by Dalya Moon
“Sexist and offensive,” Julie says.
“So's everything that's fun,” he replies.
Julie mutters about identical twins having all the luck.
* * *
At the log cabin owned by James and Julie's family, we do our usual search of the place for items left by the business associates of the twins' parents who sometimes borrow the place.
From inside the bedroom she uses, Julie lets out a blood-chilling scream and we both come running. We find her pointing at an open condom wrapper.
James laughs. “Dude, it could be so much worse.”
“We're switching rooms,” she says, and they argue for a bit, but don't switch rooms.
I search the cabin some more on my own and find four wine coolers—one for each of us, plus a carefully-measured third each of the last one.
After I give the barbecue a good scraping, we grill and eat our customary meal of tofu hot dogs. James and Julie are particularly goofy from the one and one third wine cooler they've each had and alternate giving each other piggyback rides around the deck.
With James on her back, Julie twirls around in a dizzying circle, yelling, “I am strong! Look at me! Look how strong I am!”
She is strong, too, and can hold her brother up longer than he can hold her. “Girls are stronger in the legs,” he says as he tries to stand without wobbling. “Piggybacking is all in the legs anyways. If we had a bench-pressing contest, I'd win.”
“Sure you would, jamtart,” I say as I attempt to jump on his back.
He ducks and twists, sending me to the ground, where I land flat, knocking the wind out of my lungs. I'm so impressed by his move that I would laugh, but I can't breath. My lungs have been flattened and refuse to work, refuse to allow air in past my mouth.
Just breathe. How? Have I forgotten how to breathe?
I lie on my back, trying to calm myself as Julie insists on giving James one more spin on her back to see who gets more dizzy.
Finally my breath comes back, just in time for me to get out of the way of them falling over, a tumbling twin ball of elbows and knees.
I clear the paper plates into a garbage bag while they argue over who is less dizzy and standing straighter than the other.
* * *
After dinner's cleaned up, the three of us make our way through the wooded trail to the lakeside to build a bonfire. We don't usually come here in the winter, and the evening air is surprisingly cool by the water.
No sooner do we sit on a big log to enjoy the crackling fire than Julie starts crying for the second—no, third—time today.
I've had a girlfriend for four months now, so I know a thing or two about girl emotions. “Julie, do you have PMS?” I ask.
James shakes his head at me and makes the universal symbol for shut up, a hand across the throat.
Too late. Out it comes. Shes not having PMS and how dare I even ask, but since I did, I may as well know she's upset because the guy she liked, Liam, didn't come to the Halloween party and she doesn't think he likes her at all. She'd like to have a boyfriend, so she's been trying so hard to act like she doesn't, to not scare him off, and now she doesn't know what she wants. More sobs.
“Sounds like you do know what you want,” I say. “This guy. But he's not into you. So you have to try liking a guy who likes you back.”
James repeats the shut up gesture a few more times, getting progressively more graphic. Now he's pretending to stab out his eyeballs.
Julie puts her face in her hands, which breaks my heart to see.
I move closer to her on the log and put my arm around her shoulder. “You can't trick a guy into being your boyfriend. You can't be all casual, until it's too late and he's taking you to prom, even though he doesn't remember asking. Not unless you get, I don't know, a love potion or something.”
She wipes her nose on the sleeve of my jacket and looks up at me with her big eyes, her tears lit up by the flickering fire. “Can you get me a love potion?”
“Those don't exist,” says James. “Wait. Do they exist? Zan. You have to hook me up!”
I assure them that even though I took a mysterious tea last summer that allowed me to travel outside of my body, and I got that tea from an herbalist in Chinatown, I'm pretty sure love potions aren't real.
But now that I mention her, a dim light bulb blinks on in my head. The herbalist woman, Susan. She's another magic-associated person I could question about Newt.
Julie sniffs. “I could meet someone at college next year. Someone older. Boys my age are immature, they have no life experience whatsoever.”
“That's right.” I keep patting her shoulder. “Now would you stick your finger in my belly button?”
She jumps up. “You're all the same! Selfish!”
“I'm sorry,” I call after her as she stomps away, presumably back to the cabin.
“Dude, Julie's still in love with you,” James says.
“No she isn't. She likes whatsisbutt. Liam. Isn't that an Irish name or something? No way is that guy Irish.”
“But who does he look like? He looks like you, man.”
I disagree with James, because aside from the obvious physical similarities, Liam is nothing like me. He's on the wrestling team and he's always running in the halls, never walking. He's a Jack Russell terrier, whereas I'm more of a Labrador.
James and I watch the fire for a few minutes. The sun has long since set and we're bathed in the bonfire's orange glow. The front of me is too hot and my back is too cold, but when I turn around, I have the reverse problem.
I'm about to suggest we pack it in for the night when James looks up and starts rubbing his hands together. “Cackle, cackle,” he says, which is a new strange thing he does when he's crafting a diabolical plan.
“Girls?”
“Cackle, cackle.”
At first I think my eyes are playing tricks on me, but they aren't. The girls approaching the fire are twins. Honest-to-goodness identical twins. They have matching black cornrow braids and sexy hips. I'd like to say I feel no attraction at all for these girls, especially not the one on the right, with the big hoop earrings.
They join us and we all enjoy the easy camaraderie of a bonfire bringing together strangers.
The girl on the left says, “I'm Shay and this is Dawna. Our parents messed up our names, though, because Dawna's the shy one, but I'm not.”
Dawna gives us a wordless wave. She's the one wearing the big hoop earrings, and true to what her sister said, she lets Shay do all the talking. I wonder if she was always shy, or if Shay started saying that so she could be in charge.
James tells them a little about us, and the girls share their story. They're nineteen, and driving across the country to fulfill the dream of their older brother, who died a year ago in a construction accident.
“How'd he die?” James asks.
“Fell off a high-rise he was working on,” Shay says. “It was over instantly. Once he hit the bottom.”
“How many stories?” James asks.
I try to catch his attention, but he's not looking at me, so I say, “I apologize on behalf of my friend. He doesn't mean to be intrusive.”
“I don't mind,” Shay says. “I'd rather answer questions than have people stare at us like we're freaks.” She stands and warms the backs of her legs in front of the bonfire, so her face is now in silhouette to us. “Twenty stories,” she says.
Everyone's quiet. I don't know about James or the girls, but I'm imagining how long it takes a person to plummet so many stories, and what falling would feel like. Would it be like sticking your head out the car window, or like soaring backward on a swing?
That's far enough to take actual time, time to know you were dying before you hit the earth. I've been so scared I thought I was dying before, and I have to say the experience changes a person. It really changes a person if he's totally okay with it. I don't think I've been suicidal before, but I've been okay with dying, and I don't know how far apart those two states are.
James breaks the silence. “Two seconds of free fall,” he says.
I could hit him for being so thoughtless, but the girls don't seem offended.
Shay sits down between us. “Enough time for a quick prayer,” she says, pulling her cross up on its necklace chain and pressing it to her lips.
“I'm sorry about your brother,” I say.
“Thanks. So, what's your secret?” Shay asks me.
“He's got a good one,” James says.
Dawna speaks for the first time, saying, “Ooh, tell us.”
“I do some psychic stuff,” I say, testing the waters.
They lean in with interest, so I continue, “I've actually been contacted by the ghost of someone who was murdered. He wants me to solve his murder, but I don't know what I'm doing.”
Shay nods solemnly, the beads on her braids tinkling together. “Justice,” she says. “Did his ghost come talk to you at his funeral?”
“No. He sent a messenger,” I say. She's got me thinking, though. His funeral would be a good place to investigate. I wonder if the funeral's already happened or not, since it's only been a few days.
“What kind of a message?” Shay asks.
“A handwritten note.” I retrieve Newt's tiny letter from my pocket and hand it around. Strangely, this impresses the girls, and they ask to know more about my abilities.
“I'm afraid I don't know much about my power. And worse, I think it's broken.”
In unison, the twin girls say, “Aww,” and touch my forearms.
“My power works by touch. One of you could help test it.”
They both laugh, and Shay says, “Is this the part where I put my hand down your pants?”
“No, no, it's not like that!”
Four eyebrows arch high. “I thought your ghost story was a come-on,” Shay says. “Dark night by the lake, big crackling fire to create a real mood. You know, some guys have a twin fetish.”
James says, “Noooo. Really?”
“Ignore him,” I say, and I explain how my power works—that is, when it's working.
After some discussion, the quiet one with the hoop earrings, Dawna, agrees to test my power. She closes her eyes shyly and has me guide her finger over.
I've used my power at least a few dozen times, and most girls are enthusiastic about getting their fortunes told, but Dawna's modesty makes me aware of how intimate this thing is. Not only am I seeing into a girl's soul, but she's touching me in an intimate way, like skipping past first base and going straight to second.
Dawna's fingernails are long and decorated with tiny flowers ...
Chapter Eight
The crackle of the fire slows, flames fixing in the air. I'm spinning, whirling, the skin pulling away from my face.
I'm dying.
Panic wallops me from behind, like a rear-end collision. Now I've gone too far, and I'm being dragged down into a grave, from which I'll never escape. It's all over.
The spinning stops, and just as quickly, my panic turns to regret.
My vision solidifies around me, although with a lack of anything to see, it can hardly be called a vision. At least I'm not dead.
I guess I was overreacting there for an instant. Fear sometimes takes over, perhaps instinctively, when I disengage from the regular world and go into this other space, where time expands. To James and Shay and even Dawna, it will seem like Dawna's finger barely touched me before pulling away, but to me, as much as a minute can happen inside the vision.
So where am I? I'm somewhere else, not at the edge of the lake by a bonfire. I'm in Dawna's Secret Town, her shy, secret world, but it's murky. No, this vision is beyond murky; it's as dark as dried blood.
I hear people talking, and music, but the sounds are muffled and don't make any sense. When I try to focus on one voice, I get a cacophony of sounds, with words, but the sentences lack logic or meaning, like the ravings of a madwoman.
Nudging the time forward and then back, I think I'm controlling the vision, but the outlook's the same at every point. Murky, like water filled with ink and garbage. The air tastes of ashes and chemical, and I wonder if this isn't the end of the world, the end of us all.
Hands grasp at me, scratching with long nails. Are these Dawna's hands? They pull at my shirt and my clothing, ripping my clothes off as easily as tissue paper. I feel something on my mouth—another person's mouth—along with scratches up and down my back. I'm blind and I can't move, which only adds to the claustrophobic sensation. Unlike the real world, where the heat from the bonfire is on the front of me, there's heat all around me, coming from whoever is against me.
The heat makes me stop caring that the world is ash and destruction. My mouth in here moves, and I'm kissing the other mouth. I'll stay here. My hands reach up and finds flesh, familiar and feminine.
Something stings across my right cheek, outside the vision. Reluctantly, I surface.
* * *
Outside of my vision now, I see James with his eyes wide as he says, “Dude, what was that about?”
Dawna is standing between me and the fire, so her face is in shadow, but her hands are over her cheeks and there's enough light glinting off the shiny parts of her face that I can tell her eyes are also wide open with shock. What did I do?
“Pervert,” Dawna says. My cheek in the real world is still stinging, and I deduct she must have slapped me.
“I didn't do anything, and it wasn't working,” I say, which is mostly true. “Everything was blurry and dark. I couldn't see a thing.”
Shay gets closer to me on the log. The more horrified her sister Dawna gets, the more intrigued she is. Girls are even more curious than cats, I swear.
“Did you see anything?” I ask Dawna.
She doesn't answer, just picks up a stick and pokes at the bonfire, sending up a plume of sparks, like tiny fireworks in the night sky.
“I'm a little psychic myself,” Shay says, her hand now on my arm. “It might work with me. Pretty please? I'd like to feel your power. Pretty please with sugar on top?”
“Don't do it,” Dawna says to her twin sister. “He's got the demon in him. It's not right for a boy to have such power.” She crosses her fingers at me and hisses.
James is grinning now, looking back and forth between me and Dawna as though watching a tennis match. I've had some interesting reactions before, but this is the first time a girl has hissed at me.
Shay runs her hand along my thigh and gives me an alluring look. “I like power. Let me experience it.” She gestures up with her chin, and I find myself lifting my shirt obediently.
She puts her right and left index fingers together, angling her thumbs up as though making a shadow puppet, and puts both fingertips in my belly button.
* * *
This time, I'm being torn apart, limb by limb. Black jagged shapes against more black shapes pierce my skin and howl in my ears.
When everything stops moving, I'm flat on my back. Under my leg and back, something is moving, but it's not me.
Something's over my mouth—hands, maybe. Wormy fingers push their way inside my mouth, crushing my lips against my teeth when I resist. The long fingers reach down, deeper, inside me. I'm gagging, my throat full, my chest aching.
I try expanding my visual consciousness, but there's nothing to see, not even stars, just dark. I catch a breath and then another, gasping.
My throat is on fire and what entered me through my mouth sits heavy in my stomach, expanding, punching me from the inside. The pain pushes my consciousness thin and I almost slip away to nothing. Pain. I've never felt pain like this in a vision.
Someone breathes on my face, moist and comforting. Shay. She whispers in my ear and tells me not to be scared, then she covers my body with hers.
I hold on to her.
Her mind merges with mine and I see a flash of an image, repeating itself. A man falling from the sky, over and over.
When I breathe out, it comes as a wail.
But Shay is here. She melts into me, and
I'm not scared anymore. The pain is gone and in its place is bliss. The darkness is comforting.
* * *
When I come out of the vision, I'm shaking all over.
Shay looks disappointed. “Aww, nuts. Nothing happened,” she says.
I pick up my jacket from behind the log and put it on, then I stand and stomp my feet to warm up closer to the fire. Standing next to Dawna, who still has her arms crossed, I start to cough. Phlegm comes up unexpectedly, so I spit into the fire. The glowing logs don't even sizzle.
“What was it like for you?” Dawna asks Shay.
Shay says, “Nothing. Bo-ring!”
“My vision is not really working,” I say to James.
“Why not?”
Dawna takes a seat next to James, and she doesn't seem upset with me now. The three of them look at me expectantly, as though I should have an answer.
“Do you remember feeling anything?” I ask Dawna, since she must have experienced something to slap me like that.
She looks down at her manicured fingers shyly. “I felt like you were kissing both of us, but my grandfather was watching us and he didn't approve.”
“Hah!” goes Shay. “Your good-girl conscience got the best of you!”
“I guess,” Dawna says.
“How is your power not working?” James asks me. “You see nothing at all? I bet you've got a pile of lint in there again, insulating the connection.”
“Something's happening, but it's not right. I don't know. My handbook for the care and operation of my supernatural power didn't cover bouts of censored visions.”
“Censored?” James repeats.
“Dude, I don't know.”
“Let us cheer you up,” Shay says. “We have lots of food and drinks at our cabin. If you're cold, we can build a fire at the cabin and warm up there.”
“Do you have any vegan food?” James asks. “My body is a temple.”
The girls giggle in unison and Shay says she'll find him “something to nibble on.”
Something about the energy of the group shifts, and I get that party's over feeling. I wish I'd left ten minutes ago, before the visions.
I back away from the warm fire, no longer shaking or cold. “I'm going to the cabin to sleep, but don't pack in on my account.”
