Wild-born (14 page)

“Cindy, did you get...”

“...the reports?” Cindy finished for me. “Yes, I did.”

“And?”

“Um, Adrian...” Cindy looked at me uneasily.

“She hasn’t been found, has she?”

Cindy looked away and said quietly, “I’m sorry.”

It was like being plunged into icy water. Somehow, despite all of my fears, I had convinced myself that there was no way Cat wouldn’t have been found by the morning after the berserker attack. Hearing Cindy’s words brought me back to the real world, where people die and are lost and do not live happily ever after at all.

“Cindy, I need to find her... I need to go home.”

Even as I said that, I questioned the wisdom of it. If the police couldn’t find her in three weeks, what would be my chances? And yet I felt I had to do something. At the very least, I could poke around in my house, where she might possibly have returned to later that morning. I could visit her favorite park and other places she liked to go. I could talk to her friends...

“Listen, Adrian,” Cindy said in a concerned tone, “I understand you want to go looking for your sister. I’ll help you in any way I can, but I can’t go with you right now. And I honestly don’t think you’ll have much luck wandering around without any clues.”

I was barely listening to her. I looked out the window.

Cindy crouched down in front of me and grasped my hands. “I know I can’t stop you from leaving. If you want, I’ll give you some money and some hiding protection for the road, but it’ll wear off, and then it would only be a matter of time before you’re taken by another finder... if the police don’t pick you up first.”

Looking back at her, I felt a dull surprise as I realized that Cindy was actually offering to help me get back home and search for Cat. Cindy was the first person to offer me any real help since the berserker attack, but I felt even more confused. Clearly Cindy believed, as the small sensible part of me did, that my search would be in vain.

“I should never have let her go off by herself,” I mumbled hollowly, pulling away from Cindy and walking to the stairs. “Excuse me.”

I went up to my room and closed the door.

How could I have let this happen? If only I had gone with her that night, if only I had been more concerned for Cat’s safety than about finding some monster...

I sat down heavily on the bed, trying to gather my thoughts, hoping that they might smother my emotions. So much had happened since I first realized my power. So many things had gone wrong, and so many questions were still left unanswered.

Even with Cindy’s aid, I could do little more than go wander around my old neighborhood. And Cindy was right: How long would I last before I was hunted down and captured or killed? But then again, how could I live with myself if I didn’t even try? I held Cat’s pendant tightly in my hand, desperately hoping I could hear her voice and ask her what I should do. But of course, no answer came.

I heard a soft knock on the door, and Cindy’s voice from behind it. “Adrian, maybe you’re not hungry, but dinner is almost ready. Can I come in?”

I didn’t answer, but Cindy quietly slipped in a moment later.

“Hey,” she said hesitantly, and I forced myself to give her a weak smile.

“I know you feel guilty about your sister,” Cindy said slowly, “but what happened isn’t your fault.”

“If I could find her, I wouldn’t have to worry about fault,” I replied wearily. “Where do you think she is, Cindy?”

“I don’t know,” Cindy said with a small sigh. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but people go missing all the time. Sometimes they turn up miles away, sometimes years later.”

“What should I do?”

Cindy shook her head. “I can’t tell you what to do.”

“What would you do?”

“Adrian...”

“Just suppose—”

“No!” said Cindy, and I was surprised by the sharpness of her tone. But then she said more gently, “No, Adrian, she’s
your
sister. Don’t ask me to come between you and her.”

Cindy crouched down and looked into my eyes, saying, “I want you to stay. I want you to be safe. But you have to figure this out for yourself. If you want to go looking for her, I already said I’ll help you, but you have to decide.”

I asked quietly, “What do you think my chances are?”

Cindy looked at me in a pained way, and I said, “That bad, huh?”

I let my back fall onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling.

Ralph wasn’t here this time, looking into my eyes and telling me that everything would be okay. Nor could I lean on the excuse of being alone and frightened in an unfamiliar city. No one was telling me what to think, or how to feel about it. However slim, there was still a chance that Cat was alive in my hometown, somewhere. There was a chance to find her. This time, the decision would have to be mine. Completely mine, as would be the responsibility for the consequences.

I closed my eyes, praying that Cat would forgive me as I said quietly, “Cindy, I’ll stay.”

“Okay, Adrian,” Cindy said softly.

I wasn’t hungry at all, but I followed Cindy down to the dinner table and ate just enough to keep her happy. Cindy repeatedly praised my “maturity,” saying how it was a “difficult choice” I had made and that she hoped it would be the right one.

My decision not to search for Cat had left something empty inside me, as if, by my betrayal, I had gutted my own soul. With my parents gone, Cat was the only family I had left, and I had given up on her, cowering in Cindy’s house. It was a horrible pain in my chest.

And yet, strangely enough, I also felt that I was doing the right thing. The police were still looking for Cat. Right now, I needed to focus on myself, so that if Cat really was still alive somewhere, I would also still be alive to see her. Anyway, that’s how I justified it in my mind. Over and over.

After tucking Alia into bed that night, Cindy finally showed me the clothes she had bought, and I really did do my best to pretend that I liked them. They were awful! Everything from flower-patterned, pastel-colored sweatpants to shirts and jackets with little cartoon characters on them. There was even a bright pink sweatshirt with a big teddy bear on the front. My new wardrobe was just a larger version of Alia’s. It was almost a blessing that I was required to remain out of sight. I wondered if perhaps this was a deliberate ploy on Cindy’s part to make me look cuddlier for Alia. The only good thing that could be said about them was that Cindy had taken great care to choose clothes with no zippers and only plastic buttons. I had to endure Cindy’s oohing and ahhing after I changed, but at least I was clean.

In addition to my new clothes, Cindy had purchased a thin, light green rope with a plastic clip attached to it.

“What’s that for?” I asked when she showed it to me just before bedtime. At first glance, the rope looked a bit like a dog leash.

“This,” Cindy said with a smile, “is to keep you in bed at night. You can tie it to your bed and clip the other end to your pajamas. That way you won’t drift away in your sleep.”

It
was
a dog leash.

I shook my head. “No thanks, Cindy.”

“It won’t be forever, Adrian,” said Cindy. “Just till you’re older. Child psionics often accidentally use their powers in their sleep. I’m sure you’ll grow out of it in a few years.”

“Absolutely not,” I said more forcefully.

Cindy laughed. “Alia’s no different, you know. She often telepathically talks to me in her sleep. Or mumbles, more like.”

“Yeah, but you don’t tie her to her bed,” I pointed out.

“Well, I won’t force you to use it, but I’m afraid you’re going to seriously injure yourself someday.”

“I’ll take the chance,” I said. Cindy looked like she was about to argue further, but I deflected her by saying, “Can I ask you a strange question about Alia?”

“Sure.”

“What’s with all the unicorns in her room?”

It wasn’t just the big fluffy one leaning against her bed. Closer examination of Alia’s room today had revealed no fewer than twenty unicorns. There were small plastic unicorn toys, tiny glass unicorn ornaments, unicorn-themed picture books and coloring books, and even a board game about unicorns.

Cindy smiled. “She just likes them. She used to sleep hugging the big one. Actually, she still does from time to time.”

“She sleeps with that thing?” I asked incredulously.

“Sure.” Cindy shrugged. “Why? Didn’t you ever have a security blanket when you were little? Fluffy bunny? Teddy bear?”

I shook my head. “I was more of a triceratops kind of person.”

“So, about this tether, Adrian...”

“Goodnight, Cindy.”

The next three days passed much like the first. While Cindy was at her hospital, I spent most of my time just playing with Alia. Cindy had hinted that she wanted me to continue my school studies at her house, and also tutor Alia as best I could. But since Cindy hadn’t yet managed to get any of the school supplies, Alia and I were still on holiday. I wanted to pester Cindy for more information about the psionic world, but for two days, she was very busy at work, coming home just in time to tuck Alia into bed, do her meditating-hiding thing, take a bath and disappear into her bedroom.

On the third evening, Cindy came home early enough to have dinner with us. She even taught me how to make Chinese noodles. Well, at least she tried.

“She sure loves attention,” I commented after dinner as I watched Alia crawling all over Cindy in the living room. Alia had been doing that to me for two days now, and I found it difficult to imagine how she could ever have been so timid at our first meeting.

Gently forcing Alia into her lap, Cindy replied, “She does like attention. But only from someone she can trust.”

Cindy nodded toward me and I smiled embarrassedly.

“But it’s not easy finding people I can introduce her to,” continued Cindy, and then raised her voice in mock-frustration, “because she won’t talk! All she does is giggle!”

Alia laughed hysterically for a while as Cindy tickled her all over. Finally breaking free of Cindy’s fingers, Alia ran and hid behind me.

Cindy chuckled. “So, you found yourself a bodyguard, huh, Ali? Are you talking with Addy like I told you to?”

Alia looked at Cindy and said something, but I couldn’t hear what. That was the frustrating thing about Alia: she could only speak to one person at a time.

Cindy turned to me. “Adrian, are you talking with Alia while I’m away from home?”

I looked at Cindy uneasily. “Well, I’m talking to her...”

“Addy—I mean Adrian—she needs to learn to talk with her mouth,” said Cindy. “She only started using her mouth this year, and she still finds it very difficult. It’s like a completely different language for her, and she needs to be taught. Alia is already comfortable being with you. You’re practically family. I’ll get your school stuff as soon as I can, and I’ll also start teaching you how to balance your power from this weekend, but in the meantime, work with her.”

Despite her selection of horrendously cutesy clothes for my wardrobe and the fact that she sometimes called me “Addy” in front of Alia, Cindy generally treated me like a mature adult, which I appreciated, so I tried to live up to her expectations. Starting the next day, I did my best to get Alia to talk using her mouth.

Cindy wasn’t exaggerating when she said that mouth-speaking was a different language for Alia. While Alia could pretty much manage short vowel sounds, any word that required her tongue to move was beyond her. Whatever Cindy had been thinking when she asked me to let Alia use my baby name, “Addy” turned out to be just as hard for her as “Adrian.” Perhaps even harder, because Alia couldn’t pronounce her Ds at all. With her best efforts, she could just about manage to say “A-yi.” “Water” for Alia was “wawa,” and “hungry” was “howie,” and “Cindy” was “In-ie.” It was like the babblings of a one-year-old, except that Alia could speak normally with her telepathy so she simply didn’t understand why she should use her mouth in the first place.

Whenever Alia telepathically asked me for something, such as levitating her around the house, my standard reply became, “Say the words, Ali.” It rarely worked. Upon relentless demand, she might try to say a word or two, but her attempts were as feeble as they were frustrating for the both of us. I even wondered if Alia’s tongue was somehow handicapped, possibly malformed. Cindy assured me that it wasn’t, saying, “She just needs practice.”

But Alia didn’t want practice. I tried being nice, firm, patient, but nothing really worked. I even bullied her a few times, refusing to let her have what she wanted until she asked for it out loud, but that always ended in tears.

Cindy had to work all day Saturday too. When I asked her about it, she told me that she was making up the time because she had taken a few extra days off from work that month. She didn’t tell me why, but I knew it had been to go searching for me.

On the morning of the last Sunday of September, I found myself staring out the window and longing to go out and enjoy the sunny day I knew it was going to become. It would probably be one of the last really warm days of the year. After nearly a month outdoors in the city, I had gratefully welcomed a roof over my head as opposed to under it. But a week was a long time to be trapped inside a house, especially with the knowledge that I couldn’t freely leave without risking not only myself, but Cindy and Alia as well, since I knew where they lived.

After breakfast, Cindy sat Alia and me down in the living room and showed us two stacks of books that she had brought home the day before. For Alia, there were first-grade math and writing workbooks, as well as some beginner reading books and even a few coloring books. Since Alia was seven going on eight this school year, I thought she would be given second-grade stuff, but considering Alia’s past, I didn’t question Cindy’s choices. My stack of textbooks included seventh-grade math, history, science, you name it. There was a home-study curriculum guidebook as well.

“I can’t be checking everything that you do,” Cindy said to me as I glanced through the textbooks, “but I expect you to study those just like you would at school, and I will probably be giving you a test or two before the end of the year.”