A Psi-Mage's Beginning

It was nine years ago today that my mom died. She died on my birthday. I was nine years old. I’ll never forget that day.

Prometheus Park was beautiful, as always. The sun was bright and warm even though it was only mid morning. I loved to go to the park back then. My mom and I would go at least every other weekend, but we’d always go on my birthday. Ever since I can recall, I remember going to the park and loving it. We’d bring stale bread crumbs to feed the ducks in the pond. Sometimes we’d play tag, or hide and go seek, or sometimes she’d just read these fantastic stories to me while I acted out the role of the heroine. Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan were my favorites. My ninth birthday started like any other…

My mom had packed up a picnic basket full of goodies which I hadn’t been allowed to see. She always liked to surprise me on my birthdays with what would be in the basket. I had grabbed my Frisbee and the bag of stale bread crumbs. I had also grabbed my Alice in Wonderland book. We were going to start reading it again for at least the sixteenth time. I’d lost count long ago.

The sky was the perfect blue with only a few big and fluffy white clouds drifting lazily across the sky. The sun was climbing steadily up into the sky. I could almost imagine Apollo in his chariot urging his horses to climb higher and higher into the beautiful sky. Mom had smiled at me then, seeing my expression and anticipation of the day to come. Mom had a smile that would make men walk into things. I’d seen her do it before. I had always thought it funny and giggled whenever it happened.

We had walked to the park that day. It was far too nice to drive. We always fed the ducks first. Up until I was six years old, the ducks would take the bread crumbs right out of my hand. On my sixth birthday one of the ducks had been a little too excited and nipped my finger. It hadn’t really hurt, I guess, but I had screamed. So now the ducks would waddle close and wait for us to throw the crumbs to them. It was still a lot of fun to watch them scramble for it. I never was able to get one single duck to actually catch a piece of bread.

After feeding the ducks we sat down at the edge of the pond with our feet dangling in the water and had watched them paddle to the other side of the pond. Mom had searched around in the picnic basket while I tried to get a peek and had pulled out some deviled eggs. They were one of my favorite foods ever made. We each ate two and then laid back on the warm, green grass and looked up into the sky. We took turns trying to explain to one another about the shapes we each saw in the few clouds that were overhead.

After that it was time for a game of Frisbee. I almost got her to jump into the pond with one throw. I had quite the fit of giggles seeing my mom teetering at the edge of the pond as the Frisbee had just escaped her grasp. That had ended our Frisbee game so we had sat back down to enjoy another re-reading of Alice in Wonderland. That had to be one of my mom’s favorite books. She had never complained about rereading it over and over again to me. My mom told the greatest stories. I could really see myself as Alice and going through such great adventures. It had been just a little bit after noon then. The sun was high in the sky. Birds were squawking at one another. The ducks were drifting on the surface of the still pond. Mom was putting the book away when I tagged her and yelled “You’re it!”

I had taken off running up the hill. Well, mom had caught up to me easily enough. We had played tag for less then ten minutes when I ran around a large rock and slammed into someone. My mom came running around the rock and scooped me up, apologizing to the man standing there. I remember his smile to this day. There was no warmth in it. It didn’t touch his eyes. It looked like it was forced. That’s when he had pulled out the gun and pointed it at my mom.

I hadn’t moved. I don’t know what was going through my mind then. I have no idea. I just remember him opening his mouth to say something, and then seeing bright blue energy slam into his chest. He had flown a good thirty feet after the impact. You see, my mom had been a mage. A wielder, as she called it.

She was asking me a question. I think she was trying to see if I was okay, but I don’t remember that part so well. That’s when the other men hit her. One had a baseball bat and he had hit her right across the back of the head. Mom fell to the grass hard. There was blood staining the green grass. Then I was being picked up and carried to a waiting van. Mom was thrown in the dark van and I was shoved into a seat. I knew one spell then. It was a small little spell that would chase off vicious dogs and the like. I used it then. I hit the man getting into the back of the van with me and my mom right in the face with it. He had screamed and fallen backwards out of the van as the driver had slammed down the gas pedal. I found out later that these men were Hellions. They were a new gang that apparently had big plans. But that was later, like I said.

They drove us into Kings Row. One of the men had taped my wrists together and slapped me a couple of times, yelling at me to quit screaming. I don’t remember screaming. Something was happening and I didn’t know what it was at the time. I felt sick. I was scared. My mom was lying at my feet bleeding from her head. I was nine years old. Three of the men that attacked us were in the van. And we were in a place I’d only been told about. I had never been to Kings Row before.

They carried my mom into a run down apartment building that couldn’t have been too far from the Tram. I could hear the Tram nearby. The apartment they took us too was dirty. Mom and I always kept the house neat and clean. The apartment was not. They had shoved me onto the couch and told me to keep quiet. Then the three of them tied up my mom and put tape over her mouth. Mom didn’t wake up for a long time. It was almost dark when her eyes fluttered open.

I didn’t move the whole afternoon. I kept hearing things in my head. Voices. I didn’t know what it was then. When night fell outside the men dragged me and my mom up to the roof. There were wizards on the roof. Several of them. For a brief moment I had thought these men were going to be in so much trouble. Then the green robed wizard had spoken and I knew they were all together. “Put her here, in the circle.” The men had done just that. They put my mother in the circle, in the center of all those wizards. The voices were getting worse. My head had started to really hurt. My mom had seen the tears sliding down my cheek. I could see it in her eyes. She was scared. But she wasn’t scared for her, she was scared for me. ‘It will be ok, baby. Be strong.’

I had heard my mom’s thoughts in my head. Then the wizards had started chanting and green fire enveloped my mother. I heard screaming then, but I think it was me. One of the two men standing near me swatted me with the back of his hand, telling me to shut up. That’s when both of them went flying off the roof, one then the other. I think they had screamed. It’s hard to recall all the details that happened next. I don’t even know how it all happened. The last remaining Hellion had pulled out a gun. He flew up into the air too, right over the edge of the building. I wanted it all to stop. I didn’t want the green fire touching my mom. I didn’t want the wizards to get away with what they were doing. The chanting was choked off. Some of the wizards were gasping. Others had surprised looks of fear on their faces. But none of them moved. I could see the head wizard struggling to bring his arm up toward me. I didn’t know why. All the wizards were floating in the air, a few feet off the ground. Even my mom was floating, surrounded be green fire. ‘Baby, I love…’

That was the last thing I heard in my head from my mom as the wizards started to fall. My mom was dead. Then there was an explosion. I didn’t know wizards were taught to harness all their magic’s into one burst. The head wizard had known he was about to die. So he had blown up. The roof exploded in fire and I was falling. That’s how my ninth birthday ended. No cake. No presents. No mother. Just the screaming that was my own as I tried to get all the voices in my head to stop.

Like I said before, that was nine years ago. I’m eighteen now. I’m finally out on my own. I can’t read minds anymore. I guess I locked that ability away that night. Or the fall off the building did it. I really don’t know. Shoot, I don’t know how I even survived the explosion or the fall. I don’t remember hitting the road, but I must have. I woke up in a hospital many days later. My throat still hurt from the screaming. By then the voices were gone though.

You see, the Government says I’m a Mentat. Guess that means I’m someone with mental abilities. I’m still telekinetic. I can lift things and toss things around. I’ve been practicing. I am also a wielder, like my mom was. So the wizards say I’m a Psi-Mage. I’m a wizard with the ability to use mental abilities also. I only know a couple of spells right now. I do have my mother’s book though, and I’ll be learning from it as I practice my telekinetic abilities.

I wake up a couple times a week with the nightmare of that night fresh in my mind. Cold sweat covers my body as I lie there shuddering. I keep seeing all those wizards being crushed by my emerging psionic abilities. All of them held immobile. My mother is floating there too. She’s immobile. It is times like that when I wonder if I killed my mom, instead of the wizards killing her. Metallica may have said it best in one of their songs.

“My mother was a witch, she was burned alive.” The song is titled ‘Am I Evil’, if I remember correctly. I sometimes wonder that very question. Am I? By then, the nightmare is fading away. My mother’s eyes are the last image to go. I get up and go into the bathroom to splash cold water on my face. The social workers have all told me it wasn’t my fault. There was nothing I could have done. But they weren’t there. They say I’m lucky that a hero came by and stopped the ritual before the wizards had gotten to me. There was no hero there so save my mother or me.

The hot shower always makes me feel better. As the hot water runs over my body I can feel it undoing the knotted muscles in my neck. The stiffness leaves my legs and I begin to feel normal again. Normal? What is normal for an eighteen year old telekinetic wielder?

Nine years spent in foster homes and seeing social workers and counselors. Always pulled out of the good foster homes too soon and left far too long in the bad foster homes. I never was adopted. A traumatic, psychologically damaged, little girl is I think how one counselor put it. You get a tag like that and no “wholesome” family wants to be anywhere near you. But that’s all in the past now, right?

They wanted to leave me a ward of the State. There was something about me not being stable enough to take care of myself. Well, I may be quiet a lot, but I’m not oblivious to what’s going on. I fought that one. I surprised them all. I proved they should have listened to me all those years ago when I said I could hear voices in my head. I lifted the Judges desk off the floor. I told the Judge that I was a wielder and was perfectly capable of taking care of myself. He dismissed the petition on the spot. “Good luck to you, Hero."

Those were his parting words. ‘Good luck to you, Hero.’ I’m no hero. I don’t run around in spandex wearing a cape. I don’t wear a red, white and blue bikini and have a weird name. I had wanted to be a singer up until that day, nine years ago. So I’m no hero. My name is Wendy Alice Carter. That’s all I can ever see it being. Until I gain more control of my abilities and more knowledge of my mother’s spells, I am going to put as many Hellions in jail as I can. They’ll come to know my name. And I don’t need a costume to do it. After the Hellions are dealt with I’ll go to Kings Row and hunt for the wizards behind my mother’s kidnapping. I know it still happens. The wizards take people right off the street. That’s going to stop. Maybe someday I’ll be able to start my singing career. Someday. When the nightmares stop…