Jason shut his cash box and shook it. “Enough to replace the projector bulb I blew. And then some.”
I felt suddenly tired.
We faced a big cleanup ahead.
Chapter Thirty-eight
THE FOLLOWING MONDAY AND Tuesday just about ran themselves. I literally stepped back and watched. Right or wrong, good or bad, my efforts had sparked enthusiasm in my charges, which, according to Dr. Matt, was one measure of success at least. The kids had made a decent amount of money at Spring Faire: two hundred and fifty dollars; minus expenses, which didn’t amount to much, since Luke had finagled financial sponsorship from most of their parents. They brainstormed on how best to spend the cash and planned to announce their decision during Open House, still eight weeks away.
Though he’d said he would meet up with me later, Dr. Matt continued to stay clear of our classroom—a relief. With his tight smiles and counterproductive attitude, I’d come to associate him with the bearer of bad news. I knew this wouldn’t last but planned to keep that thought where it belonged, in the back of my mind, my priority to watch the students blossom and grow.
“Can you believe I’m getting paid for this?” I said at the end of Tuesday’s class.
“And you deserve every dime,” Jason said. “No other teacher would’ve stayed out of the picture this long.”
“You mean kept my mouth shut.”
“Your words, not mine.”
On Wednesday, I broke some bad news. “Dr. Matt sent me a memo saying no more field trips, and this time, nothing and no one will persuade him otherwise.”
“That leaves Dad out.” Jason’s light tone implied less concern about Dr. Matt’s missive than whatever he was rummaging for in his backpack.
Codi tossed him a pencil. “That scraps our trip to the Winchester My-ster-y House.”
Her end-of-sentence wail hardly registered before Luke drew our attention with a dramatic clearing of his throat. “Why not travel there by mind?”
Blank stares, as though he’d entered information, without pushing Send.
“It’s called creative visualization.”
No response. Luke had pushed Send, but the recipients weren’t Receiving.
He trekked on. “Imagine what you want and then focus on it until it comes true.”
“In your mind, anyway,” Codi sneered. Message Received but treated as Spam.
Undaunted, though a bit red faced, Luke continued. “There’s also astral travel, where your spirit and psyche transport to another place. Harder but more fun.”
Codi rapped her fingers on the table. “And how would you know that, pray tell?” Reconsidering; check Spam folder.
Luke hesitated just long enough to build up a smidgen of suspense, “Because I astral travel all the time.”
Silence, a good kind of silence. Not Spam, not Spam!
“Me, too,” Jason said, “and it works.”
With Jason’s admission, Luke’s flush receded. “So, if the six of us put our heads together, we can travel as a team.”
“Dream on,” Ethan said. He looked uncomfortable in his own skin as if fighting the inevitable. He was an Indigo, therefore unique in unexpected ways. He could run with it or wallow in misery. Unfortunately, he seemed to be choosing the latter.
“Mind and astral travel are not imaginary,” Luke said. “Scientists are researching out-of-body experiences at Stanford as we speak. So, do you want to give it a try?”
All turned to me, probably thinking I was about to freak out.
“Since you’re already experiencing things beyond the norm and we’re trying to stretch your abilities, I say go for it.”
Eyes widened, jaws dropped, a sight so comical I had to exert every ounce of self-control not to laugh. “There’s nothing wrong with being in one place physically and another mentally. People do so all the time.”
Ethan chuckled. “Yeah, it’s called daydreaming.”
Ethan, who could look into the future, calling psychic teleportation daydreaming? Why are we so quick to downplay what we don’t understand?
“No, silly,” Tessa said. “What she means is, if we can’t be someplace in person, we can still be there in spirit.”
“You mean fantasize about it?” Codi shook her head. “Fantasy is for babies and wallflowers.”
Tessa shot to her feet and waved her hands. “You still don’t get it. It’s like really being there.”
“Yeah, right.” Codi was familiar with the peculiar, so why the flippant attitude? Was she egging Tessa on?
“Angelina’s been teleporting here every day since her parents pulled her out of school,” Tessa said, her chest heaving like a skinny opera singer. “Haven’t any of you noticed?”
Codi rolled her eyes. “Spirit walking.”
“I can’t believe none of you have noticed…” Tessa looked her fellow students up and down.
“I have,” Jason said softly.
“I knew it!”
Shawn shifted in his chair, which drew Tessa’s attention. “How about you, Shawn?”
He nodded but said nothing.
Tessa continued, “I bet when Angelina gets back, she’ll know everything we’ve been saying and doing in this class.”
“Yeah, after you tell her,” Codi said.
Tessa’s eyes widened. “Her parents won’t even let her talk to me.”
Codi glanced around as if seeking support, which came as a surprise. She normally disregarded anyone’s yea or nay, something I respected her for and aimed to learn from. “I’ll believe it when I hear it.”
Luke pushed up his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “What makes you so skeptical all of a sudden, Codi? Either you don’t get it or you don’t want to.”
“WHAT-ehv-err,” she said with a toss of her head.
“About this astral travel stuff—” Jason turned to me. “You have no objections, right?”
“I’m here to encourage you to make the most of your gifts.” I didn’t add that I’d been there, done that. And it had scared the hell out of me. I’d been standing on a beach in Pacific Grove when I felt the sensation of lifting out of my body and floating above the wild, gray surf. Seagulls swooped around me. Gah-gah-gah. The ocean ebbed and receded, ebbed and receded. I floated down Lighthouse Avenue, past a car and a pedestrian, until I reached my friend Anne’s Victorian. Tall. Stark. Ghostly. The front door was locked. No problem. I eased right through it. The crystal ball in the entry glistened and reflected my light. I drifted down the basement stairs with no fear of falling. How nice, to fly like an angel. A quick scan of the basement revealed Veronica lying on a round bed—crying. I reminded myself that this was only a dream. Veronica never cried. She was too strong, too controlled.
“Ms. V,” Jason said. “Are you okay?”
I opened my eyes, rubbed my temples. “I think Luke would make a good guide.”
“Since he’s done astral travel before, right?” Tessa asked.
I nodded, tried to clear my head.
“Ms. Veil has done it, too,” Shawn said.
The throb in my head turned into a drumbeat. “Thanks a lot, kid.”
“Any time.” He seemed pleased with himself, which was okay with me, as long as it drew him into the conversation. And the plan.
“I’ve never been to the Winchester Mystery House,” Luke said, “but Shawn has. So, I elect him as guide.”
Shawn looked down at his hands.
“You can do it.” This from Tessa, a fellow chameleon urging her classmate on.
“You’re in our heads half the time anyway,” Codi added, “might as well make yourself useful.”
Luke took off his glasses and balanced them in his hand. “Won’t need these where we’re going.”
The clock ticked. Otherwise silence. No wind. No rain. No background music. “Someone has to stay behind,” Ethan said, “to keep watch.”
I caught my breath. I was about to be excluded from their journey.
“You’ve done this before, Ms. Veil,” Shawn said, “so you can always do it on your own.”
I nodded. Time to step aside. Again.
“Winchester Mystery House, here we come,” Jason said.
“What if once we’ve projected our minds out of our bodies, we can’t get back?” Codi asked, looking vulnerable—and scared.
“Once you’ve traveled by mind, you won’t be afraid anymore,” Luke said. “It’s like riding a bike.”
“No way. If my mom found me, she’d think I was dead and she’d do something stupid.”
“She’d think you were sleeping,” Jason said.
“You don’t know my mother.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Great. Just great. You’ve been in my head, haven’t you?”
“An invitation for investigation,” Jason said. “I’m acquiring the skill.”
Codi threw him a challenge. “Watch out. Revenge is sweet.”
Jason shrugged. “I have nothing to hide.”
She smiled in a way that implied otherwise.
“Codi’s right,” Ethan said. “If someone finds us, they’ll think we’re dead. Ms. Veil has to stand watch, or I won’t go.”
“What’re you worried about,” Luke asked, “that the bogeyman will steal our bodies while we’re gone?”
“Just lock the door,” Codi said.
Ethan jerked in her direction. “No! That’ll make things worse.”
“What in God’s name are you talking about?” Codi asked, looking at him as if he were an annoying insect she’d swat if given half the chance.
“What if there’s a fire drill or some kind of emergency and we don’t get back in time?” Tessa asked, sounding less enthusiastic now that Codi and Ethan had expressed doubts.
I felt a prickle of apprehension, like a trick rabbit about to be yanked out of a hat by the ears. I looked at Jason. His wolf eyes shone back at me, compounding my sense of fear. Their questions were making me nervous, and I needed all the courage I could muster to allow this excursion to proceed. I reminded myself of what the priest had said about my sister at her funeral. “When Maya was stuck, when nothing seemed to be moving along, when people weren’t doing what she wanted, she took herself out of the way, and miracle of miracles, things always seemed to work out fine.”
“Just say the word, Ms. Veil,” Shawn said into the breath-holding stillness.
As children, we’d called one another chicken when we needed a little help in the brave department. Sometimes bravery took a poke or a prod. Every decision came with a risk, a risk I’d never quite allowed myself to take, out of fear I’d choose wrong. What I needed now were some brave credits, like a PayPal account to draw from quickly and pay for later. Thank God, we weren’t talking life or death here. What could possibly go wrong?
I leaned against the wall of bookshelves and locked my knees, feeling as ancient as the encyclopedias they held. “Okay, roll out your beach towels and go for it.”
“Down on your backs,” Luke ordered. “Arms at your sides, legs stretched out in front of you.” He waited for everyone to comply before assuming the position himself. “Now close your eyes and take deep breaths. We want to lower our brainwave cycles into the alpha and theta state.” He paused before continuing in a hypnotic voice. “You’ll feel some tingling as your astral body leaves your physical body, but that’s okay, just concentrate and breathe.”
He allowed for a few minutes of silence before relinquishing the lead. “You’re on, Shawn.”
As their breathing slowed and their bodies stilled, the students appeared to be going into a deep, coma-like sleep. The wall clock ticked out the seconds, tick tock, tick tock. I slid into a sitting position on the floor and closed my eyes. Tick tock, tick tock. How long would they be gone? Minutes? Hours?
I’d read somewhere that the electrical impulses in the brain show up as squiggly lines on EEG machines and are given names such as delta, theta, alpha, and beta, depending on their waves per second. In altered states of mind, these electrical impulses heighten, and a person can experience sixty, seventy, even eighty conscious moments per second to the normal of thirty or forty. Time slowed. The outside world seemed to move half as fast. Tick tock, tick tock.
I felt a chill.
Tick tock.
Another wave of chills.
Too late, whatever happens, happens.
Bam!
The classroom door; I forgot to lock it.
“What the hell?”
Charles Lacoste!
My heart slammed against the wall of my chest as though someone had hit it with a bat.
“What have you done?” he cried.
Something in my head gave a painful pop. I glanced at the kids. Out cold. It looked bad, really bad.
“Oh God, oh God.” Lacoste’s anger spurt and crackled like fire catching hold of a patch of twigs previously too green to burn. Once the fire took hold, everything would melt and smolder until turned into ash.
The room swayed, my eyes burned. Why here? Why now?
Lacoste toed Ethan. “Wake up, buddy!”
No response.
He knelt, checked Ethan’s pulse, pulled out his phone. “I’m calling for help.”
I reached out to him. “They’re fine. Trust me.”
He bared his teeth, punched in three numbers, and charged out the back door.
I hardly had time to register that the fire station was only a five-minute drive away, Stanford University Medical Center about ten, before Charles Lacoste raced back into the room and knelt next to Ethan. “Hey, buddy, wake up.”
Sirens? Already?
“You’re history,” he said without looking up.
A vehicle pulled into the parking lot.
Police? Ambulance? Fire truck? Never could tell their sirens apart.
Charles Lacoste stood. He was shaking. “On November eighteenth, nineteen seventy-eight, my grandparents died at Jonestown, Guyana, because of a whack job like you. Jim Jones, that crazy nut case, envisioned everyone living together in harmony and working for the common good. He had smart people like my grandparents, convinced they were living in fucking utopia. I swear, if anything happens to these kids, I’ll kill you myself.”
I waited for him to settle down, catch his breath. Instead, he clutched his stomach and exhaled as though he’d been punched by a log.
Then he rushed for the door.
I remembered seeing a documentary about the Jonestown tragedy and wondering how over 900 people could be gullible enough to follow someone like Jim Jones to the point of taking part in the largest mass murder/suicide in modern history. Yet, wasn’t that what I expected Charles Lacoste to do? Believe the unbelievable, trust a stranger? From the rumors he’d probably heard, I, like Jim Jones, was securing the students’ trust by making them feel special and providing them with a place to feel accepted for whom they were. How could I expect Lacoste to differentiate between Jones’s intentions and mine? Especially after what he’d just seen.
I closed my eyes.
Another siren.
Another vehicle.
Any second now, medics would rush into the room.
Tick tock, tick tock. What was taking them so long?
I opened my eyes.
The kids were still journeying.
Commotion outside.
I walked to the bank of windows, using the tables along the way for support.
What the…?
Medics had strapped Charles Lacoste onto a stretcher and were wheeling him into the back of the ambulance. A police officer was headed for the classroom.
I stepped outside, closed the door behind me. “What happened?”
The officer frowned. “I was about to ask you the same.”
“Everything’s okay on this end. Charles…the guy they just put into the ambulance…made the call.”
The police officer looked over my shoulder. “He said someth
ing about a mass suicide.”
“He had the situation wrong.”
A medic approached. “The patient has severe chest, upper back, and abdominal pain. Shortness of breath. Difficulty speaking. His blood pressure is two-sixty over one-forty. We’re taking him to Stanford Hospital. Are the kids all right?”
“Kids?” I asked.
The medic pointed toward the classroom windows. I dared a peek. Six Indigos stood looking out.
I nodded, the words Jonestown Massacre stuck in my head. “They’re fine, though probably worried about Mr. Lacoste. Will he be okay?”
“Not if we don’t get his blood pressure under control.” Another glance at the windows. “I must’ve misunderstood dispatch. Thought we were here for the kids.”
The police officer and I stood in the parking lot until the ambulance and fire truck pulled onto Santa Cruz Avenue and disappeared from sight, ambulance siren blaring.
By calling 911, Charles Lacoste may have saved his own life.
After the kids had left for home, I locked all four doors leading to the classroom, hunched over my desk, and cried.
When the sobs subsided, I lifted my head and prayed, “Dear God, please embrace Charles Lacoste with your love and protection. Amen.” To which I added, “I’m so sorry, Charles, that we couldn’t find common ground.”
Chapter Thirty-nine
IT WAS THURSDAY, APRIL eleventh, seven weeks before Open House. The votive candles were snuffed, the tables cleared, and the students’ backpacks bulging for the trip home, when Dr. Matt entered the classroom without a greeting or smile. “I’d like to address the class.”
I checked the time. Four forty-five. “Can it wait till Monday? There’re about to head home.”
He glanced at the students as they waited wide-eyed for him to continue, then focused on a spot above my head. “I prefer they get it straight from the source rather than second hand.”
My heartbeat sounded like the hammer in a water pipe when the flow suddenly turns off.
Shawn came to stand next to me and took my hand, which did nothing to improve Dr. Matt’s mood. His bland expression turned into a scowl. “Mr. Lacoste is in stable condition.”
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