Connection (Le Garde) (28 page)

Inside, the first floor was an open floor plan. The living room had matching brown leather furniture crowding around a fireplace that held a roaring fire. The wooden walls were lined with bookshelves, and the expansive window in the back led to the back porch and had a view of the woods behind it.

Nothing
like the hermit’s apartment.

A man came in through the back door, smoothing down his gray button-up shirt. He had black hair peppered with gray and a strong face. He came walking toward us with a smile and firmly shook our hands. “Anna and Aaron. So pleased to finally meet you. I’m Joseph Harwood.” He spoke with a British accent. I wondered if he’d been born in England. He glanced at the woman, who sat on the arm of one of the chairs, studying Aaron and I.

“
I’m Amelia Jones, Joseph’s wife,” she said.

“
Nice to meet you both,” Aaron said.

“
This is a beautiful house,” I said, looking at the wooden staircase that led upstairs. It seemed like family portraits lined the wall next to the staircase. A pretty brunette teenage girl was in a lot of the pictures. “Do you have a daughter?”

“
Yes, her name’s Melissa,” Joseph said. “She’s at school right now.” He raised his eyebrows. “I hope you didn’t skip to come see us.”

“
We have a teacher inservice day,” I said. Aaron smirked. He knew I’d never skip, especially not for something like this.

“
Oh, good,” Joseph said, rubbing his hands together. He motioned to one of the couches. “Shall we?”

We sat down, our shoulders and thighs touching, and Kristina and Drew sat in a love seat by the fireplace. “Would you like some water?” Joseph asked.

“
Sure, I’ll take some,” I said, wiping sweaty palms on my jeans again. Aaron squeezed my knee, sending me a reassuring look.

Amelia moved from the arm to the seat of her chair. She, Kristina, and Drew made small talk until Joseph returned with two glasses of water. I sipped, aware of their eyes on me.

“
So,” Joseph said, sitting in a chair next to Amelia’s. “Kristina and Drew tell me you’re an Electric Pair.”

“
Yeah,” Aaron said. “Do you know any others like us?”

“
I met an Electric Pair in England once,” Joseph said, reclining back and crossing his legs. “But I’ve yet to meet one in America.”

“
What can you guys do?” Aaron asked.

“
We’re healers,” Joseph said.

My eyes widened. “That’s amazing.”

Joseph smiled. His teeth were so white. “You don’t know many other Pairs, do you?”

“
Besides our parents, no,” Aaron said.

“
Yes, your parents are the ones who met too late,” Joseph said. “Tragic story. But the two of you wouldn’t exist had they met earlier.” He paused. “It’s quite odd, actually, that the two of them were Paired. The greatest geographic distance I’d seen was myself and Amelia. I was born in London, Amelia in Maine. But your mother the Congo, and your father California? That’s nearly nine thousand miles.”

“
Why do you think that happened?” I asked.

“
I don’t know,” Joseph said. “I wish there was an exact science to it, but there’s not. There are patterns and some predictability, but occasionally, it will take an odd route.”

Aaron leaned forward and set his elbows on his knees. “What about the powers? What can people do?”

“
There are all kinds of abilities,” Joseph replied. “As you know, Kristina and Drew can teleport. Some can move objects with their minds, others have control over an element, others are shape shifters.”

“
Shape shifters?” I repeated.

“
Yes, changing into a certain form, or sometimes more than one. It varies.”

“
How do you know all this?” Aaron asked.

“
My grandfather was a leader of Le Garde,” Joseph said, his voice taking on the perfect French inflection, the g harsh, the d soft. “It’s what the Pairs called themselves until they disbanded in 1944. He passed his knowledge down to my father, and he passed it to me. I’ve met dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Pairs. You two are at your prime. You’re just coming into your powers and the fullness of your connection.”

Aaron and I glanced at each other. We hadn’t had these powers when we were younger. Aaron had the thought that it was a good thing I started talking to him again. I smiled and took another drink of my water.

“
Can you do something for us?” Amelia asked.

I looked up at her. “Do something?”

“
With your power,” Amelia said, a small smile on her face. It was almost a smirk.

“
We don’t have very good control over it,” I said. “We’ve been practicing at a house that doesn’t have any active power hookups.”

“
Just try it,” she said, waving a hand.

Aaron glanced at me. “We don’t want to break anything.”

“
I’m sure you’ll be able to fix it,” Amelia said coolly.

Swallowing, I turned a little bit and held my hands out for Aaron. He took them, and I could immediately sense the electrical currents running through the house. We struggled not to send out a spike of power, as we had in the past. We knew what that was now, because we’d been practicing, and we kept it under control.

I felt the lines running through the walls, connecting to lights, outlets. I could map all of the outlets in the house, and what was plugged into them: appliances, computers, lamps. There was a room in the basement full of computers and other equipment.

We turned the lamp on next to the couch, then the blender in the kitchen. We dimmed the lights in the living room, then turned them on again. We turned the electric fireplace on and off. It was amazing to have this much control. Sweat broke out on my forehead within minutes, though, and I could tell it was taking a toll on Aaron, too. We wordlessly communicated and let go of each other.

“
Wow,” Amelia said, looking at the lights with her eyebrows raised. “Impressive.”

“
You’ll learn much more, I’m sure,” Joseph said.

“
We didn’t impress him,” Aaron told me, smirking.

“
No, no, you did,” Joseph hurried to say.

Aaron laughed, holding up a hand. “It’s okay, I’m just kidding.”

“
I just mean, you can do this now. Give your powers a few years, and they’ll be remarkable.”

“
Can you show us something?” I asked, glancing from Joseph and Amelia to Kristina and Drew.

Drew grinned and promptly vanished. I gasped, and Kristina disappeared next. A moment later, she returned, sitting on the kitchen counter. Someone tapped my shoulder. I spun around to see Drew standing behind the couch.

“
That was awesome!” Aaron said, beaming. Drew shrugged with a satisfied smirk on his face. 

“
You weren’t touching each other,” I said.

“
Nah,” Drew said, grinning at Kristina. “After a while, you don’t have to.”

“
How long?”

“
I don’t know, a year?”

My shoulders sagged. “Too long.”

“
It didn’t take us that long,” Joseph said, motioning to Amelia, “but we were in our twenties already. Right now, your bodies are adjusting to each other and to the new power.”

“
A second puberty,” Aaron said as he shook his head.

“
I wish you two could show us something,” I said, “but no one’s hurt.”

Amelia stood up and walked over to us. She sat on the coffee table, her eyes on my forehead. “How recent is that scar?”

“
About a week and a half,” I said.

She touched it lightly with a finger. The skin tingled, and she pulled her hand away.

Aaron’s mouth fell open. “The scar’s gone.”

“
Wow,” I said, feeling the skin. It was smooth again. “Thank you.”

Amelia smiled.

I thought of Steven’s broken leg. “Can you heal anything?”

“
Nearly,” Amelia said. “The closer we are, the more powerful we are.”

“
How long have you been together? I mean, practicing your power?” 

“
Nearly thirty years. We met in 1984.”

Aaron was amused. We hadn’t even been born.

I glanced toward the family pictures. “How old is your daughter?”

“
Fourteen.”

“
Does she have a Partner?”

“
We don’t know yet,” Amelia said. She stood up and walked back to her chair.

“
I’m sure she does somewhere, we just have to find him,” Joseph said.

“
Or her,” Amelia added.

“
Pairs can be the same sex?” I asked.

“
It’s rare, but it happens,” Amelia said.

Aaron and I were bursting with questions, but neither of us wanted to seem stupid. These four were so relaxed, and they had each other, plus whatever other Pairs they knew. They knew everything there was to know already.

I cleared my throat. “Could I use the bathroom?” 

“
Of course.” Joseph motioned toward the hallway past the kitchen. “It’s down the hallway, third door on the right.”

“
Thank you.”

The bathroom was just at gorgeous as the rest of the house. It had a blue color scheme with a framed copy of Van Gogh’s Starry Night hanging on one of the walls. Even from the bathroom, I felt Aaron’s thoughts, loving the fact that he was here and learning so much. I washed my hands and brushed some stray curls behind my ears.

When I came out, only Amelia remained. She stood at a counter in the kitchen, cutting up bananas.

“
Where are the others?” I asked. It felt like Aaron was downstairs, but I wasn’t going to walk around like I owned the place.

“
They went downstairs,” Amelia said. “You want to help me with this fruit salad?”

“
Sure,” I said, joining her at the counter.

“
Can you cut up those strawberries? I’m going to work soon and I don’t want to ruin my shirt. I know I have an apron around here somewhere, but since you’re here.” She smiled at me and shrugged.

I smiled back. “It’s a good thing I’m here, then.”

“
Unless you wanted the apron—I could find it.”

“
It’s okay.”

She handed me a knife, and I rinsed off the strawberries. I felt Aaron wondering where I was, and his mind reached out to me. I assured him I was with Amelia.

“
What do you do?” I asked Amelia. For some reason, I couldn’t imagine her as a stay-at-home mom.

“
I’m an orthopedic surgeon,” Amelia said as she put the sliced bananas in a white bowl.

I raised my eyebrows. “Wow, that’s cool. Can you use your powers for that?”

“
If Joseph is at work, since I don’t work far from Stanford. If he’s at home, I just have to rely on ten years of medical school.”

“
How far can you go before losing each other?”

Amelia shrugged. “Probably four or five miles.”

I stared at her, my mouth falling open. “Really? That’s so far! I think Aaron and I have about two hundred and fifty feet.”

She moved to stand next to me, taking the sliced strawberries and throwing them in with the bananas. “When we first met, we didn’t have much distance. It grows as time goes on.”

I shook my head. “I can’t imagine that. It’s distracting enough now.”

Amelia laughed. “I know.”

“
And you met when you were in your twenties? Aaron and I have known each other since we were eight years old.”

“
I wonder if it’s easier or harder to adjust when you meet your Partner at a young age,” Amelia said, half to me, half to herself.

I didn’t know, of course. I loved having Aaron as my best friend until we got into high school and I felt like I needed to be my own person. Now that we were hanging out again, I remembered how much I enjoyed being with him, how well we clicked.

But I couldn’t even have a boyfriend without worrying about my friendship with Aaron. Kristina and Drew expected me to throw everything out the window for Aaron and our relationship, but they didn’t even know us.

Amelia handed me an orange. She started to cut hers, but I liked peeling oranges. I didn’t know why, maybe the powdery stuff that got on my fingertips or the satisfaction of peeling off a long strip. I glanced over at Amelia as she sliced her orange into halves, quarters, eighths.

“
So, it was hard for you to adjust?” I asked.