Having no need to read the Cliff's Notes on Hamlet again, I studied Mr. Hinkley, trying to see if I could read his aura. It was the same as with Mr. Pheizer. I hit a wall. I was unable to discern anything about what he was feeling.
Maybe it was something to do with adults. I didn't have enough information to understand it. Having been thrown headfirst into the deep end with Not-me and Jemima changing everything about my life, I now had many more questions about the world and how it worked than I had before.
Just then, something caught my eye. Movement along the floor, a gray shape scuttled into the room. I looked up, and this time I could clearly see the gremlin. it was smaller than the one I’d seen before, this one was about the size of a mouse. Being able to see it, I understood now why Not-me had labeled them as imps. The word "gremlin" conjured to mind a diminutive humanoid with troll or goblin-like features that would climb inside mechanical workings and sabotage them with clever little hands.
The creature before me was not humanoid at all. It was much more like something you’d see under a microscope. It was a big puffball. It looked for all the world like an extra-thick, extra-large, gray dandelion poof. The wiry stalks that made up its body extended out from it, and it ran on those, extruding limbs as it had need. It didn’t seem to have a top or bottom or front or back. Every part of it looked able to move the way the prehensile limbs did. Like it was made of arms.
It turned down the aisle of seats and stopped beside me. It seemed to lean back, then it looked at me. It had two bright, lambent little eyes set somewhere inside of the puffball itself, giving off a blue glow. It studied me for a moment, blinked twice, and then turned and continued on its way.
I watched as it made its way all the way back to where Billy sat and then proceeded to dive into his backpack. I saw the bag move slightly, but no one else seemed to notice. After a minute, it emerged triumphant, holding something above its head. It looked like a folded piece of paper. The mouse gremlin then scuttled down the backpack and then back up the aisle.
I glanced up, looking for a reaction, but nobody noticed either the paper, or the creature. It moved past my seat, made a right turn, and then scuttled out under the door. I raised my hand, and when the teacher noticed, I asked for the bathroom. I dashed to the desk, under the pretense of needing to go, and followed it out into the hall. I wanted to know where the mouse gremlin was going.
I could just hear Mr. Hinkley say, "No running," as I skidded into the hall, my sneakers squeaking against the linoleum. Looking left and right, I felt a jolt of panic as I didn't see the thing. Then I caught sight of it. At the end of the hall, it was just turning a corner. Ignoring the teacher’s admonition, I took off at a sprint, chasing after the creature. How had it gotten so far so quickly?
As I blasted down the hallway, I took the corner so fast that I had to push off the lockers. I caught up with it around the next turn as the thing had slowed its roll in order to climb the wall of lockers. As I skidded to a stop, I noticed the rough characters "B.G." scratched into the locker's face. The creature had made it up to the top of the locker where the little slotted vents were, and was busily shoving the piece of paper inside it.
I saw enough of the paper at this point to realize what it was. It was Billy's detention slip that he needed to get signed over the weekend. After the creature shoved the slip all the way inside the locker, it then proceeded to shove itself through the vent. After a little bit of effort and a slight popping sound, it got inside.
I noticed, standing there staring at the locker, that there was a faint smell of smoke, like striking flint would produce. I think the mouse gremlin had made it. I longed to open the locker and see what it was doing, but I was leery of attracting the ire of the cloaked heart squeezer. I put my ear to the locker. I heard rustling paper and a thump like a closing boom.
I suspected it was hiding the paper inside a book. I waited, curious. There was another thump and more rustling. After a moment, the mouse gremlin squeezed itself out from the vent and then fell to the floor with a gentle plop. It then scuttled away, picking up speed as it rolled down the hall. It went faster along a straight stretch.
I kept pace with it for a minute until I realized that my hall pass was not a get-out-of-jail-free card and I was going to have to go into a bathroom and then return to class or catch more trouble. I longed to follow the creature back to where it came from; then I remembered the dark figure in the cowl. Mr. Grabby. Maybe I didn't long to follow it exactly. But I was curious. I would enjoy observing from a distance.
I made a mental note to try and tell Billy at the end of the day to get his detention slip out of the locker. But I had the sneaking suspicion that it wouldn't matter. I'd be back in this day again. And again. And again. I shook my head at this. No, I couldn't get lost in that line of thinking. I was not going to be stuck in this day forever. I was going to make it out. I had already made progress.
I found the nearest bathroom and dashed inside. I stepped up to the sink to wash my hands, lost in thought about what the gremlin or imp, if you prefer, was off to do and where they dwelled. Where was it going? It had to go somewhere. When I glanced up into my reflection in the mirror, I nearly screamed. I spun around because standing behind me was the bloody-toothed visage of Billy grinning like a freaking maniac. Of course, when I spun around, the room was empty, and I realized who had been standing there wearing Billy's skin, grinning at me with a blood-stained smile.
Taking a deep breath, not enjoying any clarity of vision when it came to seeing Not-me, I turned back around to look at zombie Billy again.
"Well, color me impressed, kid," Not-me said. "I saw your little stunt, following the imp into the hall. You managed to resist the urge to touch it. I didn't think you had it in you."
The temptation to throw him a rude gesture was overwhelming, but I found the willpower. "Where do they go?" I asked. "When they return, or when they're not here?"
Not-me raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, I wondered that myself. I guess maybe you are me a little bit still. When they're not needed, they go to unused spaces. Preferably places that have been lived in or occupied for longer periods of time but become disused. They find it very comfortable there. If you were ever to explore an abandoned building, you would find a surplus of them milling about, living their lives instead of trying to produce an effect or perform a task."
I was surprised at this news. "Living their lives?" I asked. "I thought you said they were more like machines."
"Well, they certainly are when they're on the job. It's an easy way to explain them. How would you explain an amoeba?"
I looked at him. "I would call it an amoeba?" I ventured.
Not-me shook his head. "They're more complex than that. When left on their own, they'll maintain an abandoned place, causing it to stay around for far longer than an old structure really should. That's why some old buildings will stand for hundreds of years when by all earthly means, they should fall over."
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
"Huh." I thought about that. "Are they what ghost hunters find when they go searching for ghosts in abandoned buildings?" I asked.
"Well, they’re some of what they find. Most of the time, no. They're far too clever for your average ghost hunter. Somebody who has a respect for the spirits can leave them presents, and they will actually show themselves, but even that's rare. Some creatures of the spirit world are far more canny than others. I would say the imps are among the most canny, which is why they're very effective in the tasks they get sent on."
"What other kinds of things are the imps sent to do, other than what seems like mild mischief?"
"Lots of stuff, kid," Not-me said. "I don't feel like giving a lecture right now. Aren't you supposed to be in class?"
I shrugged. "I've already done it twice," I said. "I don't know what good being in class now will do."
"Prevent you from being missed? I saw you actually had some success with telekinesis. I'm surprised," Not-me said. "Did you figure out that you have to stop bottling your emotions to actually take advantage of using it?"
I pressed my lips together. "Do I have to do that every time?" I asked.
Not-me nodded, the wicked-looking grin returning to zombie Billy's features. "Yep. Telekinesis is impossible with bottled up emotions. You're going to have to use your emotions in order to actually use telekinesis."
I didn't like the sound of that. How much did I bottle my emotions? This wasn’t going to be a big deal, was it? And so what? It’s not like being angry ever helped anything.
“I'm not even sure I used my emotions,” I said, glaring at Not-me in the mirror. “I think I used Billy’s— That's the thing I wanted to talk to you about. I'm seeing colors all over people. I want to call it an aura, but that sounds too trite to actually be true. What am I seeing?”
Not-me laughed. “It's their aura— No, it's not as simple as some people think it is. It contains multiple layers of stuff, but it's essentially whatever a person is leaking.”
“Leaking?” I said. “Gross!”
Not-me laughed again. “You have no idea, kid. Just like anything that a body leaks, it's also contagious.”
I yelped. I had the sudden urge to wash my hands. The sink was right there, so I began.
“Yuck,” I said. “You mean I got essence of Billy all over my, what, my mind? My soul? My insides?”
Not-me laughed again. “No, don't worry about it. You can shake it back off as long as you don't own it.”
“Own it,” I said. “What do you mean?”
“Well, it's simple. Take the emotions you felt when you looked at Billy. When they popped into your head, did you think that they belong to you?
“What are you talking about?”
“You know what? Freud had a way of putting it that I really liked. He said that owning stray thoughts is like a man walking into a darkened room and tripping over a coffee table and then believing the coffee table is part of himself.”
“He said that?” I asked.
“More or less. Forget about the coffee table. The point is, if you believe that the things you feel when you look at someone else's aura, or when it leaks onto you when you're not paying attention, belong to you, then you will begin generating the same emotions that will belong to you.”
“So, how do I keep...” I washed my hands harder. “Clean? I don't want the essence of Billy rolling around inside me or essence of anyone else for that matter. I want to be me.”
“That's what I decided right before Big Black came in and squeezed my heart to death.”
Not-me laughed again. “Big Black, I like that. We should use that for him. It'll piss him off.”
“Who was he?” I asked.
“Don't worry about it, kid. That's not important right now. What's important is, you need to figure out how to get control of you. You have to live today. You can't get caught up in everyone's emotions. You need to learn to control it.”
I sighed. This sounded like a chore. “How do I do that?”
“You need to practice meditation,” Not-me leered at me. With Billy’s broken features. It was like he was trying to get a reaction from me.
“Go back to class, and take hold of the you that’s inside of you and use it to throw out intruders. Be conscious of what you’re thinking. Spend timed periods deliberately blank, throwing out stray thoughts and emotions. When they pop up, tell yourself ‘that's not mine’ and just walk away.”
“I'm supposed to sit in class, and walk away when—“
“No, I don't mean literally. I mean walk away in your head. You have to dismiss the thoughts by acknowledging they're not yours and then return to center.”
I sighed. “This sounds hard.”
“It'll get easier. You have to practice. This muscle needs to be built up.”
“I got a muscle in my head?” I said.
“Yeah, you do. And you've got a muscle in your soul, too. And you're not good at using any of them because you're just a kid.”
“Why is everything so much work?” I said.
“It's how life is. Work and pain are the barriers to all progress. Now, pay attention to me. You focus on who you are. Who you want to be. And you hold that in your head. If you want to accelerate the process and make it harder, all you have to do is open your eyes and sample somebody's aura. As soon as that leaks onto you, you can practice dismissing it. It would be good practice for when you're alone and you get intrusive thoughts. Things that pop into your head—that's an aura leaking out from somewhere or something. Big Black likes to leak his aura all over a neighborhood. And everyone who picks it up and owns it becomes his partway. And the more thoroughly they own it, the more influence he can exert by thoughts that he puts in their head.”
I grimaced. “That's insidious. How do we stop it?”
Not-me's eyes bugged out. “Stop it? You can't stop it, kid. That thing's too big to even consider. We're after smaller fish.”
“It's not right,” I said.
“Damn straight it's not right. Jemima called me evil. Look at Big Black and what he's doing.”
“What is he doing?” I asked.
“How many kids in this school do you think suffer from suicidal thoughts, or thoughts of self harm?”
I cocked my head. I had never thought about it. I had never struggled with it myself, so I hadn't considered.
“Uh, I don't know. One?” I guessed.
Not-me laughed. “You are naive. Wow. Okay. You just watch. Every kid you see that has blackness in their aura, and not just a regular black, a black like blacker than black, like Big Black is. Every time you see one of those, you will find somebody who's suffering from suicidal ideation, or self harm.”
“What's ideation?” I asked.
“It's an obsessive fixation that you have little to no control over, and it becomes more and more real in your mind until you act it out. Forget about that. Watch for that darker-than-black blackness. Every time you see it, you'll see somebody who has intrusive, self-harm, or suicidal thoughts.”
I thought back. I had already seen a kid with black in their aura. In fact, he was almost consumed by it. I hadn't understood what I was looking at at the time. I thought back to Billy. Had I seen any black in his? It was so red it was hard to tell, and I was having trouble studying it. I wasn't sure. Now I wanted to go look at Billy's again, but I was afraid to feel what he felt. I didn't want to be Billy. I wanted to be me.
Then I remembered what Not-me had said. “What happens if I can't walk away from an aura that I sample? I asked Not-me. What happens if it jumps on me and I can't clear my head?”
Not-me dropped his leering smile and looked me in the eye. It was really creepy on zombie Billy. “Then you come talk to me. I'll set you straight. You at least have that going for you. Listen, kid, you're emotionally stunted. You don't know it, but other emotions will be hard for you to feel.”
“What? How?” I said. I hadn’t felt like I was emotionally stunted.
Not-me shook his head. “You hold yourself aloof from people because you don't get them. You don't read body language well, and you don't understand that yet. Hell, I didn't figure it out until I was twenty. I don't know how much of it you know or don't know, but you just got kicked into the deep end with this aura crap. So, you want to survive it? You have to be aware of the effect you have on other people.”
I shot him and incredulous look. “The effect I have on other people?” I said. “I don't have an effect on other people. I’m twelve.”
Not-me shook his head. “No, your body language, the way you hold yourself, the way you're aloof from everyone, you have quite the effect on everyone. You don't even know it. Why do you think nobody helped you in that hallway when Billy struck you?”
“Um, they're assholes,” I ventured, trying out cursing again.
Not-me shook his head. “No, kid, that ain't it at all. You're so aloof that people feel like they can't approach you. You don't make eye contact. You don't look people in the face. Most times you speak without thinking or giving other people room in the conversation. You run people right over. You are as atypical, high-functioning autistic as they come.”
I sighed. “I already know I'm autistic,” I said. “I read an article.”
Not-me shook his head. “There's a big difference between knowing something and doing something about it, kid. What you need to do is you need to work harder just to blend in and make people see you as something that's safe.”
I didn't want to do this. This sounded like even more work. I huffed out a sigh.
“I'm going to go back to class and practice meditation.” I turned the water off and reached for the door. At least I could tackle one thing at a time.
A thought struck me and I turned back to the mirror.
“When did you do all this work?” I asked.
“Not until I was in my late twenties. After my first heartbreak.”
“Heartbreak?” I said.
“Yep. I pushed someone away that I wish I hadn't. Then I started trying to figure out what was wrong with me. Turned out what was wrong was I hadn't equipped myself with the proper tools to handle who I was.”
Not-me’s expression grew sour.
“Now enough of this bullshit. Go back to class and practice. You're going to need it for tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah, if we're gonna make it through today and not have to reset the damn loop again then you're gonna be somewhere dangerous tonight and you're gonna be around unsavory people. You're gonna want to have a semblance of control over your new aura crap by the time you get there. Otherwise, it's gonna kick your ass.
“But don't worry,” Not-me grinned. “If you get it wrong, you can always try again.”
I groaned. This was turning into a long day.