Twisted Miracles

by A. J. Larrieu

  We passed under a long-abandoned railway bridge, crumbling and choked with kudzu, and I held up my hand. She was close. Shane used his mind to tie us off to a tupelo sapling hanging over the water, and we leaped from the boat to the bank. This time, I didn’t need help.

  The ground was spongy with layers of dead leaves and river silt, and we had to pick our way through spiky palmetto plants and clusters of cypress knees. Spanish moss dangled from the low limbs of water oaks, and I lifted it away as I went. Through it all I felt Mina, growing closer and clearer in the dark.

  “She must be nearby,” I said, confused. Her presence was blaring in my brain like a radio station tuned slightly off—stuttering, wordless, impossible to ignore. “We need light.”

  White light flared beside me. Shane had conjured up a crackling ball of light in the hollow of his hands. He raised it up to hang just above eye level, and it expanded to the size of a basketball, casting weird shadows on the trees around us. I scanned the ground for a patch of clothing, a footprint, anything to guide us. Then I saw the moss-covered ruins of a shack just ahead.

  “Shane.”

  He followed my gaze, and we both ran forward. The shack was just like one of dozens scattered throughout the swamps, built as a hunting camp decades ago and abandoned to rot. It was little more than a box on low stilts, the floor only inches above the muddy ground.

  The door had long since fallen off its hinges. As we reached it, I almost dreaded what we’d find. Shane sent in his light ball, and it glowed blue-white in the small space and sent rays of light through the cracks in the walls, illuminating the trees and palmettos. The shack was empty.

  Shane moved closer. “I can feel her.”

  “Me too.” I was about to walk up the crumbling steps and go inside when Shane grabbed my arm and pulled me back. He pointed to the crawlspace beneath the shack.

  I fell to my stomach on the muddy ground. Shane went down beside me and sent the ball of light zooming toward the dark gap between the wood and the earth. I dragged myself closer, soaking my jeans and shirt, and saw the dirt-streaked, abraded length of Mina’s arm.

  “Mina!” Shane scrambled forward. He was an instant away from digging up the ground beneath her when I stopped him.

  “Careful. We have to be careful.” If we shifted too much of the earth below her, we risked destabilizing the structure and crushing her underneath it.

  He clenched his fists. “I’ll lift it. Can you get her out?”

  I didn’t trust my control. Not for something like this. Shane was strong, but he wouldn’t be able to hold the building up for long, and if I lost my mental grip on Mina, we risked hurting her even more. My heart thudded. I was going to have to get as close to her as possible. I nodded once to Shane and crawled to the edge of the shack.

  I reached into the crawlspace. It was slick with mud, and many-legged creatures crawled over my skin as I disturbed them. I bit my lower lip and kept myself from shuddering with willpower alone.

  “Mina?” There was no response. I kept talking anyway. “We’re going to get you out, okay? We’re here. We’re going to get you out.” I let my power reach out with my fingers and wrap around her body. She didn’t move.

  Shane crouched in front of the shack and laid his palms on the wasted wood. It was so decayed, I feared any attempt to move it would bring the whole thing crashing down. He went slowly, deliberately, and I felt how much it cost him. He reached out with his power and contacted the whole floor of the structure, every rotten board and rusted nail. He was sweating from the effort.

  “On three,” he said. I pressed my cheek into the mud and got my head under the shack. I managed to get my fingers around Mina’s arm. Cool to the touch. I shoved down the fear.

  “One,” Shane said. I tightened my grip. “Two.” I held my breath. “Three.”

  The shack tilted two feet into the air. Wood groaned as the back stilts splintered under the weight. Mina’s small body was curled in a muddy depression in the center. I reached out with my power and my arms and dragged her back with me to safety. An instant later the whole shack collapsed into a mound of broken planks and insect-ridden rot.

  She was warm. She was warm. Her limbs were cold but the core of her body was warm.

  “Mina? Mina, can you hear me?” Shane pulled his sister into his arms and cradled her, wiping black mud from her face. “Can you reach her?” He looked at me. There was so much pain in his voice it made me choke.

  I shook my head, unable to speak. I could still feel the touch of her mind, but it was faint. Her skin was dull and streaked with dirt, marred by angry red scrapes, splinters and insect bites; her hair was matted with mud and detritus. Black sludge was caught in her ears. I tried not to think about that slime working its way into her mouth, her lungs.

  Shane closed his eyes and touched his forehead to hers. I didn’t dare tap into the mental connection he was trying to make. He didn’t speak for several long moments.

  “We need to get her to a hospital,” I said finally.

  “Just another minute.” He didn’t open his eyes. He was still holding Mina close to his chest. His shirt was streaked with blood and dirt.

  “Shane,” I said. No response. “Shane!” I broke through his focus, startled by the raw fear in his head. “We need to get her to a doctor.”

  He finally looked at me. “Not a doctor. We need Bunny.”

  Chapter Five

  The ride back to New Orleans passed in an anxious haze. Shane sat below deck with Mina, still trying to reach her, while I navigated back to the marina, praying we wouldn’t run into the Coast Guard. Fortunately, the dock was still deserted when we returned the cabin cruiser. I patched up Shane’s hot-wiring job with electrical tape while he got Mina into the car. No one was around to see me launch myself over the padlocked gate.

  “I spoke to Lionel,” Shane said when I got into the passenger seat. “He’ll meet us at Bunny’s.”

  I nodded. I’d been to Bunny’s once before. Her place was a high-end spa during the day, but at night she did other kinds of treatments. The one time I’d come had been right after Shane had shattered his wrist trying to levitate himself down from the third-floor balcony. I’d never seen Lionel so angry. If we’d gone to the emergency room, there would have been pins and surgery, and Shane might never have gotten full use of his arm back. But Bunny wasn’t a doctor. She was a different kind of shadowmind, one of the rarest types, a healer. If anyone could bring Mina back, it was her.

  When we got to her Magazine Street spa, Bunny was waiting for us at the back door. Lionel must’ve woken her from a dead sleep, but she still looked like she’d spent hours in front of the mirror. Her steel-gray hair was perfectly straight in its chin-length bob, and she was wearing dress slacks with creases that could’ve cut butter. She held the door open for Shane, who carried Mina in his arms, and I followed them inside. Bunny’s heels echoed in the dark hall as she led us back.

  “I have a room set up,” she said, her voice crisp and even. “Through here.” She pushed open a door, flooding the hall with soft light. I peeked inside. The room was packed with candles.

  Shane walked past Bunny and laid Mina down on what looked like a massage table. He straightened her arms and legs, streaking the white sheet beneath her with mud, and Bunny stood at her head and put her hands on her shoulders. I watched from the doorway, unnerved by the scent of the candles. They smelled sharp and not quite pleasant, like vinegar.

  “How long has she been like this?” Bunny took a damp washcloth from a stack and used it to clear the dirt from her face.

  “We found her shoved in a crawlspace,” Shane said, and Bunny’s eyes flashed with pity for a split second. “It’s been almost two days since we mindspoke.”

  “And you’ve tried to reach her, I assume?”

  Shane nodded. “Still trying.”

  “Well, stop while I see what I can see.” Bunny closed her eyes. She was a slender, petite woman, and probably in her seventies at least, but she
was terrifying when she focused. I wasn’t brave enough to dip into her head, but I could tell she was forging some sort of connection to Mina, exploring what was broken.

  “Nothing serious, physically,” she said finally, eyes still closed. “Shock and exposure, but that’s simple enough to fix.” Even as she said it, Mina’s gray skin warmed and the red bites and wounds along her arms faded to scar-brown and disappeared. “That’s not what’s keeping her under.” Mina’s fingers twitched, but she didn’t wake.

  “Why isn’t she waking up?” Shane asked. “What is it?”

  “Patience, darling.”

  Mina’s whole body stiffened and jerked inches off the table.

  “Mina!” Shane bent his face close to hers. He was broadcasting mental messages, asking if she could hear him, sending her the stable assurance of his presence. I couldn’t have blocked it out if I’d tried.

  Bunny laid a manicured hand on his shoulder. “Not yet, darling. She needs calm.”

  He ignored her, eyes closed, hands gripping Mina’s arms. Bunny pulled at his shoulder, but Shane didn’t budge.

  “Let me try,” he said. “I can get through to her, just let me—”

  He fell to the floor in a heap.

  “I’m sorry,” Bunny said, before I could draw in a breath to gasp. “I can’t have him interfering with the process. Take him home.” She turned back to Mina as though she hadn’t just knocked out a full-grown man without lifting a finger.

  I stared at Shane, unconscious on the floor, and then at Bunny, whose eggshell silk blouse wasn’t even rumpled. “Whatever you say.”

  * * *

  Shane slept through the morning. I opened the door to his room only once, just to make sure he was still breathing. He’d moved from how I’d left him, kicking the covers down to his waist and tangling the hem of his T-shirt up to his chest. One hand lay on his flat stomach, rising and falling with his breath. I thought about going to him, seeing if I could wake him, but I couldn’t make myself move. He was dreaming. I could tell from the restless movement of his eyes and the flashes of images I couldn’t block out. The riverbank, the stolen boat. Me. He shifted in his sleep, his fist clenching and relaxing around a handful of sheets, and I pulled out of his head, fast. It seemed like a great time to clean the guest bathrooms.

  By dinnertime, I had to stop. The guests were trickling back to their rooms, and I noticed for the first time how filthy I was, how strung-out. Scrubbing the bathroom floors on my hands and knees hadn’t helped. I took a long, hot shower and felt better, or at least warmer, then I towel-dried my hair and pulled on another old nightshirt scrounged from one of the drawers in my bedroom. It was Shane’s, and it said Riverside High School Warriors in obnoxiously bright blue letters.

  For a long while I lay in bed and tried to sleep, but it was no good. I didn’t want to think about how I’d broken a five-year hiatus from my powers; I didn’t want to admit that we might still lose Mina. Every time I closed my eyes I saw her slim body shoved into that muddy crawlspace, the way she jerked as Bunny tried to bring her back. After an hour passed, I swung my feet out of bed, pulled on a pair of jeans and padded downstairs to the kitchen. A glass of milk would help me sleep. Maybe.

  The dark, empty kitchen unnerved me. I liked it better busy and full of clattering dishes and heat. When I switched on the light, it was so quiet I could hear the bulb buzzing ten feet above my head. I scuffed the floor with my feet and tapped my fingers on the counter just to clear the silence.

  I opened the door to the oversized fridge and stared at the contents. An industrial-sized crate of eggs, three gallons of milk, a huge tub of orange juice. Enough food to feed a crowd, as usual. It made me feel vaguely nauseated. I abandoned the milk idea and grabbed the bourbon out of the liquor cabinet in the guests’ dining room, splashed a generous portion into a juice glass and sat down on the back porch with the bottle.

  The first frost hadn’t hit yet, and Lionel’s patio garden was doing well. The periwinkle was still flowering, and pots full of multicolored croton were clustered by the brick wall. I sipped the bourbon and thought about snapping the rope when we’d stolen the boat. At the time, I’d only been thinking of Mina, but looking back, I remembered how it felt. Good. Powerful. Like a runner’s high. I flexed my fingers and felt the power in them, waiting. It would be so easy to go back. I shook off the impulse to try lifting the patio table and took another sip from my glass.

  A board creaked behind me, and I jumped before I could stop myself. Shane was looking down at me. He’d showered and changed into a fresh undershirt and pair of loose basketball shorts. He’d shaved. I looked back out at the periwinkle.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi.” I did my best to calm my heart, but it was still pounding. “You feel okay?”

  He sat down next to me, his bare knee touching mine. In the cool air, his skin felt very warm. “I’ve got a headache. What did she do to me?”

  “She said you were interfering.”

  He rubbed his temples and gave a humorless sort of laugh. “I should know better than to ignore Bunny. Any news?”

  I shook my head. Lionel had called two hours ago, and there’d been no change. It could be days. It could be years. I blinked hard and poured another finger from the bottle.

  “Care for a sip?” I held up the bourbon, and Shane grabbed the bottle by the neck and took a swig. We both looked out into the dark for a while.

  “I think I dreamed about her the night before you came,” I said, thinking of the nightmare that had left my bedroom in shambles. “I felt like I was suffocating. I wonder if it was her.”

  “You’re close to her. You have a connection.”

  “Yeah, I guess. I wonder why it didn’t happen to you.”

  He shrugged. “Who knows? I don’t pretend to understand what we are.” He passed the bottle back to me. “I can’t imagine who would want to hurt her.”

  “Maybe when she wakes up...” I couldn’t bring myself to say if. I bit my lower lip to keep myself from crying.

  Shane shifted closer to me and draped his arm over my shoulders. “She’ll be all right,” he said, his breath ruffling the hair at the top of my head. “She’ll be all right.”

  I knew he didn’t believe it yet himself, but hearing someone say it made it seem possible. So much of his body was close to mine, I grew warm from the outside in, from skin to muscle to bone, like every night I’d fallen asleep with my head on his chest. His fingers threaded through the ends of my hair, and the close-by rhythm of his breath was as familiar as well-worn jeans. The last of my composure fell away like melting ice.

  “Oh, God, I was so scared.” I broke open, sobbing into the thin white cotton of his undershirt. “I thought I’d never see her again.”

  Shane turned my face up toward his and wiped the tears across my cheeks with his thumbs. “It’s okay, Cassie. She’s safe now.”

  And he leaned down and kissed me.

  Tears streamed down my face, hot and stinging, but I opened my mouth on his and let the taste of him mix with the salt. He brushed my jaw with his fingers and pulled me closer, deepening the kiss, his tongue touching the roof of my mouth.

  “Cassie,” he said, his voice a whisper in my head. I couldn’t speak, so I just leaned closer, pressing against him. My fear didn’t so much recede as grow tame, and as Shane kissed me, it seemed to me that things would be all right, that Mina would wake up and we could all go back to the way we were before I’d left. I slid my hands over his shoulders to the back of his neck, drawing him closer and tilting my head to fit my mouth to his. He murmured something unintelligible in response, but his meaning was clear enough from the swirl of images in his head. Before I even processed what he was asking me, I was saying yes.

  Shane curved an arm under my knees and stood, lifting me up, his mouth still on mine. I hardly noticed as he walked up the stairs, but I felt it when he used his mind to swing the door to his room open. He walked in and set me on the edge of his bed.


  “Cass,” he said softly. “Are you—”

  I put my hand up to his mouth. “Don’t talk,” I said, and I took off my shirt. We were about to make things a hundred times more complicated, but I didn’t care. Shane got onto the bed one knee at a time, straddling my legs, and I pulled his shirt over his head and pressed my hands against the hard muscles of his chest. His mouth came down to my neck, and I shuddered at the feel of his warm tongue on the hollow of my throat, at the way my body remembered his.

  “Are you sure?” His voice rang in my head like organ music as his hand grasped my waist. The calluses and cracks on the pads of his fingers, built up from years of working on cars at Charlie’s, scraped my skin and made me tremble. “I have to know.” He threaded his other hand through my hair and cupped my skull, tipping my head back so he could kiss my jaw.

  My heart was pounding and I could only moan in response. His hands on my body, his lips on my skin—all I could think was “More.”

  “I have to hear you say it.”

  I was about to find my voice, to tell him yes, now, when his cell phone, still in his pocket, vibrated against my leg.

  We both realized at the same time who was probably calling. Shane jumped up and yanked his phone out of his pocket so fast it flew across the room. I dove for it, but he was already lifting it up with his mind, and it soared toward him and opened in midair.

  “Hello? Uncle Lionel?” He paused, listening, his eyes closed. “Thank God. Thank God. Okay. See you soon.”

  He flipped the phone closed. “She’s awake. She’s all right.”

  Chapter Six

  Shane slammed a stack of dirty plates into the sink. “This is ridiculous. I can’t believe we’re even talking about it.” His voice was quiet. Even Bruce could probably tell how furious he was.