“I drew a sketch of our marks,” Jake starts, giving me and Sasha a piece of paper. “I figure that’s where it all starts, our connection, I mean. Because how many kids have the exact same birthmark on different parts of their body? That’s a big coincidence.”
I look down at the paper and I must have frowned. I admit, my first thought was that this was one crappy drawing but I would never have said that aloud. Sasha’s remark says it is written all over my face.
“Let me guess, you don’t like his drawing,” she drawls.
My head pops up and I immediately look at Jake. “No. I didn’t say that.”
“It’s okay. I’m not really good at drawing.” He reaches over to the desk and grabs a pad and a pencil. “Here, you do it. Look at mine and draw it.”
How does he know I can draw?
Oh, come on. He probably doesn’t know but since I’m the one looking at his work like it’s below grade level, it stands to reason he’s calling me out.
Okay, whatever. I’ll just get it over with.
He pulls up the sleeve to his T-shirt and I look at his mark. It’s familiar because, like he said, it’s identical to mine. And to Sasha’s.
So I don’t need to keep looking at it but I do. He’s got arms like those men on TV, the ones who lift weights and stuff. I mean, he’s not buff or anything, but from the way his clothes just hang off him I assumed he was bony. I assumed wrong. My fingers wrap tightly around the pencil as I hold the pad steady with my other hand. Without even looking down I start to draw. My hand is kind of just moving, sliding over the paper as I stare at Jake’s arm. It’s not all that fancy, this mark that looks like an M, but it kind of swirls at the ends. As I’m looking at it now I think it’s glowing. Hmm, maybe that’s just my overactive imagination—a side effect to being able to see the dead. Maybe now I can see all sorts of strange stuff.
Suddenly Jake hisses like a scared cat. “Jeez, it burns,” he hollers. My hand just keeps on moving across the paper. I’m not even really concentrating.
“What burns?” Sasha asks.
I keep drawing even though I’m looking at Jake’s face now instead of the mark. His cheeks are turning red, his eyes going wider. He shakes his head and that unruly dark hair flies away so I can see them better. My heart’s beating a little faster but I try not to notice. The room feels funny, like somebody turned the heat up even higher and a kernel of sweat starts rolling down my back.
“It’s the Power,” a voice comes from the doorway.
I don’t have to look past Jake to know that it is his grandfather. The sound is so familiar from my one visit to the nursing home. Old people talked with this crackly-like whisper. But it isn’t the voice that makes my hand stop drawing and my fingers clench the pencil even tighter.
It was what he’d said.
“What power?” I hear myself ask without a second thought.
“Pop Pop, we’re working on a school project. Go back into the living room. Jeopardy is about to come on,” Jake says, getting up from his chair.
“I don’t want to watch Jeopardy. I need to tell you about the Power. It’s time.”
He is wearing a blue shirt with big white flowers—Jake’s grandfather, not Jake. It is a button-up shirt and above the top button some of his white hair sticks out. He wears glasses so I can’t really see the color of his eyes but his ears are big and he is balding in the center. I figured the wheelchair belonged to him but he is using a cane as he makes his way into Jake’s room.
“No, Pop Pop. Not right now,” Jake tries to say but his grandfather waves his hand away and keeps right on moving until he finds the chair at the desk and lowers his body in a slow, precise way down onto the seat.
I look over at Sasha to get her take on our visitor and she’s looking at me, twirling her finger around as if to say that Jake’s grandfather is crazy. I hurry up and look away because I don’t want Jake to catch us and think I’m agreeing with her. Still, he looks kind of old so he could have that condition where old people start to forget where they are and who they are.
But I don’t know. He’s talking about power and we just discovered that all three of us have some kind of power. Like Jake just said a few minutes ago, that’s just too coincidental.
“Hi, Mr. Kramer. Do you remember me? I’m Sasha.” She’s talking ten times louder than she was before and slow like she thinks he doesn’t understand English.
Mr. Kramer nods and looks at her. “Sure, I remember you. You’re the one with the accent and the fancy car.”
I almost smile at that. Sasha did have a slight accent. I couldn’t really place it and because we just started talking—like today—I’m not about to ask her any personal questions. Anyway, Jake told me earlier that her mother is from somewhere in Argentina.
“That’s right, I’m from South America,” she offers.
“No, you’re not,” Mr. Kramer snaps. “Neither of you are.” He looks at me and I figure he thinks I have an accent, too, but I haven’t said much for him to know that for sure.
Sasha gives a deep, exasperated sigh and rolls her eyes. “Yes, I am.”
“No,” Mr. Kramer says adamantly. “Your daddy’s from right here in Lincoln. And he was here with your mama.”
She pauses like she’s thinking about his words. “Yeah, I think she was here for a while. She was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and so was I. My dad brought her here, she left when she had me and then she came back later.”
Mr. Kramer nods his head, wisps of leftover hair cradle the sides but don’t cover the tips of his big red ears. “She was here the year of the storm. All of them were.”
Jake just drops his head down as his grandfather talks and Sasha rolls her eyes again.
“Hi…um, Mr. Kramer. I’m Krystal,” I say. I want to ask him questions but it’s probably polite to introduce myself first. I mean, I am in his house and all that.
His head turns a bit and I think he’s looking at me. Those glasses are so thick it’s really hard to tell, except that I feel a little jittery like I’m being examined. So I figure he’s the one doing the examining. Anyway, he stares at me a few long seconds before he nods his head.
“She was here, too, your mama.”
He knows Janet?
I lick my lips, my mouth suddenly dry. My shirt’s gonna be wet by the time I leave ’cause, dayum, it’s hot in here. “I’m Krystal Bentley and my mother…” Wow, I haven’t called Janet that in a while. It sounds funny. “Um, her name’s Janet.”
He just keeps on nodding. “They were all here.”
“Okay, Pop Pop. Both of their mothers were here in Lincoln at one time. Now, you’ve had your say. Let me take you to your room.” Jake jumps up and reaches for his grandfather’s arm to help him up.
Mr. Kramer lifts his cane, waves it in front of him so that Jake has a choice—either back up or get swatted in the nuts. Wisely, he chooses to back up. “I’ll go to bed when I’m finished. Now you sit down and mind your manners. You’re not too big to get your hide tanned.”
Sasha giggles. I lift a hand to fan my face. I don’t want to see Jake get his hide tanned. I don’t even want to see Jake’s hide.
Jake looks really embarrassed as he sinks back into his seat. I think he likes that slouched-over position; he always takes it whenever anybody says something to him that shuts him up.
“You know, it snows here in September.”
Mr. Kramer starts and I’m beginning to think he really might have that old people’s forgetful disease.
The room is eerily quiet and I clench my hands together. Aside from the heat, the house is old and could probably pass for haunted, if you believe in that sort of thing. I mean, everything about it looks decrepit, like it is ready to fall right down around us. That’s how haunted houses usually look. This would be a small one, but it could still be haunted.
And why am I even thinking that? Well, because the golden light that I spotted when Jake had first opened the door is only in the hallway. His room is
dimmer, probably because the only lamp in here is supersmall. And like it knows I’m talking about it the light in the lamp flickers. Creepy. Then the windows rattle. Yes, I do mean rattle. It’s a chink-chink-chink kind of sound and both me and Sasha turn to look.
“It’s windy tonight,” Mr. Kramer says. “That’s how it starts.”
“What? The snowstorms? With all due respect, it’s not September, Mr. Kramer,” Sasha says.
She is shaken up. I can see it in her hazel eyes, but she would never admit it. Actually she covers it pretty well with her wisecracks.
“No. But when usually doesn’t matter. It comes when it wants, stays as long as it feels like and leaves something behind every time.”
“What does?” My voice sounds really quiet but in this silence I’m sure everybody hears me.
Again the light flickers and I feel like we should be sitting around the campfire listening to horror stories that will surely keep us all from sleeping tonight. But we’re not. We’re in Jake’s bedroom and his grandfather is acting like he has something to tell us.
I wish he’d get on with it.
“The Power,” he says finally.
And I swear the heat I’ve been feeling since I got here has swirled up my body and wrapped around my neck, all ready to choke the life out of me. At the same time, Jake curses, grabbing his arm. Right where the mark is. I instantly look at Sasha, who is now sitting up on the bed, rocking back and forth.
“It gets stronger when you’re together. It feeds from each of you all at the same time. And it will grow.”
Suddenly Mr. Kramer’s voice doesn’t sound like an old person. It’s still kind of crackly but it’s not shaky anymore. It’s slow, deliberate, clear.
“We each have the Power?” Sasha asks with a smirk.
Mr. Kramer nods. “It came with your birth.”
“We’re not born on the same day,” Jake says.
“But around the same time, I suspect.”
I’m already nodding when Sasha answers, “We’re born in July, the last week in July. Jake was born the first of August.”
“Your mamas, they were all here that night of the storm.”
The windows rattle again and I’m seriously thinking of getting the hell out of here. As much as I want to know why I can see and talk to dead people, this is really starting to freak me out.
“The wind started just like that. About two weeks before the storm actually hit. But when it did, it was a doozy.”
“Okay, so it snowed when our mothers were here. What does that have to do with us?”
“I didn’t say it snowed,” he answers sternly. “I said the wind started two weeks before. Then the rain came. It was a lot of rain, a lot of wind. The newsman finally said he thought it was a hurricane.”
“Okay, a hurricane in September isn’t out of the ordinary,” Jake is muttering.
“I didn’t say it was in September,” Mr. Kramer argues.
I am trying to keep this all straight in my mind, trying to figure out what he is attempting to tell us. I wish he’d just get on with it and stop all this beating around the bush. Somehow, though, I don’t think he can help it. “But you said that it snows in Lincoln in September.”
Mr. Kramer waves a hand. “That was something else. Has nothing to do with this.”
Yeah, he might be more out of touch than I originally thought.
“It was November, the day before Thanksgiving, when the rain and wind started real bad. The newspeople didn’t know what was going on. Then the river started rising and some smart guy says he thinks it’s a hurricane.”
“In November?” I ask, nervous that this conversation is starting to feel like I’ve had it before. With Franklin, who likes to know things about the weather.
“Yuuup, it was the strangest thing. We had us a full-on hurricane in November. I tell you, houses were blowing around like toys. Cars floating in the river, wind howling so loud you thought it was talking right in your ear.”
And his voice goes to a whisper as he says that. If these were theatrics, Mr. Kramer deserved an Oscar for technical work.
“That’s when it came.”
“When what came?”
“The Power,” he says and his eyes get so wide I can actually see them through the thick lenses he wears.
We all get quiet again.
“It came with that storm and that’s how you got it.”
“But we weren’t even born yet,” Sasha says.
Jake looks at her, then he looks at me and then the heat I was feeling in my whole body suddenly shifts to my neck. I put my hands back there because it feels like there’s fire inside my skin about to burn right through.
Jake hisses again, this time adding a long curse behind it. He’s reaching for his arm and my gaze falls to his mark.
I figure it’s got to be burning just like mine.
And then it glows.
I don’t think I’m imagining it this time. Jake’s M is now green.
Sasha lets loose the girliest, shriekiest scream I’ve ever heard as she lifts her shirt.
And you got it, her mark is glowing, too, like a pink neon light just above her hip bone.
I jump up out of my chair, lifting my hair and turning to show them.
“Wow,” I hear Jake whisper.
“It’s blue,” Sasha says.
Mr. Kramer sighs. “The Power. Together. Again.”
Jake stands first, stopping in the middle of the floor, his bicep flexing as the M glows a fluorescent green. Sasha gets up from the bed, her shirt still pulled up.
“God, it’s burning like a bee sting!”
I presume my blue M is glowing brighter as I’m now closer to them.
“Great,” I speak up first. “We’re a trio of weirdos with glowing skin and freaky powers.”
“No,” Jake says quietly, “Not weirdos. We’re misfits.”
“That’s right!” Mr. Kramer yells and we all turn to him expecting an explanation. Instead he says, “It’s time for Jeopardy.”
Okay, so where that comment came from I have no clue. Neither does Sasha, I can tell by the strange way she looks from Mr. Kramer to me then to Jake, who just shrugs as if this happens all the time.
Mr. Kramer starts to leave Jake’s room, but as he does something falls from his pocket. An old, raggedy book that Jake immediately bends down and picks up.
As he turns back to face us I’m not thinking about the book or Jeopardy or even the old man in the doorway. I’m thinking about this power and how my life’s probably never going to be the same.
Nov. 17, 1932
This has been one crazy couple of months and it all started with the storms. Hurricane season came right on time, just like the weatherman predicted. But nobody said how hard the storms would hit us. Seems like we stayed locked in the house praying more than doing anything else. Except we must have taken a few minutes to do something else.
Today I found out I was expecting a baby. Me and Joseph’s first baby. I hope it’s a boy.
From the diary of
Eleanor Jean Kramer
thirteen
It is Jake’s great-grandmother’s diary. It makes perfect sense that he will be the one to keep it, to read it and to share whatever knowledge it might hold about this so-called Power his grandfather talked about.
So it looks like we are now officially on a mission. First, to help Ricky figure out what really happened and then to figure out why the three of us have these powers and what Jake’s grandfather meant about them growing.
The clock at the bottom of my computer screen says 2:15 a.m. I should be in bed, fast asleep like the other citizens of boring old Lincoln. Instead I’m sitting in my dark room with only the glow from the computer screen. I inhale deeply and my fingers move across the keyboard again. I’ve searched all the powers we have, medium, teleportation, superstrength, they all seem pretty valid—as far as supernatural powers go. There are lots more powers but they don’t concern me right now. If the power
s themselves are proven both by literature and by experience then they have to come from somewhere. Jake’s grandfather said it was the weather. Strong storms that hit Lincoln at odd times.
So I type in “strange weather patterns.”
Lots of hits, woo hoo!
I search hurricanes first since that was the type of storm that we were supposedly conceived during. Then I key in the year Eleanor Jean Kramer conceived because something tells me that has a lot to do with what is going on now.
The 1932 Atlantic hurricane season ran through the summer and the first half of fall in 1932 in a series of deadly storms.
First: formed on May 5 in the south-central Caribbean Sea. Hit the Gulf of Mexico on May 12.
Second: formed August 11 in the southern Gulf of Mexico near the Yucatán Peninsula. Moving northward over the southern Gulf of Mexico on the 12th, it rapidly intensified from a Category 1 to a Category 4.
Third: formed on August 26, east of the Turks and Caicos Islands. It headed north-northwest while affecting the Turks and Caicos Islands and the Bahamas. It made landfall in South Florida on August 30.
Fourth: a rare Category 5 hurricane formed as a minimal tropical storm east of Puerto Rico on August 30.
Fifth: formed on September 9 in the southwest Gulf of Mexico. It headed northeast, strengthened and made landfall in Northwest Florida on September 15.
Sixth: formed on September 18 in the southwest Gulf of Mexico. It headed northeast, maintained strength, and made landfall near Marsh Island, Louisiana, on September 19, and continued farther inland into the United States.
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