Whisper of Memory (Whispering Woods Book 2) (7 page)

A
ustin’s character
lumbered across the screen. Next, he climbed unsteadily since finding footholds in the game environment—the side of a cliff—wasn’t an easy task. Austin moved his character’s arm to swing his leather satchel over to one side of his body to maintain balance while leaning forward. Although it was a virtual world, physics still applied.

He peered to the right, then hefted his weight up and caught his foot in a crack of the stone. He launched himself up and lay atop the ledge. It was quiet. When he played online, he forgot about the noises of his room at home. The headset ensured that he heard the sounds of the virtual world of Zion and nothing else. Bird calls and wind rush filled his ears.

“It’s about time,” the voice said.

Austin’s character jolted into an upright position. “Hey man. Could you scuffle your shoes on the ground next time? Give me a little warning?”

“You were looking for me, right?” Pete answered.

“Yeah. Of course I was. Did you ever see me climb these eagle roosts for nothing?”

Pete laughed. “You’re pretty lazy dude. You’ll take on a fight if you have to, but other than that…no, you don’t expend your life force.”

Austin tapped his own forehead. “It’s called smarts. Some people have ’em, some don’t. Expend energy on the important things. Like finding you.”

“What made you think you would find me on a mountaintop?”

“You’re here, aren’t you?” Although Austin’s character didn’t shrug, he lifted his shoulders nonchalantly. “I knew you were waiting to catch me again.”

Pete’s character, wearing a jumpsuit, sat down on the cliff’s hard, slate surface. His feet hung precariously off the edge as if the drop were no more than a few inches. “How’s my sis?”

Austin scooted beside him at the edge of the cliff. His feet swung back and forth. “She’s better these days.”

“Better how?”

“Not as gloomy and moody. Man, there’s nothing moodier than a teenage girl, and she’s been the worst. Now that she hopes she’ll find you, and she’s got her stud muffin hanging around, she’s better.” Austin began picking up small pebbles and tossing them over the cliff to watch them fall endlessly.

“She’s not going to find me. Mia should get that idea out of her head.”

“I found you.” Austin’s character waved his arm awkwardly toward Pete. “Here. Now I’ve got to figure out what you’re running from.”

“Running? I’m not running anymore. I just made a decision where there’s no turning back. My life as big brother to Mia is over. No hanging out with the crew in Whispering Woods. No college.” He paused. “No seeing my dad ever again.”

“OK, man. Hold up ’cause you are a real downer. I climb this Herculean mountain and very nearly expend all my life force for you to tell me that it’s game over? No one gets to pull you out of this deep cover gig you’ve got going?”

“The IIA wants me.”

Silence filled the space. Austin couldn’t hear a thing except for his own breathing. The living, breathing Austin squirmed in his chair while the character sporting a halo of golden dreadlocks sat still.

“It’s going to kill Mia. She’s agreed to help those dudes. She calls herself a team member.” Austin hesitated, searching for the right term. “She’s a portal tuner, locator, something.”

“She’s fine where she is.”

“What? If the IIA is fine, why are they looking for you?”

“Mia has to make up her own mind. I made a decision for my life. I told you that I won’t see my dad, my friends, anybody ever again. My regular life as a citizen is over.” Pete’s character stood.

“What’s your hurry? I have more questions.” Austin’s character rose to face his friend.

“I can’t stay any longer. Listen carefully. Look into what is happening in Goliath. I’m on it, too, but she can read people and situations better than I can. Be smart. Use a cover when you go there. There’s a ghost-hunting organization doing a trip this weekend. They’ll let you sign up. It’s safer to go with them.”

“You don’t care if the IIA knows about what Mia is doing? She’ll tell her boyfriend. She’s about disclosure these days,” Austin said.

“Today, the IIA is the lesser of two evils. Tomorrow there might be three. Better that she’s with them for now.”

“And what if they find you?”

“Nah. The US government won’t let that happen. And one more thing. My mom works for Bleeker. Sis needs to be aware of this. Whatever happens, Mia shouldn’t trust her.” Pete turned and jumped from the cliff in a graceful dive as if an ocean beneath would catch him. He accelerated to an alarming speed. After a burst of color, fabric expanded between his spread legs and arms.

He flew, and Austin watched Pete soar away.

M
r. Joseph paced
the front of the computer lab, and then circled the perimeter of the room. I felt his presence as he stood behind me to inspect the work I might or might not have accomplished in the last thirty minutes. My eyelids felt like tiny lead weights pulled them down every time I exhaled.

“Miss Taylor? Are you having problems?”

“No, sir.”

“You seem to be having a difficult time concentrating.” He squatted beside my chair while holding the seatback with one hand. “You’re behind on this exercise,” he murmured. “It should take ten minutes to complete each lesson in the module. I don’t believe in rushing people, but you normally finish before most.”

“I didn’t get much sleep last night. You’re right, sir.”

“I realize that your senior year is exciting, and students are easily distracted. Would you agree?”

That was a little like calling Hurricane Katrina a gentle breeze. “Um, yes.”

“If you want to be successful in college, I suggest that you practice staying awake in my class and sleeping at night.”

“Yes, sir.” I kept my eyes on the screen in front of me.

“Why don’t you come in after school and finish this exercise tomorrow? I’ll let you catch up after you get some sleep tonight.”

I frowned. I didn’t trust teachers. Last month, my former science project mentor had turned into, uh, a huge disappointment. Dr. Eli Bleeker had fooled me and then ended up being psycho-killer teacher of the year. I wasn’t falling for anything again.

“I could catch up in my study hall hour if you’ll write a pass.” I attempted a smile. My tired body and dry mouth protested. The fact that beauty queens used Vaseline on their teeth as an aid for constant smiling flittered across my delirious mind.

He wasn’t smiling back. “I’ll write a pass and expect you to finish the assignment.”

“Definitely.” I waited for him to leave while his loud breaths whistled through his nose. He was close enough for me to notice the gray hair in his thick mustache.

Because I’d twisted to talk to the teacher, I could see the class clown Tracy now holding up a piece of paper behind Mr. Joseph’s back. I moved my head to better read it when Tracy yanked the paper back to his lap.

Mr. Joseph never turned. “Mr. Dorchester, you may bring me your amusing yet inappropriate illustration.”

I might be a synesthete, but all teachers and parents obviously had a sixth sense.

A slight tittering flowed around the room before Tracy produced the paper. A tall boy with an artistic flair, Tracy had drawn Mr. Joseph with woolly eyebrows and an exaggerated smile. Beside him in the picture was a girl in jeans, her T-shirt stretched tightly over two large mounds. I don’t know which was more embarrassing, the fact that he had drawn my breasts so big or that Mr. Joseph stood with his arm around me in a too-friendly way.

I cut Tracy a glare.
You’ll pay later
. Slouching and self-conscious, I turned back to my computer screen.

The bell buzzed, and Mr. Joseph handed me the slip to come back during study hall. I pushed out of my chair and made a beeline for the door.

W
hen I returned
to the computer lab, Em sat alone in a corner of the room. Mr. Joseph nodded his head without looking me in the eye. Happy to be saved from my earlier embarrassment, I took the chair next to Em.

I started the module in my assignment for American government without enthusiasm. After finishing two modules in fifteen minutes, I leaned over to see Em’s screen. The brainiac had obviously completed her assignments and was doing independent research on the Internet.

“What r u lookn 4?” I scribbled on a piece of scrap paper and shoved it at her.

“Anomalies in different counties in Arkansas. Sightings. Weird things.” She wrote the words precisely in her neat cursive.

“Why?” I whispered, squirming. There had to be a good reason for this, and I was sure that I wouldn’t like it.

“Just interested.” She kept typing while she talked.

“Liar.”

Em stopped to think for a moment before answering. “Tiny has a theory.”

I stared at her. “You talk to Tiny?” Tiny didn’t go to school and was older. He had the social skills of a Brillo pad—abrasive. I tried to imagine the two of them talking.

“Austin gave me his e-mail. He said Tiny was onto something but needed to know answers about you.”

“Why didn’t he e-mail me then?”

“You’ve been busy lately.”

“Oh.” What she didn’t say is that I’d been spending time with Regulus. I guess Austin wasn’t the only person I’d ignored lately.

“Miss Taylor?” I jumped at hearing Mr. Joseph’s voice. I had completed my assignments, but I didn’t want to leave. Em was up to something.

I focused on my screen until Mr. Joseph returned his attention to his newspaper. I wrote a note asking her to meet me after school in the parking lot. After letting Mr. Joseph know I had completed my work, I returned to study hall.

A
fter school
, the parking lot roared to life along with car engines. Everyone was escaping, as though they’d be locked in for the night if they lingered.

I spotted Em across two lanes of traffic, leaning on the side of Austin’s Jeep while fastening her designer floral backpack. Its matching purse cost more than half my closet put together. She talked on her bling-covered cell phone and snapped it shut as I neared.

“We’re going with Austin,” she said.

I stepped over a water puddle in a low spot in the asphalt. Almost everyone had left the lot by this point, and Austin wasn’t at the Jeep. Since Austin had graduated last year, I wasn’t even sure why he was on school grounds.

“Where is he?” I yawned and covered my mouth.

“He’ll be here in a minute. Think you can stay awake? Or am I boring you?” she muttered, clearly exasperated.

“Jeez, Em. I’m a little tired. Think you can give me a break?”

“Sure. Sure.” She laughed. “You’re cranky too. But,” she said, holding up her hand. “It’s understandable.”

“Where are we going with Austin?”

“You’ll see.”

“I need to hear. Tell me now.”

“Cranky to the max.” She shook her head in disgust. “Don’t you trust me that this is important?”

“Sorry. Again.” I thought about Regulus saying that he needed to practice patience. I could use some practice myself.

“Hello, my lovelies.” Austin hung out of the passenger window of a pickup truck. It was covered in mud from the top of the cab to the bottom step rails.

“Hey.” I shrugged the backpack off my shoulder and eyed the driver. I didn’t recognize him. When I stepped closer, I noticed Austin’s purple eyelid and bloodshot eye. I cringed.

“You had better hurry before she changes her mind and goes home,” Em said to Austin.

“Joe was showing me a shortcut to Tiny’s.” Austin grabbed the bill of his baseball cap. “You ladies ready to rock and roll?”

Em and I nodded. Austin jumped out of the truck without even looking back at his friend. The truck sped off without a word from the driver. Taillights flashed as it braked hard at the cars lined up at the exit.

I jumped in the back of Austin’s Jeep so Em could ride shotgun. She examined the interior of the Jeep, littered with empty soda bottles and snack wrappers on the console and floorboard. She lifted a brow.

Austin turned on music with a heavy bass beat, and the speaker in the back near deafened me. I tapped him on the shoulder and put my hands over my ears. He smiled and turned it up. Em reached over and turned it down.

“I thought you liked my music,” he said.

“When I can hear it, yes. When the pounding turns my cerebral cortex to mush, not so much,” I yelled into his ear.

He turned the sound off. Silence. “If we don’t have music, we talk. OK? Let’s discuss how Regulus is stringing you along so you can do some of your portal finding if he needs it.” He glanced at me in the rear view mirror and then back at the road.

“You have no right to say that. You don’t know him.” My guilt over Austin’s bruised eye disappeared.

Em rifled through her purse as if she couldn’t hear us. She produced a pack of gum, and I held my hand palm up between the front seats. Dropping a piece into my hand, she glanced at me while attempting a small, reassuring smile.

“I think he cares about her.” Em pushed her bag to the side. “He’s different from us, that’s all.”

“Different in that we’re regular people not trying pretend where saving the world.”

“It’s not pretend. I don’t know what your problem is. I’m friends with you. I’m dating Regulus. Do you see me asking you two to be best buds? No, I’m not. You should deal with it if you’re my friend.” I heard screaming, and it was me.

Em’s eyes widened. “Mia, listen. Calm down. We don’t want to see you get hurt. Your family went through so much when Pete disappeared and—”

“We? Oh, now you’re on his side?” Had they had talked about this? Conspired to do an intervention? My chest ached.

Minutes later, the Jeep’s tires sluiced through the mud and flung globules onto the windshield and windows. The hard rain earlier in the day had turned areas of the field into a brown and green mush. The four-wheel drive easily navigated through the mud, and Austin purposely cut corners to sling even more mud than necessary onto the windows.

He cranked up the music. Em put one hand on the dash and the other on a handle above her head to brace her body. I looked around for something hold on to. My hair whipped into my eyes at a violent turn that had Austin whooping in glee and Em yelling for him to slow down.

He continued through two more fields with some heavily forested areas between. I began to wonder when the wild ride would end when the back of a structure came into view. The small white house stood near a gravel road that we hadn’t taken. He parked at the side, or what might have been a side, if the house had been square or even rectangular in shape. Instead the house looked as though various rooms had been added over the years whenever needed. Two speckled brown hound dogs waited for us to step out.

“They’re friendly,” Austin told us.

“Why didn’t we take the road?” I exited the Jeep while grinning at Em. She stood balanced in a spot of drier ground, eying an enormous puddle of water between her and the house.

“Shortcut.” Austin stomped randomly but missed the mud. He rapped on the wood frame of the screen door.

“Come in,” a muffled voice shouted.

Austin opened the door, Em and I at his heels. The kitchen was small, and we passed in five steps through a doorway into the next room, where Tiny’s voice filled the space. I looked from Tiny to the static ceiling fan that hung right beside his head from the family room’s low ceiling.

“What’s up, man,” Austin said.

“Hi, Tiny,” Em and I said simultaneously.

“Took you long enough to get here.” Tiny turned his back and walked through another doorway. We followed while I looked at Em with my eyebrows raised. She ignored the silent question.

The room we entered was large, housing a long, high table along the length of one wall. I guessed it had been custom-built and served as a desk, the height accommodating Tiny’s frame. Electronics lined every square inch of wall. Without windows, the room was lit by a hurricane lamp casting a glow in the corner.

“Hey, Tiny?” Em asked. “Mia has no idea why we brought her here. Take it slow, OK?”

“Can do, Em. But you really should have told her before now.”

“I know.” Em shrugged.

Tiny’s voice had taken on a different quality when he answered her. He spoke with a courteous tone, full of respect. But Em and Tiny hadn’t known each other a month ago. Something had been going on, and I felt like the outsider. I’d never considered that others might be keeping secrets.

“Are you guys going to tell me what’s going on?” I stared hard at Austin, noting no guilt on his face.

“The rain messes with the satellite, so my internet connection flaked out earlier. I think it’s fine now.” Tiny sat in a chair and motioned for us to find a seat. Austin and Em found a couple of folding chairs and pulled them closer. “Sit,” Tiny told me, voice irritated.

I obeyed, sitting on a nearby blue milk crate. I wrapped my arms around my knees and waited.

“Tiny got curious after another video of GameCon surfaced.” Em sat back in her chair with an ease that showed me she’d been in the room before. “He decided to poke around and find out who posted it. Guess what?”

Silence. I realized that I needed to breathe before I passed out. Inhaling and then exhaling deeply, I said, “I give.”

“Wrong answer.” Austin grinned mischievously. “Try again.”

“Guys, I’m tired and ready to go home. These games are getting old.” I started to rise.

Austin motioned for me to sit. “The video was posted by a user with only initials for the username. It was posted by PA.” He lifted his eyebrows.

“Uh, so?” I shrugged.

“PA stands for Peter Antares.” Em said the words slowly to emphasize the enormity of the find.

“That’s a stretch,” I said in a mocking tone.

“What is it with you? Now that you have your boyfriend and your new IIA gig, you’re not interested in finding Pete?” Austin accused me with each word. He stood, and the chair fell back. He bent and grabbed it without giving me any eye contact.

“That is not fair.”

No one spoke for several minutes and Tiny, who had ignored the exchange, began typing on his keyboard, the words huge on his oversized monitor, so big I could see it from across the room.

“You both are immature,” Tiny said so matter-of-factly that I felt my cheeks redden. “Listen up.”

“Sorry,” Austin said, still without facing me. He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it to the side. “We’re good. Show her, Tiny.”

Tiny removed his toboggan cap, ran his fingers through his hair, and replaced the black knit hat. His red curls peeked out from the edges. He glanced over at Em. They exchanged loaded looks that unnerved me. Then his large hands moved in a flurry of key pounding.

A video came up on the monitor, its footage dark and grainy. I squinted and leaned forward until my elbow rested on my knees. There was no sound until a voice began to narrate.