The Second Heart (15 page)

“They are in some real trouble,” Lenny
observed with a worried tone.

A dust storm raced toward them in a large
menacing swirl of sand and debris, a huge looming cloud that
blanketed everything in its path. “Yep,” Nate agreed as the girls
took off running. He gunned the engine, racing toward the freeway,
but had to brake hard as the light before the overpass turned
red.

Nate’s fingers drummed on the steering wheel
impatiently as the wall of dust came upon them, obscuring the girls
from view.

“Seems a bit late in the year for a storm
like this,” Lenny said uneasily. “It’s spooky.” He peered out into
the brown air, willing his eyes to see through the cloud. As they
sat waiting at the light, both of their phones started chirping
with the familiar emergency alert sound in response to the sudden
storm.

The light changed and Nate nervously eased
the car out into the intersection. His headlights lit up thousands
upon thousands of motes of dust as they danced around the car,
allowing him to only see about thirty feet ahead of the vehicle. He
hoped there wasn’t a car stopped ahead as he accelerated once again
to try to catch up with the girls. “Keep an eye out for them,” he
growled at Lenny through a tense jaw.

“There!” Lenny cried, pointing. The girls
were sprinting along the sidewalk on the right hand side of the
road. Then, Lenny yelled, “The tree!”

Nate slammed on the brakes and they both
watched in horror as a tree uprooted in the yard next to where the
girls ran. The tree made a screeching, wrenching sound as the wind
swirled up under its canopy of leaves and ripped the tree out of
the ground, sending it pitching toward the girls. As they looked
on, they saw the red haired girl raise her arms up over her head
just as she was obscured from view by the reaching arms of the tree
branches.

Then, to Nate and Lenny’s amazement, the tree
lifted up and twisted away from the girls, seemingly of its own
accord. It landed a few feet away in a flurry of leaves and
cracking bark. The girls stood on the sidewalk, unharmed. For a
second, the red haired girl’s skin seemed to be slightly
luminescing, as if she had absorbed a little bit of moonlight.

Outside, the wind howled, dust battering the
car as it sat idling in the middle of the street. Inside the car,
there was dead quiet as the two men absorbed what they had seen.
Dumbly, Lenny asked, “Did she just push that tree out of the
way?”

Nate bit his lower lip as they lost sight of
the girls as they ran around the tree and down a side street. “It
really looks like she did,” he said, turning onto the street where
they had disappeared. His eyes darted around as he looked for the
girls, with no luck.

They continued slowly down the street,
searching. As they looked, Lenny said, “And just to be sure, she
was glowing, too. Right?”

“You saw that, too?” Nate demanded
enthusiastically. “I thought my eyes were just messing with
me.”

“No, man, I saw it. What the hell was that?
What is she?”

“I don’t know, but we have to find out.”
Continuing down the street, Nate felt himself becoming increasingly
frustrated as he failed to spot the girls. After what he had seen
with the tree, he felt even more desperate to find the red haired
girl and learn more about her.

They had reached the end of the street, and
Lenny asked, “Do you wanna turn around and look again?”

“For all we know they went into one of the
houses,” Nate said through clenched teeth, thinking out loud. “But
maybe they didn’t.” He swung around and made a U-turn, once again
driving slowly down the street, looking for the girl and her
friend.

They passed an old style sedan as they drove,
not paying it much attention as they looked into the yards and
porches of the ranch-style masonry homes on the street. Back at the
beginning of the street, Nate cursed, saying, “We lost them.”

Nate turned right onto the main street and
drove for a few blocks, discouraged and at a loss for what to do
next. On their left was an all night pancake place, and he pulled
in. “I could really use some coffee,” he explained. The clock on
the dash read 9:59 PM.

A clean-cut hostess with a blonde ponytail
led them to a booth against the front window, and they sat staring
at their own reflections and the hood of Nate’s car. The dust
obscured the rest of the parking lot from view. The server came and
took their orders, making small talk about the inclement weather,
which they responded to amiably.

Nate’s mind churned over what he had seen.
How had that girl pushed the tree away from them without even
touching it? Why had she been in the hospital? Was this the same
girl with the mysterious extra organ? He burned with curiosity,
simultaneously hoping that she and her friend were all right, while
also realizing what this potential story could do for his career if
he were the one to break it, whatever it was. Sharing his thoughts
with Lenny, he said, “We really have to find those girls. After
this, let’s head back to the hospital and ask around. Maybe we can
get a name.”

Lenny scoffed. “Yeah, you can do that, along
with everyone else.”

“Got a better idea?” Nate snarled. He
softened his expression as the server returned with their coffees.
He smiled politely and waited until the server had left before
continuing, “I’m all ears, man. I don’t know what I saw, but
whatever it is, it’s big.” He added cream and sugar to his coffee
before taking a large gulp.

Lenny sipped his own drink, contemplating
their next move. In his mind, the hospital was out. They’d been
there all afternoon without a scrap of information to show for it.
In fact, people were coming up to
them
for information.
Suddenly, he sat up straight and slapped his palm on the table with
a loud
thwack
. A server who had been rolling silverware a
few tables over jumped in her seat and gave them a dark look.

Nate flashed her an apologetic smile and then
asked Lenny sourly, “What?”

“You remember that red-haired guy who was
nosing around for information this afternoon?”

“Yeah, so?”

“He was acting kind of squirrelly, if you ask
me.”

The corners of Nate’s lips curled into a sly
smile. “And he did have red hair, just like our mystery girl.”

Lenny shrugged. “He used your phone, right?
Who’d he call?”

Nate was already pulling his cell phone out
of his pocket. Scrolling through his call history, he found the
number and jotted it down on one of the napkins on the table. “All
right,” he said when he was finished. “Let’s head back to the
office and see what we can find out.”

Nate tossed a ten-dollar bill onto the table
and shoved the napkin into his pocket, sliding out of the booth.
They nodded to the hostess on their way out, and were soon back on
the road and headed down to the station. It took them twice as long
as normal, as Nate drove slowly through the dust storm. He wisely
decided to stay off the freeway entirely, making his way into
downtown Phoenix using only surface streets.

Once they reached their building, they parked
as close to the entrance as they could, jogging through the storm
and trying not to breathe in the dust. Fortunately, the storm
seemed to be subsiding as they finally reached the relative quiet
of the lobby. They took the stairs to the second floor, where there
was a large sea of cubicles. Only a single fluorescent light
remained lit this late at night, and Nate made his way to his
workspace in the relative dimness.

Nate sat down at his desk and wiggled the
mouse to wake the computer up from its power saving mode. While he
waited for the machine to come alive he pulled the napkin out of
his pocket, pressing it carefully on his desktop to remove the
wrinkles. As the monitor lit up, Lenny leaned over his shoulder,
eagerly looking at the screen.

“Dude, you’re breathing in my ear,” Nate said
grumpily.

“Sorry.” Lenny took a step back while Nate
typed the number into the search engine that they used to do a
reverse look-up on phone numbers.

“It’s a cell phone number, registered to a
woman named Amelia Carpenter,” Nate said after a moment, knitting
his eyebrows together in concentration. He tried to recall what he
had overheard of the red-haired guy’s conversation. The guy had
asked the woman to come down to the gift shop, so it probably
wasn’t the daughter’s number. “Her mother, perhaps?” he mused out
loud.

Lenny made a noncommittal sound.

A few more clicks and Nate had Amelia
Carpenter’s address, which was down in Ahwatukee. “Fancy,” he
muttered. Ahwatukee was an affluent suburb of Phoenix known for its
large homes, abundant parks, and good schools. “Wonder if our girl
has a silver spoon up her ass?”

Lenny snickered and flopped down into a
rolling office chair that he pulled over from a nearby cubicle. “So
you wanna go knock on the door at mom and pop’s house or what?”

Nate leaned back in his chair, thinking. “Not
yet. I don’t want to tip our hand. Right now that guy is probably
hoping that we’ve forgotten all about him, and I think it would be
good for us to let him think that we have.” He paused for a moment,
running his hand through his hair. “I’ll tell you one thing though,
this story is way more than some side-show medical case. You saw
what she did with that tree.”

A small smile played across Lenny’s lips as
he thought about it. “Man, I wish I’d had the camera rolling on
that.” He restlessly turned back and forth in the office chair
while chewing on a thumbnail. “Maybe a gust of wind picked the tree
up before it landed on them.”

“I don’t think so--Mother Nature’s just not
that convenient. We both saw her push the tree off. And that still
wouldn’t explain how she glowed. Honestly, with what’s been going
on in the world lately, I think I’d believe just about anything at
this point.” Nate turned away from the computer screen to face
Lenny, casually crossing an ankle over his knee.

“You think this girl is connected to the rain
and earthquakes?” Lenny’s eyes widened incredulously as he asked
the question.

“No, not even I believe that someone can
control the weather. But still, the last few days have shown us
that there are a lot of weird-ass unexplainable things out there.
Maybe she’s one of ‘em.”

“Okay, so this girl is special. But it’s not
like we can just show up at her house and wring a story out of her.
We need a game plan,” Lenny stopped fidgeting and leaned forward
earnestly.

Nate rolled his eyes. “Obviously.”

“Well let’s hear it then, genius.”

Nate was silent, thinking.

Lenny smirked. “That’s what I thought.”

“Shut up, Len. We need to find out more about
Mystery Girl. We got her mom’s name--well, maybe her mom’s
name--but we can start there. I want to know who that girl is, who
she hangs out with, how she spends her time, anything. I’m going to
hit the internet hard and see what I can find.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Go watch the parents’ house and see if she
comes home. While you’re waiting you can keep track of who shows up
and who leaves.”

Lenny stood up with a sour expression. “If I
hadn’t seen that shit with the tree, there is no way I would bother
with this. I hope it ends up being worth our trouble.”

“I have a feeling it will.” Nate watched
passively as Lenny walked down the row of cubicles and back toward
the stairwell. Just before Lenny was out of sight, Nate called,
“And Lenny?”

Lenny turned back with an expectant
expression. “Yeah?”

“We don’t know what to expect from this girl,
and don’t want to miss anything. If you see her, keep the camera
rolling.”

Lenny nodded and gave a small salute before
disappearing.

Nate turned back to the computer and steepled
his fingers under his chin, leaning his elbows on the desktop. “So,
Mystery Girl,” he said to himself. “Let’s find out more about you.”
With that, he set to work.

“There was a
time, ages ago now, when magic was accepted as a part of everyday
life. Those who could use magic and control it, were highly
regarded, and their services were sought after by the wealthy and
the elite. Magicians, as they were called, often attended childbed
and deathbed alike, as they had remarkable healing powers. Of
course, their talents could also be put to use in a number of other
ways as well. Some built great structures or created beautiful art,
some used their powers to gather wealth and prestige, while others
still preferred to live simply and stay close to nature. You see,
nature is where magicians derived their power, which they held
within themselves in their Second Heart.”

“This sounds like a fairy tale,” Vi
interrupted rudely. She slouched down low in the couch with her
arms across her chest.

Eleanor looked at her keenly. “Poor manners
do not become you, Violet. Don’t let your envy turn you nasty.”

Vi sat up straight in her seat, defensively
looking toward Meredith. “I’m always like this, aren’t I,
Mere?”

Meredith shrugged, secretly thinking that
Eleanor had touched a nerve in her friend. “Go on,” she urged
quietly. To reassure Vi, Meredith reached over and took her hand,
giving it a small squeeze.

“It has been many years since I have heard of
the manifestation of a Second Heart, and it has never happened in
someone as old as you are.” Eleanor chuckled at Meredith’s
affronted expression. “That’s not to say you’re old, it’s just that
it usually would happen around the age of eight or so.”

“So what happened?” Meredith asked
impatiently. “Why did magic go from being commonplace to not
existing?”

“Well, in short, someone decided to take all
the magic for himself.”

“How?” Meredith pressed.

“Will you let me tell the damn story my own
way?” Eleanor barked irritably.