by Rachel Jonas
At my father’s question, my brow tensed. So far, this was the most random, abstract argument I’d ever heard. First, the thing with me at the reservoir was mentioned, then my ever-increasing appetite, and now this.
There was a long moment of silence, a moment where I could no longer hear them pacing.
“Cigarettes, Rob? Please… don’t insult my intelligence. We’ve all heard the stories and there’s only one thing that gives off that scent—‘embers that burn, but can never be consumed’.” She spoke those last words in such a way I believed she was quoting someone. Or a book maybe.
They were talking about Evie, about the smoke smell.
Heavy footsteps moved toward the door and, for a second, I clammed up, thinking I’d get caught, but then they stopped. I heard a short kiss, a peck, and then my dad spoke again.
“You’re worried and that’s okay,” he started. “But there’s no way what you’re thinking, what you suspect, is true.”
My mother exhaled sharply. “Well, either way, I want Nick to keep his distance.”
“Twenty,” Dad said flatly, taking a deep breath. “That’s the cut off, right?”
Mom didn’t answer. Or, if she did, it was only a nod.
“That girl couldn’t be more than seventeen or eighteen like Nick,” Dad reasoned. “So, even if you are right, even if she is… what you think she is… she’s a long ways off.”
“No, he shouldn’t be seeing her. Not even if there’s a remote possibility she’s—”
“Remember how your dad warned you about hanging around me back when we were kids?” Dad cut in. I didn’t hear a response from my mother, so I assumed she nodded and a gruff laugh left my father’s mouth. “And remember how being forbidden to see me came right before, well, Richie?”
I grimaced at the thought of my parents… in that way.
Another long breath left Mom’s mouth and it sounded like she eased up a bit, maybe even laughed. “I hear you, Rob, but… this is different,” she declared. “We’re not asking Nick to stay away from this girl because of raging hormones and fear that he’ll do something stupid,” she said, her voice sounding strange to me—sad, afraid. “There could be a lot more at stake here and we both know it.”
I sat quietly, waiting for this to all make sense, but—
“And the call we’ve been expecting?” Mom added, her voice breaking a bit. “…It came today. Council meetings resume next Monday and they’re mandatory.”
Council?
“Weekly? Why is that necessary? Why would they—”
“I think you and I already know the answer to that question.” Her voice trailed off and I wanted so bad to bang on their door and demand answers; answers I knew I’d never get.
A pulse in my hand had me staring at my phone again, but this time, I wasn’t hit with the same jolt of excitement as the last. It was another message from Evie, but my mind was someplace else now.
Something was going on—something that had my mom thinking she’d try to stop me from seeing Evie, something involving some council I’d never heard mentioned before—and I wanted to get to the bottom of it.
A question rang inside my head, one I pushed back until now. It was a question asked by a pushy sophomore who couldn’t seem to leave me alone…
What are you?
I heard Roz’s voice loud and clear and wasn’t sure what it had to do with the conversation I just overheard, but the two felt connected. There was this sense of secrets lurking beneath the surface of my life lately and it was driving me crazy. On some level, I wondered if that’s why Roz’s pushiness got under my skin like it did. Because maybe, in many ways, she was speaking for my subconscious, asking the hard questions I tried to suppress.
And… I was beginning to think she might be the only person who could help me understand.
*****
Evie
Who cares about the Civil War? I mean, seriously… who cares?
I lifted my forehead from my desk and a page stuck to my face. Because of the laugh it gave me, I was slow to remove it. I needed that laugh… badly. Otherwise, I’d start screaming in frustration.
On top of the long day of school, and then the football game after, I was stuck sitting here doing more work, trying not to doze. The only thing keeping me awake was chocolate and Nick’s messages. A moment ago, we were discussing cartoons we both used to watch when we were kids, but now his responses were taking longer to come through and they were much shorter. Almost like he was trying to multitask.
It was fine if he was. I needed to get this stupid assignment done anyway.
My lids were heavy and I felt sleep nipping at my heels. Lately, since my dreams had gotten so much more… real… I started sleeping with my earbuds in, playing music as loudly as I could stand it without it keeping me awake. It helped. I hadn’t dreamed of Liam since… well, since the non-dream I had of him.
That freaked me out more than I liked to admit, but music seemed to be an easy fix. I eyed them, my earbuds, across the room on my nightstand. I was tempted to put them in now just in case I fell asleep by accident, but decided against it. The noise would distract me from finishing my work.
It’ll be fine.
I dropped a candy wrapper into the wastebasket and focused again. My pencil moved across the lined sheet and I calculated I couldn’t have had more than another few paragraphs or so to write to satisfy the length requirement. After that, it’d be bed for me. I needed to get out early tomorrow morning to find a gift for Nick and to grab a few things for the lunch his friends planned for him. I’d keep it to one bag of groceries so he wouldn’t get suspicious. I could just tell him it was snacks for the falls. It wouldn’t be a total lie.
Another yawn hit and I stretched, feeling fatigue settling in quick, but I fought it. Had to. If I wanted to go to the falls tomorrow, I had to get—
Darkness… It was heavy and overwhelming. I knew right away I’d drifted off, but it was deep and stronger than me. Too strong to jolt myself out of it. There was always an acute awareness of not being lucid and, while I had no idea if it was that way for everyone, it’d always been that way for me. I experienced the same calmness and paralysis as others, but there was never a question in my mind of whether I was sleeping or awake.
Although, sometimes Liam’s presence made me question it all.
The inside of his house slowly came into view, fading in like an old-school TV that had to warm up as the picture brightened. Bare, paneled walls; blank surfaces void of anything with any emotional significance. I always looked for pictures or items that might be displayed out of sentiment, but I never found a single thing. Wherever he dwelled, even if it was for an extended period of time like this place, it still always felt like he was just passing through. Kind of like a soldier. When deployed on a mission, they only get comfortable enough to survive, but there’s this clear understanding that where they lay their heads at night isn’t home.
Where was Liam’s home?
The question came out of nowhere and I had no idea what answer I expected to get, but I did wonder. Even if only a figment of my imagination, he had to come from someplace.
Today, he was calm. Unlike the last time, when he took me along for a wild hunt through the woods, chasing who-knows-what… until I spoke to him.
I hated that I acknowledged it that way, but it was impossible not to, seeing as how he responded.
His head tilted back, his eyes staying trained on the ceiling. A water stain the shape of Texas stared right back at him. The outer edges were dark brown, while the center was a murky shade of beige. He didn’t take his eyes off it as his lids lowered slowly. It was a bit disorienting, like how it felt being given laughing gas when I had my wisdom teeth removed last year. That feeling of being awake, but not. In that moment, I wished I had the power to rouse him awake, but it was no use. Usually, when this happened, I was forced to suffer through the darkness like I had to suffer through the silence.
It sucked.
; A thought came to mind, something I tried before and failed at, but it was worth it. I wanted to force myself to wake up. If I succeeded, I could end this by getting my earbuds and avoid these episodes altogether.
That’d be ideal.
My limbs were dead, but my mind was sharp and clear as ever. First concentrating on bringing feeling back to my hands, I imagined my fingers wiggling. I pushed my brain to the limit, hoping to awaken my body so it’d cooperate with my thoughts, but… it was no use. Frustration set in and I was sure I’d just have to wait this out, but, as a last resort, I did the equivalent of yelling at myself. Internally, of course, but it didn’t work.
Well… not on me anyway.
As soon as I thought the words, “WAKE UP!” my vision was no longer cut off from Liam’s surroundings. His eyes popped back open and the Texas-shaped stain seemed to shift backwards as he tilted his head upright again. He seemed… startled.
Kind of like a person who’s just heard a disembodied voice screaming at him.
My pulse raced behind my ears and the rhythmic swoosh-swoosh of it made me breathe harder. Two large, inked arms extended, grasping at a notepad and pencil on the coffee table near the couch where he’d been napping. I watched him scribble on the sheet, realizing it wasn’t blurry this time. Almost as if, when we broke through the haze last time, it left for good.
A word came to mind and stuck there: progress.
There was this small, annoying twinge in the pit of my stomach urging me to test this theory further. It made me wish he’d stand in front of a mirror so, maybe, I could see his face.
His hands moved quickly, dwarfing the tiny pencil with their size. Then again, maybe the pencil wasn’t so tiny and he was just massive.
Four numbers. A street address. A warning not to let anyone follow me and, two final words: ‘one hour’. He went still after that, focusing on what he’d written.
The street was familiar. I remembered passing it on the way to coffee shop Mom and I visited a few times before we got the grocery shopping done early Saturday mornings. But what did this mean?
What did… what did he—
Everything went dark again. He closed his eyes, but for longer than what felt normal for a conscious person.
What’s he doing?
It felt like I was being lifted, peeled away from his world and shoved back inside my own.
Intentionally.
I awoke with a deep gasp as my eyes darted around my room, trying to make sense of my surroundings, trying to understand how I’d gone from Liam’s four walls to my own in nanoseconds.
That never happened before. Usually, I’d awaken slowly, but today… today I’d been shoved back into my own body and it left me feeling confused.
Without thinking, I turned the sheet of paper in front of me, taking my pencil the next second. On it, I wrote four numbers, a street name, and an unspoken command I felt compelled to follow.
“…One hour.”
—
Chapter Eleven —
Evie
I’d never snuck out of the house before.
Ever.
I eased my feet into the legs of my black jeans and pulled my tank top down over them after raising the zipper. My black hoodie was still on the bedpost where I left it earlier when I forgot to bring it to the game. I’d get use out of it tonight, though.
I slipped my arms inside it and shrugged it up onto my shoulders, covering my head with the hood right after. Luckily, there was a lock on my bedroom door, so that would at least hold my parents off if they woke up and decided to come in to check on me.
My eyes darted from one corner of my room to the next as I tried to remember anything I may have left behind. There’d be no coming back for it if I did. Already, I was dreading having to climb back in after my mission was over.
Mission… is that what this was?
It felt more like an insane journey that would end with me getting grounded and having to cancel with Nick tomorrow. There was a very real possibility I might blow this and… for what? What did I hope to accomplish?
I shoved my feet inside my black sneakers before I could talk myself out of going. I needed to see where this address led. Needed to see if following the bread crumbs was the key to ending these visions once and for all.
The window beside my desk didn’t open as easily as I would have liked, so I struggled with it a bit, bumping the frame a few times with my elbow before it budged. With one leg swung over the sill, I glanced at my door through the darkness before crossing the point of no return.
A sudden rush of courage was the only thing that made me go for it, making my way down our pitched roof to a lower section that covered the porch. A tree branch my father had been meaning to cut down held my weight as I shimmied across it, and then finally, down the trunk.
The soles of my shoes hit the ground with a thud. I gazed up, trying to gage whether the ascent would be as simple as I tried to trick myself into believing. Probably not, but I was already out here. With nothing but the address and my phone in my pockets, I crept down my street, praying no one would catch me, praying none of my neighbors’ dogs gave me up. Somehow none of these things happened and the front gate came into view.
I hid behind a tree, only now remembering there would be a night guard. But what would he be able to do, really? We weren’t prisoners here. He’d have to let me leave. And as long as I didn’t give him cause to believe I was in trouble or on my way to cause trouble, he wouldn’t have a reason to phone my parents.
Pulling the hood off my head, I put on the most innocent face I could manage, considering I was totally being sneaky right now.
Lou was on guard. He was one of the friendlier guys who worked the security station. Still, as I approached, his brow twitched and I knew he was already coming up with a hundred, seedy scenarios to explain why I was heading out well past eleven at night.
I needed to be convincing.
“Good evening,” I beamed, hiding my quivering hands in the pockets of my hoodie.
Lou gave a stiff nod, but didn’t immediately press the button to open the gate. I glanced over without turning my face, waiting.
Still, he didn’t open it.
I faced him now, just as he asked a question. “Do your parents know you’re leaving out this late?”
Yes, there was always the possibility of him giving me a hard time, but, little did he know, I was so close to turning eighteen, I could taste it. So, when you looked at it that way, I was practically an adult already.
At least that’s what I kept telling myself, hoping I’d start believing it soon. Seeing as how Lou currently had me feeling like nothing more than a punk kid trying to pull a fast one.
I cleared my throat. “They know,” I lied. “I’m just heading down the hill a little ways. To a friend’s house. To grab something I need for a project. It’s important,” I stammered.
“Your folks didn’t think it’d be safer for one of them to give you a ride, Ms. Callahan?”
Who was this guy? The freakin’ police or something? I was pretty sure his authority started and ended at the threshold of his station. Annoying sneaky teenagers was likely not in his job description.
My cheeks were tight with an insincere smile. “They’re fine with it.”
His eyes stayed on me a moment longer and then, reluctantly, he released the gate. I didn’t look back as I eased my hood back up onto my head, tucking my hair inside it.
Liam’s warning came to mind—the one about making sure I wasn’t followed—and I decided to get off the main road.
The sky was a beautiful shade of inky blue, adorned with glittering stars that were much easier to see here in Seaton Falls than they were in Chicago. The light pollution made stars look like specks of dust most days. I lifted my eyes to take it all in again, veering toward the woods, knowing I should be at least somewhat afraid to travel through them at night, but I wasn’t. The only thing I felt, the thing that drove me, was determination.
&nb
sp; To find this address.
To put this whole thing to rest.
Hopefully, all I’d find was that it didn’t even exist. That’d be ideal. I pictured Liam’s thick, swollen arms again, colorful with pictures and words that meant nothing to me, but probably told his story. Names, symbols of things that made him who he is.
Or… isn’t.
Because he’s not real.
I needed to think about something else, something other than him. That’s not what this journey was even about. It would’ve been crazy to get there and expect to find the guy with the arms, the tall one who was faster than humanly possible, the one I felt like I’d known far too long to ever recall a time when I didn’t. It must’ve been because, in a way, we had been together for a long time. Years. He’d been in my dreams and it was almost like we spent those hours together, while I was asleep and vulnerable and empty and… his.
His to take on these treks across states I’d never visited. His to show bits and pieces of the wild life I witnessed him living. It was true, no matter how I tried to spin it, my dreams belonged to him.
Twigs and leaves crunched beneath my sneakers. My eyes drifted over my shoulder to make sure it was only me out here in the nothing. It was. No one in their right mind would be here alone at night, but me. Then again, who says I’m in my right mind…
The street I was headed toward was in town, kind of in the middle, so I’d have to make my way in from the outskirts without catching the attention of anyone who might recognize me. By it being a Friday night, it wouldn’t be hard to believe I could run into school staff or neighbors. People who knew I had no business being out so late on my own.
The trees began to thin and distant light came into view. I walked toward it, feeling the knot in my stomach growing larger with each step. Eventually, I made it onto concrete again and looked both ways. Not so much to avoid getting hit by a car, but to make sure no one noticed me emerging from the woods.
My steps were quick and intentional. I had someplace to be and didn’t have all night to get there. The tiny piece of paper between my fingers was thin and light, yes, but it was actually much heavier than that. On it was an address, one that could change everything depending on what happened next.
