by Joy Elbel
Jeremy caught my fist before it made impact with his jaw and sent a heavy, work-booted foot sailing into my gut. An instant searing pain in my side sent me to the ground, gasping in agony. It felt like something exploded inside of me.
“When I told Shane to teach you a lesson, I assumed you would learn it.” I felt another internal blast as something else inside me shattered into fragments—my heart. My best friend sold me out. My best friend was trying to keep me from the only thing that would ever make me happy. My best friend set me up for this beating and was now determined to finish the job himself. The betrayal hurt worse than anything else.
He grabbed me by the hair and dragged me away from the car and toward the shallow end of the lake. I started to cry. I was too weak to fight. But I was too strong to give in.
“This is for all of those times you ditched me on a Saturday night so that you could spend time with your precious Sophie,” he said as he dunked my face below the surface.
I held my breath as the dirty water flowed over my open wounds, washing away the dirt but seeping in with a deep burning sensation. My lungs were just beginning to cry out for oxygen when he yanked me back up into the cool night air.
As I struggled to catch my breath, he asked me one question, “Have you changed your mind yet?” He didn’t give me enough time to answer before he sunk my face beneath the surface again. Foul water crept into my nostrils but I kept my mouth sealed tightly shut. While he held me under this time, he fired off another reason why he was torturing me.
“This is for all the times you made fun of me! For all the times you treated me like your little sidekick—not your best friend! For giving me that stupid nickname that no one ever forgot.”
I was caught between anger and confusion. That wasn’t how I thought of him. That wasn’t how I treated him. Why did he see things so differently than I did? I started calling him Kermit years ago because of his last name, Carmott. I loved Kermit, the frog when I was a kid. How was I to know that it would stick? How was I to know that he hated it? I thought he always told me the truth. Where was the Jeremy I’d known my whole life—the Jeremy who was practically my brother? When things got really rough at home, his house was where I always went—even after meeting Sophie. He knew the darkness in me, the darkness I was afraid to let her see. Where was that Jeremy? Where was he? How could I have been so wrong about him?
He held me under water longer than he had the first time. I was starting to lose consciousness. Just before I blacked out, he ripped me back up viciously. While I struggled to catch my breath, he told me one more thing.
“This is for dragging me into this messed up business then trying to walk away from it yourself. This is for getting me hooked. This is for ruining my life.”
I knew it was the end before my head was even back under water. Jeremy shoved me back down violently and held me down with an iron grip, shaking my head back and forth in a fit of pure hatred. He was right—at least about one thing. I never should have convinced him to start dealing. I made the choice willingly then dragged him along with me like always. I was prepared to die with that regret. I hoped that I burned in Hell for it.
What I wasn’t prepared to die with was the thought that I would never see Sophie again. I would never see our baby at all. I messed up and left her saddled with a huge responsibility to bear all alone. I hoped that there was something worse than Hell for what I did to her. A sweet girl like her never should have gotten involved with a loser like me. The least I could do was stay out of her life forever so that she and the baby would never have to deal with anything like this. I didn’t deserve to live but death seemed too good for me, too.
“I’m sorry for everything I’ve done. I’ll ask You for forgiveness but I will never ask for mercy,” I thought to myself as my will gave out and my mouth fell open. The filthy water rushed into my lungs and everything went white.
“Looks like you’re stuck. Don’t you know you should always be prepared?” Jeremy. Jeremy was the one stalking Ruby. He somehow found out about her abilities and was afraid that she was going to expose him.
I was no longer mesmerized by the visions in my head. As I turned to warn her, I saw what was about to happen. An enormous crow circled above our heads and called out a death song as though it, too, could sense the inevitable.
“Ruby, look out!” I cried. Someone else saw what I was seeing and echoed my words perfectly. In a blur of motion, we both scrambled to stop Fate in its tracks.
28. Synchronicity
“Rainy days depress me,” I said to Foxy as I slipped a red satin collar over her neck, adjusting it so that the jeweled flower sat perfectly in the center of her throat. Being Zach Mason wasn’t as easy as it used to be. It was getting harder and harder to hide what was bothering me. No one really knew the amount of pain I had buried beneath my baby blues. But I didn’t have to hide anything when I was alone at the shelter with the animals. That’s why I started spending so much time here and not at home. Ruby understood me but she had a lot going on herself. I couldn’t always burden her with my sorrows. She had enough of her own.
“There. Now you remind me even more of Ruby. That makes me feel a little bit better. Let’s go check on the dogs, Foxy Lady.”
Foxy strutted down the hallway behind me with a spunky attitude—just the way Ruby would have. I’d only known one other cat that didn’t freak out upon sight of the kennels. Before Rita adopted King Tut, he would take every opportunity to flaunt his freedom by sitting in front of the caged pups—purely for his own enjoyment. Foxy, on the other hand, liked to teach the canines who was boss in a different way.
Even the loudest barks from the biggest dogs didn’t seem to frighten her. In fact, the louder they were, the more determined she seemed to shut them up. I smiled as I watched her approach the cage of Bubba, our recent pit bull addition. With his slobbery face stuck through the bars barking for freedom, Foxy strode up to him and let out a sassy little meow before bopping him on the tip of his nose. Her brazen move confused him and with a whimper, he settled down to study her.
I laughed out loud—something I rarely did these days. “Now that Tut found his forever home, it looks like we have a new ruler around here—a queen of the castle this time. I think I’m going to give you a middle name that reflects your new status.” I thought about it while I watched her perform the same routine on the next dog she encountered. “Cleopatra. Foxy Cleopatra. I like it—how about you?”
She didn’t answer me of course, but I took the simple fact that she didn’t try to bop me on the nose as a sign of her approval. “Foxy Cleopatra it is, then,” I said, bowing down to her new royal highness.
Foxy tagged along with me throughout the day, “helping” me with all of my chores. By mid-afternoon, I decided that it was time to take a break. I positioned a chair in front of the main window and Foxy climbed into my lap. I’d been so depressed that I hadn’t checked my phone all day. Ruby was probably worried about me like always. Foxy head butted my hand for affection while I looked for any new messages. None. Of course, she was never alone these days. She always had human contact. Well, sort of. I wasn’t jealous of the time she spent with Clay but maybe I should be.
Before I sank too far into that abyss of depression, I noticed that I didn’t have any service. That made me feel infinitely better. There would have at least been one text from her, I was sure of it. I put down my phone and stared out at the rain. It had been raining every day for weeks but nothing like what was outside today. Today reminded me of…. I didn’t want to think about what it reminded me of. But once that thought was in my head, there was no getting it back out.
It reminded me of the night of the hurricane last summer—the night I saved Ruby’s life. The first time, that is. It was the night of our first real kiss, the night I finally had the courage to tell her that I loved her. And while she didn’t know it, it was the night I put my past behind me. Or at least I thought I had.
There was something about the act
of saving her life that erased all of the guilt I had over what happened with my grandpa. I felt redeemed in a way, like I’d been given a second chance to be where I needed to be exactly when I needed to be there. This time I passed the test. I read the signs and I didn’t let anything stop me. I let go of all of the bad feelings, pushed them out of my brain and out of my heart. Or at least I thought I had.
I wanted nothing more than to leave the past in the past—why couldn’t my dad want the same thing? It was bad enough to feel responsible for the death of someone you loved—even worse when you weren’t the only one dishing out the blame. We needed to talk about it, hash it out once and for all. But every time he lashed out at me, I returned to how I felt that snowy night when I heard that Grandpa was gone. I couldn’t deal with it the right way. Instead of trying to discuss it intelligently, I handled it with either anger or avoidance. As excited as I was to move to Ohio with Ruby, I saw that joy for exactly what it was. Long term avoidance. I closed my eyes and started to cry.
My selfishness was what took my grandpa away from me. My inability to handle the situation was alienating me from the rest of my family now, too. Things were never going to be the same. I barely spoke to my dad, Mom was at a loss as to how to deal with it, and I did my best to keep Rachel from getting caught in the middle of the fray. If only I hadn’t had that accident, this wouldn’t have resurfaced. But that accident was a double edged sword. Without it, I never would have discovered the truth about Lucas. And I never would have been at the theater to save her from his lascivious plan. How could something that was so good in one way be so bad in another? Life wasn’t supposed to be this hard, was it?
While I sat there crying, Foxy climbed up my shirt and began to lick at my eyes as though she were trying to heal them. There was something magical about that moment, something that gave me new strength. I made the decision to drive home and try to work things out with my dad. It was well past time for me to go so I placed Foxy into her bed and went to leave. Immediately, she rose up to follow me.
“No, Foxy Cleopatra,” I reprimanded her sternly. “As much as I’d love to take you home with me, now definitely isn’t the right time. You have to stay here like always. I’ll be back tomorrow after school.”
She gave me a sad look like she thought she would never see me again but obeyed my command. It was too bad that animals couldn’t understand that we as humans had lives outside of their own. I hated to leave her there but Dad would kill me if I brought home another animal. “Maybe someday Foxy, but not today.”
I walked out into the pouring rain with the memory of those tiny green eyes peering sadly into my soul. But I also walked away with the hope that I was about to make everything else better—including my relationship with Ruby. Once I had myself back on track, I would be better able to help her with her problems again. I couldn’t begin to imagine how terrifying it would be to be able to see ghosts the way she did— to never know when some gruesome image was going to suddenly appear before you. My problems were solvable. Hers weren’t. She needed my help more than I needed hers.
When I pulled up to the house, I was disappointed, excited, and confused all at the same time. I was hoping that Mom and Dad were both home. They weren’t. No sign of Rachel’s car, either. What caused my confusion was the sight of Ruby’s new car in the drive. What was she doing here and where was everyone else? There was a single light shining through the living room window but I couldn’t see any movement inside. I started to get a bad feeling at that moment—a feeling that grew exponentially over the next thirty minutes. Until, well, until it disappeared and was replaced by something even worse.
“Ruby?” I said as I walked into the house soaking wet and doing my best not to drip all over the kitchen floor as I fumbled for the light switch. “Are you here?”
“No, Zach, it’s just me,” called Rachel from the living room. “Ruby borrowed my car earlier today but wouldn’t tell me why she needed it. I expected to hear from her a while ago but I lost service at some point today.”
Rachel entered the kitchen and sat down at the table. “I just got home from Rosewood and saw on the news that the creek in town overflowed and the bridge washed out. Some of the side streets are flooded. Mom was able to call out through the landline at the diner. She and Dad are stuck there until the rescue crews can get the water pumped out. I was just about to give you a call at the shelter to see how it was out that way.”
“Wet, very, very wet. But the roads weren’t too bad. Glad I wasn’t driving the Neon, though. Is Ruby still at Something Wick-ed? Have you tried calling her there?”
“No,” Rachel replied slowly, “I was afraid to. You know what today reminds me of, don’t you?”
I closed my eyes and nodded my head in understanding. “Me, too. Which is why we need to give her a call at work.” Not having memorized the number, I pulled out the phone book and searched for the candle shop in the alphabetized listings. When that book came in the mail, I made fun of my mom for keeping it. “That’s what Google is for!” I said with a laugh. Not so funny when you didn’t have cell service and no home access to the internet. Moms really did know best.
I dialed the number from our home phone which I hadn’t used in years and once thought of as being as useless as the phone book. I let the phone ring six times hoping Ruby was busy and unable to get to it right away. After the ninth ring, I had to stop hoping and start worrying in earnest.
“Come on, Rachel,” I said grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her with me the same way I’d watched her do to Ruby a thousand times. “We’re going to go look for her.”
“But, Zach!” Rachel said in protest, “If we drive into town, we may get stuck there, too! I think we should just wait here until it stops raining.”
We launched into an argument over what to do and whether or not it was ever going to stop raining when suddenly, a terrible crash sounded in the living room. Together, we scrambled to see what caused the noise. I tried to convince myself that Sadie or Sequoia had knocked over one of the lamps even though the sound was way too loud to be just a lamp.
When we got to the doorway, I shook my head in disbelief. There perched on the window frame was a giant crow—the giant crow that I’d seen several times before when Ruby was in danger. Something was terribly wrong. Crows didn’t just break out windows for no reason—not even this one. But there it sat, wings stretched the entire width of the window with tiny fragments of glass sprinkled among its jet black plumage. Ruby was in danger.
Rachel glared at the bird, mumbled “What the?” then turned to me urgently. “You’re right. We have to go look for her now. I have the worst sense of déjà vu.”
And so did I. In record time, my sister and I were in my SUV and on our way. I wasn’t in a hurry on my way home so I drove slowly to avoid all of the pot holes. Now, there wasn’t time to be careful. We bounced up and down as I barreled through the muddy water and headed for the main road. When I got to the end of our drive, I instinctively turned left because that was the way to town. Town was the most likely place to find Ruby. The crow had other ideas.
I was only halfway onto the road when a loud thump sounded above my head followed by urgent pecking. The crow was on top of the vehicle and he wasn’t pleased. What did he want from me? I was going to look for Ruby—wasn’t that what his intentions were? I hit the brakes and put down the window despite Rachel’s insane pleadings.
“Zach! Put your window back up! That thing’s rabid— it’s going to eat our eyes out! It isn’t leading us to Ruby, it’s trying to peck us to death! Haven’t you seen the movie The Birds?”
“Not now, Rachel! It wants something alright but it has nothing to do with our eyes!” I stuck my head out the window and shouted, “Where’s Ruby?”
With that one simple question, the bird rose straight up in the air and reappeared in the back window of the vehicle. “We were going the wrong way, Rachel! She isn’t in town!” I put my head back out the window and spat out a command. “L
ead us to her!”
I whipped around in the middle of the road without even checking for oncoming traffic. Once I was facing the opposite direction, the bird took off. I followed it closely, trying to match its speed while flying down the wet, semi-flooded road. The bird flew low and at the exact height of the hood of the car. It even began to gauge my speed—slacking off when road conditions forced me to slow down, speeding up once I was back at full throttle. It was taking me in the direction of Silver Lake—the last place I would have considered looking for her. Ruby hated water. What in the world would she be doing there by herself on a day like today? Oh, that’s right—I forgot. She was never by herself now that Clay was bonded to her every move. He was a ghost who couldn’t physically help her if she got into trouble but she obviously seemed to have ignored that fact.
While I was still hoping that I was wrong, when we got to the sign for the lake, I knew for a fact that I was right. The crow flew out ahead of me, perched on top of the sign, and then pointed its beak in the direction of the lake itself. My heart sank even further when Rachel uttered the words that were already bouncing through my mind.
“OMG. She’s drowning, isn’t she?” “Not if I can help it!” I shouted as we plunged down the watery path, bobbing up and down as I drove faster than was advisable even under perfectly dry conditions.
It took forever to get to the end of the road and all the while, I cringed at how similar this was to what happened last summer. I was peering into a slightly skewed mirror image of one of the scariest nights of my life. All I could do was pray that it ended just as well as that terrifying night at Rosewood did. If I lost faith now, the situation would truly be hopeless. I had to stay positive. Somehow.