Forgiven

by Gina Detwiler

  We have the party a week early so that Bree and Ethan can attend before they head back to school for their senior year. I can’t believe they will actually graduate from college next year. They’re focused on the future and on what they’ll do after graduation. Ethan’s video game is doing so well that the company offered him a job. His dad isn’t too happy, but Ethan is ecstatic. All he’s ever wanted to do is make video games.

  Bree will be a music teacher. But first, she wants to travel through Europe and maybe hike the Appalachian Trail. Ethan has no interest in Europe or hiking anywhere. I wonder what will become of those two.

  I envy them their choices and their freedom. I have trouble leaving the house. But I’m not unhappy. I have Jared and we can be together whenever we want. Besides, I have to take care of Silas. He’s still sick and needs me. And Penny, still recovering from her brain injury, needs me too.

  “Has Darwin Speer ever tried to contact you again?” Ethan asks Jared, jarring me back to the present.

  Jared shakes his head.

  “He’s still AWOL,” says Bree. “It’s been like a year and a half. No one’s seen him. But his boat is docked in the Mediterranean somewhere.”

  “Monaco,” Ethan says. “Which means he’s probably in Geneva. Maybe working on the CERN expansion. What I wouldn’t give to be there when they fire that thing up again.”

  “Sure, and blow up the world,” Bree says with a toss of her hair.

  “They won’t blow up the world. They’re doing important work.”

  “Important? Name one thing they’ve done to improve life on this planet.”

  “The World Wide Web.” Ethan doesn’t miss a beat. “That was invented at CERN.”

  “Oh.” Bree closes her mouth. “I guess that’s kind of big.” She turns to me and changes the subject. “What’s new with Shannon? Have you heard from her since the—you know–thing?”

  “No.”

  “Really? That’s weird.”

  It is a little weird. Melanie texts me occasionally but Shannon has been silent. Maybe now that Lilith is gone, she has no more use for me.

  “She must be very busy being First Lady of California,” says Ralph. “She’s thrown herself into the job, shows up everywhere, kisses babies, visits homeless shelters, and talks about Clean Water projects, non-GMO food, and urban renewal. Ravel’s popularity rating is nearly seventy percent—thanks to her, some say.”

  “A marriage made in heaven,” says Ethan in a fake falsetto.

  I look at Silas, who stares at the tablecloth.

  “So she’s like…a normal person now?” Bree asks.

  “We hope so,” I say.

  When Bree and Ethan leave, I drive Silas home in the Mini Cooper. He never learned how to drive. When he feels good, he rides around the city on a bicycle.

  “Maybe you should call her?” I need to air out the unsaid thoughts that always linger between us. “To see how she’s doing.”

  He shakes his head. “Nah. She’s married. She’s happy. I’m happy for her. Besides, I’m dying.”

  “You are not dying.”

  He laughs a little. “Well, anyway, I suppose what I feel is a longing for something that could never be.”

  I know that longing because I have it with Jared. Even though I can see him, talk to him, and even touch him, I can never have him. But I’ve gotten used to that familiar ache in the pit of my soul, something I cradle and nurture and protect from the outside world.

  We find Penny already home, sitting on the couch with her head in her hands.

  “I thought you had class tonight,” I say. She has finished her GED and recently started night classes at the community college. She doesn’t respond. Her body trembles like she’s cold. I rush over to her. “Penny, what happened?” I notice a terrible smell.

  “Jamel…” she whispers.

  “What?” I grab her shoulders. “Talk to me, Penny.”

  “He…he came out of nowhere…”

  “Jamel?”

  She nods and bursts into tears. “I was leaving school and felt someone following me. I could…smell him.” She pauses and wipes her eyes. “I will never forget how he smells. Like incense. Like smoke. I started to run. He followed me. I ran and ran—he followed. I ran into an alley and climbed into a dumpster. I stayed in there until he was gone.”

  That explains her smell.

  “Did he talk to you? Say anything?”

  “No.”

  “So he didn’t touch you.”

  “No.”

  I look at Silas, who stands over us, listening. His face is drawn in worry. He’s thinking what I’m thinking. Jamel. Also known as Manuel Torega, the drug lord who had kidnapped and almost killed Penny. He’s back.

  Penny doesn’t remember much about the night of the kidnapping. Before that, Jamel had been a friend, a fellow student, someone who’d taken an interest in her and seemed to really like her. She was used to having people betray her, but it was never as bad as that had been.

  “Penny, I need to ask you, are you sure you saw someone following you? I mean, a real person?”

  “Yes, yes!” she says emphatically. “I’m not imagining it. He was there.”

  “Okay, okay. We’ll figure something out. I’m going to tell Ralph. He’ll know what to do.”

  I help her into the shower. After she’s gone to bed, I send a message to Ripley with instructions to have Ralph call us.

  “Do you think we should call the cops?” I ask Silas.

  He shrugs. “I don’t know. I could go to the station tomorrow and talk to the detective who handled the case…see if Torega is still in the area. But it might have been anyone. Or anything. With her brain injury, Penny could have imagined the whole thing.”

  “She said it was real. I believe her. It had to be Torega. Penny’s not afraid of anyone except him.”

  A few minutes later, the doorbell rings, making me jump. Silas goes to the intercom.

  It’s Jared.

  “That was fast,” I say.

  Silas buzzes him up.

  “What happened?” Jared says when Silas opens the door. “Are you okay? Is Penny okay?”

  “Yeah, she’s fine. Just scared.”

  “Maybe you should all come to the Hobbit Hole for a while.”

  “We’re fine here. He doesn’t know where we live.”

  He sighs. “Okay. I’ll stay here tonight. Just in case.”

  “Jared, there’s nothing you can do—”

  “I can stay awake and keep watch.”

  Keep watch. I can’t help but think of his lineage.

  The offspring of a Watcher.

  19: On Fire

  Jared

  I stand in front of the window in Grace’s loft, looking out on the darkened street. Watching for lurkers—Dark Ones and drug dealers. It’s quiet.

  Then something moves, shifting from shadow to shadow, swift and silent. Demon? Human?

  It stops in front of the building. Gloved hands rise to throw off the hood.

  Torega.

  No.

  I grip the window sill. The head glows and eyes of flame rise to meet my gaze.

  Ariel.

  I leave the window, race down the stairs, and go out to the street. Although I half-expect him to be gone already, a figment of my imagination, he’s still there. Not as tall as he appeared in the Abyss, his seven-foot frame is shrouded in a black cloak. He looks real, material—solid. I resist the urge to touch him and see for sure.

  “What is it?” I ask. Why would he come this way? Why not appear to Grace? He’s her guardian.

  But his words are meant only for me.

  “Darwin Speer has become like you.”

  “He’s a distant relative,” I say, uncertain about his meaning.

  “Not anymore. He is your son. Your brother.”

  “What?” He makes no sense.

  “Listen and watch,” he says. “You will see.” He removes one of his gloves to reveal a hand, shining as if it had been d
ipped in light. He places the hand on my head.

  He’s gone, everything around me disappears into a gray void. Then an image emerges out of the gray—Darwin Speer on the operating table, a steel frame attached to his head and tubes running into his brain. More images come in rapid succession: Speer on a treadmill for hours, hooked up to nodes to monitor his heart rate, Speer lifting thousand-pound weights effortlessly while men in lab coats stare in awe.

  His hair has turned snow white.

  The images shatter and Ariel is there again, standing on the dark street.

  “Do you understand now?”

  I nod.

  Another vision intrudes. Speer stands on a platform overlooking a giant machine seven stories tall, a circular kaleidoscope of metal in spiraling colors that glow and shift.

  —Ariel speaks in a sending. —The detector at the Large Hadron Collider.

  —What does this have to do with anything?

  He takes my shoulder and lifts me with him into the sky. We pass through several shifting curtains of air and soon we speed down a long, circular tunnel of huge metal tubes. For some reason, I can see inside the tubes. Streaks of pure light—millions of beams—smash together to create monstrous explosions, more powerful than any nuclear bomb. A shower of tiny, glittering particles spray out in all directions and disappear as rapidly as they appear. It is like a fireworks display in fast forward.

  The next thing I know, I am back on the street, alone. Ariel is gone.

  Had I dreamt it?

  Maybe it was all the cake.

  I hear Ariel’s voice in the darkness.

  —Go and watch.

  Go where? Watch what? I return to the loft. The house is quiet. Watch. I stare out the window. Nothing happens. Watch…TV? I turn the television on and flick through the channels until I come to a news station.

  There it is.

  A shaky video, as if taken on a phone, depicts a night sky dominated by a weird blue light that pierces heavy clouds creating an eerie, spiraling halo. The caption scrolls below: Strange blue lights over Tromsø, Norway.

  Tromsø. My stomach lurches.

  An anchor narrates something about the possible explanations of this weird light. The spiral grows into several thin rings and dissipates slowly into a black hole in the sky. The hole widens and the spiral lights gather around its rim until it fills the entire screen. When it seems to be over, the screen flashes with rapid bursts of light, like a strobe. The camera shakes as if whoever is holding it has started to run. The screen goes black and the whole thing repeats again.

  I watch the rerun several times. The way the spiral of light dissipates into a hole looks very much like a…portal. Ariel’s words return to me…Darwin Speer and CERN…the collider…the Abyss. They all come together in my head like a collision of atoms.

  Numb, I pull my phone from my pocket and search for Speer’s number. I hit “call.”

  “Jared!” He answers immediately. “Great to hear from you.”

  “What have you done?”

  “Why don’t you come see? I’ll have a plane at the Buffalo airport in four hours. Don’t forget your passport.”

  He hangs up.

  I stare at the phone for a long time after. Dread snakes through my limbs, freezing my muscles.

  He was expecting my call. How could he have known?

  I spend the rest of the night considering what I should do. I scribble a note on a scrap of paper in the kitchen: “Got something to do. Call you later. J.”

  I leave the loft quietly and run the whole way to the Hobbit Hole. No one is up yet, not even Ralph, usually the first to awaken. I throw some clothes and my passport in a backpack and grab the keys to the PsychoVan. Before I leave, I write a hasty note and leave it on the table where we keep the car keys. Be back soon.

  ***

  I drive to the FBO adjacent to the main airport. A private jet painted black with the golden spear logo waits on the tarmac, its engine whining. I go into the building and hand the van keys to the attendant at the desk. I give him Ralph’s name and number.

  “Are you Jared?”

  I turn to see a woman approach. She wears a white shirt with blue epaulettes and a pilot’s winged badge.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Jen. This way. We’re fueled up and ready.”

  I follow her out to the plane. A man sits in the co-pilot seat, looking at an iPad. I climb the steps and take in the sleek interior done in blue and gray.

  “Have a seat. Buckle up.”

  I sit and fasten my seatbelt.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Newark. That’s where Mr. Speer is docked.”

  “Oh.” The yacht. But in New Jersey? Not in Monaco? Or Norway? I had left so quickly, I hadn’t given a thought to where I was actually going.

  “We should be there in under two hours. There are snacks and water in that compartment if you get hungry.”

  The engines roar and the plane taxis down the runway. I stare out the window, wondering what I have done.

  ***

  We land in Newark airport a little after nine a.m. I spent the flight rewinding the events from the night before. In the broad light of day it seemed like a waking dream, a working of my own imagination. Ariel had come to me—but how do I know it was really him? It could have been a demon, an agent of Azazel, in disguise. I curse myself for not looking closer, for not questioning him and making sure.

  And the blue halo—had that been real? As soon as I get cell service I check my phone, but I can’t find any reference to the event on the news. Maybe I’d imagined that too.

  But the phone call to Speer, that was real. He had known why I was calling. He was prepared. I’d played into his hands.

  The screen blinks—phone call coming in. Grace. I silence the ring and let it go to voicemail. How can I explain any of this? I text her: Sorry, can’t talk. Everything’s fine, be home soon.

  “All set?” Jen smiles at me, opens the hatch, and lowers the stairs.

  I turn the phone off and shove it in the backpack. “Yeah. I’ll need to go back in an hour or two.”

  She looks at me, surprised. “Oh, okay. I’ll check with Mr. Speer.”

  A black car idles on the tarmac. The driver doesn’t come out to greet me. I get in the backseat and he picks up a phone. “On the way.” He pulls out of the airport onto a nearly empty expressway. It’s strange that there’s no traffic. The driver plays country music and I stare out the window. We drive over the bridge, and twenty minutes later pull into the marina in front of the yacht named Lucille.

  Speer stands on the deck as if he’s been there for hours. Three crewmen in white uniforms flank him.

  “Jared!” He waves.

  I blink and stare at him. This is not the Speer I met before. He’s muscular and white-haired. The vision I had was true. He has become me. Or something like me, anyway.

  I climb the steps and stand before him. “What have you done?”

  “Did you enjoy the show?” He cracks a mischievous grin. “I arranged it just for you.”

  “What?”

  “Come inside. Breakfast is ready.”

  I follow him into the cabin with a glance back at the three guys watching me. They don’t look like ordinary deckhands. They’re burly and menacing, more like…bodyguards.

  We walk through to the dining room where the table is set for three. There’s a huge amount of food in the center—waffles, pastries, fruit, and bacon.

  “My sister’s not up yet,” Speer says and seats himself. “It’s a little early for her. But I’m glad you were up last night. It’s so much better when you can see it as it happens.”

  “What did you do to yourself?” I ask again. “How did you do it? And what was that blue halo?”

  Speer ignores my questions, lifts his napkin with a flourish, and sets it on his lap. “You might as well sit down, Jared. This may take some time.”

  Reluctantly, I sit and place my backpack on the floor between my feet. He
helps himself to several waffles and douses them with butter and syrup.

  “It’s really I who have a lot of questions,” he says. “But I knew you wouldn’t respond in the normal way. I needed to get your attention. And lo and behold, it worked. Who would have thought? Waffle?”

  I shake my head.

  “The blue halo—that was nothing. Merely a little movie magic with the help of some rather large antennae and a whole lot of imagination.” He digs into his waffle and talks between bites. “I don’t sleep much anymore, but I’m constantly hungry like I can never eat enough. I used to have a problem keeping weight on, but not anymore. I wake up every morning and find a new muscle has popped up. Look at this.” He flexes his fork arm to display his bicep. “If only the bullies on the playground could see me now.” He laughs and grabs a handful of bacon from the platter. “Are you sure you don’t want anything?”

  “Are you saying that the lightning and the blue beam in Norway were manufactured?”

  “You thought I’d opened the Abyss, didn’t you?” Speer gives me a lopsided grin. “That’s what I hoped you’d think. Pretty good, huh?”

  I stand up. “I’m leaving.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  At that moment, I hear a low whir of an engine starting up and the big boat shifts under me. Speer grins.

  “We’re going for a little ride.”

  I grab my backpack and race out to the deck to see we have pulled away from the dock. The three deck hands are lined up, facing me with their arms folded.

  The dock isn’t that far gone yet. I can jump it easily. Before I can move, I hear a voice behind me.

  “Don’t leave yet.”

  I spin around. It’s Lucille. Pointing a gun at me.

  “You’re not going to shoot me.” I turn to make a dash for the gunwhale. There’s a loud noise like a crack and a burning pain in my back. I go down, confused by my sudden weakness. Heat courses up my neck to my face. My vision blurs, my right arm feels unnaturally heavy.