“I need to get some fresh air,” she said.
“We have to talk,” said Georg.
“After I get back.”
“No!” Georg sounded angry.
“Georg, I’m sorry, but I really need to be alone right now. I’ll be back soon.” She turned to go.
He didn’t respond. But two seconds later, he rippled solid in front of her, blocking her path. He was angry. His arms were folded over his chest and a vein pulsed on one temple. “I really don’t want you to leave right now,” he said.
And then, before he said anything further, Katrin knew what he was going to do. He was going to order her to fall asleep. And she would do it. She had yet to discover a way to undo the strong post-hypnotic suggestion. She spun and stuffed her fingers in her ears. She needed just a moment—half a heartbeat to calm and disappear. Her heart pounded furiously and she felt adrenaline coursing through her body. Georg would see her do it, but she was done with him.
Georg appeared before her again, yanking her arms from her head, angrier than ever. Before she could vanish, Georg shouted, “Vai a dormire!”
She collapsed in his arms, asleep before she could register the attack.
26
BLACK SAND
Georg stood with Katrin’s slumped form in his arms. Looking around to make sure no one had observed him, he slipped into invisibility, taking Katrin with him. The real question was where to hide her. He approached the rental van into which Owen was loading the essential items. It was remarkable how small the pile was, with how little the entire world could be altered. Once they reached the airport, they could easily carry a duffel each, vanishing into the cargo hold of an aircraft bound for their destination. But what about Katrin?
Georg saw now it had been a mistake to awaken her while his great work was underway and not already accomplished. He had hoped she would encourage and comfort him; instead she’d made his life miserable. He was emotionally wrung out by her implicit rejection of him and his mission. He made his decision: he would return her to slumber. With Pfeffer breathing down his neck, with the operation about to begin, Georg could not bear to have her near, a constant reminder of what he had hoped for and not won from her.
Someday, when all was finished, he would return for her, awaken her, and start their new friendship on a better footing. After the world was made new, perhaps she would see him for the great man he was.
For now, he had to make good on his escape.
Georg felt a chill run across the back of his neck. That hulking guard—the one Katrin mourned—was here, on the island. Georg could not leave Katrin here on her small cot where others might discover her. He needed to hide Katrin, but not here. With Pfeffer at his door, this would be the least safe place to leave his beloved half-sibling, here, amongst the Petri dishes and discarded energy bar wrappers. His lip curled with disgust as he thought of the possibility of the hulking guard discovering her here. And to have Katrin discover the guard lived? Georg would not have it—she was his. His! And he would keep her safely hidden from the rest of the world until it suited him to recover her.
Somewhere else on the island, then….
Georg made a decision. He would go to Taganana, the backwards fishing village he had taken her once, so sure it would cheer her. The village had numerous abandoned dwellings. Katrin would be safe from prying eyes there.
Invisibly, he raced up and over the pass and down the back side of the mountains, leaving the ancient laurel forest behind as the landscape transformed into a desert-like country of cactus, century plants, and yucca in brilliant white bloom. But as he neared the village, he was struck by a better idea. A kinder idea.
Katrin had liked the black sand beach. There, Georg had seen one of her rare smiles. True, it had not been directed at him. But she’d liked the beach. He would place her there, below ground. Later, when the danger of Pfeffer was past, Georg could return and awaken her right there, in the one place where she’d shown a spark of content.
He regretted his emotional outburst when he’d confronted Katrin. It would win him no points with her, and worse, he’d been so distracted by his emotions that he’d forgotten to keep his thoughts cloaked until just now.
Pfeffer must have been on the island for two hours by now. If Pfeffer had brought either of the mind-reading de Rocheforts with him….
Georg banished the thought and flew to the surf’s edge and tunneled through the sand, his invisible form tingling with the thousands of grains of silicon trickling irritatingly through him. He left her a meter underground, and then pulled himself back above the dark sand. The sun burned in a hot blaze overhead. Georg looked around; the beach was empty. Hunkering beside a large black rock covered in green growth, he came solid. On an impulse, he grabbed a stone from the beach, tucking it in his pocket. Something to remember her by. Then he murmured, “Farewell,” and strolled away, becoming invisible as he approached the four meter cliff dividing him from the roadway above.
~ ~ ~
Georg had not been alone on the beach.
Raoul had heard Katrin shouting and, on a hunch, vanished and went outside the lab to observe the argument invisibly. Raoul had seen Georg capture Katrin, seen him put her to sleep, and watched as Georg vanished with her. It left a bad taste in Raoul’s mouth, but what was he to do about it? He’d never understood Georg’s peculiar obsession with his half-sister Katrin, and he didn’t want to start trying now.
But he didn’t like Georg’s thoughts, either. Or rather, he didn’t like the emotional tenor of Georg’s thoughts. Raoul did not catch words with ease, but emotions screamed at him when he was invisible. Georg’s feelings of anger, longing, and fear pulsed clearly in the silence.
Raoul knew he should let it go. Let Georg and Katrin sort out their differences. But Raoul liked Katrin. And it looked as though Georg had placed her asleep against her will. Sighing, Raoul made the decision to follow the sound of Georg’s thoughts, which were loud and unfiltered and drew Raoul forward over the island to a black sand beach where, abruptly, Georg’s mind went silent. Raoul paused, uncertain, staring at the black sand and large algae-covered rocks.
Just as Raoul was beginning to think he’d lost Georg completely, Georg materialized alone on the beach.
Why had Georg come here? And where was Katrin?
Raoul heard Georg saying, “Farewell,” out loud. To whom was Georg bidding farewell? Katrin? The island?
Georg vanished and Raoul couldn’t hear his thoughts. But it would be bad if Raoul were absent when Georg returned, so Raoul sped back to the lab. When he arrived, he typed up an email to Günter, explaining his fears about the girl. Having finished the email, Raoul debated whether or not to send it. Georg was annoying at times, but was he not also a compassionate visionary? Surely Georg had done nothing … harmful to the girl. Raoul would ask Georg about her.
There had to be a simple explanation.
Without having sent it, Raoul closed the email.
27
THE TRAIN LEFT THE STATION
“How did your painting go this afternoon?” asked Gwyn as she and Sam walked out to Bridget Li’s Mini Cooper, parked in the Ruiz’s drive.
Gwyn had just returned to see Sam after closing at the bakery, and Sylvia had asked if they would do a run to the store for milk. It was the kind of warm night where summer felt just around the corner.
“Fine,” said Sam. “I mean, the painting looks like crap. But I enjoyed it. It kept my mind off … everything.”
Gwyn nodded. “Maybe I should take up painting.”
“Maybe,” said Sam.
“It’s our two week anniversary,” said Gwyn, mournfully. “And Chrétien’s not even on the same continent as me.”
Sam nodded in what she hoped was a sympathetic way. It was her two week anniversary as well. It had been two weeks since she and Will broke up. But if she said this out loud, Gwyn would beat herself up for being a terrible friend and not remembering, so Sam said nothing.
The two of th
em slid into the tiny car.
“So, Ma’s talking about giving me this car,” said Gwyn. “She wants a hatchback to make it easier to transport rescue cats.”
“That sounds nice,” said Sam, trying to keep her thoughts from wandering to Will.
They pulled into the parking lot of the mini-mart at the edge of town.
“You stay put,” said Gwyn. “I’ll grab the milk.”
Sam nodded. She didn’t want to talk to anyone else, and the mini-mart parking lot was full of cars belonging to people who knew her, who would ask how she was doing.
“I’m worried, too,” said Gwyn, picking up on Sam’s mood. “I don’t know what I’d do if Chrétien didn’t come back.”
And then Gwyn slammed the door and strode purposefully to the entrance of the store.
A small flutter caught Sam’s eyes. It was a waft of blossoms, white against the darkening sky. Cherry. Or almond. Will would know. Her throat caught. Gwyn’s words echoed in her mind: I don’t know what I’d do if Chrétien didn’t come back.
What if something happened to Will? How could she bear it? She couldn’t. She couldn’t lose someone else. Sam felt her throat tightening.
Not another panic attack. Please. Not again.
Gwyn would be back out any minute. She didn’t want Gwyn to see her like this. She took several slow breaths. In and out. In and out.
Gwyn ran out of the store, milk tucked under her arm as she raised a bag of something—Hershey’s Kisses—with a gleeful look on her face.
“Am I your BFF or what?” demanded Gwyn, unceremoniously dumping the bag of Kisses in Sam’s lap. But then Gwyn must have noticed something in Sam’s expression.
“Oh, oh, oh,” said Gwyn, reaching over to fold Sam in a warm hug. “Oh, Sam.”
Gwyn stroked Sam’s hair and patted her back and made small comforting noises, but this only made Sam feel like she was going to cry.
“Drive us somewhere more private,” murmured Sam, increasingly aware of all the cars and people surrounding them.
“Private. Got it. Of course.”
Gwyn put the car in reverse and peeled out of the mini-market lot, heading back toward Sam’s house. Instead of pulling in at Sam’s, however, Gwyn continued to Will and Mickie’s cabin, parking where Mick’s new Jeep usually sat.
“Mickie’s over with Sir Walter, and Will’s obviously gone, so this is very private,” said Gwyn.
Sam nodded.
“Oh,” said Gwyn. “Um, was this a really stupid place to park? Considering….”
“It’s fine,” said Sam. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, though, a tear traced down her face.
“Maybe it’s not a good place,” murmured Gwyn. “We can park behind the bakery. No one will bother us—”
“It doesn’t matter where we park,” said Sam. “Oh, Gwyn, what have I done?” She stared at the Baker’s cabin: empty, dark, no one home.
Gwyn frowned. “I don’t know, Sammy. What have you done?”
Sam took a shallow breath. “Will walked away and … I let him go. And I think I love him, Gwynnie.”
“Of course you do,” said Gwyn. “Of course you do.”
“How … how do you know that?” asked Sam, swiping at another tear.
Gwyn rolled her eyes. “It’s obvious to anyone with half a brain. You love Will and Will loves you. Duh.”
Gwyn popped the glove compartment open and pushed things around, grabbing out a small plastic-wrapped container of Kleenex.
Sam grasped a tissue and wiped her eyes. “I don’t think he does, though,” she said. “I think Will used to love me, but I don’t think he does anymore. He walked away, Gwyn. I pushed him away.”
“You keep saying that. What do you mean, exactly?”
Sam crumpled the tissue smaller and smaller until it was a grape-sized lump of damp tissue. “We had a … disagreement. And he said that if I felt that way, he was breaking up with me. And he got out of the car and walked off, and then he rippled and I called but I didn’t chase after him, and then he wouldn’t answer my texts and he started avoiding me at school and he quit eating lunch with us—” She stopped and shook her head. “I made a terrible mistake.”
“That must have been quite some disagreement. Was he pressuring you for … intimacy?”
“What? No,” said Sam. “You have a really one tracked mind.”
“Possibly,” replied Gwyn. “But that isn’t under discussion at the moment. So what did you two disagree over?”
“He wanted …” Sam drew in a ragged breath. “He asked when I wanted to get married.”
Gwyn stared. Blinked. Stared again. At last she spoke. “And? He asked when you wanted to get married and?”
Sam shook her head. “There is no ‘and.’ That was what we disagreed about. I didn’t want to be talking about getting married, and Will did.”
“So, you don’t want to marry Will, but you do love him?”
Sam nodded and grabbed another tissue from the packet. “And I don’t know what to do about it.”
“Oh, Sam, Sam, Sam.” Gwyn shook her head. “What am I going to do with you? What is the one thing Sylvia is always saying?”
“A woman should know how to drive a car with a clutch?”
Gwyn snorted with laughter but quickly calmed herself. “I was thinking of a different one, actually. ‘The only constant in life is change.’”
With that, Gwyn broke open the bag of Hershey Kisses. “Here. Have some brain food.”
Sam raised one eyebrow. “Brain food?”
“Sure. It makes all those endorphins run around in your system. Or serotonin. Or maybe it’s norepinephrine. Something good.”
Sam accepted the kiss, but didn’t unwrap it. She didn’t think she could swallow anything right now.
“Sam, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“The other day, when I said I thought Chrétien was worth taking a risk for and you said you disagreed, what did you mean by that? I didn’t understand. I don’t understand.”
Sam stared out the windshield at the descending dusk.
“I meant I didn’t want to hurt again, like I hurt when I lost my mom,” said Sam. “I can’t understand why anyone would risk that.”
“That’s why you don’t want to marry Will?”
Sam nodded. “How do you … how do you protect yourself from that kind of pain?”
Gwyn sighed and took Sam’s hand in hers. “You can’t.”
The two were silent. Another flutter of blossoms swept past, carried on the breeze.
“Sam, love isn’t about insulating yourself. In fact, love requires that we not protect ourselves from pain,” said Gwyn.
And then, without warning, panic struck. Sam’s heart began pounding as if it would fly out of her chest, and she felt as if something terrible was about to happen. She saw her mother dash into the street, saw Hans run her down, and though she tried not to see it, when she turned to the spot where her mother had fallen, Sam saw Will’s face instead, eyes open and blank: dead.
Sam’s lungs forced her to inhale, but it felt as though she wasn’t getting enough air—she was suffocating. She clawed at her seatbelt, at the window lever, and then, as Gwyn reached for her, at Gwyn.
“Sam! I’m right here. I know you’re scared, but no one is hurting you. I’m staying with you and we’re riding this thing out together! Can you hear my voice?”
Trembling from head to toe, Sam nodded. Once. Again, bigger this time. She struggled to slow her breath. Gwyn had her hand. Gwyn was here. She wasn’t alone. She could breathe. Her brain wouldn’t allow her to stop breathing. This would pass. Something inside of her slipped into place, and she felt her heartbeat slowing. Just by a fraction, but Sam felt it. She was going to survive this.
“Better?” asked Gwyn.
Sam nodded and paced her breathing to Gwyn’s. In. Out. Slowly, slowly.
Gradually, Sam felt the band around her chest expanding. Sensation returned to her hands, an
d then to her feet. It had passed, and she had survived.
Thoughts rushed through her mind, tumbling over one another as they presented themselves and kept coming, more and more of them.
That feeling, that warning that she mustn’t marry Will: it came from where the panic lived.
And: It wasn’t real. The danger wasn’t real.
And: I survived this. It felt like I wouldn’t, but I did. Just like I survived losing my mom.
And: You are a survivor. You are a Digger Pine.
Sam shook her head. It was a ridiculous comparison. But apt. So apt.
“What?” murmured Gwyn.
“It’s silly,” said Sam. “But … I was thinking about how my mom called Digger Pines survivors.”
“Digger Pines? Those scraggly pines with the bark that looks like burnt toast?”
“Yes. And I’m like them. I’m a survivor.”
Gwyn laughed softly and squeezed Sam’s hand. “You are a hellasurvivor, and I don’t regret that I’ll have to confess using unclean language, because there’s no better way to say it, girlfriend!”
Squeezing her hand back, Sam whispered, “Thank you.” Then, after she took a deep breath, Sam spoke again. “This fear that I have … it says I can’t marry Will because I might lose him like I lost Mom…. But I won’t let it define me. Or my choices.”
“Oh, Sammy….”
“I’ll fight it tooth and claw.”
“You won’t fight it alone,” said Gwyn. “We’re all here for you, Sam. Me, Ma, Sylvia, Mickie … and Will.”
Will.
Sam shook her head. “I don’t know. I may have hurt him too deeply.”
“Oh, Sam.”
Sam whispered, “What was that thing you said just before I … before I panicked? You know, that thing about love requires that we—”
“Sam, I don’t know if I should repeat it. It kind of … sent you into a panic attack.”
Sam shook her head. “No. I did that to myself. It wasn’t what you said. And I want to hear it again. I need to hear it again.”
Perilous: A Ripple Novel (Ripple Series Book 7) Page 12