The Dregs of Murder

"I should have never brought this to the Council," Vicki growled.

"No... you shouldn't have... and I wish to God you hadn't."

"How long?" I asked. "How long will I have to stay here?"

Keller looked at Lena and nodded. Suddenly I felt... different somehow, like something that had been confusing was suddenly clear. I started to reach out and instantly I felt the fuzziness return. After a moment, it was gone again.

"I need your word," Keller said.

"How long?"

"Until you have basic control over your gift... so you don't do what you started to do just now. Learning to fully use your gift will be a lifetime task... but I need your word that you won't try to access your gift until we can teach you basic control."

"How... long...?" I asked a third time.

"As long as it takes. A day or two, or maybe years. It's up to you." He offered me a small smile. "I can tell you're a smart, willful, young woman. I have little doubt you will grasp the fundamentals of control quickly."

"And once I do that, I can leave? I can have my own life?"

"So long as you uphold your oath, yes." He paused. "I do hope, if you can ever forgive me, that you will consider allow me to... borrow... your gift from time to time."

"Borrow?"

Keller nodded. "I'm a historian, Camille. There are so many questions that, once you can fully control your gift, you may be able to answer. Imagine, going back to understand the meaning of Stonehenge, or the Easter Island monoliths, or to see the debate and the signing of the Magna Carta, or witness the battle of Thermopylae. You could go back and observe what really happened at any event in history. Think of what we could learn, how your gift could revolutionize our understanding of ourselves."

"You want to use me," I said flatly.

"No... I want to..." He paused, clearly considering what he wanted to say. "You can be the greatest historian the world will ever know... and I'd very much like to be at your side."

"I never liked history," I said, just to be a bitch.

He smiled. "I believe I can change your mind about that if you'll give me... give the world... a chance." He paused. "I want you to succeed, Camille, if only for my own selfish reasons. I'm not your enemy, and I'd like to be your ally... but I need your word that you'll allow Lena and me to begin training you."

"What do you think?" I asked Vicki again.

"It's your life and your choice... but I agree with Keller, no matter what you decide, you must keep our secret and only use your gift for good."

"But what do you think I should do?"

She was quiet for a long moment. "I think... you should agree to be trained. After that, it's up to you. I don't want you to go through life being less than you could be."

I considered a moment, watching her face, trying to read if she was just saying the words or if she actually meant them. I turned my attention to Keller. "Okay. I agree."

"To what?" Keller asked.

"To training, and to not use my gift without your supervision until you say so."

Keller and Lena both visibly relaxed. "Thank you," Lena said softly.

"Let me be clear about one thing," Vicki said, her voice cold and hard as she stepped behind me and put her hands on my shoulders. "She's my niece, and now that she's given you her word, if you, Lena, the Council, the Guild, anyone tries to hurt or control her... it won't be pretty." She paused for a moment. "Have I made myself abundantly clear?"

Keller smiled as he walked the three steps to me, turned, and stood as if guarding me. "Completely."

Lena, her eyes welling with tears, joined us. "Same here."

I watched as Maggie dropped her mother's locket from her hand into her father's. "Can you give this back to Mom?"

"Testing Cam?" he asked as he placed the jewelry in the right front pocket of his jeans.

"Yep." She glanced around. "Hey Cam!" she said with a wave. I knew she couldn't see me because she was looking in the wrong direction when she greeted me.

I opened my eyes. Lena had asked me to find out what Maggie had taken, from who, and who'd she'd given it to a couple of hours ago while I was trying to move the saltshaker from the edge of the table to its proper place in the center. The damn shaker was still right where it had been placed after breakfast, but I wondered what people watching would see if I ever succeeded.

I was plumbing unknown territory and Keller was trying to understand how my gift might affect things in the present. With him observing and coaching, we were starting out slowly. Moving the saltshaker from the edge of the table to the center probably wouldn't affect anything... he hoped.

I smiled with my success. "I had to follow you around nearly an hour before I saw what you did, but you took your mother's locket, gave it to your dad, and he put it in his pants pocket to give back to her. Oh... and hey back to you."

"Which pocket?" Lena asked.

"His right."

Lena looked at Maggie who nodded. "You annoy the hell out of me, you know that?" Maggie growled, but she was smiling.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because... it's so easy for you. I'd be lucky to see the locket, or whose hand I put it in, or what he did with it. I might get a bit of it... but you... you just... I don't know... hung around and waited."

I shrugged. "I could do that only because you just did it."

"Doesn't matter! The fact you can do it at all... Now you can do it if it happened in the last few hours. Pretty soon, as you learn control, it'll be a day, then a week, then a month... then who knows?"

Seeing something that happened in the last hour or so was easy, but the farther back I went, the harder it was to get there, and to stay there. I'd told Lena it was like walking up a hill that got ever steeper until I kept slipping back. Yesterday, as an experiment, I'd reached as far back as I could. It was hard work, and I hadn't been able to stay long before I found myself back in the present. I had no idea where or when I was, but when I described what I'd seen, Keller thought I was probably in the mid to late ninth century somewhere in Italy, based on my description of the building I'd seen.

As had happened in all my visions, when I traveled, my trip to the past was instantaneous for my present self, and the people watching me said all they saw was a slow blink, no matter how long I was gone. The blink was because to access my gift, I had to close my eyes to minimize the distractions so I could focus and see my album.

I'd learned that the farther back I went, the less control I had. Popping back a day, I could be off a few hours... a year or so, and I could be off days... but going way back, I could be off decades from when I intended to go.

I was still trying to figure out how to make myself heard and to interact with my surroundings. I knew I could, because I had, but I couldn't figure out how I'd managed to do the things I'd done. I was also trying to learn to manifest, something that Keller, Lena, and Mattie thought I could do since I could interact with my environment. The problem was, so far as anyone knew, none of the other sighted could do any of the things I seemed to be able to. Because there was literally nobody who could coach me on how to manipulate my environment or be seen and heard, I had to figure it all out on my own.

I was bumbling my way along, trying to figure out how to control my travels, and how to ensure I arrived where and when I wanted. It was fun, like playing with a new toy, but it could also be frustrating. Maggie, Lena, and Keller said I was making amazing progress, but I still felt like a clumsy oaf, always arriving at the wrong time or wrong place, no matter how hard I tried to get it right.

It had been two days since Lena and Keller enacted their plan to free my gift. I hadn't forgiven them, but they were so apologetic that I was no longer so angry with them that I considered leaving the island. Where I once thought of Lena as more than a teacher, now I treated her like Professor Brodie, my biology professor when I was still in nursing school. Professor Brodie might have been a good teacher, but I thought she was about as much fun as a myomectomy, and I had no interest in interacting with her more than necessary. Lena had noted my change in attitude toward her, so she was using Mattie as a buffer between me and her, to give me some space.

I hadn't seen Landon since I'd decked him. He didn't eat with us, taking his food from whatever was leftover and eating in his room. He still did his share of the chores, but he clearly wanted to work alone, and everyone was willing to let him. He hadn't spoken to anyone, other than Keller and Lena, except to mumble an occasional apology in passing. I'd felt sorry for him before, and in some ways, I still did, but I hadn't forgiven him for holding a knife to Aunt Vicki's neck... even if it was just a butterknife.

Keller and Lena had taken all the blame for the kidnapping on themselves and urged us to not blame Landon. They told us he hadn't wanted to do it, and had refused several times, but they'd convinced him it was the only way for them to break my gift free, and if he didn't do as they asked, I would probably never reach my potential. After several days of pressure, he'd finally relented. The thing that irked me the most was Keller admitted he'd told Landon that everyone knew what was happening except for Aunt Vicki and me as a sweetener to convince him, when the exact opposite was true.

I knew Landon felt guilty, so guilty that he'd tried to leave the island that night, but not knowing how to operate the boat, he'd grounded it on the bank in the dark. Before he could get it free, Jim and Kevin, with the help of Grace, had hauled him out of the boat and back to the house.

Jim decided that Landon was going to have to spend a little more time on the island whether he wanted to or not. Keller and Lena, as masters, had an obligation to bring matters such as this before the Council if someone petitioned them to do so. The Council, based in London, meted out justice in cases of the gifted violating their laws, and Jim intended to make sure Landon was punished.

They hadn't been gentle with him either, and that was when Keller had intervened, told us how he'd lied to the man, and asked us to not be too harsh in our judgement. Jim hadn't cared and still insisted that the matter be presented to the Council. Keller agreed, as was his duty, but he encouraged Jim to take a few days and think about who deserved the punishment, seemingly willing to accept most, or all, of the blame for Landon's actions.

Before Landon had tried to flee, Jim and I had gotten most of the details from Aunt Vicki, with Keller's admission filling in the parts Vicki hadn't known. Keller's confession had softened everyone's hostile attitude toward Landon, myself included, but nobody had asked him to rejoin the group. I know Aunt Vicki was still nursing a grudge, and I wasn't feeling very charitable toward the man myself.

Keller and Lena's plan had been carefully constructed. At Landon's suggestion, he and Vicki had left the others at the laundromat while they left to go shopping. In the store, Landon had disappeared. She hadn't missed him at first, but after she'd paid for the food, she'd searched the store for him. Not finding him, and not knowing what else to do, she'd started loading the food into her Range Rover.

Unknown to anyone other than the three conspirators, Keller had given Landon Versed in an intranasal spray, the anti-seizure medication purchased days earlier in Burlington. As Vicki unloaded the last of the items from the trolly, Landon had snuck up behind her and sprayed her in the face with the drug. Because the drug hadn't been administered properly, it hadn't rendered her unconscious, but the Midazolam was sufficiently fast-acting, even in such a low dose, it had made her groggy and sluggish enough for him to quickly bundle her into the back of the Range Rover.

Before she could recover, he'd bound her feet and hands, and pulled the pillowcase over her head. He'd then driven her to the Midtown Motel, a dilapidated motel on its last legs that asked no questions of its guests. The location had been perfect for Keller's needs because the only people who stayed there had no other choice and minded their own business.

The caper had been fully planned by Keller. He'd obtained the knock-out drug using a prescription he'd obtained from another gifted, who was a doctor, and rented the room. All Landon had to do was to scare Vicki enough that, maybe, my gift would reveal itself. I had to grudgingly give the three credit, because that was the push I needed to access my gift.

I couldn't understand how Ken or Aunt Vicki being in trouble, or Mom being attacked, could activate my gift when I didn't know anything about it. Everyone on the island, with the exception of Landon, had brainstormed about it over lunch yesterday. Nobody knew for certain, but the hypothesis the group formed was that I was connected to time, somehow, and I could subconsciously sense the disturbance of someone I cared about.

Though I had no way of knowing if I'd seen what had happened to Mom, or what was about to happen to her, Aunt Vicki's kidnapping had happened more than two hours before I'd realized it. That was why the boat had arrived before we could put a rescue plan into motion. She'd already escaped on her own by beating the shit out of Landon with her power when she decided help wasn't coming.

She'd been in the room only a handful of minutes, still recovering from the second spray of the drug, when I arrived the first time. When I hadn't come back, she'd thought she was on her own. She'd been afraid her kidnapper would kill her, but she'd decided she'd rather die than be subjected to experiments. Landon had made the mistake of checking her bindings when she complained they were too tight, and once Vicki knew for certain where he was, she'd gone on the offensive. Though I'd tried to return to the same moment I left, my second visit had been more than forty minutes after my first, even though only a handful of minutes had passed for me.

It sounded like all mumbo-jumbo to me, but as I was so new to having a gift, I didn't have anything to add to the conversation. Now that Keller had freed my gift, and I could control it to some degree, I didn't know if I'd lost the ability to have someone reach out to me from the past, but I'd decided it didn't matter.

I'd been practicing my control. When I first started trying to travel, it was anyone's guess when, or where, I'd end up. Now I'd come up with a system that was working for me. Traveling was like looking at thousands of pictures all laid out before me, like a giant album where I could see all the pictures at once. I knew the pictures were symbolic, but it was how I had to think about it, otherwise I had no control over where or when I'd go. Somehow, I knew exactly when and where each picture would take me, even if I didn't know where the place was located. It was that way when I reached back to medieval Italy. I'd seen that building somewhere before, maybe in school, and I wanted to arrive at that church-like building because it was the oldest thing I could pick out from my album, but I had no idea where or when it was. I was going to have to learn a lot more about history to recognize the places in my album.

When I first learned to control my gift, I could choose from hundreds of pictures. Now I had many thousands to choose from. Soon, I might have millions, or billions as my control improved and I could slice time into smaller and smaller increments.

I was getting better with practice, and now I considered arriving within an hour of when I wanted and expected, a win. Like with most things, I improved a lot the first day, but the more I improved, the harder it was for me to improve further. Getting to where I could arrive within a minute or two of when I wanted was going to take some serious practice. The good news, I guess, was I could practice a lot without wasting any time since my travels didn't affect the now me at all. I hoped, if I got good enough, and could learn to manipulate objects in the past, I could go back to the day Mom was killed and do what I couldn't do then. I didn't know what I could do to prevent Mom's death... maybe let the air out of one of Figgette's tires or something, delaying him enough so that he didn't arrive until I'd returned with the thermostat.

"It astounds me how much you've improved in the last three days," Lena said. I shrugged. "I'm serious Cam, your progress is simply amazing. Maybe it's because you're an adult, or you have all your power and simply need to learn how to use it, but whatever the reason, you're doing amazingly well."

"If you say so," I mumbled as I warmed with her praise.

"Want to try to move the saltshaker again?" Maggie asked with a grin.

I huffed. "I can't do it."

"Of course you can," Lena said. "Vicki could feel you touching her. If you can touch her, you can touch the saltshaker."

"Touching is one thing... moving is another."

"Landon said he felt you pull on his mask, Lena pointed out." I looked away, not wanting to talk about Landon. "The saltshaker is no different."

"It's heavier."

"Your point?" Keller challenged. "You're not actually there, so what difference does that make? It's not like you're using your muscles to move it."

I released another long sigh. "Okay. I guess I can try again."

"That's the spirit," he said. "If you move it even a little, I'll take your turn washing dishes tonight."

I grunted out a single chuckle. "So... a bribe?"

"If it works..."

I closed my eyes and reached back.

The shaker was in the center of the table, the windows were dark, and the house was silent.

I stepped back into myself to try again. I reached out again.

Everyone was sitting around the table, the remains of breakfast before us. I considered waiting, but I decided this would be a good time to practice my control. Breakfast was two or three hours ago, and I was sure I could get closer than that.

I again pulled back into myself and then reached out again.

Now the shaker was in the center of the table.

Not knowing when I'd arrived, I pulled back in annoyance and reached out a fourth time.

This time the shaker was where I expected it to be. Taking a deep breath to fortify myself, I walked to the table and grasped the shaker. I could feel it in my hand, but when I tried to move it, it was like it was slippery and I couldn't hold it. I stared at the shaker a moment before taking it with both hands. I thought it was going to move, but again it slipped from my grasp. I glared at it. This was like every time I tried to move something. I narrowed my eyes and really focused. The damn shaker was going to move this time! I grasped it with both hands, squeezed it as tightly as I could, and strained to move it. Every time I felt it start to slip, I reset my grasp and tried again, trying to lift it instead of sliding it this time. Nothing changed, and when it slipped from my hands, I slapped at it in annoyance.

"Dammit!" I snarled, and then gasped in surprise as the shaker tumbled across the table, salt spilling as it spun and rolled. "Holy shit!" I barked.

I reached for the shaker, but like before, I couldn't get a grip on it. I tried everything I could think of, including swearing and batting at it like a cat, but it refused to move. I finally gave up and stared at it. It was still laying on its side halfway between the edge and the center of the table. At least I'd moved it... and that was something.