Chapter 22

This is (not) the Way

Kenzo clapped. “Perfect! Then let’s get to it!”

He got a far off look in his eye as he did something behind the scenes. I was expecting him to whisk us away to some crazy cool training area or something. Instead, he took two items from his inventory: a pair of feathers. He held them out to us.

I went to get mine but he tutted, “Take them… without leaving the couch.” He placed them on the desk. They were from a rather large bird so they were still quite visible to us, even from flat on the table.

I cracked my neck. “I’ve been training for this day ever since I first saw Star Wars.”

I held out my hand in my best impression of using the force. I focused on the feather and gestured with my hand, willing it to come to me. It didn’t move an inch.

“My turn,” Stephen said, doing pretty much the exact same I did, maybe with more crazy facial expressions. But the result was the same.

Kenzo smiled the whole time. “Great first attempts. But it’s more like this.”

He closed his eyes, held his hand out slightly above the feathers, and then pointed up. They darted up to the ceiling.

“Whoa!” We both said.

“And when you get truly good, the hand gestures aren’t even necessary.” He put his hands down on the desk and the feathers fell, fluttering down, down… right before touching the table again they took off, flying around the room in all different directions.

We ooh’d and ahh’d, and the man just watched us, reveling in our wonderment. And paying no mind to directing the feathers.

He had them circle our heads and then land gently back in their spots at the table.

“I want to know how to do that,” Stephen said, speaking my thoughts.

“In time. For now… move them.”

Stephen went back to trying to use the force, but I remembered Kenzo’s movements from his demonstration. Or, lack of movements. I closed my eyes. At first I just sat there like that, listening to Stephen strain beside me. I focused on the feather and then reached out, my hand going reflexivly with the thought.

“Good, Darcy, good,” Kenzo said.

I could hear Stephen stop his attempts and, I could only assume, turn to watch me. And whatever progress I was having.

For a split second, I thought maybe I was about to make it move, but right at that moment I became consciously aware that two pairs of eyes were intensely watching everything I was doing. I blushed and opened my eyes. Just as I feared, they were both staring at me.

“You almost had it,” said the teacher. “What were you thinking of?”

“I dunno, just the same thing. Moving it.”

“What did you see in your mind’s eye? Describe it for me.”

I had to think about it. “I was picturing the feather and me moving it.”

“Physically?”

“Um… yeah, I pictured walking over and picking it up, taking it back to my seat.”

He scratched his chin. “And Stephen, were you picturing anything?”

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“Just the feather moving to me like in Star Wars.”

Kenzo laughed, but it was not in a cruel laughing at our ignorance way, but in a oh to be young again kind of way. “You both had good ideas. I take it anytime you tried to move something with your minds in the past you were imaging scenes from Star Wars?”

We shared a glance then, “Yeah.”

“That movie has done a lot of harm to preventing people from naturally awaking to psychic abilities. Okay, let me walk you both through what you should be doing. First, throw away all images of the force. I want you to invision nothing but the feather. Literally, nothing else. Got it?” We nodded. “Good, now close your eyes.”

Again I returned to the dark behind my eye lids. This time was easier knowing that at least Stephen wouldn’t be able to look at me, too. I threw aside those thoughts, and tried my best to erase twenty five years of Star Wars propeganda but that was a lot harder to do. But I did my best and then focused on the feather, conjuring up a mental image of it.

“I’m gong to assume that your mental image includes the desk, maybe the whole room. Throw all that out too. Just the feather.”

My mental image definteilty still had the desk. So I tossed it aside. The feather was just in my minds eye, zoomed in to where all I could see was feather.

“Now, imagine it lifting off the table. Do not picture a scene from Star Wars, throwaway visions of being a Jedi. And do not invision yourself. Only the feather. Moving, all on its own. Focus on that.”

It was easy to do that now that I just had a feather in my minds eye. I pictured it moving off the table. Not flying all around the room like the man had done. Just lifting off, an inch or so, and staying there.

“Repeat that mental image. Again and again. And as you do, put more and more intention behind it. Will what you’re seeing to become reality,”

I replayed the image. The zoomed in feather, slowly taking flight and hanging there. I waited five seconds, just watching it float before I replayed it again. Every time I reached the floating, I held it for a second shorter. Three seconds. Two seconds. One.

The image completed its runtime and instantly reset. All the while, I did my best to make sense of the man’s instructions, my understanding of putting intention into it was just focusing extra hard, mentally pleading with the feather to… just… fly!

A sharp pain cut through my head, there and gone, so quick I didn’t even cry out. But it was enough to throw me off. I tried to hold onto the image and the mental pushing, but I lost it. I opened my eyes.

Stephen’s feather was there, suspended above the desk, moving sporadically as he strained. I couldn’t stop myself, I gasped. Stephen was thrown off and the feather dropped. He opened his eyes again, too, looking all around.

“What happened?” he asked.

“You moved it! I didn’t mean to distract you, just… you really moved it.”

“I did!?” Stephen looked to the man, “Did I really? You didn’t move it yourself?”

“I did no such thing. You moved it, all on your own… as did you, Darcy.”

My jaw slackened. “What? I did?”

“You did! I’m so very proud of you both. You are naturals.”

We shared high fives and then, for some ungodly reason, I hugged him. I shocked myself so I'm sure he was completely blindsided by it. I knew I would be embarrassed to the max once we broke away but, there in the moment… it felt good. That human contact. I hadn’t had that since my mom died.

I pulled away, ready with a fake smile. “Sorry, got caught up in the moment.”

He matched my goofy grin, but I didn’t think I was wrong in seeing a bit of a rosey tint to his cheeks. “All good. Definitely a hug worthy moment.”

“I’m gong to reveal something to you now that I usually keep a secret from my students. At least for a while. Mental powers are something that the Interverse has tried its hardest to weed out. It does it in a few ways.” He held up a finger. “One. As I've mentioned, it has erased a lot of the language for the powers. The real name and the people who practiced it had been erased from our vocabulary completely. Not even I know what its true name is.”

He held up a second finger. “Two. The mental energy we all possess has been greatly lowered since the destruction of the Earth. I do not know the true reason why, but it has made it almost impossible to awaken latent psychic abilities on your own. A conduit is needed.”

Three fingers. “I am that conduit. Usually. Things are changing. For some reason in the past few years I have found that the powers of quite a lot of people are increasing. The suppressed energy is building. Now the issue is if I awaken you, you could very well be consumed by your own energy."

Stephen and I shared a look and I knew he was thinking the exact same thing: could we really have that much power?

"But, again, that's what I'm here for. I will take on your energies and direct it, awakening you but keeping the levels manageable. And from there… your powers are yours."

“You really think we can go from barely lifting a feather to taking down an eldritch horror?” I asked.

Kenzo smiled. “I do. But not by using telekinesis.”

“Then what?” Stephen asked.

“In do time. Right now we are just learning the basics. When you can both consistently levitate the feather–with your eyes open–then we will move onto harder things.”

“Well, get to it.” The man gestured to the feathers on the table. “Master this and we move onto the next step.”

So we set to work. Making feathers fly.