by V. E. Lemp
“Elena and Max McCormick. I asked Max to stay over for a few nights so Elena wouldn’t be left alone.”
“Good idea.” Mark tapped the mantle with one hand before lifting up a small ceramic bluebird. He cradled it in his hands and examined it carefully. “If only we could protect all those we love from danger. But there are no guarantees.” He gently placed the figurine back on the mantle. “Some things are out of our control.”
Karen bit her lip as she observed the pain in his eyes. “We can only try our best.”
“And pray,” Myron said.
Ariel walked back into the house, pulling a rolling suitcase across the wooden floor. “I think I packed too much. But I wasn’t exactly sure what we’d be doing, so I threw in a bunch of different stuff.”
Karen smiled. “Best to be prepared. You can dump that in the guest room.”
Myron rose to his feet. “Well, I must be going.”
“We were hoping you could stay for dinner,” Karen said. “We’re making pizzas.”
“Sounds delicious, but I need to make another stop before I get to the airport.” Myron glanced at Mark. “One of your associates has agreed to talk with me.”
Mark raised his eyebrows. “Really? Who’s that?”
“I’d rather not say. Sam set up the meeting. Seems he’s been making some definite inroads into various agencies since he’s been in D.C. Must be his military connections.”
“He’s good at getting people to talk. I know he’s been meeting with a few interested individuals.” Mark smiled. “In between visits with my sister, that is.”
“I heard something of that.” Myron nodded toward Ariel. “The girls have been discussing it over the phone. Frequently.”
“It’s romantic.” Ariel walked over to her father and gave him a hug. “You promise to be extra careful on this trip, right?”
“Right.” Myron leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. “Watch out for yourself as well. Don’t wander off alone, or just with Amy. Make sure Claire knows where you are at all times.”
“Or Sam?” asked Ariel. She flopped down on the sofa. “See ya, Dad. I’ll be careful, promise.”
“To tell you the truth”—Myron gave Mark a pointed look as they walked toward the front door—“I actually hope Sam’s a frequent visitor to your sister’s home. Extra protection.”
“That could be arranged,” Mark said thoughtfully. “I doubt Sam would turn down that assignment.” He stood in the open doorway next to Karen as Myron stepped onto the porch. “Call me from Atlanta, would you? Or before, if you notice anything odd.”
“I will.” Myron eyed Karen for a moment. “You look tired, my dear. Are you sure you want to take Ariel anywhere tomorrow?”
Karen tapped her fingers against the doorjamb. “The drive’s less than two hours, and Claire will insist I have lunch before I drive back. It’ll be fun.”
Mark took hold of her fingers. “Karen’s looking forward to the girl talk, I think.” His grip tightened about her hand. “A nice break from all the stress.” He held out his other hand to Myron. “Good luck on your trip. Call if you need any assistance.”
“I will.” Myron shook his hand. “Just look after Ariel. That’s my primary concern.”
“And ours.” Karen gave Myron a reassuring smile before he walked away.
Ariel stepped up behind Karen as Mark closed the front door. “Right now, my concern’s dinner. You did say something about pizzas, didn’t you, Karen?”
“I did. But you have to help make the pies.”
“I’m good at that.” Ariel bounded off toward the kitchen. “I cook a lot at home. Dad’s not bad, but I think I have him beat.” She turned in the archway between the rooms. “Do you still have a cat?”
Mark nodded. “We do. I bet she’s hiding under the bed. She’ll wander out later. It always takes her a while to accept guests.”
Karen hung back for a moment as Ariel disappeared into the kitchen, and then laid her fingers on Mark’s arm. “Try to keep your thoughts under control.”
He gazed down at her. “I will. But I don’t know how much I can keep from someone with Ariel’s abilities.”
“Think of other things,” Karen said firmly. “Baseball or something.”
“When do I ever think of baseball?” He kissed her on the temple. “You know I’m not much of a sports fan. And I certainly,” he added, with a grin, “can’t think about my favorite sport. Not with Ariel here.”
“Behave.” But Karen smiled as he crossed to the desk set up in one corner of the living room. Then she turned for the kitchen. “All right, Ariel. Let’s see who can come up with the most extravagant pizza.”
“So do you think Sam will marry Claire?” Ariel layered rings of green peppers on top of an already loaded uncooked pizza.
“Hard to say.” Karen examined her own pizza with a critical eye. “I think I’m going to keep this one simple. Just sauce and some fresh basil and cheese.”
“Yeah, mine’s got everything else. Might take both of us to lift it.”
“We may need to call in Mark.” Karen stepped back, felt her legs turn to rubber, and grabbed for the edge of the counter.
Ariel’s eyes swept over her. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. Just got a little overheated.” Karen felt Ariel’s gaze focus on her with razor-sharp precision. She attempted to block her thoughts but realized she was seconds too late.
“Oh no.” Ariel yanked at the thin straps of her apron with such force one snapped. “No, no.”
“It’s all right. Please don’t get upset.”
Ariel stared at her. “You going to be okay?’
“I’m determined to be fine. There will be some days when I won’t be feeling very well, but hopefully that’ll just be temporary.”
“But leukemia…” Ariel said. “That’s like cancer, isn’t it?”
“It is, but there are good treatments for it now.” Karen carefully layered mozzarella slices over the tomato sauce on her pizza. “And please, Ariel, don’t tell anyone. Not even your father. Promise?”
“Yes.” Ariel spoke without much conviction. Her gray eyes were clouded with unshed tears.
“You see, only Mark and I know. We didn’t want to tell anyone else until we finalized a treatment plan with the doctors. Even my parents don’t know yet. So I trust you to keep this to yourself.” Karen leaned across the kitchen island and held out her hand.
“Okay.” Ariel clasped Karen’s fingers. “But I want to help, if I can.”
“Just finish making your pizza so we can pop these in the oven and eat sometime soon. I’m starving.”
“Me too.” Ariel brushed the tears from her cheeks with her free hand. “Do you want hot peppers or not?”
“Oh, definitely. Mark loves hot peppers.” Karen squeezed Ariel’s hand before releasing it. “We need to make sure he’s happy, don’t you think?”
“Sure.” Ariel gulped back a hiccup, carefully placed a jalapeño pepper on her clear Lucite cutting board, and began viciously chopping it into tiny pieces.
“Just wash your hands before you do anything else,” Karen said. “Don’t want to get that juice in your eyes.”
Ariel sniffled and burst into tears just as Mark entered the room. ‘What’s up?”
“Ariel made the mistake of touching her eyes after handling a hot pepper.”
“Bad idea. Here, let’s wash that out.” Mark placed one hand on Ariel’s back and guided her to the sink, then turned on the faucet and helped her splash cold water on her face. While she dried her eyes on a clean kitchen towel, he turned to face Karen. “So, she knows.”
Karen sighed. His expression told her he hadn’t been fooled for a second. “Yes, she knows.”
Ariel was very quiet the next day. She popped earbuds in as soon as she climbed in the car and fiddled with her music player while Karen drove toward the Ledfords’ home.
“You might want to turn that down a bit.” Karen raised her voice to be heard over the mu
sic. “If I can hear it, it’s too loud. You’ll ruin your hearing.”
Ariel pulled an earbud out of one ear. “You sound just like my dad. Are we almost there?”
“Almost.” Karen shot the girl a concerned glance. Her skin was dull as chalk, and her eyes puffy. “I heard you wandering about the guest room last night. Couldn’t you sleep?”
“No, but neither could you, if you heard me.”
“You’ve got me there. Not sleeping too well these days.” Karen peered up at a traffic signal, willing it to turn green. The trip was proving more exhausting than she’d expected. She was looking forward to resting at Claire’s.
“I was thinking.” Ariel popped out the other earbud. “Maybe the Oneiroi could help you. Alice and her friends, I mean. They’re more advanced than us. Maybe they have, I don’t know, treatments we don’t have or something.”
“I don’t want to ask that of them,” Karen said. Mark had already raised this possibility in a conversation that had devolved into a heated argument. “I need to go through the treatments available to me on this world, just like every other human.”
“But if they could cure you…” Ariel’s gray eyes examined Karen with unsettling intensity. “I bet Alex would say the same.”
“Alex doesn’t know, and you are not to tell him,” Karen said, a bit more sharply than she intended.
Ariel looked away, staring out the side window. “I won’t. I can’t help it if he reads it in my mind, though.”
“You can. I know you can block others sometimes. Please, Ariel.” The wheedling tone in Karen’s voice was embarrassing, but she pressed on. “Please don’t let him know. I have enough to deal with right now.”
Ariel slumped in her seat. “Oh, all right. But I still think you should ask the Oneiroi for help.”
Karen refused to acknowledge this remark. She pulled the car up to the curb in front of the modest brick home. “Here we are, Chez Ledford.”
As they approached the house, the front door opened and Claire stepped out onto the small concrete stoop. “So sorry,” she said after making her hellos, “but I have to ask a favor. Amy’s working at a community garden, and I wonder if you’d mind picking her up? I’d go, but my car just conked out. Neighbor’s working on it,” she added, motioning to the carport, where a man was bent over the engine of a compact car.
Karen gave Claire a hug. “Of course. We’d be glad to bring her home. Just give me the directions. What’s wrong with the car?” she asked, as she helped Ariel drag her suitcase into the house.
“That’s the strange thing,” Claire said. “It was running perfectly this morning when I drove Amy to the garden. She has to put in community service hours for a school project. Anyway, when I got home the car was fine. But just a few minutes ago when I tried to go pick up Amy the car wouldn’t start.”
“You got enemies?” the neighbor called out, stepping back from the open hood of the car.
“What do you mean?” Two sharp lines bracketed Claire’s mouth.
“Well,” the man said, “somebody’s deliberately tampered with your battery cables.”
“Deliberately?” Karen frowned. “How do you know?”
Claire’s neighbor shrugged. “I admit I’m an amateur, but I don’t think cables get sliced this cleanly by accident.”
Karen and Claire shared a worried glance, and then Karen headed for her car. “Going right now.”
“I’m coming with you,” Ariel said.
“No, stay with Claire.” Karen’s hand was still on the latch when Ariel flung open the passenger side and jumped into the car.
“I’m going. Unless you feel like dragging me out of here.” Ariel’s gray eyes were implacable as granite. “It won’t be easy.”
“Oh, all right.” Not wanting to waste time with arguments, Karen waved to Claire. “We’ll be right back. Keep your cell on. I’ll call when we have Amy.”
Claire held up her phone and nodded.
With Ariel reading Claire’s directions it wasn’t difficult to locate the community garden. Karen pulled into the gravel lot and parked in front of the chain-link fence that enclosed the site.
“That’s strange,” Ariel said, as they got out of the car.
The lot was deserted. Karen walked to the gate and fingered the padlock hanging from the latch. “Locked.” She glanced around. “So where’s Amy?”
“Would she still be inside?” Ariel peered through the fence. Tall rows of dying cornstalks hid most of the garden from view. Ariel called Amy’s name several times, but the only response was the wind rustling through the dried corn tassels.
A ball of acid rolled up Karen’s throat. “They wouldn’t have locked her in. Where could she be?”
“Maybe she decided to walk home?” Ariel leaned against the fence and closed her eyes. “Let me see what I can pick up.”
Karen paced the parking lot, glancing at Ariel’s still figure from time to time. “Anything?” She clenched her hands so hard her wrists ached.
Ariel shook her head. “She’s not walking home. I can’t sense her thoughts, and I think I would if she were close.”
Karen slumped against the hood of her car. “Oh God, someone’s grabbed her again. I can’t tell Claire that, I just can’t. And Mark …” She slammed her hand on the front fender.
“We should look around. I don’t sense her here, but my intuition isn’t always right.”
“I think you’re stretching the truth.” Karen straightened and crossed to the girl. “You’d know if she were anywhere nearby.”
Ariel looked up at Karen, her gray eyes bright with unshed tears. “Yeah, I would. But let’s look anyway.”
“All right.” Karen took Ariel’s hand. “We’ll walk around the garden, just to be absolutely sure, before we return to Claire.” She took off at a fast pace, still gripping Ariel’s hand. They followed the line of the fence. As they rounded the third corner Karen spied a dark van parked on the side of the road. “We may have a problem.”
Ariel’s fingers tightened around Karen’s hand. “Yeah, there’s danger.”
Karen didn’t have time to do more than wrap her arms around Ariel before three men in ski masks jumped out of the van and surrounded them.
“Take me if you must,” Karen said. “But leave the girl alone.”
One of the men, his face hidden by the mask, shook his head. “We’ve orders to bring in the both of you.”
Karen kicked him in the shins.
The man swore as one of his companions ripped Ariel from her arms and pressed a cloth against the girl’s face. Ariel slumped in his arms.
Karen, wishing she’d thought to wear a tracker again, attempted to shove her knee into the second man’s groin. Before she could complete that trajectory, something damp was pushed into her face. Chloroform, she thought, before she staggered and fell forward into darkness.
EIGHTEEN
Karen’s searching fingers slid across cold metal. She struggled into a seated position, flexing her arms and legs. She wasn’t bound, but her limbs were weighted with lethargy.
“Ariel,” she called, rubbing her eyes. She was sitting on the floor, her back pressed against a rounded column. Everywhere she looked, light refracted off smooth silver surfaces. She also saw faces. Very frightened faces.
“Hello, who’s here?” She was surrounded by huddled groups of people. There was a wide range of ages and ethnicities represented, but every face conveyed an equal level of terror. Examining the room in more detail, she saw there was no furniture, only a few built-in platforms serving as benches. No windows and no obvious light fixtures, although the room was bathed in a cool, bluish glow. The one visible door was shaped like a sealed hatch on a ship.
“Where the hell am I?” Karen demanded, turning to the closest group of people.
“Don’t you know?” It was a boy, his hair bright as fire against his milky face. “This your first time?”
“First time for what?” Karen rose slowly to her feet, still looking abo
ut for Ariel.
“Being taken,” the boy replied in hushed tones and gripped the hand of the older woman sitting next to him.
“As in abducted?” Karen stared into the boy’s green eyes, which were glazed with panic. The memory of the men in the dark van returned, and Karen shook her head. “I wasn’t taken by aliens, if that’s what you mean. Just ordinary men.” She recalled the blue eyes she’d glimpsed behind one of the ski masks.
“Happens to me all the time,” the boy said. The woman placed her arm around his shoulders. “Sometimes I see the same people here, but not always. Don’t remember you.”
“No, I’ve never been abducted before. And I don’t think aliens are responsible this time.” In the far corner Karen spied a snow-blond head. “Ariel,” she called out, louder this time, and the girl turned. Standing next to her was another familiar figure. “Amy,” Karen said under her breath. She wasn’t sure if she was delighted or horrified to have located her niece.
“Yes, we’re here.” Ariel led Amy across the room. Amy was trembling as if she’d just been pulled from freezing water.
“Don’t panic.” Karen wrapped her arms around her niece and glanced at Ariel over Amy’s shoulder. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” Ariel lifted her head and pulled her hair back with one hand. “We aren’t in space. I can still sense earth around us.”
Alex’s words rang in Karen’s head. Not even taken off the earth, he’d said. Which meant there was some possibility of escape. “Listen, Amy, we’re going to get out of here, you understand?”
A film covered Amy’s light-brown eyes. Karen shook the girl lightly. “Come on, return to us. You aren’t on any spaceship, you hear me? It isn’t like last time.”
“No, it’s different,” Amy said softly. “Other people here, no little men…” She gulped and shuddered. “Haven’t seen them yet. Not those eyes.”
