by Aric Davis
Is that something Mrs. Martin did? Something she’d left inside Mom to make it hard for Mom to talk about her? Cynthia wondered this, but only for a moment. Mom might have a hard time thinking ill of Mrs. Martin due to the light nudges Mrs. Martin had given her, not to mention the free babysitting, but Cynthia didn’t think Mrs. Martin would have had a trick like that up her sleeve and not told Cynthia about it.
“Mrs. Martin is fine, too,” said Cynthia. “She’s always nice, and we have fun together.”
Cynthia could see the relief on Mom’s face. If it weren’t for Mrs. Martin, Mom would have to lean on Dad a little bit, and Cynthia knew Mom wanted to avoid that for as long as possible.
“Do you miss your friends?” Mom asked. “I could set up a playdate if you wanted. I don’t really want anyone else at the apartment yet, but I’m sure that if I explained the circumstances to your friends’ parents, then—”
“No, Mom,” said Cynthia with a grin. “I don’t want to see them right now.” Cynthia wanted to tell Mom exactly why—that she didn’t want to have to tell them about divorce—but she knew the information would just hurt her. “Besides, school will be here soon, and Maryanne’s birthday party ought to be coming up.”
“Crap, I need to call your father and see if she sent you an invitation,” said Mom, a screwed-up smile on her face that was more of a frown. “I’d hate for you to miss it.”
“I know, Mom, but I won’t. You’ll get the invitation if she sent one, and then we’ll see when it is.” Looking up as she spoke, Cynthia could see goldenrod threads pouring from her and weaving in and out with Mom’s damaged ones.
“Sure,” said Mom, a real smile crossing her face. “I’ll call Dad when we get home and see if the invitation has come.”
“OK,” said Cynthia, smiling herself as she watched the dog make another leaping Frisbee catch. The sun was shining, Mom was smiling, and there was nothing wrong at that moment.
CHAPTER 48
1945
We have waited three days in the camp after the fighting first came to us. These three days have been hell, but no one has enjoyed an easier time of it than me. Katarina is still doing whatever her job is in the camp itself, the guards are nervous as kittens, and my people are still being marched to the showers and then carried to the ovens. The selections come twice a day now, and I can hear screams of pain coming from behind the little room as well. Those screams have nothing to do with showers or anything else. I know these are the sounds of someone being tortured.
It has been hard to push all of that aside, but that’s exactly what I have done. I need to wait for Katarina to tell me what to do, to tell me that the Americans are here and it is time to leave, but it seems as if that moment will never come. We are stuck, like a pair of flies in a drop of honey. If we leave too early, the guards will kill us, and if we wait too long, Katarina will be captured by the Americans and my fate will be uncertain. I do consider, however, Katarina’s claims that I cannot find guaranteed refuge with the Americans. Would I not be safe with them? Would that be better than staying with my mentor, the only person in this world I feel like I can trust?
Either way there’s nothing for me to do now but cower at the sounds of fighting and to ignore the screaming from other prisoners and the barking of the guards. To just sit here in my little room and wait for something to happen is terrible, yet I know it is far better than what awaits those women who remain. The smell of smoke is all the proof I need of that—smoke and ash, as the Nazis kill as many of us as possible before their inevitable capture.
At last the door crashes open across the room, and I leap to my feet, spilling coffee down the front of my dress. I can hear her words in my head before I even feel the sting of the hot liquid / We need to go / Now / Now / Now / I set the cup down and lay my palms on the table so that I don’t pass out. I know Katarina didn’t mean to hurt me, but the words blasting in my mind feel as deadly as the guards’ bullets.
As I stand I hear crashing noises from around the room and finally the sound of a gun being cocked. I wait to hear the blast, the noise of Katarina deciding that she can see no way to escape, nor avoid capture by the Americans, and then force the idea from my head. I’m relieved when I feel Katarina is next to me, grabbing me by the arm and placing my hand on her own arm. The sleeve of her jacket feels rough, not like the clean uniform she normally wears, and I realize she is dressed in camp clothes just like me. There is a burst of machine-gun fire from nearby, likely the tower, and then Katarina is pulling me from the room and back onto the grounds of the camp, a place I have only been while using my map since coming to live with Katarina.
I am glad that I am blind for the first time in my life as we leave Dachau. Women and men are screaming everywhere, and the noise of shooting brings back a fear that I no longer knew I was capable of feeling. The noise of the machine guns is a beast from hell brought to life, and in spite of that fury I can hear a male voice shouting “Nein!” over and over again in a garble that sounds increasingly like he is screaming while drinking water. The world is noise, a hell of fire, explosions, and screaming lead, but I am literally blind to the destruction.
Except that I can hear all of it. I can feel the heat, I can see it all in my mind’s eye, and everywhere, whether I look for them or not, I can see the threads. These are the threads of madness, and I don’t need Katarina to tell me about these colors. Everywhere the world is writhing black, blue, and red. Colors are fading on the ground as the bodies pile up, and the noise of death is in tune with the ebb and flow of the threads. I hear the sound of a pistol fired twice ahead of me, then a third time, and Katarina’s voice appears in my head over the din. / Quickly, with me / The fence is down just ahead /
“Stop right there!” shouts a voice ahead of us in German, and I can see the source of it, threads standing erect like a bouquet of flowers, all of them red and blue. Gripping Katarina’s arm tighter, I know what I must do.
I’m in the air above the map, and as I dive toward the man I see that he is next to a truck. I take in the rest of the camp as I roar toward the ground. Everywhere is chaos. Male prisoners have broken into our camp, and, alongside some of the girls and the Americans, they are slaughtering the Nazis. I should love this sight—it is just and fair—but all I see is another impediment. How many of them would turn on me for feeling that I am a pet of Katarina? How many would put me to the slaughter?
There is no time to ponder these questions, for a hair of a second later I am in the soldier. I shove the man with my mind, telling him to run back into the camp as fast as possible, and then I leapfrog from him, soar above my map, and fly back into myself just in time to watch the soldier hurl his gun to the ground and go running past us, toward Dachau.
Katarina is dragging me across the bare ground between the camp and the tree line, and someone else behind us begins to scream. This is the symphony of my escape from Dachau, the noise of the dead and dying as Jew and American soldier alike turn on the Nazis and unleash upon them the same brutality they had so wanted to share with the world.
CHAPTER 49
1999
Thunder rumbled in the sky as Darryl drove, the early-afternoon sky dark, reminding him of bad memories and worse weather. This storm was nothing like the one in Iowa, though. That had been hell, and this was just an inconvenience.
Terry slept on the other side of the bench seat, his face pressed against the glass in a way that Darryl was hoping at least partially obscured his more identifiable features. The truck was doing well enough on the road, but Darryl had his doubts that they’d be heading too much farther south in the thing. Once they crossed the border, its out-of-state plates would begin to stand out, and besides, the beast just looked like an outlaw’s rig.
Darryl had always found driving to be relaxing, and that was the case now, even with the cloud of danger swirling around them. He felt different when he woke up that morning, more self-assured
and positive once again that things would work out for him, because he was the star of the show. Darryl had always thought of the world as being his to play in, even before he was aware of his abilities, and still thought that his was the story that future generations would hear. That was why capture was so impossible, why he knew that they were going to get away.
Terry began to snore as the rain finally started to fall, and Darryl turned on the radio to cut through the noise. Classic rock filled the car. Springsteen was still alive and well in central Michigan, it seemed. Darryl smiled as the truck roared past a sign that said, “Grand Rapids, 100 Miles.” They just needed to get there, get a hotel room with a phone line, and begin to fish. They were going to be all over the news for weeks even if nothing else happened, but if he bent a few people and they played it cool, they should be able to hunker down and hide in plain sight.
The truck bounced off of a pothole, lifting Darryl’s ass off the seat and smacking Terry’s head into the passenger window. Terry stirred but didn’t wake. Good. Darryl looked at himself in the rearview mirror. His topknot was purple still, just like he knew it would be, and Darryl opened his mind and his mouth and sent all of that bad shit over to the still-slumbering Terry. If Terry minded the dinner he was being fed, he didn’t act like it. His snoozing continued until it was done, and then Darryl smiled and let out a deep breath. Now you’re good, and he just needs to keep it together. They couldn’t afford any more mistakes just because Terry had needs.
“We could get an apartment,” said Darryl to no one in particular.
It wasn’t a bad idea. Cops or government men were going to look at hotels first and everything else second. Neither he nor Terry had a friend to speak of in Grand Rapids, but that was a good thing. They didn’t need an excuse to go to one place or another. It would be far better to choose at random and live quietly. Darryl knew he could do it, especially after the months on the road, months running from the US and then back to it, and then the slapdash marathon that had put them on the Badger and now here and heading south.
Thunder roared again in the sky, and Darryl looked at the sleeping Terry, his topknot a glowing purple. “We’ll figure this out,” said Darryl to his deeply toxic, slumbering friend. “Get an apartment, hide out, and then disappear again. We can do this, Terry.”
The man never moved, but that was OK. Darryl felt horrible for the time that he had spent thinking he needed to get rid of his friend. He needed Terry as much as Terry needed him, and unless he was forced to sacrifice him, there was no reason to kill him. Assuming the man could keep his pants on.
CHAPTER 50
If going in was waking up clean and refreshed, then coming out was like waking up after a drunken blackout. All that was missing was the hangover.
It had been three days since Pat had gone into the wind and gotten to work, but they were no closer to Darryl and Terry. Pat knew that he could have talked to them dozens of times under a dozen different aliases, but if they weren’t going to bite, there was nothing he could do. As Pat was quickly discovering, owning a pole and a worm did not give a man the right to a good day of fishing.
Even though all of this plagued Pat when he emerged from his TK-induced fugue, it couldn’t have mattered less when he was in no-man’s-land with Frank. Everything there was perfect, the childhood that no one is lucky enough to actually have. He never saw his parents when he was in his head, but he knew they were there, his mother’s cooking and father’s aftershave two constant, comforting stimuli in the bizarre but really damned impressive simulation. Of course the real treat was in the computer itself. The PC in that world was years ahead of its time, the sort of impossible machine even a rich kid couldn’t have dreamed of laying his fingers upon. It didn’t matter that none of it was real. It was real enough to be seen, felt, and enjoyed—and what else is there?
After, though, was different. Coming out meant a severe power-down in thinking, as his doubled-up mind slowed to a snail’s pace and he craved going back inside, like an addict craves a fix. Pat had expected to miss reality but had discovered the opposite to be the case. Life in this perfect version of his own history was impossible to beat. Still, Pat stayed focused in there, knowing that everything could change in an instant.
Blinking and aching in the real world, Pat drank water, choked down a pair of McDonald’s cheeseburgers, and then set his hands back on the keyboard, the sign to Frank that he was ready to start. In the time before it began again, Pat had his first inkling that maybe this ride would, or anyway should, soon be over. Being inside was a joy, but it now struck him as a numb joy, a false one, but with the possible baggage of a real addiction. Just like that, Pat found himself looking forward to real life when this was all behind him. He had a few ideas for websites to start, and it was about time to grow some balls when it came to talking to women.
Then he felt it coming. Pat took a deep breath, and when he let it out he was back in the room.
The routine was just like every other time. He logged in to one chat and then another as OICU812, poking around, always alluding to money, always hoping there would be a bite. Pat was recognizing names by now, beginning to make conversation with people from the past few days, and even got a couple of good tips on Counter-Strike. It was almost like he was just there for fun—everything was so relaxed, the room so comfortable, the conversations ones he would have had willingly even without the TRC. It was easy to lose focus, and of course that was exactly what Jessica had told him needed to happen. Pat was no longer playing a role. He was becoming the perfect decoy to get Terry and Darryl’s attention. My name is Robert Roberts, my dad is rich, and I love video games. Pat was halfway to believing it himself.
CHAPTER 51
Cynthia watched Mrs. Martin shuffling cards. She had no idea what game they were going to play, only that Mrs. Martin wanted to teach her something, and that was very exciting. Mrs. Martin had been avoiding the subject of weaving as much as possible ever since Cynthia had made the neighbors greet her as one. Cynthia still didn’t see what the deal was. Even if they remembered doing it—and she doubted they did—it would just be a weird memory, like one of a dream.
“Here’s how this is going to work,” said Mrs. Martin as she laid the deck down on the table. “I’m going to draw a card from the center of the deck, and I want you to tell me what card I’m holding.”
Cynthia smiled and nodded. This was going to be easy.
Mrs. Martin grinned back at her. “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” said Cynthia, and Mrs. Martin did as she had said she would. She cut the deck in half, took the top card from the middle, and held it in her hands.
“It’s the eight with hearts,” said Cynthia, and Mrs. Martin nodded her head and turned the card over on the table.
“It is indeed, and that was very fast. Want to play again?”
Cynthia nodded, and Mrs. Martin stacked the cards again, then cut the deck. She took a card just as she had the last time, but before she said anything, Cynthia was already calling it. “I think it’s a king with a little red sideways square.”
“It’s called a diamond,” said Mrs. Martin, “but yes, it’s a king of diamonds. Very impressive once again. Shall we go one more time?”
Cynthia nodded again, and Mrs. Martin took another card from the restacked deck, and once again Cynthia beat her to the punch. “Two with a tree.”
Mrs. Martin chuckled to herself. “Right again, dear. Now let’s try a little variation. This time I want you to name any card that isn’t the one that I’m holding.”
“Won’t that be really easy?”
“I suppose we’ll see,” said Mrs. Martin, her hands working to reshuffle the deck, before cutting it again and taking a card from the top of the bottom half.
“Three with a heart?” Cynthia asked, and Mrs. Martin laid the card faceup on the table.
“Three of hearts is correct, but we’re trying to guess which car
d I’m not holding, remember?”
Cynthia nodded, flushing and staring bullet holes into the faceup card on the table. “Let’s do it again,” said Cynthia, and Mrs. Martin nodded and repeated the action, once again cutting the deck before palming a card.
“It’s the ace of diamonds,” said Cynthia, her voice full of confidence, and Mrs. Martin laid the card down. It was the ace of spades.
“Better,” said Mrs. Martin, “but still very similar. Let’s try and be more wrong next time, all right?”
Cynthia nodded in frustration. She had thought she was guessing very differently from the card her teacher and caretaker had been holding. Mrs. Martin restacked and cut the deck again, and once again removed a card. Cynthia was less trigger-happy this time, taking a moment to gather her thoughts after she realized Mrs. Martin was holding the jack of clubs.
“Two of hearts,” said Cynthia slowly, and she was rewarded as Mrs. Martin flipped the jack onto the table.
“Want to know why that’s so hard?” Mrs. Martin asked, and Cynthia bobbed her head up and down. “You are a very gifted child, Cynthia, and even though I have a few special abilities myself, your skills are far more potent than my own, especially at this point in my life. What you don’t have yet, however, is patience. When you see the card that I’m holding, your mind still has to process what it is, and in this last test, what it isn’t. Weaving does not come easily to anyone, even the most gifted of children, but someone like you is able to work so quickly that your mind sort of gets ahead of itself. Do you have your crayons?”
“Yes,” said Cynthia, and she hopped off of her chair, grabbed the crayons from her bag on the floor, and set them on the table, before looking at Mrs. Martin expectantly.