The Power(9)

‘For smoking? Harsh.’

Hunter says, ‘Half the kids in school know you can do it.’

‘So what?’

Hunter says, ‘Your dad could use you in his factory. Save money on electricity.’

‘He’s not my dad.’

She makes the silver flicker at the ends of her fingers again. The boys watch.

As the sun sets, the cemetery comes alive with crickets and frogs calling, waiting for rain. It’s been a long, hot summer. The earth yearns for a storm.

Mr Montgomery-Taylor owns a meat-packing company with centres here in Jacksonville, and up in Albany and as far as Statesboro. They call it meat-packing but what they mean by that is meat-producing. Animal-killing. Mr Montgomery-Taylor took Allie to see it when she was younger. He had that stage when he liked to think of himself as a good man educating a little girl in the men’s world. It’s a sort of pride to her that she watched the whole thing without wincing or looking away or carrying on. Mr Montgomery-Taylor’s hand was on her shoulder like a pair of pincers throughout the visit, pointing out to her the pens where the pigs are herded before their encounter with the knife. Pigs are very intelligent animals; if you frighten them, the meat doesn’t taste so good. You’ve got to be careful.

Chickens are not intelligent. They let her watch the chickens being uncrated, white and feather-fluff. The hands pick them up, turn them over to show their snowy behinds and shackle their legs into the conveyor which drags their heads through an electrified water-bath. They squawk and wriggle. One by one, they go rigid, then limp.

‘It’s a kindness,’ said Mr Montgomery-Taylor. ‘They don’t know what’s hit them.’

And he laughs, and his employees laugh too.

Allie noticed that one or two of the chickens had raised their heads. The water hadn’t stunned them. They were still awake as they passed along the line, still conscious as they entered the scalding tank.

‘Efficient, hygienic and kind,’ said Mr Montgomery-Taylor.

Allie thought of Mrs Montgomery-Taylor’s ecstatic speeches about hell, and about the whirling knives and the scalding water that will consume your whole body, boiling oil and rivers of molten lead.

Allie wanted to run along the line and pop the chickens out of their shackles and set them free, wild and angry. She imagined them coming for Mr Montgomery-Taylor in particular, taking their revenge in beaks and claws. But the voice said to her: This is not the time, daughter. Your moment has not come. The voice has never led her wrong yet, not all the days of her life. So Allie nodded and said: ‘It’s very interesting. Thank you for bringing me.’

It wasn’t long after her visit to that factory that she noticed this thing she could do. There was no urgency in it; it was like the day she noticed her hair had gotten long. It must have been happening all that time, quietly.

They were at dinner. Allie reached for her fork and a spark jumped from her hand.

The voice said: Do it again. You can make that happen again. Concentrate. She gave a little twist or a flick of something in her chest. There it was, a spark. Good girl, said the voice, but don’t show them, this is not for them. Mr Montgomery-Taylor didn’t notice, and Mrs Montgomery-Taylor didn’t notice. Allie kept her eyes down and her face impassive. The voice said: This is the first of my gifts to you, daughter. Learn to use it.

She practised in her bedroom. She made a spark jump from hand to hand. She made her bedside lamp glow brighter, then dimmer. She burned a tiny hole in a Kleenex; she practised until she could make that hole a pinprick. Smaller. These things demand constant, focused attention. She’s good at that. She’s never heard of anybody else who can light their cigarettes with it.

The voice said: There will be a day to use this, and on that day you will know what to do.

Usually, she’d let the boys touch her if they wanted. That’s what they think they’ve come to this graveyard for. A hand sliding up the thigh, a cigarette popped from the mouth like a candy, held to one side while there’s kissing. Kyle props himself up next to her, puts his hand on her midriff, starts to bunch the fabric of her top. She stops him with a gesture. He smiles.

‘Come on now,’ he says. He tugs her top up a little.

She stings him on the back of his hand. Not a lot. Just enough to give him pause.

He pulls his hand back. Looks at her and, aggrieved, at Hunter. ‘Hey, what gives?’

She shrugs. ‘Not in the mood.’

Hunter comes to sit on the other side of her. She’s sandwiched between them now, both their bodies pressing in on her, bulges in their pants showing their minds.

‘That’s fine,’ says Hunter, ‘but see, you brought us here and we are in the mood.’

He lays an arm across her midriff, his thumb grazing her breast, his hand large and strong around her. ‘Come on,’ he says, ‘we’ll have some fun, just the three of us.’

He comes in for a kiss, his mouth opening.

She likes Hunter. He’s six foot four; his shoulders are broad and strong. They’ve had fun together. That’s not what she’s here for. She has a feeling about today.

She gets him in the armpit. One of her pinpricks, right into the muscle, precise and careful, like a fine-bladed knife up through to his shoulder. She increases it, like making the lamp glow hotter and hotter. Like the knife is made of flame.

‘Fuck!’ says Hunter and jumps backwards. ‘Fuck!’ He’s holding his right hand into his left armpit, massaging it. The left arm is trembling.