Indigo

“Rennick Lane? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Could you guys get any more romantic over here? OMG!” Mia-Joy squealed as she hooked her arm through mine and led me toward the House of Mirrors. “Omigod!”

“Mia-Joy! Shhh!” I said, but I was smiling. Even though in my head, I saw Rennick’s face and heard the kid’s words—voodoo freak. Too much was happening. I couldn’t process everything. I needed things to slow down.

But Mia-Joy was already pushing me toward the House of Mirrors. “You okay? You look freaked.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Yeah?” she asked, eyeing me. Jules met up with us then, with Rennick hanging back.

“I’m fine,” I reassured her.

Mia-Joy gave me a look, hooked her arm through Jules’s, and made for the House of Mirrors. I waited for Rennick.

“Thank you,” I said as he walked up to me. I could see in his posture that he wasn’t sure about what had just happened.

We walked into the House of Mirrors. Pop music was blaring and lights switched from flashing disco bulbs to complete darkness to white Christmas lights. It was a little overwhelming. Rennick’s presence reassured me, but our unlinked hands were like a question between us. Our reflections kept time on either side of us in the funny mirrors, shorter, squatter versions of us. I stole a glance at Rennick’s face in the mirror. He looked embarrassed.

“Corrine,” he said. The disco lights switched to twinkling white. He stopped, faced me, and let a pair of little kids move ahead of us.

Complete darkness.

I felt it then, this physio-electric warmth between us, and I loved how unknown and exciting everything was in that moment, how it was all in front of us. I realized right then that this was life. And I hadn’t been living life for so many months, since Sophie. I had shut myself off, and that had taken away all the interactions, all the uncertainty, all the difficult decisions and judgment calls.

I had given up.

But here I was. Although I knew that I had a lot going on—I had some pretty spectacular things happening with the touch, with Rennick, with life—I also knew that I was jumping in headfirst. Like the old me. Decisive? Reckless abandon? Somewhere in between. Choosing Faulkner. Choosing the butterfly. In life. Not just with the touch.

I had to. Wouldn’t Sophie want me to really live? And help others to do it too?

The decision, of course, had already been made. But it was right then that I acknowledged it.

And darkness or daylight, I knew what I wanted with Rennick too.

I reached in the dark for his face. I stood on my tiptoes and placed my hands on his cheeks. I pressed my palm against his stubbly chin and felt him exhale, his body lean into mine. I leaned in too, and my lips found his in the dark, so lightly, just brushing. I took a deep breath, savoring the roller-coaster-drop feeling in my stomach. But just as I was about to lean in again, kiss him for real, he pushed me away gently. “Corrine,” he said.

And the lights flashed on. He took a step back. I dropped my arms, looked up at him. I was confused by what I saw in his eyes—the tenderness, the brashness, the protectiveness, the hesitation. I let the charge between us, the electricity, sweep through me, flip my stomach, make my head woozy. Then I stepped back. “I’m sorry. I thought you wanted—”

“Corrine,” he said again, as the lights switched back to Christmas twinkles. “I wanted. I want. It’s just that I …” He ran his hand through his hair. “Is it because you need somebody, anybody, right now, or is it that you need me?” But then, before I knew what was happening, he had pulled me back to him. He put his arms around me, one on the small of my back, one higher around my shoulders, and he kissed me.

This time, it was a real kiss. I wrapped my arms around his neck, and I pulled myself to him. I pressed my body to his, he sighed behind the kiss, and my body shivered—seriously shivered—with excitement.

We ignored a group of tweens who giggled as they made their way past us. The lights went out, and in the darkness Rennick kissed my mouth earnestly, my neck, my jaw, behind my ear, and his hands pressed me into him. After a long moment, he broke from me. I opened my eyes and saw that his were still closed, and he was smiling. He wrapped his arms tighter around me, brought his lips to my ear. “Wow. And I thought nothing could top last night.”

My body prickled with energy, with life, with happiness at the sound and feel of his voice against my neck.

I stood on my tiptoes. I whispered in his ear, “You. Rennick. Not anyone else. Only you.”

I felt his eyes close against my cheek, the fringe of his eyelashes tickling my skin. And he sighed, this wonderful little sigh. Had he really been so nervous?

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “Do you feel it too? The charge? The energy between us? Is that because of our … powers?” I whispered.

“I feel it,” he said. “I think it’s just us.”

He leaned down, kissed my neck lightly, and a new shiver went down my spine. The disco lights came on, twinkling and colorful, and Mia-Joy came rambling back, calling out our names. I knew she was hoping to catch us in the act.

She and Jules turned the corner in front of us, and she did catch us. We were still wrapped around each other. Rennick gave me a quick peck on the lips and we pulled apart. He grabbed my hand, and we followed after them.

“Oh, caught red-handed!” Mia-Joy was so happy with herself. “Or should I say red-lipped!” She laughed so hard at her own joke. Even Jules cracked a smile at that one. I held on to Rennick’s hand and we exited the House of Mirrors.

I brought a hand to my eyes to shield my face from the sun. And for some reason my skin shifted and tightened on my body, and suddenly Rennick stood ramrod-straight. It registered with him too.

And then we heard it.

“You’re the girl!” someone squealed. “The miracle lady!” A tiny girl with this screechy voice screamed at me from across the carnival walkway. Her matted and sweaty pigtails swung behind her as she came running our way. An exhausted-looking mother, pushing a stroller, followed a ways behind her, but the girl kept yelling at me, and a small crowd gathered loosely around the edges of us. She was right in front of me then, and I kneeled down, said hello.

“You can fix her.”

“Who is it that needs fixing?” I was powerful, not scared at all, and I liked the way it felt. So much the opposite of how I’d lived for so long after Sophie, like a ghost. This was a different kind of existence for sure.

What I didn’t like was the crowd, the knot of people around us thickening by the moment.

“My mommy has cancer. You can tell, that’s why she doesn’t wear her real hair anymore. She’s wearing a wig. I combed it.” The little girl was proud of herself, smiling, putting her hands on her hips. But I could see there was a bit of panic behind her little eyes, a wisdom too large for them to hold. It made me sad. Crazy sad.

The mom had worked her way up to us by then, and she apologized breathlessly. I noticed that, yes, her dark pixie hairdo was a wig, and what at first had looked like young-mommy exhaustion now registered with me as worse. Much worse. The swollen face. The blue-gray shadows underneath her eyes.

“I told her not to, but she watches the news with her nana, and I tried …” I let the mom keep talking. Her voice was musical, small, with a touch of the Cajun drawl.

I waited politely. And then I said, “Do you want me to try?” And there was Rennick’s hand on my shoulder, a squeeze, reassuring. He was there. We were in this together.

The young mom just gasped, hung her head. “Yes,” she whispered, tears falling down her cheeks. “I can’t pay you. I have nothing to—”

“Shhh,” I said. And I led her over to a nearby bench.

I gave Rennick a look, but he had already bent down and was joking with the little girl. She didn’t need much encouragement. She was describing in ridiculous detail the amount of spaghetti she had thrown up last week at preschool.

I briefly thought about asking this woman to come with me to a different location, but then it was there, and