The Acolytes of Crane (Theodore Crane, #1)(21)

He had dark brown hair and his eyes were equally deep in color; there was only a slight difference of hue between pupil and iris. He wore clothes that were stylish and trendy. My guess was that he came from some money.

He lived within an area of Ferndale that was developed post-pyromaniac-Jason, with some fine three-story single households. His hair was always moussed or pomaded into position, and his glasses were sleek and practical. I was envious.

Someday I would learn that Lincoln’s best quality was his ability to reason meticulously. I could always tell when he was deep into thought, because his lips moved with the speed that his thoughts were. It was simply an indication of his process. No matter what his thoughts—metaphysical, statistical, or theoretical—he was brilliant.

With Lincoln by my side, we were unstoppable.

On our way to Lincoln’s house, we were interrupted by Nick White. Nick was a weird one. I stayed over at his house a couple of years earlier. He drank an entire glass of water with a cup of sugar dissolved in it that night.

Anyway, he wanted us to go inside the store with him. Lincoln’s house was near Big-Mart, so there was no worry of deviating from the itinerary laid out by my grandparents.

When we arrived in the store, after a mile of walking in the scorching sun, Nick wanted to check out the baseball card section. He then said something that branded him as conniving and dishonest. He said that I could take as many cards as I wanted, if I stuffed them in my pants.

Drained by the betraying sun that had relentlessly stalked me during the last one mile, my judgment went out of the window. Glancing left and right quickly, I grabbed some cards. I had foolishly believed Nick. In my corrupted state, I felt invincible. I inched my way toward the bathroom with several of the newest trend in baseball cards stashed into my crotch, between my underwear and my pants. We shot paranoid looks everywhere in the store.


I even suspected a doll for having a hidden camera behind its ominous-looking eyes. Lincoln grabbed my shirt at the collar and scared me immensely.

‘Ted, there is a man from electronics looking at you. The sign there says, Thieves will be prosecuted, a p-word that sounds horrible, and it isn’t like you to steal, right?’ Lincoln asked.

I realized what I was going to do was wrong, but part of me wanted to savor the danger, so I proceeded under the sign.

My amulet was warming up, glowing brighter and brighter. Intensely looking at it as I walked, I realized that some incredible physical force was holding me back. It was weird! When I took a step, my upper foot slowed in mid stride. My composure started to crumble; my consciousness screamed at me to feel like ‘normal’ again. Whatever normal meant. It was as if I was moving in water and then mud. My body came to a complete stop. I was halted and frozen like a statue. It was like I was under control from an outside presence. Under the strain, which to me felt more mental than physical, I started to sweat; I felt like I would experience a panic attack.

Once my mind resolved to back off from the misdeed, my body suddenly became fluid again, almost causing me to lose my balance. I swiveled and turned away from the restroom, and my hand opened, dropping the baseball cards to the ground. The man in electronics shook his head at me and asked me if I was okay.

I regained full control over my body. Lincoln’s jaw practically hit the floor. He had witnessed the whole thing.

‘What was that, Ted?’ Lincoln asked.

‘I don’t know! Let’s get out of here! That Nick is nothing but trouble. I will tell you about it later,’ I said, as I boogied out of the mart with Lincoln at my side. We ditched Nick, but he deserved it.

Once out of the store we rendezvoused at the garbage cans behind the strip mall. Out of breath and frightened, I told Lincoln exactly what happened. It was difficult to explain the details of this incredibly weird sensation. To myself, it was as if I were made of quick-drying plaster of paris. That was what I wanted to tell him. But I couldn’t. Shaken, I merely said, ‘I felt a strong energy.’

‘Okay dude, you have been watching far too much TV,’ Lincoln said.

‘I don’t think I was in the presence of an alien or something like that. I think it was the Almighty,’ I said assertively.

There was a long silence and then we both burst into uncontrollable laughter. We put our hats on backward and boarded to Lincoln’s house. After hanging out with Lincoln, my grandparents picked me up for my appointment.

I knew that day as I drove away from Lincoln’s house that I had bonded with an incredible new pal, and I was excited about getting to know him more. Those heady feelings were mixed in with the bewilderment and confusion—which Lincoln had obviously shared with me—over what had happened in the store.

The next few weeks afterwards were scientific in nature, at Lincoln’s instigation. Lincoln was a gifted person, and his instinct was to trust in my testimony about the event. He believed that what happened was a phenomenal intervention.

He wanted ever so badly to uncover the phenomenon with experimentation. After bandying about and getting tired of calling the unknown energy as simply the power, Lincoln proposed a brilliant official term: The Intervention. I liked it.

We put a week of research and creative visualization into the foundation of our trials.

The initial trial was also to determine how far we could go before the unknown power intervened. It was his theory that The Intervention was caused by knowingly breaking the law, and not so much the actual act itself. Lincoln wanted me to, just for a moment, be evil in thought, to see whether the intervening power was aware of what I was currently thinking.