asked.
“I looked at him and he stood there completely calm as I got more and more frustrated,” Brent answered. “Finally, I told him the truth, that I couldn’t hear a damn thing. He smiled, and sat down next to me and said he had heard that I was looking for someone to help me learn to control my ability. Then suddenly I heard his voice in my head, as clear as day, saying, ‘I can help you.’ I couldn’t read him because he’s used to spending time with people who can, so he knows how to shield himself. If I’d been a fake, or crazy, I would’ve bluffed and come up with something. When I admitted I couldn’t hear anything, he knew I had to be for real.”
“That’s pretty intense,” Cooper said, despite still feeling that wriggle of doubt. “And you think he knows about ghosts?”
Brent hesitated, long enough to make Cooper nervous.
“I don’t know what he knows,” Brent answered after a minute. “Ryan and I and—well, we got into a conversation about the afterlife once. Ryan doesn’t bother meditating on God or religion, and I know he doesn’t believe in ghosts as solid personalities the way you describe Samantha, or even the way they show up in stories. He says sometimes the dead leave behind imprints on places or things, but those are just remnants of power in the form of emotion or single, key memories or impulses. I don’t know what he’ll make of Samantha.”
So the miracle witch—or whatever—might not know a thing.
Cooper’s disappointment must have shown on his face because Brent added, “That doesn’t mean he’ll be useless. Ryan’s kind of like a scientist. He won’t discount what’s right in front of his face just because of his previous beliefs. If there’s one thing he taught me—beyond how to control my own ability—it’s that this world is full of more weird things than we can imagine. Samantha might be something he’s never seen before, but that doesn’t mean he won’t be helpful.”
Cooper was still skeptical. “Would it piss you off if I asked you what I’m thinking?” To make it fair, he tried to focus on something particular. The number forty-two; that would work. Forty-two.
Brent shook his head. “You don’t want me to answer that.”
“Sure I do, or I wouldn’t have asked,” Cooper insisted, his doubts increasing as Brent stalled.
“Seriously, you don’t. You don’t realize how many thoughts cross your mind in a single second.”
“Seriously, I do.”
Brent shut his eyes and said flatly, “Forty-two. And cars. Rain. Noise. Where’s Samantha? The cars again. Now the image in the mirror. Scars. Samantha again. Your father’s glad you’re talking to a friend—he’s actually humming in the back room, something from Fiddler on the Roof, which he saw with you years ago. For your eighth birthday. You had strawberry cake with chocolate frosting. It was a Colt Hatchback … 2003. Green … blue. Greenish blue. You argued with your mom over what color the car was. Rain, and—”
“Stop it!”
Brent opened his eyes. “I won’t do it again,” he promised. “Calm.”
“Don’t you tell me to be—”
“Cool it!” Brent shouted. At least, it seemed like a shout. Cooper didn’t think Brent had actually raised his voice, but the word echoed in Cooper’s mind. “I didn’t do this to you. Someday you’re going to have to square with those memories, those thoughts. For now, though, I just needed you to believe me. Do you believe me?”
“I believe you.”
He certainly didn’t want another demonstration.
10
Brent waited, sipping his coffee, until Cooper’s agitation had subsided. The coffee was bitter, stronger than he was used to, but it was palatable enough and it gave him something else to focus on so Cooper didn’t feel even more on the spot.
He didn’t have to make an effort to read Cooper. In fact, even when he made an effort not to, Cooper’s clear, surface thoughts were sometimes hard to tune out.
“I assume you have to go to school today?” he asked, once Cooper’s thoughts had settled back into something manageable.
Cooper nodded. “I skipped yesterday afternoon. I don’t intend to make a habit of it.”
“I could grab you from school after classes are over, and drive us to—” Brent winced as his words elicited a series of pain-filled images from Cooper. “Or we could take the train into the city. We can get to Ryan’s via public transportation.”
“You said you weren’t going to read my mind again,” Cooper said, but there was a halfhearted quality to his objection.
“I won’t try to read you intentionally unless I have to, and I’ll try not to prod you with anything I hear, but when you shove thoughts at me like iron pokers through my eyes, I’m going to respond,” Brent said bluntly.
“Like … iron … pokers? Didn’t you say you mostly got static?”
“Mostly, yes, but that’s the background. Your thoughts in front can be pretty sharp,” Brent said, reminding himself to watch his words. He had to admit, he had never thought he would be having this particular conversation with the regular-high’s football star, but weirder things had happened. He had stopped believing jock stereotypes after seeing Delilah practice magic in the middle of the woods, and learning a week later that she was also the captain of the cheerleading squad. “Mostly I can control things now,” he added, still trying to convince Cooper to come with him and get help. “It was a lot worse before.”
“Hmm.” Cooper paused, his gaze going distant. Then he glanced up at Brent, searchingly. He seemed about to speak, then stopped again, and finally said, “It’s really weird talking to someone who can read my mind.”
“Trust me, it’s just as weird from the other side,” Brent answered honestly. “If it makes you feel better, most of the time, I really don’t want to hear anyone’s thoughts. You’d be amazed how many random and really unpleasant things cross people’s minds. You know how sometimes you’ll get a visual image of something gross or just seriously twisted? That’s the kind of thing I used to pick up from people all the time—mental images I never wanted, because no one wants them. Like the stuff that comes to mind when someone says, ‘I saw your mom buying handcuffs yesterday.’”
Cooper’s expression at that moment was priceless.
“Okay,” he said. “I could get why you wouldn’t want to see that kind of stuff.”
Brent waited patiently for Cooper to decide what he wanted to do.
At last, Cooper broke the silence by saying, “Tomorrow. I can’t skip school again, but tomorrow would be good.”
Saturday. Brent’s last free weekend before school started. There was some kind of fund-raiser for the football team, so at least Delilah probably wouldn’t be hanging around Ryan’s when they got there. As far as he knew, Delilah and Ryan had been on rocky terms ever since the mishap that had also ended her relationship with Brent.
“Sure. Tomorrow’s probably better, in terms of timing. Will you be able to get off work?”
“Yeah, no problem,” Cooper said without hesitation. “I might have to cover the early morning and opening, but I doubt this Ryan guy would want us to show up at dawn anyway.”
“I have to check the train schedule, but I think there’s a nine-something. I’ll meet you here around eight?” Brent asked.
Cooper nodded and glanced over his shoulder at the clock on the far wall. “I should get going,” he said. “We need to open, and then I’ve got to get to school. But I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Sure, sounds good,” Brent said.
He drove home with every intention of looking at the public police reports, and scanning for any headlines about missing teens, accidents or abductions, but the conversation with Cooper had started a pounding in his head. It wasn’t only for Cooper’s sake that Brent hoped Ryan could help him.
His mother had passed out, thankfully, so Brent didn’t need to deal with whatever inflated accusation she would come up with about where he had been. Instead, he crept back upstairs, turned out all the lights, drew the curtains, and crawled under the covers on his bed. In absolute darkness, he closed his eyes. At least the migraine had shut down his mind enough to keep the shadows at bay.
