Grey Eyes: Book One of the Forever Trilogy

Chapter Seventeen

“I-I did this?  But how?”

Dr. Roberts wasn’t listening.  He was scrambling to locate the phone he’d dropped.  Whomever he was talking to must have still been on the line because he didn’t dial back before speaking. 

“How?” he asked.  “Is she a healer? Like Genevieve?”  He looked up at me.  I stood perfectly still.  “What else can you do?”

Hearing the concern in his voice, I decided to be completely honest.  “Sometimes, I can hear people’s thoughts…It’s kinda random though.”

His eyes widened.  “She’s a conjurer…”

“She’s a conjurer?” Darren repeated from the doorway.  I had no idea how long he’d been standing there.  “But that’s not possible.  She’s an heir.”

Dr. Roberts pulled him into the room, and shut the door behind him.  He continued speaking into the phone, this time doing a much better job of concealing his voice.  When he addressed us again, it was to tell us to sit down and be quiet.  He paced.

Dr. Roberts spoke to me first.  “Ana, the woman on the phone was my mother-in-law.  You may have met her—she attended your welcome party.  She’s not technically a witch, but she’s always been able to see things—things other people can’t.”

“Is that who you were talking about when you said, “she’s” a conjurer?’” Darren asked.  “The woman on the phone?”  His voice took up a hopeful note. 

Dr. Roberts kept his eyes on me.  “Do you trust this boy?”

I looked over at Darren. Realization struck him as I did so. 

“You were talking about Ana, weren’t you?” Darren sighed.

I nodded. 

He stood up and ran his hand across his forehead.  I had enough of waiting for an explanation.  “What do you mean when you say that I’m a conjurer?”

Dr. Roberts took the spot that Darren had just vacated.  “It means that you’ve been gifted with unnatural magic, Ana.”

“Unnatural?”

“Let me explain.  Magic is simply the ability to instruct nature to do what you want.  If I wanted to start a fire out of thin air, then I would simply command nature to create enough friction to do so.  However, although you may command it, you are still bound by its laws.  That is to say, magic is limited to what is naturally possible.  Hence the term, “natural magic.”  All witches and warlocks have this ability once they come of age.  Unnatural magic on the other hand, isn’t nearly as common.  Less than one tenth of one percent of witchfolk are born with the ability to tap into this brand of magic in any significant way, and even then they can usually only access it through one specific gift.  Say mind reading, for example or in my mother-in-law’s case, foresight.  Unnatural magic is essentially the ability to bend nature—“

“To violate it,” Darren interrupted.  “It’s called black magic for a reason.”

Dr. Roberts sighed.  “To put it plainly, there is nothing to limit what a witch gifted with unnatural magic can do.  The normal limitations regarding what is or isn’t possible simply don’t apply.  And judging from the fact that you have multiple gifts, I’d say that not only are you conjurer, but your affinity may very well be unnatural magic.  Only one other has possessed that affinity, the woman whose eyes you’ve inherited.”

Darren nearly choked.  “You can’t be serious.  The elders would never allow that.  They still tell stories about what happened to Gregori Rasputin.”

Dr. Roberts nodded.  “That is why it will never leave this room.  There is an almost paranoid fear of conjurers within our community, to the extent that it rivals that of vampires.  For an heir to command such power—her affinity no less…”

He let his words trail off and placed a comforting hand on my shoulder.  I wondered if I looked as frightened as I felt.  “Ana I don’t mean to scare you, but I need for you to listen now.  I want you to call your grandmother and tell her that my treatments worked.  I’ll play along and swear to have no idea how it happened, but that it did in fact happen as a result of my efforts.”  He turned to Darren.  “I take it by your coming by to see her today that you two are friends?”

“More than friends soon.” Darren looked down at the floor, as angry as he looked when we’d first met.

“Good.  Then you will take this information to the grave.  Know that if you let this slip, even once, you put her in terrible danger.”

He still looked conflicted, but nodded.  “I understand.”

Finally, he smiled at me, shaking his head happily.  “Ana, you’ve done it.  You’ve saved your mother.  Of course, I’ll need to monitor her for the next twenty-four hours to see what kind of effect your magic has on her overall prognosis.  But for now…”

I repeated the words over and over in my head.  “You’ve saved your mother.”  Honestly, after hearing those words, it was hard to be too concerned with the rest of it.