The Gifting (16 page)

“All of a sudden, I was on the Golden Gate Bridge. And the freaky man in Lotsam’s class? He was taunting this girl, trying to get her to jump. I wrestled him away from her and we fell.” I think about the cold words spoken—about me being a fighter—but can’t bring myself to say them out loud. I don’t even know what they mean.

“You wrestled him?” There’s a hint of amusement in the question.

“Is that hard to believe?”

“It’s just … you don’t look like the wrestling type.”

“Hey, I’m a black belt.” And I was strong in the dream. It was only later, when I woke up, that I felt weak and drained.

“Really?”

I lift my chin. “Really.”

Luka laughs. “Okay, so what happened next, Karate Kid?”

“I woke up. And that same girl was on the news. She was about to commit suicide, but the police got to her in time. She didn’t die.”

Luka’s teasing from a second ago has disappeared. His eyes search mine with an intensity that makes my skin break into goose bumps. “Do you think they’re real—the dreams? Prophetic or something?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

My shoulders sag. “You’ve never had dreams like that? Dreams that actually come true?”

He doesn’t answer right away. The longer he waits, the more I regret telling him. Maybe he’s finally realizing that between the two of us, I am a whole different brand of crazy. “I’ve had one,” he finally says. “It’s recurring.”

Hope blossoms in my chest. “Like mine?”

“Not exactly.” He wipes his palms along the thighs of his jeans. “Your first day of school wasn’t the first time I’ve seen you.”

“You saw me when we were moving in or something?”

“No.”

Confusion settles in my brow.

He takes a deep breath. Like
here goes nothing
. “I’ve dreamt about you.”

“Yeah, that night—”

He shakes his head. “Before that night.”

“Before?”

“For as long as I can remember. I’ve dreamt about this girl with dark hair and fair skin and big, navy blue eyes and freckles across her nose.”

The hair on the back of my arms stands on end.

“And then you showed up in class and … it was you. You’re
her
.”

“What happens in the dream?” My voice escapes in a whisper.

“That man in Lotsam’s class? There’s a whole army of them. They are strong, impenetrable. But there’s another army too. An army of these bright beings, charging ahead, and you’re leading them.”

“Me?”

He nods. “You’re fearless. Brave. But you’re in danger, too. So out in the open and the soldiers of the other army are targeting you. In the dream, I’m fighting them. Trying to get to you. Screaming for you to run. It’s like your life is the most important thing. Like if you die, then so will everything else.”

The weight of Luka’s words sits between us.

He leans forward, his chest against the back of the chair, so close my knees touch his seat. “I’ve spent my life looking for you. Everywhere. At stores, restaurants, malls, in the newspaper, on TV shows. When you showed up in Current Events, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I still can’t.”

I can’t seem to get a handle on my breathing. It’s too fast, too loud.

“When we met on the beach in our dream, it was the first time your life wasn’t in danger. But then you disappeared and I thought …”

“You thought something bad happened.”

“Yeah.”

My attention drops to my feet. I wish I knew what was going on. I wish I understood this connection between me and Luka. I wish I could go to the library and check out a book titled
Seeing the Spiritual Realm, Prophetic Dreams, and Dream Sharing: All You Need to Know
. Somehow, I don’t think that book exists.

“Tess?” Luka’s voice is husky, close.

I look into his eyes.

“I’m glad you’re here, in Thornsdale.”

“Me too.” Despite all the unanswered questions, having someone to share the craziness with makes the burden so much lighter.

There’s a knock on the door.

Luka scoots away, leaving my legs cold and numb.

“Luka?” A slender woman with dark, shiny hair pulled into a ponytail leans inside Luka’s bedroom. She and Luka share the same straight nose, the same full lips, the same olive colored skin. Only this woman has dark, suspicious eyes. Not Luka’s green warm ones. She’s dressed in yoga pants and a tank top. “Who’s this?”

“Tess Ekhart. She moved in next door. Tess, this is my mom.”

Her smile is tight, pinched. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too.”

Mrs. Williams turns toward Luka. “We’re going to have dinner in thirty minutes. You should probably wrap things up. And leave your door open, please. You know that’s the rule when girls are over.”

Girls
. I blush at the implication. How many girls has Luka had over?

When she leaves, a tinge of pink stains Luka’s cheeks.

I’m suddenly claustrophobic. I need to get away from this boy who makes thinking impossible. After everything he told me, I need to go on a hike. Gather my thoughts. Glancing at his bedside clock, I stand, pull my backpack over my shoulders, and head to his door. “I should get going.”

Luka comes out of his chair. “Tess.”

I stop. Turn around.

“We should try to do it again.”

“What?”

“The dream thing.” He shoves his hands in the back of his pockets. “If we think about each other before we fall asleep …”

“You think that’s how it works?” The warmth in my face intensifies. If that’s so, then he’ll know I was thinking about him. But it also means he was thinking about me, too.

“It’s worth a try.”

“O-okay. Sure.” Before he can offer to walk me to my house, I hurry out of his room, down the stairs, and out the front door.

Discovery

W
ith hands folded behind my head, I stare at my ceiling, impossibly awake. As if I’d just awoken from ten hours of sleep and chased an entire pot of coffee with a Red Bull, when in reality, it’s past midnight and sleep over the past few nights has been fitful. My after-dinner hike did little to clear my head. I kick off my covers and walk into the bathroom. Even though I don’t have a headache or a cold, I pop two Tylenol PMs into my mouth, take a swig from the faucet, and tuck myself back into bed.

As I wait for the medicine to take effect, my mind spins with all that has happened since the séance back in Jude. The terrifying voices and the disturbing visions. My parents’ whispered words in the hospital. Moving here to Thornsdale with the Edward Brooks facility down the street and Luka Williams next door. I think about Dr. Roth. I think about Luka’s mom failing both her pregnancy screenings. According to the government, he shouldn’t exist. His mother should have been “cured” seventeen years ago. But she wasn’t and now he’s here, my only proof that I’m not crazy—a boy who claims to have had dreams about me before we even knew each other. Dreams about me leading an army.

What would Dr. Roth say to that?

My eyes grow heavy as my mind wanders to my grandmother. A woman who died in a mental hospital. Did she really suffer from psychosis? The last thought I have before I nod off into medicated oblivion is that I wish she were still alive. I wish I could sit across from her and ask her questions …

I’m standing on the rocky beach in my backyard, a little weak in the legs. A little lightheaded. I blink a few times and he’s there—sitting several paces away, arms draped over his knees, staring out at the waves, his perfect profile obscured by a thick fog. A thrill of excitement simmers beneath a film of lethargy that I can’t seem to shake. I take a step toward him. The movement must catch his attention, because he turns his head, then quickly stands, wipes the rocky sand from his palms, and closes the short distance between us. “You’re here.”

I squint through the haze. “How long have you been waiting?”

“A while.”

“I had a hard time falling asleep.” I cup my forehead with my palm, wishing I could rattle away the fog in the air. It’s as if it’s seeping into my ears and clouding my brain. “I had to take two Tylenol PMs and then I started thinking about my grandma.”

“Your grandma?”

I forgot to tell Luka about my grandmother. I open my mouth to explain, but before any sound escapes, he drifts away. I grab for him, but my hand hits nothing but empty air and I’m no longer on the beach. I’m in a room—white and small and barren, yet somehow, the fog has followed me. A woman lies in bed, her hands and feet bound, her long, white hair wild about her face as she strains and thrashes against the leather restraints.

“Help me.” The woman turns her crazy eyes on me, her voice not a shrill scream, but a rasp that raises the hair off my arms. “Please, help me.”

I grab the shackles and pull, but they don’t budge. I whirl around, desperate to get help—a doctor or a nurse, somebody with a key who can let this woman go—and come face to face with a man. He has the kind of plain, forgettable features that could make him one of a hundred other men. The only identifying feature is a jagged, white scar that runs the length of his right cheek.

He wears a pleasant, apathetic smile.

“Who are you?” I ask.

He takes a couple steps closer to the woman straining and thrashing in the bed. “That’s the wrong question, Little Rabbit.”

Little Rabbit? My eyes rove over his apparel—blue scrubs, white coat. He must be a doctor. Which means he must have a key. “You have to let this woman free.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Sadly, she’s no longer my patient and it’s important that I follow orders. Just as important as it is for you to be careful. You don’t want to end up like her, do you?”

I cast an anxious glance at the thin, desperate woman. “Who is she?”

He steps closer, his head cocked, a smirk on his face. Like I am food and he is playing. “You mean you don’t know?”

I look more closely at the woman. The color of her eyes, the slant of her nose, the shape of her chin. It’s all terribly familiar. A gasp tumbles past my lips and I shake my head. She is an older, female version of my father.

“Oh, yes.”

“But my grandmother is dead.”

“Is she really?”

My attention darts back and forth from the woman in the bed to the man with the scar. “Am I like her?”

He runs his fingers along the sheet. “That’s up to you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re keeping dangerous company.”

“Dangerous company?” My thoughts whir. Whose company could I be keeping that could possibly be dangerous? Surely not Leela, and the only other person I’ve been hanging out with is … “You mean Luka?”

“Continue, and your life will become a living hell.” A smile cuts through his face. “Consider yourself warned.”

The white room falls away and I am somewhere else. A man sits at a desk, slouched over, writing on a notepad in slow, sad strokes, the air so heavy with hopelessness and desolation that it seeps into my pores. He picks up a gun. A
gun
. But guns aren’t allowed. It was resting by his note and now it’s in his hand and he sticks the barrel into his mouth.

“No!” I make to leap forward. To stop him. But the man with the scar is there, standing beside me, and he holds my arm.

“Be careful, Little Rabbit. People will think you’re going mad.”

The gun explodes with a loud crack. It ricochets off the walls and rings in my ears and I jolt upright in bed, lungs heaving in the dark, sweat pouring down my back, those final words reverberating through my mind.

You’re going mad
 …
you’re going mad
 …
you’re going mad.

I flip on my bedside lamp and grab the journal on my nightstand and write until my hand cramps, desperate to capture everything before it slips away. When I finish, the sky outside my window has gone from dark blue to a pale pink. I sit at my desk and jiggle the mouse on my computer and open a website with local news. Taking a deep breath, I poise my fingers over the keys. The tip of my ring finger presses the S, then my pointer finger reaches for the U, my middle the I, the other the C until the word sits in the search box.

Suicide
.

Taking another deep breath, I hit enter and several news stories pop up. The one at the top is thirty minutes old.
Family Man Commits Suicide in small California town
. I click on the link and devour the story. A man, thirty-seven, unemployed. Married for ten years, with two daughters in elementary school. The police were called late last night when a neighbor heard the sound of a gunshot. His wife and two daughters—both in elementary school—were out of town visiting the mother’s family. The police found the man, in his bedroom, dead, along with a note of farewell. There’s a small thumbnail photograph of his face.

It makes me push back from the computer.

You’re going mad
 …
you’re going mad
 …
you’re going mad
 …

I feel it. To the marrow of my bones. I throw on a sweatshirt and slippers and hurry down the stairs, wild and frantic. Mom pokes her head out from the kitchen, her hair rolled in curlers. “Tess?”

But I don’t answer. I need air. I need Luka. I need to know what is happening. I’m about to tear open the door and escape into the cool, fresh morning air, but Mom grabs my arm. Her touch reminds me of the man with the scar and that old woman with the white hair and Dad’s nose. “What’s wrong?”

I whirl around. “Is Grandma alive?”

She doesn’t have to answer. The truth expands in the blackness of her pupils.

*