by N. A. Cash
“Put the card in the bowl,” she instructed.
I did as I was told, happy to get rid of it.
She took the piece of parchment and placed it over the card, then opened the bottle and squeezed a few drops of clear liquid on the parchment and the card. There was a slight sizzling noise as if the liquid dissolved the parchment. When I looked in the bowl, though, it only seemed as if the liquid made the parchment wet. I saw a puzzled look on Aunt Shugs’s face. She stared a few moments at the bowl, then stared at me. Suddenly, it all became clear to her. “Oh!” she exclaimed.
“What happened or didn’t happen?” I asked, not sure if I wanted to know the answer.
She closed her eyes, chuckled, and then opened them. “Clever devil.” She shook her head and smiled. “You have to breathe on it.”
“Me? Breathe on it? But you said don’t have any contact.” I knew I sounded dumb and confused.
She motioned with her hands for me to move. “He made it especially for you. Go ahead. Breathe and you’ll see.”
I bent forward and, careful not to inhale, breathed on the parchment. The sizzling suddenly started again, and there were a few pops like firecrackers, which caused me to jump back. Curious, I looked back into the bowl; to my surprise, the parchment had disappeared, but the card underneath had turned black. Aunt Shugs’s face wore an expression of satisfaction.
My head was starting to throb again and all I thought about doing was lying down and not getting back up for a while. I closed my eyes and raised my hands to rub my temples. “I…don’t understand.” I finally admitted.
Aunt Shugs carefully picked up the bowl with her gloved hand. “Come, let’s go and get you something to fill your stomach and possibly help you get your memory back. You’re looking sick again.”
She walked over to the moving shelf and pushed the lower right side with her foot. The clicking noise began again, and the shelf moved out of the way.
Good riddance…
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
We followed the path that we took into the room, and all the doors opened on their own to let us back to the front of the store and closed after we exited the rooms behind us. Aunt Shugs paused by the front counter to place the bowl down. Once again, as if she read my mind, she said “Motion sensors”.
As she walked over to close the blinds on the windows, my brain flooded with questions. I said the first thing I could think of. “Can you read my mind?”
She chuckled once again as she turned towards me. “Sure. You can’t read mine?” A teasing expression played over her face; a small laugh bubbled up from her lips. “No, child. I can read your expressions though. But if I were you, those would be the questions I would be curious about.”
“Oh.”
She then went behind the counter. I peered over the shelf to see her rummaging through a fridge. She popped her head out. “What flavor of soda do you like?”
“Um, root beer.”
She reached in the fridge and pulled out a bottle of brown soda. “Do you like cake?” She chuckled at her question and answered it for me. “Of course, you like cake. Everyone likes cake.”
I watched her disappear to the back room once again. She stayed in there for about two minutes and then came out with a plate filled with pastries and desserts. “Here’s a selection so that I can find which one’s your favorite.” She then pulled another bottle with a dropper from her pocket and shook it in the front of me. “Plus, you’re going to need something to get rid of the taste of this.”
I stood shocked, wondering how she could have put together such a delightful plate of goodies in such a short period of time. “How…?”
“Family secret,” she explained. She then chuckled. “But you’re family! Come on up. I’ll explain everything to you when you’re resting.”
She gave me the plate of goodies and put the bottle back in her pocket. She grabbed the bowl with one hand and the soda with the other and led me to another door directly opposite from the entrance door. She motioned for me to open it. When I did, I saw a staircase. “Let’s go up!” she said cheerfully.
I walked slowly up the stairs, trying to keep my body balanced as well as the plate. The top of the stairs led to a medium-sized room. I walked a little way in to allow Aunt Shugs enough space to enter. She walked over to the left wall and used her elbow to push a spot on the wall. When the lights came on, I saw a cozy, comfortable room, decorated with a large, plush couch in the center of the room. There weren’t any windows, just walls cluttered with more the framed dessert pictures. There was a lush, four-poster bed in the back, between two end tables with matching lamps on each. The pink carpet on the floor looked soft. I saw shorter bookshelves, with more of the cooking books, and tables with vases that contained artificial flowers. Curiously, I asked, “Are cookbooks all that you read?”
She put the bowl on one of the end tables and turned on a lamp by the bed. “No, I read other things too, like newspapers and magazines. I just don’t keep them around.” She flicked on the other lamp. “Besides, I figure if you want to be the best at what you do, you need to immerse yourself so much in it till you love it with all your might. That’s how you become and stay the best.”
She pulled up a chair near her bowl and invited me over to sit. I didn’t want to mix the yummy desserts with the substance in the bowl, so I subconsciously pulled the chair away from the table and sat. She sat in another chair, facing me. She reached over for the plate of desserts. I didn’t want to relinquish it, but I did. She laughed. “I’ll give them back,” she promised.
She put the plate close to the bowl, then reached in her pocket for her bottle. She shook it slightly and then looked up at me. She had my full attention already, but I fought the still pounding pain in my head and tried to focus. “Now, I want you to listen carefully,” she said. “You remember the name on the card?”
I sat back, closed my eyes, and tried to remember what I had read on the card. I remembered looking at the name of the store he said was his, but the face of the man floated in and out of my memory. “I remember Martin. It was an odd name before Martin though.” I thought for a bit longer. It then came to me. “Sultren. Sultren Martin. He owned an antique store at the mall.”
A fleeting fearful glance passed over my aunt’s face. Her resolute expression then returned. When she spoke, it was low and serious. “Sultren. Did your mom or aunt tell you anything about him?”
I shook my head no.
“Okay,” she said. “I guess I have to start with a brief introduction to your history, and then we can work on getting those memories back.”
She moved her chair closer to mine to the point where our knees touched. “Back on Sandy Island, the place where we’re all from, our family…we were plain people. When I say plain, I mean that there wasn’t anything special about us. It was just your grandfather and grandmother and their seven children.”
I raised my eyebrows. She smiled. “Yes, seven,” she said with a chuckle. “Sandy Island wasn’t really known for its entertainment.”
Just as quickly, she turned serious again. “The Martins were a wealthy family who also lived on Sandy Island. There was Avery Martin and his wife Flora. They owned the majority of the businesses and companies on Sandy Island. From what I heard of Mrs. Martin—I’d never met her in person—she was a snobbish lady who always looked down on our family or any other family that didn’t have their wealth. Mr. Martin was no better.”
She sat back and took a breath. “I’m sure that your aunt and mom told you a bit about how we got our gifts.”
“Well,” I sighed. “They didn’t tell me much, but I read something about it in a dairy of Aunt Vern’s that I found.”
Aunt Shugs smiled, then continued our family history. “When the plane flew over, the substance dropped on our farm property. You know, after thinking about it, another reason why the Martins shunned our family was because we were the only other family who made money from our crops. There weren’t a lot of farms on
the island, you see, only ours and the Martin’s. I guess they couldn’t appreciate the competition.”
Aunt Shugs turned to stare at the wall for a bit, lost in her memories. I cleared my throat to break her reverie. “So, what happened next?” My curiosity mounted. This was the most I’d ever heard about my family.
“Dad and Fetu, my oldest brother, were the first one to notice the substance. They frequently worked in the yard. The container dropped, and it sounded like a loud crash. The rest of us ran into the yard and found them bending over it. It had this magnetic property, like it drew us to touch it. So, we all did. We thought nothing of it at first. Dad just had us clean it up and stuff it into any empty containers that we could find. Later on, he threw the majority of it into the ocean, but he let each of us keep some of it in a small box.
“After the incident, Dad was the first to notice he had a gift. He realized that he could read minds. At first, he thought he was going crazy when he could first hear all of his kids’ thoughts. He told Mom, and then she showed him that she developed the ability to bend metals. They didn’t tell anybody else, but they watched us kids. Eventually, they found out that we had gifts too. They convened a family meeting and discussed it with us. We were all scared at first, but over time, we learned to accept and control our gifts. It became a family rule to keep the gifts a secret, even from our future spouses and children, if we chose to have them.”
“On any day, this would be a lot to digest,” I confessed. It would otherwise be hard for me to believe this if I hadn’t experienced what I could do and what I’d seen Mam and Aunt Vern do. “But I’ve got to ask—how do the Martins fit into this? Did they also get some of the powder?”
“No” Aunt Shugs said solemnly, “but everyone suspected that they’d already had a darkness about them. There were rumors that they hadn’t come by all of their wealth legally. They had two sons, Bane was the oldest, and Sultren the youngest. Both boys were just like their parents. Bane was mean, and Sultren was sneaky. Both boys had a cruel streak.”
She paused again, seemingly to let everything sink in.
“How Mom told me the story, one day, my brother Fetu had to walk to the pharmacy where he worked in Main Town. He decided to take a short cut through back streets to save time, because he was running late that day. Fetu’s gift was the ability to control fire. He would start fires all the time just for the fun of it. Once, he got into serious trouble for setting fire to one of Dad’s sheds where he stored some of his farming tools.”
She giggled, lost in thought. I remembered Mam and Aunt Vern having the same reaction when they mentioned Fetu’s name. Now I understood why they did it. Slowly, though, she grew serious again.
“As Fetu walked along one of the alleyways leading to Main Town, Bane and his friends blocked his path and surrounded him. Bane said he hated our whole family…that he thought that we all should die. He told his friends to grab Fetu by the arms. Bane started punching him. They took turns hitting him until he was bloody and almost unconscious. When they thought he had enough, they let him drop to the ground. They were about to walk away when Fetu opened his eyes. Fetu later told everyone that he hadn’t realized what he’d done. He just knew he was in so much pain, and the only person he could see was Bane. He said he felt a flash of heat leave him and then he passed out. When he awoke a minute or two later, he got up and tried to get away from there as quickly as he could. He glanced back and saw Sultren crying, leaning over a smoking, blackened corpse. Sultren had been hiding behind a dumpster. He had been following his brother and friends.”
My aunt paused again to study the wall. I realized that I was holding my breath as I waited for her to finish the story. When she spoke again, her voice was soft. “Fetu looked around…saw that he had killed Bane and his friends. All of them died that day. Fetu was so scared; he ran home. He told my dad what happened, and they arranged for him to leave the island. He was gone the next day.”
She took a deep breath. I leaned in closer to her and placed my hand on hers. She gave a grateful smile. “Sultren had seen the whole thing. He was young then, too scared to say anything about it to anyone. He ran home, and hid in his room, and cried. The police found the bodies later on that day. The incident tore his family apart. His mother and father started drinking heavily and ended up losing everything.”
She rested her other hand on the top of mine and looked deep into my eyes. “Our family was affected too. Our father decided that it was too dangerous to stay on the island and sent all of us away to different parts of the world. It is rumored that Sultren has been trying to hunt us down ever since. This is why we all changed our names and have kept a low profile all this time.” She glanced into the bowl where the card had been, and then back at me. “Unfortunately, and I don’t know how, Sultren found you.”
I sat back, dumbfounded by our family history. A torrent of questions flooded my mind, about our family, the gifts, my uncle…and the madman trying to use me as a tool for his revenge. “How, though?” I asked. “How could he have found me? How could he even know me?”
Aunt Shugs reached for the bottle of soda and pulled out the little brown bottle in one easy motion.
“We’re about to find out what you know and what happened to you now.”
She pushed the soda bottle into my hand. “Drink some of this” she said, “It’ll make the serum go down easier.”
I was just as curious as she was to find out everything that I could—so much so that I didn’t bother to ask what we were doing. I took a long swig of the cool, sweet liquid. When I put the bottle down, I felt like I was floating. As I surveyed the room, the colors began to pop and become vibrant. I felt an overwhelming urge to giggle. I felt a smile cross my face and began to flex my fingers. I thought it was the funniest thing at that moment; the giggles morphed into outright laughter.
Aunt Shugs got up from her chair, put her hand on my forehead, and tilted my head back. “Okay, okay,” she said. “This next part won’t be as pleasant. Open up.”
I opened my mouth, and she dripped in a few drops of the liquid from the other bottle. I smacked a few times as I swallowed the incredibly bitter fluid. Unexpectedly, I felt like a pillow had been placed over my head, constricting my breathing. I thrashed, failing my limbs—or so I thought. I wasn’t sure what was happening; dullness clouded my brain. Images raced through my mind. I saw Sultren’s face swimming over me. He was speaking down to me, his evil, milky eyes slanted. His pearly white teeth shone as he hissed words. I felt trapped, like my limbs were constricted. I continued to lash about, trying to get free. Then I then saw myself in my car, driving…then blackness…then the lamppost.
When I finally came to, I was lying on the floor. Aunt Shugs had pressed a wet cloth against my forehead. I raised my head slightly, felt dizzy, and immediately rested it back down.
“Don’t try to get up, not just yet,” Aunt Shugs said. She handed me a sweet roll from the plate of treats. “Here, try to eat a nibble of this. It’ll help.”
I raised my arm, which felt like lead, and took the roll from her. As soon as I put it to my lips, I felt a warm sensation coursing through my body. I took a small bite, chewed, and swallowed. Immediately, I felt my strength returning, and I started to feel better. With Aunt Shugs’s help, I slowly got up and sat back in my chair. She helped me walk over to the couch, where I plopped down. She brought over the plate of treats and a small cup of water. When I looked suspiciously at the cup, she smiled. “Don’t worry, I promise this is just water,” she said.
Hesitant, I took the cup from her and sipped the content. She was right; it was only water. I gulped down the rest, then took a big bite of the sweet roll. “You really need to give me the recipe for these,” I said.
“Stick around kid, and you’ll have all my recipes.” She smiled back at me. “So, what did you see?”
I took another bite of the roll, chewed it slowly, and indulged her curiosity. “I think he experimented on me somehow. I saw myself in a room, str
apped to a table. I heard him speaking something over me. Like an incantation. I’m not sure how I escaped, if I did escape, but I remember getting out, and somehow knowing where you lived. I don’t know how, but I remember thinking that you were the closest to where I was, and I had to get to you. I knew if I did, I was going to be alright.”
She reached over and lovingly squeezed my hand. I struggled to remember what I’d seen in the frightening haze. “I don’t have any memory of time, or how long I was with him. It didn’t take a long time. I also don’t know what he did to me.”
“I think I have an idea,” Aunt Shugs said.
Confused, I watched her get up and fetch one of the vases filled with flowers from one of the end tables, along with a handheld mirror from the drawer. She handed me the mirror. “Look” she said.
I stared in the mirror at my reflection and saw that my gaze had intensified. The brown contacts that I used to camouflage my irises were gone. The green and hazel of my natural eyes were exaggerated. “Oh,” I murmured, stunned.
Aunt Shugs smiled slightly. “That’s not all.”
She lifted the vase so that I could see the flowers. Suddenly, the strong mix of scents from roses, chrysanthemums, and daises nearly overpowered me. Confused, I looked at her. “These flowers were fake,” she declared. “That is, before your episode.”
I looked down at the flowers again in disbelief. “I did this?”
“Yes,” she said. “You also magnetized every metal in this room.” She pointed to the door where a letter opener and a small pocket knife protruded. “It also snowed for a small spell, one of the wooden tables broke and then caught on fire, and I’m sure both the tub and sink in the bathroom are full of water.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing…and seeing. Finally, I found my voice. “What did he do to me?” I cried.
Aunt Shugs shrugged. “My guess? I think he kidnapped you to try to figure out what your powers were, but whatever he did only magnified what you already had. That was probably how you were able to escape. You’re too powerful for him.”
