Manifest

by Artist Arthur

  “And when he finally caught up to me at my house we figured something might have happened because of Ricky so we came back to your house and waited until your dad came home. He told us you were in the hospital.”

  She’s talking about Gerald and I want to say he’s not my dad. But for right now I guess he’s the closest thing to it.

  “I’ve been thinking about our powers manifesting and I really don’t want dead people showing up whenever expecting me to stop whatever I’m doing to help them.”

  “Then you have to control it, Krystal. You’re the only one who can. I think as your power continues to grow you’ll figure out a way to deal with it. We have to be responsible about these powers.”

  “We’re teenagers, Jake. How responsible do you think we’ll be?” Sasha quips.

  “As responsible as it’ll take. We can’t have others finding out about us, asking questions, making a big deal out of it. We don’t know enough about this power ourselves to explain. So, Krystal, you’ve got to come up with a way to deal with the dead and what they want from you.”

  I’m chewing a particularly chewy piece of crust when I say, “Okay, well, what do you think of this for manifesting? I think I had a vision.”

  “A vision?” Sasha asks.

  “Yeah. I mean, I went to sleep at the hospital and then I was in the school and it didn’t feel like a dream, it felt like I was really there. And the pictures were real, just like the ones on my phone.”

  Jake and Sasha both stare at me like I’m the newest star in that vampire movie, totally hanging on my every word.

  “So what do you think?”

  “Wow!” Sasha says.

  “Wait a minute, you didn’t tell us about any pictures,” Jake says.

  No, I didn’t. I’d kept a lot from them but I know the time for full disclosure is now. So I grab my cell phone and find the message with the pictures. Then I go to my desk drawer and pull out the first newspaper article I’d seen on the pervert sexting and IMing young girls in Lincoln.

  “I think it’s all connected,” I say, plopping back down on the edge of my bed.

  “All connected to what? Trina’s death?” Sasha says, scrolling through the pictures on the phone. “Hey, I know this girl.”

  “Where, which one?” I ask and am not surprised when she pulls up the picture with Trina and the red-haired girl, the one I know from the equipment room and from my vision.

  “Her name’s Charlotte—”

  “—Ethersby.” I finish for her. “She’s the one who scratched my face.” They both look at me funny. “She was here in my room the day after I saw her at school in the equipment room crying. She wrote her name on my mirror but I didn’t know who she was until you just said it.”

  It’s quiet for a few seconds then Sasha says, “Whoa, this is big.”

  Jake nods. “This is huge. You’re saying that somebody’s running a teenage porn ring in Lincoln.”

  I nod. “Yeah, I think so.”

  “And that he killed Trina.”

  I shrug. “Maybe.”

  Sasha puts the cell phone down. “But who killed Ricky?”

  “He doesn’t know, but I think that might be connected to Trina and those pictures. Ricky said he’d tried to warn her, to get her to stop.”

  “So what if she finally listened,” Sasha is saying. “Tried to back out and the person making the money from the pictures got mad, killed her and then killed Ricky, too, for good measure.”

  That would explain the message on the blackboard: MONEY. PICTURES. LIES. KILL.

  “Sounds like a Lifetime movie,” Jake says.

  Both Sasha and I look at him. “You watch Lifetime movies?”

  “No,” he says, a crimson blush on his cheeks. “Pop Pop does and sometimes I just work on my laptop in the same room so I can keep an eye on him.”

  “Uh-huh,” Sasha says, nodding. “I’ll just bet.”

  We all laugh and for the first time in my life I feel like I belong. Like these friends actually belong to me.

  It’s a good feeling.

  One that tries really hard to mask the fear of the unknown. The unknown we know is coming for us and the unknown we need to uncover to set Ricky free.

  twenty-seven

  Franklin came over today. Only I don’t want to stay in the house because it is nice outside. Tomorrow is Monday and I’ll be heading back to school after my little hiatus. Me, Jake and Sasha had talked until late last night, so late my mother had to come in and tell them it was time to leave.

  The consensus was we needed to do something. If I was having visions, we figured they were either of the past or the future, probably both. So Camy might be next to die. And while she wasn’t on my favorite persons list, I didn’t exactly want to start seeing her all transparent and glowing in the afterlife either.

  Most of the morning I’d spent at my computer searching random things like visions and weather, witches and supernatural beings. I’d tried to search black fog but hadn’t gotten anything tangible to go on. I didn’t find out much about those vicious birds either. So by the time my mother came up and told me I had company, I was happy for the reprieve.

  Seeing Franklin in his fresh-pressed khaki pants and crisp white shirt was shocking but refreshing. Yesterday I’d spent time with Ricky and my feelings for him had been so conflicting. In the end I knew that they could lead nowhere but to heartache. But with Franklin…there were possibilities.

  So we’re walking in the park, right along the path where Ricky and I had walked before. Franklin’s holding my hand, a fact that I think is cute and makes me feel really special. He’s talking about something but I’m not really listening. Well, I am kind of, to his voice, but not really his words.

  He’s already gone through that squeaky puberty change and there’s this smooth timbre to his voice that I like.

  “So, you’re going to the dance with me, right?” he’s saying as we get closer to the little pond.

  Today is a really nice spring day, kind of breezy, bright with sunshine. Perfect to be walking in the park with your boyfriend.

  “Huh? Oh, the dance. Um, I wasn’t going to go,” I say finally.

  “But you have to, you have to be my date. You know, since you’re my girl.”

  He stops walking and turns so that he’s standing in front of me now. His hands slip around my waist and I put mine on his shoulders. Here’s something else I like, being close to Franklin.

  “I hadn’t thought of it that way. You hadn’t already asked somebody?” I say, thinking of Alyssa. She acted like she wanted Franklin for herself and she’s pretty so I could see him wanting to go out with her. I guess.

  “No. Who else would I ask?”

  “Alyssa, maybe.”

  He laughs. “Please. I don’t have the patience to deal with that girl. She’s way too high maintenance for me.”

  I smile. “And I’m not?” I’m feeling really good now knowing that he really doesn’t like Alyssa in that way.

  “No,” he says, suddenly real serious. “You’re not high maintenance. But you’re special.”

  At first I feel alarmed. “Why do you say that?”

  Franklin lifts a hand and pushes my hair back behind my ear. I’ve worn it out with only a headband today and the breeze is having fun with it. This, his soft touch, calms my nerves a bit. “I knew you were the first day I saw you. Special, I mean. I just had this feeling.”

  “Oh,” I say because I don’t know what else to say.

  “You’re special to me, Krystal. I don’t want to go with anyone else.”

  I nod my head. “Okay, then I’ll go.”

  “You will?” He’s all smiles now.

  “Yeah, I will. But you’d better not let me see you dancing with Alyssa.”

  He just shakes his head and I feel his hands tightening around my waist, pulling me closer. “I’m going to dance with you all night and then when I go home I’m going to dream of you. And when I wake up, I’ll think of you.”
/>   “Dancing with me will be enough,” I say, kind of embarrassed by his words.

  Then he leans down, because he’s a couple inches taller than me, and kisses me. I hug him closer, welcoming the next kiss and the next.

  And for this moment in time everything in my life is perfect.

  Then I hear the squawking above and the perfection is replaced with dread.

  Home life hasn’t been too difficult, all things considered. I still haven’t talked to Calvin and I guess he’s already in L.A. with his new family. It’s so crazy how all these months I’ve been waiting on him to call, to come and get me, to rescue me from my mother and her new husband. He never had any intention of rescuing anybody. Come to think of it, since he’s so into moving these days, maybe he instigated ours.

  I don’t know and there’s really too much going on in my life right now for me to try to figure out. A few weeks ago I thought my parents getting back together would be the answer to everything. Now, I’m starting to think differently.

  “Hi, Krys, how was school?”

  Janet appears from the kitchen as soon as I walk through the door and drop my book bag in the hallway. I don’t run straight to my room now. For some reason, lunch just isn’t enough and I usually want a snack by the time I walk from the bus stop. My mom still can’t cook so dinner is always an experiment, except when she orders out or I go to Jake’s with Sasha—which we’ve been doing a lot.

  “School was okay,” I say, refusing to think of creepy Mr. Lyle and the quiz he said I’d failed. All this supernatural stuff is killing my study habits.

  “The dance is tomorrow and I noticed you didn’t charge anything on my card when you went out the other night.”

  She is referring to the night Sasha picked me up to go to Jake’s. Sasha’s excuse was that we were going shopping for a dress to wear to the dance. Janet then handed me her credit card.

  Humph, busted.

  “Ah, no. I didn’t really see anything I liked.”

  She just smiles. “That’s because you’re so hesitant about going.”

  I shrug and go ahead into the kitchen. “I guess you’re right.”

  “So why don’t you want to go, really?”

  I’m in the refrigerator, grabbing a handful of cherries and a bottled water. It appears that she wants to talk and since I’m not doing anything else I figure why not. So I sit at the table and she joins me. It seems strange but comfortable now that we’re in the small kitchen, sitting at a table with only four chairs instead of being in that huge dining room with twelve chairs and a mile-long table.

  “Well, at first it was because I didn’t really know anybody here.”

  “And now you do. Sasha and Jake seem really nice.”

  “Jake is. The jury’s still out on Sasha.”

  She laughs. I like the sound and realize how much I’ve missed hearing her laugh and laughing with her. I smile and let a chuckle escape.

  “You wouldn’t believe how moody she is. One minute she’s all nice and friendly and the next she makes you want to slap her silly.”

  “Oh, I hope you haven’t hit that girl.”

  “Not yet, but she’s asking for it, I’ll tell you that much. She gets too smart sometimes and I have to put her in her place. I keep tryin’ to tell her just because I’m quiet doesn’t mean I’m a wimp.”

  “No. I don’t think you are,” she says thoughtfully. “And what about Franklin?”

  I knew she was going to ask me this. “Franklin’s really nice.”

  “And really cute,” she adds.

  I can’t help but smile. “Yeah, that, too.”

  “I think he really likes you.”

  I shrug. “I guess so. I mean, I like him, too, but I had to make sure he didn’t like this nasty girl at school named Alyssa.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, I was just like, ‘Are you going to be dancing with her at the dance or with me?’”

  She raises a brow. “And what did he say?”

  “He said he didn’t like Alyssa and that he was only going to dance with me. Which is a good thing because I don’t play that two-timing stuff.” I feel bad the minute I say that but she doesn’t look like she minds.

  She looks down at her hands, rubs a finger over her new wedding ring. “You’re right, Krystal, you’re no wimp.”

  We are quiet for a minute and then I say, “And you’re not a coward.”

  Her smile slips and she adjusts herself in the chair. She looks like she’s about to be all serious and that’s not what I want. I just want to kind of clear the air between us, you know, get some things off my chest so I don’t explode.

  “I’m just saying that I shouldn’t have called you that when I didn’t know the real story.”

  “And now you do? Know the real story, I mean.”

  “I know that he’s got Amanda pregnant and she looks like she’s ready to bust so I figure he must have been messin’ with her when he was with you.”

  She doesn’t say anything right away and I take that as a yes. Her smile is completely gone now, her lips are pressed tightly together and she runs her fingers through her long black hair.

  “I think maybe I should have been a little more up front with you, Krystal. About why we were leaving New York. I just didn’t know how. You’re my little girl, telling you things like this seem wrong.”

  “I’m not a little girl anymore, Mama. And keeping important stuff from me doesn’t help.”

  She sighs. “You were so mad at me.”

  “Because I didn’t understand.”

  “Well,” she says, taking a deep breath then letting it out, “I guess we were both wrong.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” And that’s that. We’ve apologized and we’ll move on.

  “Do you want to know why I left him?”

  I hurry up and shake my head no. Then I sigh. “Yes.”

  She nods. “I left him because he cheated on me with Amanda and Lord only knows how many other women. See, this wasn’t Calvin’s first outing but it was the last one I planned to settle for.”

  “You shouldn’t have stayed for the other ones,” I say, feeling an unsavory bitterness bubbling inside for the man I thought was my father.

  “I know that now. But I had to give it a chance, for you.”

  “You stayed with a cheater for me?”

  “I didn’t have a father growing up. It was just me and my mom and then she died and my grandmother came here to take care of me. I wanted my baby to have a real family.”

  “An honest mother would have been enough,” I say and really mean it. If I had to live with a lying, cheating father then I’d rather not have one at all. If he could lie and cheat with everyone else, he’d do the same with me and I was better off without him.

  “I’m glad you finally left him.”

  She sighs. “I’m glad I did, too.”

  Then, since we are talking about her and Calvin, I figure this is the best time to ask about my conception.

  “You met him in New York, right, while you were in college?”

  She blinks a little, probably at the shift in conversation. “Ah, yes, we did. I was in my second year when I met him at an art gallery. I was there with a couple of friends just goofing off and he was there staring at the paintings like they were the greatest thing since electricity. You get that from him, you know, your love of drawing.”

  I did know that and up until a few days ago had been very proud of that fact. Still, it didn’t stop me from picking up my charcoals and pad and drawing again. It had been too long since I’d allowed myself that freedom. I wasn’t going to let my disappointment in Calvin stop me again. “I know,” I answer simply. “Did you ever bring him back here? I mean, did you, like, live in Lincoln for a while before me?” She shakes her head no and I think of our theory that the Power is also born outside of Lincoln. “He never met Grams before she died?”

  “Oh, yeah, he did. But we weren’t here that long. We came up for the Thanksgiving weekend. Your
great-grandmother loved to cook a big meal, but after I left she didn’t have anybody to eat it.” She laughs and I can tell the memory of Grams is still painful for her.

  “We only planned to stay until that Friday after Thanksgiving because your father had a strip due on Monday and he wanted to work on it at home. Calvin could only work in the loft with his supplies, in his surroundings, he’d say. But when we woke up Friday morning I remember Grams saying we couldn’t get out. There was a storm watch and they’d closed the roads off and were fixing levies by the water.”

  “Wow, you were here for a blizzard?” I ask, already knowing it wasn’t a snowstorm that time.

  “No. It was rain. I mean a hurricane. I know that’s virtually unheard-of for this high up the eastern shore and in November, but it was definitely a hurricane. A huge one that knocked out the power and a lot of the buildings around us. Some houses just floated out into the Atlantic afterward. It was tragic.”

  Okay, so is now the time when I say, “Did you and Calvin get busy in Grams’s house during the storm?” Probably not, no matter how much progress I thought my mom and I were making. I’m just not convinced that’s going to go over too well.

  Instead I say, “That must have been some Thanksgiving memory.”

  And just like I’d hoped, she gets this faraway look in her eyes then looks back at me and smiles. “It was a memory that I took back to New York with me.”

  “Really? How?” This clueless act is getting on my nerves but I’m so close to her saying what I want to hear.

  “Because that’s when you were conceived.”

  Bingo!

  I giggle to make it seem like that is the last thing I expect her to say. “Cool.”

  “So, you see, it made sense for us to come back to Lincoln, to start over.”

  I nod my head even though a few months ago I wouldn’t have agreed with her. “This town’s starting to grow on me.” Then as an afterthought I add, “At first I didn’t like Gerald much.”

  “I could tell.”

  “I didn’t think he liked me either.”

  “He didn’t like that I didn’t tell him about you as soon as we met. And then when he saw you he didn’t like how you’d instantly taken Calvin’s side. Until I told him that was my fault for not telling you what had happened between us. Anyway, I wouldn’t stay with him if he didn’t like you, Krystal.”