A Boat Made of Bone (The Chthonic Saga) (52 page)

“I—I don’t remember,” Kate said.

Both Audra and Ty opened their mouths to protest, but were stopped when Kate’s mother, Anita, came breezing into the room in a flutter of her woven floral shirt, white capris, and wedge heels. At the sight of her, Kate nearly began to cry. Her father, Lane, meandered in behind Anita, looking embarrassed to be there in his ragged jeans and worn out shoes—they were such an odd couple, still, after all these years. Her father’s sheepishness was nothing new. He always looked awkward. Unless he was driving a tractor across a field of golden hay, the stout man felt out of place.

“Katie, oh my girl, you gave us quite the scare,” her mother said calling Kate by her nickname, rushing to wrap her up in an embrace. Anita covered Kate’s face in cool kisses and smoothed her hair back. It was a bit much, but Kate let her do it.

“That’s right, smarty pants,” Lane said. He went to the end of the bed and put his hand on her foot. He laughed shyly. “You had us worried.” Kate felt herself smiling to see her dad. There were things she resented about him—both of her parents really—but, after all, they were her parents. She loved them. The lump in her throat returned as she looked back and forth between their worried faces. How could she have just plunged into that unknown world like she did, leaving them behind? What a selfish act!

Or was it? It was all so confusing.

“Thanks, Dad,” Kate said. “Mom, Mom, really I’m fine.” She laughed and pulled her face away, trying to get her mother to stop kissing her.

“You’re grounded! For the next year!” Anita said with a bitter laugh. Was she kidding? Kate couldn’t tell. “Really, getting lost in the desert. It’s a good thing your friends could find you. I—I just don’t know what I would have done if they hadn’t.” Anita turned and thanked Audra and Ty for never giving up.

“Please, Anita, I’d never give up on Kate. She completes me,” Audra said, laughing. Anita gave her a flat look, like she didn’t appreciate jokes of that nature.

“Lane, give her a hug,” Anita said, moving out of the way and ushering her husband over.

“Mom, don’t worry about it,” Kate said, bristling at the way her mother treated her father. “Dad, you’re fine. You don’t have to. It’s OK.”

Lane gave an abashed chuckle, smiling nervously and muttering unintelligibly as he approached and gave Kate an awkward hug—he patted her shoulder and mumbled about things never being the same without his smarty-pants around. He smelled of Aqua Velva aftershave and the stubble on his cheek scratched Kate’s forehead. 

“That’s alright, Katie. You know how I need you to stick around. No more running off into the desert, eh?” Lane said.

As he pulled away, Kate felt a batch of warmth behind her eyes brought on by the smell and touch of her father. Is that what it took to get an emotional response and a hug from her father—disappearing in the desert?

“Thanks, Dad,” Kate said, staring at the faded bedding as he retreated and let Anita return to hovering nearby. Kate didn’t want to think about it, but she did. To them her disappearance was like a near-death experience. They knew nothing of what she’d just experienced, and they never would, if she had anything to do with it. But what she couldn’t hide from just because of its proximity was the fact that the distance she felt with her father—even though she knew he adored her—and the way her mother treated him, was the reason Kate struggled to get close to men.

Kate looked at Ty as Audra bantered with Lane—more of a one-sided affair than Audra would ever admit—and Anita buzzed on about how wonderful Ty was for finding Kate (Anita was a male chauvinist, a fact Kate had realized long ago). Ty was watching Lane, and occasionally moving his gaze to Kate, as though dissecting what he was seeing.

Ty was gorgeous, even in his unkempt and tired state. And he was sweet. And the hardest part of it was, the man she’d just opened up to was gone. To heaven? Is that where he was?

Already the ordeal on Chthonos was beginning to fade and Kate fought to remember the details. What would she do? How could she go on developing a relationship with Ty all while feeling as though her heart had ascended into a tunnel of light?

A day at a time? Is that what widowers and widows did?

Kate smirked bitterly as Anita found a brush in her bag and began running it through Kate’s blonde hair. She fussed and remarked how Kate needed a shower and attempted to explain to Ty that Kate always looked best in dark blue and occasionally pink, maybe autumnal colors? She wondered aloud. Ty answered politely. He was sweet to do that.

Kate sighed, letting her mother fawn over her and watching her father sink into the background and try to hide.

Barely twenty-four and already a widow,
Kate mused.

That just wouldn’t do. But maybe Ty was better as a friend. Maybe. Or maybe she could love him. Couldn’t she?

Epilogue

Three Months Later

Kate watched rain streak the glass panes at the front of the store. A gloomy, dream-pop song played over the in-store speakers as she rested her forearms on the glass countertop. Ferg had gone to get a coffee at Salt and Sugar. Since getting back together with Emily, he was in a better mood. All the time, and that meant Kate didn’t mind pushing her luck by not bustling around and tidying up the store while he was gone. Besides, she had a lot on her mind.

Two weeks prior she’d interviewed at a marketing agency and they’d offered her a job. One part of her wanted to take it. The other part wanted to stay at the store.

The door swung open and someone walked in on a spray of cold, autumn air. Kate blinked and pulled her eyes from the droplets streaking the window. She focused on the hooded figure.

“Ty,” she breathed. He leaned across the counter and gave her a peck on the cheek.

“Deep in thought?” he asked, straightening and shaking his rain-shell off. He brushed his hand across the counter to wipe away the miniature puddles he’d left.

“Yes,” she sighed heavily. “I just can’t decide about the job.”

“What’s there to decide? One pays several thousand more and you get to use all the skills you developed in college? Why would you stay here?” He swept his arm out and then shrugged out of his jacket. “Where’s Ferg? I thought he was working with you today.”

Kate nodded in the direction of the coffee shop. “Went to see Emily.”

“So we have the place to ourselves?” he grinned playfully.

“Not gonna happen,” Kate chuckled, though the idea of kissing in the back room was exciting. “Knowing him, he’d show up as soon as we ducked in there.”

“Don’t be silly. We’d shut the door,” Ty joked.

“Anyway, you aren’t qualified to give me advice, considering how you turned down your dream job in Vegas,” Kate pointed out.

“To finish school,” he said.

“Right. We both know you’re here for me,” Kate said, surprised at her boldness. Something changed when she came back from Chthonos. She felt like the cowardly lion, with courage now.

“Don’t be so sure of yourself,” Ty teased, crossing his arms and standing with his head cocked to one side. “I like it better when you’re weak like a gazelle.”

“Oh, I’m so sure. You love weakness.”

“Anyway, I just don’t feel like I should leave the store. It just got going, you know, with the online sales and everything. It’s—it’s my baby, now. I can’t abandon it. Doesn’t feel right,” Kate said.

“Then stay,” Ty said, opening his hands wide as though they’d discovered the answer together.

“Fine. I will. You convinced me.”

Later that night, after sharing her decision with Audra and having a celebration feast of butternut squash soup at the Soup House, Kate fell asleep next to Ty as they watched a movie on her laptop.

She woke into a room with rows of wooden benches—pews maybe—and sunlight streaming in through colorful stained glass windows depicting intricate scenes of humility and triumph. She sat in one of the pews, wondering if she was awake or dreaming.

Where am I?
she asked herself. She wasn’t Catholic or Protestant, and was rather unfamiliar with cathedrals. Being in one was strange.

“Kate?” she heard a familiar voice behind her. She whirled around.

Will grinned at her. He was dressed in stylish white slacks and dress shoes, a white belt, and a white button down with a black tie. He looked impeccable, and his countenance was like fire. 

Kate could have sworn that her heart stopped. 

###

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Prologue: First Awareness

“
Awake, my son.”

A voice called to me.

“Awake.”

The voice compelled me.
Who is me? What am I, that I have thought, that I think this, now?

“
Open your eyes,” the voice said.

What are eyes?

There was darkness all around. I floated. The voice came from somewhere outside me, piercing the darkness, stabbing into my heart.

What is a heart?

“I know you can hear me. Your ears are perfectly formed. I know your eyes. Open them.”

Suddenly, as though lightning bridged a chasm, the idea
open your eyes
became a catalyst, synapses fired and my world was drenched in a brightness beyond description.

I blinked. My eyes.

What are eyes?
My eyes see the face leaning toward me. Blue eyes stare at me, intent, full of something. It is the first thing I see. The first thing I’ve ever seen. Dark red eyelashes blink slowly, corners of lips pull up into a soft smile.

“
Hello.”

This is the source of the voice. I stare, feeling confused. The light is bright. I don
’t know where I am or what I am.
How can I know that? What is I? What is light?

“
I’m your mother. You are my son. My firstborn. I made you.”

Mother?

“I made you.” The eyes are full of something. Tears. She wipes a hand across her cheek.

What is a cheek?

“I made you.” She made me. She made me.

“
My firstborn. My son, Hemingway.”

1: Less Than Human

He was more machine than man.

Well, he was an android. Or a blue heart, as we called them—for their hearts that were blue and so, different from human hearts.

A blue heart. No doubt about it. I mean, sometimes when I wasn
’t paying attention, I caught myself staring at the tiny glowing neurons deep in his pupils. They flickered and brightened like stars out in space. Like the image of a galaxy. I felt myself drifting, sinking into his eyes.

I guess his eyes were his
tell
, the thing that made it obvious he was an android. Otherwise I wouldn’t have known. Sometimes it was hard to see
tells
. Some androids got away with being human, while others lived with the discrepancy.

I couldn
’t help staring either way. When he laughed his teeth were perfect and beautiful. The fact that he was an android dissipated and there was a glow spreading out from my heart into my fingers and even into the tiny hairs on the tops of my toes. That’s how strong it was. Even my dead hair could feel it.

We were sitting in Cassini Coffee, a coffee bar, under the New Helsinki dome on Mars, where we both lived. He was telling me his earliest memory—which was of his mother feeding him a bowl of oatmeal.

“How old were you?” I asked, catching myself, but it was too late. The question was out there. He laughed and I saw just a tiny flicker of realization on his face that I’d said something weird. Androids don’t grow up, at least, not the way humans do. They’re always the same age. The only thing that grows is their mind.

“
Well, it’s my earliest memory. So, you know.” He shifted on the couch awkwardly, flashing me a hesitant smile. His perfect teeth sparkled under the lights of the coffee bar. Around us other conversations buzzed, sucked up into the fans circling lazily overhead. I felt the lightest touch of his long slender fingers on my forearm. I glanced down at his fingernails. They were long and oval, and a really pleasing pink.