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Chapter 14 – Courage Kenzie

I waited several minutes after that. Not that I genuinely expected anything would happen. But some small part of me hoped a phone might ring and the person on the other end of the line would somehow help me out.

Plenty of weird things and coincidences had happened in my life up to that point. Our house didn’t burn down, because I forgot something. My mom was upset with me as we were both already late that day. But she drove went back and realized the lamp cover in the bedroom had accidentally been pushed to the side and was smoldering.

I lost track of the number of times we just missed getting into an accident. Gladis did just the right thing to save my life when I had a terrible fever one day. Right place, right time, right care. So many times, it came out that way.

Even going further back, the only reason my mom moved to Brookville was because she talked to her deceased father. It could’ve been a vision, a delusion, or a ghost, but it was a moment on which my existence pivoted. A moment that made me feel small, but also feel hope that I meant something to the universe as well.

At the other end, I could imagine countless unknown people who might’ve had something good happen to them but weren’t as lucky. Reality selects for extreme chance because all others don’t survive. Those survivors think that something or someone is helping them when really there is that one in some huge number that sorts out the rest.

That’s what made sense to me. At the same time, I still prayed. And I still tried to will away this strange effect I had on others. I did the same for my wheat allergy over the years.

I checked on mom and dad. Dad had fallen asleep and mom was watching reruns of the Golden Girls on Lifetime. I told her I was ready for bed. She nodded and answered, "Goodnight".

Before I made it to the hallway, casually, almost as an off-handed question, she asked, “How are you?”

I froze and my mind felt blank for any cogent answer. Hushfully, I told her, “I dunno. I’m kinda scared.”

She stared back at me for a long moment. Before I could take my next step, she gestured for me to come over. I approached carefully. She wrapped her arms around me, and I returned the favor as she said, “Remember what I told you and try to sleep.”

That wasn’t the best advice. She’d said a lot of things recently. Some of them decent. Some saying I should isolate myself from other people. But I just nodded back and she let me go.

I got to sleep quickly after my shower. It’s hard to tell when I’m actually remembering my dreams and when I’m simply taking fragments and making up a story to tell myself from them. They often feel vivid and I enjoy them. That evening, I remembered more than usual.

I remembered floating around the library as a spirit. I remembered no one seeing me as I tried to touch them. When I touched boys, they turned into girls. They reacted with surprise and horror. It was a bit on the nose for a dream.

Of course, it’s entirely possible I only retained a small subplot of the dream but that was what stuck in my mind when I woke up. I struggled to scribble it on a nearby notepad I kept for sketching out random ideas and recording book titles I’d read or wanted to read.

My mom called Gladis over for the day because she and dad both had to go to work (and had been saving up vacation days for our yearly summer trip). They tried to contact the school but were met by the usual difficulties.

Before lunchtime, my blood work came back from the doctor and his nurse passed along the results.

“She’s a little anemic and also low in potassium but that’s all. No other problems. The doctor wrote up a release for the school and can fax it over if they have a number.”

Fortunately, they did. So, we had a bit of phone tag with getting the fax to the school and received it before my dad left. A different receptionist confirmed the receipt but probably suspected I’d just been confirming a negative TB test or something.

My dad asked if I’d be able to return to class, ranting loudly about them unfairly depriving his daughter of an education. How no one cares about anything important anymore. Etc. He could go for quite a while without any form of common sense catching up to him. But I didn’t mind it today.

The receptionist braced herself as best she could and remained calm. Ultimately, she said that several people, including the school nurse, would have to review it but, “I don’t see why she can’t return to class as soon as possible.”

I wanted to ask about Wes and the others but, at the same time, I really didn’t want to know. Besides, she might not have even been able to find out. Schools can be so isolated from one part to another when over three-thousand people are around.

I only needed to wait through The Price Is Right (the Bob Barker days) with Gladis before we got an answer saying, “The vice-principal wants to go over the doctor’s results after school and have a personal meeting with your parents.” That set me on edge.

Gladis offered to take a walk with me to alleviate my stress.

Our house sat near the end of a modified cul-de-sac at the introduction of a housing tract which was fancy several decades ago. Of course, back then asbestos and lead in building materials were all the rage.

I slipped closer and further from Gladis as we walked. We'd sat on separate couches at home and she hadn’t noticed my distance. Nor did she notice it when I was walking. Maybe I could be inconspicuous about it. Still, it felt alienating to keep away from her so much.

And I had reasons to get closer to her. She’d had a double mastectomy soon after moving to America from her native Peru. If I could heal Heather’s scars then there was no telling what other scars I could mend as well. There had to be an upside to this ability. So, I edged a little closer.

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We made our destination the park a mile down the road past the apartments, mobile homes, and the 7/11. Even back then it wasn’t the greatest neighborhood but it was a nicer part of Brookville than where my parents used to live in the 70s before me.

Gladis lived further down the road in a small tract on the second street. We made a quick detour over there for some things she needed and to check on her tiny puppy, Pierre. I always wanted to play with him but, despite losing my wheat allergy, I still had a reaction to most animals, so it was better to save myself a runny nose later.

Once, when we visited family in the Midwest, just being in a house with several cats was enough to knock me out for hours. A megadose of decongestant certainly didn’t help.

The park was nice, even if it was starting a little collection of paper-covered homeless. Every fall there would be tightly-packed festivals with food and music and magic shows and other fun events. Not many years after then, they moved the event to a larger, fancier, far-away park on the other side of town. Not many years after that, they cut the event entirely to save money.

We passed the small pool where I’d unsuccessfully tried to learn to swim for three summers. The ballparks were out in front and Bachthalen’s preserved first schoolhouse was off to the side by the covered picnic tables. The park felt massive when I was young, but it had started to feel smaller as the years went by.

They still had the old wooden, splinter-fest play equipment then. Swaying bridges to cross and slides to scorch skin in the summer. We made a slow loop around the pathway, a collection of international flags, and a Korean War veteran’s memorial to reach the play area. I roamed a bit, pressing my sneakers in the loose sand. A few kids played nearby.

It struck me right then that if this didn’t go away...then I might never have children. Stuff from when I was three certainly didn’t help that possibility, but it wasn’t what I thought about that much compared to some of my classmates, who were already pregnant at sixteen. Like a ticking, human clock, my mom was eager for me to have a kid at a set amount of years down the line.

I brushed my hair back and wandered around till I noticed a young girl sitting down in the sand and making what didn’t seem like a sandcastle. More of a sand house. It was boxy and tiered in a Modernist way. But the most interesting part was how she was dressed. It looked like she was dressed up as the main character from that book series I’d noticed yesterday in the library.

She appeared about six or seven with an oversized blue jacket all buttoned up and fuzzy, red flannel pants. She had those distinctive aviator-type goggles with big, black bug-eye lenses. She even had the right style of red hair to go with it.

I lingered around her with my hands folded behind me and asked, “What are you making?”

She turned and told me simply, “A sand house.” I pondered for a moment if that was a thing in the books she expected me to know about. I didn’t dwell on it and responded, “It’s nice. Are you dressed up as Abby Longbloom?”

Staring up at me and curling her lips back, she said, with a touch of indignation, “I AM Abby Longbloom. Brave explorer out to save everyone from scary monsters. Don’t you recognize me?”

I apologized with a slight smirk and noted, “You seem a little young.”

She had a ready explanation, saying she was actually much much older than me but some sort of time-twisting crystal had trapped her in a younger form. I gave her a steady look. More clever than alien bunnies and engineer turtles.

I accepted her explanation and introduced myself with as much respect as I could without trying to sound like I was mocking her and her little game. Then, I asked, “Do you need any help?”

Carefully, she shook her head and adjusted her too-large goggles. “I have a bunch of friends, but they’re on other worlds. I’m contacting them right now…” She emphasized this with a blowing sound and a crash like a wave falling over.

Brushing my hair back, I smiled and watched her little game. She jumped around in her heavy boots, mashing down the sand and leaving clear tracks like she was stomping across a faintly-bleached lunar surface. But the ever-present wind of Brookville broke the illusion. Little patches of sand wandered.

She pointed a finger at my head and said, “Hurry! We have to get on the dimension twister before an explosion destroys this entire world!”

Following her directions, we both hopped on the swings and pushed back and forth as quickly as possible. I was still small enough that my legs didn’t drag too much but it was obvious the time for swings was long past. I still did my best as she sailed back and forth and encouraged me to do the same. I did my best to save the universe.

As we came to rest, she looked around curiously. Finally, with a careful nod, she informed me, “We did it. For now. But there’s always dangers. You have to have fun and make smiles all the time. Or bad things will get you. Dark shadows. Or evil bugs.”

I told her I’d keep that in mind. Then, she added, “Also, beware of cow farts which can turn boys into girls.”

That probably made more sense to her, but I nodded anyway. If only it were just farts, then I could hold those in.

After we finished our little game, she scampered off to the bathroom to wash up and “decontaminate” from the “all-knowing sands”. I waved and told her, “Have a nice day, Abby!”

She waved back and said, “Thank you…and have courage, Kenzie. You’ll be fine!”

It took till I met up again with Gladis near some trees to wonder how she knew my name. But I reminded myself that I actually told her it. Mystery solved. Still, her comment was a bit odd. How did she know something was bothering me? I guess some kids are aware of that stuff.

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Art by Alexis Rillera/Anirhapsodist