The Acolytes of Crane (Theodore Crane, #1)(24)

“But I saw it!”

“Shush, shush,” the man said as he took the hand of his daughter, and gently turned her around. He darted one more quick glance at us just before he left, not certain what he thought he saw.


I made the call: we were finished. I could not take the testing any further. We were bound to invite tragedy. Obviously, there was a strange and powerful energy that we knew little about. It was intriguing, but equally frightening.

The conclusion was that I could not do wrong, and if I dared to try any further to do wrong beyond my first mistake, the results could be unpredictable and dangerous. Where that ball disappeared to, we had no clue.

We excitedly chatted about our agreements concerning the just-concluded second trial: it didn’t matter whether a harmful act was justified or not. The Intervention controlled objects. The Intervention stopped your weapon if you intended to harm someone with it. I breathlessly said to Lincoln, ‘It’s as if it adapts. The first time, when you called me names, it made the ball stop. The second time, when you did nothing to deserve it, it just made the ball disappear!’

Lincoln just nodded, too overwhelmed by the experience to be in a talking mood.

We rode the city bus home from the Staplewood Mall. I will always remember that ride. The green vinyl-covered seat in front of us was ripped, and the yellow stuffing within was torn out. I read all the stickers and graffiti on the seats and on the inside wall of the bus, and while I pondered, Lincoln watched the passing traffic through the window. I spotted writing on the seat that read: Your mom was here.

It was funny. I laughed from the simplicity of the joke. “Your mom…” jokes were popular, along with wearing your clothes backwards and deploying the ultimate cool joke: the whoopie cushion.

‘So you busy tomorrow?’ Lincoln said.

‘I don’t have anything going on, really. I have to clean my room. It’s crazy in there, and my grandma is on my case. Did you see these stickers on the seat? I have one for ya that I heard in school: your mom is so fat she pays taxes in three countries.’

‘Okay, that’s really lame.’

I pointed toward the back of the seat in front of us despite his lack of interest. ‘There. It says: your mom was here.’

Lincoln’s shoulders jumped; his eyes flashed anger. ‘Ted, I said it was lame, don’t be so immature.’

‘Dude, relax, I didn’t realize you were going to get all upset. I was only—’

‘Only trying to be funny. I know, but it wasn’t,’ Lincoln said. He turned away from me and lowered his chin onto his fist as he bent forward.

‘Cheese, it is only a joke. I don’t see why you are getting all mad.’

‘Listen, my mom died when I was five, okay? She died of breast cancer, and you keep saying, cheese. I believe what you are trying to say is geez,’ he said.

For a moment, we sat in silence.

‘I am sorry,’ I said, as I rested my hand on his shoulder, ‘I didn’t know. I guess there is a lot I don’t know about you. What did your mom look like?’

‘I looked a lot like her. She was beautiful. Her hair was black as night. When she smiled, there were these little dimples on the sides of her cheeks. Almost every day before school, she would make some pancakes that were so good. They were amazing, and they didn’t taste funny like at school. She would always arrange my bacon and butter scoops into the shape of a face on top of the pancake. I miss her so much.’

Spellbound, I gazed at him. I felt like crying as I recalled the memories of my troubled parents.

Lincoln saw my expression and recognized the hurt within me. He turned away and continued softly, still staring ahead in open space. ‘I would say the thing I miss the most about her, was her hugs. She squeezed me so hard that I would start to feel like I couldn’t breathe. I heard about your friend Jason. That must have been horrible. You must miss him too.’

‘Yeah, a lot. I really miss him. He always knew what to do. He could really help us out right now, because he always had great ideas, and he was good with the ladies.’

I now felt horrible about what I had said to Lincoln about his mother.

Lost in our thoughts, we said nothing during the rest of our bus ride.

There were some weird characters on the bus that night. We had a man who was sitting next to us drinking from a brown bag. He was probably washing away the pains of the day with a bottle of whiskey. He kept blurting out at people in the bus; ‘This is my world, my world.’ He repeated it at least twenty times during the ride. I tried my best not to make eye contact. When the bus stopped in our neighborhood, we exited quickly to avoid interaction with any of the bus regulars.

We stepped down at our stop and said goodbye. When I arrived at home, I lay on my bed, shuffling through all my baseball cards. No, not any I had stolen recently, as I had not. It was the personal collection I had amassed over the years.

Upon further reflection, I wished that I didn’t drag Lincoln into The Intervention business, and I wished that I knew why everything was happening to me.

There was no way of telling what could happen. For my birthday that year, I received a ‘greatest hits’ CD. I plunked it into my player and began to rock to some clever vocals that were accompanied by a piano. Just as I was drifting away, my grandma entered the room and sat next to me in my bed.

‘Honey, we are not going to Taylors Falls tomorrow. I know that you have wanted to go up there, and we have delayed it a lot, but we cannot this year. We cannot afford the trip,’ my grandma said.