Indigo

by Gina Linko

  I grabbed the old fern on the windowsill. From what I could tell, I gave it the shock of its lifetime. The surge ran through me, out my fingertips. If anything, the leaves seemed to perk up, the stems seemed to stand a little taller, happier.

  “What in the hell?”

  I left the fish in the cooler on the counter, and I got on my bike and pedaled back to the pet shop. I had to do it before I lost my nerve. So I rode as fast as I could. The Garden District passed by me through an indigo lens. I blinked it back and watched the blue disappear gradually as I biked, like it was draining from my vision.

  I didn’t want to have to do what I had to do, but there was no way out. I could think of nothing better.

  The clerk with too many piercings gave me the skunk eye, and I knew that I must look like some kind of wild-eyed freak, but it was what it was.

  When I got home, sweaty and crazy-haired, I placed the cardboard box on the table and pulled out the first small white mouse. “Forgive me,” I said to his little pink nose. Mia-Joy would argue that I didn’t really want to hurt the mouse, so of course it wouldn’t work. But I knew that logic didn’t matter. I never wanted to hurt Sophie either.

  So I summoned it.

  It came alive and forceful, from zero to eighty in my chest, out of nowhere. I cupped the mouse in my hands, his fur soft and warm against my palms. I knew now, after so much recent practice, how to help the surge through my body, sort of focus it with my muscles into my hands. I focused, and I pictured myself draining the life from this warm-blooded creature. I pictured Sophie in my arms on that rocky beach, that empty patch of time that I could never quite recall, and I tried to kill that mouse.

  For so many reasons, I tried to kill that mouse.

  And I fell to my knees with the exertion of it. I tried and tried, pushing and forcing the surge from my core. The mouse bit me then, and I let him go. He scampered away, underneath the table, his beady eyes staring me down. “You’re alive, you son of a bitch!” I yelled at him.

  But then I thought of the missing variable.

  Hadn’t it been raining when I hurt Sophie? Water conducted electricity, right? Leyden jars. I pulled myself up from the floor, taking care not to step on the mouse. The blue lens was still in front of my eyes. I walked to the kitchen sink and turned on the faucet. I grabbed the sprayer and just sprayed myself down until I was soaked, until I was standing in the middle of a huge puddle on our kitchen tiles. Then I took the rubber band from my hair and, with a few tries, rigged it onto the sprayer so it would keep spraying on its own. I balanced it against the faucet, backed away, and stood in an arc of kitchen sink rain.

  My flip-flops slapped against the water as I went to get another mouse from the box. He looked pretty much the same as the first one, save for a tiny gray spot over his left eye. “Sorry, buddy,” I told him, and then I enclosed him in my hands.

  I walked to the perfect spot in the kitchen puddle, let the water fall on me, around me.

  The power revved like an engine, and I waited. I controlled it somehow, didn’t let it course out to my limbs until I thought it had reached its maximum potential. I was getting better at this. I concentrated, let the power work itself into a frenzy, and then I let it go, let it do its work. I focused. “Kill this thing!”

  It shuddered through me. Harder, more forcefully than ever, racking my body, clanking my teeth together, making a terrible noise. I waited, let it play itself out.

  But when I opened my hands, there was the mouse. Alive. Up on his hind legs, peering at me.

  With that, I collapsed onto the kitchen floor, an exhausted heap. When finally I opened my eyes, I saw that the blue was gone. And the next thing I knew, my mother walked into the kitchen and screamed bloody murder. “A mouse!”

  I held my head up, followed her gaze. There it was, the gray-spotted one, standing on its hind legs on the kitchen tile just inside the back door, looking as healthy as ever.

  “Corrine, are you okay?” Mom bustled toward me, ignoring the spraying water, the mouse forgotten.

  I collapsed again, exhausted. “I’m sorry,” I said. And I think that’s when she called 911.

  When I woke up, he was next to me. I looked around. I was in the hospital, the room hushed and quiet, smelling like bleach and old people. It was late and dark, with only the blue-green glow of the monitors lighting up the room.

  “Your mom and dad are talking with hospital security. There’s a bunch of press, and—”

  “Rennick,” I said, my throat scratchy. His face looked haggard and worn, deep circles under his eyes, his hair everywhere.

  “Corrine, why didn’t you ask me to help?” He gripped the handrail on the side of the bed, white-knuckled. “I should’ve been there. What if you had …?”

  I sat up, barely noticing the bandage on my hand from a recent IV. I kept my eyes on him, the concern there. Had I almost used myself up? Was that what he was worried about? I watched the way his whole body arched toward me but also kept its distance. How hard was it for him not to touch me right now? I thought I knew.

  “We can redo it all as soon as you get out. Set up controls. I’ll videotape it.” I was only half hearing him, mentally running my fingers over every plane of his face, the high cheekbones, that worried brow, the scruffy chin. “Will you let me? We can reproduce the results. Your mother is speaking to this university doctor—after the security thing—they want to assist our studies, you know, like—”

  “I don’t want to,” I said, clearing my throat.

  “Corrine.” He worked his jaw, his nostrils flared. He took a deep breath. “We are so close to … everything. And if we keep on it, you will eventually believe.”

  I sucked in a deep breath and gathered my courage. I tried to become the Corrine that Sophie would want me to be. I tried to be the old Corrine. The one who jumped in. It was hard to believe all of it. My head believed what I saw, knew that the proof had scampered across my kitchen floor. My head knew this.

  My heart might never give in.

  But it was time to move on.

  “I believe it,” I said. “Right now anyway, Rennick.” I reached my hand out, watching it slowly shake, and I placed it on top of his. He met my eyes—grateful, disbelieving—and he placed his other hand on top of mine. We sat that way for a long time, looking into each other’s eyes. And the heat registered, not from my chest, not from my power, but from his hands, and there was a different feeling below in my rib cage, warm in its own way. A different, comforting feeling, like coming home.

  “Let’s leave,” I said finally. “Leave a note for my mom. There’s somewhere I gotta go.”

  “Corrine.” Rennick shook his head, cupped my chin with one hand. “The doctors. I don’t know.”

  “I’m fine. You know I’m fine. They didn’t find anything wrong with me, did they?”

  “Just dehydration.” He squinted at me. “Hurry. Before I change my mind.”

  In the bathroom, I changed into my clothes as quickly as possible, my heart leaping out of my chest. Rennick and I walked past the nurses’ station like it was nothing, but the nurses were the least of our problems. When we saw a bunch of reporters and cameras at the front entrance, he turned us the other way, and we went toward the cafeteria. Here, he yelled out that he had seen a cockroach at the salad bar. Pandemonium ensued, attention was diverted, and we snuck through the kitchen, out the back door near a loading dock. We stepped onto a dilapidated asphalt parking lot, the coolness of the night surprising me.

  He picked me up then, arms around my waist, twirled me around, his face in my hair. When he put me down, I looked up at him, and the corners of his mouth turned up almost imperceptibly. He leaned in a fraction of an inch closer, and I closed the distance between us and pressed my lips to his. A quick kiss. An answer to a question.

  Without saying another word, he led me to his Jeep and we drove quietly, with his hand in mine, lying there between us on the front seat like a promise.

  The Kranes’ house was i
n the Upper Garden District, a really beautiful rehabbed place with a second-story balcony, cornstalk wrought iron along the porch. The cicadas hummed in the background as I listened to the nervous beat of my heart. I stuck one shaking finger out and pressed the doorbell. A light came on somewhere inside the house, and pretty soon I heard the clomp of footsteps on the stairs.

  It was late, nearly midnight, but I didn’t think I could wait another minute. And Rennick, if he was nervous, if he doubted me, didn’t let on. He just kept his hand on the small of my back, a supporting pressure, steady. Constant.

  It was Mrs. Krane who answered the door, her eyes going wide when she saw it was us. She didn’t even have the door all the way open before she was yelling for Declan, her husband. But he was already there, glasses cocked at a funny angle.

  He gave me a skeptical look as Mrs. Krane ushered us into the foyer. “Are you here because you think …?” Clearly, he didn’t want to get his hopes up again.

  I nodded, and Mrs. Krane fell to her knees, her body racked with sobs. It was too much for me, and I had to look away. I turned and Rennick held me against him, my head pressed into the hollow of his collarbone.

  “You can do this,” he whispered.

  I turned toward the couple. Mr. Krane was helping his wife up from the floor. She was gasping out a litany of thanks. “I’m sorry,” Mr. Krane said. “This is just more than …”

  “I can’t make any promises,” I told them, my fists balled at my sides. I could already feel it inside me, awakening, coming to life, at the ready. The scene with the Kranes, the room thick with emotion, it was enough to get me where I needed to be.

  “I’ll go wake him,” Mrs. Krane said, drying her eyes with a handkerchief from the pocket of her robe.

  “Actually,” I said, “I could try it while he’s asleep.” I hadn’t even really known that I was going to say this, but there it was. And it made sense to me. So I decided to go with it.

  The Kranes consulted each other with a look, and then Mrs. Krane nodded.

  As we followed them up the stairs, I cleared my throat. “I have to remind you of what happened to my sister, to Sophie,” I said. “I can’t explain that. There’s a chance …” I let my words hang there, the implication plain and unyielding.

  If I was going to do this, even though I now believed, I had to be sure they understood the risks. When you were dealing with this gift, this crazy, unexplainable thing, I couldn’t pretend to myself or to these poor tragedy-stricken parents that I knew all the ins and outs.

  Mr. Krane turned around on the stairs then, leveled me with a look. I felt Rennick’s hand on my back again, that reassuring presence. “Corrine,” Mr. Krane said, “forgive my bluntness, but the doctors have given Seth days. Only days.”

  I nodded. The horrible words echoed around us, and the flame flickered higher inside me.

  Seth’s room was decorated in an outer space theme. With only the dim light from the hallway, I could see the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling mimicking constellations. He had several NASA posters, hand-drawn rocket ship schematics, real or imaginary I had no idea. But there were also more ominous placeholders in his room, starting with the hospital-grade bed, the stainless-steel IV stand, the nightstand filled with medications.

  I realized then that I was holding my breath and wringing my hands. The Kranes and Rennick were silent, watching me. Waiting. I didn’t quite know how long I had been standing there.

  He looked so small in that big bed, his face pressed into a sleepy grimace. Was he in pain? I shook the thought away. It was time.

  I closed my eyes and let the flame unfurl in my chest, fanned it with my will. When I couldn’t stand it anymore, when the buildup inside me was nearly more than I could bear, I opened my eyes, and I could see the blue, even in the dim-lit shadows. The indigo-blue lens.

  I stepped forward, and the energy pulsated in me, around me, shooting through my limbs, out my pores. I reached for his hand. It was small and featherlight in my grip. And it was so cold.

  His skin was like paper against mine, and that’s when I let it go. I let the power do what it was meant to do. It surged, blossomed wider, grew in waves, plunging out of me into Seth.

  I was semi-aware of falling to my knees, but I paid no mind. I just held on. Whatever it was that I had, he needed it, as much as I could give him. I couldn’t back away.

  The more it conducted into Seth, the more I felt his body actually pulling it from me. It was an odd feeling, like the pulling of a tooth, both right and wrong at the same time.

  At some point, I opened my eyes, and the current waned. His eyes popped open. A smile replaced the grimace.

  If he was surprised to see me, surprised to know I was holding his hand in his bedroom in the middle of the night, or if the physio-electric force falling silent between our hands seemed out of the ordinary, he did not let on.

  He simply let out a great sigh. “Thank you, Corrine,” he said. And then he asked for a Popsicle.

  We rode with the windows down in the Jeep, the wind tangling my hair. It was still and hot outside. I felt exhilarated and alive, so very alive. I talked on and on. And Rennick watched me, a little smile curling up the corners of his mouth. What was he? Proud?

  “I mean, do you realize what this means I could do?” I said. “There are so many people. So many opportunities. I could really make a difference.” Already my mind was getting six steps ahead. “But how will I choose who to help? Will I just stay local? How many people do you think I could help, like, in one day, without … you know.”

  Rennick’s face hardened, and I plunged ahead. “I mean, I’ll be careful. Very careful. I’ll never let it get so that I—”

  “You know, my mother couldn’t help everyone.”

  “I know,” I said, tipping my face into the wind out the window. But did I really know this? I mean, what if I had had to accept defeat with Seth? What if this had all turned out differently and I’d had to read his obituary in the paper in a few days? Could I handle the emotions that came with that? The guilt?

  I thought of Sophie. I would have to handle it. For Sophie. I had to keep going. To make it all up to her somehow. I mean, I owed her that.

  “Thank you, Rennick,” I told him. “I wouldn’t have been able to help Seth without you.”

  He nodded, and for a second he looked like he was going to say something. But he didn’t. Then he slowed down, driving even slower than usual, and pulled us into the parking lot of the Upper Garden District’s community pool. The pool was dark and surely locked up tight at one in the morning, but his tires slowed against the gravel, and when he shifted into park he gave me a smile with that glint in his eye. “Let’s celebrate,” he said.

  “Celebrate?” I asked, getting out of the Jeep and following him to the fence.

  “Can you climb?”

  “Of course. But why?”

  “I’m hot.”

  “Me too,” I said, and suddenly the idea of hopping over this fence and illegally cooling myself off in the water seemed like just the perfect ending to the night. Not only did I want to feel that cool water on my skin, I needed it. Ever since the Kranes’, my skin was tight on my body, hot and prickly.

  I climbed carefully and tried not to seem like a clumsy moron. Rennick beat me over the side, and he was already pulling his shirt over his head when I hopped down. I kicked off my flip-flops. We both stopped, frozen for a second. Surely, he was thinking the same thing as me. What was I going to swim in?

  I answered the question by taking a running start and diving right into the deep end, fully clothed. I gave a little war cry, and then I was in, the water hugging my tank top and jean shorts to my body. But oh it felt good, cool and calming. Rennick jumped in after me, but I was already swimming. The butterfly. He called after me, but I was in a groove, the water slicing around me, my body falling into the familiar pattern, my lungs burning. A relief to be so right here, so normal.

  On the return lap, I switched to freestyle. A
s happy as I was, I was aware that my episode with Seth had taken a toll on me, my nerve endings on fire and frayed. But with each stroke in the water, that feeling disappeared a little bit more.

  A few more laps, and then I stopped and scanned the darkness for Rennick, and he was there, at the shallow end. I caught sight of his lanky form, the silhouette of his torso against the far reaches of a blue security spotlight shining on the pool. My breath caught in my throat. He was beautiful, the ropy lines of his shoulders, the V of his torso, the tilt of his head as he watched me swim toward him.

  “It’s amazing what you can do.” His voice was quiet. Legato.

  I sat on the step beside him, aware of his body next to me, aware of how my body responded to the proximity. I swallowed hard, wondered if it showed on my face. Because surely it did. This was a moment, one of those moments you think happens only in movies or only to girls like Mia-Joy. My stomach dropped in that oh-so-good roller-coaster way as he turned to me. And before I knew it, his hand had found my knee under the water. And his touch was hot, a question. Something inside me swelled and sang, a feeling like I’d never had before.

  When he dipped his head forward, his eyes watching me, going slowly, so slowly, I held his gaze. My eyes gave him permission. His eyes closed, and then so did mine. When his lips brushed mine, I was surprised by the softness. The gentleness. He pulled back, but I didn’t let him. I leaned into him.

  I kissed him back, tasting the chlorine, his sweat, and before I knew it, my hands were in his hair, that gorgeous hair, and it was surprisingly soft, wiry silk. His hands were on my face, a palm against each cheek, and he stroked my cheeks with his thumbs. His lips were so soft and full, questioning and greedy, and I kissed him back hard, hungrily.

  I had kissed three boys in my life, one being Cody back in Chicago, but none of those kisses had anything on this moment.

  He broke from the kiss then, and he smiled, leaned his head on my forehead, his eyes still closed, the fringe of his eyelashes on his cheek. And he said my name, Corrine. Just my name over and over as his fingers traced the knobs of my spine. It became a song, my name, the rhythm like his laugh.