Manifest (9 page)

Jake’s
house looks like it’s about half the size of ours. It’s past the tracks and along the riverbank. The street he lives on is quiet but has a ton of other houses the same size as his all cramped together. It almost looks like a trailer park, except they’re real houses.

Sasha’s car is so out of place on this street. Still she parks right in front of the house like it’s nothing new and we both get out. Mouse climbs out from the backseat. I looked back at him once while riding and saw that his long legs were folded like the chairs in my grandma’s basement. Sasha doesn’t talk to him or about him, she just acts like he’s not there. I feel kind of bad for him. When I turn back, I see him leaning against the car instead of getting in the front to sit. I guess he needs to stretch—I don’t blame him.

“Listen, Jake’s real sensitive about where he lives and his family and all that. So don’t say anything that might hurt his feelings.”

I turn away from Mouse because he catches me staring and that makes me feel bad. I’m looking up at Jake’s house when I say, “You don’t have to tell me that. I’m not a jerk about stuff like this.”

“Well, I don’t really know you, so I wasn’t sure. His dad
works weird hours for the electric company so Jake has to take care of his grandfather a lot.”

For her not to know me that well she sure doesn’t have a problem telling me Jake’s business.

“Where’s his mother?” And clearly I don’t have a problem asking for more.

Sasha shrugs. “I heard she left. Then my mom said she died. Jake doesn’t talk about it so don’t even think about asking him.”

I figure I’ll take her advice, after all she’s known him a lot longer than I have.

She keeps walking up the two front steps, her curly hair dancing behind her, then pulls open the creaky old screen door. I admit that she’s right, she doesn’t know me, and I don’t know her or Jake. Yet I’m here, ready to talk about the one thing we all seem to have in common.

Sasha knocks once and before she can pull her arm back Jake opens the door. Light, in a golden haze, pours from the house to the dark outside. He doesn’t smile but looks over Sasha’s shoulder at me then nods. “Come on in.”

I walk behind Sasha, keeping my mouth shut and trying really hard not to look around his house. It feels warm in here. I mean I can instantly feel extra heat. Outside it’s about sixty-five degrees. In here feels much hotter. And it smells like old people. Like those mothballs they keep in all the closets and in their drawers. It’s not really a stinky smell but it gets in your nose and burns after a while. I remember it from the old folks’ home, so it’s already bothering me.

Jake’s leading the way, walking us past what I think is the dining room. His house is set up like one long hallway and different rooms are on either side. It’s kind of hard to keep my head straight ahead and act like I’m not looking around, because I am. That probably means I’m nosy but I’m not real worried about that right now. Unfortunately,
my eyes keep wandering so I’m not getting a real good look into every room, just quick glances. Then I see the wheelchair in one room and I completely stop.

I’ve never seen a wheelchair in person before. Well, except for when I was twelve and went to the nursing home to visit my grandfather. It was creepy in there with all those old people wanting to touch you with their crinkly hands. All the extra voices I was hearing didn’t help either. I know now that those voices belonged to dead people. People who had probably died in that nursing home. I wonder if that meant I could only hear the dead in the spot where they died. No, that can’t be true, I hear Ricky any and everywhere.

“Come on, Krystal,” I hear Sasha say with irritation clear in her voice.

Oh, great, I’ve been caught standing here staring like some sort of flake.

The room Jake’s sitting in has two mattresses on a bed frame in one corner, an old desk and chair in the other and two chairs that look like they might have come from the kitchen right next to the desk. On the desk is a computer, which shocks me because it’s the newest-looking thing in this room. I mean, all the furniture and stuff is pretty old, like the kind you see in those shops that only sell old stuff for lots of money. But the computer is the bomb!

It’s an iMac with a twenty-four-inch screen. I just know it has everything on it because why else would you buy it if you weren’t going to load it up?

“Here, you can sit right here,” Jake says.

Sasha has already taken a seat on his bed so he can only be talking to me. I notice he’s changed his pants. Earlier he had on jeans but now he’s wearing sweatpants. His hair is still a mess, falling all in his eyes so he looks more like an animal than a boy. But I’m not real worried about how he looks. I just want to get this little powwow over with so I can go home.

Home to what? Janet and Gerald, both looking at me like I’ve just grown another head? No, correction, Janet looking at me like I’ve grown another head and Gerald looking at me like he could stomp me right into the ground. That can’t be normal, for a grown-up to hate a kid that much. But I guess if the kid’s not yours you could hate them until hell froze over and nobody would care.

Anyway, I don’t want to think about the odd couple right now. I follow Jake’s direction and sit in one of the chairs. Again, I’m trying not to look around at the chipping dull beige paint on his walls or the dresser that doesn’t have any knobs on it.

I’m really not prejudiced against people who don’t have what I have or anything like that. I’m just curious about Jake’s life. He seems so quiet and so normal. It’s weird that his house isn’t all pretty and filled with new stuff, but he seems perfectly happy with who he is and where he’s from. While me, on the other hand, can’t stand to be in the house Janet works so hard to create and walks around with enough friction in my mind to fill a psych ward. Which, coincidentally, is where Janet and her husband are trying to send me.

“I drew a sketch of our marks,” Jake starts, giving me and Sasha a piece of paper. “I figure that’s where it all starts, our connection, I mean. Because how many kids have the exact same birthmark on different parts of their body? That’s a big coincidence.”

I look down at the paper and I must have frowned. I admit, my first thought was that this was one crappy drawing but I would never have said that aloud. Sasha’s remark says it is written all over my face.

“Let me guess, you don’t like his drawing,” she drawls.

My head pops up and I immediately look at Jake. “No. I didn’t say that.”

“It’s okay. I’m not really good at drawing.” He reaches
over to the desk and grabs a pad and a pencil. “Here, you do it. Look at mine and draw it.”

How does he know I can draw?

Oh, come on. He probably doesn’t know but since I’m the one looking at his work like it’s below grade level, it stands to reason he’s calling me out.

Okay, whatever. I’ll just get it over with.

He pulls up the sleeve to his T-shirt and I look at his mark. It’s familiar because, like he said, it’s identical to mine. And to Sasha’s.

So I don’t need to keep looking at it but I do. He’s got arms like those men on TV, the ones who lift weights and stuff. I mean, he’s not buff or anything, but from the way his clothes just hang off him I assumed he was bony. I assumed wrong. My fingers wrap tightly around the pencil as I hold the pad steady with my other hand. Without even looking down I start to draw. My hand is kind of just moving, sliding over the paper as I stare at Jake’s arm. It’s not all that fancy, this mark that looks like an
M,
but it kind of swirls at the ends. As I’m looking at it now I think it’s glowing. Hmm, maybe that’s just my overactive imagination—a side effect to being able to see the dead. Maybe now I can see all sorts of strange stuff.

Suddenly Jake hisses like a scared cat. “Jeez, it burns,” he hollers. My hand just keeps on moving across the paper. I’m not even really concentrating.

“What burns?” Sasha asks.

I keep drawing even though I’m looking at Jake’s face now instead of the mark. His cheeks are turning red, his eyes going wider. He shakes his head and that unruly dark hair flies away so I can see them better. My heart’s beating a little faster but I try not to notice. The room feels funny, like somebody turned the heat up even higher and a kernel of sweat starts rolling down my back.

“It’s the Power,” a voice comes from the doorway.

I don’t have to look past Jake to know that it is his grandfather. The sound is so familiar from my one visit to the nursing home. Old people talked with this crackly-like whisper. But it isn’t the voice that makes my hand stop drawing and my fingers clench the pencil even tighter.

It was what he’d said.

“What power?” I hear myself ask without a second thought.

“Pop Pop, we’re working on a school project. Go back into the living room.
Jeopardy
is about to come on,” Jake says, getting up from his chair.

“I don’t want to watch
Jeopardy.
I need to tell you about the Power. It’s time.”

He is wearing a blue shirt with big white flowers—Jake’s grandfather, not Jake. It is a button-up shirt and above the top button some of his white hair sticks out. He wears glasses so I can’t really see the color of his eyes but his ears are big and he is balding in the center. I figured the wheelchair belonged to him but he is using a cane as he makes his way into Jake’s room.

“No, Pop Pop. Not right now,” Jake tries to say but his grandfather waves his hand away and keeps right on moving until he finds the chair at the desk and lowers his body in a slow, precise way down onto the seat.

I look over at Sasha to get her take on our visitor and she’s looking at me, twirling her finger around as if to say that Jake’s grandfather is crazy. I hurry up and look away because I don’t want Jake to catch us and think I’m agreeing with her. Still, he looks kind of old so he could have that condition where old people start to forget where they are and who they are.

But I don’t know. He’s talking about power and we just discovered that all three of us have some kind of power. Like Jake just said a few minutes ago, that’s just too coincidental.

“Hi, Mr. Kramer. Do you remember me? I’m Sasha.” She’s talking ten times louder than she was before and slow like she thinks he doesn’t understand English.

Mr. Kramer nods and looks at her. “Sure, I remember you. You’re the one with the accent and the fancy car.”

I almost smile at that. Sasha did have a slight accent. I couldn’t really place it and because we just started talking—like today—I’m not about to ask her any personal questions. Anyway, Jake told me earlier that her mother is from somewhere in Argentina.

“That’s right, I’m from South America,” she offers.

“No, you’re not,” Mr. Kramer snaps. “Neither of you are.” He looks at me and I figure he thinks I have an accent, too, but I haven’t said much for him to know that for sure.

Sasha gives a deep, exasperated sigh and rolls her eyes. “Yes, I am.”

“No,” Mr. Kramer says adamantly. “Your daddy’s from right here in Lincoln. And he was here with your mama.”

She pauses like she’s thinking about his words. “Yeah, I think she was here for a while. She was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and so was I. My dad brought her here, she left when she had me and then she came back later.”

Mr. Kramer nods his head, wisps of leftover hair cradle the sides but don’t cover the tips of his big red ears. “She was here the year of the storm. All of them were.”

Jake just drops his head down as his grandfather talks and Sasha rolls her eyes again.

“Hi…um, Mr. Kramer. I’m Krystal,” I say. I want to ask him questions but it’s probably polite to introduce myself first. I mean, I am in his house and all that.

His head turns a bit and I think he’s looking at me. Those glasses are so thick it’s really hard to tell, except that I feel a little jittery like I’m being examined. So I figure he’s the one doing the examining. Anyway, he stares at me a few long seconds before he nods his head.

“She was here, too, your mama.”

He knows Janet?

I lick my lips, my mouth suddenly dry. My shirt’s gonna be wet by the time I leave ’cause, dayum, it’s hot in here. “I’m Krystal Bentley and my mother…” Wow, I haven’t called Janet that in a while. It sounds funny. “Um, her name’s Janet.”

He just keeps on nodding. “They were all here.”

“Okay, Pop Pop. Both of their mothers were here in Lincoln at one time. Now, you’ve had your say. Let me take you to your room.” Jake jumps up and reaches for his grandfather’s arm to help him up.

Mr. Kramer lifts his cane, waves it in front of him so that Jake has a choice—either back up or get swatted in the nuts. Wisely, he chooses to back up. “I’ll go to bed when I’m finished. Now you sit down and mind your manners. You’re not too big to get your hide tanned.”

Sasha giggles. I lift a hand to fan my face. I don’t want to see Jake get his hide tanned. I don’t even want to see Jake’s hide.

Jake looks really embarrassed as he sinks back into his seat. I think he likes that slouched-over position; he always takes it whenever anybody says something to him that shuts him up.

“You know, it snows here in September.”

Mr. Kramer starts and I’m beginning to think he really might have that old people’s forgetful disease.

The room is eerily quiet and I clench my hands together. Aside from the heat, the house is old and could probably pass for haunted, if you believe in that sort of thing. I mean, everything about it looks decrepit, like it is ready to fall right down around us. That’s how haunted houses usually look. This would be a small one, but it could still be haunted.

And why am I even thinking that? Well, because the
golden light that I spotted when Jake had first opened the door is only in the hallway. His room is dimmer, probably because the only lamp in here is supersmall. And like it knows I’m talking about it the light in the lamp flickers. Creepy. Then the windows rattle. Yes, I do mean rattle. It’s a chink-chink-chink kind of sound and both me and Sasha turn to look.

“It’s windy tonight,” Mr. Kramer says. “That’s how it starts.”