by Emme DeWitt
“Bon Voyage.”
The door clicked shut firmly behind me.
With the florescent glow of the hall lights gone, only the dim blue of the sensory deprivation tank was left to guide me to this afternoon’s particular round of doom.
I rubbed the goosebumps from my arms, feeling the soft hairs resist my transient comforting. Without any further instruction from the hidden squawkbox, I disrobed. I was allowed to keep my underthings on, which I always did.
It was weird enough in the tank; I didn’t need the added anxiety of having to fight my way out naked. Who knew you could get such small comfort from panties and a tank top?
Dipping my toe in, I grimaced and recoiled. All the hairs on my body rose in protest.
It was slightly warm, the water heavy with whatever material was supposed to engulf me and turn all my senses to white noise. I hissed as I lowered each leg in against all my fight or flight instincts. Each time it was a little worse getting in, knowing exactly what would happen next but then again never quite knowing either. It was one thing to lose your sense of sight, but a whole other thing to completely lose your hold on reality. Before coming here, I hadn’t been afraid of the dark or of small spaces.
Enough time in the tank could change just about anything.
My fingers gripped the side of the shell, and my heels bounced off the bottom of the chamber. Without warning, the lid groaned alive, slowly encasing me in the pod and cutting me off from the crisp air of the over air-conditioned laboratory. I had to yank my fingers away from the edge before the lid shut on them.
They didn’t stop the observation if you were bleeding, I had learned. Blood and whatever this water mixture was did not mix well. It hadn’t killed me, but it hadn’t felt great either.
The lid clicked home, and I was in total darkness. The bluish glow that had emitted from the tank had blinked off automatically as soon as the lid closed. I was immersed in darkness, an oddly warm liquid, and the thoughts of me and my closest one hundred neighbors.
I had been lectured on the procedure of the observation tank enough times that it played like a scratchy old recording in my mind.
Lie back.
Relax.
And focus.
It was supposed to be time for me to reconnect or whatever, but honestly, I knew they were testing my range. I was never quite sure how they knew, but I had a feeling they had planted people on the outside and determined how far out I could sense based on the readings they got from my own reaction to them. Today, I was not into playing their games. If they wanted to test my range, then I would give them a test.
I let the barriers I had so sloppily crafted after Brendan’s visit fall away. Immediately, I had a sense of the techs behind the two-way mirror, monitoring me. I could sense Quentin down the hall attempting to communicate with Adair again. I even found Brendan driving on the expressway home, about thirty miles away.
Not only that, but I could sense everyone in between.
So I pressed further.
As the feelings and life forms pressed into my mind’s eye, I let them fall away into blurs. It was like I was zooming in with a high-powered lens, letting the background blur to hyperfocus on my target. Easily enough, I found my tia in Detroit. Back at Windermere, when I first found her, I had absolutely freaked out. Now, I used her as an anchor to keep going.
Usually, I did my best to hide my range. The how’s never seemed to matter, as The Association figured out about my range enough to know I could cross at least one time zone. I often thought I should dig around more to find out what they knew about me for certain, but right now, the only thought I had was Noah. Could I reach her? Montana seemed like it was on the other side of the world from my little tank in New England.
Abuela was in Chicago with another aunt and uncle, so I focused on her next. Could I get to her?
I pressed past Tia’s consciousness in Michigan to my next anchor, and the edges of my focal point wavered in protest as I stretched and stretched. Suddenly, I felt as if I had hit a wall. I felt my body jerk in the tank, but no sound lapped back at me to know for certain.
So many people.
So many supernaturals.
It was naive of me, I realized, to think supernaturals wouldn’t all group together. The concentration had been high at Windermere and in New York City, where I liked to wander in my other tank visits, but somehow I hadn’t thought beyond that.
Maybe finding my gifted peers wouldn’t be as hard as I had thought. Sure, not all supernaturally bent individuals had high enough concentrations to be considered Elevated, but I had had no concept of just how common our bloodlines had become. Maybe the readings I was picking up were supernaturals. Maybe they weren’t. Maybe they were just regular people.
The problem with my far-reaching range was always details. I knew there were people, and the clear broadcasters drew my attention easily enough, but beyond the basics, I had very little idea who I was actually sensing. I just knew there were a lot of them.
The wall of bodies grew denser the harder I pushed. The focus of my powers had degraded to the point that the edges shook harder than the frames of a video shot on an old flip phone. I was starting to feel the pull back that was bound to happen. The laws of physics seemed to work just fine for Empaths, too.
I needed to find my abuela. Today. If I couldn’t find her now, how was I supposed to find Noah in Montana? Assuming she was where Quentin and I thought she was. And that was a big if.
Ifs and maybes were fun until your immediate existence was depending on them.
I felt the pinching of a migraine coming on, which gave me a thirty seconds heads up before my mental rubber band snapped me back into my own consciousness. I had no memories of Chicago. Desperation would need to lead me home.
Please let abuela be a clear broadcaster, I wished as I flung out my last burst of energy.
My mind snagged on the South Side. It took every fiber of my being to direct my energies to where I thought I had felt a tug. I couldn’t be sure it was my abuela, but I was less sure about coincidences in life these days, so I ran with it.
Her consciousness was so weak, I was startled. Was that really all I could pick up from this far away?
No, that wasn’t right. I felt Tio Manuel next to her, and he was flaring bright.
Worry. Sadness. Love.
Was Abuela sick? She seemed almost asleep, her emotions blanketed by what I assumed to be medication much like mine.
I panicked.
She couldn’t be sick, couldn’t be dying. I had seen her only last year, and she was stronger and more resilient than a cactus in Arizona. She was the strongest person I knew. How could she be dying?
My focus on her snapped as my emotions and panic took over the majority of my mind. I was kicked out, back into myself, and my body flailed wide at the sudden change. Sludge choked me as I gasped for air against the waves of disrupted fluid.
Being unable to hear myself drowning lent an added layer of trauma to future simulations. I reached my hands where I assumed the front or top of the pod was. After several disorienting swipes, I found purchase, hitting the lid with all my might.
Cacophony surrounded me. All the noises I had wanted to hear and some I didn’t came rushing at me, fighting for dominance. The noise raced to catch up with my physical sensations.
I was pulled into the freezing air by a strong pair of hands, and as soon as my throat cleared from all the fluid, I screamed until my throat was raw.
I felt a pinch on my arm and fell into blackness once again
I woke up shivering in my bed. My hair lay in damp coils on my pillow, so densely tangled that it formed a net of knots and snarls. I was in fresh pajamas, but the cold sweat of the medication made the cotton cling to me as if I had been pulled from the pod just moments before.
My teeth chattered violently, and I could taste the blood from the cuts on my tongue and cheeks from their repeated attacks. A groan escaped through the steady metronome of bone ag
ainst bone. The bright fluorescent lights blared through the small room, but I was too weak to grab my pillow and toss it over my eyes and ears. The low buzz made my ears itch.
What the heck did you do, swallow the whole tank? Quentin’s voice rang in my head. His nasally tone bounced against the crumbling barriers in my mind. I tried to mentally swat it away, but my physical body reacted with a limp flip of my wrist. Well, that was no good.
I groaned again into the open air, begging to be put back under rather than deal with this fresh assault. Even on my good days, Quentin and the ambient noises of The Association accommodation put me on edge. In my current state, it felt extra cruel.
I mean, honestly, what did you think was going to happen? Did you even have a plan or think through the consequences of overreaching? Quentin’s voice sent a derisive snort through the connection, and I flinched. You don’t think very much, do you? Just follow your impulses and your intuition. You’re going to get killed one of these days because of it. I don’t have to be an Oracle to know that.
Shut up, I sent back. Shutupshutupshutup.
Constantly saying I told you so is not as satisfying as I had hoped, Quentin said with a sigh. But I have to admit, you’ve got flair. The whole place is talking about you. Quite the celebrity patient. Notorious even.
Why are you still talking? I shot back, adding a lick of rage to my missive. I felt him flinch on his side as the arrow found its target. Leave me alone.
I squeezed my eyes shut even tighter, gathering what little focus I could muster to repair and strengthen the core barriers in my mind. I wasn’t fast enough to save myself from another Quentin tirade though.
You’re a little too good at emotional attacks, you know? Makes me think you’ve got a little more Commander in you than Empath. Wasn’t your brother a Commander?
If you do not shut up right now, so help me, I will melt your brain from the inside out, I said, my tone growing colder and colder the more he pushed my buttons. The walls were almost done, and the shivering began to calm as I focused my remaining energy on myself rather than fending off loose emotional tidal waves from the surrounding town. More had leaked through with the buzzing of the lights than I had thought. At a certain point, noise was just noise.
I’m just saying, maybe it’s better off you’re in here. With all your power and your volatility, you should definitely not be in public. I know why I’m here, and it’s about time you realize your place as well.
The only thing making me more volatile than White Coat is you. Don’t flatter yourself. You’re in here because you’re just as unstable as I am, and you’re too nosy for your own good.
Nosy? That’s rich. At least I deal in facts and actual events. You’re left with ambiguous impressions and visual codes you don’t even understand. How are you supposed to strategize without any concrete information? Quentin continued.
And that was it.
As far as I’m concerned, I have exactly what I need to get what I want, whenever I want it, from whomever I want. Just because I’m not using my gifts to your satisfaction does not mean I’m useless. I’ll figure out my issues on my own, thank you very much. You can wait for your instant replay because I’m done dealing with you, I volleyed back at him.
Before he could even blink, I made the loudest mental door slam I had ever done, locking his one way channel into my head behind several mental barriers built with enough desperation and intention to be the equivalent of concrete backed by bricks anchored with granite. It wasn’t white subway tile, but my DIY renovation binge watching had finally paid off.
I released a deep breath, letting the tension melt from my aching muscles as the pent-up frustration left in a long train of carbon dioxide. Finally, I was alone enough to release my emotions into the room safely. They could only dissipate without a suitable host. The ventilation system would recycle the air into next room, free and clear of any residual angst.
The rushing noise of my breath echoed back to me, and I let the sounds of my breathing calm me until the buzz of the lighting became soothing white noise and the quiet vault of my inner mind remained silent and unprovoked. After several minutes of trained relaxation, I slipped into a dream of my own volition, thankful that this rest would be black sleep and not medicine-induced dysphoria.
I sat on the front steps of my abuela’s three-flat in Chicago. The cold cement bit into the back of my legs, which were clothed in only a pair of shorts. Looking up, I saw the sun high in the sky, the warmth tingling on my skin interrupted occasionally by clouds propelled by the licking of the lakefront breeze.
Next to me was my abuela just as I had seen her the previous summer. Looking around, I realized the familiarity rang true, like a memory. I had sat like this with her once upon a time. I knew it was midwinter in New York, where I was being held in an Association-run mental institution, but this reality seemed equally true. I pressed my lips together, trying to work out what was going on.
“Mija,” a soft voice called to me, pulling my wandering train of thought back to the present scene. “Are you well?”
I turned to see her sitting in the teal rocking chair my father had made her before he died, the blanket covering her lap dancing with a brightly colored pattern. Everything seemed a little too vibrant, and I balked at her question.
“Abuela, what’s going on?” I asked, my voice pitching higher and colored my question with more youth and whininess than I had intended. I had expected a calm dream after my tank adventure, complete blackness even. This hallucination was painfully real, and I could feel the prickling of frustration pushing tears to the brims of my eyes.
My body was screaming at me that something was wrong. So, so wrong.
“You came to visit,” Abuela said with a knowing smile. I squinted at her bright aura, trying desperately to find what seemed out of place. “It’s sweet my little birdie still thinks of her grandma when she’s so far away. I thought you’d never come.”
“But I haven’t, Abuela,” I argued. “I’m stuck in New York. I can’t visit you.”
“You’re here now, aren’t you? And you saw me earlier today as well,” she said, letting the rocking chair teeter her back and forth in the afternoon breeze. A knowing smile lay contently on her cheeks, and her eyes shone with pride.
I opened my mouth to argue again, but I clammed up. Abuela was not someone you argued with, even though I knew she would never dismiss me if I had a question. My stomach lurched.
But what did she mean I had seen her earlier?
“I don’t understand,” I said, lifting my chin in an attempt to keep the tears from falling. I was so tired. I could not handle these crazy dreams that weren’t dreams or conversations that weren’t really conversations. “Abuela, please tell me what’s going on.”
“Little bird, come here,” she said, opening her arms toward me, compassion rolling off her in radiating waves as bright as the afternoon sun above me. My body moved me to her side before I could consciously tell it to go. “It’s all right. Everything will be all right.”
I bent over her, holding her tightly in an embrace. She was bonier than I had remembered, but she hugged me back as fiercely as I clung to her. I wished I could climb into her lap like when I was younger, but even with my limited stature, I was too big and she was too weak for such comforts.
“Abuela, are you like me?” I asked in a husky whisper. The tears that couldn’t escape my eyes had traveled to my throat. I swallowed hard. “Like Papi was and like Tomas?”
A hum escaped her lips, buried firmly in my hair. Her strong hand patted my back repeatedly until the tension cleared my froggy throat. I pulled away from her, looking her in the eyes once more. A knowing glint shone back in her warm brown eyes.
“You have a very important purpose in life, mija. You must remain strong, like your abuela. Being a de los Santos comes with a lot of responsibility, but we hold it with grace and pride, eh?” Her hand cupped my face, and my lips trembled. Tears threatened to break through what lit
tle resolve I had mustered. I could only nod my understanding.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” I finally managed, immediately worried from my previous memory of her fading essence. “There’s so much I want to talk to you about.”
“Us old folk tend to forget the suffering of the young. I thought I could not help you in your journey since it is so different from mine,” she replied, stroking my hair. “I was foolish. Can you forgive your abuela?”
“Of course,” I said immediately, perplexed at her admission. “But you can help me now, can’t you?”
“Ah, of that I am not certain,” she said. “Of our family’s many gifts, immortality is not one of them. I need to join your father and brother soon. They need me.”
“I need you,” I replied. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t even know what I don’t know, Abuela. There are so many people like us, but they’re not like us. They want power and money, and I don’t think I can do anything about it.”
The words tumbled out unedited. I hadn’t realized my greatest fears in all this was how powerless I felt. How alone.
“There will always be those people, mija,” Abuela said, her knowing smile growing serious for a moment. “But you must remember there are also many people like you. People who care for others, who live with kindness. You find those people, mija, and you bring them together. Love is always stronger than fear.”
“How will I know? How will I find them? Abuela, it’s too much,” I said, hanging my head and refusing to look her in the eye. Tears had started to run down my cheeks, and I worried I would completely lose it if I showed any more. The same feeling that had told me this was no normal dream pulsed again. Time seemed to be slipping away, and I did not want to regret any wasted time.
Abuela clicked her tongue at me, rubbing my arm for comfort.
“You are de los Santos, Evangeline,” Abuela said. “You have everything you need in here.” Her hand rested against my heart, and I clung to it with both of my hands.
