For I Could Lift My Finger and Black Out the Sun (18 page)

5

“Listen to me,” Sol said, eyes glinting in the harsh artificial light. “The time is almost upon us. For all of you out there, busily wandering through this fool’s errand that is your life, soon you will know.” He looked around, and the image cut to the governor’s office.

A week later, and once again Sol had been granted a live TV interview. Politicians always say, “We don’t negotiate with terrorists.” They’ve chanted the phrase so much that it’s practically lost all meaning. But the media was a very different story. Sol meant ad revenue and ratings points for them. They’d preempt the Sunday church hour for him, if he asked for it. And what better time for him to be on TV, anyway? It was clear, this time, that Sol was hardly being interviewed. He was giving a sermon.

“As I have told you, I have changed. I am
more
than what I was, more than any of you. This may surprise you, insult you, perhaps frighten you. But there is something else I want you to know.” For a moment, he sucked in air between his perfect white teeth. “I am not alone. There are others, and they are joining me.” Even the interviewer, the same woman, wearing yet another smart, professional skirt suit, couldn’t help but gasp. Sol noticed, and he smiled. “Yes. Yes, you are surprised, I understand. But it is true. And you have seen with your own eyes the things I can do. Take a glimpse at the future! It’s a world where I, naturally, am in charge, where
we
are in charge. We who are strong. Though I have said before that my changes are not an evolution, these changes simply
are
. The world must evolve to accept our rule.”

Mom and I gaped at the TV in the near dark, transfixed.

“The others like me. They are coming,” Sol said. I saw my mom shiver.

The others like me.
Well, not all of them, Sol. I’m staying put. To hell with you.

“I’m willing to be reasonable about this, of course,” Sol said. Then he cleared his throat. “
The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether you are to be freemen or slaves; whether you are to have any property you can call your own; whether your houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and yourselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver you. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of you and your army.
” Sol paused. “Once again, I borrow words from your own George Washington. But his sentiments ring true. I am willing to let men live in peace who follow me.” He leaned closer, and his face filled our TV screen. “But those who oppose will find nothing but defeat and despair.” Sol’s eyes held the camera for a long moment.

And again, I
felt
his stare. Like he was looking at
me
. Only me.

At the end of the couch, Holly suddenly erupted. She flailed her hands and thrashed in her chair, enraged by something we didn’t understand. Her plate of mac ’n’ cheese flew, coating the wall with runny orange goo. The mess stunned me. I mean, yeah, sometimes Holly made messes. Hell, sometimes
I
made a mess, but not often. Usually she was more… I don’t know… sedate. Another swing and a cup of milk went flying. White puddle spreading across the couch, plastic cup bouncing on the floor.

“Holly, honey, please!” Mom rushed to her side to try to calm her.

I didn’t know what to do, but I had grown up with Holly, so I knew one thing: When you don’t understand what’s going on, take care of the things you do understand. I grabbed the cup and the plate, started cleaning up the mess.

This wasn’t a seizure. It seemed more like… anger. As Mom tried to calm her, Holly kept going, waging some unknown war. She pushed at Mom to get her away. Behind us, the TV blared commentary about Sol’s latest words, but it was all empty conjecture, just talking heads trying to keep their jobs by looking important and drumming up fear. “John, turn that thing off, please,” Mom said without turning, still close to Holly, trying to soothe her.

I took the plate and cup to the sink, brought back some wet paper towels, and cleaned things up as best I could. Finally, Mom seemed to get Holly under control.

“Mom,” I said.

“Yes, hon,” Mom said, wiping beads of sweat from her forehead with the side of her hand.

I watched Holly as she closed her eyes, clearly worn out from her rampage. “Do you think she knows?”

“Knows what, John?”

“About… Dad?”

My mom slowly closed her eyes, a gesture I’d seen before. Resignation. Pain. Sorrow. “I think so, John.”

“Really?”

“Really. Isn’t it about your bedtime, by the way?”

I nodded. “Yeah,” I said, standing. “But how could she know?” Mom exhaled heavily. She opened her mouth to speak, but before she said a word, her eyes slid past me, to Holly. I turned. Holly had begun to twitch.

Shaking her head, Mom went back to consoling her daughter. “No, dear, just relax. Lie still.” Thankfully, the seizure was brief. When it was over, I found myself holding on involuntarily, waiting.

Nothing happened.

“Huh, that’s strange,” I said.

“What?” Mom asked, still holding Holly.

“Usually her seizures have come just before those earthquakes, like she can feel them before the rest of us. But this time, nothing.”

Mom stood, considering but not replying. “Come on. Time for bed,” she said, gesturing for a hug. I went to her, then went to Holly. To do that thing we always did — pressing our foreheads together.

As I leaned in, I whispered, “Good night, sis.”

But Holly pulled away.

Interlude

The sounds are all there, all busily chattering. But there is something new. Not just a sound, but a call. Not a distant echo, but a voice floating on the wind.

It has purpose. It has direction.

The voice has words, though it is not made of words. It evokes feeling, compulsion, a need deep inside.

Though it says nothing, the voice speaks.

Come to me.

6

“John. He’s… gone,” Mom said.

I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand, rolling over to avoid the light from the hallway. “Uh-huh,” I mumbled, fading back to sleep.

Mom shook me. “John. He’s
gone
.”

“What? Who?” I said in a muffled voice, face still half-buried in my pillow.

“Sol.”

I blinked. “You mean they…
killed
him?” I sat up quickly.

“No, no, not that,” Mom said, waving her hands in frustration. “He disappeared. The news said he left the governor’s mansion without a word. No one even saw him go.”

“That’s…,” I said, trying to think of an appropriate word, “Crazy.”

“Isn’t it? And I can’t say I feel much better. I mean, if he’s just suddenly
disappeared
, where will he appear next? It doesn’t make any sense. None at all.”

Nope, none at all
, I thought. Unless it was a fishing expedition. A marketing campaign, if you will. Get every pair of eyes on you for miles around, then say you’re joining up with others like you. Even if it wasn’t true, Sol had the attention of every man, woman, and child in our time zone. Including anyone who might happen to have similar powers. Or maybe he was just on an ego trip. From what I’d seen, that was entirely possible, too. More likely, it was a little of both.

I ate breakfast, a bowl of sugary, multicolored cereal, in front of the TV as the reporters chattered endlessly about Sol’s disappearance. To me, the most interesting thing was happening in the background. Men with guns and tanks, appearing lost, aimless. Their adversary was suddenly gone, and they didn’t look like they knew what to do next.

Where was Sol?

For that matter, where had Bobby gone?

I dropped my spoon with a clang.

“John?” Mom called. “Everything all right?”

“Um, yeah, sorry. Just dropped my spoon.” I closed my eyes and realized that I felt something. It was what I’d felt before when I thought Sol was calling to me.

And I realized that
calling to me
was the wrong way to think about it. It wasn’t like a ringing phone I could pick up and find Sol on the other end. Instead, it was like a beacon. The blinking red light at the top of a radio tower, a circling beam from a lighthouse, or a distant warning siren.

Only instead of trying to ward me off, it was trying to bring me in.

I opened my eyes and looked around. Slowly, my focus honed in on one corner of the room. I realized that, if I tried, I could
feel
which direction the call came from.

Although the military and the news media seemed to be at a loss to find him, I was pretty sure I could simply walk toward the beacon and locate Sol.

Which meant, if I could do it, so could Bobby. And he was.

Bobby was answering the call of a madman.

7

For months, I went back and forth.
Find Bobby, try get him away from Sol. To hell with Bobby, he tried to kill me, and he made his own choices.

Actually, for most of those months, I was having fun forgetting about all the drama. Bobby and Sol were usually far from my mind. Even the pain of my father’s death, while with me every day, waned enough that I was able to have good times with Steve and Tom. It’s probably the last period of “normal life” I ever had. Will ever have.

But there were hiccups. Random everyday stuff that had to be hidden — little accidents or altercations that never left so much as a cut or a scrape on me. Many times I’d hear Mom or Steve or someone at school say something like “Oh my gosh, are you okay?” And of course, I was. I used the excuse that I’d been lucky, over and over. The time I dropped a steak knife on my foot. The time I fell off my bike after hitting an ice patch.

Finally, I was swayed by the pact I had made with myself. To use my powers, and to use them to protect my family and friends. It was a simple thing that set me off — something I overheard my mom say on the phone.

She was talking to my Aunt Cindy, and I could only hear half the conversation, but it was enough.

“— you’re right, Cindy, of course.” A pause, a nod. “Uh-huh, I know. I wasn’t there, and even though I know in my head there was nothing I could’ve done, I can’t help but feel guilty, every day. I know it’s irrational, but I just can’t let Phil go. I didn’t get to say goodbye. He was just…
gone
one day.”

Hearing Mom beat herself up with sadness, claiming the guilt for Dad’s death that forever rested on my shoulders, there was no way I could just let Bobby go.

As hard as it was to believe, I decided I had to go to Sol, because I knew I’d find Bobby with him. I had no illusion that I could defeat Sol. I just wanted to make sure Bobby was okay, see if I could convince him to leave.

Then I thought of the tank. How Sol just
made it explode
. With his mind.

So, on a random day in mid-May, as the school year was winding down, I sat at the desk in my room again, staring at that same pencil.

Move, dammit.

Nothing.

But this time I was more determined. That’s right, folks. Rather than waste mere minutes in my futile effort to mind-move the pencil, I worked at it for more than two hours.

Without a doubt, if my mom had walked in, I would be telling my story from inside an insane asylum. Even in my single-minded pursuit, I realized I looked crazy. I tried all sorts of poses and gestures, straining my mind. I could feel the veins in my forehead bulging.

And in the end, I finally succeeded. In giving myself a headache, that is.

I went out for a walk, to get some fresh air, stop thinking about Sol and Bobby and the exploding tank and my dad and how I couldn’t move a pencil, trying to ease the throbbing in my temples. The weather was hinting at the hot summer to come, with warm breezes bending the leafy trees back and forth, whispering promises of sticky, humid nights. I slipped on my sneakers and headed out, telling my mom I’d be back soon.

Walking randomly down one street after another, lost in thought, I suddenly became aware that I was heading right toward Roger Steele. He was in front of his house, leaning against the hood of that same faded green car — the one that had made my dad swerve and…

Roger had already seen me coming, and I could feel the bitterness and anger coming off him. Did I get him in trouble? No, technically not. And certainly he had no idea that I’d made him drive through that stop sign. But it was enough, when you were a kid and someone
saw you
in the most embarrassing situation of your life. That was enough to make him angry with me. Never mind that my father died that day. In front of me, Roger had lost some portion of his cool. And he couldn’t forgive that.

“Sup, jerk,” he said. As always, it was clear that Roger had smarts off the charts and was clever forever.

I stopped and locked eyes with him.
This time,
I thought
, I do it right
.

Roger jerked up from his slack position leaning against the car. At first he walked with a strange, marionette-like gait, but then smoothed out to normal as he went. He came right up to me.

And he bowed.

I couldn’t even stifle the laugh. It worked, and to perfection. I couldn’t have made Roger Steele do my bidding more completely if he had batteries and a remote control.

I pushed again, a little further this time. A little harder.

Roger’s lips started to move, and his voice came out, not quite normal. It sounded forced, like the way people do when they can’t hear themselves speaking. Because, I suppose, Roger couldn’t hear what he was saying. I simply
made
him say it. “Your majesty.” He bowed again.

I was giggling uncontrollably.

“Why, Roger, thank you. But all of this is completely unnecessary. Now, why don’t you just lie down here on the sidewalk, take a nap, and forget we ever had this conversation?” Without so much as a nod, Roger sprawled out on the concrete walkway and in seconds was asleep.

I did that. Me.
The thought was intoxicating.

With a huge smile, I turned and walked off, rounding the corner on the next street. I was pretty damn happy with myself. No. You know what? I was pretty damn
full of myself
. And beaming like I’d just won the lottery.

Maybe eight houses down the next street, I saw Marjorie Green. Marjorie was, if not
the
most popular, most beautiful girl in school, at least was in the running.

In other words, Marjorie was someone who wouldn’t talk to me if she were strapped to a nuclear bomb and I was the only person with the disarm code. If there were layers of society at our school, she was the peak of the mountain, and I was some subterranean stratum with moldy dinosaur fossils. And not even cool fossils like a T-rex. I was probably full of trilobites or something equally nerdy.

But, like I said, I was pretty damn full of myself at that moment. I reached out and pushed her mind.

Which is why, in full sight of her father who was on a ladder, cleaning the gutters on the front of their house, Marjorie Green gave me a cute little wave, then smiled and walked right up to me. Without a glance at her dear ol’ dad, Marjorie gave me a kiss on the cheek.

Even I knew pushing it further would be a bad idea. So I told Marjorie’s mind to turn and walk her body inside her house. And it did it. Or she did. You know what I mean.

As her dad stood high on the ladder, staring at me, I gave him a smirk and a little shrug before walking off, whistling a happy tune.

Head swelling with my own amazingness, I got back home and went to my room. I closed the door, walked over to the desk, and spun cowboy-style toward the pencil, still sitting there. I made little pistol-shooting gestures with both hands.
Pew pew
.

And the pencil moved.

Not a lot, but it did. The pencil rolled a few inches across the surface of the desk, before coming to a stop with a slight rocking motion.

And like Marjorie’s dad, all I could do was stand there and stare.