Shared Skies (15 page)

Gaiah had a million questions vying to be
asked. “Are there any more super powers?”

“
Shifting,” answered
Kaley. “This obviously could be seen as a power, because Earth
people can't do it.”

Renny leant forward. “And encognating of
course. Though not all Gaianans can do it as well as I can.”

“
She said modestly.” Kaley
and Gaiah both said at the same time. They caught each other’s gaze
and burst out laughing.

“
Well, it's true!” Renny's
voice rose, but she was smiling.

“
Where does all the energy
come from?” Gaiah was thinking of her grandparents’ house appearing
and disappearing.

“
We don't really create
it. We move and store it. We have machinery, but need people to
focus their own brainwaves in synchronization to extract energy
from air and matter.” Kaley's voice took on a lecturing tone. Just
as she launched into the physics of particles, neutrons and atomic
structure, they arrived home. Gaiah grinned back at Renny, knowing
they were both relieved to be spared the lecture.

That evening, Renny and Gaiah settled down
to an encognation class. Facing each other across the kitchen
table, Renny began. “I can tell when encognating is being done,
which is why I got this electric assignment. I can’t get exact
individual words, but I get a strong sense of what is being
encognated. But I also have a good encognative ability, which is
what I must teach you.”

“
I can't wait! This is
really exciting.” Gaiah sat upright at the edge of her seat, hands
clasped on the table and stared intently at Renny.

“
It’s a three-pronged
thought sequence and really easy. You must think–I WANT, that’s
your number one. I WANT that YOU FEEL, now that’s your number two
and then I WANT that YOU FEEL that YOU WANT is your number three.
Focus hard on whatever it is that you want to suggest at them. This
really is to protect people from being influenced by you when you
don’t mean to do it. It also makes it far more effective when you
do it for real. Up to now you've just kind of been wishing that
people would do what you want and probably all they were getting
was a vague feeling of confusion or maybe a slight desire to do
something odd.”

Gaiah protested. “No, it did work sometimes,
I mean, really work, like–‘that was a very satisfactory interview
with Gaiah, I don’t know why her teacher sent her on report to me.’
or ‘I think Gaiah looks tired, I’ll let her off all the Easter
holiday revision work.’ Admittedly not all the time, but often
enough.”

Renny smiled. “Well, you must have great
powers of concentration, because it’s usually fairly random when
you start. Right, so it’s one, two, three. I WANT that YOU FEEL
that YOU WANT...Those are the steps that you have to get used to.
There are rules that we Gaianans adhere to. We don’t use it on
humans unless it’s necessary, and we NEVER make someone do anything
against their nature. Needless to say, Or’kans, have no such
scruples. Their encognation methods are closer to complete
annihilation of the human’s will.”

“
Talking about Or’kans,”
Gaiah said, “do Gaianans and Or’kans recognize each other in their
Earthways forms? I mean how would you know if you were sitting next
to one on a bus? What do they look like?”

Renny frowned. “You’re supposed to be
concentrating on encognating. But okay. Well…I suppose our female’s
hair is fairly distinctive, unless we go to lengths to hide it.
Or´kans are dark, but so are a lot of Earth people. So it´s hard to
detect each other, unless, like me, you can feel encognating going
on or they have an energy drain in front of you. Now back to work.
Right! You try. Off you go, encognate me to give you the last piece
of pizza.”

“
It’s not going to work on
you though, is it, as we’re both Gaianan?”

“
No you won’t be able to
make me think I want to do something, but I will be able to feel
it. No more putting it off.”

Gaiah tried.
I want that…you feel that…you want to… give me
the pizza.
And she imagined as clearly as
she could, Renny handing the slice of pizza to her.

“
Well, I have to say I do
feel it-a tiny bit.” Renny smiled and ate the pizza. They practiced
for the rest of the night. Over and over, until they were both
tired of it. In bed, Gaiah found the three steps were repeating
themselves in her head like a mantra until she finally dropped into
a deep, dreamless sleep.

Chapter
Twelve

Next morning, Gaiah opened
her curtains to a gloriously bright day. Her spirits felt as high
as the wisps of jet trails streaking the sky.
I feel like I’m waking up on my birthday. Why?
The answer was instant. After all the years of
her ‘suggesting‘ being a vague, unpredictable, shameful secret, it
was now an acknowledged and admired power she seemed to be good at.
Last night had been wonderful. She couldn't wait for more lessons
with Renny. Also, she was still pleased with her plans from
yesterday.

She would make arrangements for a date with
the best looking guy she had ever seen, and try to make friends
with Neal. Even thinking about his art work stirred her emotions.
With her new-found confidence she was sure she could help him. For
the first time since starting primary, she was excited about going
to school.

Double history and an economics study class
meant she hadn't seen either Graeme or Neal by break time. As they
headed towards the canteen, Gaiah hesitated at the door of coloured
palms. “I’d really like another look at those copper pieces.”

Renny opened the art room door, looked
around and waved Gaiah in. “Okay, it’s empty, you look round while
I go to the loo.”

Gaiah headed straight for Neal’s work. She
stood in front of the glowing copper and again. The work
connecting…almost speaking to her.

“
I haven't seen you in
here before.”

She squeaked in fright, it wasn't just the
art speaking to her, it was Neal. He eased himself up from where he
had been crouched, polishing the supports of his work. His black
denims and t shirt were paint-splattered but his hair was shining
in a thick ponytail. “Jesus! You scared the life out of me,” gasped
Gaiah. Her hand flew to her chest as if she could calm her
heart.

He bent and continued with his work. “What
are you doing here?”

“
I came to look at these
again. I…I just love them… they make me feel…”

Neal stood up again, stepped closer and
looked down at her. “What? What do they make you feel?”

Gaiah took his question seriously and looked
again at the beautiful copper work. “As if they’re talking to me. I
can feel something tugging at me for attention.”

“
And what are they trying
to tell you?” He was still turned towards her when she looked
back.

Gaiah could see shadows
under his eyes and her hand clenched with the effort of not wiping
away the deep line between his eyes.
What
am I thinking!
His wide mouth quirked up
at the side and his green eyes looked at her so intensely, so
deeply, as if he was trying to tell her something. She forgot about
the work.
This is my chance to try and
make friends. Grab it!
She took a deep
breath and blurted, “Look Neal, I know everyone says you're an
unfriendly loner…”

His dark eyebrows went up and his smile
disappeared. “Thanks a lot!”

“
No, I didn't mean…well…I
did. It’s just that, I know there’s something more. I don’t know
why, but I just do and this art proves it. You can’t be as detached
and indifferent to things as you try to be.”

Gaiah heard herself
gabbling but was unable to stop. “I know you're unhappy and I know
what that's like. We don't know each other so maybe it would be
easier to talk to me about things?"
Oh
God. Leave it there. Shut up, Gaiah, this is going nowhere.
“Believe me, this isn't something I've ever done
before, in fact it's quite mad. I really don't know what I'm
doing.”

Gaiah felt her cheeks get hotter and hotter
and she wished to God she’d never started. She began to speak
faster, her words almost running together in an effort to end this.
“Anyway, you can talk to me, Neal, you can tell me anything–I don’t
care how weird it sounds.” She ground to a halt and felt sweat
gathering under her arms. At least he wasn't laughing at her.

He put his head to one side and said, “You
have no idea how weird, weird is.” He was standing very close and
Gaiah could smell the bees' wax he´d been using. She was looking up
at him, wondering…she didn't know what she was wondering. The door
crashed open and Renny came bounding in, pulling up short when she
saw Gaiah was with Neal.

“
Neal! I didn't know you
were in here.” She looked quizzically at Gaiah–all seemed to be
okay.

“
Come on, It's break time
and I'm starving.”

Gaiah laughed. “That's
usually my line. Right, let's go.” She was so glad of the
interruption. Given an excuse to stop the blithering she had been
going on with.
Oh, God. Why did I do that?
I’m so embarrassed. What possessed me? Such a STUPID, I'll sort
everything out, ‘know-all’ thing to do.

Renny smiled at Neal. “You coming?”

“
Yeah, I´ll just finish up
here and follow you.”

The girls headed to the canteen. Gaiah said
nothing to Renny about her attempt to talk to Neal. Heart thudding
and head spinning, she felt as if she’d run a marathon. Thinking
about it now, she wanted to squirm.

Renny was totally caught up in discussing
missing children; she’d seen a poster in the bathroom and wondered
why Earth parents took such bad care of their children. Horrible
and all as the subject was, it gave Gaiah the time she needed to
recover from her efforts at making friends with Neal. They sat at
what, over the next few weeks, became ‘their’ table.

***

Autumn colours gave way to bleak grey and
cold damp, but Gaiah could hardly remember being happier. Kaley put
a moratorium on discussing what the Gaianans hoped from Gaiah. She
insisted Gaiah have a few weeks to become used to her new life. To
her delight and surprise her father rang almost every week, full of
details about his most recent piece. She could hear new life in his
voice. School fell into a pattern. Every day, Donald and Cassie
joined them for lunch and filled them in on local news.

The disappearance of the three children was
the main topic of conversation. At first. Donald was convinced
there was more to it than the prevailing assumption that they had
tragically fallen into an unknown shaft or fissure in the hills.
Cassie pointed out that exhaustive searches had turned up nothing
untoward and nobody thought three children together had been
forcibly abducted. She finally forbade Donald to speak about it and
things returned to normal– Donald making jokes and Cassie gossiping
about everyone in school and the locality.

Graeme's timetable seemed to be a thing of
his own devising. He often sauntered into the canteen during break,
causing a stir of excitement. Whatever he was wearing he looked as
if he´d just stepped from the pages of a magazine, but always with
a grin that showed he didn't take his good looks too seriously. He
never spoke of their prospective date when the others were around
and of course Renny made sure Gaiah wasn't alone with anyone. So
Graeme's opportunity for personal chat was reduced to snatched
moments in the corridor between classes.

When he would occasionally appear in the
flood of students he spoke to Gaiah in a low intimate voice,
leaving her distracted for the rest of the day. There was no
doubting his interest when he was there. His intense gaze barely
left Gaiah and he found every opportunity to trail his hand across
her cheek, fix her hair or sit with his thigh radiating heat
against hers. Gaiah's own reaction to this amazed her. She became
aware of every inch of her body. An uncontrollable heat coursed
through her. Graeme's smile said he knew this too, and she found
herself avoiding his eyes.

Neal sometimes joined them, usually leaning
against the wall next to them sipping coffee. He rarely added to
the conversation and he never referred to Gaiah’s clumsy overture,
for which she was grateful. But she often found him watching her,
which she found unsettling because she knew it meant her eyes were
seeking him out too. She didn't know why exactly, was it to keep an
eye on him because she didn't trust him, or because she always
wanted to know where he was?

Gaiah noticed whenever Graeme joined them,
Neal was always there too. A brooding shadow. There was an
undercurrent to their relationship that was hard to figure.

***

The classes in encognation continued at
home. Renny proved to be an unexpectedly organized and demanding
teacher. Gaiah became more and more confident of her capacity to
control her ability. Soon they were discussing with Alasdair and
Kaley the ethics of trying it out on someone. As Renny enthused
about Gaiah’s prowess, all agreed it definitely needed a trial run.
They eventually agreed that the first target should be Mrs. Kane in
the next maths class.

Gaiah was on tenterhooks the entire morning.
All her life this had been a source of trouble and shame. Now she
was being encouraged to try it out on a teacher. Nervous and
excited, she barely concentrated on anything except keeping her
nails from her mouth. Of all the days, this had to be one of the
rare times when Graeme was sitting in his place at the back of the
room. Gaiah put it off and off, each time telling herself a better
moment would come.