by Steven James
After a little while, Tane yawns a few times, and not long after that, soft snoring drifts from the front seat.
While he rests, I quietly watch Georgia pass by outside the window and Alysha repositions her leg again, softly brushing it against mine.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Dr. Adrian Waxford received word from General Gibbons that her flight would touch down at the McGhee Tyson Airport in Knoxville at 4:51 p.m.
That meant that, even with the time it would take to pick up her rental car, fight through Knoxville traffic, and drive up into the mountains, she would probably still arrive at the Estoria Inn by seven.
That should be plenty of time to show her around and then get her on her way to a hotel for the night before Senator Amundsen sent out the email at nine.
Now, as Adrian waited for Henrik to bring in Malcolm Zacharias, he went to see how the newest arrival was adjusting to life at the Estoria.
The man formerly known as Ty Bell was beating his chair desperately, yet futilely, against the one-way mirror.
Adrian watched until the subject finally gave up, collapsed in the corner, buried his face in his hands, and began to weep.
Hmm.
Interesting.
Perhaps he was a little too mentally unstable right now for the Telpatine test.
Zacharias, then?
That was a possibility.
But the more Adrian thought about it, the more he realized that the most profitable test, the most ideal candidate, would be one of the kids that Henrik mentioned were at that center in Atlanta.
With their hallucinations, it would be remarkably instructive to watch how they reacted to the drug. It could provide him with far more pertinent data than a test on someone who did not experience those altered mental states.
He decided to see how things played out, but if there was any way he could test the Telpatine on one of those teens before Sergei found and killed them, it might save him months of research.
“Okay,” Kyle said to the girls. “What do we know?”
Mia went first. “If you believe Wikipedia, Marly Weathers is a reclusive billionaire who lives somewhere in upstate New York.”
“Why wouldn’t we believe Wikipedia?”
“No one really knows who Mr. Weathers is. There’s speculation Marly is really a woman.”
“That bank lady on the phone seemed to be confused that I was a guy. They had it listed as Ms. Weathers. So, who knows?”
“Yeah, well, anyway, the foundation is only a couple years old. Same with Gatlinburg Holdings—it was started two years ago. On the surface it looks like it’s some sort of investment firm that also promotes—wait, let me pull it up.” She went to the site and read, “‘We support the community through peer-led education and advocacy programs that equip the next generation to make a positive impact on society.’”
“Does it say how the programs work?”
“It’s mainly stuff for students in the Smoky Mountains. Field trips. Nature hikes. Like that. There’s an educational center. But there’s more: They also do work to stop mental illness in teens and abuses in the juvenile justice system.”
“That’s random for a nature center,” Nicole said.
“Right—I thought the same thing, but all the money comes through this investment firm. I guess it fits, I don’t know, but I think I win that debit card. I’m craving some Fritos.”
“Didn’t we just eat?”
“You can never be too full for a Fritos.”
“Shouldn’t that be singular? Like a Frito?”
“There’s no such thing as a ‘Frito.’ Fritos is a brand name. Can I just see that bank card for a sec?”
“Not so fast.” Kyle turned to Nicole. “What about social media?”
“Nothing so far on Malcolm Zacharias—which is sorta weird. I mean, I can’t find anything on him—at least not based on what we already know he looks like from seeing him last winter. There’s some stuff on that Gatlinburg educational center Mia was talking about and the foundation in Philly. Both seem to be pretty open about what they do, but not really into lots of publicity. What about you?”
“Basically confirmed what you two came up with, except I also found some more stuff on Waxford. Since Zacharias was interested in stopping him, I thought I’d look him up just in case he had anything to do with all this. Probably a dead-end, but there were rumors he was searching for a site in Tennessee to continue his research.”
“Interesting.”
“So where does that leave us?” Mia asked.
Nicole looked at them thoughtfully. “Well, like you mentioned earlier, Mia, Philadelphia is out of the question, but . . . Gatlinburg is what—only a couple hours away?”
“Probably more like three or four,” Kyle answered. “Why?”
“Pull up the site for the educational center and check their hours.”
Mia did. “It looks like they close at six thirty in the summer. Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?”
“See how far it is to Gatlinburg.”
Kyle consulted his phone. “Almost two hundred miles.”
“Wait.” Mia flagged her hand in the air. “Slow down. And why exactly would we drive two hundred miles to this nature center?”
“Think about what else they do,” Nicole said. “Research into mental health for adolescents—that fits with Daniel. And they also work for justice reform.”
“And that fits with Waxford,” Kyle said.
Mia shook her head. “It’s a stretch.”
“Also,” Nicole added, “wasn’t the group that Malcolm works for trying to stop Dr. Waxford’s research on prisoners? I mean, that was one of his major deals when he showed up in Wisconsin in December, right?”
“What are you suggesting? We just pop up there to Gatlinburg and start questioning people?”
“We’ve got the debit card, the address in Philly, the email and the possible connection to Dr. Waxford. The center does educational programs for teens. We’re teens. We want to be educated. Voila.”
“Can’t we be educated from here?”
“We’re not going to find Daniel by waiting here or randomly driving around Atlanta. I know it’s a little bit of a haul, but there’s still time to get up there and make it back tonight—if we leave soon. This is the most solid thing we have.”
Kyle wasn’t sure exactly where he stood on all this yet so, at least for the moment, he sat back and let the girls sort things out.
Nicole started to pace. “Let’s say we head out and maybe the campus cop guy calls us and tells us they found Daniel. So, awesome! Then we just turn around and come back. But if we wait, we won’t be able to get up there today to check things out before the center closes. If there’s anything we can do to find Daniel, anything at all, we need to do it.”
“And a phone call wouldn’t suffice?”
“How far do you really think that would get us if someone from there did take Daniel?”
“And contacting the cops?”
“With what we have here? Seriously? We can’t even prove that Malcolm Zacharias exists.”
Mia looked at Kyle, who shrugged. “She does have a point.”
“I hate it when people have points,” Mia muttered. “Alright. Lemme go talk to my aunt.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Tane’s snoring doesn’t let up, even when we slow down and exit the highway.
“He must need to catch up on his sleep,” Alysha whispers.
“I guess so.”
“So you’ve been quiet for a while.”
“Just thinking. Looking at the scenery.”
“Hey.” She pats my knee. “I’ve been meaning to ask you how you knew there were seventy-two cars back at the parking garage. There couldn’t have been time to count them.”
“I do it without thinking. Numbers. Math. It’s like this constant thing going on in the back of my mind.”
“Sure, no, I get that . . .” Our driver makes a turn, taking us onto a
quiet country road lined with horse fields. “So, you said you were looking at the scenery. Describe it to me. What do you see?”
“Fourteen horses. Some rolling hills in the background. It all looks really peaceful. Blue sky. White clouds.” Then I catch myself. “Wait. That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to you, does it? The colors blue or white.”
“Not exactly. Tell me about the sky—not how it looks, but how it makes you feel when you look at it.”
“Okay, so let’s see. Think of warm sunlight on your face. Or maybe touching velvet or silk with your fingers.”
“Okay.”
“Now imagine listening to Rush.”
“Rush?”
“The band.”
“I don’t know their music.”
“How could you not know Rush?”
“Sorry.”
“Tom Sawyer? Fly by Night? The Spirit of Radio?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Alysha, we’re seriously going to need to introduce you to some contemporary culture when all this is done.”
“Sorry.”
“Okay, well then, think of the most beautiful music you ever heard.”
“Mozart.”
“Oh. Well, okay. I guess.”
“Not a fan of classical music?”
“Not so much, but we’ll go with it. So, the sunlight, the silk, the music. That’s what the sky is like today out there, only for my eyes.”
“It’s beautiful.” Her voice is soft, almost reverent.
We ride for a couple of minutes in silence.
“Daniel, have you ever heard the story of ‘The Country of the Blind’ by H. G. Wells?”
“I don’t think so.”
“It was first published like a hundred years ago. When you said that about the colors not making sense to me, you made me think of it.”
“What’s it about?”
“Well, it’s been a while since I read it—Braille, you know.”
“Sure.”
“As I remember, there’s this mountain climber in the Andes Mountains. I don’t know if this is exactly accurate, but I’ll just tell it to you. One night he goes out to find some rocks for a shelter or something and ends up slipping down a glacier. He survives, but he discovers that on all sides he’s surrounded by these sheer cliffs thousands of feet high. The only thing he can do is make his way down into the valley. Eventually, he comes to some llamas grazing there, and then, farther down, he finds a village. All the homes lie along a single road. Every one of them is windowless and awkwardly built with strange angles. Then he sees the people. When he waves to them, they don’t respond. Finally, when they turn their heads, he realizes that they have no eyes—just shriveled slits of skin where their eyeballs should be.”
“That reminds me of the type of story a couple of my friends, Kyle and Mia, might tell. For them, the creepier the better. But, sorry—you were saying?”
“Turns out, the climber had heard legends about this place before, but he didn’t think they were true. According to the stories, all the people in the village, because of some birth defect or disease, are born with no eyes. It’d been going on for so long that everyone there had forgotten about everything dealing with sight, and even that there was any world at all outside of their valley.”
“What happens to him?”
“A couple of the men feel his face, his eyes, and they’re shocked—they think something is growing there that shouldn’t be. When he tries to explain that he was climbing on the mountain, they have no idea what he’s talking about. They think he’s insane. Eventually, they take him to their elders to try to figure out what they should do with him.”
“I’ll bet he amazes them with his stories of life beyond the valley.”
“That’s the thing. He tries to, but it doesn’t work. He tells them about sunlight on waves, and glowing clouds at dusk and the thousands of shades of green in the forest. He talks about sprawling cities and technology and civilization—everything—and they think it’s all a fairy tale too strange to be true. The more he explains about what he sees, the more they think he’s mad. Time goes by. Because of the cliffs, he can’t leave the valley. Eventually he and this young woman fall in love. But the elders still think he’s insane and they figure that the problem is the growths on his face.”
“Oh. His eyes.”
“Right. They talk it over and eventually tell him that he can only marry her if he’ll let them remove the growths. And then, also, he needs to renounce all his stories and agree that there’s no world beyond the valley. And he must never speak of those things again.”
“So, basically, agree to live a lie.”
“In a sense, yeah, although I never really thought of it like that. Huh . . . In any case, he loves her so much and he wants to be with her so badly that he decides to let them poke out his eyes.”
The road we’re on ends about a quarter mile ahead of us at an elaborate sculpted metal gate.
The horse fence also terminates there, and since we’re starting to slow down again, I’m guessing that’s our destination.
“On the night before they’re going to do it, he steps out to look at the stars one last time. And as he does, he remembers the climb and falling into the valley and the old life he used to have. And there, in the starlight, he notices a crack in the rock face that he hadn’t really paid much attention to before. And so he needs to make a decision: What’s more important, being with the woman he loves but knowing that he would be living a lie, or pursuing the chance to be free?”
“And lose her forever.”
“Yes.”
“What does he choose?”
“The story ends with him starting to climb.”
“We never find out if he makes it out alive?”
“We never do.”
“But he decides to leave the one he loves.”
“Yes, to be with the truth. Which he loves more.”
As I’m contemplating that, our driver pulls up to the security gate.
At last Tane stirs, rubs his eyes, and looks around. “Where are we?”
“We’re here,” the driver tells him. Then the gate swings open and he takes us up a long curving driveway that ends in front of an expansive southern mansion.
Mia reappeared on the staircase and told Kyle and Nicole, “Alright, here’s the deal: Sue Ellen’s cool with us going, as long as we come back tonight. We have until eleven. We need to be careful, drive safe, you know, the whole routine, but we’re good to go if you’re still up for it.”
“Let’s do it,” Kyle said. “Let’s go.”
“It’s a good thing that I’m eighteen or this would never happen.”
“And that you’re so responsible.”
“That too.”
Nicole rose. “My purse is in the other room. I’ll meet you two at the car.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
I figure that senators probably make a pretty good living, but this place seems like way more than I would expect from someone who’s just a politician.
A distinguished-looking man who’s maybe ten years older than my dad is standing out front waiting for us, hands clasped behind his back.
As we get out of the car, he greets us each with a brisk handshake and introduces himself as Senator Brad Amundsen. Once he has our names, he ushers us inside. “Come on. Let’s see what you can do to help me find Petra.”
His lavish living room sprawls the entire length of the house.
He scrolls across a tablet computer and an automated video screen lowers on the far wall as the blinds dial sideways. I assume it’s to shut out the sunlight so it’ll be easier to see what’s projected up there.
“Has there been any word on Malcolm?” he asks me, probably because I’m the one he’s been speaking with on the phone.
“No. And no one except for you has called his cell.”
I fill him in on what little we know about the circumstances surrounding Malcolm’s disappearance.
“Well, h
e trusts you,” he says, “and that’s enough for me. He said you’ve all helped find missing people through your visions, or whatever you want to call—wait, forgive my manners; I’m just anxious to get started. Before we move forward, can I offer you anything to eat or drink?”
The last meal I had was Sue Ellen’s southern dinner last night, so I accept the offer, and I’m glad when Tane and Alysha do as well so I won’t seem rude by being the only one eating.
The senator directs his cook to prepare some lunch for us, then as she leaves, he asks about my shoulder, how I hurt it. Leaving out the part about the blur, I explain that a truck bumped into me, but that I’m alright.
“Bumped?”
“With an attitude. Really, I’m fine.”
“Okay, well . . .” He shifts his attention to the tablet again. “How much did Malcolm tell you about what’s happened to Petra?”
“Very little,” Alysha answers. “Just that she has visions too, and that she was taken.”
“Okay.”
He taps at his computer.
A college graduation photo of a young woman appears on the wall’s video screen. Blond. Pretty. Somewhat lonely-looking.
“She was a double major in accounting and engineering.”
“So, good at math?” I ask.
“That and logic. Yes. Extraordinarily good.”
Okay. There it is again—analytical thinking, that trait we all have in common.
The senator points to the screen. “I wasn’t sure what to pull up here, but I have links to her online photo albums, social media posts, and microblogs. I don’t know all her passwords, but we should be able to at least review most of her profiles.”
More pictures flow past us, and we describe them to Alysha as they do—some formal, some informal. Indoors. Outdoors. Selfies. Group photos.
In most of them, Petra appears content, but not especially happy, and I wonder how much of that is just her personality or how much is a result of her being troubled by her blurs.
Reviewing these pictures reminds me of looking through the photos of Grandpa that Mom sent me yesterday. My memory’s clearer than it was when I woke up this morning, and now I can recall having the revelation that the boy in the road was really a blur of me as a child.
