by Lisa Beeson
Ari put the necklace back on and put the ring away. Then, throwing caution to the wind, she turned to Adam, touched his left temple, and looked intently into his eyes, using her inner light to connect to the Aethos like Ruby did. Suddenly, she flashed into a scene from Adam’s mind. It was strange to see how he saw; everything was so flat, with no auras and less colors. It was night, he was dressed in his military fatigues and holding an assault rifle. He was looking at little girl, who couldn’t be more than eight-years-old, standing in the middle of the road, caught in the middle of a fire fight. Adam ran into the road, scooped up the screaming child and dashed into the building on the other side of the road. Kneeling down and holding a small girl in his arms, he saw with a stab of dread and remorse that he’d been too late. The child had been shot before he had reached her, and was now bleeding profusely from a chest wound. She was looking up at the ceiling, whispering something in Farsi. Adam tried to staunch the wound, while telling her to hold on, but her beautiful, dark eyes glazed over and her body went limp. Adam cried out in anguish, trying to call her back. His emotions of extreme sorrow and guilt flooded Ari’s mind. He felt like he had failed the girl by not protecting her. If only he had been a second or two faster… The pain was intense and all consuming.
Ari gasped when Adam swatted her hand away from his face and broke the connection – everything that she had seen had only taken a second or so in real time.“What the hell are you doing? Why did you touch my face like that?” Adam asked, looking at her like she was crazy.
Ari felt horrible; what she had done was wrong. What she saw wasn’t given to her – she had taken it. She had witnessed something so intimate and painful, that she knew it was something he would never have wanted her to see. It was such an invasion of privacy that she vowed that she’d never do something like that again. “Umm… there was just something in your hair.” She looked away and started to open the door, knowing he’d be able to tell that she was lying. “I’m going to go inside to use the restroom and pick up some snacks. I’ll be right back.”
Adam got out and said he’d meet her in there when he was done pumping the gas.
After filling up the truck and stocking up on provisions, they headed back on to the highway. Ari was still trying to shake off the residual sadness from Adam’s memory. She couldn’t imagine having to live with that kind of pain all the time.
To take her mind off of his pain and her own guilt, she eagerly stuffed her face with the candy bars she’d gotten at the gas station. As the chocolate endorphins started to sooth her nerves, she felt able to ask, “So… where are we headed to, anyway?”
Adam took a sip of his energy drink. “We’re going to my sister’s place. We can hole up there for a while until we figure out what to do next.”
Ari didn’t like how he was throwing around all this ‘we’ stuff. She had to get up to Toronto to meet up with that Gordon Reinhold guy, and she didn’t feel right carting Adam along with her. She’d put him in enough danger telling him everything, even though he still didn’t believe her. And now he thought she was a weirdo for touching his face.
“Adam, why are you helping me?”
He cleared his throat, and then took another sip of his drink. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s just the cop instinct in me that feels the need to protect and serve.”
Ari read his intentions as he answered and felt the true reason why he was helping her…redemption.
He took another sip. “And… it just feels like the right thing to do,” he admitted.
Weird… That’s what Mandy had said before. “Is your sister going to mind us crashing at her place?”
“Well, it’s kind of my place, too, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
He saw Ari’s confusion, and then explained that it used to be their parents house. When their parents died, they left the house and property to both of them, thinking that they could sell it and split the money. But, his sister loved the house and the privacy the remote property afforded her, so they kept it. She lived there full-time, and he used it as his home of residence while he was still in the Army. Now, he was just staying there until he can find a new job.
“So you don’t want to be a cop anymore, not even a civilian one?” Ari asked.
A haunted look crossed his face, then quickly disappeared. “No. I’m done with that,” he answered flatly.
By the tone of his voice, Ari could tell he didn’t want to talk about it. So she decided to drop that conversational thread. “Tell me about your sister. What’s she like?”
“She’s cool.”
“Hey, I just told you my whole life story. The least you can do is tell me about the woman whose house I’m going to be staying at.” She tried to do a lame impression of him, to lighten the mood. “Not just ‘she’s cool’”.
“Fine,” he said with a smirk. “She’s really cool.”
Ari playfully punched his shoulder. Adam laughed and put his hands up in mock surrender. “Her name is Jamie, and she’s three years younger than me,” he said “She became mostly deaf when she was seven-years-old due to contracting viral meningitis. But she was able to get cochlear implants when she was fourteen, so she can hear and speak normally. Jamie’s friendly, but she enjoys her privacy, which is why she likes living on the family’s old horse farm. That, and there’s enough space for all her sculptures. She’s an artist. She likes to take things and weld them together to make something completely different. In fact, that’s what I was doing down in Texas. I was picking up some things she found on Craigslist.”
“That’s better,” she said with a satisfied smirk. “Did you tell her I was coming?” Ari had seen him texting someone back at the gas station.
“She knows that I picked up a buddy on the way…” he evaded.
“Umm…don’t you think she might freak out when your ‘buddy’ turns out to be a twelve year old girl?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “She might, but she’ll get over it.”
Ari wasn’t so sure.
They turned off the highway onto a gravel road. Ari saw a large mailbox with the name “Lennox” painted on the side. The road cut through a large swatch of woods that lit up the night with the radiant light from the plants and animals. Having special sight had its perks, night vision being one of them. She could see the nocturnal animals scurrying about. She saw a couple deer running through the woods towards the road ahead of them. The truck was going to hit them if Adam didn’t slow down. Apparently he couldn’t see them coming, so Ari yelled, “Stop!”
Adam hit the brakes hard, making the tires skid a little on the gravel. “What! What’s wrong!” he yelled. Then, three deer ran across the road through the beams of his headlights. “How the hell did you see them coming?”
Ari pulled a trick out of Ruby’s playbook, pointing to her eyes to remind him that she had special eyesight.
Adam shook his head and rubbed his hand over his face. “God, you almost gave me heart attack, kid. Just…try to give me more of a heads up next time,” he said warily.
“Sorry, I didn’t realize you couldn’t see them until we were that close.”
He let out a deep breath and raked his hand through his hair. They began down the road again. Up ahead, she saw what looked like a red laser going across the road at about shin level. “What’s that red line going across the road up there?”
Adam looked over at her sharply. “You can see that, too?”
She nodded, and he told her that it was a sensor to let the people in the house know when someone was coming down the road.
Soon after the sensor they came up to a gate in a fence with a large sign hanging over it like the ranches in the old Western movies. It had the words “Paradise Glades” written in big black letters, with silhouettes of running horses on either side.
Well, that bodes well…Can’t get much better than paradise.
After they passed through the gate, the trees opened up to a great span of grass that surrounded a large white farm house. It
looked like it had to be at least a hundred years old, but it seemed to be well-maintained. There was a barn off to the right of the house, and some old stables past that, and then acres of fenced-in grassland surrounded by more woods. Adam explained that the pens used to be for the horses, but they had to sell them all to afford the renovations to the house.
He drove the truck toward the barn and backed up to the large doors. He said that he’d unload the stuff from the truck bed in the morning, so Ari grabbed her stuff and followed him towards the house. The lights were on downstairs, and Ari could see someone moving around behind the curtains.
Instead of going towards the front door, Adam led her around back. She followed him onto the back porch to a door that led straight into the kitchen.
Even with the renovations, the charm of the old farm house was still prevalent. All the appliances were new, but they didn’t look out of place. There was a comfy breakfast nook in the corner, and a large butcher board island in the middle of the kitchen with a six burner gas range on top.
Adam went straight for the refrigerator and got a beer. He asked if Ari wanted something to drink, and she nodded. As he was handing her an old fashioned root beer bottle, Jamie walked into the kitchen.
Her eyes widened when she saw Ari, and then she turned to Adam and said with her eyes ‘what in the world are you thinking’. “Adam Ethan Lennox…,” she said slowly, shaking her head like he had gone insane.
“She needed a place to stay,” he said with a shrug. “Jamie…Ari. Ari…Jamie.” He motioned to each, giving a quick introduction.
“Hello,” Ari said with a tight smile and a self-conscious wave.
“Hi,” Jamie said with a quick polite smile, before immediately glaring back at Adam. She had the same color eyes as him, but her long wavy hair was a natural honey blond instead of Adam’s dark brown. There was a definite family resemblance, which made Ari wonder what it would be like to look so much like someone else.
Jamie looked like she was about to let Adam have it, but after glancing over at Ari, she thought better of it and started conversing in angry sign language at him.
He put his beer down on the island and started signing back. Ari figured they were talking about her, but she didn’t know exactly about what, and decided that she needed to learn sign language in the near future.
About five minutes later and two-thirds of the way through Ari’s root beer, Jamie threw up her hands in frustration and said, “Fine!” Then, turning on her heels, she walked out of the kitchen.
Adam took a sip of his beer and then made a ‘cheers’ motion. “You’re good to go, kid. She’s going upstairs to set up the guest room for you.”
Judging by Jamie’s body language, Ari didn’t think that she was too happy about the situation. “I don’t feel comfortable staying if she doesn’t want me here.”
He shook his head. “You’re fine. It just takes her awhile to get used to new people. She’s got a big heart. You two will be best friends by tomorrow.”
Not fully believing him, Ari let out an involuntary yawn. She had to admit that it would be nice to sleep in a real bed and not in a cramped bus seat.
Adam told her that she could go upstairs and get cleaned up while Jamie set things up for her. “You can borrow some of Jamie’s pajamas for tonight,” he assured her.
Ari was so tired that she didn’t notice much on their way through the house to the staircase. But she did see the upright piano in the parlor. “Oh, you have a piano!”
Adam looked over his shoulder as he led her upstairs. “That’s my mom’s old piano, it’s probably out of tune after all these years.”
“Cool, I love out of tune pianos. They remind me of old-timey saloons.”
He chuckled as he showed her where the guest bathroom was.
Ari took a much needed, long, hot shower. A couple days of bus-hopping will make a person ripe. When she was done, she dried off and put on the pajamas that Jamie had left for her. The shirt was big and the pants were too long, but they would do. She tied the draw strings tight, and made her way down the hall to the guestroom.
Jamie poked her head out of her room. “Goodnight, Ari. See you in the morning.”
“Goodnight, Jamie. Thanks for everything, I really appreciate it.”
She nodded and went back into her room.
The guest room was clean and comfortable. There was a queen sized bed covered with a patchwork quilt, a large window that looked out over the back fields and a pond, a chest of drawers, and a vanity in the corner.
Ari turned off the lights and hopped into bed. After not having one for awhile, it felt like the most comfortable bed ever. As she lay there, she couldn’t believe how quiet it was. She’d never been this far out in the country before. She couldn’t even hear any cars driving by on the highway.
As she listened to the lullaby of the night insects, everything that had happened to her came crashing down like an emotional tsunami. She couldn’t hold it back anymore. All the pain and sorrow of losing everything that she knew and loved came rushing forward and overwhelmed her.
She rolled over and cried into the lavender scented pillow, not wanting to disturb Adam and Jamie. She cried for the childhood she lost. She cried for the friends she’d never see again. But all she wanted more than anything was to be held and comforted by her parents one more time. Her heart broke for her family’s pain. She cried until she felt empty, and a dull pain throbbed where her heart rested in her chest.
Her last thought before falling into the oblivion of sleep, was of poor Hector. He was probably the first one to realize that she was missing. She imagined him pulling up to the front of the school and seeing that she wasn’t there waiting for him.
And then sleep came to her like the dropping of a stage curtain – swift and absolute.
Chapter 14
Ari knew she was dreaming right away.
As she walked through a strange, white swirling bank of fog into what looked like the beautiful haven of her old back yard, she realized that her hair was long again, and she was wearing one of her favorite outfits that she had left behind in Georgia. All the colors around her were soft and saturated, making her feel like she was inside a Thomas Kinkade painting. It didn’t feel like her normal dreams though, it felt more like she was an outsider looking in.
She heard someone walking up behind her. Quickly turning towards the sound, she saw that it was Absolem. She jumped back and held up her hands ready to fend him off. “You’re not going to push me off another cliff, are you?”
His eyes twinkled in amusement. “No, Little One… you’re not here for a lesson. You’re here for him.” He pointed over to the fountain in the middle of the yard. And there sat Hector, with his back towards them, in her favorite spot on the edge of the fountain.
He was leaning over with his head in his hand. The other hand was petting the ever faithful Roosevelt, who was sitting beside him trying to give him comfort. But Roosevelt wasn’t the old dog he was when he passed away a year ago. He looked like he did when Ari had first come to live with the Rileys. She missed that dog so much.
It was so hard for her to see them sitting there so close within her reach, when she knew it wasn’t real. She turned back to Absolem. “What’s the point? This isn’t real, it’s just a dream. This is just cruel,” she said, trying to hold back her tears of frustration and heartache.
“Yes, it’s a dream. But it’s not your dream…it’s his. That’s why your hair is long again. It’s how he sees you in his mind.”
“But that’s crazy, how can I be in his dream?”
Absolem looked intently into her eyes to make sure she knew he was speaking the truth. “You have the ability to dream walk. You inherited it from your parents, among many other abilities. This is your chance to say goodbye. Take it.”
She felt the truth of his words flow through her so that there was no doubt. She was a dream walker, and this was her opportunity to say the things she never had the chance to say in real life
.
Looking over at Hector sitting in her old spot on the edge of the fountain, trying to glean comfort from their old dog, her heart broke for him. She wondered if he dreamt of this often.
I’m so sorry, Hector.
Absolem lightly placed his hand on her shoulder. “Give him solace, Little One. He has the potential to become a great leader one day, but not if he’s dragged down by guilt and grief. Just remember, the less he knows about what really happened to you, the safer he’ll be.”
Ari nodded, and started walking towards Hector. She choked back a sob; how could she say goodbye forever to her own brother? How could she give him solace when she could feel her own heart breaking into a million pieces?
As she came closer, dream-Roosevelt heard her and nudged Hector to get his attention. Hector looked up, trying to find out what Roosevelt wanted him to see. When his eyes fell on her, he stood up, the tears he’d been shedding streaking down his face.
“Kira?” he whispered, not believing that she was really standing there in front of him.
She tried to smile reassuringly at him, but she could feel the tears running down her own cheeks. “Hi, Brother...”
Not being able to hold back anymore, they ran to embrace each other, holding on so tight that they could barely breathe.
“I miss you so much, Kira. I never thought I’d ever see you again,” he said, his voice muffled by her hair.
Even though he was four years older, she had almost caught up to him in height.
“I miss you too, Hector,” she said, resting her chin on his shoulder.
He let out a shaky breath. “I’m so sorry, Kira. It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t stopped to talk to that girl, I wouldn’t have been late and you wouldn’t have…died.” His voice broke on the last word.
“No!” Ari pulled back, taking his face in her hands, making sure he was looking in her eyes. “None of this is your fault. Do you understand me?”
“But I’m your big brother! I should have protected you!” He stepped back and began pacing, unable to accept her assurances. “God, Kira. What happened to you was so awful. There was barely anything left of you in that canal. The only way they knew it was you, was because they found some hair on a piece of your school uniform.”