by Lori Darnell
“I wouldn’t mind spending time with Jill,” I stated, trying to sound casual. That was an understatement. I glanced back at the blond beauty standing behind him. The sun had shifted below the clouds near the horizon, and caught her hair, lighting it up like flaming silver. Was she actually glowing?
“Good,” said the priest. “Well, we will be off now so you can get some rest." He turned to Jill and inclined his head toward me. “Jill, you can come see Marcus whenever you are not in training."
With that he turned and swept out of the room. Jill came to me and gave me a hug. I returned it in kind. She stepped back, grinning from ear to ear. She ran her hands through my hair and touched my shoulder as she walked out of the room.
Now alone in my room, I realized that Jill hadn’t spoken to me the whole time she was there. I thought harder… Jill hasn’t spoken a word to anyone. How strange. I laid down on my bed and wondered what her voice must sounded like. My dreams were filled with a glowing angel, staring at me invitingly with seafoam green eyes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Marcus, you're late… Marcus, wake up!” I heard James urgently shout. “Marcus, I know about your visitor! Will you please get up?" He grabbed my shoulders and began to shake me vigorously. I shot bolt upright, thinking he must be upset. He had told me to run away, to find him if I found myself in a situation, and I had not. Yet, despite the rude awakening, James appeared to be… smiling?
“I’m up, I’m up!” I croaked. “They just wanted to talk. Nothing more. Did he tell you about Jill?" I asked, rubbing my eyes and stretching wide with a yawn.
“Yes, and I agree, I think it is a good idea. I think you’re the only person she could really communicate with. It would be good for her; she has been alone here too long. The other students, who aren’t afraid of her because of her powerful gifts, seem to ignore her because she can’t talk."
She couldn't speak. So that was it. But as I thought about it, I realized she didn’t have to. I could somehow understand everything I needed to about her. She had a sweetness that invited me in; her mind was open to me. I could see the kindness there, ready to be shared.
“I had wondered about that; when they were here, I noticed she didn’t talk," I said, looking up at James.
"Jill must be very interested in you," James teased, an amused smirk forming on his face. “To have used her gifts of manipulation to urge her Priest to bring her to you - he will go along with this, because he is completely at her mercy." His smirk turned to full laughter; he barely caught himself as he slid off the edge of the bed. "She may never have to succumb to the Church as many are forced to. If she masters her full power, she has the ability to force the Church to do her will - which apparently includes having you as a friend." This took me aback for a moment. Jill could manipulate people to do anything? That certainly would explain the peculiar look on her priest’s face; now that I thought about it, it did seem rather like someone trying to say one thing, but being forced to say another. I felt a little stunned by this revelation, but strangely, no less interested in Jill.
“Sir, I think I would really like to get to know her. Do you think she could help during my training sessions? That way I could learn how someone else does it. It could make things easier," I baited, trying to sound casual.
“That sounds like a great idea - are you sure it was yours?” James teased, breaking off into peals of laughter again. Hmm, I would have to watch that; I would have to make sure that what I want is really what I wanted, and not something Jill has made me believe I wanted. But I was sure this was all me. She couldn’t make someone feel something they didn’t feel, after all. Could she?
"Come on, let's go get some breakfast," James invited, waiting for me to join him. I got up from the bed and got ready, and together we headed toward the common room area.
When James and I entered the room, it was clear that Jill was serious about getting to know me. She barreled toward us like a locomotive at high speed - if she hadn’t stopped so suddenly she would have knocked me over. She reached up to hug me. Impossible to ignore the friendly gesture, I reached down and hugged her.
There weren’t any specific thoughts, or visions. Like I understood her the night before in my room, somehow now I just knew she was happy to see me, and wanted to be part of my day. She looked at me and I knew exactly what she would have said, as though she had spoken the words aloud. Brilliant! She had a way of communication, but it was a mystery how it worked.
“Jill, why don’t you join us for breakfast? I am sure you would also like to join us for training today?" James asked even though he knew the answer. She smiled up at him in return.
She held my hand as we walked to get our breakfast. We all sat in silence but it felt like we were having a conversation. Our ‘conversation’ was nothing above the normal niceties. Jill’s body language seemed to do most of the talking. As we walked back to James’ office to study, she walked very close to me and looked up at me like I was some sort of prize. I felt myself blushing under her adoring gaze.
“Marcus, I have had a subject brought to my office,” James instructed. “I want you to compel him to tell me whatever I ask him to. For Jill, because she is silent, she has the person write down what she finds. Interestingly, in Jill’s practice, even if the person is illiterate, they still are able to write. Jill uses their body to convey their secrets in any way that she wants." James moved beyond us and led us the rest of the way to the office.
Jill inched a little closer to me and clasped my hand. Her hand was so small, so delicate. I began to re-evaluate my thought that training with her would be easier – how would I ever be able to concentrate on anything else with her in the room? Jill grinned widely, then quickly dropped her head, allowing her hair to fall in front of her face. Could she tell what I thought? I felt a blush creeping upward from my neck, and looked away myself.
James opened the door and I saw the subject; a younger man in his early twenties from the look of him, bound to a plain, wooden chair. He continued to struggle with the ropes holding him down as we approached. His expression seemed to state that if he hadn’t been tied to that chair, he would have killed us all. Instinctively, I took two steps backward. This was a dangerous man, no question. I looked incredulously at James, who indicated with his hand to move closer and proceed. I took a deep breath, and once again stepped forward.
“What do you want to know? Is this subject in trouble of some kind? Is it safe for us to be alone with him here?"
“Marcus, I told you I wouldn’t allow anyone to hurt you,” James reassured me. “This man is here for questioning. However, because of my promise that I would not let anyone hurt you, and because of the fact we are not in one of the normal classes that are well watched and guarded, I didn’t trust him not to run. So he gets to spend however long it takes you to find our answers in this chair."
I nodded quietly. I tried to recall what I had seen in the classroom the day before. The students were sitting in front of the subjects. So I took the chair from James’ desk and placed it in front of the man, sitting down. I held his gaze for a moment, and tried to listen. Nothing. I saw nothing.
“I don’t know what to look for?"
“Why don’t we start out easy? Ask him where he is from.”
I concentrated on the question as I stared at the man. The man flinched. This was obviously something he wanted to hide. But I wanted to please James, so I searched. I could see that there was darkness, but nothing else. As I stared deeper into his eyes, I felt the familiar heat that betokens a vision rise up.
The man in front of me stared back at me, wide-eyed. Then I could see his home. It was hot there. Very hot. I could see flames in the background, not burning the home but burning all around it. The door had numbers on it.
“The home is in the fires? Maybe the desert. There are numbers on the door ‘741’, an address. The road in front of the house is dirt; there are no other houses as far as I can see in both directions. The house is yellow with t
wo long windows in the front, and on the right side of the door, there is one small window on the left. There is a name that keeps popping up but I can’t see it written… ‘Lund’… it is in Lund, Nevada."
I looked at James and Jill sitting on the desk behind the man. They, too, were staring at me in a strange fashion. Jill slid off the table and came to stand by my side. She reached her tiny hand up and touched my face, staring at my eyes.
“Sorry, I had forgotten that you didn’t know about my eyes. Jacob told me they turn blue when I am having a vision, though I’ve never seen it myself.” I blushed again. She was really good at making me do that. Oddly, I found that I liked it - a lot.
“Marcus, your eyes don’t just turn blue,” James commented. He walked around his desk and grabbed a small pocket mirror from his top drawer, returned and handed it to me. “You need to see for yourself, so you can better understand the reactions everyone will have around you.”
I took the small mirror and held it up to my face. My eyes weren’t just blue; the iris still showed the normal gold of my people, but my entire eyeball looked as though it had been filled with a dark blue liquid. The blue shifted like water, like I was staring below the surface into a deep blue ocean. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my eyes looked just like the eyes of the black haired girl from my village, burning in the fire and staring back at me. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise. This eerie sight was too much at once, but disturbed as I felt, I couldn’t seem to look away. She had been like me, and now she was dead.
I stared at my reflection, watching the water-like color move over my eyes as I concentrated on breaking the psychic link that caused this. I felt cold rush into my head, then I saw the change in my eyes for the first time. As the cold sensation spread, the blue faded, but as it faded I could still see the liquid pitch, ebbing and flowing from side to side. Then the blue faded completely and my eyes were back to their usual gold. My chest felt tight; I must have been holding my breath. I let it out now and took another deep, calming breath, and handed the mirror back to James. “I think that will take some getting used to.” I said, a little shakily. I looked down at my feet, feeling embarrassed and exposed. Jill came at once to my side, soothing, placing her hands on my shoulders and face. I put my arm around her. It felt completely natural, like even though I had met her scarcely one day ago, this was how things were between us. Jill seemed to be thinking the same thing. James watched us, a calculating look on his face.
“Marcus, it may be better for you to close your eyes when you are doing this. Jacob was right. It is too dangerous for you. We need to keep this a guarded secret. I don’t like that anyone can see when you are having a vision. I have seen many children beaten for this, or less – the Church frowns on things they can’t control, like random visions,” James stated earnestly, never taking his eyes off me. “If you feel vision start to come, close your eyes right away. Pretend you have a headache, just don’t let them know what is going on. Try to make it pass as quickly as possible. It will be safer for you. It will be safer for you both,” he commented, looking at Jill, and then back to me.
“I don’t understand, why would it be safer for Jill?” I asked. “What have my visions got to do with her?”
“She is attached to you. I didn’t want to have to tell you, but it seems it might be better for you both to know up front. If they can’t get to you, they will hurt Jill to get to you. You have to shield each other.” Jill moved closer to me, close enough for me to smell the sweet perfume of her hair. Her closeness made my body tingle everywhere. And something much stronger than this began to fill me – a strong wave of protectiveness. A snowball’s chance in hell I would let anyone hurt my Jill.
Momentarily forgotten in the room, the subject squirmed silently in his rope prison, managing to get one arm free. He was working the knot loose on the other when James turned around, only then noticing as we suddenly all did, that this entire conversation had taken place in front of a subject – a completely conscious and aware subject - who would definitely be willing to trade information for the promise of release. Information that would hurt us all. James began to look sick, as he crossed the room to the phone, casually picking up a baseball bat sitting by the doorway on his way through. The man in the chair stilled at once, eyes wide, shaking with fear.
“I need a disposal team here immediately,” James said into the phone, then hung up without waiting for a response. “Jill, I need you to do something for us, for Marcus…”
Within just a couple of minutes, four men in full black robes with hoods up to shade their faces entered the office to remove the subject, who was now trying to remember how he got here, and why he was tied up like this. The team removed his bindings and stood him up, one standing in front of him to steady him, the others to the side and back of him. He began to thank them for freeing him, when the man behind the subject abruptly grabbed his chin and yanked fast, snapping his neck. We all watched in shock and horror as the other three men scrambled to catch him, then swiftly popped him into a body bag and left the office, their bounty in tow. The door to the office closed with a soft click.
For a moment, no one said anything at all. Jill looked at the floor, and tears began to fall silently from her face to the carpet. My own eyes burned with tears from what I had just witnessed. Before I consciously knew what I was doing, my fists were balled up, and I was heading toward James.
“Why? Why did you do that? I trusted you! He’s dead because of you!” I screamed, pummeling him fruitlessly with my fists.
“I had to – Marcus, it was the only way!” James shouted back, deflecting my punches. “What do you think would happen if he were allowed to speak to someone – to anyone – about what he just heard us talking about? Ow! Stop that! We’d be tortured, then put to death, all of us – you, me, and Jill!” I did stop hitting him at the shock of this new revelation – it was obviously having little effect on him, anyhow.
“We could have done something! Jill made him forget. He didn’t have to die,” I snapped. I couldn’t believe the same man who spoke of being my protector was capable of ordering someone to their death. Just when I was beginning to make some sense of the order of things here, this happens, I thought grimly.
“And how long would that last, do you figure? A day? A month? A year? No one knows for sure, but taking the chance he’ll remember wasn’t a risk I was willing to take. I’m not risking either of you anymore than I have to.” James took a deep breath and sank into the chair the man had just been tied to moments before. “We’ll just hope they don’t use him for training classes,” he mumbled, head hung in his hands.
I felt a little pale. It finally registered to me the gravity of what was happening, what they were training us for. I was still in danger, in no uncertain terms, and so was Jill. So was James, for that matter. It didn’t matter that the threat wasn’t imminent, only that it was constant. Even death couldn’t keep us safe.
Now I understood why James felt compelled to end the man’s life – I grieved the loss and senselessness of it, but there was little other choice. I took Jill’s hand, and together we approached James, patting him on the shoulder in comfort. I knew she already understood, I could see she agreed with me. If it came between them or us, it would be us. I had just found Jill. There was no way I was letting her go.
Chapter 10
Despite the tragic event we shared, time passed and the days began to fly by with routine. Most days started the same. Jill would be waiting for me in the common room; her face would light up as soon as she saw me. I knew my expression was a reflection of hers. We would hold hands while getting our breakfast and then we would walk the courtyard… stalling. It was the only game we ever really played. Jill and I would hide and wait for James to come find us. In the beginning he found us easily, but as we grew so did our skill at eluding his detection. James seemed okay with our game. We suspected that he like to play too.
It was through this game that I really saw Jill’s
ability blossom beyond what even James was aware of. We were never found because she didn't wish it. If someone came near us, she would just smile at me and focus momentarily on the intruders, making them suddenly want to go in another direction. Her abilities were such she didn’t even need to try to focus in classes anymore. She surpassed most students years ahead of her level. So whenever we were able to hide from James or any other Church member we did.
The garden was our favorite place to hide. Jill and I would sit for hours and just stare at each other, locked in silent conversation. We didn’t need to say anything to tell each other everything. It was wonderful. It was like we became two halves of a whole. We were no longer two people talking, but two souls. As we grew, it was evident to us both that we weren't just in love, we were soul mates, made for each other.
James never really objected to our closeness much, until one night when he found Jill sleeping next to me in my tiny bed. We had been having one of our conversations and we had fallen asleep with Jill’s head resting on my shoulder. James burst thought he door and dragged me from my bed to the washroom to have a “talk” with me.
“Marcus, you are now fourteen. You are too old to be having innocent slumber parties. The Priests will take her away if they catch you. You need to be more careful. I know you would never touch her, but they don’t. They think you have been intimately involved with me for years.”
I stared at James, mouth gaping open in surprise. I had seen other priests with boys in the common room. It was obvious that they were a couple. Some of the boys talked about what went on, but most of us just kept our mouths shut in case it would cause more trouble. I was one never to join in those conversations. My body trembled slightly as I composed myself. James looked at me closely. “Marcus, they see that kind of involvement as a means of control. I understand how you feel completely. But the girl, they will definitely care about that.”