“Thanks.” I took the form and stared down at it.
“If you need help with it, you need but ask and we will have someone help you go through it.” He offered hesitantly.
I smiled at him. “Thank you. That would be very helpful. It’s just… It’d take me a lot longer to work through it on my own. It’s not in the best font and the words are small.”
He nodded, seeming to accept my reassurance that he had said a helpful thing and not an insulting thing. “I wasn’t aware that was problematic. I will make a note. Perhaps Mr. Simms can provide us some solution for the future in case we have other dyslexic applicants. Perhaps he could alter our forms to use the… fonts you spoke of.” He seemed to have some difficulty with the word “fonts”. I imagined it hadn’t been a terribly useful word in Victorian America. Unless you were a book maker or something, which I imagined he wasn’t.
“That’s awesome. I’ve never even heard of a company as thoughtful and accommodating as this. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”
“We do our best to make any reasonable accommodations we can.” He smiled and I could tell he was rather proud of the organization he worked for. That was a good sign. “But you said you had two questions left. What was the other?”
I blinked. I’d almost forgotten. “Oh, right. The shadow people. Ralof wanted me to ask you about that.”
“Shadow people?” Adrien furrowed his brow.
“I see figures sometimes. Like a shadow of a person just standing there. Like if a person could be made out of blotchy darkness that blurs their features until you can’t tell who they are or what they look like. I used to see them rarely, just standing somewhere nearby, but since I’ve Awakened, they’ve seemed to appear more frequently. And the other night, one of them seemed to be following me, and it made noises which was totally a new thing.”
Adrien looked concerned. “That is troubling, Ms. Shepherd. Very troubling.”
“I always thought they were in my head. Something to do with the blackouts.”
Adrien pursed his lips. “No one else has seen them?” I shook my head. “Have you seen one at any point that you were around another supernatural or Awakened human?”
I thought about that for a moment then nodded. “Amorie was with me at the diner when I saw one there, shortly after I Awakened.”
“And Ms. Amorie did not recognize the being of which you speak?” I shook my head again. Adrien leaned back in his seat, seeming to consider deeply. “Interesting. This is most perplexing, Ms. Shepherd— Sorry. Dakota.” He glanced at his laptop then decided to type on it again. “I’ll make a note of this and forward it to a couple of the other administrators and see if it rings any bells in particular, but I believe your hypothesis is the most likely one.”
“That it’s all in my head?”
Adrien nodded. “That it is some symptom of whatever is troubling your mind. If it were one of the myriad creatures that could perform such feats, Ms. Amorie would certainly have taken note of it.”
“Maybe she did and didn’t say anything.”
“Then it would be prudent to ask her, should you meet her again.”
I nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll do that.”
“Otherwise, when you visit with Mr. Simms, perhaps he will be able to shed some light on the reason for the phenomenon. Regardless, it is another matter we would want to clear up before proceeding with your application to SII.”
I nodded acceptingly. “Right. Well, thanks for looking into that too.”
“Of course, Dakota.” Adrien smiled at me warmly.
“So, is there anything else at the moment?”
He shook his head. “Not unless you have further questions.” I shook my head. “I make arrangements for your trip as soon as possible. Just write down your phone number for me here with your email address so I can contact you.” I took a pen from his desk and did so. “Meanwhile, if you are able to stay around this afternoon, I can have someone show you the basics of magical control so that you will at least have a rudimentary understanding of how to avoid setting anything on fire accidentally.”
“You know what? That would be great.” I smiled as I stood and stretched. “So, where should I go for now?”
“Well, if you’re hungry, you are welcome to go down to the cafeteria and help yourself. It is available at all times for anyone employed or visiting. I will have someone come get you for tutelage as soon as it is available. If that is all right?”
I nodded. “That sounds excellent. Thank you so much for everything.” I extended my hand and he shook it.
“It is my pleasure to be of assistance, Ms.—” he caught himself. “Ms. Dakota.”
I grinned. “It was good to meet you, Adrien. I hope I’ll get to work with you in the future.”
“It would be my pleasure.” He assured me as I left his office, closing the door behind.
17
Blurry Words
I wandered into the cafeteria with a form in my hands and an enticing aroma guiding me. I glanced over the crowd, but didn’t see Ralof. I figured he was still in his meeting, so I decided to investigate that delicious smell. Wandering over to the long buffet line that dominated two walls of the room, I meandered along behind other people in line and shopped around for my meal. I finally centered on the scent that had drawn me in. A hearty curry dish stood on offer next to a covered serving dish which, upon further investigation, held fresh white rice. I rolled up the application form and stuffed it in the band of my pants then hurried for a plate and picked out a few other dishes along the way, choosing by smell as I didn’t recognize half of them.
A moment later, I stood ready, tray in hand, with food and drink aplenty, and glanced around the room for a place to sit. The cafeteria wasn’t crowded, but there were a lot of people there nonetheless. I was just about to sidle into a relatively empty area on one long table when I spotted a familiar face and decided to change course. I dropped my tray lightly and settled down as Nita started and then glared at me. “Hi. It was Nita. Right?”
“How impressive. You recalled four letters in the correct order.” I already liked Nita. I grinned at her and pulled the application out, dropping it on the table between us.
“Maybe more so than you realize. I’m dyslexic. Adrien said you could help me with this.”
“I—” Nita opened her mouth and closed it firmly. Her reaction was priceless. She seemed to feel embarrassed or ashamed for all of two or three seconds before settling comfortably into “annoyed” again. She narrowed her eyes at me minorly. “Did he? How kind of him.”
“Well, he said someone would. And you’re someone. Right? So, would you mind? Please?” I said “please” like a 5th grader would, stretching it out cheesily.
Nita rolled her eyes, but her face contorted into an amused scowl. Yes, an amused scowl. “What’s so difficult about it that you need my help?”
“It’d be a lot easier if you could read the questions to me.” I patted my pockets and pulled out the pen I’d borrowed. “It’d be far more entertaining if I guessed, but if I do it all without any help, I’m going to be here all day, and I figure we all have better things to do than sit around watching me painfully blunder my way through this thing.” I was exaggerating the difficulty to some degree. Dyslexia didn’t stop me from reading. It just slowed me down a lot, and I knew I’d get through the application a lot faster with a little help. Besides, I wanted the chance to make friends with Nita, and it was an excellent excuse.
Nita shifted in her seat and snatched the pen from me, shoving her food aside to make room for the papers. “You really can’t read?” She seemed skeptical, but held her hand ready to fill out the form for me regardless, which actually was more than I’d asked her for.
“I can read it, just very slowly. And it’d be a lot harder. Think of it as similar to helping an old lady across the street. She could probably manage it on her own eventually, but you can make her day a lot easier if you give her a hand.” I picked up a
spoon and dipped into the curry. My stomach was rumbling and it smelled entirely too delicious to let it get cold.
“Hmph. I thought being dyslexic just meant you reversed a few letters here and there.”
“Common misconception.” I said through a mouthful of curry. “It actually means that your eyes see things differently, and it makes reading unfamiliar words pretty hard, especially if you have to do it quickly. Most people with Dyslexia have a lot of trouble with reading and spelling, even if they’re really smart.” I tapped the application. “And this is really hard for me to read because it’s written in a small serif font, so it’d probably take me a while. Anyway, it’d sure be sweet of you to help me out, if you don’t mind.”
Nita rolled her eyes and settled in to write. “Let’s just get this over with. Name. Dakota Shepherd. S-h-e-p-a-r-d?”
I closed my eyes. “S-h-e-p-h-e-r-d,” I recited carefully.
“I thought you had trouble with spelling.” Nita commented idly as she wrote down my name.
“I do, but I’m pretty familiar with my own name, as it turns out. I’ve also learned a few tricks to help me cope. Such as my mind palace.”
Nita glanced up at me with a long-suffering expression. “Your what?”
“My mind palace. It’s this memory technique I learned about from watching Sherlock, where you make up a place and use it to store information…” She was glaring at me again. “Yeah, so next. Age? Twenty eight.” I grinned broadly for a beat then went back to eating while she wrote.
As we worked on the demographics, Nita decided to be personable. “So what made you want to sign up?”
“It’s actually kinda a dream job for me. I always wanted to do something where I could actively protect people. I especially liked the idea of being some kind of investigator, solving crimes and catching the bad guys, you know?” Nita snorted and shook her head as if that amused her. I shrugged her off and continued. “When I was in high school, I wanted to join the army. But my medical history got in the way.”
Nita glanced up at me and tilted her head. I put my finger on the application randomly. “Global Transient Amnesia. You can put that under the medical history section. Some people call it ‘fugue states’ or ‘blackouts’. It happened several times when I was a teenager, but eventually it stopped and it hasn’t happened again since I was like twenty or so.”
Nita frowned. “And that stopped you from joining the army?”
“Yep. They don’t allow people with certain mental dysfunctions to join, for some very good reasons. Since it was never fully diagnosed or explained, and no one knew for sure that I wouldn’t just keep having them, they couldn’t risk the liability.” I felt a wave of grumpy irritation surge to the surface, but I pushed it back down.
“That’s reasonable I suppose. Why didn’t you try again when you stopped having the blackouts?”
“Eh. By then, I was a little older. I’d decided I didn’t want the army after all. I wanted to be a cop. I hadn’t had the fugues in years, so I didn’t see a need to mention that to my friend on the force who was putting in a good word. I tried to do the police academy thing, but I failed out.”
Nita tilted her head. “What happened?”
“Dyslexia. I’d never been diagnosed with it.”
Nita straightened up and frowned sharply. “What? How?”
“I went through the public school system. I struggled, but never so badly that I qualified for special education assistance. My mother told me I just needed to try harder. So I did. I tried as hard as I could. I skipped by with barely passing grades, and everyone always assumed I just didn’t care or wasn’t that smart. And I had no idea that they weren’t right.” I took a long drink and carefully held my emotions at bay. I didn’t want to end up ranting in the cafeteria.
Nita, apparently, was not burdened by such concerns. “That’s ridiculous!” she half-shouted. “How can these so-called ‘educators’ miss something as obvious as that? I mean if a kid is trying really hard, you can tell. Why didn’t they realize something was wrong?” I winced, glancing around to notice that half the room had looked up at her raised voice, but was relieved when everyone just went back to what they were doing as if it wasn’t that unusual.
I grinned at her fervor on my behalf. “I have no idea. But remember, this is the information age. At least kids now won’t have that problem as much. Most people are more aware of such issues than they were twenty years ago.”
Nita settled back into her writing position, grumbling annoyedly about the system. I had to smile. She was a passionate one, and frankly, I liked that. She must have been more interested in my story than I’d originally thought, as she prompted me to continue. “So you did badly at police academy and gave up?”
“Nah. I failed the exams, and my buddy noticed that a lot of what I’d gotten wrong was stuff he knew I was plenty familiar with. He took me aside and asked if I’d ever been tested for Dyslexia. I said no and he explained how it looked like I might have it. I went and got tested and turns out, he was right. I found out there were courses that you could take to learn how to cope with it and I started taking them. It took a while though, and I ended up picking up some other jobs along the way before I could finish it. Eventually I landed myself in overnight security and by that time, I had learned a lot about the police that made me less interested in joining. Red tape, politics, and all the corruption in the system. I figured someone like me would just end up getting hurt in a job like that. So I stuck with the security thing for a while.”
Nita nudged me to answer another question on the application and I did. “So you settled then.”
“Eh. Not completely. I eventually tried to join the FBI. But they didn’t really care if I’d learned to cope with my reading disorders or if my fugue states were years past. They don’t really take people who aren’t in top-notch condition, you know? Too many possible disasters could come from me getting mixed up in a moment when I really needed to act quickly and concisely. So regardless, that was a no-go as well. So then I… yeah, I guess I settled at that point. What else could I do?’
Nita looked up and met my eyes. “I don’t know. But you never give up on something if you want it badly enough.”
“I guess that’s the answer to your original question then.”
Nita hmph’d at me lightly and asked me the next question on the page.
Half an application later, an electric jolt went up my spine as Ralof entered the room. I caught eyes with him, noticing that his presence had immediately drawn my attention, and additionally, that he was supremely agitated. I lifted a hand in greeting, but Ralof just nodded to me brusquely and went over to pick up some food. He thumped a tray down in front of me a moment later with a huff and picked up a whole steak with his fork. “So,” I began in an obnoxiously casual voice. “How did it go?”
Ralof gave me an incredulous expression for just a second before erupting into a belly-laugh that he then cut short as he tore a bite from his steak. “Hmph. That man is a piece of work.” He grumbled as he chewed.
Nita elbowed me. “Current occupation.”
“Sorry. Night security guard.” Ralof gave me a look. I grinned at him. “So, I have news.”
“So it would seem. What did you find out?” he asked.
“That I’m even more awesome than previously suspected.” Nita scoffed and rolled her eyes. Ralof just looked puzzled. Tough crowd. I shrugged. “So the green burny hands equals Hellfire and apparently I owe the acquisition of that power to a demoness.”
Ralof nodded as he chewed. “Hmm. Seems about right.”
“As for the other, well, who knows. Adrien said I could go visit a Mentalist and see if he can figure it out and maybe even fix it. But I’ll have to travel abroad.” I gave the remnants of my curry a mournful expression and started nibbling the other dishes on my plate adventurously. Many of them were utterly foreign to me.
“Abroad? As in out of the country?” Ralof had stiffened slightly.
I t
ilted my head, curious at his posture. “Yes? The guy lives in Canada.”
Ralof relaxed. “Ah. Hmm. Well that should be okay. Most likely.” He chewed on the steak thoughtfully.
“He said they can send me there. I just have to get time off from work and let him know when to arrange it.” I took a bite of a savory-looking dish topped with crumbled soft cheese then blinked in surprise. “What is this?”
Nita glanced at my plate. “Ov’kombre. It’s a Fae dish, namely dark elven. A couple of our local agents are particularly fond of it, so it shows up on menu pretty often.”
“Holy crap, that’s good.” I glanced up at Ralof, expecting him to seem impressed as I was, then remembered that, unlike me, he hadn’t just fallen off the turnip cart. He smiled at me nonetheless. “Other than that, I need to hang around this afternoon for a bit. They’re gonna set me up with a tutor who can teach me to control the Hellfire.”
Nita sighed loudly. “Two guesses who that’s going to be.” Ralof and I grinned at each other.
18
Training Wills
Nita was assigned to tutor me. Ralof said he wanted to go check on a few pack members who lived in the area while I was busy, so he would be gone for a few hours. He told me to call him if I needed him, double checked that I had his number on my cell, and enough charge to last me, then agreed to leave me in Nita’s care until he returned. I smiled at his concern, overcautious as it might be, and thanked him. He reminded me of Nan-how she used to check on me before I went on a school trip or a vacation with the family, asking over every little detail and stuffing a twenty in my sock in case of emergencies.
Nita led me across the building into a big, empty room with some padding on the walls. I glanced around the barren expanse. “So what’s this place for?”
“Normally, we use it for various forms of combat training. In this case, it’s just a big enough room that we can attempt this without as much danger of setting the building on fire.” She set down a cast iron bowl she had picked up from a storage closet along the way, then dropped a piece of paper in it.
Awakened (Auralight Codex: Dakota Shepherd Book 1) Page 14