Between Now and Forever

by Margaret Duarte

  A thousand needles pricked my cheeks and arms. We’re isolated from the rest of the school. No one can see us. No one can hear us. No way of negotiating our way out of this. The world narrowed to a pinpoint. Everything before this moment ceased to matter. Stay safe, stay small. I didn’t need to map out the whole damn road, just focus on the next step.

  “Who’s calling who stupid?” Wyatt asked. “I’m the one with the gun, not you.”

  “Exactly,” Ethan said.

  The pain of delay was agonizing, but I had to do something equally agonizing. Send my students a silent message. Pop quiz. Final exam. Grade: live or die.

  Now? came their silent response.

  Yes. We live only if we unite.

  A shaft of white light angled at the edge of my vision. I tried to ignore it. No time for this now. It began to swirl, then move toward me like a mini twister. Maya? The rotating column of light superimposed over me, filling me with a powerful sense of self I didn’t own or control.

  You are better than you know and more than you believe.

  Wyatt focused on me. I met his feverish gaze. This was someone’s child, a miracle, a whirling mass of atoms, fluid, dynamic, filled with possibility. Had he lived thirteen years to prepare for this? What a waste. What a pitiful waste.

  I heard a hiss, followed by a tiger-cub growl before a cat launched from out of nowhere and wrapped himself around Wyatt’s leg.

  “Whose damn cat,” he yelled. He couldn’t shoot it without shooting himself or detach the cat without putting down his weapon. He tried to kick it loose, but it clung to his leg like a furry boot.

  The students drew into a wide circle around him.

  I had to make a move or risk them getting shot.

  Maya—or was it me? —rushed forward.

  Wyatt saw her coming but froze for the seconds it took her to bend at the knees and bring her extended forearms up and under the revolver as if redirecting a volleyball spike. The room rippled and for a moment, time stopped, reversed, and started again.

  A bang, an ear-splitting crack. Hot, liquid metal flew across the left side of my head, then hit the tiled ceiling. Old and accumulated dust filtered into the room like tears.

  Wyatt cried, “What the fuck?”

  Maya grabbed the butt of the pistol and yanked it from his grasp.

  In the eerie silence that followed, I reached up to wipe something warm running down the side of my face. The tip of cool metal touched my skin. I lowered my hand. I was holding the gun, its tip covered with blood. I looked for my sister and found myself standing in my own light—face-to-face with Wyatt.

  “Good going, Ms. V,” Jason said.

  I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak.

  “You’re bleeding,” Tessa said. “We need to call for help.”

  I raised my free hand. “Not yet.”

  We had opened a Pandora’s box and wouldn’t be able to put back what we’d unleashed. But, by God, we could provide the oxygen of hope to the good flickering in this confused man-child before handing him over to the authorities. “Get me a towel from the kitchen to stop the bleeding, Tessa. Then we’ll treat Wyatt with our healing intentions”

  “Are you sure? It looks like you’re missing a little skin and hair.”

  I felt a dull burning, followed by a wave of nausea. “That’s what happens when a piece of metal uses your scalp for a landing strip.”

  Wyatt was shaking. Aftershock, I assumed. Quite a transformation from the wild-eyed kid who’d entered the room only minutes before, living proof that anyone can become an instrument of evil given the right motivation. Is this what happens when hope dies and despair takes over, when facts and competition alone occupy our classrooms, minds, and hearts? “How’d you know my name?” he asked.

  “You were in my class when I substituted for Ms. Goldsberry.”

  He squinted at me as if seeing me for the first time, not as an evil Antichrist reverting to the primitive, but as the teacher who’d recognized something worthwhile in him and given him a plus for good behavior. “I didn’t know the gun was loaded.”

  I staggered back, groping for the table behind me for support. Dear God, if Wyatt had thought the revolver wasn’t loaded, then so had my students. I bowed my throbbing head, realizing that with each outbreath I was releasing a low, pitiful moan. Codi and Shawn had no doubt read Wyatt’s mind and shared the information telepathically with Shawn, Ethan, Luke and Tessa, which meant they’d all known—or thought they’d known—that the weapon wasn’t loaded. I wanted to kneel in thanksgiving and bawl my eyes out for an outcome that could have been disastrous. Instead, I sat on the table and whispered a thank you to Maya and the cat—Gabriel—for coming to our aid. How either of them had known to be here and accomplished what they did was likely not meant to be understood.

  Wyatt kicked his leg in another attempt to shake my cat loose, but Gabriel maintained a firm grip on the fabric of his jeans. Most cats would have run at the commotion. But not this one. Not my Gabriel.

  Tessa pressed a kitchen towel to my grazed scalp. “Are you okay?”

  “A bit dizzy, but I’ll live.”

  “You’re losing a lot of blood. You may need stitches.”

  Release. Reveal. Go with the flow. “Facial wounds are notorious for excessive bleeding.”

  She wiped my face and neck with a second towel she’d brought from the kitchen and pressed it on top of the first. Bless her. Then she cupped the fingers of her left hand over my wound. The throbbing pain eased. I didn’t ask how, just said, “Thank you.”

  Her response, a smile.

  I motioned for Shawn to join me.

  He left Codi, Luke, Jason, and Ethan standing in a circle around Wyatt. “Sorry, Ms. Veil, Codi and I thought—”

  “That the revolver wasn’t loaded. Yeah, I figured as much.”

  “You could’ve been killed…”

  “Exactly. So, why wasn’t I?”

  Shawn bowed his head and took a ragged breath, affirming that he was as disturbed by the incident as I was. “Even though Codi said the gun wasn’t loaded, Ethan had a vision of it going off. And Jason… He said he’d been trained to never, ever, point a firearm at anyone, just in case there’s a live round of ammo inside.”

  “So, you put your heads together and decided not to take the chance.”

  “It all happened so fast… Wyatt had his finger on the trigger and…at the last minute… Jason did his thing. You know, like he did when you substituted in Ms. Goldsberry’s class. Except this time, the rest of us helped instead of getting in the way. We focused all our energy on moving the gun—”

  “Just enough to save my life,” I said.

  Shawn looked up with tear-filled eyes. “We used our gifts to do some good for a change.”

  “Whose cat?” Jason asked, pointing at Gabriel, who’d let go of Wyatt’s pant leg and now sat next to him with what appeared to be bored contentment.

  “It’s the cat from the nature area,” Luke said before I could answer. “It looked cold and lonely when I checked on it before class, so I let it in. The way it went after Wyatt, you’d think it was trying to protect us. We should give it a name.”

  “He already has one,” I said. “He’s Gabriel, my backyard stray. How he managed to trek so far from home is beyond me, but nothing about him surprises me anymore.”

  Jason shrugged, then pointed at my hand. “Put the gun on the table, Ms. V, before you accidently shoot someone. No offense, but you’re holding a semi-automatic pistol, a Glock 19, and I’d rather pick it off the table than have you hand it to me.”

  The Glock felt cold and heavy and seemed glued to my palm. Someone as inexperienced as me shouldn’t be holding a killing machine, but I hesitated. Would it be any safer on the table or with Jason?

  As if sensing my doubt, he said, “I do regular dry-firing training at the shooting range in Cupertino, so, I know how to handle a weapon.”

  I put t
he revolver on the table, then relieved Tessa of the bloody towels she still held to my head. “There’s a first aid kit in right-hand bottom drawer of my desk,” I said, hoping her nursing skills would hold until I had time to assess the damage.

  Jason left the circle and picked up the Glock with his finger outside the trigger chamber, his gaze fixed on Wyatt. “Is your dad a cop?”

  Wyatt nodded, his pupils dilated, as if comprehension of what he’d done was sinking in.

  “Looks like you need a reminder of the first two rules of weapon safety,” Jason said with a shake of his head. “Treat every gun as if it’s loaded and never, ever, point it at something you don’t want to shoot.” Jason eyed the revolver. “The slide isn’t locked back, so there might still be a round in the chamber.” He pointed it at the ceiling, then pressed a button on the grip behind the trigger. A curved black box dropped free. He set it on the table and glanced my way. “I’m going to release the thumb safety and pull back the slide to eject the cartridge.” A metal casing popped free. After one last inspection, Jason put the Glock on the table. Then he flicked his fingers, and, where he’d been holding the revolver only moments before, he now held a pencil. He walked up to Wyatt and handing it to him. “Use this next time you want to express yourself.”

  “Holy shit,” Wyatt said, emerging from what appeared to be a moment of genuine regret. “How’d you do that?”

  Before Jason could answer, Ethan cut in from the circle he, Luke, and Codi still held around his disarmed friend. “What do you want, Wyatt?”

  Wyatt’s eyes—too wide, too intense—darted from student to student, finding no place to settle. “To put a stop to this nonsense.”

  Ethan barely batted an eye, though he’d believed pretty much the same only six weeks ago. “Why?”

  Wyatt’s gaze settled on Ethan. “You’re messing with the unholy.”

  “Says who?”

  “Mr. Lacoste, and he knows what he’s talking about.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because he’s my teacher.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I agree.”

  “Did you research Indigos?”

  “Mr. Lacoste did.”

  “So, you’re taking Mr. Lacoste’s word for it.”

  Wyatt shot me a look that felt like it pierced my skin. “He’s my teacher, and he takes me into his confidence.”

  This didn’t sound like a thirteen-year-old talking, more like Charles Lacoste putting words into his mouth. Then again, if Wyatt was an Indigo, he’d be advanced for his age.

  “Mr. Lacoste took me into his confidence, too,” Ethan said. “I was free to choose, and I chose not to be free.”

  Ethan’s words burned into my brain as if melted there by a branding iron. I was free to choose, and I chose not to be free.

  For the past year, I’d been willing a finish line that lay beyond my power and control, when I should have surrendered to the meaningful moments at the starting line of every second of every day. I’d just experienced the most lived moment of my life, where I’d claimed the freedom to live each unpredictable moment with genuine concern for others, without presuming to know how it all worked or would work out.

  “You’re bull shitting me,” Wyatt said. “He told me it was between the two of us.”

  Ethan said nothing.

  I felt a drain of energy as Tessa removed the blood-soaked towels and pressed wads of antibacterial gauze to my injury. She wrapped medical tape around my head like a bandana to hold the gauze in place. “Girl Scout training to the rescue,” she said, then treated me to another healing touch.

  “So, what did you do?” Wyatt asked Ethan.

  “Attacked this class, like you did. Minus the gun. Then I fell apart.”

  “Where?”

  “Right here. I freaked out big time.”

  “What happened?”

  Ethan closed, then opened his eyes. “My friends helped me.”

  “And now you’re going to help me?”

  “If you want us to. But we’ll need your permission first.”

  I thought I saw Wyatt’s shoulders shake, but it could have been my imagination. “Permission? Fuck yes. What’ve I got to lose?”

  Emphatic listening, that’s what was going on, listening without dispensing judgment or solutions. I couldn’t have been prouder of Ethan for stepping forward with compassion and forgiveness, or the rest of my students for allowing him to take charge—something he desperately needed to regain his sense of worth after his breakdown six weeks ago.

  While doing my own emphatic listening, previous conversations with Morgan started making more sense. He’d known all along that we can’t be totally free from all that binds us. The key to the lock of our cells starts turning the moment we commit to love, family—and a job. But he’d allowed me to discover this for myself. When I’d told him that I needed to discover who I was and what I could give, he’d replied, “Which sometimes means being acted upon and giving in to a higher power.”

  I’m coming home, Morgan. Playing solo is no longer an option.

  “We still have to report you,” Shawn said. “School rules.”

  Shawn was right, the incident was too serious to ignore.

  I motioned for the students to restore our circle.

  “So, what’s your special talent?” Codi asked.

  Wyatt looked startled as if no one had ever asked him this before.

  “Your power,” she said. “What you do besides threaten people.”

  He hung his head.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “You’re safe here.”

  He massaged his right shoulder, likely injured by my strike to his arm. “You’ll think I’m schizoid.”

  Codi laughed. “Pots calling the kettle black. I don’t think so.”

  “I hear voices. I mean for real. When no one’s around.”

  “No biggie. So does Ms. Veil.”

  Wyatt looked at me as if about to pass out with relief. “When you came at me for my gun, I saw two of you.” He shivered. “It gave me the willies.”

  Codi saved me from responding by tossing her skull necklace into the circle. It landed at Wyatt’s feet with a clang.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “A gift.”

  He picked up the necklace and weighed it in his hand.

  “In exchange for teaching me that I can’t choose when I die,” Codi said. “But I can choose how to live.”

  Dared I hope she’d just given him a key to recovery?

  Tessa—shadow, Eight of Spades, healer—walked into the circle and touched Wyatt’s right arm with raised fingers, creating a spherical basket over a spot above his elbow. An orb of blue light flared, then disappeared when she lifted her hand and drew it into a fist.

  Wyatt reached up and touched his arm. “What’d you just do?”

  She tilted her head but said nothing.

  “It feels like you filled me full of Novocain,” he said, flexing his bicep.

  “Her hands are like low-level lasers,” Jason said.

  Wyatt put his hands to his face. The skull medallion—morbid, disturbing, fascinating—slid from his fingers and dangled from his arm. “The gun wasn’t supposed to go off. I only meant to scare you, make you do what’s right.”

  I remembered what Shawn had said in class the day before. “We might not like the way some people treat us. But you know what? It depends on the stories they’ve been told. Our stories tell us they’re wrong, even evil, but we’d probably do the same in their shoes. How about we accept that their stories are different from ours and use that as a start in making the world a better place?”

  “Let’s apply what we’ve learned in class and send Wyatt our good intentions,” I said.

  “A scientific prayer treatment,” Luke clarified. “Works like a charm.”

  “Except we’re not going for a set result,” Ethan added. “This is your mess, Wy
att, and you might need juvie to help you know how to get back up.”

  “Ethan’s right,” I said. “You have a right to your own choices, and the right to grow as the result of those choices. We’ll focus our creative energy on a positive outcome to what lies ahead for you. Then we’ll call in Dr. Matt.”

  “He’s going to be okay,” Tessa said.

  And I believed her.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  JUDGE STEIN ARRIVED FIFTEEN minutes early; Open House didn’t start until six. She wore pumps with two-inch heels, which gave her another two inches on me. “I can’t stay,” she said. “Duty calls.” She must have noticed the telltale lift of my brows, because she added, “I know it looks bad, but it can’t be helped. I serve as a trustee on the school board. During tonight’s closed session, we’ll be discussing school violence and deciding whether to add metal detectors, surveillance cameras, and extra security guards to our schools. We need a quorum for a decision, so my vote is crucial.”

  I managed not to shake my head. For one thing, I understood too well the struggle of choosing between duty to one’s vocation and one’s loved ones. For another, I believed the school board was going about this all wrong. A majority of students already considered school a prison, let alone adding “Checkpoint Charlie” and cops to the mix. The most effective way to find out about weapons and drugs on campus is to encourage students to tell. Which means forming bonds of trust between them and school authorities. More after-school classes like this one, where kids and faculty could learn to communicate, seemed the way to go. But I was talking to an expert—a judge—who knew more about school violence and its prevention than I.

  “Ethan may have found an extended family here,” I ventured.

  “That’s what I wanted to tell you before the rest of the parents arrive,” she said, “although they probably feel the same. With you, Ethan has found something he doesn’t receive at home.” She grimaced, rubbed her forehead. “Don’t get me wrong. My husband and I love our son, but he needs more than we provide.” Her intense brown eyes softened under a haze of tears. “He says he betrayed you.”

  I thought back to all his scowls and sneers and looks of suspicion; his theft of my mouse totem and his friendship with Wyatt and Charles Lacoste. Ace of Spades: solves problems through doubtful means, source of illumination for others, key to the profound secret of life. “Betrayal is too harsh a word for what happened.”