Free Found by Stacey Wallace Benefiel

hand and press it to my belly button.
    The classroom is quiet, except for the sound of the plain, silver ring I wear on my left middle finger rattling against the desktop that I’m holding onto for dear life.
    And then I’m surrounded by people. Reed moves in front of me, gently tilting my face to meet his gaze. “Easy,” he soothes. Wyatt places his hand over my fist; Elle intertwines her fingers with mine, stopping them from shaking. “Easy,” Reed says again.
    The memories evaporate and return to their hiding place deep in my brain.
    “Class dismissed,” Christopher says from behind Reed. “I’ll go get Dr. Adams and tell her to meet you in Elle and Penny’s room.”
     
     
     
    Wyatt
     
    “I can stay,” I say to Penny, who is sitting on her bed. I’m weaving from foot to foot by the closet, feeling generally useless. Kai wraps the turquoise and gray comforter around her shoulders (which I should’ve thought of, but I’m a clueless moron), taking care not to touch her. Probably a wise idea since Reed stopped influencing her so she’d be straight to talk to Zellie and her expression is one of a cat about to pounce.
    “That’s okay,” she says, not looking at me; her fist back at her stomach. “Maybe Elle?”
    “Of course!” Elle nods emphatically, turning from her desk with an envelope in her hand. “I’ve just got to run to the bathroom real quick and I’ll be right back.” She catches my eye and gestures that I follow her.
    I open the door for Elle and duck out into the hall. “What’s up?”
    Elle folds the envelope into my palm. “When I touched Penny’s hand, I could see what she’d seen.”
    “Okay,” I say, shrugging. “That’s fairly standard, right?”
    She shakes her head. “No, not with memories from when you’re a little kid.”
    “What? That would mean -- ”
    “Yeah, that she’s been having visions since she was, like, three .” She crosses her arms over her chest and squeezes herself. “There’s more.”
    “What did you see, Elle?” I slip my finger under the flap on the yellowed envelope, the brittle glue flaking off against my knuckle. I take out the contents.
    The first is a photo printed on slick paper of a beautiful blond woman with light blue eyes, her hair pulled to the side in a ponytail, a smile on her face. She’s wearing a t-shirt with Browncoat printed on the front and she’s holding a plastic bottle of water in her hand.
    There are two more photos: a close-up of the woman and a handsome redheaded man, and another of the woman and a small girl eating ice cream cones, sitting on a bench at a waterfront park.
    Elle points to the pictures. “This is my mom.”
    I nod. “Of course it is. You look a lot like her.”
    “I know. Guess who else does?”
    I chew my lip, waiting.
    “Penny’s mom. The lady in her memory, which I’m convinced is a vision or I wouldn’t have been able to see it, could be my mom’s twin. But that’s not even the freakiest thing.” Elle takes a deep breath. “I was at Loren’s apartment. She was watching me for the evening, when my parents died in a fire at our house – bullets through their foreheads. Same way that Penny’s folks died. Now, there has been a photo of this Maud Lavoie lady hanging in my room at Loren’s since she became my guardian. She said it was one of the only things that could be salvaged from the fire.”
    “And Penny had a photo of her too?” I ask. “In her vision?”
    “Exactly.”
    “Can I hold onto this envelope for a bit?”
    “Sure. You’re thinking…”
    I slip the envelope into my backpack. “I’m thinking there are too many coincidences going on for me not to investigate. You and Penny could be related, not just to each other, but to Maud. And even more than that, it’s too weird that your parents died in the same way. Y’know, I always thought it was strange that you couldn’t see your mom and dad, that they went to the light before you were of an age where you could