Higgins had a small, solar powered charger that Holly had left him and was keeping his phone charged with it. They still hadn’t heard back from Holly and it had already been a day since Colin shared the news he overheard and reverted to his chrysalis.

  “You stopped trying, Mister Higgins,” Jenny scolded him.

  “Oh sorry,” Higgins said and then closed his eyes and refocused. Jenny had taken it upon herself to try and help him awaken powers or a connection to a Hypnosite. A Greenie, as Jenny would call it, was something so foreign to him that he couldn’t wrap his head around it, much less stuff his head inside of it.

  “Can you feel that?” Jenny asked.

  “No,” Higgins said with resignation. He didn’t want to disappoint Jenny, but they’d been trying for days with no progress.

  “You need to try harder. You feel so small when I reach out to you. Make yourself bigger,” Jenny said as if she just gave him the secrets of the universe.

  “Bigger?” Higgins repeated.

  Jenny nodded, “Uh huh. Bigger. Your feelings are super small. Mommy’s and Daddy’s feelings are super big and easy to reach. Your feelings are super small and I can’t grab them like Greenie, or Mommy, or Daddy.”

  This was not the first time Jenny had shared this advice and Higgins wasn’t sure what to do about it. His feelings felt like his feelings to him. They were real and didn’t feel muted or small to him. He wished Holly was here. She had a way of bringing the best out of him. It had been such a short time they were together, but it was some of the best days of his life.

  “There!” Jenny yelled.

  Higgins felt Jenny’s excitement. He genuinely felt the emotion as it slammed into him like a truck. He stared at her with wide eyes as she brute forced the connection between them to stay open.

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  ”It’s trying to get small again. Help me,” Jenny grunted with exertion.

  “How?” Higgins asked, feeling powerless.

  “Make it big again,” Jenny said through gritted teeth.

  Big again. What had he been doing when Jenny first connected with him? He needed topiece it together like Holly. Then it hit him. He’d been thinking about his affection for Holly.

  ”That’s it!” Jenny shouted. She felt a mixture of pride, excitement and relief.

  Higgins could feel her emotions even more clearly and he realized that if he kept reminding himself of Holly, he was able to reach out to Jenny like she’d been telling him to.

  He sent a feeling of gratitude Jenny’s way and she clapped with excitement.

  Moments later, a headache worse than any hangover assaulted him and his nose started to bleed. Jenny cut off the connection and Higgins let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.

  “How come this is so much easier for you, kid?” Higgins asked.

  “Um, maybe because Mister Chuck helped me by playing a funny sound at first that made things easier? I don’t know how to make that sound for you.”

  “You mean like the frequency Merrin played to attack the town?” Chuck asked.

  Jenny almost nodded, but then shook her head, “Kind of, but no it was less scary.”

  “Scary? How does a sound feel scary?” Higgins asked.

  “Well, it was how it made me feel. It made me feel super hyper and hungry but like a bad hungry. That was super scary cuz I thought about biting Mommy for a little bit.” Jenny looked guilty when she said the words.

  Higgins wanted to reassure her and make sure she understood it wasn’t her fault, so he shared his own feelings, “Yeah I felt that hunger too. That frequency was really bad.”

  “It was! That was a bad sound,” Jenny’s expression brightened and Higgins could tell what he said helped her feel better, “The first sound Mister Chuck played was not scary at all. It made me feel, umm, more friendly? More okay with stuff? Something like that, but I don’t know.”

  Higgins wasn’t sure he fully understood, but he really did feel influenced by the frequency he heard, so he just shrugged and say, “Good enough for me.”

  “You should be ready for more training in a couple hours. I’m a pretty good super hero teacher but you’re really weak still. Let’s go get a snack,” Jenny said as she stood up and ran to the other room.

  Higgins shook his head and smiled at Jenny’s honesty. He thought about Holly and how she’d been the key to his ‘big feelings’. It made his pulse quicken, and as he stood and followed after Jenny, he mumbled to himself, “No sense denying falling this hard this quick. I’m knee deep in it already.”