by Alex Hayes
By the time we pull into the hotel parking lot, the tingling coming from my crystal has risen to a radiating warmth, not unpleasant, but nagging.
“Mountain Lodge,” the driver announces.
I glance at my phone, ten minutes after eleven, hand him a five dollar tip and climb out.
“No bags?” he asks.
“Just my backpack. Thanks.” As the van pulls away, I turn to face the hotel.
Sliding glass doors welcome me into the Mountain Lodge. Surprisingly, there’s a line at the reception desk. I step up to the back and text Mama to let her know I’ve arrived.
East Coast weather. Glad you made it safely. Just got home myself. It’s been a long day, she responds.
Get some rest, I text back.
Will be out like a light the second my head hits the pillow. Sleep well, Cadi.
You too. I add an emoji of a cat smiley face.
My crystal vibrates as I put the phone away. I rub my breastbone, attempting to smooth the tingling away.
The line to reception moves so slowly, I pay attention to the talk around me. “No rooms available. Sorry,” the uniformed man behind the desk tells the couple at the front of the line, and I’m glad I have a reservation. “A lot of people stranded, you see. We’ve opened the guest lounge. You’re welcome to make yourselves comfortable there.”
“For the whole night?” one of the customers says.
“Yes, ma’am. As soon as a room opens up, we’ll be glad to put you in there.”
The woman mutters to her husband as they walk away.
Reaching the desk, I pull out the reservation Mama gave me and hand it to the man.
He looks it over. “Sorry, miss, but reservations are only guaranteed until ten p.m. I’m afraid we gave your room away.”
I stare at him for at least five seconds. “But it’s prepaid.”
“The credit card payment will be refunded.”
My fingers grip the counter. “But what am I supposed to do? I’m here on my own. I don’t even have a car.”
The reception guy launches into his spiel about the guest lounge.
I consider calling Mama and asking her to straighten this idiot out, but what can she do if there aren’t any rooms? With a shake of my head, I snatch back the reservation sheet and walk away.
The guest lounge has couches that look comfortable enough. A few people have situated themselves, but the room is mostly empty. I don’t bother sending Mama an update on what’s going on. She’ll be asleep, anyway.
I’ve no desire to hang out with a bunch of strangers, and I’m not ready to go to sleep, so I walk out the front door, backpack hooked over my shoulders, and head downtown to explore. As soon as I’m on the move, my crystal hums, creating a tugging sensation.
The streets are crowded with vacationers and the retail stores are open. The festivities lighten my spirits as I stride down Hopper’s brightly lit main avenue, complete with period-looking tramcars running the length of the downtown area. A band plays on a grandstand in what looks like the town square.
The pull of the crystal eases with my walking. Until I take a right turn and the crystal all but yanks me back in the opposite direction.
What in the world?
I head back to the main drag just to ease the discomfort. The stone seems to be trying to navigate me. If I hadn’t carried this crystal around my neck all my life, I might be terrified by the idea, but behind its insistence is a sense of well-being, that the mysterious mineral is a natural part of me. It makes me wonder about my parents, about who I am. Did they have stones embedded in their chests too? And if so, why? Do they offer some kind of protection?
Without reason to argue, I follow the crystal’s urging.
I stride beyond the holiday lights and late night revelers, all the way to the end of the main drag. A left turn takes me into a well-lit street between renovated, turn of the century Victorians with wrought iron fences. They remind me of the farmhouse, and melancholy slips inside me, along with a shiver. The night’s getting colder.
A more rundown home, with an equally dilapidated barn, sits in a corner lot at the end of the road. I wonder if the old barn is hay-filled and as warm as the one back home. With a quick sigh, I hurry on.
After a few more twists and turns, I reach an old strip mall, which sits in a well of light surrounded by darkness. The storefronts are all dim and there’s no one around. The buildings beyond are spread further apart and look industrial with plain concrete steps leading to steel doors and loading docks.
Still the crystal pulls me forward, more urgently, until I’m standing in front of a store called Lance’s Trading Post, with a swinging walkway sign that says, Pawnshop.
I glance down at my chest. “Nice,” I say to the crystal. “Couldn’t you have waited till the place opened before dragging me here?”
The crystal pulses with heat, almost as if it understands me.
“Well, I’m going to have to wait until it opens.” I check my phone. Eleven forty-five. “So we’re going back to the hotel.”
The guiding tug of the crystal eases, even though I’m walking away from Lance’s Trading Post, as if the crystal got the message that we have to wait.
The bandstand comes into view just as a green light flares toward the sky and explodes into a fountain of sparkles. Cheers go up around me. I breathe a sigh, and whisper, “Happy New Year.”
17
Idris
Pick up, pick up, pick up… I tap a rhythm against my hip while the phone rings.
It’s almost midnight on New Year’s Eve. I figure by now Dad will have spoken to the police, and they’ll be trying to track me, but I had to talk to her.
She picks up.
“Rebecca—”
“Don’t say anything, Idris.”
“I…” What?
“Not one word.” She sounds angry.
Okay, so it’s the tenth time I’ve called after sending a dozen texts, but if she received them all, why didn’t she answer?
I want to wish her a happy new year. But as requested, I don’t say a word.
An exaggerated sigh from her end. “I’m sorry, Idris, but if you talk, then you’ll win me over again, and… I don’t want to be won over. Long distance relationships don’t work for me. We… I need to end this.”
My mind reels, but a steady voice escapes my lips. “But Rebecca—”
“Don’t! Please. It’s New Year’s and we both need to start fresh. I’m ending this.”
Her words are brutal stabs that leave me bleeding out like a messy red ink-stain across the black leather seat.
I’m speechless. My Rebecca. My girl. She can’t do this to me.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Idris. I really don’t. But I’m seeing someone else.”
Seeing someone else? The blade cuts deeper. “I-I don’t know what to say—”
“Please, don’t say anything. Just listen…”
But I don’t want to hear this.
“I had to leave. Private school was just an excuse.”
An excuse? What?
“I left because I had to get away from you. Every time I tried to break up, you’d talk that sweet way you always do, and I’d crumble. I’ve wanted to end things for months, but you wouldn’t let me. Somehow, you stopped me. Every time.”
What the hell is she talking about?
“That’s why I can’t let you speak. I’m sorry, Idris. I really am. Goodbye.”
The line goes dead.
I stare at the phone like it’s a piece of technology I can’t comprehend. But it’s Rebecca I don’t get. What did she mean? I’d talk and she’d crumble?
Phone off, I toss it across the couch. The device slides down a gap between pillows. Good riddance. Yeah, good effing riddance.
Who needs her, anyway? Long distance relationship? Like she didn’t create it. Why’d she let this…this farce go on for so long? And that crap about the way I talked to her. Get real.
The phone is back in
my hand and turned on. I text Marek.
No answer.
I contemplate texting Mom, then turn off the phone and pace around the glass conference table that sucks up way too much space in this room.
The process repeats. Phone on. Text Marek. No answer. Phone off.
And again.
The sound of an explosion somewhere in the town penetrates the walls of the Thorny Rose. I drop the phone on the couch and traipse upstairs to look out the tinted front windows. Several more explosions and lights fill the sky. Purple. Red. Yellow. Green. White.
Happy Freaking New Year.
The fireworks ended half an hour ago. I should go to bed, but isolation eats into me. Being alone is like a poison and company is the only antidote.
Guess Dad and I are alike in that way. Two extroverts.
I cover my head and shrug into my coat. Going out is madness, but I step through the back door and lock up. A sharp wind slashes my cheeks. I ignore it and follow the most direct route into town, pure need pulling me toward its life and energy. Toward people.
It’s well after one, but I hear a band playing in the distance. This time last year, Rebecca and I were two in the crowd, weaving between street vendors, laughing. Kissing.
I swallow and start to run.
There’s a tree-lined alleyway between two townhouse complexes. The kids from school use it as a shortcut to get to the center of town where a CVS and Starbucks sit. As long as I keep my eyes to the ground, no one will bother me.
The smell of hush puppies, fried onion and pork fat assaults my nostrils. My stomach rumbles at the thought of a foot-long hotdog with extra mustard and all the trimmings.
Imagine my reception if I strode up to a hotdog stand and ordered. Either they’d think I was some whack job in a Halloween mask, or they’d freak and call the cops on me.
I find a shadowy corner at the edge of the old town hall and watch couples in ski jackets and warm woolen hats stroll the sidewalks. Cheers rise from outside a brew house where a busker stands on a small platform, wearing a gray tuxedo and playing Sigma’s Find Me on the violin. The instrument’s a little out of tune.
Longing rises inside me. I want to be part of that action. Be one of the cheering crowd, or better still, be up on that platform playing.
I slide down the wall, sinking deeper into the shadows, knees to chest, and bury my face in my hands. Will I ever be able to walk down the street again?
Laughter comes from nearby. I stiffen. “No, no, Kirk is played by Chris Pine. Zachary Quinto plays Spock.” That’s Marek.
A girl in a red wool hat leans into him. “I can’t believe I got them backwards.” She laughs.
Brianna.
My boy finally did it. But his timing sucks. I want to get his attention, but if Brianna spots me she’ll freak. Besides, I’d really suck as a best friend if I interrupted their date.
I’ll send him a text. If he doesn’t answer…well, who can blame him, but at least he’ll know I’m around. I search for my phone, but it’s not in my pockets.
No, idiot. It’s sitting on the sectional at the Thorny Rose. I tip my head back against cold granite, overwhelmed with the sudden urge to get away.
My pointy-nailed fingers crawl up the side of the building, dragging me back to my feet. The journey to the alley is easy enough, but as I pass a couple of clingy teens about halfway along, the girl flashes her phone light in my face.
Why? No idea. But when she shrieks, I bolt.
“My god, did you see that guy’s face?” The pitch of her voice carries the length of the alley.
I shoulder-butt a guy in a leather jacket.
“Hey, watch where you’re going,” he growls.
A mumbled apology as I hurry on, head low, cap pulled down, cursing myself for being so stupid.
The streets fade into darkness as I close in on the old industrial park. A glance over my shoulder tells me no one followed.
I break into a run, feet slapping through the dregs of wet snow, and don’t stop until I’m standing outside the back door of the Thorny Rose.
Alone.
18
Cadi
A beam of light through the guest lounge windows cuts across my face. I unfold myself from the cube-like chair where I spent the night. My neck hurts and my body feels as crumpled as my clothes.
After a trip to the restroom to my clean teeth and brush my hair, I head out into the chilly morning air.
A Starbucks on the main street is open. The place feels like a sauna after the subzero temperature outside. My body starts to defrost while I order a latte and bagel.
I text Mama while I eat, telling her what happened at the hotel.
I’ll give them a call, she answers.
Not even eight, but I know, by the pulsing heat at my breastbone, that I’ll have to go back to that pawnshop, and soon. Wish I could ignore the crystal’s demands, but there’s no get-out clause. The stone’s below the surface of my skin, and I’ve no plans for self-mutilation.
So back to Lance’s Trading Post I go, and in the cold light of day, I see a handwritten sign on the door. “Open New Year’s Day: 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.”
Crud.
While wandering the streets of Hopper to kill time, I hear back from Mama. She called the Mountain Lodge and gave them a piece of her mind. They’ve promised to provide me a room for the next four nights for free. I just need to get over there and check in sometime after three.
I stop for a fast food lunch, then head back to the pawnshop. Two-o-five. I knock at the door.
Two thirty-eight. A beat-up Hyundai in zinc-oxide gray pulls into the parking lot. A guy with a scraggy beard and a barrel of a belly under a brown hunter’s jacket gets out, slams the door and waddles over.
“Been waiting long?” he asks, pulling a set of keys from his coat pocket.
Yeah, like thirty minutes in the freezing cold, I want to say, but don’t. I smile through chattering teeth, instead.
He opens up and holds the door for me.
The place smells musty. Metal shelves along the walls are filled with a mess of disparate objects, from old cameras and computers to comic books and tin toys.
The guy makes a circuit of the shop, turning on lights, setting thermostats and waking up the cash register, then he walks behind a counter that runs the length of the back wall, and says, “What can I do for you today?”
That’s a very good question.
My embedded crystal pulses with anticipation.
“Um…”
Okay, I pause to ask it. What are we looking for?
I get a tug in response.
Maybe the guy will go for some new age crystal resonance baloney. Not that I really know if it is baloney. Who’d believe me if I said a crystal embedded itself in my chest and is navigating me like a GPS toward some unknown destination?
“I-I’m a sensitive,” I start.
He looks at me like I’m speaking a foreign language.
“You know…attuned to celestial resonance.”
I don’t even know what I’m saying, but the guy nods, like he’s seen a few loonies in his time and nothing can surprise him. “Okay, and what’s your, um…’celestial resonance’ in the market for today?”
I stretch and wiggle my fingers. “I…” I clear my throat. “I’ve been drawn to this, um, astral location because there’s something here.”
The guy smirks. “Yeah, okay. So, give me some clues.”
I flush. “Would you, uh, mind if I let it guide me?”
He chuckles like I truly am some crazy chick from the local lunatic asylum. “Sure, go right ahead.”
I take a breath. Okay, crystal, you’d better find what you want and do it quickly, before this guy stops finding these antics entertaining.
I’m tugged toward the counter. “It’s in there.” I point towards a backroom with a wide glass window and what looks like an office setup, only the place is a mess of papers and accumulated junk.
He’s starting to look suspiciou
s. “Okay, kid. If you can home in on whatever it is you want, fine, but start messing around in there and your butt will be out the front door faster than you can say ‘hey presto.’ You got me?”
I nod.
“Then go right ahead.”
The crystal leads me to a dusty shoebox on a shelf, squeezed between two larger boxes sprouting yellowed receipts. “In that box,” I say.
“Oookey.” He reaches for the shoebox.
The box looks light. He lifts the lid. Blue tissue paper lays inside, faded almost white like it’s been there a while. The guy sticks a hairy hand in between the folds and feels around. He pulls out a chain and crystal identical to mine.
Holy Toledo!
“May I…um, take a look?”
His brow twists with curiosity as he hands the pieces over. Unlike my chain, now coiled up in my backpack, this crystal’s chain has been pinched and broken.
A small shudder runs through me. Who did this belong to?
I look up at the guy who’s eyeing me. “How much?”
He looks the items over. “Well, let’s see. Worth quite a bit, even though the chain’s broken.” He pulls at his chin for a second. “I can let you have it for a hundred bucks.”
A hundred dollars? I’ll be lucky if I have forty left from the money Mama gave me, and that has to last me until Mrs. Lakewood picks me up to take me to my new school tomorrow.
I pinch my brow. “I don’t have that much.”
The crystal pulses, like it’s telling me, Well, you’d better find it.
“Guess you won’t be making a purchase today, then.” The guy plucks the crystal from my hand, and the one in my chest burns hot.
You have to save her. That’s the message I receive, over and over.
What? I didn’t realize crystals had a gender.
“Um, you’re a pawnshop, right? Maybe I could trade something for it?”
Like what? I don’t own anything of value.
He crosses his arms. “Sure. Whatcha got?”
I pull out my phone, wondering if I dare text Mama and ask her to lend me the money, but how would I explain what I need it for? I don’t even understand why I need this crystal myself, but the stone embedded in my chest is pretty clear it’s not letting me leave without its twin.