by Clara Kensie
“So much fog,” she muttered as she looked into my mind. “But there’s something else...something dark. A starless night. A cavern of coal.” She shuddered, then opened her eyes. “Any idea what that means?”
“That’s just my nightmare,” I said.
Tristan took my hand back. “She gets them every night.” His hair was messy and his button-down shirt was wrinkled from sleeping in it overnight, sitting up in a chair next to my cot.
“I can certainly understand why you have nightmares,” Dr. Sheldon said, “but that darkness is terrifying. It felt...hateful.”
Terrifying. Hateful. Shameful. It all burned through my blood. “It’s just a nightmare,” I muttered.
With a sigh, Dr. Sheldon made a note on her chart. “Well, you’re back in control of that fog of yours, and nightmares are no reason to keep you here.”
“So she can go home?” Tristan asked.
“Yes, she can.” Dr. Sheldon slipped her pen into her white doctor’s coat. Before she left, she put a warm hand on my shoulder. “Be careful with the fog, sweetheart. We don’t want that to happen again.”
“I will.” Relieved I could get out of here, I slipped from the cot. Tristan held out a hand for me to hold in case I was shaky, but I wasn’t. I changed from the blue cotton hospital gown and into the clothes Tristan brought for me—my usual jeans and one of his hoodies.
“I don’t understand why I didn’t get a premonition about you fainting,” Tristan said as we left the facility. A thin layer of snow had fallen while I was unconscious, and it crunched under our feet as we walked to Tristan’s car. Though I didn’t need him to, he held my elbow so I wouldn’t stumble. “I could have called you. I could have warned you and stopped it from happening.”
“It’s not your fault, Tristan,” I said. “I raised the fog. I lost control of the visions. I pulled the fog in too low.”
He stopped short. “Why would you do that?”
I confessed my plan, that I’d been trying to contact Jillian psionically in the hopes that she was trying to develop remote vision again. “I thought maybe the fog was blocking her ability to see though me. So I raised it. Then I lost control.” I sighed. “But I know now that was a stupid idea. Jillian could only piggyback on our dad’s mobile eye. She was never able to move beyond that. Besides, I can’t spend twenty-four hours a day staring at a sign that says Lilybrook, Wisconsin.”
Tristan was still staring at me, incredulous. “How could you put yourself in danger that way?”
“I wasn’t in any danger,” I said. “Your mom’s dream will happen if I leave town to look for my brother and sister. There was nothing in that dream that said I can’t look for them from within Lilybrook.”
“That’s not—” With an exasperated sigh, he scrubbed his hand in his hair. “You raised the fog that high, then pulled it in that low, on purpose. You played with the fog and I wasn’t even with you. That’s exactly why my mom’s dream will happen if you leave Lilybrook.”
The shame burning through my blood was replaced by hot anger, and I yanked my arm from his hand. “I was trying to connect with my sister, who is missing, and scared, and heartbroken. You can’t be mad at me for that. And you didn’t have a premonition about me fainting, so you couldn’t have stopped it from happening anyway.”
He exhaled, his whole body deflating. “You’re right. I promised you that I would keep you safe. I failed you in Twelve Lakes, I’m failing you by not finding Jillian and Logan, and I failed you again yesterday.”
It was usually me who shivered, but this time it was Tristan.
I took his hand and gave it a kiss. “You’re not failing me. I don’t blame you for any of that.”
“Well, you should. I blame myself.”
We reached his car, and he opened the door for me and helped me inside.
We drove back to his house in silence.
Chapter Nineteen
Dennis and Deirdre wanted to keep me home from school the next day, but I convinced them to let me go after I’d promised not to play with the fog anymore. I had to triple-promise Tristan. “Please be careful with the fog,” he said. “Please. What if I don’t get a premonition again? Even if I do, I’ll be too far away to stop it from happening.” He raked his hands through his hair. So worried. So anxious.
I took both his hands in mine. “Tristan. I know you want to keep me safe, but you also need to trust me. I will be careful.” I stood on my tiptoes and kissed his lips. “Please don’t worry about me.”
Not at all comforted by my promise or by my kiss, he cupped my face in his hands and brushed his lips on my forehead, then reluctantly left for school.
Twenty minutes later, bundled up in coats and mittens, Ember and I shuffled through a layer of snow on our way to Lilybrook High. Determined to prove to Tristan that he didn’t need to protect me as much as he thought he did, I concentrated on keeping the fog balanced. But as always, Jillian and Logan were in the forefront of my mind.
A blackbird descended from the trees, and while Ember stopped to feed it, I gave Aaron Jacobs a call. “Any progress?” I asked, keeping my tone chipper and optimistic. One negative word from me would discourage him.
“Their l-last known location was in Braddock, Tennessee,” he mumbled, tripping over his words. “S-so I started there, and I’m moving outward.”
“That’s a good plan, Aaron,” I said. “Tristan said you were super-smart, and wow, you are.”
“But I haven’t found anything.”
“You just have to keep looking,” I said. “Don’t let Kellan intimidate you. You can do it.”
He was quiet for a moment, then said, “D-does your sister...I mean, do you think she’d like...”
“She likes guys like you, Aaron,” I said. Jillian had had lots of boyfriends—silly, pretty, empty-headed boyfriends. But the only boy she’d ever loved was Gavin, and she loved him because he was sensitive, sweet and super-smart. Just like Aaron.
He said nothing for another long moment. Then: “I’ll find them.”
“I know you will. Bye, Aaron.”
Ember finished feeding the bird, and we continued to school. She’d been quiet around me lately, and I thought I knew why. I’d been so preoccupied with finding my siblings that I’d neglected our friendship. And Ember was the only friend I had.
“How’s your song coming along?” I asked. “I’d love to hear it.”
“My song?”
“You said your band had to write an original song for Battle of the Bands.”
“Oh.” She looked off into the trees. “I don’t know if we’re doing Battle of the Bands anymore. The keyboardist and the drummer quit. I can’t find anyone to replace them.”
“Did they quit because of me?” I asked as my blood started to burn. “Because I live in your house?”
“No,” she said, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes.
* * *
The warning bell rang as Ember and I climbed the front steps to the school. She rushed inside, but I stalled before entering the building. I filled my lungs with the cold February air and balanced the fog. The last time I was here, I’d lost control of the visions, then the fog, and passed out. I had to be extra careful to keep the fog balanced from now on. I had to show Tristan that he didn’t need to protect me so much. I took another deep breath, nudging the fog a little higher, then a little lower.
“Are you okay?” a sweet voice said beside me: Melanie, her black hair tumbling from under her black beret.
“Yeah,” I said, a bit surprised that she’d asked. “Thanks.”
“I heard you fainted in the hall the other day,” she said with genuine concern in her voice. “I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t happening again.”
“I’m fine,” I said, now really surprised. “Thanks, Melanie.”
&n
bsp; Melanie Brunswick truly was kind. And sweet. I could understand why Tristan had loved her.
She would make a good friend.
I gave her a smile, a real smile.
She started to smile back, but then she cleared her throat and looked down at her Doc Martens. “I feel bad for everything you’re going through, Tessa. I really do,” she said. “But... my dad...and Tristan...” Her gaze flitted to my hand—to my promise ring. “I’ve lost so much. I’m sorry, but I can never be friends with you.”
She rushed into the building without looking back.
* * *
In art class that morning, Mr. Vargas returned everyone’s fruit bowl paintings we’d made last week. Except for mine. All I got was a slip of paper that read, See me after school.
I shoved the note into my pocket. What had I done wrong? I’d liked my painting, how I’d divided the canvas into six squares and painted just a part of each fruit. But maybe he’d wanted us to paint the fruit as he’d presented it. Realistic, not abstract.
After last period I went to the art studio. Mr. Vargas was bent over the counter, cleaning paintbrushes in the sink and wearing a ratty cardigan splattered, as all of his clothes were, with dried paint. “No one realizes how expensive these brushes are,” he mumbled to me. “You have to take care of your brushes.”
That was why he called me in after school? I’d been concentrating so hard on keeping the fog balanced that it was entirely possible that I’d neglected to clean my brushes. “I’m sorry, Mr. Vargas,” I said. “I forgot. I won’t do it again.”
“Oh, it wasn’t you, Tessa.” He wiped his hands on his sweater to dry them, then went to his desk. He picked up my abstract fruit painting and tucked it under his arm. “Come with me,” he said, and sauntered from the room.
I followed him to the cafeteria. He stopped at the back wall and held his arms out wide, facing it, my canvas still in one hand. I had to step out of the way so he wouldn’t hit me with it.
“Tell me what you see,” he said.
Was I supposed to see something? If I didn’t have the fog balanced, I’d see dozens of visions, but Mr. Vargas wasn’t asking about visions. He was neutral. “Um, a wall?” I said.
“I know you can do better than that. Try again. What do you see?”
“Um...” Oh! “A giant canvas?”
“Yes!” he said. “Excellent. Now what do you see on this giant canvas?”
I stared up at the wall for a minute. We were in the cafeteria, so that meant food. He couldn’t mean... “My painting? My bowl of fruit?”
“Yes. Your bowl of fruit.” He held my painting in both hands, arms straight out. “I want you to recreate this same piece, on a much larger scale, on this wall.”
“But everyone will see it,” I said.
“Everyone should see it. It’s brilliant.”
He couldn’t be serious. “It’s just fruit.”
With one eye closed, he tilted his head, then tilted the canvas the opposite way. “I’ve been teaching for twenty-seven years, and every year, I present that same bowl of fruit and tell my students to paint it. Do you know what I get? I get paintings of the same bowl of fruit, from every student, every year. Some are truly awful, most are decent, and a few are excellent. Yours is one of the excellent. You took it in a new direction.”
“I thought you were going to fail me for not following instructions,” I said. This was incredible. I had to raise the fog a little to make sure I was hearing him correctly.
“I didn’t give any instructions to follow,” Mr. Vargas said. “You’ve only been here a few weeks, and you’re unpracticed. Undeveloped. However, you have a raw talent, Tessa. You are a very gifted artist.”
Gifted.
Jillian was a gifted dancer. Logan was a gifted musician. All the talent in the family had gone to them, I’d always assumed.
I’d painted before, sure. As a hobby. I was decent. Maybe good. Never excellent. Never gifted. But I was psionic now, when I’d never been psionic before. Maybe my retrocognition wasn’t the only thing the fog had suppressed all those years.
I could envision my painting, super-sized, on the wall. The bright yellow-green pear, stretching from the floor halfway up the wall. The shiny crimson apple. The plump purple blueberry. Greedily, I eyed the white cinder blocks. The strawberry would go right there, in the upper corner. The wall’s bumpy texture would be perfect for the orange.
I was stuck in Lilybrook because of Deirdre’s dream. But when Tristan brought my brother and sister to me, I would bring them to this school and lead them to the cafeteria. Then I would stand them in front of the mural, spread my arms, and announce I painted this. They would be so proud.
Breathless, I appraised the blank white wall, a wall that wouldn’t be blank or white much longer. “When can I start?”
Chapter Twenty
I started on my mural the very next day.
With a pencil in my left hand, I lightly sketched the arc for the meaty part of the pear. To steady myself, I pressed against the wall with my right hand and a few visions appeared through the fog. A girl wearing her hair in two braids with a headband made from daisies. A boy with hair short in the front and long in the back.
I stepped away from the wall and adjusted the fog, bringing it closer until the visions disappeared. It left me a bit dazed, but still aware. The perfect state for painting. I put my pencil to the wall and completed the arc of the pear, then sketched until it was time to go home.
Although Tristan continued to contact psychics and search for matches of Brinda’s drawings, and Aaron worked nonstop on his webcam search, there had been no new leads in their investigations over the next week. So every day after school, I would meet Mr. Vargas in the art room and gather my supplies. He’d help me carry everything down to the cafeteria, bring me a ladder if I was painting up high, then leave me to my work. I’d have to spend a few minutes getting the fog adjusted to just the right level, then I’d dip the brush into the paint, and get started.
The students in the clubs that met in the cafeteria left me alone, but I could feel them watching. On occasion I felt Nathan Gallagher’s eyes on me as well, watching my every move, as if he peeked into the cafeteria to see what I was doing. A few times I’d turn around, but he would disappear before I saw him. Once I felt John Kellan watching me, but that was impossible. I was keeping the fog thick and close to keep the visions away; I must have been lost in memories of the night he had forcibly taken me from Twelve Lakes.
The Nightmare Eyes were always there. They always watched.
When it was time to go home, Mr. Vargas would come to help me clean up, but I would never notice him. He would have to clear his throat or tap me on the shoulder to bring me out of my daze. My muscles would be sore from crouching and bending and reaching and climbing the ladder. My left hand would be stiff from holding the brushes. And though I never remembered crying, my cheeks would always be damp with tears.
Chapter Twenty-One
One sunny morning a couple weeks later, as I was hanging up my coat in my locker at school, Tristan texted me. Just got an email from another psychic. She had a vision of J & L with an animal that looked like a horse. It had one eye.
I had a drawing of that one-eyed horse in my book bag this very moment. Heart leaping to my throat, I texted back: Brinda drew that!
Yep. Told you my method would work. Now we just have to find that horse.
Finding a one-eyed horse would be difficult, and of course, that vision could be symbolic, like Deirdre’s dream. But this was the first development we’d had since Tennessee. We were getting closer. We’d find Jillian and Logan any day now. I was sure of it.
The second I sat down in chemistry, the intercom buzzed. “Sorry for the interruption,” the secretary said in a bored voice. “Please send Tessa Carson to
the office.”
I jumped up, and without even checking with the teacher, bolted from the classroom. This had to be about Jillian and Logan. Finally. Finally! Was it Tristan waiting for me in the office, or Aaron? Tristan had gotten that lead about the one eyed-horse, but it had to be Aaron waiting for me in the office—Tristan would have come straight to the classroom to get me.
In the front office, I skidded to a stop. Aaron wasn’t there, and neither was Tristan. But Cole Gallagher was there, wearing a regulation black jacket from the APR, his tawny eyes dour, his lips in a straight line. “Dennis needs you at the Lab, Tessa.”
“Why? What happened?” I asked. “You look like it’s bad.”
Cole slid a glance to the secretary, who was watching with sharp green eyes, clearly curious about why the new girl would be needed at the top secret science lab down the road. “You know I can’t discuss that here.”
“Did Aaron find my brother and sister?” I asked.
“Tessa. Please.” He took my arm. “Dennis says it’s urgent.”
Insides prickling with anxiety, I left with Cole. In his Jeep, I asked him again. “Just tell me if they’re okay.” I slid my hands into my sleeves.
“I feel how anxious and scared you are,” he said, “but I don’t know anything about your brother and sister. I’m sure they’re okay. They probably went deeper into hiding after what happened at that motel in Tennessee.”
It took less than five minutes to get to the APR. I shivered as we hustled down the pebbled path into the building—cold because I’d left without grabbing my coat, and also, yes, because I was scared about why I’d been pulled out of school and brought to the APR. Cole put a timid arm around me, to offer warmth or comfort or both.
Dennis waited for me in the lobby, somber and pensive. “Dennis, what’s going on?” I asked. “Did Aaron find Jillian and Logan? Did something happen to them?”
Dennis thanked Cole for fetching me, then guided me through security. But instead of heading down the main hallway, he turned to the right, into the elevator that led to the Underground.
