Scaredy Kat (8 page)

If my mother was friends with Orin, then he was definitely the real thing, not a quack. So my fifth chakra was blocked. I
was withholding truth. I was turning my back on self-knowledge.

Big whoop.

I was starting to feel like an idiot, standing there on the sidewalk. Orin was kneeling down next to his bike, fiddling with
something—a lock, maybe. I couldn’t just keep standing there. But I didn’t want to go back inside. Then I’d have to talk to
my mother. She’d tell me more about Orin. For some reason, I didn’t want to hear it. I don’t know if I was embarrassed or
envious, but I just didn’t want to know what she and Orin had been talking about all that time in her office. Maybe it was
because I was afraid they’d been talking about me. Maybe it was because I was afraid they hadn’t.

I headed around the back of my house, unlatching the gate that led into our little garden and yard. I let Max off his leash
and stood with my arms folded, trying to decide what to do next. Before I could even seriously mull the prospects over in
my mind, my feet started moving of their own accord. In sixty seconds I was standing in the overgrown yard in back of the
van Hecht house.

I needed a place to hide. I needed to be somewhere that no one would find me for a while. Away from the phone, away from my
perfect mother. From shaggy-haired guys on bikes. From spirit orbs swarming around me and blocked chakras. Something kept
telling me that Tank held the answer. Though I wasn’t even sure what the question was.

I opened the screen door the same way I had the day before. The kitchen window was still propped open. I didn’t think anyone
had been to the house since my last visit. I climbed through and stood in the empty kitchen, wondering what on earth I was
doing there.

I had just started to think that I was being ridiculous to avoid home and that I should just go talk to Mom when the kitchen
window slammed shut with a bang so loud I screamed. On the porch, the screen door flew open and shut several times. The windchimes
fell to the floor in a heap.

I backed away from the window, pressing one hand over my pounding heart. As I took several cautious steps backward, the cupboard
doors flew open, one at a time, like a row of dominoes. When the last one opened, the first snapped closed with a crack, and
the others followed suit.

I ran through the dining room and the hall, and stopped by the front door of the house. My heart was pounding even harder,
and I was short of breath. I tried the front door, which was locked. Through the window I could see the mailbox. The flag
was down again. Something made several loud popping sounds in the kitchen, then I heard the sound of a chair being dragged
across the floor. The next noise I heard came out of my own throat. It was a tight whimper of one hundred percent fear.

The sitting room had given me an okay vibe, I remembered. A child had played in there. In four giant steps I was out of the
hallway and in the old sitting room. No ball. The room was empty. And freezing.

Something grabbed hold of the back of my shirt and yanked sharply.

I screamed again, backing out of the room and swatting my hands in the air as if I was being attacked by bees. I turned in
the direction of the kitchen, wanting nothing more than to get out of the house as quickly as possible. But I was stopped
by the sound of a crash from that direction, and what sounded like a heavy piece of furniture being dragged across the floor.

I ran up the staircase, freezing at the top of the landing. The old man’s room was up here. But I didn’t want to go back downstairs.
I didn’t want to go back to the kitchen. I was literally stunned with terror, my breath coming in short shallow gasps. If
it really was possible to die of fright, then I’d have been dead at that moment.

Something had
touched
me in the living room. Grabbed me. I had never been physically touched by a spirit. My mother had never said such a thing
was possible. If a thing down there could grab my shirt, what else could it do? Shove me down the stairs? Put its hands around
my throat?

I was crying now, at least as much as I could cry between gasps for breath. My face felt prickly and strange, and I was dizzy
and nauseated. I felt like I was going to throw up. I stumbled into the third bedroom, the only one I hadn’t been inside yet,
only to be hit by a wall of air so cold it took my breath away. I turned to get away from the room and came face-to-face with
the old man, who had appeared in the doorway. His face was contorted with rage. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.
Instead he uttered a kind of howl, the cry of an animal in pain and terror.

This was, as they say, the last straw. I opened my mouth and screamed longer and louder than I thought physically possible,
determined to drown him out. I closed my eyes tightly, and backed further into the room, finally pressing myself into the
corner. I wedged myself there with my hands up by my face, and kept screaming, over the sound of breaking glass in the distance.
The floor was spinning, and something was coming up the stairs, heavy and fast. The last thing I remembered was opening my
eyes and looking into the startled face of Orin.

Then I guess I passed out.

I woke up on the old wicker couch on the van Hechts’ porch. I was still feeling sick to my stomach.

“Stay still,” I heard. “Don’t try to sit up yet.”

I didn’t try to look up at Orin. I honestly felt like I was dying.

“There’s something wrong with me,” I said, barely whispering. “It’s hard to breathe . . . I feel really weird . . .”

“You’re having a panic attack, Kat,” Orin said. “Will you let me help you?”

Anything was better than feeling like this. I nodded.

“Close your eyes,” Orin said. “Take a deep breath through your nose, and slowly let it out through your mouth. While you’re
breathing in, think
soooooo.
While you’re breathing out, think
hummmmmm.
Try not to think about anything else. Just the breathing, and those two words.”

It sounded ridiculously stupid, but I was desperate. I did as he instructed. After a minute or so, miraculously, I began to
feel a little better. And the fact that I did feel a little better made me realize that maybe I wasn’t going to die. But a
panic attack? I didn’t even know what that was, but it sounded kind of pathetic.

“Sooo . . . hum . . .” Orin reminded me. “Your color’s coming back, Kat. Keep focusing on the breath.”

I didn’t feel sick to my stomach anymore. The prickly feeling I’d had all over my skin was going away. I opened my eyes and
peeked at Orin. His forehead was crinkled, his eyes concerned. He was holding both hands out, palms facing me.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Giving you some help,” Orin explained, lowering his hands. “Energy work.”

“But you didn’t touch me.”

“It’s not necessary. Your energetic field extends beyond your physical body.”

Okay. Who was somebody who saw dead people to find somebody who did energy work weird?

“How did you find me in there?”

“I heard you,” Orin said. “Well, I heard something. I didn’t know it was you. But I heard someone scream. I broke the front
window and unlocked the door. Followed the sound, and found you in the bedroom.”

“He was coming for me,” I said. “The old man. I think he wanted to hurt me.”

Orin waited to see if I was going to say anything else.

“I’m not crazy,” I added defensively. “He was here. He . . .”

“I don’t think you’re crazy,” Orin said.

“Before I went upstairs,” I said. “I . . . the house started to go ballistic. Things slamming and crashing. Okay, I know it
sounds nuts, Orin, but somebody grabbed me. I felt it. Seriously. I wanted to run out the back door, but there was something
there. I couldn’t go that way. It was like the house wanted to drive me upstairs.”

Not the house, I thought suddenly. The old man. I couldn’t prove it, but I was certain he’d been behind the series of events
that had sent me running up the stairs. The old man wanted me for some reason. To tell me something, or show me something.
I was more determined than ever not to let that happen.

Orin was watching me carefully, his head cocked to one side. Then he spoke.

“I know. I could feel the energy—it was riled up and swirling like a hurricane. Kat, you have a mediumistic gift.”

“I know that,” I said, stupidly feeling defensive.

“Let me finish. I know it’s come to you recently.”

I nodded.

“Coming into a gift like yours is a delicate business, Kat. The conditions of your life have changed. There are things you’ll
need to know. And there are things you’ll have to experience in order to learn.”

Great.

“I told you before that your fifth chakra was blocked. I’m getting the sense that you’re fighting them, Kat.”

“The spirits?”

Orin nodded.

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Okay. Let me think of how to put this. . . . A few months ago, your energetic system totally changed. Imagine you’re a radio.
And the only signal you’ve ever received is . . . some easy listening station. Then one day, blam—you start receiving another
station, and another, and another, and tons of information and sounds and sights are being broadcast to you—ones you aren’t
accustomed to.

“And at the same time,
you
start putting out a signal—you’re like a beacon. Spirits can sense your portal is open. So they start flocking to you. Maybe
the first couple of times you manage it. But now they’re lining up—they’re all trying to get your attention.

“You don’t know how to handle it—you’re not even sure you
want
to handle it. So you start throwing out these energetic blocks. You’re not sending the spirits away; you’re just making it
harder for them to be heard. So they start trying harder to get your attention. And harder. The more determined you are to
shut them out, the more determined they are to be heard. It explains what happened in the house—the things slamming. The physical
sensations. I’m guessing that was one very determined spirit.”

Was this guy a healer or a psychic? How could he know all this about me because one stupid chakra was blocked?

“The old man,” I said. “He’s not the only spirit here, but he’s off his head with anger. I don’t think he can control it.
I can’t . . . I’m scared of him. I’m afraid he’ll hurt me. He’s definitely one I’m resisting.”

Orin nodded. I was sort of hoping he’d give me a little lecture about how a spirit couldn’t physically harm a human, but he
didn’t.

“Is the old man making me feel sick and dizzy like this?” I asked. After all, Orin seemed to have the answers to everything
else. “This isn’t the first time I’ve felt this way, either. It was way worse this time, but I’ve had all this for a couple
of days—the pounding heart, and feeling sick, plus feeling like a giant Band-Aid is being yanked off my skin.”

Orin had been kneeling next to the wicker couch. Now he shifted, sitting on the floor with his legs extended.

“Your physical body and your energetic body are connected,” Orin said. “The resisting, and the blocks you’re putting out,
and probably the anxiety it’s all causing you, basically make your body overheat, like a car engine. The fight or flight mechanism
kicks in. Your heart beats faster, you produce a bunch of adrenaline, and that makes you feel shaky, which is scary, which
makes your heart beat even faster, and so on. It’s a vicious cycle. But the deep breathing can stop it.”

I sighed. Breathing did feel good. I’d never really thought about it before.

“I guess you’ll want to know what I was doing in the house in the first place,” I said.

“Not if you don’t want to tell me,” Orin replied.

Ah.

“Well, I kind of guess I maybe don’t at this moment,” I said. “I’d kind of like to get some space between me and the . . .
things in there. That man.”

Orin nodded.

“Sounds like a wise choice.”

I started to get to my feet, but Orin cautioned me with one raised hand.

“Just stay sitting a minute. Breathe.”

I complied.

“A panic attack is traumatic to your body. You need to take it easy. Not just right now, but for the rest of the day. I wouldn’t
explore any more abandoned houses if I were you.”

“Trust me, that won’t be a problem, Orin,” I said dryly. Then I stood up carefully. When the floor didn’t rush up to smack
me in the head, I knew I was probably okay. Orin opened the screen door for me and followed me down the back steps into the
yard.

“Think about what I said, Kat.”

“Which part?”

“My teaching. I can help you to learn to manage your energy. I can teach you how to throw a kind of frequency bubble up around
yourself when you want some space from the spirits. So your system doesn’t overload like it has been. It’s not good for you
to be constantly in a state of fear, Kat. Your spirit sight is a divine gift, not a curse. I can help take the fear out of
it for you. Nobody should have to be so frightened of who they are.”

“I’ll think about it, okay?”

Orin nodded.

“I’m just going to climb the wall back into my yard,” I said, nodding toward my house.

“I’m going to go back in the house to clean up the glass,” Orin said. “Take care of yourself.”

I watched Orin go back onto the porch and disappear into the kitchen. Then I turned and walked toward the wall.

My mother was walking down the back steps toward the garden. She was looking right at me.

I froze, one foot perched partway up the stone wall. Had she seen me come out of the house with Orin? Did it matter if she
did? I couldn’t understand why I felt so secretive about Orin and everything that came close to the van Hecht house. I couldn’t
understand why I needed to keep so many things from my mother these days.

“More work for your school project?” she asked.

“Kind of,” I replied, climbing over the wall and hopping down into our yard. It could be true. It wasn’t at the moment, but
maybe I could make it true.