Project ELE

by Rebecca Gober & Courtney Nuckels

  Part way through the class Claire starts twirling her fingers through her hair which I've noticed is her tell tale nervous sign. It would be fine but in this instance it looks like her hair is curling around in the air. It's so weird and strange to see her pale blonde locks wrap around what I guess is her invisible finger.

  Connor must have noticed as well because he's just staring at her now, his jaw wide open.

  She looks up at me and notices that I'm staring at her. Her eyes look wide and frightened.

  "Stop twirling your hair." I whisper really low hoping nobody has noticed her yet. I'm not sure if she heard me or could read my lips so I start to send her a text when she abruptly stops.

  I let my guard down to hear her thoughts. "I'M GOING TO STOP TWIRLING MY HAIR. I'M GOING TO STOP TWIRLING MY HAIR."

  I immediately throw my guard back up. I put my head in my hands feeling an anxiety attack coming on. I haven't had one in such a long time, but I'll never forget the feeling. Taking deep breaths I try and focus on the here and now. Ignoring what just happened, I focus on breathing in and then out, in and then out.

  I avoid looking at Claire's arms for the remainder of the class. It's really tripping me out. I have no idea what in the world is going on with us but I know that I need to find out soon. When the bell rings I hop up out of my seat and run to stand in front of Claire's desk blocking her from the view of other people.

  I look down at her and am relieved to see her hands once again. "What was that?" I ask her barely above a whisper.

  Poor Claire looks even more pale than usual. "I don't know." She says while examining her hands out in front of her. She looks unbelievably relieved to see them again. Who wouldn’t?

  "Let's go." Connor says. "We need to find Alec.”

  I nod my head and we all get up and head out. I text Alec and find out that he's working through his lunch break. We decide to stop in at the cafeteria and pick up some to-go lunches, then head in to work.

  Alec meets us in the hall right outside of the office. I hand him a sack lunch.

  "Thank you." He says, then leans in to kiss me on the cheek. While the kiss is sweet, I can't help but notice that he's looking kind of stressed out.

  "You're welcome." I say.

  Connor and Claire stand in the background quietly. I'm pretty sure they are at a loss for words.

  Alec gestures for us to go into a nearby empty office. It's the same one that we were in when we first talked about our newfound gifts.

  "So what's up?" Alec asks.

  We all sit Indian style on the floor in a small circle with our lunches laid out before us. I look to Claire to see if she wants to talk but she just stares down at her fingers. Connor looks up at me and I can see the worry masking his expression. I notice something else. I lean in closer to examine his eyes a little better. His eyes have lightened up quite a bit. They used to be so dark that they looked almost black. Now they are mostly brown. Weird. He notices my stare so he darts his head down and starts opening his lunch.

  "Um, are you all going to tell me what's going on?" Alec asks.

  I allow a few seconds to see if Claire wants to speak up and when she remains quiet I blurt out, "Claire went a little invisible today."

  Claire looks up at me, her face flushed.

  I lean forward and pat her leg. "Hey, don't be embarrassed lady, you certainly aren't the only person around here who's been having some freaky stuff happen to them.” I pull my bangs away from my left eye and point at it dramatically.

  Her lip twitches up just a little but she remains quiet. She's reverting back to the Claire I first met. I wonder if it's one of her defense mechanisms. Almost like she tries to disappear when the focus is on her. How ironic that she could in fact possibly disappear now.

  "That's really strange. Is this something you can turn on or off?" Alec asks Claire. I’m in awe at how calm he looks.

  Claire looks up at him and finally talks. "I don't know."

  "Why don't you try?" Alec encourages. I nod my head in approval. Connor just looks a little freaked out.

  Claire holds her arm out in front of her. She stares at it for a bit, her eyebrows furrow in concentration. Instead of looking at her arm I stare at her eyes. The purple is starting to stand out more boldly. It's a beautiful color, one I've never seen in any eye before.

  I hear Alec gasp and so I look back at her arm. It's gone again.

  Claire's eyes water and she looks to Connor with a look of fear. "HE’S GOING TO THINK I’M A TOTAL FREAK." I let my guard down to hear her say in her head. I hear so many other questions going through all of their minds so I close myself off again. It's amazing that I can easily do this now without even needing physical contact with Alec to do so.

  Connor leans forward and wipes a tear away from Claire's eye then grabs her invisible arm with his hand and interlaces his fingers with her unseen ones. "It's okay Claire Bear. We will figure out what's happening to you. To all of you guys." He looks to Alec and I.

  It takes a lot for me to not say 'aww' out loud. My heart is warmed by the affection that they share.

  I lean forward and ask Claire, "May I?" My curiosity has gotten the best of me. When she nods her head I reach over and touch her imperceptible arm. "It feels just like normal." I say in surprise.

  "Well yeah, I mean it's not like it just goes away. It's just you can't see it, that's all." She says really fast. I think that small qualification makes her feel like less of a freak.

  "That's really cool. I wonder if you can do that with the rest of your body." Alec adds.

  "Well, my arm is enough for now. I don't think I can handle much more for today." She gives her arm a concentrated stare and suddenly her arm slowly becomes visible once again.

  "That's really cool babe." Connor says looking a little disappointed.

  "What's wrong honey?" Claire asks him.

  "Nothing." He says then stuffs a bite of his sandwich in his mouth.

  "Come on." Claire urges him.

  He talks with his mouth half full. "It's just, you can turn invisible..." He finishes chewing then completes his thought. "Alec can heal really fast and Willow can hear people's thoughts." He frowns. "I can't do anything cool."

  I laugh. "Correction, I can hear people's thoughts and heal really fast." Everyone looks at me strangely and I realize I never told anyone about my ability to heal. "Yeah, I don't know how but now I can heal myself like Alec does." I hold out my arm for them to see that the scar is completely gone from my surgery. The silence and odd looks they are all giving me makes me uncomfortable so I shift back to what Connor was talking about. "So, you want to be a freak like us?"

  "Y'all aren't freaks. Y'all are like super heroes or something with newfound abilities." He counters.

  "Yeah, maybe we need to find some more of those radio active spiders that have been biting us and hand them over to you." Alec jokes.

  Connor seems a little frustrated, which I personally don't get. He stands up, brushes the crumbs off his scrubs and walks to the corner of the room. He lets out a huff as he takes a seat on an office chair.

  Claire gets up to go try to comfort him but Alec puts his hand on her arm stopping her. "Hey, just let him chill for a second. He's a guy and sometimes when guys feel, well, inadequate they can sulk a bit. He’ll get over it in a second."

  "Ow!" Connor calls out. We all look over at him at the same time and a simultaneous gasp fills the room. I know my jaw must be on the floor but so is everyone else's. I'm staring at Connor who just happens to have landed on his butt with his legs out in front of him as if the chair was pulled out from beneath him. The key factor that makes this scene so jaw dropping worthy is that part of his body is still in the chair. His butt is on the floor but the upper part of his body from his shoulders up are sticking through the chair!

  My brain has no idea how to contemplate this image that makes no sense at all. It's as if the chair is a hologram and he's sticking through it. If I h
adn't seen so many freaky occurrences in the past few days I probably would have gone into complete shock.

  Claire is the first to regain her composure and run to him. "Does it hurt?" I can hear the fear in her voice.

  "No, but I need help up." He says.

  Alec and I both head over to where he is. Up close it's even freakier because the chair still looks just as solid as before and so does Connor. He doesn't look invisible or anything. It just looks like part of his body passed straight through it.

  Alec holds his hand out to Connor. He looks a little weirded out but he slowly lifts his arm up through the chair to accept his hand.

  I stand there dumbfounded as I watch Alec help Connor to his feet. Connor's entire body passes through the chair until he's standing right in front of us.

  "Oh my gosh Connor! Stop!" Claire cries out and runs to hold onto Connor around the waist. I look down to see that his feet are sinking into the floor.

  "Crap! What's happening?" Connor yells his legs going further into the floor.

  I worry about Connor falling straight through it so I grab his attention and stare straight into his eyes. "You need to stop right now. You need to become solid again or stop doing whatever it is you are doing that is allowing you to pass through stuff. Do you understand?" I ask calmly.

  "I understand." Connor says stoically then steps up out of the floor and onto solid ground. Well, the ground has always been solid but I guess Connor made himself solid again...or something.

  I'm surprised he listened to me that easily and so is everyone else because they give me a strange look. I shrug my shoulders to act like I don't know what's going on. Deep down I have an inkling this new ability has something to do with Zack.

  "Well I guess you have some powers too babe." Claire says patting him on the back.

  He shakes his head as if coming out of a daze and replies, "Yeah, I guess so." He runs his hands through his hair and then adds, "I don't think I like them very much."

  We all laugh at that, which eases the tension in the room. A thought hits me and I blurt it out. "If Connor was able to pass through stuff, then why didn't your hands pass through him when you helped him up?"

  We all contemplate it a little. Connor answers. "I don't know. Maybe I can control it like Claire can control the invisibility thing. I just focused on their touch."

  "We should really work on this and try to see what all of it means." Claire says.

  "Like practice using our powers?" Connor asks.

  We all laugh again at him calling these oddities powers as if we are in a comic book.

  "I think that's a good idea." Alec says. "I don't think we should tell anyone about this stuff though. At least not until we figure out what's happening."

  Everyone agrees and my cheeks heat. I feel guilty knowing that I have talked to Zack already. I haven't told them about the others though, I tell myself, trying to make myself feel less blameworthy.

  "Maybe we can go down to the cave on Friday. We all have the day off right?" Claire asks.

  Alec looks at me, "Yeah, but Willow has community service." He looks like he still blames himself for my needing to do service.

  Man, I feel needles of shame prick my heart. "Yeah, but you should all go and try this out. If I can get out early I'll join you." I lie. My bad conscience justifies it as doing my duty to figure out how all of this is happening.

  "Okay, we better get to work." Alec says while typing something into his tablet. He leans in and gives me a kiss before he heads back to the office.

  The rest of us follow in his footsteps a few minutes later. We still think it's best that the other workers don't know that Alec is fraternizing with his employees. The last thing we need is more attention shined on us.