by Amy Saia
William groaned a little when he heard the name. “Emma.”
“Shhh.” I would stay with Max, tonight at least. Nothing funny would happen, I trusted him now, but I didn’t trust myself to stay with Will. It wasn’t that I thought I would go berserk and commit a Barbara Walter’s Special type of husband murder, it was because I was so vulnerable, and any little thing he said, did, would be forgiven. And Will shouldn’t be forgiven. Not right now.
Digging a pencil out of the junk drawer I had been vowing to clean one day, I leaned over the counter and scratched off the number given to me. Then I straightened up, took a deep breath and dialed it. “I can’t stay here tonight.” His arms crossed, his brow furrowed, but I held firm. Max’s phone rang once, twice, three times, it rang about six times and my eyes faltered from Will’s to our yucky green linoleum floor. Max had to pick up, dammit. He had to. He should have been home by now, Penn Peak wasn’t a big town.
Still listening to the sound of electric rings for a phantom receiver that never picked up, I glanced out the kitchen window to a dark world filled with a swirling hurricane of white flakes. Max was stuck in that mess, somewhere in town, in that old Volkswagen of his.
I didn’t want to hang up the phone. I did, though only momentarily. When the line cleared, I dialed a different number. One I knew by heart, but didn’t call very often because it would cause trouble for all parties involved. After a few rings, Grandmother Carrie’s voice sounded in my ear. “Hello?”
“Hello? Oh, Grandmother Carrie!” I started to cry again. It was so beautiful hearing her voice. Sometimes I feared she wouldn’t be there to pick up, and time, and life, would finally have fled from us toward the river of forever. “I need to talk to you about something. I just need someone to talk to.”
There was a momentary silence before her voice cleared. “Emma. This isn’t Grandmother Carrie.”
My breath caught. My heart stopped. I knew the person I was talking to now. Not Grandmother Carrie, but my mother. My betrayer. How could I have not heard the difference? I almost hung up, but couldn’t. I clung to the phone in shock. “Where’s Gran?”
“Emma . . .” Did I hear regret in her voice? The woman who watched me die in the eclipse? “Emma, I hate to tell you this, but Grandmother Carrie, well, she died today.”
I met William’s saddened stare. He knew.
But I couldn’t believe it. And why did she have to be the one to tell me? Out of all the people on this stupid, miserable earth, she had to be the one. “You’re lying! You took her! The Seekers’ cult took her, right? She’s not really dead!” I started to shake. All of it was too much. This whole night had to be a bad dream, and it would end any minute. Things would reset, go back to normal.
The phone dropped from my hands, and William caught it before it hit the floor. I heard him mumble a few polite things into the receiver, things like thank you and sorry, before setting it on the base again. Then I was in his arms, and everything turned to black.
¤ ¤ ¤
I woke up on the couch with William crouched next to me, concern etched into every line of his face. His hand smoothed my hair, rubbed at my forehead; he took my hands and massaged them gently, with such care, with such love. But did anyone love me anymore? My mother? Will? The only one who I knew truly loved me was now dead. I’d never see her again. Never.
“Shhh, Emma, don’t cry. Think about the baby, darling. You’ve got to get yourself together.” He said it carefully, not with accusation. But still, I didn’t want to think about the baby right now. And I didn’t want him sounding so sweet, so kind, when minutes before the pressures of life were my solitary burden.
“Is she really dead, Will?”
He thought about it, but shook his head when there was no way to find an answer. “I don’t think the cult has her. There’s no way to tell, though. We’re so far away. My intuition tells me that yes, she is . . .” He couldn’t say the word.
My intuition had faded months ago. Since I’d stopped using it out of a fear of vulnerability, it’d dwindled down to almost nothing. Grandmother Carrie would be ashamed of me; she’d always called it my “gift.”
I looked into Will’s eyes. He was sorry, so sorry. “Are you still mad at me?” he asked.
“Yes.” I was numb. And I needed him.
He rested his face onto my abdomen, and I felt a few deep breaths spread through the silk to my skin. He placed his hands on my middle. “Oh, Emma. Is it really true? I can hardly believe it.” He smiled up at me. “She’ll be beautiful.”
“She?”
The grin spread across his face. “Just like you, beautiful, and we’ll spoil her rotten.”
I shook my head. No, my kid would have rules, limits, and even though I wouldn’t lay a hand on her little sassy bottom, she’d never cross the line.
William sat up again, resting on his haunches. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here. It’s true I was busy with my travels. Sometimes I didn’t even know what day it was, much less what you were up to, or that your jeans had stopped fitting.” He hesitated. “But you tied yourself off from me. Whenever I was here, you wouldn’t let me in.”
He wouldn’t say Jesse’s name, but I knew we were both thinking it. “Don’t blame it on me, Will.”
He nodded slowly. “You’re right. It wasn’t your fault. I was desperate to go back, and there’s probably nothing on this earth that could have stopped me.”
Shifting my legs on the couch, I moved to a sitting position. William sat next to me.
“You lied,” I said. “You lied, and you’ll lie again.”
“I lied for a good reason.”
This made me laugh, but not a happy laugh, a tired, “what’s the difference?” kind of laugh. Our eyes met. “The point is, I don’t trust you now.”
William picked up my hand and played with all my fingers. He brought them to his lips. “Do you want to hear why I did it, Emma? Will you let me explain?”
Why did the tears come again? I shook my head to clear out the mist inside. “If you tell me, I’ll have to forgive you, and I can’t do that yet.”
My fingers were tingling. Little shocks zapped against his lips in delightful play.
Leaning in, William’s lips met mine, and I couldn’t help but react the way I always did. I cursed myself, and him, but it felt so good to have him kiss me this way again. I didn’t want to think about his travels or Grandmother Carrie. My hands slid around his neck.
“I won’t lie to you again,” he said, pulling away for a second.
“Just shut up, Will.” I tilted my chin to capture his lips, and then pulled his head down closer. Come, come, Will. Make love to me. Help me to forget—your lies, Jesse, Grandmother Carrie, life, death, everything.
I felt a hand slide underneath to my back before moving up to cradle my neck. My legs moved up around his waist. Soon his breath came hot and quick, as did mine, and we were making love like it was the first time; like the night we’d gotten a hotel room in Las Vegas after saying our vows. It had been cheap and cramped and tacky, but one thing had been right: us. I had been a virgin then; scared and held back by the pain of my first sexual encounter. This time there was nothing to hold me back. Nothing but my own brain, that is.
“God!” I pulled away from his kisses and turned sideways. “I can’t get over you going with her.” William hovered over me. I stared up, brows raised. “Well? Why?”
His breathing regulated. Always in control. “She has very strong abilities and was willing to teach me things I couldn’t find out on my own. She has experience, that’s what I’m trying to say.”
“I’ll bet she does.”
William lowered down and molded himself to my back. I felt his lips touch my bare shoulder. “I went with her because she and I are very similar: the same age, technically, and we could trade our m
emories. She allowed me to go back in time using her images of the nineteen-fifties so I wasn’t always stuck in Springvale. Do you see?”
I grunted quietly.
“For instance, the night I came home drunk. That happened at her house, but I didn’t get drunk there, I got drunk at a cocktail party in an apartment in Chicago, nineteen-fifty-nine. I met Hemingway that night. Briefly, but . . . Hemingway. And I couldn’t tell you. God, how I longed to tell you.”
His lips were close to my ear. “And I wanted you to go with me, but you weren’t, aren’t, ready. It did seem like a betrayal, but I had my reasons, Emma. Just like I’ve told you.”
I nudged backward so my elbow dug into his chest. “Go ahead, tell me. You’re dying to. Tell me what your special reasons were.”
He let go of a long breath, and I felt it sweep past my shoulder like a warm breeze. “The cult. They’re getting stronger. They’re coming for us.” I felt those lips touch my skin again before the next words. “And I think I understand why: they want the baby.”
It took half a second for me to twist around to face him. My eyes searched his for any lies, hoping, hoping it was a lie. “They can’t find us. They can’t leave Springvale.”
William shook his head slowly. “They’re much stronger than we ever imagined.”
I remembered the two times I’d seen Jesse as a faceless black mass, but it had undeniably been him. Could Jesse leave Springvale too, then? But why would he? Was the cult using him to betray us? Jesse wouldn’t do it, and anyway, he didn’t have powers like they did. They’d sucked his soul and left him an empty carcass, like a locust shell. And if he had any power, he’d vowed never to be part of the cult or partake in any of their horrible rituals. I searched William’s blue eyes again. He didn’t blink. “So, that’s why I went. All my trips were a backdrop for learning so I could act on a plan.” He didn’t wait for me to ask what plan, or why, or what for. “To go back to when it started, when they started. To undermine their efforts. Break up the circle. Eliminate the leader.”
“Marcus.”
“Exactly. With him gone, I think the others would never maintain the cult. But I had to find out how they began, and what their initial motivations were.” After a long silence, from which William had gone into a deep and studious train of thought, he said, “It means I have to go back again. Soon, I think, because of the baby.”
“Oh, no, you’re not going anywhere near the cult.”
“But I have to. I can’t let them continue the way they are. It’s too dangerous.”
Rolling off the couch and to my feet, I stood and glared down at him. My hands fell to my hips. He rose as well, a terrible expression on his face. “And I go alone,” he said.
“Alone. Or with Betty? If you’re going back to Springvale, I’m going too. Preferably without Betty.”
His teeth began to grit. “Listen—”
“I am listening. You said you wanted me to go with you, but I wouldn’t. And now that I want to go for a really important reason, you say I can’t.”
“And you sound unreasonable. You’re pregnant, Emma. Think about the baby.”
“Oh, this stupid baby!” I turned away from him because his last words had hit hard. Too hard. I hadn’t been thinking about the baby. All I wanted was to find those damn Seekers and rip them to shreds. Once and for all. But I couldn’t forget the baby. My stomach growled loudly because he or she was hungry again. Glum, I made my way into the kitchen to find something else to eat, leaving Will behind.
I opened the refrigerator. Nothing. I’d already cleaned out the leftovers. If I wanted to eat now, I’d have to cook it. Two steaks sat wrapped in butcher paper, so I grabbed them and an onion, and then some mushrooms. And a gallon of milk. When I headed for the counter, arms laden, Will propped himself up against the kitchen doorway to watch.
“Yes,” I said, “I’m that hungry.”
“I see.”
He walked over to the table and pulled up a chair. “Maybe after you eat you’ll have a clearer head and we can talk.”
“My head is perfectly clear,” I said, chopping down onto the onion with a bit too much ferocity. “We can talk about it now.”
“Huh.” William leaned back in his chair. “I’m not so sure.” Then, after I’d worked on seasoning and plopping both steaks onto a hot iron skillet, I heard him say, “Emma, you have hips.”
I froze.
“You never had hips before. It’s quite attractive.”
Rolling my eyes, I resumed positioning the steaks in their pan. “And so,” I said, continuing on, “when are we heading off?” I turned to him, spatula in hand. “To the good old nineteen-fifties, where men thought it was okay to say things about a woman’s hips and all?”
He cleared his throat. “I guess never.”
I laughed. “Wrong guess. The baby will be fine. We’re not going to raise her, or him, to be a coward anyway, so this will be great training. If our kid can get through this, our kid can get through anything.” Time to flip the steaks. I liked them rare now.
I threw in the onions and the mushrooms, salivating at the thought of how good it would taste and how cold the glass of milk would be to wash it all down.
William appeared out of sorts. His shoulders were slumped, his fingers thatched through his hair. “I should have never told you. I should have never started all this.”
In a few minutes, I had two plates heaped with food. Placing his down before him, I paused a minute to rub his back with a free hand. “Don’t you trust me?”
He lifted his face, eyes searing into mine. “It’s not that, Emma. It’s just that you haven’t been using your powers lately, and this is serious business. Yes, I trust you, but I don’t trust them. The cult. What if something bad happens and I lose you and the baby? I’d be alone, and all of this, everything, would be for nothing. It would destroy me.”
“And if you left without me, and didn’t come back, I’d be destroyed, too. They’d come here and find me, and I’d be all alone. Wouldn’t it be better for the both of us to go now? To fight them, together?”
He shook his head for a very long time. But I knew the things I’d said had gotten through, because they were the truth. “Dammit, Emma,” he said.
I walked around the table and sat down with my food. William cut into his steak in silence. When I’d eaten almost every bite of steak, and gulped down an entire glass of milk, I made a motion to get up and clear the table. William beat me to it. He grabbed my plate and glass and headed for the sink. “You won’t do anything dangerous,” he said from over his shoulder. “You leave that to me.” He turned on the faucet and starting scrubbing. “And you won’t challenge them, provoke them, or anything risky. You can be a spy. Okay?”
“A spy? Gee, how exciting. If I know you, it means I get to sit in a room the whole time with a pair of binoculars.” His silence told me he hadn’t considered such a thing, but liked the idea. I walked over and slid my arms around his waist. “I could seduce Marcus. Get him to tell me secrets.” Now this was an idea William didn’t like. His stern look told me not only no, but hell no. “Okay, but I can pretend to be interested in the cult and find out all their secrets.”
After a few more scrubs, he rinsed the plates and glasses clean. He dried them off with a towel and turned to hold me. “I hate to admit it, but your plan is probably the right way to go.”
I stretched up to peck him on the lips. “So, when do we go?”
“Tonight’s too soon. I just went, and I’m still tired, to tell you the truth. We could go tomorrow.” A quick, frustrated breath escaped his nostrils. “That sounds so soon. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe next week. Yes, it gives me time to plan this whole thing out.”
I shook my head. “Tomorrow, and no later. I’m not getting any less pregnant. The sooner, the better.”
/> William smiled. “Pregnant. In my day, we called it ‘with child,’ and women had to wear enormous dresses to hide their bellies. I guess it was so the world didn’t catch wind of the activities which had taken place to result in, well, you know.”
“Yes, I do.” I smiled back. I stretched up to kiss him again, but this time he was ready. My little peck was greeted with a full on kiss. It turned my knees into jelly.
Snow drifted outside; it fluttered silently against the kitchen windows, melting into streams running down. Inside, two people were making a little bonfire, sparks and all.
Chapter 7
With the university closed for Winter Break, the town of Penn Peak took on a deathly air—no traffic, no hustle; some of the shops even began to shut down. William and I made our way in silence through the university’s empty parking lot toward the library’s back entrance. Tiny snowflakes gathered onto both our shoe tips while he dug out the staff key he’d been given by Mr. Haskell with the utmost of trust. Unfortunately, we were about to breach his trust, but we had our reasons. With shaking fingers, he slid the key into the lock, and with a twist of the handle, the door gave way. The library was dark and morose, no students waiting to be checked out.
“We’re officially breaking the law,” William said into the darkness, reaching for my hand.
“Do you have to say it like that? We’re not doing anything wrong. Just using equipment.”
“In an illegal manner,” William added. He frowned down at me, and I shrugged.
“We’ll be in another decade when they figure it out.”
He’d tried to talk me out of going ten times already, but I refused to budge. No way was he facing the Seekers without me. After checking the front entrance for the twentieth time, I turned to watch William at the TRS-80, deep in concentration. “You used to hate that thing,” I said, pulling up a stool next to him.
