Six

A

fter tossing around in my bed all night, I finally dragged myself up and got dressed in the half light of sunrise with nagging questions plaguing me. I had gone to Say Chi’s for answers but left with more questions.

People wanting nothing more than to find someone like me?

Why would anyone care if my aura was silver? Yet again, I was reminded of the man and his strange words at the hospital as he faded from view. A mighty flame follows a tiny spark.

I was the spark.

That much I could see with my own eyes.

But who was he?

Bumps sprang up on my arms. Fear and uneasiness had become a coat I couldn’t remove. I rode my bike home so fast last night, I nearly got hit by a car. I was unable to sleep through my worry, knowing everything in my life had changed but not why.

After scanning the book about seeing and reading auras and finding nothing on silver people, I sat at my desk and fired up my computer. For the first time I could remember, I outright disobeyed my father by getting online and searching “seeing colors around people” and “auras.” Silver was rarely mentioned in color charts. When it was, the description of seeing some silver in a person’s aura was pretty benign. No, I didn’t have a lot of money. No, I wasn’t pregnant. God. I yawned and scoured the pages with weary eyes for any reference to the ominous stories Faye mentioned about people with silver auras but found nothing.

Maybe I was the only one, the last of a mysterious tribe of freaks.

Maybe we had been wiped from the earth.

Chills rolled over me, raising the hairs on my arms. I bit my lip and decided to forge ahead and put my query in a public forum on a site where people had online discussions about seeing auras. Perhaps they knew about scary people with all-white auras, too. I didn’t see the harm in simply asking about colors. Maybe someone else out there had seen someone silver like me or was someone silver like me.

Maybe I wasn’t alone.

Halfway through typing my question, my bedroom door swung open. My dad’s eyes went to the computer screen before they landed accusingly on me as he crossed the room. His face darkened when he read what I’d typed. “What are you doing? You know how I feel about this, Cora,” he said, stabbing at the power button on the computer. My question on the screen blipped to blackness.

“What are you afraid of, Dad? How can looking up information about auras possibly harm me?”

“It’s not information, honey. It’s misinformation.”

“Says the man who watches Edmund Nustber on TV.”

He sighed in frustration, causing his aura to expand to dirty brown overlaid on yellow. “For entertainment,” he said. “Not for facts.”

I folded my arms. “Well, this is my entertainment.” He started to shake his head no, to open his mouth and toss another prohibitive statement at me, but I’d had enough. I glared at him. “The more you tell me not to open a box, the more I want to.”

Later, swerving through the halls at school, I told Mari and Dun what had happened at Say Chi’s. “I’m convinced I’m seeing auras.”

“Can you see your own?” Dun asked.

“Yeah. But mine is completely different than everyone else’s. I’ve only got one color. Mine is silver.” A quick jolt of worry coursed through me. Faye had said not to tell anyone about my aura. Mari shot me a dubious look. “Truly, I look like a giant sparkler. It flares out really far from my body, too. And there’s nothing online about it.”

Mari looked interested albeit skeptical. Though, skepticism was a regular look for her. “Still, isn’t it cool to be able to see people like that?” she asked.

“No. It’s disturbing, like watching everyone walk around naked.”

Dun snickered. “I could get with that.”

Mari yanked at the sleeve of my hoodie and hooked her arm in mine. “You’re going to have lunch with us today,” she informed me. When I gave her “the eyebrow,” she said, “Well, you hid out in the secret garden yesterday. Time to practice your social skills.”

“Hid? Why does everyone keep saying that?”

“Everyone?”

“Never mind. I like the greenhouse. This is not breaking news.”

Dun leaned close. “In breaking news, I may or may not have spotted someone who may or may not have resembled Mr. McIrish in the greenhouse yesterday.”

“Nuh-uh!” Mari squealed, mouth agape. “Finn went in there to see you?”

I scowled. “Why is that so unbelievable?”

“Insecure much?”

“Repeat after me,” Dun said. “Whale. Oil. Beef. Hooked.”

Mari and I stared at him.

“C’mon. Do it.”

We rolled our eyes and said the words.

“Say it again. Faster.”

We did. Repeatedly. “Whaleoilbeefhooked.”

I laughed, finally hearing the joke.

“Now I’ve taught you how to talk Irish,” he said with a stupid grin. I liked Dun’s aura, which was almost always a happy gold/white color, like the edge of a cloud with the sun behind it. Mari’s outline was a bit more complex. She also radiated a happy blush, but she was mercurial, ever changing.

Though there was a beautiful familiarity to the colors around the people I cared about, they didn’t understand that my world wasn’t the same since this had started. No one could hide their true colors from me.

And they didn’t know I was now terrified of something—or someone—I couldn’t name.

After school, I slung my messenger bag across my shoulders and walked toward the Santa Cruz Parks and Rec Center, where I volunteered at the Boys & Girls Club. Rain threatened. For the millionth time, I wished my dad would let me get my driver’s license. But apparently, the world gets bigger with wheels underneath you, and Dad liked my world nice and small. He’d kill me and Mari both if he knew that on Tuesdays—her day to get the car that she shared with her brothers—she’d been secretly teaching me how to drive.

Each palm tree lining the street rustled like crisp paper in the wind. Overhead, the slate sky growled, and I felt a drop peck my cheek, followed by five more in quick succession. I walked faster.

My neck bristled with the sensation of eyes on my back. I looked over my shoulder and spotted a tall man about a block away walking briskly behind me. He wore a black woolen cap and a gray leather jacket. Longish blond hair stuck out in tufts from under the cap. There was something familiar about his lanky build, about the way he stared. That’s when I recalled the chilling sensation of falling out of myself in his presence. Like being sucked into a tornado and spit back out.

For every step I took, he seemed to take three. The gap between us narrowed, and his aura—pure white—flared between us. Internal alarms I didn’t know I possessed blared at me. My quick steps beat in time with my heart.

The rain intensified, splattering the contents of my bag as I dug out my umbrella. I wouldn’t open it. I wanted a weapon, and the umbrella was more useful closed. The man drew even closer. I ran.

Next to me, a car honked. I jumped, pointing the umbrella defensively at a classic powder-blue Mustang. Finn leaned across the passenger seat and rolled down his window. “Do you want a ride?”

I glanced back. The man now walked in the opposite direction, having abruptly switched course. I resented the fear pulsing through my body. When I most wanted to break free from the sheltering of my childhood, someone made me want to run to the safety of my father’s arms. I felt exposed and vulnerable. Had he followed me from school? I looked back at the handsome boy in the car, opened the door, and slid in. “Thanks,” I said. “You have good timing. Honestly, I’m pretty sure I was being followed.”

Finn looked through the back window streaked with rain. “I don’t see anyone back there, but I don’t like the sound of that.” I liked the way his lips pursed together in worry.

“Sorry, I, uh, I’m getting your car all wet.”

Finn pointed at himself. “Irish. Rain doesn’t faze me much, but I prefer to enjoy it from inside.” He looked me over. “The rain is lovely on you. Though you might try opening that umbrella next time.”

“I thought it’d be more valuable as a spear.”

His eyes roamed from my face to my hair, which must’ve resembled the twisted strands of a mop. We did that thing again, where we looked in each other’s eyes a fraction longer than was considered comfortable in polite society. Or maybe it wasn’t that the look was longer. It was deeper. His greedy stare settled on my wet lips, and I finally looked away.

“I’m Irish, too,” I told him in an unnaturally high voice as he pulled into traffic.

“Yeah? Seems everyone has a bit-o-the-Irish in ’em here. Maybe it’s because we tend to leave when things go really wrong on our island.”

“No. I mean my mother was from Ireland.”

“No shite?”

“Truly. Lock, stock, and shamrock. I was born there.”

Finn gave me a surprised look, which kind of pleased me. “Were you now? I believe ya. You’re quite fair. From what county?”

“Kildare. I don’t remember it. I was five when we left.”

“My family is from County Meath, north of Kildare,” he said with a twinge of excitement. “But there is something else about you.” He reached up and gently teased a wet strand of my black hair through his fingers. “Something…striking. A little bit exotic.” He looked at me again below his dark lashes, sending bubbles streaming through my body.

“South American. My father was born in Chile.”

“Why did your family leave Ireland?”

My jaw went rigid. “Things went really wrong.”

Finn didn’t press, which I appreciated. I pointed the way to the rec center. He slowed in the empty parking lot, and I opened the door before the car fully stopped, my foot hovering over the asphalt whizzing by. “Thanks for the lift.”

“I thought you were going to stop the car like a superhero,” Finn teased, then cut the engine. He gestured to the rec center. “What are you about in there?”

I rubbed my hands together to warm them and maybe dispel a bit of jittery energy. “I volunteer. We help out the kids who are kind of on their own.”

His eyebrows rose. “You mean they have no family? Orphans?”

“No. Most of them have at least one parent. I empathize with the kids who are looking for the whole sandwich and only get the crust, you know?”

“Do you mind if I tag along? I’d like to see what you do.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” I said with a dismissive wave.

“Yes,” he said, opening his car door. “I would.”

I got out and crossed my arms. “Why? What is up with you?”

“What kind of foreign policy is it not to show a visitor your customs and culture?” Finn laughed, which sparked some irritation in me. I wanted to walk away, but his gravity pulled me out of my own tight orbit.

He raked his hands through his wild hair, the kind of hair that wanted to be messed. Why was I suddenly imagining leaving rows in it with my fingers? My hands clenched. I turned and began to walk toward the building.

“Cora.”

I paused. My name falling from his lips was exquisite, but sad, too. It sparked a rogue memory of my mother’s Irish accent calling to me.

“Is it so hard to believe someone would be curious about you? Want to spend a little bit of time with you?”

Yes.

I turned around. “No. It’s hard to believe that you do.”

Quickly, Finn closed the gap between us. His breath formed small clouds of steam in the rain. The warmth of it touched my face.

“You’re in my personal space,” I said weakly.

We fell into each other’s gazes again. A drop of rain landed on my head. His cheekbone. My nose. His beautiful mouth. He wasn’t touching me, but it felt like he was. Every nerve responded to him. His spiced scent. His colors. They reached out and caressed me.

“Let me be around you, Cora. It’s all I seem to want since we spoke in the hospital, so let me.” Despite the determined set of his jaw, his eyes looked lost, bewildered. As if he didn’t understand himself what he was doing standing there in the rain with me.

I blew out an exasperated puff and tramped toward the building. “Suit yourself. But,” I called over my shoulder, “for every hour you spend with me, you have to answer a question about Ireland.”

The double doors opened to a gymnasium full of children. Tennis shoes squeaked on the glossy wooden floor. The center had the dank smell of used equipment, kid sweat, and something vaguely food related. I could feel Finn’s smile on my back. He slid onto a bench, watching me while I signed in.

Little arms attacked me from behind. I patted the familiar hands on my belly. Of all the kids I came here for, little Max was the one I wanted to take home. I had a serious soft spot for this curly-haired little boy with the sad, observant eyes. I turned to give Max a hug. What I wasn’t prepared for was the monochrome of him. For days I’d seen a vivid array of colors around people. Even if Max’s eyes held a little sunshine from seeing me, the light around him was devoid of it. In fact, it couldn’t exactly be called light, but a gray, chalky smudge.

He had a sad shadow.

I blinked and knelt down as if seeing him for the first time. “How you doing, Max?”

He tried to turn away from me, uncomfortable with my scrutiny. He clearly wasn’t used to people really looking at him. I swallowed hard, hoping the gray around him would go away and thinking that my vision might walk a fine line between a gift and a curse.

“Pardon me,” Finn said from behind us. “This here looks like a bloke that could do with a real Irish tale. Am I right?” Max eyed him with suspicion rimmed in curiosity. “If you guess the ending,” Finn said, reaching into a pocket of his shirt, “I’ll play you a tune on my harmonica.”

I sat on the bench, and Max cozied up next to me to hear Finn’s story. I couldn’t help but stare, grateful for the opportunity to study Finn up close. How he moved his hands a lot when he talked. The way his lips curled around some words with that accent. How his dimple teased as he spoke. He locked on Max as if he were the most important person in the world. The colors around Finn reached out to the boy. If compassion had a shade, that’s what was coming off Finn right then, comforting shades of blue and gold. Max opened like a shy flower under Finn’s attention.

I couldn’t deny that it touched me. He touched me. Finn scared me, but stirred me, too. Like I’d been half-asleep my whole life and was suddenly wide-awake.

“The harmonica?” I asked as we walked through the parking lot later that evening. “Not exactly a traditional Irish instrument, is it?”

“What? You’d prefer I do a little Riverdance?”

That image made me laugh. “I’d pay cold, hard cash to see you Riverdance.” I peered at him sideways. “You owe me.” He cocked his eyebrow and waited for my question. “Are there really a hundred shades of green in Ireland?”

“Aye,” he said softly. “But not as many shades of green as in your eyes.” A sweet heartbeat of time passed. Then we both chuckled at his corniness. Finn’s cheeks reddened, but maybe it was the chill of the rainy night. “My charming Irish banter’ll be needing some work, I reckon.”

“It’s okay. Charming banter is a fine art, one I definitely haven’t mastered. We can practice on each other.”

“How will I know if I’m improving?” he asked.

“I don’t know… I’ll swoon, maybe?”

“Okay, but do I have to swoon when you get it right? I don’t know if it’s manly to swoon.”

Easy laughter bubbled up from us again.

My dad’s car idled up ahead. “Oh, there’s my dad. See you Monday.”

Instead of walking to his own car, Finn kept pace beside me. Before I could give an introduction, he stuck his hand through the open driver’s side window and introduced himself to my father. His confidence and manners were charming. My neck warmed.

“You’re Irish,” my dad said, more an awkward accusation than a question.

I threw my bag in the backseat and got in. “Thanks for the ride.”

“You bet. Cheers.” He began to walk away but turned back. “Sir, would it be all right with you if I asked Cora to the movies tomorrow?”

Holy…

“Sorry, no.”

There was an excruciating blink of surprise from Finn. I stared at his hand, which squeezed the window frame tighter while he stared at my father, both of us waiting uncomfortably for an explanation. When it became clear that one wouldn’t come, Finn forced cheer into his voice. “Some other time, then.”

Dad drove out of the parking lot. His hands clenched the wheel at ten and two.

“What was that?” I asked.

“That boy is Irish.”

“I know, Dad. Last I checked, that’s not a crime.” I couldn’t believe he had pulled a boy-block on me like that.

After a few tense moments, he let out a breath and smiled weakly. “We haven’t had to talk about dating before. But I think it’s time to establish some rules.”

“Oh God. No, Dad. It’s not time, okay? Finn gave me a ride because…” I nearly told my father about the man who’d been following me. Maybe then he’d see it was safer to finally let me drive. Then again, he’d have a whole new reason to be paranoid and overprotective. “…because it was raining and you won’t let me get my driver’s license. It’s no big deal.”

“I would be an irresponsible father if I didn’t lay down the ground rules before the need arises.”

I huffed and rolled my eyes. “What’s rule number one? No dating until I’m twenty?”

“Objection. Conjecture.” He tried to sound light. I watched his jaw clench. “Eighteen.”

“Eighteen?” My heart rate matched the click-click of the turn signal. Eighteen was a year away. “’Cause I can’t possibly be trusted to make good judgments about who to go to the movies with? When are you going to have some confidence in me? You never let me have any freedom. You won’t let me drive. You totally blew me off when I tried to tell you something is definitely not right with my eyes. You’re being irrational about the aura thing. You never tell me anything about my own mother, even when I ask you direct questions. In the hospital, Janelle said—”

“She’s gone. That’s it. There is nothing more to say about your mother.”

“You know, the more you say that, the less I believe you. Why don’t you trust me?”

He parked in the driveway and turned toward me. “I do trust you.”

“No, Dad.” I shook my head. “Not real trust. It’s easy to say you trust a bird in a cage.”