A Pocket Full of Posies (Book 2)

Chapter Eleven

Much to my dismay, we don't head straight to the Irish pub from there. Worse still, nor is there a plan to at any point this evening. Instead, we just call another taxi, and get dropped off at our hotel. This whole trip to Belfast has consistently been going down the pan. First my post-aura delusional state, then the flight cancellation, then the airplane ear trauma, and now this.

It's almost embarrassing that no Tracker has managed to catch up to us yet. Poor performance on their part, really. After my run in with one in Scotland, I was sure I'd be seeing another one again soon. A small part of me is gutted I haven't. I want to redeem myself after my own shocking performance last time I bumped into one, when I decided to have a breakdown instead of just getting rid of the thing.

I decided to tell Annabel the truth about my visions once we arrived at the hotel. It would be an understatement to say she was a little annoyed with me for lying to her, but the realisation that her memories might not be totally accurate all the time distracted her enough to not go into a full rage on me. That, and the confusion over why she wasn't in the car with us, least not obviously in the car with us.

Now that we have some free time, I'm going to try and convince Ava to help me try and spark another vision. We've made base at a café near our hotel in the city centre, and like the boring sods they are, everyone has taken having nothing to do as an opportunity to get on with uni work. They need to tone it down a notch.

"So, Ava," I begin with the sweetest smile I can muster up slapped onto my face. Ava, who's sitting opposite me, lifts her head. "On a scale of one to ten, how much are you up for a bonding sesh à la aura reading?"

"No," she responds before I can even finish the sentence.

"Aw c'mon, at least try to stay on the scale."

"I spoke to my mum about it," she elaborates, which gets the others' ears pricking up. "Your reaction to aura reading attempts isn't, like whoa, normal so it's hard to know what not to do, but we'd rather stay on the safe side and give it some time before trying again." I go to interject, but Ava stops me. "Look, it's groovy. It's not that we can't ever do it again, but it's not even been a full day since your abilities went haywire, so I really think we should just leave it for now. Okay?"

"Fine," I mutter, then realise I sound like a stropping teenager. "No, you're right. I just, I don't know, it's annoying."

"There is something else we could try."

Ten minutes later, Ava, Carmen, Annabel and I are standing in the middle of an empty alleyway in Belfast city centre. We're going to try and oil up the old telekinetic powers, apparently. They've been completely useless and uncontrollable so far, so I'm pretty low on optimism, but I guess trying to work on that is kind of the point of this exercise.

The others wanted to join, but Ava figured the less distractions, the better. She's probably right. She currently has me sitting down on the paved ground while staring intensely at a pile of loose rubbish, but nothing is happening, and I must look like an absolute simpleton. I try making something--anything--budge the tiniest bit, but give up once I get bored and realise this is going nowhere.

"Well, this is hopeless," I announce, averting my attention from the discarded alcohol bottles and tissue paper, to the girls standing above me.

"How about trying for longer than 30 seconds?" Annabel mocks in return.

"Oh c'mon, that was at least five minutes."

"I hope you're talking to Annabel right now, and you've not just finally lost it," Carmen says with raised eyebrows.

"Try again," Ava interjects. "It was about a minute and a half." What? As if. "It's all about focus. Clara was right in saying that personality is the main influence with additional abilities, especially telekinesis, but there's nothing stopping you from learning to focus. Practice makes perfect."