Indigo

He nodded. “His aura.”

“He got beat up, Corrine. Pretty bad,” Mia-Joy finished.

“Why? I mean, why did they—” I hadn’t been expecting this. I balled my hands into fists. I thought of Bryant’s smile, the way he always opened the door for Mia-Joy and me before bio. He had the most perfect teeth. Had they punched him in those pretty teeth? “Why?”

“He pissed off the wrong kids,” Rennick said. “Who knows? He’s different. It’s all some people need to know.” And when he turned around, I saw that hopeless look on his face, and I absolutely hated it.

And before I realized it, it was there. In my chest. Flaring.

I summoned my courage, visualized harnessing this light in my chest. I made myself stay there in the kitchen and not run away. “I gotta try it,” I said, breathless. “Stand back,” I ordered them. “Is the minnow dead? Is he really dead?” I was out of breath now, and it was working itself up into a rolling, churning engine of heat and power in my chest. My limbs started to tingle and my vision seemed to focus, clear itself of everything but what was on the kitchen table.

I eyed the dead crayfish already on the paper plate. Several half-squashed roly-polies, a long-dead cricket. It was like I could see everything so clearly. Defined.

Rennick picked up the minnow, shook it. “Dead,” he said, and what was there in his face? Did he look a little scared? I looked away. I took a deep breath, and it rolled inside me, growing and blossoming.

“It’s tied to your emotions, girl,” Mia-Joy said. She took a few steps closer, like she wanted to get a good look at what I was about to do.

“Stand back. I mean it, you two. And no matter what happens, if I pass out, whatever, don’t you touch me!” I screamed at them. And then it was there, the indigo lens, and I could feel it charging, pulsing through me, out to my limbs, like a hard, powerful light surging through me, out of my eyes, out of my hands.

I picked up the minnow, and I cupped it between my palms, and at first nothing seemed to happen. Its scales were wet and cold. It was still. I relaxed my muscles, let the surge move through me, reach its fever pitch, work its way into my hands. And then out of my hands.

The current prickled the inside of my palm. And there it was. I felt movement, something whisper-soft against my flesh. I removed one of my hands and looked at the fish. The minnow’s eye was back, the life behind it was there. The mouth moved, hoping again, its body bucked.

I dropped it back into the water-filled cooler and watched it swim. I was breathing little shallow breaths.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Mia-Joy said. I looked at her. She was still blue, indigo.

“Sit down, Corrine,” Rennick said. “Before—”

“No!” I said. “It’s not gone.” And I picked up the crawdad, pressed it between my palms. Pushed the surge through me. Held it there in my hands. Focused it.

The crawdad came alive. That same tickle. The antennae, the claws. I laughed as I dropped it on the table, and Rennick laughed too.

I picked up those damn roly-polies, and sure enough, in a few seconds all but two came back alive, squirming, rolling themselves into little balls. I placed them on the table, moved to the cricket. I pressed him between my palms. Nothing.

“No, been dead too long,” I said. “Too long.” And I moved on to another crayfish.

I pressed it between my hands and closed my eyes. My breath came in fits and starts now, and I kind of half sat, half fell into the kitchen chair.

I became aware that Rennick was pleading with me. “No more, Corrine. It’s too much.” I opened my eyes and placed the newly alive crayfish on the table.

“I did it!” But I saw now that Rennick was right next to me.

“No more, please.” He was desperate. I didn’t know what was wrong. I was so happy! I couldn’t fight this kind of evidence, but Rennick’s eyes were pleading.

“Just one more. It’s amazing. It’s crazy, and the blue isn’t gone yet—”

“I’ll touch you, Corrine!” he said, low, serious. “No more, please.”

Mia-Joy watched us intently, playing with the newest crawdad. She placed it on the table.

“What are you afraid of?” she asked him.

But I was already nodding. The lens had shifted. It was gone now, and I was exhausted. But I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Rennick’s. He looked so panicked, wide-eyed and desperate.

“I’m sorry,” I said, not knowing exactly what I was apologizing for. The moment passed, and Mia-Joy was jumping around.

“She did it!” Mia-Joy screeched. She gave Rennick a high five that seemed to snap him back from wherever he was.

“Proof! Real live proof!” he said.

He turned to me then, and it’s like he forgot himself. He reached to pull me out of the chair, but I recoiled.

“Right,” he said. “Sorry.”

“I did it!” I said, smiling, trying to gloss over the rebuke. “I can’t believe it, but this is really true. This part of it.”

“But you can’t hug us,” Mia-Joy said, plopping down in the chair across from us.

“This is part of it,” Rennick said, sinking into the chair next to me, our victory celebration amazingly short-lived. “But you think there’s another part.”

I nodded. My body ached, exhausted. And suddenly, I couldn’t think anymore. It’s like the pathways in my brain were worn and short-circuited, all used up. “I’m just so tired,” I said.

“You need to get some rest,” Rennick said. “Sleep.”

He and Mia-Joy started to pack everything up. But before he left, he said, “Promise me, no more today.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it, Corrine. If you ever, ever trusted me, like I knew anything, you promise me that.”

I knew for whatever reason this meant something to him. “I promise,” I said. He watched me carefully for a long moment and then finished putting away the fish, the crawdads.

My nerve endings felt frayed and raw, my head fuzzy and heavy.

“Corrine, we should be celebrating. You gotta give this thing up,” Mia-Joy said. I nodded.

But Rennick interrupted. “You’re doing great.” And I managed to stick out my tongue at Mia-Joy, who only stuck hers back at me.

Part of me wanted to yell after Rennick, Stay with me! Don’t leave me here without … what? You.

Then they were gone, along with my newly alive menagerie. For a second, I kind of wished that they had left the evidence. I wanted it near me, so I would know it was real. I had healed.

Mom came in the door just as I was trudging up the stairs, my legs heavy with exhaustion. “Corrine! I just ran into Rennick and Mia-Joy outside!” she yelped. “You did it!”

She ran to me and hugged me. I bristled, but she didn’t relinquish her hold on me. And after a few seconds, I kind of collapsed into her. I don’t really remember getting to my room. But Mom must have gotten me there, where I fell onto my bed.

* * *

I woke up much, much later, from a deep and dreamless sleep. My room was pitch-dark, with only a slight sliver of a moon visible out my window. But there it was again, the plink-plunk of the pebbles.

I lay there for a long time, listening to his persistence.

Then I got up and snuck outside.

He was different at night, alone in the dark. I felt different too.

We seemed like truer versions of ourselves here. In the dark. It was easier to put away all the pretenses without the sunlight glaring off our intimate truths.