“Dad, would you please come back inside? The lasagna is getting cold!” I shouted, following him to the front door. “There’s no way anyone is out there now.”
My father had reacted rather violently when I told him that some crazy person with a flame thrower had tried attacking me earlier. He’d grabbed a hammer from his set of tools and stormed out of the house, hell bent on finding the SOB who’d dared to threaten his daughter.
In hindsight, blurting out the news to my father about my late-night stalker the minute he arrived home from work probably hadn’t been the best way to greet him, but I’d been alone in the house for forty minutes before he came home, and I’d had all that time to obsess over it. It was probably a good thing that I hadn’t mentioned someone had been watching me for the past few weeks.
He finally came back inside, looking disturbed.
“Tell me again exactly what happened to you on your way home.”
As I sat across the table from him and retold my bizarre story I studied his strained features.
“You’re saying someone was following you, threw a tree branch at your feet and then a fireball erupted and burnt the tree in front of our neighbor, Mrs. Simmons’, house?”
“It kind of sounds stupid and rather anticlimactic when you sum it up like that, but yeah, that’s exactly what happened.” I waited for his response, but all I got was a disbelieving stare.
“Dad, didn’t you see the tree? I’m surprised Mrs. Simmons hasn’t called the fire department yet.”
Now he looked worried.
“Honey, I just checked that tree, and there was nothing wrong with it. There was no fire. No smoke. I couldn’t even smell smoke. If that tree caught fire the way you said it did it would smell like a campfire out there.”
It was my turn to stare in disbelief.
“That’s impossible! I swear I saw the tree go up in flames. I’ve never been so scared in all my life. Plus, I got stalked by some ax murderer.”
“I thought you said he had a flame thrower.”
“Which is how the tree caught on fire,” I shouted.
My father let out a tired sigh.
“Okay, I believe that you saw what you say you saw, but why did that guy bother to shoot a flame thrower at you and not attack you when you fell? It just doesn’t make sense. Why isn’t the tree on fire?”
I sat at the table feeling like I’d stepped into the twilight zone. Was it possible I had imagined everything? Maybe I’d been sleepwalking. Had I ever done that before? Not that I could remember.
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m just tired or something.” I was so wishing I had never brought it up.
“Is this a side effect of healing that we haven’t encountered yet? Do you think the stress is getting to you and you’re having hallucinations?” My father’s question was innocent enough, but I felt a little insulted all the same.
“You think I’m crazy,” I accused.
“No, that’s not what I said.”
“You do,” I insisted. “You think I’ve lost my mind.”
“Stop.” My father placed a hand over mine in what I figured was an attempt to calm me down. “You and I have had to navigate your abilities blindly. We’ve had no help, no information. There isn’t a manual that can explain why you are capable of doing what you do or what the side effects and repercussions could be for you long term. Tonight, something very unusual happened with Sarah, and you managed to communicate with her.” He gave me an amazed look. “An actual conversation, Hope. What if that put some strain on you? Not to mention the stressful situation I put you in by asking you to heal Eve. Maybe you just need to take a break from the hospital for a while and focus on yourself for a change.”
I breathed deeply through my nose instead of saying something snotty and tried to look at the situation from my father’s point of view, although I was finding it hard to do. I should have known he would somehow tie this back to my job at the hospital.
“I don’t know why I was able to communicate with Sarah, but why should we view this as such a negative thing?”
“What was the conversation about then?” he asked pointedly.
“She asked me to let her go.” I squeezed my tired eyes shut for a minute as my father processed this new development. I also didn’t want him sensing that I was holding something back from him.
“Well, this has to mean something. Are your abilities beginning to grow? Have you felt different in any way?” He was studying me as if he were about to perform some complicated surgery that needed to be planned out first.
“I felt just the same as I always do after trying to heal someone…and failing miserably.” I muttered that last part. “I feel perfectly normal.” Normal being relative in this case. “Sarah did mention that my powers are getting stronger, but I have no idea how she knew that unless her connection to me gave her that information.” I felt frustrated at not having the pieces of the puzzle laid out before me.
“This is really interesting, and what does it mean for you in the future? So far what you do merely makes you a little tired. You also tend to take on some rather unfortunate personality traits from the people you heal, but other than that you seem to be fine.”
“I am fine,” I replied automatically.
“Physically you’re fine. I’m not so sure how you are emotionally. Did she say anything else?”
I considered sharing the comment Sarah made in regards to my mom, but I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to see the heartbreak resurfacing on my dad’s face.
“Nope, that was the extent of the exchange between us.” I wished I could have sounded more convincing. I knew my father would pick up on the fact that I was keeping something back. Thankfully, he didn’t push the subject further.
“At any rate, this is something new to deal with, and maybe it’s affecting your ability to tell what is real from what isn’t. You should take a break from healing for a while, and we can see if anything strange--like a tree catching on fire when it really didn’t--happens again.”
I frowned in annoyance.
“I’ll compromise with you,” I said leveling my gaze at him. “I won’t heal anyone for a whole week if you promise to quit harping about my job at the hospital. I only work there three nights a week, and it’s the best job I’ve ever had.”
My father rolled his eyes at me. “It’s the only job you’ve ever had. You’re a janitor for heaven’s sake! Don’t you think you’re more qualified for something else? Do you really love cleaning that much?”
“You’re completely missing the point. Of course I don’t like to clean. I like to heal, and I’m good at it.” I smashed my fork into my cold lasagna and shoved a piece into my mouth, glowering at him as I chewed.
“You don’t have to work at the hospital to heal people,” he said trying another tactic. “I could call you if there are any emergencies I think you should be aware of.”
“That’s just it, Dad. They are emergencies!” I set my fork down, knowing that if I didn’t I might fling it across the room in frustration. “I almost didn’t get to Eve in time tonight. Do you realize that?” From the solemn look on my father’s face I could tell that he did. “It was crucial for me to get to her as soon as possible. Every second matters. You know this. There are some people that I just can‘t heal, but I’ll be damned before I allow another person who can be healed to die just because I can‘t get there in time.”
My father studied me silently across the table then put his fork down and rubbed his tired eyes. “I think there are a couple of things bothering you.”
“The only thing bothering me is your desire to fire me.”
“Did you go visit Kirby again tonight?” He sat back in his chair looking as if he already knew the answer to that question.
I was confused by the change in topic.
“Um, yeah. I did.”
“He’s part of what you’re frustrated about, isn’t he? Because you can’t heal him?”
I stared down at my dinner plate. I was
so tired of crying, and now, not only could I not heal the people I wanted to, but I was hallucinating because I was healing too much.
“You’re doing it again.” He looked like he was getting ready to bring up another sensitive subject.
“I’m just visiting him.” I swallowed hard, knowing my father wasn’t buying it. I tried reasoning with him. “His mother doesn’t want anything to do with him. Since he’s ill he’s not something she can use to further her career. He needs some support. He needs a friend, and we’re friends.” I looked up to see the sympathy in my father’s eyes and took that as a good sign. “At the very least I can help him manage his pain, even if it’s just for a little while longer.”
He nodded. “He doesn’t have much more time?”
“No.”
I was grateful he didn’t ask for a specific date.
“I think it’s great that you visit Kirby. He needs someone like you to keep up his spirits, but who’s keeping up yours? I’m really concerned about what this is doing to you emotionally.”
I kept silent. My lasagna sat cold and lumpy in front of me.
“You’re too attached to him, too close to the situation, and you may be trying to ease his pain, but I know you, Hope. You’re trying to heal him, too. Not being able to heal someone always wears you out more than anything because of the way you beat yourself up when you can’t. And yet you keep doing it when you already know what’s coming. You’re setting yourself up for some real heartbreak here. What happens when he’s gone?”
I flinched. It felt like my heart was being pulled from my chest. I raised my eyes to his and tried to remain outwardly unaffected by his question.
“I’ll be fine.” The words sounded hollow, even to me. “I’m completely prepared for the inevitable here. It’s not like I’m a stranger to death. Besides, Kirby helps me be at peace with…with things.” I swallowed the lump forming in my throat and knew that my father was once again not buying it.
I sucked so much at lying to him. Of course it would affect me. We both knew I’d be a total wreck once Kirby was gone, but admitting it would only further my father’s convictions that not only should I not work at the hospital anymore, I shouldn’t go visit Kirby anymore either.
“Please stop doing this to yourself,” he pleaded. “Don’t you remember how bad you were after your mother died?”
Wow, he really wasn’t holding anything back tonight.
“That was different,” I managed to choke out. “She was my mother and she wasn’t supposed to die.” I pushed my lasagna around my plate slowly. “Ten seconds, Dad. That’s all I needed. If I could have gotten to her ten seconds sooner she would have been just fine. That’s why I need to be there. I need to be at that hospital because ten seconds can change everything. It can change it all.”
He nodded his head, his suspicions confirmed.
“You took too much on. Blamed yourself for what was out of your control.” He had to stop abruptly and breathe a bit as a tear slowly made its way down the side of his face. “If you’ll remember, I wasn’t much help in saving her life either, and I’m the doctor.” My father’s weak smile was laced with self-reproach. I saw the pain he tried to mask and felt as if I had put it there.
“There wasn’t anything a doctor could have done. The damage that bullet did to her heart would have been impossible for anyone to repair, anyone but me.” I reached across the table for my father’s hand and grasped it tightly. We both sat in silence, father and daughter thinking about Julia Fairmont’s death.
“You’ve been doing your best to make up for a situation that no ten-year-old should have had to deal with. I see you trying to be everything for everyone just in case there’s a chance that you’ll be too late, but Hope, honey, people die. You can’t save the world.”
“I can try,” I whispered determinedly.
My father sighed in defeat.
“Let’s talk about something a little less…depressing.” He reached for his fork and took his first bite of lasagna, then grimaced. “Too cold.” He picked up his plate and walked over to the microwave. “So, let’s talk about school. How are your classes going?”
“I thought you said you wanted to talk about something less depressing. You’ve failed miserably.” I gave up on any attempt at eating my lasagna. As far as I was concerned anything you had to reheat wasn’t worth eating.
“You love school. Are you struggling in your classes? Why is this the first I’ve heard about it?”
I put up a calming hand before he had an aneurism.
“Dad, everything’s fine. I’m getting A’s in all my classes, okay? I’m just bored with it is all. The subjects are super easy, and the only thing I find even remotely interesting is my class in folklore and mythology.”
“I didn’t know you were taking that. You started that this semester then or were you taking it in the fall as well?”
“It’s not like math. Public education only allows you to take fun classes for one semester. Math is used to torture us all year.”
His eyebrows lifted in surprise.
“I thought you said your classes were easy.”
“The words ‘easy’ and ‘torture’ seem to go hand in hand in this case. Math easily tortures me. Plus, nothing even remotely interesting ever happens in my life.”
My dad gave me a wry look. I realized that statement must have sounded strange coming from a girl with the ability to heal people.
“I’m referring to the fact that I go to my classes, I take notes, I turn in homework assignments, and I ace my tests. It’s all pretty predictable.”
“What about guys? Isn’t there someone you’re interested in at school?” He gave me a fake smile, pretending he actually wanted to know.
I rolled my eyes at him.
“Please. The only action I’m getting around here is experienced vicariously through Angie. I swear that girl has a different boyfriend every other week.”
My dad looked way too happy.
“Don’t look so thrilled. The relief is veritably oozing from your eyeballs.”
“I’m not thrilled. Who said I was thrilled? It’s perfectly healthy and normal for you to be dating at this age. Kissing boys in parked cars. Getting your heart broken by some immature guy who gets drunk on the weekends and cheats on you with some bleached blonde cheerleader. All part of the learning process.”
“What if I did start to date someone? Then how would you feel?” I gave my father a tiny smirk.
“Completely unthrilled,” he said deadpan.
“Unthrilled? Dad, that is so not a word.”
“I’m your father and a doctor, and that means unthrilled is most definitely a part of the English vocabulary. How is Angie doing by the way? I haven’t seen her in about two days now. That’s like a record for you two isn’t it?”
I smiled, thinking of my crazy best friend.
“She’s had the flu for a couple of days now. I thought about healing her, but she enjoys whining and complaining so much I figured all the babying her mom would do would make her that much more enjoyable to be around once she got back to school.”
Dad chuckled softly, retrieving his lasagna from the microwave and sitting back down.
“I don’t get you two at all. I know you’re best friends, and I love having Angie over, but you‘re nothing like each other.”
I thought about that for a second. Angie and I were different in every way imaginable. Personality, clothing styles, opinions, and even right down to the way we looked… everything was different. I would have liked to have looked like Angie, but I’d been stuck with thick black hair, olive colored skin, and dark blue, almond shaped eyes. People always asked me what my ethnic background was which was weird since both my parents were blonde and white. I’d mentioned my appearance a couple of times to them, but they always changed the subject. It seemed like they didn’t want to upset me or something.
I broke from my musings and realized my dad was waiting for some kind of response from me
.
“Angie helps me loosen up a little bit here and there, and I keep her from going to jail and possibly getting herself killed. We balance each other out,” I reasoned.
My father’s lips lifted in amusement.
I stood up from the table and put my full plate of lasagna in front of him, knowing he would be more than happy to eat it.
“Well, I hope for your sake that something crazy happens at school tomorrow, even if Angie isn’t there to instigate it.”
“Even with Angie there, I still have math class.” I smiled brightly as my father’s laughter followed me up the staircase and into my bedroom.
My cell phone began to ring as I walked across my room and flung myself haphazardly on my ivory colored bedspread. I giggled, recognizing the ring tone as one of Angie’s personal favorites. “Moves Like Jagger” blared loudly from my cell phone.
“Were your ears burning?” I asked sweetly.
“So you were talking about me,” replied Angie. “I can‘t say I‘m surprised. The thought of you discussing my many virtues and accomplishments, simply delights me. After all, what else would you be talking about?” Her voice came out low and throaty.
Angie was, I thought, the most stunning beauty ever to have graced the face of this earth, a sentiment she would have agreed with wholeheartedly. Fiery red hair…check. Perfect porcelain skin …check. Emerald green eyes…check and check.
“You know I do have other friends. You never even considered the possibility that I might have been discussing my latest love interest before you called?”
“With your father? Please!” I smiled as Angie’s loud gasp crackled through the receiver. “Wait, do you have someone you’re crushing on? Because if you do, and you talked to your dad about it before talking with me I will hunt you down and force you to eat an anchovy pizza…minus the pizza!”
I had to smile. She always made me feel so normal. It was partly why I loved having Angie in my life. Though I’d never admit to it out loud, my father was right. The constant weight of everyone else’s pain was beginning to wear on me. I always felt like I was leading two different lives. There was Hope, the serious healer, and Hope, the carefree, average teenager. If Angie and I had never become friends, I don’t think I would have known how to balance my secret life with my supposedly normal high school one.
“Oh, yes. I can visualize you trying to pin me down while shoving slimy miniature fish in my mouth. You’d die before laying one of your nicely manicured fingers on something so beneath you,” I teased.
“This is very true.” Angie sounded disappointed. “It’s a shame you know me so well. That threat might have held some validity with anyone less worthy.”
“And yet, it resembles the latest boy you broke up with: shallow and empty.”
“Hey, Nathan was very full of…well…he was full of something.”
Angie’s laughter sang sweetly through my cell phone.
“Full of himself, you mean?”
“Too true. The last date we went on he spent a full ten minutes looking at his reflection in his dinner spoon.”
I held back the urge to give her a big lecture on how awful her taste in guys was.
“Tell me you made him pay for dinner that time.”
“Are you kidding? I got up and left, making sure I got a ‘to go’ box, of course.”
“Of course.”
I thought about Nathan Treadwell and the insane level of stupid he managed to operate under on a daily basis.
“Why do you always go for guys who treat you like crap, Angie?”
There was silence on her end. I waited for her to break down and actually talk to me seriously for once about this subject.
“Well, they’re always such fantastic kissers. Have you ever met a nice guy who actually knows how to kiss? And if you did, would he actually be good looking?”
I shook my head. Clearly, her plan was total avoidance.
“Angie, there are nice, handsome guys out there who are good kissers.”
“I’m going to have to disagree with you on that one. If a guy is a good kisser it’s because he’s good looking, and because of his good looks he has various opportunities to use said good looks in the pursuit of women. Which also gives him plenty of practice with kissing which simultaneously makes him a good kisser and a first rate jerk…or man whore…whichever term you prefer.”
I decided to match her light tone with my own.
“Then I suppose in order to avoid the jerks of this world, it’s going to be of the utmost importance that we date only non-attractive, second rate kissers for the rest of our miserable lives.”
“Your words are poison to me.”
I let out a soft chuckle.
“So,” she continued, “has that magnificent melon of yours come up with fantastic songs needing debuting at Expresso?”
Expresso was a very popular café/restaurant, dedicated to giving high school students a chance to “express” themselves. You could read poetry, sing songs, play your own music, and perform any other type of talent while others ate, mingled, and enjoyed the entertainment. The atmosphere was pretty awesome and laid-back. Angie and I had become regulars there due in large part to her insistence that I take my journal full of lyrics and sing them for the “undeserving masses lucky enough to be present.”
Once we’d joined the ranks of high schoolers, we’d started going there every week. Over time, I’d become good friends with the members of the band who worked there on a permanent basis. All I had to do was give them the chords, and they were on board with whatever. As a rule, I didn’t like drawing attention to myself, but this was normal, healthy, high school attention, and for me, I really needed the release.
“Perhaps,” I answered. “Why? Are you suggesting we head over there and check out the night life?”
“Heavens, no! I’m still feeling quite overcome by this vicious flu bug,” she huffed. “I need one more day to relax, recover, and enjoy my mother waiting on me hand and foot.”
“Sounds pleasant enough.”
“Oh, believe me, it is.” Angie sounded extremely pleased with herself. “I just need to know when your next performance is. There’s this guy I want you to meet.”
“No guys! I can’t focus on my singing when you do stuff like that.”
Angie’s exasperated sigh crackled over the connection.
“Fine, since you refuse to allow me any excitement, did anything crazy happen to you tonight…without my help. In other words, would you really have a life if I didn’t insist that you live it?”
I rolled my eyes, which was pointless since Angie wasn’t there to see it. Then, my thoughts went to the “hallucination” I’d had. “Well, something really weird happened to me as I was walking home from work.”
“Ooooh. Do tell. Did you meet a handsome stranger?”
“You’re so optimistic, and no, I did not. I think I have a stalker, though. I’m not one for the dramatics, but I could have sworn someone was not only watching me, but following me. I could actually hear their footsteps behind me.”
“Hope, are you serious or do I need to be waiting for some kind of punch line here?”
“No, I’m totally serious. There was someone out there. I started running, and whoever was behind me started running.”
“Whaaaat?”
“I know. Freaky, right? But it gets worse.” I rolled to the middle of my bed and began plucking at the fringe on my throw pillow in an effort to calm my nerves. “As I’m running, something hits my legs and sends me sprawling to the cement just as this weird burst of flame shoots past me and hits the tree in front of me.” I accidentally tugged too hard and broke off several wispy pieces. I frowned down at my handiwork and folded my hand underneath me. “I swear this really happened, but when I told my dad, he said he’d just walked past the tree and there was nothing wrong with it. He thinks I just imagined it.”
Telling the story again made me realize how crazy it did, in fact, sound. On the other
hand, talking about narrowly escaping a large ball of fire made sitting alone in my room feel entirely too creepy. I looked towards my window and wondered if my attacker was still outside waiting for me. What if he was watching me? I stood up fast and walked over to the window.
“So, someone followed you, sent a flame thrower your way, and there’s no sign of any damage to the tree or any idea of who your stalker was?” Her voice was beginning to rise in volume.
My window faced the front of the house, and I couldn’t help but look out toward the deserted street in search of my would-be killer.
Nothing. Of course, with the heavy fog encircling the entire neighborhood it was kind of difficult to make out much of anything.
“No. I must be going crazy,” I said. “Could I have hallucinated the whole thing?”
“Hope, you are the sanest person I know. If anyone was going to hallucinate about something like that, you know it would be me. Although, I haven’t touched an illegal drug since that day in ninth grade when you found me cutting my hair off in the girl’s bathroom because I thought it was full of snakes.”
“Yes, and what a special day that was.” One of Angie‘s more unfortunate personality traits was a penchant for self-destructive behavior. Fortunately, her drug phase had been a one-time deal. “Your hair didn’t look half bad, either.”
“And still you lie. You’re such a good friend. No, I’m inclined to believe every crazy word you just uttered. Having said that, I’m completely freaked out. You shouldn’t walk to school by yourself tomorrow.”
“You’re sounding like my father, now.” I turned my back to the window and plopped myself down on my bed.
“No need to insult me. My request is a valid one considering what just happened tonight. You have your own car. You should drive it every once in a while.”
“The high school is five blocks away. It would be a waste of gas.”
“I’ve never understood this need of yours to walk everywhere. It’s like you enjoy the exercise, and you and I both know that that is just ridiculous.”
“Okay, you win. I will drive to school tomorrow.”
“I always win. You never put up much of a fight, you know.”
“Would the outcome ever change if I did?”
“Of course not!”
“Then why prolong the inevitable?”
“Good point,” Angie said agreeably.
I couldn’t help but smile at that.
“Well, since I don’t have the flu or any tropical diseases preventing me from going to school tomorrow, I better get some sleep.”
“All right. I’ll call you tomorrow so you can update me on all things high school.”
“Should be the shortest conversation we’ve ever had,” I said dryly.
“Please be careful.” Her voice became unfamiliarly serious. “You really have got me freaked out.”
“I’ll be careful,” I promised.
I hung up the phone and looked back at my window.
It was morbid. I knew it was, but I just had to look outside one more time. The need to reassure myself that no one was spying on me, was an obvious sign of paranoia, but I jumped up from my bed and walked over to the window anyway.
Gazing out across my quiet neighborhood made me want to laugh at how worked up I’d let myself get. Honestly, the most dangerous thing in my neck of the woods was a potential visit from my neighbor, Mrs. Simmons, bearing homemade biscuits capable of rendering the most durable molar in two.
I was so busy rolling my eyes at myself, I almost missed the dark figure standing on the only patch of unlit sidewalk in front of my house. It was definitely the same figure I’d spotted when I was on my front porch, and it was definitely a guy, but beyond that I couldn’t make out any other details. I felt that same mysterious pull, making me lean forward a little. The only thing that stopped me from moving toward him in some hypnotic, trance-like state was my closed bedroom window. My forehead bumped the window lightly, and I was suddenly back to myself.
I blinked a few times to clear my head and focused in on the guy again. The mist surrounding his body seemed to cling to him in strange and unnatural ways. It was definitely horror movie material. He was craning his head backwards, looking up at something.
Was he looking at me?
I glanced down at my cell phone and started dialing Angie’s number, but when I looked up again the figure was gone.
Vanished into the ethereal looking fog.
Freaky.
Setting my phone on my desk, I willed myself to calm down. I was seeing things again.
I just needed to get some sleep…and possibly down a few anti-psychotics. Too bad I didn’t have any.
I turned out my lights and ran to my bed, still feeling like I was being watched. I wondered if going outside in search of the dark figure was smart or suicidal. It was going to be a very long night.