Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The classes were not at all what she expected.
The room was bright and sunny, thankfully aboveground.
Sheer curtains made the thin winter sunlight mellow; there were comfortable blue-upholstered couches scattered around.
A merry fire crackled in a stone fireplace, a reproduction of van Gogh’s “Starry Night” hung on one wall, and a watercolor of poppies in a wheat field on another.
The room was full of plants—philodendrons trailing green, orchids in small terra-cotta pots, a small orange tree set in the sunlight near the window.
A woman stood before the window, her golden hair catching fire. Four other women were on the couches, one huddling next to a taller red-haired lady. Three teenage boys and one dark-haired man took some of the other seats.
“It’s Rowan, isn’t it?” Dr. Jilssen said, pumping her hand. His sticklike paw trembled with excitement, his soggy eyes behind their horn-rimmed glasses devouring her. “Come in, come in.”
Rowan’s stomach turned over and rose, choking her. She tried to free her hand from the doctor’s but couldn’t. Justin tensed next to her.
“Dr. Jilssen,” the golden-haired woman said crisply, pushing her glasses up her sharp nose.
Jilssen finally let go of Rowan’s hand, leaving her pulse to thunder in her ears.
Sick, I’m going to be sick. But the feeling passed away as quickly as it had arisen.
“Leave the girl alone. You’re an observer.
Mr. Delgado, will you be participating today? ”
“Of course,” Justin said. “I’m her mentor.”
“Good enough.” She wasn’t tall, but her posture made her seem that way.
Her hair was pulled back in a chignon, stray strands escaping, but even those looked planned, intentional.
She wore a blue peasant shirt and a pair of jeans, but the jeans were ironed, sharp creases standing out.
Her eyes blazed green in the sunlight behind the lenses of her glasses, and a pair of long silver hoops glittered in her ears.
“Will you please take a seat, then, and we’ll begin. Edward, why don’t you go first?”
Rowan lowered herself onto a blue velvet couch. Justin settled right next to her.
A teenage boy with faint ghosts of acne on his face stood up. “I, ah, I’m Eddie,” he said to Rowan. “I’m borderline telepathic. I can make people go to sleep.”
Rowan blinked. “Really?” She tried not to flinch. The boy was obviously painfully shy. Do they all just say it out loud like that?
“Who wants to?” he said, glancing at the rest of the class, and Dr. Jilssen raised one dry hand.
“You might as well try it on me, boy.” He shifted his thin frame inside his lab coat, a nervous movement. “Anything for research, you know.”
The boy’s dark, moist gaze swiveled around and met the doctor’s. “Noctis,” he mumbled; his pupils swelled, darkening his eyes.
The doctor, who had been perched on a straight-backed chair, suddenly slumped.
“Good,” the woman said.
Rowan was suddenly fascinated. The teenage boy managed to catch the doctor as he almost fell off the chair.
But what excited Rowan was that she could see, somehow, what Eddie was doing, just like when she walked into the ward she could tell who was having trouble on a particular day, nurses as well as patients.
She could sense exactly where the boy had pressed to put the doctor to sleep.
She could also see how to do it much more quickly and easily.
Justin was completely still next to her, but all the people in the class were giving him funny little sidelong looks.
“Now,” the woman said, “Edward’s telepathy is sight-line, which is fairly usual. Amanda, why don’t you see what you can do? Edward, try to retain control of the doctor’s sleep pattern. Remember, I’m right here.”
The girl, Amanda, was dressed in a red sweatshirt and a ragged pair of jeans. “I don’t want to hurt him, Ms. Kate.” She stood, reluctantly. Her hair was a shock of carrot-top red, unsuccessfully slicked down with gel.
“Then don’t.” Kate’s tone softened. “Remember, I’m here. There’s no danger.”
The girl nodded, biting her lip. “I’m Amanda,” she said softly, not meeting Rowan’s gaze. “I can make people do things, sometimes.”
“A variant of telepathy and compulsion,” Ms. Kate corrected primly. “Whenever you like, young lady.”
Amanda approached Eddie cautiously. He sidled away from her, nervous, but when she stopped about four feet away, a change came over her. “Don’t be silly.” Her tone was suddenly deep with authority. “I won’t hurt you. Why don’t you come with me?”
Rowan found herself trembling. She’s pushing at him with her mind. Look at that. It’s incredible—and I can see it. I could DO it. I never knew…
“Sloppy, Amanda,” Kate said. “Sharpen your focus.”
Justin took Rowan’s free hand. She was clutching her folder in her other fist, stiff paper crumpling. The feeling of his skin soothed her.
“Come with me,” Amanda repeated, her face gone pale. “Leave him alone.”
Eddie made a small sound, breath rushing out of him. Dr. Jilssen swayed in his arms.
“All right, that’s enough.” Kate moved forward, out of the bar of sunlight. “Let go, Amanda. You too, Edward. Very good. Now, did everyone note that Eddie kept physical contact with the good Doctor while fighting off Amanda’s pressure?”
The doctor woke with a start and grinned broadly at Eddie. He seemed not to mind being put to sleep or awakened.
And yet… there was a frightened, ratty little gleam in the doctor’s eyes. It had come and gone so quickly Rowan wasn’t sure she’d seen it.
These people are like me. Dad would have loved this.
“All receptive telepathy Talents are helped by physical contact, and most projective telepathy Talents are as well,” Kate continued as Eddie and Amanda took their seats again. “Can someone give me an example of a projective telepathy Talent that isn’t helped by physical contact?”
Another teenage boy raised his hand. He had a smooth cap of sandy blond hair and blue eyes fringed with the thick eyelashes some boys were blessed with. “Some types of Pushing?” he ventured. “And the illusion-based talents, like Monica’s?”
“Very good.” Kate nodded. “The projective Talents that seem to utilize a form of autosuggestion are not generally helped by physical contact. In certain cases, like Mr. Delgado, aspects of ‘the push’, as it’s called, aren’t because of the feedback from the pain endured by the subject.
Certain ‘magnification’ types of telepathy also exhibit this trait to a lesser degree. ”
As Kate continued speaking, Rowan slipped her hand free of Justin’s and began taking notes. This was fascinating, and if Henderson hadn’t been spending so much time patiently coaching her, she would have been completely lost in the terminology.
“Do we get to see Del do something?” the third teenage boy said.
“No.” Kate’s freezing look could have iced over the window. “Mr. Delgado’s talent is not for public display.”
The boy wasn’t put off at all. “Is it true he was in Sigma?”
Delgado didn’t move. Kate glanced at him. “Ask him, Thomas, not me. Now, if you don’t mind, let’s get back to class.”
“What about her?” Thomas persisted. “What can she do?”
My God, he’s talking about me, Rowan realized.
“Miss Price?” Kate asked. “Are you comfortable with speaking about your talent, for Thomas’s edification? I’m sure the rest of us are curious, as well.”
Justin turned to look at her.
Rowan gathered herself. “Oh.” Her voice sounded strange even to herself. “I don’t know what you’d call it. I… I help people feel better.” She trailed off, appealed to Justin with a mute glance.
“Rowan’s Talent is particularly interesting. With your permission, Miss Kate?”
“Of course.” The teacher nodded, folding her arms.
Justin leaned forward, resting elbows on knees.
“Miss Price registers a 13 on the Matheson scale,” he said, and everyone’s eyes got a little rounder.
“Her talents seem concentrated in telepathy and empathy, with a very interesting twist. Rowan helps people feel safer, calmer, almost like a tranquilizer. She calls it ‘the touch’, and it’s particularly useful on developmentally-disabled people and the mentally ill. ”
“Those are the hardest kinds of people to Push,” Amanda said.
Rowan’s cheeks were hot.
“She has a small but significant telekinetic talent that seems to affect living tissue, speeding the healing process; there is also a certain degree of precognition present.” Justin had everyone’s attention. “With proper training, most kinds of applied telepathy will probably be available to her.”
“Very good, Mr. Delgado.” Kate took up the thread. “Now, can anyone tell me what the drawback to mixed telepathy and empathy is?”
Rowan found herself holding Justin’s hand again. Why do I do that?
He squeezed back, and she had to swallow the lump in her throat. Her father would have absolutely been over the moon. He had always believed in unseen things.
She didn’t know what she’d expected, but this quiet acceptance certainly wasn’t it. Maybe it wasn’t so bad being a freak.
As soon as she thought so, however, she saw her father’s ghostly face and heard the chilling little gurgle as all the light in her father’s body went out. It is bad, she reminded herself grimly. It is bad. It killed Daddy, and it killed Hilary, and it—
“Rowan? You okay?” Justin asked quietly, almost whispering.
“Fine,” Rowan whispered back, and took a deep breath. I can handle this. I can do this. I have to, if I want to get back at the people who killed Daddy.
Then she looked up, and Dr. Jilssen hurriedly looked away, as if he’d been staring at her.