Water (25 page)
"Well, we have to try something, let’s just do it." Shawn was sweating now, too.
"Okay," Micah said. "Shawn, loosen your funnel little by little. Kaitlyn, add power to your stream as you can, but don’t overdo it."
"Micah…" Susan warned.
"It’s okay, we’ll be careful." Micah glanced at Susan, then turned back to me. "Take what I’m already sending into your stomach. Add it to your stream. Don’t let it build up inside you, just open the channels so it flows completely through."
I felt Shawn’s funnel open slightly and I immediately filled the extra space with more power. My search area widened slightly. "More," I commanded Shawn. Surprisingly, he obeyed. "Even more." I was moving along the seabed quickly now, covering a lot of ground. I wasn’t taking any energy from Micah, I was only using what he sent me, and it was working well.
Finally, in a small corner of my search area I sensed a higher concentration of salt. "I think I found some sulphate."
I felt a sudden surge of power from Micah. It sent me stumbling forward and I would have gone straight over the edge of the boat if Susan hadn’t grabbed me.
"Kaitlyn!" Micah yelled, voice strained. "Stop it!"
I turned around in a panic. "I’m not doing anything!"
Micah had doubled over and dropped to his knees.
"Keep your channel open!" Shawn yelled. "It has to close slowly or there could be damage!"
But the flow coming from Micah was just as strong as ever, and something about it felt…tainted. Something was wrong. Susan ignored Shawn’s warning and I felt her streams stop abruptly. I followed her lead. By the time my flows petered out, Micah had collapsed all the way onto the deck, his sister leaning over him desperately trying to keep him conscious. I ran around to the other side of him and Shawn stepped back, giving us our space.
"Micah, Micah!" Susan slapped his cheek lightly. "Stay with me!"
I was still in shock. Alex came running down the stairs with a small first aid kit. He opened it but looked hopelessly at Micah; Band-Aids weren’t going to fix this.
Micah turned his head toward me. With what took a visible amount of effort, he said, "You…" and then he passed out.
I looked over my shoulder. With Shawn behind me I couldn’t tell who the ‘you’ was directed at, or what Micah even meant by it. Susan and Alex began checking his vitals.
Alex finally announced, "I think he is okay. He is just exhausted. He may not wake up for a while, but that is for the better. He needs to rest."
Susan nodded her head, blinking away the tears forming in her eyes. "Right. Let’s get him back to my place. I can hook him up to an IV there, just in case."
Alex got the boat underway. I sat on the deck with Micah’s head in my lap. Susan checked on him frequently, but never said a word to me. She didn’t even look at me.
Shawn leaned on the railing nearby, looking me over. "You really screwed up this time."
I shot him an icy look at him, but didn’t say anything. Susan was close enough to hear us, and did not come to my defense. I could only assume she agreed with Shawn. In a short span of only a few minutes, I had suddenly become the outsider. I was an outcast, just like at the Chakra. Only this time, I managed to put my only ally out of commission.
Once docked, Alex ran to hail a taxi and Shawn hoisted Micah up over his shoulder. I followed them off the boat and down the pier, watching Micah's dirty boots bounce in front of me.
Susan stopped me before we got into the taxi. "Maybe it would be best if you waited at the hotel. I’ll send word when it is safe to come and visit."
"I have to make sure—"
She raised her voice. "You can’t. Just...go to the hotel, Kaitlyn."
I was in no shape to challenge Susan. Once assured I would obey, she turned around and got in the taxi with Shawn and Micah. Alex stayed behind with me. He glanced at me before looking away again quickly. "I need to go turn in the paperwork for the boat. You can come with me, then we can go to the hotel together."
"No. I’ll just go to the hotel now."
Alex nodded his head without argument. I watched him walk away. When he was out of site I hailed my own taxi.
By the time I got back to the suite, it was mid-afternoon. Without thinking, I entered Micah’s room, and quickly curled up on his bed. I flung the large comforter over my head, cocooning myself in. I breathed in Micah’s scent and did the best thing one could do to pass the time; I slept.
Girls Night Out
I slowly stretched, loosening tight muscles that had been in the fetal position too long, and pulled the blankets from my head. Darkness engulfed the entire suite and the clock confirmed the late hour; 11:36 pm. I got up to use Micah’s bathroom, purposefully avoiding my refection in the mirror. Walking back into the room, I looked at the crumpled sheets on the bed, debating if I should get back in or get something to eat. The suite’s doorbell rang.
I walked over to the door, hesitated, and looked through the peephole before opening it. If it was Shawn, I definitely wasn’t going to open the door. If it was Alex, I would make an excuse to get rid of him. It turned out to be neither – it was Susan.
Oh, man.
I didn’t know if I was up for the cat fight that might ensue. I looked again. She held a large bag from the café downstairs up next to her face and smiled.
Ok – a peace offering
. I opened the door.
She looked as beautiful as ever, especially, no doubt, in comparison to me. She held up the bag. "Peanut butter sandwich and chocolate chip cookies. The perfect end to a bad day."
I managed a weak smile, and motioned for her to come in.
She sat down on the sofa and began unloading the bag, setting everything out on the coffee table, even producing paper plates and napkins. Once everything was set up, we both just sat and stared at the food.
I broke the ice, "They didn't have tuna tonight?"
She shook her head, "Sorry – I don't do tuna. Too much international overfishing."
"Right. What about Sangria?" I was kidding, but looked hopefully at the bag anyway.
Susan laughed. "No, although it could be arranged… but first things first. Micah’s fine – he’s still sleeping and probably will be until well into tomorrow, but all his vitals are good. We had a doctor come check him out."
I let out a sigh of relief. "Can I see him now?"
"Yes, but first I want to talk about what happened today."
"Listen, I don’t know what happened." I resisted the urge to throw my hands in the air. "I didn’t take anything from Micah that he didn’t willingly send me. All of the sudden there was just this, surge. And it felt different. It was still Micah’s energy but something was wrong – I don’t think he meant to send it."
Susan held up her hand to stop my defense. "I believe you. I don’t want you to think I’m upset with you, I’ve just been worried about Micah. You have to understand we’re the only family each other has. But, that surge obviously caught you by surprise. I remember stopping you from going overboard."
I leaned forward, "But did
you
feel anything different when it came?"
"My powers only involve water. I can’t sense anything that goes on outside of it."
"Well, like I said, something wasn’t right." I rubbed at my temples. "It was all a little too much to handle at once anyway, with Micah and Shawn both interfering. I really think I could have done fine on my own."
Susan nodded her head. "Shawn and I were talking about it, and we came to the conclusion that it might be worth a shot to try it out again tonight, just the two of us, you and me. If you are up to it."
I was not entirely sure why Shawn would agree to that, seeing as how he thought I couldn’t do it without his help. Maybe he thought I would find out on my own that I wasn’t strong enough without him. Well, I was up for the challenge. If Susan and I were successful on our own, that would halfway make up for what a happened earlier today.
"Let’s do it." I stood and headed for the door, food untouched.
Susan followed closely.
I almost ran her down when I turned suddenly. "Wait, let me just get something." I ran to my bathroom and put on the butterfly necklace Micah had given me, taking a second to improve my appearance. Running the brush through my hair, I began to think how awkward this felt, Susan and I going out together, not telling anyone where we were going. What if something were to go wrong?
I walked back out to see Susan standing by the door. "Do you think we should leave a note?"
She considered it. "I’ll just give Shawn a call on his cell and let him know. Alex wasn’t in his room when I came up. Maybe he was going to my place."
* * *
Stepping out of the cab at the docks, Susan explained, "This particular pier leads out pretty far into the ocean. We should be able to find phytoplankton. They are usually present all throughout; it’s just a matter of locating a big enough concentration to produce results. I think I might be able to sense them on my own."
We walked to the end of the pier, taking a minute to look out into the inky, black ocean. A chill went down my spine. I had to remind myself that the ocean was Susan's world. If anything happened she should be able to protect us. Somehow. I inched a little closer to her and noticed she was doing the same.
"The only problem with doing this now is krill will feed on the phytoplankton at night," Susan said, quieter now. "So we need to keep them away until we are done. I can do that, but I won’t be able to give you the same tunnel I did earlier. You shouldn’t need it, though. The ground is a lot closer here."
"All right, let’s give this a shot." I took a deep breath. It was now or never. I felt her send out a strong signal, but couldn’t sense much of a change in the ocean.
"There are phytoplankton here. Not many, but we can still make this work."
I took her word for it and began to send out my own signal. Again, I used energy from within in order to keep it as pure as possible. It would be easier to heat the sulphate that way. The search was much more efficient this time; I was able to widen the area to dozens of square feet. I found many small pockets of sulphate, and discussed them with Susan, but since we had plenty of time and stamina we decided to find a larger concentration. After about half an hour of searching, I found what I was looking for, deposited a few feet under the sandy seabed amongst a group of rocks. It was hundreds of feet out, so my senses were distorted. However, there was no mistaking either the saline or the crystal qualities of the stash.
"I think I found some," I reported, voice a little high from my excitement. "Now let me just make sure…" I narrowed and strengthened the energy stream to heat the sulphate. It took longer through the water, but eventually I began to feel the crystal part of the granules disintegrate. "Yes, that’s definitely it."
"Okay, stay with it. Bring it up toward the surface. I’m going to take it from you and drag it closer to us." She kept her voice calm.
I did as instructed. It was difficult keeping the sulphate together through the currents. I lost some of it along the way. Waiting to find a larger concentration of it had been a very good idea.
"Steady, steady." Susan must have sensed the group getting smaller and smaller. "I’m going to take it from you now. Once you feel me, let go of it. Slowly."
I waited, wondering how I would know she had it. But she was right, I felt it. A small shock passed between our flows of power, almost like static electricity. Our streams wavered back from each other. I lost more of the sulphate.
"Try again, slowly…" Susan coaxed me through it.
The second time we tried there was still a shock, but it was expected and our power flows didn’t react. I felt a small, fluid circle of power surround the sulphate, and I released my stream.
"Good," Susan said, falling silent for at most a few seconds. "Okay – it is just a few yards in front of us now."
"That was fast."
"I’m used to working in the water," she smiled.
I sent out a signal once again and found it. It was the same amount of sulphate as when I let go. She hadn’t lost a single granule.
"Okay, take it back from me. Try to encircle it like I just did. Make the circle long but almost flat, like a plate just below the surface of the water."
We passed it off again with ease this time; we were getting good at it. It took a while to shape the sulphate as Susan described, and she mentored me along the way. Once done, she exclaimed, "Perfect! Now hold it just like that. I am going to sort of encourage the phytoplankton to absorb the nutrients."
I held fast. Something must have been happening, Susan’s face went from a look of deep concentration, to excitement, to disappointment, then back to concentration.
Another half hour went by and just as I began to feel the first effects of fatigue, she whispered, "It’s working."
