Keystone (2 page)

One more desperate scream unravels out of my stomach like rope. It’s not long enough to reach my throat, but it’s enough. My field blows out all around me, knocking me out of my own skin. I stand beside my body, watching Mrs. Reese as she leans over it. Her own mouth is trembling as she tells me to hang on, to breathe, to wait...and then one of her tears slips off her cheek and lands on my lip. I watch the teardrop disappear into my mouth and as if someone tripped a switch on the entire universe, everything starts closing up inside a drawstring bag. Mrs. Reese and the room and my body on the bed...all of it disappears into the closing hole, leaving me in the dark. What’s left is only whatever I am, without my body.

I look in every direction and finally spot a tiny speck of light. I go toward it. The pinpoint sparkles and widens and with every step closer to it, the pain I’d just felt seems less and less.

Nalena!
My mother’s stern voice comes from behind me. It’s the same tone she used once when I’d crossed the street without looking both ways.
Get back from there! Right now!

Mom?
I’m suddenly pushed back inside my protective bubble, but not in my skin, so the darkness and pain are both gone. My mom is so close that I could touch her, or, at least, try to touch the weak image of her that shivers in front of me like bad TV reception. It doesn’t matter. She’s here.

It’s not time for you to leave yet,
she says.
I disconnected you from your nervous system, so the new system can re-grow without so much pain. You’ll be okay.

I don’t care about being okay. I care that she’s here with me.

Stay,
I tell her.
Or let me come with you.

It was time for me to go, but it’s not time for you to come,
she says with a sad smile.
But
I need to tell you what’s coming next and I can’t manifest here much longer, so listen carefully, all right?

A burst of panic jumps through me.
No, let me come with you! Help me die! I don’t want you to leave me again!

Listen to me.
Her voice is sharp now.
Your nerves are re-growing. When all of your senses kick back in, your nerves are going to be hypersensitive at first.
Her instructions start scrambling.
You will…the vision…If it gets to be... I want you...breathe in, hum out
. She flickers.

What are you talking about?
I ask. I try to imagine all the little threads of my nerves, lying down inside me like flattened wheat fields and then Lazarus-ing back up.

But she’s gone and my field disappears.

I’m hurled back into my skin.

And I scream. And scream. And scream again.

I don’t think I could stop even if my mom used her worst voice ever, now.

“You scared me there for a minute, but you made it,” Mrs. Reese whispers, but it sounds like she’s blasting every syllable through a megaphone. If she doesn’t explode my eardrums, then it will be the light that gets me. Even with my eyes closed, I swear the sun must be three inches from my nose. When I try to force my eyelids open, the light burns so much, I gasp. Then, the burst of air sticks in my throat like Chinese Stars. I groan and Mrs. Reese blasts me with another whisper.

“I’m sorry, honey,” she says. “You’re choking on the dust in the air and there’s nothing I can do for that. All your senses are going to be in overdrive for a little bit. Did you get to see your mom?”

I let my head drop in a miniscule nod, loving her voice and wishing she’d stop using it.

“Good,” Mrs. Reese whisper-shouts and pulls the sheet up to my shoulders again. Every fiber feels like a metal sliver. “Don’t forget to hum. And use your mantra.”

I forgot all about using the mantra, even though it’s not hard to remember the word that Mr. Reese had me choose when he first taught me to use my field. I chose the one thing that always brought me comfort. Someone that can’t anymore.
Mom.
I hum her name over and over again and it feels like lullabies.

It takes hours before I can even get my eyes open enough to squint. The colors in the room—the dull beige walls, the cream sheet and even the flushed shade of my own skin—are blinding. Mrs. Reese’s feet, shuffling over the floor, is each a roar of thunder and when she snaps off the bedroom light, the sound is like slamming my head in a metal door. I grit my teeth.

“A candle will be easier on your eyes,” she whispers. Her voice is still so loud, an involuntary whine slips out of me. Then she says, “Not yet, Garrett. You’ll have to wait.”

I try to pry my eyes open to see him, but the candle roars to life and blinds me. It snaps and sputters and I break out in a sweat beneath my steel wool sheet. I choke on the smell of wax and smoke, but then Mrs. Reese kicks up a windstorm trying to wave away the smell from over my head. I force my lids open, letting my lashes filter out most of the light, but Garrett is not here.

And the walls are not on fire. The room isn’t even filled with smoke.

There is only a tiny candle stub on the bedside table, with a pinky-nail-sized flame jumping inside it. The small light is so powerful; it might as well be a spotlight blasting me right in the face. I close my eyes on all of it.

And I hum. This time, I use Garrett’s name.

I swear I hum for hours and hours, as the new nerves poke around inside me. I keep thinking the pain will hike back up and blow me over the edge, but the more little threads that grow through me, the more diluted all the feelings and smells and sounds get. It’s a long, long way to get back to normal, but the blazing colors of the room become colors I can actually recognize again, behind my eyelash filter. The stone wiggles in my palm and I let it go. My inner ear throbs when it hits the floor.

“Well, you did it,” Mrs. Reese says. “You made it. Just like I knew you would. You’re Contego now, like us. It’s a good thing too, because I don’t know if I can keep Garrett out much longer. Would you like to see him?”

I want to see Garrett more than anything, but I still can’t get my eyes open all the way. And there’s no way I want him seeing me like this…finally a Contego, with a raging hair nest. Talking makes my whole head vibrate like it’s about to spin off, so instead, I hum to her, “Uh uh.”

As in: no. Not yet.

And Mrs. Reese gets it totally wrong.

“All right then,” she says cheerfully as she opens the door to the hallway. I listen in horror as her footsteps move away, down the hall. I try to hear what she’s saying and like bat sonar, I pick up every word from wherever she’s gone to. At least from this distance, it doesn’t hurt my ears so much to listen.

“Is she done cooking?” That’s Brandon’s voice.

“No.” Mrs. Reese’s answer sounds like it’s frowning.

“Oh man...she’s gotta be the slowest Contego ever,” Mark says. I hear him bounce his Hacky Sack twice off his foot. I listen hard for Garrett’s voice, but the whole house becomes one big brick of sound. There is a CLANG from a pot lid that makes me jump beneath the sheet. Then someone coughs and I think my head will explode with it and then there’s a sharp tink of silverware that hits the middle of my ear like an ice pick. Finally, I hear Garrett.

“Is she okay?” he asks. I hear him and everything else melts away. The concern in his voice gives my stomach its own twirling heartbeat.

“She seems fine,” Mrs. Reese says. “Come see.”

Come see?
The words send me into a panic. He can’t see me like this. Not with serious hair trauma and my eyes squinty and
no way…
I probably stink. The casual shuffle of his footsteps in the hallway sends me into a panic. I’ve got to do something quick, even though everything I touch feels like it’s jabbing through my skin. I need to hide, but this room only has two beds, a table between them and a doorway out.

Only one arm works right. I shove myself like a clam across the metal-shaving-bed-sheets. I have to get to the door. I think I remember a bathroom. Somewhere.

His footsteps are louder, closer. The arm that works isn’t working well at all. A million arrows of pain shoot up to my brain and I’ve got to hold my breath so I won’t moan. But I’m sure my legs will work. The nerves slid through them a million hums ago. I’m sure they’ll be strong enough to make a getaway.

They have to. My legs have never let me down before.

Until I get to the edge of the bed, plant my feet, give myself one good heave off the mattress, and do a total belly flop right onto the floor.

The impact sends sparks of pain blasting in every direction. A zillion messages of
what are you even thinking
flood my brain. I moan.

The bedroom door swings open and I pry open my eyes a millimeter to make out Garrett’s bare feet, the edges of his jeans, the bones of his toes, as they pass my head.

“Trying to make a run for it, Rebel?” He chuckles. His voice is too loud and too close. It’s perfect. His hands are gentle, but I still groan as he helps me up. My skin feels raw, my bones ache.

I lean against his metal chest once I’m upright and I breathe him in. He doesn’t smell like metal at all. There is a top note of the fibers in his clothes, the detergent he washed them in, his cologne, and even his soap. The next is the middle note of his skin, citrus and frost, beach wood and summer. The last is a base note of something else, almost like thought bubbles in the air, with scents attached to them. I can’t tell exactly what they are, but they make me feel curious and grateful and nervous and overwhelmingly happy. Garrett is the scent of everything I love.

I grit my teeth as I lie back down.

“Just hum,” he whispers, dropping down on one knee at my bedside. “I was so…”

He stops suddenly. My lips are tight and I realize they’re stretched across my open, clenched teeth. Everything hurts. My skin is as paper thin as wet moth wings. But I’m so glad that, even though I can hardly see him through my eyelashes, I still can, and I hum.

He’s quiet for so long that I finally force my eyes open a crack more to see if he’s still there. He is. He’s crouched beside the bed, his eyes glossy, one finger rubbing his top lip as he stares at me. He smiles when he sees my eyelashes flutter. In the candlelight, his eyes are the color of rain.

I rub my opposite thumb into my palm and feel the ridges of my Impression. I am an
us
now. Part of the Ianua, like my mother. Contego, like Garrett. I finally feel my lips and smile, even though it feels lumpy.

Garrett leans forward to the edge of the bed so I can see into the deep wells of his retinas. I want to disappear into them, but the creases at the corners of his eyes draw me back to his smile. His lips separate and I think of his kiss. I wonder how much it will hurt. I wonder if all the tastes and smells and feelings of him will tangle together and erase the pain of any touch to my skin.

I don’t shut my eyes. I want to memorize the texture of his skin with my new vision and feel the hollow of his cheek and taste the full tang of the citrus grove on his lips.

But he doesn’t kiss me. His mouth hovers over my cheek. He inhales instead and the air pulls softly across my face. He holds it a second and then lets it tumble back out across my cheek. The thin stream dances over my skin like a tiny vapor of lime. It tingles without any pain at all. It is a kiss without being one.

Garrett blows across my cheek again and again, until I relax into a deep sleep. I search through every dream for my mother, but often find Garrett first.

Chapter 2

I WAKE UP, LYING ON my back and aching, right down to the center of my eyes. At least I can get them open all the way now. I stare at the candlelight, flickering on the bedroom ceiling, and I’m just crazy grateful that the flame isn’t roaring or barbequing me anymore.

The house is almost too quiet, until I strain to hear something familiar. What a huge mistake. The minute I try to hear what’s going on, my ears pop and all the sounds line up right at my earlobes, waiting to be heard.