I’m skeptical, but after spending a few minutes up against him eating the two snack-size Hershey bars Avery offers me, I’m ready to try again. Together, we identify the Ten of Pentacles and The Magician without a single wrong guess. In both cases, it’s my information that narrows down the handful of possibilities to only one. By the time we set the Tarot deck aside, I’m considering getting my own to practice with.
Avery studies me from her seat in the creaky desk chair, looking like an evil genius with her pensive, narrowed eyes. “Have you ever tried reading a person’s feelings?”
“Uh, yeah.” I stare at her like she’s lost her mind. Did she miss the part where I’m clairsentient? “That’s my problem, I’m always picking up everyone’s feelings.”
“But noton purpose.”
“Why would I do that?” I pick up enough emotions by accident. Why add water to a river that’s already at flood stage?
As usual, Avery won’t back down. “Because youcan. Ownership, remember? I’ll bet if you focused, you could sense everything Leo’s feeling right now.”
“Leo?” I sit up with a jolt. “Why Leo?’
A slow smile spreads across Avery’s face. “Well, because he’s right beside you?”
I don’t like that knowing glimmer in her eyes. Or the heat consuming my face. “Um…” I glance at Leo. His brows are raised and his smile is wobbly. Am I nuts, or does he seem nervous?
“Go ahead and give it a try,” he says. “If you want.”
“I can’t,” I blurt. “I mean, it wouldn’t work.”
“Why not?” asks Aaron. “You did it with the cards.”
“Because I didn’t know what they were. But with Leo—” I shake my head. “With a person—” Any person, please, other than him. “With a person, I’d be bringing a bunch of assumptions to the table. You know, all the things I know about him.” Along with my own complicated emotions. Even with a stranger, it would be nearly impossible to distinguish whose feelings are whose.
“That’s something you’d have to practice,” Avery admits. “Really clearing your mind.”
“Well, that’s not gonna happen tonight. Too much chocolate and cider.” I toss a sizable gulp of the latter down my throat. There. Now, don’t ask me again.
Avery shrugs and sings under her breath, “It would be really empowering.”
Leo leans in so our shoulders are touching again. “She’s right.” He lowers his voice. “It’s a good way to practice controlling your ability.”
“I don’t want to control it. I just want to block it out.”
Avery doesn’t even try to hide the fact that she’s listening to us. “You’re never gonna be able to block it all out, witchling.”
Aaron agrees with her. He tells me how he uses shielding by imagining soundproof tiles going up all around him. “But even then, if there’s something I really need to hear, I’m still going to hear it.”
I snatch a chocolate bar off the end table and tear it open. “Can we talk about something else?”
“Sure,” Avery says, like the placating mother of a pouty teen. “Anyone want more cider?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the plant Leo revived, sitting proudly on the windowsill. It looks even healthier and more lush than it did a few weeks ago, and strangely, one of its trailing stems has curled around the Krampus candle. Avery just set that candle there two hours ago; the vine couldn’t have grown that fast. Maybe somebody brushed past it and pulled it along?
I gently elbow Leo. “What did you do to Avery’s plant?”
“I healed it.”
“Yeah, but how?”
“I talked to it.”
“I do that all the time, but my plants die anyway.”
“Do you talk nicely to them?”
“No,” I drawl. “I call them rude names.”
