“Who’s Michael?” Fiona asked.
“Her boyfriend,” he replied. “I’ll call you back and tell you what time I’m picking you up, okay?”
“I’ll be here,” she said, hanging up the phone. She stared at the slip of paper from the bank with Henry’s phone number scrawled across it in his loopy handwriting. She tried to think only of the missing hockey player, and not how happy she was to hear that Madden had a boyfriend.
Fiona combined the spinach, garlic, seasonings, ricotta, and egg for the lasagna, then layered the concoction between strips of noodles, sauce, and mozzarella in the casserole dish she’d found in the cupboard. She drizzled the lasagna with a layer of olive oil, covered the dish in foil, and put it in the fridge. She could bake the lasagna later if there was time. Then, she went upstairs and gently awakened Ryan, so they’d be ready to go when Henry called.
Ryan smiled sleepily at her, rubbing his eyes as she changed his diaper. She looked down at his little face and wondered what scraps he’d get himself into in high school someday. Fiona hoped she’d still be around to help Henry and Ryan through whatever challenges they would face.
Henry called again at three and said he was coming to take them to the ice rink. Madden was going to meet them there. Hanging up, she felt a nervous flutter in her stomach. What if this would be the one time that she got nothing, no words or images? She knew she couldn’t think that way, though. The situation was too dire to allow self-doubt to creep in.
Ryan was thrilled to see his father in the middle of the day and he talked non-stop during the drive to the ice rink. He was trying to sing a nursery rhyme that Fiona had taught him, and his voice was sweet to hear, but also bittersweet at the thought of Madden’s missing brother. Henry and Fiona looked silently at one another in the front seat.
“Does Eric have a girlfriend?” Fiona asked.
“Yeah,” Henry said, “and at first everyone was convinced that she knew where Eric was and was covering for him. Now, though, everyone believes her. She said she hasn’t seen or talked to him since after school yesterday. They hung out in the afternoon and did homework, then she went home. Eric took a nap before hockey practice because, according to the girlfriend, he didn’t feel well. He said he had a bad headache and stomachache.”
“And he went to practice anyway?” Fiona asked.
Henry smiled ironically. “Fiona,” he said, “in Minnesota, the only excuse for missing hockey practice is if you’re in the hospital or at a close family member’s funeral.”
Fiona shuddered. “No one saw where Eric went when he left the rink?”
“No.” Henry shook his head. “The rest of the team was on the ice and the idiot coach didn’t try to stop Eric. The guy sounds like he really has it in for the kid. Apparently, he used to play hockey in high school with Eric’s father and he hated Eric’s father, too. Seems he thinks the dad took his spot as team captain or something. He’s been, like, holding a grudge all these years and people say he’s getting revenge through Eric.”
“Oh, jeez.” Fiona scanned the woods they were passing. “That sounds like a really bad situation. People take hockey really seriously in Minnesota, right?” Fiona asked.
Henry laughed until he realized she was serious. “Yeah they do. They take it very seriously. It’s not like that where you grew up?”
“Not that I know of,” she said, “although I might not have been aware of it.”
“But your high school had a hockey team, right?”
“I think so. There was a girl in my homeroom whose boyfriend broke his wrist playing hockey, so there must have been a team.”
Henry looked shocked. “So, you never went to any games?”
“No,” Fiona said, “why would I? I went to some swim meets, though. My boyfriend was a swimmer.”
“What did you do in high school?” He glanced at her uneasily. “Did you play any sports?”
“Besides horseback riding? I was in Amnesty International, the Peace Alliance, and I was on the literary magazine.” Ryan was singing again, and she turned to him and joined in on the chorus. “Three bags full!” she trilled, and Ryan squealed with laughter.
“What’s ‘Amnesty International?’” Henry asked, smiling at their singing.
“It’s a group that fights human rights abuses. We would get together once a week in the school library and write letters to government officials of countries who were holding, and probably torturing, political prisoners.”
Henry gawked at her. “Wow. We didn’t have that group at my high school. What’s the Peace Alliance?”
“We were the no-nukes club. You know, trying to end the arms race? We went to demonstrations and stuff.” She shrugged. Henry was still looking at her with incredulity.
“End the arms race?” Henry repeated. “You realize that will never happen, right? The U.S. can’t give up its nukes.”
Fiona looked down at her hands in her lap. “What did you do in high school?” she asked.
“Hockey. I was a center all four years.” His chest puffed with pride. “Not always on the first line, though.”
“A center?” Fiona asked. “A center of what?”
“Oh my God.” Henry laughed. “You really aren’t into sports, are you? You and Carol would have liked each other. She was clueless about sports, too.” Henry glanced at her wistfully. “You remind me a lot of her.”
“Thank you. Grandma Mary said Carol was a lovely person, inside and out.” There was a long moment of silence. Finally, Fiona asked, “What sport do you think Ryan will play?” She looked at Ryan in the back seat. His eyes drooped as though he was about to fall asleep.
“Hockey, of course.” Henry smiled. “I’m starting him this winter. I’ll teach him how to skate myself, then he can take formal lessons at the rink in the spring.”
“What!” Fiona yelped, looking back at Ryan’s tiny boots. “Isn’t he a little young for hockey?”
“No,” Henry replied seriously. “Three is when all the kids start. I’m hoping to coach his team when Ryan’s a Mini-Mite.”
“A mini…might?” Fiona asked.
“A Mini - ‘Mite.’ That’s what they call the youngest age group.”
“That’s cute.” Fiona smiled. “It will be nice for Ryan to have his dad as coach.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Henry remarked. “Every parent on the team will be counting how many minutes of ice time Ryan gets compared to their kid, and if he accidentally gets an extra minute, the parents will complain and say I’m favoring my kid.”
“But you would never do that,” Fiona pointed out. “You’ll probably be harder on Ryan!”
“True.” Henry sighed, “but still, it’s not always easy on the kid whose dad is the coach. When I was a Mite, my coach gave his own son ‘MVP’ at the end of the season. It was ridiculous, too, because his kid was one of the worst players on the team. The kid fell down about five times per shift. He was nice, too, but he got picked on because of his douchebag dad.”
“Oh, dear.” Fiona laughed then stopped when she saw they were pulling into the parking lot at the ice rink. Even though it was the middle of the afternoon, the lot was full of cars; it had become the informal base in the search for Eric. Henry found a spot at the far end and carried Ryan as he and Fiona hurried to the rink’s entrance. The wind was painfully cold, and Fiona prayed that Eric was sheltered indoors somewhere.
Chapter 22
The double doors opened with a whoosh of warm air meeting cold. It took a few seconds for Fiona to catch her breath. Henry began to walk toward a very petite young woman with long, bright, coppery hair and large green eyes. Madden was tiny, probably not even five feet tall. Fiona was glad Madden had a boyfriend because she was very cute, and definitely closer in age to Henry than Fiona was.
Her face, however, was blotchy from crying. She was standing by herself in the crowded lobby and she approached when she saw Henry, Ryan, and Fiona. Madden took a moment to smile at Ryan and bent down on one knee to greet him,
but she looked mournfully at Fiona when she stood. “I hope you can pick up on something,” she said in a wobbly voice after Henry introduced them.
Not knowing what to say, Fiona just nodded somberly. She didn’t want to say, “Don’t worry, of course I will.”
Madden guided Fiona, Henry, and Ryan through another set of glass doors at the back of the lobby into the ice rink itself. The air was so cold it almost felt solid. It was a different kind of cold from the outdoor air because it didn’t move, but it still had a bite. There was one lone figure skater on the ice. She was dressed in a leotard and thick leggings. She was skating in a slow, languorous circle, then she surprised Fiona by launching herself into an airborne pirouette. The beauty of it made Fiona’s breath catch in her throat.
Madden led them to another door next to a drinking fountain. She pushed it open, motioning for them to follow her. Fiona observed what looked like twenty or so hockey sticks leaning against the wall next to the door.
They passed a cluster of teenagers standing near the metal stairs leading up to the stands, who watched them with open curiosity. Fiona assumed that everyone knew Madden was Eric’s sister.
When she followed Madden through the door, she saw that they were entering a locker room. There were benches fixed to every wall. Red and silver “Fireside High School Warriors” hockey bags were disbursed evenly in front of the benches. The unzipped bags were bursting with skates, helmets, gloves, shin pads, elbow pads, shoulder pads, and hockey pants. The room smelled intensely of the bacteria from the players’ sweat that had dried on the equipment. The odor was overwhelming, and Fiona put her hand up to cover her nose and mouth. She was afraid she was going to vomit.
When Henry saw her expression, he smiled. “Smells great, huh?” he asked.
Inexplicably, there were crumpled balls of masking tape all over the room. Ryan giggled and threw one of the balls, delighted by the mess.
Henry said, “I’ll take Ryan out to the lobby so you can focus.” He scooped up his son and went back through the door, turning to give Fiona one last encouraging look.
Madden pointed to a hockey bag in the corner. “This is Eric’s stuff." She pulled a jersey with the number “3” on the back off a hook and handed it to Fiona. “This is what he would have been wearing right before he took off. Maybe it will help.”
“How about a picture of Eric?” Fiona suggested.
Madden pulled a wallet from her coat pocket and removed a small school photo. It looked old and weathered. “It’s from his sophomore year and he’s a senior now.”
Fiona stared down at Eric’s blue eyes under a fringe of light brown hair. He had a smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose. He looked like a boy trying to grow into the emerging planes of his jaw and cheekbones. He was smiling sweetly in the photo and she thought Eric looked intelligent and kind. “Thank you,” she said, handing the photo back to Madden.
Fiona sat on the bench by Eric’s bag and reached down briefly to run her hand across a skate boot and an upside-down shin pad. She was hoping to connect with his energy by touching something he’d worn. She clutched his jersey, determined not to allow her nausea to rise. She tried breathing only through her mouth.
Fiona closed her eyes and emptied her mind. It was something she’d been practicing and she was getting better at shutting off her thoughts. It was hard to do, though, with other people around. Acutely aware that Madden was watching her, she asked the spirits for help silently instead of asking out loud. Spirits, she requested in her head, please tell me where Eric is, and if he is okay.
Fiona kept her eyes shut so tightly that she began to see smears of orange and yellow spreading into the blackness of her inner eye. She tried to relax, and the orange and yellow slowly dissipated. “Please,” she thought urgently, “it’s so important that we find this boy.”
Fiona sat very still, feeling Madden’s eyes on her. After a few long moments, however, the blackness in her mind’s eye lightened into a scene. She could see vertical rows of wooden boards. It looked like the kind of unfinished wood you’d find in a shed, an attic, or a basement. She wanted to scream out, “He’s indoors somewhere!” until she realized there might not be a heat source inside the structure. Fiona made a monumental effort to relax and allow the image to expand, but she kept seeing only a glimpse of wooden boards.
Fiona noticed her body was growing warm. That seemed impossible because she knew she was chilled to the bone, yet her face, scalp, arms, and torso were feeling positively hot. Beads of sweat erupted on her forehead and in her armpits. She squirmed in discomfort and Madden said in an anguished voice, “What? What is it? What are you seeing?”
Fiona realized that she was feeling Eric instead of seeing him. His body temperature was elevated, and she couldn't understand why. Everyone was terrified that Eric had frozen to death, but all she could feel was heat. It made no sense. She breathed in deeply and reminded herself of what Grandma Mary had taught her: the messages won’t always make sense.
“Okay,” Fiona said to Madden, not wanting to open her eyes and lose the image. “I’m seeing wooden boards, like Eric’s inside some kind of room, but crude. Unfinished. The boards I’m seeing aren’t painted or anything. I can’t see Eric but I can feel him. He’s hot,” she murmured, “like he’s got a fever.”
That was it! Fiona knew she was right as soon as she said it. Eric was sick and feverish but alive in a wooden structure somewhere. She opened her eyes and told this to Madden, who immediately began to weep. “So, Eric’s alive?” Madden sobbed.
Fiona knew she shouldn’t promise anything so monumental, but she also knew it was true. “He’s alive,” she said, nodding and beginning to cry herself. “He’s alive, but he’s got a high fever. I’m not sure, but he might be unconscious.”
“And he’s in a room with wooden boards?” Madden stammered. Fiona nodded again. “Thank you.” Madden bent forward to touch Fiona’s hands, then she ran out of the locker room.
Fiona fell forward and began to sob, holding Eric’s jersey up to her face. She was being pummeled by waves of emotion. She tried to stop crying, but the experience had opened something in her heart and she was unable to close it. She needed to talk it through with Grandma Mary.
A moment later, Henry came through the door. When he saw that Fiona was crying, he hurried across the room and sat next to her, wrapping her tightly in his arms. She turned her face into his jacket and let out a sob, her body jerking with the force of her grief. She didn’t know where it was coming from; she hadn’t wept like this since her father died.
“Shhh,” Henry whispered, stroking her hair. “It’s good news, isn’t it? Madden said you felt Eric is alive.”
“Yes,” Fiona stammered, “it is good news… I don’t know why I’m crying. Something just, like, broke inside me when I felt Eric.” Her voice shook, and she searched for the right words. “It’s like I’m…raw inside.”
Henry said nothing but continued to hold her tightly. His arms felt so strong and solid and warm that Fiona felt her tears slowing and her body quieting. “Where’s Ryan?” she managed to ask.
“He’s playing with some other little kids in the lobby,” Henry murmured into her hair. “Some of the hockey moms are supervising.”
“Are they going to change where they look for Eric?”
“I’m sure they will. The cops might not believe what you saw, but Madden did, so she’ll get the hockey team to search sheds, attics, and basements.”
Fiona slumped in Henry’s arms. “I want to help,” she said. “I want to go out and look for Eric, now that I’ve seen where he is.”
Henry squeezed her shoulders. “You are so good and so kind, Fiona, but you’ve done enough. You’ve done more than enough. Plus, the boys on the team know the town inside and out. They’ll find Eric. You should go home and rest.”
“No. I won’t be able to sleep until I know that Eric has been found.”
“Okay,” Henry said, releasing Fiona from his embrace. Th
en he lifted his hand and tenderly wiped some of her tears. “How about this: I’ll drop you and Ryan back at the house and call you as soon as we find Eric. Then I’ll come home and eat the whole pan of spinach lasagna.”
Fiona smiled weakly. “Okay.” She stood up and reverently placed Eric’s hockey jersey back onto its hook. She looked at it and commented to Henry, “Lucky number three, right?”
“Yeah,” Henry said, also looking at the number on the side of Eric’s hockey bag, “very lucky number three.”
Chapter 23
,
As they made their way through the lobby and outside to the parking lot, Fiona observed that the atmosphere in the rink had changed since she’d gone inside twenty minutes earlier. There was a buzz of excitement and the teenagers from the stairs had disappeared. The figure skater, however, was still moving across the ice.
Henry helped her bring Ryan into the house and was preparing to go back outside and into his truck when the telephone rang. Fiona knew it was Madden calling to say they’d found Eric. When Henry hung up the phone, he wiped his forehead before saying, “Eric was in his next-door neighbor’s basement.”
He dropped down into the chair nearest the telephone. “You were right. He was unconscious with a high fever. They’re taking him in an ambulance now to the hospital. They think he went into his neighbor’s basement to hide until he could face his parents, but then lost consciousness. Eric does odd jobs for the neighbor, so he has a key hidden by the back door. The neighbor never heard Eric or knew he was down there.”
Fiona was overcome by relief. Eric had been found alive. “Thank God he was indoors. Why was he afraid to go home and face his parents?”
Henry shrugged. “Remember, Eric had gotten himself into a bind by showing his temper to the coach. In Minnesota, even if the coach is a jerk, his word is final. Eric’s dad would have been pissed at Eric for storming out of practice.”
“Wow,” Fiona sighed. “I hope he can get better quickly and get back on the ice. I’m sure the coach will back off a little after what happened.”
Spirit Talk: (Book One of The Fiona Series) Page 16