Far Away: Prologue–Chapter 5

I may have been dealt a bad hand, being born to a mom who was going to die four hours later, but at least I got lucky enough to have an aunt who could communicate with her. A “medium,” that’s what most folks call her—because Aunt Nic can deliver messages from both sides.

Even after Aunt Nic got to be “big potatoes” on the psychic medium circuit, and she hired Oscar and Cyrus to travel with us for extra help, and we swapped our busted motor home for the new tour bus with the fancy shower so I didn’t need help washing my hair in the sink anymore—even after all that, Aunt Nic and my mom find time and pudding for my birthday.

“Because you are so loved, CJ Ames,” she told me as she coaxed my curls into perfect spirals, “so cherished, that it shows up on your very skin.”

"Hey!" I shout as the truck lurches to a stop.

“Today’s my birthday. And your uncle taught me stick, same as he taught you.” I pause. “Well, way better than he taught you, obviously. You’re not giving it enough clutch. You gotta press all the way to the floor.”

“The way you’re mutilating this truck, I’m surprised Cyrus hasn’t leapt out of his hospital bed in Toledo to rescue it already.”

“I know plenty of stuff. I do,” I say when he looks skeptical.

The sound equipment that Oscar unloaded is flat on the ground. Pieces of the mixing console are scattered across the parking lot.

I’ve got a photo of my mom beside my window, and a glowy bird lamp, and a shelf on the far wall with drawers for my clothes and knickknacks and atlas.

Then I haggled him down to one dollar.

“Welcome to our humble abode,” I greet him. That’s my joke with Aunt Nic, since the tour bus is so much fancier than our old motor home, with plush armchair driving seats, two flat-screen TVs, and a fridge so smart it announces when we’re low on ice cream.

The past few years we’ve been working bigger and bigger venues, so Aunt Nic doesn’t do house calls anymore.

It’s not frilly or fancy but sturdy and plain, with tiny stitches around every seam, and the leather is so soft that I can’t stop smoothing my hands over it.

Aunt Nic’s been so busy lately that it’s been eons since I’ve talked to my mom, and I have tons of questions stored up for her.

It’s an outfit. Bright-yellow skirt, short and pleated, made of thick, stiff material. Matching yellow blazer. Two identical button-down white shirts and a pair of yellow socks.

It’s a world-class institution. They have an enormous library. A beautiful atrium!

A deep inky-blue octopus with its legs splayed wide, one letter formed in each of its eight tentacles.

I had to poke an extra hole in the belt just to cinch it, because it was custom built for Cyrus, and he’s got at least a hundred pounds on me.

Then I say, '“Take heed’ means 'be careful,’ right? It’s, like, a warning?”
“More like 'pay attention.’”

“I bet it was some stuffy old lady with a crystal ball who stunk like Vicks VapoRub, am I right?”

Jax takes it all in with the camera, and the live feed transmits to the screen onstage, so that everyone can see and hear what the lady and Aunt Nic have to say. That was one of Cyrus’s innovations, when we started booking bigger venues, and it’s definitely made our whole operation seem more professional.

One of the women is so overwhelmed that another sister has to hold her up.

I tighten my jaw, thinking about families with whole houses of items to sift through.

Jax guesses my pick—a tree—in only five questions, then stumps me completely with Alexander Graham Bell.

“She’s a year and a half younger. She’s super annoying. At some point she decided I should pretend to be an ‘international pop sensation’”—he says the phrase like it’s a curse word—“because she thinks if she’s related to a famous person, she can cut in line at the Cinnabon.”

Gerald, who has obviously heard everything we’ve been saying, nods to his own rig across the way. “My truck’s nicer’n yours anyway,” he says. “So stealing this one wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense, economically speaking.”

When I turn back to him, he is waiting patiently for us to stop squabbling.

“Just ’cause we don’t know how to put air in tires doesn’t mean we’re imbeciles. It means we need help.”

Gerald hands me his pressure gauge, which is this tiny tool with a top shaped like a diving helmet, and he demonstrates how to attach it to each tire and let out just a hiss of air, so the gauge pops out and gives the reading.

As we crest the hill ahead, that’s when we see the accident.

“Men usually take longer to accept the presence of Spirit,” I say, mostly to Meg, because I can tell Grant doesn’t exactly want to talk to me. “Aunt Nic says that’s because women are naturally attuned to emotional frequencies.”

“This whole thing is some scam. This kid and her aunt scope out the biggest rubes, then she comes here to steal our—”

The upstairs hallway is painted beige, but the door Meg reaches for is bright purple. It even says ASHLYNNE on it, scrawled there in pink, from when their daughter was just a kid, I bet.

He pushes the album a little closer to me so I can see. It’s the old kind, with thin, filmy pockets for the photos to slide into.

“Right, but also… She was impetuous, your mother.”
“Impetuous?”
“Strong-willed. The kind of kid who’d steal a truck to drive two hours to lie to total strangers.”