I sigh. “Just reading the news.”
I look at the search results. The number one result says, “Gifted girl missing in Utah.”
I click on it.
“Not that one!” Ana Maria says, holding down the power button on my computer.
The screen goes black.
I groan. “Will you leave me alone please? You’re annoying me.”
Ana Maria shrinks back in her chair.
I instantly regret yelling at her. The way she talks, sometimes I think of her almost as my peer, or maybe even someone older than me. But really, she’s just a kid.
I turn the computer back on and wait for it, fidgeting with my hands under the table.
“Don’t read that one,” she says quietly.
“I already know it’s about you. That’s why I want to read it,” I say.
“You know?” she says.
“Yeah, I read an article about you a couple weeks ago, the wonderful ‘healer girl.’”
She looks down and holds her plushie tighter. “I didn’t tell my parents I was leaving.”
“That’s probably for the best. I mean, if you told them, do you really think they would have let you leave? I didn’t tell anyone I was leaving either.”
“Do you think there’s an article about you?”
I shrug, but actually I know the answer. It’s one of the things I always look up too. I look up me and Ron’s real names plus “missing.” Nothing ever comes up.
“Do you regret leaving?” Ana Maria asks.
“No. Do you?”
“I don’t know…”
“Do you believe all that stuff? What your church says about you being a blessing from God and stuff?”
“A blessing?” She puts her sea slug on the keyboard and then turns back to me. “It’s a load of bologna. I’m not the only one who’s gifted. If my gift is a blessing then logically, shouldn’t your gift—and everyone else’s gifts—be blessings too? Frankly, I can’t see how killing people or making plants grow or reading people’s minds are blessings. Plus, Li can remove gifts. I mean, if gifts are such a blessing, why create one that can remove that blessing?”
“Maybe only certain gifts are blessings and the others aren’t, hence the need for Li’s gift,” I say.
“But how is one to determine which are blessings and which aren’t?”
I laugh. “I don’t really know. By the way, making plants grow—is that someone’s gift or were you just making that up?”
“That girl in my cabin—Yumi, I think?—it’s hers.”
“Oh the girl with the pigtails?”
She nods. “She says she can also understand them. Plants, I mean. She says when she steps on grass, she can hear them screaming.”
“Oh my god. That sounds…”
“Awful?”
“Yeah.” I turn to the computer screen, forgetting that I was waiting for it. “Anyway, I’m going to read the news, okay? I need to catch up. So you, uh, I don’t know—find something to do. Do whatever you came in here to do before you saw me.”
She sighs. “I was just going to watch YouTube. But I want to keep talking. I never get to talk to anyone! Everyone always just comes to me when they need something healed.”
I look over at her. She’s pouting.
“Yeah, well,” I say, “it seems like you had an interesting conversation with Yumi about her gift. You could go talk to her some more.”
She huffs. “That’s only because she asked me if I can heal plants.”
“Can you?”
“No. I can’t heal anything. My body can. All I can do is transfer wounds to myself so my body can heal it. I can’t transfer plant or other animal wounds. They’re different from human wounds.”
“Oh, so that’s what you meant about hurting yourself?”
“You remember that?”
“It was just this morning.”
“Yeah but I mean, no one ever really listens to what I say.”
“I’ve been listening to you. I remember everything you said. Even that.” I point at her sea slug on the keyboard. “And how it’s a sea slug.”
She smiles. “Are you interested in hearing more about sea slugs?”
“Sorry, but not really, no.”
She frowns. “Okay…”
“Listen, it’s nice talking to you and all, but I really need to read the news and do some research for the investigation.”
“Right. The investigation.”
“So why don’t you go talk to Li? You can ask her about switching cabins.”
She jumps up out of her chair. “Good idea.”
She puts on her backpack and hugs her sea slug to her chest. “See you later, in our cabin!”
She giggles and leaves.
I sigh. She’s going to be a lot to handle, but maybe Remington can keep her busy. He seems chatty too, and good with kids.
I look back at the computer. I open up the web browser and type in “Bluewater Oregon gifted” and press enter.
Chapter 17
Ron heads past the pool table, bringing the glass of Coke with her. The guys standing around there finally seem to notice her and look at her like she’s an alien from another planet, but they don’t say anything so she walks past them coolly. She looks out the window, taking a deep swig of her drink.
Carl and those other guys are standing around Carl’s motorcycle. Besides the motorcycle, there’s just one truck parked outside of the bar.
Carl gets on his bike without a helmet, and speeds off. The others start walking in the direction of Iris and Giselle’s place. Ron watches them until they’re out of view.
She drains the glass and brings it to the bar.
“Thanks for the drink,” she says to him.
He nods and takes the glass.
She goes out the door in the direction she saw the guys go. She can hear them talking loudly from here and see their shadowy figures walking past Iris and Giselle’s store now. They turn in between two houses on the left, away from the store.
Ron walks a little faster to catch up, but tries to make it look like she isn’t in a hurry, in case someone sees her and gets suspicious. No one else is out, but someone could be looking out of their window.
When she reaches the two houses the guys walked between, she pauses and sticks just her head out to see.
The pathway is lit up because of the lights on in
