Power Revealed (The Elementers) (13 page)

“Can you sense where they went?” Justin asked.

Raven reached out, but like before, it felt like the energy vibration had been covered up or somehow muffled. She didn’t understand it. “No. It’s like they’re hiding, but Elementers can’t do that. I’ve—” Raven stopped and turned. “Do you hear that?”

Justin spun back toward the school and listened carefully. “Is that Mr. Hamilton calling us?”

“We’d better head back.”

“Raven, we need to find who did this.”

“I can’t sense them so we don’t know where to search. Besides, Mr. Hamilton might also be in danger. We need to warn him.”

Chapter 18

Justin scanned the forest one last time and turned. “Okay. Let’s go.” Jogging back to the school, they called out to Mr. Hamilton who was clearly concerned about the ripped up parking lot and his two missing students. He stood near his jeep viewing the disaster area. They ran over to him and explained what happened.

“Are you sure it wasn’t just an accident? The weather is terrible right now. Maybe the power pole was old and weak,” Mr. Hamilton said.

“We sensed a Wind Elementer. Didn’t we, Raven?” Justin said.

Raven nodded. “We felt someone connect to the Wind energy just before it crashed down toward us.”

“Are you absolutely certain it was a Wind Elementer?” Mr. Hamilton turned to Raven.

Raven bit her lip. “Pretty sure.” Mr. Hamilton raised his eyebrows at both of them.

Justin stepped forward. “Pretty sure? We felt him!”

“It didn’t feel like a normal Elementer. The energy signature became kind of muffled—and then it just disappeared. I thought it was an Elementer when the wind picked up and the pole fell, but after that, it wasn’t what I usually sense around an Elementer. I’m just not sure.”

Justin folded his arms across his chest in defiance. “Somebody tried to fry us. It wasn’t an accident!”

“Be reasonable. Why would anyone want to hurt the two of you?” Mr. Hamilton asked.

Justin wanted to tell them that it must have been Rex and the Council, but he knew what Mr. Hamilton would say. How to make it sound like he wasn’t paranoid? “What if they’re not happy that I can control multiple elements?”

Mr. Hamilton looked at Justin with a look of care, but coated with a patronizing air. “Justin, they’re concerned. That’s all.”

“Rex said, right in front of me, that the Council is going to have to do something about me. Maybe the easiest thing to do is to get rid of me.” Saying the words out loud sent a chill down Justin’s spine.

“Justin, they’re simply concerned about your safety. They’d never try to hurt you and they’d definitely never resort to murder.”

Justin knew he should keep his mouth shout, but thoughts of his Grandpa forced the words out. “They have before.” It felt good to say it, but as soon as he saw the look on Mr. Hamilton’s face, he knew his theory would never be taken seriously. Mr. Hamilton was part of the establishment. Maybe not behind it, but definitely linked to the Council. If he was going to find the truth about Henry, he needed to look elsewhere.

“What are you talking about?” Mr. Hamilton said.

Justin simply shook his head. “It’s nothing. Forget it.”

Mr. Hamilton seemed to want to push the matter more, but after a few seconds, he sighed. “We’d better clean things up a bit and then get out of here.”

Justin wanted to keep looking for their attacker, but since Raven couldn’t sense them anymore, he figured they must have taken off. He and Raven followed Mr. Hamilton’s instructions for making the scene look slightly more natural and soon they were driving east of town to find a secluded spot to train.

Chapter 19

School was a waste of time. He couldn’t remember a thing any of the teachers said. He had bigger things to worry about than Romeo and Juliet or what some famous person did a long time ago. At least it was the weekend. As he dropped his backpack on the living room floor and walked into the kitchen, he found his mom sitting at the kitchen table with her head in her hands.

“Mom?” Justin placed his hand on her shoulder. 

She looked up and put a forced smile on her face. “Oh, sorry. I guess I didn’t hear you come in. How was school?” As she turned toward him, he saw the photo of Henry and himself at the Grand Canyon sitting on her lap. A stab of pain shot into his chest, but he forced a smile too.

“Oh, fine.” Justin sat down beside his mom. “School.” As if that said it all.

“Grandma sent you a package.” She nodded toward a large cardboard box with ‘Fragile’ written all over it and one corner dented in.

Justin found a pair of scissors sitting on an unpacked box and opened the package. He pulled out his white dress shirt. He must have left it at their house after the funeral. Underneath was a note. He read it out loud for his mom’s benefit.

Justin, inside are a few of Henry’s things that I think he would have wanted you to have. I miss you a lot. I’ll try to visit this summer. Take care of yourself. Love, Grandma.

Justin pulled out Henry’s binoculars, ham radio, Swiss Army knife, and the walkie talkies they always took while backpacking. Protected in multiple layers of bubble wrap was Henry’s antique storm glass. Justin pulled it out and inspected it. He remembered Henry telling him stories of how Admiral Fitzroy used a storm glass just like this one while traveling aboard the HMS Beagle during the historic voyage with Darwin. Justin showed it to his mom. “It didn’t break.”

The final item was a box filled with some photographs and papers. He piled the items back in the box. “How are you doing?” Justin asked his mom.

She looked into his eyes and Justin knew the answer. But then she glanced away and said, “Fine. Your dad called and it looks like he’ll be a little late, so we won’t have dinner till around six.”

“Okay, I’m going to put these away,” Justin picked up the box and carried it upstairs to his room setting it on his desk next to his bed. He grabbed the pile of photos and sat on his bed. They were photos of Henry as a young man in his late teens and twenties. Justin had seen pictures of Henry when he was young, but he didn’t recall ever seeing these specific photos. Halfway through the pile, he froze and stared at the picture in front of him. It was more recent than the others. Grandma and Henry were sitting in their back yard with a group of friends. Judging from their age, the photo must have been taken about fifteen years ago. Justin recognized Mr. Wittington, an old friend of Henry’s. There were two others he didn’t recognize. But the guy sitting on the far left wore a cowboy hat and looked very much like a younger version of Rex.

Mr. Hamilton said Henry wouldn’t have told Grandma about his powers, but Justin wondered now if that was true if Rex had been hanging out at their house. Justin needed to find out the truth about Rex and Henry. Even if Grandma didn’t know about Henry’s abilities, she might still know something that could help him. Justin pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed his grandma.

***

“Yes, Grams, I’ve made some friends. Yes, some of them are girls.” Justin shook his head. Grams loved to be a match maker for everyone around her, but this was the first time she tried to play that role with him. “But I called because I wanted to thank you for the package.”

“Oh, you’re welcome. Henry would be happy to know you will use them,” she said.

“Thanks also for the photos. I don’t think I’ve ever seen some them before.”

“I went through his things and came across the photos in an old box. They reminded me so much of you that I thought it would be nice for you to have some of them.”

“Do you remember the photo of the two of you with four other guys in your backyard? Mr. Wittington was there. It must have been about fifteen years ago.”

There was a pause. “Oh, yes. We were sitting around the patio?”

“That’s the one.”

“Did I send you that one? I only meant to give you ones from when Henry was a young man. You wouldn’t be interested in a picture with a bunch of old people.”

“One of them wasn’t that old.”

“No, I suppose Rex would have been in his twenties back then.”

“Rex? Who was he?” Justin asked.

“They were all friends of Henry.”

“Friends?”

“Henry and Charles had been friends since before I knew Henry. The others Henry came to know through the years. They all shared a sort of kinship,” Grandma said.

“Kinship?”

“It sounds ridiculous to say it out loud.”

“What?”

“It’s just—oh, I don’t know how to explain it.” Grams paused. “There was something special about Henry. I always had a feeling that these men and a few others I occasionally met understood it better than I did. I know that sounds silly.”

“I don’t think that’s silly. What was special about Henry?” Justin leaned forward.

“That will sound even more absurd. I’ve never said anything to anybody. Henry made me promise. But now that he’s no longer here, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt if I told you.”

“Told me what, Grams?” Justin nearly bounced through the roof in pent up anticipation.

“There was this time that—”

“What?” Justin had to resist not shouting.

Grams sighed. “Okay. When your mom was four, we took her river rafting with us down a section of the Colorado River. I had been a little hesitant to take her, but she was never quite as curious as you were, so I thought she’d be safe with the help of her life jacket and our constant watch. But, at one point, we sighted a pair of Bald Eagles overhead. We looked up for only a few moments, but when we looked down—” Justin could hear Grams voice choke. He’d never heard this story before. “When we looked down, your mother was gone. We scanned the water and Henry spotted her at least fifteen feet behind and to the side of us in the rushing water. The current was stronger in that spot and the river pulled her toward a section of rocks. My heart almost stopped. There was no way we could reach her before she smashed into the rocks.”

Justin gripped his phone, unwilling to say anything as his grandma paused, transfixed by the story and not wanting to interrupt her. His grandma hesitated, but then continued. “Suddenly, a huge gust of wind blew into the canyon right toward the spot of the river where your mother struggled. I’ve never seen anything like it. The wind was so focused and strong that it reminded me of what it looks like when you blow on hot soup. The wind pushed the water and Mary to the side away from the rocks and then directly toward us until we could reach in to pull her out.”

Grams sighed. “Henry knew better than to try to convince me it was a freak gust of wind. There had been a few strange things I’d seen around him before, but I had passed them off as the unpredictability of nature. But I knew Henry had saved Mary. I know it sounds crazy, but I just knew it in my bones. He wouldn’t admit to anything, he said he couldn’t talk about it. For the next couple days, I was upset with him because I was sure he was keeping secrets from me. But he finally came to me and admitted that he had helped Mary, but he said he couldn’t tell me how. He asked me if I loved and trusted him. I did. So he asked me to not ask for an explanation and to never tell anyone what happened that day.”

“What does this have to do with the people in the photo?” Justin said.

“I just told you this story and you’re asking me about a photo? Were you listening?” Grandma said.

Justin was so intent on learning the truth about Rex, he wasn’t being careful about how things appeared to his grandma. It was clear she didn’t know about Elementers. “Yes, I heard. If you say that’s what you saw, I believe you.”

“Thank you, Justin. It was hard knowing Henry kept something from me, but I believe in my heart that it was something he had to do. But I sometimes felt that others knew his secret. Whenever Charles and a few others were around, including the men in that photo, I couldn’t help but feel like an outsider. A special bond existed between them. Honestly, I felt like he shared that bond with you too. I didn’t resent it. I loved the fact that the two of you were so close, but I couldn’t help but wonder if—”

“Wonder what?” Justin said.