Cherie Colyer - Hold Tight

“She still crazy?” I asked in an acid tone. After her repeated attempts on my life, I was perfectly fine with her being a long-term resident in the psych ward.

Isaac ignored my snide remark. “She was too sedated to tell, but it’s safe to say she won’t be causing any more problems for us even when she gets out.”

He held his now-empty plate in front of him and focused on it. It quivered in his hand and then vanished. A moment later, a faint clatter came from the room above us.

My eyes grew wide. “Did you just put that in the sink?” His smug grin answered for him. “Do you know how much time it would save me to be able to blink the breakfast dishes into the dishwasher? I could zap the dust bunnies from under the kitchen table. My dad would get off my back about the chores piling up.” I tossed the elements book on the chair. “You have got to teach me how to do that!”

He laughed. “We’ll work on it.”

After an hour of trying to learn how the heck Isaac had managed to do his witchy-stare, poof- now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t trick, I gave up. I couldn’t even snatch a quarter off the floor without bending down and picking the damn thing up with my hands.

We stopped at the grocery store on the way to my house. Isaac went to get pasta sauce and chips for his mom while I headed to the dairy section. I grabbed a gallon of milk and turned quickly, bumping into a guy in his late teens.

“Sorry,” he said, grabbing the milk I’d nearly dropped.

A surge of heat shot through me when his fingers brushed mine. Surprised, I yanked my hand away.

“You’ll probably want this.” He held the gallon out to me.

I took it from him, purposely touching his hand to see if what I’d felt was a fluke. His skin was warm, like he had a fever, but there was no shock to indicate he possessed the powers. He gave me a funny look, which made me realize I was staring.

“Sorry.” I tucked my hair behind my ear. “I didn’t see you.”

“No harm done.”

I moved to my left at the same time he moved to his right. He smiled, his chocolate-brown eyes peeking out from under dark bangs. He had sharp features and a five o’clock shadow, and he was still in my way. I stepped toward the aisle, but so did he.

“I’ll just—” I indicated with a glance what direction I needed to go.

He turned sideways, letting me pass.

“Thanks.”

When I reached the chip aisle, I glanced over my shoulder. The guy watched me, his head cocked to the side. Not at all sure what to make of him, I hurried to join Isaac, who held a jar of marinara sauce in one hand and a variety of chips in the other.

“Ready?” he asked.

At the checkout, I paid first and then surveyed the store while I waited for Isaac to pay for his things. The guy I had bumped into was nowhere in sight, but I couldn’t shake the feeling something was off about him.

The next morning, Dad opened Chase’s dresser drawer and figured out just how far behind I was on my chores.

“How hard would it be to toss in a load of laundry once in a while?” His voice dripped with exhaustion as he sniffed the socks Chase had worn the previous day. Deciding they would do, he gave them to my brother to put on.

Guilt nagged at me. I’d been too busy hanging out with Isaac to worry about clean clothes.

“I promise I’ll do a load after school,” I replied without thinking through my choice of words.

The school day flew by, and I was still kicking myself in the butt for making that promise because, with my powers, those two little words— I promise— meant I had to do laundry when I got home. No more stalling or pretending I hadn’t noticed our hampers were regurgitating two weeks’ worth of clothes.

Isaac drove me to pick Chase up at the sitter’s and then dropped us off at home, bringing my inevitable appointment with the washing machine around way too soon.

“It’s you and me, squirt,” I said as I stuffed Chase’s mittens into the sleeve of his jacket and hung it by the hood on the banister in the foyer. “How about you pick up your toys while I go upstairs to sort the laundry?”

“No way! I want to finish the movie I started last night!”

I placed my hands on his shoulders and turned him around. “You can clean while you watch TV.” When his head drooped forward in obvious disappointment, I added, “If you put away your Hot Wheels and stack Dad’s magazines into a neat pile, you can stay up until eight thirty. Do we have a deal?”

“And eat ice cream for dinner?”

“And have ice cream for dessert. ”

“Okay!” Chase ran into the other room.

A few minutes later, I came downstairs with a basket full of light-colored clothes. Upbeat music rang out of the family room. I peeked in to see Chase holding a copy of Handyman Magazine as he bounced along with the music to Disney’s The Sword in the Stone .

“What happened to cleaning while you watched your movie?” I balanced the basket on my hip so I could grab his gray hoodie off the back of the couch.

“I am.” He pointed to the end table. “See, I used magic to stack the magazines. Just like Merlin.”

“You did what?” The basket nearly slipped from my grip.

Since the powers ran in our blood, it stood to reason Chase would possess them, eventually. But could he have tapped into his at such a young age? I tried to remember when Isaac and our friend Josh Corey had said they’d embraced their powers. I was pretty sure they had been eight or nine, and they’d learned about them through their parents.

I studied Chase, searching for any supernatural movement from him or the magazines.

“It’s fun! ‘Rubbity, scrubbity, sweepity, flow,’” Chase sang along with Merlin.

Fun was not the word I’d use to describe a six-year-old with powers. Not to mention I’d have to tell Dad magic was real.

“Can you do it again?” I asked, needing to see him do a spell with my own two eyes.

“Sure!” Chase zoomed around the room, his arms held out to the side as he took the long way to the end table. “Look behind you!”

I did, but out of the corner of my eye I saw him slam the magazine he’d been holding on top of the pile. I fought back a smile. “What’s behind me?”

“Look, the magazine flew right on top of the others!”

My cell phone vibrated in my pocket, reminding me I hadn’t taken it out of silent mode after school. “It sure did,” I replied to Chase. “You’ll have to teach me that someday.”

“Okay.” He went back to singing along with Merlin.

Into the receiver, I said, “Hey, Sarah. What’s up?”

“Hi. Did you hear Ben’s having a small get-together at his house Saturday night?”

“No.” I dumped the laundry into the washing machine.

“Mark and I are going. You and Kaylee have to come or I won’t know anyone.”

Sarah Johnson and Mark Schacter had been dating for a month, but they were from different social circles. Sarah was an A student, on several committees, and voted most likely to succeed. Mark skated by with Cs, the last committee he’d joined was to get close to a girl, and he didn’t even make it on the radar to be voted anything.

“Pleeease,” she begged. “I know Ben invited Isaac and Josh.”

I sighed. The last thing I wanted to do on a Saturday night was get drunk with Ben’s buddies, but Sarah was my second-oldest friend, and if she needed me, she knew I’d be there for her.

“I’ll talk to Isaac.”

“You’re the best! See you at school.”

I said bye, poured detergent and softener into the appropriate dispensers, and hit start. Merlin’s and Arthur’s voices drifted out of the family room. It got me thinking that I was going about my chores the hard way. Why wasn’t I using my powers to clean the house? Just because I hadn’t mastered psychokinesis didn’t mean there weren’t other ways to speed things up.