light sheen. It was almost glowing.
“I’m still me,” I whispered to the Grace looking back at me. Well, I was me with great hair and skin and invisible to humans.
Despite the small smile that appeared on my face, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen, something way worse than what had already happened—and no amount of smooth, glowy skin and gorgeous hair could stop it.
Now He Tells Me
I sat on the bed clutching my knees to my chest. I felt suddenly out of place in that room—like it belonged to the old, fully-human Grace.
I wanted to lie down and let the weight of what I had read melt away, but even Mr. Fluffy Rabbit was looking at me like I was a freak. It was getting late, and Gavin would be taking the stage soon.
All kinds of things ran through my head. Outfit combinations, what-if scenarios, how low is too low, how high is considered slutty, and everything in between. I’ve always loved leather pants, but never had the guts or the butt to wear them. Then I started thinking about guts, and innards, and body parts, and whether it was true that angels didn’t have navels. ’Cause I was pretty sure Remi had a navel. And Dad. Then my thoughts wandered to Gavin’s navel and to beneath Gavin’s navel, and then I forgot what the heck I was doing. Oh. What would become of my navel had become really important to me. I wanted to keep mine. Stupid? Perhaps.
Several hundred outfits later, I settled on a black tee, black leather pants, and my Skelanimals hoodie. A black and white pair of vintage Chucks, some Secret Wonderland lip gloss (yum), a tiny bit of blush, and I was ready to go. Sort of.
Dad’s Maserati was still in the garage. I knew where the keys were, though knowing where the keys were and driving the car were two different things, of course. But if there was one thing I was quickly learning, it was this: Nothing is impossible if you put your mind to it.
I slinked down the steps, then tiptoed past the archway to the living room, where Mr. and Mrs. Larson sat watching reruns of The Benny Hill show. Mrs. Larson turned her head in my direction, wrinkled her eyebrows, then returned to watching TV. I could’ve exhaled the breath I’d been holding when I made it to the kitchen, but I was still so nervous.
Mrs. Larson kept a lock box in the kitchen cabinet closest to the back door. The box held Dad’s keys, wallet, photos, and other things they’d found on him when he died. I remembered hating myself at the thought of getting an instant auto upgrade from a 1995 Jeep to a 2010 Maserati GranCabrio after his death, but I didn’t feel so bad now that I knew he wasn’t really dead.
I practically floated across the kitchen floor, high on the thought of racing around town in one hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of blue metallic magic. With a wave of my left hand, as Mom had done in the hospital, I directed the door to open by sending my will through as a command from my mind to my hand. When it obeyed, I stifled a giggle. Could they hear me?
I grabbed the small, wooden lock box and headed for the back door when the sound of footsteps heading in my direction stopped me. The last thing I wanted was for them to see me and start asking all kinds of questions I was not prepared to answer.
“Did you want something, dear?” Mr. Larson asked, just as my hand landed on the knob of the back door. I froze, then turned around slowly to face him. I’d left the cabinet door ajar. Crap. But he didn’t see me even though I was standing no more than three feet in front of him.
Mr. Larson opened the refrigerator door and grabbed two cans of soda and a jar of salsa. He turned toward me, looked me right in the eyes, and then went back to the refrigerator to retrieve his favorite cheese assortment. He stopped as if he had forgotten or remembered something. He walked over and closed the cabinet I’d left open and looked right at me again!
“That’s strange,” Mr. Larson mused with a wrinkled brow.
“What’s taking you so long in there?” Mrs. Larson called between laughs.
“Hon, did you look in on Grace today?” Kenneth Larson asked, not losing