Flashes - Chapter 6

FLASHES - CHAPTER 6
I keep trying to have a flash during second and third period. Some of Trinity’s clones are in my next two periods, and they’ve been busy telling anyone who will listen about what happened in painting.

It’s no fun walking through the halls knowing people are whispering about you. I know, I thought it was cool on Friday, but on Friday they were whispering good things about me.

I figure if I show up at lunch and can tell everyone who Trinity’s going to the dance with, this will be old news by the end of the day, right?

I have a flash, finally, while I’m dumping my stuff in my locker before lunch. Cameron, dressed like Frankenstein, lying on a lab table, just like in the movie, and the crazy scientist guy is pulling the lightening switch down while doing his evil laugh.

Trinity’s going to the Halloween dance with Cameron? Never going to happen. And not just because she’s obviously doesn’t love the guy. Can you imagine Trinity going to the dance dressed as the Bride of Frankenstein?

Maybe when I try to make myself have a flash, I get nonsense visions.

Or maybe Trinity was on to something when she called me crazy.

Okay. So my options are skip lunch and hide in the library until this blows over, or eat while everyone laughs at me. Great choices.

“Did you forget your lunch?” Abbey asks when I shut my locker door without getting it out. Where did she come from? “I can share mine with you, if you want.”

That means she’s willing to sit by me at lunch. How bad can it be if someone sits by me? Pretty bad actually, but I’m starving.

“Oh yeah.” I smack my forehead with my hand. “It’s lunch. I was thinking it was fourth period.” I reopen my locker.

A boy with a million freckles, that I swear I have never seen before, starts in on me before I even sit down at the table. Um, manners? I’m pretty sure lunchroom rules state he’s supposed to let me take a bite of food before he tries to make me cry.

“Hey Laney, are you going to show us more of your psychic powers today?” he sneers.

“Just drop it,” Abbey says to him. Those red streaks in her hair make her look tough and scary while she’s staring down Freckle Boy. Which is funny because the rest of the time they make her look perky. Maybe I should try some color in my hair. Blue would go with my eyes, but it’s the color Trinity said I could have, so that’s not happening.

Nobody else brings it up again during lunch. In fact, nobody but Abbey even talks to me, but as I see it, being ignored is better than spending lunch in the library. I talk with Abbey the whole time, and it turns out, she’s into post-impressionistic art too. Very cool. In math, my vision is interrupted with a familiar flash of lightening. Trinity tripping and dropping all of her books in the hall.

Yes. A little bit of payback is coming Trinity’s way. I laugh out loud, and the teacher looks up just long enough to glare at me.

“What’s so funny?” Freckle Boy whispers from the seat next to me. So I guess that means I have seen him before. How could I have not noticed someone with that many freckles?

“I just had a flash of Trinity tripping in the hall and dropping her books.”

“Right,” he says. “You wish.”

But she does trip. Right outside of my math classroom. While we’re filing out of it. It’s beautiful.

FLASHES - Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

Trinity’s swarm breaks into whispers when they catch sight of me in first period, right before she gives them a look like Medusa turning people to stone. Silence. Except maybe a tiny giggle from me, and one from Abbey who’s setting up her easel to my right.

“Oh. Hi Laney,” Trinity says loud enough for everyone in the class to hear. “I was wondering if you could tell me who’s going to ask me to the Halloween dance?”

“How should I know?”

“I thought you were psychic.” She drums her fingers along a nearby desk like she’s bored with waiting for my answer. “Well?”

“Probably half the boys in sixth grade will ask you and some seventh and eighth graders too.” I mutter and pick through my paints. She knows I can’t force myself to have a flash about something like that. Why even ask?

“Of course,” she says, and obviously she‘s not getting that I want this conversation to end because she actually steps between be and my canvas. “But I meant which boy will I go with. I really need to know, so I can match my dress to his eyes.”

“It’s a costume dance,” I say, and I roll my eyes at her. “If his eyes are brown, are you planning on coming as a mud monster?” That gets some laughs from Abbey and a few of the other students nearby.

I lean down to pick through my brushes. After a week of listening to the art teacher talk we are finally going to get to actually paint in first period. I thought Trinity and the swarm would move on when I turned away to look at my brushes. I was wrong.

“Just tell me. Okay?” Trinity crosses her arms.

“No.”

“Because you can’t. Because you’re not a psychic at all. You’re just a crazy liar.”

“No.” Somehow I managed to turn that ‘no’ into a two syllable word.

“Then tell me who I’m going with.”

“I can’t.”

“Like I told you girls,” Trinity says to the clones. “She’s not psychic. She’s just a freak.” The swarm laughs in unison

“Close your mouth.” Abbey whispers to me a couple seconds later. I do. I hadn’t realized it had been gaping open the whole time since Trinity had walked away.

“But, I am psychic.” I whisper.

“It doesn’t matter,” Abbey whispers back. “Just paint. Don’t give Trinity the satisfaction of thinking she got to you.”

Abbey’s right. I take a deep breath and stare hard at my canvas. I hope I looks like I’m trying to envision what I am going to paint. I squeeze my eyes shut and think hard about the Halloween dance. Nothing.

Not that I honestly expected to see anything, but I’d love to be able to prove Trinity wrong.

FLASHES - Chapter 4

FLASHES  - CHAPTER 4
“I wear red,” Trinity says, when I come out of the bathroom in my new bikini.

“So, that means you’re not excited we have on the same swim suit?” I think it’s funny, but I’m the only one laughing. Story of my life.

“Just in the future. I wear red.” She put on another coat of lip gloss and checks out her reflection one more time. I didn’t see anyone else in the house when I came in. Who cares what she looks like? We’re going swimming. People don’t look good soaking wet. They just look wet, with or without lip gloss. “You can have another color. Like maybe blue. There are lots of shades of blue. I’m sure you’ll be able to find one that looks good on you.” She’s still looking in the mirror while she talks.

“Um, okay?” This was a joke, right? She doesn’t expect me to go home and empty my closet of everything red, because she likes that color. That’s insane.

Trinity’s pool in unbelievable. It looks like something from a Hawaiian resort. A waterfall pours down off of a mini volcano with a slide. In the deep end, you can dive off of a stone bridge that arches across it.

Not that Trinity does. She only gets her feet wet before flopping into a lounge chair in the shade of a bunch of potted tropical plants.

“You want to jump in and cool off?” I ask.

“You can if you want. I guess.” She’s arranging her hair around her shoulders. “I don’t want to get my hair wet. It’s just too much work, you know?”

“Yeah.” Is what I say, but “no” would be the real answer. There is a volcano slide in front of us. Who cares about your hair when there’s a volcano slide?

I stretch out in the lounge chair next to her. She closes her eyes and smiles a little. We just sit there.

Since her eyes are closed, I use my big toe to pick some dirt off of my other foot. Probably got there when I fell off my bike.

Her eyes are still closed. It’s been like 10 minutes. I weave my hands and arms in between the fabric slats in my chair. Boring.

“So,” I say. Trinity opens one eye at me. “Do you ever bring your paints out here and pretend you’re Gauguin?”

She squints at me with her one eye.

“You know, since it’s tropical looking out here…” I say.

“Who?”

“Gauguin. He did all of those post-impressionist paintings of Tahiti.”

“Oh. I’m only into realistic style painting. I don’t really think it takes a lot of skill to slop paint on a canvas like the impressionists did.”

Okay. We won’t be talking about art.

“I’ve been wondering,” she says, and she actually opens both eyes to look at me when she talks. “How does the whole being psychic thing work? You see the future, right?”

“Yeah. Um, it’s not that exciting really. I only see dumb things, everyday things like Cameron, nothing important.”

“How far in the future?”

“Just a few seconds, or sometimes it won’t happen ’til the next day.”

Okay, I’m not really comfortable talking about my psychic stuff. Except with my grandma. That’s because she gets flashes too. And the flashes aren’t all that great. Who needs to see themselves doing the dishes ahead of time? No one, but I do anyhow.

“So, how does it happen? Do you think about something and see it’s future? Were you thinking about Cameron, when it happened?” Trinity’s nose scrunches up a little.

“What? No. I wasn’t thinking about Cameron. I can’t make it happen at all. I just see this lightning flash, and then I see something boring. That’s it.”

“Really?”

“Uh huh. I think my grandma was struck by lightning or something and that’s why it happens to us. No big deal.” Except I shouldn’t have mentioned my grandma doing it too, because she’s really private and wouldn’t be happy if she thought I was telling people. So I talk faster, ‘cause that’s what I do when I’m freaking out. Not that it matters, Trinity has closed her eyes again.

I only stay for about an hour more, before I tell Trinity I better head home. She barely opens her eyes to say goodbye. I really should’ve gone down the volcano slide at least once. Especially since I’m pretty sure this will be my only opportunity.

Whispers - Chapter 1.3

 WHISPERS - CHAPTER 1.3

The girl is still here this morning, sitting with her sad sweet face on the couch watching as I wash at the kitchen sink. The water is tinged pink with rust, but I brush my teeth with it anyways.

“Gross,” she says. I shrug in response. It’s not as if I have a better option.

If it was safe to talk, I’d love to ask why she’s still hanging around. Is she trapped in this apartment? The building must have been a beautiful house a hundred years ago. Was this her home? Did her soul get stuck in it? I shake my head; how can a ghost get stuck inside of a building?

The bedroom door swings open, and I pat the water off my face in a hurry.

“Are you ready to do the Good work today?” Driscoll asks. His lanky body sidles up next to me at the sink.

“Yes sir,” I answer as I refold my towel.

“Look at me.” Driscoll cups his hands around the side of my face, holding it inches away from his own. I do my best to hold still and meet his eyes. “I know what you’ll see today will frighten you. You should be afraid. New Orleans is a city of tremendous evil. You were probably too young when I saved you to have many memories of it. What can you remember?”

“Nothing,” I answer. It’s a lie. I was ten when Mother and Driscoll came and took me to the Good Farm after Grandma’s funeral. I remember New Orleans. I remember the trees shading the streets, glasses of tea with friends on the patio, parades and laughter. I don’t remember evil.

“You must remember something,” Driscoll says. His fingers tighten on my cheeks as he waits for my response.

“Trees and Grandma?” I say. Driscoll’s fingers relax a little.

“Yes,” he sighs. “Your grandmother made it seem like fun, didn’t she?” His hands drop from my face, and I look down at the floor. “The truth is, it’s a city so evil only a few people would hear me when I tried to tell them about the Good.”

I reach for my folded towel and tooth brush on the counter and clutch them to me, making a damp patch in the stomach of my dress.

“Lucky for you, your mother was one of those few,” he continues. “Beth, no matter how horrible it is out there, you don’t have to worry, you and your mother are always safe with me.”

“Always Beth,” my mother echoes from where she’s now standing in the bedroom doorway. She looks older and faded today in her simple cotton dress. As if the blond streaks in her hair are really gray instead, and her eyes are sunken instead of tired. Was she kept awake by the scraping sounds last night too?

“Beth?” the girl says with a snort from her perch on the couch. I don’t look at her. “Beth?” she says again, when I put my towel back in my milk crate and fish my sandals out from under the couch. “But, your name is Eliza.”

I don’t know how the dead always know my true name. Are our names tattooed on our foreheads in ink only ghosts can see? I can’t imagine why they’d care. For what it’s worth, the ghost girl is only half right. My name is Elizabeth. In my head, it’s Eliza. Like Audrey Hepburn’s character in My Fair Lady, my grandma’s favorite movie.

I ignore her, and slip my sandals on. Then take the piece of toast Mother is holding out for me by the door.

“Time to do the Good work,” she smiles and places a kiss on my forehead.













　

　

Flashes - Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

If Trinity lived in town, I could ride the bus to her house. But no. She has to live just outside of town, where people are dividing up old farms and turning them into these really big houses surrounded by a bunch of dead fields.

What’s with the dead field look? If I had this much land, I’d turn it into my own Giverny and paint scenes from it all the time, just like Monet. I say that, but Grandma’s backyard is an enormous, and I try to avoid it. I’ve never taken my paints out there. I’m afraid if she saw me sitting around in the garden, she’d find something for me to do. And everything to do out there includes heavy labor.

There’s a mailbox with a huge gate about every half mile on this road. I really need the next one to be Trinity’s. I need water. Bad. I think I swallowed a bug with that last mouthful of dust.

My Grandma wouldn’t cancel her golf time to drive me. She didn’t even care that I’ll be all sweaty when I get to Trinity’s. I think she might be too old to understand how important this is. I swear when I become an adult, I will never ever laugh at anything my kids’ say. And I will drive them anywhere they want to go. At any time.

But she did buy me a new swimsuit last night. She completely got that. It’s a red bikini. Very popular girl looking.

The next house has to be Trinity’s, right? Because I’ve been riding up my bike forever now. Nope. That would have been way to convenient. But at least it’s on a hill. A hill with a nice breeze and a vulture in the road.

Vulture. Vulture in the road. How did I not see this in one of my flashes?

“Moooooove you stupid thing.”

Fan-freaking-tastic. Now, I’m sweaty and I have gravel imbedded in my knees. Oh yes. I’m definitely popular girl material.

“Why didn’t you fly away you dummy?” It moved all of three feet away. “Quit looking at me. Get out of here.”

Seriously. Please don’t let anybody from school drive by right now. Clearly the number two most popular girl has lost her mind. I’m flapping my arms and chasing a vulture.

“Fly. Do something.”

Okay, that’s doing something. And now I’m gonna run away, because it’s chasing me back. Not good. It’s a lot bigger than I thought.

“Wait,” I put my bike between us, just to be safe. “What’s wrong with your wing big fella?”

Poor thing. One of it’s wings bends down in a creepy unnatural way.

“How’d you break it? You weren’t hanging out in the middle of a street eating road kill were you? Bad move.” I slowly pick up my bike and throw my leg over it. Not that I think it’s going to be freaked out by my sudden movements or anything. It seems pretty sure of itself. “You probably thought you were bigger than the car. Didn’t you?” My foot’s on the pedal, and I’m out of here.

Whispers - Chapter 1.2

CHAPTER 1.2

I’m woke by the sound of metal scraping against the pavement. Again. And again. I give up on sleeping and drag myself into a sitting position. It’s still dark, but I don’t hear the mourning doves outside, so it can’t be dawn yet. The scraping is still going on, but from this position I can hear Driscoll snoring too. The noises outside must only be loud to me.

I pull back the curtain. On the street below, men are chained together in a long line. Digging with shovels. Scrape. Scratch. Prison road work? In the middle of the night? Only they aren’t wearing orange jumpsuits.

“They’re Irish,” she says from right behind me. How I keep from screaming sometimes amazes even me. I listen for Driscoll’s snoring while my heart rate slows back to normal. Still there. “Indentured servants. But they’re not ghosts. They’re just a memory, you know.”

I nod. I know all about memories held in place and replayed over and over when the conditions are just right. Anyone can hear them. Or at least I think they can. At the farmhouse, Driscoll freaks out every time the scalded baby shrieks in the kitchen. I assume he sees it too. I would never ask.

I told them about the ghosts once. Right after Grandma died, and my mother made me come live with her and Driscoll, her husband. Though Grandma told me they weren’t legally married. Does that even matter if both of the people think of themselves as married? It doesn’t seem to.

Driscoll said the ghosts were an indication of the deep evil living inside me.

“Why else would the dead speak to her?” he said to Mother. “Why else would she hear them?”

They sent me to his sister in the woods, the one with the melted face, to have the evil purged from me. She used fire.

“That’s what the demons are running from. So now they’ll run from you too,” she told me.

The soles of my feet are mottled with the scars. I feel them when I stand, walk, breathe. They remind me to never tell Mother and Driscoll anything.

Whispers - Chapter 1.1

 WHISPERS - CHAPTER 1.1

      Even with their door closed, I’m certain Mother and Driscoll can hear me whisper if they want to.  They’re always able to hear me.
       I peel my dress off and wipe a layer of dust off of the bookshelf with my hand before placing my clothes on it.  A girl of about my age is watching me from the end of the couch.
      She coughs at the dust.  As if it bothers her.  As if the dead breathe.
     I suck my breath in between my teeth, and shoot a warning glance in her direction, even though I know Mother and my stepfather can’t hear her coughing. She rolls her eyes in response.
      But at least she’s silent.  She isn’t chattering away at me.  Tormenting me for a response like the lonely ones do.
      I slip off my sandals and stuff them under the couch.   She takes off her beautiful soft leather shoes.  They disappear quickly from my view as she mimics me, pushing them under the couch too. 
      I packed a knit blanket in my milk crate, thankfully.  Along with my toothbrush, comb, and extra underwear.  I pull the blanket around my bare shoulders and curl up on the couch with my face up.  The air in the apartment may be dusty, but it beats the smell of mold and cigars in the couch.
      She drops down on the other end of the couch, and I yank my feet up to give her space.  Her leg feels like ice against my toes.
      “Did you think I would leave?” she asks with a little laugh. 
      I shrug and close my eyes.  She’ll be gone by morning.  Watching me sleep can’t be much fun for her.

Flashes - Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

Instant popularity. If I’d known telling people about my flashes would make me popular - not a freak- I would’ve told the whole world in kindergarten. I swear the entire class knows my name, and it’s only sixth period. A nobody at lunch. Most popular girl by sixth period.

Okay, second most popular girl. There’s Trinity. She walks down the hall, and boys turn their heads and sigh. It’s like flowers and birds chirping on a Spring day for them. She wore her hair in this loose braid that flipped over her shoulder yesterday. Today, ten girls are wearing their hair like that. It’s like she has a horde of Trinity clones, and it’s only the second day of school.

And you won’t believe it, but Trinity is walking up to talk me right now. No seriously. I just looked behind me to see if there was anyone there. There isn’t.

“Hi Laney.” The two girls beside her drop their heads to the side in the exact same way as Trinity when she talks. Weird. I’m telling you they’re clones.

“Hi. Um, Trinity. Right?” That’s me. Playing it like I don’t know her name.

“Right,” Trinity’s eyes scrunch up a little in the middle when she says that. I’m not sure she’s buying my act. “So I heard you did this psychic thing about Cameron Davis’s lunch meat.”

“Yeah. I had this flash of him shoving it under the table,” I say a little too perky and fast.

“He’s totally gross like that.”

“Um. Okay.” I don’t really know anything about Cameron. In fact I didn’t know his last name until Trinity just said it.

“So do you have psychic visions all of the time?”

“Uh huh.” Could I please stop nodding like an idiot?

“That’s cool.” The clones are looking restless. “So I would love to get to know you better. I was wondering if you’d like to come hang out by my pool this weekend?” Now the clones look like they’re choking. Sweet.

“Sure. Saturday works for me.”

“Okay. Here.” Trinity writes her phone number and address on my hand with her pen. Because we’re going to hang out by her pool on Saturday. Like cool popular girls in movies. I need to get a new swimsuit fast. I don’t think the butterfly one is going to impress.

“So I’ll see you around one. Okay?”

“Okay. See you.”

She and the bug-eyed clones do catwalk turns away from me. The boys all watch.

Paranormal Blog Books

There are currently two ongoing paranormal books being posted here at Blue Period Books.  You can access the books by their page tabs on the sidebar.  Each book will be updated a few times a week, so check back often. 

WHISPERS is a dark young adult novel about Eliza, a seventeen-year-old girl who sees ghosts.  She has been  hidden and controlled most of her life by her step-father, the leader of a small cult.  As her eighteenth birthday approaches, Eliza and her parents travel to New Orleans to collect her inheritance.  An inheritance her grandmother never wanted to see Eliza's step-father get his hands on.

FLASHES OF LIGHTENING is a middle-grade novel centered around Laney, an art student, who sees bits of the future like flashes of lightening in her mind.  It should be easy to navigate school, friends, and boys if you know the future, right?