by Dalya Moon
I chug down the rest of my beer before diving into my steak, which is rare—just the way I love it. The steak is crusty on the outside with a thick layer of seasoning, also the way I love it.
Tonight's not going too badly.
Something thuds against the window, making us all jump.
“Oh dear, I hope it wasn't a songbird,” Gran says, peering into the darkness beyond the glass.
“Sounded bigger than a songbird,” Rudy says.
There's another thump, followed by a CAW!
“You guys keep eating,” I say. “I'll go out and investigate.” I stuff one more delicious chunk of steak in my mouth as I stand.
Cautiously, I slide open the back patio door. The rollers are worn out and the door squeals and groans ominously as I shove it open and then closed. Walking slowly around the outside of the house, to the darker side where the dining room window is, my pulse is racing.
The thud could have been a bird, but not two thuds. Am I not doing exactly what someone would expect me to, thus walking into a trap? I've got a bad feeling about this.
I wave to Gran through the window, but she's gone back to eating and isn't even looking this way.
It's hard to see, but something darker than the grass is lying under the window. I expect to find a stunned or dead bird on the ground, and crouch down slowly, my hand outstretched.
My fingers make contact with … a clod of dirt. That's odd.
Wings flap behind me, and something skims over me, raking a talon along the back of my head.
Chapter Fourteen
After the bird slices up my scalp, I swear loud enough to make my grandmother come to the window and threaten to ground me.
I blink up at her. “Sorry! I got dive bombed by a bird.”
“There could be a nest nearby. Though it's not the time of year for them to have babies,” she says.
Rubbing the back of my head, I say, “Injuries aside, everything's fine back here. You can go back to your steak.”
“Take a few deep breaths and cool down,” she says as she moves away from the window.
I squint in the darkness, looking for that damn bird, that crow. It had to be a crow. I didn't see it, but seriously, with my history, how could it not be a crow?
I reach down to the clod of dirt and turn it grass-side up, placing it back in the divot. A few feet to the side is another dark thing on the ground. Upon closer examination, by which I mean poking it with a stick, I see it's someone's black glove. No, sock. Not unlike the body of a dead bird, this limp lawn-sock is something I don't want to touch with my hands.
Turning around, I find a big, ugly crow on the fencepost. I've never found one of God's animals ugly before, but this one has terrible manners.
Whispering, I ask, “What do you want? You don't know this about me, but I can turn into a fox and eat you. I will eat you right up, yum yum.”
The bird opens its wings and bobs up and down.
“Oh yeah? You wanna fight?” I punch my fist a few times into my other hand. “Come on, big boy. You wanna get personal? Let's see what you've got. Why don't you come at me when I'm watching you. I'll punch your lights out and make you into Chicken McNuggets.”
The bird jumps sideways off the fencepost, to the grass, where it falls over on its back, little black legs in the air.
“Aww, I didn't mean it little dude.” I kneel down, feeling like the worst person ever. I threatened to punch a little bird. That's like kicking a juvenile meerkat or something.
The crow opens one eye and waves one leg, which is when I see the note. From my crouched position, I reach down and carefully unroll the note from the bird's leg.
“Thank-you, Hedwig,” I say, which I decide will be our little in-joke from now on.
The note, which is in Newt's signature swirly handwriting, exactly like the last one, reads: You have five days or there will be dire consequences. - Newt
The crow jumps up and takes off, smacking me in the face with a few flaps of its wings. I call the crow some very Gran-disapproved words, thus completing my and the bird's cycle of mutual abuse.
I roll back onto my butt and re-read the note using the light coming from the window above me. I read it over and over again. The note hasn't named Austin, but I have this terrible feeling she's the one who will be in danger, and it's all my fault.
Dire consequences. Is Newt's ghost just making idle threats, or can he actually reach his spooky fingers from beyond the grave and do serious damage?
I have this horrible physical sensation, like a lump under my chin.
Five days.
Dire consequences.
This whole amateur detective thing is not such a funny goof anymore.
* * *
For the rest of dinner, I stay quiet while Gran and Rudy talk about plans for the wedding on Saturday.
Dessert is fresh mangoes and rich vanilla ice cream, but the sweet food hardly tastes like anything inside my mouth.
Gran and Rudy are worried about all the catering that they only have five days to plan.
Five days.
While they're worried about butter-filled Chicken Kiev, I'm worried about solving a murder, armed only with a dysfunctional psychic power and some bees. Now, if the task was to run away from scary things and make some honey, I could maybe do that.
* * *
Gran drives the two of us home. “I'm glad my two men are seeing the good in each other,” she says.
“Where did you meet Rudy anyways,” I joke. “Was it at a dude ranch? Are you going to start dressing like a cowgirl?”
“Ha ha.”
“Can we get a horse for the back yard?”
She deadpans, “Mibs would be jealous, so no.”
When we get back home and park the car, I say my legs are a bit crampy from my previous day's run and I'm going to take a little walk.
She pats her flat stomach. “I should burn off this ice cream, but my show is on.”
“Gran, you can record your show and watch it any time.”
She dismisses this idea with a wave. “I like to watch it with everyone else, silly.”
I don't fight further, because I'm not actually going for a walk, so I don't want her company.
After she enters the house, I wait until the blue glow of the TV appears in our front window before I go to Crystal's door across the street. I knock three times, and I hear some music being turned off, but nobody comes to the door. The corner of the curtain moves. Crystal had a boyfriend who lived with her, along with his little girl, but they moved out a while back.
“Crystal, it's me, Zan,” I call out.
Finally, she opens the door a few inches. “Sorry, I don't feel well. Is Mibs okay?”
“He's great. I, uh, was wondering if you could help me with something else.”
She opens the door wider. Her usually-perfect Indian complexion isn't so perfect today. She's got a couple of pimples on her forehead and olive-colored crescents under her eyes. “Sure, why not,” she sighs, inviting me in.
I take a seat on the yellow leather chair. She slumps down in the fluffy sofa and begins cracking her knuckles, one by one. The lighting is dim, and the curtains are all drawn, adding to the room's claustrophobic feel. I don't want to be here, but Crystal's my only lead, and she might know more than she thinks she does.
I take a deep breath and begin. “A little over a year ago, I discovered I have a sort of psychic gift. I can read people, and see things.”
She straightens up and is very still, except for a trembling in her jaw.
I continue, finding it easier as I go, to simply tell the truth. Her eyes are wide as I tell her about Newt's messages from beyond the grave, and when I ask her if I can question her about what she saw the day of the murder, I swear she stops breathing.
Everything is still, and I wave my hand in front of her face, worried for a moment I've frozen time.
She leans back, rocking her head into the back of the sofa, and tears begin streaming down her
cheeks. “I don't remember what happened that day. I was at work, and then I don't know. I don't know how I even got home. Oh, Zan, what if I did it? What if I shot that poor old man?”
“Do you own a gun?”
She sniffs. “No.”
“Had you ever seen him before?”
“Around. At The Bean and the other restaurants, around lunch. I knew who he was. I saw him that morning, on the way into work, and he asked why I was dressed as Cinderella and not as Pocahontas. He made me really mad.”
“Mad enough to shoot him?”
She wipes at her cheeks and coughs out a tiny laugh. “If I'd had a gun in my hand at the moment, yes. But only once, and in the foot.”
“I don't know if it's going to work, but I can try to help you remember what happened in the afternoon. I know I just hit you with the whole psychic powers thing, but there's more. There are witches in Spiritdell, and they erase memories. I have a theory that you saw the killer, but had your memory erased.”
Crystal shakes her head. Her beautiful dark hair is matted in chunks. “I need a good night's sleep,” she says. “I got some sleeping pills today, so I can make it through the night. This will all make more sense if I could get some rest.”
“It'll just take a second. If you give me your hand.” I hold out my palm to her.
She clutches her hands to her chest. Her voice stretched-out and low, she says, “I think you'd better go.”
“I want to help you,” I plead.
“Just go!” she yells. “Get out of here!”
I jump up. “You didn't do anything wrong. If you change your mind, you can—”
“GO!”
She picks up a lamp, so I make a dash for the door before she can test its use as a projectile. This is not normal behavior for Crystal. Not normal at all.
I make it out the front door injury-free and jog up to the end of the block to clear my head. I keep running until I reach the playground attached to the local elementary school, where I take a seat on one of the swings.
As I pump my legs, swinging higher and higher, the dizziness up in my brain feels good. When I swing back, the wind rushes along the sides of my cheeks, but when I swing forward, there's no wind, and I'm floating. There must be a mild breeze, blowing at my back. I could be in outer space when I swing forward, weightless.
Now Crystal knows my secret, and what did revealing that information get me? She'll probably tell Gran, and I'll have a lot of explaining to do. I hope I can get Gran to believe I'm not possessed by a demon before her church people hold me down and douse me with holy water or whatever it is they might do. If they put half the effort into exorcising that they do singing, I'll be in big trouble.
Still swinging back and forth, pleasantly dizzy, bordering on nauseated, I search through my pockets for ideas. There's the ring, which is cool but hasn't told me anything useful. And there's the business card Detective Wrong gave me on Halloween, after she took my statement.
I'm in over my head, and I can't do this on my own. I thought having a psychic power would make things so easy, wrapped up in an hour like one of those paranormal TV shows, but nothing in life is easy, it seems.
I should have picked up Solving Murders for Dummies at the book store.
With no other options, I pull out my phone, planning to call Detective Wrong, when I look up and see a familiar car. It's her. She's driving past me, in the direction of Crystal's house.
I jump off the swing at its apex, landing stealthily, and lope down the street back to Crystal's house. The lights are off in Crystal's house and I watch Detective Wrong shift impatiently on the step as nobody comes to the door.
I find myself crossing the street, boldly drawn to the police officer. “Hello,” I call out in a very friendly and non-threatening, non-shooting-worthy manner.
Please don't let her recognize me as the boy who was running across lawns yesterday.
She gives me a scathing look that removes any hope I had she didn't know it was me. “And, YOU YOUNG MAN,” she says, her voice bordering on yelling, but not quite. “What is the nature of your interest in an ongoing police investigation?”
“Can we talk for a few minutes?” I ask her.
She raps on the door again, but still there's no answer.
“Do you have, like, a warrant?” I ask.
“Mr. Nosy! No, I do not have a warrant, young man, though I can't imagine what business it is of yours.”
“Well, you said to call you if I thought of anything.”
“If you remembered anything. Did you?”
I scratch my temple and try to look innocent. “No, but I was hoping we could pool our resources. I could help you with your investigation.”
She taps her hand on her gun holster. “You?” She shakes her head and starts walking back to her unmarked police car.
I follow her, and when she gets to the door of her car, she says, “Are you going to spill now, or do I have to take you down to the station? If this is all a ploy to get a ride in my new car, it's not happening.”
“If I get you the name of a potential witness, do you think you could share some details with me?”
She raises her eyebrows. “Officially? No. Unofficially, you have my number.” She gets in the car and slams the door, then rolls down the window to say, “Don't waste my time.”
“No, Ma'am, I won't.”
As she drives away, I feel a glimmer of hope. If I'm not mistaken, she might be a good ally. Imagine that: me, working with a real cop. I have to get her a name, though, and the only other person I know who's involved in witchcraft is the woman who worked at the store in Chinatown.
I'll go there first thing tomorrow, instead of school, although I'll miss my test in Chemistry. Oh well, school can wait. As of tomorrow, I'm down to four days to solve the case, then life will go back to normal. Or complete disaster. What could the dire consequences be?
Back inside my house, I phone James and ask if he wants to pull a Ferris Bueller tomorrow.
He says yes.
Plan on.
* * *
As I brush my teeth, I ponder the many mysteries of the universe, including the big question: how can bees help me solve a murder? Are bees available for hiring? How would I pay them? In flowers?
Bees could be used to spy on people, becoming a “fly on the wall,” if they don't object to such a term. They'd probably not like the comparison, of course. Bees, who snack on pretty flowers, are way cooler than flies, who eat garbage. Silly flies.
Huddled in my bed again, I pull The Care of Bees, Real and Unreal out from under my mattress and flip through, looking for anything to do with spying, though I do take a moment to appreciate Naked Bee-Birthing Lady from the waist up.
Toward the back of the book, an illustration of a person with two bees in place of eyes seems promising, so I read the text from the neighboring page:
How to focus the compound eye of many and its inputs into the human's eye, of vastly differing physiology, requires the dedication of nine years plus ninety. A human operator might sooner master every instrument in the orchestra as to completely control and reign in the desire of the bee while stealing its sunlight and thoughts.
The student must focus soul and mind, as though playing the violin while straining to empty the bowels and force a mountain through the eye of a needle. Close one human eye while keeping the other human eye open. The student may use fingertips if not in possession of such muscular controls, but should take care not to poke or pinch out the eye that shall become the overlay of the bee input, thus incurring injury.
I put the book down and focus on the striped wallpaper above my headboard. Some of that last passage almost made sense. Holy crap, I think I just learned something from this crazy book. If I keep one eye open and one eye closed, I might be able to see what a bee sees. The part about straining as though pooping does give me some concern, but what the heck, I'll try anything once.
Keeping one eye open on my wallpaper, I sit on the edge of my
bed and tense my stomach muscles, bearing down, but not actually trying to go. My insides feel tingly.
My closed eye isn't seeing anything. I switch the closed side. Nothing.
BEE BEE BEE, I repeat in my head.
Nothing.
I remember my precious ring and dig it out of my jeans to put on my pinkie finger. This feels right, so I close one eye and try again.
This time, my guts are more than tingly. I feel sweet and liquid, like I'm made of hot chocolate and marshmallows on the inside. With my right eye shut, I burp, and out comes a bee.
The bee doesn't sting me, but bobs up and down, seemingly looking at me. Why's the bee looking at me? I guess it's that dopey look on my face, with one goofy eye shut. Man, my ears really stick out!
My ears. I'm seeing myself. I'm looking at the bee, but also seeing myself, through the bee.
I open my right eye in surprise, and the bee charges straight at me, stinging me between the eyes. I slap it away, but too late. Now I've got a stinging welt and a dead bee.
And I'm so tired.
A powdery clump of gray dust, like the ash from a cigarette, sits in my hand where the bee was. I blow on my hand and the ash disintegrates.
The time on my clock radio surprises me. Two in the morning! No wonder I'm so tired.
I fall back on the bed, and it's all I can muster to pull my feet up off the floor. Gotta rest. Tomorrow's going to be epic. Magical teas and more await at the herbalist's shop.
Chapter Fifteen
In the morning, I tell Gran I don't feel well, and the ironic part is my stress over lying is causing an actual stomach ache. I cough pathetically a few times.
“If you miss school, you'll have to miss karate too,” she says.
“Of course.” Cough.
“Your face does look puffy. Try a bath, good and hot. Sweat the fever out.”
I agree to try the bath later and stumble back to bed, where I wait for her to leave for work.
It's wrong to lie about being sick, but Ferris Bueller did it, and he's practically a hero. I've watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off with James about a hundred times, and I'm not exaggerating. He played the DVD every day for almost four months, for a blog project he was doing in celebration of '80s movies. He was picked up by a few nerdy news sites and his traffic increased ten-fold. By that I mean he now has twenty fans.