Night Sky

by Suzanne Brockmann

  I nodded and relaxed, knowing that Calvin would save me.

  Today, Dana was even more leather clad than usual. She was wearing the same tight black leather pants she’d had on that night in the Sav’A’Buck. Her black tank top was low cut, and the bra she was wearing pushed her chest up, resulting in some seriously admirable cleavage. Her red bomber jacket was form fitting and zipped only halfway up.

  I glanced down at my plain, white T-shirt and jeans, and conceded I might as well be wearing overalls. I was that unsexy in comparison.

  Dana placed her elbows on top of the handlebars of her motorcycle and made an impatient face. I looked around. A group of kids walked by, all of them dressed in black and orange—more jocks. And yes, Garrett was one of them.

  “Hey, Skylar,” he said, even as he looked Dana up and down. “Who’s your friend? Nice…ride.”

  Just the sight of him made me so mad that I wanted to punch him in the face. Instead, I gave him a full-on ignore, turning to Dana and proclaiming, “I don’t know what it is about Calvin. He’s just so…hot. Don’t you think?”

  If she was surprised, she didn’t show it with more than a single blink before she looked from me to Garrett and back. “Calvin,” she said, loudly enough to be heard over the roar from her bike. “Yeah. Wow. I…really wish I’d met him first.”

  That stopped Garrett cold, but then Dana put the cherry on top by smiling directly into his stunned eyes and adding, “Move it along, Tic-Tac dick.”

  Garrett adjusted the collar of his team jacket and stalked off, his friends in tow.

  And not a moment too soon, as Calvin rounded the corner just then.

  He wheeled forward slowly, picking up his pace only after Garrett was completely gone. He looked at Dana and then at me.

  “’Sup, Wonder Boy?” Dana said, and turned her motorcycle off. The parking lot got a whole lot quieter.

  “’Sup,” he said so casually that I wanted to laugh.

  “Can I borrow your friend for a few hours?” Dana asked, and nodded toward me.

  Calvin looked from Dana’s motorcycle to me and back, and without missing a beat said, “Sorry. I’m not letting my girl ride that thing. Lock it up. I’ll drive you wherever you’re going.”

  “We’re training,” Dana informed him flatly. “At her request, might I remind you. You can’t come with.”

  Calvin shrugged. “So, I’ll drop you and leave.”

  “And pick us up afterward?” Dana scoffed.

  “Your wish is my command,” Cal told her evenly.

  Dana turned to me. “You really gonna let Boyfriend here dictate—”

  “He knows I’d rather go in his car,” I admitted. “It’s not what he wants. He just knows it’s what I…want.”

  I expected Dana to blast me for being a coward, and I raised my chin against the proclamation of chicken shit that was sure to come. But instead she merely nodded and began taking several long chains from her saddlebags. “Let’s do it, then,” she said.

  —

  “Anything going on that I should know about?” Dana asked as Calvin’s car pulled away. He’d dropped us down by the beach, near that same deserted stretch of road where I’d spotted Dana watching me run, last Saturday. She turned to look at me, her gaze sharp. “Scooter seemed…subdued.”

  No way was I telling her what I’d overheard. I shook my head as I shrugged. “We’ve got a math test coming up—”

  “Don’t BS a BSer,” she interrupted. “If you don’t want to tell me, don’t, but don’t math test me. Frankly, I think your loyalty to him is admirable, and vice versa. You’re lucky to have found him, as annoying as he can sometimes be.”

  I sighed and admitted, “There is something going on, but it’s private and…”

  “You’re not comfortable talking about it with an almost-stranger,” Dana finished for me. “That’s good, Bubble Gum. You’re impeccable with your word. So how about I tell you what I’ve seen and what I think is going on, and you can either nod yes or no. Because maybe I can help.” She didn’t wait for me to respond, she just plunged ahead.

  “Jock Itch, with the dark hair and the skeevy I am God’s gift smile, has decided that you’re his next girlfriend, which—understandably—is pissing Scooter off. You were naive enough to fall for some stupid line about helping you look for Sasha, but it wasn’t until you were at the beach with him last Saturday that you realized he was trying to shoplift. You being you, you told Boyfriend what happened, and he probably got in JI’s face, which resulted in Itchy showing his true ugly colors by saying something nasty back to Calvin—again probably dick related.”

  My mouth had dropped open, and I closed it. But then I opened it again to say, “Calvin’s not my boyfriend. It’s just…it’s never been like that. He doesn’t like me that way.”

  Dana actually looked surprised as I followed her through the hole in the fence and down the soft sand toward the water.

  “Garrett—Jock Itch—has definitely been using me as some kind of pawn, though,” I continued. “At first I thought he just wanted to be in the loop as far as what was going on with Sasha—you know, the curiosity factor. But after today…” I took a deep breath. “I’m pretty sure he and Calvin have been at war for a while. I’m a little freaked because, well, Cal never told me anything about it.”

  Dana nodded. “Yeah, he wouldn’t.” She glanced at me. “How long has he been in that chair?”

  “Since he was really little. I don’t know exactly, nine maybe?”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah.”

  “If that was me, I don’t think I could be anything but grim,” Dana admitted, but then she exhaled and rewound a bit. “Wow, I was so sure you were a romantic unit. You guys are…really tight.” And then she went and ruined what might’ve otherwise been a real bonding moment by adding, “I guess you are as shallow as you look.”

  I was tired of her condemnation and I got into her face. “How does being friends with Calvin make me shallow?”

  “Tell me you wouldn’t be all over him if he could walk,” she countered.

  That got me mad. “How dare you?” I said. “Has it occurred to you that he’s the one who’s not into me? Because news flash! He’s not.”

  “Look at you. You’re Little Miss Perfect. You honestly expect me to believe—”

  I cut her off, stepping in even closer to her. I was much taller than she was, but she was stronger. If she wanted to, she could break me in half like a twig. But I didn’t care about that as I said, “Yeah. I do. I expect you to believe me, to trust me—because I am currently spending a crapload of time trusting you. It can’t just go one way.”

  There we stood, face to face, gazes locked, both with our hands on our hips.

  Dana blinked first. She laughed. “You’ve got pretty big balls for a cream-puff debutante. I like it. It’s good. But I still think you could wrap Scooter around your little finger if you really wanted to.” She turned and pushed through the unpacked sand, heading closer to the water.

  Shaking my head, I followed her again. “So what exactly are we doing here?” I asked.

  “I told you already,” she said. “We’re training, like you wanted.”

  “We’re not dressed to run.”

  “Yeah, we’re not running—I’m not a runner,” she said. “And even if I were, there’s no way I could keep up with you. I don’t have that particular gift.”

  “You seem to be able to disappear pretty quickly, from what I’ve seen.”

  “Oh, I didn’t say that I can’t move fast when I need to,” she said, grinning a little bit.

  “So…what else can you do?” I was extremely curious, and I have to admit I was still feeling a bit belligerent. “I mean, besides the not-telepathy mind-control thing.”

  Dana picked up a piece of driftwood and tossed it from her left hand to her righ
t and back again. “Well, for one, I have 20/2 vision.”

  “You mean 20/20.”

  “No, I mean 20/2.”

  “Whoa.”

  Dana laughed a little bit. “I also have an eidetic memory.”

  “Isn’t that like a photographic memory?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she said, and threw the driftwood away. “It’s exactly like a photographic memory. FYI, many G-Ts have some kinda enhanced memory.”

  “I’m pretty sure I don’t,” I said.

  “Then why is it that you have an absolutely perfect grade point average?” Dana countered. “How does that happen? Do you spend every waking hour studying?”

  I scoffed. “Um, no.” I looked at Dana. “How do you know I have a perfect GPA?”

  “Bubble Gum, I know more about you than you think. Answer me this: how many tattoos do I have?” Dana tipped her collar to make sure that her red bomber jacket was completely covering her.

  The number nine popped into my head. I looked at her. “I don’t know.”

  “Yeah, you do,” Dana said.

  I looked away.

  “Name them,” Dana said, her voice challenging.

  I sighed heavily. “The tribal design on your upper arm,” I said, sticking out one finger as I began to count. “The initials on the inside of your right wrist.” I stuck out another finger. “The angel wings on your shoulder blades, the bar code on the back of your neck, the heart behind your right ear, the quote that runs across your upper back, the second set of initials below the angel wings, the rosary beads surrounding your left wrist, and the word think underneath your collarbone.” I took a breath.

  Nine. That I could see, anyway.

  Dana grinned. “Point and match.”

  “Yeah, but what good is having an eidetic memory?” I asked her. “I mean, I get how it helps with a history test—if I’ve read the chapters…”

  Dana walked down to the edge of the sand, where the water lapped back and forth. She glared at it, as if challenging it to surge and ruin her boots. “It helps a lot when you’re trying to piece things together. It’s also easier to keep track of people when you literally cannot forget a face.”

  My thoughts skipped back to yesterday afternoon in Harrisburg, and one small face in particular. “Did you guys ever track down that boy? Jeremy?”

  Dana frowned. “We found him, but his dad wouldn’t let him talk to us for very long.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Same thing he said to you,” Dana replied. “An old lady with red eyes came in a van and gave Edmund medicine and then took him away. I asked the kid what the van looked like, and he said it was a white one without windows in the back.”

  “Just like in my dream,” I breathed.

  Dana turned toward me so swiftly and with such intensity in her eyes that I took an involuntary step backward. “Did you just say like in your dream?”

  I stared back at her. “Um. Yes?”

  “Explain,” she demanded.

  “Okay. I know it sounds crazy,” I started, “but I’ve been having these dreams about Sasha—”

  “It’s not crazy,” Dana said. “You need to stop thinking of your abilities as crazy. And you need to stop looking so worried while you’re at it. Being a Greater-Than makes you insanely special. Don’t you get that?”

  I suspected that I looked worried because I was worried. And I did totally get that being a G-T made me insanely special. But despite Dana’s hasty reassurances on Saturday night, I was still worried that being a G-T would also make me insane.

  Would it happen gradually? I wondered. My compassion and humanity slowly eroding until I was heartless and cruel? Or would it happen suddenly? I’d wake up one morning, just boom—with bulgy, crazed eyes and tangled hair, start dressing like Dana in leather, and call people things like “Bubble Gum” and “Scooter.”

  But I knew with a certainty that I couldn’t quite explain that Dana was neither heartless nor cruel. She was rough and tough, and she had no patience for BS, but she wasn’t anything like the monstrous descriptions of G-Ts that I’d found on the Internet.

  “Dreams are a sign of prescience,” she told me, “which is an absolutely amazing skill set. Combined with your smell-sensitivity and telekinesis? Seriously, Sunshine, you need to tell me these things—”

  “How could I tell you,” I countered hotly, “when I can’t call you? Also, I thought they were just, you know, dreams. Bad dreams. Nightmares. FYI, I have bouts of gas, and I crave chocolate at certain times of the month. Are either of those things Greater-Than skill sets? How about my playing the clarinet and sight-reading music—”

  She cut me off. “The dreams and music, yes; the farting and chocolate, no.”

  “Burping,” I corrected her. “I burp. Not…”

  She smiled at that, but it was far too swift. “Well, that’s a relief, since we’ve got some significant car time together in our future. And you’re right. How could you know?” She exhaled hard. “You’ll have to excuse my impatience. Please, just tell me about your dreams.”

  I looked out at the ocean. “There’s this one dream that I keep having—it started the night Sasha disappeared. And it’s different from what happened when I was in her room with Calvin. Which was also kind of like a dream, but not really since my eyes were open and I was awake—”

  “Oh, my God,” Dana interrupted me again. “You have visions too?”

  I stared back at her. “Maybe…?” I said.

  “Right, how do you know?” She allowed me that. “Okay, here’s how it works. Some of us, like me, are mildly prescient—very mildly. Like back in Harrisburg when that boy was there and I knew he had information. For me, it’s just something that happens. Ironically, I can’t predict when it’s going to happen, and I can’t make it happen. It just…does. Sometimes I just know things.”

  She nodded, her conviction absolute. “I know. But it’s never anything big or particularly helpful like, buy a lottery ticket with these five numbers. Because for me, it doesn’t have anything to do with something that’s about to happen. Like, I don’t know where or when lightning is going to strike. But—maybe—if we’re looking for the tree that the lightning did strike, past tense, I can kinda charge through the woods and know where to find it. Are you following?”

  I nodded.

  “But a true prescient,” Dana said, “can foretell the future. And I probably shouldn’t say the future, but rather a future. Because if you know what’s coming, you can work to change it, instead of just lying down and waiting to die. Lotta people who are prescient get scared by the idea that they can’t change their fate, but it’s totally flexible, so don’t panic.”

  “Not panicking,” I said, pointing to myself.

  “Good,” she said. “Most prescients see the future via their dreams, because the power is strongest when you sleep. It gets a little tricky, though, because the unconscious mind can add filler. Which can make the prescient messages kinda cryptic and challenging to decipher. But some powerful prescients also have waking dreams or visions. Although it just occurred to me that it’s entirely possible you’re not prescient, but psychic, which is also very cool. Prescient means your dreams and visions are about things that haven’t happened yet. Psychic means you see events that have already occurred, or maybe even as they’re occurring.”

  I nodded. “I think I might be psychic,” I said, “because in my dreams, Sasha is alive.”

  “Start with the sleeping dreams,” Dana said. “What happens in those?”

  I told her about the highway—about how I had seen Sasha standing out in the rain and fog. I described the field and then the beeping sounds of the hospital heart monitor and the white-and-blue dress that Sasha always wore.

  Dana nodded. “That’s really good, Sky. Good detail. And I think you’re right—that you’re psychic, not prescie
nt. When it happens again, make sure you write it all down, so we can all work together to figure out what it means. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Now tell me about the other thing. The vision.”

  I explained to Dana how I’d seen the creature that I now thought of as the old lady in Sasha’s room, on the night Sasha disappeared. I told her about the feeling I’d had when I spotted her—how it was almost like watching a low-res video online. I also told her how much it had scared me. And I reminded her about the sewage smell.

  Dana looked grim. She nodded. “You have no idea how helpful this is going to be.”

  “So…you believe me,” I said, and I have to admit, my tone was a tad challenging.

  She smiled. “I do. About stuff like this? I’ll always be the dead last person to doubt you.”

  I had to admit it: Having someone like Dana around felt good. Her lack of skepticism was refreshing. Nothing seemed to surprise her.

  Or almost nothing, anyway.

  “But you still don’t believe what I said about Calvin and me?” I pushed.

  She smiled again. “You are a pit bull, aren’t you?” She sighed. “And no,” she told me. “I believe you about that too. You were right. We have to trust each other—about everything.”

  But we didn’t particularly have to like each other—she didn’t say it, but I knew she was thinking it. Except as I stood there, looking back at her, I found myself…liking her. And wishing that she liked me too.

  I focused on the conversation we were having out loud. “So do you think this old lady is the same one Jeremy saw with Edmund and the white van?” I asked, and shuddered a little at the memory of that pale skin and those scary eyes.

  “What do you think?” Dana asked.

  “I think it’s not a coincidence,” I said without hesitation. “Whoever she is, she’s evil. And I think if we can find her…”

  Dana finished for me. “We can stop her from stealing and killing the next little girl.”

  I watched waves crash onto the shore and swallowed. “Dana?”

  “Yeah?”