My Name Is Karma

by N. A. Cash

  “She’s awake, Vern,” said Mam, her voice tinged with amusement as she put her hands under my arms and pulled me into a sitting position.

  “Yes. Yes, she is.”

  My eyes darted from Aunt Vern’s face to Mam’s and back to Aunt Vern.

  “What…what happened?” My voice cracked, and my throat felt scratchy and dry like I’ve spent a week in the Sahara without a drop of water.

  “You touched it, didn’t you?” Aunt Vern’s stern voice had a playful twist to it. When I looked at her, a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

  “Touched…?” I asked with childlike curiosity.

  “The powder, child. You touched the powder when you went in the pantry.” I didn’t have to answer because the recollection of the spellbinding glittery substance flashed to the forefront of my brain and I’m sure my guilt flashed across my face before I could hide it.

  The strangest thing happened next. Aunt Vern and Mam turned to stare at each other and doubled over into a fit of laughter. In my shock, I was taken aback, thinking something was wrong or they’d both gone mad. After about two full minutes of laughter with tears streaming down their faces, they composed themselves and looked at me.

  “Oh, child,” Mam said. “Don’t be afraid. We knew it was going to happen at some time. We just thought, well hoped, it would be in another couple of years, when you were older. When you could properly handle the power.”

  “Yes,” Aunt Vern interjected. “But you were progressing so well, so smart a girl for your age. I told you.” She turned her stern but playful gaze onto Mam. “I told you she was ready.”

  “Ready for what?” I asked both of them, thoroughly confused and not understanding what was happening.

  “Come,” Mam said. “Come into the kitchen and we’ll explain as much as we can to you.”

  They both helped me onto my feet, each one with a hand underneath each arm. I stood shakily, trying still to gain my bearings, pushing out the negative remnants from the dream, the confusion piercing my mind from the sudden joy that my aunt and mother expressed, and my own sense of uncertainty.

  We walked through Aunt Vern’s cozy space into the short hallway of the house and into the bright kitchen. On the table was a piece of chocolate cake left over from our baking exploits of the previous day. I sat in one of the wooden chairs surrounding the dining room table snug in an alcove in the kitchen area. Mam went over to the fridge and poured me a glass of cold milk, and Aunt Vern took a seat next to me. Mam took the chair on the other side, pulling it into a position which allowed her to look directly at me.

  “What happened in the dream?” Aunt Vern said as soon as Mam sat.

  “Dream? How, how do you…?”

  “Girl, we all had the dream. It’s a rite of passage. What happened in it?” Aunt Vern’s voice took a stern, no-nonsense tone again.

  “Umm…” I shook my head a little to clear what I perceived as sleep from my mind and concentrated on what I could remember of the dream.

  “I was in this beautiful field and everything looked so perfect. I was a lovely day and I was just sitting there. Then, all of a sudden, this wind picked up and the sky darkened and it felt like I couldn’t breathe. Afterwards, I guess I passed out.”

  Aunt Vern and Mam turned and glanced at each other once again, although this time, there was no burst of laughter. A worried stare passed between them.

  I gazed at Mam and Aunt Vern puzzled as to what was going on.

  Mam began the conversation. “Honey, in case you didn’t realize, we’re special.”

  “Special how?” I asked, watching her face intensely.

  “We’re a peculiar group of people with unusual, umm, powers if you wish.”

  “Powers?” I asked, fear rising up within me. “Like witches?”

  Aunt Vern interjected. “No, no, no, dear, not witches…although we sometimes can control our environments like they can.” She shifted in her seat so she faced both Mam and me. “You see, we’re from a line of persons with a certain “genetic disorder…” air quotes “…they call it. They haven’t been able to fully explain why it happens, but they speculated that there is an extra chromosome on our DNA that has been passed down through our generations from your great, great, great, great, great, great…well it was a long time ago. This abnormality apparently made us react to a particular contaminant that was dropped on our property on the island where we’re from. One day, while we were out in the yard playing, a plane flew low over the island and just dumped a bag of that stuff. We saw it drop, so we ran and called our dad. He came out and picked it up. He didn’t think it was harmful, just thought it was odd. So, we all touched it because it was so beautiful. Later on, we all found out that we had peculiar dreams.”

  Mam interjected. “We noticed certain things happening after that. We could control certain things about our environments. Our “gifts”, as Dad called them, were different for all of us. At first, they were fun and not very strong. We played with them and liked them so much that Dad decided to change our names to reflect what they were. Like our brother for example. His name, originally Fetu, became Flame.”

  “Flame?” I asked. My voice halted as my imagination kicked into gear.

  Mam gave a wry smile. “You could imagine the mischievous things he got into at first, setting random things on fire when we weren’t aware, causing his hands to get really hot and then poking us.” Mam paused and glanced away for a short moment. I noticed that she began to wring her hands. She then turned back to look at me. “We started noticing that our gifts got stronger, however, whenever we experienced strong emotions. Whenever your uncle got angry, things spontaneously combusted.” I noticed a brief expression of shame cast between her and Aunt Vern before she continued after clearing her throat. “He had to learn how to control his anger and consequently when the flames came from him.”

  My imagination whirled with possibilities but something tugged at my brain. “So, you both have powers?”

  They briefly looked at each other again and smiled. “Yes,” they said in unison. Aunt Vern said, “My name is really Vern, but my nickname is Fern.” She contemplated the kitchen. “You never wondered why we’ve been teaching you about all of these exotic plants and recipes?”

  I glanced around at the kitchen at the assortment of plants, the realization of the peculiar nature of the flora striking me. In all of my botany studies in school, I’ve never been exposed to some of the types of plants Aunt Vern held in her kitchen.

  “Oh,” I said, realization dawning on me.

  Aunt Vern stood up and walked over to an empty planter perched on the windowsill. She brought it over and placed it on the table near to me. The planter was three quarters full of a deep-black soil speckled with tiny white rocks. Aunt Vern closed her eyes and held her hand over it. As I watched, a tiny sprout pushed its way out of the soil. It slowly unraveled and grew. As it developed, small buds pushed their way out of the stalk and sprouted into different colored flowers. The first bloom was a sunshine yellow carnation. The second bloomed into a velvety red rose. The third flower bloomed into a lilac aster with pink spots. Aunt Vern opened her eyes and smiled at me. I stared in awe at the plant.

  I looked up at Mam expectantly. She glanced at Aunt Vern again and then back at me. “I guess I’m next. My nickname is Stormie.” Mam closed her eyes. I eagerly awaited to see what was going to happen. Things remained the same until I felt a drop of ice-cold water on my skin, then another. I looked up and saw a dark cloud hovering over my head as light drops of snow fell on me. The snowdrops unexpectedly turned into fat raindrops. I squealed at becoming wet. Just as soon as the drops came, they stopped. Mam opened up her eyes, reached over, and pulled a towel from a rack on the wall. She handed it to me and smiled.

  “I’m sorry, love. Sometimes, I get carried away.”

  As I rubbed the water off my skin, a memory flooded my mind. It was of a time when I arrived home from school. As I approached the apartment door, I felt a cold chil
l coming from the room. The doorknob felt like ice when I first touched it. Immediately, it was yanked open by Pap who stopped abruptly in his tracks when he saw me. As he rushed passed me, he rubbed my head gruffly and almost ran towards the exit. Inside, I found Mam on the center of the floor. The room felt like the Arctic when I walked in until she noticed me. In that moment, I felt heat surrounding me and the room warmed up.

  “Mam,” I asked shyly. “Is this the real reason Pap left?”

  She turned her head slightly away from me, not before I noticed her eyes moistening over. Aunt Vern reached over and gently touched her hand. “It’s okay, Stormie. You should tell her.”

  Mam slowly wiped an escaped tear from her eye as she turned to me. “Yes, honey,” she replied. “He didn’t fully know what I was capable of until we got married. By that time, I had learned to control my emotions, only having a slip of power every now and again – until I had you.” She paused to reach over to touch my hand.

  “You were a gift,” she said. “We had tried so many times to have a child, but with each pregnancy, it seemed as if my body rejected the children. We tried and tried and tried. We even sought popular medical advice to see if they could find the problem. It wasn’t until we had resigned to the possibility of never having children, and even thought about adoption, that I got pregnant with you. I knew you would be special.”

  “When I got pregnant with you,” she continued, “I was so scared. I didn’t know if you would be like the others. Your father was so excited when after five months, I was still pregnant. We went to get an ultrasound done and found out you were a girl. It was on the way back from the doctor when I had the first panic attack. I felt as if I was dying, Karm. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t talk, I felt immobilized. Your father wanted to rush me to the hospital fearing for your life, but I convinced him to take me home. When we got there, he made sure I got comfortable and went to call the doctor to see if he would come over to make sure you were okay. I told him I probably just needed to sleep and if I still didn’t feel okay when I woke, I would go with him to the doctor’s office.”

  “It was that night I had the dream. The same dream you had just now. The only difference it was me in the dream. I thought I created the storm in the dream so I wasn’t as afraid as I would imagine you were. During the blackness, I saw a pinprick of light and in it, a young girl walked towards me. I just knew she was you. She looked so much like me and your father. I sensed there was something wrong with her though, like there was a dark presence around her. She appeared to control the winds around her. As she walked towards me, fire stuck the ground with her every step, burning the earth beneath her. Her eyes glowed, one green, one brown, just like yours! Her skin emitted the light I saw around her. She walked up to me, looked into my eyes and said one word, ‘Karma’. Then, she disappeared.”

  “We all discover our gifts when we get exposed to the powder.” Aunt Vern added.

  “You mean the powder in the pantry?” I asked.

  “Yes, the same one. We had hoped that you wouldn’t have touched it until later on…when you were older…” Aunt Vern’s voice trailed off.

  Mam patted my arm. “I know you will learn to control your gift, whatever it is. You have us here with you, so you shouldn’t have to make the mistakes that we made learning to control ours. We know that if you learn to control your gifts, you could learn to predict when certain dangers come and prevent them.”

  A wave of relief washed over me. There was hope. Mam got up, paced for a bit, then came back over and sat down. “It’s hard to do, honey. It took us years to figure out how to control our individual gifts. We messed up so many times. I almost killed someone with mine when I got too angry to control it. I can’t imagine being so young and having to learn to control a gift.”

  “But she can do it, Stormie. She’s special.” Aunt Vern’s grip on my hands tightened as her knuckles whitened. She stared deep into my eyes. “You’re special, Karma. I know you are. You can do this.”

  I took a deep breath as I closed my eyes. I wondered what my gift was. I saw what my aunt and mother could do without much effort. I felt mixed emotions. On the one hand, I was incredibly excited to find out that I had a gift. On the other hand, I was scared out of my mind. I felt my Aunt’s hand on mine and was comforted by it.

  I opened my eyes and said, “Okay. Let’s do this.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Over my time in middle and high school, nothing significant happened. I kept wondering what my gift was, when it was going to manifest itself, doubting if I had a gift at all. The only mystical thing to happen to me was realizing that Mam’s agoraphobia had all but disappeared. Mam and Aunt Vern only asked about the gift once after that conversation. When I said I felt nothing, they didn’t bring it up again. I felt almost like a disappointment to them. I’m sure they were just as eager as I was to find out what my gift was, but I felt they didn’t want to pressure me.

  It wasn’t until I was twenty-one that something happened. I had just come home from finishing four years of my first degree in botany and geology. I had been accepted into a program in Georgia for my master’s. Aunt Vern, Mam, and I went to a tiny outdoor market about thirty miles away from our house. Aunt Vern had insisted we go; she needed some tweed feather, or something of the sort, to complete her collection.

  It was an ordinary day; the sun was shining mildly through scattered clouds which blocked out patches of pale blue sky. We took the old station wagon to the market. It had been a long time since I visited anywhere in our vicinity close to our home. I had been so intensely wrapped up in studying and schoolwork, I didn’t have the time to do much of anything else.

  As the old wagon rumbled into the paved parking lot adjacent to the outdoor market, a sense of dread rose up within me, causing me to feel slightly nauseous. I don’t know if my face betrayed it, but Mam noticed because she kept glancing back towards me.

  “You okay, child?” She asked this as she turned to face me in the backseat as Aunt Vern pulled to a stop.

  “Yes Mam. I’m okay.”

  “Are you sure? You seem pale.” Her worried tone caused me to dig into my handbag and pull out a compact to scrutinize my face. As I glanced at my face in the mirror, I saw my eyes appeared slightly bloodshot and I was a shade lighter than I had. I shook my head of all residual thoughts and shut my eyes for a moment. When I reopened them, my color was returning and I looked more like myself.

  “I’m fine now, Mam. Thanks.”

  Although the worried expression never left her face, she said “ok” and turned around to undo her seatbelt.

  A tepid breeze meandered past us and we walked to the entrance of the market. Mam and Aunt Vern agreed to split up to search for any interesting ingredients we could use at the house, which left me to wander by myself.

  The market was a popular and fascinating place in the area. Many people from all over the state visited it for its homemade treats and rural atmosphere. I slowly walked through the gravel-covered pathway flanked with stores selling various goods. The long rectangular space had two main walkways on each side with stalls selling fresh fruit, an assortment of jams, jewelry made from colorful stones, clothing, and exotic plants. There was also a stall owned by the parents of one of my former high school classmates who sold toys and little trinkets which caught the eyes of any kid passing by.

  As I walked by the stall, a little pink doll grabbed my attention. I reached over and picked it up and had a flashback of one time visiting the stall when I was about four years old. I recalled pulling Pap’s hand over to the stall to examine the same beautiful doll which was adorned in a high-waist, pink, flouncy sundress. Her face was round and her eyes were bright blue. Her curly black hair framed her face, making her look so innocent. I remember Pap picked up the doll and asked how much it was. When the stall owner saw me, she snatched the doll from his hand and said it wasn’t for sale. At that time, I couldn’t understand what was happening—why the lady was so mean to Pap and why h
e had, in turn, yanked my arm and walked quickly away from the stall without a word. I remembered feeling a deep sense of sadness.

  As I turned the doll over in my hand to examine it, a lady strolled over and asked, “Do you like it? It’s only ten dollars.” I looked up and saw a face that vaguely registered in my memory. The lady stared back at me, and her memory arrived to her quicker than mine.

  “Karma?” she asked quizzically. As I stared at her, a younger version of her face floated into my memory. It occurred to me who she was.

  “Marva?”

  Saying her name brought memories flooding to me of the time she and her girlfriends talked about me in the bathroom. I saw her expression turn from curious to the same mean smirk and the underlying fear I caught on her face each time I looked at her since the bathroom incidence.

  “So, the freak is reborn,” she remarked in a cynical and cruel way. She snatched the doll from my hand and said, “I’m sorry girlie, you aren’t welcomed here.”

  As she spoke, I felt heat rising to my neck as those memories of the bathroom and of my father gushed back to the forefront of my mind. I felt my face getting red and my hands clenched until my knuckles turned pale.

  “Mama?” A little girl’s voice drifted from behind the makeshift counter. Marva turned to stare at her at the same time as I did. I remember looking at the child and seeing only her awful mother reflected in the tiny face.

  I stared at Marva and said, “Yes. The freak is reborn.” I cast a sideways glance back at the little girl with an intense glare.

  “Mama? What’s happening to me?” The little girl’s face turned from curious to worry as her hands began to change. The bones in her fingers on her left hand grew and bent like someone in the end stages of rheumatoid arthritis. The little girl began to scream as the pain shot up through her hand to the bones in her forearm and her upper arm. The bones grew, elongated and bent.