Морган Райс - The Orb of Kandra

Ms. Belfry looked unimpressed. “Paul. Gluing your hands to the desk isn’t the most sensible idea you’ve ever had.”

The class descended into raucous laughter.

“I didn’t, Ms. Belfry!” Paul cried. “Something weird is happening to me!”

Just then, Samantha let out another huge sneeze.

Smiling to himself, Oliver turned back to the front of the class.

Ms. Belfry clapped her hands. “Everyone pay attention. Sir Isaac Newton was an English mathematician and physicist. Does anyone know when he founded the law of gravity?”

Oliver’s hand went confidently into the air again. It was the only one. Ms. Belfry looked at him and nodded. She looked pleased that he was no longer reticent to raise his hand. Before, she’d had to coax the answers out of him.

“Yes, Oliver?”

“1687.”

She beamed. “That’s correct.”

Just then Oliver heard Paul mock him again. Clearly sticking his hands to the table wasn’t enough to stop him. Oliver needed to close his mouth too.

He turned and narrowed his eyes at Paul. In his mind, he visualized a zip closing Paul’s lips. Then he pushed out the image. And just like that, Paul’s mouth zipped closed.

Paul started to make a muffled, panicked noise. Students turned around and started to squeal at the strange sight. Ms. Belfry looked alarmed.

Immediately, Oliver knew he’d gone too far. He quickly reversed what he’d done to Paul, freeing his mouth and hands. But it was too late. Paul glared at him and raised a finger.

“You! You’re a freak! You made that happen!”

As the children began to hurl insults at Oliver, he looked to Ms. Belfry. There was a strange look of confusion behind her eyes, as if she were asking a silent question.

As a chorus of “Freak!” rang out behind him, Ms. Belfry clapped her hands.

“Everyone quiet down! Quiet down!”

But Oliver’s classmates were in a frenzy. They were all crowding around Oliver, pointing and shouting, calling him names. He felt hounded, belittled. It was awful.

He wanted them away from him. He closed his eyes and pushed out with his powers. Suddenly, everything went silent.

Oliver opened his eyes again and saw kids grabbing their throats and mouths. They were still shouting at him but there was no noise coming out. It was as if Oliver had simply turned off their voice-boxes.

People started to stagger back from him, toward the door. Soon, they were running out of the room. But Oliver wasn’t done. They needed to learn not to bully people, not to call people names or point in their faces. They needed to really learn their lesson.

So as they hurried into the corridor, Oliver conjured a storm cloud. It rained down on the kids as they went, soaking them as thoroughly as the sprinkler system.

The final child ran out of the room. Then it was just Oliver and Ms. Belfry.

He looked at her and gulped. There was no doubt now. Oliver had revealed his powers to her.

Ms. Belfry ran to the door and closed it firmly. She turned to look at Oliver. There was a deep furrow between her eyebrows. “Who are you?”

Oliver felt a tightness in his chest. What would Ms. Belfry think of him? If she was scared or thought him a freak like his classmates, he’d feel crushed.

She paced toward him. “How did you do that?”

But as she came closer, Oliver realized that her expression was not one of shock or fear. It was a look of wonder. A look of awe.

She pulled up a chair beside him and sank into it, looking at him intently. Her eyes sparkled with intrigue. “Who are you, Oliver Blue?”

Oliver remembered the compass. It had directed him here, to Ms. Belfry. It was a sign from the universe that she was someone he could trust. Someone who would help him on his quest.

He swallowed his nerves and began to speak.

“I have powers. Power over the elements and the forces of nature. I can travel through time and change history.”

Ms. Belfry was completely silent. She stared at him and blinked several times. Finally, she spoke.

“I always suspected there was something different about you.” The tone in her voice was one of awe.

Oliver was shocked. Ms. Belfry didn’t think he was a freak at all. His heart leapt with joy.

“You believe me?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yes. I do.” Then she shuffled a little closer in her seat and looked at him intently. “Now. Tell me everything.”

So Oliver did. He started right at the beginning, from the day of the storm. For Ms. Belfry, it had been last night, but for Oliver days and days had passed.

He told her about Armando Illstrom and Lucas. About his meeting with Ralph Black and their journey to the School for Seers. About how the school itself sat between dimensions and could only be accessed through a special portal in 1944. He told her about the classes, Doctor Ziblatt, and the interdimensional portals. He told her about the food court and the rising table, about Hazel Kerr, Simon Cavendish, and Walter Stroud the amazing switchit player. He told her about the Orb of Kandra and Professor Amethyst’s office with zero gravity, the sleep pods and the test that determined his seer type. Then he told her about his date with Esther Valentini and the attack on the school. He talked her through the events in Nazi Germany with Lucas’s bomb. He showed her the amulet Professor Amethyst had gifted him, the one that would warm up if he were ever near a portal that could lead him back to the School for Seers. And finally, he told her about his parents, about how the Blues were not his real family and how he wanted to find his real mom and dad, the people in his visions.

Finally, his story complete, Oliver stopped talking.

Ms. Belfry looked stunned. She just slowly nodded as her eyes scanned back and forth. It looked as if she were trying to process everything he had just told her. It was a lot to take in all in one go, Oliver thought. He hoped her brain wouldn’t explode from it all.

“Fascinating,” she said finally.

She leaned back in her seat, her eyes on him. They were filled with curiosity and wonder.

Oliver waited, his stomach squirming with anticipation.

Finally, Ms. Belfry tapped her chin. “May I see this compass of yours?”

He took it from his bag and handed it to her. She examined it very slowly. Then she became suddenly very animated.

“I’ve seen one like this, once before…”

“You have?”

“Yes. It belonged to Professor Nightingale, of Harvard. An old teacher of mine. The most brilliant man I’ve ever met.”

Her excitement was palpable. Oliver watched as she leapt out of her seat and hurried to the bookcase. She pulled down a textbook and handed it to him.

Curiously, Oliver looked at the book. He read from the front cover. “ The Theory of Time Travel .” He gasped and his gaze snapped up to meet hers. “I… I don’t understand.”

Ms. Belfry took her seat again. “Professor Nightingale’s specialty was physics—with an emphasis on time travel.”

Oliver’s head spun. “Do you think he could be a seer? Like me?”

He’d thought there were no other seers in his timeline. But perhaps this Professor Nightingale was one. Perhaps that was why the compass had guided him to Ms. Belfry in the first place.

“Whenever he taught me about a new inventor, he talked as if knew them personally.” She held a hand to her mouth and shook her head in disbelief. “But now I realize he actually did. He must have traveled through time to meet them!”

Oliver felt overwhelmed. His heart began to beat wildly. But Ms. Belfry rested a hand on his, giving him comfort.

“Oliver,” she said gently, “I think you are supposed to meet him. I think the way to your parents, and to your destiny, lies through him.”