Soulmates kbaa-3

by Элизабет Чандлер

  He was trying to tie something to it-the jacket and cap.

  "We've got to get out of here," Gregory said to him.

  They struggled to climb onto the motorcycle. His leg felt unbearably heavy as he lifted it over the seat.

  Gregory shoved him toward the back of the machine, then climbed on the front.

  "Hang on." He did. When Gregory hit the accelerator, Tristan felt his head snap back. His upper jaw crunched down on his lower, and his eyes felt as small and hard as marbles rolling inside his head. In mat brief moment he saw a blur behind him. He turned just as the clothes tumbled off the bike, but he didn't say anything.

  They rode toward town, men up the long hill to Gregory's house. Gregory got off and rushed inside. Now me motorcycle was in Eric's hands-Tristan's hands, though he had no control. He raced down the hill again, driving crazily. Suddenly the road snaked out from under the wheels, and Eric was on another path.

  Were they in another memory? Had they somehow linked up with another part of the past? The road, with its sharp twists and turns, seemed familiar to Tristan. The Harley skidded to a stop, and Tristan felt ill all over again: they were at the spot where he had died.

  Eric parked and got off the motorcycle, surveying the road for several minutes. He stooped down to examine some sparkling blue stones-bits of shattered glass among the gravel in the road. Suddenly he reached over and picked up a bouquet of roses. They looked fresh, as if someone had just left them there, and were tied with a purple ribbon, the kind Ivy wore in her hair. Eric touched one rose that hadn't opened. A tremor ran through him.

  One rose, unopened, stood in a vase on Caroline's table. Eric's mind had jumped again, and Tristan knew he had been in this memory before. The picture window, the brewing storm outside, Eric's intense fear and growing frustration were all familiar to Tristan. Just as before, the memory ran like a piece of damaged film, frames spliced out, sound washed over by waves of emotion. Caroline was looking at him and laughing, laughing as if nothing in the world could be funnier. Suddenly he reached for her arms, grabbing her, shaking her, rocking her till her head flopped like a rag doll's.

  "Listen to me," he said. "I mean it! It's not a joke! Nobody's laughing but you. It's not a joke!"

  Then Eric groaned. It wasn't fear that rippled through him now. It wasn't frustration and anger burning out of his skin, but something deep and awful, despairing. He groaned again and opened his eyes. Tristan saw the book of trains in front of him.

  The book looked blurry, and Eric passed his hand over his eyes. He was awake and crying. "Not again," he whispered. "Not again."

  What did he mean? Tristan wondered. What didn't Eric want to happen again? What didn't he want to do again? Let Gregory kill? Let himself get out of control and do Gregory's killing for him? Maybe they had each done some of it and were tied together in a guilty knot.

  Tristan struggled hard to remain conscious and stay with Eric through the rest of Monday morning. He had slipped out of Eric's mind the moment he was fully awake but accompanied him to school, guessing that the memories that haunted Eric would lead him toward some kind of confrontation with Gregory. He was caught off guard at lunchtime when Eric moved quickly through a crowded cafeteria toward the table where Ivy sat alone.

  "I have to talk to you."

  Ivy blinked up at him, surprised. His pale hair was matted. Over the summer, he had grown so thin that his white skin barely seemed to cover the bones of his face. The circles under his eyes looked like bruises.

  When Ivy spoke, Tristan heard an unexpected gentleness in her voice.

  "Okay. Talk to me."

  "Not here. Not with all these people."

  Ivy glanced around the cafeteria. Tristan guessed that she was trying to decide how to handle this. He wanted to slip inside her and shout, "Don't do it! Don't go anywhere with him!" But he knew what would happen: She'd throw him out just as she had the last time.

  "Can you tell me what this is about?" Ivy asked, her voice still soft.

  "Not here," he said. His fingers played nervously on the tabletop.

  "At my house, then," she suggested.

  Eric shook his head. He kept glancing left and right Tristan saw with relief that Beth and Will were carrying their lunch trays toward Ivy's table. Eric saw them, too.

  "There's an old car," he said quickly, "dumped about a half mile below the train bridges, just back from the river. I'll meet you there today, five o'clock. Come alone. I want to talk, but only if you're alone."

  "But I-" "Come alone. Don't tell anyone." He was already moving away from the table.

  "Eric," she called after him. "Eric!" He didn't turn back.

  "What was that about?" Will asked as he set his tray on the table. He didn't seem aware of Tristan's presence. Neither did Beth or Ivy. Maybe none of them saw his light because of the sun flooding through the cafeteria's big windows, Tristan thought.

  "Eric looks kind of crazed," Beth said, taking the seat next to Will and across from Ivy. Tristan was glad to see a pencil and notebook among Beth's clutter of dishes. Through her writing, he could communicate with all three of them at the same time. "What did he say?" she asked. "Is something wrong?"

  Ivy shrugged. "He wants to talk to me later today."

  "Why doesn't he talk to you now?" Will asked.

  Good question, thought Tristan.

  "He said he wants to see me alone." Ivy lowered her voice. "I'm not supposed to tell anyone."

  Beth was watching Eric as he made his way toward the cafeteria doors. Her eyes narrowed.

  I don't trust him, Tristan thought as clearly as possible. He had guessed right: Beth and he matched thoughts, and a moment later he was inside her mind. Then he felt her pull back.

  "Don't be afraid, Beth," he said to her. "Don't throw me out. I need your help. Ivy needs your help."

  Sighing, Beth picked up the pencil next to her notebook, and stirred her applesauce with it.

  Will smiled and nudged her. "It'd be easier to eat with a spoon," he said.

  Then Ivy's eyes widened a little. "Beth's glowing."

  "Is it Tristan?" Will asked.

  Beth dried her pencil and flipped open the notebook.

  "Yes," she wrote.

  Ivy frowned. "He can talk to me directly now. Why is he still communicating through you?"

  Beth's fingers twitched, then she wrote quickly. "Because Beth still listens to me."

  Will laughed out loud.

  Beth's hand moved toward the page again. "I'm counting on Beth and Will to convince you-don't take chances with Eric!"

  "Counting on me?" mumbled Will.

  "It's too dangerous, Ivy," Beth scribbled. "It's a trap. Tell her, Will."

  "I need to know the facts first," Will insisted.

  "Eric asked me to meet him at five o'clock, by the river about a half mile below the double bridges," Ivy said.

  Will nodded, tore the tip of a catsup packet, and spread its contents evenly on his hamburger. "Is that all?" he asked.

  "He said to come alone and to look for him by an old car that's back a little from the river."

  Will methodically opened a second catsup packet, then a mustard one. His slow and deliberate actions annoyed Tristan.

  "Tell her, Will! Talk sense to her!" Beth wrote furiously.

  But Will would not be hurried. "Eric could be setting a trap for you," he said to Ivy thoughtfully, "maybe a deadly one."

  "Exactly," wrote Beth.

  "Or," Will continued, "Eric could be telling the truth. He could be running scared and trying to give you some important information. I honestly don't know which it is."

  "Idiot!"Ú Beth wrote. "Don't do it, Ivy," she added out loud, her voice shaking. "That's me telling you, not Tristan."

  Will turned to her. "What is it?" he asked. "What are you seeing?"

  Tristan, inside her mind, was seeing it, too, and it shook him just as badly.

  "It's the car," Beth said. "As soon as you mentioned it I could see it, an old car sin
king slowly into the mud.

  Something terrible has happened there. There's a dark mist around it."

  Will took Beth's trembling hand.

  "The car's slipping into the ground like a coffin," she said. "Its hood is torn off. Its trunk… I can't see-there are lots of bushes and vines. There's a door partway open, blue, I think. Something's inside."

  Beth's eyes were big and frightened, and a tear ran down her cheek. Will wiped it away gently, but another ran over his hand.

  "The front seats are gone," she continued. "But I can see the back seat, and there's something…" She shook her head.

  "Go on," Will urged softly.

  "It's covered with a blanket. And there's an angel looking down on it.

  The angel is crying."

  "What's under the blanket?" Ivy whispered.

  "I can't see," Beth whispered back. "I can't see!"

  Then her hand started scribbling: "I can see only what Beth sees. The blanket can't be lifted."

  "Is the angel you, Tristan?" Ivy asked.

  "No," Beth wrote. Then she grabbed Ivy's hand. "Something terrible is there. Don't go! I'm begging you, Ivy."

  "Listen to her, Ivy!" Tristan said, but Beth's hand was shaking too hard to write it.

  Ivy looked at Will.

  "Beth has been right twice before," he said.

  Ivy nodded, then sighed. "But what if Eric really has something important to tell me?"

  "He'll find another way," Will reasoned. "If he really wants to tell you something, he'll figure out a way."

  "I guess so," Ivy said, and Tristan sank down in relief.

  Soon after that, he left the three of them. He heard Ivy ask mentally, "Where are you going?" But knowing she was in safe hands, he kept on. He had recovered from the exhaustion of time-traveling but wasn't sure how long his second wind would last. He wanted time to search Gregory's room while everyone was out of the house. If he could find Gregory's latest purchase of drugs, Ivy would have evidence for at least a drug charge.

  Still, what she really needed was the jacket and cap, Tristan thought as he passed through the school door. The clothes might convince the police to reconsider Philip's story. A single piece of hair could establish the important link to Gregory.

  Somebody must have found the clothes after they rolled off the motorcycle. Did that person know how important they were? Philip's story hadn't been released to the public, but it could have leaked out. Was there, Tristan wondered, an unidentified player in Gregory's game?

  "But Ivy," Suzanne wailed, "we had plans to find the crystal slippers-the ruby shoes-the only pair of heels in all New England that are exactly right for my birthday party. And I've got only a week left to hunt!"

  "I'm sorry," Ivy replied, reaching into her locker for another book. "I know I promised." She shifted the stack in her arms, clutching a note beneath the books. Three minutes before Suzanne had arrived, Ivy had opened her locker and found Tristan's picture gone. The note she grasped had been taped in its place.

  "How about Wednesday?" Ivy proposed. "I have to work after school tomorrow, but we can shop till we drop on Wednesday and find you an incredible pair of shoes."

  "By that time Gregory and I will have made up and be doing something again."

  "Made up?" Ivy repeated. "What do you mean?"

  Suzanne smiled. "It worked, Ivy, worked like a charm." With her back against the wall of lockers, Suzanne bent her knees and slowly slid down till her bottom touched the floor-no easy feat in tight jeans, Ivy thought. A group of guys down the hall admired her athletic ability.

  "Since you wouldn't mention Jeff to him," Suzanne went on, "I did. I called Gregory Jeff."

  "You called him Jeff? Did he notice?"

  "Both times," Suzanne replied.

  "Whew."

  "Once when things were pretty hot and heavy."

  "Suzanne!"

  Suzanne threw back her head and laughed. It was a wild and infectious laugh, and people grinned as they passed her in the hall.

  "So what did Gregory say? What did he do?" Ivy asked.

  "He was unbelievably jealous," Suzanne said, her eyes flashing with excitement. "It's a wonder he didn't kill us both!"

  "What do you mean?"

  Suzanne slid closer to Ivy and bent her head, her long, dark hair falling forward, like a curtain for telling secrets behind.

  "The second time, we were in the back seat." Suzanne closed her eyes a moment, remembering. "His face went white, then the red started creeping up his neck. I swear I could feel a hundred and five degrees rushing through him. He pulled away from me and raised his hand. I thought he was going to hit me, and for a moment I was terrified."

  She gazed into Ivy's eyes, her pupils large with excitement. Ivy could see that Suzanne might have been terrified then, but now found it thrilling and fun to talk about. Her friend was enjoying the memory the way someone delighted in a good scare at a spook house-but Gregory was no papiermache monster.

  "Then he dropped his hand, called me a couple of names, got out of the back seat and into the front, and started driving like crazy. He opened all the windows and kept yelling back at me that" I could get out. But of course he was driving so fast and weaving left and right, and I was trying to straighten myself up and kept slamming from one side of the car to the other. He'd watch me in the rearview mirror; sometimes he turned all the way around. It's a wonder he didn't kill us both."

  Ivy stared at her friend in horror.

  "Oh, come on, Ivy. In the end, when I had my right arm in the left arm of my vest and my hair flopped over my face, he slowed down, and both of us started laughing."

  Ivy dropped her head in her hands.

  "But when he took me home that night," Suzanne continued, "he said he didn't want to see me anymore.

  He said I make him lose control and do crazy things." She sounded pleased with herself, as if she had been given a huge compliment. "But he'll come around by next Saturday. He'll be at my party, you can bet on that."

  "Suzanne, you're playing with fire," Ivy said.

  Suzanne smiled.

  "You and Gregory aren't good for each other," Ivy told her. "Look at you.

  You're both acting crazy."

  Suzanne shrugged and laughed.

  "You're acting like a fool!"

  Suzanne blinked, stung by Ivy's criticism.

  "Gregory has a terrible temper," Ivy went on. "Anything can happen. You don't know him the way I do."

  "Oh, really?" Suzanne raised her eyebrows. "I think I know him pretty well."

  "Suzanne-" "And I can handle him-better than you can," she added, glancing sideways, her eyes gleaming. "So don't get your hopes up."

  "What?"

  "That's what this is all about, isn't it? Ever since you lost Tristan, you've been interested in Gregory. But he's mine, not yours, Ivy, and you're not going to get him away from me!"

  Suzanne stood up quickly, brushed off the back of her jeans, and stalked down the hall.

  Ivy leaned back against her locker. She knew it was pointless to call after Suzanne and thought about summoning Tristan, asking him to watch over her friend. Maybe Lacey could help them out. But that request would have to wait. Ivy had changed her plans for the afternoon, and if Tristan read her mind, he might try to stop her.

  She unfolded the square of paper that had been taped in place of Tristan's picture. The note, signed with Eric's initials, was short and convincing: "Come alone. Five o'clock. I know why you're dreaming what you're dreaming."

  Chapter 8

  Ivy parked her car close to the train bridges. She was in the same clearing where Gregory had stopped months ago, the night Eric wanted to play chicken. She got out and walked the short distance to the double bridges. In the late-afternoon sun, the rails of the new bridge gleamed.

  Next to it stood the old bridge, a rusted orange fretwork reaching halfway across the river. Jagged fingers of metal and rotting wood reached back from the opposite bank of the river, but the two halves of the
old bridge, like two groping hands, had lost touch.

  When Ivy saw the parallel bridges clearly in the sunlight, when she saw the seven-foot gap between them and the long fall down to the water and rocks below, she realized the kind of risk Eric had taken when he pretended to leap from the new bridge. What went on inside Eric's head? she wondered.

  Either he was totally insane or he just didn't care whether he lived or died.

  Eric's Harley was not in sight, but there were plenty of trees and brush to hide it in. Ivy glanced around, then picked her way carefully down the steep bank next to the bridges, sliding part of the way until she reached a narrow path that ran along the river. She walked as quietly as possible, alert to every sound around her. When the trees rustled she looked up quickly, half expecting to see Eric and Gregory ready to swoop down on their prey.

  "Get a grip, Ivy," she chided herself, but she continued to tread softly.

  If she could surprise Eric, she might see what he was up to before she walked into a trap.

  Ivy glanced at her watch several times, and at five minutes past five she wondered if she had passed the car. But after a few more feet, something flashed in her eyes-sunlight glinting off metal. Fifteen feet ahead, she saw an overgrown path that led from the river to a metal heap.

  Ivy worked her way into the brush, keeping herself hidden as she crept closer. Once she thought she heard something behind her, a soft crunch of leaves beneath someone's foot. She turned quickly.

  Nothing. Nothing but a few leaves drifting in the breeze.

  Ivy pushed aside some long branches and took two steps forward, then drew in her breath sharply. The car was just as Beth had described it, its sunk into the earth, its rear buried beneath vines. The car's hood was ripped off, and its vinyl roof had decayed into papery black flakes. Its scarred doors shone blue-exactly as Beth had said.

  The back door was open. Was there a blanket on the seat inside? Ivy wondered. What was under the blanket?

  Again she heard rustling behind her and turned quickly around, searching the trees. Her eyes ached from focusing and refocusing on every shadow and flutter of leaf, searching for the shape of a person watching her. No one.