A hand clamped on my ankle and I screamed in surprise and shock. Dave’s face came into view, his mouth twisted in an ugly sneer. He was panting, his eyes crazed and wild. I kicked out at him, trying to throw him off-balance, but he was solid, intent on his target.
Lightning flashed and he twisted my ankle so fiercely I cried out in pain. The howling wind and roar of the rapids drowned out any sound I made. Dave climbed on top of me, squeezing into the cramped space. I squirmed and bucked, trying to knock his head against the concrete ceiling. He barely moved. His face had become vacant, the depths of his eyes cold and detached, void of emotion, like he had left reality behind and was living in a world of his own making.
“You can’t leave, Sarah! I won’t let you!”
“You’re wrong, Dave. She left you a long time ago! Sarah was never yours. She would never give herself away to a monster!” I yelled the last word with emphasis, twisting my body at the same time to relieve the pressure from the weight of him on my legs.
Dave leaned forward, crushing his lips to mine, grinding our teeth together in a brutal kiss. His hands roved over my body, rough and groping. Disgusted, I bit into his lip, tasting the familiar metallic tang of blood.
Recoiling, he struck me in the face, sending my head rocketing into the concrete pillar. Stunned, I could only lie there, my vision going in and out of focus.
Dave shook me, his face desperate and livid all at the same time. “I told you once before and I meant it. If I can’t have you, then no one will have you.”
His words jumbled around in my brain, trying to right themselves and make sense, but instead they sounded blurry and fuzzy.
“I said I would love you forever. I said forever.” He seemed to be sobbing and yelling all at the same time, his face contorted with so many emotions as he looked at my limp body. Suddenly, his face became hard, decisive. He shoved me aside and grabbed my legs, pulling me closer to the edge.
No! Stop! I tried to scream, but my mouth hung open without a sound. I knew what he was about to do and yet, my arms and legs refused to move. An icy chill came over me and I was so cold I could see little white puffs of breath coming from my mouth.
Dave pulled me with one great effort and pushed me over the ledge. My body flipped twice, head over heels, and then splashed into the churning waters.
Even then, I couldn’t respond, my entire body numb and useless. Emerging from the black waters, I spied Dave’s silhouette crouching in the shadows of the arch. My last thought was clear, achingly clear. Dave wanted to kill me.
Lightning lit up the night sky as my body was thrown viciously into the rocky center of the rapids. The swirling, roiling current threatened to pull me under; I was amazed I’d made it this far, since my arms and legs refused to move. A second flash hit so close it blinded me. And then my body was tossed like a rag doll into the rocks. My body was tossed like a rag doll into the rocks and my head snapped in response, striking the jagged edge of the rocks.
The rapids continued to pound, swallowing me up in its vicious path, like a swollen, black monster of the night.
I sank beneath the surface, my eyes rolled back in my head, and everything turned black.
Chapter Twelve
Clear as Crystal
I awoke to shouts. Disoriented, I felt around me, expecting jagged rocks or at least, the caress of lapping water against my skin. My throat felt clogged and tight and I tried coughing to loosen the muscles. A black, watery substance sprayed from my mouth and I tasted the rusty mud of the river. I curled into a ball, my body racking and convulsing as I heaved up more of the nasty substance.
My stomach quivered as pain shot from my skull into every direction of my brain. I could barely move; the pain that coursed through my body was so intense I was sure every bone was broken.
I tried to sit up, to see where the voices were coming from. Where am I? I felt around, as if blind, searching for pine needles, gravel… something reminiscent of the rapids. I must have washed ashore… Dave never expected me to actually make it through the rapids. Dave. The understanding that Dave had tried to kill me stole my breath in a great gasp. His chilling words haunted me, echoing in my mind. “If I can’t have you, then no one will have you.”
Sarah had tried to get away. She didn’t commit suicide! Dave had killed her.
The realization rocked me to the core, and sent me onto all fours, heaving and retching with brutal force. Was that why I had come back in time? To learn the truth?
Sagging onto the ground, my cheeks felt the familiar prickle of hay jabbing into my skin like an annoying finger, poking me relentlessly. The voices came again and I raised my arm to cover my face. Maybe I was about to be rescued. Or maybe it was Dave – coming to finish what he had started.
Whimpering, I tried scooting further into the shadows, not satisfied until my back rested against what felt like a wall.
I have to get home! I have to tell Gran what happened. More thoughts ricocheted around my brain like a pinball. Where am I? If I didn’t die, did that mean I saved Sarah? Did I change the future? Would I be able to go home now? How would I be able to explain what had happened? Would anyone believe me?
A light pierced the darkness and a feeling of déjà vu washed over me, sending a myriad chills through my body. This had happened to me before… I barely had time to connect the two images in my brain before a dark shadow stopped before me, its giant presence looming behind what looked like the beam of a flashlight.
“Kate! Kate!”
The blinding flashlight drilled into my brain, intensifying the pain in my head. I opened my mouth to correct the voice, and stopped. I knew that voice. It said Kate. Kate. Not Sarah. Hope burst through me, temporarily easing the pain. I sat up, reaching for the shadow.
“Daddy?” I whimpered.
Immediately, Dad was there and crouched by my side, reaching his long arms around me and pulling me close.
“Oh, Katydid. What happened to you?” he said, using an old nickname from childhood. “Corey said you were supposed to race him to the house. When you didn’t come, I got worried. What the heck happened? You’ve got blood behind your ear and… ” He broke off, seeing the pool of dark fluid I’d recently vomited. “Let’s get you inside where I can look at you.”
He lifted me in his arms; I let my head collapse onto his shoulder. For a moment, I felt like a child again, confused and broken, relieved to be rescued and swept into a safe haven of security. A glimpse of Dad’s eight-year-old face flashed through my mind, his twinkling eyes and scrawny arms just a memory I wasn’t sure was real.
Leaving the barn, we crossed the field in silence, Dad’s steps light and quick even with the burden of carrying my dead weight.
Corey waited at the fence, his wide luminous eyes full of worry. Just the sight of him, his boyish innocence and familiar tousle of brown hair sent tears of joy springing to my eyes. Was it true? Was I back? Everything had seemed so real. Could I have dreamed the whole thing?
Gran and Grandpa looked up from their cribbage game the moment we entered the kitchen. “Oh, my Lord,” Gran whispered, jumping from her chair in one fluid motion. “You’re covered in bruises, Kate! Dean, set her down over there.” Gran motioned to the couch in the living room. “And you’re shaking like a leaf, poor girl. What on earth…?” Gran said, voicing the question everyone in the room had to be thinking.
My head began to buzz and a light, floaty feeling passed over me, leaving me weak. “Gran, your hair is white,” I murmured, recalling the Gran I’d spent months with, or at least, thought I had spent months with.
Corey bounced around the couch, nervous and jittery, trying to get a good look at me through the adults huddled around my limp form.
“Call the Doc, Dean. We’ll take her in right away,” Gran ordered. “Kate! Wake up! Don’t fall asleep. Kate!”
I heard the shouts, but couldn’t answer. My eyes felt so heavy, and my head seemed like it had been replaced with a bag of bricks. I went in and out of consci
ousness, sporadic words and noises entering my brain but meaning nothing. I wanted to tell them I was fine, that everything would be OK, but the words never came. As quickly as they had come back into my life, Dad, Gran, Corey, and Grandpa were gone.
* * * *
The crinkly, rubbery mattress on the hospital bed made annoying squelch sounds at my every movement. The steady beep coming from the monitor nearby was irritating beyond measure; I reached out a shaky arm to try and pull the plug, but let it drop again, two inches short. Jeez, who ever heard of someone trying to pull their own plug?
For two days, I’d been in and out of consciousness, the splitting pain in my head too much to bear. Apparently, Dad never left my room; he sat hunched over in the only available chair, asleep, his shirt and pants permanently rumpled from lack of changing. The lines on his face seemed more pronounced in the harsh fluorescent lights. Even in sleep, his brow furrowed with – what? Anger? Frustration? Worry?
How could ruining his summer leave me feeling miserable? Nothing had gone how I had planned. My life as Sarah remained fresh in my memory, as though it had happened yesterday. But I’d never left the barn. I wasn’t even missing for more than an hour. It had to be a dream. Except it had been too real to be a dream. Was Sarah trying to tell me something? Did we have some mysterious link that united our psyches?
My body ached to get out of bed, but I was hooked to numerous wires and drip bags, making me look like some freaky wannabe Frankenstein monster.
I need to get out of here. I need to find out if this whole thing was a product of my imagination or a vital message.
Dad stirred in his chair and barked out something that sounded halfway between a cough and a snort.
“Dad?” I whispered, almost afraid to wake him up.
“Katydid?” His eyes sprung open and he ran a hand over the stubble on his face as he rose to approach my bed. “How are you feeling, honey?” He stroked the sides of my hair and adjusted the stiff hospital blanket to cover my legs. He cracked a weak smile. “You know, you didn’t have to go getting yourself into trouble so early in the vacation. I thought for sure you’d give it a week before trying to find a reason to go home.”
A guilty blush covered my cheeks. Before the accident, that was exactly what I had been planning to do. “I – I don’t know what happened, Dad. I jumped through the hatch and that’s the last thing I remember.” I paused, uncertain if I should tell him the rest. He’ll turn you into the psyche ward if he believes you think you went back in time as his dead sister! I clamped my lips together, aching with the secrets I would have to keep.
For now.
Instead, I reached out for his hand, grateful for the warmth and security. “I’m sorry, Dad. For everything.” I didn’t elaborate. No need bringing up the problems of the past, especially when I could foresee a few problems for the future. Like getting my family to believe me about Sarah and getting revenge on Dave Slater. I leaned into Dad’s arm, smiling as the arm hairs tickled my nose. Tears pooled in my eyes as I remembered an eight-year-old version of Dad, forever my protector. Could we ever be that close again? Or was it too late?
“Let’s get you out of here, Kate. I know a great place where you can recuperate on fresh country air and homemade apple pie.” He stopped and peered into my eyes. “That is, if you want to go back. I talked to Mom, and she said you could go home if you weren’t feeling up to staying.”
For a brief moment, like the glimpse of a rainbow, I was tempted to run. The mere suggestion of home meant zero complications – zero mysteries. But I couldn’t turn away from what I’d been through, what I had ultimately learned. Sarah’s death, no – murder, needed justice, and I was the only one who could deliver it.
“I think I’m willing to give it another shot,” I agreed, already plotting my next move. I knew one way for sure to determine if everything had been real. One piece of evidence remained in my possession that could condemn Dave Slater without words.
The ring.
I had kept his mother’s ring.
Chapter Thirteen
Catching Up with the Past
It seemed like hours before someone left me alone long enough to test my theory. I couldn’t even go to the bathroom without Gran or Dad waiting just outside the door, knocking every few seconds to make sure I didn’t fall and hit my head; which really made it hard to pee knowing I had an audience listening the whole time. But really, I had no complaints. The toilet flushed, there was real toilet paper, and water ran from the sink with a twist of a knob. The future was blissfully easy.
Finally, Gran took Corey to feed the chickens and Dad left to help Grandpa tow a tractor stalled out in the field. I counted to fifty and crawled out from the mountain of rainbow-colored quilts Gran had piled over me on the couch. Apparently, they didn’t trust me to go to the bathroom or climb stairs, so my room was off limits, too. What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.
I climbed the stairs slowly, testing my wobbly legs. Halfway up, just as I reached the portrait of Sarah on the wall, my head began to pound. This time, I looked her in the eyes with understanding instead of contempt. I’m going to fix everything, I tried to tell her, feeling silly and a little creeped-out al in one. For the first time, I tried to look beyond the mirror image features we possessed.
Shocked, I could see in her eyes the truth that everyone else had missed. In the picture, Sarah’s mouth twisted into a soft smile, but the happiness and light didn’t touch her eyes. Sadness, so deep and unsettling, lived beneath the surface; a sadness only I could recognize and explain.
At the top of the stairs, a dizzying wave of apprehension swept over me, my pulse jumping in response. Strangely, I began sweating and my mouth felt dry and full of cotton. Would it be there after all this time? And what if it wasn’t? What then? I shook my head, refusing to consider that option, my stomach twisted enough thinking of what finding the ring would mean.
My suitcase sat on the bed, still packed and bulging with the absurd amount of clothing I brought. Thinking back to the meager choices of my time on the farm, the suitcase brought feelings of shame, enlightening my selfishness and greed. Now, if given the chance, I would give it all to the nameless girls from the woods Bobby had taken me to visit. But that was long ago, I reminded myself. Those girls, if they survived, would be old now, as old as Dad.
Rounding the bed, I stared hard at the wooden dresser, the same one I had used past and present. It sat in the same corner as before; I could only pray no one had moved it much in the years since Sarah’s death. Rubbing along the side, my fingertips felt the jagged scrawled letters I had found the day we arrived. I am so alone.
Wrenching open the bottom drawer of the dresser, I jumped as the wood squeaked in protest, the noise seeming to echo throughout the quiet house. Save for a bag of cedar chips to keep the scent of mothballs in check, the drawer was bare. With trembling fingers, I pried up the bottom board, splintering the wood in the process and driving a sliver beneath my nail.
“Yow! Dang it!” I whispered, sucking on the fingernail to dull the pain. Running my free hand beneath the board, my fingers brushed against something small and thin and round. The ring.
Feeling sick and exultant all at once, I held the tiny band up in the slanted rays of sunlight that streamed through the window. It was real. It wasn’t a dream. Somehow, I had become Sarah. Shivering despite the warm sun, I stood and assessed my reflection in the mirror. How did it happen? Why didn’t I lose time? I was gone for weeks! My face looked pale and a little thin; I could scarcely tell I had been laboring on a farm at all. My muscles had already weakened from the past few days, the new clothes – Juicy shorts and matching sweatshirt – hair thrown up carelessly in a scrunchie; I hardly recognized my old self. Weird.
Slipping the ring into my pocket, I snuck back down the stairs and onto the couch before anyone was the wiser. General Hospital played over the scratchy television set but I didn’t want to chance getting up to change the channel. Someone would be back to
check on me soon.
Sure enough, the screen door slammed and Dad peered around the corner of the door to the living room, his brow creased with worry. “Kate?” he called out.
“I’m fine,” I said, snuggling deeper under the afghan pile despite the stuffiness of the room.
“I’ll be out at the barn and Gran is weeding the garden, if you need anything. Corey’s with me. Get some rest,” he ordered, pointing his finger right at me, as if I didn’t know who he was talking to.
I can’t rest if you keep checking on me. It was worse than the hospital sometimes, the way they kept popping in, feeling my forehead and shoving chicken soup down my throat like I was a helpless infant.
Removing the ring from my pocket, I turned it over in the palm of my hand. In the background, the television sounded the classic “villainous” music and zoomed in on one of the women in the scene. I caught myself grinning. The lady had a cheesy malicious grin, her eyebrow raised in an attempt to look as though she were plotting her next evil scheme. I tried raising an eyebrow in the same manner, but couldn’t. Must be a trick they teach you in acting school.
Closing my hand around the ring, my mind tripped and stumbled over the possibilities of my next move. I felt like the woman from the television; just like her, I was planning to ruin someone’s life. But this wasn’t TV, and someone didn’t write the lines for me. I was taking on Dave Slater myself, and I had no idea how the story would come to an end.
I knew I had to get Dave alone. I knew he had to believe someone found out about the murder. And I knew I needed him to confess, otherwise, no one would believe me.
The clock above the couch ticked a monotonous, repetitive sound that matched my thoughts. Slowly, the pieces came together like a jigsaw puzzle. What I would do, how I would do it… It would be dangerous. Maybe deadly. Would Dave risk killing again to protect himself? I had to believe he would. And that’s why meeting at the rapids was the worst part of my plan.
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