“Can you check it again?” Her voice took on an edginess. “Please. And as a matter of fact, will all of you…Never mind.” She sighed, flashed Art a look of pure hatred. “Come with me.”
Sarah and the man disappeared through the door that led to Sarah’s upstairs living quarters. Claudia and Tanya went back to discussing nails.
Nathan knew it wasn’t his place to follow Sarah. What she and her former husband discussed was none of his concern. But Sarah wasn’t holding it together. He saw it in her eyes, the way her gaze darted from her mother, to Tanya, back to Art. And if Art was violent, she needed someone to protect her.
It was Nathan’s business to see to her safety. He realized that now. He wanted to defend her, not because he felt obligated in any way and not because he pitied her because she was alone and because things were difficult for her. It was something he wanted to do.
He went toward the stairwell, saw them standing in the hall. He lingered at the bottom which allowed him just enough view without Sarah knowing he was there.
Art ran his hand down the cracked plaster on the wall. “This place is a dump.”
“I’m fixing it up. What do you want?”
Art’s laugh was condescending. “I think you already know.”
“The ring’s gone. I already told you.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Well that’s your problem. Not mine.” She started toward the stairs. “If you’d listened to me you could have saved yourself the trip.”
Art stepped in front of her so swiftly that Sarah backed up. “You don’t want another legal battle. I went easy on you before. I’ll bury you this time.”
It was Sarah’s turn to laugh. “Yet again, you still don’t listen. I already told you to do what you have to do.”
“You’re pathetic.”
“Oh, that’s original.”
“I mean it. I don’t know why I ever married you.”
Sarah looked as if she was going to say something then stopped. She lifted her chin, too proud to accept the hurt Art had infected. “I guess you don’t have to worry about that with little miss grocer slut downstairs.”
“She’s ten times the woman you ever were.”
“I’m sure.”
“At least she can carry a child.”
Art contacted a direct hit this time. Nathan saw it in her eyes. They blinked, teared, blinked rapidly.
Nathan started to go to her, then thought better of it. Sarah wouldn’t want him to. He knew that about her now. A few weeks ago…a few weeks ago he wouldn’t be listening in on her private conversations, but now…Nathan knew her. And that had somehow brought him closer to her.
He felt a tap on his shoulder and nearly jumped out of his skin.
Sarah’s uncle.
Stan pushed his glasses further up on the bridge of his nose. “Hi.”
“You see me?”
Stan nodded.
“Do you know who I am?”
Stan seemed to think for a moment. “Not really, but Sarah likes you.”
Nathan was almost speechless. “How is it that you can see when others cannot?”
“Sarah sees you.”
“Do you know why?”
Stan shrugged.
“Can you see others like me?”
Stan shook his head. “Do you like my sister?”
He was about to answer when Art came tearing down the stairs.
Stan molded himself against the wall to avoid being run over.
“Out of my way, retard.”
Nathan concentrated very hard. Focusing all his energy into his foot, he made it as stiff as Turner. It caught on Art’s ankle, and he went sailing down the remaining steps.
Sarah stormed into her bedroom and slammed the door. Without word, Nathan and Stan followed her.
Nathan waited as Stan knocked. When Sarah told him to come in, Nathan followed behind.
“Your friend’s here.” Stan sat on the edge of her bed beside her.
Sarah looked up with tear-stained eyes. She looked very small, very vulnerable. The urge to want to protect her was overwhelming. Frustration knotted in his gut. He had no idea how to help her.
Sarah put her arm around her uncle.
“Stan, do you remember how we buy Mom a Christmas present together every year and we have to keep it a secret?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, I think it’s best if we keep Nathan a secret too.”
“Until Christmas?”
“Well…for now. We’ll just wait and see, okay?”
“Okay.”
She kissed his forehead. “Why don’t you go downstairs and see if Mom needs help.”
“Okay.”
Nathan silently watched Stan leave. His heart gave an unexpected start as the door closed. There were so many things he wanted to say to Sarah, things which could somehow make her feel better, but he didn’t have the words and he couldn’t possibly help her. He couldn’t even help himself.
“You lost a child.” It came out a simple statement. He inwardly cursed himself for his brass. He hadn’t meant it to sound so accusing. Like it had been her fault. Like Art had implied.
Sarah just looked at him. Her eyes were wide, confused, wondering if she had heard him correctly. At any moment she would tell him to leave, say that he had no business commenting on something so personal.
She sighed. “I am thirty years old. I have a wonderful uncle, a caring mother, and supportive friends.”
“You lost a child.”
She nodded. She was silent so long he started to wonder if she would speak at all.
“Michaela would be two now.” She glanced out the window. “I think things about her…like when I drive by a school, I think about how I would have to enroll her in preschool in a couple of years. When I stock the children’s section downstairs I wonder what her favorite books might have been. I hear parents complain about how hard it is to find a sitter, how they can’t wait for vacations to be over so they can have their kids out of their hair, and I want to slap them. I want to take their children away from them, make them feel what I feel.”
Tears streamed down her face. He tried to understand her loss. He knew what it was like to lose someone, but he knew it wasn’t the same. Anne, his sister-in-law, had lost a child in her first year of marriage. She wouldn’t speak to anyone of it and had become so withdrawn that they all wondered if she’d recover.
Not knowing what else to do, he sat beside her and pulled her into his arms.
She pushed him away. “No. Don’t touch me.”
“Why?”
“Because…” She stood. She folded her arms around herself in defense.
She started to leave, but Nathan blocked her path. “I have something I want to show you later.”
“I’m too busy to go anywhere.”
“When you’re not busy then.”
Her eyes were like daggers. “I’m not going anywhere with you. No forts. No cemeteries. I’m through with you.”
“Why?”
“I think you know.” There was no mistaking the rage in her voice. “I’m trying to get my life straightened around. What’s wrong with this picture?”
He didn’t understand.
“You,” she answered for him. “You’re what’s wrong with this picture. I want you out of my life. Go haunt someone else.”
Her words stung worse than he’d expected. He hadn’t expected her to admit that she thought so little of him. She took the pain of his miserable existence away and all she could do was accuse him of haunting her.
He watched her leave the room, thought about going after her, then vanished instead.
In a far away part of the distance, he thought he heard Stan tell him goodbye.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Nathan stepped back as another tree fell under the work of his ax. His entire body was wet with perspiration, yet he was still cold. Always cold.
He stepped back, waited for the rush of pride to fill him.
It was a foreign emotion, to appreciate something he had accomplished. It gave recognition to an existence of relentless boredom.
He turned east and studied his half finished home. It was a meager cabin, constructed to the same specifications as his brother’s had been. After he secured this final log to the eastern wall, all that would be left to do was construct the roof.
Satisfaction warmed him to the point where, if he didn’t know any better, he might actually think he was happy. His plans were finally coming together. This house would be like the one he’d always planned to build. Only he’d never expected to be building it after he’d died.
He was beginning to accept his death. Not just that, but the fact that he was trapped on Earth for what would likely be an eternity. He still had no memory where he’d been for 247 years and no idea why he’d been placed here, but for once he felt at peace with it.
Acceptance filled him with an unexplainable hollowness. To be learning to adjust to his existence almost felt as if he were giving up. Failure didn’t set well, but he didn’t see where he had any other choice.
He went around to the other side of the log and started cutting off limbs. His handsaw was one of the tools Cole had left him. Cole could have given him any home he’d wanted. All Nathan had to do was give Cole the command, but he didn’t want anything from him. He wanted a home he could trust, and he didn’t trust anything from Cole.
Speak of the devil, Cole Turner suddenly appeared right in front of him. When Nathan jumped back, Cole started to laugh.
“What do you want?”
“You know, I’m getting sick of you greeting me like this.”
When Nathan said nothing, Cole’s look turned to innocence. “I just wanted to check your progress.”
“I didn’t suppose you’d come here for nothing.”
Something flashed in Cole’s black eyes. It was a look akin to rage. It flashed there for just a moment then was gone as quickly as it came.
He sat down on log Nathan was working on. “How is our Miss Sarah?”
Nathan felt his defenses rise. “Why do you want to know?”
“As a friend, I’d advise you to stay away from her.”
That wouldn’t be difficult, considering the fact that Nathan doubted he’d ever see her again. Sarah made it obviously clear that he had no place in her life, and he intended to grant her wish. Still, he wasn’t going to let Cole near her if he could help it.
He leaned one foot on the log. He mentally calculated the effort needed to strangle Cole Turner, then remembered Cole was already as dead as he was himself.
“Why do you want me to stay away?” Nathan challenged.
“Because she’ll confuse you. You’re a drifter. You have no place around mortals.”
“Do you stay away from them?”
“Of course.”
“Do you stay with only drifters?”
“Yes.”
“Then take me to them,” Nathan leaned closer. “Show them to me.”
That light of anger flickered in Cole’s eyes again. It was strong, just barely under control, unsettling. It was as if Cole knew something or was about to do something. Like a cat before it devours a bird.
“You must find them yourself,” Cole simply answered and stood.
Nathan knew Cole was lying. Nathan’s connection to Sarah was a threat to Cole. Nathan wondered why, but he wasn’t going to ask. He had the feeling that the more he talked about Sarah to Cole the more danger he’d be putting her in.
“How do you acquaint yourself with Maggie Webb?” Nathan asked instead.
Cole seemed confused. “Is she a drifter?”
“I’m asking the questions.”
“Then tell me how you know of her.”
Nathan recalled the day Maggie's name appeared to him out of the blue. Part of him was reluctant to tell him the truth, but Maggie was nothing to him. She certainly hadn’t been any too eager to help him.
“She’s a mortal…I think. She can see me. She claims to see others like us.”
Cole laughed. It was a condescending, full of arrogance. Nathan wondered if he made a mistake telling Cole about her.
“What do you find funny?”
“That you’re looking to the advice of a medium.”
“How do you know what she is?”
“Mediums always draw us to them. Then they whine about how upset we make them.”
Disappointment settled heavy on him. “You’re telling me her name came to me for—“
“For nothing? Sorry to disappoint you, my friend.”
Nathan refused to believe him. It would be just like Cole to lie. Cole prayed on Nathan’s confusion. It was all a game to him. If only because he simply had nothing else to do with his time.
Cole sighed. He stretched his arms out in front of him and flexed his back, as if he were suddenly tired. “Well, McGraw, I must take leave. Lots to do. Oh, one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You really can go see your family.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think on it.”
“I don’t understand.”
Suddenly, Cole was gone.
* * *
Sarah hurried home from her lunch with Maggie and threw herself into her work. The store was full of customers, and for the first time, Sarah needed her mother’s help, but she was nowhere to be found.
“Where’s Mom?” Sarah asked Claudia.
Claudia looked up from the bakery showcase that she was stocking. Sarah had yet to call Claudia’s friend, Kaitlan, about the baked goods she made, yet her scones were filling the entire top section of the showcase.
“You know,” Claudia wiped down the counter. “It was the weirdest thing. Therman came by with his Paris pictures, and, like, they got talking, and the next thing you know, they go out for a drink.”
“A drink?” Mom didn’t drink. There was a glass of wine after dinner now and then, but she didn’t drink with men. Especially Therman Biddleman.
“Sounds like a date to me.” Claudia shrugged.
Sarah watched the door for her mother’s return, but by closing time, she still had not returned.
Sarah went up to her room. Disappointment settled over her when she realized Nathan wasn’t waiting for her there.
Of course he wouldn’t come. He was likely gone for good after how she’d treated him.
She wanted to tell her about her visit with Maggie, that Maggie wasn’t as terrible as she’d first seemed and that she had, in fact, agreed to talk to Nathan. And she wanted to apologize.
She hurried to the only place she could think he might be, which was Fort William. After paying the admission to get in and talking to the employees until they seemed to grow suspicious of her prying about, she realized Nathan wasn’t there. Or maybe he was and was hiding from her because he was angry.
She walked home, expected to find her mother back, but was greeted only with the flashing light on her answering machine. Mom would be home after dinner, she’d said. Therman was taking her to a restaurant.
Mom didn’t date. She especially didn’t date Therman Biddleman.
She made herself a cup of tea and started to her room. She heard music coming from Stan’s room, and her heart went up in her throat.
She’d forgotten about Stan. Had he been in his room the entire afternoon? Anything could have happened to him. He could have turned the gas on and blew the place up. He could have wandered out in the street and gotten run over or kidnapped.
She ran into his room. Stan was sitting on his bed. Loose photos that he’d taken were piled all around him. She squeezed him in a bear hug.
“Ow, you’re hurting me.”
“Sorry.” She cleared a place beside him and sat.
“What are you doing?”
“Sorting.”
She picked up a photo of herself and Mom. Sarah couldn’t have been more than ten. Mom must have still been married to Dad when this was taken.
Her though
ts went to Therman. Mom didn’t date.
“Do you want to go shopping?” She set the photo down. “We could get some frames.”
“Purple ones.” Stan started stacking the photos in a shoebox.
Stan followed her down to her Blazer. She’d planned on taking him to the mall in Glens Falls. She hadn’t turned onto the Northway yet when Stan asked her to pull over.
“Are you sick?” She unbuckled his seatbelt. Stan often became carsick. It had something to do with his equilibrium being off.
“No.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
She followed the direction of his gaze. He was staring at French Mountain, which loomed in the distance just to their left.
“What’s wrong?” she repeated.
“Nathan lives up there.”
Sarah stared at the mountain then back at Stan. “How would you know that?”
He shrugged.
A car horn blared behind her, scaring the wits out of her. In her hurry to get Stan out of the vehicle, she hadn’t realized she’d left her Blazer in the middle of the road.
She hurriedly drove away until the image of French Mountain was just a speck in her rearview mirror. When she reached the mall, she was still shaking.
* * *
Maggie dressed Evelyn Smart’s feet with wool socks and Isotoner slippers.
“That feels better.” Evelyn looked down at her feet.
The ulcers on Evelyn’s legs had finally begun to heal. Maggie had been rubbing medicated lotion on them every morning for the past month. She just hoped they wouldn’t dry and crack back open.
“Are you warm enough?” She switched the television to Evelyn’s favorite talk shows.
“Warm as toast.”
“Speaking of toast, would you like some?”
“I’d love some.”
Maggie went to the kitchen. She popped two slices of bread into Evelyn’s toaster and made two cups of raspberry tea; the only beverage Evelyn would drink, which was likely responsible for her reoccurring bladder infections.
Maggie poured one cup for Evelyn and one for herself. Evelyn wouldn’t eat unless Maggie drank at least a cup of tea with her.
She looked up at the black and white checked clock on the wall. It was past eleven already. She still had Harriott Mills and Norm Smith to visit, then she had a meeting with the Board in Glens Falls, which was only about twelve miles from Fort Ann, her furthest patient. She wouldn’t make it in time. Especially if Norm was having a hard time with his arthritis.
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