by H G Lynch
“So…can you teach me to control this…this…what the hell kind of power is it? I don’t know. Ice power?” Sherry looked distraught, and understandably so.
Ember reached out to take her hand soothingly. “I can teach you, but it won’t be easy. You weren’t born with it in your blood, and learning from scratch won’t be easy. You’ll have to really focus. And it doesn’t matter yet what kind of power it is. We’ll figure that out once you can control it.” She gave the green-eyed girl’s hand a squeeze.
Sherry squeezed back, nodding. Her emerald eyes were full of determination, mixed with dark slivers of fear and sparkles of excitement. Sherry was stronger than anyone gave her credit for, and she’d been strong even when she was human. Now that she was one of them, one of the supernatural, it only made her stronger.
Ember smiled, proud of her best friend, for not only surviving the impossible, but for wanting to tackle it the way Ember herself had done.
“Okay. What do I have to do first?” Sherry asked, drawing herself up straight, ready for anything.
With a grin, Ember dropped her hand and stepped back. “First, just relax. Let your mind go blank. When you feel that extra layer around your brain, the one that doesn’t quite feel like a real thing, but doesn’t quite feel like nothing, tell me and I’ll try my best to explain how you use it.”
Sherry closed her eyes and stood there for a long time. Occasionally, her expression would turn to frustration and Ember would have to remind her to relax, it would take time and practice before it would come to her easily. Ember waited patiently, keeping her own mind-limb loose and ready just in case something happened. Hiro remained silent and still on the bench the whole time, his whiskered nose twitching every so often.
After about twenty minutes, Sherry finally smiled. “I’ve got it. I can feel it,” she murmured quietly.
Ember felt a flutter of excitement and pushed it down, taking a deep, calming breath. She had to stay patient and steady, too.
“Okay, good. Now, imagine that special layer like water, flowing easily out of your head,” she instructed in a soothing, hypnotist’s voice. Then she waited again, watching, feeling the air with her own invisi-limb for any changes, any new particles. Slowly, the air particles starting shifting, crowding together away from Sherry. Sherry’s mind-limb was displacing the particles, just like Ember’s did until she told it to do otherwise.
“There. It’s free,” Sherry mumbled.
Ember nodded, though Sherry couldn’t see it with her eyes still closed.
“Good. Shape it. Mould it into an arm to start with,” Ember said calmly, but her heart was thudding in her chest anxiously. She knew that at any moment, that sharp pain that Ember sometimes still got when she tried to lift something heavy with her mind-limb could shoot through Sherry’s head and she’d break her connection.
After a moment, Sherry let out a slow breath. “It’s shaped. It’s an arm. It feels funny, almost like a real arm, but too…loose.” Sherry frowned, clearly not sure how to properly describe the phenomenon.
Ember smiled. “I know what you mean. Now, this is the really hard part. To start with, I’m going to have you lift a twig with your mind-limb. But be very careful. If it feels like it’s too heavy —and trust me, it will feel heavy — just let it drop. If you try too hard at this stage, you’ll only hurt yourself.” She went to the nearest frosted bush, and snapped off a twig, before returning to Sherry and holding out the twig on her palm. Sherry, very slowly, opened her eyes to focus on the twig.
“Just use the arm to pick up the twig. Just like you would use your real arm,” Ember encouraged gently. Sherry took a few breaths, then fixed her stare intently on the little brown twig on Ember’s hand.
For a long few minutes nothing happened, and Sherry was obviously starting to get frustrated, and probably tired. Ember was just about to suggest they take a break for now, when the twig on her palm twitched. It didn’t lift, but it definitely moved a little. Looking at Sherry, it was clear the girl was using a lot of energy. Her teeth were gritted and, despite the cold, a faint sweat was starting to form under her hairline.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the twig dragged itself to stand upright on Ember’s palm. It stood there like a perfectly balanced pencil for a few seconds, and then Sherry let out a pained gasp, and the twig dropped. Ember tossed the twig down and put her hands on Sherry’s shoulders as the green-eyed girl clutched the back of her head, hunching over.
“Sherry, relax. Just relax. The pain will go away in a second.” Ember hushed her friend, easing her fingers from their knotted handholds in her hair. “There. It’s okay. It happened to me, too. Still happens to me when I try to do too much,” she reassured her friend, but Sherry looked distinctly disappointed.
“I almost had it. But it felt so heavy, like a ton of bricks. Why? Why did it feel so heavy? It’s just a twig.” Her green eyes were a swirl of confusion, frustration and still a little excitement. She was right to be excited; she’d proved her new ability was along the same lines as Ember’s. She’d made a twig move with her mind.
Ember shrugged. “My best guess is that since your mind-limb hasn’t been used before, it’s weak. Like real muscles, the more you use it, the more it builds up and the easier it gets to lift things. You’ll be lifting whole branches in no time, I’m sure. And to prove it’s not a fluke, and that it still happens to me, I’ll try to lift that rock. That’s heavier than anything I’ve tried to lift before,” she said, and Sherry watched closely as she sunk into herself and let her mind-limb come to life.
The rock was about the size of a basketball, probably weighed about seven kilos. Ember had seen her grandmother use it to hold open the glass doors on a windy day. It was at least two kilos heavier than anything she’d tried to lift with her invisi-limb before, and she wasn’t really looking forward to the inevitable shooting pain lancing through her skull, but she’d do it if it comforted Sherry, convinced her she wasn’t weak.
Carefully, Ember let her invisi-limb wrap around the rock, swallowing it in a blanket of mental energy. Then, preparing herself for the pain, she tried to hoist the rock up off the ground…and the rock flew upward like it weighed no more than a single kilo. It shot up four feet into the air before Ember recovered enough to stabilise it, and then it hung there, taunting her. Speechless and stunned, Ember sent a shudder through the mind-limb, testing it. But it was steady, having no trouble with the weight. There was no pain in her head, no shakiness in the limb. Cautiously, she lowered the rock to the ground and swallowed, pulling back the mind-limb with an abruptness that shattered the shape. The invisible energy slammed back into her skull and rattled her, giving her an instant headache.
Then she turned to Sherry, knowing her eyes were wide and her skin gone pale. Sherry looked amazed, her lips parted in surprise. “I-I didn’t…I shouldn’t have been able to…” Ember stuttered for a moment, then blinked, the shock wearing off.
“What the hell was that?” Hiro piped up suddenly, having Changed to human form sometime in the last…how long had it been since she’d started that attempt? It felt like hours. But it could’ve only been under a minute.
Ember shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ve never been able to lift anything near that heavy before, so I don’t…I don’t know. It felt like it weighed practically nothing. Less than a quarter of what it should’ve weighed. Maybe…” she hesitated, an idea forming, “maybe it’s hollow.” Yeah, that would make sense. Maybe it wasn’t actually just a hunk of rock, but a deliberately hollowed-out decoration of some sort.
Hiro went over to the rock and slid his fingertips under the base, and heaved. The rock came up in his grasp without much difficulty, but Ember could already tell before he shook his head that it wasn’t a hollowed-out ornament. Hiro dropped the rock with a muted clatter into the snow, and crunched back over. “Nope. That thing weighs at least six or seven kilos. And you lifted it mentally like it was a pebble. That’s some serious juice, Baby doll,” he commented, eyeing her
with an expression in his narrowed cat-like eyes that Ember thought might be admiration.
He certainly seemed impressed. Or maybe he was just as freaked out as she was. Sure, she’d seen Reid throw a 130 pound guy forty feet into a tree, just with his mind, but he was a full-blooded vampire, with years of practice building up his mental limb. Ember was only half-vamp and she’d been practicing with her mind-limb for only a few months. Hell, two months ago she struggled to lift a ten pound branch three feet off the ground, and suddenly she could throw a boulder like a tennis ball? That was insane.
“Hey, we heard a thump. Is everything okay?” Reid and Ricky came rushing out of the house.
Raphael was nowhere to be seen. Ember hoped he’d gone away. Reid seemed to have noticed Ember’s expression, because he was instantly at her side in that blurring fast way he had of moving.
“Emz, what’s wrong? What happened?” he asked, placing his hands gently on either side of her neck. His skin was warm, and she shivered, not having realised she was cold until now.
“Nothing’s wrong. I just…” She shook her head, not sure how to explain it to him. Surely it was a good thing that her mental abilities were getting stronger. But, put it together with that insanely powerful blast of fire that tore a hole clean through Rachel Mooring, and it was a little scarier. Her powers were getting stronger, and she was sure it was only a matter of time until she hurt someone by accident.
“What? Ember, come on. Talk to me. You’ve gone all pale, and you know it scares me when that happens.” Reid put a hand to her face, and the warmth chased away a little more of the cold. She shivered again, and this time, she sunk into Reid’s arms. Perhaps if she just stayed like that, in his arms, he could protect her from herself? Except, Ember knew, nobody could do that. She had to keep control of herself, and her powers.
“It’s nothing really, I swear. I guess I’ve just exercised my mind more than I realised. But Sherry did really well. She almost got a twig to float. I think her new power is definitely along the same lines as mine. We’ll just need to work at it,” she added that last to Sherry, who nodded, her eyes wary.
Reid stroked his fingers through her hair gently, and Ember started to relax, melting against him. “Come on, little Firefly. Let’s get you inside and warmed up. You too, Sherry. I’m sure Kee can whip up a couple mugs of hot chocolate. You can drink that while we tell you what we found out.” Reid led her back inside.
Ember wondered what he’d think if he’d actually seen her lift that rock. Would he be worried? Or would he tell her it was normal, that she’d keep getting stronger, but it was nothing to panic about? She wanted to ask him, but she couldn’t get up the nerve. Maybe she’d ask him later.
***
Carol Jennings had the worst headache in the history of headaches. She leaned over the wood-topped kitchen counter, swirling a glass of soluble aspirin. Last night, she hadn’t slept well; she’d kept having strange dreams about her daughter and that boy. Reid. There was something…something she ought to remember about him. Flickers of the school dance they’d attended in September came back to her, but she was missing chunks of it. She remembered seeing Ember, walking toward Reid across the hall…and then nothing. She couldn’t remember talking to her daughter to tell her how beautiful she looked in the blue dress, or seeing Ember leave. Clips from the last few days before she’d left Acorn Hills replayed in her head, but none of them featured Ember, except their cheerful goodbye in the parking lot. It was like she’d forgotten most of her time there. And there was this nagging feeling that she’d forgotten something really, very important. Flashes of a blurry face with dark hair swiftly passed before her eyes, and she squeezed them shut harder, hoping to block out the ridiculous feeling. But still, the images scrolled across the backs of her eyelids, teasing her with glimpses of things she couldn’t remember. Why couldn’t she remember?
She chucked down the disgusting aspirin and wandered down the hall to the sofa, where she collapsed, aiming to take a nap. Maybe the headache would be gone when she woke up.
But those dreams came back: Flashes of a face she couldn’t quite make out, images of busty girls cackling at the Autumn dance, distorted voices arguing, a glimpse of Ember’s eyes glinting like metal in sunlight as she murmured soothing words.
The images played out, getting clearer and clearer, like a fog dissolving before her eyes.
Harsh lies about Ember coming from the mouths of the busty girls at the dance, Ember with her eyes full of unshed tears, whispering to her that Reid was good for her, that she shouldn’t come back to the Academy for a while. The arguing voices stopped being distorted and Carol could hear her own voice raised, and Ember yelling back.
“And he’s not ‘that boy’! His name is Reid, and he’s my boyfriend! My amazing, incredible, completely there-for-me boyfriend! He’s not into drugs or gangs or any of that crap, and neither am I! He isn’t hiding anything from me, and you can’t stop me being a part of ‘it’ because I already am!—”
That scene rewound itself and played from the start, the whole argument, every word, clear as crystal to Carol’s ears. The dark-haired face stopped being blurry, and everything came back to her in one flood.
She jerked awake, gasping, her heart pounding. She had to get Ember away from Reid. She remembered it all now.
***
“I’ve looked on a dozen different sites, tried four different textbooks, but I can’t find any solid evidence for which ingredients we need for the warding potion. There’s a hundred different combinations, and we can’t afford to get this wrong.” Ricky looked frustrated, as they all were.
And to make things worse, Cris hadn’t been able to find anything about the magic mirror. Ember suspected it was another of The Society’s experiments, not something of legend that they could look up.
“Hey, Razzmatazz! If you’re all-knowing, why can’t you tell us what the magic ingredients are?” Reid called over to the angel, who was standing with his back to them, staring out the window. He’d been like that for twenty minutes, and as far as Ember could tell, he hadn’t moved a muscle in that time. He didn’t move now to answer them.
“I have never said that I am all-knowing. You deduced that from your own stereotypes. I have limited knowledge about the art of witchcraft, as I have no reason to perform such menial spells. My powers are much more advanced,” he said it with no hint of arrogance.
It seemed his earlier attitude had vanished again, and he was back to being the emotionless statue. Ember rolled her eyes, and Reid scoffed. Hiro was busy chasing his tail —seriously. He was playing about in fox form and apparently, he’d forgotten his tail was attached to him. Earlier, he’d been playing with a piece of crumpled paper Ember had dropped. He was acting more like her cat than like a fox, but he could keep on doing whatever kept him happy and out of their way.
“Then, precisely why are you here? I’m sure you can get a better view from heaven, dude.” Reid threw the angel a look he couldn’t see with his back turned, which was probably a good thing.
Ember punched Reid in the arm. “Leave him alone. If he wants to stare at snow falling, let him. He’s not doing any harm,” she chastised. Honestly, she felt a little better with Raphael here. He was a prime example of immense power under tight control. Maybe she could learn that same control…without becoming a walking, talking statue. Plus, it was nice to have someone keeping an eye on things while the rest of them were researching. Well, most of the rest of them. Sherry was taking a nap on the sofa, and Hiro had moved onto playfully attacking the legs of the coffee table. Ember snorted, tempted to go get a ball of wool and see if he would play with it.
“I can’t believe we have a Kitsune playing in the living room like a kitten. Am I the only one who finds that weird?” she commented, watching Hiro’s fluffy tail swish back and forth as he got ready to pounce on a wavering shadow cast by the sizzling fire in the fireplace.
“Actually, yeah. You probably are. Kitsune can sometimes get attached to whoe
ver takes them in, and they become like pets. Only the young ones though. Well, young in human form. Hiro’s fox form is probably two centuries old, judging from the amount of power he seems to have.” Reid shrugged, folding his arms casually.
Ember looked at Hiro in amazement, and saw he was watching her now, his little black nose turned up and sniffing the air. He made a soft yipping noise, shook his head and bared his teeth at Reid. Ember laughed. Reid raised his hand to make a rude gesture at the fox. Hiro turned tail and stalked away haughtily.
Reid rolled his eyes. “Foxes,” he said with exasperation.
Ember laughed harder, and he grinned at her.
“You might want to watch out tonight, Reid. Hiro might decide to snack on you as revenge,” Ricky warned, grinning around the pencil between his teeth as he flipped pages in the book he was reading.
Reid’s disgusted expression was comical. Ember felt tears rolling down her face and her ribs ached from laughing so hard. Soon, the laughter caught and became contagious. Ricky nearly choked on his pencil, clutching his ribs, and Reid bent double, his hair falling into his face. Then Sherry woke up, looking confused and tousled with her hair flattened on one side.
“What’s everyone laughing at?” she asked innocently, pushing her hair out of her eyes.
It only made them all laugh harder, and Ember couldn’t get air through her giggles. Raphael walked over and looked at them all, one dark eyebrow arched.
“I’m not entirely sure, but I think they are laughing at the Kitsune. Though I cannot understand why,” Raphael said calmly, but Ember was positive he was trying not to smile.
Sherry flicked him a glance, then glanced at Hiro, who was curled in ball in front of the fireplace, sulking, with his nose tucked under his paw. It reminded Ember so much of her cat that she momentarily forgot he was actually a person. She got up, her sides still aching, giggles still bubbling to her lips, and went to Hiro. She stroked his soft orange fur, and lifted him up into her arms like she would do with a cat, and he put his front paws over her arm.