Chapter 1

Mimai (1)

"You're going to fall, you know."

"No I'm not." Of course, she was right, but I wasn't about to admit that to my little sister. Especially not to Karen. She was right too often, and admitting that it had happened again annoyed me more than a little. So instead, I stayed up on the roof, lying flat on my back and staring up at the clouds instead of down at Karen, standing at the base of the ladder I had climbed up to get up there in the first place. She made a hmphing noise and stalked off, obviously not willing to watch me get myself hurt after she had warned me of the danger of what I was doing. I can't say I blamed her.

I had been doing that recently... taking out the ladder and climbing up on the roof. I don't know why, but it was one of the few things that I could still do on my own. I couldn't take the car and go see a movie, not unless Mark had asked me to. I couldn't even pick up the phone and call someone. And it wasn't because I wasn't allowed to. I think Mom and Dad would have been overjoyed if I had done something like that during that summer.

But ever since that first night with Mark, the first (and only) time I cried because of the situation that summer, life had been... weird. I guess the best way to describe it was like I was living in a body that wasn't really mine. I didn't have very much control, and I spent quite a bit of time just sitting there in my room, or occasionally in front of the tv in the living room, doing almost nothing. Most of the time I couldn't even really get my body to talk on its own, let alone something as complex as getting in a car and driving. And that was when I was alone...

When I was around certain people (pretty much anyone who figured big in my life but Karen), I couldn't do anything. I couldn't talk. I couldn't move on my own. All I could really do was follow the orders that they gave me, and react when Mark and I were having sex. After all, Mark didn't want me to just lay there and let him fuck me, so I couldn't possibly just do that, no matter how much I wanted to most of the time. In a way, I both loved and hated Mark that summer.

Around Karen I could almost be myself again for a bit. I could talk to her, and not just the begging that Mark forced out of me in bed (something that I would never, ever let come out of my mouth in front of my little sister). I could occasionally do things other than sit there and talk to her, such as play a video game with her. She didn't like games much, but I think she realized that it was almost something that I needed that summer from her, so she played along with it.

I had no clue why things had turned out that way. I knew the difference from the beginning of course, but at first Mom and Dad thought that this new oddity in me was just another form of passive resistance to what they wanted of me. Like the silent treatment from just before this started. They begged and pleaded for me to react to them, to talk to them, to at least do something other than sit in the dark in my room, but no matter how much I wanted to do what they asked of me, I couldn't. And then when they finally realized that I wasn't doing it on purpose, they started trying to figure out what was going on.

No one was quite sure what it was, only that it seemed to get worse when I was around people who were involved in that. Dad, Grandpa, Mark, and his dad were all the worst. Sometimes I could barely even think around them, especially the one time that all four of them were in the room with me at the same time (that was probably one of the scariest times in my entire life, like the world was going fuzzy on me). It wasn't quite so bad around Mom, I guess since she wasn't actually involved directly. But, she had known what was in store for me from the beginning, and she had actively worked to keep it a secret from me, so she was "involved."

Karen was family, but she had no clue what was going on. She wasn't part of any of it, just as I "was" before they told me about it. (Though technically, no matter how much I might like to think otherwise, I was still part of it even when I didn't even have the slightest inkling of the truth.) Though I had already come up with the question of why it wasn't Karen being forced to marry the (male) heir to the Nelene family, she really didn't have any sort of involvement. And I think that's why I could at least talk around her.

And, one time, they actually delivered me into a group of my friends that didn't include Mark. For that one, glorious day I managed to almost regain my old self again. It took me a while - I got multiple comments on how odd I was acting - but I eventually managed to not only cheer up, but to talk and act like a normal almost twenty-year-old again. Until Mom came to pick me up, at which point I went back to the way I had been before.

The exception to all of this was going up onto the roof. I don't know why, but every now and then I would just have this burning desire to be up high. And when that happened, if I was alone at the time or just with Karen, I could almost always get my body to obey me long enough to get out the ladder and climb up onto the roof. That calmed me down, so it quickly became a common thing, me being up on the roof like that.

Karen didn't like it one bit. She was convinced that I was going to fall and break something, maybe even my head or my neck. She voiced this opinion of hers often, not that I ever listened to her. And I kept telling her that I would be fine, which always ended up being the truth, not that I was always sure of that myself. All I really knew when I got the urge to be up high was that there was no real way for me to fight it. Even if I tried not to give in to the urge, I would find my body acting on its own if I left the feeling long enough. When that desire to be closer to the heavens took me, I always ended up on the roof, like it or not.

So that was where Karen left me that day. Once up on the roof, the strange inhibitions all came back, and I returned to my semi-immobile state until I was ready to go down again. That day was no different. I had climbed up onto the roof, like usual. Karen had warned me of the dangers of being up high like that, as usual, and I had dismissed her concerns with a couple of casual words. And then I had gone still again, staring up at the clouds with no real ability to do anything else, though I knew that once the feeling of being almost in the sky (if I managed to ignore the secure rooftop beneath me) wore off, I would find myself able to climb back down the ladder and return it to its normal spot.

I'm not quite sure how long I was up there that day, which wasn't much of a surprise. Over the course of the summer I had found myself spending more and more time up there each day. And most of the time that I spent up there slipped away from me the moment I tried to think about it, almost as if my brain shut itself off the moment I got up there. So it came as no surprise that I wasn't quite sure how long I was up there that day in early August before I heard Mom's voice calling to me from the vicinity of the ladder.

"Arin, are you up there again?" I don't think she actually expected me to answer her by that point, not that I could have had she expected it. As it was, I found myself unable to muster the will to roll over and crawl to the edge to look down at her. Her voice had brought me out of whatever reverie I had been in before, but it had also had the usual effect of nearly paralyzing me.

A few moments later she apparently realized that there would be no answer from me. But, as we had all discovered not too long after my condition started in the first place, she knew quite well that I would be able to obey any command she might give. Actually, I would find myself compelled to do so, not just capable.

"Rin, come down here," she said. "You have visitors."

That actually piqued my curiosity more than a little. Obviously, when she said visitor, in the singular, it almost always mean that Mark had come for another session of "training." But more than one... I could hope that maybe the group didn't include Mark, though I can't say that I was actually convinced of that idea. But even if I hadn't been curious about the situation, Mom had given me an order, and I had no choice but to obey her.

Even before I could really make the decision to get down the ladder and onto the ground where Mom and the visitors were, my body moved itself, rolling over as it couldn't before and carefully using the ladder to climb down from the roof. It was a slow process and lasted what seemed like an eternity, because of my desire to know who my visitors were, but I did get down in the end. And when I was down on the ground, I saw Mom standing there, slightly apart from the ladder, waiting for me with two men behind her.

I knew them, of course. Actually, I probably would have been surprised if I hadn't known them. After all, I didn't think that the family was going to be sending any strangers to visit me, since anyone that the family sent would almost certainly receive the same sort of reaction as almost everyone else did. And someone who wasn't from the family and didn't know me would have no reason to visit me in the first place.

As it was, I wasn't quite sure if those two would fall in with the family, Mark, and his dad, or out. I would have liked to know, but I realized almost immediately that that would have to wait until Mom went away. Even if they didn't cause the same passiveness in me, Mom did. Which meant that I would be waiting with bated breath (inside, since I was stuck wearing a blank, doll-like expression as long as Mom was around) until she decided to leave me alone with Jay and Ed, both of whom I was desperately hoping would fall into the "good" category.

They must have both known about my condition, since they didn't look that surprised that I didn't even greet them after getting off of the ladder and stopping in front of the little group. They were somewhat surprised, probably because it was be more than a little difficult to accept what had happened with me without having seen it first. I know I wouldn't have believed it until I saw it, had I been in their position. (Of course, that didn't mean it was any easier coming to terms with it as the one in that situation.) But they weren't shocked, which indicated that they had been forewarned, not that I ever even considered the possibility that they might not have been told about it. Not when they came to me through Mom.

"Well then," Mom said, turning the same slightly sad look on me that she had been giving me ever since the entire situation started. "I guess it's time for me to disappear..."

"I'll come with you," Jay said, which surprised me a bit, though Ed looked like he had known it was coming. "There are a few things I would like to discuss with you." Mom threw him a confused look, glancing over at Ed as if she thought that he would be the one talking with her. "We'll be switching off later if you want to talk to Ed," Jay said. Mom just nodded a little, and then the two of them walked off without saying anything else, leaving me alone with Ed.

I could feel the not-quite pressure on me lift as Mom left the area, which answered the question of whether I would be able to act on my own around Ed, to a point. I wasn't sure how much the pressure would lift in the end... and probably wouldn't until I tried to talk, but at least I found that I could stretch out my arms, stiff as they were from not being moved for a while and then forced to help me down the ladder. Ed noticed this, and smiled gently in my direction.

"This... "condition" of yours is really quite intriguing," he said, a touch of something wry coloring his voice.

"I-if you think you can fix it..." I said, stumbling a bit over the first words, probably a lingering effect of Mom's presence, since the rest came out just fine. "...feel free to study me as much as you want."

"I'm afraid that enchantments aren't exactly my forte," he said. "And I can't really see any other sort of cause for whatever is happening to you at the moment."

"Well that's a lot of help..." I muttered, and he chuckled.

"I'm afraid all I can really do is take you away from here and let you be your old self for a while," he said.

"You're taking me somewhere?" I asked, trying not to get my hopes up, since I knew that he was still connected to the Academy, even if he didn't affect me the same way that my family did.

"Not far," he said. "I thought we might go out and have coffee while we chat, or something like that."

"Oh..." I said, failing at not sounding disappointed when he dashed apart my hopes of a more permanent escape.

"I'm afraid I was forced to promise your mother that I would bring you back in one piece," he said. "And I'm sure that, were I to run off with you, I would lose my job and several other things that are quite dear to me, no matter how willing you might be to come with me."

I managed to keep myself from pouting at that, mostly because my pride wouldn't allow it, but I couldn't help but feel more than a little disappointed. I didn't really see why Mom would insist on having me back, when I couldn't even act like myself when I was around her. In the end I think I decided that it was some form of maternal love that defied all logic, or maybe just her being overprotective. After all, she had no real way to know that I was more or less normal away from the family and some other people, so it would be hard for her to "give me up" when she had no way of knowing for sure that I would be able to function. At least at home she could make sure that no one was taking advantage of my... unique condition (except for Mark during "training," that is).

"I guess if that's the best that I can get..." I said, and he smiled at me slightly before gesturing toward the car parked at the curb. It was an oddly polite gesture, like many of the things that Ed did, and if I hadn't been so excited about getting to leave the area of the house, I probably would have been offended by it. After all, it was the kind of gesture that seemed more appropriate for a gentleman to be giving to his lady, not a college professor to his student. And I was feeling far too unmanly recently, being forced to bottom for Mark.

As it was, I think he noticed that I wasn't exactly grateful for the gentlemanly gesture. He flashed a small, sheepish smile at me as he slid into the driver's seat. "Sorry, it's a force of habit," he said. "No hard feelings?"

"As long as you don't start trying to screw me you're okay," I said, grimacing. He started up the car and pulled away from the curb, glancing over at me again to before responding.

"Not to offend, Arin, but I do not sleep around. And you are not Jay."

"Neither is Adai," I said. I saw a slight blush color his cheeks.

"Adai is... a different matter. At the moment I would not force myself on... him. But I cannot say that my hand will not be forced in the near future."

"Why would someone want to force you to have sex with him?"

"Family matters," he said. "I'm sure that Adai would not be happy if I told you, so I will leave it at that."

There was a note of finality to his voice, one that told me that he was serious about not wanting to tell me more. Hearing that, I realized that he really wouldn't tell me, even if I pressed, even to try and cheer me up, which seemed to be most of the reason he had come. And I can't say that I blamed him; there were some things out there that just needed to stay private, no matter what. I knew that far too well after realizing that the issue that I would want to keep private was already rather well known. Too bad for me that in this case the thing that needed to stay private was something that I wanted to know about even more now that I had become aware of it.

With that, we rode in silence for a while. It really didn't matter to me where we went, though he seemed to have somewhere in mind. All that I cared about at the moment was getting away from home for a while. Anywhere where I could be myself, not the living doll I had come to resemble so much over the past several weeks. The fact that we were on our way to a place like that was enough for me.

Finally, after driving around for about ten minutes, Ed pulled into the parking lot of a cheap-looking family restaurant. I knew the place, and knew that it had quite a bit better food than its outer appearance would suggest, but it made me wonder exactly what had drawn Ed, who had admitted to me that he had never been out to Wisconsin ever just a few months before, to the place. It certainly wasn't the looks...but there had to be something that Ed saw in the place just by looking at it. Unless he had someone else giving him inside information.

"I hear this is one of your favorite restaurants," he said conversationally as he pulled the car into a parking spot. I turned to stare at him, a flat look that made him squirm almost immediately.

"Okay...one of your favorite affordable restaurants."

I just continued to stare.

"Your mother told me."

"I thought so. Did she tell you what I usually get as well so you could order it ahead of time? Or will I have to do that all by myself?" If he hadn't been able to detect the sarcasm dripping from my every word, I would have probably given up on being a real person right then and there and resigned myself to being the random fuck toy of whoever wanted me next. It was just that obvious.

"She's just trying to help, you know," he said. "She thinks that if everyone takes you to places you enjoy, maybe your "condition" will get better."

"I doubt it."

"So do I, but it can't hurt to let her try, can it?"

"Half the waitresses here think I've been in some major accident that left me half brain dead," I said. "That hurts."

"I guess you can show them that that's not the case today, then," he said.

"Which will just make it worse the next time Mom decides to take me out," I muttered, not that Ed deserved to be the recipient of my complaints. He wasn't too involved; that was evident simply from the conversation we were having. He couldn't control what Mom did, and I really should have been glad just to have the chance to be a real person again for the first time in a while.

"I wish I could say I understand how you feel," he said. "But for once I must say I am completely lost. I don't even think I could imagine what it's like being in your situation, so the best I can do is say that I feel for you."

I stared at him for a moment, not quite sure if I was happy to hear him say that or not. The feeling I had after hearing that was a complicated one, some happiness mixed in with anger, and several other emotions that I couldn't quite place. But, in the end, the happiness won out, as I realized that I don't think I would have been able to say much else had our situations been reversed.

"I guess that's all you can do, isn't it?" I asked, twitching my mouth into a sad smile. "At least tell me you're not in on the grand conspiracy to get me "trained," please? I've had enough people discussing my expertise when it comes to sex recently."

"I had nothing to do with it personally, but I would have been more surprised had they not arranged for some sort of training. It's a fairly common practice, not only for your particular position, but for all sorts of other arrangements within the community. Your particular training is most likely a little more - rigorous - than the training common among my people, for example, but that sort of training still exists."

"Your people?"

"You'll find that there is quite a bit of variety at the Academy when it comes to different kinds of folk, far more than you'll find just looking around any given city on the outside. We have people of all sorts at the Academy, including some whose kind haven't shown their faces to a normal human since prehistoric times. You most likely won't recognize most of them as anything out of the ordinary, and that's the way most of us prefer it."

"So you're not human, or something?" I asked. I had to ask the question, even though I was pretty sure I already knew the answer. I probably wouldn't have asked had I not already known the answer, actually.

"Correct," he replied, grinning at me. "Neither is Jay, for that matter. And no, I can't tell you what we are, for various reasons. And now, I think perhaps we should head into the restaurant before your mother starts calling to find out what I did with her son."

I nodded, and then started a little at part of what he had just said. Before Mom started "calling" him... Obviously he was carrying a cell phone, and Mom had the number. It shouldn't have seemed strange, having grown up in the times I had grown up in, but having only known him as a part of the Academy, a sort of mini world where such things seemed to have no effect, it was odd to think of him as carrying a cell phone.

The rest of my time with him was unremarkable. We talked and at a light meal, both of us carefully avoiding the subjects that I think we both really wanted to talk about. Our waitress was not one of those I had mentioned before, but still not one who hadn't been around to see me in that restaurant recently. Because of that, she spent most of the time we were there glancing over at me, as if she couldn't quite believe that I was having a normal conversation with someone. I can't say that I wouldn't have thought somewhat the same, given the fact that the last time I had been there before my "situation" started had been almost a year earlier, and I hadn't been there without someone who triggered my inability to function since the beginning of the "situation." But still, that was somewhat annoying.

Some time, though no where near long enough, later, Ed took me back home, where Mom and Jay were both waiting for us. I couldn't help but sigh inside as I felt the fog settle back over my mind when Mom walked over to the car. She and Jay both had serious looks on their faces. I wasn't sure what had caused them, but I'm willing to bet that it had something to do with my situation. Almost all of the serious-look-causing talks within the family recently had had something to do with my situation.

"Did you still want to talk to me?" Ed asked, looking over at Mom, as he opened my door for me to get out.

She shook her head, and then seemed to change her mind for a moment. "Just one question," she said with a thin-lipped smile. "Do you have any ideas? Anything at all, no matter how impossible or off-the-wall it might be?"

Ed also shook his head, but his was a sad movement, similar, yet at the same time completely different from Mom's motion. I saw her face fall even as he started to speak. "I've never seen anything quite like this. As I told Arin earlier, I'm not particularly skilled when it comes to enchantments. But," and here I saw Mom's face rise again, suddenly filled with hope. I can't say I blamed her. I would have felt the same way if I actually believe he might have figured something out. "If he were a young one of my kind, I would be vaguely reminded of a spirit that had lost its way back to the body after being away."

"But that can't be the case with Rin," Mom said, shaking her head again. "There's no way he could have that sort of ability in the first place, so it couldn't have gone wrong."

"Exactly my thoughts. However, you asked for anything, no matter how impossible it might be."

"That I did."

Ed opened his mouth to say something else, but just as he started to speak, another voice cut in, one that hadn't been part of the conversation... One that belonged to someone I hadn't known was even in the area, and I'm pretty sure she hadn't been until just then. "Mom," Karen called out, "have you seen my calculator? It's not in my desk where I usually put it."

I knew she was stretching the truth there, of course. "Usually put" actually meant that she put it there whenever she thought about taking out of the living room where she often did her school work. Since that particular bit of tidying up happened once in a blue moon, the calculator didn't end up in her desk very much. She may have had a genius brain, but no one ever claimed that Karen could keep things put away.

Meanwhile, the conversation ground to a halt. Jay and Ed both turned to stare at Karen, probably wondering how much they could say around her. They had no way of knowing whether she had been raised like me, not knowing anything, or not, though I'm pretty sure both of them were leaning toward the former. Karen, not seeming to have realized until just then that we had company, also came to a sort of halt in what she was doing, freezing in place where she was and staring at Jay and Ed, mostly Ed. Luckily, I was standing so that I could see almost everyone, with Ed to my left, Karin and Mom to my right, and Jay just far enough to my left and behind me that I really couldn't see him.

"More of Arin's friends?" Karin squeaked, after a short pause. I wasn't quite sure what was bothering her, but I could see her mouth twitching, almost as if she wanted to frown, but didn't quite have the courage to do so openly.

"Teachers at his school," Mom replied with a smile. "They heard that he wasn't doing well and came to see if they could help."

"Teachers?" Karen squeaked again. "Both of them?"

"Yes, both of them."

Karen stared at the two of them again, her gaze moving to Ed one more time. Then she shook her head, a look of disbelief spreading across her face, and turned around. Apparently she had forgotten about the calculator, since she said nothing about that as she walked back to the house. Just as she started to get too far away, we all heard her mutter, not really talking to anyone in particular, "Fuzzy ears... Nowhere near Halloween yet..."

At that point, all I could really do was stand there and feel confused, like I was missing part of the story, as Mom, Ed, and Jay all looked shocked. Ed looked over to Mom with a questioning look on his face, and she looked back at him. Some sort of silent communication passed between them in that moment, as if they both were thinking the same thing and merely needed to confirm it, because shortly afterward they both nodded decisively. Then, Ed and Jay both called to me, beckoning me to turn around to face the two of them.

"We have to be going," Ed said.

"Wish we could do something to help," Jay added, "But neither one of us is quite sure what's going on. Hopefully someone will work something out soon. Until then, hang tight and try not to worry about it too much."

I couldn't even smile weakly at them to show them that I would try. All I could do was stand there, the expression on my face blank, like a dolls. I think they realized that, though, and just waved to me before they both headed over to the car, leaving me with Mom.

"I almost expected Edward to have more of an idea of what was going on..." Mom said absentmindedly as we stood there watching the car drive away. Then she turned to me, a huge fake smile on her face that didn't really cover up the worry that was pretty much always there those days. "Anyway, let's go back inside. Mark called while you were out. He'll be here later tonight, so you'll want to be plenty rested when he gets over."

Had I been able to, I would have stared at her with a "what the hell!!?" type expression on my face. I would have protested, fought, probably even thrown a temper tantrum (if I thought it would do any good, that is), and then eventually sighed and given up. After all, no matter how much I didn't want to be having sex with anyone at that point, doing it with Mark was still better than doing it with Mark's dad. But, I didn't really have the choice of fighting it and then giving up of my own free will. My option at the time was to stand there and wait for Mom to tell me to do something, which was how I ended up heading off to my room to nap until Mark arrived as Mom wandered off in search of Karen.