Aftersight

by Brian Mercer

  Derrick and I would spend the night tonight at his place and leave before dawn, hoping to make the twelve hour drive to Tacoma in one long stretch. I was more than a month from turning eighteen, so technically I was running away. But I couldn't imagine that anyone would really care. Other than those taking attendance at school, Nicole would likely be the only one who realized I was missing. In the morning I planned to mail her a Christmas card explaining everything. I'd wanted to tell her face to face, but this was easier, and this way she'd be spared the trauma of saying goodbye.

  The door opened again and another wintery breeze raked its icy fingers through my black curtain of hair. The chatter level increased, signaling more new arrivals. Turning around to inspect the damage, I was greeted with impatient sets of eyes begging me to take their orders. It wasn't a line so much as a mob, their flexed brows telling of irritation levels that I feared would end in a mad rush over the counter.

  I was about to ask who was next when I saw him standing near the back wall, looking at me with dark, piercing eyes and smiling faintly. My body reacted before my brain made sense of what I was seeing. A warm feeling moved through my back and over my shoulders, as if invisible arms were reaching out to encircle my heart. Tingles rose past my ears and over my scalp and all at once my breath left my chest in a long, hollow sigh.

  It was him. The Butler. The man from my out-of-body experiences.

  I didn't know how I knew for sure, because this man didn't look quite the same as his astral counterpart. Tall, with white hair, he wore a black overcoat, black slacks, and a white dress shirt, and this matched exactly the formal but friendly energy I'd come to know as The Butler. But his face was slightly changed, his complexion more weathered. He had the familiar mustache and goatee, yet wore thick-rimmed black glasses that The Butler lacked. I'd never forget The Butler's gentle, almost saintly gaze. He could see without the use of corrective lenses.

  What I recognized for sure were his eyes that, like mine, were so dark they were almost black. They sparkled like polished volcanic rock, gleaming in the store's bright fluorescent lights. But more than how they looked, it was how they felt that was so familiar. I had a gut sense of connection the instant our eyes locked on each other. Something passed between us — a thought? a feeling? — as sure as if he'd handed me a package. A very real sense of communication seemed to flow between us, like something whispered that I couldn't quite catch.

  I spun back around so that my back was to him. I tried to steady my breathing and calm my flailing heart. I could feel the blood rushing to my face. Did anyone else notice that I was as bright as a Christmas tree? This can't be happening, I told myself. This is impossible. I glanced right and left at the counter filled with dirty cups, banana peels, stray pebbles of raspberries. What now?

  Turning back around, I made eye contact with the nearest customer and asked how I could help her. Best to play it cool. The old man had been looking at me, as if he was just as aware of who I was as I was of him. If he really was The Butler, maybe he was here for a reason. If so, he would certainly approach me. I just had to wait.

  Partway through the woman's drink order, my eyes darted to the back wall where the old man had been standing. I couldn't believe it. He was gone.

  My heart fired off several rounds of cannonball shots. I felt momentarily disoriented. A tiny pulse of vertigo spun through my head. Whatever my customer had been saying was lost before it hit my ears. Now she was staring at me, waiting for me to say something.

  I held up my index finger. "I'm sorry. Just a minute."

  Backing away, I sprinted around the counter and into the customer area. I scanned the mob before dashing out the front door, looking up and down the walk, searching the crowd weaving in and out of the darkness for some sign of the old man. I didn't see anything in the steady stream of shoppers.

  Quickly backtracking, I returned through the smoothie bar and out again through the mall entrance, taking cursory glances into the stores I passed until I reached the mall's main artery. I didn't see anyone that looked even vaguely like The Butler. If he'd really been there, it wouldn't have been that difficult to lose himself, if that's what he wanted. He could have easily slipped into the shadows or any stream of moving shoppers and been carried as anonymously away as if he'd never existed.

  Maybe he didn't.

  For the first time, I started to wonder if there was something seriously wrong with me.

  ****

  Derrick's car eased slowly up 39th Street, carefully moving through the fog. The thick grey vapor gathered in the maple trees that arced over the road, drifting downward in tatters like horror movie moss. On either side of the car, bright, colorful Christmas lights outlined the neighborhood's large Craftsman- and Tudor-style homes, giving the mist an eerie sense of depth and complexity.

  I asked Derrick to idle before a large, two-story cottage, its windows dark except for the regal looking Christmas tree gleaming brightly from its curtainless front room. If not for the tree, the house looked deserted. Since Nicole wasn't answering her cell phone, I didn't have much choice but to try to speak to her in person. But I didn't have much time. In another ten hours Derrick and I would be on our way. I'd have to ring the doorbell and risk facing Aunt Alice.

  "If I go inside the house, don't wait for me," I told Derrick before closing the car door. "Why don't you grab something to eat and meet me back here in an hour."

  The front porch light was off and even when I knocked, the place had a hollow feel to it, as if nothing breathed inside. I knocked again, a little louder this time, cringing at the thought of pressing the glowing button near the door handle.

  I was reaching for it anyway when the porch light brightened, the bolt shot open, and the door creaked inward. Alice's stiffly coiffed hair appeared from the gloom.

  "Hello, Cali," she said with a hint of annoyance. "What can I do for you?"

  "Is Nicole home? I have to see her as soon as possible. It's kinda urgent."

  "Nicole is with a client and cannot be disturbed," Alice's eyes narrowed, as if bracing for a fight. "I will tell her that you paid a visit. If there is time, she can telephone you later."

  "No, wait, Mrs. Sutton." I held up my hands to stop her from closing the door on me. "Would it be okay if I waited for her inside? You see, I'm leaving town early tomorrow morning. I'm not sure when I'll be back again and I just wanted to talk to her before I left." It was risky telling her this much, but I had to talk to Nicole.

  "Well, in that case," she said after a thoughtful pause, opening the door and gesturing me inside, "I suppose it will be all right."

  I waved to Derrick and he sped away through the fog and the dark, the rumble of his car fading into the silvery white noise of the nearby highway. The front door closed and latched behind me and now I was following Alice through the dimly lit entrance hall and into the front parlor illuminated only by the Christmas tree.

  "I do not know how long you will have to wait," Alice said, fading into the shadows up the stairs before I had a chance to say anything else. As always, she'd been dressed up and put together, as if ready to host a talk show in case someone invited her last-minute.

  I slid into one of the chairs opposite the couch where I'd sat on my first visit to the house, the day of my psychic reading. The French doors leading to the side sunroom were dark. Too cold to have readings there during the winter. Nicole must be in one of the back rooms. If I turned my head just right I could hear her musical southern drawl in the distance, too far away to hear exactly what she was saying.

  I eyed the elaborately decorated noble fir in front of me. Its colorful Christmas lights reflected brightly in the polished grand piano beside it. The tree was decked out with ribbons and ornaments with an interior designer's eye for detail. An impressive array of fussily wrapped gifts ringed its base. The beautiful display should have been warm and festive, but the rest of the house — dark and refrigerator-cold — sort of canceled it out. Like everything else about Nicole's aunt Al
ice, the beautiful decor covered up something dark and icy.

  I shivered. Five, ten, twenty minutes went by without a hint that anyone was in the house except Nicole's distant voice and her occasional faraway laughter. I found myself getting jealous of her client. What if this was Nicole's new best friend, here to replace me the moment I left? It wasn't fair that just when I'd found a true friend I had to desert her, our connection swallowed up by time and distance.

  As much as I'd miss her, I was anxious to get going. How much longer could I afford to sit here? The last four or five days had been a dust storm of piddly-dink errands — packing, closing accounts, giving notice at work and arranging for my final paycheck — and dozens of other details that had to happen before I could leave for good. It made me think of Huckleberry Finn, Huck and Jim running away down the Mississippi. They would stop at towns along the way, getting into trouble with the locals, until I found myself begging them to get back to the raft and get out of Dodge before it was too late. That's what it felt like now. Derrick's car was the raft, Derrick my fellow runaway, and as I sat there in the dark, all I wanted was to pull away from the curb and have the road carry us away.

  "I'll be sure to talk to her as soon as I'm able." It was Nicole's voice, getting louder as she approached. "I'm certain she'll be very interested to hear what you have to say."

  There was a kathump, kathump, kathump that echoed to the sound of their footsteps, something metal tapping on the hardwood floors. Nicole and her client were so focused on their conversation that they walked right by me sitting in the shadows. As tall as Nicole was, her client was even taller, an older man who walked agilely, despite the cane at his side. "Be so good as to give my warmest regards to your aunt," he said in a refined British accent.

  "You sure you don't wanna wait for me to get her? I'm sure she'd want to pay her respects before you go."

  "No, no," the man replied. "I have no wish to be a nuisance. Just let her know I said goodbye. And do relay my message to your friend straight away. It's very important that it be conveyed at the earliest opportunity."

  Nicole's client turned so his face was just visible in the multicolored lights thrown off by the Christmas tree. His thick-rimmed glasses mirrored too much of the room for his eyes to be visible, but his build, his hair, the mustache and goatee, were unmistakable. I fought a dizzy feeling of déjà vu, a sense that I was watching myself watch myself, like two mirrors reflecting each other forever across time.

  He shouldered his black overcoat. "I fear speed, in this instance, is all important."

  I heard more but by now it was just voices speaking nonsensically. How could this be happening? How? How? How? How?

  A minute later, Nicole was latching the door behind him. "Cali! My goodness, you startled me. Where did you come from?"

  "Who-who was that? Who was that man?"

  "Who? Mr. Bray, you mean?"

  "He was your client? But where did you—? How could he—? I don't get it."

  "Do you know Mr. Bray?"

  I tried to stand up but my legs turned to gelatin and I sat back down hard in the chair. I lowered my face into my hands. "I don't know if I have an answer for that."

  "You must be acquainted with him somehow, right? I mean, he knows you."

  I looked up at her. "What do you mean?"

  "He was asking about you."

  "When?"

  "Just now. And during the reading. He wanted me to give you this." She handed me a business card.

  Sir Alexander Bray, Headmaster, Board Member

  Waltham Academy for Spiritual Sensitives

  New Bedfordshire, England

  "He wants to talk with you, with us, as soon as possible. He said it was important. Sweetie, what's got your feathers all ruffled?"

  "We've gotta call this guy. Right away. Right now."

  "Hold your horses. Now? What's your hurry? It's almost eight o'clock. I haven't had my supper yet. Aunt Alice—"

  "This is way more important. We gotta call this guy. We've gotta see him. Tonight."

  ****

  I used the sleeve of my pink sweatshirt to wipe away the condensation from the inside of Derrick's windshield, trying to get a better look at Nicole's house through the thick fog. It was past midnight now and the neighborhood's Christmas lights were off for the night. Nicole's house was just a faint black shape in a swirling haze.

  Come on. Come on, I thought, pleading for Nicole to appear out of the mist. She was late, very late, and we couldn't afford to wait much longer.

  "You realize we're supposed to be on the road in about five hours," Derrick griped from the driver's seat. "I thought you wanted to get a good night's sleep."

  "Relax, would ya!" I said in a voice that was anything but relaxed. "We can sleep and drive in shifts."

  "I'm just sayin'," he said defensively. "If I don't get a little shuteye soon, I'm gonna have no business behind the wheel."

  I scowled at him, unbuckling my seatbelt and climbing out of the car. "Wait right here," I whispered. "I'll be back in a minute."

  I closed the door as quietly as I could manage and moved through the fog and the gloom, easing past the darkened windows of the sunroom, thin shadows of wicker furniture reaching out for me in the dark. I threw the hood of my pink sweatshirt up over my head, trying to get back the heat I'd lost from the short walk from Derrick's blazing-warm car. My thick black hair formed insulating tufts on either side of my face.

  I was still looking for a way over the cinderblock fence when I heard it, a faint rustling, the muffled sound of fabric being scraped over a rough surface.

  "Nicole?" I whispered hopefully. "Are you there?"

  "Cali?" Also whispered. "I'll be right over."

  Nicole's head appeared a second later where the fence formed a corner. She pulled herself up to a seated position on the wall, tossed her purse to me, and slid to the ground. "Sorry I'm late. Aunt Alice and I got into a terrible ruckus. It was awful."

  "That's okay. But, come on. We don't have a lot of time. Let's get moving."

  I could see from Nicole's swollen eyelids in the cab light of Derrick's car that she'd been crying. "I don't know how long I can go on livin' like this," she said when she was wedged into the back seat and the car had begun to move. "I can't imagine doin' this for the next ten years. She acts like she owns me." She pulled out a tissue from her purse and blew her nose. "I want to be out on my own so bad, but can't see how there's any way for that to happen. Not with Aunt Alice holdin' the purse strings."

  We drove slowly through the darkened neighborhood, past sleepy houses, small businesses, and family-owned shops, all closed down for the night. The neighborhood was built in the 1940s and not much was open this late. We'd chosen a local restaurant chain known for being open past midnight. It was located in a small train station built in the mid-eighteen hundreds. Most of the rooms were dark, but the bar was still open, as well as a bunch of tables near the front door.

  When we reached the entrance, I put my hand on Derrick's shoulder. "Babe, I think we can manage from here. Why don't you go back in the car and take a little nap?"

  He looked at me crankily, wanting to argue but too tired to resist. Pulling out a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket, he tapped out a coffin nail and put it between his lips. "Okay, Dipper, whatever you say." He waved goodnight to Nicole and disappeared into the misty shadows of the parking lot.

  Once we were inside, I pulled off the hood of my sweatshirt and walked up to the tired-looking hostess. "We're supposed to meet a Mr. Bray."

  "Oh, right," she said, her eyes taking in me and Nicole. She grabbed two menus and asked us to follow her, guiding us into a dimly lit side room with recessed overhead lights and candles flickering their last breaths on top of rows of recently-scoured tables. The room's only occupant, a man in the far corner, his head hidden behind a menu, idly stroked the handle of a white coffee mug. The sound of my heartbeat filled my throat as we approached him.

  "Ah, there you are," he said,
lowering the menu and standing. "It's a pleasure to see you again." He extended his hand. "So good of you to come." He took Nicole's palm into his and shook it firmly. "And you, of course, are Cali Hart. Here and in the flesh. I am Sir Alexander Bray. It's so good to finally meet you."

  The instant my fingers closed around his, I felt it — the warm influx of accepting energy that I remembered like the taste of something warm and soft and sweet in my mouth. How many times did I wake up in the middle of the night with this feeling, like I'd just visited him? He'd always seemed so pleasant, so real, that I'd find myself trying to get back to sleep, to find him again, to will him into existence. And now here he was, solid flesh under my hand, as warm and alive as I was.

  "Please," he gestured to the chairs opposite him, "take a seat."

  "Coffee with cream and sugar," Nicole told the waitress, who collected our menus.

  I couldn't take my eyes off the old man. I had trouble forming thoughts. I wasn't sure what was real anymore. If Mom suddenly walked through a side door holding hands with Chris, I'd have hardly been surprised.

  "Oh," I said finally, catching the dirty look the waitress was giving me, "nothing for me."

  Alexander Bray smiled widely, studying me above his steepled hands. You could see wheels turning behind those black eyes, cogs and gears intertwining. It was as if he had saved up so many things to say that he had given up trying to say anything. He seemed as happy to meet me as I was to meet him.

  And yet...

  "Mr. Bray–" I started.

  "No, please. Call me Sir Alex."

  I sighed, re-gathering my wits. "Okay, Sir Alex, then. I really don't mean to be rude. I'm happy to meet you. Happier than you know." His grin widened. "Or, maybe you know exactly how I feel. I just— A lot has happened to me in the past year and a half. Some terrible, truly terrible things. And sometimes it's like hard to know what's real anymore. What to believe. But I'm thinking you have answers. I have to ask. Who are you? Where do you know me from?"