Forever Freaky (13 page)

“But how can guy start on fire while he’s
playing in a baseball game?” I asked.

“Maybe—I don’t know—I’m sure it’s some kind
of fluke that doesn’t have a thing to do with spontaneous human
combustion. Why all the interest?”

“It’s just that everybody was talking about
it at school,” I said. “Oh, you better answer your phone,” I added,
a couple seconds before his cell phone actually started to
ring.

He dug the phone out of his pocket, and then
gave me an odd look.

I thought, Oops, and decided to retreat into
the house.

***************

Mom was in the kitchen making dinner, which
looked like it would be some kind of casserole deal I definitely
wouldn’t be able to eat.

I flopped down on one of the chairs at the
table.

I must have looked despondent, because she
said, “Don’t worry. I’m making you a fruit salad. No meat, no bad
visions.”

“Sometimes, I’m so stupid,” I said.

She frowned. “Why would you say that?”

I told her about my dad and his cell phone
call.

“You have to be more careful,” she said
gravely.

“It slipped out, before I could stop it. It
was like a reflex.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing. He just gave me a weird look.”

She wagged her head.

“Honestly,” I said, “I think, deep down, I
want him to know.”

She sat down next to me. Great concern was
etched on her face.

“That can never happen. You have to keep
working around him.”

“I’ve been doing that forever. It gets harder
and harder all the time.”

“I know,” she said.

“Why does he have to be such a straight edge?
Why can’t he be more like--” I almost said Jack, which would have
been a big mistake; Mom didn’t know that I’d shared my secrets with
Jack, or Melody—she thought she was the only living person who knew
about my abilities. “Why can’t he be more open-minded?” I
amended.

“It’s just not him,” she said. She bit her
lower lip, as though she considering something intensely. “There’s
something I never told you, but maybe it’s time you know.

“First I want you to know that your father is
a good man. Never doubt that for a second.

“This happened a couple months before you
were born. It was a joyous time. Your dad and I were young, and you
were on your way. You were supposed to be the first; we were going
to have three kids, two girls and one boy—well, that was the plan,
anyway,” she added wistfully.

“Your grandmother was visiting one day,” she
continued. “She and your dad got along pretty well—there was never
that son-in-law/mother-in-law animosity.

“So we were sitting around and talking.
Mostly it was baby this and baby that. Then the subject came up of
whether you would be a boy or girl. I’d gone in for an ultrasound,
but your dad and I choose not to know what you would be. We wanted
to be surprised. But now, with the due date coming up fast, we were
getting more and more curious. Plus your dad was complaining that
we’d have to wait until after you were born for him to know whether
to paint your room blue or pink. You know how your dad hates to do
anything last minute.

“So your grandmother offered to do a reading
on you.”

I gawked at her. “She didn’t,” I said.

“I’m afraid so,” she sighed.

“What happened?”

“Well, she said you’d be a girl. So problem
solved with the painting—pink room. But you know how these things
work. It never stops there. It takes on a life of its own—that was
what your grandmother always said. She told us there would be…
complications, and that afterward I wouldn’t be able to have other
children. Complications? There’s an understatement; both of us
nearly died. You ended up in an intensive-care nursery for a couple
weeks. Anyway, you know about that part.

“Dad was mad. I don’t know what he
thought—probably that grandma was making a really, really bad joke.
Then when it came true…” She rolled her eyes, remembering. “I don’t
know. He just never looked at her the same. He started calling her
a witch. I really think he believes she caused it all to happen. He
won’t talk about it, and if you bring it up, he pretends not to
know what you’re talking about.

“That’s why he can never know about you,” she
concluded. “It was never that he doesn’t believe in that sort of
thing. He believes, but he thinks it’s evil. If he knew what you
can do, he wouldn’t be able to live with it—I really think it would
kill him.”

“Oh,” I murmured. I didn’t know what more to
say. I was stunned, thinking that my dad might actually consider me
evil. That had never crossed my mind. How can anybody think you’re
evil just for being what you are? I’d always imagined that if I
told him, he’d accept me for what I was, like a father accepts a
child with some disease. Maybe he would even think it was cool that
I could do the things I could do….

“I have homework to do,” I said dully, and
got up to leave the room.

“Julie?” I heard my mom say behind me, but I
just kept walking.

I locked myself in my bedroom, and flopped
down on my bed. I stared at the ceiling, wishing I could fall
asleep. My life was always better when I slept, but I was cursed
with severe insomnia. I was lucky to get two hours sleep each
night, and I walked through the day like a zombie.

So I lay there, and began wondering, for the
millionth time, What exactly am I? Could it be that my dad would
have been right? Was I some evil thing, human but not quite
completely human? Would my abilities destroy me and destroy those
close to me? Maybe I had always sensed that this was true. Maybe
this was why I had chosen to have as few friends as possible.

It was maddening not to know for sure. What
was I? Born to destroy, born to heal, or born to be in some freak
show? The more I wondered, the more agitated I became.

I jumped out of bed, and stripped off all my
clothes.

There was a full-length mirror attached to
the back of my bedroom door. I would always hang a bathrobe over
the mirror, so that I couldn’t accidentally catch a glimpse of
myself. My dresser mirror, too, was mostly covered, with articles
and pictures that I’d clipped out of magazines. I usually hated to
look at myself so much, but now I needed to see everything.

I tore the bathrobe off the hook on the back
of the door and exposed the mirror. I saw myself standing there
naked. I looked like a stick figure with a big dark mop of crazy
hair on its head. My skin was very pale and you could see fine
tracings of blue veins beneath. My bones stuck out all over— ribs,
collar bones, knees. The points of my hipbones protruded so badly
they looked like sharp weapons. My breasts were nearly
non-existent, and if you looked closely, you could actually see my
heart beating under my ribs.

Looking at myself, I fought off the urge of
gag. I looked so horrible, like something that had staggered out of
an alien death camp.

But could I actually be evil? Nothing ever
hurt me. You could call me names, and I felt nothing. You could
threaten me, and I felt nothing. I felt neither sadness nor joy,
nor hate, nor love. Inside I was as unfeeling as a dried out husk.
But now the fear that I might be evil touched a nerve that I never
realized existed, and all I knew was terror.

I huddled on the floor at the foot of my bed.
I hugged my legs against my chest, and cried and cried. Through my
tears I saw things floating around the room. Books, pencils, pens,
stuffed animals, CD cases, the pillows from my bed—all swirling
around in circles in the air. The blanket on my bed flapped as
though in a strong wind. The mouse of my computer hovered over my
desk, wagging back and forth on its cord, like a hawk trying to
break free from the tether the hawk-keeper had tied around its leg.
The harder I cried, the faster, the more frantically everything
flew around my room.

I tried to regain control of myself, but
couldn’t. Maybe I was finally losing it, as I had always feared I
would.

I was in a crisis, but who was I supposed to
call? A witch doctor? My mom would sure be no big help, and my
dad—well, forget that.

I cried out in my mind for Jerry, the house
spirit, but he would not manifest himself. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe
he couldn’t, because there was too much psychic energy whirling
round the room.

The terror was growing in me, as was my
desperation. I crawled across the floor to where my jeans lay, and
I dug my cell phone out of the back pocket. My hand was so shaky
that I had a hard time punching in the numbers. I kept getting the
numbers wrong, and had to go back and change them. Finally I got
the phone number right and pressed the SEND button.

When Jack answered the phone, all I could say
was, “I need help.” It came out in an agonized whimper.

“Jules? Is that you? Where are you?” he
asked.

“My room. Please come, please!” I begged.

“What’s wrong?”

“Please!”

I thought the phone went dead. It was hard to
tell. Everything was flying around so fast now. My books sounded
like a thousand eagles flapping their wings, wheeling around just
over my head.

As if the objects swirling around the room
weren’t bad enough, things started to flash through my head.
Somewhere hoards of protesters were throwing rocks at lines of
policemen, as clouds of tear gas rose from the street… A school bus
filled with children skidded off an icy road and rolled down a
snow-covered embankment…. Some burning thing was hanging from the
wire and the rain was making it burn brighter and brighter…. Jack
was running down a street, trying to catch a bus… My father was
leaving, backing down the driveway, heading to his friend’s garage
to finish fixing the truck…. My mom was in the kitchen loading the
dishwasher…. The Cubs beat the Giants 4 to 3 in extra innings….
Warren J. Baxter, a retired accountant from Naples, Florida, won
$153 million dollars in a mega-lottery…. An ancient woman was using
a walker to inch her way down the hallway of a nursing home. She
was calling for her lost dog, Buddy, who died twenty years ago….
Something still burned on the wire…. They all must burn, a
pale-lipped mouth murmured in the darkness…. Jack was sitting on a
bus….

I felt that I was losing myself. Everything
flickered faster and faster through my mind. I saw and heard
thousands of things, and the more I saw and heard, the less there
was of me, as though I was being devoured by my visions.

It became harder and harder to focus on
single scenes. Everything blended together in a mad stream of
colors and sounds. Every now and then I could pick out a single
word, a cry, a faint heartbeat. Images sped by in a blur of bright
lights.

I sat on the floor and waited and tried not
to lose my mind. I couldn’t have said how much time passed, but
then I caught a glimpse in my mind of Jack walking up the front
stairs of my house. I was too stressed to be relieved. I was too
consumed with everything that was rushing through my head to wonder
what help Jack could be to me anyway.

He stabbed the doorbell, and my mom went to
answer the door.

He told her he was here to see me.

She was puzzled. I never have friends over to
the house.

Oh, just let him in! my mind screamed, and
the words somehow reached her mind. She had a panicky look on her
face.

Julie, is that you? she thought.

Yeah, just let him in. Send him up to my
room.

How are you doing that?

Oh, I don’t know. Please, his name is
Jack—send him up here. I need his help with something.

I don’t understand this at all.

I’ll explain later.

Jack was watching her with concern, wondering
why she was standing in the doorway and spacing out. He asked if
she was okay.

I guess she wants you to go up to her room,
she told him, and at long last let him in the house.

When she started to show him where my room
was, I thought, Just tell him where it is, okay?

Is something going on I should know about?
She thought.

You definitely don’t want to know, I thought,
watching a stuffed pink elephant fly past my face.

All righty, then, she thought, and gave Jack
directions up to my room, before retreating to the kitchen.

I had stopped crying. I felt somewhat better,
knowing that Jack was here. Sure, it was just Jack, but it was
better than being alone.

I got up from the floor, and was at the door
when he knocked.

I opened the door an inch and peeked out to
make absolutely sure my mom hadn’t followed him up.

“Jules, you okay?” he asked, guarded, not
knowing what to expect.

I rolled my eyes. I stayed behind the door
and stepped back to open it so that he could come inside.

He spotted all the objects flying around the
room, gaping up at the ceiling in wonder. As he walked into the
room, he said, “That’s a lot of psycho kinetic energy.”

“Gee, you think?” I asked.

I shut the door, and watched him wander about
the room, studying everything that was flying around. He had to
duck when one of my books— it looked like Catch-22—swooped down
toward his head.

“How did this--?” he started to asked,
turning to look at me. Then his face turned pale. “Oh, wow, you’re
naked,” he said dimly.

“Hunh?” I didn’t think I’d heard right, over
the roar of sounds in my head. Then I looked down to see that I’d
been so distracted by everything that I’d forgot to put on some
clothes. “Just—just turn round, will you?” I said, although it was
too late. I felt feeble. I couldn’t raise my hostility to the level
the situation demanded.

I went to my dresser. I found a pair of
cut-off jeans and a plain white t-shirt, and I put them on while
Jack looked the other way.

“It’s all right,” I said after I was dressed.
I walked up to him, and giving him the best evil eye I could
manage, warned him, “You didn’t see anything, understand?”