Psychic

Bella had been parading on my arm the entire school day, so I had no time to talk to Magnus in the halls. At lunch he sat on his own, per usual, and even though Bella and Bryce’s lovey dovey banter was making me want to choke a rainbow, I stayed near my best friend. Every time there was an awkward silence between them, she was able to turn to me for an interesting subject topic.

And don’t get me started on Chemistry class. Mr. Peterson was still as much of a pedophile as usual, and poor little Mandy Dawson was still the subject of his imagination.

At one point I lost all interest in the lesson because I was thinking about Magnus, and I accidently let one of my walls fall down. Mr. Peterson’s striking visual tuned into my head like HD television on IMAX and I freaked out. I must’ve yelped, because as soon as I got the wall back up the whole class was staring at me.

“Are you okay, Liv?” Mr. Peterson asked innocently, like he hadn’t just been thinking about hardcore porn with an underage student.

I nodded and went back to working on my assignment, not before glancing back at Magnus, who had a quite amused expression on his face.

I hardened my gaze at him. If he really knew about what I could do, then he probably knew I had just seen something extremely shocking. And somehow he found it funny that I yelped in the middle of chemistry.

And now it was after school and I was standing at the entrance to the woods. I was a little sweaty from the walk over with a backpack that felt like it was full of rocks, but I was mostly okay. In other words, my body was mostly okay. My mind, however, was going wild.

What would he tell me?

Would this finally answer all of my questions?

And, finally . . . did I really want to know what he had to say?

I had been totally fine (Okay, well, not totally fine) going through life assuming I was just some sort of mind reader or something. But ever since Magnus came along, it seemed like I might be more than that, and that scared me. If I wasn’t just a mind reader, then what was I? Who was I?

(And I definitely did not want to find out that I was some sort of evil demon or something like that. I was not ready to become a bringer of death.)

When I finally built up the courage to enter the woods and hike to the empty field where Magnus wanted us to meet, a sudden idea came to me: Why were we meeting here?

I mean, in all honesty, it was a really inconvenient place to get to, considering I got lost twice on my way there and I found it on accident the first time. Also, if we were meeting in the middle of nowhere, did that mean he didn’t want to be seen with me? Was there someone he didn’t want to see us together? Was I that embarrassing to be around, or was there someone watching him?

I shook my head as I made it to the field. As far as I knew, there were no people at the school who really knew Magnus or about what I could do. Who would be there to see?

Magnus was sitting in the center of the field when I finally got there. I took a bold move and assumed that there was no bubble protecting him like the last time and took a seat right next to him, proving my inquiry.

“Hey, Magnus.”

He hadn’t seemed to notice my intrusion on his privacy and jumped when I broke the silence.

“Liv, you made it.” He smiled.

I grinned. He was in a good mood, which meant he would most likely talk to me without a fight. And it also meant I could finally get answers without him turning defensive.

“Of course I did.” I said in a tone that implied, ‘obviously’. “So, to start this off, I need to know if you know about . . . you know . . . what I can do.”

I was being vague on purpose. If I came outright and told him I was a mind reader and he didn’t know like I thought he did, then I was in for some serious trouble involving White Coats and strait jackets.

He sighed. “I didn’t at first. They didn’t want to give me the full spectrum of what I would be dealing with when I got here. They only told me that whoever I was locating had the kind of magic that my amulet warned me of, the red stone I wear around my neck.”

I nodded. I had figured out this much on my own. The amulet thingies could also warn the wearer of certain threats, like when it flashed when I almost touched it.

“But when I confronted you in the woods, you mentioned no one wanting the crazy child who heard voices in her head. That was the first hint, even though you tried to cover it up. Then, when I was supposed to be handing in my report, Hawthorne let it slip about you being like Victoria, and I put all the pieces together. You were a mind reader.”

I let out a sigh of relief. He knew about what I could do, and he wasn’t running away.

“Who’s Hawthorne?” I questioned after it had sunk in..

“He’s The Counselor, the one I have to report to about the success, or in this case failure, of my mission.”

I nodded, “Oh, so he’s Scar?”

“Scar?”

It was at that moment when I realized I hadn’t told him about the dreams. “Well, I’ve kinda been having these dreams, they’re also the reason I know about Wallington.”

I went on to explain the notebook I found and the two dreams I had with him and Sc- Hawthorne, and how it was from the perspective of someone sitting down in some sort of glass enclosure.

“Wait, so she’s been sending you her thoughts?” Magnus questioned disbelievingly.

“Who?”

His eyes got wide and he put his head in his hands. “Now it’s no wonder why she’s been seeming more . . . powerful as of late. She would need to be strong to be able to send you those images, especially since she is chained with magical reinforcements. But how she got that kind of power . . . it’s beyond me.”

I stopped him there, before he could get any more confusing. “Who is the mysterious ‘she’? Is she like me, a mind reader?”

Magnus thought for a moment. “She’s nothing like you and everything like you at the same time. If I’m right, you’re a psychic, and a pretty powerful one at that. It’s no wonder Hawthorne is going crazy looking for you.”

“I’m a what?” I asked incredulously.

“Psychic.” He flinched as he said the words. “It’s the reason you can read minds and see through some forms of magic, like the invisible bubble spell from earlier today. But this isn’t your only power. Psychics are the most powerful beings in all of the magical community . . . or, well, they used to be.”

“Wait, this is too much information to process. I’m powerful? I can do other things besides mind reading? And, what is a psychic again?”

Magnus sighed and looked at me, “Let me tell you a story.”

I grinned like a little kid and crossed my legs in front of him, leaning in on my arms like a little kid in a lesson. Magnus chuckled at my antics but his expression soon got serious as he started talking.

“There is a huge community of magical beings in this world. You know, were-beings, vampires, faeries, warlocks and witches, and others. Psychics are a special case. Every quarter century a new Psychic is born, usually in a magical family. They’re extremely powerful, which is why they are so rare. Just one rogue Psychic could take down an entire empire.

“Anyways, the latest newborn psychic was Victoria Nightshade, the woman who has been sending you the dreams. She was the most powerful psychic the magical community had ever seen, so she was obviously feared. People fear the power which they cannot control. So, to clean her image, she decided to work with the Counselor and the royal family as an advisor.

“Now, before you get too confused, yes, all the magical beings in the world are under a monarchy. But since we’re so far and wide, each area of the world has a Counselor who enforces the rules. And the monarchy was nothing like those of medieval Europe. The Counselors made sure the rule was fair in their regions.

“The Counselor for our area of Earth was Hawthorne. I don’t know the full story, but when Victoria was in her twenties she went crazy. Maybe it was the threat of another, younger psychic coming into the world soon, but who knows. She went crazy in this little town called Wallington and murdered the entire royal family. The Counselor took over as the presiding leader over all magical creatures. No one questioned his leadership seeing as he was the royal family’s closest Counselor, and there were no more heirs to the throne.

“Victoria was imprisoned for murdering the royal family, but not before she could mutter a prophecy of sorts. She foretold that the next psychic would be even more powerful than her, and she would have the choice to destroy all that Hawthorne and the magical community stood for on the day in which she was sixteen. Though she was a madwoman, her prophecy was seen as true enough.

“Somehow Hawthorne convinced the general public that all psychics were internally evil and couldn’t be trusted with all that power after that incident. It wasn’t hard to get people to think of them in fear. Even if the different pacts of creatures lived far and wide and separated, the news reached everyone. All the remaining psychics, two elderly, peaceful folk, were slaughtered in fear of their power. And he went on a crazy rampage trying to find the next one. When Victoria made her prophecy, she was 27, meaning that the psychic was already born. Hawthorne started the hunt not so long after that.

“A couple years later, his wife and child disappeared. He claimed that it was a group of renegade magical creatures trying to stop his hunt, ones who believed Victoria was right in killing the royal family. He was never the same after that. I could imagine someone kidnapping your family does a number on your psych.

“Almost thirteen years has passed since Victoria went rouge, meaning that the current psychic would be fifteen going on sixteen. Which also means that Hawthorne has been pulling out all the stops to find, well, you.”

It was a lot to process at once, so he sat silent for a moment. Victoria must’ve been the red haired woman from the other dream. If she was so evil, then why was she sending me the visions about Magnus and Hawthorne, basically warning me that they were after me? And she also warned me of Magnus, so how was I supposed to trust either of them?

But, the most important question running through my mind . . .

“Why you?”

“Well, it has a bit to do with my amulet. I didn’t know what it was my amulet protected me against, not really. Hawthorne wouldn’t tell me. It wasn’t until I figured out what you were that I knew for sure. There are not exactly many people who end up with an amulet that protects you against psychics, it’s about as rare as psychics themselves. It’s the reason you can’t read me. Who better to find a mind reader than someone who she can’t read and find out the whole plan from?”

I tilted my head in confusion, “Well, that didn’t exactly work out. You kind of just told me the whole plan anyways.”

He chuckled and looked down. “I didn’t expect you to be so . . . nice, you know? When you have the possibility to know everything about everyone, most people would use that power for something bad. Most people would be, well, evil.”

It was my turn to look down.

“It’s not all fun and games.” I gulped as my throat tightened at the thought of all the bad things that came with this gift. All the visions I’d seen in people’s heads.

I laughed halfheartedly. “You know, most people would want to be me. Who wouldn’t want to tell what the answer is before they were called on? Who wouldn’t want to know if the guy they liked thought they were cute? Who wouldn’t want to know what everyone thought about you? Well, that is until they think about the drawbacks.

“When I was ten, I was living with a foster family in a rough neighborhood. My foster father was about the meanest guy you’d ever meet, and his thoughts about us weren’t ever the nicest. It made me wonder how he was even allowed to be a foster father in the first place. But that wasn’t the worst thing. At night, when everyone else went to sleep, I was kept awake by his thoughts and . . . fantasies.” I shuddered.

“Every night he would think about what he wanted to do to me. How he wanted to . . . violate me. He never once laid a finger on me in real life, but his twisted thoughts were enough. I was ten, I hadn’t built any mental defenses against thoughts, and so I couldn’t block them out. I couldn’t block anything out. It was horrible. He had a horrid imagination about what he wanted, but he never once tried.

“I mean, maybe if he tried something, I could’ve told someone. I could’ve warned someone about what he did, but since he never acted on his thoughts, I would’ve been seen as crazy. I couldn’t tell anyone what he was thinking, and I couldn’t escape from those thoughts. He might as well have acted on his fantasies for how much they affected me.

“So, if I was given the choice? I’d rather be a normal person. Someone who didn’t have to sit through visions like that every damn night when she was ten. I don’t want to be a part of some prophecy where I destroy a community I barely even know exists. I’d rather be . . . boring. I’d rather be blissfully ignorant of everything around me.”

Neither of us talked for a bit. That was something I had never really shared with anyone. Not even Bella knew about that foster home.

“I didn’t know.” He said quietly. “I wouldn’t know. I just know that your parents had a reason for abandoning you, in whatever way they did. Whoever they were, they knew who you would grow up to be, so they hid you. I doubt they could’ve foresaw . . .” He trailed off, but we both knew what he couldn’t say.

“Earlier, when we first met, you acted strange when you found out my full first name, why was that?” I said it both to change the topic and to get the rising suspicion off of my mind that had been bubbling in the back of my mind for days.

He stiffened.

“It was probably nothing, but before I knew exactly who or what I was looking for . . . well . . .”

“What?” I pushed.

“Hawthorne. His wife and daughter, when they disappeared, he started to search more vigorously for you, the next psychic. I thought it could’ve been a stupid coincidence, but now?”

“Tell me,” I urged.

“His daughter’s name was Olivia.”