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Helen was overwhelmed. Unwashed dishes were piled on the counter, toys were scattered along the floor, and she had just discovered that Dash had spent the morning drawing on the walls with crayon. She loved her son dearly, but he had entered his terrible twos with wholehearted abandon, and as his powers developed along with his ability to walk it was all Helen could do to keep up.
“Violet!” Helen called as when she finally managed to pin her squirming son under an arm. “Vi, are you ready?”
A giggle came from somewhere behind her, and Violet latched herself around her mother’s waist. “Gotcha!”
Helen didn’t drop Dash, but her grip did loosen enough for him to wiggle from her grasp. Swallowing a string of curses she pried Violet away, frustrated but not entirely surprised to see her daughter was buck naked.
Both Helen and Bob had tried to tell her that she couldn’t strip whenever she wanted to in order to sneak up on people, but their voices fell deaf on Violet, who had graduated to her sinister sixes not two months prior. Glancing at her watch, Helen realized there wasn’t time for another speech.
“Get your clothes on and get to the car. We need to get to Dash’s doctor appointment.”
“Don’t wanna.”
“I don’t care. Get your clothes on, I’ve got to wrangle your brother.”
Violet wrinkled her nose in distaste—an expression Helen was sure she’d picked up from her father—and marched back to the living room. Hopefully to find her damn shirt.
Stopping only to rub her eyes, Helen chased Dash no fewer than three times across the circuit of their small house, only catching him after a too-wide turn on the linoleum caused him to crash into the wall. Praying that her son had not concussed himself, Helen scooped Dash into her arms. He laughed enormously.
“Again, again! Do it again!”
“How ‘bout no,” Helen muttered to herself, then yelped when she stepped on a large plastic building block.
There were some things that just hurt, even with super powers.
“Violet!” Helen yelled.
Her daughter sulked around the corner, thankfully clothed, and said, “I can’t find my sock.”
“Oh for the love of….” Helen paused to take a deep breath, for a moment closing her eyes and imagining herself on a nice sunny beach. When she opened them again she almost didn’t feel like tearing her hair out. “Honey, just get your shoes on. We’ll find it later.”
The doorbell rang. Helen had to swallow the urge to scream.
“Get your shoes on,” she told Violet. Adjusting Dash under her arm Helen plastered her friendliest smile and opened the door to their neighbor from across the street.
Mrs. Nachtigal was a lovely woman, truly she was, it was a shame that the Parrs were forced to lie to her on a nearly weekly basis. The aged woman straightened as much as the stoop in her back would allow and held up a plate of cookies.
“Oh hello, Helen,” she said, a trace of her native Germany in her accent. “I was just baking and thought that perhaps your little ones would enjoy a cookie or two.”
There were easily two dozen cookies on that plate, and this time Helen’s smile was more genuine.
“That is very kind of you, Mrs. Nachtigal,” Helen said. “Unfortunately we’re just out the door. Dash has a doctor appointment.”
“The boy isn’t ill, is he?” Mrs. Nachtigal said worriedly.
“No! No, nothing like that. Just, you know, a normal checkup.”
Of course normal children weren’t forced to have their well-baby checkups at a government hospital, or have their superhuman abilities documented by the same officials that forced supers underground in the first place. Failure to comply held unspoken consequences both Helen and Bob agreed were best to avoid.
And Helen was going to be late.
“Mom I can’t find my shoes!”
Mrs. Nachtigal’s kindly smile stretched across the whole of her face. “It is hard when the men are gone.”
Coming from anyone else, Helen would have rankled at the implied insult. God only knew that the so-called super moms in the neighborhood already looked down at her for struggling to keep on top of the whole stay at home mom gig. But Mrs. Nachtigal spoke it as simple fact, with no hidden malice to be found. For that Helen was thankful.
“Why don’t I watch over your girl while you’re out,” Mrs. Nachtigal said.
“I—that’s very generous of you,” Helen stammered, not sure what else to say. The NSA had of course vetted the entire neighborhood as part of the superhero relocation act and found nothing suspicious, but the fact was Helen didn’t know Mrs. Nachtigal. Not really. The only person she had ever trusted to watch over her children was Lucius, but he was on vacation with his wife. With Bob gone during the day and coming home late at night from a job he hated, the bulk of the parenting fell on Helen.
And she was exhausted.
“I raised five children on a factory man’s wages,” Mrs. Nachtigal said proudly. “I think I can handle Violet for a couple hours. What do you say, Violet?”
Helen hadn’t heard her daughter come up behind her, and turned frantically to make sure she was fully visible. A shoe hung limply from Violet’s hand as she looked up at the old woman, an enormous blue eye peeking behind a curtain of dark hair. She nodded timidly, having gone shy in the presence of a relative stranger.
“Are you sure?” Helen asked. “I don’t want to impose…”
“Nonsense! What are neighbors for, if not to help one another?”
Helen didn’t have time to think about it, or time to call Bob at the office and ask his opinion. With Dash still squirming in her hands she looked down at Violet’s bare feet and imagined not having to handle both of them at the same time while out in the city. Dash wasn’t old enough to understand that he couldn’t use his powers whenever he wanted and would be difficult enough to handle by himself, and Violet…
“Do you promise to be good?” Helen asked. That enormous eye looked up at her, and Violet nodded again. She was still half-hidden behind Helen’s legs.
Helen didn’t remember her ever being this wary around strangers before, but she and Bob had been trying to hammer into her head that she couldn’t turn invisible in front of others, so maybe she was just beginning to understand the need for secrecy. Leaning down, Helen kissed the crown of her head.
“Listen to Mrs. Nachtigal and don’t eat too many cookies,” she said, and fixed Violet with a look, before realizing its significance was probably lost on a six year old. “Remember the rules.”
This was said quietly, meant for her daughter’s ears only. An anxious light shone in Violet’s eyes. “I’ll be good, I promise."
Helen ruffled her hair fondly. “That’s my girl.”
It was a rare thing for Dash to be able to run unimpeded, and for one blissful hour he was allowed to do just that while a panel of doctors, scientists, and government officials watched on. The only one that Helen recognized was, surprisingly enough, Edna Mode.
“Your son has a gift,” the diminutive fashionista said once the testing was over and Dash was back in Helen’s arms, this time fast asleep. “It is a shame he’ll not be allowed to use it to its fullest effect.”
They exchanged other pleasantries before Helen excused herself, but Helen didn’t remember them, troubled by prophetic nature of her words.
When Helen returned to the house the dishes were done and the floor free of clutter. She supposed she ought to feel upset that Mrs. Nachtigal had been forced to clean house for her, but mostly she was thankful that she didn’t have to do it herself. She found the old woman sitting on the couch with one of Helen’s magazines. Violet was nowhere to be seen.
“It was a lovely afternoon, Helen. Oh, I hope you don’t mind, I dirtied some glasses after you left—cookies don’t taste the same without a little milk—and I didn’t want to leave them for you.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Nachtigal. Just let me get my purse and I’ll—“
“Oh, you don’t have to pay me! I enjoyed myself. Your daughter is a delight. So quiet, I hardly even realized she was here.”
Helen shifted Dash in her arms, suddenly uncomfortable. “Where is she now?”
“Playing in her bedroom, last time I checked.”
Barely pausing for a word of thanks, Helen hurried to Violet’s room and threw the door open. A trio of dolls were laying on the floor, abandoned.
Helen’s heart jumped to her throat, but the calm, analytical side that served her so well in a time of crisis—the part of her mind that was still Elastigirl—noted that the telltale pile of clothes was absent.
Helen closed the door and set Dash down in his crib before returning to the living room. “Violet, I’m home!”
“Is she not there?” Mrs. Nachtigal said worriedly. “There is only the one door and I did not see her go out.”
“Sometimes Violet likes to play hide and seek. I’m sure she’ll pop out of one of these corners eventually,” Helen said in what she hoped was a nonchalant manner. “Violet, where are you?”
“I’m right here.”
Mrs. Nachtigal screamed as Violet appeared beside her, as if out of thin air. To Helen it was horror in slow motion. The sudden appearance of Violet—who even fully clad somehow managed to sneak unseen behind the couch—startled Mrs. Nachtigal enough to make her lose her balance. She stumbled on a plastic building block, the very same Helen stepped on earlier in the afternoon, and began to fall.
The only thing that Helen could think of was preventing her septuagenarian neighbor from breaking a hip in her house, and without thinking Helen stretched out her arms to catch her.
Mrs. Nachtigal screamed again. Somewhere in the back of Helen’s mind she heard Dash begin to cry, and in the chaos Violet was once again nowhere to be seen.
“Y-you…y-you’re one of them!”
It was like a knife twisting in Helen’s stomach to hear those words coming from kind, friendly Mrs. Nachtigal, but there was no point denying it. As soon as she was steady on her feet Helen respectfully pulled her hands away, keeping her chin lifted proudly even as tears threatened to spill from her eyes.
“Yes I am.”
It was nearly four in the afternoon when Bob got the call from Rick Dicker and nearly five by the time he managed to get home. Helen already had the suitcases out, but she sat white-faced and motionless on the couch. Her eyes were vacant, and when Bob followed her gaze he saw it was fixated on the family picture hung on the mantle.
“Helen…”
He didn’t get any farther than that before she cut him off. “We have a problem, Bob.”
Bob forced a bracing smile. “I never liked this house much anyway.” There was no answer, and he stood in the doorway to the living room at a loss. Usually he was the one screwing up, and she had to tell him that everything would turn out okay.
Bob had never seen his wife so…so defeated, and he didn’t know what he was supposed to do to help.
“It’s just a house,” he said gently. “It’s not your fault.”
“Yes it is.” She looked up at him for the first time, worry plaguing her face. “I can’t get Violet to talk to me.”
“Where is she?”
Helen pointed in the direction of her room, and Bob wasted no time. He made it as far as her doorway when he was forced to stop, and his mouth fell open with a nearly audible pop.
He could see Violet sitting in her bed with her knees pulled up to her chest. It was impossible to tell for sure because she had gone invisible, but Bob thought she had her head buried in her arms. Every few seconds he could hear her hiccough as she tried to keep from crying.
She was surrounded by a pinkish, semi-transparent dome of crackling energy the size of her bedroom. Bob tapped it with a meaty finger there was a ripple on the surface of the field, but his finger did not pierce through. Perhaps he could break through if he used all his strength, but that wasn't a risk he was willing to take.
There was no mistaking it, it was a force field. His daughter had made a force field.
“Oh my god,” Bob breathed. His first, instinctual reaction was elation. Having multiple powers wasn’t unheard of, but they usually manifested and developed together. Violet had been turning invisible almost since she was born and had given neither of her parents any indication she had a secondary ability.
That elation quickly crumbled into worry, fear, and guilt. Late onset powers were usually brought on by some sort of trauma. Bob had heard theories that powers were somehow related to personality. If that was even remotely true, and Violet was forcing them out, then…
“Violet, honey it’s me. Can I come in?”
“Go away!”
“Vi, you’re not in trouble. I just want to talk.”
This elated a fresh wave of tears. The hairs on the back of Bob’s neck prickled as the force field shuddered with an uneven distribution of energy, growing smaller, than larger, before finally collapsing on itself. Hesitatingly Bob sat next to his daughter, her small bed sagging under his weight.
“I d-didn’t m-m-mean too!” Violet wailed.
“You didn't turn invisible on purpose?” Bob asked.
Violet shook her head emphatically, and Bob was inclined to believe her. It was hard, sometimes, to pretend to be normal. That was true for anyone, let alone a six year old child.
A part of him raged at the society that was so afraid of the spectacular that they forced his daughter to pretend to be ordinary at all. Had Helen simply been allowed to tell Mrs. Nachtigal of Violet’s ability she wouldn’t have been caught so off-guard by it, or by Helen saving her from a nasty fall.
The rest of him hurt for Violet, and for Helen, and for Dash who wasn’t even old enough to be affected by the ban on powers. He felt helpless, his enormous strength less than useless when they were suffering so much at the hands of an uncaring world.
Bob brought Violet in close and ran his fingers through her hair. “I’m not angry at you. It’s just…we’ll need to practice some more so it doesn’t happen again. Do you remember when you used to practice with me and Uncle Lucius?”
Violet sniffed piteously and nodded. “I won hide and seek.”
“That you did,” Bob said, smiling at the memory. “It looks like you have another power that we need to practice, too.”
“I didn’t mean to,” Violet repeated. “I was scared.”
“I know, sweetie. But me and your mom are here to protect you. You have nothing to be scared of.”
Violet fell silent, drawing herself into an even smaller ball. “Mrs. Nachtigal was yelling at Mom. I tried to say I was sorry. I wanted her to stop yelling.”
Suddenly Bob felt another presence, and looked up to see Helen standing in the doorway holding Dash. She looked more tired than he had ever seen her. “Did she…?”
Helen nodded wearily. “Threw a field that knocked Mrs. Nachtigal against the kitchen wall. Cracked her head pretty good.”
Bob winced. No wonder the suitcases were out already.
“I didn’t mean to!” Violet wailed, burying her head in her hands.
“It’s not your fault,” Bob said fiercely, desperate for her to listen to him. “None of this is your fault.”
“Yes it is,” Violet whispered. “Mrs. Nachtigal hates me and we have to move again and I’m sorry.”
Bob glanced at Helen, but she looked equally lost as Violet broke down into body-wracking sobs. It was all he could do to let Violet crawl into the expanse of his lap and let her cry herself to sleep.
“What are we going to do?” Helen asked once she had finally settled into a fitful sleep.
There was no good answer to that question, and they both knew it. What happened today was not Violet’s fault. She was a six year old girl with a power she neither understood nor could fully control. Neither was Helen to blame. Bob couldn’t even bring himself to be angry at Mrs. Nachtigal, who had been trained by society to hate something she couldn’t comprehend.
No, there was nothing that could be done. Not so long as the world stayed the way it was. Bob’s hand curled into a fist, and he silently vowed to never stop fighting against that injustice. Not just for himself, but for the sake of his children.
There was a long, heavy silence. Bob settled Violet under her covers and wrapped his arm around his wife’s shoulders as best he could without stirring Dash. “We do what we’ve always done,” he said finally. “And we hope things turn out for the best.”
And then, because it was what they had always done, they began to pack.