The Gift

Chapter 47

Wisty

THE ONE IS PAST polite whispering. "You turned off the city's electricity!" he screams. "Reactivate it immediately!"

I try, but I don't know how I did it in the first place, much less how to reverse it. Hum Mrs. Highsmith's song backward? I can't. I'm panicked.

"You chaotic child!" he says. "You really don't have a shred of control, do you? Now The One Who Manages The Power Grid and his incompetent minions will be spending hours attempting to repair what you so blithely have done!"

I'm madly trying to think of a poem about light dawning. There must be one! Why is my mind like a slushie when I'm around The One?

He pauses as some deeply unpleasant thought settles into his mind.

"Do you have any idea how much power it takes to do what you've just done? Or the applications to which such an ability might be put? Do you?"

He grabs my head in his long-fingered hands. It's no longer a warm touch. His skin is so cold it stings. He's hurting me now. A lot.

"Time for a pop quiz, my dear Wistful," he says ominously. "Do you remember anything, anything at all, from your Biology 101 class? How about physics? Chemistry?" His hands are pressing harder into my temples.

"I… must've… skipped… those," I manage to eke out through my clenched teeth. This is pain like I've never experienced before.

"Ah. I should have expected as much from a truant. What a shame that you know so little," he spits out, "about your Gifts. About how the functioning of the human mind, and thus the body, is controlled by electrical impulses. Electricity, in a sense."

The One's coldness extends invisible tentacles inside me. Ice is growing down my spine. "And I… should care… because…?"

"You. Foolish. Child!" he screams, shaking my head now, practically crushing my skull. "You have no respect for what you've been given!"

I try to flame up but realize I can't. He's entirely draining the magic from me. All the warmth is slipping from my body. Like I'm dying. He's actually killing me right now, isn't he?

My legs buckle, and a whimper squeaks out of me. Whit snaps out of his trance and swings around in alarm to help, but The One lets me drop and fends him off with an elbow. The One's mere touch sends Whit sprawling back on the floor and slamming up against the far wall as if he is a rag doll.

"All that power inside you," The One Who Is The One says, his eyes once again flashing pure evil, "to control the mind. Everyone's minds. The entire world at your fingertips."

Suddenly the cold stops, and he backs away with a rueful smile.

"I frankly don't know whether to be impressed or depressed."