More Than an Echo (Echo Branson Series) (9 page)

Who would have thought it would take me two months; two long, grueling months just to learn how to meditate. For a while there, I thought I was just slow. Come to find out, energy cannot easily be called upon or contained without the proper mental approach. It just took me awhile to get to that point. It wouldn’t be long before I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t get it, either.

After my first week there, Tip returned to the Bayou from Atlanta with another student. His name was Zack and he had also just come into his powers.

Only his powers were not empathic in nature. Zack was a TK, or a telekinetic. Tip referred to him as a mover; someone who could move objects using the energy from his mind. Zack, a twelve-year-old boy from Savannah, Georgia, was a redheaded boy with freckles and a bad haircut. Tall and lanky, you just knew kids teased him all the time.

Soon I realized it was a mistake to tease someone with out-of-control telekinetic abilities. A TK is a very powerful being, indeed, and I saw how powerful he was the moment he arrived.

When Zack stepped off Bones’ boat, he was just like I had been: disoriented, exhausted and on the edge. I could feel his tender emotions and fear as he got off the boat and looked around. As he started up the steps, he lost his balance, and when Tip reached out to help him, Zack, out of fear, put his arm out straight toward Tip knocking her to the ground without ever touching her. It was the most amazing thing I had seen in my life. From then on, Tip gave him a wide berth, and sometimes when Zack would leave the room, Tip muttered under her breath, “Spoon bender.”

I would find out later what that meant.

Shielding was, by far, the hardest lesson I had ever learned. I don’t know why I thought it was something I could learn in a day or so, but boy, was I wrong. This was the single most important skill Melika had to teach me. Without it, without being really efficient at erecting it, maintaining it, stabilizing it and lowering it without incident, my chances to live out a semi-normal life were slim-to-none. I wanted a life. No, I wanted a
normal
life insomuch as I had never had one. I’d been in and out of so many foster homes.

Until I came to the Bayou.

Every day was different on the Bayou. The weather changed on an hourly basis, the creatures were unlike anything else I had ever seen, and the river itself seemed to change on a whim. I loved it. I never saw myself as a naturalist, never gave much thought to the world around me. I paid very close attention to
the people
around me. You did that when you lived in the ghetto. It was
ghetto
back then. We didn’t pretty up the ugly nature of the ghetto with euphemisms like inner city or ’hood. It was the ghetto.

You can spray gold flecks on a dog turd and it would still be a turd. So, when I lived in turdville, I paid really close attention to gangs of every color, drug dealers of every race, prostitutes of every shape, and pimpmobiles of every make. For your physical safety in the ghetto, you paid attention or you paid a price.

Out in the Bayou, you did the same for the same reasons. I learned to love the sound of the ’gators as they slid off the muddy banks. They made a distinctive sound in the water that no longer frightened me. There were hawks whose calls were music to my ears, and insects whose nightly serenade sent me to sleep.

And then there were the various characters who came and went. There was the French-speaking woodcutter, a grocery delivery woman with only one eye, and a gardener of sorts who had a boa wrapped around his neck.

And then there was Bishop.

Bishop was Melika’s very colorful mother, and it was her powers that had eventually brought the family from the West Indies to a plantation in Georgia. When she was finally able to free herself from the debts of her “boss,” Bishop went straight to New Orleans and opened up what was to become one of the most profitable tarot reading businesses in the state of Louisiana. Bigwigs, CEOs, restaurateurs and drag queens came to her for advice, solace and a glimpse into their future. But Bishop wasn’t a twenty dollar an hour shill pretending to read cards. Bishop had the sight: the pinnacle of all clairvoyant powers.

The first time I met her was my third week in the Bayou. Melika and I were working on building a shield I could keep up for more than a minute, when Bishop and her boatman pulled up to our dock.

Melika and I walked out to the porch. “Oh Lordy,” Melika said under her breath. “She’s earlier than usual.”

“Is that her?” I whispered. “Your mother?” Jacob had told me about Bishop on one of our morning Bayou trips. She was some big voodoo priestess who scared half the population of New Orleans. They lived and died by her readings, paying a small fortune to see what lay ahead.

What I saw in the boat was a thin woman draped in all black and wearing a hat. She must have stood less than four feet eight. Her boatman helped her out of the boat, but he remained there staring at her.

“Yes, dear girl, that’s my mother. She comes to check out the new blood every blue moon. She always knows whenever there’s a new one of us in town. It’s her way. Now don’t let her scare you. That’s her way as well.”

Zack joined me and Melika on the porch and together the three of us started toward the dock.

Bishop was the most exotic woman I had ever seen. Her skin had a goldenish hue and her complexion was flawless. No wrinkled old hag, Bishop’s skin seemed to defy time. As she walked across the pier toward us, I beheld a woman of grace and class. She carried herself like she owned the world. Short in stature, she made up for it in attitude.

“You must be Echo,” Bishop said before I could open my mouth. Like everyone else on this side of the Bayou, she was blocking, so I couldn’t read her at all. “My, my, Melika, what have we here?” Bishop’s low, musical voice mesmerized me but it was her eyes that captured me. Bishop’s eyes were yellow. “Do you know what you have here?” she asked Melika without taking her eyes off mine.

“I am well aware, mother.”

Bishop released me from her gaze and looked up at Melika. “Nick of time. Good boy, my Georgie. He’s a gem, that one. How are her lessons going?”

“She is bright and unafraid.” Melika put her arm around my shoulders and pulled me reassuringly closer. “Eager to learn.”

“Excellent. Fear is a useless emotion. We need not fear a thing from those who cannot do as we do.” Bishop looked over at Zack. “Ah...a  mover. Tell me, boy, can you move my hat from my head?”

Zack stared at Melika, who, to my surprise, nodded.

“Take your best shot, boy.” Bishop winked.

Blinking a few times, Zack hesitated and Bishop held up her hand.

“Wait,” she said, turning back to me. “Can you see it?”

I frowned. As far as I knew, my powers were emotional, not visual. I had never seen— “Not true,” Bishop replied, interrupting my thoughts. “You
think
your powers are merely emotive, but you’re wrong. My daughter will, of course, show you how to better utilize
all
of your senses, but for the moment, I want you just to look carefully at Zachary.”

I nodded and did as she said.

“Now, relax your eyes. Don’t focus on the physical being of Zachary, but on his image. If you see him but don’t really see him, you’ll notice something about him. Like those silly pictures you stare at until you see something else. What is it you see?”

Sure enough, as I relaxed my eyes, I could see a slight haze all around him, as if outlining him. “A haze...like a blur.”

“All living things are creatures of energy, Echo, and for those with your gift, it is visible to the naked eye much in the same way night vision goggles zoom in on the heat from our bodies. You have the wonderful skill of being able to read people’s auras. This will help you ascertain the integrity of people. It will help you make your way in the world more safely. Now, tell me what color it is.”

“Umm...green?”

“Be specific. Is it olive, lime, emerald, kelly, forest—”

“Dark green. Like a forest green, yeah.”

Bishop nodded and patted my shoulder. “Good girl. Dark green means mental stress, which is precisely what Zachary is feeling right about now. He is unsure if he can do what I have asked him to do. Isn’t that right, Zachary?”

He nodded, but didn’t move. Even with his wild red hair, there was something charming and sweet about him. When he looked at me, I immediately felt a kinship with him I’d only felt with Danica. He felt it, too.

“Cool,” I murmured, trying my new skill on Bishop.

“He’s the only one you can read right now because he has not yet learned how to block. But keep your eyes on him and tell me what happens.” To Zack, she said, “My hat, young man.”

Zack rubbed his hands together before turning his palms toward Bishop. Zack frowned and I felt him press harder, wanting to please her.

“Color?”

“Orange.”

“Meaning?”

“He’s trying really hard.”

“Good girl. Orange means strong motivation. Keep trying Zack.”

I watched him try again.

“Color?”

“Pumpkin.”

“Ah, yes. Self-control. Well done. That’s good, Zachary.”

“But—”

“It’s okay, my boy. I asked you to do something I would not let you do.”

“
You
stopped me?”

Bishop smiled. “Of course.” She stepped closer to him and smiled kindly into his face. “You must remember always that no matter how strong you think you are, there’s always someone stronger than yourself. Always. And because you can’t identify other supers, you must never assume the people around you are not. Using your particular abilities in public could very well be the last thing you do.”

Zack nodded. “Yes, ma’am, but how—”

Bishop held her hand up. “Not now. Later. Be a dear, Zachary, and get me a glass of Melika’s lemonade, please.”

Zack bolted into the house.

“Mother, stop scaring the boy.”

“I’m not scaring him. The boy is a male, Melika. You know how dangerous male movers tend to be when they come into their powers.” Bishop turned to me. “What you are going to face is much more difficult than anything you’ve experienced these last three weeks. Always stay focused. Always be disciplined. Having a power does not give you carte blanche to use it indiscriminately.”

I nodded. “You sound so much like Melika.”

Bishop chuckled. “Of course I do. Who do you think taught her everything she knows?”

And that was my first meeting with a woman I would come to love as a strict grandmother. I would learn so much about her powers, about mine, about life and my place in it. For a fourteen-year-old girl who had never had a place, this was just about the biggest gift anyone could give me.

And I wasn’t going to waste it.

I had been on the Bayou for a little over six months when Melika announced we were finally ready to go into town. I’d only been in that one day when she allowed me to call Danica to let her know I’d arrived safely. Since then, it had been a grueling six months of learning every single day how to read emotions correctly. There was more to it than the learning. Zack, Jacob and I would sit around the firepit with Tip and Melika discussing the moral and ethical issues we faced by being different. There were supers who abused their powers, and when they did, someone from deep within us takes care of them. That was about all Melika was willing to tell us about the ramifications of putting the rest of us at risk. She said when the time was right, she’d tell us.

Of course, we wanted the time to be right now.

“I’m pretty sure it’s tough turning down a million dollar Vegas gig,” Zack said afterward while twirling a rock on his index finger.

“Don’t,” Jacob said. “You heard Mel; it’s totally uncool to use our power for personal gain.”

“That’s not what she said, homey. She said it’s wrong putting the rest of us at risk. Big difference. Some of us can do shit and get away with it. Like you. Who’d believe that you were talking to the dead?”

I turned to him. “Did you…did you just call Jacob
homey
?” I stepped up to him and was a bit surprised when he didn’t back away. Zack never let me invade his personal space.

“He doesn’t mind.”

“That’s not the point.”

For a moment, we stood inches apart eyes locked. He couldn’t maintain his shield and it dropped just enough for me to realize something I should have known all along: Zack
liked
me.

“Oh. I…uh…”

Turning, Zack walked away, leaving me and Jacob Marley to wonder if he was going to be one of us or one of
them
.

“Don’t stress it, Echo,” Jacob Marley said. “He’s young and foolish. Once he sees his powers are somewhat limited, he oughtta chill.”

“Come on, Jacob Marley, it’s time for the cit-ayy.”

“New Orleans. The Big Easy. The most colorful place in the country. I think you’re both ready for the excesses of such a place. It’s the perfect testing grounds for all of the lessons you have learned so far.”

New Orleans! I had heard so much about it from Tip whenever she deigned to speak to us. She had an odd role at the cottage. She wasn’t really a student, wasn’t really a teacher, either. She was more like a utility person or substitute teacher/bus driver/school bully. I never got the feeling she liked us; me, in particular. Maybe it was our age difference or maybe she was just a jerk, but she seemed to enjoy teasing if not tormenting me more than anyone else.