Farsighted (Farsighted Series) (20 page)

“Okay, so what does this have to do with Grandon?”

“Boston is one of the strongest psychic hotspots in the country. You read the book I gave you for Christmas, about the Salem witch trials, right? When you were born, I had to get away from there. I didn’t want you to grow up under the burden of your powers like I did, like my mother and father, and all Kosmitorases dating back to the Viking era. I wanted to give you the best chance at being normal. So I had to keep you hidden, keep you far enough from the magnetic pull to give you a chance.”

I shake my head. “I’m still not following.”

Dad sighs; I feel like I’m disappointing him, and for once, I actually care. “The reason why psychics are attracted to these hotspots is because they are made stronger by the presence of others. Their existing gifts can become more potent and new gifts can emerge. I thought if I kept you away from these power fields, yours may never develop. But I didn’t count on you yourself becoming a magnet.”

“I’m a magnet?” I ask with a mix of shock and wonder. “Does this mean I’m going to be really strong one day?”

Dad exhales a couple of times before he responds. “Yes,” he says at last. “You already are really strong. Even before your gifts surfaced, your energy was enough to attract others to Grandon. The Teaks were drawn to you, and Simmi’s family came across the ocean—although I didn’t realize they had gifts of their own until after I left.”

“But isn’t that just a coincidence?”

“The more you learn, the more you’ll realize there are no coincidences,” Miss Teak answers, true to form. “Everything that happens is part of the universe’s plan, and you are a pawn in its designs.”

“Well, you’re more like a bishop or a knight, actually,” Dad clarifies. “You’re a very powerful piece in the overall game, but you can still make a wrong move. You can still lose.”

Chapter 15

The traveler must decide whether he will use his powers as a means to protect others or to subordinate them. His journey is picking up speed.

Just when I think my life can’t get any weirder, it does. I can’t decide whether being a psychic magnet is more awesome or terrifying. It’s one thing to read about this stuff in books or listen to it in the movies, but to actually become a superhero?

Spider-Man said, “With great power, comes great responsibility.” Sure, he can shoot webs and crawl up walls, but he also has a group of psycho maniac villains chasing after him all the time. Is it worth having all of that power if there’s no way to escape the responsibility that comes with it? I guess we don’t really get a choice.

“You’re not Spider-Man,” Dad says with a chuckle. “There’s no flying goblins or multi-armed doctors for you to fight. Your powers are real.”

Miss Teak laughs, too.

The hairs on my arms bristle up.
Quit reading my thoughts
, I think at Dad,
and don’t laugh at me.

“Sorry, sorry,” Dad says with a few more bursts of laughter. “You had enough for today, or do you think you can handle some more?”

“I can handle more,” I say without hesitation. How can he expect me to settle for less than the full story?

“I think we’re going to be here for a while. Let’s go take a seat.” Dad directs us to the shop’s inner sanctum, unbolts the thick door, and pulls apart the curtains with a
swish
. “C’mon, then.”

I follow, but Miss Teak stays behind. “Should I leave?”

“No, stay,” Dad commands. “I think it’s time to tell Alex your part of the story.”

She sighs and shifts into the room, slinking down at the table.

Dad rubs her arms, generating a cloud of kinetic heat above us. “You’ll need to tell him eventually. Might as well get it over with,” he coaxes.

“Very well,” she groans.

I sit full of unmoving energy, subtly shifting my ear back and forth between Miss Teak and Dad like an eager puppy waiting for a pat on the head.

“Alex, I’d like to tell you a story. Please be quiet and listen. Don’t ask any questions until I’m finished.”

I snap my fingers, unable to form words but wanting to urge her on.

She takes a deep breath and begins. “My mother was a powerful psychometrist, as was her mother before her. I grew up watching them absorb information from the world around them and using their gifts to the benefit of others. They helped detectives find missing children; they identified tainted wells just by taking a drop from it within their palms. They did more ordinary things, too, like helping women find out if their spouses were cheating or telling people the history behind valued family heirlooms.

“As a young girl, I wanted nothing more than to follow in their footsteps. I spent hours sitting blindfolded in my room, passing objects through my fingers, trying to strengthen my sense of touch, doing anything I could to be like them while I waited for my own gifts to develop. On my twelfth birthday, I remember racing down the stairs to meet my mother, certain it was the day I would become gifted like her. But it wasn’t that day. Nor was it the next. Or the next.

“On every birthday, the reality of my condition came more into focus. By the time I turned eighteen, I had to accept I would never develop gifts of my own. The family well of psychic activity dried up with me. This was not an easy truth to confess; I ran away from home and fell into a wild lifestyle. The most important thing in my life, the only gift I ever really wanted, wasn’t mine to have.”

I break in when she pauses for breath, “So that means you’re a fraud? You’ve been lying to me this whole time? And you’re basically stealing money from gullible people, too. How can I believe anything you said was actually true?” I remember thinking she sounded like any other cliché psychic in the movies or books. I should’ve realized it was all an act. I shouldn’t have let myself be taken for a fool.

“Please.” She sighs, wearied by the explanation and apparently by my resistance. How can she expect me to swallow all of this with zero difficulty?

“Please don’t ask any questions until the end. I’ll explain everything.”

I snap my agreement and then fan my fingers out on the table in front of me as if to brace myself.

When Miss Teak sees I’m not going to interrupt her again, she carries on with the story. “Years passed and I began to forget the longing within my fingers. When I was twenty-five, my mother called with the news my grandmother had passed. I came home to be with my mother and never left again. At that time, I realized we are more than our gifts, and the universe also had a plan for me. That it had its reasons for depriving me of the familial gift.

“I began to work alongside Mother at our family shop, learning the ways of the seer without being one myself. One day, a nice man came into the shop for a reading. He wanted to find out if he was pursuing the right career path. The cards affirmed his calling, and a year later, we were married. The year after that, we welcomed a baby girl into the world. Imagine my surprise when the nine-year-old girl came to wake me one morning, asking why her great-grandmother wasn’t allowed to visit. Both her great-grandmothers were long since dead, but Shapri held fast to the claim she and G. G. stayed up late at night, talking about life and telling secrets. She wanted to know why they had to sneak around, why I was angry with G. G.

“I spent weeks trying to decide upon the best course of action. Shapri’s psychic coming-of-age reminded me of the painful absence I had worked so hard to suppress. By the time I finally told her the truth about herself, she refused to believe me. With the passing of each year, she has become more and more closed to her gifts, but still their effects plagues her. She has convinced herself I am trying to mislead her. Why, I don’t know. She realizes I am without the gift and assumes psychic energy doesn’t exist at all. Her grandmother’s obvious talent is not enough to prove otherwise.”

Dad coughs. Miss Teak waits and then continues with her story.

“Near the end of last summer, Shapri became agitated. She would call out in her dreams and talk to herself without realizing. ‘The flowers, the flowers,’ she’d cry. As the pull became stronger, her calls became more specific. She began referring to Sweet Blossoms by name. I asked her about it one day, but she had no idea what I was talking about. She wasn’t pretending; she truly didn’t realize.

“When I was able to identify your mother’s shop and place its location, I knew I had to move Shapri to Grandon. The universe was very clear in its expectations. Still, Shapri didn’t understand why we had to move away from Granny and away from her father’s work. I had to tell her it was because of me, because of my work. The pharmacy next to Sweet Blossoms was sitting vacant, just waiting for us to arrive.

“When you stumbled into my shop on that first day, I knew why we had come. I sensed the strength of your gifts, and I knew it was you who had pulled Shapri in. You see, even though I am not gifted myself, I can identify talent in others. And yours was unmistakable.”

“Me? Am I really that strong?” I gasp.

“Please wait. I’m almost finished. You are that strong. You’re unmistakable. So is Shapri. When your father realized what she was, he came to make us leave. He begged, pleaded, threatened. He explained his desire to protect you, to keep others’ gifts away. I told him we couldn’t leave, that this was the place Shapri needed to be. After weeks of fighting, we came to a solution. I was to keep Shapri away from you so her abilities wouldn’t force yours above the surface. Meanwhile, I would make myself available, should your powers reveal themselves, should you have any questions. And when you came for answers, your father provided those I could not. In exchange, he’d give me no more trouble. He would even help me reach out to Shapri.”

I wait for her to continue, suppressing the billions of thoughts zooming through my mind, focusing on the story.

“That’s it. I’m done,” she says with that high-pitched voice she’s only used a couple of times before. Maybe it’s her natural way of talking. Dad can’t help but use his real voice when he’s using his powers, and Miss Teak uses a fake voice when she’s pretending to
have
powers.

“Do you believe what she’s told you?” Dad asks, making me realize I’ve been quiet for far too long.

I hesitate. Do I believe them? “It’s tough, but yeah. I think I do,” I answer, thinking about the time Miss Teak went to use the phone and said Simmi had called to cancel her session, but then five minutes later she came to the shop anyway. I guess pretending to have powers makes a bit more sense when you can make money from it. “I don’t think you needed to sneak around, though. It really
did
look like you were having an affair.”

“But we weren’t,” Miss Teak exclaims, even though I hadn’t meant that to be a question.

“I still don’t understand why you didn’t want my powers to come out,” I whisper in exhaustion. Too much has happened already today.

Dad says, “They’re more trouble than anything. I didn’t want you to have to deal with that. You’ve already got enough obstacles in your life.”

“But Miss Teak said not having gifts was the worst thing that ever happened to her,” I protest, shaking my head.

“That’s because she’s never had them. She doesn’t understand how hard the gifts can be on the bearer, because she’s never shouldered that burden.”

Miss Teak sniffs. Does she still have trouble talking about these things even after so much time has passed?

“I know it’s been hard. But I also know without them Simmi would die. She still might die, but if I can save her, I’m going to. To me, that’s worth whatever trouble they caused.”

Dad gulps and takes a deep breath of air.

“Why are you so convinced they’re a burden? What happened when you were my age?”

Dad jumps to his feet and pushes his chair into the table. His voice is chipper and fresh, like he’s just delivered the punch line to the world’s best joke—it’s completely out of place. “Now, that’s a story for another day. Let’s go home.”

***

On the way home, Dad tells me we need to keep all of this a secret from Mom. “Just for a little while longer,” he promises.

I stumble into bed completely exhausted by the day’s events. My brain wants to continue thinking about everything I’ve just learned and how it’s going to affect my life, but my drooping eyelids and tired muscles say I need sleep. A deep, deep sleep.

The next morning, my alarm doesn’t wake me. Mom enters my room at a quarter after six and pats my shoulder, gradually waking me up.

“Yesterday was pretty difficult for you,” she coos.

I yawn and sit up in bed.

“Please forgive your father. He didn’t mean to upset us. Things will be better from here on out, I know it,” she presses in a voice near a whisper, making me wonder if she really believes what she’s saying, or if she’s trying to convince herself as well.

“It’s okay now. I’m over it,” I say, pushing the covers off and getting out of bed.

“We can talk. I know you’re angry.”

“Mom.” I bend down to place my hands on her shoulders. “I’m really not. I understand why he left. I forgive him. Honestly.” I smile to show her I’m not being sarcastic.