Jack released various straps from around the bottom of the car and lowered two long ramps at the end of the trailer. He then got into the car he had been towing and drove it off the trailer. Having parked the car, he got back into the truck. The red taillights shone bright as he pressed on the brake pedal. Bright white lights snapped on at the back of the truck and the long flat trailer pushed toward Lucy and Benjamin.
Lucy watched as her Cavalier was loaded up onto the trailer. It would take a miracle to repair that car in one night, but now that it was loaded, she didn’t see that she had much of a choice about it.
Jack walked over to where Lucy and Benjamin were standing.
“I think I can have that fixed up for you before ten.”
Jack was at least six-foot-five and sported a pair of beige shorts and flip-flops. A sarcastic comment about it being a family uniform crossed her mind, but she thought better of starting a battle of wits at that particular moment. He looked twenty-five, maybe younger, and his hair was lighter than Benjamin’s, even in the dark. He had a strong visage with gentle features, except for his eyes, which were a brilliant blue that seemed to glow in the dim light. It wasn’t exactly obvious that he and Benjamin were brothers, but from what she could see in the truck’s bright headlights, they both had the same tanned skin.
“Please don’t feel like you have to do anything to that thing tonight. I mean, it’s totaled and it was my fault, so—”
“Oh, it’s not totaled, and don’t be ridiculous. Benjamin told me it was his fault. He distracted you.” Jack put a firm hand on her shoulder and it felt reassuring. “She’ll be as good as new in the morning. I promise.”
“No; I appreciate it, but I can’t ask you to do that. I don’t really have enough to cover the cost …”
“I’ll take care of everything; it won’t cost you a dime. I’ll just make this guy do all the work.” He elbowed Benjamin and winked at Lucy. He then looked to Benjamin and tossed him a set of keys. “Keep it under a hundred, will ya?” As he turned to the truck he called back, “So, where do I take it when I’m done?”
Realizing he was talking to her, Lucy tried to remember Kat’s address. “Uh, yeah, the Caldwell’s; it’s on …” She couldn’t think straight for a moment.
“Is it the lawyer Caldwell on 6th Street?” Jack asked, trying to help her out.
It seemed to clear her head. “Yes, 6th street.”
“Big blue house, right? I’ve been there before. I helped him with a BMW about a year ago,” he said as he climbed into the truck.
As Lucy turned to face Benjamin, she heard the loud knocking of the diesel engine fire up, and Jack pulled away.
Leading Lucy over to their new ride, Benjamin pushed a button on the keychain and red taillights lit up. Jealousy overwhelmed Lucy as she sat down in the passenger seat of what she was told by Benjamin was a brand new Camaro.
“Is this what you normally drive?” Lucy asked.
Benjamin glanced at Lucy as he turned the key. The engine roared to life and the dashboard lights glowed a bluish-green.
“No,” he said with a mild chuckle. “This is Jack’s car.”
“Then, what do you drive?”
Benjamin looked over at Lucy and just smiled without answering her question as he pushed the accelerator and Lucy was gently pulled back into her seat. There was silence as they crossed the bridge from Charleston back into Coos Bay.
“Thanks for helping me out,” Lucy said, still feeling defeated.
“You’re welcome,” Benjamin responded.
Lucy wasn’t sure what she expected as a response, but the one and true response to thank you was actually quite disarming. There was not a hint of the sarcasm, arrogance, or stuffiness found too frequently in so-called charity.
“How much is he going to spend on that car? I really want to pay him back … if I can.”
“He would be more insulted if you tried to pay him back; and to answer your question, I doubt he spends a dollar.”
“How is that possible? The thing is—”
“It’s not totaled,” Benjamin interrupted. “Like I said before, Jack is magical.”
He glanced over at Lucy and nodded as if to put a period on the end of his sentence. Lucy turned back to the road coming at them and sat silently for the rest of the trip.
Kat’s house was still well lit inside and out, in spite of the time, as Benjamin pulled the black Camaro into the driveway. Lucy thanked him again as she got out of the car and shut the door. Before Lucy could knock on Kat’s front door, Kat pulled it open with her usual large smile.
“Where have you been? I called you and called you, and sent like twenty texts.”
She halted as she noticed the strange black car sitting in the driveway. Her smile turned to inquisition.
“Where’s your car, and who is that?”
Her curiosity radar was turning on so Lucy pushed her in the house in an attempt to diffuse her.
“His name’s Benjamin, but I’d rather not go into it all right now. I need to get some sleep.”
Chapter 3
Taking a deep breath, Lucy felt the damp warm air fill her lungs—tasting clean, like a freshwater spring. Though she had grown up in Oregon and was familiar with the flora and fauna there, she realized that she didn’t recognize any of what she was seeing. She was standing in a strange forest in a small clearing that was the size of a basketball court. The opening in the canopy of trees revealed a golden-yellow sky dotted with wispy white clouds. It could have been a sunset or a sunrise, but it was beautiful either way.
To her right there were beams of light sifting through the branches and she felt an urge to follow them. As she began to move forward into the thick of the trees, she noticed that her feet were bare. The ground felt soft beneath them, not like the forests of the Pacific Northwest, where prickly evergreen needles covered every square inch of the forest floor.
Walking through the underbrush, while having to move an occasional long, stringy vine out of her way, Lucy noticed that the trees began to thin just a little bit. The yellow light from above was getting so intense that she had to shield her eyes from the increasing glare. Ahead of her she saw that the forest ended abruptly, revealing a magnificent orange colored sky. The clouds on the horizon seemed to be on fire, and Lucy was completely awestruck as she walked out into the open.
As she moved forward, it became evident why the trees just stopped; there was a sheer cliff that dropped off into a valley. Curiosity carried her toward the cliff’s edge. Approaching it, she beheld a sea of trees that sprawled out below. It was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen. As she looked deeper into the valley, she thought she saw what looked like a building, but her concentration was interrupted by a noise somewhere to her right. Turning toward the sound, she saw a man standing next to a tree in an almost defensive stance. She couldn’t see his face because the sun was directly behind him; the light was so blinding that even her hand shielding her eyes couldn’t block enough light to make out who he was or if she even knew him. As she walked toward him, he turned and ran back into the woods from where Lucy had just come, leaving her with a gut-wrenching feeling that she needed to follow him; so she started running. Not being careful of where she stepped, she landed on various twigs and branches that scratched at the soles of her feet.
The man was well ahead of her as he weaved in and out of trees, heading for the clearing. She stumbled and pin-pricks of pain shot through her feet. As the grove came into view, she saw him stop in the middle of the clearing, his back turned to her. She wanted badly to see his face and know who he was.
With only twenty or so yards between them, Lucy saw his right arm swing up as he reached around his body and pulled something from his hip. Focusing not on his face, but on the object he held in his hand, she was startled to see that he gripped a long, slender sword that glistened gold in the sunlight. She started to look from the sword to his face while she ran towards him, when she felt the sharp pain of a thorn or brok
en twig pierce her foot. She shrieked at the sudden stomach-lurching sensation of falling. She reached out to break her fall, but felt nothing except the plush carpet of Kat’s bedroom. Opening her eyes, she looked around and saw only the familiar furniture she equated with her friend. Sitting next to the bed, she heard Kat’s frantic voice:
“Lucy! Are you alright?”
Lucy rubbed her eyes. “Yeah, I’m fine, it was just … a dream.” Lucy said the words more to convince herself. “It was so real,” she murmured.
“What do you mean, real? Like it happened before, like déjà vu?”
“No, like it was real. I was in this forest and you know how you’re not supposed to feel and smell and touch things in dreams?”
“Yeah.”
“I could do all of that.”
Lucy looked down and massaged the foot that was pierced by the stick. The pain still seemed to be there.
“It wasn’t like a dream, but it was. Then there was this—” Lucy stopped.
“What? There was what?” Kat asked.
“A guy. He had a sword, and I swear it was …”
Lucy realized that she was simply thinking out loud. She shook the image from her head and looked at Kat.
“Who?” Kat urged her.
“No one. I thought I knew him, but I think it was just a figment, you know?”
Kat examined her friend’s face carefully for a few seconds then stood up.
“Well, whoever it was, I’m glad you didn’t hurt yourself falling off the bed.” Kat smiled as she helped Lucy to her feet.
“Yeah, me too,” Lucy replied in a pensive daze.
“Mmmmmm, I smell breakfast; you coming?”
Kat’s enthusiasm was usually fairly contagious, but all of Lucy’s focus was on her dream. Not sure what to think of it, she followed Kat downstairs.
“Oh my gosh, Mom, that smells awesome!” Kat exclaimed as she bounded down the last few steps toward the kitchen.
Susan Caldwell was busy at the stove making everything from bacon and scrambled eggs to pancakes. She even pulled a tray of blueberry muffins out of the oven. Lucy looked over the spread. Susan had once been a caterer while her husband went to law school, but now she just catered for her family.
“What’ll you have, Lucy dear?” Susan called out.
Not feeling too hungry, Lucy grabbed a muffin and replied, “Just this, for now. I’m not much of a morning eater.”
Sitting down with a plate full of food, Kat started in immediately about the night before.
“I can’t believe you didn’t come back; what happened? Mark was there waiting for you.” The first fork-full of pancakes and sausage went into her mouth.
Lucy looked toward Susan, who was dancing to the soft music coming from the stereo on the counter. She sighed at the missed opportunity with Mark, but her evening was a fact of the past and she couldn’t change it.
“I hit a deer,” Lucy said softly.
“What?” Kat said loudly.
Lucy hushed her with a hand gesture. “I totaled my car by hitting a deer.”
Kat put down her fork and finished chewing as fast as she could, then she swallowed hard. “Your car is totaled—as in, wrecked?”
Lucy nodded.
Kat was somewhat bewildered. “So … where is it? Does your dad know?”
Lucy sighed deeply. It was a long story, but she had to tell Kat.
“No, my dad doesn’t know, yet. It’s at this guy’s house. He said he could fix it and have it back in the morning.”
“Some guy, Lucy? Do you even know this guy? How are you paying for it?”
“No, I mean … yes—well, sort of.”
“Sort of what?”
“I sort of know him, well not him, but I know his brother … sort of.”
“Oh my gosh, Lucy! Who are these people? You’re lucky to be alive right now!” Kat’s whispers were getting louder.
“I didn’t know what to do. I was out at Sunset Bay and—”
“Sunset Bay? What the heck were you doing out there?”
“Would you just let me finish?”
Kat sat up and breathed. “Okay, sorry. Continue.”
Lucy thought for a moment. “He’s this guy I met a few months ago at the library, and he was sort of the reason I hit the deer.”
Kat blinked heavily as the story got more complex. “Why don’t I know about this guy?”
“Because I forgot about him until last night. He was like ten minutes of my first day of work. Not much to tell.”
Lucy knew it was more than that, but she couldn’t explain it to Kat, not at the breakfast table with extra ears in the room.
Kat picked up her fork again. “Well, you’re going to have to start at the beginning and I don’t even want to know what you’re going to tell your dad about your car.” She took another huge bite of her breakfast.
Lucy glanced at the clock and her heart fell into her stomach; it read 9:38 AM.
No sooner had Kat clamped her teeth around her pancakes and sausage, than her father, Tom Caldwell, walked through the front door in his bathrobe and slippers with a mug of hot coffee and the Sunday paper already open in his hand. He made his way to the kitchen where the girls were seated and put his mug down.
Tom Caldwell stood tall and burly. He had one of those frames that suggested power. He had been raised in Portland his whole life. He was a city kid and a lawyer.
“Hey Lucy, you should be more careful with your keys.” His voice was especially deep in the morning and the sound of it always demanded attention, but Lucy was shocked when he pulled out her car keys from his robe pocket and slid them over to her. “You left them in the door of your car.”
Lucy picked up what were unmistakably her keys and stared at them incredulously. She met Kat’s wide-eyed gaze and they both looked to the living room window.
Lucy rose from the table and headed out the front door. Kat followed behind. The two of them just stared in amazement. There, in the driveway, was Lucy’s beige Cavalier. It was perfect in every way. The ripple in the hood was gone, the broken grill was fixed, and both headlights were intact. If she hadn’t said anything, no one would ever have known she had hit something head on.
Lucy went back into the house, gathered her things from Kat’s room, and said a quick goodbye to the Caldwells.
Giving Kat a hug, she whispered, “I’ll tell you all about it, I promise.”
“Yeah, you will.”
Kat walked her friend to the door and waved as Lucy pulled out of the driveway.
It was a few minutes before ten when Lucy pulled into the driveway of her own home. Her father was outside, already wiping down his pickup that, by the sight of the bucket and hose, had just been washed in preparation for the trip to Bandon. It was somewhere between tradition and neurosis that James, whether driving across the continental United States or to the next town, would spend an hour washing the vehicle he would be taking. There was pride involved, and Lucy never questioned it.
As she stepped from her car and headed to the front door, James stood with the hand clutching the polishing rag on his waist while raising his other arm to look at his watch.
“You have two minutes to be ready to go or we leave without you, Goosey.”
“Ok, I’ll be right down,” Lucy responded, as she paused to kiss her father on the cheek.
She turned at the front door to get another glimpse of her car. How did he do it? was all she could think.
***
The trip down the Oregon coast was the same as hundreds of other trips before. Her father hummed to the low sound of eighties pop music while her mother read an e-book in the passenger seat. From the back seat, the winding road was as soothing to Lucy as a gently rocking boat to a sailor.
All Lucy could think about was her car and how Jack had done what he did. It was amazing. Then there was Benjamin. His electric green eyes were burned into her subconscious. It was then that she realized she knew nothing about Benjamin or his family. For
tunately, she knew someone that probably did.
“Dad, do you know anybody with the last name of Raven?”
“I know a Peter Raven—he’s my architect for the new downtown building.”
“Is he new in town?”
“Yeah, a few years, why?”
“Does he live out by Sunset Bay?”
“I’m not sure, why?” He was getting agitated that his daughter was answering his questions with questions. When Lucy didn’t immediately answer, he pushed, “Why, Lucy?”
“I think I met his son, Benjamin, at the library. He’s about my age, I think.”
James looked at his daughter in the review mirror. “I don’t think we’re talking about the same Ravens. Peter can’t be more than maybe thirty-one or thirty-two years old, definitely not old enough to have kid in high school.”
Lucy stared out the window. “Does he have any brothers, then?”
“He has one that I know of, but he’s not your age.” James looked at his daughter again and saw the disappointment on her face.
Lucy put her hand to her cheek as a cushion from the glass. Catching a glimpse of her father’s face in the mirror, she saw that he had on what looked like his “boy talk” face, so she cut in before he could get started.
“It’s not like that, Daddy. I met him at work. He’s just new, so I was curious.”
James returned his attention to the road, and silence reigned for the rest of the trip. The ocean passed by in long stretches between patches of trees. With her head against the glass, Lucy closed her eyes, feeling the fatigue of the night before, and let herself drift off.
***
The forest was as real as it had been the night before. The smell of the damp foliage and the sensations of soft greenery beneath her feet were as real as any living experience. Everything was the same as before. Lucy looked around the clearing and saw him. He was a silhouette in the bright glare of the beaming sunlight.
Immortal Light: Wide Awake Page 4
