The Tower (28 page)

“So,” said Mark, “fourteen years old! May this year be a better one, Adrian.”

“I certainly hope so,” I laughed as he handed me a small box.

Mark’s present turned out to be a waterproof digital watch that had no metal parts on the outside. Even the buttons were made of plastic, and a little metal near my wrist (as opposed to touching it) wasn’t about to noticeably drain me. I always wore my tracer band on my left wrist when I went out, so my birthday watch went onto my right.

Terry, in blatant defiance of Cindy’s fashion taste, gave me a black leather jacket, for which I was extremely grateful. I knew it wouldn’t match any of my colorful sweatpants, but at least it would hide my ridiculous shirts.

Alia gave me another self-created card, this time with legible writing on it, as well as a light brown leather cord to replace the one that held Cat’s amethyst. My current one was quite old and on the verge of snapping. (Alia had already had to replace her pendant cord twice because she kept playing with it.)

Cindy said to me, “I know I said your bicycle was your birthday present, but I got you one more.”

She handed me a large rectangular box. Unwrapping it, I discovered to my delight that it was a high-power telescope and tripod. I had owned a smaller telescope back at my old home, but the one Cindy gave me was quite a monster.

“I know how much you like stargazing,” said Cindy. “Alia tells me you sometimes spend half the night looking up out of your window.”

I grinned. “Thanks, Cindy.”

Cindy knew, of course, the real reason why I (and consequently Alia) spent so much time stargazing, but it was also true that I liked looking up at the night sky.

That night, we all stayed up late – Alia well past her bedtime – trying out the new telescope.

It took some dedicated trial and error to assemble the telescope and mount it onto its tripod. One of the few things Terry and I agreed on was that instruction manuals were for decoration, not reading, so we fiddled with different bolts and screws until everything looked about right. Then we carried the entire contraption to the greenhouse, which seemed like the best place to start. However, the greenhouse didn’t cover the southern or western horizons, so we ended up moving the telescope around the penthouse to almost every window available. Powerful meant bulky, and being made almost entirely of metal parts, the telescope wasn’t easy to carry and utterly impossible to levitate, so Terry had to help me a lot.

Actually, I didn’t know a whole lot about the stars – I certainly couldn’t name most of them. And though New Haven was on the edge of the city, there was still too much light and air pollution to make out more than the brightest stars. Still, we got a good look at the craters of the moon as well as a not-so-good look at the Orion Nebula and the rings of Saturn. Even Terry, who didn’t share my fondness for stargazing, was visibly impressed when she discovered that Saturn’s rings could actually be seen, and weren’t the product of an overly imaginative science-textbook artist.

As I lay in bed that night, I had a very good feeling that I wasn’t about to have any nightmares. But when I closed my eyes, my mind wandered briefly to a single word that had somehow got stuck in my mind during the course of the evening: “Assembly.”

Assembly?
Where did that come from? I didn’t even remember anyone saying that word, but somehow it was floating in my mind. It was a strange and uncomfortable feeling, but one that I soon left behind as I drifted off to sleep.

The next morning before breakfast, Cindy said to me, “Adrian, you left your telescope box in the living room last night. Put it away somewhere. You never know when we might have to pack it up again.”

“Sure, Cindy,” I said, heading to the living room.

The big empty cardboard box would have been easy to levitate. However, having just woken up, I was still feeling too groggy to concentrate, so I picked the box up with my hands and carried it back to my room. I was about to slide it under my bed when something about the box made me do a double-take. What was it? I looked at the picture of the telescope on the side of the box, and then my eyes fell upon the fine-print: “Some assembly required.” That was what had caught my eye.

“Some assembly required,” I muttered to myself, looking down at the warning on the box. So that was how the word “assembly” had entered my thoughts last night. But I was certain that I had heard those words before, and in a different context. I shook my head. Somehow, it didn’t feel like your typical deja vu.
Some assembly required.
I felt a chill run down my spine, though I couldn’t figure out why.

Two nights later, despite having had a long and grueling CQC lesson with Terry, I was nevertheless woken a little past midnight by a nightmare, and spent some time playing with my new telescope. Fortunately, I hadn’t screamed in my sleep, so Alia remained peacefully unconscious. I was quite used to waking up with nightmares, but as I adjusted the telescope’s focus, I couldn’t help but think that something was slightly different this time.

For starters, Terry had been in it. My usual nightmares were about things that happened before I arrived in New Haven, such as the night my parents had been killed, my fight with Ralph, or being shot and tortured by the Wolves. So if it hadn’t been for Terry’s intrusion into this particular dream, I might not have taken any notice. To the best of my rapidly fading memory, Terry and I were standing in a large room with two angry men. I didn’t recognize them, but they seemed familiar. I was pretty sure that they were both soldiers from the Psionic Research Center. One of them was threatening me, possibly with a gun, and Terry was arguing with the other one.

I couldn’t remember any more details than that. Perhaps it was just another PRC-related nightmare after all, and Terry had just popped into it by chance. Either way, I wasn’t one to dwell too deeply on nightmares since mine were too numerous to bother with on a regular basis. After fiddling with the telescope for about thirty minutes, I quietly slipped back into bed. Listening to Alia’s soft murmurs in my head, I drifted back into a sleep too deep to remember any other dreams I might have had.

“You were dreaming about Terry again last night, weren’t you?”
asked Alia the next morning.

I frowned. “I was not.”

“You’re such a bad liar, Addy.”

“Put your ring on, Alia,” I said, and she blew me a big raspberry.

But from then on, Terry did start making infrequent appearances in my dreams, and whenever she did, they were almost certainly nightmares. These nightmares usually involved some kind of argument with a few soldiers from the PRC. There were a few guns, and something about “assembly.” Something about “the Gifford boy.”

There was that closet monster again. I had decided that as long as my nights were being plagued by nightmares, I wasn’t going to let them take over my waking life as well. I stubbornly refused to dwell on them. Whenever my sister caught me saying Terry’s name in my sleep, she would tease me about it. It was embarrassing and annoying, but there was little I could do to control my dreams.

Halfway through November, the real-life Terry told me that her Uncle Charles had briefly returned to New Haven, but Terry continued to stay with us.

“He’s only here for a week,” she said, “and I don’t want to bother him.”

I gave her a smirk, saying, “You mean you prefer Cindy’s cooking and you like having a pool table in the house.”

“Well, being your personal trainer and bodyguard has to come with some compensation.”

“Bodyguard?” I laughed. “You hardly ever come with Alia and me when we go outside these days.”

“Well, in case you haven’t noticed, Adrian, I’m still a fulltime student. Besides, the chances of the Angels trying to kidnap you again are a million to one.”

Mr. Baker might have blown his top had he known, but the fact that Terry was shirking her responsibilities didn’t bother me in the least. I just felt like reminding my combat instructor that even she didn’t get everything perfect. And I knew, of course, why she did it. Terry didn’t like being seen outside with us because it would make it difficult for her school friends to be with her. Cindy had once told me not to blame parents for wanting their children to be safe, but even I knew that there was more to life than just being safe. Ever since my run-in with the gray-haired peacemaker, whenever I took Alia out of the penthouse, I was more alert and mindful of our surroundings, and I made sure to wear the tracer band too. But I wasn’t about to limit our outdoor time just because Terry refused to go out with us.

I decided that waking life wasn’t so bad. Terry knew me well enough not to talk about school in front of me, and though winter was closing fast and it was too chilly to go out very often, I found enough things to occupy my time when I wasn’t studying or training. Alia and I still went cycling on the weekends, and we often went out to Mark’s church together. Mark always praised Alia’s improvement in mouth-speaking, though my sister’s speech was still pretty much incomprehensible.

December came, and the first heavy snow fell in New Haven. Alia begged for a snowball fight, which saved me the trouble of suggesting it, and Cindy and Terry came with us to the park. We discovered that even Terry, who could dodge my telekinetic blasts, couldn’t avoid three snowballs at once. We were out long enough to be chilled to the bone, but it was a fantastic day for me. I was enjoying myself so much that I could briefly forget all of my troubles, and I knew I’d be so tired out by the end of the day that I ran only the slightest risk of having a bad dream.

Nevertheless, that very night...

“Addy, wake up already!”

I opened my eyes halfway and discovered that Alia was sitting on my stomach and shaking my shoulders.

“Alia, what are you doing in my bed?” I asked groggily.

“You’re in my bed, Addy,”
Alia informed me.

“What?” I said, quickly lifting my head and rubbing my eyes. I
was
in her bed. I narrowed my eyes and demanded in mock-anger, “Okay, what am I doing in
your
bed, then?”

My sister laughed. Then she explained,
“You were sleep-hovering again, Addy. I didn’t want you to have another bad fall, so when you were right over my bed, I pulled you back down.”

“Oh...” I said, gently levitating Alia off of my stomach and getting up. “Thanks, Ali.”

“You really should wear a rope or something.”

“For the hundredth time, no,” I replied flatly as I set Alia back onto her bed.

Cindy and Alia frequently pestered me about wearing a leash at night to keep me from drifting out of my bed, but I always refused.
I wasn’t quite sure why I was being so stubborn about it, especially since I did get quite bruised sometimes. I guess
I just didn’t like the idea of being tied down, even if I could easily remove the tether.

I glanced at my birthday watch. It was still 3am. Sitting down on my own bed, I asked Alia, “What were you doing up, anyway?”

“I was just getting a glass of water.”

“Oh. Do you think you can go right back to sleep?”

Alia gave me an uncomfortable look.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Terry was crying again. I heard her on my way to the kitchen.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“No. She wouldn’t let me in her room.”

Chances were, Terry wouldn’t let me in either. I thought about telling Cindy, but remembered my promise to stay out of Terry’s personal life. Besides, Alia had probably long since told Cindy about the first time back in September. Still, I was both curious and concerned about Terry. Alia was the kind of kid that demanded constant attention, was quick to tears and emotionally fickle on the best of days. In contrast, it was precisely because Terry was such a trooper that I worried so much about her crying in the middle of the night. Still, I
had
promised...

Terry seemed fine the next day, and I filed the incident away in the back of my mind, along with all the other things that I couldn’t quite figure out but was unwilling to pursue.

As the year end approached, Terry was out of school for her winter holidays, but she had brought home a mountain of homework, which meant she couldn’t increase my combat training time as much as she would have liked. It seemed that high school really was as tough as people said, and Terry was often ill-tempered after a few hours shut up in her room studying her books. While I secretly suspected that Terry wasn’t the most academically oriented person I had ever met, I knew better than to ask her what kind of grades she usually got.