Born of Darkness. Rita Vetere
first confided in her best friend, Carla had looked at her like she was a couple of cards short of a full deck.
“Prove it,” Carla had demanded. When Jasmine pressed a thought on her, Carla had stared back at her in amazement.
“That’s freaky,” she declared. “Can you do it all the time?”
“Yes. But I don’t like to. Especially with grown-ups.”
After that, she had experimented with her ability on one of her teachers, with disastrous results. Miss Richter had insisted she be transferred to another class, telling the principal there was something “off about the girl”. Jasmine, hurt and angry after she’d heard some of the kids talking about it at recess, had cried herself to sleep that night. The very next day, Miss Richter was permanently injured in a car accident and never came back. That was the other thing about Jasmine, the thing that convinced her she was, indeed, a freak. Bad things happened to people who crossed her.
All she wanted was to be like everyone else, to fit in. But she didn’t, and she never would. Especially after what she’d come to think of as the incident. What had happened when she turned sixteen had cemented her suspicion that there was something inherently wrong with her.
Getting used to high school had been difficult enough, and the first two years without Carla, whose parents had sent her to a private school, had been hell. The boys pursued her relentlessly and, as a result, the girls despised her. In the cafeteria, she always sat alone, her previous attempts to sit with other groups of girls having been met with icy stares and silence. Except for the snickering afterward when she walked away.
The real trouble started with her first sexual encounter, a boy named Brendon Walker. A sad smile touched her lips as she remembered the heady sensation of that first experience with what would soon become an addiction. The first time with Brendon had awakened a latent and powerful emotion in her. She remembered how the act itself had felt sacred to her, an awakening that had affected her profoundly. After that first time, Jasmine sought out sex at every opportunity, for she discovered it was the only time she felt truly in her element. She craved it the way most people craved salt on their food; she needed it as much as the air she breathed.
Brendon had been a willing participant in her search for sexual ecstasy. Unfortunately for Jasmine, having been shunned by the girls in school, she had no way of knowing that spiteful Sharon McGillivray, who was one tough cookie and ringleader extraordinaire, considered Brendon to be her property. The day came when, returning home late from school one afternoon, Jasmine found Aunt Dora on her knees, scrubbing away at the sidewalk in front of the house they shared. Even the solvent and scrub brush Aunt Dora was using had not managed to completely erase the words whore and slut painted in large red letters on the walkway.
One look at the dismal expression on Aunt Dora’s face had been enough. Something snapped in Jasmine. A kind of slow burn began inside her, something that grew and grew, until it became too huge to contain. Frightened by what was happening, feeling she would explode if it continued, she directed her growing rage outward with her mind. Immediately, a blast of energy flew from her body, so powerful it rocked her. It all happened so quickly, she’d not had time to think about what she was doing; her reaction had been instinctive. Once she expelled the strange energy, no trace of rage remained, only the empty feeling that had been her constant companion for as far back as she could remember.
She had cause to recall the strange incident the following morning in Lit class when an announcement came over the intercom that Sharon McGillivray and Brendon Walker had both died on the previous day. After watching the news reports, Jasmine learned both teens had died at the same time, in unrelated incidents—right around the time Jasmine had returned from school to find her aunt cleaning the sidewalk. The information had caused her to start shaking uncontrollably. I did that. I made it happen. But how? What did I do? She didn’t know, but it had scared her so badly, she’d not been able to go to school for a week. After that, she’d been extremely careful about controlling her emotions when someone angered or disappointed her.
Returning her thoughts to the present, she discovered she’d arrived at Bayshore and stopped at the stone balustrade to look out at the ocean lapping at the shore. A bright moon lit up the night sky, reflecting off the inky surface of the water. The deepest part of night was her very favorite time, the only time she felt really alive, and she often wondered why this should be so, and why the dead of night held such fascination for her. Maybe it was because the most ordinary daytime objects took on such an alien quality in the middle of the night, reflecting her own feeling of being somehow different. The darkness felt familiar to her, as if this was the reality, and daylight the illusion. A sense of loneliness washed over her and she sighed, wondering if she’d always feel so out of step with the rest of the world.
As she looked out over the moonlit water, a strange doubling-over took place in her thoughts. The moon suddenly appeared unfamiliar, the shore foreign. As if from far away, strains of mystic-sounding music reached her, and for a second, she caught the scent of animals. Jasmine shook her head to clear it, and all returned to normal. Smiling at her fanciful nature, she turned away from the water and resumed walking.
Continuing along Bayshore, she turned the corner at South Orleans. She loved the old neighborhood and the picture-pretty house she and Aunt Dora shared. Large old trees flanked both sides of the avenue. The scent of gardenia from one of the yards filled the night air as she walked along. Many of the houses had stood in the same spot for over a century, a couple of them dating back to the 1800s. About halfway down the street, she pulled open the front gate set into the white picket fence surrounding her house. All was quiet as she moved along the walkway to the long porch fronting the large clapboard house. Aunt Dora had left the outside light on for her, and she entered, using her key.
Before she got halfway up the stairs, Aunt Dora’s voice floated up to her from the living room and Jasmine trotted back down, resigning herself to yet another confrontation with her aunt.
“It’s late, Jasmine. Almost four-thirty.”
Jasmine found her aunt reclined on the large chaise-lounge in the living room, a book on the table beside her, and wearing the silky blue robe she favored. Her thick, silver-and-gold hair tumbled loosely in waves around her shoulders. Jasmine thought how her Aunt, now in her fifties, was still a beautiful woman, and wondered once again why she had never married. “I was just hanging out with some friends,” she said, keeping her tone casual.
“I didn’t hear a car pull up. How did you get home?”
“I, uh, well, I walked. It wasn’t far.”
“Jasmine.” Her aunt’s face was painted with disapproval. “We’ve talked and talked about this. It’s not safe to walk the streets alone at this hour of the night. It’s no wonder I wait up for you to get home. And don’t think I can’t see that you’ve had too much to drink.”
“Aunt Dora, I can take care of myself,” she said, trying hard not to slur her words. The effects of the alcohol she had consumed earlier had not completely dissipated. “You don’t need to worry about me. I’m a grown woman now. I’ll be twenty-one next week.”
* * * *
Dora sighed. Tired, she didn’t feel like engaging in the ritual argument with her niece.
“Twenty-one,” she said, almost to herself. Her disapproval melted a little as she turned back to Jasmine. How the girl reminded her of Lilli. If possible, Jasmine was even more exquisite than Lilli had been at the same age. She had inherited Lilli’s golden wavy mane, as well as her tall, slim build and intense jade eyes; eyes which, against her sunkissed complexion, sparkled like emeralds.
“You’re thinking how much she looked like me,” Jasmine said.
Dora stared at her niece, startled out of her reverie. Having raised the girl, she should not have been surprised that Jasmine had articulated her exact thought, but at times the girl’s ability to practically read her mind still took her unawares. She stood up and tied her robe closer around her.
“Yes… she was very much like you. Beautiful. A bit of a