The Sixth Sense

by Peter Lerangis

  A few guests stood near him, just outside the entranceway, but they were all talking among themselves. They looked afraid of the man. No one seemed to be able to talk to him.

  Cole elbowed his way past them and walked up to him. He looked like the portrait of Mr. Collins, but Cole couldn't be totally sure. The guy in the painting had a warm, smiling face. This man's face looked like stone. "Mister?"

  The man didn't react.

  "Excuse me, mister," Cole tried again.

  Finally the man turned. His eyes were red and distant-looking, his face drawn and weary, as if he were slowly dying.

  "Are you Kyra's daddy?" Cole asked.

  At the mention of Kyra's name, the man's features seemed to fall inward. His eyes became glazed with tears and he nodded.

  Cole's hands trembled as he held out the jewelry box. "It's for you," he said. "She wanted to tell you something."

  Mr. Collins stared at Cole for the longest time, confusion and grief playing across his face. Cole thought the two of them might stay locked in this position forever, but Mr. Collins finally reached out and took the box.

  Gently he unhooked the latch and pulled open the lid.

  Inside was an unlabeled videotape.

  Mr. Collins took it out and turned it over cu­riously. Then he inserted it in his VCR, turned the TV on, and sat back down.

  An image of Kyra's puppet stage filled the screen. Two finger puppets danced happily, speaking to each other in squeaky voices. Mr. Collins smiled, some of the pain lifting from his face.

  Drawn by the sound, guests began crowding into the entry arch. Cole stood with Dr. Crowe.

  On the screen, the puppet show abruptly stopped. The puppets disappeared, the stage was pushed aside - and all of a sudden, there was Kyra.

  From the angle, Cole could tell the cam­corder was sitting on Kyra's desk, directly across from her bed. Quickly, in full view of the camera, Kyra turned away and leaped under her covers. She flopped on her side and shut her eyes, pretending to be asleep.

  The door opened. Mrs. Collins walked on­screen from the right side, dressed in a brown-and-orange-striped shirt and carrying a serving tray. On the tray was a glass of juice, a plate of fruit, and a bowl of soup. She didn't seem to know that the camera was running.

  She checked Kyra, saw that she seemed to be sleeping, and said nothing. Then she walked quietly to the closet.

  Cole couldn't tell what she was doing, but she returned holding a bottle. As she set it on the desk, the camera lens recorded the bottle's label.

  It was floor-cleaning fluid. A skull-and-cross-bones poison symbol was visible near the bot­tom.

  Mrs. Collins unscrewed the cap, turned it up­side down, and poured some fluid into it. "That's too much," she muttered under her breath.

  She dribbled a little back into the bottle, then dumped the rest in the soup.

  Cole closed his eyes. He felt ill.

  Around him the other guests stood open-mouthed.

  On the screen, Mrs. Collins returned the bot­tle to the closet, then picked up the tray. She si­dled around Kyra's bed and put the tray on a hospital-style rolling table.

  "Kyra, time for lunch!" she called out, swing­ing the tabletop over the bed.

  Kyra stretched and yawned, pretending to wake up. "I'm feeling much better now."

  "I'm glad, honey," Mrs. Collins said with a smile. "Time for your food!"

  "Can I go outside if I eat this?" Kyra asked.

  "We'll see. You know how you get sick in the afternoons."

  Kyra sat up and lifted the spoon. She took a sip, made a face, and looked at her mom.

  "Don't say it tastes funny," Mrs. Collins scolded. "You know I don't like to hear that."

  Kyra dipped the spoon back in the soup. With a tentative expression, she brought the spoon to her mouth and swallowed another gulp.

  Mr. Collins lifted the remote with a hand that shook violently, and the screen suddenly went black.

  He put his fingers to his forehead and stood up. His face had no more confusion now.

  Only shock.

  And betrayal.

  And rage.

  No one said a word as he staggered out of the room, but everyone followed. Every expres­sion was a mirror of Mr. Collins's. Dr. Crowe looked furious. He and Cole fell in with the guests, following behind Kyra's dad like a loyal army.

  Mr. Collins walked steadily into the dining room. There, his wife was rearranging one of the bouquets on the table.

  He stopped in the entranceway, his friends close behind.

  Mrs. Collins turned around and smiled tensely at her husband.

  He did not smile back. "You were keeping her sick," he said in a voice hoarse with fury.

  A tear rolled down his cheek and spilled onto the carpet.

  Mrs. Collins looked from face to angry face. Her smile slowly went away.

  The flowers dropped from her hands.

  Cole's mission was done. He and Dr. Crowe quietly slipped outside and shut the door behind them.

  Kyra's sister was completely alone now, still sitting motionlessly on the swing. Cole walked over and sat on the swing next to hers. He pulled the clown puppet from his pocket and held it out to her. "You liked it, she said."

  The little girl just stared at it for a moment, then silently took it.

  "Is Kyra coming back?" she asked.

  It broke Cole's heart to have to tell her the truth. But he had to. Kyra was dead. And he re­alized now that he would never see her again, either.

  "Not anymore," he answered.

  "Hold still, Cole," Mrs. Deems reprimanded. "If you're dressed as a poor boy, you have to look poor. It requires a great deal more stitches and safety pins to keep poverty in place!"

  Cole loved the way she talked. So old-fash­ioned, like Bette Davis in those movies Mama liked to watch.

  So much had happened in the weeks since Cole had been to Kyra's house. He wasn't afraid of the dead people anymore. He sent an anony­mous message to Private Kinney's mother and Private Jenkins's wife. They were both still alive. He let the teenage boy show him his father's gun. And he gave him permission to throw it away.

  The cabinet lady was the hardest. But she just needed to talk. No one had ever listened to her, she said. So Cole listened. She calmed down. She cried. And soon she went away.

  They all went away. And they hadn't come back.

  Dr. Crowe had been right. He was the best psychologist in the world. Cole felt so much happier these days. He was doing better in school. Kids weren't teasing him as much. In drama club, Mr. Cunningham said he had real acting talent. He and Mr. Cunningham were get­ting along now.

  This afternoon was the big play, and Mrs. Deems needed to finish his costume. She worked deliberately, and she liked to talk. Twenty years ago, she said, she was having trouble mending a costume the day the back­stage area caught fire. When the alarm went off, the boy who needed the costume was too em­barrassed to go out in his underwear. He lin­gered a bit too long. He didn't survive.

  And Mrs. Deems had never gotten over it.

  It was a sad story, Cole thought, and he had heard a lot of them. He stood still and listened while she mended the rip in his costume and strengthened the seams. "Now," she finally said, "move your arms around and stretch your legs. Let's see how I did."

  Cole obeyed. "Feels pretty strong now."

  "Lovely. Do you know your lines?"

  "Tell me, kind sir,'" Cole recited, "'of the rea­son for the boisterous clamor in yonder village green.'"

  "Excellent!"

  "How's my accent'"

  Before Mrs. Deems could answer, the prop room door opened and Mr. Cunningham leaned in. "They're calling for the stable boy!"

  Cole reached toward the table for his hat.

  "Who were you talking to?" Mr. Cunningham asked, gazing around the room.

  "Just practicing my lines," Cole said.

  Mrs. Deems smiled sadly at Mr. Cunning­ham. "Dear Stanley," she said. "He was my fa­vorite studen
t. I suppose all his acting experi­ence helped, didn't it? No more stutter."

  Cole had avoided looking at her while she was behind him. Now he saw her turn away. The left side of her face, which had been burned off when she died in the fire, was no more than a big, bloody glob. As Mrs. Deems disappeared into the shadows, Cole faced Mr. Cunningham.

  He hadn't seen a thing.

  "Thanks for giving me this part, Mr. Cun­ningham," Cole said.

  "You're welcome, Cole."

  Mr. Cunningham was looking at him with fondness and confidence. Ever since he'd made peace with the dead people, he no longer walked around afraid. The other kids had sensed this, and had eased up a little. Cole found it easier to talk to them - and they were finding it easier to talk back.

  No funny looks anymore. No "Eye." Mr. Cunningham didn't think Cole was a freak any­more.

  Neither did Cole.

  The two walked out of the dressing room and climbed the stairs to the stage. "You know," Mr. Cunningham said, "when I was in this school, there was a terrible fire in this section of the theater. They rebuilt the whole thing."

  Cole nodded. "I know."

  The rain slickened the streets and soaked Malcolm's overcoat as he ran to St. Anthony's. He was late. The time had slipped away while he wasn't paying attention. That had been hap­pening a lot lately. He hoped he could get to the auditorium before the curtain call at least.

  He bounded up the stairs and into the build­ing, then sneaked into the back of the darkened auditorium.

  Young King Arthur was still in full swing.

  Catching his breath, he glanced around for Lynn. Today she had her double shift, but she'd been hoping her boss at JCPenney would let her switch with someone else.

  Malcolm couldn't find her, so he stood alone in the back, right in the center aisle. Fortunately no one seemed to notice his panting. Every eye was on the play.

  The kids were posed stiffly on stage. Most of the boys were dressed as knights or gladiators, their chests made ridiculously bulbous by their plastic-armor breastplates, their heads dwarfed by helmets. Cole was standing in the back - upstage, Malcolm recalled from his summer stock days - and off to the right. Stage left, he thought. Or was it stage right? That was always confusing.

  A boy in shiny fake armor strode to center stage, where the hilt of a sword jutted out from a large cardboard stone. The boy gripped the handle and pretended to pull on it with all his might. Sure wasn't Oscar material, but at least the kid succeeded in not budging the sword. Feigning exhaustion, he wiped his brow and slunk sheepishly back among the other "contes­tants."

  Bobby O'Donnell, dressed in a magician's outfit, stepped forward. He was the chubbiest Merlin Malcolm had ever seen.

  "Only he who is pure of heart," Bobby in­toned, "can take the sword from the stone." The sword, of course, was Excalibur, awaiting the fu­ture King.

  Bobby gazed dramatically around the stage at the boys playing the young village men, who all tried to act humiliated and scared. Bobby's eyes finally rested on Cole, and he said, "Let the boy try!"

  The villagers all laughed and jeered, taunting Cole.

  A boy in a hideous, ludicrously oversized villager costume limped forward. Malcolm had to look twice. It was Tommy Tammisimo, com­mercial star, hero of the third- and fourth-grade production not so long ago.

  Tommy did not look happy with the casting.

  "But he's the stable boy," he said in a dispirited monotone. "He cleans after the horses."

  "Silence, village idiot!" Bobby bellowed.

  Tommy limped away.

  Malcolm was afraid that if he started laugh­ing he wouldn't be able to stop.

  Clearly Bobby enjoyed that line a lot.

  "Let the boy step forward!" Bobby contin­ued. With a grand gesture, he invited Cole to ap­proach the stone. "Arthur..."

  The stage fell silent. Cole took two steps toward the stone and suddenly hesitated.

  Malcolm held his breath. Either Cole was a great actor, or he was terrified. Malcolm had seen that look on Cole's face before. It was the expression the boy had worn at their first meet­ing in the Sear house, when they'd played the mind-reading game. It said, I'm nobody. I'm a freak. It had been a part of Vincent Gray's ex­pression in the bathroom, too, a shadowy rem­nant of the fear and confusion that had curdled over the years into rage.

  I was picked first for kickball teams at recess, I hit a grand slam to win the game, and everyone lifted me up on their shoulders and carried me around, cheering. That had been Cole's fantasy once upon a time, at that now-distant meeting. To him, back then, it was akin to his mother's dream of winning the lottery. An impossibility. A shot in the dark.

  His Excalibur.

  A psychologist found metaphors, relied on symbols. He had to, because the human mind did it all the time. Cole was only acting, it was only a play - but Malcolm knew. He knew Cole had emerged from his abyss awfully fast. Maybe too fast. He was bound to realize he could fall again - and if he did, he would fall hard.

  But the look on Cole's face passed as quickly as it had appeared. He stepped forward and folded his fingers around the handle. A spotlight beam narrowed on him until the sur­rounding actors faded into shades of gray. And he pulled.

  The sword began to slide but. The villagers let out a collective stage gasp. One by one they bowed low to Arthur the stable boy, their new king.

  Light flooded the stage, and Cole suddenly seemed enormous. With a smile that radiated tri­umph to the back row, he held Excalibur aloft.

  And then the kids were on their feet. They rushed toward Cole, whooping with joy. They swept him off his feet and held him high in the air, parading around the stage.

  The parents in the audience stood, applaud­ing and yelling bravo.

  Cole seemed astonished. He broke into a giggle, trying to keep his balance. Below him, the eight-year-old arms began to buckle under the weight. Cole sagged, and then the whole mass of children slowly collapsed.

  The kids were howling, all tangled in each other's arms and legs. Cole was shaking with laughter. Mr. Cunningham was propping himself up on the stage arch, his shoulders shaking.

  And Malcolm was laughing, too, as he brushed away an errant tear.

  Cole brandished Excalibur above his head. Behind him, the rain pounded against the school lobby's stained-glass windows, projecting onto the floor amoebalike shapes that reminded Mal­colm of a lava lamp.

  Most of the parents and kids had left, except for those on the cleanup committee. Lynn had not yet shown up. According to Cole, her boss, Mr. Rattigan, wouldn't let her switch her shift so close to the peak holiday shopping season. But she had promised to pick up Cole after the play.

  Thrust. Parry. Parry. Thrust-thrust.

  Cole had seemed to take his mom's absence well, Malcolm thought. He was a strong kid. Not a bad fencer, either, for a knobby-kneed third grader. Next year, The Pirates of Penzance, per­haps.

  For Cole, just about anything was possible now.

  The case of Cole Sear was just about closed. Soon the boy would be on his own. It wouldn't be easy for him, ever. The ghosts would keep visiting, and he would have to work hard to help them. He had a gift, and gifts always car­ried a burden.

  For Malcolm, the solution of Cole's problem was bittersweet, because it had come ten years too late to help Vincent Gray. But death, Mal­colm now knew, was not what it appeared to be. Maybe because of Cole, Vincent would also be saved in a way - spared the need to walk the earth, like Kyra Collins and Private Kinney and Mrs. Deems and the cabinet lady.

  Before he left Cole, Malcolm had one last item to settle. Something Cole had to do on his own, without Malcolm's help - the last loose end, possibly the hardest one of all. Cole had to come clean to his mom. She might freak out, but eventually she would understand. And her un­derstanding was crucial to Cole's continued progress.

  "How come we're so quiet?" Cole asked.

  "I think we said about everything we needed to say," Malcolm replied. "Maybe it's time
to say things to someone else? Someone close to you?"

  "Maybe." Cole kept lunging with the sword. "I'm not going to see you anymore, am I?"

  Malcolm knew what Cole's nervous energy was all about. Separation anxiety. He was feel­ing it himself.

  Moving on was painful, but necessary. For both of them. Malcolm had his own family prob­lem to solve.

  He shook his head. It felt as if he were mov­ing a thousand pounds. "You were great in the play, Cole."

  Cole dropped his arms and turned to face Malcolm. "Really?"

  "And you know what else?"

  "What?"

  "I thought Tommy Tammisimo sucked big time."

  Cole gave him a grin. Malcolm tried hard to return it.

  "You still look sad," Cole said.

  Malcolm nodded. "I still haven't spoken to my wife."

  "Why not?"

  "I don't know. Never find the time. When­ever I get home, she's asleep."

  "You can talk to her while she's sleeping. She won't know you're saying it, but she'll hear you." Cole began dragging his sword on the floor tiles, pacing nervously. "Maybe we can pretend we're going to see each other tomor­row? Just for pretend?"

  "Okay, Cole." Malcolm exhaled very slowly and stood up. "I'm going to go now. I'll see you tomorrow."

  He turned to leave, walking down the stairs toward the entrance, on the dancing globes of reflected raindrops.

  "See you tomorrow," Cole said, his voice tiny and fragile.

  Malcolm opened the door. He didn't dare turn back for fear of revealing his true emotions.

  The pouring rain made it moot.

  Lynn had been afraid Cole would be locked in the school by the time she arrived. But a group had remained to clean up, and after hav­ing kissed and congratulated her son, she and he had pitched in to help.

  She heard what a great success the play was and saw Polaroid photos that had made her cry. The Fazios had promised her a copy of their videotape, and their tough son Frankie had asked to play with Cole on the weekend.