Ten

"Now what?" Edeline asked the question on everybody's mind. They all shrugged together.
"It's not like we have a lot to go on," Baudry offered, which wasn't helpful at all.
"More like nothing," Barque suggested. "I'm taking off," and started to walk away.
"Wait," Edeline called out, "wait a minute, please."
At that, Barque turned around and rejoined the group gathered around the dogwood tree. He reminded himself that he hadn't yet made his conquest of the new blood, something he very much wanted to do.
"We're supposed to all work together," Edeline said, but Barque was harsh in his reply.
"A Striker working with a Savior? Never!"
"Isn't that just a game?" Edeline queried. "Aren't you all actually people outside of that?"
"Some of us are," Baudry put in. "Others," he added, gesturing at Barque and Ember, "have lost themselves entirely within in."
"Not entirely," Ember protested, though weakly. She was at that moment considering the positions of several Smackers in the surrounding vicinity and realized she was far more entangled in the pursuit than she would readily admit.
"Wait a minute," Barque paced restlessly. "Didn't she call you her granddaughter? You're the hidden one's granddaughter?"
"Duh," was Ember's brief response.
"I get it, I get it," Barque said heatedly. "So this is all some kind of fancy setup, isn't it? It's how you think you'll be able to keep an eye on me, so you can stop me from scoring on you, which I most definitely will do. I'm not falling for this trap. Oh no. I am definitely out of here this time."
But he didn't go away. His eyes had unfortunately landed on Edeline's chest once again and there they remained, locked in place, in spite of his other intentions.
"Now then," Edeline spoke. "This isn't getting us anywhere. I propose we sit down and organize our selves."
As the others somehow obeyed her and sat on the ground in a circle, Edeline began to realize that all those years of attending meetings might actually be paying off. She led off again.
"Let's review what we know. The Hidden One told us several things, some of them admittedly vague, I admit, but a few things seemed very clear."
"Such as?" Ember prompted her as Edeline paused.
"Such as," Edeline continued. "We have a task, but let's set that aside for a moment. She also told us that all of us together are needed to accomplish this task, and that she chose the four of us especially. She must have had a reason for that. Now, I don't know any of you, really, so I don't know what you bring to the matter or why she would have chosen you. I don't know even know how she knows me at all or what she thinks I can contribute, but if we take her at her word, then there must be a reason. I suggest we go around the circle and each of us take a stab at what we think The Hidden One might be wanting from us. Ember? You first?"
"Why her?" Barque demanded. "She's in on it, I'm sure. And what about you? You came with her, didn't you? Um, I mean," he went on, softening his tone, "I'd like to know more about you, so why don't you go first?"
"Yeah," Ember said, "After all, it's your idea."
"Okay," Edeline drew in her breath. "My name is Edeline, as you know. I'm fifty-one years old, but I'm supposed to believe I'm actually thirty two, and I've been thirty two for twenty years and will be thirty two forever, is that about right? "
The others nodded and murmured their agreement.
"Okay, never mind. I'm just trying to get my head around that. I'm a professional mediator. I spend my days meeting with groups of people who have grievances with each other and can find no other way to work out their problems. Each side tells me their story and signs a legally binding agreement to abide by my decision. It's interesting work and I'm pretty good at it. I can usually find a middle way that everyone can live with, even if no one's happy about it. Other than that, I'm happily married, though I never had any children and always wished I did. My husband didn't want them, you see."
"You might have found a different husband," Ember said.
"I might have," Edeline said thoughtfully, "but I love him."
Barque involuntarily snorted at that but quickly covered his face with his hand and pretended to be having a coughing fit. He realized he was going to have to work on his seductivity.
"I'm a little girl," Ember huffed. "And I've been a little girl for more than a hundred years. None of you could possibly imagine," she glared, glaring at each one in turn. "I have the mind but I don't have the body. I've seen so much. Really, I must have seen it all by now, everything there is to know about humans and existence. I was there at the beginning of all this mess. My grandmother and I were among the first of us. What you don't even know!"
She stopped and there was silence for several long moments. Edeline got the meeting back on track.
"What would you say are your special abilities?" she prompted.
"I can track with the best of them," Ember said. "I know every inch of the territory. I know the special cases, the ins and outs."
"Right," Barque cracked, "you know everything, you can do everything. There's nothing you don't know and nothing you can't do. Some special talent that is!"
"What about you?" Edeline turned to him, speaking as casually and calmly as she could.
"Me? I'm fast. I'm strong. I can move things with my mind. Watch!"
He directed his attention to a large pink rhododendron flower that had fallen to the ground. As he slowly lifted his chin, the flower rose off the ground, and as he turned his head the flower came hovering towards him. Closer and closer it came, almost as if it was willing itself to fly, and then, at the last moment, he shifted his eyes and the flower veered off and floated gently into Edeline's lap.
"I don't have to be anywhere near the thing," Barque clarified. "I can move any thing that's any where."
"As long as it's small and insignificant," Ember snarled, "like a little flower. Don't you see moving any mountains any time, big boy. Don't see your power doing anything useful to anyone, ever."
"I'm a Striker," he declared. "You can only stop me if you're lucky."
"I stop you because I'm good," she charged back. "And I will stop you every time."
"What do you want to bet?" he offered, but before Ember could raise the stakes, Edeline intervened once again.
"Baudry? That's your name, right? I wasn't sure. What about you?"
"Washed-out," Ember muttered.
"Loser," added Barque as the two of them shared their mutual admiration for the elder.
"I used to be an artist," Baudry told them. "Back in the old world. I was a painter, a sculptor, a filmmaker and a writer. I was also a musician. I played in the Terminal Symphony. First row flute."
"The Terminal Symphony!" Edeline gasped. "That's the highest rank. They're the best in the world."
"I was pretty good," Baudry admitted, "at everything, if I may say so."
"Modest, too!" Ember joked.
"Just the truth," Baudry told her. "I had certain gifts but then, but then a change came over me. We all know what it was now, but at the time I had no idea. I thought I'd merely lost it. One day I woke up and my head was clear. I could see nothing, hear nothing, the way I used to see and hear. It felt like peace of mind and it ruined my life entirely. I lost my positions, my reputation, I became a sort of laughing stock out there. My so-called friends all turned on me, didn't want to know me anymore. I ended up pretty much nowhere, wandering the globe, trying to recapture any one of my arts, but it was all gone, or almost all gone."
"I've heard you play," Ember said as he fell silent. "You can still do that and very well too."
"I can play the notes, it's true," he admitted, "and I can draw most anything, and make the shapes. I still have all the skills but I don't have any, how to put it? I don't have any soul in it. The spirit fled, and left behind a hollow shell."
He stopped again, It was the most he had spoken in months.
"We make a fine team," Barque piped up. "Let's review, shall we? A mediator, an athlete, a superhero and a has-been artist. I can see how that would all make sense. Not."
Edeline shook her head.
"It isn't clear to me either," she admitted. "But now that I think of it, I have an idea."
"Yes?" Ember prompted, suddenly eager.
"She gave us four tasks, and there are four of us called," Edeline said. "Maybe each of us is supposed to do, or at least be in charge of, one of the tasks. To go somewhere, to find something, to take it somewhere and put it somewhere. Ember, you know all the places. Maybe that's where we could start."
"Maybe you're right," Ember said, "but I still don't see it."
"Me either," said Barque.
"I'm afraid I have to agree with them," Baudry contributed. "The four of us don't seem to align with all of those tasks."
"I know," Edeline sighed. "I was just hoping that something would begin to make sense."
"Well," Ember declared, rising to her feet, "Like you said, we have to start somewhere. I vote we at least get the hell out of here. And I'm hungry."
"Me too," Barque agreed, also getting up. The other two followed as the group walked away from the particular tree.