Crystal Power - Ch.1

For my friends who’ve been waiting to discover what happens to Jewel from “Crystal Bound,” here’s the first draft of the sequel I wrote years ago then left in a drawer. There’s a lot more work to do on it and I’d love to hear from you what’s working and what’s not before I tackle the rewrite! I’ll post a chapter at a time.

Chapter 1

I dug through the closet. All my clothes looked so sixteen. I’d been seventeen for hours.

A short length of red yarn stretched over the map I’d tacked onto the inside of my closet door. It started from the corner where Mom had been killed by a hit and run driver and went to the mall parking lot where the car had been abandoned.

Below, I’d posted a copy of her obituary, a photograph of the accident that included my then shocked and blotchy nine-year-old face. Several small index cards held notes like “single occupant,” and “reported stolen by the neighbor of an elderly woman who’d been in the hospital.”

I had a large ball of yarn ready to connect the clues on this cold case.

I didn’t have any other clues.

Out of emotional armor, I layered a T-shirt with a sweatshirt for the possibly dangerous moments ahead. Visions of the past might not be death-defying, but they’d kick me in the gut, again.

Cathy usually picked the outfits for important events like the first day of eleventh grade and school dances. She couldn’t help with the clothing choices for my quest to discover Mom’s killer.

She didn’t know I was a freak.

I had to find the driver. I couldn’t talk about it with Gramma. She cried. I couldn’t talk about it to Dad. He blubbered. I need to find justice for Mom and end the nightmares that plagued me nightly.

The same haunting scene. The moments between the car careening toward us and just before she flung me to asphalt-scraped safety. In the last second before the car hit her, she’d looked right at the driver and cried “not you!”

Mom knew who drove the car that killed her.

I knew that after the accident, they didn’t stop.

I tightened the backpack straps and the weight of the day pulled against my shoulders. Today starts my second year as a Changer. There’d be a new group of people that needed me, and per Gramma, a potential for increased powers. Two more years before the powers would fade away. As much as I wanted to be free, I needed them to discover why she was gone.

I crept down the creaky stairs with a note to keep my overprotective dad from calling the police. I didn’t need him tagging along. There was a lot he didn’t know.

I stepped into the kitchen and Dad’s voice cracked the silence. “Where you headed, Julie?”

He stood at his usual station, willing the coffee to perk faster. His sandy blond hair stuck out at the usual angles.

I’d inherited his scrawny physique.

The mind-reading, crystal visions, and telekinetic powers came from Mom’s side.

“You’re up early.” I’d have to do some fast talking to leave alone. I filled my water bottle at the sink.

“I’ve been down here for hours,” he pointed to the tabletop covered in bills and junk mail. “I wanted to deal with this mess before your Gramma arrives tonight. What’s your birthday plan?”

I handed him the note then rummaged through the refrigerator for a string cheese stick. “Just out.”

“Where to and for how long?” He slid into a chair.

It was much easier last year when he didn’t notice when I was gone. “Around. Probably Cathy’s house. She’s planning to surprise me with lunch on the Plaza.”

He looked at my face, then down to my shoes.

“Really? I don’t know much about fashion, but I’ve noticed that the only time your flip flops aren’t stuck between your toes is when you’re going to the rock.” He’d been an over-achieving parent in the months since I’d convinced him to make a home a California to make up for the seven years after Mom’s death where he ignored me as he dragged me around the country while dealing with his loss. “I have to go to the Center for an hour, but I can take you up there after. I don’t like you going alone. And I’m sure you don’t want to be late getting back with Aurora arriving.”

“I don’t mind taking the bus. And I’ll be back in plenty of time for Gramma.” He couldn’t go. If he did, I wouldn’t be able to use the crystals. “I’ll be fine. It’s a nice day. It should be packed.

“All right.” He broke into a contagious yawn. “Do you have your phone?”

My ears crackled as I yawned in response. “Yep.” The pull to crawl back under my covers and sleep the day away hit me at the front door. I dragged forward.

Each step down the porch of the old blue Victorian restored my energy and resolve. I ran across the street toward the Plaza Park, cutting through the center along one of the paths that circled the old adobe building and past the duck pond to the bus stop.

I swiped my bus pass and sat behind the driver to avoid the stronger smells of salami and red wine that tended to fill up in the rear of the wine country transit.

I needed my license. Hard to finish my practice hours when Dad freaks out every time I held the wheel. Mail delivery also takes him over the edge. He growls his way back into the house with the day’s mail.

My first sign we had money problems.

The bus stopped several times along the Napa Street, then zigzagged out to Arnold Drive, dropping off passengers at two wineries along the vine-covered roadway before my stop at the base of Jack London Road.

I adjusted my pack and started the uphill trek.

Summer had started out okay. I’d hung with new friends and practiced moving things with my mind. Then the nightmares restarted.

Late summer in Sonoma Valley wasn’t the time to be hiking alone in the warm dry-grass-covered mountains—home to rattlesnakes, Lyme disease carrying ticks, and the large cats that sneak closest when water becomes scarce.

But it was where Mom had left the message.  

I wasn’t winded when I made it one-mile to the tree-shaded entrance gate of the state park. By the time I climbed the dusty blackberry-lined Moonstone Path that wound through the thick trees to the top, I’d peeled off the sweatshirt and huffed from exertion and rattlesnake anxiety.

Mom’s rock, a large gray boulder, rested in the open meadow, covered with the names and dates of people who had made it to the top.

Dad and I had visited the spot several times. We’d sit and talk about Mom. I learned the details of her life that he remembered—she loved to read and could get a case of giggles that would last for hours.

We didn’t talk about how she’d visited this spot at seventeen and scratched a message into the rock for us. “Welcome home Drew and Jewel Anne.” She hadn’t met either of us.

Mom was a Changer. She knew I’d exist before she’d met Dad. In a crystal vision of the future, she knew that we would be alone and looking for a home.

Dad didn’t know we had powers. Let alone that mine were stronger.

I preferred to visit this spot alone. It helped me feel closer to Mom. And the closer I was to a place she’d touched, the stronger my powers over the collection of crystals she’d left me.

I examined the curls of eucalyptus bark scattered around the rock to ensure they were snake free. 

The trail behind me was empty.

No sound from any other hikers.

Mom’s crystal necklace, a teardrop with silver lacy wings, never left my neck. The others were stored to protect against unwanted visions.

I sat on the dry ground next to her message, hoping today my visions would sharpen to high definition. I’d seen the moments in Mom’s life when she’d been a young Changer. I’d witnessed how she’d met Dad. How they’d fallen in love.

I’d tried for months to see who drove the car that killed her. But the visions didn’t offer anything that I hadn’t seen repeatedly in my nightmares. I had a fresh idea to try today.

I leaned against the rock and focused on the zipper of the deep purple backpack. I created a mental link—a shiny silver thread visibly connecting the piece with my mind. I had the physical dexterity to open my pack with my hands. But telekinesis was the only cool power I possessed. 

Then I tugged.

The zipper ticked open, revealing a fluff of multi-colored fabric.

I refocused on a blue cloth and lifted it out of the pack in a slow spiral, to land on my open palm.

I uncovered the small crescent-shaped crystal moon and held it up by the attached fishing line. I gave it a spin, letting the facets sparkle in the light, then rested it on the cloth at my knees. I had used it to decorate my window—back when I thought it was merely a piece of glass.

I didn’t take those chances anymore.

I selected the next, Mom’s favorite; a brass dolphin set on a crystal wave. I angled to the left to ensure it rested in the shade of my body. Three crystals unattended could draw me into a random vision of the past.

Whether or not I wanted to go. 

Today was about the future as much as the past. I pulled out a ball of pink fabric and unwrapped a crystal doorknob.

Weird. But handy. If I held the knob as I went into a vision, I could direct what I wanted to see, like a joystick. Beulah, the wrinkly old woman from New Orleans who made them, was into recycling.

I made the last crystal wait.

Shaped like a tiny blazing campfire with points of crystals pointing out like flames, it held the power to show the future.

I’d used it once, last year.

Bad news.

I’d procrastinated using it again until today. It scared me to death.

Mom had used the same crystal during her three years as she was a Changer. It showed her I would be killed by a car.

She’d Changed my future. She’d lost hers.

I focused on the brown washcloth that covered the sharp points and used the mental thread to lift it out and rest it on the ground next to the others. I brushed off the cloth and it caught the light.

My peripheral vision blurred. 

I knocked the backpack over it and my mind cleared. I didn’t have to be gentle with this fragile-looking piece. I couldn’t break it if I tried.

And I’d tried.

If throwing it across my bedroom hadn’t broken it, smashing it with my backpack wouldn’t do any harm.

Sunlight cracked through the trees and warmed my legs. I turned to shade the pile.

I needed to start in the past to move forward.

I’d woken up with a thought that could change everything. It could be all about point of view.

I leaned against the rock, uncovered the crystals, and turned the doorknob. “What did Mom see before the car hit her?”

My stomach lurched. I fell into a swirling white mist that cleared, leaving a blur of green trees, and muddled brown grasses. My feet in two worlds; the feel of the rock cool on my shoulders though a wave of muggy heat broke through the full color vision of a New Orleans’ fall.

I looked down at the top of my nine-year-old head. I could feel Mom’s tight grip, sucking me into the vision as if I were there.

We stood at the curb. A hot breeze blew my ponytail across my shoulders. I pulled against her hand.

Mom used her outside voice—clipped and anxious. “Julie, you’ll never be too old to hold my hand when you cross the street.”

My fourth-grade self-disagreed, but she held tight. We entered the crosswalk. I tugged. I wanted to stay at the park. The dentist was our next stop and pretending I was still interested in the swings was my only plan.

Mom wasn’t an outdoor person. She loved to ride bikes and hike when I stayed with Gramma. Anytime I was with her, she preferred the inside.

She looked both ways. Twice. No cars from either direction. We walked into the crosswalk.

The car squealed around the corner. My heart leapt into my throat. I wanted to stop her. I could feel her touch. I knew what would happen.

There was no time.

Between the sound and impact—only a moment. That tiny piece of time that happens too fast to measure.

A burgundy blur. Long with a white top.

Sun glared off the windshield and blocked the driver’s face.

The vision cleared, dropping me into the present. I’d seen the car before, in my other attempts.

Everything had been the same.

Except the glare.

How could Mom have recognized the driver with the amount of glare in the way?

I tried again and again. Each time I managed to fall back into an exhausting display of Mom’s last moments, but no matter how I worded it, I couldn’t see who drove the car.

Twigs snapped at my left.

I covered the crystal and stood. The path was empty. The sound repeated. Two squirrels chased each other up a tree trunk.

Tomorrow I’d travel to New Orleans with Gramma. I’d find what I needed there.

I was a Changer.

I had the power.

I wanted control.