“Fine,” I said. “But you’re still going home with blue balls at the end.”
“I expect nothing less.”
SIXTEEN
FADIL LAUGHED FOR a solid five minutes when I told him on the drive home from school that Javi had ransomed his David Combs info in exchange for a date with me.
“This isn’t funny,” I said. “Going out with him the first time was bad enough.”
“It’s a little funny.”
“No, it’s really not.” Then I told him about the conversation I’d overheard Jason and Roshani having during English. “Do you think those people disappearing are my fault?”
Fadil pulled into my apartment complex and parked. “You can’t take anything that comes from Jason Carpenter seriously. I had speech with him last year and he gave a presentation on how the government is using the smart devices in our homes to create profiles of us so that it can replace us with obedient artificial machines.”
“I get that,” I said. “But the way he described it was exactly how David Combs disappeared.”
“Then he heard it from someone who was at Starbucks that day.”
Though Fadil had a point—Jason’s love of conspiracy theories, no matter how far-fetched, was widely known—I wasn’t prepared to blow off what I’d overheard quite yet.
Fadil had plans with Naomi—again, Mama was sleeping, and Sean was out, so I took Conor and Sofie outside to the playground to burn off their excess energy. I used the time to hunt through the Internet for information that supported Jason’s claims. I didn’t find much, and I didn’t trust what little I did find. One site that talked about other disappearances also had an article purporting that David Combs had been an alien and would soon return to transport all of humanity back to his planet. So, not exactly credible. But if even one person other than David had been raptured by a light from the sky, then that had to mean there was more going on than the voices were telling me.
I was so distracted by my phone that I didn’t hear Mrs. Haimovitch shuffle up beside me until she lowered herself onto the bench with a huff.
“You kids and your cell phones.”
Mrs. Haimovitch was beautiful. Age may have traced lines across her face and gravity may have dragged her skin downward, but time couldn’t erase her beauty, only change it, like a tree’s leaves that shift from green to gold.
“Hey, Mrs. Haimovitch. How’s the hip?”
“Hurts,” she said. “And my stupid insurance won’t pay to replace it. Not until I’m completely unable to walk, so they claim.”
“Bastards.”
“You got that right.” She watched Sofie and Conor chasing each other around the park, laughing and fighting. “How’s your mother?”
I shrugged. “Tired all the time. It doesn’t help that Sean does absolutely nothing to help her.”
“She’s too good for that man.”
“That’s what I keep telling her.”
“And how are you holding up?” Mrs. Haimovitch asked. “Some sleazy reporter came around asking after you.”
I froze. “What’d you tell him?”
Mrs. Haimovitch let slip a devious laugh. “Oh, I invited him in for brownies and told him about my hip and my gout and the damn insurance company, and I showed him pictures of my grandchildren and the video of my colonoscopy. He didn’t have any questions for me after that. Also, he ate two brownies, so I made sure he took a taxi home.”
Now I was the one laughing. Mike D. often gave Mrs. Haimovitch his skank weed, which she used to whip up brownies and cookies and other edibles, which she shared with him and some of the others in the apartment complex. She claimed the brownies helped her manage her pain. If the reporter had eaten two, he’d likely spent the rest of the day staring at pretty lights seen only by him.
“So you invited a strange man into your house, drugged him, and showed him a video of your lower intestine? You might have missed your calling as a supervillain.”
“All these folks harassing you after what you did,” she said. “It’s obscene. But he left me his card.”
“I get it. I’m a story. Either I’m a girl who performed a miracle or a girl responsible for perpetrating a hoax to help a mentally unstable teenage boy escape.”
Mrs. Haimovitch tilted her head to the side and offered me a sweet smile. “No one here believes you helped that troubled boy.”
“I might have,” I said.
“How so?”
“I’m not sure.” My thoughts drifted back to that afternoon at Starbucks. “When I healed Freddie, I think I might have caused the beam of light that took David Combs.”
“I’ve known you and your mother for a while, Elena,” Mrs. Haimovitch said. “You’re a sweet, kind girl. Whatever you did or didn’t do, I’m sure your heart was in the right place.” She shifted on the bench, wincing even from such a small movement.
“Thanks, Mrs. Haimovitch.”
“I do have one question, though.”
“Ask away.”
“Have you always been able to perform miracles?”
I fidgeted with my fingers and glanced at the kids. Sofie had climbed on Conor’s back, and he was carrying her around while she raised one of her arms in the air like she was taking a victory lap on a prize horse. “I don’t think so. I’d never tried before.”
Mrs. Haimovitch nodded and smiled. “How’s that nice Muslim boy you spend so much time with? Has he worked up the nerve to ask you out yet?”
I coughed to cover my laugh. “Fadil? We’re just friends.”
“Oscar and I were ‘just friends’ for years before he finally found the courage to ask me on a date.”
Mrs. Haimovitch had told me countless stories of her husband who’d passed away, and I let her because those were the moments she seemed most alive.
“You miss him, huh?”
“I do.”
“Well, there’s no chance of that with Fadil. He’s got a girlfriend now anyway. I think. I’m not sure what they are.”
Mrs. Haimovitch wore a knowing smile and I hoped she wasn’t going to push the issue. I loved him like a brother and nothing more. “Is there anyone special in your life, then? I’m living vicariously through you, so don’t leave me hanging.”
“There is a girl,” I said. “But I’m pretty certain she’s not interested in me.”
“Who is she? Have I met her?”
I shook my head. “It’s the girl I healed. Winifred Petrine.”
“Now, that’s interesting,” Mrs. Haimovitch said.
“Not really. I had a crush on her. Maybe I still do. Either way, she’s made it clear my feelings will go unrequited.”
“People change,” she said. “Why don’t you invite her to dinner?”
“At my apartment?” Mrs. Haimovitch was only trying to help, but the idea of her in my home with Sean and Mama and the kids was ludicrous. One minute with them and she’d probably run away.
“Mine,” Mrs. Haimovitch said. “Sunday. I always cook in case Katie and the grandkids drop by, and it’s a shame to waste all that food.”
“Thanks,” I said. “But we’ve barely been able to have a five-minute conversation. I’m not sure I’m ready for a dinner date.”
“The offer’s always open.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I should get back inside. Help me up?”
I took Mrs. Haimovitch’s hands and anchored myself to the ground while she pulled herself to her feet. Pain creased her face with every movement, and an idea formed.
“Let me fix you,” I said. “Your hip I mean. Why wait for the insurance company when you have a miracle worker living above you?”
Mrs. Haimovitch steadied herself before letting go of my hands. “Don’t waste your miracles on an old lady like me. Save them for those who really need them.”
“You’ve done so much for us.” I’d lost track of the number of times she’d babysat Sofie and Conor on short notice, and she’d even drugged a nosy reporter to protect me. �
�Besides, I don’t think the healing is a limited resource.”
Mrs. Haimovitch caught my eyes. The creases around her mouth deepened. “There’s a good reason my daughter and grandchildren don’t come around for Sunday dinner,” she said. “I don’t deserve a miracle.”
While Mrs. Haimovitch spoke frequently of her deceased husband, she rarely spoke of her daughter and grandchildren. Mama might have known why they were estranged, but I didn’t, and I found it impossible to imagine anything Mrs. Haimovitch might have done that would cause her daughter to shun her. Then again, we all have secrets we’re ashamed of. We’re all capable of hurting the people we love, even if we do so unintentionally. But that didn’t mean Mrs. Haimovitch wasn’t worthy of a miracle.
“You don’t deserve to suffer, either. Not when I can help you.” When she still hesitated, I added, “Please?”
Finally, Mrs. Haimovitch nodded. I made sure Conor and Sofie were on the other side of the park and then I took Mrs. Haimovitch’s hand and closed my eyes. Her fire was dimmer than Freddie’s and Fadil’s had been. It was tinged with shadows and flickered in places. I didn’t think it was in any danger of dying out, but it was evident it had burned for a long time. I zeroed in on the area where her hip was and found sharp teeth gnawing at the bone. Slowly grinding away at it, patient and unyielding. Her pain must have been constant, and I’m not sure how she’d managed to live with it for so long. I guessed there was more strength in her than I’d given her credit for. I pried the teeth from her bones and threw them into the void, healing her.
Mrs. Haimovitch drew in a sharp breath and stumbled against me. I opened my eyes. Before I could ask if she was okay, Mrs. Haimovitch pulled me to her and wrapped her arms around me and cried.
“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” she said. Over and over and over. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
SEVENTEEN
TWENTY-ONE PEOPLE VANISHED from the earth when I healed Mrs. Haimovitch. There was no way I could have known that at the time, but if I had, I might not have done it.
Sofie was taking her shower and Conor was watching TV with Sean while I enjoyed a few moments of quiet alone in the bedroom with the computer in my lap, searching for any news about lights from the sky or strange disappearances. I stumbled across a new article about David Combs with a quote from his parents pleading for anyone who had information to contact the police. I felt sorry for them. There was no scenario where they wouldn’t be living a nightmare. If the light from the sky hadn’t raptured him, David might have shot others, and I might not have been able to heal them. Or he could have taken his own life rather than face being arrested. In some ways, I think not knowing where he was or what had happened to him was worse. If he were dead or in prison, at least they wouldn’t be stuck in limbo wondering.
Woooo! Elena! Your dread god commands you to listen!
I looked up from the computer and scanned the room, pausing on a stuffed baby Cthulhu Javi had bought me as a joke after our first date. We’d spent the evening arguing over whether it was appropriate to teach stories written by a heinous racist and anti-Semite to high school students, and Javi had given me Baby Cthulhu to remember the conversation by. It had been a weird, sweet gesture.
“Good,” I said. “I have questions. Did I cause David Combs to disappear when I healed Freddie? And was it only him or did others vanish?”
Do not demand answers from your deity! Grovel, worm, and despair.
Baby Cthulhu had wide cartoon eyes and a horde of fat tentacles for a mouth. He was cute and not at all intimidating, and I found it difficult to take him seriously. “Or you could stop being a prevaricating dick and answer me.”
Come on! Show some respect to your dark lord or I will set fire to the world and watch you burn with it!
I wasn’t certain how to respond to the bratty, stuffed god. If I pissed him off, he might go silent and I’d never learn anything. But I also wasn’t in the mood to allow him to talk down to me. “What do you want?”
We have given you gifts of might, the ability to perform miracles, and you have squandered them on old ladies and cats. We command you use your powers to heal the sick and dying or face our eternal wrath.
“I can’t run around healing people at random.”
Of course you can! That’s the whole point, you sweet, ignorant fool.
“How would you like it if I stuffed you under the bed?”
You would demean your god by treating him like an unwanted toy?
“I’d shove you in a blender if it would shut you up.”
Time is running out. Use the abilities we have given you, Elena Mendoza.
“Stop messing around and maybe I will,” I said. “Did I cause David Combs to vanish?”
Fine. Yes.
“Did I cause others to disappear?”
Yes. Yes, it’s all your fault. Now get on with the healing or suffer the consequences.
The implications caused my brain to run wild. “How many?”
Baby Cthulhu didn’t answer immediately, and I thought I’d scared him off. But he hadn’t left, and after a moment he said, Twenty-one.
“Total?”
Twenty-one when you healed the old woman’s hip, five when you saved Winifred Petrine, eight when you healed the cat, and thirteen when you wasted a miracle on that boy’s cut hand.
I did the math in my head, and when I came up with the total my mouth fell open. “Forty-seven? Are you serious?”
We told you that you were saving humanity.
“I thought you meant by healing them!”
That’s why we’re responsible for the thinking and you for the healing.
I felt sick to my stomach. Eight people had vanished because I’d healed Lucifurr’s leg on a whim. There were eight families out there wondering what had happened to someone they loved, and it was my fault. “Are they still alive? Where did they go? And why twenty-one? Why thirteen before that? Are the numbers random or significant?”
The explanations would cause your puny brain to explode, and while I would greatly enjoy that, we need you, Elena. You have a divine purpose. Do not question the will of your gods!
I laughed without meaning to. “You’re not my gods.”
Could anything but a god give you power over life and death?
Fadil might have been willing to take Baby Cthulhu’s assertion that he was a god at face value, but I wasn’t. He saw the will of Allah in the sunrise and in every smile and human interaction. I, however, saw science. Cause and effect. The sun didn’t rise because Allah or God or gods willed it; it rose due to of the rotation of the earth, which was controlled by gravitational forces.
Still, Baby Cthulhu had asked me a question I couldn’t answer. If the voices weren’t divine, then where had my ability to perform miracles come from?
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I’m not ready to believe that you’re God or even a little-G god.”
Your belief is not as important as your obedience. Do as we command or your world will end in flames. The world will burn and everyone you care for will burn with it!
I’d had enough. Clearly, Baby Cthulhu wasn’t going to tell me anything useful. I stood, grabbed him off the dresser, and stuffed him under the bed.
Elena! What are you doing? Get me out of here this instant! Your dread god commands it!
I headed for the door, stopped, and said, “Try not to burn the world down while I’m gone.”
EIGHTEEN
RUNNING AROUND HEALING strangers wasn’t as easy as Baby Cthulhu had tried to make it sound. I couldn’t walk into a hospital, find a room full of cancer patients, and zap them well. There were likely rules against it. I’d read an article about a boy who’d secretly lived in a hospital in Central Florida for a few months after his parents died there. He’d eventually been caught. And there was another story about a kid who’d masqueraded as a doctor at a hospital down south for a while before he was discovered. So I guessed it might have been possible to sneak in, perform some quickie mir
acles, and sneak back out, but doing so felt too risky.
And I still hadn’t processed the new knowledge that healing people caused others to vanish. I didn’t care that Baby Cthulhu had said they were being “saved,” whatever that meant. I was responsible for tearing mothers and fathers and sisters and husbands and kids from those who’d loved them. Even the worst human beings on the planet had at least one person out there who would miss them if they were gone. Making the lives of some better by healing them couldn’t balance out the pain caused by the disappearances of others.
Ever since I was little and Mama told me that I was unique, I’d thought that meant I was destined to do something special, to be someone special. Hearing voices that no one else heard had only reinforced that belief. And I wanted it to be true. I wanted my life to have meaning. For the kids at school and my family to see me for who I really was. I wanted Freddie to see me. But if I did what the voices wanted, Miracle Girl is all I would ever be. And eventually someone would make the connection between my ability to heal and the random beams of light that shot from the sky. When that happened, it would only be a matter of time before shadowy government agents came knocking on my door to whisk me away to a secret underground base where they’d force me to use my abilities for them, or cut me open to understand how I worked.
But if I did nothing, all of humanity might suffer. I couldn’t expose myself to the world and remain hidden at the same time. Eventually I was going to have to make a choice, but I needed more time to figure out what to do.
On Friday, I hung around after class to discuss our homework with Mr. Murakami, and I was late heading to the cafeteria. The normally chaotic hallway was quiet, and I caught the faint echo of music in the distance. It was fast and frenetic and not the sort of music I would have expected a teacher to be listening to. I was anxious to get to lunch so I could tell Fadil what Baby Cthulhu had said, but curiosity drove me to follow the music instead, and I found myself standing in front of one of the art rooms. I peeked through the door’s window. Freddie was dancing in front of a pile of garbage, wearing a rubber apron and work gloves, uninhibited the way someone is when they’re certain no one will see them.
The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza Page 8