The cool air carried by the soft breeze through the open attic window was enough to numb Anna's face. In spite of the chill, however, the view from the mansion's highest vantage was unbeatable. Trees of yellows, reds, and evergreens waved as a single organism to her left, and to her right was the horizon above the endless ocean. She never sat in the attic window, but the big fat daybed Evan found under a tarp and a bunch of other dusty garbage made for a perfect perch.
Kitty sat next to her with an elbow propped up on the window seal. The ocean breeze would regularly messy her hair and she would just as regularly tidy it. At first, she would comb through her tangled hair with the tips of her fingers till she eventually settled on simply tucking it behind an ear to at least get it out of her face. Her free hand was occupied with an unlit cigarette which she would regularly twist between her pointer finger and thumb when it wasn't pinched between her lips. Anna allowed it as long as the thing was never actually lit. Kitty claimed it was 'just an oral-fixation' thing and she never 'actually' meant to smoke again. The stink Anna had smelt on Kitty's winter jacket claimed otherwise but she thought it better not to mention.
Anna never believed in comfortable silences until that moment. Before it usually meant she was in trouble with her folks or that some fridged bitch was giving her the cold shoulder at school. This time, however, just being in the company of a friend was plenty. Maybe Kitty felt the same way since it was one of the rare moments they were together and she wasn't firing off about one thing or another.
Anna half listened to the rustling of leaves outside and the boys inside the attic behind them getting up to one thing or another. Evan and Kurt were watching a movie for a while on Ev's laptop, and then they played some games together on the TV. Now they were just quiet and Anna was a little afraid to turn her head and look.
"I'm sorry, Kat."
Kitty held her cigarette between her teeth and made it bob up and down intermittently. "For what?"
"Dragging you into all this."
"You didn't drag me into anything."
"Sure, but," Anna rested her head against the wall next to the window. "I didn't give you much of a choice either."
"I always had a choice." Kitty pulled her little addiction out of her mouth and rested her head against the wall on the opposite side of the window to Anna. The light from the world outside highlighted the finer details of her dark brown eyes as she looked out into the overcast sky. "I always had a choice and I chose. Easy as that."
Anna felt the shape of a smile crinkle across her lip before it just as quickly faded away. "Did you know any of that about Jean?"
"No. I didn't know she was trans or grew up like that. I thought she grew up like me. With a mom and a dad always there. Family around. She just never seemed like the type who had to face that kinda stuff. I've only ever seen her so cool and collected, but back in Xavier's office… that was something different."
Anna tucked her knees to her chest. "Yeah."
Kitty looked at her and nodded. "Whatcha thinking?"
"I don't know." Anna rested her head on her knees. "Xavier's given us everything. This house, the clothes on our back, the food we eat, the opportunity to learn about how our abilities work." She sucked in the air till her lungs began to burn and let it back out in a steady stream. "Maybe I was wrong to be so nosy."
Kitty shrugged a shoulder. "I guess."
"You don't sound too convinced."
Kitty brought her cigarette to her lips and made to take a puff. When she then realized it wasn't lit her disappointment was apparent. "I don't think anyone is wrong. Like, Jeanie… I get it. Xavier was her savior. He's all of ours in a way. Still, it's just -" She took a long look out the window. "I've always been kinda nosy. I like knowing stuff and how people tick. I don't know why, I just gotta know. It's handy too sometimes to get the edge on someone." Kitty snorted, "Man that sounds F-ed up, but it's just how I feel. I think if everyone was a little more honest, they'd probably feel the same." She readjusted her head on the window. "And I think that's kinda how Xavier has been with us."
"Think he's been nosy with us?"
"He kinda has to be, right?" She brought the cigarette back up to her lip, looked at it, and then let her arm fall back away from her face with it. "He wants to figure out what our powers do and what our capabilities are. He has to keep an eye on us during missions. There is also one adult or another basically always watching us whenever we are home. Not to mention he has the mega computer thing in the basement that he uses to find us in the first place. I'd say Xavier is pretty nosy himself."
"Yeah, but… is he trying to hurt us?"
"How can we know? Isn't that what we've been trying to figure out?" Kitty shrugged. "Do I think he's trying to kill us or something, nah. If he wanted to then we'd be long gone and buried under the mansion along with his dead childhood pets."
"Jesus," Anna whispered.
"Do I think he's been upfront about much of anything?" Kitty continued. "No. No, he hasn't."
"Maybe there is a reason for it."
"Maybe, but that doesn't change the fact he's been holding out on us. Holding out to the point Logan is losing his mind and we're pretending everything is hunky-dory."
"Man," Anna shut her eyes. "I forgot that started because of Logan and the statue. I hope he's okay."
"He's tough, I'm sure he's fine."
"I hope so. Never known him to flip his lid quite that hard."
"Have you swung by his place? You know where it is right?"
"I do, yeah." Anna crossed her legs and leaned on her knees. She examined her fingers and ran her thumb over the pink nail on the pinky of her left hand. "I thought I should give his space."
"Been a few days. Maybe you can get some info from the source."
"Probably the best lead. I think we've done all we can with Xavier."
A tight-lipped smile stretched across Kitty's face as she tapped her chin. "Oh, is that right?"
"What? What's that supposed to mean?"
"Oh, nothing." She turned and swung her legs off the day bed. "Besides, we're done with bothering Xavier and getting in his business, remember? We respect boundaries now."
"Kitty -"
"Oh no - no. You and Jean are right. Xavier is a good man and we should leave him alone."
Anna stood and faced Kitty head-on. "Kitty! Seriously, what the hell are you talking about?"
Kitty's Cheshire-like grin only widened. "The picture."
"Picture? What picture? Jean deleted all of mine."
"All of yours."
Anna stared. "You took a picture of his desk calendar."
Kitty rested the tip of her finger on her nose and stood.
"Well! Take it out!"
"Oooohh!" Anna heard from somewhere across the attic. When she looked over, from across the couch, TV, spool table, and decorative lights, she spotted a mound of blue hair pop up in the pile of dusty garbage Evan had uncovered the day bed from. "Someone is getting gross!"
"Kurt? What the hell are you doing over there?"
"We're looking for stuff to finish our Halloween costumes with!"
"You're what?"
"Yeah! There is all kinds of weird stuff over here." He bobbed into the pile of garbage and disappeared from view. "Got wigs, old fake jewelry, and check this out!" He lofted something long and metallic in the air above him. "What is this? Some sort of Cold War ruler?"
Anna squinted. "Isn't that what people use to find their shoe size?"
"What, really?" Kurt stood up and looked it over. "Ev, you said it was to measure something else!" There was a loud snort followed by raucous laughter from somewhere under the pile of garbage. "You jerk! I used it for that!" Kurt dove back down into the junk as if were a swimming pool.
"Those two were truly made for each other." Kitty moved the empty popcorn bags off the couch and plopped down.
Anna took the seat next to her while Kitty produced the photo she'd taken on her phone. "That thing looks like it belongs to an alien who can only speak in riddles."
"Yeah," Kitty squinted and brought it closer to her face. "It's for October," she drew her finger across the screen. "1st to the 31st all has something on it. Numbers and letters." She pointed to the 31st. "The only exception is for your birthday party on Halloween which he just writes flat out."
"Guess he didn't feel the need to encrypt that much." Anna pointed at a random date. "Look at this. Every code has a bunch of numbers, followed by one letter, then another number."
"Yeah, and the last number is sequential."
"What? How can you tell?"
Kitty drew a line down all the Sundays. "11221963J1, then it's the same code the next Sunday except the last number is a 2, the next Sunday is a 3, and the last is a 4."
"Weird. It's the only code that's constantly every week too."
"Is there something special about Sundays I don't realize for us?"
"It's basically the only day we have off from doing anything."
Kitty touched her finger to her chin. "Do you… ever remember seeing Xavier on Sundays?"
"He's always home at dinner. Everyone is except when Jean has some weird thing for school."
"Yeah but what about during the day?"
"He's honestly not someone I look for much on my one day off."
Kitty looked at Anna. "Do you think he has any friends?"
"Who Xavier?" Anna snorted. "Not anyone he doesn't pay."
"Still, I bet he's going somewhere…"
Anna stared at the phone. "Mind if I see that?" Kitty handed it to her and she zoomed in. "11221963J1" She mumbled. "1963," She rested Kitty's phone on her lap and pulled out her own. "That sounds like a date." A few screen clicks later she bobbed her head. "November, 22nd, 1963 was the date JFK was assassinated."
"Why would the professor have JFK's death be a part of his code? And why every Sunday?"
"I've got no idea." Anna tapped Kitty's phone screen. "And what about that letter, 'J?'"
"You're the history major, tell me."
Anna scratched her head. "Well, Lyndon B. Johnson became president after JFK, but I don't think 'J' stands for Johnson."
"Maybe Xavier is trying to uncover the mystery of JFK's assassination every Sunday."
"Somehow I doubt he's got the time."
"Man's gotta have a hobby."
"Lookie here!" The girls glance over to the pile of trash and find Kurt emerging with two pearl necklaces around his neck, a tiara around his head, and an eyepatch on his left eye. He strode over to them with an ornate jewelry box as wide as his chest and dropped it before them on the spool table. He pulled it open like a treasure chest to reveal a world of sparkles and glamor. "Found us some real genu-wine treasure!"
"Holy crap, Kurt!" Kitty drove her hands into the box and pulled out a broach with a diamond the size of a child's fist. "Wow! What do you think this is worth?"
"Hang on." Anna plucked it out of Kitty's hands and ran her fingernail across its surface. "It's fake."
"What?" Kitty said like a deflating balloon.
"Feel it. It's glass."
"No!" Kitty took it back and rubbed its surface. "My college tuition…"
Anna pulled the jewelry box so it would better face her. "This stuff is still pretty cool. Big gold rings, emerald studded necklace," She sifted around the loot inside. "I like the big loopy earrings."
"Yeah!" Kurt pulled them out of the box. "It'll go great with my costume!"
"What are you going as again?"
"A blue Blackbeard."
"So more like 'blue-beard?'"
"I guess. My skin will be blue but my beard will be as black as my heart!" Kurt pulled out the plastic sword from under the table he used for D&D sessions and swung it around. "All will fear blue blackbeard!"
Anna held up her hands to protect her face from the swinging sword. "Alright, killer! Take it easy before you put both of my eyes out."
"But I only need the one earring, so you should use the other one." Kurt pulled the matching gold loop earring from the chest with his sword and gave it to Anna.
"Thanks. I don't know if the bride of Frankenstein would have a gold earring, but why not."
Kurt sat down next to the chest on the table. "What have you guys been getting up to?"
"Just figuring out Xavier is the one who killed a former president," Kitty said as she smiled in the reflection of another broach with a massive fake jewel.
"Don't listen to her." Anna showed the photo of Xavier's calendar to Kurt. "What do you think of this?"
"Woah." Kurt took the phone for a closer look. "Look at all the numbers. Does this prove the professor is a robot or something?"
"We don't know what it means." Anna took the phone back. "What it does mean is that the professor feels a reason to hide something."
"More like SOMETHINGS." Kitty flexed her fingers with rings covering every square inch of skin. "His desk and safe were made out of something I couldn't phase though."
"Yeah. There was that too… By the way," Anna shifted to a better look at Kitty, "when Jean found us… did she do something weird to you?"
The humor in Kitty's face melted away and she bit her bottom lip. "Yeah… I felt this…" She twisted her hands in the air as she struggled to find the words, "like a weird burning sensation between my eyes followed by a sudden need to tell her every bad thing I've ever done."
"Yeah, same."
Kurt looked between them. "Jean caught you guys? And she did what exactly?"
Anna shook her shoulders, trying to shake the feeling of Jean's eyes ripping into hers from her thoughts. "She found us going through Xavier's stuff, and she was pretty pissed, to say the least."
"Okay, you guys had your fun," Kurt put on the thinnest vile of a smile, "but you're seriously done now, right? No more ticking off Jean or making Xavier angry, right?"
Kitty pulled out her hair tie and played with the elastic in her hand. "Something weird is going on and we're going to find out what."
Anna blinked. She wasn't sure she had ever heard Kitty say something so defiant before. "We are?"
"Well yeah. It's why we started this whole thing."
"You're not wrong… It's just after that whole thing with Jean -"
"I'm not afraid of Jean."
Anna lightly scratched her cheek. "I think I am a little." She mumbled.
Kurt hung his head low. "And I'm guessing there's nothing I can say to stop you guys?"
Kitty met his eye. "Nope."
"Alright… then how can I help?"
Anna's brows stitched together. "Wait, really?"
"Of course. I'm not going to let you two fry and do nothing about it."
Kitty pulled the layers of fake jewelry off her person. "You really mean that?"
"Well yeah!" Kurt rested a hand on Anna's shoulder, "You're my sister, and Kitty, you're my teammate. We sink or swim together, right?"
Anna was momentarily at a loss for words. All she could do was look at her recently found younger brother and rest her hand on his. "Yeah… I guess we do, Kurt. Thank you."
Kitty pointed her chin at the heap of garbage. "What about your boy-toy?"
"Don't know." Kurt got up and perched on the lip of the spool table like a bird. "Ev! You want to make some mistakes?"
There wasn't a response.
"Ev?"
"Kurt." Evan finally answered, "I found something. Something big."
"I don't know if we have room for another day-bed, Ev."
"No, not like that."
Kurt and the others stood and took a step in the direction of the pile. "Like what?"
"Think you can port something the size of a painting out here and over there?"
"Probably." Kurt looked back at the girls before disappearing in a blue mist.
Anna could hear mumbles from the pile Kurt and Evan had been messing around in then a moment later Kurt returned with an abnormally tall painting pinched between his hands.
"Whew!" Kurt fell to a knee. "That was tougher than I thought."
After a few objects in the mass of twisted dusty garbage shifted in a few places, Evan emerged looking like he had indeed spent a day dumpster diving. He took the painting from Kurt and propped it against a wall. "Look," He said simply.
It was a painted family portrait presumably of the Xavier family. A man with dark hair, a mustache, and a wide build sat on a chair with a woman standing just behind his left shoulder. She was thin, her cheekbones and collarbone cut through her alabaster skin, and her long ginger hair was bound in curls that neatly framed her smiling face. Behind the man's right shoulder was a boy who looked near their age. His hair was dark like the man's but his features down to the fair skin, sharp bone structure, and light blue eyes were identical to the woman's. The boy's expression was neutral and his lips colorless.
Kneeling at the man's foot was a boy no older than 5 or 6 who was without question the man's son. Broad and stout, the boy had a thick head of hair and already shoulders that would make a linebacker envious. His sausage-like fingers were clasped around a sturdy-looking knee, and his feet nearly looked the size of a full-grown man's. The face, however, displayed small eyes that were crinkled thanks to a broad smile of small baby teeth.
"What the hell?" Anna stepped up to the painting and gently probed the surface as if to make sure it was really there.
"There are two," Kitty said with a crisp edge to her voice. "There are two kids."
Anna touched the face belonging to the boy behind the man's shoulder.
Evan crossed his arms. "Pretty easy to guess who that is."
Kitty joined Anna's side. "Yeah, but who is the other?"
Anna's hand eventually fell to the younger boy and the tight-knit smile on his face. Besides him, only the woman was smiling. "I have no idea."
Kurt pointed at the frame. "Hey guys… doesn't this look familiar?"
Anna looked back. "You've seen this before?"
"Not the painting… but doesn't this look like it would fit that miscolored blank spot in the library?"
Anna and Kitty held each other's gaze. "Holy shi-"