Chapter 5 : Awakening

I went to sit on the balcony while Faith took her shower. I had one more thing to do before my work would be done, and I could relax. I took the cell phone out of my pants pocket and dialed Aunt Carol's phone number.

"Hello" she sounded weary, but who could blame her?

"Hi, it's Christian."

"Christian, I have been waiting for you to call. How is my sister doing?"

"She seemed a bit better the last time that I saw her. She should be asleep right now."

"And how are you and Faith holding up?"

"We are alright, but I have a question."

"Madeline told you about our family, didn't she?" her voice faded.

All that I could hear for the next few seconds was the sound of silence. I did not feel that I needed to answer that question because Carol obviously already knew the answer.

"I see," she continued, "I could explain it to you, but now is not the best time. You need to rest. We will talk more later."

As close as Faith and I were to Carol and Chuck, I wished that one of them had told me about this before. Everyone in our family had to know about it.

"I will see you later," I replied.

"Bye, dear." She hung up the phone.

Being mom's sister, I assumed that Carol had an ability as well. I doubted that Chuck was special like we were, but he did marry someone special. He had to have an idea about what was going on. I wondered if Charles had inherited an ability from his Aunt Carol. He never mentioned it.

At the moment, I was more interested in figuring out what I could do. I was obviously not able to speak to ghosts or read minds. I thought back to the night when I found Faith in the forest. I had not seen the spirits that she was playing with, but I did see something that was not normal.

While I was trying to make sense of who Faith was playing with, blue streams of what appeared to be energy had manifested. That was a start. Faith never mentioned energy streams when describing her friends. My power must have had something to do with that. I let my mind wander.

The balcony had a ceiling above it so the rain should have not been able to hit me. It did, however, because of the strength of the wind. My face was refreshed by the cold rain. The temperature must have been dropping. The rain gave me a slight chill.

Faith joined me on the balcony after a short time. She was wrapped in a white bath robe, and her hair was still wet from her shower. She sat in the chair across from me.

"Your turn," she said.

"Where did the robe come from?" I asked.

"From the bathroom, of course. There is another one in there. You should use it while your clothes are washing in the laundry room."

"Thanks for the tip."

"No problem." She pulled out a hardback novel, and I left her there reading.

I the cold rain from the balcony actually felt better than the warm water in the shower, but it would not have cleaned me as well. I let my body rest while the water fell on me.

Then, something went wrong. The water stopped falling. At first, I thought it was the result of faulty plumbing. I opened my eyes to find yet another surprise. The bathroom light was flickering. I pulled a towel from an iron bar that was mounted to the wall next to me. I wiped my face with it quietly. When I stepped out of the shower onto the tiled floor, the light went out completely.

I was not afraid, but I was confused. I walked carefully so I would not slip on the wet floor as I felt my way around the room. I found the door handle, but I could not find the lock. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something in the direction of the mirror.

What I saw was a tiny, blue light that was about the size of a penny. I watched it for a moment as it hovered in place. I found myself drawn to it. I reached in that direction, and it began to grow in size. It seemed to peak at the size of a softball.

I was startled when the light began to move. Up close, it appeared to be trapped within the boundaries of the mirror. I was reminded of the fairy from Peter Pan - Oh, what was her name? Tinker Bell?

The light began to shrink after flying around the mirror. When it disappeared, the bathroom light returned. My eyes had to readjust themselves. I slipped on the bathroom robe, put on my glasses, and picked up my dirty clothes. I left the bathroom without intention of going back.

Faith was still on the balcony. Her head was leaning over. She was immersed in her book.

"You were in there awhile. Did you have any great adventures?" she giggled as she asked. The funny part was I had not even opened the screen door before she started talking. Sounded like something mom would do to me.

"You would be surprised," I answered her.

"I have been meaning to ask you," she lifted her head and looked at me, "Mom said that you had something to tell me."

She reminded me of the talk that mom had assigned for me to have with her. I had the honor of explaining our family's secret. But how could I? That is why mom wanted me to do it. She knew that I would be able to explain it to Faith without scaring her.

"Oh, right," I began. Here we go. I thought for a moment before continuing. "Do you remember your friends from years ago?"

"My friends from school?"

"No, the other friends." Emphasis on other.

She became quiet. She put her book down on the coffee table beside her chair.

"Yes." That was a short answer.

"They weren't alive, Faith. You were playing with ghosts." There, I said it. That was not too hard.

"I already knew that."

I was silent this time. Why was I always the last person to figure everything out?

"I could talk to them, Christian. They told me that they were dead," she spoke again.

"Why did you never tell me about that?"

"Mom told me not to. She didn't want to scare you." Scare me? Mom should have known better. I had an open mind, sort of. "By the way, I never figured this out. What is your power?"

Finally, something that Faith did not know. The only problem was I did not either.

"I don't know yet."

She laughed at me. "You have a lot to learn then." She picked up her novel and began reading again.

"As much as I hate your picking on me, you are right. Mom said that I would learn more about it in time. I guess that I will just have to be patient."

"Yep. Now go put your clothes in the laundry room. You will need them tomorrow."

She had a point. I left the balcony and went to get my dirty clothes off of the bed. Faith was shaking her head as I walked away. She was laughing to herself, "I can't believe that he doesn't know what it is yet."

I looked back at her, and she stuck her tongue out at me.

I got the room key and put it into my pocket before leaving with my clothes. I did not want to get locked out. There was no guarantee that Faith would have let me back in. I followed the hallway back to the laundry room. Luckily, none of the washers were occupied. Not to busy for a hotel, I thought to myself.

I put my pants and shirt in the washing machine and pressed the start button. If you remembered, I was not good at home economics, but this machine seemed fairly easy to work. I was glad. I was not about to go back and ask Faith to help me. She made fun of me any chance that she got so I would not give her the chance.

I was not sure how long it would take so I set it to thirty minutes. I now had time to kill. Exploring sounded good. I left the laundry room and went down the hall in the opposite direction of our room.

About thirty feet from the laundry room, I stumbled across a rest area for the guests. There were soda machines and restrooms. Two elderly guys were playing chess at a booth. The one facing me gave me a wave. Only then did I realize that it was 9 o'clock. Time flew by when you are having fun. Only this was not what I called fun.

"Checkmate!" one of the old guys said. Something was off about him. He seemed to be glowing, literally.

There was a bright light in the old guy's immediate area. It was not coming from the window. Actually, it seemed to be coming from him.

At the same time, I could see another color. The other old guy was different as well. Instead of a bright light, his was a navy blue color. Watching it made me almost sad. It was late, and I was tired. I convinced myself that my eyes were playing tricks on me.

I walked over to the machine and bought myself a Coca Cola. I gave the old guys another look, but the colors were gone. The winner of the chess game waved at me, and I waved back. I shook my head and left them there.

Faith was lying on the bed back in our room. She had put away her novel and was now watching television.

"Where did you get the Coke?" she stared at me as I walked over to her.

"There is a machine down the hall. Did you want something?"

"I'm fine, thanks. Where did you get quarters?"

"I'm not completely broke." I made her smile. "I have to go back and get the clothes in a few minutes. If you want something before then, tell me."

"Will do, big brother." She had not called me that in awhile. I thought that she might finally be warming back up to me. I could have been wrong; she could just have been enjoying the company.

I sat beside her, and we watched some show on ABC Family. I was not paying the television much attention though. I was amazed at how much Faith had grown since Christmas. Mom's little girl was a young lady. I would never have admitted it to her, but she was as smart as I was.

I must have dozed off because when I opened my eyes, Faith was looking down at me.

"How was your nap?"

"Great," I replied, "but I can't remember taking one."

Faith giggled. "It's time for you to get your clothes. You don't want some bum stealing them before you get them out of the washer."

I sat up and leaned my feet over the side of the bed.

"Hey, take me with you this time. I want to see the rest area thingy." She had that Faith-like glimmer in her eyes. No point in resisting her.

"Come on."

We went back down to the laundry room first. Like before, no one was there to bother us. I got my things from the washing machine, and Faith put them in her bag for safekeeping. We left the laundry room and headed for the rest area.

The old guys were no longer there, and neither were the strange colors from before.

"This is so cool!" Faith looked excited. She found something that I missed earlier. She ran over to an old pinball machine in the corner and tried to play.

"How did I miss that?" I asked out loud.

"Do you have any more quarters?" she asked me.

"Not on hand, sorry." I replied.

She walked back my way and glanced around the room. She sat down at one of the booths.

"This is much better than that lousy room, isn't it?" I asked as I sat beside her.

"Shhh." Faith put her finger over her lips as if she wanted me to be quiet. I stopped moving. "Listen."

I did not hear anything, but I stopped talking anyway. If something was spooking Faith, I was not interested in meeting it. I looked around the room.

"There is someone here," she was whispering.

"Why are you whispering?" I asked in a whisper this time.

"You don't want it to know that we are here, or that we know that it's here."

It? She made it sound like a monster or something. As a matter of fact, I did not know that anything was there, whatever anything was.

"Look over there," she pointed to the wall opposite the booths. At first, all that I could see was a wall. Then, things started to get creepy. I heard thumping sounds.

"Footsteps" Faith threw in, still in a whisper.

I could have figured that out. I became freezing cold. I felt similar to the way I had on the balcony earlier; but this time, my spine tingled.

"Can you…see him?" Faith's teeth were chattering. I was glad to say that I could not see anything still.

Faith slipped out of her side of the booth and fell into my side. She got close to me with her arms wrapped around her. She was cold.

I was oblivious to whatever she was seeing until the energy stream came back. I saw red lines forming into a figure. The figure became a full apparition this time. The only features that were not fully visible were his facial features. "Yep, I can see him."

"We do not want to stay around and see what he wants," Faith spoke again, louder this time. "He isn't friendly."

"You can tell that?" I was asking her, but she pulled me out of the booth by the hand while I was speaking.

We left the rest area quickly. I was not afraid of the figure, but I was cold. Leaving was a good idea. We made it back to the room without any other confrontations.

"Are you okay?" I asked Faith as we fell onto the bed.

She did not answer immediately. "I'm fine."

"I think we just used our powers together for the first time," I said with a smile. I was trying to cheer her up, but it did not appear to be working very well.

"Do you realize what this mean, Christian?" Faith was still not smiling.

I stared at her blankly.

"Mom is dying," she continued. "She told you that the more we were able to use our powers the closer she was coming to death, right?"

This made me silent. She was right. I had not even considered that. Even after all that had happened, I did not know what my power actually was. I just knew that it had something to do with energy.

Faith coughed one more chilly breath and drew closer to me. I wrapped my arms around her.

"Go to sleep," I whispered to her, "you have been through enough today."

"What if he follows us?" she asked concerned. I could tell that she was tired, but she did not want to fall asleep leaving me unprotected.

"I will wake you up if he does," I answered.

"Promise?"

I did not have a chance to answer. Her body went limp in my arms, and she fell asleep. I tucked her in and decided that sleep was not a bad idea for myself.

Faith had fallen asleep in her bath robe, and it looked really comfortable so I decided to try it myself.