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He shrugs. "It's just a hobby," he says, though I get the distinct feeling that he's keeping something from me.
We finish the mile at eight minutes fifty-nine seconds, better than the last time Sam ran it. Bernie Kosar follows the class back to the school. The others pet him, and when we walk in he tries to come in with us. I don't know how he knew where I was. Could he have memorized the way to the school this morning on the ride in? The thought seems ridiculous.
He stays at the door. I walk to the locker room with Sam and the second he catches his breath he rattles off a ton of other conspiracy theories, one right after another, most of which are laughable. I like him, and find him amusing, but sometimes I wish he would stop talking.
When home ec begins Sarah isn't in class. Mrs. Benshoff gives instruction for the first ten minutes and then we head to the kitchen. I enter the station alone, resigned to the fact that I'll be cooking alone today, and as soon as that thought occurs to me, Sarah walks in.
"Did I miss anything good?" she asks.
"About ten minutes of quality time with me," I say with a smile.
She laughs. "I heard about your locker this morning. I'm sorry."
"You put the manure there?" I ask.
She laughs again. "No, of course not. But I know they're picking on you because of me."
"They're just lucky I didn't use my superpowers and throw them into the next county."
She playfully grabs my biceps. "Right, these huge muscles. Your superpowers. Boy, they are lucky."
Our project for the day is to make blueberry cupcakes. As we start mixing the batter, Sarah begins telling me about her history with Mark. They dated for two years, but the longer they were together, the more she drifted from her parents and her friends. She was Mark's girlfriend, nothing else. She knew she had started to change, to adopt some of his attitudes towards people: being mean and judgmental, thinking she was better than them. She also started drinking and her grades slipped. At the end of the last school year, her parents sent her to live with her aunt in Colorado for the summer. When she got there, she started taking long hikes in the mountains, taking pictures of the scenery with her aunt's camera. She fell in love with photography and had the best summer ever, realizing there was far more to life than being a cheerleader and dating the quarterback of the football team. When she got home she broke up with Mark and quit cheerleading, and made a vow that she was going to be good, and kind, to everyone. Mark hasn't gotten over it. She says he still considers her his girlfriend, and believes she's going to come back to him. She says the only thing she misses about him are his dogs, which she hung out with whenever she was at his house. I then tell her about Bernie Kosar, and how he showed up at our doorstep unexpectedly after that first morning at the school.
We work as we talk. At one point I reach into the oven without the oven mitts and pull out the cupcake pan. She sees me do it and asks if I'm okay, and I pretend to be hurt, shake my hand as if it's burned, though I don't actually feel a thing. We go to the sink and Sarah runs lukewarm water to help with the burn that isn't there. When she sees my hand, I just shrug. As we're frosting the cupcakes, she asks about my phone, and tells me she noticed there was only one number in it. I tell her it's Henri's number, that I lost my old phone with all of my contacts. She asks if I left a girlfriend behind when we moved. I say no, and she smiles, which just about ruins me. Before class ends, she tells me about the upcoming Halloween festival in town, and says she hopes to see me there, that maybe we can hang out. I say yeah, that would be great, and pretend to be cool, even though I'm flying inside.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Images come to me, at random times, usually when I least expect them. Sometimes they are small and fleeting-my grandmother holding a glass of water and opening her mouth to say something-but I never know the words because the image vanishes as quickly as it came. Sometimes they are longer, more lifelike: my grandfather pushing me on a swing. I can feel the strength in his arms as he pushes me up, the butterflies in the pit of my stomach as I race down. My laughter carries on the wind. Then the image is gone. Sometimes I explicitly remember the images from my past, remember being a part of them. But sometimes they are as new to me as though they never happened before.
In the living room, with Henri ru
Just then a man comes up the walk. He is young, dressed in a silver and blue rubber suit that is tight on his body, the kind of suit I've seen divers wear. He speaks to me in a language that I don't understand. He says the name "Hadley" and nods to the animal. Hadley runs over to him, his shape changing from a monkey to something larger, something bearlike with a lion's mane. Their heads are level, and the man scratches Hadley beneath the chin. Then my grandfather comes out of the house. He looks young, but I know that he must be at least fifty.
He shakes hands with the man. They speak but I don't understand what they are saying. Then the man looks at me, smiles, lifts his hand out, and all of a sudden I'm off the ground and flying through the air. Hadley follows, as a bird again. I'm in full control of my body, but the man controls where I go, moving his hand to the left or to the right. Hadley and I play in midair, him tickling me with his beak, me trying to get a grip on him. And then my eyes snap open and the image is gone.
"Your grandfather could make himself invisible at will," I hear Henri say, and I close my eyes again. The crystal continues up my arm, spreading the fire repellent to the rest of my body. "One of the rarest Legacies there is, developing only in one percent of our people, and he was one of them. He could make himself and whatever he was touching completely disappear.
"There was one time he wanted to play a joke on me, before I knew what his Legacies were. You were three years old and I had just started working with your family. I came to your house for the first time the day before, and as I came up the hill for my second day the house wasn't there. There was a driveway, and a car, and the tree, but no house. I thought I was losing my mind. I continued past it. Then when I knew I had gone too far I turned back and there, some distance away, was the house that I swore wasn't there before. So I started walking back, but when I came close enough the house again vanished. I just stood there looking at the spot where I knew it must be, but seeing only the trees beyond it. So I walked on. Only on my third time by did your grandfather make the house reappear for good. He couldn't stop laughing. We laughed about that day for the next year and a half, all the way till the very end."
When I open my eyes I am back on the battlefield. More explosions, fire, death.