“RYANNE? RYANNE, DEAR, CAN YOU hear me?”
“Are you sure she’s going to be okay? She’s been out for a while now.” I can hear people talking to me, but my body isn’t able to respond. The voices are still in my head, and I know that if I open my eyes, they will amplify again.
Slowly, my body starts to come back to life. I can move my hands and feet. With my eyes still closed, I try to take in my surroundings. I don’t know where I am, but it feels like I am laying on something soft. A couch, maybe?
Groaning, I grab my head—the remnant of my previous headache still lingering. I attempt to sit up, but my body refuses to cooperate. Someone puts their hand on my back, and helps me. I blindly thank them.
“Ryanne, can you open your eyes?” a woman asks me.
“I’m afraid to. It hurts. The voices are too loud,” I whisper.
“I’m going to help you, but I need you to look at me first.”
I take a deep breath, and mentally prepare myself for the onslaught of voices. I slowly open my eyes, and see three worried faces looking back at me. Colton and his aunt are sitting on the coffee table directly in front of me while another guy stands quietly behind them. He looks just like Colton facially, but isn’t as tall, has shorter hair, and broader shoulders.
I wince as the voices get slightly louder, but it isn’t nearly as loud as before. “Ryanne, look at me. Concentrate on my voice.”
Turning toward her, I focus only on her. “My head hurts.”
“I know and it will. I’m going to try and help you,” she tells me. “Think only about me. Forget about what you are hearing. Focus on my voice.”
I try to only listen to her, but I can’t. It is too hard. Too many voices are trying to get my attention. I’m not able to hold on to just one. I hope she’s okay. She looks so pale. Hopefully, she can get a handle on this.
In frustration, I slam my eyes shut. “I can’t do it. They’re too loud. I can’t concentrate.”
“Aunt Claire, can I try?” asks Colton. “I’m the one who woke her magic up, maybe I can help her control it.”
“I guess it can’t hurt anything.”
“Ryanne, open your eyes.”
I hear the sounds of shuffling, and someone touches my leg. Hesitantly, I open my eyes, and stare into an abyss of green.
“I’m going to try and walk you through this. Concentrate on me. Block out all the background noise. Don’t listen to any of the voices. Focus on my voice and my voice only. Now, think of somewhere you feel safe. The gazebo maybe,” he suggests. “Imagine yourself there. Think about the scenery. Forget the voices. What color are the trees? What season is it? Who are you with? Think about that.”
I close my eyes, and think back to the time where my mother and I went to the park and ate under the gazebo. It was during the summer when I was eight years old. We set up a picnic, and I remember being really happy. It was sunny while I ran around in the grass surrounding the gazebo, chasing insects. When we were eating, a blue butterfly landed on my arm. My mother said that the butterfly meant that I was special. That someone was watching over me.
“Keep that thought in mind. I want you to think about the voices, but don’t fully concentrate on them. I want you to push them aside. Push them to the background. Push them into the corner, and lock them there. You are the only one with a key. Only you can unlock the thoughts.”
I try to follow everything that he said. It is a little difficult to push them to the side. It’s like trying to hold a wet bar of soap. Right when I think I have them in my grasp, they slip away. However, after what feels like hours, though it is probably only a couple minutes, I finally get a hold of them. I push the key in and mentally lock them to the side. It’s finally quiet, and I can think again.
I open my eyes and look around the room. I don’t hear anything. I smile up at Colton with tears in my eyes. “Thank you.” He stands up moves to the side, so his aunt can sit back in front on me.
“It worked? You can’t hear our thoughts anymore?”
My eyes widen, shocked at her question. “I can hear your thoughts? That’s what those voices were?” I scoot more toward the right, away from her. There’s no humanly way possible that I can read minds.
“Yes, you have the power to read minds. The change was supposed to be gradual. I’m not sure why yours appeared so fast.” She pauses and looks at the two guys in the room. “If my intuition is correct, you are going to be able to do many other things as well. You’re going to be very powerful.”
I stare at her in disbelief. Magic doesn’t exist. It’s not possible. “I think you have me mistaken for someone else. It can’t be me.” I stand up and am about to leave, but I’m overcome with dizziness again. I sway, but Colton stands up, and grabs my arms to steady me. When the room stops spinning, but doesn’t stop swaying, I decide that sitting is probably the best option for me right now.
“It’s you, Ryanne. I know it. We also believe that you have been causing the recent weather fluctuations.” The weather? I can’t control…
Calm down. Your emotions are affecting the weather. I pick up the pendent hanging from my neck and study it, confused. Was it all real?
“Claire, maybe you should start from the beginning,” says the man standing in the doorway.
“You learned about the Salem witch trials in school, right?” I nod. “Well, a long time ago, many people performed witchcraft and wizardry; some of these were real, and others were faking. We are descended from a long line of magicians. Not the kind that you are thinking of. We don’t pull rabbits out of hats and perform parlor tricks. We are commonly referred to as Mage.
“Mages have been around forever. We aren’t sure when we came into existence or even how. The pyramids of Egypt? Made by mages. Stonehenge? Mages. Moai statues on Easter Island? Mages. We come from a long line of beings that have supernatural abilities. One of yours is reading minds. I have a heightened sense of intuition. David, Colton’s brother, is telekinetic. Colton hasn’t come into his power yet. Mages get their gifts at different stages and ages, and, usually, it is a gradual change. Most get their gifts around the age of eighteen, but some don’t show up until the mid-twenties.”
“So, you’re telling me that I can affect the weather and read minds. Do you know how crazy that sounds?”
“When you were almost run over by the car, you told us that you thought that you were lifted by the wind. You were right. The wind did assist you then. You needed help, so your magic took over, and got you out of a dangerous situation. Think of another time recently when you were upset or angry. Was it raining or storming?”
When I was sitting under the gazebo, thinking about mom, it was raining. Couldn’t that be just a coincidence? Weather changes are a natural thing, but it was always raining when I was upset lately.
How cliché.
“So, you’re telling me that whenever I’m upset, I have to worry about flooding the whole town?”
Everyone chuckles at me. David is the only one to respond. “You’ll learn how to control it. We’ll help you.”
Claire clears her throat. “There’s more.” She pauses. I think the pause is just for dramatic effect. If I ever deliver very important news, long pauses always increase the importance. “You are an intricate piece to ending the supernatural war.”
Shut the front door. What the heck have I been thrown into? I glance between all three of them, waiting for the laughter to start. They’re joking, right? When nothing happens, I take a deep breath and decide to play along.
“A war?”
She continues. “Long ago, it was prophesized that a girl, born into a non-mage family, would be gifted with magical abilities that surpassed all mages. When this girl turned eighteen, she would come into her magic. She’d be unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. A beautiful warrior.” She stops talking and smiles at me before going on. “With her help, the war will be ended. Granted, that is a very condensed and summarized version. The original was written in
Latin, but the point is still valid. You are the girl we’ve been looking for, Ryanne.”
“How do you know that I’m that girl? It could be referring to anyone.”
“My intuition tells me that it is you. I knew something was different about you when we talked in my shop. You’re special, Ryanne.”
“You think I’m Harry Potter?” I ask her.
Claire smiles at me, but it is David that speaks. “You’re a mage, Ryanne, not a wizard.”
I start violently shaking my head. What they are saying doesn’t make any sense. “It’s not me you are looking for. I’m not a beautiful warrior. Beautiful has never been used to describe me, and I’ve had a lot of adjectives used in reference to me. And warrior? Do I look like a warrior?
“I’m not the one who can help end this war going on. I’m a vegetarian. I can’t even eat meat without feeling bad for the animals, and you’re telling me that I’m supposed to fight in a war and harm people? I can’t do that. I don’t have any friends, and blush all the time. I’d rather sit in the back of a room, unnoticed, because I hate attention. That kind of sounds like a lot of attention and responsibility. There’s nothing special about me, Claire. I’m not that girl. I can’t be that girl.”