by A. L. Tyler
They were standing in the lobby of a smallish motel, trying to feed dollar bills into a vending machine to refill their car supply of soda. The machine, unfortunately, was picky; it kept spitting out every crinkled bill they forced upon it in a process Devin described as “re-George-itation.” Lena laughed despite herself.
He shook his head. “I’m not saying she’s the know-all, end-all, just that she has a gift for this and you should respect it. That’s all. It might have saved us a little time even, if we’d stopped at one of those places before we got here and didn’t have to spend an hour and a half hunting down another hotel because they’re all full. Why don’t you trust her?”
Devin loaded up his arms with the five sodas they had managed to get out of the vending machine and started walking to the car.
“I do trust her.” Lena said, trotting after him. “I just think it’s a lot of pressure, that’s all. You’re putting your faith in a fourteen-year-old, and I don’t think that’s wise. Her instinct shouldn’t be a deciding factor for you, because we haven’t seen any real evidence that she can actually do it.”
Devin suddenly stopped walking, and Lena almost ran into him. He cocked his head and raised his eyebrows, annoyed. “You’re doing it again. You sound like a politician. This isn’t a court proceeding, so please drop the fancy shit. I don’t see why it’s such a big deal, anyways.”
“I—Sorry.” Lena paused. Devin started walking again, and Lena resumed following him. “I guess it just bothers me that you seem to be making decisions based on her feelings, and to me it’s like you might as well be flipping a coin. I mean, she said she thought we were in trouble, right? And nothing happened. You’re only remembering the times when she was right.”
As he popped the car door open, he sighed deeply. He opened the ice chest and put in the few sodas they had acquired and looked up at Lena as he put the lid back on. “I don’t want to fight about this. I don’t want to fight, period. You have a point—maybe I do rely on her a little too much, Lena, but I have a point too. She has an edge where we don’t, and even if I stop making decisions based around that, I’ll still believe it. After everything we’ve been through, I can’t believe you’re still fighting me about this…”
Lena looked around the dark parking lot. It felt strange to be able to be out in public, at night, alone; the slight tinge of excitement from danger was still ebbing in her brain from so many years of protective seclusion. As afraid as she felt in the pit of her stomach, she still wanted to stay out all night—like the night she had stayed out with Devin, Tab, and Pepper the year before.
Of course, she had no idea where Tab and Pepper were now, what they were doing, or even if they were still alive. They had gone with Rollin out of either frustration with the Council or necessity of their own survival, and even with the close bond that Devin and Tab had shared, they hadn’t heard a word from him. They were so close, Devin had forgiven Tab without hesitation for turning him in to Rollin. Human-borns had strong ties, and both Cheryl and Devin still occasionally had trouble accepting that their friends were gone to fates they might never know. They hadn’t heard a word from anyone that had gone off with Rollin, and now, wherever they were, Lena was sure they were penniless because Lena had seen to it. She suddenly felt sobered of her desire to stay out tasting freedom for the sake of it.
She crossed her arms against the cold. “You’re right. It doesn’t matter…I don’t know why I’ve been so focused on it. I’m sorry, Dev.”
A wind blew across the parking lot as Devin shut the car door and walked back over to her. He threw an arm around her shoulders as they walked back to the room. Somehow, she knew he was thinking about that night with Tab and Pepper, too.
When they got back to the room, Devin muttered something about taking a shower before disappearing off to the bathroom. It was a decent room for a motel; the walls were a light yellow color with matching bedspreads that had floral prints on them, and the windows had been done up with blue drapes that matched the upholstery on the two well-worn chairs stationed at the breakfast table. Lena settled down to check her phone messages. She sat down carefully on the edge of the bed, trying not to wake up Cheryl.
“Were you talking about me?” Cheryl asked, without a hint of having been asleep.
Lena closed her eyes. She really did hate to admit it, but Devin had a point—Cheryl was shaping up to be a very talented Silenti. “Yes, we were. We’re just concerned about you, sweetie.”
Lena heard the bed sheets ruffle against the comforter as Cheryl sat up. Her voice was very quiet, but still rang out clear. “Why are you so sad?”
In fact, Lena wasn’t sure why. She hadn’t thought about it up to this moment, but she was sad lately. She had been so perpetually sad recently that she might have even described herself as depressed, and she was sure it had all started with that damn semi back in Kansas and the ensuing call to Griffin. She was sad because he had moved on and because he had veritably incised her from his life. She was sad because Tab and Pepper were gone except for a few bright memories that illuminated their otherwise bleak outlook in her mind. She was sad because Devin was sad; because he was living a true tragedy, and because he just didn’t have a place in the world anymore—he was always welcome at Waldgrave, but he faced the same situation Rosaleen had in her youth. Even if you claimed full Silenti as your kin, you would never be one simply because of your birth. Your kin prevented you from being fully in one world, and your birth prevented you from the other.
Lena felt Cheryl drape an arm over her shoulders. “It’s okay, Lena. It’s not all that bad.”
Lena went back to her phone messages to distract herself. There were two from Howard saying something about needing her to check her email, and then one from a voice she barely recognized.
“I heard you were in town and thought we could chat for a while if you’re available. I’ll be at the little diner on the corner of Fifth and Geraldine tomorrow night, around seven.”
She felt her heart soar in triumph; through whatever means he had, he had found out.
“Who was that?” Cheryl asked.
“It was Warren Astley,” Lena said softly. “Your father.”
Cheryl didn’t move, but Lena had the feeling that she wanted to. They sat on the edge of the bed, just being quiet and listening to the whine of the water in the pipes as Devin took his shower, until Lena heard an unmistakable sniffle issue forth from Cheryl. She looked over, and saw that she was crying.
“Cheryl, what’s wrong?” Lena said, half in a panic.
“It’s…nothing.” She said, pulling away and tucking herself back under the covers.
Lena laid down next to her, hugging her through the comforter. “Shh…it’s okay. Whatever it is, it’ll be okay.”
In the bathroom, Lena heard the water turn off. Cheryl was turning back towards Lena. Her eyes were already red and puffy, and held an air of concern far beyond her years. “I don’t want to go. It feels like the end.”
Lena paused. She had been expecting something like this, but not with this kind of emotion. She had been through the experience of reuniting with a long lost parent; but unlike Cheryl, she had never had the option of choosing to stay where she was, in the life that she had lived before finding out. The end—Lena had never heard it put so succinctly. It was the end; the end of a way of living, and the start of something new. It was like dying and leaving yourself behind when something that big happened. She tried to gather herself enough to explain everything that had fleeted across her mind when Cheryl had spoken.
“You don’t have to leave, Cheryl,” she began, “No one is going to make you leave or let him take you. And if you do decide to go, it’s not goodbye—I’ll come and visit you. Too much, even. Devin too, and Mrs. Ralston and Howard and Pete, and you can always come to see us. This is just an introduction.”
“What if he doesn’t like me?” She whispered. What if we hate each other?
At least, Lena thought, I’ve lived that nightm
are…
She hadn’t meant to think it where others could hear it, and didn’t think she had, but Cheryl was still watching her with interest. “I wasn’t what my mother and my grandfather wanted. I know I wasn’t. My mom still loved me, or God, how she tried to, anyway, but they didn’t want me the way I was. My grandfather was really disappointed—he told me, and mind you this was the first time I ever met him, that the only blessing I had to be thankful for was that I didn’t look anything like my dad. Believe that?”
To no one’s surprise, Cheryl nodded. Master Daray had been a terrible man, and always harshly and purposely forthright with his criticisms.
Devin came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel to get some clothes, and tried to seem as inconspicuous as possible when he noticed that Lena and Cheryl were having a serious talk. He took what he needed and headed back to the bathroom to change.
Lena carefully wiped the tears from Cheryl’s face with her fingers and then dried her hand on the pillowcase. “Well, my point here isn’t to scare you, Cheryl. It’s that I survived the worst case scenario as far as this stuff goes, and I turned out all right. I mean, I’ve wound up in some bad situations, but I’m still here. You’ll never have to go through any of that because I won’t let it happen. And you know what? You’re father isn’t a bad guy—“
“He tried to kill you once, I thought.” She said meekly, then quickly looked away. That’s what they say about him. That he’s a murderer.
Lena sighed; she hadn’t told anyone, even Cheryl, about the details of this particular incident in her past, and how poor Warren Astley had become entangled in the elaborate mess that the Corbetts and Darays had propagated. The scandal had resulted in the murder of her brother, father, and presumably her grandmother and others as well, not to mention the enormous amounts of political sway that had resulted from so little being known about the culprits and situations surrounding their deaths—a huge gain for Daray, who had rallied support around the idea that Thomas had been killed by an uncaught New Faith zealot.
The Darays had been driven to extinction for creating so much trouble, and the Corbett household had come under fire and strict scrutiny for their suspected involvement in many of Daray’s schemes. Lena shuddered to think what would happen to the Astleys if anyone ever found out that Warren had not only known what was going on, but had effectively been helping. Even if Master Corbett had been threatening the life of Warren’s child, it wasn’t reason enough—the Silenti didn’t look favorably upon growing attached to anyone or anything; emotional attachment to a child one had never met bordered on ludicrous.
Lena gazed down at the comforter and nervously pulled at a loose stitch in the fabric, trying not to reveal too much. All Cheryl knew was that he had been blackmailed into doing it—Lena wasn’t of the mind that it was wise to share more than that. “For you! He did it all for you. He’s still doing it all for you, living the way he does to protect his loved ones from a Council investigation and whatever else…He’s given up his life for you, Cheryl, because it doesn’t matter who you are. He still loves you without even knowing you, enough that he was even blackmailed for it, and all he’s ever wanted to give you was what was best. He’s waited so many years just to meet you in person, and you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, but I think it would mean a lot to him.”
Lena let herself fall quiet. Cheryl was looking up at the ceiling, thinking.
It wasn’t looking promising; she was going to feel terrible for Warren if Cheryl didn’t want to see him. All those years, waiting and hoping, only to have his own daughter turn him down. Lena decided to try one more time. “Really, you don’t have to go if you don’t want to. We can do this another time, when you’re ready. So just don’t worry about it now, and we’ll see how you’re feeling when the time comes, all right?”
Cheryl gave a slight nod, wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand, and then turned over to go to bed. Devin came back out of the bathroom and Lena went in to brush her teeth and change into her nightclothes. She turned out the lights on her way back to the bed, but none of the three fell asleep easily that night.
*****
It must have been early the next morning that Lena woke to find Cheryl missing and the sheets next to her cold. There was a chill on the air in the motel room, and it wasn’t until Lena got up to check the bathroom that she realized the motel door was wide open; cold, humid, gray morning air was ebbing through it. Lena stepped out into the not-quite-lit morning and crossed her arms against the chill, the concrete cool and gravelly with tiny pebbles beneath her feet. She turned her head right and left, and saw Cheryl, still in her nightclothes, leaning against the wrought iron railing at the far end of the walkway, staring off to the east with her back to Lena.
Lena walked toward her. The sun was just peeking over the far side of the Earth, sending multihued iridescent rays shooting off into the sky. As Lena neared her, a breeze picked up and threw Cheryl’s hair into a wide delta behind her, a few dissident beams catching in her light brown waves and making them glow.
“Cheryl?”
The girl didn’t move. “Kelsey. My name is Kelsey.”
Lena tilted her head. She looked around again, for a moment feeling that she might have stepped into another plane of existence—it felt like she was tracking Ben again; things just didn’t make sense. Cheryl wasn’t acting like herself. She looked behind her, at the motel walls and the floor beneath her feet, and finally back out at the sunrise. She stepped up next to Cheryl, and Cheryl turned her face to look Lena in the eye. Her skin was glowing with light from the rising sun.
“He’s out here, Lena.” She said with a small, hesitant smile. “He knows we’re out here, too.”
“Who?” Lena asked.
Cheryl turned back to the rising sun and took a slow, deep breath. “Rollin, and someone else. It’s better if we split up, because he’ll have more trouble finding all of us. I’m going with my father, and you’re going to South Carolina, and Devin, well…I’m not sure what’s going to happen to Devin. I think it depends what you do with the baby.”
Lena could only stare, dumbfounded, at Cheryl. She most definitely wasn’t herself; she was having an episode of some sort.
“It was a very bad idea for the three of us to come out here.” Cheryl continued. “A very, very bad idea.”
“What baby?” Lena asked.
Cheryl only smiled and shook her head. “I don’t know—the one you had in the dream. You’re a Collins as much as a Daray. You said that in the dream.”
Lena’s eyes stayed fixed on Cheryl for a moment. The knot in her stomach had eased, but only slightly; it was just a dream. Lena would have liked to believe there was nothing to it, but she had only rarely experienced real Silenti dreaming, and she knew it was powerful and revealing. If Cheryl was having Silenti dreams, there could be something to it.
“Who moved the party out here?”
Lena turned around to see Devin, bleary-eyed, messy-haired, and pulling a shirt on, walking toward them. He made an overly elaborate process out of clearing his throat, and when he got close enough, he landed both hands on Cheryl’s shoulders.
“I’m sorry, is she doing it again?” He asked, looking at Lena.
Lena was bewildered. “She’s done this before?”
“Sleepwalking outside? Sure. Rosaleen says it started when Marie left.” He gave a slight tug on Cheryl, trying to steer her back to the room.
“I’m not sleepwalking, Devin.” Cheryl peered over her shoulder at him. She suddenly became very confused. “I don’t sleepwalk.”
Devin only smiled. “Do you remember coming outside?”
Cheryl looked around, and then back up at Devin. She frowned. “No.”
“Cheryl,” Lena prompted, “Do you remember what we were just talking about? About the baby?”
Cheryl looked back at Lena. “Yes, of course I do. What am I, crazy? And I think I said I’m going by Kelsey now. It’ll make it harder for Rollin to find me afte
r my father and I move up north. You were right, Lena. He’s a decent man.”
Their eyes met. Lena wasn’t quite sure what to do. She looked up at Devin, who was very clearly trying to keep a straight face. He sighed and looked away to keep from laughing.
“Oh, shut up! It doesn’t mean anything!” Lena said, turning on her heel to go back to the hotel room.
“You keep telling yourself that! We both know you don’t believe it!” He called after her, a small, ringing chuckle in his voice. I told you so!
Lena took a shower and laid back down on the bed to watch television for a while. Because they had arrived so late the night before, and Cheryl had woken her up so early, she inadvertently fell asleep and didn’t wake up again until that afternoon.
Smelling fast food, she rolled over and saw Devin and Cheryl eating fried chicken and coleslaw at the breakfast table. It took a moment for the situation to sink in. “Devin, where did that chicken come from?”
Cheryl looked over like a doe in the headlights as Devin casually answered. “From a chicken place, obviously. We’ve got mashed potatoes!”
He picked up a small, brightly colored container and waggled it at her gleefully.
“Devin, do you have permission to drive?”
He gave a moment’s mock thought. “Well, I guess not. It’s not last night anymore.”
“That’s right. It’s not.” Lena got up off the bed and started towards the pair.
Devin rolled his eyes. “You’re right Lena. Since I’m already in trouble, you should know I also put this on your credit card. And since it’s not last night anymore, how’s Griffin doing? Can we talk about revenge now?”
Lena froze in her tracks as the name escaped Devin’s lips. Devin smiled. Cheryl looked sheepish as she took another bite out of a drumstick. Lena looked from one to the other, sighed, and pulled one of the large wheeled suitcases over so that she could sit at the table with them. She picked up a piece of chicken and reached for the mashed potatoes.