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A bank of clouds boiled up northwest of the lake, large and fluffy in the crystalline blue of the upstate New York sky. Its mass reached all the way up to where the air was thin and cold, with ice particles even now, during the summer.
Ash knew that, because he could sense it. Feel it.
He stretched his thoughts, his water sense, his very being all the way up into the sky, and let it spread to the north. Then he veered to the west. There was weight behind this storm. It roiled and bubbled with unspent energy, waiting to strike, and shed much-needed rain.
He looked at Mrs. Sorensen. “A storm is coming,” he said. “The big one.”
She nodded. He thought she would say that she had already known that, but instead she thanked him, and asked him whether he would like some more tea. It was either unsweetened tea or sour lemonade with Mrs. Sorensen, but that was fine by him. He didn’t mind drinking whatever she put in front of him, as long as he stayed in her good graces.
She was a fearsome and powerful woman. The air almost shimmered around her even while she was fully shielded, and Ash wondered how it was at all possible that Cooper couldn’t tell. Maybe it was because Mrs. Sorensen was his grandmother. Maybe it had something to do with Cooper’s unique earth sense and the way he had a hard time shielding himself, let alone perceiving others.
But Cooper could feel Ash – as though he’d chosen to make an exception.
Ash could feel Cooper, and Cooper could feel him even when they were separated by hundreds of miles. When they came close together, their powers meshed and amplified. Which could explain this big weather system, too. “Do you want me to do anything about that storm?”
Mrs. Sorensen gave him a bemused look. “Not everything is your fault, Ash,” she chided. “Just because you and Cooper boost each other doesn’t mean that every storm and every flood and every earthquake and every landslide rests upon your shoulders.”
And this was exactly what had been bothering him all along. Could he possibly justify being with Cooper if it meant destruction? Injuries, even deaths? Could they even risk it? He had no such experience in his own family, because his own mother died when he was a young teen. His father didn’t have a talent to speak of, or at least he always said he didn’t. In light of what Ash was learning about Cooper and obscure abilities in general, he realized it was quite possible that his father’s ability was never properly identified. Maybe he could do things that were not obvious to the casual observer. Because how else could Ash be so powerful?
Olga Sorensen leaned into her rocking chair, and closed her eyes. Ash watched her casually, trying not to stare, yet he was very curious to see how she did things. How did she focus? What were her techniques, and how did they differ from Uncle Owen’s?
Her chest rose and fell as her breath grew shallow, almost unconscious. The rocking chair hinted at the smallest movement back and forth, as though she let herself be moved by her very heartbeat. But that was ridiculous, because that was clearly not possible.
And then he felt it. Her shields grew transparent, and her power radiated outward, directed to the north and to the west and way, way up into the sky. And it was also directed at him, and at Cooper, who was in the woodworking shop under the house.
Her power tasted metallic in the back of his mind, not quite like blood, but like something else. Like a residue of something old, and almost electric. Like a silver-plated spoon with a mélange of different metals underneath.
It shimmered.
Ash squinted. A headache came upon him, fierce and powerful.
He threw his shields up fast, trying to center himself as best as he could.
––––––––
“ASH!” HE FELT a familiar hand on his shoulder, and realized the hard, scuffed planking of the porch floor was pressing a groove into his face. “Ash, are you all right?”
The porch had been painted green long ago, and the paint was now beginning to peel, revealing the old, silvery, weathered wood.
He groaned, and turned his head in an effort to see around him. Then the newel post of the railing came into sight with its old carvings, covered in its own cracked and aged paint that had been there for so many decades.
He was still on the roofed porch that wrapped around the old farmhouse – he remembered that – the restive trees, leafy green and swaying with the wind that began to whip off the Cayuga Lake. The sky that had been bright blue and crystalline between their branches now turned a dark steel gray.
“What happened?” His voice came out as a croak against the floorboards.
“Grandma knocked you out,” Cooper said in a voice that was full of concern, and also just the smallest hint of bemusement.
“I didn’t mean to, dear,” Mrs. Sorensen said. She tried to sound soothing, he could tell, but a thread of nervous concern vibrated through her every word. It wasn’t just him she was concerned about.
She had been using her gift. Foresight.
Slowly, with great effort, Ash scrambled into a sitting position and leaned against Cooper’s legs. He squinted his eyes, willing his pounding headache away, as he trained his gaze on Mrs. Sorensen. “What did you see?” He didn’t ask. He demanded to know.
“I wanted to know how bad the storm would be,” she said. “And I didn’t realize my searching would knock you out. You really need to shield around people. What is it with you boys?” She frowned at the weather rolling in.
Branches swayed wildly in the wind that whooshed up the hill, straight off the lake. Its strength rivaled an autumn gale, not a typical summer storm.
A thunder boomed from afar.
“Would you have any reishi tincture?” Ash asked. “As long as I have this terrible backlash headache, I’ll keep stirring up the weather. There’s just so much water up in the air.”
Mrs. Sorensen got up. “I’ll bring you something,” she said. “Meanwhile, I want you to ground and center. Both of you.”
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COOPER HELPED ASH into the chair, then he pulled up another one, and sat across from him so their kneed touched. “Give me your hands.”
Ash eyed him dubiously. “Is that wise?”
“Yes.” Cooper had stubborn written all over him. “Give me your hands and do as I say. This is one of those stupid exercises Uncle Owen taught us.”
Ash complied. Usually, he was the one telling Cooper what to do when it came to training. His gift, and anything he did, most people would consider extraordinary. Even he could tell he was currently impaired, however, so he put his hands into Cooper’s, and chose to trust his partner’s judgment.
“Good.” Cooper’s left palm was over his right palm, and his right palm was over his left. Like a mirror image. This was supposed to help somehow, and in an intuitive kind of way, Ash supposed it couldn’t hurt.
“I’m going to push power into your left hand,” Cooper said quietly. “Now you’re all centered, and calm, and you’re going to receive my power, and you’re going to push more power out your right hand. We are going to go around, and around, and around.”
Cooper’s eyes gained a hypnotic quality. Ash realized his words were almost exactly the same words Uncle Owen had used, and he wondered whether Cooper had been visualizing Uncle Owen sitting there on a rock with them, as though suspended in the air, every time they practiced.
Moments stretched, turning into interminable minutes. Ash was accustomed to sitting for a long time, all poised and focused, manipulating the thoughts that would become physical actions further downstream. Whatever Owen had been teaching them had helped with this routine task, even though the self-taught way Ash handled water was still a little different.
Except Owen wasn’t here. It was up to him and Cooper now to set themselves aright. The two of them together, working as a unit, on purpose, and for the first time.
“Would you like your tincture now, Ash dear?” Mrs. Sorensen whispered to his right.
Ash shook his head. He was focused now, and his focus cleared away that pounding, piercing pain straight out of his mind. It was as though Cooper had drained it away for him, using his hands like conduits, taking on that extra power that Ash had somehow, inexplicably, picked up from Cooper’s grandmother.
“It’s good.” Ash’s voice was merely a whisper. He was focused. He couldn’t move, and he couldn’t speak. Not much, anyway.
With his peripheral vision, he saw Mrs. Sorenson pull up her rocking chair and joined them in a circle.
She didn’t touch them.
There was no need. Ash could feel her power emanate, and hover around the edges, before she figured out the best way to join her energy into the circuit he and Cooper made. If Ash was able to feel her, he could only assume that Cooper, her grandson, could as well.
“A tornado is forming to the west,” she said calmly, as though she was reporting that dinner was ready. “Would you be a dear, Ash, and move it further north?”
Ash stretched his mind and felt for that big, tangled snarl of the storm again. Yes indeed, there it was. Forming over a plane, right in the middle, was a vortex of energy. If he allowed the swirling funnel of sharp air pressure gradients to manifest, it would become a monster strong enough to pick up cars. Rip roofs off houses. Cause damage, hurt people. Maybe even kill.
Twisters were bad news. He wasn’t a weather worker, but maybe he could do just enough with his water sense to nudge it. A few miles would do, if only to shift its path away from all those people who lived there.
“Harder!” Mrs. Sorensen hissed, focused and adamant.
Ash pushed. He extended his inner self, and felt as though he was flying through space, unaffected by the gale around him. His mind was a barrier, pushing the water that yearned to be free, waiting to deluge the earth underneath.
“We need the rain.” Ash didn’t realize he spoke.
“But not the tornado,” Mrs. Sorensen said. “Just a bit more! Here, use our power. I’ll give to Cooper, and Cooper will give to you.”
The air crackled around them.
“But I’ve never done this before,” he heard Cooper say.
Ash realized his own eyes were now closed and he couldn’t see what was going on around him. No, he was further up north, and all he could perceive was the storm that buffeted the earth, that threatened to shred as it played nearby. Its twisting air hungered for the cars that pulled over to the side and for the life force of the drivers that took refuge from the torrential downpour.
Ash gave it his all. All those people, stuck in their cars. In their little tin boxes that wouldn’t protect them. Fragile, breakable. Mortal.
He wasn’t in his body anymore.
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THE SURFACE of Lake Erie glistened under him, waves crashing against the pebble beach in violent outbursts, wind howling, air spinning.
The tornado he was pushing with all his might slowly made its way into this vast wilderness, where no people would come to harm. Once its funnel landed on the lake’s turbulent surface, it sucked water up into a spout as high as a tall office building, and threatened to take him along.
It wasn’t just the water that now powered through the vortex, it was its energy, too, and now that he pushed it around, it had a grasp on him.
It wanted part of him.
This wasn’t the river, this wasn’t the lake. These were not the waters which he understood and communed with on a daily basis. No, this was the air turning against him. And air was an element over which he held no sway.
Ash had offended it by pushing it around, and now the air wanted to fight back.
He tried to pull out, but the swirling air was luring him in, and Ash’s mind whirled, mesmerized by its patterns.
He knew he should center. Ground and center, come back into his body.
He needed to ground.
And ground meant rocks.
And rocks meant Cooper.
His only chance was to find Cooper now.
It was Cooper’s energy, that dull and dark power that tasted gritty and earthy and alien, that brought him back in the end. Cooper, whose center was a cold and stable rock, like the rock he could stand on under a waterfall. That tall boulder, ready to support him, and let him reach the air when he needed it.
Ash hearkened to it. There was something in his own heart – a small, hard, gray mass, that honed in on Cooper as though it was part of him.
It centered him.
The very ordinariness of it, the everyday quality of solid ground underfoot, that steady earth that so many took for granted – that was Cooper.
Cooper, who loved him.
Cooper, whom Ash loved back, and to whom he would always return.
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“ASH!” COOPER’S voice trembled with exertion and tears. Something hot and wet landed on Ash’s cheek, and he let it stay, because he knew it for what it was. Evidence of Cooper’s exertion moistened his skin and spoke of the power which he expended on Ash’s behalf.
“Ash, I thought we lost you!”
Mrs. Sorensen squeezed his hand. “You did great, Ash,” she said. “No matter where the tornado moved, you moved with it.” She cleared her throat. “You... you moved the whole weather system. Saved a lot of people. Lot of homes. That’s what we do, you know. The talents we have? We don’t waste time looking for diamonds. We use them doing good in the world.”
To his surprise, it was Cooper who spoke next. “I am so sorry, Grandma.” Cooper sounded ashamed, and Ash was wondering why.
“You didn’t know, dear. But now you do. Now that you can see what’s underground, and now that I can tell how strong your power signature is, you’re also starting to see that you have a great responsibility.”
Mrs. Sorensen fell silent for a while. It was only after Ash scrambled to his feet, after they had cleaned up and sat down at the dinner table with Mr. Sorensen who came home from the neighbor’s house, did she speak again. “I didn’t want this for you, Cooper. Back when you were a boy, Annabelle, your mother, she was so concerned that she couldn’t tell what you had. She couldn’t see you in her mind’s eye. I had looked into the future back then. I had looked, and I could see that you would either have no power at all and live an ordinary life, or that your power would be so great, it would control you.” She blinked, then turned her gaze at her grandson. “Perhaps even consume you.”
Cooper straightened. Questions boiled up in his mind as fast as that storm. “So what happened, Grandma?”
She shook her head with a wan smile. “You have great potential, Cooper. So great, I fear you’ll have to be very careful with it. And this is, I think, why you and Ash are together.” She paused, frowning. “This isn’t the life I wanted for you, but... it’s yours, and that’s just how things are.”
Mr. Sorensen cleared his throat. “There’s a way,” he said gruffly. He fished inside the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small, black fabric pouch. He set it on the worn kitchen table cloth, its glistening silk offset against faded vinyl flowers and vines. He pushed it gently into the middle. “This is for you, Cooper,” he said.
Cooper blinked hard in amazement. His grandfather wasn’t the kind of guy who would speak very often, or say very much. He was almost as short as his grandmother, broad in the shoulders, and Cooper knew him from woodworking in the shop downstairs, or from splitting firewood for later. Grandpa Sorensen didn’t say what didn’t need to be said.
Mindful of his propensity toward silence, Cooper picked up the little bag quietly, and undid the drawstring.
Out spilled a stone. It was polished, dark gray with long, thin lines that permeated it from top to bottom, as do crystals that grew in place a long time ago, and then were stretched along with the rest of the rock, molded by intense pressure and half-molten by searing heat. The flat oval was set in translucent, deep yellow plastic that had two holes drilled through it. A shiny, silky cord snaked through the holes.
Cooper picked it up, and examined it. The yellow setting was amber, as evidenced by a fossilized, webby wing of a long-gone insect. “This is beautiful,” he said. “And it looks like a necklace. What’s it for?”
His grandfather didn’t say anything, but his wife was never at loss for words.
“This is a ground-stone,” she said. “It’s attuned to your frequency. The frequency of your power signature, that is. It will help you ground yourself, as well as find your center. I’ve spoken about this issue between you and Ash, and the way you amplify each other, with a friend of mine. Remember Miss Stella? Well, she and your grandpa searched through the old books and found a way. Not many people do this anymore, there is really not much need to ground and center people, or to hide their abilities. After all, it’s not like we have villagers chasing us with pitchforks, trying to burn us at the stake anymore!”
While Cooper was examining the large piece of jewelry, Ash perked up with interest. “So if this helps shield somebody with a power signature and hide it from the others, is this what Uncle Owen was using?”
“Oh, no,” Mrs. Sorensen gave him a beaming smile. “Uncle Owen is a rule unto himself. He could always ground and center like a master, ever since he was a little boy! Uncle Owen doesn’t need a ground-stone at all. He seems to be one himself.”