Extraordinary Lies

by Jennifer Alsever

  I exhaled and nodded. “It’s just … spooky.”

  Charley swung open the door to the metal contraption. “Hell, this whole place is spooky.”

  Charley patted the cage. “So with this thing, you’re able to block out … I can’t remember … something or other.”

  “It’s metal-and-copper mesh, it shields y’all from electrostatic and electromagnetic waves,” Minnie added. Outside of the stupid possum lines, she sounded exactly like the daughter of a wannabe scientist. She meandered over to the contraption, dipped long ago in a yellow paint that now looked the color of moldy corn.

  Henry watched me like a snake. I wished he weren’t there.

  “Okay,” I mumbled. My fingers twisted my hair as I stepped gingerly into the metal box. The cage door closed with a bang, and I jumped.

  My heart tried to escape my chest, pounding loudly against my bones.

  “Just to make sure it’s the best experience,” Charley said, “I’m gonna pretend I’m Dr. Carrillo.”

  I giggled as she limped around the room and then pushed up invisible glasses on her nose. “Now,” she snapped in a nasal voice. “Get in the cage!”

  I covered my mouth to stifle what could have become a thick cackle—the kind Mother hated. “Charley!” I said, holding up a hand. “That’s mean. She grows on people.”

  “Cancer does, too,” Cord said, and we all doubled over in laughter.

  After a few more quips, Minnie reminded us that we were breaking and entering and it was time to get down to business. Charley gave me the coordinates for the town in North Dakota, which, according to the map, looked like it was in the middle of nowhere. “Close your eyes and kind of go into a trance,” Charley said.

  Cord frowned. “No, don’t go into a trance,” he said. “Don’t shut your eyes either, right, Minnie?” He looked at her.

  “Obviously, I don’t know nothin’. I couldn’t get it done,” she said.

  They gave me a few more tips, including “don’t get distracted.” Well, that was impossible with these four people in the room.

  Charley put her face close to the cage. “No matter what things have been like for you in the past, Julia, it’s okay to be psychic. Here. In this room. With us.”

  The words felt like freedom. I’d spent my whole life hiding, trying not to be psychic, and suddenly it was okay. I was normal. That shifted everything for me, all my fears sliding off the table.

  I clenched the cool seat tight. I couldn’t relax, knowing I was inside some metal cage. We’d broken into a laboratory in the middle of the night and we were reading classified CIA documents. And all these people watched me.

  My fingers relaxed. The locks around my heart unlatched. I had to trust myself. Trust this process. Do this. Sabrina. Aunt Sabrina. That’s why. Her face popped into my mind. The way her black eye had looked shimmery in the harsh light of the store in Chinatown. I was going to find out what happened to her.

  I waited, my chest rising and falling. But I saw nothing but the colors swimming behind my eyelids.

  “I can’t do this.”

  “You can.” Charley’s voice was firm. Minnie whispered something to her, but I couldn’t make out her words.

  Still, nothing happened. I wasn’t going anywhere but that room. In fact, someone started to snore. I opened one eye and saw Henry, sitting with his back to the cage, asleep, his head resting against the grate. Minnie sat in a metal chair and glared at him. Charley slumped on the concrete floor next to Cord and let out a long yawn, before resting her head on his shoulder.

  Frustrated, I worried that maybe I had actually willed my psychic abilities away, after all this time of denying that I was special. Now I wanted to be psychic. I wanted to stay with these kids and untangle the mystery of my family.

  In the dark cage, I felt like a leaf blowing in the wind. Lost. Then I stared ahead at the yellow wires and just breathed for a long while. After a while, Minnie asked me questions about the color and the shape of what I saw. I gave answers automatically, without even thinking about whether they were my imagination or if they were real. Tall green grass with jagged, sand-colored buttes. How would I know that?

  Eventually, I slipped into someplace unfamiliar. Maybe a dream? A loud sucking sound rung in my ears and pressure built around my chest, and for a moment, I felt as if I were inside a vacuum cleaner, the pressure twisting my organs. I felt like I had to pee.

  The darkness gave way to light, and I floated in absolute whiteness, clarity, heightened from the desire to make something happen. Suddenly I was outdoors. Cool air, low-set clouds. I hovered in the sky along a dirt road. I was definitely not in my body. I wondered if maybe back in the cage, my body was an empty, limp sack.

  An energetic rush swept through me—it was working! And after a couple seconds, I jolted. In the early morning light, about a hundred yards away, a long dirt road unfolded across a grassy plain. There were nothing but cement-colored buttes jutting from the landscape.

  In the distance sat a cluster of buildings that looked like a small downtown. I floated like a leaf to the ground, and somehow, someway, I stood amid a barren street and a couple brick and clapboard stores. The air felt chilly for summer.

  I felt as if I were ebbing in and out of a white haze, as if something was pulling me back to the present, back to the cage and back to everyone at SRI.

  Around the corner, two men walked down the barren street toward me. One wore a long black trench coat, and the other wore a suit and tie. I didn’t move. They saw me. I just knew they did.

  But they did not see me. In fact, they didn’t even flinch, and passed by without any indication that I was there. I laughed, but then covered my mouth, worried that they might hear me.

  This was the moment that I realized that my body was not really me. I was so much more than just my physical body. I was a spirit too.

  I watched the men climb into a black car, oblivious to my presence. When I turned around, right there in front of me stood a young woman. Aunt Sabrina.

  “Oh my gosh,” I gushed. “You’re here?”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. A breeze fluttered her hair. How could a breeze affect a ghost like that? She glanced around the streets, which were relatively empty outside of a boy riding a bicycle and throwing newspapers at door fronts.

  “I must be careful,” she said in a low whisper.

  I looked at the paperboy and then back to Sabrina, and something seemed off. The boy caught Sabrina’s eye and he grinned and waved. That was the thing. He waved. How could that paperboy have seen her, if Sabrina were a ghost? Perhaps the boy is a ghost as well? My mind struggled to process everything.

  “Wha—”

  “People are watching.” Her finger feathered the bruise below her eye before she cast her gaze toward a doorway. There, barely visible in an eerie shadow, stood a man leaning against the concrete wall. The same man who had followed me in Chinatown. Fear seized my mind, though somehow I didn’t feel it physically. I was a ball of air. A ball of air swarming across the country. Thoughts, movement, words, emotions.

  “Come.” Her voice was so low I could barely hear her.

  I watched her, hesitating, confused. If she were a ghost, she would be able to just talk. She wouldn’t have someone following her. Unless the man was a ghost too. Unless everyone there in that town was dead. My mind continued to twirl in confusion.

  Aunt Sabrina’s dark hair bounced ahead, sweeping past unfamiliar buildings. She led me to a large white house. The peeling paint hung in strips off the clapboard walls, and small clouded windows obscured views inside. I’d been to many places overseas with my family—well, really, I’d seen many places with Florence and Victoria—but we’d always visited fifteenth-century castles and posh hotels and Japanese gardens that smelled like cherry blossoms. Nothing like this. The loneliness and isolation of this tattered house felt as if one day the wind had picked up and swept away all signs of life.

  Sabrina led me through the empty house, acros
s floors that creaked under her weight but made no sound when I passed. Bizarre. It was as if I were dead.

  She sat in the middle of the floor in what must have at one time been a living room. The peach-colored wallpaper clung hopelessly to the walls. Gray light flooded in through gaping holes in the roof. Goosebumps formed on her arm, but I felt nothing.

  “Who’s following you?” I ventured.

  “My handlers.” Handlers?

  “Are you dead?”

  She shook her head. “No, silly. I’m alive, but I need to get back soon. They’ll be expecting me.”

  Nothing made sense. “Then how were you in San Francisco?”

  “Remote viewing. Just as you.”

  Disbelief rushed through me. “Why did no one else see you?”

  “Because you’re different. Just like me.”

  “Why did you leave us? What’s going on? Why didn’t you just remote visit me at home?” I swallowed emotion. Anger, confusion, euphoria. It all felt like a dream. “I mean … why haven’t you called?” My voice burst from my throat. It was all the questions I’d had for so many years.

  “They won’t let me. They’ve kept me here. And I need your help. But whatever you do, please, please don’t call the police. I’ll be killed.”

  25

  Charley

  Cord was the first to hear them. Footsteps.

  “I hear something,” he whispered. I turned to look at Julia, still zonked out in the cage, as if she were tripping on something.

  I sat up straight, while Minnie slowly woke, still groggy.

  “What the—” Henry moved with a jerk.

  “Someone’s coming!” Cord said.

  I sprung to my feet and bounded over to the cage. “Julia! Julia! They’re coming!”

  Julia had this faraway look on her face. I rattled the metal cage. “We’ve gotta go!”

  She sat a second longer, her expression strained. “I’ve finally found her! Please. Just a few more minutes.”

  “We’ve gotta go. Now,” I said, swinging open the door to the cage and pulling on her arm.

  I rushed to the lab door, silently opened it, and peeked down the dark hallway. No one was there. Behind me, Julia, looking disoriented, blinked and touched her temple with one hand.

  The footsteps again. Somewhere on the floor above us. Why is someone walking around up there in the middle of the night? “Some alarm probably went off,” Cord said.

  Henry squeezed past me, looking both ways as if he was going to cross a street. Then he disappeared into the oily dark. “What a jerk,” Cord said.

  Guiding my back with his hand, Cord led us out into the hall. “Stay down and shut up.”

  The footsteps pounded on the ceiling. It was not just one person; it was several. My chest felt as if a belt cinched tight across it. Another deep noise thundered above, as if maybe someone dragged a chair or desk.

  This could be big if we got caught. CIA secrets. Breaking and entering. Cord leaned over my shoulder. “Head right at the end of the hall and we’ll just take the back stairs,” he said.

  “If they’re upstairs, we shouldn’t go there.” Julia’s voice was so soft, I wasn’t sure I understood her at first. We had to get out of that building, and up was the only way out.

  “Let’s just go,” I said.

  We ducked down and tiptoed along the long dark corridor. My heart slammed around in my chest, and I tried to keep my breath steady.

  The steel door creaked and I winced. We tiptoed up the stairs and everything echoed louder—as if we were moving and breathing inside a tin pot. “Oh my Lordie,” Minnie whispered.

  Julia pressed the door to the exit. As soon as it opened, a high-pitched alarm rang out—throbbing in my ears.

  “Oh Lord!” Minnie shouted again, covering her ears. The four of us shot across the dark campus, running as fast as we could.

  Adrenaline flooded my body, my arms pumping, my legs flying, but I slowed when I realized Cord and I were leaving the other two girls behind. “This way!” I said.

  We tore up the hillside and around the bend to a brick building. We crouched down, breathless, hiding around the corner.

  Heart pounding. Lungs burning. Panic shooting through tingling fingers. We looked at each other wide-eyed.

  “Do you think they’ll know it was us?” Julia asked.

  I bit my lip. “I don’t know.”

  The SRI building came alive. Lights glowed through windows, a thousand eyes watching us. Flashlights swept the area outside.

  Cord whispered. “We better not go back to the dorm yet.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  We ran, hunched over, across the wide-open grass in the dark. Like spies. Terrified, giggling, incredibly non-threatening spies.

  A helicopter buzzed overhead, and shouts of men emanated across the campus. I stopped breathing and felt as if they’d hear my heart thundering in my chest. Flashlight beams crisscrossed the grass and ran across the trees.

  We ran faster, around corners, between buildings, down concrete stairs. Until finally, we stopped at a large tree. I collapsed on my back beneath it, its roots protruding above ground. Cord, Minnie, and Julia stopped above me, panting.

  “I ain’t run like that since I set Christopher Belkin’s cowboy boots on fire,” Cord said.

  “What?” I asked, incredulous.

  He tossed his head, looking at me sideways before grinning back. I knew that look—the one where one side of his mouth drew higher than the other, his dimples dug deep into his cheeks. It was the look that told me that he was keen on me—and that always spelled trouble. I wondered when he’d find out that his girlfriend had cheated, and if he’d ever find out.

  I stretched out on the lawn. “I’m staying here til the sun comes up. They catch us sneaking back in, then they’ll know it was us.”

  “Okay,” he said, slinking down next to me. His thigh touched mine again. Julia collapsed on the other side of him, and Minnie next to her. The four of us lay on our backs, gazing at the stars above. Our chests rising and falling.

  “So…” I said, flipping my head to the side to look at Julia’s broad face, barely visible in the dim light. “What the hell happened in the cage?”

  “It was the most bizarre thing,” Julia said.

  I propped myself up on my elbow to look at her. I couldn’t see Minnie well, but I had to assume she felt pretty jealous that Julia could pull this off with no training.

  “It’s like being a ghost,” Julia said, sitting up and pulling her knees to her chest. “You won’t believe it, but I saw her.”

  “Your aunt’s ghost?” Minnie asked. “How?”

  “No, it wasn’t her ghost.”

  We waited for her to explain.

  Julia squeezed her head with both hands. “All those times I saw her in San Francisco? She was doing remote viewing. Just like me. I saw her real-life body there in North Dakota.”

  “Whoa.” I stared up at the stars.

  Julia told us where she had gone with Sabrina and how someone was keeping her and beating her up. “When you told me we had to leave, I told her to meet me there tomorrow. Same time. Same place.” She paused. “We need to go back and break in again. So I can go back tomorrow.”

  Cord scrunched up his nose, studying his feet—which, could I just say, were enormous, like two miniature skis standing upright on the grass. “I’m not gonna sneak in again.”

  Minnie groaned. “I reckon I got one more chance to try again in the lab. A real chance,” she said. “So I ain’t about to go breakin’ in again.”

  “Will you, Charley?” Julia asked, leaning to look at me.

  I stammered an answer. “I…” I looked at my feet. “I think we should wait.”

  Julia bit her lips and shut her eyes.

  I continued, “I mean, they practically have dogs tracking us.”

  That was fun and all, but I didn’t really want to do it again the next night. And honestly, I was worried a little about Julia. Had she really don
e remote viewing? Or was she just a little bit wacky?

  All I knew was SRI was getting weirder all the time.

  Julia tapped her forehead onto her bent knees before looking up at the sky, her face a mix of emotion. “I have to go back. I just have to.”

  26

  Julia

  “Victoria! I found her! She’s in Mandaree, North Dakota. She’s being held somewhere there. She’s alive.”

  “What?” Victoria screamed into the phone. “Oh my God! This is amazing!” It sounded as though she cupped her hand over the mouthpiece and squealed for Aunt Wendy. “Mother! You won’t believe this!”

  “Don’t tell her!”

  “What? Why not?”

  “She said they’ll kill her if we call the police.”

  “Of course we call the police, Jules. We have to tell our parents.” Aunt Wendy squawked in the background and Victoria shooed her away. “Never mind,” she mumbled to her.

  “How do you know our own family didn’t hand over Aunt Sabrina to these people?” I slid my body down the wall and gazed at the black-and-white checkered floor.

  “What are you talking about? Gramps is an asshole, but he’s not that despicable.”

  “We always wondered—”

  “Stop, Julia.” It felt like a kick in the gut. She paused. “How do you know she’s alive, exactly?”

  “I did remote viewing. I saw her.”

  “You told me just a week ago, you saw her ghost. You talked to her ghost. What’d you mean?”

  “It wasn’t her ghost, though. She was remote viewing here.”

  “What the hell is remote viewing?”

  “It’s like an out-of-body experience. You sit in this metal cage to do it.”

  “Hmm…”

  I could tell she didn’t believe me, and it stung more than I wanted to admit. Even when everyone had turned their backs on me, Victoria’s faith had never wavered—she always stood by me. “I’m going to see her again,” I pressed. “Somehow. Tomorrow. But I wanted to tell you that I found her.”