Objects of Worship by Claude Lalumiere

Let him work things out. He’ll
come to you when he needs to talk.”
    But he never did.
    Later, we all went out to an Indian buffet for our birthday
dinner, and by then Bernard had grown even more sullen.
He only picked at his food, even though it was our favourite.
He hadn’t done more than grunt all evening, and when we
were almost done eating, with no preamble, he said, “I want
my own room. I don’t want to share anymore.” He didn’t
even look at me when he said that.
    That night he slept in what used to be the guest room,
and for the first time that I could remember I spent the
night alone. It took me almost a month before I was able
to sleep normally. Every other night or so, I’d just toss and
turn until morning.
    Soon after, Bernard stopped sharing meals with the
family. He’d take his plate and sequester himself in his
room. That year, we didn’t even have a single class together
in school, so I barely ever spent any time with him.
    Starting a month after Bernard had manifested the
power, Mom and Dad, always singly so as not to crowd him,
tried to get Bernard to talk to them, to return to family
life, but those conversations always ended badly and only
succeeded in exacerbating the situation. All of a sudden,
Bernard hated them both, especially Dad, and he wasn’t
shy about saying it. Gradually, they stopped trying. Dad,
especially, was crushed by Bernard’s rejection. The one good
thing that came out of all that was that he started spending
more time than ever with me, and, while I’d always loved
him and admired him, it was during those years, my early
to mid teens, that we grew to become more than just family
but also friends.
    I never saw Bernard use his powers again; Mom and Dad
were relieved by his reticence. One especially warm and
sunny weekend in early autumn, Dad and I went camping
in the Laurentians. Our first night out he told me he hoped
that, when Bernard was ready, my brother would ask him
about the power, so Dad could share his experience with
him. In the meantime, it was just as well that he didn’t get
into trouble or bring undue attention to himself.
    “How long can this grim phase of his last?” Dad had said
then. “The four of us have always been such a good team.
Haven’t we always had fun together?”
    At the end of the school year, Bernard said he wanted
to go away to a place called Camp Emet. It was a Jewish
summer camp, with religious instruction and everything.
“Why do you want to go there?” I asked, but he just ignored
me.
    So off he went, and when he returned three weeks later
he had a yarmulke on his head and asked Mom and Dad to
sign papers for his enrollment at the Solomon Shainblum
Yeshiva. Mom and Dad didn’t question him. They were
determined to let him take his own path, find whatever
answers he was looking for in his own way. Opposing him
would only push him farther away. But he was my brother.
My twin. I couldn’t let go that easily. Every day, even
while he’d been away at camp, I felt stabbed by his distant
attitude, by his rejection — my isolation intensified by my
jealousy and frustration that he had the power and that it
was wasted on him. I would have been out there helping
Dad. I would have been proud to be his sidekick, to learn
from him about being a hero.
    “But what about your powers? Why are you doing all
this?”
    That time he didn’t ignore me. “The powers are treyf ,
unclean.”
    Every radio station, every television station, every web
newsfeed reported it. “Montreal hero Hochelaga is believed
to have died at the hands of a new superterrorist calling
himself the Herald of Hate. This attack is suspected to be
connected with the Hegemony of Hate’s concerted forays
into Europe and the Middle East, an escalating terror
campaign that The Mighty are currently struggling to
contain and stop.”
    There was no body, but hundreds of eyewitnesses had
seen their hero explode as the Herald of