

Children of Legend

A Templar: Order and Chaos Extra

© 2017 Kenneth Brooks

1st Edition

Special Thanks

There are too many people that I owe my gratitude within this novel. No matter how long the list looks, it will be too short. I want to thank my Family: my wife Barbara, my son Sean, my daughter Alice, my best friend and the little sister I never had; Nicohle Christopherson, my Step Sister Jeanne (Jean) Reed, My Mother and step mother Shannon, my father, my parents in law, my brothers and sisters in law, and host of cousins and aunts and uncles including Misu Qantu and Karl Qantu. I also want to thank my close friends, Bonnie Myers and her family, Jabulani Johnson, Arron Penland, Travis Guerin, Coleen, and Missy Bolin. My former HPE colleagues and friends including; Dominick Espinoza, Steven Beasley, Tye Anders, Allen Delehoy, Kaushik Srinivas, Clay Graves, Jamie Reed, Ray Chibaro, And so many more.

The creation of this novel would never have happened if it weren't for the efforts of Dr. Thelma Bear who recognized my writing problems in the past and urged me to write what I drew and what I thought. Without that, I would never have tried to take pen to paper and release my imagination on the world.

Of course: I also give a very warm thank you to my readers and those who have put up with my bad spelling and grammar in the past!

This novel is dedicated to Alan Roberts and everyone we have lost. We will see you again the next time around to weave new stories in new lives.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental

Contents

Chapter #1: Unusual Children

Chapter #2: Trinity of Teachers

Chapter #3: The Zoo in the Park

Chapter #4: The Offer

Chapter #5: Holistic and Connected

Chapter #6: Extending the Senses

Chapter #7: Stairs of Rocks

Chapter #8: Spirit Sight

Chapter #9: Spirit Flight

Chapter #10: Alban Heruin

Chapter #11: First Communion

Chapter #12: Perception of Energy

Chapter #13: Building Defenses

Chapter #14: End of summer

Chapter #15: The Timeless Girl

Afterward

Other Books by Kenneth Brooks

# Chapter #1: Unusual Children

Greeley Colorado

March 31st, 2020-CE

It was a scene that should not be playing out in a first-grade classroom. The sound of a child gurgling and chocking. His raven-haired teacher, eyes filled with rage, held her pupil off the ground. Her hands around his neck, throttling him. His gold eyes bulged. Tears started to mix into his brown chin length hair. To the teacher's right and his left stood another seven-year-old, her green eyes wide in horror. Torn between what to do to save her eldest friend.

A third seven-year-old stood defiantly, his blue eyes staring daggers into the teacher. He was not frozen in terror, "Let him go!" he growled, as best his high-pitched voice could manage, "Put him down or I'll hit you!" He ran up to her and kicked her in the ankle.

The teacher's response was to kick the blonde haired, blue eyed, boy. It knocked the boy down but enraged him further. He reached out to the air. He could feel a book but it wasn't in his hand. He thrust his hand forward as if he were throwing the book. A heavy dictionary from the book case behind them flew across the classroom, much to his shock, and collided with her head.

The action worked and she dropped the boy to the ground where he laid there coughing and gasping. She spun around, "Who threw that book?" She howled in rage.

"Just another child," the boy coughed. He said it to keep her attention off of his friends.

She turned around and grabbed his neck again. His face reddened as she tightened down. His mouth opened to yelp but no sound came out. Instead his mind screamed out in a telepathic projection for him, "Somebody help me!" His mind screamed. Everyone around him, normal and otherwise, heard the cry for help. Children in the other rooms all screamed and gasped. His two friends, the only other children in the room, stepped back in shock of such a powerful projection.

Her response was to squeeze tighter. He heard a small pop as his hyoid bone broke. Rage filled her dark eyes, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!" She whispered.

Unable to speak, he unconsciously projected, "I'm a boy!"

"You're a demon!" She hissed.

"Put him down!" A male voice barked. His gold eyes shot to the doorway to see another teacher standing there. His teacher ignored the male teacher until she could no longer ignore him. A punch to her jaw sent both the boy and the teacher to the ground. The teacher was unconscious and the boy was almost starting to follow.

Still unable to breathe, his mind again called out, "Jena, help me!"

Now able to act, the girl with green eyes and reddish brown shoulder length hair rushed to his side. She gently touched his neck, sending a comforting and warm, invisible stream of energy into his neck. His hyoid bone healed itself correctly, allowing the boy to gasp. The teacher soon followed up, "Get away from him!" The teacher stated sternly.

"No!" he coughed, "She is my family!"

* * *

The boy with gold eyes, his friend with blue eyes and blonde hair and Jena sat on a bench outside of the principal's office. Jena had her arms draped around the golden eyed boy's shoulders and watched as his neck turned different shades of blue and purple in the shape of two hands strangling him. His coughing had died down but his voice was still raspy and his breathing was still haggard. She didn't want to touch his neck, afraid she would cause more pain in trying to user her empathic abilities to heal him, "Are you okay, Sean?"

The golden eyed boy nodded as the voices coming from the office behind them started to grow louder, "I'll be fine." He said. He glanced over to his friend who was still fuming with rage over what their teacher had done, "How about you, Curtis?"

"I'm fine, I just want to have another go at Ms. Leeks!" Curtis grumbled.

"Use your newfound power against her?" Jena questioned in response.

He glanced down at his hands, "I'm not sure how I did that. I was angry and I wanted to throw something at her. I could feel the book in my hand at that point. I thought I picked up a book and I thought I was throwing it from my hand. I never knew that I never had the book in my hand until it hit her in the head from a different angle."

"Telekinesis," Sean stated with a raspy voice. Both of them looked at him in astonishment before Jena smiled. He was gifted with two abilities just as the rest of them were. His second ability gave him insights into just about anything.

Curtis glanced down at his hands, "Cool." He reached out, determined to grasp another item from the secretary's desk across the way. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't feel the object from before. He glanced down at it again and asked, "Why can't I feel it like before?"

"Maybe it was your emotional state?" Jena suggested.

"So, I can only wield this power when I'm pissed?" Curtis questioned.

"I know, it sucks," Sean stated.

Curtis, however, beamed, "What do you mean? This is totally awesome!"

"Huh?" Both Sean and Jena stated at the same time.

Neither had a chance to react as they heard a crash of class from beyond the doors of the principal's office.

* * *

Inside of the principal's office Sean's parent's Dale Carter and Sylvia Carter paced while the principal sat typing on his laptop, "What are you going to do about this incident, mister?" Sylvia hissed at the male principal. Her straight red hair was starting to get disheveled as she paced furiously. Her green eyes carried more fire than her crimson hair. Sitting atop her black shirt was a triskal within a circle. It was an article of which she constantly clung to. Her leather jacket was open as the spring weather was starting to make it too warm for her to wear the jacket any more.

When there was no answer from the principal, Sylvia shot her husband with a venomous stare. The venom was not meant for him but it did get him to act. He placed his hands behind his back and his blue eyes pierced through to the man. His telepathy got him to sit up straight and acknowledge the pair of unusual parents. The mother was a network technician and the father was a former Marine and now a cook at the college, "Our son just had his life threatened by his first-grade teacher. What do you intend to do about it?" He asked sternly.

"We have called the police and have detained Mrs. Leeks. She is under arrest for aggravated assault," The Principal answered.

"That's not good enough!" Sylvia exclaimed.

"What would you like me to do?" The principal asked but his gaze was fixed at Dale, not Sylvia.

"Excuse me, Mister! I asked the question!" Sylvia hissed.

"Would you control you wife, Mister Carter," The principal insisted.

"She's not property," Dale answered.

"Direct your responses to me!" Sylvia insisted sternly, "Now, what are you going to do to help my son?"

"We are going to offer council services to the three children in the room when the attack occurred; your son, Jena Beckhart, and Curtis Barton. We will also pay for a hospital examination and any treatment for any injuries that have occurred."

"That's not good enough!" Sylvia growled.

"What would make it good enough?" The Principal questioned in response.

She placed her hands on her hips and answered, "The trust that should exist between student and teacher as well as the trust between parent and staff is destroyed, what will you do to fix that?"

"We can have the teachers and staff take classes for sensitivity and anger management," He answered.

"How about you resign?" She hissed.

"Excuse me?"

"You hired that vile teacher! She didn't like my son from day one and you were the one that hired her!" Sylvia protested.

The principal shook his head, "I refuse to speak to you anymore, good day Miss Carter."

"We could go to the news about this incident," Sylvia stated.

The Principal said nothing, he went back to writing a report on his laptop. Dale shook his head and said, "We will go to the news and to the school board with this if you refuse to help."

The principal ignored both of them. Sylvia strode forward and slammed the lid of the laptop shut. He barely had time to pull his hands free of the keyboard. Sylvia wasn't finished. She grasped the laptop in her hand and chucked it towards the window. The laptop sailed into the window, shattering it as it went through it. The Principal stood, enraged by what she had just down, "What the hell! Why you little—"

Quicker than what could be thought possible, Dale placed himself between the principal and his wife, "Excuse me sir, you cannot just ignore us! On top of that, NEVER threaten my wife or speak ill of her!"

"I should have your wife arrested for vandalism!" the principal growled in response.

"Do that and I will end your career, you will spend the rest of your life asking people 'would you like fries with that?' instead of administering staff!" Dale stated in response.

"She is making an unreasonable request," He stated.

"You aren't dealing with the situation that well," Dale protested in response, "You should expect two parents that are nearly hysterical! If you want this to wait until everyone calms down, then you may receive calls from a legal team. You don't want that; the district doesn't want that and I don't want to put my child through that! Sylvia is right; his trust in teachers will be shattered from this point forward! All the best councilors in the world will not be able to help that! The administration does have some responsibility in this. It may have been wrong for her to ask for your resignation but she deserves to hear that you have some responsibility for this situation!"

Sylvia hissed and turned around, "You take care of this Dale, I'm taking my don down to the springs. He needs some time with family!"

* * *

Sean sat in the back seat with a book in his lap. It was starting to get dark out so he couldn't read it now. He couldn't concentrate on the book anyway, his neck seemed to hurt too much from his recent experience. His mother glanced at him from the rear-view mirror as she drove down the highway. Her green eyes showed as much concern as they did sadness, "I'm sorry for what happened to you today. I wish I could take it away from you. What happened that caused the teacher to attack you like that? Did you do something to provoke the attack?"

Sean shrugged. His gold eyes focused on something far off in the distance. He was trying to figure out what could have caused the attack. It had been a few years now since he could hear the drone of voices in his head. It was a sea of voices; one way conversations in his head. They had nothing to do with him most of the time. They were one way monologues that had to do with someone's day or what they were doing or their first impressions with something. A couple of years ago he realized that it was the thoughts of those around him. He tried to block them out the best he could but they still filtered in. Some of the thoughts he welcomed in, those like Jena who seemed to have similar abilities to him.

"She was thinking about something," He answered after a moment, "I told her it was alright, she was probably overreacting."

Sylvia's eyes narrowed. She hoped her son would not take after her and after his father's side of the family but it was becoming apparent that he was one of the gifted, as Dale's side of the family referred to. Her side of the family always tried to bury their powers. They tried to pretend that they didn't exist. Those that managed to blend in usually were "unusually talented" or had "intuitive instincts." She was never one to blend in and thus she was one of the black sheep of the family.

"You read her mind," She stated finally, "You know you shouldn't do that."

Sean nodded, "I know. I didn't mean to do it. It just sort of happened. It all slipped out and the next thing that I knew she had her hands around my neck."

"I'm not excusing what she did and I will make sure she gets punished for what she did. I am just letting you know that a lot of people exist in the world that do not have your talents. You should not use your talents on other people. Using your talents against people that don't have your talents will scare them and they may attack you for it. I'm sorry you had to find that out the hard way. Just keep that in mind the next time you have the urge to look into the mind of another person," Sylvia stated in response.

Sean shook his head, "You don't understand. I didn't mean to do it at all. I don't mean to read anyone's mind. I hear them all in my head all the time. It is an ocean of voices in my head. I hear them all the time. It is loud and I can't block them out. I can't get them to shut up!"

His words seemed to shock her. She didn't know that he had been struggling to block out the thoughts of those around him. It sounded like his mind had the reach much further than her mind or her husbands. She glanced down at her speedometer in thought. She wondered if she might have been wrong about not letting her husband and his family train her son on how to control his abilities. It seemed now that his powers were totally out of control. He had no clue on how to block out or control his powers. She thought he would have learned something by now.

She forced a smile and said, "Don't worry. I am sure something will change for you in the near future. For now, enjoy Relena's company when we get to Colorado Springs. I am sure she misses you."

The mention of his second cousin did seem to cheer him up. He smiled and nodded, "It has been a while since I saw her last. I wonder if she has been having fun?"

# Chapter #2: Trinity of Teachers

Greeley Colorado

March 31st, 2020-CE

The detective glanced at the monitor in the room. It was hard to believe that the raven-haired woman in the room was teaching a class of first graders barely hours before. The look on her face was that of a crazed lunatic. She wondered what would have happened that would have made this woman snap. He glanced down at the manila folder in his hand. The police report contained within said she tried to kill a small boy. One of her charges. He couldn't understand what that student could have said that would have made her snap.

He sighed and turned the handle open the door. He sat down at the table across from her. In here, he knew that everything was being recorded. There was no need to take any extra devices in with him. He glanced into her disturbed eyes and asked, "Why don't you tell me what happened?"

"He read my mind!" He screamed at the top of her lungs, "He knew everything!"

The strength and fury of her words took him back and startled him, oh boy! She has gone off the deep end, He thought to himself. "How, exactly, did he read your mind? Did he manage to hack your social media accounts and get a glance at what you put on there?"

"No, he got inside my head!" She cackled crazily.

"Like, with psychology? Is the kid a bit of a prodigy?" The detective questioned.

"No, like a freak. He knew things that no other person could know!" she hissed.

"Okay..." The detective stated as he rose from the chair, "I am going to have a talk with a few people outside of this room and see if we can get you in some comfortable place to stay."

"No!" She yelled at the man, "You don't believe me! You have to meet him then you will see! You will see that he is not like the others. He can read minds! If he can read minds, then he can control them!"

The detective nodded as he grabbed the handle of the door, "I assure you, Miss Leeks, that as a part of this investigation, we will have to meet this Sean Carter. Until then, don't worry about us. We will get you some place to stay."

He walked through the door, he could still hear her screaming until the door latched all the way. He could see his partner standing by the door, "Someone has definitely gone off the deep end in there. I would like to have some of what drove her crazy."

He shook his head, "I wouldn't. She went off the deep end." He glanced back to the room then back to his partner, "Listen, I would rather not have to bring the kid back in on this one. He has been through enough. Can you get a psyche eval done on her? I think she is due for a room with padded walls about now."

* * *

Across town a teenage girl gazed out of her window towards the mountains that obfuscated the setting sun on the cloudy day. She wondered if it was going to rain. She cracked open the window to let the cool evening air waft in. It smelled like it could rain. A chilled breeze blew in and she closed the window. It was just as likely to snow as rain. Her dark red hair partially covered her green eyes. She glanced down at tablet in which she recorded her inner most thoughts. She was often lost in a sea of them; the vast majority were not her own, she liked to make sure that she knew who she was from moment to moment.

She was talented, much like the boy who was much younger than her, but just as different from him as well. Where his abilities raged out of control, they had a limit of range. Her abilities did not dive as deep as his did but she was constantly trying to swim in an ocean of thoughts, drowning in a sea of voices.

Most telepaths fell into one of two categories. Some operated with touch; they heard no voices until their skin comes into contact with the skin of another individual. Most telepaths were ranged telepaths. Their ranges varied from a few feet to several miles and if the conditions were right they could extend those ranges further. She was different. She didn't have a range and her powers didn't rely on skin to skin contact. It was as if someone plugged her mind into the whole of humanity.

To her, the world would flood into her mind and often times sounded like a buzz. She figured it was better than what the other telepaths with long ranges heard. Often times she wouldn't hear the individual voices, just the general volume of the world. To telepaths like the young boy, the voices came through as a bunch of one way conversations. It was as if they were sitting in a room packed full of people with ear muffs on, they could hear the subtle surface thoughts of those all around them.

Around her wrists, covered in fishnet sleeves, were multiple rubber bands. Typically, they were used by cutters to help with the sensation of the subtle sting of cutting. Something to relieve the stress in a situation. She used them when a voice started to appear out of the ocean of buzzing noises. She reached for a rubber band now as a voice did start to rise up above the buzzing sea.

She realized it was her mother. Her mother was not a telepath. Her step father was also not a telepath. It made her an aberration. Normally, it would not have been possible for such a powerful telepath to have been born from such normal people even if one of them did carry the gene that allowed for psychic powers. Her mother provided her the answer for that.

Her mother had a one night stand with a man just before she met the man who raised her, the man she called her father. She couldn't remember anything about the man. She remembered the night perfectly except for details about the man. Just as soon as he arrived in her life, he had left with no trace.

She got up from her bed and walked down stairs. She snapped the rubber bands on her wrists as she walked down the stairs. Each time she did, a voice that had risen up above the din of the background noise had faded back into the ocean of voices. She had heard the cries of the boy's mind as he was choked, the screams of the teacher who choked him, and the aftermath. She didn't need to read her mother's mind to know what was going on.

Her mother stepped through the door, "How was your day, Scarlet?"

She brushed her red hair out of her eyes as she reached the end of the stairs, "The same as always. How was your day?"

Her mother gave her an unsure look then shrugged as she sat down her purse and shrugged off her leather sport jacket, "I have a potential long term assignment starting today. They will need a substitute teacher for some time until they find a replacement teacher at a school. Apparently, a first-grade teacher attacked one of her students today and is now in jail. I will be filling in until they find a replacement."

"Unless they decide to make you the replacement," Scarlet replied, "It wasn't an apparent situation. The boy read her mind, the teacher reacted bitterly. She is Christian and didn't like the boy or his parents from the beginning because they were pagans."

Her mother shrugged and went into the kitchen to start dinner, "My child, why do you always ask questions to which you know the answers to?"

"Makes me seem more normal," Scarlet replied as she followed her mother into the kitchen.

"What is normal?" Her mother replied, "Everyone is different, everyone has secrets. While they are all different, they all have a commonality to them. The one thing that is the same with all of us is that we are all human."

"Some of us seem less human than others," Scarlet mentioned and looked down as she grabbed the pots. She already knew what her mother needed. As she sat the pot on the stove she glanced back to her mother and said, "I want to meet him."

"I am not sure if his parents will arrange a play date with a teenager," Her mother replied, "He is seven. You are fourteen."

"You can call me out of school one day and take me with you to one of the classes. I can sit in the back and make myself not apparent to most of the people there. Only the boy and his friend will notice me because they are like me," Scarlet mentioned.

"Why do you want to meet him?" She questioned in response.

"I get the feeling that he didn't mean to read his teacher's mind," Scarlet answered, "I want to see if that is true. His abilities could be wild. He might need some training. If they aren't wild then someone might need to seal his abilities away if he doesn't want to control them."

"What makes you think his parents haven't tried to train him already?" Her mother questioned.

"I don't know. I haven't tried to read his parent's minds yet," Scarlet mentioned, "I only read their minds because I heard him cry out during the attack. He could be like me; his parents don't have telepathy but he does."

"You seemed to have been able to deal with that well," Her mother mentioned as she started to fill the pot with water and vegetables, "Your abilities are well controlled and you seem to be well developed as well."

"He is not coming along as well," Scarlet argued, "By the time I was his age, I could control the telepathy and make sure I don't read the minds of those I don't want to."

Her mother sighed, "Well, it will be a couple of days before he gets back. His mother decided to take him to see some family after the accident. She decided that he needed some light after the darkness he faced."

"That's probably the best for him," Scarlet nodded, "Do you think I can train him if he needs it?"

"You want to be a teacher?" Her mother smiled, "If you can manage to swing with all of the key players then I don't have a problem with it. Just don't lose sight of your own schooling while you take this boy under your wing."

# Chapter #3: The Zoo in the Park

Pueblo Colorado

April 1st, 2020-CE

At first Sean thought that it was an April fool's day joke. His mother said that she was taking him and his cousin to Mineral Palace park in Pueblo Colorado. The park also had a zoo, smaller than the zoo in Denver, but a zoo never the less. It wasn't until they were standing at the gates to the zoo that he realized that such a place existed. The park was larger than anything that he had seen in Greeley. The town he was born and raised in had numerous parks, around a hundred of them. Each of those parks were small compared to this one. Some of them had playground equipment, some had tennis and basketball courts, a couple had lakes people could fish out of, some were nothing more than fields of grass and trees. One could run from one side of any of those parks to the other without breaking a sweat.

Mineral Palace park had everything the parks in Greeley had plus the zoo. It was so big that he didn't realize that they had been driving in it for a block before his mother parked the car. She glanced back to both Sean and his second cousin, Relena, and smiled before handing the attendant the amount for the three tickets needed, "I've never been here before but your father has, Sean. Your father grew up here. I think he used to play in this park as a kid."

"I didn't think there were any other zoos other than the one in Denver," Relena stated with a smile on her face, "I wonder what kind of animals they have here."

She gave her little cousin a smile. They shared the same green eyes but his mother's hair was browner than the red that Relena had, "There are more zoos around than just here and Denver. I think just about Every state has a zoo. Some states have several. There is a massive one in San Diego. I have been there. It is complete with an aerial tram and a whole host of stores and restaurants."

"Like an amusement park," Relena smiled.

They took their tickets and walked through the doors into the zoo itself. Inside there was a small gift shop and a refreshment stand. Sean glanced around, his gold eyes imagining that this zoo offered exactly what his mother was describing until he caught glimpses of thoughts from his second cousin. It was a pale imitation compared to the large amusement parks she had been to in the past. He glanced to his mother and forced a smile. His thoughts came through less in a language than anything else but it was clear. He would rather they went camping than went to the zoo with his second cousin.

"Maybe you shouldn't be poking around in other people's minds," His mother chided telepathically.

Instantly he responded letting her know that he didn't mean to pry. Like everyone else around him, they all broadcast what they were thinking for the world to hear. He didn't mean to hear it. He didn't want to hear it. He didn't know how to not hear it. It was hard for her to explain it to him. How to focus on something else and let the voices of the minds around him fall back into the din. It was something that she and the few other telepaths she met had learned how to do long before they were his age.

As they walked through the short promenade of shops, she was reminded about how different she, and her family, were from normal psychic families. She had no training but like every other psychic, except her son and his telepathy, she was able to control her telepathy. That was where it ended for her family; no one talked about their abilities and they all did their best to act like they were normal. They ostracized her for being willing to stand out. All except her cousin who they were visiting.

His father was from a different kind of family. They were open with their abilities as long as it was with their own family and other psychics. They made sure everyone knew how to control their abilities and knew how to use them. The patriarchs and matriarchs of that family knew all of the advanced techniques and taught them to the next generation. They usually were good about making sure which members of the family could be trusted with the more dangerous techniques but that didn't stop them from sometimes abusing these techniques. It also didn't stop the siblings trusted with these techniques from sharing them with their other kin who were not deemed worthy of being trusted with responsibility. It led to patterns of abuse with those techniques that she hated.

It led her to banning her husband and his family from teaching Sean how to control his abilities and how to use his abilities. She didn't want him to be tempted with some of the powerful and dangerous techniques that would lead him down a potentially dark road. There was a telepathic technique called a geas. It was a form of mind control; getting a person to do something that they normally wouldn't do. There were different levels of a geas.

A minor geas would be something that wouldn't be against the nature of the person being target, just something they wouldn't do at that moment. That would be something akin to cussing out their boss or twirling around on a bus. A standard geas would be something that they would refrain from doing under ordinary circumstances like defecating in public or starting a fight. A major geas would be things that are against their nature entirely like murder or suicide. A geas was different from planting thoughts or suggestions, something that they can ignore as the target is compelled to follow the geas.

Many telepaths have attempted a minor geas without realizing it and usually can be successful at it. Those techniques don't fight the nature of the humans targeted. It takes some skill to attempt a standard geas because it does take time to overcome free will and get a human to do something that they wouldn't ordinarily do in most situations. Only the best could force a human to do something contrary to who and what they are. It was the last one that scared his mother the most.

They walked through to the petting zoo next to the shops. Before Sean was born, his father demonstrated to her what could be done with a geas by making a person run full force into a brick wall. He stated that, while powerful, it was a standard geas as he managed to plant suggestions into the person's mind that they were being chased by an angry mob and that the wall was no there. He stated that he had never been able to implant a major geas. He had never attempted it because of what a success would mean. It was enough to tell her that their children would never learn how to do such things.

Sean led the pack, unaware of what his pensive mother was thinking at that moment. Most of the time he was unaware of the hundreds of voices surrounding him. They sounded like a monotony of one way conversations. He did his best not focus on them. Most of the time he was successful, they seemed to blend in to each other. Every once in a while, a voice would become clear. In that instant, despite how much he resisted, he was drawn to that voice.

He didn't know why, sometimes that voice could resist him. He was thankful when they could resist it. His mind would go back to listening to all of the voices and the voice that attracted him would fade away back into the background. Most of the time it was like he delved into something else, exploring what made up another person. He wasn't aware of what it was at first. He thought it was his imagination running away until he realized that it was the memories and inner thoughts of the adults and children around him. He would say something that would trigger shocked reactions from someone close to him.

He told his mother about it and it was at that time she told him that he was not like everyone else. He was different. He had the ability to hear the thoughts of those around him. She called it telepathy. It ran in his family, on both sides of his family. He should do his best not to read the minds of others around him. He told her that he could hear voices, she told him that it was normal, all telepaths could hear voices, the momentary thoughts, of those close to them. Some people could only hear a couple of people while others could hear a lot of voices. His mother was one of the former and his father was one of the latter. He was one of the latter.

Part of the petting zoo smelled like the family farm in eastern Colorado. The dusty smell associated with the wheat fields and tractors. He closed his eyes and could feel the summer breeze at that moment. He could imagine the fields of green wheat starting to turn gold and the sound of combines being driven into the shop for a tune up and inspection before the harvest. His mother's side of the family ran several farms, one of them was in Eastern Colorado. His grandparents lived out there.

A screech brought him back to the zoo. While he closed his eyes, he still continued to walk. He now stood several yards away from a magnificent looking bird its bluish green feathers glistening like metal in the sunlight. Its long tail dragged in the dirt behind it.

Not for long. It took a step forward. The tail rose and fanned out as it did. It looked like a hundred eyes were staring back at him in that instant. His blood ran cold. He wanted to run in away from the bird but another screech from the bird made him freeze in place.

"Peacocks raise their feathers under three conditions, to attract a mate, to challenge a rival, and to scare off threats. You don't look like a mate, you aren't colorful like a rival so you must be a threat to it," Relena projected to him.

The telepathic projection made Sean jump. He was only used to Jena projecting to him. His mother preferred to speak and he didn't know why his father never used his telepathy around him. At first, he didn't know who projected to him as he was not used to Relena's inner voice. That was because the voice a person used for their inner monologues was not the same as their spoken voice. The distortion one hears when they speak develops into their inner voice. It was why a recording of someone's voice sounds different to the owner of that voice. It was what telepaths heard. For ones that are powerful, like Sean, it was hard to sometimes tell whose thoughts belonged to who because of that difference.

In that split second, he figured out it was Relena that projected to him. He figured that he could project back to her but he had not yet mastered projection. It wasn't that he couldn't project, it's just that when he did, all telepaths around him could hear it and sometimes normal people would also hear it as well. He couldn't direct it like Relena and Jena could. He figured if she was projecting to her, she could hear his thoughts so instead he chose to just think, so what should I do?

"Just walk away slowly and calmly. It shouldn't chase you," Relena projected back.

Sean slowly backed away from the peacock. He didn't take his eyes off of the large bird until it lowered its tail and went about its business. When it did, he turned around and gave Relena a smile. At that moment, he got a flash of someone different standing before him. He knew who was standing in front of him but it wasn't Relena. It was gone just as quick as it came, "Thank you Relena." He said.

She smiled and patted his shoulder, "Any time. Why don't you project your thoughts?"

"I can't control it that well. Everyone will hear it if I project it. Just thinking it is easier," He answered.

"You two shouldn't be talking like that here. It may be a slow day but there are still others here that aren't like us," His mother cautioned. There was no anger in her voice, she was just pointing out that they were in public.

"I thought your mother was different than the rest of our family," Relena sighed.

Sean nodded and pointed to the Triskal in a circle pendant that hung from a silver chain around her neck, "She is. She says she doesn't wear that necklace just because it's cool."

She smiled, "It is called a Triskal. Before it was a Christian symbol of the holy trinity it was a holy symbol for the druids and wiccans. It represents the three stages in any cycle. For the feminine it means Maiden-Mother-Crone or Youth followed by nurturing followed by wisdom. It has many meanings. One of the most important thing to Druids and many other shamans is that there is always at least a third side to anything. Nothing is binary even if it seems that way."

Relena seemed shocked by her cousin's words, "Are you saying you aren't Christian?"

"Depends on what you want to believe in," She answered back, "I find a hard time belonging to a society that can preach tolerance and love then turn around and spew hatred and intolerance. The teachings of Christ are a wonderful thing, the followers are the problem."

Sean nodded, "I think I am finally starting to understand that."

She looked like she had entered a period of mourning for her son even though he was still alive, "Children shouldn't have to understand that lesson. It should be something that you discover through love and caring and defending those that need defending. You shouldn't have to suffer the wrath of fear and hatred while still young."

Relena spun around to her second cousin, "What happened to you. You two have left me out of the conversation suddenly."

"My teacher tried to kill me," Sean answered.

Relena's jaw dropped, "What! Why?"

"Because..." Sean started to say then pointed to his temple.

Relena cocked her head in confusion, "I don't understand."

"Why did they have lynch mobs in the south? Why are there white supremacists? Why do people attack gays and transgender people? People hate and fear people who are different from the norm." She knelt down to speak to both of them in a softer voice, "You may think the rest of our family is stern and mean by trying to keep what we are a secret from everyone and not talk about it but they do it to protect us. A few of us chafe under the strain of not being able to explore our abilities but don't forget that they do want to keep you safe."

She pointed to the cages where some of the animals were held, "If some people have their way, we would be in cages to be studied and looked upon by the masses. Others would rid the world of people like us. There aren't a lot of people like us and there are a lot people that don't have our abilities. We have to do our best to keep what we are a secret from the masses, not because we are afraid of them but because they are afraid of what they don't understand."

* * *

Sean laid on the top bunk in Relena's room. His mother was in the guest bedroom across the hall. Relena preferred the bottom bunk. Sean offered to stay on the sofa but she insisted that he stay on the top bunk. She asked his mother and her father if it was okay. They agreed that they were young enough that would be okay.

Sean Had a hard time falling asleep that night, the excitement of a rare day at the zoo with his family was still fresh in his mind. Playing with Relena at the park after the zoo was also a fun bonus as well. It was about the time the excitement was wearing off when Relena's head popped up over the wooden railing from the bottom bunk, "I think Sylvia and Dad are finally asleep. I'm not getting anything coherent from them anymore."

Sean nodded and yawned, "We should be getting to sleep too."

"You can be so boring at times," She pouted playfully.

"If we get caught romping around after we are supposed to be asleep then they won't let us stay in the same room anymore. I kind of like living as if I have a sister," Sean commented in response.

"You aren't the only-only child in this house," Relena commented in response.

"True but you are a lot like Jena. You have better ties with your family than I have with mine," Sean mentioned.

"My family? Don't you mean 'our family?' You are a part of this family too!" Relena commented.

"Of this side of the family," Sean nodded, "But you have your mother's side of the family and I am not related to that side of the family. You spend time with them to, don't you?"

Relena nodded, "That is true. I do."

"You also know the name of most of the cousins we both are related to," Sean added, "I can't even remember our faces because I have seen them like two or three times in my life. I have spent most of my time with you. You and Ben are about the only family I have outside of my parents."

"It's not like I bogart the entire family for myself. You are related to them as well," Relena protested. She crossed over to the ladder and crawled up into the bed next to him. He sat up and gave her space to sit up on the bed next to him.

"I know they are my family and I am related to them but they hardly associate with us. You and Ben are the practically the only people we visit on anything approaching a regular basis," Sean explained, "That might be because aside from the grandparents, you are close and we can visit on weekends and the like. You also come back early from vacations in the summer. We aren't rich like the rest of the family so we don't get to fly around to a lot of different places all the time. I don't recall ever being on an airplane."

"I am sure that they don't interact with you because they don't know you," Relena replied, "Just tell your mom that you want to get to know the rest of your cousins a bit better and she will find a way to make sure you get more time with the rest of your family. How about your father's side of the family? Don't you ever spend time with them?"

Sean shook his head, "My mother won't allow it."

She seemed confused, "Why not? If you don't get along well with our side of the family I would think she would make sure you'd get along well with his side of the family."

Sean shrugged, "I don't know. Every time I ask she says that they aren't a good fit for me."

"Are they psychic like us?" Relena questioned.

He shrugged, "I don't know. I never met them. My father is psychic so it is possible that the rest of them are. He seems as closed off with his abilities as the rest of us on this side of the family so it is possible that they are just as tight lipped there as they are here."

Relena shrugged and glanced down. She glanced back up after a moment and asked, "Do you have any psychic friends at your school?"

Sean nodded, "I have two. One is a telepath. One just discovered his power. He can move objects with his mind but he can only do it when he is angry. Pretty strange, huh?"

She shrugged, "I think that is more common than you think. There are over a million people in Colorado Springs so there are quite a few psychics here. There are several in my school. Some of them are telekinetic like your friend. Apparently, it is really common for them to become stronger when they are angry so they tend to go off in fits of rage a lot. Has your telepathic friend taught you anything about your power?"

He shook his head, "No but I haven't asked."

"You should ask sometime. My friend has taught me some things. She taught me how to project which is why I can project so well to you. My father doesn't teach me anything about using my abilities. My telepathic friend also taught me how to form a link with other telepaths. It makes projecting a lot easier and makes it so we can communicate two ways without much thought. It will help you to project to me without having to broadcast it to the world. You want to try it?"

Sean nodded, "Sure but I don't know what I am doing."

Relena shook her head and smiled, "For a link you won't have to. I can form the link with you then we can just talk through it."

Sean nodded, "I would love to."

Relena reached out with her mind and touched his. Usually, most people including telepaths reacted to her mind touching theirs but he did not. It let her know that he was used to doing this before. He wondered how much exploring of his abilities he had done with Jena. She imagined the link forming as wispy tendrils of smoke forming between their minds. When they connected, they solidified in her mind's eye and formed a tunnel for their thoughts to go through, "There," She projected through the link, "Try that now. Remember to just project through the link."

Sean could see what his second cousin did right away and knew what to do. Jena called what she did a bond. It was more stable than a link, as what Jena referred to it. Sean could project through it just fine, "Jena actually calls this a bond. I think we have a terminology difference here."

In that instant, she could see why he didn't flinch when she formed the link. His telepathy had a force to it that hers did not. There was power behind his projection and speed with it. She almost missed his projection as it came through so fast. The telepaths she knew at school were all weaker than she was. Now she knew how it felt to be in their shoes. His telepathy an order of magnitude more powerful than hers just the same as she outclassed the telepaths she went to school with.

She recovered from her shock soon enough, "What does Jena call it?"

"She calls it a bond. She says links are fragile and can be severed by simple missteps. A bond can be forged and not broken unless one of the telepaths willingly breaks it or they drift out of range from each other," Sean replied.

"Have you tried a link with her yet?" Relena questioned in response.

Sean shook his head, "She said my abilities are still too wild. I would break a simple link with a projection. I will have to learn how to control my abilities before I can use a simple link like that."

"How long have you known her?" Relena asked.

"All my life. We were born on the same day, in the same hospital, in Greeley," Sean replied.

"Wow. Show her to me," Relena asked.

An image of Jena appeared in Relena's head. A girl with reddish brown hair and green eyes as well as pale skin. She looked like she could be more closely related to Relena than Sean. Sean had brown hair and gold eyes. The fact was not lost on either of them, "Were you switched at birth? She looks like she belongs in this family more than you do."

The thought saddened Sean a bit. The thought made it feel like he had one less place in the world where he felt welcome. Those higher feelings came through the link as well. She shook her head and her familial love for him came through the link. It was a misunderstanding. Sean shared that he was a natural birth and was never put in the nursery after Sylvia gave birth to him. He was a member of the family. It was possible that Jena belonged to a branch of their family, they would just have to trace their lineage back to find it. It would be a topic of discussion for another time.

He shared the feel of her talents with Relena. While Relena, Ben-her father, Sylvia, and he all had Clairvoyance; Jena did not. They all had telepathic abilities. Ben did not possess the ability to heal. Sean did not know if his mother possessed any such abilities but he felt that she possessed more abilities than he had seen so far. His father had other talents as well but he never presented those talents in front of his son.

Relena questioned how he knew that Jena could heal other people. He shared his experience of the attack with her. The memory of being choked was jarring and she almost severed the link to stop the experience. She could feel the bone in his neck snapping and when she finally released him, when the teachers came, he was still choking because his airway had collapsed. With the gentlest of touch, Jena placed a finger on his neck and it felt like the pain was sucked out at that moment. Not all of it but with the pain leaving, air came back through his throat. He was able to breathe. The bone in his neck was healed. The doctors that looked him over later said it was a miracle that the bone in his neck did not break.

"I didn't know there were abilities that allowed people to heal others by touch," Relena commented over the link.

"I suspect that she can do more without touching a person but what happened to me was pretty bad and she didn't have much time to react. She saved my life. I don't know how to thank her for that. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for her," Sean commented.

"You would if you would have let your teacher turn on the other boy," Relena stated over the link.

"I couldn't do that. He is also my best friend. I couldn't let either of them suffer like I suffered. They were only trying to protect me. I couldn't let them take an attack that was really meant for me," Sean protested in response.

"How did she get a job as a teacher in the first place?" Relena questioned.

Sean shrugged. While they were privy to the thoughts of the adult world, they still looked at them through the eyes of children. They couldn't understand what fear and hatred did to people in general. That was why their parents tried to protect them from the outside world and let them know that they had to keep their talents a secret. There are people in the world that wouldn't understand that they are just children. Some would see them as being possessed by some sort of demon. Some would see them as demented. Some would see them as crazy. Others would see a threat where none existed. If they weren't careful, the actions of fear and hatred could plant a seed of malice in the heart of the innocent. That was what their parents really wanted to protect them from.

# Chapter #4: The Offer

Greeley Colorado

April 7th, 2020-CE

Sean had a fun time in Colorado Springs with his Cousin Ben and Ben's daughter Relena. Sean's second cousin helped him feel normal again which was the purpose of the visit. His mother was happy at the reprieve that it gave her son. However, they could not hide away from the events in the northern half of the state forever. Sooner or later the school district would get tired of the absence and the excuse of the attack wouldn't hold up. They would either have to move or they would have to return to the school. While moving or changing schools would still be a possibility, they had to see if their son had the resilience to go back.

She expected a fight the night she told them they would be leaving. While she could see fear in his golden eyes, she didn't get a fight from her son. He forced a smile on his face and reported that he missed his two best friends. As long as his teacher wouldn't be there, he would be willing to go back so he could see them again.

The bruising on his neck was looking pretty dark after a week but it was starting to yellow at the edges. It seemed to be healing far quicker than even she expected. She was aware that most of the psychic abilities ran on his father's side of the family and empaths tended to be fast healers, she wondered if he turned out to be an empath when he got older. If he was going to have a third powerful psychic ability it would awaken around this time. If not, the next chance he would get for an ability to awaken naturally would be when he hits puberty.

She shivered as she thought what her son would be like when he hit puberty. She was the youngest of four children. She was also the only girl. Her brothers were all hit particularly hard by puberty. No one likes to go through puberty. It was the debate of the ages as to whether it was worse on the children or the parents but it was never a fun experience for either party. Right now, aside from his wild telepathy, he was a pretty good-natured kid. He hoped he stayed that way for as long as possible.

She dropped him off at school and noticed the fourteen-year-old girl in goth clothing and makeup sitting in the back of the classroom. Jena and Sean noticed the adolescent girl right away. Curtis seemed to notice that she was there but only just. The rest of the kids in the class were normal, they possessed no psychic abilities, and they seemed to not notice she was there. The teacher was aware of her presence and beneath the makeup she did resemble the teacher.

The fact that this could be the teacher's daughter kept Sylvia from either making a scene or using her telepathy to disrupt what this teenage girl was doing. She did feel the need to ask as to why she was here, "May I ask why you are here?"

The girl glanced over to her and replied telepathically, "I am just here to observe and to keep any wild abilities from going out of control. Nothing more. I promise, no harm will come to your son."

"Be careful, girl, you are playing with fire. Don't harm my son. If you do then your mother will not stop me from extracting my vengeance from you. I was denied that once. It will not happen a second time." Sylvia warned telepathically then spun around and left the room. While she did not like the thought of another telepath being in the class, it was better than his old teacher being in the classroom.

* * *

Sean had expected to see his old teacher in the classroom when he first walked in with his mother. The idea that she would be there filled him with fear that morning. So much fear that he could hardly eat his cereal in the morning. His stomach calmed down as he headed towards school. Unlike his telepathy, his Clairvoyance was much better behaved. It told him that he had nothing to worry about, he would see his old teacher again and that would be for the best for everyone.

The substitute teacher introduced herself to him after his mother left. Her name was Alexa Henderson. Sean could feel his mind reach out to the teacher and did his best to hold it back but he couldn't. Suddenly, as his telepathy started to peer into her mind, a wall blocked it from peeking in further. He breathed a sigh of relief for that. Something blocked him from reading this teacher's mind and he was thankful for that. He glanced behind him for some reason and asked, "Who is the girl in the back of the room?"

The teacher didn't seem surprised that he could see her. Sean was oblivious to the fact that most of his peers couldn't perceive her, "That is my daughter, Scarlet. She wasn't feeling well this morning so I took her with me to school. I just wanted to keep an eye on her."

"Okay," Sean stated without a second thought and walked over to his seat.

The lessons proceeded throughout the day as normal. It was around lunch time when Curtis filled him in that only the three of them plus the teacher noticed that Scarlet was in the classroom. The lessons of the day had been so clear for Sean that he had not noticed that the others were ignoring the high school girl in their class. He didn't know if that was natural or if that was something to be concerned about. He had never heard of a sick high school kid accompanying their parent to school to sub a class. However, he had to admit that it was turning out to not be a normal year at all.

As the afternoon wore on he figured out why he was having such an easy time with the class that day. Something was blocking his unconscious telepathy from roaming the classroom and beyond. The voices of those around him seemed quieter and he could actually concentrate. The only changes in the classroom that day were the substitute teacher and her daughter. As the teacher didn't seem like an adult telepath, he had met a few, he figured that it was Scarlet.

He turned around when he felt his telepathy was being blocked again and gave the teenager a smile. She glanced over and seemed startled by his smile. It was apparently something that she was not expecting. He glanced forward at that moment and wondered why she would not expect him to be happy that she was helping him with his telepathy. It was the first time he could sit there and not have to try to keep his power contained since he started school. She must have expected him to be upset that she was blocking him from using it, was she thinking that I was actually using my telepathy?

* * *

It was when the young boy turned around that she figured out what was really going on with him, he can't control it! She thought to herself. It wasn't that he was trying to read the minds of those around him. It wasn't that he was letting his mind wander. It was that he was actively trying to restrain his abilities and he couldn't do it on his own. He needed help with doing it. The real question now was, why wasn't his family trying to help him with controlling it.

It wasn't unheard of for a psychic to be born with wild abilities but it wasn't common either. Such children needed to be taught how to control their abilities at an early age. His abilities were acting like those of a telepath who had just awakened at the age of two or three when their speech was starting to develop. His abilities were powerful, His abilities either surfaced at birth or around two or three. His parents had to know he was a telepath. Why didn't they help him control and contain his abilities?

It wasn't a question of them being normal people with a gifted child. His mother used her telepathy to contact her to maintain her camouflage around the rest of the children. She knew how to use her abilities. She could have taught him to control his abilities. She had to know what was going on.

She cracked the ghost of a smile. If his mother had not used her telepathy, Scarlet would not have been able to find her in the din of the rest of the voices in the world. Now that she had, Scarlet could find her no matter where she was. She had to know why his mother had not taught him how to control his abilities yet.

She searched the static for the mother of the boy, it didn't take her long to find it. She was close, in regards to geographic location. When she did, she projected to the telepath, forming a bond so the telepath could speak back, "Forgive my intrusion but I have to ask why you do not train your son to control his telepathic abilities?"

"You are the girl at the school, the daughter of the teacher, how can you project from so far away?" his mother projected in response.

"I am different from most telepaths. I don't have a range. I am more connected than have a range. The few telepaths who know about what I can do call me a range-less telepath. Now that I have answered your question, can you answer mine? Why don't you train him to control his telepathy? I thought you weren't a telepath when he was attacked. When you projected to me this morning you made it clear that you are a psychic so you could have taught him how to control his abilities by now." Scarlet answered.

"He will learn to control his abilities eventually," Sylvia responded.

"Is that how it worked for you? Were you a late bloomer? Are others in your family late bloomers too? From what I have seen today; he has struggled to contain his telepathy all day. The only reason he hasn't caused another incident today is because I have been helping him contain it. As soon as he figured it out he flashed me a smile, a silent thank you." Scarlet responded.

"We all learned how to control our telepathy soon after it surfaced," Sylvia commented.

"Did his abilities surface recently?" Scarlet asked.

"No, they surfaced when he was two, he was born with his Clairvoyance and that has never been a problem for him. I imagine the only reason his telepathy was not a natural born ability is because of his Clairvoyance," Sylvia answered.

"With all due respect, I am looking at another child that was born with two abilities. If you believe that a child can only be born with one ability and have another one surface later then you are wrong. His female friend is a natural born telepath and a natural born empath. By the time you were his age, could you control your telepathy?" Scarlet commented in response.

"Yes, I was able to control my abilities at his age," Sylvia admitted. Scarlet thought she could hear his mother actually sigh when she made the projection. The thought of that made her smile slightly.

"He's not able to control it. He is struggling. Why don't you teach him to control it? Without the control, he is a danger to himself and others. He needs to have that control." Scarlet questioned.

"I don't want him to end up like so many other psychics. I don't want him to have the teachings that allow him to manipulate others and abuse his abilities at will. I admit, he needs to be able to control his abilities but I don't want him to abuse that control." Sylvia replied.

The response surprised Scarlet. She didn't know that there were other psychics who shared her point of view. She figured that she was in the minority. Most of the psychics she had met had been willing to mess with humans at will. Most of them had bad experiences, like Sean, attacks and ridicule at the hands of normal humans. It tended to make them bitter as well as afraid of normal humans. The thought that at least one of his parents thought that their abilities were not something meant to be abused for no good reason. Still, it was no excuse to not teach him how to contain his wild abilities, "So, don't teach him anything more than the basics. Teach him how to contain the abilities and not read the minds of others."

There was a long pause before Sylvia responded over the bond, "I have been trying but I don't know how to teach him how to control his abilities. I don't want to use my abilities all the time. I am afraid that it will teach him it is okay to use them all the time as well. I don't know any other way to teach him."

Scarlet nodded, "Let me teach him. I will teach him how to control his abilities and how to defend himself against other telepaths only. I won't teach him how to use his abilities against normal humans."

"I find that difficult to believe. Aren't you using your abilities against the others right now?" Scarlet stated.

"I am blocking the others from noticing me because me being here would get my mother into trouble. When your son was attacked, he called out for help more than just with his voice. I heard him and learned about him that day. I had to see if he was really untrained or if he was purposefully using his abilities. Now that I see that is the former, I see he needs to be trained," Scarlet replied.

It again took a long while for the adult telepath to reply over the bond. When she did reply, Scarlet could tell that the adult was not thrilled with the idea of her child being trained, "I will let you train him for now. If I notice him doing anything that I deem not appropriate with his powers then I will put a stop to your training immediately. Understood?"

Scarlet nodded, "Thank you for the chance to train him."

Scarlet was about to break the bond when Sylvia spoke through it, "Before you break the bond, you and your mother will come to our place for dinner tonight. I want to meet the both of you before I make my final decision about you training my son."

* * *

The human body is controlled by electro chemical reactions. Those reactions create patterns. Science is beginning to figure out how to read those patterns. They have created MRI machines and CT scanners, EEG's, and so forth to read it. Psychics have very subtle differences, minute differences that are still too subtle for those devices to pick up. A talented telepath can pick up on those differences, however.

Scarlet was one of those gifted telepaths. She couldn't take all of the credit for it. Since she was tapped into the collective unconscious of human kind, she was also tapped into the best and brightest of psychics. Some of those had figured out how to read the subtle differences between those who had psychic abilities and those who did not. Others had figured out that there were still differences between telepaths, empaths, telekinetics, psychokinetics, and clairvoyants. She took that knowledge a step further and could figure out how potent an ability was.

She knew, by looking at Sean and feeling the vibrations of his electro chemical reactions, that he was a very gifted Clairvoyant. He was also one of the strongest telepaths that she had come across. She felt that he may have one or two other abilities awaken later, they would be far weaker than the other two that he already possessed.

When Sylvia came to pick up Sean from school, she invited Scarlet and her mother over for dinner that night. She made sure none of the other students were around before she stated, "Your daughter told me what she wants to do with our son. We want to discuss it tonight."

Alexa Henderson nodded, "I don't know when you had a chance to speak with her but she told me she wants to teach your son how to control his telepathy."

Sylvia cocked her head in confusion. This woman's mind was open and there was no sign of any telepathic ability, "You aren't a telepath. Is your husband a telepath?"

"Her father is a telepath but my husband is not her biological father," Alexa explained, "We are both normal, if that is what you are referring to."

"We used our abilities earlier today. She asked me about teaching him then," Sylvia explained, "I didn't know neither of her parents weren't telepathic."

Scarlet was sure by the softening of Sylvia's expression that this fact actually helped her. Many telepaths were taught how to use their abilities by members of their families. Usually, techniques as well as prejudices were passed down from one generation to the next. Sylvia seemed determined to stop this cycle from continuing in her son. Perhaps she had not received any form of family training either. It would be interesting to see if the boy's father had any sort of family training.

As the two mothers conversed, Scarlet studied Sean's mother. She possessed powerful Clairvoyance like her son. Her telepathy was powerful as well but not as powerful as Sean's abilities. Scarlet started to develop a theory, if the boy's father did not have as powerful telepathy as he did then he would be an aberration. An aberrant would have a problem controlling their ability. Their power is somewhat different from the norm. It is possible that when the boy got older his children would have the same telepathy but without the problem or they could have telepathy that resembles their grandparents.

Scarlet's mother drove from the school over to Sean's house. They followed his mother as she drove. The trip only took a few minutes. When they were home they found, his father had just arrived. The three adults conversed in the kitchen as Sean's father cooked the dinner and left the children in the living room to entertain themselves until the dinner was ready.

Scarlet glanced over to his father as he prepared the food, chopping up the vegetables, and meat before adding it to a wok to cook. She studied his patterns as he worked to glean what she could about any abilities he possessed. He was telepathic, about the same level as his wife, he possessed empathic abilities that were slightly weaker than his telepathic abilities. He possessed some telekinetic and psychokinetic abilities. She wondered if he knew about those abilities because his demeanor suggested he lacked the hostility typically associated with telekinetics.

Sean sniffed at the air and his gold eyes glanced towards the kitchen, "Smells like Chinese food. Stir fry."

"Both of your parents are psychics?" Scarlet questioned.

Sean nodded, "I guess so, aren't yours?"

She shook her head, "They're normal."

He glanced down and looked for something to do, "I'm sorry to hear that."

"I hear you have trouble controlling your abilities. I can help you with that," Scarlet offered.

For the first time since she had met him, he glanced up and gazed straight into her blue eyes. His gold eyes, more than anything else, was the thing that unsettled her. It was almost as if a wolf was gazing at her, sizing her up. After a moment he asked, "Do you really mean that?'

She nodded, "yes, I will teach you how to control your telepathy."

He smiled, it was the first time she saw the smile of a seven-year-old on his face, "I would like that."

# Chapter #5: Holistic and Connected

Greeley Colorado

April 8th, 2020-CE

A despondent eleven-year-old walked into the Holistic and Eclectic shop in the downtown area of town. She had done this every day for years but in the past two months, since her mother passed away, she lacked the usual excitement that she used to. When she opened the door, she saw her grandmother, her black hair had started to fade to the same gray that the young girl's eyes had become in recent years. She was talking to a young woman with brown hair and green eyes. The eleven-year-old recognized her right away, "Hi grandma, hi Sylvia," The girl greeted with a sigh and walked to the back of the store and sat her backpack on the floor next to the stool she sat on.

"Hi Angela," Sylvia smiled, "I was telling your grandmother about something interesting that happened yesterday. Apparently, a telepath is going to teach my son how to control his telepathy."

"That's nice," Angela stated as she glanced around the shop. It seemed so empty without her mother there. She would have thought that after the last couple of months, she would have gotten used to it but there was a hole that could never be filled.

"I was going to suggest that maybe it would do the boy some good to go through some druid meditations as well," her grandmother suggested, "What do you think about that, sweetie?"

All three of the people in the room had been through the process of learning how to meditate in the fashion her grandmother suggested. The process was fairly simple; start off by laying on a flat sturdy surface like a wooden or stone floor and relax. Eventually that will not feel so uncomfortable. After that was the "red dot" treatment. The process was sitting in a wooden chair with no padding and staring at a folded sheet of paper with a red dot on it. The red dot would be the universe and one would think of nothing else aside from the red dot.

While the first part wouldn't take a lot of time, the second part did. That was because a person couldn't simply stop thinking about everything during their time with the red dot. If they thought about something else, they would have to trace back the source of the thought and address it before proceeding with their attempt at meditation.

Sylvia chuckled and grasped her triskal in a circle pendant, "I don't think he could sit still long enough during the second phase of learning how to meditate. I would like to see him try. Maybe knowing Angela is telepathic would entice him to try."

Angela glanced up. She tried to envision a young telepathic child sitting there, trying to ignore everything around him and concentrating on that damned red dot. It was hard enough for a normal person to focus on the red dot. She was a telepath and could hear the thoughts of those immediately around her which made it harder. She couldn't imagine someone with the power that Sylvia had trying to focus on the red dot. Yet, Sylvia had managed to do just that. She wondered if her progeny could also manage it.

Before she knew it, both of the older women were glancing at her, "Do you have any advice for the junior member?" Her grandmother questioned.

Angela blushed and shrugged, "What always helped me with the voices in the beginning was playing music loud. Invest in a good MP3 player and ear phones. Let him walk around playing his favorite music at full blast."

"I don't want him to go deaf," Sylvia shook her head.

"Better than him going crazy from the voices," Angela protested softly, "What did you do when you were his age?"

"Played music at full blast," Sylvia stated in response with a flush rising on her face.

"What does a seven-year-old listen to?" Her grandmother questioned in response?

Angela shrugged, "Give him a copy of my library. It has punk, goth, metal, rock, new age, pretty much everything except for country and rap. There will have to be something in there that he likes."

Sylvia shrugged, "Between your library and mine, there has be something there for him. I will take it." She walked over to the incense rack and pulled some lavender incense rods from their holder, "And I will take some of this too. I feel that smell tends to help me more than most things anymore."

* * *

It was late at night when it felt like something had crashed down on her bed. She sat up and glanced around. There was nothing there. Slowly, Angela rose and crossed to the door for the light switch. As she crossed, she glanced to the window. There was a dark image sitting in it glancing back at her with one gray eye and one blue eye. She screamed but she found her voice didn't carry. She also noticed that she did not have a reflection in the mirror, "what's going on?" she asked, "What are you?"

"A spirit, not much different than you," the thing in the mirror spoke with a feminine voice. It pointed back to her bed.

Angela glanced over to her bed and found that she was still sleeping in it. She shook her head to clear it but found that she was still resting soundly in her bed, "What happened to me? Did I die?"

"In my time, we called it spirit flight. I believe your mystics now call it astral projection." The darkness in the mirror stated in response. "Spirit flight is a dangerous thing to do without adequate wards in place. At the moment, you are anchored to your body by only the flimsiest of Nwyfre. Someone could cut that string and you would find it hard to get back to your body. Your body would live on but you would be lost to find your way back to it."

"Are you here to harm me?" Angela shivered as she asked.

"On the contrary, I am here to teach you. Your first lesson, you need to assemble a set of spirit stones. They will aide you in spirit flight, provide you with an anchor and a way back if you are ever severed or lost from your body, and ward you from unwanted spirits near your body and in your living space." The spirit replied.

"If you are an unwanted spirit?" Angela questioned.

"Then the stones will keep me away but I don't think I am an unwanted spirit," it replied.

"What makes you say that?" Angela asked in reply.

"You summoned me. It must have been something you heard in the day," The spirit answered.

Angela thought about it for a moment. She didn't think anything particular would have caused her to reach out to a spirit. She had been morose and depressed since her mother passed. If anything, she would have wanted to see her mother again. She would have preferred it would have been her mother in the mirror as opposed to whatever was facing her now. Her mother never learned how to be a druid like her grandmother. Her mother also did not possess psychic abilities like her grandmother. The power seemed to have skipped a generation. Her grandmother told her that it happened in their family. Angela's great grandmother was normal also. The talent was taught to every other generation for the past six generations now.

The only thing that was different about this day was Sylvia talking about possibly having her son learning how to meditate like she and her grandmother meditated. She wondered if that somehow called the spirit. She didn't know why that would have called the spirit. She actually thought it would have been funny to see a powerful psychic with out of control powers try to sit still and stare at a red dot for an hour and think of nothing else.

It was when she really focused on it that she could see what the spirit was talking about. Angela took to meditation easier than most children did. Her psychic powers were more sedate than those of Sylvia. While she revered the woman, and had to admit that she found the young mother good looking to the eyes, she felt like she was being measured up to against her son. Her son who had powerful psychic powers. He couldn't control them and one resort was to train him how to control them using a family technique.

The Spirit offered her the same thing that was offered to the boy and no one could tell the spirit no except for Angela. This gave her a power over her destiny that no one else had. She nodded, "What spell do I need to cast to make these stones?"

"Silly girl, you aren't a witch or a mage. You are a druid by training, you are a shaman! These aren't things that you enchant with a spell and force your impression upon the world. These are tools that provide a focus. With repetition and patience, they will become spirit stones. You just need three ordinary stones."

"Which stones?' Angela asked.

"You will need a lump of coal as a base, silver as a middle step and gold as the top step. Think of them as stepping stones. Once you get them. Set them in three separate spots in your room and do not move them. They will serve as a foundation. If you keep them in their mind in order of black, silver, gold as bottom, middle, and top then you will be able to attain flight easier and return to your body easier. They will also start to influence spirits to leave your space," The spirit explained.

"Coal shouldn't be too hard to get," Angela stated, "But the gold and silver are a problem. They are rare elements and hard to get. Gold is very expensive."

"They don't have to be those elements but they won't have the same effect immediately. It will take longer for them to have influence. You can substitute Iron pyrite for gold and a silvery metal for the second stone. If you have trouble finding coal you can also grab obsidian or another black stone. Just remember that since you moved away from a primary element that you won't have the same effect immediately. You can also paint ordinary rocks but the effect will be weaker. Just something to remember if you get in a pinch someday," The spirit suggested.

"I will think about that," Angela nodded.

"Think about this when you think about that," The spirit replied, "I will not return until you get the stones and set them up. If you want me as a teacher then you will have to follow my instructions." With those words, the spirit snapped its fingers and the entire world went dark.

Angela opened her eyes and sat up in her bed again. It was dark just like the last time. She raced to where she was just standing and glanced back at the mirror. Whatever was in the mirror was now gone. She glanced back at the bed and did not see herself there. She raced to the light switch and flipped it on. She glanced around and couldn't find any sign that anything had been in her room. She would have to go downstairs to talk to her grandmother in the morning. Angela had to get the stones. That was, if it wasn't a trap and her grandmother could get her the stones of correct color.

# Chapter #6: Extending the Senses

Greeley Colorado

April 9th, 202-CE

It was a calm and warm spring afternoon. After the winds of the last few days, the kids were sure that there would be rain or snow in the forecast. Either was a possibility since March and April were the snowiest months of the year for the state. It was a surprising twist for the children that they could play on the playground. That was how it would appear for Sean, Jena, and Curtis before Scarlet arrived carrying a thick black bandana in her hand.

Sean had almost forgot that it would be the first day of his training. In his pocket rested a new MP3 player a nice and expensive set of earphones. Inside of the MP3 player was a large memory card filled to capacity with discographies of various bands. His mother said that any music that he liked he could keep and set up a playlist for. She would show him how. He was free to play the music as loud as he wanted when he wasn't in class.

Scarlet's red hair was straighter today than the last time he saw her. He figured that she must have done something to straighten it. Her blue eyes glanced around to the other two children, "Would you like to introduce me to your friends?" She asked the young golden eyed boy.

Sean nodded and pointed to the blue-eyed boy, "That is Curtis," He pointed to the red headed green eyed girl, "and this is Jena."

"They are psychic so they can stay but don't expect me to train them to use their abilities. The only reason I am training you is because it is becoming a problem for you," Scarlet noted.

"About that," Sean stated as he pulled out the MP3 player, "My mother bought me a music player and filled it up with music. She said it helped her with her telepathy when she was my age. Maybe we could skip the training for today and just play? Maybe the music will help me?"

"It might help you," Scarlet nodded, "It is a common tactic for strong telepaths to use noise to drown out the voices of the others they hear around them but it will not help you to control it completely. You still need training. You still need control."

"How do you know we are psychic?" Curtis questioned.

"I know," Scarlet answered.

"That's not an answer," Jena stated in response.

"I have a question for you, little girl," Scarlet stated in response, "Are you his sister? You look like his mother. Aside from the eyes, he looks like his father."

"If you are a telepath, why don't you read my mind and find out?" Jena stated as she crossed her arms.

"One thing you all should know is that the reason why people like Miss Leeks reacted the way she did to Sean is because they are afraid that because we can read minds is that we will read minds. You should treat people's minds as private places. That means if someone doesn't want to tell you something then you shouldn't go snooping around. People get pissed if you read their diary, reading their mind is the same thing. If you don't want to answer me, that's fine," Scarlet cautioned, "But that is the reason why I am training Sean. He wants to stay out of people's mind but he cannot control his ability to do so."

Sean glanced down at the bandana in her hand, "What's that for?" He asked.

She walked up towards him, "I'm going to blind fold you."

He took a step back from her, "Why?"

"Telepathy is another sense but it because our minds haven't evolved for it yet it has become tied to other senses. You can hear the thoughts of those around you but you can also use it to see other things as well. You can expand it to other senses. That is what blindfolding you will do; it will force your mind to compensate. You will use your telepathy to expand it to your sense of sight," Scarlet stated.

"I don't understand," Sean said, "I thought we were going to teach me how to control it. Not use it."

"Control it means using it," Scarlet replied, "You will have to learn how to use it in order to learn how to control it."

Curtis smirked, "let her put it on you, I want to see what she has planned for you."

"Are you sure you won't teach him how to use his powers?" Sean questioned, "I think he also needs to be blind folded."

"I might blind fold him later for that comment," Scarlet nodded, "But make no mistake about your talents. They are not powers. Never think of them as powers. You may be different from other humans but you aren't more powerful than them."

Sean nodded, "I will make sure that I don't say that in the future."

Again, Scarlet approached Sean with the bandana. This time he stayed still and let her tie it around his head. She made sure he couldn't see anything but could still breathe and that it was comfortable on him. With him only seeing the darkness the blindfold provided, he noticed that the voice around him grew louder, "I don't think it's working the way you wanted. It's just getting louder."

"I haven't told you what you will be doing yet," Scarlet stated in response, "It is natural for your other senses to start using the space your vision had when you can't see. That is why the voices are getting louder. You should also notice that sounds in general are also getting louder. You should also notice that smells are getting better. Take a whiff."

Sean sniffed the air. He could smell the blooming flowers and the grass as if he had just dived head first into all of it. The natural musk of his friends and Scarlet also blended in with the smells as well as stone of the concrete and the faint smell of asphalt from the street beyond. It seemed incredible at how potent his other senses had become in just removing one. He wondered, if Telepathy was truly a sense, as Scarlet described, if the rest of his senses would expand in the same manner if someone managed to turn it off. He could see the point of her argument; the other humans may not have telepathy but their minds did not have to compensate for a sixth sense.

"What I want you to do now is to try to see yourself through my eyes," Scarlet mentioned.

"I thought you said that we shouldn't invade other people's minds," Sean questioned in response.

"Perhaps I should change that a little," Scarlet stated, "You shouldn't do that without their permission. You have my permission to go into my mind. I want you to go into my mind and pull an image of yourself standing blind folded."

Of all of the voices in the sea, he did know how to focus on one voice in particular. When he tried to focus on Scarlet, he couldn't find her voice in the sea, he could only find Jena's voice. He shook his head to clear her voice from it. She wasn't resisting him or inviting him in, this time, he was trying to target someone other than her. She was proving to be a distraction. After two more attempts, he opened his mouth to speak, "I can't seem to find you."

"Your voice sounds distorted in your head. That is the voice that narrates your own thoughts," Scarlet stated, "My voice doesn't sound the same to me as it sounds to you."

"I know that. Jena's voice sounds different to her than it does to me," Sean stated in response, "I just can't seem to find your voice in the pool of voices around me."

"Let me reach out to you," Scarlet offered, "Do you mind if I do that?"

Sean shook his head, "That is usually how I discover the voices of people familiar to me. Everyone else is usually an accident."

Scarlet took that long response as a yes and reached out for his mind. She found it soon enough, "This is my voice as I sound to myself. I am sure, as we work together, it will become as familiar to you as Jena's does."

"I will remember it," He projected back. When he noticed that she was not shocked he stated aloud, "You didn't flinch when I projected to you."

"I heard you before," Scarlet stated, "You cried out when you were being attacked. Why do you think I took notice of you in the first place?"

Sean shrugged, "I don't know. I figured you were there because you were sick or something and noticed that I couldn't control it during class the other day. That was why you decided to teach me."

Scarlet chewed on her lip before answering, "Well, you weren't wrong. I was there to see if you were using your abilities on purpose. I do know some techniques that can seal away a person's abilities. If you were using your abilities on purpose I was going to do that instead."

"I wouldn't mind if you chose to do that," Sean stated in response, "In truth, I wouldn't mind being normal, like everyone else."

Scarlet was unsure how to respond for a moment. She understood where the boy was coming from. She had been viewed as a freak ever since she was little. Even among other psychics she was an oddity. A lot of psychics around her had a couple of abilities including telepathy. She only had telepathy and that was different than those around her. She had yet to encounter another like her. If she could seal away her own telepathy, and she tried, she would do so. Unfortunately, the power only worked on others. She was not sure she could teach anyone else how to do that.

Finally, she came up with an appropriate answer, "I will not seal away your telepathy right now. You may come to find that it is more a part of you than you realize. It would be cruel of me to take it away from you just because you want it gone right now. It is best for you to learn how to control it right now and make up your mind about it later. You may find out that there is someone out there who you cannot read. If that day comes then you may want to read their mind and learn how much of yourself you really are with those abilities."

"Why would you take them away if I am abusing them?" Sean questioned, "I don't see the difference."

"It's complicated. Maybe you will understand one day. I will explain it later on," Scarlet stated, "In either case it would have been a last resort. I am not sure I could reverse it if I took away someone's abilities so I don't do it unless there is no other choice." She glanced back down at Sean, "Now that you have my voice, try to see yourself through my eyes."

It didn't take long for Sean to find her voice amongst the crowd of voices he was swimming in this time. Once he found her, it was hard to navigate his way to what she was seeing. Unsure of what he should do, he asked telepathically "How do I get to what you are seeing? I have never looked through someone else's eyes before."

"You never probed someone's mind before?" She responded telepathically.

He shook his head and shrugged, "I have no clue as to what to do."

Scarlet nodded but she knew that he couldn't see that yet, "Well I guess it is different for everyone and not every telepath can see through the eyes of another so don't get disappointed if you cannot do it. Try to avoid the thoughts and memories and try to follow a road, a path, a tube, conduit, or something that will lead you to my sight. Some people envision a hallway with different doors and corridors. Others see things differently. Your mind has to translate what is going on in my head."

"You can't guide me?" He asked in response.

"You have to do this on your own," Scarlet answered.

Sean tried to follow what she suggested. He tried to envision something that could guide him to his goal. Slowly he started to see a path of light. It was like a thread that was lit up in the darkness. He could feel himself drawn along it. He let himself be drawn and after a while a fuzzy image of the surroundings came into view. He could see himself through her eyes. As it cleared, he recognized the park and surroundings but things didn't look right. The landscape seemed different because she was taller than him.

In that instant, something happened. His mind was trying to process what she was seeing as if it was his own eyes. He felt dizzy and his knees started to feel like they were turning to jelly. As he felt the wobbling of his body and the butterflies in his stomach, he could see himself starting to sway through her eyes which added to his own vertigo. As he lost his sense of balance, Scarlet started to rush towards him which only served to confuse his senses even more.

He collapsed to the ground like a sack of potatoes before Scarlet or his friends could get to him. He broke the link at that point but it didn't dispel the wave of vertigo or nausea that threatened to overwhelm him. Scarlet pulled off the blindfold and pulled his head onto her lap, "Are you okay? What happened?"

"I think I will be okay, if my stomach doesn't settle, I might get sick," He commented, "I saw myself through you. It was a bit weird. It made me go dizzy and funny."

"That is the first time you sounded like a kid," Scarlet commented, "Come to think of it, I didn't feel you go through my mind. How did you do that?"

Sean shrugged, "I don't know. I saw a small string of light and I let myself be pulled by it and that was how I got to your vision. I thought you figured out a way to lead me through."

She shook her head, "no I didn't. It seems like you already figured out a way to use impulses to your advantage. That must have been how you got to my sight without me noticing."

"I don't know what you said but can we call it a day?" Sean questioned.

Jena knelt down next to him, "Are you still feeling sick to your stomach?"

Sean nodded, "I am."

Jena placed a hand on his stomach. A moment later the queasy feelings eased and his body calmed down. She placed a hand on his head and the vertigo vanished. He sat up and gave her a smiled, "Now that is a useful gift. Can we trade?"

"I'm already a telepath so I can't," Jena giggled.

Scarlet glanced down at the blindfold, "If you are feeling better, would you like to try one more thing before calling it a day?"

Sean shook his head, "No. I think I have done enough for one day."

She stuffed the blindfold in her pocket, "okay, we can save this for tomorrow then. Can I ask you a few questions? Get to know you a little better before we part ways for the day?"

"That's fine," Sean nodded.

"Is Jena your sister?" Scarlet asked.

Sean shook his head and answered, "I consider her the sister I never had but we aren't related. I was born in the same hospital, on the same day, as she was but we are not related."

Scarlet cocked her head in curiosity, "She looks so much like your mother. Are you sure that you two aren't related? Could you have been switched at birth?"

"There is no way of that," Jena answered, "My mother wouldn't let me out of her sight when I was born."

"Same," Sean added, "Plus, she looks like her parents."

"Do you know if your parents are possibly related to each other?" Scarlet questioned.

Both shook their heads, "His mother has a complete family history and so does my family. His father is also not related to my family in any way. The fact that we look related is just a strange thing."

"Interesting," Scarlet nodded. She glanced back to Sean, "Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

"Not that I know," he replied.

"Do you spend a lot of time with other members of your family?" She asked in response.

He shook his head, "The only other members of my family I see are my second cousin, Relena, and her father. Her father is my mother's cousin. My mother won't let me see anyone from my father's side of the family."

"The three of them are like the black sheep of their families," Curtis commented.

"You are like a lone wolf," Scarlet nodded.

Jena chuckled, "his middle name is Wolfe,"

"I think I will call you Lone Wolfe from now on," Scarlet mentioned.

Sean sighed, "What is wrong with my name? I have friends!"

Scarlet nodded, "you have friends but you keep to yourself when it involves your family. You don't spend a lot of time with your parents when you are there. You don't spend a lot of time with your extended family. I don't call you Lone Wolfe because you are a loner in general; wolves are pack creatures, packs are families. You don't seem to fit in with your family at all. That makes you a lone wolf. You may not like it but you are Lone Wolfe."

Curtis nodded, "I like it, it gives you that 'devil may care' feel."

"Your middle name is Wolfe," Jena added.

Sean sighed, "My name is Sean. I would like to stick to that."

Curtis chuckled, "Whatever you say, Lone Wolfe."

# Chapter #7: Stairs of Rocks

Greeley Colorado

April 9th, 202-CE

Angela raced into her grandmother's holistic shop after she got off of the bus from school. She had hoped to see Scarlet in there today but it seemed the shop was only partially filled with other customers. Her grandmother was checking out one of the customers. She had to wait for the customers to leave before she could address her grandmother with her request. She wanted to blurt out the question right away. She was afraid she would forget it all day. She had forgotten about it in the morning before she went to school.

Instead of being a rude middle school child and risking the sale of goods. She took a breath to compose herself and walked towards the back of the store where she sat down her backpack and waited. She sat down on the school and cleared her mind of all thoughts. She figured if she meditated for a bit, she could remember the questions she needed to ask when the customers were gone for the day just as clearly as she did now.

She closed her eyes and let all of her thoughts and emotions go. The world melted away. It felt amazing as she felt a rush of energy enter her. She didn't feel this way before. She wondered if this had something to do with choosing to meditate now and letting go of her feelings after her mother's death or if this had something to do with the visit from the odd spirit from the night before. Either way, she let the thoughts go and let the energy flow through her as she meditated.

She didn't know how much time had passed before her grandmother had turned to her, "I was thinking about lighting a cone of incense. I know you like dragon's blood. I just got some in. Would you like me to light that?"

Angela came out of her meditative state. It felt like she had just come out of the bath and had been blasted dry with cold air. She nodded, "I would like that. Thank you."

Her grandmother took out one of her cone holders and lit a purple cone in it. After a couple of moments, she blew out the flame and let the ember disperse the smoke into the air, filling the place with a familiar sweet and pungent smell. It was when she noticed the black edge just below the glowing ember that she remembered the first of her questions for her grandmother, "Grandma, do you have a rock of coal, some silver, and some gold that I can have?"

Her grandmother turned around and seemed shocked by the question, "What do you need with that?"

"I was going to assemble some spirit stones for my room. I know that having elements for the colors work better than just having rocks of the colors. They don't have to be big. Just a little piece of gold, silver, and some coal will work for me," Angela replied.

"Who told you about spirit stones?" The elder woman questioned in response.

"I had a dream about it last night," Angela replied, "In it I was told that it would help ward against unwanted spirits and would help with astral projection. It would give me an anchor to do that so I can get back to my body if anything happens."

The elderly woman gave her grandchild a small smile, "It seems like your Clairvoyance is starting to grow if you gleaned that information from a dream. That is what it is for. You do know that you are not supposed to play with them. You sit them in a place and leave them there. Only think about them and nothing more. I have another question for you; Do you know how expensive gold is?"

"Very expensive," Angela nodded, "I didn't know if you already had some."

Her grandmother shook her head, "No dear, at over two thousand dollars an ounce, I can't afford to just have that stuff lying around. Silver doesn't come cheap either."

"We can substitute other things for it, it will just take some time for the stones to start working like they should," Angela replied.

"We have iron pyrite in the store, will that work for your gold?" Her grandmother questioned.

Angela nodded, "that will work."

"That will just leave something for silver. We have some hematite magnets that we sell. That should work for silver. Would you like to try that?" Her grandmother suggested.

"I will try it. Like I said, it should work, it will just take longer for it to work," Angela agreed.

"For coal, you can't just pick it up in a store casually anymore. We do sell some obsidian. If you can wait, we can stop by a rock shop and see if they have some coal," Her grandmother offered.

"If we are substituting the other rocks then we can substitute the coal with obsidian," Angela answered.

Her grandmother smiled and went through the store. After a couple of moments, she returned with three sets of stones. She handed the nine stones to Angela. Angela took the stones into her hand and seemed puzzled by the number, "I don't understand. I just needed one of each color. Why did you hand me three?"

"It is always best to be prepared," The elderly woman stated, "I have a set in my medicine bundle. You may want to start assembling one of those for yourself soon. One set will be for your room. The other set can be for traveling to other places and one to keep with you at all times. You can have more than one set. The set for your room is the one you do not want to disturb. That is why I gave you multiple sets."

Angela smiled, "Thank you, I didn't think about that." She divided one set from the others and placed that set in a pocket in her backpack and zipped it shut. The other two set she kept in her hand and drank in the scent of incense as the cone burned down.

As the cone burned halfway down, Angela remembered her other question, "Grandma, what is No-if-Ra?"

"Where did you hear about Nwyfre?" her grandmother asked in response.

"From the dream," Angela stated, "I know it is an energy but what is it exactly?"

"You have seen those sci-fi movies?" Her grandmother questioned, "The ones from the late seventies and early eighties that had a second trilogy that served as a prequel in the early two-thousands. The force that they describe in that set of movies is Nwyfre. It is the energy that binds and connects all things together. It is what shamans channel. You can learn to channel and block it as well. Learning how to use the spirit stones will be a good start."

"How will those help?" Angela questioned in response.

"I have told you before that we believe that everything has a spirit. The ground has a spirit, buildings have spirits, cars have spirits, those rocks have spirits," Her grandmother mentioned, "You can affect it all by using and channeling Nwyfre. However, you cannot enforce your own will if it goes totally against the will of the spirit you are trying to influence. You don't know how to channel Nwyfre yet but everyone channels a little bit of it in how they perceive the world and react to it.

"By placing the stones in set spots in the room, not moving them, but constantly thinking about them and referencing them in your mind as a sort of step ladder; you start influencing how they will react. You aren't casting a spell but they will start to change their influence to bend to your will. It is true that having three elements will be easier to bend to your will than those mixed elements of stones in your hands but they will do the same thing eventually. The stones will become tied to your Nwyfre flow and spirits will see it as a ladder and be nudged out of your personal space. You will be able to project easier around that space and you will find your way back because you are connected to it. Without doing anything special, you have channeled and affected reality subtly." Her grandmother explained.

Angela smiled, "Cool."

"Don't expect anything to happen overnight since those stones are not pure elements," her Grandmother cautioned, "Give it a couple of weeks or a couple of months."

Angela nodded, "I will." She glanced down at the iron pyrite in her hands and noticed how similar it looked to pictures of gold she had seen in her geology text book from her middle school science class and asked, "Why do elemental stones do better than these stones?"

"The elements know what they are and what they can do. Carbon is a very versatile element. It can conduct electricity in certain conditions and it can exist as a liquid and as multiple types of rocks. Silver is said to have properties to disrupt certain types of magic and purifying properties. Gold does not rust and keeps is luster after many years. You leave those rocks in the ground and come back in a few centuries and you will still have carbon, silver, and gold. It is easier to influence their Nwyfre as a result. The elements you have in your hand are less clear in their roles and thus their Nwyfre is harder to influence as a result."

"I heard in the dream, that if I had to, I could take some rocks and paint them black, silver, and gold, and use them the same way?" Angela questioned, "Is that true."

Her grandmother smiled but shrugged, "to a point. They will do if you have nothing else around and needed something but you are trying to get ordinary rocks to do something they cannot do normally. That is an example of trying to enforce your will. It may work for a short time but the effect is weak and will actually fade with time."

Angela nodded and gave her grandmother a genuine smile, "I see. Well, I don't have to worry about that now since you gave me these extra stones. Thank you for that."

"Well that depends," Her grandmother stated, "Anyone can use spirit stones, not just us. If you have a friend that has nightmares or thinks they are being harassed by ghosts, you could placate them by giving them a set of spirit stones. Since you don't have a lot of money at your disposal you can paint a few stones and give it them with the same instructions. If the painted stones start to work for them, you can tell them to get some better stones to take their place."

# Chapter #8: Spirit Sight

Greeley Colorado

April 10th, 2020-CE

Sean glanced down at the blindfold in Scarlet's hand and shook his head. Memories of yesterday were still fresh in his head. He did not want to have another repeat of yesterday, lying on the ground about ready to puke from the vertigo he suffered from peering through someone else's eyes. He would rather learn other techniques to control his telepathy. He noticed that the voices in his head did seem quieter today and he didn't have to concentrate as hard to keep his ability from wandering around. It seemed to be working but he still didn't want another experience with the blindfold.

Scarlet approached him and he backed up, "I promise I won't hurt you," She stated as he approached, "We still have a couple of things we need to try with the blindfold."

He shook his head and continued to back away from her, "I would rather skip the rest of those lessons. You know what? Between the music and what I learned yesterday I think I might be able to control my telepathy without any more lessons. How about we call things good?"

Scarlet shook her head and continued to walk forward to the boy, "No, Lone Wolfe, you still have much to learn before you can control your ability. I promise that we will get all of the blindfold stuff out of the way first then we can concentrate on other things."

Sean shook his head and continued to back up, "How about you teach me the other stuff first and we come back to the blindfold stuff later?"

"I won't forget about the blindfold training," Scarlet mentioned, "If we put it off till later, you will still have to go through it. It is better we get it out of the way now. You won't have to look through anyone else's eyes again. You won't have to get dizzy and sick. If that is what is scaring you then you can be assured that you won't have to do that."

Jena called out to her friend, Curtis happened to catch a cold and was missing from school today, "Come on Lone Wolfe, don't you want to have complete control of your abilities like I do?"

Sean sighed, "My name is Sean, not Lone Wolfe."

"Well I am going to call you Lone Wolfe while you are my pupil," Scarlet smiled, "But she is right; I know you want to control your talents. The sooner we get past this, the sooner we can move onto other things."

Sean sighed, "Okay, let's try it."

He stood still and allowed her to cover his eyes with the blindfold. She wrapped it around his head, still taking care to make sure it was comfortable but making sure he couldn't see out of it. She walked back from him and said, "What you are going to do now is reach out and try to feel the minds of Jena and I. Try to see how far away we are from you and try to see if you can use us to make sense of your surroundings. You won't be going into our minds but using us as beacons of sorts."

"I don't get it; how will I be able to make sense of my surroundings from that?" Sean stated in response.

"You might surprise yourself if you try it," Scarlet stated in response, "Just see if you can do the first part. We will move on after you try."

He reached out with his mind and could feel both of the telepaths right away. In the sea of voices, he couldn't discern distance before. He thought it would be the same this time. He waited for anything to come out of the noise that would tell him how far away each of them was. He found that as he concentrated, he got nothing so instead of concentrating, he let go and waited for the information to come to him naturally.

It came slowly. It was like he was concentrating on the wrong part of his senses. Like discerning voices in a crowd, if he listened and didn't force it, he could start to tell where the voices were coming from. He noticed that Scarlet had moved in that short time from right in front of him over to Jena's right. He glanced in her direction but with the blindfold on, he still couldn't see her directly. He couldn't tell how far away she was from him. She could be standing right in front of him or she could be right next to Jena.

He waited, patiently, for more information to come. He noticed that Scarlet was walking around. His head followed her even though he couldn't see her. He still couldn't tell how far away she was from him. She could be very slowly walking around him, just out of his reach, or should could be further away than from where Jena was standing.

"Is he tracking you?" Jena asked aloud, "Is he figuring out what you wanted him to do?"

"Maybe," Scarlet stated, "Hard to tell at the moment."

Their speaking gave him a clue. Their voices sounded like they came from different distances away. He wondered if it worked the same way with the telepathy. He expanded his senses even more to see if he could hear their inner voices the same way heard their conversation. After a moment, he could hear differences in their inner monologues. One did sound closer than the other. The difference was more pronounced with their minds than it was with their voices.

He felt the other voices around him and they all felt like they were coming from different directions and at different distances. He couldn't tell where he was enough to trust walking without bumping into something but he was getting what she was talking about.

"Is everything okay? You are looking around frantically," Scarlet called out.

He glanced back to her and was about to respond when he gasped. Where there was darkness before he now saw something in the darkness. Two figures, one closer to him than the other. Each of them were a very pale blue with shimmering colors within. They looked like Jena and Scarlet.

"What's wrong?" Jena questioned.

"I... see you!" Lone Wolfe answered.

"Is there a hole in the blindfold?" Scarlet questioned in response.

Lone Wolfe shook his head, "No. I see you but it isn't like before. You are all blue and have different colors swirling around."

He squinted and walked towards Jena. He studied the figure he studied before her. Within the shell of Jena, he saw other figures. The outer essence had her eyes open, the others, many-many others, all had their eyes closed like they were sleeping. Jena blushed but he couldn't see that, "What are you doing, Lone Wolfe?"

"I am studying you," He replied, "Inside you there are others. Many different forms of you. All different but all you."

"I don't get it," Jena stated.

Scarlet approached and said, "I do. He is looking at your spirit. He is seeing your past lives. He is a true telepath."

"A true telepath?" Jena commented in confusion.

"Another word for it is a Pure telepath. True telepaths are those that can also communicate with ghosts and spirits. It seems that Lone Wolfe has this power and now is able to tap into it. I have never seen another person tap into it with a living person, however." Scarlet explained.

Lone Wolfe turned his attention to Scarlet and studied her spirit. He saw the same dense layer cake patter inside of her as he did inside of Jena. Inside the shell of the pale blue spirit there were many different versions of her all with their eyes closed. He glanced up to his mentor and questioned, "I see the same thing inside you. There are many different versions of you. They all look like they are sleeping. Why?"

She shrugged, "I don't know. I don't know a lot of telepaths that can peer into the inside of other people to see their spirits. Maybe you are seeing past lives."

Lone Wolfe shrugged then held up his own hand into what should have been his view. He saw nothing. He frowned, "Why can't I see myself?"

"Probably doesn't work that way," Scarlet mentioned, "You may have to find someone else with that talent or teach someone what you just learned."

With how hard he fought the other two instances of being blindfolded, he suddenly found himself with a strange question wanting to escape his lips, "Do you mind if I keep this blindfold? I want to study this more."

Scarlet shook her head, "You can keep it."

# Chapter #9: Spirit Flight

Greeley Colorado

May 15th, 2020-CE

Angela had placed one of the sets of stones in her room. She placed the piece of coal in a corner behind her dresser. The other two she placed in the corners in the back of the top shelf of her closet. With the stones in place all she needed to do was think about them when she was in her room and before dozing off. It took over a month before the stones had the effect she wanted and expected.

She had awakened in the middle of the night and glanced around. Sitting before her on the end of the bed was another woman dressed in a gray robe. She had red hair and freckled skin. She recognized the woman as the same spirit that inhabited the mirror more than a month ago because one eye was blue and the other was gray. Angela smiled and said, "I didn't know if I would see you again. My grandmother made it sound as if all spirits would be ushered away by the stones."

"Normally, it would have. I am a bit different," The spirit nodded in response.

"May I have your name?" Angela questioned.

"For now, call me Mentor," the Spirit replied.

"No other name, Mentor?" Angela questioned in response.

Mentor shook her head, "No other name that I can share now. Did you happen to speak with your grandmother about Nwyfre?"

Angela nodded, "She told me it is like something from a science fiction movie we watched. An energy field that is in everything and is a part of everything."

"There is truth to that." Mentor nodded, "Nwyfre is energy and it is in everything, it also moves through everything. It is change and lack of stasis; the force that drives change in everything. Did she tell you anymore?"

Angela shook her head, "Not really."

"There are three different base types of it," Mentor explained, "Telluric Nwyfre which comes from the Earth, Solar Nwyfre that comes from the sun, and Lunar Nwyfre that exists in the air."

"Wouldn't you call it Air Nwyfre if it is in the air?" Angela questioned in response.

"The moon is a perfect example of that type of Nwyfre," Mentor shook her head in response, "Lunar Nwyfre is a mixture of Solar and Lunar Nwyfre. Moonlight is sunlight that is reflected from the moon."

"Then doesn't that mean there are only two different types?" Angela asked.

Mentor shook her head, "The whole is more than the sum of its parts. Moonlight is sunlight that is reflected off the moon but it is different, it doesn't feel the same as sunlight and it doesn't warm you like sunlight. It is different. You are a collection of matter and energy yet you are different than from other people that are made the same as you. Humans are more than the sum of their parts and it is the same way with Lunar Nwyfre."

Angela nodded, she could see the meaning in the spirit's words, "I get it. So, if we mix any more of the three together do we get other distinct and different Nwyfre that is different from before?"

Mentor shrugged, "The truth is a bit more complicated than that. Think of Lunar Nwyfre as living Nwyfre. The three can be mixed further from there and that is part of how the balance is maintained between nature and a shaman. Life on this planet is infinitely complex yet all living things are based off of carbon that isn't that different from one of the rocks you should have used for the set of spirit stones. It is the same thing; things can mix and change forms but there is still the basis of the three things I just told you about."

Mentor stood up on the bed and offered a hand to Angela, "Enough about Nwyfre for tonight. I want to show you around. This world will seem like the world you fell asleep in but there will be some differences. Eventually you may be able to see them with your real eyes but now you will see them with your spirit."

Angela rose and took Mentor's hand. She glanced back to the bed to make sure that her body was still there. She glanced back to Mentor and asked, "are we going anywhere specific?"

Mentor shook her head, "For right now we are just going to walk around. The place will look familiar to the normal world but after a while you will pick up some differences."

Mentor started toward the window, "Aren't we going to go out the door?"

"Right now, we are just spirits," Mentor replied, "We don't have to go through doors. It sometimes takes ghosts time to figure that out. That is, if a ghost is not anchored to an area."

"How could a spirit be anchored to an area?" Angela questioned in response.

They passed through the wall and were on the ground next to the house an instant later, "Remember how you concentrated on the stone just before bed for the last month? You altered the flow and Nwyfre of the stones by doing that. That is what created the spirit stones and they serve as an anchor to get you back to your body, should something happen to your spirit. Humans do this all the time with items or places. If they die unexpectedly, those objects become anchors that tie the ghost to this side of the spirit world. The Material world."

"So, I didn't need the stones to make the spirit stones you wanted?" Angela asked as they started to walk away from the house.

Mentor shook her head, "You needed the stones. You were having them serve a very specific purpose. Things that would anchor a spirit to this plane are created by accident and wouldn't serve as spirit stones."

Angela looked around. When she went to sleep, there was no fog. Around her, there seemed to be a subtle fog but when she concentrated on it, it always seemed to clear up. She glanced at Mentor, "Did the fog roll in while I was sleeping?"

Mentor shook her head, "That is the gauntlet. It keeps people dreaming from crossing into the spirit side of the astral plane. Since you are projecting right now, you can pierce the veil, with a little bit of concentration but we will save that for another time."

They walked at a brisk pace and were able to sustain it since she didn't have a body to speak of. She noticed that certain sections of the city seemed to have more fog than other places of it, "I take it the gauntlet is not an even thing?"

"Correct," Mentor answered, "It varies from one location to another." She glanced around as they walked, "Usually, in urban areas, the gauntlet is so strong that spirits cannot cross over, no matter how ready they may be. There are other areas where the gauntlet is so weak that a person who astral projects by accident can cross into the spirit realm without noticing. There are said to be areas where there is no gauntlet at all. Verges where humans can cross with their bodies, into the spirit world. Channeling and stirring the Nwyfre keeps these verges sealed. That is one of the duties of shamans; to keep the worlds separate."

"I take it grave yards are places where the gauntlet is so weak that a verge would be created?" Angela questioned in response.

Mentor shook her head, "While it is true that the gauntlet would be lower in a grave yard than in the city square, it is stable and not usually a problem there. Usually it is places where energy and life are low. Think of the desert. While the wind could sweep through there, that isn't always enough to keep the Nwyfre stirring. Life has to exist in order for the gauntlet to maintain itself."

"What will happen if there are no shamans?" Angela questioned.

"There are always some," Mentor stated, "They don't need to be strong, they just need to be receptive."

Angela stopped dead in her tracks as they approached a building. Her gray eyes widened and her mouth dropped, "This place closed down before my mother died! Why is it here instead of the empty building?"

"The astral realm is slow to change," Mentor noted, "Eventually, the place may reflect the empty building you now know. It may also change to a new business instead of replacing it with an empty building. It all depends. If there is a new housing development in your world then you could probably see the empty field here. At least for a while."

# Chapter #10: Alban Heruin

Red Feather Lakes, Colorado

June 20, 2020-CE

Angela was used to camping in Red Feather Lakes but it was the first Summer Solstice since her mother died. Her grandmother had a small camper trailer. Angela and her mother used to sleep in a tent to give the camping experience during their holy time a more rugged feel. While her grandmother packed the tent in the closet in the trailer but Angela did not feel like setting it up.

Angela crossed over to the back of the trailer to the generator. Her grandmother was meditating in the sun. She had brought a small marble slab and set up her altar on it. In the center of the altar was a knife. On the west end of the altar was a bowl of sand. On the east end was a candle which had been lit. On the north end was an incense burner with several sandalwood cones lit. On the south end was a bowl of salt water. Each station of the compass belonged to an element. Each element brought together the energies that her grandmother needed.

Angela could not meditate at the altar. Normally she could, but this was the first major holiday without her mother and her memories were distracting her from it. As soon as she placed her hand on the red generator at the back of the trailer she heard her grandmother call out, "Do not start that generator!"

"Grandma, I'm bored! What am I supposed to do?" Angela griped in response.

"You can get some firewood for tonight," Her grandmother suggested, "you can read a book."

"I finished the book I brought yesterday!" Angela sighed, "I don't want to roam around with a saw and get firewood again! I got enough for a bon fire the day before, we haven't used most of it yet!"

"You can write a book then, you can take a nap," Her grandmother suggested in response.

"I'm not a baby," Angela stated in response.

"No but you are a child." Her grandmother commented.

"Maybe we should have taken other people with us. Someone who had other kids maybe? There isn't anyone out here. I can't hear anyone else around and the only other voice I can hear inside my head is you. You could have invited Sylvia and her family," Angela stated as she leaned up against the side of the trailer.

"You think I didn't want anyone else to come with us? I'm and old woman. I would have wanted you to have someone else to play with," the elderly woman replied, "I did invite Sylvia, her husband, and her son to come with us but Sylvia and her husband had to work. Do you think you would have gotten along with a seven-year-old anyway?"

Angela shrugged, "It would have been better than doing nothing all day."

"Give me an hour or two of meditation then we can go fishing," Her grandmother suggested, "if we catch anything then we can use the guts as a sacrifice tonight."

"Isn't that kind of like cheating?"

"Do you want to go fishing or not?" Her grandmother asked in response.

"It's better than nothing," Angela nodded.

"Then don't look a gift horse in the mouth!" her grandmother patronized then turned her attention back to the altar and closed her eyes.

"Not far from here is a clearing, perfect for a new trick," Came a voice over the subtle warm breeze. Angela recognized the voice right away. It was Mentor. She glanced around but did not see the spirit there. She glanced to her grandmother and saw that her grandmother didn't seem to hear the words of the spirit that was somewhere in the area.

She thought about replying to the spirit directly but thought against it. She was just old enough to know that speaking to the wind would generally be seen as a bad thing. She thought about something better which would also keep her grandmother from panicking, "Grandma, I am going to go to the clearing on the other side of the trailer. Come get me when you are ready."

"That's fine dear, don't wander too far," Her grandmother replied.

Angela strode off into the woods. The woods seemed to go on pretty deep for a moment then opened up into a sudden clearing. Angela glanced around in amazement. She didn't know the place was so close to the camp ground they had been going to for so many years. Quietly, so her voice wouldn't carry, she asked, "Where are you Mentor? I can't see you."

"I am around," Mentor replied, "You don't need to see me for this ritual."

"What will I learn today?" Angela questioned.

"Assume the stance and close your eyes. Face south," Mentor instructed.

Angela did as the spirit instructor requested. She faced the south and closed her eyes. She stood with her feet at shoulder distance apart and her hands at her side. Knowing that Mentor would instruct her to slow her breathing and start meditating she did her best to comply. It seemed easier, now that mentor was there instructing her. Her mind cleared itself as if wind had come to blow the cloud of thoughts away and her breathing slowed and steadied.

"A month ago, I taught you how to cleanse your Nwyfre through a Nwyfre cleansing ritual that you can do any time of year. I will teach you a Solar Nwyfre cleansing ritual. During Alban Heruin you can do this while the sun is out but most times of year you will have to face east and do this in the morning, before ten in the morning if possible." Mentor explained, "on your next breath in, raise your hands into the air and on your next breath out push down with your hands and imagine that you are pushing the Nwyfre in your body out and to the ground, replacing it with energy from the sun."

Angela did as she instructed. She took a slow and deep breath and raised her hands from her side to above her head. When her lungs were filled, she pushed down with her hands as she exhaled. She expected to feel something similar to what she felt when she made the breakthrough with Telluric Nwyfre cleansing; a clearing of thought and increased focus. All she got was nothing.

She repeated the process a few more times. At first, she made sure she did not rush the process as that would have gotten her nothing for her efforts. As the time progressed, she started to breathe faster and her movements lost sync with her breathing. She opened her eyes and sighed, "It's not working! I don't feel anything! It doesn't feel at all like it did when I cleansed with Telluric Nwyfre!"

"It's not supposed to," Mentor replied, "Solar Nwyfre is nothing like Telluric Nwyfre. When you get it right, the effects will be strikingly different. Now, clear your mind and start again. This time, clear your thoughts of any expectations of what you are going to get out of this exercise."

Angela nodded and closed her eyes and tried again. She let go of all expectations, all frustrations, everything around her. It was just the exercise. She repeated the process over and over. She didn't feel any different for the first dozen cycles. Slowly, as she repeated the process, she felt like she was taking in a revitalizing energy, as if she had drunk a pot of coffee and it was just starting to slowly kick in. She felt charged and energized. Her body started to tingle with energy, as if she were standing on a live wire. It didn't hurt. In fact, all of her scrapes and bruises she got from cutting lumber from the previous day felt like they were melting and falling away.

She stopped and opened her eyes. She had expected the world around her to be brighter because her eyes were closed but there was definitely something different now. There seemed to be extra colors now. The air carried the scents of all of the plants around her. She could hear the animals and insects scurrying around in the underbrush at the edge of the clearing.

In the air a short distance, she could see a shimmering distortion, something that she didn't see before. She glanced over and focused on it. It looked almost human, "Mentor? Is that you?"

"You can almost see without me forcing the projection," The shimmering distortion nodded, "This is the power of the sun. Solar Nwyfre heals and revitalizes. Your cuts and bruises are diminished and your senses are sharper."

"I can see new colors!" Angela nodded, "Everything has been turned up a notch."

"If you do nothing else then the effect will be temporary and will wear off with time. The cleansing worked a little faster on you than I expected. It seems to have given you a fourth cone already. You can now scrutinize a forth primary color," Mentor explained, "This is just the beginning, however. If you perform a Telluric cleansing ritual at night, it will sharpen the abilities and give them more focus."

"What can I do to make them permanent?" Angela questioned.

"For the rest of your time here, for the rest of Alban Heruin," Mentor replied, "perform a Solar cleansing ritual during the day, for as long as you can, and at night perform the Telluric cleansing ritual. Then, every day if possible, perform a solar cleansing in the morning and a telluric at night. Eventually, they will become permanent and the real training can begin."

"I better tell grandma to continue to meditate and cancel the fishing trip," Angela noted and started to head for the clearing.

"Go fishing, enjoy the finer things with the new senses," the spirit commented, "You won't lose them from taking some time out to fish. You still have to eat."

* * *

One of the things that Angela loved to do at night up in the mountains was to stargaze at night. As instructed, she performed her Telluric Nwyfre cleansing ritual after dinner and after the sun had gone down and waited until night to stroll back into the clearing. She expected to feel cold as it still dropped to near freezing up in Red Feather even in the middle of the summer, after the sun went down. The cold didn't seem to affect her as much as before. She could also see in the dark a lot better than before. It made her wonder how the stars would be.

She laid down on the grass and gazed up at the stars with her new gray eyes. The expanse before her looked even more amazing than before. This was a view she could never get from Greeley. The galaxy stretching out before her. Clouds of dust looking like a natural cloud covering pin pricks of light in the sky. With her new eyes, they shined brighter and with new light. There seemed to be more stars than before.

She drank in the new colors as if she were a child again, looking at the clear night sky for the first time again. There were wonders to be discovered both on Earth and out there. Everything seemed to call at her. She wanted to take it all in. It felt like she could almost reach it.

"Should I get your sleeping bag or will you make your way back to the trailer soon?" her grandmother asked.

She didn't hear her grandmother approach. With her new hearing, she should have heard her approach but she was too engrossed in the view before her to notice. She reluctantly broke her glance with the night sky and focused on her grandmother, "I'm sorry, I must have lost track of the time." She turned back to the stars, "Have you ever seen the night sky with new eyes? Seen it with new colors?"

"Did you eat some mushrooms you found in the woods?" Her grandmother sounded worried.

"No, I meditated and took in the energy from the sun. Since then I have been seeing new colors. Everything seems better than before. Better hearing, stronger smells. The fish tasted like stronger fish," Angela replied, "I can't explain it any better than that."

"Who taught you how to take in the energy from the sun like that?" Her grandmother asked, "I know what you are talking about. I didn't teach you that. Your mother didn't teach you that. She never went on camping trips for the religion. She went on the trips because she liked camping. She liked seeing the stars at night. She liked telling ghost stories and roasting marshmallows and hotdogs over the fire. She was never a shaman, never a druid. Who taught you?"

Angela was unsure how to answer. She stretched the truth once with her. It was a dream when she learned about the spirit stones. She learned how to use them for astral projection and her room has been mostly clear of ghosts since. Now, she has learned how to cleanse her Nwyfre, she was starting to gain from the training Mentor was giving her.

"I'm waiting for an answer, young lady," Her grandmother stated.

"Dreams," Angela answered, "I can't explain it any better than that. Just like the stones, I learn this stuff in my sleep and I try them out the next day."

Her grandmother was silent. Even in the dark, she could still see the old woman's face. She didn't know if her grandmother was trying to decide if she was lying or if she was deciding what to do next. She shrugged, "Your mother never had your talents. I can gaze into the future as well but as I have gotten older, the abilities seem to have faded. I don't think I was able to glean this much from my dreams. Maybe you are the next step, maybe your children will have talents too. If you ever want me to teach you, let me know. Otherwise, I will leave you to your solo studies as long as you don't dabble in anything dangerous. Once that happens, I will stop you."

# Chapter #11: First Communion

Greeley Colorado

June 28th, 2020-CE

There was a park close to Lone Wolfe's house called Farr Park. There wasn't much there to entertain a seven-year-old. There was a climbing wall, some trees, basketball courts, tennis courts, a grass field, some trees, a gazebo and a swing set. It was there that Lone Wolfe sat alone and waited for Scarlet. His friends had left on vacation. There was no one else around for him to hang around with.

Scarlet came around and saw him sitting on the swing set. He looked forlorn and lonely. In the summer heat, she had her red hair pulled back in a ponytail. She sat down on the swing seat next to him, "What's wrong?" She asked.

Lone Wolfe glanced around, "I hate summer and I hate Christmas. Every time those times of year come around, my friends leave on vacations. They see other friends and family and I am left alone. I have no friends around at the moment."

Scarlet hissed, "What the hell do you mean by that? I thought I was your friend?"

Lone Wolfe glanced at her with shocked gold eyes, "I thought you were my teacher and I also thought older kids didn't want to be seen with little kids?"

Scarlet rolled her eyes and sighed, "It's now clear to me that you can control your telepathy far better than just a few months ago. You don't know me that well. If you did, you'd know that I will take all the friends I can get."

Lone Wolfe nodded and smiled. There was still shock in his eyes. He glanced at the rest of the playground and said, "I'm glad to count you as a friend. It seems like you are the only one around right now. So, I have finished my training then?"

Scarlet shook her head, "I wouldn't say that. It just may be moving to a different phase. As long as you remember your basic tenants. You must never use your abilities against normal people unless they give you a very valid reason not to trust them. Again; that means something like them attacking you. Lies are not enough."

Lone Wolfe nodded, "I understand. What is this new phase of training?"

"I have taught you how to control your telepathy so you don't accidentally read the minds of normal people. You will have to deal with other telepaths, however. That will require you to know how to defend your mind against telepaths and if necessary, how to attack them. You will also need to know some more than basic communication with them," Scarlet mentioned.

He glanced at her, confusion only deepening in his eyes, "I don't understand. I thought you were only going to teach me how to control my abilities?"

"That was before," Scarlet shrugged, "This is now." She rose from the swing and offered her hand to Lone Wolfe, "Come, I have a new lesson for you but it will take several hours. It is not something for a park."

Lone Wolfe took her hand and stood, "Where are we going?" He asked.

"We are going to take a walk to my house. My mother is home but she won't disturb us during our training," She stated as they started to walk.

"We always conducted our training out in the park or the playground outside of school. Why the change?" Lone Wolfe asked as they walked.

"There are some things that will leave us vulnerable," Scarlet stated in response, "I don't think someone will do something to us because we are telepaths but if we are to do this technique it will leave us in a position where an unsavory person may take us away. Who could resist an unconscious seven-year-old and fourteen-year-old?"

Lone Wolfe stopped in his tracks, "What do you mean unconscious?"

"This technique, if we can perform it, will leave us passed out for a short time," Scarlet stated.

"What technique is this? Is this some form of attack?" Lone Wolfe questioned in response.

They stopped before a house before she answered, "It is not an attack. It is the exact opposite of an attack. It is perhaps the most sacred thing two telepaths can do with each other. The deepest of links." She glanced down at him as she fished in her pockets for a key to the door, "There is no accurate word for it in the English language. I am not sure that there is any word for it in any language. Some call it the Bonding. A bond deeper than any bond you have known so far. Some call it the joining, for a brief moment, two minds are joined. I call it a Communion."

"Have you done one of these before?" Lone Wolfe asked as she unlocked the door, "With anyone else?"

She shook her head and opened the door, "Not yet. You would be the first."

"Then how do you know what to do?" Lone Wolfe questioned in response.

She ushered him into the house, "I know how to do it. If you communion with me, you will see how."

Lone Wolfe nodded and walked over to the sofa. He sat down as she sat down. In the cooler air-conditioned living room, she took out the hair tie and let her red hair fall down to her shoulders. He glanced around the dark room then asked, "So how do we start this off?"

"As you have learned over the past couple of months, telepathy is tied to a couple of other senses. We will look at each other. We will see with both our sight and our telepathy. We should see something within the other, a light. We will reach toward the light and pull it into ourselves. We will feel tired when the light is pulled. If you flinch at that point, the process is broken and we will have to start over." Scarlet explained.

Lone Wolfe nodded and took a deep breath. He glanced into her green eyes, "Ready when you are."

She glanced at him. Soon after, he saw a light within her, just behind the eyes. With his telepathic abilities, he reached out towards it and felt the warmth of it. He started to pull it towards himself as she did the same with the light she found within him. As she described, he started to feel tired and weak, as if he had stayed up too late watching TV and shows on the computer. He sucked in a deep breath and lost his concentration. At that moment he flinched, letting go of the light within her.

Her eye lids snapped open. They both felt fully awake again, as if they had been hit by adrenaline. His face flushed red, "Sorry. I must have flinched."

She shook her head and smiled, "it's okay. We can try again."

They again glanced at each other with both their eyes and their telepathy. They wrapped their abilities around the light they saw in the other. As they started to pull and he started to feel sleepy, he started to panic again. He sucked in his breath and his gold eyes widened in panic. The panic caused the connection to be broken for a second time.

He scratched the back of his head, "I'm sorry, I don't know what I am doing wrong."

"This is an exercise in trust. One of the telepaths will flinch if they don't trust the other one. I trust you. If you need time, we can do this some other time. I can figure out something else to teach you," Scarlet explained.

Lone Wolfe shook his head, "That's okay. I do trust you. I just feel weird when we start the process."

Scarlet nodded, "That is normal. That is why I didn't want to try this in the park. We are safe here. My mother is home and will make sure nothing happens to us. If this place doesn't work, we can go back to your house."

Lone Wolfe shook his head, "There is no one at the house. I am not allowed to have anyone over when they aren't home."

Scarlet blinked for a second, "Wait a second. You are a seven, right?"

Lone Wolfe nodded, "Yes."

"You don't have any older siblings?" She questioned in response.

He nodded again, "Correct."

"How could they leave you alone at home?" She asked.

"They can't afford a baby sitter or daycare. They say as long as I make sure I am safe, I can go to the park. They make sure I have breakfast and that there is a lunch in the fridge that I can eat or heat up in the microwave. One of them is usually home in the afternoon for dinner," Lone Wolfe mentioned, "None of my family lives in the city. The only thing they could do is send me away to stay with family for the summer but Relena and her father are on the farm getting ready for harvest. While my mother and father trust Relena and her father, they don't trust the rest of the family. They don't have a lot of choice in the matter," Lone Wolfe explained.

She was starting to see why he hated the summer. There was no one around for him to associate with. She started to see why he was so mature for his age. She didn't know, yet, how long this had been going on. She was suddenly afraid of something else happening to him. Something that was out of his control. She had to help him out, "This won't do. You are far too young, in the eyes of normal people, to be left alone. If the police would have caught you wandering the streets by yourself they would have taken you away from your parents. They wouldn't have accepted not affording child care as an excuse. Until I can find something more permanent, I am going to show up at your door step and baby sit you from now on."

"They can't afford a baby sitter," Lone Wolfe protested.

"I never said I would charge," Scarlet mentioned, "I said I would make sure you are looked after. Your parents must be worried about you. When we find something that will work better for everyone then they can make the choice at that time. One way or another, I will be calling your parents tonight to make the arrangements for tomorrow."

Lone Wolfe nodded and sighed. He sat back on the sofa and glanced away from her. She saw worry on his face, "What's wrong?" She asked.

"I'm afraid that they will be upset when they find out about this," Lone Wolfe stated, "your mother is a teacher."

"I will tell her that your baby sitter up and quit on them," Scarlet stated in response, "if you think about it, I have already been looking after you somewhat. You can just look at it as we will be spending more time together. If you don't like thinking of me as a baby sitter then maybe you can think of me as a big sister or something."

He glanced back at her, his eyes seemed to warm up to her, "Do you mean it?"

"I'm an only child too," Scarlet nodded in response, "Even if my mother gets pregnant now, the kid will be little until I am off to college. If I am to have anything close to a little brother, you are it."

Lone Wolfe smiled but the smile faded quickly, "Thank you, I appreciate it. There is one problem, though?"

It was Scarlet's turn to be confused, "Oh?"

"Jena thinks of me as her brother," Lone Wolfe stated in response.

"I don't see the problem. You two are like twins in a way. If she would let me, we all could be a happy family but I would have to get to know her first," Scarlet noted.

"You will have to ask her," Lone Wolfe stated in response, "I can't speak for her."

Scarlet nodded, "I will ask her when she get back." She glanced over to the clock then back to her charge, "Are you ready to try again?"

He nodded, "I am ready."

The looked at each other again and reached out for the light they found within each other. Again, Lone Wolfe felt sleepy as they both pulled on the light they found in the other. He fought his panic as he continued to drag on the light. He let the light he was pulling be his entire world. He let it consume him until there was nothing left of the world around him.

It was as if their two minds were slammed together. Two minds joined and became one. Two individuals became one. Memories became disjointed and jumbled. The mind couldn't discern order or who was who anymore. Thoughts became distorted; They couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. The was no way to call for help, there was no world around them anymore. All that was there was the one mind, one set of memories, one set of thoughts, and one set of emotions.

They watched as the mind started to assemble itself the best it could. There was a young child on the first day of school. She was not dressed in black and done up in pale makeup and dark eye shadow. She looked much like any other child was. Her red hair was not straight, it was wavy and curly. In her head, she didn't hear hundreds or thousands of voices, she heard a constant buzz. Every now and again a voice would float up above the minutia and become clear. The other kids made fun of her as she sat there with a blank look on her face. The buzz in her head made it so hard to concentrate on what was around her.

The buzz was ever present. Only now did all seem quiet. The girl was now older. The girl was being bullied by the other children, being called names, being called retarded because she didn't respond like a normal child, she was always lost in her thoughts. They started hitting and kicking her, she didn't understand why. She didn't know how to defend herself from her attackers. She eventually lashed out with her telepathic abilities.

The children fell down and screamed in pain. Some grabbed their heads. One of them started bleeding from the nose and ears after a few moments. She kept up the attack until one of the teachers grabbed her. The pain stopped for the other children. With no other explanation, she was suspended for fighting. She didn't understand, she didn't touch them. She only used her mind to defend herself. They were hitting her.

Her mother took her to a doctor. The doctor diagnosed her with attention deficit disorder and prescribed some medication to her. The medication only made her feel hyper and made it so she couldn't sleep. The buzz got louder and almost hurt. She complained to her mother and acted out in class. The doctor said she had Bi polar disorder and put her on Lithium.

The lithium made her numb and smoothed out the sound of the buzz. It also made the buzz louder. She felt numb. Didn't feel anything. Didn't want to do anything. Instead of getting better, becoming normal, she became worse than before. She wouldn't answer at all and it would take many desperate attempts to get any reaction out of the girl.

"No! I don't want to be showing you this!" A familiar voice screamed in the mind, "Why are these memories playing out? I want something better! There are so many other good memories in my life! Why these?"

The images continued. The mother took the daughter off of the medicine and took her to the psychologist. There, the daughter revealed to the psychologist that she could read minds. She delved into the mind of the psychologist and revealed his secrets. The psychologist called her a liar then kicked her out of the office. In tears, the daughter told the mother about her powers and learned of her real father.

She started a quest. She used her gifts to reach out to other psychics to learn how to use her abilities. Learn to quiet the buzz and to find out what happened to her father. She became a gifted telepath but she never found out who her father was. She wondered if her father had gifts like her, able to reach out to others around the world when other telepaths could not. If he had that kind of power, he had learned how to mask himself from her. She thought she would have found him by now.

The memories transitioned to that of two children playing at the sandy beach of Horsetooth reservoir. Giggling and splashing each other with water as they went about. The girl there, with green eyes and reddish-brown hair just below chin length looked a lot like Jena, only a couple years younger.

No words were spoken but plenty was being communicated. Images from the girl with green eyes about times at the beach with her uncle in Florida the previous summer. Smells of briny air mixed with sea foam and water-logged plants filled his mind. He had never seen an ocean beach before and the image filled him with wonder. Unlike the lake, the beach from the girl's memory was crowded with people sunbathing and others playing in the water.

His next memory was that of the farm, running through a field of golden wheat that climbed up to his neck. A red head with green eyes was chasing him, laughing. They were playing tag in the field of sandy smelling wheat. It was almost harvest time. The air felt hot and dry. Again, nothing was said but plenty of thoughts were being communicated.

At some point along the way, the voices and thoughts stopped. The memories stopped soon after. There were two personalities inside of one physical mind. The body decided that this could not be. Something had to be done. One personality had to assert itself and become dominate. The question for the conjoined set of personalities was which one?

The mind reached out to the body which lay dormant. It was young. Far younger than one of the personalities thought possible. It was also the wrong gender. It was a boy, not a girl. It helped figure out who the dominant personality should be. It was the young boy, not the teenage girl.

The memories of both individuals came into order, those of the girl started to fade except for the harsh dark memories that both had recalled in vivid detail. All of the memories the boy had lived, good and bad, were relived and ordered in the correct sequence. From birth to just before the start of the joining, the memories all seemed stronger.

It was soon after Lone Wolfe's memories fell back into place that he could feel his body. There was a cool breeze blowing over him. Compared to how it felt earlier, it brought a chill to him. He shivered. He opened his eyes. It felt like a grand undertaking to do that much. When he did and his eyes finally came into focus, the light had changed. It was far darker than it had been earlier.

He glanced at the clock, almost three hours had gone by. He didn't feel like he had been out for that long. At the same time, he was surprised that the entire experience of reliving all of those memories and emotions only took a few hours.

"Welcome back," Stated a voice in a stern tone. He recognized it immediately.

He glanced over to see his mother glancing over at him, "Oh crap. What time is it?"

"Well, it's after six," She stated, "I called over here figuring you would be over here. Her mother is panicked because she couldn't rouse you two. What were you thinking?" His mother questioned in response.

"She wanted to show me something new," Lone Wolfe stated, "She called it a communion. A joining of minds. She said there isn't a word for it in English that gives it proper meaning." He glanced over and noticed that Scarlet was still out. She looked like she was asleep. He glanced back at his mother, "Why is she still asleep?"

"Still putting her mind back together, I assume," His mother stated, "That was a stupid thing to do, Sean!"

"Wait, what?"

"I know what you and Scarlet did. A complete joining of minds like that. It is traumatic to the mind. It destroys the ego and personality of those involved. They have to put their minds back together after one of these 'communions.' You could have told her mother beforehand. You go catatonic when you start these communions."

Lone Wolfe shivered, "Why is it so cold in here."

"I covered for you two," His mother stated in response, "I suggested that if she turned down the air conditioning that you two would come out of it eventually. I think she cranked it down all the way." She glanced bitterly at Scarlet, "I think your training with her is at an end."

Lone Wolfe shook his head, "She still has more to teach me. I don't think she knew about being cata... cata..."

"Catatonic,"

Lone Wolfe nodded, "That."

"Either way," Sylvia commented, "You are done."

"She also mentioned that I am too young to be left alone. She offered to babysit for free," Lone Wolfe mentioned, "Either here or at our place, it doesn't matter. She said if the cops catch me alone that they would take me away. Don't let them do that!"

Sylvia sighed, "I can't afford a babysitter."

"That's why I can do it for free," Scarlet stated weakly.

Both of them glanced at her, her eyes were barely open but she was glancing around. Her words only seemed to anger his mother more, "Do you think I will trust you again after this?"

"I don't think we will be doing this again," Scarlet mentioned, "I didn't expect this."

"Please give her another chance?" Lone Wolfe pleaded, "I need to finish my training."

Sylvia sighed, "Okay but no more shenanigans or the training will stop."

# Chapter #12: Perception of Energy

Greeley Colorado

July 9th, 2020-CE

Angela glanced downstairs. She was usually not allowed down there very often. Her room was on the main floor. There was only one room on the main floor. Angela thought it was odd that she was on the main floor. Usually, with one room on the main floor and her nearing adolescence she figured her grandmother would have put her downstairs. Such was not the case. Her grandmother had taken the downstairs room since before her mother was born. Her room was her mother's room when she was Angela's age.

Today, she felt adventurous. Her grandmother was tending to the store and she was curious as to what went on down there. Her mother always forbade her from going down to the basement. She never could figure out why. While her grandmother never forbade her from going down, she did ask that Angela respect her privacy and leave her room alone unless her grandmother was there.

July was a warm month. The upstairs living room and her room each had a room air conditioner. Considering that it had managed to reach 108 today, everyone in the city had their AC's running which caused a power outage in their area. The inside of the house was already starting to heat up. She needed to escape the heat in the power outage. The basement seemed like the logical conclusion

She was right. The basement felt nearly thirty degrees colder than the upstairs. She wished she grabbed a glass from the upstairs kitchen on the way down. She shrugged and figured that she would go back up into the furnace that was the main floor if she got thirsty enough.

She also wished she remembered to take a light. Despite her new sight, it was far darker than she expected in the basement. She caught movement out of her left eye as she started to turn back to the stairwell, "Mentor, is that you?" She questioned in response.

"Yes. You have been keeping up with the exercises but it will still take you some time to adjust to the darkness down here," Mentor replied, "This place is older than you, of course. It is also older than your grandmother. If you extend your Nwyfre, you can feel it."

"Is that why it is so dark down here?" Angela questioned in response.

"That was how they constructed root cellars in the early twentieth century. There wasn't so much a need for windows. Windows let light in. Where there is light, there is heat. People used to have store food down here so it wouldn't get cold. They also used to store coal down here. Sniff the air, you might still be able to catch a whiff of it, if you are careful," Mentor explained.

Angela took in a deep breath through her nose. She didn't smell anything out of the ordinary at first. She caught the strong scent of sandalwood and sage grass in the air from previous rituals her grandmother must have performed in the basement. The smell of many different incense clung to the wall and formed a cloying scent that wouldn't leave her nose no matter how many breaths she took in through her mouth and out her nose afterward.

She didn't catch the smell that Mentor was talking about. She didn't know if she was being taught another lesson or if this was a trick that the spirit was pulling on her. Her gray eyes looked around. When mentor didn't move, Angela could hardly spot her. In the darkness, she was next to impossible to see unless she was moving. At the moment, Angela surmised that the spirit was standing still and studying the human.

Her eyes slowly adjusted to the light as she walked to the back corner of the basement. There she saw a room that had a dirt floor. The rest of the basement had a concrete floor. She was confused why this room had a different floor than the rest. She wondered if the rest of the basement once had a dirt floor and this room was left unfinished for some reason.

She knelt down and touched the soil on the ground. At that point, she finally smelled the faint carbon of coal on the ground. She didn't see a trace of it on the ground but she could smell it, "Do you know what this part of it is?" Mentor questioned, "Why the floor with this part of the basement is bare?"

Angela shook her head, she sensed a trap, "I do not."

"That small window in the corner faces the street. It used to be a coal chute. This part of the basement has never been paved," Mentor replied.

She felt the ground. It was cool to the touch and hard. She expected it to be soft instead of firm. She glanced around to see if she could see the spirit but she could still see nothing. Instead, she heard Mentor's voice again, "While you could perform Telluric Nwyfre cleansing while standing on the concrete floor, there are many who prefer standing on the ground."

Angela glanced around, trying to see where Mentor was, "So grandmother Nwyfre cleanses? How come I have never seen it?"

"How early to do you get up in the morning? She is down here when she cleanses her Telluric Nwyfre so you don't know when she would do that." Mentor replied.

"There is nothing else for you to do here," Mentor stated, "As you would state; the power is out. It is way too hot to play outside. Nothing else to do but to cleanse."

Angela rose to her feet, "I don't have any shoes on and I don't want to run upstairs."

"You don't need to have shoes to cleanse," Mentor stated, "In fact, some would argue that you should have your shoes and socks off when you cleanse. In either case, the room with no floor is a perfect place for your cleansing, don't you think?"

Angela nodded and placed her feet on the dirt. She could feel the cool temperature of the dirt soak into ankles and legs as she stood there. She spread her feet along the bare floor to take her stance. She held her hands at her side and closed her eyes. She breathed out then took a slow breath in after a moment. As she took the breath in, she raised her hands up over her body. She breathed out and threw her hands into the air and back down to her side.

The cold of the floor spread through her body as the Telluric Nwyfre washed through her body. It made her feel calm. It made the remaining sweat clinging to her body feel cold despite the heat around her even in the basement. She took a few more of these breaths, each slower and calmer. Each with her eyes closed and her mind clear of thoughts.

When she was on the ninth cycle of cleansing, she heard Mentor's voice, "You must be getting thirsty. I have some other exercises for you to try."

Angela opened her eyes and glanced around, "Should I get some water first?"

With her eyes adjusted, she could just barely make out the outline of a figure leaning against the wall. Mentor shook her head, "I don't think you have to do that. There is plenty of cool water in the ground beneath you."

Angela arched an eyebrow and asked, "Who am I supposed to get to this water and what am I supposed to store it in?"

"Not many people can do this but I think you can it," Mentor commented, "Your goal will be to fashion a cup out of the sand, make it as hard as rock and polished. After that, pull the water through the ground and place it into the cup. You should be able to drink it after that. It will be filtered by the sand if you do it right. If it doesn't look clear then ask me for next steps and I will help you out."

"Assuming I get that far," Angela commented in response.

"Well, you won't get very far with that attitude. You have to be determined and you have to perceive that you will succeed. There is a movie where they make a good comment about the difference between doing, not doing, and the myth of trying." Mentor responded.

Angela nodded and her gray eyes glanced down at the sound beneath her feet. She knelt down and held her hand over the sand. She pulled with her Nwyfre and hoped that the sand would move or start to pile up below her hand. She cleared her mind and focused on channeling her energy through the ground and into the soil then back up through her hand again to attempt to accomplish it. She opened her eyes a moment later and saw that nothing changed.

She glanced up at mentor, "I can feel the energy moving into the earth and back out of it but I don't see anything happening. I can feel myself picking up some other energy as I do it. I don't understand why nothing is happening, however. What am I doing wrong?"

"There is more to it than just drawing energy. Your body is also the channel, not just the mind and the energy. You can direct most of the flow of Nwyfre with a disciplined mind but the rest of it You will have to offset with movements. Try moving your hands like you are fashioning a cup from clay. Only the wad of clay is much bigger than the up you are fashioning." Mentor explained.

Angela thought about what the spirit teacher meant. She had worked with clay on a pottery wheel in class once. There were slow and subtle movements that helped shape the clay. In this instance, the sand was like water without the clay. The difference was once someone added water to the dirt down here, it would remain dirt and just turn into mud.

She placed her hands down and by the ground. She envisioned that the Nwyfre she controlled and channeled was the spinning wheel and the clay was the dirt beneath her. She tried to mold the dirt upward but the dirt refused to bend to her will. She heard a slight chuckle from her teacher, "What are you trying to do?" She asked.

"You told me to work the dirt like clay, that's what I was doing," Angela answered.

"Be more forceful. This isn't a pottery wheel at the moment, a lump of clay, you have to work it before you can get into the precision stuff," Mentor advised, "Pulse your Telluric Nwyfre down to your hands and punch down at the ground when you do that. Imagine a block of dirt rising to the surface when you do that to guide the Nwyfre."

Angela thought about what the spirit said for a moment. She bunched up her hands into fists and reared back to punch the ground. She punched the ground, just before her fists connected, she pushed her Nwyfre forward mentally. The result was a small square slab of the dirt rising up out of the floor. Angela was disappointed with the result, she wanted an entire cube of dirt to rise out of the ground, not a small square lob of it.

Mentor, however, became slightly more visible with the result. There was excitement and joy on her face, "Not bad. I didn't think you would be able to get that much so quickly. A few more pushes like that and you should have enough to work with to make a stone cup."

Angela shook her head and pondered what went wrong, "No, that wasn't right. It only bent to my will because I forced it. I should have been able to do much more than that with the amount of energy I put into it."

Mentor glanced up at the young shaman, "What do you think would be a better way?"

Angela shrugged and was asking herself the same question when she thought about her science class in school a few months ago. They did cover plate tectonics and how the earth moves. Earth quakes happen when a point along the fault line between two plates becomes stuck. As the plates continue to move, the plates store up energy along that point until it reaches a breaking point. That was when an earthquake happens.

With everything she had been taught so far, shamans channel energy and that energy was supposed to work with nature to help bend it to the shaman's will. While what Mentor suggested did work, it seemed too forceful which was why the result was so weak. She had to rush nature, not counter it.

She was surprised that Mentor was not pestering her as she sat there in thought. She wondered if the spirit could sense that she was working the situation out in her mind. In either event, she was close to an answer. Earth was supposed to be solid and unmovable in most situations. Time allowed wind, water, and its own forces to eat away at it and change the landscape. What she needed to do was to speed up and control that process, not force a mound up through sheer will.

She spread her arms out and held the back of her hands parallel to the ground. She mentally pulled the Telluric Nwyfre in the ground into her body mentally. She envisioned a heavy load in her hands, she wanted to lift it up. In doing so, causing a shift to make that column of dirt come up to about cube level.

She didn't move until her feet and legs felt like they were made of stone and unbreakable from the Nwyfre. Slowly, she started to lift. The ground beneath the entire house, and she was sure the entire area, started to shake. Her eyes opened wide when she stopped and the shaking stopped with it. She glanced at Mentor. She was more visible now than she had been before, "I think you reached too deep with that one. You might back off on whatever you are doing."

Angela nodded, "For a moment there, it felt like I was the Earth."

She pushed some of the Nwyfre that she collected back into the ground. Her legs didn't feel unbreakable anymore but they still felt like they could support the world. Again, she concentrated on lifting a heavy weight. There was no shaking, this time, as she pulled up but the square slab moved up slowly becoming more cube shaped like she hoped.

Mentor was mostly visible now, very clear to see compared to before. She leaned in to inspect the cube, "Nice. Now the easy part is done. You have to shape the cube into a cup of polished stone now."

Angela glanced at the spirit in disbelief, "You call that easy?"

"Well turning that cube of hardened dirt into rock without rushing it into a pile of sand first will be a lot harder than brining the hardened dirt to the surface like that," Mentor stated in response. She put her hands around the edges of the cube, "You will have to turn this into a circle and then compress it. Make it a vessel. This would be where that clay working like method you tried might come in handy."

Angela nodded but her face carried some annoyance, "Why didn't you tell me to make it circular from before I started this?"

"I thought you knew what you were doing," Mentor replied, "You can still make it work, you will just have to re shape the cube now."

Angela glanced down at the block and tried to figure out how she would plan this next part out. She would have to turn the cube into a cylinder then compress it down into a hard rock. After that she would have to hollow out the inside and make sure it was water tight. The final part would be polishing it. She had to do it quickly.

She placed her hands around the cube. She started to circle her Nwyfre between her hands and started to work her hands as if the cube of dirt was clay. The cube started to obey and slowly started to transition into a cylinder. It was slightly taller than before but that would work when she started compressing it down.

When it was to the point where she was satisfied, she envisioned a cylinder of energy around the column of dirt. She pressed her hands up to the cylinder of energy and willed it to compress and tighten around the cylinder of dirt. She placed one hand over it to compact the top so it would not spill out of the top of the field.

As she worked, surrounding the column with energy on all sides and compressing it, the column of dirt shrank and looked more like a carved small stone column. It didn't take her long to finish. When she released it from the Nwyfre she used, she could suddenly feel the heat coming off of the stone she had made. She reached back with her hand and started to pool some Nwyfre into her hand when Mentor reached out, "Stop! What are you doing?"

"The stone it hot, I was going to blast it with air to cool it off," Angela answered as she reversed the flow of Nwyfre in her body.

Mentor shook her head, "If you cool it off to quickly the stone could fracture or shatter. You don't want to do that, you have come so far. Take the heat out of it, swap the Nwyfre in your body for the Nwyfre in the stone, that should quickly cool it down without fracturing it."

Angela nodded. She couldn't put her hands near or over the stone. She placed her hands on the ground around it and rested on her knees. She started to mentally perform a similar cleansing ritual that she had done earlier. Instead of cool earth feeling filling her body, her entire body started to sweat as if she was put into a steam cooker. After a few minutes, she managed to sweat through her white shirt.

She stopped pulling Nwyfre from the stone and glanced up at Mentor, "Am I done yet? I feel like I am in a blast furnace!"

Mentor nodded, "You should be able to grab the stone now."

Angela rested herself against the concrete floor of the rest of the basement. She was now too far away from the stone cylinder she made but she didn't care. She needed to cool off first. She rested there for a few minutes before she felt like she was okay. Her clothes now felt sticky against her skin from all of the sweat. If she was thirsty before, she was definitely parched now. She couldn't wait to finish this task.

She sat up and grasped the stone cylinder. It still felt a little warm to the touch but heat was not radiating off of it like it was before. It was about the size of a normal glass except that it was a solid column at the moment. She sat it back down and placed her hands high over it. The last part of this task was to make the glass hollow and polish it.

She pushed down, funneling Nwyfre down and into the sides of the cylinder as she did. The center was pushed down and the glass widened as she did this. When she was done, she had the rough image of a glass that needed to be polished. It was also radiating heat again.

She went to work using her Nwyfre to polish the glass, moving over it fast as if it were wind without it actually being wind. The outside of the glass became smooth and shiny in a few minutes. She placed a hand over the inside and did the same thing with the inside and bottom of the glass. Soon after, it looked like a professionally made but plain looking stone glass.

The heat was not radiating from it anymore. She carefully touched it. It was cool to the touch. She picked it up and looked at it, "I'm going to go upstairs for some water, I am exhausted." She glanced around. None of the night lights along the lower outlets in the basement were on, "I am surprised that they haven't gotten power on yet. It must have been over three hours by now."

Mentor ignored the comment about the electricity being out, "You could go upstairs for water or you could learn how to draw it from the ground. The water in the aquafer is pretty good, you could also learn how to pull water from the water table and filter it through the sand."

Angela shook her head, "It will have to be some other time. This task of making the cup, it has wiped me out. I need to rest or grandma may find me on the floor when she gets home from work."

Mentor nodded, "Sometimes the best thing to do is to know your limits. I also wanted to see if you knew how to say no, that you have reached your limit. Let's go upstairs for a drink."

Angela took the glass and rose to her feet. She led the way upstairs into the 108-degree house. There, she crossed the short distance to the kitchen sink and filled the glass she just made with water. She took it to her lips but before she could drink Mentor cautioned, "You might want to take some sips. You could be dehydrated and the last thing you want to do is make it worse by making it go down then back up again."

Angela nodded and took a couple of slow drinks. As always, her face blanched at the first taste of city water. She was suddenly thinking it might have been a good idea to learn how to at least filter it before drinking it. She took a few more sips and could feel the cool water sitting in the bottom of her stomach. She sat the glass down and glanced outside, "Why does it have to be so hot today?"

"It's summer," Mentor stated in response.

Angela walked over to the back door and opened it up. She walked outside. While it was hot outside, it was slightly worse inside the main floor of the house as the sun had been beating down on it all day. It normally wouldn't have been too much of a problem except the power outage had kept her from running the air conditioners.

There was not a cloud in the sky, "If it would only rain..." she said to herself.

She glanced around to see if other people had the power out. She could hear that there was nothing running on the sparsely populated block but she wanted to make sure. She saw nothing as she stepped through the gate separating the front and back yards. Most of the cars had also gone since it would be cooler to drive around or find a place with running power as opposed to sitting in their houses that had turned into ovens.

"If it would only rain," Angela stated.

She got an idea at that point. She went back into the back yard and closed her eyes. She reached out into the air and felt the hot air around her. She could feel the wind high above her head and the slight moisture in the air. She pulled on the wind and moisture. After a couple minutes of concentrating on that, she could feel the sun's rays diminish as they hit her face.

She opened her eyes and saw that big, fluffy clouds were starting to form all around them. It definitely felt cooler around them now. The wind had started to pick up. A couple minutes later and the clouds became dark and gray. She could feel a couple of drops of cool rain hit her skin.

A hand touched her left shoulder. She glanced around and saw Mentor standing there, she felt solid now, "You must stop. The storm will get frighteningly stronger as you fuel it."

The rain started to come down hard at that point. She nodded. Mentor glanced around as the rain started to come down harder, "You should go inside."

Angela shook her head, "The rain feels nice and I already sweated through my clothes anyway. I think I will stay out here and enjoy it. If the storm starts throwing hail at me then I will go inside."

# Chapter #13: Building Defenses

Greeley Colorado

July 25th, 2020-CE

Scarlet shook her head. She didn't know the correct words to say to her charge to get him to understand what she was talking about, "No, no, no! You can't just block with barriers and walls in your mind. If you are to block an attack brought on by surprise then you need to have something different. You can't maintain those walls and barriers all the time. If someone wanted to get into your mind and you didn't have those walls up at that point, you will be wide open! Another telepath could read you like a book. The only difference between you and a normal at that point is you would detect them in your mind."

Lone Wolfe shrugged, his gold eyes conveyed his confusion to his mentor, "If I would feel them in my mind then why would I need to worry about maintaining walls and barriers? I could just bring them up when I feel someone come in."

Scarlet shook her head, "You are assuming that you will feel them before they get to your secrets and you would be able to kick them out. Your mind is your own domain but you cannot protect it with walls and still function normally as a human the rest of the time."

Lone Wolfe glanced at her with a funny look, "I don't see what the problem really is. Why would another telepath attack me or probe my thoughts without my permission?"

Scarlet shrugged, "Some do. That is why it is important to protect yourself from them." The room air conditioner in her living room stopped at that point. She glanced around and saw that the power had gone out again. "Just great! The power went out again!"

"It's been a hot summer," Lone Wolfe stated, "maybe everyone is running their AC's and the grid just can't handle it anymore."

She sighed, "Two years away from having a driver's license. This couldn't have waited for another couple of years?"

He cocked his head in confusion, "I don't see why that would make a difference."

"Because we could hop in the car and have AC," Scarlet noted, "Maybe even go somewhere like Estes Park or Carter lake where it is cooler."

"But you can't train me and drive at the same time," Lone Wolfe stated in response.

She nodded, "You are right, we would just talk and figure out a place to go."

Lone Wolfe's face lit up, "We could go a public pool. Is there one close by?"

Scarlet shook her head, "Nearest one is about two miles away and it isn't open yet."

"Well, we could walk there," Lone Wolfe suggested, "I am sure you can walk and train me at the same time."

"Sure, did you happen to bring swimming trunks with you?" Scarlet questioned in response.

Lone Wolfe shook his head, "No, I only just thought about this."

"Well your house isn't too far from mine," Scarlet stated, "wait here while I get my swimsuit on and clothes thrown over it and we can go to your house. I will also need to call your mom and make sure it is okay that we go."

Lone Wolfe nodded. Scarlet rose and disappeared. He waited there with nothing to do for several minutes. He wondered how long it would take for her to change and come back out. She also wondered if she would be able to get ahold of his mother. When ten minutes passed by, he projected, "Are we going? What is taking so long?"

"It won't be long. I called your mom and she is okay. She'd rather you be swimming than sitting in the house as the heat rises. I just have to find some sunblock and..." Her projection trailed off at that point.

"What else do you need to find?" Lone Wolfe questioned in response.

"Nothing. This will do, I guess," He thought he could hear her sigh from where she disappeared to.

After a few minutes of waiting, she appeared in the Living room with a backpack and a bottle of sunblock in her hand, she tossed it in her back pack. Her clothes were the same set of black clothes and fishnet over clothing that she usually wore. He didn't see anything different but the slight flush on her face meant that something was wrong. He missed it as he still wasn't used to reading people's sub vocal expressions. He smiled and said, "Are we ready?" He asked.

She nodded and sighed, "Yeah, let's go."

They strolled out of her house and headed for his house. With the speed he walked, it didn't take them that long to get there. He unlocked the door and made his way into the house. He left the door open for her to follow. She stopped in the living room, "I will wait here for you while you find your trunks and change. Remember to grab a towel and a backpack. Another change of clothes might help too."

Lone Wolfe nodded and ran into his room. He grabbed an empty backpack and shoved a change of clothes into it. He fished through his dresser and found a pair of red swimming trunks. He pulled off his shorts and underwear and pulled it on and tied it tight. He ran out with the backpack and grabbed a towel from the bathroom on the way back to the Living room. He smiled and said, "Okay, I'm ready."

She nodded, "I can see that. Let's get started. Don't forget to lock the door."

They marched out of the house and started their walk toward the public swimming pool. As they went, Scarlet fished out the sunblock from her back and handed it to Lone Wolfe, "Lather yourself up with this while we walk. You don't want to get sunburned."

"Don't you need to as well?" Lone Wolfe questioned in response.

She shook her head, "I already did most of me. I will need your help with my back once we get there. I will help with your back as well."

"Do you have your swimsuit on underneath your shirt?" Lone Wolfe asked, "I can do your back now."

"Absolutely not!" Scarlet hissed, "I am not taking my clothes off before we get to the pool."

"It's hot out here and you are wearing a lot of black. If you have your swimsuit on then you would be a lot cooler with at least the shirt off," Lone Wolfe suggested.

She shook her head again, "I have my swimsuit on but I will not take my clothes on before we get to the pool. End of that discussion. Now put on your sunblock before I do it for you and make you look like a kid on this street."

"But I am a kid," Lone Wolfe replied.

"Keep it up, smart Alek," Scarlet spat.

Lone Wolfe squirted on sunblock and covered his arms and face as they walked. They had to stop a couple of times as he covered his legs with it. After that, he handed the sunblock back and they kept walking. They got close to his school when he asked, "Are we going to continue my training until we get there?"

Scarlet nodded, "Yes, defend yourself, I am going to probe your mind."

Instantly, Lone Wolfe threw up a mental wall to block her probes. She shook her head, and said, "I don't think you were listening to me. If you are prepared for an attack you can throw up a wall but if you aren't then you are going to be defenseless. You will need something else to defend yourself with."

"That's the part I don't understand," Lone Wolfe commented in response, "You want me to use something else but you haven't given me a description or a word as to what it is supposed to be yet. The only thing I know how to do is throw up barriers to keep you from coming in."

Scarlet nodded, "You are right. I haven't been very good at describing that to you."

"Maybe we can communion and that will show me what you are trying to get me to do?" Lone Wolfe suggested.

"No, none of that," Scarlet stated, "Your mom will kill me if we try that again. Also, I will not do that out in the open." His suggestion did give her an idea, "There is something else we can do. I have been trying to describe it to you the entire time but I can show you. Try to probe me."

"Isn't the problem that I am prepared for the probe in the first place?" Lone Wolfe questioned in response, "If I probe you and you know about it, won't you just throw up a wall?"

Scarlet shook her head, "Not if I want to show you something. Go somewhere, anywhere. You will see what I have for a first line defense."

Lone Wolfe concentrated on probing her mind as they continued to walk. He was unsure of what he was doing as he had not attempted to probe someone's mind before. At least he hadn't tried to do it on purpose. He did what seemed to come naturally to him, he sought out her voice amongst the numerous voices he could hear and then attempted to dig deeper into her mind. Her thoughts became clear as crystal for a moment and as he tried to dig into her memories, the ones that were familiar to him from their communion, something kicked him out. It was lightning quick and it didn't feel like Scarlet at all.

He glanced at her and asked, "What was that?"

"That was what I was telling you about," Scarlet stated, "A different defense than a wall and it doesn't require your attention."

"It didn't feel like you, what was it?" Lone Wolfe asked as they continued to walk.

"You could call it a watchdog I guess," Scarlet noted, "A stray thought that you can give a life of its own. After it has a life of its own, it protects its home."

"Can you have only one?" Lone Wolfe questioned.

Scarlet shook her head, "I have many of them but you will need to devote some attention to them at first so start off with one and start creating more as you can leave them on their own."

"Do all of them roam your mind or do they sit in different spots?" Lone Wolfe asked after a moment of thought.

"They usually sit where you put them, or are in charge of certain areas. When you create your first one, you will want to set it in your memories, it will protect them. You must have attempted to probe my memories if you were kicked out so fast," Scarlet noted in response, "If you chose other things I would have felt it before you got kicked out. My oldest ones are the strongest ones and they protect my memories."

He nodded as they approached the parking lot to the library. Behind the library was one of the public pools. This one was one of the closest ones to them. He glanced up to her and said, "You should teach me how to make one as we swim."

"It is pretty simple," She said, "Think of something important to you and the word protection and let it run around in your head like a song that gets stuck. After a while it will start to take on a life of its own and start to guard that area. So, choose a memory that is important to you and think of protecting it and keep it active in your thoughts."

Lone Wolfe nodded as they got in line. The line was starting to get long already considering that this was far from the first power outage in the month. She sighed and waited for the line to move. A short while later the line started to move. In the power outage, most of the people waiting in line did not have cash and couldn't be processed so they had to leave and come back with cash later.

Considering that both of them were minors, Scarlet didn't have the problem with carrying plastic instead of cash. She had cash on her. Lone Wolfe's mother would pay her back later so she wasn't so concerned with that. The line moved forward at a quick pace but she was surprised with how many people, how many adults, were carrying cash. This must have been far from the first time they had to go through this as well. Even with all of the people leaving to either get cash or find somewhere else to cool off, it would be busy.

It took them about fifteen minutes to get in. Lone Wolfe took off his shirt and stuffed his backpack, minus towel, in the locker and locked it shut. He then waited in the hallway between changing rooms for Scarlet. In a few minutes, she came out holding a bottle of sunblock. He didn't recognize her at first as she wasn't wearing black. It was her hair and face, as well as the familiar bottle of sunblock that she carried that clued him in. The hot pink bikini was something he didn't expect, "Scarlet?" He muttered.

She flushed, "yeah?"

"Pink?" Lone Wolfe questioned, "I thought you would have had something black? You always wear black."

"This is all I could find," She sighed in response.

"But...Pink?" Lone Wolfe asked in response.

"Do you want to swim or not?" Scarlet questioned sternly.

Lone Wolfe nodded. She tossed him the bottle and said, "Lather yourself up with what you can then pass it back to me and I will get your back. After that you can get my back and we can go swimming. I'm a ginger so I will burn if I don't go out there protected."

"You don't look like a root to me," Lone Wolfe stated.

Scarlet chuckled, "Don't lose that sense of humor. You will need it someday. Ginger is another term for a red head. I have a tendency to burn if I go out without sunblock."

Lone Wolfe nodded and squirted some of the white substance from the bottle over himself and rubbed it on all parts he could reach. She was surprised that he could actually reach most of his body including most of his back without any assistance. Afterwards he glanced over to her and squirted some more sunblock into his hand, "If you turn around and kneel, I can put it on you now."

She nodded and bent down and turned around. He lathered up her back and rubbed it in. As he did, she made the comment, "I know a lot of high school boys who would love to be in your position right now."

"Why?" Lone Wolfe asked, confused.

She smirked and shook her head, "Nothing. You will figure it out in a few years."

Lone Wolfe shrugged and handed her the bottle of sunblock. They walked out to the swimming area where they found a place to set their towels then proceeded to the swimming pool. They had more fun at the pool than they would have retreating to the basement of her house. They reapplied the sunblock during the adult swim moments and swam around until the pool closed. At that point, the power had been restored to the city. They were able to walk home and cool off in an air-conditioned house.

# Chapter #14: End of summer

Greeley Colorado

August 12th, 2020-CE

Summer was drawing to a close and Lone Wolfe's friends had returned from their summer vacations after a long break. It was a last chance for the four of them to enjoy a swim at the public pool before they had to go back to school. Since Scarlet's school started later than the younger ones, she didn't feel the urgency that the kids did but she went with them anyway. At this point, after several more trips to the pool with her bathing suit, she didn't mind going in it anymore.

Lone Wolfe Jumped into the pool first, enjoying the cold-water wash over his body, taking the heat away. It didn't matter if they had power now and it had been a couple of weeks since the last of the power outages, nothing took away the feel of the oppressive heat like the water did. Jena slipped into the water a little bit at a time, she was used to the warm water on the beaches of Florida at this point so the cold water was a bit jarring for her. Her efforts to acclimatize to the water was thwarted by Curtis who jumped in as eagerly as Lone Wolfe, he spent the summer in southern California so he was used to the water being colder than the pool.

Scarlet slipped into the pool last. She didn't splash in like the boys but she didn't make an attempt to slowly adjust to the water either. She didn't see the point in splashing everyone with water. When she was in the water she found Lone Wolfe, Jena, and Curtis soon enough and said, "I have an idea for a game. It is a variation on one called Marco Polo."

Lone Wolfe and Jena seemed interested. They turned to Curtis who knew of the game but had played it a lot with his sister and cousins over the summer, "How do we play this game."

"Instead of the person being it closing their eyes and calling out Marco and the others replying. We all float in the water and close our eyes. We try to clear our thoughts. The one who is it has to listen for the thoughts of the ones who are not it and try to find them," Scarlet suggested.

Curtis frowned, "It is a game for your kind. I don't have your gifts. I can't play this."

Scarlet cocked her head in confusion, "I thought you had some telepathic abilities. Maybe they aren't as strong as Lone Wolfe's and Jena's. This might help you out as well."

The suggestion that he might be more like Lone Wolfe and Jena seemed to perk up the blonde-haired boy more, "You think so?"

Lone Wolfe shrugged, "She seems to be pretty good at picking up if someone is like us or not. If she says you have something then you might have something."

Jena nodded in agreement, "It never hurts to try."

Curtis nodded and smiled. This would be something that he could play and that his sister would not be able to participate in, "So who is it?"

Scarlet shrugged, "I suggested the game so I can be it."

Lone Wolfe nodded, "So we just close our eyes and float in the pool."

Scarlet nodded, "And try to clear your thoughts. If I can hear you, I can try to find you. If I find you and tag you then you are it and we start the game again."

Jena nodded, "Sounds like fun."

They all closed their eyes and started to float in the pool. All of them were fairly good enough to float in the pool like Scarlet suggested. When they started to float, the four of them all tried to clear their minds. Scarlet then set out to listen for just the three others playing the game. It was as much a lesson for Lone Wolfe as it was a game. It would both teach him to control his accidental projections and allow him to home in on other psychic's projections as well.

Scarlet could instantly hear the thoughts of Curtis as he floated around in the pool. By all rights and accounts, she should home in on him and tag him to be it next. She thought, after a moment, of saying something to the other boy about trying to keep his thoughts to himself but figured it would be good for Lone Wolfe to have someone easy to home in on.

Lone Wolfe and Jena were much quieter by comparison. While telepaths were louder than others, they had learned how to quiet their minds when needed. It made for what could be a one-sided game, if Curtis got tagged too quickly. Being a training exercise instead of just a game, she focused on just finding Lone Wolfe, making sure she wasn't too loud in her mental search as well. While the stated purpose of the game was for the one that was it to find others and tag them, if the one that was it was too loud, the others could pick up on it and try to move away from it. With all of their eyes closed it would be prudent to try to track the person who was it.

After a few minutes of floating calmly in the water, she found Lone Wolfe. While she was patient and waiting for someone to slip up, Lone Wolfe had lost awareness of his surroundings and bumped into someone. He apologized and felt embarrassment for doing so. He went from being drowned out by all those at the pool to sticking out like a sore thumb, worse than his friend, Curtis.

She quietly kicked with her legs and arms, sending her in his direction. In a moment, she reached out with her arms and touched him on the arm. She opened her eyes to make sure it was him and not someone else and said, "You're it, Lone Wolfe."

The four of them stood up in the water and looked around. Of the four of them, only Lone Wolfe seemed to venture very far away from the group. Scarlet wasn't sure if this was done by design or if he was just lounging around and happened to drift so far away from the group. There was something else that had his attention, though.

The swimmers right around them all appeared to be startled by the four of them floating there playing some mutant game of tag. No one other than the four of them seemed to understand the rules. While they were silent and only gave the four children odd glances, their minds broadcast much more detail about what they were thinking than their looks.

It was those momentary thoughts, impressions, that all telepaths could pick up on with ease. Those were surface thoughts, and while most people didn't mean them, it was their first method of blowing off steam. If pressed, most humans couldn't even begin to remember all of the impression thoughts and momentary thoughts they produced throughout a typical day. The calm person could be inwardly yelling obscenities at a slow driver, the conscientious one could be judging everyone around them at a moment's notice just to forget about it or revise those impressions later.

Combine all of that with the phrase, "First impressions can't be taken back," and life becomes very confusing for a telepath. Jena was used to these momentary thoughts and thought nothing more of it than the people thinking them thought. Curtis either couldn't hear the thoughts or was very adept at blocking and ignoring them. Considering his display during their game, Scarlet thought it was the former.

Lone Wolfe was normally used to ignoring the momentary thoughts but it was the fact he and his friends were the subject of those thoughts that caught him off guard. He wasn't used to so many people thinking about him and his actions before. He froze in place in the water. Scarlet was used to being the subject of attention and debate both verbal and sub vocal as well. She approached him carefully, "Lone Wolfe, it's okay. Just ignore them."

He focused on her after a moment, "Not used to the attention."

Jena approached him and nodded, "better get used to it now. All eyes will be on you when you get into public speaking in high school."

Scarlet chuckled, "That's the truth." She glanced around, those that had given them attention had gone back to other things, "See, they already lost interest in us. Let's keep playing. Don't give them any notice as to what they think as they will lose interest quite quickly."

Lone Wolfe nodded, "We stick out like sore thumbs."

"We always will," Jena stated in response.

Scarlet glared, for a moment, at the younger girl before Curtis swam over to them, "So are we going to play the next round or are we on to something else? That wasn't a long game."

Scarlet shrugged, "I don't think we should."

Lone Wolfe shook his head, "No, let's play. I was it right?"

Jena nodded, "yes you were!"

The three of the younger children started floating face up in the pool with their faces up just like before. Scarlet shrugged and knelt down in the pool before floating on her back. As she had done before, she made sure that she was not broadcasting her thoughts to everyone else but making sure she could hear everyone else as she floated. She could hear Curtis clear as day. She wondered how long it would take for Lone Wolfe to find him.

Not that long, "Tag, you're it, Curtis!" Lone Wolfe stated.

The four of them stood but Curtis had a frown on his face, "You could have waited until I got away. I didn't even have a chance to make sure I was clear."

"What do you mean?" Jena questioned in response, "We all had plenty of time to get away. You keep broadcasting yourself. I am surprised that Scarlet didn't tag you right away."

"I was searching for Lone Wolfe," Scarlet stated in response, "But Jena is right. You are broadcasting your thoughts which makes you easier to find. Try to quiet your thoughts when you find us."

The four of them closed their eyes and started to float around the pool again. This time Curtis was it and had to find one of the other telepaths in the pool. Unlike the other three, he didn't have the range of sensitivity of the other three. To him, there were no other voices to scour for. There were no other voices to search for. He grumbled and reached out for his hands. He touched someone and opened his eyes but he found that he startled another swimmer. The others were nowhere near him. This went on for nearly fifteen minutes before he sat up and growled, "This is nonsense! I quit!"

Jena started to say something but Scarlet placed a hand on her shoulder, "Let him go. He may not have been sensitive enough for us to play. I am sorry that we made him feel bad."

"Maybe you can train him?" Lone Wolfe suggested in response.

Scarlet shook her head, "I can only train someone to control their abilities. I cannot make their abilities better."

# Chapter #15: The Timeless Girl

Greeley Colorado

April 7th, 2021-CE

It was almost the end of the new year. Nothing too exciting had happened throughout this year. Jena and Curtis had managed to talk their families into letting them get together with Lone Wolfe's family at the end of the winter break at the bowling alley. Jena knew that every time there was a break that Lone Wolfe got lonely since he rarely got to see his family members. Lone Wolfe hoped that it would be the start of a new tradition.

It wasn't until a couple weeks ago that anything out of the ordinary started to happen. That odd event was when a new girl showed up. She had blonde hair and green eyes. It wasn't so uncommon for new students to show up throughout the year or for students to disappear. In this age of adults having to change jobs for various reasons, it was expected. What was unusual was it was so late in the year.

That was only the beginning. Every day, she seemed to hang out with a new group of students and take on their mannerisms. The groups all accepted her just as if she were one of their own and had been there the entire time. The next day she would hang out with the polar opposite group with much the same affect. Jena tried to read the girl and got nothing. That was the strangest bit; Jena could tell if someone was blocking her, Jena could feel the mind of someone there, but in this case, it was like the girl was made up of nothing but air.

Lone Wolfe decided to try reaching out to her mentally to see if he could see if he could succeed where she failed. Since he had been given lessons by Scarlet he had become pretty good ad wielding his abilities when he wanted to and restraining them the rest of the time. Try as he might; it was like the girl did not exist.

Lone Wolfe sat back in his seat. He thought about whispering a plan that was forming in his mind to Jena. He decided to project it to her instead, "I think I will ask Scarlet about this tonight. She will know why both you and I cannot read her."

Jena nodded and projected a question back, "I thought that you were done with your training with Scarlet?"

Lone Wolfe shook his head, "I don't think you can ever really be done with her training. I think she is just trying to find something new and my parents are less willing to keep us together now since we spent so much of the summer together. I think we will probably end up spending this summer together as well. In either case, I can call her tonight and find out why we cannot read her."

It was a long day waiting for all of their lessons to be completed and the homework to be assigned. As soon as school was let out, Lone Wolfe took the chance to get home as soon as he could. When he arrived home, neither of his parents had made it home from work yet. He grabbed the home cell phone and found Scarlet's number in it. He decided to dial it and let his parents know later that he had a question for her.

He was surprised that she answered right away, "Hello?" She answered.

From the noise in the background, he could tell that she was on a bus. He figured that she must be on her way home from school, "Hi Scarlet, it is Lone Wolfe. I have a question for you."

"Hi Lone Wolfe. How are you doing? What is your question?" She answered.

"I am doing fine," Lone Wolfe answered, "So there is a new girl in class. We have noticed some odd behavior from her over the last few days and Jena and I thought she might be a telepath. We decided to try to reach out to her telepathically. We can't seem to read her or find her at all. It is like she isn't there."

"What makes you think that she is one of us?" Scarlet questioned. Due to the nature of their conversation and where she was, she was trying to be intentionally vague because of who could be around her.

Lone Wolfe explained what the two of them had been seeing over the last several days regarding the behavior of the girl and the behavior of the groups of people she associated with. With the disparate nature of the groups she hung out with, Scarlet had to agree that it did sound unusual. She nodded, "If she is one of us then she couldn't be a resistant. If she is a Resistant then she can't be one of us and you have just noticed a remarkable personality."

"What is a Resistant?" Lone Wolfe questioned.

There was a long pause before she answered, "Someone who cannot interact with us in the way we normally interact with people if you understand what I mean. They have something that blocks us. They aren't exactly common but they are known amongst us. You can run into someone that you cannot read. What is unusual is that Jena couldn't reach her either. If she was blocking you, I think you would have known it. You would have felt the knock just as much as this girl would have felt the knock."

"Knock?" Lone Wolfe asked in response.

"When you hit a wall, you make a noise. You knock on the wall, for lack of a better term. You feel it and they feel it. If it is like nothing is there then that is different," Scarlet replied, "We can talk about it later if you don't understand."

Lone Wolfe shook his head, "No, I think I get it. I just wanted to know if you had an idea. If this girl is a Resistant would it be unusual that two telepaths cannot read her?"

"Yes. Usually a Resistant is only resistant to one of us. I'm not sure why," Scarlet replied, "Maybe it has something to do with how we are put together or something but if you couldn't read her then Jena should have been able to. If Jena couldn't then you should have been able to. It is highly unusual to have two of you run into problems with her."

"Too bad you couldn't come to the school and see for yourself," Lone Wolfe stated in response, "Maybe you could get through to her. Well, thank you for the information. I will see you later." He disconnected the line after she said her goodbye to him.

With nothing else to do, Lone Wolfe did his homework until his parents got home. At that point, he told them about the phone call and the reason why he made it. He figured it would be better to tell them now as opposed to them finding out about it later when they got the phone bill and get really upset. They gave him a minor talk about it but nothing more came of it. He would have to wait until tomorrow.

* * *

Lone Wolfe sat down at his desk and rested his back pack at his side. He yawned a moment later and put his head down on his desk. He didn't sleep that well the night before. He wanted to know what was going on with the mysterious girl and why he couldn't read her mind. He had almost fell asleep when Jena came in and sat down at the desk next to him, "Good morning, don't fall asleep or the teacher might get angry."

"Ugh, morning Jena," Lone Wolfe sighed, "I didn't sleep well last night."

"Well, when you can't do anything about it then it is best to put it out of your mind. That is what I do when..." Jena stated then her voice trailed off.

Lone Wolfe glanced up at Jena and saw that her green eyes went eyes and her mouth was open. She was staring at something on just the other side of him. He turned around to find the girl they were just talking about staring at him enthusiastically and like he was a specimen. She smiled when his eyes widened and he backed away. She invaded his personal space and said, "Found you!"

Lone Wolfe was unsure how to respond to her, "I'm sorry, were we playing a game?"

The blonde girl giggled, "You could say that. I think I will hang out with you and your friends today."

Lone Wolfe was still baffled by this girl that he still could not sense telepathically. Now she was interacting with him. With nothing else to say, he greeted, "I'm Lone Wolfe and this is Jena. Curtis will be here in a moment. What is your name?"

"I am Nicole Lyla," She answered, "But everyone calls me Nickalyla."

"Why?" Lone Wolfe questioned.

"Why what?" Nickalyla questioned in response.

"Usually a nickname is either something people give you because of something you do or it is a family name or pet name. Your name sounds like they shoved your first and last name together. Why would people do that?" Lone Wolfe asked in response.

Nickalyla shrugged, "They just do."

Lone Wolfe heard the door to the classroom open up. He glanced up and saw Curtis walk through the door, "Making your moves fast," He greeted with a smile, "You already have the mystery girl over here talking to you!"

"Actually, she found me," Lone Wolfe replied.

Curtis shrugged as he took the desk on the other side of Lone Wolfe, "Interesting." The rest of the students took to their seats as the bell rang.

* * *

It was lunch time and the three of them had eaten their food at breakneck speed as per usual to get the most out of the lunch time break. The three of them raced outside to see if they can grab a ball. They didn't find a ball but they found someone who did manage to get one of the rubber balls from the gym, "Play kick ball?" Nickalyla questioned.

The blonde girl twirled the ball on one finger. Curtis was impressed with her being able to balance the ball, Jena and Lone Wolfe were trying to figure out where she got the ball from and how she knew that they were planning to play kick ball. She was still eating when they ran out to the playground. At least they thought she was still eating when they left.

"Well come on!" Curtis ushered with a wave as he started to chase after her, "Nicole and I are on the same team, you and Jena are on your own team!"

Lone Wolfe and Jena shrugged but followed their friend and Nickalyla out to the field anyway. They weren't going to waste a recess just trying to figure out who this girl was. They might be able to do that just as well while playing kick ball with her. If not then she might be around with them for a couple more days before she jumps to the next group of people in the class.

They strode out to a portion of the grassy field that had two worn spots on either end of the field. The students of years past had worn the goal spots down and it was now easy to figure out where the goals were. Nickalyla's face lit up with an idea, "How about we have the boys be the goalies and you and I try to score a goal?"

Curtis sighed and shook his head, "What? I don't like being a goalie!"

Jena glanced to Lone Wolfe, "I don't mind." He answered in response. He glanced back to his friend and playfully jibed, "Are you afraid you will fall asleep if you just stand still for a while? Afraid that they will take all of the action and leave you just standing there?"

Curtis blushed, "That wasn't what I said."

"Then are you afraid that Jena will score a goal against you?" Lone Wolfe smiled proudly, "Too late for second thoughts. She is my team mate."

"I can be a goalie! I just would rather kick the ball!" Curtis snapped back.

Jena smiled, "Don't worry, I will make sure that I get past Nickalyla just so you can get a chance to attempt to block me!" She boasted in response.

Nickalyla smiled as both of the boys walked to the goal spots. She held the ball out and said, "Let's begin!"

She tossed the ball up into the air. Both Nickalyla and Jena took up position to kick the ball as soon as it landed. The moment the red rubber ball bounced off of the ground, Nickalyla leapt forward and kicked the ball as hard as she could. It sailed right over Jena's head and headed for Lone Wolfe. He moved to block it. He tripped over a rock as he went to kick and fell forward. The ball smacked him in the face and bounced down before hitting him again and knocking his head back as he fell to the ground.

Curtis chuckled, "That's using your head!" he commented.

"Not funny!" Jena exclaimed as she ran towards Lone Wolfe.

He sat up, blood streaming from both of his nostrils, his eyes already starting to blacken from the repeated impact of the hard rubber ball. Nickalyla took a couple steps forward and whispered, "He's bleeding."

"Well, yeah," Curtis stated as he stepped forward beside her, "He just got pwned by the ball. I'm surprised that he is even conscious."

Jena knelt down and placed her hands on either side of his face. After a few moments, the pain from his nose and eyes started to vanish and the blood stopped flowing. Lone Wolfe Wiped the blood that had been coming out of his nose from his face and flushed in response, "Thank you, Jena."

She smiled in response, "That was a spectacular fall."

Lone Wolfe nodded as they both rose to their feet, "Yeah, I tripped over a rock or something."

They glanced over and noticed that Nickalyla was walking over to them. Curtis was staying where he was further back in the field. Lone Wolfe and Jena glanced around and noticed that no one else was moving. There was no more breeze in the air. There was no faint scent of the grass anymore. The only people that seemed to be capable of moving was them and Nickalyla. She smiled as she joined the group and said, "I have been searching for you two. One of you will become something special. We will be watching."

Lone Wolfe and Jena glanced at each other. They glanced back to Nickalyla as they could again feel the breeze and smell the grass, "Who is this 'we' that you refer to?"

"No clue," She shrugged with a smirk and snatched the ball up from the ground.

She started to walk back to the middle of the field when Curtis called out, "How about you be Goalie next?"

"Why not?" Nickalyla stated and threw the ball towards him. Just like with Lone Wolfe, the ball smacked him in the face. This time, it was on purpose, not an act of circumstance.

Lone Wolfe and Jena giggled slightly, he wasn't wounded. He glanced at his friend and said, "Be sure to score a goal against her. Kicking the ball in her face wouldn't hurt either."

Afterward

Thank you for reading. This was a supplement for Templar: Order and Chaos and meant to be one of several extra looks into the past of the characters of the Templar series. A lot of work went into the character profiles as well as information that did not make it into the first book. I hope you enjoyed it. If you haven't yet: please check out Templar: Order and Chaos, available on Amazon as well as the other Templar Lone Wolfe novels. Thank you for reading!

Other Books by Kenneth Brooks

The Templar: Lone Wolfe Series

Templar: Order and Chaos

Templar: Spirit Killer

Templar: Era Walker

Templar: Forgotten (Available in 2018)

Templar: Jena's Blood Legacy

Templar: Schisms (Available in 2018)

Templar: Antediluvian (In Progress)

Templar: Shaman Songs

Templar: Resonance (Coming Soon)

Templar: Awakening (In Progress)

Templar: Darkness(In Progress)

Ascendant Series

Predestined Paradox Trilogy

Ascendant: Initiate (Coming Soon)

Ascendant: Trinity Clans (Coming Soon)

Ascendant: Shadow Fall (Coming Soon)

Ascendant: Hunter's Return (In Progress)

Ascendant: Free Terran's League (In Progress)

Ascendant: Specters (In Progress)

Ascendant Origins:

Ascendant: Sora of Phoenix (In Progress)

Ascendant: Akasha of Spirit (In Progress)

Follow my blog at: http://kennethbrooks.org for book updates, promotions, rants, world extras, and story extras for the Templar Series, Ascendant Series, and anything else in the Battle-Scarred universe
