A Matter of Heart (60 page)

I am, old friend. This is my
choice. The link between our minds ends now.

The moment I think that,
there’s an unnatural silence in my head. That little voice of Caleb’s, which
I’ve heard my entire life, is no longer there. The doorway isn’t even there.
Even though we haven’t spoken much lately, he’d always
been
there for
me.

It’s so lonely that, along
with the growing anxiety and pain due to being apart from my Connections, I
feel like dying. Or, at least, I feel like I’m no longer myself.

Which, in a way, is what I
want, isn’t it?

Once I get myself under
control, I stop at a store around the corner and buy myself a small bag and a
change of clothes. And then I hail a taxi and make my way to Rome’s airport. At
the ticket counter, I wrack my mind to find a city that has no portal nearby.
One that can be a gateway to other cities, via other travel methods.

St.
Louis will do, especially since a plane leaves for there in less than half an
hour. There’s a connection via New York, but that can’t be helped. During the
flight, I work on the shields around me. I smooth and buff the edges until I
feel confident that a Tracker won’t sense me. I make myself unworthy to look at
or to give the time of day. People won’t notice me unless I speak to them
first. This, I hope, will give me that head start.

The past week has been
calculated via trains and buses. I am now in Kansas, standing in front of a row
of hair color boxes in a drugstore. I deliberate between blonde or attempting a
gutsy black. I’d always wanted to be a redhead, but Sophie’s ruined that for me
now.

I go for blonde, buying
three boxes to ensure the brown fades entirely. It’s called light ash blonde
,
and appears, on the box, to glow like white gold.

I’ve rented a room in a
dingy local motel, cash only. Over the next few hours, my light brown fades to
almost white. And then I hack my hair off in uneven chunks until it barely
scrapes my chin line. It’s hard to look at the person in the mirror, because
she doesn’t look like Chloe anymore.

But I guess that’s because
she isn’t. Not that anyone’s asked me my name, but I wouldn’t tell them Chloe.
Apart from my shields, which I’ve attempted to make as permanent as possible,
and the stack of additional alternate fake IDs and paperwork I concocted when I
was in Nebraska days before, I do no Magic.

I’m a nobody.

A non-Magical now.

Just another nameless girl
who could be anyone anywhere.

In New Mexico, I get my eyes
checked at a Wal-Mart. I tell the person that I’ve always wanted blue eyes,
because I’m going to move to Hollywood and be an actress. I lie and say that
I’ve heard that blondes with blue eyes tend to get more acting roles than those
with green eyes. The guy thinks I’m a freak, but I’m given a year’s worth of
blue contacts, no prescription.

I hit North Dakota for two
days and then bounce down to Idaho. I skip California entirely.

I spend three days in
Canada. Vancouver is brilliant and beautiful but too close to California. So I
keep moving north. Keep moving towards those Northern Lights that I used to
daydream about for years.

I ping around various cities
in Alaska for a few days until I find myself in Anchorage. It’s a big city, the
biggest in Alaska, but it still has this small town feel to it. The nearest
portal is in Juneau, and that’s five-hundred-some miles to the southeast, which
feels like a safe enough distance.

I should keep moving. Maybe
back into Canada, someplace like Saskatchewan, but I’m tired. So very, very
tired.

I no longer let myself think
about the people I’ve left behind. No names, no faces, no memories. It’s so
hard to do, but I manage to numb my mind from these things. I tell myself I
have no other choice in the matter. My goal is simple: to ensure others’
happiness, I must be gone.

I spend my first night in
Anchorage in a motel and then find on the next day a small bed and breakfast
sort of place that houses locals. I’m given a room that doesn’t even have its
own bathroom—I have to share with my neighbor. It’s okay, though. I do not
deserve to indulge myself more than that.

I spend the third day buying
myself a wardrobe. I’ve picked up a few pieces over my travels, but not much.
Everything I get is cheap and comfortable. I do not go for cute; I’m all about
practicality. I don’t want to stand out.

I get myself a hotplate and
a few non-perishable groceries. I pick up a tiny fridge that can hold a quart
of milk and not much else. And then I buy a newspaper and begin looking for a
job, because my stolen funds will start to dwindle sooner or later.

I don’t find many prospects.
I have very little skills or experience to lend myself to most jobs. In fact,
I’ve never worked anywhere other than my mother’s nursery, and I was never paid
for that. College in Annar was a joke. Being a Creator is not something I can
put on a resume.

But I have to do something,
because I feel like I’m disintegrating. The pain is so excruciating at times
that all I want to do is fall into that black abyss. I have, actually.
Sometimes at night I let myself slide into oblivion, but then, inevitably, I
wake up and remember why I need to move on.

“Our pancakes are the best,”
the waitress coos at me. She’s short and bubbly, all curly brown hair and
matching eyes, twin dimples on her cheeks.

I can’t deal with those
dimples. I force myself to stare at her eyes rather than her cheeks.

“I love pancakes,” I say,
handing over my menu. My eyes track down to her nametag:
Hi! I’m Ginny!

She’s definitely an
exclamation point kind of girl.

“I’ve never seen you around
before.” Pink gum snaps between her teeth. “Visiting Alaska?”

I glance around the diner
I’m in—the extremely kitschy and aptly named Moose on the Loose is moderately
busy for being a twenty-table sort of joint. Best of all, it’s within a few bus
stops of my new home. “Actually, I just moved here.” I finger my water glass;
it’s already got condensation around the sides, so I’m able to wet my fingers.

She frowns. It seems
unnatural for her mouth. “To Anchorage?”

I want to laugh, but I
can’t. I don’t know if I can actually ever laugh again. “Why not Anchorage?”

“Most of us,” she says,
leaning in and whispering loudly but conspiratorially, “are trying to get the
hell out of here.”

I look out the window next
to me, at the pristine view beyond. “It’s gorgeous.”

She surprises me by sliding
into the booth across from me. “Where are you from?”

I figure it can’t hurt to
tell her the truth. “California.”

“Like, from Hollywood?”

I snort at the stereotype.
To be fair, I’d expected a bear on every corner of Anchorage’s streets, and I’m
sad to say, it’s pretty much like every other big city I’ve been to, save one.

Which shall remain nameless.

And not thought of.

Now I lie. “Yup. Los
Angeles.” I’ve read up on the area, so if someone asks me, I’ll know some
facts. Besides, I’m blonde and blue-eyed now. A stereotypical Southern
California girl.

“Do you know any movie
stars?”

Oh, lord. “Nope. Sorry.”

She leans back, tapping her
pen against the table. “Hey—are you looking for a job?” I start slightly, and
she adds, “Well, I figure, you’re new, right? The Moose is looking for a new
waitress. If you’ve already got a job, that’s cool, but I thought I’d throw it
out there. Besides, you work here, and you get all the free pancakes you want.”

I’ve been looking for a job
for a week now to no avail. Can I really be so lucky? “Seriously?”

“Yeah! You seem like a cool
chick who’d fit in well here.”

I
don’t give her an opportunity to think otherwise. “I’ll take it.”

The perk of working at a
small diner is there’s no orientation and training comes on the job. My first
shift is during a Wednesday night. Ginny assures me it’ll be slow, so I’ll have
plenty of time to familiarize myself with the joint.

I’m introduced to the other
waitress on duty, who’s on a split shift. Ginny and I will close the joint,
along with the cook and the dishwasher-slash-owner. The other waitress, named
Frieda, looks like a cross between a vampire and her namesake. She’s super
pale, with dark hair and eyes. But she seems friendly enough and smells like
gardenias, so I figure she can’t be all bad.

The dishwasher/owner ambles
out as Frieda grills me on the basics. He’s tall and extremely muscular, with
short dark hair and a closely cropped beard. He tells me his name is Paul, and
when we shake hands and he welcomes me, I get a feeling that Paul is a really,
really good guy. I have nothing to base it on other than his warm, callused
hands, but it’s a solid feeling.

“She met Will yet?” Paul
asks in a deep, gravelly voice.

“Nope,” Frieda says. She
fiddles with the twenty or so plastic bracelets lining her wrist. “Is Will even
in the kitchen right now?”

Ginny cranes her neck around
to peer into the window separating the kitchen from the diner. “I don’t think
he is.” She gives Paul a meaningful look. “Did his phone ring?”

Paul laughs, all rumbly and
friendly. “Come to think of it, yeah.”

“You’ll like Will.” Ginny’s
bouncing up and down slightly, like her shoes have springs in them.

“Everyone likes Will,”
Frieda adds.

“You like Will because he’s
hot,” Ginny accuses.

Frieda shrugs. “I’m
shallow.”

Silly girls. They have no
clue that, hot or not, I will never, ever be interested in any of the guys they
ever try to throw in my way.

“Don’t listen to these two.”
Paul leans back against the counter and crosses his arms.

“What are we saying that
isn’t true?” Frieda asks, picking polish off of her nails. Tiny blood red
flakes fall onto a napkin nearby. A memory of someone else’s red nail polish
being chipped off tugs at me, but I shut that down quick. “Ginny said Will’s
hot. I admitted to being shallow. So far, there’s nothing to disagree with.”

“Paul and Frieda used to
date,” Ginny tells me. “But now they’re more like friends with benefits.”

I’m sort of taken aback by
how easily they’re revealing things to me. They better not expect the same
behavior in return. But this hope is challenged when Paul says, “Ginny says
you’re from California?”

Did he not read my
application? Before I can answer, Ginny exclaims, “Can you believe she moved
here
?
From Hollywood to Anchorage?”

Okay, she’s sweet but ditzy.

“Are you in trouble with the
law?” Frieda asks, regarding like I’m a crazy person on the lam. If only she
knew the half of it.

“Who’s from Hollywood?”
comes another deep voice from nearby. But this voice isn’t gravelly like
Paul’s. It’s rich and honeyed with a thick Scottish accent.

“The new girl.” Frieda hooks
a thumb at me. The polish is badly mangled now, with only a few slivers of red
remaining.

I turn around and come face
to face with possibly one of the most attractive men I have ever seen. He’s
very tall and well built, with sandy blonde hair that falls into his dark, dark
chocolate eyes.

Ginny scoots in between me
and Mr. MacHotness. “This is Will.”

She and Frieda weren’t
whistling Dixie. I give the guy what I hope is a smile that says I’m glad to
meet him but if he comes too close, I’ll cut his knees off.

“She heard you were hot,”
Paul offers.

Will ignores him and tells
me his name, like Ginny hasn’t spoken at all. His hand, when offered, is even
warmer than Paul’s. I stare down at our hands together as he squeezes mine
gently. “And you are?” he asks, forcing my eyes back up to his face.

As hot as he is, and as
alluring as his accent is, I feel nothing when we touch except skin on skin. No
attraction whatsoever. I’m relieved. “Zoe White.”

“Well, Zoe,” he says,
gifting me with a devastatingly gorgeous yet crooked smile. “It’s awfully nice
to meet you.”