July (The Year of The Change Book 1) (36 page)

The sound of movers cleaning up the extra boxes and wrapping paper as they readied to leave jarred me from my memories. I moved to the top of the first floor stairs and sat. Each of the movers turned and waved good-bye to me as they left the house. I feebly waved back, so glad they were going.

The time had flown by. Everything seemed to be in fast forward as the movers brought all our stuff in and deposited it around this strange monster house. I couldn’t hold it back and now it was real. I’d truly been dragged all the way to Alaska. I was in fact moved into a new house and a new neighborhood, but with the same old problems.

Thick clouds gathered and it still didn’t look as late as it was. I wandered from room to room, turning on lights. I tried to hold back the shadows and the night, where I would have to face my aloneness, surrounded by unfamiliar light outside and darkness in my heart.

Sue was in the kitchen unpacking and mumbling something about Dad owing her dinner out tonight. Right on cue, he came in from the garage with two large pizzas for us and a bouquet of flowers for Sue. My dad wasn’t the most romantic man around, all the same, he did know how to get on Sue’s good side. Obviously, that wasn’t something I inherited from him.

“Who’s hungry?”

The twins and I chorused voraciously, “Me, me, me,” as my dad put the pizzas on the table. He took Sue in his arms, and handed her the flowers with a big kiss.

Too mushy for me, parents should get over that sort of thing. If not, then why couldn’t they hide somewhere and not torment me? I turned my attention to the two large pizza boxes and one peek showed they had everything piled on them. Dad learned early on not to think small when it came to food.

Spinning, I held the twins back. “Oh, no you don’t. These pizzas are mine, all mine. Mahhahaha.”

Both tried to get out of my grasp and reach the warm boxes. Their giggles and my maniacal laughter went on until Sue had enough and made us sit at the table.

She threw me a roll of paper towels and said, “Enjoy the pizza. Dad and I are going out to dinner.” She turned to Dad with a smile, “I’ll change. It shouldn’t take me but a few minutes.”

She quickly ascended the stairs as we dug into the gooey cheese. Dad swiped a piece, eating it while he waited for Sue. It was a good thing Dad was taking her to dinner. This should make her happier and easier to deal with tomorrow.

Dad and Sue left while the twins and I stuffed our faces as quickly as we could. Tim and Tam had learned not to dilly-dally where food was concerned.

I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. I’d eaten a big lunch, which didn’t hold me very long. I kept going down to the kitchen and digging into whatever I could find to munch on. Sue got a little perturbed at me, but didn’t say much. She didn’t have to, her eyes said it all. She kept telling me I would get fat. I hadn’t gained an ounce, to her consternation.

One pizza was easily finished off without any help from the twins, crust and all. I wasn’t crazy about some of the toppings, but my stomach didn’t care, as long as it got filled. The twins left two slices that disappeared as soon as I was sure my sibs were full.

My stomach wondered what Tony was doing tonight.

Tam found the Oreos and we ripped into them as well. I downed three glasses of milk before I finally felt full.

I’ve got to get this eating thing under control. Gram did say my body was getting ready for The Change and needed all the extra calories. I sure hoped she was right. If not, I was going to end up as big as our minivan. For now, though, all I wanted was to stop the hunger. And for the moment, I had. Of course, Sue will be upset because there won’t be any leftover pizza for lunch tomorrow.

The twins looked for their X-box as I climbed the two flights of stairs to my bedroom.

The top door was still open and I groaned as I saw the stack of boxes that waited for me. The boxes must’ve multiplied on the way here. There was no way I had that much junk.

My only hope at this point was the movers had put my bed together, so all I had to do was make it and climb in. I reached the top and found that, sure enough, they had assembled all the pieces.

The beautiful bed had been Gram’s cast iron double that she and Gramps received as a wedding gift from her parents. After their kids were gone, they got a bigger bed and I slept in their old one when I lived in their house. I remembered the day they visited us in Oklahoma and brought the bed as a surprise. This piece of their love made it a little easier living away from them.

The bed was in pretty bad shape after almost forty years of service, so Gram and I bought white paint to cover its black matt finish, and shiny gold for the trim. Gramps and Tim laid out all the parts on the grass, in the front yard, so Gram and I could spray paint it. I wouldn’t let the twins help because I’d wanted it to be perfect. Gram gave me the ‘that’s not very nice’ look, that I pretended not to see. Two coats and a lot of drying time later, Dad helped Gramps carry all the parts in and assembled it. Sue had a
quiet
fit when she saw the paint on the grass. She was horrified that the neighbors would see the mess. Gramps assured her that all the paint would be gone the next time it was mowed. She wasn’t happy until Dad mowed and sure enough, the `paint stains’ were gone. From Sue's expression, I assumed she wasn't happy that Gramps had been right.

At first, Tam would crawl in with me so she could sleep in the ‘Gram’ bed. We did a lot of bonding in that double with the squeaky springs. I liked Tam, even so, I was glad when she finally went back to her twin. She sure could kick in her sleep.

My beautiful bed was smack in the middle of the room, though. Lying on top of the mattress were several sheets of paper. Written in almost legible script, each piece had a guy’s name, phone number and email. I snatched them up and read them again, there were four. Obviously, the movers had put them there.

Duh.

Which four had it been? My only hope was the forty year old wasn't one of them. A shiver went up my spin. If he wasn’t, that meant one of them was the short one with bad body odor. I quickly tore up the papers and stuffed the scraps in my pocket. Tomorrow, I would find a safe place to throw the wad away. I was sure glad Sue didn’t see it. She still hadn’t adjusted to all the attention and the weird things that happened.

Dad got better about the weird stuff. He could now laugh about most of it. The rest of it he gritted his teeth and bore it well. It was nice having my dad mostly on my side, finally.

Sue, on the other hand, became worse. She would huff and fuss about what was happening around us. She still wasn’t convinced this was happening because of The Change. If it made her feel better I would leave her to the ‘head in the sand’ attitude. I didn’t blame her for not wanting to face this. I didn’t want to face it either.

After Sue dragged me to the police station, during the first month of my ordeal, Dad got real mad at her. She, in turn, got mad at him. They had their first real fight that night and didn’t speak to each other for over a week. They barely spoke to the rest of us, either. It wasn’t a fun time, especially for the twins who didn't understand any of what was going on. I felt terrible and figured the fight was my fault. It was an easy assumption.

Unbeknownst to us, Sue’s actions dropped me in the middle of a murder investigation.

That’s when Dad began calling Gram twice a week to talk to her about me. At first, he was a little bewildered by all that Gram told him. Slowly, as he asked questions, the pieces began to fit together and he was a little more comfortable dealing with the weird stuff. It’s not every day a guy finds out his daughter was going to change into something else.

He would take me for drives or walks, so we could talk. Drives were the safest. Sometimes we would talk about The Change. Mostly we just talked. I hadn’t known my dad was so interesting. He said he didn’t know what he was supposed to do, but it meant a lot that he was trying to connect with me. He told me over and over again that he was there if I needed him. I’m sure he meant what he said, but doubted he’d follow through. I would have needed him a lot this year even if I wasn’t going through some weird, life altering change. As my Gram would say, `Time will tell’.

All during the murder investigation, Dad asked to see my artist pad. After work, he would look at all the pictures I’d drawn that day, even those that didn’t pertain to the murders, or so we thought.

It was at this time that I drew a second Native American man. This one was slender, though muscular. His hair was almost black, and had a tawny streak over one temple.

Dad bought extra drawing pads so I would never run out of paper. He seemed very proud of my drawings, even taking four of them to work where he proudly displayed them in his office. One was a snow capped mountain, and the other a white wolf. The other two he had to take down and give to the police when we realized they were connected to the murder.

Detective Hernandez, in charge of the investigation, also brought over new artist pads. His sketch pads were bigger in hopes I would draw more details. My
gift
gave what it wanted to and not a line more.

The detective dropped by every few days, at first, to see if I’d drawn anything of interest. We would sit at the dining room table and he would scrutinize every detail in each picture. Upon his request, I’d set aside an hour or two each day to think about the murders and draw. I didn’t like to think about the slain woman and the badly beaten man, but felt an obligation to help. I didn’t want to disappoint Hernandez, even after I stopped being afraid of him ... sort of.

He told me they were looking for the man on the back of the first picture that I’d drawn. It seems that when Hernandez held the first picture up to a light you could see the man on the back through the sheet. The man was staring at the body.

It turned out the two murders were connected -- a fact they almost didn't find out in time to save me. The badly beaten man was in Tulsa, not Midwest City, so it had taken a little while to make the connection. They thought the same person had committed both slayings. He sent a copy of my drawing to Tulsa, thinking that maybe the detectives there would want to talk to me. I’d tried not to think about any of that. It made me nervous to talk to Hernandez, the idea of talking to another complete stranger of great authority made me shake. As it turned out, Tulsa didn’t take my drawings seriously, at first. That had been a relief because I didn’t want to draw any more gruesome pictures.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have any control over what the talent decided to draw. They came whenever they so pleased. Once in math class, a picture came while I was taking a test and it was very hard to explain to my teacher, Mr. Potter that I wasn’t just doodling. When he threatened to tear it up I told him the police would be very upset. He wasn’t convinced, and took me to the office. I called Hernandez, who came right down and picked up the test paper. He explained to my teacher what was going on and swore him to secrecy. Grudgingly, my teacher let me retake the test. It was a good thing, since I wasn’t doing well in that class. I never did well in Math. Later, Hernandez teased me about the few answers that were on the paper. They had all been wrong.

He tried bringing a police psychologist with him to see if they could figure out what caused my drawings. Nothing they tried triggered anything about the two murder cases. I did draw some lovely pictures of the psychologist's cats. He thanked me for the drawings when I handed him the papers. He took them with two fingers and held them away from his body. I think they weirded him out. The psychologist wanted to take me back to the police station to see if it triggered anything. My dad vetoed that after he heard how it affected me the first time. Man, was I relieved.

I searched through my room looking for the box with my bedding in it. Once found, I cut it open with the pocket knife that Tim had given me for my last birthday. Sue had tried to talk him out of the knife. Tim was adamant and finally got his way when he chose a pink knife. I thought it was cool and always carried it.

Pulling out my favorite ultra-soft, pink blanket, I found my sheets underneath. I quickly made my bed with a view of sleep at the forefront of my mind. As I spread my quilt over the top I thought about moving the bed. Instead, I left it where it was for tonight. In the light of day, when I wasn’t so tired, I could make that decision.

After I located my pillow, I dug around my suitcase and found my nightgown. It was in the smallest of the three. I put my bathrobe on the hook on the back of the bathroom door, and my toiletry bag on the counter. One small suitcase was emptied, two large ones to go.

The house was quiet as I walked the length of my room and crawled between the clean sheets. The old coils squeaked as I found a good position in the worn sheets. Finally, a familiar sound. Nestling my head on the pillow, I sniffed. I must remember to wash the pillowcase, maybe the pillow, too, tomorrow. It had been a tough two weeks in the minivan. Pulling the sheets to my nose, I breathed in deep the familiar scent of the fabric softener Sue used.

The wind picked up outside and it sounded like we might get a storm tonight. If I listened very closely I could hear the trees rustle in the backyard. Though not a light sleeper, I wasn’t sure I could sleep if the wind got any louder. If it rained on top of that, I really wasn’t going to get any shut eye. Crickets and traffic noises serenading me to sleep were what I was used to. All this nature was way too weird. Of course, being directly under the roof made the sounds louder.

With the curtains taped down, my lamp off and the covers tucked under my chin, the day’s activities weighed me down. As tired as I was, I expected sleep to overwhelm quickly. When it didn’t, my eyes popped open and I stared at the sloped ceiling bathed in night time daylight. I was never going to get used to that.

I hated when I didn’t go to sleep quickly. Just like Sunday, my mind jumped into overdrive and took me to thoughts I desperately repressed during the day. Tonight, there was nothing to distract me. Tonight was the same as most nights since my Gram died.

Now it surrounded me. What I’d feared and tried to hold back as the sun went down, rose slowly, looming in the shadows, creeping closer and ready to strike. Here in the dark I would have to face
me
. I had to face my doubts and failures. They all lined up dressed in their ugliness to parade through my mind.

Tonight’s star attraction was the move itself.

I wasn’t supposed to be here. I was supposed to be in my familiar house, in my familiar neighborhood in the suburbs, where I’d lived since I was ten. I was supposed to be on the swim and dive teams, taking more medals, playing volleyball and basketball. Not here in this God forsaken wasteland of Alaska, where there was nothing for me.

Gram was supposed to be with me. Two weeks before she died, she’d convinced Dad to let her come live with us until I turned seventeen. Gram and I planned out all the stuff we were going to do and how she would be right there to help me. Now I wasn’t there and Gram wasn’t here, I was so alone.

My mind refused to be distracted so I got up and paced the floor. The pain poked at me. How could I get rid of all the negative thoughts that buzzed around my head, getting uglier with each circuit? I’d never get to sleep at this rate. Somehow I found my way to the window where the old rocking chair was.

The draw was too strong. After I pulled up the tape I sat and rocked and looked out the clean window. Someone stood in the backyard. I blinked a few times. Yes, there was definitely someone standing in the shadow of the fence. He stood so still, he could have been a statue. I looked around to see if there was anyone else. When I looked back the statue was gone.
Now that was different
. Who could’ve been standing there so still? I would have to remember to mention that to Dad tomorrow. He’ll probably say it was my eyes playing tricks on me. Perhaps they were. I was too tired to think about it.

My eyes slid closed.

I startled awake when my head fell forward.

Forcing myself out of the rocker I went back to bed. Sleep came slowly as I fought off the internal ruckus that jockeyed for my attention. Even my internal ruckus was too tired to fight any more. The dreams rushed in and took over.