by Julie Daines
Holy smokes. That would be enough to permanently damage any kid.
“A few months later, I dreamed our landlord got shot by an angry tenant. I told Mum, and she called me a barmy git. Then, guess what?”
I didn’t like where this story was going. “Your landlord got shot?”
“Bang on.” She slipped her fingers under her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “The police interviewed everyone in the building. I told them about my dream, and they laughed. What would a blind kid know about anything? A few weeks later, I dreamed the landlord’s wife hanged herself from the balcony. This time, I kept it to myself. Next day, the police were back at our building cutting down her dead body.”
“What about your mom? Didn’t she believe you after the landlord?”
“Maybe. But I think it freaked her out. She hit the bottle even harder, and we lived on nothing but my measly government stipend for being blind. That’s when social services sent me to Shepherd Hill. After a year or two, Mum came to the Shepherd to say good-bye. She’d taken up with a guy from Amsterdam, and she was leaving to be with him. I haven’t heard from her since.”
She’d lived a hard life, that’s for sure. I hoped her school had treated her better. “And you were at Shepherd Hill until you got kidnapped?”
“No. Had to leave end of last year, didn’t I? We finish at sixteen.”
“So they dumped you with nowhere to go?” I tried to picture Scarlett living off the streets of London—blind. She must not have done too bad; pink hair and Doc Martins aren’t exactly free.
“I had a friend. A bloke I met at the Shepherd—Simon. He works there, one of the administrators. He let me crash at his flat for the summer.”
I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know what Simon might have asked for in return for free room and board. But I couldn’t help myself. “Was he your boyfriend?”
“No. Just a friend.”
Right, a friend. How often did that really work out? But we’d gotten off topic. “So why did Scarface take you?”
“Scarface?” she asked.
“The guy, I think his name was Connor; he had a scar across his eye.” I drew a line down my own face for demonstration then kicked myself again for being so boneheaded. Would I never get used to the fact that she couldn’t see? Until I’d met Scarlett, I’d never realized how much I took sight for granted. I based everything in my life on vision. I couldn’t imagine a world of darkness.
“Oh.” She cleared her throat. “After I left the Shepherd, I dreamed that one of the other girls was taken and killed. I went to the police and told them my past experience with dreams and what I saw happen to Katie. The gits still didn’t believe me. Two weeks later, she vanished. The police came and asked me more questions, details about who did it. But I couldn’t describe him in a way that satisfied the investigators. They asked me loads of times about hair color. Don’t know colors, do I?”
Probably not. If you’ve never seen color, how would you? In that case, how would she know anything? What did death look like in the dreams of a blind person?
She took a deep breath and continued. “Next day, some men broke into the flat, put tape on my mouth, and stuffed me in a bag.”
I almost swerved off the road. “A bag?” Every word she told me made me sicker and sicker.
“Like a suitcase or gym bag or something.”
I clenched the steering wheel. Who did stuff like that? Did she fly in a duffel bag across the Atlantic, wedged into the pressurized cargo hold? Who knew what else they might’ve done? My bacon double cheeseburger churned in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t want to hear any more. I’d seen stuff like this on TV all the time. But having it sitting next to me in the car wrenched my guts.
She wiped her eyes again.
“Don’t cry.” Anything but crying. “I’m really sorry I was such an idiot before, leaving you on the road.”
“It’s fine.”
“You’re safe now. Okay?”
“Yeah.” She leaned her head against the window. In a few minutes, her breathing came slow and steady; she’d fallen asleep. She must’ve been exhausted.
I turned right and crossed the Columbia River back into Oregon on the Bridge of the Gods, stopping at the tollbooth to pay the dollar toll. I watched in my rearview mirror for a set of headlights to follow me across the bridge. None did. They must have gone back to Portland. Thirty minutes later, we passed through Hood River and out into the forest to the cabin at the base of the volcano. The only place I ever found a shred of peace.
When I pulled into the gravel driveway, Scarlett still slept. I left her in the car and went inside. The place was pitch black, and I wanted to get some lights on to check that things were in order before bringing her in.
My grandfather built the home when my mom was young, before she married into the Morris clan, where money grew on the family tree. Grandpa passed it on to my mother.
A black lava rock fireplace divided the main floor in half, with a family room in front and a kitchen and bathroom in back. A narrow staircase led to a loft area with a queen-size bed. Not a lot of rooms, but they’d been updated and were open and spacious. Dad had suggested adding on, making it bigger and more luxurious to match the other homes on the river. Mom had an architect drawing plans when she got sick. Dad never came back.
With the cabin lit up and ready, I went out to get Scarlett.
“Scarlett,” I whispered. She didn’t stir. I gave her a little shake but got nothing, so I lifted her out of the car. She weighed almost nothing, except her heavy boots, which must have added ten pounds to her miniature body. After hauling her feet around in those things all day, no wonder she was worn out.
I carried her into the cabin, up the stairs, and onto the bed. It took me ten minutes to unlace her boots before I slipped them off and tucked her feet under the covers. Should I take off her dark glasses? Or did that cross too far into invasion of privacy? I left them on. I went downstairs and built a fire to warm the house.
By now I thought I’d be almost to Canada. Or at least spending the night in a nice hotel north of Seattle.
Did my dad even know I was gone? It was just past ten, and he’d be getting home from his office any minute. I’d turned off my phone when I left. With a dexterous kick, I pushed out a chair and took a seat at the warped, pinewood kitchen table. I had four missed calls, seven texts, and three voice messages. I checked the missed calls first. One of the missed calls was from a girl I liked who didn’t know I existed—at least that’s what I’d thought until I saw her name on my caller ID. I pushed redial, and it went to her voice mail.
“Hi, Beth, it’s Christian. I saw you called and so, um, yeah. I’m sorta out of town for a few days.” Or the rest of my life, but I didn’t want to sever all ties until I knew for sure. A man needs options. This Scarlett thing had thrown a huge wrinkle into my plans. “I guess I’ll talk to you later, bye.”
I toggled through the rest of the calls. One number I didn’t recognize, and the last was from my dad. He’d never called me on my phone before. I didn’t even know he knew my number. But it’s not like I ever called him either. We had mastered the art of noncommunication.
The texts were all from friends: the new girl is hot . . . Mr. Cooper’s homework is lame . . . are you going to the football game tomorrow? That last was from Jay, my closest friend and the star wide receiver on the football team. He hated when I missed his games. He thrived on glory and praise, and if I didn’t show up to feed it to him, he might actually starve.
The feeling was reciprocal. If not for Jay Jackson, I’d be curled up in the fetal position on the basement floor. No one besides Jay and his father knew the truth about my life in purgatory. In fact, most kids envied me. Money, car, no parental interference. From the outside, it looked ideal. From the inside, it burned me up. No pat on the back when I did something well. No swat on the butt to keep me in line. No one to care if I lived or died. Being left alone is not at all what it’s cracked up to be. So, Jay. He fast
ened me onto his safety line and dragged me forward—no matter how hard I kept slipping back.
I was ninety-nine percent sure his dad, the bishop, made him do it. At least in the beginning. A special assignment to help the stray find his way back into the fold. Scary thing is, it worked. Jay was cool and friendly, and all the girls swooned after him for his athletic body and his rich, brown skin. He was by far the best thing in my life.
After Mom died, Dad turned his back on the Church and turned instead to work, expensive wine, and severing all ties to his son. Consequently, I went through a pretty rough phase myself—doing everything wrong I could think of to get my father’s attention.
I guess that’s when Jay’s dad made me Project of the Year. I hated it at first, but it didn’t take long before I felt relieved that at least one person cared. Jay somehow managed to turn me around, schlepping me to church and forcing me to wake up at the crack of dawn for early-morning seminary.
Bishop Jackson made a valiant effort to save my dad. He came by the house a few times, but Dad never let him past the entryway. The last time he stopped by, my father met him on the porch. It was late, because that’s the only time you can catch Richard Morris at home. He left the front door open, and I listened from the top of the stairs as my father berated the bishop for caring, demanding he never speak to him of the Church, God, or his son ever again. That’s when I heard my father say, “Christian is free to do whatever he wants. He means nothing to me anymore.”
Nothing. The word knotted itself around my neck and tried to strangle me. I was fifteen. I already knew how he felt, but hearing it spoken out loud, to the bishop . . . that was hard. When I told Jay what I’d heard my dad say, he sat in stunned silence for a full five minutes before stoically rising and punching a hole through the wall of his bedroom.
“Sorry I’ll miss your game, buddy,” I whispered.
His wasn’t the only game I’d miss. Jay had convinced me to join the tennis team this year, and I’d be MIA for my own match too.
I dialed my voice mail, but the first message was blank—the unidentified phone number. Whoever had called had hung up without saying anything.
The second message was Jay’s. “Dude, where are you? Flaky much? I thought we were going for tacos.” I laughed out loud then stopped, remembering Scarlett was sleeping upstairs.
The other message was the one from my dad. “Son, it’s your father.” Son? When did he ever call me that? Had he finally forgotten my name? “I’m worried about you. Call me.” Worried? About me? Not likely. Worried about the stolen money, I’d bet. And no thanks on the call me option. That was a tie I was willing to sever.
I shoved the phone into my pocket and grabbed a pillow and a sleeping bag from the closet. The scraping of the sliding door sounded loud in the quiet of the night as I headed out to the backyard. I had an old hammock out there, and it was my favorite place to sleep—when it wasn’t raining. I unclipped and tossed off the weathered tarp that kept the bird droppings at bay and unrolled the sleeping bag. It was made for arctic temperatures, and within two minutes of snuggling in, I was already getting hot. I unzipped it a foot or two and tried to relax.
Images from the day whizzed through my mind like cars passing me on the freeway. Dead grandmas, landladies swinging from the balcony, and my father opening his safe and finding half his money gone. Maybe not half, but I took a lot.
When I finally slept, I dreamed about a girl with pink hair standing in the middle of a sea of speeding cars. The cars honked and swerved, always missing her at the last second. Then she screamed. I sat up so fast I spun off the hammock and hit the ground.
I heard the scream again, faint and distant. It took me three ragged breaths to realize where I was and that the scream did not come from my dream but from Scarlett inside the cabin.
Chapter Four
Christian vs. Mount Hood
I fought my way out of the sleeping bag, a feat that would have amazed even the Great Houdini. With a heavy swoosh, I threw open the sliding door and took the stairs two at a time. Images of a man up there packing Scarlett into a suitcase raced through my mind.
When I reached the loft, Scarlett cried out again, jerking her head back and forth. She lay curled on her side, facing away from me. I shook her shoulder. “Scarlett. Wake up.”
She stilled. Her sunglasses rested at an awkward angle across her face. I envisioned her eyes snapping open under their coverings. If they opened at all.
She rolled onto her back and moaned. “Where am I?”
I sat on the edge of the huge bed. “We’re at my cabin, at Mount Hood.”
“Christian?”
“Yeah?”
“What happened?”
“Nothing. You fell asleep, and I put you in bed.” Did she think I’d been . . . inappropriate? “Then you screamed in your sleep, so I woke you up. Did you have another death dream?”
She sat up and straightened her glasses. With her head tipped a little to the side, she said, “Feels dark. What time is it?”
“About one thirty in the morning. How did you know?”
She combed her fingers through her hair, flattening down the back with surprising skill. “I can usually tell day and night and find the sun when it’s not cloudy. Or find the source of a very bright light. Mostly by warmth.”
I guess that made sense. I craved a computer to look up what I should know about blindness. My ignorance shamed me. I had my laptop in my car but no Internet at the cabin.
“Is there a loo?”
“Yes,” I said. “We have a bathroom.”
She let out a breath that sounded suspiciously like mockery. “When I need a bath, I ask for the bathroom. When I need a toilet, I ask for the loo.”
“Got it.” I stood and took her hand, helping her off the bed.
She hooked her fingers around my arm. “You’re tall, yeah?”
“Six-two. But, then, everyone must be tall from your perspective.”
“Hey, easy on the short people.” She released my arm and stepped around to face me. “Can I touch you?”
I assumed she meant my face, to know what I looked like. At least, that’s what I’d always seen in the movies, and I was pretty much basing everything I knew about vision-impaired people on what Hollywood had taught me.
“Hang on,” I said. “Unlike you, I need the lights.” I flipped the switch at the top of the stairs and lit the room.
I wanted to see her face. Her eyes. Not out of some morbid curiosity, but because people always say that the eyes are the windows to the soul. With her glasses on, I had a hard time reading her. If I looked into her eyes, could I see her soul? “Tell you what. I’ll make you a deal. You can touch me if you take your shades off.”
“Deal.” She removed the glasses and tossed them on the bed behind her. Nicely done. She faced me again, and her gaze—if she’d had one—fell on the collar of my rumpled T-shirt. I lifted her chin. They looked like regular eyes, light brown and clear. I guess I’d expected cloudy or half closed or something.
They stared back at me, but they were blank. It was obvious they didn’t see me. They weren’t the windows I’d hoped for. But still, they drew me in. She had a pretty face, especially without the big, dark glasses blocking half of it.
“Well?” she asked.
“Very nice.”
She blushed a little. “No. I meant, is it my go?”
“Sure.”
She put her hands on my arms then moved them up and felt my shoulders. I tried to resist the urge to flex, but I couldn’t stop myself. I had some okay muscles, so why not show them off? I tensed just enough to firm up my biceps and deltoids.
Scarlett shook her head. “Guys. You’re all the same.” Stepping close, she reached up and ran her hands through my hair. Her breath tickled my neck. She felt my face next, letting her fingers run softly across my eyebrows and eyes, cheeks, nose, and last, my mouth.
No man, no matter the circumstances, can stand in front of an attractive girl and
be touched like that and not be affected by it. My heart sped up, and I felt suddenly warm, even though the fire had burned out.
Her fingertips lingered on my mouth, on the swollen and cut lip. “What happened here?”
“Oh, uh.” I exhaled, releasing the pressure that had been building in my lungs. “That guy in the restaurant punched me. I’m fine.”
Her hands dropped. “I’m sorry I got you mixed up in this. My life’s a mess. I didn’t mean to bung it on you.”
I knew I should say something, but I was still thinking about her fingertips on my mouth.
“Tell me about the house,” she said.
Yes, a distraction. “Well, my grandfather built it. It’s an old A-frame—”
“No. I mean give me the layout. So I can get around better.”
“Oh, right.” I placed her hand back on my arm and described the cabin, walking her through the rooms and letting her touch the couch, the glasses and sink, and anything else I thought she might need. Then I deposited her in the bathroom—I mean, the loo—and left her alone so she could do whatever she needed to do.
I sat down on the couch, waiting to make sure she was all right before going back out to my hammock. She came out of the bathroom a minute later and walked into the main room, running her hand along the pine wall paneling until she came to the stairs.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Lovely.”
“All right. I’ll be out back if you need anything.”
“Outside?”
“Yeah.” I stood up and made my way to the door. “I like it out there. Plus, boy. Girl. Alone. I don’t do that. I have . . . boundaries.”
She stared into space for a minute. “A gentleman, are you? I s’pose that’s cool.” She climbed the stairs.
Gentleman? I’d never been called that before. It was better than the usual old-fashioned. “Hey, kill the lights, would ya?”
She stopped at the top of the stairs.
“About three feet ahead, on the left.”
