by Tracy Clark
“Oh, yes.” Dun held up one finger and cleared his throat. “Rule number one of the Articles of Friendship states we do all things of a fun and adventurous nature together. Rule number two states that if you cannot adhere to rule number one, you’d better have a damn good reason.”
“I love how many rules we have, yet there never seem to be more than two,” I said.
“Mission statement. We are a non-club club with rules that are not rules,” Mari said as if that cleared everything up.
“I think you two are forgetting that I don’t have any decision-making clout here. My dad will never let me go. It’ll kill me to watch you guys fly off into the sunset without me.”
Mari elbowed me hard in the ribs. “Yo, Finn Doyle is staring at you, hard.”
“No, he’s not,” I said, forcing myself to keep looking straight ahead. “Why would he be?”
Dun leaned in to Mari. “I think something is wrong with her eyes,” he murmured. “Cora, you don’t see what everyone else sees.”
I dared a glance in Finn’s direction, and our eyes met and held. The air around him pulsed with a subtle golden-pink glow that radiated from him in smooth waves. I blinked and tore my eyes from Finn’s. Dun spoke the truth, all right. I was definitely seeing things differently than everyone else.
Four
A
ll morning long I had floundered in my classes, distracted by the subtle haze surrounding my classmates and teachers and the gradations of the colors around them. At the end of each class, I couldn’t remember what had been reviewed for finals.
It was like I could see people’s needs and desires, their frantic plays for attention, their sadness, their longing to make other people feel what they were feeling. Though maybe I attached meaning to the colors to try to make order out of the chaos. It was confusing, and rather than forging a connection to people, it made me feel more different and alone than ever. Especially because the only color I ever saw radiating from myself was bright silver. It never varied.
Not once did I see another person with a silver shadow like mine.
Desperate to avoid the colorful mob of kids, I slipped into the Agriculture Center’s greenhouse at lunchtime. It was my favorite place on campus. Warm, humid air settled on my skin as soon as I walked in. I could practically sense my curls springing up and my skin drinking in the moisture. I exhaled happily, letting peace wash over me.
Janelle had packed a typical pyramid-worthy lunch. Every food group was represented, except for the oft-neglected and woefully misunderstood top—the sugar group. When life got a bit heavy, sweets were my drug of choice. Janelle had left me without a fix.
“I’m so glad you’re back, dear.” Mrs. Boroff, the agriculture teacher, flashed me a warm smile. Her white hair was piled atop her head in feral ringlets like an aged Greek goddess. Her gardening apron stretched across her plump little body. I was always amazed at the amount of stuff she kept in the pockets of her apron. Mrs. Boroff went back to misting her beloved orchids. “I’ll go out on a limb”—she chuckled at her own pun—“and say they missed you, too.” Her fleshy arms gestured to the plants. “You’ve got the greenest thumb I’ve ever seen.”
“Next to you, of course.”
Mrs. Boroff sent a light spray of mist toward my nose. “Of course.”
I watched, mesmerized, as the droplets floated down. Through them shone the clearest light I’d seen around someone so far. Mrs. Boroff’s physical edges were blurred by soft green light tinted with gold. I couldn’t see where her body ended and the light began, as though the light was a part of her.
I ran my fingers over my eyelids. It had been like this all morning, colors popping up and flowing around people, then disappearing. “If it’s okay with you, I thought I’d have lunch in here today.”
Mrs. Boroff peered above her bifocals. “You know it’s fine with me. Are you hiding from anyone in particular?”
“Not hiding. I need quiet.” Colors could be loud.
Looking through the glass windows, I noticed the VIPs frolicking in their exclusive little circle, backs to everyone. They always banded together in a wagon ring, emulating the pioneer strategy: keep the savages out.
I watched two girls who called each other best friends. They joked and giggled, but the reddish light around them was anything but friendly. It competed for space in angry jabs. It made me think of all the times my body tensed around the VIPs even though they were smiling to my face. Were invisible energies always there, always telling the truth, if only we knew how to decode them?
Finn Doyle laughed with Serena Tate, who had her hand on the arm of his striped shirt. I could see the outline of a white tank underneath it. His short dark hair was a bit wild, spiked and crested down the middle. He looked like a rock-star poet, all the dark temptation of a rebel mixed with a sweetness, like maybe his biggest secret was the teddy bear under his pillow. He laughed at something one of the girls said. When he turned on the full flare of his smile, he was undeniably stunning.
Finn looked up and spotted me watching. I had an absurd urge to duck but squared my shoulders and turned away.
“Enjoy your quiet,” Mrs. Boroff said, heading out the door.
The door swung open again a couple of seconds later. “Forget something?” I called out to her.
“Yes. I forgot to properly introduce myself the other day.”
My head jerked up. I liked the question in Finn’s tawny eyes, to balance out his confident smile. I also liked the soft colors that blanketed him. He looked…warm.
“I know who you are.” A barb of pain stung my finger when I carelessly pricked it on the needle of a cactus. “Damn,” I whispered.
Finn stood beside me. “All right there?” He pulled my hand toward him to look. The crackle of energy between us flustered me, so I stared down at our hands together instead of looking at his face. Vapors of golden-orange danced from his skin. He wore a double strand of beads on his wrist and behind them, a leather bracelet with silver studs. The beads were gleaming and faceted, surprisingly delicate. A gift maybe? From a girl back home?
“Yes,” Finn said.
“Yes, what?”
“You asked if these were a gift from a girl.”
I slipped my hand from his grasp. “I did? No I didn’t.”
Perhaps I should’ve gone to the nurse. There was seriously something wrong with me. First, I fist his shirt like a deranged mental patient, and now I couldn’t trust my mouth not to blurt out fluttering thoughts.
“My mother gave them to me. Before I came to the States.”
“Oh? It’s sweet that you wear them.”
He smiled but crinkled his brows together. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“They’re very feminine,” I answered, more bluntly than I meant. Coy and flirtatious were obviously not in my repertoire.
“In actual fact, she made me promise to not take them off.” He fingered them lightly, causing the beads to sparkle in the diffused sunlight of the greenhouse. “So, are you saying you think I’m feminine?” he asked with a tilted smile. He leaned toward me a fraction closer. Intermittent hints of red hairs mixed with the dark whiskers on his jaw below his curved lips. I wondered what his bottom lip would feel like under the pad of my thumb.
I stepped backward, stuffing my rising hand into my pocket. Oh, hell no. There was nothing feminine about him. He was all male. It radiated off of him like fumes. But not in the testosterone-soaked way of most of the guys at school. He wore his masculinity like a light scent that made me want to get a bigger whiff.
Finn looked around the greenhouse. The sun-drenched room illuminated the flecks of honey in his eyes. “I’ve walked past this place a hundred times, but I’ve never been in here before.”
I followed his gaze upward to the ceiling. The translucent panes of glass were of varying ages and colors. Some crystal clear, others a faint yellow and deep amber. It felt like being inside a prism, a weathered crystal hanging in the sun, casting slanted shafts of golden li
ght on the emerald plants inside and heating Finn’s distinctive colors.
“This place is a miracle. I don’t blame you for hiding in here.”
My gaze snapped to meet his. I looked into his eyes, which alternated between shy and knowing. “I’m not—I—I am hiding.” I looked away, shocked at my admission. I plucked the spent stems off a geranium. “It’s just that I can breathe in here.” I sighed deeply, feeling decidedly short of breath since Finn had come in. How did he manage to suck all of the oxygen out of a place full of plants?
He cocked his head toward the window. “You can’t breathe out there?”
I looked again at the wall of kids preening and posing outside, the overwhelming clouds of color rising and falling around them. “No.”
“You’re different from them.”
Story of my life. I’d always been different, never fit in, but he had no idea how different I felt lately. “That’s probably not a compliment, but I’ll take it as one.”
Finn tickled my nose with the tip of a fern. “I meant it as one.”
I swatted it away. “Why are you in here? Really. Did one of them dare you to do this?”
He grinned, amused. “A skeptic, huh? If I was dared, it’d be something along the lines of ‘I dare you to approach the beautiful girl with the large Do Not Disturb sign on her chest.’”
I stared at him. The light swirls of faint red and pale yellow radiated from him in tranquil drifts. Maybe it was the brilliance of the light in the greenhouse making me uncertain whether the light was his, but the strange thing was, I couldn’t just see it, I could feel it. Strongly. Finn had gravity, pulling me toward him.
My hand was suddenly on his chest, quickly registering the hard heat of his heart under my fingers. I pulled it away as if I had been burned. Embarrassment mixed with confusion, warming my cheeks while giving me chills. “Go away,” I whispered. “You’re too…potent.”
He bit his bottom lip and gave me a lingering stare. “I’ll take that as a compliment. Until next time, Cora,” he said with a slight bow of his head before walking out.
My body hummed, a warm aftereffect from Finn’s visit, as I meandered through the greenhouse, examining the botanical prints and pictures Mrs. Boroff had tacked to the narrow wooden slats between the glass panes. Most looked like they came out of an ancient Latin field guide. There were a few contemporary prints of rare or extraordinary flowers. But one in particular caught my eye.
My heart quickened. Someone captured on camera what I had been seeing around people since I got sick. It was a picture of a maple leaf, but it looked like an X-ray. The intricate vein patterns were highlighted in brilliant white as if lit from behind. The leaf glowed with shades of purple, pink, and indigo. A luminous white light outlined the entire leaf. Starry points of it dotted the veins. There was an entire universe contained in one leaf.
“Can you tell me about this picture?” I asked Mrs. Boroff when she returned.
She pushed her bifocals up her nose and waddled over. “That, my dear, is a leaf.”
“Clearly, but—”
“Beautiful, isn’t it? It’s Kirlian photography of the leaf’s aura.”
“Its aura?” I’d heard that word before but had assigned it to the realm of all things woo-woo, categorized with reincarnation, chakras, and past lives, a word belonging to the hippie types who made up such a big part of Santa Cruz. I couldn’t believe the possibility hadn’t occurred to me before that moment. “You believe in auras?”
“Oh yes, dear. Every living thing has an aura. It’s the energy field around us. The essence of who we are.” She leaned in and whispered excitedly, “Our dense little bodies can’t contain all that we really are. We spill out around the edges.”
With my thumbnail in my mouth, I asked, “Can people see auras?”
Mrs. Boroff winked. “Only the truly special ones. If you’re interested, there’s a bookshop called Say Chi’s on Edgewood, near Fourth Street.” She scribbled the name and address on the back of a pansy seed packet and handed it to me. “That’s where I found this picture. The store has an entire section devoted to Kirlian photography.”
“Thanks, maybe I’ll check it out.”
Damn straight I would. As soon as possible.
Five
A
fter school, I yanked my hair into a ponytail, wrapped my favorite green scarf around my neck, and went to the garage for my bicycle. I pulled the seed packet with the bookstore address from my pocket.
“Where are you off to?”
I startled. I hadn’t noticed my dad sitting in his parked car in the dim light of the garage. He was home unusually early. I’d hoped to get to Say Chi’s and back before he got home from work. “Why are you sitting there like a stalker, Dad?”
He climbed out of the car. “I didn’t want to miss the end of the news segment on NPR.”
He narrowed his eyes as if I were dodging his question. “Where did you say you were going?”
“I didn’t.”
“Right. That’s the problem.”
“Well, if you must know, I’m off to Say Chi’s bookstore. The doctors are useless. I’m going to figure things out on my own.” I rang the bike bell and pushed off.
“Hold on!” I stopped mid-pedal but didn’t turn around. The sound of his shoes shuffling toward me on the pavement played on my nerves. “You can’t diagnose yourself. And Say Chi’s isn’t exactly a supplier of quality medical reference books.” He held the seat of my bike, which made me want to jam on the pedals and rip it from his grasp. “Is your vision still blurry?”
“It’s not blurry, Dad. It’s clear. In fact, I feel like I’m seeing clearly for the first time in my life. I don’t think there is anything wrong with my eyes. I think I’m seeing auras.”
A phlegmy yellow pulsed from his chest like a festering sore, bringing to mind the phrase yellow-bellied coward. He swallowed with effort, his face now pale. “Auras?”
His fear sent ripples of dread through my body, concentrating in my chest. Hopefully, I was reading him wrong. “I think so. That’s why I need to go to the bookstore. I’ll explain it to you later.” I expected further argument, but Dad let go of my seat and stared as if I were a ghost. As if he could see my colors rising from my skin into the clouds. It had been years since he had looked so sad. It struck an old, helpless chord inside my chest, so much so that I almost didn’t leave. If he had continued to stare, troubled and haunted, I might have stayed. But he turned and walked slowly toward the house.
Instead of a bell, when I opened the door of Say Chi’s, I heard a recorded female voice say, “Peace be with you.” The scent of incense assailed me. At least it wasn’t patchouli. That kind of stink was like dirty, weedy tar.
I scanned the large, airy space. Above the door was a round window with tiny circular windows inside it, like bubbles trapped within a bubble. It gave the store a bright infusion of dotted light. Exotic jewelry and scarves from foreign countries, Tibetan prayer flags, wind chimes, and tarot cards surrounded me. An enormous circular table was laden with various types of glimmering crystals. There were books, of course, mostly New Age topics. I recognized one author, Edmund Nustber. When Dad couldn’t sleep, he liked to watch his late-night show on TV, where the wild-haired Mr. Nustber raved about paranormal wonders, aliens, and crop circles. Janelle called him Edmund Nutbar.
“Hello, young lady.” My head snapped up, and I met the direct gaze of a statuesque black woman with the most impressive head of dreads I’d ever seen.
“Your hair is art,” I said.
The woman chuckled and rounded the table, grasping my hand in her own. “I’m Faye, proprietor of Say Chi’s. What are you seeking today?”
Suddenly, I was beset with questions. Underneath all of them, what I sought most was to know what was happening to me and why I was different. “I think I’m seeing auras,” I blurted, though I realized with relief that I hadn’t seen any colors at all coming off her. It was a heavenly break.
Faye’s hand slipped away. She took a few steps backward, and I wondered if I weirded her out. Then she said, “Do you, child? Can you see mine?”
I was being tested. Or doubted. Neither of which sat well with me. I didn’t look directly at Faye, but just beyond her. Slight waves, like a mirage, shimmered off her head then faded. I concentrated. I thought I saw a deep blue flash, but then it quickly disappeared. “This is stupid.” I turned to go.
“Wait!” Faye called. “What did you see?”
My shoulders slumped forward. A dead end. There were no answers here. The doctors were right. My father was right. It was all in my head. “Nothing. I saw nothing,” I admitted.
Faye then slipped a shimmering crystal from around her neck. “Now?”
I blinked. Immediately, Faye’s colors jumped into focus. Brilliant blue, like a morning glory, and the golden light of a candle on a dark night; both were most pronounced around her neck and head. “Beautiful,” I whispered. This woman’s aura was clear and defined, which was why the sudden infusion of black around her lower abdomen became so apparent. The black seeped into the light like spilled ink. I stared.
“You can see it,” Faye said in a shocked murmur.
I nodded, dumbfounded. “Is something wrong with you?”
“Cancer. Caught it early, thank the Lord. I’ve told no one,” Faye said, while draping the necklace back over her head. The light vanished.
I felt ashamed. Like a Peeping Tom. Did I have any right to see these private things? I impulsively hugged her, surprising myself. “I’m so sorry.”
She laughed wryly and patted my back. “Sorry? No, dear. Don’t be sorry. It’s like being sorry your ears can hear Mozart or the wings of a hummingbird.” Faye pushed me back at arm’s length. “You look scared. I gather this is new, and you need to understand it.”
Faye led me through the bookstore, past shelves of books on everything from occult practices to diets for your zodiac type. I watched as her thick finger trailed their spines. “Ah,” she said, landing on one in particular. She tilted it out and passed it to me. Beyond Form—How to See and Read Auras.
