The Ability (Ability, The) by M.M. Vaughan

air. There was no sign of his brother. Ernest stood up and wiped the dust from his trousers where he had been kneeling; then, resigned to the fact that he was just going to have to play on his own, he stepped back out into the corridor, quietly closed the guest room door behind him, and made his way to the playroom on the other side of the house.
    “Ernest!”
    Ernest jumped. He stopped dead on the landing and looked down to where his mother stood in the center of the marble foyer. Even looking down on her, he felt that she loomed tall, and her presence seemed to fill the enormous space below him. Dulcia Genever would have been beautiful if it weren’t for the icy shield that seemed to surround her and made people want to turn away and run. Her black hair, not a strand out of place, contrastedstarkly with her blue white skin, so pale it seemed to glow. She always wore, as she did on this day, a long black evening dress and a necklace of brilliant diamonds that caught the light as she moved, sending spears of dazzling white about her. But the only thing that people noticed about Dulcia when they met her were her eyes, completely black, transfixing anybody who dared to look into them.
    “What are you doing?” she asked, accusingly.
    “I’m looking for Mort, Mother,” replied Ernest meekly. He averted his gaze from her piercing stare.
    “I imagine Mortimer is practicing, as should you be. We have been waiting many years for this time, and you seem more concerned about playing.”
    Ernest hung his head, ashamed.
    “Do you love your mother, Ernest?” asked Dulcia coldly.
    “Yes, Mother, of course,” replied Ernest. And he did. Ernest had only really known two people in his life—his mother and his brother—and it had never occurred to him to question his love for either of them. As much as his mother terrified him and as unkind as his brother could be, he was sure that this was because they wanted the best for him. Unfortunately, it seemed that no matter what he did or how hard he tried, he was a constant disappointment to them both.
    “I see no proof of that when you choose to play instead of work to help me. Your brother performed admirably against Cecil Humphries, and he will need you to help him soon. You don’t want to let your brother down, do you?”
    “No, Mother.”
    “Well, then, go and study.”
    “Yes, Mother,” said Ernest, and walked quickly away.
    In spite of its name, the playroom was no more entertaining a place to be in than any of the other rooms of the manor. It was in fact a classroom, for the most part, and unnecessarily large, given that only two pupils had ever been taught in it. Ernest made his way toward the far end of the room, where two wooden desks faced an enormous blackboard, upon which his mother had written their homework for the day:
    Read “The Theory of Telekinesis” by Boris Karparov
    Test tomorrow at 9 am.
    You will need to be able to move an object from one end of the room to the other.
    Ernest sighed. He walked over to his desk and picked up the book waiting for him. The faded red cover was plain except for the gold-embossed title. He opened it up and flicked quickly through the yellowed pages to the back. In total there were four hundred fifty-seven pages, which he estimated would take him about twenty minutes to finish, about twice the time it took his brother. He slid onto the bench attached to his desk and began to read the introduction:
    Telekinesis, from the Greek meaning “distant movement,” refers to the manipulation and movement of objects using the mind, and . . .
    Ernest scanned the rest of the page, then turned it and stared at the next one for a few seconds before turning the page once more. He continued to turn the pages every few seconds and had committed about two thirds of the book to memory when he heard the door open behind him. He turned his head quickly.
    “Mort! I was looking for you,” said Ernest, as his brother walked into the room