Zellie Wells Trilogy

by Stacey Wallace Benefiel

  “Happy Fourth of July,” I said.

  “Happy Fourth,” Dory replied, reaching down and adjusting her mother’s sun hat. She overcorrected and pulled it too far to the right, revealing a large yellow and purple bruise that had bloomed from Mrs. Knapp’s temple to her cheekbone.

  “Ouch!” I commented, pointing at the bruise.

  Dory adjusted the hat quickly. “Yes, Mother sometimes forgets where she is. She took a nasty tumble down the cellar stairs a few days ago thinking she was walking into the bathroom.”

  We came to the edge of the yard. Dory struggled to push the wheelchair up the small grassy hill.

  “Here, let me help.” I got in front of the wheelchair. “Can I set these on your lap for a second?” I asked the older Mrs. Knapp. She squinted her eyes at me.

  “She probably doesn’t understand what you’re saying. Go ahead and set ‘em there, she won’t know the difference.”

  I tucked the spoons in between her folded hands and her belly. Grabbing onto both arms of the chair, I pulled on it while Dory pushed. With one great heave we got the chair up the little hill and onto the part of the yard that was easier to navigate. I reached for the spoons.

  Mrs. Knapp clasped onto my wrist and held tight. I looked at her hand on me and noticed that the nails were broken and bloody around the cuticles, as if she’d tried defending herself against some sort of attack.

  “Mother, let Zellie go.” When she didn’t comply, Dory got in her face and spoke loudly. “Mother. That’s Zellie, the pastor’s daughter. Let her be.”

  I squatted down in front of the old woman and met her gaze. “Everything okay, Mrs. Knapp? You remember me? I visited you with my mom sometimes. You’re at the church picnic with your daughter Dory.”

  She dug her nails deeper into my wrist, her eyes going from blank to terror. She shimmied her right knee until the light blanket that had been covering it fell away. Dory hurried to cover it up, but not before I saw how swollen and discolored Mrs. Knapp’s leg was beneath the hem of her skirt.

  This wasn’t something I could rewind. This had been going on for awhile.

  Dory jerked her mother’s chair, causing me to fall back on my butt hard, and dragged it onto the blacktop, the spoons clattering to the ground. “Don’t you say a word, Zellie Wells,” she hissed at me, her voice low. “Everyone knows you’re a slut and a liar.”

  I froze in horror.

  Dory wheeled around and took off across the parking lot, jostling the blanket from her mother’s lap. It slid to the ground, getting wrapped up in the foot rests.

  “Damn it!” Dory cursed, hauling back and kicking at the chair. It lurched forward, the blanket coming loose.

  I looked behind me and saw Dad and Avery running toward me, but Dory was really hightailing it outta there. I came to my senses and rushed after her, despite my aching tailbone.

  “Stop!” Oh God. I could make her stop, I could hold her in place, but everyone would see me. “I said stop!”

  Dory reached her car, which was parked on the edge of the lot by the street, and took her keys from her pocket. She pushed her mother’s wheelchair as hard as she could into the street and jumped into her car.

  Forgetting about catching Dory and only trying to make it to Mrs. Knapp in time, I ran into the street. I grabbed the handlebars as Dory drove over the sidewalk and clunked into the road. An oncoming motorcyclist swerved to avoid her and clipped the edge of the wheelchair before crashing into a parked car. Mrs. Knapp’s chair spun around and was yanked out of my grasp. The chair tipped over, splaying her onto the pavement, cracking her skull. I fell to my knees beside her.

  I opened my eyes.

  “Which one is it?”

  “Which one what?” Avery asked.

  He’d propped me up against the outside of the carwash stall while he’d finished washing the car. At least he’d been nice enough to pull my bra up and lay my wet t-shirt over my chest before he’d started in on detailing the tires. My boyfriend was getting way too used to me “visioning out” on him.

  I shook the vision from my head. “Nothing. Parts were confusing, that’s all.”

  He finished rinsing the Jeep and then hung the hose on the wall. “Let’s get you home so you can confer with Mel.” Avery reached down and pulled me to my feet, brushing his lips over my forehead. “Sorry about your shirt, I wasn’t thinking. It’s still pretty wet.”

  Sure he was. I gave him a look. I’d gotten pretty good at the incredulous girlfriend look. I wrung the shirt out and put it back on. “I’ve got my stash of clothes at Claire’s. Why don’t we stop there on the way? Her parents probably aren’t home from work yet. They’ve been extra busy with the golf tournament.”

  Avery went to retrieve the sleeping bag while I climbed into the front seat of the car. I thought back to the vision. Who was trying to contact me? The incident didn’t feel like something Grandma Rachel would orchestrate. Surely she’d choose to inhabit someone a little more obvious? That left Ben and Christopher’s moms. Neither of which I’d ever met.

  If I thought about the vision in terms of what their sons would do, I’d say that it felt like a Christopher thing. It was a grand vision with three possible choices for inhabitees: Dory, Mrs. Knapp and the motorcyclist.

  Mrs. Knapp and the motorcyclist were more likely candidates, as they were both injured and closer to death. I didn’t know what had happened to Dory after the vision, but if she’d kept on driving, she was physically fine. Then again, with everyone at church seeing her push her mother into traffic and then flee the scene, I couldn’t be sure that some harm didn’t come to her. Ugh.

  It had to be Christopher’s mom. Someone was trying to save three birds with one vision.

  We drove over to Claire’s and I’d been right; there was no sign of her parents. Avery rang the doorbell. Normally I would have walked right in, but Claire’s parents had recently installed an alarm system and insisted that she have it on at all times when she was home alone.

  I heard her bound down the stairs. She stood on tiptoe and looked out at us through the leaded glass window at the top of the door. “One second!” she said, punching in the code on the keypad. There was a prolonged beep and then she opened the door and ushered us in.

  She took one look at my drenched clothing and grabbed my hand, pulling me up the stairs to her room.

  “Did you guys go to the lake or something?” she asked.

  Avery and I blushed.

  “Nope, carwash,” Avery answered.

  Claire rolled her eyes. “You guys.”

  We went into her bedroom. Claire opened the bottom drawer of her dresser where I kept my spare clothes and then she hopped up onto her king-sized canopy bed. Avery plopped down on the carpet and sat cross-legged.

  I took a green t-shirt and some navy blue sweatpants from the drawer and went into her walk-in closet to change.

  “I’m sorry about dinner,” I said, pulling the shirt on over my slightly damp bra. “I hope our parents weren’t too hard on you.”

  “It’s okay, nothing I couldn’t handle,” she called back. “Of course, now you have to fill me in on what you all were really doing.”

  I heard Avery chuckle and mutter “good luck” under his breath.

  “Oh, no,” Claire teased. “Is Avery going to die again?”

  I stepped into the sweatpants and came out of the closet, throwing my wet clothes next to the hamper in Claire’s en-suite bathroom. “You shouldn’t joke about stuff like that.”

  “Please, Zel, you know humor is my defense mechanism. I gotta do what I gotta do.” She patted the space on the bed next to her and I climbed up to join her.

  I had to tell her something, I owed her that much. Best to stick to my slightly altered Wes story.

  When I’d finished lying to her, she looked at me skeptically. “He didn’t give you any hint where Mildred was?”

  I shook my head no.

  “Well, that sucks. But this guy Raleigh, he’s going to be fine?”
>
  “That’s what Roger said,” I shrugged.

  “Hmm. Aunt Hazel’s been holding out on us! A secret beau in Bend. I wonder how long that’s been going on.”

  I was relieved that Claire had latched onto that particular aspect of my story. This was going to work.

  “It seemed like Roger and Aunt Hazel had known each other forever,” Avery said, grinning at me. “When you and Melody were in the bathroom, he was telling Raleigh all about his last night with Hazie before he got sent to be a medic in Vietnam.”

  Claire rubbed her hands together. “Interesting. You’ll have to take me to visit the next time you go.”

  I slid from the bed and offered Avery a hand up. “Sorry to dress and run, but I’ve got to get home so my dad can yell at me.” I turned to Claire and gave her hug. “I’ll call you in the morning to chat about the party tomorrow night?”

  “Um, yeah, that should be okay. I’ll be around until ten.”

  “You mean waking up at ten?” Avery asked, leaning in to hug her too.

  She slugged him on the arm. “Nope. I’m helping with the golf tournament. My parents have suddenly realized I exist and are trying to get me interested in the family business.” She snorted. “I believe I’ll be manning the t-shirt booth. Big fun. You guys have any plans beforehand? Jason’s truck crapped out again and he needs a ride.”

  “We’re going to the church picnic,” I said.

  It was Avery’s turn to give me the incredulous boyfriend look. “We are?”

  I nodded my head, but didn’t say anything. We hadn’t planned on going, but I’d just seen us both there, so now we were.

  “Yeah, we can take him,” Avery said.

  “Cool.” Claire wiggled her fingers at us. “Be gone. I’m going to get ready for bed if you losers aren’t going to hang out. Set the alarm for me, will ya?

  “554491?” Avery said, referring to the alarm code.

  “Yup.” Claire went into the bathroom and shut the door.

  We headed downstairs. Avery set the alarm while I stood on the front porch. He waited for the long beep and then shut the front door behind him.

  “So we’re really going to go to the picnic?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “I did miss it last year. I mean, you don’t have to go if you don’t want to. You could just pick me up after.”

  He opened my car door for me. “No, I’ll go. Your dad will appreciate having you there and the two of us could stand to have some wholesome-type fun for once.”

  Avery had a point there. I kissed his cheek and then got in the car. “What, transporting a half-dead body to a secret locale isn’t wholesome?”

  He shut my door.

  When I got home the house was dark and Dad and Melody had already gone to bed. I was grateful that I didn’t have to cap my stellar day off with an interrogation from Dad. Things between us were cordial at best and awkward most of the time. It seemed like he couldn’t stop himself from thinking and expecting the worst of me and that made me sad. I wasn’t his good little girl anymore, the one that he’d trusted and joked with. The child that was more like him.

  I’d accepted my powers and taken on all that meant for me, but I definitely regretted what the change in me had done to my relationship with him. Who knows, maybe it would have turned out like this whether I’d developed any abilities or not? I wasn’t ever going to get to know. I wasn’t ever going to be a normal 17-year-old girl. Neither was Melody, for that matter. There was no one to blame. It was what it was.

  I opened the door to the bedroom I shared with my sister, preparing to wake her up to tell her about the vision, when she flipped on the clip-on reading light at the head of her bed.

  “How was ice cream?” she asked in a louder than necessary voice.

  Oh. I get it. “Good! I had mint chocolate chip and Avery had a banana split. I’m so full.” I sat on the edge of my bed and we both listened for any sound coming from Dad’s room. All quiet on the home front.

  “I had a vision,” I whispered.

  Melody got out of her bed and came over to mine. “Lay it on me.”

  I told her about the vision in as much detail as I could remember, even the part about Dad pulling my dress up over my scar. Subconsciously, Melody slid her hand up the back of my shirt and ran her hand over it. She was just as proud of my scar as I was.

  “It sounds like Christopher’s mom,” she said after I’d finished the retelling. “It makes sense that she would try to help as many people as she could at one time after being cooped up in limbo and not getting her Retro on for over twenty years.”

  “I agree. So which one do you think she’s inhabited? And how am I going to rewind anything with half the church watching?”

  “My bet is on the motorcyclist, which is good for you.”

  “How so?

  “She’s used Dory and her mom to call attention to their problem and in the process given you a little bit of cover to rewind.” She stood up and tugged me to my feet. “Let’s get under the covers. I’m chilly.” We snuggled in and then she continued. “You have to stop the motorcycle. Everyone’s going to be looking at Dory driving away and Mrs. Knapp in the street, but no one’s expecting or going to be focusing on the motorcycle.” She yawned. “At least that’s what I would do. Aunt Hazel always says to choose a plan and stick with it. I think that’s our best bet. Rewind the motorcycle.”

  I brushed back some of her hair that had fallen in her eyes. “You’re getting really good at this whole Lookout thing, you know that?”

  She stuck her tongue out at me. “I’ll try not to let it go to my head.”

  “Good. That sounds like something the new you would say.” I honked her nose. “Now get out, we’re both way too Amazonian to be sharing a twin bed.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Christopher stopped the car at a vista point overlooking the Pacific Ocean so they could all talk to Aunt Hazel on speakerphone.

  Ben scooted forward in his seat. “So, there’re the three couples we’ve--”

  “Three in San Diego, three in Little Rock. Terrible mess...”

  Not that Frank and Hazel were letting Ben or Christopher get a word in edgewise.

  Lookouts.

  “...Obviously, if it is Mildred, she can’t be in two places at once. She has to have other Retroacts or spirits working with her, which is positively disgusting if you ask me. I think we should suspend all further recruitment for the time being. Perhaps that will stop the killing. Mildred’s visions and glimpses are weak, so if we don’t lead her to further potential Retros, hopefully she can’t do any more harm that way. Now, I phoned the two other girls we’d checked up on earlier in the day and both assured me that they were fine. Of course, neither of them have developed powers yet. They’re eleven and thirteen.”

  Ben opened his mouth to speak again.

  “Did they have any idea who their triggers might be?” Frank interrupted, asking the question Ben was going to ask.

  “No, and an unnecessary amount of giggling ensued when I inquired about that.”

  Christopher caught Ben’s eye and they both grinned at the comment. Then Ben’s expression fell. He needed to call Antoine.

  Ben stepped out of the car and dialed Antoine’s cell. It rang six times and just when he thought he was going to have to leave a voicemail, someone answered.

  “Hello,” a male voice whispered. It wasn’t Antoine.

  “Hi, this is Ben, is this Marcus?”

  “Yes,” the boy gave a sigh of relief and then started crying. “Antoine’s gone.”

  Shit. “Were you guys attacked?”

  Christopher got out of the car and gave Ben a questioning look, mouthing, “Antoine?”

  Ben nodded curtly and began to pace.

  “He...Antoine’s gone. He just...his body is here but...”

  “Where are you, Marcus? We’ll come and get you.”

  Christopher made the slitting his throat gesture and Ben glared at him hard. Christopher got back in the
car.

  “I’m,” he sniffed, “we’re, on the top level of the parking garage by the aquarium in Long Beach.”

  “Good, okay, I’ll get there as soon as I can. Are you near your car?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you get Ant inside the car with you? I’m bringing my Lookout. He’ll know what to do.”

  “I...I’ll try.” He broke down in sobs again. “Please hurry.”

  Ben opened the driver’s side door and yanked Christopher out by the arm. “I’ll be there in no time, buddy. Just hang on.” He ended the call.

  They reached the parking garage an hour later. Ben drove directly to the top, not bothering to follow the arrows painted on the floor meant to guide them in some logical circuitous route. There were half a dozen seemingly empty cars parked on the top floor. Ben went by them slowly.

  “There,” Christopher said from the backseat. “You just passed it. I saw the top of someone’s head in the back window.”

  Ben stopped the car in the middle of the lane and they all got out. He approached the other car and looked in the window. There, in the backseat, was a teenage boy with caramel colored skin and close-cropped auburn hair slouched against the door, Antoine cradled to his chest. There was blood everywhere. Ben knocked softly on the window and Marcus started, turning around, his green eyes clouded with shock and fear.

  “It’s Ben.”

  Frank popped the trunk on their car and put the files from the backseat in it. Then he took out some of Ben’s clothes, a packet of baby wipes and a bottle of motor oil. He would use the oil to camouflage the blood that had soaked into the concrete. “I’ll go take care of the surveillance cameras and then get to work on the scene.” He handed the clothes and baby wipes to Christopher and set the motor oil down next to Marcus’s car. “Get the kid to leave his car keys. I’ll meet you at the rendezvous point.” He took off jogging for the stairwell.

  Marcus gently folded Antoine’s body forward and unlocked his door. Ben opened it and took Marcus’s hand, helping him from the car. “It’s okay. We’ll keep you safe now.”