stammer.
Samjeeza holds out his hand. I’ve done what I said I would do. I called. I give the phone back to him. The operator’s still talking, asking questions, wanting to know the extent of the injuries.
“Hello,” Samjeeza says, his voice solemn, but there’s something else in his eyes.
“Hello?” I hear the lady say faintly. “Who is this?”
“I’ve just come upon the scene. Terrible, terrible accident. I’m afraid the girl’s unconscious now. And a young man. They look like they’re dressed for a dance. Please hurry.
They’re both badly injured.”
He closes the phone.
“But my mom—”
“She isn’t coming,” he says, his eyes so knowing. He sounds truly disappointed. “I’ll just have to be satisfied with you.”
He starts to turn toward Tucker.
I look into Tucker’s face, his stormy blue eyes comprehending what Samjeeza means to do. Accepting it. Bracing for it.
Time grinds to a halt.
I have to bring the glory. This is the moment I’ve been practicing all year for. Now.
I look at Tucker but I don’t feel anything but my heart beating, so slowly it’s like a low thump every five seconds, and I can feel the blood it’s pumping through my body, to my lungs, in and out, filling me with strength, with life, and then with a sense of myself and something more than just my body. Something more than human. My spirit. My soul.
Light explodes around me. I turn toward Samjeeza and at the same moment, slowed down twenty times, it seems, he looks at my face and knows what I’m up to. He flares with rage, but doesn’t have time to act on it. He moves with unearthly speed away, out of reach of the glory.
I take a deep breath, let it out slow, feeling the light tingling at my fingertips, shining out of my body, my hair gleaming with it, my chest filling with warmth. A feeling of calm settles over me. I turn again to Tucker. He lifts a hand to shield his eyes from my light. I take his other hand in mine. It feels cool, clammy, against my almost feverish skin. He flinches at my touch, then forces himself to relax, lowers his hand, squints at me like he’s trying really hard to look at the sun. Unshed tears in his eyes. And fear.
I reach up and put my finger against the cut on his head, watch as the light caresses him, the skin knitting itself back together, until there’s no trace of the wound.
“It’s okay,” I whisper.
A laugh pierces my tranquility. Samjeeza, a safe distance away, laughing.
“I keep underestimating you,” he says almost admiringly. “You are a tough little bird.”
“Go away.”
He laughs again. “I want to find out what happens next, don’t you?”
“Go. Away.”
“You can’t hold that forever, you know.”
He said something like that to my mom, that day in the woods. She brought the glory and he said,
What is long enough? Even now, after only a few minutes, I feel myself starting to tire.
It’s like holding the door to my soul wide open while the wind pushes steadily against it. Sooner or later, that door will close.
Samjeeza closes his eyes. “I can almost hear the sirens. Racing this way. Things will be interesting when they get here.”
I squeeze Tucker’s hand. He tries to smile at me. I try to smile back.
A plan would be nice. Sitting here waiting for my lightbulb to burn out, so not a plan.
Waiting for the ambulance to come, adding more people to the mix, also not a plan.
“Why don’t you just drop this nonsense?” Samjeeza says. “Not that I’m not impressed.
For someone your age, your dilution of blood, to exhibit glory on your own, it’s rather unheard of.
But you should stop this now.”
He’s speaking calmly, but I can feel that he’s getting mad.
I’ve seen him mad before. It’s not pretty. He tends to do things like launch fireballs at your head.
Headlights turn onto the road. My breath freezes in my lungs. I nearly lose the glory. It flickers, dims, but I hold on.
“Come now, enough foolishness,” Samjeeza says impatiently. “You and I must go.” It’s too late. The vehicle approaches us slowly. Stops, a squeak of brakes. But it isn’t an ambulance. It’s a beat-up silver Honda with a rusty green fender. I strain to look past my own radiance to see the figure inside. A man with white hair and a beard.
Mr. Phibbs.
I’ve never seen a more welcome sight than Mr. Phibbs in his tacky brown polyester suit, strolling toward us with a smile like he’s taking a leisurely walk in the middle of the night. I feel stronger as he nears, like I can do this,
