Free Psyched by Juli Caldwell [fantasy]

Zinnia’s latest flirt fest. Vance hurried back with his digital camera.
    Aisi pulled a face and looked at it warily. “Is that thing going to beep at me, too?”
    “No,” Vance replied, once again Mr. Intensity as he switched it on. “What’s your mom’s name?”
    “Jorja, but why—”
    “Jorja!” he called, cutting her off. Jorja immediately came back out from the kitchen. As she approached, he reached toward a bank of light switches on the wall immediately behind where Aisi sat, but it looked and felt like he was putting his arm around her. She tried to act casual and not look completely confused.
    Aisi managed to catch his eye as he turned back around. “You and your cousin are pretty rude, you know. I have never been interrupted so much in all my—”
    “Did you call, boy?” Jorja asked as she approached their table. She looked a little smug as she continued. “I impressed you, didn’t I? You need me to look beyond this mundane world to give you the guidance you so desperately need.”
    “Kind of,” Vance replied. He smashed Aisi against the wall of the booth as he reached over to spank the light switches. The diner plunged into temporary darkness, disrupted by three quick flashes of light. Just as Zinnia and Colby shouted in confusion, the lights came on again. Aisi sat blinking in the momentary blindness that comes after someone takes your picture, made worse by the fact that he took it in pitch darkness.
    “What on earth did you just do?” Jorja asked, outraged.
    “I just wanted to take the picture of the woman who…uh…warned me about my future.” Vance smiled sweetly at Aisi’s indignant mother. Aisi had to give him props. Whatever he was up to, he knew how to sweet talk her mother, who gazed down at him with a look of affection she and Leo hardly ever saw anymore.
    “You are quite welcome, boy. Don’t forget to come visit me in my shop soon.”
    As Jorja left, Aisi turned her attention to the camera. Vance changed the setting to review pictures, explaining, “I have this camera set to photograph in the infrared spectrum. This is where we can actually see paranormal activity. The first here?” He indicated a completely black screen. “This is your mother. She’s not psychic.”
    “Well, duh. Just don’t tell her that,” Aisi warned. “She’s had enough disappointment in this life. I don’t think she needs any more.”
    Vance looked at her oddly, but ignored it and switched to the second picture. The image was mostly black, but a faint blue glow which Aisi recognized as her own profile sat in the center surrounded by vibrant splotches of red, orange, and yellow. They seemed to pulse and glow, even in the still image. The hair on the back of her neck stood up as she realized they were around her, the ghosts who always sought her. Her forehead wrinkled in concern. Why couldn’t she see them right now? It was a faint comfort, to have that connection with another realm, as if maybe one day she could…She stopped herself with a sigh.
    “And this next one? This is your dad.”
    He switched to the third image and they both said, “Whoa!” at the same time. Vance had pointed the camera at the open kitchen window, creating a black frame around the deeply white-blue, pulsating outline of her father standing in the center. All around him, a bright silvery light filled the background except where a little blue head popped into the picture. Leo must have peeked up at just the right moment to see why the lights went off. Aisi groaned.
    Vance flipped the camera off and turned to her. “Really? Your brother, too?”
     

Chapter 8 Picture on the Wall
     
    Aisi sighed. Her best friend didn’t even know her secret. She hadn’t told her father either since she was little, when no one believed her, so she stopped trying to tell him. Apart from Zinnia, she was closer to him than anyone else. She had absolutely no reason to trust some guy she’d known for maybe ten minutes.
    Her heart thudded