The Time Seekers (The Soul Seekers Book 2) (9 page)

Chapter 9

The door closed softly. Pauline came over with a plate and mug: Fiestaware in blue and daisy-yellow. “Mother said to give this to you. Aren’t you hungry? It’s fried chicken. We made it for the Fourth of July picnic today.”

I was hungry. But I’d sworn not to impose. One glimpse at the food, though, and my stomach screamed at me to forgo all promises. Even she heard it. “Gosh. Didn’t you eat anything at all on your way down here?”

I took the plate and glass and balanced them on my lap. The hideaway bed I perched on had sagging metal ribs that poked and groaned. Sleeping would not come easy.

Mother lay sideways on her bed. “Tell me about your life. You said you’re from . . . ?”

“Colorado,” I said, ripping flesh.

“Oh, gee. Colorado sounds just lovely. I’d go there in a second! I’m so sick of this dinky town.”

Why did she have to talk so much? Things were still so fresh in my mind; the deadness in her eyes when I’d run into her after the eclipse. It’d been over a year, and I still couldn’t forget.

Mother carried on. “Well, I gotta get out of this place. I want to travel—meet people. Meet a boy.” She rolled off the bed and moved to a vanity set painted white, with little strands of ivy as an accent. An open window nearby sucked, then flipped, a sheer curtain toward her arm and sent a warm breeze into the room. Opening a drawer, she pulled out a scallop-edged black and white photo. When she walked over to show it to me, I almost choked on a bite of chicken.

It was my father in the picture. It was impossible not to recognize him. I put the chicken down and wiped my hands and mouth on a little fabric napkin tucked underneath my plate. I asked to see the picture.

“He’s very handsome,” I said. My throat went tight.

Apparently, this was exactly what she wanted to hear, because she fell into a long dialogue of how they’d been writing to each other for almost a whole year, and in his last letter, he’d asked her to come visit. Maybe, if she played her cards right, he would buy her a ring. He wouldn’t do it unless she traveled there. Then she said her mother didn’t allow her to travel alone, but maybe since I’d shown up, I could let her tag along on one of my adventures, in which she would conveniently stop off in Colorado. Mother would never be any the wiser about the whole thing.

Her eyes settled on the bedroom door for a long moment. “She and I, well, we don’t get along. Mother has always been disappointed in me. There’s just no pleasing her.” Then, glancing at the photo again, her expression melted into happiness. “He loves me just for me. Isn’t that wonderful? I just gotta see him.”

She turned to me. “And you have to help me.”

I stammered a moment, looked at the picture again, and then handed it back with a sadness weighing on my chest like iron. “I can’t.”
You don’t deserve my help. You watched my father die, and didn’t even cry. Then you watched me die. I can’t forgive you. I just can’t.

Pauline walked to the dresser with quiet steps, and placed the photo back inside the drawer with a careful hand. When she turned to me, she was a whole different person. “Well, I’m going, with or without your help. And nobody will stop me.”

¤ ¤ ¤

Moonlight fell across Mother’s bed as she slept, arm thrown over her pillow and leg slung up like a runner in a high vault. I stood near the cot, trying hard not to make any noise as I slipped into my blouse’s sweat-stained armholes. It was hot and the fabric had already begun to stink. With shaking fingers, I pressed each button into their hole before bending over to shimmy the skirt up my legs.

I skipped the heels, reaching instead for a pair of white sneakers Mother had sticking out from under her bed. Our feet were almost the same size, though mine had swollen slightly with pregnancy. Too bad. It was wear them or go barefoot.

I slipped out into the hall and checked to make sure no one was around. My feet made soft sounds in the thick padding of the hall carpet all the way down the stairs.

A light came from the open living room doorway. Peering in, I saw Grandpa Jack asleep in front of an old Philco television set. A station pattern test in black and white glared into the dark room with a loud sizzle of static.

I made my way out to the front porch. Crickets chirped under the floorboards. The air was a hot blanket with the full moon turning branches and leaves into objects of silver. I contemplated the garage structure and made my mind up once again to do what I had decided to do. While Pauline had fallen asleep, and everyone else had settled down for the night, I’d lain awake and figured out a plan to see William again. I would sneak into his room and try to make him listen. If he turned crazy, yelled, called me a whore, I’d keep on until he understood something terrible had happened. He had to trust me, listen to me.

Something told me it wouldn’t be an easy task.

The William I knew had to be somewhere in that young man, perhaps right at the surface, and I needed to find a way dredge him out. Maybe through a shared message, a test, like we used to do. If only my abilities hadn’t faded so much. William himself had expressed worry over my lack of practice and how vulnerable it made me. Ironic how right he’d turned out to be. I’d been relying on him too much.

Moving toward the garage, I opened my blouse a few buttons to air the hot skin with a few shakes of fabric. It did little to help. In mere minutes, I felt the itch of sweat and chiggers. I bent over to grab the garage door handle and lifted carefully. The wheels and bearings rattled as they slid along their track, and the wooden panels of the door shifted and shook. I watched the house to see if anyone was awake.

Grandpa Jack hadn’t moved a bit when I’d slid the keys from of his trouser pocket. With a loud snore, he’d only shifted to the side in his leather chair, making it much too easy for me to reach in and grab them. What would I have done if he had woken up? I was all out of excuses at the moment. All I knew was I had to see William.

My fingers crammed the keys into the ignition, and I twisted them to the right, foot pumping the gas gently in a timid rhythm. The Chevy woke and rumbled.

“Not so loud, you stupid thing,” I warned. “You have to get us to William and back without anyone being any the wiser.”

I pulled out into the street and headed for the hills, past the town limits where the trees grew thick and the road turned mostly to dirt. A few cars passed me as I drove, slowing as they approached; not to stop, but to peer out from dark windshields, faces lit by a glowing dashboard inside. They were faces of a distant time—mature, leaner. All of them with greased hair or round bouffant styles. Every item of clothing was in place, hat on and chin set in rigidity. I realized once again this was their time, not mine.

Under ominous shadows of the limestone bluffs, I carefully maneuvered the Chevy across a road filled with ruts and holes. I’d already hit a few, and wouldn’t it be nice to get stranded out on a dirt road, pregnant with a stolen car?

In a few minutes, I approached a familiar line of trees and knew the house was past the next hill and to the right. I felt a strange sadness when I saw it. Unpainted siding puffed out in warped arches, window screens hanging in some spots. The place appeared haunted, and I remembered the reality of what carried on there. His mother had been abusive to both William and Cathy, eventually making strange, spouse-like commands on her adopted son as he grew older.

Stopping under a set of trees I figured would act as a nice cover, I took a deep breath and pulled up the emergency break. Then I slipped out.

William never said much about his time in this house, only how he missed Cathy and regretted not being able to do more for her. I could sense the desolation, the sensation of being trapped and the lack of hope of ever escaping. No wonder he didn’t like to speak about it.

I stepped to the front porch, wedging a hand inside the screen door to grasp at a brass knob. It rattled before giving a creak and a pop of release. Then I stepped inside a front foyer, carefully easing the screen door back in place. Regardless, it made a knock upon hitting its frame, and I gritted my teeth before creeping across a front hallway to a dim stairwell. The moonlight couldn’t help me now. The windows were dirty and covered with thick, floor-length drapes. I could barely see my own hands as they reached for the wooden staircase railing.

Each step had its own special creak and moan as I ascended to the second floor. I stood for a moment trying to decipher which door might be the one to my husband’s room. I remembered his window peering out over the Little Indian River, and it had been to the west. Holding my breath, I tried the door nearest to me in the hallway and then peeked inside.

A petite figure tossed around in a twin-sized bed, but the layout was all wrong. William’s room had a small desk with a typewriter, and the bed was pushed against the farthest wall. Shutting the door with a soft click, I tried the next one down the hall. A glint of moonlight hit the return mechanism of a hammer key typewriter. One glance at the bed confirmed it was true. No one else could fill up a set of sheets like him‚ like Superman with black curling hair.

I crept inside, making sure the door closed, and then stood for a moment watching him sleep. Ah, William.
William
. I made my way to his bedside and lowered down to my haunches. His mouth was open, and those lips of his were so close and inviting. They were lips I’d grown accustomed to kissing. Mine exclusively.

When he rolled toward me, I chanted his name in a whisper and pushed at his rock hard shoulder with little nudges. “Wake up, Will. Wake up. We need to talk.”

He grumbled and stretched. In a few seconds his eyes opened and he peered at me in the dark. Quietly, he said, “You came.” I felt myself being yanked off the floor and onto the bed. He lay kisses all over my neck and my face. He’d remembered. Oh God, he’d remembered. Our lips met and I kissed him back with so much love you’d think we’d been apart for a hundred years, not a few hours.

His hands slid into my hair—I’d left it loose, with not a hairpin in sight. Oh, I could die with him touching me. Soon I felt his fingers at my blouse.
Yes, yes, William.

“I’m so happy you remember,” I breathed. “This was the worst night of my life, well, except for the eclipse.”

He continued to kiss me with so much urgency I knew he shared the same happiness. One second away from each other was a second too much. He did love me. William loved me, not Betty Jacomber, or his old life. Me. Emma. And things would work out. They had to.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” he said, stopping for a moment. His eyes swept over me as I lay there beneath him. “Sorry about those things I said. I never thought I could do anything like that. You know, dream someone up. I can predict things once in a while, hear other people’s thoughts, but never anything like—like you.” He played with another button and kissed the flesh underneath. “A dream girl. Is that what you are?” He looked up at me with lips curling in a slow happiness.

I pushed away from him for a moment, rising up so I could check his expression. “No, silly. It’s just me, Emma.”

He laughed, then caught my lips in a quick but urgent peck. “You sure? You look like a dream girl to me.” His eyes were as big as a bulldog’s.

Dream girl? He didn’t remember a damn thing.

I slipped from his arms so I could sit on the edge of the bed. My hair fell across my shoulders in a mess of strands.

A bitterness filled me.

The bed shifted. I heard the sheets fall back as he sat up. “What is it, then? Who are you, really?”

Sighing, I turned to look at him through the silvery darkness. His features were highlighted by the moon, lips glossy and hair falling around his face in thick curls. I reached to brush a section of hair from his forehead like I always did, but stopped myself. “Someone you’ve met, but can’t remember. That’s right, and I have something important to tell you, and you have to listen.” The touch of his fingers on my bare shoulder was too much. I shooed them away and pulled up the loose blouse fabric.

He thought for awhile and scratched at a light layer of stubble on his chin. He was still waking up, still coming to grips with the idea of my being there in his room. Finally he lay back, knee raised up. “I was dreaming of you, just now. That’s why I said those things.”

“What kind of dreams?” I asked, reinserting the buttons of my blouse with angry twists. Here I’d thought it was the real William inside, only to be fooled again. Did fate really hate me so much?

“Uh, well, the kind
any
boy has about a girl, get the picture?”

I blushed in the dark. Regardless, if he was having those kinds of dreams about me, at least it was something. “What other dreams did you have?” I asked demurely, daring to meet his eyes again.

“Only those. Just you and me and . . .” His voice drifted off, and a cool smile lit up his face. He started to laugh.

My fingers came together and clenched hard. This wouldn’t be easy. I was stuck in a den of swirling testosterone and teenage libido, the worst kind. I hadn’t considered it at all. William was always so controlled, so able to turn his needs off and on as needed. This boy knew nothing about control. He only knew sex and girls, girls and sex—and here I was in his room.

He leaned across the bed to touch my hair, flipped the strands so they were sent flipping over my head and face. “Stop that,” I said, pushing his hand away in warning. “Now listen—”

“How many boys you kissed, sugar?”

“A few.”

“A few as in, a lot?”

“No, not a lot.”

A very warm palm found its way to my thigh and ran up, up. “Well, here you are in my room.”

I brushed it away. “Listen, stop that! I’m married, that’s what I am. I’m married and it means I don’t go around kissing boys. I’m not what you called me earlier.” I frowned when I thought of it. “Do you want to know who I’m married to?” This was the moment—I’d say everything straight out, and he’d either go crazy, or listen like a good little boy.

He shrugged at me and glanced away.

“I’m married to
you,
” I said.

His fists clenched. He sat up, ground his face into mine. “What the hell are you saying? You’re crazy? Is that it? You’re crazy, right?”

Swallowing hard, I shook my head. “No, I’m not crazy. I’m telling you the truth, Will. We’re married in another time, in a whole other decade. We met here in Springvale and fell in love. We left, got married, we bought a house.” I thought of our time together and how beautiful it was, but also how difficult it had been. The loneliness I’d felt. “Are you even listening? You and I are married, and we’re empaths, which means we can read each other’s minds. Or at least, we used to.” He blinked, and I tried to figure out another way to explain. “Hold on a minute. I’m not sure if I can make this work, I haven’t been practicing but, okay, I’ll try it anyway. I’ll send out a test, and you tell me what you see. All right?” I squeezed my eyes shut and sent an image of our house in Penn Peak: the outer walls, the garden in the back, the living room, the kitchen, and finally, the bedroom.