by Sophia Sharp
“And then what?”
“Well, if you’re strong enough, you can sense the connections and mold them as you like. The result? Unlimited power. Control over anything in this world. It gives us the energy to make fire, to move mountains, to control the weather – to do absolutely anything we want.”
“That doesn’t sound like something to take lightly.”
Ashley laughed. “Of course, it’s not as simple as that. Most of the connections are beyond any one person to manipulate. Even moving a small rock across the ground is more than any of us can do. But! There is a way to unlock more power. It has to do with triangulation.”
“Triangulation?”
“A sort of link created between a group of people. A group that consists of three – no more, no less. The strength of each person is not just summed up, but exponentially multiplied to give the group enough power to manipulate connections of any kind. Of course, two people in the group have to cede control to the third, and that’s sometimes problematic.”
“How come?”
“Oh, that’s way beyond me. Anyway, this isn’t something I really want to talk about much longer. It just makes me realize how much more I’m going to miss it.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Come on! Food’s finally ready. It’s been a long night for all of us. I can only imagine what it was like for you.”
Chapter Nineteen – An Unexpected Visitor
I walked with Ashley to the cooking fire. My legs were still a little unsteady, so I had to be careful to avoid falling flat on my face. The three other girls were all seated around the fire. None of them looked like they’d slept a wink.
Liz smiled when she saw me. “How are you feeling?”
“Better than last night.”
“A little more at ease with what you learned?”
“Maybe.”
I picked up a lone blanket that was draped over a seat and wrapped it around myself. It wasn’t cold, but somehow being wrapped up made me feel safer.
“Don’t you want to know what happened last night?” Eve asked, biting off a piece of meat. It was completely indistinguishable. More chunks of it were hanging over the fire.
“What do you mean? And what are you eating?”
“Rabbit,” Madison replied, and made a face. “Not for me, though. I’m vegetarian.”
The surprises just kept coming with these girls. “Where’d you find rabbit?”
“Oh, they’re all over these woods,” Liz answered. “Catching them is the tricky part, but using the crystals makes it a breeze.”
“And then you just… kill them? Yourselves?” I didn’t have a problem with eating meat, but that was when it was packaged and prepared a long way away from me. Killing an animal with my bare hands felt dirty.
“It’s not as bad as you think. If you use a crystal and direct enough energy toward it, the little critters pass out. They don’t feel any pain.”
“Oh.” For some reason, it didn’t make me feel any better.
“You want some?”
“Not really.” I looked at Eve. “What do you mean about last night?”
“After you ran away,” Eve said plainly. “Before we found you.”
“I tripped and hit my head against a rock,” I said. “I remember that.”
“Not that. What was it that made you trip? You didn’t experience anything peculiar, did you?”
“Actually, I did.” I remembered how the air around me seemed to shift out of nowhere. “It felt like reality were continuously rearranging itself.”
“That’s what I mean,” Eve said, biting again into the rabbit. “Let me guess: you saw distortions?”
“I – yeah, how’d you know?”
“That’s why we didn’t want to let you go,” Liz said. “You weren’t over the after-sickness yet, and there was a threat of a relapse. That’s what happened.”
“Oh.”
Using the crystals seemed to cause no end of problems. I stared out into space, thinking. So much had happened to me in the past week. I needed time to work through it all—especially after the revelation with the crystals. The other girls, maybe sensing my mood, ate their meal in silence. After a few minutes, Liz spoke up.
“So, I’ll bet you have a hundred questions for us, don’t you?”
“Actually, Ashley explained a lot.”
“Oh.” Liz shot Ashley a look. “Well, if there’s anything you want to know…”
“Why me?” I asked. “Why did you have to show me everything? Couldn’t you just have left me alone?”
“Your latent ability would have come out sooner or later. Better that it happened under our guidance.”
“Your guidance?” I asked incredulously. “I was nearly killed, passed out twice, and somehow, apparently, nearly killed Ashley!”
“And, yet, you’re still here,” Liz said. “As are the rest of us.”
“And the way you kept me in the dark about what was happening when you brought me here? You call that guidance?”
“A disagreement within the group,” Liz said simply. “Things have been patched over since.”
“I’d hope so!” It was scary thinking what these crystals could do. And what the girls wanted to do with them. I didn’t know exactly what that was. However, Ashley had given me enough of a hint for me to know I wanted no part of it. Especially if it meant more of the after-sickness. And potentially finding myself again in the horrible void! It was too dangerous. “Are there others on the island, then, who are part of the group? Your other friends? Zoe, and those girls?”
“No,” Liz shook her head. “We are the only ones who are a part of the crystal seekers.”
“Does anyone else know?”
“Of course not! This is something that stays between us, forever.”
“Well,” I said, slowly getting up, “I appreciate you showing me everything. But, I think it’s time for me to go…” I took a few steps back, and was surprised when nobody stopped me. “What’s the way back to the lake?”
“Madison can show you,” Liz said, and Madison popped up.
“I need to get some food, anyway,” she confided as she walked up to me.
“Err… thanks,” I said. After all the trouble from last night, they were just going to let me walk away now? Not that I was complaining. But it was an odd contrast in their behavior.
Madison started leading the way, and I followed. Before we’d gotten ten steps from the fire, though, Liz called out to us.
“Tracy?”
I turned back. “Yes?”
“You’re free to go now, of course, since you’re safe from the after-sickness. But I need to ensure that you keep what you learned from us a secret.”
“Of course,” I said hastily.
“I need you to swear on it.”
“I swear.”
“An oath, Tracy, sworn on the crystal itself.”
I frowned. I’d never given an oath before. But if it was enough for her to let me go… “Sure. What do I say?”
Liz walked over to me, reached into her pocket, and pulled out a tiny wadded up piece of silver cloth. The fabric seemed to reflect the light. She drew it open carefully, and inside I saw three perfectly shaped crystals. Even though they were each identical, I could tell immediately which the one I had used was.
“Pick your crystal up, place it in the palm of your hand, and swear onto it that you will not speak a word of what you’ve learned to anyone, save for us.”
“But how do I know which one’s mine?” I asked, pretending ignorance. Liz gave me such a look that I felt sorry I even tried. I picked the one that called out to me.
“Put it in the palm of your hand,” she repeated, “and say the words after me: I, Tracy Bachman, swear by the power of the crystal to never speak of the crystals, their power, or their existence to anyone save Liz, Madison, Eve, and Ashley, and any other future member admitted to the Council of the Crystal Seekers.”
The Council of the Crystal Seekers? She had quite a high opinion o
f the little group. But then again, I could appreciate that it gave a higher sense of importance to what they were doing. I placed the crystal in my hand, and repeated the words as Liz spoke them.
When the last word left my lips, the most extraordinary thing happened. I felt a sudden tightness of breath, as if an invisible constraint was being woven around my chest. The tightness expanded, radiating from my center, until it enveloped my entire body. My skin felt like it was being drawn tightly over my body. A heaviness crept into my bones. I tried to move. Again I was stuck, just like the time in the blue light. This time, though, there was no light, and there was no other active crystal.
I gave a little gasp, and the feeling was gone. I could feel the crystal in my hand. It felt heavier. Before I could look at it any closer, Liz snatched it from my palm and had it back in that little piece of cloth.
“Very good,” she said with a smile. “A crystal oath can never be broken.”
“What was that?” I could still imagine the tightness around me, like it had never gone away.
“The oath settling onto you,” Liz answered breezily. “Don’t worry. It won’t do you any harm! All of us had to take it. It just makes sure that you stay true to your word.”
“And what happens if I don’t? Accidentally, I mean…”
“The power of the crystal prevents that. Even if you wanted to – if your life depended on it – you wouldn’t be able break the promise you just made. You can give it a try, if you want, when you’re with somebody else. But know in advance that the after-effects of doing so are… unpleasant, at best.” She spun around. “Anyway, as soon as you want to talk, you know where to find me – and the rest of us.”
“What gives you the idea I’ll want to talk – ?”
“Trust me,” she said. “Sooner or later, curiosity will get the better of you.”
Not if I can help it, I thought to myself. “We’ll see.”
“I’ll see you later, Tracy.”
“Bye, Liz.”
“Ready to go?” Madison asked cheerfully as I walked up beside her.
“Definitely. Can I ask you something, Madison?”
“Sure.”
“How did you take it when you found out you could do… all this?”
“I was thrilled,” she said genuinely. “Of course, I wasn’t like you by any means. I had to train myself to read the crystals and sense their auras. I had it in me, of course. Otherwise, no amount of training could have worked. But, it was still hard. I’m jealous, to be honest. You’re like, one in a million. Without any effort, you can already do more than any of us – and we’ve been working on it for years. Only Liz had the natural ability within her. That was how she discovered everything.”
“Doesn’t it scare you?”
“Think of it this way,” she said, leading me into the woods, “what we can do is just a natural manifestation of our minds. The next stage of what our brains can become. When you think of it like that, it’s not scary, or frightening, at all.”
But what you can do with it is, I thought. “Maybe.” I needed more time to think about all this, to consider everything very carefully. But right now, I just wanted to get my thoughts away from it all. “Hey, isn’t today the first day of class?”
“Oh yeah! That’s right! I hope we have some classes together. That’d be awesome!”
“It would be fun,” I said half-heartedly. Somehow, even knowing that Madison was part of the group – part of the crystal seekers – I felt more at ease around her than any of the others. She didn’t push me toward anything or make me uncomfortable. In fact, she didn’t make any extraneous mention of the crystals at all. It was like, between me and her, nothing had changed.
I followed as she led me toward the lake, and then toward campus. In my mind, I made sure to mark the path so I could get back here on my own. I had a suspicion that I would need to come here sometime in the future.
I ran out the door of my room, my backpack swinging wildly over my shoulder. As soon as Madison had brought me back to the main part of campus, we said our goodbyes. She went to get some food and I went to my room to shower, change, and get ready for class. Thinking about academics after such a crazy couple of days was so oddly normal that, for a blissful hour, I forgot all about the strange goings-on on this island.
My first class was English. It was taught by Professor Ann Stewart in a beautiful oak-finished room on the second floor of a building in the main yard. The class had only twelve students, which made it the smallest and most intimate learning environment I’d ever been in. Professor Stewart was a kindly, plump, older lady. Her cheeks glowed crimson red. She had a funny way of raising her voice to almost sing-song tones whenever she got excited about what she was saying. Which, coincidentally, happened more often than not.
Our seats were assigned beforehand. I sat beside a shy little imp of a girl with dark curly hair and thick eyeglasses. She definitely looked younger than me. Her demeanor made me guess that she may have skipped a few grades. Her answers when I tried to introduce myself were short, clipped sentences. Once I had given up trying to bring her out of her shell, I caught her looking around the room wide-eyed, as if everything were new. That cemented it in my mind. She was definitely younger.
Science class came after that. I had so much trouble finding the building with that small, poorly labeled map that I ended up bursting through the doors a good ten minutes late, to admonishment from the professor and a series of bewildered stares from my classmates. The professor, whose name I didn’t catch, was expecting me, and introduced me to the entire class as the “new girl” while my cheeks blossomed a scarlet red. At that moment, I felt every single eye on me. I looked up shyly, scanning the room with as much discretion as I could manage to check if I knew anyone. Thankfully – or perhaps not, given the circumstances – every one of those faces was new.
The professor directed me to a free seat near the back of the room, completely isolated from everybody else, who sat in pairs. As he returned to his introductory lecture, I took my books out and started scribbling notes. I had my head down when a guy in front of me turned and handed me a typed out sheet of paper. “Everything’s on here,” he whispered, looking sidelong at my handwritten notes. I grinned sheepishly and thanked him for the paper.
The rest of the class passed without incident. But, for some reason, I felt an itch between my shoulders, as if somebody were watching me. The classroom was laid out so that a row of windows stood at the back of the room, right behind me. The room was on the third floor of the building, so there couldn’t be anybody looking in from outside. Still, I sneaked a few periodic glances over my shoulder during lecture, just to make sure. There was nobody there. Yet, the itching sensation persisted.
The bell rang indicating the end of class. I gathered my books hastily and tried to rush out. Just as I reached the door, I heard somebody call out my name. “Miss Bachman?”
I turned, and saw the professor looking expectantly at me. A few kids who walked past snickered knowingly, as if they were in on some great joke of which I was the centerpiece .
“Yes?” I said, coming up to him. I realized that during the process of introducing me to the class, he had omitted mentioning his own name – something that, presumably, he had done earlier. I scanned the chalkboard behind him, searching for a clue, but there was none.
“I couldn’t help but notice that you came in late today,” he said, absently shuffling a bunch of papers around on his desk.
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m new, and I had a bit of trouble finding the classroom.”
To my surprise, he chuckled. “Don’t we all, our first time here? I’m not about to lecture you on punctuality, Miss Bachman. I just wanted to advise you of our classroom policy regarding tardiness and absenteeism. You missed it at the start of class.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, so I just wanted to tell you, for your own benefit. You look like a student who takes her classwork very seriously, and I wouldn’t want you
to be penalized unexpectedly. Just so you know: every student is permitted at most one sick-day during the year, and one unexcused tardiness. We won’t count yours today, so that you get a fresh slate like everyone else.”
“Oh, uh, thank you.”
“And you also need to find a lab partner. As you no doubt saw, everybody in class sat in pairs.”
“Umm…?” I was about the mention that he was the one who sent me to the solitary desk, but thought better of it. “But everybody else was already paired up, as I saw?”
“Hm. Yes, quite.” He looked up at me, and tapped a finger thoughtfully against pursed lips. “Tell you what. Next time you come into class, I’ll have the seating arrangement planned out for you. You’ll join an existing pair, and your group will be the only group of three. You don’t have any preferences about who you sit with, do you?”
“Well, I actually don’t know anyone in class yet…”
“Splendid! That’ll make my job easier. Oh, I like playing match-maker.” He chuckled again, this time at his own joke. “Well, off you go then. You wouldn’t want to be late to your next class.”
“Thank you, Mr.—”
“Stannis,” he interjected. “Mr. Stannis. I realized that I forgot to introduce myself to you. I’m the only general science teacher this school has, so I’ve been teaching all these kids for three years, already. They all know who I am by now, which is why I didn’t introduce myself at the start.”
“Thank you, Mr. Stannis,” I said, hurrying out the door. “I’ll see you next time.”
“Oh, Miss Bachman? Don’t forget your textbook.” I looked back, and saw that he held a brand new, shiny textbook in one hand. I went back, thanked him for it, and went outside.
Out in the street, there were students milling all around me. Some were leaning against park benches, talking in pairs, while others sat on the stairs of buildings. The general stream of kids all led one way: toward the square in the middle of the yard. I realized, somewhat belatedly, that the day was structured here so that everyone had two classes in the morning, a break for lunch, and then two classes in the afternoon. Now was lunchtime. I looked around, trying to get my bearings on things. In the crowd, I felt absolutely anonymous, which wasn’t as bad a feeling as I’d imagined, given all the attention that had been paid to me recently. I slipped into the stream, and started moving toward the square, planning to stop at the cafeteria on the way.
