The Amaryllis

by Alyssa Adamson

  I feigned an unknowing concern, façade breaking when he stopped, rounding on me without warning. Tears already dampened his eyes and fell over his cheeks. The snarling, tearing, earth-shattering sobs shook his whole body.

  If not for his blatant aversion to my touch, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that he would’ve thrown himself into my arms. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

  “I…” he hugged himself. “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”

  “I would never think you’re crazy. No more than usual, anyway.”

  “But I am crazy. I have to be.” He flopped into a chair, arms circling his legs, feet up on the desk. I lost his face behind denim-clad knees. “Nobody can do stuff like that. I must be crazy. I must be crazy.” He rocked himself. “I must be crazy.”

  I reached out to rub his back. He flinched, but didn’t pull away. “It…It’s okay. You’re okay. Just tell me what’s going on?”

  “I think I broke those windows this morning.”

  “But you weren’t close to it.”

  “That’s what’s crazy!” he snapped. “I didn’t touch it. I think I broke it with my mind.”

  I chewed on the inside of my cheek. There had been a good chance this would happen, but I hadn’t thought…hadn’t really considered… “I have to—”

  “And then when I went home, the microwave exploded. The TV exploded. The refrigerator exploded! And I don’t know how it happened but I know I did it.”

  He burst into a new fit of tears, scowling down at his hands. I chewed on my tongue. No more putting it off now. “Shh. Zach, it’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not. How could it be? I’m a monster!”

  “If you’re a monster, then…so am I.”

  He raised eyes that, for once, were full of hope. “What?”

  “I can do it, too.” His silence came uncharacteristically. “Blew the greenhouse clean away. Accidentally, of course. But it was just there one minute, gone the next. You know? I’m sure you know. You saw your own.” My teeth chattered with the nerves.

  “You can do it…too? How? Why? Where did it come from?”

  Thoughts of those powers brought thoughts of Phil, which stung harsher than I would’ve expected. I shied away from the name alone. Nevertheless, no matter how much it hurt me, I couldn’t stand to give him up, knowing it would disgust him so. “I gave them to you.”

  “Ha! Yeah right, Edy. I think I would’ve noticed.”

  “In the hospital. You were broken. Dying. So I fixed you,” I squeaked. “It was the only way I knew how.”

  The smile that had crept onto his face slipped. “I recovered really early…But you…you would’ve told me! You’re joking. You’re trying to make me feel better.”

  “I am not! And I can prove it.” Driven more by selfish pride than logic, I turned and with a wave of my hand sent one of the freshly painted canvases up into flames.

  “Edy!”

  “I could do it again. Do you want to see it again?”

  His eyes flickered about in search of something. “Not here! Someone could see. Just… follow me, follow me!”

  I followed him to the car, mind focused solely on Zach. If I was thinking about him, I wouldn’t have to think of Phil. Or love. It only became easier as Zach’s driving put us through the gates of the town dump. He almost forgot to put the car in park before he threw himself out.

  “Do you think you can…” he looked around frantically, pawing through garbage for something big. “The toaster. A toaster! Can you blow this up?”

  I grinned. “Easy.”

  He dropped the ancient appliance across a stack of trash. Then he darted backward, tripping on a soda can and sprawling out on his back with cat-like grin still fixed across his face.

  My grin wavered. I didn’t wonder for one second if I’d be able to blow it up. That would be easy. I worried how much more would go up in the process.

  “Do it, do it, do it, do it!”

  “Alright, alright!”

  Eyes narrowing at the toaster, I raised my hands. With flared fingers, I waved in the same way I recalled having done in the greenhouse.

  Nothing happened.

  “What’s wrong?” Zach picked himself up, circling me with eyes on my hands. Despite my deficit, he still tiptoed like I held a loaded gun. “Is it gone?”

  I waved again. Nothing. “It…it can’t be. Did you see the greenhouse? I leveled it!”

  “Let me try.” Squeezing his eyes shut, he made a flailing motion in the toaster’s direction and received a similar disappointment. “What the hell? It’s gone!”

  I couldn’t believe that. Not when I could still feel the life of all those I’d fed from this morning still pulsing through me as blood would. No. It wasn’t possible. If I was without power, I wouldn’t have felt so good.

  “No…no way! We’re just not doing it right. How did you do it yesterday?”

  He shrugged, flailing away without a care of where he faced. “I don’t know. Just like this, I thought.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  I heaved a long sigh. “Well you don’t normally just go around doing this!” In my frustration, I flailed like he had. “There must have been some reason you were all upset.”

  Two things happened at once: a pained cry rose above my voice and Zach fell.

  His arm crossed his chest, hand masking his shoulder, although it couldn’t stop the onslaught of blood that seeped through his fingers.

  “Oh God,” I whimpered, watching my nightmares play out before my eyes. I’d killed Zach! Again. “Hold on! I’m going to get help. I’m going to get you help!”

  Before I’d even reached into my pocket, Zach’s wailing subsided. His hand peeled away from the bloodied fabric to reveal skin faded to an angry red line. Then, nothing at all.

  “It’s…it’s gone!” he gasped. Erupting with a guffaw of laughter, he jolted upright. His face turned sour. “It itches.”

  “Yeah,” I sighed, relieved. “Just another one of the perks.”

  “So…so you made me this way? Then who made you? Where did it start? Who made them?”

  I waved him off. “What does it matter where I got it from? Isn’t it just the best that you have superpowers? Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, as it were.”

  “You want me to take them without even wondering? I don’t get this lucky…we don’t get this lucky, Ed!”

  “Well—it’s not all luck. They come at a cost. A terrible cost.” At his quizzical look, I continued, “You don’t make the energy that does the”—I mimed an explosion with my hands— “pow-pow thing. You get it from other people. You feed on them.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair until it stuck straight back. “How is this even possible?”

  “I don’t know any better than you do how it’s possible…it just is.”

  “But where did it come from?”

  That beautiful blonde head came to mind, dropping my heart into my feet. I shook myself free of the image before it could drive me to distraction, but my voice rasped through clenched teeth, “I bet you can guess. Somebody who likes to touch. Somebody who you know would just eat you up if he had the chance.”

  “What?”

  Half-delirious from the ache in my chest, I leaned closer to him, “Think about it. Have you ever felt tired around someone? Dreamed about them? Gotten a headache around them time after time.”

  Awareness lit up his stare.

  “And then, when he got tired of you,” I hissed, “he tossed you aside for the next course.”

  His teeth moved around the name, but I beat him to it.

  “But what does it matter what happened before? I think you’ll enjoy the after so much more.”

  18. New Life

  Zach slammed his foot down on the pedal, sending us down the road so fast I could barely make out the shapes of the houses flying by in my periphery. “Do the thing! Do the thing!”

  I couldn’t help but giggle. “On what?”
>
  He rolled down my window as if to press me further. “Anything!”

  Body hanging halfway through the opening, I searched for something harmless and grinned at the line of mailboxes stretching out from here to the corner. Hands flailing, I set one aflame in a growling, splintering mess. Bits of wood found a home in my hair. “Woah!”

  “Damn! Again.”

  I didn’t need to be told. Even as I picked a sliver of the broken post out of my teeth, my hands already curled to destroy another. This time, the enthusiasm behind my waving sent a great deal of bent mailbox into the windshield of the car.

  “Woah, not the Pilot,” he whined.

  “Sorry, I’ll do better this time.” Even as I said it, I knew I wouldn’t reel in my next swipe as it extended toward the mailbox on the curb. Another mess of wood and aluminum crashed into the hood.

  He didn’t seem to care this time. “Stop sign coming up on your right.”

  The red sign went up like the gates of hell. While Zach blew through it, narrowly avoiding the car that would’ve T-boned us, I let myself drop back into my chair. Regret eased into the abyss left behind by my evaporating thrills. Unfortunately, that also meant thinking of Phil and what disappointment, what heartache, he carried with him.

  “I shouldn’t have done that. That’s so dangerous, why did I—”

  “Cool it, Graves, everybody knows there’s supposed to be a stop sign there. They’ll still stop,” Zach chuckled.

  That came as pretty sound logic. “You’re right. You’re right. I’m worrying about nothing.”

  “You need to loosen up. What do you want to do? What’s fun for you?”

  I stared down the line of mailboxes laid out before me. Those were fun. “Just keep driving.”

  Taking up my stance over the ledge of the window, I lifted my arms and the nearest mailbox blew fire into my face.

  “I know just the place to go,” he chuckled. “You hungry?”

  “I could eat. What’re you thinking? Boneless wings?”

  “Nah. Not that kind of hungry.” As he drove, his eyes slanted my way. “You need some juice, don’t you? Can’t keep blowing up mailboxes if you’re running on empty.”

  I blanched. “You want to feed on people?”

  “Well…yeah? How else are we supposed to keep up with the fun?”

  “I just assumed we’d stop.”

  “Don’t be such a stick in the mud, Edy. It’s not hurting anybody if we take a little bit,” he argued.

  I fought for words. My argument dissolved as it came face-to-face with those unpleasant regrets and disappointments and heartache. “It hurts them a little bit.”

  “A headache and some sleepiness. They won’t even notice.”

  “They might…”

  “C’mon, Edy! It’ll be fun! Don’t you want to have fun?”

  My jaw dropped to argue but my tongue refused speech. I wanted fun. I liked fun. It was certainly better than whatever this feeling was. “Yeah. I could use some fun.”

  ***

  It came as second nature.

  Walking into the busy restaurant with sleeves pulled up and skirt hiked high, I tingled with the weight of the diners’ enthusiasm as it reached for me through the air. If not for the delightful taste, so palpable on my tongue that it had to exist, I might’ve thought this was just another one of my fantasies.

  Just another dream of food.

  Zach had already taken up a seat at the bar, despite looking much too young to be there. He’d wasted no time, one hand on the female half of a couple to his right, the other shaking the hand of the bartender trying to having him booted from the adults-only area.

  All according to plan. Because, while Zach looked too young to be here, I would’ve been turned around at the door. While the bartender remained transfixed in the younger man’s gaze, hand caught between that of the beast, I sidled up beside the couple on the opposite side, hand already extended toward the male half’s bared forearm.

  “Beautiful night to stay in, isn’t it?” I inquired, forcing him to meet my newly-brown eyes. Just like Phil had done with me so many times.

  Whatever he’d been about to say died on his tongue. Jaw struggling for words, his fist clenched around my hand. “H…hi.”

  And then by sunset, dancing by bouncers to the crowd that would throw us between them with nary a thought of what they’d unleashed on each other. Mornings spent in diners before school with pretty waitresses. Lunch hours spent under the bleachers, clasping hands with Zach’s followers in prayer. Dinners with whoever would pay for it. Whoever would hold my hand while I ate it.

  Every time, it got easier.

  Easier to the point that it irked me when my Spanish professor held us back a moment to collect homework, thus stalling me from getting to the bleachers where I knew my lunch would be convening. Easier to the point that I ran when finally given the chance.

  That was, until a familiar voice pulled at my heartstrings.

  “Eden?”

  My back went stiff but I pulled it together long enough to fake a smile before I turned. “Phil. Hey.”

  He shifted from foot to foot, trying to hold my gaze while I did the opposite. “Are you avoiding me?”

  “No! No not at all.”

  “Then…” he stepped closer, freezing when I took a step back out of reflex. “Then what is it?”

  “What is what?” I laughed with my discomfort. Of course he wouldn’t believe me if I went on dancing backward every time he made a move.

  “We used to talk every day. Now I hardly see you?”

  “I’ve just got a lot going on right now, Phil. Zach’s been taking up a lot of my attention with the change and everything. Just be patient. Everything will go back to normal soon.” I stepped around him, but snagged on a hand wrapped around my wrist. “What is it, Phil? I have things to do. All that Zach stuff I just said.”

  He frowned, thumb running circles around the back of my hand. “Eden…I miss you.”

  “Oh,” I breathed. “I…miss you, too.”

  He searched me for something. I tried not to give it to him, eyes flickering between his penetrating stare and the floor. With time, his grip on me slipped away.

  I didn’t even say goodbye.

  My every nerve rebelled against it, wanting more than anything else to throw myself at him and never have to walk away, like I was doing right now. Then I remembered those words in the beautiful timbre of his voice as he told me, “Our kind do not love, Eden. We are not capable.”

  Then I wondered what other choice there was but to run.

  “You’re different.”

  I jumped, finding the silent void of yearning at my side. “What are you doing?”

  “You won’t even talk to me? Am I so much less interesting than those fans you have waiting out there?”

  “What are you so scared about?” I breathed. “They’re just humans.”

  “Even at my strongest, I would not be able to face all the forces of the human populace the way it is now.”

  “People believe all kinds of crazy things. They see ‘miracles’ happen and everybody gets excited, then it goes away.”

  He stepped in front of me, stopping my escape. “I’m worried for you.”

  I rolled my eyes. “That’s ridiculous. I can take care of myself. As if they would stand a chance against me.”

  He chewed on his cheek, leaning down to say, “I feel for you.”

  I waited for more. “Feel what?”

  “I don’t know!” His voice reverberated across the walls even after he’d silenced. “What feeling makes you want to touch another person? And speak to another person all the time? And be near that person always, even if you have nothing to talk about?”

  I gulped back the tenderness he shoved down my throat, tenderness that was probably my own being thrown unwittingly back in my face. Now that I wasn’t clouded by the need to run, the force of his feelings bounced around the tight space with nowhere else to go. They hit me like
a rock. Confusion. Affection. Worry. All swirled together into an unpleasant cocktail that choked me up.

  “It…it could be a lot of things.”

  He sighed, as though my lack of definitive answer had disappointed him. “I think about you all the time. I can’t stop thinking about you.”

  I wanted to believe that Phil could care for me the way I wanted to care for him, but I couldn’t remove his words from my mind. “Then why did you say—?”

  “It wasn’t meant to push you away. That is the last thing I want. I said that I wished we had never met because it would be better for you. Zach wouldn’t have been in that accident. You wouldn’t be facing the risk of exposure to humans.” His voice dipped, self-loathing burning on his face like he was on fire. “I wouldn’t have infected you.”

  I chuckled, even though I didn’t find anything funny. It was the only way to hide that I clung to his words. They felt so much better than the prospect that Phil regretted being around me. Besides, they weren’t the words I’d meant. “You’re overreacting, Phil. So far, these powers have been a godsend. They saved Zach.” I tore myself free of him. “And you didn’t have to feed to do it. Everybody wins.”

  He followed the move of my hands as I tucked them behind my back. “It doesn’t feel like I’ve won.”

  “You’re not looking on the bright side—”

  “Bright side?” he spat. “Eden, there is no bright side. There is only your lack of experience. Of course power is going to feel good when you’ve had none. Right now, it seems like you have gained so much. But what you have gained will not matter when you realize all the things that you will lose.”

  “What the hell could I lose?” I snorted. “These powers have opened up all these possibilities. I can grow fully grown plants in ten seconds. Do you know how much money that will make at the shop, compared to before? And people? I never have to worry about anyone I love getting hurt because I can heal them. What is there to lose?”

  “Everything! You can live forever, so what are you going to do with your life now?”

  It didn’t take long for me to think it over. “I’m going to grow flowers.”