some money on the counter for you to develop the pictures you shot yesterday. Thanks again for the help. I'll be back ASAP.
(Note #5) Celia called this morning. She wants you to call her back. Celia - 555-6767 Love, Dad
Link snatched the money and the last sticky note. Then he headed downstairs to change. He didn't know if Kaylee would be home, but he wanted to look his best just in case. She may be the devil, but she was the most gorgeous devil he had ever seen, and he wasn't about to embarrass himself in front of her again if he could help it.
On a whim, he stopped by the computer, dropped into the chair, and moved the mouse. The desktop sprung to life. He pulled up the web browser then clicked on the Facebook link. There was another message from Jim Jim.
Don't tell anyone about the camera. The Broken are coming. They'll kill you if they don't get it. Stop ignoring the voices; you're not crazy. They are dangerous. Be careful.
If Link hadn't already been sitting, he might have fainted. Despite Jim Jim's declaration of his sanity, he felt far from sane. Instead, the message had only succeeded in further thrusting him further into a world like the ones created by Darren Shan and Stephen King. Too bad he had none of the plucky resourcefulness of the heroes and heroines of such novels. Link was nothing but an ordinary, run of the mill, red-headed reject whose short list of known not-so-super powers included sarcasm, procrastination, and bad luck.
With no clue what his next action should be, he employed the most powerful of his three not-so-super powers, procrastination. His most practiced course of action in a situation like this was to stall for time and figure it out later.
So he clicked the e-mail icon on his desktop and stared in amazement. His inbox registered fifty new messages. Link was mystified. How could he have received so many e-mails in such a short period of time? He started from the oldest then clicked on the first one.
In an attempt to ease the mounting tension, he fed an Aphex Twin CD into the computer. The rush of rhythmic beeps and clicks combined with intricate drum sequences and droning ambient loops was beautiful yet discordant, energetic yet peaceful. The newly formed musical landscape helped soothe Link's emotional tornado. He took a few deep breaths as if he could inhale the sound through his lungs.
He glanced at the computer screen and wondered why the e-mail was taking so long to load. Seeds of frustration and uncertainty began sprouting in his mind like weeds in a garden. The completion bar sat frozen at twenty-five percent. His attempt to return to Facebook while he waited was thwarted by a frozen screen. What a surprise. He was left waiting once again.
As the third track began, Link stood, disgusted. How could a cable modem move so slowly? It was ridiculous. He left the page loading and went to fetch Ayden. Had he brushed his teeth yet this morning? He couldn't remember. Just to be safe, he grabbed a pack of gum from the dresser.
Again he glanced at the computer screen and found the file only twenty-six percent complete. Unbelievable. He unwrapped a piece of gum and popped it into his mouth. A cool wave of spearmint exploded across his taste buds as he ran up the stairs to collect his brother.
Kaylee Greta answered the door. She wore pink bikini bottoms and a tight, gray, cut off t-shirt exposing a tiny silver belly-ring that accentuated her well-toned stomach muscles. Her raven black hair hung freely and cascaded down her back.
The allure of her body shredded every last fiber of Link's willpower and pulled his gaze down her slender frame with a force equal to gravity.
"Ew! Disgusting!" Kaylee squealed, not even attempting to hide her contempt. "As if! I hope your brother doesn't turn into a perv like you." Kaylee spun with a flourish before sauntering into the other room, swishing her hips from side to side like a professional runway model as she left.
Link wasn't sure whether to follow or wait for her to return with Ayden. All he knew for sure was that he had successfully made a complete jerk of himself. Not wanting to compound the mistake, Link remained where he was. Maybe waiting was a superpower.
After a few minutes had passed, Link wondered if he had made the wrong choice. Should he have followed? To his great relief, Ayden came through the doorway, just then, holding Mrs. Greta's hand instead of Kaylee's. Ayden's face burst into joy upon seeing Link. He ran over to him and hugged his legs.
"Isn't that precious?" Mrs. Greta said. There was a faraway look in her eyes. "You're obviously a very good big brother to inspire such devotion from one so young. He certainly talks about you a lot."
Link looked at her with a heightened level of respect. "You actually understand him?" he asked, trying to conceal his disbelief.
"Of course," she said, somewhat puzzled by his surprise. "There were a few things I didn't quite grasp, but overall Ayden is a very articulate young man. In fact, I feel the heart of a future poet may beat inside that precious little chest of his."
"A what? I don't think he knows how to rhyme."
"Being a poet is not about what you say; it's what you see. It's the insight that matters. The awareness. All great poets have a knack for taking something ordinary, such as an apple, and finding the impossible inside of it. In a way, poets are magicians who pull words, instead of bunnies out of their hats. Ayden sees things...things that others, for whatever reason, cannot. Listen to me," she said, shaking her head in mock disdain, "prattling on like an old goat. I swear. One mention of poetry and I can't stop yapping."
"But aside from you, me, and on very rare occasions my dad, nobody else even understands him."
"His vocabulary needs a bit of work, but you're focusing on the wrong thing, Lincoln. Again, it's not what he says, it's what he sees. Ayden is remarkably perceptive. For example, he told me how you removed the shadows from the dining room last night."
"The what?"
"He called them 'moving dark,' but I'm fairly certain he meant shadows. Isn't that right, Ayden?"
"Yes!" Ayden lit up with the excitement of a tourist finally meeting someone who spoke the same language.
"Moving dark," she said as she hushed a giggle. "Brilliant, simply brilliant. You see, Lincoln, since Ayden didn't have the vocabulary for what he wanted to express, he pulled from words he knew as a sort of comparison. That's what poets do. Sure they're usually more longwinded than the rest of us and sometimes struggle to find their point, but that's the crux of it. That's poetry."
"What'd you say?" Her words had tarried in his ears a bit before reaching his brain. Had she said shadows?
"Um, that's the crux of it," she repeated, sounding a little confused.
"No, the part about shadows."
"Oh, that. Ayden said you took away the shadows. I'm not sure what he meant. But if I had to guess, I'd say it probably has something to do with the camera flash making shadows disappear. Whatever the case, it was very sweet of you to play along. Not many kids your age would have done that. Most of them are too wrapped up in themselves to care about the problems of a four-year-old."
She looked back in the direction Kaylee had disappeared. "I know of at least one who certainly wouldn't."
Shaken by the sudden arrival of understanding, Link took an abrupt inhalation of air, sounding as though he had hiccupped. "You're right! That's it exactly. Thank you so much. I can't tell you how much help you've been." He hurried his little brother out the door, leaving behind a rather perplexed Mrs. Greta.
As planned, his not-so-super power of procrastination had worked to perfection. Mrs. Greta had found the connection that had eluded him before. Now he knew what his brother was so scared of. 'Moving dark' was a shadow. Link couldn't believe he had missed something so obvious. Another thought crossed his mind. Hadn't that message he'd received on Facebook warned him to be careful of the shadows? Or was it to beware the shadows? Link couldn't remember.
28
A Picture of What's to Come
Link walked to his bedroom, followed closely by Ayden. Once there, he gave his brother some picture books to thumb through. Then he returned to his desk and flicked the mouse, knocking the
computer out of hibernation. The e-mail still hadn't finished. The completion bar read seventy-two percent.
"Ahh, come on, you stupid piece of sh...ell." Link realized in the nick of time that his brother was still in the room. If Ayden learned to cuss because of him, his dad would never let him live it down.
He hit the side of the machine with a solid thump from his palm. There was little chance of this succeeding, but it felt good. As expected, the computer did not speed up, despite what Link felt to be a very responsible smack. In fact, if it were possible, the completion bar now appeared to be moving even slower than before. Though perhaps Link's complete inability to stop checking its progress only made it seem that way. Whatever the reason, it was taking forever to get nowhere.
Link walked over to Ayden and tousled his hair. It was amazing how enthralled he could become by looking at a book that he wasn't even capable of reading. Link recalled Mrs. Greta's words about Ayden's acute perception and concluded that she was right.
"You doing okay, kiddo?"
Ayden nodded, content to quietly read the book.
Link picked up the envelope of pictures. He had been in such a rush to leave the store that he hadn't even looked at them. He supposed his current dejection proved that developing the film had been selfish after all. It had been the pictures already on the camera that had intrigued him, not the