Authors: Jessica Knauss
“Please give me a moment to find your file,” she said after I’d sat in the chair facing the desk. “Why don’t you start by telling me about your artistic goals?”
This was going to be a breeze. I could wrap this up and be at the hospital in five more minutes. “At Boston Pyrokinesis and Latin, I hope to pursue my piano studies and maybe finish my career here by writing a concerto.”
“Ah. Uh huh,” she said, and my spirits sank. I’d said what everyone who comes through this office says. How could I stand out?
“Or a symphony,” I added. “Or a symphony and fugue. A rap song?”
But I noticed she’d finally found my file and was touching the pages gingerly, as if they were covered in snail slime.
“I’m sure you’re a very nice girl, Kelly, but I wasn’t supposed to get you.”
I was puzzled.
“The first thing I need to tell you is that we don’t get a lot of applicants from Rhode Island.”
This wasn’t going as well as I’d thought it would. “Why not?”
“You have the Pyrokinesis Management Academy in Providence.”
I didn’t care about the PMA anymore. “That place is a prison. Have you ever been there?”
“The Providence facility is meant to serve the Rhode Island community,” she said, fingering a specific point on the top sheet of my file. “And is ideally suited to dealing with . . . problem cases from throughout the Northeast.”
“I’m not a problem case.” I considered standing up, but that might look like I was willing to leave, and I needed to assert my right to this stinking interview I’d prepared so much for.
“Please calm down. We weren’t even going to have you talk to an admissions officer at all. We can’t accept your application because your manifestation was too violent.”
“My manifestation? But that’s not who I am now,” I protested. “I can learn to control the flames now so they don’t take over my life. I didn’t know what was happening at all when I manifested.”
“You have to understand that we’re not equipped to handle cases like yours. We can’t accommodate you.”
I turned to bargaining. “I brought someone with me today to fix all the problems I caused. Right after this, we’re going to heal my mother over at Mass General. Then there will be no reason to reject me.”
She studied the paper and then looked me right in the eye and said, “It says here there’s no way your mother can recover.”
“They just don’t know. I can heal her today. Heck, I’ll be able to bring her back here to show you. Then will you accept me?” I didn’t wait for a reply. I had to go to my mother right that very minute. I slammed the door open to see Beth and Melinda, only Beth and Melinda, staring up at me from deep within the red velvet cushions.
“Where’s Ms. Matheson?”
“She went out for coffee,” said Melinda.
“What’s happening?” asked Beth.
I merely continued my line of questioning. “Where’s Jill and Raúl?”
“They disappeared a while back. Either they’re practicing or they’re making out,” said Melinda, wincing.
I knew Brian was still in his interview. I remembered the T stop beyond the parking lot, grabbed Beth by the hand, and charged out the door.
“Where are we going?” she asked, grasping the doorjamb.
“We’re getting on the T to see my mother right now.”
“Wait, you may not have time,” said Melinda, looking at her phone’s clock.
“What?”
“The Green Line is so slow from here, it’ll take you two hours, and you don’t have that.”
“No! What do we do?” I was desperate.
Melinda stood and patted her pocketbook. “I’ll come with you. We can take a cab.”
“What about your interview, Melinda?” asked Beth. I yanked her hand, not wanting Melinda to change her mind. I knew I didn’t have enough cash, and I’ve never taken a taxi before, so I needed a guide.
“We’ve got to get going.” Melinda started out the door and down the grand staircase. “I’ll send a video of my dancing or my dad will have the interview waived. I’ve got this under control.”
We were all out of breath at the bottom of the staircase, and after we ran across the atrium, the cold air sucked every last bit of oxygen from our lungs, but still we kept going. At the T stop, there was a massive crowd of people—students, mostly—bundled up and stamping their feet, waiting for the blessed trolley to come. There were so many, I’d bet that even though that’s the end of the line and the train starts out empty, there were too many of them and some of them would still have to keep waiting for the next one. And where was it, anyway? We got to the sign that said “Taxi Stand,” and it was overrun with more people waiting for the train, and not a cab in sight.
“How long until the next taxi?” I asked a middle-aged woman with a small child.
“Who knows?” she replied with a Boston accent. “It’s spotty before noon.”
The word struck terror into my heart. I was looking around blindly, wondering what we could do, and when I looked back toward the BoPLA visitor’s parking lot, Melinda pointed and shouted. “The van. Come on.”
I grabbed Beth’s hand again (I’ve found out that she’s a little older than me, but she sure doesn’t seem like it most of the time) and followed Melinda to whatever wonderful solution she had devised. We stopped short in front of the van.
“Ms. Matheson must’ve gone for coffee somewhere on the BC campus,” said Melinda. “Or she’s somewhere inside the BoPLA building.”
“So?” I said, my voice strained. “We don’t have a key.”
“No,” she admitted. “But we have her.” Melinda took Beth between her hands as if she were a life-sized doll and made her face the van square on.
She had a silly smile on her face. “Please don’t tell my telekinesis ethics teacher,” she whispered. She screwed up her lips and squinted, and I heard the locking mechanism pop open. Melinda applauded briefly (and it’s only right that we should appreciate such beautiful work, but I was too panicked) and we climbed in. Beth and I squeezed past the driver’s seat to sit in the front row, while Melinda stayed behind the wheel. She settled in a little bit and set her pocketbook primly behind the seat.
“Okay,” she said. “Beth, I need you—do you know how a car starts?”
“No,” she said quietly.
“It’s okay. Pretend your powers are a key and turn this ignition for me.” I couldn’t believe how patient Melinda was being. Not what I would have said she would do in such a situation.
Before we knew it, the van was up and running. Melinda craned her neck to back out over ice patches and snow drifts.
Melinda. Not Jill. Jill was nowhere to be found, and Brian was busy probably earning a spot in BoPLA’s sophomore class next year.
Melinda
drove. The school’s rejection, my confusion, and the worry about my mother let me accept for the time being that she had at least a learner’s permit.
Oh, this is too much for anyone! I have to stop for now.
February 14
Maybe it was just my mental state, but as Melinda pulled out onto the street, scattering some of the waiting commuters at the T stop, it felt like the van lurched and sputtered a lot more than when Ms. Matheson was driving. It turns out she doesn’t have a learner’s permit. When she does go for the test, I wonder how sharply she’ll feel the absence of a telekinetic to throw roadblocks out of her way. Beth bent a streetlamp, tossed a mailbox, shoved a pedestrian, and even lifted the car ahead of us right off the road before we made it to Storrow Drive. I think we ended up on the 90 going west for a minute and Beth saved us again by more or less creating an exit where there hadn’t been one previously. I focused on the stable elements, like the blackened snow banks and constant stream of striding pedestrians—university students without a care in the world. When we pulled in to the glass-and-brick towers, I said, “This is it.”
I grabbed Beth’s arm and pulled her out. “Okay, I’m coming,” she protested.
Melinda guided the van slowly somewhere out of sight to park it and Beth and I barged into the cavernous foyer, united in purpose.
“I’m looking for my mother, Ella Garfield. I need to see her before she goes into surgery.” I stated the facts for the unenthused receptionist.
“Are you her daughter?” She looked me over intensely. “Your kind aren’t welcome at the hospital in general, and you in particular have been banned.” She pointed to a row of snapshots behind her under a banner reading, “Entry Not Permitted.” In the center was my school picture from last year, with the greasy hair and the zit on my nose.
“That’s not me,” I protested. I would never have claimed ownership of that picture, anyway, but here it was really causing me grief.
But she didn’t fall for it. She made a shooing motion toward me.
“Look, I just want to see my mother. She’s terribly ill.” I leaned on the counter and my bracelet from Brian popped out of my sleeve. “Hey, look at this beauty. Pure tungsten, with a handy compartment for whatever small substance you might want to carry. Maybe you’ll take it as collateral that I won’t set any fires while I’m here, visiting my own dear mother?” Yes, I was willing to give up the single biggest symbol of my love life. Admire my dedication? The receptionist didn’t.
“Am I going to have to call security?”
The clock on the wall behind the nurse creaked into place, showing noon. “Beth,” I cried. “Do something!” I looked toward the hallway, expecting her to use her telekinesis powers to sweep people out of the way like so many crumbs and fling doors open to reveal where my mother was. But nothing happened.
Instead, Beth took a wallet out of her pocket and flashed an ID with all kinds of official-looking seals. “I’m an Other-Talented Healer, Telekinetic.”
“I don’t care what Talents you have. If you’re with her, you aren’t coming in.”
“I’m sorry, Kelly. I would help you more directly,” Beth said, raising her eyebrows to indicate, I believe, that she meant she would use her telekinesis in untoward ways for the sake of our friendship, “but I can tell there’s aluminum here. We’re going to have to get your mother out of the building before I can help her.”
She appeared to be accustomed to announcing what she planned beforehand, because, now that I’m thinking about it, unless someone has her kryptonite handy, no one can stop her. She’s pretty scary. But the fact was that her powers were useless. She couldn’t even use them to teleport my mother outside to an area that would be aluminum-free.
“I’m actually starting to feel kind of queasy,” Beth mentioned.
I imagined throwing off my patch and sending fireballs down the hallways of the entire hospital. The licking flames would get all this bureaucracy out of my way—and obliterate everything in their path. But there was no way that would help the situation. Stupid useless Talent! All it does is hurt people. I sat down on the floor right there and started to cry.
Then the hospital doors flew open and Melinda stepped in. “What’s going on?” she asked Beth.
“They won’t let us in. Well, they won’t let Kelly in. We have to get her mom out of here because I can’t work with all this aluminum.”
Melinda set her jaw and swiped her platinum necklace off her neck with what looked like practiced grace. She tossed the metal to me and pointed her index finger at a trash receptacle. It exploded into flame and in the smoke, I could see something like a red laser beam fading out from her finger. The sprinklers started and Melinda grabbed my hand to pull me up, and Beth and I were following her to the main hallway before I could think it over.
I saw the list of departments next to the elevator and the burn unit was on the first floor, thank goodness. The corridors branched off confusingly, and Beth and Melinda stopped to try and figure out how to get there. I followed my instincts and barreled down the hall, past the bank of elevators, past the people running out from the stairwell doors under a torrent of sprinklers and blaring alarms, looking into each room as I went.
I stopped when I recognized my dad. In the bed, under the sheets, my mother’s body was wasted away, angular, from months of hospital food, probably only in liquid form for all I know. But the horrifying part was above the neck. For the first time, I saw what I had done to her and it stopped me cold in the doorway.
It was like all the pain in the world was concentrated where my mother’s head used to be. It looked like other third-degree burns I’ve seen, but what made it different was that I couldn’t recognize any of her features. It was a nightmare come true. I had erased my mother’s face, the first face I’d ever seen and the basis for all my ideas of beauty. It was just gone. How could I have created such a terrible world? How could I have so thoroughly destroyed the one person I loved most? How come I was breathing naturally without some apparatus, how come I didn’t have a single scorch mark? How come I still had a face when she hovered faceless somewhere between life and death? I guess this is why Dad never let me visit. He must’ve known seeing my mother would make me desperate.
I was on my knees in the doorway with my head in my hands when Melinda and Beth caught up to me and saw what I saw. Melinda turned away and Beth supported herself against the wall while she retched. I couldn’t let myself feel any more ashamed or guilty right then, so I left her to it. I stood and wiped my eyes.
“Kelly, what are you doing here?” came my dad’s voice.
“Dad, this is Beth,” I said, gesturing toward her hunched body. “She’s going to cure Mom.” I must have sounded insane.
“Sorry, I didn’t realize she was quite so bad off,” Beth said scratchily, and turned around to face me.
“But she can’t do it here,” I continued for my dad’s sake. “We have to get her out of the hospital. There’s too much of Beth’s kryptonite here.”
“You can’t move her. Are you crazy?” Dad shouted. I expected that reaction. Mom appeared to already be partially sedated for surgery, because she didn’t stir at the noise. There were two nurses or anesthesiologists, doing whatever prep work they do, in the room and a guy standing back from it all as if he was going to scrub up and be the surgeon when they finished. They ran into the hallway at the sound of the fire alarm, and one of them physically pushed us back out the door in his determination to follow evacuation protocol.