by J M Fraser
She giggled. “Should I be flattered you’re enjoying my company? You’ve earned a gift!” She fished a coin out of her dress pocket and gave it to him.
Brian rolled it from front to back in his hand. Each side showed the face of some hag whose hair flared out behind her as if caught in the wind.
“Once upon a time, a young man stole a lass’s heart when he appeared at her window and gave her a coin as well as a promise.”
“Is that from another poem?”
She shrugged. “Or a romance. Use this one to buy something, Brian, first chance you get.”
What to buy? He glanced around the cabin. Books, candles, old furniture, the cat. He turned to her, and he knew.
“No, not a kiss,” she said.
“I wasn’t…” Sure he was. The little-sister idea wouldn’t hold him at bay much longer. First, she wasn’t his sister. And second, she was so… Best not to go there. He slipped the coin into his pocket and glanced at the book. “I should jot some of those symbols down and look them up on the Internet.”
“On the…” Rebecca crinkled her forehead, giving the impression she wanted to try her unaware-of-technology joke again. She even reached in her pocket as if going for her little notebook. But she quit the game, motioning to the door, instead. “Come with me. You can’t say you visited Nebraska unless you breathe the night air.”
They headed outside, sat on the step, caught fireflies, chatted. Rebecca wouldn’t answer any questions about herself, steering their talk instead to the local geography. Apparently the sandy hills had been formed by ancient rivers and glaciers. “Or maybe an inland sea,” she said. She pulled a tiny shell out of her pocket. “Look what I found behind the cabin one day.”
“I’ll definitely buy me one of those.” He held up the two-faced coin.
She laughed, they traded, and he became the proud owner of a Sand Hills seashell.
Later, they found a creek and dipped their toes into the rushing water. A shooting star shot over the roof of the cabin. She kissed him then, quick, on the cheek, and he wrapped an arm around her. They sat together on a rock and listened to the crickets until she yawned.
“I’ve got overnight stuff in my car,” he said, “and a sleeping bag.”
“Too far to walk in the dark, Brian.”
They went back inside. Rebecca led him into a tiny room where two simple beds sat a few feet apart from each other. She fished a faded nightgown from a dresser wedged in a corner of the room. “You’ll have to sleep in your clothes unless you want one of these.”
“Ha ha.”
“Turn around, Brian.”
“Wait. I’ll go in the kitchen while you change.”
“The food’s all gone,” she said. “Stay here. I trust you not to look.”
Rebecca must have come straight out of the comic books. Lois Lane would have trusted. Mary Jane would have trusted. Who else? Nobody.
Maintaining her trust became more important than breathing. So he turned. He waited. He dared not to look. He hoped not to blush.
“Now back.”
Although dressed in an ordinary nightgown, Rebecca stole the oxygen out of the room. Her red hair threatened to ignite the simple white fabric into flames.
His heart pounded. Had to be because she’d changed right behind him. Had to be because they stood so close together.
She settled onto the edge of a bed. “I wondered something.”
With head spinning from a bullet blend of desire mixed with emotions less defined, Brian almost didn’t hear her. He collapsed onto the opposite bed. “What?”
“You had an odd look on your face when we met, almost as if you’d seen a ghost. What was wrong?”
He hesitated. That moment he first laid eyes on Rebecca had destiny written all over it. He’d seen her earlier in his dreams! But would she buy a ridiculous story anyone else would laugh off? “You startled me, coming out of nowhere the way you did.”
“I almost had the impression you knew me.” Rebecca leveled him with a razor-sharp stare she must have stolen from his parents. They had B.S. detection down to a science.
He squirmed.
She waited.
He swallowed. “Okay, don’t laugh. I’ve been having nightmares about a girl who looks like you. She’s stranded on a rock in the ocean, and there’s this hangman or whatever after her. A guy with glowing eyes.”
“Oh.” Rebecca broke eye contact. She grabbed a corner of the bedsheet in her hand, bunched it up, released it, then crumpled it again. “Is there an imp in your dream?”
“A what?”
“An imp.” Her voice had gotten edgy, and not in a good way.
“Not unless imps look like tall dudes with glowing eyes.”
Rebecca shut her eyes and worked the sheet in her hand like a stress ball.
Silent vow time. Nix on any dream talk ever again. Brian looked past Rebecca and counted the wall. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen planks. He started in on the floorboards. One, two, three—
“I’m glad we met today.” She’d opened her eyes again. And she was smiling at him. The storm clouds had passed.
He breathed. “Same here.”
Rebecca came off the bed, kissed his cheek, and skipped to an oil lamp hanging from the wall, blowing out the flame. “Sweet dreams, Brian.”
“You, too.” He shut his eyes, but the idea of getting any sleep was ridiculous. Rebecca’s odd mood shift triggered a parade of disturbing images through his mind—the creepy hitchhiker, the wrong-way eclipse, the impossibly shifting road surface, the noose. Some local bully, Abigail, had been punking Rebecca. He clenched his fists.
A better image came waltzing in. A pretty girl coming up behind him on the side of the road. The same girl he’d seen in his dreams. Rebecca. She’d kissed him. Twice.
He opened his fists.
Rebecca had read that story about the vagrant for a good half hour, maybe longer. No one could have memorized so many stanzas. She knew magic. How else could he explain it? And not only because she translated hieroglyphics. Where did the food come from? How about that funhouse mirror in the next room?
Rebecca knew magic. Rebecca was magic. And she liked him. But mysterious storm clouds darkened her mood at times. She needed a hero.
A guy could build his plans around being there for her.
Yeah? What kind of plans? How did a girl living in Nebraska fit in with a guy going to college in Wisconsin? A girl without a phone, or a computer.
He clenched his fists again and tried to fight off reality. Rebecca knew magic, Rebecca was magic, and Rebecca liked him. Almost as much as he’d fallen for her? One could only hope they’d find a way.
Sometime later—minutes? hours?—he opened his eyes.
The room had gone pitch-black. Judging by the steady breathing coming from the other bed, Rebecca had fallen asleep. Hopefully no glowing-eyed man ever messed with her dreams.
Brian closed his eyes again.
More time passed. Dreams became nightmares. An empty gallows. A snarling black cat. Maggots spilling out of the bread and cheese in the kitchen. Brian shot his eyes open. His heart pounded.
A muffled moan came from the next bed.
He was up in an instant.
But Rebecca had simply rolled over in her sleep. The bottom of her sheet slipped to the floor, leaving her legs bare against a chilly draft humming like a harmonica through cracks in the cabin’s window frames.
House-sitting for friends? Squatting? Either way, she’d picked one creepy cabin to stay in.
He pulled the sheet over her again.
A sliver of moonlight sifting through the window revealed a door on the opposite wall. Brian stared at it, demanding himself to man up.
He opened the door and stepped back, fast.
Just a closet. What did he think he’d find on the other side, zombies? He grabbed a blanket from a shelf.
Something rubbed against his ankle. “Huh!”
Simon meowed. The black cat would have ble
nded into the darkened room if not for a pair of bright eyes offering no apology for scaring the daylights out of him.
Brian reached down.
The cat didn’t shy away.
So he lifted the little guy and put him next to Rebecca. “Keep her warm.”
She slept like an angel. A tangle of red hair splaying across the pillow framed her peaceful face.
* * *
Rebecca snuck an eye open again, as she had when Brian covered her with the sheet and blanket and made the clamor with Simon. What wonderful qualities he had, just as she remembered from so long ago. Protectiveness, kindness, gallantry. She lay beneath a blanket and had a purring cat at her side as evidence. And Brian had been quick to console her earlier when Abigail’s tree-noose prank nearly broke her into tears.
Rebecca and Brian had met before, of course, and she’d briefly prayed he remembered—impossible a notion as that might be. She’d been fooled by the dim recognition in his eyes when she approached him and his silly car, only to have her spirits later dashed when he told her about the nightmares. Abigail or Henry had surely planted her image in his mind. Pranks, always pranks, especially from Abigail.
Rebecca gazed down at her hands. She’d balled them into fists yet again.
Good. She clung to the anger like an extra blanket. If in too soft a mood, she’d never be able to leave.
She got up, knelt beside Brian’s bed, and ran her fingers into his hair.
He didn’t stir.
“I’m sorry, but courting can’t be rushed. I have to follow the Witches Code.”
Rebecca hurried out of the cabin.
Chapter 6
Brian sped past the snarky hitchhiker without giving her a second glance, slowed at the billboard, gaped at two nooses this time, and swerved toward the sun. A solar flare shot into his eyes. He gasped, hit the brakes.
Car became bed. Daylight streamed in from the window. Not as bad as in the dream. Not blinding. But still annoying.
He grabbed for his pillow.
It slipped to the floor.
Where was he?
Nebraska. Yeah, in a cabin with…
With anyone? Something didn’t feel right. Like he’d awakened in a place with about as much life as an empty storage shed.
He cracked his eyes open. The bed across from his was deserted. “Rebecca?”
Not a word in reply. Or a meow. Or the sound of anything but an occasional wind gust humming through the cabin.
He crawled out of bed. Empty drawers hanging halfway out of her dresser sent him reeling. A closet stripped to the hangers dealt another body blow, and a bare Jane Austen shelf in the living room delivered the knockout.
He had trouble inhaling the heavy air. Or maybe he didn’t feel like breathing. How had he slept over the noise Rebecca must have made when leaving? And why would she pack up and take off without a word of explanation?
He sank onto the couch and stared into a mirror that had showcased them the night before, not as pioneers really, but as boyfriend and girlfriend. Yeah, that idea had been rushed and ridiculous and the kind of thing they might have joked about later, but now he had nobody to laugh with.
The still air smelled as stale as an attic. Sunlight leaking through dull windows barely illuminated the dust motes caught in its halfhearted rays. Rebecca hadn’t merely taken her things. She’d stripped her magic out of the cabin.
He couldn’t allow himself to wallow in this gloom. He had to open the front door, let in some fresh air, and—
A pulse of brighter daylight came at him from the side. He glanced through the kitchen doorway and found so sharp a contrast he blinked to be sure. Yep. The sunshiny room beckoned him like a strobe light. A ray of hope. “Rebecca?”
Still no answer.
Off the couch to check it out, he paused at the kitchen doorway and caught his breath. The change in atmosphere was like flying in Oz’s balloon from the grayness of Kansas to a land alive with 3-D color images. A yellow brick road, only without the Munchkins. She’d left echoes of herself, starting with pink and blue wildflowers bursting out of a vase on the table. Even from a distance, their fragrance overcame the cabin’s stifling mustiness with a whiff of summer.
His next step into the kitchen brought the bakery aroma he’d relished the day before. She’d made more bread. And a smiley face grinned up from a plate beside the loaf, formed by curved slices of cheese, a matchstick nose, and two eyes made of sugar cubes.
A small, folded piece of paper poked out from beneath the plate. She must have torn it from that little notebook she kept in her pocket. The question of what she might have written stirred more anticipation than a thousand un-cracked fortune cookies. He snatched it up.
Enjoy a hearty breakfast! You’ll find cider in the jug by the window. Also, I left something important in the cupboard above the spice rack. Keep it for me, and please be clever. You must figure everything out on your own.
R
Brian hurried to the cabinet. Cups, dishes, salt and pepper shakers on the lower shelf. He stretched onto tiptoe.
Her book sat on the upper shelf. She’d tied it closed with a blue ribbon.
How did a girl several inches shorter than he was get it up there? Whatever. Good at jump and toss, maybe. He stretched on tiptoes, grabbed it, and got it down. Then opened the thing and flipped through the pages. Same Greek script on steroids. Same sketches of vagrants, dungeons, dragons. An upright oval mirror like the one in the living room but with a spiral where the glass should be. A black cat. A half-empty hourglass.
What did she mean by clever? Were these drawings supposed to be clues to a riddle?
He flicked the tied ribbon with a finger. It twanged back down like a rubber band, and a sensation of wild genius washed over him. Like what he might have gotten from gobbling an extra slice of pie or by scarfing down half a bag of glazed donuts. Like he could solve the secrets of the universe if only he’d stop bouncing up and down.
But he still couldn’t decipher the hieroglyphics, and he didn’t see a pattern in the sketches. He set the book on the table and tied it closed again.
The sugar buzz lingered. Twitchy now, he went to the window, took in the vast expanse of hills and prairie, and figured Rebecca out. She’d been escaping this lonely chunk of nowhere when he met her at the road. He’d acted as her pause button, tripping her up for a few hours. But not long enough. Not nearly long enough.
She moved on.
The future dimmed to a zombie-like existence where he’d drag himself from moment to moment, place to place. He didn’t even have the energy for that. Maybe he’d just crawl back in bed and sleep for a few days.
But wait. Her note hinted at a possible reunion. Keep it for me, she’d said. This wasn’t the end, then, was it?
What would Spiderman do if Mary Jane bolted before they’d gotten the chance to kick their friendship out of low gear? What would he do if, instead of buildings to swing from, he found nothing but scrubby bushes?
He’d run out the door and head for the road, where Rebecca had gone yesterday.
A gas can on the doorstep nearly sent him sprawling.
He found a second note tied to the handle with a string.
This is from the farmer. Don’t look for me. I’ll come after you when I can.
Yeah? How? He fished a pen out of his pocket and scribbled his contact information on the other side of the note. Address. Phone number. Email? Good luck with that. Social media wasn’t Rebecca’s strong suit.
No way would a note work. She’d already left. He crumpled the thing and almost tossed it, but he didn’t have any other straws to grasp at. He took the note into the kitchen and left it on the table for her. Just in case she did come back. Maybe. Hopefully.
Of course she would. Otherwise, what was the point of exploding into his life in the first place?
Now what? There had to be a better plan than the Nebraska version of a message in a bottle. Maybe her farmer friend would have a clue where she went. Or he cou
ld shoot back to the road and look for her there.
Oh, to be a thousand feet up, scanning the countryside for redheaded angels.
Farmer first. He headed back outside. The trail he and Rebecca had taken from the road to the cabin yesterday forked out back, with one prong leading to the creek where they’d soaked their feet. The memory of watching a shooting star with her ached as bad as the empty drawers in the bedroom. He wouldn’t find any farms by the creek, only hopeless longing.
He chose the other path and followed it through a narrow gap between two small rises. The trail spilled into a field of undulating hills on the opposite side.
Off in the distance, someone walked alone—not on the path, but angling instead through the scrub. Someone in a dress.
He blinked, shaded his eyes, and still saw her in the fantastic, golden rays of a beautiful, sunny day. “Rebecca!”
He hurried after her, got closer, shouted again.
She didn’t turn.
Closer still, the sunlight took on a sinister edge. His eyes had tricked him. This girl had different hair. Darker. Scraggly. She wasn’t Rebecca, but he’d seen her before. Hitchhiking.
Okay, now he was leaping to crazy conclusions. The crabby hitchhiker in Wyoming didn’t have a monopoly on the farm-girl look.
The girl sped her pace. He quickened his. She broke into a run.
Did he make her do that? He stopped chasing. “Sorry,” he said to the wind and the bushes, the hills. He hadn’t meant to scare anyone.
He’d lost the path. Where had the girl led him? To that farm in the near distance.
He hurried over.
No sign of the apple orchard Rebecca mentioned. Just a low wooden fence separating Brian from some animals gathered alongside an off-kilter barn more gray than red. Chickens clucked and flapped their wings. A couple cows munched on whatever cows eat. The wind didn’t do him any favors, gusting their stench in his direction.
A German shepherd charged out from around the side of the barn, barking, snarling, then settling on its haunches near the gate. A gate that wasn’t closed all the way.
Oops. Brian eased sideways alongside the fence, away from the open gate and the dog’s direct line of fire.