Chapter 32: Strange Kids, Stranger Powers
Rebecca Langstrom's room looked like someone had taken a normal little girl's bedroom, turned the lights off, handed it to a moody teenager with access to a record store, then somehow remembered at the very last second that an actual six-year-old still had to live there.
The room was large, much larger than Kairo expected, though that seemed to be a normal problem in Cranston Estates. Every child he met apparently slept in a room the size of a small apartment and acted like that was perfectly reasonable. Rebecca's walls were painted a deep plum color that looked almost black where the light did not reach. Heavy curtains covered the windows, thick enough to keep out sunlight and probably half the noise in Gotham if someone closed them properly. Thin strips of padded material had been fitted around the window frames, the vents, and even the door, likely another attempt by Abraham Langstrom to give his granddaughter some control over what her ears picked up.
It only worked a little.
Kairo could tell because Rebecca still tilted her head whenever someone walked through the hallway outside, her eyes following sounds he could not hear. She knew which staff member passed by from the weight of their steps. She knew when a door opened downstairs. She knew when her grandfather laughed from what had to be halfway across the house, though she pretended not to notice.
The furniture was dark wood, old and heavy, more suited to an adult's study than a child's bedroom. Her bed was enormous, covered in black, violet, and dark green blankets, along with enough pillows to build a defensive wall. Several stuffed bats hung upside down from a net stretched near one corner. A few were cute, round little things with soft wings and shiny eyes. Others looked far too accurate, with tiny fangs and ears shaped like they were ready to hear someone's secrets from the next county.
A wide shelf held books, records, old music magazines, small animal bones sealed safely inside display cases, a pair of binoculars, several polished stones, and one jar labeled BAT TEETH in handwriting that was either Rebecca's or someone with much more concerning hobbies.
Kairo chose not to ask about the teeth yet.
Posters covered most of the remaining wall space. Some were crooked. Others had been taped up so many times that the corners had turned soft and grey. The bands ranged from older rock groups to punk bands Kairo knew only because his past life had left him with a weird collection of music trivia that had no business inside the head of a five-year-old.
Kairo, sadly, was dressed in a new set of duck pajamas.
Beryl had made them herself.
She claimed that made them special.
Kairo believed it made them impossible to escape.
The pajama top was bright yellow with a little orange beak sewn onto the hood. Tiny black eyes sat above his forehead. The sleeves ended in soft orange cuffs shaped like webbed feet, and the trousers had little white feathers stitched down the sides. A short, stuffed duck tail stuck out from the back and bounced every time he walked.
Rebecca had already stared at it for nearly a full minute when he arrived.
She had not laughed.
That somehow made it worse.
Kairo wandered around her room with his hands tucked behind his back, trying to act like a serious guest while his duck tail wobbled behind him. He stopped in front of two posters placed beside each other and slowly tilted his head.
One showed Three Days Grace in dark red and black, all rough shadows and dramatic faces. The poster beside it advertised Three Dog Night in colors that had faded with age.
Kairo stared at both.
Then he nodded solemnly. "Wow. A Three Days Grace poster right next to a Three Dog Night poster. That is some crazy work. Very noice, though. Respect."
Rebecca sat cross-legged near the middle of her bed, watching him with open curiosity.
She was dressed in her own pajamas, dark purple with little silver bats printed across them. Without her earmuffs and with her hair down, she looked different. Her auburn hair fell far past her shoulders, thick and slightly wild, longer than Kairo had expected. It framed her pale face and made her bright green eyes stand out even more.
She liked watching him look around.
Most people who entered her room tried not to stare at anything. Adults looked at the posters, the padded walls, the bat toys, and the strange little collections, then carefully arranged their faces into expressions meant to say none of this concerns me.
Her grandfather did not do that, but he had helped build half the room, so he had no right to judge.
The staff were used to it.
Penelope had walked in once, declared the curtains too gloomy, then spent twenty minutes planning how to redesign the room without asking permission. She had not meant anything cruel by it. Penelope was simply Penelope, spoiled enough to assume everything could be improved by spending more money and sheltered enough to believe that counted as helping.
The Cobblepot twins reacted in their own ways.
Addison insulted the music immediately.
Rebecca and Addison argued about nearly everything. Music. Food. Games. Clothes. Whether penguins were better than bats. Whether bats could beat penguins in a fight. Whether cheating counted if everyone should have expected Addison to cheat anyway.
Addison was bossy, loud, and usually too confident to notice when she hurt someone's feelings until much later.
Still, Rebecca knew Addison cared.
She knew because Addison's thoughts sometimes slipped through.
Usually by accident.
Sometimes not.
Rebecca had heard the way Addison thought about the children at school who whispered about the Langstrom family. Addison's mind became hot and sharp whenever someone called Rebecca creepy. She planned punishments with impressive creativity. She once spent an entire afternoon thinking about putting glue in a bully's chair and convinced herself it was justice rather than revenge.
Rebecca had not stopped her.
She had only told Addison to use washable glue.
Alaric was different.
Quiet. Careful. Always willing to go along with whatever someone else wanted.
If they asked what he wanted to eat, he said anything was fine.
If they asked what game he wanted to play, he said they could choose.
If they asked whether he wanted to leave, stay, sit, stand, talk, or be quiet, he always acted like his own choice did not matter much.
Addison made fun of him for being a pushover. Rebecca defended him, mostly because Addison could be too harsh.
Secretly, though, Rebecca understood why Addison became frustrated.
Living with someone who never told you what they truly wanted would drive anyone crazy.
Rebecca had an unfair advantage. She could sometimes hear what people did not say.
With Alaric, that did not always help.
Sometimes his mind went blank.
Not quiet.
Blank.
There were moments when Alaric would be speaking, answering a question, smiling politely, and inside his head there was nothing. No words. No feelings she could catch. No pictures. No soft current of thought beneath the surface.
Just emptiness.
A smooth, dark void.
It frightened her more than she wanted to admit.
Kairo's mind was quiet too, but his quietness felt different. His thoughts flowed slowly, warm and steady, like deep water moving beneath ice. Sometimes being close to him softened everyone else's voices until Rebecca could finally think. He did not feel empty.
He felt full.
Too full, maybe, but calm.
Alaric's silence felt like opening a door and finding no room behind it.
Rebecca shook off the thought as Kairo moved toward the shelf of records.
He crouched in front of them, carefully pulling one free. The cover had been badly damaged. Deep scratches crossed the front. One corner had been ripped almost completely away, and several long tears ran through the picture.
Kairo held it up and read the title.
His face became very serious.
"Oh no. Not the 'Now this is a story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down' record." He looked over the shredded cover again. "Wow. What happened to this poor thing?"
Rebecca shrugged. "Geese."
Kairo nodded immediately.
No questions.
No doubt.
"Fair. Geese are evil-aligned."
Rebecca blinked. "What?"
"Evil-aligned," Kairo repeated. "They love chaos. They wake up every day and choose violence. Other people's pain and fear make them happy."
A little smile tugged at Rebecca's mouth. She looked him up and down, taking in the yellow pajamas, the orange hood, and the ridiculous little tail.
"You look like a geese."
Kairo turned slowly.
He lifted one finger and wagged it at her. "Goose. Singular. And no. I am a duck. Ducks have much more moral variety. Only around seventy-six percent of ducks choose evil."
Rebecca stared at him for a second.
Then she laughed.
It came out short and surprised, like the sound escaped before she decided whether to allow it. Kairo looked pleased with himself.
She leaned back on her hands. "You made that up."
"I made up the number. The rest is science."
"That is not science."
"It is animal behavior."
"You are wearing a duck tail."
"That gives me field experience."
Rebecca laughed again, softer this time.
Kairo turned the damaged record over in his hands. "How long ago was it attacked by the feathered creature of pure hate and malice?"
Rebecca's smile faded slightly.
She shrugged, but this shrug carried more weight. "Don't know. It was my father's before I got it."
Kairo heard the change in her voice.
He did not need Aurielis to explain it. She rested quietly inside the golden watch around his neck, present and aware but unusually respectful of the moment. He could feel her listening without pushing herself into his thoughts.
Kairo looked at the record again.
It had belonged to Kirk Langstrom.
Rebecca said father strangely, as if the word belonged to someone she knew more through objects, stories, and old pain than through real memories.
Kairo understood that feeling more than he wanted to.
He adjusted his grip on the album, then tossed it into the air.
Rebecca shot upright. "What are you doing?"
"Watch."
The record stopped before it could fall.
A large, clear bubble formed around it, shimmering faintly with silver and gold. The damaged album hung in the center, slowly turning.
Kairo lifted both hands.
His expression changed.
The joking faded from his face, replaced by deep concentration. His fingers curled slightly as he felt for the age inside the object, searching backward through the damage. The record had years layered across it. Dust. Scratches. Bent edges. Old fingerprints. A few faint stains. The violent marks left by one hateful goose, assuming Rebecca had told the truth and Kairo fully believed she had.
He focused on the shape beneath all of that.
The way it had been before.
"Turn back the clock," he whispered.
The bubble trembled.
"Turn back the clock."
The tears in the cover started pulling together.
Rebecca's eyes widened.
The ripped paper lifted as if caught by invisible fingers, fibers reconnecting one thin strand at a time. Scratches faded backward. Bent corners straightened. Dust rose from the surface in little grey clouds before vanishing completely.
The vinyl inside shifted too. Tiny marks disappeared from the black surface. The faded label brightened. Years seemed to peel away in layers, sliding backward toward the moment the record had first been bought.
Kairo's arms began to shake.
Time did not like being pulled backward, even on something small. It resisted him gently at first, then with more pressure, like a river pressing against someone walking upstream.
He gritted his teeth.
"Turn back the clock."
The bubble flashed.
For one second, the record appeared brand new.
Then the field popped.
The album dropped.
Kairo caught it against his chest.
Smoke curled from one side of the cover.
A thin layer of steam rolled from the other.
Rebecca stared.
She had never seen steam and smoke rise from the same object before. One side of the record felt warm, like it had been sitting near a heater. The other felt cold enough to leave a faint chill against the air.
Kairo looked down at it, breathing a little harder.
"Okay," he murmured. "That worked better than expected."
He held it out.
Rebecca took it with both hands.
The cover looked perfect. Bright colors. Clean edges. No scratches. No bite marks. No evidence that a goose had once declared war upon it.
Her fingers moved over the title.
She held it close to her chest.
"Thank you," she said.
The words came out quieter than everything else.
Kairo gave her double finger guns.
He nodded once, trying very hard to look cool while wearing duck pajamas and breathing like he had just run uphill.
Rebecca stared at him.
Then at the record.
Then back at him.
"Do something else."
Kairo's hands slowly lowered.
"I just did something."
Rebecca nodded.
"I fixed an entire record."
Another nod.
"It was smoking."
She waited.
Kairo looked deeply tired. "Already?"
"Yes."
He stared at her for several seconds, then rubbed both hands down his face. "Fine. But you have to do something cool for me afterward."
Rebecca nodded quickly.
"Something actually cool."
She nodded again.
"No pretending that hearing the kitchen staff talk from downstairs counts."
She gave him a slightly offended look. "I can hear them."
"I believe you. Still not paying your debt."
Kairo stepped into the open center of the room.
He bent his knees.
Then he jumped.
The first jump was normal. Short, slightly heavy, and exactly what anyone would expect from a small, chubby five-year-old wearing pajamas.
He landed.
Jumped again.
On the second jump, he rose higher.
Not by much at first, but enough for Rebecca to notice that his feet stayed above the carpet longer than gravity should allow.
He landed again.
Third jump. Normal.
Fourth jump. Higher.
By the sixth jump, he floated for nearly two full seconds, arms spreading to keep his balance while his stuffed duck tail pointed downward.
Rebecca watched with wide eyes.
Kairo continued.
Each odd-numbered jump remained ordinary. Every even-numbered jump carried him higher and held him there longer. On the tenth, he rose nearly to the top of Rebecca's bed canopy and hovered in the air, legs kicking slightly before he drifted back down.
He landed with a soft thump.
Rebecca leaned forward. "How?"
Kairo placed both hands on his knees and took a breath. "My aunt Madame Xanadu is teaching me."
"Who is Madame Xanadu?"
Kairo rolled his eyes with enough force to make the movement visible from across the room. "My super cool magic aunt. Keep up."
"I have never met her."
"That sounds like a you problem."
Rebecca's brows lowered.
Kairo lifted one hand. "Also, please do not say her name too much. Her name is sticky."
Rebecca stared at him. "Sticky?"
"She notices when people say it."
"How?"
"Magic."
"That does not explain anything."
"It explains enough."
He straightened and pointed toward the floor. "Anyway, I am doing two things. A little time manipulation and very basic air magic. I make the moment around me stretch, just a little, then push air underneath myself."
Rebecca tilted her head. "Air magic. Like magic, magic?"
Kairo huffed.
Without warning, he ran toward the wall.
Rebecca's eyes widened.
He planted one foot against the plum-painted surface.
Then another.
He ran straight upward.
His body blurred slightly as he accelerated, the edges of his duck pajamas smearing into yellow and orange. He reached the ceiling, kept moving across it upside down, then ran down the opposite wall and landed exactly where he had started.
The whole thing took less than two seconds.
Rebecca sat completely still.
Kairo folded his arms. "Light time manipulation. I speed myself up this time instead of slowing everything else down."
Rebecca's jaw dropped.
Kairo looked pleased.
She set the Fresh Prince record carefully on the bed.
Then she rushed at him.
Kairo barely had time to react before Rebecca grabbed both of his hands.
Her thoughts hit him at the same moment her voice did.
Can you fly?
"Can I fly?" Kairo said aloud.
Rebecca froze.
He looked down at their joined hands, then back at her face.
A grin slowly spread across his.
Rebecca's cheeks turned pink.
Kairo tilted his head. "Did I just read your thoughts?"
She let go of one hand and touched the side of her face. "You did."
Kairo poked her cheek. "Keep up."
Her blush deepened.
"And do not change the subject," he continued. "I did three cool things. You have done nothing. Pay up, Langstrom."
Rebecca stopped making eye contact.
Kairo became confused.
She had asked him to do tricks without hesitation. She had laughed at his pajamas. She had let him hold something that belonged to her father. Now she looked as if he had asked her to sing in front of the Justice League.
Inside the watch, Aurielis watched the moment unfold with growing amusement.
"Oh, that poor sweet girl," she murmured privately. "She might have bad taste after all."
Kairo ignored her.
Rebecca glanced back at him. "My powers suck."
"They do not."
"You have not seen most of them."
"I saw you turn into a giant bat and fight a psychic dome."
Rebecca's face tightened. "That was not cool."
"It was very cool. Dangerous. Scary. A little rude to the tables. Still cool."
She looked down at her hands. "Can I do one thing and owe you two?"
Kairo considered this.
He rubbed his chin in the way he had seen serious adults do during negotiations. The effect was somewhat ruined by the duck hood.
"Fine," he said. "Because we are friends and friendship creates terrible business practices."
Rebecca nodded.
Only after she released his other hand did Kairo realize she had been holding both of them the whole time.
Rebecca looked around her room.
Her eyes landed on a glass mug sitting near the edge of her desk. She walked over and picked it up.
The mug read WORLD'S BEST AND CUTEST GRANDDAUGHTER in bright purple lettering. A cartoon bat wearing a crown had been painted beneath the words.
Rebecca held it carefully.
"Okay. I am only doing this because you can fix broken things."
Kairo looked at the mug. "That sounds like a dangerous opening sentence."
"You said I owed you."
"I did. I did not say destroy family property."
"You fixed the record."
"That took energy."
"You still owe me flying."
"I do not owe you anything."
Rebecca ignored that.
She cleared a section of the floor near the far wall, moving a small stack of magazines and two stuffed bats out of the way. Then she placed the mug in the center of the empty space.
She checked the distance from the bed.
Then the desk.
Then the windows.
Most importantly, the windows.
Apparently, this had happened before.
Rebecca stepped backward until she stood several feet away.
She looked at Kairo and smiled nervously. "Cover your ears."
Kairo raised an eyebrow. "Will that help?"
"Probably."
"Probably is not comforting."
"Do it."
Kairo pressed both hands over his ears.
Aurielis immediately wrapped a thin layer of temporal magic around his hearing, dulling the room's sound without cutting it off completely.
Rebecca faced the mug.
She planted her feet.
Her shoulders dropped.
Then she took a slow breath.
Kairo watched her chest expand.
The room went quiet.
Rebecca opened her mouth.
No sound came out.
At least, none Kairo could hear.
Still, the air changed.
The mug began to tremble.
A tiny ringing vibration passed through the floor beneath Kairo's feet. The surface of the glass rippled so quickly that the painted letters blurred. Fine cracks appeared near the handle, racing across the mug in thin white lines.
Rebecca kept her mouth open, eyes narrowed in concentration.
The cracks multiplied.
The mug lifted half an inch from the floor.
Then it exploded.
Glass burst outward in a glittering cloud, hundreds of fragments flying through the air before bouncing across the cleared carpet. The largest pieces were no bigger than Kairo's thumbnail. Most looked like sparkling dust.
Rebecca closed her mouth.
The pressure vanished.
She turned around slowly.
Kairo lowered his hands.
He looked at the scattered glass.
Then at Rebecca.
He gave her a deep, approving nod.
"That was very cool."
Rebecca's shoulders loosened.
"Very destructive," Kairo added. "But cool."
She smiled.
"Does your grandfather know you can do that?"
"He bought me a special practice room."
"Of course he did."
"He does not like when I use mugs."
"I can understand why."
Kairo crouched near the broken pieces, held one hand out, then stopped. Reversing the record had taken more out of him than he wanted to admit. His fingers still tingled. The room felt faintly tilted.
Rebecca noticed. "You do not have to fix it now."
Kairo looked back at her.
"I can clean it later," she said. "Grandpa has more mugs."
"That one says you are the cutest granddaughter."
"I am his only granddaughter."
"That feels like cheating."
"It still counts."
Kairo stood again, grateful she had not pushed him.
Rebecca moved toward a shelf beside the television and picked up a DVD case.
Kairo stared at the machine beneath the screen.
"You own a DVD player?"
Rebecca glanced back. "Yes."
"You are six."
"So?"
"That is old technology."
"You fixed a vinyl record."
"That is different. Vinyl is classy."
"DVDs are good."
"DVD menus are evil."
Rebecca ignored him and opened the case.
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
Kairo looked from the DVD to the repaired record lying on her bed.
"You have the album and the show."
"I like both."
"Respect."
She slid the disc into the player and pressed a button.
The machine whirred.
While it loaded, Rebecca stood with her back to him.
Her fingers remained on the remote.
"Did I scare you?"
The question came out so quietly that Kairo almost missed it.
He knew exactly what she meant.
The wings.
The claws.
The scream.
The way her bones had shifted beneath her skin.
The moment she became something enormous and wild beneath the table.
Kairo looked at her back.
"Nope."
Rebecca turned around.
He shrugged. "You are kinda like a superhero in training."
Her bright green eyes widened.
"You think I could be a superhero?"
Kairo nodded without hesitation. "Yup. Easy."
She stared at him as if he had just said something impossible.
Most adults spoke about her powers like symptoms.
Her grandfather tried to sound hopeful, but Rebecca heard the fear beneath his voice. Doctors used words such as control, treatment, mutation, risk, management.
Nobody had called her a superhero.
Nobody had made it sound simple.
She climbed onto the bed and sat near the pillows. Kairo followed, using both hands to pull himself up because the mattress was annoyingly high. His duck tail bent beneath him, which made him shift twice before he became comfortable.
Rebecca turned on the television. "We could be a superhero team."
Kairo looked at her.
"Wow. Hold on. I heard a we."
Rebecca began navigating the DVD menu.
"We is crazy," Kairo continued. "I am just a dude. A regular little dude with some strange things going on."
"You can stop time."
"Sometimes."
"You ran on the ceiling."
"That was magic."
"You fixed a broken record."
"That was being helpful."
"You moved Addison and Alaric before the bat hit them."
"That was panic."
Rebecca looked at him. "Heroes do things when they are scared."
Kairo folded his arms.
"That sounds like propaganda."
She turned back to the television. "We need names."
"No, we do not."
"And costumes."
"I already have a costume."
Rebecca glanced down at the duck pajamas.
Kairo followed her gaze.
"This is not a hero costume."
"It has a hood."
"It has a beak."
"Could be your symbol."
"I refuse."
Rebecca smiled.
The DVD menu disappeared.
The opening theme began.
Kairo settled back against the pillows as the familiar music filled the room. Rebecca increased the volume slightly, though nowhere near as loud as her posters suggested she preferred.
Kairo looked toward her.
She was smiling at the screen now, her earlier fear pushed aside for the moment. The repaired record rested safely near her pillow. Glass fragments still sparkled across the far side of the room. Their conversation about monsters, parents, and powers had somehow become a debate about superhero teams.
That seemed normal enough for Gotham.
Rebecca nudged his shoulder. "Our team needs a bat and a clock."
"There is no team."
"You can be Clock Duck."
Kairo turned to her with deep offense. "That is terrible."
"Time Duck?"
"Worse."
"Duck King?"
"My father would sue."
Rebecca laughed.
Kairo tried to keep frowning, but he could not hold it.
The theme music continued as the two children settled into the oversized bed, one wrapped in bats, the other trapped inside the most humiliating duck pajamas in human history.
Rebecca already had plans.
Team names.
Costumes.
Possible headquarters.
Kairo could hear it in the excited way she shifted beside him, even without reading her mind.
He shook his head and looked at the screen.
"I am not becoming a superhero," he muttered.
Rebecca did not answer.
She was very clearly not listening.
And somewhere inside the golden watch, Aurielis laughed because everyone in the room, except Kairo, already knew how that argument would end.