The Sequinned Potential The Green Crystal of Meyercliffe

New Year’s Eve was finally here. Destiny could finally take a breath of relief now. She'd no longer have to listen to her mother’s whining all day long! 

Because today, as early as the evening would sheath itself around the city, her mother’s sister was going to land in their house with her daughter and her favourite cousin: Cara. 

She was meeting her after ages! It was five years ago, when Cara was fifteen and she was twenty when they had last met. She has always been lonely. Period. When you're all grown up without a sibling, life can turn into hell. Though her life wasn’t completely shitty, she got her share of hell sometimes, in the form of her mother’s unbridled attention on her and on every single thing she did! 

“Miss Destiny Stevens, come downstairs this minute!” She heard her mum's sharp squeal. 

Shit. Has there been a flood? Or a hurricane? 

But her otherwise sharp tone had a certain amount of urgency in it that she didn’t like. She made her way down, hurrying down the stairs and standing exactly in front of her, facing her exasperated expression. 

“What happened, mum?” 

“Alice and Cara are waiting at the bus station for twenty minutes. There is no bus. Take my car and pick them up!” She literally threw the car keys into the air and whoosh, it was slicing through the air and coming towards her. 

Thud!

Mum turned around in a whiff of surprise. She saw Destiny with her body on the floor, the keys folded in her grip. So the thing is that when her mother threw the keys, her body had reacted in a weird way and she'd leaped forward, cartwheeling towards her mother, jumping up in the air, catching the keys in the process and finally, landing on the floor, flat on her back. 

With a loud thud. 

“What are you?” the expression of bewilderment on her mother’s face was now replaced with irritation. 

She got out of her small, cosy house with white walls, headed towards her mother’s jeep and started for the bus station. The drive to the bus station was boring and safe. Her mother had already informed her that if she, ever, in her entire life, put a small thing, so as to say, a small scratch on her car, she will be resting in peace in her grave, for the rest of her life! 

As soon as Destiny reached, she could see Aunt Alice’s head peering in to see her. She impulsively jumped to her feet from the iron-made chair of the bus stop and her flaming red hair jumped and then settled back to it’s place. 

Cara dazed into the distant and Destiny knew she was seeing things again. Her expression was cold and observant and no matter how hard she tried, she'd never be able to understand. And today, she herself had showed off some of her weirdness to her mother. Not completely, though. 

She tries to resist but it’s like her body is wired like that. From childhood itself, whenever someone threw something on her or something was coming directly at her and had the ability to potentially harm, she jumped, leaped, cartwheeled and caught it, just like that. She never understood how could she be so flexible or alert, for that matter. 

Similarly, Cara had always been seeing certain things and just like her, she also had no explanation to her conduct. They have always believed they are crazy, so that’s that. 

“Earth to Caramille Johnson!” Destiny  chanted in front of her, as Aunt Alice leaped inside the car. 

Cara gave her an awkward smile as she sat herself beside her mother. Destiny started the car and avoiding her aunt’s scared expression, she drove off the street, carefully driving so that she doesn’t have to get her mother’s thrashing. 

Aunt Alice had a dramatic meet up with mum. Obviously! They were known for drama. Cara and Destiny were standing at a little distance, gawking at all the love in the world : the soul sisters, Eva and Alice. 

“Des, let’s go!” Cara took her by the hand and they went into Destiny’s room. 

Her room was small and cosy. The walls were a natural shade of beige, with aesthetic prints of lotuses on one wall and plain on the other one. The room had two big windows; always lighting up the space. The evenings there in her room were however, cool and breezy. 

This evening was no ordinary, though. It was all they never hoped it would be. The wind was blowing quite tumultuously. The windows ruffled noisily and the lights flickered on and off. 

“What’s happening?” Destiny asked Cara, absolutely worried for she was minutely looking at something outside the window, in the dark street. 

“I saw someone.” She said, running towards the window and beckoning me closer. 

“Cara, you know I don’t see things.” 

“I know, Des. Just try once, please. I think it will be visible to you.” She said so surely that Destiny stared onto the stark blackness of the street. 

Suddenly, she noticed something moving in the bushes. Cara was right. It was not something only she could see. It was visible to her also. 

“I think it’s a cat.” She offered the only possible explanation she could muster up. 

Cara remained unconvinced. She believed it was a person who was following them. “I saw him, he was following us from the bus station.” 

“It’s a he?” Destiny questioned, incredulous. 

Cara nodded her head vehemently. It was her, what to say, her power that she could see things that weren’t supposed to be seen, including many people, objects, stones or energy. And now this particular person: a boy. 

Destiny shivered at the thought of having a strange boy follow them around. Even without the following, their lives were pretty messed up. They were both different. And they knew it. Others didn’t. Destiny was alert, calm and utterly flexible in alarming situations, while Cara could see things. 

“Des, I think something is up!” Cara tensed beside her, suddenly holding her heart.

“Why—” Before Destiny could complete her sentence, she saw her crippling with anxiety. She was holding her heart and her whole face got scrunched up as if she’s in pain. 

“Cara, Cara!” Destiny called her name and Cara opened her half-closed eyes. 

The next thing she knew was that she lost her balance. And after that, she was blank. Before her was Cara, her sister, her most beloved cousin. With a pair of green eyes. 

Big, flashy, green eyes. 

Fear made the worst of her as she stared back, dazed and confused. She was just the same. The same blonde curls, the same pale white skin, pink full lips and pert nose. The same sister she had adored all these years, but with shiny green eyes that had ferocity and vision. 

What happened to her eyes? 

“See, the energies!” she said, signalling to some invisible thing beside her. Destiny looked there and saw nothing. 

“Why are your eyes—” 

“I can see everything clearer, Des.” 

“Your eyes are green.” She chanted. 

Cara saw herself in the mirror and for a second, flinched at her refection. But then batting her eyelids, she looked at herself and a little smile escaped her lips. “Des, this feels powerful.” 

“Has this happened before?” 

“No. Never.” 

Destiny crawled up on the bed when she realized that she was sitting on the floor for way too long. She patted the place beside her and Cara sat there. She noticed that Cara's eyes were slowly changing back into their original colour; a warm tone of brown. 

“Your eyes are normal now.” 

Cara inched closer to her. “What happened to me a few minutes ago wasn’t normal, Des. You know that, right?” 

No sooner did she nod at her question, the window opened with a snap and somebody barged in. Destiny leaped up from the bed, lounging forward to stop him, taking his head and twisting it, taking him down on the floor. Her hand was on his neck and soon he was lying flat on his back. 

“Who are you?” Her ferocious question was met by a loud scream of agony. 

Cara stood up almost immediately after Destiny knocked down the guy. “Reveal your identity. Why were you following us?” 

The boy arched his eyebrows, signalling towards the hand that was circling around his neck and Destiny removed it immediately and made him stand up forcefully. He freed himself from her grip with a defiant shrug and looked at the both of them. 

“Hi, I'm Chris. Christopher Selwig.” 

The boy seemed of Cara's age or one or two years older than her but he definitely looked younger than her, Destiny thought. He was, maybe. 

“If you are wondering about my age, I'm twenty-two.” He smirked. 

She sighed. “Can you please tell us what’s going on?” 

Chris rolled his eyes heavenward. The look in his eyes told them that whatever he was here to tell or do, it was big. Something of huge calibre that had the ability to destroy them. 

The strange boy peered at us. “Okay, so listen. You both are a part of our squad.” 

“What squad?” Cara asked, totally confused. 

“You are a part of a squad of heroes who protect and guard the humankind.” 

“The humankind? Aren’t we human ourselves? And heroes? What squad are you talking about?” Cara shot a barrage to questions to him. 

Chris looked exasperated. 

Destiny assured him with a small smile and then asked the most obvious question: “Protect humankind from what?” 

Chris gulped down a bit of saliva and looked here and there. “From evil forces,” and then a bit lowly, he continued, “the demons, dark witches and wizards, and many such dark, evil forces that try to harm humans and nature.” 

Cara's eyes popped out of her sockets! “Why us?” 

“Because we’re different, Cara.” Destiny told her, keeping her gaze on her face. 

Cara thought for sometime and then nodded. “So, what do even do now, uh—” 

“Chris.” 

“Yes, Chris, what’s next?” She asked him whereas he was a bit lost in ogling her. 

“Ah, you guys come to our headquarters with me!” Chris informed excitedly. 

“Where exactly is your headquarters? I mean, we can’t just leave our house like this.” Destiny said, as a matter of fact. 

My mother and Aunt Alice would have a heart attack if they find their daughters gone just in time for dinner. And then they will give them both a very hard time. 

“It’s in Meyercliffe.” He said and they both looked at him as if he spoke some other kind of language they didn’t understand. 

Meyercliffe? 

Did they just hear that place right or were they dreaming? 

Seriously doubting her sense of geography, Destiny rolled her eyes at him. “What’s Meyercliffe? I don’t think there’s a place like that.” She was confident there wasn’t.

“But there is.” Chris retorted back with equal confidence. 

“I haven’t read about it.” Cara confirmed her cousin's statement. 

“It’s not in the books. It’s a secret place so that no one easily finds us.” He sounded rather proud. 

“Destiny, Caramille, come downstairs! Dinner is ready!” Aunt Alice called out to the girls. 

“See, both our moms are alone. Her dad has been dead for five years and mine’s an asshole who has left my mom.” Cara confessed, looking at Destiny with soft eyes. 

“So please don’t do something that will harm them. Leave.” Destiny told Chris. 

“I need to take both of you to Meyercliffe. Orders.” Chris insisted. 

With their mothers waiting for them downstairs with dinner, Cara and Destiny found themselves in deep shit. What to do? 

“Okay, we’ll go with you, Chris. But not today, we'll come with you tomorrow.” Destiny promised him with a pat on his shoulder. 

He wasn’t much taller than Cara so he was up to Destiny’s height. His arms had flaring tattoos. With short black hair and black leather clothes, he looked like a villain straight out of a fantasy novel. Instead, it wasn’t a novel, it was real life. And he wasn’t a villain. According to him, he was a part of a squad of heroes. 

He reluctantly nodded his head, “Okay, Destiny. I will come tomorrow morning, sharp at nine. Be ready, both of you.” And with a quick glance at Cara, he ran and jumped off the window. 

Hell. 

Destiny ran after him, only to see him landing on the street perfectly and running away in the dark. Within sometime, he disappeared and was no longer visible, even to Cara. 

“Oh god, I don’t believe this!” 

Cara's exclaim was justifiable. Even Destiny didn’t believe any of it. But it was true, after all. They were just two freaks with some weird powers and they have always tried to hide that. But now it seemed that they were snatched away from normalcy and put inside a plethora of crazy, altogether. They didn’t know where they were going tomorrow, what is Meyercliffe or who lives there but there was one thing they knew for sure; that they were part of something bigger and greater that they were unaware of.