by B. T. Alive
Now, as I rocked, my mind kept looping a question it refused to answer. Could Tina really have… was she even capable of…?
Actually, my mind wouldn’t even finish the question. It appeared to be literally unthinkable.
At last, beside me, Helen spoke, in a voice that was surprisingly normal.
“So. I heard you met Fiona.”
I perked up, surprised. On the other hand, maybe even Helen wasn’t quite ready to discuss Tina.
Well, if she was going to bring it up… I was definitely up for getting some answers.
“How’d you hear that?” I said, cautious.
Aunt Helen crimped a cute little smile, looking so much like Tina that my heart panged. “Cade’s been much more… talkative with me since you came to town. Always stopping by, inquiring after your… training.” Her eyes twinkled.
“He talks to you? About the Touch thing?” I said, flabbergasted. “He never told me that.”
Aunt Helen shrugged. “I think he may overplay the whole ‘strong and silent’ bit. Some men do.”
“Right, because it’s so caring to act like you don’t care,” I said. “The dude acts like he’s made of ice.”
“He’s not. Not even close,” Aunt Helen stared out over the expansive view and rocked, thoughtful. “He’s always asking me what he can do. Not without a note of desperation.”
“What? Really?”
She nodded. “But from what I understand about Tuners and Disruptors, he can’t do much. Tuners are acutely vulnerable to the jolt from a Disruptor; even if he were much farther along the road to mastery, he might still lose coherence from your Touch. In this one, very specific aspect of your relationship, I’m afraid the burden really is all on you.”
“Great,” I said. I stared at the porch boards with glum self-pity, and then I remembered the Fiona question I’d wanted to ask. Now that I was here with her, I felt strangely hesitant, almost bashful.
But I really wanted a normal freaking life. If there was even a chance…
I cleared my throat. “Fiona said the jolt is fear. That I’m afraid of everyone.”
Helen nodded, her face inscrutable. “Interesting.”
“Interesting?” I said. “Like, ‘interesting how she’s that crazy’? Or, ‘interesting, we’ve been totally wasting our time with all this training’?”
Helen shrugged. “Interesting.”
“I thought it was all about being calm!” I snapped. “I’ve been doing these stupid breathing exercises—”
“The two theories aren’t mutually exclusive,” she said. “If you do see everyone as a threat, that would seem to negate a sense of inner peace.”
“I can’t be scared of everyone,” I said. “I mean, everyone? Random little old ladies? Cade? The only person I’ve ever been able to touch without a jolt is you.”
A motherly smile suffused her face, as if she couldn’t help being pleased that I trusted her. It was rather darling, and she looked so warm, like the Aunt Helen I knew returning after this nightmare with Tina, that I felt an impulsive rush to reach over and hug her right there.
But then I remembered.
It came as a flashback, so real I was living it. Dad on the couch, cradling a beer. I couldn’t be more than ten, maybe younger. Mom had never been around, but I was somehow getting old enough to understand that other kids had both parents, that other dads didn’t sit on the couch alone. What I didn’t understand was why it hurt me when I touched people. I was doing it less and less, and Dad never touched me… but on this one night, right now, when I came to say good night, before I could even say a word, he looked up from the TV and he gave me this smile… like he’d been here all along, like Mom had never left and nothing bad had ever happened, or like bad things didn’t matter, because beneath it all was love and he would always see me like this, his precious unforgettable princess.
On impulse, I dove onto the couch and wrapped my arms around his neck. His Dad smell immersed me and his stubble scratched my cheek… for one tiny instant before the jolt.
The shock hurt so bad that I squealed and scrambled back, fumbling on the cushions. And Dad’s smile was gone. He sat there staring at me, dazed and unseeing, like he didn’t even know me.
Then he lifted his empty beer can, frowned, and tossed it toward a trash bin as he reached for another. The can missed, landing on a pile of empties he couldn’t see… forgotten.
Wait, I didn’t know that then, did I? Of course not. I had no idea what was happening.
But thinking these questions threw me out of the memory, and I was back on the porch, sitting with Helen… and staying alone in my chair.
Sure, I’d been able to touch her in the past. But not some big emotional hug. I couldn’t bear to risk seeing her jolt and losing what at least we had.
Then I saw that she was watching me. Feeling it all.
With a sad, compassionate smile, she leaned toward me and put a soft hand on my knee. Her warmth pressed through the fabric of my pants (yes, I’d finally earned enough at the orchard to buy my own outfits and not have to borrow Tina’s stuff all the time), and it seeped into my skin.
“You have so much power,” she said, her voice soft and strong. “If you could let yourself be loved, Summer, you could touch whoever you want.”
“Love?” I said, though tingles were running down my back. “I thought I was afraid of getting hurt.”
“Nothing hurts worse.”
We sat together, her hand on my knee, the chill air bracing in the warm sun.
I wanted to believe her. To believe that there was some whole other escape route that I’d never even considered, that I hadn’t known existed. I felt a rush of excitement, a glimpse that there might be some whole other way of being that I’d never really imagined, a Summer who could wake up happy with herself, connected, worthy of every smile and touch. That sounded like bliss.
But what about the pain? Nothing hurts worse. I had to already love Tina, at least a little, because just the thought of her in that cell was killing me. I imagined opening up like that to others… tens, hundreds… or having kids… it was terrifying.
Maybe isolation had its perks. Maybe I wasn’t quite ready to ditch the jolt.
And then a new thought needled at me. Helen wasn’t actually the only person I’d been able to touch.
That Cary Grant dude. He’d taken my hand. Not only had I not felt a shock, but his warm touch had been… well… I certainly hadn’t been calm.
What did that mean? I could tell myself it was just some stupid random attraction, but I had never had that, ever, with anyone. Most particularly not Cade. A touch so natural, even automatic… what if our bodies knew something we didn’t?
Our bodies… I told myself I was trying to ignore the more delicious, long-smothered implications of that tiny phrase. But then I caught Helen’s eye, and the fantasy evaporated in an instant.
Though her hand remained on my knee, her gaze had wandered back to the distance, and her eyes were crinkling with sorrow. I felt scalded for being so wrapped up in my own drama; I ought to be here, with her, in agony over Tina.
“There’s no way,” I said. “No way Tina killed someone.”
Aunt Helen’s grip tensed, and she looked grim. “You didn’t know Dante Radcliff.”
“But I know Tina! We both do! She just wouldn’t be capable—”
“I spend my life,” Aunt Helen snapped, with a fierce glare my way, “feeling exactly what people are capable of.”
She sighed, and as quick as it had come, the fury drained away, leaving her sad and old. Usually she looked youngish and full of energy, like if she and Tina went dancing in a darkish club, you might squint and think they were sisters. But as she gave my knee a final squeeze and then rocked back in her chair, I wondered if I was getting a preview of how she’d look as a grandmother. I’d never realized how much sadness ages you.
Maybe age is sadness. Maybe we all just let it accumulate.
“Dante Radcliff was a telemp
ath,” Aunt Helen said, creaking in her chair. “Barnaby told me he told you. Of course, as far as we could tell, the man never actually knew he had a psychic power. He simply went through life finding himself irresistible to the opposite sex.”
“What?” I said. “No wonder he was such a narcissist. Why didn’t you tell him?”
“We considered it,” said Aunt Helen. “But your Great-Uncle Vincent has a way of… finding those who grow aware of their psychic gifts. In the end, Dante seemed less dangerous, though, yes, more insufferable, if we left him deluded. Of course, for Tina, it was already too late.”
She rocked in silence for a few beats, staring fixed out into the distance and away from my gaze. At last, she said, “You have to understand. I know the man’s had other women, but Tina… she was a teenager, and a romantic, at the peak of her puberty brain and hormones. Not to mention an empath. He was… the worst possible kind of man, at the worst possible time. Her first real passion. I don’t think any other man has come close.”
“Really?” I said. “That bad?”
She laughed, a short bitter blast. “He was a telempath. He made her feel things. The few times she’d talk about it, she’d only say that he made her feel… alive.”
She lapsed into a dour, grieving silence. It grew too quiet… quiet enough to hear what might be a distant sob.
But then I bolted up from my chair.
“Made her feel things!” I cried. “That’s it!”
“That’s what?” demanded Aunt Helen, clutching the carved arms of her chair.
“We’ve been missing the obvious! Remember how I got those fake panic attacks? From Malice Alice?”
“Of course,” Aunt Helen said, confused. “But Malice Alice is long gone. We haven’t sensed her ever since that—”
“I know, I know, I don’t care about her,” I said. “But the point is, she’s a telempath. Dante was a telempath. If Alice could make me panic and Dante could make Tina infatuated, why couldn’t some other telempath push their anger onto Tina? Why couldn’t they be the real murderer?”
Aunt Helen stared.
Then she sprang from her chair and rushed for the station door.
I hustled after her, waving away the bewildered Imelda and sheriff in the lobby as we passed. When we reached Tina’s cell, I recoiled, doubting my own theory. She looked even worse than before, miserable and in torment and yet still disfigured with stifled rage.
“Mom, don’t,” Tina choked out, drawing back and clutching herself as Helen ran to the bars. “I’m not… safe…”
“Come here, come here,” murmured Helen. She stretched her soft hands between the bars. “Please.”
Tina hesitated, tortured and uncertain.
Then she stumbled forward. She was crying again, harsh racking sobs, but Helen caught her up and gently set their foreheads touching between the bars. “Shhh… hush,” she soothed, rubbing Tina’s head and her shuddering back. She tried to say more, but then her own voice cracked and she just held her daughter’s head, her eyes shut and her jaw clenched as she pressed their heads close.
There weren’t any glowy magical lights or puffs of purple smoke—this was real—but I could still almost feel the force of Aunt Helen’s power. I knew she must be shielding; visualizing a forcefield around Tina that would ward off psychic attacks. If Tina’s passion was getting pushed on her by some remote telempath, the shield would stop it… and Helen, being an empath, would know that Tina’s relief was real.
But even as I thought this, Tina was already recovering. Her breathing had slowed, gentle and calm, and her stiff, shuddering body had relaxed. Aunt Helen pulled away, and when I saw Tina’s face, I caught my breath and (I admit) literally put my hand on my heart.
Tina was tired and worn and weary, but she was Tina again. Herself. That foreign grimness had left her face, and her eyes were bright and kind.
“Oh, honey,” said Aunt Helen, and her voice wobbled again. “I’m so sorry…”
“You?” Tina said, with a light laugh that put another twist on my overstrained heartstrings. “Why you?”
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Helen said. “Of course you’ve been under attack.”
“Attack?” huffed Sheriff Jake. I jumped; the dude had snuck into the room beside me without me even noticing. I could really use to work on my peripheral awareness. “You mean from a telempath? But Dante Radcliff… if he’s dead…”
“Not Dante,” I said. “Whoever killed him.”
The sheriff frowned. “So Tina’s innocent, but the murderer is a telempath who was trying to frame her?”
Tina gasped.
“You’ve got it,” I said. “So how about you let her out of this cage?”
“My pleasure,” he said. “But she might be safer in there.”
“What?”
“Did you hear what you just said?” he demanded. “We’re looking for a murderer who’s also, secretly, a telempath. Do we have any idea who this might be?”
No one spoke.
Chapter 15
The sheriff unlocked the cell. But as Tina and Helen separated to let him open the door, Tina winced and clutched herself again.
“It’s happening again!” I cried, and the sheriff yelled too. But Helen darted through the open door, wrapped an arm around her daughter, and pressed their heads close. Within seconds, Tina was breathing normally again.
“Sorry,” she gasped.
“Don’t be,” said Helen. She was still visibly straining to maintain the invisible shield. In theory, Tina could have been doing her own shield, but she’s never gotten the hang of it. I haven’t either; shields are hard.
“Get her back to the Inn,” said Sheriff Jake. “I want her out of harm’s way until this is over.”
Although all of Wonder Springs had a secret Shield, the Inn had an extra layer of protection. As long as she was in the Inn, Tina would stay safe from psychic attack.
Assuming, of course, that the murderous telempath didn’t find some way to sneak in there. But I’d been assured in the past that a breach of the Inn was exceedingly unlikely. Although they’d refused to tell me exactly how either shield worked, in case I ever fell into Vincent’s hands, I did know that, for those with “severe and deliberate malice,” the shields could somehow create a “dissonance” that the target would experience as excruciating pain. Or maybe the shields created a resonance, and the target himself was the dissonance. Anyway.
The only known defense was for an attacker to maintain their own invisible shield, keeping out the Shield waves that would create that pain. While this was apparently doable, since Malice Alice had snuck around Wonder Springs and blasted me with panic attacks, I’d never felt them inside the Inn; it seemed that the double layer of shielding had been too much, even for her.
Of course, there had to be more to it than that; the first morning after I’d shown up in Wonder Springs, this dude had been poisoned, and the murderer had been staying right there in the Inn. I’d asked about that, and Helen would only say that they couldn’t shield against everything without creating “interference”. They had to focus on the most likely attacks.
Which, apparently, included telempathy. Great.
Helen nodded at the sheriff, agreeing that Tina should be whisked back to the Inn. With her brows still furrowed as she kept up the shield, Helen hustled Tina out from the cell an toward the door.
“Wait!” Tina said, hanging back in the doorway. “I want to help Summer find this murderer.”
“You?” boomed Sheriff Jake. “I don’t want you or Summer anywhere near this.”
“Dude!” I said. The sheriff scowled, and I amended, “Sheriff Jackson. Sir. With all due respect—”
“Here it comes,” he muttered.
“It’s not like you’ve got other law enforcement staff. And I’ve solved multiple murders this year. In fact, I’m the one who just figured this out about the telempath! Ask Aunt Helen!”
“No, Summer,” Aunt Helen grunted, still strain
ing at her shield. “This is different. Tina needs to stay safe. You both do.”
“Oh, I totally agree with you there,” I said. “Absolutely. But I assure you, I have the best technology yet discovered on hand for guaranteed psychic protection. Tina and I will stroll around town, empowered and free, yet safer from harm than if we cowering in a lead-lined vault in Grandma’s closet.”
Sheriff Jake arched his eyebrows. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Still holding Tina close, Aunt Helen rolled her eyes. “I do.” She sighed. “Oh brother…”
About an hour later, Tina having showered, changed, and discreetly gorged on a huge Inn breakfast of eggs, bacon, ham, warm biscuits, and more fresh fruit than I care to describe, the two of us pushed our way into the little tea shop on Main Street, Namaste with Natisha (Yoga and Tea).
The shop was even more crowded than usual, because the whole back area, which had once been a cramped yoga studio, was now all sealed off and under construction. Like several other store owners on Main Street, Natisha was expanding; when it was all done, the new space would be fantastic, but in the meantime, the usual calm ambiance of the soothing blue walls, the copious natural light, and the whimsically chalked menu boards was all slightly marred by screech of power saws and nailguns.
“Are you ready to hear my plan?” I asked Tina, as we squeezed inside around a table of tourists exclaiming over a hand-lettered tea menu. “Or are you going to spend all day giving your Psychic Defense Unit a snuggle?”
Tina gave me a radiant smile, then nuzzled back her nose into the abundant white coat of Mr. Charm. Yes, this was my genius plan to keep mild-mannered Tina from hulking out again under a fresh psychic attack—my beloved cat.
Laugh if you want, but that cozy warm Ragdoll has proven himself an uncannily soothing creature. I have yet to encounter the attack that could survive his, well, charms.
“I didn’t see him for two whole days,” Tina said. “Did I, Charmsy?” she cooed.
Mr. Charm purred like a industrial-strength generator. His eyes were closed with contented bliss, hidden in the black mask of fur across his upper face that accented his otherwise sheer white. Once upon a time, I’d been a little jealous of how utterly and instantly my cat had succumbed to Tina’s affection, but now I was totally over that. Entirely. Thank goodness.