Unfolding

by Jonathan Friesen

  He leaned against the tailgate, mosquitoes buzzing him beneath the streetlight. “There’s a little of Stormi in you, huh? You tell that girl I’m proud of her. Kiss my grandbaby . . . kiss Nayeli for me.”

  The van pulled out of town, and I watched it go.

  Stormi. Nayeli.

  I turned, knowing my job was to wait. I would give Dad three days to speak, and then I would find a way to finish it.

  I didn’t get three days.

  For two hours, I wandered through an unnatural calm. The streets were deserted, and even the dogs and chickens held their breath. I alone moved in Gullary, a town once a movie, but now trapped in a still photo. Only the crunch of sneakers on gravel hinted that I was alive, that any of this was real.

  Not a whisper of wind. Maybe I didn’t feel the Herald after all—

  The lost breeze heard my thoughts, and swept back into Gullary the moment my foot landed on A Street. By B Street, his brother had arrived, stiff and steady. But it was not until C Street, when Papa Gust showed up, that I felt fear.

  Winds are not equal. Living in Oklahoma provides ample opportunity to study airflow. Winds blow straight, and winds spiral. They updraft and press a body down, like so much gravity. But they also carry emotion. Light and breezy, well, that’s joy. Firm and forceful, there’s a relentless strength to it, and it makes you say uncle. Oklahoma also is home to flirtatious, peek-a-boo winds, disappearing and reappearing with a wink and a nod.

  And then there was the wind that hit on C Street. It came hard and fast and angry. There was a rage with it, no, in it. It was looking for something. Looking to do something. Something horrid. I ran to Arthur’s buffeted by that wind. It grew in power so that I did not think of the hour upon arrival; I simply pounded the door.

  The siren wail took care of the rest.

  Arthur’s dad threw open the screen. He fumbled with a robe and his glasses and the situation simultaneously, flattening down his hair and blinking hard.

  “What?”

  In that instant, my needs changed. Yeah, I had to find shelter, but Arthur’s crawl space would not do.

  “We need to go. Siren’s up!”

  “Gissy! Arthur! Grab and come!” His mind clicked on, and the words came rehearsed and urgent.

  I turned toward the street, suddenly alive with motion. People scurried toward the underground community shelter, toward security.

  Stormi.

  I bolted toward SMX beneath the warning’s throbbing wail. It cut through the gusts, but only slightly. When the siren sounded distant, Gullary knew, a storm was nearly upon us.

  I fought forward, and at times sideways, but minutes later I reached the gallery. The front door banged open, and I raised my arms to protect my head and burst inside. Light on. Brick lodged against the red door.

  Stormi slept.

  I threw open her cell door with a clang. Stormi stretched and rolled over, sat up peacefully on her bed. The roof creaked. The roof of the impenetrable Supermax prison creaked.

  “We need to go! There are sirens.”

  “You lead.” Stormi stood and took my hand, and my heartbeat slowed. We would be okay. The storm would pass. We would be together.

  After all, we were married.

  We walked into the gallery, and pushed outside. Rain fell horizontal, and puddles raced across the prison yard.

  We broke into a run, toward the shelter.

  “I need to head home.” Stormi’s voice barely reached me. “I need something!”

  “No time!” I tried to yank her, but she slipped free. “Bad idea! Really bad!” We veered down a street filled with rolling garbage cans and airborne tree branches, and slipped into Stormi’s trailer. She disappeared into her bedroom.

  The winds howled, and outside, metal and wood crashed against trailer walls.

  “Hurry up, Stormi!” I ducked in after and froze.

  Connor knelt on top of her. Groping in the storm.

  Stormi fought, her screams swallowed up by the wind, and rage took me. I blinked and suddenly there were two Connors and two Stormis. The pre-seizure aura muddled my senses. I had little time. I lunged toward the nearest Connor, and felt my palms grasp solid neck, and then all feeling vanished, leaving only sound. The sound of wind and the screaming of children. My mind left this earth, as Old Rickety joined the storm and had his way with me.

  But Old Rick must’ve known a big storm when he saw one. He didn’t want to stick around either.

  He departed as quickly as he had arrived. Uncharacteristic. And with his exit, my faculties returned, and I again felt skin. Connor’s skin. I saw my hands still grasping his neck, and his body, limp on the ground.

  “No.” I released him and felt for a heartbeat, listened for breath. I found both, and fell back against Stormi’s desk.

  “He needs help. We need to tell someone what I did. I’m not covering this up, I’d be no better than Dad.”

  A tree limb crashed through the window, and Stormi hauled me to my feet. “Nobody will believe you, they’ll think it was me.” She tore at her dresser, grabbed a photo, and slid it into the back pocket of her jean shorts. “Okay! We need to get to the shelter.”

  “But we can’t leave him!”

  The front door flew open and crashed through the trailer, which rocked and settled.

  “Now!” Stormi’s voice was terrible.

  I stumbled up and we pushed outside, arms crooked before our faces. A minute later, the leaves fell still. In that moment, silence. The world was unnatural.

  “It’s come,” Stormi whispered, and I heard her. “Run!”

  The roar surrounded. It was no train. It was alive, a creature, twisted and bent, come to gather up everything to itself. Hell was here. Stormi and I reached the shelter and dropped to our knees, pounding on the metal door to the underground bunker. It cracked, and then faces called to us from the dark. I descended, glanced up. Stormi was not following.

  “Nope! Not today, Stormi!” I shouted. Hands grasped me from behind, but I broke free and joined Stormi back outside.

  “Wait for me!” she called. “Please, wait for me to come home.”

  She kissed my neck, and around us the wind seemed to calm and the rain sprinkled a gentle note. I grabbed her with all I had. I kissed her, full and strong, searching for more. Stormi’s eyes opened wide and then closed and for a time we were together. Completely. I lifted her from the earth and spun her, one with the winds around us. We would not leave one another. Ever.

  Then she pushed hard, broke free and stumbled away. She ran into hell.

  “Nayeli!” I dove to catch her, but grasped nothing, as the leftover seizure took me yet again. When next I came to, I huddled with all of Gullary in the dungeon, while the tornado raged overhead. Ma’s hand gripped mine, but I knew the truth. I was alone.

  CHAPTER 21

  It’s a strange thing, the workings of wind. What it takes, what it leaves, what it changes along the way.

  As I sit on my step and gaze, I see little of what I knew. Gullary is gone, wiped clean, as it were. The chat piles, and I reckon those laying beneath, sucked back into the sky where they belong. Two years have passed since SMX was again reduced to foundation, though already talk in nearby towns has shifted to the importance of rebuilding the prison, a testament to pride, and to how hard it is for lessons to be learned.

  Yep, Gullary is wiped clean. Except for one set of steps. Ours. And one bedroom. Mine. My photos were untouched, and those waiting to be hung rested undisturbed on my desk throughout the storm. Memories of her I treasure.

  It is strange what the wind leaves. And though I’ve no illusions that my room will be spared future storms, it makes me feel good that it’s lasted this long. Now, looking back, I’m also relieved that Connor was found pinned, but mostly whole, beneath his front door. Had he not survived, my weekly pilgrimages back to this place would have carried an entirely different feel.

  Things taken? Seems Old Rick was a casualty. I’ve had not one hint of a se
izure in the twenty-four months since the leveling.

  The citizens, also. I’ve heard no eagerness to resurrect Gullary. Still, the familiar is tough to abandon, and most families migrated a mere seven miles or so to Waxton, with the balance moving deeper into the palm of the Ozarks, to the other side of Lake Gullary. The cement cauldron that remains marks what we once thought ours, and holds the sum of our lives in broken glass, brick, and cloth. Maybe my undertaking to write the record of what transpired will end up buried as well. I can’t shake the feeling that I was central to the story for a reason, to record what killed this town, just as the truth was meant to give it one last chance.

  Which brings me to Stormi. Of the living, she alone was swept away, though I believe this now to be her plan all along. In the months following the storm, I lost myself in the reporting of nearby towns, hoping for a breeze of news. What goes up generally does come down. Though I am not certain the laws of physics hold true for Stormi. I will, however, hold fast to her final words, and I will wait.

  Foolish, my dad says, though he says little else. He wanders through his days a broken man. Ma waits for him to return, as I wait for Stormi.

  Waiting, it gives purpose to time. Stormi said that once, so I will keep coming back, and someday, I will see her again.

  I place my pen down as a cloud passes over the sun. Just one cloud, tiny and round, the only one in the sky. I stare at that cloud until it shifts and the heat of noon blazes once more. I think to add the cloud to my account and lower my gaze.

  “Hello, Jonah.”

  Discussion Questions for Unfolding

  1.In Unfolding, every major character is held captive in some fashion—physically, emotionally, psychologically, etc. Which characters seem to struggle the most with their personal imprisonments? What makes you think this?

  2.Stormi’s affection for Jonah blinds her to the truth. What is it about affection that causes us to miss the obvious?

  3.Many people struggle with health issues. Jonah struggles with two life-altering conditions: epilepsy and profound scoliosis. If he could get rid of one of his conditions, which one do you think he would choose, and why?

  4.Both Tres and Jonah’s dad have held on to the same horrible secret for years. In a very real way, the secret has defined both their lives. How has it made them similar? Different?

  5.Huge piles of chat rise near the SMX prison in Gullary. Chat is toxic, gravelly waste left over from mining. What symbolism can you find buried in these piles?

  6.Jonah considers his seizures his “enemy” and even names them (Old Rickety). He tells Tres that you can’t hate something that has no name. Is that true? Can you find examples in your own life to back up your opinion?

  7.Jonah finds himself both frustrated by and desperately needing his friendship with Stormi. If you were his counselor, what relational suggestions would you offer him?

  8.The themes of forgiving others and forgiving yourself both play a huge role throughout Unfolding. Which of these is harder to do? Why do you think that is?

  9.Michael Queene (Q) and Tres are two of Unfolding’s more complicated characters. Are they “good” people? Are they “bad” people? What makes them hard to pin down?

  10.At the heart of the book lies the relationship between Jonah and his dad. Describe this relationship. How does it change over the course of the story?

  BONUS CONTENT

  Turn the page to read an exclusive bonus chapter from Unfolding!

  The Shape of Things to Come

  “Hey, Hunch.”

  The name floated about the room. Yes, there might be harsher names.

  But I don’t know of any.

  The class? Advanced Biology.

  Today’s main event? A brilliant alternative assessment method devised by our teacher, Mr. Brooks the Devious.

  The midterm task had been simple: memorize every bone in the human body. A bunch of them rhymed, a bunch were Latin, so I was into it.

  Mr. Brooks strode up and down between our desks, no doubt savoring the silence. On test day alone, he was a king with attentive subjects. Fear was on his side.

  “You will see stacked on the floor in front of the room twenty sheets of butcher paper. Very long sheets of butcher paper . . .”

  He repeated himself so often, I’ll skip to the gist: We each were forced to lie down on the sheets, to allow a classmate to—with black magic marker—trace our frame. Then we were to draw and label our bones.

  In fifth grade, this art project may have proved a cute diversion, but twenty seniors rolling around on the floor was a recipe for mayhem.

  One that Mr. Brooks had not tasted before.

  Perhaps it would have gone down differently had Stormi shared my second hour. But in Biology, it was just me. Me and my hunch.

  “Mr. Brooks? Jonah won’t lie down.”

  That blurt, for the record, came from Kyle, the idiot assigned to trace me. He wasn’t completely wrong; my warped spine simply didn’t allow neck-to-waist floor contact. There I lay, staring at the flies buzzing the fluorescent lights, head and shoulders suspended inches off the floor. Soon all the kids gathered around me to witness the spectacle.

  “Make way, make way.” Brooks pushed into the circle, and adjusted his glasses. “I see the dilemma. Give me a moment to think.”

  Please . . . let me up.

  I suppose I could have slowly stood, but I didn’t; don’t know why, but I didn’t. Stormi later said that my hope died, and so my courage fled. All I know is that I lay there and allowed my class to stare and snicker and suck the life from me.

  Brooks bent down and placed his hand on my chest, pity oozing from his fingers, scalding my heart. He pressed on my torso to no avail.

  “Roll onto your side, Jonah, and stretch high your arms. You should be flatter that way. You’ll just have to draw a profile view of your bones.”

  I obeyed.

  As I wriggled and repositioned myself on the paper, as I stretched out my arms to reveal the full extent of my curved back in all its profiled glory, the whispers started.

  “Move, will ya? I gotta post a picture of this.”

  “You don’t realize how bad it is until he’s on the ground.”

  “Hey, Hunch. That’s messed up.”

  Hunch. That day wasn’t the first time the nickname was used, but lying there, emotionally naked, it hit me different. Less a pinprick and more a deep scratch, which is far more painful and always leaves a scar.

  The fact of Test Day was forgotten; individual knowledge of the skeletal system was no longer at issue. I had become a group assessment, and for the next few minutes, my class reveled in my tracing. They mocked and shushed, all the time keeping their gazes fixed on my back.

  This was probably for the best—maybe they missed the droplets of wet smudging the marker in front of my face.

  It shouldn’t have bothered me.

  “Okay, show’s over. Back to your own bodies.” Brooks swept the kids toward their own embarrassments.

  I stood and stared down at myself, at the angled black line.

  “Hunch. Jonah Hunch,” I whispered, walked to the front of the room, grabbed a yardstick and returned. I knelt and drew a red line, bold and bloody and straight, right where a healthy spine should be. Then I gathered myself up, crumpling my outline as I stood, while the class fell silent around me.

  I walked to Brooks’ desk, placed the balled-up me on it, and quietly exited the room.

  And screamed. Part human as I was part human. Crooked thing that I was, my voice spiked out in fits and jags. Curses, mixed with sobs, mixed with names of my tormenters. Did I run down the hall? I don’t know. I stood statued before the glass front door, and then suddenly my foot crashed through it, sending shards cascading to the ground. I carefully drew my sneaker back in, shoved my way outside, and exhaled.

  There was Stormi, leaning against the overhang support pillar.

  She knew. She always knew.

  “Let’s get out of here.” She wiped my
cheeks, took my hand, and we began a painful trudge toward Gullary.

  “I was there in the fishbowl and all I wanted was out, you know, but I couldn’t … I just lay there and let them have their way. It’ll be the same later on at the doc’s.”

  “I know,” she said softly. “It’s what you do.” Stormi paused. “But it won’t always be.”

  I thought to ask her when, but she couldn’t tell me. She always offered what she knew.

  “But I bet that felt good, kicking through the door.” Stormi tugged my arm down, stood on tiptoes, and her lips brushed my ear. I felt her warm breath and loosened inside. “People have you pegged as a period type of guy, but that was definitely an exclamation point.”

  She pulled me forward, and in the silence of the next minutes she felt very far away.

  “You know, I have more exclamation points in me. I might surprise you.”

  Stormi slowed, but did not turn. “I’m counting on it.”

  Both of Me

  Jonathan Friesen

  It was supposed to be just another flight, another escape into a foreign place where she could forget her past, forget her attachments. Until Clara found herself seated next to an alluring boy named Elias Phinn—a boy who seems to know secrets she has barely been able to admit to herself for years.

  When her carry-on bag is accidentally switched with Elias’s identical pack, Clara uses the luggage tag to track down her things. At that address she discovers there is not one Elias Phinn, but two: the odd, paranoid, artistic, and often angry Elias she met on the plane, who lives in an imaginary world of his own making called Salem; and the kind, sweet, and soon irresistible Elias who greets her at the door, and who has no recollection of ever meeting Clara at all. As she learns of Elias’s dissociative identity disorder, and finds herself quickly entangled in both of Elias’s lives, Clara makes a decision that could change all of them forever. She is going to find out what the Salem Elias knows about her past, and how, even if it means playing along with his otherworldly quest. And she is going to find a way to keep the gentle Elias she’s beginning to love from ever disappearing again.