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  “At least you haven’t found your sense of humor,” Harvis added.

  Even Harvis, the Wordsmith, the Iceman himself, hit the target once in a while when it came to making a joke, but not Naz, although he never stopped trying.

  “Yeah, I’ll leave that to Animal.” Naz smirked at Harvis.

  Soul shot back, “I keep tellin’ you guys—”

  “I know! It’s not Animal; it’s Soul,” interrupted Naz.

  Harvis stood and approached Naz with a cup of water although Naz didn’t recall where Harvis had gotten it—did I tell him I was thirsty? Naz strategically avoided tangling the cup in the tube coming out of his arm then eagerly downed the water before anyone said another word.

  “Well, are you ready for tonight?” Soul shrugged off Naz’s earlier comment.

  “Tonight?” Naz almost choked on the last drops of water.

  “Yeah, tonight,” Harvis chimed in. “Winner take all. It’s ride or die for the Railsplitters. All of our efforts this season come down to this last game.”

  Were they serious? Did they really expect Naz to be able to play basketball tonight? Naz looked down at himself in confusion, the tubes coming from his nose and arm, his bandaged hand. He understood such an attitude from Soul, the reformed hothead, but not Harvis. Like Spock, he was a rock, solid and logical. Naz decided to dig deeper.

  “Where’s Coach?” asked Naz.

  Before Harvis or Soul could answer, as if Naz’s two words had summoned some great genie, Coach Fears opened the door and stuck his head inside. When Naz saw Fears’ face, he realized this was no déjà vu but a dream, and he smiled, anticipating what came next.

  “Don’t bother knocking, Coach; come on in,” said Soul.

  “Gentlemen.” Fears nodded to Naz and then Harvis. “And you, too, Bender,” he added, looking at Soul after the fact.

  “Aw, Coach.” Soul shook his head.

  Fears’ massive physical presence in the small room made the cramped space appear even smaller, as his head almost touched the ceiling.

  “Andersen.” Fears turned back to Naz. “How do you feel?”

  Naz looked at Harvis and Soul, resisting another stab at humor. “Fine, Coach.”

  “Good, ’cause we need you tonight.” The size of the room didn’t seem to bother Fears as he paced back and forth next to Naz’s bed in an entrancing march. “We’ll have our hands full. Going into the championship game undefeated actually puts us at a disadvantage. Our opponents will have studied every mistake they’ve made this season in their losses and not make those mistakes again. We won’t have that luxury.”

  The game meant everything to Fears. He saw it as a reflection of life itself. Naz barely understood Fears’ words through his pacing, but he knew Fears was dead serious and wanted him there tonight, dressed out, and ready to leave everything on the hardwood.

  “We only learn from our mistakes and failures. But we’ve been perfect this year, so we’ll need another advantage.” Fears raised an eyebrow.

  “Well, I’m ready, Coach!” Naz smiled and played along, fully aware of the advantage Fears referred to, that Naz could do things courtesy of his father, unbelievable things, supernatural things that no one else could do—or can I?

  “I knew I could count on you.”

  “Thank you,” Naz said, and knowing his dream would end at any moment, he asked, “Where’s Meri?”

  Coach turned to the door. Harvis and Soul had gone. As if on cue, Meri strolled in with the swagger of a tomboy, her sandy red hair in two puffy pigtails bouncing up and down, her caramel skin glowing. Naz could hardly contain himself. He didn’t even try.

  “Meri!” said Naz.

  Coach stepped aside as if he’d just finished his only lines in one of their school plays.

  “How do you feel,” she asked calmly.

  Not sure how to answer, this time, Naz gave the question right back to her. “How do you feel?”

  She answered without hesitation. “I feel proud …”

  This time, Naz contained his feelings of excitement in anticipation of the next words she would say.

  “But at the same time disappointed,” she continued.

  Afraid to ask why, Naz changed the subject before she could finish. “Hey, Firecracker, did Momma come?”

  Meri gazed above Naz’s bed. A spider climbed down its web. When the creepy crawler was low enough, she grabbed the web and pulled the hanging spider down. It dangled for a moment a foot below her hand then she moved it over the floor. They both watched as the spider crawled back up the web until it was about an inch from her hand when she flicked it, web and all, to the floor and watched it crawl away. Naz scratched his head.

  “Momma? She’s here,” Meri murmured.

  “Is she coming in to see me?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  Naz knew his mother was there but didn’t summon her into his dream. “You know, I’ve never met a girl who wasn’t scared of spiders.”

  “You taught me to never be afraid of anything.”

  “I was wrong; you should be afraid of some things.”

  “I feel proud because you’re my brother … but I’m disappointed because you’re weak when you should be strong, and you feel sorry for yourself.”

  Naz looked at the floor. “I … I failed you.”

  “That’s what I mean … all the self-pity. It makes me sick. You’ve been given a gift that others have paid for with their lives … and you squander it.”

  “What should I do? I don’t have your strength. I never did.”

  “Then find it! Find a reason to live … a reason to go on. Have you been practicing?”

  Put off by her verbal assault and surprised by her query, Naz responded with silence.

  “Have … you … been … practicing!?” she blasted again.

  Naz answered the best way he knew how, with a half-truth. “It’s too late for practice. I’ve been asleep for almost two days, and the game’s tonight.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I have but not in the right way.”

  “Then you need to start … today … and practice every day after that, or you’ll fail me again.”

  Meri’s words were true, but Naz changed the subject again. “What about Daddy?”

  “What about Daddy!?” Meri tutted, tilting her head to the side and taking her earlobe between her fingers.

  Fears was gone. Music playing in the distance grew steadily louder, and Naz felt in his conscious awareness he was running out of time.

  “You wanna play?” Meri asked lightly as if she were a different person from the one that just scolded Naz. She disappeared under the bed and came back with a chess set and the biggest smile Naz had ever seen.

  “No … we don’t have much time.”

  “Why? Do you have to go?”

  “We both do,” he said desperately, slowly losing hold of the dream. “What about Daddy? Is he here, too?”

  “No … he’s with—”

  Meri’s voice faded away, and her image disappeared to nothing as Naz reached out for her.

  “Meri!” Naz said as he woke up, opened his eyes, and reached out into the darkness of his bedroom. He pulled his hand back into a frustrated fist then let gravity return him to his pillow. He shook his head, the pace of his heart slowing in his ear—I need to get it through my thick skull; “Meri’s gone now, gone for good, gone forever. The only part of her that still exists is the part I make up in my mind.” In my lucid dreams.

  Naz stopped the music on his phone. Practice huh? He sat up, cleared his head, and wiped his eyes. Dr. Gwen’s guestroom had been Naz’s bedroom for more than six months now, and although she had encouraged him to modify the room in any way he liked, it remained unchanged. He couldn’t get comfortable in the space. Something wasn’t right.

  Naz would never get back to sleep—not now. He didn’t want to. Today was the big day, the day he’d get kicked out of International Academy and return home, to the Exclave, if
the plan worked. Who would’ve thought he’d ever want to get back there? Kinda grew on me I guess. The truth was, he had unfinished business there. He thought about Soul’s words in his dream, only Naz’s business had nothing to do with basketball.

  Naz called his best friend, one of his only friends, Harvis, to go over the plan, not giving any thought to how early it was. “Harvis,” Naz said sheepishly, just now realizing he had called the Wordsmith much too early, earlier than even the finest friendship would permit.

  “N … Naz?” Harvis answered, groggy.

  “Hey, ol’ buddy ol’ pal, what’s up?”

  “Nothing … and nobody,” he answered coldly. “Do you know what time it is?”

  “I do. Sorry.” Naz apologized in his most sincere tone as he looked at the time on his phone. “Two and a half hours before we have to be at school. Today’s the day, you know?”

  “I know.”

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “I figured that part out, too.”

  “How can you sleep? You wanna work out?”

  “Not really. Are you serious?”

  “All right then, I’ll see you at school,” Naz conceded with a sad tone, but a glimmer of hope in his voice.

  “Wait,” said Harvis.

  Naz smiled.

  “Now I won’t be able to sleep either.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No, you’re not … and I’m gonna kick your butt for it when you get here, too.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  “See you in half an hour.”

  “Thank you.”

  Harvis and Naz sparred every chance they got, and more often than not Harvis got the best of Naz. Of course, they never actually kept score. It just felt like Harvis won more than his fair share of their controlled scuffles.

  Practice, Meri had said. Well, there was no time like the present. It was almost two miles to the General’s house: a little over a ten-minute run for Naz with his pack on his back. His clothes were ready, and he’d shower at Harvis’ after their workout. He decided to practice while brushing his teeth.

  In the bathroom, Naz didn’t need the light; he’d grown accustomed to the darkness both in a figurative and literal sense. As he brushed his teeth and twisted a tendril of his hair, now over two inches long, he levitated the tube of toothpaste—easy enough, nothing to manipulate here. He had once tried to brush his teeth without using his hands and ended up with an eyeful of toothpaste. He’d blinked and rubbed his eye for the next two days.

  When Naz practiced mental molecular manipulation, or M3 with his therapist, Dr. Gwen, she had compared his improvement in moving objects using his mind with the development of fine and gross motor skills. She hypothesized it was easier to dribble a basketball (gross motor skill) than play piano (fine motor skill) or in this case brush his teeth. He hadn’t done much practice with Dr. Gwen lately. For reasons he didn’t understand, she was much more interested in him regaining his lost memories than improving his ability to use telepathy or telekinesis.

  Then, Naz levitated the bar of soap, again, easy. The problem was, the soap moved in sync with the tube of toothpaste. The trick was to get them to move independently of each other, a kind of telekoordination, as Dr. Gwen called it. Naz compared it to rubbing his stomach and patting the top of his head at the same time, or vice versa. He believed Dr. Gwen made up the word, as there was no other use for the concept except as it applied to his abilities.

  Next, he went for the bottle of mouthwash. He turned it on its side and made it float as well. The soap and tube of toothpaste were no longer in sync—Eureka! Maybe that’s the key, to have an intense focus and let go. He had dreamed this the night before his first day at Lincoln Middle School over a year ago. There was only one thing missing, so he lifted a towel as well to complete the déjà vu.

  That’s when he heard the voice—Meri’s voice—say one word as clear as a church bell on a silent night.

  “Good!”

  He almost jumped straight out of his pajamas. Everything fell, the soap and tube of toothpaste into the sink, the towel on top of his head, and the bottle of mouthwash to the floor where the top cracked in half, sending mouthwash all over the bathroom and the bottom of his pajama pants, ultimately disturbing the morning silence.

  Then, he heard the faint sounds of a girl’s laughter, Meri’s laughter, and it scared him to death. And lately, nothing on this earth scared him, not in the light of day or the darkest night. But this was different, a first.

  There was no one around for him to hear anyone’s thoughts, but just the same, he heard Meri’s voice—I always do, in my lucid dreams. But he wasn’t dreaming, and he was ninety-nine percent sure of that fact—no, one hundred. And since he didn’t believe in angels, he didn’t think he believed in ghosts either. He heard Dr. Gwen call him from her bedroom and this time almost jumped clear to the ceiling.

  “Is that you, Naz?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” He finally turned on the light.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, I just dropped the mouthwash.”

  He finished brushing his teeth, cleaned up the mess he had made with the towel now hanging off his shoulder, got dressed, and left.

  The run to the General’s house was peaceful as always. It was early December and unseasonably warm. The emerald green windbreaker he wore was more than sufficient, and the air Naz thought he might see escaping from his lungs was absent—it was like this last year about the same time Meri … He shook the thought from his mind. In the dark here, he had almost grown to feel like he didn’t have to watch his back anymore, almost. But a sound from nowhere always reminded him of his past, a dog barking, a random breeze whistling through the tangled branches overhead, even a questioning owl brought him back to the truth and reality that all that glittered was not—well you know the rest.

  Even so, the sounds here calmed him as they always had, which caused him to reflect on the things and the people he’d left behind. He thought of his friends in Marshal Park. He wondered if Mr. Tesla and the Market Merchants were doing OK without their star supply specialist. Mr. Tesla had texted him last month that Piccolo’s had finally closed their doors, and he couldn’t help but wonder how his absence had contributed to Mr. Moussa closing the place down for good.

  Naz had heard that Coach had continued his winning ways at Union High School, going 2-0 to start the season, and Soul was one of only two freshmen on the varsity squad, something the other players didn’t like. The strife had supposedly caused Soul to revert to his volatile ways, only now he not only fought his opponents but his teammates as well. Naz hadn’t heard from the volatile man-child in a few weeks and figured that long distance was—well, long distance. He missed Soul, missed the jokes, missed laughing. He didn’t remember laughing so much before, and he hadn’t laughed much since moving out to the suburbs.

  And then there was D. He grinned from ear to ear, and then the smile faded because he hadn’t heard from her since he had left that day—the day of Meri’s funeral—almost a year ago. He couldn’t seem to erase her image from his brain and wasn’t sure he would ever want to. Once upon a time, he couldn’t keep the picture of her clear in his mind’s eye. Now it never faded—Maybe I’ll see her after today. Maybe he’d see them all, if the plan worked, and if he and Harvis didn’t end up in juvenile detention hall.

  He had gotten to the General’s house before he knew it. It was still dark as he approached, and although it was not as lavish as Dr. Gwen’s, the General’s house still amazed him: how it sat back off the street on a mound of plush green lawn, the circular drive leading to a regal wooden carved door flanked by two massive picture windows. It made him wonder why Harvis, or himself for that matter, would want to go back—back to the streets of the Exclave. Like Soul had said, “after you’ve been here a while, the place kinda grows on you”—like mold. Add to that; he couldn’t imagine the houses in the suburbs having anything on the inside of Fears’ house, and he knew Harv
is couldn’t wait to get back there.

  For his part, Naz wasn’t sure where he would stay—maybe one of the shelters or sneak in the all-night theaters and walk the streets like he did this past winter and spring. The thought gave him the chills, not being homeless or the cold days and dark nights but the devastation he had inflicted on those wretched souls: the Incubus Apostles. Most likely he would find a home with Mr. Tesla and get to see his bird again.

  As he walked up the stairs, not wanting to alarm the General by knocking or ringing the doorbell, he pulled out his phone to text Harvis. Before he could type a digit, the front door opened.

  “Grandma was slow, but she was old,” said Harvis, his voice still groggy as he peered through half-opened eyes out the half-opened door.

  “Still fast enough to smoke you, tortoise.” Naz pushed his way by Harvis into the elegant foyer.

  “Yeah, but we’re not about to race … unless you plan on running from this.” Harvis closed the door, turned, and gestured his fist toward Naz.

  Naz scoffed then proceeded down the familiar hallway to the basement stairs. If there was any room on the planet that rivaled the inside of Fears’ house it was the dojo in the basement of the General’s house: a place that Harvis liked to call his own “Fortress of Solitude.” It was a large square room with two wooden beams equally spaced apart supporting the ceiling. The floor consisted of a material that made it soft but stable, almost like immovable soil.

  Asian panel art hung on every wall, courtesy of Harvis’ mother. Naz hadn’t met her, and the only time Harvis spoke of her was to say the General had met her while being stationed in the Orient. Unique-shaped benches occupied every corner of the dojo. One bench took the form of a praying mantis, another, two primates in prayer, and a third, where Harvis and Naz sat, was a bird of prey with wings spread in a dive. They outfitted themselves in head and footgear, gloves and shin guards.

  “Are you sure about this?” Naz fastened the last strap on his shin guard.

  “It’s a little late to ask that now.” Harvis stood and punched his fist into his palm.

  “Whatever.” Naz stood to face Harvis knowing Harvis understood what he was asking. “I’m talking about the plan.”