“Hello?”
At the end of the ramp, he turned to shut the door and pulled out his Andromeda Quatro, telling it to call Calico. The screen moved into place and shimmered a moment as it processed the information, and then computed his request.
“You have reached… Calico Ferguson… if you’d like to speak with this person, press or say one. If you’d like to leave a message, press or say two. If you’ve told your phone the wrong thing, press or say three to begin your call again,” he heard it say.
Romeo told it one, irritated that the new Andromedas were more complicated than the other phones he was used to. Why didn’t it just ring through? He didn’t understand that.
“Romeo,” he heard his wife say as her face shimmered into sight. “I… I meant to call you. There was an emergency, and just wasn’t time. Angus and I are at the hospital with Clementina. Well, and some of the others, too, but… you might want to get here soon, if you can.”
Heart dropping a moment, Romeo gulped back fear while he began unloading his bags. “What happened?”
“Can’t explain it over the phone. Too many eyes and ears that might be tuned in. But….” She stopped. “Is that bags of stuff?”
“I found a few things we could use around here, and some groceries, yeah,” he told her. “So I’ll get the perishables put away, run the cart back down to Otto and be there soon. Room number?”
“No room yet; we just arrived,” she told him. “We’re waiting at emergency, and there are a ton of people here in front of us.”
They hung up, and his screen blurred back into air. Quickly pocketing it, he moved the groceries into the kitchen, thankful he’d bagged all the perishables together. He pushed the lever on the top and bottom shelves to move them down and set the bags inside. Opening the freezer, he set the bag of frozen food inside to empty later, as well.
He quickly moved the remaining bags to the sofa, headed back to the hand truck, and, pulling it behind him, headed out, locking up, and dropping it back at the concierge desk before heading to his car again. Once inside, he told the car to direct him to where Calico’s phone was, pulled out, and was soon on the way to the hospital.
Past the baseball field, past the handful of businesses and the closest church, he headed northeast until, finally, the car told him to stop.
As he was walking to the entrance to Emergency, his wife returned his call. “Are you here yet? They’re finally calling her back. I was hoping-”
“I’m here. Walking in the door in less than a minute,” he assured her, and then thumbed the phone off as the doors slipped open before him.
Just as he made it inside, he saw a nurse helping Clementina into a wheelchair, Joel, Calico, and Angus at her side. A few of the other HUVA team members were there, as well, off to the side.
“Hey,” he gently called.
“Hey,” Joel called back. “Hurry and come on.”
Heart racing, Romeo moved to join the little group as they moved aside to let the nurse pass. Joel and Prudence followed her, while the rest stayed put.
“What happened,” he asked again, now that he was face to face with someone who might know.
“We aren’t completely sure, but….” Amos looked to the others before saying anything more. “We think there might be something going on with her heart. She’s, um….”
He stopped again; looked to the others, shrugging.
Calico patted the young man on the shoulder, and then pulled Romeo aside, leaving Angus with the others.
“Turns out, she’s the granddaughter of a man who… moved in a similar way to what I did right before I met you. He originally lived in…,” she looked around them, and pulled him in closer before resuming in a whisper. “Apparently, her grandfather was from Spain, of all places. Worked for some king or another. Had a terrible time learning English. And he died of heart failure of some sort. So, then, did her father.”
Romeo’s thoughts raced, and he glanced at their son.
“No, her doctor said it’s genetic. It would have happened anyway, not that the doctor knows the whole… the whole story. But with… with two people I know now affected with heart problems that have moved… forward, it has me wondering if I…”
“You? They’ve tested your heart… a dozen times. What is there to worry about?”
“What if it doesn’t begin right away? Or what if the… mode of transportation only moves people forward that have health concerns unfixable in their own time? I don’t mean necessarily my heart, but what if there’s something else,” she whispered again, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. “What if….”
She allowed her words to trail off.
“What if the reason Angus is sick is all my fault?”
Tears streamed down her cheeks, and he pulled her into his shoulder, smoothing her hair with a hand, rocking her, not caring who watched as they stood there in the waiting room.
“Nothing about Angus’ illness is your fault. God gave him to us for a reason, and he has this disease for a reason, but the disease isn’t about you, or me, or even him. Remember what we read last night? That there isn’t anything happening in this world God doesn’t know and care about… that He makes everything – the lovely, the crummy, the horrid – work for the better good of those who love and trust in Him. And nothing can tear us – you, me, Angus, anybody – from the hand of the One Who created us and loves us.”
Calico nodded, and he could hear her sniffling a moment, and then, she moved to look him in the eye.
“That might be true, but right now, it doesn’t make me feel any better that he’s got this… this terrible thing we have no way to fix. But… right now, we’re here for Clementina, right?”
“Absolutely.”
Forty Two
Vancouver, Washington… April 10, 2025
Paloma swiped the last of her groceries through the auto-checkout as Tawny helped her bag them, when she sensed all of a sudden she was being watched. Nothing precise about it; nothing that proved it. Nonetheless, her skin began to prickle at the thought, and she moved faster in her attempt to finish up and pay.
“Um, Tawny,” she said as her friend handed her four of the bags and grabbed the last three, “do you have a feeling someone’s… well… watching us?”
Her friend shook out her new violet-tipped blonde ringlets and laughed. “Girlfriend, what you thinkin’? I don’t see how anybody’s gonna be watchin’ and followin’ us round in the supermarket, do you? Really?”
Paloma tried to shrug, but the bags were excessively packed; weighty.
“I think we need to use the cart after all, at least until we’re outside,” she told her friend, trying to ignore the chill that still ran down her arms and tickled the back of her neck. “These are just too heavy.”
She set her bags down to retrieve their cart and, carefully, the women maneuvered the large cloth sacks into it. With a quick shake to her arms to get the circulation flowing again, she smiled to herself.
Getting too old for all this heavy lifting. I should insist some of the kids come with us next time, she thought. Hands on the cart, she began moving forward as her friend chattered about the weather, but the sense of being watched didn’t vanish; it escalated. She quickly turned her head around to see who was there, but nobody seemed out of place; no one but Tawny, who was now scolding her.
“Girl, I told you, I really don’t think anybody’s watchin’ us. You know Quentin can’t come talk to you even if he sees you anywhere; he signed that paperwork ya’ll took him,” her friend said.
Quentin.
She hadn’t even been thinking of the man, though she knew he’d been released. Where to, she wasn’t positive, but she knew he was back in the area, because Lovan had emailed her and told her.
With a shrug, she continued, not bothering to respond to Tawny.
What could she say? She’d had this feeling of being watched for weeks now, even at home, inside the house. Even before Quentin had been released. And until today, E
dward was the only person she’d said anything to.
He’d agreed, sharing the feeling. Even when they were apart, they at times both sensed it, as though something otherworldly… something from another realm entirely was monitoring and contemplating them… just waiting.
But for what?
Edward paused a moment at the keyboard, taking a few seconds to steady himself. He gripped the edge of the desk, his head dizzy, his eyes blurry, his feet growing numb, and his mind beginning to wander.
Maybe it would help if I got a snack, he thought.
What was it that had been following him? What was going on, that, no matter where he was, eyes were touching him?
And for that matter, how was it that his wife was experiencing the same thing?
He grabbed his carrot and celery sticks, his blueberry muffin from Starbucks, and a water, and moved to the couch near his office window, exhausted. As he snacked, he allowed his thoughts to drift… to his current research case, to Masao’s findings, to Mary Beatrice’s letter, to the odd sense of being watched, to the visit he and Paloma had made out to see Quentin Quimby in Pendleton, and to how the man was now free.
Was their sense of feeling watched connected to Quentin’s release? Or was there more to it?
One day, he just woke up thinking there were eyes on him.
Not unfriendly eyes; not eyes filled with hate or malice or judgment, but eyes, nonetheless. And it was unsettling.
He’d prayed about it; they both had, to no positive result… at least, no result that delivered them from the eyes of the unknown.
But how could they be seen by anyone other than God? At home, in the car, in the office… the eyes followed them everywhere. Edward even had a hard time forcing himself into the shower every night because it seemed he had no privacy anymore.
He didn’t know for sure when he first noticed it; had it been before or after Quentin was released from prison?
As he finished his carrots and celery and started on the muffin, his office phone rang, startling him back to the present. With a sigh, he finished the bite in his mouth, set the food aside, and called for the phone to answer.
“Edward? Are you there? I can’t see you,” he heard Tawny Henleigh say loud and clear. As he moved toward the desk to sit back down, her face appeared in the shimmer of the phone’s holoviewer, and he could tell she was in the van with Paloma from the blur in the background.
“Hey, I’m here,” he told the women. “I was just having a snack. How can I help you ladies?”
“Can you tell your wife to just calm down? She thinks there be someone watchin’ us as we shop, and now while we’re drivin’ back to your place, she’s still sayin’ it.”
A tingle ran down Edward’s spine as he nodded.
He knew, eventually, one of them would break the silence; one of them wouldn’t be able to stand it any longer without an extra ear. He’d been tempted to talk to Jason, himself, and after this, he still might.
“I know the feeling,” he told Tawny, laughing nervously. “I’ve got that same thing happening here. Every day, no matter what. Not a dangerous, creepy sense, but definitely… um….”
How could he explain it to someone not experiencing it?
“It’s got the potential to feel creepy when you’re doing private business in the bathroom, or cooking dinner, or working on a report in your office and you know nobody’s really there, Tawny. I don’t think there’s anything harmful or malicious in whatever is happening, but its… disconcerting, to say the least.”
He walked over to get his muffin and water, deciding to eat while they talked, sensing it might be a long conversation.
“So it’s not just me, see,” he heard his wife telling their friend. “He knows exactly what I’m talking about. And I beg to differ…,” she said. “I think it’s creepy. It gives me the heebie-jeebies, and I don’t like it.”
Edward took a drink from his water bottle and set it down before responding.
“All I know is I think we should really pray over this again. I think it’s time to get a few people together and discuss it, then pray as a team. If this is for the good or the bad, God knows which, and maybe we need to figure out as a group how to pray. I mean, it’s been longer than a day, or a week, or a month… I think it’s time.”
“Finally, someone talkin’ some sense,” he heard Tawny say. “I’ll make the calls if ya’ll can do this tonight. This is too trippy to keep up with. I don’t know how ya’ll put up with this mess of stuff; maybe it goes with the territory of you lives, but I gotta say… even if it didn’t creep ya’ll out, is sure creeps me out.”
“Well, Masao has something more to share with us anyway,” he told the women. “Wanted to get together tonight or tomorrow. Might be high time as many of us as possible – not the whole church, mind you, but family, the Henleighs,” he said, nodding in their friend’s direction, “and as strange as it sounds, I think Mark and Eugenie need to be there, too. I know Mark’s about to go to trial with all the reschedules, but I think we have some questions he needs to answer, and soon.”
“Mark Jeffries,” Tawny asked as he saw the van pulling into his driveway at home behind her. “Well… all right. I’ll see who I can get ahold of. Want me to call Rose, too?”
“Much as I wish we didn’t need to, I think it warrants seeing if she’d be up to the conversation. Leave it up to her and don’t press, but just let her know there are a few things she might be interested in learning. Actually,” he paused as he heard the van shutting off, “unless ‘Loma told you about it, there are things you and Tom aren’t aware of either, at this point.”
He watched the woman’s face contort on the holoviewer and tried not to laugh. The face to face was great, but he hoped the next generation of landlines Andromeda marketed had better static resistance.
“Well,” she finally said. “I’ll make the calls. But for now, I gotta let you go. Time to haul groceries. Eight o’clock?”
Edward nodded, she smiled, and then he saw her thumb climbing toward him to hang up.
That was the other thing.
A thumb coming toward your face?
Now, that was creepy.
Forty Three
Jason made sure the car was locked as he escorted Me’chelle to the Stuart’s door.
Masao and Anouk Chanel – Rose, S. Gillam, and Angelique in tow – were just entering the house as they approached, and he could smell lasagna and garlic bread as they made their way inside.
“Mark and Eugenie should be here shortly,” Paloma told them by way of greeting, hugging each one in turn before heading back to the kitchen. Her hair, usually immaculately pulled back or curls well tamed, was a mess, and Jason couldn’t help but smile in spite of himself.
This really must be serious, he thought. Hair out of place, kids off to the Iglesias for the time being, and calling so many people together. I wonder what’ s up.
“So, you want me to bring in some root beer,” he asked Edward. “Plenty in the back of the rig.”
“Ask the boss,” his brother-in-law told him, pointing at Paloma. “She and Tawny are in charge tonight. And speaking of, I wonder where the Henleighs are…”
“Sorry we’re late,” Jason heard behind him as Eugenie and Mark knocked on the still partially opened door. “May we come in,” Mark asked. “The Henleighs were behind us, and got caught at the light. Shouldn’t be long before they arrive.”
“It’s all good,” Edward told the couple as he ushered them in. “Lasagna still has… maybe ten minutes or so. And we don’t all have to talk at once. But there’s a lot happening, and a lot that needs to be addressed tonight… some things we all need to get straightened out, and prayed about,” the man continued.
Jason ran outside for the root beer, just in case, and as he was closing the trunk again, Tom and Tawny’s Chevy pickup was just pulling to a stop at the curb across the way.
Waiting until they had parked and gotten out, Jason waved before grabbing the soda box from
where he’d set it in the driveway and headed for the door. Tom, leaner than Jason had ever seen him, ran to catch the door for him.
How long had it been since the man had needed to start working Sundays and miss their church get-togethers? It seemed like it had been months since Jason had seen him.
“Thanks, Man,” he told him, waiting for Tawny to go ahead of him. “I appreciate it. Long time, no see.”
Tom clapped him on the back, his large dark hand more gentle than Jason recalled.
Forever a gentle giant, thoughtful, conservative, methodical and creative, Tom had been a rock for their little group when Edward’s heart surgery didn’t go quite as planned. And when Eugenie had gone into labor with Majesta, it was Tom that called everyone who didn’t know and had them praying.
It was Tom who made everyone rosaries for Christmas and their birthdays, simply because he enjoyed it. It gave him pleasure, and a reason to interact where he otherwise wouldn’t… in the Catholic church as well as Protestant.
Jason moved to find some space on the counter, thankful that the Stuarts usually had ice.
And if they didn’t, well, he’d just make an ice run.
“So, what’s been happenin’,” Tom said as he settled into a chair in the dining room, Confetti jumping into his lap automatically. “Tawny tells me you two have been, uh… sensin’ somethin’ kinda… out of the ordinary,” he continued as the cat curled her ringleted, multihued little body into a ball and sat down.
“We’ll get to that. For now, let’s get settled in. There’s a lot to cover in a little timeframe.”
Edward waited to speak until they had finished praying over their food, settled around the living room, their lasagna, garlic bread, and salad – as well as the Bulldog Root Beer from Jason – were spread on the dining table and Confetti was in the restroom rrowling to be let out. With Masao, Mark, and Jason on the couch across from him, and the women in dining chairs, he slowly began.
The Angels' Mirror Pack 2: Books Four through Seven Page 57