by HMC
The body of a young boy floated before me. His greying lips and blue skin suggested he’d been dead a while. He didn’t sink to the bottom as a dead body with no air left in the lungs should. He just floated. The waves didn’t move him either. I stared, and my heart seemed to freeze momentarily when I realised who he was.
Sonny.
He floated right before me now, and although I wanted to call for help, I knew he wasn’t real. No one else could see the lifeless boy before me. I was the only lucky one.
I reached out to the little brother of my best friend, floating dead before me. His beautiful face was now blue and sagging, water-logged.
Then Sonny, the dead Sonny, took a gulp of air into his lungs and gasped for breath. I jumped and moved toward him. ‘Sonny?’ I whispered, careful not to let onlookers suspect I was completely nuts, talking to myself in the ocean. Not that I cared too much at this point. Sonny had his breath back but no colour returned to his lips. ‘Sonny? What happened?’
He opened his mouth, but no words came – there was just a great black hole where his tongue should’ve been. I held the back of his neck as the set came in and started to throw us about. ‘Sonny?’
He coughed and spluttered, and something came out of his mouth. I grabbed it. It was a silver pendant necklace, with a cross and circle at the top. I had seen it before somewhere.
The next wave hit us hard, and we both went under. My hands grasped for him, but I could no longer feel him in my grip.
I came up for air and Sonny was gone.
‘Damn it!’ I yelled. I grabbed my board and paddled back in.
‘Mouse! What’s wrong?’ Trent followed me up the beach.
My arm was around my longboard, my other hand clasping so tightly to the pendant it almost drew blood. The pendant had stayed. The pendant hadn’t disappeared in the visita, like it should have. I looked at my fist and was reminded of the small cuts on my hands that shouldn’t have been there either. I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t speak. I just had to go. I had to be away from Trent before I turned around and told him what I just saw.
Please, no. Not Sonny. God damn it! I’d known him since the day he was born.
I’d been able to see the death of strangers and put a stop to it for so many years now, and I’d learned to live with it. Well, not just live with it, but to do something about it. Not just because there was an apparent punishment if I didn’t, but because I couldn’t live with myself otherwise. I’d been able to keep myself relatively detached. This wasn’t a stranger, though. This was a friend. A small, innocent friend, who deserved nothing but ice cream and Superman figurines.
It made no sense. How could Sonny drown? He was a nipper. A talented swimmer and surfer.
‘What happened, Mouse. Stop! For Chrissake!’ Trent tried to grab me around the middle, but my board was in the way. I almost hit him with it.
‘No!’ I dropped everything and pushed him away. ‘Leave me alone.’
He held my shoulders and I tried to pull away.
‘I saw you,’ he shouted. ‘You had a vision, Mouse. It’s all right. I’m here.’ This time he won and pulled me in. He held me tightly.
Then the tears did come.
Mouse’s Journal
My seventh visita – 25th June, 2013 at 2:35PM. English Class.
I froze over in English class, lucking out as it was during a movie. A little girl around four years old came to me battered and broken to the point of no return. She held shards of blue crockery. She wore a frilly dress, as if someone had made her into a living-doll, and she cried black tears. I reached out to soothe her, but then I was in her room, rather than block E at Miami High School, and she was showing me her fuzzy pink toys. Frilly Dress was so small, I wanted to pick her up and hold her. At first, her room smelled of candy and dirty washing.
The smoke alarms went off. I started as water poured from the ceiling, but I couldn’t feel it. I couldn’t feel in a visita. I could see, I could smell, and I could hear, but not feel. I could smell something burning.
Frilly Dress pointed with her pudgy little arm, and made me look out the window. I saw her street address, VICTORIA STREET. How would I ever find that? I looked around for clues – tree types, building types, nothing looked familiar. I looked back at her and shook my head. She turned and reached under her tiny purple bed and pulled out her crayons and colouring book. She wrote on the page neater than I ever could – like she was a 70-year-old woman who had practised cursive her whole life. When I look back, I’m sure Frilly Dress wasn’t the real messenger. I’m sure none of them were. How else could she have written like that? It read:
VICTORIA STREET, MELBOURNE.
I nodded.
I thought I’d need to eventually save this girl from a fire, considering the smell, yet she wasn’t burned. They often came to me with markings of their death – and her markings were of beatings and scalds. Sure enough, it wasn’t a fire. It was a thunderstorm, with water coming from the sprinkler system in the ceiling, and the thunder in the form of a size-eight woman. She thumped up the stairs. She stood in the doorway, screaming about burnt dinner, and how it was Frilly Dress’s fault, somehow.
She walked right through me. She leaned over her little girl, and slapped her, leaving a red mark on those pink chubby cheeks and a tear-streaked face. The screaming started. I watched as the woman picked up a lamp; as it came crashing toward Frilly Dress. Blue shards. I snapped back to reality. I wasn’t able to concentrate on the rest of that English lesson. I never did find out what happened to Elizabeth. I assume she married Darcy.
Trent and I made an anonymous phone call to DOCS after that. Frilly Dress’s name was Samantha Cruise. She now lived at 44 Rock Street in Newcastle with a lovely foster carer named Doreen Straithfield, who’d adopted her along with another girl named Edie. She was nine.
My stomach roiled. The people doing Tai Chi seemed to slow down. I was trying to hold it together as Trent and I sat on the grass. He had an arm around me. I was sure it was so I wouldn’t run again. I played with the pendant.
‘Was it as bad as Frilly Dress?’ he said softly.
‘Worse,’ I finally said. ‘It was worse than Frilly Dress. Worse than Green Pants. Worse than…’
He nodded. ‘Look. Let’s go and have a dirty-big bacon and egg hamburger from Sadies’ and when you feel like talking, we’ll talk. Whaddya say?’
I nodded. It was hard to see after so many tears, and Trent led me to the showers. We washed our boards, and feet, and put our longboards into Trent’s van. Abby’s Mobile Soup Kitchen was painted in cursive script along the side. We returned to get my Townie and put it inside the van, too.
Trent put an arm around me, and we made our way across the street. His warm body propped me up. He kissed the side of my head, brushing his nose in my wet hair as we walked.
The sound of the ocean and cawing gulls could still be heard at Sadie’s. There were a few early-birds sitting in booths, and there were flags all around in ready for the Australia Day celebrations. Celebrating was the last thing I felt like doing.
Some customers looked as if they were just catching the bus in from a long hard night out at Surfer’s Paradise, and others were standing by in their sporty shoes and outfits. Both groups would order a ‘health’ shot or smoothie – one to revitalise, and one to bring back the dead.
The smell of coffee and sound of sizzling bacon was familiar – like home. Huddled in my favourite booth, I felt a little safer than I had just moments ago. I no longer felt exposed, like a baby turtle on his way to the sea. I only hoped it wasn’t a false sense of security.
Trent ordered our bacon and egg burgers and I watched him pay the young female clerk. She smiled at him with a sparkle in her eye. Tough luck there, honey.
The realisation of having to tell him the truth hit me. How was I going to do this? I supposed the best way would be fast, like ripping off a band-aide. And the redeeming part of the story was Sonny could be saved. Would be saved. He wasn’t dead yet
. Someone up there, or something, wanted him alive. And I was damn-well going to do everything in my power to make sure that happened.
A tidal wave of feeling swept me under.
Heavy. Boggy. Crap. My head swirled. Maybe my body was reacting to stress.
I felt electricity in the air, static. I heard a sound like a thousand swarming bees. I looked down at my hands for some reason. Was this another vision? Please, no. I didn’t sign up for this. In all honesty, I wouldn’t have wished this ‘gift’ upon my worst enemy at the moment.
‘Water, Hamish, darling. Quick sticks.’ Her voice came from behind me. It sounded smooth to the ear, but when I heard it, it felt hard, rough, old. I didn’t have to turn around to know it was her. I listened as someone got her a bottle of water from the fridge.
My fingers prickled, my heart thudded, my throat tightened, and I began to pant. I found it hard to swallow. If I looked up now, I’d see those eyes, and that auburn hair. Come on, Mouse. Look at her. Calm yourself, harden up, and look at her!
Perhaps that was Cat here now. I was too out of touch to tell. I glanced up.
I saw a taupe blouse and vanilla trousers over shapely legs. On the dark brown silky hair that fell to her waist was a floppy, navy blue sunhat. Hair no longer red, probably courtesy of L’Oreal.
There was a young man beside her. While she was facing the counter, he was leaning against it and facing me. His caramel eyes took me in. His arms were folded across an Escape the Fate T-shirt – the joker one, with the monkey on his shoulder. Hamish. The guy from my dream. The way he looked at me made my skin crawl – like he was wondering how to cook me and what I’d taste like.
‘We’ve just arrived in town. I’m Aidah Armstrong, and this is my son, Hamish,’ the woman said to the clerk.
‘Hi,’ the young girl said. She seemed uncomfortable. It was too much information. No one introduced themselves like that anymore.
Trent slid into the booth across from me. ‘Mouse, you’re so white you’re green. Are you gonna puke?’
I finally swallowed and shook my head. ‘No, I’m…’ What was I? Okay? Definitely not that. My hands shook and Trent noticed. He lay his over mine to stop the tremble.
Trent respected my silence as I listened to Aidah chat to the creeped-out waitress about her son, and how they’d just driven in from Sydney. Trent pushed a banana smoothie toward me.
Aidah and Hamish paid for their water, a pack of gum, and some Curly Wurlys. When they turned to walk out, Aidah pulled down her shades. I couldn’t see her eyes, but I knew that face anywhere. It was the face from my mirror.
My heart seemed to stop like a light shutting off. On its retuning beat, which seemed as if it would never come, Hamish stared at me again. This time he frowned. I looked away. What did he see? Did he know who I was, what I saw? The last thing I wanted was to be on the radar of those two.
‘Trent. This is going to seem crazy,’ I whispered as they strolled out the door of Sadie’s, ‘but you’ve known me for a long time and you know I’m not insane. Hopefully.’ Trent, I’m pretty sure this lady is a witch who wants to kidnap children, and one of them could be your little bro, but just chill, ’cause we got this.
‘What did you see, Mouse.’ He put a hand over mine.
‘Sonny,’ I said. It was all I could manage.
There was a long pause. ‘You saw Sonny.’ His voice wavered. ‘Where? How?’
‘He was in the water in front of me. He was…’ I had to come right out and say it or I never would, ‘drowned.’
Trent’s face twisted up. ‘No.’ He stared at me. ‘No.’
‘It hasn’t happened yet. All right? It doesn’t have to happen.’
Trent nodded. ‘You’re right. That’s what you do, you stop this. That’s why you were shown it, so you can stop it.’ He was talking fast, and becoming hysterical. ‘You have to stop this, Mouse. We can’t let this happen!’
‘Calm down,’ I said. ‘We can fix this, but I need you to breathe.’ We were now shaking like leaves at the top of an exposed branch in a wind-storm.
Trent complied. After a few breaths, he was coming to his senses. ‘Okay, so he never goes in the ocean without us. I don’t understand how this could even happen. Was there a rip?’ I shook my head, thinking of the best way to tell him what was on my mind. ‘What was he wearing?’
‘What?’
‘In the vision, what did he have on?’
‘Um. Some kind of red swimmers,’ I said. They had definitely been red. I saw them, bright on his pasty flesh. That vision of Sonny Albright would never leave me.
Bright red. Lime green. Frilly dress. Snaky-tongues. Har de har.
Trent seemed to be thinking. ‘He doesn’t have red swimmers. Are you sure it was him? He’s a champion junior nipper. I mean, you know. You’ve been under a lot of stress lately. Are you worried about these uni assignments?’
‘I…’
‘The only time he swims at Burleigh Beach is with all of us there, Mouse. He’s not allowed near the water otherwise. I just don’t see it happening. It had to be someone else.’ Trent was in denial – understandably.
‘I think someone is going to…’ I couldn’t go on.
Trent’s face changed from fear to anger. ‘What? Someone’s going to what?’
‘To hurt him.’ This was going from bad to worse.
‘Who? Who’s going to hurt him?’ His face was red. Egg flapped out the side of his mouth. I saw the whites of his knuckles as he clenched his other fist.
‘If you take me home, I’ll tell you everything,’ I said.
‘Does it have something to do with these people you were just eye-balling? You looked terrified at the sight of them,’ he said.
I looked him in the eye, and for the second time in our twelve-year friendship, I lied again. ‘No, Trent. It has nothing to do with those people. I thought they were someone else.’ Trent put his burger down, and came over to my side of the booth to embrace me. This time he let out a sob or two. My bestie was tough, but he could cry like the rest of us. After all, he knew my visions were real, and he had family at stake.
‘I’ll take care of my little brother. Thank you.’ He kissed my cheek. ‘This won’t be another Hank.’ If there was one positive thing about having Trent as a bestie, it was that he went through his emotions quickly, came to his senses in moments, and acted with logic immediately.
‘No more Hanks,’ I said. Hank hadn’t been as lucky as my others.
I couldn’t tell Trent about Aidah, or Sacmis, or whatever the hell-spawned thing from my visita had called itself, because he’d take his eyes off Sonny, and that couldn’t happen. Not only that, he’d probably play hero, and go and get himself killed instead. ‘You need to take care of your family,’ I said. I couldn’t bear to think about losing a single Albright, let alone two.
I had to find out where this Aidah and Hamish were living. I HAD to talk to Cat.
I was lying still on my bed. I needed a hot shower. I needed a brain wipe. I needed to take all the horrible sights I have seen in my life so far and throw them off some cliff somewhere far away. I’d rather be normal. Read a book and sip some tea, normal. Meet a boy and catch a movie, normal.
This whole seeing dead people before they were dead, changing the future, and saving lives – this whole superhero thing I had going on – I wanted to be done. I wanted to hang up my cape. No, I wanted to set the bloody thing on fire, and throw the ashes into Heard Volcano, while singing ‘free at last.’ I rolled over and covered my head with my pillow, blocking out the sound and light.
Trent had gone home to be with Sonny. ‘He’ll be fine now that we know, Trent,’ I had convinced him. ‘Almost every vision I’ve ever had allowed me to change the future.’ We had sat in his van out the front of my house for a while before he left. He hadn’t let me ride my bike home after how shaken up I was.
‘Someone up there is looking out for us,’ he had whispered as he kissed my cheek.
‘Right, and you need
to give me some space so I can work my magic, all right? I promise to call you later.’ He had been satisfied with that and let me go. I’d been lying on my bed all morning, trying to figure out what to do. I uncovered my face before I smothered myself, and I sat up.
Then another face appeared in my mind’s eye. Not Aidah’s. Her son’s. What was his name? Hamos? Hamish. That was it.
The way he’d looked at me like I was a hot dog…
I took out my journal. I reread the dream I had with Hamish coming to the door at the Sampson house. He had been kind in the dream. In real life, not so much.
I pulled the pendant out of my pocket. Sonny’s little gift. I ran my finger over the arc. A little shock bolted through me, like I’d touched a live wire. Zap. I dropped the pendant on the bed. Conscious of the shock, I tapped the pendant and drew my hand away fast in case it got me again. I did it two more times before realising it wasn’t going to sting a second time. Probably just static electricity.
I put the pendant onto a chain, and then around my neck. It seemed like the natural thing to do. A cross with a circle. My wiccan spells and symbols book told me it was an ‘ankh.’ It had been right on the tip of my tongue. Cat would’ve booted me in the butt if she’d known I’d forgotten it.
Life.
Why had a dead Sonny come to me with the symbol for life?
I pulled out the set of tarot cards Anna had given me for my fifteenth birthday. Come on. Give me something. A photo of Cat sat beside me. A white candle still burned on my bedside table and the woodsy aroma of sandalwood incense filled the room. I placed a catlinite stone in the centre. ‘Cat? I don’t know if these cards will help, but I know you can hear me. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. All I have is this ankh. Please help.’ I exhaled.
I put my hand in a bowl of water on my bedside table, of which had produced no results earlier, and kept it there as I swirled my tarot cards around on my bed with my free hand. I closed my eyes and let them be drawn to the cards. A tingle drew me to a card, and I turned it over. ‘Okay, The Moon. Nothing is as it seems. Got it.’ I jumped as the card flapped around the room like an unseen force had picked it up and was dancing with it. ‘Cat, why can’t you just talk to me like you usually do?’
