“I had a lamp, but it broke,” I said. “You can sit wherever. I’ll get some glasses.”
“What about the overhead lights?”
“They burned out.”
There were no clean glasses, so I rinsed two of them out and dried them off with a paper towel.
“What’s all this stuff?” she called. “The notebooks?”
“My notes,” I said. “Don’t read those.”
“Can I move them?”
“Yeah, just put them anywhere.”
“Notes for what?” she asked as I came in with the glasses.
My face got hot. I couldn’t tell her they were full of dreams and visions and other stuff she wouldn’t believe. I couldn’t tell her they were pages and pages, books and books full of a crazy person’s rants. I didn’t know what else to say, so I just stood there not saying anything until her face started to fall again.
“This is going well, huh?” I said.
She shrugged, trying to keep her smile going, but she was getting uncomfortable too. She looked like she was starting to think this was a bigger mistake than I did.
“Sorry,” I told her. “I don’t know what to say.”
I thought she might leave, but instead she got a determined look on her face and the smile came back, at least a little. She patted the cushion of the chair across from her gently, inviting me to sit down, and when I did, she filled my glass about an inch’s worth.
“Tell me about your day,” she said.
I drained the glass, and it felt good. Whatever it was, it was sweet and fiery, and burned going down. Not too much and not too little, and as I felt that heat trickle down my throat and into my stomach, it filled my nose with the smell of spice.
“You’d never believe me.”
She poured me another one, and one for herself. After that, it started flowing pretty freely.
“You don’t want to tell me,” she said.
I shrugged.
“Has it to do with your gift?” she asked.
“My gift?”
“That thing you do,” she said. “The way you calm Ted down. How does it work?”
“I don’t know,” I said, and swallowed another glassful. With my nose in the glass, I breathed in, drawing in the fumes.
“Oh, come on.”
“Really, I wish I did.”
“Are you psychic?”
“I don’t know what I am,” I said, shaking my head.
“For all I know, we’re not even really having this conversation.”
I didn’t notice right away because I was starting to get drunk, but she was looking at me all seriously, and the smile was gone.
“You really see things?”
Instead of answering, I held out my glass again, and she poured some more in.
“Like ghosts?” she asked.
“No.”
“Visions?”
“They’re not hallucinations.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“They’re not. I wish they were.”
“Why?”
“Because it all burns,” I said, looking into the glass. What little light there was looked red through the liquor, shimmering like little hot embers. When I looked back at her, her eyes had gotten wider.
“What does—”
“I don’t want to talk about that, okay?”
Karen nodded.
“Why wouldn’t you let me thank you before?” she asked.
I shrugged.
“You know he used to hit me all the time,” she said, looking down into her glass.
“I know.”
“But not anymore,” she said, “and that’s because of you. I know this is a touchy subject for you, but just let me say it, okay? I don’t know what it is you do or how you do it, but you’ve been a big help. Whether you meant to or not, you made a difference to me. I’ve always wanted to stop you, to talk to you. I’ve always wanted to thank you, but I was afraid.”
As she spoke, I felt this sort of heaviness coming over me, like a fog or water. The light in the room seemed to dim.
“I need to be clear about something,” I said, and I was suddenly very conscious that my words were slurring. “I can’t change anyone or anything. Calming down a violent person doesn’t make him not violent—you get it? If I know something that’s going to happen, I can’t make it not happen. I can’t change anything.”
“You might think that,” she said, “but you’re wrong. People change things all the time. Maybe they don’t do it by reaching into people’s heads, but they don’t have to. They do it by reaching out to them, even if it’s just something little. That’s how you change things, and anyone can do it. Even you.”
She looked up from her glass, and her eyes were a ghostly color. Like moonlight. They glowed softly, and in that instant before she looked down again, they watched me with a cold, dead indifference.
I felt like the floor dropped out from under me, and my face started to feel cold. From outside the window I heard what sounded like a transformer blowing or a loud firework going off from blocks away. I thought I was hearing things, but she heard it too. When she looked back from the window, her eyes were normal.
“What was that?” she asked.
“You need to leave,” I said. Another sound, one she didn’t hear, was getting louder. It was a sound like voices all talking at once.
“I’m sorry—”
“You need to leave,” I said again, getting up. I felt light-headed and stumbled, almost falling back onto the couch. “I didn’t go down there to help you. I went down there because you were being too loud.”
“I don’t believe you.”
The voices were getting louder, and I could hear they were panicked and screaming. The room was getting darker, and the floor felt like it was moving underneath me.
“Something happened,” I said. “Something terrible happened.”
“What—”
“Get out!” I shouted, and she jumped, almost dropping her glass. The heavy feeling was getting worse. Everything was slowing down. I heard a smash as the glass slipped out of my hands and hit the floor. I was hyper- ventilating and I couldn’t stop.
“Hey, are you okay?” Karen asked, getting up and reaching toward me. I slapped her hands aside and she backed away. I didn’t want her to see me like this. I didn’t want what I was seeing to be true.
“It’s not fair!” I screamed. She was looking at me like I’d gone nuts, but by then it was too late for me to even try to stop it.
I stepped back over a body lying on its back on the floor. Three other men with strange silvery eyes hunched over around him. One turned and raised his head, red, gristly meat clenched in his teeth as he tore away a long strip of rubbery skin.
The room disappeared. The voices became a roar as a stampede of men, women, and children charged around
