They walked a few yards away and began talking animatedly, keeping their voices low, probably figuring out what to do with me.
Free for the moment, I turned to the tree. I grabbed on to the trunk, hugging it tight, connecting with its energy. I soaked it up fast, pulling as much power as I could while I had the chance. The dizziness passed. The pain faded and my vision cleared. Halfway myself again, I looked over at the two men.
Apparently, they’d come to some kind of decision, because they were nodding their heads and grinning. “What’s yer name, boy?” the big one asked.
My mind went blank.
“Hey, Edgar here asked you a question!” Joe growled, starting towards me. “You need to show a little—”
“Elmo,” I blurted out, grabbing the name from Sesame Street.
“You got family nearby, Elmo?” Edgar asked.
I didn’t know what the safest answer was. I decided on yes. I nodded.
“Where they at, then?”
“Umm, hunting,” I answered, “but they’re coming back soon.”
“Take a look around, Joe,” Edgar said.
Joe climbed up the hill and scanned the horizon.
“Don’t see nothin’,” he called as he slid back down. “Looks like we got ourselves a prize, eh, Edgar?”
“Looks like,” agreed Edgar, grinning.
“So Elmo, we been thinkin’ how nice it would be if we had ourselves a cook…someone to clean up, brush down the horses, gather wood, and make camp. We wuz thinkin’ about gettin’ ourselves a squaw. But the injuns don’t like parting with their squaws…take real offense at it, they do. So maybe you might do just fine instead,” Joe smirked. “Whadaya think, Edgar?”
“Just fine,” Edgar answered.
“So you stay put, boy. No way can you outrun us, and there’s nowhere to go. We got horses, and you’re on foot. We got guns, and I have myself a mighty fine whip. Don’t you go makin’ us use them,” Joe said, lifting the whip off his saddle. “You hear me, boy?” He flicked the whip out and snapped it back with a loud crack.
I nodded and huddled against the tree. Fear kept my breathing shallow and erratic. They sat down by the fire, chugging on a whisky bottle. I leaned against the tree thinking hard. The pepper spray was in my back jeans pocket. Surreptitiously as I could, I pulled it to the front. I checked for my knife, which was a joke. What was I going to do, knife fight a couple of men? As if. I waited…anxiously.
Finally the Indian strolled back into camp holding a couple of fat, brown rabbits by the ears. He glanced at me, lifted his eyebrows slightly, and sat down on a log as though he’d seen nothing unusual.
“Look what we found, Chief,” Joe cackled.
“We got ourselves a prize,” Edgar added, grinning ear to ear—which, I might add, was not a pretty sight. He shuffled around in his pocket and pulled hunk of something black. He hacked a chunk off with his knife, stuck it in his mouth, and began to chew. Could he be any more disgusting?
The Indian just grunted and took his knife to a rabbit. It took him less than a minute to lop off the head, scoop out the guts, and whip off the skin. I shuddered. I didn’t know that you could just peel a whole hunk of skin off like that. My scalp tightened and I swallowed hard.
“I think our luck just keeps gettin’ better all the time, huh, Edgar? Be right nice to have somebody to do some of the work around here.”
“Right nice,” Edgar agreed, staring at me intently. “You see the skin on him? Ever see skin like that? Stand up and hold out yer hands, boy!”
I complied.
“There’s not a single callous on them hands. Not a mark. He’s got to have family, rich family. He ain’t done a lick a work in his life. I never seen hands like that.” He glared at me suspiciously.
“Well, maybe them rich folk might pay to get him back then. Maybe we keep him for a spell, let him do the cookin’ and such; and then when we strike it rich, we ransom him back to his folk? Whadaya think?”
“Yup. But, how’d he get way out here?” Edgar asked, not quite convinced. “Look how clean he is. You ever seen anyone that clean? Smell um!” He walked over to me and sniffed. “Smell um!”
Joe walked over, leaned in, and sniffed. I didn’t know how he could possibly smell me over his own stench. I gagged and almost barfed right on his filthy boots.
He snickered. “You’re right, he smells all flowery. Why you smell like that, boy?” He pushed back my hood.
I jerked.
“What kind of hat is this? Look how smooth this is, Edgar.” He fingered Ipod’s cap. Then he looked me in the eyes, grinned wickedly, and yanked it off.
My hair tumbled down, all wavy and wild from being stuffed in the hat when it was still wet. It cascaded over my shoulders and bounced around my face.
The Indian stood abruptly, mouth open.
Edgar grinned and Joe hooted. “Woohoo! We got a prize, don’t we just! We not only got a cook, we got ourselves a bed-warmer.”
“Look at that hair. I ain’t never seen hair like that. No wonder his skin is so soft. He’s a gol danged girl!” Edgar chimed in, wobbling from the whisky. “I’ll be a donkey’s ass. He’s a gol danged girl. Kind of young, though, ain’t she? For a bed-warmer?”
Suddenly, Joe reached out and ripped down the front of my hoodie, taking the folded sheet and my pajama top with it. Buttons flew, the sheet fell on the ground, and my clothing gaped open wide.
Me, I just stood there in my thin, little tank top, too shocked to react.
“Looks like she’s old enough, Edgar,” he hooted, slapping his knee and taking a chug of the whiskey. “Old enough!”
She poked me in the back. “Earth to New Guy!”
I jumped.
I hadn’t heard her return. I was spaced out in front of the tree, my hands on the trunk, tapping into the rhythm of its power. I pulled back, shook my hands, and ran them through my hair to discharge the excess energy. Then I turned around, took a deep breath, and brought the room into focus.
She was wearing jeans and a tee shirt and had washed all the goop off her face. She sighed and kind of shook her head. “You are like her,” she said. “Just what I need, another space case.”
I tossed out an excuse. “Lunch time, didn’t eat much breakfast. Tends to space me out.” I wasn’t lying. I was hungry, and if I was going to get A.J. back, I needed fuel. I dropped down on the sofa, hoping she’d get the hint.
“Guys…bottomless pits.” She rolled her eyes. But she pulled a couple of Hot Pockets from the fridge and stuck them into the micro to nuke. She tossed me a bottle of water and kicked off her shoes. Then she stepped onto the sofa and slowly sank down, cross-legged, facing me. “Food’s coming,” she said. “Let’s do this.”
I struggled for an opening line. I cracked the water and downed half of it, stalling. “This is a first for me,” I said, finally. “I’ve never discussed this with anyone except guild members. Not even my best friend, Daniel, knows.”
“It’s not like I can’t keep a secret,” she said, stretching her arm across the sofa back.
“Yeah, I’m counting on that.” I looked her square in the eyes. This was serious stuff. She held my gaze and didn’t flinch. If my radar was any good at all, she was trustworthy. Besides, it was a zero sum game. She had secrets too. So I just jumped right in. “I travel through time like A.J. does. Well, maybe not exactly like she does, but similar.”
“So you have control over it?”
I nodded.
“A.J. just gets yanked back.”
“That’s harsh,” I said. It would have to be. “I can teach her how to handle it.”
“Seriously?”
I nodded. “Easy deal. We initiate travel by tapping into the energy matrix of trees and their connection to the life force of the planet. I can show her how to do that.”
“So it is the tree, that’s what Ipod has always said.”
“Yeah, it’s the tree combined with someone with abilities. We’re called Editors.”
“We go back in time and ‘edit’ the past, rewrite it so to speak.”
“No shit! And you do this how?”
“We use the trees as portals or maybe more like power sources.” How was that? Not too bad…sounded cool. It seemed like she was going for it.
“Okay, you don’t get to laugh at this, but are you an alien?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. That wasn’t a laughing matter. We weren’t aliens, but she was close to the truth. “Is that what you guys think…that A.J.’s an alien?”
“When we were little, we thought it was magic,” she said, letting out a little laugh. “Ipod’s obsessed with figuring it out. But he’s never gotten anywhere. Once he found science, he convinced us magic wasn’t real. That eliminated all the paranormal stuff you find on TV. So at that point, we went with alien. We held that belief through middle school. The last couple years, we figured we just had no way to know. Not knowing sucked, especially for A.J.”
“No doubt,” I said. “Someone tracked me down and eased me into it before any of my abilities showed up.”
“Lucky you,” she said. “We didn’t have that luxury. So if someone taught you the ropes, that means there are more of you. I knew she couldn’t be the only one. How many?”
“About three hundred worldwide.”
She got a wrinkle between her eyebrows. “No shit? So we have backup in case you can’t pull this off?”
I nodded. Of course, that was a whole other complicated scenario. I needed to pull this off if I wanted A.J. to help fix my timeline. I didn’t want the Guild in on it.
“Then how bout we skip to the part about rescuing A.J.,” she said, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.
I sighed. “Here’s the thing. That just got a little more complicated.” I hoped she didn’t think I was wimping out.
“How so?”
“Logistics,” I said. “There’s just a slight change in time frame. There’s something about this tree. It’s wicked powerful. I don’t know if it’s the tree itself, A.J.’s energy, or a combination of both. I’m still game, but I want to wait until the sun goes down before I try.”
“Because...?” She stretched out the word and flicked out her hand.
“It’s safer. Basically, the tree is quieter then. Trees rest when it gets dark because they’re no longer drawing energy from the sun.”
The micro dinged.
“That makes sense,” she said, walking into the kitchen area. She put the Hot Pockets on plates and came back, handing me one. “So we wait till dark?”
I nodded and launched into the food.
“Then you’ll go get her, right?” She seemed somewhat pacified. She sat back on the sofa and took a bite.
“No, unfortunately, I can’t go anywhere…long, sad story. I’ll fill you in later.” I didn’t want to get into that yet. “Let me eat this and then I’ll explain. Deal?”
“Works for me,” she said, taking another bite.
I didn’t want to stare, but I sorta watched her out of the corner of my eye while we were eating. She was hot. That was just a fact. And I thought how normally, I’d be thinking about how I could get her to go out with me. But I totally wasn’t. Part of me was there, trying to explain things to her. And part of me definitely noticed the view. But a big part of me was miles away, just thinking about A.J. God, I hoped she was okay.
It only took a few minutes go wolf down the food. When we were done I explained about Shadows. How they could travel undetected, but that they always left a link to their portal tree.
“So I’m going to lock onto her energy and pull her home,” I said finally. “Well, offer her a lifeline. She has to latch on.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“She will. This is her portal tree. She’ll recognize her its energy. She’ll reach for it when it touches her.”
“You’re going to pull her back?”
“Pretty much.”
“Done it before?”
“A few times,” I said, draining my water bottle.
“Is it dangerous?”
“Not at all.”
“Okay, then,” she said, with a sigh. “So we wait. You want to go to afternoon classes?”
“Not so much…you?”
She snorted. “As if. This is epic. I’ve been living in Freak City for years with no answers. How about you give me some?”
“I can do that,” I said, stretching my legs out on the coffee table. This place was mint. And the sofa was really comfortable. “What do you want to know?”
“First, were you sent here to find A.J.?”
“Sent here? By whom?” I had to laugh. Yeah, right. Like the Guild would send me anywhere. “No, I…it was a complete surprise. You’ve got to understand, the odds of us meeting are winning-the-lottery small. No, no…” I laughed again. “Total coincidence, amazing coincidence. We moved here because of my brother—long story.” My laugh faded. I didn’t want to get into that either.
“Then how did you know she was like you?” she asked.
“I could feel her, sense her…at school.” I could hear the music of her soul.
“No shit! She felt you too.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said smiling. “We have highly enhanced nervous systems so that we can handle the energy it takes to master time travel. That makes us really sensitive to the energy of other Editors.”
“So you want to meet her because she’s like you?” she asked.
“Basically. Also, I need her help. It’s a long story that you won’t understand until you know more about the whole deal. I’ll tell you all about it, I promise.”
“So, you sensed her at school,” she said.
“Yeah, and that day she bolted from the room, I—”
“She was freaked.”
“I thought it was a migraine,” I said sarcastically.
“Yeah, well, what can I say?”
“I guess I was a little persistent.”
She snorted and rolled her eyes.
“Quick question,” I said. “The other day in the hallway, did A.J. say anything about seeing pictures in her mind?” I’d been obsessing about the melding since it happened, wondering if it was only me…hoping that it wasn’t.
“No, she just talked about how it felt. What do you mean, pictures?”
“Never mind,” I said quickly. “It’s nothing.”
So the melding was a one-sided thing. Great. It probably didn’t affect A.J. since she was a Shadow. I was alone in this—not good. I focused back on Lex. “Okay, I’ll give you the whole rundown,” I said. “But first, give me a quick overview of A.J. Two minutes. I’ll time it. It might help me know where to start.”
“Two minutes. Then you spill all.”
“Deal.” I set the timer on my phone.
She told me A.J.’s story. I made no comment. I didn’t want to stop her by asking questions. But I’d never heard of anyone traveling before they were a teenager, and even then, they had to be taught. The girl was mint.
“A.J.’s mom, Simone, freaked, as you would expect,” Lex continued. “No one believed her. They thought she was imagining it at first, or high, or maybe even faking to get attention. Later, they thought she was losing it, that maybe she had the crazy gene.”
“The crazy gene?”
She stared at me solemnly for a moment, and then she leaned forward and looked me square in the eye. “A.J.’s totally amazing, you know. Don’t ever doubt it. She might seem all sensitive and weird and stuff. And of course, there’s the deal with that stupid hoodie. But she’s smart. She’s tough. And there’s no one else like her. You have no idea what she’s had to deal with. I want her back. I need her back.”
“I get it,” I said. “I’ll do everything I can—”
“Okay, then. Just so you know. Where were we?”
“The crazy gene.”
“The crazy gene…right. This was before A.J. was born. A.J.’s great-grandfather, Charlie, was suppose
dly one fry short of a happy meal.” She pointed to a photo of a tall, white haired man standing beside an oak tree.
“Is that this tree?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “It was Charlie’s tree first. And I guess that Charlie got a little absentminded as he got older. He disappeared from time to time, causing problems.”
“Disappeared?”
She shrugged. “Wandered off, I guess. He was old. It was a long time ago. I don’t know all the details. Anyway, Simone worshiped her grandfather. He was this sweet old man, and she claimed he was eccentric, not crazy. The two of them were tight, into the environment and stuff.
“Simone’s mother died when she was young—car accident. Her father remarried some bimbo, trophy wife. He and Charlie didn’t see eye to eye on anything. Charlie was a gardener, a thinker, the artist type. He built this for Simone.” She gestured around the room. “Simone’s dad was country club. Charlie embarrassed him. So the dad pretty much just got him out of the way.”
“How?”
“Put him in a home and took control of all the assets. It was sad. Charlie didn’t do well locked up. He was an outdoor guy and he went downhill fast. One day he just disappeared. No one knows how he got out of the home. They never found him.”
“Harsh,” I said.
“Exactly.”
“Simone spent years trying to track her grandfather down, but they never even found a trail. She blamed her dad and they never spoke again after that. A few months after her grandfather’s disappearance, her dad sold off the land surrounding this house. Then he and the trophy wife packed it up to Florida.
“Anyway, when no one believed her about A.J., Simone finally decided she had to be hallucinating. It made her question everything. If she was wrong about A.J., maybe she was wrong about Charlie too. Maybe he had a crazy gene, and she’d inherited it, and that was why she thought A.J. was disappearing. When we were nine, she wolfed a bunch of pills. It was massive heartbreaking.”
Yeah, I was familiar with the pill-wolfing thing. “Harsh,” I said again. “How do you know all this?”
“Simone kept a journal,” she said. “We found it the day she died. When it happened, Sam called my mom and asked if I could come stay with A.J. When I got to the house, A.J. was curled up in her mom’s chair, sobbing her little heart out. The journal was under the cushion. So that had a lot to do with why A.J. thinks it’s all her fault: her mom’s suicide, her dad being a mess, everything.”
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