Before they leave the trading field, Shell tells Mason, Clay, and the others that he thinks he dropped his glove in front of the cheese traders and would like to go back and have a peek. Mason agrees, a bit distracted as he and the others pack up the car.
Both gloves jammed into the waist of his pants, Shell glances in Brick’s direction, sensing that Brick knows he’s lying. He can see it on his face—the way Brick’s eyebrows furrow up for just a second.
Shell heads down the row where the girl was passing out angel wings. He finds the booth a little too easily. There’s nothing else around it now, just open fields for as far as he can see.
The girl is standing there, beaming at him. “Back so soon?” she asks.
Shell looks around him, wondering where all the other traders went. He looks back toward where his fellow campers were loading up the car—but they’re gone now, too.
“What are you waiting for?” She grabs the angel wings she picked out for him earlier and props them up on the table. “Try them on.”
Still confused over everyone’s sudden disappearance, Shell studies her a moment. She even looks like an angel—pale peachy skin, light silvery eyes, pinkish lips, and corn-silk-blond hair that hangs down the back of her long and shimmering gown.
“What’s your name?” Shell asks.
“Angel,” she says.
Shell holds back a laugh.
“What’s so funny? At least I know my name.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What’s your name?” she asks.
“Shell.”
“What’s your real name?”
Shell looks away, avoiding the question. He doesn’t remember his real name. So, like many of the campers who elect to change their name when they become members of the community—sort of like starting over fresh—Shell was renamed by Mason.
“I’m waiting . . . ” she sings, adjusting the makeshift halo she’s got wired over her head—a glittery cardboard ring attached to a stick that she’s got clipped to the back of her dress. It wavers back and forth as she moves, like antennae.
Shell focuses on her necklace a moment. “Where did you get that?” he asks. It’s a tiny emerald-green bottle that’s been threaded through a silver chain.
“My mother gave it to me. It was made from sea glass.” She grips the tiny cork, spilling a droplet of oil onto her finger. “Lavender oil,” she says. “Would you like a sniff?”
Shell nods, knowing that he’s seen a necklace like that before. It looks so familiar.
“I’ll bet it does,” she says, as though reading his mind. She dabs the oil at both sides of her neck, a smirk across her face.
“What are you talking about?”
Angel smiles wider. “Come closer,” she says, opening the collar of her dress. “Sometimes scents can help us remember things from the past.”
Shell leans forward, but he doesn’t smell a thing. Instead he notices the dark brown X on her neck, right over her collarbone, about the size of his thumbprint.
“Is that a tattoo?” he asks.
Angel runs her fingers over the X and nods. “It’s the rune for partnership. You have one as well, don’t you?”
“A tattoo?”
“No.” She sighs. “A partner.”
Shell nods, thinking of Lily.
“Not her,” Angel squawks, still reading his mind. “Your real partner. The one with the X on her neck.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re onto something with the whole To Candace, forever, with love thing . . . the inscription on that old couple’s pocket watch . . . I know how much it puzzles you.”
“What does it mean?”
“Are you kidding me?” Angel says, rolling her eyes. “Am I supposed to do all the work? A little brain power of your own, please.”
“Sorry.”
“Whatever. Let’s just get back to your partner. Do you know who I’m talking about . . . the one who’s got your wings all broken up . . . ?” She gestures toward his back, toward his invisible broken wings.
Shell shakes his head, thoroughly perplexed.
“Figures,” she says with another sigh. “Here.” She thrusts the pair of cardboard wings at him. “Put these on before you completely tick me off.”
“How do you know so much about me?”
“I’m your guardian angel,” she says. “It’s my job.”
Shell’s face scrunches, even more confused. “I’m not dead.”
“Hold that thought,” she whispers.
And, with that, Angel kisses his cheek and disappears, right along with his wings.
Shell wakes up a couple seconds later. Breathing hard, he rubs at his eyes and shakes his head, trying to get a grip. He looks over at Brick, still fast asleep in his bed, and then at the younger boys in their bunks across the room. He’s thankful that he didn’t wake them, but how is he supposed to fall back asleep now?
Instead of even trying, Shell crawls out of bed, grabs his coat, gloves, and hat, and heads outside. Using the waxing moon as his light, he walks past the chopping station, past the woods, and takes the trail that leads to the beach. There’s a dock out there, a fishing boat attached. Clay, Mason, and some of the elders often take the boat out—either for food or on one of the taking missions.
Shell takes a seat on the dock, looking toward the boat, wondering where Clay and Mason keep the ignition key. He dangles his feet toward the sea, suddenly feeling a bit scared, a bit uneasy, but he doesn’t know why. What’s bothering him? Is it the night . . . sneaking out and the fear of getting caught? Is it the dream he just had?
He breathes the salt air in, trying to figure it out, wondering if Angel is really the name of the girl at the trading field and if, in some way, she really was able to sense stuff about him. He cradles the pentacle rock in his coat pocket, imagining it as a giant crystal cluster that has the power to protect. Maybe if he’d had that sort of protection out on the streets, he wouldn’t be missing whole chunks of his life. He takes a deep breath in, watching the dark, murky sea as it splashes up on the dock legs, making him feel a little nauseated.
Why does he feel this way? Why did the sea glass necklace in his dream—Angel’s necklace—look so familiar to him? What did she mean when she said that he’s on to something with that inscription in the old couple’s pocket watch? Is it just his subconscious playing with him? Or is it something more?
A couple seconds later, he hears something—the squeak of rubber soles bearing down into the wet sand just behind him. Shell braces himself, wondering if he should hang off the dock, into the water, so as not to be seen. Mason has strict rules about not being out after curfew. What if someone noticed that his bed was empty?
He squints hard, trying to make out a figure. A moment later, a bright light shines in his eyes.
“Who’s there?” Shell calls out.
“’Tis I.” Brick laughs, angling his flashlight beam so that it lights up his face. “Did I scare you?”
Shell lets out a sigh of relief. “What are you doing here?”
Brick joins Shell on the dock. “I could ask you the same. Aren’t you freezing out here?”
Shell nods and follows Brick to the beach, where the group often has campfires. Brick starts the flame, extracting a small pouch from his pocket. “Dried dandelions,” he says, passing the pouch to Shell. “Have you ever used them before?”
Shell opens the pouch and holds it in the flashlight beam. He looks down at the bits of green, yellow, and brown, and then brings it to his nose for a sniff. The familiar sour scent of dried grass wafts up in his face. “For conjuring spirits, right?”
“I’m impressed,” Brick says. “You’ve obviously tried it before.”
Shell nods, confident that he has indeed tried i
t, but not remembering where.
Brick takes the pouch back, spilling the contents out over the fire. “So who shall we conjure up? Abraham Lincoln? Ghandi? Or maybe somebody more accessible . . . somebody we know . . . ”
Shell thinks about it a moment. Does he know anyone who’s passed on?
“How about Rosa,” Brick suggests. “Mason’s first wife. Mason said she died because she was raised in a material world; her family had lots of radiation-bearing gadgets like TVs, computers, microwave ovens . . . he says she became sick because of it.”
“Do you really believe that?”
Brick shrugs. “I believe Mason believes it. He often says how proud she’d be of our community, of what we’re doing here. Maybe if we contacted her, she could tell us secrets about—”
“My uncle,” Shell says, interrupting.
“What uncle?”
Shell shakes his head, his heart beating fast now. “I think I may have had an uncle who died.”
“You’re remembering stuff from your past?”
Shell nods, sure that he remembers going to a funeral—the procession of cars, the sea of long black coats, the flickering candles in a musk-scented church. “It just kind of came back to me . . . with the scent of the dandelions,” he says, remembering how, in his dream, Angel told him that scents can sometimes help people remember the past.
“It must be a powerful batch,” Brick says, enticing the fire by picking at it with a stick. “Can you picture what he looked like?”
Shell closes his eyes, trying his hardest to concentrate on a face, but all he remembers is that the casket was closed, like a giant, empty box.
“Hello?” Brick says, snapping his fingers.
“I don’t remember,” Shell whispers, opening his eyes.
“Well, it’s still good news. I mean, maybe your brain will eventually let you remember good things.”
Shell hopes that’s so. But then why did Mason tell him that nothing in his past was good?
“I want to talk to that girl again,” Shell says. “The one from the trading field.”
“With the wings?”
Shell nods.
“Told you, you should have tried on a pair.”
Shell shrugs. “When’s the next trading day?”
“Not for another month,” Brick says, tossing the stick into the fire. A series of embers fly up into the wind.
“I need to find her.”
Brick chews at his lower lip. “We’re supposed to be going into town tomorrow. Mason wants us to shop for supplies.”
“And?”
“And, who knows . . . maybe she’ll be there. If it’s meant to be . . . Don’t you believe in fate?”
“I believe we make our own fate.” Shell scrunches his face at his own words, at his seeming confidence in them.
“It was fate that brought you to our camp,” Brick says, swiping a piece of his long blondish hair from in front of his eye. “Did you make that happen?”
“I don’t know how I got here. I just woke up one day and here I was.”
“Precisely,” Brick says. “Fate.”
Shell thinks about it a moment and shakes his head. Whenever he asks about his arrival at the camp, he always gets the same version of the story—that Clay, Mason, and Rock found him on the streets, that he was starving and nearly beaten to death. He sits back on his heels, remembering the wounds that covered his body—the gash to the back of his head, where it’s still tender, where his dark brown hair hasn’t fully grown back yet. He remembers Sienna, one of the elder women, looking after him in the elder women’s cabin.
“Whatever happened to Rock?” Shell asks.
“He isn’t here anymore,” Brick explains. “He left the camp shortly after your arrival. We’re not really supposed to talk about him.”
“Why not?”
“Just a rule,” Brick says. “Mason doesn’t like it when people leave the camp. I think he’s afraid talking about it might encourage more people to go.”
“Is that what the barbed wire fence is for?”
Brick shrugs. “Mason says the wire’s to keep people out —strays, you know—people who don’t belong, who don’t understand our mission of peace.”
Shell looks away, knowing that it’s all a pile of crap. Why else would they need a chaperone to leave the camp premises? Why else would they not be allowed to stray too far into the woods? Shell wonders if he’ll ever be able to leave and, if so, where he’d possibly go.
“Speaking of missing rocks,” Brick says with a smirk, “did you hear about the stone jewelry that was taken from Rain’s trading table today? She said it was a turquoise ring and a jade bracelet.”
“Does she know who did it?”
Brick shrugs and looks away, grabbing another stick. “She thinks it was probably someone she traded with. Maybe they took more than their share when she wasn’t looking.”
“What do you think?” Shell asks, clearly sensing that Brick doesn’t believe that’s the truth.
Brick pauses from fire-poking to meet Shell’s eye. “Maybe we shouldn’t be talking about this.”
“You think it was Clay, don’t you?”
Brick shrugs.
“Do you still think he took that necklace?” Shell continues.
Brick squirms slightly. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“You can trust me. I won’t say anything.”
“That isn’t the point.”
“Then what is?” Shell demands. “It’s not like we don’t steal, too.”
“We don’t steal,” Brick says firmly.
“Well, I don’t know what else to call it.” Shell sighs. “We break into people’s houses and take their things behind their backs. How is that any different than Clay taking from Rain? Haven’t you ever questioned it? Even once?”
Instead of answering, Brick resumes prodding the fire with the stick. “He has a gun, you know?” he says after several moments.
“Clay?”
Brick nods. “I’m pretty sure, but no one’s supposed to know about it.”
“How come you know?”
“I was there,” he says, focusing back into the fire. “I think he took it on one of the taking missions. He acted like the sight of the gun made him sick but, when I checked the drawer on my way out, it was gone.”
“Why do you think he’d need a gun?” Shell asks, growing more uneasy by the moment.
Brick shrugs. “For protection, probably.”
“Protection from what?”
“For the taking missions, maybe. Or for trespassers who break into our camp . . . who want to violate our mission of peace.”
“Do you really believe all that?”
Brick doesn’t answer. Instead, he sits back and wipes at his brow, at the tears of sweat that roll down his face in spite of the chilly morning air. “You won’t tell anyone about this, will you?” he asks, finally.
Shell shakes his head, not exactly sure what he’s agreeing to. “As long as you don’t tell anyone that I’m starting to remember pieces of my past.”
“But that’s good news. Why don’t you want anyone to know?”
“For the same reason you don’t want me to say anything about Clay.”
Brick smiles slightly, and the two sit in silence for several minutes, watching the fire as it snaps up into the wind.
“We’re a lot alike, I think,” Brick says, venturing to look up at Shell.
Shell nods. He couldn’t agree more.
I’m walking down a long, dark tunnel toward a bright and shimmering light. There’s a rhythmic sound all around me, like a beating heart. Is it mine? I place my hand over my chest, but I can’t tell. The nerves in my body tremble. My fingers shake. There’s a splashing sound
at my feet. I look down, realizing that the sound is coming from me, that I’m walking knee-deep in water. There are hands sticking up through the surface of the stream—long, pale, and twisted fingers that reach out to touch me, to pull me under. I do my best to walk a straight path to avoid them, but it’s hard.
“Long time no see, Miss Stacey B,” says a female voice, the same childlike voice from before. “I’m the girl who’ll set you free.”
“How?” I hear myself shout out. “Who are you?”
Her shadow scampers through the light; I see her dress skirt out behind her. “Don’t you remember, cutie pie? About the boy who’s going to die.” At that, a hand wraps around my leg and tries to pull me forward, into the water. I hold myself back, struggling to keep my balance, trying to kick the hand away, using the heel of my other foot.
“Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead!” she sings. Her silhouette appears in the light. She has long, straight hair that goes past her waist. The rest of her is draped in the dress, big and flowing, like maybe she’s playing dress-up. There’s a ball in her hand. She bends down to roll it at me. The ball travels along the surface of the stream before it gets eaten up.
I continue to kick at the hand, but it won’t let go. It grips tighter, cutting at my circulation. My leg throbs. My foot turns numb.
“My daughter has a burning arm, you see. A bright red heart and the letter T. You need to help her, it’s what you’re meant for. ’Cause if you don’t, Jacob will be no more.”
Jacob? My eyes widen. “Is he here?”
She reaches into her other pocket, pulling out what I know is my chunky crystal rock. She holds it up, the light casting through the chips and indentures making it glow. “Dive right in, Miss Stacy B, if it’s Jacob you’ve come to see.”
With that, the girl dives into the water. I follow, allowing the hand to pull me under.
• • •
I spend that night studying in the library, trying to catch up on my work, motivated by the dream—by the promise of Jacob. I play the words from the dream over and over again in my mind—a bright red heart and the letter T—wondering what they mean, what the letter T stands for. I brainstorm ways to connect it to Jacob, but nothing seems to work—not his middle name (Cameron), not his astrological sign (Capricorn), not his hometown (Vail), and not his favorite food (brownies). For just a second, I feel my heart thump, remembering that he owned a dog for part of his childhood, but that the dog ran away. I rack my brain, trying to remember the dog’s name. But when it hits me, my heart goes flat again. His name was Sleepy, named after one of the Seven Dwarves. How ironic, I think, since sleepy is exactly what I’m feeling.
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