Pittacus Lore - The Power of Six

“Not really,” she murmurs, running her hands over the stones’ surfaces. “This is the healing stone Henri and I used at the school,” she says, pointing out a flat, black rock I’ve seen before. Then she freezes, a faint gasp escaping her lips. Sam and I exchange confused expressions. She lifts a pale yellow stone, its surface waxy and smooth, from the Chest and holds it up to the light. “Oh my God,” she marvels, flipping it over.

“Tell me,” I prod. She looks me right in the eyes.

“Xitharis,” she says. “It comes from our first moon.”

She brings the small stone to her forehead, squeezing her eyes shut. The faint yellow shade of the stone darkens slightly. She opens her eyes and hands the stone to me. I frown and take it from her, my fingertips grazing the palm of her hand. Sam inhales sharply.

“What the . . .” He looks terrified, groping for me like he’s blind.

“What’s going on?” I ask, slapping Sam’s hands away from my face.

“You’re invisible,” Six says quietly. I look down at my lap, and it’s true: I’ve completely vanished. I drop the Xitharis on the floor like a hot potato, and instantly become visible.

“The Xitharis,” Six explains, “allows one Garde to transfer a Legacy to another, but only for a short period of time. An hour, I think, maybe two. I can’t say for sure. All you have to do is charge it by focusing your energy on the stone. Put it to your forehead, and bam , it’s ready to go.”

“Charge it, like a battery?” Sam asks.

“Exactly, and it won’t start using the Legacy until it’s touched again.”

I look at the stone. “Sweet. Looks like somebody other than you is taking a trip into town.”

“And somebody other than you is going to be resistant to fire,” she says playfully.

“If you’re nice to me, then it’s definitely a possibility,” I say.

Sam picks the stone up and clenches his entire body in deep concentration. Nothing happens. “Oh come on,” he says to the stone. “I promise to use it for the power of good. No girls’ locker rooms, I swear.”

“Sorry, Sam,” Six says. “I’m pretty sure this stuff only works on us.”

He sets the Xitharis down and we dig through the rest of the Chest to see if anything else is activated by touch; but after an hour of studying and holding all seventeen artifacts, blowing hot air on them, squeezing them tightly, nothing else engages aside from the glowing crystal wrapped in the towel, the larger oblong crystal with the smoky center, and the solar system still rotating above us. The healing stone, however, does cure the cuts and bruises Six has been stamping my body with.

“Man, I’ve waited most of my life to open this thing; and now that I have, a lot of it seems useless to me,” I say.

“I’m sure their uses will reveal themselves in time,” Six assures me. “Things like this need to be slept on. It’s usually when they’ve left your mind completely that answers finally come.”

I nod, looking back at everything lying around the Chest. Six is right; forcing an answer only guarantees that no answer will come.

“Yeah, maybe some of it only activates with further Legacies. Who knows,” I say with a shrug. I put everything back inside, feeling compelled to keep the glowing crystal covered with the towel. I leave the solar system out, which continues its circular march. I close and lock the Chest and carry it down the hall.

“Don’t be discouraged, John,” Six says behind me. “As Henri said, you’re probably not ready to see it all yet.”

I CAN’T SLEEP. PARTLY BECAUSE OF THE CHEST. For all I know, one of the gems inside could give me power to morph into different creatures like Bernie Kosar, or one could create an iron barrier around me impossible to penetrate by enemy attack. But how will I know without Henri? I feel sad. Defeated.

But mostly I can’t stop thinking about Six, can’t stop picturing her face hovering inches above mine, or the sugary scent of her breath, or the way the setting sun had made her eyes glow. In that moment I had an irrepressible desire to stop training and to simply wrap my arms around her and squeeze her down onto me. A pang of longing to do that even now, hours later, has anchored itself in my heart, and that’s what’s really keeping me up. That, and the overwhelming guilt I feel about my attraction to her. The person I’m supposed to be longing for is Sarah.

There’s too much on my mind to expect sleep, too many emotions: pain, desire, confusion, guilt. I lie another twenty minutes before giving up on sleep. I whip aside my blanket and pull on a pair of pants and a gray tee. Bernie Kosar follows me from the room and down the hallway. I poke my head into the living room to see if Sam’s asleep. He is, wrapped up in a blanket on the floor like a worm in a cocoon, and I turn and walk back. Six’s room is directly across the hall from mine, and her door’s ajar. I stand looking at it, and I hear Six rustle on the floor.

“John?” she whispers.

I cringe, and my heart immediately races.

“Yeah?” I reply, still standing outside.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” I whisper. “I can’t sleep.”

“Come in,” she says. I push open the door. Her room is pitch-black, and I can’t see anything. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” I say. I barely turn on my Lumen, and the faint glow is like a night-light. I keep my eyes off her and on the carpet. “Just too much on my mind, you know. I was maybe thinking of going for a walk or a run or something.”

“Well, that’s kind of dangerous, don’t you think? Don’t forget you’re on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List with a fat reward on your head,” she says.

“I know, but . . . it’s still dark out, and you could make us invisible, couldn’t you? I mean, that’s if you wanted to come along.”

I increase the lights on my hands and I can see Six sitting on the floor with a couple blankets over her legs and her hair’s pulled back with loose strands falling around her face. She shrugs, then tosses the blankets aside and stands. She’s wearing black yoga pants and a white tank. I can’t stop myself from staring at her bare shoulders. I look away when I’m hit with the absurd suspicion that she can feel my eyes on her.

“Sure,” she says, pulling the band from her hair and rewrapping her ponytail. “I always have a hard time sleeping. Especially on the floor.”

“I hear that,” I say.

“Do you think we’ll wake up Sam, though?”

I shake my head. She responds with a shoulder shrug and lifts her hand. I take it immediately. Six disappears, but my hand still glows and I can see her foot imprints in the carpet. Then I extinguish my hand and we tiptoe from the room and down the hallway. Bernie Kosar follows, and when we reach the living room, Sam lifts his head from the floor and stares right at us. Six and I stop, and I hold my breath to remain silent. I think about Sam’s obvious crush on Six and how he’d be devastated if he saw us holding hands.

“Hey, Bernie,” he says groggily, then drops his head and rolls over with his back facing us. We remain silent for a few seconds, and then Six leads us across the living room and into the kitchen to leave through the back door.

The night is warm, and filled with the sounds of crickets and swaying palm fronds. I inhale deeply as Six and I walk hand in hand. I find it odd that Six’s hand seems so small and delicate in mine, despite her amazing physical strength. I love the way it feels. Bernie Kosar races through the heavy brush lining the gravel drive while Six and I stroll silently down its center. It dead-ends into a narrow road and we turn left.