The Awakening of Ren Crown (7 page)

I blindly took it. People were passing by, pointing and giving me wary glances. Me. Not my hands which held the paper that had just sucked someone inside.

I gripped the paper without looking down. Perhaps it would suck me inside too. Make me disappear completely as well.

I finally looked down. There was a different figure in the sketch now. The girl in the white dress with the sapling was gone, but a male figure, drawn in broad, harsh strokes, looked pretty freaked out as he dashed around, banging into the sides of the sketch.

I lunged forward and grabbed a sophomore passing on the walk, then held the sheet in front of his face. “Excuse me. Could you tell me what you see?”

The sophomore looked scared. “A guy and some curtains.”

“Is the guy doing anything?”

“Doing anything?”

“Do you see him moving?”

The kid backed up, then bolted.

I looked back down at the lone figure in the sketch—complete with a little beret—his hands splayed out against the paper, facing me, banging his palms as if against a two-way looking glass. His features were slowly turning from harsh strokes to the more refined ones of Will.

I tentatively reached out a finger to touch his hand.

“Ren!”

My head snapped up, and I saw Dad's car at the curb. He was leaning into the passenger seat and waving to me through the open window, just like he had done for weeks now—leaving work early so that the three of us could awkwardly sit together—broken—for early dinners during “happy time” when the October sun was only just starting to set. As if the dark wasn't more comforting now.

I looked back down at the sketch. Will looked completely freaked out. I looked back to the black SUV where the thin man stood with his arms crossed, eyes narrowed on the school entrance. I hurried to Dad's car.

“You didn't text back,” he said as I scooted inside. “I didn't know if you had decided to start walking. Good thing you didn't,” he said in a too-hardy, joking manner. “Weather events are getting crazy again.”

I hunched down, casting a quick glance behind my seat and through the rear window. “Sorry. Lost track of time.”

“What have you got there?” he asked.

He reached for the sketch, and I couldn't contain my yell. “Don't touch it!”

He pulled his hand back, shocked.

I swallowed again, pulling it completely out of his reach. “It's done in charcoal. It will dirty up your nice shirt.”

“You trying to say your old Dad is afraid of a little dirt?” His smile did nothing to lighten the dark circles under his eyes.

“No, course not.” They were going to pressure me again to take those drugs, I could see the intent forming in his expression. “Let's go home.” I took a deep breath and dredged up a smile.

But he stayed in park and examined the drawing I had plastered against the door—as far as I could get it away from him without turning it face out and risking it swallowing the car with us inside—and nodded sagely while tapping a finger to his lips. “The transcendental aspect of the curvature of your lines is a sterling representation of the Circle Movement. Startling. Brilliant.”

“Dad. Let's go.”

“What? Are you going to tell me there has never been a Circle Movement? Should I have commented on the symbolism of your hat choice instead?”

“I really want to go home. Now.
Please
.”

“Ok, ok.” The lines around his mouth tightened, but he checked his mirrors and shifted into gear.

I watched through the side mirror as we pulled away. The thin man was scanning the grounds. Fifty yards away, his eyes seemed to lock onto mine through the mirrored glass.

We turned the corner.

The tightness in my chest was overly constricting as I watched Will look over his shoulder to the dark sliver exposed by the slightly ajar drape. “Do you see anything wrong or weird about this picture?”

“Aside from the beret? No?”

The word came out more as a question, and as if it wasn't the picture that he was trying to decide was wrong and weird.

I looked to the side mirror. No strange cars seemed to be following behind.

Will's mouth pinched tight as he shifted sideways to keep both of us and the sliver between the drapes in view. He was watching the slivered opening in an increasingly wary manner. Had I conjured up some freaky nightmarish daydream about Mr. Verisetti? Had everything from the time I had entered the art classroom until the time my sketch fell to the ground been a vivid, complicated imagining? Were the lingering traces of such a dream still on me?

Check her wrist
.

The memory of the words made me look down. Christian's band was half destroyed on one wrist. And on the other, strange henna brown pointillist dots now formed what looked suspiciously like the sapling that had disappeared in the sketch.

I thought about balling up the paper. About taking the therapy drugs. Letting them make me forget everything.

I pressed my knuckles to my forehead trying to push against the ache growing there. I was breathing too hard; my Dad was going to stop the car any second.

“What do you say we stop for some fries on the way?” Dad said as he changed lanes. “Your Mom is making something healthy again.”

We were away from the school. No one seemed to be following us. I nodded, focusing my gaze on the sketch again. There was something moving behind the drapes. And there was a boy trapped in front of them.

Even if this was all the crazy in my head finally manifesting, maybe my brain was telling me how to release my fear of another person dying. Or was allowing me to save someone and feel redeemed. I closed my eyes. If I saved Will, maybe I'd gain some unpronounceable psychotherapy resolution.

Dad pulled into the drive-thru, trying to make jokes about Mom's reaction as he ordered three large fries.

I desperately wished for my brother. He would understand. Be able to help. My parents thought me unhinged with my tales of Christian's death.

I had no one. I was on my own.

We finally reached home, and I exited, gripping the sketch, watching as Will repeatedly checked his pockets with his finely drawn charcoal hands, pulling things out and stuffing them back in.

“Roger, that had better not be french fries I smell!” But Mom's joke came out all wrong. High and stringy. I'd bet the Picasso original I would someday own that someone from school had already called her about either my behavior in art or on the sidewalk.

“Too bad!” Dad's lighthearted reply was equally tight, as he shrugged out of his suit jacket. I clutched the sketch to my chest and stared up the darkened staircase toward my bedroom.

“Sweetie.” Mom appeared in my peripheral view and her hand went to my forehead. “You look feverish. Are you well? Should I call the doctor?”

Or the
therapist.

Dad appeared next to her, dark circles deepening. “I thought you were just in your zone thinking about your artwork.”

Hoping. He had been hoping I was just in my zone. And not dwelling on our missing fourth.

“Are you unwell? What is wrong, Ren?”

I loved my parents. Our family had been an awesome foursome. But now we were a very awkward threesome. They vacillated between holding on to me too tightly and trying to give me space. Holding on too tightly and pushing me away. Holding on too tightly and looking at me with ill-concealed censure.

“Nothing.” I had to clear my throat to get the whole word out. “I'm fine. Just tired. Everything will be fine.”

Will had confirmed that there was a way to bring someone back from the dead. Hope swelled painfully in my chest that my words were true. I repeated them as a promise.

“Everything will be fine.”

Chapter Three: Finding the Rabbit Hole

I stepped into my room and closed the door, stomach grumbling over the abusive way in which I had just shoved my dinner into it. I stood in the darkness for a moment, before flicking on the lights. My carefully wrought walls greeted me, overwhelming and crowding me, instead of providing the haven I desperately needed. I concentrated on the section directly across from the door and took a deep breath. The figures, creatures, and odd shapes remained stationary.

Half of the north wall had been completed during my Picasso cubist period, the other half during my obsession with pointillism and Signac. The transition between those two was...interesting. Demanding that the eye blend color versus elements. Christian had deemed me mad.

I wondered if his statement hadn't been a little true.

The other three walls and portions of the ceiling were a testament to other periods, some short, some longer. Impressionism, Renaissance, Baroque, Surrealism, Art Deco, Pop, Minimalism, Modernism. I looked to my latest period which covered the door to my closet. It was different from the others. It looked more like the designs on the draperies in the sketch. Black-and-white patterned circle portals and paths, shaded to create a three dimensional edge. As if I could enter to find Christian down one of those tunnels. The entrances to Heaven and Hell inside of my room and life.

I looked toward my nightstand and the photo of the two of us that rested on top. I curled my fingers into a fist, then loosened them one digit at a time. I could feel the energy in my skin hum.

I took another deep breath, sat, and unrolled the sketch—clipping the paper to my tabletop easel. Will was crouched defensively in the corner furthest from the slivered opening between the drapes. As soon as he saw me, he jumped up and made large motions with his limbs. The beret was off and stuffed in a back pocket, his dark hair was disheveled, and there was a large tear in the right pinstriped sleeve of his jacket. That hadn't been there earlier. He had been immaculate.

“Are you real?” I couldn't help but whisper.

He replied—a long string of words that were completely silent, but I got the gist of his motions.

“Ok, ok, you are real. And, er, I'm thinking you want out of there?”

Will started pantomiming and doing charades, motioning to me to draw something on the paper.

I looked at the painted walls around my room. Nothing moved there. Ok. I could do this.

He pointed to the tear in his sleeve, then gave me the sign to hurry up. I picked up a pencil, reached forward, and sketched a needle and some thread.

Will looked at me with an expression I could only catalog as contempt bordering on hysteria. He then reached forward, and with his shirtsleeve, wiped clear the lines I had drawn. Unnerved, I set my pencil down.

He motioned to my bag. I glanced down to see the charcoal there. I picked up the thinner of the two pieces—the charcoal pencil. It felt odd in my hand, just as its chunkier counterpart had. Perhaps there was a reason for that.

I redrew the needle and thread with the thin charcoal. One second after I finished, the lines lightened to a dark gray and fell to the ground at Will's feet. There was a gravity field inside my drawing?

Sure. Why not?

Will didn't even bother to look down, so obvious was his distress. He crossed his arms, causing the rip in his sleeve to grow. He seemed to be taking deep breaths. Finally, he poked a finger at the charcoal pencil, then thrust a finger at his own chest.

I poked him with the pencil. The action forced him back a step, his midsection burrowing in with the poke. The drapes rippled behind him, as though the motions had produced a breeze, and the shaded circles drawn on them slowly rotated, as if they were pinwheels affected by the same wind. His eyes widened, and he backed away from the nearest circle.

I blinked, then touched the needle and thread bundle with the pencil tip and focused on moving them. They inched jerkily to the side, the motion becoming smoother as my motions became surer. The charcoal left only a faint trace of gray, and within a few seconds, the farthest point of the line began to disappear, creeping along the rest of the line toward my implement, as if I was drawing with water. I lifted my pencil and the disappearing line caught up and evaporated completely.

I looked at the end of my pencil, then back at the sketch. Will was looking wide-eyed as well. He pulled out his tablet, pushed a button, looked frustrated, and shoved it back into his pinstriped jacket.

He pointed at my pencil, then pointed at himself with one hand, while the other mimicked writing.

“Oh.” I drew him a pencil. As the tip of my charcoal lifted from the paper, the drawn pencil turned a lighter hue and began to fall inside the page. Will caught it before it hit the sketched floor.

He immediately wrote “uoyeraohw” on the invisible wall between us.

I tried to pronounce it. “Uoyeraohw. Hawaiian?”

He crossed out the letters, cheeks turning a shaded gray in embarrassment, then in a very stilted way wrote, “Who are you?” in the other direction, though, the “r” was still backward.

“Ah.” Two way glass. Right. “Write normally. I can read backwards, now that I know what to expect.” I nervously ran a hand through my hair. “I'm Ren.”

“Ren, you okay?” I jumped, but then realized the voice had come through my bedroom door.

“Uh...just video chatting, Dad.”

“Okay.” Feet moved down the hall. It was a testament to how much they wanted to believe I had someone to video chat with.