I pull mine out and study the faces, imagining the person behind each picture. Laurie Parker’s doll-like face and dark bowl-shaped haircut. If she went missing at the volcano, I bet she’s athletic, a hiker who isn’t afraid to explore and push the boundaries of life. Yet she exudes sugar. The colorful kind you sprinkle on holiday cookies. I look again at Valerie Monsette and her defined cheekbones. Her eyes look sad, but the rest of her looks like it could radiate power and influence. She’s built like a statue, chiseled and hard and unbreakable. Ben Alackness, with his cinnamon-sprinkle freckles and little-boy grin, looks like he could charm anyone. You could probably pour out all of your insides, guts and all, to him and think he would hold your secrets like a vault. Phil Sei looks like a sulky genius. He probably used to sit behind a glowing computer screen for hours, hacking into banks to blemish the credit records of people he hated. I wonder if there is a thread that weaves them together.
Why did I even care so much about them? Maybe I knew, deep down, this would be my fate: to be among the missing.
33
Later, the sun wilts behind the trees, the temperature drops from boiling to simmering, and the sky shifts from milky gray to a peach alpenglow that shines godlike light onto my evil cliff wall. My mood follows the sun, softening by the hour.
I watch silently as Tre shuffles around the vicinity, collecting dead branches and pine needles for a fire. I was so rude to him today. He should have left me alone and hiked back to the house. Instead, he’s pushing through bushes and slapping bugs off his arms. He doesn’t exactly look like the outdoorsy type, but he’s an endless polygon: with each angle, you see yet another fascinating side.
He lies down on his stomach, cheeks puffed, blowing on the embers of the fire before a puff of smoke and then a small flame erupts from the teepee of branches. He fans the smoke from his face and stands up to admire his handiwork. The familiar evening chill is back, so I inch closer to the fire and hold my hands out to the heat, letting the flames flicker close, dancing and swirling near my fingers. Dangerously close.
“Stole your spot.” I turn around to see Tre, grinning, sitting atop my sleeping bag. He holds out a piece of cheese. “Appetizer?”
I crane my head to gaze at him briefly, wondering if I should trust him. “Uh, you do have your own sleeping bag.”
“Sit,” he says, patting the spot next to him. “I won’t bite.”
I roll my eyes and gingerly sit down next to him, as if it’s the last thing I want to do. But I do want to be close to him. Somehow having him here makes me feel safe.
He hands me the hunk of cheddar cheese, and when I take a bite, he reclines lengthwise on my bag, arms folded behind his head.
He flops his feet over my lap.
“Excuuuuuse me,” I say, pulling his clunky black army boots up with my fingertips.
In the light of the fire, I can tell he’s grinning, showing white teeth and dimples I have never seen before. My lips begin to turn up as well. I playfully push his feet farther away from me. But he only lifts them up higher and plops them back down on my lap.
His legs feel heavy and warm on mine, and there I go, my mind wondering about how I am seriously attracted to this boy. I inspect his retro biker boots, knowing his eyes are burning into me. I tug on the shoestring, my other hand resting on his shin. He wiggles his feet deeper into my legs. I can feel him smiling, and it lights up a dark place inside me.
“I still can’t wrap my head around the idea that you’ve been here for decades,” I say.
“Well, it hasn’t been that long in my world. It’s been like…” His eyes rise upwards as he thinks. “Less than a year, really. One day is something like four weeks on the outside.”
“You know, that means you’d be the same age as, like, old people.”
“But I’m not. I’m your age,” he says. “It’s just that you’re some weird girl from the future.”
He moves to sit upright on the sleeping bag a couple feet away, and I find myself wishing he’d put his legs back in my lap.
“Future girl,” I deadpan, my brows raised. He hands me another piece of cheese and I take it.
“Just saying. We watch TV, but it’s hard to keep track of what’s happening out there. I know who the president is, some world affairs, and bits about music, popular trends, and fashion. It comes in bits and pieces. But we always wonder what it is really like out there. Living it, I mean.”
I stare at the fire. I cannot stay here for decades like Tre. I just can’t.
“You know, it’s not that different from your generation,” I say.
“Show me your phone,” he says, holding out his hand. I laugh through my nose, kind of surprised that this would be his big question about my world. Not questions about nanotechnology, cancer research, global warming, terrorism, or the Middle East.
“Sure, but it’s almost dead.” I dig my phone out of my backpack. Only four percent battery left.
“Show me, future girl,” he says, moving closer to me, his thigh just inches away from mine. I’ve never felt this strong a need to be nearer to someone before.
I tap my phone and show him the games and social media apps and then open my photos. There’s a picture of me sitting on the sofa one day I was singing and playing guitar.
“I can’t imagine trying to sing and play at the same time,” he says.
“The colors keep me focused.”
“Colors?”
“Yeah, well, I see music in colors. It’s this brain thing called synesthesia.”
“Sounds made up.” He grins, pulling his body back slightly. “Syn-what?”
“It’s sin-es-theeesia,” I say, enunciating. “And it’s, like, a real thing. People see colors, forms, or shapes when they hear music. Like, when I hear a trumpet, I see orange. It just sounds orange. Some other people who have it actually taste colors. For others, letters and numbers show up in their brains as certain colors.”
“Come on,” he says, smiling and furrowing his brow. “You gotta be making that up.”
“Serious. It’s like this: If I told you to think of a piece of celery, an image would pop in your head. Long, thin, and light green, right? Well, it’s in that same space in my mind where music just sounds like a color.”
“Do you have to concentrate, or do you just see stuff?”
“I just see it. Even when my mind wanders, it’s there. I don’t even have to shut my eyes to see it. But everyone is different.”
“Can’t imagine.”
I sigh and my mouth forms into a twisted smile. I bite my lip then reach over to my phone and click on the music app.
“Wicked! Like tiny album covers! I saw a commercial about cell phones once, but seeing one in person is so cool. Hundreds of mixtapes right in your hand.” He’s genuinely thrilled.
I scroll through the list of bands in my library. “Let’s listen to something together and I’ll tell you what I see.”
I scroll through as he narrates. “Don’t know them… or them…. or them… Okay, so where’s the good stuff? Don’t you have any Sex Pistols or Dead Kennedys?”
“Ugh, no.” I can’t find music a person of his generation might like. Then my finger stops on Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.” My dad adored this song, and I’ve always loved its poetic lyrics, depicting visions of mystical lands and castles. It’s all about this journey for meaning amid ambiguity. I used to play the beginning on my acoustic guitar and then Dad would come in for the electric guitar solo.
I glance at Tre with raised eyebrows, waiting for his approval. He nods.
Untangling my earbuds, I hand him one and put the other in my ear. I haven’t done this since the rooftop with Maddie last year. Sitting here together, so close, sharing music is like sharing a secret with your best friend. In a way, I am—I never tell anyone about my synesthesia.
“Listen. Close your eyes.” I press “Play” and Tre sits still, hands in his lap, eyes closed, listening. The warmth and nearness of Tre’s body make me ti
ngle. We listen to the entire song—all eight minutes of it—until Jimmy Page’s roaring guitar solo, the frantic pounding of the drums, and Robert Plant’s voice moving an octave higher. The ending conveys pure, raw emotion.
After the last few slow lyrics, I pull out my earbud and look at him. “Well?” I ask.
The nearness of him sucks my breath away. We lock eyes for a long moment. “Yeah, I like it,” he says softly. “We used to listen to it in middle school.”
“Only one of rock’s greatest songs. Ever. Hands down,” I say. Definitive.
“Well, it’s not as good as my stuff. But yeah, the last part’s stellar.”
“Like the guitar heavens opening up and raining down.”
“What did you see?” he asks.
“At the beginning, I saw, like, light blue circles. A sweet sky blue, plus some paintbrush strokes of delicious yellow. Then, when Jimmy Page came in with his guitar, I saw streaks of thundercloud grays, and swirls of dark burnt-orange and turquoise.” This is the part of me that is a painter like Mom, but while the colors flow so beautifully in my mind, explaining them makes me feel self-conscious.
“Sounds beautiful,” he says. “You’re lucky to have that.” No eye roll.
I smile at him, taking in the softness of his eyes, his mouth. “It’s weird because since I got here, it’s not just music that triggers it anymore. Other noises, like voices or sounds, give me colors—and almost images or visions.” I shake my head and wave my hand. “It’s going super crazy in this place.”
He frowns and then, after a moment, looks down at my phone again. He shakes it. “This can take pictures, too, right?”
I lean over to him and turn the camera toward us. “Smile.” He presses his head to mine, and his touch sets me on fire. I try hard to keep my breathing normal, to appear as though I’m not imagining what those lips might feel like brushing against mine.
Click.
We look at the picture of the two of us. In the photo, Tre is grinning, but his expression is somewhat stunned, like a true time capsule boy. But he’s still beautiful. His eyes shine in the dim light, and those dimples dot the stubble of his cheek. It’s not a great picture of me. My hair is still a little wet, I have scratches on my cheek and no makeup. But something in my eyes is different, a tiny glimmer of hope or healing. It’s like I took off a thin layer of my protective armor.
“That’s crazy,” he says. “At home, we wait weeks to get film developed, unless you have a Polaroid, and those are always crappy and blurry. Can I see the rest of your pictures?”
Leaning over and tapping the photos app, I flip through more images of my life. I narrate a few. “Me on top of Mt. Elbert.”
“Wow. A fourteener?”
I nod.
“Me at my eighth-grade dance.”
He smirks. “Nice dress.”
It is actually pretty bad. I had cut my hair into severe bangs and wore a black polka-dot ’50s-style dress aimed to make me look retro goth. It was a failed attempt.
I move through the rest quickly. “My brother Jared. My friend Maddie, riding her horse.”
My finger stops on a shot of Dad and me singing together on the corner of Harrison Street.
“That your dad?”
“Yeah, he was an amazing singer and songwriter. He got me into it, and we would sing together when tourists came into town, and then he started taking me to Denver for shows and stuff.” The memory triggers the feeling of warm sweet honey flowing inside me, but like usual, it’s followed by the wave of heaviness in my chest.
“You say he was an amazing singer… Why the past tense? Does he sing off-key now?” He grins.
“Yeah, well… he died.” I try to cut off the awkward I’m sorry before he says it, as if racing to catch a dish before it breaks on the floor. “We should probably get some sleep,” I say, quickly.
The battery on my phone dies, and the photo of Dad disappears. The screen goes black. It’s as if my whole life disappears with it, my lifeline to the old me, to home.
34
I dream about Mom.
She’s painting an enormous canvas—sage greens and cherry reds and midnight blues. Circles. Wispy lines. Splatters. Four looping circles. Whimsical and flowing. A Vincent van Gogh–style painting of an ankh cross with one large loop at the top.
Mom’s face is light and glowing, dark ringlets framing it, and tiny flecks of green and red paint dot the bridge of her nose and cheeks. She tilts her head. “Our Ember. So beautiful. So much potential.”
I awake on the sleeping bag, frozen, tears dripping down my face. My grimy backpack sits next to me. I turn it upside down to find a sweatshirt to shut out the chilly air, and I shake out the damp, crumpled clothes, hardened muffin crumbs, and sticky granola bar wrappers onto the ground. Something small flashes in the sunlight and falls out last.
An ankh cross with the looping circle. Lodima’s necklace.
Her voice plays in my head: “It means life, but I see it as a symbol of awareness, being able to see through deception, to find your way around.”
My mind spins. Lodima must have stuck it in my pack that day she talked to me at my truck. The cool metal presses into my hand, and Mom’s sweet face flashes in my mind. Somehow, it’s like she’s here with me trying to protect me.
Not far away, I see the same kind of bird I saw earlier—not the annoying alarm clock bird. This one has the oily-black feathers and the red dots on the shoulders. It watches me for a few seconds before making that familiar call, a sound like glittery sheets falling from the sky. Comforting. Goosebumps tickle my skin.
With the chain now clasped around my neck, I recall what Lodima told me about the cross. “This loopy little guy here is a supreme protector. No matter where your life may take you, your true path will be shown to you.”
I can only hope she’s right.
I look around our little campsite, encircled by trees, and see that Tre was busy while I slept, filling up our water jugs, rolling up his sleeping bag, and lining up our shoes. He squats low, leaning over what looks like wires, circuit boards, and other pieces of an alarm clock laid out on a small blue tarp. I watch him silently as he squints and twirls a tiny screwdriver from a Swiss Army knife into the screws holding together the plastic clock.
“You trying to invent a way to get out of this stupid time warp?” I ask, rolling onto my side and propping up my head with my hand.
“Well, trying to pass time at least.” He glances up, flashing a quick grin. Today, his eyes aren’t outlined by eyeliner and his hair hangs loose, unfixed, relaxed. He looks like he’s from my world now. He holds up some wires and gives them a shake. “At home, I would rip apart cheap electronic devices and Frankenstein them back together to make weird stuff.”
“That’s a strange hobby.”
“Before I moved to Germany with my mom, I used to take my cousin’s old toys and jerry-rig them to make crazy stuff,” Tre says without looking up. “You know, a rabbit that spun out of control, making zombie noises.” He chuckles to himself.
“Oh God,” I say, a small laugh shining in my voice. I hobble to sit down near him and watch. I love this brainy part of him.
He looks at me, and the eye contact sends that bolt of electricity buzzing through me. How can I be so incredibly attracted to him and feeling all swoony in the midst of this nightmare?
He tosses me an apple and I fumble to catch it. “Breakfast,” he says.
I take a bite and lay my head on one knee to watch him unwind a red wire. “What’re you making now?”
“I don’t know yet,” he says.
“Why’d you move to Germany, anyway?”
“My dad’s American, but my mom’s German.” He glances up briefly. “They got divorced, and I went with my mom to be around her family. My dad got into drugs, and I can’t deal with people who get into that stuff.”
My skin shrinks. People like me.
“Never would have guessed you’re so worldly,” I say with a shrug of my shoul
der.
“I loved West Berlin. There was this fever there, a rebellion that I just melded into. It didn’t matter who you were. You could just join in, you know?”
I nod.
“Saw the fall of the Berlin Wall in ’89.” He sets the clock down and starts to talk with his hands again. “It divided the city for decades, keeping people from freedom with dog patrols, alarmed fences, towers. They shot people who tried to leave East Berlin.”
“That’s awful.” I read about it, but it feels different, talking to him about something he witnessed with his own eyes—before I was even born.
“My buddy Kristian and I actually got to hit the wall with a sledgehammer.” Quickly, he stands up and pretends he’s swinging a hammer at a wall in slow motion. “Bam! Right on this red-and-black graffiti spot. Hit it with everything I got, you know? For what was wrong in the world that I couldn’t change.”
Hearing Tre talk about tearing down the wall makes me yearn for my own freedom to actually do something with my life.
“I bet you saw a lot when you were over in Europe,” I say.
“Not enough. When I get out of here, there’s so much more I want to see. You know, like, sticky Vietnamese markets. I want to go dogsledding, ride a camel in Morocco, that kind of stuff. I used to have a stack of National Geographic magazines at home.”
He twirls his screwdriver again on the alarm clock. I watch the way he bites the side of his lip while he thinks. The curve of his bicep when he moves his arm. I shift my gaze to the crinkled edges of the tarp.
“At home,” he says, “I had this poster—a shot of the Brooklyn Bridge in the drizzle. The fog obscures both ends of the bridge, and it looks like this surreal arch suspended in midair. I’ve gotta see it. It’s inspired poets and artists everywhere.”
I remember that I, too, wanted to explore the world not too long ago. I wrote that song for Dad about visiting castles in England. But then… the elephant arrived.
“Well,” I say, rocking awkwardly to stand up, “if your clock ends up stopping the time warp here, let me know. Maybe you can invent a time machine and I can go back and graduate instead of going off to Trinity.”
Ember Burning Page 17