Prologue

It was an odd thing to be crying over a pile of dust.

Ever since this little pile had come to my attention, I had forgotten the tall, towering figure standing beside me. I turned my head to look at his face, though his expression was unreadable. His eyebrows were pulled together in a thoughtful frown, as were his eyebrows. But his eyes tricked me. They seemed troubled, pondering, but yet, pleased. I felt the urge to slap him and shout every curse I knew. How could he ever appear pleased after all that had just happened?

He gave me an intense stare that made it impossible to look at him any longer. My eyes rapidly shifted back to the flesh-colored dust. I let the tears fall freely all over the already damp dirt. I waited a moment, and then glanced back up to the unreadable face. But now, it was almost too easy to interpret; he was making a decision. He took an unsteady breath and looked away. I studied him carefully, and felt a horrible hunch making waves in my stomach. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but it didn’t feel good.

He moved swiftly to my side, pulling me up from up under my arms. His face got close as he drew me nearer to him. His sapphire eyes drifted from each of my own eyes. They closed and he let his lips brush just very slightly across mine.

And with one sudden movement, he was gone. I heard the door close behind me. I fell to my knees once more and raked my fingers through the soft pile, hoping that somehow everything would go back to the way it was. But I knew too well it wouldn’t. I’d seen this kind of thing before. The soul that once belonged to what was now just dust would only come back if… I shuddered, trying to push the thought out of my mind. I didn’t want to make matters worse.

Chapter One

I gazed fixedly at myself in the mirror in the plain, white, bathroom, trying to picture myself with long, blonde hair. The kind of hair you see on the girls on the fashion magazines, or the hair you find on the girls at the mall, confident and stylish. As I had expected, my imagination wouldn’t cooperate with me. I tried to picture myself different in any way. Different nose, different face, please, why won’t you work? I switched back to imagining the hair, hoping that trying an easier level of imagination would work. I tried to picture myself with purple streaks, green streaks, and fargle-bargle for all I cared. Then I got distracted trying to figure out what “fargle-bargle” was and what it would look like if it were an actual color.

I hated my heart-shaped jaw, my small button nose, and my jet-black hair that stuck out in wisps. My hair reminded me strongly of black ink that had splattered all over a piece of white paper. The paper, of course, referred to my skin. My skin may have well of been paper. It was a murky and ugly ivory color. It more delicate and sliced easily; more easily than most people. But I was the complete opposite of most people. Even my eyes were like that of a cat, around the pupil deep amber, and growing into a yellowish green. I admit that I was pretty to an extent, but so odd were my features, so inhuman, I was sure it must look ugly in most eyes.

“Gah!” I grunted, giving up. I twisted the brass knob on the door—the only thing in the room that wasn’t white—and left the bathroom. I blinked from the change of light, like looking at the brightness of a sidewalk on a sunny day. But there was still white—everywhere. The carpet was cream, the walls were white, and the railing on the stairs were even a rustic white.

My older brother, Jeff, walked by, and then stopped short. He looked at me uncomfortably. “Hey, um, Mae… do you know Katrina Parkston?” he asked, his blue eyes looking down in embarrassment.

I snorted. “A little bit… why? Do you want to go out with her or something?” I laughed. Katrina was Jeff’s age, though we had always been sort of the ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ friends, never really good friends. She was very pretty--no wonder Jeff would be drolling over her.

“Yeah,” Jeff said quietly. “Do you think she’d like me?”

I blinked, thinking he’d been joking. “Sure. She goes gaga over any guy that asks her out,” I said more seriously, suppressing the smirk that tried to escape from the right side of my mouth.

Jeff looked obviously, but he squirmed awkwardly. That marked the end of that topic, and I walked to me room.

I followed him down the hall from the bathroom before we parted into our separate bedrooms.

My room was covered with pictures, and it was dark and almost even dank, but I had an excuse for all the posters and such; the whole house was white, because my step mom—Valerie—didn’t like color. I loved color. Since Valerie had never wanted me to paint over the white walls, I covered every inch with huge posters to tiny cutouts of my favorite bands and hot guys. That resulted in a long lecture, but Valerie never went in my room enough to notice that I never did take all the pictures down.

Inside, I suddenly felt strange. I mulled around, pacing, occasionally sitting down at my desk to doodle. Then I’d get up abruptly, feeling as though something was wrong. I had no reason to be this anxious…

I spent the rest of the day the same way. I didn’t tell anyone I felt panicked, but it was unnerving to feel so worried for no apparent reason. I found myself waiting for something to happen, anything.

I’d lost guard around dinner time, finally deciding that nothing was going to happen. My whole family and I piled up at the table and ate.

My family definitely wasn’t small. There was my dad, whose blonde head was slowly graying and his blue eyes losing their youth, and my step mom who also had blonde hair and blue eyes. Then there was my four wacky brothers.

My step mom and my dad had been divorced for a while when my dad married my real mom. When my mother died, they remarried.

My birth mom died when I was four. She had some terrible illness and wasn’t expected to live. I don’t remember much of her, only that she gave me my every genetics. Ugh.

Occasionally, I asked Jeff about my mom, since he remembered the most about her. He told me that she was unbelievingly pretty, her expressions soft and mysterious. “You may as well have been her split image, Mae.” He once had said, obviously meaning it as a compliment. He told me she would disappear for a few days and Dad would worry she’d been kidnapped, but she would always come back and say with honest eyes and apologetic smile. “Sorry for leaving, honey. I just needed a break.”

The table talk began after everyone had shoveled mashed potatoes and chicken squares--a recipe my dad had found on the internet months back that resembled a tiny, square pillow with chicken mush instead of cotton inside--onto our plates.

“So… how’s school for you kids?” Dad spoke through great amounts of mashed potatoes in his mouth.

“Ew, Dad, that’s sick,” I said. The rest of the boys laughed.

“Kenny, please chew your food,” Valerie pleaded.

I sighed and answered Dad’s question. “All I can say is that I’m glad today is Friday,” I played around with my mush before taking a cautious bite. “What’s in this anyway?” I asked, hiding my look of disgust.

“Ground up chicken and cream cheese,” my dad replied. Now I had a really hard time hiding my horror that I had actually taken a bite of this stuff. I looked around at everyone. Jeff was the most immune to dad’s cooking, so he ate gratefully. Alec looked slightly green, and nothing on his plate had been touched. Kevin was making his mush into more mush, but not eating it, and Jeremy, the poor kid, looked ready to throw up, having eaten almost his entire chicken square in his haste.

I waited a long twenty minutes of pure torture until my dad excused us all from the table. I scraped the chicken square into the trash and washed off my plate. I hurried out of the room before my dad could make me clean the kitchen.

I was about to go upstairs when I suddenly felt strange. I grabbed onto the post for support and scrunched up my eyes in pain. My skull felt like it was being smashed between two blocks of concrete, and my brain felt unclear and frustrated. As I looked around at the seemingly spinning room, I could not see the floor, my feet, or the walls. It was all hidden behind a thick glaze of rainbow confetti flecks.

“You okay, Mae?” I heard Alec’s voice.

I tried to find my lips, my mouth, and my throat. “Yeah… yeah, sure.” I said, dismissing him with a wary wave of my hand. I was beginning to see again. I blinked again, and the last of the odd feeling slipped away. I stood in some kind of after-shock state, making sure it wasn’t going to happen again. When I was sure I just imagined it, I went back upstairs. I began to feel the same, uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach I had all day. What was going on?

♦

I slipped into bed sick with worry. What if it happened again? What if it was worse? Questions were running through my mind like a maniac. I didn’t know who to tell. All my brothers wouldn’t understand, as well as my dad, or even Mom. They’d think I was just crazy. But I wasn’t crazy. I was sick. Not the cough-cough, sniff-sniff sick, more of a mental sickness. I was sure of it.

The rest of the night had been filled with my droopy eyes but absolutely no sleep. I was so frustrated, trying to figure out what was wrong with me but only coming up with one rational explanation;

Then I started to come up with the most irrational explanations; I was a psychic?

I decided to go to my desk and write down my symptoms. Maybe that would make everything seem clearer. I got a piece of paper and a pen and scrawled down what I had felt like:

Woozy head

Unclear sight

Dizziness

Weakness

It all sounded like a high fever or something to me. I crumpled up the paper and threw it behind my back. I turned off the desk light a plopped back onto my bed.

“Agh!” I cried in deep frustration. I punched my pillow for comfort, but it made me angrier.

I heard three knocks on the wall from the other room. It was Jeff meaning “Shut up, you’re sleep-talking.”

I knocked once, which meant “Sorry.” I waited for another response but none came. Maybe Jeff had already fallen back asleep.

I sighed and sunk my head into my pillow. I closed my eyes which felt restless but sleepy at the same time. Since it was already 5:08, if I fell asleep now, I’d probably only get an hour or two of sleep before I’d wake up again. But I had my doubts that I could sleep.

♦

I felt like I was dead on my feet, that I wasn’t working, only my legs kept me moving. I had gotten dressed, and my arms would barely go through the sleeves.

Darn shirt. Darn pants, I thought bitterly. I couldn’t understand why nothing would work for me. Then I realized it was my lack of sleep that was making nothing work. I laughed stupidly at my discovery.

I went across the hall to the bathroom. I laughed at myself again. I looked even more like a ghost with my darkly shadowed eyes. My face had gone from gray to white, so I looked remarkably more like paper and ink splat. I brushed through my wild hair and tamed a few rebellious strands with water. I put on some white foundation around my eyes to hide the dark shadows.

I brushed on some makeup and left the bathroom and laced on my red Converse. I grabbed my purse and went downstairs.

I decided I would go out for the day to the mall to just calm down. I just hoped I wouldn’t pass out while I was walking through the crowded halls.

“Hey, Jeff?” I asked my brother who was eating cereal in the dining room.

“Yeah?” he replied after swallowing a gulp of cereal.

“Can you drive me to the mall?” I asked, since I wasn’t old enough to drive yet. I would’ve had to have dad in the passenger’s seat because of my measly Learner’s Permit.

Jeff sighed in response. “Let me finish my cereal, first,” he said reluctantly.

“Thanks, Jeff. I’ll take the community bus home, I promise.” I said, sounding surprisingly more appreciative than I thought I would.

Jeff looked scandalized at my words. “The bus? You’re going to ride the bus home?” he said in an are-you-insane voice. “No way, Mae. Absolutely, no way. You call me when you need to come home and if I find out that you’ve taken the bus back here, then I’ll tell Dad, and Dad will kill you,” Jeff threatened. I couldn’t really see the danger in taking the bus home. Sure, there would be some creeps, but I’d have plenty of witnesses if I got kidnapped. No worries.

“Alright, alright,” I said in a defeated voice. I waited around for Jeff, who was taking his time. When he finally washed his bowl off, we both walked outside to Jeff’s car. I slipped into the passenger’s seat as he got into the driver’s side.

“So…” I began as he started the car. “Asked Katrina out yet?”

“No,” Jeff said plainly. “I don’t have her number.”

“Well, that can easily be arranged. I’ve got her number in my last yearbook. She’ll probably kill me if she finds out I gave you her phone number to you, though,” I said.

Jeff looked hurt. “I thought you said she’d like me…”

“I did, I did, but still… just don’t tell her I gave her the number, kay?”

The car bumped out of the driveway and we drove in silence for the rest of the ride.

I got out of the car and waved goodbye. Jeff rolled down the window. “Don’t you dare ride the bus home, Mae, you hear me?”

“Okay, okay, Jeff! Jeez, you may as well be my mother!” I said in a purely teenager voice. I walked away from the car as he drove away.

I prepared myself for the stares; the stares that had burned away at my confidence every time I go to the mall or even in public at all. I walked into the food court area, already letting my side-swept bangs cover my eyes. I knew that this wouldn’t ever hide me like I wanted it to, but it was better then letting my face out fully into the open. I skulked over to the Burger King for some breakfast. I barely looked up as I ordered some CinniMinies, but I could see the guy behind the counter was staring at me absently, gawking in a sort of way. I hated that I must look so ugly to be stared at so much. I never knew the real reason behind the stares, but I was quite sure it wasn’t positive.

The guy gave me my order, and didn’t even pretend to not stare. I composed myself so that I would not glare at him, or give him any sign of vulnerability. I didn’t want to seem weak or ill-tempered. Then I’d just get more stares in return.

I found a table in the cafeteria and sat down to eat. I glanced sideways at the Burger King Prince behind the counter, and not surprised to find that he had been staring at me the whole time. I returned back to the little cinnamon bun like it was the most precious thing in the world.

After having eaten sufficiently, I threw away my contents and began stalking around in the mall. I knew this had been an utter mistake to come now. My intentions had been to calm myself and put myself at ease. Instead, it had done just the opposite; I felt even more stressed and uncomfortable. As I walked around looking through shops, trying to feel normal, I could almost hear the odd feeling growing in my stomach. That kind a feeling that was telling me something was going to happen that really ought not to… I started reconsidering the possibility I’d ruled out earlier about being a psychic.

I decided I needed to go sit down somewhere, so I sat at the nearest empty bench I could find. It started getting worse, and I couldn’t sit any longer. I began to walk around, feeling dizzy all over again.

No… no, please, not now! I moaned in my head. Suddenly a hand grabbed my shoulder.

I really must be psychic.

I turned around slowly, like in the horror movies, my eyes wide. But what I saw was worse than any monster in any movie.

It was me.