* * *
It was only about a week after discovering the strange stone that Ned became convinced that it was not from Earth. Up until that time he had left it in a drawer in his room, not thinking about it much except to marvel at the circumstances under which he had found the strange object. He had not told anyone about it; he doubted that anyone would take the story seriously, and the fact that the stone still glowed faintly might arouse concern in his family and friends. Ned decided it was best to just keep it a secret. Apparently no one had seen the pillar of light that morning; Ned realized on reflection that it had been neither bright enough nor large enough to have been seen from very far away. Besides, there probably had not been many people even awake that early. It was beginning to look like the stone was destined to be an impressive trinket and nothing more. Maybe someday he would find a use for it.
Lately, however, Ned had begun contemplating a way to show the stone to someone without making it seem too strange. Perhaps he could just show it to one of his friends and see the reaction it got. People would probably make up their own reasonable-sounding explanations as to why the stone glowed; no one would assume it had some strange, unearthly power, as Ned was forced to. Ned had been especially preoccupied with the subject on this particular day when, late at night, he awoke suddenly from sleep. After lying in bed for a moment he realized what had startled him; there was a soft, yet distinctly audible humming emanating from the drawer where Ned kept the stone. At first a rush of fear came over him. Images of something emerging from the stone raced through his mind as he struggled to contemplate what he should do. After a few moments, though, the anxiety died down. The sound had not changed, and, besides, he had heard it before. Carefully, Ned crept from his bed toward the sound and opened the drawer.
The stone was emitting an unusually bright light that pulsated in time with the surges of noise. Remembering the stick he had thrown at the pillar of light before finding the stone, Ned tossed a coin from the drawer at the stone, half expecting it to melt or explode. To his quiet relief, though, it simply bounced off. Ned tried touching the stone with other objects as well, making sure it was safe, and then picked it up with his hand. Immediately a warm feeling spread up his arm, dissipating as it went. The light from the stone dimmed slightly and steadied, and the noise stopped altogether. Although the stone was clearly visible with its corona of blue light, it hardly illuminated surrounding objects at all.
Ned was wide awake by now, and he had no desire to either put the stone down or to sleep. Instead, he studied the stone for several moments, trying to find out what it might be for. He came no closer to any conclusions than he had previously, though, and soon he decided to go downstairs and eat something. Still clutching the stone, Ned started toward the doorway.
Ned walked face-first into the door he thought he had left open. Sharp surges of blue light flashed outward from his body where it met the door, accompanied by a noise that sounded like a heavy object being dropped onto a steel grate. Ned could feel the door making contact with his body, but he felt no pain, as he expected to. He heard movement elsewhere in the house as the noise from the impact disturbed his sleeping family, and Ned quickly jumped back into bed, hoping no one would awaken and come to see what had happened. In his hand, Ned still clutched the stone.
The next morning, Ned was surprised to see that his door had a few minor, almost indistinguishable dents in it.
“What’s the matter?” his mother asked him at breakfast.
“Nothing. I just had trouble sleeping last night.” The truth, if not the complete truth. No one mentioned the loud noise; Ned happily assumed that they had all slept through it after all. Still, he couldn’t hide his preoccupation, and Jared, his fifteen-year-old brother, kept glancing at Ned curiously.
Ned and Jared got along well, better than any set of siblings either of them knew. Jared seemed to admire Ned and looked up to him as a sort of role model, although Jared himself was more interested in school sports than anything Ned considered interesting. Ned, in return, appreciated Jared’s companionship, and the two talked freely about just about everything. Ned had considered telling his brother about the stone he had found, and now, after the previous night’s experience, he was beginning to think it would be a good idea. Jared couldn’t possibly have a worse reaction than Ned had had; if nothing else, Ned could be relatively sure his brother would be willing to keep the matter a secret. So, after breakfast, Ned had Jared follow him back into the nearby forest.
When they were reasonably well-secluded, Ned first checked to make sure no one else was close enough to overhear anything and then brought the glowing stone out of his pocket. Jared looked at it with curiosity, although he was less interested in the object itself than in why Ned found it so important as to drag him out here in secret to see it. “What is it?” he asked.
“I found it lying on the ground not far from here about a week ago,” Ned began. He had thought out his wording before he came, still thinking it unwise to mention the fact that the stone had apparently dropped out of space. “It always glows like this. Last night, though, I woke up and heard it making a sort of humming sound, and when I opened the drawer where I keep it, it was even brighter than this. It dimmed again when I touched it, and I started to go downstairs.” Jared was listening intently now, not knowing how to take this odd information. “I had left my door closed, though, and I ran into it. There was a blue light and a noise like, I don’t know, as if I had walked into a force field – I know it sounds weird. I didn’t feel any pain, either.”
Seeing that Ned was not joking and knowing that he wouldn’t lie, Jared asked him, “Are you sure you were awake?” He still could not quite bring himself to believe what he was hearing.
“I was awake,” Ned replied confidently. “Besides, there are marks on my door.
“That’s weird,” was all Jared could manage.
“I know,” Ned continued. He was anxious to find out what this stone was for, but he was not sure of the best way to go about finding out. He said nothing for a time, hoping his brother would volunteer something.
“So, what you’re saying is that this thing absorbs pain?”
Ned was pleased that Jared had drawn the same conclusion he had. “Maybe. I was thinking that maybe I should try it out again – maybe hit myself on the arm or something.” Jared just stared, apparently all out of ideas on how to make this situation seem logical and now simply waiting to see what his brother would do. Ned picked up a stick and, flinching slightly, struck it against his left forearm. There was a blue flash, just like the previous night. Again, he felt contact but no pain. Ned repeated this a few times, each time striking himself harder, and each time the light seemed to absorb any damage to his body. Eventually the stick snapped, but there was no mark of any kind on Ned’s arm.
“That’s weird,” Jared said again. “Where do you think it came from?”
“I don’t know… I wonder how strong this thing is. How much damage do you think it can absorb?”
“I don’t know,” Jared said, “but I don’t think we need to find out. What was that light? How could a rock make that light?”
“I don’t get it either, but it looked neat! It wasn’t just a light; it was like little pieces of lightning shooting off of my arm!” Ned was getting excited, but he was also becoming afraid, as he was sure his brother was. Jared was right – there was no way a rock could do that. “Jared, there’s something I left out. This was lying on the ground, but not at first. I was walking through the trees that day, and I heard a noise, like the one last night. I walked toward it, and I saw a thin line of blue light that stretched from the ground into the sky. After a while I saw a blue ball of light at the top of it, and it was falling. It slowed as it fell, and when it touched the ground it was hardly moving at all.” Ned let his words sink in for a moment. “Jared, I think this rock fell from space.”
Jared had listened with eyes wide, his own fear now stronger than his curiosity. “Ned, I don’
t think you should keep it. Give it to the police, or even just throw it down a sewer or something. It could be dangerous. Besides, if it is … you know, from another planet … whoever it belongs to might come looking for it someday.”
“Yeah, maybe I will,” Ned replied, and then lapsed into silence. Perhaps he would give the stone up eventually, but he wanted to find out more about it first. Whatever he did, though, it was becoming clear that it would be wise to do it alone. If Jared had this strong of a reaction to it, there was no telling what anyone else would think or do.
As if to confirm his musing, Jared commented, “Can you imagine what Mom and Dad would say if they heard about this?”
Ned chuckled, then realized from Jared’s serious expression that he had not intended the comment as a joke. “They’d freak out,” he agreed. “Remember what happened when I asked them if I could drive to Uncle Dave’s for the weekend?” Jared nodded. The suggestion of a day-long trip with a stay at a motel with no adult supervision might as well have been an act of heresy. “I guess I’d better not mention this to them,” he ventured, hoping Jared would reveal something of his thoughts by his answer.
Jared nodded and gave Ned a knowing look. “It’s not what you’d say that would freak them out,” he said. “It’s what might happen if you keep using it. You really should get rid of it.”
Ned looked down, hoping to look pensive but really just wanting to avoid betraying his thoughts through eye contact. “I’ll think of a good way to get rid of it,” he said truthfully. He would think of a hypothetical plan. But he had no intention of acting on it. Not yet, anyway. When Jared did not reply, Ned put the stone back into his pocket, and then the two turned and started back toward their house.
Ned said nothing more to his brother about the stone that day or the next, and he kept it tucked away in his closet where it would be difficult for anyone to find, even if someone – Jared, for example – came looking for it. He wrapped it up inside several old shirts, too, hoping that they would stifle any noise the stone decided to make, hoping even more that it would just remain silent. Ned was troubled to find that, when he did put the stone away, he felt suddenly drained, as if he had just sprinted around the block. He put the matter aside, assuming it was just a result of the anxiety he felt about the stone.
He let a few days pass without removing the stone from its hiding place. With luck, Jared would assume he had gotten rid of the stone and forget about it. The stone made no noises as far as Ned could tell, and those days passed as if it had never existed; even Jared acted normally toward Ned, probably more than a little anxious to put the matter behind him. This was what Ned wanted. He had put the stone away not to put it out of his life, but to reduce the risk of suspicion when he took it out again.
Eventually, Ned considered the situation to be under control enough to warrant another testing of the stone’s powers. He took it into the forest again; he would have preferred a more enclosed location, but he could not think of anywhere else in the area where he could be that far from other people. When he reached a safe spot, he took out the stone again and examined it. When he had taken it from its wrappings in his closet, the stone had again sent a feeling of warmth up his arm, and Ned could not deny the possibility that it had bonded itself to him in some way. Still, he saw no immediate danger, and his desire to know what this stone was, or at least what it could do, had grown into little less than an obsession. In his previous encounter, Ned had been particularly interested by the strange light that had accompanied the stone’s protection of him. He repeated the act of hitting himself with sticks, as well as rocks and other objects he could find, and in different parts of his body. Ned learned that the objects did not have to come into direct contact with his body; the stone also protected his clothing from damage, although he was able to tear the shirt he wore (he had made it a point to put on an old one) when he himself was in no danger of being harmed. He also learned that he did not have to see an object for the stone to protect him from it; he ran backwards in random directions until he hit trees or stumbled to prove this, and he also threw rocks into the air, closed his eyes, and let them fall onto his head. He took out a match and found that he could not be burned, a pocket knife and found he could not be cut. Always protection was accompanied by a visible blue light. Ned was beginning to feel that, while he held the stone, he was invincible to all physical damage.
The blue light particularly fascinated Ned. As he had noted before, it was not merely a glow, but it seemed to shoot outward from his body in a cascade of sparks and lines of light. When he was satisfied as to the stone’s ability to protect him, Ned wondered if he could make the strange light without doing something that should be harmful to himself. He did not know what the light was or where it came from, but the stone obviously created it or called it forth from somewhere, and Ned decided to try to call it forth on command. He failed miserably. He tried to picture a ball of the strange light resting in his hand and then call it into reality, but nothing happened. He tried to imagine a harmful object flying toward his body, but nothing happened. He tried concentrating harder, picturing images more vividly, but nothing had any effect. Apparently, the light was a protection and nothing more.
As he attempted to control the light, however, his mind kept returning to the question of where it was coming from. As far as Ned could tell, it did not originate in the stone itself. The stone’s glow brightened slightly when its power was used, but the protective light always came from Ned himself. Could it be that the feeling of warmth Ned had felt was the stone injecting his body with whatever caused the light? He wished, in a way, that Jared were there, so the two of them could share the experience and compare ideas. Then a new idea began to take shape in Ned’s mind. He found a large stick, sat down, closed his eyes, and brought the stick down as hard as he could on his foot. He smiled. Ned repeated this several times, with several objects, and each time he became more certain of what he was feeling. Even with his eyes shut, Ned could feel the discharge of energy that protected him. He could feel not only its presence, but also its location. At the time of impact, Ned thought he could also sense the position of the stone. According to this strange sense, the stone and the light did not appear to be connected, nor did the light seem to be coming from Ned’s body at all. It seemed as though it was simply created where it was needed and then vanished when it was not.
Ned knew, however, that this was not the case, since matter and energy could not be created nor destroyed. That meant that they were either re-arranged to form the light, or that the light had come from somewhere Ned could not detect, possibly – did this make any sense? – another “plane of existence?” Ned was inclined to believe the latter, since nothing surrounding the light seemed to change in order to create it. If the light had really come from somewhere Ned could not detect, then there was a possibility that it was already everywhere; after all, the light seemed to just come and go, not to come from anywhere. Perhaps it was already everywhere it was needed. If that were the case, Ned thought expectantly, then all he needed to do now was to bring it from wherever it was to where it could be seen.
Could he do that? Could the stone help him? He decided to try. Again, Ned closed his eyes and sat down. He pressed the knife up against his leg with his left hand, the action no longer uncomfortable, so strong was his trust in the stone’s protection. He could feel the protective energy’s presence where the knife met the fabric of his jeans. Then Ned brought the thumb and index finger of his right hand together and tried to recreate that feeling between them. At first it was difficult. In fact, it was long minutes before Ned believed that he had even begun to access whatever gate there was between where the light was and where he wanted it, between its “dimension,” if that was what it was, and his. Eventually, though, he began to feel something, a sort of connection to whatever form of energy lay just beyond his grasp. He let the knife drop to the ground, focusing all of his attention on the rift he was attempting to create between his thumb and in
dex finger. At last, Ned was satisfied, and he opened his eyes. Nothing was apparently changed, but he had not expected to see anything different – not yet. He could still feel the power sparking between his thumb and index finger, and now, slowly, he drew them apart. A blue tendril of light flowed between their tips.
Ned sat, staring at the energy ribbon for a long time, feeling its image in his mind, making it as familiar to him as if it were the smell of his favorite food. He was awed by the light’s beauty as it danced from thumb to finger and back, twisting, sparkling, and swirling. It was much more dynamic than the pillar of light he had seen at his first encounter with the stone, and that was his intent. Ned valued this new power to command this strange light even more than his ability to withstand pain. The endless possibilities reeled through his mind.
Ned decided to experiment. He let the light die between his fingertips, but then extended his hand, palm upward, and brought the light back, this time in a glowing sphere which hovered just over his palm. At first the light was chaotic, but after a while he was able to bring the sparkling waves of energy under control, and the sphere before him took on a look of tranquility, its inner movements little more than ripples.
Then another idea jumped into Ned’s mind. He let the sphere vanish, stood up, then quickly extended his arm outward with his palm angled downward and his fingers splayed. A lightning-like bolt of energy lanced off his hand, tendrils of light surging along its surface. The bolt hit a tree several yards away, having no effect; none had been intended. But the visual effect had been impressive, and Ned felt more than a little excited. That looked so cool! I just shot lightning!
Ned had been away long enough, he decided; the entire process had taken nearly an hour. He hurried home and went to put the stone away, but a strange compulsion to hold onto it came over him as he was about to put it down. He decided to put it down anyway and began to open his fingers, but again the compulsion came, this time in the form of a physical inability to let go of the stone. Shocked, Ned put it back into his pocket, and there his fingers let go easily. He thought of changing pants, but that would be admitting that he literally could not let go of this object. He chose instead to reason that it would be wise to hold onto it, just in case he needed it or a situation arose to practice more.
Ned created many such situations over the following weeks. He became adept in manipulating the light, creating various shapes and formations with the strange blue energy. After a while Ned decided that he should put the light to some use, however unproductive, and saved up several pop cans, destined for destruction. He lined up the cans along a log in the forest one day and proceeded to blast energy out of his hand at them. At first the light struck them with no effect, but with some effort Ned was able to re-create the effect that occurred when harmful objects touched his body; the cans fell backward off the log when the light struck them. Ever motivated to improvement, Ned eventually learned to make the cans explode in impressive balls of energy, complete with rippling “shock waves” that shot outward in a ring. The blue light was becoming Ned’s favorite hobby.
In fact, his successes with this new power had become such an important part of his life that he deeply regretted the fact that no one else knew about them. He had learned a great deal about the stone, as well – at least he thought he had. As far as Ned could tell, the stone was created to channel this power from wherever it was into its holder. It inherently used that power to protect that person from physical harm, and Ned supposed that the blue pillar he had seen as the stone fell from the sky was the stone’s exertion of power in protection of itself; it would have been vaporized if it had fallen that distance unhindered, so it sent a beam of energy downward to slow its fall. It had been this powerful, downward thrust that had snapped the stick Ned had thrown into it. In addition to this new understanding, Ned was growing in confidence that whoever created this stone had long since given up on it. If it had traveled the billions of light years from a distant star it would have taken … well, it might have taken longer than the life of a star! This stone may have been floating through space for longer than the Sun had existed! That was a mind-bending concept, but, more importantly, it meant that there was virtually no chance that the stone belonged to any aliens. Although, Ned thought abruptly, if they had dropped it out of their space ship… He put the thought aside. There was no use in speculating on something he could not determine the answer to.
But, despite his new knowledge and understanding, along with his desire to share this new part of his life, Ned decided to keep it a secret, at least for the time being. Maybe someday he would think of a practical use for his new skill, but once he made it public, there would be no going back. He did not want to rush something like that. Anyway, it gave Ned a new sense of confidence that he had single-handedly mastered a power that was apparently new to the planet Earth. To Ned, the light had become more than a strange discovery, more than a mysterious power. It was his power.