Chapter 2

eric’s natural-born ability

Mr. Dutch wondered, not for the first time, whether being a student driver instructor was worth the effort. Yes, he found the extra money convenient, but on the other hand, a possible heart attack and subsequent visit to the hospital probably cost more than his earnings. “Eric, you’re floating all over the road. This is not an open parking lot. This is a busy street.”

“Sorry, Mr. Dutch,” Eric mumbled. Not only did he lack talent at driving, but in this particular session Eric happened to be distracted by the person in the backseat. He had not seen Charlotte since the day before, but he thought about her a lot. He certainly could not hide his surprise that she also had just been assigned to Mr. Dutch—coincidentally at the same time as him.

Much to Mr. Dutch’s relief, the car arrived at the school parking lot, and the two students got out. “Do both of you have a ride home?” Mr. Dutch asked. Eric thought the instructor eyed him particularly close.

They both answered in the affirmative and Mr. Dutch left them sitting on the curb of the parking lot waiting for their parents to come pick them up.

“That was really great driving, Charlotte,” Eric said to break the ice.

“Thank you. Yours was good too.”

Eric did his best not to snort. “Yeah, right. Good if eight near accidents are ideal.”

Charlotte smiled. “Actually I was thinking that it was good considering something else.”

Eric took a deep breath at this statement. “Good considering that I have no talent whatsoever?”

“Eric!” Charlotte replied sharply, “You know that’s not true. I’d have thought our conversation yesterday would’ve taught you something.”

“I get that most people are born with certain abilities.”

“That’s right. And you just happen to fit under the category of one of those people,” Charlotte gently chided.

“Are you sure?” Eric thought he knew the answer, but he still feared the response.

“Oh, I’m sure,” Charlotte said without hesitation. Eric detected the tiniest trace of a grin on her face.

“So …” Eric rubbed his hands together and took a deep breath as Charlotte waited patiently. He continued slowly, “… so you’ve looked into my eyes and seen what I was born to be?”

She gave him another nearly imperceptible grin. “Yes.”

Eric waited for her to continue, but she held back. “Well … ?” he finally asked when he could wait no longer.

Charlotte laughed at his discomfort. “Eric, can’t you even guess?”

Eric racked his brain, but this reminded him of his meetings with Mr. Pickney. His mind went blank. Despondent, he shook his head. “No, I can’t.”

The smile left Charlotte’s face and she gently reached out and touched Eric on his hunched shoulder, forcing him to look into her eyes. “Listen to me, Eric. You are just as talented as anyone else out there. You just haven’t been in the right circumstances to prove it.”

“Why?”

“Because. You are a natural-born pirate hunter.”

A part of Eric wanted to laugh, but he knew from the look on Charlotte’s face that she would not stand for such a thing. So he allowed the other part of him to take over, and he went silent as he digested her declaration.

“Eric?” Charlotte prompted.

Eric snapped out of his momentary lapse in thought. “I’m sorry. I just …” He shook his head.

Charlotte could finally laugh at his reaction. “Eric, you are one of a kind.”

“‘One of a kind’? Are there not that many … natural-born pirate hunters?” He seemed tentative to actually say the words himself.

“Well, probably not, actually, but I just meant in general you are one of a kind.”

Eric mulled over this new information. “Now Charlotte, you’re not kidding around with me or anything, are you? I mean, you aren’t making something up just to make me feel better about myself, right?”

For all of Charlotte’s playfulness, her subsequent expression was devoid of deceit. “Eric, there are probably a lot of things you couldn’t trust about me, but when I tell you that you’re a natural-born pirate hunter, please know that I take that responsibility of telling someone what they were born to do very seriously.”

Eric allowed his belief to trickle into his expression. “Wow,” he said. He waited another second before repeating, “Wow.” He gave Charlotte a look of hope that she must not have seen in him since the moment she first met him. “Um … what, exactly, is a pirate hunter?”

Charlotte’s giggle rang like a string of chimes. “I imagine that it would be someone who hunts down pirates. You can feel free to correct me if you think my instincts are off.”

“Right,” Eric nodded apologetically. “Of course … you probably don’t have a book with brief summaries of every known natural-born ability.”

“No … at least, not yet.”

“Wow,” Eric finally smiled. “Someone who hunts pirates. A pirate hunter.” The look on Charlotte’s face suggested that she never tired of watching people’s reactions to discovering their abilities. “Well,” he declared, “I guess that makes sense why I haven’t had a hint of it before. I’ve never been near a body of water long enough to prove it to myself.” He then looked over to Charlotte. “Ah. That’s why you were asking all those questions about the lake before.”

Charlotte nodded, seeming pleased at how well Eric put it together. Then it came. Eric’s newly revived face suddenly became crestfallen. “Pirate hunter …”

“Yes,” she replied, pushing him to come to the inevitable conclusion.

“Then … then, that means I won’t be able to ever become what I was born to be. I’m one of those, one of the ones you talked about, that was simply born in the wrong time period.” Charlotte said nothing and let him follow his thought process through to the end. Eric shook his head in disbelief. “So, really, nothing has changed at all. I’m still useless. The only difference is that now I know why and I also know that I won’t be able to make myself useful.”

In the way only Charlotte could, she shook her head condescendingly and said, “Eric, that is ridiculous. If your argument were true then that would mean that most everyone in the history of the world has been useless.”

Still skeptical, Eric said, “That’s just a nice way of saying, ‘Yep, Eric, you’re never going to know what it’s like to reach your full potential.’”

“Whoever said that you won’t know what it’s like to reach your full potential?”

“Right, Charlotte. How many towns do you know of nowadays that have problems being pillaged and plundered by pirates on a regular basis?”

“None. Certainly not in our time period.”

“Oh, is piracy going to be a big problem in the near future? Am I going to be chasing after pirates in speedboats? While you’re looking into the future, could you tell me how many times I’m going to have to take the driving exam?”

Charlotte folded her arms and turned away. “Let me know when you’re done making cynical remarks and are ready to listen to me.”

Though Eric felt pessimistic, Charlotte had proven to him more than once that his wisest course of action would be to pay attention to her. “Sorry. I’m listening.”

“Now, Eric, you’ve believed everything I’ve told you so far, haven’t you?” Charlotte said as she turned back to him.

Eric paused before responding. There were a lot of sensational things Charlotte had been telling him since he met her, but Eric found that, to his surprise, he could truthfully respond in the affirmative.

“Well, as with before, you’re just going to have to trust me with what I’m about to tell you.” Eric nodded. Charlotte scrutinized him, then continued, “What if I told you that there is a way for you to actually realize your full potential as a natural-born pirate hunter?”

“I can’t see how that’s possible, but I’m certainly open to suggestions.”

“Eric, what is my natural-born ability?”

“You’re a seer. You see other people’s natural-born abilities … I thought.”

Charlotte shook her head. “That’s a by-product of being a seer.”

“So … what can seers do then?”

“I help other people see the potential of their natural-born ability through personal experience.”

Eric took a second to think this statement over. “Wait a second. What, exactly, are you saying?”

Charlotte gave another of her mischievous smiles. “I’m saying, Eric, that if you want to travel to a place where you could see what it’d be like to be a pirate hunter, then I can do it.”

Eric stared at Charlotte in awe. “You’re not kidding, are you?”

Charlotte laughed again. “Eric, how many times do I have to tell you that I am positively serious about this whole thing?”

Before the astonished Eric could respond, his mom pulled up to the curb where they were sitting. “I, uh …”

“Come on, Eric,” his mom called from the car. “We’ve got to pick up your sister from gymnastics practice and get home before dinner burns in the oven.”

Eric was about to move obediently into the passenger seat of the car when Charlotte grabbed him by the shirt and whispered urgently into his ear, “Eric, think about it, because it can be done. If you agree, then I will first need to know the exact location of your birth and on which phase of the moon you were born.”

The best reaction Eric could give to this enigmatic statement before slipping into the car was a nod.

A

Two nights later, Eric sat on his bike in the middle of an open and dark parking lot, reconsidering his actions. Due to a seemingly pointless purpose of life, Eric came to the conclusion that whether Charlotte could hold true to her word or not, he had nothing to lose in giving it a shot. Now that he thought it over again, however, he knew that he did, in fact, have something to lose. He could lose every scrap of self-worth he had accumulated up until that point in his life if it didn’t work. Oh well, he thought, too late to back out now.

Charlotte pumped her bike up to Eric’s side and got out a scrap piece of paper, holding it up to the light from the street lamp a few yards away. “I thought maybe I had gotten the wrong address … I didn’t know you were born in a parking lot.”

“I wasn’t born in a parking lot,” Eric replied. “This is where the old hospital used to be until they tore it down. Will it be good enough, or do you need to know where the exact room was?”

“No, this is good enough.”

Not wanting to seem too distrustful, Eric checked his tone when he asked how she could know for certain.

Charlotte smiled. “The same way you’ll know how to catch a pirate. I just know.”

For some reason, Charlotte’s sense of ease did not comfort Eric. Charlotte apparently decided to keep him talking before he would chicken out of the ordeal entirely because she spoke out, “So you’re sure tonight’s phase of the moon is the one you were born on?”

“Why does the phase of the moon matter, anyway?” Eric circumvented her question with another one.

“Good question. Who knows? There was a seer back in the 1800s who wrote a book called Solar Biology that combined his seer ability with astronomy in a way that inspired a lot of what we now know as modern astrology and tied in the phases of the moon with—”

“Astrology? You’re telling me that the guy that helped put horoscopes in the paper is what you’re basing all of this moon stuff on?” Eric asked.

“Easy, partner. I’m basing it off of my own ability and experience. As for him, I think his seer science was better than his astronomy skills, so I pay closer attention to the comics page of the newspaper than the horoscope. Still, though, the guy made some interesting points. He theorized that the magnetic pull of the moon during different phases had a formative effect on a newborn’s brain at the moment of birth. So, the phase of the moon, combined with other astrological factors at birth, pushes a baby’s development toward certain natural-born tendencies.”

Eric glanced over to the spot where the moon would be rising at any moment. “Well, who knows if that guy knew what he was talking about … but we’ll find out if I’m right about my phase of the moon soon enough.” Charlotte followed his gaze to the mountain silhouette that hid the moon.

Eric turned back to Charlotte and said, “I was kind of surprised with how easy it was to figure out. I did a little reading on the phases of the moon on the Internet, then I kind of worked it out in my mind. My dad checked it out in the almanac just to make sure, but we’re pretty sure I’m correct.”

“Of course,” Charlotte replied confidently, “knowing the phases of the moon would be practically essential for someone on a sailing ship on the high seas.”

As much as Eric wanted to believe the truth of this statement, he held back giving all of his trust to a girl he had known for less than a week. He joked away his doubt. “Either that or I was really naturally born to be the man on the moon.”

Charlotte smiled wryly at his attempt at humor, then declared, “Okay, moon man, your home should be coming up any second, so we need to be ready.” Charlotte stepped off her bike and motioned him to stand in front of her, then grabbed his hands.

There was what Eric deemed an awkward pause. He tried to remedy the silence. “I was half expecting you to start muttering incantations.”

“Nope. No words. In fact, all I really need is to be able to look into your eyes.”

“And be touching me …” Eric held up one of her hands attached to his.

“Not necessarily. That’s only if I plan on coming along for the ride.”

“What?”

Charlotte shrugged innocently. “Oh, by the way, I’m going to be tagging along. I’ve sent a couple of people to experience their natural-born abilities, but I’ve never actually gone with someone. I’m hardly going to pass up the opportunity to see a natural-born pirate hunter in action, am I? That is, unless you protest.”

After all Eric had heard in the past couple of days, this bit of information could hardly impact him too much. He shrugged, then said, “Fine. I’m sure I could use all the help I can get.” At this point a shimmering light pierced the darkness of the night as the moon commenced its climb over the horizon. Eric watched it, then looked into Charlotte’s eyes for a moment. Nothing happened. He waited a second longer then finally said, “We’re still here, Charlotte. If you ask me, you just went through a lot of trouble to meet me in the middle of the night and hold my hand. But, hey, well done. You succeeded.” He about released his grip on her hands, but Charlotte squeezed them tightly together.

“Ha,” she quipped, followed by her familiar grin. “Don’t flatter yourself pirate hunter. We have to wait until the whole moon has risen. If I was making this all up just to hold your hand, I would have chosen to do it on a night with a new moon so there wouldn’t be enough light to see your ugly face.”

Charlotte’s jab caught Eric completely by surprise. He laughed hard. “Charlotte,” he began, but would never finish. The moon had, in that second, cleared the last of the horizon on its ascent into the night sky, its waxing gibbon face seeming to throw an extra silvery sheen about the world beneath it. As soon as this happened, everything dissipated—the star-filled sky, the parking lot, the streetlights, the bikes. Everything but Charlotte, who stood in front of him, and the pale gleam of the moon in his peripheral vision.