Chapter 27 - You are not alone

I stare down at the words in front of me, unable to fully grasp their meaning. Like a little kid waiting for Santa, I waited for that message. I waited, and I hoped, and I trusted. And like a little kid waking up to find coal instead of a present I woke up to find Hale's handwriting on the notepad, and big, blue letters spelling out "You're on your own, Lizzy." Not a "Hope you're doing well," not a "Sorry, there's nothing we can do," not as much as a hint of familiar worry or best wishes.

I look away; I can't stand to do anything else. I take a breath and make my way downstairs to the classrooms; it’s as good a place to go as anywhere else.

Is that really all he could write? I can take care of myself, I can make my own way out of here, I can do whatever the hell I like - but couldn't he at least have said hello or something? I can just imagine them all at home - in their new home, where ever that is - all sitting together, discussing the matter. I can just hear the sergeant saying something about captures fending for themselves, hear mother say with shame in her voice that they raised me better than this. They didn't raise a helpless captive. I imagine Nina's face as she defends me saying I never did know how to do anything right. I bet Marie is worried about actually having to shop for herself now that she doesn't have a homemade seamstress at hand.

I kick the half-open door and walk to the back and take my seat.

Criss would have been on the sergeant's side, agreed that I was on my own, that I shouldn’t have been so foolish and get caught. Soon enough I'll fade from Nico's memory, he might be 8 now, but by 20 I'll be a vague memory about a foolish sister. I'll end up like Uncle Howard, a man I don't remember and who no one talks about. If I ever do find my way home, ever do find my family again, I'll be a stranger to them. I'll have missed Criss's wedding, and with the way those two act and talk I wouldn't be surprised if I end up missing the birth of my first niece or nephew too. There'll soon be a whole extended family I'll never know, never even know the names of.

The shield will have to go down at the next family weekend, I could sneak out there. With enough practice, I could probably make it back to civilization too. I suppose if I could just get a hang of the Energy-Sensing I could just travel across the country looking for something that feels familiar. Without cloaking, however, it would be useless, the InT have a read on me now, they’d find me in a heartbeat - or they’d wait for me to lead them to my family and take us all in. Of course, I’m also forgetting that it’s by no means a given that I’dbe able to sense them at all, I might not be included in their cloaking anymore.

"Lizzy, you're early," professor Holt says when he steps into the room. I ignore him, I don't much long for conversation right now. "Everything alright?" He asks worriedly. I don't open my mouth, I don't look up, I just silently plead "Just stay away. Just leave me alone."

"What happened?" he asks. I pick up the pencil and paper I'm supposed to make write on their own without moving. The pencil breaks as I put it to the paper.

"Lizzy..." His voice is careful and calm. "Look at me, Lizzy. Look up." Just shut up, would you? I'm not in the mood for all you psyco-ability nonsense. Just let me have this one bad day and I'll go back to playing your stupid school games.

"Lizzy, I think you should go back up to your room, get some rest." I sharpen the end of the broken pencil, pieces of wood carvings flying freely in the air.

"Lizzy, I need you to calm down." The pencil breaks again as I accidentally attempt to carve off too much. I throw it towards the trashcan. A single laugh almost escapes me as it sticks to the wall instead, like a misshapen dart arrow half buried in the wall. He walks over to me.

"Tell me what happened," he pleads and reaches out a hand that awkwardly stops in midair and just hangs there.

"Lizzy," he begs. "If you won't talk to me you give me no choice, I will have to get Joseph." Oh yeah, great, that's the way to solve everything. Actually, let him come, I'll show him what it feels like, I'll give him a fight worthy of remembrance. He won't ever forget me.

"Wait out there," he turns and tells someone. "And close the door." I pick up the other half of the pen and start writing with the bit of graphite protruding from the splinters. He tries reaching out a hand again, but it sticks awkwardly in the air again.

"Lizzy, you're losing control. Let me help you, take down the barrier." I'm in perfect control; I don't need your help. I look down, making sure he can't see my eyes, and I feel around me. There is a barrier alright. I must be better than I thought, going on instinct now.

"Lizzy, I just want to help you." Go away. The barrier pushes out and pushes him away. "Lizzy, if you don't get it under control I will have to get Joseph, and you will end up in the basement. Please, control yourself."

"What is going on?" Brody asks from the now open door. There's a pause where no one talks, no one moves, and then: "Lizzy, are you okay? What happened?" None of his usual distance, none of the emotional void that usually hides behind the black mane, just pure worry. It's disgusting. Can't they just leave me alone? I stand up and walk towards the door.

"Lizzy, calm down." The barrier pushes him out my way again.

"Lizzy," Brody warns, but it's a short warning. He wraps air around me, preventing me from pushing forward, and my barrier preventing him from closing in. I lift up a hand, and I meet his eyes. He’s going to regret teaching me now, but he will see I am strong. I can do whatever the hell I like. I make a short wave with my hand, scattering my own atoms. It's a feeling like no other. No physical form, no boundaries, nothing anyone can do to you. I slither in between the molecules of his air barrier, past the students waiting outside and up, up, up. Back up to my room, to solitude and silence. I put myself back together there, each atom falling neatly into their original positions. I lower my hand and look around me. It seems to have worked. I spread out the fingers on both my hands, wiggling them. I stretch out my arms, bend them, examine them. I shift my balance from one leg to another and back again, I lift one and bend it, I kick the other out and send air molecules flying about. Everything seems to be working fine. I look around, looking down myself, and that's when I notice it. The drawing pad on the table. I only catch a glimpse of the blue writing before I'm scattered again. In this state I can’t see or hear anything, I can just feel the forces around me, the gravitational pull of objects and the speed of molecules or the prison-like state of none movement some of them have. It’s like Blind Navigation, but with undeveloped negatives instead of the black and white, I’m used to. I float out through the window, and I go up. I don't know where I'm going; I'm just going out and up. I feel the changing temperature as I go outside, and I feel the space around me, the peace, as I drift upwards. To infinity and beyond. Up, up and above. Free as a bird.

I float around like that for a while, not sure how long, it's hard to tell time like this. I could go on like this forever, never again taking shape, never again listening to stupidity, or reading abandonment. I could go on forever, except for the pain. It is an odd kind of pain, which is why I didn’t even notice it at first. It’s not like anything hurts, there is nothing that can hurt, it’s just… It’s like a pressure, like something pressing in on me, but the formless me. It comes on gradually, and slowly, steadily, and then all at once it seems. I would say it is like a headache, but I have no head. I have no form, nothing that should be able to hurt, and still, it pierces me, like lightning going through my very being. Going through, but never leaving.

When I finally give up and settle down it’s in the British corner where the raindrops fall heavily and steadily. I put myself together, taking care to keep the raindrops away so I won’t catch one in my brain. As soon as I’m back together the pain disappears, almost like it was never there. I settle down at the foot of a tree and lean back with closed eyes. It is much more relaxing, sitting like this; I don't need to keep track of every single atom, but it is also less comfortable. The bark is rough against my skin, the rain heavy and drumming, the ground mushy and almost swallowing me. The sounds are overwhelming after the absolute silence, devastating after the peace. But it is relaxing not to have to think.

Someone sits down next to me, and I reluctantly open my eyes. Brody. I look around, expecting the professor to be there too. A few trees away he's waiting hesitantly.

"Please don't run again." Brody's hand locks itself around my wrist as if the professor’s words were an order to him. I lean back again and close my eyes, focusing on the pouring rain crashing down on my feet or making its way through the branches and leaves above me to crash down on my face.

"We stopped by your room," Brody says quietly. "You were gone when we got there. Why?" I'm really starting to dislike the tracking part of the professor’s ability. "I took this," he admits after a second and places the drawing pad and the set cards next to me. I pull the pad out and thrust it through the air before blasting it to pieces. Brody looks over at the professor, but he is more focused on the single whole paper slowing falling down at his feet. He picks it up and I try to blast it again. It doesn't work, I can't touch it. I try to pull it from his hands, but he doesn't even seem to notice.

"You heard from Hale," he says solemnly and looks at me. "Quit trying Lizzy," he says when he notices my focused stare. "You can't destroy the object of your anger before you get rid of the anger." He comes over and sits down next to me. "I assume this is the reply to a letter you send?" I don't answer. He looks down and takes hold of my hand. The memories flood over me. Sending the letter. Waiting. Hoping. Missing them. Longing to hear from them, hear anything. Then the reply. The loneliness. The devastation, and the anger replacing it.

“He didn’t say goodbye,” he whispers quietly. I yank my hands to me and throw my arms over my head.

“Get away,” I scream so the trees shudder. He has no right, they’re not his family.

"You're not alone," he assures me.

"What do you know," I spit out.

"More than you realize." I don’t care; I just want them to go away. “You don’t remember me, do you?” I don’t look up – I don’t know what kind of ‘please trust me, I’m on your side’ game he is playing, but I won’t be conned that easily. “And I bet your mother never mentioned me.” He sounds downcast at the thought and pauses for a few seconds. “Did you ever get the blood out of Sophie’s hair?” I look up – who in the world is Sophie? And then it dawns on me. The perfect blond corkscrew curls, red lips, and rosy cheeks. The blue dress and white apron. Sophie. Sophie, I would never go to bed without. Sophie, the doll that accompanied me in every family photo until I was five.

“How do you know…?”

“Who do you think bought her for you? Your mother never let me babysit again after the incident.” I look down at the small, unnoticeable scar on my arm where Hale made Sophie bite me after I crashed his card house. At least that’s what I’ve been told happened, I wasn’t old enough then to remember it now.

"Uncle Howard?" I guess hesitantly.

"Took you long enough," he answers.

“Hold on a minute," Brody says on my other side. "You're a Langdale too? How many of you are there here?"

"As far as I know, just the two. Of course, it's possible someone else managed to keep their heritage a secret, I can't rule that out."

"That's how you tracked me here," I realize. "Familiarity."

"Joint effort," he corrects. I look to Brody. How did he know how to track me? And then the sad truth dawns on me: familiarity is relative, and he doesn't have many to feel familiar with.

“Why don’t you get out of this rain, get some dry clothes, maybe play some cards. I will come and check on you after classes,” the professor tells me. I look down at the purple cards, expecting the rain to have ruined them. They are as dry as a good fire, same goes for Brody. Control of the elements, of course. He holds out a hand and the water flees from the rest of us too. The professor nods and leaves us.

“You really miss them, don’t you?” Brody says quietly.

“They are my family,” I say.

“You’re lucky.” He gets up and walks back towards the school. I don’t feel particularly lucky if I’m honest. “Ever considered….” He turns around to locate me. I get up off the ground and follow him. “Ever considered maybe they’re not worth it? They did leave you to fend for yourself.”

“They left one daughter behind to protect the rest of the family.”

“They still left you.”

“It wasn’t their fault. It’s this place, all these people thinking they aren’t accountable to anyone, that they can just do whatever they like.”

“I thought you liked that kind of thing.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Isn’t that what you did when you didn’t like the history lessons?” My feet stop up and my head turns to him, my tongue ready to fire off a rapid remark. But the remark isn’t there, he’s right; it is exactly what I did. I close my mouth again and walk faster.

“Are you mad at me now? Did I do something?” He takes a few running steps to catch up with me. “Is this about last week, cause I…”

“No,” I simply say.

“Lizzy, I didn’t mean to…”

“Don’t worry about it,” I set off and fly up to the tower window instead. I open it and make my way down.

“I did something wrong,” Brody says behind me. Of course, he can just make the air carry him or make a stairway or something.

“You didn’t,” I assure him halfheartedly. “I did,” I admit.

“Because of Professor Bins?” he asks in wonder. I run down the stairs, trying my best to ignore him. He follows just as fast. “If you’re mad at me tell me. I can take it.”

“I’m not mad at you,” I shout. I take a deep breath and turn to face him. “I’m mad at myself, okay? I’ve been walking around here all righteous, and all the time I’ve been just as self-centered as the people who take children away from their families.”

“No, you haven’t,” he assures me astounded. “You’re right, they’re wrong, there’s a big difference.”

“How can I be right if I’m doing the same thing as them?”

“You’re proud, yes, but you’re fighting the people in control, not putting children in cages.”

“The teachers aren’t the ones in control… Hold on, cages? Please tell me that’s an exaggeration.”

“How else would you keep a wolf under control?”

“But that’s just…”

“See. You’re nothing like them.”

“It hardly matters if I have all the right reasons if I still act like a jerk whenever it pleases me.”

“Why not? You are trying to make things better around here, you have every right.”

“One never has the right to be a jerk. The teachers don’t make the rules; they just teach children how to get through life. This is so… Why I am the one arguing my guilt?”

When the professor comes up to my room by the end of the school day it is to find set cards scattered all over the bed and the two of us still arguing – less and less sensibly.

“You don’t put people in cages.”

“I put them in metaphorical cages.”

“You don’t poke about in their brains.”

“I poke about in their self-esteem.”

“You don’t steal children from their parents.”

“I… Set.” I pick up three red threes of different shapes and different fillings.

“I see you two have it all under control,” the professor comments with a smile. “How are you doing Lizzy?”

“I’m losing,” I say with a look at the stack of cards lying in a mess by Brody’s leg.

“Not if I join in you aren’t.”