Boundary Crossed (Boundary Magic Book 1) (13 page)

I raised an eyebrow. “So did the Christians,” I countered. “But nobody gets tossed at a car for going to Sunday school.”

Lily gave a little snort, but she still avoided meeting my eyes. Simon heaved a sigh. “Don’t freak out,” he said reluctantly. “But, theoretically . . . you can raise the dead.”

Chapter 19

I freaked out. Well, actually I burst out laughing, but it had an edge of hysteria that I couldn’t control.

“In theory, any really, really powerful witch could raise the dead,” Lily said over the sound of my laughter, as though that might help me understand. “But trades witches would need a full coven and a shit-ton of mandragora in order to do death magics. Even then, it’d be dangerous for us.”

I stopped laughing. “Manda-whata?” I asked, feeling helplessly lost.

“It’s an herb for death magics,” Simon explained. “Not important right now.”

“Death magics,” I echoed, suddenly dazed. “Magic for death.”

“Uh-oh,” Lily said, raising her eyebrows at her brother. “I think you broke her, Si.”

He ignored her. “Look, Lex, the short version? Boundary witches have been hated and feared since the Inquisition. They did some stuff back then, and they ended up being seen by many people as an . . . accident of nature and magic, like an . . .” He winced, looking apologetic. “An abomination.”

I looked between the two of them. Simon was clearly uncomfortable, and Lily was still having trouble making eye contact with me. But neither of them seemed afraid of me. “You two seem to be handling it okay.”

“Well, Simon’s a scientist,” Lily answered, giving a little shrug. “And I have a particularly liberal outlook when it comes to marginalized minority groups.” She wrinkled her nose wryly, and I realized she was referring to her skin tone. “But most witches, especially the ones from our mother’s generation, see it differently.”

“Mom doesn’t think you’re going to murder us right now or anything,” Simon offered. “She’s just afraid that if we teach you how to use your power, you’ll . . . well, use it. And grow more powerful.”

“Like breast-feeding,” I said absently. I shook my head, trying to ground myself. In the army, I’d been to briefings where we had to process a lot of information very quickly. Either I was out of the habit, or the bump on my head was a lot worse than Lily had thought.

“Okay, fine. I can get more of the history later. For now, though, what do we do? Maven wants me trained, and your mom wants me banished from the state.”

Part of me was hoping they’d say they couldn’t train me, that I’d have to go home and find another way to keep Charlie safe. I didn’t want to be a witch, and certainly not one with death in her blood. I just wanted to go home, maybe go for a bike ride, and then watch something with Gregory Peck saving the world from corruption and tyranny.

But both of the Pellars suddenly looked very sober. “We have to train her,” Lily said to her brother. “We can’t let Mom renege on the deal. It could start a war, Si.”

Simon gave her a long, speculative look, then nodded. “I don’t remember her actually forbidding us from training her,” he said to the ceiling. “We’ll really just be carrying out her wishes, by keeping her deal with Itachi.” His gaze flicked back to Lily. “If I cancel my class,” he began, “can we divide and conquer?”

She made a sour face. “I hope you don’t mean—”

“I’ll start working with Lex; you start working on Mom.” Lily was obviously about to protest, so Simon added, “Come on, Lil, you’re the baby—
and
her favorite. You know she’ll listen to you.”

“How come I’m only her favorite when my older siblings want something?” Lily complained, but I could tell by the look on her face that she was going to acquiesce. She let out a frustrated grunt. “Ugh, fine. Just go out to the barn or something so you’re not right in her face.”

Lily went out the back door to run interference with their mother, who had progressed to the geraniums behind the house. Simon led me out the sliding glass door, across the wooden porch, and along the driveway toward the old barn I’d seen when I drove up. I felt his eyes on me most of the way. “You okay?” he asked when we were nearing the barn.

I shook my head. “Not even close.”

He shot me a sympathetic look and slid open the enormous wooden door, motioning for me to step past. Inside, I paused for a second so my eyes could adjust to the dimness. There was a fenced-off concrete walkway cutting straight through the barn, which was otherwise divided into a quartet of large stalls, each big enough to comfortably house six to eight cows. The barn was deserted now, but I could tell that at one point there had been actual cows here—the air still smelled faintly of stale manure, and there were pockets of griminess where years of caked-on dirt and cow feed had left permanent stains on the furnishings. Despite the barn’s obvious age, everything was well cared for, with swept concrete floors and signs that the fences were hosed off regularly.

“There used to be a few dairy cows here, but when my mom took over the farm she switched to agriculture only,” Simon explained. He led me to the center of the building, where a decidedly rickety-looking wooden ladder led up to a plain square hole cut into the wooden ceiling. “This way,” he urged, and without waiting to see if I’d follow, Simon hopped onto the ladder and began climbing, disappearing through the hole. I didn’t like the idea of following him into a room I couldn’t see, but I swallowed my discomfort and began climbing after him.

I had to squint as I rose into the hayloft, because sun poured into the space from several open-air windows, bathing it in warm light that sparkled from particles of hay dust in the air. The loft was filled with neat stacks of hay bales that formed a sort of loose amphitheater—the stacks were highest near the walls tapering down to the middle of the loft, which had a wide area with no hay at all. When I stood up, Simon flipped a trapdoor closed, concealing the ladder we’d climbed beneath a plain square of wood with a ring in it. Then he climbed onto one of the midsize stacks of hay, four bales high, on the opposite side of the room. “Pick a stack and climb on,” he said, gesturing to the room.

“Is this like a psychological test?” I said suspiciously. “The size of the stack of hay I pick indicates the size of my affinity with magic or something?”

Simon laughed, a surprised, carefree sound. “Not that I know of. They’re just more comfortable than the wooden floor.”

Still a little skeptical, I chose a stack that was as tall as his, but against the opposite wall, so we were about ten feet apart, four feet off the floor. The hay sticking out of the top bale felt sharp and prickly, even through my jeans, but I could ignore it. “What are we doing up here?”

Simon shrugged. “It’s a good place for early lessons. It’s quiet, nobody ever comes up here, and with the trapdoor closed it’s fairly hard to get hurt, as long as nobody accidentally starts a fire.” He nodded toward the wall behind me, and I turned my head to see two massive fire extinguishers bolted into the wooden support. “We’ve got that set up just in case.”

“Nice,” I said, turning to face him again. “What do you want me to do?”

He folded his legs. “Sit crisscross applesauce, as my sister says, and let your hands relax where you want them. Then close your eyes.” He left his hands resting against his legs and shut his own eyes, providing an example. “Before anything else, I’m going to teach you how to sense magic.”

I mimicked his relaxed posture, letting my eyelids fall. I was still tired, so it wasn’t hard.

We stayed that way for about ten heartbeats, and then I became aware of a conscious desire to fidget. I wanted to move my legs, my arms, to climb the bales of hay and stack them in a pile that I couldn’t reach the top of. I wanted to stick my head out the open window and look around the farm, maybe do some pull-ups on the wooden ladder. My limbs wanted to
move
.

“Lex . . .” Simon began, and I popped open my eyes.

“Yeah?” I followed his eyes downward, and saw that my leg was jiggling. “Oh, sorry.”

“You don’t hold still much, do you?” he asked with a wry smile.

“Of course I do,” I said defensively. “In the car, in the shower, when I watch movies. All the time.”

“Uh-huh. Is that what you do for fun, watch movies?”

I shrugged. “Once in a while. When the weather’s bad, or when I get sick.”

“And the rest of the time?”

I blew out a breath. “I like being outdoors. I run and bike. Box a little. Mmm . . . hiking, rock climbing. I’m on an intramural softball team in the summer.” Intramural softball: my big nod to socialization.

“Hmm,” he said, as if I’d just revealed some great secret. “Let’s try again.”

I closed my eyes again, this time making sure I wasn’t jiggling my knee.

“Okay. Now I want you to focus on your breathing,” he said calmly. “Picture the air going into your lungs, traveling all the way down your limbs to your toes and back out again. Feel the breath as it passes through each part of you.”

It was a lot harder than it sounds. Concentrating on my breath for a moment was easy, but keeping my focus on it and not letting in any other thoughts was nearly impossible. I kept trying, although it felt like trying to dam a stream with just my hands. Finally my breathing settled into a regular, slow pace as I visualized each breath.

“Good,” Simon murmured. “Now extend your senses and feel the temperature of the room, the air on your skin.”

“Extend my senses? What does that even mean?” I grumbled, keeping my eyes closed.

“Have you ever had a minor injury or a headache?” Simon asked, his voice still low and soothing. “And you take some ibuprofen or aspirin to make the pain go away?”

“Of course. I did it this morning.”

“Well, a few minutes after you take the medicine, you focus on the place in your body where the pain was, and you sort of
listen
to that spot, to see if the pain’s gone yet. You sense it out, for lack of a better phrase.”

“Okay . . .”

“Now do that with your skin. Sense what your skin is feeling, and then extend those senses farther to feel the air in the room.”

That made more sense to me, and I tried to do as he asked. But after a few seconds I lost my focus, and images began to click through my brain—a slide show of my life, mostly my life in the army. I’d seen it many times before. When I’d first gotten home, I’d seen it every time I blinked.

Abruptly, I opened my eyes and scrambled off the bale of hay. I stalked across the open floor to another stack and climbed on, not pausing until I reached the open window above the top bale. I leaned out and took a deep breath. When I turned around, Simon hadn’t moved except to open his eyes. He was watching me calmly. “What are we doing?” I demanded. “This can’t be magic.”

“Technically, this is meditation,” Simon said easily. “I needed to know how well you could concentrate.”

I looked away. “Not very well.”

“Then we’ll try something else,” he said levelly. “Sit down, please.”

Reluctantly, I abandoned the breeze and returned to my original seat.

“This time, I just want you to listen,” Simon coaxed. “Close your eyes and make a list of everything you hear.”

Okay, that I could do. I strained to hear something. There was the sound of an engine in the distance, maybe a tractor or a riding lawnmower. I could hear a few bird calls through the open window, too. And something else. Off in the corner, I heard the tiniest rustle of hay. “I think you have mice,” I said, my eyes still closed.

“We do.”

“Is that what you wanted me to listen for?” I asked, trying to keep the impatience out of my voice.
What do you want me to do?
This was for Charlie, after all. He just needed to name something and I’d do it.

“Sort of. Concentrate on the mice, the same way you concentrated on your body. Focus on the sound.”

So I closed my eyes again and concentrated on the corner of the room where I’d heard the hay move. With great effort, I tried to focus my attention on that spot.

Just as my concentration started to slip, I felt something: a tiny living spark, smaller than a grain of rice. There was a sort of color to it—a pretty, glowing blue. I let out a tiny gasp and opened my eyes, losing it.

Simon was looking right at me, and I knew that however different our talents might be, he could feel it too. “What
was
that?” I asked wondrously.

He gave me a small smile. “You were sensing magic. Some people call it the soul, or the spark of life. People perceive it differently—your brain finds a way to interpret it that makes sense to you. For me magic is . . . mmm . . . sort of a density in the air. Lily envisions a third eye she can switch on and off. Whatever works for you. Can you do it again?”

I closed my eyes again and extended my senses, as Simon had instructed. This time it was easier to find the spark, because I knew what I was looking for. I concentrated on it, on the blue almost-glow that emitted from the mouse. In Iraq I’d looked through thermal imaging goggles a few times; this felt a lot like that. A sea of darkness interrupted by a bright flash of warmth.

“It’s like heat-sensing goggles,” I said softly, without opening my eyes.

“Good,” Simon encouraged. “Now push out farther. Find the rest of them.”

I tried to extend the area of my senses, but it got spread too thin, and I lost the first spark. I went back to it and started again, thinking again of the heat-sensing goggles. This time, instead of concentrating on the first spark and expanding in all directions, I
moved
it, like a flashlight beam in the dark. I pointed the beam of my attention toward the same spot and tried to push past it. I found that first rice grain of life again, then another behind it. And another.

A moment later my beam reached the back of the loft and abruptly flared and expanded. Suddenly there was a huge flash of magic, blinding in its radiance. My eyes flew open, and I lost my grip on the beam.

“That was me,” Simon said calmly. “You sensed my life force.”

“You could
feel
that?”

He shook his head, bemused. “No, just a logical guess.”

I shook my head, standing up and hopping off the bale of hay so I could pace across the expanse of clear wooden floor. I was totally unnerved. “I don’t like this. I don’t think . . . Mice are one thing, but I shouldn’t be able to
feel
other people’s life forces. It’s . . . invasive.”