Talent

  Chapter 7

  Later that night, Zara returned to her office disappointed. She was on her mobile with Mark, her partner and yet-to-bother-proposing beloved. “Yes honey,” she agreed with him, “But I only just got back to the office. What a waste of an evening. So much for my explorations into modern Wiccan rituals. Looks like I have to find another for my last case study.…” There was a pause and Zara pursed her lips. Mark was actually asking her what he was going to have for dinner. She was working late, and he was being a child. Zara lost her temper, though immediately regretted it. “Well, I don’t know, shit, it’s past eight – I don’t know what your going to have for dinner. You’re a big strong man – go hunt something. McDonald’s perhaps…I won’t be home for ages anyway – I still have a bunch of papers to grade.” Zara looked at the papers sitting there in a pile mocking her. She tapped the paper pile before wandering over to switch on the kettle she had set up in the corner for late nights like this. Mark was back peddling as she put a tea bag in a mug and leaned back against the counter.

  Zara sighed. “OK Mark. But I’m telling you you’re gonna be waiting for a while. Like midnight…” Zara closed her mobile phone and poured hot water over the tea bag. As she dunked it up and down, she muttered to herself. “There are not enough hours in the day. Breathe deep Zara, there is always hope. Maybe the papers will grade themselves, I won’t have to sit next to Skanky Shawn on the bus, and Mark will end up making me a candlelit dinner to round out a perfectly shitty day.” Zara smiled to herself. “Oh well, better get going before I become completely delusional.”

  Zara returned to her desk, set her mug down, stretched and prepared to grade the papers. As she lifted the first one from the heap she had a double take. It was marked. Taking the next paper, she sees it has also been marked. Zara screwed up her brow trying to recall when she had graded these papers. She could not recall it, but there was her handwriting all over it. “Hmm, I must have already done it.” she thought out loud. “Mark gets dinner after all.”

  Realising if she made a break for it now, she might be able to catch the next bus, Zara grabbed her coat and bag, and abandoned her tea. If she caught the next bus, she could get home, cook dinner, and sink in to her electric blanket with enough time to enjoy some brain numbing TV before sinking into sleep.

  Outside it was raining, a soft rain that left a sheen of water over her coat, but failed to leave her drenched. Zara was quickly skipping around puddles when she saw the bus. Running now, she called out for it to stop, but with the rain, the closed windows and the distance, the bus driver either could not, or did not want to hear her. The bus drove away from the shelter just as Zara made it to just a few feet away. She stood in the street staring after it. Exasperated, Zara called out after it. “Of course…that’s more like what I was expecting. Bad freaking luck. Maybe it could rain harder too.” The rain suddenly picked up, pounding down harder. Startled, Zara ran the few extra feet for cover in the bus shelter where she could stare after the bus. Through the back window, she saw a figure walking towards the back of the bus. Creepy Shawn pressed his face against the glass and watched her as they drove away. Maybe I dodged a bullet after all she thought to herself. “What a night.” Zara said to herself as she sat down and leaned against the glass at the back of the shelter. She closed her eyes and took a centering breath. As she did, the rain stopped, and the sound of another bus pulling up caught Zara’s ears. Zara peaked open a eye, then two as she realized she hadn’t imagined it. There was no other bus scheduled for at least 35 minutes. She looked up inquisitively as the doors opened.

  The friendly face of the middle aged, bearded driver greeted her as he called out. “I’m off shift – want a lift somewhere out of the weather?” he asked grinning.

  Stunned, Zara smiled back. “Sure.” Just like that, the night was looking up again. The driver even gave her a lift to her door, and Zara hopped out, her energy renewed. Popping the lock to the apartment building, she had a smile on her face as her ground floor neighbour flung her door open and stuck her head out.

  “How are you Zara sweetie, I missed you at Mandy’s tonight.” her neighbour, Trish enthused.

  “I had something on for work.” Zara said, not wanting to explain what. Trish was nice enough, but had fairly staunch opinions on rituals and magic.

  Trish made a sympathetic sound. “More papers.” she sounded sure of herself.

  “Something like that.”

  Trish hushed her voice, and added an excited undertone. “Look, I know I was going to come around, but turns out Mr Douche has turned in to Mr Fantastic…made dinner for me, massage – he is in the bedroom right now… so I can’t catch up like I said we would.” Trish had been going on about Mr Douche/Mr Fantastic since meeting him on RSVP three months ago. Every few days, or minutes she changed her opinion on how she felt about him.

  “Go, enjoy Mr Fantastic and we can catch up tomorrow.” Zara encouraged. She had completely forgotten about meeting up after Mandy’s girls cocktail night. She held it religiously, same day of every month, and it was usually accompanied by a movie night, where everyone ended up crying, or pretending to, and left Zara feeling like she couldn’t identify with the group. So missing Mandy’s girls night had not been a regret. Zara had forgotton all about meeting up afterwards though with Trish, and quite frankly, she was too tired, so this was the perfect out.

  “You’re the best.” Trish beamed back as she closed the door.

  “Yes…the best.” Zara said, as she turned to climb the stairs to her first floor apartment. Opening the door the smell of food met her. Walking a few steps inside, Mark was standing an arm outstretched over a table with a home cooked meal and candles surrounding it.

  “Ta Da!” Mark exclaimed. Zara raised an eyebrow. Everything she wished for, papers, bus, dinner. Maybe there had been more to tonight than she had thought.

  The next morning, Keterlyn sat sipping a drink in a coffee shop as she made a list of things she wanted to get to help the others learn what they needed to know. As she jotted these things down in her notebook, Daniel saw her through the window. He had been looking for her, and tried to find her everywhere. Now he found her, Daniel barely contained himself enough to sit next to her expectantly. Keterlyn closed her notebook as she looked up at him with an equally expectant look on her face.

  Daniel finally broke the silence. “So I thought you might have a few minutes, take time out to explain what the hell happened last night, why I keep getting electric shocks every time I touch the controls for my car stereo.”

  In hushed tones, Keterlyn responded. “Daniel, the magic manifests slightly differently in everyone, but I suspect there might be a bit more of a powerful or violent edge for those who already were in touch with their natural skills.”

  Daniel leaned forward, but did not lower his voice. “I need to know. Are you nuts. You claim to have lived over a thousand years…” Keterlyn immediately put her hand up to stop him speaking.

  “This isn’t the place for that conversation.” Keterlyn stood and left the café, Daniel following close behind. Heading for the nearest alley way, Keterlyn turned to face Daniel as soon as they were out of sight. Taking his wrists, Keterlyn smiled and closed her eyes. The two of them wisped in to the air and re-appeared in a desert terrain. The heat beat down, but the breeze cooled the climate. Daniel stared around him at the sand, rocks and barren land, the starkness of the contrast from the city they had just been standing in, jolted him.

  Daniel stared around him, awed. “How?”

  Keterlyn let him go as she spoke. “I was a type of ‘witch’ even before I became…this, not that we called ourselves that. But I could never do the things I can now, until I was given a gift. This gift comes with a curse though. I can’t use the powers I have, unless I have shared them with others.”

  “I don’t understand why you have to share the power to use it.”

  “I was dying. All I knew was that I didn’t want to die, so
I made a deal. To accept the power and live, but in exchange I agreed to marry a dark spirit. A demon, of a kind. I got away, but if I use my power straight out, he can find me. Sharing the energy means I stay under his radar. It isn’t as strong.”

  Trepidatious, Daniel asked her: “What happens if he finds you?”

  “I spent 635 years living with him, tied to him before I could run. He caused wars, tortured souls, raked in the bodies while I watched. I cant go back there. To him, or underground.”

  “Underground.” Daniel’s tone reflected the darkness of the conversation.

  “People call it many things. Hell is just as good a description as any. But there are many things that live in the dark down there.”

  “Dark spirits.” Daniel stated matter of factly.

  “And more. Wraiths that can take over physical bodies to hunt people or things down on this world, Shadow people that dip in and out of our reality, even leeches that suck the life from your living body, All kinds of supernatural things.” Keterlyn looked away, knowing there would be pity, or fear, or judgment forthcoming. There always was.

  “You lived there.” Curiosity, not pity coloured Daniel’s voice though.

  “If you call it living.” she responded.

  “So you’ve been running all this time?”

  Keterlyn nodded. “I find a group of people to share my magic, and I can live with them around them, then as they get older, a few will take me on as a pretend daughter or niece, then grandparent, and then I move on. The last people I was with though, one of them broke their promise, revealed themselves to the world – on TV no less.”

  Something clicked for Daniel. “The woman at the school? Who rescued all those kids, and turned that guy inside out.”

  “See. Even you know.”

  “Who didn’t watch that?” Daniel seemed pleased at making the connection, but Keterlyn frowned. That was exactly the reason she encouraged them all to keep quiet.

  “So I had to get everyone together before the full moon, or he can find me. Once a full moon rises and falls, I can’t pass the powers on anymore, then I will shine brighter than a lighthouse on a clear dark night for any beasties in the big dark to find me.”

  Daniel understood. Hard as it was to accept, he knew he felt different, knew he kept getting zapped by his car, light-switches and the TV, and knew Keterlyn was telling the truth. “It’s incredible.” He said to her. “I am going to be able to change the station in my car again though aren’t I?”

  Keterlyn smiled. “You’ll be able to do almost everything I can with practice. Maybe shifting from one location to another might be difficult, but then, you are fairly tuned in. You have a gift.”

  “I don’t have a gift Keterlyn. I drowned someone.”

  “Doesn’t matter what you did. Just that you did it before any of this, so everything else is going to be magnified for you.”

  Daniel became cynical then. “Wow. Something I’m good at. There’s a prospect.”

  Keterlyn knew his attitude would change soon enough though. “Come, let’s get back. I want to start practicing with you, Molly, and Micala. Before the others come back tomorrow night. That way you can help me train the others when they come back.”

  “You seem confident about that.”

  “Yes I do, don’t I?” Keterlyn answered as she took Daniel’s wrists again. Daniel took hers back and they wisped back to the alley way.