New Novel 1

Lens Part 1

By Andrew Fitzgerald (Asa Montreaux)

It was a normal day if there ever was one for the folk of Norfolk, though the Everson’s were experiencing a day that was not so normal, but rather extraordinary. There had been a series of mysterious occurrences for which there was no discernible explanation.

First, the plates in the sink, the plates and glasses in the cupboards, the toaster and the kettle, began to move up and down. After a while they were literally levitating in the air. Then, the lights throughout the entire house began to flicker on an off, and they continued to do so, no matter what light was flicked on or off, or what fuse was switched on or off, for two whole hours. 

After that, a curious cold air spread from room to room in the house, so that no one in the home could bare to do anything without a jacket and blanket. And after those events, finally the whole home began to shake, including the ground, reminiscent of an actual earthquake. It was so strong no could move about the house without falling. 

But perhaps the most curious thing of all was that one person slept through all of the paranormal occurrences. Sixteen year-old Lens didn’t blink an eye from the first plate levitating, to the moment when the whole house stopped shaking. 

Why was this? Neither his mother, his sister, or his brother would accuse Lens of having had something to do with the strange disturbances, though it was a funny occurrence. It had crossed all their minds that Lens had something to do with them.

The truth was it had everything to do with Lens. The teenager had developed powerful abilities, almost overnight, though no one knew. To Lens himself, it was a mystery as well. Though he had inklings of having supernatural abilities, the occurrences previous to this point seemed relatively insignificant. A fallen branch here, a street light down there, nothing particularly noticeable, unless you were looking for it. Suddenly he was cognizant of vey enhanced power, and he felt amazed by it, but also terrified, because he wasn’t sure if he could control it. 

Perhaps while he was in his sleep, he surmised, it was even more uncontrollable. He had just woken up, and was looking around as there were several things in his room that were out of place, some things scattered far across the bedroom from where they were when he went to sleep. And the light was on. Some strange things had happened last night. Hopefully no one was hurt. 

Lens got himself up out of bed, and headed out to the living room area in his pajamas to find out if everyone was alright. He found his mother sitting there, and he could see his sister sitting at the breakfast table, eating eggs. 

‘Everyone alright?’ Lens asked his mother.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We are alright. And it’s good to see you are alright as well. Did you sleep through all that?’

‘I had slept through all of it,’ he said. ‘There must have been like an earthquake. Did anything else happen?’

‘Yes, there were some objects floating in the kitchen, and the lights flickered for hours. Apparently none of this happened in any of the other neighbours homes. I’m not sure if we all hadn’t received some food poisoning last night. Though the fact that all of us experienced the same thing, and the fact the house is a total wreck this morning, seems to indicate otherwise.’

‘Oh well I feel okay. Yea, the house is definitely a mess. Where is my brother?’

‘He’s out for a bit. Went to get something from the market.’

‘Oh, alright.’ 

She looked at him for a moment, secretly wondering what the connection was to him, him sleeping through it all, and the events that occurred. She was secretly of the opinion that they had most certainly happened, though no one could know for sure. Then she went back to reading her magazine, and Lens walked out of the room, and back to his bedroom. It was a close call, Lens thought. He had to get his powers under control, before something bad happened, and someone got hurt because of it. 

Lens grabbed a towel and headed to the bathroom to have a shower. The water felt cleansing on his skin, and he knew he just needed some time to think about things, and he might be able to find out what to do. 

After his shower, he dressed in clean clothes, fitting for the spring weather, and headed out to his clubhouse in the forests behind the homes on his street. He slipped out the back door, and then the back gate. He entered through a path in the trees into the wood scape. In a couple minutes he was at the tree fort. He climbed up, opened the hatch, and shut it behind him, and went and sat on the bean bag chair, placed before the window, overlooking ten, fifteen feet of trees, and then a dip into the river valley, where the stream rustled by, on its way down to Semego lake, half a mile east. 

After a while he thought he found the right questions to focus on. How did it happen? That he got these powers? If he understood their nature, then he might be able to figure out how to control them. What more could he do? How could he work on them? 

He could remember the first time he sensed them. He’d been in class, during elementary school, and an older student had been picking on him in the hallway. The big bully opened his mouth to insult Lens, but then, suddenly, it was as if he could not speak. He opened his mouth, moved his lips as if he was speaking, but everyone around heard nothing. The older boy had been silenced, standing there, the entire time he spoke, after that moment, not a person could hear him. He was flabbergasted. He thought of grabbing Lens, but a vice principal of the school was walking by, so close the old bully could see him. His hands reach out momentarily, he had thought of grabbing lens collars and shaking him, for starters. But with the vice principal so close, he had to let it go. Lens ran off, ducking into his class. But he always remembered that, the first time something remarkable happened. On this occurrence, something good and beneficial had happened. But on other occasions, the results were slightly different. 

One time, out on a walk with his dog at the time, Rascal, a car coming by, getting to close to the curb, had frightened him so much, that a spark of energy had come from him, and threw out a section of the power line. A spark wiggled across the line between one house and the next. Three houses were without power afterwards. Some of the neighbors had blamed him for this, but they never knew exactly what had happened. Some of them called him a bad kid, or at least a kid up to no good on that occasion. A few considered him clumsy. But no one but him guessed the truth, that it had been a magical occurrence. And he had been starting to think that the magic was surely inside himself.

Lens continued to gaze out the window of the club house. His thoughts were still on the paranormal/ magical occurrence that morning, and how to control his magic. He had decided no one had been hurt, so so far so good, no one had been hurt. But with his magic growing in strength, it could be only a matter of time before there is a chance he could hurt somebody. He didn’t want that to happen. How could he get it under control?

A really good thought came to him. How did he use it anyways? Maybe then he’d sort of know how to turn it on and off. It seemed to happen when he is distressed. During moment of extreme emotion, it could suddenly unleash itself. But there were other moments.

Sometimes, when he felt most quiet of all, like there was nothing on his mind at all, he could swear it activated. But more, he almost swore he could use it. It was like everything was not moving, it was so quiet in his mind, and then he swore if he raised his hand, he could use the energy to do something with it. 

But those were the only moments, not quite. There was one more instance of his magic occurring, and that was when he was asleep. It seemed, for the first time, to have unleashed itself without any extreme emotion. Could it have been the case he was having a bad dream. He could have forgotten, but he swore he hadn’t had a dream the whole night. He would surely remember at least a little of some dream that was really intense. So it seemed obvious: it came from a place of deep quiet.

So maybe he could get there. With deep focus, and complete calm, he could possibly activate the telekinesis. It’d have to be like in a dream. He’d have to be completely relaxed. Though, to actually use it, he would have to be focused on the energy as well. It seemed a difficult task. But he thought maybe he could do it.

He closed his eyes, and tried to still his mind. He tried consciously to put all the thoughts out of his mind that were preventing it from being still and quiet. He figured he’d stay this way for a few minutes. The minutes passed. He tried to have no thoughts whatsoever. After a few minutes, he thought about the difficulty of the task, and thought it might take a little more calm to make it happen. So he let five minutes go by. After that, he was ready to try telekinesis.

He stood up, and looked a little ways off to where the stream was, and reached out his arms. He tried to bend the waves of the water with his hand, watching the waves rustled by the current.