HITTING WHERE IT HURTS
Maryah
Knuckles knocking against my window startled me out of my sleep. I lifted my head from my steering wheel and squinted through the frost at the back-lit outline of Anthony. I rolled down my window and tried to fake a smile. “Sorry, I got tired on my way home.”
Anthony’s sunglasses blocked any evidence of whether he believed me. “You all right?”
I nodded. Another lie.
“You should come home.”
I glanced at my phone. No missed calls. “I think I’ll go into town and get breakfast.”
A smug smile spread across his lips. “And leave Krista waiting at the house?”
“WHAT? She isn’t coming until tomorrow.”
“She caught an earlier flight.”
Oh, thank god! I needed her more than ever. I tried to start my car but nothing happened, not one cough or chug of the engine. Anthony shook his head. “Did you fall asleep with the headlights on, or the radio?”
“Radio,” I admitted, biting my lip.
“You can ride with me. Carson and I will come back and jumpstart her.”
Anthony and I didn’t talk on the drive home, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the photo of him and Louise at—someone’s wedding. I felt my pocket. The bulge of paper from my mother’s letter was still there. It wasn’t a dream.
∞
I practically flew through the front door and into the living room. I squealed as soon as she sprang up from the couch.
“Happy Birthday, Pudding!” Krista exclaimed as I catapulted through the air and hugged her—candle smells wafted over me.
“You’re here! You’re really here.”
“I heard your message and…caught a different flight.”
“Happy Birthday, Kris.” I lowered my voice. “I wanted to come to you, back to Baltimore.” I hugged her for way too long, but eventually pulled away to look at her. “We need to talk.”
She smiled and a sense of normalcy spread over me. Krista was here. Everything would be okay. I’d tell her about the eternal family insanity and she’d take me back to Maryland. Aunt Sandy and Uncle Dave didn’t want me moving out here anyway.
Anthony never came into the house. He probably stayed outside to tinker in the garage. I didn’t know where Louise and Carson were, but I didn’t want to take any chances. “Let’s go to my room.”
I shut my door and pulled the letter out of my pocket. “These people are nuts. I should’ve stayed in Maryland. Read this.”
Krista eyeballed the letter, but didn’t take it. “Your mom told Harmony what it said, and Faith told me you found the photo album.”
“Faith and Harmony? You talked to them?” I sat in my rattan chair, feeling weak and confused. “Wait. You know about Harmony talking to ghosts?”
“It’s time I told you some things, things you should’ve known a long time ago.”
She reached for my hands, but I stuck them under my legs. She raised her fingers to her lips in a prayer position. Since we were little she’d always done that same motion right before she announced something important—and true. Part of me was terrified.
“You are part of a kindrily. So am I.”
“You’re joking. Why are you playing along with this?”
“We’re Elements,” Krista said in the most serious tone I’d ever heard her use. “We all have supernatural gifts. I’m a healer.”
My head shook. Not Krista too. No way.
“Think about the attack,” she continued. “The doctors said it would take you months to heal, that you’d have scars. People don’t heal that fast without supernatural help.”
“But.” I stared at her, thinking of a dozen incidents when Krista took away a pain or illness. I couldn’t recall a time she was injured. The only times she got sick were right after I felt better. Sweat beaded on my forehead, but I couldn’t pull my hands out from under me.
“When we were kids, I tried to tell you stories, hoping it would trigger your memory, but you always thought I was playing make-believe.”
The speed of her words increased as she grew more emotional. “Like Pudding. I call you that because it’s what you used to call me. And telling you the stars are waiting for you before you went to sleep, you used to tell me that every night.” She paced the floor as she rambled. “One time I tried to tell you directly, at your tenth birthday party at Skateland. Nathan was there and we agreed I should tell you, but when I did, you got sick. It was your worst migraine ever. I was scared to mention it again.”
I stared at her dumbfounded. “You know Nathan?”
“You two are kind of a big deal,” she teased.
“He was at my birthday party?”
She sighed. “He always had to stay incognito, but yes, he visited every year on your birthday and Christmas.”
My eyes widened. “Since when?”
“Since you were five.”
“How is that possible? He was a little kid! I lived across the country.”
“It’s complicated, but we had plans worked out so he’d never pop in at a bad time. Remember, we all have gifts, Nathan’s is traversing.”
“Traversing?”
Krista smiled. “Remember that movie we watched, Jumper? That’s what Nathan does. He can travel almost instantaneously.”
I pictured the main character teleporting across continents. Krista wouldn’t lie to me. She’d never take the side of a bunch of strangers, or non-strangers.
“Seriously?”
She nodded.
Nathan, the flesh and blood guy I had crushed on, hated, received a car from, and dreamed about, had some super power? I stared at the white comforter on my bed like it was a movie screen. My past several months of dreams played out in front of me: Nathan snowboarding, visiting foreign countries, and flying off mountains. “Wait. Can he fly?”
Krista laughed. “Not that I know of.”
I nervously laughed too. As if that was a silly question, yet teleporting should be an acceptable concept. I thought back to my other strange dreams. “He didn’t hang out in your bedroom while you healed some wound on his back, right?”
Krista’s chin darted forward. “How’d you know that?”
My answer lingered on my tongue. Like I knew as soon as I said it out loud, everything would change. “I…saw you two…in a dream.”
She braced her arms on the sides of my chair. “What else have you dreamt about?”
I leaned back. “Kris, you’re suffocating me.”
She released her death grip and kneeled in front of me. “Spill it.”
I looked down at her and months of secrets spewed out of me: seeing Nathan the night of the attack, the hospital, every dream I had, even the Christmas ornament. I must have ranted for half an hour, but she never said a word.
When I finished, she rubbed her hands over her face and rested in her trademark prayer position. “Take a deep breath, because what I’m about to tell you is going to require an excessive amount of oxygen.”
I inhaled as deep as I could.
“None of those were dreams,” she told me. “Your gift is astral traveling. You can leave your physical body and watch over anyone at any time without being seen.”
I laughed, but it got stuck in my throat when I realized she wasn’t kidding. “My dreams were real?”
“Yes.” She played with the ends of her dark hair. “Why didn’t you tell me about any of this?”
She was right. I couldn’t find enough air to breathe properly. “I thought you’d think I was nuts!”
Krista shook her head. “And we assumed you’d think we were crazy if we asked you.”
I slid off my chair and sat on the floor in front of her. “You remember your…” I couldn’t wrap my head around all of it. “Past lives? You remember living a life before this one?”
She rested her hands on my knees. “This is my third lifetime with everyone. I’m the thirteenth member. I was the newest member until Carson came along. In every life you and I have been family…kind of.”
“Were we cousins in our last life too?” It felt ridiculous to say something so bizarre out loud.
“We can get into that later. I don’t want your brain to explode.”
I ran my hand over my head like it might be a real possibility. “There was a wedding photo of Nathaniel and Mary,” I still couldn’t bring myself to say me, “and the number nineteen next to it in my handwriting. What does nineteen mean?”
She looked up for a moment, fiddling with her hair again. “Probably means yours and Nathan’s nineteenth wedding. Sounds about right.”
I sat up so fast that the corner of the chair jammed into my back. “What? That’s impossible. That’s—how could—no way.”
Krista’s bottom lip folded into a pout. “You two were an item for longer than you can imagine. That ring you’re wearing,” she held my thumb. “That’s been your engagement ring several times.”
I gasped, staring at my ring like it was a UFO. I couldn’t imagine anyone ever proposing to me, much less someone like Nathan. “This doesn’t mean we’re engaged, does it?”
Krista laughed. “No. He has to actually pop the question for that to apply. But there is more to that ring than meets the eye.”
“Like what?”
“Nathan or Louise will have to explain that one. I still don’t fully understand it.”
“I can’t ask Nathan about any of this!”
“Why? You do love him, right?”
My jaw went slack. “Love him? I don’t—we never—I mean he’s—he could have any girl on this planet. Why would he want me?”
“Oh, Maryah. Oblivious, feeble-minded angel.” Her eyes glistened and she sighed. “You are his world. He has loved you for centuries. He’s been broken without you.”
Broken. No, I’d been the broken one. How could I be so important to him? He barely knew me. “It’s not that I don’t want to believe you. I do. I think, but, I…what do you call it? Erased, right?”
She nodded.
“Then think about it. I hardly know Nathan. I’m not sure I even know what being in love means. And if I don’t remember being with him then…” I shrugged, lost for what else to say.
Krista went stone-faced. “I don’t believe this. You’re soul mates. You’re supposed to be magnetically drawn to each other. Knowing all of this I figured…so wait, you don’t feel anything for him?”
I didn’t want to lie. I’d been attracted to him since my first dream, or what I thought was a dream. Even when I wanted to hate him, I thought about him constantly, but everything about the situation scared me. None of this was normal. Not even close to normal. “Can we take a break from talking about this for a minute? I’m getting a headache.”
Krista glanced at my bedroom door. “They’re waiting for us. They called a meeting.”
I looked at the door too. “A meeting? Who called a meeting?”
“The kindrily. This is where you hear the rest of the story. They want to make sure you’re okay with everything.”
“But I don’t know if I am.”
“That’s why they called a meeting. Come on.”
