Grey and Gold Eyes

Ten: Primrose

Mom asks me about my day on the way home. I tell her about Katy and Lucas, and everything else that happened. I never hide anything from her. Well, except the one thing that no one else knows about me. Not a single soul.

Now that I have nothing to do, seeing as I have done the Math homework at school, I sit in my room and try to focus. I might as well keep learning how to control my abilities while I have time.

I experiment by trying to lift a pen. Pathetic, I know, but I'm just practicing. I don't have to do anything other than just imagine what I want to happen happening and somehow it comes true. The pen hovers above the bed where it was resting earlier. I make it spin in the air before letting it fall back down and bounce on the mattress.

Fire is another sore spot with me. I know I can start a fire, but I can't always control it afterwards. Or put it out. I have a small bucket of water nearby just in case things get out of hand. I grab a handful of paper with some unimportant words scribbled on them and hold it out in front of me.

I count silently to three. One. I focus on the paper in my hands. Two. I can feel it heating up, the warmth radiating from my palm. Three. An orange spark appears and the pages are engulfed in a beautiful blue flame, smoke rising up to the ceiling. I feel no pain whatsoever, not when the flame burns it brightest, and not when I put my free hand out to feel the burn. All I can feel is strange warmth that I love.

The fire quickly runs out of paper to burn and dies out, growing farther and farther away from the ceiling until only the black ashes of what used to be pages of my notebook remain.

I really don't know what else I can do. Telekinesis and fire are the only things I've learned to do so far. I think of all the books I've read. Mostly romance stories about couples where one of the characters has abilities like mine. But the writers of those stories were only thinking figuratively, not really believing that it could come true. If only they knew about me.

Control of others. Mind reading. Changing the weather. These are what the fictional characters can do. I wonder if I can too.

I look out my window. I can see the full moon shining brightly in the night sky. There are stars everywhere tonight. I realize that this is the same moon Katy and Luke may be looking at right now. I don't know why this comforts me, but I feel better inside thinking that I've already made friends so early in the school year.

The moon. I imagine being able to manipulate the moon. To be able to make it shine brighter than ever before. To be able to make all the craters created by all the asteroids colliding with it visible from where I'm standing. To be able to make it appear closer. Bigger. Better.

I don't know why I'm thinking of this. But the thought that I could makes me content. I look back up at the sky. Should I do it? Can I?

Before I can think it through I close my eyes and picture the moon in my head. I imagine it shining ten times brighter than it is now. When I open my eyes again I have to look away because of the light. I can do this.

I close my eyes again and picture all the perfect imperfections of the moon-all its craters and ridges. All of this clearly seen from my window. I open my eyes and see that this has come true.

I'm getting too excited here. I'm pushing this too far. But I can't stop myself from doing the last thing that I wanted.

This time I keep my eyes open. I will the moon to come closer. To be bigger and brighter and clearer than any night. Then I panic as I see it hurtling towards the ground at lightning speed, growing bigger by the split second.

I curse to myself and fling my hand out at the sky, having no idea what I'm doing. It works, though, and the moon stops moving, only the top of it seen above the treetops in the distance. I prop my elbows on the window sill and put my head in my hands. What the hell am I doing with this?

I peek through my fingers at the moon. It hangs unnaturally low in the sky, a big white blot in the blue-black space above. I wish to myself that this never happened and hope that I haven't changed the tides or anything. Then, as quick as lightning, the moon returns to normal, back in exactly the same spot as it was a few minutes ago.

God, this is crazy.