“Bye, girls, have a good first day at school!” Mom called out as we stepped outside, the sun blazing down and creating an instant film of sweat under my shirt.
“I’m sure we will,” I said with overt and fake enthusiasm, sliding sunglasses over my eyes. Everything seemed brighter than usual. “Enjoy your first day at work, Mom.” I waved, and her sandy, curly hair bounced as she turned back inside.
Mom had scored a massage therapist position at a snazzy holistic day spa on the main street in town. She used to work from home when us kids were young, and also did the odd bit of counseling, but now she wanted the freedom of having a separate workplace. I didn’t know how much they were paying her, but it couldn’t be a huge amount. If it wasn’t for Grandma Delcarta’s money getting wired to us regularly, we’d probably be homeless. Raising five kids on her own had not been an easy thing for Mom since Dad…well, since that difficult time. And despite her overbearing motherly ways, she was a good mom, especially during my illness. I don’t know what I would have done without her. I took a deep breath and tried to push the past from my mind.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Volleyball Girl.” I turned my head toward the voice. Well, well, well, if it isn’t Volleyball Guy. He sat atop a bike, swerving left and right to keep it to a slow ride alongside us as we walked down the road.
“My name is Savannah, not Volleyball Girl.” Not that it would stop me from calling him Volleyball Guy.
He jabbed his foot into the ground to regain balance. “Looks like we’re neighbors.”
“Looks that way.” I kept my eyes straight ahead, and he didn’t make any effort to move faster. His bag hung easily on his back as though it wasn’t even putting any weight on him, and his eyes were shielded by black sunglasses, like mine.
“So why did you run off midmatch the other day? Couldn’t handle the pressure?” One corner of his mouth lifted slightly.
I glared in his direction, disappointed he wouldn’t be able to see it on account of my sunglasses. But I didn’t want to take them off; then it would look like I wanted to speak to him. “The only pressure I was aware of was on you.” There. I’ll show him who’s boss. “I had to be somewhere; that’s why I left.”
“Yeah,” Talia chimed in, moving closer to me. “We had a…thing, to get to, didn’t we?” Her gaze recruited the support of my other sisters who nodded, and Sasha removed her iPod earplugs.
“Oh, sure,” he replied with a smirk.
I wondered what his reaction would be if I simply said: “Actually, I stopped playing because I realized I’d had a psychic vision about that very same volleyball match, and I ran off to tell my sisters who revealed that they too had a psychic episode, and so we all held hands and closed our eyes and tried to make it happen again.” At least if I’d had the guts to say that he might have cycled off and left us alone, but the words stayed in my mind.
“Just so you know,” he continued, “your team lost.”
“Boohoo. I’m shattered,” I replied, my gaze straight ahead.
“I bet they would have won if Savvy had stayed.” Sasha raised her chin and scowled at Volleyball Guy, and I grinned.
“Savvy, huh? I wonder how savvy you really are,” he teased. “I’d like to see if you can beat us at another match. If you’re up for it, that is?” A one-sided grin dimpled his bronze cheek.
“Of course I’m up for it,” I said, before even thinking whether I was. Mentally, yes, but physically? I gulped. Talia eyed me with concern as if to say, “Remember what the doctor said.” But in reality they probably only said those things to protect themselves from getting sued. Of course I needed time to get back to my old self, but I was almost there. What I lacked in physical strength and endurance, I could make up for in sheer determination.
“Ten a.m. this Saturday at the beach. See you there, Volleyball Girl.” I’m sure behind those sunglasses he winked as he lifted his firm butt off the bike seat and pushed his feet on the pedals to pick up speed. His calf muscles bulged, and in a flash he rode around the corner we were headed for and disappeared. Don’t tell me we go to the same school? Oh joy.
• • •
“Hey, Sis,” I said as Serena and I crossed paths with Tamara in the humid and stuffy school hallway. “How’s school for you?”
“Meh,” she said, shrugging. “Although I did find out Volleyball Guy’s name; he’s in a couple of my classes. Riley Pearce.”
“Why should I care?”
“Well, now we can stop calling him Volleyball Guy.” She took a sip from her water bottle.
“That’s on the assumption that we’ll be talking about him again, and I don’t see why we’d want to do that.”
“Geez, touchy! Sorry, I won’t mention him anymore. At least not until we get home, how about that?” She grinned.
I shook my head. “You and Sasha are as bad as each other.”
Tamara took another sip of water. “This water tastes a bit sour. Must be the heat or something.” She shrugged and gulped more down anyway, and then looked in the direction we were headed. “What subject have you got now?”
“Science,” Serena said with a level of enthusiasm that should only be reserved for lunchtime and home time.
“Yeah,” I said. “Serena and I are in the same class, thank God. She can help me with my homework.” I winked at my sister and she rolled her eyes.
“Do you think we should ask the science teacher about delta brain waves?” she asked.
“What? No!” I said.
“I don’t mean tell him about what happened to us, just casually ask if he’s heard of any cases of delta waves being predominant while awake.” She said it like it was as simple as asking the teacher what time class finished.
“It’s our first day, I think we should just let him do his job and not attract attention to ourselves.”
“She’s right, Serena,” said Tamara. “One step at a time.” She took a mint from her bag and popped it in her mouth as she walked off.
Two minutes later, Serena and I entered Science Lab Three. Serena headed for the front. “Hey,” I whispered. “Let’s sit in the middle, not up front like a couple of know-it-alls.” She looked at me as if to say, “But I am a know-it-all,” then sighed and sat at a desk in the middle. There were three chairs to each desk, and I wanted my sister with me so she could take charge of any practical experiments. At least Volleyball Guy—Riley—wasn’t in my year and wouldn’t be sharing any classes with me.
A tall girl with light brown hair gathered in a scrunchie at the nape of her neck sat next to me. I gave her a brief smile. Hers was briefer, and she diverted her gaze quickly from mine. If Sasha was there I could imagine her whispering into my ear, “Scrunchies? I mean, seriously?” and shaking her head in disapproval. My own hair wasn’t long enough for a scrunchie or any sort of hair elastic. I’d had it cut short a few months back as I knew they’d be shaving some of it off for the operation. It had grown back now and was the same length as the rest, though I was still in the habit of styling my hair in a sweeping arc across my head.
The teacher was busy writing stuff on the whiteboard as we got our books and pens ready. Serena wrote the date at the top of her notebook page, just like she’d done with our “visions” journal, but this time it would be filled with boring scientific facts. Okay, so I was mildly interested in what had happened to me, but more than that, I was glad to see the back of that hospital. Any talk of the human body brought it all back, and it was something I’d rather not think about anymore. Luckily, by the looks of what the teacher was writing on the board, we’d be learning something to do with space and black holes today. Riveting. I just wanted to hurry and grow up, finish school, and start my real life. Move my body, have fun, and make the most of life, not be stuck in a classroom.
I opened my notebook and sighed, tapping the pen against the paper. “Shh,” Serena whispered, flicking me on the arm.
The girl next to me also wrote the date at the top of her notebook, and then laid out a ruler, pencil, eraser, and sharpener neatly near the edge of the desk. I mean, really neatly. She even adjusted them a few times as though making sure they were of equal distance apart. Her short fingernails were painted in different colors. Not random, opposite colors, but similar variations of pink, red, and orange; each color blended into the next, sort of like flames. “Your nails look good,” I remarked.
She looked at her hands and spread her fingers apart. “I know. The graduation of color is pleasing to the eye,” was all she said. I was going to introduce myself, but the teacher, a thinnish man in an unassuming gray shirt and darker gray trousers, placed his marker on the edge of the whiteboard and slowly turned around.
“Welcome, students. For those who don’t know me, I’m Mr. Jenkins.”
My breath halted in my chest. No way! My head swiveled to the left and Serena’s mouth was slightly gaping too. Our neighbor was our teacher? Oh man, that was it, we had to move. Number three Roach Place next door to a weirdo science teacher and across the road from an irritating smart-mouthed annoyingly good-looking jerk. Just great.
“Still want to ask him about delta waves?” I whispered to Serena, and she shushed me again.
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat as Mr. Jenkins began the roll call in a monotone voice that I thought could be a possible solution to my insomnia, and I tried to remember the names of as many students as I could.
“Savannah Delcarta?”
“Here.” I raised my hand feebly, and he glanced up from his list, his eyes fixing on mine for a moment or two longer than was comfortable. He recognized me.
He shifted his gaze to my sister. “And you must be Serena Delcarta?”
“Yes, sir.” She nodded, and everybody turned their heads to look at us.
I felt like saying “What? So we’re sisters, big deal!” At least Serena, Sasha, and I weren’t identical. Tamara and Talia weren’t either. I’d feel for poor Mom if we were; she’d probably get us all confused, and for all I knew I could really be Serena and Serena could be me or what she thought was me. My mind drifted as I pondered whether that had actually happened to anyone in real life—if any twins or triplets had been mixed up as infants and ended up unknowingly becoming the other sibling. I held back a chuckle, and when I shook my distracted thoughts away, I realized I’d missed Mr. Jenkins’ instructions and had to check Serena’s textbook to see what page to read.
The words blurred under my gaze, and I forced myself to focus; but the letters were fuzzy, and they hovered and floated like bubbles. I squeezed my eyes shut and reopened them, but that only made things worse. So I rubbed my eyes and blinked a few times. The words on the page were like pins poking into my eyes, and I couldn’t read anymore. I glanced to the girl next to me whose name I’d failed to discover due to my daydreaming, and who was using her ruler to speed-read, sliding it down the page with her bright fingernails that were no longer “pleasing to the eye.” I looked around the lab, tension clenching my shoulders. Fluorescent lighting rods beamed down from above like spotlights; the sun shone through windows and reflected sharply off the stainless steel sinks, burning my eyes. The faces of the students all looked the same. What’s going on? My heart pounded as a scary thought entered my mind like an unwelcome visitor. What if my aneurysm was back? What if the surgery had been a waste of time and the little bastard had decided to rear its ugly head again? I clamped my eyes shut and covered them with my trembling hands.
“Miss Delcarta, is something wrong?” Mr. Jenkins asked, narrowing his eyes.
I opened my eyes and could barely make out his face. Oh God. I turned to Serena. Her blurry face was scrunched up, and she was rubbing her ears like there was a rock band playing at a thousand decibels next door. We exchanged glances of confusion, and although my eyes burned and stung and I wanted to stick my head in a bucket of ice cold water, I took comfort in the assumption that it probably wasn’t another aneurysm, as Serena seemed just as distressed as me. Serena—she hears things. Me—I see things. Ears. Eyes. They both hurt.
My chair screeched as I stood. “I have a bad headache, sir. I need to go…take something.”
Before he could respond, I dashed from the classroom, faintly hearing Serena’s voice saying, “I’ll go see if she’s okay.”
I pushed open the door to the girls’ bathroom and splashed water on my face. “What’s happening?” I asked. “My eyes are burning!” I looked in the mirror but they weren’t red.
“I don’t know; my ears are stinging and everything seems so loud!” Serena whispered, and then jumped as the bathroom door flung open and Sasha barged in, rummaging through her bag and extracting a can of body spray.
“Huh? What are you two doing here?” she asked.
“What are you doing here?” I squinted.
“There was a bad smell in my English classroom, and I had to get out of there; but no one else could smell it.” She sprayed the cheap perfume all over her body. “I can’t get rid of it! Smells like burnt toast.”
“I think we’re having some sort of enhanced sensory disturbance,” said Serena, still rubbing her ears, her hair coming loose from the thin elastic of her ponytail.
Not only did my eyes burn, but they darted here, there, and everywhere, taking in every little detail of my surroundings. A visual stampede of colors, shapes, lines, textures, patterns, and light shoved themselves at my eyes. My breath quickened, and I feared I might have a panic attack.
The door swung open and Tamara and Talia burst in with confused expressions on their faces. Tamara turned on a tap, bent toward it, and drank from it, then spat out the water. “I can’t get rid of this disgusting burnt taste.” She wiped her mouth and stuck out her tongue.
Talia ran her hands under cold water. “My hands are so hot! What’s going on?”
“Quick, let’s join hands!” I said. “Maybe it’s trying to get a vision to us.” I held my hands out, not knowing what I meant by “it,” just wanting whatever it was to stop.
As I squeezed my eyes shut, bubbles rose inside me and my breath slowed as the painful light behind my eyes eased into an image of a match being lit. Bright orange flickered and curled and every detail was clear. The tiny flame from the match grew into one enormous flame, and then hundreds of flames, dancing and teasing and feeding off each other. An explosion burst into my view and I flinched, yellowy flames curling into a cloud-shaped ball, smoke drifting toward the sky. My breathing quickened again, not from pain, but from the sight. Geez, talk about intense! Not what I was expecting after the anticlimax of our previous garbage can vision. We hadn’t experienced another one since then. Until now. The image moved aside like in a slideshow, and I saw a bottle roll along the ground, and—
“What are you girls all doing in here? Get back to class, please!”
I jumped, opened my eyes, and all I could see now was the angry face of a female teacher. The wiry frizz of her gray hair held a sense of irritation to match her voice.
“Well, c’mon! You can chat and discuss boys at lunchtime, girls.”
I clamped my lips together in a straight line. She has no freaking idea.
“Sorry, Miss, we were just... um,” Talia began.
“Savannah had a bad headache, and my sisters and I were checking if she was okay, that’s all,” Serena said.
“Yeah. I had an operation a few months ago so they were just worried.” I wasn’t one for seeking out sympathy, but hey, if this could help us avoid getting detention, I might as well use it.
“Oh. And are you feeling better now? Do you need me to call your parents?”
I resisted the urge to correct the term to parent. Something else she had no freaking idea about. “No. I’m fine.” The pain had gone. The lighting was normal.
“Very well, back to class then.” The teacher stood with her hand holding the door open until we filtered out.
Damn, we didn’t get to finish and discuss what we’d sensed. Although, it was so intense I didn’t know if I wanted to.
• • •
At dinner that night, Mom fidgeted, pushing her food around the plate and continually asking us if we wanted more rice, more juice, or more bread.
“Do you need to go wash the dishes, Mom?” I teased, curious about what was on her mind now.
“Oh yes, I must give them a good hand wash after dinner. Definitely.” She fiddled with her wedding ring. She still wore it after all those years. My guess was that if she removed it, she’d remove whatever hope was left too.
I put my knife and fork down. “Okay, what’s on your mind? Are you nervous about the play?” I asked.
“What? The play? No, I mean a little. But…” She drew a deep breath and smiled. “I got a phone call today.”
“What sort of phone call?”
She cleared her throat. “Remember how I had to take the car to the mechanic last week when it kept stalling for some reason? Well, the mechanic, Wayne Rickers, called me when I got home from work today and…” Mom giggled. “He asked me out!”
I was glad I’d already swallowed my bite of chicken or I might have choked. “You mean on a date?”
“Yes! Isn’t that exciting?” Her hands disappeared under the table, as though trying to hide the fact from her wedding ring.
My mom going on a date? “But—”
“I know, I know, it feels weird, right?” Mom’s hands reappeared, and she leaned her elbows on the table; her excessive curls flung forward in front of her shoulders. “But, it’s been nine years since your father…disappeared, and I thought it was about time I made an effort to move on.” Mom raised her shiny eyes to the ceiling as though seeking Dad’s permission from somewhere in the ether, even though we had no idea whether he was dead or alive. After nine years—I didn’t hold out much hope; but as long as we didn’t know for sure, there was still a chance he could find us and walk through that door with his wide smile and outstretched arms, his wavy hair flopping over his eyes, and his love for all of us plain to see. A ripple of sadness rolled through me and I bowed my head.
“I know this might be a bit of a shock to you, but it’s just a simple date. Dinner and a movie, that’s all. You know that no one will ever take your father’s place.” Mom grasped Talia’s and Tamara’s hands, as they were seated next to her.
Serena sniffled and pushed her chair back. “I’m sorry. I’m pleased for you, Mom, it’s just…” Tears threatened at the brim of her eyelids, and she dashed out of the dining room.
“I’ll go,” I said, standing. “And, Mom, it is about time you got out there. I’m happy for you.” I forced a smile and followed Serena to the bedroom.
“It was bound to happen sooner or later,” I said, wrapping my arms around my sister, who in that moment seemed even shorter and more petite than me.
“I know,” she sobbed. “It just makes everything seem so final, that’s all.”
“I know.” I tightened my jaw to stop my bottom lip from quivering.
“What if he’s still out there? What if he comes back?” She buried her face in my shoulder and moisture seeped through my shirt.
I hated to say it, to even think it, but if he hadn’t come back by now, I doubted he ever would. He hadn’t walked out on us, there was no way. He and Mom were happy together; we were happy together. I knew in my heart that something bad had happened, and Mom knew it too. She wouldn’t tell me what she’d spoken to the police about back then; I was too young—we all were. But there was no doubt in my mind that Dad had met with foul play. The police had given up after a while when all leads had failed, and he’d never been found.
I held my sister until she calmed down, and after my other sisters had finished dinner and Mom had vigorously washed the dishes herself—practically needing to swim out of the kitchen—we gathered in my bedroom.
“We still have to write down what happened today in our journal.” Serena took the notepad from her bedside table. It hit me then that by keeping her mind busy with other things, she could distract herself from the memory of Dad’s disappearance. And by striving to understand anything and everything about the universe, she was temporarily filling that gap inside—that need to know and understand what happened. It wasn’t the same as knowing the real truth about Dad, but it kept her going. We all dealt with what happened in our own way, and that was hers.
I placed a supportive hand on Serena’s back as she filled in the date and our names, and then wrote what she’d heard during the vision: a loud bang, like an explosion, and the roar and rumble of a fire. Her experience was like the soundtrack to the movie I’d seen in my mind. Sasha had, of course, experienced a burnt smell, and, in addition, the scent of alcohol.
“I saw a bottle rolling along the ground,” I added to my statement.
“I could taste alcohol, but it was really strong and awful,” said Tamara, scrunching her face.
“When have you had alcohol, anyway?” Sasha asked.
“At New Year’s Eve a year ago, remember? We snuck some from the wine casket in the hall when Mom’s friends weren’t looking?”
“I didn’t have any.” Sasha pouted.
“You were only fifteen, I wouldn’t let you,” said Talia. “It was gross anyway. So, all I could feel in the vision was the heat on my hands and my face.”
Serena scribbled down the details. “A fire. What are we supposed to do with this information? Do you think we’re safe here? What if there’s going to be a fire? Maybe we should tell Mom.”
“Don’t be silly, Serena. We can’t tell Mom; she might send us all to the doctor,” Sasha said. “Anyway, I don’t see how we’d have a fire here. It’s still summer and we don’t have a working fireplace. We haven’t even unpacked the box with all the candles.”
“Even so, let’s steer clear of anything that could be a risk,” Talia instructed, looking concerned. “What about the oven? It might be a bit old. Maybe I should casually tell Mom to get it checked out and make sure it’s still in good working order.”
“Great idea.” Serena nodded.
“I’ll ask her. After all, I am the budding chef in the family.” Tamara smiled and swayed from side to side. “It won’t sound weird coming from me.”
“True. Okay, ask her tomorrow before dinner,” said Talia, her face softening a little from its usual creased and worried appearance. She was a bit like me, needed to do something practical to deal with things.
“So, the first vision we had came true, what—three months later?” Serena wrote it down. “But the second vision, the one about the garbage, nothing happened with that, did it?” She glanced around.
I cleared my throat. “Um, actually, I might have forgotten to mention something.” All eyes looked at me. I didn’t think it was important enough to tell them before, and if I’d brought up Riley again they’d have more reason to tease me. “After you’d all gone to sleep that night, I looked out my window and saw Riley come out of his house across the road. He was carrying a bag of garbage, and he dumped it in his can. That’s all. No biggie.” I shrugged.
“Yes it is,” said Serena, shooting up to standing. “It still means that something we saw came true, even if it was only a little thing. We need to document everything that happens in case there’s a pattern of some kind. And we can’t keep any secrets, okay?”
“Okay, fair enough,” I replied.
“That’s not exactly proof, though,” said Sasha. “I mean, it was garbage night after all. It’s no big surprise for someone to take an extra bag out.”
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter,” said Serena. “All that does is that we are sensing things, and we need to make notes, however small.” Serena sat and tapped the pen against her chin. “So the visions could come true anywhere from hours to months afterward. Maybe if we research the experiences of other psychics we might find out more about how premonitions work.” She reached for the laptop.
“Other psychics? Since when are we officially psychics?” Sasha scoffed, turning away and rearranging her makeup on the dressing table then picking up a lip balm and sliding it across her lips.
“Since we sensed things that came true!” Serena’s voice went up an octave.
Talia placed her hand on the laptop screen and closed it just as Serena opened it. “Leave the research till later; let’s hold hands again and see if anything happens.” There was a slight twinkle in her eye.
“Oh great, more stinky smells to put up with. If I faint, I blame you, Talia.” Sasha held out her hands, her silver fingernails glittering under the light like ten little stars. “And we need to come up with a better term to use instead of ‘holding hands.’ It sounds like we’re kids getting ready to cross the road.”
Except with this, we didn’t know what we’d see on the other side.
“Good idea. Let’s say that we’re…connecting. How about that?” Talia raised her eyebrows in satisfaction. Another name for something, another term to give certainty to the uncertain—to enhance and grab hold of whatever small thread of control she could find.
Sasha shrugged and nodded. “That’ll do.”
We took hold of each other’s hands and connected, waiting for the bubbly sensation. What came instead was a loud bang and my heart skipped a beat.
Serena screamed. “What on earth was that?”
We dashed to the window and yanked open the drapes. A bright ball of yellow hung in the sky farther down the road. It looked to be coming from the main street of town. Smoke billowed out and up into the night sky, and I jumped as another bang exploded and more yellow—orangey yellow—filled the sky. “Holy crap!”
My heartbeat tripled and Mom came rushing in. “Oh my God, what was that?”
“It’s a fire, somewhere in town.” Serena’s voice shook. “I can’t believe it.” She looked at me and I shook my head and mouthed “no.”
“What do you think it is? What’s on fire?” Sasha peered through the window. “Can we go look?”
“No!” Mom said. “We’ll stay here where it’s safe.”
Fire engine sirens rang in the distance, and Serena rubbed her ears.
“But, Mom, I won’t be able to sleep not knowing where it was,” said Sasha. “Can’t we take a quick drive? We don’t have to go that close.”
“Yeah, I want to know, too,” I said. There’d be no way I’d sleep after this. Serena was right. Somehow, we were psychic in our own unique, fragmented way.
Mom pursed her lips to one side, and I could tell that although she was trying to protect us, she was also curious. “Well, all right then. Just a quick drive. But only close enough to see where it is, that’s all. I’m sure we’ll find out the details on the news.” She turned away from the window. “C’mon, let’s go before I change my mind.”