To Kyle, who knows how to celebrate
small wins like big victories
Seers
Text Copyright © 2013 Kristine Bowe
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without express written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
A Mackinac Island Book
Published by Charlesbridge
85 Main Street
Watertown, MA 02472
(617) 926-0329
www.charlesbridge.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bowe, Kristine.
Seers / Kristine Bowe.
p. cm.
Summary: Teenager Elise Felton is both a “seer” and an “extractor”, someone who can penetrate another person’s memories and remove them, and she believes that by working with her mentor Tobias she will be able to recover her own memories, but Tobias has plans of his own.
ISBN 978-1-934133-55-2 (reinforced for library use)
ISBN 978-1-934133-56-9 (softcover)
ISBN 978-1-60734-566-4 (ebook)
ISBN 978-1-60734-673-9 (ebook pdf)
1. Telepathy—Juvenile fiction. 2. Memory—Juvenile fiction. 3. Ethical problems—Juvenile fiction. 4. Conspiracies—Juvenile fiction. [1. Telepathy—Fiction.
2. Memory—Fiction. 3. Ethics—Fiction. 4. Conspiracies—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.B6719432See 2013
813.6--dc23 2013008808
Printed April 2013 by Worzalla Publishing Company in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, USA
(hc) 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
(sc) 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Chapter
“Your ID card, please. Miss? Do you have your ID card? Miss? Your card?”
I come out of it. I am in the office of my new school. My third high school in the past year.
The way she spit out that last word brought me out of it. I hadn’t been watching or listening or even present, for that matter, but I guess by the look on her face that her questions started out much less curt than she sounded just now.
“I’m sorry, I … here.” I fumble with my wallet and ease out my school ID. She purposely keeps her eyes lowered as she reaches for it. A trick I use as well. A power play. No eye contact. Her allowing me to smile or sweetly plead with my eyes or make some pathetic face for her to see would be her allowing me to make amends. She clearly isn’t in a forgiving mood and isn’t going to give me the opportunity. Fine by me. I don’t want to pretend to care that I held up the nonexistent line behind me or kept her from another doughnut or cup of coffee or from her doodling or texting or whatever else she does to not work at work.
“Wait here. I’ll print your schedule.” Her voice is more even now. She isn’t pursing her lips as much. She must be telling herself that I am just a teenager and should not be expected to know how to act. She may be mellowing, but I am revving up. Wait here? Where am I going to go? Shall I simply pick a class at the end of the hall and hope I’m interested in the lesson? Hope it’s not something I’ve already been taught? Sure. I’ll wait here for a schedule of classes I don’t care to attend.
The secretary waddles back, and as she hands me my list of assignments, I notice how the ring on her pointer finger is wedged on so tight that it pinches back the fat like a dam staving off rising water. I can’t hold back any longer. Get a bigger ring. Get your roots done. Get fewer chins. As I try to decide what it is about this woman that has made me feel as if my gut is boiling, I go in.
Typical brown. Nothing special. No over-activity. No underactivity. Average. Boring. Unfulfilled professionally. Insecure physically. Likes to knit. Knit? Seriously? There’s nothing here. Wait … adopted. Interesting. Why? Foster care until age thirteen. Thirteen? That’s old to still be in the system. She must have been a special teenager, a good kid, to have been adopted that old without all the cuteness of a toddler, the rosy cheeks and all. She must know what it’s like to move a lot, what it’s like to be a new kid. I rub my hands over the memory. High-school graduate. Wife. Mother. Now grandmother. Back to boring. I’m leaving.
When I come back, she is staring at me, of course. I am used to this by now. I glance at my schedule and then look at her. She allows me this time to look her in the eyes. By now she thinks my spacing out may be due to anxiety or social ineptness caused by moving around a lot, and now she is connected to me. Because she moved around a lot, too. And now she wonders about my parents. She wonders if I have the instability she had. She hopes I find the settling down she found. She wants me to be happy. She needs me to be happy. Because the memory I rubbed a second ago is fresh for her now.
“I hope you have a good day, dear.” Her lips turn up in a half smile. She is secure in her feelings for me but unsure of my response. Do I forgive her for her tone earlier? Do I understand that she was just frustrated? How was she to know that I was just nervous and not one of the tons of insubordinate, ill-mannered punks she has to manage every day?
“I hope you have a good day, too. Thanks for all your help.” I even smile.
Her eyes twinkle. Well, the one I went in does. She is relieved. She would have felt badly all day had I not shown her my acceptance and made her feel as if my transition as the new kid has been made easier thanks to the help of the school secretary.
I don’t enjoy the easy ones anymore.
Chapter
A Seer is like a mind reader, you could say. A mind reader can hear thoughts, so in the moment, being a mind reader is useful. If you want to know who in the room finds you ridiculously attractive, read minds. If you want to know what the catty girls are squealing about behind your back that second, read their minds. What play are they running? How should I line up my defense? Sure. Read on. Win the game.
But minds change, don’t they? Monday a girl hates my outfit. Tuesday she wishes she had my figure. If I read her mind on Monday, she’s on my list. But I probably won’t ever wear that ensemble again. Tuesday, though, I have no time for her. Why bother? She already wants to be me. What else can I win?
Mind readers can change their reactions to people or the way people react toward them by gaining privileged information and using it to their advantage. It would be comforting to know that you can be sure of your acceptance by others. Never again would you have to rely on body language, eye contact, facial expressions, or the like. You would undoubtedly know. Yes. The popular kids do think you’re cool. No. Not cool enough to be accepted into their clique. No. He isn’t going to call. Yes. He does just want to be friends.
But a Seer travels into a being’s brain. It’s not just about thoughts with a Seer. Thoughts are the key, but not all. A Seer determines not only what the being is thinking but also how deeply that being can think. The more intelligent the being, the deeper the thoughts. Sometimes the depth of thought is innocent, sometimes for the good of us all, and sometimes not.
First we assess basic brain function and capacity. How smart. How dumb. Healthy. Sick.
Then we assess activities and interests. Then past experiences, memories. And motivations. Motivations to cure. Motivations to kill. And everything in between.
We can enter a being’s brain at will. At our choosing. It doesn’t happen upon contact. It is a forced action. Like choosing to open and walk through a door. We don’t have unlimited time in, though, and it is taxing, so we choose our doors carefully. We don’t like to waste trips, Tobias says. We must show restraint, Tobias says. We must always remember our path, Tobias says. I tend to be a tad liberal with my traveling. I have what Tobias calls “problems with restraint and lack of temper management.”
Tobias is my Preceptor, or my mentor. I document
my experiences as a Seer in a daily journal and meet with him every evening. He helps guide my future Navigations and choices. He says there is something off about the way I Navigate. Something off about the way I See.
Tobias says that Seers are born with their ability. They can be Seers on their own, without a Preceptor. But although Seers without a Preceptor may travel into their friends, family members, or other people with whom they come into contact, they will not develop their abilities. They will not master their skills or be placed on missions for the good of all Seers and humans alike. They are the recreational. We, those with Preceptors, are the Navigational.
As Navigational Seers age, a desire begins to well up in them. They begin to feel as if they belong somewhere, with someone, though they do not know why. They begin to make moves toward connecting with that someone. That someone is their Preceptor. They have an unspoken connection, like a signal. It will continue to grow in strength as the Seer ages. The signal will build in strength as the Seer nears its source, but a Seer needs time to find and move toward that connection. Seers will naturally and unknowingly travel toward their Preceptor until a Preceptor finds them.
I imagine it being like the way mosquitos find even a bare inch of flesh. How do they find me so fast? Didn’t I just step outside? Yet there they are. I watch them hover over my exposed thigh, closing in and retreating, closing in and retreating, until finally, contact. How must their urge and desire feel to them that they simply cannot keep themselves from finding me, from connecting? Did I hover around Tobias for a while before I landed?
Tobias says that without a Preceptor, a Seer will never fully develop his or her talents because it is the Preceptor who acts as a guardian in the place of the Seer’s family, arranges the missions, and helps the Seer to find his or her special skills.
By the age of seven, the strongest Seers have found the scent, followed the path, and found their Preceptor. By the age of seven, the urge, the desire, has become too strong to resist. They cannot help but to make contact. Children as young as three have been known to maneuver their way to their Preceptor. Some by coincidence. Some by choice. Preceptors believe that a Seer’s mere presence in the family can influence parents’ decisions about where they choose to live. Parents move to a new town. The preschool is next to a regional headquarters. Bam. Connection. I’ve been told that some young Seers, the ones with the strongest senses, the most skill, have left a playground, climbed a fence, or jumped from a moving vehicle to get to their Preceptor. These are usually the ones who will one day become Preceptors themselves. Tobias says that connecting with one’s Preceptor is the only way to ensure that a Seer will truly master his or her talents and find the right missions, missions that showcase the Seer’s strengths, missions that make a difference.
And then there’s me. I was seventeen.
I remember how much I learned at my first meeting with Tobias. Tobias is a sound teacher with vast knowledge of the Seers’ organization and the nature of Seers’ abilities. But unfortunately, his knowledge about me is minimal. I showed up at his door almost a year ago. The address of the headquarters must have been lonely floating around in my brain by itself. Because my brain was an empty shell. I have been tested and drilled and tested again. But no one can tell me where my memories are, why they were taken, or what exactly my life consisted of before Tobias.
Tobias told me that Seers rely on sound to travel in. They ride in on a wave, as they say. A sound wave. They concentrate on the vibrations in the being’s voice or the sound it’s making, then close their eyes and ride the wave in through the ear. Imagine a storm cloud, a twister. The Seer’s ear a twister, the being’s ear a twister. Water in between. The being’s sound in the Seer’s ear creates its own storm, and the Seer rides the wave through the water into the next twister, the being’s ear. I picture it gray with white, foamy, angry crests on the tips of the waves. Gray clouds. Rumbling thunder as the sound becomes existence itself. Swirling. Churning. Gliding. Sliding. Like a water slide. Only I hate water slides. I hate angry waves. And I hate ears. They’re ugly.
I go in through the eye.
Chapter
Schedule in hand, I walk down the E corridor to my first class. E corridor is senior hall. I am technically a senior. By age. By credits. But since I have been to so many high schools, I am a senior with no ties, no tearful good-byes looming in the near future. No favorite teachers, classes. No clique. No friends. All of those things, that feeling of belonging, would be possible if I were here as a normal student. But I’m not. And if all goes well, I will only be a senior here for a few weeks anyway.
My first class is physics. The door is closed. There is something far more invasive about entering a classroom full of strangers when the class has already begun if the door is closed. Somehow the door being open makes me feel as if they were expecting me or expecting anyone, for that matter. They are open to the possibility of it, at least. But a closed door screams, “We are full! Can you not see that we are not presently accepting guests?”
I turn the handle and sidestep in.
“May I help you?” asks the wiry-haired woman in the center of the room. She begins to weave through lab tables toward me. Her eyes, intently fixed on me, are small and glassy but somehow avoid the label beady and achieve keen. I don’t have to Navigate her to See that her intelligence level is above average. Some people have lace curtains, sheer panels maybe, over their eyes. They give away so much of themselves without trying or even realizing it. Most people’s eyes are shielded as if drapes made from stiff, heavy fabric hang behind them. They effectively keep their secrets to themselves. I’ve encountered only a few people who have room-darkening blinds drawn behind their eyes, and I can’t tell a thing about them. This lady’s eyes hide nothing.
“I’m new. I’m in this class,” I say as I thrust my schedule at her as if I need to prove it.
“Happy to have you.” She glances down and reads, “‘Elise Felton.’ Do you go by Elise?”
“Leesie, actually. Thanks.” Most people don’t ask. I hate having to broach the subject myself. It’s such an easy thing to do, to ask what someone likes to be called. I wonder why it doesn’t occur to more people. I instantly like her.
“I’m Mrs. Marion. We just started a new unit. The first and second laws of thermodynamics. Had you started thermodynamics in your previous school?”
Seriously? The study of the energy transfer between systems? Sounds like any day of my life.
“Yes, I have.”
“Great!” She begins to turn away. I can tell that she needs to get back to the lesson. The class has been busily staring at me, but despite the new attraction, they’re getting chatty and restless. “Grab a textbook from the shelf and a seat in the back.” Then she addresses the class: “Class, this is Leesie Felton. Welcome her on her first day. Don’t leave her stranded in the hallway if she looks lost and help her to the cafeteria! Let’s continue.”
I take notes the remainder of the period. It’s quiet, and I feel safe in my seat. I am not looking forward to the hallway at the bell. I’ll have to pretend to be secure and unassuming. Approachable but not needy. Confident but not overtly alluring. Interesting, not weird.
This is a jeans and T-shirt school. The style of the jeans doesn’t seem to matter. I’m wearing dark jeans, plain, like half the girls. The other half wears a blend of colored, straight leg, ripped. Good. No fashion gurus spotted yet. I chose a gray shirt this morning, wanting to blend in. At least clothes-wise. There isn’t much I can do about the rest of me.
A Preceptor in Tobias’s building says my hair color is like the part of the fire where white flame and orange flame play over the coals. And that pretty much sums it up. I am walking fire with blondish-reddish, wavy hair sailing down my back. I send a chunk of it over my shoulder.
At the bell I take my time getting to the door.
“Hey. Can I help you get to your next class?” A boy is leaning against the doorframe. He’s tall and lanky and looks sma
rt. It’s not the same way Mrs. Marion shows her brain’s secrets with her easy-reader eyes. His is in his stance. It’s in his speech. His stance is relaxed yet ready to pounce, and his words are chopped and crisp, like he’s taking time to say them even though I can tell he must have an endless stream of words and thoughts swimming in his head. He has clear green eyes, and my guess is he considers himself somewhat representative of the student body, political even.
“Sure. Thanks.” I hand him my schedule.
“Calculus. Good. Science and then math. That makes good sense. Mr. Stein. Good. This way.”
He’s funny to watch. Kind of bobble-heady as he agrees with himself. I especially love the way he doesn’t look up to see if I agree as well. I follow him.
“I’m in one of your classes. AP English. We’re studying British romanticism right now. You just missed the Restoration and the eighteenth century, but this is good, too.”
This actually piques my interest. I love British literature. “Okay. I’ll see you then. Thanks for getting me here.”
“My pleasure. I’m Ryan, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you, Ryan. Leesie.”
“Right. Leesie. Got it. Bye.” He gives a little wave and ducks into his class. It looks like a history class, from the posters.
Calculus goes the way you expect any math class to go. All business. Notes. Problems modeled by the teacher. Practice problems to try on your own. Practice problems review. More for homework. Nobody talks to me, which is fine. I am pleased so far with how easily my new fellow students are allowing me to fly under the radar.
The bell rings, and I see Ryan. Punctual. I’m not surprised. His notebooks are fresh and straight. He has a pen in his hand and a calculator in his pocket. This is a convenient guy to meet on the first day. A great study partner.
“How was calculus?” he asks.
I look at him to assess him before I answer. If he is looking down or away from me or fiddling with his books or checking his phone, he doesn’t care about my answer. He is filling in time with pointless and meaningless conversation. Asking to say he asked. If he is looking at me, well, then I will say more than, “Fine.” We make eye contact. He holds my gaze for a second, but then his eyes dart past me and down to his books and at the teacher coming our way. And then back at me.
Seers Page 1