13. Olly #2
“I know this sounds really wonky,” I replied, “but I hope you know me well enough by now to know I wouldn’t make up some crazy story to elicit sympathy or something.” He nodded and let out a low moan at the taste of whatever was all piled up on his fork.
I laughed, but continued, “I think I already told you about how I spent almost eight years of my early life being a kind of test case for a cult, I guess you could call them. My parents got compensation from them to run experiments on my brother and me. By the time my parents realized how fucked up it all was, this group didn’t want us to leave.
We were too valuable to them, and we knew too much.
The night we ran, Christmas Eve, was the last time I saw any of my family alive.
I was eight.” It was my turn to cut up some of my brunch, and I relished the taste of the raspberries, the cream cheese drizzle, and the custard in the crêpe.
“That’s just...I’m so sorry, Olly. Um, I know painful things aren’t a contest, but maybe I can understand, just a bit?
I grew up all over the world, on sailboats and on isolated land, because my parents were running from a cult.
Of course, that’s not what they called themselves.
They claimed to be a harmless new religious movement or a scientific research group, depending on who you asked.
I saw places and things I can sometimes barely remember, and other things crystal clear like they just happened yesterday.
My little sister, Rosie, died of dengue fever when she was ten, and we buried her in a peaceful spot in Kenya.
My parents gave me a bunch of money, saying I’d be safer on my own, and took off in their boat.
They had always wanted to sail around the world, but thought it too dangerous with my sister being so young.
I was older. Seventeen when they decided to take the risk.
I never heard from them again. If the cult caught up with them, pirates, a storm...
I have no idea. I’ve had the same phone number as I did back then and the same email address.
And I’ve heard nothing since the day they arranged for me to get to the airport to come to Canada. ”
My crepe looked less appetizing as I thought of a young Clark left twisting in the breeze in Kenya, with no family support aside from money, and only being seventeen. “May I ask, why Canada? If you had the means to go anywhere in the world, I mean.”
“Hey, Canada is not bad. Don’t knock it until you’ve seen families living on a city dump scavenging to survive, or your parents poring over maps and charting courses for practically abandoned places, terrified that their children would be found.
” He cleared his throat, and I could tell he was trying not to cry.
“Canada is where I’m originally from. I have a birth certificate, Social Insurance Number, and the passport.
They all say I was born in Manitoba, and I have memories of living there while I was sick.
I liked it, though. I remember that. Up until The Organization got involved, I was pretty lucky.
I beat leukemia, I had awesome parents, and I got to play hockey on a frozen lake. Who could want more?”
I was smiling with him right up until he said the words, the name of the evil that hunted both of our families to death, quite literally.
I didn’t want to dig at it, but I had to know.
I leaned in over my crepe and asked, “Clark, did you just call the cult ‘The Organization’? As in, ‘The Organization For the Advanced Mind’?”
Clark went still, then asked in a voice just above a whisper, “Where did you hear that name?”
“Where do you think? I mean, how many murderous cults are out there, running experiments on children for goddess knows what purpose? They were after your sister, right? They must have seen psychic potential in her, and weren’t going to stop until it was theirs. That’s what they did to me.”
“Wait, this is...this is a lot. And this baby...?” Clark asked, looking stricken. “What’s to stop them from coming after you again?” He was looking a bit pale, and I pushed my mango smoothie across the table to him.
“Drink some of this. Your blood sugar might be dropping. You look like you’re about to faint.
I’m serious,” I added when he initially didn’t pick up the glass.
He followed my instructions, followed up the smoothie with some water and toast, and said he felt much better.
“Are you okay if I keep going, or would you rather wait?”
“No, I’m tired of waiting. I want answers, if there are any out there,” Clark said firmly, in a way that was like him when he’s upset.
I did a gentle read and saw his anger and my child, newborn and helpless.
I retreated from his thoughts, though I had many questions about what he was visualising.
I slid my hand across the table, palm up, making it his choice if we held hands or not.
He immediately laced our fingers together, and I closed my eyes, at peace if only for those few seconds before I started talking again.
“I was kind of hoping my gifts would stop them. I don’t know how much of this stuff you believe in, but in addition to reading minds—I have a strict code of ethics around that, you don’t have to worry—I also have foresight.
I can draw the future. That’s why I never show my art to you or Shepard, or anyone.
It’s too dangerous. People see the future on a piece of paper and what happens?
They either are fine with it, or they go nuts trying to change the future they think they see. And they can’t.”
“I knew you could read my mind,” Clark said, but it wasn’t in an accusatory tone, more just like stating a fact. I wasn’t surprised. Clark was by far the leakiest adult I’d ever come across.
“Just surface thoughts, nothing deep. And I can teach you to shield if you like, so you can stop your thoughts from pouring out of you. Psychics aren’t everywhere. We are actually quite rare, but if you come across another one, they will know how to read you like a book.”
“Shields, okay. Let’s do it. After our trip to Bob’s?”
“Sure,” I said, taking another slice of crepe off my plate and enjoying the hell out of it.
“So you think the future is already written in stone? Because I don’t think I believe in fate.” He followed my example with his brioche and fruit, pleasure washing over him as he ate. I thought about the best way to answer him as I attacked the custard I’d ordered on the side.
“I don’t think it’s written in stone, but I do think some things are inevitable. And when they show up in my sketchpad, that’s a pretty good indicator that they aren’t going to change. Especially if the same scene shows up fifty times, just at different angles.”
“Show me,” he said, more like a demand than a question.
I didn’t like that tone, but then I got it.
Clark was scared, and he was trying to have control over something because at this moment he felt like he had control over nothing.
“Show me your sketchpads, or just one sketchpad, and we’ll see if I believe you. ”
I let out a chuckle of sorts. “I keep those drawings locked up for several reasons. I don’t even know what half of them mean, probably because the things that need to happen in my life to bring those events about haven’t happened yet.
But what if you see something in there you can’t handle?
Or something you start to obsess about? Maybe something involving you and me, and you’re not ready to process it? ”
Clark seemed to think on this and just shook his head, as if my warnings meant nothing. “I really want to see the books. Or book. Whatever you can share. Please.”
Well, fuck. “Not tonight. There’s someone whose advice I want, first. I think that’s fair, considering I rarely show these pictures to anyone.”
I could feel it practically wafting off Clark, the thought, But I’m not just anyone.