The Secret Gift

by Ian Somers

  Before I left the house I wandered into the sitting room. I shouldn’t have gone there. I knew there was only hurt for me in that room but I couldn’t stop myself. I had to go in. I had to look upon this room that had occupied my thoughts for so much of the last year.

  There was enough light creeping in through the crack in the curtains to see the black circular stain on the carpet. It was the crusty remnants of the putrid liquid that Zalech had summoned from the roadside or the sewer or the garden – who knows. He had used it to drown my father. The carpet was a mirror of my soul; stained forever by that one moment of cruelty.

  I sat on the couch and gazed around the cold, dim room and recalled so many moments from my childhood. I used to stay up late watching TV with my parents then drift off on that same couch. I’d wake to find my mother carrying me to bed. I remembered it all quite clearly, but the feelings of that time were gone. Impossible to recapture that sense of security and contentment. I was so happy back then. I had no idea of the horrors that roamed this world. I could have no comprehension of the trials I would face. I only began to realise how difficult life can be when my mother lost hers. Everything went wrong when she died. The grief I suffered had stirred the gift for the first time. I’d been trapped on an emotional rollercoaster ever since.

  The memories of my mother and father were so painful to experience that they unleashed a ferocious headache, one so potent that the faint light slicing in through the curtains hurt my eyes. I turned my face from the light and slowly rose from the couch and staggered towards the door. The pain quickly became unbearable. I had crumbled to my knees before I got to the doorway and I hunched over groaning as the throbbing inside my skull grew more and more intense.

  Then suddenly there was no pain at all. There was no chill in the air. The shadows that haunted every corner of the room had been chased away by the warmth of the lamp hanging from the ceiling. I slowly got to my feet as voices emanated from the speakers of the TV in the corner. Was this a dream? Was it a momentary lapse of sanity brought on by the ferocity of the headache?

  ‘Don’t just stand there, Ross. Sit down, would you. And close the door, you’re letting the heat out.’

  I turned around to see my father sitting in his favourite armchair, a mug of tea in one hand, the remote for the TV in the other.

  ‘Da?’

  ‘You don’t recognise me?’ he laughed. ‘I know we don’t talk as often as we used to but surely you haven’t forgotten what I look like?’

  It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. But here I was, standing there looking into his eyes, hearing his voice, feeling the warmth of the room, hearing the voices from the TV, the low rumble of cars passing on the road outside.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said to him. ‘Da, I’m sorry.’

  ‘What are you sorry for?’

  ‘For not being there to save you …’

  ‘Save me from what?’ He rested the mug of tea on a side table and stared at me, a look of deep concern dulling his features. ‘Ross, are you sure you’re okay? I think those headaches you’ve been having are worse than you’ve admitted.’

  ‘The headaches?’

  ‘You’ve been having them for weeks.’

  ‘I don’t remember any headaches …’

  I looked up and caught my reflection in the mirror above the mantelpiece. I was fifteen years old. The shock of seeing my younger self staring back at me seemed to shatter the illusion. The room immediately plunged into shadow and I saw myself in the mirror as I should have been; a scarred nineteen year old who looked like he’d lived a hundred years. I was going insane. I was sure of that as I walked to the back garden for clean air.

  What had just happened? It was just like when my time–scan of Detective Clarke had been invaded by the illusion of being in the English countryside with Romand. Were they visions? Hallucinations? Dreams? Or were they memories? And if they were memories, what was unlocking them and why did I not remember having these headaches over the years? Not for the first time in my life I was plagued by questions that could not be answered. My life was a mystery to me. Sometimes I felt like I didn’t know myself, like my conscious mind was a casual passenger in my body.

  Then another vision seized control of me without any warning. I was sitting by the fireplace in the cottage by the coast, one hand clutching the side of my head, the other wrapped tightly around the neck of a beer bottle. Cathy was watching me from across the room, a look of intense worry screwing up her face.

  ‘Don’t drink, Ross,’ she pleaded. ‘Alcohol won’t make it any better.’

  ‘Cathy, you can’t understand the pain in my head. I can’t take it anymore.’

  ‘It’s because of what you are, Ross. Soon it will pass. It always goes away.’

  ‘What do you mean by that? I’ve never had a headache like this before.’

  ‘You have them nearly every day now, Ross. You just don’t remember having them. You black out or something. You won’t remember this conversation either.’ She left her seat, took the bottle from my hand and pressed her lips against my cheek. ‘One day it will all make sense. One day it will be worth it.’

  One day it will be worth it … those seven words unlocked another alien memory. I was unsteady on my feet and was being helped around the winding paths of the animal sanctuary by Peter Williams.

  ‘Greatness can only come with some measure of sacrifice, my lad.’

  ‘It feels like my skull is cracking open.’

  ‘Some day in the not too distant future it will be worth the pain you are going through.’

  I looked up to find myself standing in the back garden – where I should have been. Romand, Dad, Cathy and Williams. I now had memories of being with each of them while I endured cruel headaches and bouts of terrible anxiety. Why was I not aware of these headaches? What did they mean when they said it would be worth it one day? Williams and Cathy must have known what was causing the headaches. Unfortunately I couldn’t quiz Williams about the memories, he was long in his grave, but Cathy was only a phone call away. I had to contact her soon. I had to know she was all right, but I also needed to understand what was happening to me. This was a mystery that could not go unsolved.

  I pulled the patio doors shut and locked them. My family home was not the place to linger, not with the type of people that I had fought at the hotel still looking for me. I wasted no time in wheeling the kinetibike to the end of the laneway. Then I drove carefully to Maybrook Road, down the side of the Wrights’ house and parked it in their garage out back. Before I made my way to the house, I stuffed the gun I’d taken from Vanev into one of the bike’s sidebags. It had been concealed under my jacket all night and I didn’t want it to fall out in front of Gemma or her dad – I think their welcome would wear thin very quick if that happened.

  Gemma made me a brew and a sandwich when I got inside the house and we chatted about nothing important for a while, before her father told me I could get some sleep on the fold-down bed in the sitting room. It was midday when I pulled the blanket up to my chest and nestled my face in the cushions. I was out cold in minutes.

  I woke up late in the evening and heard Gemma and her father having a heated discussion in the kitchen and low moans coming from upstairs. I just lay there listening to what the Wrights were talking about, unwilling to rise from the comfort of the bed. Mr Wright was saying that he should call one of his old colleagues to inspect Hunter’s wound and to help treat the infection that was setting in. Gemma urged him to tell no one. Eventually her father relented and I heard him climbing the stairs and entering the room above me. He spoke to Hunter. The only reply he got was coughing and groaning. It went on like that all night before there was a period of silence around dawn. That’s when I finally rose and went to the kitchen to raid the fridge.

  Within a couple of hours Hunter was making noises again and I finally had to help the Wrights in looking after him. The injury had become infected and that brought on a fever that disrupted his senses and made him
act like a raving lunatic. That first night was calm enough. The second day it got gradually worse. Hunter made so much noise that a neighbour called at the door to see if everything was all right. Gemma said her father was in bed with a bad dose of the flu and to ignore the coughing and moaning. I don’t know if the neighbour believed it or not.

  The third day was as bad as the one before it. I started to wonder if Hunter would ever recover. How long could I remain hidden at the Wrights’ house when there was so much trouble plaguing the world of the gifted? The pressure was mounting. Hunter was still delirious and the war between the Guild of the True and the mysterious organisation that Brofeldt claimed she worked for was about to break out. That was one the longest days of my life and I fell onto the fold down bed around midnight and was as tired as I had ever been.

  I didn’t get any sleep. Before I drifted off, Mr Wright came into the room and told me to follow him upstairs. He led me up into the attic, that had been converted into an office, and ushered me to the window that looked out on the street.

  ‘What am I supposed to be looking at?’ I asked, as I looked up and down the road beyond the garden.

  ‘Take a step back from the window,’ he replied quietly. ‘Keep your voice down. I don’t want Gemma getting wind of this.’

  ‘Wind of what exactly?’

  ‘There,’ he said, motioning towards the window with his head.

  I stepped back to the window and watched a dark coloured saloon rolling slowly along the road. There were two men in the front and another two in the back. They were clearly examining the houses and gardens as they went along the road.

  ‘I first noticed them about an hour ago. They keep showing up as if they are doing laps of Maybrook.’

  ‘Stay away from the windows tonight,’ I told him. ‘They’ll move along soon enough.’

  ‘You don’t sound very certain.’

  ‘Nothing in my life is certain, Mr Wright.’

  ‘Ross, I have seen my fair share of war wounds over the years. And I can see by the scars that you and your friend bear that you are leading a violent life –’

  ‘I can handle myself in a fight.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it – I saw those videos from the contest. That’s not what I want to warn you about. I also treated countless people who had been emotionally dismantled by years of strain and stress. I can see that same look on your face right now.’

  ‘What am I supposed to do, take a chill pill?’

  ‘No. What you need to do is distance yourself from whatever it is you are involved in. Get away from all this, Ross, before it dismantles you.’

  I didn’t sleep a wink that night. I roamed the house like a tormented ghost, thinking over all the troubles and doubts that surrounded me. I also contemplated Mr Wright’s advice. I knew he was right about not being able to deal with stress for years on end. Someday I would have to escape the world of the gifted or else face being consumed by the hurt it caused me.

  It was 5am when I heard Hunter calling for me. I welcomed the distraction from my grim thoughts and went to the spare room and sat on the bed next to him. His eyelids hung lazily over his eyes and his skin was dashed with sweat. The fever still refused to relinquish its grip on him.

  ‘Bentley, don’t tell them about yourself,’ he said in a conspiratorial voice. ‘You can’t tell anyone about your gifts. They’ll kill you if you do! Promise me that you’ll stay quiet.’

  ‘I’m all right, Hunter. I haven’t told them anything.’

  ‘You’re far too important,’ he whispered. ‘Way too important for us to lose. The Guild needs you more than you know.’

  ‘Peter Williams once said something similar to me. You know,’ I snorted, ‘he believed that one day I would lead the Guild.’

  ‘Of course he did. It’s only natural.’ He tried to lift himself from the bed but was too weak and fell back onto the pillows, hissing in sharp breaths.

  ‘Don’t get yourself so worked up,’ I told him. ‘You’ll be better tomorrow.’

  ‘If tomorrow comes …’ Hunter was staring into the shadows that filled the corners of the ceiling. ‘I know what’s out there … Bentley, you have to be ready when the time comes. You have to be strong. Those demons that Romand and I found in the underground all those years ago are still out there. Don’t you realise that? They’re out there waiting in the shadows for their moment.’

  ‘What demons are you talking about?’ At first I thought he’d been babbling aimlessly. Now I believed there was some hint of truth in what he was saying. I recalled the speech he gave at Romand’s funeral. Hunter said that he and Romand had searched the world for the Kematian.

  ‘Who are the demons, Hunter? Are you talking about the Kematian?’

  ‘That’s not what we have to worry about.’ He reached out and grabbed a fistful of jumper. ‘It’s the other ones. They’re the ones who’ll destroy everything. No one can know, Bentley. Never say a word.’

  ‘What demons, Hunter?’

  ‘Monsters that have no place in the natural world. They’ll kill everyone …’

  I was about to question him further when I was interrupted by Mr Wright. He paced into the room and sat next to me, wrenching Hunter’s arms away from me and feeding him more tablets.

  ‘He’s out of his mind,’ Mr Wright said to me. ‘He’s been rambling on about demons and the underworld all day. He’ll snap out of it soon enough. It’s the fever that’s talking.’

  ‘He’s been like this for days,’ I said. ‘Are you sure he’ll come through this?’

  ‘He’s as strong as any man I’ve ever come across,’ Mr Wright said thoughtfully. ‘Most would have succumbed to either the injury or the infection by now. He’s through the worst of it. Another day or two and he’ll be more like himself.’

  The medication took an almost immediate effect on Hunter. He was snoring within a few minutes and I went to the silence of my room to rest. I didn’t quite know what to make of what he had told me. None of it made any sense really. But I did suspect that a great evil was hidden from me by Hunter and the other leading members of the Guild. I also got a feeling that it wouldn’t be long before this dark secret of theirs would be revealed to me. Did I want to know? That was the question I pondered before I fell asleep.

  I had breakfast with Gemma the next morning. Then we sat on deck chairs in the back garden and chatted for almost two hours. I never told her anything about my new life. I never once mentioned Cathy. Never a word about the Guild. And I never uttered Zalech’s name, even though she asked me about my father’s death more than once. She could not know of these things. I did tell her a little about my psychokinesis, and even used the gift to entertain her – just simple tricks like levitating her chair by a few inches, and making her hair curl into extravagant shapes. I was giving her just a glimpse of what I was capable of. I kept most of what was going on a secret, though. Sharing information with her was dangerous, but it wasn’t only that; I didn’t want her to see too much of the bigger world – the world of the gifted – because it might ruin her perspective on life. I wanted her to have a happy life, untainted by stories of gifted murderers and assassins. And by all accounts her life was a happy one.

  She told me countless stories about college and all the interesting people she’d met and the places she planned to visit. There was a time when stories like this would have bored me. Now, I just sat there listening to her. It was nice to hear about the everyday things that people my age did. I sat there imagining that I had gone to college and played pranks on the friends that I might have made. It certainly was nice to be around her again. I still felt so comfortable in her company, as if there had been no break in our friendship, as if nothing had been altered between us. A lot had changed for us both, though. I had become a different person. Gemma had grown into a beautiful young woman with the world at her feet. It was almost strange that we still had such a strong connection. I was glad to have shared that time with her.

  I had left my family home
three days earlier thinking that my earlier life had little meaning. Talking with Gemma brought back all the little things that did give it meaning. Talking with her had introduced a sense of normality that had been lacking in my life of late. All traces of that fleeting moment of normality were instantly banished as soon as Hunter woke up …

  ‘Bentley!’ I heard him shouting from upstairs. ‘Bentley, where are you? Where the bloody hell are you? And where are my clothes, damn it?’

  ‘Sounds like the patient is conscious,’ Gemma smiled. ‘You better get up there. He sounds pissed!’

  ‘He always sounds like that.’

  ‘Feeling better?’ I asked him when I opened the door to the spare room. I knew the second I looked at Hunter that he was back to himself. He was sitting upright, his shoulders were tensed up and that familiar frown of his had taken over his face again. ‘How are you feeling?’