Soul Searcher - D.M. Richardson (top 100 novels of all time txt) 📗

be touched ever since the first home I was placed in. But lately every time I got within touching distance of someone my skin would hum, and I always wanted to reach out to touch them. I found that I can control it as long as I kept my hands to myself. Unfortunately it didn’t help if they touched me instead.

That’s what happened when I confronted my parents. As soon as they approached me I started to hum, but I stayed back just in case what happened with Sara happened again. But my mom grabbed me instead, and I got a very detailed show of all of her knew affairs. Some of them going back years.

She pulled back from my recoil and looked slightly disappointed.

“I’m sorry. I don’t really like to be touched.” I said softly. Zeke snorted and I turned to look at him. From the way he was looking at me he was thinking of our first kiss. “Especially recently” I added looking right at him and he looked away flushed. I turned back to the woman and saw her nodding slightly.

“That’s understandable.” she answered with a knowing look. I looked down at my feet and took another swig from the bottle that was still in my hand. “My name is Vera. I’m an old friend of Robert’s. In fact I remember very well going through how your feeling right now.” she said with an amused look at Rob. He looked away blushing slightly and something clicked in my head.

“You’re the friend that he did the same thing that Zeke did to me.” I said with realization. She nodded with a small smile.

“Yes. Now I understand that you might have some questions for me.” she said expectantly.

“You’re a soul searcher?” I asked hesitantly. She nodded.

“Yes.”

“Can you explain what that is?” I asked.

“Of course it’s the always best to start at the beginning. It really all starts with the saying, ‘The eyes are the windows to the soul’. As it turns out it’s true. A soul searcher can see into someone’s soul by looking into their eyes. It can be a complete stranger that you will probably never see again, but more often it’s someone that will stick around. Someone that will play a part in your life. It allows you to see the very core of a person. To see who they are without having to fight through their masks that allow them to blend in to society. It’s also a way for you to know who you can and can’t trust. A very handy gift and also a curse that can leave you to lead a very lonely life. The ability manifests somewhere around the sixth birthday. Although it actually starts at birth getting stronger as you get older. You are usually just strong enough to enter a soul by then. It starts off weak only seeing as far back as a few weeks at best, but as you get older your soul becomes stronger and the visions become more frequent. A person generally tops off between seventeen and eighteen when puberty is coming to an end.

Now Rob told me that he explained how the soul reader ability is passed from the male line in a family. It’s the opposite with searchers it’s passed from the female line. And where a male reader will always pass down the ability a searcher’s ability has a tendency to skip generations. It rarely passes from mother to daughter.” I nodded as she finished speaking and began muddling through everything she had said. I thought it through a few times then started in on the many questions I had.

“Is there any way to control it?” I asked I knew Rob had told me it couldn’t be, but I still had hope that he was wrong. She shook her head sadly.

“I wish it were but unfortunately not.” I sighed in defeat and went on to my next question.

“And the pressure? Is there anyway to alleviate it without using the ability?” That got Zeke’s attention and he started truly listening to the conversation. But again she shook her head.

“No I’m sorry. The pressure you feel is your own soul trying to reach another’s. As much as we might wish it, there is no way of controlling the soul. It wants what it wants.” this time I sighed in frustration. So far all she managed to give me is a back story. Everything else I already knew.

“So what about soul readers how can they control it?” I asked she turned to Rob and he was the one that explained.

“We have to rely on touch. A sort of physical connection to read someone. We have to be linked and force the reading. That provides us with a measure of control.”

“What about the traveling though generations is there any way to control that?” I asked looking back at Vera. When she gave me a confused look I started to get worried.

“What do you mean, ‘traveling through generations’?” she asked.

“Well I got sucked into Sara one time and instead of looking on as an audience I got sucked into her point of view. Then she looked up at her mother, and I was pulled into her. I saw all of her memories like I did Sara’s. When her mother died I was pulled back into Sara and then back to myself.” everyone was quiet and staring at me for a moment. “Isn’t that normal?” I asked nervously.

“No, no that’s not normal. You were pulled into a person from someone else’s memory?” she asked astounded I nodded and waited for her to snap out of it.

“Has it happened more than once?” she asked I shook my head. “Okay when you were pulled back into Sara did you finish out her memories?” I shook my head again.

“No I had already gone through hers before.” Vera’s eyes widened.

“That was the second time you were pulled into her?” I nodded not liking where this was going and wishing I had kept quiet.

“How was the second time different? What were the circumstances?” she was sitting forward and watching me intently. I pulled back frightened by her intensity.

“Well she hugged me, and my body started to tingle really bad. It was like I was humming. My hand landed on her shoulder and I was pulled in.” She stared at me unblinking. I looked to Rob for some kind of reassurance, but he was staring too. I turned to Zeke, but his mouth fell open with a pop.

“What?” I finally asked after a minute or two. Vera relaxed back, Rob cleared his throat, and Zeke snapped his mouth shut.

“You just described something very similar to what a reader feels when a desire to read someone comes.” Rob explained quietly. It was my turn to stare. I put the bottle to my lips and tipped it back finishing it off. When it was empty I sat up and put it on the table. I took a deep breath and focused back on Rob.

“What do you mean something similar?” I asked.

“The first time a reader well reads someone it’s not voluntary. We can’t control it. After that we learn to recognize the feeling, and can hold off.” I nodded and motioned for him to keep going. “A lot of the time the feeling is exactly what you described. A vibrating or humming just under the skin. Sometimes it’s a random person, but most of the time it’s someone that ultimately becomes important some way or another. But we can choose what we want to see and we always see it from a third person point of view. We still feel what the person feels, but it’s buffered.” I looked at my hands which were balled in my lap.

“Okay that explains a lot but since I’m obviously not a male why can I do it? And for that matter why am I able to jump into someone in a memory?” Vera and Rob looked at each other.

“Well I’m only speculating, but it seems that your family skipped a lot of generation.” Vera answered slowly. I looked at her in confusion.

“What does that matter?”

“The more generations the ability skips the more powerful the descendant becomes. I’ve never known it to skip more than three generation, but it looks like it skipped more than that with you. It would make sense. Especially given that your mother reacted the way that she did. If the last soul searcher in your family was a long distance ancestor it would be easy for the secret to die long before the ability resurfaced.”

“That still doesn’t explain my reader abilities.”

“The only thing I can come up with is that your last searcher ancestor had a reader’s child. But it’s never been heard of before.”

“Why not?” Again they exchanged a look that left me ready to pull my hair out.

“It’s feared. No one knew what the result might be. Until now it seems. It looks like the male and female lines became insignificant, and it would also explain the many generations that was skipped. The ability would have to wait for a soul strong enough to handle the extra power.” Vera answered hesitantly. I thought back to my family tree and another question popped into my head.

“What happens if the soul isn’t strong enough?” Rob took a deep breath.

“The power would be too strong, and the soul would shred.”

“What does that mean?”

“When a soul is shredded the person becomes unstable. No one can function with only pieces of a their soul. Most of the time they are diagnosed as clinically insane and spend their lives in a mental institution. That’s the best result anyway. At worst they’re suicidal and take their own lives. Even if they are institutionalized they die young though. When the soul isn’t whole the pieces slowly start to die. They always die young, depending on when their soul is shredded.”

“What do you mean when? I though this kind of thing happened at birth.”

“Well soul searchers and readers aren’t the only breeds out there. There’s also the soul shredders. They have the ability to tear someone’s soul to pieces, and often lose their conscience after they use that ability too many times.” I gaped at them in horror.

“How do they do it?”

“Unlike searchers and readers they have to actually draw blood. They have to break the skin in order to gain access to their target. And after a few years they begin to enjoy it. They get a rush of power with every soul they ruin. It’s like a high from a drug they don’t have to ingest in one way or another. They get a sick feeling of pleasure from it.” Zeke sighed and rubbed his head.

“Can someone please explain to me again how I was drawn into her memories like I was. I mean I don’t understand how I was able to feel everything first hand and yet still look on as a bystander.” Vera gaped at him then looked at me in shock.

“What?” I asked looking Rob who looked just as confused by her reaction as I was. “Rob said it was normal.”

“I thought it was. I mean I was sucked into yours” he said to her. She nodded.

“Yes but there was a distinct difference. You felt what I did very clearly, but not as if you were experiencing it yourself. That is what you mean right? You felt as though it was all happening to you?” she asked Zeke. He nodded looking between all three of us.

“That’s new. I mean really new. He was sucked in by her and felt everything stronger. That was normal though rare. It only happens when we truly want to be close to the intruder. When our soul actually wants to merge with the other. But to actually experience it that strongly is not what should have happened. No wonder you both look so terrible. I didn’t recall actually feeling as bad as you two look.” I gaped at her then looked at