by Amy Saia
“Oh, just that you’re married. Or used to be. There’s a dent on your finger where a ring was. I don’t miss things like that.”
“Oh.” I held my hand up to see. There wasn’t much of a dent. I’d only been wearing the ring for a few months.
She gave my arm a nudge. “So, what’s it like? How long have you been married? What’s it like kissing someone and belonging to them completely and totally?”
Falling on the cot, and then wishing I hadn’t because my head hit a spring and it felt like I’d been pierced, I thought about William. But mostly it was the cot I thought about. A concrete block would be more comfortable. “It’s fun. It’s a pain.” I propped up on one elbow. “Men want you to do all the work—dishes, laundry, scrub the toilets. They don’t say they do, but they do.”
For months William passed by a sink full of dirty dishes, and never said a word. But I could read his face, and I knew what his little brow scrunches meant. Here I’d talked about us being equal, him being married to a feminist, but in the end I’d still been the one to do the dishes.
“But you adore him, right?” Pauline asked, joining me on what little room there was left on the cot. Her expression filled with romantic ideals of marriage and love, love and marriage. Like the Frank Sinatra song.
“Sure, I adore him.”
I adored him so much I wanted to rip my hair out. All this work of trying to make him remember me. Us. Everything we had back in Penn Peak. I longed for our bed back at home with the teardrop quilt Grandmother Carrie had sent for a Christmas present. We’d had many a good nights underneath that quilt.
And on top.
“Marriage is work,” I said, grabbing a pillow and shoving it under my head to avoid the uncoiled spring. “But it’s also beautiful—too beautiful for words. When you love someone like that, it makes the rest of the world bearable. All you want is to be with that person until the end, and beyond.”
Mother pulled her legs close to her chest. “Well? Where is this fella of yours? Why’d you let him get away, ’cause he sounds real gone.”
I stared at the bedroom ceiling.
“I didn’t let him get away. We’re just not currently together.” I thought of Max and his warnings of me losing myself in William’s world. How right he’d turned out to be. A vision of us talking after the art show entered my head, but I pushed it away. All those swirling flakes and him driving off in his cruddy Volkswagen. Then I thought of how he hadn’t answered his phone when I’d tried to call. I should have tried again, but I’d been too occupied with my own life, and forgotten about his. “Max, my friend—a good friend—he said marriage wouldn’t work with people my age. He’d tried it—but he wasn’t right about everything.” Actually, he had been. I could have tried harder, could have forgotten about Jesse. But I hadn’t, and all the things Max predicted destroying me, the predictions I’d ignored, had come true. “And now . . .” A tear rolled to my temple, and I quickly reached to swipe it away. If Max were here, I’d ask him what to do, and he’d tell me with no bullshit to hide the truth. He was a straight-shooter.
The pillow had gotten hot again, so I turned it over.
“If I’d thought marriage would be so much work, maybe I would have waited a little longer.” I thought of the first night Will and I had spent inside our house in Penn Peak. It was early fall, and a chill had set in. No furniture, no bed, only us. He’d lit a fire and we’d spent the entire night in an empty living room watching the embers die. You aren’t sorry, are you, Emma? he kept asking, and I repeated over and over that I’d never be sorry. There couldn’t be anything more beautiful on earth than being married to him. The way his face lit up, amber flickers against his cheekbones and neck and chest, made me believe everything would be all right for us. I’m so happy, Emma.
But he wasn’t happy. Not enough to want to stay in my time. When we returned, would the fear of losing him haunt me every day? There’d be a baby in just a matter of months. There wasn’t time to make him love me enough.
The pillow was hot again. “It’s miserable in here.”
She’d held on to my every word, waiting for me to say something about marriage which wasn’t all doom and sadness.
But I had run out of things to say.
The bedsprings cried out with a quick explosion of movement. “Well, I’ll never ask you about marriage again. You make it sound terrible.”
She turned out the light and moved to sit at the vanity, brushing her hair with a hundred careful strokes. I counted them. She hummed the theme to Moulin Rouge and Three Coins in a Fountain, and I could have sworn I was only eight years old. Later, we lay in the dark—both of us unable to sleep. Through the open window, crickets chirped, and a distant train rattled through town. Someone coming. Someone going.
Chapter 11
A warm breeze caressed my neck and blew my hair away from my shoulders. I leaned against a boulder, high on a bluff shadowing the Ohio Valley. Far down below, a river rushed by, and I could hear its crystal stream bubbling and swooshing through limestone walls. I’d come to figure things out, or maybe what I really wanted was to clear my head and not think at all. The night had gone by, and still no sleep. I was exhausted, depressed, and longed for a bed that wasn’t like a pincushion.
“How do I make him remember?” I asked no one, and the wind carried my voice into the valley with little echoes. “He won’t let me come close enough, but I have to help him somehow.” I ran a hand through a pile of tangled hair which needed a good washing. “William, you stupid clod. Why didn’t you write a note to yourself and stick it in your jeans pocket? A kind of inventory, so you wouldn’t forget? But maybe you wanted to.”
I chastised myself for thinking such things. My attitude had grown dangerously morose as of late, and I kept telling myself it was the fatigue, or maybe hormones.
A noise came from below, and I leaned over to see a large hawk land in a roughly constructed nest along the bluffs. A baby’s head poked out, and a great commotion followed. The hawk flew off, and the baby eventually quieted down.
“At the very least, how could you forget your wife and your child? I just don’t understand.”
I wasn’t going to cry again. No way. This was only a problem, and problems could be fixed. I’d figure this out if it killed me. Or drove me half-crazy.
Once more, I considered sending myself back to Penn Peak without William. If he was right, and Marcus was intent on invading our lives there, then what did it matter? Either way, we were bound for a confrontation. If I traveled home, I could prepare myself for his coming. I’d be much better suited in my own environment. With some rest, I could build my intuition back to the way it was before. And I could face Marcus on my own terms and send him off forever.
But what about the baby?
I ran a hand along my abdomen. It had grown slightly, and was tight and firm under my fingers. This baby was growing fast, but it wasn’t prepared for Marcus. It needed more than my watered-down abilities. William had always been the stronger of the two of us. I’d relied on him too much. And now . . .
When I met him in the library, the summer of seventy-nine, he’d been slowly fading into nothing. The Seekers’ cult had done that to him. If I hadn’t come along, he’d be gone now, like a wisp of nothing. His powers were strong, but he had doomed himself to a certain fate.
Truth was, Jesse saved both of us, or I would have been a wisp, too.
“Oh, Jesse. Why did everything have to go so wrong?”
I heard a noise again and froze. The hawk hadn’t returned, and there was a distinct tapping sound below. It had a rhythm, like steel on stone. Then I heard a voice. The voice turned into a few more voices, then the wind picked up so much I couldn’t hear a thing at all.
I pushed off the boulder and stood near the bluff’s edge. The valley dropped straight down. It seemed impos
sible William and I had scaled those very walls with our bare hands the night of the eclipse. Funny how love makes you invincible. And then we’d found Jesse’s car.
And the sacrifice he’d made.
The wind died, and I heard tapping again. It made the hair on the back of my neck prickle and rise. “They’re building the caves, right now.”
The small breakfast I’d scarfed down in the morning lurched to my throat. I ran to the boulder and heaved. Tears came to my eyes. I couldn’t go home. If I did, the William I’d escaped Springvale with when I was eighteen—the one I married, gave myself to, adored, the one whose child I carried—would suffer the same fate as before. Over and over the Seekers would find a way to steal him. I couldn’t let it happen. Somewhere in the now reckless and defiant boy was a William I knew and loved, and I couldn’t leave until I found him.
I’d made a vow to love and honor William until death did us part. And I’d meant it. Every word.
¤ ¤ ¤
No cars on the tracks, nobody on the platform. It was noon, and the station should be bustling with activity, but nothing. A hollowness clung to the walls, and the ‘hunch’ which had eaten away at my gut only a day before no longer existed. It told me the bag was gone, and I didn’t need to go inside to inquire again. Fate was playing its little trick on me, like hide and seek. But I needed the briefcase. If I could show it to William—open it up and plop all his things right in front of him—he’d remember.
It was quiet everywhere in town. I told myself it was the heat—worse even than the day before. Shop owners kept their doors open to catch any bit of breeze. I saw them cooling themselves with makeshift fans. I waved, but they didn’t wave back.
I played my own game of hide and seek to show fate I hadn’t given up yet. At each storefront, I stopped and gave the place a mental scan. Seven shops and nothing. No briefcase.
Behind me, a woman pushed a carriage over the sidewalk. I turned to give her a smile and peek at the baby. Her eyes drifted to my middle, my empty ring finger, and then back up. She didn’t stop to talk or say hello. She smiled at her baby and walked on.
Sadness filled me. I wanted to be like her, a happy mother. But I had to hide. And my own little baby was hungry again, and I’d have to stop and eat. Gran tried to keep me well-fed; she’d taken to dumping extra portions of food on my plate, but I was a sieve. Everything I ate digested so fast. When I wasn’t thinking about William and the briefcase, I was thinking about food. Food, food. Cold food, hot food.
Unfortunately, my little bump was turning into a big bump. Soon it’d be its own entity. I camouflaged myself with belts and shirts, but this could only last so long. The problem was, it felt like I’d been hiding the pregnancy since the very first day I’d found out. Weren’t women supposed to glow and show off their robust figures? I dreamed of the day when I could wear tight clothing and not care anymore. I’d flaunt my belly to the world, really put it out there. I’m pregnant, deal with it.
My feet hurt, and my ankles were swollen—another side effect of being with child. Producing a loud sigh, I sat down on a bench outside the drugstore and removed both shoes so I could rub circles into the flesh of my heels. It felt so good. There was even a cool breeze.
A scuffle came from an alleyway. I heard angry voices.
“Talk to us, dummy. Or can you talk?”
Someone laughed.
I knew those voices. They were horrible and sent both anger and fear into my heart. Fast, I shoved both feet into the sneakers and flew off the bench. I headed to the alleyway entrance and checked out the scene. A group of young men stood in a circle. Each had on a set of dirty overalls—so dirty that straight bleach wouldn’t wash them. It was black dirt, thick and smudgy. Their arms, revealed by rolled up shirtsleeves, were caked with the stuff. The young men all sported greasy hair, with faces blackened unrecognizably.
A tall figure stood in the middle—at least six-foot-seven. With blue jeans and long, dark shiny hair, I knew instantly who it was: Paul. The other men shoved at him, smacked him with their fists. They said cruel things, and they meant every disgusting word they said. Paul stood there doing nothing. Like one of his beautiful statue creations, he stood frozen in place with a locked smile and a faraway expression in his eye.
“Stupid Indian,” they kept saying. “Talk so we can hear that dumb voice of yours.”
Someone shoved at him. Then I saw the tallest boy reach into his back loop for a hand pick. He reared back, aiming to kill.
“Paul!” I choked out, cutting into the throng.
The boys fell apart. They turned to me, panting, with eyes like rabid dogs. I recognized a few. Fear twisted into my gut. Their eyes weren’t the strange, hollow gray I remembered. Theirs were blue, hazel, golden brown, bright emerald green. And they weren’t wearing the suits, or the stern, hideous glasses from the cult. But I knew who they were as sure as I knew myself, and I could sense their hatred.
“Paul,” I repeated, grabbing hold of his arm and yanking hard, but he wouldn’t budge. He kept up his act of being somewhere else. A few of the boys snorted at me as I continued to pull at an arm dense with muscles and bone. I met only the rigor mortis of pride.
“He’s a real dummy, lady, don’t you get that? We’re teaching him a lesson, so go on and get out of here.”
“Well, I think you’ve taught him enough for one day.” I had to control myself. I couldn’t let them hear the anger.
I glared at the speaker, a sweaty, puss-pimpled boy with ragged hair and half-twisted smile. Alistair. A sick hollowness entered my chest and sunk downward. I yanked hard on Paul’s forearm, and he finally succumbed.
A hurricane whirled inside my chest, suffocating me.
We walked in slow shuffles through the alleyway. I kept whispering it was okay, I only wanted to help. I’d buy him an ice cream, a soda, but we had to get out of there. Paul never spoke.
I could sense their eyes on my back, worse than the sun. They burned, they were cancerous, poison. Paul waited outside the drugstore while I headed in to buy what I’d promised: a vanilla ice cream cone and a cold bottle of Coca-Cola. He ate slowly, very slowly, and when he finished, he put the bottle down, ready to walk away without any recognition of me at all.
“Paul,” I cried out. “You don’t remember me, but I know you. You’re a kind, loving, intelligent person, much more intelligent than those boys.”
He turned and saw my tears, then said with a voice too beautiful to hide, “I do remember you, Yellow Bird. I saw you in my dream.”
Paul extended a tanned finger to scoop a saltwater tear away from my upper cheek.
“Why didn’t you fight them, Paul? You just—stood there and let them hurt you. I don’t understand.”
The tear wavered and shook like a tiny Jell-O mold on the tip of his finger. The way he held it up, the sunlight came through and turned it into a prism. “Why fight? I would win. No contest. Those men fight my brown skin and think my silence is weakness.” He smiled down at me. “But my one finger, and your tear, much stronger.”
Chapter 12
I told Paul everything. How we’d met before in a different time, how he’d saved both William and me from the cult, of William’s memory loss, and why and how. About the baby.
He took it all in, chewing slowly on a cheeseburger the entire time. “Seekers’ church not good,” he said, gulping down a Coke. “Come here a few months like bad wind.”
“I hate Marcus,” I said with more than a little grittiness in my voice. “I hate them all so much that I want to hurt them, and this young William doesn’t understand what kind of danger he’s in.” I lowered my own half-eaten burger. “He’s so stubborn that if I tell him about the church, he’ll go straight there just to spite me. He’s a real ass.”
Paul chuckled. “No way to speak of loved one.”
“
I’m just so frustrated right now. How do I get through this kid’s thick skull so he’ll listen, so I can help him? I’ve almost sent myself back home to find out if he’s still there, and then maybe we can try this whole thing again. Or not. But then, what if I got lost in time, and the baby too?” I rubbed absentmindedly at my temples. A migraine was imminent—the first one I’d had in weeks. “Anyway, I don’t think I can return on my own. It’s too complicated. Only William understands how. Or, the modern William does, at least. This William . . .” I recalled him shoving me out his bedroom window and clamped my mouth shut. Some not-so-nice words were at the tip of my tongue.
Paul finished his cheeseburger and leaned forward to rest a chin in a massive palm. “You are too tough on him. He needs you. He is cat stuck in a tree, scratching and biting at helping hand. You learn patience, and everything will work out.”
“I have been patient. I guess. Maybe not.” I put my hamburger down. “I suppose it’s my fault this happened. I was being pushy, and he asked for more time to figure things out. He’d been making all these trips without me, and they seemed to turn out okay. I was worried he’d go off on his own and never—but, why did it have to get screwed up the second I wanted to join in?” I plopped my face into my palm the same way as him. “You still hungry?”
Paul’s brown eyes twinkled. He fanned his fingers under his chin. “I always hungry. Big Paul.”
We both turned to see a figure exit from the bank’s front entrance, all in black. Paul’s expression changed—he sat up straighter. “No good.” His hands began to shake. “That man is darkness taking away the sun.”
As if listening to Paul’s fearful words, the heavens formed a cluster of clouds, blotting out the hot July sunlight. In any other circumstance, I would be grateful for the break, but at the moment it left me paranoid.