She started working on a triple scoop of Strawberry Cheesecake for the next customer. “Most of the tourists stay the weekend, a week, maybe even two. Then they go home. So since you’ve been frequenting these parts for six or seven, I figured you were down here for more than a few pictures.”
Micah blinked. “And you know I’ve been here off and on for seven weeks because . . . ?”
She glanced at him, one corner of her mouth turned up, but didn’t reply.
“You the owner?” Micah took the first bite of his ice cream.
“No, why do you want to know?” She looked away to make change for a Vanilla Fudge Ripple customer.
“Well, I feel I have an obligation to let him know—”
“Let her know.”
“An obligation to let her know her employee spies on tourists.”
“Wouldn’t get you anywhere. She’s a spy just like me.”
The girl didn’t smile but Micah grinned. He toasted her with his cone. “Touché.”
He turned and walked out of Osburn’s, the smile staying on his face. He put buying another couple of scoops at Osburn’s in the near future on his mental to-do list.
||||||||
Micah got back to the house at six-thirty that evening. After a quick run down to Haystack Rock and back, and an even quicker dinner of pot stickers and rice, he strolled toward the library. He never got there. Next to it was another new door.
Great, here we go again.
Micah paused, pushed open the door, and groped for a light switch. As he snapped it on, he eased inside. The room smelled like a winter morning and felt unnaturally still. More than the absence of noise, the silence felt like a panther ready to strike. In his peripheral vision he saw the far wall move. No. Did it?
Fear darted around the room like a bat. Micah walked in farther, refusing to lose his nerve. Against one wall from floor to ceiling were mail slots—the type seen in an old office building. Nothing else was in the room. Each mail slot was six-by-three inches, with off-white paint peeling from the edges. Each held papers. Most were crammed full; others held only one. All were yellowed, some stained with water, some with corners torn off.
The room was wrong.
When he reached the slots, his hand seemed to move in slow motion toward the first paper. Just before he touched it, something inside said stop.
Too late.
The instant his forefinger touched the parchment, his stomach twisted as if he were free-falling from ten thousand feet. He turned and looked at the door. It was shut. He knew he’d left it open, but it hardly mattered. Micah forced himself to stay calm as he opened the parchment. A series of headlines scrawled on the paper described memories of deep pain from his childhood.
His favorite Hot Wheels car getting smashed by his dad at age six.
His fourth-grade teacher joking that he was “Mindless Micah” almost every day during class for the entire year because he couldn’t understand the problems.
Headline after headline about what he had missed, lost, failed at, and what had been stolen from him—the sting as fresh as when they’d first happened.
Halfway down the page he pulled away and looked up. It would’ve been better if he’d kept his eyes on the paper.
The wall in front of him was covered with moving pictures of more disappointments. He spun to his right to avoid them. It was futile. Every wall—even the floor—played grainy, mini-film scenes from his life, as if an old Super 8 camera had recorded every emotional scar from childhood and was replaying them all at once.
A girl promising she’d go with him to the seventh-grade dance then dumping him for his supposed best friend.
Being bullied on and off by Brandon Kopec during his freshman year of high school.
Dropping the game-winning touchdown pass in front of the whole school in tenth grade and getting ridiculed by his teammates for weeks afterward.
He dropped the parchment, tried to steady himself against the wall to his right, and fought the vise grip clenching his stomach. Micah stared in fascination and fear as the images came faster, now covering the ceiling as well.
Cut from the basketball team his sophomore year because one of the coaches’ pet players spread the lie that Micah was smoking pot.
Chewed up and spit out by his boss for ruining a stack of wood at the sign company at sixteen. “You idiot! I should call you Scarecrow. Get a brain!” His boss swore for thirty seconds straight, jabbing his finger like a metronome into Micah’s collarbone.
Micah sank to the floor and gasped for air. He felt as if twenty-foot waves were pounding him into the sand. As the torrent assaulted him, part of his mind shouted, “This isn’t real!” But his body wouldn’t listen. He struggled to get to his knees. Not possible.
He wanted to strike out. At anything. Everything. Rage and rejection slammed into his mind.
Come on! He had to get control.
He raised his arm, as if he could block the hurricane of emotions.
Clarity. Have to focus. It . . . is . . . not . . . real!
But it was.
The memories jumped back and forth across the years and went faster.
“Leave him alone!” he shouted as he watched his fifth-grade basketball coach scream at his younger self for missing a free throw in the last game of the season.
Tears formed as he watched his three best friends from junior high go to the Alanis Morissette concert without him, laughing about how they’d been able to ditch Micah.
He lashed out with his arms. “Help me.”
No answer.
“If You’re here, help me!”
All the images vanished.
Silence.
It was over.
Wasn’t it?
An instant later a scene filled the entire back wall of the room. A nine-year-old Micah ran along the beach, stumbling, lips trembling, deep lines of worry etched into his face.
“No.” A moan escaped his lips and surged into a guttural scream. “Not this.”
“Come back, Mom! Come back!”
Micah leaped into the air, straining to see out over the ocean. The boy spun and screamed north up the beach, “Help her! Help my mom!” He turned south and screamed again. He started to run toward the row of houses behind him. Two quick paces before he stopped, turned, and ran back to where he’d started, his bare feet kicking sand onto a Spider-Man beach towel.
Then he froze, not knowing which way to go. What to do.
Micah’s mind continued to scream what he was seeing wasn’t real; his heart screamed louder it was all too genuine. “This will kill me. I can’t do this. Can’t see this. I need You, God.” The last part was a whisper.
The young Micah leaped into the air, legs shaking, eyes filled with tears. Micah now watched himself scream again and again and again.
He huddled on the carpet on his side, knees held up to his chest.
“God, help me!”
The room shifted. Hope appeared inside like a pinprick of light in a black sky. The pain receded somewhat. Breathing came easier. The tentacles of fear wrapped around his mind loosened. But not enough.
“Please help me.” He didn’t know if he’d said it out loud or only in his mind.
The struggle raged on.
The younger Micah knelt in the sand now, sobbing. A man sprinted past him into the waves. His father.
“Don’t make me face it!” Micah shouted at the scene.
He wasn’t going to make it.
Micah slid into darkness.
In that instant it came. A flash of light, then peace, and a sensation he hadn’t felt in years—the presence of God.
Silence. This time it remained.
The peace built till he was able to get off the floor and stumble through the door, through the house, into the
star-filled night, onto the beach.
He reached the sand, collapsed, and let the tears come.
||||||||
When he awoke, the sun had climbed halfway to noon. He guessed it was as late as nine o’clock. He rubbed his eyes, stumbled to his feet, and eased toward the ocean.
People clad in bright jackets ambled up the beach. Three kids filled the sky with their multicolored kites, laughing as they kicked up little clouds of sand with their dark feet, racing to keep their flying machines aloft.
It made last night seem like a dream.
Maybe it was just a nightmare.
But he knew it wasn’t. God had rescued him. Right? Or was He the one who pushed Micah into that room?
But he’d felt God, just like he did back in high school. At least he thought it was God. Maybe it wasn’t.
Micah stood in the surf, and his stomach churned—maybe from hunger, possibly from the thought of going back inside. Probably a combination. The thought of facing that room again made hackles dance on his neck. He paced in two inches of water for ten minutes. But there was no way he would let one of Archie’s rooms have control over him.
As he trudged toward his house like a climber taking the final steps to the top of K2, strong gusts pushed gray clouds off the ocean, blocking the sun.
He stepped inside, his sight roving from the fireplace to the circular staircase leading upstairs, to the hallway, to the kitchen, back to the fireplace. Looked normal. Even felt normal. After grabbing a bagel and an apple, he stepped back outside onto his deck.
He needed a moment to settle his thoughts.
A gust of wind smacked into him, almost tearing the food out of his hand. Must be blowing thirty or forty knots. Rain swept in a few seconds later, pelting him with fat drops. Families and couples jogged off the beach, hoods pulled over their heads. A storm was brewing. Micah shook his head. Perfect metaphor for what was happening in his brain.
As bizarre as the room was, he wanted to fight. To conquer his fear of the past. He marched inside and headed for the memory room. A cold blanket of sweat broke out across his back.
“Don’t . . . back . . . down. You want me to face what happened here all those years ago, Archie? All right. Let’s do it.”
As he walked down the hallway toward the door, Micah bowed his head and wiped the sweat from his palms on the side of his jeans.
When he reached the door, he wouldn’t hesitate; he’d walk right in. But he didn’t get the chance. The door was gone. Where it had been was now smooth wall. No evidence it had ever been there.
It wasn’t a comfort.
He sucked in two quick breaths.
Micah tramped back down the hall toward the living room. When he reached the fireplace, he slumped to the floor, head in hands. This was not a dream. There would be no waking up. He checked his pulse with clammy fingers. Clammy? They were wet.
Yeah, maybe God had come through. Or Micah might simply be turning into a certifiable whacko.
A peal of thunder rolled over the house just before a flash of lightning filled the room. Micah didn’t bother to look up.
But it was over, right? He’d faced his mom’s death, and that was enough. Done. He’d never have to go there ever again.
If only more of him believed it.
He fumbled in his pocket. Yes. He pulled out his cell phone and called the one person who might have a clue about what was going on.
CHAPTER 11
Hello?”
“Rick, it’s Micah.” He stood with his forehead pressed against one of his picture windows and watched the ocean churn.
“Hey, buddy.”
Micah didn’t say anything. Telling someone his house was alive wasn’t something he’d been trained on in the corporate world.
“You there?”
“Yeah, I . . . need to talk.” Micah eased over to his river-rock fireplace and stared at the smooth stones. “About my house. And God.”
“Okay.”
Where to start? Not with the house or the memory room. He didn’t even want to talk to himself about it. Start with the God-stuff. “I think it’s time to check Him out again. Maybe. A little bit anyway.”
“Star Wars.”
“What?”
“Episode V, The Empire Strikes Back. Yoda. ‘Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.’”
“You’re quoting Yoda?”
Rick chuckled. “Truth is truth whether it comes out of the mouth of God or the mouth of Baal.”
“Pretty profound.”
“That’s not mine; it’s George MacDonald.”
“Who?”
“Not important. Want to tell me what happened?”
“Yeah. But not sure how much I want to tell.” Micah glanced at black ashes in the fireplace hearth. Good time for another fire.
“Say as much as you want to. But don’t say less than that either,” Rick said.
By the time flames dodged around three red cedar logs up the chimney, Micah had told his friend every detail except the scene with his mom. About the shrine room, the painting room, the memory room, his crying out to God and how it ended with God’s presence surrounding him.
“What’s going on with me?” Micah said.
“You really need me to answer that question?”
“Yeah.”
“God is grabbing your heart, drawing you back.”
“Not sure I want to be drawn back.”
There was only silence on the other end of the phone.
“So, was the memory room my imagination? I went back the next day, and it wasn’t there. C’mon. Am I having hallucinations or just losing my mind?” Micah stood and walked back to the place in the hall where the memory room had been. “God might be in this, but I don’t want to be in my own house anymore.”
“Einstein felt, at most, man had attained 1 percent of the possible knowledge of the universe. Do you think it’s possible God is able to do unexplainable things with the 99 percent we don’t understand?”
Micah sighed. “Maybe.”
“Then trust Him.” Rick cleared his throat. “But I will admit, if that room was for real, it sounds like you have a fairly extraordinary house. And I’d guess this is just the beginning.”
“Great.”
Micah hung up and threw a few things into his Adidas tote bag. He wasn’t going to spend the night. The house was extraordinary? Try freak show. It was time to head for Seattle. Get back to a world of sanity and order. A world he could control.
||||||||
The next week at RimSoft proceeded like clockwork. Every meeting. Every phone call. Every software test.
Late Thursday afternoon he went to his office window and watched little beads of rain scurry down the pane like ants on their way to a picnic. His team was working like a Swiss watch—precise and efficient. It was the best of times. RimSoft had just announced a 23 percent rise in sales for the quarter. The week before a vendor handed him a Seattle Seahawks suite. Another gave him an Italian cruise for eight friends and him aboard the Wind Surf anytime he wanted to go. And market share for each of their products was climbing.
Micah paced in front of his desk and tried to feel like a little kid at Christmas again. These were grown-up presents few ever found under the tree. He should be thrilled. He sat at his computer, and a few seconds later a satellite image of Cannon Beach filled his screen. After a few minutes of staring at his house from above, he shot an e-mail to Shannon giving her the Italian cruise. She would enjoy it much more than he would.
He scratched the back of his head and stood, then continued pacing. What was wrong with him?
That weekend he stayed in Seattle to break up his routine. That’s what he told himself. Reality was the house had spooked him into staying in town. Maybe Rick was right; God was
in it. But maybe his dad was right, and Archie had built a haunted mansion that would eventually kill him.
Micah played basketball on Saturday, then took himself to a movie that night. He should have seen it with Julie. Why didn’t he ask her? She was smart, beautiful, and perfect at those cocktail parties where she always seemed to meet just the right people to bring them more contracts worth millions. An ideal business partner in the boardroom and on the schmooze circuit. They were perfect for each other. And they looked great together on the cover of Fast Company. Perfect couple. Perfect life.
Next month they’d be featured on the cover of Wired.
He tried to care about being on top of the world, but the emotion flitted away like a startled hummingbird. His life with RimSoft and Julie was a movie set. Picture-perfect buildings from the front, every blade of grass in place; but when you went around the back, there was nothing but two by fours propping up a facade.
||||||||
Monday morning Micah walked through Schmitz Park, a lush green paradise even longtime Seattle residents sometimes weren’t aware of. Earmarked in the early 1900s for preservation by the city, it boasted long, winding paths running from the north side of Alki Point almost two miles south into the heart of West Seattle’s residential district.
In the center of the park, he sat down and gazed at the massive maple tree above him. A seedling whirled slowly down, back and forth like it was on an invisible string, till it landed on his knee. A feeling of peace flavored with hope and adventure settled on him. An emotion he never felt in Seattle anymore. One he felt almost constantly in Cannon Beach.
After roaming the trails for a few more minutes, he called Shannon.
“You’re not at the office,” she said.
“I took a walk.”
“A what? A walk? You took a walk?”
“Yeah. In a park.”
“Instead of coming in to work?”
“Yes.” Micah ambled toward his car.
“The temptation to ask why is bubbling out of me.”
“Don’t.”
“Then at least tell me if you came to any great conclusions about life, liberty, and the pursuit of software.”
“Actually, I did. And because of those conclusions, I need you to check and see if Julie’s free for lunch today. Or for an afternoon meeting. And if that’s booked, then dinner or breakfast and so on.”
Jim Rubart Trilogy Page 7
