by Gloria Craw
I used my joining on my family as little as possible, but thoughtmaking was the least complicated way to solve the current problem. Gathering the energy in my mind in preparation to transfer a thought, I felt for the energy that surrounded my dad. There was a slight jolt as our minds connected, and then I was tracking his thoughts. I couldn’t read them, but I could sense them as they flowed through his consciousness. Feeling an opening between two, I formed Alison has eaten everything in my mind and slipped it into the space. The process was mostly reflexive and took nanoseconds. I repeated it with my mom and brother.
“All finished, Dad,” I said.
When he glanced at my plate again, his mind didn’t process that there was food on it. Since my mom wasn’t looking, he mouthed, You can have two Twinkies, at me.
Alex fed the last of his asparagus to our dog and got up to take his plate to the sink. “Who’s the best cook in this family?” he asked. No one responded, but he bowed anyway. “You’re welcome. I’ll be back next week.”
Ian chuckled as Alex left. “I’ll miss that kid,” he said too softly for anyone but me to hear.
So would I, and dinner was going too fast.
To keep my parents at the table, I chatted about my classes and what was happening in my circle of friends. It was uncharacteristic for me to volunteer so much information about my life. I usually said as little as I could about personal stuff because my mom was far too willing to dish out advice. Since Ian was there, she held back a little.
Though my parents clearly enjoyed my willingness to talk, dinner couldn’t last forever. Eventually, Mom got up to clear her plate. “I need to call some of my teachers about their schedule,” she said. “Say hi to your mom for me, Ian.”
Dad cleared his place too. “You kids want to watch NewsHour with me?” he asked as though we often did…which we didn’t.
I wondered if he sensed our time together was running out.
Ian smiled and shook his head. “I’ve got to get home,” he replied. “I have a chem test tomorrow.”
“I’ll be up a little later,” I said.
Dad patted my shoulder on the way out.
When we were alone, Ian didn’t seem in a hurry to leave. He might have had a chem test the next day, but he was going to call in sick so he could help his dad with the final details of my car accident.
“It’s my night to clean up,” I said with a sigh and a glance at the burned frying pan Alex destroyed the first burgers in.
“Don’t look so down in the dumps about it,” Ian said, poking me in the ribs. “I’ll help.”
He took a soapy rag and started washing the table while I slowly loaded silverware into the dishwasher.
“You aren’t moving very fast,” he observed. “At the rate you’re going, the kitchen won’t be clean until morning.”
I gave him a weak smile and loaded another fork. He finished the table, rinsed the rag, and hung it across the faucet. I admired the graceful way he moved as he got his jacket from the back of his chair and put it on. I suddenly felt panicky at the idea of him leaving.
A hurricane of emotions began swirling around inside me, and none of them were good. My chest tightened, and I made a soft choking noise that made me panic more. I didn’t know if I could hold myself together without Ian around to give me silent support. I might crack and start ugly crying, which would freak my parents out.
My voice broke as I said, “Please don’t go, Ian.”
His blue-green eyes held mine for a moment and then he opened his arms to me. “Come here,” he said.
He didn’t have to tell me twice. I stumbled into his embrace and buried my face in his neck. “Stay for a while longer,” I urged. “You can pretend to study here.”
He rubbed my back. “It wouldn’t be right for me to stay. Deep down I think you know that. The rest of the night belongs to your family.”
“I’m not sure I can be around them and not have a meltdown,” I sniffed. “It would be easier to just go to my room and lock the door until morning.”
“Easier doesn’t mean better. Focus on leaving them with a last memory of you.” He kissed me gently and stepped back. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
I nodded and watched him go. The front door opened and then closed behind him, but I stayed rooted to the spot, warring with my instinct to retreat to my room, where I could hide and avoid the pain of good-bye. I startled when the cell phone in my pocket chimed. Ian had sent me a text. Forget about yourself. Make this about them. Get moving, it read.
I gave myself an internal shake and went back to finish loading the dishwasher.
When the kitchen was clean, I headed up the stairs to Alex’s room. Music blasted behind his door so I knocked extra loud.
“What?” he yelled.
“I need my Sharpies for homework,” I yelled back. “You borrowed them last week.”
“I returned them.”
“You did not. I hope you’ve got clothes on, because I’m counting to three and then I’m coming in.”
Hearing his feet hit the floor, I pushed the door open before he could lock me out.
“Go a little easier on the steroids, Alison,” he said.
“Why? Because I can shove my way into this chamber of secrets. What are you doing in here anyway?”
“Nothing. I just don’t like you getting into my stuff, and I don’t have your stupid Sharpies.”
“Who are you talking to, Alex?” an unfamiliar voice asked.
Seeing his phone on the bed, I darted for it. The pretty girl he was FaceTiming showed on the screen. “Hi, I’m Alex’s big sister,” I said, “Who are you?”
Alex ripped the phone out of my hand. “I’ll call you back later, Sophie.”
“But I want to talk to her,” the girl said.
“She has a rare disease,” he replied. “Too much talking causes hair loss. I’ll call you later.”
“Hair loss?” I scoffed. “Is that the best you could do?”
He ignored me.
“She’s pretty,” I continued. “Does she know you have a rock collection like an eight-year-old?”
“It’s never come up,” he replied, sitting on his bed.
“I could post some pictures of your precious rocks on Instagram if you want.”
“And I could post some of you and Ian making out in his car,” he threatened.
I put my hands up in surrender. “Okay, creeper. No pictures on Instagram. Where are my Sharpies?”
“Check my desk if it’ll make you feel better.”
I found them in the top drawer. When I turned around to rub it in, he was texting.
Alex had flaming-red hair, brown eyes, and freckles. We looked nothing alike, which wasn’t surprising since we weren’t related. What was surprising was that he couldn’t have been more my brother if we were related. Despite our bickering, he’d been my closest friend for many years. Things changed when Ian came into the picture. I wondered if it had bothered Alex more than he’d let on.
“Do you want to play Call of Duty?” I asked.
“I’m busy,” he replied absently.
I swallowed a lump in my throat as I remembered how often I’d said the same thing to him lately. “You know you’re my favorite brother, right?” I asked.
His eyes met mine for a fraction of a second. “I wouldn’t trade you in for an upgrade, either. Go away.”
As I walked to the door, I heard him say, “Hey, Sophie. That was Alison. She’s okay…most of the time.”
I sighed disappointedly when I went to the den. It was too late to watch NewsHour with my dad. He’d fallen asleep in his chair. I listened to him snore and fought back tears. Bob McKye was the smartest human I knew and full of miscellaneous information. When I was ten, he told me the shiny coating on a lot of jelly beans was made of beetle poop. I googled it. He was right.
He’d been my advocate through the years, too. When my loving but overprotective mom had been afraid to let me learn to drive, he was the steady voice
of reason that calmed her down. When she thought letting me buy a car would encourage me to skip school, he reminded her that I’d always been responsible. From the beginning, he seemed to sense my independent streak. He’d never tried to cage me. Looking back, I could see it was a show of trust.
Careful not to wake him, I kissed his cheek. Stubble was growing in and felt like sandpaper on my lips. I filed that memory.
Mom entered the room and sat on the sofa. She pulled her legs up and crisscrossed them. “Is everything all right?” she asked with her brows drawn together in concern. “You seem a bit mopey tonight.”
I trudged lethargically toward her and sat by her side. “I’m just really tired,” I said.
She pulled my head down onto her shoulder and stroked my hair. “You can go into school late tomorrow if you need to sleep in.”
With all my heart, I wished I could, but I couldn’t. “I have a presentation to give in English,” I said. “I can’t be late.”
We were quiet for a moment, and then she remarked, “You know, I had the strangest thought at dinner. I think a change is coming.”
I squeezed my eyes closed so tears wouldn’t fall.
“I had a similar premonition the day I met you. When the caseworker brought you to the house, I knew you were scared even though you tried so hard to look brave. I kept thinking…she’s such a beautiful child with all that dark hair and huge gray eyes, but she’s been hurt. Instinct took over, and I knelt to hug you. My world changed forever that day.”
I willed myself not to cry. The one good thing I could say about destiny was it made Deborah McKye my mother for a while.
She sighed. “It’s bedtime for me. Will you let the dog out before you go to your room?”
I nodded and put Alison loves you more than anything else in the world into her mind.
She paused for a moment and smiled softly. “I love you, darling girl.”
“I love you, too,” I replied as she left.
Chapter Three
I woke the next morning in a sort of emotional coma. I wasn’t sad anymore. I wasn’t anxious or nervous. I was just numb. Like it was any other school day, I showered, got dressed in my Pepto-Bismol-pink bedroom, grabbed a handful of granola on my way through the kitchen, and drove to school in my beat-up, rusty Chevy Cavalier.
I trudged up the crumbling cement steps and into Fillmore High School with my head down. I didn’t want to socialize so I put earbuds in and kept my eyes directed toward the floor as I walked through the hall.
By the time I reached my locker, it occurred to me I was behaving a lot like I had in the old days when I’d done everything I could to disappear into the shadows at school. Back then, I’d lived in fear of Sebastian Truss finding me. What I knew about the dewing I’d learned from two short conversations with a stranger in the park. He’d warned me that a powerful man was looking for thoughtmakers and that if he found me, he would hurt those I loved to get me to do thought transference for him.
Frightened half to death, I spent the next three years trying to avoid attention by dressing plain, wearing glasses, and avoiding conversation. Then Ian and Brandy enrolled at Fillmore and things started to change. Not only did they teach me about the dewing, they helped me see that hiding like a scared rabbit was drawing attention. If I acted like a normal teenager, I’d blend into the crowd. With their help, I’d started living in the light again.
I took a deep breath and gave myself a mental shake. I wasn’t going to leave Fillmore the same way I came in.
So, I went to class and chatted with Connor, who never ran out of things to say, and laughed with Felicity, my closest girlfriend since Brandy died. All the while, I kept an eye on the time.
As planned, when ten o’clock rolled around, I told my physics teacher I wasn’t feeling well, and he sent me to the nurse, who was waiting for me in her office with a disposable thermometer in hand. I put Alison is sick and should be sent home into her mind before she could say hello.
She blinked once and said conclusively, “You’re definitely sick. You should go home.”
“Will you let the office know?” I asked.
“Of course,” she responded with another blink. “That’s my job.”
As I left the parking lot in my car, I took one last look at Fillmore High. “It was sort of fun while it lasted,” I said. “Be good to my friends.”
Then I drove toward the Shadow Box Bookstore, where I’d worked part-time until my boss, fellow dewing and friend Lillian, closed it down. Since then, the whole shopping area had turned into a ghost town. One after the other, the shops shut their doors until none were left. The property owner was in the process of tearing the old structures down so he could put up apartment buildings in their place. No crews would be around that day, though. Spencer had filed a safety complaint, which shut the construction company down for a week.
An abandoned construction site was perfect for staging a car accident, and my parents wouldn’t wonder why I’d been driving in that part of town. They knew I was sentimental about my old place of employment.
The traffic lights started doing weird things. I figured Theron was controlling them, because I drove block after block without hitting a single red. They stopped working altogether because the power went down. I turned a final corner and then saw Ian and Spencer waiting in front of a pile of rubble…all that was left of the Shadow Box.
Pulling to the curb, I began to wonder if I was having an out-of-body experience. There was no physical sensation when I placed my cell phone in the seat beside me or when I pulled an envelope of cash from under my dashboard. Like they belonged to someone else, I watched my fingers wrap around the handle to open the door.
Fortunately, Ian helped me out of the car, because I seemed to have forgotten what came next. He grabbed me by the elbow and hurried me to a black rental car. Spencer crossed paths with us. He had the familiar duffle bag slung over his shoulder.
Ian opened the passenger door and gave me a little push. “Seat belt,” he reminded as I slid into to the seat.
Spencer knelt by the driver’s seat of my car and dumped the bones inside.
Ian got in next to me and started the engine.
When I next glanced at Spencer, he’d popped the hood of my car open. As we drove away, he put something on the engine. Then we turned a corner, and my view was cut off.
Two intersections further on, I heard the echo of a crash followed by an explosion.
“Are you okay?” Ian asked, turning worried eyes on me.
He sounded a million miles away. I opened my mouth to say something, but no words came out.
“That’s a stupid question,” he continued. “Of course, you’re not okay.”
He didn’t try to talk to me after that, which was good since my out-of-body experience continued all the way to the airport.
We parked on the tarmac, where his parent’s jet was waiting, and he helped me up the stairs. Inside, he motioned for me to take a seat by the window. “It’s a long flight,” he said, putting a blanket across my legs and tucking the edges under them. “Sleep as much as you can. If you get hungry, there’s a refrigerator and food in the back.”
I stared at him dumbly.
“Did you hear what I said?” he asked gently.
“Sleep…food in the back,” I recited.
From his pocket, he took out a phone and handed it to me. “This is new, but the passcode is the same as before. You won’t be able to use it at the Arx. There’s no Wi-Fi or cell service. But there’s a pub in town called The Gull. I usually go there when I want to make calls or use the internet.”
My gaze wandered to the window. My house, my mom’s gym, my dad’s practice, and my brother’s school were out there somewhere.
Ian turned my face back to him. “Look, Alison,” he said gently.
I watched him power the phone on, and an image of my dad throwing a stick for our dog was my screen saver. “You’ll remember every moment you had with the McKyes,” he said,
“but I thought you might want your pictures of them, too. I uploaded the photos from your old phone yesterday.”
Knowing I should feel grateful, I nodded.
He kissed me softly. “I’ll be with you in four days, okay.”
“Four days,” I repeated like a parrot.
He rested his forehead on mine. “I love you, Alison. When you’ve got nothing else to hold you together, remember that.”
It wasn’t until the jet was in the air and Vegas had faded into a tiny dot below that I began to come out of my semi-coma. The emotions I’d repressed hit fast and strong, making me physically ill. Muscles in my neck and shoulders spasmed, my lungs contracted until it hurt, and then a sob shredded my throat. Grabbing the pillow on the seat next to me, I buried my face in it and cried until I couldn’t anymore.
Exhausted, I fell asleep.
We were flying over the Atlantic when I woke up. My throat burned. Remembering the food Ian mentioned, I got up to see if there was anything to drink, too. When I opened the small refrigerator, I found it well-stocked with soda, water, and sandwiches. I grabbed a bottled water, twisted the cap off and drank deeply.
As the cool liquid soothed my throat, I started to feel something besides gut-wrenching sadness… I was angry.
My biological mother, whom the dewing called the White Laurel, had performed some pretty heroic deeds for the greater good. She’d risked life and limb to save a group of children when Sebastian kidnapped them to coerce the clan chiefs into doing things his way. She’d been captured and beaten and still refused to do Sebastian Truss’s bidding. She’d served the greater good at every turn and look where it got her. She was murdered when I was three.
Because of my weird relationship with the dead, I heard her voice sometimes. She never answered questions, just spoke a sentence or two giving me direction. Then, after I foiled Maxwell’s attempt to ransom me, she’d come through some portal to the afterlife and healed my badly injured hand. Seeing her physical form had been the fulfillment of a dream, but it brought this nightmare with it. I was on a jet headed to a place called the Arx to serve the greater good again.