by Amy Saia
I opened my eyes to a world of darkness and silence. Everyone had gone.
With a yawn and a stretch, I pulled out the flashlight to check my wristwatch. Six a.m. How the hell did I manage to get the best night’s sleep of my life while crammed between two rocks? I let out a groan and stood up. Everything crackled.
It was so quiet. Stalagmites stood around me like shadowy figures. No longer beautiful, they held a countenance of horror, like an amusement park fright house. I continued to stretch, mad at myself for letting my guard down. Mostly I was mad I had wasted all that time around William by sleeping. At least the short portion I’d seen had been good.
I headed for the nearest opening. Half an hour later, the muted colors of dawn bled across limestone, telling me I was close to getting out. A wave of relief washed over me. I couldn’t wait to free myself of the claustrophobic dampness of the caves and get out in the fresh air again.
A sound reverberated somewhere within the cave. I froze.
Marcus came into view. His fingers clung to the bridge of his nose, glasses pushed out of the way. He was in a kind of prayer, a chant; his lips moved, but no sound escaped. After a time, he reached into his pocket to retrieve a small bag. Then he untied a drawstring, pulled, and emptied the contents into his palm.
A coin.
No one had to tell me. I stood in my annex and felt the world shift. Heartbroken. You couldn’t change time, you could only escape it. William had made it sound like we’d traveled back early enough to stop the cult from forming, that we’d be able to prevent Marcus from putting together his implements to steal innocent souls. But he was already making coins, and what else did he have? How far did his powers reach through time?
The coin glistened in his palm, and the way Marcus gazed at it told me it was meant for someone very important. At the eclipse, there had been a coin for each of us—William and myself. Then, the roughly helmed copper had been aged to a dark verdigris. This coin was shining copper. Brand new. With the moon’s eclipse, and the Seekers chanting words I’d never understand—or wanted to understand—that coin would become a soul vessel. A keeper of precious life, so that Marcus’ would never end.
I realized it was too late to change Marcus and infiltrate the cult. He wanted William, and there was no amount of planning which would erase the fact.
When he left through a tunnel heading back into the complex, I ran out into daylight, tears in my eyes. The second I reached a high plateau, I let myself break down. Dawn spread out above, faded into the heavens. The sky turned blue. The sun began its long ascent until night came to take it away again.
I sat up and wiped at my face. I yanked the cap off my head and shook out all my hair. My hands were covered with dirt along with shoe polish. I could pass for a real miner now. Like it mattered.
Falling back, I lay on a bed of loose rock and watched clouds passing by in a slow dance. I felt defeated. Hungry. It reminded me I was pregnant. Time to go home—well, not home. Home was a million miles, minutes, away. Seeing her would comfort me. But it wouldn’t be long before I said good-bye to her forever. I didn’t want to do it. Why not stay right where I was and stare at the clouds some more?
My stomach growled.
“All right, kid, you win. Time for breakfast.” I didn’t want to eat. I wanted to lie there and pretend. Pretend none of this had happened. Pretend William was safe.
Rocks ground under someone’s feet. My breath caught. Whoever it was had come awfully near, and I wouldn’t have time to escape. If it was Marcus, I’d scratch his eyes out, rip at his clothes. The time had come.
I rose to my feet. A pair of calloused hands grabbed and spun me around, and a set of blue eyes—bluer than the sky above—pierced down into my own set of widened brown.
“Not so fast.”
Chapter 14
“Well? Ain’t you got nuthin’ to say?”
I shirked under his grip. “What’s there to say? How about, hello? Yes, that would be nice, for once. Hello. Hi. Those are good words.” I tried not to smile. Holy Heavens, he was beautiful. William, my William. It was impossible not to throw my arms around him.
“Ah, cut with the talk. Just tell me straight—you with those guys?” His eyes were full of scrutiny.
“What guys?”
“The church. Don’t act like you don’t understand what I’m talking about. Stop playing dumb.” He moved to sit on a large rock split by a wayward sapling, now dead. Still eyeing me, he pulled out one of his cigarettes and lit up. He threw his head back. “They paid you to follow me around, that’s what it is. You get some talk outta me and then you go scurry back and spill the goods. You tell ’em about my little dream stuff yet? How I can see things? You got powers, too, just like the main stiff, what’s his name—Marcus? You’re part of them. I can see it all clear now. All this time I thought you had the sweets for me, but what you were really doin’ was collecting information. A lousy thing to do.”
I waited for a turn to speak. I’d let him spew out his conspiracies, and then calmly explain how wrong he was.
William blew long puffs into the air. “That explains the money, and here I thought you were a—” Chin down, he gave me the sort of inspection which would have hurt had I not been so angry. “Well, you get what I thought you was, no need to say it. I guess I’m relieved you ain’t.” Still examining me with a black gaze, he smoked all the way to his fingertips, and then flicked the butt into the valley. “Dammit, but you have the prettiest hair I have ever seen.”
Without thinking, I glanced down. Long strands of gold ran past my shoulders toward my chest. It needed a good brushing; a few leaves were stuck inside.
“They tried to kill me in them mines tonight, but that leader—what was his name again?”
“Marcus,” I supplied, breathlessly.
“Yeah, Marcus, he got real worried when he saw what they’d done. I wonder why.” He jumped off the rock and came storming over, then stared down at me, nostrils flaring. “And you coulda died too. You dummy.” The next thing I knew, he had pulled out a handkerchief and was spitting into it. I stood perfectly still while he ran the dampened fabric across my cheeks and forehead. It took a while. I stared up at him the entire time. “There you are,” he said, standing back to observe. “Knew you were in there somewhere.”
Neither of us spoke. A wind picked up and blew dust around our feet. The sun beat down. I heard a hawk cry out far off in the distance and knew the mother had made it back to her nest with a beak full of food. It had a comforting effect on my frazzled nerves.
“William,” I said, voice breaking.
“Billy Joe,” he reminded.
“Billy Joe, I haven’t been working with the church, or anyone. I don’t have any reason to follow you around other than I love you and want to protect you.”
“You protect me?” he said with a shake of the head. “You’re the one that needs protecting. Now, if I ever catch you near these mines again, I will tie you up and send you on the next ship to China, got that? You best pack your things and get that pretty little head of yours out of Springvale. If you’re smart. If you’re stupid, you’ll hang around and find out what them fellas are really made of.”
He touched a strand of my hair, held it for the longest time. “Hate to see you go, though. I have to admit it.” He kept playing with my hair, and I didn’t move an inch. Before I could say anything, his lips had lowered down. He kissed me long and slow, and then pulled away with a smile. “There. That’s my good-bye. Have a good life, baby.”
Was it really a good-bye? I didn’t want it to be. When he turned, I pulled him back. I gave him my own kiss, deeper, longer than the one he’d given me. By the time I was done and had pulled away, he was the one to be breathless. And I was the one with the smile.
“Jesus,” he said, rubbing his lips. There was bewilderme
nt in his voice. “Where’d you learn to kiss like that?”
“Where do you think?”
I walked away. The whole trip back to town I could hear him a few feet behind, crunching the gravel with his slow boot heels. He never said a word, and neither did I. When we reached his house, I dared to glance over my shoulder. He had stopped. A whole length apart, we stood there, eyes locked together.
Then he sprinted across the field, up the front steps, and was gone.
I could sense him watching me from an upper window all the way down the road.
Chapter 15
I read the newspaper again.
Between advertisements for golden Fluffo shortening and Pepsodent toothpaste, I’d found a local ad from someone selling a Smith & Wesson revolver. My heart nearly stopped. Fate couldn’t be so agreeable. Not like this, out of nowhere, when everything else had gone so very wrong.
I didn’t wait to find out. When I asked to borrow the car again, Gran said yes, though she had a peculiar, fearful expression in her eyes. No time to find out what it meant, either. I thanked her and left the minute breakfast ended.
The man’s name was Jenkins. Little shocks moved up and down my spine when I realized it was the same lean figure I’d watched through a screen door two summers ago. Then, I’d been buying a car so I could get out of town. My heart had been broken and everything was wrong. The car turned out to be a piece of junk and Jesse came back with me to retrieve the money—money he no doubt saw as his ticket to New York.
I told myself not to think of Jesse at a time like this. I needed to concentrate on getting the gun. Ever since the moment Marcus had almost found me in the cave room, I’d been filled with “what ifs.” What if he’d seen me? What if I had dropped the flashlight? What if he’d found out I was pregnant?
I stepped up to the porch and knocked. Jenkins came to the screen door. He had more hair and a few extra teeth now, but everything else was the same. Two eyes peeked through steel mesh. “What do you want?”
“I’m here to buy the gun. You do still have it, don’t you?”
The eyes flashed past me to the road. Confusion. “Who be needing it?”
“Me. I need it.” I fumbled with my purse. “I have money.”
After a slight hesitation, the door jangled open. A wisp of a tall figure stood before me. He wore a ratty brown jacket and stained blue jeans. “Well now, I—I would normally ask you in, but the lady’s not doing so good today. Okay if we talk on the porch?” He kept staring at me with his gray eyes—so pale in color they appeared almost white.
“Sure.” The smell of Lysol wafted out to burn my nostrils. It made my stomach swirl and dip.
He came out to the porch in his bare feet. His hair was shocks of unkempt reddish brown, which he kept brushing backward. Those eyes of his had already sunk in, and lines perforated each side of his mouth. He was hesitant around me, so I took the lead and walked over to sit on the porch swing. The wood groaned slightly when he took a place at my side.
“Griffinegger from the hardware store send ya here?”
“No. I read the ad.”
“That old coot. I told him not to be blabbin’ about my guns. Can’t tell that man nuthin’.”
“Oh, does that mean you don’t want to sell?”
“No, no. I gotta sell. Wife sick an’ all. Doc says . . .” his voice trailed off. “Well, hell, I don’t care about the guns. Only, she wanted to take a trip down south before the weather turns cold. Says it’ll make her better.” He paused to rub at the underside of his nose. “Which one you come to buy again?”
“Model Three. Revolver.”
He laughed. “It figures. You being a girl and all, you’d want the pretty one. And she is pretty, oh lord.” He stood and peeked back at me to make sure I wasn’t going to follow him into the house. “Stay.”
His feet shuffled through the house after the screen door clamored shut on its rusty hinges. I sat and occupied myself by counting out the pile of bills I’d brought; I could only hope it was enough. A few minutes later, he was outside again with a small, open wooden box in his arms: cedar, with a blue velvet lining. The gun gleamed like it had been cleaned well with an admiring hand; it blazed out at us with polished metal and a carved ivory grip.
He chuckled at my lack of speech. “Yep. She’s pretty, all right. An original.” He picked it up and twirled it around on one finger for display. “You want to make an offer?”
His turned up sentence forced me to think too fast.
My mouth opened, then clamped down again. Keep quiet, Emma, and let the man talk.
“Gun, ammunition, a few boxes of cartridges. You can’t buy it anywhere else. Not for this ’ticular model.”
“How much do you need?”
“Well, now, let’s see. The wife would like to eat more than bologna on this here trip she’s plannin’.”
I unfolded a few of the bills. All tens.
“And she did say she wanted a new dress and all.”
I kept unfolding.
“And then there’s gas . . .”
Scared he’d list off another expense from this trip of his, I handed him seven bills. I’d only brought one hundred dollars. Seventy dollars to kill Marcus and keep William safe? Bargain.
Before taking the money, he placed the gun back down on the velvet lining. “Wait, wait, hold on. I gotta ask—you ever shot one of these before?”
I shook my head.
“That’s a real problem, Miss . . . ?”
“Bennett.”
A flick of recognition crossed his brow. “I know a Bennett, I think. Well, anyhow I could not in any good conscience allow myself to sell a gun to a person who didn’t know how to shoot. And it’s not,” his eyes swept over me quick, “cause you’re a girl, mind you.”
“Of course.”
“No, I—I was taught by my daddy all the safeties of shootin’—he wouldn’t even let me breathe on a rifle until I had learned all the rules. You up for a lesson?”
“Sure.”
He rose from the swing and I followed, tracing his footsteps with my own down the porch steps and behind a separate garage structure. A vast field spread before us, covered with wild grass and cut off by a line of oaks to the south.
“First thing,” he said, stopping to lay the box down on a tree trunk, “is you never point a gun at anything you don’t want to end up killing.”
Sounded reasonable. “Okay.”
“Second, keep your finger off that trigger unless you plan on something coming out.”
“Right.”
“This here is the hammer, you cock that thing all the way back when you’re ready to pull the trigger. This model has single action, meaning you have to cock it every time you wanna shoot. And here, you cock it to the middle to load the chamber.” He gave me a decent inspection. “Now, if you think you’re ready, then I’ll give you your first target practice right here.”
“Right here?”
He nodded, and I swallowed hard. I held out my hand for the revolver and saw that it was shaking.
“Well, maybe you’d better watch me first,” he said, revoking the gun. Then, taking a handful of rounds from one of the small ammunition boxes, he filled the cylinder with expert speed, shoving the cartridges in with calloused fingers after each drop. A flip of his wrist, and the thing was closed and locked again. “You see that wooden barrel over there?” he asked, using the revolver’s tip to point off in the distance.
“Yes. I see.”
“All the top hoops’re off, she’s just sitting out there collecting water. Think I’ll aim at the top section.” He lifted the revolver to eye level, cocked it all the way back, and curled a finger in to wrap around the trigger. “Notice my finger wasn’t on the trigger yet, until now. I have my target in m
y vision, and I’m using the sight at the end of the muzzle to help line things up.” A moment crept by, and then a loud explosion echoed across the field, making me scream. A stupid girl response—a scream. I was instantly embarrassed, but didn’t say anything about it. Instead, I watched as he cocked the hammer with his thumb. He pulled the trigger again and again, hitting the barrel each time. Water shot out in long streams.
“Yeah, it’s loud. Ain’t it great?”
I gave a slow nod. What had I gotten myself into?
He turned to me. “It’s empty now. I want to see you load it.” He handed me the gun, which I again reached for with shaking hands. This time he let me have it.
Carefully, I used my thumb to cock the hammer halfway, then pushed the latch and pulled the gun open. The empty brass cases poked halfway out of the cylinder. I plucked them, one-by-one. He passed me six new cartridges from the box.
“I’m gonna give you a full load, just in case you miss a couple of times.” He was being sarcastic, but I didn’t mind.
“We both realize I’m going to miss,” I said, laughing shakily and sliding bullets into each hollow chamber. “Better now than later.” Using both hands, I raised it to eye level, pulled up the front sight, and used it to line with the notch above the cylinder latch. I covered the upper part of the barrel, about twenty feet away. The target focused in and out of my vision. A dragonfly buzzed by, and grass waved in the heat. My index finger slid into the trigger loop. I heard Jesse’s voice singing to me; I saw the image of Marcus’ face melt into the dark wood. My fingertip twitched and then pulled. Bang! The gun leaped in my hands.
