More useful was the accidental discovery that if I imagined Luke, I could induce a milder version of the calmness I felt when I gazed into his face in reality. The only problem was that I ended up pretty well cut off from all other input. It wasn’t that I couldn’t see or hear, but I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. I needed a more selective technique.
When I heard the car pull up, I was pretty weary. I didn’t want to face anyone, so I went back upstairs and climbed into bed. Fatigue rolled over me.
* * *
I woke again when Serenity came to bed. It was dark, and from the silence of the house I guessed it must be late. She switched on the bedside lamp, draping her black scarf over the side of the lamp nearest to me to cut the glare. She undressed in the reflected glow from the white lily, and before she pulled on her nightdress I noticed how skinny she looked. I could see all the knobs of bone along her spine and the delicate lines of her ribs. She seemed suddenly to feel my gaze and turned to look at me.
“Are you OK?” She stepped toward me and brought the scent of fresh, wet violets with her. I was a bit surprised, because I couldn’t smell the licorice that I had decided was her essence smell.
“I’m fine,” I said. “How was school?”
She shrugged and climbed into bed.
“What do they say about me?” I persisted, wanting to stop her switching off the light.
She rolled over so she could face me, like she used to do when we would talk into the night. “There are a lot of rumors. Some of the girls are saying you’ve forgotten everything. Sylvia Yarrow claims you’ve lost your marbles.”
“She would. What about the boys?”
“Anyone in particular?” Serenity asked.
I shook my head, deciding I wasn’t ready to share my daydreams about Harlen Sanderson. We lay there looking at one another for a while.
“What was it like being in a coma?” she asked at last.
I had the strange feeling that this was not the question she wanted to ask. But I answered her anyway. “Like … nothing. I was awake, then I was asleep, and then I was awake. Bang-bang-bang, like that.”
“Did you dream?” she asked in a queer, too-casual voice and, just like that, I felt the darkness shift and quiver about her, and the violet smell faded into licorice and a sort of burnt-oil smell.
“I don’t remember any dreams,” I managed to say, wondering what she could be thinking or feeling that would so radically change her smell.
Serenity reached over to switch her light off. I wanted to ask her not to, but I couldn’t think of a good enough reason. Instead I lay in the dark, listening to her breathe more and more slowly until she slept.
I was on the verge of sleep, too, when I heard a door slam. I guessed that Mum was going for a walk. Or maybe she was going to the all-night supermarket. I pictured her walking along the street, hands pushed deep in Da’s big coat, her hair a wild reddish tangle in the streetlights, spangled with little spits of rain. I wished I had the energy to get up and go after her, because I loved those surreal night trips where nothing was required of you but to wander along in Mum’s dreamy wake.
* * *
I woke, this time to daylight flooding into the room and to Jesse playing his guitar in the shower. Serenity’s bed was empty, and my clock said it was just after nine. I got up and went downstairs. Da was washing the dishes and talking, with the phone cradled between his head and shoulder.
“Two vans would be better,” he said. He hadn’t yet noticed me, so I allowed myself to focus warily on him. I smelled his coffee smell and also the smell of molasses and new rope. I could also smell the real smells he was giving off: sweat from his morning run and dishwashing detergent.
I reached out and got an apple from the fruit bowl in case I needed a distracter, and I jumped when Da suddenly gave a great burst of laughter. I glanced at him, his back still to me. I smelled fresh-stewed plums, tart enough to make my mouth water.
It was funny, but before I had figured out what had happened to me, I had felt no fear about dealing with anyone; now that I knew what I was going to face, my palms were sweating at the thought of Da turning around to talk to me. It was like being in some horrible experiment where you never knew where or when they were going to give you an electric shock.
I tipped some muesli into a bowl and poured in the milk, keeping my eyes on the food because the movement was sure to catch Da’s attention. As I felt him turn my way, I flashed him a quick, unfocused smile and spooned up my muesli. When I looked up again, he had turned to the window, still talking.
There was a rusty squeak, and I turned to see Wombat ooze through the cat flap. I crooned to him, and he glided over and started to weave circles around my legs. When he brushed against me, I distinctly smelled tuna, and to my amazement I understood that he was producing the smell to let me know he was hungry. I laughed aloud and knelt down to pat him, fascinated to find that when he looked at me, I wasn’t overwhelmed by his curiosity or feelings or thoughts. I felt quite simply his insistence that he needed feeding, clear as a statement and absolutely connected to the smell of tuna.
I got out a box of crunchies, wondering if the focused attention of humans overwhelmed me because they were unwittingly sending everything they thought in a loud unfocused jumble, whereas Wombat used his scent with the same precision as humans used words. He had probably always given off his specific scent statement when he wanted food, but we humans had only responded either to our knowledge that he had not been fed for a time, or to the insistent meow he had come up with to get our attention. No doubt he thought we were totally dim.
This whole idea of animals using scents to communicate in the same way humans used words seemed tremendously exciting, because it suggested that maybe what had happened to me wasn’t a damaging of my senses, but the jolting to life of a section of my mind that humans had used at some point in their evolution but had stopped using when they started to rely on language.
I set down Wombat’s food and stroked his head, noting the rich salty smell he was now giving off and understanding that it communicated affection for me—or maybe for his food.
“Why not?” Da was saying as I went back to sit at the table. “It’s nothing to us how many guests come as long as the Urban crew don’t set some sort of limit.”
I realized then that he was talking to one of the band members about the upcoming gig. He started to give off the ammonia smell, and I saw that he was frowning. “I’m just saying we shouldn’t expect too much.” A listening pause. “Yeah … OK then.” Da put the phone down, but to my relief, he went back to the dishes as he asked how I was feeling.
I said tensely that I felt good. He flashed a smile over his shoulder, then started drying knives and putting them into the cutlery drawer. He seemed distracted. I got up, deciding I had been brave enough for the morning. But before I could take a step, Da gave a soft exclamation and reached into his pocket to pull out a long envelope. He tore it open, and as he read, the ammonia smell grew so strong that it almost blotted out the coffee smell.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Just a bill,” Da said lightly. Pushing the letter into his pocket, he went back to drying the silverware. But the ammonia smell stayed strong. I crossed to the fridge and made a big business of putting the milk away, getting out orange juice, and pouring myself a glass.
“School rang this morning,” Da said. “How do you feel about going back? You don’t have to until you feel up to it.” Now there was a pine scent winding through the coffee grounds, but the ammonia persisted.
I took a sip of juice, trying to ignore the flavor, then I turned and looked at a spot on the wall just left of Da’s ear, telling him that maybe it was time to go back. I felt afraid of facing all those kids and teachers, but at the same time I wanted to get my life back to normal.
“Why don’t you wait until next week? Start out fresh on a Monday,” Da said.
I drank some more juice. Then I said, “I guess I co
uld call the school and ask them to give me some work to help me catch up.” Da had gone back to the sink, and I went on more easily without him looking at me. “Mirandah or Serenity could bring it home.”
“Sybl,” Da corrected, obviously wanting to make me laugh, except I no longer felt like laughing at Serenity’s desire to become Sybl.
“I don’t like that name much,” I said.
Da frowned a little. “Me neither, but we have to respect her wishes.”
Do we? I thought. Even if I felt that there was something weird about her being so determined to change her name?
Da’s frown deepened as if I’d spoken out loud, but he didn’t say anything and neither did I.
The next week I went back to school.
I had prepared myself as best I could, practicing quick shifts of focus and being careful never to look right at someone who was looking at me. I had a pocketful of fast-dissolving mints. And I could always use Luke’s image if it all got too much, although I was determined not to resort to a total blockout unless I had no choice.
I was pretty nervous, but the worst part would be those first few minutes in class when everyone focused their attention on me. I told myself that if I could get through that, the rest would be easy.
I dawdled deliberately to avoid the early morning locker crush in the hallway because the one thing that really scared me was the thought of being touched, and it would have been unavoidable in the scrum between classes. I had not found any way to lessen the impact of physical contact, and I couldn’t imagine what would happen if a few people bumped into me at once. Maybe my brain would explode like in some science-fiction movie.
I took every book out of my locker and put them into my pack. It would be a pain to lug them all from class to class, but I didn’t dare risk going back during the day.
I hesitated outside the door to homeroom, heart racing and palms sweating. I told myself I didn’t have to go in if I didn’t want to. Everyone would understand if I changed my mind. The problem was, if I backed away now, I doubted I would be able to bring myself to try again.
I took a deep breath, stuck a mint in my mouth, and entered the room.
Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared, and I had to grit my teeth to keep from reeling backward. Even looking down and concentrating on the mint I was sucking, I felt like I had been pounded by about twenty pillows simultaneously.
Fighting nausea and panic, I managed to nod my head apologetically at the teacher without actually looking at her, then I all but fell into the seat nearest the door. It was vacant, but Sylvia Yarrow was in the next seat and my hand brushed her bare arm. I felt the burning surge of her corrosive nastiness, which was boiling out of a black lake full of despair and self-loathing.
I don’t know what I looked like in those seconds after I brushed against her, but Sylvia must have thought I was going to throw up on her because she drew back hastily. Now that I was looking at her, I could smell the sharply unpleasant stink of burning plastic that she was giving off. Rather than being repelled, I felt a great surge of pity for her. It was this that allowed me to get a grip on my senses. I concentrated on the mint and said, “Are you all right?”
For a split second her face screwed up like she was going to burst into tears. Then she snapped, “Of course I’m all right, you idiot. You hardly touched me.” She flounced off to sit in another seat.
* * *
“What did you say to Sylvia just after you came in?” Gilly Rountree asked, moving up one seat to take Sylvia’s spot after the homeroom teacher left. “She looked like you punched her in the stomach.”
“Nothing,” I said. Gilly was giving off a wonderful sea-breeze scent, which vanquished the clammy despair left over from my glimpse into Sylvia.
“Are you OK or not?” Gilly asked doubtfully.
“About half OK and half not,” I said. She was looking at me, so I pretended to riffle through my books, asking whether the schedule had changed while I was away.
Gilly sat back in her seat with a sigh. “It’s like Days of Our Lives in this place. You can miss months, and then you see one show and pick up where you left off. Nothing changes.”
Mrs. Barker came in then. She made no more comment on my presence than a swift nod, before outlining the work we were to do that period. I hardly heard her. There was still a roaring in my ears and I felt queasy, but I also felt shakily triumphant at having managed such an ordeal. My aim for the rest of the day was to be so dull and uninteresting that any curiosity about me would die an untimely death.
Once I calmed down, I was able to concentrate on the class. I had always liked English, and it went pretty much as usual except I didn’t answer any questions or make any comments. I was too scared of drawing anyone’s attention.
The next class was math, and I was surprised to discover that I enjoyed it. It was not just because everyone left me alone so they could concentrate on what the teacher was saying; it was the numbers themselves. How perfect and complete they were! Mathematics, I saw, could be like building a house out of light or music. I had always struggled before, because numbers and calculations had seemed to have nothing to do with anything I cared about, but now I saw that numbers were literally the fabric of life.
I was so absorbed in an equation that I didn’t notice the class had ended until I dimly registered Gilly saying: “Earth to Scotty!” I saw then that everyone was packing up, and I reluctantly closed my notebook.
“So, what was it like?” Gilly asked. I glanced warily sideways, but I didn’t feel trapped or hammered by her regard. The mathematical calculations I had been doing seemed to hang in my mind like a web, absorbing the rush of information from my extended senses.
“Hello!” Gilly called with laughing exasperation.
“Sorry. What did you say?” I asked, trying to hold the web of calculations in my mind. But like a spiderweb in rain, it was breaking and fraying.
“I said, how was it being in a coma?”
“It was like a long sleep,” I said distractedly.
“Ahh, but in that sleep … what dreams may come?” crooned Jezabel Aster.
I forced myself to look at her, but her attention did not hurt me, either. Even though the web of calculations was falling apart, it was still absorbing the pressure of her regard. I remembered that Jezabel was the class clown, and thought if I wasn’t careful, the next day the school would be doubled up over her imitations of me acting weird. So I said more firmly, “I was just asleep, and then I was awake.”
Luckily, the bell rang and Mr. Rackett marched in, right on time as usual, sending Jezabel scurrying back to her seat. Mr. Rackett is the most punctual teacher in school. It’s what history does to a man. All of those dates have made him scared he’ll miss his own historic moment.
The class was only a single period, but I was too elated by what had happened in math to concentrate. It seemed to me that I had stumbled on the perfect way to screen the input from my extended senses. I was too exhausted to try doing complex calculations, but I tried counting and then simple equations, and both worked to lessen the sensory input, although not as effectively as the web of calculations had.
Other than what had happened in math, the most interesting thing about the whole day was realizing how little I had really known people before the accident. I kept seeing things that I hadn’t been capable of seeing before. A thousand details of body language, from fingers twitching or hands shaking to laughter hidden from anyone but me; a sudden sweat that told me someone was scared; the slightest telltale intake of breath.
I felt like some sort of super Sherlock Holmes who could see evidence and make connections that other people were unable to make. Then there were the phantom smells. Mostly I had no idea what they meant, but they made me curious about the hidden aspects to people I thought I knew.
For instance, one of the class troublemakers smelled a lot like Luke after a bath, while a girl I had admired smelled so strongly of paint thinner that just being near her m
ade me feel nauseous. Then there was Gilly, who I had always quite liked, but whose delicious sea smell now so strongly attracted me that it was all I could do not to follow her around like a puppy.
The biggest shock happened at the end of the day.
I had dawdled packing up in the last class to make sure that the hall would be relatively empty when I got there. So there was no one nearby to see me open my locker and find a note from Mrs. Barker asking me to see her. I was wondering why she hadn’t just spoken to me in class that morning, when I heard someone call my name.
I looked up and my heart did a total flip, because coming down the hall was the incredibly handsome Harlen Sanderson.
I dropped some books and bent to retrieve them so that I could buy some time to start counting.
“So how does it feel to be back, Alyzon?” Harlen asked, coming to stand beside me. My knees shook as I straightened and looked into his beautiful green eyes, half obscured by the silky black fringe of his hair.
“I’m …,” I began, then a hideous stench hit me so hard that I stopped counting and reeled back against the locker in shock and revulsion. I could feel darkness fluttering at the edges of my vision like a ragged black bird, and I saw Harlen’s eyes widen in puzzlement.
“That’s the old charm, Harl,” laughed a boy who had stopped at a nearby locker.
I dropped my books again and knelt down, ostensibly to collect them. Now that I was not looking at Harlen, I couldn’t smell the awful rotten stench he had given off. But I could not stay grovelling on the floor. I struggled to my feet and turned to look at my locker.
“Are you all right?” Harlen asked.
“I just … f-felt a bit dizzy,” I stammered. I had finished putting my books away, so I had no choice but to turn back to him.
He looked sympathetic and said something, but I didn’t hear it; the ghastly stench he emitted was growing stronger. Desperately, I pulled open my bag and began shoving books back into it from the locker. Now that I was not looking at him, I was free to listen.