I placed my hand on one of the dying plants on my windowsill, hoping for it to grow but expecting it to stay the same. I trimmed the roots and deprived them of water for several days and already a leaf or two started to yellow. Neither of my predictions came true. Instead, all the leaves wilted, the flowers browned, its stalk shriveled, and then the plant died. Horrified, I withdrew my hand and stared at my palm. My family's Gift to heal wasn't supposed to work this way. I saw my brother use The Gift to close up a gunshot wound. My sister reattached a man's arm with full functionality. My mother cured a man of cancer once.
Maybe it's just a fluke, I thought, just a weird unexplainable fluke. I put my palm onto another plant, and again it died. As did the next one, and the next one after that, until every single plant on my windowsill was dead. Terrified, I grabbed all the pots and ran downstairs hoping to dispose of them before anyone noticed. I'd just tell them that all the plants died. My family knew that I hadn't been watering them. Or maybe I just left them in the sun too long. And, most importantly, I'd never, ever use The Gift again.
As I turned the corner I ran right into my mother, spilling potting soil all over her and the floor. The brown clashed sharply with her orange scrubs and the white carpeting. "Oh, honey, you really shouldn't run in the house like that," she said, wiping a hand across her dirtied shirt. "What is this stuff that you were carrying?" She looked at the dirt on her hand, then to the pots scattered on the floor. "Were these the plants in your room?"
Quickly I shook my head. "Umm, no," I stammered, searching quickly for something, anything I could say. "No, just dirt I was taking downstairs." I tried to force a smile, to hold back the tears knowing the disappointment, and shame, and fear that would consume my mom if she figured me out.
Mom knelt down and reached into the dirt. I knew she was mad and I would spend hours scrubbing the floor clean after I got home from school. Her hand emerged with something brown and stringy between her fingers. She held it in front of her confused face, then lay it aside. She shifted through the rest of the soil and pulled out the remaining dead plants one by one. When she finished, seven of them lay in a row. Their brown decay contrasted with the bright white carpet. Her chest heaved and a bead of sweat started to run down the side of her face. "The Mercy," she said barely loud enough to qualify as a whisper.
"Mom, I can explain," I started before she cut me off.
"No. Go to the couch and wait for me there. You'll come with me today," she said before walking up the rest of the stairs to her bedroom.
"But what about school?" I said.
"I'll write you a note," she shouted from the top of the stairs, "now wait on the couch."
In a matter of moments, mom changed from one set of scrubs to another, these ones dark blue with the word "STAFF" printed in block letters on the back.
We got into her car and she started driving in the opposite direction of the school. She didn't say a word the entire time, and I thought it best not to speak either. Perhaps she was taking me to see someone who could cure me. Another doctor that could fix me. When I saw the jail looming up ahead, I figured it out. She would have me incarcerated so I could never hurt anyone with my powers. Or maybe she would have me kill an inmate like some sort of child assassin.
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