Chapter 14 Rachel

Chapter 14 Rachel

“I’m going to go get a drink, Rachel, okay?” Roquelle tells me.

“Alright, I’ll be here, enjoying the water,” I say.

Roquelle walks off, going inside. I lay on my back and float. The cool breeze washes over me, but the hot sun keeps me from shivering. I swim around for a little bit, then decide to test to see how long I can hold my breath. After a about a minute, I hear a scream. Roquelle’s scream.

I know she needs help. I rocket upward in the water. My head hits a solid surface, ice. This can’t be happening. I try punching the ice to break it. My hand passes straight through. It does not break, I pass through it like a ghost. But I don’t even get as far as my elbow before the ice re-solidifies around me. My hand dangles in the air above the water as I run out of air below. Then, I feel someone grab my hand. Someone else breaks the ice and I am yanked out and land on my back. The people disappear, and I run inside to find my sister.

She sits huddled in the corner.

“It’s coming,” she whispers softly. “Something’s coming.”

 

I wake up to my alarm that I set so I would get up in time for church. I reach out to turn it off, but my hand passes through my alarm. I yank my arm back, then cautiously reach back out. I turn off the alarm now with little trouble. I look down at my hand, then back at my alarm, stunned. Did that really just happen? Suddenly, my nightmare comes rushing back into my mind. I get dressed and ready for church, trying to clear my head. As I walk out, I grab the door to pull it shut, but my hand slips. Then I realize, my hand has slipped into the door. It re-solidifies around my arm. I look at the door in shock. My hand and part of my forearm are on one side of the door, while the rest of me is on the other. I try to yank free, and although it closes the door, my arm stays put. My mom suddenly emerges from her room. I try to hide the limb as best I can.

“Hey honey, almost ready?” she asks.

“Just about,” I say, as calmly as possible.

When she passes by I continue tugging on my arm. Finally, I count to three and give one giant tug. The arm slips out with no problems other than that the momentum sends me flying at the opposite wall. After that, I go eat breakfast and we leave for church.

 

Later that day, I decide to clean my room. Well, more like organize my room. It is already mostly clean. There is nothing on the floor except for a few blankets. I tear everything else off of my bed and remake it. When I’m done, I organize my dresser, side table and all the shelves in my room. I even organize my books into different sections. As I reach to put the last one away, my arm disappears. Instead of yanking back, which has been my instinct thus far, I examine it closely. I still can still touch it and feel things with it, it is just simply invisible. When I am done looking at it, the color reappears as if it had been waiting politely for me to look at it. I leave my room; I’m done cleaning anyway.

“Mom, I’ll be out front. I might go to the beach too, alright?” I ask my mother, poking my head inside her room.

“Sure honey, just don’t stray too far, okay?”

“No problem.”

I walk out our front door. I look around at all the vegetation around our house. My eye catches a particularly beautiful plumeria plant, its flowers in bloom. It is a common flower in Hawaii, a plant which my school was named for. I smell the petals, and I smell how fresh it is. I’ve always enjoyed the outdoors and all its freshness. I slump down against a palm tree and decide to test out my newfound curse. I look down at my arm.

“Alright, arm, go ahead. Go invisible,” I command it.

My arm does not comply.

“Alright then,” I mumble.

I try to focus on my arm, hard, willing it to go invisible, although not convinced that it doesn’t just do it of its own accord. After about a minute of this, I notice a spot on my pinky disappear.

“Yes!” I yell out loud.

A few birds scatter close by. Afraid someone might have heard me, I move deeper into our property and find a new tree to sit against. When I look back at my pinky, it is visible again. I sigh heavily. I close my eyes.

“Why couldn’t this be easier?” I murmur.

I open my eyes back up, and when I look down, my whole hand is invisible. This only frustrates me. It only seems to work when I don’t even try to make it happen! No, wait, I wanted this to happen. As soon as I relaxed it turned, just more so than I’d wanted. I scoot a few inches away from the tree I’m leaning against and taking my invisible hand, I try to swipe through the tree. My hand hits the tree, hard. I suppress a yelp of pain and my hand fades back to visible. I figure it must not be connected to that of phasing through.

This time, I focus hard on the tree. After a minute of this, I am about to whack the tree with my hand in hopes it will pass through, when I remember my earlier experiment. I put down my hand. I close my eyes and try to relax, imagining my hand going straight through the tree. I open my eyes and drive my hand toward the tree and it swings right through. I jump up, excited.

I look around at my feet for something. I spot a big plant leaf and pick it up. I relax, close my eyes and will it to go invisible. I open my eyes and… it didn’t go invisible. I try a variety of other objects and then my leg and determine that either it only works on people or I’m just really bad at it, because my leg disappeared while nothing else did. I determine the same, except backwards with phasing through stuff: not people, only objects. I try to think of a way to turn my sister invisible without her freaking out, so I could see if it works on other people, but I figure that it probably wouldn’t come in handy anyway. Not if no one knew about it.

I walk down to the beach as I consider this latest thought. Should I tell someone? I could tell one of my friends, but they’re all blabbermouths and would no doubt think I’m crazy. In fact, that pretty much eliminates everyone, except maybe my family. I consider telling Roquelle, but decide that I probably shouldn’t tell anyone at least until I get it under control-whatever it is. A curse, a gift, hallucinations, a dream, whatever you want to call it.

“Rachel?” I hear a voice say from ahead of me.

I look up from the ground and see Sarah up ahead with her older brother. I jog over to them.

“Hey!” I greet them. “How’s your weekend been going?”

“Pretty good,” she says. Her brother laughs and she adds, “Pretty chaotic, actually.”

“This is the first moment of peace we’ve had,” her brother says.

“Why’s that?” I ask.

“Well, our mother just gave birth to twins Friday night.”

“Really? Wow, that’s cool.”

“Yeah, isn’t it? Their names are Edward and Bessie. Although they’re already going by Ed and Bess.”

“Very cool,” I enthuse.

“Yeah, we’re just walking the beach for a little bit. You’re welcome to join us.”

“No,” I decline, “I’m just out for a little air.”

“Alright,” she says, looking at me skeptically. “See you Monday.”

We pass by each other and I continue walking. The beach gets more populated the further I move toward the pier and the town. I see a few little kids digging in the sand trying to find a sand toy they lost. I pause for a moment. They look distressed and fling sand everywhere. I look at the sand where their little arms are searching and make it able to be passed through. They’re arms suddenly slide downward quickly, moving fast through the sand as if it weren’t there. One of them pulls it out, a victory, while the other still stares curiously at the sand. When they try to put their hands in the sand again, it is solid.

 

I eat lunch/dinner at the pier before returning. When I finally get back to my house, I decide to try something I’ve been eager to test. Instead of unlocking the door and opening it up, I go around the side to where our giant windows are. I look in to make sure no one is in the room, then walk straight through the window. Walking through walls, check! I walk into the living room where my sister is laying on the couch and reading a book. I take the remote from the table next to her and turn on the television, laying down on the couch. I set the remote on the table next to me. My sister looks up from her book and her eyes wander around the room. She sees the remote laying on the table.

“Very funny, Jack, I know you were the one who turned on the television!” she yells.

He comes into the room then and says, “What are you talking about, I’ve been in the kitchen, eating.”

Roquelle rolls her eyes, “Whatever, Jack.”

For a second, I don’t process Roquelle blaming Jack for anything. That’s when I look down at myself and realize I’m completely invisible. I get up and walk silently out, not even bothering to use the door. I try to use the same method to walk into my room, but find myself once again visible and nothing passable. Jack walks out into the hallway, having heard me crash into the wall. He walks over to my door and opens it up.

“This way, Rachel,” he says in a patronizing voice.

I shake my head a little to clear it and thank him, something he looks at me very strangely for. I enter my room and he leaves, clearly now disinterested. I pick up a book off my shelf and read, trying to forget about everything. I consider taking a nap, but I know that probably wouldn’t be of any help to me. Restless, I walk over to a shelf with bins on it and pull one off. It’s my memory box, something I’ve been filling through the years that is still relatively empty.

I take out a picture of our old dog, Sammy. He was the best dog a family could want. He played with us all the time, ran when we did, and even enjoyed a good swim. Sammy’s breed was, quite simply, a Sammy, which is in part where we got the name. The other part was that my mother said she used to have a good friend named Sam, whom everyone called Sammy who died. Whenever I think of Sammy though, I always just think of his golden fur, doggy smile and the way he use to beg at the table for any kind of scraps we were willing to give up. He was the most loyal dog I knew. I’ve always wished we’d get a new dog.

I put the picture back and take out a series of papers Roquelle and I had written game instructions on. We use to always enjoy coming up with new games to play, and we’d always write down the instructions so we wouldn’t forget them. After we stopped using them, I kept the papers and put them in my memory box.

I continue to shuffle through various things in the box from old toys to old stories. When I’ve finished going through everything, I look at the clock and decide it’s late enough for me to go to bed. First, I check to make sure I have all my homework done, and then I make rounds to say good night to everyone. I get ready for bed, wearing my softest pajamas and lay down in my bed which is still neatly made from earlier in the day. After a long time, I finally get to sleep.

 

I’m back in the ocean. I’m surfing, catching all the waves I want, riding them as if I’m a pro. At the thought, a group of people appear on the beach, cheering me on. Judges sit off to one side, writing down notes about how I’m doing. The beach gets loud. I continue to surf as if it is impossible for me to fall off the board. People begin to chant my name. Before I know it, I’m doing a handstand on my surfboard. It’s as if I suddenly get mad gymnastic powers and am doing every kind of flip I’ve ever seen-all still while surfing. The crowd goes wild, mad in adoration of my surfing talents. For a long time, all is well. Then comes the ice.

It begins to grow on the surface of the ocean while I’m still on top. It grows underneath my surfboard. I slip off, falling onto the ice. I scoot backwards, away from the small opening where there is still water. I refuse to be consumed by the water and trapped by the ice. I’m alright. I did not fall in. I’ve beaten the ice.

I begin to feel triumphant yet again. For some reason this ice strikes me as an unbeatable force, one that I was never able to conquer, yet it has closed up, and I am on the top. I shift on the ice to stand up. One tiny shift. I fall through, straight through as if the ice had momentarily become air. I’m back under the ice, unable to breath, trapped. I almost panic. The sensation creeps over me, but I push it back down. This is my ocean. It will not trap me. This curse is mine and mine alone and if it can get me into this mess, it can get me out. I thrust both arms into the air. Into the ice, I suppose would be more accurate. Into the tiny area of ice that, although it still looks plenty like ice, is now as bothersome as air to me. I pull myself up on the ice that remains solid, and stand.

The crowd is gone, as if it were never there. As I stand there, all of the ice turns back into water. I swim to the shore. I take one final look back at the ocean, and I see an orange surfboard with a yellow stripe running the length far out in the water. There are two people sitting on it.