Level 2 (Memory Chronicles) (26 page)

My body spasms as bursts of energy and the fragmented memories of millions upon millions of people surge through me, fighting for dominance in my mind. But then I’m pulled under into a memory I recognize as my own.

Ward, Felicia. Memory #33017

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“What is that you’re playing?” Grammy asks when I pause to shuffle the pages of the score in front of me.

I smile up at her. “It’s the piano part for Dad’s
Prancing Goat Symphony
. Came in the mail today. Isn’t it gorgeous?” The way Dad has been able to capture the atmosphere of being there in those wild Turkish hills that morning blows me away. Playing his notes brings me back fully into the moment. I can feel the wind whipping through my hair, can taste the salty cheese on my tongue, can see the excitement in Dad’s eyes as the goats began their performance. And it also brings me closer to him again. Even though we’re an ocean apart, he made it clear on the phone last week that he’s here for me. That he never stopped loving me.

Grammy blows on her steaming mug. “It’s certainly . . . different. But then, your father’s music isn’t known for being accessible.”

“No.” I laugh, fingering the keys, itching to get back to the music.

“But it’s nice to hear you play again. I wonder if we can attribute your recent good moods to a certain young man,” she says, taking a small sip of her tea. There’s a teasing twinkle in her eye that belies her gruff tone.

Blushing, I glance at the wall clock hanging in the foyer. Seventeen after one. “Speaking of which, Neil is picking me up in a few. His cousin is getting married.” Well, technically it’s more of a commitment ceremony, but they’re calling it a wedding.

“Angela,” Grammy states, a judgmental twinge creeping into her voice. “I haven’t seen her since she stopped attending services.”

“I’ve never met her, but Neil was pretty adamant about going to show his support,” I say, not wanting to turn Angela and her alternative lifestyle into a discussion.

I stand up, stepping away from the piano bench so I can give the full skirt of my sundress some space while I spin. “How do I look?”

Grammy approaches me, using her free hand to smooth my hair and check for chips in my nail polish. I can tell she’d like to debate the appropriateness of bare shoulders, but surprisingly, she holds it in. “Yellow is a lovely color on you.”

“Thank you, Grammy.” I plant a kiss on her forehead and squeeze her shoulder gently. “For everything. I mean it.”

Grammy nods curtly. “Have fun, dear.” I think I might detect a ghost of a smile as she hobbles back toward the kitchen.

I use the few minutes I have before Neil’s arrival to immerse myself in Dad’s notes, letting my fingers fly across the keys as if they hadn’t been away from the piano for months. I’m in the middle of the third movement when I hear a car horn blaring. Startled, I look up at the clock. Neil’s late.

I close the lid of the piano, grab my purse, and rush to meet him.

“Happy Birthday, Felicia,” Neil calls out to me across the lawn, opening the passenger door of his car as I skip out of the house, letting the screen door slam behind me. He’s wearing pressed khakis and a summery blue-and-white- checked button-down shirt.

“It’s not my birthday till tomorrow, silly,” I say breathlessly as I throw my arms around his neck and tilt my head up, waiting for his lips to touch mine. He brushes them quickly and then takes my arm, twirling and depositing me in the passenger seat before firmly closing my door.

Not five seconds later he’s beside me, gripping the steering wheel, his foot on the gas. “We’re going to be so late.”

“Well, better late than never, right?” I say as he peels out, squealing the tires, gunning it down the street. “And you’d better slow down. You’ve tempted fate by wishing me happy birthday early, you know.”

He glances at me quickly, taking the corner at high speed, not even really pausing for the stop sign. “What do you mean?”

“It’s just one of those German quirks. A superstition. They think if you wish someone happy birthday before the actual day, you are inviting death to swoop in and carry that person off.”

Neil shakes his head. “That’s crazy talk! I celebrate birthdays for at least a week, and I like to get a head start.”

“Oooh . . . does that mean I get presents every day for seven days?” I say, teasing.

“I don’t know, but you might want to check the glove compartment.”

I squeal in delight and wrestle open the compartment.
Inside there’s a small box, wrapped in silver paper with little silver bells hanging from a gold ribbon. I pull it out.

“You’re not tricking me into opening Angela’s wedding present, are you?” I ask.

He laughs. “No, but I did have both wrapped in the same paper.”

I survey the backseat and then shoot him a wary look when I don’t see any silver paper. “Where’s Angela’s?”

“In the trunk.” He reaches over and pulls at the ribbon playfully. “C’mon. Stop stalling and open it!”

I disentangle the silver bells from the package and hang them over his rearview mirror. We’ve pulled onto an old country road, and the bells swing wildly whenever we hit the curves. “Aren’t you driving a bit fast?” I ask.

Neil glances at the speedometer. “No more than seven over. Cops here don’t pull you over for that.”

I slide my finger under the tape, careful not to rip the paper, and unwrap a small white fabric-covered ring box. My heart skips a beat, and I freeze for a second. Did Neil buy me a ring?

I pull open the box, and the hinge makes a dull popping noise. It’s not a ring. It’s a charm. A charm in the shape of a skep. I exhale deeply, not exactly sure if I’m relieved or disappointed.

“Do you like it?” Neil asks, his voice wobbling slightly. “When I saw it, I thought of you. I know how much you like those vintage beehives.”

I look at it in wonder. “No, it’s perfect.” I lean over to give him a kiss on the cheek, but as I do, he half turns his head, and I end up kissing him on the corner of his mouth.
“I love it. I mean, as long as you don’t picture me in that bee suit every time I wear it.”

“Aw, you were adorable in that big, plastic baggy suit,” he says. “In fact, I think that might have been the moment I fell in love with you.”

“Oh, please!” I shriek, whipping his arm with the ribbon.

He twists his arm away from me and scrunches up his shoulder as if to protect himself from my blows. “It’s true! I swear!” I stop my assault, and he relaxes, turning to me with one of his trademark dimpled grins. “I really wish you’d wear it more often.”

We’re both laughing when we hear the sirens. The car jerks as Neil switches his foot from the gas to the brakes to round the next curve. I grip the handle on the door, suddenly alert.

When I see the police car coming straight at us, in our lane, I scream. Neil swerves. There’s a terrible sound at impact. Metal upon metal. And as the cars spin together in a macabre dance, as glass shards come flying at my face, time slows to a crawl. The last frame of the film of my life, the last flash my eyes process before fading to black, is of the driver of the police car. Julian.

Lightning bolts tear through
my body as the Morati flip the switch on me again, bringing me back with one terrible thought in my head. What the Morati said about Julian is true. He betrayed me. He caused the accident that killed me. I’m truly on my own. And then I black out.

CHAPTER 21

“WAKE UP, SWEET PEA!”
Dad shakes my shoulders and pulls the thin sheet off me. “Mom wants to go out and pick up your birthday cake.”

I grumble but wipe the sleep out of my eyes as I kick my legs over the side of the bed. One of my feet gets caught in the mosquito netting, and only then do I remember where I am. Kenya. Our second day. The late-afternoon sun trickles in through a window so reinforced with metal bars that I don’t know why the builders even bothered to put in windows.

Dad hums in the hallway as I jam my feet into my red flip-flops. I grab my pink backpack from atop my suitcase. When I emerge from my room scratching a huge red bite on my arm, Dad hustles me down the
stairs, out the door, and across the courtyard to the car.

Mother’s already sitting in the driver’s seat, and she puffs out short breaths when she sees me. “Why do you let her drag that infernal backpack everywhere we go? It’s so stuffed full of crap, she can hardly carry it by herself.”

Instead of answering, Dad calls shotgun. He gets into the front, ruffles my mother’s hair, and plants a loud kiss on her forehead. She laughs.

I get into the backseat and slam the door behind me, hugging the backpack to my chest like a shield. It holds my favorite sweatshirt, a few books, a notepad with a book I’m writing with Autumn, and a glitter nail polish kit.

The guard that Mother hired this morning opens the gate for us, and we cruise through the narrow streets of the housing area until we reach a main avenue lined with stalls of all sorts. Venders hawk flowers, traditional African clothing, even furniture. Then I spy sleepy bundles of white glossy fur. Puppies!

“Can we get a dog, Dad? Look how cute they are. Please, please, please? For my birthday present?” I stick my head and torso out the window to get a closer look and squeal when a puppy with chocolate eyes lifts his head and whines at me.

“Sit back down!” Mother engages the automatic windows, and they close all the way. “Porter told me they drug those puppies to keep them docile. It’s sickening.”

Dad shakes his head. “Sorry, sweet pea. What else is on your wish list?”

Ugh! Why doesn’t Dad ever stand up to her? “Nothing,” I say sourly. I imagine taking home my chocolate-eyed puppy. I’ll name him Hershey, and he’ll always sit next to me on the bench when I practice piano.

At the end of the avenue, we enter a roundabout and then pull into the guarded parking lot of a fancy-looking mall. Whereas the rest of Nairobi has been dusty and rough, the shopping plaza is a sleek and pristine white. Several uniformed men rush over when we exit the car, and offer to watch it for us. And when we climb the wide stairs to enter the stately main building, we’re greeted by at least a dozen armed guards.

“Well, if it isn’t Evangeline Ward.” A stiff man with a British accent approaches us and shakes Mother’s hand vigorously. “What brings you here this fine evening?”

“Porter Huntley. Lovely to see you again.” Mother smiles primly. “This is my husband, Elliot, and my daughter, Felicia.”

“We’re picking up my birthday cake,” I blurt as Porter and Dad shake hands.

“Well, happy birthday to you, miss.” Porter pats me on the head. “How old are you? Twelve?”

I stand straighter, gripping the straps of my backpack. “I’ll be thirteen tomorrow.”

But Porter has lost interest in me. He invites Mother for a ristretto. She says she’d love some and asks Dad to pick up my cake.

Dad tugs on my arm, but I dig in my heels and say I
want to wait by the fountain. He nods and tells me to stay there and not to move.

The fountain is round and relatively plain. It looks like a kiddie pool or a small pond, except for the fountain that protrudes from the center in a trumpet pattern. I sit on the low bench surrounding it and make tiny waves in the water with my fingertips. I think about my sweet puppy Hershey and how I could go visit him while my parents are otherwise occupied. It will only take me a few minutes to walk there, pet him, and then walk back. They’ll never know I was gone.

I stride by the guards and enter the melee on the avenue. There are people and cars everywhere, and I have to push my way through the crowd. By the time I reach the puppies, my feet and bare shins are covered in grit. I’m sweaty, and the mosquito bite on my arm is driving me crazy. Hershey whimpers when I approach him, and the vendor, a scruffy, skinny man, holds him out to me. I scratch Hershey behind his ears and run my hands over his soft fur.

A car stops behind us, and a woman calls out, distracting the vendor. Hershey squirms out of his grasp and jumps away, weaving between people’s legs as he makes his way toward an alley. I dash after him, my flip-flops thwacking against the ground and my heavy backpack banging against my tailbone. I’m close enough to reach out and grab the puppy, when I trip over my shoe and fall.

“Crap!” I’ve skinned my knee, and I wince as I pick myself up. How am I going to explain this to Dad? Hershey skitters around the corner, and long shadows spill around me. I look
up to see the oranges and pinks of a spectacular sunset, and I realize with a sinking stomach that I’m alone in this alley. I shiver despite the heat.

Bummed about losing Hershey, I turn to head back to the shopping plaza, and run straight into two men. The larger of the two has a scar that runs the width of his forehead. The smaller one holds out a knife.

“Give your bag here and we won’t hurt you,” the smaller one growls. Instinctively I back away, and the bigger one lunges at me. He tears the backpack off me, lifting me into in the air in the process. I crash heavily to my hands and knees. I cough, trying to stand, but something slams into the back of my head and I go down.

There’s a piercing light, a tunnel of sorts, and I blink furiously as I try to adjust to the brightness. When I squint, I can make out the shape of a boy a few years older than me. He’s looking longingly into something shaped like a mirror, but the glass doesn’t reflect his face. Instead it reveals a street scene. There’s a police car, a mob of people crowded into a narrow alley. A man lifts a girl—is it me?—and cradles her to his chest. He’s crying openly, inconsolable. She’s limp in his arms, blood streams down her face, and a single red flip-flop dangles from one of her feet.

The boy spins around, and his wild, dark eyes bore into mine. “You!” he exclaims, glancing back and forth between me and his windowlike mirror. He leaps toward me, and I feel the icy stab of fear when he touches my arm. “Time to go.”

I spin out of his grasp. I fall through darkness, and surface in my dad’s arms. The boy in my nightmare is gone, and the pain in my head is unbearable. I let out a scream to rival the sirens reverberating through the alley. I squeeze my eyes shut.