Wild-born

by Adrian Howell

  “But is that normal?” I asked worriedly.

  Cindy smiled. “It’s normal for Alia. When she’s like that, it’s best to just give her some time. Sit with her if you like, but let her come back on her own. You might want to give her a break from her mouth-speaking practice today.”

  I was only too happy to. Once Cindy left, I made my way upstairs to check up on Alia. She had pulled her big unicorn up onto her bed and was sitting silently with her arms wrapped tightly around its neck.

  “Are you alright, Alia?” I asked from the door.

  Alia didn’t reply, silently staring off into space with unfocused eyes.

  “Alia?” I asked again.

  She slowly turned to me and, though she still didn’t say anything, she gave me a sad little wave.

  “I’ll be downstairs if you need me,” I said awkwardly.

  Studying my schoolbooks in the living room, my mind kept wandering up to Alia, wondering what was going through her head as she sat alone in her room. Alia was often a bit on the quiet side, but this was different. She had looked so… hollow. I couldn’t stop thinking about the story Cindy had told me of Alia’s past, and about the horrible scars across her back. Where had Alia gone in her dreams last night?

  Back when I was on the run, sleeping on the rooftops of buildings, I had often relived the night my parents died. I saw my father killing my mother, I saw the berserker’s terrifying grin, and sometimes I woke up screaming. My nights hadn’t been nearly as bad since arriving at Cindy’s house, but I still had my fair share of nightmares, so I understood how crummy a morning could be after a rough night. Still, you wouldn’t find me staring off into space like a zombie. I really hoped Alia was okay.

  Alia stayed in her room for most of the morning. I was about to go check on her again when she came down by herself and said that she was hungry. After eating an early lunch, she recovered enough of her spirit to want to play a few quiet games, and by the time Cindy returned from work, Alia was back to her old self.

  “See?” said Cindy when I told her about Alia’s day. “It’s just her way of recharging her batteries.”

  “And I thought I was weird!” I laughed.

  “No more crowded places for Alia until she’s older,” said Cindy. “And none for you either, Adrian. Even with your disguise, it might still be a bit dangerous.”

  We never returned to the shopping mall, but Cindy adjusted her work schedule again, allowing us to get out of the house every few days to a more secluded spot.

  Cindy knew of a beautiful little pond in the countryside. It was only about eighty yards across, half-surrounded by evergreens and, most conveniently, located on a large piece of private property that was owned by a friend of hers who lived overseas. I had to wear my girl clothes until we left the edge of town, and change back into them before heading home, but while I was there, I could move freely and without the long wig. The pond water was too cold to swim in, and we couldn’t catch any fish large enough to eat, but Cindy consented to let me do some flying over the surface.

  The first several trips were just Cindy and me because Alia adamantly refused to leave the house. However, after much coaxing and repeated assurances that there wouldn’t be any people there, Alia started coming with us too. Sometimes we spent the whole day picnicking in a little clearing by the pond. Having recently read a Peter Pan picture book, Alia asked me to fly her over the water like Tinker Bell. I did, though I accidentally dropped her into the icy water when I heard the distant sound of an airplane engine. Alia had never learned to swim. She came up sputtering, cried for a while, and once she had dried off, asked me to do it again.

  “Control, Adrian,” Cindy said reprovingly.

  We didn’t go out on Halloween. I felt I was getting a bit old for trick-or-treating, and Alia certainly wasn’t up to the challenge. Even so, with each passing day, I felt better about my new life. True enough, I still hadn’t heard any news about Cat, which caused me pangs of guilt every time I felt the amethyst around my neck. Nor was I making any progress on my power balance – something Cindy frequently gave me worried looks over. Nevertheless, life with Cindy and Alia had become as normal as it could be. I stopped worrying about people like Ralph completely.

  “How’s Alia’s mouth-speaking coming?” Cindy once asked me over dinner.

  That was another thing that wasn’t making much headway. In addition to demanding that Alia “say the words,” I was now regularly working with her on her storybooks. But while I could sometimes get her to mumble a few of the words aloud, Alia usually just moved her lips silently. I was no lip reader, but I was pretty sure she was just moving them randomly to keep me satisfied. Occasionally, Alia did say a few easy words and phrases almost loud enough to make out her real voice, but she still couldn’t manage any sounds that required tongue movement. “Pea may me fai, A-yi,” was Alia-speak for “Please make me fly, Addy,” and that was the longest sentence I ever managed to get her to say in one go.

  “Keep at it,” said Cindy. “There’s not much point in having Alia use your nickname if she’s not going to say it aloud.”

  “Hey,” I said, throwing my hands up in defense, “I agree, Cindy. But Alia just doesn’t speak with her mouth.”

  “She needs to learn.”

  “And I’m trying to teach her!” I said exasperatedly.

  “I know you are. Keep at it,” said Cindy, and I did.

  The first snow fell in late November, and we had a furious snowball fight by the pond, which was starting to freeze over. I would have had the advantage, of course, since my snowballs would never miss, but to be fair, I deliberately kept my telekinesis out of the battle. Even Alia got a few good hits on me.

  Suddenly, Cindy held up her arms and exclaimed, “Stop! Adrian, come here.”

  Cindy didn’t seem panicked, but rather excited as she got me to sit down and close my eyes.

  “Can you feel it?” she asked.

  “Feel what?” The only thing I could feel was the snow under my legs.

  “There’s a destroyer nearby,” Cindy said quietly.

  I opened my eyes in surprise, but Cindy put her right hand on my shoulder and said, “Relax. He can’t sense you. I have us hidden. He’s not the first psionic to come near us since you came to my house, you know. But this one is a destroyer, so I thought you might be able to feel his presence. Remember, power knows power.”

  I closed my eyes again, trying to calm myself. Where was the destroyer? I did feel something different. It was like one tiny instrument in a giant orchestra. Concentrating, you could just hear it when you knew it was there, but the symphony didn’t lose much when it was silent.

  “I feel it,” I said. “I can’t tell the direction, though.”

  “Direction can be difficult if you’re not a finder,” explained Cindy. “For now, just learn to feel the power.”

  “It’s still really far away.”

  “Not as far as you may think. Once you are better at tuning into it, you’ll be able to gauge the distance fairly accurately, even if you can’t tell the direction.”

  I opened my eyes. “What is he doing?”

  “Probably just passing through.”

  “He’s not a telekinetic, though, is he?” I asked.

  “Very good, Adrian,” said Cindy. “That’s right. He, or she, is a pyroid and a light-foot, and may even be a delver, though not too powerful.”

  “What are those?”

  “A pyroid can control fire. It is the power of a destroyer, and that’s what you are sensing. Light-foots can lessen their own weight, and delvers can read your thoughts.”

  I looked sharply at Cindy. “Control them?”

  “No, only read them.”

  Alia must have been upset by the sudden tension in my voice because she asked to go home early that day. It was getting colder, and neither Cindy nor I objected. It was our last visit to the pond that year.

  That evening, I asked Cindy to tell me more about what kind of powers psionics had
. She explained that everyone was a little different, but there were enough similarities that most psionic powers could be grouped into basic categories. I had already heard that “destroyer” was just a broad term for people with combat-oriented powers. Telekinetics, pyroids and sparks were the most common of destroyers. Sparks could manipulate electricity, and some of them could even create miniature lightening bolts like the thunder-god Thor. A “controller,” I also knew, meant anyone who could influence your thoughts and emotions, and aside from delvers, berserkers and peacemakers (like Ralph), I learned that there were dreamweavers who could control dreams and induce nightmares, and mind-writers who could implant, modify, or remove memories. And there were many powers that didn’t fall into either category. Phantoms could turn themselves invisible. Some light-foots could lessen their weight so much that they could walk on water, while the most powerful of gravitons could drastically increase the weight of things, including people, making it nearly impossible to move. Telekinetics like me were among the few psionics who could defy gravity completely (even if only for a short time), though a powerful windmaster like Ralph could ride his own gale when he wasn’t tearing apart houses with tornados. The list went on and on, and there were even some psionics who had powers so unique that they didn’t have names. I still had a lot to learn.

  “Cindy, there’s something else I want to practice,” I said one evening during the first week of December, after yet another fruitless meditation session. I wasn’t giving up on learning to balance my power, but after two solid months of this, you can imagine how tired I was waiting for a breakthrough.

  “One subject at a time, Adrian,” said Cindy.

  I raised my eyebrows. “Does that mean I don’t have to study my school stuff anymore?”

  “What do you want to learn?” she asked resignedly.

  “How to block people,” I replied. “You know, with your mind.”

  “How to block controllers? That’s difficult, Adrian. I’m really no good at blocking, myself. I never learned how to do it properly.”

  “But you said it’s possible.”

  “And it is,” said Cindy. “But it takes practice. Lots of practice. And you’ll need a controller who can help teach you to resist.”

  “Oh,” I said, disappointed.

  “Besides,” said Cindy, “I think you’re still a little too young to learn blocking.”

  I frowned. Nothing riles a kid more than being told he’s “too young” to do something, but that didn’t change the fact that, without a controller to teach me, I couldn’t learn blocking regardless of my age. I wasn’t about to give up that easily, though.

  “What about Alia?” I suggested. “I know she’s not a controller, but wouldn’t it be the same thing if I can learn to block her telepathy?”

  Cindy pondered that for a moment, and then said carefully, “Not exactly the same, Adrian, but yes, I suppose it could work.” She turned to Alia, who was lazily crayoning a pink and green unicorn in her drawing book. “Ali dear, do you want to help teach Addy some new skills?”

  Alia jumped up from her drawing and came over to us. Cindy explained what she wanted us to do. It was actually quite straightforward: Alia would talk to me, and I would try to tune her out. That was the theory, anyway. Alia couldn’t wait to get started.

  “Can you hear me, Addy?”

  “Yes, Alia, I can hear you just fine,” I replied, not sure how to even begin blocking her voice. Unlike Ralph, Alia could work her telepathy without eye contact. She could even send her thoughts through walls, as she often did when she woke me in the mornings.

  “Addy.”

  “I can hear you, Ali.”

  “Addy.”

  “Yes, Alia.”

  “Addy.”

  “Yes…”

  “Addy-Addy-Addy-Addy!”

  “Yes, I can hear you, Ali!”

  It turned into a battle of willpower. A one-sided battle, really, since try as I might, I could find no way to tune her voice out of my head. Alia had decided that this was a fun new game to play, and often just went about repeatedly calling my name and laughing at my reactions. Cindy had it wrong: Telepathy was a type of control. Alia was driving me up the wall! And this battle of wills was not unlike my other one to get Alia mouth-speaking and reading her books aloud. I was losing on both fronts.

  I found myself doing less and less schoolwork, instead focusing more and more on my “true studies,” as I came to call them, my frustration only fuelling my determination to make some kind of progress in either balance or blocking before the end of the year. Cindy grumbled about my lack of commitment to the textbooks from time to time, but didn’t press the matter much. At least Alia was still doing her schoolwork, and I was gradually becoming a better cook.

  I could tell you about all the fun we had during the holiday season, but I doubt you are all that interested. If you are as fortunate as I hope you are, you will already know what it feels like to enjoy a peaceful and happy time with a family, which is, no doubt, what I had there. I did miss both of my arbitrary deadlines, still having no clue how to keep my body from relying on my telekinetic power, and entirely unable to tune out Alia’s constant name-calling. However, at the time, it didn’t bother me very much. As Cindy had once said, I still had plenty of time to learn.

  Chapter 8: The Windmaster

  Near the end of January, we went back to the pond, this time taking ice skates. In addition to the skates, Cindy had bought me a new snowsuit for Christmas, and once again I was appalled at her fashion sense. The matching jacket and pants were a truly horrific combination of pink, violet and yellow, undoubtedly designed for girls. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to complain about a present. At least it was plenty warm and waterproof, and besides, who was going to see me wearing it aside from Cindy and Alia?

  The pond was frozen solid, and I spent some time telekinetically moving the snow off a section of the ice to make it skate-able. The result wasn’t nearly as large, smooth or level as a proper ice skating rink, but good enough to have some fun. I had learned to skate when I was six, and I glided easily over the uneven ice, weaving between Cindy and Alia as Cindy tried to teach Alia how to keep from falling over.

  “Addy, stop it!” Alia cried into my head as I zipped past her at top speed.

  “Say the words, Ali!” I called back, laughing at her, and the next thing I knew, I was off the ice and painfully sprawled on the pebbles that surrounded the pond.

  I quickly checked myself for cuts, but I knew I was okay because I wasn’t being drained. I could hear Cindy and Alia having a nice little laugh at me. Although my steel skate blades weighted me down a lot, I managed to levitate myself a yard up off the ground and flew back toward the two.

  I had just touched back down on the ice when I heard the crack of a gunshot off in the distance. Blood spattered on the ice. Alia screamed.

  I couldn’t tell at first which of them had been shot, but I grabbed their hands and started to pull. The skates weren’t helping matters at all. I heard another shot, and then a third. I looked down and saw a thin trail of blood on the ice.

  Suddenly I was the one being pulled as Cindy grabbed Alia and me and dragged us off the pond. The three of us scrambled into the cover of the trees at the pond’s edge as yet another shot rang out. Alia finally stopped screaming, but her eyes were wide with fright. I could hear some men shouting in the distance.

  Cindy was clutching her upper left arm, trying to stop the bleeding. “I’m okay,” she said, breathing rapidly. “It just nicked me. We have to get to the car.”

  Cindy’s SUV was parked a little farther away, and we’d have to run in the open, through patches of snow and over uneven ground, to get to it. I wished I could fly us there, but I couldn’t even lift Alia and myself at the same time, to say nothing of Cindy. On foot, we would be too slow even if we had our regular shoes, which had been left on the other side of the pond.

  “Someone will have heard the shots,” I panted.

  �
��We can’t wait around to be rescued, though, Adrian,” said Cindy. “We’ll have to run.”

  “Wait! Give me the key. I’ll fly to the car and bring it down here.”

  I wasn’t sure why I even said that. I had never driven a car before. Cindy stared at me, looking as uncertain as I felt, but there was no time – the men could be here at any moment.

  “Cindy, the key!” I shouted.

  “Are you sure about this?” asked Cindy, reaching into her pocket.

  “Just give it to me. And stay with Alia.”

  I was wearing gloves, which was fortunate because I didn’t bother worrying about being drained as I grabbed Cindy’s key ring. Cindy helped me pull off my skates. I didn’t want to be slowed down by the metal blades.

  Kicking hard off the ground, I lifted myself about seven feet into the air before heading full speed toward the car. I heard another shot as I landed, and the door mirror shattered, spraying me with silvery fragments. Fortunately, Cindy had left the door unlocked, and I got in quickly.

  Keeping my head down as low as possible, I turned the ignition. The engine immediately roared to life, and I clumsily drove the SUV down toward Cindy and Alia, nearly running them over.

  Having been practically thrown onto the back seat by Cindy, Alia started wailing again as Cindy pushed me aside and took the wheel. As we sped away, I was expecting to be shot at again at any moment, but no more rounds were fired.

  “Amateurs…” Cindy muttered under her breath, pulling onto the expressway.

  “Who were they?” I asked.

  Cindy kept her eyes on the road. “Probably Slayers. Otherwise, they would have wanted us alive. I just wish I knew how they found us.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “First, we’re going home,” said Cindy. “I can’t hide us out here right now. My blood is draining me. We have to get back into my hiding bubble around the house.”

  “Can’t Alia heal you?”

  “Does it look like she can?!” Cindy snapped back.

  Used to the calm and collected Cindy, I was shocked by the harshness of her tone, but she had a point: Alia was still bawling her eyes out on the back seat.