The Gift

Wisty

THE ONE IS PAST polite whispering. “You turned off the city’s electricity!” he screams. “Reactivate it immediately!”

I try, but I don’t know how I did it in the first place, much less how to reverse it. Hum Mrs. Highsmith’s song backward? I can’t. I’m panicked.

“You chaotic child!” he says. “You really don’t have a shred of control, do you? Now The One Who Manages The Power Grid and his incompetent minions will be spending hours attempting to repair what you so blithely have done!”

I’m madly trying to think of a poem about light dawning. There must be one! Why is my mind like a slushie when I’m around The One?

He pauses as some deeply unpleasant thought settles into his mind.

“Do you have any idea how much power it takes to do what you’ve just done? Or the applications to which such an ability might be put? Do you?”

He grabs my head in his long-fingered hands. It’s no longer a warm touch. His skin is so cold it stings. He’s hurting me now. A lot.

“Time for a pop quiz, my dear Wistful,” he says ominously. “Do you remember anything, anything at all, from your Biology 101 class? How about physics? Chemistry?” His hands are pressing harder into my temples.

“I… must’ve… skipped… those,” I manage to eke out through my clenched teeth. This is pain like I’ve never experienced before.

“Ah. I should have expected as much from a truant. What a shame that you know so little,” he spits out, “about your Gifts. About how the functioning of the human mind, and thus the body, is controlled by electrical impulses. Electricity, in a sense.”

The One’s coldness extends invisible tentacles inside me. Ice is growing down my spine. “And I… should care… because…?”

“You. Foolish. Child!” he screams, shaking my head now, practically crushing my skull. “You have no respect for what you’ve been given!”

I try to flame up but realize I can’t. He’s entirely draining the magic from me. All the warmth is slipping from my body. Like I’m dying. He’s actually killing me right now, isn’t he?

My legs buckle, and a whimper squeaks out of me. Whit snaps out of his trance and swings around in alarm to help, but The One lets me drop and fends him off with an elbow. The One’s mere touch sends Whit sprawling back on the floor and slamming up against the far wall as if he is a rag doll.

“All that power inside you,” The One Who Is The One says, his eyes once again flashing pure evil, “to control the mind. Everyone’s minds. The entire world at your fingertips.”

Suddenly the cold stops, and he backs away with a rueful smile.

“I frankly don’t know whether to be impressed or depressed.”

Chapter 48

Whit

I’VE BEEN HIT PRETTY HARD during a few N.O. attacks, but right now I feel like I’ve been ploughed into by a speeding truck. Wisty’s on the floor looking spent, but then she hauls herself up. She’s okay, thank God, but apparently still too dumbfounded by The One’s completely absurd claims to say anything.

This is my chance. My one chance to find out what Celia was talking about. I just wish I’d had time to figure out how to broach the subject first with His Oneness.

“Um, excuse me?” I use the wall to help steady my body as I peel myself off the floor. “I have a question. Excuse me?”

Wisty and The One both stare at me as if I’ve just risen from the grave.

“I need to ask you about Celia Millet.” Hearing her name aloud, here, in the Building of Buildings, feels so… ancient. From another time and place. So out of reach, despite how close she’d seemed just hours ago.

“Celia Millet?” He raises his eyebrows. He knows her name. But he pretends he doesn’t. “I can’t possibly keep track of all the pernicious children we’ve had to process through our retraining systems. I’m afraid I can’t help you. Was she a”-he smiles condescendingly-“special friend?”

“You know exactly who she is. She told me to come here. To turn ourselves in-for our parents’ sake.” It’s probably insane, I know, but I take a deep breath and say it. “We need to talk about a deal.”

“Whit?” Wisty is agape, agog, astonished, every word you can think of for “in total disbelief.” “Are you high?”

The One just laughs. And laughs, and laughs.

“Well,” he says, finally recovering, “it looks like we have one boy suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and one girl with…” He chuckles again. “Developmental disabilities, of a sort. Thank heavens we rescued you before your conditions got any worse. It looks like both of you need a little… recuperation. And education.”

I can’t hear him. I shake my head. “I need to talk to you about Ce -”

He speaks right over me. “And it just so happens I have a new facility designed for just that purpose. I think you’ll find it much more suitable than your last accommodations with us. Call it a spa, if you will. I’m sure your sister will enjoy it, at least.”

He casts an amused eye at Wisty. “Perhaps they can even help you with your unfortunate- hair situation, Wisteria.” Another nasty snicker. Wisty growls as if she’s trying to turn into a werewolf. Whatever it is, it doesn’t work.

“Listen.” I finally collect enough energy to take a stride toward him. “I’ll go to your stupid school or whatever if we can strike a deal.”

“Ah, but you’re going regardless, Whitford! First, though, I’ll need to ask that you hand over any personal property-like that journal you have under your shirt.”

He raises his snaky fingers at me, and the journal flies out from where it was tucked under my belt. And as the book zooms right into The One’s grip, I find myself flying backward and slamming into the wall. Again. And it really hurts-again.

“There is no power in the pen and page anymore, my friend. Remember that. There is only power in energy. Now let’s see what you have in here,” he says, licking a finger dramatically and riffling through the pages. “Po-ems?” He starts to chortle. “And, oh my goodness, they’re bad poems-listen to this one!”

Out-out are the lights-out all!

And, over each quivering form,

The curtain, a funeral pall,

Comes down with the rush of a storm,

While the angels, all pallid and wan,

Uprising, unveiling, affirm

That the play is the tragedy, “Man,”

And its hero, the Conqueror Worm.

He laughs as if his sides are going to bust open. Unnaturally glittery tears spill down his cheeks. “That,” he says, struggling to form words through his fit of amusement, “is the most pathetic, juvenile thing I’ve ever read!”