Of Breakable Things by A. Lynden Rolland Page B

then her expression became one of surprise. “Oh,” she murmured. He imagined the sensation that rippled through her head was much like watching the pages of a flipbook. Such was always the case with him. The images appeared and disappeared so quickly it was like shuffling at warp speed through a card catalog.
    “Write what you see,” he advised her. After minutes of drumming his fingers on his pedestal, he invited Alex to share what she’d written.
    Mr. Jackson in seventh grade science discussing “‘pili.”
    A tree.
    Misspelling “purification” as ‘pilification.”
    Sitting in church with the Lasalles.
    Nihilistic themes in a song?
    He was pleased. “I think you were rather successful with the activity. Your brain now has more potential than you could imagine, a fact justified by what you saw in your head when you merely glanced at this word. Your mind conjured up everything you’d ever experienced with the word or pieces of it.”
    Or even , he thought to himself, future experiences.
    “Can anyone wager a guess as to what the term means?”
    Madison Constance raised her hand. Of course. A normal teacher would probably admire her vigilance, but Van Hanlin found her to be bothersome.
    “I saw a science classroom just like Alex did,” Madison chirped, perched on the edge of her seat. “Is it something to do with science?”
    “No,” Van Hanlin responded curtly. “ Pili is plural for pilus , or cellular organelles. Wrong association.”
    “What about history?” Joey Rellingsworth asked. “I saw my old history teacher.”
    Van Hanlin smiled at Joey. Upon receiving his list of newburies to mentor, he’d been pleased to find the name Rellingsworth. Joey was multigenerational. He came from a long line of spiritual chemists.
    “Often the word is used in political circumstances.”
    “And nothingness,” chimed in another girl. He didn’t remember her name, and he didn’t care.
    “ Nihil in Latin means nothing,” he explained. Kind of like your significance , he wanted to add. This girl was a first-generation spirit.
    “Why did I see the weather channel?” Joey asked.
    “ Flocci I’m guessing is the plural of floccus ?” Madison added. She glanced at Van Hanlin for affirmation, but he decided not to give any. It didn’t discourage her. “I was in PSAT prep when I died, and we were learning all sorts of Latin. I don’t even remember learning the word, but for some reason my mind is telling me that a floccus is a small tuft of a cloud.”
    “You may not have even realized your brain had filed away that information,” Van Hanlin said, slightly impressed with the brownnosing girl in spite of himself.
    Alex appeared to be gobsmacked by the conversation. He wondered what was hiding in that mind of hers. Incontestably something powerful. Yes, he was lucky indeed to have this batch of newburies. He began to consider the possibilities greedily.
    Madison lifted her finger to her chin in thought. “A bunch of words that mean small or insignificant. Is that the actual meaning of the word?”
    “The meaning is to deny the value of something, so yes, it is the same to regard something as insignificant. Well done.” He took a coin from his shirt pocket, which he flicked over his right shoulder. It ricocheted off an overhead lamp and landed directly on the light switch, brightening the room.
    “Now that your brains are warmed up, let us begin. This afternoon, we are going to delve into the topic of travel. If you try hard enough, you can use your mind to see that things travel past you constantly, the most obvious of which being sound. You need only look for it. We are going to focus specifically on transportation. Of course, you can float, walk, or run without tiring easily, but there are much more practical means.”
    A hand shot up in the air, and he acknowledged it through gritted teeth. “Yes, Madison?”
    “Can we still drive cars or ride on planes?”
    “Yes, of course we can, but we do not