Authors: Christina Leigh Pritchard
“Momma!”
“It is my dying wish! You must tell her the truth.”
“But,” Michael swallowed, “They’ll make me touch Pig for sure.”
“That won’t be the end of the world, now will it?” His mother placed her trembling hands on his cheeks. “You should always do what’s right, no matter the consequence.”
“Pig? Why would they make you touch Pig? I don’t understand.” My lips quivered “Is something wrong with my dog?”
“Michael, you’re supposed to be in class.” Alex stormed in grabbing me by the arm. A jolt of pain rushed through me and I grimaced. “Why would you bring Lisa? That’s insanity.”
“You hush up, you
monster.
” The old woman pointed her index finger at Alex. “Look at me boy. I
know
you.”
Alex turned and glared at the older lady. His eyes closed. I felt him tremble. Why was he afraid of this poor little old lady?
She knew his secrets.
What secrets?
“Young man, you have the power to do good, but your sister shall be the end of you. Why don’t you eliminate the true cause of the problem? Why take it out on those who are just being human?”
“Because she’s my sister and I have rules to protect
them
not her. It was the biggest mistake I have ever made; saving them. I never should’ve listened to
you
.”
I jerked away. How could saving someone be a mistake? He really was cruel. “You evil—”
“Lisa, you don’t have any right to pass judgment on me. You know nothing.”
“Whose fault is that, Alex?”
He leaned close, “Mine. Come with me and I’ll tell you the truth.”
“What about Michael?”
“He’s busy with his family right now.”
Alex guided me out into the lobby. His hands trembled and his eyes watered. “What I’m about to tell you is going to be overwhelming so why don’t we go back to my house for the evening?”
Seventeen
Truth Has Many Faces
Alex and I walked all the way home and he led me into his bedroom. He peeked under his bed and pulled out an album of pictures. “Sit on the bed,” he ordered, tossing hundreds of photos on the comforter. “I want to show you something.”
“Why is Michael afraid of Pig? Why can’t I touch the cat or dog? Why are my eyes purple?”
“Calm down, I’ll answer everything.” Alex frowned, “Well, almost everything. It’s a lot to take in especially in one evening.”
“Tell me about you first.” I leaned in close, touching my knee to his. A little jolt of pain shot through me but it quickly subsided for the both of us.
“You know that our bodies are made up of cells and they renew themselves continuously. That’s what keeps us from deteriorating or growing old. But after a certain age, our bodies mysteriously stop regenerating new cells at the same rate; the cell reproduction process slows down and then we grow old and die. Scientists do not understand why our bodies do this and believe that we were designed to live forever. They even point out that by the time we are eighty years old we’ve only used 1/10
th
of 1% of our brain. That’s the size of a period on a piece of paper. This shows us that our brains were meant to last much, much longer than a century.”
“Oh, wow, but what does this have to do with me?”
“Everything,” Alex took my hands. “I’m Mathew Mood.”
I jerked back, racing for the door. He was there instantly, blocking my exit. “Let me out of here. There is no way you are a three hundred year old teenager.”
“It’s true.”
“You were burned!”
“The lightning fixed whatever was wrong with my cell regeneration and I’m immune to disease, and that is inaccurate—they never burned me. I ran away and the courts decided to make me an example and they staged a fake burning.”
“What about Jane? Was she really burned? Is she Ally?”
“Yes, she is Ally and no, she wasn’t really burned.”
“What about your father?”
Alex guided me back to his bed. He forced me to sit and when I did he grabbed my face and leaned in close. “The lightning changed me. I used to be very mellow and I had a lot of friends too, but once I was hit by the lightning, my hair lightened, my eyes, which used to be brown but they turned blue and whenever I touched someone I could feel their pain and knew basically all their secrets.”
“That’s impossible. You cannot feel someone’s feelings.” I crossed my arms.
“I agree, it’s unexplainable, scientifically at this point. Now, science tries to use electricity to spark cell regeneration, so I can comprehend why the lightning worked. It’s a special kind of lightning, though. I believe there are two types. The one that hit me and the one that struck Ally ten years later.”
“How is Ally different?”
“She used to be a redhead with dark blue eyes. The lighting lightened her hair over the years and soon there will not be any red left. Her eyes have changed and she is unable to feel physical pain. She’s also immune to Pig.”
“Pig?”
“Oh, how do I explain this to you?” Alex motioned for me to lay back. I obeyed. Not because I wanted to be close to him but because I needed his touch. I felt like an addict. Except my drug was Alex. It angered me and I felt almost ashamed.
“Just say it, I’m not ignorant.”
“It’s not that, I just have a hard time explaining this.” Alex brushed his fingers through my hair. “Ally and I can use the lightning to our advantage. When we are extremely upset we cause storms and can direct our personal lightning.”
“Direct your lightning? What does that mean?”
“It means that I can meditate on a person and actually strike them with lightning.”
I leaned up. “Did you strike me?”
“I’ll get to that, stop jumping ahead.”
“You better not tell me you did.”
“Calm down, I’m trying to explain things to you.” He sighed, getting up and walking over to his recliner chair. He turned on the light and grabbed a portrait. “Pig and Rat belonged to Ally and me. We wanted to keep them forever but animals are not designed like us. They were not meant to live eternally and so there were some serious complications. Pig’s cells regenerate much faster but he has aged over the past three hundred or so years. He also has a serious defect. If you touch him you lose your longevity. Frank touched him and now he is in his forties. He stays at the school every now and then but he isn’t like us anymore.”
“What about the cat?”
“I’ll leave that one for another day.” Alex handed me an old photograph of himself with Ally and the pets. “To answer your question about my father—Joseph Mood; he died of old age.”
“Why didn’t you just zap him with lightning?”
“Well, I did.”
“Then why did he grow old? I thought you said you could make people live forever?”
“No, I never said forever. I don’t know how long we will live. The lightning did speed up our cell regeneration. We just don’t seem to age and we’re immune to disease.”
“But what about your father; how did he die?”
“It appears that the lightning can only work on those eighteen or younger. We figure it’s because the cell regeneration process has not slowed down yet in the body. The only thing that happens for those older than eighteen is they become free of disease. I actually saved Aunt Millie from death. She had cancer and it was terminal.”
“What about Michael and the rest of the kids at C I N? I noticed that they all had light eyes just like you and Ally. Are they like you, too?”
“Sort of.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, okay, in the eighties, a lot of Lynn had factories and they were burned down so that the owners could collect insurance money. I was walking by and I heard screaming inside one of the abandoned warehouses. It was on fire and I couldn’t just let them burn to death. The thought still makes me sick.”
“What were they doing in there?”
“Probably having a party or something. Who knows. I don’t think the owner of the building knew they were in there. Anyhow, I zapped the building and now they are all immune to disease and have longevity. But they do not have tireless energy like Ally and I have, nor do they have any extraordinary abilities.”
“What about pain? Do they feel pain when you touch them?”
“Yes, they do. And that’s why I wasn’t surprised when you said you felt pain. But it still perplexes me as to why you felt my pain
before
you were struck by lightning.”
“It was you who struck me. It was you telling me to hurry on home, you were manipulating the weather and that probably caused all those natural disasters I saw on the news!”
“Actually, Ally and I both struck you. She thought I was going to let you leave Lynn and jumped the gun. So you have both of our traits. Her type of lightning seems to make her numb, she is immune to Pig and she has uncontrollable rage. She’s not the same person she once was. I’m petrified of her sometimes.”
“Why was I leaving Lynn?”
“Who knows…”
“You’re lying to me, aren’t you?”
“I plead the fifth.”
“You are.”
“I did it to protect you. I didn’t want you to feel pain anymore.”
“I just thought of something.”
“What? What’s your epiphany?”
“You’ve never had a girlfriend because it hurts you and it also hurts the girl when you make physical contact!”
“Are you still thinking about that?”
“Yes, now go back to the lightning. Why was I leaving Lynn?”
“Can’t you stick to one subject?”
“Sometimes, but I have a lot going on inside my head right now.”
“Yeah, I know. I can feel every thought you have.”
“Sometimes, if I concentrate, I can feel yours, too.”
Alex leaned forward, his fingers twitching. “I know, I can feel you wondering what I mean. It’s freaky.”
I laughed. “How do you think I feel?”
“Well, you’re scared, you kind of hate me but can’t stay away from my touch so you’re using me to some degree and yet, as much as you hate me, you secretly have a crush on me.”
“I do
not
have a crush on you, Alex Moody. You’re a weirdo with a dark side.”
“Yes, you do. You just don’t know it yet.”
“You’re a bad person, I can feel it.”
“No, I’m not. Your new best friend, however, has a much darker side to him than I do.”
“Who?”
“Michael.”
“Yeah, right, whatever. He is as sweet as pie. You have proven just how rotten you can be; especially when it comes to using Pig as a killer. You use him to take away the longevity of someone who disobeys you.”
“That was an accident. He did something very bad.”
“Who else did you kill?”
“No one; we tried to keep a friend of ours back in the 1700’s but she touched the dog and grew old. We even tried to strike her again but it didn’t work. Another chose to grow old when he fell in love.”
“What about me? Am I going to live forever?”
“Lisa, I don’t know. I know you will live a very long time. I’m over three hundred. The kids from the burning warehouse were not hit directly and seem to age slightly faster. They can break their legs or even die by doing something dangerous, but they are immune to sickness and disease. You’re different all together. You were hit twice; once by my type of lightning and then also by Ally’s kind. You have her numbness but hopefully you will not get her temper. It seems that you can turn your oddities on and off at will. Maybe you are even more powerful than we are.”
“I will always be more powerful than the two of you. I’m Lisa Brown, after all,” I teased.
Alex grabbed me around the waist and pulled me against him. “I’ve never been so powerless,” he peered into my eyes. I wanted to grab him by the face and force him to kiss me. I shook the thought away and reminded myself that he planned to make Michael die just because he saw his mother. “I’m not going to make Michael touch Pig.”