“Some scary old lady, huh?” he says. “Don’t worry. She’s harmless, here three days a week at least. And I can only read minds when people are thinking about something really hard.” He smiles out of one half of his mouth. “But I get the feeling that you’re always thinking really hard.”
I hear a thump from somewhere nearby and realize that I’ve let go of my athame. The thump that I heard was the sound of it hitting the bottom of my backpack. I know he’s the one who was following me, and it’s a relief to have been right. At the same time, I find the prospect of his being telepathic disorienting.
I’ve known telepaths before. Some of my dad’s friends were telepathic to varying degrees. Dad said it was useful. I think it’s mostly creepy. The first time I met his friend Jackson, who I’m now quite fond of, I lined the inside of my baseball cap with tinfoil. What? I was five. I thought it would work. But I don’t happen to have a baseball cap or any foil handy right now, so I try to think softly … whatever the hell that means.
“Who are you?” I ask. “Why are you following me?”
And then I know. He’s the one who tipped off Daisy. Some telepathic kid who wanted in on some action. How else would he know to follow me? How else would he know who I am? He was waiting. Waiting for me to hit school, like some freaky snake in the grass.
“Wanna get something to eat? I’m starving. I haven’t been following you very long. My car’s right up the street.” He turns around and walks off, the frayed ends of his jeans scraping along the sidewalk in a little shuffle. He walks like a dog that’s been kicked, head low and hands stuffed into his pockets. I don’t know where he picked up his dusty green jacket, but I suspect it was from the Army surplus store I passed a few blocks back.
“I’ll explain everything when we get there,” he says over his shoulder. “Come on.”
I don’t know why I follow, but I do.
He drives a Ford Tempo. It’s about six different shades of gray and sounds like a very angry kid pretending to drive a motorboat in the bathtub. The place that he takes me to is a little joint called The Sushi Bowl, which looks like absolute crap from the outside, but inside it’s not too bad. The waitress asks if we’d rather be seated traditional or regular. I glance around and see some low tables with mats and pillows around them.
“Regular,” I say quickly, before Army Surplus Psycho can pipe up. I’ve never eaten anything perched on my knees before, and just now I’d rather not look as awkward as I feel. After I tell the kid that I’ve never eaten sushi, he orders for us, which does nothing to help me shake the feeling of disorientation. It’s like I’m trapped in one of those omniscient dreams where you just watch yourself do stupid shit, yelling at yourself about how stupid it is, and your dream-self just keeps doing what it’s doing anyway.
The kid across the table is smiling like an idiot. “Saw you with Carmel Jones today,” he says. “You don’t waste any time.”
“What do you want?” I ask.
“Just to help.”
“I don’t need any help.”
“You already had it.” He hunkers lower as the food arrives, two plates of circular mystery, one deep fried and the other covered in small orange dots. “Try some,” he says.
“What is it?”
“Philadelphia roll.”
I eye the plate skeptically. “What’s that orange stuff?”
“Cod roe.”
“What the hell is cod roe?”
“Cod eggs.”
“No thanks.” I’m so glad there’s a McDonald’s across the street. Fish eggs. Who the hell is this kid?
“I’m Thomas Sabin.”
“Stop doing that.”
“Sorry.” He grins. “It’s just that you’re so easy sometimes. I know it’s rude. And seriously, I can’t do it all the time.” He stuffs an entire circle of fish egg — encrusted raw fish into his mouth. I try not to inhale while he chews. “But I
The Trojan Army. That’s what I thought when Mike and Co. walked up behind me at lunch. But now that I think about it, I’m not sure why I’d thought that. The only view I’d had of them had been out of the corner of my eye. The Trojan Army. The kid had put the thought in my head so smoothly, like a note dropped onto the floor in a conspicuous place.
Now he’s going on about how it isn’t easy to send things like that, how it had given him a bit of a nosebleed to do it. He sounds like he thinks he’s my own little guardian angel or something.
“What should I be thanking you for? Being witty? You put your personal judgment into my head. Now I have to go around wondering if I thought those guys were douche bags because I really thought so, or just because you thought so first.”
“Trust me, you’d agree. And you really shouldn’t be talking to Carmel Jones. At least, not yet. She just broke up with Mike the Meathead Andover last week. And he’s been known to hit people with his car just for ogling her while she’s in the passenger seat.”
I don’t like this kid. He’s presumptuous. And yet, he’s earnest and well-meaning, which softens me a little. If he’s listening to what I’m thinking, I’m going to slash his tires.
“I don’t need your help,” I say. I wish I didn’t have to watch him eat anymore. But the fried stuff doesn’t look too bad, and it kind of smells okay.
“I think you do. You’ve noticed I’m a little bit strange. You moved here what, seventeen days ago?”
I nod numbly. It was seventeen days ago exactly that we pulled into Thunder Bay.
“I thought so. For the past seventeen days, I’ve had the worst psychic headache of my life. The kind that actually throbs and makes a home behind my left eye. Makes everything smell like salt. It’s only now that we’re talking that it’s going away.” He wipes his mouth, gets serious all of a sudden. “It’s hard to believe, but you’ve got to. I only get these headaches when something bad is going to happen. And it’s never been this bad before.”
I lean back and sigh. “Just what do you think you’re going to help me with? Who do you think I am?” Sure, I think I know the answers to these questions already, but it doesn’t hurt to double-check. And besides, I feel at a complete disadvantage, totally off my game. I’d feel better if I could stop this infernal interior monologue. Maybe I should just vocalize everything. Or constantly think in images: kitten playing with ball of yarn, hot-dog vendor on street corner, hot-dog vendor holding kitten.
Thomas wipes the corner of his mouth with his napkin. “That’s a nifty piece of hardware you’ve got in your bag there,” he says. “Old Mrs. Dead-Eyes seemed pretty impressed by it.” He snaps his chopsticks together and picks up a piece of the deep-fried stuff, then shoves it into his mouth. As he chews, he talks, and I wish he wouldn’t. “So I’d say you’re some kind of ghost-slayer. And I know you’re here for Anna.”
I should probably ask what he knows. But I don’t. I don’t want to talk to him anymore. He already knows too much about me.
Fucking Daisy Bristol. I’m going to tear him a new one, sending me here where there’s a telepathic tagalong lying in wait, and he didn’t even warn me.
Looking at Thomas Sabin now, there’s a cocky little smirk on his pale face. He pushes his glasses up on his nose in a gesture so quick and easy I can tell he does it often. There’s so much confidence in those shifty blue eyes; he could never be convinced that his psychic intuition was wrong. And who knows how much he’s been able to read out of my mind.
Impulsively, I pluck a deep-fried circle of fish off of the platter and pop it into my mouth. There’s some kind of sweet and savory sauce on it. It’s surprisingly good, heavy and chewy. But I’m still not touching the fish eggs. I’ve had enough of this. If I can’t make him believe I’m not who he says I am, I at least have to throw him off his cocky horse and send him packing.
I knit my brows in an expression of puzzlement.
“Anna who?” I say.
He blinks, and when he starts to sputter I lean forward on my elbows. “I want you to listen to me very carefully, Thomas,” I say. “I appreciate the tip. But there is no cavalry, and I am not recruiting. Do you understand?” And then, before he can protest, I think
