Lei's house. Wow.

I thought we'd just pulled up to the Japanese Embassy. Iron gates, carved with lions. A garden so big we couldn't even see the house from the street. Her family must have a particular love of the jasmine vine, which hung along the fence and through the pale barked trees. A shelter and an escape from the world outside.

There was more than enough house, even if there were five generations of them living here.

We found Grandfather Mori sitting outside in his garden after school. It was just as I remembered it, through Lei's memories at dinner. The little stream bubbled its roundabout way around us. There was a velvet green cushion on the ground, embroidered in gold lace. Mori's own clothing was no less spectacular: white ceremonial robes with gold trim all the way up to his neck. Was he dressed up just for my visit? His long gray hair spilled over the collar to drape over the iron bench where he sat.

The old man glanced at each of the visitors in turn. His eyes stopped when they reached me. Lei's grandfather pushed his golden rimmed reading glasses down. He stared at me fixedly while us four students gathered around.

"Good evening, grandfather." Lei bowed. I did so too, slow and clumsy. I mostly just wanted to break away from his eyes, even for a moment. They were still on me when I rose. "I know you said you wanted to meet Martin, and I hope that you don't mind I brought a few new friends along."

Mori nodded graciously, but said nothing. Lei must be accustomed to this, because she swept on without missing a beat. She even stood on her tip toes as she talked, as though all the breath was welling up and lifting her off the ground.

"Well Arnold and Ramsey are on the basketball team. Only, that's not why they're here. Arnold can see the Old Ones too, or at least some sign they were there, and Ramsey..."

"And I want to see an alien!" Ramsey volunteered enthusiastically.

Arnold shoved him, and Ramsey shoved him back.

Mori still said nothing. There was no hiding Lei's fear which flooded through me. She was terrified of her grandfather. Her only relief was that he wasn't looking at her, although it was no relief for me who bore those steady grey eyes.

"If three is too many guests, then I can always drop the others off at their cars, and we can try again another night..."

"Come. Sit," Mori said.

Arnold and Ramsey dropped behind me like sacks of potatoes into the tall grass around the stream. He wasn't really talking to them though. I don't know if he even noticed them at all yet. I'd never experienced such an unwavering stare in my life. It made me want to learn to focus better, and turn my mind into a deadly weapon.

I sat down on the grass at his feet. Lei knelt a little ways away, out of line of fire from those steady eyes. The wild tufts of his eyebrows knitted a little closer together to frown. The small motion felt like the blow of failure. His silence carried the heavy weight of his judgement. It was no wonder Lei was afraid.

But I did not have to suffer silence ever again. Here in this quiet garden away from the crowds and lights and noise. Here beside the bubbling stream, the peace of his mind would open itself to me. I reached out and felt the space where he sat on the bench above me.

Mori smiled and closed his eyes. I felt like I was falling. I nearly lost my balance and toppled over onto my face before catching myself with my hands. When my mind reached into him, it was like reaching into a pit without a bottom. It was so quiet and empty. If I fell in, part of me wondered if I would have dropped into a coma and never come out again. I was shaken and trembling, my mouth clammy and stiff.

Cold grey eyes open again. Mori was still smiling with his lips, but his eyes didn't match their warmth.

"Is something the matter, Martin?" Mori asked.

I shook my head.

"Did you do something that you are not proud of?"

I shook my head. I looked helplessly at Lei. She smiled tightly and gave me a thumbs up.

"I see why the Old Ones have taken interest in you," Mori said. Then turning to the others for the first time, he smiled more broadly. I felt myself breath again without quite remembering having stopped. "Of course your friends are welcome, Lei. I am glad you are taking to the new year so quickly. You will surely blossom before it is done."

Lei hid her face in her hands and dropped them into her lap. Arnold and Ramsey snickered somewhere on the other side. Mori must have felt me trying to enter his mind. Was that wrong? He didn't seem offended, but now I was even more afraid of him. Not only for his power in repelling me, but for the secret he now held over me about what I could do.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"You will tell grandfather Mori everything about your encounters with the Old Ones. He will help you to understand it and keep yourself safe."

I glance at Arnold and Ramsey. They shrug. I shrug. Why not?

"Okay, only if you all promise not to tell my dad. I don't want him to stop my new medication."

"Who, the guy who almost hit me with his car? You think we're buddies?" Arnold laughed.

"Sure thing, no problem," Ramsey now.

"I didn't tell him last night, did I?" Lei asked.

"Hold up what was going on with you two last night?"

"What? Nothing like that!" I protested.

"Nothing like what? We had dinner together."

Ramsey started snickering. I wish I didn't have to stand to smack him. Not that I could under Mori's ever present scrutiny.

Mori coughed. Everyone was silent. It was like a switch, the tension suddenly filling the air.

"Sorry." I didn't know what I was apologizing for exactly, but felt it was expected. "It started when I took a new gene therapy treatment last week." I hadn't intended to even say this much. Now that I'd started though, it was such a relief to be rid of the isolating secret that I let it all spill out. Well, almost all.

I told them about feeling the emotions and sensations of those around me. I told them of the wolves and the blackbirds made of smoke. And of the terrible hunger in the woods, and that I felt it again when Doctor Warmal stood over me in class. I didn't say anything about exactly how clearly or deeply I could see into their minds though. Even so, I could feel the thoughts of my friends pulling away from me in secret shame and anger.

Feeling their fear of me, I thought I really must have done something wrong in wandering uninvited through their minds. But at the same time, I had to keep talking, because someone like Mori must know when I was hiding something from him.

"I didn't do anything wrong," I finished. "I didn't ask for this. I wouldn't keep taking the medication if I didn't need it to live."

"The thief does nothing wrong, if what is stolen is not missed," Mori said enigmatically.

"I am not a thief!"

Lei was a knot of tension spilling out to me. This isn't how she'd wanted my encounter with her grandfather to go. His damned heavy pauses and silences were driving me mad though. I couldn't feel his thoughts at all. Was he even alive, or just a trick from a statue carved to taunt me?

Then it hit me with no warning. Like a thunderclap coming before the lightning, I felt a wave of pressure at my temples. I was falling again, this time into his grey eyes which seemed to grow larger in my field of vision. The beating throb of my temples blinded me for a moment, and then release. And with it I felt my walls melt away and leave me exposed.

I had never felt so vulnerable in my life. Not even dying and gasping for breath. Not even before the hunger in the woods. I felt naked, and helpless. I desperately tried to think of all my secrets that I must keep guarded. But it was helpless, because as soon as I brought them to mind, they would be stripped from me by Mori's terrifying light. And so I must try not to think of them at all, which of course made me think of them and feel all the more flustered and defenseless.

The destruction of my privacy was worse than I could ever imagine. Breaking the wall between me and the world somehow destroyed my identity with it. In that moment I was no one, just an empty shell scooped clean.

Worse still, I do not know exactly which thoughts or memories he took from me. All of the doors of past were thrown open, as if my life flashed before my eyes. The way my eyes lingered on the curve of Lei's back when she stood up. Maybe her grandfather knew that now, and there was nothing I could do about it. Maybe my father's secret research and his criminal liability. Maybe enough to decide that I'm a threat, and to be rid of me here in this quiet garden.

"I won't let you!" I shouted.

Mori still sat in on his iron bench. He hadn't moved, hadn't spoken, just as he always ways. His eyes were closed now. The connection was broken. I heaved for breath. I scrambled to my feet, half ready to run and never come back. I really might have, if Lei didn't drive me here.

"What is the matter, Martin?" Mori asked. "Did I do something wrong?"

"What's going on? Grandfather what did you do to him?" Lei asked in horror.

"Yes, you did something wrong," I shot back at Mori. I took a deep breath, then sat on the ground before him again. "And so did I. I'm sorry. To all of you."

"What's he talking about?" Ramsey asked. The way he scratched himself reminded me of a monkey. "You're not all seeing things now, are you?"

"I didn't mean to look," I said. "I can do more than feel your emotions though. Not always, but it's strongest right after the treatment, like I had yesterday."

"What are you talking about, dude?" Arnold asked. He already knew, but he didn't want to know. His uneasiness toward me was growing into something like revulsion.

"I can read your thoughts," I said. Then looking back at Mori, I knew I must continue. "And more. I can tell what you aren't thinking. Things you wish I didn't know. I shouldn't do that. I'll try not to, but sometimes it's hard when your thoughts get too loud."

They didn't say anything. Not one of them. I wish Ramsey would at least snicker and joke about it. But how could they, when I knew how violated they must feel as well.

"Ramsey, you want to go," I said. "I'm sorry. I hope your mom gets better soon. I understand why you don't want to spend more time around home."

"Freaking creepy man." Ramsey grabbed his jersey and pulled it up over his face.

"No way," Arnold said.

"Clear as day," I confessed. "You only came because you think..."

"Come on dude, don't say it!"

"So the whole time during dinner..." Lei's voice trailed off.

"Sorry. I thought you'd be mad if you knew, and..."

I didn't have to wonder. She was more than mad. Furious, and embarrassed, a hot wave crashing over my head and dragging me out into the bloody waters.

"You were just picking through my thoughts all night? Like you were at the dump, looking for some salvage?"

"It wasn't like that! I can't turn it off! Some things just spill out of you when you're so..."

"When I'm so what? Won't you please spell it out for me, since I have to hear it spoken, and can't steal it straight from your head?"

"I'm sorry! Mori, I'm sorry. I'll try not to look, okay? But I need your help. I don't know how to control it. I don't know what any of this means."

"Yes, I will help you. I will help you all. Our little antics draw more eyes than we realize. We must all be prepared for what is coming."