I'm A New Pair Of Eyes
An Original Mind
With My Senses Of Old
And The Heart Of A Giant
And I'm Searching Through The Wreckage
For Some Recollection
That I Might Have Been Queen
For Every Sage That Follows
There Is An Ancient Child
(Jennette Obloy--I Might Have Been Queen)
Magnus looked up at Logan; not quite sure he heard him correctly. "Justine can what?"
"Raise people from the dead." Logan repeated. "Bring them back to life, pull a Jesus on em' whatever you want to call it, it all boils down to the same thing. We've got a mutant here who can restore a corpse into a living, breathing, human being."
"Are you quite positive?" Magnus looked at him, not sure what to make of this. "How do you know?"
"I know because she told me Magnus. We were down by the lake and she had one o' her flashbacks. She started screaming 'he died,' again, an' when I asked her who, she told me it was Victor Black. Yeah Mags, the same Victor Black who is now a deputy of Jericho. He was fooling around in the water and got his foot caught in a couple o' rocks. By the time they were able to find him and pull him out of the water, he'd drown." He sat down in one of the chairs across the desk from Magnus. "We were so worried whatever it was she did would be deadly, well, the joke is on us. It's the exact opposite of deadly."
"Are you sure Victor was dead when they pulled him from the water?" Magnus asked. "There have been numerous cases of someone being thought dead and as it turned out, they were not. Especially in cases of drowning, the human body has been known to shut down, go into a state which is almost like death, in order to protect the body and brain from too much damage. Perhaps that's what happened with Victor."
"The Sheriff was there and he declared the boy dead. Justine said most of the town was there and they thought he was dead. While they were waiting for an ambulance to show up, there was a doctor in the group who checked Victor out and said he was dead. Then the next thing they knew it, he was sitting up, coughing up water, but otherwise fine." Logan looked at Magnus; his eyes narrowed. "Now, I don't have every detail, but apparently the whole damned town knew Justine somehow brought him back, which is what lead them t'thinking she was the Anti-Christ. I'm sorry I didn't question her further, but this was quite a shock t'the kid. She almost passed out tellin' the story an' by the time she was done with what she did tell me, she was so distraught an' upset I had to practically carry her back to the mansion."
"Is she all right now?" Magnus asked, immediately concerned for her welfare.
"Yeah, I think so," Logan said. "I got her up to her room and helped her int' bed. I think she's passed out. This was all a hell of a shock to her. Imagine how you'd feel if you suddenly remembered your first love dying while you stood by helplessly, an' then remembered you brought him back from the dead?"
"First love?" Magnus' brows furrowed.
"Well, that might be a little strong, but it was obvious Justine had a crush on the boy." Logan leaned back in the chair. He's a few years older'n her an' I'm sure he didn't know, or if he did, he didn't care. But we saw the guy Mags. He's a worthless prick, but he's a good-looking, worthless, prick, it ain't that surprising Justine fell for him."
"Yes, I suppose I could see that happening," Magnus said slowly. He looked at Logan. "If this is true, if indeed she can bring people back from the dead, this could be a potentially dangerous situation."
"Yer tellin me?" Logan snorted. "Just imagine what The Friends of Humanity or SCAM would do if they found out we had a mutant able to do that little trick hanging around here. We think we've seen trouble before? Hah! Remember the Stryker Crusade? Well, Stryker weren't the only bastard who believed mutants were God's curse. Some mutant rasin' the dead would be the perfect excuse fer some t'declare hunting season on all o' us."
"You think I don't know that?" Magnus growled. "I'm fully aware of the problem. It's the solutions I don't have."
"Got me on that one too." Logan ran his hand through his thick, dark hair. "Just the moral debate on if usin' her power is right could take years to resolve, if it ever could be. I have no idea what should be done about her."
"Well, the first thing I need to do is speak with her." Magnus sat forward in the chair. "I need to question her and find out more about this."
"I agree, but maybe you oughta wait a bit," Logan suggested. "She's been through enough of a shock t'day. Let her sort it out."
"Oh I will," Magnus assured him.
Justine slept for almost a day and a half. Several times people went to check on her, but she didn't wake up. Magnus wondered if perhaps she should be woken, but in the end, he let her sleep. She didn't appear to be uncomfortable while she slept, actually, she looked almost peaceful. He instructed the household to keep an eye on her and waited for her to wake up on her own.
It was Kurt who told him when she woke up. He didn't know how long she'd been awake, but he assumed it wasn't long. "I was walking past her door when I heard her sneeze so I went to check."
"Does she seem to be all right?" Magnus asked.
Kurt shrugged. "She seems okay. A little nervous and a bit disorientated, but that's understandable. She was in a very deep sleep."
Magnus nodded. "I'd better go speak to her."
Justine was sitting in a chair by the window when he walked into her room. She looked up at him, peering at him from the dark glasses, but said nothing. "Hello Justine, are you all right?"
She shrugged and looked down at her hands. "Yeah." Her hair fell over into her face.
He sat down on the end of the bed, across from her. "You don't sound very sure of that. Is something wrong?"
She drew her feet up on the chair, wrapping her arms around her knees. She pressed her forehead to her knees, saying nothing.
Well, perhaps that's a stupid question, Magnus thought. "Justine, do you remember the other day when you were down at the lake? Do you remember the flashback you had?"
Her shoulders hunch over further and she nodded. "I remember," she whispered, looking more as if she were talking to her legs and not Magnus. "I remember everything now. The wall came tumbling down. Did Logan tell you what happened?"
"Yes, he did," Magnus confirmed. He wanted to set her at ease, so he smiled. "At least we now know what you can do."
Justine looked up at him, tears streaming down under the glasses. She took off the glasses and placed them on the window ledge. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm so sorry. Please, please don't send me back home! Please?"
His eyes widened in surprise. "Justine, I have no intention of returning you to that basement. I told you your days of living underground like an animal were over."
"But that was before you knew!" she wailed.
"It doesn't matter," he explained. "I'm not here to pass judgment on what you can do, that isn't my job. You didn't ask for this talent, you were born with it. I'm only here to help you."
She moved out of the chair, throwing her arms around him. "Thank you!" she sobbed. "Oh, thank you, I was so terrified you'd send me back!"
He stiffened for a moment, not quite sure what he should do. He understood Justine's need for human contact, after being denied it for so long, but he wasn't sure it was proper for her to constantly hug him. He was, after all, in charge of the mansion and in a sense, he was her teacher and guardian. He felt it best to maintain a professional relationship with her, but she made it difficult.
She sensed his discomfort and moved away, kneeling by the bed, looking down at the ground. "I-I'm sorry," she whispered. "I shouldn't do that, should I? Touch you like that I mean. It's wrong. I-I won't do it again."
She looked so subdued and forlorn that he wished he'd returned her hug. This is not the time to discuss what is proper behavior for her, he thought. She has too many other things to deal with now. Besides, is there really anything wrong with being affectionate? She could have gone the other way and been totally afraid of any contact. "No, you didn't do anything wrong Justine," he said softly. "You were relieved to find I wasn't going to exile you for what you can do, it's understandable."
She looked up at him; her eyes filled with such gratitude that it almost embarrassed him. "Justine, I need to discuss some things with you," he said softly. "Are you feeling up to talking?"
She pushed her hair behind her shoulders and nodded. Rising to her feet, she stepped backwards and sunk into the chair again. "Yes, I feel okay," She leaned forward, looking at him. "Go ahead and start."
He suppressed a smile at her eagerness to cooperate. "Justine, you told Logan you brought Victor back from the dead-"
"Yeah, I did," she muttered, not realizing she'd interrupted him. "Big mistake in more ways than one."
He understood the reasons for her remark, but ignored it. "How did you bring him back Justine?"
She frowned. "I don't know, I just did."
"I see..." He wasn't surprised at this, most mutants had no idea how they were able to do things the first time they did them. It took training and testing to understand. "Well, maybe you can answer this then: What did you do? What made you decide you could help him after the doctor and the sheriff said he was dead?"
Her frown deepened and her brow furrowed in concentration. "I don't quite know how I knew I could do it, I just did." She drew her lower lip into her mouth and chewed on it a moment. "I-I remember looking at him and knowing everyone was right, he was dead. He'd been underwater a long time and he was so pale and still. His lips looked like he'd been eating blueberries and I could see the veins under his eyelids. I-I was shocked that he was dead, but I wasn't surprised. Does that make any sense?"
"Yes it does actually," he assured her. "You were shocked at the incident, but not surprised at the results. Is that what you're trying to convey?"
She nodded. "That's it exactly! Boy, you're good at finding the right words Magnus." She looked at him with admiration.
"Thank you." Magnus allowed the corners of his mouth to turn up in a small smile. "So you realized that Victor was dead. What happened then?"
Again her brows furrowed as she concentrated her efforts on remembering. "Well, I remember thinking that the ambulance was taking a long time coming. People were standing around and everyone was upset. I was thinking, this shouldn't have happened, this is wrong, over an' over again. Then...it was like something...came over me."
She paused and looked away from him, collecting her thoughts. "I-I don't know what it was... sorta like this...feeling inside me. I was still kneeling in the sand by Victor's body, looking down at him and then it just.. hit me.. I could do something. This was wrong and I could stop it." She rose from the chair and began pacing in front of the bed. Magnus watched her, waiting patiently for her to continue.
She paused in mid pace and turned to look at him. "It's hard to explain, but it was like looking at something and knowing I could...make it better. I suppose it would be like.. seeing a broken pipe or a-a-a motor that wasn't working right for the first time in your life and knowing you could fix it." She closed her eyes. "I'm sorry, I'm not telling this very well am I?"
"You're doing just fine Justine."
His assurance seemed to comfort her slightly and she resumed pacing and speaking. "Well... I just knew I could stop this. I could make it so Victor wasn't dead anymore. So I started thinking about that, thinking about making it so Victor Black wasn't dead. I remember I had to close my eyes so I could... focus on it, on helping him. When I opened my eyes, I realized I was... glowing an'-"
"Glowing?" Magnus interrupted.
"Yeah, glowing," she confirmed. "I was surrounded by this.. light.. Grey light. It was like the reverse of a light bulb glow."
"What do you mean?" he asked her.
She frowned deeply. "Well.. a light bulb glow is bright the closer you get to the bulb but at the edges it's weaker. This grey glow was strong at the edges and got weaker in the middle."
Magnus nodded. "I understand. What happened next? What happened with this glow?"
"Well, by then everyone was staring at me. I think they were worried, but nobody came near me. They were probably afraid."
Terrified more likely, Magnus thought. Chances are no one in Jericho ever saw anything like that in their lives.
"I remember the glow started getting brighter.. I don't know where it came from but I don't think it came from inside of me," Justine continued. "I think I called it from somewhere, but I don't know where."
"So what did you do?" Magnus said, prompting her to continue. "What happened with the glow?"
"I-I pushed it into Victor." Justine said, looking at him. "I don't know how I did it, I just did. I reached out and touched him and pushed it into him. It looked at first like this big grey funnel.. almost like a small twister. It hovered around Victor's chest, then just... went into him. For a moment he glowed. It was as if the grey glow was leaking from those little holes in his skin, his uh..."
"Pores," Magnus supplied for her.
"Yeah, pores." Justine nodded. "But then the glow stopped and he sat up. He started spitting up water, but after a couple minutes of coughing and hacking, he was okay." She went back to the chair and sat down in it for the third time. "After that, things got real confusing. Everyone started talking and shouting and I felt really weak. Whatever it was I did, it took a lot out of me. I-I ended up in the basement shortly after that." She looked down at her hands. "That's pretty much it Magnus. Pretty scary stuff huh?"
"It's only scary because it's different and because we don't understand it," Magnus said softly. "But that will change Justine. Together, we'll find out what we can about it."
Justine looked at him, her eyes wide in alarm. "I don't ever want to use it again, Magnus!" she cried. "It's dangerous and it's wrong! It's messin' in God's back yard an' that can't be right!"
"Justine, the only way to gain total control over a mutant gift is to learn it's limitations. And the only way to do that is to train yourself in how to use it, to try to understand how it works." He spoke softly, but firmly trying to both comfort and impress upon her what they needed to do. "You must trust me on this."
There was a long pause before she finally spoke. "I-I trust you Magnus. You-you've done more for me than anyone has ever done for me. I-I have to trust you...I do trust you."
He smiled. "Good. I promise you Justine; this is not the end of the world. Everything will work itself out."
"I believe you." She looked at him. "But how are we going to test this? We-we aren't going to uh, kill someone so I can bring them back are we?"
"Certainly not." He assured her. "I would never ask you to do that."
A look of pure relief came over her, but she frowned. "Then how are we going to test this?" she asked.
That is a very good question, he thought. He didn't want to express his concerns to Justine and further worry her so he smiled. "We'll find a way Justine. Rest assured we will."
She nodded, the corners of her mouth turning up in a small smile. "I trust you. I know you will."
Magnus found himself wishing he felt as confident as she did.