Darkhaven

It was remarkable how life just ground on as if nothing crazy had happened. I still had to get up, get myself out the door with some sort of sugary sustenance and make it to class more or less on time every morning. Unfortunately, it seemed that having supergenes didn’t mean I’d become thin while still eating chocolate for breakfast, or that it was easier to crawl out of bed before nine.

Despite Stephen’s assurance that Donovan’s people were keeping an eye on me, I was still worried about Dad coming back. And I was terrified of the breakdown that happened when I became overwhelmed. I skipped lunch on Tuesday because a quick peek into the school canteen was enough to know that the cacophony of noise and smells and jostling of hungry teenagers on Burger Tuesday would be enough to set me off. I hurried into the relative quiet of the next corridor, leaned against the lockers to gather myself and resolved to bring food with me tomorrow.

Zenna had promised she’d be at school, but she was still distraught over not getting her licence. The documentary company she wanted to do a summer internship with wouldn’t take someone who couldn’t drive. When she didn’t meet us for lunch, I went and found her in the media lab surrounded by notes and storyboards.

‘I’m useless.’ She sniffed, not taking her eyes off the monitor where she was editing film footage.

I squeezed her shoulder. ‘You are not useless. And you still have plenty of time. Take it with me in November.’ My birthday was in September, and I already had the test booked for a few weeks later. I was tired of relying on people to shuttle me between school and two homes.

Looking slightly less surly, Zenna nodded. ‘Sure.’

I logged in to the next computer and booked the test for her, then sat and wasted half an hour on the internet.

‘Maybe I should file your TISC form for you,’ she said as she opened her email confirmation from Driver Services.

I groaned. ‘Don’t talk to me about TISC.’

‘You could always run off and join a circus.’

‘That sounds more like something you’d do.’

‘Probably.’ Zenna smiled.

I grinned back at her.

‘Are you free after school?’ she asked as the bell rang for the end of lunch.

‘…Nope.’ I pulled a face. ‘Tutoring.’

‘Look who’s turning into a pre-exam control freak.’

‘Oh no, I’m not taking Cecelia’s title away.’

Zenna giggled, reaching into her bag. ‘How many highlighters do you have in your pencil case?’

‘None.’ I elbowed her, and she swiped at my hand with a marker, leaving a streak of green ink on my skin.

‘Hey!’ I snatched her bag, dodging green as I dug out another marker. We laughed as we left the lab, painting each other in bright colours.

***

I had assumed that I would be working with Stephen, but for my first training session he delivered me to a sparsely furnished office with a tidy desk and a couple of armchairs in the corner. The little table between them was taken up entirely by an expensive-looking stereo amplifier, and tall speakers stood in opposite corners of the room.

Donovan banged through the door. ‘Don’t you know it’s rude to enter someone’s office when they’re not there?’

Stephen replied with a playful punch. ‘You’re never here.’

Donovan kicked him out with a growl and pointed me to an armchair. I took the seat, suppressing a strong urge to run from the building. I had no idea what to say around her. She plonked down in the other chair.

‘Sensory control,’ she began, ‘is something you’ve been doing all your life. Your eyes take in a lot more information than the brain ever recognises. Now your senses are enhanced, and your brain is going to have to learn to filter your perceptions again so you can consciously manage the data. Have you ever meditated?’

I shook my head.

‘The control required is like meditation. You have to know the input is there but not let it into your conscious awareness. Sit up straight.’

I lifted my back away from the chair. Donovan huffed and came to stand next to me.

‘Sit forward.’ She pushed and pulled my shoulders and prodded my spine until she was happy. I was using muscles I hadn’t known existed. Oh, I knew now.

‘Maintaining focus is easier when you can sit properly. You need to work on your posture. Lift your sternum. Relax your neck.’

I had no idea what she wanted, but I had the sense that asking questions wouldn’t help much. I shuffled around a bit, mostly to ease the ache in my back.

‘Close your eyes.’

I complied, uneasiness swirling in my stomach.

‘Now focus on your breath. No matter what you hear, keep your attention only on your breathing.’

My breathing was rushed and shallow. I tried to slow it down but that just made it erratic. I couldn’t get it under control, and my shoulders burned from the posture I was unaccustomed to.

BANG! A cannon blast shattered the silence, followed by an alarm, horns blaring and people yelling. My eyes flew open and I leapt to my feet, but a strong hand pushed me back into the chair.

‘Focus on your breath!’ Donovan’s voice was hot in my ear. Her hand gripped my shoulder like a vice, shoving me down. ‘Nothing but your breath! And sit up straight.’

Hard to sit up while being pushed down, and I struggled to breathe at all. ‘I can’t,’ I gasped. She let go and the sounds faded away as I sagged, my face in my hands.

After a few seconds of relative quiet, I glanced up to see her sitting in her chair, toying with the stereo remote. The cacophony hadn’t been outside, but in the room. She’d controlled the whole thing.

I glared at her. ‘That wasn’t fair.’

Her eyes flashed at my defiance, but she didn’t rise. Instead, she gave a careless shrug. ‘That’s how it is in the real world. If you want to break all the rules and live out there, you have to be able to handle it. Sit up. We’ll try again.’

‘Can you wait until I’m ready this time?’ I asked, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice.

Donovan laughed coldly. ‘Nothing ever waits until you’re ready.’

I was no more prepared for the noise the second time: a plane taking off, truck reverse signals beeping and men shouting commands. The sounds rose like a wave in my head, blotting out any ability to think or focus or breathe. I pressed my hands over my ears.

On the third round – people screaming and sirens wailing and babies crying – I slid out of my chair and curled into a ball on the floor. Donovan pulled me up, her fingers digging into my arm.

‘I shouldn’t let you go home,’ she observed.

I stared at her, taking in her muscled physique, light hazel eyes and sharp chin. Her jaw was tight.

‘I’m going home,’ I said, trying to inject some strength into my voice. ‘That’s the deal.’

‘The deal is you have to be better at this than just about anyone else.’

I slumped in my chair. Screw posture. ‘Are we doing it again?’

Donovan turned off the stereo. ‘I don’t think you can take it.’

I wanted to argue. I wanted to get it right, prove that I could do this. I looked at her ice-firm face and instead swallowed my anger and embarrassment. Donovan opened one of her desk drawers and riffled through the neatly filed CD collection inside. She handed me a disk in a blank cover.

‘Guided meditation and mindfulness techniques. Do it every day.’

‘Thanks.’ I tried to sound grateful, but I couldn’t keep the surliness out of my voice.

Donovan opened the door. ‘Stephen will meet you out the front.’

Her office door closed with a snap behind me, leaving me trembling and alone in the hallway.

***

Thankfully, Stephen thought my intuitive sense would be important for his rescue plan, which meant I didn’t have to see Donovan every afternoon. Tuesdays and Thursdays would be spent in her office, a place I quickly came to loathe. Mondays were mine because Alex insisted on one evening a week with me, and he threatened to take care of my tutor if I wasn’t allowed a night off. That left Wednesdays and Fridays with Liam, working on intuition.

The first Wednesday, the day after my disastrous session with Donovan, I was apprehensive. Stephen cast worried glances at me as we arrived at Darkhaven, but I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want him to renege on our arrangement and lock me up here or file a death certificate.

Liam was almost the total opposite of Donovan. He wasn’t as fit, tanned or muscular as Donovan or Stephen, but he still had an almost unexpected beauty to his softer features, and the same perfect teeth and unblemished skin. It was like that rare photograph that caught your best angle in a flattering light and made you think, wow, I look good. That was Praegressus. No matter how you were built, what shape your nose or chin or cheekbones were, you were beautiful. I wondered if that was how I would look to other people soon. Then I remembered Cecelia and Zenna’s teasing at the cafe – a day I had tried to block out of my memory – and figured I was probably starting to look different already. It was unsettling.

To my surprise, Liam didn’t usher me into his office, but led me down the corridor and out the door to the patio. We continued across the clearing and down a little dirt path through the bush until we came to a small pergola draped in climbing white and purple blooms. Inside was a little wrought-iron table with four matching chairs, and on the table sat a small pot containing a plant showing an exquisite purple flower. A birdbath stood next to one of the pergola pillars.

Liam pulled up one of the ornate chairs, gesturing for me to sit. He still hadn’t said a word. He breathed deeply, and without intending to, I found myself doing the same. The scent was heavenly. I didn’t normally care much for nature or gardens, but this was an oasis in the concrete-and-stainless-steel world that was Darkhaven. If anything, the rest of the olive-grey Australian bush surrounding it added to the austerity of the place.

‘Do you know any of the flowers here?’ Liam’s voice was quiet, with an almost melodic inflection.

‘Jasmine,’ I said. ‘My friend wears a jasmine perfume. It’s the white one, right?’ I pointed at a vine twining up the pergola.

Liam nodded. ‘The other one is false sarsaparilla, or purple coral pea. This,’ he indicated the pot, ‘is a sun orchid. They come in a lot of varieties. I won’t trouble you with the botanical names.’ He gave me an enquiring look. ‘Am I telling the truth?’

‘Of course,’ I answered, confused. He kept peering at me, macchiato eyes under a creased brow. I paused, feeling into the situation, into my gut. He was being honest, but there was more. It was a bit like talking to Flamebeard, just before he launched into a passionate monologue about the inner workings of the nervous system or something. ‘But you want to tell me the botanical names, even though you know I, uh, am not really into botany.’

‘Aha! Very good.’

‘So that was a test?’

He chuckled. ‘No, just a curiosity. I think you have a good sense for whether someone is being truthful with you.’

I shrugged. ‘I guess so. I think I always have.’

‘That’s usually how these things go. Ever known something was going to happen, just before it did?’

I considered. ‘I don’t remember anything specific. But I usually have a feeling if something is, like, a good idea or not, like some nights it’s not safe to walk home in the evening. And sometimes I know things in Human Biology or English, without really knowing how I know. It’s just right. Dad’ – I felt another pang of betrayal – ‘said once that I was highly intuitive, but I can’t be. I can’t make a decision to save myself. And if I was … I would have known he’d turn me in.’ I bit my lip. ‘I’m not sure why I’m telling you this.’

Liam opened his hands, palms up. ‘Why are you telling me then?’

I thought about it. ‘Because I know I can trust you.’

He smiled warmly. ’Sometimes, our intuition works against us. We get so used to relying on it for little things – how much milk to add to a batter, whether a plant is suited to a particular spot, how a friend will react to some news – that we take those nudges for granted. When the time comes to make a major decision, we expect it to do something it doesn’t do. If we have all these small, accurate feelings for small situations, we think the bigger problem warrants a bigger feeling. We want a symbol, an unmistakable sign that what we are about to do is right. We stop paying attention to the little signals our body and spirit are sending us.′ He rested his elbows on the table, interlacing his fingers. ‘There are two things that can mask your intuition. Any idea what they are?’

‘Fear,’ I answered, automatically, then stopped myself, wondering why I’d said that.

Liam laughed, the sound gentle like a tinkling water fountain. ‘You see! The other?’

My brain went blank. I shook my head.

Liam smiled. ‘The very idea of fear is enough to stop the process. The other one is love. Again, counter-intuitive. Intuition comes from a place of calm, which you would think is love. It is not. Intuition is value-neutral. It doesn’t care one way or the other what you think of the situation. Humans place judgements like “good” or “bad” on things. Intuition, at its core, is simply knowing what is. Love is the least value-neutral thing of all. And fear is really just the risk of losing love.’

He paused, looking thoughtful, then continued, voice a little softer. ‘Don’t blame yourself about your father. You love him. You wouldn’t have wanted to have seen that coming, and if you had, you couldn’t have believed it. We can’t easily sense things that are very close to us, like family. It’s the same for my clairvoyance.’

My eyes prickled, but to my surprise, I wasn’t embarrassed. I traced my finger around the edge of the ceramic flowerpot and blinked slowly, letting the tears trickle down my cheeks. We sat in silence for a few moments. Water splashed nearby and I looked up to see a tiny, bright blue bird playing in the birdbath.

‘A splendid fairy-wren,’ Liam said. ‘Stephen’s favourite.’

‘What’s yours?’

He smiled. ‘Black cockatoos.’

We watched the fairy-wren splash in the shallow water, then perch on the edge of the bath and fluff its electric-blue feathers out. After a minute of preening, it hopped down and flitted over to a banksia tree.

For the next hour, Liam spoke at length about managing and controlling emotions. It sounded similar to what Donovan wanted me to do, but it was a lot easier to imagine being in control out here, in the peaceful surrounds of the pergola. Liam also set me homework, asking me to start a journal of times when I automatically answered questions, or sensed something I had no conscious knowledge of. I left that afternoon feeling a lot more hopeful about my chances of surviving in the outside world.