I stopped breathing as a momentary panic surged through me. What if I end up in a real cage for breaking in? A prison cell? I sat stone still, gazing for a long moment at the yellow paint chipping off the edges of the crisscross wires of the cage. I bit my lip, weighing my options. This was it. This was a Y in the road.
Before I could conjure up images of what might happen to me, a memory of Aunt Sabrina swooped in front of those thoughts like a delicate bird, crystal clear in my mind. She sat in the parlor of her house—the one that later burned down—in a rocking chair, knitting a scarf. The pale blue and yellow strands of yarn pooled on the marble floor. She looked peaceful and content, humming a tune in a voice that sounded to me like silk. Then a flash of her on the streets of North Dakota came to me, the bruises on her cheek. The fear that enveloped her. I had to do this. She was alive.
My heart thumped hard and my temples twitched. I shut my eyes, repeating the coordinates that Charley read out loud. For a long while I just saw black, and as I breathed steadily in and out, focusing on the destination, I eventually began to see splotches of color swirl in my vision. Pulsing yellow and green and then finally a deep purple, spinning in a long tunnel.
This was it. I focused on Aunt Sabrina so hard that I again slipped out of my own bones and skin and floated weightlessly through a dark space. I felt dreamy.
Thud. The sound of a book dropping on the floor, or perhaps a heavy box. Light began to shine through. Men dropped boxes onto a wooden train platform. They wore work overalls and yellow hard hats. It was only four or five in the morning—a couple hours ahead of California time, I guessed—yet they shouted at each other and moved in hurried commotion.
To my left stood my aunt. Like magic. I had found her again so easily.
Sabrina looked like an empty plastic bag, flattened. The way her arms dangled at her sides and her face looked so blank, I didn’t think she really saw me at first.
“Sabrina!” I wanted so badly to run to her, to hug her. But I was a ghost, and I’d slip through her skin. I’m not really here. Not a person around us heard me, saw me. Only Sabrina. Her lips turned up slightly, though her eyes looked hollow.
A frowning middle-aged man with severely parted hair stood close by her.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
A quick flick of her eyes told me she did really see me and hear me. But he apparently did not. She gave him no indication that I was there, turning to him and saying something in a foreign language that sounded like he had food stuck in his throat—clearly it was not Spanish or French. He nodded curtly and she strode into the train station lobby and then the restroom. I followed her inside the bare-bones bathroom, where she locked the door and leaned against the sink.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s dangerous.” She looked at the floor. “I just really want to go home.”
“Why don’t you simply come home then?” If she is psychic, why hasn’t she escaped?
“If I refuse, if I don’t…”
“Don’t what?”
“If I don’t … submit … if I run, they hurt me.” Her voice broke and she looked at the floor.
I eyed the cherry-red marks on her arm and her throat, and compassion bubbled up inside me.
“Who are they?”
The man called for her outside the door.
She cast a wary glance at the door and then looked at me with a strained expression. “I must go. Thursday. Come here, to this train station in Mandaree. In person.”
“Let me tell the police!” I said, knowing full well no one would believe my ludicrous story; I hardly believed it myself. “I’ll tell them where we’ll be.”
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head urgently. Her brow knotted. “I won’t show up if you do this. They’ll just see me as the enemy. Too dangerous.”
“Sabrina!” The man yelled. His voice sounded like thunder.
“Thursday. Just you. It’s the only way this can end right,” she whispered, and then opened the door. The man reached out and tugged her arm, pulling her to his side. She let out a muffled cry. I cringed, knowing this was her life, this was how she was treated—had been treated for God knew how many years.
I watched them disappear down the hallway. My pulse thumped in my temples. I was terrified to do this alone. But I had no choice.
29
Charley
Cord and I sat side by side on the floor, silently watching Julia in the cage as time dragged on. She was heading back to the same spot in the middle of nowhere, North Dakota, with the mere hope of seeing Sabrina.
After a while, I rested my head on Cord’s shoulder again. Relaxing against him pulled the rocks off my chest that had gathered since Katerina’s disappearance. He smelled clean, like the taste of water—a contrast to the smell of dust on the floor.
Cord looked at his ski feet and whispered to me. “Charley, this place is getting crazy.”
I nodded.
“I mean… All of SRI. These orbs?” He turned to look at me. “And that Soviet sub I spotted. This ain’t no regular lab. It ain’t … normal.” He wanted someone to stand next to him on his plank of sanity and peer down at the bizarre scene below us, shake their head, and hold onto him so he wouldn’t fall into this crazy abyss of lunacy.
“We aren’t normal, Cord.” Nothing was normal anymore.
Another period of silence moved through the space as we watched Julia through the yellow grate, drifting into another place.
“I sent my first SRI paycheck home,” I told him.
“Good. Make your family happy?”
I shrugged. I wasn’t sure it would. But a girl could hope. Maybe it’d change things back home.
I noticed a piece of paper sticking out from the breast pocket of his field jacket, which looked like it had come straight from the Army. “What’s that?” I asked.
He patted the letter. “Another letter from home.”
My mind went back to the vision of Sweater and Stella. He still didn’t know about them. Or did he?
I lifted my head and looked at him. He stared into nothingness, and I could see emotions play out on his face. “She…” He put his hand over his face. “Just broke up with me.”
“I’m so … sorry,” I said carefully.
He nodded and looked at his feet. “She wanted to marry me. I ain’t even been gone that long.”
“She’s been cheating on you,” I blurted. His face wilted even more.
He turned away and nodded. “I got a feeling. A dream. Her and Sweater.” He paused for a long couple seconds. “You know, she don’t ever smile at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like she smiles at him in that dream.” He swallowed the emotion.
It was a dream, Cord. But instead of saying anything, I just nodded. I hurt for him, like I was the one being hit with the ax of betrayal. I looked away, across the room at the mint-green wall.
We didn’t say anything for a long moment, and then an airy laugh escaped his lungs. “My best friend,” he said. “You should expect it, right?”
He looked at me, and I nodded. “Very cliché.”
“I didn’t know if I was gonna marry her. But still, the lies. That part hurts the most.”
I swallowed and studied the black scuffs on my red sneakers. “Yeah.”
He bounced his foot. “I’m pissed. Mostly at Sweater. If I seen him right now, I’d wanna punch him. Hard.”
“It’s rotten. Even if you weren’t ready to marry her, she was, you know, your girlfriend.” I took his hand in mine. His hands were rough and calloused.
I could tell that he would let me go inside his heart with that touch, that he was an open book at that point. Vulnerable. But I didn’t pry. This time, I just held his hand. That’s all. No searching his life and heart.
After a minute he turned to look at me, his brows bending from the weight of his pain. I reached up and ran my fingers across his cheek. I’d make him forget about her. I leaned over, my breast t
ouching his arm, and put my lips to his.
Startled, he pulled away, dropping my hand like it had just grown thorns. He looked away at Julia in the cage, and after a moment, he turned back to me. A canyon opened up between us. “She meant a lot to me.”
I felt like I’d swallowed a cactus.
My foot slipped on the concrete planter, and it rocked back and forth. Snooping in houses was probably a pretty dumb idea at the crack of dawn. The peach sunrise reflected on the glass above me. I was thinking maybe, just maybe, I could see into the window.
I fell, slamming down onto the concrete. Pain shot through my calf and my spine. I was so close to seeing inside Katerina’s place through the crack in the curtains.
Julia and Cord didn’t know I had come back to the city after her session in the cage. Julia didn’t tell us crap about what happened in this latest lala-land experience—which ticked me off, since we had been waiting around in the lab for her. We were, after all, the ones who had gotten her into the cage to begin with. Then … there was Cord. A gaping hole opened up between us.
I didn’t want to think about it, so I had snuck away to search for Katerina. I had to figure out what happened to her.
I got up slowly from the ground and kicked the stupid planter, only to cry out in pain. I hopped on one foot, squealing.
“What are you doing?”
I looked up to see a woman in a red Jackie-O sheath dress and pearls frowning at me. She clutched a black patent-leather pocketbook to her chest. What is she even doing up and dressed? It’s like five o’clock in the morning. “I’m calling the police, young lady.”
Police?
“Sorry. My friend didn’t come to work and I wanted to check.” Lies spin from my mouth so easily.
I dusted my hands off on my jeans and walked towards her. The woman, young and dainty, looked like she’d been made in a doll factory. Well, kind of, except for the serious frown she wore.
“I don’t care what you say, that is not behavior we want in this neighborhood. Thieves. Peeping Toms.”
I was not a Peeping Tom. And clearly this was not her neighborhood. Only hippies and bohemian beatniks lived there. She could afford far nicer digs. I ignored her insult.
“You see her? Name is Katerina. She’s got an accent?”
She gave a hummingbird headshake. She clasped her purse tighter. I knew about the city’s reputation as an apocalyptic madhouse with murder and drugs and crazy radicals running the streets, but I didn’t think I looked the part. Apparently, this woman thought differently.
I stepped forward gracefully, mimicking the sophisticated actresses I’d seen on TV, extending my hand.
“I’m Charley.”
The woman backed away with disgust, before turning on her heel and tottering off down the street.
Once she disappeared, I grabbed a rock from the planter, leaned back and hurled it into Katerina’s window. A trio of sounds punctuated the otherwise quiet morning. Shattered glass. A woman’s scream. A barking dog.
I ducked, ran off down the street, and waited. My heart pounded.
About ten minutes later, I saw the flashing red and blue lights of a police car. Just as I’d hoped.
I strolled back to the apartment. An old lady in a gold housecoat emerged from the apartment next door and pointed at the window as a cop wrote down information. I strode through the wrought-iron gate and up to Katerina’s door, digging in my pockets for my pretend keys.
“Oh my gosh! What happened?” I said. “Officer! Can you please come in and take a look? I don’t have my key though.” I was a terrible actress.
“Yes, ma’am.” The officer, a tall guy with white cream-puff hair, put a hand on his holster and walked cautiously toward me. “We can investigate this. You sit tight, dear.”
“She doesn’t live here!” the old lady shouted. She glowered behind horn-rimmed glasses. “I’m the goddamn landlord, and I’ve never seen her before!”
My mind spun. Dr. Strong had said he was the landlord. He had a key to her place.
“Don’t let that girl in there!” she said, pointing a frantic finger. “Mrs. Keegan saw her loitering earlier! She was probably the one that broke the damn window.”
“I live here. I swear.”
A familiar voice rescued me. “Hey now, Officer. Looks like my Millie got confused.” Two warm hands gripped my shoulders, and I turned around to see Henry. His face scrambled in concern. “Haven’t I told you not to wander?”
He wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “My sister just gets confused, because … you know.” He tapped his head with a finger and made a face. The policeman nodded. The landlady continued her rant, but I was inside the cocoon of Henry’s lies, being ushered down the block.
When we were out of sight and out of earshot, I stopped and looked at him. “Hey, thanks. Where’d you come up with that one?”
“You looked like you could use a hand.” He grinned but never removed his arm. It felt good, and my head felt thick. I must’ve been more tired than I’d realized.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
We walked in silence for a block or so, me feeling awkward about the prospect of telling him why, exactly, I was trying to break into Katerina’s house.
“Where’re we going?” I asked after a minute.
“We’ll hang at my room. Sound groovy?”
I nodded, dropping into the smell of his leather scent and the pull of his arm on my back. He zipped me up in his confident and cool vibe.
He walked me to the bus stop. “I’ll take good care of you, Charley.”
Henry’s room was just as cool as I thought it’d be. He’d decorated it as if he was going to stay for the year. Orange shag rug. Beanbag chair. Christmas lights that hung from the ceiling.
“I’ll get us a nightcap,” he cooed, as if we had just finished off a date at a smashing restaurant. I grinned. Henry left me breathless and swooning. The hair, the tall lanky legs in those bell-bottom pants. He poured a drink from a bottle he kept inside the closet. I considered my situation. If he wanted, he could have ratted on me about what had just gone down.
He handed me a short glass of something brown. Maybe bourbon? I took a sip of the woody, potent drink. It warmed my esophagus and burned my stomach at the same time. A grown-up drink. I swallowed as smoothly as possible. He sat on the bed and patted the seat next to him. “Come sit down, baby.”
It was as if someone had dumped ice water down my back. Suddenly, I knew what this was all about. I was supposed to sleep with him. Either that, or he’d rat on me. I knew he was a dick. Yet I’d wanted for a while to sleep with him. I was kind of infatuated with him. He knew that. But still, it made me feel cheap.
Henry held out his hand, and I stared at it and the big turquoise ring he wore on his pointer finger. Just a few hours earlier, I’d wrapped my hand around Cord’s, and felt a rush of calm and hope and loyalty and kindness, all wrapped in a silver ribbon.
And then he rejected me. He still loved cheating Mary Poppins in Colorado.
Screw it. I sat down next to Henry. He looked into my eyes, and—not surprising, knowing me—I wanted to touch his lips with mine. Our faces hovered a half an inch away, and he licked his lips. My stomach flipped and desire rushed through me. A curiosity brewed inside me about what I’d see if I peeked into his world.
I took his hand, weaving my fingers in between his.
With Henry, I tasted his personal energy. Chocolate-covered poison. Intelligence. Cobwebs in a dark corner. A flurry of images streamed past me: his mother, with dark shiny hair and red lips, leaning over him, smiling. This is why you exist, she said. A small-child version of Henry rocking, hugging his knees, in a dark basement. A pot-bellied man holding his chest and collapsing. Flames from a raging fire. A jolt sailed through my muscles. I saw his messed-up life, a slice of it, just tossed out in clunky, jagged pieces. And I understood him in a way I hadn’t before.
Whoa.
“You’re not … what … everybody thinks.” My voi
ce sounded breathy. Conflicted.
He gazed at me for a long moment, still close to our kiss, his breath wispy on my lips. The energy between us potent, animalistic.
“No, I’m not.”
But it didn’t matter.
We dove into the kiss, my body burning for him. Yearning. It didn’t matter, I told myself over and over.
It didn’t matter.
30
Charley
Henry drew his finger down my back as I put on my blouse. “You’re not only the best psychic, Charley girl, but I gotta say, you’re the best lay too.”
His words pumped up my head. I smiled and glanced over my shoulder at him. The sunlight shone on his face, and his hair was messy from sleep. His eyes drew lines up and down my backside, checking me out.
“We should really spend more time together,” he said.
“Really?” I had to admit I was surprised. I’d been drooling over him since we got there, but now that I’d had him, the pull wasn’t as strong. It was just easy, falling back into bad habits.
Maybe it was because I’d seen the dark places in his aura. Away from my outright lust, he wasn’t nearly as attractive.
Maybe just right for a girl like me.
No. I buttoned my blouse. “Yeah, I should probably scoot out of here.” The truth was, I wanted to hang out with Cord and Julia again. Find Katerina. Get Julia to her aunt. Feel clean.
His face fell when I said that, so I threw him a bone. “Maybe you could help me find Katerina, though?”
He smirked and tossed his head back. “Ahh, little Charley. She got kicked out of the program. You know that. That girl isn’t coming back. She’s running from the law.”
I didn’t believe him. I didn’t know why exactly, but it seemed off. I considered going back and walking the neighborhood again. Try to find her. Maybe we should file a police report.
Extraordinary Lies Page 20