“So, in essence,” she was saying, “tuning is the first step. You’ve got to become aware of the resonance before you can change it. Want to give it a go?”
I nodded, pretending to have heard everything she just said.
“You can shut your eyes if it helps you focus, but only during the initial stages of tuning. Without sight, it’s nearly impossible to change resonance, and that’s going to be important later.”
I closed my eyes. The still, deadened—and now dark—room became a void, like when I dunked my head underwater in the bath.
Rachel talked me through it. “Focus on your inside. Tuning starts with you and then travels out.”
I focused on my stomach. It was hungry. Not good. I changed to thinking about my lungs instead. It was like one of those breathing exercises they made us do in health class.
“Now, hear the world around you,” Rachel said. “Not sounds, not my voice or your heartbeat or anything else. You’re listening for the vibrations themselves.”
I tried to hear past the sound of Rachel’s voice. Deeper than the sound of my breath. Past the shuffle of Rachel’s feet as she moved, the scrape of my clothing as I breathed in and out, my heart beating in my ears. Then, for a moment, everything stopped. There was nothing. No sound, no voice, no breath, no heartbeat. The world ceased to be, and I ceased to be in it.
I was caught up in the stillness of the room, and more than that, the stillness of the universe. All noise eventually is silenced. In eternity, the world stops spinning, the sun lies dormant, the flame always flickers and dies. Caught in that moment, I faced the void, the darkness outside myself and in. It was terrifying, and exhilarating. It was death, and resurrection. I stopped, and yet I was beginning again, absorbed into galaxies and stars and planets to be reformed by them into new life. I drifted inside that moment forever. I had completely ceased to be.
Then, from nowhere, a new sound. A hum. Quiet, barely audible. It came from nowhere and everywhere. It grew stronger, a low, pulsing tone.
A higher frequency joined the first. Then a third. A fourth. I was surrounded by sound, although it wasn’t in my ears. I was hearing from another part of myself; some deeper, inner sense had awoken. It came from the back of my mind and deep in my stomach.
The tones grew louder. Some were pleasant, some were piercing, and all were overwhelming. They grew until my legs shook. It hurt, and it wouldn’t stop. I screamed but couldn’t hear it over the noise. A tidal wave broke in my mind.
I fell.
SEVENTEEN
The floor was cold. Rachel stood over me, one hand on each of my shoulders. The corners of my mouth were wet.
“Bit of a fall there,” she said. I nodded and sat up, trying not to overestimate my ability to stand just yet. “What did you hear?”
I did my best to explain what had happened. The nothingness, the silence, the multitude of tones that had dissolved my mind.
Rachel frowned. “No one has ever ... Normally during the first tuning session, we don’t hear anything. Most people are lucky to even hear a pencil or a cup. Sounds like you heard everything. All at once. No wonder you were shaking. Nobody is built to hear that much resonance in one go. I’ve never heard of it. Not except for …” She appeared to catch herself.
“Except for what?”
“Can you stand?” Ignoring my question, she pulled me to my feet and unlocked the door. “I think that’s probably enough for today.”
“I want to keep training.”
Her brow furrowed so hard her eyes nearly closed. “You sure?”
“The sooner I learn this the sooner I can find my family. I want to keep going.”
After a brief hesitation, Rachel conceded, and once I pulled myself together, we were ready to start again. She cleared the room of all the objects except a white porcelain coffee cup, to reduce the amount of resonance in the space. Apparently, that would make it easier for me to focus.
I repeated the process of slowing, focusing, breathing, listening, and again, the cacophony returned, this time with much less intensity. Rachel took a more active role this time, determined to guide me through it and avoid the results of the last attempt.
When the resonance began to form, she said, “Now that you’re tuning in, I want you to hear the cup. I’ve never trained someone who has reached your level so fast, so I’m not entirely sure how to explain this properly. You’re jumping in halfway through the process. The best way I can describe it is to think about the cup. Hear the cup. Just think cuppy kinds of thoughts.”
I smiled. One part of my mind stayed empty, and the other part focused on the cup. It was like I had two brains, each performing a different function.
The background noise faded. The sonic tidal wave receded, and all the other tones disappeared. One clear note rose above the others.
“What do you hear?” Rachel asked after a moment.
“One sound. It’s sort of high, but pleasant. Rounded.”
“Does it sound cuppy?”
“As strange as that seems, yes. It’s definitely the cup.”
Rachel’s hand lightly touched my shoulder. “I want you to open your eyes very slowly, but keep the resonance tuned. I’m going to close my eyes, and you’re going to look at the cup and nothing else.”
I slowly opened my eyes, keeping the clear, high tone ringing strong. I stared at the cup for a moment. The tone began to lift. It rose, higher and louder, like feedback from a microphone placed next to a speaker. The tone went ultrasonic, and a spiderweb of cracks spread over the white porcelain of the cup. There was a flash, and the cup blew apart in a shower of dust and shards.
I swore and turned to face Rachel, whose eyes were now open—and wider than before. “How did you do that?” she demanded.
“You told me to.”
“I told you to tune, not blow the damn thing apart. You shouldn’t even be able to …”
Rachel escorted me back along the corridors to my room faster than I could protest. She locked and bolted the door from the outside, her eyes still so wide it looked like she was wearing glasses. I called after her, but it was no use. She glanced at me through the window for a second before disappearing down the hall, probably to find whoever was in charge of this place and let them know what was going on.
What was going on? I had just destroyed a coffee mug with my brain. Just what kind of ability was this? Was I an agent of destruction sent to blow up fine china? I slumped down on my bed.
The door glared at me, the deadbolt a reminder that I was trapped. Was I dangerous? Could this ability—resonance—shatter the door like I’d shattered the mug? Could I use this to kill?
I shuddered. Why did my mind go there? No matter how I tried to think about something else, the thought kept coming back. If I got good, if I really tried, maybe I could create blasts like the one that had killed Noah. The others seemed to have that power. I could use mine to get my family back.
But if it came to it, I couldn’t kill someone. Even if it was right down to the wire—them or me—I couldn’t do it. At least that’s what I tried to tell myself.
I touched the cold spot on my stomach. It chilled my fingers. Nobody likes to think they’re capable of evil. We like to pretend the darkness isn’t there, the capacity for hate, violence, murder. We all quietly convince ourselves that we could never do such a thing, all the while watching those who do and wondering how they went so wrong. But inside all of us is a little part that could. We hardly ever notice our shadows, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Sitting safe in my room, it was easy to gloss over the darkness and tell myself I would rather be killed than kill.
But I secretly knew that might change if the circumstances did.
When I got bored, I yelled at the door for a while, demanding they let me out. Nothing happened. I tried to use my new ability, but for some reason all I could hear was static. That wouldn’t work for now.
Hours passed, and I heard nothing. I was hungry and needed the bathroom badly.
Hoping for the first time that someone actually was watching me through the camera, I crossed my legs and jumped up and down, which is universal language for “I need to pee.”
After a short wait, the door unbolted, and Hackman stood at the entrance. “Are you all right?”
“I need the bathroom.”
“You don’t need my permission.”
“The door was bolted!”
“Yes, I noticed. Why, exactly?”
I explained what had happened in the training room and how Rachel had locked the door. Hackman frowned. “I’m unsure why she bolted the door. She didn’t mention anything to me when I saw her earlier.”
“Should she have?”
“Yes. She probably went straight to the Mother.”
“The what?”
“The woman at your initiation. Everyone in the Kindred has a title denoting their status within the ranks. You are a Junior Sister at the moment, as you’ve just joined. Rachel is a Sister. My son … Noah, he was a Brother. I’m an Elder Brother, in charge of my own portion of the Kindred. Mother keeps watch over us all.”
“Big Momma, huh?”
He frowned. I obviously couldn’t joke about the Mother. “She is a truly remarkable woman. I do hope you get to meet her outside of her official duties. As one of the Arch Elders, she is kept quite busy.”
“Arch Elders?”
“Each complex has at least one Arch Elder, part of the Kindred Council, who direct and coordinate our affairs across the globe. They are known only as Mothers, or Fathers of course.”
I shrugged. “Right. Can I go to the bathroom now?”
“Yes, you’re free to move about whenever you want. I’m going to have a word with Rachel about your treatment. She shouldn’t have locked you in here, regardless of what happened in training, and she certainly should have informed me.”
Shrugging, I wandered past him and out of my room. Strange that, up until today, I’d thought of it as my cell. Something had changed today that caused my mind to relabel the places around me. This space was now my space, the training room was my training room, this facility was my facility. Now that I belonged, I felt ownership.
The bathroom was shared, like the shower block. At least there were cubicles here. Thankfully, there was one thing the Kindred didn’t mind keeping secret.
Two male voices entered the room. Chatting loudly, they entered the cubicles on either side of me. I would wait until they were gone before doing what I needed to do.
The voice on my left spoke. “That girl from this morning, the newbie. There’s something about her.”
“It’s her eyes, man. They’re cool. Weird, though.”
I frowned. Was that an insult or a compliment? I decided to take it as the latter.
“No, it’s just … her resonance. It’s something else.”
“I get you. She’s got a sort of field. Like gravity.”
Was that a fat joke?
“Yeah, it’s like you’re drawn to her somehow.”
“Go for it, man.”
“No, I don’t mean it like that! Plus, what is she, twelve or something?”
I scowled.
“Hear what happened in her first training session?”
“Yeah. No wonder the Elders are excited. If she’s as good as they think she is, they could bring the timeline forward by decades.”
Something caught in my throat, and I coughed.
The guys fell silent, now aware there was someone else in the room. I waited until they left before I came out of my stall.
Timeline? What timeline?
The word was ominous. I was obviously more important to these people than I knew.
EIGHTEEN
Josh smiled as I entered his room. “Hey, you.”
The guard walked out of the room to stand just beyond the door. He closed it behind him. Apparently we could be trusted a little now, although the security camera still watched from the corner of the roof. Rachel had said all the security around Josh was to keep him safe, because if my family had been taken, he could be a target too.
Josh propped himself up on the bed, and threw the newspaper he’d been reading on the ground. The headline read ‘THREE MISSING AFTER HOUSE FIRE’. I reached for it.
“You don’t want to read that,” he said.
Picking up the newspaper, I glanced over the article. “They think we’re dead?”
Josh nodded slowly. “The three of you, yeah. Your Mum, Skye, you. Nobody knew I was there, and nobody knows I’m missing either ‘cause my parents are overseas.”
“Caitlyn, my dad, everyone thinks we died in the fire.” Sitting on the bed, I put the newspaper down next to me, and stared at the wall.
“Caitlyn’s been texting me,” Josh said. “The Kindred took my phone, for security or something, but they let me text her back to keep your cover. They made me tell her I went out of town for a job trial, and that I can’t come back. They won’t let me tell her you’re alive. Caitlyn hates me right now. She thinks you’re dead and that I don’t care and that I can’t even be bothered calling her. She’s trying to organize a funeral for the three of you. Your dad’s a mess apparently, so she’s taking the lead.”
“A funeral? Oh no — you can’t let her do that. You just can’t.”
“I’ll do my best. When we get out of here maybe I can tell her the truth and she’ll forgive me. Maybe.”
Sighing, I looked into his eyes. “When we get out of here? I hadn’t even thought about that. Once I get Mum and Skye back, I kind of thought everything would go back to normal.”
Josh took my left hand in his. “Ari, I don’t think that’s going to happen. It’s never going to be the way it was.”
Flipping open the newspaper with my free hand, I gasped at the photo they used for the story. My house, what was left of it, lay in ruins, still smoking in the daylight. There was nothing left. I squeezed Josh’s hand.
“I’m really sorry,” Josh said. “No word on Stewie, either.”
My eyes were wet at the edges, and I shut them tight. “Screw this,” I whispered. “Screw all of this. I wish I could go back before all this happened, erase everything, and start again.”
“Me too, although there’s one moment I’d kind of like to keep.”
The kiss. I had to tell him about Noah, about how confused I was.
“Josh, I —”
The door burst open and Hackman entered. “Ari, I’ve been searching for you. You’re due in training. Now.”
“I’ve got to go, sorry,” I said, standing.
Josh nodded, and smiled. “Go, practice those crazy mind powers of yours. How else are we gonna kick some Unseen butt?”
The training session was supervised by Hackman. Rachel did the ground work, but he acted as overseer. We spent hours in the training room as I focused on different kinds of objects, learning their resonance and tuning in faster and faster.
Tuning grew easier, so the environments became more complex. I no longer felt overwhelmed by the amount of noise and could tune in more specifically to what I was being asked to hear. Different objects produced difference resonance, and I grew comfortable identifying each by their sound. I heard the world around me in a whole new way. The table was a low sound, rounded and constant. Feathers were higher and laced with static. Paper was hard to hear at all. Metal pulsed quietly. Even the room had its own resonance, but it was so constant I didn’t notice it often. Nothing more exploded, which was both reassuring and a little disappointing.
“So,” I asked between tunings, “why do you close your eyes when I tune?”
“I think it might be easiest if we show you,” Hackman replied.
“Try to focus in on something.” Rachel closed her eyes along with Hackman, as they had done each time before.
I was learning how to focus on resonance without closing my own eyes, and it was easier to keep them open now to direct my tuning faster.
There was a clay pot sitting on the table. I knew the sound of earth and r
ock, and expected the deep whine of clay. The rest of the world tuned out, and my focus narrowed as tunnel vision took over. Static burst through my head, and my tuning dissolved into a ringing buzz that hurt like crazy. I staggered, losing focus completely.
A moment later, the room returned to normal, along with my hearing. “What was that?” I panted.
“We opened our eyes,” Hackman said.
“That was you?”
“Sort of,” Rachel jumped in. She was generally better at answering my questions than Hackman. “You’ve already learned that keeping your eyes open makes it easier to focus on the resonance of an object. And you accidentally discovered that with extra focus, you can actually change the object you’re tuning.”
“When I exploded the mug.”
“Right. The act of observation changes the event,” Hackman said.
I frowned.
Rachel tried to help. “You know how people act differently when they know they’re on camera? Like when you watch those reality shows, you know they aren’t really being themselves.”
“Because they’re being watched.”
“Right. They might fight more or less than usual because they know someone else is looking. The fact that someone is watching changes what would normally have happened.”
It started to make sense. A few months ago, Andy’s Supermart had installed a security camera because of shoplifters. I was always self-conscious when I saw myself on screen, and even though I wasn’t doing anything wrong, I could never act naturally knowing someone was watching me. Even my walk felt weird on camera.
Rachel sat on a small wooden stool. “Whether you realise it or not, when you look at an object, you change what that object is doing. Regular people don’t notice, but it actually shifts the resonance of the object. We all perceive resonance slightly differently, so when I look at something that you’re trying to tune in to, the resonance gets crossed. It’s like trying to cram two radio stations into the same frequency.”
The Fire Unseen Page 11
