by Gina Linko
My body prickled with energy, with life, with happiness at the sound and feel of his voice against my neck.
I stood on my tiptoes. I whispered in his ear, “You. Rennick. Not anyone else. Only you.”
I felt his eyes close against my cheek, the fringe of his eyelashes tickling my skin. And he sighed, this wonderful little sigh. Had he really been so nervous?
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “Do you feel it too? The charge? The energy between us? Is that because of our … powers?” I whispered.
“I feel it,” he said. “I think it’s just us.”
He leaned down, kissed my neck lightly, and a new shiver went down my spine. The disco lights came on, twinkling and colorful, and Mia-Joy came rambling back, calling out our names. I knew she was hoping to catch us in the act.
She and Jules turned the corner in front of us, and she did catch us. We were still wrapped around each other. Rennick gave me a quick peck on the lips and we pulled apart. He grabbed my hand, and we followed after them.
“Oh, caught red-handed!” Mia-Joy was so happy with herself. “Or should I say red-lipped!” She laughed so hard at her own joke. Even Jules cracked a smile at that one. I held on to Rennick’s hand and we exited the House of Mirrors.
I brought a hand to my eyes to shield my face from the sun. And for some reason my skin shifted and tightened on my body, and suddenly Rennick stood ramrod-straight. It registered with him too.
And then we heard it.
“You’re the girl!” someone squealed. “The miracle lady!” A tiny girl with this screechy voice screamed at me from across the carnival walkway. Her matted and sweaty pigtails swung behind her as she came running our way. An exhausted-looking mother, pushing a stroller, followed a ways behind her, but the girl kept yelling at me, and a small crowd gathered loosely around the edges of us. She was right in front of me then, and I kneeled down, said hello.
“You can fix her.”
“Who is it that needs fixing?” I was powerful, not scared at all, and I liked the way it felt. So much the opposite of how I’d lived for so long after Sophie, like a ghost. This was a different kind of existence for sure.
What I didn’t like was the crowd, the knot of people around us thickening by the moment.
“My mommy has cancer. You can tell, that’s why she doesn’t wear her real hair anymore. She’s wearing a wig. I combed it.” The little girl was proud of herself, smiling, putting her hands on her hips. But I could see there was a bit of panic behind her little eyes, a wisdom too large for them to hold. It made me sad. Crazy sad.
The mom had worked her way up to us by then, and she apologized breathlessly. I noticed that, yes, her dark pixie hairdo was a wig, and what at first had looked like young-mommy exhaustion now registered with me as worse. Much worse. The swollen face. The blue-gray shadows underneath her eyes.
“I told her not to, but she watches the news with her nana, and I tried …” I let the mom keep talking. Her voice was musical, small, with a touch of the Cajun drawl.
I waited politely. And then I said, “Do you want me to try?” And there was Rennick’s hand on my shoulder, a squeeze, reassuring. He was there. We were in this together.
The young mom just gasped, hung her head. “Yes,” she whispered, tears falling down her cheeks. “I can’t pay you. I have nothing to—”
“Shhh,” I said. And I led her over to a nearby bench.
I gave Rennick a look, but he had already bent down and was joking with the little girl. She didn’t need much encouragement. She was describing in ridiculous detail the amount of spaghetti she had thrown up last week at preschool.
I briefly thought about asking this woman to come with me to a different location, but then it was there, and it was surging, working, igniting.
I just grabbed her hand, sat on the bench next to her. This thing was bigger than me. I was its servant. I told myself not to ask too many questions or try to micromanage it.
Let the people in this little crowd see it. Let the word spread if it had to. I needed to help this poor woman.
I concentrated. The woman’s worry weighed down on me, her concern for her child, to be brought up without a mother. This was what I focused on, and this brought it to life. It sparked within me and grew quickly. I let it rise, flame into an inferno. It grew and blossomed, swelled. And I let go. I opened my eyes, and there it was, the indigo lens.
I pushed the power, the heat, through me, out of me, into this poor mother. The woman’s face, covered in tears, crumpled into itself and she fell backward, but Rennick was there. He caught her before she tumbled off the bench, and I didn’t let go. I gave it all to her, focused the current into her.
And when it waned, I let go, and I fell to my knees.
Her little girl was hugging her around her neck, pecking her with these little kisses, sloppy and desperate. “Wake up, Mommy. She fixed you!”
She woke up, looked momentarily dazed. But she took a few deep breaths and immediately got to her feet, swinging her little girl up onto her hip. For a moment I was terribly nervous, my stomach lurching up into my throat, but the woman had this unfathomable color in her cheeks. Healthy spots of peachy color right on the apples of her cheeks.
The knot of people around us had gotten so quiet, so reverent, but they clapped now, and I felt so … exposed. I caught Mia-Joy’s and Jules’s eyes in the crowd.
Mia-Joy mouthed the word “Wow” to me, but the woman was there, thanking me, shaking my hand, and I went wobbly-kneed. There were suddenly several people in my face. Questions. Did I always know I could? What was my phone number? Could I help someone’s aunt? Could I fix birth defects? What didn’t it work on? People were flashing their camera phones at me.
I swayed on my feet. And Rennick was there, leading me away quickly.
“I need a minute,” I told him. And Mia-Joy was suddenly at my elbow. “I think I might be sick.” She pulled me toward the washrooms.
“Girl, it’s like I believed it, but now I believe it!”
I bent my head over the disgusting carnival toilet, and Mia-Joy held my hair back. I wretched once, twice, three times. But nothing came out. The smell of the citrus disinfectant in the tiny cinder-block bathroom was overpowering. And the lights in the place were these weird rose-colored fixtures. They were blindingly bright.
I stood, moved to the sink, and splashed some water on my face, rinsed my mouth. After a few deep breaths, I was myself again. I stared in the mirror, and there I was, red-cheeked and wide-eyed.
Mia-Joy held on to my elbow as we left the washroom. “Think if you charged for this, Corrine. We could shop at goddamn Prada.” She was babbling. I laughed loudly, and I was happy to see there was no crowd waiting for us outside the bathroom.
I smiled, and then something—someone—caught my eye. I saw a little girl through the crowd, near the merry-go-round. She was wearing goggles, and her curls stuck out in all directions.
“What is it?” Mia-Joy asked, looking toward the merry-go-round.
“Wait here,” I said, and pushed past kids and teenagers, a man selling balloons. The girl stood near the entrance, next to the ticket taker. My heart thumped and I blinked a few times.
I was about twenty feet away from her. The girl saw me then, waved. It was her. A large group of mothers with their toddlers and several strollers cut in front of me.
I called her name. “Sophie?” My blood ran cold. The edges of my vision faded to dark. I took a few deep breaths and pushed forward.
I lost sight of her as the mothers passed. I ran over to the ticket taker. Sophie was nowhere. I circled the merry-go-round.
“Have you seen a girl? With goggles? About this high?” I asked the ticket taker, motioning with my hand to the height of my chest. I could hear the panic in my voice.
He shook his head, disinterested. I walked around the carousel several times, scanned the crowd on my tiptoes. I stood up on a nearby bench and tried to find her.
Mia-Joy and Renni
ck caught up with me. “What is it?” Mia-Joy asked. “Who did you see?”
“It was nothing,” I said, shaking my head, still scanning the crowd. I jumped down from the bench. I’m crazy, I told myself. I’m just seeing things. I swallowed hard and balled my fists at my sides. It’s just been too much to take in.
“We’re going to catch up with Clayton and Laura,” Mia-Joy told Rennick. Jules joined us now. He hung his arm around Mia-Joy. She smiled approvingly.
“You sure you don’t need a ride?” Rennick asked.
“No, you guys go be aloooone,” Mia-Joy said. “Privately.” She winked at me and I smiled back, but my mind was on the girl, the goggles. Rennick offered his hand to me and we headed for the parking lot. I scanned the crowds as we left, but I shook my head against it. It hadn’t been Sophie. Of course it hadn’t been Sophie. It was just like the other morning in my room. A new species of crazy.
“You okay?” he said.
“What does your aura look like?” I said to distract myself. “Is there a lot of red?”
“There is.”
Our feet crunching on the gravel parking lot made a ridiculously loud sound. I winced as the noise ground against my eardrums.
“You okay?”
I nodded. “So what does red mean again?”
“Passion. Creativity. You look flushed.”
“I think that might happen after … you know. I don’t know. I need a drink of water, that’s all.”
“You sure we shouldn’t go get you checked out or call your mother or just find a—”
“No!” I snapped, glad to be at the car now so I didn’t have to hear the grind of the rocks against my feet. Like nails on a chalkboard. Everything was magnified, the sounds, the heat, the brightness.
Rennick opened the door of the Jeep for me, and I sat down. He handed me a bottle of water out of the back, and I drained it quickly.
I rested my head on the window and asked him to crank the air conditioner.
I could feel his eyes on me, but by the time we were nearing the Garden District, I felt well enough to be myself, and I saw Rennick relax next to me. His posture changed, his gaze less questioning, more calming.
“I’m so proud of you,” he said, grabbing my hand across the seat.
“I’m proud of me too,” I answered.
I was okay now. At least well enough to ignore it.
But there was something nagging at the back of my mind for some reason, a diagram from one of Sophie’s favorite books. Do-It-Yourself Inventions, or something like that. It looked like one of those crazy setups from an old cartoon—all these little devices and intricate mechanisms, like where you drop a marble into a tube and then it goes through a bunch of machine parts in order to do something mundane like flip on a light switch. There was a name for these inventions. And it hit me, while I had my forehead leaning on the glass: Rube Goldberg. That’s what those things were called.
And I had a sinking feeling in my stomach, in my nerves, that the display at the carnival was the first domino falling in my very own life-size Rube Goldberg contraption. Something had just been set in motion.
When we arrived home that afternoon, Mom explained with a shocked look on her face that our voice mail was filled to capacity. Her work email had 672 messages asking about me. Asking for her help. Media outlets: newspapers, morning shows, from everywhere from Baton Rouge to Mobile. And Dad said the calls to Harlowe Construction were nonstop. That’s the word he kept repeating: nonstop. Nonstop requests. Nonstop calls. Nonstop texts, emails, people.
I listened groggily on the couch while Dad and Mom and Rennick brainstormed how best to stay ahead of all this. Apparently, the Kranes had immediately contacted their doctor this morning. The doctors took scans, blood samples, and several other kinds of tests, all of which showed that Seth was completely healthy. All traces of his leukemia were gone.
Between that, the carnival, and Chartrain, I knew I should be more concerned. But all I wanted to do was stick my head under a tap and drink. Water and more water. Either that or sleep. Exhaustion won as I drifted off. The last thing I heard was Dad say that a man from Tallahassee had contacted Suzy, the head of his legal department, and offered a check for one million dollars, no questions asked, if I would come and just try to heal his teenage son, who had lived with muscular dystrophy his whole life.
I pictured Tallahassee—a swamp? Alligators? Orange groves? And then I was out.
Mom shook me awake in the early morning. “Let’s get you out of here.” I didn’t know exactly why she wanted us to leave, but it wasn’t too hard to deduce. She smiled at me while I threw on some clothes, but it was painted on. Obviously, people were done with just leaving messages. People were showing up on the doorstep.
As we drove into the French Quarter, I told myself to stay calm and plead my case logically. “You know, Mom, I want to help these people. It’s okay.”
“Our home,” Mom said in a dark tone, “needs to be a safe place for you. For us. We will not let you think that every time the doorbell rings someone is going to be begging you, pleading with you. You have to have some say in this, Corrine.”
“But, Mom—” I began to argue. She cut me off.
“You may not think so right now, but twelve hours from now. Twelve days. You’ll be glad we set some parameters.”
I pulled down the sun visor and looked at myself in the mirror. My face surprised me. I looked healthy, pink-cheeked; my unwashed hair even had a sheen to it. I raked a brush through it and tied it back at the nape of my neck. I considered what Mom was saying.
“I can see your point,” I said. “Where are we going, though?”
“The Shack. Sarah said we could hide out upstairs.”
We rode in silence for a few moments, then Mom continued. “Dad’s lawyers are putting together kind of a contract, something people will need to sign. To cover us. Also, his legal team has contracted someone to make a website, an eight-hundred number.” Mom glanced at me, her mouth a hard line. “I want you to help these people too, Corrine. I just want you to be at the helm, okay?”
I nodded and thought about yesterday at the carnival. Mom hadn’t been there. She couldn’t know how some things, especially this particular thing, were not going to be orderly, controlled, or even logical. I knew that somewhere deep down. This was who I was now, and although it seemed scary and a little bit out of control, I welcomed it. It was better to step into this life than to keep going with my old one.
If nothing else, it gave me something to do, something beyond good. It gave me something to occupy my thoughts other than the way the air had smelled charged and alive on those rocks with my little sister. If it kept me from picturing her eyes rolling back in her head, well, then it was a good thing.
“What’s up?” Mia-Joy greeted me. She handed me a café au lait, just the way I liked it, but not before she took a sip for herself. Mia-Joy was still in a lacy pink nightgown, a do-rag covering up her hair.
Mrs. Rawlings pulled me into her arms, so tight it hurt a little. “God bless ya, Corrine. God bless you.” I nodded at her when she pulled away and stared at me level in the eyes. “You doin’ right.” She moved on to my mom then, and they chattered away. They moved toward the far end of the counter, and I could hear their voices above the din of the breakfast rush, Mrs. Rawlings’s all smooth with comfort, Mom’s all staccato with worry.
The Shack was really hopping, with the smell of Mrs. Rawlings’s famous beignets in the air. Clouds of powdered sugar puffed from customers’ mouths as they took that first heavenly bite.
“I need me one of those,” I said, scooting toward the kitchen just as Mrs. Rawlings yelled at Mia-Joy to go get some clothes on already. I grabbed a beignet off the cooling rack in the back, took a bite, and Mia-Joy pulled me up the stairs to their apartment before I had a chance to argue.
“So give up the goods already. Tell me about this boy.” I settled onto her patchwork comforter, made by Granny Lucy, and realized that Mia-Joy didn
’t even know that the rumors about Rennick weren’t true. “He was about to just clock that guy for you yesterday. Are you okay with him? I mean, has he changed, or is he—”
I licked the powdered sugar from my lips, swallowed. “None of it was true, Mia-Joy. Really. He’s not like that.” But I couldn’t keep explaining, because she had her back to me and was changing out of her nightgown. And when I saw her bare back, I could hardly believe how thin she was, her ribs jutting. She had always been thin, always willowy, moved like a gazelle. But this, this was something new. Her ribs were too prominent, her shoulder blades sharp and protruding.
“So why did Rennick end up here?”
I shook my head and explained how we had both actually met him years ago on that Fourth of July at Lake Pontchartrain. But all the while, I was studying her face. Did she look unhealthy? I cursed myself for forgetting about what Rennick had said, about the rip in her aura. I should’ve been more in tune with Mia-Joy. What was going on?
“So we know him from what-in-the-what-what now?” She was fully dressed in capri pants and a hippie-looking tunic. She began combing out her gorgeous mane of hair, working product through it, and I tried to find a way to ask her about her health, her diabetes. But it just sat there on my tongue.
“So was Rennick always so fine? Even back then?”
“You should know. You were there.” I took another bite of my beignet.
“Was his ass just so pow even then?” She gestured with her hands like she was grabbing his butt, and I laughed.
“Mia-Joy!” I threw a pillow at her, and she flopped on the bed next to me.
“Girl, you look good. Rennick must be doing something right.” And she elbowed me in the ribs.
“It’s not like that,” I said, but did I want it to be like that? I swallowed hard. So much was happening.