A Tap on the Forehead
by Frederick Gero Heimbach
I met Jane at Melvin’s by the southern, less inaccessible, end of the lake. Jane called it the “local” grocery, but some customers drive an hour. It’s got one brand of everything and anything that isn’t dry is frozen.
Jane had bought the groceries by the time I arrived, six big paper bags, on the assumption I’d show up when I said. Considering the stakes, a safe assumption.
“Why are you doing this?” I wanted to know. Her bringing me in was an act of betrayal. “Why are you helping me get to him?” I amended, self-blaming so she would do the same.
Jane unsubtly bugged out her eyes and tilted her head toward the greasy clerk behind the counter, head down, phone in hand, his thumb forever swiping upward. Jane scooped three bags into a bosom fighting a multi-decade war against gravity. Not that I’m doing much better. I hefted the rest of the burden, something Swiper over there wasn’t paid to do. Together, we loaded the bags into my pickup.
Engine heat from my two-hour drive was melting the huge flakes as they touched the hood. This being late November, permafrost had formed on the floor of the cab and would not dry up until April. I’ve lived in this state my whole life and I know.
I started the engine. Jane had already given me the address. She had warned Will, casually as she described it, that someone different would make this week’s grocery delivery. It wasn’t exactly safe for me to show up unannounced. Toward the end, before he had disappeared, Will had become violent. Jane said he kept a shotgun by the door.
The door of his cabin at the northern, more inaccessible, end of the lake.
“To answer your question,” said Jane, sliding into my pickup uninvited, banging the door, talking too loudly, “that question you shouldn’t have asked me in there—” Again she tilted her head. I saw the clerk staring at us out the window with porn-curdled eyes, curious, maybe, because he had just witnessed the simultaneous arrival of two customers—something that only happened once in a blue moon.
Blue moon. There’s an expression gone out of date.
“—the reason is—”
Jane paused. Climbing into my high truck had left her short of breath. I smelled the stale smoke that had followed her in, heard the stale smoke in her raspy voice. “—is because, honestly, Will’s a mess.”
So. Jane had a nurturing heart.
“And, I figure, you know, you were the one who—well, they say, there’s a history.”
Jane was being diplomatic.
“Yep, there’s a history,” I said.
“Hm. You got a map, I guess.”
“I do.” It was already loaded on my phone. Cellular service would fail at some point in the next half hour.
“Good luck.” Jane had a way of making it sound like a curse. Will had been a sensitive boy, back in that year when I had known him, a boy easily startled by loud, aggressive people—people like Jane. I wondered why he tolerated her.
Probably no choice. “Good luck to you, to everybody.” Jane’s smile was as big as she was.
We didn’t discuss terms. Jane had tried to entice me with half the reward, first time she contacted me. I had let her know I didn’t care about the money.
“Just curious,” I said, procrastinating. “You could have gone to the press on your own.”
“Rat him out, you mean?”
“I wasn’t—no offence, but, you did ‘rat him out’ to me.” My air quotes whittled the sharp edges off the words.
“You’re different. You’ve got a shot at breaking the ice. You say you don’t want the money. Well, neither do I. Seriously. I only want the tap on the forehead. You bring him out of retirement, I’ll be first in line.” Not one for ambiguity, Jane put three fingers together and jabbed them at me, a bird’s beak, the way everybody had seen Will do in the videos, tapping people’s foreheads, thousands of them, amid the cheers of adoring fans.
Will was one of the Seven.
“Has he opened up to you?” I asked. “Does he, you know, talk?”
“Talk?” Jane said, withdrawing her fingers. “No, no. He never talks. Not hardly ever. No.”
That was it. Faster than her age and weight should have allowed, Jane was out of the truck and trudging toward her ride, an EcoSport with a cracked headlight.
As Jane disappeared into the swirling white, I swapped in boxes of low-carb spaghetti for the normal stuff in the bags. I drove north.
Cracking the glass. Breaking the ice. Melting the frosty heart. The symbolism was everywhere, as the road curved close to frozen patches on the lake, in the frigid wind herding snow into little whirlpools. The pickup sashayed left and right along the dirt roads, enough to turn the jugs of milk into butter if they hadn’t been that skim crap. The farther north you go, the less they keep the roads looking like roads. Unlivable, and yet I keep living. Like a marriage. Nobody lives on the north side. Some people like nobody.
Dark came early. I couldn’t see the moon, but it gave a pink tint to the clouds. Changing the color of the moon: Frances’ power. Pink was the most requested color. Any pastel is allowed; darker colors, like the blood red they tried for one month, are avoided. Experts say a moon too dark screws up nature, the balance between predators and prey. Owls got to eat. Frances doesn’t care one way or another, since there’s not much money in it. Not monetizable. Just a stupid trick, like most of the Seven. Though not all; definitely not all.
Seeing yourself as others see you: Miriam’s power. Second most useless. Well, no; it’s hecka useful. Problem is, nobody wants that kind of useful.
The five-minute reset: real useful, mind-blowing useful, monetizable as all get out. Marco’s power. Not handed out to ordinary people. Marco’s close friends, those in his “posse”, the rich, the beautiful, or the entertaining: they can get the reset. A decadent bunch doing terrible things, we figure, for the thrill of it, then asking their friend Marco to send them back in time to undo the consequences.
And four others: Will, Akin, Sarah, Bill. Each with their own weird magic.
By the time the drive ended, the snow was pretty bad. It was piling up on the lee side of Will’s cabin; the wellhead by the porch had its own small drift.
I sat there, dreading it. The windows of the cabin were cold and lifeless.
I honked. The porch light came on. I got out. I hugged three bags and trudged up the narrow porch.
He opened the door to let himself out, not to let me in. He said nothing as he went to fetch his share.
There was a shotgun behind the door, but it was no big deal. There was a kitchen area in the dim corner. The minimal counter space was cluttered with empty boxes of microwaveable burritos. As I hesitated, he was back inside the cabin, closing the door with his heel. “The floor,” he said, then showed me what he meant by setting his bags to one side of the fridge. Electricity, I thought. A generator. It was something I hadn’t known for sure. Warmth came from an antique heater running off propane. Its blue flame was useless for seeing.
I lingered while Will put things away.
“Well,” he said. “Thanks.”
I nodded, not moving.
“I guess I’ll be seeing Jane next time.”
I didn’t move.
“If you want a tip, I don’t have any. Jane never—”
“It’s not a tip I want.”
He was still pulling stuff out of the bags. I saw him hesitate over the spaghetti.
“Oh,” I said. “Is that lo-carb? Is that not what you wanted?”
If Will had ever been in Melvin’s, he would have known the lo-carb wasn’t an accident, not something that came from there at all. Him being a Seven, I imagined he could sense I was playing with him.
That was baloney, and I knew it. He couldn’t read minds or predict the future. Pink moons, tripping the antipodes: the powers of the Seven tended to be weirdly specific.
Will gave a grunt. That could have meant seven different things. Seventy times seven.
“I’m sorry.”
There it was. I put it out there.
Will stared at the spaghetti, that horrid sawdust crap. Silent and pouty, he was.
“I’m really sorry.”
I wasn’t sorry at all.
“I brought the wrong thing. Forgive me.”
Will’s eyes popped open. He looked straight at me.
“You…” He started shaking his head. “You…” He set the box of spaghetti down, rattling the dry bones inside.
“You bitch.”
I was still wearing my parka. I noticed how warm it was.
“I’m…” I couldn’t say it again.
“Of all the stupid, dirty… tricks.”
“I don’t know what you—” I tried to maintain the façade, hoping to brazen—
“You know what you’re doing. You’re trying to trick me. Forgiving all your pathetic little sins.”
The wind rattled the cabin’s one window, ticking off three seconds.
“So, you’re sure that’s what you need?” He was still staring at the spaghetti. “You really need forgiveness? Just, poof?”
“Yes.”
“Really? Some people ‘don’t need to be forgiven.’ There’s even a song about it.”
Bull hockey.
“And you think, you brought me groceries, you earned the right to ask—”
“What is this ‘earn’?” I was really confused. “That’s the point. It’s free—”
“Oh, you earn all right. People come to me because I met them once ten years ago, or they’re my third cousin, whatever, pushing their way to the head of the line ’cause I owe them. I had people doing triage, finding the worthy ones: the old and dying, criminals showing contrition, the sob stories, one bad decision in high school and now they’re hooked on heroin.”
“What’s… addiction… got to do—”
“A religious conversion is the most reliable means of curing addiction.” Will was lecturing now, repeating something he got from a book. “And this feels like that. So, yeah, it’s got everything to do—”
“Why are you so angry?”
That shut him up.
“I didn’t ask for this,” he said, finally. “It’s a 24/7 job. The ones who lied or bribed their way to the front of the line—what the hell? Why am I supposed to forgive them? They don’t even feel bad. Narcissists, demanding the best of everything, then they get their, their, perfect forgiveness, and wear it like a diamond necklace.”
“That was early days. Your screeners, that’s what they were for. You were checking for, for that thing. Sincere—”
“Sincere amendment.”
“Yes.”
He shoved a cereal box into the cupboard. “So I, or my screeners, get to judge people. Lovely.”
“You’re cynical, I get it. Why not be cynical and make people happy? And, heck, make some decent money? Nobody complained about your fees. Well, nobody that mattered. Nobody who, as you say, got in line.”
“I don’t want money.”
“Okay,” I said, like I was talking to a child with a loaded gun, “I see your point. Still—” I put the milk in the fridge, then the eggs. Minding the perishables. “—we’re here. Now. Just us two. And I ain’t blowing your cover. Either way, when I leave, your privacy is safe. I promise. But, you know, what’s it going to cost you? Clearing my conscience? Giving me peace of mind?”
“Nothing’s in it for me.”
He went to the other side of the big room, sat in the one chair, a ratty old thing leaking straw. He stared into the cold fireplace.
He wasn’t saying I should leave. He wasn’t saying anything. I pulled two beers off the plastic and popped the tabs open. I rummaged in the cabinets for glasses and found one mug. It said, “I spent most of my money on beer and women. The rest I just wasted.” I poured Will’s beer into that. I stepped over a spilled waste basket as I handed it to him.
The porch light showed the snow still doing its crazy dance.
“You expected some superhero. You wanted me in a cape.”
“Hardly.”
“I saw that look in your eye when you came in.”
“No! It’s just—” I waved my arms about like a traffic cop. Like all of Will’s clutter could be herded into line.
“You wanted somebody with his shit together.”
“I wanted—I hoped for—somebody happy.”
I brushed some ash off the hearth and sat there.
“That was stupid.”
“You have the power to forgive sins. Why doesn’t that—I don’t know—perk—?”
“Yeah,” said Will, aggressive. “Let’s talk about that. Let’s figure out what exactly I’m doing.”
“Well—”
“Exactly,” Will said, filling up the pause. “You can’t say.”
“People say—there are reports—they feel as if—”
“They feel.” So contemptuous. “See? It’s completely subjective.”
“What’s subjective about people passing out? Waking up sobbing?”
“You’re making my argument for me.”
“Okay, what’s subjective about changed lives? People turning their lives around?”
“LSD can turn lives around. And what about the lives not turned around? Did you know one guy came to me seven times? Came to get zapped—” Will made the three-finger beak and jabbed it in my direction. “—and it never stuck, apparently. He’d go away, feeling so light, the burden of guilt lifted, and a few months later, he had more sins piled up.”
“So a few failures somehow… erases, just… negates the, the, miracles—”
Will shook his head. My stupidity amazed him. “Why does it have to be me? People were getting forgiveness long before I showed up.”
“It’s not the same and you know it.”
“Maybe it’s better. I mean, I’m no expert—” His laugh was the bark of an angry dog. “—but, the old way. Before the churches emptied out.”
“So, you’re this, what?” I asked. “Skeptic? Why can’t you admit there’s something you don’t understand, if people want it, what’s the, the, harm, the problem—”
“No—”
“Oh, for the love of Pete! What, I mean, what better job? You got a better plan what to make of your life?”
I was really worked up now. I took the frigid can of beer in my hands, just to give them something to do.
“I don’t do bullshit.”
Will rubbed his eyes. “Toward the end, when they decided I was in trouble, ‘clinically depressed,’ they set me up in this room that had a little hole in the wall, a window just big enough for my hand, and I sat in a comfy chair, drugged to numbness, and I’d just hold my hand in the opening and people would come by and tap their foreheads against my fingers. It still worked. Never talking to them or nothing. They were ordered not to try to talk to me. It still worked! They got their little guilt trips taken away. A cow in a milking machine.” He paused to wipe something out of his beard, some crumb from lunch. “What the hell is that? What the hell is that?”
I didn’t know if “that” was the crumb or the story he had just told.
I set my beer on a pile of magazines, dirty in both senses. I got up and I spent the next minutes arranging logs and getting a fire going.
Will watched the whole ritual, saying nothing, not stopping me.
I sat back down, feeling the growing blaze warm my back. I feel these northern winters a little harder each year.
Will set his mug down and scratched his scalp. Dandruff fell like Christmas morning. “It’s all worthless anyway. The seven powers are worthless.”
“There’s Akin Taiwo. He’s not worthless.”
Will laughed. “The earth is seventy percent ocean.”
“Not funny. Not funny for the people who drowned.”
“It kind of is. All those people he touched, sinking into the ocean, miles from any land.” Will clawed at the air like a drowning man. “Took them forever to figure out where those people were going.”
“But they did figure it out. They put Akin to use.”
“There are no major cities on opposite sides of the globe.”
“Cordoba is—”
“Cordoba is the 24th largest city in South America. It’s a backwater.”
“22nd, thanks to Akin. Have you kept up? The Cordoba-Wuhan connection is boosting the economies of both countries. And he’s not greedy; he charges less than an airline ticket. An instant trip across the Earth. He found the optimum place.”
“You know what would be optimum? Round trips. When those Argentine businessmen come home, they’re stuck on airplanes for fifty hours. If Akin were to send himself to Wuhan for part of each week, tapping people there, zapping them back to Cordoba—moving traffic both directions—he’d have an incredibly useful power. But he doesn’t do that. You know why?”
I hadn’t ever thought of that.
“He won’t talk about it, but I know the answer. The Seven know.”
“He, he, I don’t know. You’re saying he can’t send himself?”
“He can’t send himself! Touching himself doesn’t count! So the whole thing’s a joke.”
An instant trip to the other side of the globe was useful even if it was one-way, I didn’t care what Will said. But I didn’t argue.
“And that boost to the economy you mentioned? Organized crime is flourishing in Cordoba like never before. There’s a dark side to every one of the Seven. Every one.”
“There’s Sarah.”
“Oh my God!” Will laughed, splashing his beer. “You actually mentioned Sarah!”
Sarah’s power is complicated. She can make a prediction while standing on one foot. Until she puts her foot down, her prediction is guaranteed not to come true.
“Sarah can keep a dying person alive for a few minutes. She can postpone, well, anything, until her leg gets tired. Big deal. She can manipulate the stock market, short-term. So—and this is the part they don’t tell you—she’s set up with an investment firm. They pick some stock and she makes it go up for a couple minutes. It’s like arbitrage; the only way it works is by huge volume and her cut is, well, she’s living comfortably, but it’s boring and it’s stupid and if she doesn’t hate herself, she’s an idiot.”
“Oh.”
“And don’t even ask about Bill.”
“I’ve always wondered.” Bill is a code name for the last of the Seven, the unknown one. A lot of conspiracy theories revolve around him.
“I’ll tell you. I signed an NDA but, heck, I don’t care. He lives in South Africa. He farts helium-3.”
“He—?”
“He literally farts literal helium-3. Two pints of gas a day, just like anyone, but in his case it’s valuable. At that volume, it’s not that much money. For the inconvenience of wearing a collector and having a sore ass all the time, he makes a living wage. That’s his life. That’s how he lives. How’s that?”
“Well, I mean, helium-3: I’ve heard of it.”
“It’s useful for research. A few scientists are happy. Good for them. Good for Bill. Con… gra… tu… lations.”
I took a sip of beer, just looking at him, trying to get him to look at me.
“I’m not leaving until you tap me. When you do, I’ll leave. And I’ll never tell anyone.”
Will grunted. “My cover’s already blown.”
“Jane? You don’t get it. She’s not ratting you out. She came to me, only me, because she thought I was the one who could help you. She did it for you.”
Will grunted again.
“There’s somebody out there, somebody in particular, you don’t want to forgive.”
“Not really. No.”
“Look, don’t lie—I saw the video. The interview. That thing in third grade. You mentioned it.”
Will rolled his eyes. “Oh please. This again.”
“Seriously. If you’re still bitter about that—”
“‘Bitter.’ You people are such idiots.”
“You still haven’t figured it out.” I said it softly.
“What?” Suddenly, Mr. Depressed was all attention.
“You don’t recognize me.”
He stared at me really hard, long past the moment of discomfort.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Miss Roberts. Or I was then. Your third-grade teacher.”
“Shit.”
“The one who, you know, messed you up. Way back in third grade. Like you told that lady in that interview.”
“I wish—I wish!—I had never, ever told that story!”
“About six months ago, Jane figured out who you were.”
“Jane. Pathetic.”
“No. Jane was smart. She didn’t run to the media, collect the reward. She sat on the information. She kept delivering your groceries for months, not letting on. Not blowing your cover.”
“You want me to be grateful.”
“I want you to understand. She wanted you back in public, doing your work. Yes, she wanted that. She looked into it, realized maybe I, your old teacher, was the one who needed to talk to you. She found me and made the arrangements.”
“Baiting you with half the reward money.”
“It’s not about the money! She, or I, could have that check anytime. Think about it.”
“Whatever. The answer is still going to be no.”
“Just give me two minutes here. I know you still carry bitterness over what I did, what you say I did to you, back when you were eight—”
“You don’t remember. Heh.”
“Whether I remember isn’t the point. You said I, what? I told you to stand with your nose against the wall, in front of the other kids, for something you didn’t even do? I just, I guess, jumped to conclusions?”
“That story—”
“The thing is, yes: I’m going to ask you for forgiveness. I’m going to confess my sin—”
“You don’t have to confess. Weren’t you listening? That’s a fallacy.”
“But I want to confess.”
“I have heard all the confessions I’m ever—”
“Look! You have to forgive me. But this is not about me. This is about you. Forgiveness: it’s, it’s, good for you. For the forgiver. All that bitterness—”
“I wish I had never, never given that interview! You and your—all you people, your, your self-help psychology bullshit! That interviewer talked to me for hours, it was endless questions, and all the while she was, she was herding me, pushing for a particular answer. She wanted to create this thing about how everything comes down to childhood. You know, trauma. Wounded inner bullshit. I told her about you and third grade and being punished for something I didn’t do because that’s the only annoying thing I could think of from my past. It was literally something I hadn’t thought of in twenty years! But she wouldn’t shut up, she kept circling around, asking questions about grade school. My God, I wish I had made up something, maybe, maybe something about… yeah, being molested by an uncle! She would have loved that! As it was, I finally gave her that stupid story, that one little mistake you made that I forgot as soon as it was done. And she, that interviewer, made it the centerpiece. And all the pop psychologists discussed it endlessly and it became the meaning of my life. Did you notice?”
“What?”
“I never gave another interview. If you do want to tell a story about bitterness, about my, you know, my, my unresolved anger, maybe it should be that interview. Heh. Yeah, it’s ironic. I think that’s what it is.”
“So you admit—”
“I admit nothing, you stupid bitch. How stupid do you have to be? I don’t hate you, and my retirement has nothing to do with you or being angry at anyone. I’m just retired. Why that has to be is none of your damn business.”
I set down my beer. My back was roasting.
“Thanks for the groceries. Now leave. I never want to see you again.”
I wiped moisture off my lip.
“I—”
“Just leave.”
I thought about that.
Oh, for dumb. My whole theory was blown up and, yeah, I guess Will was right: I was stupid. Hard as I tried, I couldn’t think.
“Go,” Will said. He belched unselfconsciously.
Like I said, I couldn’t think. So I played my last card.
“I could expose you.”
No more Minnesota nice.
“Jane made you a promise, but I never did. Here’s the deal: send me away, and you’ll have camera crews at your door as soon as the storm stops. Tap me and this is the last time you see me. I swear to God I won’t tell. Just… do it for me.”
He was shaking his head and mouthing silent words I couldn’t make out—but as he did so, he was standing up. This was the end of the meeting one way or another.
“Stand up, woman.”
He was resigned, not enraged.
I had won.
“Stand up!” But I was already pushing my beer aside, sloshing its contents on the hearth, not caring, getting my feet under me.
Just as I had risen to my full height, he grabbed my arm and pulled me to the center of the cabin, away from the fire. I heard him say the words—
“I forgive you all your sins.”
—and his hand was right there in my face, his three fingers pulled together into a beak.
Tap.
***
I thought, “Oh shoot, it didn’t work.”
Then I thought, “If it didn’t work, why am I lying on the floor?”
Then I was sobbing. It was like the cartoon I saw once, the sheep that waits a whole year, living out in the desert, or the pasture, or something, his wool growing, and then spring comes and, complete surprise, some men show up and shear him clean, and I was like him, not noticing the suffocating coat of wool I was wearing, not feeling the weight until it was taken away, and, yeah, I know it’s a cliché to talk about the burden being lifted, but clichés get to be for a reason. I was… so free! So… happy. Light. Floating, borne aloft in a glorious updraft of… forgiveness. If you think you wouldn’t cry too, then you’re either some kind of angel or you’re stuck on stupid. I cried, and then I started laughing, giggling even, and, aw heck, I’ve seen it a million times on the internet, you have too, those silly gits, crying and laughing and trying to hug Will when all he wants to do is move down the line and get it over with. And if you’ve never gotten your chance, well, I’m sorry. You’ve missed something really, really—
Will was standing there, pushing me away, looking in his mug, searching for a drop of beer in the bottom.
“Oh, Will—how can you, you, withhold this, this blessing, from—”
“We had a deal. I gave you what you wanted.”
“I—”
“Are you going to keep your word?”
I took a breath. “Yes.”
“Well then. There’s the door.”
He took his mug to the kitchen. There were dirty dishes everywhere—the sink, the tiny dining table, the windowsills—but for some reason it was very important for him at that moment to clean his mug. He stood at the sink, his back to me, washing and scrubbing and polishing that mug, inside and out, making it good like he was going to serve beer to His Holiness the pope.
I zipped up my parka and braced myself for the wind.
I turned to look at Will. He was still staring into the sink. Maybe he had already forgotten me. Again.
I slammed the door on my way out. The snow was full-on blizzard. I started to wonder if I could get home. This kind of weather is no joke. Every year, somebody dies on a night like this.
My pickup spun its way toward the trail leading out. There were several pounds of accumulation in the bed, but, even with that, my rear-wheel drive was having trouble.
Maybe I made it happen, maybe it was a neurotic thing, who knows how our devious little minds work. I accelerated just as I reached the trail and my tires lost their grip and I sideswiped a tree. One more scrape to add to my collection.
But it got me thinking. I turned off the engine. Maybe I could have made it to the county road. I’ve been driving these winters for nearly fifty years; I know snow and ice. But there was the risk. And without cell service, it was potentially fatal.
Stay the night. Beg for shelter. He couldn’t refuse.
I got out of the truck and walked back to the cabin.
The porch light was out already. I could see Will clearly through the front window, back in his chair, lit by that big, hearty fire I had built. He was doing something that caught my eye, that made me hesitate before I pounded to be let in.
It was a rhythm thing. Took me a moment to see, to know what he was doing.
Over and over. His fingers. A beak like a bird. Against his forehead. He was tapping himself on the head, over and over and over.
I guessed I could handle the snow.
Frederick Gero Heimbach lives a pulp fiction life and takes notes. His family lives with him, warily, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is the author of six novels. Find him on Twitter as @Fredosphere, and on his much neglected website fheimbach.com.
Author’s note: “For this story, the theological implications, even the reveal at the end, came rather late in the process of working out the implications of the original idea. Truly, I began with the (now) rather unoriginal idea of subverting the superhero trope. Others have chosen to write superheroes that are either hated or worshipped; I wondered what would happen if their powers were weirdly specific and kind of pathetic.”
“A Tap on the Forehead” by Frederick Gero Heimbach. Copyright © 2026 by Frederick Gero Heimbach.
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I met Jane at Melvin’s by the southern, less inaccessible, end of the lake. Jane called it the “local” grocery, but some customers drive an hour. It’s got one brand of everything and anything that isn’t dry is frozen.
Jane had bought the groceries by the time I arrived, six big paper bags, on the assumption I’d show up when I said. Considering the stakes, a safe assumption.
“Why are you doing this?” I wanted to know. Her bringing me in was an act of betrayal. “Why are you helping me get to him?” I amended, self-blaming so she would do the same.
Jane unsubtly bugged out her eyes and tilted her head toward the greasy clerk behind the counter, head down, phone in hand, his thumb forever swiping upward. Jane scooped three bags into a bosom fighting a multi-decade war against gravity. Not that I’m doing much better. I hefted the rest of the burden, something Swiper over there wasn’t paid to do. Together, we loaded the bags into my pickup.
Engine heat from my two-hour drive was melting the huge flakes as they touched the hood. This being late November, permafrost had formed on the floor of the cab and would not dry up until April. I’ve lived in this state my whole life and I know.
I started the engine. Jane had already given me the address. She had warned Will, casually as she described it, that someone different would make this week’s grocery delivery. It wasn’t exactly safe for me to show up unannounced. Toward the end, before he had disappeared, Will had become violent. Jane said he kept a shotgun by the door.
The door of his cabin at the northern, more inaccessible, end of the lake.
“To answer your question,” said Jane, sliding into my pickup uninvited, banging the door, talking too loudly, “that question you shouldn’t have asked me in there—” Again she tilted her head. I saw the clerk staring at us out the window with porn-curdled eyes, curious, maybe, because he had just witnessed the simultaneous arrival of two customers—something that only happened once in a blue moon.
Blue moon. There’s an expression gone out of date.
“—the reason is—”
Jane paused. Climbing into my high truck had left her short of breath. I smelled the stale smoke that had followed her in, heard the stale smoke in her raspy voice. “—is because, honestly, Will’s a mess.”
So. Jane had a nurturing heart.
“And, I figure, you know, you were the one who—well, they say, there’s a history.”
Jane was being diplomatic.
“Yep, there’s a history,” I said.
“Hm. You got a map, I guess.”
“I do.” It was already loaded on my phone. Cellular service would fail at some point in the next half hour.
“Good luck.” Jane had a way of making it sound like a curse. Will had been a sensitive boy, back in that year when I had known him, a boy easily startled by loud, aggressive people—people like Jane. I wondered why he tolerated her.
Probably no choice. “Good luck to you, to everybody.” Jane’s smile was as big as she was.
We didn’t discuss terms. Jane had tried to entice me with half the reward, first time she contacted me. I had let her know I didn’t care about the money.
“Just curious,” I said, procrastinating. “You could have gone to the press on your own.”
“Rat him out, you mean?”
“I wasn’t—no offence, but, you did ‘rat him out’ to me.” My air quotes whittled the sharp edges off the words.
“You’re different. You’ve got a shot at breaking the ice. You say you don’t want the money. Well, neither do I. Seriously. I only want the tap on the forehead. You bring him out of retirement, I’ll be first in line.” Not one for ambiguity, Jane put three fingers together and jabbed them at me, a bird’s beak, the way everybody had seen Will do in the videos, tapping people’s foreheads, thousands of them, amid the cheers of adoring fans.
Will was one of the Seven.
“Has he opened up to you?” I asked. “Does he, you know, talk?”
“Talk?” Jane said, withdrawing her fingers. “No, no. He never talks. Not hardly ever. No.”
That was it. Faster than her age and weight should have allowed, Jane was out of the truck and trudging toward her ride, an EcoSport with a cracked headlight.
As Jane disappeared into the swirling white, I swapped in boxes of low-carb spaghetti for the normal stuff in the bags. I drove north.
Cracking the glass. Breaking the ice. Melting the frosty heart. The symbolism was everywhere, as the road curved close to frozen patches on the lake, in the frigid wind herding snow into little whirlpools. The pickup sashayed left and right along the dirt roads, enough to turn the jugs of milk into butter if they hadn’t been that skim crap. The farther north you go, the less they keep the roads looking like roads. Unlivable, and yet I keep living. Like a marriage. Nobody lives on the north side. Some people like nobody.
Dark came early. I couldn’t see the moon, but it gave a pink tint to the clouds. Changing the color of the moon: Frances’ power. Pink was the most requested color. Any pastel is allowed; darker colors, like the blood red they tried for one month, are avoided. Experts say a moon too dark screws up nature, the balance between predators and prey. Owls got to eat. Frances doesn’t care one way or another, since there’s not much money in it. Not monetizable. Just a stupid trick, like most of the Seven. Though not all; definitely not all.
Seeing yourself as others see you: Miriam’s power. Second most useless. Well, no; it’s hecka useful. Problem is, nobody wants that kind of useful.
The five-minute reset: real useful, mind-blowing useful, monetizable as all get out. Marco’s power. Not handed out to ordinary people. Marco’s close friends, those in his “posse”, the rich, the beautiful, or the entertaining: they can get the reset. A decadent bunch doing terrible things, we figure, for the thrill of it, then asking their friend Marco to send them back in time to undo the consequences.
And four others: Will, Akin, Sarah, Bill. Each with their own weird magic.
By the time the drive ended, the snow was pretty bad. It was piling up on the lee side of Will’s cabin; the wellhead by the porch had its own small drift.
I sat there, dreading it. The windows of the cabin were cold and lifeless.
I honked. The porch light came on. I got out. I hugged three bags and trudged up the narrow porch.
He opened the door to let himself out, not to let me in. He said nothing as he went to fetch his share.
There was a shotgun behind the door, but it was no big deal. There was a kitchen area in the dim corner. The minimal counter space was cluttered with empty boxes of microwaveable burritos. As I hesitated, he was back inside the cabin, closing the door with his heel. “The floor,” he said, then showed me what he meant by setting his bags to one side of the fridge. Electricity, I thought. A generator. It was something I hadn’t known for sure. Warmth came from an antique heater running off propane. Its blue flame was useless for seeing.
I lingered while Will put things away.
“Well,” he said. “Thanks.”
I nodded, not moving.
“I guess I’ll be seeing Jane next time.”
I didn’t move.
“If you want a tip, I don’t have any. Jane never—”
“It’s not a tip I want.”
He was still pulling stuff out of the bags. I saw him hesitate over the spaghetti.
“Oh,” I said. “Is that lo-carb? Is that not what you wanted?”
If Will had ever been in Melvin’s, he would have known the lo-carb wasn’t an accident, not something that came from there at all. Him being a Seven, I imagined he could sense I was playing with him.
That was baloney, and I knew it. He couldn’t read minds or predict the future. Pink moons, tripping the antipodes: the powers of the Seven tended to be weirdly specific.
Will gave a grunt. That could have meant seven different things. Seventy times seven.
“I’m sorry.”
There it was. I put it out there.
Will stared at the spaghetti, that horrid sawdust crap. Silent and pouty, he was.
“I’m really sorry.”
I wasn’t sorry at all.
“I brought the wrong thing. Forgive me.”
Will’s eyes popped open. He looked straight at me.
“You…” He started shaking his head. “You…” He set the box of spaghetti down, rattling the dry bones inside.
“You bitch.”
I was still wearing my parka. I noticed how warm it was.
“I’m…” I couldn’t say it again.
“Of all the stupid, dirty… tricks.”
“I don’t know what you—” I tried to maintain the façade, hoping to brazen—
“You know what you’re doing. You’re trying to trick me. Forgiving all your pathetic little sins.”
The wind rattled the cabin’s one window, ticking off three seconds.
“So, you’re sure that’s what you need?” He was still staring at the spaghetti. “You really need forgiveness? Just, poof?”
“Yes.”
“Really? Some people ‘don’t need to be forgiven.’ There’s even a song about it.”
Bull hockey.
“And you think, you brought me groceries, you earned the right to ask—”
“What is this ‘earn’?” I was really confused. “That’s the point. It’s free—”
“Oh, you earn all right. People come to me because I met them once ten years ago, or they’re my third cousin, whatever, pushing their way to the head of the line ’cause I owe them. I had people doing triage, finding the worthy ones: the old and dying, criminals showing contrition, the sob stories, one bad decision in high school and now they’re hooked on heroin.”
“What’s… addiction… got to do—”
“A religious conversion is the most reliable means of curing addiction.” Will was lecturing now, repeating something he got from a book. “And this feels like that. So, yeah, it’s got everything to do—”
“Why are you so angry?”
That shut him up.
“I didn’t ask for this,” he said, finally. “It’s a 24/7 job. The ones who lied or bribed their way to the front of the line—what the hell? Why am I supposed to forgive them? They don’t even feel bad. Narcissists, demanding the best of everything, then they get their, their, perfect forgiveness, and wear it like a diamond necklace.”
“That was early days. Your screeners, that’s what they were for. You were checking for, for that thing. Sincere—”
“Sincere amendment.”
“Yes.”
He shoved a cereal box into the cupboard. “So I, or my screeners, get to judge people. Lovely.”
“You’re cynical, I get it. Why not be cynical and make people happy? And, heck, make some decent money? Nobody complained about your fees. Well, nobody that mattered. Nobody who, as you say, got in line.”
“I don’t want money.”
“Okay,” I said, like I was talking to a child with a loaded gun, “I see your point. Still—” I put the milk in the fridge, then the eggs. Minding the perishables. “—we’re here. Now. Just us two. And I ain’t blowing your cover. Either way, when I leave, your privacy is safe. I promise. But, you know, what’s it going to cost you? Clearing my conscience? Giving me peace of mind?”
“Nothing’s in it for me.”
He went to the other side of the big room, sat in the one chair, a ratty old thing leaking straw. He stared into the cold fireplace.
He wasn’t saying I should leave. He wasn’t saying anything. I pulled two beers off the plastic and popped the tabs open. I rummaged in the cabinets for glasses and found one mug. It said, “I spent most of my money on beer and women. The rest I just wasted.” I poured Will’s beer into that. I stepped over a spilled waste basket as I handed it to him.
The porch light showed the snow still doing its crazy dance.
“You expected some superhero. You wanted me in a cape.”
“Hardly.”
“I saw that look in your eye when you came in.”
“No! It’s just—” I waved my arms about like a traffic cop. Like all of Will’s clutter could be herded into line.
“You wanted somebody with his shit together.”
“I wanted—I hoped for—somebody happy.”
I brushed some ash off the hearth and sat there.
“That was stupid.”
“You have the power to forgive sins. Why doesn’t that—I don’t know—perk—?”
“Yeah,” said Will, aggressive. “Let’s talk about that. Let’s figure out what exactly I’m doing.”
“Well—”
“Exactly,” Will said, filling up the pause. “You can’t say.”
“People say—there are reports—they feel as if—”
“They feel.” So contemptuous. “See? It’s completely subjective.”
“What’s subjective about people passing out? Waking up sobbing?”
“You’re making my argument for me.”
“Okay, what’s subjective about changed lives? People turning their lives around?”
“LSD can turn lives around. And what about the lives not turned around? Did you know one guy came to me seven times? Came to get zapped—” Will made the three-finger beak and jabbed it in my direction. “—and it never stuck, apparently. He’d go away, feeling so light, the burden of guilt lifted, and a few months later, he had more sins piled up.”
“So a few failures somehow… erases, just… negates the, the, miracles—”
Will shook his head. My stupidity amazed him. “Why does it have to be me? People were getting forgiveness long before I showed up.”
“It’s not the same and you know it.”
“Maybe it’s better. I mean, I’m no expert—” His laugh was the bark of an angry dog. “—but, the old way. Before the churches emptied out.”
“So, you’re this, what?” I asked. “Skeptic? Why can’t you admit there’s something you don’t understand, if people want it, what’s the, the, harm, the problem—”
“No—”
“Oh, for the love of Pete! What, I mean, what better job? You got a better plan what to make of your life?”
I was really worked up now. I took the frigid can of beer in my hands, just to give them something to do.
“I don’t do bullshit.”
Will rubbed his eyes. “Toward the end, when they decided I was in trouble, ‘clinically depressed,’ they set me up in this room that had a little hole in the wall, a window just big enough for my hand, and I sat in a comfy chair, drugged to numbness, and I’d just hold my hand in the opening and people would come by and tap their foreheads against my fingers. It still worked. Never talking to them or nothing. They were ordered not to try to talk to me. It still worked! They got their little guilt trips taken away. A cow in a milking machine.” He paused to wipe something out of his beard, some crumb from lunch. “What the hell is that? What the hell is that?”
I didn’t know if “that” was the crumb or the story he had just told.
I set my beer on a pile of magazines, dirty in both senses. I got up and I spent the next minutes arranging logs and getting a fire going.
Will watched the whole ritual, saying nothing, not stopping me.
I sat back down, feeling the growing blaze warm my back. I feel these northern winters a little harder each year.
Will set his mug down and scratched his scalp. Dandruff fell like Christmas morning. “It’s all worthless anyway. The seven powers are worthless.”
“There’s Akin Taiwo. He’s not worthless.”
Will laughed. “The earth is seventy percent ocean.”
“Not funny. Not funny for the people who drowned.”
“It kind of is. All those people he touched, sinking into the ocean, miles from any land.” Will clawed at the air like a drowning man. “Took them forever to figure out where those people were going.”
“But they did figure it out. They put Akin to use.”
“There are no major cities on opposite sides of the globe.”
“Cordoba is—”
“Cordoba is the 24th largest city in South America. It’s a backwater.”
“22nd, thanks to Akin. Have you kept up? The Cordoba-Wuhan connection is boosting the economies of both countries. And he’s not greedy; he charges less than an airline ticket. An instant trip across the Earth. He found the optimum place.”
“You know what would be optimum? Round trips. When those Argentine businessmen come home, they’re stuck on airplanes for fifty hours. If Akin were to send himself to Wuhan for part of each week, tapping people there, zapping them back to Cordoba—moving traffic both directions—he’d have an incredibly useful power. But he doesn’t do that. You know why?”
I hadn’t ever thought of that.
“He won’t talk about it, but I know the answer. The Seven know.”
“He, he, I don’t know. You’re saying he can’t send himself?”
“He can’t send himself! Touching himself doesn’t count! So the whole thing’s a joke.”
An instant trip to the other side of the globe was useful even if it was one-way, I didn’t care what Will said. But I didn’t argue.
“And that boost to the economy you mentioned? Organized crime is flourishing in Cordoba like never before. There’s a dark side to every one of the Seven. Every one.”
“There’s Sarah.”
“Oh my God!” Will laughed, splashing his beer. “You actually mentioned Sarah!”
Sarah’s power is complicated. She can make a prediction while standing on one foot. Until she puts her foot down, her prediction is guaranteed not to come true.
“Sarah can keep a dying person alive for a few minutes. She can postpone, well, anything, until her leg gets tired. Big deal. She can manipulate the stock market, short-term. So—and this is the part they don’t tell you—she’s set up with an investment firm. They pick some stock and she makes it go up for a couple minutes. It’s like arbitrage; the only way it works is by huge volume and her cut is, well, she’s living comfortably, but it’s boring and it’s stupid and if she doesn’t hate herself, she’s an idiot.”
“Oh.”
“And don’t even ask about Bill.”
“I’ve always wondered.” Bill is a code name for the last of the Seven, the unknown one. A lot of conspiracy theories revolve around him.
“I’ll tell you. I signed an NDA but, heck, I don’t care. He lives in South Africa. He farts helium-3.”
“He—?”
“He literally farts literal helium-3. Two pints of gas a day, just like anyone, but in his case it’s valuable. At that volume, it’s not that much money. For the inconvenience of wearing a collector and having a sore ass all the time, he makes a living wage. That’s his life. That’s how he lives. How’s that?”
“Well, I mean, helium-3: I’ve heard of it.”
“It’s useful for research. A few scientists are happy. Good for them. Good for Bill. Con… gra… tu… lations.”
I took a sip of beer, just looking at him, trying to get him to look at me.
“I’m not leaving until you tap me. When you do, I’ll leave. And I’ll never tell anyone.”
Will grunted. “My cover’s already blown.”
“Jane? You don’t get it. She’s not ratting you out. She came to me, only me, because she thought I was the one who could help you. She did it for you.”
Will grunted again.
“There’s somebody out there, somebody in particular, you don’t want to forgive.”
“Not really. No.”
“Look, don’t lie—I saw the video. The interview. That thing in third grade. You mentioned it.”
Will rolled his eyes. “Oh please. This again.”
“Seriously. If you’re still bitter about that—”
“‘Bitter.’ You people are such idiots.”
“You still haven’t figured it out.” I said it softly.
“What?” Suddenly, Mr. Depressed was all attention.
“You don’t recognize me.”
He stared at me really hard, long past the moment of discomfort.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Miss Roberts. Or I was then. Your third-grade teacher.”
“Shit.”
“The one who, you know, messed you up. Way back in third grade. Like you told that lady in that interview.”
“I wish—I wish!—I had never, ever told that story!”
“About six months ago, Jane figured out who you were.”
“Jane. Pathetic.”
“No. Jane was smart. She didn’t run to the media, collect the reward. She sat on the information. She kept delivering your groceries for months, not letting on. Not blowing your cover.”
“You want me to be grateful.”
“I want you to understand. She wanted you back in public, doing your work. Yes, she wanted that. She looked into it, realized maybe I, your old teacher, was the one who needed to talk to you. She found me and made the arrangements.”
“Baiting you with half the reward money.”
“It’s not about the money! She, or I, could have that check anytime. Think about it.”
“Whatever. The answer is still going to be no.”
“Just give me two minutes here. I know you still carry bitterness over what I did, what you say I did to you, back when you were eight—”
“You don’t remember. Heh.”
“Whether I remember isn’t the point. You said I, what? I told you to stand with your nose against the wall, in front of the other kids, for something you didn’t even do? I just, I guess, jumped to conclusions?”
“That story—”
“The thing is, yes: I’m going to ask you for forgiveness. I’m going to confess my sin—”
“You don’t have to confess. Weren’t you listening? That’s a fallacy.”
“But I want to confess.”
“I have heard all the confessions I’m ever—”
“Look! You have to forgive me. But this is not about me. This is about you. Forgiveness: it’s, it’s, good for you. For the forgiver. All that bitterness—”
“I wish I had never, never given that interview! You and your—all you people, your, your self-help psychology bullshit! That interviewer talked to me for hours, it was endless questions, and all the while she was, she was herding me, pushing for a particular answer. She wanted to create this thing about how everything comes down to childhood. You know, trauma. Wounded inner bullshit. I told her about you and third grade and being punished for something I didn’t do because that’s the only annoying thing I could think of from my past. It was literally something I hadn’t thought of in twenty years! But she wouldn’t shut up, she kept circling around, asking questions about grade school. My God, I wish I had made up something, maybe, maybe something about… yeah, being molested by an uncle! She would have loved that! As it was, I finally gave her that stupid story, that one little mistake you made that I forgot as soon as it was done. And she, that interviewer, made it the centerpiece. And all the pop psychologists discussed it endlessly and it became the meaning of my life. Did you notice?”
“What?”
“I never gave another interview. If you do want to tell a story about bitterness, about my, you know, my, my unresolved anger, maybe it should be that interview. Heh. Yeah, it’s ironic. I think that’s what it is.”
“So you admit—”
“I admit nothing, you stupid bitch. How stupid do you have to be? I don’t hate you, and my retirement has nothing to do with you or being angry at anyone. I’m just retired. Why that has to be is none of your damn business.”
I set down my beer. My back was roasting.
“Thanks for the groceries. Now leave. I never want to see you again.”
I wiped moisture off my lip.
“I—”
“Just leave.”
I thought about that.
Oh, for dumb. My whole theory was blown up and, yeah, I guess Will was right: I was stupid. Hard as I tried, I couldn’t think.
“Go,” Will said. He belched unselfconsciously.
Like I said, I couldn’t think. So I played my last card.
“I could expose you.”
No more Minnesota nice.
“Jane made you a promise, but I never did. Here’s the deal: send me away, and you’ll have camera crews at your door as soon as the storm stops. Tap me and this is the last time you see me. I swear to God I won’t tell. Just… do it for me.”
He was shaking his head and mouthing silent words I couldn’t make out—but as he did so, he was standing up. This was the end of the meeting one way or another.
“Stand up, woman.”
He was resigned, not enraged.
I had won.
“Stand up!” But I was already pushing my beer aside, sloshing its contents on the hearth, not caring, getting my feet under me.
Just as I had risen to my full height, he grabbed my arm and pulled me to the center of the cabin, away from the fire. I heard him say the words—
“I forgive you all your sins.”
—and his hand was right there in my face, his three fingers pulled together into a beak.
Tap.
I thought, “Oh shoot, it didn’t work.”
Then I thought, “If it didn’t work, why am I lying on the floor?”
Then I was sobbing. It was like the cartoon I saw once, the sheep that waits a whole year, living out in the desert, or the pasture, or something, his wool growing, and then spring comes and, complete surprise, some men show up and shear him clean, and I was like him, not noticing the suffocating coat of wool I was wearing, not feeling the weight until it was taken away, and, yeah, I know it’s a cliché to talk about the burden being lifted, but clichés get to be for a reason. I was… so free! So… happy. Light. Floating, borne aloft in a glorious updraft of… forgiveness. If you think you wouldn’t cry too, then you’re either some kind of angel or you’re stuck on stupid. I cried, and then I started laughing, giggling even, and, aw heck, I’ve seen it a million times on the internet, you have too, those silly gits, crying and laughing and trying to hug Will when all he wants to do is move down the line and get it over with. And if you’ve never gotten your chance, well, I’m sorry. You’ve missed something really, really—
Will was standing there, pushing me away, looking in his mug, searching for a drop of beer in the bottom.
“Oh, Will—how can you, you, withhold this, this blessing, from—”
“We had a deal. I gave you what you wanted.”
“I—”
“Are you going to keep your word?”
I took a breath. “Yes.”
“Well then. There’s the door.”
He took his mug to the kitchen. There were dirty dishes everywhere—the sink, the tiny dining table, the windowsills—but for some reason it was very important for him at that moment to clean his mug. He stood at the sink, his back to me, washing and scrubbing and polishing that mug, inside and out, making it good like he was going to serve beer to His Holiness the pope.
I zipped up my parka and braced myself for the wind.
I turned to look at Will. He was still staring into the sink. Maybe he had already forgotten me. Again.
I slammed the door on my way out. The snow was full-on blizzard. I started to wonder if I could get home. This kind of weather is no joke. Every year, somebody dies on a night like this.
My pickup spun its way toward the trail leading out. There were several pounds of accumulation in the bed, but, even with that, my rear-wheel drive was having trouble.
Maybe I made it happen, maybe it was a neurotic thing, who knows how our devious little minds work. I accelerated just as I reached the trail and my tires lost their grip and I sideswiped a tree. One more scrape to add to my collection.
But it got me thinking. I turned off the engine. Maybe I could have made it to the county road. I’ve been driving these winters for nearly fifty years; I know snow and ice. But there was the risk. And without cell service, it was potentially fatal.
Stay the night. Beg for shelter. He couldn’t refuse.
I got out of the truck and walked back to the cabin.
The porch light was out already. I could see Will clearly through the front window, back in his chair, lit by that big, hearty fire I had built. He was doing something that caught my eye, that made me hesitate before I pounded to be let in.
It was a rhythm thing. Took me a moment to see, to know what he was doing.
Over and over. His fingers. A beak like a bird. Against his forehead. He was tapping himself on the head, over and over and over.
I guessed I could handle the snow.
Frederick Gero Heimbach lives a pulp fiction life and takes notes. His family lives with him, warily, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is the author of six novels. Find him on Twitter as @Fredosphere, and on his much neglected website fheimbach.com.
Author’s note: “For this story, the theological implications, even the reveal at the end, came rather late in the process of working out the implications of the original idea. Truly, I began with the (now) rather unoriginal idea of subverting the superhero trope. Others have chosen to write superheroes that are either hated or worshipped; I wondered what would happen if their powers were weirdly specific and kind of pathetic.”
“A Tap on the Forehead” by Frederick Gero Heimbach. Copyright © 2026 by Frederick Gero Heimbach.
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