The idea hit Sean hard as a midnight bullet. It threw him out of bed before he was fully aware of his movements. He couldn’t be bothered to use words to wake Dillon. This was not a time for arguments. As he walked past his brother’s bed he kicked the foot sticking over the edge.
He received a muffled, “What’s the big idea?”
Sean moved into the kitchen, poured two glasses of water, walked back, and handed one to Dillon. They both usually woke up parched as Sahara trekkers. “I just figured it out. Maybe.”
To his credit, Dillon didn’t waste time with stupid questions. He drank his water, dressed, and followed Sean down the stairs and into the night.
Sean told him, “We’ve been going at this all wrong. We’re trying to think from one of us to the other.”
“Silly me,” Dillon retorted. The guy was alert enough to offer the day’s first quip. “All this time that’s what I figured we were working on. Thoughts.”
“So how hasn’t it worked? Because it’s not about thoughts at all.”
Crickets filled the silence. The moon was a small sliver almost directly overhead, the sky so clear they could see a faint silhouette of the dark side. The air was Carolina cool, the night windless. Somewhere far in the distance a dog barked. Otherwise the night was theirs.
Dillon said, “In a crazy way, that makes perfect sense.”
Hearing his brother speak those words got Sean so totally excited he shivered. “So we start from the energy.”
Dillon was nodding now. In tandem. “Focus on the force at gut level.”
“Build that up. Form a . . . I don’t know, a bubble or something.”
“Stick the thought inside.”
“And pass it to . . .” Sean stopped talking because Dillon was already on the move. His footsteps made a racing patter down the empty street.
Sean shivered again.
Dillon stopped beneath a streetlight a couple hundred yards away. And stood there with hands on hips. Waiting.
It should have come natural by now, forming a bundle of energy in his gut. Especially when he was so tense it felt like his entire body was ready to fold inward around the fist-like clenching. But Sean was so nervous it took forever. Finally he formed a new shield around himself, then pried out a segment. It helped to see it like an old-fashioned cartoon, the bubble taking shape just above his head. He couldn’t think of anything more intelligent to say than, Can you hear me now? Like they were struggling against a failing cell phone signal.
Then he sent it scooting off to where his brother stood.
It seemed like the instant he made the invisible move, Dillon started dancing.
His brother went crazy. The touchdown dance in the state final was nothing compared to the ridiculous jig going on beneath the yellow streetlight.
Sean would have been embarrassed to have anyone see him just then, because all of a sudden he was laughing so hard he couldn’t stop the tears. And then the message came zinging back at him, and it all got worse.
Bro, we’ve just redefined spooky.