suggestions of images and you see them. It’s a rare one and difficult to control, but I have learned to do it. There is so much that you too can learn, Nathan. You have great potential.”
“You’ve learned how to use other Gifts? But did you take them from someone else?”
“No, Nathan. I haven’t taken anything from anyone. I access . . . the source of it all. And I think you could learn to do that too. And there is true joy in discovering more, in learning.”
“That’s really not me. I was never that good at school.”
“I’m sure school didn’t suit you at all, but you learn quickly about Gifts. You’re intuitive. And remarkably trusting and honest, given your background. Oh yes, Van told me all about you. Everything she knew, which was quite a lot. About your parents, your brother and sisters, your time in a cage, your escape; and since then too—your father and what happened to him. You’ve overcome so many challenges, Nathan, but there is still more potential in you—that I know. Perhaps it’s this wildness that you have.”
He takes my hands again and looks into my eyes, and I wonder if the amulet can be made to help me, a Half Code, fight Soul and the Hunters.
Ledger sits back in his chair, saying, “Your thoughts are always going back to this war and the amulet. But, Nathan, the amulet is a trinket. I admit a very special one, but it’s still a magical thing and the thing is of little interest; it’s the magic itself that you should be interested in. The creator of the amulet locked that magic within it, but it’s the same magic as is in you and in me. There is the same core of power that moves through it all. The Essence, as I call it. The Essence of it all. The Essence of us all.”
Impressing Ledger
“So you’ve found it, the Essence?” I ask Ledger as we walk along the riverbank.
“I’ve found many things and have many abilities and I like to think I’m plucking away at the edge of the blanket of the Essence.”
“What was your one Gift? The original one.”
“Mind control. I was an intelligent child and confident in many ways and I knew, absolutely knew, that I would have a strong Gift. And yet in other ways, socially, one might say, I was neither confident nor happy. I had many strengths but they were out of balance. I was a small girl, not that attractive and very boyish. I wasn’t interested in dressing nicely or fashionably. I found boys’ clothes more comfortable. One boy in particular, Jack, he called me a boy. Said I wasn’t a girl at all. I ignored his comments, my intellectual self telling me that he was stupid, a fain, and what did it matter what he thought or said? And yet inside I was hurt. I didn’t realize how much until I found my Gift, a few weeks after my seventeenth birthday. It was a tiny incident. I was sitting on the school bus, near the front, reading a book, and Jack got on, walked past me, and called me a freak the way he always did. ‘How’s it going, freak?’ And I remember not even looking up from my book but thinking, ‘Go away, asshole!’ And he turned round, got off the bus, and walked away.
“That’s how I knew what my Gift was. Within a few weeks I discovered that not only could I make Jack walk away but I could make him do other things as well. It was a long time ago. Attitudes were different . . . maybe. I made him tell his friends that he preferred boys; I think I knew that he did, that he was trying to cover this up. He was seventeen too. I thought I was very clever. It seemed the perfect revenge.” Ledger glances at me. “I’m not sure exactly what happened after that. He ended up sitting at the front of the bus but not with me, not with anyone. Then he started missing school, and when I did see him his face was bruised. I felt guilt but couldn’t think how to make it right. A few weeks later he committed suicide.
“Was it my fault that he died? I think so. Did he deserve to die? No. Was he evil? From my perspective, not far off it—he made my life miserable. But I felt guilt then and still do. Because