The Soul Seekers

by Amy Saia

  WiDo Publishing

  Salt Lake City, Utah

  www.widopublishing.com

  Copyright © 2012 by Amy Saia

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written consent of the publisher. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, organizations and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design by Amy Saia

  Book Design by Marny K. Parkin

  ISBN: 978-1-937178-20-8

  Contents

  1: Gone

  2: Freeze

  3: Twists and Turns

  4: William

  5: Bluff

  6: Bridge

  7: Flashes

  8: Cult

  9: Night

  10: Dawn

  11: Connected

  12: The Sketch

  13: Drive

  14: Wet Fender

  15: You’re My Angel

  16: Visions

  17: Transistor

  18: Highway to Hell

  19: Smoke

  20: Time

  21: Peak

  About the Author

  1: Gone

  My father was Colorado. He was white, snow-packed ridges and aspen-threaded valleys. He was pine and soft clouds across a pale blue sky. He was granite and crystal gushing rivers and columbine blooming over a hillside. He knew the way of the bear, and how not to get caught on the wrong path after they’ve come out of their caves in the spring, babies hobbling close. He was the epitome of organic, beautiful earth.

  My father was my best friend.

  My mother, however. . . .

  It was a hot day in Colorado Springs, June 1979, when I stood watching her shove everything into the station wagon with her big Audrey Hepburn sunglasses pulled down over her eyes. We were going to leave—like it had never happened, like he had never existed.

  The radio went from Elton John to Hank Williams. Mountains changed to hills, to prairies, to plains, to buildings and fast food restaurants and gas stations.

  “Was that our exit?”

  Mom had on a white peasant shirt and kept looking at herself in the rearview mirror.

  “No, it’s coming up,” I told her.

  On the interstate a Buick drove by loaded with kids my age, college-aged freshman with nothing more on their minds than to party and get the perfect tan. I saw a girl with hair flowing out the window and she looked happy, as though pain didn’t exist.

  A boy smirked at me and honked his horn a few times.

  “You know those kids?”

  “No Mom, just ignore them.”

  “Glad you’re not like that, Emma.”

  We were headed for Springvale, a small town in southern Indiana where Mom had grown up and escaped at the ripe age of seventeen. It was time to go back because she didn’t know who she was anymore—the Rocky Mountains, and Dad’s cancer, had swallowed her up and now she needed clarity. All my life she had said she hated Springvale, but the closer we got, the faster she drove.

  It was early evening when we arrived, pulling up to a house that spoke whispers. A curtain parted then the front door opened. Mom’s voice strangled with a cry as she hopped out of her seat. I had to scoot over and slam my foot on the brake to keep the car from crashing into someone’s mailbox.

  They embraced, right there on the porch. Mom, the woman who swore she’d never go back, and Grandmother Carrie, the woman who hadn’t loved and understood enough. Or so I thought.

  I helped Mom put her stuff away, then I put all my things into the gabled room that Grandmother Carrie suggested I take. It was charming enough, with a window seat, and a huge antique dresser in the corner. I walked over to open one of the curtains and peered outside. A line of shaded hills spread out across the west, fading into a dull horizon. A church spire jutted out above a cloak of trees to the east, blue sky behind.

  The walls were shiny cream with little pin holes where pictures used to be. The floor was polished wood, covered by a thin woven rug. The bed was a big wooden affair with handmade quilt; colorful patterned pieces sewn together by the most delicate of stitches. I can honestly say this because I lay there for the longest time just staring at that quilt. How I wished my life could be so neatly arranged.

  ¤ ¤ ¤

  A brass plaque hung beside the front entrance: Springvale Public Library, est. 1888.

  I ran up the steps and pulled open the door. Not what I’d expected. The place was poorly lit with dust filtering by the front windows. It was hot, the air felt wet; the smell of mold singed inside my nostrils along with the scent of old, rotting wood covered by Pine-Sol. If a library could cry, this one would.

  Books were a salve for everything crazy in this world: I’d gotten through many miserable days lost in the vast joy of literacy. Picking up an old clothbound volume of poetry and opening its cover, I watched as a paper weevil scrambled out of the binding. This place needed me. And I needed a job. If I could make enough money for a car by the time summer was over, I might just be able to drive back to Colorado Springs—with or without Mom’s approval.

  I made my way over to the front desk where a woman sat reading a paperback novel.

  “Yes, I was wondering,” I said, using my most adult-sounding voice, “if you were hiring?”

  She sat up, perhaps with a bit of disbelief, and looked me over. “Why, yes I am. Would you like to apply?”

  “Yes. This place really needs my help. Oh—sorry if that sounds rude.”

  She smirked and gave me a yellowed form which I filled out right there at the counter.

  I watched as she looked it over. Her hair was a mass of kinked up curls sprayed into a round helmet.

  “Looks good. You’re seventeen. You worked in your junior and high school libraries. You seem like a nice young woman. Are you sure you want to spend the rest of your summer being cooped up in a musty old building?”

  “Books and me . . .” I twisted my fingers together.

  She laughed at that, causing a bit of caked-on makeup to crackle at the corners of her mouth. “I’m going to hire you right now. I was getting right bored sitting in here by myself everyday—despite the strange happenings.” She gave me a look of panic and opened a drawer, handing me a pin-on name tag. “Write your name on this and bring it to work. Can you start tomorrow?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then be here at a quarter till nine, and make sure you bring something to eat for lunch.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  My eyes skimmed across the room to a good-looking young man, hunched over, reading at a corner table behind some shelves. Strike that, good-looking wasn’t even close. Black hair hung in waves over a forehead that curved down gracefully to a long, Roman nose. Firm, but full lips moved ever so slightly as he read. He was strong and solid—like Superman come to life.

  Curious about the book he was reading, I squinted but couldn’t make out the title. He read with such intensity that I almost laughed. It made me curious. Back in my old town the cute boys didn’t read. They boasted about football, tripped you in the hall when you came out of science class, bragged about the head cheerleader; but they never read. I had worked in the school library for four years without seeing anyone except Mike Stultz come in. Mike wasn’t what you would call handsome, but he was gorg
eous with intelligence.

  The young man sitting in front of me was gorgeous with a noble grace. And unattainable, too perfect, like he was missing his suit of armor. I was staring too much, I realized with shame. When he shifted in his seat to look up at me, I pretended to be scanning my watch. He looked back down, I looked back up.

  Standing near a low bookcase, I faked interest in a shelf-top display of Victorian cameos. He looked up at me again. It was as if he held up a magnifying glass, and his eyes were the sun, burning into my skin.

  A whisper started in my head, one of the stupid whispers I’d been trying to ignore my whole life, similar to the ones that had started coming from Grandmother Carrie. This was the strongest yet. Beautiful, achingly beautiful. Frightening. Addictive. Deep and wonderful and wise. I turned away fast and headed out the door.

  2: Freeze

  I started in right away, sweeping a feather duster across every shelf and book and anything else that caught my eye. After that I grabbed a bucket of soapy water and got down on my knees to scrub the floor. Next came the wall, then the tabletops and chair backs. Once I fell off a chair trying to remove cobwebs from a high corner, but it only made me more determined.

  It felt good to be useful. Every smudge of dirt on my skin was a badge of honor. I was proud of how the library had shaped up in just a matter of a few days. Miss Lacey, or Ethel as she instructed me to call her, sat at her desk with an expression of happiness and sometimes disbelief.

  It didn’t take long to figure out a couple of things. One, the Springvale Library was not the most popular place around. Almost no one came in, and if they did, the exchange was tinged with a feeling of guilt or hostility. Ethel often referred to the books as contraband, and said it wouldn’t be long before they won.

  The other thing was him. I had a claim on his whereabouts Monday through Friday, nine to five. He’d sit at that desk, in that chair, in that corner and wouldn’t move for anything. Not to eat, not to use the restroom, not to check out any books, and certainly not to talk. He wasn’t a talker.

  Neither was I. I let things be, and took the whole situation for what it was, or rather, what it wasn’t. Talking might scare him away and then what would I have to look forward to?

  It turned into a game. A game brought on by an urgent need to escape some of the more unpleasant things in my life, like Mom’s sudden withdrawal from us, and the late-night drinking binges she thought I knew nothing about. She seemed bothered by something, but wouldn’t say what. Most nights she went straight to her old bedroom, and I learned not to knock.

  Grandmother Carrie had begun urging me to apply for college. She said I needed to do something with my life. Getting a job was a good start, but I should always try for more. She and Mom argued on a constant basis about me. A few days before, Grandmother Carrie had sat down next to me and said, You have the gift, Emma . . .

  He too had something to escape, it was obvious. So there we both were in the library, escaping.

  Part of the game was figuring out what made him tick. I began to create stories, how he lived in some shack down by the bluffs and had nowhere else to go, or perhaps he was studying to become a doctor and would leave town after getting his acceptance letter from a fancy college. That part made me sad. I didn’t want him to leave.

  The other story was that he was on the run from the law, or hiding from a gang—a real fugitive. It would explain those secretive glances whenever someone walked by the front window.

  The best story—the one that repeated in my brain every day—was of him parked against the curb on a vintage Harley. I’d see myself running in his direction with only a slight pause to look back at Springvale’s town square, shops, bronzed memorial elm, and the looming Springvale Savings and Loan. He seemed to be ready, revving the motor the second I climbed onto the seat behind his back, my arms sliding into a locked circle around his torso. With a loud roar the motorcycle would jet away from the curb and race toward the interstate.

  I liked that dream.

  “Hello Ethel,” I called out Friday morning, rushing in through the front glass door and past a mess of boxes she’d spread on every table in the front reading area. “What’s this?”

  “Oh! They want me to put together all the reference books on Indiana history printed after 1956. Said it’s very important that we ‘do not misrepresent Springvale through frivolous and unfounded claims.’ What are those idiots so worried about?”

  I reached over to extract a pencil from her stiff mass of curls. “Hey, what’s wrong with ignorance? Consumers choose it seven to three over intellectual thinking.”

  I ignored the quiet chuckle I heard coming from the back corner. He did that sometimes—laughed at my jokes. I’d tried asking Ethel about him, but she said she had no idea what I was talking about. All she did was read those paperbacks. How she could miss Superman in Levis every day of her life astounded me, though it also made me happy. He was my secret to keep.

  “Oh no, they forgot to put in the second part of the list!” She dropped a pile of books and spun around. “I’ll be back. Watch the desk.”

  When she left, I pulled out my sketchbook and hovered a pencil above the page of pure white canvas. I’d taken up drawing again and had forgotten how much I loved it. I liked the act of creating something on paper, and the way it felt to release and not have everything stuck inside my head.

  I began to sketch out a square jaw with a sensitive mouth. Dark tossed curls sat above an expressive, handsome forehead and the bluest of blue eyes. I had to use my imagination for that part, since I’d never actually looked into his eyes. If I could just get a closer, more intimate look. Yeah, I thought, if only.

  “Excuse me,” I’d say, sitting on the table right in front of him. “Do you mind if I draw you for a second? I need to get really close.”

  I heard the sound of shuffled feet, and looked up to see the blur of someone passing through the row of bookshelves on my left. He’d broken protocol and gotten out of his seat in the middle of the day! I shoved the sketchbook back into its cubby and grabbed the first thing I could find—one of Ethel’s romance novels. I pretended to read it, holding my breath as he turned the corner and approached the front desk. He stepped up, hesitant, then leaned in to inspect my name tag, the act of which resulted in a wild production of beats inside my chest.

  “Emma Shay,” he whispered, as if reading a placard in a museum.

  I felt his eyes move up to my face, leaving a burning trail behind.

  “Where does she live? Where did she come from?” His voice was like music, threading into my mind and down warmly into the pit of my stomach.

  For another second he hovered close. I sat still while he reached out to touch a strand of my hair. It was the softest touch—if I hadn’t seen it out of the corner of my eye, it would have been untraceable. A butterfly could have landed there and made the same fluttery sensation.

  He let the strand fall away, pivoted, and made his way back through the shelves to his corner.

  Still not breathing, I blinked twice and realized the page I was pretending to read was a hot and heavy love scene. Gross! I tossed the book down in complete embarrassment.

  I was shaking when Ethel sprinted through the door with a piece of paper waving in her right hand. “I left it in the car. Stupid me. Okay, so how’s about you help me get this all sorted out? Emma?” She came over to my side with a worried look on her face. “It’s freezing in here! Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” It wasn’t the cold making me shake, and I couldn’t tell her the real reason. I didn’t understand it myself.

  His eyes were blue, amazing blue. God made only one pair and the rest of us are screwed blue. They were the kind of eyes a person could get lost in forever.

  3: Twists and Turns

  They were arguing about their favorite lost cause: me. How I nev
er went anywhere but work, how I hadn’t registered at any colleges yet, how I hadn’t spoken of Dad since his death. I guess they wanted me to hear this time, because their voices were really loud.

  I rushed to grab a Karen Carpenter LP.

  A voice shot upstairs through the drafty doorframe. “Emma’s my kid and I can let her do whatever she wants!”

  “That’s the problem, Pauline. You won’t let her do anything! And she’s not a kid anymore, Emma’s almost eighteen. It’s time to let go!”

  “She just lost her dad, what do you want?” Mom’s voice was whiny and out of control. I hated to hear her like that—it meant she’d been drinking.

  I placed the record on the turntable and set the needle down onto its vinyl grooves. Karen started singing a song about a man and his guitar; her voice was sweet, melancholy, but it was too late. I already had that sick feeling in my stomach.

  “We’ll move out tomorrow. How would you like that?”

  “Pauline, be sensible.”

  “I can’t help but notice the connection you and Emma have.”

  I clutched at the bedspread and winced at Mom’s words.

  “True, Emma and I do have a connection, we’re very much alike. She needs someone to trust and you push her away, Pauline. Can’t you see that? She’s going to turn out just like—”

  There was a moment of silence, but it brought no relief. It was like a storm building power before coming to destroy a perfect little town. Footsteps headed for the staircase, ascending each lift with quick, heavy treads.

  “I’ll talk to her right now!” Knuckles rapped against the door in fiery rhythm.

  I sprung from the bed, wiping my sweat-covered hands across my denim thighs. Act natural, be calm. Mom needs calm.

  “What?” I opened the door the same way I always did—slow and with a bit of nonchalance.

  “Grandmother Carrie wants to know when you’re going to sign up for college. As you know, I think it’s just fine for you to have a year off, what with your dad and all.”