Flutter

by Linko, Gina

  “I know what we’re up against,” I told her.

  “No, you don’t,” Gia said.

  “What are you talking about?” I said.

  “This.” Gia pulled her messenger bag off her shoulder.

  She walked toward her car then, which I realized must have been a rental, and she emptied the contents of her bag on the hood. She looked at the items and then looked at me solemnly.

  “Your dad,” she said.

  On the hood of the car lay a cell phone, an envelope thick with cash, and a small plastic case, holding what looked like two syringes of amber-colored liquid.

  “My father gave you this?”

  “I was with him in Esperanza. Them. He wanted me to come with them to find you. So I just played along. What could I do? I figured I’d try to help you out, tip you off somehow. I was at the bus station when … well, however you got away.”

  “Is he on his way?”

  “No. After you two got away, he gave me this. Told me to wait for you in Ann Arbor. See if you showed up there. He gave me this stuff. He paid me, Emery. And he gave me the shots—the drugs. ‘Just in case she initiates a problem,’ he said. He told me that it would be ‘best for everyone invested in this’ if you would come happily, of your own accord, with your friend. He wanted you to come back and not know what he was capable of. Unless … unless you wouldn’t come quietly.”

  My mouth hung open in disbelief. Even after everything that had happened, I still couldn’t believe it had come to this.

  “I’m so sorry,” Gia said.

  I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t think of anything.

  “So how did you know to come here? Now?” Ash asked.

  “I told Dr. Land that I was going back to Ann Arbor. He rented me a car, sent me on my way. He was off to check Charlevoix. I think the guy at the library told him something about that. But I stayed yesterday in Esperanza, and I asked around. I remembered that lady at the bakery, and she remembered me. She liked me, believed me. I could tell she was protecting you. But I eventually convinced her I was on your side. She gave me your name, Ash, a little information. I worked out what I could, found your address. I’m just so glad that luck was on our side. That you were here.”

  Ash let out a bitter laugh then. “Luck,” he said under his breath.

  “There’s something else,” Gia said quietly, wringing her hands in front of her.

  “What?” I said, unsure if I could take any more.

  “Your Nan,” she said quietly. “She passed away, Emery.”

  “Nan?” I whispered, bringing my hand to my mouth. I instantly thought of the loop, my Nan.… I couldn’t believe— But yes, yes, I could believe it, couldn’t I? I had seen her with my own eyes. I had met her there.

  “Nan,” I whispered, thinking of Mom, knowing they were together now. “My Nan.”

  “Maybe we could go back together … for the funeral. Talk to someone, anyone. Get my parents to take us to the police or—”

  “Gia,” I said quietly, “I can’t go back there.”

  I watched something register on her face then, acceptance, defeat maybe. “Okay,” she said after a long moment. “I believe you. I get it,” she said.

  “Thank you,” I told her. I hugged Gia then. “Thank you for warning me, coming here.”

  I stared long and hard at the syringes on the hood of the car. Dad would never be able to let me go. He would never be that future dad. That dad didn’t exist, and it broke my heart.

  “Your father will find you soon,” she said, shoving the syringes and stuff back in her bag. “You’ve got a day at most, I bet. If that. Especially if I don’t answer his calls.”

  I noticed for the first time that Ash held a tiny evergreen tree in one hand, a Christmas tree, and I sensed that this was something he’d wanted to surprise me with. But I also realized that our time was done here. Things had turned.

  “And don’t use your email. Or use Wi-Fi,” Gia said quickly. “I think that’s how he tracked you to Esperanza.”

  “I haven’t used it here,” I said. “Thank you.” I grabbed her hand and squeezed it.

  “Should we go to the cops here? What do you think?” Gia asked, breathless.

  “No, we can’t,” I said.

  Gia looked from Ash’s face to mine. “Is there more to this story? Are there more reasons you’re running?” Gia asked finally.

  I looked at Gia. She seemed small, scared. My gaze flitted to Ash.

  Ash simply nodded at Gia. “Yes.”

  “You can fill me in later,” Gia offered. “But you need to figure out what you’re going to do before they show up here. I mean, he’s calling it a matter of national security, Emery. He’s saying you are a matter of national security—”

  “NSA,” I whispered, hardly believing it, thinking of yesterday, the scene at Dala Cabin.

  “Emery,” Gia said, “they have a new theory. They are very serious about finding you. It’s some kind of big—”

  “We know,” Ash offered without looking up. “We know what it is.”

  Gia let out a sigh. “They wouldn’t tell me, of course, but it sounded big.”

  We three looked at each other. “Near-death experiences,” I whispered. Gia looked stricken.

  Ash cleared his throat. “And there are a lot of people who would go to great lengths to protect a … specimen … a secret that could prove an afterlife.”

  The seriousness of the situation sank in.

  How long had Dad suspected this? How long had the team not told me? I thought of how my dad had asked me outside Dala Cabin if I had thought about death. Had he been testing me? Seeing whether I had figured it out?

  “Do you want to go back?” Ash whispered. “Maybe they can do something. They—”

  “No,” I answered. I had come this far. And I was getting control. I was not going back, leaving Ash and permitting a section of my skull to be surgically removed.

  We stood in silence, unsure of our next move.

  Suddenly Ash’s posture stiffened. He dropped the evergreen tree next to him and grabbed my arm.

  He pointed into the distance, off toward the highway, shielding his eyes from the sun. “There,” he said, pointing down the winding path to where we first turned into the lane for the A-OK Ranch.

  “Who the hell is that?” he said through clenched teeth.

  I peered past the early-morning sun. “A red truck. It’s coming up the road. You think it’s the person who’s living in your house?”

  “That’s my father’s truck,” Ash said. “Let’s get in the barn.”

  I grabbed Gia’s hand, and Ash pulled us both into the barn, sliding the door behind us. He stood still and quiet, peering through the slats of the barn door, and I could see his chest rising and falling quickly, too quickly, his fists clenched at his sides.

  “Who do you think it is?” I whispered, still holding on desperately to Gia’s hand and Ash’s arm. “Your uncle?”

  “Emery, I might be losing my mind, but I swear that it looks like my father driving that truck.”

  I pushed him out of the way then and looked through the slats of the door. The truck came hammering down the lane, too fast, the back tires fishtailing, the driver obviously recklessly, crazily drunk. Ash leaned over, above me, and watched as well.

  “No,” Ash said. “It can’t be.”

  “Maybe he made it. Maybe he lived.” I felt the buzzing, the thrum, my constant companion, beginning to swell behind my eyes.

  The truck screeched to a halt right behind Gia’s rental car, and I watched as a large, lumbering man unfolded himself from the driver’s seat. The same man from the wedding album, just bigger, thicker. With years of hard work and anger and violence woven thickly into those muscles. He turned his head toward the barn for a second, and I saw his face. He had the same dark hair as Ash, peppered with gray, but that was where the resemblance ended.

  “My God,” Ash whispered. “Emery, that’s him. Alive and in the flesh.”
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  “It’s him,” I said. My skin crawled, the look in his eyes was so dull, so animal. My eyelids fluttered then, but I pushed it back, clenched my fists.

  “I left him for dead, Emery.” Ash turned from the door then, and his hands went to his head. “How can this be possible?”

  Gia looked out the slats through the door and turned to us, taking a few steps back from us, looking from one of our faces to the other. “He’s drunk.” She looked stricken. But she didn’t ask any questions.

  And I was silently glad for it. It was too much to think about explaining this right now.

  “I just can’t believe it,” Ash said. He shook his head and paced.

  I watched through the slats as Ash’s father walked one time around the green sedan, scanned the property, and then started up the front porch. He walked the slow, labored walk of a drunk, tripping over one of the porch steps. He turned the key in the front door and let himself in.

  “That bastard killed my mom and brother,” Ash said through gritted teeth. He repeated it, louder, to Gia and me. And then he repeated it again, practically yelling it. His words bounced off the barn walls, echoing and hanging there in the empty space around us.

  “Ash, calm down,” I told him.

  “No, I will not!” Ash walked to the door, banged his fist on it. “I have to talk to him, Emery. He has to hear me out. I will never be free of this if I don’t.” Ash stopped then, regaining his composure, turning toward me squarely.

  “I have to do this. And then I’ll finally be free of him.”

  “Do what?” I squawked. My heart leaped in my throat then.

  “Just talk to him.”

  “I understand,” I said quickly. “But not now. Not now, when you’re upset. You’re angry. He’s obviously drunk. You’re in shock over everything. You can’t—”

  “Now,” Ash said. “I have to, Emery. I’ll never be free of this if I don’t.”

  “No,” I told him. “This is crazy. You can’t just walk right in there. I won’t let you! This is crazy!”

  Ash quickly grabbed me to him, held me close. “This is nuts,” he said, putting his face in my hair. He breathed in deeply. “We’ll leave after I talk to him. Start fresh, anywhere you want. Just stay here with Gia. I’m calm. See? I just have to talk to him.”

  “No,” I said, feeling my heart beat hard. “You can’t leave me. Not now. Not like this.”

  “Gia,” Ash said, turning toward her. “Stay with Emery. You may have to revive her if she loops.”

  “Like CPR?” Gia asked, visibly swallowing.

  “Yes.” Ash nodded. “Can you do that?”

  Gia nodded, her eyes wide.

  “Do you have a cell phone?” Ash asked.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “If I’m not back in ten minutes, call the police.”

  “No way!” I screamed, and I pulled Ash toward me. I pulled him by his arms toward me, locking my hands around his wrists for everything I was worth. I would physically keep him here if I had to.

  “Be reasonable, Ash,” I said, trying to sound calm, smiling at him. But something about my face must’ve given me away. I bit back the thrum behind my eyes.

  Ash kissed my lips lightly. “Fight that flutter, okay?”

  I laughed at the silliness of that saying, but only in an attempt to lighten the darkness I saw in Ash’s face. “Ash, you don’t need to see him. You’ll never get what you need from him—forgiveness or closure or—”

  “I have to face him, Emery, just one last time.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I have to show him that I’m not him, that I—”

  “You aren’t him, Ash. That’s why you don’t need him.”

  He tilted his head to the left a little. He looked at me, but past me. He thought on this.

  “Just walk away, Ash. We can start fresh.”

  “Just you and me,” he answered, a faraway look in his eyes. I let his wrists go then, and he rubbed at his stubble. He pinched the bridge of his nose, turning from me. His shoulders sagged, and his head dropped into his hands.

  “He’s my father.”

  “I know he is,” I whispered. “But you are so much more than his son.”

  Ash sighed deeply. “I can be free of him now.” It was almost a question.

  “I think you can.” He turned back to me then, and I reached out for him. His long limbs folded into me, his head resting on top of mine.

  We stood like that, together for a long moment, the early-morning sun slanting through the barn roof, covering us with its golden light. I listened to Ash’s breathing as it slowed. I felt his heart beat next to my ear.

  “I saw my grandmother in the loop the other day,” I said, still reeling from the news of her death, from Gia showing up, from everything.

  “You did?”

  “The first time ever in a loop.”

  He pulled back, looked in my eyes. “I don’t … I don’t know why.… Maybe, Emery, the reason you could always go back and forth so easily for so long, maybe it’s because you’re not just of this place.… Maybe you are … I don’t know … more.”

  “Or maybe, simply, these loops were meant to bring us together, Ash. I was sent here so you could save me.”

  “Or you were sent to save me, Emery.”

  I considered all these beautiful, intricate events and otherworldly coincidences that had played out to bring us together, to bring us here, to this now. Somehow they made sense, perfect sense.

  “I love you, Ash,” I told him. “But let’s not talk like this. It all sounds so serious, so final.”

  “And we’re just beginning,” he said.

  “Let’s pack up our stuff,” I said.

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  I walked toward the ladder, the loft. I motioned for Gia to come with me, and we climbed up. Ash looked through some cabinets on the east wall of the barn, collecting things for our trip.

  “Where will you go?” Gia asked, helping me fold up the yellow comforter in the loft. I wanted to bring it with us.

  “I don’t know,” I said, knowing the where did not matter. I grabbed the Dala horse from under my pillow and put it in my backpack. I looked around at the loft. We didn’t have much to bring with us, but that was okay.

  “Emery,” Gia said, reaching her hand out and resting it on my arm.

  “I’m okay,” I said, shaking my head, blinking the tears back.

  A movement caught my eye through the slats of the barn wall. I took a few steps toward the wall and peered out. I could see the back door of the house from here, and I could see someone coming around the house, walking purposefully toward the barn. It was Ash’s father.

  Something horrible and ferocious slunk up my spine then.

  “Gia, call the police,” I said, stumbling backward, hurrying down the ladder. “Stay up here and don’t come down until they’re here.”

  “What?”

  “Call the police!” I hissed at her. “Call the police now!”

  “Emery, I don’t—”

  “Just do it!” I yelled at her.

  “Ash!” I screamed as I jumped the last few rungs down to the barn floor. “It’s him!” I felt the thrumming, the buzzing behind my eyes, and the edges of my vision began to fade black as I ran the first few steps toward Ash. I felt the loop about to overtake me. My body stiffened.

  I smelled the ammonia. But I gritted my teeth and clenched my fists, closed my eyes against it. “No!” I screamed. “Ash!”

  I bit it back, with every ounce of energy in me. I fought that swell, the buzzing. I pushed it back, pushed against it with my mind, with my body.

  I opened my eyes, and I saw Ash. He stood in the middle of the barn, one hand reaching out to me, but he faced the barn door, at the ready, his muscles tense.

  “Ash, it’s him!”

  The barn door slid wide open, the winter sun pouring into the dark space, blinding me for a second, and then I saw a dark figure, his father in sh
adow. His gun came into full view first. He carried a shotgun, wavering in front of him. Then a few steps more into the barn, and I saw his body, his stance. He moved forward in a drunken shuffle.

  “My God,” I whispered.

  The pressure behind my eyes came back suddenly, ferociously. It was a deafening roar in the space behind my eyes. I held my muscles tensely, grinding my teeth, biting back the urge to just give in, let it swallow me. I couldn’t go! Not now! NO!

  I took a few steps toward Ash then, and I watched Ash’s back. He had his arms out, as if he was protecting me. He was an imposing figure, standing there, erect, threatening, but I wanted to reach out, touch him, grab him, tear him out of there.

  “Go back, Em,” Ash said, never taking his eyes off his father.

  My eyelids fluttered. I pushed my mind against it, but I was so tired, I was so spent.

  “I wasn’t expecting you,” his father said, slurring his words. “I was expecting trouble, but not you, Asher.”

  “Let’s just talk, Pop.”

  “Seems like last time you were here, you tried to kill me.” I noticed a shiny red scar on the thick fold of his neck then. “Shouldn’t the cops have found you already?”

  Ash held his body taut, his fists clenched. He grabbed something out of his back pocket. He took a step toward his father then, and threw something on the floor of the barn. The letter. It landed near Ash’s father’s feet.

  Ash’s voice was low, scary. “You killed them, you son of a bitch. You and your drinking. You killed them over and over every day with the beatings and the drink. And then you really killed them. Behind the wheel, and you made me think it was my fault. For years!”

  Ash’s father took a few steps forward then, a sloppy, drunken gait, kicking at the letter. The shotgun wavered menacingly. “Son,” he said, “ain’t no one gonna believe you.” There was such venom in his words, such force. It scared me. I had to do something, and do something now.

  “We called the cops!” I screamed, running forward, forcing myself in front of Ash, placing myself directly in the space between the two men. “They’ll be here any minute.” I kept my eyes on Ash’s father. He swayed from one foot to the other, and I could tell that he was more drunk than I had given him credit for. I could smell the alcohol even from five feet away.