Authors: Stephanie Judice
“I can’t lose you,” he said.
There was desperation in his voice so
unlike him.
From the moment I met Gabe,
he was all control.
Well, except for
that one time on my porch when we both lost control.
Yikes, fluttering in my stomach again.
But, this was different.
His brown eyes combed over my face as if
memorizing it.
I couldn’t stand that
strange look of agony.
I tip-toed, pulling
him down to me, and kissed him.
His lips
were unyielding, at first, then he softened, scooping one hand behind my
back.
I wanted the kiss to last longer
than it did, but he pulled away.
He let
his eyes drop to the ground.
“Better?” I asked with a little too
much perkiness.
He smiled then finally looked back into
my eyes.
That hard edge was gone
now.
Mission accomplished.
“Yes,” he said quietly.
“Much better.”
He tucked one side of my hair back
behind my ear.
I felt the trail of heat
his finger left behind.
I wanted to kiss
him again, but he’d already leaned away from me.
His aura hovered in fuzzy shades of blue,
purple, and red around his head, like a sad crown.
“I’ll pick you up in the morning,” he
said, kissing me lightly on the forehead, leaving me depressed and wanting him
more.
11
GABE
Canebrake Island wasn’t really an island.
There was an artificial land bridge about a
mile long through swampy water to a piece of fertile soil about three miles
long and wide. Local sugar farmers owned pieces of the land, which was all it
was used for.
Well, and apparently it
was the home of the care-taker who lived on the island, the man Mrs. Fairfax
called ‘crazy old Homer.’
During harvest
and planting time, the land was dominated by bulky tractors hooked to massive
tills and hulking trailer hauls bumbling from field to mill.
For the rest of the year, it remained
isolated and still.
I wondered how this
reclusive man spent his time out here all alone.
As we crossed the land-bridge, I looked out at
the wispy fog blanketing the marshy water.
A white heron was picking its way through the shallows near the
bank.
Gray moss clung to the branches of
the many cypress trees thickening the swamp.
I noticed that the spiky leaves were already tipped a russet brown,
which seemed too early for that autumn change.
Cypress knees jutted up out of the mist looking like the tops of little
gnome’s heads peeking out to look around.
It was eerie how completely still everything was here, yet so alive at
the same time.
It was like being
watched.
“My dad said that the riot last night was on
the front page of the paper,” yelled Jeremy from the backseat.
“The headline was ‘Family Football Turns into
Frenzy.’ He wanted to know if I’d had any part in starting the riot.”
“Your dad has a strange impression of you,”
said Clara next to me.
“Yeah, well, I guess I can’t blame him too
much.
Ever since I got caught for
vandalism in the 8
th
grade, he thinks I’m a delinquent.”
“You’re not?” asked Ben.
I’d made Ben come along even though he really
didn’t want to.
He’s been paying me back
by pouting and making mean-spirited comments the whole ride over.
“Not really,” said Jeremy, apparently not
offended by Ben at all.
“He should take the time to get to know who you
are now, not who you were,” said Clara.
“Yeah.
Well, sometimes parents are more interested in their own lives than in
their kids.”
Clara opened her mouth to say something else,
but closed it shut tightly.
I took her
hand, knowing what I sensed from her was that same anxiety she felt whenever
someone mentioned inattentive parents.
I
knew that she was extremely close to her dad, so this bitter emotion must be
for her mother.
Clara seemed a little
distant since last night.
I couldn’t
blame her.
I don’t think I comforted her
much after what happened with the shadow people.
Actually, I still felt myself wanting to pull
away from her, but it was only because I was afraid—of what I could do, what I
couldn’t do, of hurting her, of hurting others.
I was afraid of myself.
Before long, the cane fields ended and the dirt
road led us into a brackish wood thick with water oaks and leafy elms.
The cover of trees opened to a flat piece of
land dipping toward the swamp which wrapped itself around Canebrake
Island.
Squatting at the water’s edge
was a rudimentary house made of cypress, covered with a tin roof rusted along
the rim.
A cluster of cypress trees
framed the backside of the house along the swamp’s edge; thin fingers of
Spanish moss dangled from its craggy arms.
“This must be the place,” sighed Ben.
“Looks about what I expected.”
“Stop being so cranky,” I said.
Ben just rolled his eyes at me.
As the four of us neared the house, the sound
of music grew louder and louder—a violin.
The melody was a little sad.
It
sounded familiar, but the instrument seemed wrong.
My mom always played classical music for her
plants in the greenhouse.
When I helped
her in repotting or adding fertilizer, I would ask her sometimes why she only
played classical.
Her prompt reply was
always, ‘Nature is nurtured best with the best kind of music.’
I wondered what Jeremy would think of my
mom’s little parable, then he shocked me by knowing the song.
“
Hmph
, Moonlight
Sonata.”
“What was that?” asked Clara.
“It’s Beethoven,” said Jeremy confidently.
“Excuse me,” said Clara with a smile on her
face.
“You know classical music?”
“Yes,” he said harshly, “I know classical
music.
I took piano when I was
little.
So what?”
“Oh, nothing at all,” she added, still
grinning.
Right when we made it to the top of the rickety
porch that wrapped all the way around the house, the music stopped.
We glanced at each other for a few seconds
then I knocked lightly on the door, whose white paint was chipped and falling
away.
No sound.
No answer.
I tapped again, louder.
No answer
still.
A soft brush against my legs made
me jump suddenly.
An orange tabby cat
gazed up at me from round green eyes.
He
meowed hoarsely.
“Come here, Newton,” came a raspy voice beside
us.
We jerked around to find a stout man somewhere
in his forties staring back at us.
He’d
come from the backside of the porch with his violin and bow hanging in his
hands. He looked like a cross between a hippie and a cowboy.
He wore pale blue Levi’s, a brown checkered
shirt, and Roper boots with steel tips.
His long black hair had a few streaks of gray and was pulled back in a
ponytail.
He also had a speckled gray
beard.
Although his tawny skin was
leathery and lined with deep furrows along the brow, he had youthful blue eyes
the color of the Caribbean.
I’d never
seen it for myself, but I saw a picture once in my mom’s travel magazine.
I was hoping to see it for my senior trip,
but that looked doubtful now.
“Excuse me, sir.
Are you Homer Rivers?”
“Hmm,” he said with a thoughtful expression, “I
was expecting five of you, not four.”
We all glanced at each other, obviously
confused.
“You were expecting us?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he replied, “for a while now.”
His accent was more country than Cajun. He set
the violin and bow on a weather-beaten table next to a wicker chair then picked
up Newton who was weaving between his ankles.
“Excuse me, but how could you be expecting us?”
I asked.
“We just heard your name for
the first time yesterday.”
“Well, Gabriel, I heard about you a long, long
time ago.”
“How?” asked Clara.
“Where from?”
The grizzled man gave us a sheepish grin and
his blue eyes sparkled as he tapped an index finger to his forehead.
“Do you know all of us?” she asked.
“Yes, Clara Dunaway, I do.”
“This is so
frickin
’
weird, I don’t even know where to start,” said Ben, taking a step backward.
“Benjamin LeBlanc, I suggest you stay right
where you are because without you, without all of the
Setti
,
many more will die than needs to.”
His voice was firm, but his blue eyes still
shone brightly.
His words pinned Ben to
the spot.
“
Setti
?” I heard
myself mumble.
“You said there should be
five of us, so all of us together would be—”
“Yes, Gabriel.
Setti
refers to the number in the clan—six.”
“But, I thought it referred to our sixth sense
that we have.”
“Sense?” then the man chuckled heartily.
Newton nuzzled under his bearded chin in
response to his laughter, then Homer suddenly became serious.
“This sense that you’ve felt all your life is
merely a side effect for what you can really do.
What you’ve thought is some supernatural gift
is actually just a shadow of the true power that you have within you.”
When he said this, he looked at all of us, not
just me.
“You said five.
Who’s missing?” asked Jeremy.
“The Creole girl, the Healer,” he replied
frankly.
“Melanie?” exclaimed Ben.
“Why don’t we go inside?
I think we should sit down for this
conversation.”
His screen door creaked open and slammed shut
behind him.
We all stood there for a
second, glancing at each other for guidance.
I shrugged then went in.
The
others followed.
Ben was the last one
in.
I was expecting a dark interior and
a musty odor to match the outside of Homer’s hovel.
I was surprised to find a warm, well-lit room
that was much larger than I’d imagined.
There was a wall of windows facing the marsh and double doors that went
out to the back porch.
The water
glittered under a partly cloudy sky.
There were kerosene lanterns, like the ones my Pop used when we went camping,
propped up all over the room—on a wooden mantel above a recently used
fireplace; on a roughened oak dining table; on bookshelves that were nearly
completely full lining the far wall.
There was a cushy-looking green couch with a blue and white quilt lining
against its back and a matching chair facing out to the water, beside the book
shelves.
Homer sat in the chair and
motioned for us to have a seat.
I noticed several photo albums spread out on
the coffee table.
One was open to a
newspaper clipping entitled “Miracle Boy Survives Lightening Strike” with a
large photo.
I recognized the
girlish-faced blonde slumped in the hospital bed right away.
“Hey!
That’s me,” said Ben, picking up the album.
“Yes, that’s you,” agreed Homer, letting Newton
curl up on his lap.
“Dude, you seem like a nice guy and all, but come
on. Why are you saving clippings of me?”
“Not just you, Benjamin,” he said.
“I’ve been collecting evidence for years on
who my clan members are.
That was the
only time I felt your power so strong, when that lightening struck you.
I’ve had my doubts over the years, but the
way you were drawn in to Gabriel and Melanie made me certain that you are one
of us.”
“Mr. Homer,” said Clara, “can you please start
from the beginning? What is this, this power you say we have?
What is it for?
What can we do?
What—”