Bear motioned for her to look at Jordan, so she turned to the blond boy. He smirked at her... and then disappeared into thin air.
She gaped at the empty spot in front of her. “How—?”
“It’s my gift,” Jordan said, reappearing again and laughing loudly at the gobsmacked expression on her face.
“Your gift?”
“Transcendence,” he said. “I can transcend—meaning I can disappear from sight and move through solid objects while invisible.”
“That is...” Alex was lost for words, so she settled on, “very cool.”
Jordan chuckled and squeezed her shoulder. “It’s okay. You’ll get used to it here. Everyone at Akarnae has a gift. Bear’s is pretty handy too, especially when we want to get out of detention.”
“What can you do, Bear?” Alex asked, even if in the back of her mind she was totally flipping out.
“I’m a charmer,” he said with a wink.
She felt her lips twitch. “I bet you say that to all the new girls.”
He laughed at that before explaining, “I can use my speech to convince people to do things. I literally charm them into action.”
“That sounds kind of dangerous,” Alex said. If what he said was true, then he had a gift that could cause a lot of damage in the wrong hands.
“It might seem that way, but it’s really not,” Bear said. “My charms are more like suggestions, you can either act upon or dismiss them depending on how much you like or don’t like the idea.”
Alex thought about that and said, “Can you show me?”
Bear shared a sneaky glance with Jordan before turning back to her and saying, “You must be hungry, Alex. I doubt you’ve eaten for hours, right?”
His voice sounded the same, but there was an almost hypnotic quality to his tone. Before she even realised what she was doing, Alex nodded in agreement.
“You’re probably so hungry that you would eat anything just to feel relief.”
Alex’s stomach clenched painfully. She was starving. What had she last eaten? A piece of toast for breakfast? She couldn’t even remember what it had tasted like, it seemed so long ago.
“I wonder if there’s anything around here that we can give you to eat?” Bear continued in that same mesmerising tone.
“Please,” Alex said, her own voice sounding strained. “I’ll eat anything.”
“Here, this will help.” Bear scooped up a handful of dirt and handed it to her. “It’s just like chocolate. It’ll taste delicious and you’ll feel so good afterwards.”
Alex reached her hand out and Bear passed the dirt over. Part of her was desperate to pour the chocolate-like goodness straight into her mouth, but another part was beginning to scream from deep within her subconscious mind. She paused in the act of moving her hand towards her mouth, her thoughts warring with each other.
It’s dirt, Alex thought to herself. Why would I ever eat dirt? Gross!
She threw the handful of earth to the ground and then turned to glare at Bear. “What did you just do to me?”
He and Jordan burst out laughing.
“You should see your face right now!” Jordan gasped between guffaws.
She placed her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes further.
“Oh, come on Alex,” Jordan said once he’d calmed somewhat. “Admit it, that was funny!”
She tapped her foot impatiently and asked Bear again, “What did you do?”
“You asked me to charm you, so I did,” he said. “I wanted you to see how it feels when it works, but also how when I press too far, your natural reasoning comes back into play.”
“So, you managed to convince me I was starving, even though I’m actually not?”
He nodded and continued for her, “But when I tried to get you to eat dirt, the suggestion was too different from anything you would normally agree to, so you snapped out of my influence.”
She shook her head in amazement. “That’s... Yeah, I have no words for what that is.”
“I just wanted you to understand that while it’s pretty cool, it’s not a dangerous gift because I can only do so much before you realise you’re being manipulated. So, no freaking out about me becoming some kind of tyrannical ruler bent on world domination, okay?”
“That particular scenario hadn’t actually crossed my mind,” she told him dryly.
“I kind of like the sound of it, though,” Jordan mused.
“Fortunately, it’s me with the gift, then,” Bear said with a grin.
Alex found herself enjoying their easy banter, but her mind was also distracted by the events of the last half hour. It was only just beginning to sink in that she was really, illogically, in another world.
“You look like you’re going to pass out, Alex,” Jordan said, gently grasping her elbow to offer support for her swaying body.
“You try looking okay when you’ve just had your entire world turned on its axis—literally,” Alex said, rubbing at her temples. “What am I supposed to do now? How do I get home?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Jordan said. “Marselle will get you home, no problem.”
“Who’s Marselle?” Alex asked.
“He’s our headmaster,” Bear answered. “If anyone can get you back to Freya, it’s Professor Marselle. He can do anything.”
“Sounds like a regular Einstein,” Alex muttered, too low for either of them to hear. Louder, she said, “All right, let’s go see this headmaster of yours.”
Find out where it all began
with the first two books in the
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Do you want to protect animals
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organisations, dialogue and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, organisations, events or locales is coincidental.
First published in 2021 by Pantera Press Pty Limited
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Text copyright © Ondine Sherman, 2021
Ondine Sherman has asserted her moral rights to be identified as the author of this work.
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ISBN 978-1-925700-69-5 (Paperback)
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