“Why do you think she was upset you healed her?”
“PTSD?” I said. “David Combs shot her. I’m not sure what kind of mess I’d be if he’d shot me.”
“Did she know him?”
“I didn’t get the chance to ask.”
Fadil eventually followed me to the slide and leaned against the pole connected to the jungle gym. “I’ve been trying to think this through,” he said. “You, the first person scientifically proven to have been born of a virgin, hears a voice from a corporate logo that tells you to heal Freddie, which you do. Moments later, David Combs, a boy you’d never met, vanishes in a bright light. And since then, you’ve healed a cat’s leg and a cut on my hand.” He cocked his head to the side. “Is that everything?”
I stared at the ground and drew circles in the sand with the toes of my shoes. “According to Mrs. Burchfield’s anatomy skeleton, I’m apparently supposed to save humanity.”
“A skeleton talked to you?”
“Mostly he made bad jokes,” I said, “but he also warned me that the world is in danger and I have to heal more people to stop it.”
“How many more?”
“Freddie interrupted before he could tell me.”
Fadil was silent for a moment. “Do you believe him?”
I brushed my hair off my face. “For as long as I can remember, the voices have guided me. Before Mama married Sean, she was supposed to go on a date with this guy she’d met online, but my Barbie told me she shouldn’t, so I faked being sick and she canceled. A few days later we saw on the news he’d been arrested for kidnapping a woman. The voices told me to take anatomy this semester when I really wanted to take chemistry, and they told me to sit with you at lunch your first day of school.
“The voices have been this constant presence in my life and I didn’t always understand the things they said or asked me to do, but I believed they were looking out for me. Now, though?” I caught and held Fadil’s gaze. “Telling me where to sit at lunch so that I’d meet my best friend is one thing; telling me I’m supposed to save humanity is a whole different level of weird.”
Fadil pursed his lips. A light sheen of sweat coated his face. “But do you believe them?”
“Should I?” I asked. “Would you?”
“I talk to Allah five times a day,” he said. “I’d be surprised if he answered, but I’d probably believe him.”
“I don’t think it’s Allah who’s speaking to me.”
“It might be.”
“I doubt he would make silly puns.”
“You might be right, but the divine being who came up with human sex organs definitely had a sense of humor.” Fadil put on his thinking face. It was a cute scrunching of his nose and forehead, and it made him look a little constipated. Which, okay, doesn’t sound cute, but trust me, it is. “So if the voices aren’t Allah or any god, though you shouldn’t rule that out, how do you feel about them asking you to save humanity?”
Fadil was treating this seriously, and I loved him for it.
“Confused? I’m not sure how healing will save the world unless I heal everyone in it at once.”
“Okay, then,” he said. “Do you think the voices are connected to the light that took David Combs?”
“I doubt it was a coincidence,” I said. “But why would they take him?”
“Punishment? Maybe they zapped him into the middle of a volcano.”
My mind began to race at the implications. “Or maybe they took him as a reward for shooting Freddie,” I said. Fadil tried to interrupt, but I cut him off. “Follow me, here. I’m supposed to heal people in order to save humanity. The voices encourage David to shoot Freddie in front of Starbucks because I have a crush on her and they believe her nearly dying would make a compelling catalyst to bring out my ability to perform miracles. Then, as his reward, they beam him up and away to spend the rest of his life in paradise.”
Fadil’s jaw muscles twitched. “Or, David Combs was a violent kid who wanted to kill someone, the voices had nothing to do with that part of it, and we don’t know why they raptured him or where he went.”
I took Fadil’s hand and squeezed it gently. “I wish I had answers.”
“Can’t you go back to Starbucks and ask the siren? Or the skeleton or some other inanimate object?”
“They don’t answer when I call.”
“That’s inconvenient.”
“Can’t we forget any of this ever happened?” I asked. “You go back to being a band geek and I’ll go back to being Mary and we can pretend our lives aren’t a science-fiction movie.”
Fadil squeezed onto the slide beside me. “You were chosen by some higher power, and I don’t think you can ignore that. Maybe you could go on TV and start your own Miracle Elena Healing Hour show.”
“Not likely,” I said.
“How else are you supposed to heal enough people to save humanity?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, “but Deputy Akers called and told me at least three people claimed to have recorded the ‘miracle,’ but that all they’d recorded was empty footage.” The lack of video evidence hadn’t helped my credibility. “Besides, if the voices wanted me to have my own TV show, they would have told me to answer one of the hundreds of phone calls or e-mails I got after the shooting.”
“Either way, you’ve been given a special ability, Elena, and I believe you have a moral obligation to use it for the betterment of humanity.”
“Even if I don’t understand why I have this power?”
“When Allah offers you a gift, you don’t refuse it so you can decide whether it’s a worthy gift.”
“But you do if you’re not sure it’s God that’s given it to you,” I said. “There are things I don’t understand, Fadil, and I think I should if I’m going to move forward.”
Fadil frowned with one side of his mouth. “What do you have in mind?”
“David Combs,” I said. “He’s the connection. If we can figure out why he shot Freddie, whether the voices took him, and where he went, maybe we can understand why I have this power and what I’m meant to do with it.”
Fadil leaned into me and I wanted to hold him there forever. I felt safe when he was near, like there was no question I couldn’t answer, no battle I couldn’t fight. “This is bigger than you. Bigger than Freddie or David Combs. And sometimes we have to do what’s asked of us and trust that it’s the right thing.”
“There were people who thought my birth was a miracle,” I said. “And some who thought otherwise. Then a doctor came along and proved it was science and not a miracle. Remarkable, improbable, but still science. We can do the same here, and I believe David Combs is the key.”
“I’m on board with whatever you want to do,” Fadil said. “But I don’t think Combs is the key. I think you are.”
TWELVE
SEAN WAS ALREADY drunk when I returned inside after saying good-bye to Fadil. I wished I had Fadil’s faith. My life would have been easier if I trusted the voices implicitly. If I believed the shooting and David Combs disappearing and my newfound abilities were part of a larger plan to save humanity. And maybe they were, but I needed to know for sure. I couldn’t blindly follow the orders of the voices when I didn’t know where they came from or whether they were being completely honest with me.
“Kitchen’s a mess,” Sean said. “Clean it up and then put the kids to bed.”
“I cooked.”
“So?”
“It wouldn’t kill you to get off the couch and help,” I said.
Sean took a long swig from his beer can and then stretched his free hand behind his head. He was stringy and scruffy and I didn’t understand what my mother saw in him. “You’re lucky, you know?”
I rolled my eyes. “So lucky.”
“When I was your age, I was going to do shit.” His eyes got this glassy, far-off look. “Work with computers. Make a shit-ton of money and never have to worry about nothing.”
I bit back the smart remark that leapt to my t
ongue. “What happened?”
Sean scrubbed his patchy beard and relaxed. “Life. My dad got sick and I got a job to help my mom with the medical bills. Then I met Natalia. You were here for the rest.”
“So go back to school,” I said. “It’s not as if you don’t have the time.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Sure it is,” I said. “Go online, enroll in classes, attend them, find a job. See? Easy.”
“You think it’s easy because you never had to make a difficult choice in your life. But one day you’ll see. You’ll make compromises you wish you’d never made. You’ll wake up and look at your life and wonder how the hell you ended up there. Then you’ll understand.”
“The only choice you seem to be making these days is whether to drink at home or drink at the bar.”
Sean’s mouth and eyes hardened. I saw the moment the walls snapped up between us. He stood, tossed his empty beer can on the floor, and stormed into the bedroom. A couple of minutes later, he returned in different clothes, grabbed the car keys, and left.
I started cleaning the kitchen. I felt like a jerk. Sean had been trying to tell me something and I’d shut him down without bothering to listen. But it was difficult to feel sympathy for him when he could have helped make our lives so much better if he’d only put in a little effort. If he found a job, we might have been able to afford a bigger apartment and maybe a car that didn’t threaten daily to crap out on us.
I heard the shower turn on in Mama’s bedroom while I was washing the dishes, and she came out a few minutes later as I’d settled at the dining room table to attack my mountain of homework, which included my makeup work from Thursday. I had all weekend to do it, but I didn’t want to leave it until Sunday.
Mama was wearing her uniform—khaki pants and a blue shirt—and she’d pulled her wavy brown hair into a messy bun. The smears of purple and green under her eyes from lack of sleep weren’t part of the uniform.
“Do I smell coffee?”
I motioned to a travel mug I’d set by the pot. “I already put cream and sugar in it.”
She kissed the top of my head as she passed through. “What would I do without you, Elena?”
“Fall asleep while restocking creamed corn?”
Mama poured her coffee and stirred it before taking a long sip and sighing. She turned and leaned against the counter. “What did you say to Sean that got him so worked up?”
“That he was a lazy asshole.”
“Elena . . .”
“All I did was suggest he go back to school instead of wasting his time at a bar.”
“Sean’s a good man who’s going through a rough time.” She leaned against the counter. “He wasn’t always like this, you know.”
“Yeah,” I said. I remembered how good he’d been with Conor and Sofie when they’d come along, and despite the way he acted these days, they still loved him.
Mama carried her mug to the table and sat down perpendicular to me. “How was school?”
I wanted to tell her the truth. About the lawyer who’d approached me outside the apartment and the kids saying I was a liar and how Freddie had told me I shouldn’t have healed her. I even wanted to tell her about healing Lucifurr and Fadil, and the voices, but I didn’t. It was the look on her face that stopped me. The one that said she was treading water in lead boots and that worrying I was running around performing miracles might be the thing that pulled her under.
“It was fine,” I said.
Mama reached across the table and took my hand. “I count on you to watch after Sofie and Conor when I’m not around.” She flashed me a tired smile. “Which means you need to learn to get along with Sean. He’s not a bad person; he’s just—”
“An asshole,” I finished.
“Sometimes.” Mama cupped my cheek in her hand and kissed the top of my head.
“How do you do it?” I asked. “How do you go to work and deal with Sean and me and the kids?”
“I have no other choice,” she said. “If I stopped to worry over all I have to accomplish, it would overwhelm me. So I do the thing in front of me, then move to the next and the next.” Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She slid it out and peeked at the screen. “And now I have to go. Lydia’s out front waiting for me and I want to say good night to the kids.” Mama got up from the table and headed to Sofie and Conor’s room.
I sat at the table after she’d left, considering what she’d said. Humanity was in danger, I had healing powers I didn’t know what to do with, I didn’t trust the voices, David Combs shot Freddie and I needed to figure out why, and why the voices had raptured him, and Freddie seemingly wished I’d let her die. Mama was right. If I attempted to solve all my problems at once, they’d drown me. My best option was to focus on the issues immediately in front of me and keep moving forward, so that’s what I decided to do. I hoped the world didn’t end in the meantime.
THIRTEEN
NORMAL IS STUPID. Who got to determine the baseline for what was normal and what wasn’t, and who appointed them to make that decision? Why did they get to declare that I wasn’t normal because I was born without a father? Why did they get to decide that I was weird for healing a girl who’d been shot?
Freddie’s shooting hadn’t affected most of my classmates. They hadn’t seen her body; they hadn’t washed her blood off their hands. All the majority of them knew was that I’d either performed a miracle or lied about performing one, and they were quick to label me a freak and retreat into the safety of their routines. While I was attempting to learn why David Combs had shot Freddie and why the voices had taken him, everyone else was pretending the world was awesome and, nope, nothing happened, nothing to see here; go back to your stupid, normal lives.
Fadil and I spent our lunch periods slowly peeling back the layers of David Combs. He didn’t have any friends that we knew of. He’d tried out for the marching band but had been cut, and hadn’t been involved in any clubs or teams. He’d been a ghost at Arcadia West long before he’d disappeared in a beam of light. We’d learned nothing that explained why he’d become violent or why the voices had deemed him worthy of saving. To say it was frustrating was an understatement.
“So then Mr. Benson’s sleeping at his desk and he starts going, ‘Who’s a good boy? Are you a good boy or are you a naughty boy?’ ” Fadil had dropped his voice an octave to mimic Mr. Benson.
We were sitting at our usual table near the wall, lost in our own world while a hundred boring conversations went on around us. Most of the time the rest of the school could have vanished and we wouldn’t have cared.
“While you were taking a test?” I dipped a greasy fry into my paper ramekin of ketchup and ate it. I didn’t know what they’d been fried in, but they were delicious.
Fadil nodded. “And we were trying not to laugh so we could find out whether ‘he’ was naughty or not.”
“Please, dear God, tell me Benson has a dog.”
“It’s creepy either way.”
You guys are so boring. Take me out of this bag.
I paused and dipped under the table to dig around in my backpack. The voice yelped when I grabbed the slender box of tampons I’d bought on the way to school that morning because I’d felt crampy and annoyed, which usually meant the communists were invading. I set the tampon box on the lunch table. It was decorated with a faceless sketch of a girl bending a soccer ball under obnoxiously festive lettering.
“That explains the french fries,” Fadil said, motioning at my lunch.
“Excuse me?”
“What? You only buy cafeteria fries right before your period.”
“Are you keeping track? Is there an app for that?”
“There is,” Fadil said. “I don’t have it. But I’ve known you long enough to recognize the signs. So what? We’re friends.”
It was annoying enough that Fadil was able to guess when I was having my period based on my dubious food choices, but somehow worse that it didn’t bother him. When I’d dated
Javi he’d practically gagged and run away when I’d mentioned it.
“That’s not why I got them out.” I spun the tampons so the girl on the box was facing Fadil. “She told me to. Apparently we’re boring.”
Why aren’t you healing people? Didn’t we make it clear that you have to actually perform miracles in order for us to save humanity?
“She’s asking why I haven’t gone on a healing rampage,” I said.
“Have you told her your plan to uncover all of David Combs’s deep dark secrets?”
“You tell her.”
I hear everything you idiots say. I know about your stupid plan.
“She thinks we’re idiots,” I said.
Fadil furrowed his brow. “Why are the voices so rude?”
“They didn’t used to be.” I picked up the box to stuff the sketchy tampon girl back in my bag.
Wait! she said. If you insist on doing this, talk to Javier.
“Great plan,” I said, dropped her in my backpack, and zipped it up.
“What?”
I rested my elbows on the table and leaned forward. “She says I should talk to Javi, as if that’s ever going to happen.”
Fadil tapped the tip of his nose with his index finger. “Actually, that’s not a terrible idea.”
“How is talking to my obnoxious ex not the worst idea in the history of bad ideas?”
“It’s not worse than the time you went platinum blond.”
“You swore never to mention that again on pain of excruciating death,” I said. “And talking to Javi is definitely worse.”
“Hear me out, okay?” Fadil continued wolfing down his lunch, which one of his parents packed daily in an adorable bento-box-style container, as he spoke. “You heard the rumors that David Combs was bullied? Well, Naomi told me—”
“When did you talk to her?”
A goofy grin practically ate Fadil’s entire face. “After you failed to arrange our totally random meet-cute, I had to do it myself. Except it really was an accident. I saw her at the bookstore on Saturday reading manga, and I went up and talked to her. We met; it was cute. And then we hung out again on Sunday.”