The Marked (5 page)

I RAN
down the rest of the stairs and flung open the outside door. Suddenly, it occurred to me that Anna might have had no idea what happened between me and Jack. She might just have made a very good guess. And if that was the case, my reaction had proven her right.

I stopped in my tracks and gazed up at the sky in frustration. How could I have been such an idiot? The last thing I wanted was for Cam to find out what had happened with Jack. I’d always told him Jack and I were just friends. If he found out now that we’d kissed, he’d think I’d been lying all along. And worse yet, he might think I had a thing for Jack, and that that was why I wanted to protect him.

I trotted around the side of the Main Hall, knowing I was risking a full-on hair disaster if I stayed out in the rain. It had drizzled steadily through the night, and the Delcroix dragons that guarded the front of the Main Hall were tinged with gray, water dripping down their wings and falling from their open jaws. Thanks to Mr. Anderson’s talent for gardening, the grass around the school was green and springy, without a hint of the mud, decaying leaves, and weeds that riddled most of the houses in Danville. A few roses bloomed beside the Bly, which stood to the left of the Main Hall. Unfortunately, Mr. Anderson couldn’t do a thing about the rain.

I ran up the marble steps and loitered for a moment in the front of the hall, surrounded by the trophy cases and stunning works of art that I barely noticed after the first few weeks of school. There was no reason to panic. I hadn’t actually admitted anything, and in any case there wasn’t much to admit. Jack and I had kissed once, way before Cam and I got together. It wasn’t like I’d cheated on Cam. Besides, Anna would have to admit that she’d been spying on me if she wanted to prove anything.

I walked into the cafeteria and scanned the room. My heart fluttered when I saw Cam at a table with Trevor and a couple of other juniors.

I squared my shoulders. I had to get used to hanging out with Trevor. He was Cam’s best friend. Besides, he claimed to want to help me. The same was obviously
not
true of Anna, but it was possible that Trevor was on my side.

I had almost screwed up the courage to walk over to their table when Barrett—the tall senior with the Earth Talent—approached. He was well over six feet tall but couldn’t have weighed much more than me.

He handed me a chocolate doughnut as he spoke. “’Mornin’, D. You ready to start your focus classes?”

I liked him as soon as he opened his mouth. He had a soft, easygoing lilt to his voice, and when he flashed me a smile, his dark eyes twinkled.

I returned the smile. “Wow, thanks for the doughnut—er—Barrett? Have I got your name right?”

He laughed. “Oh, sorry about that. I’ve been studying abroad, and I forget that no one knows who I am. Barrett Alterir. The mystery guy on your schedule. Hope it’s okay if I call you D.”

“I figured that was you. And I don’t mind.”

Barrett pointed to a small alcove off the main room. It held a couple of couches and comfy chairs. The freshmen had been warned to stay away from it because it was exclusively senior territory. “Come sit with us for a minute. They apply a little persuasion to keep the non-Program students from coming too close. It lets us hide in plain sight.”

“I thought we weren’t supposed to use our talents on other people,” I said in surprise. “I mean, unless there’s an emergency.”

Barrett grinned. “Mr. Judan does it. I guess he can do whatever he wants with his talent. Come on, I’ll introduce you around.”

I glanced back at Cam and Trevor, but they were deep in conversation. I didn’t think they’d seen me come in. With some amount of relief, I nodded at Barrett. “By the way, thanks for the welcome Friday night,” I said as we walked. “That was pretty impressive.”

Barrett bobbed his head. “I should be thanking you. We haven’t had a new Earth Talent since I entered the Program. I’ve never gotten to do it before.”

“Are there really that few of us?”

“There are more at Delhart and Delmun, the other two schools in the States, but I think we’re about three or four times as rare as the other types.” He motioned for me to walk in front of him as we passed between two tables. “Your Somatic Talents, those are a dime a dozen. The Life Talents, a little less common. But Earth’s the top. You’ll see. The bummer is that there aren’t many good teachers. I had to go to Switzerland to get past the basics.”

“Switzerland?”

“Yeah.” He grinned again and reeled off something in a harsh, guttural language that sounded at odds with his otherwise soft voice. “You’ll have to start learning German so you can go over and study with Fräulein Weinmacher. She’s amazing. She knows how to accelerate individual atoms. Very dangerous, but very impressive.”

He stopped when we reached the couches. There were three guys and a girl in the tiny space, all sipping coffee and reading messages on their cell phones. I thought cell phones were forbidden in the cafeteria, but I guess the rules were different for seniors.

“This is D., everyone. D., this is Esteban, Tara, Marcus, and Lucas.”

“You’re training with Barrett?” Tara asked.

Barrett gave me a hug around the shoulders. “She’s my new protégée. My legacy in this world.”

“Run now, Dancia. While there’s still time,” Lucas advised.

There was a chorus of friendly exhortations from the others. “Run!” “Run!” “Before it’s too late!”

“Seriously, though, you’re lucky. Barrett’s the best,” Tara said when they had quieted down.

Barrett inclined his head modestly. “Thanks, darling. Your check is in the mail.”

She blew him a kiss. Tara had hazel eyes and red hair, which she wore in two low pigtails. There was a vibrant energy about her that complemented Barrett’s laid-back surfer vibe. I couldn’t tell whether they were friends or a couple. It was hard to imagine them together, but then again, who would have picked Yashir for Hennie?

Barrett motioned for me to sit in an old leather armchair. He perched on the edge of the sofa next to Tara.

“So, can you give me a hint about what we’ll be doing today?” I asked.

“Hard to say. Mr. Fritz is in charge of developing your talent. I’m just his helper, to be honest. But I’ll be teaching you physics. We figured you needed to get in touch with the forces you’re playing with.”

A happy shiver danced through me. “I told my friends I was focusing on science. That’s sort of true, isn’t it?”

“Absolutely. You’ll just focus on a unique aspect of the sciences.”

“It’s hard to know what to say about things. It feels weird to hide this from my friends.”

Barrett took a sip of Tara’s coffee. “We all feel that way. That’s why they try to keep the Program as much like the rest of the school as possible. You may have independent studies that you’ll have to be away from school for, or field trips with groups of other Program students, but you’ll mostly be in the classrooms upstairs or out in the woods around campus.”

“Field trips?” I brightened. I’d never been far from Danville. Even a trip to Seattle would have been a big deal for me.

“Field exercises, to be more specific. But you won’t start those until next year. This year, Mr. Fritz will keep you pretty close to home.”

“Mr. Fritz is cool. He’s your focus teacher, Dancia?” Lucas was sprawled on the sofa beside Tara in a position of total relaxation. He ran a lazy hand over his head of short, curly hair.

“Yep—him, Mr. Anderson, and Barrett,” I replied.

Tara raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never heard of anyone having three teachers. What’s that about, Barrett?”

“Dancia’s starting out with three of us so we can do a little catch-up,” Barrett replied.

I glanced back into the cafeteria, my eyes lighting on Anna, who was now sitting next to Cam with her hand on his shoulder. I thought about what she’d said this morning, and then what Trevor had said on Friday night, when he’d asked me—begged me, practically—to be careful with my talent. If they thought I was dangerous and untrustworthy, it was a safe bet that there were others who felt the same.

My shoulders sank. “It’s okay, you don’t have to sugarcoat it. They think I might hurt someone, right? So you’re like my new Watcher.”

Barrett choked on a bite of his doughnut. “
Scheiss
, a Watcher? Are you kidding?”

He looked genuinely appalled, and I said hastily, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. I just meant, well, I know I entered the Program too fast, and I figured you…”

“D., you’re in the Program now. You don’t get watched anymore. Besides, the last thing in the world I want to be is a Watcher.” He winked at me. “Don’t tell you-know-who I said that. He thinks the sun rises and sets on his Watchers.”

I smiled nervously. I figured you-know-who was Mr. Judan. I’d never heard anyone make fun of him before.

But of course, Mr. Judan wasn’t the only one who was really into the Watchers.

As if on cue, I saw one of the guys at Cam’s table motion toward me and Barrett, then saw Cam turn around to look at us. As soon as we made eye contact, he pushed back his chair, got up, and started walking in our direction.

“Oh, lord,” Barrett sighed. “Here comes Mr. Watcher himself.” He swallowed the last of his doughnut and wiped his hands on his pants. “I wonder what he wants.”

It took Cam a few minutes to reach us. New people were coming in every minute, and half of them wanted his attention. He was polite, but kept on a deliberate path toward me and Barrett. As soon as he reached us, he looped his arm around my waist. It was a possessive gesture, and I tingled all the way down to my toes. “Hey, I didn’t see you come in,” he said.

“Cameron Sanders, what a pleasure to see you,” Barrett said cheerfully. “I missed you while I was away.”

“Barrett, welcome back,” Cam replied.

Barrett motioned toward me. “Didn’t realize you and D. here were an item.”

“It’s Dancia,” Cam said firmly. “Not D.”

I loved the idea of being “an item,” but I couldn’t understand why Cam was acting so hostile. Barrett seemed to be looking to me for some response to Cam’s correction. “I told him he could call me D.,” I admitted.

Cam gestured toward his table. “You should come get some food, Dancia. I saved you a seat.”

“Do you mind, Barrett?” I asked.

“Not at all. I’ll see you after lunch, D.” Barrett wiped a smear of chocolate from his mouth and elbowed Cam in the ribs. “Be good, man.”

Cam forced a smile. As soon as Barrett sat down behind us, the smile dropped from his face. He steered me back to the center of the room. “That guy is such an idiot,” he muttered.

“He seemed nice,” I said hesitantly.

“He doesn’t take anything seriously,” Cam said. “Talking to him, you’d think everything at Delcroix was a big joke. They all do.” He shook his head at the antics in the Senior Corner, Barrett’s group laughing uproariously as Lucas tried to fit two doughnuts in his mouth.

“Can you believe that guy is senior class president? Lucas Williams. He could have been a great Watcher, and all he wants to do is train dogs or something.” Cam shook his head in disgust.

“If you say so.” I pushed aside my confusion; clearly, I’d have to get to know Barrett on my own time. He and Cam must have some kind of history that would explain the way Cam was acting. “Did you know I’m going to have three teachers?”

“Three?” Cam jerked his head around to look back at Barrett. “He’s not one of them, is he?”

“He’s on my schedule.” I dug around in my back pocket and held it out to Cam. “He said they had some catch-up to do.”

“Huh.” Cam studied the paper with a frown, then shrugged. “Barrett’s a strong Level Three, and the only serious Earth Talent we have. I suppose they had to include him. Besides, you could do a lot of damage if you aren’t careful. It’s good that they’re taking your training seriously.”

I frowned. “Do you think I might hurt someone?”

“Hurt someone? Of course not.” He seemed surprised by my reaction. “I just know how powerful you are. Remember? I saw it with my own eyes.”

I smiled reluctantly, and he continued. “It’s just good for you to start training right away.”

“Do you think I’ll need to go to Switzerland?”

“Oh, man, did Barrett tell you that?” Cam stopped. “Look, you’ll have to ignore a lot of what Barrett says, Dancia. He’s got his own ideas about things. His dad is on the Governing Council, and he gets away with a lot because of it. There are plenty of good teachers here in the States. You’ll see. You’ll do great here.”

His face softened, and the warmth in his eyes made my heart skip. He put his hands on my waist, earning a stern shake of the head from Mrs. Callias, who was on cafeteria duty. PDA was
not
allowed at Delcroix. With a quick, apologetic smile in her direction, Cam dropped his hands, but the feeling lingered. “I’m going to be pretty busy this week, but maybe we can go for a run sometime? And a walk after dinner tonight?”

“Sure, Cam. That sounds great.” I shivered happily as we headed for the table, already imagining the stars overhead and the feeling of another long, lingering kiss.

BARRETT COLLECTED
me after English. Though I’d been biting my nails all morning in anticipation of my first Program class, he had such a relaxed air about him it was impossible to be too scared. We headed for one of the practice rooms on the third floor. The room had no windows, just groups of chairs in clusters and a long whiteboard on one side with a music staff running across it. The practice rooms were used by the musicians, but were in fact designed to hide the secret library that was concealed in the space behind the wall. I remembered nervously pacing the width of the room with Jack, my shoes squeaking on the waxed linoleum floor.

Had it
really
been just a few months ago? It felt like a lifetime.

When Barrett and I arrived, Mr. Anderson was already in the room, as was Mr. Fritz.

“Welcome, Dancia.” Mr. Fritz beamed. “And
guten mor
gen
to you, Barrett.”

Barrett tossed his backpack into the corner of the room. “’Mornin’, Mr. Fritz. You got any Kant for us today?”

Mr. Fritz’s smile widened. “Of course! How about this to start our day? ‘
Experience without theory is blind, but theory
without experience is mere intellectual play
.’” He turned to the whiteboard and wrote the quote in bright blue ink.

Barrett stroked his chin, contemplating the words. “Interesting.”

I groaned and slumped into a chair. “I thought I was done with Kant.” We had studied Kant the previous semester in my ethics class. I hated Kant. I never understood anything he said.

Mr. Anderson stepped forward. He was a heavyset man, wearing a pair of khakis that hung low under his belly and a flannel shirt that spread apart at the buttons to reveal a white undershirt beneath. He had a ring of brown hair, with a shiny bald dome on top. “We definitely aren’t here to talk about Kant. We should get started with the real lesson.”

“Wait—” Barrett held up his hand and turned to Mr. Fritz. “You’re saying that you can’t just have theory or experience, you need to have both, right? So books aren’t enough, but you need to have some book time, or you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Perfect,” Mr. Anderson interrupted, as Mr. Fritz opened his mouth to respond. “Exactly right. Now, can we get started?”

“All right, all right.” Mr. Fritz motioned toward a group of chairs set in a circle. We all sat down. I fumbled in my backpack for a notebook and pen.

“As you know, Dancia, there are three types of talents. Earth, Life, and Somatic,” Mr. Fritz began. “But you may not know that your talent reveals something about the type of person you are. The Life Talents tend to be focused on just that—life. They are extraordinarily aware of the people and animals around them, how they feel and communicate. Those with Somatic Talents are physical people. Their focus is on the body. By understanding their physical being they are able to leverage it to do extraordinary things. The Earth Talents have a unique bond with the earth and its natural processes. Some of us suspect this is why there are so few Earth Talents these days. Children are removed from the earth. They don’t have time to bond with it, and thus they are unable to develop into Level Three Earth Talents.”

“I took earth science in eighth grade, but I only got a B,” I said. “I don’t truly understand what I’m doing. I just do it.”

Mr. Anderson shook his head. “Fritz is making this sound more complicated than it is. When I want something to grow, I imagine it growing. I picture the grass getting taller and the roses blooming. It just works. That’s all you have to worry about, Dancia.”

“Jim, you know that our job is to make sure they get both the theory and the experience,” Mr. Fritz said gently. He turned to me. “When Maria Salvoretto began teaching students with extraordinary talents back in the early fifteenth century, she had no idea what she was doing. It took hundreds of years to gain an understanding of what talents are and how they can be cultivated, and centuries more to document those learnings. The books that were written on these subjects, which are now housed around the world in libraries like our own, are invaluable to our ability to turn a Level Two Talent into a Level Three Talent.

“But, if you do not understand how the natural world works, your ability to manipulate it will be limited. You must know the rules in order to break them. So, for example, Mr. Anderson needed to understand
how
things grow—how the roots move through the soil, how the leaves make food for the plant from the sun—before he could fundamentally alter that process. However, once you understand these concepts, you don’t have to think about them every time you use your talent. They simply become part of you.” He turned to Mr. Anderson. “Isn’t that right?”

Mr. Anderson grunted. The sound lay somewhere between agreement and dissent.

Mr. Fritz continued, “Dancia, you’ve been using your talent in a way we don’t fully understand. Students at Delcroix normally spend their freshman year developing their Level Two Talent. Occasionally they will exercise Level Three abilities, but they typically won’t know when they do. It is not until they begin training with the Program that they move into Level Three with any consistency. But you were at Level Three before you even arrived. My guess is that you have a particularly strong connection to the earth, and an innate understanding of the forces around you.”

He seemed to be looking to me for confirmation. I wasn’t sure I could give it to him. I slouched deeper in my chair and buried my chin in the neck of my turtleneck sweater. “Um, I guess that could be true.”

“Or perhaps you received some sort of special training when you were young? Many of our students were sent to camps or had other learning opportunities outside of school. This could have helped your early development.”

I pictured my roommate Catherine, who had probably been assigned a tutor the day she came out of her mother’s womb. Mr. Fritz was nuts if he thought we did that in Danville. “Nope. No extra classes. Not that I remember, anyway.”

“Well then, it’s as we thought. You’re simply a very special, very unusual young lady.”

I felt my cheeks getting warm and wanted to hide under the desk. I changed the subject. “Mr. Judan said I’m manipulating the force of gravity. Do you think that’s right?”

“What do you think?” Barrett asked.

“I guess so.” I paused to consider my words. “When I look around me, it’s like there are a whole lot of lines or ribbons and they’re pulling on everything I see. I can sort of tug at the ribbons and change the balance, and that’s how I do what I do. But I just started seeing the lines a few months ago. When I was little I did things without thinking. I didn’t even know I could control my power until—” I stopped.

“Until what?” Barrett asked.

Darn it—why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut? Jack had been the one to make me think I could control my talent, but the last thing I wanted to do just then was talk about Jack.

“Until earlier this year, when I really thought about it.” I smiled weakly. “I guess all that stuff from my Earth Science class just finally clicked.”

“That could be,” Mr. Fritz said. “It is interesting that you say you were only able to control your power after you learned to understand the forces of the earth. But it is also possible you always had the ability to take control, and it was simply a matter of time before you exercised that ability.”

I nodded, hoping they wouldn’t ask more questions. “I bet I wasn’t mature enough to handle it before. But I am now.”

“Makes sense to me,” Mr. Anderson boomed. He shoved his chair back and stood up. “Now, enough talking. What do we do first, Fritz?”

Barrett grinned. “Mr. Anderson doesn’t get to train many students.”

“Jim, we have a lot of talking to get through today,” Mr. Fritz cautioned. “It’s going to take a while. But perhaps we should start with an exercise. Theory and experience, right, Barrett?” Barrett nodded, and Mr. Fritz motioned for us to stand. I rose slowly, my gaze darting among the three men. Without even trying, I found myself gathering energy from the room around me, anticipating what would come next.

“Now, you recently learned that these practice rooms shield our library. We built them with a titanium shell. Do you know what titanium does, Dancia?”

I shook my head.

“It interferes with the conduction of certain forces—including gravity.”

“What?” I raised my eyebrows. “Gravity works the same in this room as it does anywhere else. Watch.” I dropped my pen on the floor. It fell and rolled under my chair. “See?”

“So now you know exactly how everything works, do you?” Mr. Fritz said mildly. When I didn’t respond, he continued, “What I’m telling you is that your powers won’t work in this room the way they do elsewhere. The titanium doesn’t alter the normal forces of nature. What it does is interfere with the ability of a Level Three Talent to manipulate those forces. It works on the Life and the Somatic Talents as well. We created these rooms so we can teach without worrying about students practicing on each other or blowing things up. They’re safe rooms.”

I clearly wasn’t buying it. He held out his hands. “Give it a try.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. Move your pen.”

I looked at the three of them. Mr. Anderson was scowling, and Mr. Fritz had a gleam in his eye that I did not like. Barrett slouched against the wall, staring down at his beat-up leather sandals. He wouldn’t meet my gaze.

“Fine. I will.”

Once I focused my attention, I could see the forces I had described earlier. Everything in the room was covered in a web of material, tangled in strings and ribbons of various sizes that stretched far off into space. There were thick strings tugging on the pen, holding it firm from all directions, the biggest and darkest one coming right up through the floor.

I pushed at that big black string with my mind, trying to move it the way I had in the past. If I could throw off the balance between the forces, even just for a second, the pen would go shooting into space.

I poked the black string. Nothing happened.

I poked harder. Still, nothing.

I pushed and jerked.

Nothing.

I started to sweat. After a few minutes of futile effort, I glared at Mr. Fritz. “Okay, I give up. The titanium works.”

Mr. Anderson shook his head. “Dirty trick, Fritz.”

“Experience
and
theory, Dancia,” Barrett whispered.

I whipped around. “What does that mean?”

“Fritz just told you that the mind plays a large part in the development of a person’s talent. Then he gave you a concrete example of it,” Barrett said.

I stared, speechless. Mr. Anderson hitched up his pants and checked his watch, as if he were embarrassed for me.

“There’s no titanium, is there?” I said flatly.

“Sorry, no,” Mr. Fritz said.

I slumped back down in my chair. “Is there a point at which you guys
stop
playing tricks on us?”

“I didn’t lie,” Mr. Fritz said. “I told you titanium interferes with Level Three Talents—and that’s true. It interferes when someone believes it does.”

“We aren’t just trying to mess with you,” Barrett said. “It was actually a very important lesson. It shows the power of your mind. You’ve got to believe in what you’re doing, or the power won’t work. It’s like in sports. Do you play any sports?”

“Cross-country and soccer.”

“Ever notice how you can lose a game just because one player is out? Or you miss a shot and can’t recover?”

I nodded reluctantly.

“It’s all mental. And so is this.” He studied me, his usual relaxed manner gone. “Understand?”

“Sure, fine, it’s mental. I get it.” I bent forward to grab my pen, avoiding his gaze.

“Barrett’s right, but he forgot to mention another reason why this lesson was particularly important for us,” Mr. Fritz said.

“What’s that?” I asked suspiciously.

“We discovered that your talent has limits. Limits imposed by your own mind, perhaps, but limits.”

I furrowed my brow in surprise. “Of course my talent has limits.”

He shrugged. “We weren’t sure.”

Luckily, they decided to stop at one humiliating incident per class. After that, we talked about the history of the Governing Council and the Program, and how they were going to grow my talent by teaching me to control it.

This seemed a little backward to me. Mr. Fritz explained that the first few classes of the Program usually focused on building up the student’s confidence—apparently most people don’t believe they can talk to animals, or shape-shift, or do whatever their extraordinary talent might let them. They need to learn to trust their abilities. But I had no problem believing I could make things happen with my mind—I’d been doing it since I was a kid.

One might think this would have helped in my training, but the powers that be at Delcroix decided I needed limits, not just to prevent me from doing something dangerous, but to make sure I understood that I was in control of my power.

I saw Cam at dinner; he was leaving as I was going in.

“I’ve got a bunch of homework tonight,” he said. “You want to meet in the library?”

I grinned. “I’ll see you in the stacks.”