The Naturals Trilogy

by Madeline Freeman

  But it couldn’t happen again, not since Corbin was nearly dating Morgan’s best friend, Clarissa Perry—despite Ris’s many claims that the two of them were just friends.

  Wen moved from his spot by the door and Morgan was glad for something else to focus on. “We’ve got two hours,” he said, eying them evenly. “Time to train.”

  As usual, Morgan was split off from the group. Wen led her into what appeared to be a guest bedroom and motioned for her to sit down on the bed.

  “You know the drill, right?” Wen asked, leaning against the doorjamb.

  “Attempt to See what’s going on with the others,” Morgan recited.

  Wen nodded. “It’s important you try to stretch your abilities—see what you’re capable of.”

  “I know.”

  “Because a lot of times Feelers can have some Seer abilities in them—”

  “Wen, I know. You’ve told me this every time we’ve trained.”

  Wen put up his hands innocently. “Okay, fine.” He smiled. “I’ll leave you to it, then.” He closed the door.

  Morgan took in a breath and released it slowly, allowing her thoughts to quiet and her energy to center. After a few minutes, she forced her mind outward, seeking the energies of the others.

  A Feeler by nature, Morgan’s first impressions were of the emotions in the house. Lia was frustrated, as she frequently was in these sessions. Wen was veiled, but Morgan detected an air of patience. She assumed the two of them were working together. They felt somehow linked. Lucas, whose emotions, like Wen’s, were usually obscured from her, was easier than usual to detect. He was feeling mild irritation, but Morgan couldn’t determine at what the irritation was directed.

  Lastly, she found Corbin. His energy was calm—so calm that Morgan wondered if he was working on a training exercise at all. Usually Wen set them tasks that would push them, and that meant that annoyance and dissatisfaction were soon to follow.

  Curious, Morgan focused on Corbin. Her training task was to attempt to See what the others were doing, not just to Feel how they felt about doing it.

  The problem was, Wen hadn’t really told her how to do it. Besides saying she had to reach out and stretch her abilities, Wen’s directions were nonexistent.

  Morgan focused her energy so the only person she was aware of was Corbin. She pushed into his mind, imagining herself walking through it, as though his brain were nothing but a series of corridors. If she could find the door marked “eyes,” she reasoned, she might be able to See what he was doing.

  That is, if she were going about this the right way.

  In her mind, she walked through the corridors of Corbin’s brain, turning occasionally when a hallway would present itself. As she delved deeper, she became aware of more emotions—the ones beneath the surface. Anger over something to do with his older brother. Pleasure associated with spending time with Ris after training. Excitement at the prospect of Morgan also being there—

  And then, without warning, Morgan began receiving clear impressions of Corbin’s thoughts. He was thinking about their kiss, wondering what Orrick and Kellen were doing now, remembering what his math homework was. And Morgan knew without a doubt that Corbin had access to her mind as well.

  This same thing had happened this summer, the day Corbin had shown up at the park for a psychic reading—the day Morgan had “activated” the latent powers within him.

  The connection was even more unnerving now than it was then. Too many thoughts were swirling in Morgan’s mind, and she wasn’t keen on having Corbin looking in on any of them. She pulled away from his energy as quickly as she could, directing herself anywhere but inside his mind. She attempted to get as far away as possible. The house was too close—the neighborhood was too close.

  She pushed her mind out as far and as fast as she could, looking for something, someone else to latch on to in order to keep herself occupied and away from Corbin.

  And then it happened.

  Flashes at first. A man in a suit. Glass walls. Silver hair.

  Then she saw him. Orrick Williams, seated in his office, the sweeping city skyline behind him. Across from him stood Kellen, whose head was bowed. She couldn’t hear what was being said, but a sense of urgency permeated the scene. She attempted to focus in more, to hear their voices, but it was like she was looking at the scene through thick glass.

  There was a shift in the room’s atmosphere. Kellen, whose eyes had remained averted, suddenly straightened and began looking around the room as if he heard a noise.

  Or sensed a presence.

  Morgan wasn’t sure how, but she knew Kellen sensed someone was watching. She knew she needed to leave before he could figure out who. Somehow, she was able to pull her energy back into her body, as though it were on a fishing line. As she reeled her consciousness back in, she became aware of the guest room and its frilly comforter, ornate bedposts, and overabundance of tchotchkes in the likeness of clowns and ballerinas.

  Wen pushed open the door, Corbin, Lucas, and Lia behind him. “What happened?”

  Morgan shrugged, forcing her breathing to steady. “Saw something.”

  Chapter Two

  “Don’t try it again,” Lucas said an hour later when he and Morgan were in his car.

  “Okay, boss,” Morgan said sarcastically.

  “I’m serious.” Lucas didn’t glance at her as he pulled out of the driveway.

  “Like Wen wasn’t serious when he told me the exact same thing? Come on.” Morgan crossed her arms over her chest and gazed out the window.

  Lucas sighed. “It’s just… I know you. I know you’re pretty pissed the Watchers don’t know where your mom is.”

  Morgan opened her mouth to respond, but Lucas kept talking.

  “If Orrick knows, I doubt he’s just gonna talk about it with random people in his office. The only place you could actually get the information is from his mind—and I really don’t think you should go poking around in there.” He cast a brief glance in her direction. “He could be lying, for all we know. He might’ve just told you he knew where your mom was to get you to do what he wanted you to do.”

  “I almost did,” Morgan said quietly.

  “Because he was Pushing you,” Lucas said firmly.

  Morgan nodded, but only because it was easier to agree than to try to explain. Yes, Orrick had been Pushing her, forcing her to do what he wanted her to do. But in the very last seconds before they were interrupted, Morgan had wanted to take the energy of the girl in front of her. Occasionally, the memory haunted her—the hungry desire, the wanting to know what it would feel like to possess more power than she already did.

  Morgan watched as the suburban scenery swished by her window. “What would you do?” she asked at length, turning her attention back to Lucas. “If it was your mom, what would you do?”

  “You know I can’t answer that,” Lucas said. “I can’t imagine how hard it’s been for you. I don’t know what I’d do if my mom went missing ten years ago. I’d like to think I’d have enough sense not to poke the bear, though, you know? I mean, for the moment, Orrick’s not coming after you. Why give him a reason to?”

  Morgan stared at him. “Really? Like he needs a reason beyond me being ‘the One.’” She made a scathing noise in the back of her throat. “Yeah, right.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short.”

  “Thanks, boss.”

  Lucas jabbed at her with his elbow. “Stop calling me boss.”

  “Stop acting like one.” She sighed. “If my mom’s really out there, though, I should be trying to find her, right? I mean, yeah, you’re probably right: trying to search through Orrick’s mind is probably kinda dangerous. But, there’s gotta be another way, right?”

  “Why not just look for her?”

  “Um, the cops tried that already. No trace.”

  “I doubt the cops had your, um, particular skill set.”

  “Oh, my god,” Morgan said slowly, considering this fact. “You’re totally right.”
Could it really be that simple? “I could try to See her. I mean, that could work, right?”

  “I don’t see why it couldn’t.”

  Grinning, Morgan grabbed Lucas’s hand in hers and kissed it. “This could totally work. I could find her.”

  And in that moment, the fact that none of the Watchers had been able to find her mother despite nearly a decade of looking didn’t matter. Morgan felt completely confident in her ability to do it.

  “I should try right now.”

  “You sure? Right this second?”

  “Well, there’s no time like the present, right?” Morgan surveyed the landscape surrounding them and smiled at its familiarity. “We’re almost to my house, so I don’t see why I shouldn’t try right now.”

  Lucas said nothing. A couple of minutes later, he pulled up in front of Morgan’s house. As she undid her seatbelt, she felt his eyes on her.

  “What, Lucas?” she asked, looking up at him.

  He let out a breath. “I think you should wait.”

  Morgan’s brow knit. “What, wait in your car? For what?”

  He shook his head, still watching her. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to try to find your mom right now.”

  “Seriously?” she asked, confused. “Like, five minutes ago, didn’t you just say I should look for her?”

  “I know I did, but… Just don’t look right now. I Feel like it’s a bad idea to do it right now.”

  Morgan took a quick inventory of her own impressions. “Really? Because I don’t Feel anything—”

  “You’re too close to it, and you know it.” He offered her a small smile. “Look, I’m not saying I’m necessarily right, but it’d make me feel a helluva lot better if you didn’t try looking for your mom now. Later, sure. But now just Feels… wrong.”

  Morgan surveyed him for a moment, something between exasperation and gratefulness thrumming on her insides. Then she smiled. “Okay, Lucas. Not now. But soon. Later today, even.”

  Lucas nodded. “Fair enough.” His posture relaxed a bit and he smiled. “See you tomorrow?”

  “Of course.”

  Morgan opened the door and stepped out of the car. With a wave at Lucas, she started toward her front door.

  True to her word, she waited until that evening. She lay awake in bed, waiting for the telltale sounds of her father, Dylan, winding down for the night: the television going silent, the sound of the water from his nightly shower, the squeak of his bedroom door as it closed. After she was sure he was in bed, she waited ten more minutes—just to be sure he was asleep.

  Silently, she sat up and crawled to the end of her bed, where her desk stood. She felt around on the desktop for the shirt she’d set there earlier, found it, and draped it over her desk lamp before turning it on. The lamp cast a pale, eerie red glow about the room, and Morgan hoped it wouldn’t be too noticeable from the hallway should Dylan need to get up for any reason.

  Settling herself in the center of her bed, she took in a deep breath. She could feel her pulse speeding up. She was going to do it: she was going to find her mother.

  Closing her eyes, she allowed herself to sink into a calm space. Breathing rhythmically, she pushed out with her mind. She felt the soft glow of Dylan in the next room and pushed further. She felt the pale energies of her neighbors, punctuated by the intermittent brightness of the Watchers stationed nearby.

  She focused her thoughts on her mother, believed that she could connect with Chelsea. Time lost meaning as Morgan allowed her senses to search. Her thoughts drifted as she sifted through the emotions of countless people. She remembered afternoons spent with her mother, baking cookies, making sandwiches, creating masterpieces out of paint or macaroni or ribbons. She remembered weekend picnics with her mom, Aunt Ashleigh, and her cousin Joss, the four of them laughing until they couldn’t breathe.

  As she moved further and further outward with her mind, the energies of people became more and more spread out, but the collective energy in the back of her mind glowed like city lights receding in a rearview mirror. She didn’t think she’d ever Felt this far out from herself before, and the feeling was both exhilarating and a little frightening—like she was a buoy in the ocean that might, at any moment, be torn free of its tether and set drifting in the deep waters.

  Suddenly, an energy so brilliant it blinded her mind to everything else overtook her. For a moment, she was convinced she had found her mother, but she quickly realized that the mind that touched hers was not friendly. It pushed into her thoughts and images passed through her head—Corbin, Lucas, Lia, the little house they’d trained in that afternoon, Wen.

  Instinctively, Morgan reeled herself back inside her room, back inside her own head, and put up a wall around her thoughts. The blinding energy receded and, after a moment, she was sure it was gone. As she opened her eyes and looked around her red-lit room, the only sign that anything had just happened was the hammering of her heart in her chest.

  Her immediate thought was that she should tell someone what just happened. Her first instinct was to grab her phone and call Corbin or Lucas, but, really, what could either of them do? She should tell one of the Watchers. Wen’s number was saved to her phone and she scooted toward the head of her bed and the nightstand on which her phone sat, but before she even reached out her hand, she realized she couldn’t call Wen. Though she hadn’t broken the promise she’d made to him at training to not go looking for answers about her mother in Orrick Williams’s head, she supposed he wouldn’t be too happy about reaching out the way she had.

  No, no one needed to know what happened.

  After turning off the light, it took a long while for Morgan to drift off to sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she was afraid the Seer who had scanned her mind would return. Eventually, sleep found her. She did not dream.

  Chapter Three

  “Morgan?”

  It was nearing the end of sixth hour Journalism and Yearbook class and Morgan was passing notes back and forth to her friend McKenna Orlowski under the guise of asking for proofreading suggestions. When Lia called her name, Morgan was convinced she noticed what they were doing and was on her way to reprimand them; therefore, when she looked up to see Lia waving her toward the door, she was surprised.

  McKenna, often critical of their editor-in-chief, raised an eyebrow as Morgan stood. Morgan just shrugged and walked over to meet Lia. “Yeah?”

  Lia glanced toward the person standing just outside the classroom door. Miss Ellie Scotford: English teacher, JY co-advisor, and Watcher.

  Miss Scotford smiled when she saw Morgan. “I’ll need to see the two of you after school. I had some questions about your proposed thesis statements for your essays and I didn’t want you to start working until we had it cleared up.”

  Morgan and Lia both nodded. Miss Scotford was lying, of course. The reason she wanted to see them had nothing to do with English class and everything to do with training, most likely. The fabricated story, Morgan knew, was for the benefit of anyone who might be within earshot.

  Morgan headed back to her seat.

  “What’s up?” McKenna asked.

  “English drama,” Morgan said. “Apparently there’s something wrong with my thesis statement.” She rolled her eyes for emphasis.

  McKenna nodded sympathetically.

  When the bell rang, Morgan collected her belongings. Lia fell into step beside her as she walked toward the door.

  Morgan sent a quick text to Ris to warn her she had to stay after, then turned her attention to Lia. “Don’t you think someone’s gonna catch on?”

  “To what?” Lia asked.

  “You know—all this cloak-and-dagger stuff. These extra meetings with Miss Scotford and Mr. K. You and me suddenly walking side-by-side down the hall.”

  Lia stiffened. “Well, if you don’t want me walking next to you—”

  “That’s not what I’m saying.” Morgan glanced at her. “Honestly, last year, even if we had to go to the same place, how much eff
ort would you put in to catching up to me so we could walk together?”

  Lia didn’t respond, but she didn’t need to. They both already knew the answer.

  Morgan opened the door to Miss Scotford’s classroom to find Corbin already inside. Morgan and Lia walked inside and perched on two desktops toward the front of the room. Miss Scotford stood from her place at her desk and walked into the hallway, presumably to watch for Lucas. Less than a minute passed before Lucas entered the room, making a beeline for Morgan. He scooted a desk closer to hers and sat atop it.

  “What’s up? You look like hell.”

  Morgan cast him a sideways glance. “Seriously? That’s kind of a jerk thing to say, Lucas.”

  “It would be, except it’s coming from a place of concern.” He turned toward her and scrutinized her face. “I mean, I noticed it earlier, but… Did you sleep at all last night? Were you trying to—”

  “Yes,” Morgan whispered as Miss Scotford closed the classroom door and walked to the tall stool she often taught from.

  She glanced at Morgan. “Eventful training session for you yesterday, huh?”

  Morgan grimaced. “Wen told you?”

  “Of course he did, Morgan. What, you weren’t planning to?”

  Morgan shrugged.

  Miss Scotford’s expression turned strict. “Morgan, you have to tell us when things like this happen.”

  “Yeah, I get it.”

  “I don’t think you do. We need to know how rapidly your abilities are progressing and what abilities you manifest on a regular basis.”

  “You’d figure you guys’d be able to figure that out without us telling you,” Lucas said. “What, with you being psychics and all.”

  “Don’t be cute, Lucas,” Miss Scotford snapped.

  “Sorry. Reflex,” Lucas muttered.

  The corner of Miss Scotford’s mouth twitched. “Anyway, that’s not why I wanted to see you today. Greg, Wen, and I think it’s time you guys heard the Prophecy.”

  Morgan always felt slightly uncomfortable when Miss Scotford referred to Mr. K by his first name, but she chose to ignore it. “The Prophecy? What is this, Harry Potter?”