Rising (32 page)

“I think we should start with Ben first, since
I think he needs the most help.”

“You can say that again,” mumbled Jeremy.

“Shut up, sound-system,” said Ben.

“Is that supposed to be an insult?” asked
Jeremy, “Because it’s not.”

“Okay, boys.
 
Enough,” said Homer calmly.
 
“Tell
me, Benjamin.
 
You said before that you
get a tingly sensation just before storms.
 
Is there ever another time when you feel this way?”

Ben had that funny puzzled look on his face he
got whenever I asked him things like whether he’d finished an essay paper for
Mrs. Jaden or if he realized he had to bring up his ACT score for college.
 
His eyes brightened suddenly.

“Well, sometimes, when I’m playing soccer and
I’m running downfield, I do get a sort of rush and feel that way.
 
But, I always just ignore it, because it
reminds me of thunderstorms.
 
I hate
storms.”

“I think that’s where you’ve gone wrong,
Benjamin.
 
Instead of ignoring that
feeling, you need to open yourself up and embrace it.
 
You say it’s when you’re running that this
happens?”

“Mm-hmm,” he nodded, his blonde hair flopping
forward.

Homer turned around and stared back toward the
road where we’d come.
 
He stroked his
grizzled beard.

“I wish I had a soccer ball, but I’m afraid I
don’t keep those around,” he mused with a smile.

“I’ve got one,” I said.
 
“My gym
bag’s
in
the back of the Jeep.”

I jogged over and found my red and white Nike
ball then started back, but they were coming to meet me.

“Okay, then,” said Homer, turning to Ben.
 
“I want you to just kick the ball down the
path as fast as you can and when you feel that sensation that you get, focus in
on it.”

“You want Ben to focus?” asked Jeremy
sarcastically.

Ben reached out to punch Jeremy, but he dodged
around Clara chuckling to himself.

“Geez, boys, cut it out,” said Clara.

“Fine,” grumbled Ben.

Jeremy stayed defensively behind Clara, out of
Ben’s reach, grinning.

“Listen to me,” said Homer more earnestly,
“when you start to sense it, keep running.
 
Let that feeling go.
 
Don’t block
it out.”

“But, how will we know if he’s using the
power?” asked Clara.
 
“I mean, I’ve seen
Jeremy, and I know Gabe can use his, but how will we know if he’s pulling
energy from around him?
 
We can’t exactly
see energy.”

“You’ll know,” was all Homer said.
 
“Go, Benjamin.
 
Run.”

Ben shook his head then started dribbling the
soccer ball along the dirt path, mumbling something under his breath.
 
He was slow at first, zigzagging along the
road, but then he picked up speed.
 
We
followed him to the mouth of the woods that circled the clearing.
 
He disappeared around a bend.
 
We waited.

Clara stepped close to me and put her hand in mine.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah.
 
Why?”

“Your aura.
 
It’s been sort of, well, sad-looking since you came out of the vision.”

Her hazel eyes held me still.
 
I wanted to wrap my arms around her and lose
myself.
 
I wanted to tell her that
nothing was wrong, that nothing had changed, but I couldn’t.
 
My mind went back to
Blyn
and Freya.
 
They had caused their own
deaths, possibly even the deaths of their clansmen, because of their feelings
for each other.
 
It was a weakness we
couldn’t afford, that I couldn’t allow.

There was a yelp of excitement and laughter in
the distance.
 
It was Ben.
 
This gave me a reason to pull my hand away
and walk closer to Jeremy and Homer who had stepped a few feet ahead.

“Well, well, well.
 
Look at Firefly go,” said Jeremy.

Ben was cruising back toward us, but he looked
different.
 
He was glowing, actually
glowing.
 
It wasn’t like Clara was last
night with a golden halo cast all around her.
 
As he came closer, knocking the hell out of the soccer ball, I could see
that there was an electric light shimmering on his face and arms, beaming
through his white t-shirt, then dimming under his jeans and shoes.
 
The ball skidded past us and bounced off the
porch steps in the distance.
 
Ben jogged
to a stop, his chest heaving from the run.
 
A goofy, but uncharacteristically arrogant, smile spread across his face
that was shining with white light.

“What do
ya
think of
this?” he asked, holding out his arms for us to see.

It’s not like we could miss it.

“Very good, Benjamin.
 
What was it like?” asked Homer.

“Well, first, when I started running, I was
still thinking you were
kinda
crazy.
 
No offense,” he said, still panting.

“None taken.”

“Then it started; that sort of itchy, tingly
feeling.
 
I did like you said.
 
I started thinking about how it was running
up my legs, my body, then down my arms into my fingers, so I started running
faster.
 
It was like the air around me
was pushing me to go faster and faster.
 
Then I could see it all over my skin.
 
It was totally awesome, man,” he said, clapping Homer a little too
aggressively on the back.

Homer wasn’t exactly a small man, but the force
of Ben’s pat nearly knocked him over.

“Oh, sorry,” Ben said, laughing in an almost
giddy way.
 
“Man, I feel good!
 
I always associated that feeling with the
time I was struck by lightning, so I blocked it out.
 
If I’d known it felt this good, I’d have been
doing this a long time ago.”

“Yeah,” said Jeremy, “and you’d be locked up in
a cage in some scientist’s lab somewhere.”

“Huh?” asked Ben, confused.

“You can harness all electrical energy, solar
energy, even energy from plants around us, Benjamin.
 
What you need to practice is pulling energy
from specific elements, because the foremost purpose of your power is to weaken
the shadow scouts and reapers when they come.
 
Tonight, when you get home, I want you to practice with some kind of
electrical source.”

“Like a light bulb,” suggested Jeremy.

“But, what is it that triggers it?” I asked.

“It seems that for Benjamin, it’s any physical
activity where he releases large amounts of energy, which actually makes
perfect sense.
 
When his body is losing
energy that internal power takes over, trying to take in energy from the
environment around him.
 
But, just as it
is for all
Setti
, your will has much to do with the
strength of your power and your ability to control it.”

“How do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, I’ll tell you this.
 
I didn’t move out here in the middle of
nowhere without cable
tv
or even a telephone just for
the fun of it.
 
I realized that my power
was mostly internal, requiring great concentration on my part to wield it.
 
I needed a place of solace so that I could
meditate and receive connections from other Tracers.
 
It wasn’t until I moved out here on Canebrake
that I started having full visions of past
Setti
.
 
Before that time, it was like broken pieces
of dreams.”

“I still don’t see what you mean about us.
 
Our powers are different,” said Clara.

“Yes,” he said, smiling so that his cobalt eyes
sparkled.
 
“You are different.
 
You, Gabriel, and Jeremy experience your power
as an emotional response to what is going on around you.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true,” admitted Jeremy,
“because it’s always my music that brings it out, and well, you all know how I
feel about my music.”

“Yeah, we know,” said Clara.
 
“I guess that’s true about us, too.”

She glanced at me, and I knew she was thinking
about last night.
 
I remembered how
furious anger lit up her face as she charged toward me and the shadow
scouts.
 
I wasn’t about to add my own
views on this subject.

“But, why emotions?” asked Clara.

Homer thought reflectively, pursing his brow
into wrinkly lines.

“Emotions are reflections of our internal
energy.
 
Whenever we have emotions, our
mind filters it out through our physical body, then our body reacts to these
feelings in some form of energy.”

“Whoa, isn’t this getting a little too personal
here?” said Jeremy, cocking one eyebrow up.

“What kind of emotions are
you
thinking about?” asked Clara sharply.

Homer ignored them and continued.

“Just think of it this way, any feeling that you
have, whether it’s joy, anger, sadness, desire, hate, whatever it might be,
they all have a physical reaction.
 
Think
of the physical maladies, like heart attacks and ulcers, caused by emotional
stress.
 
It is this energy that awakens
your power.
 
Have you ever heard the
physics theory that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction?”

“Yes,” Clara and I said in unison.

Homer seemed surprised by such a quick
response, then he went on.

“Your body’s reaction to any heavy emotion on
the inside is for your power to push outward forcefully.
 
You’ll find that some emotions will have a
stronger impact than others.
 
But, the
ultimate goal is clear.
 
For Sounders, it
is breaking the energy fields of our enemies with a voice.
 
For Guardians, it is an instant shield of
protection.
 
For Vanquishers, it is the
ability to crush evil entities into dust.
 
This is why it is imperative that you learn to control your own
emotions.”

This was unreal.
 
I’d managed to block other people from seeing
my true feelings my entire life, but I had never had any control over
them.
 
This was like telling a cop to
avoid crime.

“Well, whatever, guys,” said Ben, frowning down
at his arms that were losing their golden luster, “but I’m gonna take another
run.”

“Remember, Benjamin, you must wield your power
carefully. Do not take too much energy from
any one
living thing, until of course we meet with our great enemy.
 
This will be your task, to focus on where you
draw that energy from.”

Ben’s brows furrowed together for a minute then
lifted in understanding.
 
He turned
abruptly and headed back up the path, without the soccer ball this time.

“Yeah, you go recharge, Sunshine!” yelled
Jeremy after him.
 
“So, who’s next?”

Homer didn’t say a word, but led us around the
side of the house near a metal work-shed where his blue pick-up was attached to
a trailer.
 
In the bed of the trailer
were thick pine logs with branches still poking out along the trunks.
 
Next to the shed were three huge logs as tall
as me with their limbs cut away.
 
Homer marched
over, heaved them upright and stood all three on end.
 
For a man his age, he was strong.

“You have been expecting us,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said,
walking toward us.
 
“I’ve had these
waiting for you, Gabriel.
 
It’s time to
see what you can do.”
     

I kept any fear away from my eyes.
 
I didn’t feel ready for this test.
 
I was actually a little jealous of how easily
Jeremy could turn his on and off.
 
Homer
must’ve seen my hesitation.

“Just stand right here and face the logs.
 
I want you to focus just on one of them, then
think of any time where you felt some intense emotion. That should draw it
out.”

My memory snapped back to when Clara and I were
on her porch and I nearly killed her.
 
I
tried not to look at her, but my eyes slid to her anyway.
 
A splotch of scarlet colored her cheeks while
she stared at her feet.
 
I suppose we
were thinking about the same thing.