I swallowed hard. That was an idea. How badly did I want him to like me? What would I be willing to give up, set aside, change? Could I buy a few magazines at the grocery store check–out and take a survey and—
I smiled, shaking my head. I liked being me—the me I was now. In fact, the great thing about hanging with Will, or Mickie, for that matter, was that I could be completely me. For the first time in eight years, I knew who I was. No way was I giving that up.
I looked at my Nikes again. “I like you. I’m not swapping you out for Brooks. This conversation is officially closed.” I reached down to retie one of the shoelaces that had worked its way loose.
And as I tightened my laces, I had an odd thought. Why did my clothes and shoes come with me when I rippled? Why didn’t they remain behind? This called for an experiment.
I picked up our coffee pot, half–full. I rippled, and the coffee pot came with me. I rippled back and set the pot down. I walked to the pantry and picked up a bag of onions. Twenty–five pounds, the packaging said. The bag came with me. But then, when I tried placing my hand on just one onion on top of the pile, the bag didn’t come with me—only the single onion rippled. I could “sense” the onion in my hand. I let go of the onion, and after I rippled back solid, the onion was gone.
Weird.
Good thing I hadn’t tried that with the coffee pot. My parents without access to caffeine in the morning? Not pretty. I wondered how big of an item I could bring with me.
The largest thing in the room that I figured I could lift stood by the sliding glass door. I crossed to a potted fichus tree, squatted, and picked it up—barely—and rippled.
CRASH! I was gone, but the pot remained, having dropped to the floor. Crap. I rippled back looking at the dirt and cracked pottery. The tree remained upright, held in place by the pot, but now there were a few missing pieces. Leaves fluttered sadly down. Sylvia was going to kill me. I started giggling, imagining myself explaining this to my folks. And then I sobered up. Because I was going to have to explain it any minute.
The doorbell rang and I let Mickie and Will inside. Will carried a large, flat object wrapped in rice paper.
“Happy Birthday,” said Mickie.
“Come on in. My folks ran off for the cake, but they’ll be back any minute.” I closed the door behind them and we crossed into the family room.
Will pointed to the fichus tree and dirt. “Problem?”
I explained what I’d done.
“You can’t ripple with anything that weighs more than you do,” Will said. “Or anything that’s larger, dimension–wise.”
I walked to the pantry for the broom and dustpan. “I’ve got to get this swept up before Sylvia and Dad get back.”
“Your parents left you on your birthday?” asked Will.
I began brushing the soil into a pile. “They’re getting my cake. From Las ABC.”
“Is Gwyn coming, then?” Will asked brightly.
I shook my head.
Mickie cleared her throat. “Hey, Sam, about Gwyn—”
“It is what it is,” I said, grabbing another onion from the pantry. I didn’t want to discuss Gwyn with Mickie on my birthday. “Catch, Will,” I said, tossing the onion to him. “I want you to try something. See what happens if you ripple away and drop the onion and come back solid.”
“Is this going to make another mess?”
“Just try it.”
He shrugged, onion in hand, and rippled. Two seconds later he rematerialized, minus the onion.
Mickie’s eyebrows raised. “That could come in handy next time I need you to take out the trash.”
“I never tried letting go of something before,” Will said. “Can I try that again?”
“Children, let’s leave Sylvia’s supply of onions alone.” Mickie shooed us away from the pantry. “Sam, any chance of an update on Pfeffer’s black book?”
I nodded and ran upstairs, returning with the book. “I figured out some of it. But you’ve got to keep in mind I’m still guessing on a lot of the words. The sections are like scenes—that’s how I think of them, like scenes in a movie.” I flipped to the center of the book and removed my notes. “This one is about what happens when the food doesn’t match with the number of kids. This boy named ‘Pebre’ is asking where are his bread and milk. A big girl called Helga says there’s only eleven servings and Pebre asks again, where is his food? And a big boy called Hans tells Pebre not to do something—I’m not sure what—by the window when it’s time to eat. Then a smaller boy tries to share his food but Hans isn’t having any of it and threatens the small boy, Karl, if he tries to share. And Karl is crying.”
I looked up, grimacing.
“This book’s a laugh a minute, huh?” Mickie shook her head. “The whole thing makes no sense to me. Why write it down? You’d have to be a total sicko. Does the writer ever identify him or herself?”
I shook my head. “No. But there’s something interesting about one of the names: Pebre. All the other kids have names like Karl, Hans, Helga and so on. German names. This one kid has a name that doesn’t fit. And I tried to find a translation for “pebre” online and I kept getting recipes for spicy sauces with peppers, so I started thinking ‘oh, what if it means “pepper?”‘ See?”
Will and Mickie stared at me.
“Pepper in German is ‘Pfeffer.’ What if the kid’s name is a nickname meaning pepper? What if Dr. Pfeffer lived through this mess?”
“He’s not old enough, Sam.” Mickie said it gently.
“Uh, Mick, what if he was old enough?” Will asked. He looked at me and then back to his sister. “There’s this theory Sam has that I think you should hear about.”
Will explained my theory about extra–long lives, which he’d apparently been keeping to himself, ‘til now.
She approved the theory, but not my idea about Pfeffer. “None of this proves anything. But I’ll admit I didn’t know that his name meant ‘pepper.’”
“One time when I complained about how it sucked living with you, he said he’d been raised in an orphanage,” Will said to his sister.
I guffawed.
“It would explain his obsession with sauerkraut and German beer, if he grew up in Germany,” said Will.
“And we know Helmann was set to be tried for experiments he performed on children at the time he was researching Helmann’s Disease.” Mickie’s frown deepened. “I don’t know. It’s all circumstantial.”
We sat silently. I considered reading from the next section, but then I heard the doorbell ring. Why would Syl ring the bell?
My stomach squeezed and I hoped it was Gwyn, coming to wish me happy birthday. I walked to answer the door, leaving Mickie in contemplation of Pfeffer’s national origin. Sylvia stood outside balancing a ginormous chocolate cake. I could see Dad fiddling with the canopy on the pickup.
“I was afraid I’d drop it if I tried the door handle,” said Syl, smiling. She greeted Mickie and Will, apologized for running late, and turned back to me. “Bridget made it special for you, sweetie. She didn’t have time to frost it ‘til after the bakery closed. She says, ‘Happy Birthday.’”
But Gwyn doesn’t. I buried the thought for now and smiled as Sylvia placed a cake on the table and Dad came in from the garage. Once we were all seated at the table, Will passed me his gift. I gently removed the ribbon securing the paper around the large, flat object. It was a framed photograph that Will must have taken. “Illilouette Creek!” I whispered. “Will, you’re an artist.”
“Mickie got it framed. It’s from both of us,” said Will.
“Thank you both. I love it.”
Mickie murmured, “We wanted you to keep good memories of that day.”
I reached across the table and squeezed her hand.
Sylvia lit candles which I blew out with a wish involving Will kissing me again and Gwyn changing her mind about being friends with me. Then we plowed through seven layers of alternating dark, milk, and white chocolate smothered in dark choc
olate ganache.
For the record, chocolate’s a pretty decent antidote for unrequited love.
Fat and happy, we rolled ourselves away from the table and trundled down to a large flat area we kept cleared for fall burning. Safety–Dad held a hose at the ready and handed the fire extinguisher to me. This year’s brush pile was huge; Will, Mickie, and I sat nearly twenty feet from my parents, on the opposite side of the brush pile.
As we settled on rickety lawn chairs pastured here for this event each year, Dad lit the fire. The flames jumped from cornstalks to twigs and yard debris, carving an erratic path across from Dad and Sylvia’s side towards the side where I sat between Mickie and Will. Soon the flames were too tall for me to see across to my folks.
We scooted back from the intense heat, me with fire extinguisher in hand. “I don’t actually remember how to use this thing.”
“I know how,” said Will. “I put out kitchen fires twice at my old school. Neither time was my fault,” he added.
I smiled and heaved the red canister to him. I could imagine Will having a cool head in a panicked kitchen or any other threatening situation.
Will poked at the fire, sending sparks zinging outside the fire circle. The blaze crackled noisily; I was sure Sylvia and Dad wouldn’t hear anything we said at the moment. “So, any more ‘wedding invitations’ in the mail lately?” It had been over a month since the last letter arrived.
“Nothing,” said Mickie and Will together.
“Which makes me worry if he’s still alive.” Mickie’s face, lit by firelight, plainly showed her fear that he wasn’t. “He’s so old.”
“He said he’d been real busy,” I replied.
The bonfire popped, sending sparks whirling up into the black October sky like fiery snowflakes. Most of the brush had burned down, and a few gnarled manzanita branches blazed hot and strong in the center. The manzanita burned so bright that I found it hard to look in any other direction; everywhere else was so dark.
The branches resembled arms reaching to the heavens. Calming. The flame looked like fiery clothing adorning those limbs as it twisted and swayed. Hypnotic. In spite of the intensity with which the manzanita burned, the heat had died down a bit. My face no longer felt like it was getting sunburned and my back finally felt warm and cozy although it was cold outside. A branch in the center burned through and the whole pile collapsed inward a foot.
My vision shifted and I saw Will’s hand touching mine as he took a fire extinguisher from me. Then the manzanita fire came back into focus. I noticed Will pulling his hand back, as if he’d touched me. He leaned in and whispered, “You’re invisible, Sam.”
I looked down; he was right. This was new. Apparently fire–gazing was as relaxing for me as looking at water. I should have caught the clue of my temperature changing. I needed to pay more attention to my body.
I looked across to Sylvia and Dad. Their heads leaned together, gazing at the stars. They hadn’t seen me vanish. I rippled back, smiling at my skin–clad hands, at the control I had over the coming–back–part.
Mickie let out a sigh next to me. “That was stupid Sam, but they didn’t see. You need to be more careful.”
“I’m sorry; it was an accident.”
Will spoke. “I reached out to where you were sitting and I thought, ‘come back, come back, come back,’ but it seemed like you weren’t hearing me. So then I tried saying something out loud.”
“I heard you say, ‘You’re invisible, Sam,’ and I might have seen an image from your head—the fire extinguisher from earlier?” I left out the part about seeing our hands touching.
“I was remembering that,” Will confirmed.
“Maybe this thing we do isn’t so much mind–reading as, I don’t know, maybe ‘image–reading.’ I’ve never actually ‘heard’ your voice—just seen images. I’m sure I didn’t hear you say ‘come back.’”
He nodded thoughtfully.
Mickie whispered, “What the hell are you guys talking about?”
“You didn’t tell your sister?” I looked at Will, shocked.
Will shrugged and explained it to her. Mickie was silent for a moment. Then she leaned past me to Will and said, “If you ever—EVER—try to get in my head, you are DEAD.”
“Like I’d want to.”
“Yeah, well if I catch you air–conditioning my personal space, I’ll know.”
“Whatever.”
I shifted uncomfortably in my lawn chair. “So I guess it’s not only water that, er, blisses me.” I didn’t bring up that Will kissing me did the same thing.
Mickie’s phone vibrated. She opened it and read the text message. “Aw, crap,” she moaned. “I have to finish a project by ten tomorrow. I’m sorry Sam, we’re going to have to take off.”
“Man, your job sucks, Mick,” said Will.
“My job puts food on your plate.”
“It’s okay; I’m kind of sleepy anyway.” I felt like a playground monitor breaking up a pair of children.
Mick and Will thanked my folks, and the three of us walked back around the house to the sliding glass door. Will sprang ahead a few steps, like he wanted to open the door for us. Instead, he rippled through it, grinning from the far side.
“Show off,” Mickie muttered darkly.
Will did pull the door open for us however, and Mickie and I entered the house conventionally.
“You see what I have to put up with?” Mickie mussed Will’s hair.
“Hands off,” Will said. “I am not your baby bro anymore.”
“You’ll always be my baby brother.” Mickie smiled.
Will turned to me as we approached the front door. “You see what I have to put up with?”
Chapter Sixteen
THE FLASHLIGHT MAN
“Your uncle called,” Sylvia said the next morning as I poured milk over my cereal. “He says, ‘Happy Birthday,’ and he needs your dad’s help on one of the farms. I’m keeping your dad company on the drive, okay?” She looked worried that I might not take the news well.
“No problem.” I smiled to reassure her.
“We’ll be back in time for dinner, okay?”
“Sure. I’ll get in a good run.” It had been awhile since any of the berry farms in the valley had called my dad away on a Sunday, but I had enough farmer’s kid in me to know berries trumped weekends.
I waved as they drove off, and then I headed upstairs to put on my running gear. I thought about calling Will but decided what I really needed was some time to myself.
Out on the road, I took in cold gulps of October morning air. Without admitting it to myself, I knew where I was heading. I turned off the highway and onto Main Street, keeping my eyes fixed ahead as I ran past Las ABC, as if I didn’t want to know whether it was Gwyn or her mom turning the lights on, flipping the sign from Closed to Open.
I slowed for an abbreviated cool–down, and passed the residential portion of Main Street at the far edge of town before turning into the tiny oasis of trimmed hedges and green lawns. No one else was here on a quiet Sunday morning, but then I usually had the cemetery to myself.
Four rows down, fifteen plots over.
I hunched beside my mother’s grave and quietly spoke my thoughts to her. About losing Gwyn’s friendship, about kissing Will, about turning sixteen, about how much I still missed her. My skin cooled and the breeze made my face sting where the tears left trails. I wished I’d brought a jacket. And then realized I had a solution to the problem of feeling cold.
I lifted one side of my mouth in a half–smile.
“Check out what I can do, Mom.”
I relaxed into invisibility. And then I just sat, quiet and undetectable, beside the small grave marker of Kathryn Elisabeth DuClos Ruiz, Beloved Wife and Mother.
A man approached the cemetery. This was unusual. Visitors usually turned aside rather than disturb the weeping girl whose story they knew all too well.
Oh. He couldn’t see me.
As he approached my mother’s rest
ing place, I scowled, irritated by his presence. He peered through me at the words on the stone, muttering the date to himself and nodding. He looked around as if to see who else might reside in the ground beside my dead mother. There was no one; Dad had purchased the nearby plots. The man looked puzzled, even annoyed, as he took one last turn around my family’s domain. He grunted and turned to go.
I watched as he strode towards Main Street. Who was he, and what the hell did he mean by coming to stare at Mom’s grave? I rose, intending to run and catch up to him, but something funny happened when I tried running invisibly for the first time. I didn’t think about the lack of resistance, about how rippling caused me to “glide” instead of moving normally. I reached the opposite end of Main before I realized how fast I could move in my friction–free state. I’d covered eight blocks in a matter of seconds! I knew I’d never done that before in a car, so I must have been running well over the twenty–five mile–an–hour speed limit. Weird, but not something I had time to think about at the moment.
I whirled back to face my quarry and saw him turning into Las ABC. Using a controlled stride this time, I followed the man as he pushed on the carved door of the café.
Gwyn looked up from texting behind the bakery case—her mom must not have been around—and welcomed the stranger. He ordered coffee and a slice of pie. Gwyn rang up the order, asking what brought him to Las Abuelitas.
“That obvious, is it?” he asked, smiling.
She shrugged. “I don’t recognize you is all.”
“I’m doing some research for the upcoming Sesquicentennial of the Yosemite Grant.”
“Uh–huh,” she responded, passing the pie slice across the counter. “What’s the … whatever got to do with us?”
“The earliest European settlers here, the owners of the Las Abuelitas Rancho, were involved in the birth of the National Park. Exciting stuff for interpretive historians like myself.”
“Hmmm.” She poured his coffee.
“Would you mind if I asked you some questions about Las Abuelitas?”
“You can ask,” she said, with a short guffaw.
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