The Whisper Seekers

Liam Exposed

The park sits at the top of a hill in the middle of an older neighborhood. It has an old shiny metal playground with splintery wooden benches scattered around the perimeter. There's no one here, which is odd for a Saturday but then again, the hot sun isn't welcoming that many people outside either.

He grabs my hand as we walk over to the swing set and as we drop into the low swings, we quickly pull our hands back when they grip the burning chains.

"I'm not used to the Texas heat yet," Liam admits as he shakes his hand out. We cautiously reach for the blistering chains again and soon we are acting like we are fourth-graders again. Pumping our legs to get as high as we can so we can jump off and soar into the air. We land in the gravel and leave long skid marks, just to run back to the swings and try to get more air.

"Hey remember when I said I wanted to show you something?" Liam asks while pumping his legs back and forth.

"Yeah," I say as I mimic his actions. I watch him pass by me on his swing and he goes to jump off again but this time when he is midair, he vanishes. I hear him land in the gravel and see his skid mark but I don't see him. I instantly jump off the swing completely freaked out.

"Liam?" I call out to him. He appears next to me and I stare at him wide-eyed.

"What the hell was that? What did you just do?" I gasp while he closes the gap between us.

"It's what I wanted to show you," he tells me softly. I reach out and gently touch his forearm. He suddenly vanishes but I still have a grip on his wrist. It looks like I'm holding onto an invisible cylinder. After a few seconds,  my hand disappears too. I whip it away and it quickly goes back to normal.

"How can you do that?" I ask, amazed and confused at the same time. He appears in solid form in front of me again.

"Just like our thoughts and your manipulations, I don't know how or why. It started slowly a few months after I was able to read minds and I've learned to control it. I've even been able to extend it to other objects like your hand," he explains. I'm speechless. I have never seen anything like this.

"You have a real invisibility cloak," I say in awe and he shrugs in agreement.

"Why haven't you shown this to me before?" I ask him, still amazed at what I just saw. He scrunches his hair with his hand and I watch as he slowly strolls over to one of the wooden benches. He releases his hand from his hair as he drops onto it and then rests his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands in front of him. His change in demeanor has me wondering if he's ashamed of this ability. He doesn't seem nearly as excited as I am about it. His gaze is to the gravel as I walk over to him. I drop onto the bench next to him but he still doesn't look at me.

"It's why I distanced myself from you after our sonnet. You said we have nothing left to hide and I did. I felt like I was lying to you or something but I just wanted to figure out how to show you," he explains. "And then you took it the wrong way and went boating with Derek and all that. I regret being quiet for so long, I shouldn't have completely withdrawn myself from you but I wanted to make sure I trusted you before I showed this to you. When people find out I have this...talent, they become selfish. They see ways in which I'm useful and try and use me."

I pull his hand into mine and he finally flits his blue eyes over to mine. He releases a sigh and I can tell this secret was weighing on him.

"Who else knows?" I ask.

"Well, my mom knows. And I've shown a couple of other people like us. But that's all."

I'm taken back, "Your mom knows? And wait... does she use you?" I know he prepared himself to tell me all of this but it doesn't seem to make it easier.