“I’m sure you’re eager to get started,” Asher said with a smirk. “Ready for lesson number one?”
Beth sat in a chair across the room, watching the proceedings.
Cole nodded, his eyes lighting up, hoping he didn’t come across as too eager. “I did figure out how to not listen to them. I can block them off inside my head.”
“Great, that’s a very good first step. I have to admit they do get annoying sometimes. I like to block them out too. Okay, so that’s one less lesson I’ll need to teach. Let’s start with, hmmm…” He tapped his chin. “Got it! I’ll teach you to be incognito like me. You can sense others but they can’t sense you.”
“Sure, what do I do?”
“This is one of the simpler techniques. I’ve never taught anyone before so I hope I describe this correctly. Okay, you know how you block out those voices by finding them and putting up a barrier?” When Cole nodded, he continued, “Now think about extending that barrier externally around your entire body.”
Cole closed his eyes and found his mental barrier. He was tempted to contact his mother, but he forced his mind to focus on the barrier. He imagined it growing larger, encompassing his mind, reaching further, outside of his body, and finally completely enclosing it. Unsure if anything had actually happened, he opened his eyes to gauge Asher’s reaction. “Anything?”
“Yeah, your signature definitely diminished. With a little work you’ll get better. We can use that one as a warm-up exercise. Try it a little more.”
Cole sat down this time and closed his eyes again. He strained his mental capacities to control the mental barrier, but there was a nagging question that prevented his concentration. He opened his eyes. “Before I get better at that, can you teach me a different thing? Is it possible to contact a specific voice?”
“Why would you want to – Oh, never mind, not my business. I’m not sure. I never tried. I don't really talk to the voices. They're just kinda... there. Give me a minute.” Asher closed his eyes, a look of intense concentration on his face. After a few minutes he looked at Cole with triumph. “Yep, not too bad. Once again, it’s a bit of an imagination thing. Picture your mental barrier, then picture the voice you want to talk to. Now, imagine there’s a tiny little hole in the barrier that connects directly to that voice so that you can hear only it.”
Cole followed the directions, his palms sweating from the anticipation. This was his chance to contact his mother, the implications of which overwhelmed him. He could not wait to talk to her. He missed her more than words could express and with her help he was confident he could do anything. Together they would defeat these voices. He imagined the tiny hole connecting himself to his mother and strained to hear her voice, wishing more than anything that it would come through. He strained and strained until he knew his face was red.
“Whoa, easy there,” Asher said, interrupting his concentration and bringing him back to the present. “You don’t have to push it. Either it works or it doesn’t.”
“I’m not sure if I’m doing it wrong or if that person isn’t there. Is there any way to tell?”
“Can’t help you there. Maybe there’s another one you can contact who you know is there in order to test it?”
Cole shook his head dejectedly.
“No sweat, we can try again another time. You’ll work at it until you get it.”
“Okay, let’s get back to the barrier,” Cole said, less enthusiastic now. He practiced the technique until it came more naturally and he received an approving nod from Asher.
Let's move on to something a little more complicated, Asher said.
3
“Okay,” Cole replied, and then his eyes went wide as the realization hit him; Asher had not spoken out loud. He turned to Beth in awe and shock. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” she said, and then her eyes too went wide with shock. “Oh, my. How...”
“Wait, you can do that to anyone?” Cole said.
“Uh-huh.” Asher flashed a smile. “That one's the most fun. It's tricky, but you should be able to master it.”
“I'm starting to wish I still had these voices,” Beth said, getting to her feet, a glimmer of excitement in her eye. “Maybe they're not as bad as you thought.”
Cole glared back at her. “Not funny, Aunt Beth.”
She sat back down in a hurry. “Right, sorry,” she mumbled.
“Wait, she used to hear the voices but doesn't any longer?” Asher asked, joining the incredulous party.
“You can address me directly,” Beth said. “Yes, as a young girl I heard them, but eventually that went away. Couldn't tell you how.”
“That is so weird. Didn't think that was possible.” Asher shook his head before looking back at Cole. “Well, anyway, try to send a thought into my head like I did to you. You just have to reach out to my mind, find it, focus on it, and concentrate on a specific idea. Push as hard as you can. Grind it in.”
“This is so awesome. I can't wait to figure this one out.” Cole looked around the room, blanking on a good thought to transmit, shaking and nervous by the overwhelming weight of what he was doing. Come on, think. You can do this. Pick something, anything, doesn't matter. How about, 'I can learn faster than you can imagine.' Ooh that's good. That will give him chills. He stared into Asher's eyes, repeating the phrase in his head while picturing Asher's mind, reaching out to it, seeking a connection. I can learn faster than you can imagine. I can learn faster than you can imagine. When Asher made no move, and blinked blankly, Cole started to lose steam as a sinking feeling began to stifle him. With each iteration of the phrase, his desperation grew until he could take it no more. “Anything?” he said at last.
Asher shook his head. “Sorry. How about you try it on your aunt? I think I may be a difficult nut to crack.”
Cole nodded and turned to his aunt, switching the transmitted phrase simply to, 'Can you hear me?' He looked into his aunt's eyes, distracted at first by the realization that he had never noticed her features this distinctly before and had never known her eye color. It was uncomfortable to stare at her, but he shook his head to clear it and concentrated on the phrase. Can you hear me? Can you hear me?
When she did not respond after thirty seconds, Cole grunted in frustration. “Why isn't it working? Can you explain it again?”
“I've never taught anyone before but I'll try again. Let's see...” Asher closed his eyes, and his voice transferred to inside Cole's head. All right, I'm inside your head now. What exactly am I doing? Hmm... I'm taking hold of my thought as if it was a physical object, and I'm aiming it like a beam directly at you. That's as best as I can describe it. The hard part is knowing you are able to do it. You'll get it. “Try again.”
The switch from telepathic to vocal speech was jarring, something which Cole knew would take a while to get used to. He tried again, both on Asher and on Beth, in turn, straining to send a physical thought, whatever that meant, into each of their minds. Yet, no matter how hard he struggled, until his face was bright red, he got nowhere. After his last attempt, his breath was ragged, and it took all of his self-control to keep himself from going raving mad, stopped only by his desire to stay cool in front of Asher.
“Hey, man, no big deal,” Asher said. “It's only been twenty minutes. I have no idea how long it took me. How about we try on some strangers outside? Someone with no resistance. For all I know, your aunt might have more resistance than me, seeing as she scared away her voices.”
“Yeah, okay, good idea.” Renewed hope flooded through Cole, releasing the pent-up frustration. “Oh, that sounds kinda fun, actually. I hope we don't scare anyone too bad.”
“Nah, it'll be fine. Come on.” Asher left the hotel room, Cole and Beth following his lead. They walked out to the sidewalk where a handful of people were strolling along, minding their own business. “Okay, pick someone and try it out,” Asher said. “If it doesn't work, try someone else.”
“How do I know if it worked?”
Asher chuckled. “Oh, trust me, you'll know.”
Cole's eyes wandered the street, sizing people up while trying to stay inconspicuous. He picked out a middle-aged man, lost in his own world, eyes focused straight ahead. Cole watched the man, imagining a connection between the two of them. Then he isolated one thought, Look behind you, and, as closely as he could interpret Asher's description, imagined that it was a physical object that he was sending from himself to the man. He screwed up his eyes and furrowed his brow in concentration, straining from the effort, watching for any inkling of the man's concentration breaking, any quick movement of the head or a sign of being startled or a pause of any kind in his slow, steady walk. Nothing. He continued straight ahead, his gait unshaken.
When the man was a distance away, Cole gave up and tried on a nearby woman. Once again, no matter how hard he concentrated, there was no response. He tried again and again, each failed attempt faltering his concentration and raising his frustration more and more. His care for inconspicuousness declined as well until one person noticed him staring and began to walk away quickly. After eight failures, he had had enough. Wearily, he turned to Asher in defeat.
“Hey, no sweat!” Asher said, his tone slightly less enthusiastic than his words. “You'll get it. I know you will. In the meantime, here, watch. This never gets old and it should cheer you up.” He pointed to a woman walking away from them. A moment later, the woman's head jerked left then right in surprise. When she didn't see anything, she shook her head and continued walking. Asher chuckled under his breath and pointed to someone else who had a more frantic reaction than the woman, whipping his head around in all directions while speed-walking as fast as possible.
Asher's grin widened, his laughter now barely concealed. He looked around the street and his eyes glowed. “This one's gonna be good,” he said, indicating a preteen boy with his head down and headphones in his ears. A second later, the boy's head snapped up, his eyes wide, his body frozen in place. After a heartbeat, he took off, sprinting down the block as quickly as his legs could carry him.
At this point, Asher was roaring with laughter, clutching his side and leaning up against a fence. Cole watched him, unable to enjoy the amusement through his jealousy. He glanced up at Beth who had a disapproving grimace on her face as she watched Asher.
“What did you say to them?” Cole asked once Asher had caught his breath.
“Not much, just things like, 'I'm over here', 'I've been watching you', 'That music can't protect you from me', blah blah blah. Y'know.” He smirked.
“I don't like this,” Beth said.
“Oh, come on, it's not hurting anyone. I'm just having a little fun. Isn't this fun, Cole?”
“Uh, yeah,” he said with another glance at Beth. He had to admit it was amusing, but he wished Asher didn't get to have all the fun without him.
“Let's get some food,” Beth said to Cole. “Asher, don't you have anywhere you need to be? School, maybe?”
Asher glanced at his watch. “Yeah... I guess I should get to my afternoon classes, though it doesn’t matter much since I already accepted early admission.”
“You're going to college?” Beth said incredulously. “What will your major be?”
“I'm Undeclared for now. Going to try a bit of everything.”
“There's a surprise,” Beth muttered.
“All right, well, I promised I'd come home for dinner tonight, but I'll check back first thing tomorrow morning. Later, Cole. You did good your first day.” Keep practicing, he added to Cole internally.
Cole nodded. “I'll get it. See ya tomorrow.”
Asher walked off, back to his car. When he was out of sight, Beth said, “I don't like that one. Let's leave and find another.”
“Oh, come on, Aunt Beth. He's harmless. He was just having some fun. You never played a prank on someone? You can't take this away from me because you have a bias against him, not when we found someone who might be able to help me. You remember how hard it was to find someone who would even talk to us.”
“Yeah, yeah, you're right. But on the condition that you allow me to be with you whenever the two of you are together. I'm going to remain wary and if anything fishy happens, we're outta here. Deal?”
“Deal. Thanks, Aunt Beth.”
“Good. I'm starved. Let's eat.”
Throughout the rest of the day, Cole practiced on countless more people, but to no avail. He tried different phrases, different kinds of people, different techniques, but nothing worked. It was hopeless. He was beginning to think that he would never be able to do it. Perhaps, for whatever reason, it was something only Asher was capable of doing.
He spent the night depressed, and went to bed early, although he got little sleep. In the morning he would have to disappoint Asher. Just as his world was opening, it was threatening to close up again. He had made no progress on telepathy, and his small victory with becoming incognito did little to raise his spirits. He had crawled but he would never walk.
Morning came, and Cole dreaded Asher's knock. Half of him wished that Asher would not show, so he would not have to explain his pathetic failure. Asher did show, though, at ten a.m., the smile on his face fading when he saw Cole's face.
“What's the matter?” Asher said. “No luck?”
Cole shook his head.
“No big. We'll get it right now. I've been playing around with it all night, trying to figure out a better way to describe it. I'm sure that once I explain it properly you'll get it right away and I think I had a breakthrough. There was something that I didn't mention that I think is important. You have to actually find the other person's mind. You can reach out and practically feel it like it's a physical object. Have you even experienced anything like that?”
A lump materialized in Cole's throat as his mind traveled back to when one of the voices from within his own head had infected Amy's mind and attacked it, nearly killing her before Cole was able to extract it. To this day, he had no idea how, exactly, he had saved Amy, but the thought of it now sent a pang of worry through him. I hope she's okay. Is it safe to contact her or will that only put her in greater danger? Contacting her would increase their mental connection, which is what the voices used to travel between people. That was the only reason Cole gave Amy for breaking off communication. There was a second reason, though, which was that the voices would have no reason to harm her if she had no contact with him. The only reason they had infected her the last time was to manipulate Cole.
“You all right, there?” Asher said, snapping Cole back to reality.
“Yeah, I, uh, it's nothing. Yeah, I did experience that once but I'm not sure how I did it.”
“That's great. If you did it once, you can definitely do it again. Back outside to practice?”
“Mhm, sure, let's go.” Cole walked with Asher to the door and Beth, her eyes never leaving Asher, stood up to follow. Does she have to come with us? Cole heard silently. His gaze flicked to Beth and then to Asher, at whom he subtly nodded. Asher shrugged and continued out the door.
Back on the street and full of renewed hope, Cole selected potential targets. He had been inside Amy's mind – it was true – which meant he definitely could do it. If he had done it once, he was confident he could do it again. As painful as that memory was to remember, he concentrated on it, searching for clues to how he had accomplished it, but no matter which way he looked at it, he had no idea what he had done. It had been a reflex, an automatic act brought on by desperation. All that thinking about the memory accomplished was making him miss and worry about Amy.
Focus! You can do this. It will come back to you. A woman was passing him. Turn around. Turn around. Turn around. He pleaded silently at her back, reaching out for her mind, probing the empty space between them, not knowing whether he was even close. There was no reaction. He focused next on a teenage boy. He imagined there was a voice in the boy's head and he was reaching out to pull it away. The boy was Amy and she was in danger. That trick did not work either.
“I'm just not getting something,” Cole said. “I don't know why it's not working.”
“Hey, yeah, man, it's all good,” Asher said as he picked a twig off the ground and snapped it two. “Y'know, it's tough.” He arched his back, stretching his arms behind his head. “I think I'm gonna get going.”
“Okay, I'll keep trying to figure out what's wrong,” Cole said, “but I think I might need some more help.”
“Yeah, that's cool.”
“Will you be back later today?”
Asher's eyes darted back and forth. “Uh, I don't know, man. I've gotta see.”
“Oh, you've got plans. That's cool. Let me know when you have time.”
“Yeah. Hey, y'know, no sweat, but, I've been wrong before. Not everyone is cut out for this.”
Cole fought back the growing panic as his worst fear came to life. “What do you mean? I'll get it, I swear. I just need a little more time.”
“I'm sure you will, buddy. Keep it up. I'll see ya around.”
“You are coming back, right?” Cole knew that a hint of desperation had penetrated his voice but he didn't care anymore. This was not supposed to happen. This was not allowed to happen.
Asher just shrugged and started to walk away.
“Asher! Hey, Asher, what the hell? This is not cool! Talk to me!”
Asher continued unabated.
“You don't need him, Cole,” Beth said. “Let's go find someone who actually knows what he's talking about.”
“Beth, no. He can't do this.” Cole's eyes did not leave Asher's back, which was getting more distant by the second. “Asher! Asher!” His desperation mingled with growing anger. He was not going to let Asher leave. Asher was already halfway down the block, and Cole was debating whether or not to chase after him. Asshole! He thinks he can just abandon me because I didn't catch on instantly? Sorry I wasn't your star pupil. Despite being on the verge of giving up, he kept calling. “Asher! Asher!” ASHER!
Voices in the Night (The Dark Mind Trilogy Book 3) Page 3