The Search for Sam

Before I know it, I’m laughing too, and starting to tell him my story.

Malcolm and I develop a routine, sleeping by day and walking by night. We graze farmland and forests and roadside Dumpsters for sustenance. We cross hills, streams, and highways. We spend weeks—months?—like this. I begin to lose track of time.

When we’re in remote fields, far from roads and houses, we train. Malcolm has no experience with Legacies, but then neither do I. Brute force with my newfound power is no problem: I was able to nearly decimate Ashwood Estates—quite literally—in my sleep. But my precision and control need work. So we focus on that.

In today’s training session Malcolm takes a position on the other side of a field. I stand, getting ready to wield my power. When we’re both ready, we signal each other with our arms. Training time.

I stare across the field at Malcolm, mentally mapping the distance between us. Malcolm has set pebbles on top of the fence posts running the distance between us; for every pebble I knock off its post, he will deduct a few points. It’s easy to send out my seismic force in an indiscriminate wave, knocking everything in its path, but he wants me to hit the area right beneath him, and only that area. He says this practice will increase my precision.

I focus hard on where he is, until everything else disappears. Then I unleash my power.

There are days when I can’t even reach Malcolm, when the farthest I can send my power is ten yards in front of me. There are other days when distance comes too easy, and I wildly overshoot, felling trees fifty yards past Malcolm’s position. Sometimes I hit him with pinpoint accuracy, and the ground trembles delicately below him. When this happens he calls out, telling me to sustain that gentle force. But sometimes the intensity of my seismic power slips outside of my control, and the ground will erupt beneath him, sending him ten feet in the air.

He’s always patient, gracious, and kind about my misfires. Which only makes me happier when I manage a perfect score at this game we’ve created, rumbling the earth immediately beneath his feet without sending him flying. It takes extraordinary control, and so much mental effort I usually wind up with a minor migraine, but it’s worth it to see his proud face.

My parents disowned me. I don’t think my father ever loved me. I was never going to have the kind of unconditional love from a parent I saw on television or read about in human literature.

During the three years I spent in One’s mind, I saw her close relationship with Hilde, and I was jealous. They fought all the time, but on some deep level they trusted and loved each other. Hilde trained and cultivated One’s talents, encouraged her when she succeeded. Ever since I witnessed that, I’ve craved something like it. A mentor. And now I have one.

One promised me I wouldn’t be alone. She was right.

Our route through the country becomes a zigzagging path, designed to escape Mogadorian detection. It’s so roundabout that I never even consider we’re heading somewhere specific, that Malcolm has a destination in mind.

I enjoy the aimlessness. I feel safer off the grid, like I did back at the aid camp. But I know that eventually we’re going to need a plan, some way to reconnect with the scattered Garde. I may cringe at bloodshed, and I may fear that they will reject me for being a Mogadorian, but I can’t help being excited by the prospect of meeting my new allies.

After a long night’s trek, we camp out in a small grove at the edge of the woods in rural Ohio. Malcolm devotes so much time and energy to training me that I’ve been repaying the favor, usually as we’re settling down for a day’s sleep.

I train him. I ask him questions about his past, trying to jog his memory. I know his patchy memory is frustrating, but he will never recover his memories unless he works at it. So I grill him, pressing him for details.

“What happened before the darkness?” I ask tonight.

He’s clearing some brush on the ground, making a smooth surface to sleep on. “I hate this.”

“I know,” I say. We’re both exhausted and mental training is the last thing either of us wants to do right now.

But I keep going. “What happened before the darkness?”

“I’m tired,” he says, stretching out on the dirt. “And I can’t really remember.”

“Come on. One thing,” I say. “Just tell me one thing you remember from before the Mogs took you.”

He’s quiet.

“Malcolm. You already told me there’s one important thing you remember from before, one thing you didn’t even have to try to remember.” I figure I can at least get that out of him. “Just tell me that.”

He turns to me, suddenly serious. “My son. I remember my son.”

Whoa. I had no idea he had a son.

“The details of how I made contact with the Loric, how I was captured by the Mogs … those things are starting to come back to me, though they’re still fuzzy. But I remember everything about my life back in Paradise.” He smiles. “I remember everything about Sam.”

“Don’t you want to see him?” I ask.