The Search for Artemis - By P. D. Griffith Page 0,43

feel comfortable in her knowledge and hopeful that he might get something out of it.

“So tell me again, what’s in this room? Don’t tell me what you already know is here, what else?”

Landon racked his brain for an answer. He didn’t know what she wanted. After a length of awkward silence, Landon began to crack his eyelids hoping to see something else that could provide some insight, only to be scolded the second his eyelids opened.

“I don’t know,” Landon replied, frustrated.

“Stop trying to find some trick to this. You’re thinking about ‘how’ too much and not just doing it.”

Raising his voice, Landon said, “That’s because I don’t know how to just do it. This was such a mistake. You obviously can’t help me.”

Landon started to lean over on his arm to get up and leave, but stopped when Peregrine’s hand pressed on his knee.

“Landon, please don’t leave.” Her voice sounded empathetic and gentle. Landon settled back on the floor and listened to Peregrine’s words. “Close your eyes again; clear your mind of all your thoughts; forget everything else and focus on your body. Concentrate on your breath and feel your heart beating in your chest. Now follow that beat as it courses through you. Feel it pulse at your fingertips and in your toes.”

Landon reluctantly followed her directions. He slowed his breathing and worked to center himself. He began to feel his heart beating in his chest. Thump thump, thump thump. It was strong and steady. It felt so powerful, he wasn’t sure how he wasn’t aware of it all the time. He continued to feel his heart beating and began to sense every inch of his body as his blood coursed through him.

“Now, keep following that beat. Follow it as it moves outside of your body.”

Suddenly, Landon became aware of everything around him as the wave moved through the room. It was like radar in a submarine. He felt things around him but couldn’t identify them. He could sense their weight and their presence but nothing was clear. They were just blurry blips in his mind.

With every heartbeat he gained a broader sense of his surroundings. He figured the large object he felt was the massive oak, but in that he began to sense the thousands of leaves on its branches and perceived, albeit faintly, the motion of hundreds of little things moving over the bark. He noticed objects varying in size around the roots of the tree that he imagined were stones and rocks. He could feel the pillars around him, and the dome overhead. He could feel Peregrine sitting in front of him, and lightly resting in her palm, he felt the ring.

“I feel it! I can feel it!” Landon was elated, feeling the weeks of failure and disappointment washed over with optimism and excitement.

He opened his eyes, his beaming stare fixed on the wondrous girl before him who had an exuberant smile stretched across her face.

“So what’s in the room?” she asked through her smile.

“So much more than I thought, but I can’t really tell you.”

“I should’ve expected that. I’ve been doing this for so long I forgot how it starts,” she said. “As you get better, you should be able to actually see everything for what it is. Instead of giant fuzzy blobs, the things should come into focus and you’ll actually see that it’s a tree or a rock or a bug. It’ll also become instinctual. You won’t have to shut your eyes and concentrate like you just did; you’ll just know what’s there.”

• • • • •

Closing the copy of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, Landon sat up in the large chair and closed his eyes. Peregrine’s words from weeks ago replayed in his head, and he became aware of everything around him as he accessed his powers. Since that night, Landon steadily gained more control over his abilities and learned more and more about himself. In Tactometry, which he could now actually participate in, he discovered that his extensity was somewhere in the range of twenty-five meters, creating his tactometric sphere. It was relatively large compared to most, but his recent lessons in Telekinetics taught him that sensing was not even half the battle. He had feeling, but no finesse.

That morning, case in point, Landon had accidentally given Riley a black eye after his training ball zoomed across the room, ricocheted off the wall and connected with his friend’s unsuspecting face. It happened in seconds and ended with Riley laying