My Name Is Karma

by N. A. Cash

  Owen’s voice broke into his thoughts. “What do you want us to do?”

  His father’s eyes lazily moved back to his son’s face. He studied the younger version of himself for a while. He reached into his desk and pulled open the top drawer. He reached in and heaved out a leather-bound dark grey book, held together with a four-strand gold cord. He pulled at the edge of one of the cord’s loops and flipped through the book to a blank page near the end. He drew a heavy gold pen from the front pocket of his navy-blue jacket, uncapped it, and began to write. Owen peered over trying to see if he could translate the writing, but with the size of the desk and his father’s neat but tiny scrawls, he knew that was impossible. His father finally finished writing and rested the pen in the book.

  “We still don’t know what she is fully capable of…” His father’s voice drifted off.

  “Well, we know she can control weather, although we don’t know to what extent.” Owen began to list off the things they knew. “We know she grew up with her freak mother who could do the same thing and her aunt who can manipulate trees.” Owen stopped with a sudden realization he had spoken his inner thoughts aloud. He had used the word. He knew he made a mistake when his father’s otherwise calm face contorted into a deep frown and his tapping finger, and the other four, curled into a tightly balled fist.

  “I told you never to call her that.” His father’s deep, cold voice chilled his blood.

  “I…I’m so sorry,” Owen stammered. “The boys have been saying it a lot. It was a mistake. I’ll never say it again.” He subconsciously moved his chair back a couple of inches, his hands nervously gripped the seat.

  “See to it it never happens again.” Just as quickly as his father’s anger built, it subsided. He gazed back at the book and his finger began tapping with the music again as he stared out of the window.

  Owen paused for a bit, then breathed a short sigh of relief. He never understood his father’s anger towards that word. It wasn’t like others didn’t use the word to describe people of their kind. He, himself, had been called that word so many times in his youth he couldn’t count. Only through learning how to be stronger than everyone else did he rise to the top of the pecking order and had people follow him. Besides, no one knew all she fully could do anyway, so didn’t that make her more of a freak than the rest of them?

  He pondered this as he watched his father, now silent, read and reread the paper before him. He cleared his throat to let his father know he was still in the room. His father looked at him one more time, then slightly nodded his head as a sign of dismissal. Owen pushed the chair back, rose slightly on his toes in a mini-stretch, and turned to leave the room. He retraced his steps back to the door. As he placed his hand on the knob, he heard a slight grunt. He turned around to find his father’s eyes on him. The pensive expression on his father’s face caused him to pause.

  “Eventually, I would like to meet her,” his father said.

  Owen’s heart skipped a beat at these words. “I’m sorry, sir?” he asked, his voice small, almost inaudible.

  “I will let you know when I would like to see her. I expect full cooperation.” His father’s voice was stern, dark, and final. He turned back to the paper.

  Owen got it; he was officially dismissed. “Yes, yes sir,” he stammered.

  He opened the door, stumbled out into the hallway, and ran down the stairs. He didn’t stop until he spilled out of the door at the bottom and flung himself into his car. He paused and took a deep breath.

  After a while, he managed, through his breathing, to still his rapidly beating heart. “Meet her?” he asked himself out loud. His father never wanted to meet anyone. In fact, his father rarely left the loft as far as he knew.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Of course, Owen didn’t know much about his father until a few years back when his mother had gotten sick. She was the only parent he knew for most of his formative years. He always wondered about the mysterious man who held the title of “father”. He and his mother had lived in a small apartment complex in the heart of the city. He went to school as normal until age thirteen. One morning, he woke up and realized his eye color had changed. He was confused as to what had happened, often remembering that life-altering day throughout his life.

  That fateful morning, he groggily dragged himself to the bathroom and took a shower. It was just like every other morning; he followed his usual routine getting ready for school. But this day would be anything but routine. As he stood before the steam-covered mirror and wiped the foggy glass, a foreign image began to appear. The reflection was not the same one he had seen for thirteen years. A pair of pitch-black eyes, instead of the usual hazel, stared back at him. At first, he thought the vapor on the mirror had distorted his image. He quickly wiped at the glass with a towel and waited for the steam to dissipate. To his horror, his eyes were still the same pitch-black color. A quiet fear enveloped him, and he ran, panicked, out of the room towards his mother’s small bedroom down the hall. By the time he reached her, he was crying uncontrollably. His eyes were bloodshot from his tears and vigorously rubbing. He lovingly remembered the way his mother had held him in her arms and tried to soothe him. Later on, she would blame the change on a genetic trait he had gotten from his father—one she’d known would manifest itself soon. She had wanted to tell him but she just didn’t know how to.

  He remembered how, because of his shock and confusion, he had refused to go to school that day and the rest of that week. In fact, he planned on never returning to school for fear of embarrassment and teasing. He remembered how his mother initially had understood and sympathized with his refusal to attend school until four days had passed. After she left his room on that day, he headed to the bathroom when he heard her on the phone. He remembered standing outside the old cracked door and listened to his mother say words like “have to come” and “he knows” and repeatedly saying “scared”.

  The next day, as he lay in bed, he distinctly remembered the knock. His mother opened the door and he heard the voice of the man he would later learn was his father. He recalled his mother’s timid voice calling out to him and walking towards the towering figure dressed in a brown jacket and jeans with polished work boots. He remembered staring into the face that held eyes as black as night as feelings of fear, curiosity, and confusion rose up within his soul. The man reached out his hand and took his small one in a firm handshake.

  After that day, the man visited frequently. During this time, he had to adjust to getting to know this stranger he saw only a few hours three times a week. He had tons of questions to ask him, but the man seemed only interested in asking questions and not answering them. He did answer any questions Owen had about his gift and his eyes though. His father explained the gift as the ability to turn light into darkness. He said they had the power to suck light from any room, any space, and even from a person. Owen didn’t understand this concept of sucking light from a person until his first fist fight at school.

  He had returned to school to begin his freshman year the next semester. During the time he had stayed at home, his mother had gone to his school and explained to his teachers he had contracted a serious illness. He suspected she had a doctor friend who wrote a note asserting this, because the school had given her the homework he needed to complete his semester.

  When he went to high school on the other side of town, he had to catch three buses just to make it there; however, he felt relieved because none of his former friends attended that school. He was new, a mystery, and could reinvent himself as whoever he wanted. He had begged his mother for colored contacts to hide his eye color and she had complied.

  The first few days of school, he stood back and watched. He found out who the popular kids were and worked his way into their circle. He quickly adopted their mannerisms and habits, learning how to say the right things, tell the funniest jokes, and give off an aura of cool. He had survived so far without incident until the day he accidently bumped into a boy who was bigger and tal
ler than everyone else in the class. He knew this kid, knew him to be the resident bully, and had stayed away from him as much as possible until that moment.

  The boy—Jasper Mort—stood a towering six feet two inches in ninth grade, when all others maxed out at five-ten. His bulky size and massive hands added to his overall intimidation. He always wore plaid shirts in varying colors and dark blue jeans, barely covering thick hiking boots. His unruly brown hair partially concealed his acne-covered forehead and fell roughly around his cratered cheeks.

  His small brown eyes moved rapidly around, looking for the person who bumped into him. He was in the middle of a conversation with a lanky boy who moved as if he had small invisible creatures constantly crawling over him. Owen had recognized this boy—Kyle Pillard. Rumors flew around about Kyle having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder because of the way he continuously moved.

  The both of them turned around when Owen slammed into Jasper. At first, Owen was frightened. He heard rumors of the beatings Jasper had given to people whose only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He didn’t want to be on the receiving end of one of those beatings, and his fear led him to apologize until he saw a mysterious expression on Jasper’s face. The anger on his face as he turned around and the tension in his raised fists were replaced with a mesmerized look. It was as if Jasper’s body had been taken over by another person as he stood silently, swaying slightly and staring into Owen’s eyes. Jasper unexpectedly raised his hands to his throat and started to squeeze. He coughed as his massive hands appeared to act on their own, cutting off his own air supply. Owen continued to stare at Jasper, his fear turning to confusion…and then to fascination. It wasn’t until he realized a crowd gathered and heard the frantic shouts of Kyle pulling on Jasper’s hands did he turn away. In the moment he did, Jasper’s hands released his neck, and he fell over to the floor, choking, spitting, and breathing heavily.

  Owen used this moment to slip away from the crowd that had gathered and found the nearest bathroom. He felt a surge of adrenaline. When he looked in the mirror, he realized one of the contact lenses had gotten dislodged. His black eye glowed red.

  Owen had excitedly gone home that afternoon to wait for his father to come to the apartment. He itched to tell his father the news, of how he realized what he could do. When he arrived however, he noticed an ambulance outside on the curb in the front of his building. He walked into the open door to find two paramedics on each side of his mother. He rushed over to her and stood, watching, as they slipped an oxygen mask over her face and were getting ready to lift her onto the stretcher.

  He felt like screaming at them. Instead, he tried to be as calm as possible, even though he trembled. “What’s wrong with her?”

  The female paramedic moved over to where he stood after they lifted her on. Owen glanced at her handstitched nametag sewn onto her orange shirt. It said Susan. “Are you her son?” Susan asked.

  “Yes, yes I am.”

  “Your mother just had a small heart attack. It doesn’t appear to be anything major at this moment. She felt it coming, took some aspirin, and was okay enough to call 9-1-1. It’s a good thing she recognized what happened and called when she did. We were in the neighborhood for another call, which turned out to be a false alarm, so we were able to rush right over and get to her in time. She’ll be okay.”

  She followed her partner to the ambulance and helped him lift the stretcher inside. Owen stood by the door and watched the scene unfolding before him…Susan looked over at him as she opened the driver’s-side door. She seemed genuinely concerned. “You going to be okay, kid?”

  Owen struggled to keep his emotions in check. “Yes. I’m going to call my dad right now.”

  “Okay. You do that.” She got behind the wheel and started up the ambulance. As she and her partner drove off with his mother, he felt a sense of despair and dread overwhelm him. He took out his phone and called his father’s cell number. His father picked up on the first ring.

  The next few days were a blur as Owen and his father visited his mother in the hospital. The consensus from the doctors vacillated from uncertainty of her status to optimism that her overall good health would bring her through. Later, though, the doctors began to avoid him as he made his regular trek to the hospital after school. He took this as a bad sign. He began to notice how thin and frail his mother appeared. He spent those last days with her just holding her hand and mournfully staring at her. Most of the time, she slept as he did this, but a few times, she stayed awake long enough to talk with him about his day. He told her about the new friends he made, how he thought of joining the basketball team, and how he had cleaned her room for her so it would be nice when she came back home. When his father visited, Owen snuck out of the room to give them their privacy. He would spend that time wandering the halls of the hospital. He found he was more so curious about death than frightened by it.

  Soon, his mother finally got too ill to speak. He would sit by her bedside and simply hold her hand. His mother looked at him with sympathy in her eyes and attempted a weak smile. It seemed to take everything she had when she reached over to rest his hand on the top of hers. She patted his hand gently and mouthed, “I love you.” She closed her eyes and left the world.

  Owen remembered not crying much after that. His father had decreed that Owen would move in with him. He didn’t take much from the apartment that day. He didn’t want to take things that would remind him of his past. His father returned to the house to pack and donated Owen’s mother’s belongings to charity.

  After that day, Owen became more sullen. At school, he and his newfound friends, Jasper and Kyle, became a trio of menace. Once he recovered, Jasper came to respect Owen; Kyle found Owen fascinating. They followed Owen around and worked their way into his good graces, eventually becoming his posse. They found pleasure in the newly discovered fear they had struck in the hearts of all of the students. No one bothered them, and they took whatever they wanted, when they wanted—somehow avoiding suspension or expulsion from school. This bond lasted throughout their high school days and after.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I had felt someone there, watching us that night. I knew it may have been one of those boys from my class, but I didn’t know which one. The black SUV stood out. It wasn’t there when I first arrived at Cicely’s house. When we had stepped out to the car, I felt his presence; it was a coldness I never imagined could exist. It felt like it seeped into the depths of my soul. I felt the happiness of the moment slipping out of me, and I knew it came from the black car. So, I decided to transfer it back. The tinted car windows were too dark for me to see inside when it drove past.

  Dinner with Cicely had been fun. It felt great to get out of the house again. I considered, as we sat eating, telling her about my gifts. However, after remembering the way her mother had greeted me, I wasn’t so sure that was such a good idea just yet.

  After dinner, as I drove home, I contemplated those words Cicely spoke when I first met her. I played them over and over in my mind. You’re close to finding out.

  As I pulled into my driveway and parked the car, a sense of hopelessness overwhelmed me. I was no closer to finding out what happened to Mam and Aunt Vern than when they had vanished.

  I skulked into the house, brooding over my loss. The thoughts of my relatives covered my mood like a thick cloud, suffocating me. I walked through Mam’s room and inhaled in her faint smell of lavender. Sitting on her bed, I ran my hands over her sheets and felt the distinctive grooves left by her body. I hadn’t changed anything from both of their rooms. After the first year of searching and searching for clues, I hadn’t reentered their rooms. The memories were too painful. As I sat there though, I felt like she was watching me. I closed my eyes, breathing in her scent, and imagined seeing her walking around.

  I decided to go into the basement, where all of Aunt Vern’s books and special ingredients were kept. These treasures could be accessed through a hidden entrance behind one of
the shelves at the back of the pantry. I had learned of the secret room from the first time Mam and Aunt Vern thought I could be trusted with it during my eighteenth birthday. They’d taken me to the room, and I stood in awe when I saw the pantry shelf swing out with the press of a button, exposing a dark stairwell with motion-sensing lights.

  At the bottom of the stairs was a six-inch-thick steel door with one elaborate five-petal flower in the center. To enter, you had to press a thumb against the glass lock attached to the round chrome handle. Both Mam and Aunt Vern stood with me and told me to place my finger on it. When I did it, the plate glowed red and a sudden heat emitted from the door, which after a few seconds became unbearable. Feeling as though it would have burnt my fingerprint off, I yanked my hand away. Aunt Vern then placed her thumb on the glass. As soon as she did, the glass returned to its original color and the heat quickly dissipated.

  “It doesn’t recognize your print.” Mam stated, tiny beads of sweat began forming on her face from the heat of the small space.

  “My print?” I asked innocently staring at the door.

  “Yes, child. We have to initiate you.” Aunt Vern reached into her hair and pulled out a sharp pin that held up her long pony tail. As she pulled out my hand and pricked my finger, Mam held my shoulders, giving them a slight reassuring squeeze. A tiny bubble of blood seeped from the pinprick. Aunt Vern pulled my hand over and pressed my thumb against the glass. When she pulled my hand away, I stuck my throbbing thumb in my mouth and watched as the glass absorbed the blood. When the surface was clear again, the glass glowed blue, and the door swung open.

  I had ventured down here many times since then during my search for answers for Mam and Aunt Vern. There were so many books spilling out from every nook of the room, it would have taken more than one lifetime to read them all.