Powerless Revision 1 (3 page)

Jeana had to chuckle. “There will always be something new for you to learn, something that’s out there that you haven’t been told about. But we can stop for now,” she said.

Together, they cleaned the table and washed the dishes from breakfast.

“When am I going to be able to go out and explore?” Mira asked.

“You’re going to have to get used to making decisions like that for yourself now,” Jeana said. “But we can go now, if you’d like?”

***

A sudden thrill swept over her, making the answer all too obvious. She ran up to her room to prepare. Just a few minutes later, she was ready to make her first trip into the big wide world. Together, they opened the front door to another sight Mira had never seen before. The small walk that led from the front door connected to a dirt road parallel to the house. Behind the road, tall trees sprang up, their leaves stretching out over the road and providing some shade. Mira, with her mother behind, took a few steps out along the walk toward the road. Her heart pounded from the excitement and anticipation.

Stopping suddenly, she reached out into the empty air. She rubbed her fingertips together, focusing her gaze directly in front of her. This was where the wall of mist had been, but now nothing held her back. There was just air, and her hand cut through it effortlessly. The road lay just a few feet before her.

“I’ve never been outside the bounds of the wall before. This is the farthest I could ever go.”

“Well, there’s nothing stopping you now,” said Jeana, who felt tempted to give her daughter a tender shove.

After a moment, Mira took a very deliberate step forward out onto the road. She looked as far as she could in each direction, but each way offered nothing more than trees before twisting into uncharted territory.

“There, that wasn’t so hard, right? Going to the left will bring you into town. That way will lead you up north to the mountains,” her mother said, gesturing to the right.

Without hesitation, Mira started toward the town. Soon the bend in the road came and their home disappeared behind the trees. Noticing this, she huddled a little closer to Jeana’s presence.

“Mom, why? Why did you keep me behind the walls?”

“Because life is fragile and accidents happen,” said Jeana, speaking the words like a mantra. She could tell her daughter still grappled with what she had been told, and she knew the grappling might last for a lifetime. Nothing felt real to her yet.

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“It means that we risk something being away from our home. Things seem calm now during this relaxing walk to a quiet town, but you have to remember that danger still exists, and it can hurt you most easily of all. To be honest about it, in the face of a carelessly used gift or a purposeful one, you would have no chance. So you need to be alert, always. Please, can you do that?” Jeana begged.

Mira listened to her mother carefully and gave another tentative nod. Jeana hated making her fear the things she would find, but anything that kept her alive would be worth it.

“If there’s ever a problem, your best bet is to run away, and keep running until you are safe. Nine times out of ten that’s my first move too,” she added.

“What if someone is attacking someone else and I’m the only one around to help?” Mira asked.

“I hate to say it, but my advice is not to get involved and to run for the hills. I can picture fifty different outcomes of that situation and in forty-nine of them you don’t walk away. Do you understand me? It’s not your fault. It’s just…you.”

“How do you know that I’m the only person like me…I mean, without a special power?”

Jeana thought for a moment, looking up and to the right.

“I suppose I can’t say with absolute certainty, but I’ve never heard anything remotely like it.”

Mira took a deep breath and raised her eyes to the sky, struggling to spit out something that just wouldn’t come. Looking away from her, Mira closed her eyes and braced herself as she spoke.

“When you found out, were you sorry that you had me?”

A little alarm went off in Jeana’s head, and she jumped to answer.

“Oh no, not at all! In a way we were relieved. You see, the web of the universe can give a baby any kind of gift, and that includes both good ones and harmful ones. As often as it’s a blessing, it’s a curse. Babyhood is incredibly dangerous because a gift can disrupt an internal organ or it can spring up at a tragic time. Imagine walking down stairs and suddenly turning to glass. Every baby is both incredibly precious and also very lucky. At the very least, something didn’t happen to take you away from us too soon.”

Her mother’s troubled words painted a bleak picture, and Mira’s stride became more subdued as her mood grew somber.

“How can you call it a gift even when it means a child doesn’t live?”

“Because there’s no telling what a quick end might save that child from.”

Jeana searched for a change of topic, but she couldn’t get her mind off of the peril her own child faced. “Makes me glad I only gave birth once,” Jeana added, but her feigned smile couldn’t cover her heavy feelings. There seemed to be so much sadness out there, and now Mira had to contend with the cold, scary place she had ventured into.

The pair came along the next house on the way to town, and a man appeared out in front of it. Lethargically, he tended a small garden, whacking at the ground with a shovel. Jeana’s fearful words still with them, Mira immediately ducked behind her. Mira peeked over her shoulder as they got closer, at once afraid and excited about meeting someone outside of her family.

“Oh, will you stop that. I know him, so you don’t need to cower behind me like that,” said Jeana.

And sure enough, the man, an older man, broached a warm smile of recognition and gave a friendly wave. He dropped the shovel and teetered over toward the road.

“Why, hello there,” he crooned.

“Hello, Mert. How are you?” Jeana asked. She smiled at him, pleased by the encounter.

“Not bad at all. I see you finally got your head out of the clouds,” Mert chuckled. “And is this what you’ve been hiding up there all along? Let me have a look at’cha. Well, I’ll be. You look just like your mother. The name’s Mert Bogger. It’s nice to meet you.”

He stuck out his hand for her to shake, but the motion startled her a bit and she shuffled back.

“Now, don’t be afraid. You can shake his hand,” said Jeana, pushing her forward.

“A little shy, I see,” Mert said to Jeana as Mira took his hand. It looked moist and gritty, probably because of the shovel and garden work.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Mira said. Taking back her hand, she smiled a little and stifled a sigh of relief.

“It’s because of genes, you know—Oh, about how you said I looked like my mother. It’s because of genes. Each parent supplies half of the genes we have.”

Mert chuckled a little, lost.

“Is that so? So young lady, who are you?” he asked, twisting his head and glaring at her from one eye. His piercing squint confused Mira, and she cast a puzzled glance at her mother.

“She doesn’t have a gift,” Jeana answered. Mert’s eyebrows jumped in astonishment, dropping again in an intense scrutiny.

“How is that possible?” he wondered, staring at the specimen before him. Mert wiggled his fingers with the temptation to poke and prod at her, but her first skittish recoil dissuaded him carrying through with it.

“We don’t know, exactly.”

“Yeah, well what can you do, Mr. Bogger?” Mira asked. Mert gave Jeana a nod, signaling that she should answer the question.

“Mert here doesn’t need to breathe,” she explained. Mert gave a satisfied nod of approval. The girl, however, responded with even greater confusion.

“Wait, you don’t need to breathe, but does that mean you still have lungs? Does your body still take in and use oxygen? Could you live under water or in outer space?”

Mert laughed loudly, seemingly gratified by the attention.

“I don’t know anything about that. It’s just who I am.”

At this point, Jeana spoke up.

“You know, Mira’s never actually watched anyone use their gifts. Would you like to see a demonstration? Is that ok, Mert?”

The old man shrugged, politely keeping any judgments about Jeana’s parenting to himself.

“How about I just lie on the ground here. Does that work for you?”

Jeana moved beside the old man, who lay flat on the ground with his eyes closed. She knelt down to look at him. Then she looked up at Mira. She had a curious look on her face, like the man was where she should be. Jeana softly pressed her hand against his forehead, letting her fingers lightly drag down his temples to his cheek. Suddenly, she hopped up and took her place next to her daughter. Mira, squinting, hadn’t detected any change in him at all.

“He looks dead,” she noted.

“Well, you might expect that from a man who doesn’t have to breathe,” Jeana replied.

***

The pair continued on down the road, and soon the forest relented to the village’s small buildings. Mira admired the wooden structures that looked so different from her own home. Some of the walls had an image of a crescent moon amidst clouds that was at once beautiful and confusing. Colored glass hung from their roofs, which caused splotches of red and green to swirl over the design as the wind twisted the glass.

While strolling past these buildings, they heard the noise of a crowd and a drumbeat from the center of town. People of all shapes and sizes milled about in the streets. They slowly joined the growing congregation.

“Look over there,” Jeana said, gesturing to the left. “That’s Corey Outpost, named after the village elder. This is our town.” Mira viewed the imposing building her mother referred to. A tower jutted up above the nearby houses, rising over stone walls. A man was stationed in the lookout.

“What is it for?” Mira asked.

“For town business, record keeping, storing supplies. Lots of things. Important meetings are held there when officials visit from the capitol. If there’s an emergency, that’s where people go.”

Signs of a large gathering diverted their attention. Turning a corner, they came upon the square, where a performer danced to the accompaniment of a band in front of a crowd. Tents had been set up around the perimeter, offering food or games.

Standing on her tiptoes, Mira struggled to catch glimpses of the female dancer, whose movements were both poised and elegant. Most impressive was the dancer’s balance; it allowed her to suspend her weight on one finger and twirl in a movement that defied gravity. The crowd cheered.

“What’s the purpose of all this?” Mira asked, forced to elevate her voice over the music.

“Look over there. Do you see the young men and women in the white uniforms? They will be going off to fight in the war, and this festival is for their good fortune.”

“A war? Who are they fighting?”

“We call it the Night and Day War. Our side is the shade. If there’s one thing you need to know about the war, it’s that some people resent us for our peace. But fighting it seems worse than losing, and so I pray that they fare better than their older brothers and sisters,” Jeana replied, frowning and scratching her forehead.

It didn’t make sense to Mira though, but she didn’t have much time to think about it because she suddenly bumped into someone who seemed to be sprouting oranges from his forearms. He had a straw in one and was drinking the juice. Jerking away, her eyes grew wide when she saw a buff, shirtless man standing beside her. A strange lump raced underneath his skin, and Mira gasped when she realized a squirrel had somehow gotten in there. It hissed at her, forcing Mira to huddle back near her mother.

Mira turned around, considering for a moment that each of the people who surrounded her—probably one hundred people—had some force that they could exert on the world around them. It struck her the kind of chaos that could occur if things got out of hand. Even though most of the people were passively watching the performer, it made Mira feel alone and defenseless.

“There’s one more thing you might want to check out,” Jeana said, steering her daughter to a tent in the corner they had already passed several times. No sign hung over the entryway and no sound came from within. Still, Jeana looked excited when they arrived.

“Go ahead inside. Here’s some money,” Jeana said, handing over a few coins.

“What is it?” Mira asked, but the only response her mother gave was to push her into the tent. She ducked down and slipped through the tent’s entryway. Mira immediately noticed that all sounds from outside, all commotion, had ceased. The dim light outside revealed a small wooden stool. Apart from a sliver of light brushing against the side of a stool, darkness cloaked everything.

She thought she was alone in the tent, but once she sat on the stool the voice of a young child came into her mind. It spoke absentmindedly, carelessly.

“How do you find something you’ve lost if you never knew you had it?”

“What are you talking about? Who are you?” Mira said aloud.

But the voice only repeated itself.

“What did I lose?” Mira asked.

“You are looking for someone you’ve never met.”