Ashes of Foreverland (6 page)

“Señor Danny Boy?” a boy asked, then dropped a letter on the table. This was a standard-sized envelope, the kind that would contain a letter, not a disk. Danny was transfixed by the green lettering.

Danny Boy.

“Hey!” He shoved away from the table. “
¡Espera!
”

“Danny.” Santiago swiped at his arm.

Danny jumped out of reach; the chair clapped onto the floor. He leaped over the stone wall onto the sidewalk. The messenger was already pumping the pedals on a beach bike, bouncing over the curb and around a building. Danny leaped around traffic, swinging his arms with the letter squashed in his fist. He was gaining on the young man, whose coarse black hair fluttered over his shoulders.

He cut down an alley.

Danny gave chase through a crowd and emerged on the road running parallel to the beach. His side stitched with stabbing pain; he struggled to breathe. The boy was gone.

He looked at the wrinkled letter damp with sweat.
What is happening?

Had someone tracked him down? One of the old men, perhaps? They certainly would want revenge. Danny had taken everything from them.
Everything.
But if one of them had survived, managed to elude the authorities that arrived when Danny, Reed and Zin had escaped, they wouldn't bother with poems or clues; they would've come straight away, kidnapped him while he slept. And even if they did send letters, they wouldn't know what to write.

The sand is my home.

Danny sat on the beach, watching sailboats slice across the horizon, the gulls hover over the water. Children ran past. He tore the letter open.

Another four lines. Another poem.

He read it over and over, hoping repetition would ease the cold fear rising. Like those days on the island, trapped in the cold concrete room of the haystack when the needle dropped from the ceiling, when he felt like crying.

When sometimes he did.

He didn't go back to the restaurant, didn't conclude business. He walked to the port where his ship waited. His captain took him back to the house. Santiago would later call him, but he wouldn't answer, wouldn't return his messages. Mary would stay in Valencia another week before returning to the United States, and her clients would refuse to invest with an unstable teenager, no matter how bright and promising.

But none of it would matter.

Nowhere was the opposite of somewhere. But for those that survived the island, it was more than that. It was the place where existence ceased, where space became a maddening array of gray static, complete chaos.

He saw it in Mary's eye, felt it howl inside him. It beckoned; it threatened.

As Reed knew it would.

An island off the coast of Spain

D
anny swiped the bathroom mirror. Beads of condensation raced to the sink. His irises were blue with dark bands radiating out like spokes. No gray.

No Nowhere.

He held the second note, the edges damp in his hand.
When the children sing and stare.
Just before someone was sent to the Nowhere, they had a blank stare. Is that what it meant?
When you look into the blue.
Did he mean the blue in her eyes? The blue on the edge of the disc.

What bridge?

He shook his head and took a deep breath. He was reading too much into it. The symbolism could mean anything.

Every question contains its answer.

“
¿Señor Daniel?
” Maria knocked on the bedroom door. “
Señor Santiago es aqui
.”

“
Un momento!
”

A small scar was centered between his eyes, an inch above his eyebrows—the mark was innocence lost. Danny knocked on the mirror and stared at his hands. Ever since he returned from New York, everything felt a little off. Was it his imagination? He had the sense of skating on a frozen pond when spring had already arrived.

And he could feel the ice thinning.

Danny got dressed to meet his mentor on the veranda.

——————————————

A
cloud of smoke hung around Santiago's head.

He was admiring the million-dollar view. Danny watched him from beneath the shade of the pergola. The smoke polluted the ever-present smell of lilac. He hadn't seen the Spaniard since he abandoned them at the café. Santiago sensed the eyes on him and turned.

“Cigar?” Santiago waved the Cuban. “You are too young to smoke, forgive me.”

His laughter cut across the wind.

“Sit in the shade?” Danny said.

The heavyset Spaniard shuffled beneath the pergola, the cigar clenched between his teeth. Maria stood in the doorway. Danny asked for water.

“Scotch,” Santiago said. “Neat.”

They sat opposite each other. Santiago's laughter rumbled on for no apparent reason. He did this for one of two reasons: he'd been drinking, or he was nervous.

And one never occurred without the other.

“Danny,” he said. “Danny, Danny.
¿Cómo estás, mi amigo?
”

“
Muy bien.
”

“
¿Huh? ¿Si?
” His laughter faded. He rolled the cigar between finger and thumb, the smoke hanging over the Florida birthmark. Something was off. It was like two images that didn't quite line up.

“I worry about you, Danny. I worry.”

“
Pero innecesario.
”

“Oh, I think it very necessary,
amigo
. You are so young and the world so big. You grow up so fast, and I worry. You have everything ahead of you, Danny—whatever you want.
¿Comprende?
”

Danny nodded.
I understand.

Maria brought their drinks and a bowl of fruit. Santiago took tiny sips, sighing. He worked the cigar like a child casually hitting a pacifier. Danny took an ice cube and ran it across his forehead. They spoke about the stock market, about potential investment opportunities as well as the current ones.

When lunch arrived, Santiago shook his empty glass. When Maria brought a second drink, he bit a grape in half. “There is the matter of Mary and her investors.”

Danny winced. It took a moment to comprehend what caused it. His forehead tingled. He connected the sensation to a word.

Investors.

The Investors, they were the old men that brought them out to the island, the old men that meant to steal their bodies. That word would always sting. He put on sunglasses, the world feeling a bit too bright.

“You see, your escapade”—he waved his knife—“the running you did at our meeting has caused...consternation, Danny. It was childish. People do not care to give money to a child.”

“I won't explain myself, Santiago. There will be other investors, you see. Entrepreneurs are interested in one thing—money. They don't care who makes it for them.”

“May I ask, what was the letter?”

“A girl, in town.” The lie seemed fitting, less secretive. He was grateful for the sunglasses.

“
¿Amiga?
” The laughter slowly rumbled. “This is what I mean, Danny.
Amigas
are for boys, not men.”

“Then the world is run by boys!” Danny's laughter was louder than Santiago's.

“Perhaps this is so. But, lucky for you, I saved this meeting with your investors. Mary will meet again on the promise you wait to chase your
amigas
after lunch.”

“How do you work such magic?”

Santiago shrugged. “They know me, Danny. They trust me. I tell them to trust you because I believe in you. Since day one, I believe in you.”

“Why?”

“I know a jewel when I see one. I recognize talent.”

“
¿Cómo?
” Danny pressed. “What talent do you see?”

“You always ask the right questions, that's what I like about you. You make good choices.” He pointed with the knife, chewing with his mouth open. “You are one in a million, Danny.”

When lunch was finished, Santiago pushed away from the table and lit a second cigar. He took a cappuccino from Maria and puffed blue rings.

“No more running, Danny.” He pointed with the cigar wedged between his fingers. “The investor will meet us tomorrow at the same restaurant. No more letters and such, no interruptions or we meet right here, on the veranda.” He thumped the table. “They want your ideas, Danny. You are visionary. You will help bring a new world into one that is tired and old.
¿Comprende?
”

New world?

This was a new pep talk. Santiago was always about enjoying the fruits of life. By fruits, he meant wine, he meant women. Not a tired world or a new one.

It was getting hot, even in the shade. Maybe it was the smoke. Danny rubbed another ice cube on his forehead.

“Everything is yours, Danny. And when you are old enough, we will enjoy cigars together and talk of our triumphs. We will drink good liquor and live very long. A new reality.”

Reality?
“You mean new world?”

“Same thing, Danny. You have everything you want.
¿Comprende?
” Santiago's laughter returned. He lifted his cup. “
¿Por qué nunca dejar?
”

Danny choked.

Santiago didn't notice. His head was back, a column of blue smoke streaming from his lips. It reminded Danny of something long forgotten, a chimney on the tropical island that belched smoke when one of the old men had successfully stolen another body.
Smoked
is what they called it.
Someone just got smoked.

“What did you say?” Danny said.

“
¿Que?
”

“What did you say, just a second ago?”

Santiago thought a moment, dashing his ashes. “
¿Por qué nunca dejar?
”

It was an innocent phrase that sank its knuckles so far under Danny's ribs that it robbed his breath. He gulped small bites of air, tears brimming behind the dark lenses.

“The bathroom calls.” Santiago excused himself.

Danny raised a hand but didn't wait for the Spaniard to return before going to the patio's wall. He ran the last couple of steps, vomiting over the edge. He rinsed his mouth, wiped his eyes and tried to appear normal.

Those words, the very same words, had been uttered before.

He'd heard those words on the island, long ago, to describe Foreverland—the imaginary land where he and all the boys were forced to go, where their dreams had come true, where they got everything they wanted so they would never return. They would leave their bodies behind, empty of awareness.

Foreverland was the trap they couldn't resist, so wonderfully everything a boy could want. The old men told them so. They said exactly what Santiago just said in Spanish.

Why would you ever leave?

“Lunch tomorrow, Danny?” Santiago waved from the house. “I come pick you up.”

Danny agreed.

It was the second lie he told that day. He wouldn't be there when the Spaniard arrived. He wouldn't go to lunch. Reed sent those letters.

Now he had to find him.

Upstate New York

“
¡Hola! ¡Hola!
”

The front door opened, followed by rustling bags and heavy footsteps. Alex wiped her hands on an apron and turned just in time to see a petite woman come at her with arms wide open.

“Ooo,” the woman dressed in brown moaned, clenching her daughter in a long hug that betrayed her inner strength. “
¿Cómo estás?
”

They hugged beneath a rack of stainless steel pots and pans, an embrace Alex tried to relinquish twice.

“
Bien, Madre. Bien, bien, bien.
”

Madre pulled back and stared at her daughter, searching for the truth. Alex took the old woman's hands and kissed them like she did when she was a child. Madre's eyes teared up. She held Alex's hands to her cheeks and kissed them over and over while muttering prayers.

An unsteady march came down the hall.

“Ah, there she is.” Her stepfather, a retired farmer, limped into the kitchen, the uneven gait the result of a tractor rolling on top of him. He wore boots made for cutting wood because you never know when a pile might need tending. The only thing bigger than his boots was his belly and, of course, his personality.

“Can I get an autograph?” Hank asked.

Alex hugged him. His beefy hands were cut from bucking bales and manhandling ornery hogs. He lifted her onto her toes.

“
Bonita.
”

“
Gracias.
” She laughed. “You're early.”

“No traffic,” he said. “Your mother fell asleep.”

“So you drove 100?”

“Not quite.”

Alex took the paper bag and placed the bottle of wine on the island counter. Hank went to find a comfortable chair and a television because, as he always said, driving makes you tired.

“You are cooking?” Madre asked.

“I follow the directions on the box.”

“But that's still good, you know. The apron and everything is good.” Madre patted her hand like before, this time without the prayer.

Alex began cleaning dishes. She could only take so much of that look, the one Madre lovingly saddled onto her children.
Look what you do to me,
Madre would say when something bad happened. Her brothers, perhaps, deserved as much, but none of the guilt stuck to them. And Alex, the fallout of her older siblings fell on her like ashes of a well-tended fire that had once burned fiercely.

It took three years of therapy for Alex to unwind the weight of Madre's suffering. That was why Samuel didn't call her from the hospital, why Alex didn't contact Madre until she was home, when everything was normal. The old woman no longer said those words, not to Alex. But her eyes still spoke them, the creases on her forehead were very clear.