The Elders (Mind Dimensions #4)(90)
“He’s been dreaming of this, I assure you,” Liz says, and Thomas gives her an unreadable look.
Is this why she’s being so accommodating? For Thomas’s sake?
Instead of voicing any of this, I just say, “Well, good. Hopefully, the shock of the truth will obscure the parts where I was almost killed. Though when it comes to Sara, I’m still worried.”
“We’ll take care of it.” Liz winks at Mira. “Don’t you worry.”
I can’t help but think how amazing it is that Mira and Liz—or Mira and any Guide—are working together. If someone wanted to put the Elders’ dream of peace to the test, this would be the way to do it. If they (Mira especially) don’t rip each other’s hair out, there’s hope that our people can come to an understanding.
We select a secluded table in the cafeteria, and Thomas instructs Hilary to find us there. Meanwhile, Liz brings everyone some food. Having worked up an appetite during our walk, I decide to have a doughnut and coffee, which pleases Mira disproportionally.
As we eat our food, Liz explains her proposed Reading/Guiding process to Mira in greater detail while I plan out what I’m going to say to my moms when they get here.
*
“Darren, what happened to your face?” My mom Sara’s voice is predictably tense and high-pitched. I hope Mira and Liz are on it, as Sara’s on the verge of hyperventilating.
Thankfully, Liz and Mira don’t disappoint. They look slightly distracted for a second, and then Sara noticeably relaxes—well, relaxes as much as Sara can. She probably now feels the normal amount of anxiety a parent should experience upon seeing her offspring banged up.
In other words, she looks as worried as Lucy.
It seems as though Mira and Liz are successfully working together—so far, at least. I wonder whether they bickered while in the Mind Dimension. Damn it. If I weren’t Inert, I could’ve been there to see for myself.
“I’m okay, Mom,” I say to Sara. “Please, sit.”
I try to project health and vitality—not an easy feat when you’re brimming with as much morphine (or was it oxycodone?) as I am.
“Those stupid bandages probably make me look worse than I actually am.” I figure telling them the truth doesn’t mean I need to burden Sara with the gory medical details about my ribs, concussion, ankle, et cetera. The truth is, physically, I am okay, or will be soon enough.
They sit down, and Lucy asks, “Did someone do this to you, or was it an accident?”
Her voice is calm, but I recognize a dangerous question when I hear one. That is, the answer would be dangerous for whomever I might name as the responsible party. She’s in that lioness mode of thinking.
“I fell on the ground and got bruised,” I say. Then, much less confidently, I add, “I also got into a little fight, but the person can’t bother me anymore, Mom.”
I take a nervous sip of my lukewarm coffee and prepare for an avalanche of follow-up questions.
I see Lucy mentally put on her detective hat, but a second later, she looks unnaturally relaxed and doesn’t ask me whatever it was she was about to ask. Liz, who’s sitting on my left, winks at me, and Mira bumps my knee with hers, signaling that team Mira and Liz scored again.
Hillary is sitting very quietly, which tells me my friends have briefed her in the Quiet and are likely using her prodigious Reach to help with their task. Usually, they would’ve used me. That thought heightens my feeling of being left out of those secret, outside-of-time conversations. Then again, maybe I should get used to it.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you guys,” I say. I rehearsed this line in my mind a million times over. “It’s going to be hard to believe.”
I prove how much of an understatement my preamble was by hitting them with factoid number one: the secret existence of Readers and Guides.
Predictably, my suspicious detective mom and her ever-skeptical, scientifically minded partner look unconvinced. So we give them demonstrations that makes the stuff I did for Bert at the airport look like a cheap magic trick. Mira tells them to think of random facts, and then tells them what those facts are. I talk about information I gleaned from them the two times I Read far into their past, such as their trip to Israel, the funeral of the M&Ms (their nickname for my parents), and that time Lucy had drinks in a bar with Kyle and my dad. I mention details that only they would know.
To clinch the deal, we ask Hillary to perform a Guiding demonstration. My aunt makes everyone in the cafeteria, including my moms, dance the Macarena. As my moms watch the others dance, their resolve noticeably waivers. In the end, though, I’m confident that the reason they finally look as if they’ve accepted this incredulous information is because of Liz and Mira’s secret manipulations. Otherwise, this process would’ve likely taken a few weeks of nonstop demonstrations. My moms are just that skeptical by nature; plus, they long ago adopted the illogical attitude of ‘Darren knows stuff he shouldn’t because he’s that smart.’
“Okay.” Lucy crosses her arms. “Assuming we believe you, why do I get the feeling that there’s a lot more to this than telepathy and hypnosis?”
“Reading and Guiding,” I correct her. “And yes, you’re right. There is more. It has to do with my parents.”