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“Not really. Let’s go.”
“Sure,” I said slowly, and reluctantly turned in the direction of the parking lot.
“John!” his mother called after him. Of course.
He turned around and said loudly, “I’ll be right back!” He didn’t wait for her reaction. He just kept walking.
We got to my car. Stalling, I turned it on and toyed with the air-conditioning. The music was on, and I only turned it down, not off. “So…”
“I know what you did with the match,” he said, his voice sounding raw.
I took a deep breath, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Why are you fucking with me?”
“I’m not! Why would you say that?” I found it hard to look him in the eye.
“You think I’m an idiot? You don’t play tennis your whole life and not notice when something’s that off.” He shook his head, like he didn’t understand why I was blowing up his world like this. “You didn’t have a random premonition at Barton Springs. And what about Sarah? How did you know she was going to be there that day and that she was cheating on me? And that paper on Beloved you wrote…”
I looked straight ahead. I knew I had to launch into an explanation, but for some reason I didn’t speak, almost like I didn’t want to insult him with lies.
We were silent for a second.
“Your hand is completely healed.” Inadvertently I glanced down at my palm, surprised to see he was right. That had happened even faster than usual. John’s voice sounded calmer now, but I knew he was scared. “What else can you do?” he asked me.
With sudden terror I realized he was completely past the point of needing confirmation. Now he wanted details.
“God, John, nothing!” I looked at him for a second and knew my eyes, pleading with him to drop it, must have been brighter than usual.
John abruptly opened the car door. He got out and walked back to the stadium. I knew he was wondering why he’d ever convinced himself he was wrong in the first place. He’d always known what he’d seen.
OCTOBER
I spent the next day and a half in sheer panic. I went over and over every ability I could have used in his presence. I had been so sure of myself and oblivious that he might be picking up on the things I was doing. I’d completely underestimated him.
I rotated through different coffee shops the rest of the weekend. I sat thinking for hours, trying to be methodical and figure out next steps. Would he tell people? Did I need to tell Novak?
The last time any suspicions were out in the open was when the online article came out. I knew it got under everyone’s skin—how close it got. Especially the one comment buried so deep, I wondered if John had read that far. It was the most information I had on where we’d lived in the past. Scared, I had only read it once before. I searched through the comments until I found it again.
I’m convinced this group is the same as the one that was living in Lima, Peru, where I studied in the ‘70s. They had the same characteristics—blue eyes, light-brown hair, phenomenally gifted, eerily alike. At the time I became fascinated, reading everything I could about these mysterious people. There was widespread hope that they were descendants of a lost tribe called the Chachapuris, whose ancestors were thought to have traveled, pre-Columbus, by sea from Europe to South America. The Chachapuris resided in the Peruvian Amazon for centuries, in complete isolation until miners happened upon them in the late 1800s.
According to lore, the Chachapuris astonished the miners with their unusual beauty, healing prowess, and mystical abilities. Descriptions included intricately-braided hair and height that surpassed that of nearby indigenous people. The tribe was reportedly decimated shortly after it was discovered. Gold prospectors killed the people for their land, and the remaining members who didn’t die from disease were taken as wives and slaves.
From what I remember, at the peak of national scrutiny and a frenzy to establish a connection, the group living in Lima simply vanished.
I cleared my phone.
I remembered how soon it had been after the article came out that we’d been gathered, the group of sixteen teenagers.
Again we heard the lecture from Victoria’s father on the dangers of differences and how a society can be dismantled—first by criminalizing a behavior, then by segregating, confiscating property, and incarcerating. After that Novak divided us into two categories: kids who could keep doing what they were doing, and kids who needed to stifle their instincts.
Novak said we needed to police ourselves before we were policed. This would only last the couple of years it would take to get Relocation in order. Aside from being crushed that I’d been assigned to the wrong group, it had seemed doable for the short term. None of us chosen to take a step back had had any idea how hard it would be.
I now realized Victoria’s father might be right. Novak was being pressured legally. We’d been arrested. Were these the first steps in rooting us out?
Maybe it was childish, but I didn’t believe Novak would let that happen. Even if some frightening powers-that-be focused on bringing him down, Novak had an edge. He’d see it coming and we would leave in time. I could feel Relocation coming. This year was beginning to feel like the last lap.
God, I missed the days when all I had to worry about was feeling like the black sheep in my own family. If I could go back to the hours before Barton Springs, to that morning, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Maybe I would wake up and realize this was a dream—that I was back at my old school, with my family, that I hadn’t exposed us.