Chapter 5

After days of planning, and listening to Mark teased as a “Slime Grower”, I had my plan. Not a brilliant plan ... but something. I had dug out my box of super powerful magnets ... rare earth neodymium disks. Remembering an old magician’s book, I hid them for full use. Even bought some magnetically loaded dice. Then, bringing out an empty clear plastic football display case, Saturday morning, I invited just Maggie & Molly over to test run my newly gained superpower.

Sitting at the kitchen table, with my mom away at her double full-time hospital job, I explained how I could do a bit of telekinesis. Placing a small metal ball in the display case, I waved my hands, grunted, and after a minute, I showed them how I could move the ball with my mind. Skeptical, they suspected a tilting table, so I replaced the ball with a paperclip and moved it back and forth. I further demonstrated with my loaded dice.

Then, they wanted to try. Moving my knees down from the table, I watched as they failed to move the paperclip. They tried and tried, and of course failed. No dice with the dice either. They tried separately and together. No joy. I demonstrated again, and they were a bit impressed.

They insisted on trying again. And failed. Until suddenly the paperclip flew into the display case wall. Back and forth they moved it, up and down in the air, pinging against the top of the case. I was utterly astonished. This demanded a nonmetal test subject. I went to a drawer in the dining room and brought back a couple of ping-pong balls. After placing one in the display case and putting the lid back on, I directed, “Try lifting it.”

The ball hit the top of the case and bounced inside repeatedly until dying down. I was stunned. They did it again and again. I added the second ping-pong ball, replaced the display case lid, and asked them to do both, as hard as they could. Then, my whole life changed. Our lives changed. The balls disappeared! And hit the ceiling, then bounced back down, off the table and across the room. Without the display case opening. Straight through the plastic top.

The three of us shouted in excitement. This was no magic trick. No game. We spent the next couple of hours trying many experiments. I could move nothing legitimately. The twins could now affect slight movements individually. But together, their power escalated. They lifted the entire display case. Lifted a flower vase. And then dropped it with a crash as the glass vase shattered. Even lifted a chair.

But the more excited I got, the more dead tired the twins became. We agreed to tell no one. I helped them climb the stairs to lie in my bed. As they slept, my mind spun out of control.

A couple of hours later, the twins awoke and groggily edged down the stairs and into the kitchen, where I was freshly squeezing a boatload of orange juice. I set three glasses and the almost full pitcher on the table and then filled the three glasses. Before I sat down and touched mine, they drank the other two glasses. So I rose, filled them again and sat down. The OJ seemed to have a magical effect as Molly smiled, and Maggie, well, almost smiled.

I waited a few minutes in the silence as they drank more OJ, looked at each other, looked am me, looked at their glasses. Finally, I spoke first. “Tell me everything.”

Molly giggled and looked away. Maggie leaned forward; her intense green eyes seemed to shine. “We can tell you some things now, and eventually everything. But we can’t tell you everything now.”

“Why not?”

Maggie continued with a serious face. “You know the stupid saying that people always say in jest, ‘I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you?’ Well, in this case, telling you everything now might get all three of us killed.”

Her expression, plus the events of the day, stifled a laugh in me. I sighed heavily. “Then tell me when you think you can tell me everything. And tell me now what you can tell me.”

Molly spoke up. “Trust and control. We can tell you everything when you completely trust us, when we completely trust you, and when those who trust us, trust you.”

“Let me guess, when you or they control me?”

Molly coughed, “No! When you control the two of us. Maggie and I have ... gifts. But so do you. You know it, but don’t fully control it yet. The time at Timberline proved it. You need to control us consistently. Not just when you fight back to kill us. You have proved you can kill us. Prove you can keep us alive!”