Time's Daughter (8 page)

His chemically whitened teeth spread in a warm smile
that made me even more ill at ease. “How has it been going?”

“
Um,” I said, confused by that
conversational tone. I scanned his face for an idea of what was
going on.

Mark’s smile deepened and his voice softened. “I’m
meeting with everyone today to get a feel for how the project is
going so far. We’re going in alphabetic order so we’re starting
with you first.”

The smile seemed to extend to his eyes. Was this
truly only a progress report meeting?

“
It’s going okay, I guess,” I said,
glancing around nervously.

He adjusted his pose in his seat, relaxing into the
uncomfortable furniture as much as one could. “Is your cameraman
getting in the way too much? Are you comfortable with him?”

“
I’m starting to forget he’s there,”
I said.
At least I’d been starting to forget he was there until
he’d nearly been killed.

“
So you’re comfortable with
him?”

I lifted my shoulders in my usual noncommittal
gesture. “I guess.”

Mark’s head bobbed. “Good. Good. We have a few
alternates for vacations and days off. If you wanted to try someone
new—”

“
No, he’s fine.”

The last thing I needed was to freak out more than
one cameraperson. They would talk and perhaps come to the
conclusion that something was off about me.

My brain screeched to a halt on the previous
thought.

If this meeting wasn’t about last night’s
accident—if I hadn’t been called onto the carpet to explain strange
footage—then what had Alex been talking about in the darkroom?

“
Are you okay?”

I shook myself mentally and focused on the director.
“Yeah. Sorry. I’m just tired.”

“
I bet.” He chuckled. “I couldn’t
help but notice you didn’t really sleep last night. That accident
really did a number on you, didn’t it?”

I stared at him in silence for a moment. He’d
noticed
I hadn’t slept but he hadn’t noticed I’d
stopped
time
.

Uneasily I said, “I guess.”

Mark stood and offered his hand with that same smile
stretched across his tan features. “I won’t keep you from work or
homework any longer. Thanks for meeting with me. We really like
what we’ve been seeing so far. Keep on acting normal.”

If I hadn’t been shocked into silence I was certain
I’d have laughed in his face. That would have been difficult to
explain.

I stood from the bench and walked to the door. My
head remained down and eyes on the ground halfway across the room.
A bare glance up at the door showed me Alex was waiting. My frame
stiffened.

His eyes darted away from me as if he hadn’t wanted
to be caught looking at me. My spirits lowered as he turned to go
into the lunchroom without a word.

I took my time
walking home because I didn’t have to work and because I wanted to
give my cameraman a chance to walk without panting. The repetitive
sound of traffic made it easy to get lost in my
thoughts.

I came to one jarring realization: Mark Green had
said they
liked
what they were seeing so far. That meant
they weren’t going to replace me with another girl.

I halted in the middle of the sidewalk and slumped
over dramatically. The videographer crashed into me. Unable to
maintain my balance, I fell over, skinning a knee beneath my jeans
on the cement.

“
Are you okay?” The videographer
sounded nearly as frantic as my mother had the night before. I
found him standing with the camera lowered, staring at me with
widened brown eyes. “Are you sick?”

I burst into laughter from the combination of his
concern and my stupidity. “No.”

He offered me a hand. I took it without a thought
because I was still too amused by his reaction to consider
declining.

“
What happened?”

He was actually speaking to me.
I’d assumed
that was against some documentary rulebook. Given that he was
talking and there wasn’t an accident involved, I felt the need to
answer.

My mirth faded to a half smile. “I just realized you
guys aren’t going to let me out of this documentary thing.”

He gave me a crooked frown. “Well, that explains
your friends’ comments.”

“
You mean about how unfair it is
that I was picked?” I bobbed my head. “Yeah, it does. It’s no
secret I never wanted to do this.”

There was a little shake of his head. “Then why are
you doing it?”

I shrugged in answer and turned back around. Time to
finish our trip.

Rustling and creaking implied he’d scrambled to get
the camera back in place. It amused me.

“
What’s your name, camera
guy?”

“
Guy.”

“
Guy, the camera guy. Okay.” I
laughed at the oddity of his name and vocation. “Well, hi, Guy,
nice to meet you.” I sent a glance over my shoulder. “If you’re
going to be following me around for the next six months then maybe
we should get to know each other. Got any kids?”

“
No.”

“
Wife? Girlfriend?”

“
Kind of difficult with this
gig.”

I let out a light laugh. “Yeah. I can imagine. What
made you want to be a professional voyeur?”

He inhaled a quick breath, perhaps a snort or a
laugh. “A girl your age isn’t supposed to know terms like
that.”

I sent a sharp look over my shoulder at him. “Aren’t
you a little young to be turning geezer on me? You gonna regale me
with tales of walking barefoot up the mountain in the snow both
ways next?”

“
No,” he said. His breathy tone
hinted he was amused as well. “I saw
Psycho
in high school
and decided I wanted to be in film.”

“
So is camera guy your ultimate goal
or do you want to be the next Hitchcock?”

“
I want to master the camera before
I try anything else.”

“
That’s cool.” I said, deciding it
was. “I’ll do my best not to mess this gig up for you, Guy. But you
have to try not to get hit by cars for me. Okay?”

He inhaled again. “Okay.”

At the apartment door I faced the camera. “Good
news, Guy. I’ll be doing homework all night. So you get to get off
work early. Go have fun, or at least as much fun as you can have in
this town.”

He lowered his camera enough to smile at me. “Good
luck, Aeon. See you tomorrow.”

Secure in the knowledge that I was safe from drunk
drivers and new kids, I settled down in front of the television and
began on my homework from the week. At six I made something to eat,
devoured it far faster than I ought to and put the leftovers away
for another day. I fell asleep in front of the television until Mom
woke me at ten.

She forced me to relay the entire conversation with
Mark Green before going to bed. Her worries had been squashed and
smiles were once again prevalent on her face. She’d sleep better
because of it.

I only wished I could say the same.

CHAPTER SIX

I wanted my money back. This was the worst waste
of time and cash since the carnival had come to Junction Hill over
the summer. Ashley had horrible taste in movies. She might be
content to sit through a B-movie horror film simply to watch the
actors from a teenage television drama on the big screen, but I
certainly wasn’t.

“
I’ll be right back,” I told
Melissa, who was also my ride, before standing up in the middle of
the darkened theater. “Just going to the bathroom,” I said for
Guy’s benefit as I made my way across the aisle then to the door at
the back.

I faltered upon finding a familiar set of steel blue
eyes watching me from the back row. I pretended I hadn’t seen Alex.
But walking slowly to the exit took effort. Once I stepped into the
lobby lights I practically a ran to the ladies’ room.

When I emerged five minutes later, the concession
area was free of anyone but the people who worked there. The
theater’s back row was empty of steel blue eyes. I stiffly sunk
down into my seat. There was no one who looked like Alex when I
glanced around next. But it was difficult to identify people in the
dark. I could have been mistaken.

Maybe he hadn’t been there at all.

The movie let out. I walked behind the others to the
parking lot.

How could a girl with a camera on her twenty-four
hours a day still feel uneasy about being watched?

“
That was
so
good,” Ashley
said once we’d broken through the glass doors. “Brandon is so
hot.”

“
It wasn’t bad,” Melissa said by way
of an agreement.

I rolled my eyes. On a scale from one to five, I’d
have given the movie a negative two for the fact that it was two
hours of my life I could never get back. Melissa had been yawning
throughout the movie. That usually meant she was bored.

“
It was awful,” I said, earning me
the glare from Ashley. “Bloody for no reason, gratuitous sex scenes
that made no sense and what little plot there was had so many holes
it could easily have been confused with Swiss cheese. Actually, no,
it wasn’t even good enough to be considered cheesy.”

Jenny chuckled. “Cheesy. That word always makes me
laugh.”

Ashley turned her ire on Jenny. “It
would
.”

Everyone shut up before Ashley started on them. Once
she’d reached her Jeep Cherokee, she faced us and spoke as if
nothing had happened.

“
I’m meeting William tomorrow,” she
said. “He’s taking me to dinner and the ballet in
Burlington.”

This was our cue to ooh and ah over her fortune. No
one had ever met this mysterious William whom she’d met over the
summer at a camp for gifted children, even though I’d seen her
twice at the grocery store while she’d supposedly been out of
town.

Melissa responded with the appropriate reaction.

“
What ballet?” Jenny
said.

Ashley glared at her again. Her nose lifted in the
air. It had apparently been on a list of unauthorized questions.
“He won’t tell me. It’s a surprise.”

“
Cool,” Melissa said for us all.
“You’ll have to tell us how it went.”

“
And get pictures. I love the
ballet!” Jenny added.

“
My camera is broken.”

A hooded figure appeared between two cars, heading
for us. His face was hidden but his hand was shoved in the front
pocket of the hoodie he wore. I went into panic mode.

We were about to be mugged in the theater parking
lot!

I shoved a hand out in front of me as though my mere
will
would stop the event from happening.

The scene froze before my eyes. My heart pounded
hard as I glanced at each of the mannequin-esque figures around me.
Two nights in one week of using my power couldn’t be good. Surely I
was breaking a cosmic rule.

“
What are you
?”

My scream echoed across the parking lot. The hooded
figure was in front of me before I’d finished blinking. Beneath the
black fabric I could make out Alex’s steel blue eyes. I frantically
looked for help. My friends were still frozen. Jenny was midway
through a blink, Melissa’s mouth was open as if she were about to
speak and Ashley looked like she’d sneeze at any second. But I knew
otherwise.

No one would move until I fixed this.

“
How
are you doing this?”
Alex roared and jabbed a finger at my unmoving friends.

I stared at him in disbelief.
How was he able to
move and talk while everything else was frozen?

He grabbed me by the arms and shook me violently.
“Answer me!”

His aggressive shaking successfully intimidated me
into answering. “I don’t know! It just happens. Okay?”

“
What
are you?
Tell
me
!” The growling voice coming from his throat was almost
animalistic as he shouted.

“
I don’t know.
I don’t
know
!”

“
You
have
to know! How did
you get this power?” His pointed back at my motionless friends
again.

I slowly regained some of my sense back. There was
no mugger. There was only Alex stalking me. “How are
you
able to ignore it?”

“
I’m the one asking the questions,”
he snapped.

“
Why? Why do I have to explain
anything to you? You’re the new person in town! Not me.”

He let go of my arm but didn’t step away. I didn’t
like his proximity but I feared he’d grab me again if I made a
move.

“
Because if you don’t tell me,
others will investigate and they may not be as nice.” His pitch
went low.

A harsh noise escaped my throat. “This is you being
nice
?”

“
Yes.”

“
Is that why you were nice to me for
three days? Did you get impatient because I didn’t just come out
and say ‘hey, I’m a freak, nice to meet you’?”

“
No.” He glanced behind him at the
immobile figures. “How long will it stay like this?”

I folded my arms in front of me. “I don’t know.”

The steel blue eyes focused on me once again. “Do
you really not know, Aeon? Or are you just telling me that?”

Here we were, two people carrying on an argument
while time was frozen around us. I didn’t think I had much of a
choice except to tell him the truth. He now had
seriously
damaging information about me.

“
I really don’t know,” I
said.