Tommy Nightmare (Jenny Pox #2) (38 page)

It was male, and I had drawn enough of him
to note his protective, even angry stance. He stood with his body
squared and his hands loose but steady at waist level, as if he was
ready to go for a weapon or block an attack. I had drawn a dark
cloud swirling around him. Soaring planes of light and shapes I
couldn’t completely make out pierced the dark cloud. The few I
could recognize sent my stomach plummeting somewhere south of my
ankles: a hand with nails like talons, dripping blood; a shattered
knife; a tattered book; a heart-shaped box, smashed to bits. Sleek
white lines swirled around the man, whirling with the dark cloud. I
squinted. I couldn’t tell what they were, if anything. I had only
half-drawn his face before I stopped, so he kind of looked like the
creepy Twilight Zone character with no mouth. I shivered and zipped
my hoodie up all the way.

I had managed to finish his eyes. It was
only a charcoal sketch, so I couldn’t tell what color they were,
but I had done a good job capturing the light in them. His eyes
were so light they almost glowed at me out of the charcoal whorls.
They were narrowed underneath arched brows, and they practically
sparked with anger. His eyes were so angry, in fact, that for just
a minute I wondered why my drawing didn’t catch fire right in my
lap.

He stood on the Riverwalk side, just a few
dozen feet from where I huddled with the rest of my art class
against the October breeze. Of course, in reality, there was no one
there. No angry mystery man with only half a face glared at me from
the banks of the St. Clare River.

Instead, groups of art students, clad in
thrift store chic, huddled all along the Riverwalk. Some worked and
some goofed off. I had been part of the first group until my
freakish ability manifested itself again. After that, I kind of
froze in horror. Amberlyn sat with her striped tights pressed up
against my knee, bent over her own sketchpad. Like me, she had cut
the fingers off a pair of knit gloves to keep her hands warm but
still allow her to draw. I had been hoping to finish quickly, with
time left over to run home and check on Logan before work. Amberlyn
was so into what she was doing that she didn’t notice, at first,
when I stopped working.

I should have known better. Amberlyn is
really, really observant. It’s part of what makes her such a good
artist. And why she can be such an annoying friend.

“Caspia,” she purred, her voice low and
throaty like she’d just swallowed honey. “What is
that
?”

“Well,” I heard myself say stupidly. “Um.
Nothing. No one.”

Amberlyn just looked at me like I’d insulted
her intelligence. I struggled to sound more convincing. “Really. I
have no idea who that is. I just made him up.” Lame, but true. I
tried to cover with a nervous giggle. That was my mistake. I wasn’t
the giggling type, and Amberlyn knew it.

“Caspia, honey,” she drawled, prying the bar
of graphite from my fingers. I’d snapped it into pieces and ground
part of it to dust. “It looks like you just drew a man being eaten
by a tornado, or something.” She squinted and tilted her head
slightly sideways, trying to get a better look. I flipped the
drawing facedown so she couldn’t see it. She sighed and took my
charcoal smeared fingers in her own and massaged them, getting
black dust all over her cute pink fingerless gloves. “I just wish
you’d tell me if someone’s tormenting you so much you need to
devour him with an imaginary tornado. Instead of doing your
homework, no less.” She clucked her tongue in mock severity. “I’m
trustworthy. I won’t even tell Logan,” she taunted, emphasizing my
brother’s name with a wink.

“Oh, God, Amberlyn, shut up!” I squealed. I
did not want to think about my best friend and the crush she’d had
on my brother since the seventh grade. I jerked my hands away and
grabbed the sketchbook from my lap. “It’s just… I was just
daydreaming, ok? Seriously. There is no one.” I started to rip the
picture from the book to wad it up, but she stopped me.

“No, wait,” she insisted, snatching my
sketchbook away. She ignored my squeals. “Daydreaming or not, this
is really good, Caspia.” She crinkled her perfectly shaped little
nose and narrowed her golden-green eyes. “In a Gormenghast meets
William Turner kind of way.”

“A fantasy-horror landscape painting. That
just about sums up my life right now,” I moaned, falling back
against the bench. My head felt hot and heavy. I let it drop into
my hands. “They say there’s truth in art.”

“Oh, Caspia. Sweetie.” She let her
golden-brown curls rest against my shoulder. “You know what you
need?” Even in fall, she managed to smell like cocoa butter. “You
need a caramel latte with extra caramel. And you need me to buy it
for you.”

I sat up straight and looked out over the
river. School was supposed to be the easy part of my day, and here
I was, almost crying. I still had work and chores and homework and
Logan. Then I realized I had just lumped my brother in with chores,
and almost started crying again. A sudden chill breeze helped bring
me to my senses; I quickly wiped my tears and reached for my
knapsack. “I have to check on Logan before I go to work at the
place that makes the caramel lattes. Making my own makes it less of
a treat,” I grumbled.

“Mmm hmm. Just go ahead and be difficult
then. Because then I won’t have to tell you how much charcoal you
just smeared on your face, wiping away your own tears when you had
a friend right here to do it for you. And I surely won’t have to go
buy three extra caramel lattes that someone else made so Logan can
have one too and then bring them up to your apartment while you
clean yourself up for work.”

Amberlyn had already smoothed my
incriminating drawing and closed my sketchbook, tying it tightly
closed with its black leather cord. She held it with
uncharacteristic solemnity. Her golden-brown spiral curls blew all
around her café-au-lait skin. In the afternoon light, she looked
angelic. I felt suddenly, powerfully alone. We’d been best friends
since we both showed up on the first day of junior high with
identical cartoon lunch boxes, cementing our eternal torment and
instant solidarity all in one day. But my visions were a secret I
had never shared. Not even Logan or my parents were comfortable
with the subject; Gran had been the only one.

I felt heavy with secrets and pent-up
emotions. “You don’t have to do all that.” I started to refuse, but
my voice came out in a whine even I was sick of hearing.

“Just promise me two things.” I nodded,
ready to sign over my first born child for the chance to catch up
with Logan, grab a shower, and drink pure sugary sin with my friend
before work. Amberlyn slapped me on the forehead with the front of
her hand. “Don’t be such a martyr. You and Logan are like family.”
I scowled and rubbed my forehead.

“And the other thing?” I prompted warily,
ready to smack her back, if necessary.

She swept her corkscrew curls out of her
face with one hand and held my sketchbook out to me with the other.
“Don’t you dare trash that picture. It’s good, Caspia. Really
original.” I gave her the barest nod before slipping it into my
knapsack. A part of me wished it had been my firstborn child after
all. She had no idea what that picture represented to me. All my
feelings of freakish isolation and impending disaster came bubbling
up, threatening to overflow. But then I stopped myself. What if it
wasn’t bad this time? What if it really was just a picture of some
random guy?

I realized then I wasn’t afraid of the
picture so much as I was of my “gift” reawakening, in public, when
everything else was so out of control. But my visions weren’t
something I could control. Never had been able to. I slung my
knapsack across one shoulder and gave Amberlyn a wicked grin. “Try
not to get eaten by tornadoes on your way over,” I teased. “Logan
might actually notice this time.”

I tried to dodge the flying object I knew
was coming but I wasn’t quick enough.

***

I burst through our apartment door, slightly
breathless from my sprint up two flights of stairs. I loved our
little apartment. It was just big enough for Logan, Abigail, and
me. What it lacked in modern conveniences it made up for in
outdated charm, like the oversized claw-footed bathtub, the hand
painted kitchen wall tiles, towering ceilings, and ivy-covered
patio. It overlooked Whitfield’s Old Town Square, with its gorgeous
fountain and trees draped with lights year round. I could walk
almost anywhere I wanted or needed to be in minutes. Most
importantly, it made me feel like I was a part of the city’s
vibrant beating heart. Whitfield wasn’t a big and exciting city. It
was definitely Southern and I had lived there all my life, so by
rights I should have hated it and been desperate to escape. But I
didn’t. Instead, I felt an intense connection I couldn’t exactly
put into words. I tried to paint it instead, with varying degrees
of success.

“Logan!" I yelled, dropping my knapsack next
to the door while I kicked my Chuck Taylors off in two quick, sure
movements. “Amberlyn’s coming over.” My hoodie crumpled onto the
gold-varnished wooden floor, missing its hook by inches. I just
shrugged and slammed my keys down on top of the bookshelf by the
door, knocking several pieces of mail off in the process. “She’s
bringing delicious beverages,” I continued, walking away from the
mess I’d made without a second glance. We were both used to my
slovenly ways. Logan had given up trying to break me of them long
ago. He picked up after my messes, and I did his laundry. “I’ve got
just enough time to grab a shower before work, so if she…”

Logan wasn’t listening. He was curled up in
a little ball on one side of the sofa, his shoulders rising and
falling slowly. Very slowly. A knit navy toboggan covered the tops
of his ears and most of his eyes. His bare neck looked pale and
graceful in its fragility; I resisted the urge to stroke it.
Abigail lay sprawled against as much of him as she could reach,
every orange and fluffy inch of her radiating watchful
protectiveness. She head-butted me as I leaned over my brother,
touching his face, reassuring myself that yes, he was breathing, he
was alive.

But he was icy cold to the touch, and the
skin under his eyes, even in sleep, looked sunken and hollow. The
bones of his face were so sharp, so prominent; it struck me how
much weight he’d lost over the last few months. He covered himself
in the baggiest clothes these days, so I hadn’t really noticed. Or
maybe I was just that unobservant. I was failing at this, at taking
care of him…

A blurry orange vibration nudged at my hand.
I blinked away tears yet again as I petted the purring cat that
meowed quietly for my attention. “You’re right, Abby,” I whispered,
pulling an old fleece throw over my sleeping brother. “We’d better
not wake him. I’ll put a note on the door for Amberlyn, warning
her.” Abigail flicked her tail in agreement before resuming her
position as guardian of Logan’s fleece-covered back.

I lingered a moment longer. I knew I had to
hurry, that work was waiting, that Amberlyn would come trooping in
at any moment like a pack of wild wolves. In the slanted half-light
pouring in through our front window blinds, my brother looked like
something newborn and delicate, something so vulnerable that the
very act of observation might be enough to take him away. I thought
of baby rabbits trembling in my hands, of snowflakes melting on
coat sleeves, of lightning bugs in mason jars living only until
morning. I watched him, hardly daring to breathe, willing myself to
memorize this moment when my brother’s shoulders brushed too slowly
against the fuzzy orange of Abigail the cat.

You’re going to lose him soon
, a
voice whispered deep within my mind.
He’s too fragile for this
world now. Winter will take him.
I clenched my fists against
the truth of it.

“No,” I whispered through locked teeth. “I
will fight for him. He’s all I have left.” I let myself feel the
fear, give in to it completely, for the space of several deep, long
breaths. Then, because I had no other choice, I let it go.

Under the bay window overlooking Old Town
Square stood an antique mahogany roll top desk that used to belong
to my father. We kept our parent’s wedding bands, important papers
like birth certificates and insurance mumbo jumbo, keepsakes, art,
and photographs in it. On the top of its dark surface stood the
last picture of the four of us together, surrounded by candles,
dried flowers, and whatever odds and ends happened to catch our
eye. It was a shrine of sorts, I suppose, although both Logan and I
would deny it, if pressed. I went to this picture and lit a
half-melted candle.

I wish you could make him better
, I
thought at the picture, reaching out to touch my parent’s smiling
faces with two fingers.
I wish… I wish you could help us.
There’s only me, and I’m not enough.
It was the closest I had
come to praying since they died.

I saved my tears for the shower, where they
finally took me in great heaving waves, muffled by music and
pounding hot water that washed them down the drain.

***

Thanks for reading this excerpt of
Gifts of the Blood
!

You can find it at
www.amazon.com
,
www.barnesandnoble.com
, and
www.smashwords.com

Or connect with me online:

Website:
http://www.vickikeire.com

Blog:
http://vickikeire.blogspot.com