Read Online The Ability (Ability, The) by M.M. Vaughan - Free Book Online
Authors: M.M. Vaughan
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blood?”
“Yes, Mother.”
“And now I ask a simple favor: one year of your life dedicated to the repayment of my kindness. In return you will live a comfortable and wealthy life, and all of this”—she motioned around her—“will be yours. Tell me, Ernest, is that too much to ask of you?”
Ernest shook his head.
“Do you want to go back to the orphanage? Without your brother? I waited a very long time for twins to be given up so that I would have two children to teach the Ability to at the same time, but if you do not feel that you can cope, then I am certain your brother will manage without you.”
Ernest felt tears form and wiped them away with the back of his hand.
“No, Mother. Please don’t send me back. I’ll be good.”
Dulcia nodded, satisfied.
“The kitten may have seemed harmless, but what I am asking of the both of you requires resolve far greater than giving a kitten a few bruises. If you couldn’t manage that simple task, how will I know to trust you to be able to look a person in the eyes and destroy them forever?”
Ernest sat up suddenly.
“But that’s different, Mother. Those people hurt you. They are bad people.”
Dulcia gave a rare smile.
“Well, that’s true. Nevertheless, I need you to be strong in mind. I need you to do as your brother tells you, because we don’t know what is going to happen, and it won’t always be as easy as it was with Cecil Humphries. Your brother’s Ability is stronger than yours, and I need you to trust him. Do you trust him?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now, lie back down in your bed, and I want the two of you to listen to me carefully. I have told you the story of what happened to me every night for the last seven years, and I’ve trusted that you will sense the fear and suffering I endured from when I was twelve years old and still known as Anna Willows. However, I know that to fully understand what happened to me, you must experience the night those traitors abandoned me, so that you can truly understand why I want them to suffer. Do you understand?”
The boys looked at each other and, reassured by the look of confusion on the other’s face, shook their heads.
“Tonight I will allow you both to use your Ability to see for yourselves what happened that night.”
The look on the faces of Ernest and Mortimer made it clear that they were none the wiser.
“I’m going to let you read my mind.”
“Oh,” gasped Ernest in surprise.
“However, there are some rules, and I expect you to abide by them or there will be serious consequences. Understood?”
Ernest and Mortimer nodded solemnly.
“I am going to think about the incidents that I want you to witness. If it is something I am thinking about, then where will you have to go to access the memory?” Dulcia looked over at Mortimer.
“In Reception, the first room you enter in the mind, where current thoughts are stored.”
“Good. That means you must go no farther. Remember,I know how far you have gone by how loud the ringing in my ears is. If you attempt to go any further than Reception, I will know, we will stop immediately, and you will be punished. Do you understand?”
Both boys nodded solemnly.
“Well, then, you may begin.”
Ernest sat up as Mortimer did the same, and he turned to his mother. He focused on her eyes, black and still, and felt himself drawn into her mind until he was standing in a vast room filled with a single dark image that slowly surrounded him as he traveled back to the memory of a night thirty years earlier—a memory that started with his mother as a twelve-year-old child sitting with a group of other children in the back of a van.
• • •
The last thing Ernest and Mortimer saw, before their mother instructed them to stop, was Anna Willows looking in a mirror hanging in the cold, gray cellar that was to become her bedroom for the next six years, tears streaming down from her brilliant emerald-green eyes, calling for her parents.
Although
“Yes, Mother.”
“And now I ask a simple favor: one year of your life dedicated to the repayment of my kindness. In return you will live a comfortable and wealthy life, and all of this”—she motioned around her—“will be yours. Tell me, Ernest, is that too much to ask of you?”
Ernest shook his head.
“Do you want to go back to the orphanage? Without your brother? I waited a very long time for twins to be given up so that I would have two children to teach the Ability to at the same time, but if you do not feel that you can cope, then I am certain your brother will manage without you.”
Ernest felt tears form and wiped them away with the back of his hand.
“No, Mother. Please don’t send me back. I’ll be good.”
Dulcia nodded, satisfied.
“The kitten may have seemed harmless, but what I am asking of the both of you requires resolve far greater than giving a kitten a few bruises. If you couldn’t manage that simple task, how will I know to trust you to be able to look a person in the eyes and destroy them forever?”
Ernest sat up suddenly.
“But that’s different, Mother. Those people hurt you. They are bad people.”
Dulcia gave a rare smile.
“Well, that’s true. Nevertheless, I need you to be strong in mind. I need you to do as your brother tells you, because we don’t know what is going to happen, and it won’t always be as easy as it was with Cecil Humphries. Your brother’s Ability is stronger than yours, and I need you to trust him. Do you trust him?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now, lie back down in your bed, and I want the two of you to listen to me carefully. I have told you the story of what happened to me every night for the last seven years, and I’ve trusted that you will sense the fear and suffering I endured from when I was twelve years old and still known as Anna Willows. However, I know that to fully understand what happened to me, you must experience the night those traitors abandoned me, so that you can truly understand why I want them to suffer. Do you understand?”
The boys looked at each other and, reassured by the look of confusion on the other’s face, shook their heads.
“Tonight I will allow you both to use your Ability to see for yourselves what happened that night.”
The look on the faces of Ernest and Mortimer made it clear that they were none the wiser.
“I’m going to let you read my mind.”
“Oh,” gasped Ernest in surprise.
“However, there are some rules, and I expect you to abide by them or there will be serious consequences. Understood?”
Ernest and Mortimer nodded solemnly.
“I am going to think about the incidents that I want you to witness. If it is something I am thinking about, then where will you have to go to access the memory?” Dulcia looked over at Mortimer.
“In Reception, the first room you enter in the mind, where current thoughts are stored.”
“Good. That means you must go no farther. Remember,I know how far you have gone by how loud the ringing in my ears is. If you attempt to go any further than Reception, I will know, we will stop immediately, and you will be punished. Do you understand?”
Both boys nodded solemnly.
“Well, then, you may begin.”
Ernest sat up as Mortimer did the same, and he turned to his mother. He focused on her eyes, black and still, and felt himself drawn into her mind until he was standing in a vast room filled with a single dark image that slowly surrounded him as he traveled back to the memory of a night thirty years earlier—a memory that started with his mother as a twelve-year-old child sitting with a group of other children in the back of a van.
• • •
The last thing Ernest and Mortimer saw, before their mother instructed them to stop, was Anna Willows looking in a mirror hanging in the cold, gray cellar that was to become her bedroom for the next six years, tears streaming down from her brilliant emerald-green eyes, calling for her parents.
Although
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