Sojourner

by Maria Rachel Hooley

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  THREE WEEKS LATER

  The first thing I notice when I wake is how quiet it is. I find myself lying on my bed, dawn streaming through the window around the big tree outside. The thick wooden fingers scrabble at the glass most of the time when the wind stirs them so, but I’ve learned to ignore them. Even as I stumble into consciousness, there’s a deep, unsettled feeling, like waking from a nightmare I can’t remember or trying to forget something so bad it’s impossible to repress completely. The dread hangs over and all around me, waiting for remembrance, yet the details of the last couple of weeks are foggy, and no matter how hard I try to distill them, I can’t.

  Unable to take the stillness and silence anymore, I pad barefoot to my bureau and grab a brush. My hand trembles as I pull it through my long black hair. Without warning images scatter in my brain like pearls from a broken strand. Maguire. Gun. Lev. Blood.

  The brush clatters to the dresser top. I can’t move except to inhale and exhale. The final truth I don’t remember is rushing at me like a locomotive, flying past, just missing, and finally the caboose. But then sometimes, a near miss is no miss at all.

  More memories spatter inside my head. Maguire shooting at me. Lev blocking his path then falling. I shake my head and tell myself to focus. There’s more locked away. I sense it, but the part of me that holds them doesn’t seem to want to give them up. It’s like denying the sun if you stay in a cave. Unfortunately sunlight finds cracks.

  “Lev?” I think, wondering if he can hear me. I sit on the edge of the bed, waiting.

  No answer.

  “Lev?” This time I use my voice and mind, as if by doing so it will force an answer.

  Silence.

  More images. Lev in my arms, writing in agony. Blood seeping out of his body onto mine. The EMTs pulling me away. The stretch of CPR and nothing. Maybe I’m crazy, I tell myself. Maybe it was all a dream. Then I start whirling around, searching for signs that will reinforce that stupid hope because if not, the other is unthinkable. I can’t go there.

  No matter where I look, I find nothing to dispel the memories. All my books line their shelves. My pictures of friends back in Dallas are still pincushioned to my bulletin board. Even my stuffed animals are lumped into the piles near the bed where I throw them when I sleep. Nothing and everything seems different.

  I close my eyes and imagine Lev on the bed with me, his glowing wings furled around me, holding me safely each night until dawn spread across the sky. I remember the heat of his body and the way his skin reflected the light. I remember the feel of his lips on mine, his hand touching my back. These are what I know of love, and every part of me bears a memorial to his existence so that I am not myself without him. I do not exist in his absence.

  Shaking, I grab my keys and my purse then head out the door. The sky is so blue, and I think of Lev’s eyes. The image of him in my arms comes to mind and I have to force it away. It’s my fault he suffered. It’s all my fault. The guilt hits hard and fast and I have to do something or I won’t be able to breathe.

  I thrust the keys into the ignition and drive toward the cemetery. As usual, the lot is empty, and I wind around across bridge, accelerating carefully so as not to drive off it.

  The pit of my stomach turns to ice. I look at the empty driveway in disbelief. Then I shove the car into park and run up to the door. My fist pounds the door as I yell for Lev.

  Silence. Tears begin seeping down my face and I can’t wipe them away quick enough. I keep pounding, ignoring the pain in my hand. He has to be there. He just has to.

  Someone catches my hand. I turn, expecting Lev. It’s not even Celia or Evan. The woman in the office stands there, looking at me as if I’ve gone mad.

  “Can I help you, dear?”

  “I was looking for the family that lives here.”

  She shrugs. “They’re gone.”

  I stumble backwards as though her words are pushing me. “Do you know where they went?”

  “Didn’t leave a forwarding address.” She frowns, and I know she’s wondering what I’m doing out here without a coat, crying like this. “You sure there isn’t something I can help you with?”

  “Yeah,” I tell her and run back to the Jeep. I drive back through the cemetery, still waiting for him to pop out from behind some headstone somewhere, but I don’t see him no matter how hard I look. Still, I don’t want to go home yet so park the Jeep and get out to walk among the dead.

  “Lizzie?” I look up and find Griffin standing there. He holds a newspaper in his hand.

  “Hey,” I manage, folding my arms across my chest.

  “I was just coming to see Mom’s grave when I spotted your Jeep. I’ve been carrying around this newspaper for a couple of weeks, but Jimmie said you weren’t seeing anybody so I just kept it.” He offers it to me and I grab the loosely rolled paper, which comes unfurled in my hands. On the front page, I see the date, two weeks ago, and the headline “Local man confesses to murder.” Beside the story is a picture of Maguire. In his eyes I see the same hatred my father must have the night he died.

  The newspaper begins to slip from my fingers but Griffin’s hands catch it. “I knew something was up with Maguire but everybody was looking at me. My dad had to pay $10,000.00 to bail me out. So I was keeping an eye on Maguire. I saw him carrying a roll of carpet in the school, which made me suspicious, so I followed him. I’m sorry, Lizzie. I wish I’d gotten there sooner. Before Lev was....”

  I inhale sharply and wrap my arms around my body, trying to keep it all together. “It’s not your fault,” I whisper, thinking back to Jimmie disgustedly explaining Maguire’s motive. He’d been in love with my mom, and it enraged that my mom had to drive those icy roads to pick my dad up from that bar the night of her death. He wanted to kill me to wipe out the rest of my father. He’d attacked Jimmie because they were once good friends, before Ephraim moved to town. Crazy. I force myself to stop thinking and say, “I should go home.”

  As I walk away, I feel Griffin staring at me, watching. He wants to hover, but it won’t do him any good, not unless he wants a close seat to watch this pain take over my life. I’m still trying to understand everything that has happened and what the point of it all is.

  I refuse to believe that Lev no longer exists. I don’t even know if he was my guardian angel or just the spirit who ferried my soul. It doesn’t matter. Some part of Lev is alive and he will find a way to get to me.

  Or I will find him.

  Second Sight Preview

  (Book 2 in the Sojourner Series)

  Maria Rachel Hooley

  Chapter One

  There is a hum to the white noise of dreams, a low resonance that slips into the cracks, keeping me under the weight of sleep like a drug. It’s constant, like a florescent light and just as warm, but I haven’t felt its steadiness flow through me since Lev died.

  Lev.

  I open my eyes to find him lying there next to me, his arms draping my body, his wings furled around me, bathing us in a soft white glow. As his eyelids are closed, his long blond lashes touch his cheeks, and the even rise and fall of his bare chest suggests sleep.

  This is impossible, I think, swallowing hard as my heart speeds up. But impossible or not, I’m not willing to destroy whatever form of Lev lies in front of me. He’s here for now and that’s all I care about.

  As if sensing my internal panic, his eyes slowly open and a lazy smile crosses his face. “Hey, Elizabeth.” His hand reaches out and touches the place just above my heart, willing it to slow. But even that can’t make the fear go away.

  “Lev,” I whisper, my tone clipped. Let this be real, not everything else, I think.

  “What’s the matter?” he asks, his voice deep and husky. A hand reaches out and pushes an errant strand of hair from my face.

  A million words splinter through me, but none of them can come out, not without destroying him. So I say nothing and bury my head into his chest. Tears prick my eyes and I wish I co
uld drive them away, but no matter how often I get rid of them, they come back. I’ll never be free of them.

  “Elizabeth?”

  Panic. I feel my heart thundering in my chest, and it’s hard to breathe. Then I feel the moisture beneath my hands, and I force myself to pull away. Blood. My hands are covered in it. Lev’s once expressive face has become slack-jawed and glassy-eyed. And there is so much blood.

  It is then that morning jars me from the dream, and I jerk upright in my bed. A scream rips through the air, and it takes a moment for me to realize that I’m screaming. It’s a wordless gush of torment. I could ask why, again. Just yell it at the top of my lungs, hurling it like a verbal missile to the heavens. But I wouldn’t get an answer. And I wouldn’t get Lev back, either.

  “Lizzie?” Jimmie jerks open the door. Dark circles under his eyes, telling me he’s not sleeping any better than I am. Every night I wake screaming. Six months out, and I still jerk from unconsciousness like a knife has been dragged through my chest. Jimmie lingers in the doorway, his hand on the knob as though he’s unsure whether or not to come inside. He’s wearing a white t-shirt and shorts. His hair is rumpled and stands on end.

  “I’m all right.” My voice is flat, and I won’t look at him, afraid he’ll realize just how far from okay I am.

  For a moment he just watches me, the frown bunching both eyebrows together. The breath that he’s been holding slowly slips from him, his shoulders sagging like his body shrinks with the breath that slips away. His lips keep moving, as though he wants to say something else but stops himself.

  “I’m all right,” I mutter again, folding my arms around my body. As if that will contain all the pain that wraps around my insides like Constantine wire.

  “Kay.” He finally nods and backs out of the room, leaving me alone with the fear. I don’t sleep much anymore. I used to have nightmares about dying. Now I have them about living…alone. No matter how much I try to forget, I remember the feel of Lev’s body next to me, his skin as familiar as my own. I ball my hand into a fist and the bracelet that Lev gave me glitters from the sunlight ebbing around the curtains.

  Hesed. Love. The script is beautiful. I remember when he gave it to me. I blink and his face is there—all gold and pure. His timeless blue eyes peer at me until he is all I can see. The wings, the warmth, the love.

  All gone.

  Shaking, I drag my hand through my hair, pulling the loose strands from my face. Then I turn to the alarm clock. 7:30. It’s Saturday. Jimmie probably would have slept in until 9:00 if I hadn’t woken him. I swallow hard. Six months since Lev’s death, and I find myself looking for him or others like him. Is it too much to ask that a town as simple as Tellico Plains, Tennessee, needs more angels? And that if I should be able to somehow find one, could he tell me the truth about Lev?

  I force myself to sit up, knowing it was nothing short of a miracle that I even knew Lev for what he was. How would I be able to recognize another angel? I lick my lips, pull the rubber band from my wrist. I wrap it around the long mane of hair just to get it out of my face. Then, as the tears resurface, I rest my arms on my knees and let them rip through me.

  When the emotional storm has finished with me, I wipe my face and try to ignore the resulting headache. There’s really no point in tears. They serve no purpose except to remind me of all the things my life is not and never will be again. I stumble from the bed and head to the closet. Inside, I find lots of winter clothes left over from my brief stint in Hauser’s Landing, Massachusetts. Never mind that it’s summer now in Tellico Plains. Not that I’d wear a lot of the stuff from Hauser’s Landing. Even clothing carries memories, and I’m so loaded with them, they threaten to overwhelm me. Not that it would take much these days.

  I settle on black jeans and a purple tank top, colors completely opposite of what I’d normally choose. Maybe it’s just my way of saying if I could be someone else, I would. In passing, I see my reflection in my bureau mirror—haunted eyes, gaunt face. Hello, is Elizabeth in there somewhere?

  I shun the reflection and keep walking until I reach the kitchen where Jimmie calmly sits at the table, a mug of coffee already in front of him. Although I’m expecting him to break out a pack of Marlboros any day, right now he’s still adamant about having quit when we left Hauser’s Landing.

  Opening the cabinet doors, I pretend to be foraging because the one thing that always gets Jimmie’s attention is when I don’t eat. It’s like a red flag and Jimmie is the bull. So I grab a box of cereal. Once the flakes tumble into the ceramic bowl, I pour milk over them and start eating, hoping that Jimmie takes the bait for me being ravenous. I’m hoping he won’t see me planning on taking a little road trip away from this stupid town with more trees than people. Jimmie has a knack for wanting to live in small-town America. I can’t say I share his enthusiasm.

  “You want some?” I nod to the cereal box and milk.

  “Nope.” He taps his mug. “I got the breakfast of champions right here.” Then he takes a sip.

  “Going fishing today?” I ask, hopeful for that distraction. Jimmie’s been watching me too closely these days, like he’s expecting me to fall apart. Maybe he’s right.

  “Thought about it. I guess it depends on what you’ve got planned.”

  That’s code for, “I’ll decide what I’m doing when I know you’re not getting into trouble.” I shrug and push the spoon around in my cereal bowl, feigning an interest in how cereal becomes mush with milk.

  “Well, what are you going to do?” he finally asks, sensing that his hint has garnered no response.

  “Thought about looking around and unpacking.” It’s not a lie exactly. I am going to look around. It just won’t be around Tellico Plains but Knoxville. I’m not expecting to find any celestial beings in this little town. Hell, with a population this small, nobody gets to die, otherwise the town might just drop off the face of the earth.

  “Lizzie?” His tone harbors a warning.

  “I’m fine, Jimmie.” I carry my half-empty cereal bowl to the sink. “I told you that earlier.

  “Yeah, that’s why you woke from a nightmare screaming your head off.”

  My back stiffens, and I wish I could make him drop this topic. I’ve been wishing that since Lev died. “I said I was fine, Jimmie.”

  “I know. But that only makes you a liar, Lizzie. It doesn’t mean that you’re not hurting. I still think we need to set up an appointment—“

  “I’m not doing the shrink thing!” I yell, whirling to glare at him. “Period.” I grip the counter to find some way of occupying my hands.

  “Lizzie, you loved a boy who died in your arms. That leaves a mark.” He stands, and I just know he’s coming toward me, regardless of if I want him to. With the counter at my back, it’s not like I have anywhere to go.

  “I don’t want to talk about this.” My heart starts to gallop, and breathing gets harder as an image of Lev jumps into my head. My throat is dry and I start shaking even though it’s easily seventy degrees in here.

  “You can’t keep it bottled up forever. Otherwise it’s going to eat you up until there is nothing left.” Jimmie steps toward me and I launch myself away from the counter, dodging him. Still, he manages to lay his hand on my shoulder, and with it comes the weight of the world. Tears prick my eyes, and if I have any hope of putting the pain back inside the genie bottle, I have to get away from him so I shrug off his touch.

  “Lev is dead, Jimmie. I know that. He’s never coming back no matter how much I want or need him to. Is that what you want to hear?”

  “This isn’t about what I want,” Jimmie says, his tone resigned. “It’s about what you need to get through this and you don’t want to talk to me about whatever is locked inside your head.”

  I grit my teeth, stunned. “So you think I’m going to talk to a complete stranger because she has the right credentials? Didn’t it ever occur to you that maybe I just don’t want to talk to anybody right now?” The lump in my throat is building. Just a
nother clue that any moment if I don’t get out of here, it’s all going to come tumbling down, and if I fall apart, I’m not really so sure I’ll ever be able to put the pieces back together.

  Jimmie, clueless as ever, reaches out and pushes a strand of hair from my eyes. That simple gesture unlocks my heart and all the pain I’ve been carefully stacking there like an internal game of Tetris falls beyond my control as I start crying and gasping, and falling. Jimmie’s arms enfold me and he keeps whispering that it will all be okay, but I know better than to believe him. Jimmie doesn’t control the alignment of stars anymore than I do. He can’t promise me that I’ll be okay. I can’t even promise myself that.

  Still, for the moment, it feels good to be held and have someone else taking note of everything I can’t control. Not even my heart obeys me anymore. It’s stubborn like that, and maybe if Lev were here, things would be different. But Lev’s never going to return. Never.

  My only chance is to go out and find him, wherever he may be. Knoxville, Tennessee sounds like as good of place as any to start looking.

  I take a shuddering breath and test to see if Jimmie’s ready to let go. The way his arms reluctantly release me affirm my attempt, but the concern in his tight-lipped frown appears no less, which sucks because at least one of us should feel better after that moment of despair, and it’s not me. Looking away, I brush the tears from my face and head back to my room because I’ve had about all the bonding I can presently stomach.

  “I’m worried about you,” Jimmie calls. I want to yell back that worry is seriously over-rated and useless but the simple fact of the matter is that I’m worried, too.

  Jimmie would absolutely kill me if he had any idea that my vision of exploring includes driving to a city that could swallow Tellico Plains whole and ask for seconds and thirds. But as I start seeing the fringes of the city ahead, I tell myself it really doesn’t matter because Jimmie isn’t going to find out. Period.