The Grower's Gift (Progeny of Time #1) (23 page)

"It was just VR," she muttered to herself, and the desert would fade. Sand still crunched between her teeth.

The memories of her test grew more vivid once they lay her on the bed in her cell and the door hissed shut.

Alone in the dark room, it didn't matter whether she closed her eyes or kept them open, all she saw was the sun-scorched plain. A pack of lionesses drew nearer, approaching in a half circle. They growled, their fangs glistening in the bright sunshine, their cold eyes promising death. Large cats with sharp claws and sharper teeth were the only animal that scared Maya. Cats didn't need people like other animals did. To cats, people were prey.
 

Maya had nearly screamed when the first lioness lunged towards her in the test. She screamed now into her dark cell as she relived the moment.

"VR, not real. Just a game," she whispered to herself, but the sand crunched under her feet, the growls too near. The bracelet Ty had given her grew tighter and tighter against her wrist. She couldn't call a tree to rise from the sands, couldn't create a safe place for herself.

Giles' leather bracelet alongside it still worked to harness her power and contain it there. The two bracelets worked one against the other, one making her power stronger, the other taking it away. Together they formed a balance, canceled each other out.

Maya collected all her power in the translucent bubble inside her chest, made it all turn into the searing white heat. Once she was sure it contained no more of it, she sent it all into the ground, imagining the ancient oak tree she'd sit in so often back home. The tree burst from the ground, sending sand in all directions. It was the only safe place she could think of, likely because it was the first hiding place she had ever had as a child.
 

The lioness' jaws snapped shut, missing Maya's ankle by less than an inch as she climbed up.

Then the horrible desert flickered to black and the white light in the exam room blinded her.

None of it was real. Just like Ty said. He hadn't lied.
 

She wouldn't be learning anything here, she realized. She was being studied.

Maya relieved the terror of her exam many more times before she finally passed into a dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

After dinner Ty returned to Eve's rooms, which were still dark and empty. The beeping hadn't stopped yet. He walked over to the pot and grabbed the alarm. He let the freezing cold building in his forehead form a current down a vein-like channel running from the spot where the cold started and down his right arm. He fed the flow of the power all the fear and hatred he felt for his mother's ruthlessness.
 

Ty shut his eyes, closed his right hand into a fist over the buzzing alarm and released the cold current into it. When he opened his eyes again the alarm was gone, obliterated like it never existed. His power, his control of it was still perfect, drilled into him by years of secret practice with Salvio. It still flowed through the channel Salvio taught him to imagine running down his right arm, and still did exactly what he wanted it to, despite the fact that Ty had not used his power for almost eight years. Not since the day he accidentally used it to make Salvio disappear.
 

Perhaps Eve would be able to call the things he made disappear with her power. They'd never tried it, and likely never would.
 

Once you learn how to control it fully, you must never use it
, Salvio's harsh instructions echoed in Ty's mind. Ty had disagreed, and used it behind Salvio's back every chance he got until Salvio made sure Ty stopped using it. He had Ty practice controlling his power while holding Salvio, who angered him to the breaking point. Ty lost control, and Salvio was gone. Disappeared like he never existed.
 

Ty lay on Eve's sofa staring at the bright lights in the thousands of windows on the tall buildings all around them. How lucky all those people were, that they hadn't been born into House Remarque.

~

Ty woke to the buzzing of two more of the alarms on Eve's plants. Her bed was empty, unslept in. Ty ran his fingers through his hair to straighten them out and went in search of his parents. He wanted answers. Their eleven year old daughter wouldn't go off on her own, without one of them knowing where she was.

The dining room was empty, save for the serving maid, who waited by the steaming pot of coffee and rushed to set a plate for Ty as soon as he entered.

He waved her away and ran to his father's study. It was empty too. He finally located the butler, who was eating his breakfast of eggs and warm bread rolls in the kitchen. He told him both his parents had left before dawn.

There was one other person in the house who might know where Eve was. Julian. His older brother who would never grow up.
 

Ty took a few deep, calming breaths before knocking on the doors to Julian's rooms. A kind faced woman with short, curly grey hair opened the door. Therese, their old nanny who had stayed on to watch over Julian.

"Ty? How nice to see you!" she exclaimed and pulled him into a hug. "Julian will be so happy to see you."

"No, I won't!" Julian shrieked from the sofa and ran to hide behind the long velvet drapes that obscured the windows.
 

If the fear and anger in his brother's voice hadn't been so painful, Ty might even have laughed at the silly hiding place.
 

Therese released Ty. "Now really, Julian, is this any way to behave? Come out and say hello to your brother."

"No, I won't!"

Ty stayed by the door, considering turning around and leaving.
 

Therese approached the curtains. "Julian, you are being rude. Come out from there."

Julian held the curtains together tightly to prevent her from drawing them open. "I will after he leaves!"

"I'm sorry I haven't been to visit for such a long time," Ty said.
 

"For two whole months!" Julian yelled. "I counted!"
 

Had it been that long?

Ty walked over to the curtains and looked in from the side. "I'm here now."

Julian wrapped himself in the cloth. "I don't want to see you. Just like you don't want to see me."

"I do want to see you. It's why I'm here."

Therese finally succeeded in prying the curtains from Julian. Bereft of his hiding place, he turned around and pouted out the window, his back to Ty. "First
you
stop coming. Then
Eve
stops coming and I'm all alone here,
all day
. Forgotten. Because no one loves me."

Julian's shoulders shook as he began to weep. They were of the same height, Ty and Julian, but otherwise looked nothing alike. His brother, like Eve, had their father's fair hair and brown eyes. His mother's too, before she changed her appearance to match Ty's.

Ty walked over and put his arm around Julian's shoulders, dreading the answer to his next question. "You know I love you. I have so many more duties now, though that's no excuse. I'll make time to visit more often from now on. What do you mean Eve hasn't been visiting?"

Julian stopped sobbing long enough to hold out his hand, two fingers extended. "She hasn't come for two days now. Two. I counted."

Two days?

Ty led him over to the table by the window, his legs rubbery.
 

"She's away, visiting a friend," Ty lied, hoping his brother noticed none of his terror.

Julian wiped his tears off on his sleeve. "Oh, good then. She should have told me."

"She should have," Ty repeated, his voice shaking.
 

Therese had brought over two cups of hot cocoa and some cookies and Julian dived right in. Then he pulled a pack of cards from the drawer in the table. "Want to play a game of Black Peter, Ty?"

It was a children's game from the time before the Ring, before the Badlands. Boring and childish, but his brother Julian couldn't handle any VR games whatsoever. No electronics either for that matter. A few years ago he went into a full seizure when Ty had showed him a video on his phone.

"Therese will play with you," Ty said, standing. "I should go to work."

Julian's bottom lip started shaking. "You can't play Black Peter with only two people."

Ty sat back down and took the deck from his hands. "Alright, only a few games."

He dropped half the deck when he tried to shuffle the cards.

"Clumsy you," Julian whined. "Give them here."

Ty obliged, and watched Julian try to shuffle. He bent more than one card before he finally started dealing.

There was a knock on the door and a moment later, Therese let in a bleary eyed Eve. Ty rushed over and picked her up before he even decided to. She stared at him blankly. "I was in the hospital. They told me I fell and hit my head."

Hit her head? Why didn't Mom and Dad say so?

Ty ignored the questions, too relieved to have her back safe, to worry. She was still herself. He hugged her tighter and then set her down. Julian was hiding behind the curtain again. Eve coaxed him out much faster than Ty did.

Eve got all excited about playing Black Peter, so Ty reshuffled the cards and dealt them out again. For the next hour, they were children again and Julian was childish because he was twelve years old, not because their mother had made sure he'd never use his power by making him stay a child forever.
 

Too soon, Ty remembered his mother's harsh laugh and hidden threats of the night before. He had her test to complete to her satisfaction or else.

While Therese was clearing away their lunch in the kitchen, Ty pulled out the bag of pills and handed Eve a vial containing a single purple pill. "Take one of these each day."

He hoped that was the correct dosage, but he'd check with Ronia after he left here.

Eve looked more closely at the pill. "I already have some of these. Mom gave them to me this morning when I left the hospital. She said to take one every two days though."

Ty felt an invisible hand choking him. "She gave you these exact pills? Look closely."

"Yes, these exact ones," Eve said. "I recognize the tiny vials with the black stoppers. And the white dots in the purple liquid inside them."

Ty peered at the pills. Eve was right about the white dots.

"And that's it? She just told you to keep taking them and let you go?"

Eve nodded.
 

Only then did Ty allow himself to breathe again. To really believe Eve was safe. What happened to Julian must have been some sort of terrible mistake. Despite her ruthlessness, Violetta Remarque loved her own children and she wouldn't hurt them intentionally.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Maya had barely finished her lunch of a clear vegetable soup when the two men clearly assigned to stop her from fighting against her imprisonment came to collect her.

Not another exam!

The terrible visions of yesterday's test had not yet completely faded from her mind. She still saw the cats, heard their growling, tasted her fear.

That VR had really messed up her mind. That's all it was, though, a VR immersion, and today's test would be no different.

Maya followed the guards, who led her into a circular room with dark tinted windows on all sides. A basin filled with fresh soil stood in the center of the room, with three baskets of seeds next to it.

It wouldn't be just an illusion today.
 

Maya's heart started racing. What if they brought real cats today too? She looked around the room frantically, searching for a cage with a lioness inside it somewhere.

Thankfully, the room only contained the basin.

One of the doctors told her to sit on the floor by the basin. She obeyed and they started attaching the sensors to her arms and chest, like they had yesterday. Maya fought the urge to cry. She wasn't ready yet. The animals might be in another room. They could bring them in any moment now.

She breathed in deeply, letting the smell of fresh earth fill her mind.
 

She might never get out of this place ever again. But she had her gift, her wonderful, warm ability to give life, and it truly was all that mattered. She reached out and grabbed a fistful of the soil, letting it cascade down her palm.
 

She dug her fingers into the soil. The room changed into a field that stretched all the way to the horizon. The afternoon sun was an orange ball falling from the sky. Ty's mother appeared, her long black hair swaying in the warm wind. Maya's breath caught in her throat. It was just an illusion. They weren't in a field and this woman was still her captor.
 

Maya looked away, didn't acknowledge the woman at all.
 

"Show us your plant growing abilities," the woman said. "Use the seeds set out for you. Talk us through what you are doing as you do it."

Maya closed her mouth tightly and grabbed a fistful of seeds from the first basket. She let the seeds trickle from her palm into the basin.

"Do you know what will grow from those seeds?"

What a dumb question! Of course Maya didn't know. How could she?
 

"Talk!" Dr. Remarque ordered.
 

Maya wouldn't give her the satisfaction, silently daring the woman to stop the test, or do her worst. Either way, Maya wasn't about to obey her commands. Maya knew she was never getting out of this school. Why hadn't she listened to Ty? He'd tried to warn her, tried to help her. He
could
have been more direct about it. None of it mattered now.

She concentrated on the seeds in her hands. From the shape they could be anything. She took a seed between her thumb and forefinger and looked at it closely.

What do you want to grow up to be?

She asked it pointlessly, tears starting in her throat as she remembered her home, her parents, herself as a girl who only wanted to heal.

Wheat,
a small voice sang in her head.
 

Maya dropped the seed in her shock.

I must be going insane. Or is this part of the test?