by C. J. Valles
Taking her hand in mine, I lead her to the path back.
“Close your eyes first.”
She looks at me, her eyes alight with suspicion.
“Are we going to fly?” she demands, imagining J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan and Wendy Darling flying through the night sky.
I laugh quietly.
“Not quite.”
Before she has a chance to begin arguing, I wrap my arm around her waist. Gasping, Wren closes her eyes, her expression one of foreboding. When we reach the opposite side of the cliffs in an instant, I set her on the ground and take her hand. She opens her eyes, intent on interrogating me. Smiling, I interrupt her thought process.
“Did you notice anything unusual when you arrived here?”
She glares at me momentarily before sighing.
“You mean other than you?”
“I meant your capacity for misfortune.”
Her eyes narrow.
“Bad luck? Let’s see. I freaked out and fainted in front of a bunch of strangers on my second day of class, I slipped and nearly killed myself on the cafeteria floor, then a drunk driver would have mowed me down if it hadn’t been for you …”
Stepping from the brush, I lead her to the car and open her door. She sits, starting slightly when she finds me behind the wheel.
“Why does it matter?” she asks.
“Because it wasn’t simply luck.”
She frowns.
“What then?”
“A Gathering.”
“A gathering?” she repeats flatly.
“Your presence is attracting … bad things.”
“You’re serious?”
When I nod, her brow furrows.
“What about you? How did you get here before I did?”
“Let’s just say I had a head start.”
“You knew I was coming here?” she asks incredulously.
“Yes.”
“I don’t get it. If you knew about me this whole time, why didn’t you just show up in Topanga and—”
She swallows, unable to continue.
“I could see where you would be, not where you had been,” I tell her without elaborating.
Frowning again, she struggles to find logic in this newly presented information.
“You can see the future, but not the present—whoa, hold on. You can see the future?”
“Not in the way you’re imagining. It’s not a linear view so much as it is a bending of time. A brief glimpse—a trail to follow.”
“Into the future?” she asks.
I nod, and Wren looks down at her abdomen in embarrassment as the peristalsis of her gastrointestinal tract produces a growling sound. She has been hours without food, and anything she consumed during the lunch period was negligible at best.
“I’ve kept you too long.”
“No! I’m fine. Really,” she says quickly.
I smile.
“You are a poor liar.”
She crosses her arms over her chest.
“Well, yeah. Sure I am—when you can poke around in my head for answers.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” I laugh.
Of course, how would she know this? When I turn to her, her smile is radiant.
I can’t help enjoying every second I’m with him. This scares me more than anything else.
“This whole honesty thing between us is pretty new,” she points out. “I barely know anything about you.”
“You know more than anyone else,” I offer more seriously, pausing. “It was wrong of me to tell you any of this—”
Again, she shakes her head.
“Stop! No more regret. … I don’t regret meeting you.”
I study her, wishing she had not admitted as much.
I already know that I can’t regret my connection with Ever, whether it means as much to him or not.
I feel a spike of frustration. This girl is the most obdurate creature on the planet—how can she continue believe that I care nothing for her?
“I don’t regret our meeting. I only wish …”
I stop. What do I wish for? Do I truly wish that I had never laid eyes upon her? Do I truly wish that I had left her untouched by the war for this world? Yes, part of me would like to spare her from it; however, another part, deep within me, wishes for more than I can reasonably ask of her. Oblivious to my contemplation, she turns to me.
“So … I’m not sure how I see stuff in people’s heads, but I need eye contact, at least with normal people.” When she frowns at her choice of the word normal, I smile, and she exhales. “Well, your ability goes way beyond mine. Can you try to explain how it works?”
Looking at her, I raise an eyebrow before turning my eyes back to the road. Once again, her thought process is so chaotic that I struggle to parse her rationale for wanting this information.
“Because I kind of want to avoid embarrassing myself every five minutes,” she adds softly, as though she is answering my unspoken question.
“In most cases, I can only see thoughts as they are crossing a person’s mind during a particular moment in time,” I say, hoping to ease her mind. “It’s not an endless catalog of an individual’s every thought. The reception becomes much hazier if the person is highly agitated or frightened, and it can make the flow of information difficult to follow, including a person’s location. That night …” My hands grip the steering wheel as I envision her in the darkened cemetery. “I used poor judgment. By trying to keep my distance, I nearly cost you your life.”
Her breathing hitches at the memory, but she shakes her head.
“It wasn’t your fault. I told you to leave me alone.”
“I knew better!” I snarl, keeping my eyes fixed the road ahead. “I just couldn’t bring myself to admit how badly I was being compromised by these emotions.”
Wren frowns as I pull into a parking space in the Nob Hill neighborhood of Portland.
“What’s so wrong with emotions?” she demands.
“Nothing, for you, but I am supposed to be able to control them.”
“That’s ridiculous. You can’t control what you feel.”
“I can.” I shake my head and glance at her. I had controlled my emotions for millennia—until her. “I could.”
“That sounds awful, ignoring what you feel,” she says sadly.
“Necessary and useful, though.”
“To feel nothing? Why? Besides, your friend Chasen seemed perfectly capable—of anger at least.”
This causes me to smile.
“That is Chasen. I have found it easier to operate without such a human vulnerability. It is useful to understand human emotion, not to suffer from it.”
I feel the intensity of her gaze upon me.
“And now?” she whispers.
I turn to face her.
“I wouldn’t give up what I feel for anything.”
As she stares into my eyes, I contemplate how easy it would be to lean forward and touch my lips to hers—to feel the softness of her skin and hear her sharp intake of breath. It would be reckless, though, seeing as I cannot predict how much of my mind she would be exposed to. As if sensing the danger, she flinches and looks around, suddenly aware that the car has stopped.
“Dinner?” I ask, thankful that the reverie has been broken.
Exiting the car, I walk to her side and open the door. Wren steps out and peers at the restaurant on the corner.
It looks expensive, she reflects warily.
When I begin walking toward the establishment’s entrance, she pauses before joining me, blushing when I open the door for her. Wren stares into the kitchen, her stomach growling at the smell of food.
Is he crazy? I can’t afford this! she thinks desperately.
A young woman walks up, her eyes speculatively traveling over me before she catches sight of Wren.
Please say that’s his little sister.
Hearing the woman’s thought, Wren grimaces and attempts to take a step back.
“How
may I help you?” the woman asks in a suggestive tone.
I gesture toward the dining area and take Wren’s hand.
“For two.”
When the woman pauses at a large circular table at the center of the room, I shake my head in disapproval before she redirects to a table in a corner a good distance away from the other early evening diners. When she turns, seeking my approval, her eyes drift to Wren’s hand in mine.
“Your server will be right with you.”
That’s gotta be his little sister, she thinks, smiling suggestively at me before departing.
I hold out Wren’s chair before taking the seat across from her. She stares dolefully at the menu, mentally calculating how much money she is carrying in her wallet.
“We didn’t have to come here. … Unless you wanted to eat,” she says carefully as she imagines me in Springview’s cafeteria with an untouched tray.
“You’re hungry,” I tell her, pausing as I debate whether I will cross another line with the next words I speak. “And I didn’t want to take you home yet.”
As I watch Wren, her breathing becomes shallow. Staring into her eyes, I feel the voices of billions of minds fall silent. For a few seconds in time, there is nothing but her. Then a man steps to the table, distracting her as he fills the water glasses and leaves bread and olive oil. Blushing, she looks at me.
“Well, I didn’t want to go home yet, but you already knew that, because you cheat.”
She smiles and looks down at the bread.
If I were here with Josh—or even Jeff Summers—it would make more sense.
“Wren, please do not give me any more reason than I already have to snap Summers in two tomorrow,” I growl, reminded of his prurient thoughts about her.
She straightens in her seat, her cheeks flushing again as she leans forward.
“Haven’t you heard of the concept of privacy? Besides, I wasn’t thinking that I would rather be here with—”
“Don’t.” She stops and stares at me, wide-eyed. “Don’t even say his name. I know you should be here, anywhere, with one of those boys. I don’t need you to remind me of how far I’ve pulled you out of your world.”
Wren frowns, feeling alienated by my statement. I turn and look at the server, who is looking back and forth between us, embarrassed to have come upon us during what he assumes is an argument. Wren looks over and flinches at the man’s expression. Pulling her hands into her lap, she sits back in her seat.
“I’m Doug. I’ll be your server this evening. Our chef has prepared Muscovy duck confit with black lentils, celery root, radicchio, Spanish chorizo, green beans—”
“Thank you,” I say quietly as Wren silently rehearses her order. “The lady will have the seared sea scallops and a Coke.”
Turning, she stares at me. When it becomes clear I have no intention to order for myself, the server departs.
“I was going to order the mushroom risotto,” Wren sputters in alarm. “Why did you do that?”
“Why were you going to order the risotto?”
She lifts her shoulders.
“It sounded good.”
“And what did you really want?” I ask.
Her cheeks flush again.
“Fine! I didn’t want to order the most expensive thing on the menu, okay?”
“And your plan was to order the least expensive?”
“Yes. What’s wrong with that?”
I frown, seeing the situation from her perspective. Of course she never expected me to pay for her meal.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I simply wished for you to order what you truly wanted. I never intended for you to pay. I should have made that clear.”
Rather than being relieved not to have to pay, she shakes her head.
“But you’re not having anything. And I don’t expect you to buy me dinner just because I’m hungry.”
“Have you always been this stubborn?” I ask, smiling.
She laughs.
“Me? You won’t stop reading my mind.”
“Only when it’s convenient or necessary,” I point out, pleased by her humorous demeanor.
Still smiling, she presses her index finger to her lips, as though contemplating.
“Hmm. Convenient or necessary. That’s all the time, right?”
“No. I’ve found I enjoy hearing you speak.”
She stares at me speechlessly for a moment before looking down. Taking a piece of bread, she swirls it in the dish of olive oil before taking a bite. Her mother has just placed a call from her work phone, and I watch as Wren reaches into her pocket. She glances at me, and I rise as she pushes back her chair. She looks over her shoulder once as she hurries toward the restaurant’s exit. As soon as Wren steps outside, the hostess leaves her post and walks over to me.
“Are you taking your little sister out for dinner?” she coos.
He sure got the looks in that family, she thinks smugly.
I smile as Wren finishes her conversation with her mother and walks into the restaurant. Her features freeze as she sees the woman standing at the table in front of me.
She’s very pretty, Wren thinks.
Reaching into my pocket, I extract the shiny black box and flick it open, keeping it hidden from Wren’s view. The woman’s eyes widen as she looks down at the ring within, and her eyes flicker to mine. I press my index finger to my lips. When I look toward Wren, she frowns and slowly walks to the table, afraid she is interrupting. The hostess departs wordlessly as I rise to pull out Wren’s chair.
What does he see in her? the woman thinks insolently as she retreats.
Wren takes her seat, and as I sit across from her, she looks over at the hostess before averting her eyes quickly. With a halfhearted smile, she meets my gaze.
“You give yourself very little credit,” I say evenly.
Her eyes flash.
“I give myself plenty of credit where I deserve it.”
“No, clearly you don’t.”
A member of the wait staff arrives with her meal. She smiles at him before looking back at me.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demands.
“You believe that woman is more attractive than you?”
“I cannot believe we’re even having this conversation.”
Reaching for her fork, she takes a bite of something from her plate. She frowns, considering her response as she chews.
“I wasn’t comparing myself to her. I was just thinking she’s very pretty.”
She takes another bite of food, her expression alone inspiring me to wish for cause to indulge in food.
“But you thought I would be interested in her?” I press her.
“I don’t see why not,” Wren says with false nonchalance.
Abruptly she stops and stares at me with an inquisitive expression.
“Unless you don’t have those types of feelings?”
Her cheeks turn a bright pink as I watch her.
Didn’t he say it was more convenient not to have human emotions—and what emotion could be more distracting than attraction? she wonders.
“I said it was problematic, not impossible, to have human emotions,” I respond carefully.
“Oh.”
She looks down, busying herself with the remainder of her meal. Her circuitous round of questioning has inadvertently veered into troubling territory. My interest and awareness of her could certainly be construed as romantic, purely based upon the word’s many definitions.
Romantic, adjective:
Fanciful, impractical; unrealistic
Imbued with or dominated by idealism
Characterized by a preoccupation with love or by the idealizing of love or one’s beloved
Ardent; passionate; fervent
The last definition is the most disquieting, but there is no denying what I feel for her is characterized by passion. Wren finishes her meal in silence before I signal to the server. When he arrives with the bill, I pay in cash, leavi
ng the remainder as gratuity. Rising, I gesture for Wren to walk ahead of me. When she sees the hostess scrutinizing me, she surprises me by smiling.
I can’t blame her. How many times had I done the same thing before I knew he could hear me? It makes me wonder if it gets old listening to people salivating over you all the time.
“Thank you,” Wren says quietly as we exit the restaurant. “For dinner.”
I nod and open her door for her when we reach the car.
This is starting to feel oddly date-like, not that I would know, she thinks absentmindedly before looking at me and wondering if I am always aware of the thoughts around me.
I accept that it is better she not know that I hear every human being’s thoughts all the time. It is only whether I take an interest or not that determines how much attention I pay to said thoughts. Wren’s eyes remain upon me as I drive through the Nob Hill area toward the West Hills.
Perfect and immortal, if I believe what he said the other night. Never older or younger than he is now. I can’t imagine this, either, she thinks.
When we reach the hills separating the city from the suburbs, she tentatively begins to speak.
“You said before that you would never get older than you are now. How is that possible?”
“My organic composition is not as delicate as yours.”
She turns to face me, recalling the touch of my fingers against her cheek. She shivers.
Unyielding and perfectly smooth, yet radiating heat.
“You’re not an android, are you?” she asks cautiously, still trying to understand what I am in reference to her own nature.
“No. Though I was created more so than being born.”
Her eyebrows are arched in surprise when I look at her.
“Would you like me to continue?” I ask carefully.
She nods, but appears less than certain.
“Our form here is an approximation of our—I suppose souls is the best way to describe them. Physically, we’re mostly human, though more durable and advanced than humans when we cross the barrier into this dimension.”
She smiles, imagining a film about creatures of this realm that evolved to have supernatural powers not dissimilar to ours.
“Teleportation, clairvoyance, mind reading, telekinesis … I feel like I’m in a freaking comic book,” she says humorously, trying to mask her disquiet and the lurking suspicion that she is insane.