Balancer's Soul (4 page)

He looked away again and that allowed
her to take another breath.
“Thank
goodness, I couldn’t move while his raptor like eyes were zeroed on
me like some helpless prey. Yes, he defiantly has the eyes of a
hunter. Now that I look closer, he looks slightly older than these
other kids.” Could he have been held back?
Connor
finally answered in his
strong masculine voice. “The
sun and the moon reveal day and night…” he then continued his
moderately length explanation with perfect clarity that it gave her
chills.
“Ok one thing is for sure, he’s
been raised well. At least he tells time like the people of old
did, like I still do. I have found someone who thinks like me. It’s
rare to find anyone like this anymore, especially at his
age.”
Then he truly surprised her by adding the last
two sentences.

It felt as if lightning struck her whole
being.

“Who in the world is this
kid? He spoke of balance like he knows of what I am. Connor might
be too dangerous to my family. I have to know for sure. This will
not be pleasant, but I need to know who he is or if he knows about
me.”
For the first time in many months, she used her
limited powers. Sarah dove deep into her mind to concentrate and
then pushed out with her special innate sense with all the will she
could muster and without being obvious to what she was doing. Then
just before Sarah’s power reached Connor’s mind it felt like
colliding into a brick wall at a full run.
“Why can I not read his mind?”
Then a thought
came.
“Maybe I’m not at my best and my
powers aren’t working properly again.”
The whole time
she was conversing with herself, Connor barely stared like he felt
something.

Trying to change the mood and flow of
the class Sarah broke contact with Connor and walk up to the
chalkboard. Writing on the chalk board she said to the entire
class, masking her worry quite well “Everyone please read chapter
nine, section six and answer question seven. Then turn your answers
in at the end of class.” Finishing writing she thought.
“O
k, now I need to get Connor out of my
head and think of a solution to this problem… Oh man here it
comes.”
Just as she started to sit down, the migraine
hit with the power of an air horn on a hangover, inside her head.
Pain throbbed behind her eyes and the back of her neck knotted to
make the consequences known. It was truly painful, but not a
surprise anymore.
“This is the always the
cost of using my power without being balanced with a mate.”
Sarah always chastised herself after using her
abilities.

Sarah noticed Connor caught her unconsciously
glancing at him so she looked away and closed her eyes until the
migraine went away just a little bit.

The bell rang suddenly like only a
handful of minutes passed, but her mind remained elsewhere. As
everyone left they put the papers on her desk. Her last thought was
“I
’d better tell Father and see what his
opinion is about this kid I couldn’t get a read on.”

As Sarah hesitantly pulled into the driveway
of the new house for the second time, she looked up and knew only a
few hours remained of daylight. The new residence will be called
home for the next five years or so. Sarah and her family choose
wooded areas mainly for her because not only is it quieter, but no
one can really see them if they do anything out of the ordinary.
Turning off the ignition, she stepped out of the car and walked
inside, through the garage. She sat the keys down on the counter
and took off her shoes.

The migraine still throbbed, but not as
severely.

On her way inside, she found her father
as he sat in the living room. The two of them moved here to get
things setup before her mother eventually arrived. That’s the worst
problem, she isn’t
here
. When
Jillian gets too far away from Jack he becomes imbalanced, so he
drinks heavily to alleviate his sorrow and pain. Drowning in liquor
wasn’t the best substitute, but not much else is. They have been
together for over seven hundred years. Also when he is really mad
or upset, he can become hostile to everyone around him. As Jack saw
her enter the living room he slurred “Meet anyone more plain or
annoying than you, Girl?”

She replied timidly to keep him from jumping
into a blind, drunken rage. “Yes, Father, some new faculty seem
pleasant enough and a few surprising students.” It was best to
leave him alone when he’s like this.

“Surprising to you is Muck to me!” He said in
an angry manner, not his usual relaxed state, and is always
frightening to witness.

Sarah looked over to the table in front
of him and saw that he had downed an entire bottle of whiskey since
she left to teach this morning or was that his second?
“Well he’s drunk, I had better not tell him about
what I felt from Connor…”
She then looked at her
father and apparently he was using his powers to read her mind. Too
late! He exited the chair with inhuman speed and stood right before
her and the burst of movement forced Sarah to take an involuntary
step back. He grabbed her shoulder as the empty bottle shattered on
the ground and yelled while staring her eye to eye. “Who the hell
is
Connor
!? And why couldn’t
you read him?” Struggling, she somehow broke free of his grasp. He
followed as she tried opening the door to put as much distance
between them as possible. He seemed to have gone mad. Once she
finally managed to open the door she tried running, only to fail.
“Who or what is Connor!? If he is a threat us, you know I will have
kill him.”

Stumbling out the front door, Jack watched as
she fell. Sarah tried, but wasn’t able to get back up from under
his murderous glare. All she could say in a calm voice was “He is
just a child. I simply could not read his mind. All I know is he is
not a threat to us…” Just then Sarah faintly heard an odd sound
coming from up the road… squeaky wheels? It was an odd sound. Her
father suddenly helped her up, angrily as he heard the same thing
and knew well enough to not cause a scene. Even drunk, he knew they
couldn’t reveal their true selves to outsiders.

“It must be that Big Mule pulling a
little girl in a wagon again.” He said, answering her quizzical
thoughts. Then Sarah caught sight of the
Mule,
as her father put it, and instantly
recognized who ran. Her eyes went frightfully wide, almost flying
out of their sockets.

Connor was running at an unbelievable
pace while pulling a wagon with a little girl and not make any
sound while running. Sarah guessed it was his sister.
It was an odd sight that one doesn’t see these days with
automobiles readily available everywhere. What was even odder was
that Connor was breathing normally while running at a rigorous
pace. He has amazing stamina for a boy his size
.
Connor slowed his stride when he caught sight
of Sarah and her heart sped in response.

He had a worried look cross his facial
features.

Two choices were the only ones available to
Sarah. Either introduce her drunken father and hope he doesn’t put
the pieces together, and who is currently in the mood for blood, or
run away into the woods. She took off running towards the woods
with her father demanding “Girl, get back here!”

Connor stopped completely as Sarah
turned around to look at him before she ran into the woods. His
expression became even more worried than before. She smiled at him,
knowing he couldn’t possibly see her do so from the distance they
stood apart, but in her head she said
“I’m
more worried for you than you should be about me. I can’t bring you
to harm. You’re innocent.”
She broke through the tree
line of her property and disappeared, leaving as little of a trail
as possible. None could follow from her skills.

After a few hours of running she had
come to realize that not only was it getting very dark, but she
didn’t know where she had come to find herself. Worse yet the stars
were being blocked by clouds.
“Great now
I’m lost! I’m going to be in for a very long night.”
Sarah collected some dry twigs and sticks that were scattered
along the ground and put them together, and had no choice but to
use her power yet again. Summoning up what energy she could spare,
she created a very tiny flame inside the tender bundle. Luckily the
collection of dead plants took the flame and she made a small fire
to keep her company, keep warm and keep unwanted creatures at bay.
Sarah worried about spending the night alone in a foreign forest,
but at least Connor wasn’t harmed by her drunken father.

***

The middle aged man with silver haired yelled
“Girl, get back here!”

Connor caught the sight of Sarah running
away, almost as if her life depended on it. She stopped by the
trees and then turned around to look at him, and at no one else, to
smile, but it was her that eyes said ‘I’m trying to protect you,
Connor.’ She turned away and burst through the tree line of her
property.

The silver haired man turned sharply
and went back inside his house and he staggered in.
“Dr
unk? Great she has a drunkard she has to
live with.”

Kara grabbed Connor’s attention “What was
that about?”

“I’m not sure, but I don’t like it. I’d
better get you inside, Sis.” He answered her while feeling unsure
and worried for his teacher.

“I trust your instincts, Brother.” She
said in the same tense manner, while looking worried herself. Kara
got up and out of the wagon and went inside. Connor quickly put the
wagon in the garage, and sat down on the front step, waiting for
Sarah to come back. Looking up to the sky, he noticed how the
clouds were moving and building.
“If Sarah
doesn’t come home in three hours I’m going to track her down to see
that she is alright.”
Looking up again he said to
himself. “If she doesn’t, it’s going to rain in about six hours.”
It was time to be patient and wait. Not something many were good
at, but he excelled.

Three and a half hours went by and it began
getting very dark and the clouds were building just as predicted.
Connor hadn’t moved from the front step since he saw Sarah flee
into the woods. The front door slowly opened up behind him. Light
flooded from the living room all around where he sat on the porch
step, looking like a large black rock with sandy blonde hair. Kara
stepped around and into his line of sight to say “Brother? You’re
worried about her huh?”

Replying to her question felt easy. “Yes,
Kara, I am very worried.”

Kara kicked his shin gently saying “Go track
her down then! You’re the best there is and she is probably lost if
she hasn’t come back by now. This isn’t the city, Brother, there
are animals out here capable of making a snack out of someone like
her. I’ll be fine.” His sister wanted him to go.

Before he took off after Sarah, Connor called
Mark’s apartment quickly, knowing it was his night off. “Hey Bud, I
have to go do something. Will you come over to my house and keep an
eye on Kara for me while I’m gone? Our neighbor drinks and it
wouldn’t be good for my sister to be home alone.” And Mark
seriously replied “Sure, no problem. Just inform me on what’s going
on later, ok?” Connor said that it is more than fair.

He hung up the phone and Kara felt thankful
for calling Mark over. She didn’t think of the neighbor while he
ran into the woods alone. Connor then put on the outdoor hiking
boots again, knowing the terrain isn’t the best and can be
treacherous at the best of times, especially at night made
everything worse. He still wore his black long sleeves and black
pants and there wasn’t time to change into a new pair of
clothes.

Walking into the garage, Connor grabbed
Kara’s poncho from her bag and stuffed it into his pocket. He also
walked over to his work bench and grabbed Tool. It is an
outdoorsman’s necessity. It is a tool that has a hammer on one side
and a sharp hatchet on the other. It is made of solid metal as is
its shaft. Sliding the shaft of Tool into his pants belt loop, he
thought.
“I hope that I don’t need this,
but just in case I’d better keep it close. Thank goodness I
sharpened it last night and…”
Connor looked into the
bleak and cloudy sky becoming more engorged once again and
thought
“I need to get going before it’s
too late and her tracks wash away.”

Finally he was off. Connor raced silently
across his own yard, crossed the road and ran to the exact spot
where he last saw Sarah in just a few moments. When he found where
the leaves of a tree had broken from someone violently pushing
through, he took off following her footprints as quickly as he
could without losing her trail.

He stopped.

Suddenly he realized a few things after only
a few yards. With a quick glance over his shoulder he realized that
none could have witnesses how her trail she left behind altered so
dramatically. Her strides became too far apart for her legs to be
running normally, especially for a girl her size. She was also
barely leaving a trail unlike your average person. Then he noticed
a seriously big problem. She ran off barefooted, “Not Good!” he
said to himself and quickened his pace instead of admiring her
running technique.

He started sprinting beside her unique
tracks and thought
“Nope, she is defiantly
no amateur. No wonder why I had a suspicion about how she walked
earlier in class.”
He smiled to himself, ready to take
on her challenge.