by Sophia Sharp
“Don’t turn your back on us, Tracy,” Liz called from behind me. “We’re your friends.”
“No. Friends wouldn’t subject each other to what I just went through,” I muttered. The pale light from the moon illuminated a path through the trees dimly, and I thought it looked vaguely familiar. I angled myself toward it. I had to get back.
After twenty steps in the direction, I realized I was going the wrong way. The clearing had been at the bottom of a slope, and the way I was going now was completely flat. I spun around, ready to march back and demand to be told the right way to the dorms. But instead of seeing the clearing, as I expected, there was only dark forest.
Shift.
I spun around. What was that? My heart started beating faster. I strained my eyes, but couldn’t see past the enveloping dark. The trees blocked the light from the moon and stars. I could barely see the ground at my feet.
Shift.
It happened again! I spun once more, trying to catch whatever it was. Something appeared in the corner of my eye. But it was gone as soon as I looked. The darkness felt heavier, more menacing.
Shift.
I definitely didn’t imagine it. My eyes went wide. Fear froze me in the spot. There was something in the forest, a blur through the trees, and it was preying on me.
Shift.
There it was again. The darkness thickened, like a heavy fog. I couldn’t see anything. I ran, crashing into trees and stumbling over roots, knowing I had to get away.
Shift.
The blur wasn’t coming after me. But, every time it appeared it was in the same place, just on the edge of vision. I couldn’t see through the dark anymore. Somehow, that blur still made an impression every time. It felt like a… distortion.
Shift. Shift. Shift. Shift.
My head spun as I tried to catch it. I lost all sense of direction. My foot caught on an upturned root, and I fell backwards. My head rebounded hard on the solid ground. I lost consciousness.
Chapter Eighteen – Connections
When I came to this time, it was already bright. The air felt warm, and I could smell the aroma of food cooking somewhere in the distance.
“You can’t run from who you are,” someone said solemnly. I jerked to that side. I thought I recognized the voice. But I couldn’t be sure…
My heart froze in my chest when I saw Ashley standing beside me. Ashley, the girl who had tried to kill me! And she was able-bodied, while I lay here completely vulnerable.
I tried to get up, to get away, but just as before, my entire body was numb and without feeling.
“Don’t worry,” Ashley said once she saw my terror, “I’m no threat to you.”
“You tried to kill me!” I spat venomously. Where were Liz and the other girls? Did they know Ashley was here? How could they leave me here by myself, so completely helpless?
As if reading my thoughts, Ashley motioned behind her. “The others are over there, making breakfast. I can get them, if you like…?”
I stared. The others knew that Ashley was here, and they let her this close to me? How long had I been out this time? Many hours, at least, for the sun overhead was nearing its zenith.
“You tried to kill me,” I repeated. “Why?”
“You really believe that, don’t you? Oh Tracy, you know so little…” Ashley smiled ruefully, and squatted down so she was level with me. Thankfully, she didn’t come any closer. “I didn’t try to kill you, although I do admit, I did want to do you harm.”
“Why?” I asked again.
“I guess you could say I was… jealous?” She picked up a twig and started poking in the dirt, not meeting my eye. “But I paid a price for that. You nearly killed me, you know.”
“Wait, what?” Again, nothing was making any sense. How could she be jealous of me? Why? I was just the new kid, while she clearly had her spot among the popular girls. She was prettier than me, too, and had a better figure. If anything, I should be jealous of her. That, at least, could have some grounding in reality. “What do you mean I nearly killed you? You attacked me!”
“I didn’t mean for it to go that far. When the power of the crystal flowed into the bonfire, I thought I could scare you away. I thought if you felt a threat from the crystals, you would never want to go deeper into what they can do.”
“I still don’t!” I cried out. “I want nothing to do with them!” Memories of the void came back unbidden. Liz had said it was only a hallucination, but I could still remember the terrifying feeling of losing my body. I could have been trapped forever in the bleak nothingness of that world.
Ashley smiled knowingly, still not meeting my eye. “You say that now, but soon…” she trailed off, shaking her head. “Anyway, that’s not the point. Somehow, when the crystal’s power met the bonfire, I felt a sort of… rage… erupt within me. I lost control, and it – the crystal, or maybe the fire – took over. I never meant for it to go after you the way it did. I tried to suppress it, to cut off the flow of power, but nothing I did had any effect. You saved yourself, Tracy, and in doing so, proved how much stronger you are than me. How much stronger you are than any of us.”
“What are you talking about? It was the crystal that defended me from the flames, not anything I did.”
She chuckled. “Crystals are completely inanimate, Tracy. They’re just lumps of rock, nothing more and nothing less. It was your own mind that held the key to fighting off what I created. Lucky for you, too, because anyone else would have been seared to bits. You’ve never had any training, or any experience with them. It was your subconscious that saved you, the part of your brain that is in tune with the crystals. The crystals act as a sort of catalyst, by which that part of your mind can be activated. Most of the time, it’s all very conscious, and takes a lot of self-control to master. You, though… you did it all on your own.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. You just said that when you used it, you lost control, and the crystal took over. And now you’re saying that the crystal wasn’t the one to defend me? It was my own mind?”
She sighed. “I guess I didn’t want to admit it outright. You’re right. The rage was not the crystal’s doing, nor the fire’s. It was within me, and I imagine it was something bottled up in some small part of my mind. The mixture of the crystal’s power, channeled into the energy of the flames, must have unlocked that anger. But at that point, I had no control anymore. The subconscious is a very powerful thing, and mine took over.”
“But why were you so angry?”
She looked up, and for the first time met my gaze. I was expecting to see defiance in her eyes, or some other type of intensity. Instead, she looked lost. Her eyes held a distant look. It was like she wasn’t fully there.
“You were a threat to me,” she admitted. “I didn’t want you to take my place.”
“Take your place where? I don’t want your place, Ashley. No matter what it is! I don’t want any of this! I didn’t ask for it!”
“And yet you ended up here, in the one place in the world where your ability can fully blossom.”
“Wait!” I protested. “What do you mean?”
“You think it was a coincidence that you came to school here? I don’t believe in coincidences, Tracy. Not when there’s so much at stake. You can access the power of the crystals. You can sense their aura. You didn’t learn it, and you were never taught. It was something you were born with – something completely innate within you. The crystals called out to you, and you followed them here.”
“No way!” I shook my head. “That’s absolutely ludicrous! I don’t believe you. I was halfway across the world, on the other side of the continent! You think I came to Oliver Academy because of a… a…. a crystal?” I laughed uneasily. It was preposterous. It was ridiculous! But yet, why did I have the slightest inkling of a feeling that it was right? “I don’t believe in magic, or spells, or whatever it is you guys are doing.”
Ashley shook her head. “It’s not magic at all, Tracy. Besides, magic is
just what we call phenomena that science hasn’t yet explained. Do you know how rare it is, what you can do? What any of us can do? Although, I can’t, anymore…” she trailed off, staring blankly into the distance.
“What do you mean you can’t? Ashley? Ashley!”
“Wha—? Oh. I drew so much power against you that… that…” she choked off what sounded like a mournful sob, “…that I lost the ability to use the crystals.”
I frowned. This was an ironic turn of events. She tried to scare me away from the crystals, and in the process, lost the ability to use them herself? Despite what she did to me, why did I feel pity for her, of all things? She looked on the verge of tears.
“You couldn’t have lost it completely, could you?” I asked gently.
She looked at me, and her eyes glistened with moisture. “…No,” she admitted. “Liz says it’ll come back eventually. But, I’m not so sure. It might be months before I even get a glimmer of what I could do before. Then again, it might never come back.”
“I’m sorry.” Surprisingly, I actually meant it. I could tell just by looking at her how hard she was taking this. She looked empty, like a shell of her former self. There was no spirit left in her eyes, no passion or desire.
“It’s my own fault,” she said. Then she gave a mirthless chuckle. “I paid the price for what I tried to do to you. I knew the risk, but did it anyway. I guess my emotions took over common sense.”
“But why did you come after me in the first place? And why were you so nasty when we first met? And—” I hesitated, conscious of potentially breaking the delicate balance we now held, “—why are you talking to me, now?”
“I could sense the ability within you. As soon as I walked up the stairs that first day and saw you with Liz, I knew how strong you were. Stronger than any of us. And yet, you were an outsider – some new kid nobody knew yet. The power we can all access, and the secrets that go along with it, ties all of us together with a bond stronger than if we were sisters. It’s a small group. I knew from the moment I saw you that you would break in. I thought…” She barked a laugh. “It seems silly to think of now, but I thought, if I could alienate you, you wouldn’t want to join us. I guess it was threatening to have someone like you pop out of nowhere and threaten to disrupt everything we’ve worked for.”
“But why would I disrupt anything? I told you – I don’t want anything to do with any of this!”
Ashley gave a knowing chuckle, as if to say how naïve. “You can’t run from who you are, Tracy.”
“Then who am I? Liz used a name, once—”
“Crystal seeker,” Ashley put in. “She came up with it. It fits what we do. So, we adopted it as our own.”
“But I’m not that!”
“You are, already, more than you even known.”
“This still makes no sense. I don’t understand why all of you want it so much? What’s the point of… using the crystals?” It felt odd saying that. “What does it do? What’s the purpose?”
“Finally, you’re asking the right questions,” said Ashley. “Unfortunately, I’m not the one to talk to about that. You’ll want Liz.”
“Why can’t you tell me?”
“I can, but Liz asked us not to, yet.”
“Liz asked you not to? Why? What? Is she like the leader of the group?”
“Exactly.” Ashley smiled. “There’s a hierarchy among us. It’s not mentioned much, but it goes first by latent strength, then experience. Liz is the strongest of us all. She was the first to discover what we could do. She has the most experience, as well. But you… you are so much stronger than anyone we’ve met before – even Liz.”
“How do you know? And what do you mean, anyone you’ve met? I thought it was just the four of you?”
Ashley shook her head. “Not quite. The truth is, there are many girls here who have the ability. For the majority of them – all of them, actually – it’s so small, though, that even if they were given the chance to learn, they wouldn’t be able to do much more than tell an active crystal apart from a regular lump of rock.”
“Wait,” I protested. “Only girls? What about guys?”
“Only girls have the ability. At least, as far as we know. This is all still fairly new to us. Most of what we know has come directly from Liz.”
“You said she was the first to discover it?”
“About two years ago. Some, like her – and you – have an innate talent for sensing the aura of the crystals. The talent would blossom by itself, no matter what, at some point of your life. You might not know what it was, had you not come here. But you did, and that’s why I think it is no coincidence.”
“So what if I hadn’t come here?” Ashley opened her mouth, no doubt to say that wouldn’t have happened. But, I jumped in before she had the chance. “Hypothetically, I mean.”
“Hypothetically?” Ashley chewed her lower lip. “I mean, I really don’t see how… Never mind. You want to know my guess? I think it would begin with the feeling that there was something missing in your life. That would be a start. You’d find yourself dissatisfied with everything. Even things that gave you pleasure before would no longer be interesting. Maybe you’d try to cover it up, by losing yourself in your work, in school, in… boys? But no matter what you did, the feeling that something was missing would constantly nag at you. Except you wouldn’t know what it was. It would be like an empty hollow in your body, begging to be filled, but no matter what you tried it just wouldn’t go away.
“I mean – and I’m just guessing here, by the way – you would probably develop some neurotic habits. You’d become obsessively compulsive over the tiniest things, perhaps. Maybe even worse. And yet, no matter what you did, no matter where you went, nothing would satisfy you. In time, that dissatisfaction would grow into a longing… a longing for something you didn’t even know exists.
“It would drive you crazy. And sure, if your mind were strong, you might be able to resist it, to fight it off for a while, even to function in society for some time. Eventually, though, you would snap.” She startled me by breaking the twig she held in half to emphasize the point. “I don’t know what would happen, then.”
I can fight it off, I swore to myself. I’ll fight it off if it takes everything out of me.
“I know that look,” Ashley said. “It reminds me of how Liz gets sometimes. Very stubborn. You two are more alike than you realize.” She glanced over her shoulder, to where all the food smells were coming from. “Well, it looks like breakfast is nearly ready. Are you good to walk on your own, or should we bring some over to you?”
“I can manage,” I muttered, pushing myself up. My legs felt a little heavy, but infinitely better than when I just came to.
“Okay.” Ashley turned around, and started toward the small fire.
“Ashley, wait,” I called out.
“Hmm?” She looked back.
“You said something before… and I think Liz said it, too. That I almost killed you…?” I let the question hang in the air, because I didn’t really know how to finish it.
“Oh. That. Don’t worry yourself over that! You’re not some sort of murderer. I doubt you even know what happened.”
“I don’t. That’s why I’m asking you.”
“Well, it’s simple, really. When I came after you with my crystal, I wasn’t trying to kill you, obviously. But when the aura of the crystal mixed with that raging fire – that was when some subconscious part of me took over. You felt it – or rather, your brain felt it – and you perceived the threat. You went into self-defense mode. So when the aura of my crystal, mixed with the fire, touched your crystal, our minds became linked. There was a struggle – one which I don’t think either of us was aware of. A battle of the subconscious, if you will. Anyway, you drew so much power… it’s almost incomprehensible. You ripped control of my crystal out from my mind with a surge of power to save yourself. The tiniest sliver more, and I don’t think I would have survived. My brain would have simply burned o
ut.” She smiled sadly, and that distant look was more pronounced than ever. “As it were, my ability to use the crystals was wrenched from me at that point. I don’t know if it’ll ever come back.”
I shivered. Everything I was learning about the crystals made them seem so much more dangerous, so much more ominous, than anything I was comfortable around. “All that risk…” I said. “Why would you guys want any of this?”
Ashley sighed. “Liz is really the one who should explain this to you. The crystals, when they interact with our minds, allow us to link ourselves to the surrounding world. You can think of them as a tool we use to unlock the real potential of our minds. Everything in this world is connected, in some way, shape, or form. Using the crystals allows you to sense those connections, but, more importantly, to manipulate them as you wish.”
“What do you mean, connected?”
“To be honest, this part’s really beyond me. Madison is the one who likes all the theoretical stuff. You should talk to her about it. As far as I understand, there exists a certain… flow… to all the objects of this world. It exists between every single molecule, every single atom. It came into being at the origins of the universe. Everything that exists around us today came from one source, from one common beginning. So everything resonates in that common frequency.
“As time passes, over the eons, the resonance between everything grows weaker. We’re constantly moving farther and farther in time from the point of origin. But it’s never something that will go away completely. So the interesting thing is that when the atoms come together to form common structures—elements, molecules, rocks, trees, living bodies – their resonance strengthens again. It’s almost as if they were made to come together. Or perhaps it’s because of the closeness, the connection of those larger structures, is more similar to what things were like at the start.
“That’s where we—and the crystals—come in. Our minds are made up of billions upon billions of tiny little neurons, all resonating with that common frequency. Somewhere along the line, some sort of configuration of those neurons gave rise to conscious thought. It turns out that there’s an innate capacity, built right into our brains, that allows us to exploit the connections among all the objects of the world. The crystals just allow us to unlock that capacity, which is usually hidden away.”
