*****
Anita had just about managed to throw off her bad mood by the time she arrived at the Temple of the Spirit to meet Alexander, but she suspected that may have had something to do with the prospect of spending an evening meditating with him. Her stomach flipped as she thought about his piercing blue eyes, and she fought to get her energy back under control as she climbed the steps into the Temple. As she entered on the dot of seven, she saw Alexander striding towards her, his cloak billowing out behind him and his hair looking wild, as though he had run his hands through it in despair many a time that day. Even slightly worn as he looked now, he was exceptionally attractive. She felt her energy respond mischievously to her thoughts and Alexander looked up when he felt it, no hint of a smile on his face.
‘We’ll start here at the back, where you were meditating yesterday,’ he snapped.
Anita’s energy deflated at the curt greeting. Obviously he wasn’t as pleased to see her as she was to see him, unless, of course, it was just that he was hiding his energy; I need to learn to do that, she thought.
‘How do you hide your energy?’ Anita asked again.
Alexander, whose back was facing her, paused, a flash of surprise showing on his face before he turned to look at her. He glared at her, slightly more fiercely than he’d intended, but it was taking every fiber of his control to keep his energy in check at such close proximity. ‘I think maybe we should master the basics first. Seeing as you seem to have particular trouble keeping your energy under control, that may never be something you manage to grasp.’ The words were quiet and menacing. Anita looked hurt; she was embarrassed and confused and Alexander felt a tug on his heartstrings. He didn’t want to be nasty to her, but he had to keep his distance, she was in enough danger as it was.
‘Sit down,’ he said, pointing to the place on the mat where she’d been sitting yesterday. Anita sat down and said nothing. Her energy had plummeted; she was empty and deflated. She wasn’t angry, her usual reaction, but instead felt drained.
Alexander sat down in front of her, the knees of his crossed legs so close to hers that she swore she could feel a tension in the air between their skin. Alexander looked Anita in the eye and it was all she could do to hold his gaze, searching his lovely blue eyes while he struggled to keep them from showing any warmth.
‘Close your eyes, clear your mind and breathe deeply,’ he softly commanded, and she did as he said. She relinquished control, following his instructions to the letter, feeling strangely tired. As she closed her eyes, Anita was almost instantly transported to the sky above the clearing with the yurt, then felt herself falling, and landed in front of the door. Again, Anita pushed the curtain aside and entered the unexpectedly light space inside; it was exactly as it had been last time, apart from the brass cylinder, which had disappeared. She looked over to the bed to find Alexander where he’d been last time too, still topless and disheveled, and she made her way towards him. As she neared him, she felt a warm nudge at the edge of her energy, similar to the nudge she’d felt at dinner at the ball, and she smiled.
‘So that was you,’ she said, encouraged, although weirdly her lips didn’t seem to move as she spoke.
‘You can feel that?’ Alexander shot back, the surprise clear on his face.
‘Of course,’ she said, sitting down next to him and bringing her legs up so she could sit cross-legged on the bed.
Alexander was amazed. He’d never met anyone else who could feel nudges; it was a rare skill. He was tempted to touch her to see if she felt tingles in her fingers, as he had when they’d danced, but to test that would require touching her outside of the meditation, and it wouldn’t surprise him if Marcus was watching, to make sure Alexander wasn’t trying anything untoward. He knew there would be another opportunity.
‘So how did it feel when you got rid of that brass cylinder?’ he asked instead.
‘I don’t know, as I didn’t manage to get rid of it.’
‘What?’ Alexander replied, alarmed, ‘where is it then?’
‘It hit the floor and rolled out of the door, but it wasn’t in the clearing outside when I came in a second ago.’
‘Great.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means you have a brass cylinder roaming around in your head somewhere and we have no idea where. Have you ever meditated to anywhere else?’
‘Ha,’ Anita laughed. ‘Not really. I didn’t even believe this was possible until a couple of months ago, when Cleo and I meditated to a boat on the sea, only I didn’t actually see her there, so I only had conclusive proof it’s not total rubbish when I meditated here yesterday and saw you.’
‘Gods, they really do teach you nothing.’
‘It’s looking more and more that way,’ she replied sardonically, clearly conveying this was not a helpful comment. ‘So where are we now?’
Alexander looked at her as though she’d just landed from another planet. ‘You’re kidding?’ Anita shook her head and frowned impatiently. ‘You have no idea where you are?’
‘Nope, none whatsoever,’ she said irritably.
‘Anita, this is your Centre,’ he said gently.
‘My what?’
‘You’re Centre. The place that comes together when you’re thirty, remember?’
‘Well yes, obviously I’ve heard of my Centre, but I’ve always thought it was just some rubbish made up to keep people in lessons after school. You’re telling me this is the place that will ‘come together’ when I’m thirty? What does that mean anyway?’
‘It means that this place reflects your most prominent skills, the ones you’re most comfortable with and that come most easily to you. So for you it’s a mixture of Body and Spirit with very little Mind at all, but there are also other places inside your head that represent different combinations of skills, and any of those places can be developed. When your Centre comes together, all the different places in your mind merge or ‘come together’ into one new Centre that you will have for the rest of your life. Why that happens at thirty, no one knows, but from the time when your Centre comes together it becomes much more difficult, if not impossible, to truly develop new skills. The reason you’re feeling so tired now,’ she gave him a questioning look, ‘and I know because I can read your energy remember?’ she nodded yieldingly. Of course he could. ‘Is because this morning you had a session with Marcus to try and develop your Mind skills. That doesn’t come easily to you, so it takes a great deal of effort to build up your abilities. Just like when someone practices Body skills and they feel tired and stiff while their muscles recover, your mind is currently doing the same thing, and you’ll feel empty and drained until it has time to recover. Hopefully, as you already have a lot of Spirit in you, you won’t find these sessions take too much of a toll. You may feel a bit tired afterwards, but that should wear off after a couple of sessions. The Mind sessions on the other hand, you are likely to find very draining, so you’re going to need to be careful that Austin or Amber don’t try to take advantage of you in the next few weeks, as you’ll be especially vulnerable to attack.’
Normally Anita would have said Alexander was being ridiculous and that of course no one would attack her, but she was beginning to believe that maybe he and Helena might be right, especially after the way Austin and Amber had looked at her this morning.
‘In fact,’ he continued, ‘it wouldn’t surprise me if Marcus is watching us right now, and he probably will for the first few sessions, until he trusts that I’ll behave myself.’ Anita remembered the look on Marcus’ face when he’d said goodbye earlier and she knew he was right. It was highly likely that he was watching them from the outside, but she wasn’t sure she wanted Alexander to behave himself.
‘Well at least he can’t tell what’s going on in here,’ she said.
‘No, he can’t exactly, but there are a few tells on the outside that give clues as to what’s going on inside the meditation, so we need to be carefu
l not to give anything away about that cylinder of yours. But we do need to find it.’
‘Or it might explode in my head and kill me?!’ Anita laughed.
Alexander gave her another stern look. ‘Yes, and you can find that funny if you want to, but if you die while I’m in here, I could very well die too, so I’d rather we take this seriously if you don’t mind.’
Anita went pale. ‘You think someone may actually have put it in my head to try and kill me?’
‘Who knows, but what I do know is that it’s best to find it and get rid of it before we get a chance to find out.’
‘But what if it contains something really important from a friend?’
‘Do you have any friends who need to pass important messages to you through cylinders in your mind?’
‘Not that I know of, but you never know.’
‘And what if it’s been put here by Austin or Amber to try and kill you?’
‘I know they don’t like me seeing Marcus, but really, you think they would resort to trying to kill me? You said yourself they wouldn’t try that if I was close to Marcus, if they would even try it at all.’
‘Believe me, they would try it if it suited them, and they can use it at any time they like, which means they could have planted it just in case you and Marcus don’t work out, so they have a convenient way to kill you.’
‘I still find it hard to believe that Austin wants to kill me just because I have strong energy.’
‘He’s killed for much less. He thinks he can do whatever he wants and get away with it, and to be honest, there aren’t many people queuing up to try and stop him.’
‘Are you trying to stop him?’
Alexander ignored the question. ‘So we need to find and get rid of the cylinder in your head. I need to teach you how to hide your energy, along with all the meditation poses, and then we may get on to visiting the Centre of others and extraction, depending on how quickly you learn.’
‘Hopefully I’ll pick this up quicker than I seem to be doing with the Mind skills. I’m abysmal at those,’ she said, considering Alexander’s comment about visiting the Centre of others. Would she get to visit his Centre? Just the very prospect sent shivers up and down her spine. ‘So, where do we start?’
Alexander and Anita spent the next hour trying to locate other places in Anita’s mind, where the cylinder may have hidden itself. Alexander didn’t tell Anita this, but he was surprised the cylinder had run away. It meant that someone very powerful, more powerful than Austin or Amber and with a mix of Mind and Spirit had planted it, and it would be difficult to get rid of, but they could cross that bridge, if and when they got there. They located two other places in Anita’s mind; one by the river in Empire and another on top of a beautiful cliff looking out over the sea. Alexander knew this place well, the cliffs overlooking Kingdom, but neither showed signs of the cylinder. Both places were steeped in Spirit and Body, hence why they were the first and easiest places to find. Alexander found himself wondering what Anita’s Centre would look like when it came together; it would be an interesting one, of that he was sure.
When Alexander felt Anita’s energy dip even further, he decided it was time to call it a day. ‘I think we’re done here for the moment,’ he said, taking one last look out to sea from the cliff that was so familiar to him. Anita nodded, feeling very much like she wanted to go to sleep and followed Alexander’s instructions to lift herself out of the meditation and back to the Temple. When she woke up, her vision was filled with Alexander’s concerned features and she smiled to see a softness there that he had hidden before.
‘That was interesting,’ she said, ‘and very educational. Who knew there was all that stuff in my head.’
‘Well, if I were you, I wouldn’t go into too much detail about it with Marcus when he takes you home,’ said Alexander, in a low voice, helping Anita to her feet, feeling a slight tingle as their fingers touched. He would have asked her if she could feel it too, but seeing Alexander actually touch Anita was too much for Marcus, so he broke cover and hurried over to them, slipping his arm around her and pulling her towards him.
Anita leaned in to him; all she wanted now was to go to sleep. Alexander turned to leave, saying, ‘same time tomorrow,’ nonchalantly as he strode away.
‘Hey,’ Marcus whispered into Anita’s ear as he gently pulled her into a hug, kissing her hair as she wrapped her arms around him.
‘Hi,’ she said weakly, feeling as though she might fall asleep right then and there.
Marcus pushed Anita away a little as he bent slightly to put one arm behind her knees and scooped her up into his arms, carrying her out of the Temple to his waiting car. Anita couldn’t have been happier to let him and she fell asleep in his lap as soon as they were in.
They reached Cordelia’s and Marcus lifted Anita out of the car without her so much as stirring. He carried her to the back door and straight up the stairs, pausing for a moment to work out which was Anita’s bedroom. He went for the smaller of the two, as it had the dress Anita had worn to the ball hanging on the outside of the wardrobe, and gently placed her on the bed. Anita woke up as he put her down and smiled a groggy half smile up at him. He crouched down beside the small double bed and lightly pushed a stray lock of hair back behind her ear. Anita reached out and fumbled for his neck, pulling his lips towards hers and kissing him sleepily.
‘Thank you for bringing me home,’ she mumbled into his mouth.
‘My pleasure,’ he smiled, before leaning in to kiss her forehead then getting up to leave.
‘Don’t go yet,’ Anita murmured. She rolled to the other side of the bed, indicating he should lie down too. Marcus hesitated for only a split second before slowly lowering himself down next to Anita’s warm, toned form. They lay there, face to face, Anita struggling to keep her eyes open, each feeling the warm breath of the other landing on their lips. When Anita couldn’t fight sleep any longer, her eyelids fluttered closed, and Marcus kissed her lightly. He placed his masculine hand over the feminine one on his neck and gently played with each finger in turn, mesmerised by the rise and fall of Anita’s sleeping body, before carefully turning his head and lifting her palm to his mouth. He kissed it softly before placing it delicately next to her head on the pillow, then used every ounce of his resolve to tear himself away.