Nature Rules - 2022 WATTY'S SHORTLIST

What Secret?

Syon and Eden came home with us. Mom and Dad sent Crinae, Elody and Eden to bed. Then Dad boiled a pot of water and poured us all steaming cups of tea. The tea is made from bilberries we painstakingly collect from the slopes and then pound and dry. This is usually only a drink for grown-ups. Kids get hot water.

Syon slurped his tea between hiccoughs. The poor guy is shaking so hard that tea dribbles out of the corners of his mouth. I hand him a serviette to catch the drips.

"Thanks," he says without looking at me. "My mom told me if anything ever happened, to go to your family. You'd understand."

Dad nods. Mom purses her lips and crosses her arms across her chest.

"The Motos said mom was a well-known Aeternian rebel," Syon says. "They arrested her and are taking her to the Silo."

"I keep hearing this word Aeternian," I cut in. "Would someone please, please tell me what it means and why Shela would be arrested because of it?"

At the sound of his mother's name, Syon is thrown into another sobbing frenzy. I remove the hot tea from his wobbly grasp in case he burns himself.

"Aeternians," says Dad, "are people who have special abilities. They can do things no one else can."

"Like fly?" I ask.

That makes Syon laugh. A little bit.

"Aeternians can't fly," says Mom. "Each Aeternian has a different skill, or ability. They have command over certain classical elements: wind, water, light and fire."

"My mom calls herself a force of nature," says Syon, wiping away his tears.

"What the deuce?" I say. (The closet I can get to swearing in front of my parents.) "You're not making any sense."

"It's not powers," says Dad, "it's skills or abilities. And you haven't seen Aeternians using their abilities because they have to keep what they are a secret. Even when we lived in a reality free society, Aeternians had to be careful of where and when they used their skills. Aeternians used to be called witches and wizards and were persecuted. They still are: by Sebastian and his Motos. That's why Silly Sebastian Supremestink called a census: to gather Aeternians and use them to bring back climate."

I scrunch up my nose. Why hadn't I heard any of this during the lessons Dad and Mom gave me during the day.

"I know about the warming," I say, acknowledging I know a bit about the backstory of how the world came to be like this: desolate and hot and almost inhabitable. "I know about climate change and how the warming happened over hundreds of years and we kept making the earth worse and worse. How greed, pollution and war led to famine and the New Year's Eve War, but how does Shela come into this and what does Sebastian want with her?"

"Sebastian wants control of the whole planet, not just one piece," says Dad. "He's gathering his forces, imposing heavy taxes and taking Aeternians so he can rule over the Earth. Having control over Aeternians means having control over the weather and you know what I always say, 'He who controls the weather, controls the world.'

"You can never repeat any of this, to anyone. Especially not to your sisters. They're too young and won't understand the implications of what they're saying."

I nod. Dad has never been a fan of Sebastian although Mom sometimes will defend the GlobalGov leader. (She agreed with his policy of jailing people who steal food. Dad said that doesn't discriminate between the real criminals who steal large amounts of food for profit, from those who are starving and steal to feed their children.)

"That's enough, Dimitri," says Mom. "You don't need to scare them."

It's safe to say I'm more dumbstruck than scared. Syon is curled up in a ball on the floor. Fast asleep.