by C C Daniels
“Please,” Kai said quietly. “It may not work, but I have to try.”
“Wray?” Amaya looked at me.
I glanced at Honaw—the only adult in the room. He shrugged and stepped back.
He, Kanaan, Amaya, Kai, even the skull, seemed to be leaving the decision to me.
Sweet Kai. “Please.” He pressed his hands together, his eyes pleading with me.
“What if it makes you worse?” I whispered.
“I’ll own that responsibility.”
So would I. I knew that if he died because of me…
“Please, Wray.” Amaya was near tears.
I swallowed.
“He has a right a take a chance,” Kanaan said. His brother sighed with a slight nod.
I slowly blew out a breath. Then I walked to the door and threw the deadbolt. Quirks required privacy.
“Maybe we should do a little at a time,” I said.
Amaya moved fast. She got a big bottle of alcohol from the bathroom while Honaw wheeled Kai closer to the trunk. He had to lift the chair up onto the old braided rug in the sitting area.
Amaya unfolded the pocketknife and dipped it into the alcohol. “I cut? You scrape?” she asked me.
I shook my head. I didn’t want to touch the thing, let alone put pieces of it in Kai’s body. Amaya’s shoulders fell. “I’ll cut. You scrape,” I said.
A smile spread across Amaya’s face. Kai pulled his sleeves up higher.
Kanaan pitched in by holding the plastic bin to catch whatever blood might drip from the cuts.
Tucking the skull under her arm so that the top pointed toward Kai, Amaya nodded. “Let’s do it.”
I, grimacing, made a small slit in Kai’s upper arm. Amaya scraped the skull with her thumbnail.
Before the skull finished healing itself, I made another small slit and Amaya scraped again.
“Oh my God, I can feel it,” Kai whispered.
We did three slits on each arm. All the wounds healed instantly just like Amaya’s and mine did.
Kai bounced in his wheelchair. “I can feel it inside my body!”
“Does it hurt?” Amaya knitted her brows together.
He shook his head, laughing. “No.” Kai pulled up his pant legs. “Do my legs now!”
“We should wait to see what happens first,” I cautioned again.
“No!” Kai demanded. “Do them now!”
I leaned back shocked at his outburst.
“I’m sorry.” He pressed his lips together. “I just—” His eyes got glassy with tears. “I wanna be able to walk, Wray.” He closed his eyes, and I got a glimpse of what he was thinking about—running with his friends at school.
I closed my eyes briefly, too. The flakes were in him. He’d already taken the risk. May as well go all the way. “Let’s do his legs,” I murmured with a shrug.
And so we did. Amaya took off his shoes and socks so they wouldn’t get bloody. We made three slits in the right thigh first.
Before they were even completely healed, Kai looked at me wide-eyed. “I can feel it in there too.”
The boy hadn’t felt his legs since he was a toddler. Even I was encouraged. We quickly moved along with the same treatments in his left leg. During the last slit, someone turned the knob on the exterior door. The noise startled me, and I jumped. Amaya, though, hurriedly scraped the skull one more time. Whoever was outside knocked loudly on the door.
“Why is this locked?” It was Amaya’s mom.
“Oh, just a minute, Mom,” Amaya shouted.
While the last of the flakes sparkled away, we all scrambled. We pulled Kai’s pant legs down. Honaw put away the bin, the knife, and the alcohol. From the shelf, Kanaan pulled down an old card game and peeled cards right off the top of the deck to give each of us. I plopped on the couch next to Kanaan. Amaya put the skull between my legs and pulled an afghan over my lap.
“Open this door right now!” her mom pounded the door harder.
“Coming!” Amaya ran to the door with a handful of cards.
“Uno!” yelled Kanaan.
“You’ve got six cards in your hand,” Kai laughed.
“Oh, yeah.” Kanaan tossed five on the pile.
The door unlocked and Amaya’s mom pushed in—almost knocking Amaya down.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Bell,” I confessed. “I locked it on habit.” Which was true. Some quirks required privacy.
“Who could blame you after yesterday?” Honaw said.
“And New York,” Amaya added.
The skull’s energy turned blissful again, the same vibe I felt in the Garden. Instead of soothing me, it brought moisture to my eyes. I blinked fast and focused on the cards in my hand. Kanaan put an arm around my shoulder and leaned the side of his head against mine.
“I understand, dear.” Mrs. Bell nodded in our direction, but I wasn’t convinced that she understood, or that we had fooled her with our fake card game. “I just came to get Kai for breakfast.” She took hold of the handles on his wheelchair.
“But I’m not hungry.” Kai shook his head. “Can I just stay and play more?”
She hovered behind his chair but didn’t move it.
“Please.” Kai leaned his head back and flashed her his big smile. “I’m having fun.”
“Okay, then,” Mrs. Bell said, relenting. “Just a little longer.”
When she left, everyone threw their cards onto the trunk and sat back. Everyone except Kai. Cards fanned out in his hand, he was looking down at his feet. I followed his line of sight and saw his toes move. Ever so slightly, but he was moving them.
“I knew it.” Amaya gave his shoulders a quick hug.
In awed wonder, we all watched Kai. His toe wiggle got stronger with each passing second. In a mere thirty seconds, he was pivoting his entire foot on his heel. Up and down. Then, side to side.
“Mom! Mom!” Amaya hurried outside.
Mrs. Bell ran back inside, her face twisted in panic. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
Kai lifted his right foot entirely off the wheelchair footrest and put it on the floor.
Amaya’s mom held her hand at her chest. “How? That’s impossible.” She could barely speak. “Go get your father,” she ordered Amaya.
By the time Mr. Bell came, Kai lifted both feet off and on the footrests several times. He did it again for his stunned father. Kai pushed on the arms of his wheelchair in an attempt to stand.
“Bro, you shouldn’t,” Kanaan said. “Your muscles probably can’t handle it yet.”
“He’s right,” Mr. Bell said.
Mrs. Bell hurried to the vintage phone in the kitchenette. It was probably the only phone in town that was still hooked up to a landline. Her hands shook so much that she almost dropped the handset—the part you hold to your ear. Taking it from her, Mr. Bell pushed buttons on the number pad—the part that hung on the wall. Done dialing, he stretched the curly cord and tilted the handset so his wife could listen along with him.
“Great news!” Amaya’s dad shouted into the phone. “Kai is moving his legs!”
While they talked on the phone with Kai’s doctor, Honaw squeezed Kai’s shoulder. “Remember that it’s a secret,” he murmured low.
Kai, grinning from ear to ear, gave a thumbs-up low in his lap.
“Yes, ma’am,” Mr. Bell said into the phone. “We’re on our way.” He placed the handset in the little cradle on the wall portion that hung up the call. “The doctor wants to see you right away.”
Mr. Bell pushed Kai’s wheelchair. Amaya and her mom followed them to the door.
“We’ll lock up,” I said.
When Amaya turned to close the door behind them, she mouthed, thank you.
You’re welcome, I mouthed back smiling. At least something good came from the skull.
The Bell family gone and the door closed, Honaw plopped into the ratty side chair. “That all really just happened?”
I flung the afghan from my legs. The three of us stared at the skull. Pulling my sleeve
s down, I set it back on the coffee table.
My phone chimed. It was a text from MawMaw. Send Uncle Jun. Room 303. Now! “MawMaw’s ready to be sprung.” I got up.
Honaw put the skull back in the trunk. “Are you sure it’s safe in here?” He looked around the garage.
“No,” I answered as I headed for the door. “I don’t think it’s safe anywhere in this world.” And that’s the first time I considered that Honaw’s story might be true. That the skull was from space—an alien.
I held the door for Honaw and Kanaan, and pulled it closed behind them. After we walked about half a block, I snapped my fingers. “Oh, shoot. I forgot to lock the door. Wait here. I’ll run back.” I hurried back to Amaya’s garage. Once inside, I quickly opened the globe and, using my sleeves, moved the skull from the trunk. I had just clicked the globe closed when Kanaan appeared at the door.
He tilted his head. I just smiled, and, on my way out that second time, double-checked the lock on the door.
Chapter 10
When we got to MawMaw’s house, the police officer at the back door greeted us.
Inside, Uncle Jun was on a ladder filling the bullet holes in the ceiling with putty.
I looked up at him. “MawMaw texted me.”
“Me too.” He shook his head in frustration and stepped off the ladder.
“Where you been?” Uncle Jun teased Honaw.
“Sorry.” Honaw took Uncle Jun’s putty knife and climbed the ladder to finish the last of the holes.
“Let’s go.” Uncle Jun went out.
“Wait,” I said. “She’ll need clean clothes.”
In MawMaw’s room, I stuffed underwear, pants, and a shirt into one of her favorite tote bags. I tried to keep my eyes off the bedpost, but I felt that thing in there—like it was drawing me to it. Just like the skull.
Ignoring the strange sensation, I rushed back to the kitchen. Kanaan had brought the other ladder from the garage and was helping Honaw with the ceiling.
“We’ll have this done before she gets home,” Honaw promised.
“Thanks,” I said.
Grabbing a pair of MawMaw’s slip-on shoes, her jacket, and cane from their hooks by the back door, I rushed to catch up to Uncle Jun.
We rode in silence for most of the way. I could tell that the wheels were turning in his head. Tell wasn’t the right word. I actually felt a weird vibration coming from him. He turned to me a couple of times, as if ready to say something, but stopped each time.
“So,” he finally said. “Want to tell me what happened yesterday?”
“You already know.” I shrugged. “Men wearing ski masks and armed with semiautomatic weapons stormed into the house.”
“But they didn’t take anything?” He narrowed his eyes.
“I guess we didn’t have what they were looking for,” I said.
“Did MawMaw tell you what it was they wanted?” His eyes darted nervously back and forth on the road.
“Why would MawMaw know what they wanted?” I asked with my brows creased.
Uncle Jun smiled, his eyes still shifting around. He was trying to think of something to say.
“Do you think MawMaw knew why those guys busted down our doors?” I followed up. My silent question was whether she knew of the bone hidden in the bed that she slept on every night.
Uncle Jun swallowed. “I guess you should ask MawMaw those questions.” He shrugged. “It’s not my place.”
He knew something. That fact radiated from him. It’s like when a child asks an adult whether Santa Claus is real. Instead of getting a straight answer, they’re told to ask their mother.
“Uncle Jun,” I pressed as we turned into a space in the hospital parking garage. “Do you know what they were after?”
He opened his car door, got out, and acted like he didn’t hear me. I followed him quickly.
“Uncle Jun!” I had to run to keep up with his pace.
“Talk to MawMaw,” he said sternly.
They knew about the piece hidden in the bed. I was certain of it.
The automatic glass doors into the hospital opened for us. The scent that spewed out of them turned my stomach. I breathed through my mouth to mitigate the smell some. It helped a little, but I still wanted to throw up. Trailing behind Uncle Jun, I wrinkled my nose and dodged a worker wheeling a cart in the other direction. We didn’t have to wait long at the bank of elevators. One of them dinged open right away.
“Going up,” a smooth female voice announced. We stepped inside with two other people.
In the silence of the confined space, an image of a hand-stitched suede bag flashed into my mind. It had the same diamond beading below the drawstring as the one in MawMaw’s bed.
Only the image in my mind showed the bag sitting on a table—an antique table that I recognized. I also recognized the skyline in the window beyond the table. New York. The bag sitting on our entryway table in our apartment in New York wasn’t my thought. I knew it wasn’t my memory, because I had never seen that bag before finding it in MawMaw’s bed.
The image barged into my mind for a few seconds and was gone as fast as it came. I looked at the side of Uncle Jun’s head. He had come to New York to visit a few times.
“Third floor,” the annoying elevator voice said. The other two people stepped aside to let us get off. One step off the elevator and I heard MawMaw.
“You should make the beds while the patients are out of the room.” Her lecture traveled down the hall. “Not wait until they get back!”
“We don’t know whether to make it for the same patient or a new one,” another voice tried to reason with her.
“That must mean you kill a lot of patients around here,” MawMaw replied in her most condescending PhD tone. “How else would they not come back from routine tests?”
A young nurse stomped out of MawMaw’s room. She almost collided with Uncle Jun. I peeked around the doorframe.
Lips pursed, arms crossed over her chest, her eyes mere slits, MawMaw sat in one of the visitor chairs and scowled while another nurse, an older lady, tucked a sheet around the hospital bed mattress. “She’s decent,” I told Uncle Jun.
Despite her black-and-blue cheek, MawMaw’s face lit up with a smile when she saw us. She jumped out of the chair ripping the overnight bag from my hand. She went into the attached bathroom and slammed the door.
The nurse stopped making the bed and looked at the ceiling. “Are you going home then, Mrs. Sky?”
“It’s Ms. Sky,” MawMaw yelled through the door. “And, yes, I’ll be out of here in two minutes.”
The nurse breathed an audible sigh of relief but smiled at us. “Contusion facts, what to watch out for, and care instructions.” She handed a stack of preprinted papers to Uncle Jun.
“Thanks,” he mumbled.
The soles of her clog-style shoes squeaked as the nurse calmly left the room.
“I’ll bring the car around front,” Uncle Jun called to the bathroom door.
“Hurry,” MawMaw called right back.
Uncle Jun did as he was told.
A minute or so later, MawMaw opened the bathroom door completely dressed. She snatched the cane from my hand, slipped on her shoes, and hightailed it out the door. I was right behind her.
“Ms. Sky!” The younger nurse—the one who had almost run into Uncle Jun—pushed an empty wheelchair up the hall. “I need to wheel you out,” she insisted.
MawMaw didn’t respond. She just raised her chin and kept walking.
“Do you want me to lose my job, Ms. Sky?”
That got to MawMaw.
She stopped walking, and rolling her eyes, turned to wait for the nurse and wheelchair. A scowl on her face, MawMaw slid onto the seat and let herself be rolled along
I rushed ahead to push the elevator button. It couldn’t get there fast enough, in my opinion. There was tense silence on the ride down. MawMaw rolled her eyes again when the stupid elevator voice said we arrived on the main floor.
The wheels of
the chair clickety-clacked over the tiled lobby floor to the main entrance. The sliding doors whooshed open, and oh, the fresh air was so wonderful. I breathed in deeply. A few minutes later, Uncle Jun had helped MawMaw into his SUV. Despite being upset, MawMaw thanked the nurse, who nodded curtly and went back inside. Me in the back seat, we headed home.
I could tell Uncle Jun wanted to talk. He kept rubbing his eyebrow with his left hand and his eyes often darted to MawMaw. MawMaw sat stock-still and looked straight ahead. Just to be sure she wasn’t in one of her trances, I broke the silence. “How’s your cheek feel, MawMaw?”
“Just fine,” she answered right away.
Nope, she wasn’t in a trance.
“Rachela got our guest rooms ready.” Uncle Jun studied the side mirror, not looking at MawMaw. “You're both welcomed to stay as long as—”
“Take me home.” MawMaw enunciated each word firmly.
“MawMaw,” he mumbled a protest.
“Home.”
The next couple of miles were a silent standoff between the two.
“Well,” Uncle Jun caved. “At least pack an emergency bag and be ready to leave at a moment’s notice.”
MawMaw nodded. “That I can do.”
“You too.” Uncle Jun glanced at me in the rearview mirror.
I nodded. It was a good idea. Yet all I thought about was what MawMaw would pack in hers. Did they both really know what those men were after? I was certain it was one of the bones. The only one my uncle and grandmother could have known about was the honed hunk hidden in that bedpost.
I sat back and reached for the old buffalo robe that Uncle Jun kept in his vehicle. MawMaw kept one in hers, too, just in case we ever got stuck in a snowstorm. I pulled the heavy robe over my knees and closed my eyes.
Mom and Dad were killed for that bone in the bed. I was certain—and instantly bitter—about it. If everyone knew why they were killed, shouldn’t they have told me? The intruders ripped our apartment apart, just like MawMaw’s house.
If they had been normal burglars, they would’ve taken Mom’s purse, Dad’s wallet, and all the visible valuables. Perhaps they would have looked for art or a hidden safe, but turning drawers upside down? I didn’t think that was typical thief behavior.