Residue (22 page)

Then the pencil dropped and my cousins rushed inside my room, everyone speaking at once.

“
You have the…” Nolan was saying, snapping his fingers like someone does when they’ve forgotten something.

“
That thing that’s written about in the journals…” said Estelle.

“
That thing the first channelers saw…” said Oscar.

“
You’re the person with…” Vinnia began.

But Spencer, the book smart one, finally concluded it. “Residue. She has the ability to pick up residue.”

Then they fell silent, gawking at me in admiration.

I didn’t give up the fact that I already knew what it was called or that I’d known I had it for approximately three hours now.

“
Come on,” I said, feeling undeserving of it. “I’m not a celebrity.”

Oscar chuckled under his breath. “You are in our world.”

“
You need to tell your mother,” Vinnia declared.

The rest of them nodded vehemently.

“
I will,” I said, realizing just how significant this ability was to their world, my world. “I will.” I didn’t mention that first I’d give myself time to fully accept it. “But until I do, can you keep it to yourselves? I think she should find out from me instead of some stranger on the street.” I knew this was an exaggerated scenario, to assume any stranger on any street might have any interest to talk about me. But if this ability were as impactful as everyone has made it out to be, I could rightfully imagine this scenario playing out. Evidently, so could they because they began nodding.

Estelle sat on the edge of the bed beside me. “And when I opened your door I thought you’d lost your mind…” she admitted, giggling. “This is so much better.”

“
Thanks,” I said at her unintentional backhanded compliment.

“
So,” said Estelle, tapping my knee merrily. “How did you find out you could levitate?”

That sent a bolt of nerves through me. I couldn’t tell them I’d been in a swamp attempting to save a man who transferred his power to me while Jameson Caldwell watched.

Instead, I shrugged and shook my head, unable to actually speak words that would mislead them.

“
Maybe you’ve always had it…” offered Nolan. “You just didn’t know it.”

I gave the same gesture. “Vinnia, now that I know I’m able to levitate, could you show me how you do it?” I asked changing the subject.

Her head jerked back in surprise. “Of course.”

A few minutes later we were in the kitchen, with items of varying weights lined up down the middle of the table. Next to my pencil, lay a book, a container of cooking utensils, the toaster, and, lastly, a sack of flour.

“
Now,” said Vinnia, looking at the clock. “We have about an hour before mother and Miss Mabelle get back from the farmers market. But if you can’t do it right away, don’t worry. It took me several years to actually control the object I was levitating. That said you could pick it up quicker.”

“
Nice pun,” said Spencer. He stood along the counter to left of me with the rest of my cousins.

“
I know,” she said proudly and then readdressed me. “Now, the same energy that we use to levitate is the same used for all the other casts. The exact same,” she insisted. “You already heal so you know what it feels like. This is where I ran into trouble while I was learning and why I think you’ll have better luck and quicker results because you’ve done it before.”

“
Are you ever going to let her attempt it?” asked Nolan irritably. “Or are you gonna wait until mother’s coming through the door?”

She paused to glare at him sharply. Then, she turned to me and suggested demurely “Go ahead.”

I appreciated her instruction though. This would be my first controlled attempt, ever, to lift something without touching it and the more advice the better.

I tried and my cousins patiently waited but after ten minutes. Nothing happened.

“
Sometimes,” said Vinnia, on the verge of frustration, “it’s helpful to use your hand - to direct the energy through.”

I raised my hand limply and said, “Like this?”

“
No, no, not really,” she said and then sighed. “Like this.”

Then she took my hand, straightened my arm at the elbow, and pulled at my index finger. “Think of this as your own personal fire hose, only you’re bursting energy instead of water.”

That helped quite a bit and soon the pencil was rolling back and forth across the table.

“
Good!” Estelle commented from the counter amidst my cousins nodding heads of approval.

“
Now,” said Vinnia, “use your fingers. Like…”

She pivoted my hand around so that it was face up and then wiggled my finger, as if I could coax the pencil upward.

To my shock, it actually worked. First the pencil tip lifted and, once it was at a slant, the eraser end rose from the table, too. It drifted through the air a few inches above the table and then I set it down.

For that, I received a round of applause.

The remaining items weren’t as easy. Despite my focused efforts, by the time we heard Aunt Lizzy’s Porsche pull into the driveway, the book had done no more than flapped a few pages, the container of cooking utensils lay on its side, the toaster’s cord had wound its self into a ball, and the bag of flour had exploded.

We hurried to clean up the evidence in the kitchen but it was no use. On their trip through the door, Miss Mabelle barked, “Whatchu doin’ in this hea kitchen? Hmmm?”

Before we had the chance to give her a reasonable excuse, she saw the flour and released a subsequent gasp. “You cleanin’ that up now, ya hea?”

That ended our lesson for the day as we spent the next hour cleaning. Then there was normal school work to get done. So while everyone else found a quiet spot at the kitchen table, I noisily practiced my new ability. Once in a while their heads would jerk up at the sound of a spoon falling to the floor or a cookbook slamming against the wall. Only once did either Aunt Lizzy or Miss Mabelle enter the kitchen during that time and neither appeared to notice the spatula floating near the ceiling fan. By the time Miss Mabelle had to start dinner, I was lifting Oscar and his chair off the ground. It was unsteady so that he had to keep his hands on the table for support but it was an undeniable accomplishment. I barely had time to set him down when the door opened and Miss Mabelle came through, catching him on the side and nearly tossing him off, which brought a round of laughter from everyone.

As Miss Mabelle prepared our food, we collected our books and headed upstairs. But I wasn’t ready to stop. There was an itch that made me slip back downstairs and out to the backyard, where I was alone and enclosed.

It was humid, as it had been every day since I’d arrived in the South, but temperate. A lawn mower ran off in the distance and I smelled apple pie baking from a house nearby. These were perfect distractions, comforting but not overwhelming to the point it drew my attention away entirely.

Sitting on the steps, I was able to rearrange Miss Mabelle’s flower pots and water her hanging ferns without moving more than my finger. We’ll see whether she notices, I mused.

At some point, a comment Vinnia had made floated through my mind, one that had implied I had more control over this ability than most did right when they recognize that they have it. And with that confidence in mind, I had the urge to really test my levitation skills, to see just how far I could take it.

Standing, I walked to a part of the yard not visible from the kitchen and slipped off my shoes. If I was going to do this, I wanted to know right when my feet left the ground.

Figuring that my finger wiggle wouldn’t be much help, since the object I was about to move was me, I kept my hands next to my hips. The evening was approaching so that the shadows covered most of the yard. Birds shifted among the branches, which drew me away from what I was doing. So, this time, I closed my eyes.

The grass tickled the sides of my feet but other than the blades I sensed no other feeling. Then, as I concentrated, the force rose up stronger than it ever had, swelling my chest and causing me to inhale deeply. Then, as my lungs filled with the sultry air of New Orleans, I felt the grass leave my heels.

“
Wow…” I whispered through my exhale.

I noticed two things instantly. First, my arms and legs felt like dead weight. The force came from my torso so that it didn’t seem like my limbs served any purpose. Second, my spine felt weightless, as if sacks of air between my vertebrae served as balloons, lifting me off the ground.

I figured that my body had left the ground only a few inches so when I opened my eyes and found I was peering over our neighbor’s roof, my body jolted. It was enough to send me down a few feet but not plummet to the ground. Although the drop was fast enough to stir a breeze and ruffle my clothes as I descended. I stopped a few feet above the ground and floated, attempting to balance myself with my arms.

While what I’d done so far was notable, I knew I could go further with this capability.

With Miss Mabelle’s potting shed directly in front of me, I narrowed my aim for it and soon the tops of grass blades brushed my toes as I floated toward it. Ceasing just before the door was easy, what wasn’t so much was my effort to spin around. Flailing my arms around didn’t do any good, rotating my hips did nothing. After several minutes, I found the only way to turn directions was envisioning it. Soon, I was back to the other side of the yard, flipping as if I were on a jungle gym set, only one without bars, trying to contain my laughter so I didn’t call attention to myself.

Only when I heard Miss Mabelle’s shout that dinner was beginning did I lower myself to the ground and stroll inside, a private grin stretched across my face.

Miss Mabelle saw me coming and gave me a suspicious look. “Mmmmhmmm…” she muttered as I entered the dining room. If she noticed anything peculiar out the kitchen window she didn’t mention it. To be honest, if she had I wouldn’t have been so concerned. Unlike Aunt Lizzy, who didn’t seem capable of keeping anything to herself, Miss Mabelle never seemed to say much at all.

Dinner was quick and conversation centered on the upcoming holiday, Samhain or Halloween as I knew it. Apparently, our evening school threw one party a year and it was on this day. Everyone would be required to wear a costume, no exceptions. While this sounded fine, I really wasn’t one to dress up and after one complaint they spent the rest of the time trying to convince me it would be fun.

They would have been remiss if they found out that I didn’t give it any more thought when dinner was over and we headed for our rooms. A school celebration didn’t sound nearly as exciting as a midnight flight around New Orleans. And that was exactly what I had in mind as I crept back downstairs and out the back door.

The night was cooler now and the humidity had lessened so I was glad I’d pulled on a jacket and jeans for my first flight. The frogs and crickets seemed to fight over each other’s volume as I stepped out to the grass again.

Using the same process as before, I lifted myself into the air, my legs dangling awkwardly below me. Before elevating, I took a trip around the backyard to get my equilibrium. Then I rose higher until the rooftops were beneath me, and the chorus of frogs and crickets no longer reached me. I made a quick note of how the streets below me looked like the replica of a miniature town, and then I allowed myself a quiet scream of excitement before taking off over the houses.

Not a single person noticed me as I soared over the city, along the Riverwalk and up over the French Quarter. Keeping my hands at my sides made me more aerodynamic and helped me balance, I noticed. You would think that temperature would be more of a problem than balance when considering the height I was at but that wasn’t the case. Maybe this levitation thing had some sort of built-in temperature control because for reasons I couldn’t quite pinpoint there was no fluctuation in the chill of the air or wind velocity. It was as if I were sitting in front of a fan set on low speed.

My tour of the city took me over Bourbon Street where I found it packed with people. From the air, it was very different. The near constant aroma of decrepit buildings and southern food didn’t reach this high. It was quieter here too. The jazz, thumping bar music, and voices couldn’t be heard. Still, it was just as beautiful as on the ground with flashing signs radiating Mardi Gras colors off the wet pavement and gas lamp street lights flickering across the cobblestones.

I was enjoying my trip, wishing Jameson could be here to see it with me, when I passed over the building where our evening classes are held.

Then, the thrill of it ended.

My flight overhead had been completely unintentional. In fact, I hadn’t even realized where I was until recognizing the courtyard. But what drew my attention were the people in it.

The courtyard should have been empty.

I dropped closer and deduced from the colorful dress and hair wound into a bun that one of them was Ms. Veilleux. The other two I couldn’t identify right away. I’d never seen them before tonight. Wearing black, hooded cloaks, they stood opposite Ms. Veilleux as the three engaged in a conversation.

There was no telling at this distance, several feet above the rooftops, what their topic could be but I knew it turned serious when Ms. Veilleux tried to leave and they didn’t allow it.