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a water bottle or a very narrow vase.
    I sit back on my stool, wondering how this happened. I mean, I used to have so much control over my bowls. I knew exactly the way they’d turn out before I even began.
    Instead of letting it bother me, I decide to call it a day and add the finishing touch. On the surface of the bottle, for no other reason than I think it might look good— might provide an interesting contrast to the shape of the bottle—I use a carving knife to draw a pomegranate.
    I’m just about finished perfecting the starlike end of the stem, when I feel someone’s watching me. I turn around, startled to find Adam.
    “Hey,” he says, standing only a few feet away. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”
    “How long have you been standing there?”
    “Just a few seconds. What are you working on?”
    “Nothing much,” I say, about to turn back around. But that’s when I notice what’s in his hand.
    I see the pomegranate first. It adorns the front of his juice bottle, under a label that reads “Perfectly Pomegranate.”
    “Are you okay?” he asks, obviously noticing the confusion on my face.
    I look back at my sculpture—same bottle shape, same tubular ripples. Even the angle of the pomegranate is the same—the stem cocked to the right.
    He takes a sip from the bottle. Meanwhile, I hurry to cover my sculpture with some plastic.
    “Is something wrong?”
    “Where did you get that?” I ask, wondering if maybe I saw the bottle before, if maybe, subconsciously, it stuck somehow.
    “Where did I get what ?”
    “That bottle,” I demand. “Did you have it before, when you were standing by the doorway, when I first came in?”
    “Um, no,” he says, his eyebrows arched, like I’m full-on crazy. “I got it out of my bag just a second ago. Are you sure you’re all right?”
    I shake my head, feeling my face flash hot.
    “Do you want a sip?” He holds the bottle out as an offering, but I can’t even look at it now.
    “I want to get back to my work,” I mutter, feeling like an absolute freak—and knowing I must sound like one too.
    Finally Adam gets the message and turns away, leaving me alone.

10

    I end up coming straight home after Knead, determined to get to the bottom of things. I tear off my coat, drop my books to the floor, and rush to my computer. I start by Googling the word “psychometry,” recognizing some of the sites I’d visited when I first learned about Ben’s powers.
    Most of the sites say the same thing. People who have psychometric powers experience them in different ways. Some are able to touch an object and know where it’s been or what its history is. Others, like Ben, can touch a person or thing and get an image inside their head—an image that helps foretell the future.
    I navigate through a bunch of sites, learning more and more about psychometry—how some people, instead of getting a mental image, taste different flavors or imagine specific textures inside their mouths, all relevant to what they touch. And then there are those who hear things— like music, voices, and other sounds—whenever they touch something.
    I lean back in my chair, thinking how that’s sort of like what happened to me when I was in the basement, sculpting Ben’s arm, when I heard his voice calling out to me, leading me up into my bedroom.
    I spend another full hour reading everything I can, learning tidbits about how psychometric powers can be developed, but still unable to find the answer to what I’m really looking for: Can the power be transferred from person to person?
    I know it sounds completely crazy, and there’s absolutely nothing in these Web pages that even suggests such an occurrence. But how else do I explain what’s been going on?
    “Camelia?” my dad calls, knocking on my open bedroom door. “Dinner’s ready.”
    I swivel around to face him. “I’m not really hungry.”
    “Since when does hunger have anything to do with your mom’s cooking?”
    “You mean her not