The Gift

Chapter 46

Wisty

"WHAT?" I'M CAUGHT off guard-completely flabbergasted. Then it gets even weirder. Suddenly it's as if I'm at my piano lessons again, and he's Mr. John Masterson, my sweet-as-pie teacher, encouraging me to believe in myself. Say what?

"You have more than enough power to do it. Just tell the energy what it should do, and let it out. You saw what I did. Give your power that same image, and let it go. I have every confidence in you and your wonderful Gift."

He's out of his mind. Turning people into animals is, I admit, pretty cool, but it's, like, finite. Graspable. I can't wrap my mind around the sky, the wind, clouds, hurricanes-that's big-time.

"I can't do that," I whisper.

"Now, Wisteria," he says, a tone of threat creeping into his recently soothing voice.

I close my eyes and try to remember exactly how the clouds raced in over the city, how they joined together and began to swirl like an upside-down, ink-filled toilet flushing in the sky, the lights of the city twinkling below and almost disappearing as the rain whipped down. I let the tune of Mrs. Highsmith's song work as a soundtrack as I imagine it all playing before me… Can I actually do this? More important, do I want to? How can I live, and be the same person, with so much power?

And then I feel my heart flip inside me. My whole being flips.

"Idiot!" he screams.

I open my eyes. The clouds are exactly where they were. The only thing that's changed is that the city has gone entirely dark; even the lights in the room are out. We're bathed in evening shadow.

"You put out the lights, Wisty. All the lights," whispers Whit.