by William Hill
Nel put down the quilt she had been batting and turned off the light at her sewing table to get up and make herself some soup for lunch. She hadn’t felt well this morning and had stayed home to get some rest and to proactively fight what might be the onset of a cold. She casually reached over and picked up her phone.
“Bonjour, ma soeur!”
“And, ‘Hello, to you, my sister’! Allez-vous arreter de faire ca!”
“Will I stop what, speaking French?” Nel asked, feigning ignorance of Nan’s meaning.
“Non. Answering the phone before it even rings!”
Nel giggled. She and her younger sister, Nan, had both learned French in home school while they had been “exiled” in Montreal — almost a necessity in that part of Canada — and Nan had even spent part of a summer in France, touring the sites and honing her language skills. Both girls enjoyed speaking it to each other. She knew what Nan had meant. Nan enjoyed speaking French as much as she did, and she knew that Nan didn’t like...couldn’t get used to...her ability to know something was going to happen before it happened.
“Honestly, can’t you just let the phone ring at least once, before you answer it?” Nan pleaded. “I know you’ve apparently inherited Gran’s prescience, but it still spooks me out when you know something is going to happen before it happens.”
“I’m sorry,” Nel responded with sincerity. “I don’t mean to ‘spook you out’, I’m not even conscious of doing it half the time. I just ‘know’ and act on it. So, dear sister, what can I do for you?”
“Well…on the subject of your foresight…have you ‘seen’ anything lately involving Liam?”
“Nooo…why? Nel asked, suddenly sat up, her mind instantly racing, wondering why, and what, her sister wanted to know about their brother. Is he in trouble? Something I could have...should have...foreseen? Damn, I wish this foresight thing was more consistent! I hate the hit-and-miss, off-and-on again aspect of it! she thought to herself.
“Well, I was just downtown, walking, when I sensed a Master. Now, that is not an everyday feeling these days since…well, the ‘incident’ with the President and all. I mean, after that, just about every Master in the area scattered like rats off a sinking ship. It surprised me, but more than that, whoever it was, was coming across as pure evil. I mean, it sent shivers up my spine! And I had the definite feeling that…somehow…he and Liam are connected.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
Nel paused before responding. She knew that Nan wasn’t a true Initiate — a novice Vision Master. She couldn’t cast a dream beyond her own mind, let alone make it reality, or bring another person into it, but she could sense a Master, someone who could do those things. She was more of a Watcher. And if Nan said she’d sensed a Master, then it needed to be taken as fact. But what really alarmed her was that somehow Liam and this “evil” Master might be connected. Liam had barely survived being killed the last time he confronted one, and she didn’t like the idea that he may be in for trouble again.
“Let me get back to you. I’m going to call Carol.”
“Just be sure to get back to me, please!”
“I will, I promise, just as soon as I speak to our sister” Nel assured her, as she disconnected and immediately hit her speed-dial to Carol.
Nel and Nan had just talked with Carol three days ago. Every Sunday evening the three sisters had a three-way telephone get-together to share their week’s activities and to support one another if needed, now that they lived too far apart to see one another regularly. Carol and Liam had been an “item” for several years now, and Nel had foreseen once that the two would at some time in the future get married, although she hadn’t confided that “sight” to anyone other than Nan, and she had no way of knowing that her Gran had the very same “sight” before she died. She and her sister had begun to consider Carol their sister.
Carol’s phone rang, and she saw Nel’s picture on its screen as she answered it saying, “Hi, Nel!” wondering why she should be calling in the middle of the week.
“Hi, Sis! Listen, I’ve got a quick question. Have you seen or talked to my brother today?”
“No, why? Do you need him for something? Have you tried calling him?”
“No, I thought I’d call you first” (as she proceeded to explain what Nan had told her), adding, “and you know ‘who’ is still out there somewhere, and I’m sure he wants his revenge.”
Carol became concerned listening to what she was hearing. Liam almost always called her during his eleven am lunch brake, unless he was really busy, but today he hadn’t called and she hadn’t given any other meaning for him not doing so. However, it was always in the back of her mind, nagging at her like an itch she could never quite reach to scratch, now that Liam was acknowledged as “The One”, the most powerful Vision Master ever, that he could still be exposed to danger, especially from Dr. Smith who, like Liam, barely escaped death himself at their last confrontation.
She would never forget. Fortunately, the President had managed to convince the officer in charge of the military troop that he was who he said he was. Unfortunately, before anyone could react, Smith, who had been in a Master’s mental duel to the death with Liam, and feeling himself loosing, pulled a gun and, as he was there only as a vision he himself had projected, re-envisioned himself safely out just as the trigger was pulled and couldn’t be stopped. The shot went wide and hit no one, but Smith had managed to disappear and no amount of searching, either physically or by mental means, had turned up any trace of his whereabouts for the last twelve months.
Carol lived in secret dread that he would surface again someday to confront Liam, with a different ending from the last time. To make matters both better and worse, everyone had split up mostly into twos and threes and moved to different parts of the country so that it would (for the better) be difficult for Smith (or anybody else) to trap all of them in one place again. Liam’s parents and Nan went to Arlington Virginia (to an apartment building on land once owned by the family, as part of the land-grant once given to them by Lord Fairfax), Nel to college in Richmond Virginia; Drew and Scott to Fresno, California, with their family, her family to Omaha, and she and Liam to Vancouver Canada. However (for the worse), this plan meant that if they did need to get together quickly it would take time, time they may not have, to reunite at the agreed upon rendezvous spot, Omaha, it being more or less in the center of the country, from where they could then go in just about any direction.
She took a deep breath, slowly letting it escape through her nose. She knew she shouldn’t stress over Nel’s call. After all, Nel had not foreseen anything. Nan’s “evil” guy was in D.C, and Liam was here in Vancouver about 3,000 miles from there. Still, it was her nature to be cautious. She decided to call Liam just to satisfy herself that he was okay.
Liam was busy at his desk. It was only a little after noon, and yet it had already been hectic enough for him to want to stop for the day. He decided, Why the heck not?, shut down his computer, picked up his jacket and turned off the light as he went out the door of the small space he rented in a non-descript strip mall on the edge of town. Once outside he turned to lock the door, saw his reflection and read the print on its glass. The Red Lion/British Imports.
He had rented the space, and set up the business, to occupy his time, after he and Carol had emigrated there, after they had returned to high school, after the last confrontation with Smith. They managed to earn the minimum number of credits they needed to graduate in spite of the fact that they had missed most of their junior year. The business made enough money to support Carol and himself. It wasn’t hard work. He took orders from walk-ins, phone, and email from Anglophiles and expats who wanted something from the motherland, whether it was clothing, food, or whatever. He didn’t need anything other than his computer and internet, he simply searched for the item wanted, notified his customer who prepaid by credit card (price, shipping and handling — including a nice m
arkup of his own as his cut) and ordered it. Of course, any of his customers who had internet of their own could have done the same and saved a little (his cut), but he provided a service akin to that of a personal concierge, where a patron might know what they want, but not where to find it, and it saves a whole lot of time just asking for help. He provided a service, which many apparently were willing to pay for. When the order came in he repackaged it with his logo printed on the package (no point letting the customer know where it had originally come from, they might just get it into their head to order on their own, and that would cut into his income!) and sent it along. Since many (if not most) of his customers found him to be fast and accurate (albeit somewhat expensive), he had constant business with standing reorders.
Smiling at his reflection in the glass, he turned away just as he heard the phone ring inside. For a second he hesitated; he didn’t need any new orders just now, but what if it was one of his good customers? He quickly threw the key in the lock and opened the door, hurtling for the phone.
“The Red Lion,” he answered as he picked it up.
“Liam, its Carol.”
“What’s up? You just caught me as I was leaving.”
“Then you’re alone?
“Yeah?”
“I’ll be right there.”
Liam replaced the phone in its cradle and waited. In less than a minute Carol was standing in front of his desk, materializing out of thin air.
“God, I’m glad I caught you before you left!” Carol exclaimed.
“Why, what’s so important that you couldn’t tell me over the phone? Is something wrong with Dad...or yours?” Shortly after the incident with Smith at the cavern in Virginia months ago, his dad had had a stroke, no doubt brought on by all the stress of the situation (and compounded, no doubt by his diabetes) and had lost his sight as well as becoming paralyzed on the right side of his body. Liam lived in fear that in his weakened state his father might further fail. Then, too, her dad had his serious problems as well; he had developed problems with his lungs and heart. Both had to give up using their powers and retire from “active duty”, so to speak, as Vision Masters. And with them, the loss of his Gran at the cavern, his uncle Del also in bad health, and his other uncle, Gene, “burned” by his agency over something he wouldn’t talk about and now so bitter at the government that he’d quit the Circle, it was suddenly bereft of all its original Masters and was now defunct.
“No, not that I know of, at any rate. It’s just that I received a very disturbing call from Nel”, she explained, and related to Liam what she was told.
Liam frowned as he listened. This might be bad. Nan had sensed a Master that wasn’t friendly towards him. He knew that there had to be many out there that felt that way. Smith had never acted alone. He always had underlings and could well have had a boss of some kind, though Smith had never done or said anything to make Liam think so. Even if they were not actively related to Smith directly, he had to suppose that there were other Masters that resented his thwarting Smith’s grandiose schemes of global domination and subjugation. The last thing he wanted was another confrontation so soon, but the situation almost demanded that he check it out. He went to the office door, making sure he had locked it before returning to stand next to Carol. He closed his eyes and focused his mind. Mentally he called out to his sister.
Hi, Nan! Got a moment? he asked as soon as he felt contact with her mind. He knew she couldn’t answer on her own as she didn’t possess a Master’s ability to communicate by telepathy. However, if she didn’t want him to enter her mind she knew how to block him out.
Liam felt her mind willingly give over to him and, by reading her mind, he “heard” her answer. Good evening, brother. What can I do for you?
Up for a visit?
Love one! I’m at home now.
Carol and I’ll be there right off, then.
“Let’s go to Nan’s,” he said to Carol. “See if you can get us there.”
Carol looked at him askance and simply nodded her head. They sat down on the sofa opposite his desk and she closed her eyes. Focusing her mind, she mentally pictured Nan’s living room, where the furniture was placed, hoping she hadn’t rearranged it since the last time she’d seen the room. She could see it in her mind’s eye. She willed Liam and herself to be there, between Nan’s sofa and the TV. Moments passed and, though she could see the room with clarity, it didn’t seem right. She opened her eyes and saw that they were still in the office.
“I’m sorry, Liam. I still can’t do what you can do. You know I can’t. No one can! Why do you make me try?”
She really hated it when he made her try and stretch her abilities beyond what she knew she was capable of, what no one except Liam was capable of, doing. Every Master could bilocate. But not trilocate, to be in three places at one time, in one vision. He had astounded the best Masters — his Gran’s circle — by taking himself and his cousins, Drew and Scott, by visioning, from his bedroom to that circle meeting at Smiths, and then revisioning everyone to his Gran’s home, dividing them up into two separate rooms. Every other known Master could, of course, take themselves and others somewhere in a vision, but not then relocate everyone to yet another place in the same vision. Liam’s asking her to revision herself, and to bring him along with her to Nan’s, which would be three places — home, now at Liam’s shop, and then to Nan’s — was asking more than she, or anyone else, except Liam, could manage.
“I’m sorry, Carol. I know you can’t. I know ‘no one else in recorded Master history has ever done’ what I once managed to do, but I keep hoping someone — you — will eventually be able to do it too. I don’t want to be the only one.”
“Liam, it is what it is. I know you don’t like it, but what can you do? You can’t be like other Masters, and you can’t make other Masters be like you. Just accept your fate, Liam.”
“Easy for you to say. But, okay. I’ll take us there.”
Just as he started to close his eyes, he was startled to see the sudden appearance of someone materializing before them. He immediately refocused his energy from visioning out to repelling an attack (if necessary) from this person he knew he’d never sensed before. As the intruder came more in focus, Liam realized whoever it was had to be a Master. But, he was facing a mere boy. Can’t be a Master, he's too young!
“Can I help you?” Liam asked.
“Hello. My name is Ian Connor. I’m here to help you, Grandad.”
Chapter Introductory Quotes