The Possible

by Tara Altebrando

  LIANA FATONE WAS LEANING AGAINST the wall along the front steps of school wearing a navy-blue tunic and expensive-looking orange sandals. She pushed off to stand when we got close.

  “I’ll see you guys inside,” I said to Aiden and Chiara, who looked at me, then at her, then kept walking.

  “When you didn’t text back, I thought that meant no.” I stopped in front of her.

  “I didn’t write back? I thought I did.”

  “How are you even here again? Don’t you live in Queens? Don’t you have, like, kids?”

  “You’ve been Googling!” She smiled.

  “So?”

  “Yes, I have kids and they also have a father and school and we have babysitters. And I have a job.” She’d been scrolling through her phone as we’d approached but now pocketed it. “So what are your parents hiding from me? Why are they so freaked out?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But I want to suggest a deal.”

  “A deal?”

  I nodded. “I do an interview. You take me to visit Crystal.”

  She broke our gaze to watch the Triplets of Belleville walk past—to be honest I wasn’t sure who the original Triplets of Belleville were—then looked at me again. “Your parents pretty much told me to take a long walk off a short pier, so I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

  “I don’t need their permission,” I said. “I’m seventeen. I can go there myself if I want to.”

  “Go for it.” She shrugged a shoulder.

  “Maybe I will.” She didn’t need to know that the idea terrified me. “But if I figure out how to go on my own, then there’s no reason for me to do an interview with you.”

  She sighed loudly. “Listen, Kaylee. I get what you’re trying to do. I do. But I need to be meeting my markers to get this thing on the air starting in, like, ten days.”

  “That soon?”

  “Yes, that soon. It took me a while to find you, but I’ve been knee-deep in this for months. Now it’s almost go time. I was in the studio last night until two a.m., recording more of my narration, and I have my editors working day and night on the first few episodes.”

  “Then I guess we need to get ourselves to Pennsylvania,” I said. Everything was happening too fast.

  She huffed. “If this arrangement is going to work, we need to sit down and do an interview.”

  “And you’ll take me?”

  “And then yes, I’ll try to get you to Crystal. There’s a whole process there. An application you’ll have to fill out. She has to agree to see you.”

  I hadn’t thought about that part.

  Liana said, “So what do you say? This weekend, we go into the studio and have a chat?”

  “Okay,” I said. “But, it’s Memorial Day weekend.”

  “Doesn’t matter to me. You?”

  “I guess not, no.” I was lifeguarding Sunday and Monday, having asked for the Saturday off because of softball.

  “I’m sending you a waiver, since your parents aren’t on board. To cover my ass.”

  “Fine.”

  She started to walk away and reached into her bag and pulled out a pack of cigarettes but then turned back toward me and dropped them back in.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t tell.”

  She gave me a weird smile. What was that word?

  Wan.

  An SAT word for sure.

  It was a wan smile.

  Almost in a panic, I felt a question forming at the back of my throat but wasn’t sure whether I should say it out loud. My body betrayed me by going ahead with it. “Do you believe her? I mean do you even believe in poltergeists or telekinetic powers or whatever?”

  “I’m not ready to say one way or the other.” She studied me for a reaction. I held my own. Didn’t take a breath. “But I’ll send you some clips and transcripts. Then you can tell me what you think.”

  •••

  “That was the podcast lady?” Aiden was leaning on my locker, then pushed up to stand.

  “Yeah.” My fingers fumbled with my lock, botched the combination; Chiara must have already gone off to class. “I agreed to the interview. She’s going to help me go see Crystal.”

  “And you’re not going to tell your parents? How is that going to work?”

  I started at the lock again. “This is important to me.”

  “Why?” He pulled my arm away from the lock, held it while he looked at me. “I mean, you were fine. You don’t need her. Crystal.” He had something sticking out of his shirt pocket—a plaid short-sleeved shirt he was wearing over a T-shirt that showed a drawing of a bear holding a map of California. I recognized the color of the card stock, pulled them out.

  “Prom tickets?” I said.

  Had I ever been fine? Or had I merely been following the rules around me and keeping my head down and holding my true self in check?

  “That’s right.” He snatched them from me.

  “Who’s the lucky lady?”

  His tongue poked a bulb in his cheek. “I’m weighing my options.”

  “You bought tickets before you found a date?”

  “I don’t anticipate it being a problem.”

  “Ever the optimist!”

  “Kaylee, I’m serious,” he said. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

  “Yes, I am.” It came out harsher than I’d intended, but I was sort of happy it had. “Are you sure that is?” I nodded at his tickets. He backed away a few steps, shaking his head, then turned to go.

  •••

  Bennett Laurie was still at his locker in the emptying hall. In the light of day, the chicken nugget opener seemed less than romantic.

  “Is it true?” he called out.

  I looked around and deduced he was actually talking to me. “Is what true?”

  He came over. “That you’re going to be on some podcast because your mother has TK?”

  “TK?”

  “Telekinetic powers?”

  “Oh, right. Well, I mean, yeah . . . I mean—”

  He said, “That is seriously like the coolest thing I’ve ever heard,” then drifted away down the hall.

  I stood there, listening to the sounds of the hallway—slamming lockers, squeaking classroom doors, clacking shoes—disappear one by one, then whispered, Yes.

  My phone started to go ballistic.

  •••

  •••

  I shot her my Gmail address, then clicked the audio file. I was going to be late, but I didn’t care. I ducked into the girls’ bathroom, went into a stall, put my earbuds in, and listened . . .

  •••

  Hi, this is Liana Fatone and welcome to season two of The Possible. This season we turn our attention to a different kind of mystery. And at the center of it all is the once-notorious Telekinetic Teen of Shicksawnee, Pennsylvania, who is no longer a teen but a grown woman serving a life sentence in a prison outside of Pittsburgh for the murder of one of her own children.

  We’ll get to the murder later.

  Before that, we’ll be talking about the events that made Crystal Bryar famous. When she was just fourteen years old, objects began to fly around her. Cups and saucers, phones and paintings. The works.

  Her parents, in a moment of desperation, called a local newspaper reporter who then investigated and confirmed that something strange was indeed going on in the house. But how strange, exactly? Strange as in a teenage girl was pulling an elaborate hoax on her family and the world? Or strange as in paranormal? Something beyond the realm of our normal understanding of the way the world works.

  On this season of The Possible, we’ll be talking to scientists, to the people who witnessed the events that made Crystal famous for a time, to the people who were around to see her decline into a life of petty theft and drug use and, eventually, murder. We’ll be talking to jurors, lawyers, friends, possibly even the daughter who was adopted into a normal life.

  What’s our goal? To either find proof of the paranormal in this scenario or p
rove once and for all that it was a hoax.

  We’ll begin, as we should, at the beginning.

  When I was a girl myself, fourteen—the same age as Crystal—I saw a photograph in the newspaper of a girl around my age, sitting on a couch, with a white phone flying in front of her face. The article the photo ran with described a scene of chaos. Dishes flying. Wall clocks rattling. Furniture moving.

  I was fascinated.

  As a girl, I was interested in the unusual. I favored books like Matilda, about a girl with special powers, and had read the Witch Mountain books, about telekinetic twins. I had a Ouija board that I played with that I was half-convinced was actually speaking to me, channeling some source of energy. I liked ghost stories about haunted houses and faces that appeared in ponds.

  I wanted to be Crystal. I wanted to be powerful and famous and to be able to move things, like a Jedi, so yes I loved Star Wars, too. I wanted to believe in the Force.

  I spent hours in my room, trying to control the outcome of dice rolls. Trying to make a feather float. For a time, Crystal was all my sister and my best friends and I talked about.

  And then, as with most news stories, Crystal’s story faded into memory and we moved on, grew up, went to college, got married, traveled the world, had kids, not necessarily in that order. It was only when my older daughter turned eight and we read Matilda together that I thought about Crystal again.

  I Googled her. Just to see how much was out there and how much I remembered correctly. It was then that I learned that unlike me—who’d had a happy, normal adolescence and young-adult life—Crystal’s life had gone from bad to worse. She was in prison. Serving a life sentence for murdering her son.

  So here we are. Examining all the possible truths behind the story. Together.

  •••

  I flushed for show—not sure if anyone had come in or not—washed my hands, and fixed my hair in the mirror. I swear I looked different—older? cooler?—than I had that morning. I was jazzed up by what I’d heard, excited by the idea of being a part of it, by the idea of something actually happening in my life.

  I stood there a long while, trying to think about what to text Liana. Because it seemed like it warranted at least some kind of response, and I guess I wanted her to know that I’d liked it. She was warmer on the air than she seemed in real life. She made me feel like I was in on some joke or secret. No wonder the first season had been so popular. And most important, she sounded open. To the possibility that there was something to Crystal’s claims.

  I picked my phone up off the counter. It was wet. I wiped it off on my jeans, then typed to Liana, It’s good! Thanks for sending!

  •••

  I sat down across from Chiara at lunch, not wanting to add my voice to the racket of the cafeteria, but there was no getting around it. “You told him.”

  “Maybe.” She shrugged. “Maybe a little bird did it.”

  “Why did you do that?” I ripped off a bite of pizza, ravenous.

  “Because prom is coming and your sad little book club plan isn’t cutting it.”

  “You should have asked me,” I said. “And anyway, you of all people should be into the book club idea.”

  “Maybe, but not with Bennett. He doesn’t seem the type.” She sipped seltzer out of a can through a straw. “Anyway, he sounded super intrigued.”

  I felt a strange swell of nerves. “He did seem pretty interested in talking to me today. More than before, for sure.”

  She held her fist out for a bump.

  I complied.

  She said, “Boom.”

  “I just listened to the podcast intro,” I said. “It made it all feel more, I don’t know, real.”

  “Good real or bad real?”

  “Good,” I said. “I think?”

  •••

  Softball practice was more intense than usual; everyone—especially Coach Stacey—all revved up about the championship play-offs. She handed out a schedule of practices and games, and it felt so overwhelming in terms of the days and hours involved that there was a part of me that wanted to tear up the paper and walk out of the room and never go back. This was what we’d wanted. I’d been key in making it happen. But I just wanted it all to be over.

  “I still can’t get over that game,” Coach Stacey said to me when we were wrapping things up. “That last pitch, especially, was just . . . perfect.”

  “It’s what I do,” I said, brightly, but the words felt wrong.

  •••

  I was finishing up my homework in the granny pod after dinner when I got an e-mail from Liana. Another audio file.

  The first thing I heard was Liana’s voice over some paper rustling, some microphone static: “Just a note that this will probably be part of episode four, which will probably be called ‘The World of TK.’”

  She clears her throat.

  •••

  LIANA: We’re taking a break from the story of Crystal for a minute here to do something different. We’re conducting a little bit of an experiment that may or may not enlighten our conclusions as we dig deeper into Crystal’s story. What we’re going to do is . . . well, I’m about to meet with a YouTube celebrity who gives tutorials on telekinetic powers. His video tutorials have been watched more than six million times. He is thirty years old and lives in Cleveland, Ohio, though he was raised in London, England. You’ll notice the accent. I’ve traveled to Cleveland to meet him.

  His name is Nick Clinson, and here’s a quick audio clip of some of his YouTube tutorials so you get a feel for them.

  NICK: I know, I know. I haven’t posted in a while, and I’m sorry for that. So I’m going to tell you the truth about what happened. I am going to tell you that I was asked by a certain branch of the government to stop. I feel it’s important to say that. And I mean, I’m hoping no personal harm will come to me, right? I’ve got a right to share what I know, right? To talk about my own life, my experience with TK, you know?

  LIANA: I have to tell you. When I watched Nick’s tutorials I wasn’t that impressed. I mean, sometimes it looks like he’s moving something. Like a pen on a table. Or a tiny camera card on a stool. But I was like “Why a camera card? Is a camera card magnetic, or can it be magnetized?” I just felt like there was something I was missing; some way I was being fooled by some sleight of hand. Which is why I asked to meet him. Listen in . . .

  LIANA: I’d like to meet in person.

  NICK: I’m not sure that’s possible.

  LIANA: I can come to you. I just want, like, a private lesson.

  NICK: I’ve been asked to not be so public, ya know? So I don’t know. Podcast doesn’t sound smart. Sounds public.

  LIANA: By the government. Right. How about this? Let’s meet. Then you can decide. We can always change your name/alter your voice down the line.

  NICK: All right. Fine.

  LIANA: So this guy is not exactly jonesing to meet me. What’s up with that? We meet at a café near his home.

  (Sound of chatter, plate rattling, other café noises)

  LIANA: Are you Nick?

  NICK: Yeah.

  LIANA: I’m Liana. Hi. Nice to meet you.

  NICK: Right. You, too.

  LIANA: So, like I said, I’m interested in a sort of private tutorial.

  NICK: Right. So. A lot of people will say clear your mind. That’s rubbish. Do whatever it takes to work for you. Maybe you don’t need a quiet room or anything like that. Maybe you need noise. Maybe it’s only going to work for you if it’s louder than bombs where you are. Who’s to say?

  Start with something light. Not a feather. You can breathe the wrong way and think you’ve done it with your mind. So like not even a pen, but a pen cap maybe? A paperclip? Do you have anything on you that might work?

  LIANA: Oh. Um. Here. Yes. I’ve got a bobby pin in my hair. Will that work?

  NICK: Should do. Right so. Have at it.

  LIANA (laughing): That’s it? That’s the tutorial?

  NICK: Pretty much. I
mean, TK is different for everyone.

  LIANA: Can you move it? The bobby pin? Can you show me right now that you can do it?

  NICK: You asked for a tutorial, love. Not a demonstration.

  LIANA: I know, but you, love, have millions of YouTube followers and fans. People who believe you realized you had some TK powers just a few years ago. But there are also a lot of naysayers. People who say you’re a joke. No offense. Wouldn’t it be great to have someone else—me, a third party—completely confirm it with my own eyes.

  (Sounds of chair on floor)

  LIANA: Where are you going? Nick? Well, that went well.

  (Café chatter)

  LIANA: We’ll do a beat, with the music, then I’ll say: So, seriously. What’s his problem?

  •••

  I clicked on the third clip.

  •••

  MAN: Listen. If you ask a professional baseball player to hit a home run, is he able to do it all the time? Of course not. Does that mean he doesn’t have special home-run-hitting abilities? No.

  LIANA: I’m speaking with Charles Abel, a consciousness studies professor from the University of Massachusetts. You maybe be wondering, like I am, what consciousness studies even—

  •••

  I hit Stop. I’d been hoping it was going to be Crystal. I’d listen tomorrow instead because now I had other things on my mind.

  I found Nick on YouTube and cued up a tutorial.

  There wasn’t much more to it than he’d said to Liana.

  I looked around the granny pod and found a small Dixie cup. I cleared a space on the kitchen table and put the cup there upside down.

  For a while a few years ago, Chiara and I had tried to learn how to do that little routine that Anna Kendrick does in Pitch Perfect, with the cups. We watched a ton of YouTube videos in slow motion and tried to learn how to flip and clap to just the right rhythm. Now I had to work hard to get that song out of my head, to concentrate. On what?

  What did I want?

  I wanted the cup to move.

  I wanted it to topple over or inch across the table some.

  I stared at it, thinking so very hard, until I felt ridiculous.

  •••

  My phone buzzed at 2:00 a.m. I’d forgotten to set it to Do Not Disturb.