Awakening (Book One of The Geis) (17 page)

Soot stained Zoey’s skin and clothes black. Paramedics pulled the shirt from her face as she lay, unmoving, on the cold ground. It didn’t look like she was breathing. How could this have happened? I screamed and tried to run to her again, tears pouring down my face, but those arms held me fast.

A cough momentarily stopped the commotion. Zoey’s chest rose and fell again as she tried to cough the smoke out of her lungs. When the medics saw that she was breathing, they began moving even faster, one fastening an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth while the other began to check her for other injuries. Something lumpy bulged underneath Zoey’s shirt, and she brought out a smashed, but intact, pink dog. I laughed. Hot tears still streaked down my face, and I wanted to hug both Zoey and the stupid stuffed animal.

Finally, they laid her on a stretcher, and I was allowed to go to her. She whimpered and held up her arm. A swath of red spiraled from her wrist to her elbow. I stood next to her and stroked her face while the paramedics strapped her in.

A paramedic treated Josh’s hand and checked me over for injuries. Rourke was bent over with his hands on his knees. His breathing was labored, and I watched as he drew in an impossibly long, drawn-out breath.

“I wouldn’t believe it if I wasn’t looking at it,” Officer Bassett was saying as he threw another blanket over Rourke’s shoulders. “Chief, come check this out.”

Chief Carson ended his conversation with Mr. Hansen and walked over to us. He held Rourke’s arm up for a better look, then took in Rourke’s smoldering jeans and shoes. “Well I’ll be,” he said. “You dumb lucky son of a—”

“Look at his clothes.” Officer Bassett held up what was left of Rourke’s sleeve.

Rourke’s clothing was nearly burned right off of him, but his skin and hair weren’t even singed. I couldn’t believe that he could be exposed to that kind of heat and not get burned. He saw me looking at him and straightened, meeting my gaze.

Thank you,
I signed, my message carrying through the crowd of paramedics.

Rourke looked me in the eye.
You’re welcome,
he signed, cupping the word in his hand.

I didn’t know if I was allowed to go in the ambulance with Zoey, but I climbed in before anyone could tell me otherwise.

“I was so scared, ‘Kayla.” Her voice was small and raspy, and I leaned over her to hear her, stroking her hair with my fingers. My hand caught on something solid. I turned Zoey’s head. My aquamarine comb was threaded in her hair. I pulled it out and turned it over in my hand. Relief at having Zoey safe ran over me like a chill. I laced the comb back through my hair.

“I know, Squit. I was scared, too. Everything’s going to be fine now.” I looked out the back of the ambulance at the shell of our house. The fire was mostly out now, and the firefighters were still hosing it down. A lump formed in my throat as the reality of everything hit me. My house had burned to the ground, and my sister had almost been taken away from me forever. Thank goodness Mom had the baby with her. The thought of Benji in the burning house gave me chills.

“Did the ziti catch on fire?” I asked Zoey.

“No, I turned it off like you told me.”

Her answer caught me by surprise. “Then how did the fire start?”

“I don’t know. I turned off the stove and then played a computer game while I was waiting for you.”

“You were in the living room when the fire started?”

“I didn’t know there was a fire. Lizard told me to hide, and when the lady came I hid under the bed.”

“What lady?”

“The lady with white hair. I hid before she saw me.”

All the blood drained from my face. Mrs. Saddlebury had been in my home? The thought made my skin crawl, and something else stirred in my memory. When I’d stopped at the second-hand store with Aunt Avril, the owner remembered Mrs. Saddlebury purchasing a bunch of aquamarine. Was it a coincidence that I had found the comb at the spring soon afterward?

“Oww, it hurts. I want Mom.” Zoey tried to see where the paramedics had propped her arm.

“I know.” I dreaded seeing my parents. What would they say when they found out I’d left Zoey alone? How could I face my parents and tell them the house had caught on fire? Zoey closed her eyes and drifted in and out of sleep as the ambulance siren carved a path for us down Washington Street.

“I waited for him to come,” she whispered.

I leaned closer. Surely I had heard her wrong. “What did you say?”

“I knew he would come.” Her words were slurred.

I cupped Zoey’s face with my hands, forcing her to focus. “Knew who would come, Zoey?”

“Rourke.” She smiled, the white of her teeth standing out against her soot-blackened skin. “Lizard told me Rourke would come.”

I walked down the main street, away from the police station and away from probing questions and pitying eyes. The streets were quiet in the middle of the morning. I enjoyed the solitude, grateful that Mom had agreed that I could miss school—I didn’t have to go back until Monday.

Snow clouds crawled across the tops of the mountains, and the air smelled cold and sharp with the coming of winter. I rubbed my arms for warmth and decided that I liked the pain of the cold on my skin.

I had no coat to wear anyway.

The house was a total loss. Besides the clothes I was wearing, the only things I had left were the dance bag and backpack I had left in Josh’s car. The police had already determined that the fire had started in the upstairs hallway—it wasn’t accidental. Someone had started the fire.

The shock on Mom and Dad’s faces when they’d found out that it was arson stuck like an afterimage in my mind.

“McKayla, Zoey, are you alright?” Mom had run to Zoey’s bed, her face drawn and tight, looking even paler in the fluorescent lighting. Zoey had hugged her with her un-bandaged arm. Dad took me in his arms and held me. I wished that I could stay there in his loving embrace, away from the danger that lurked outside of the hospital.

“What happened?”

I dreaded telling them my part in the disaster, but I knew it had to be done. “I left Zoey home alone and ran to Christa’s. I was only gone a few minutes, but when I came back, the house was on fire.”

To my surprise, Mom reached for my hand, squeezing it in hers.

“You must have been terrified.”

Having the support of my parents gave me the courage to tell the rest of the story. I told them how Rourke had come and entered the burning house, how he had searched through the fire until he found Zoey, hiding under the bed. And, even though I didn’t want to, I repeated what Zoey had said about Mrs. Saddlebury being in the house while Zoey was alone.

“Zoey, are you sure you saw someone in the house?” Mom stroked Zoey’s forehead.

Zoey lay in the big hospital bed, streaks of soot still smearing her little face. “Yes. She was calling my name.”

“Did you tell the police?” Dad pulled away from me and paced the floor.

“No, Zoey told me on the way to the hospital.”

Dad kneeled on the floor next to Zoey’s bed. “Zoey, this is important.”

Zoey looked at Dad with wide eyes, and I prayed that she wouldn’t start crying again.

“Did you accidentally start a fire? It’s ok to tell me—I won’t get mad.”

Zoey’s lower lip jutted out. “I didn’t start a fire, Daddy.”

Dad left the room, and I saw him talking to Officer Bassett in the hallway.

Our parents hadn’t paid attention to Zoey’s claims that the lizard had told her to hide. They’d brushed it off as her overactive imagination. When I’d had the chance, I’d asked Zoey more about the lizard’s role in her rescue. What she’d told me confused me even more. Mrs. Saddlebury had found Zoey hiding under the bed, but she hadn’t touched her. Zoey said her head had started hurting, and that the lizard had stood between her and the woman. That’s when the fire had started.

I came to the end of the sidewalk and took a right turn, toward the mountains. I didn’t know what to think. Zoey was notorious for making up stories and even believing in them. I couldn’t see how the lizard could have warned Zoey. And how did Rourke know that Zoey was in danger?

We’d spent the night in Aunt Avril’s apartment, and the next morning, after Zoey had been released from the hospital, we had gone to the police station and told them everything we’d known. Zoey had told them about Mrs. Saddlebury, and how she had been in the house.

I’d told the police about the times I had seen Mrs. Saddlebury—how she had acted so strangely when I’d first met her, and the times that I had seen her close to Zoey. Aunt Avril hadn’t said anything, she’d just listened to our story.

“I should have paid more attention at the feis when she had Zoey with her,” Mom had said.

We all wanted a part of the blame. Dad said he should have installed that security system he had been meaning to get. Mom wished that she hadn’t left us home alone. And I wondered if things would have turned out differently if I had taken Zoey with me when I’d left the house.

What bothered me most was that someone was willing to hurt, and even kill, my little sister. The wind picked up, and I shivered in the cold. I realized that I had been walking toward the canyon where we’d hiked to the Intermittent Spring. I picked up my pace, wanting to leave the town behind and be in the solitude of the mountains.

When I closed my eyes, the image of Rourke holding Zoey, the flames pouring out of the doorway of my house behind him, filled my mind. He’d come out of nowhere and pulled her from the building. Reason said that he should have been burned, or even killed. But he wasn’t.

Gravel crunched behind me, and I jumped. My escape from everyone had left me alone. Suddenly, it didn’t seem like a good idea. A car came into view, and I let out a slow breath. Aunt Avril sat behind the wheel, her hair bushy and standing out all over on top of her head.

I went over to the side of the road and watched as she got out of her car. She brought a coat, one I didn’t recognize, and draped it over my shoulders. Her own cloak billowed around her like a cape, and she wore her bulky necklace on the outside of it.

“Your mom told me you went for a walk. I hope you don’t mind if I join you,” Aunt Avril said, motioning to a trail that went straight up the hill behind me. “Are you hiking to the star in this weather?”

I had never hiked to the man-made star on the side of the mountain. It looked out over the valley from the hilltop closest to town. “I didn’t know this was the way to the star.” I shivered.

The trail was steep, and even though there were patches of snow left from a few weeks ago, the ground was dry. I started up the hill, stumbling once and scraping my knee. It somehow felt satisfying to feel physical pain.

The star was a simple wooden frame filled with white rocks. I don’t know what I’d expected—I guess I’d thought that someone had painted a giant star on the mountainside—but the white rocks made sense.

I looked out over Afton. From this vantage point, I could see across the valley to where the hills rolled into more mountains, now obscured by the snow clouds. A road ran from one end of the valley to the other. Houses and square patches of fields dotted the landscape. It reminded me of the little play car mat Mom had already bought for Benji. I wondered if it was lost in the fire.

Aunt Avril found a bare patch of ground and motioned for me to sit down next to her.

“Why would Mrs. Saddlebury light our house on fire?” I said.

Aunt Avril looked at me, her eyes questioning whether or not I wanted her to tell me. My heart pounded, and I flexed my fingers for circulation. I wasn’t sure what Aunt Avril would say, but I needed to understand what was happening.

I bit my lip and nodded for Aunt Avril to continue.

“The police won’t let me on site to discover what truly happened, but I was able to get close enough to the house to get an idea. The woman known as Mrs. Saddlebury did, indeed, start the fire.”

I wrapped my arms around my knees and rocked back and forth. A mixture of relief and dread washed over me.

Aunt Avril stopped talking and cocked her head as if she were listening for something. “Quite right, Theron. McKayla dear, what happened to the talisman I gave you?”

I didn’t know what she meant at first, but then I remembered the Celtic knot that Mom tried to take to Goodwill. “I don’t know for sure. Mom wanted to donate it to charity, but I wouldn’t let her. It was probably lost in the fire.”

“Hmm. The talisman is a protection against evil spirits.”

“Evil spirits, like ghosts?”

“Remember how I told you that Mrs. Saddlebury isn’t what she appears to be? I’ve tracked this creature for over ten years now, but she is always a step ahead of me. In Celtic mythology there is a creature that is very much like this one. I believe that Mrs. Saddlebury is a banshee.”

I shivered, pulling the coat around me tighter.

“The banshee leeches off of the riches of others until the resources she needs to survive are depleted, and then she moves on. Why she is here in Star Valley is a mystery to me.” Aunt Avril put her hand on my arm. “There’s one more thing you should know. Zoey suffered from burns, but it looks like the banshee also unleashed her wail on her. How she survived that is anybody’s guess.”

I stood up, angry at the situation—angry that Aunt Avril would buy into this nonsense. “Why is this woman attacking Zoey? What could anyone have against an eleven-year-old little girl?”

Aunt Avril didn’t move. She stared across the valley and sighed. “I don’t know the answer to that question. At first I thought that it had something to do with the fact that the banshee knows I am here. She knows that I have hunted her all these years. But she hasn’t threatened me, and I think there is more going on than that.”

“I can’t believe that some Celtic ghost is after my little sister.”

“This banshee is more dangerous than any ghost.” Aunt Avril’s voice was low and hard. “Do you see the wind in the trees down in the valley?”

I looked down at the park below us where the trees were swaying in the wind. “Yes.”

“No, you don’t see the wind. It moves through the branches and tosses the leaves through town, but you can’t see it. And yet, you know that it is there.” Aunt Avril closed her eyes and touched her face. “You can feel it brushing your skin and lifting the hair from off of your neck. Even though you can’t see the wind, you have faith that it exists. It is time that you believe in the unseen, McKayla.”

I didn’t want to believe Aunt Avril. It was too far-fetched. Banshees wailed in storybooks and myths. In real life, lizards didn’t talk to little girls, and men didn’t run inside burning buildings without serious injuries. But Rourke had come out of the fire without a scratch, and Zoey was still alive. Before this year, I never would have believed a myth like that. But the events of the past few days had me questioning what was true and what wasn’t.

“Could you tell—was the lizard at our house last night?” I didn’t know if I wanted to hear the answer.

“Yes, the lizard was there.”

“Do you know Rourke, my dance teacher?”

“They were talking about him at the police station, but I’ve never met him. They said he came out of the fire without a single burn.”

“It’s true,” I said. “I know it’s hard to believe, but I was there.”

“Someone posted a video on YouTube already. I watched it. Rourke is special, McKayla. We are lucky that he was there.” Aunt Avril patted my knee. “You must introduce me to him soon.”

From beneath her cloak, Aunt Avril pulled a leather satchel. Inside was the dagger I had seen in her purse the day I met Mrs. Saddlebury. The crystal-studded hilt looked dull in the muted light.

“Salt. Salt and silver are lethal to banshees.” Aunt Avril offered the dagger and the satchel to me. Encased in leather, the dagger looked dangerous and menacing. I didn’t want to touch it.

“Take this,” she prompted. “I’m not one to rely on luck. Only you and I know the truth, and you are in greater need of it than I am.”

The weight of the dagger in my hand was cold and substantial. The thought of having to defend myself with it made me cringe. It was both terrifying and comforting to hold the weapon.

Aunt Avril gave me a knowing look. “Your family is going to be staying with me until they can figure out what to do with the house. Do you want to come back now? I promised your mother I’d be back to help sort this out.”

I nodded.

“Christa’s mother invited you to stay at their house while things get straightened out, if you want. Your mom asked me to let you know.”

I thought about the last time I’d viewed my house, through the window of an ambulance. The blackened and smoking shell was a reminder that everything in my life had changed. Aunt Avril’s apartment would be too small for our entire family, and staying with Christa would be more like home than anything else I could think of.

“Thanks Aunt Avril. Do you think you could drop me off somewhere? I really need to talk to someone.” She nodded. I gave her a quick hug, and we stepped over the sagebrush on our way down the hill.

Shivering, I pulled out my phone and dialed Leah’s number. She answered right away, worriedly asking me questions about the fire. I assured her that Zoey and I were fine. Finally I asked, “Leah, do you know how to get ahold of Rourke? I have to speak to him right away.”