The morning sun in Smallville didn't crawl over skyscrapers; it spilled across the horizon like a bucket of gold paint, turning the dew on the long grass into a sea of diamonds. Inside the Hall house, the air was thick with the scent of frying bacon and the sweet, lingering aroma of Martha Kent's apple pie from the night before.
The dining room table was a heavy oak beast we'd brought from the city, and around it, the four women of my life were settled into their morning routines.
"Pass the syrup, Sage," Aunt Rose said, her hair wrapped in a silk scarf, though a few stray yellow sparks still danced around her ears. She looked tired, mostly because she hadn't found a place to go shopping yet.
"So," I said, pouring a river of syrup onto my pancakes. "Are we ever going to get jobs? Or are we just going to sit around watching the corn grow?"
Mama laughed, sipping her coffee. "Jobs, Sage? We're Halls. We don't work for the man. We let the Earth work for us."
"What she means is," Aunt Region interjected, leaning back with her arms crossed, "Grandmother Pandora was very busy about a hundred years ago."
I looked at my grandmother. She was calmly cutting a piece of toast, looking for all the world like a sweet old lady. It was hard to imagine her trekking through the African wilderness in the 1920s, but that was the family secret. She had used her Anodite senses to track veins of raw gold deep beneath the earth—stuff no human drill could ever reach. Over the decades, she'd tucked it away in various banks and private vaults under a dozen different names.
"Wealth is like Mana, Sage," Grandmother Pandora said, her voice steady and calm. "If you flaunt it, you waste it. We have enough to live comfortably in this house for three lifetimes. We don't need the town knowing we're sitting on a mountain of gold. To Smallville, we're just a family from the city looking for peace."
"And peace is what we're going to get," Mama added. "As long as you keep your hands in your pockets when we go into town."
Once the plates were cleared and the conversation drifted into the mundane—things like which room needed the most paint and where to plant the tomatoes—Grandmother Pandora stood up. The air in the room suddenly felt heavier, the temperature seemingly rising by a few degrees.
"Sage. Finish your juice. The sun is high enough." Her voice didn't just fill the room; it commanded the molecules in the air to stand still. "Follow me to the back of the house. The time for talking has passed. Your training begins now."
I didn't argue. I gulped down the rest of my orange juice and scrambled after her.
The backyard was a massive stretch of unkempt grass that bordered a dense line of trees. It was private, shielded from the road and the neighbors by a natural wall of oak and elm. Grandmother Pandora walked to the center of the clearing and turned to face me. She didn't look like a grandmother anymore. She looked like a force of nature.
"Stand there," she commanded, pointing to a spot five feet away.
I stood, my heart hammering against my ribs.
"Anodites are the lifeblood of the universe, Sage," she began, her voice regaining that booming, resonant weight. "We are capable of shifting reality, traveling between dimensions, and tearing apart the fabric of space itself. But you are a child. A child with a human skin and an Anodite soul. If I gave you the full sun today, you would burn into nothing but ash."
She stepped closer, her eyes glowing with a faint pink light.
"I will be your guide, but I will only teach you what your spirit can handle. You will train with me until you are sixteen years old. Until that day, there are three pillars—three foundations of your existence—that you must master. If you fail to master these, the rest of the universe will remain closed to you."
She held up three fingers.
"Mana manipulation. The ability to shape the energy around you into whatever you require. Shields, stairs, tools—the Mana is your clay."
She held up the second finger.
"Mana projection. The ability to send your energy outward. To strike, to push, to manifest the fire of the stars from your very palms."
She held up the third.
"Mana absorption. The most dangerous and most vital. To draw energy from the world around you—the plants, the sun, the very air—to replenish your own well. Without this, you are a battery that eventually runs dry."
She lowered her hand, and the pink light in her eyes flared. "We start with manipulation. The world is not solid, Sage. It is mere energy waiting for a stronger will to command it. Show me your spark."
"Now," Pandora barked. "Focus. Do not just make your hands glow like a toy. Reach out. Feel the ambient Mana in the grass, in the trees. Bring it to your center and shape it."
I closed my eyes. I tried to do what she said. I felt the warmth in my chest—that blue ember that had been there since I was six. I pushed it down my arms, out through my fingertips.
"I'm trying, Grandma!" I gritted my teeth.
"Do not try! Command!" she shouted, her voice shaking the leaves on the nearby trees. "The Mana does not ask for permission! It obeys the blood of Anodyne! Form a disk! A solid plane of energy!"
I let out a yell, and suddenly, the electric blue light exploded from my palms. It wasn't just a mist anymore. It was jagged and wild. I forced it to flatten, imagining a dinner plate made of blue glass.
The air hissed. A flickering, translucent blue circle appeared between my hands. It vibrated, humming like a disturbed beehive.
"I'm doing it!" I gasped, the effort making my forehead sweat.
"Hold it!" Pandora commanded. "Manipulation is not just about creation; it is about sustenance. If your will flickers, your world crumbles. Stiffen your spine, Sage! Make it solid!"
I poured every ounce of my eight-year-old will into that blue disk. For a second, it went from a flickering ghost to a solid, shining shield of blue light. It was beautiful. It reflected the Kansas sun, casting blue shadows across the grass.
"Good," Pandora whispered, though her voice still carried the weight of a mountain. "Now move it."
The disk wobbled. Keeping it solid while making it move was like trying to balance a bowl of water on a broomstick while running.
"Control it! Do not let it control you!"
As I tried to slide the disk through the air, it shattered into a thousand blue sparks that vanished before they hit the ground. I fell to my knees, panting, my hands shaking.
"Again," Grandmother Pandora said, her voice iron-hard and unforgiving. "We do not stop until the blue light is as steady as the earth beneath your feet. Again!"
I stood up, wiped the sweat from my eyes, and reached for the blue fire once more. I had eight years until I was sixteen. Looking at the stern, powerful woman in front of me, I realized every single one of those days was going to be a battle.
The Kansas sun finally dipped below the horizon, leaving behind a sky the color of a bruised plum. The cicadas had started their rhythmic buzzing, a sound so much louder and more insistent than the distant hum of New York traffic. For the Hall family, the second day in Smallville was drawing to a close, but for me, it felt like I had lived an entire year in the span of twelve hours.
I was slumped on the back porch steps, my legs feeling like they were made of lead and my head spinning with a dull, throbbing ache. Training hadn't just been physical; it was like Grandmother Pandora had reached into my chest and tried to pull my soul out through my fingertips.
My hands were still buzzing. It wasn't the good, excited tingle I usually felt when I made them glow. This was an exhausted vibration, the kind you feel in your arms after holding a heavy box for too long. I looked down at my palms in the twilight. A faint, wispy trail of blue Mana curled off my skin like smoke from a snuffed candle, dying out before it could even reach my wrists.
"You look like you've been run over by a tractor, baby," Mama said, stepping out onto the porch. She let the screen door creak shut behind her.
She wasn't glowing, but the air around her always felt warm—like a radiator left on in the winter. She sat down next to me, the wood of the steps groaning under our weight. She didn't say anything for a long time, just watched the fireflies start to blink in the tall grass near the tree line.
"Grandma doesn't play," I muttered, my voice cracking a little. "She made me hold that disk for an hour, Mama. An hour."
"I know," Rashandra whispered, reaching over to rub my shoulders. Her touch was cooling, drawing some of the frantic heat out of my muscles. "She's hard on you because she knows what happened to those who weren't ready back home. On Anodyne, you don't get to be a kid for very long. You're a being of light. And light either illuminates or it burns out."
I leaned my head against her shoulder. "Did it hurt for you? When you were learning?"
Mama let out a soft, dry laugh. "Honey, your grandmother made me practice my red projection by standing in the middle of a thunderstorm. She told me if I couldn't out-glow the lightning, I wasn't trying hard enough. You're getting the Smallville version of training. Trust me, this is the gentle side of Pandora."
I shuddered. If this was gentle, I didn't want to see what tough looked like.
We eventually moved inside. The house was still a maze of half-unpacked boxes, but the dining room had become our sanctuary. A single lamp was lit, casting long, dancing shadows against the Victorian wallpaper.
Aunt Region was in the kitchen, and I could hear the rhythmic clink-clink-clink of silverware being sorted—not by hand, of course. I could see the faint emerald green light reflecting off the hallway walls as she used her Mana to multitask, probably reading a book with one hand while the Mana did the chores with the other.
Aunt Rose was sprawled on the sofa in the parlor, flipping through a fashion magazine she'd picked up at the gas station. She looked bored out of her mind. "There is literally nothing to do here," she called out. "I checked the radio. There are three stations. One plays country, one plays classic country, and the other one is just a man talking about the price of hogs."
"Learn to appreciate the silence, Rose," Grandmother Pandora's voice drifted from the head of the dining table.
She was sitting there with a cup of herbal tea, her back as straight as a ruler. She wasn't using her Anodite voice now, but the authority was still there, woven into every syllable. She looked at me as I trudged into the room and climbed into my chair.
"Eat, Sage," she commanded softly. "Your body needs the fuel to repair the channels you opened today."
Aunt Region walked in, a bowl of stew floating in front of her, wrapped in a shimmering green aura. She set it down in front of me with a wink. "Extra potatoes. You burned a lot of energy today, Little Spark."
For a while, we just ate. It was a strange sight—a wealthy Black family from the city, sitting in a dusty house in Kansas, eating stew by lamplight while various objects occasionally drifted through the air when someone was too lazy to reach for them.
"We need to talk about the gold problem," Aunt Region said, breaking the silence. "I went into town today to look at the local bank. It's small. If we walk in there with a bar of African bullion, the sheriff is going to be at our door before the ink is dry on the deposit slip."
Grandmother Pandora nodded slowly. "We will convert it slowly. Small amounts. We are consultants from the city. We have investments. People in small towns accept wealth if it's wrapped in a boring enough explanation."
"And the neighbors?" Mama asked. "The Kents. They're sharp, Mama. Jonathan Kent looks like the kind of man who notices when a crate is moving without anyone touching it."
Pandora set her teacup down. The porcelain clicked against the saucer with a sound like a small bone snapping.
"The Kents are truth-seekers by nature," Pandora said. Her voice didn't rise in volume, but it deepened, vibrating with that ancient, heavy resonance that made the water in my glass ripple. It was the weight of Anodyne speaking through her. "They are stewards of the land. They will observe us, as we observe them. But we must remain cloaked. Sage, this is why your manipulation must be perfect. If you cannot mask your light, you endanger the entire constellation."
I swallowed a mouthful of potato, feeling the weight of her words. She wasn't yelling, but the sheer gravity of her voice made my ears feel like they were underwater.
"I'll be better tomorrow, Grandma," I promised.
"You will be steady," she corrected. "Strength comes later. Steadiness is what keeps you alive."
After dinner, I was sent upstairs to bed. My room was at the back of the house, overlooking the fields. I didn't even have the energy to unpack my comic books. I just kicked off my shoes and fell onto the mattress, which still smelled faintly of the plastic wrap it had been stored in.
The room was dark, save for the silver moonlight spilling through the window. I lay there, staring at the ceiling, listening to the house settle.
Creak. Pop. Whirr.
The sounds of the old Victorian were different from the pipes in New York. This house felt like it was breathing. I held my hand up in front of my face and tried one last time. I didn't want to make a disk. I just wanted to see the color.
I breathed in, feeling the stillness of Kansas. I pushed.
A tiny, thumb-sized flame of blue Mana flickered into existence above my palm. It wasn't jagged or wild this time. It was soft, like a candle flame. It cast a gentle blue glow over my face and the empty walls of my new room.
I wasn't a master. I wasn't a flame yet. I was just an eight-year-old kid in a town that didn't know I existed. But as I watched that little blue spark dance, I felt a strange sense of belonging. The gold in the basement, the secret planet Grandma came from, the weird looks from the mailman—none of it mattered as much as this.
"Blue is potential," I whispered to myself, repeating Grandma's words.
I let the spark fade, closed my eyes, and finally let the silence of Smallville pull me into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Downstairs, I could hear the muffled voices of my mother and aunts, their laughter punctuating the quiet night, while Grandmother Pandora sat in the dark, her pink eyes staring out at the stars, watching over the little spark she was determined to turn into a sun.