The Chosen Path

Chapter Four

The following day was a Saturday and Jake spent all day in the library with George. He subjected Jake to the card trick as George called it.

At first, Jake couldn't guess any of the cards, staring at their patterned backs as George concentrated on the suit and number of the card.

George told him repeatedly to relax and not think of the card as a card, but as a doorway to what was on the other side. It took a while for Jake to get what George meant for him to do, but after a while Jake could easily see what was on the other side of all of the cards. It was as if some switch had been turned on inside of him that no one had bothered to flip on before.

George grinned like a proud teacher to his A plus student.

Jake was still unsure of what was going on with him and his friends. But he thought it best not to think too hard about it and just go with whatever it was they wanted to try on him.

Emily gave him some books to read and Jake had set them aside to look at later. Some of the titles frightened him, while others had intrigued his curiosity, and he skimmed through some of those books before going to bed. He was so exhausted from all his "training" he fell asleep immediately.

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He woke up grateful for no nightmares and looked over at the clock. It was after one in the morning.

Jake heard footsteps outside. He got out of bed and cautiously went to his sliding glass door. He looked out but couldn't see anyone. The pool below his balcony was dark, but there was light coming from above. He opened the glass door and stepped out on to the deck and looked up. Jake saw that Emily was sitting on one of the chairs that were on her deck above him. He walked to the end of the deck to the side of the house where there was a set of steps up to her level.

"Hey," he called up to her.

Emily looked down at him and smiled. "Hey! Come on up," she called back.

Jake climbed up the white painted stairs.

"You have a good sleep?" she asked him and gestured to the empty chair for him to sit.

"Yeah. I'm awake now though," Jake replied, scooting the chair in towards her.

Emily had her feet up on the edge of the deck, and Jake admired her sexy, long, smooth, tanned legs.

"Better watch your thoughts there, pal," she said to him, smiling and raising her eyebrows.

"Oh, shit. Sorry," he said, embarrassed that she read his thoughts.

Emily laughed. "I should watch my listening. You're just very open for me to read," she explained.

"How can you control it?" he asked curiously.

"It comes to you after awhile. When I first realized that I was hearing people's thoughts, I thought, this is really cool. Then I didn't like what people were thinking, you know. And I tried to block it out, but everywhere I went, all these thoughts kept coming at me. It gave me really bad headaches," she said and ran a hand through her long blonde hair.

She pulled a strand in front of her and started twirling it. "My parents had powers too. They helped me learn to control things. It's mind over matter, really, but sometimes I'm too tired to hold it away and it all comes rushing in," she said, sounding exhausted.

"How can someone block it from you?" Jake asked, intrigued about her abilities.

"Have some secrets you don't want to share with me, Jake?" she asked in pretend shock.

"It's just out of curiosity!" Jake protested.

She leaned towards him, as if she was about to relay important information to him.