white everything, very homey but spare and simple. There was no microwave, no dishwasher.
“We kind of live like pioneers,” he said, chuckling. “Been just me and Dodge for a while. But Lila’ll soon …” His voice trailed off.
I chewed on my thumbnail, didn’t meet his eyes. I didn’t want to take credit. It didn’t seem real.
“You must be hungry,” he said finally. He pulled out an old iron skillet.
I suddenly realized I was. “Starving, actually.”
“Omelet or grilled cheese? That’s about all there is on the menu del Rennick.” He cast a smile over his shoulder at me, and I thought I saw his hand shaking a little when he placed the frying pan on the stove.
“Grilled cheese, and thank you,” I said.
“I’m hungry too. I just figured—”
“No, I mean, thank you for getting me out of Chartrain today. For trying so hard to help me the other day. For—”
He stopped what he was doing, turned and looked at me. “You don’t have to thank me, Corrine.”
I shook my head. I got up, leaned on the counter. “Rennick,” I said, and saw the left corner of his mouth go up in a nearly imperceptible grin when I said his name. “Why, though? Why did you try so hard to help me when I was nothing but a bitch to you? I mean, did you just know I could help your grandmother or—”
“No, I didn’t even think of that.” He didn’t look at me. He stared down at the floor between us, scuffed the heel of his shoe back and forth for a second. And it hit me at that second how much Rennick reminded me of this shy kid Lester Meechum that I went to grade school with. I wondered at that. Could Rennick Lane be nothing more than the shy, smart, nerdy kid in the class, stuck in the body of a rebel with the hair of some kind of emo lead singer? This idea seemed right. And I was beginning to realize that Rennick didn’t even know how he came off. Did he still see himself as that nerdy kid? A boy with a microscope and test tubes in his bedroom?
“Why did you help me?” I repeated.
“Can’t a guy just like your aura?” He didn’t look at me, but he smiled. My mouth turned up as well. The air between us prickled again, and the tension against my skin changed, the air against me … tightened. Rennick’s head snapped up.
“Do you feel that?” I said. Bold. More like the old Corrine than ever.
Rennick nodded.
“What is it?”
“A charge. Electric. Physio-electric.”
“I only feel that with some people. Between me and certain people. Or only before … before an event like Mrs. Twopenny.” I was really putting my cards on the table. For just a moment, I realized that I was here in this backwoods house with some guy I hardly knew, telling him my darkest, deepest secrets and doubts. I tried not to stand outside of myself and see it like that. Because it seemed like the first time in a long, long time that I might be getting back to some kind of normal, and I didn’t want that to end.
Rennick went to the fridge and took out bread, cheese, and butter. “I feel it too, sometimes. I know what you mean. I think … I think it ties into body chemistry, electrical impulses in the body. That’s how a lot of what you do and what I see works. I think that’s how it all works. Proving it is another story.”
He turned toward the stove. I sat at the table again, and when he passed by the sink window with the sun streaming through, the light hit him; for a split second I saw a rainbow of colors around him, enveloping him, lots of reds and oranges. It left as soon as I noticed it. I blinked a few times and rubbed my eyes. I almost said something. I started to, but I stopped myself. Had I just seen his aura?
No. I dismissed it. A trick of the light.
“Rennick, I have a zillion questions.”
“Well, that’s a relief. Just ask. I want you to.” He flipped the toasted bread with a spatula. “I just don’t know how to get started. I don’t want to scare you away.” And although he wasn’t turned completely toward me, I could see in his face that he meant it. His brow was furrowed, his jaw tight. He was nervous.
I sighed. “Tell me exactly what you see.”
“Colors. Halos of color. Sometimes colors that seem like they are radiating off of people’s skin, their whole bodies, like an outline.”
“So what exactly is interesting about Mia-Joy’s?” I asked.
“Jagged, ripped hole in her aura.”
I watched him finish toasting the sandwiches. Had I been in Chicago, I would’ve laughed right here. Thrown my head back and laughed at the whole situation. But I was not in Chicago.
Rennick went to the fridge, got a jar of pickles, a pitcher of tea. He put the grilled cheese on plates, scooped out a couple of pickles from the jar, and brought the food to the table. “Grilled cheese and pickles. Gotta love ’em.”
“So, a hole in an aura, does that usually mean … what?”
“There is no manual,” he said, taking a seat next to me, handing me a glass of ice-cold tea. “But I’ve seen similar things with some people. It usually isn’t good.” He looked at me hard.
I swallowed. “Her diabetes? She’s okay, though. Her mother said that it smoothed out since she switched to shots.”
He nodded.
“You’re not telling me the whole thing here.”
“I think she’s not okay. Mia-Joy will have a setback, if I’m right. And then we’ll have to, you know, figure out a way for you to …” He let his voice trail off, and I realized then what he meant. He looked at me like maybe he had said too much.
“So you’re sure that I’m a healer?” I said, taking a bite of my sandwich.
“Aren’t you?”
I shrugged.
“My grandmother’ll tell you stories about my mom, about the people she healed, the lives she saved. But she’ll tell you too that Mom only really remembered the few that she couldn’t help, the ones she couldn’t heal.”
I sat silently looking out the window at the garage. Thinking of the beauty it held. Thinking of Sophie.
“Your sister,” he said, setting down his sandwich. “I know what you’re carrying around.”
We sat in silence, and I heard the clock above the kitchen sink ticking quietly. Bouncer came and rested his head on Rennick’s lap. Rennick gave him a pickle. “The monster eats pickles, for God’s sake.” He shook his head and laughed like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. The timbre of his laugh. It was a beautiful note, G- sharp, then F-sharp.
“Go lie down,” he told the dog, and the dog did.
I swallowed hard. “Sophie … It was the same as with Mrs. Two—I mean, your grandmother, the whole thing. It just didn’t end up the same, you know? How can I ever … I mean, who knows if I might save somebody or kill them?” I shook my head, put my hand out for Bouncer, clicked my tongue. He came over and let me scratch him behind the ears. I needed something else to do, to look at, besides the well of concern in Rennick’s eyes.
Rennick shook his head. “I don’t think—”
I couldn’t hear his excuses right then. I didn’t want to. I changed the subject. “Tell me about your mother. Her power.”
He didn’t like this, and there was something there, in the way he held his jaw, guarded. “She could only summon it about half the time she wanted, Grandma said.”
At that moment, the front door opened. An older man with a shaggy beard and salt-and-pepper hair came in. When I saw his hat, I realized it was the man who had been sleeping in the recliner in Mrs. Twopenny’s room. Of course. Dodge.
“Hey-o,” he called. He walked into the kitchen with heavy footfalls, whistling loudly.
“Dodge,” Rennick said, standing up from the table. “This is Corrine.”
Dodge stood up straighter, put a hand to his old fishing hat in greeting. He looked kind of like a quarter note standing there. “The famous Corrine. How can I ever …” His voice trailed off. He held his hands to his heart in a gesture that was at once so genuine and so heartbreaking, I had to look away. “Thank you, my dear.” He walked toward me, put out his hand. I considered it. Then I offered my own. He held it between both of his for a beat, then kissed the back of it. He looked at Rennick, winked as he let go of my hand. “Prettier than you even
