My love.
I have waited.
So.
So.
Long.
To be with you once again.
For so long, you have been away. I thought you would not
return.
But then, once again, I sensed you.
From the centre of the earth, I have scratched and fought
and dug my way to find you.
It has taken months.
Fuelled only by my longing to once again be held by you. To
feel your hands around me.
They complete me.
They give me purpose.
And I, in return, give you everything.
I can feel the air above me.
I can feel the sun.
I am so close.
So close to you once more.
*****************************************************
The director sat opposite Shane Smith. In the previous few
days, he’d gone from under constant supervision and enforced settlement to five
star treatment. From a containment unit under the security services to a
penthouse suite.
Shane straightened his tie and smiled. “You guys can be very
generous when you want to be.” He settled back into the comfortable chair.
“You were treated more harshly than you should have been.”
He laughed. “Nah, it’s cool, man. I get it. Security measures
and all that. And you don’t know who I am, right? You’ve got to take
precautions.”
“Exactly.” The director sipped a coffee. “You’re still a
concern for all of those reasons, but we’re aware that…”
“That I can be made to work for you?”
The director put the coffee down and looked out at the city.
The hotel was at the edge of Whitehall,
and the view looked out at Trafalgar Square. There were tourists milling
around, taking pictures of each other. The director could see children and
teenagers clambering on the lower statues and around the fountain. “That’s such
an ugly way of putting it.”
“It’s true.”
“Let us say you are helping us at our request. That is a
much nicer way of putting it.”
“It is.”
He looked back at Shane, and hesitated before speaking. “This…gift
of yours. How do you do it?”
The smile faltered and fell. “I don’t know.”
“When did it start?”
“While I was on stage,” he replied. “This guy was stood
right in front of me, and I was… most of what I do, it’s about psychology,
okay? It’s usually about getting people to say what I want them to say, or
about making them give away what they’re thinking. It’s about… it’s about
manipulation.”
“I know. You’re not the first psychic we’ve encountered. You’re
just the first real one.”
The smile came back, measured and professional. “So, there
the guy was. And I just…I just knew. It was like I’d always known. I could just…
find the answers there. It was like looking at a painting. Just right there.”
“Is it switched on all the time?”
“No. I… at times. I can’t always control it very well.
Sometimes, it’s overwhelming. Other times, I have to work at it.”
“Work at it how?”
“Kind of…” he let out a low breath. “This is weird to
explain, you know? It’s kind of… like asking a question. But not out loud. I’ve
got to do it like it’s at the front of my mind. Like I’m thinking of a question
I want them to answer.”
The director nodded. “Is that what you did with me?”
“Basically. I knew there was something, and I guessed it was
you just because you were there. It was a fairly obvious bluff, to be fair.”
“Evidently. But it’s something that you haven’t been
prevented from doing yet?”
Shane shook his head. “No. Not yet, anyway. As long as the person is relatively close to
me.”
“How far?”
“I don’t know exactly. Same room, more or less.”
“What size room?”
He gestured around. “Around this size, I reckon. So still fairly large.”
The Director saw something out of the corner of his eye, but
it hadn’t quite made it to his brain yet. Something going on down below. It
meant that he missed the illusionist’s question and had to ask him to repeat
it.
“I asked what you want me to do.”
The thing he was looking at was still bothering him, but he
put it to the back of his mind while he focused on the question. “Well, you
just became more effective than a lie detector, and certainly more effective
than torture in terms of accurate results, so that’s part of it. Also, there’s
enough going on at the moment which we’re trying to contain. You’re unique in
terms of your ability, but you aren’t the only… anomaly we’ve come across so
far. Or found evidence of.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean… things are happening. Which we can’t explain. And
not just in England, but across the world. And we’re still trying to work out
how to deal with it.”
“What kind of things?”
“For want of a better word,” the Director said, feeling
stupid saying it, but still being bothered by something that was gnawing into
his brain, “… magic things.”
Shane looked at him for a moment. “What’s going on?”
“We don’t know. There are too many things going on at once,
and sooner or later, the media is going to start taking it serious – “
“I meant out there. You’ve seen something.” He stood up and
walked over to the Director’s side of the table and looked down at Trafalgar
Square. The Director turned and looked, and now the thing that had been
prodding his brain that his eyes had seen but he hadn’t been able to comprehend became clear in front
of him.
People were moving away from the square. Some of them were
running.
Because Trafalgar Square was moving.
The ground was rising, breaking up. It was happening slowly,
but enough to see and feel happen right in front of their eyes.
Something was pushing its way up from beneath the earth, and
it was breaking its way through the centre of London.
**********************************************
I break through the earth.
I break through the stone.
I rise and I feel the sun on me once again.
It has been so long.
I had forgotten its warmth.
Come to me.
My love.
Come to me.
