The Extraordinaries

Chapter Two: Annie

Elise doesn't cry like the rest of us. Maybe I should have known just from that, that we were just beginners and she was full of it, this driving power. It's as if the tears are controlling her, doubling her over, making it so that she cannot hold herself the way she should. It would look, to an ordinary person, as if she was having some kind of breakdown.

It's only then that I'm able to see her as what she was to me before all of this: my friend. A sweet young girl with talent, with power, with the ability to see and feel and understand. I don't see the danger anymore, the power that sizzles beneath the surface of Elise's skin.

"Oh, honey," I find myself saying, and suddenly I am the Old Annie, the Annie of Yesterday. The girl I was just a day before, yet who is already becoming unfamiliar. I move to her, take her into my arms, and she buries her head in my chest, dampening my sweater. I don't mind. Her body is somehow warm, burning up with energy, like a fire. Like a light, a flame. And I am drawn to her.

Not the way she is drawn to me. I am drawn to her the way anyone is drawn to her, or to any of us.

She sniffles, wiping her nose against the back of her hand as she steps away. Her skin is red, rubbed raw from winter's chafing. We'll have to pick up lotion at the store once we arrive. I forget things like this, things I don't need with my skin, which stays clear and soft no matter what. There are many things Elise needs that I do not: special conditioner for her knotted hair, makeup and face cream and things that ordinary people use every day.

"I'm s-s-sorry, Annie," she stammers, and I almost scoff at her. She's a child, entirely a child. It doesn't make any sense that a child could have what Elise claims harbors itself inside her.

Could she have made it up?

But no. There's no reason to do that, to destroy us when we've already been ruined by what happened. I think of the way she told me last night, sitting up in the dark so suddenly I was sure she'd had a nightmare. The Conductors all get them, spinning terrors that haunt them behind closed eyes. I've only had a few, but I know what they can do to you, ripping and tearing at your soul so that you forget, for a moment, what you really are. I reached out to comfort her, hearing her sobbing through the hum of silence. But she pulled away, her whimpers wrenching themselves from her body. When my fingers touched her skin, I realized she was trembling- vibrating.

"No, Annie!" she shrieked, and then she silenced before she said anything more.

It was destroying Elise. I have to remember that.

"It's okay," I whisper. I'm lying, but it's what I have to do to keep things between us from shattering even further. "It's okay," I say again, trying to remember how the Singers would spin their voices into a kind of web that wrapped itself around you in an embrace, warming you up inside.

She turns away, facing the endless rows of hickory trees that rise into the grey sky like smokestakcs. Her hair is a mess, much worse than what she would be leaving the flat with. I would berate her for it, normally, remind her that our two-year age difference doesn't make me her caretaker, that she should be able to comb her hair herself. Today, though, I don't say anything. She took ages to come out of the bedroom and meet me, and I know she didn't want to bother going in front of the mirror today. I didn't go in front of the mirror, but that was only because my hair was all right without a brushing.

God. She's just as afraid as I am.

I was angry with her before, but it's all gone from me. This isn't just my problem, something I have to deal with: this is big and scary for Elise too, most likely more so. She doesn't want to have what she does.

At least, I hope she doesn't.

"It's not okay," Elise whispers. I almost don't hear her; that's how soft her voice is, and shaky. "If anyone sees me crying, they'll be worried. None of them... the ordinaries... none of them have ever seen it."