Authors: Venessa Kimball
I roll my eyes and mumble, “Whatever.”
Ezra claps his hands, bringing us back. “All right, kids, now it is time to see you in action! First, we split up with our mentors. We will combat, and then work on exchanging energy between each other. Then we will do the same between the four of you only. We will divide you up into a pair, and you will combat each other. Then you will exchange energy with your partner. If you don’t mind, we will save the ultimate combat of mentors vs. trainees until after lunch. I never like to whip up on green peas on an empty stomach.”
Luke laughs. “Touché, Ezra!”
Luke and Ezra exchange a high five. The four of us “green peas” look at each other with competitive zeal and huge grins on our faces. Nobody needs to say anything. We all simultaneously feel the same way. This is what we have been waiting for.
Each of us partner with our mentor and go to our own part of the facility. Angela and Siobhan take the open gym area. They need space with the very acrobatic combat style they both possess. Jake and Nick head to the pool. They need to be in close proximity to water just in case Nick’s fire-starting gets out of control. The shifting for Nick can be done anywhere, but they are going to try to incorporate that under water as well. Since being in the facility, Nick has graced us with a German shepherd shift, a camel shift, a Zach Efron shift, and a Kristen Stewart shift. He took requests also. It was awesome. But Nick needed to work on shifts that helped him blend into the environment, not draw attention to him.
Luke and Nate target his Latrosis, Nate’s ability to physically heal others with his mind and inner energy, his Qi. This ability is very valuable, but very difficult to balance and master. Luke thinks it would be best to start small. Scrapes, blisters, nose bleeds, headaches, and vertigo from the energy drain we experience after using our abilities. All of these are bound to happen with us using our abilities rigorously today.
Nate moves from Angela, to Nick, to me in rotation. He observes and takes inventory of our wounds and heals us with Luke’s monitoring. One slip-up on Nate’s part can leave any of us in really bad shape. Luke told us that Nate could be attempting to heal a blister on a finger and send a surge of energy too strong that could burn the finger to a crisp.
I can see Nate is very apprehensive to say the least. He knows that he could lose control and balance and hurt one of us. Luke reassures him that he is right there to step in if he senses an imbalance or surge coming. Luke developed a bit of Clairvoyance, being able to tell the future, over his years as a guardian.
Then there is Ezra and I. Ezra plans to work on the abilities that have been hidden, that I have not experimented with yet. I have already had plenty of practice with Telepathy and blocking my mind from others. Nate’s recent break-in still has me wondering about my strength. The other three abilities are still weak. I tell Ezra that they really don’t appear to be abilities at all.
Ezra says, “Oh, I assure you, Jes. You don’t realize what you have stored up inside of you.”
Ezra is as giddy about my gifts as a child would be waiting to open a birthday present.
Ezra and I head to the trails.
The trailhead?
I understood why the others are in the designated areas that the mentors chose. Jake for the fire stuff. Angela for the space. But which of my abilities qualifies the trails as my training area? I stand apprehensively thinking of all the possibilities.
Ezra says, “Jes. Take a leap of faith. You have spent most of your life calculating and organizing a bulletproof plan. It’s time to let go. Here you are safe. This is the time and place to practice your faith, your gut, and your intuition. All of those abilities within you have been weakened by having every little detail planned and accounted for in your life. You will need these skills as soon as you set foot above ground. Embrace them. They are within you, waiting to be awakened.”
Ezra walks ahead of me. I stand there, like I am physically stuck in setting quicksand. The longer I stand and think, the more indecisive I become. My ears follow Ezra’s footsteps leaving the gym. I put my head down and close my eyes.
Go, Jes. Leap. Don’t wait. Don’t hesitate.
I open my eyes and jog to catch up with Ezra.
Ezra and I stop at the mouth of the trail.
“All right, let’s go!” Ezra smiles and disappears right before my eyes.
What the hell?
I feel a warm presence near the back of my right shoulder. I turn, instantly in combat stance, and ready myself.
Ezra says, “Just jumping! Don’t tell me you’ve never tried it.” Ezra is standing there with his arms crossed over his chest now. “We aren’t going to fight yet, Jes. Just going to work on finding you.”
I roll my eyes and relax. “Okay. So what am I trying to find within me? And this jumping thing? I have only done that in my dreams.”
Ezra points at me. “Exactly. Lucid dreaming. It is like physical jumping, but in the ethereal sense. Astral projection can be lucid dreaming as well. Quantum jumping is the use of your inner life force and energy in waking hours. Lucid dreams are jumping using your life force and energy in your sleep.”
Again, I had the blank look on my face. “Uh. Okay?”
Ezra sighs. “Tell me about your dreams. Like the most vivid ones that you have had lately.”
I respond, “The most vivid one is the one where I am running to Mom and Dad’s house and I am confronted by a dark being.”
Ezra interrupts, “That is a life force that you experience. A Sondian guardian trying to enter your mind with his or her well-tuned abilities. The dark aura you see is the form your mind has given this life force. It is a person. Has it happened to you in waking hours?”
I reply more anxiously now, having heard this dream experience was becoming reality, “Yes. I had one on a daily basis until we came here.”
Ezra rubs the stubble on his chin.
I wait for a few moments. “Ezra? What? You are making me worry?”
Ezra says, “Sorry. I’m really glad we got out of Georgia when we did. Someone was onto you and your purpose. I can only imagine what could have happened.”
I interrupt him. “Well, let’s not, all right. I’m here now. Let’s not dwell on what could have happened.” I sound awfully brave for someone who is so full of fear right now. I listen to my own words and refocus. “Like I was saying, I am face to face with this aura, and I begin to use some inner force or energy to defend myself and my mom and dad. It feels like I’m using every single muscle in my body. When I wake, I am drained physically. I feel like I have just run a marathon. My brain is exhausted, too. The drain only lasts for half an hour or so, sleep paralysis. Then I’m able to get out of bed.”
Ezra says, “That is the Qi I was telling you about, your inner energy. The drain is not sleep paralysis. It is the exhaustion of your inner energy. You deplete your energy levels every time you use your Qi. We need to shorten your drain time, though. We don’t want you to get caught with your defenses down out in the field.
“When I first started using my Qi, it took me and hour or more to replenish. It took time to learn how to control the amount of energy I expended. I needed to pace myself. We will work on that. Something you may not realize is that Qi also helps you to Astral Project, jump, from place to place like I just did. The distance you can jump is gained with practice. Obviously, the shorter the jump the less drain on your Qi. At first, your projection will be weak. You will need to practice to get more accurate with where you jump.”
I have a question. “So you are saying I jumped in my dreams from my house to my parents’ house?”
Ezra reads this spark in my mind and my growing confidence. “There! Hold on to that fuel. That fuel protected you and your family when you jumped in your last nightmare while we were in Georgia. Yeah, it sucked that you were violated. Believe me when I tell you that I got you and your parents out as soon as I knew things were getting too close for comfort.”
I thought for a minute. So Ezra was really there, in my last jump.
Ezra is aware of my thought. “It was only guidance, Jes. You did all of the work. You had the grit, the strength to jump to your home from your apartment and fight back. You were able to project and fight without much drain. Keep that fire in you, Jes. Don’t let that fire die.”
Part of the morning, Ezra models and I follow. I have full control over the Ushering. I use it tactfully to render the enemy submissive to my command. I practice on the chefs in the dining hall. It is quite humorous to have Miss Char, Patrick, and Fenton creating awesome confections and home-style comfort food upon my request. Fenton is making homemade macaroni and cheese. Miss Char is baking peach and raspberry cobblers, as well as yummy snicker-doodle cookies. Patrick is working on a beef stew and White Lightning Chicken Chili. The southern dishes would have given our chefs a heart attack if they were in their normal state of mind.
Ezra and I are sitting at one of the tables.
I take advantage of the moment. I have wanted to ask Ezra this question for a while. It is just not something you can blurt out in between training sessions. My contact with Ezra outside of the training realm since we got here was nonexistent. I want to know more about the man that knows so very much about me. The man who seems to know every detail about my life, the events in it, and the people involved in it.
Ezra is snacking on homemade potato chips while he tells me about the afternoon training he has planned. I am having a protein shake and banana, training food in all its glory.
I tread cautiously as I try to find out more about Ezra Kahn.
“So how old were you when you were called to become a guardian?”
Ezra pauses mid-crunch. He wipes his hands with a napkin while he thinks. He clears his throat. “I was about your age. Maybe a couple of years younger. I had just graduated high school and was set to attend MIT in the fall.”
I am waiting for more, but nothing comes. “Well, where did you grow up?”
With this question, he is sipping his Pepsi. It is torture watching him drink the dark, carbonated bubbly in the frosty tumbler.
“I was raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts.” Ezra continues to eat his deep-fried snack as I pull at the stringy part of the banana peel.
I try to keep the conversation alive. “Well, that is convenient being that you grew up and were attending college in the same city. I have never been to Massachusetts. What was your family like as a child?”
With that question, he takes a long drink. “Mom and Dad were very faithful Christians and raised me to know my faith and spiritual connection with God. They also raised me to know that science and metaphysics could be the tools that God had given to us to make sense of the things that would otherwise be nonsensical or impossible. Very similar to your parents when it came to upbringing.” Ezra got a long crease in the middle of his forehead. “But I was defiant with the life my parents were guiding me through. I was a bullheaded and a rebellious kid.
“It took a slap in the face by the hand of God to make me realize it, since my parents had done everything in their power to turn things around with me. I was cocky, impulsive, and arrogant. I was always in trouble at school. In middle school I was labeled a troublemaker by teachers and classmates alike. I pretended that it didn’t bother me. I hung out with the other ‘bad kids’ and did some pretty unsavory things. No, I’m not telling you, Jes!” He smiles with that last comment.
“My parents were guardians. At the time, I was not aware. It was kept from me. My mother was a professor at MIT in the geophysics department. My father a professor at MIT in the biology department. They were always traveling for work. I never knew where they would go. But they were always home when I got home.” Ezra seems to daydream for a moment.
I interrupt, “Did they meet there? At MIT?” I continue to savor my French Vanilla flavored protein shake.
Ezra says, “They met while attending as students.”
“When did they become guardians?”
“When they entered university is what Sebastian told me.” Ezra looks down.
“Why was Sebastian the one to tell you?”
Ezra snaps, “Mom and Dad were murdered when I was in seventh grade.”
I lower my eyes to my banana skin and soften my voice. “I’m very sorry, Ezra.”
“I was at school. As I was walking out of the building, there he was standing across the street: Sebastian. He was dressed in a suit, tie, and tan trench coat to ward off the cold. He had salt-and-pepper hair and was shorter than me. He took his round sunglasses off when he saw me and walked across the street toward me. That was the first time I met the man that was an instrument in catapulting my life into chaos. He informed me of my parents passing, that I was a target and needed to go with him quickly. I wasn’t about to go with someone I didn’t know, let alone someone who just told me my parents had died.
“I took off running as hard as I could, but didn’t get far. Sebastian could jump. He blocked my every attempt at escape. It did not take many jumps to subdue me. I was in shock and more frightened than I had ever been in my life. I mean, I just saw a man disappear and reappear right in front of me. I fought and clawed and tried to scream. He grabbed my face and forced me to look at him. He stared at me, an odd stare, like he was burning a thought into my mind. I continued to fight him. Finally, he released me. He told me that I could already build walls. That was all he said.”
On the edge of my seat, I ask, “What did that mean?”
Ezra says, “It meant that he couldn’t Usher me. I was blocking his Compulsion. I could block him from reading me, too. All I remember after that was a cloth going over my face and the world slowing down until everything was dark. I remembered waking up in a very brightly lit, quiet room. I was lying on a couch, looking at the rotating ceiling fan, hoping that my parents’ death, this mysterious man, was all just a nightmare. I shot up off the couch with my heart racing, thinking that might jolt me from the nightmare. But it did not.”
“Hello, Ezra. I am Sebastian Onoch.” He is sitting in a chair in a dark corner of the room.
“Where are my parents? Where am I?”
“You are in a safe place. The facility. We started this safe place in this very room.” He pauses to look around the room and breathes in deeply. “You are here because your parents have been murdered.”
I growl, “You are a liar.”
Sebastian replies with genuine care. “No. I’m not, Ezra. This is real. God knows, this is real.”
I begin to cry with anger first, then sadness and sorrow. All of the terrible things I had done, been doing, all come flooding over me. I had so much regret built up inside me. I start to bang on the walls. I throw the only lamp in the room. I drop to the floor and yell until my voice is hoarse and exhausted. And Sebastian lets me. He let me be and go through the motions of my grief. When I finally slow my sobs to sniffles and hiccups, I look up at him. He has tears welling up in his own eyes. He looks like he is breaking inside for me. I stare at him.