The Grower's Gift (Progeny of Time #1)

by Smythe, Vanna

  Too soon, Ty remembered his mother's harsh laugh and hidden threats of the night before. He had her test to complete to her satisfaction or else.

  While Therese was clearing away their lunch in the kitchen, Ty pulled out the bag of pills and handed Eve a vial containing a single purple pill. "Take one of these each day."

  He hoped that was the correct dosage, but he'd check with Ronia after he left here.

  Eve looked more closely at the pill. "I already have some of these. Mom gave them to me this morning when I left the hospital. She said to take one every two days though."

  Ty felt an invisible hand choking him. "She gave you these exact pills? Look closely."

  "Yes, these exact ones," Eve said. "I recognize the tiny vials with the black stoppers. And the white dots in the purple liquid inside them."

  Ty peered at the pills. Eve was right about the white dots.

  "And that's it? She just told you to keep taking them and let you go?"

  Eve nodded.

  Only then did Ty allow himself to breathe again. To really believe Eve was safe. What happened to Julian must have been some sort of terrible mistake. Despite her ruthlessness, Violetta Remarque loved her own children and she wouldn't hurt them intentionally.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Maya had barely finished her lunch of a clear vegetable soup when the two men clearly assigned to stop her from fighting against her imprisonment came to collect her.

  Not another exam!

  The terrible visions of yesterday's test had not yet completely faded from her mind. She still saw the cats, heard their growling, tasted her fear.

  That VR had really messed up her mind. That's all it was, though, a VR immersion, and today's test would be no different.

  Maya followed the guards, who led her into a circular room with dark tinted windows on all sides. A basin filled with fresh soil stood in the center of the room, with three baskets of seeds next to it.

  It wouldn't be just an illusion today.

  Maya's heart started racing. What if they brought real cats today too? She looked around the room frantically, searching for a cage with a lioness inside it somewhere.

  Thankfully, the room only contained the basin.

  One of the doctors told her to sit on the floor by the basin. She obeyed and they started attaching the sensors to her arms and chest, like they had yesterday. Maya fought the urge to cry. She wasn't ready yet. The animals might be in another room. They could bring them in any moment now.

  She breathed in deeply, letting the smell of fresh earth fill her mind.

  She might never get out of this place ever again. But she had her gift, her wonderful, warm ability to give life, and it truly was all that mattered. She reached out and grabbed a fistful of the soil, letting it cascade down her palm.

  She dug her fingers into the soil. The room changed into a field that stretched all the way to the horizon. The afternoon sun was an orange ball falling from the sky. Ty's mother appeared, her long black hair swaying in the warm wind. Maya's breath caught in her throat. It was just an illusion. They weren't in a field and this woman was still her captor.

  Maya looked away, didn't acknowledge the woman at all.

  "Show us your plant growing abilities," the woman said. "Use the seeds set out for you. Talk us through what you are doing as you do it."

  Maya closed her mouth tightly and grabbed a fistful of seeds from the first basket. She let the seeds trickle from her palm into the basin.

  "Do you know what will grow from those seeds?"

  What a dumb question! Of course Maya didn't know. How could she?

  "Talk!" Dr. Remarque ordered.

  Maya wouldn't give her the satisfaction, silently daring the woman to stop the test, or do her worst. Either way, Maya wasn't about to obey her commands. Maya knew she was never getting out of this school. Why hadn't she listened to Ty? He'd tried to warn her, tried to help her. He could have been more direct about it. None of it mattered now.

  She concentrated on the seeds in her hands. From the shape they could be anything. She took a seed between her thumb and forefinger and looked at it closely.

  What do you want to grow up to be?

  She asked it pointlessly, tears starting in her throat as she remembered her home, her parents, herself as a girl who only wanted to heal.

  Wheat, a small voice sang in her head.

  Maya dropped the seed in her shock.

  I must be going insane. Or is this part of the test?

  Maya hastily dug a small hole in the soil and placed the seed inside it. She let the warmth of her gift build in her chest and sent it all into the seed, willing it to grow.

  A perfectly formed, ripe stalk of wheat shot from the ground.

  Did it really tell me what it was?

  Maya wiped the soil from her hand and took a fistful of seeds from the second basket. She felt a little stupid when she asked it what it wanted to be.

  Bamboo, a voice answered.

  "Are you sure?" she asked aloud.

  Yes. But we will obey your wishes, grow into anything you want us to.

  Maya looked up and fixed her gaze on one of the black tinted windows. "Stop messing with my mind. I don't want to perform any more tests."

  No one answered. The projection of Dr. Remarque had also disappeared from the exam room.

  What if it's true?

  Maya planted a few bamboo seeds, and willed them to grow into lilies. A few did, though most still became vivid green stalks of bamboo.

  She plunged her hand into the third basket. Peas.

  They would make beautiful flowers before ripening into pods.

  The strangeness of it all unnerved her.

  How can I have the power to order seeds what plant to grow into?

  No, it must be all part of the test, the doctors were trying to unhinge her. She wouldn't give them the satisfaction.

  Maya dug three rows in the basin, arranging the different seeds just so. Once she was satisfied, Maya let the warmth of her gift fill her chest completely before letting it trickle down her arm, collecting in her left palm. When she had all she could hold in her hand she released it, first into the bamboo seeds. Stalks shot up from the soil, transforming into straight plants that looked a few years old by the time they finished growing.

  Next she fed her power into the wheat seeds, had it grow, golden and ripe.

  Last, she fed the growth magic to the beans. Not enough to let them mature, only enough for the delicate white, purple and pink flowers to blossom. Then she braided it all around the bamboo, creating a wall of flowers and life.

  With a flicker, the field disappeared. Yet the wall of flowers still stood before her, rising to the ceiling.

  I did it!

  From seed to full grown plants in minutes. If only she'd had more confidence in herself and her gift back home, she would not be locked up in this horrible place.

  Her hands shook from the strain and she saw double from the effort of controlling the flow of her gift so precisely. All the people who oversaw her test gaped at what she had made, some clapping softly and smiling.

  It was a beautiful thing, it truly was. Too bad she would never be able to recreate it back home in the Badlands.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  "Where have you been all day?" Violetta shouted at Ty the moment he entered the control room. "You were supposed to be testing the bracelet!"

  "I've been to see Julian. It's been a while, so I couldn't leave right away," Ty retorted, studying her closely for a reaction. If she had any regret over what she'd done to Julian, none of it showed in her kind eyes today.

  "Save your social visits for the afternoon from now on." She rose and walked to the exam monitoring room. "I gave the bracelet to the man in exam room five myself. Let's see how he performs today."

  On the large wall screen, the man who could blast through walls huddled in a corner, covering his head. Ty sat down with Martin and Ronia, his back to the testing.

&nbs
p; "Isn't she done with this poor man yet? Why hasn't he been put to sleep?" he whispered while his mother gave the final instructions to the team handling the examination.

  "We still don't have enough readings on his power to recreate it and produce a gifter," Martin explained in defeat. "Probably won't after today either."

  An image of himself huddled in that exam room flashed across Ty's mind. Would his mother let him off with only a regiment of pills if she ever found out what he could do? As far as military grade powers went, blasting holes through walls paled in comparison to the ability to make anything disappear. She never would know, though. And that was that.

  Ronia nudged him and pointed at a screen shielded from view by her body. Maya was being led from the exam room, where she must have undergone her second testing. She left behind a bed of soil with a gorgeous flowering garden, a bouquet of sorts, inside it.

  "She did that?" Ty asked.

  Ronia nodded.

  "What will happen to her? Her power looks very useful as well."

  Martin reached over and turned off Ronia's screen. "We can grow all sorts of things in a matter of seconds. A power like this has no practical application in the Ring. She'll be put to sleep soon. Dr. Remarque hardly glanced at the results."

  "A power like that, out in the Badlands, the world could be green again," Ty said.

  "It's not in anyone's interest to make the Badlands habitable again," Martin said. "There's hardly enough resources left for the Ring to exist."

  Resources for what? Extravagant skyscrapers, the top floors so high up you couldn't even see the ground below. Gardens manufactured in nanofabricators instead of letting them grow naturally. People taking pills instead of eating wholesome grown food. The panel making plans to leave the planet, instead of trying to fix it. And Maya, who had the power to heal the Earth put into a lifelong coma. The outrage fed the freezing cold building in his forehead, blinding him.

  Ty shook his head and thought only of the large metal chest, its locks strong enough to let no emotion through. The vision of the box in his mind kept growing, containing so many unresolved hurts, and rages now. Already it filled half of his mind. What would happen when what it must contain and keep hidden made it too large to imagine?

  The testee's scream pierced through Ty's panic. No. The box must never grow too large. He must never fail to keep his emotions under control.

  Martin leapt up and adjusted some settings on a tablet on the other table. Ronia leaned closer and placed something in his hand.

  "Read it," the tiny words flickered between them. "Not here."

  She had given him a piece of paper, folded neatly into a square about an inch wide. Where did she even get paper to write on? Ty had only ever seen it in museums and history class in school.

  He put the note into his pocket just as his mother burst back into the room.

  "Tell me we got it all this time, Martin!" she screeched.

  Behind her back, the man lay weeping in the rubble of one concrete wall. His mother hardly acknowledged Ty, excusing him for the day.

  Maya had maybe a day more before she would be put to sleep, and his mother was very busy with the man who could destroy walls.

  Getting to Maya's cell wasn't hard. Going in seemed impossible. It was Ty's fault she was there any way he looked at it. He'd brought her into the city, had failed to keep her out of the facility. She probably hated him. He was likely the last person she wanted to see. He should leave and forget it all. Not that it was possible, he knew he would never be able to forget her vast, sun filled eyes.

  He pressed his tattoo against the panel by her door before he changed his mind again.

  She was asleep on her narrow bed, one arm hanging off lifelessly. Her long dark hair covered her face, probably from tossing and turning in a nightmare.

  Ty approached and reached out to brush the strands of hair from her eyes. They shot open. She jerked away from his hand.

  "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you," Ty lied. He had wanted to speak to her more than he ever wanted any other thing.

  "It's you," she said, blinking rapidly as her eyes adjusted to the harsh white light in the room.

  "I saw the flowers you planted today. They were beautiful," Ty said lamely.

  She drew her knees into her chest and hugged them. "Too bad they'll be the last I ever produce. The first and last. Well, except for the wheat..."

  She let her voice trail off and fixed him with her glowing eyes, a rolling meadow at sundown stretching inside them. "You might have warned me about this place."

  Ty looked at the floor. "I tried."

  "I know."

  "It was never my intention for you to get near this place. I had arranged for you to go back home that afternoon. You should have said you wanted to come here right away. I'd never have taken you along if you had. Wait…you know?"

  "Yes, I know you tried to help me. You helped me a lot by telling me that first test was only VR. I don't know if I'd have gotten through it otherwise. Just tell me one thing, is Giles alright?"

  "Yes. I sent him to his brothers after Lana brought you here," he whispered.

  "I bet Lana's having a great laugh at my expense right now." Maya chuckled in a defeated sort of way.

  Ty sat beside her and took hold of her hand. "Soon they will put you to sleep. I will do all I can to wake you and get you away from here. It could take years, but I will take over this facility from my mother one day and I will free you."

  She screwed up her face. "Years? You could take me away from here now."

  Ty looked down at his hands. "I can't do that."

  "Your mother is a scary person. I see that now. I understand why you don't want to cross her," Maya said, her tone level and cutting.

  Ty squeezed her hand tighter. "My plan will work."

  She tried to pull her hand away, but he didn't let go. "All I have, all I ever had was the now. And you're taking that away from me. I thought I saw something more in you, someone I could love."

  She yanked her hand away and lay back down, her back to him.

  "You did?" Ty asked, eager to keep talking. Her admission was a knife through his heart.

  "Yes," Maya said and turned back to face him. "I was wrong."

  Ty opened his mouth to say something more, assure her she was right about him before, wrong now, but found no words. His plan would work.

  He didn't quite realize where he was until he was back in his apartment. Even then he felt like a part of him was still in Maya's cell, like it would stay there forever.

  ~

  Ty's phone rang in the middle of the night.

  "You visited that girl? Why did you do that?" his mother yelled once he answered.

  There was every chance she'd find out, though she might have overlooked it.

  "I wanted to question her about the test."

  His mother laughed. "Liar. You are too soft, Ty. Too soft by far for the kind of work I do. I blame your father. I won't give up without a fight, however. Tomorrow your little friend will go through her final test. And you will watch."

  Ty tossed the phone across the room.

  He considered going to his father and pleading with him to spare Maya. It would be pointless, he knew. His father never interfered with his mother's work at the facility. He would not do so now for some random girl from the Badlands.

  Ty got up and dressed hastily in hunting gear. He made up his mind to go on a hunt, forget it all, leave it all behind.

  She couldn't make him watch Maya put to sleep.

  He was on his way to collect Isis from her enclosure when he remembered the gift stopping pills he'd gotten for Eve. His mother must never find out he had them.

  Ronia's letter fell out of his pocket when he pulled out the pills.

  He unfolded the square piece of paper. Ronia had filled every available space of it in tiny writing:

  Ty, I trust you. I know you are not truly like your mother. You want the best for those you hold dear. Please read my words
and think them through. I raised Maya's mother as my own daughter, helped her give birth to Maya deep in the Badlands. There is no doubt in my mind that Maya is my niece's child, not after seeing her perform in her test today.

  After she was born, we laid her on the dry ground next to her mother. By morning a lush green oasis had sprung up around them. Martin and I had hoped they had both escaped after we were captured later that day. The oasis had grown to a copse by then, you see, and shielded them from view. Just as you want to protect those you hold dear I want to protect Maya. Please help us escape from the facility. There is a place, beyond the Ring, in the wilderness on the West Coast where people with gifts are welcome and cared for. Please give me your answer tomorrow. Please help me.

  The ink was smudged in places, like Ronia had cried as she wrote it. Ty read the letter through two more times before all she told him finally sank in. A place that welcomed those with gifts. They could all be safe there.

  He concentrated hard on the anger he felt at his mother and let the cold surge of his power swallow the letter.

  He could use his power to blast them all out of the facility. Make the whole building disappear if he got angry enough. He'd once made a whole abandoned town hall disappear, back when Salvio still drove him to test the limits of his powers.

  Suddenly Salvio's words echoed in his mind, like the man was standing right next to him: You must never reveal what you can do. No one would understand a power so destructive. All would run from you, or seek to destroy you, or worse yet, control you. Even in a world filled with other gifted ones, you would be an outcast, doomed to hide your ability from all.

  Ty had never before understood that command in its entirety. Now, it made perfect sense. Even Ronia's safe haven for the gifted was a dangerous place for him. Yet how could he go on pretending he wasn't hurting others like him to save himself, like he accused Martin and Ronia of doing? When would it stop?

  ~

  Ty let himself in to Eve's room quietly and shook her awake.