just a figment of his imagination, but you know… sometimes people have, like, schizo things. They make up stuff. So, you know, I was a little worried about my brother’s mental state.”

“We’re all worried about his mental state,” Ivy said.

“I’m glad you’re worried about my mental state and all, but I’m quite sane, thank you.”

All the girls stopped and arched eyebrows at one another. Then they all burst out laughing.

“Oh yeah, laugh it up. I’m going to be in the kitchen devouring some cheese puffs.”

I knew a spot where I could hang out in the kitchen and watch pretty much everything in the reflection of a large watercolor landscape painting that hung in the living room. It was flanked by an army of family photos and old school artwork, and bits of the rest of the room were visible there too. For now, I just let the girls do what girls inevitably did: charm people with their energy and enthusiasm, and make instant connections.

Tara and Regina were presently arguing over who would be a pony for Brayden to ride, with Regina saying that ‘coltish thighs don’t mean anything in a game like this’ and Tara shoving her away, then hurrying Brayden along. Pretty soon she was scrambling away from Regina with the boy riding piggyback. Both Brayden and Tara were laughing like lunatics.

Cinzy continued to chat up my mother and father. She was so, so good at it, and I didn’t even put a stop to it when Cinzy asked for baby albums and embarrassing childhood stories. There were plenty, and my parents were thrilled to provide.

Sarah let go of Ivy and Isabelle’s hands, where she’d been getting them to feel the baby kick. I wondered, briefly, if that was her only reason for grabbing onto the hands of the girl-girl couple from my team, but I let it go. There was no way I was asking that series of questions.

Ivy and Isabelle took up a single easy chair, with Isabelle in Ivy’s lap, while Cinzy grabbed up the ottoman and sat with her elbows on her knees, chin on hands.

Eyes alight with interest and mischief, all of them listened to my mother explain: in first grade, I’d cried while trying to pin the tail on the donkey, because I couldn’t see what I was doing.

I’d been frustrated. Kids cry when they’re frustrated.

Oh, and there’d been the time I cried when the babysitters planned a surprise party. My mother was coming home with the new baby, see… and I was three fracking years old. Everything had been so overwhelming and I had no idea what was going on at the time.

There was no need to defend myself. I was not that kid any longer, and I wasn’t even the impressionable teenager I’d been just a couple of years ago. Nor was I, and this was important, the defeated nobody who expected everyone to tease him over something that wasn’t even under his control. It was amazing what a steady supply of sex with a series of incredible looking women could do for your self-image.

Regina trotted back into the room, breathing a little heavily. “Can we hear about what happened to Fletcher’s legs?”

A hush fell over the crowded living room. Now that was a topic of some debate.

“Fletcher, why don’t you come in here and tell them the story?” My mother called.

“I’m just finishing up my cheese balls in here,” I called back.

“Come in here so I don’t have to keep yelling at you.”

That was Mom code for ‘get your butt in here before you get in trouble’ and I successfully stopped myself from rolling my eyes. You couldn’t just pretend everything was normal with your mother having cancer. So even with the little things, you sucked it up and made sure you were a model son.

“Hmm?”

“Your friends,” my mother said, giving it just enough inflection to let me know that she knew they weren’t just my friends, “are asking what happened to your legs.”

“I didn’t know he had a problem with his legs,” Isabelle said.

“Weird,” my father said. “Growth plate injuries and bad scoliosis are the type of thing everyone notices and nobody forgets seeing.”

“What?” Isabelle cried.

“Scoliosis as a result of osteomyelitis,” I said.

“You didn’t notice the limping after a long day’s march?” Cinzy asked.

“I most certainly did not.”

“The wincing pain?” Regina asked.

“Nooooo,” Isabelle said.

“The way he massaged his thighs and hips around the campfire?” Tara said, face pressed against Sarah’s pregnant belly, with Sarah rolling her eyes and grinning.

“No, okay? No!” Isabelle cried, hands fluttering. “Isabelle is not observant, okay? I was too busy watching the clouds shimmer and the butterflies flutter by and the giant dinosaurs eat the leaves off the weird dancing trees.”

“Forgivable,” Ivy said, eyes twinkling.

I held out my hands. “Two kids were messing with me at a cliff’s edge, pushing and pulling at me, and I fell down. I managed not to die, but I broke both my legs.”

“Snapped like all the bones,” Sarah added. “The ones that have your growth plates. And that can mess up your ability to grow when you hit puberty.”

“Oh…” Tara said, her hand over her mouth.

“I mean I never was that big to begin with,” I added.

“Oh tell them the other part,” Sarah said.

Now I did roll my eyes. My sister didn’t have cancer, so I could be annoyed with her. “And these two kids were just being bullies the whole time. They’d been picking on an even smaller kid, a third grader maybe, big thick glasses. So I told them to knock it off, and they went after me instead.”

“Aww, my hero!” Cinzy gushed.

“Are they both in prison for the rest of their lives?” Ivy asked.

“Who would do something so horrible?” Isabelle asked.

“They were kids, and they didn’t know any better, and their parents made them come and watch all the surgery videos. Scarred them for life. They got expelled from school, parents had to move out of state, everything got bad for them.”

“We still get letters,” my mother said. “Apology letters. Every year on Christopher’s birthday.”

“Who the heck is Christopher?” Cinzy asked, and everyone laughed.

“Well around here, everyone is a Fletcher,” I said, grinning.

“You poor thing!” Regina said, using the conversation as an excuse to come over and give me a big hug. Tara followed along, and Brayden was hugging my leg by the time Cinzy was also hugging me.

“Ahhh that’s enough, that’s enough!” I called. “Anyway it’s over, it’s ancient history, and since I went through, I basically fixed myself up with Physicality points. We’re here to talk about another topic that’s sensitive in more ways than one.”

All eyes fell on my parents.

It was Sarah who broke first. “What?” she cried. “What’s happening right now?”

“I would’ve thought you’d have figured it out, Sare-bear,” my father said gently.

“Pffff,” my mother said, laughing. “You hadn’t figured it out until I told you yesterday.”

“Um… what? I have not figured it out, unless you’re talking about…” She threw a pointed look my way, and then scanned the whole room. Now it was the Divinity Rescue Corps’ turn to glance around in embarrassed silence, like… ‘did she just convey what I thought she conveyed?’ I nodded to each of the girls in turn, and they all found other things to look at around the room. Oh, what fabulous midnight blue carpeting you have in this living room, Mr and Mrs Fletcher.

“Your mother is going with them,” my dad said.

“You talked it over with him already,” I said, nodding my mother’s way.

“Um, I don’t even know what that means. You spoke a sentence, sure, but it’s not a sentence that means anything.” Sarah turned her eyes to Mom. “What in the hell are they talking about?”

“Your brother chose to be a Healer for a reason, Sarah Lynn,” Mom said softly.

“You know why,” I said. “All you have to do is think about it for a second.”

Sarah had stood and made her way around the outside of the room. “You… and your band of… teenage girlfriends…” Sarah said, indicating me and the ladies. “You all are going to take my ailing mother… where? Through a fucking portal? Where even is it?”

“Language,” my father warned.

It was too late. Little Brayden opened his mouth and went, “Fucking!” with some special language homing sense, that allowed him to know when a swear word was being said.

The girls erupted in giggles, though Sarah waved them down. “No no, no no no no no, we are not encouraging him to repeat words he’s heard based on the laughter he gets. No son of mine will be a stand up comedian, that’s for g… sure.”

She whirled.

“Now you tell me exactly what is about to happen, and how long she will be gone, and when she will be back.”

“We can’t tell you that,” I said. “The less you know in terms of logistics, strategy or specifics, the better.”

“No! Not good enough. You told me the whole story—”

“A story no one would believe,” I added.

“Shut up. You told me the whole story, and now you think you can just, what, abduct our mother to some strange monster world so you can cure her cancer?”

The girls were silent, but Ivy and Isabelle, then Tara, had stood up and come to stand next to me. Regina and Cinzy got the idea a moment later.

“That’s exactly what I think,” I said. “It’s not going to be easy… the agency has tight security on the facility, but we have literal magic on our side.”

“Pff,” Sarah scoffed. “You said magic doesn’t work here.”

“For a brief moment it can,” I told her. “And anyway, it’s not your problem. We’re headed out tonight—“

“She’s my mother!” Sarah roared. “She’s Brayden’s grandmother!”

“She also gets to choose,” my mother said. “And she’s choosing to be Brayden’s grandmother for a lot more than the next few months. I have another grandbaby I want to meet.”

Tears were threatening. “But I just got you back.”

Sarah put up some more protests, but they were mostly just the stammering, ‘but but but’ kind. She and Mom hugged it out, and the girls took turns occupying my nephew with silly games, and my father with questions about cars, until the situation was defused.

It took some time, during which my father pulled the dust cloth off the car he’d been restoring for Ivy and Regina and Cinzy to behold. He started going on about cams and tweaking the suspension, and the fact that he couldn’t get the tires because they didn’t make them any longer. In the meantime Isabelle figured out that she could swing Brayden around in circles.

Which, now that it was introduced to his life, he wanted to do forever. Tara was forced to spin him once Isabelle begged off, claiming that she was going to puke. I even got in a few turns, before Sarah returned.

“I have demands,” Sarah said, watching Brayden totter around and fall on his butt from the dizziness.

“I’m not sure—”

“Do you know what the word demands means, dweeb?”

“Go right ahead,” I said, holding up my hands in defeat.

“You will feed her and keep her absolutely, one hundred percent safe, to this facility, and more importantly inside the other world.”

“I can’t guarantee—”

“You will do this, or I will cut your balls off with gardening shears,” Sarah said.

I snorted with laughter until I saw the look on her face.

“Christine and Heather will hold you down.”

They would not be able to hold me down, but I continued to raise my hands in surrender. Then I dipped my head in acknowledgment.

“Safety guaranteed,” I said. “There are two Guardians waiting near the portal with a rochidna, a tiny fairy, a flower fox, a water fairy, a Rogue, a Wizard, and a Sorcerer, who all have companions of their own. And some characters you haven’t even met yet.”

“That’s more like it,” she said.

“Dad stays here,” she demanded.

“Your lawn requires him to stick around.”

Now she really did smack me upside the head. Then, before I could make any other annoying jokes, she had surged forward and wrapped me in a tight hug. I hugged back, flooding with relief and pride, and also no small amount of regret. I hadn’t been able to see her for months. For Brayden, that was an awful lot of growing up I hadn’t been here to see. It wasn’t easy on me either.

“I’m serious,” she said, choked up.

“I got you, fam,” I told her, trying not to choke up myself.

“You are such a dork,” she muttered, while laughing and crying.

—The end

Of

Divinity Rescue Corps: Chapter The Second

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