When Lightning Strikes (Lightning Series Book 1) (14 page)

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Chapter 12: New Start

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E
ven though it was finals week, it was a typical Tuesday morning as far as her mom was concerned. Julie had to pick up her laundry for the weekly washing frenzy before they left the house.

She still needed to eat breakfast. She threw on a pair of blue stretch pants and a pink button down shirt. It didn’t matter. Maran, Tilik, and Arron didn’t seem to care what Kara or she wore as long as they were at school.

When she sat down on her bed to put her socks on, she noticed the edge of a dirty sock under the bed. She crouched down and fished it and its mate out. As she stood up, a spot of red popped out between the bedside table and bedcover.

Julie pulled out the red book and remembered that she meant to look at it the morning after her birthday but forgot. She glanced at the time. It was 7:10, so she had a few minutes to look at it now. She leaned against the back of the bed, her legs propping it up, and flipped to the note her mom had written.

On the Way to the Academy.

Her brows scrunched together in confusion. It was her handwriting.

She read the passage. Her stomach rolled over as she read the words. Julie knew she wrote this, but she didn’t remember doing it. It was on her birthday, only a couple weeks ago. Why would she write this if it wasn’t true?

She read the words again, thinking back to that night. She remembered sitting on the couch. Her dad holding her hands. Her face wet and her eyes sore from cutting onions. Her mother dropping pans and acting even weirder than normal, which was saying something these days. The bit of the conversation she heard with her brother later that night.

Onions? But there were none at dinner. Why didn’t she notice that at the time? Or was this some kind of joke? She couldn’t imagine anyone in her family doing that to her. What was going on?

Why was she not curious about a lot of things? Strange things poured into her mind. There never seemed to be tourists on the island. Everything looked perfect all the time. Everyone always wearing nice clothes, even the children. The conversations people had around her that made it feel like she was missing some vital piece of information. The two schools. Why did they need two schools? And what was in the unmarked building in town?

Andromeda never left the house anymore. People she didn’t know were rude to her for no reason. She cried a lot.

Jamie avoided her. She didn’t question her family about anything they did. Why wouldn’t she ask them? Did she and then forget, like writing this passage in the book?

Julie rubbed the side of her head. She didn’t think she was crazy. Something was being hidden from her by her family and everyone on the island. That sounded crazy.

Her face flushed red, her heart sped up, and her stomach churned. She was so confused that her head spun. It felt like she was going to throw up. Something on her bedspread caught her attention. It was one of the shapes blended with another, making a beautiful shade of teal.

Julie blinked.

Why was she sitting on the floor in her room? She needed to get ready for school.

She glanced at the clock on the white table by her bed. 7:15. Her eyes narrowed. Where did the last five minutes go? Didn’t she just look at the clock?

She started to get up but felt something hard clutched in her hands. She looked down. It was the red diary she wanted to look at the morning of her birthday. She held the book open already, her hands gripping the sides. Like she was already reading it.

On the Way to the Academy.

Julie read the page. She thought about that night again and all the other odd stuff. Her face flushed red, her heart raced, and her stomach turned over. Tears formed in her eyes.

She blinked.

Why was she sitting on the floor? Why was she crying? She still had to eat breakfast.

She looked down. Her hands were cramping. She was grasping the small red diary like a lifeline.

What was this? Was that her handwriting? She blinked fast as she read the words.

On the Way to the Academy.

Her face blanched. Her mind raced with all the thoughts it had the first time she read the page. Her heart thudded a little faster than normal, and she continued to cry. Julie felt like she had run a marathon.

Did she write this? She didn’t know where the letter was, what was going on, if her parents knew or were even a part of this. Worst of all, she didn’t know if she was losing her mind.

Her heart lurched.

Strange thoughts crept into her mind. What if they weren’t her parents? No, no, her mom was real—she was sure of it. Wasn’t she? But there something wrong with her. Was that the secret? Was she sick? Or maybe it was Jamie…

She glanced at the clock. It was 7:35. The last time she remembered looking at the clock was 7:10.

Twenty–five minutes. She couldn’t remember any of it.

Her hands clenched on the book again. It was something to do with the book. The answers were here somewhere.

“Julie?” Andromeda yelled from downstairs. “We need to go. We’re running late.”

“Okay,” Julie tried to rasp out. She cleared her throat. “Okay, be right there.”

She stood up, still holding the book. No way she was leaving this thing here.

What if she forgot this? What else was she forgetting? Her head hurt. She laughed at herself. She was going crazy. Or she already was crazy.

Her school was tiny, and the other kids that went there all seemed weird and spacey. The three boys in her class following Kara and her around. The conversations that she felt like she didn’t understand the full meaning.

And she had done it for twenty–five minutes. Maybe she was at a school for crazy people. More tears streamed down her face.

“Julie, we need to go. You have finals today, and I don’t want you to be late again.”

“Okay, Mom,” she yelled back.

“Julie? Is everything all right? Do you need me to come up there and help? I can get the laundry done later if you haven’t had a chance to get it. As long as you have clothes to wear, I’m happy. I want to make you happy.” There were light footsteps on the stairs.

Tears continued to stream down her face as she stood rigid. Andromeda couldn’t see her like this.

She moved to her dresser and grabbed a wad of tissues to clean off her face. She looked in the mirror. Her eyes were red, and her face was stark white.

“Julie?” Her mom said as she entered the room. “Are you okay?”

Julie turned to face her.

“Oh no, what’s wrong?” Her mother dashed across the room to hold her like she was a child. “Are you sick? I’m sure I can get them to reschedule your tests. I can set you up on the couch downstairs and make you soup. I’ll run out to the store right now and make you some. Do you want anything else? I shouldn’t leave you alone. I will stay right with you all day long, honey. Don’t you worry. I can get someone to deliver everything.”

Julie stiffened. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d fawned over her like this. Even when she was sick. In Atlanta, she would ask if she needed to stay home and call the school. She might even ask if she needed to go to the doctor. But she wouldn’t offer to hover over her all day like she was a fragile flower.

Was this even her mom?

She didn’t want to stay here with her. Something was wrong. She didn’t want her mother suspecting anything.

Julie tried to gather her thoughts. She felt almost dizzy, like she was reeling from all the crazy–sounding possibilities. “No, I stubbed my toe on the bedpost. I think it’s okay—no big deal. I don’t want to miss a final or anything.”

“Which foot?” Andromeda started to squat down.

“Seriously, Mom, it’s fine. We better go, or I will miss the test anyway.”

“Hey,” her mom said as she stood up. “What is that in your hand? Is that the diary I got you a few years ago? Are you using it?” For such an innocent question, the worry lines around her eyes were deeper than normal, and her mouth was a tight knot.

Julie’s hand clenched on the diary. She turned away quickly, looking down at the floor. Her shoes were right beneath her. She picked them up fast, glad that it looked like that was why she turned away.

“Um, I was going to start using it. But I was going to log my dreams in it. I keep having dreams about a boy, and I thought I could figure out who it was if I wrote them down.”

What dreams about a boy?

Yet now that she said it out loud, she knew it was true. There was a boy in her dreams. Julie put her head down again. Her eyes were wide, and her mouth was open in surprise. Quickly she squatted down to pull her shoes on.

“Oh, okay.” Her mother’s posture relaxed. “Do you need help with anything?”

She finished tying her shoes. “Nope. Why don’t you go pull the car out? I’ll be there in a second.”

Julie placed the book in the draw by her bed. Andromeda’s eyes followed where she put it before she nodded and left the room. She left the door open but walked downstairs.

Was her mom planning to read it? She pulled the book out of the drawer and shoved it in her book bag. She flushed cold and didn’t know whether to be scared or angry. Besides, she was too tired to feel anything.

♦

Julie couldn’t remember a single question from her English final. She remembered writing answers but not the questions themselves. She was the first to turn the test in and sat in the back of the room pretending to work on something quietly, like the two boys in her class who were also finished.

The paper in front of her was covered in random looking words: the Academy, dancing, Atlanta, Jamie, Mom, Dad, the island, Jamie’s school. Next to each word were times, somewhere between five and ten minutes apart. Some of the words were crossed out and re–written. Others where underlined several times until the pen had ripped the paper. Down in the left hand corner, one word was circled several times until the paper around it was tattered.

Anger.

Was anger the trigger, making her forget things and have missing pieces of her day? Pieces so small she wouldn’t notice. But why? None of it made sense. She put her head down on her arms on the desk. She had to be going crazy.

The paper began as a wild experiment. She wrote down the time from the big clock above Ms. Azul’s desk in the front of the room and one word like ‘Atlanta.’ Then she tried to think about how angry she was still about leaving Atlanta, her friends, and dance school. That part wasn’t hard.

Then out of nowhere she would blink, see the paper, remember what she was doing, and check the clock. She wrote the time down next to the first. Five or ten minutes were missing in a few cases. A wave of nausea washed over her.

She couldn’t remember any thoughts in the five or ten minutes that were lost.

“Class, time is up.” Ms. Azul clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. “If you haven’t finished by now, then you won’t.”

Julie jumped a little in her seat. Her hand paused over the paper as she decided what to do with it. Did people dig through the trash here? Would they know what she was working out?

She folded the sheet neatly and slipped it into the slim red book in her bag. She finished zipping it up when Tilik came to carry it for her. Her stomach churned. She didn’t like giving up that book or that paper. She didn’t want anyone to know that something was different with her today.

Kara came to the back, frowning. “That was hard. I can’t believe you finished it so quickly.”

“Yeah.” Julie shrugged, sure she did terrible. But she didn’t need to do all that well to keep her B in the class. She got to her feet in a hurry to keep up with Tilik, who was with the other two boys walking to their next class.

“What did you put for…”Kara went on and Julie tuned her out, occasionally answering noncommittally when her friend paused.

Julie’s teeth worried at her bottom lip. She was so alone. She wanted someone to talk to. Could she trust Kara? Should she ask her?

As the boys entered the next room, she turned suddenly, startling her friend into stopping ten feet from the classroom door. She whispered fast. “Kara, why are there two schools on this island? Why are all the kids you went to school with when you were younger all over there now? It doesn’t have younger kids right? Does this make sense to you?”

“We go to the fine arts school,” Kara said simply, like this was explanation enough.

“Yes, yes.” Julie looked around to make sure no one was coming. “But why wouldn’t everyone go to the other school first and then transfer over here if this is the special school? It doesn’t make any sense. Did you have any choice? Didn’t you lose all your friends?”

Kara blinked rapidly as her eyes grew glassy. “My parents made the choice. I can’t remember being upset about it. It was one kid leaving at a time. Melissande was one of the last to go. She was my best friend up until then.”

Julie glanced back at the classroom door. No one was coming.

“But don’t you think that’s weird? I mean, if you guys were such good friends, why doesn’t she hang out with you now? Why would it matter what school you go to? Have you ever seen the other school?”

When Kara didn’t answer, Julie looked at her.

Her expression had softened. Her eyes were no longer tearing up. She stared at a point over Julie’s shoulder.

“Kara?”

Julie glanced behind her and didn’t see anything, just the dark wood paneled hallway with windows lining it on one side.

“Kara?”

Her friend still looked entranced. She grabbed Kara’s shoulders and gently shook her, but she continued to stare off into space. She had ignored this in the past, thinking her friend was a bit spacey, but maybe there was more.

Was this what happened to her?

Maybe they were all crazy at the school. Or someone was doing this to them. But why? Did her parents know?

Jamie. That must be what they’d been talking about the night of their birthday. A piece of a puzzle clicked into place. Yet, all she felt like doing was sitting in the hall and crying.

Her parents had to know.

Julie’s face flushed, and she clenched her hands. Her stomach tensed with dread.