Rowan

Dr. Osborne watched us all for a long moment. "The Otherworld?" he echoed, looking first at Blue and then to each of us. I could meet his gaze for only a second; it burned into me like the fire had, demanding everything I knew. Not that I knew much.

Blue nodded in agreement. "The Otherworld. She left us a map there."

"We met her there," Lightning added.

Dr. Osborne turned to me as if waiting for me to add something, to agree with or deny it. I couldn't deny what had happened. "That's where we went during the fire," I told him softly. "SAM was there."

"And what happened in this Otherworld?"

"Nothing," Griffin snapped. "We barely even got a chance to see her and then we woke up here. Nothing happened."

I wasn't sure I agreed with that but I didn't argue. My memory of the encounter was hazy at best, like a dream I was quickly forgetting now that I was awake. The more time passed the less sure I was of what had happened.

"She must have found a way to reside there," he said in wonder, almost to himself. "Very impressive. And you all managed to go there?"

We all nodded vaguely, though I could tell the others were as sure of whatever had happened during the fire as I was. "What's the Otherworld, exactly?" Blue asked.

He hesitated to answer, as if formulating his response carefully. "Do any of you know what astral projection is?" We were silent, each of us answering with an unspoken but resounding no. "It's believed by some people that a person can leave their body and walk in spirit through the world. An out-of-body experience, you might call it, but usually intentional. It can be very dangerous if done incorrectly, supposedly, but it's not something we ever felt would be safe or useful to attempt."

That made a vague sort of sense, in a something-out-of-a-movie kind of way. "So you think we got to the Otherworld through astral projection?" Blue asked.

"Or something similar to it. It's certainly a possibility. Some time ago Dr. Marsh and I discussed the possibility of a place of origin of psychic power, of sorts. A place that powerful psychics could access with the proper training and preparation. I never imagined she herself would try to find it, much less try to lead you children there without extensively preparing you first."

"It saved our lives," I told him. "Maybe she knew that was the only choice."

"I'd like to think that was the case." The way he said it sent a shudder through me and I said nothing more, looking down again.

"You guys realize how crazy this sounds, right?" Lightning spoke up finally. "Psychics don't exist."

"Okay, yes, it's crazy, but how else do you explain literally everything that happened?" Blue asked him.

I nodded. "You talked to SAM. You saw what she did. You saw what we did."

"C'mon, Ro, you don't actually believe it?" I looked away, unable to reply, and he turned to Blue. "Blue?"

"Do you have a logical explanation?"

His face answered that for him. "No..."

"Would you like proof of what you are?" Dr. Osborne asked, getting our attention again. He seemed to take our tense silence for a yes; standing, he made his way to the window across the room and pushed it open easily. There was a tree outside, its bare branches stretched forward like reaching fingers, grasping at the glass. It was too cold for many birds to be left but one small one—a sparrow, I thought—sat there. It fluttered in surprise at the movement but he held out one hand to it and it stopped, hesitating a second before hopping towards him to perch on his palm. He carefully drew his hand back inside, eyes never leaving the little thing. With his free hand he closed the window all but a crack and turned back to us. My stomach churned with dread, wondering where this was going.

"Griffin, would you be so kind as to demonstrate your unique ability?" he asked.

Griffin eyed him suspiciously but slowly stepped forward. "And what ability would that be?"

"The one you used to save Fox would work nicely. Rowan, you come too."

I stood carefully despite the fact that my heart pounded at the thought of how he was going to 'prove' we were psychic. I stopped beside Griffin, who looked no more thrilled than I felt. He stared at the bird for a moment, fixing his gaze on it in the same way he had the fire when trying to rescue Fox. But, unlike then, when he'd been stubbornly set in place, unmovable, he looked away quickly. I couldn't quite read his expression. "No."

"I'd gladly ask one of your friends, but you are the only one who seems to have any control yet."

He hesitated again, looking to the rest of us. Lightning and Blue watched in wary silence while Fox looked up only briefly, dark eyes wide, before looking away again. "I don't know what I can do," he told Osborne.

"But you know how to do it."

"Not really."

"They deserve to see what you can do, Griffin."

He looked to me as if for my opinion and I nodded. I didn't like it but I needed to know exactly what we were. We all did. He closed his eyes for what felt like several minutes, letting out a long, unsteady breath, and when he opened them fixed them on the bird once more. The silence was heavier than ever, filled with worry and anticipation. I found I couldn't look away as it stretched on. My chest burned, like I had stayed underwater for too long. I sucked in a breath but the air felt thinner, colder, like we were standing outside in the crisp winter air rather than in a heated room. My first, brief thought was that some invisible gas was flowing into the room and suffocating us but it passed quickly; Griffin and Dr. Osborne both seemed unfazed. Griffin shuddered once, hardly noticeable, just as the bird shifted and looked around. The gleam in its eyes made it clear it knew something was wrong. Its tiny feet curled into the skin of Dr. Osborne's palm, soon raising little droplets of red. And then it shuddered just as Griffin had, its entire body went stiff, and it toppled over. Its eyes stayed wide open, staring dull and flat out at nothing.

I covered my mouth to keep in whatever sound had been about to escape. The air had returned to normal as suddenly as I had realized it had changed and Griffin was breathing hard and looking down, shame written across his face. The bird didn't move.

"What did you do?" I asked both of them, unsure of who was responsible. Griffin couldn't have done it—he wouldn't, it was too unlike him, even if he had the ability. But he was the one to answer me.

"Exactly what I did to the fire, only you can't temporarily kill an animal."

I shook my head. "No. That's impossible. That's not being psychic that's being...being..." I trailed off, struggling to come up with a way to finish the sentence.

"In technical terms," Osborne told us, gently petting the bird's still head, "Griffin has the ability to draw energy into himself from another source. The most common way the power manifests itself is through killing. You, Rowan, have the opposite gift."

"What are you talking about?"

"You have an instinct to heal and protect, yes?" I supposed I did. I'd been our unofficial, makeshift doctor in the ghost town and I'd never been quite able to explain why. I nodded, looking at Griffin again. He said nothing. "That comes from your own abilities. I don't believe you've used them in your memory, have you?"

"No." My voice came out quiet and meek.

"You can give them a try now. Surely this bird has done nothing to warrant its permanent death." He held the dead bird out to me and I wanted to step away in disgust but found myself rooted to the spot, just gaping. I struggled to find words though I had none.

"I...I-I can't," I managed, shaking my head. I felt the food I'd been so glad to get protest what was happening, rising in the back of my throat. My feet backed away without my command and I almost turned to the door, wanting nothing more than to leave.

"Rowan, please," Griffin spoke up, stopping me in his tracks. "If I can kill you can heal."

I felt five pairs of eyes on me as I stepped back towards Dr. Osborne's outstretched hand and the tiny form lying in it. I swallowed the bile that rose again in the back of my throat, balling my hands into fists to keep them from shaking. I tried to replicate what Griffin had done, staring at it until something happened, but I didn't feel anything change. I didn't know how this worked.

Finally I took a deep breath to steady myself and raised one hand to stroke the bird's wing with two fingers. Its feathers were silky soft, still warm, so delicate. It was such an innocent little thing, beautiful and trusting, and look where that had gotten it.

I imagined its lively hopping along the branch, happily coming to join us, no idea what would happen to it. I saw it flying away instead, beating its fragile, strong wings in the air as it went. I saw its muscles working how they should have been, not growing stiff and cold with death. I felt its heart beating, strong and hard and alive.

The bird shifted. At first I thought Dr. Osborne had shifted his hand but the bird's head twitched, turned towards me. It blinked. I yanked my hand back with a gasp. The bird chirped and climbed to its feet, shook out its wings. I heard chairs scraping back as the others stood and came to see, murmuring in amazement.

In a flurry of feathers the bird took off, darting to the cracked window and vanishing out into the open air. I watched it until it faded from sight, and all at once the strength left me, like every drop of energy in me vanished. Like water rushing over me exhaustion took over and I felt my knees buckle. Griffin, still the closest to me, caught me quickly. He was grinning, looking at the window rather than me while he spoke.

"We make a good team, Ro."

Osborne watched us with the same serious, business-like expression as always. "I realize that your circumstances have changed greatly but I am still more than willing to give you all places with me and continue our work together. I'll be honest, I would prefer it over letting any of you out on your own. Until your memories return we can't be sure what you may do accidentally."

"Will they return?" Blue asked him.

"I hope so."

We all looked around again, another of those silent, shared conversations we'd developed. "We need to talk about it."

"Of course." He didn't hesitate to leave us, sweeping away through door just as he'd come in.

Griffin helped me into a chair and everybody else sat down, crowding together to talk. "This is insane," Lightning said after a moment of silence, once we were sure Osborne had gone. "This is not happening."

"It's happening, Lightning," Griffin told him.

He groaned and let his forehead fall against the tabletop. "Can we just be done with weird shit now?"

"I don't think we can escape the weird shit. We are the weird shit."

Blue looked at each of us. "What do we think?"

I had to think for a moment. "He knows us. He knows what we can do. He's obviously not lying about that much."

"And it would be nice to have somewhere to live that's an actual place to live," Griffin added.

She nodded. "If we're as powerful as he says I don't want to risk us hurting anybody."

Griffin flinched but nodded as well. "Agreed."

"Fox? Light?"

"He might have known us before, but can we trust the guy?" Lightning asked, raising his head. "He seems creepy."

"Do we have much choice, though?" I asked him. "We can't exactly live on the streets."

"Why not? We're obviously good enough at it."

"Because it's going to get colder. And we can't steal everything we need, there are people here." He opened his mouth, I knew in protest, but closed it again at the look I gave him. "We can't steal, Lightning."

"Besides," Griffin told him, "I don't know about you guys but I'd rather be somewhere I'm not going to kill a random bystander if I can't control myself. We don't remember how to control what we can do and he knows how to teach us. I'm not a fan of the guy, either, but I think it's the best option we have right now."

"Me, too." Blue looked to Fox. "What about you, Fox?"

She had hardly said a word since she'd shown up and I couldn't help but be worried. This wasn't how Fox was supposed to act. She seemed...scared. "I think," she started quietly, "it's the safest place we can find right now."

We all turned to Lightning, waiting. "Fine. I can put up with the creepy doctor."

We exchanged another round of looks, a combination of confirming that this was our next step and reassuring each other that it was the right next step, and then Blue stood. We followed behind her in a little huddle to the door. Osborne was waiting just down the hall, a cup of coffee in hand, and Blue took a deep breath and spoke with an impressive steadiness and resolution.

"Okay. We'll go with you."