I got it from a bolt of lightning. So if you think God causes natural disasters, then I suppose God is responsible.
When I was fifteen, I was struck through an open window of the trailer where we lived. At that time, my mother was married to Tolliver's father, Matt Lang, and they had had two children, Gracie and Mariella. Crowded into the trailer (besides that lovely nuclear family) were the rest of us—me, my sister Cameron, Tolliver, and his brother Mark. I don't remember how long Mark was actually in residence. He's several years older than Tolliver. Anyway, Mark wasn't at the trailer that afternoon.
It was Tolliver who performed CPR until the ambulance got there.
My stepfather gave Cameron hell for calling the ambulance. It was expensive, and of course, we didn't have any insurance. The doctor who wanted to keep me overnight for observation got an earful. I never saw him again, or any other doctor. But from the Internet list I'm on, a list for lightning strike survivors, I've gathered it wouldn't have done me a lot of good, anyway.
I recovered—more or less. I have a strange spiderweb pattern of red on my torso and right leg. That leg has episodes of weakness. Sometimes my right hand shakes. I have headaches. I have many fears. And I can find dead people. If their location is known, I can diagnose the cause of death.
That was the part that interested the professor. He had a record of the cause of death of almost every person in this cemetery, a record to which I'd had no access. This was his idea of a perfect test, a test that would expose me for the fraud I was. With an almost jaunty air, he led our little party through the dilapidated iron fence that had guarded the cemetery for so many decades.
'Where would you like me to begin?' I asked, with perfect courtesy. I had been raised well, until my parents started using drugs.
Clyde Nunley smirked at his students. 'Why, this one would be fine,' he said, gesturing to the grave to his right. Of course, there was no mound, probably hadn't been in a hundred and seventy years. The headstone was indecipherable, at least to my unaided eyes. If I bent down with a flashlight, maybe I could read it. But they didn't care about that part of it; they wanted to know what I would say about the cause of death.
The faint tremor, the vibration I'd been feeling since I'd neared the cemetery, increased in frequency as I stepped onto the grave. I'd been feeling the hum in the air even before I'd passed through the rusted gate, and now it increased in intensity, vibrating just below the surface of my skin. It was like getting closer and closer to a hive of bees.
I shut my eyes, because it was easier to concentrate that way. The bones were directly underneath me, waiting for me. I sent that extra sense down into the ground under my feet, and the knowledge entered me with the familiarity of a lover.
'Cart fell on him,' I said. 'This is a man, I think in his thirties. Ephraim? Something like that? His leg was crushed, and he went into shock. He bled out.'
There was a long silence. I opened my eyes. The professor had stopped smirking. The students were busily making notations on their clipboards. One girl's eyes were wide as she looked at me.
'All right,' said Dr. Clyde Nunley, his voice suddenly a lot less scornful. 'Let's try another one.'
Gotcha, I thought.
The next grave was Ephraim's wife. The bones didn't tell me that; I deduced her identity from the similar headstone positioned side by side with Ephraim's. 'Isabelle,' I said with certainty. 'Isabelle. Oh, she died in childbirth.' My hand grazed my lower stomach. Isabelle must have been pregnant when her husband met with his accident. Hard luck. 'Wait a minute,' I said. I wanted to interpret that faint echo I was picking up underneath Isabelle's. To hell with what they thought. I pulled off my shoes, but kept my socks on in a compromise with the cold weather. 'The baby's in there with her,' I told them. 'Poor little thing,' I added very softly. There was no pain in the baby's death.
I opened my eyes.
The group had shifted its configuration. They stood closer to each other, but farther from me.
'Next?' I asked.
Clyde Nunley, his mouth compressed into a straight line, gestured toward a grave so old its headstone had split and fallen. The marble had been white when it had been situated.
As Tolliver and I went over to the next body, his hand on my back, one of the students said, 'He should stand somewhere else. What if he's somehow feeding her information?'
It was the older male student, the guy in his thirties. He had brown hair, a thread or two of gray mixed in. He had a narrow face and the broad shoulders of a swimmer. He didn't sound as if he actually suspected me. He sounded objective.
'Good point, Rick. Mr. Lang, if you'd stand out of Miss Connelly's sight?'
I felt a tiny flutter of anxiety. But I made myself nod at Tolliver in a calm way. He went back to lean against our car, parked outside what remained of the cemetery fence. While I watched him, another car pulled up, and a young black man with a camera got out. It was a dilapidated car, dented and scraped, but clean.
'Hey, y'all,' the newcomer called, and several of the younger students waved at him. 'Sorry I'm late.'
The professor said, 'Miss Connelly, this is Clark. I forgot to tell you that the student newspaper wanted to get a few shots.'
I didn't think he'd forgotten. He just didn't care if I objected or not.
I considered for a moment. I really didn't care. I was ready to have a good fight with Clyde Nunley, but not a frivolous one. I shrugged. 'I don't mind,' I said. I stepped onto the grave, close to the headstone, and focused my whole attention on ground below me. This one was hard to decipher. It was very old, and the bones were scattered; the coffin had disintegrated. I hardly felt my right hand begin to twitch, or my head begin to turn from side to side. My facial muscles danced beneath my skin.
'Kidneys,' I said, at last. 'Something with his kidneys.' The ache in my back swelled to a level of pain that was almost unbearable, and then it was gone. I opened my eyes and took a deep breath. I fought the impulse to turn to look at my brother.
