Freakling

by Lana Krumwiede

  “You might as well accept it,” Taemon said to Da. “I have no psi. None.”

  “Shh!” The door slammed shut with Mam’s psi. “If someone heard that, you’d be carted off before first light.”

  Taemon frowned. “Don’t worry: no one will know. I’ve faked it this far, haven’t I?”

  It was true. In just four weeks, Taemon had learned to deceive neighbors, friends, and people at church. Sleight-of-hand tricks worked well. And magnets often came in handy.

  Most people figured he was clumsy and slow since the accident. No one seemed to suspect that Taemon was powerless. Probably because no one had ever spent much time around a powerless person. The only disabled people in the city were the dozen or so that lived and worked in the temple. They were innocents, powerless people who didn’t know anything different. No one spoke to them or saw them outside the temple.

  “You can’t fake everything,” Da said. “What about lunch at school? You can’t eat in front of anyone.”

  “I’ve already thought of that,” Taemon said. “I’ll spend lunch in my classroom doing schoolwork. I’ll need more time to do my assignments anyway. I can eat when I get home.”

  “Still, I’m not sure you can pull this off,” Da said. “We should work on finding your psi.”

  “It’s not like I’ve misplaced it,” Taemon said, frustrated. “It’s gone.” Completely. His parents thought his disability was due to the trauma of near drowning, and he’d never told them anything different. He’d never told them how he’d become unworthy of psi. Being powerless was a shameful thing — more so, even, than being a liar and a cheat. But at least he wasn’t dangerous anymore.

  Skies, but this lock assignment had him stumped. “Just leave me alone and let me figure this out,” he told his parents.

  Most of the time, Taemon was allowed to eat alone in his bedroom where he could use his hands all he wanted. At dinner, Mam insisted that they eat together. “We’re still a family,” she’d said, “and families eat together.”

  But that did not mean Taemon was permitted the use of his hands at the dinner table. Mam used her psi to hold his food up for him to eat, as she had done when he was a baby. He felt a wave of humiliation with every bite.

  Tonight, Da was quiet and broody, though Yens seemed to be in a good mood. Maybe they could have an argument-free meal for once.

  Yens cleared his throat. “Today is a great day for the Houser family.”

  Mam looked nervously at Da. The caramelized cucumber in front of Taemon dropped to his plate. He couldn’t pick it up. Short of lowering his head to his plate like a dog, he couldn’t eat until Mam picked up his food for him.

  Cucumbers were no big loss. He didn’t even like them. What he’d really like to do is tuck into that lamb roll.

  Yens leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his neck. In spite of himself, Taemon was curious about what Yens was going to announce. What was it this time? Had his exhibit for the nature fair taken first place?

  Da raised his eyes from his meal with a dark look. “Boasting is not permitted in this house.” Da was always firm about the sin of pride. The scriptures said pride would be the downfall of the true people. Da took that seriously.

  Taemon stared at the food on his plate. As hungry as he was, he didn’t dare pick it up.

  “Some priests came to the school today and tested a few of us.” Taemon could hear the glee in Yens’s voice, and the fact that the news was upsetting to Da seemed to add to it. “The results were . . . interesting.” Yens let his words hang in the air for a moment for maximum effect. “They said I did things they’d never seen before.”

  Da buried his head in his hands.

  Mam looked stunned.

  Yens grinned. “Don’t be surprised when they pick me as the True Son.”

  Calmly, Mam pushed back her chair and walked over to Yens. Taemon startled at the smacking sound that came next. Yens recoiled, and when a red spot appeared on his cheek, Taemon understood what had happened. Mam had slapped Yens’s face with psi. Even though parents had authority to discipline their children with psi, Mam had never done it before. Maybe a twist of the ear now and again, but nothing like a slap.

  She left the room.

  Da glared at Yens. “Do you see? Do you see what this is doing to her?”

  Poor Mam. She could never relax. She was Rabbit through and through, jumpy by nature. But every sign had a positive and a negative side. Mam would do anything to survive. Anything to make sure her boys weren’t taken away. Yens to the temple and Taemon to the dud farm. Taemon could not control Yens — no one could — but he would make sure he never got sent away.

  Yens showed no such concern. “Da, you’re a religion teacher. You should be proud — I mean pleased — that I’m to be the True Son.”

  Da gripped the table. “It’s not a contest. It isn’t a prize to be won. The Heart of Earth will choose the one to begin the next Great Cycle.”

  “But the high priest says the True Son has been born. They’re looking for someone who —”

  “The high priest is looking to increase his own power,” Da said. He shook his head slowly. “He only wants someone he can mold into the True Son. Someone to help him manipulate the people. If he takes you to the temple, you’ll be the true puppet, nothing more.”

  “What is wrong with this family?” Yens stood up and left the table. As his brother stormed out of the room, Taemon noticed that the red mark on Yens’s cheek was in the shape of a rabbit. Mam had left her mark, sure as sunrise.

  Taemon frowned. Could Yens really be the True Son? He was powerful enough. But somehow Taemon had always thought the True Son would be different. Someone . . . good.

  A new thought struck Taemon: What if he had come a breath away from killing the True Son?

  Worse yet, what if he should have killed Yens in order to prevent him from becoming the True Son?

  Skies! It was all so confusing. He’d lost his psi either because of his unworthy thoughts or because he wasn’t brave enough to do what needed to be done. Did it really matter which one? Either way amounted to a massive failure.

  Taemon and Yens had never spoken of what happened that day. Talking about it would mean admitting that Taemon had bested him, and Yens wouldn’t do that. Just as he wouldn’t say anything about his little brother being a powerless slug — not when it might mar his prospects for becoming the True Son. But once he was chosen, if he was chosen, would he still keep quiet?

  Perhaps the one bright outcome of all this was that the competition between Taemon and his brother had evaporated. Yens was clearly the star in the family, and Taemon was clearly the weakling. Yens was the psiball champion, the outstanding scholar, the gifted musician. Taemon fell easily into the role of Nobody.

  Mam did not come back to the table, which meant Taemon’s meal was over. The cucumber lay tepid and limp on his plate, which was fine with him. But walking away from the untouched lamb roll? That was difficult.

  Four days later, Taemon’s big moment came. It was time to demonstrate his lock. Taemon had already attached it to the handle of the locker when no one was looking. He stood in the hallway and waited for the teacher. It was midmorning break. Taemon had specifically requested this time slot to complete his lock assignment. He hoped the people milling around in the hall would distract the teacher. And Taemon needed all the distractions he could get.

  The lock worked at home, but could he do it in front of the teacher? Was it good enough to fool her? Or would he wake up tomorrow at the dud farm?

  The teacher walked up and stood next to Taemon. She leaned forward, peering at the lock. “It certainly has a . . . unique design.”

  “Um, thank you,” said Taemon. “That’s what I intended.”

  Was it too different? Would it stand out too much? He’d soon find out.

  Tilting the lock upward with her psi, the teacher peered at it and frowned. “This slot on the bottom . . . what’s it for?”

  “I . . .
don’t want to be rude but . . . I’d rather not explain.”

  The teacher sniffed. “Yes, well, I suppose that’s the point of a lock, to make it incomprehensible to others.”

  Taemon exhaled. “Exactly.”

  He slid in between the teacher and the lock. He couldn’t afford to have her scrutinize it any further.

  With a gentle nudge of psi, she turned Taemon around to face the locker. “All right. Let’s see you unlock it.”

  “The thing is . . .” He leaned forward and whispered, “I can do it better if I turn my back to the lock.”

  He knew this was risky. It didn’t make sense to turn your back on the object you were manipulating with psi. But he felt sure he could do a better job diverting the teacher’s attention if he could face her, make eye contact with her.

  “What is your name again? Tymon?”

  “TAY-mon.”

  “Well, Taemon, using psi means influencing an object’s spatial positioning. To do that, we must make mental contact with the object. And mental contact begins with visual contact.”

  “Right. I know that’s how most people do it. I don’t know why, but it’s easier for me if I turn my back.”

  “Try it my way first.” The teacher pressed her lips into a tight line.

  “Okay.” Taemon faced the locker and pretended to concentrate. He stared at the lock for a few seconds. Predictably, nothing happened.

  “Please,” said Taemon. “If I could just turn around.”

  The teacher sniffed again. “Most unorthodox. No visual contact? People have to train years for that kind of psi.”

  Taemon’s heart pounded. Unorthodox wasn’t good, but it was flaming better than the truth. He held his breath.

  “Well, I suppose there’s nothing in the assignment that requires visual contact.” The teacher sighed. “Go ahead: give it a try.”

  Taemon exhaled. He turned around so his back was to the locker. Now came the tricky part. He needed her to look away from the lock. He stretched one hand forward and curled his fingers as if holding an invisible ball. Holding that pose, he made his hand tremble slightly.

  It seemed to work. The teacher looked confused. More important, she was staring at his shaking hand. With his other hand, Taemon reached behind his back.

  He fixed a look of concentration on his face and cocked his head, just as he’d seen weak kids do many times. An experienced psi wielder never contorted his face at all. Any grimace, gesture, or grunt was the clumsy sign of a novice.

  Taemon’s act seemed to be working. The teacher was observing his facial expressions, his hand movement. She wasn’t looking at the lock at all.

  Staring straight ahead, Taemon kept up the trembling hand act. With his hidden hand, he turned his wrist until a small metal rod slipped out of his sleeve and into his hand. He forced the metal rod into the slot in the lock, just as he’d practiced.

  Click!

  In one smooth motion, he turned sideways and slipped the metal rod into his pocket — on the side hidden from the teacher. He relaxed. “There.”

  “Indeed.” The teacher stepped forward and checked the lock. She looked up and glared at Taemon. “Well, young man, I’m not sure what to make of you. Do I put you in the advanced group because you didn’t need visual contact? Or in the beginner group because of the hand movement?”

  Taemon smiled. He didn’t care which group he was in; he was just glad to be in.

  Once the teacher turned and walked away, Taemon glanced around to be sure no one was looking, then quickly closed the lock again and headed toward his classroom.

  In the hall, people stared at him and whispered.

  “Did you see the way his hand trembled?”

  “What a freakling.”

  “Isn’t that Yens Houser’s brother?”

  “How can a psiball champion have a weak freak for a brother?”

  Taemon kept his head down and picked up his pace. He’d heard all that before. It didn’t bother him. Much.

  “A psiless lock. Pure genius!”

  He stopped cold, then turned around to see who had caught him cheating.

  Taemon searched the faces in the hallway for the one who’d spoken. A boy with black hair that flopped partly over his eyes stepped forward. Taemon looked closely at those eyes. Was there menace there, or only morbid curiosity?

  The boy stared back at Taemon. “I’m not sure if I want you around me. Now I can’t be the resident weak freak anymore.” He smiled wryly.

  Weak freak. Taemon winced at the term, but that’s exactly what he needed people to think he was. Weaklings were teased, ridiculed, bullied, but they weren’t sent away. What better way to appear weak than to sling around with the weaklings?

  “Cha. I’ve got you beat, all right. I’m Taemon. Birth sign’s Quake.”

  “Moke,” said the boy. “Serpent.”

  The sign of the serpent could mean deception, or it could mean protection. So this Moke was either hiding something or providing a safeguard. Taemon shifted his weight. Maybe making friends wasn’t such a good idea. He might get too comfortable around friends, too careless.

  “You don’t know what to make of me.” Moke nodded. “That’s okay: you’re a Quake after all. Quakes are supposed to question. Here’s what you need to know before you decide: My parents run the crematorium. I study weasel droppings. I create sculptures from cat hair. And I stink at psiball.”

  Taemon laughed. “I stink at psiball, too.”

  “Excellent,” the boy said. “We can be partners. We’ll stink the pants off everybody.”

  Two days later, Taemon was in Moke’s backyard, sitting on the edge of a half-sphere. At fifteen feet in diameter, the metal half-sphere glinted in the autumn afternoon sunlight like a giant silver bowl. Real psiball matches were played in a full sphere made of lead crystal, but those were expensive and running the crematorium didn’t exactly make Moke’s family rich. Families like Taemon’s and Moke’s could never afford a crystal psiball sphere, but a metal half-sphere at least gave them something to practice on.

  The half-sphere had four holes evenly spaced around its equator. A full sphere had a hole at the very top as well. Four players, two teams of two, stood inside the sphere, where they used their psi to direct the ball into one of the holes. To score a point, a team had to get control of the ball, turn the edge of the hole the color of their team, and send the ball through the hole, all done with psi.

  “So what’s your plan for stinking the pants off everybody?” Taemon asked.

  “The way I figure it,” Moke said, “we have to turn our weakness into strength.”

  Taemon rolled his eyes. “You sound like my da. ‘The way to deal with weakness is to get stronger.’”

  “Did I say anything about getting stronger? I’m talking about using our weakness.”

  Taemon frowned. “I don’t get it.”

  Moke pushed off the edge of the half-sphere and landed at the bottom of the bowl. “Okay. Let’s pretend we don’t have any psi at all.”

  Taemon stiffened. Sometimes Moke seemed to know that Taemon was powerless. Or maybe it was just the guilty feeling that made it seem like people knew.

  “I know. It sounds stupid, right? I mean, how could you play psiball without any psi at all?” Moke said. “But just think about it. How would you play without psi?”

  “Well, I guess you’d have to —”

  Moke beckoned with a toss of his head. “Show me.”

  Taemon jumped into the half-sphere beside Moke, the ball resting at the bottom. It was about the size of a person’s head and covered with black leather, heavy and soft enough that it didn’t roll or bounce on its own. Moke had painted his birth sign, Serpent, on the ball.

  “You’d have to push it with your foot or something.”

  Moke nodded. “Let’s see you try.”

  With the side of his foot, Taemon kicked the ball up along the inside curve of the half-sphere. They took turns until both of them had found the right amount of force t
o send the ball through one of the holes.

  “What about changing the hole’s color?” Taemon asked. “We can’t do that without psi.” Because the ball is moved with psi, the spectators and referees couldn’t tell who was controlling the ball. In order to score a point, the players had to use psi to turn the perimeter of the hole their team’s color.

  “Yeah, we’ll have to use a little psi for the colors. No getting around that, I suppose.” Moke rubbed his chin. “Shouldn’t be a problem. Coloring the hole is the easy part.”

  “Maybe for you,” Taemon said. “I’m color-blind.” It was another lie, of course. Add it to the list.

  “Powerless and color-blind. You take weakling to a new level, my friend.” Moke kicked the ball into the east hole.

  Taemon tried to laugh it off. “If you’re going to be a weakling, be the best. That’s my motto.”

  Moke used a squinch of psi to clap Taemon on the shoulder. “We’re doing this for all the weaklings out there. We’re going to show them that weaklings can have fun and be clever, too.”

  “I guess,” Taemon mumbled. He wondered how weak Moke really was or if he just enjoyed being different.

  “Spoken like a true weakling,” said Moke. “Now let’s get back to work.”

  “Absolutely not,” Da said. “I forbid it.”

  Mam looked up from her embroidery. “Maybe we should hear him out.”

  The bright yellow embroidery floss kept looping and pulling, looping and pulling, as a bird took shape on the red cloth.

  The house was quiet in the dusky hours before sleep. Yens was out in Da’s workshop, practicing his music. Taemon had decided this was as good a time as any to bring up psiball. He’d closed the shutters tight so no one could overhear.

  Da drew a sip of coffee from his mug on the table. Like a dark thread, it disappeared into his mouth. He nodded for Taemon to continue.

  “I have a psiball partner. His name is Moke. We’ve been practicing and —”