There were three of them now, three scary beings: the warped and distorted woman from before, a tiny girl, and a monstrous, skeletal madman. Grace stayed hidden, ready to help, as Linda focused and opened, filling these strange beings with images of an ocean and a cottage and a boat, scenes that made Grace’s whole being pulse and ache with love and longing, remembering how her mother had so loved the ocean before she had died. Grace could sense Linda’s concentration, her intelligence, and her skill as she maintained her glow even when the car bounced and jerked around her. Soon enough the scary ones departed. Linda rejoined her body and the car sped on.
“It will not be so easy the next time,” the Elder had told her before He left. She shuddered at the memory of Him. The Elder’s love was so hot, so demanding, so fierce, that she could feel herself dissolving in His presence. His glow sliced the universe, a knife-edge of conscious light that could not be misconstrued, piercing the hood of her father’s car and reaching down through the planet, and up to infinity. “These dense ones are very clever,” He cautioned. “They will learn from this defeat and return even stronger.”
Grace had opened to the vibrations of the ‘dense one’ that stood at her father’s car door, discerning his patterns of fear and suspicion. She thought she might share her heart with him, fill him with love and understanding. But he was closed to her, and she had no other ideas. She could feel her father’s terror. She could feel Linda’s growing anger. But she did not know how to help. It was only when the Elder had flickered over to ignite the tanker, and the dense one followed to investigate, that she could begin to relax.
Dennis beamed her an image of fur and fingers, and she reached down to scratch behind his ears. His presence grounded her, kept her in touch with her other self, connected to the realm of bodies and houses and cars and trees and dogs who needed petting. She was glad of that. This world of light and vibration threatened to enchant her into staying. And she was not ready for that. Even now, even here, she could feel her grandfather’s heart bathing her body with love and sadness and regret. He was sitting right there, beside her bed, reading out loud from a book his mother had read to him when he was as young as she. She wanted to hear how the story ended.
Linda and her father followed their two new friends into their home. Grace beamed Dennis an image of a bumblebee and together they took to the sky, spiraling around in a series of loop-the-loops and curls that left her laughing and Dennis barking for more. Promising another run later, Grace settled down to a spot above the roof. Dennis took his place at her heel.
For now, she had work to do. She scanned the sky for more dangers.
Chapter Eight
8.1
“Fucking Vermont!” Rice cursed, tossing his cell phone out the window. He laughed as it clattered to the middle of the other lane, where it would get smashed under-wheel. He’d bought the damned thing at a gas station in some stupid little cattle-town called Bethel. One of those pre-paid pieces of shit the domesticateds used these days, as most no longer had the money for a real phone. But he’d charged it for over an hour and it still didn’t fucking work! He yanked the charger from the cigarette lighter, gathered up the packaging, and threw it all into the road, glad to be rid of any memory of it. There didn’t look to be one decent phone store in all of New England, as far as he could see. How could these people live like this?
A gas station appeared out of nowhere up on the left and he steered his Mercedes rental lazily across the center line and past the pumps, making a bee-line for the pay phone in the corner of the lot, not giving one good-goddamn for the oncoming car that mashed its horn as it swerved to miss him, dopplering past like the whiny little baby that drove it. “Bite me,” he muttered as he slammed to a stop, just missing the crow that yanked at whatever-the-fuck dead rodent lay slow-cooking in the afternoon sun. He pushed open the door, lifted the handset and swiped his card.
“Hello?”
Mary’s voice sounded galaxies away, weak and scratchy. Fucking phones. “I need to talk at Bob,” he said impatiently. Fucking Mary as well.
“She’s working, Rice,” said Mary, warily.
“Off hunting?”
“As far as I know. When you went missing she grabbed Alice and Random and took off to see what’s up. I haven’t been in to check on her since. The General and I—”
Rice cut her off. “What’s up is that Spud and his homies blasted me and melted my com implant. Which is why I’m talking on a pay phone here in the fucking wasteland.”
“Blasted you?”
He could hear the scorn hidden in her voice. Bitch. It was her fault he was out here in the first place. “Yes, Mary,” he said, as if explaining things to the village idiot. “A Martian tripod in the middle of Rochester-fucking-Vermont. The Spielberg version, no less. Nasty fucker blasted the front picture window of a local coffee shop. Behind which I was sitting, thank you very much.” He picked at the dry blood crusting the small hole behind his ear. It still hurt like fuck-all, even with the medkit. He pulled another chip of tempered glass from his jacket pocket and hurled it at the crow. “Another fun bit of theater from Spud and the gang.”
Mary sighed in that “tsk, tsk” way she had. “That’ll be hard to cover, won’t it Rice?”
“Probably. So what? Not my job. My guess is that I’m the only one who saw it. No doubt the provincials are still standing around slackjawed, scratching their noggins and wondering ‘Hey, Rufus, why’d that-there window shatter?’ and what was that light they saw? I mean, hell, the bugs can ram the Pentagon on 9/11 in the middle of broad-fucking-daylight and people still swear they saw an airplane.”
“You’re pretty free with the epithets when there’s nobody around,” Mary said, her voice now cold.
Rice was past caring. “Yeah, well. I’ve about had it with the games.” He glanced at the sky, flinching at his own words. He had more than one implant. They could still listen in any time they wanted.
“So where’s your agency phone?”
Rice was tired of the stupid questions. “In my other pants, Mary. I wasn’t expecting to need it. Listen, I need you to take a message.”
“Okay,” Mary said perkily. “Just let me get my steno pad. You want coffee?”
Rice slammed the handset against the Plexiglas wall. And again. Taking a deep breath, he returned the receiver to his ear. “Sorry,” he said sweetly. “Dropped the phone. Say again?”
“What’s the message?”
“Tell Bob I’m on my way to the Squirrel. Since they’ve never figured out how to build straight, level highways in New England, it’s going to take me six hours instead of four. So I’ll be lucky to get there before dark. A charming little time warp that could have been avoided had the General not insisted I play it human and just signed me out a goddamned wok.”
Mary’s condescension oozed through the phone lines. Holy Mother of God, he’d like to smash her fucking face. “I’ll talk to the General about that,” she said.
He knew she wouldn’t. She was probably fucking him. Or Spud. She lets Ma Kettle slip away and nobody says a goddamned thing. “I bet you will, sweetheart,” he said.
“Anything else I can do for you, Theo?” she asked.
“Yeah,” answered Rice with a sigh, actually meaning what he said. “Can somebody please explain to me what we’re doing here?”
8.2
The President was bringing Keeley and Pooch up to speed, but Cole hardly heard a word, enthralled as he was by the way Linda’s throat bobbed and danced as she spoke, captivated by the way she massaged her own ankles. She sat next to him on the sofa, her feet drawn up underneath her bottom. Her fingers, long and exquisite, were just inches away from his own. Images drifted across his consciousness, like memories sent back from the future; he was nuzzling that throat, drawing in her rich scent, caressing her ankles and shins and thighs, drawing her into him, drawing himself into her. His heart hammered inside its cage of ribs, shouting to be let out. Some part of him judged these thoughts as lud
icrous. He hardly knew her. They were on the run. His kids were in grave danger. But ludicrous or not, it was all he could do to not reach out and pull her to him. In the warm and relaxed respite of this simple, cozy living room, the strange attraction that had been nibbling at his soul since the night before had blossomed and grown to a fever pitch.
Cole shook his head to clear the images. “Uh, what did you just say?” he asked, reaching down to scratch the chin of the Border Collie named Chapin that had adopted him in exchange for his constant attentions. In his daze he had missed something important. He scrunched his face into a knot.
Keeley stopped and looked quizzically at Cole. “You talking to me?”
“Yeah. You just said something.” He gestured at Linda. “You called her something.”
Linda smiled and nodded. “Cornfed. She called me Cornfed.”
Cole shivered. “Yeah! Why’d you call her that?”
Keeley shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s what I used to call her. Back when—”
“What’s up, Cole?” Linda could tell he was onto something. Her fingers crawled a bit closer to his. A spark flew between them.
Cole stood to break the connection, hoping to keep his head clear. He walked to the window and gazed for a moment out over the front lawn, his long arms hanging awkwardly at his sides. The early October sun was fading into late afternoon, kissing the distant tree line with gold before turning in for the night. “It’s something Grace said,” he answered, stepping back to face them all. “Just before we left. She said ‘watch out for cornfed.’” He walked across the living room and sat back down, again sharing the sofa with Linda.
Linda’s voice hummed with remembrance. “We had these names for each other. I was Cornfed. Because I grew up on a farm and was a goody-goody. Keeley was Vinegar. As in ‘piss’n’vinegar.’ Because she was the wild one.”
“So how did Grace know?” Cole said.
Keeley raised her mug and took a sip of the home-made witbier that Pooch called “la pisse des dieux”: piss of the gods. “You say she just wouldn’t wake up this morning?”
“Yeah.”
“My guess is that she’s involved somehow. Got dragged into this. She’s not in her body.”
Cole laughed nervously. “Wow! That’s wonderful! Great! So glad to hear that.” Chapin nudged at his ankle and Cole scratched the dog’s ear with his toe, thankful to have something he could do. He exhaled noisily. “She’s five-fucking-years-old!” he cursed.
Linda reached out to him with a gentle hand and he looked over to take it in his own for a brief squeeze. For a moment their eyes locked, and the energy that passed between them – despondency and rage, worry and fascination and crazed, panicked passion - came together in a dazzle of electric power that threatened to split him open like a lightning strike. He let go of Linda’s hand and shook his head, mistaking his own guilty thoughts for hers. “It’s not your fault,” he said.
Linda held his gaze. “I know,” she said. “And neither is it yours.”
“Those fuckers,” he spat. He drew a couple of long, deep breaths and rubbed his face, as though he could wipe away the anger with his fingertips. Chapin nudged him again and he leaned forward, to scratch the dog with his fingers.
Linda turned to Keeley, who sat across from the sofa in one of two massive club chairs. The deep blue chenille, speckled with white flecks, reminded Linda of a star field, a night sky, a fitting setting for Keeley’s “Earth Mother” vibe and flowing floral scarves. “So it’s your turn, Keeley, my dear. How about telling us how you know shit like that. And how you knew we were coming. You said something about a dream?” Linda scrunched around on the sofa a bit, tucked her feet up enough to let them accidentally rest on Cole’s thigh, knowing it was no accident, feeling the heat of his body, trying to keep her mind on their plight while letting the energy flow between them. She took a sip of tea to soothe the pounding of her heart. “I saw that look in Pooch’s eyes,” she added, catching Keeley’s glance toward her husband, who was sitting in the chair beside her. “He knew we were coming. He wasn’t surprised one bit.”
The big French-Canadian buried his head in his hands for a moment, breathing softly through his fingers. The couple’s other Border Collie, an older female named Betty, tunneled in from beneath and licked at his nose. Pooch looked up at Keeley with an expression so heavy with love and sorrow it was a wonder he could hold up his head.
“When I saw you in the auditorium, I knew it wouldn’t be long,” said Keeley at last, still watching her husband. She turned to face Linda. “It wasn’t a dream, Mrs. President. It was real. Just like always.”
Linda wrinkled her nose with distaste. “I’m not following you,” she said.
Keeley sighed deeply, as if releasing decades of loss and regret, then slid out of her chair and dropped to her knees at Linda’s feet, reaching out to take both of her old friend’s hands in her own. She settled back onto her heels and smiled bravely, glancing back at Pooch for just a moment before speaking. “You really don’t remember, do you?” she asked gently.
Linda shrugged. “Remember what?”
“Why I left.”
“You left because of your uncle. You left because….” Linda stopped when Keeley started shaking her head. Linda looked around the room. At Cole. At Pooch. It had grown suddenly dark, as if the sun had passed behind a cloud. An image of Earl driving his boat into the pier flashed across her mind, the lightning in the cloud. She shook her head to clear it but it only felt darker. A shiver passed through her like a restless spirit. The window seemed too far away.
Keeley drank in a long, cool breath. “C’mon, sweetie. Slow down. Close your eyes. You remember.”
Linda pulled back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said tersely, anger rumbling on the horizon. “You left because of your uncle. You—” She looked off toward the corner of the room, as if seeking an escape route.
Keeley put a finger to her lips. “Hush, darlin’. My uncle went to jail and you helped put him there.” She reached up, put a hand to the President’s cheek, pulled her face around. “You saved my life, girl. You put that fucker in jail. And I will be forever grateful to you, even though it tore my family apart. But that’s not why I left. And you know it.”
Tears spilled from Linda’s eyes and she wiped them away. “C’mon, Keeley. I don’t know it. I don’t. I can’t know—” Linda sputtered out, as though an unseen hand had just hushed her with a touch. She looked at her lap, at the floor, at the windows, anything but her friend.
“Oh, baby, yes.” Keeley’s eyes welled with tears in communion with her old friend. “You can know. You do know. It’s okay, now. To know. It’s okay. That’s why you came to me. So you could know.”
Linda doubled over suddenly, as if punched in the gut, her inhalation a wrenching gasp of pain that brought both dogs to their feet. They came forward quietly, lending their noses and warm breath to Keeley’s gentle touch. Linda sobbed and sobbed. The storm had broken. Keeley rose and sat beside the President on the sofa, making room for herself between Linda and Cole, hugging Linda with one arm while reaching out to Cole for strength with the other.
“They came for us, Cornfed,” she said softly, as if speaking in a chapel. “Just like they had so many times before. Since we were little. You remember? They came again. We were just starting our senior year. And we were so beautiful. So beautiful.” Keeley’s own face was wet now with tears and she let them run freely.
Slowly Keeley went on, as if letting the story tell itself, at the pace it needed to go. “They came for us. Took us away to their ship or lab or whatever the hell it was. Put us on those tables and stuck us with those fucking needles. We were naked and you … you were so afraid. And I couldn’t help you. I couldn’t move.” Keeley hushed for a second as Linda cried, making some room for the memories to drip down into Linda’s soul. “They brought this young man in,” she continued softly. “He was … dazed. A robot. Naked. They brought him in and he laid dow
n on top of you.”
Linda’s sobbing had quieted to a soft staccato shudder as Keeley spoke, the lighter patter that followed the cloudburst. In the shelter of Keeley’s love, she could let the whole truth soak into her conscious memory, knowing without knowing that the rain of her grief would wash away the grit and dust of so many years of forgetting. Betty licked the tears as they continued to fall, doing what she could to help sluice away the pain.
“I couldn’t help you, sweetie. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. They held me … frozen … unable to even turn my head. So I saw it all. I saw your eyes. How animal. How terrified. How … assaulted. And I knew that pain. But all I could do was lie there and watch,” Keeley paused and swallowed, as though her grief and shame were welling up in her throat. “You were my sweet Cornfed.” Keeley’s own tears joined the rainfall, mingling with Linda’s, soothing their parched souls. “I felt like I failed you.”
Linda shook her head and sat back to look at her friend. “You didn’t fail me,” she said, her eyes willing to brook no argument.
Keeley smiled sadly. “I know, baby. I know. But I was young. I didn’t know up from down. I felt bad about everything. It happened just after I told you about my uncle and … I couldn’t even look at you. I couldn’t. I was so ashamed. I mean, we could barely remember that something had happened, you know? But we sure as fuck could feel it. And that whole year turned out to be just one mess after another. You got pregnant and we panicked and told your folks. You sounded completely fucking crazy, swearing you hadn’t gone all the way with anybody. And then luckily you miscarried. Christmas came and you told my Dad about how his brother was messing with me, and Daddy beat the shit out of him right there by the tree. Daddy filed charges. There was the whole investigation, and all the questions, and everybody, and I mean everybody – family, friends, teachers – everybody was looking at us. Lordy! No wonder we were drinking, Cornfed. It’s amazing we survived it at all.” Keeley shook her head in wonder. “After the trial, when Daddy said something about moving … I jumped on it.” Keeley leaned back onto the sofa cushions, hugged her arms against her chest, rested her face on her clasped hands and exhaled quietly, as though she were in a confessional. “We didn’t know what had happened, Cornfed. It was like we’d both had this horrible nightmare that we couldn’t quite remember. But our bodies remembered. And I didn’t know how to help. All I knew was how badly I hurt.” Keeley looked up at Linda. “All I could think to do was to run away. And I’m so, so sorry. I ran away. I failed again.”
All of the Above Page 17
