But she owed this to Anna. To both of them.
“I wish you could have known him. He’d have been so proud of you both—”
“Even if my power isn’t—”
“Yes,” she interrupted. “He’d have understood.”
Clearly skeptical, Anna looked at Arthur, who would obviously know the truth about what Warren West had or hadn’t thought. But Arthur was very good with other people’s secrets.
He said, “We can’t say exactly what he would or wouldn’t have done now. I will say, he knew he’d made mistakes. He simply wasn’t very good at expressing himself.”
Celia rubbed at her eyes. Her father had never been able to admit he was wrong about anything during his lifetime. But maybe she just hadn’t been paying attention. “Oh, no, he was excellent at expressing himself, as long as he could punch through a nearby wall.”
“Well, yes. He was excellent at expressing anger and frustration.”
Anna and Bethy both blinked at them in wide-eyed horror. Yeah, this stuff wasn’t in most of the biographies.
“He sounds kinda scary,” Bethy said.
“You would not be wrong,” Arthur said, his thin smile showing clear amusement.
Anna said, “So you never actually, you know, talked to him about this. Powers, or what happened with you and the Destructor, or anything?”
“Oh, no, he was right there when the chief of police questioned me about the whole thing,” Celia said, grinning.
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I do. And no, we never really talked about it. Seems pretty typical for me. Girls, I’m sorry. I didn’t tell you because I thought I was protecting you, that it would be easier for you if I didn’t tell.”
“Yeah,” Anna said. “Me, too.”
Celia smiled, and Arthur’s grip on her hand gave her the strength she needed, as he wrapped her up with the warmth of his mind.
“Anna, Bethy. We kept the command room and most of the other equipment operational for you. Just in case, whether you had powers or not. It’s yours, if you want it.”
They both looked like lemurs, processing that. Celia still didn’t know if this was the right thing to do. They were too young. But it was out of her hands now, and that was okay.
“Do you want me to? Do the vigilante thing? I know that’s what your dad wanted you to do and you didn’t—but what do you want us to do?”
Be safe, be happy …
—You’ve done all you can on that score.—
—I know.—
“It’s not up to me,” Celia told them. “To either of us. You have to decide.”
“I want it!” Bethy said, coming abruptly to her feet. “I know I don’t have powers, but the Hawk didn’t, and I can do it, I know I can!”
Celia winced. She was way too young. “You’re still on an eight o’clock curfew, my dear.”
“Anna?” Arthur prompted.
The young woman’s face was puckered in thought. “I have to think about it,” she said.
That was fair. Celia settled back in her chair. “Now, what else do you want to know about the family business?”
They talked for a couple of hours. Celia had ended up telling so much more than Anna had expected. Not just about the day Captain Olympus died, but about everything leading up to it, the years Warren and Celia West had refused to speak to each other, the fights, the reasons Celia joined with the Destructor, and why and how she left. All very sensational, and Celia told it all, only from her it was family drama, not superhero mythology. Celia had cried, some. It had happened so long ago, Anna figured it was old news to her, that all emotion would have been drained from the stories. But no.
Arthur added some commentary. Celia still partly blamed herself for the death of Captain Olympus. Arthur explained that this was a common result of the survivor’s guilt that plagued her.
Survivor’s guilt. That was what Anna had felt in Sam’s hospital room.
And then there was the rest of it. Celia gave them the command room. Anna still didn’t know what to think about that.
Telling the story had drained Celia, and she slept, right there in the lounge chair. Arthur stayed with her, Suzanne went in to start dinner, and the games ended. Thoughtful, Anna walked out to the beach to sit and watch the waves come in. She understood why her father liked it so much out here. The motion of the water cleared her mind like nothing else. She needed her mind cleared.
After a little while, Teia joined her. Two girls, sitting on the beach, staring out. Thinking too much.
“I wonder how much of it I could freeze, if I put my mind to it,” Teia said finally.
“You going to try?”
“Maybe tomorrow. I have to admit. I’m kind of scared of what would happen if I really could do it.”
“Maybe you’d better not try, then.”
“Yeah.”
The sound of it, Anna decided, the shushing and splashing, the roar that became a trickle and back again, was beautiful. Dark clouds were building on the horizon.
“Is that Lew?” Anna asked.
“No, that’s just a storm.”
Finally, Anna turned to Teia and said, “We’re going to keep doing this, right? We have to keep going.”
Teia pressed her lips together, nodded. “Yeah. We do. We will. But I think we need a new name.”
Anna thought so as well, and the new name was on the tip of her tongue. She was afraid to say it, in case Teia’s idea was different. The last thing she wanted was to argue this all over again. “Yeah. Me, too.”
“You have an idea, don’t you? You say your idea first.”
She took a deep breath and said, “The New Olympiad.”
And Teia smiled. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
Anna held her hand out, and Teia clasped it.
The waves rolled on.