Neverseen (9 page)

Sophie cringed at the reminder of how serious the consequences of that single act had been. She still hadn’t shaken her doubts that it was related to the Wildwood plague.

“We cannot be hasty with our efforts,” Granite told them. “We must be strategic.”

“That doesn’t mean we should waste time, either,” Keefe argued.

“Do not fool yourself into believing you are the only one feeling impatient,” Mr. Forkle warned him. “Tell me, do
you
know the names of the dwarves we lost on Mount Everest? They were Ermete, Irja, and Kun—and Yegor is still in critical condition. They were dear friends and we are anxious to avenge them. But that is not an excuse to take foolhardy actions.”

“I know you’ve all spent months solving clues on your own and disobeying adults,” Granite added. “But you must remember
we
were the ones guiding you through that.”

“We figured out a few things on our own,” Fitz argued.

“Indeed, you did,” Granite agreed. “Which is why we’re glad to work with you. But we must be a
team
.”

“That’d be easier to believe if you guys weren’t keeping so many secrets,” Sophie reminded them.

“The only secrets we keep are
ours
,” Mr. Forkle said.

“What about the memories you stole from my head?” Sophie had two blank spots in her mind. One from when she was nine and had an allergic reaction to limbium—an elvin substance Mr. Forkle must’ve given her for some reason. The other was from when she was five, and Mr. Forkle triggered her telepathy. She could vaguely recall seeing a boy in elvin clothes disappear—but she couldn’t remember who he was.

“Those memories were
mine
,” she said. “And you took them and expect me to pretend it’s not a big deal.”

Mr. Forkle let out another long sigh and turned to telepathically debate with the Collective. As the silence stretched on, Sophie braced for a long “You kids” lecture.

But when Mr. Forkle finally spoke, he said, “Very well. In the interest of earning your trust, would you like your memory back?”

S
OPHIE HAD TO
let the sentence slosh around in her mind before the words could soak in. Once they did, something still felt wrong.

“You mean memori
es
, right?” she asked. “You stole two.”

“We are only offering one—the memory I know you desire the most.”

“The Boy Who Disappeared?” Sophie asked, and the Collective nodded.

Sophie turned to her friends, knowing she wouldn’t get a better offer. When she had their approval, she told the Collective, “Okay.”

“All right, then,” Mr. Forkle said, reaching for her temples.

Sophie flinched back. “Wait—you’re doing it now? Since when is anything with you guys ever that easy?”

She glanced at her right hand, where a small star-shaped scar commemorated the time Mr. Forkle reset her abilities. He’d had to give her an entire ounce of limbium and then inject her with a modified human remedy to stop the allergic reaction from killing her.

Mr. Forkle cleared his throat. “Returning memories is a simple process—though you should prepare yourself for the fact that this memory was taken to spare you additional worry.”

“I still want it back. Just like I want the other memory.” She turned to the Collective, trying to find their eyes amid their crazy disguises. “If you won’t return it now, I think I deserve a guarantee that you’ll give it back to me eventually.”

“You deserve that and more,” Granite said. “So we can agree to your term—as long as you understand that
we
will choose when to return the other memory.”

Sophie agreed, and Mr. Forkle turned to Fitz. “I’d like to have you assist.”

“Why him?” Dex asked. “If you need another Telepath, why not use Granite?”

“Because Miss Foster trusts Mr. Vacker,” Mr. Forkle said. “And the two of them have an extremely unique connection. In fact, we’re hoping to train them as Cognates.”

“REALLY?” Fitz asked, his eyes sparkling.

“What’s a Cognate?” Sophie asked.

“An incredibly rare telepathic relationship,” Granite explained. “One very few Telepaths are able to achieve. I know I’ve never found anyone I could partner with.”

“Neither have I,” Mr. Forkle agreed. “Cognates combine their power through a deep personal connection. It’s too early to know if you’re truly compatible, but it’s worth exploring—especially given the potential we’ve witnessed. On your own, Miss Foster, you came far closer to reading an ogre’s mind than any have before. Perhaps with the combined strength of a Cognate you would find true success—though I’m definitely
not
suggesting you attempt to probe an ogre’s mind again. I’m simply illustrating the potential. Your telepathy has proven far superior to even my most optimistic calculations. If you and Mr. Vacker achieve Cognatedom, it would reach another level entirely.”

“You want to try it, right?” Fitz asked as Sophie resisted tugging on her eyelashes.

“Of course I do.”

“Ha, nice try, Foster,” Keefe said. “I can feel your dread all the way over here.”

“It’s not
dread
,” she argued. “It’s just a lot of pressure. I don’t want to let anyone down.”

“You could never let me down.” Fitz said something else too, but it was drowned out by the plethora of gagging sounds coming from Dex and Keefe.

“Don’t Cognates have to share
all
their secrets with each other?” Biana asked.

Mr. Forkle nodded. “It’s how they reach the necessary level of trust.”

Keefe smirked. “Okay,
now
I feel the dread.”

“A perfectly normal reaction,” Granite told him. “Sophie has been alone with her secrets for a very long time. Sharing them so openly is a whole new concept—one, I might add, that I myself have never been comfortable with.”

“Yeah,” Sophie agreed. “Plus . . . this could be super dangerous—”

“Nope! We’re not doing the ‘I’m trying to protect you’ speech again,” Fitz interrupted. “You’re not allowed to worry about me anymore—and
I
don’t want to have to worry about
you
. That’s why I want to do this. A Cognate is a Telepath’s ultimate backup. I promise, I won’t be mad if it doesn’t work out. But isn’t it worth trying?”

He looked so adorably excited, Sophie could feel her cheeks blushing.

“Okay,” she whispered.

“Wonderful! So come over here, Mr. Vacker,” Mr. Forkle ordered. “I want your minds to be connected as I return Miss Foster’s memory.”

Sophie’s mouth went desert dry as Fitz and Mr. Forkle reached for her temples.

“Try to let your mind relax, Miss Foster,” Mr. Forkle told
her. “And let me know once you clear the point of trust, Mr. Vacker.”

The Black Swan had designed Sophie’s mind with a hidden entry point, where her subconscious could pull someone past her mental blocking. Apparently they had to transmit some sort of password to convince her mind she could trust them.

She had no idea what word Fitz used, but he grinned and said, “I’m in!”

“Very good,” Mr. Forkle told him. “Her mind is trusting you much faster.”

“Of
course
it is,” Dex grumbled.

“I’m going to return the memory,” Mr. Forkle said. “And it can be a bit disorienting, so perhaps you should hold someone’s hand, Miss Foster.”

Dex and Keefe both offered, but Biana wrapped an arm around Sophie’s waist and had Sophie lean against her.

“On three,” Mr. Forkle said.

Sophie braced for pain, but when he got to “three” all she felt was a whisper of cold.

“Is that it?” she asked. “I don’t see the memory.”

“It takes a moment to register on your consciousness. You should feel it . . .
now
.”

Sophie swayed as the memory hit, fighting to get her bearings. It felt like her mind had been dropped into the middle of a movie running on fast forward.

That’s me,
she realized as the scene slowed to a normal pace and she watched her five-year-old self reading on the steps in front of her small square house.

What book is that?
Fitz transmitted.

Looks like an encyclopedia. I read the whole thing from A to Z by the time I was six.

She wasn’t supposed to be reading that day. Her mom had ordered her to go outside and play with Bethany Lopez, the first-grader who lived across the street. But Bethany had called her Dorktionary and told her to go spell something. Sophie had just beaten a fifth grader in her school’s spelling bee. She didn’t understand why everyone was making such big deal about it. Why did it matter that she was only in kindergarten? Why was her principal talking to her parents about having her skip grades?

That was the real reason her parents had sent her outside. They’d caught her listening to their whispered conversation. She’d still heard three words, though: “She’s not normal.”

Sophie could feel her eyes burn as her emotions synced with the memory. Her five-year-old self hadn’t understood why it was so hard to fit in like her parents wanted. She’d been thinking about running away when she’d felt the prickly sense of someone watching her.

She could feel Fitz lean closer as they relived the moment she’d looked up and spotted the strange boy in the blue bramble jersey. He was peeking at her from behind her yard’s
sycamore tree—or she assumed he was. His head was turned her way, but his face was a blur.

Sophie fought to focus the memory, but the boy remained fuzzy, even as he raised a crystal up to the sunlight and disappeared.
Now
Sophie knew he’d light leaped—but at the time she’d been terrified she’d seen a ghost. She’d grabbed her book and raced for the safety of her house. But her toe caught on the concrete stairs, and the last thing she remembered was the ground racing toward her and a sharp pain in her head.

From there the memory skipped to the part Sophie already knew: waking up in the hospital, hearing thoughts for the first time and crying because she couldn’t understand what was happening.

Whoa
, Fitz transmitted.
The voices feel like knives.

I know,
Sophie thought, fighting to shut down the memory. Her mind seemed determined to relive every second.

I knew it had to be scary, manifesting so young,
Fitz said,
but I never realized it was like that.

Fitz’s hands were shaking now, sharing five-year-old Sophie’s terror as she’d screamed and thrashed, begging someone to make the voices stop. The doctors hovered around her, sticking her with needles, checking equipment.

How long was it like this before you figured it out?
Fitz asked.

The doctors gave her another sedative,
Mr. Forkle told them,
and while she was out I was able to plant the truth in her mind so
she’d understand I’d tried to do that before, but hadn’t been able to reach her while the ability was still manifesting.

That makes sense,
Sophie thought.
I remember somehow
knowing
that I was hearing thoughts. Also that I couldn’t ever tell anyone. I’d never felt so alone.

I’m sorry,
Mr. Forkle said.

“Uh, are you guys okay?” Keefe asked. “Foster’s emotions are spiking all over the place, and Fitz feels . . . weird.”

“I’m fine,” Sophie promised, shaking her head to clear it. She turned to Mr. Forkle. “But I still can’t see the boy’s face, or how you triggered my telepathy.”

“You were unconscious for the telepathy triggering. And the boy’s face is blurry because he was wearing an addler. It’s a gadget that makes it impossible for your eyes to focus on the wearer’s face. They were very popular during the Human Assistance Program, since humans forget anyone they cannot recognize.”

“Why would the boy have one?” Sophie asked. “And who was he? Why was he there?”

“Those are the questions I’ve been trying to answer for the last eight years. Obviously he’s with the Neverseen, but I have no idea how he found you, or why he didn’t seem to realize what you truly were. I’m glad he didn’t, because I wasn’t watching you as closely back then. I hadn’t even known you were outside until I heard the neighbor girl shouting that you’d fallen. I ran out to check and found you bleeding and unconscious. When I probed your recent memories, I realized you’d seen an elf and
I was tempted to grab you and flee. But there were too many people watching. Plus, the boy had disappeared, and I hoped that meant he’d crossed you off whatever list he was working from. Still, I decided to move up your timeline just in case. I called 9-1-1 and triggered your telepathy, knowing the head injury would be an excuse to help your mind accept the new ability. I also altered your memory to be sure you’d forget the boy. And then I never let you out of my sight again.”

“If you erased the memory that quickly,” Keefe asked, “how did Foster write about the boy in her journal?”

“I merely hid the memory at first. I was trying to avoid interfering any more than I had to. But the memory kept resurfacing. Sophie’s mind had latched on to the moment to try to understand it. When I caught her writing in her journal, I knew I had to be more drastic. That night I washed the moment completely and tore the page out of her journal.”

“So you
did
sneak into my room while I slept?” Sophie asked, feeling especially squirmy when he nodded.

“My job was far from easy, Miss Foster. I had to ready your abilities, keep you safe, and still have you believe you were a regular human girl.”

“You failed pretty epically at the last one,” Sophie mumbled. “If you’d wanted me to feel normal, maybe you shouldn’t have made me read minds—or at least taught me how to block the thoughts I didn’t want to hear.”

“Believe me, I tried. Certain skills need conscious training,
and I couldn’t reveal the truth to you yet. So every night I searched your memories and helped your mind set aside anything too upsetting. I also tried to help with your headaches—don’t you remember how I was always asking about them? I even gave your mother remedies to try, but I doubt she gave them to you. She wasn’t a fan of medicine. She made it clear at her first fertility appointment that she was only there as a last resort. It was one of the reasons I selected her. So many human remedies do more harm than good, and I had to ensure you wouldn’t be subjected to them constantly. The few times you went to the doctor, I had to monitor what they gave you and then find ways to undo the damage. I also had to change your records to ensure you looked human on paper—and your hospital stays were even worse. So many files to erase and treatments to adjust. You have no idea what a nightmare it was.”