“I’ll see you around,” she said, but she wasn’t looking at me. Her focus was on the kitten, watching as it scurried behind the tree from which it had come. She seemed distracted, but finally turned to me and smiled. “See you at school, Matilda.”

I nodded and made my way back to my side of the porch. My mother had turned on the radio and was humming to the music. I wished she would sing louder. I wished she hadn’t brought us to live in a place that was so empty. I wished she could make it so that I didn’t have to hear the screams coming from the unit on the other side of the wall.

Therese

Therese turned the radio up louder, hoping to drown out the noise of the neighbors. She hated living so close to other people. She enjoyed her privacy and the fact she could hear the sound of muffled voices coming from next door made her angry. She wondered where Matilda was. Maybe she had gone off to explore. Maybe she needed some time to figure things out. Part of her wished she could have explained, but Matilda would not have understood.

In fact, no one would really understand, but Therese always followed her instincts, and no matter how angry Matilda appeared at the prospect of leaving Franny behind, she was not about to divulge to her twelve-year-old daughter why they were on the run. It was too difficult to explain how she knew about things, about people. In fact, she barely understood it herself since she was only six years old the first time it happened.

Sitting in the dentist’s chair, she watched his eyes dart back and forth across her face, and they reminded her of pebbles. Just as she was about to turn, a bolt of electricity pulsed up her wrists and around her elbows. She blinked as the energy buzzed warmly around her ears and wondered if this had ever happened to anyone else. He stared blankly back at her, seemingly unaware of what was going on.

It kept whizzing through her, oddly exhilarating, overwhelmingly revealing and luxuriously out of her control. After it was over, she replayed it in her mind and when it came time to leave, she kept her face down so that he would not see the reflection of his secrets in her eyes. He was too busy peeling off his plastic gloves to notice. Everyone was stunned two weeks later when he was arrested for beating his wife.

Everyone, except Therese.