The Awakening

by Marley Gibson

  However, Pretty Girl smiles again and waves at me in welcome.

  I snicker to myself. Geez ... paranoid much, Kendall? I can't help it, though. This is all so new to me. I can't assume that I'm going to fit in. My accent is different from everyone else's. That alone is bound to get me a mass inspection. Then again, maybe Pretty Girl will invite me to sit with her and her friends and introduce me around, then include me in the Scarlett O'Hara-ish secret sorority. I can't be so negative. I've got to be optimistic. What other choice do I have?

  As I'm pulling my notebook and my favorite blue (again with the blue!) Uni-ball pen out of my bag, I get this intense, shooting pain in my left leg. It's not like the tingly, fallen-asleep feeling my hands have been experiencing the past few days. This freakin' hurts! If I didn't know any better, I would think my tibia had cracked right below my kneecap. Huh? How do I know that? Am I suddenly an intern at Seattle Grace, or what? Sweat dots my upper lip, and the underside of my hair dampens. My breathing increases, like when I'm on an airplane and we're about to take off. I do not like to fly, so my dad always tells me to stare out at the horizon. Only right now, the horizon for me is the lush, green schoolyard of Radisson High, and it is so not helping.

  I sense fresh, hot tears pooling in my eyes from the severe throbbing in my leg, and I try to pinpoint what's happening to me. Rubbing hard on my left calf muscle, I literally feel the warm anguish of a break. I broke my arm when I was nine years old, so I know what the sensation is like. Holy crap! Seriously, did I dislocate some ligaments or jar something loose when I was barreling up the stairs? Is this some sort of inherited degenerative bone disorder no one in the family warned me about? I certainly don't remember knocking into anything in the last few minutes. Folks, I'm on full freak-out mode inside my head.

  I have to do something about this. Like, now.

  I'm about to raise my hand and ask for some help getting down to the school nurse's office when I see a large guy come into the classroom.

  "Okra!" a guy shouts out at him.

  "Hey, it's Okra!"

  This kid's name is Okra? Like the vegetable?

  "What up, dawwwwwwgs?" he calls out.

  Mrs. Johnston rises from behind her desk and removes her reading glasses. "Why, Sean Carmickle. I didn't think we'd see you today. I heard that was a nasty fall you took off your father's tractor, young man."

  "Yes, ma'am," he says. "Fixed myself up real good. Doctor said no football for me this year, but I might be able to play roundball if it heals up okay by January."

  "You poor thing. We'll certainly miss you at wide receiver."

  "You know it!" his friend—more than likely a teammate—shouts out.

  Mrs. Johnston nods. "Sean, you just go take a seat over there so you can stretch yourself out."

  Curiosity is totally killing the Kendall-Cat.

  I tuck my foot underneath myself to get a few extra inches of height so I can see over the kids in front of me. The searing pain in my leg continues to thud and I feel my eyes grow wide as I look at Sean "Okra" Carmickle hobble on his crutches across the room to take a seat. When I finally get a full view of him, I nearly choke on my intake of breath. His left leg is encased up to his thigh with a thick white plaster cast, obviously surrounding his broken bone.

  Hold the phone!

  Okra's left leg. My left leg.

  My mind is reeling. Spinning, even, as I think of the ridiculous chances.

  Courtney getting sick. Me feeling sick.

  Then it hits me like Brian Urlacher sacking Tom Brady on fourth and long...

  Jesus in the garden! Am I feeling other people's pain?

  How is that even possible?

  CHAPTER THREE

  "KAITLIN, I'M GONNA TAKE A NAP, so don't get into any trouble, understand?"

  "Kiss my butt, Kendall." She sticks her tongue out at me. "You're not my mother."

  Why does Kaitlin love to push my buttons so much? "No, I'm your big sister." I swear, I can't believe we came from the same parents. "When Mom and Dad are at work, I'm in charge."

  "In your dreams." She plops down in front of the television and cranks up Halo 3 on the Xbox. I'll never understand why my parents let her play shit like that, which only serves to warp her already demented mind. Whatever.

  "Well, I'm going upstairs and putting my headphones on." What's the point? She's not even listening to me. "Unless you've severed an artery and are bleeding to death, it would behoove you not to disturb me, okay?"

  She blinks twice at me. "Behoove's not a word. You made that up."

  I roll my eyes. "Look it up in the dictionary, brainiac."

  With that, I pound upstairs to my room, the second bedroom on the right. It's in the front of the house, overlooking Main Street, with a nice bay window and a cushiony seating area. I wish I'd gotten the back bedroom, but Kaitlin snagged it when we first walked into the house. Mom told me to "be the bigger person" and let her have it. Her room has a huge walk-in closet and its own bathroom. I have to use the one in the hallway with the antique claw-foot tub and added-on showerhead. Fine. At least all of Kaitlin's wet towels and ridiculously large bras won't be in there, like when we lived in Chicago and had to share. Maybe there's a weird-ass voice in her room too to scare the crap out of her. Mean Kendall.

  Peeling off my school clothes—an uneventful day at best, consisting of syllabuses (or is it syllabi?), welcome-backs, and fish sticks with mac and cheese for lunch—I grab my dad's Bobby Hull jersey (Chicago Blackhawks' Golden Jet from the '70s) and climb onto my four-poster bed. Exhaustion has overridden the panic from the happenings of last night. Besides, it's daylight, and I can see if anything freaky happens in the room. I want to get cuddly with my pillow. My MP3 player has been charging since this morning, so I should get at least four hours of tunes while I snooze away. Because I am going to get some sleep.

  Queuing up a good old favorite Justin Timberlake CD, FutureSex/LoveSounds—Marjorie and I saw the concert when he played the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, IL—I squiggle the earbuds in tight so that nothing bothers me. I'll be damned if I'm turning the noise machine on. Besides, the sexy falsetto of JT is enough to drown out the buzzing of the neighbor's lawn mower down below.

  A few minutes later, I'm heading into the zone, where Justin and Timbaland are well on their way to bringing "SexyBack," when the MP3 player completely craps out.

  Sitting up, I look at the digital display. "Are you kidding me?" The battery symbol is flashing, which means it's almost completely drained. Dead. "But I charged it all day." I hang off the side of my bed to get the cord, but it's not anywhere in sight. "It was just there!" I say to no one.

  Back home, Kaitlin used to move my things around all the time. I swear, if she's messing with me, I'm going to ignore my parents' dictate to spare the rod and spoil the child. That is one majorly spoiled child as it is. She needs a good spanking, especially if she took my charger.

  Bulling out of my room and down the staircase, I stop in my tracks when I see Kaitlin fully ensconced in her Halo 3 diversion. Whoa. She doesn't look like she's moved from there at all. No one else is here, so who took my cord? Did Mom hire a maid that I don't know about?

  My fingers tiptoe over my forehead as if to touch the sharp pain that has returned. I press hard into my skin. It's no use, though. I give up. I'm doomed. Sixteen and living a hopeless life at the moment. I wish I could walk out to the end of Navy Pier—no, I don't want to drown myself or anything, just drink in the briny aroma of Lake Michigan. That always used to chill me out.

  Since I can't do that, I head to the kitchen. I grab a bottle of water from the fridge and fish out the Cheetos from the over-the-sink cabinet. If I'm surrendering to whatever funk has overtaken me, I'm not going down hungry. Then I hop into a pair of shorts from my old school, which I dig out of the laundry basket by the door, and walk carefully over the rickety back porch and down the steps. Flinging myself into the hammock, I start stuffing the puffed treat into my mouth.

  After several
ounces and way too many Weight Watchers Points—my mom's all about the Points, and we all suffer through it with her—I set the half-eaten bag on the ground and wipe the Cheetos dust onto my shorts. The food has helped curb my headache a bit, but I still have this remarkably uneasy feeling about ... everything.

  "Am I doing this?" I ask, wondering when I started talking to myself. Well, I have no friends here, so who better to trust than moi. "The headaches, the hand tingling, the loss of sleep. Then there was that whole weird thing when that chick was barfing in the bathroom ... and then that Okra guy with the broken leg. I totally felt it. I won't even think about the voice in my room last night."

  "What voice?"

  I nearly flip out of the hammock, but manage to right myself before eating a face full of the lawn. Looking up at the tall visitor I'd talked to earlier at school, I say, "Man, you scared hell and four dollars out of me."

  The girl reaches into her pocket, digs out a five, and tosses it at me. "Keep the change," she says with a smile. I can't help but laugh. "Sorry I didn't introduce myself in the bathroom this morning ... or in calculus class. You have Mr. Kline, right?" she asks. It had been nice to see a semifamiliar face in class. Of course, that puking Courtney chick is in my physiology class.

  Standing up, I say, "Yeah, that was me in calculus." I stretch out my hand like my mom taught me. "I thought I saw you in the back, drawing in your notebook."

  She shakes my hand firmly. "Yep. I'm Celia Nichols. I live over there." She points across our backyard toward the gigamonic white Tara-like mansion on the street behind us.

  "You live there?" I manage. "Isn't it, like, historical and stuff?"

  She shrugs, and her wavy bob moves in the September breeze. "Yeah, it's one of the town's original houses. Apparently, General Sherman had the hots for the woman who owned it way back when, so he didn't burn it during the Civil War. At least, that's what my parents found out when they moved in back in the late eighties. My parents are kind of older and had me late in life, you know? Of course, back then, real estate prices were inflated due to Reaganomics, and in smaller U.S. towns you could find real estate steals such as my house, which was protected because of its historical status. The main reason historical homes were selling low in the eighties was that no one yet understood the true intrinsic value—"

  "You said your name's Celia?" I ask, interrupting her. Man, she could talk the ears off a billy goat, as my Grandma Ethel—she was from southern Illinois, close to the Kentucky border—used to say. I need to be nice, though. The girl may be somewhat awkward, a little geeky, and in need of a consultation with Tim Gunn and Heidi Klum, but she's making an effort to be neighborly. "I'm Kendall. Kendall Moorehead."

  She squints her dark eyes at me. "I figured as much. Mama said y'all were from up north. Which is totally cool with me. I'm an equal-opportunity person and all of that."

  Trying not to chuckle too hard, I say, "Well, I'm not from 'up north.' We moved here from Chicago. Not exactly a bastion of damn Yankees, but Illinois is a blue state."

  "So, what voices were you talking about?" Celia asks.

  I bite my bottom lip. "Oh, you heard me, huh?"

  "Yeah, it's pretty quiet around here."

  "You've got that right." Except when it comes to white-noise machines. A shudder creeps up my spine. Even the thought of that voice causes the hairs on my neck to electrify like they're being charged by the Van de Graaff generator I saw on my school's overnight field trip to the Ontario Science Centre. Oh, Canada ... talk about needing a visit to the salon afterward.

  "So ... come on," Celia says. "It's better to talk to a real person than to talk to yourself, don't you think? Despite my diarrhea of the mouth—which my dad says I was born with—I can be a really good listener. You got any more of those Cheetos?"

  Gross image aside, she's right. It is nice to have someone to talk to other than Kaitlin and her prepubescent brain. Like I could tell my little sister about last night. Not in a gazillion years. I reach down and pass the Cheetos to Celia and sit in the middle of the hammock. "Here you go. They're my favorite."

  "Mine too!" Celia grabs a handful and pops two of them into her mouth. When she finally swallows, she says, "So, Kendall, as I see it, I am officially your first friend here in the great state of Georgia and the mighty town of Radisson."

  Grinning, I say, "It would appear so."

  "This means you have to confide all of your troubles, secrets, and desires to me." Her mouth quirks into a crooked smile, and I can tell she's as hungry for a friend as I am. "This voice you speak of..."

  "I speak of?" I fall backwards on the hammock. "You must read as much Shakespeare as I do."

  Celia puts her hand to her chest. "'So wise so young, they say do never live long.'"

  "Ahhh... Richard III."

  "You are very good, Lady Moorehead. Now, enough dis tractions. Out with it." Celia munches on an extra-long Cheeto and fixes her dark brown stare on me.

  "Do you know anything about my house?" I ask with some trepidation. "Like, its history?"

  "What? That it's haunted?"

  Choking a bit on my gasp, I stare at her wide-eyed. Wow, she's so matter-of-fact. "Is that what you heard?"

  She wipes her hand on the knee of her jeans. "This is a historic Civil War town. Almost everything in Radisson is allegedly haunted by something. The lady who lived here before y'all said the house was haunted, so that's why she had so many cats. To give her a heads-up whenever she had—shall we say—company of an otherworldly nature." Celia glances about. "I think a few of the cats are still around here. Natalie, Buckley, and one other. For what it's worth, I'm sure my house is haunted too. I've tried setting up my digital recorders, but Dad always tells me to take them down because I taped one to a windowsill and it crashed down in the middle of the night."

  I'm confused as I try to process and digest everything. "What do you mean?"

  Celia's eyes grow big again. "Haven't you ever watched the Sci-Fi channel?"

  "We get the Sci-Fi channel this far out in the boonies?" Color me surprised.

  Clicking her tongue, Celia says, "Radisson isn't some one-horse town, Kendall. We've got everything. It's the world headquarters of Mega-Mart!"

  "For real?"

  "Yeah, Radisson may be spread out, but we've got whatever you need. And you've got to watch the Sci-Fi channel. They have this show about these guys named Jason and Grant in Rhode Island who do paranormal investigations. They're plumbers by day and ghost hunters by night. Then on the Travel Channel there's this show from England called Most Haunted, and they do the same thing. There are psychic investigators and historians and a crew and—"

  Holding my hand up, I stop her. "Wait! Are you saying you've tried ghost hunting?"

  "Totally!" She shoves the Cheetos at me. "Here. BRB!" I watch as she bolts on gazelle-like legs through my yard and across the street to her house. She disappears behind the large front double doors.

  I hope she comes back!

  I can't believe we're talking so freely about ghosts and spirits and all that. Like it's a normal topic of conversation. More than likely, Celia Nichols was just humoring me before and now she's gone off to call the authorities to come throw a net over me. Hmm ... maybe I don't want her to return.

  Just then, a tabby cat wanders into the yard from the dividing bushes next door. The cat locks eyes with me and makes a beeline over. She—I can tell it's a she—rubs my leg and starts purring like we're long-lost friends. Her tag has a rabies-shot registration from a local Radisson vet. Okay, so there is more than one doctor in Radisson.

  As I'm scratching the kitty behind the ear, Celia hustles back across the road. She's carrying some electronic equipment with her and wears the biggest grin on her face. Seems I've touched a nerve with the talk of ghosts in Radisson. But honestly, is that really what woke me up last night? Couldn't I have been hearing someone's conversation from next door or out on the street? Was a TV left on somewhere? Right. What TV says "I'm here"? I simply have n
o other explanation, so I prepare myself as Celia sits on the ground next to me and the kitty.

  "Eleanor! That's the name I couldn't remember," she says, snapping her fingers at the feline.

  The tabby gazes up at me like she can see into my soul. "Well, hey there, Eleanor."

  Rarrrrrrahhhh...

  "Natalie's the one you have to look out for," Celia notes.

  "Why's that?"

  "Solid black."

  I snicker. "You don't believe that hooey about a black cat bringing bad luck, do you?"

  "It's more than that." Celia twists her arms around and cracks her bones. "Mrs. Elliott, the woman y'all bought the house from, said Natalie knew when things were going to happen. She'd jump up on the bed and thump her tail like mad."

  I furrow my brows. "What kind of things?"

  Celia shrugs as she fidgets with the equipment she brought over. "I don't know. Bad things. The cat predicted that hurricane we got two falls ago, and a fire down at the Methodist church. Last time it happened, Mrs. Elliott's brother was in a car wreck an hour later over in Lumpkin, Georgia, so she up and moved away to be with him ... and she left all of the cats behind."

  I almost feel like growling. My hackles are up. Especially since I used to volunteer once a month at the downtown Chicago SPCA. "She left her pets? What a horrible woman! I'll take care of Natalie if she comes around." I look at the kitty next to me. "I'll take care of you too, Eleanor."

  Celia bites her lip slightly. "Just be careful, Kendall."

  Careful of a cat? Right.

  I let out a sigh and then turn my attention to the electronics on the ground before me. "What's all this?"

  "It's a mini-DVD recorder. I got it off eBay last October for a steal! The batteries are fully charged, but you have to know that entities from the other side like to suck the life out of batteries. It's a known fact. They use the energy to move things or be seen or heard."

  "How ... how do you know all of this?"

  "TV. Well, TV and the Internet. You can learn more from Google and Wikipedia than you ever can in school," she says proudly.