“Geez, how long does it take to mow the lawn anyway?” Sasha asked, peering out the window at Mr. Jenkins the following Saturday afternoon. Since the vision we’d been doing a lot of peering through the window. He must have appeared in the vision for a reason, and we had to keep an eye on him.
“He might just be a perfectionist,” Serena said. “Nothing wrong with that.” With science her favorite subject, Serena seemed to have a soft spot for him, despite his creepiness.
“Yeah, and he might just be an arsonist.” Sasha stopped spying and flopped on the couch.
“Shh,” I said, turning my head to make sure Mom couldn’t hear. She was out on the patio practicing her acting. The neighbors to our left probably though she was crazy, talking to herself in the back yard, but she didn’t care. Inhibition was not something Mom possessed. “We don’t know if he’s the arsonist, what if he’s someone who gets hurt, or...” I pushed the thought from my mind before the words could follow. So I wasn’t that taken with our odd neighbor, but I didn’t want anyone to go and die on us.
“Are you sure you didn’t hear him say anything else in the vision, Serena?” Sasha asked.
“No. Like I said before, it was muffled at first, all I could make out was: ‘I can take you there.’”
“Where? Where did he mean?” Sasha seemed to ask only herself. “And you heard nothing else but a crowd of people chattering, and that fire alarm?”
“That’s all.”
“So we don’t have any specific information about where or when this is supposed to happen, all we know is it’s big, it may have something to do with Mr. Jenkins, and that, um...”
“Don’t say it, Talia.” Serena covered her ears and her bottom lip quivered.
Eight people were going to die if we didn’t stop it.
Forget homework, exams, and career options, this pressure building inside us was enough to spontaneously combust into a fire of our own. I closed my eyes and forced myself to remember the vision I’d had of the newspaper headline, to see if I could get any clues. The date on the newspaper wasn’t visible, only those five awful words. If only there was a way to download our visions and store them on computer for later viewing, we might be able to analyze them better. Hang on. Final fire claims eight lives. Final fire. How did they know it would be the final fire? Unless... “Guys, if the newspaper said it was the final fire, then that might mean...” I drew a deep breath, “the arsonist could be one of the eight victims, and they knew who it was.”
“A small victory, then.”
“Sasha!” Serena exclaimed. “It may be a good thing to put a stop to more fires, but it’s no victory for a life—for eight lives—to be taken away!” Tears dropped from her eyes.
“I didn’t mean it like that!” She flung her hands in the air.
“Sometimes you have no heart, Sasha.” Serena’s voice was loose with emotion. “And what if we were included in those eight people, did you stop to think about that?”
“Girls, stop it! If we’re going to have a chance at doing anything, we need to work together. We need to get along, so quit fighting and get your acts together.” Talia stood with hands on the hips of her white cheesecloth skirt, and Serena wiped her tears.
I glanced toward the patio, Mom making enthusiastic hand gestures and speaking to an audience of garden vegetables, oblivious to our intense discussion. “We’ve analyzed every clue we received, there’s nothing more we can do right now. All we can do is get on with our lives as best we can and keep our senses on high alert for any more clues, and,” I walked to the window, Mr. Jenkins having finally finished his grass cutting, “keep a close eye on you-know-who.”
“You’re right.” Tamara stood. “I’m hungry, who wants some pancakes?” She walked toward the kitchen.
“Me, please.” Sasha followed.
I didn’t respond, my eyes had just caught sight of my beloved Volleyball Guy, wearing his Video Village uniform and locking his front door. I had to get out of the house and clear my head, and what better way to do it than being with Riley, even if only for a few minutes. “Mom, I’m just going to walk with Riley to work, back soon!” I said, as I poked my head out the patio door.
“Oh, can you pick up some bread?” she asked, uncannily able to switch from actress to mother in a split second.
“Sure.” I grabbed some coins from our stash near the telephone and dashed out the front, catching up to Riley. “Want some company on your way to work?”
He turned around, a smile growing on his face. “Hey stranger, sounds good.” He hooked his arm over my shoulder and we walked in time together. “Wish I didn’t have to work, Saturday night was made for fun, not work.” He pouted, and I leaned into his side. “But, I gotta make the cash so I can take you out to fancy places sometime.” He winked.
“Aw, that’s nice, but I don’t need no fancy places, you know that.”
“Ah, what a relief.” He tipped his head back, and I flicked my hand on his chest.
“Do you mean to say that if I did want to go to fancy places it would be a pain in the ass?”
He raised his hands. “Hey, did I say that?”
I laughed. “I’m kidding, I don’t need a fancy place to have a good time, especially with you.”
“Oh, that reminds me.” He clicked his fingers. “My brother’s going to that indoor rock-climbing place in Fern Ridge next Sunday. He can drive us both if you want to go?”
That’s the place Wayne had mentioned, maybe I’d see him there. “Awesome, I’d love to.”
We walked in silence for a bit and then both spoke at the same time: “I bet I get to the top faster than you,” “I’ll beat you to the top.”
We laughed. “How about we just have fun this time, no competition involved?” I held out my hand.
He shook it. “Deal.”
Several minutes later I waved him good-bye as he served his first customer in the video store for the afternoon; the girl from my science class with the multi-colored fingernails, whose name I now knew as Lara. She managed a brief smile, and I reciprocated. I stepped outside and turned in the direction of the store to pick up some bread. All the people on the sidewalk were walking in one of two directions, except one man up ahead, his hair graying at the sides and his hands in his pockets. He stood completely still with his eyes fixed firmly on me. My muscles clenched as I walked nearer, self-conscious to have someone’s gaze on me for that long. Was he some kind of freak? Some perv? I looked away, but as I reached him he spoke.
“It was an accident.”
I stopped, raised my hand above my eyes to shade them from the sun’s glare. “Excuse me?”
“It was an accident. Tell him. Tell Riley.”
“What was an accident? Riley’s back there, in the video store.” I pointed my thumb behind my shoulder.
“Tell him, please.”
“But... what do you... why...” The sentence broke apart as it left my voice box, and I squinted, from the sun or confusion I didn’t know. There was something different, something strange, about the man. What is it? I glanced around at people walking past us, their elongated shadows trailing behind them on the sidewalk. Then it hit me like Riley’s volleyball to the head.
The man had no shadow.
• • •
I pushed through the front door and dashed toward my bedroom, grabbing the laptop out of Serena’s hands on the way.
“Hey!” she said, following me. “Why’d you do that? I was researching about the genetic predisposition to psychic ability. There’s definitely a clear familial link, did you know that?”
“Shh! Give me a minute.” My breaths came short, sharp, and fast, and my heart pounded inside my chest.
“What are you doing?” Sasha was sitting on the floor, painting her toenails purple, a high energy song blaring from her iPod, which explained why Serena had been sitting in the living room away from the awful noise.
I ignored her as I typed into Google. I frantically scrolled through the search results, my eyes stretched wide. I clicked on a few results, then another. Bingo.
“Savvy, what’s going on?” Talia and Tamara came in, and Sasha turned her music off.
The image on the screen both freaked me out and fascinated me, and this image wasn’t in a vision, it was here, right in front of me, right now. My sisters, barring Sasha, peered at the screen and I pointed, my hands shaking.
“Who is that?” Talia peered closer.
I gulped. “I saw him, I saw him today.”
“Robert Pearce,” Talia read the name under the photo accompanying the news article about the car accident. “Hey, isn’t that Riley’s dad? Didn’t he die?”
I nodded.
“Huh? Do you mean he’s alive?” Talia’s mouth gaped.
“No, he’s not.” I looked up from the screen to face my sister and a cold chill ran through me. “I think I just saw his ghost.” The words came out as a whisper, afraid if he heard me he’d appear out of nowhere and scare the living daylights outta me.
Serena gasped, and Talia froze. Sasha spilt the nail polish and swore, scrambling to get up. “Are you serious?” Sasha nudged Talia out of the way to look at the picture, and Tamara sat on the bed behind me, gripping my shoulders.
“Dead serious.” Oh wow, were my abilities somehow growing? I’d thought we all needed to be together for it to work, and maybe we still did, to see the future at least. But this, this was something else, this wasn’t a prediction, this was a message. “And I could hear him. Not like in our visions where I can only see things, he was in front of me talking like any other person. But, oh my God, he didn’t have a shadow!” I brought my trembling hands to my face, covering my eyes. “He said to tell Riley it was an accident. I didn’t know what he was talking about at first, I was too confused about what I was seeing, but do you think he meant that his death was an accident?”
“Well, how did he die?” Talia asked, and I remembered I hadn’t told them what Riley had revealed in confidence to me that day on the beach.
“I wasn’t going to say anything, but I have to now. Riley said his father killed himself by driving off a cliff. His wife had died earlier, he was depressed, things were bad at home.” I pointed to the article and they read it. My eyes tingled, the light in the room brightened, and I kept seeing Mr. Pearce’s face in my mind.
“My hands are itchy,” said Talia, scratching them.
“I can taste something weird, metallic.” Tamara licked her lips.
“I think he wants us to connect. Maybe we’ll find out the truth.” I stood and held out my hands, desperate for my sisters to hold them and stop them shaking.
“But we’ve only ever seen the future, not the past.” Serena squinted.
“Yeah, and until this day I’d never seen a ghost before. C’mon, hands out.”
The door opened. “Oh, you are back, Savvy,” said Mom.
Damn it, Mom! Could it be any worse a time?
“Did you get the bread?”
Crap. “I forgot, sorry, Mom, I’ll go back in a minute. I just need to —”
“We’re in the middle of a very important teenage girl discussion, Mom, can we have some privacy please?” Sasha batted her eyelids and flashed an ‘everything is all right’ smile.
“Oh, Savvy, your mind must be completely occupied by that boy of yours.” She sighed. “Teenage hormones... ah, those were the days.”
“Mom?” Sasha raised her eyebrows.
“Oh, right. I’ll leave you to it, then. And don’t worry, I’ll get the bread myself.” She closed the door. “Back in fifteen!” she called from the hallway, the front door banging a moment later.
“Quick, quick! This light is too much!” I shut my eyes and grasped hold of my nearest two sisters, and my body shuddered from the jolt.
All sound faded, my body numbed, and my sight was the only sense I had. This time, it was like a movie. I wasn’t in the body of a person, I was watching them. Riley’s dad sat in the driver’s seat, hands resting comfortably on the steering wheel, his eyes focused on the road ahead. I really didn’t want to see this, but I had to. The car was tilted forward a little, the road inclining, and there were trees and bushland all around. From what the news article had said, his car had gone off a cliff about a half hour away from Iris Harbor, not far from a popular lookout that had one hundred and eighty degree views, and overlooked a deep valley. His face was pale with dark shadows under his eyes, but he didn’t appear to be in any sort of disturbed state. What would someone look like if they were about to launch off a cliff on purpose? Then something strange happened... right when his hands veered the steering wheel slightly to the left to go around the bend, his left hand went limp and fell from the wheel. His head flopped to the left as well, like he was having a stroke, and his right hand tried to maneuver the wheel on its own to compensate. It didn’t work, the car didn’t move with the bend in the road. It kept going straight, and pushed through the silver barrier on the side of the road, becoming airborne until it crashed and tumbled down the embankment and landed in a crumpled, twisted heap in the valley below. I didn’t see him after that, didn’t need to. The wreckage told me all I needed to know, and what I’d seen in the moments before told me exactly what he’d told me himself: It was, without a doubt, an accident.
“No!” Talia screamed, as we released our hands. “Oh my God!” She hugged her arms around her body, shaking.
I panted, covered my eyes, and crumbled to the floor. “I can’t handle this!”
“I don’t ever want to hear that sound again,” Serena said, wrapping her arms around Talia, who would have felt what Robert Pearce had felt, at least to some degree. Sasha and Tamara were less affected by their slighter senses, and they hooked their arms under mine and helped me stand.
Talia sobbed. “The pain, oh my God, the pain!” She curled in on herself and Serena patted her back. “Before it happened,” she sniffed, “My whole left side felt numb. I could feel my right hand trying to control the wheel, my brain urging my left hand to lift up and take control, but it was paralyzed. I couldn’t do anything. I felt weightless for a few seconds, and then the most jarring, sudden crashing against my body. It was like nothing I’ve ever experienced.” She broke down again and I held onto her arm. We stood there, hugging together like one body, crying and sniffing, and wishing like mad we hadn’t had to experience that.
After a few minutes I broke away and wiped my tears with the back of my hand. “I have to tell him. I have to tell Riley.” My voice shook.
“No!” Talia said. “He doesn’t need to know about this, I wouldn’t want anyone to know what this was like.”
“But he thinks his dad took his own life. He hates him for it!”
“Savvy, you can’t just rock up to his place and say, hey, I saw your dad’s ghost and then he gave me a vision of the day he died and it wasn’t suicide,” Sasha said. “He won’t believe you, and he’ll think we’re all freaks!”
“How can you be so selfish and worry what he thinks of us?” Serena cried. “I agree with Savannah. He deserves to know the truth. Wouldn’t you want to know the truth about our dad if someone knew it?”
“If I hadn’t have experienced... this, I wouldn’t believe them. And I seriously doubt Riley would believe us. Besides, Savvy, do you really want to risk your relationship with him?”
No, I didn’t. But how could I be with him and act normal, knowing what I know now?
“Okay, okay, let’s think rationally,” Tamara said, pushing her palms downward as if to quash the rising tension. “We know the truth now, but yesterday we didn’t. Riley, and his brother for that matter, are going about their business as usual and by the looks of things are doing okay. Not perfect, but okay. If we rock the boat, it may make things worse if they don’t believe us. Savvy,” she turned to face me, “I think you should keep things the way they are, enjoy your time with him, and just suss things out a bit. Get into a conversation about, um... supernatural stuff and see what his beliefs are. Then you can reassess whether to tell him or not. But don’t do it without getting our agreement first, okay? This affects all of us.”
I nodded. “Okay. I’ll suss things out first.”
“I still don’t think you should tell him.” Sasha crossed her arms.
Tamara looked at her. “Let’s just take it one day at a time, okay?”
I slowed my breathing, tried to get back to some sort of normalcy, and a surprising flicker of hope sparked inside. “Hey, if I can see ghosts, but I haven’t seen Dad, then maybe he’s still alive! You’d think if I was going to see who I needed to see, he’d show himself, right? He’d let us know so we could stop wondering, put him to rest, and move on. But I haven’t seen him.” I straightened my posture. “He could still be alive.”