Rising (22 page)

***

When I woke up, I was laying on
something soft.
 
My coat had been removed
and I was tucked in my own bed.
 
The room
was dark.
 
Gabe was at my side with a
terrible look on his face.
 

“Are you okay?” he asked in a shaky
whisper.

“What happened?”

My voice was raspy.
 
My entire body felt sore, like someone had
taken a hammer and beaten every inch of me.

“Are you okay?” he asked again more
eagerly.

“I . . . I think so.
 
What hit me?”

“It was me,” he murmured.

There was a pained look in his
eyes.
 
He combed a hand through his hair
nervously.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“I didn’t mean to,” he explained.
 
“I was thinking about my other sense, and I
could feel it building.
 
Then, when we
were, you know, I lost control of it.
 
It
was like what I was feeling built up into a ball of energy, and just came out
of me all at once.”

He was gesturing wildly with his hands.

“I still don’t understand.”

I felt stupid, repeating myself, but I
couldn’t make sense of it.

“Do you mean,” I stammered, “that your
feelings can hurt someone physically?”

“Only really strong feelings,” he said,
emphasizing ‘strong’ and moving closer to me. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.
 
I would never—I just lost it, Clara.
 
I completely lost control. I’m so sorry.”

He reached for my hand lying outside
the covers then pulled it away before he touched me.

“It’s okay.
 
I know you wouldn’t,” I said.

I sat up and made sure I didn’t wince
to make him feel any worse, then I took his hand.
 
He sighed and seemed to be still beating
himself up in his head.

“Wait a minute,” I said, “you just
carried me down the hall right past my parents’ bedroom?
 
Are you crazy?”

I was yelling in a whispery voice.

“Would you rather I’d left you by the
front door, so your dad could find you in your pajamas on the front porch?”

I opened my mouth to make a snappy
comeback, then closed it shut.

“Still, you better get out of here,” I
said, pushing him off the bed and standing up.
 
“We can talk about this tomorrow.”

“If you’re sure you’re okay?”

“Yes, really, I’m fine.
 
It’s not like I’m made of glass or
anything.
 
I’m a pretty strong girl.”

“Yeah, I see that,” he said, laughing
at me as I pushed him toward the door.

“Wait, no, what am I thinking.
 
Don’t go down the hall.
 
Use the window.”

I unlocked the window and shoved it
up.
 
Peeking out, I saw that Gabe had
already put the recycling bin back where it belonged.

“You’ll just have to jump,” I said.

“No problem,” he said, swinging one leg
out the window and sitting on the sill.

He reached out and took my hand
gently.
 
I could tell he was still
worrying about me.

“Stop it,” I said.
 
“I’m fine, really.
 
What I’m really worried about is what this
all means, with your other sense.
 
If
yours is changing, then maybe mine is, too.”

“Didn’t you just say that you saw your
own aura tonight for the first time when those things were in your living
room?”

I nodded.

“Well, that has to mean something.
 
I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that
we’re dreaming of the same creatures, which Theresa said she saw with her own
eyes crawl out of that pit in Cuba right before a weird, massive hurricane
formed just off the coast.”

“The massive hurricane which happens to
be headed for us,” I added.

“Yeah,” said Gabe a little calmer.
 
“I think it also means that Jeremy is hiding
something from us.”

“Jeremy?
 
What would he be hiding?”

“Clara, if all three of us are dreaming
of the same thing and the two of us have a supernatural sense, don’t you think
it’s probable that he has one, too?”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

I hadn’t made the same connection that
Gabe had.
 
I had to admit that he was
right.
 
I was used to being the one to
figure things out quickly.
 
I’d always
been in the top of my class.
 
Somehow, I
hadn’t even thought that our connection to Jeremy had more to it than creepy
nightmares.
 
I heard Gabe chuckling at
me.

“What?” I asked.

“You always bite your lip when you’re
worrying about something.”

He pulled me down to him.
 
Cupping my cheek, he gave me a brief, but
tender kiss.
 
Nothing like the last one
on the porch, but still very nice.

“We’ll have to be a little careful, you
know.
 
I mean, until I can figure out how
to control this thing,” he said.

What he was really saying was that we
couldn’t make-out and act like animals until he knew how to control his
changing power.
 
Obviously, it was
intense feelings that brought it out, and I’d say what happened earlier was
pretty dang intense.
 
I felt my face
flush pink.
 
I was glad it was dark, and
he couldn’t see me.
 
Then I heard that
mischievous chuckle again.
 
Dang it!
 
He always knew my feelings, whether he could
see my face or not.
 
I hated that.

“Get out,” I whispered hoarsely,
practically pushing him out the window.
 
“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” he said before swinging
his leg over and dropping into the night below.

I closed the window and watched Gabe
disappear into the cover of oak trees surrounding our house.
 
I could no longer see him, but I could make
out the blue and purple silhouette meshing into the shadows.
 
I’d decided not to tell him that whatever
force he had released tonight was still with him, clinging to his body and
glowing in that rich, dark aura.
 

9

CLARA

“Look at this, Gabe. It says that SETI
stands for Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence.
 
There’s an institute here that says their
whole purpose is exploring the universe,” I said, pointing to the computer
monitor.

The library was practically deserted at
lunch time.
 
The only other people
besides us were Mrs. Fairfax, our school librarian, and some guy snoring in the
study cubicle next to us.

“I don’t know, Clara,” said Gabe, “it
just doesn’t seem right.
 
They’re calling
you this like it’s your name.
 
Even in my
vision, the warrior woman called her dead friends that name. Try spelling it
with two t’s.”

I punched in “
Setti
”
into the Google search box then started to scroll.
 
Nothing that was listed seemed to have
anything to do with what we were looking for—some connection to our
supernatural senses.
 
I rolled my
shoulders back, trying to work the ache out of them then quickly stopped,
realizing Gabe was eyeing me carefully.
 
I didn’t want him to know how much he’d hurt me last night.
 
It felt like my coach had forced me to run up
and down the stadiums twenty times, then run ten miles, then do 100 push-ups,
then do weights for two hours.
 
In other
words, I felt like crap, but I still didn’t want Gabe feeling guilty about it.

“Maybe there isn’t anything in our
records that would help.
 
I mean, you
said the woman spoke another language.
 
Maybe this word comes from their world, not ours,” I said.

“Probably so,” said Gabe, “type in
‘shadow people.’ ”

“What?” I asked.

“Just humor me here.”

I typed it into the Google search box
then pressed enter.
 
Wow. Over 10,000,000
results posted at the top of the screen.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I
said.
 

“Click on that one,” said Gabe,
pointing to the third site that read “Sightings of Shadow People.”

It was some kind of on-going blog,
where people posted their experiences seeing shadow people.
 
Some claimed to have seen them disappearing
under their refrigerator; some saw them in their shower, glaring at them with
red eyes and growling; then others claimed to have only seen them out of the
corner of their vision before they vanished through walls.

“Most of these are hoaxes or crazy
people,” said Gabe, “but some of them seem very similar to what we’re seeing.”

“Of course there’s no contact
information for any of them.
 
What would
we say anyway?
 
‘Hey.
 
Are you seeing shadow people, too?
 
Let’s chat.’ ”

“Shadow people?” came a voice behind
us.

Gabe and I spun around to see Mrs.
Fairfax staring at the computer screen over our shoulders.
 
Her glasses had slipped down to the tip of
her nose.
 
Mrs. Fairfax had a knack for sneaking
up on students.

“Um, it’s for a science project,” I
lied.

Wow.
 
We seemed to be doing lots of “science projects” lately.

“That reminds me of crazy old Homer,”
said Mrs. Fairfax.

“Who’s he?” Gabe asked quickly.

“Oh, he was a classmate of mine many
years ago.”

“In high school?” I asked.

“Yes, here at BCHS.
 
I remember it because Homer Rivers not only
presented a research project to the class on these so-called shadow people, but
he insisted they were real.”

“How did he know?
 
Did he see them?” Gabe asked.

“No, no, nothing even as conclusive as
that.
 
He claimed to see them in
visions.
 
Not only that, but he claimed
to have visions of ancient warriors fighting black demons from other
dimensions,” said Mrs. Fairfax, chuckling to herself.
 

Holy crap.
 
I felt my heart race ahead quickly.
 
Gabe nudged my knee.

“Poor guy,” continued Mrs.
Fairfax.
 
“We all just thought he’d been
doing some special experiments to see these
vIsions
,
if you know what I mean.”

We must’ve looked completely clueless.

“It was the 70s after all,” explained
Mrs. Fairfax.

“
Ohhhhh
,”
Gabe and I said, sharing a knowing look.
 

The seventies—the decade of freedom,
love, and lots of hallucinatory drugs.

“Well, whatever happened to him?” asked
Gabe.

“He went off to college as far as I
know.
 
He was always extremely
intelligent.
 
I think he was one of those
crazy geniuses, you know.
 
I don’t know
what he did after that.
 
Then he came
back here a few years ago.
 
I saw him in
Walmart
of all places.
 
It took me by surprise.
 
The years
haven’t been exactly kind to him.”

“How do you mean?” I asked.

“Oh, he looked awfully unkempt.
 
I thought he must’ve finally fallen off the
deep end.
 
I was polite and said hello,
because he recognized me right away.
 
I
suppose I haven’t changed too terribly much,” she said, smoothing her
skirt.
 
“He said he was working for the
farmers, living over on Canebrake Island.
 
I knew then he certainly had finally lost his mind, because I’d never
heard of a soul living out there all alone.”

“Is he still there?” asked Gabe anxiously.

“I don’t know, but I wouldn’t try to
contact him or anything for this project of yours.
 
He really is crazy,” she said with glaring
eyes before walking away.

Before Gabe and I had a chance to say a
word, Jeremy stalked up to us.

“There you two are.
 
I’ve been looking everywhere.”

He pulled up a chair from the table
behind us, turned it around backwards and straddled it.
 
We hadn’t said a thing yet.
 
Both of us were reeling in our own heads from
this new discovery.