A Beautiful Dark

Don’t blow this.”
    My throat went dry, and I had to swallow before I could say, “I won’t.”
    I was supposed to meet Devin and Asher on the roof at three fifteen. How could I be in two places at once? I’d have to choose. I felt the color drain from my cheeks.
    “Skye.” Ms. Manning took her glasses off in concern and came around to my side of the desk. “Are you sure it’s not more than just leaving the ski team? Something I should know about? Family? Boy problems?”
    “Everything’s fine—I’ll be there,” I said. “I promise.”
    “I’m glad,” she said, a smile returning to her face. “You have so much potential, Skye. I see such great things for you one day.”
    “Thanks, Ms. Manning,” I said. Tears pricked my eyes. I wish I knew what I saw for myself. Right now, when I looked to the future, all I saw was a huge question mark.
    “Three fifteen, room four-oh-eight.”
    “Yep!”
    I turned to the door in a rush so she wouldn’t see the hint of tears glazing my eyes. Ms. Manning’s reflection in the glass window of the door stared after me in concern.
    If only she knew.
    At three ten, I stood at my locker, putting the last of my heavy textbooks away for the night. I looked down the hall as it began to empty out, closed my locker, and sighed.
    Ms. Manning was waiting for me when I got to room 408.
    “Skye,” she said, “I placed the assignment on that desk by the window. You’ll have one hour from the time you start. I’ll be here if you have any questions.” She took her seat behind the desk at the front of the room.
    I walked across the classroom to the desk she’d motioned to. An essay assignment was typed neatly at the top of the page. I sat down, took out a pencil, and began.
    Knowing that I was supposed to be up on the roof, I felt strange sitting there in the silent classroom as my pencil scratched across the paper in front of me.
    It almost felt as if school shouldn’t count anymore. And yet here I was, working on an extra-credit assignment.
    My mind wandered to all the strange things I’d caused seemingly by accident. The thermostat. The school bus heater. The boiler exploding at Love the Bean. The avalanche.
    Of course, none of these incidents had been confirmed as initiated by me, but I couldn’t help but believe they were. And if they were, could I do it on purpose? Could I harness my powers, whatever they were, and make these things happen? Now that there was quiet, and Devin and Asher weren’t breathing down my neck urging me to try harder, I wondered if it might not be so hard after all.
    I focused on the radiator under the window. Ms. Manning was absorbed in grading papers at the front of the classroom, tapping her pen absently against the wire frame of her glasses.
    I stared at the radiator, letting every single emotion from the past few weeks flow through me. My mind flashed to Devin trying to instruct me. Sitting next to Asher on the roof, our breath rising in clouds toward the stars, our shoulders barely touching. My cheek against his rough jacket. Then the liberating snowmobile ride, the way he always seemed to know what I was feeling. I had the vague feeling that thinking about Asher in this way was verging on dangerous territory. He wasn’t human . He wasn’t even from this world. Was falling in love with a Rebel against the sanctions they’d just been teaching me? Would it be as punishable as what my parents had done? I knew nothing about who Asher really was, even though he seemed to know lots about me. Did he think about me as often as I thought about him? My palms got sweaty, and I could feel myself burning up. But I kept focusing, channeling everything through me and at the radiator. And then, all of a sudden, I smelled something.
    Smoke.
    A small trickle of smoke roped through the vents of the radiator. My heart pounded.
    I couldn’t see any fire, but I knew it must be there somewhere. I stared harder. The wisp bloomed from the slats of the radiator into a beautiful flower of smoke. I stared, a smile forming on my lips.
    I did this.
    “What’s that smell?” Ms. Manning asked, looking up from her papers, and then said, “Jesus,” as she saw the smoke, jumped up from the desk, and spilled the stack of tests to the ground. The sprinkler system in the ceiling turned on, and water began to spray everywhere.
    “Oh, damn!” she cried, bending to gather the papers to her. I looked up—just in time to catch Asher’s wicked grin hanging upside