The student at the fountain finished and as he turned, I realized it was Mike Matheny, the one true love of Amelia. He was cute, I guessed. Like most in our school, he was a jeans-and-tee kind of guy. Not long ago, he’d shaved his head in solidarity when his wrestling coach began chemotherapy, but it was growing back now. He’d never had hair as nice as Gabe’s, of course, but most humans didn’t. He was still handsome, if a little . . . vacant.
As per my usual custom when confronted with a boy my age, I cast my eyes to my shoes while he passed me. I thought of Ame. How her crush had lasted years with no reward or even acknowledgment. Was her commitment to him courageous or just . . . lame? And was his oblivious nature a scam? Was he just trying to be nice or did he really not know how much she’d pined for him all these years?
An unusual sentiment flashed through me.
It wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t fair that she invested so much energy—so much of her heart—for nothing. She deserved to have someone in her life, a real boyfriend. One of us should have a crack at happiness. It wasn’t fair.
“Mike,” I yelled before he’d gotten too far.
He looked back at me, confused. And who wouldn’t be? It was well-established that Theia Alderson did not socialize with boys. But Ame deserved a chance, didn’t she?
“Amelia is coming over after school to study trig. Can you come?”
“Um.”
My tongue felt thick, but I persevered. He was just a boy. If I could waltz at a zombie creature party, I could converse with a boy I wasn’t even interested in. “Monday’s test is supposed to be brutal. We’re hoping massive amounts of caffeine and cramming will help.”
“Um. Okay.” He answered, still clearly perplexed.
As was I. I think I just wanted something to work out for someone. I didn’t dare hope I stood a chance with Haden. Maybe I would invite Gabe too and not tell Donny until she got there. Wouldn’t that be something?
I wrote down my address on a corner of notebook paper and tore it off. As I handed it to him, I sensed the heat of a stare on my back. I began turning towards the source when all the locker banks on either side of the hall opened and slammed violently at the same time. The momentum of the sudden force made some of them swing back and forth several times, smacking a few students who’d been caught unawares while they were retrieving their books. My adrenaline spiked, and Mike and I exchanged confused glances.
People came out of the classrooms to see for themselves what had caused the noise. A teacher blamed the wind and guided students back into class; another badgered those of us who hadn’t yet gotten that far. I blinked and saw Haden at the other end of the hall, staring at Mike.
“Are you okay?” Mike asked me.
I nodded with very little enthusiasm and the bell rang. Instead of a short burst, the sound grew sharper and louder. Those of us still in the hall covered our ears. The noise was hideous and it felt like an electric screwdriver boring holes into the bones of my jaw.
I couldn’t think clearly, the screech obliterating my thoughts, and judging by the other kids pushing their way to the door, it was affecting everyone the same way. Mike grabbed my sleeve and we ran towards the exit.
We got outside and kept running. All of us had to get away from the shrill screams. Had to. The clamor was so disorienting that I couldn’t remember where I was going or what I was doing. As several of us spilled into the street, traffic horns blared and the smell of burned rubber assaulted my nose. The constant barrage on my eardrums gave me vertigo and nausea gripped me tightly, but I didn’t dare stop yet.
When I got far enough away that I could uncover my ears, my hearing was filtered as if I were deep underwater. Kids were falling down around me, and I’d lost track of Mike sometime after we’d gotten outside. I choked on the bile burning my throat and searched the mob for my friends. And for Haden.
Across the street, people threw chairs out of second-story windows to get out. There were emergency ladders, but students were panicking and dropping off them too soon in order to escape the whining din that sounded like hell had opened up and screamed.
And was still screaming.
We, the refugees who’d managed to escape, wandered around dazed and unhearing across the street from campus. The bell had been bad enough, but the mass exodus bruised and battered us too. Kids were crying and trying to call their parents even though they couldn’t hear them on the other end of the phone. They held their phones and mouthed words into them. Maybe they yelled. I could hear nothing anymore.
Emergency vehicles came from all directions and barricades went up. We’d practiced similar situations before; evacuation and lockdown drills were mandatory in the American schools. But I’d always assumed I’d be able to hear the directions from the crew sent to save us. Instead, everyone was confused. Were we okay? How do you answer that?
I found Donny and Ame in time to be shuffled onto a school bus headed for the emergency room. We squeezed into one seat and held hands. We didn’t bother talking, since none of us could hear. We clutched one another, and the weight of unspoken fears filled the bus like a balloon with too much air. The vibrations of the wheels tickled my eardrums, but very little sound got through. I’d never heard of an entire school being stricken deaf. Who would have thought it was even possible?
As we pulled away, I searched for Haden in the crowd not yet on buses, almost relieved when I couldn’t find him. Part of me wondered if he’d had something to do with the disaster—which was crazy.
Part of me remembered Varnie’s warning, though, too.
My ears popped a couple times and the pain doubled me over. Ame’s gentle hand rubbed my back until I felt her body racked with what must have been the same pain. I concentrated on shallow breaths and trying to stay conscious. I thought of my violin and what my life would be like without music.
In between the popping sensations, it seemed like as we got farther from the school, my hearing was returning little by little, yet only certain pitches were audible. By the time we got to the ER, they had set up an outdoor “lobby” to evaluate the seriousness of each student’s wounds—those who were bleeding and broken were guided into the hospital. The rest of us, who were in varying degrees of pain as our hearing returned bit by hurtful bit, had to wait it out under the tents.
Time passed in a blur. I had to keep my eyes on the ground because the rapid motion of the emergency workers made my vertigo worse. I don’t know how long I’d been there when my father appeared in front of me, his mouth drawn into a firm line and his forehead creased with worry. The tears burst out of me then, and I propelled myself into his arms. He clutched me in an awkward yet very firm hold and I leaked tears and snot all over his cashmere sweater. He didn’t let go until the tears stopped. The last time he’d done that I was seven.
Father sat me back in a chair and went looking for a doctor. He looked older than his fifty years, more solemn than I’d ever seen him, and I’d rarely seen him anything but solemn. I couldn’t tell what they were saying, so my gaze wandered to the rest of my schoolmates. Everyone had withdrawn into as little space as possible in their seats. Parents were beginning to show up now, and that was the only thing that seemed to bring us all out of our frightened states. Moms and dads were suddenly all-important again. Like when we were kids. We were counting on them to know what to do, how to fix it. How to keep it from happening again.
I scanned the crowd for Haden once more, wondering what his parents looked like. What they did. A slight breeze caressed my cheek and I turned towards it—stunned to see Haden ten yards away. He watched me with an expression that looked a lot like guilt.
I eased between the covers of my bed and sighed, weary of the heaviness of my limbs. No more thinking, I promised myself. No more puzzling out the inconsistencies and trying to make sense of the nonsensical.
Muriel had spoiled me with homemade chocolate lava cake, my favorite. Father didn’t reprimand me when I ate a huge ramekin of it in place of supper.
He didn’t read his paper at the table either. We didn’t speak much, even though my hearing was mostly returned. But it wasn’t our custom anyway. It was a companionable silence.
After the cake, I soaked in the tub until the water had long lost its warmth. For once, the girlish traditional nightgown was a comfort. And the room I had begun the day hating seemed welcoming and friendly. Familiar. Safe.
As I reached for the light on my nightstand, Father knocked on my door.
He wasn’t a frequent visitor, and frankly, he looked ridiculous amongst my things. The frills and pinks against his austerity would have been amusing in a comedy, were it not my life.
Father perched on my bed in an uncomfortable-looking pose. “Do you—that is—is there anything else you need?”
I’m afraid I blinked in response. It was so unusual and so unlike him.
“Theia,” he said, his face going ashen, “is your hearing getting worse again?”
I shook my head. “No. No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you. I think I’m just overtired.”
He breathed easier. “Very well. I’ll let you rest.” He stood as if to leave, but stopped. “I’m very glad that you’re feeling better.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll let you rest,” he repeated.
“Good night, Father.”
He nodded and crossed the room in much longer strides than he had on the way in.
“Father?” I called to him before he passed through the door.
“Yes?”
“Thank you for . . . coming today. And for checking on me now.”
“Of course.” His answer was matter-of-fact, but his voice cracked slightly.
That night there were no dreams. None that I remembered anyway. I awoke refreshed and with no lasting effects from my temporary deafness.
I awoke to the petals of black roses strewn across my bed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
In the morning, a lonely stillness cupped the quiet house in its hands. Father wasn’t home; I knew it even before I saw the note. His absence weighed heavily on my senses. It had been nice, despite the awkwardness, to be visited by Father last night. The strange things happening to me seemed less scary. My life wasn’t as precarious and disjointed, and I’d felt like a safe child again.
Muriel didn’t work for us on the weekends. I wouldn’t have minded the distraction of her that morning. She was the opposite of my father—all soft hugs and easy tears. She always smelled like lemons and brown sugar.
For want of something to do to keep me from thinking, I pulled out my violin, but was unable to coax a single note from it. After putting it away, I considered reading, but the words couldn’t hold my attention either. I was restless and because of it, the stillness of the house ceased being lonely and instead became oppressive.
I powered up the computer in the study, determined to wrest back some of the control I felt I’d abandoned since the night I saw, or thought I saw, the burning man fall from the sky. I Googled “waking dreams” first. Bypassing personal journals, I found a medical site that spoke of sleep paralysis and began to relax even though the word “paralysis” was frightening. A medical explanation of my symptoms, one that didn’t indicate poor health or psychotic imbalance, was very welcome indeed.
It all seemed to fit quite nicely. In the old days, there were folktales that explained the phenomenon. A woman—sometimes a hag, sometimes a beautiful demon—would kneel on the chest of a man and paralyze him, taking his life force or some such. Sometimes she was called Mara—as in “nightmare.” The man couldn’t move until she let him up.
But really, it was explained easily by modern medical facts. Sometimes people were unable to transition smoothly from deep sleep to wakefulness. In a deep sleep, the body relaxes the muscles so as not to flail about and hurt himself while dreaming. A person who becomes lucid while in this sleep state will not be able to move, and it is during this time that hallucinations occur. The mind is awake, but the body is still locked in sleep.
I sighed with relief. Though my dreams felt real to me because I was partially awake, I had never really left my bed. Excellent.
And then I thought of the rose hidden in my drawer and the petals on my bed this morning. They could not be explained by sleep paralysis.
Not ready to give up, I next Googled “lucid sleepwalking,” though where I would have found a black rose while sleepwalking I couldn’t say. I wouldn’t know where to get one even while conscious, and Father certainly didn’t cultivate them on the grounds. Unfortunately, the most relevant Web sites agreed that sleepwalkers don’t remember their fugue states, and I remembered every detail of mine very vividly.
I wasn’t prepared to abandon the explanation entirely. The Internet is not the most reliable source of information, after all. The things I saw on my sleepwalking travels must have worked their way into my dream state. I nodded at my own rationalization and searched for “black roses.” It was then I learned that black roses don’t exist in nature.
That was impossible. I’d held the rose, smelled its strange fragrance; it was right now drying in a drawer. The petals were not silk or man-made. The flower was real, and yet it could not exist.
Questions swirled around my brain and I found myself thinking about denial. I squeezed my eyes closed, accepting what I’d been trying so hard to reject. There was no use pretending.
A memory nagged at me. I hadn’t been asleep in the sunroom while playing the violin a few days ago, and Father had clearly seen me while, in my mind, I was in the labyrinth. If I was somehow traveling to another place, why wasn’t the rest of me going too? I typed “out-of-body experience” into the computer.
The scope of results was too large. There were so many different beliefs—astral projection, spirit walkers, soul travelers. I had to close the window. I thought of Varnie. He was likely my best source of information.
I showered and dressed in record time. Now that I’d decided to embrace getting educated, I was in a hurry to do so. I was giddy on my walk across town. I even promised myself not to flinch if he wanted to read the cards again.
Bounding up the steps of Varnie’s house, I reminded myself of Ame with her endless enthusiasm. A huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders knowing that I would soon understand what was pulling me towards Haden—or Haden towards me. I knocked on the door and leaned to look in the picture window of the front room. The boxes were gone.
Dread frosted over my previous optimism. The house looked empty. I muttered a string of words I’d learned from Donny and sat dejectedly on the stoop. Varnie had made good on his proclamation of leaving town. I rose and sent one more dejected look at his front door.
As I accepted the inevitable, I noticed the white corner of an envelope sticking out from under the welcome mat. I toed it the rest of the way out. It had my name on it. I scooped it up and sat down on the step again, tearing into it before I remembered I was an Alderson and above that kind of unseemly behavior.
My hands shook as I read Varnie’s unfamiliar scrawl.
Theia,
I’m sorry I missed you. I knew you’d come back (see, I told you I was the real deal), but things were just too dicey for me to hang around.
I wish I had all the answers you need. I really don’t know what is going on with you. The problem with being a psychic, even a very good one, is that you can’t always control what is visible and what remains in the shadows.
You, little girl, are shadowed more than anyone I’ve ever met.
I’ve tried to get a clearer shot of you, but I just can’t. All I can tell you is what I said the other day. Something wants you, and badly.
You’ll need a talisman. It won’t protect you, but you’ll need one just the same. Talk to Miss Amelia. She’ll be able to help you with that.
Good luck to you. And your friends. I wish I could stick around and help, but I’m not sure I could do much for you anyway. In other words, I’m too scared to hang around and find out.
Varn
ie
I walked around town for an hour, letting Varnie’s words crisscross my brain over and over again. Donny texted me for a coffee date, but I wasn’t ready to talk yet and she knew me so well that I wouldn’t be able to hide what I was feeling, so I declined, claiming homework.
I hit the side roads then, so Donny wouldn’t see me on her way to the coffee shop. She texted me again to remind me we were going dancing at Chasm that night and that I wasn’t allowed to bail. And then once more to tell me she’d run into “that sneetch with the book” again. This time, she’d let him look down her shirt before she “accidentally” spilled her mocha on his trendy tennis shoes. I sighed as I typed “LOL” even though what I meant was “Poor Gabe.”
I figured I should go home or ask Amelia what Varnie meant about a talisman, but I just didn’t want to yet. I was scared and angry and confused. I didn’t want to talk about it—I didn’t even want to think about it. I just needed a break from my own life.
A huge pickup with muddy flaps passed me, then stopped and came back at me in reverse. My heart caught in my throat. Haden rolled the passenger window down.
It wasn’t exactly the vehicle I’d expected to see him drive. He seemed more like a sports car bloke. Something low to the ground with too much chrome and shiny paint. Instead, this behemoth truck dwarfed me with its size and excessive show of masculinity.
“Theia?” Haden hit a button and I heard the door unlock. “Do you need a ride?”
I glanced around furtively. “I’m not really sure where I’m going.”
“So hop in,” said the spider to the fly.
Doubt settled in my stomach. The warnings of Varnie and my father swirled together into a slow-cooked stew of unease. I barely knew this boy—and what little I did know of him was not comforting in the least.
“I don’t know.” To be honest, I wanted to get in, despite the possible danger. Maybe because of it. “Okay.” I decided. “Thanks.”