Boundary Crossed (Boundary Magic #1)(62)

Still, I forced myself to follow Simon, helping him drag the small fiberglass canoe into the shallows. It felt way too light, practically fragile, and I had to choke down my misgivings as we climbed inside. Simon paddled out, not commenting on how hard I was clutching the sides of the canoe, until we were about thirty or so feet from the shore. “Is this far enough?” I asked him through clenched teeth.

“Sure.” He laid his paddle on the floor of the canoe, alongside our feet, and let the boat drift. “Okay, turn on your mindset,” he instructed. This was his preferred term for the meditative state of mind that I perceived as thermal-imaging goggles. I had to admit, “mindset” was a lot easier to say.

I closed my eyes and obeyed. Well, I tried to. But every time I visualized putting on my thermal-imaging goggles, the rocking of the canoe would suddenly unnerve me and I’d lose my grip. I took a few deep breaths, trying to relax my body, and tried again. Nothing. I opened my eyes and glowered at Simon. “You just had to bring a canoe,” I said accusingly. “It couldn’t be a nice flat-bottomed rowboat, could it?”

He just smiled benignly. “Try again,” he encouraged. “There’s no rush.”

I harrumphed and closed my eyes again. This time I didn’t try to drop straight into my tunnel-vision frame of mind. Remembering our first lesson, I tried concentrating on what I could hear around me: birds, some chirpy bugs, the slight ruffle of the breeze through the trees near the shoreline. I took a deep breath, letting myself relax. Forcing myself to remember that it was okay.

I took a slow, calm breath. And just like that, I could switch into my mindset. “Got it,” I murmured.

“Good. Now extend it down.”

I felt myself frowning. I had never tried that before, because I’d always been on the ground. Carefully, without opening my eyes, I did as he asked.

The first spark was straight under my feet, maybe six inches below the canoe. I assumed it was a fish—the area residents were probably still stocking the pond—but unlike with most of the aboveground animals I’d detected, I couldn’t crack open my eyes to confirm what I was feeling. The second spark was a few inches from the first one, loitering near the drifting canoe’s bow, unaware of its occupants.

“Now go farther, Lex,” Simon said softly.

I nodded at him without looking, and began to widen the beam of my focus. Five sparks. Eight. Thirteen. My God, that one was big. Were all of them fish? Maybe some crayfish? Wait, no, crayfish were only in running water, right? Then what were they, snails? Leeches? I shuddered, my breath coming faster. I hated leeches.

“Lex . . .” Simon said soothingly. “It’s okay. Pull back. Turn it off.”

I barely heard him. Thirty sparks of life, and that was in maybe a ten-foot radius. What if I extended it farther? Could I? Sure, it seemed possible, but it might be a bad idea.

Unfortunately, as my brain was still putting that together, I had already done it, pushing my senses out thirty, fifty feet. Oh, no. There were so many sparks now, too many for me to count. Just then something bumped the bottom of the canoe near my feet—a large fish, probably, but I squeaked in fear. What if it was a big rock? What if the canoe tipped and we fell in?

Panicking, I reacted defensively. My intention was to break my mindset, like I always did when I was overwhelmed, but without meaning to I sort of tugged on it, gathering it back to me. It resisted, like it was stuck on something, so I began to pull in earnest, as though there was an enormous net under the surface of the water and I was holding the edges, reeling it in—

“Lex,” Simon was shouting. I felt a sprinkle of water, not more than a handful, spatter on my face. My mindset finally broke, and my eyes flew open, my breath coming hard and fast as I stared at the horrified look on Simon’s face. He wiped his wet hand on the knee of his pants, looking at me with awe and regret and maybe . . . fear. Why was he so freaked out? I was the one who was having the panic attack. Although I actually didn’t feel nervous anymore, which was strange. Instead, I felt . . . fantastic.

I was panting so hard that it took me a few seconds to hear it: the blurp, blurp, blurp from the surface of the water. My thoughts frozen, I tilted my head carefully—I wouldn’t risk falling in—to see over the side of the canoe. My eyes flew to the source of another blurp, and I watched as the pale white belly of a dead fish popped to the surface, squishing into a space between two other bellies. I gasped, but it was too late to protect myself—my tunnel vision widened, and I finally saw it: dead fish after dead fish, bubbling to the surface in a gruesome landscape all around the canoe, the sight broken up by the occasional frog or slimy black leech.

I had pulled the death-essence right out of them. Hundreds of them.





Chapter 27



I don’t remember getting back to the shore. Simon must have paddled us both in. His voice was buzzing at me, but I wasn’t registering a word he said. I was flying high, my brain tumbling in cartwheels inside my skull. The second the canoe hit dirt, I leaped out and took off in a dead run, leaving my galoshes behind when they fell off. I didn’t mind. Bare feet were easier, anyway.

It was half a mile back to the cabin, and I had never run so fast in my life. I felt superb. My arms and legs pumped, hurtling me along the sandy shoulder of the little unmarked road, and I felt like I could run all the way to the state line. I could run forever.