Ghost Story

I plunged into the memory.

“I don’t understand,” I complained, rubbing at my aching temples. “It didn’t work the first fifty times. It isn’t going to work now.”

“Forty-six times,” Justin corrected me, his voice very precise, like always. He had an accent, but I couldn’t figure out which kind it was. I hadn’t heard one like it on TV. Not that Justin had a TV. I had to sneak out on Friday nights to watch it in the store at the mall, or else face the real risk that I’d miss Knight Rider altogether.

“Harry,” Justin said.

“Okay,” I sighed. “My head hurts.”

“It’s natural. You’re blazing new trails in your mind. Once more, please.”

“Couldn’t I blaze the trails somewhere else?”

Justin looked up at me from where he sat at his desk. We were in his office, which was what he called the spare bedroom in the little house about twenty miles outside Des Moines. He was dressed in black pants and a dark grey shirt, like on most days. His beard was short, precisely trimmed. He had very long, slender fingers, but his hands could make fists that were hard as rocks. He was taller than me, which most grownups were, and he never called me anything mean when he got mad, which most of the foster parents I’d been with did.

If I angered Justin, he just went from saying please to using his fists. He never swung at me while screaming or shook me, which other caretakers had done. When he hit me, it was really quick and precise, and then it was over. Like when Bruce Lee hit a guy. Only Justin never made the silly noises.

I ducked my head, looking away from him, and then stared at the empty fireplace. I was sitting in front of it with my legs crossed. There were logs and tinder ready to go. There was a faint smell of smoke, and a bit of wadded-up newspaper had turned black at one corner, but otherwise there was no evidence of a fire.

In my peripheral vision, I saw Justin turn back to his book. “Once more, if you please.”

I sighed. Then I closed my eyes and started focusing again. You started with steadying your breathing. Then once you were relaxed and ready, you gathered energy. Justin had told me to picture it as a ball of light at the center of my chest, slowly growing brighter and brighter, but that was a load of crap. When the Silver Surfer did it, energy gathered around his hands and his eyes. Green Lantern gathered it around his ring. Iron Fist had glowing fists, which was pretty much as cool as you could get. I guess Iron Man had the glowing thing in the middle of his chest, but he was, like, the only one, and he didn’t really have superpowers anyway.

I pictured gathering my energy together around my right hand. So there.

I pictured it glowing brighter and brighter, surrounded by a red aura like Iron Fist’s. I felt the power making tingling sensations up and down my arms, making my hairs stand up on end. And when I was ready, I leaned forward, thrusting my hand into the fireplace, released the energy, and said clearly, “Sedjet.”

And as I spoke, I flicked the starter on the Bic lighter I had palmed in my right hand. The little lighter immediately set the newspaper alight.

From right next to me, Justin said, “Put it out.”

I twitched and dropped the lighter in pure surprise. My heart started beating about a zillion times a minute.

His fingers closed into a fist. “I don’t like to repeat myself.”

I swallowed and reached into the fireplace to drag the burning paper out from under the wood. It singed me a little, but not enough to cry about or anything. I slapped the fire out with my hands, my cheeks turning bright red as I did.

“Give me the lighter,” Justin said, his voice calm.

I bit my lip and did.

He took the lighter and bounced it a couple of times in his palm. A faint smile was on his lips. “Harry, I believe you will find that such ingenuity may be of great service to you as an adult.” The smile vanished. “But you are not an adult, boy. You are a student. This sort of underhanded behavior will not do. At all.”

He closed his fist and hissed, “Sedjet.”

His hand exploded into a sphere of scarlet-and-blue flame—which pretty much made Iron Fist’s powers look a little bit pastel. I stared and swallowed. My heart beat even faster.

Justin rotated his hand a few times, contemplating it, and making sure that I saw his whole fist and arm— that I could see it wasn’t sleight of hand. It was completely surrounded in fire.

And it wasn’t burning.

Justin held his fist right next to my face, until the heat was beginning to make me uncomfortable, but he never flinched and his flesh remained unharmed.

“If you choose it, this is what you may one day manage,” he said calmly. “Mastery of the elements. And, more important, mastery of yourself.”

“Um,” I said. “What?”

“Humans are inherently weak, boy,” he continued in that same steady voice. “That weakness expresses itself in a great many ways. For instance, right now you wish to stop practicing and go outside. Even though you know that what you learn here is absolutely critical, still your impulse is to put play first, study later.” He opened his hand suddenly and dropped the lighter in my lap.

I flinched away as it struck my leg, and let out a little yell. But the red plastic lighter simply lay on the floor, unmarked by any heat. I touched it with a nervous fingertip, but the lighter was quite cool.

“Right now,” Justin said, “you are making a choice. It may not seem like a large and terrible choice, but in the long term, it may well be. You are choosing whether you will be the master of your own fate, with the power to create what you will from the world—or whether you will simply flick your Bic and get by. Unremarkable. Complacent.” His mouth twisted and his voice turned bitter. “Mediocre. Mediocrity is a terrible fate, Harry.”

My hand hovered over the lighter, but I didn’t pick it up. I thought about what he had said. Then I said, “What you mean is that if I can’t do it . . . you’ll send me back.”

“Success or failure of the spell is not the issue,” he said. “What matters is the success or failure of your will. Your will to overcome human weakness. Your will to work. To learn. I will have no shirkers here, boy.” He settled down onto the floor next to me and nodded toward the fireplace. “Again, if you please.”

I stared at him for a moment, then down at my hand, at the discarded lighter.

No one had ever told me I was special before. But Justin had. No one had ever taken so much time to do anything with me. Ever. Justin had.

I thought of going back into the state system—to the homes, the shelters, the orphanages. And suddenly, I truly wanted to succeed. I wanted it more than I wanted dinner, more even than I wanted to watch Knight Rider. I wanted Justin to be proud of me.

I left the lighter where it was and focused on my breathing.

I built up the spell again, slowly, slowly, focusing on it more intently than on anything I’d ever done in my life. And I was nearly thirteen, so that was really saying something.

The energy swelled until I felt like someone had started a trash fire in my belly, and then I willed it out, through my empty, outstretched right hand, and as I did, instead of using the Egyptian phrase, I said, “Flickum bicus!”

And the remaining tinder under the logs burst into bright little flames. I didn’t think I’d ever seen anything more beautiful.

I sagged and almost fell over, even though I was already sitting on the floor. My body suddenly ached with hunger and weariness, like this one time when all us orphans had gotten to go to a water park. I wanted to eat a bucket of macaroni and cheese and then go to sleep.

A strong, long-fingered hand caught my shoulder and steadied me. I looked up to see Justin regarding me, his dark eyes flickering with warmth that wasn’t wholly the reflection of the small but growing fire in the hearth.

“Flickum bicus?” he asked.

I nodded and felt myself blushing again. “You know. ’Cause . . . the mediocrity.”

He tilted his head back and let out a rolling laugh. He ruffled my hair with one hand and said, “Well-done, Harry. Well-done.”

My chest swelled up so much I thought I was going to bounce off the ceiling.