Kei

  “The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”

  --H.P. Lovecraft

  I lay silently in my tank, breathing in and out, drawing up the dried leaves of noise from my system and breathing them out as bright, hot, imaginary sparks.

  But it does no good. The thought of child soldiers is too much.

  Our study session with Tim ended fast after they came up, and I took my leave and hurried home with Haley at my heels, nodding brusquely in answer to everything. Not trusting myself to speak.

  I should have been a better friend to her. Or at least a better co-conspirator.

  But there is too much swirling within me right now. If I let it free, my power may come with it. And all my careful strategies and safeguards will fall to ash. Along with everything else around us.

  So I lay an iron grip upon my soul, and tread silently home. Peace holds until I take refuge in one of their tanks, praying for a deeper silence.

  There is a memory I do not wish to look at. Not forgotten, not suppressed. Just not acknowledged.

  But today, as I lay here floating, clarity is the enemy. And the calm of this silent darkness makes my thoughts burn like the sun in the sky.

  Finally I sink into my rising memories, my soul keening though I do not know why.

  ***

  The Forest.

  I remember watching from a great distance, desperation making my senses unimaginably sharp, as my father lays bleeding and Kestrel stands over him. Triumphant, yet desperate.

  I watch from the shadows amidst the trees. Her hounds are circling, but have not yet caught my scent. My gift will spin them like a carousel before it is through with them. False things of the spirit are like leaves in its invisible winds.

  And a wind is already rising.

  “If you want to destroy my work, why tell me at all?” Kestrel stares down at Yoshi, challenging. Betrayed. He gazes back, and even from here, I can feel his sorrow. His compassion. Yoshi’s broken body is propped up against the great stump of a fallen redwood, but he looks at her as if she’s the one in pain.

  Dad shakes his head. “I don’t want to destroy you. There’s still hope for you as you are. But if you find out you’re in a net from which there’s no escaping, I know how easy you’ll find it to cover all your tracks. Including the girls.” I can see his eyes, and they are filled with sadness. “And they deserve better.”

  “You think I don’t care about them?”

  “You love what they can do for you, and what they represent. But don’t pretend you didn’t hunt us down because your other girls didn’t measure up to what Kei is capable of.” He coughs slightly, and I can see blood on his lips. How he can remain this calm, I can’t imagine.

  Kestrel snarls as she towers over him. “You think I can’t do this without you?”

  “I think you’ve tried. Every day for the last five years, and you’ve failed. You don’t have me, you don’t have my records, and you have no idea what’s missing in the way you raise your children. You can’t even imagine raising them with love, so what can I tell you about the rest?” His breathing grows labored, but his eyes are fixed on Kestrel’s. “They need to be children, not weapons. You start them out broken, and then wonder why they’re lacking.” He shakes his head. “You can fix that much, at least. Give them a life and a reason to love you. Not brainwashing and conditioning. You call them ‘disappointments’? I’m surprised they’ve lasted this long.”

  Kestrel watches him, cold and unblinking, looking like the falcon she’s named for. Then her head snaps to one side.

  “Search the forest. Find her.” Her gaze flashes back to Yoshi. “And save him.” Her glare is merciless. “This isn’t over.”

  “But it is,” Yoshi disagrees. And his eyes close.

  So do mine. I turn, open them again, and flee into the forest.

  Soon, I will be running for the sea.

  ***

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  I crawl from my float to my shower to my bed, murmuring acknowledgements as Anya’s family wishes me goodnight.

  This is a kind place, but the memory of such goodness twists in me like a knife, reminding of what I’ve lost. Reminding me there are those who would come only to take, people for whom my entire existence has been nothing but a resource to harvest.

  An instrument to be honed. A soldier to be deployed.

  And I am remembering enough, now, to realize it will only get worse.

  When my power flows, my body and mind will heal. I can accelerate the process, or ignore it, but eventually my memories will return regardless.

  But if there is any chance my father still lives, I can not fight the return of this knowledge, no matter how painful it might be.

  I am his only chance, just as he was once mine.

  So I return to my bed as if to a battlefield. If the last nights have taught me anything, it’s that I’m like as not to see more glimmers of the past. And knowing what I do now makes me dread what I must find.

  What happened to the Island? To the children on it? Were we all shaped to some darker purpose?

  And why, as I stare down at my pillow, do I feel such a sense of dread in contemplating the end to that era of my life?

  I was a child. Glimpses of that sunlit life should not hang over me like night terrors.

  I lay down to rest. We shall see, soon enough, whatever this night shall bring.

  ***

  The Island of my childhood. The Past…

  “Dream journaling,” Kerry announces, waving at a pile of notebooks on the table next to her. “This is a piece of homework you’re never going to turn in.”

  I blink at Dante’s cousin, and exchange a glance with him.

  “Okaaay,” Anton says, speaking for all of us.

  Kerry grins. “In a minute, you’re all going to come forward and pick your favorite notebook to take home today, and set it beside your bed with a pen. Whenever you wake up and remember a dream, you’re to write it down – assuming you’re not trying to get right back to sleep or something.”

  She pauses, and looks us over, eyes shining. We wait for the rest.

  “And that’s it?” I ask finally.

  Kerry winks at me. “That’s it. You’ll do it, or you won’t do it.”

  “Why are we doing it?”

  At the other end of Kerry’s table, Lyra sighs and shrugs. “Because it’s possible to awaken within the dream,” she explains. “Even to guide it so you’re dreaming about whatever you want to dream about. It’s called lucid dreaming, and you’ll be doing it soon enough, if you feel like it.”

  Kerry shoots her a warning glance, shaking her head slightly.

  But Lyra shakes her head right back. “They deserve to hear the rest,” she says quietly to her sister, pitched low enough most of the class can’t hear her. But I can.

  Lyra raises her voice again. “Keep a dream journal and it will help you later, when you decide to lucid dream.”“If you decide to lucid dream,” Kerry interjects.

  “Which you will,” Lyra insists. “But that’s all this is. Do it, or not do it. How much you do it, though, says exactly how much it will help you later.”

  ***

  “Lucid dreaming?” Grimm asks. An hour later, and another conversation is occurring within sight of my Listening Tree, and just barely within earshot. I crouch in its limbs like a hunted animal, waiting for her predators to pass. But there is no fear, only curiosity.

  “That bothers you?” Kestrel answers.

  “It has dangers, as well you know.”

  “Everything we do has dangers.” Kestrel eyes him. “Why the sudden concern?”

  Grimm snorts. “No concern at all. You know me. I just want to know you know what you’re doing, and aren’t just juggling as many knives as you can.”

  She turns towards the forest. “It’s a stepping stone, Lucas. If we’re going to leverage the most-powerful techniques, they need to be grounded in it first.”

  He raises an eyebrow. “Erickson never used it.”

  “Erickson acknowledged the power of dreams. And if I had the greatest hypnotherapist in history on this island, I could skip a few steps also.” Kestrel shrugs. “We work with the tools we have.”

  Grimm glances back towards the playground of laughing children. “Or the ones we can make.”

  ***

  Waycross. The Present…

  I start awake, alone in the darkness.

  A cold wind keens past my windowsill, an echo of the ice in my soul, and I lay utterly still. My breath is glacially slow, and I gather my will around my frantically beating heart – a gentle vise forcing my body to calm itself one step at a time.

  The rising stormwind calms and recedes, and I hold myself in careful silence, stilling even my thoughts until my power falters as well.

  A fistful of insights and epiphanies fade with it, but the trade is a good one. I have no idea what my unchecked Gift would bring to this place, but I know it would be ruin.

  So I lay there in silence and darkness, until the dawn’s light touches my window, and the world beyond stirs naturally, without my touch. Then, and only then, do I move to rise.

  And then I see her in my doorway, slowly closing the door behind her.

  “We need to talk,” Haley says softly. “Later. I’ll let Anya know I’m taking you to see some friends after school.” The implication is unspoken.

  Not here. And not in school.

  I nod, silently.

  We talked with Tim, of course. And afterwards, in the forest as we walked home yesterday.

  If there is a conspiracy, and it looks like there’s something, then we want to stay off its radar for now. To the extent we can, given Haley and I appear to be exactly the kinds of kids they’re looking for.

  I admit I was upset after reading about Kestrel, who the conspirators knew, even if she was not among them. But the deadly calm that settled over me last night was, ironically, a little reassuring to Haley and Tim.

  I don’t feel betrayed by a home I’ve just found, as Waycross is more of a wayrest for me, anyway.

  But I’m absolutely used to being the focus of attention for people with ulterior motives.

  People willing to do anything to achieve them. Waycross feels less like a nightmare to me than a logical outcome, if a disturbing one.

  I’ve seen worse, and I will again.

  “Tam?” I ask finally, the murmur of my voice a whisper that does not carry. “Emily?”

  Haley shakes her head, her emerald eyes dark.

  “Not yet,” she says finally. Words freighted with meaning. Though I wonder if Haley wants to keep them safe from this knowledge, safe from what we do next… or us safe from them.

  Only hours, and already barriers are rising among us. I’ve never had much use for lies.

  There’s not much more to say, not now that we’re watching every word. Wondering who might be listening.

  Haley slips away to her room, and I pad downstairs to the basement and the one key I have left.

  My memories are no longer a complete mystery. But if what the Aspects told me about the sigils is true, there may be more dangers lurking in my mind than desperation and despair.

  Still, ignorance can not save me. Running blind down a path full of snares will only get me caught. Or killed.

  If someone has been playing games with my mind since childhood, I need to know who and how and why.

  I find my way to the great white cocoons of the floatation tanks and then bathe in the waking dream that has become my deepest memories.

  But this time, nothing comes. Or rather, everything swirls up, but only the image of us all as children comes to me. Children, and dressed as toy knights, strutting back and forth in our hidden fortress.

  Not realizing that to someone watching over us, that is exactly what we are.

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