“Yeah,” he said. “I should, you know.” He took a long look, not convinced it wouldn’t be the last time he ever saw me, then started away. I’d wait until he was long gone before I leaped. He stopped at the book shelf and turned.
“Thanks, Socket.”
“For what?”
“Just, you know. Glad you were here. That’s all.”
He left before I could say anything. Glad to be here, Streeter.
Civil Wars
A librarian had come back to make sure no other students were around, but I had dissolved before she turned the corner. I gathered far past Interstate 26, near Monck’s Corner and highway 52 and sliced time to a standstill.
I walked the country roads and sometimes went straight through the wetlands. Whenever I felt people within my influence, I turned away. I didn’t want to be tempted to draw on their life. I trusted myself less and less, having visions I would leave a wasteland of bodies in my wake. Even the slightest attempt to expand my awareness out like a shrimp net to locate Pike put people into my influence and an immediate download of their essence. Perhaps vampires did exist. We didn’t drink blood. Just essence.
Pike was out there, I could sense him, just couldn’t locate him. Unlike my original, my brother; I had locked onto his location from 800 miles away. He was in Tannerville, Illinois. Population, 12,132. I didn’t know his name, but excluding some terrible accident, I assumed he looked like me.
For much of the trip, I saw nothing and heard only the path beneath my feet. I worked my way to the heartland of the Midwest, up through southern Illinois to the central part, where the hills turned flat and the grass was replaced by rows of corn and soybeans. Enormous combine tractors were in the fields in the midst of harvesting another season, a cloud of dust suspended over the long mechanical teeth that would be chopping and stripping the kernels from the cobs once I emerged from the timeslice.
The sun slowly moved higher in the sky, not because time was moving. I walked westerly, from the Eastern Time Zone to Central. A trip in regular time would’ve taken months, but I arrived on the outskirts of Tannerville at the exact moment I left Charleston. Some twenty miles south of Springfield, I stood on route 29, looking at a sign: AAAA Girls Basketball State Champions. I walked near a car travelling sixty miles an hour back in ordinary time; now it was standing still. The license plate read Land of Lincoln.
Abraham Lincoln, the president that freed the slaves.
I grew up in the South where President Lincoln was viewed as a war criminal, by some. Others refused to call it the Civil War. There was nothing civil about it. It was the War of Northern Aggression. Even had a history teacher that refused to use the textbook because it was written by Yankees. And here I was, in the Land of Lincoln. My original self, raised in the North. North versus South, the Civil War; a conflict fought long ago, but the scars still remained.
I returned to ordinary time.
I was greeted with the sounds of blackbirds and the distant roar of tractors. Hundreds of feet below, I sensed the coal mine and the men in hardhats and smudged faces, putting in hard hours to pull black rock from the ground. And as they mined the coal, I felt their essence slowly pull towards me, like metal shavings to a magnet. I focused on being centered, but I could only slow the draw. Eventually, I wouldn’t even be able to do that.
I couldn’t avoid people, now. I walked past small gas stations and Wal-Mart, McDonalds and car dealers, and onto the town square with a clock tower rising from the courthouse. Teenagers hung out by their cars and small business owners hustled inside the clothing stores and jewelry shops. The asphalt road turned to bricks, a town as old as farming.
A couple miles from that, the street ended at a two story white house. It felt like a blank in my consciousness, like it was somehow blocked. Still, I knew he was there.
I stopped at the curb near the mailbox that read Teck Family. My stomach fluttered. An old concrete sidewalk led straight to the wide front steps, and at the foot of those steps a girl was doodling with sidewalk chalk. She was singing a song, making up the words as she went. It was a story about a monster that fell in love with a little girl. The monster lived under the bed and he was angry she didn’t love him back.
“I don’t talk to strangers,” she said and went back to drawing with a yellow piece of chalk.
“That’s a good idea.”
She was humming. I walked gently up the sidewalk and squatted next to her. Her mind was so open and innocent, but I wasn’t compelled to draw from her essence, as if the compulsion halted inside a bubble around this house. A warm peacefulness settled in my stomach, relieved I didn’t have to focus on restraining myself from taking, that I could just be in this moment.
“What are you drawing?” I asked.
“That’s Saucy.” She pointed at the girl with big ears and pigtails. “And that’s Greg. He’s got big teeth.” She drew even bigger, sharper teeth on Greg the monster next to Saucy, his mouth open and slobbery.
“He looks mean,” I said.
“He can be.”
She colored Greg’s teeth yellow with big drops of purple stuff dripping off them, humming as she did. She didn’t look up, but asked, “Where’re you from?”
“Me? I’m from faaaaaar away.”
“I’m not four.” She frowned at me. “I’m seven years old, you don’t have talk to me like a baby.”
“Sorry.”
She stared at me curiously, then I quickly realized I might look exactly like my original, so I quickly warped my features in her vision, as if she saw my face in a carnival mirror.
“Are you an alien?” she asked.
“What if I am?”
“Then you look pretty normal. For an alien.”
“What if I said I wasn’t human?”
She shrugged. “Saucy’s not human, even though she looks like it. She’s my best friend.”
Now she was coloring her imaginary friend’s hair green. She clapped the dust off her hands and grabbed the thick blue sidewalk chalk and colored Saucy’s shoes and started humming again.
“Want to know a secret?” she asked.
“Always.”
“Scott got in a fight today.”
“Who’s Scott?”
“My brother, silly.” Her rapid giggle was contagious. “You’re here to see him.”
“I am?”
“You kind of look like him, you know.” She squinted at me with her tongue stuck between her lips. “Well, you do if I do this.”
She was giggling again and I couldn’t help laughing a little. The essence of joy bubbled between us and it made her laugh harder.
The front door jiggled. “Maddi,” her mother called through the screen door. “Time to eat, go wash up.”
Maddi smacked her hands again and ran up the wooden steps, past her mother holding the door open. The letter T was in the middle of the screen door. It rattled in the frame as she let it close. “Can I help you?” the mother asked.
“Yes, ma’am. I, uh, was just… uh.” I grabbed the railing for support, suddenly dizzy. A powerful force surged from her, gushing inside me. It wasn’t her essence. I don’t know what it was. And I couldn’t read her. I knew nothing about her, not even her name. She could sense the power exchange, and she could sense that I was sensing her sensing me, a loop of self-generating energy, a fusion that was disorienting us both.
“He’s here to see Scott, Mama,” Maddi said.
Her mother rubbed Maddi’s head and whispered for her to go clean up. “Have we met?” the mother asked.
“Um, no—no, ma’am.” I stepped lightly up the steps. “I’m kind of new in town, I’m in Scott’s class and I, uh, he said I could stop by if I needed help with a project.”
Her hair was short, like my mother’s, but her hips were wide and her skin sun-baked. She stared intensely and I quickly gathered my focus to distort the perception of my features or she’d be staring at an exact copy of her son. Still, there was nothing I could do about my persona
l energy she experienced. I felt familiar. Like family.
“There’s a school project, ma’am,” I said. “Scott’s my partner.”
“Okay.” She opened the door and suddenly smiled. “Well, sure, come in. Come in.”
“Thank you.”
I stepped inside. A hallway led straight from the front door through an entertainment room to the kitchen in the very back where the aroma of homemade spaghetti filled the house. To the right was a formal living room with light blue walls and expensive, clean furniture. The staircase to the upstairs was on the left, went up next to the wall and then turned right along that wall so that I could see part of the upstairs. Pictures covered the walls below the steps.
Maddi leaned against her mother’s leg. “Would you get Scott, dear?” her mother asked.
Maddi watched me on her way to the bottom step, then took a deep breath and shouted, “SCOTT!”
Her mother winced. “Maddi?”
Maddi looked back and rolled her eyes. She walked up the stairs, one step at a time, sliding her hand on the polished railing and watching me as she went.
“If you’ll excuse me,” the mother said. “Scott will be right down.”
Hard music leaked from upstairs when a door opened. Maddi’s voice was lost in the beat and a deeper voice responded. They were bickering about something other than the stranger downstairs waiting for him. Maybe Maddi forgot why she went up.
I went to the wall and the wooden floor creaked. The pictures were randomly framed and placed. The last twenty years were captured in photos, starting with a wedding picture, followed by babies and grandparents holding a baby and mother at a baseball game and kids swimming in a pool and someone blowing out candles. The frames were dusty and the glass cracked on a particular one. The picture was somewhat recent.
It was the mother and father standing at the top of the Grand Canyon. The father was holding Maddi when she was only two years old, her hair lighter and curlier, sucking her thumb. The mother had her hands on the shoulders of their son; he was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses. They were smiling, but not the smile one gives when someone counts to three and they all shout cheese. No, it was like someone said something really, really funny and the smiles came from way down deep.
I touched the glass, dragging a track through the dust, as if I could plug into the joy emanating from a moment captured in time.
The steps thumped like a bowling ball was bouncing down and Maddi went running past, grabbing the post at the bottom and sling-shooting past me toward the kitchen, moaning out the word, “Mooooom.”
The music cut off and a door shut upstairs. The steps groaned differently, this time. One at a time. I stepped back toward the door. Scott slid his hand as he took each step deliberately, turning the corner midway and looking at me.
A magnetic force pulled at my stomach. And the closer he got, the stronger it became. It vibrated from my core, chattering in my teeth and under my tongue. The force grew stronger as he reached the bottom step, gushing inside like I was drinking from a fire hydrant. I bumped into the door behind me, grabbed the knob.
It’s me.
Every detail. The dour expression. The slight bend in his nose. The relaxed demeanor of his eyes, it was all me. Except for the hair. He had normal brown hair.
He stopped at the bottom step. I held onto the door, afraid I’d be pulled against him. Is this what it feels like to have the essence sucked out you?
Shock suddenly opened his eyes a bit wider. He was looking at himself standing in the foyer. I looked down, centered my focus, drew on whatever power I could find to project the illusion of different features. I had to stay focused, or all of them would be looking at Scott’s identical twin. When I looked up, the tension eased on his face. He blinked, reset himself, still not sure what was happening. I couldn’t tell if he was experiencing what I was feeling. I didn’t know anything. I couldn’t see his thoughts or motivation or memories. He was completely unknown, and yet his presence was overwhelming me.
“Hey, uh, Scott.” I squeezed the doorknob tighter. “You remember… in class, sociology class, we got paired up to do the, uh…” I swallowed. “The project?”
I projected a thought in his direction, hoping it would plant in his mind like a memory, of me sitting behind him in a class that felt like sociology. I couldn’t feel his mind, where it began or ended, I could only throw out the suggestion like slinging a dart through the dark, hoping to hit the bull’s-eye.
He blinked. “Um…”
“Good, sure. Well, I was wondering if, you know, you had some time to get it out of the way because I’ve got…” I pointed my thumb behind me, gestured like there were things to do.
He looked down, working hard to recall the project and school, like a dream that begged to be remembered but wasn’t really sure if it happened or not. I worked harder at projecting that thought, attempting to make it solid and real. He was getting it, but not believing it.
“Scott, time to eat.” His mother stepped between us. Scott stared at her, trying to wake up.
“Scott?” she said. “Are you all right?”
He looked at her, back to me. I was losing him. He was scattered, trying to make sense out of his thoughts and the new ones trying to convince him of a new reality. In one last effort, I threw all my energy into the new reality. I’m a new student, I sit behind you. We’re working on a project. I look nothing like you. I am not you.
I AM NOT YOU.
He licked his lips, and then clarity settled in. He smiled. “Sure, um, yeah. I’m all right.”
His mother smiled, then looked at me. “What’s your name?”
“My name is Socket.”
“You want to stay for dinner, Socket?”
Scott watched her invite me, then waited for an answer. Like his mother, he was cleared-eyed and settled. They accepted the new reality.
“That’s very kind of you,” I said.
“Very nice.” She started for the kitchen. Scott nodded with a sly smile. I paused at the pictures, gazed once more at the Grand Canyon, recognized the smile looking back.
Like one of the family.
Big Bang
There were two dogs in the backyard. They’d dug holes near a shed, white paint peeling from the walls, and looked half dead in the shade. I sensed their exhaustion and dreamy thoughts, their legs twitching in a long afternoon nap. Beyond that a pasture was enclosed by an old wooden fence and three horses grazed at the back of the property. Stables were on the other side of the shed and a smaller fenced area with chickens and goats inside.
I was surprised by my level of comfort. My world was standing on its head, but here, inside this house, I didn’t feel like an alien. I felt like I was home, like I’d know these people all my life.
Maddi was slopping a spoonful of spaghetti sauce over a mountain of noodles, her eyes big and hungry. Scott was at the table, waiting for the rest of the family. Their mother was near the sink, filling a plastic cup with apple juice.
“What would you like to drink, Socket?” she asked.
“Sweet tea?”
“What’s sweet tea?” Maddi asked.
“Um, it’s tea with sugar.”
“Well, then why don’t you just add sugar?”
“I can do that,” I said.
Her mother put a tall glass of tea at the table setting next to Scott, along with a bowl of sugar. “Go ahead, Socket, help yourself to some food.”
There was no need to eat. I had no appetite. But I got myself a small helping, savoring the scent of homemade sauce. It wasn’t so much the spices and tomato sauce that I savored, but the effort that went into making it. The entire house had a special energy, one that was lived-in, the intermingling of a family essence that wove tightly through the walls.
They were waiting for me to sit. Maddi already had noodles spun on her fork. As soon as my butt hit the chair, they were in her mouth. The meal began. There was another setting at the head of the table, like someone else wa
s coming but not until later.
Things were spinning, like I was the one in an alternate reality, eating next to my identical twin. It could be easy to forget I didn’t belong. Easy to believe I didn’t really exist, but I let myself believe it. For the moment, I belonged.
There was nothing but the sound of knives on plates and spinning forks. Scott ate without issue. Maddi was moaning with each bite, eyeballing me. I slowly cut the noodles and pushed the food around. I wasn’t fooling her, so I took a bite.
“You know, it’s kind of weird that Scott’s friend is eating with us,” Maddi said. “I mean, we just met him.”
“Mind your manners, dear,” the mother said.
“I’m just saaaaaying…” she sang.
The mother stopped chewing and glared. Maddi slurped a noodle into her mouth like a worm running for cover. I smiled at her and she laughed, splashing sauce all over her lips.
“Where are you from, Socket?” the mother asked.
“South Carolina.”
“I thought you sounded a bit Southern.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Is Socket a southern name?” Maddi asked.
“I don’t believe so.”
“Well, if you were born there, why don’t you have a Southern name?”
Because I wasn’t born. I shrugged.
“You know what your name sounds like?” Maddi said. “Like Scott’s name.”
Her mother stopped chewing and thought about it. “Oh, yes, you’re right, Maddi. It does sound like it.”
I frowned, thinking also, but coming up blank. “Ma’am?”
“Scott Teck,” she said. “Sock-et.”
And there you go. Mystery solved over a plate of spaghetti. My name was an aberration of my original, a scrambling of sounds and letters. Perhaps I wasn’t a weapon after all. Just a reflection.
“Isn’t that odd, Scott?” the mother said.
He looked at me, taking another bite, nodding. I looked away, but not too quickly. I couldn’t look into his eyes, it started the magnetic pull in my stomach, and each time it got stronger. I was able to resist, as long as I wasn’t looking at him. Fortunately, he was more interested in eating.
Socket 3 - The Legend of Socket Greeny Page 14