Now You See Me

CHAPTER ONE

‘TRACEY!’

Her mother’s voice rang out loud and clear from the kitchen. Curled up with a book on the living room sofa, Tracey responded.

‘What?’

‘Tracey! Have you seen my handbag?’

Tracey raised her eyes from the page and surveyed the room.

‘It’s under the coffee table,’ she called back.

‘Tracey!’ Now her mother sounded annoyed. ‘Tracey, answer me!’

Tracey frowned. Was her mother developing a hearing problem? She was about to yell back even louder when the front door opened and her father came in and walked right past Tracey without even greeting her. That was when Tracey realized that sometime in the past half-hour, she’d gone invisible.

She wished she could understand how and why this had happened. It used to be so simple. Years of feeling unimportant and not worthy of attention had caused her to go invisible on a regular basis. She didn’t feel that way about herself any more, but occasionally she could make herself go invisible by recalling how she used to feel. It wasn’t always a reliable process, but she’d been getting better and better at controlling her gift. Still, every now and then it just happened — she would disappear, and she wasn’t sure why. Maybe this time it was caused by the book she’d been reading, Jane Eyre. The character of Jane had just been sent away to a nasty boarding school, and she was lonely. Maybe Tracey was simply feeling sad for the character. .

Her father had gone into the kitchen and she could hear her parents’ conversation.

‘Have you seen my handbag?’ her mother asked.

‘No, did you lose it?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think so — I had it this morning. But I’ve looked all over the house! The seven are at their swimming class, I have to pick them up in ten minutes, and I can’t find my bag!’

So that was why the house was so quiet, Tracey mused. Her little sisters, the identical septuplets collectively known as the ‘Devon Seven’, weren’t at home.

‘What am I going to do?’ her mother wailed. She sounded on the verge of hysteria, which didn’t really alarm Tracey. Mrs Devon had a tendency to become terribly dramatic very easily.

Reluctantly, Tracey put her book down. Come back, she ordered herself. But of course, it wasn’t that easy. She concentrated on feeling good about herself. People pay attention to me, my parents care about me, I’ve got friends. It didn’t work — she was still invisible. She really had to work harder on controlling her gift, practise more, learn how to concentrate harder. But meanwhile, her mother needed her handbag.

Tracey got up, retrieved the handbag from under the coffee table, and ambled into the kitchen. Her mother was still ranting.

‘My car keys are in the bag! How can I pick the girls up without car keys?’

‘Take my car,’ Mr Devon suggested.

‘But my driver’s licence is in my bag! I can’t drive without a licence!’

Tracey planted herself in front of her mother and dangled the bag in the air. Her mother didn’t blink.

‘Where did I leave that bag?’ she fretted.

Tracey hadn’t been thinking. Of course, if she was invisible, and the bag was in her hands, the bag was invisible too. She dropped the bag on to the kitchen counter.

‘Isn’t that your bag?’ her father asked.

Mrs Devon turned, and gasped. ‘It wasn’t there two seconds ago!’ Then she shrieked. That was when Tracey realized she had become visible again.

This wasn’t the first time she’d suddenly appeared in front of her parents, and her parents knew about her so-called ‘gift’, but her mother couldn’t get used to it.

‘Tracey, don’t do that!’ she cried out.

‘Sorry, Mom, I didn’t mean to scare you.’ Tracey glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘I gotta go — I’m meeting Jenna and Emily at the mall. I’ll be home before dinner.’

‘But will we actually see you later?’ her father wanted to know.

Tracey just grinned and took off. She was heading to the big mall, not the one across from their school, so she had to take a bus. She supposed she could have asked her mother to drop her off on the way to pick up the seven, but she wasn’t in the mood to listen to her go on and on about her disappearing act. She had to admit, though, it was kind of nice hearing her parents express a desire to see her. There was a time when that hadn’t been the case at all.

Thank goodness she was meeting two friends from her Gifted class, where every student had an unusual skill. Even though their abilities were different, they had some of the same problems. She didn’t have to explain or apologize with them.

Jenna Kelley and Emily Sanders were waiting for her at their usual meeting place, in front of the bookstore. They made an unlikely pair, Tracey thought as she approached them. Jenna was a goth goddess — black spiky hair with a long fringe that gave her a witchy look. Pale complexion, eyes circled in black kohl, purple lips and a variety of piercings. Black skinny jeans and a black T-shirt with white letters that read ‘Stay Out Of My Way’. If you didn’t know her, you might think she was dangerous.

Emily’s plain long brown hair, soft dreamy expression and unmade-up face made her look at least three years younger than her fourteen years. Her jeans were baggy, and her T-shirt was a washed-out pale blue.

And how would Tracey herself fit into the odd combo? As she passed a shop, she glanced at her own reflection in the window and caught a glimpse of a small, slender girl with blonde hair that skimmed her shoulders. Not a lot of make-up — just a little green liner to make her pale eyes sparkle, and a wash of pink gloss on her lips. It was still a pleasant surprise to see how much better she looked now than she used to. Lately, she was happy just to be able to see herself at all.

Her friends were pleased to see her too, though Jenna glanced pointedly at her watch.

‘You’re five minutes late,’ she declared.

Tracey grinned. ‘Just be glad I’m here at all. I disappeared for a while today.’

‘Without trying?’ Emily asked.

Tracey nodded. ‘Yeah. It was kind of freaky. Of course, I wasn’t as freaked out as my mother was when I reappeared right in front of her. She practically fainted!’

Jenna made a ‘humph’ sound. ‘Serves her right. The way she’s treated you, she deserves to be freaked out.’

Tracey brushed that aside. ‘That’s all in the past, Jenna. And look on the bright side. If my parents hadn’t ignored me all those years, I might never have developed my gift.’

‘But it still wasn’t nice, the way they behaved,’ Emily murmured.

She was right, Tracey thought. The Devons had been normal, attentive parents to her when she was very young. But something happened when she turned eight. That was the year the Devon Seven were born.

They weren’t the first septuplets in the world, but they were the first identical set of seven girls. Her family became famous, and Tracey could remember being just as excited as everyone else about the remarkable birth of her sisters. But then things changed.

She supposed it was normal for her parents to become completely preoccupied with the newborn girls. But was it normal for them to completely forget their oldest child?

It wasn’t like those terrible stories of child abuse you read about in newspapers. They didn’t yell at Tracey, or hit her, or refuse to give her food. It was more like Tracey just wasn’t there any more, like she’d ceased to exist. And Tracey found herself responding by simply fading away.

At first, it was just in her mind — it was her own attitude that made her feel ‘invisible’ to people outside her own family. If she didn’t deserve attention at home, why should she expect anyone else to notice her? That was the kind of vibe she gave off, and people reacted by not giving her any consideration. At school, teachers never called on her. On the street, people would bump into her and then look surprised, as if they hadn’t realized anyone was there. In shops, she couldn’t get a salesperson to wait on her.

It got worse and worse. Since no one seemed to care about her, she stopped caring for herself. And as bizarre as it sounded, it seemed inevitable that she would become physically, as well as emotionally, invisible.

But all that had changed. Tracey had learned to assert herself and demand the attention she deserved as a human being. She could still disappear, sometimes on purpose, but she didn’t have complete control over her gift. Neither did Emily or Jenna, but they were all learning more and more about what they could do. Emily had learned how to examine her visions of the future, so she could understand what she was actually seeing. As for Jenna. .

‘Read any interesting minds lately?’ Tracey asked her as they strolled through the mall.

‘Nothing worth talking about,’ Jenna said. ‘But I was thinking, the other day — you know what would be cool? If I could hang out at police stations and check out all the people who are arrested, and tell the cops whether or not they really committed any crimes. Or go to trials and read the minds of the defendants. I’d be able to tell the judge if they were guilty or not, and they wouldn’t even need a jury.’

‘Dream on,’ Tracey commented. ‘You think the judge would believe you?’

‘And since when do you want to help police officers?’ Emily wanted to know. ‘You’re always saying you don’t like cops.’

‘And even if the police believed you, Madame would kill you,’ Tracey added.

Jenna made an elaborate ‘who cares’ gesture. ‘Big deal.’

Tracey and Emily exchanged knowing glances. Jenna liked to act tough, as if she wasn’t scared of anything or anyone, but her friends knew better. All the students in the Gifted class had a healthy respect for Madame. She was one of the few people they could totally trust with the knowledge of their gifts, and the only one who really understood the gifts and what they meant.

Madame was always telling them to keep their gifts secret, and for good reason. They’d all had experiences with some real low-life types who wanted to use their abilities for less-than-noble purposes.

Jenna glared at them both. ‘I know what you’re thinking.’

Emily gave her a reproving look. ‘Jenna, you’re not supposed to try to read our minds.’

‘Didn’t have to,’ Jenna declared. ‘It’s all over your faces — you think I’m showing off. But I’m telling you, I don’t care what Madame thinks.’

‘And you’ll never know, will you?’ Tracey said. ‘You can’t read Madame’s mind, right?’

‘Not if she knows I’m around,’ Jenna replied. ‘You know, I’ve finally figured out why some people are a total blank to me. If they know what I can do, they can figure out how to block their thoughts from me. That’s why I could never read my mother’s mind. She always knew about me.’ She sighed. ‘I used to think it was because we’re related. And I thought that was why I couldn’t read that — that man’s mind. Because I believed he was my father.’

Tracey knew who she was talking about. A man had turned up one day over a month ago and claimed he was Jenna’s long-lost father. At first she believed him, and she was thrilled. But he wasn’t her father; he was no relation to her at all. Somehow, he’d learned about her gift. And all he really wanted was for Jenna to read minds for him so he could win at poker.

‘He knew what you could do so he blocked you,’ Emily said.

Jenna nodded. ‘What I always wondered was, how did he find out about me?’

Neither Tracey nor Emily could answer that. And Tracey was more interested in learning something else.

‘So, how do we block you?’

Jenna grinned. ‘You’ll have to figure that out for yourselves.’

‘It’s easy,’ Emily informed Tracey. ‘I’ve been practising. You get the feeling she’s poking around in your head and you just shut her out. It’s like an instinct or something.’

Jenna gave her a sour look. ‘Thanks a lot. I don’t care, anyway. I mean, it’s not like you two ever think about anything worth hearing.’

‘That’s right,’ Tracey said cheerfully. ‘Besides, we always end up telling each other what we’re thinking.’

‘That’s true,’ Emily noted. And even Jenna had to agree with that.

Tracey agreed too, and she felt pretty good about it. It was nice having friends she could be so open with, friends who understood what you were all about. Their parents knew about their special talents, but they couldn’t really understand, since they didn’t have these gifts themselves. That was what made the Gifted class so special. They could talk freely about their abilities and everyone could relate to them. They could be appreciated and respected by each other.

OK, maybe ‘everyone’ was an exaggeration. Tracey spotted someone just a short distance in front of them who’d never expressed much appreciation or respect for any of her classmates.

Jenna saw her too, and groaned. ‘Uh-oh, watch out. The Evil Queen and her Evilettes are here.’

Amanda Beeson was looking into the window of a new boutique, Apparel, with her pals Nina and Britney.

‘Gee, from a distance, they almost look like human beings,’ Jenna commented.

‘Oh, come on, Jenna, they’re not that bad,’ Tracey remonstrated. ‘OK, Nina and Britney are pretty snotty, but Amanda can be OK sometimes.’

‘Yeah? Like when?’

Tracey turned to Emily. ‘Don’t forget, she was the one who saved you when you were trapped in the closet at school with that awful Serena. Remember?’

Emily shuddered. ‘I’m not likely to forget that. But it wasn’t Amanda who burst into the closet, it was you.’

Tracey shook her head. ‘Amanda had taken over my body, and she was in control. So it was really her.’

‘Oh yeah, that’s right,’ Emily murmured.

‘I don’t care, I think she’s positively despicable,’ Jenna declared. ‘She didn’t do a thing to help Ken in that seance scam, remember?’

It was less than two weeks ago, so Tracey wasn’t likely to have forgotten the event already — they’d been discussing it ever since. Ken’s so-called ‘gift’ was the ability to communicate with dead people. Looking for someone who might understand what he could do, he’d got involved with a fake medium. Amanda had taken over the body of another seance participant. Amanda could only do this when she felt sorry for someone, so this woman must have seemed pretty sad. But even when Amanda learned that the participant was the medium’s partner-in-crime, she’d done nothing to stop the scam from moving on.

‘That was pretty weird,’ Tracey admitted. ‘Especially because I always thought Amanda was into Ken.’

‘Amanda is into Amanda,’ Jenna declared. ‘It must have been really horrible for you, having Amanda in your head.’

‘I don’t know,’ Tracey answered honestly. ‘I don’t remember anything. It’s like I was asleep.’

‘She’d better not ever try to take over my body,’ Jenna declared.

‘I doubt that could happen,’ Emily said. ‘She has to feel sorry for someone before she can take over their body. Why would she ever feel sorry for you?’

‘Because I can’t afford the clothes in Apparel,’ Jenna replied. ‘Not that I’d ever want any of them. And you know what? I don’t buy that business, about Amanda feeling sorry for people. She’s a selfish snob and she never thinks about anyone but herself.’

‘That’s not true,’ Tracey said. ‘When she had my body, she did a lot for me. She got my parents to pay attention to me. She bought me decent clothes, she got me a haircut. .’

Jenna snorted. ‘Only because she was afraid she’d be stuck being you for ever.’

Tracey wasn’t so sure about that. Even though she hadn’t been aware of Amanda’s intentions when Amanda was inhabiting her body, she couldn’t help feeling the girl might have had some kind motives. She was about to tell Jenna this when she noticed that Jenna was staring at Amanda in a particular way that Tracey recognized.

‘Are you reading her mind?’ Tracey asked.

‘Yeah, she’s thinking about trying on the skirt in the window. Thrilling, huh?’ But then her expression changed. ‘Whoa, wait a second.’

‘What is it?’ Emily asked.

‘She’s got a secret. It’s. . it’s something to do with, with. .’ she squinted in her effort to concentrate. Then her eyes widened in surprise. ‘She’s thinking about Mr Jackson!’

Tracey was startled. ‘As in Principal Jackson?’

‘What kind of secret could she have about Mr Jackson?’ Emily wanted to know.

They weren’t going to find out — at least, not that day. Amanda spotted them.

‘Damn, she’s learned how to block me too,’ Jenna muttered.

Tracey laughed. ‘What did you think she’d do? “Hi, Jenna, welcome to my private thoughts.”’ She smiled at Amanda, but all she got back was a blink of recognition before Amanda moved hurriedly away, with Nina and Britney at her heels.

‘She really is a snob,’ Emily remarked. ‘She won’t even speak to us.’

‘It’s just because she’s with her friends,’ Tracey said. ‘She knows Nina would say something nasty to us. I think she’s trying to protect us from being insulted.’

Both Jenna and Emily gazed at her as if she was out of her mind.

‘Why are you always defending her?’ Jenna asked.

‘I don’t know.’ Tracey sighed. ‘I guess I can’t help thinking there’s something good in Amanda.’ The expressions of disbelief on her friends’ faces remained intact, so she changed the subject.

She turned to Emily. ‘Got any predictions to make?’

‘About what?’ Emily asked.

‘Anything.’

‘It doesn’t work like that,’ Emily said. ‘I have to be thinking about something in particular.’

‘Think about me,’ Jenna suggested. ‘Is anything interesting going to happen to me this week?’

Obediently, Emily looked at Jenna in that peculiarly dreamy way she took on when she was trying to get an image of the future. Her eyes glazed over.

‘Well?’ Jenna asked impatiently. ‘Can you see me?’

‘Yes.’ Emily’s brow furrowed. ‘With. . with a knife in your hand.’

‘Good grief!’ Tracey exclaimed. ‘Is she pointing it at someone?’

‘No. She’s just holding a knife.’

Tracey looked at Jenna worriedly. After all, her friend did have a reputation. When she’d first come to Meadowbrook straight from some sort of place for delinquent teens, she’d been observed with trepidation by students and teachers.

Jenna just shrugged. ‘That makes sense.’

‘It does?’ Emily asked. Now she was looking nervously at Jenna too.

Jenna nodded. ‘I’m fixing dinner tonight, and I’m making tuna salad. I’ll be chopping onions, celery, carrots. . yeah, I guess I’ll be holding a knife for at least half an hour.’

Tracey immediately felt guilty for having even considered that Jenna might be planning to do something criminal with a knife. Jenna didn’t hang with gangs any more, and even though she retained her tough-girl demeanour, she hadn’t been in any serious trouble. Tracey was absolutely, positively, no-doubt-about-it certain that Jenna had completely reformed.

Still, it was reassuring to know that Jenna’s knife would be used for strictly non-violent purposes.