The Gray: Chapters 17–40

When I get back to Aunt Ruthie’s house, jazz is blaring, and she’s dancing in the kitchen.

After what happened with Jeremy, Dr. Winters even suggested I try martial arts as a way to learn how to control my body and my feelings more, to learn discipline.

“It’s the synagogue, but these days they can barely get a minyan.”
We don’t go to synagogue that often, so I don’t always know what all the words mean. She must sense this, because she says, “A minyan is when you have enough people to have services, and it was getting hard to find enough people, so the rabbi’s son, Nathan, started teaching martial arts to kids. Maybe some Jedi training would be good for you?”

My eyes stayed open. I could see everything, including the teachers coming to get me and placing me on pillows in the corner, but it was like they were just silvery figments surrounding me.

“Remember to keep your hands up and recoil your punches. Strong stance!”

It fumes there in the trees, snorting into the woods where I was just a moment before, then slowly meanders away.

I imagine Uncle Lou coming here, the deliberate way he’d place each wood carving.

She lifts her arms suddenly and spins, then puts heavy hands on my shoulders and says, “You were once wild. Don’t let them tame you.”

“We have lots of nature in the city—Central Park is huge!” I retort, and Ivy smiles.

“Yes! She had some of her students over, and we all lit the candles, and she made deep-fried potato pancakes. They were so good. I ate about a hundred of them.”
“Latkes,” I say.

“You know, before that I had never even heard of Jewish food or knew anything about the holidays at all. I remember your uncle always wore the little hat?”
“A yarmulke?”

A ley line...I don’t know, it’s like this supernatural path between places that carries energy from one mystical place to another.

Just like last time, we see Eli at the dock, his hair ruffled, his fishing rod steady in his hand, a bucket planted next to his heavy boots.

I hop off the bike and walk toward the dock, Ivy reluctantly following.

Eli reels in his hook and begins packing up.

“This,” Nate says, “is for when you are in a tough situation, and there is no getting away or peaceful solution, and you know you gotta do what you gotta do. Krav Maga is about using our natural reactions and being ready to change into a different mode quickly. To recognize the danger and adapt.”

I put my hands up because even if I won’t fight, I can at least try to keep myself from getting pummeled.

“We all need alone time.” I say it the exact same way my mom says it to me—a big emphasis on the word alone.

Then, just above the waterline, I see something I’ve never noticed before—a tiny trickle of water cascading down the Stone of Power.

She’s getting ready to tell me a story about magic or some ancient secret. I don’t know if I feel like hearing it all right now, but Aunt Ruthie is transfixed, the words bubbling from her like the water from the Stone.

When he saw that a trickle of water could change something as solid and stubborn as a stone, he knew he could change and do better, too.

If you were to blast a stone like this with a firehose in an attempt to change it, it would be in vain. The only change would be that the stone is wet. It’s the slow change, the trickle of water, that matters most.

Eli says something to her quietly, strokes her neck, then hops off the fence and we continue down the path.

I can feel the smell in my whole body—dirt, dust, and hay but also leathery saddles and old wood, but most of all, I smell the musky smell of the horses.

It’s hard work, and the horses watch me intently as I scrub the saddles until the soapy rags feel heavy as bricks and I can’t lift my arms anymore.

The one he calls a palomino in the stall next to him stretches out its long neck to steal a nibble of the hay.

There’s something enchanting about dreams. That place between sleep and wakefulness. Like our mind is strong but also vulnerable at the same time.

She tries to give me an old cap, one of Uncle Lou’s hats that has vibrant, multicolored fishing lures stuck all over it, but I don’t take it because it seems like all those hooks will get stuck in my head.

“Did you see the stag?” Her voice is shaky.
I nod. We watch the deer for a little bit.

We fall back, the fish frantically flopping around the dock.

I still feel the adrenaline coursing through my body, and I use it to keep up with Eli.

We stop at the barn, and this time Eli asks me to make sure that all the saddles on the racks have the right straps and cinches connected.

I bound down the stairs the next morning, not sure if I’ve overslept.

He holds a rope in his hand that’s attached to a loose-fitting halter.

I see the blinking dots that indicate he’s responding, and with a pop, a happy face and a thumbs-up light up the screen. Then the words slowly materialize: I hung out with Jeremy the other day.