He sounded hostile, but I noticed he said “we.”
Julia said, “First I’m going to light a candle.” She produced one from her purse, along with matches. “And maybe a little trance music.” She turned on an iPod in a dock that sat on one of the bookshelves. (Where had she gotten the matches and the iPod?) “Now I’m going to turn out the lights.”
So there we were in the dark, with this spooky music playing, like Indian flutes or something. Very haunting. She said, “Everybody close your eyes. And by the way, Cooper, if you say one word until we come out of this, you are completely dead.”
Cooper, for once, had no answer. I could imagine him clenching his jaw so tight it must hurt the top of his head.
What happened next was unbelievably weird. But what made it weird was that it started out really ordinary. And… except for the weirdness, it kind of stayed that way.
“Just breathe for awhile. In… and… out. Very deeply.”
So we did that and the next person who spoke was Sonya. She told us really ordinary stuff, like leave the rest of the day behind, and the school, and our lives and relax our toes. I’m serious. Relax our toes, but first clench them. Then came every other body part. You not only had to relax, you had to contract first, so you got this big burst of relax.
After that, we had to send these roots down and connect with the earth. And then we went down a ladder to a river where we got in a boat, counting each step as we went. And then the boat went somewhere, I’m not quite sure where, but I think it might have been out in the ozone. We were in the boat with Cooper, and while we were in the boat, we focused on his “energy,” whatever that was. Nothing magic there, right?
But at some point, Sonya, stopped talking— or maybe she didn’t, maybe I just stopped hearing, and that’s when things got weird. I was focused like crazy on Cooper, and all of a sudden, his oily olive aura started to twist and curl and grow into all kinds of smoky shapes. Until they settled on one: The shape of Haley. As if Cooper and Haley were the same person. But what was up with that?
Okay, I could do this focus thing. I focused on Haley. And I got… me. I was in a really weird place, stone, with dark rooms and lots of steps, and I was riding an animal, but not a horse. I couldn’t actually see the animal, I could just feel the ride… you know how some dreams are like that? The most important details get left out.
Except that this wasn’t a dream; I didn’t know what it was, maybe some kind of waking dream. I was riding this thing and I was inside a building. Maybe it was a bull. Anyhow, I was riding it and I was about to fingerton something. I was stealing something, I had to steal something, my life depended on it, but maybe not just that— maybe something else depended on it as well. Something really, really important. Haley’s life? It felt like Haley’s life.
But what did all this have to do with Cooper?
CHAPTER TEN—ALL ABOUT ME
“Start slowly to retract your roots,” said Sonya. “You are at the center of the earth. Go up very very slowly, through the white-hot layer to the red-hot layer, to the molten lava above that; and then into the cool, hard rock of the crust. Come up gradually; come through any rivers that may flow beneath us, and then through the basement of the library, through the first floor…”
And I had the strangest sensation— as if all that stuff was actually happening to me, like I was floating back through layers. When we were back in the room, we had to start feeling our fingers and toes and everything again, making sure they were still there, and finally, finally, when Sonya said we could come back to the meeting, we got to open our eyes.
I was toast.
Not tired, exactly, just disoriented.
Sonya said, “Everyone okay?” and Julia turned on the light. Colored bars and stars and snowflakes dotted the room.
Cooper was slumped over, apparently still out. Sonya laughed. “So much for pigs flying.”
“I’m here,” Cooper said. “I just can’t move.”
Julia reached into her backpack for water, which she made him drink and then passed around, along with a protein bar: “Everyone break off a piece.” Evidently, she was a mistress of contraband— first the iPod and matches, now this. I chewed my portion. And gradually, very gradually, I stopped seeing colors; started feeling less spacy. Like I was actually present.
“Let’s talk,” Julia said. “Anyone get anything?”
I didn’t say anything. I was too embarrassed that I was supposed to be focusing on Cooper and my vision had been all about me.
“I did,” Carlos said, “but the weirdest thing. It was really about Reeno. It was this pied piper kind of thing. She was going somewhere and she had all these people following her. It looked like she was giving them something, but I couldn’t tell what. They were, like, in love with her.”
“That’s it?” Cooper said. “Why in the hell did I bother coming here anyhow?”
I was so sick of his negativity. “See, there you go. You know Carlos is going to be upset because he didn’t get the right psychic vision, so you zero right in on him.”
“I didn’t mean… I was just…”
He looked so upset I was almost sorry for him.
“Wait. That wasn’t all,” said Carlos. “Cooper was with her. Only not really. Kind of like some shadow; a ghost, maybe.” He paused and looked away. “I could see through him.”
Nobody spoke, not wanting to give voice to what the vision might mean. Finally I said, “Like a spirit? Like Cooper was there in spirit, maybe?”
Sonya nodded. “Our research shows that psychic visions are all about metaphor.” I must have been staring because she followed that up with, “What? Just ‘cause my English is bad, you think I’m stupid?”
It wasn’t worth answering, although she was wrong. Her speech patterns were the furthest thing from my mind. I was thinking about the research she’d mentioned. These three crazy girls— Sonya, Julia, and Kara— had somehow turned themselves into near-experts on psychic abilities. That seemed kind of great to me, to have a cause; to care enough about something to really learn about it.
“And there’s one more thing,” Carlos said. “She was with Jag.”
The Beast opened one eye, as if he were a normal pussycat who happened to hear his name dropped into the conversation. “What in Gaia’s name,” he said, “made him think it was you those people were in love with?”
“Know what?” Sonya said. “I saw Reeno too. I mean, I think I did. Seein’ isn’t really my thing. But I saw her face, real clear, and she looked real scared. And I saw somethin’ else too. This guy yellin’ at her. He was standing at the top of some steps, like a pyramid, kind of, and he had on some kind of crazy Indian outfit, like with a big ol’ headdress. Except not American Indian.”
“You mean, like someone from India?”
“Uh-uh, no. Like an Aztec or somethin’. I don’t know what he said, but I can tell you one thing— he was flat-out cursin’ her out.”
At that, Julia perked up. “Whoa! Let’s get back to that. Reeno?”
“Well, I feel kind of weird, but I saw myself too. I mean, Cooper was in the vision at first, but then he turned into my sister Haley. So I focused on Haley and then she turned into me…” I told them the rest of the vision.
By the time I’d finished, Sonya was shaking her head. “Somethin’s offbase here. Way, way offbase. Whassup with all the Reeno trash?”
“Oh, man,” Julia said. “I am so weirded out by this.”
She was weirded out? That had to be nothing compared to how Cooper was feeling. I looked to see how he was doing, and saw that he’d slumped down, kind of crumpled into himself like a cold popover.
I addressed him. “So,” I said. “What was I doing in your vision?”
He seemed dejected. “About the only good thing about my vision was it wasn’t about you, Flosshead.” He was shaking his head. “Bad news is, it wasn’t about me, either.”
“Huh?” someone asked.
“It was about my father. I saw s
omeone yelling at him. Like in Sonya’s vision. Cursing him out.”
“In a Halloween Indian costume?” Carlos asked.
Cooper shook his head again. “Real ugly dude.” Long pause. “He looked like you.”
Carlos went from half-there to bolt upright. “He looked like me? Or he was me?”
“He could be you in fifteen or twenty years. Much older dude, thirty, maybe even thirty-five, but already gone to seed. His face, I mean. His body was out of line— ‘roid monkey if I ever saw one. Like you, Flamer. Hispanic too. Weird thing, though. You play football, right? Guy was wearing a baseball uniform.”
“Oh, man!” I put my elbows on the table and rested my face in my hands. “Where the hell does all this get us?”
“Well…” said Julia timidly, “…guess I’m the only one.”
Cooper said, “The only one who what, Mall rat?”
“Who saw you.”
“Huh?”
“You were up against a wall.”
“Whoa!” Sonya interrupted. “Watch out— heavy metaphors headed your way.”
“And there was this crowd all around you. No one was saying a word, or even moving, but you were writhing, like in pain, and getting down on your knees and twisting and turning like someone was sticking pins and needles in you.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Sonya had come alert. “Psychic attack!”
Julia nodded. “That’s what I thought too.”
Cooper repeated: “Psychic attack.” As if the words were Chinese.
Carlos was clearly struggling with it. “You mean like… a curse?
A curse?
“That’s really weird,” Julia said. “Two people already used that word.”
“Huh?” I said. My mind wouldn’t stay still.
“Yeah. In Cooper’s dream, someone was cursing his dad out and in Sonya’s you were getting cursed out. Three times that word has come up— coincidence?”
“Oh. My. God. A psychic attack is, like, when someone attacks you with their mind?”
Sonya and Julia nodded.
“And a curse can be a psychic attack?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And a metaphor. Run that metaphor thing by me again.”
“It’s like poetry,” Sonya said. “You know— when you use one thing to represent another— ‘my bright star’ for ‘my sweetie-pie,’ maybe. Dreams do that all the time. As in ‘cigar’ equals ‘penis’.”
Julia turned red. “Sonya!”
“What? That’s the most famous example.”
“Hang on here.” I was struggling. “What about this curse thing? I mean, we might have hit on something big. If Cooper’s under psychic attack, how do we get it to stop?”
“Hmm.” Julia was clearly thinking. “We could treat it as an illness.”
Illness? My mind was all over the place.
Sonya nodded. “Maybe try a healing.”
But that didn’t satisfy Julia. “You know what, though? Maybe first try to pull the energy off him.”
Cooper stood up. “Bunch of psychos. I can’t even believe I’m listening to this crap.”
He started to walk out the door, but for some reason, I stood up too. “No! Sit down.” We stared at each other. “Do it!” I said.
Without a word, he sat. I had no idea I was going to do that. But truth to tell, for my own reasons, I was suddenly deeply, deeply interested in his case. “How do we do it?”
“We need to go back into a focus,” Julia said. “I don’t think we can do it tonight. It’s too tiring.”
“I’m not tired.” Carlos and I spoke together. We were doing that way too much.
“I’m good.” Sonya said. “Cooper?”
“Why don’t you work on Reeno instead? Tonight’s all about her, right?”
“Interesting point,” Julia said, “and one we’re going to have to get to. But later. Let’s fire up the candle.”
So we went back into the earth and into our individual trances, and then Julia started in on something new. “Let’s start with the idea that Cooper is being attacked by a cloud of negative energy. See it now! See the energy around Cooper.” Well, that was easy for me— it was almost all I saw when I looked at him.
“Give it a color if it doesn’t already have one.” Right. Oily olive.
“Now make a space for that negative energy, right above the candle flame. Kind of an astral basket. Do you see it?”
This was like a kid’s game, but, okay, I saw it. And I saw it getting bigger as other people visualized it. I was literally “seeing energy,” a term I’d heard a few times, but not really understood. The thing was like a wicker basket, oblong, about eighteen inches long and half as deep.
Whoo! This was seriously fun.
“Sonya, you’ve had the most experience with this. I’m going to appoint you to keep the discarded energy from leaving the basket.
“Everyone else, start now. Begin stripping off the negative energy and putting it in the basket. Use your strong, fighting psyche to pull off the energy, from the tips of Cooper’s head to the tips of his toes. And don’t forget his back. Cooper, you relax. But focus gently on giving it up.
“The rest of you do whatever you have to do to get it in the basket. Strip it off piece by piece, or all at once, like pulling a garment over his head. Get it in the basket any way you can. Compress it if you have to.”
And then she was quiet while we settled down to an old-fashioned energy pull.
Damn, that stuff was stubborn. The more I pulled, the more it clung, like chewing gum stuck to the floor. At first, I got a little to peel off but these big nasty tendrils hung on. I put out a little more of my own energy, and pulled, pulled, until my astral wrists hurt. And I broke them off of him! But then when I tried to transfer the pieces to the basket, they dissipated into a nasty cloud. Aaaaarrrgh!
Okay, now what? Got an idea. I imagined a whirlpool, a vortex of that oily olive energy, all of it spinning together, and then when I had it going about the speed of light, I did what Julia suggested— compressed it. Put it in a psychic zip drive. Zipped it. Shrunk it to the size to a pea. And dropped it in the basket.
Sweet!
Now to get the rest of it off. I went back for seconds, and then thirds. Weirdly, I found it got easier each time. Was it possible I was getting good at this? Or were we actually making a dent in the psychic attack?
Eyes still closed, I glanced at the basket— it was almost overflowing!
“Okay,” Julia said, “let’s put on one last big push. Or pull, I should say. Let’s all visualize a huge siphon, a giant funnel hanging over Cooper with a long tube at the other end that empties right in the basket.
“On the count of three, let’s lift the last of that stuff into the funnel and funnel it into the basket. One… two… heave!”
Omigod, I could actually see it happen. The last of the oily stuff really did go over his head and into the funnel, still shaped like his body, looking like the icky-olive ghost of Cooper Allingham.
“Whoosh!” said Sonya, “It’s in there.”
And I knew she’d heard it land, just as I’d seen it.
Julia said, “Everyone, open your eyes. But stay grounded. Leave your roots in place.”
I opened my eyes and I was looking at a different person, a person starting to glow a bright, neon, lime-green. The new aura was just starting to shimmer around Cooper’s body, not yet formed, but the oily olive was definitely gone.
“Cooper. How do you feel?”
“Great! Fantastic. Like… it’s a beautiful day and everything’s really nice and you’re all really great and…”
“Hold it,” Carlos said, “did I just hear you say we’re all really great?”
“Carlos, listen, I think you’re a really brave, truly fine person.” He stumbled over the words, as if they were really hard to say. “I mean… the way you take care of Reeno…”
Huh? What was this?
“I’m sorry if I ever said
anything rude to you— it’s like some other person did that. I don’t think those things at all…” He paused, a look of delighted astonishment spreading over his features.
“Hey! Hey, I’m talking. I’m talking like a regular human being! I don’t believe this.”
Suddenly we were all on our feet, all but Sonya, holding up our hands for high fives, slapping each other, laughing, in Cooper’s case crying too.
And then Sonya yelled, “Help! Help me! It’s getting away!”
Instantly, my focus went back to the basket— presumably everyone else’s did too— and I saw the thing rising, spreading out like some kind of toxic cloud. I tried to get my energy around it, but the minute I did, it compressed itself and shot itself through my fingers— metaphorically speaking— exactly like a spitball.
It landed in the middle of Cooper’s chest and the millisecond it hit, it started to curl like oily smoke around his body.
Cooper felt it, I guess. Anyhow, he must have known it was happening because he yelled, “Reeno! Great tats! Cool hair! I just wanted to say that.”
But the next words out of his mouth were, “You blew it, you incompetent fat bitch! What a pathetic bunch of retards.”
Sonya wasn’t even fazed. She just shook her head sadly. “He’s gone.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN—THE MAYAN CONNECTION
That night I dreamed. I desperately needed to lie awake awhile, trying to connect various dots, but Julia had been right— the double-trance was draining. I fell into a deep sleep and dreamed so hard I flung my hand out and all eighteen or fifty pounds of A.B. landed on the floor. That made me fear for my entire arm— but all he did was climb back in with me and cuddle. Maybe he could read my mind even when I was asleep. Because this dream I’d been having was in living color and Dolby sound, with special effects from the far side of hell.
Also, it was a double feature.
In the first feature, I dreamed I was a Mayan. I was kneeling, and a man, who I knew was my husband, stood over me holding a torch. He was dressed in an outlandish outfit— mostly elaborate jewelry, strange little boots that tied, a kind of intricate belt around his waist that was big enough to cover his privates, yet small enough to show his all-over tattoos— and he had the sweetest, kindest expression on his face, as if he loved me more than his kingdom. Yes, his kingdom. He was the king.
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