Freakling (3 page)

Thinking up crazy machines and gadgets was Taemon’s favorite way to daydream. Soon his brain had moved from psiless faucets to Uncle Fierre’s unisphere. He saw its engine so clearly in his mind. As images swam through his head, his fingers twitched with anticipation; he longed to draw the unisphere.

He could do it. Da had given a journal to each of his boys as a way to encourage them to practice reading and writing. Yens had thrown his away, but Taemon had been filling his pages with sketches, bits of ideas, and questions about how things worked. His journal was tucked inside his suitcase, which was underneath his feet.

But he shouldn’t. If anyone saw his drawing of the unisphere, he’d be hard-pressed to explain how he’d seen the engine. Not only that, but reading and writing were old-fashioned and thoroughly uncool. Most people didn’t even know how to read anymore, and only those who had to keep records knew how to write — the clerks in the guilds, the priests in the churches. Prestige and privilege went to people who could wield psi with skill and talent. And who would be foolish enough to write down all that hard-earned knowledge in a book where anyone could steal it? Might as well give away all your money.

But the urge had taken hold of Taemon, and it wouldn’t leave until he’d drawn what was speeding through his mind.

He set to work using psi to rearrange the luggage, stacking it on the seat as a barricade between himself and the rest of the family. He padded a corner with the beach blankets Mam had packed, a space just big enough to curl up in with his journal. With his back to the family and the luggage piled up between them, no one would notice that he was writing.

Now to get his journal. He located his suitcase and used psi to unzip the outside pocket of the bag and imagined the journal easing out of the pocket and into his hands.
Be it so!

Nothing happened.

Hmm. Maybe he hadn’t put it in the pocket. He opened the main compartment with psi and prepared to rummage by hand through the swimming gear, underwear, and T-shirts.

But as soon as the bag was opened, Taemon realized his mistake: this was Yens’s suitcase, not his own. The bags were identical, and Taemon had mixed them up when he’d rearranged the luggage.

Something caught his eye. The tan corner of a book poking out from underneath a shirt. Taemon’s heart raced. What was his journal doing in Yens’s suitcase? Had Yens stolen it? What could he possibly want with it?

Taemon called the journal to him with psi, zipped the bag closed, then curled up in his corner and tried to think what to do next. Should he put the journal back and hope that Yens returned it? Or should he hold on to it and risk a confrontation once Yens realized it was missing? He thought back to Yens’s outburst the night before. He didn’t want to risk that again. Even so, Taemon’s fingers still itched to draw. Yens already knew that Taemon could drive the unisphere; what harm could there be in sketching the parts he’d seen?

He opened the journal to begin drawing. But rather than seeing his neat, blocky handwriting and his sketches, he saw spiky, awkward letters on the page.

Skies! It was Yens’s journal. The one he said he’d thrown away. Yens wanted to learn mind wandering? How would that help him be selected as the True Son? Didn’t he know how dangerous it was?

He flipped through the previous pages. The entries spanned several months. It seemed like Yens was experimenting with psi, looking for ways to get around the safeguards, ways to be more powerful.

Taemon slipped the journal back into Yens’s suitcase and zipped it up. It took longer than it should have because the whirling thoughts in his head made it difficult to focus enough to use psi. He thought again about what had happened on the unisphere last night. Yens had purposefully put himself and Taemon in danger in order to expand his psionic power. How many people could do that? How many people
would
do that? Skies, Yens had the icy nerve of a jaguar.

Still, Taemon shuddered to think how wrong that was. Authority doesn’t matter? Your own brother’s
life
doesn’t matter? Was that the big change that the next Great Cycle would bring? He wasn’t sure he wanted to live in a place where psi had no boundaries and where power was more important than people’s lives.

Worry tightened Taemon’s chest. Yens was determined to seek out danger in more ways than one. And no matter what the goal was, Yens always scored.

At the beach, Taemon walked the path that followed the rocky shoreline, hoping for a few minutes alone — and something to distract him from his confused thoughts about Yens. He had a school project he was supposed to work on over the summer, and he needed some ideas. The assignment was to design your own psi lock for your locker. The lock had to be unique so that only its maker knew how it worked. Unlocking it meant picturing the mechanism releasing, then using psi to make it happen. Make it too simple and anyone could figure out how to unlock it. Make it too complicated and even the maker might have trouble holding the release image in his head. The assignment wasn’t that hard, but this was the kind of thing Taemon loved puzzling out. He wanted to create something truly original.

Da always said the best inspiration comes from nature. Taemon walked over to the knee-high stone wall that ran along the sandy path, just high enough to keep someone from accidentally falling off. Looking over the ledge, he saw the ocean a few feet down and wondered how it might help him design a lock.

Waves.

Rocks.

Crashing.

He’d been lucky to avoid a crash last night. Maybe he could use something from the unisphere’s design for his lock. Maybe . . .

“Dare you to jump in right here,” Yens said.

Taemon turned around. Yens had crept up next to him. Once again Taemon found himself right where he didn’t want to be — alone with Yens.

“C’mon, freakling. Jump in,” Yens repeated.

The water didn’t look too bad. He was a good swimmer. He could probably do it. The problem was that Yens would turn it into something else, something dangerous. Taemon stepped away from the edge and back to the path. “Nah,” he said.

“Right,” Yens said. “Let’s go for a walk instead because that’s so much more exciting.”

Yens was bored. And a bored Yens was a dangerous Yens.

Taemon kept walking. Both boys were quiet for the next few minutes, Taemon keeping to himself and Yens poking the sand with a stick. Then Yens began walking on top of the rocky ledge.

Taemon watched his brother out of the corner of his eye. It made him nervous to see Yens flirting with danger again, but he was certain that’s exactly what Yens wanted. If he ignored him, maybe Yens would give up. It wasn’t easy, though, with Yens pretending to stagger and stumble, leaning this way and that with a smirky grin on his face.

“Whoa,” Yens said, teetering dramatically. He waved his arms to gain balance.

Taemon looked away.

“Whoa!” Yens called, more loudly this time. Taemon rolled his eyes and looked back — just in time to see Yens teeter toward the edge and then disappear over the wall.

Was it a trick? It must be. Taemon waited for Yens to jump out or yell or anything.

Nothing happened.

Taemon wouldn’t go near the edge. He wasn’t going to fall for Yens’s prank. He waited several minutes, listening to the surge of the surf, the cries of the gulls. Another several minutes. Nothing.

What if something had happened to Yens? Shouldn’t he check, at least? Just one tiny look. He walked over to the ledge, planted his feet solidly on the ground, and peeked over the wall.

And there was Yens. Crouched on a rock on the other side. His laughter was loud and cocky.

“Got you that time!”

“I had to check on you, that’s all.”

Yens climbed up the rocks toward the wall. Taemon helped Yens up with a little psi boost. Before he realized what was happening, Taemon felt himself being yanked forward, his belly pinned to the stone wall. He hung there, head on the ocean side of the wall and feet on the other, slowly tipping forward.

“Let’s go for a swim,” Yens said with a snarl.

“Stop it, Yens.” Yens shouldn’t be able to use psi to hurt anyone, especially his own brother. But after reading his brother’s journal, Taemon was beginning to think that Yens was capable of just about anything.

“Tell me how you drove the unisphere.”

Taemon’s head was pounding, and the stone wall jamming in his gut made it hard to get a good breath. “Skies! Is power all you care about?”

Yens’s face contorted into an odd scowl. Taemon felt a shove of psi and toppled over the wall. A shower of pebbles escorted him into the water below.

The water was warm, but it was strong and deep. The small waves on the surface hid an incredible force that shoved and pulled at Taemon as he tried to swim to shore. The water tugged him outward, then thrust him back toward the rocks and jammed him against a boulder. Before Taemon could climb the rock, he was thrust outward again by the sea.

He wondered how fast he was moving. Fast enough to break a bone if he hit the rocks wrong?
Don’t panic,
Taemon told himself.
Focus on breathing.
The water would eventually push him back toward the rock, where he’d have another chance to climb out.

And it did. Taemon tried to keep himself aligned so his feet would hit the rocks first. Better his legs get broken than something indispensable like his head. He glanced up and saw Yens standing on the boulder. He breathed a bit easier.

Taemon’s feet hit the boulder just as he’d planned. He bent his knees to cushion the impact, and nothing broke. Swinging his arms forward, he managed to hug the boulder, but his toes found no footholds. He scrabbled for purchase on the smooth, slippery rock. “Help me!”

Taemon felt psi pulling at his shoulders. His body started to lift out of the water. Relief washed over him.

Just before Taemon could get to a safe position, his forward momentum stopped. He hung suspended above the rock.

“Tell me how you worked the unisphere,” Yens said. “Then I’ll help you.”

“I told you, I don’t know! I just saw it. I can’t explain how!”

“Try.”

The waves returned, engulfing Taemon from the waist down and pressing him up against the rock. He fought to breathe.

“If I concentrate,” he began, knowing that he had no choice, “I can search things with my mind. See how they work. But I don’t know how I do it! I just do. Da said never to tell anyone. He said it’s dangerous!”

“Dangerous for you. But I know what to do with it.”

“Forget all this stuff about danger increasing power. You’re asking for disaster.”

Yens grinned. “That’s the whole point.” And he let go.

Taemon fell into the water, and the sea hauled him out again.

Once more Taemon fought to position himself for another chance to climb onto the rocks. But this time he felt something different. This time the ocean pulled him sideways. Not much, but it meant he’d end up someplace other than the big boulder. Maybe a better place to climb out. Maybe worse. No way to know.

Sure enough, when Taemon was pushed back to shore, he missed the boulder by a few feet. Yens was yelling something, but Taemon couldn’t make it out.

Here the rocks were submerged under the churning sea. He couldn’t see them, but he could feel them scraping his knees and shins. He had to find someplace safer.

In the rocks he
could
see, there was a gap that caught his eye. Maybe that would lead to a way out. He tried to aim toward it.

It worked. Taemon reached the gap. No more hidden rocks smashing into his body. But it wasn’t just a gap. The sea pushed him into a cave the size of his living room.

At least he was safe. He’d rest here awhile and swim out in a few minutes. It should be easy. He would figure out the timing of the water’s pull and use it to help him swim out of the cave. With his strength back, he should be able to aim himself at the boulder once again. He needed to rest a bit, that’s all. Catch his breath.

Taemon waded through the shallow water to the back of the cave and found a ledge that he could sit on, the water up to his waist. As his breathing slowed, he looked around at this strange hidden place. Sunlight poured in from the opening and reflected off the water, throwing beams of light in various directions on the cave walls, and creating rippled rainbows.

Taemon wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but the water was up to his chest now and he figured it was time to swim out. He concentrated on the rhythm of the waves and timed his swimming to match it. He swam toward the opening, but the ocean’s pull was deceiving. When the water’s direction changed, he found himself pinned against the wall of the cave.