by Stacy Juba
"When Serina said I could control people's actions, I thought she had to be wrong. But it was easy."
Candace pulled open the side door which led directly into the gym. "No kidding. Serina taught me a few months ago."
"How come you never mentioned it?" Dawn asked.
"We didn't want to scare you. Serina thinks you're ready now."
Questions whirled in Dawn’s brain. How broad was the scope of mind control? Could everyone be controlled with the same ease? When couldn’t mind control be used? She couldn’t wait to try out her questions on Serina, but until then maybe Candace could fill in some gaps.
"When I was doing it, I had this hot buzzing feeling in my head," Dawn said. "It felt good, but strange. Is that normal?"
"Sure, that’s the energy juicing up," Candace said. "That’s what gives you the power. It’s like an exchange, you send the other person your energy and feel theirs moving around at the same time."
That made sense. Well, as much sense as any of this did. Dawn opened the locker room door and murmured, "When you asked Tim to the dance, why didn’t you make him say yes? Why not make him your boyfriend? I mean, can you force someone to fall in love with you? How long do the effects last?"
Candace motioned her over to an empty corner near the supply closet, far from the benches and lockers. "The effects can be long-lasting if you phrase your orders that way, but your hold might wear off after awhile, especially if someone would’ve been strongly opposed to whatever you’re telling them to do. If you notice signs of their own will breaking through, you’d need to give them a reinforcing order to keep it going."
"Why haven’t you tried it?"
Candace blushed the shade of a cherry Popsicle. "I thought about it. I even bought the dress and jewelry, remember? Then I decided it was a lame idea. If he started showing disgust and I had to keep reinforcing it, that would have stunk."
Dawn nodded, understanding the meaning behind Candace’s words. Being reminded that your boyfriend would never love you in his normal state of mind would hurt. "Yeah, I guess I see what you mean."
She glanced at her watch and sighed. Dawn couldn’t wait to tell Serina of their success and ask questions, but she still had half the school day ahead of her.
On the way to her next class, after she and Candace split up, Dawn spotted Jamie fishing around in her locker.
"Guess what!" Dawn whispered the gym class story in Jamie’s ear, her friend’s eyes bulging wider and wider.
"Serina never told me about mind control," Jamie said. "She must have known it would be too hard for me."
"I’m sure you’ll be ready for it soon," Dawn lied.
"I don’t know if I want to learn it. It sounds sort of mean."
"I felt a little guilty, but they’re all such jerks. Now maybe they’ll think before they make fun of people in gym. That’s a nice color on you." Dawn admired the turquoise top skimming the band of Jamie's jeans.
Jamie’s lips curled up into a smile. "Really? I borrowed the shirt out of my mother's closet."
Renee passed with her entourage and stopped with her hands on her hips. Her sleek black pantsuit made her look five years older; it must be one of her mourning outfits. "If it isn't the witch."
"I’m not the one dressed in black," Dawn retorted.
Renee sniffed to her friends. "Did you hear that? My boyfriend, who was practically my fiancé, is dead and she has the nerve to insult me?"
"Come on, let's go," Jamie muttered, closing her locker door and nudging Dawn.
"Look at the weirdo she's hanging around with. Your makeup doesn't cover up your zits, Pan Fry. I'll bet you never get bored. You can always play Connect the Dots on your face."
"Why don’t you just shut up," Jamie said, tears welling in her eyes.
"I’m only trying to help." Renee shrugged in mock innocence. "You need to find some kind of use for all those zits."
Dawn glared at Renee's fake tan and perfect blonde hair. It wasn't fair that she could treat people that way and be popular. So her mother had committed suicide. That was awful, but Dawn’s dad had been killed in a car accident and Ken’s mother died of melanoma. Where did Renee get off making Jamie’s life hell?
Dawn fastened her gaze on a black pen sticking out of Renee's backpack. Why not use mind control to teach Renee a lesson? She visualized Renee lifting the pen and drawing a mustache and goatee on her face. Tingling swirled in her sixth and seventh chakras like a gentle undercurrent.
Go ahead, Renee. Play Connect the Dots.
This time, Dawn didn’t need to envision her telepathy room. It all came naturally. Renee’s expression morphed from smug to hollow as she pressed the tip under her nose. She created a handlebar mustache and a dark goatee under her chin.
Now draw big circles on your cheeks, Dawn ordered.
"Renee! What are you doing?" Gasping, a friend reached out to stop her, but Renee shoved her back in stiff determination.
Tim Travers and Vicky were coming down the hall with his football teammates. They froze upon seeing Renee.
"What the..." Tim said.
Within seconds, the football team's guffaws thundered down the corridor. "Looking good, Renee!" someone shouted.
Dawn withdrew from Renee’s mind. She’d accomplished her goal of embarrassing the other girl. Enough was enough. Well, almost. Dawn whipped out her cell phone and clicked a picture of Renee.
She held up the frozen image. "If you ever make fun of my friend again, this is going all over the Internet."
Renee’s baffled eyes riveted on the digital photograph. "What happened? Who ... who did this to me? I don’t understand."
Apparently, Dawn’s threat hadn’t registered. Vicky leveled her chin a notch and stared at Dawn.
She knows. Dawn pushed the thought out of her mind. Of course Vicky couldn't know. She was letting Jamie's guilt treatment get to her.
"What happened?" Renee cried, tears trickling down her cheeks. "I've got to get it off. Help me get it off. Someone help me, please."
No one moved. The laughter died down. Everyone avoided looking at her, glancing down the hall and jamming their hands in their pockets. They must figure Scott’s death had pushed her over the edge.
Vicky hesitated, gathered Renee’s belongings off the floor and stepped forward to assist her enemy. "Come on, it's okay."
She steered Renee toward the nearest bathroom. Jamie tugged Dawn's arm and dragged her down the corridor. "You made her do that, didn't you?" Jamie hissed.
"You heard how she was talking to you. She had it coming." Dawn struggled to sound convincing. Renee had looked shell-shocked. What did it feel like to become a prisoner in your own brain? To find everyone laughing at something you had no memory of doing? Maybe Dawn had gone too far.
"I hate Renee, too, but you can't play with her mind," Jamie said. "That’s not right."
"But Serina said I need to practice for emergencies, and Renee’s been mean to us. Isn’t it better to practice on obnoxious people?" Dawn held her breath, hoping Jamie agreed, that her friend’s understanding would diminish her own guilt.
The bell rang as the corridor emptied around them. When Jamie didn’t respond, Dawn pushed the button on her phone to discard Renee’s image. "Okay, I probably shouldn’t have taken the picture. But, do you really think the other part was that bad? After the way she’s treated us?"
"I guess not," Jamie said after a long silence. "You just caught me off guard."
"The thing is, I don’t really care that much about controlling other people’s minds. I just want to have control of my own mind – finally. But, to do that, I have to practice what Serina teaches me." Dawn crammed her phone back into her purse. "I don’t think either of us wants detention. How about I make sure our teachers don’t hassle us?"
"You mean..." Jamie frowned.
"What do you think Serina will say if we get detention and can’t go over her house?"
"She wouldn’t like it, I guess, but still—"
"
Come on. Where’s your class?"
"It’s in this wing. I’ll show you." Jamie pressed her history book to her chest as she led Dawn down an adjoining hallway. She stopped outside of the open doorway leading into classroom A-12. "I don’t know Dawn, maybe we shouldn’t…"
Her voice trailed off as Mrs. Cashman, a grey-haired woman in a prim blouse and skirt, noticed them from the front of the classroom. "Jamie, how nice of you to join us," she said sarcastically. "Why is your friend wandering the halls?"
Dawn concentrated and the now familiar whirlpool bathed her upper chakras in warm pulsing waves. Welcome Jamie to class. Give the other girl a hall pass.
Mrs. Cashman’s stern face turned wooden and she said in a monotone, "Please come in, Jamie. I’ve only been lecturing for a couple minutes. I’ll bet your friend could use a pass." She ripped an orange rectangle off a pad of paper, signed it and handed it to Dawn.
Accepting it, Dawn thought hard. Write out a dozen hall passes instead.
"In fact, take more. Hold on." Mrs. Cashman hunched over her desk and signed one after the other. Dawn sneaked a look at the other students, but most were too busy talking to pay attention.
Jamie shook her head as Mrs. Cashman presented Dawn with an orange pile of slips.
Dawn returned to the corridor, closing the door behind her. She squeezed the fistful of passes. She’d thought landing some extra hall passes was innocent enough, but disapproval had ebbed out of Jamie. Had it really been that unethical?
Dawn gasped as a red hot poker stabbed the center of her forehead, chiseling straight through to her skull. It shot in all directions, searing through Dawn’s chest, arms and legs, then weakening as it hit her feet. Dawn reeled against the wall, tears filling her eyes. What was happening to her?
In the air before her, a neon sign blazed Hijacking in blood red letters. Each letter melted, leaving a sizzling scar in its wake. Slowly the white cinderblock and gray lockers dropped back into focus, swallowing all traces of the word. Finally, mercifully, the throbbing pain receded.
Dawn sank down to the floor and massaged her forehead, making sure the agony was truly gone. She had to talk to Serina. Now.
Chapter Twelve
After school, the girls found Serina standing at the front door with a wide grin. "I’ve got a strong feeling that you have good news. I’ve been anxious for you to arrive all afternoon. What happened?"
"You should have seen us in gym, Serina," Candace said, rubbing her hands together. "We were great."
Serina ushered them into the foyer where Candace explained about the softball game. Dawn mentally framed her questions. The headache hadn’t returned, but it disturbed her nonetheless. She had never felt such intense pain, such fiery heat, as if she were being burned alive.
"Not only that, but Renee went Picasso on her own face," Candace went on. "That’s all everyone’s talking about. I knew it must’ve been Dawn as soon as I heard it."
"Brilliant!" Serina gushed. "I wish I’d been there. I’m proud of you, Dawn. Aren’t you proud of her, Candace?"
"You bet!" Candace slapped Dawn a high five. "I heard a rumor that you took a picture. Send it to me and I’ll post it online."
"I, uh, accidentally got rid of it," Dawn said.
Jamie brushed past them into the sitting room, and Dawn remembered the hijacking image. Here she was, receiving glory for behavior that blurred ethical lines, and poor Jamie was getting zilch. Had the sign meant that deep down, Dawn believed she’d been taking innocent people hostage? She’d better not mention that part to Serina. It might annoy her if she thought Dawn was questioning the integrity of her new skill.
Still, Dawn needed some answers.
They all followed Jamie and Serina poured them each a cup of tea. She pulled up a chair from her work table and sat across from Dawn. Pinpoints of golden light wavered from the candelabra behind her.
"You must be full of questions, Dawn," she said with a smile.
"I had the weirdest thing happen to me today. Is there a limit to how much you can do mind control in one day? Could I have used it too much?" Dawn described the hall pass incident and her painful episode in the corridor, leaving out the neon letters.
Serina’s smile cooled around the edges and Dawn wondered whether her teacher’s pleasure had slipped also. "It sounds to me like a blockage in your sixth chakra. A very intense blockage. It’s not dangerous, but it’s not necessary either."
"But I thought using my psychic ability was supposed to unblock me?" Dawn asked.
"You have to give yourself permission to practice. Let me guess. You feel guilty about what you did."
"Well, yeah. I was proud of myself too, but it felt a little wrong. Especially with Renee. It seemed almost like..." Dawn decided to use the word. "Hijacking," she finished. "You could even call it brain-jacking."
"You have to let go of your guilt, Dawn. You’re not hurting people. They’re not going to get sick from you doing this." Serina ticked off on her fingers, the candlelight sparking the gemstones on her rings. "In gym class and with Renee, weren’t you giving reminders that not everyone is fortunate enough to be graced with athletic skill or cover girl beauty? That compassion is essential and you should treat people as you wish to be treated?"
Dawn rested her teacup on the bamboo table. Serina had summed up her intentions with startling accuracy, yet part of her still wasn’t convinced. "What about the hall passes? I wasn’t teaching Mrs. Cashman a lesson. Maybe I was being selfish."
"Come on, Dawn, they give us three minutes to go to our lockers, use the bathroom and get to class," Candace interjected. "That’s the crime."
"I’m sure with time, your blockage will release," Serina said. "Don’t fight yourself, just trust that you’re doing what needs to be done. Was Robin Hood wrong to steal from the rich and give to the poor? Some would call it unethical. I say it’s honorable. Enough philosophy. Let’s go over some basic ground rules so you can keep practicing."
Dawn opened her notebook. As long as her headache wasn’t the sign of an impending aneurysm, then she could deal with it. She still wasn’t sure what to think about mind control, but she’d unravel her conflicting feelings later. For now, she’d lose herself in Serina’s lecture.
"First, you need to be near the subject you’re controlling," Serina said. "They must be within your eyesight, at least initially. It’s not like telepathy, where distance doesn’t matter. You’re not simply sending a thought; you’re creating one in someone else’s brain.
"However, there is something called long-range mind control. Let’s say I wanted Jamie to buy me an ice cream sundae downtown. She’d need to be in my eyesight to receive that order, but I wouldn’t have to accompany her to the ice cream shop. I could send her out to get ice cream while I stayed here. Since I wouldn’t be going with her, I’d put a lot of detail into my instructions to alleviate confusion. I would say go straight to the ice cream stand without any stops, purchase the sundae and come right back."
Dawn scribbled in her notebook. This sounded like the falling-in-love scenario, as a boyfriend wouldn’t be in your sight every minute, except the ice cream example was simpler and shouldn’t need reinforcement. Jamie crossed and uncrossed her legs, looking panicked that she might be ordered out on a mission, a mindless puppet whose only use was to bring back hot fudge sundaes.
Serina winked at Jamie, as if reading her mind. "Don’t worry, kiddo. I’m lactose intolerant."
"But I’m not," Candace deadpanned.
Jamie chuckled. Was she warming up to the whole people-as-puppets subject? Dawn didn’t join in the laughter, staring at her half-page of notes. It sounded more foreign than French, but mind control wasn’t nearly as complicated as conjugating verbs. That was the scary part, how easy it was to transform a human being into a marionette.
"Can I answer something for you, Dawn?" Serina asked, watching her.
"I was just wondering. Can everyone be controlled? Are there exceptions?"
Serina paused for a m
oment, tenting her hands in her lap. "Most people can be controlled, yes. However, a spiritual or metaphysical person is a much more difficult subject. Someone who meditates daily, tunes out inner clutter and listens to their own Higher Self or inner voice will be harder to crack. It’s not impossible, but you would have to try a lot harder to break through and maintain your hold. On the opposite end of the spectrum is someone who does drugs, drinks alcohol or who is addicted to work and never gives his body proper rest and exercise. Those would be easy people to control as they don’t respect their body, let alone their mind or spirit."
Dawn swept a hand around the room at herself and her friends. "Would we be difficult subjects?"
"Being an untrained psychic doesn’t protect you, but if you follow my advice and metaphysical teachings, then yes, you would be tougher targets," Serina said. She added lightly, "I wouldn’t worry about it. There aren’t many people out there using mind control. It’s an ancient art whose existence is known only to a miniscule part of the population. Only the most elite psychics have this as a tool."
"What do you think of that, guys?" Candace asked with a grin. "We’re part of an elite group of psychics."
"It does sound pretty cool," Dawn said.
And it did. But inwardly, she cringed at the word Serina had used. Target. That implied an object of attack. She hadn’t attacked Renee, Jamie’s teacher or the kids in gym, had she? She’d used them for her own purposes, no doubt, but had it really been a form of attack?
No, of course not, she reassured herself. Granted, in the wrong hands, mind control could be deadly, but she and her friends weren’t criminals. They were the good guys, practicing a skill that could be useful in the future, a skill that might even help others out of difficult or dangerous situations.
Still, when Dawn got home that evening, she couldn’t muster the energy for a family dinner. She didn’t know whether it was her blocked chakra, her confusion, or normal fatigue, but her head felt spacy and her eyelids droopy. She told her mother she’d eat later and crawled into bed.
She jolted awake a few hours later to deafening noise. Heart slamming, Dawn listened in the darkness. Her knuckle dug into the mattress.