“Yeah, I still play the piano. I picked up the French horn, the drums and the trumpet along the way as well. I also just started the guitar.”
“Impressive.” A pleasant rush of memories swept over me. I had spent hours sitting next to him as he practiced, snacking and talking and laughing with his younger sister. “How’s Amy?”
His grin crumbled. “She’s been better.” He dropped his gaze and drummed his fingers against his leg before looking up again. “Anyway, I wanted to apologize for the rock that caused that,” he said, gesturing towards my eye.
I traced the scar again. “It isn’t very many people who get stoned by the boy who gave them their first kiss.”
He chuckled. “On top of the jungle gym,” he remembered. “Smooth.”
I kicked my legs uncomfortably, not sure where the conversation should go from here.
“I was upset when my mom died,” DJ continued. “The idea of someone speaking to her when I couldn’t was just more than I could handle. I don’t remember picking up the rock or even throwing it. But when I realized what I had done, I went home and cried. Not very manly of me.”
“I don’t remember you crying.” I couldn’t help that I sounded a little hostile. “I remember you threatening that you would do it again.”
He shrugged. “I was lying. I felt like crap about it, but didn’t know how to fix it.”
“An apology would have been a good place to start.”
He scuffed the toe of his shoe on the ground. “I’ve wanted to apologize to you for years, but it would’ve been weird to track you down and cold call you.”
“I guess it’s better late than never.”
He took a deep breath. “Yeah. Anyway, I was wrong. Ghosts do exist and you and your grandma can both see them. I’m sorry.”
After all of these years, the apology had come. He had no way of knowing what that rock had done to me. No way of knowing that it was the beginning of my desire to be normal, of my embarrassment of my grandma and her Waker talents. That the scar I carried was much deeper than a physical one. But hearing his words and being where I was now, I realized I had forgiven him a long time ago. I had wanted to unload all of this on him, but now I could see it had scarred him too. And with that, I felt the old wound finally heal.
I nodded, biting my lip. “It’s okay, Doogie.”
“Call me DJ.”
“It was a long time ago. We were kids. But thank you for the apology.”
“I always wanted to make it up to you. And when I found your file I figured that would be the best way.”
I startled a little at those words. “My file?”
His drumming fingers sped up. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
I frowned. “But you haven’t really told me anything.”
He hunched over, leaning his elbows on his legs. “I know. I can’t.”
I scooted closer to him so he could hear me whisper. “You can tell me right now.”
He shook his head. “I already told you, I’m not able to do it.”
“What can you tell me?” I asked, leaning back again. “Can you tell me who they are?”
He opened his mouth and his lips quivered, his face turned red and finally his shoulders sagged and he shook his head. “I can’t say.”
I sighed in exasperation. “Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t. I signed an agreement, a binding agreement, and it’s like I literally lost the words to talk about them.”
“Okay.” I drew my sweater tight around me. “Let’s try a roundabout way. Can you tell me about the file?”
“In general. It had a list of all the things they know for sure you can do. And another list of stuff they think you can do but they’re not sure about.” He shot me an uneasy glance. “It also contained a list of everything they hope you can do. Things that might benefit them.”
“What—” I began, but stopped as I noticed something awry. The temperature was dropping dramatically in the room, becoming chilly despite the greenhouse-like nature of the pool house. The scent of jasmine mixed with the chlorine in the air. I shot out of my seat, and Taffy crashed to the ground.
My breath was a white puff of air in front of me. “DJ, we have to get out of here.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
The lights started to flicker. Sweat formed on my skin and my palms turned clammy, despite the sudden icy temperature.
DJ shivered and cast a worried glance at the lights. “Is there a ghost here?”
“Yes, it’s Sophia!”
Instinct took over. I slipped my shoes back on and sprinted for the door but it slammed closed in my face.
“Not so fast, little Waker.” Sophia’s voice crackled through the air, echoing around me from every angle.
“NO!” I screamed. I pushed on the door, my sweaty palms slipping off the metal handles. My breath fogged the glass as I re-gripped and tried it again. It didn’t budge. I pounded on the glass with my fists. “Let me out of here!”
I had to get out. The room was shrinking, around me.
“I thought you said she was trapped in a mirror!” DJ called out as her manic laughter continued, distorted as if through a mangled speaker.
“It must be the glass,” I said, mentally cursing myself. “I didn’t realize she’d be able to move from a mirror and into windows.” Her image rippled to life on the glass of the door. Her fingers reached toward me until they collided with the edge of her prison. I fumbled away from the door, smacking into DJ.
Behind me, the pools raged in motion. I spun toward them. The water frothed, forming waves that curled over the edge of the closer, larger pool, spilling onto the concrete floor. A trail of water snaked its way toward me, puddling next to my shoe before climbing up my leg. Tears dripped from my eyes as I shook my leg, trying to throw off the watery manacle. I screamed and DJ threw his arms around me while he tried the handle himself, rattling the door futilely before leading me away from it.
“No, not toward the water,” I managed between gasps. I dug my heels into the ground and fought against his grip. But I couldn’t break free. The room didn’t have enough oxygen and I couldn’t get a deep breath; my head felt fuzzy and my feet were lead. I went limp, my shoes slipped on the slick floor, and I slid through DJ’s arms, landing onto the wet ground. With a sickening thud, my skull bounced off the tile floor. DJ swore as he fell down next to me.
I ignored the pain and pushed myself onto my elbow. Beside me the pool writhed and surged. The water rose into the air, forming a giant rippling wave like the face of a cliff. The tower of water bent, hovering over us before crashing down with such force that my body was slammed flat against the unforgiving ground. Stars burst behind my eyes. I screamed, allowing a rush of water to slither down my throat and up my nose. I sputtered the liquid out of my mouth and tried to sit up, but another wave broke over us again, pounding me flat onto my back on the hard floor and filling my mouth and lungs with water. I was drowning again, but this time on land.
With a detached awareness, I realized that death had returned to reclaim me. By some cruel twist of fate I would die in the same room and by the same method I had before. An unexpected feeling of calm settled though me; part of me had been waiting for this all year.
The water paused; droplets halted in mid air, the tiny spheres revolving in the air. It reminded me of a snow globe that had been shaken violently, but instead of snow, the room swirled with water. I sat up, propping myself onto my hands, and blinked up at the glass room, chlorinated water dripping from my eyelashes. Something glittered along the glass ceiling, catching and reflecting the sunlight. Prisms of crystalline ice spread down the transparent walls, scattering rainbows through the droplets of water suspended in the air.
On the pane of glass directly above me, a single icicle began to form, pulling the droplets of water from the air as it thickened and grew. Forming a beautiful stalactite, the spear of ice lengthened, its icy point sparkling in its descent. Its beauty bewitched me and I wa
tched in awe until it picked up speed, jutting toward me. Its point sharpened and grew nearer, aiming directly between my eyes.
I dropped down onto my back cowering away from its edge that was now so near I couldn’t roll way from it. The icy shard pressed into the center of my chest, but before it could pierce through, a quick hand reached and broke off the tip. DJ threw the pointed shard across the room where it shattered in a burst of ice. I rolled out from underneath the monolithic icicle just as the tip re-grew and stabbed into the ground, the point crushing into fine particles that showered me with cold, stinging pricks on my skin. DJ helped me to my feet and together we hurried toward the door on the other side of the large pool.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Sophia.
“Little Waker, little Waker.”
Almost instinctively, I stopped and looked up. She floated in the ceiling glass above me, rapping on her prison with an almost polite knock. Each tap reverberated down the walls, coming not from one single window, but from every pane.
Tap. A crack formed on the frozen ceiling, which strained under the weight of the immense stalactite. I couldn’t tell if it was the glass or the top of the gigantic icicle—or both—but something was breaking.
Tap. The fissure deepened.
The terror built inside me, pressing against my straining nerves. Water dripped down walls, and I shivered. More icicles formed above us, and the tiny water droplets still misting through the air coalesced into snow, which swirled in billowy frozen tufts, the cold chapping my skin.
Tap. The crack grew longer.
The glass walls started shaking—pulsing and humming like a wine glass about to shatter. The weight of the icy stalactite pulled on the paned ceiling, weakening its integrity. If the ceiling collapsed, the oncoming storm of glass and ice could rip us to shreds, slicing us open with shards of crystal shrapnel. Fright settled around me, threatening to chain me down. Sophia’s image flashed in the glass on every wall, her auburn curls framing a face twisted with hysterical rage.
I refused to let her win. Forcing my brain to concentrate, I parted the curtain of snow with my hands and lifted my arms straight above my head, assuming a fighting stance, just like Brent had taught me. The air in the room responded and formed a vortex around me, the wind intensifying. As Sophia howled, water flooded upward out of the pool and towards the ceiling. It hung in the air for a moment, before giving way to gravity, and crashing over us in a violent downpour.
Sophia shrieked, her eyes darkening. She pounded against the glass, opening spider web cracks that continued growing, covering the glass. I trembled as I held my stance, shivering with cold and fright, like the valiant last autumn leaf trying to fight off the coming winter. Her deafening scream left a ringing in my ears and I dropped my hands to cover them. I gritted my teeth, forced my hands back up, and gaped in amazement as the entire remaining mass of water in the big pool lifted into the air. Still in its rectangular shape, the water rippled in the air, separating me from Sophia.
It lowered slowly, teasing my upraised fingers, lapping them, as if it were a gentle pet rather than a terrible force capable of suffocating me, drowning me. Again.
I wouldn’t let it happen. I shoved my hands to command the wind upward, and the water rose. As I spread my hands, the water parted cleanly in half, the wind forcing its way through the center.
The edges of the halves started to crystallize, chunks of ice forming in patches. Snow drifted around me, melting on my cheeks and nose. My arms trembled, my muscles burned. With my last bit of strength, I threw my arms wide and each half of the pool slammed against the walls of the room, echoing a deafening boom, as the glass shuddered, groaned, and cracked. The water rebounded in every direction. Sophia’s image fluttered in the ruined glass, her furious cry lost in the raging of the water.
DJ grabbed me around my waist and hunched over me as the water broke over our backs, swiping our feet out from under us and pulling us in a rip-tide across the room. We rolled along, bouncing into each other, tables and chairs awash around us.
Still with one arm around my waist, DJ stretched out the other and grasped the handrail at the side of the pool, hooking his elbow and clinging on as our feet were washed over the edge into the fast-filling pool. When the current slowed, DJ tried to move, but I grasped him tightly, afraid to lose his solidity.
“It’s okay, Cupcake, I’ve got you,” he said in a gentle voice. He reached down and put his hand over mine, loosening my death grip so he could heave me up and out of the pool. I sat up, bringing my knees to my chest, sobbing and sputtering water out of my mouth and nose while tears rolled down my cheeks. Blood ran freely from a cut on my knee.
My hair pasted itself to my face, my bangs dripping into my eyes. I pushed the wet hair off my forehead, clearing my vision. My mouth fell open as I peered around the room. The tiny fissures had spread, shattering the walls, but still they remained in place; the safety glass had kept us from a glass-shard shower. Water crept down the ruined panels as Sophia’s image quivered, fading behind the shattered walls. Her mouth moved but I couldn’t hear her words. The look in her eyes, however, put my courage in a deep freeze. She vanished completely, but her unheard threat stayed with me.
With Sophia gone, the sun beat down on us, its warmth sliding through the cracks. The broken remains of the big icicle bobbed in the pool, while the others melted, raining down on us.
My hands hung useless on my knees. “She’s gone,” I mumbled, staring out into the distorted landscape.
“Let’s get out of here.” DJ pulled himself out of the water and lifted me to my feet, where I swayed, unable to move. He wiped the water from his face, his pupils dilated in shock. He took hold of my upper arm and led me to the door, which opened easily for him.
“You first,” he said, shoving me towards our escape. “Quick, before someone sees us.”
I felt numb, void, and incapable of action. DJ pushed me out the door into the bright afternoon.
“Come on,” he said, grabbing my hand and running as fast as he could, pulling me away from the pool house and toward the groves. I kept tripping, but he held on tight and dragged me up, not stopping until we were immersed in the cooling shade of avocado trees. Only then did he let me go and doubled over, panting.
“What . . . what was that?” he asked. He ran his fingers through his wet, shaggy hair.
“My life,” I answered, resigned. I wrung out the bottom of my black sweater. “Congratulations, you’ve just been initiated into the craziness of Waker life. Remember how you said Sophia was a harmless ghost?”
“Okay, I was wrong. Haven’t I apologized enough for one day?”
It was late October now, and even in California the intense summer heat had faded. I could really have used it. The adrenaline was wearing off and I was freezing.
DJ’s hands beat out a rhythm on his knees while he studied me. “I think you’re in shock. I have some candy in my. . .” his voice trailed off as he looked around. “Oh crap.”
“What?”
“Our bags are still at the scene of the crime.”
I moaned and sank down onto the grass. “I don’t think I can move right now.”
DJ patted the top of my head. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
I nodded numbly and stared into the groves. DJ ran off to retrieve our things. He returned a few minutes later carrying both of our backpacks.
“Everything was quiet,” he said, plopping down on the grass beside me. “And nobody’s realized that anything has happened yet.” He pulled something out of his backpack and showed me what was left of Taffy.
“Our baby is sort of a mess,” he said, holding out the sodden bag that was now flour-paste. Taffy’s plastic head dangled sideways, her baby eyes closed. It looked grotesque and I couldn’t help but make a face.
“It’s okay,” DJ said, mistaking my disgust for concern. “I’ll steal another one from the supply closet tomorrow.” He grinned. “One of the benefits of being paired with a TA.
Ms. Converse will never know.”
I nodded again.
“Um, how did you do that?” he asked casually, sitting down next to me.
“Do what?” I stared into the tree line.
“The tidal wave with the pool-water thing.”
“Oh.” I shook my head. “I didn’t do that. That was Sophia.”
“Um, no, that was definitely you.”
I stared at him.
“It followed you,” he said. “The water. It followed your every move. It scared the crap out of me, but it was also pretty amazing.” He paused and gave me an appreciative look. “You have serious power. It was sort of a turn-on, Cupcake.”
He wrung out his sopping shirt, the excess water wetting the ground. “The pool is pretty empty, just so you know, the majority of the water is now on the floor.”
I shook my head at the picture he painted. “No, I couldn’t have done that. Brent’s been working with me to help me learn telekinesis, but I really suck at it most of the time. There’s no way I’d be able to do something that powerful.”
“Well,” he said, pulling off his shoes and dumping out the water, “you were certainly powerful in there.”
My forehead crinkled. “I have no idea why.” I didn’t care, either. I felt drained, weak. I only wanted to curl up in my bed and sleep. I tried to stand, but DJ pulled me back down.
“You’d better wait till you can walk. I think you’d keel over after five steps. I can only carry you so far, you know.”
I knew he was right because I didn’t even have the strength to argue.
He leaned back on his hands and tilted his head up toward the sky, the sunlight highlighting his freckles. “I can’t believe the damage you did to the pool house. That is some serious destruction of property, Cupcake.”
“Cupcake,” I mumbled, finally placing the origin of his absurd nickname. “That’s right. You used to call me that because of my obsession with the My Little Pony character.”
He grinned. “I knew you’d put it together eventually.”
I nodded, my teeth still rattling together. “Do me a favor, DJ. Don’t call me Cupcake.”