Bedlam Boyz(69)

No way. How am I supposed to do it? She's nuts; the old lady is just crazy.

But if I don't learn how to stand up to them . . . what then? I'll be hiding from them all my life. I don't want that, either.

She turned away and started back down the hill, lost in her thoughts.



"Concentrate!" Elizabet said from somewhere behind her.

"But you just told me not to concentrate!" Kayla protested from where she was sitting on the living room floor. Her eyes were tightly closed, but she wanted to open them and scream. These "mental exercises" are making me crazy!

"Well, you're not getting it that way," Elizabet said, "so we'll try the other way. Since you're having trouble relaxing enough to use your Sight, we'll try this instead. We have to train to you to where you can rely on your talent, not just have it happen accidentally, uncontrolled. So concentrate on something, anything. Think about it as hard as you can."

Kayla nodded. There is, she decided, a hell of a lot going on in my life that I can think about. Magical powers, healers, killer elves, gateways into other worlds, an ancient ogress who likes to have muggers for dinner . . . literally. Yeah, there is quite a lot going on in my life lately, she concluded.

"Think about something specific," Elizabet said.

"Okay, okay, give me a break!"

"That is the one thing I won't do," Elizabet said, her voice tinged with humor.

I'm getting tired of this bullshit! Kayla thought. There's Elizabet, standing right behind me and smiling. Oh yeah, I'm sure this is a lot of fun for you, too! She's—

Kayla sat up straight, opening her eyes in shock. "I saw you! I really saw you! With my eyes closed!"

"See, you're learning, child. It's not entirely hopeless." Elizabet smiled. "It only looks that way. Now, think of something, really concentrate on it."

Kayla tried to think of something to concentrate on. It was a beautiful day outside, really great, not too smoggy, a perfect day to go to a park. . . .

That would be nice, she thought, smiling. To go to the park next to the house. . . .

She thought about the park down the street from her house, the house where she'd lived with her parents before . . . before the Awful Day. She loved that park. Mom and Dad used to walk with her there in the evening, as the sun was setting through the tall trees. It was different from all the other parks she'd ever seen: a wild, untamed place where the gardeners and keepers seemed more interested in the little community gardening project at the back of the park rather than the park itself. The trees were left alone to grow into unruly shapes tangled with ivy and surrounded by shrubs. The paths through the park were hard to find and harder to follow, but that was something she loved. There was one tree that she loved best, a huge old oak tree with broad spreading branches which filled the sky. Dad said that the tree was at least two hundred years old. Sometimes Kayla had thought she could hear laughter from the tree, the flickering movement of someone climbing in the branches, but Dad always said that it was only the wind, there wasn't anyone there.

She'd run to that tree on the Awful Day, the day she'd come home from school and found the police cars in front of her house. Old Mrs. Liddy had called the cops after hearing gunshots from next door and seeing some cars leave fast. They wouldn't let her into the house, into her own house; she heard some of the cops talking about how they'd found blood, but no bodies.

She remembered running to the park, falling onto the thick moss under the tree and crying. That's where the cops had found her, hours later. She could feel the tears starting down her face, remembering.

"Are you all right, Kayla?" Elizabet asked, concern in her voice.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she said. "I'm fine."

"Kayla," Elizabet said. "Keep your eyes closed. Can you see me?"

She could. There was a faint brightness against the inside of her eyes, a glow that moved as Elizabet walked around her, matching time with her quiet footsteps. "You're doing it, child," Elizabet murmured. "You're doing it. Now, look at yourself."

She felt herself moving away; no, she was sitting still, but somehow she was moving in that quiet darkness. She turned and looked back at herself. What she saw was fire, blue-white centered around a core of brilliance, with flowing tendrils of light flickering and dancing over the surface. Kayla opened her eyes suddenly, startled, and blinked. "What was that?" she asked.

Elizabet was sitting close to her; she laughed, little lines crinkling at the edges of her eyes. "Yes, that's you. That's why everyone can find you, because you look like a neon sign when you're using your magic. But we're going to see if we can do something about that now. Close your eyes again. Now look at yourself and try to make the glow a little less bright. Dim it down. Not completely, but see if you can slowly fade it."