Page 17 of Bewicched

“That I’m easily bored and fucking with people is fun.” I stuffed my hands in my pocket. “Let ’em wonder and whisper.”

Hernández nodded and pulled out onto the road. “It doesn’t bother you when people talk about you?”

“Not really. People have been telling tales about me my whole life. People like to gossip. What are you going to do?” I stared out the window as she turned off the main road onto a narrow lane, away from the water.

“I wish I didn’t care,” the detective said, turning down an even narrower road. Mailboxes dotted the lane between trees. For some of the homes, they served as the only marker that a house was hidden somewhere behind the trees and bushes crowding the road.

“Look at it this way. You’re interesting enough for people to gossip about. That’s probably better than being so boring no one even notices you, right?”

She tilted her head, thinking. “I’d rather be ignored.”

“Fair enough. Me too, to be honest.” It was a pretty drive and one I didn’t want to end. “Hey, did you know that somewhere between thirty and fifty percent of the population don’t have a running inner monologue?”

She glanced over, brows furrowed. “What?”

“Their thoughts aren’t in words. They feel emotions or whatever, but they’re not constantly thinking in words. They have to translate their feelings into words when they have conversations.” I shook my head, lifting my hands palms up. “I mean, how? How are you just walking around with silence in your head? I wonder if they’re good sleepers. I’d love to shut off the shit in my head for awhile.”

“Really? Everyone doesn’t have a voice in their head?” Hernández looked as shocked as I’d been when I’d read the article.

“I know!” I shrugged to myself. “I mean, is that an introvert-extrovert thing? Is that why some people have earpods in all the time? Or some people can read with music playing and a TV on? I don’t know.”

Hernández was silent for a while. “I need to ask my friends.”

“Thinking is such an isolated, individual thing. It’s fascinating when we learn how others do it. Like—” I smacked the detective’s arm without even thinking—“some people can’t picture things in their head. They need to see the thing. They can’t create its image in their mind. They know what the thing is, but they can’t create the visual in their heads.”

“This is it,” she said, pulling into a driveway.

Oh. It wasn’t that I’d forgotten where we were going so much as I was hoping to stave off the inevitable with random brain trivia. When you’re different, you’re often looking for the explanation as to why.

It was an adorable little cottage in the woods with an abandoned bike laying on its side on the small lawn near the front door. Just that was enough to make my throat tight. I didn’t want to do this. Wasn’t there enough horror in my head?

“Let me go talk with Nancy, his mom. She hasn’t left the house in case he comes home.”

Nodding, I lagged behind, not wanting to get hit with the tsunami of grief that woman was no doubt carrying. I flicked a spoke of the tire that was tilted up in the air and watched it spin. Unable to stop myself, I took off a glove and stopped the wheel, holding on to it.

Joy. Heart-racing joy when he sees it sitting beside the Christmas tree in their tiny living room. His mom put a big red bow on it. Spider-Man again, on the bike this time.

Christopher gets rid of the training wheels quickly. He has his mother’s superior natural balance. Soon he’s riding his bike up and down the lane. His mom reminds him to be careful. The road is narrow, and he’ll be hard for drivers to see. He rolls his eyes and says he knows, but he never tells her about that one car that drives him off the road. He ends up in pine needles, knee and elbow banged up, while the car honks and keeps going. It scares him so badly, he walks his bike home, but when Mom asks how his ride was, he says fine. He knows if he tells the truth, he won’t have the same freedom.

It's as he’s walking it back, still shaking, that he meets an older kid who takes an interest in him. It’s cool. Older kids never pay him any attention. The kid asks him to come help him for a minute. He’s making knots with a long rope. When Christopher asks why, the kid says he’s practicing for an Eagle Scout badge. The boy doesn’t know what that is, but he’s excited to help, especially as it keeps him from thinking about that scary car.

The kid asks Christopher to put out an arm, which he does. The kid slips a noose over the boy’s hand and pulls it taut. The fibers pinch and hurt the boy’s wrist. The kid yanks again, causing Christopher to gasp, but the kid doesn’t seem to notice. He’s happy his knot works. The boy shakes off the pain, caught up in the big kid’s excitement.

“Arwyn.” Detective Hernández said it like she’d already called me a few times.

I hadn’t passed out or anything. This, I was prepared for. I hadn’t been hit with a vision. This was a psychic reading. I remained in control during readings.

Pulling my glove back on, I walked up to the porch, where the detective was talking with a thin, nervous-looking woman who was twisting her hands in front of her.

“This is Arwyn. She’s helping us out.” Hernández turned to me. “Do you want to see his bedroom?”

I was about to say no, there was no point, but then I reconsidered. Something was drawing me in. I nodded. “If you wouldn’t mind?”

The mom shrugged her acceptance, though I doubt she knew what she was agreeing to. She was so far over the edge, she was like Wile E. Coyote, clawing at the air right before the drop. Hernández needed to get her help now.

Seeming to have picked up on the same thing, Hernández walked Nancy to the small kitchen to make some tea. I needed to remember this address so I could send over the good stuff.

I meandered through the small living room and down the hall. It had been a happy house. I could feel that, even below the weight of fear and grief. Pictures of Christopher or of the two of them lined the hallway walls. A few featured a younger version of the boy with an older couple, presumably his grandparents.

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