Manifest

by Artist Arthur

  Seventh: a tropical storm that was first observed east of the Lesser Antilles on September 25 rapidly intensified as it moved westward, reaching a peak of 120 mph (190 km/h) winds the next day.

  Eighth: tropical storm formed on October 7 in the central Caribbean Sea northeast of Honduras. It headed northwest, and made landfall in northern Honduras on October 10. It then emerged into the southern Gulf of Mexico on October 12. It continued westward and eventually turned north and made landfall in Louisiana on October 15. It weakened to tropical depression status on October 16 in central Alabama, before dissipating on September 21 over southwestern West Virginia.

  Ninth: a tropical storm formed on October 8 in the Atlantic Ocean northeast of the Virgin Islands. It headed northwest and got very close to Bermuda on October 10. It then turned northeast, was downgraded to a tropical depression and dissipated on October 12.

  Tenth: tropical storm formed on October 30 in the Atlantic Ocean east of the Virgin Islands. It was upgraded to hurricane strength on November 1 as it headed southwest into the Caribbean Sea.

  Eleventh: tropical storm formed on November 3 in the central Atlantic Ocean. It headed north into the Atlantic waters. It gained hurricane status on November 17 and turned northwest. As it continued, it strengthened to a peak of 100 mph (160 km/h), before weakening to an extra tropical storm on November 10, as it impacted the Azores.

  Eleven storms in seven months. None of them said they made landfall in Lincoln. Mr. Kramer seemed to believe that conception had taken place in Lincoln. Yet, Mrs. Kramer, his mother, had conceived sometime during the storms of 1932. She could have been anywhere the storms hit. And if she was, that means other women in those places could have conceived, as well. Only I don’t know for sure if Eleanor Kramer had a baby with powers. I so badly want to read the rest of that diary. Giving Jake the courtesy is killing me.

  Beep. Beep.

  The chirping startles me and I jump in my chair. Frowning, I realize it is just the instant messaging notifier on my computer.

  I click the smiley-face icon and wait while the message appears in the small box.

  To: krystalgem, princesssasha

  From: ladieslovej

  Found note n bk—re Salem Witch Trials???

  It is Jake. Yeah, I know the screen name is laughable considering the owner. We’d exchanged cell phone numbers and ChicTeen chat room screen names before leaving Jake’s house. Still I read the message again, further intrigued by Eleanor Kramer and what else she’d written in that diary.

  Reply to: ladieslovej, princesssasha

  From: krystalgem

  U think we r witches?

  Drumming my fingers on my desk, I wait for a reply, thoughts of witches burning at the stake on my mind.

  Reply to: krystalgem, ladieslovej

  From: princesssasha

  OMG! Lk bg nose grn face witches?

  Sasha is so dramatic.

  Reply to: princesssasha, krystalgem

  From: ladieslovej

  No gt a grip. Only 1 letter about witches

  Will look 4 more n am. Go 2 bd!

  I can just see Jake frowning, looking at me and Sasha and wondering why we are on the computer at this time of night in the first place. But then again, he is online, too.

  Anyway, we do have school tomorrow so I guess I should at least get into bed and try to sleep. Witches and hurricanes will certainly be there for us to investigate in the morning. I close down the windows with the weather research and am about to close out of ChicTeen when another IM pops up.

  To: krystalgem

  From: number1

  C u 2morow

  For seconds I just stare at the screen trying to remember if I know who “number1” is. I figured when Jake said he was registered that Sasha would be, too. This would be a way we could talk without anyone overhearing us and without running up our cell phone bills—for those who didn’t have unlimited texting like me.

  Then it hits me. It’s this goofball again. I don’t know who it is. I’d thought about it some more after the first message the other night. But if they’re saying they’ll see me tomorrow I guess it’s someone here in Lincoln. In the profiles section you can put where you live. I know about putting too much of your personal info on the Net so at first I just had NYC. Then when I moved here I changed it to CT. Hoping that was vague enough. Apparently not. Still, I am convinced that whoever this “number1” is they don’t really know who I am. I’m not exactly popular at Settlemans High.

  With a shrug I just type “OK” real quick then exit out of the chat room and close down my computer. Climbing into bed feels like a monumentous task. I guess because so much happened today.

  I’d seen three ghosts—Ricky, Trina and crying girl. Ricky, I’m not afraid of. Trina, I can tell is going to be a pain in the butt. But crying girl, she still has me wondering what I am really getting myself into. I wonder if she’ll come back, call to me like Ricky had or just tell me what she wants. She didn’t act like she wanted my help, but the feeling we shared said she probably needed it.

  fourteen

  “Krystal, you’re going to talk to Franklin about the weather stuff, right?” Jake asks, taking a bite of the sandwich he picked up while in the lunch line.

  It looks like it could be some type of barbecued meat, but it’s making my stomach churn as it falls off the bread and Jake hurriedly scoops it up and stuffs it into his mouth.

  I take a sip of my soda and keep my fingers wrapped tightly around the cool can even when I set it back down on the table. “Yeah, I guess so.” I shrug. “I don’t really know how to approach this subject with him without telling him why I want to know. I mean, how’s he supposed to know about weather patterns from sixteen years ago, let alone eighty years ago?”

  “He won’t,” Jake says even though his mouth is full and it sounds more like “re ront.” His eyes roll in his head as he tries to hurry and chew then talk. “But his father’s the weatherman. They’ve lived in Lincoln forever. I’m sure he probably knows something.”

  “Okay, and what am I supposed to say when he asks me why I want to know?”

  Sasha sighs. “Don’t say anything. I mean, don’t go to him asking questions like you’re working on a school paper or something. Just kind of talk to him. I saw how he was all goo-goo eyed at you the other day so just play that role and I’m sure he’ll tell you anything.”

  She’s wearing low-ride jeans today and a cropped graphic T-shirt that’s fuchsia and black. The design has fuchsia glitter on the front and she’s wearing long, dangly fuchsia feather earrings. I suspect it’s because of her pink M that we discovered last night and that nobody else can see because it’s not glowing now.

  Before leaving Jake’s house last night, after Mr. Kramer had gone into the other room to settle into the old worn recliner with a bowl of chips and a diet Coke to watch Jeopardy, we decided this power would be our secret.

  I’m wearing a short-sleeved shirt, a button-down light blue top—yeah, apparently I was feeling the same way Sasha was this morning, although I hate to admit it. Around my neck I have a blue choker-style necklace because while I’m starting to feel okay with this power thing, I’m still a little leery about everybody seeing my M.

  Jake has on his usual, a T-shirt with a hoodie over top of it, so seeing his mark is out of the question. And he’s not wearing green clothes, apparently the idea of being color coordinated with the mark didn’t quite reach him.

  “Play what role?” I ask, finally letting Sasha’s words sink in.

  “You know what role. Like you’re interested in him the way he is in you. Like you want to get with him.”

  “But I don’t want to get with him,” I say real quick and then wonder why the words tumbled out so fast.

  Sasha smirks. “You sure? ’Cause I saw him at your locker this morning and you were smiling.”

  Okay, she has me there. I was smiling this morning when Franklin did his imitation of Martin Lawrence in Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins. App
arently it was on cable last night. Franklin asked me had I watched it and I’d just shrugged and said no. I couldn’t exactly tell him that instead I’d been experiencing a mini-heatstroke in Jake’s bedroom while our birthmarks glowed like lightning bugs.

  “We were talking about a movie,” I say in my defense.

  “Whatever. He likes you and whether or not you like him—which by the way I think you do—just go with it. Get the info we need so we can move on.”

  “And where are we moving on to?” I ask, praying this will get us off the topic of Franklin and whether or not I like him. “I mean, what are we going to do about this…this thing between us?”

  “You mean this power,” Jake says with his head down again. At first he was talking loud and a lot then suddenly, when Sasha started talking about me and Franklin, he’d put his head down and focused more on his sandwich.

  “Yeah, I mean this power.” It still sounded strange to just admit that all of us had power as plainly as saying all of us had acne—which, by the way, Sasha and I didn’t. I noticed that Jake had a few zits under that long flap of hair he kept over his forehead. Maybe that’s why he kept the hair there in the first place.

  “We use it,” Sasha answers simply. Like me and Jake are ignorant and she is the only one with an ounce of sense. That fact I definitely beg to differ with but I don’t say anything.

  “To do what?” I ask instead.

  Sasha sticks her last celery stick into her mouth and balls up the plastic bag she’d been taking them from. Lifting her bottled water to her lips, she drinks till its gone, then puts the empty bottle into the brown paper bag along with the plastic bag from the celery and balls it up, too.

  “We start by helping Ricky Watson figure out what happened to him. See, ever since you said you saw him I’ve been reading about ghosts. And sometimes they do need help crossing over. Ricky must feel like there’s something he needs to do first to be free to walk over to the other side. So we have to help him figure out what that is and get his soul to moving where it belongs.”

  I take another sip of soda and mull over her words. She’s right, I know, because I thought it myself. Ricky isn’t going away until I—I guess now that will be we—help him. “In your reading did it say another spirit could help him get to the other side?” I ask, thinking about Trina.

  Sasha nods quickly. “No. Not if the reason he’s not moving on is rooted here in the living world. Somebody living has to help him. Somebody who can hear and/or see him so he can tell them what to do.”

  “And that somebody is you,” Jake says quietly. “You’re the medium, the link between the spirit world and the living.”

  I sort of already figured that out. “Okay, so what else did the diary say? Anything that can tell us why we are what we are?”

  Jake shrugs. “I stopped reading right after she had the baby. A boy, my grandpa’s older brother. So far there’s nothing strange or powerful about him.”

  “Keep reading,” Sasha says. “I’ve got a feeling there’s answers for us in there.”

  For what might be the first time, I have to agree with her.

  “Hey, Krystal, since you can see and talk to the dead, you think you could call the dead?” Sasha asks, propping her elbows up on the table, her hazel eyes just about glittering as she watches me expectantly.

  “No!” My voice gets a little higher. I look around but nobody notices. “I’m not calling the dead. Besides I don’t think I can. I think they just come to me, you know, with stuff they want to say.”

  “You mean you’ve heard them before Ricky?” Sasha scoots up closer to the table and stares at me.

  Jake is looking at me, too, and I feel like I’m one of those animals at the zoo that nobody has ever heard of so people stand in front of the cage and stare at all stupidly.

  “Yes, I’ve heard them before,” I say but don’t look away. Because in this case, Sasha with her disappearing acts and Jake with his Incredible Hulk strength are just as weird and unheard-of as me.

  Sasha’s eyes get bigger, like what I’m saying is really exciting her. “So what else have they said to you?”

  “Just stuff, I guess. I mean, I never really paid attention until Ricky. The other times I just kind of put it out of my mind, convinced myself that I couldn’t hear it and moved on. Eventually it stopped.” Only now I’m afraid that since I acknowledged Ricky I’ve opened the floodgates.

  “But Ricky didn’t,” Jake says, looking up at me.

  “No.” I shake my head. “Ricky didn’t.”

  “Right, because he needs your help really bad. He needs our help,” Sasha says with what seems like too much conviction.

  Almost immediately Jake reaches into his notebook and pulls out a sheet of paper. “I think I found out the meaning of our birthmarks,” he says slowly, placing the paper in the middle of the table.

  Both Sasha and I look down at it. I scrunch up my face because it looks kind of cryptic, like the writing is upside down. Jakes uses his finger to slide the sheet of paper closer to us, and I realize it’s a drawing of the M on his arm that I drew last night—the mark we all share. The only difference is he’s written some other letters below the M now so that it looks like some kind of logo. The other letters are Y S T Y X.

  “My sticks?” Sasha asks, her face contorted in an expression that clearly reflects her confusion.

  Jake shakes his head. “I was flipping through the journal last night and saw this word scribbled in the margins on a couple of pages. MYSTYX. I didn’t know what it meant so I checked it on Google and came up with notes about the River Styx.”

  “The river between Earth and the Underworld,” I say, remembering this little tidbit from Greek mythology.

  He smiles. “Right!”

  “Greeks? Underworld? Are you two cracking up? Maybe we were up just a little too late last night,” Sasha replies.

  “No,” Jake says, shaking his head while he talks. “It kind of makes sense. Listen, in Greek mythology the River Styx was viewed by the gods as having miraculous powers.”

  “So you think our powers come from a mythical river?” Sasha asks.

  I have to admit it does sound crazy and almost unbelievable. But then again, so does the fact that I can see and talk to ghosts and Sasha can disappear and Jake is super strong. There is a part of me that is open to the idea and seems to understand the connection.

  “I think it’s a part of who and why we are. I don’t know exactly how yet, but I can feel that it’s a key to our being,” said Jake.

  Sasha is the one nodding while Jake’s still talking, as if she’s trying to align her thinking with us.

  I look over at her and catch her eye. I nod and slowly repeat, “My Styx. My river. My power.”

  Then Jake jumps in. “But it’s pronounced like mystics because to us mere mortals,” he adds in a tone that I guess is supposed to be his otherworldly voice, “the Power would be considered more mystical than godlike.”

  Now Sasha’s smiling. “Cool. We’re the Mystyx, our own little clique that nobody can join or enter because they have to have the Power, too.”

  “You think there are others that have the Power?” I ask, remembering the storms reported in 1932 and that they were in all different places.

  “There’s gotta be. I mean, what are the odds that only three women were pregnant in Lincoln at the same time?”

  Jake frowns. “Well, considering there are only a couple thousand people in Lincoln altogether, the odds are pretty good.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter. We’re here, right now, and we know we have the Power. And now we have a reason for using that Power. We’re ready to save the world!”

  She’s all animated, looking like she’s auditioning for a school play. I have to admit her words make me feel kind of special, like there is something that only I can do to help someone. And it doesn’t matter that my parents are no longer together or that my stepfather is a mean bastard or that the spirit that wants my help has a girlfriend. All
that matters is that we are here, with this Power, with this job to do. Like Jake said, we are the Mystyx.

  Then another thought hits me. “I’m not wearing a costume or a cap and stockings.”

  For one awkward second our table is quiet then one by one we all start to laugh.

  The joke is short-lived because Alyssa and Camy stop at our table. Jake seems to hunker down a bit more, focusing once again on his food. Sasha perks up more, if that were possible, and smiles.

  “Hey, Alyssa, Camy. What’s up?”

  While the two girls have been frowning at me, when they hear Sasha they both look at her and return her smile. Alyssa is a little shorter than me, probably somewhere around five feet two inches. I am tall for my age at five feet four inches, but the doctor said I am slowing down and would probably top out at five-six.

  Today Alyssa’s braids are pulled back in a loose bun with wisps hanging out the sides and down her back. Her mocha-toned skin looks perfect as do the sea-green eyes (so totally contacts). She’s squeezed into a pair of jeans and an even tighter silver-and-white T-shirt. Beside her, the sidekick Camy is wearing some expensive jeans, I can’t tell which ones because her long sweater vest is covering them. Camy’s straw-blond hair is left long, hanging flawlessly past her shoulders. They look like two Barbie dolls. No, scratch that, they look like those big-eyed Bratz dolls, with big heads and lots of hair. It is a struggle for me not to giggle.