APRIL 13, 2016, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
3:30 PM
Jaxon slipped away from the main house at three thirty when classes were over to spend the hours set aside for extracurricular activities in the greenhouse. She had been reluctant to try what she was about to try, but she couldn’t get the idea out of her head. She hurried under the archway from the backyard to the secret garden. Wisteria blossoms trailed and dropped fragrant, feathery flowers in her hair. She passed the flowing fountain. She skirted the tidy rows of apple trees alive with the buzz of bumblebees, and she came upon the greenhouse at the back of the yard.
The building was small, only eight by six feet, its steel framework painted rust red with stabilized frosted-fiberglass walls and rooftop. From the outside, she could see the contours of plants. The door was unlocked, as it had been before, and when she walked into the much warmer room, she instantly started to sweat. Jax inhaled, feeling the tingle of awareness and the rich connection with the dirt beneath the mulch. The sensation of an unseen energy moving between her and the earth had only gotten stronger with her time at Forever Welcome, which she attributed to the group home’s verdant, vibrant gardens and landscape. But Jax wasn’t in the greenhouse to escape with her thoughts—she was there to experiment with the potting soil and seeds Dr. Hollis had procured for her.
On the back shelf where Dr. Hollis kept his plants, the citronella she had touched days before had grown another three inches, leaves spilling over the sides of the pot and a yellow flower blooming from a stalk near its center. Jaxon made a beeline for the grouping of mosquito plants and studied them in awe. “Unbelievable,” she murmured. She had done that. She had the power to do things like that. It was stunning and somewhat terrifying. She wondered what else she could do.
Jaxon didn’t know a thing about planting, but on the table in the middle of the cozy greenhouse were a bag of potting soil, several small earthen pots, and a tiny rake and trowel. She was out of her element, but she pushed up the sleeves of her denim shirt. Her hair was tied back with a silk scarf. She tore a tiny hole in the potting soil bag and scooped some of the rich, black dirt into each pot.
“All right. That looks about right.” Jax put her hands on her hips to survey the handiwork. There were crumbs of soil littering the table and spilling from the overfilled pots, but it didn’t look too bad. She set about opening each packet of seeds she had requested and poked them down into the soil. Jax had asked for herbs because she’d read somewhere they were easy to cultivate. She wasn’t sure how deeply the seeds needed to be planted. She didn’t know how much water they required or which fertilizer to add. Jax moved instinctively.
As she moved from the first pot to the second, she hummed a tuneless melody. She felt the tingle of awareness that was always strongest in the garden, and she sank into a relaxed, thoughtless zone. Gradually, she became aware of a change in what was happening in her hands. The minute her fingers touched the seeds, they started to sprout. Jax stared at them. “Is this supposed to happen?” She hurriedly buried them in the dirt. Right before her eyes, lavender shoots pushed through the soil and stretched toward her body as if she were the sun.
Her eyes flew to the first pot she had planted. Skinny pale green stems covered in dusky oval-shaped leaves had already grown several inches high, and the lavender in front of her was still growing. A squawk of amazement hitched in her throat. Jax pushed both of the red pots away and took a few steps back. She hadn’t known what to anticipate but certainly not that. She stared down at her dirt-splotched fingers, flipping her hands over. There were crescents of soil under her fingernails and smudged into the creases of her palms, but her hands looked like ordinary hands.
Jaxon anxiously looked around to make sure no one was watching. She realized belatedly there was a single camera in the top corner of the greenhouse, and she remembered the whole campus was always under surveillance. She prayed whoever might be watching would assume their eyes were playing tricks on them.
A pins-and-needles sensation persisted in her feet. She wondered if it had anything to do with her newfound ability to make things grow. She wondered about the lure of the gardens. Why was she able to do those things? Jax sucked in an anxious breath and reached for the last pot of soil. She dusted off her hands and cautiously grabbed the last envelope of seeds. The same thing happened with the thyme. Everything she touched grew, and the more things grew, the closer she felt a connection with the earth. What was she?
Jax shook her head at the question. It was enough for the day. She had barely been in the greenhouse for a half hour, and already she had three pots growing healthy herbs. She hid them beneath a shelf so Dr. Hollis, with his water experiments, wouldn’t see them and ask questions. If anyone asked, she would tell them she hadn’t lingered in the greenhouse; she had spent the evening in group fitness. Jaxon tore out of the greenhouse and jogged across the yard to the house. She crashed through the kitchen door, jogged into the hallway, and took the stairs down to the basement, scrubbing her hands on her jeans as she went.
“Jaxon!” Loren called out when she made it to the gym. Otto looked up from the weight bench and smiled.
“Hey,” Jax said shyly.
“Get over here,” Loren said. “We thought you weren’t going to make it down this evening. Glad you finally made an appearance. Want to throw some punches with me?”
Jaxon spent the rest of the evening slap boxing with Loren, an event that once again drew a crowd and forced Jax to hold back her true strength. It was fun to get rough and physical, to play-fight with someone who wasn’t really trying to hurt her. As she bounced around the room, boxing and avoiding getting hit, she found herself getting more relaxed with the basement regulars, but Jaxon couldn’t keep her eyes off Otto.
“You’re a fast learner. You’re getting better already,” he said after the match. “Let’s get you hydrated. You’re sweating like crazy.”
Jaxon blushed when she realized he was right. “Oh, I’m sorry.” He shook his head and grinned, waving away her concerns, but Jaxon stared down self-consciously. Her denim shirt was drenched, and her hair was all over her head, the wavy hair curling and frizzing in the humidity. She hadn’t paid attention to any of that while she was working out with Loren, but she was starkly aware of it with him. Otto beckoned, and Jax nervously followed him up the stairs.
“Don’t worry about how you look. You look amazing to me.” The way he said the words made the hairs along the nape of her neck stand at attention. Jaxon smiled, flattered but skeptical.
“Really?” she asked.
They exited the basement and crossed the foyer to the dining hall. He smiled and handed her a water bottle from the buffet table, then he led her out to the side patio. They sat together with Jaxon fighting the butterflies that threatened to steal her breath. Otto looked introspective and stayed mute, gazing at the horizon. She studied him.
Otto pointed at the faint first sprinkling of stars. “You ever wonder what’s up there?” Jaxon looked up and saw a crescent moon in the evening sky. She shrugged. What was to wonder? There was enough going on in her life down there. Otto gave a disparaging laugh and shook his head ruefully. “It’s funny, but I used to think there were other life forms in the universe just waiting for humans to get their crap together so they could beam us up… I don’t think they’ll ever do it. We got a lot of hang-ups.”
Jaxon shrugged again, staring at his handsome face. “I never really gave it much thought. When I was a kid, I was too busy trying to protect myself from malicious foster parents and messed-up living arrangements. That’s the stuff you ponder when you don’t have to worry about real life.” She didn’t mean to sound so harsh, but the memories were hard to shake. She was glad she would soon be out of the system. Jaxon heaved a gusty sigh and dropped her gaze. When she looked up, she caught Otto staring at her. “What?” she asked.
“What happened to your parents?”
“I don’t know.” She lifted her shoulders. “Maybe they got beamed up. Maybe they had all their crap together, and they didn’t need me to muck up their travel arrangements. I don’t know.”
She smiled to take the sting out of her words. Otto reached across the back of the bench where they sat and pulled her closer. Jaxon stiffened, not used to comfort. He kissed the top of her head and pulled her down on his shoulder, resting his cheek against her hair. “I hope your future makes your past tremble, Jaxon Andersen,” he whispered. “I hope you live such a beautiful life that it makes up for everything that came before.”
The expression was such a delicate wish that Jaxon felt rare tears sting her eyes, and she quickly dashed them away. “That’s sweet,” she whispered. They sat in companionable silence for the rest of the hour allotted to extracurriculars. When it was time for students to come in at five thirty and get ready for dinner and bed, he released her and walked her to her room. His fingers, which were wrapped around hers, felt warm and natural. She knew there were other residents filing past, but she didn’t pay them any mind. She didn’t want whatever was happening between her and Otto to end.
“Well… thank you,” Jaxon said nervously as she fondled the doorknob to her room. “Thank you for all you’re doing to make my experience here wonderful. You’re a nice guy.”
“Not always. I like you,” he confessed, grinning. “I’m sure that has something to do with it.”
Jax giggled, suddenly looking at her feet. She inhaled deeply and gazed up into his eyes. “I like you, too.”
“I think I might like you more than I like fires…” The eye contact intensified by several degrees. Jaxon felt dizzy under his spell. “See you at dinner. Will you sit with me?” She nodded. When he turned around and walked off down the hall to the boys’ half of the house, he left her staring after him with her mouth slightly agape.
Jaxon opened the door and entered her room, her heart hammering. “Did he just say what I think he said?” she whispered to herself. She pushed away from the door to hurry to her closet to find something to wear to the dining hall. She was so wrapped up in romance that she had completely forgotten what had happened before, what had happened in the greenhouse. Her magic.
APRIL 16, 2016, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
9:25 PM
Anthony Hollis moved the cursor back to the start of the video clip. He played it again on double speed. In the clip, Jaxon entered the greenhouse. The supplies were on the table. The pots were empty. Before Jaxon exited the greenhouse, she hid the pots.
It was the director’s suggestion to monitor the girl. After all, she was having unsupervised time alone in the garden. She could be out there growing God knew what. She could be sneaking out there to smoke cigarettes or hook up with boys or any clandestine thing that was against the group home’s policy. Anthony didn’t believe she would do anything amiss, but he had to follow the director’s request and keep an eye on her, namely because if anything happened to Jaxon, Forever Welcome would be held liable.
It was Saturday night, and technically Anthony was off work. He had intended to take a quick glance at the surveillance video and get to bed. But something about the video from Wednesday—Jaxon’s first and only day alone in the greenhouse since she had started gardening as her extracurricular—wasn’t adding up.
He played the video again, slower, slower. He watched her plant the seeds. Anthony squinted his eyes to study the image closer. Then, his eyes widened as he caught a glimpse over Jaxon’s shoulder of the plants that seemed to materialize out of nowhere. He shook his head in disbelief. “What the heck was that? What was she doing out there?” There was no way she should have had plants growing.
“I need to see this for myself,” he mumbled.
Anthony put on his shoes and exited his apartment on the third floor. He went down the back staircase that led from his corner of the house to the backyard, and he loped across the green grass to the secret garden. He ran out to the greenhouse, determined to see with his own eyes what Jaxon had planted. The rapid growth on the video had to be a trick of the light. He knew Jax had requested herbs, noting that they were quick and easy to grow, but herbs didn’t grow that fast.
Anthony powered on the lights and went directly to her hiding spot, having watched her on the video as she placed the pots beneath a shelf. When he pulled out the three small earthen pots, his heart skipped a beat. They were overflowing with fully grown plants, exactly as the video taken three days prior had shown, which was downright impossible. The pots should have been filled with rich, fertile potting soil, possibly a tiny sprout or two, but there was no imagining the leafy, fragrant lavender and spicy sweet marjoram. They were there.
What he had seen on the video had been real, not a trick of the light or sleight of hand. Anthony shook his head. “That can’t be. That’s not how it works. How on earth did she pull this off?” He struggled to get his cell phone out of his pocket. “Brady? Hello, dear friend. Listen, I need to send you a video, and I need you to tell me what you see when you look at it. Tell me I’m not losing my mind.”
“What is it, Anthony? I’m in the middle of dinner. This better not be any of that Emoto nonsense.”
“S-stranger than that, actually,” Anthony stammered. “The girl I told you about, remember her? Jaxon? Well, I think… I think she’s got even more special capabilities than… humanly possible? I-I’m not really sure how to explain. You’ll just have to check the email, friend. As soon as possible, please!”
“Of course, of course, I will. As soon as I leave the restaurant, I’ll check it. Now, get some sleep. It’s rather late, and you sound like you need it.”
Anthony Hollis hung up his phone with shaking hands and placed the potted plants back in their hiding place. He hurried back to his room to compile the message to send Brady. How could he explain it? How was he to put into words that the girl with the genius IQ could make plants sprout out of thin air? There had to be a reasonable explanation.
Anthony sat back on his bed and contemplated the facts. He couldn’t run with the fanciful. He had to think logically. Jaxon must have secretly concocted some type of cell growth serum that resulted in the rapid maturation of plant cells. That had to be it. She was smart enough to do it, but even if that were the case, Anthony was equally stunned at the implications of such a scientific discovery. She was only sixteen. “She’s a walking marvel,” he said, a slow grin spilling across his bearded face. “She could probably get into any college in the country with something like this.”
He laughed, his head full of ideas on how to get her further in life. He had never had a more brilliant student, and Anthony intended to use every resource at his disposal to ensure Jaxon didn’t sleep on her gifts. He needed to call her into his office and have that chat again about her future. But first, he would email Brady with the evidence to make sure he wasn’t just imagining things. Anthony knew his colleague thought he was a little loopy sometimes, but there would be no refuting what was on that video.
As he hurriedly composed the email, he wondered if maybe the news should be relayed in person rather than over the Internet. Anyone could gain access to an email if the recipient was unwary. Hell, Brady might even take a notion to forward it to someone. Anthony had to act with caution. He could trust Brady, but he would have to insist his friend keep the matter strictly confidential. “For your eyes only,” Anthony read aloud as he typed. The last thing Anthony needed was some fertilizer company or research team trying to capitalize on Jaxon’s hard work.
He didn’t realize that—thanks to his method of communication—with or without Brady willfully sharing the details of the message, someone else was keeping a close watch on Jaxon Andersen, too. Someone with less than positive motivations.
APRIL 16, 2016, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
11:25 PM
Light tapping at her door woke Jaxon from a sound sleep, and she rolled over in bed to investigate the source of the noise. It was rare to be awakened in the night at Forever Welcome. She had a brief mental image of Otto and threw off her covers, reaching for a robe to see if it could be him, but it wasn’t. Jax leaned out the door and peered up and down the hall. No one was there, but something was on the floor. Written in scarlet-red lipstick and in tiny letters was a hateful poem—if it could be called that. Jax planted her hands on her hips and smacked her lips as she read the tasteless drivel.
Jaxon Andersen is diseased
She sleeps with every guy she please
Although she thinks she’s hot to trot
She’s really, really not
The longer she stared at the words, the more Jaxon felt her blood boil. She knew who had written them. Only Lizzie would be trashy enough to mark up the hardwood floor with a vile shade of red lipstick. Jax swallowed a scream. “This has got to stop!”
She marched into her bathroom and dug out a terry cloth towel and bar of soap, the only cleaning supplies lying around. She couldn’t let everyone get up in the morning and see what Lizzie had written. She wouldn’t give the girl the pleasure of getting that much attention. Jax got down on her hands and knees and started to scrub the floor. Her arms burned with the exertion and the strain of holding her anger in check.
She scrubbed in swirly circles until the soap suds were pink from the lipstick. Jaxon went back in her room to wash the towel and then go over the floor again. She bit her lip to keep from crying. She still hadn’t gotten Dr. Hollis involved because she wanted to fend for herself, but things were getting out of hand. Lizzie had vandalized school property. Who was to say someone wouldn’t notice some residual marking and think Jaxon had done it? It was right outside her door.
Over and over, she replayed visions of getting back at Lizzie, each creative idea more gruesome than the last. She wanted to smear her face with lipstick. She wanted to tear out her hair. Jax trembled with rage. When she was finished cleaning the floor as well as possible, she tiptoed down the stairs.
Jaxon crept to the basement to let off steam. There was no way she could go back to sleep after what had happened. The lights were off, and the exercise equipment was powered down. The basement was an eerie place after hours, without the other residents to add life and laughter. She hit the lights, and she ambled to her favorite part of the gym. She picked up the boxing gloves hanging from a hook next to the punching bag.
Jax slid them onto her fists. She could finally unleash her full potential. She didn’t notice the security camera slowly swivel to watch her as she started to throw jabs. At first, she gave the heavy bag a few light taps, warming up, blow after blow barely shifting it. As she considered all the things Lizzie had done to her since her arrival, Jaxon begin to hit harder.
“Think you can mess with me and get away with it? Unh!” Jaxon’s punch powered into the faded leather with a loud thwack. She hit it again. “Think just because you’re bigger than me, you’re better than me?” The punishing attacks caused the punching bag to jostle on its chain, sway, and shiver with the hits. She punched again. “You don’t know who you’re playing with, girl!” Jaxon spun around and kicked with all her might. Her shin connected with the bag, and the cement-weighted leather cylinder flew off its hook.
“Dang it!” Jax reached for it before it hit the floor, but it slipped out of her grasp.
The punching bag smashed into the wall with an explosive thump. Jaxon jumped, looking up at the basement ceiling and listening for approaching footsteps. She ran to the punching bag and hefted it up in her hands. She handled the hundred-pound bundle as easily as a light backpack. She slung it on her shoulder and was about to take it back over to the hook, hoping no one upstairs had heard the noise.
That was when she saw him. Otto stood at the foot of the stairs watching her with eyes round as saucers. He had a white-knuckle grip on the handrail. His pulse was visibly heightened, a throbbing vein at his temple. He looked as if it was taking everything in him not to bolt back up the stairs and get away from her.
“I was—I was—” Jaxon struggled to find an explanation for what Otto had seen. The bag rolled down from her shoulder and hit the floor with a loud thud.
Otto cautiously stepped down onto the black foam. He eased closer but not close enough for her to reach for him. He looked as if he didn’t trust her not to put a whipping on him as she had the punching bag. Otto warily asked, “How did you do that?”
“I, um…” Jaxon’s face crumpled. Why had he snuck up on her? She didn’t know what to say, and she liked him too much to think of him not liking her back, but there was no way anyone could witness what he had and see her as anything but a freak. She threw her slender brown hand to her forehead and blew out an exasperated breath. “Look, don’t tell anybody about what you think you just saw, all right?” She toughened up. The least he could do was give her the dignity of keeping her secret, even if he cut her out of his romantic picture.
“Do it again,” he ordered.
Jaxon looked up.
“Hit it again. I want to see what you can really do.”
“Why?” she said forcefully. “So you can look at me like I’m some kind of circus attraction? Get real, Otto. Just forget you ever saw anything.” She hardened her voice and balled her fists. If she wanted to, she could really hurt him. She would never do that, but maybe if she made Otto believe she was a threat, he would keep his mouth shut.
At the sight of her tiny, trembling frame and her eyes glistening with tears, Otto walked closer, unafraid. “Stop it. I’m not gonna tell anyone, Jaxon.” He reached out for her hand, pulled off the boxing glove, and examined her knuckles. They weren’t even bruised. He looked at the punching bag and back at the slight girl who barely topped out at his chin height. “Show me again what you can do,” he coaxed. He wanted to know everything about her. She had him completely captivated.
Jaxon warily accepted the glove and put it back on. “If I show you this, you have to swear to me that this stays in this basement. You can’t breathe a word about this to anyone. Do you understand me? People can’t know that I’m a…”
“What?” he asked softly.
“A freak.”
He chucked up her chin and looked in her sparkling, ice chip–blue eyes. “Babe, from what I just saw, you’re not a freak… you’re the eighth world wonder.”
He tapped her fists and pointed her to the punching bag. She picked it up and mounted it back on its chain. Jaxon swallowed her fear. He was watching. She wanted to make a good impression. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. As her shoulder blades widened and she put up her fists, time slowed to a crawl for the girl who wasn’t anything like other girls. The white T-shirt and pixie-print lavender pajama pants swooshed forward in an elegant blur as her long, rangy arms shot out one after the other, fists connecting with the black leather with biting force.
She grunted softly with each blow. Her feet came off the floor, and she seemed to dance. She floated on air. She kicked with her shins and hit with her elbows. She grabbed the swaying bag and went harder with a punch, punch, spin-kick, four punches in rapid succession, flip, spin-kick, jab—moves that had Otto’s eyebrows lifting higher and higher, his mouth open in amazement.
She spun away from the punching bag and flipped up into the air, then she barreled down to the floor to land in a roll and come back up on her feet before him, not even winded by the effort. He reached for her and pulled her against his chest. “Whatever you are,” he said in awe, “you’re something special.”
Jaxon smiled and pushed out of his embrace. “And you’re breaking the rules, RA. You know we’re not supposed to be down here alone after dark. Come on. Let’s get out of here.” She strolled to the stairs, and he trailed her. Jax glanced over her shoulder and said, “My reason for being here is taken care of now, anyway. Stupid Lizzie Baptiste wrote on the floor in front of my room with a red lipstick pencil, and I had to clean it up. Gah! She has no idea how close she comes to being ripped in half sometimes.”
“To think I wanted to make you a part of the fitness club to give you some pointers on how to defend yourself.” Otto chuckled ruefully. “You really could give her the business, and she’d never know what hit her. But don’t worry about Lizzie anymore. For her sake, I’ll write her up and get points docked so she can learn to leave you alone. How long have you been able to do that kind of stuff?” He dropped his voice as they entered the hallway on the ground floor.
Jaxon shrugged. “All my life, really,” she whispered. “I’ve always been stronger, smarter, faster than others.” She bit her bottom lip uncertainly. “That’s not all, either.”
His eyes were ashy embers in the dark. “What else can you do?”
“I could show you, but Otto, you really can’t tell anyone. You can’t even hint at it. Do you know what they do to people like me? They lock us up in science labs and run experiments on us. Or worse, they don’t believe we’re telling the truth and throw us into loony bins.” She paused at the threshold of the kitchen’s back door, preparing to take him to the backyard. “I just want to live a normal life.”
Otto opened the door and stepped out. He thought Jaxon was anything but normal, but he replied, “Your secret is safe with me. You can trust me, Jaxon.”
The moon was a white sliver in the black sky above. It was a starry night, and so far from the lights of the city, Jaxon could see it clearly for the first time. She hadn’t been outside after dark since she had arrived at the facility. “Look at that,” she breathed in amazement, looking up. She could almost imagine those other life forms that Otto had been talking about earlier really existed. She pointed as a brilliant flash of light shot across the sky.
“A shooting star,” Otto said. “Make a wish.” Jaxon closed her eyes and tried to come up with something to wish for, but she wasn’t made like that. She didn’t believe in making wishes. She worked for what she wanted and hoped for the best. “What did you wish?” he asked.
“If I tell you, it won’t come true,” she replied.
“Oh, is that how it works?” He chuckled.
“That’s what I always heard.” Jax walked across the patio and stepped down from the porch to the green lawn. “Come see.” She touched the slightly damp grass. At the spot she touched, a flash of hazy fluorescence illuminated the darkness. Jax tried a twist to the growth magic she had used in the greenhouse, knowing instinctively it would work. She closed her eyes and envisioned a peace lily.
She felt the tingles in her fingers and under her toes. She felt the earth begin to respond. There was a shifting in the soil beneath the grass, and suddenly the blades parted. A single dark leaf pushed up from the ground, followed by another. A thick stem shot up, capped by a white lily. Jaxon covered her mouth in amazement. “See?” When she looked at Otto, he was staring at the flower as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He kneeled to the ground and touched it to see if it was real. The faint scent wafted to his nose. Jaxon gently pulled up the plant and slung it under the porch. “So, yeah, it gets weirder. Now you know why I don’t want anyone else to find out.”