Extraordinary by Amanda McGee Page B

was pregnant with me and I was around while she was pregnant with you.”
    “Right, so since you are the only one that was with both of us you got a little dose of magic activation.”
    “So, I’ve got residual magic? Not all but some? What are we saying? Are you hearing this?”
    Days before thoughts like this would have been dismissed as fictional absurdity but if magic was real then the belief that an unborn baby could have an effect on the outside world was not a stretch.
    “I think I may go deaf from the loud thoughts in my head,” I said. “I was an over-thinker before but now half of my thoughts aren’t even logical.”
    “This is our life now, Alex. Get used to it.”
    “Sadie!” I screamed.
    A truck sped through the intersection and crashed into the passenger side of my car. We skidded into the grass on the opposite side of the intersection. Tires squealed and metal twisted as if the two cars were becoming one. Glass shattered across my face and body, my head slammed into the panel between the front and back windows.
    Sadie cried in pain and I could sense the fear growing inside her. The sound of her calling out to me cut deeper than the glass that had slashed through my arms and legs. I was helpless. I could not save her.
    Blood began to stream down my right cheek. I lifted my hand to cover the bleeding but the darkness closed in around me until there was nothing but silence.
    “Alex, what’s wrong?”
    My eyes opened and my brain registered that there was no damage to the car or me. Several yards in front of us, we were approaching the intersection where I’d imagined the accident taking place.
    “Sadie, stop!”
    Sadie slammed on the brakes with no hesitation. Seconds later, a truck sped through the intersection, never attempting to stop.
    My apparition had saved us.
    Sadie clutched her chest, wide-eyed and breathless.
    “How did you know? I didn’t even see him!”
    I couldn’t think of what to say because I had the same questions.
    How did I see the accident before it happened? It felt so real—the truck slamming into my side of the car, the throbbing in my head, the gashes on my face and arms. Sadie’s fear radiated within me as if it were my own.
    But it wasn’t real.
    “Alex! What just happened?”
    Sadie grabbed my arm and shook me. I could sense her hand, and my body reacted to her frantic push and pull, yet, inside, I was paralyzed.
    How is this possible? Another power? Why is this happening now? We could have been seriously hurt!
    My thoughts raced but my heart held onto the unforgettable terror. My own worries had been clumped together with Sadie’s. I had two sets of frightened emotions to sift through.
    I do not want this. I certainly don’t need it. This is too much.
    “Alex!” Sadie screamed.
    “I—I saw it,” I said. “Not really saw, well, yeah I saw that truck slam into us.”
    “But you weren’t asleep this time,” she said as we idled in the middle of the road.
    “It was just…so…real.”
    How will I survive this?
     
     
     
    ****
     
     
     
    Chapter Six
     
    “One day you will know. Try to understand.”
    When Mom spoke these words, the last words she ever uttered, she was weak and in severe pain. At the time I did not recognize her plea and, quite frankly, it had managed to go unnoticed. Now, her meaning was devastatingly clear.
    With each revelation, the need for more information on what was happening and what to expect began to overpower Sadie and me. Searching for information on something you never knew to exist and was a struggle to believe, yet it had been dictating your entire life was not likely to be found scribbled on notepaper in a kitchen drawer.
    So Sadie and I decided the attic was the logical place to start.
    Though I experienced some guilt reading Mom’s journal, plundering through the attic evoked little to no remorse on my part.
    “Clearly all bets are off for leading a normal life,” I said, standing knee-deep in papers and