Witches and Ghosts Supernatural Mysteries

by Angela Pepper

  I want to get out of this girl's Secret Town as soon as possible.

  I will myself to come out of the vision, to pull away, but it's difficult, like waking myself from a bad dream in progress. The selected reality of this vision clings to me like mud, sucking me down.

  Oxygen. I need oxygen. I visualize pushing her away from my physical body, repeating the action for what feels like a hundred times before my muscles finally work. The world tightens up and my head pops out of the mud of the vision. Finally, I'm actually physically pushing her away, completely disengaged, though the echo of her ashy, pierced tongue is still in my mouth.

  She gives me a cagey look.

  “Anything?” James asks.

  I rub the sore spot where the ember from the fire hit my eyelid. My skin's tender, but not burned.

  “Strangely, yes,” I say. At this, he looks almost disappointed, and it occurs to me: James wants me to be normal, like him—as in, without any gifts or psychic powers.

  “Your future holds lots of jewelry,” I say to Missy. “And a gorgeous, expensive-looking car. I don't even know what make or model the car is, because this is a ways in the future, but it's red, sleek, and awesome.”

  She smiles, which adds on at least a point to her attractiveness, despite everything I saw. She's no Austin, but I think that aside from the criminal activity and tennis-shoe-watering, she'd be okay. I didn't see the whole picture, just glimpses. Maybe she had a perfectly good reason for robbing a jewelery store.

  “Tell me more,” she says greedily, a lust for destruction in her eyes.

  Help me, I silently plead to James, but of course, he has no way of knowing what I saw. This power of mine is not a silly magic trick; I just saw into this young woman's soul. I feel like I stole something from her, and now I have an obligation to give back. I have no idea if I can change the future, but I ought to try.

  “There's more,” I say. She lunges in for another kiss, but I catch her by the shoulders and hold her at arm's length. I sit on the log and pat the spot next to me. She joins me, at a respectful distance.

  Quietly, I say, “I also saw a dark path, with immoral activity.” She leans in as I continue, “It leads to ruin.” I totally sound like Yoda. Hey, that's good. Keep going. “If you choose well, you'll get everything you dream of, but you must avoid shortcuts.”

  She nods solemnly, and I sense she wants to believe my advice as much as I do.

  “Tonight's meeting could change your fate,” I say. “If you're willing to do the work and not take the easy path.”

  “Sometimes life is hard,” she says.

  Above us, the stars twinkle knowingly. “You're not wrong,” I say.

  “Thank you.” She shakes my hand and we smile shyly at each other. Maybe this is why I have this gift in the first place. I should be helping people.

  “Do me next,” squeals the friend, the angular one with the black hair.

  “Okay, but no kissing, you naughty girl. I have a girlfriend.”

  “You have a girlfriend?” James repeats.

  “Yeah. Of course, she doesn't know it yet.” I kick at the sand and rocks near my feet.

  In unison, the two girls say, “Aww.” The bonfire lets out a good crackle.

  Girlfriend. Of course that's presumptive, and I do need to ask Austin out yet, but I'm enjoying the thought, even though there is still the issue of why my power didn't work with her.

  The black-haired girl squeezes onto the log between me and Missy. “I'd love to know what you see in my future. Please?”

  “Of course,” I say. A family with small kids stops by to admire the bonfire. We chat with them for a few minutes before they wander off. I lift my shirt and the black-haired girl takes an appreciative look.

  “You've got some nice abs there,” she says.

  “No he doesn't,” James says, lifting his own shirt and rubbing his stomach. “Look at these washboards! Vegan diet keeps the fat away.”

  The black-haired girl whispers in my ear, asking if James has a girlfriend.

  “He's all yours,” I whisper back. She smiles and plugs her finger into my belly button.

  * * *

  The world gels around me as usual. Funny how a bit of experience with the supernatural and after a while it's as routine as watching a movie at the multiplex. As the curtains open on this vision, I find myself wanting popcorn.

  This girl's Secret Town is not nearly as dark as her friend Missy's, but she has secrets. She doesn't recycle. She reads her friend Missy's diary and lies about it. She has several email accounts with different names, which concerns me, but not as much as the next thing: she honks at people in traffic. She honks when they drive too slowly for her liking, or when they don't use their turn signal.

  Now, I'm all for encouraging other drivers to be aware of their mistakes, but goodness knows two wrongs sure don't make a right. People who honk in non-emergency situations should have their hands removed. Or, less drastically, their horns, I suppose.

  The music in the vision changes—apparently this vision has a soundtrack!—and now I'm watching her have an intimate moment with a guy, cowgirl style. He's enjoying himself when BAM! She punches him in the face.

  I'm laughing when I come out of the vision and back into the real world next to the crackling bonfire. James is talking to the other girl, Missy, but his attention is on her friend. The corners of his mouth turn down when he glances at her hands, both now resting on my knee.

  “Will I be rich, or famous, or both?” she asks.

  “I didn't see very far ahead, but I'm sure if you find something you're exceedingly good at, and practice really hard, you'll get somewhere.”

  She cocks her head and narrows her eyes. “What exactly did you see?”

  I gently scoop up one of her hands and hold it in mine. Her touch is cool, amphibian-like. “You need to be more calm when you're driving. In the future, you will use your car horn during a non-emergency situation, and your honking causes a terrible, terrible freeway pileup. Several people are killed, including children.”

  She gasps.

  “And some ponies are killed,” I say.

  “Ponies?” Her eyes are so wide, with miles of white all around the irises.

  “Kind of a circus-related thing. But that's not the point. You must never honk again, unless it absolutely is an emergency. Promise?”

  “I do,” she says. “I promise.”

  James breaks our moment, saying, “Missy, don't waste your marshmallow meat by burning the crap out of it.”

  “I like it this way.” She waves the flaming marshmallow around her face for a moment before blowing it out.

  James hands the marshmallow bag to the black-haired girl, causing her to let go of my hand. He seems fidgety and annoyed, even though coming out to have a bonfire and test my trick was entirely his idea.

  “Meaty marshmallows,” he says to no one in particular.

  My back feels chilly now. Sometimes the visions make me sweat, and my damp back is cooling off rapidly. I'm suddenly exhausted and irritated by my best friend. He dumps a pile of wood onto our already-hot fire.

  “Hey, jamtart, save some wood for later,” I say, but he tosses the rest on. I can't help myself, but when James gets crabby like this, I want to poke at him.

  “Ask the vegan how he likes his escargots,” I tell the girls.

  He wheels around, the side of his face orange and yellow from the fire. Now it's his turn to make the seriously gesture.

  “Escargot,” says Missy. “You mean slugs?”

  “Snails,” says the black-haired girl. “I thought you were vegan. You eat snails?”

  James stirs the fire, sending a torrent of sparks skyward. Tonight, the moon is closer to full, and I remember last night, when Austin and I joked about reaching out to pinch a piece of moon.

  “Ha, ha, hilarious, Zan,” James says without a trace of humor. He stops menacing the fire and comes to sit on the log on the other side of me, so we're all facing the lake. The b
oats and noisy watercraft are gone for the day, leaving only the quacking ducks and calm waters.

  The night envelops, the warm glow of the fire isolating the four of us within a bubble of warmth. The girls urge me to tell them about the escargots, and with begrudging permission from James, I do.

  * * *

  Here is the story of James and the snails:

  After a nasty bout of stomach flu, my best friend James decided to become a vegan. It's not a religion or anything like that—more of a philosophy. A vegan is someone who doesn't eat or use any animal products—no milk, or cheese, or leather shoes. You can't even use honey if you're vegan, because it comes from bees. From bee slavery, as James says.

  So, James was doing a lot of reading about the benefits of becoming vegan, and he wanted to change the world, starting with his family.

  One night, he was out dining with his family to celebrate some business deal his father had made. I was there too, since I'm practically a part of the family, plus I'm not one to turn down a free meal.

  There we all were, at this tiny little French restaurant with these strange pig and cow masks on all the walls. I'd never been there before, and after one glance at the prices on the menu, I was pretty sure I'd never go again.

  James was dismayed at the presence of colorful pig and cow masks on the wall in combination with the day's dinner specials. He got up on his high horse and commented that if people really wanted to eat meat, they should consider bugs, because they're a sensible and sustainable supply of protein. He'd been reading about crickets, and how some people call them land shrimp in an attempt to better market them as food.

  I asked if crickets were good for dipping in that red sauce that's great for prawns, or if their little legs would fall off in the dip bowl. Before James could answer, his father exclaimed with delight that the menu contained escargots, and perhaps James would like to order some, as they were sorta like bugs. I've since learned that snails are gastropods, not insects at all, but the comparison was still made.

  Just then, the waiter appeared and said the escargots were one of their specialties. He held his fingers to his mouth and made the mwah kiss sign to punctuate.

  “Fine,” James said. “I'd love to try them.”

  Julie ordered a plain chicken breast with nothing but salt and pepper, and two sauces on the side. Her father said she was missing the point of dining out, so I took the opportunity to be adventurous and ordered coq au vin, which as it turns out is traditionally an old rooster, cooked in wine to soften him up. Delicious! I'd love to learn how to cook it myself, but of course, I'm getting away from the main point here, which is the escargots.

  When the food came, James got a round ceramic dish with twelve divots, and a dozen of the biggest snails you've ever seen in your life. They were like the snails you might visit at an aquarium, or a zoo. They were snails you might see inside a lion tamer's cage, trained to slime up onto chairs and jump through flaming hoops. Okay, maybe they weren't that big, but they were certainly larger than anyone expected.

  I think they were meant as an appetizer for a group, but the waiter put the whole dish in front of James, and trust me, nobody else was touching them. Julie sliced her chicken into tiny squares and dabbed at the sauces.

  James yanked the first one out of its shell with a tiny fork, then swallowed the gray-brown lump without chewing, nearly choking. He followed up with an entire glass of water and an entire glass of fizzy water with lemon. The rest of us pretended to be focusing on our meals and making small-talk about the decor, but we were all watching James.

  The second snail, he bit in half and swallowed in two separate pieces.

  “They taste exactly like mushrooms, right down to the texture,” he said. He offered to share, but nobody was having any. I started to reach over with my fork—to be a pal—but I changed my mind because I didn't want to ruin the flavor of my coq au vin. Have either of you had coq au vin? You really should try it.

  Anyway, James ate another and another. I got a whiff of them, all garlicky and weird, and combined with his expression, I nearly gagged. By the time he got to the twelfth one, his face looked exactly like it does now.

  * * *

  As I finish telling the story, the girls both turn to look at James.

  Flatly, he says, “Hilarious.”

  “I think he's haunted by their little snail souls,” I say.

  The fire lets out one whopping crack and everyone startles.

  “I'm not haunted by snail souls, I'm haunted by you,” James says. He turns to the girls and says, “He puts little snail stickers on my locker. He drew one on my forehead when I fell asleep in Chemistry class. And for birthdays and graduation, he gets me greeting cards with snails on them. You wouldn't think there'd be such a variety—that snails would be so popular in the greeting card world, but there's quite a variety, and every single one is different.”

  I hold my hands over my heart. “You keep all my cards? I'm so touched.”

  “You guys have been friends a long time,” the black-haired girl says.

  “Yeah, forever,” I say. “Hey, jamtart. I mean James. No hard feelings, right? You told them my secret, and I told them yours.”

  “Fair enough,” he says, and with that, I know we're good again. James and I bug each other all the time, but it's part of what we do, along with the wrestling. He's like a brother to me.

  We all turn to the fire and watch the firewood burn.

  “Fire is like caveman television,” I say.

  “Better than television,” James says. “I have no urge to channel-surf. Good riddance to technology, huh? It's so calming out here. Serene.” We all watch the flames in silence for a few moments. “Though I do miss email. And texting.”

  “Amen,” say the two girls in unison, and we all laugh. Just like that, we're having a moment—four souls, next to a beautiful lake and a crackling fire, the way life should be.

  “I have to pee,” the black-haired girl says, ruining the moment.

  “I'll walk you to your cabin,” James says, jumping eagerly to his feet.

  “Wait a minute,” I call out to James, recalling my vision of the black-haired girl punching a guy during an intimate moment.

  “Tell me later,” he says, jogging away.

  Chapter 9

  Missy and I stay and chat for a bit by the fire, occasionally looking off toward the woods as though we're expecting her friend and James to be back at any moment, but I'm sure Missy knows as well as I do that they've found something more fun to do.

  I tell Missy a bit about Austin, leaving out the fact I've only known her for one day. Missy says we sound like a nice couple, and she can appreciate the fact our names begin with A and Z. “That has to mean something,” she says.

  “Not everything means something. Actually, my power didn't work with her. I didn't see anything. But that doesn't have to mean anything, does it?”

  Missy licks at her lips, flashing her pierced tongue. “Maybe she didn't want you to see into her. You should try dating girls who are more open-minded.”

  “I don't know. Austin seemed pretty open-minded.”

  “What's her last name? Where does she go to school?”

  I pull my phone out to check the time and avoid questions I don't know the answers for. “It's late! I guess James went straight back to his cabin.”

  Missy smirks. “Sure he did.”

  She and I use the buckets provided by the lake caretakers to ensure the fire is completely extinguished, and after a bit more talking about life choices, we go our separate ways. On my way back, stumbling through the dark woods, I have a smile on my face. Missy said that thanks to me, she's going back to school, and she's going to try to live a life she can be proud of.

  * * *

  Back at the cabin, all is dark, except for the crack of light under the door to Julie's room. James isn't back yet, but I imagine he can find his way home safely, so I start brushing my teeth. Julie's left out all her toiletries, including an apri
cot soap that smells good enough to eat. My stomach growls, and I find myself wishing I'd eaten more marshmallows when they were available.

  James will have the other bedroom, which leaves me using the sleeping bag on the pull-out in the living room. I've barely settled down on the creaky old thing when Julie comes out, ostensibly to get some water from the fridge, but we both know it's to pointedly ignore me.

  “I am sorry,” I say. “You get that I love you like a sister and would never want to hurt you, right?”

  She bangs some pots and bowls around in the sink. “Where were you guys? Down by the lake? Without me?”

  “Oh. We didn't think you'd want to come,” I say.

  Angry silence hangs in the air as she drinks her glass of water, her gulps audible.

  “But I guess we didn't ask, did we,” I say, realization slowly dawning.

  She slams the glass down on the tiled counter. “Exactly. If I really am such a good friend, why don't you treat me the same as you do James? Why don't you put stupid in-joke things on my locker?”

  I make some noises that sound like words, but I really don't know what to say.

  “Like your snails gag that you have with James. What do you and I have? I mean, if we're such good pals.”

  “Jeez, I don't know, Julie. Do you want me going around telling people you were born with a little tail?” As soon as I say it, I know I've made a mistake. There's no way her secret little tail—that's since been surgically removed—was the right thing to bring up. No way.

  She pours another glass of water, muttering something under her breath.

  “You're right,” I say. “I don't wrestle with you, and I don't call you stupid nicknames. I don't treat you like I do your brother, because you're a girl. There's a lot about girls I honestly don't understand.”

  “Maybe that's why you get such scary, ookie psychic visions of us. Big scary girls with our weirdly different girl parts!”

  “Come on, it's not like that.”

  “Isn't it?” She turns on her heel and walks dramatically out of the kitchen. I have a good retort or two, but I squelch them. She can have the last word tonight, if it means getting closer to forgiving me for what I did, which was simply falling for a girl who isn't Julie.