by Bre Hall
Alfie chuckled. “I didn’t think Ren Morris was scared of anything.”
Ren rolled her eyes. “I’m not.”
“Except for snakes,” Alfie said.
“Why do you even have that thing anyway?” Ren glared at Meredith.
Meredith closed the cabinet. “I’ll release it outside tonight. Don’t worry.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Meredith nodded to Ren. “Look at you. Sustained levitation. Very good, Ren. Now, can you lower yourself in a controlled movement.”
“How?”
“Well, how did you get down before?” Meredith walked toward Ren.
“I sort of just fell.”
“Okay. Well, this time imagine your feet are magnetic and drive them toward the ground.” Meredith said.
Ren pushed her feet downward, aiming the bottoms of them toward the mat beneath her. She took a deep breath in, let it out, and commanded herself downward. Slowly, she drifted toward the ground. She touched down gracefully on the mat.
Ren let out a gleeful laugh. “Well, I’ve mastered that. Now, let’s move onto that telekinesis you were talking about, shall we?”
Meredith wagged her finger at Ren. “You’ve mastered nothing. Try again.”
“Seriously?”
“To truly regain the ability, you’re going to have to do it until you can levitate without even thinking about it,” Meredith said. “That’s when you will have mastered it. Now, again.”
“Can we at least get some music up in here?” Ren grumbled. “If I’m going to do this over and over, I need some good montage music.”
“Alfie,” Meredith said.
Alfie nodded and stepped toward the wardrobe. He pulled out an old boombox and clicked in a cassette tape. Blondie flowed through the speakers. Just her style. Ren stretched the way Coach Hayley had made her warm up for every gym class—wind mills, calf stretches—then shook out her hands, feeling the music in her veins. She inhaled, leaned forward, and pushed off from her toes. She hovered for a moment then touched back down.
With Meredith circling her constantly and Alfie changing the tape in the boom box every fifteen minutes, Ren repeated her levitation trick over and over again until she could hardly feel the difference between standing and floating. They didn’t leave the safe room, not even for lunch. Alfie just disappeared after levitation number one-hundred-and-twelve and returned with turkey sandwiches and a bag of potato chips during levitation one-hundred-and-sixty-four, where she floated so high, she nearly touched the ceiling. After two-hundred, they stopped to eat and when they picked up again, Meredith taught Ren to make slight movements in the air by swaying her hips from one side to the other. She couldn’t go far—she wasn’t able to fly—but she could dodge the tennis balls Meredith and Alfie hurled at her. At first, they kept hitting her in the arm, the torso, the leg, but soon, she found her rhythm and could move without even a hair of tennis ball fuzz scraping her skin.
Down in the safe room, Ren lost track of time. Minutes felt like hours and hours sometimes felt like sheer moments. Alfie kept disappearing back to the house for water, for snacks, for a notebook Meredith decided to use to track her progress. Each time he returned, Ren could perform some new trick, like a quick-learning circus animal. By the time Meredith had her lifting heavy medicine balls into the air and flinging them around the room with her mind while simultaneously levitating a few feet off the ground, Alfie was pushing through the door, a pizza in hand.
“I thought you just brought us lunch?” Ren asked. Floating in the air, Ren shot forward a few feet and touched down on her tip toes.
“It’s almost seven,” said Alfie, opening the box.
Ren snagged a slice of pepperoni. “No wonder I’m starving.”
Meredith scribbled something in her notebook as she walked slowly toward them. She tucked the pencil behind her ear and looked up at Alfie. She asked, “Did anyone follow you?”
“No,” Alfie said. “It’s like a ghost town up there.”
“Where?” Ren asked through a mouthful of pizza.
“I rode my bike into town for the pizza,” Alfie said. “And to scout for Peter and the others.”
“Nothing?” Meredith asked. Her face wrinkled up as if she were disappointed. “They must be pulling back. Preparing.”
“I know Peter,” Meredith said. “He’s patient.”
“But his partners are not,” Alfie said.
“He was able to hold them off for a couple of weeks,” Meredith said. “Surely he will convince them to wait a few more days. See if Ren sticks her head out of hiding.”
“What if I don’t?” Ren asked.
“You will,” Meredith said. “When you’re ready.”
“Why can’t we just wait him out forever?”
“Auxilium like Peter get what they’re after one way or another,” Meredith said. “They’ve provoked wars, genocides, natural disasters. Unless we want this whole town to burn around us, you’ll have to be ready.”
“How long do I have?” Ren asked.
“Hard to say,” Meredith said. “A week, perhaps. I suggest you finish your pizza and get back to work.”
Ren had never been particularly fond of Wynn, or its inhabitants, but it was home after all. Even though there was nothing to do there and everyone lived out their lives as if they were in a bubble world, she wouldn’t be the one to bring it down. She wouldn’t let Peter destroy it. She thought of Charlotte and Lizzie and the others she had seen that night in the void. She wouldn’t become another face in the darkness.
Ren ripped off a hunk of the pizza crust with her teeth, tossed the rest back into the box, and walked to the mat that was still laid across the floor. She gave it a swift kick and it pinwheeled out of the way, careening around one of the cement posts. Next, she pushed off from the ground, hovering several feet above floor, and commanded several medicine balls around her to rise up to her level. Her brows furrowed. Her fists clenched. She focused all of her energy on the balls. Suddenly, the same blue spark that lit the spiral staircase the night before shot out from her hands and zapped the balls with a loud clap, like thunder. The medicine balls caught fire and quickly burned to ash.
Alfie and Meredith stared at her over the top of the pizza box. Both of their eyes were as large as the pepperonis.
chapter
24
FOR THE NEXT THREE DAYS, Ren obeyed Meredith’s orders and never left the safe room or the house. During the day, when she should have been in school listening to Mrs. Keith geek out over stupid math equations or trying to avoid Scary Larry’s eyebrow-tight stares during homeroom, she was dodging kettle bells and knives that Meredith hurled at her. She learned to slow the objects down with her mind and sling them across the room, split them in two, or zap them to dust with an electric pulse. By the time the weekend came around, she could do things she thought only comic book superheroes or weirdos on the sci-fi channel could do.
On Saturday evening, Meredith aimed a loaded Glock at Ren from across the room. Ren stood very still, focusing on the barrel of the gun. Her heartbeat was steady. Her mind clear.
“Isn’t this sort of dangerous?” Alfie asked, standing beside Meredith. “It’s not like there’s a blank in the chamber.”
“Shh,” Meredith hissed. “It’s only dangerous if she doesn’t concentrate.”
Ren inhaled deeply and gave Meredith the slightest of nods. Meredith cocked the gun and Ren began to count in her head. One, two. Meredith’s finger squeezed the trigger at the same time Ren’s flat palms stretched out in front of her. She couldn’t see the bullet barreling toward her, but she could feel the disruption in the air. She slowed the bullet down with her mind and it came into view, the silver shining in the fluorescent light from above. With a swipe of her hand, Ren redirected the bullet and shot it into the flooring, where it burrowed in deep. Meredith lowered the gun.
Alfie exhaled, his lips quivering. He tugged on the ends of his hair, closed his eyes, and faced the wall.
“Oh, thank God.”
“You’ve progressed much faster than I’d anticipated.” Meredith’s green eyes had a hint of pride in them. It was something Ren had never seen directed towards her from Meredith before. It made Ren inflate with confidence, like a helium balloon destined to reach the clouds.
On the outside, though, Ren brushed off the compliment. “It’s the first thing I’ve ever done that feels easy to me. That I actually enjoy.”
“Good.” Meredith bent down and locked the gun in a thick, wooden box at the back of the wardrobe.
“I think I’m ready,” Ren said.
“To do what?” Meredith asked, standing up. “Take on Peter? No, not yet.”
“When, then?” Ren asked.
Alfie stopped tugging on his hair, seemed to perk up at the idea of fighting Peter. “Yeah. When?”
“Soon,” Meredith said.
“I can stop a bullet, Mer. What more do I need to learn?”
“I want you to regress once more,” Meredith said. “You need to regain more pieces of your soul. You need more strength.”
“Okay, then,” Ren said, swinging her arms as if she were a gymnast getting ready to launch onto the uneven bars. “Let’s do it. Bring on the relic.”
Meredith turned away from Ren and Alfie. Started for the door. She waved a hand through the air dismissively. “Not tonight.”
“Why not?” Ren asked.
“Too much too soon won’t be good,” Meredith said. “Some of the other Discentem we’re bringing back regress through their past lives more slowly. You’ve already completed two in a matter of weeks.”
Ren caught up to Meredith just before she opened the door. “Doesn’t that prove I can handle it?”
“Go watch a movie; visit with your grandmother,” Meredith said. “Take a break.”
“You’re not serious?” Ren gaped. “Take a break? Can’t you see I’m tired of being cooped up in this house? In this room? The sooner I face Peter, the sooner I get out of here. The sooner this is all over and behind us. Please.”
“She’s right, Meredith,” Alfie said. “What’s the problem?”
Meredith opened the door to the tunnel that led into the dining room. “I’m going to start dinner. If we order take out again this week, your father is going to start wondering. Just go do something…normal.”
Meredith slipped through the doorway then. It closed tightly behind her. Ren rolled her eyes at her stepmother-turned-mentor and started to pace the few feet between the door and the wardrobe. She glanced up at Alfie on each turn. “I swear I’m going to torch this place with my electricity if I don’t get out of here soon. I want to smell the freshly harvested earth. I want to feel the wind on my cheeks. I want to rummage through Richard’s downtown. I want a big ass black coffee from Roast.”
Alfie chuckled, but after Ren turned to glare at him, he fell silent, holding his hands up in surrender. “I just think it’s funny that a very powerful Auxilium is waiting for you to poke your nose out of hiding and all you want is a coffee.”
“I can take Peter.” Ren stopped pacing. Pushed up the long sleeves on her baggy, black t-shirt. “I’ll kick his ass. I’ll knock those curls right off of his head.”
“Not yet.” Alfie stood over her, staring at her down the bridge of his nose. “Meredith’s right. You need more power.”
Ren held her hands up. They were jittering. “Look at me. I’m about to explode in here.”
“Your life is more important than a bad case of cabin fever and if—” Alfie stopped talking. Held up a finger. His eyes lit up like a trick candle.
“What?” She stopped pacing.
“I know a way to help you get out of here.” He walked to the wardrobe and opened one of the doors. He began to dig through boxes and jars on the top shelf. “Without actually getting you out of here. Meredith says you’re not ready for another regression, but I don’t agree. There’s no harm in it for you. She’s just a little gun shy.”
“Why?”
“Another story for another day.” Alfie produced a small, oak box. He handed it to her, the weight of the thing unexpectedly heavy. She held it close to her stomach and opened the lid. As she peered into the box, her eye fell on the glass paperweight Joe had dropped in Meredith’s parlor a week before. The bullet sat frozen in the very center. Alfie tapped the sphere. “If you can’t get the relic out with telekinesis, I can find a hammer.”
Ren removed the paperweight and dropped the box on the floor. She furrowed her brows, focused on the bullet, and watched as it shivered in its glass tomb. “You don’t need a hammer, just give me a minute.”
She felt the bullet without touching it, wriggled it through the glass as if it were a finger encased in thick mud. The tip surfaced, then, all at once, the rest of the bullet shot out of the paperweight. She made it hover in mid-air. Dropped the glass sphere close to the box. Stepped forward to study the tiny rings of rust around the bullet’s point.
“I thought this was supposed to be a relic?” she asked.
“It is.”
“Now, I’m no expert on human atomy,” she began, “But what part of the body houses the golden bullet?”
“Clearly, your brain,” Alfie said with a laugh. “Look closer. Do you see the reddish substance on the tip?”
“Rust?”
“Blood,” Alfie said. “Your blood.”
Ren scrunched her nose. “How long has it been there?”
“A while.” Alfie stepped closer to her, so that the bullet was floating at an equal distance between them. “If you take the relic in your fist and really give it a squeeze, not just a brush of the finger, you’ll see everything it has to show you in one regression.”
Ren lifted a brow at him. “How do you know this?”
Alfie’s lips twitched. “Just something Meredith told me once. She says it makes the effects of the regression even more powerful. Like a life boost for the soul.”
“She told you all that?” Ren asked.
“Do you want to get out of here for a while or not?”
“Whatever,” Ren said. “Where in time does it take me?”
“Dunno.”
“You’re great help.”
“Just touch it already,” Alfie said.
“Jeez, don’t get your panties in a wad, princess,” Ren said.
“And remember—”
“Squeeze it, don’t brush it,” she said. “I got it, I got it.”
She held her palm flat beneath the bullet and, with a deep breath, commanded it to drop. As soon as it touched her skin, she closed her fist tightly around it and waited for the room to spin.
Her stomach flew into her throat as Alfie and the safe room folded into thirds, then twisted out of sight. Everything was replaced by the chasm, a rich and colorful half-world, a portal. She dropped into it, as always, like she was falling through it for the first time. Just as she thought she couldn’t take another moment of it, she bounced onto something cushioned. Her vision began to clear.
Her heart raced as her foot pressed down the pedal of a wide automobile. She gripped the steering wheel tightly and glanced from the red dirt road, lit up by the car’s headlights and the full moon, to the other passengers in the car. Her four sisters: Helen, Wilma, Vera, and Etta.
“Next left, Ida,” Helen, the oldest, told her from the passenger’s seat. A memory of Helen as a child, swinging a hatchet above the neck of a chicken, telling Ida to hold it still, flashed by.
Ida took the next left onto another dirt road, flanked by building-less, Oklahoma countryside in the dead of December. Leafless trees. Dusty, cropless fields. Ditches were strewn with forgotten furniture, pictures, clothes, all left behind from the people who got hit too hard by the recession and were forced to hoof it west. She and her sisters were set up, though. They’d gotten into Pa’s business just before he’d died. Moonshine. No one in Oklahoma was rich, but everyone seemed to have a nickel to toss away for a bottle of liquor during prohibition.
“Wher
e we goin’?” Ida asked Helen.
Etta, the youngest of the Weatherby Sisters, leaned forward, her prized tommy gun waggling between Ida and Helen in the front seat, and said, “To get them sons o’ bitches.”
“What are you talking about?” Ida asked, then looked to Helen. “Where’s the ‘shine?”
“Take a right up here.” Helen pointed up the road.
“Helen,” Ida said. “Where’s the ‘shine?”
“Here,” Helen said, but she wasn’t talking about the moonshine.
Ida cranked their car to the right, down a narrow road, where the ruts were just visible through the prickled, beige grass, dried out from the winter cold. The car bounced wildly over the old road and Ida was forced to shift into a lower gear.
As she drove, she kept glancing at Helen, waiting for an answer, but her older sister was a house with boarded up windows and chains on the door. Shut up. Ominous. Ida gave up. Looked to the back seat for answer. Her gaze moved from Wilma, glasses so filmed in grease she could hardly see her eyes, to Vera, who was staring out the side window, and then to Etta, who was stroking the gun.
“Girls, where’s the ‘shine?” Ida asked.
“Haskell Brothers,” Wilma said.
Vera huffed. “Done stoled it all.”
An evil grin pulled across Etta’s cheeks. Gah, Ida thought, she was only fourteen. What would their ma say if she knew how they’d corrupted their baby sister? But it wasn’t entirely their doing. Even before Ma and Pa died, Etta had an evil streak. Catching field mice and holding them, still alive, over a fire in the back yard. Choppin’ the tails off barn cats to see if they’d grow back. Nah, that dark demeanor would’ve shown itself more and more, even if Ma had staved off the fever and Pa hadn’t hung himself after she died.
“We’ll get ‘em back,” Etta said. “Dirty Haskell bastards.”
“How’d they get a hold of the ‘shine in the first place?” Ida asked. A few hundred yards ahead, the car’s headlights picked up the remnants of a rusted, metal gate. Ida began to slow.
“You think if I’d known how they was gonna do it, they’d have done it?” Helen asked. “Gah, Ida. Don’t be askin’ stupid questions.”