The Gemini Age: Book One

[7-1] A Hard Rain to Fall - Part One

    Many of the country's surviving old families preferred to live in relative secrecy, their patriarchs appearing once in a blue moon for major State occasions or for significant votes in the Upper Chamber of Parliament. For Philemon Locke, the moon never ceased to be blue, and his new family home epitomised his love of the spotlight above all else. 

    Point Locke snatched the eyes of passers-by. Formed from stoic slabs of sparkling white marble and layers of compressed crystalline glass, the radiant house dazzled in any light, searing the skyline when the midday sun struck it just right. Even in the gloom of rain, the house met the mossy stone bricks and black streetlights of the city's streets with the eager smiles of its twinkling balconies, all fenced with clean glass panels and covered by retractable canvas canopies. Rising four storeys high and spanning five door numbers, in less than a year Point Locke had become a more notable landmark than the nearby Dean Bridge dwarfed in its shadow.

    Jade gazed up at the house's several storeys, too stunned at the sheer mass of the house to mind the rain patting against her cheek. Living in a rural area, she had visited many well-preserved stately homes, yet it seemed Lord Locke had gone out of his way to defy all her expectations and break from the aristocratic mould. The front door alone baffled her, for it had no visible door handle or locking mechanism but still refused to budge at her touch. Jade knocked against the door and waited for a sign of life from the grand house. When none came, she wiped her eyes free of rain and knocked again, ensuring that each of her knocks fell harder against the faceless grey door than before. 

    Nothing moved. Blood temperature rising, Jade let her power settle on the door, only to find that its blended construction of wood and polymer resisted any efforts she made to magically break in.

    "State your name, please." Jade stumbled from the doorstep as the voice funnelled through the air over her head. It sounded distant and small, yet the quality of the audio was impeccable. More impressive, however, was the lack of any visible speaker to release the voice among the solid marble and frosted glass of the doorway.

    "Name, please." A flurry of glances around the doorway revealed no obvious mouthpiece with which to respond to the nearby voice. It was a woman's voice enhanced by a mastery of received pronunciation, the kind of accent Jade's mother used to tease Wilfred for adopting once he became a councillor. 

    Jade leaned towards the door. "Uh, Jade Swift?"

    A moment of silence trickled with the rain before the voice returned. "I do not recognise the name 'Uh, Jade Swift' in any records. State your business, please." The merest hint of suspicion in the voice's tone irritated Jade more than the bizarre interpretation of her name.

    "I need to speak with Penelope Locke," she answered, spacing out the syllables of Penelope's name for the voice to recognise. Somehow, the Locke surname seemed odd on the end of Penelope's name, and the girl did not suit the peculiar house built for the family either. Philemon dominated the family's public image much to the neglect of its other members, Jade realised.

    "Penelope Locke, I see. One moment." The sound cut off with a click, and the faint force that had muffled the patter of the rain around the doorstep disappeared with it.

    Behind Jade, the wind whistled through the streets and swept up the back of her hoodie to chill her spine. She slowed her breathing and tried to hook onto the unseen air, letting her power mingle with the many currents swirling around her. The weight of her body lifted from her muscles until she seemed to float in place, only the force of friction between her boots and the stone path below keeping her on the ground. Fascinated, Jade reached out and felt the air follow her motion to cast a delicate breath of wind into the world. Though she had performed similar feats with water many times, interacting with an invisible gas was totally different. The challenge was irresistible.