Locked (The Heaven's Gate Trilogy) (14 page)

Michael was continuing to
mutter under his breath while he paced.  I managed to make out the word
“birds.”

“What are you saying
about birds?”

He looked up, surprised,
as if he’d forgotten I was even there. Swiftly, he composed his face into a
serene mask. “Nothing.  It was nothing.”  

I stood, staring at him
from across the room.  The surrealness of the situation began to sink in.

“Am I dreaming?” I
wondered.  I looked at Michael, standing in the middle of my bedroom.  With his
broad shoulders, his proud stance, I couldn’t imagine anything more solid, more
real.  Yet I knew it couldn’t be so.

“No,” Michael said, his
eyes heavy with resignation.  “I didn’t want to have to tell you all this.  But
after last night, I couldn’t imagine how I could have hidden it from you any
longer.”

The rush of adrenaline
that had been keeping me afloat dissipated, leaving me weak.  I sank back down
to the floor.

“This can’t be real,” I
murmured, looking up at him from the floor and wondering what on earth I’d
gotten myself into.  “What am I supposed to do now?” I could feel a vague sense
of panic rising inside me.

His mouth closed into a
hard line.  Swiftly, he bent over and plucked me from the floor, carrying my
back toward my bed.  “You’re exhausted, and no wonder.  Between last night and
all this,” he said, his blue eyes flashing with remorse, “I’ve worn you out.”

“You must be tired, too,”
I said softly, seeing for the first time the fine lines etched around his
eyes.  “From the pain.”

He stopped, staring at me
in surprise.  The corners of his mouth stole up before he shook his head and
continued over to the bed.  Carefully, he laid me down and tucked the covers
around me.

I closed my eyes for a
moment, luxuriating in the comfort of his kindness, trying to forget why it was
exactly that I was the focus of this gorgeous boy’s attention.  When I opened
my eyes, Michael was still hovering over me.

He paused, looking deep
in thought as if carefully choosing his words.

“Your father is not
crazy, Hope,” he whispered to me, his lips hovering just above my ear.  “In
ancient times, we would have hailed him as a prophet.  His vision may be
fuzzy,” he said, his familiar grin stealing once more across his face, “but he
is right about one thing:  you are special, and you have been singled out. 
Whatever for is locked inside you, deep inside you, and has been for a very
long time.”

Swiftly, he bent to kiss
me on the forehead. 

“Whatever it is, I will
make sure you get a chance to find out.  You can count on that.”

Then he was gone.

As soon as he was, I could
feel myself surrendering to the pull of sleep.  Half-awake, I drew my fingers
across the spot where his lips had touched my skin.  It burned and tingled, and
I sighed deeply as I remembered the heat of his touch. The feeling stayed with
me even in my dreams.

Chapter 5 – Big City Traffic

Mom being who she was, I
wasn’t allowed to sleep for long.  It was not a good afternoon.  My entire body
was black and blue from my fall, and every step I took was a painful reminder
of each rock and shrub I’d bounced against.  A slight heat rash had wrapped
around my torso and arms where Michael had carried me last night, and the skin
where he’d held my hand was shiny.  I realized with a start that the rash on my
wrist had been from his touch, too – not my fall against the curb during my
ill-fated run.

What was worse, I
couldn’t baby myself – not if I wanted to keep my injuries hidden from my Mom. 
I was on edge, nerves taut.  I needed to escape Mom’s watchful gaze and
questions and sort things out on my own, so I took myself out for another run
around the neighborhood.

I paused briefly at the
top of the cul de sac, remembering Michael’s warnings and words about the “bird
attacks,” but shook it off, desperately in need of the release.

I tried not to think too
much about everything that had happened.  Instead, I tried to empty out my
mind, leaving no room for anything but the run itself. 

The aftermath of last
night’s storms lay all around me in the street.  Fallen tree limbs and brush
littered the asphalt.  The creek that wound through the neighborhood was about
to burst its banks – the rain had been much fiercer here.  It was at once
familiar and alien – as if the secrets I’d discovered had altered nature
itself; as if the things I didn’t know still threatened me from the shadows. 
My body protested as I forced it to move.  But the air was crisp and clean,
even if the day was grey, so I pushed my fears and pain aside and concentrated
again on the rise and fall of my knees, the rebound of my feet off the
pavement.  I soon fell into the rhythms and footfalls of my run, finding
comfort in their sameness and letting the stiffness work its way out of my
body. 

I leaned into the curve
as I entered the undeveloped section of my neighborhood and felt a familiar
tingle – the tingle of being watched.  This time, though, I wasn’t afraid.  I
stumbled to a stop, bending over to catch my breath, before I turned, a smile
on my lips, ready to greet Michael.

The smile froze on my
face as my father stepped from the woods.

Irritation and disappointment
surged through my body, quickly chased by guilt. 
When was the last time I’d
even thought about my father, let alone seen him?
I thought to myself. 
Only
to blame him for something he didn’t even do
, I thought remorsefully,
remembering the Valentine card.

“I hope you don’t mind
that I came here, Hope.”  He was holding his hat in his hands, looking almost
penitent as he came closer to the road.  He stopped at its very edge, his big
hands twisting the hat.

“How did you know I would
even be here?” I asked, suspiciously.

“I didn’t know.  But I
figured your mother would let you run outside and if I came here, eventually I
would see you.”

I stared at him,
stunned.  Back near the trees I could see the hood of his beat-up car where he
had parked it near one of the utility boxes and cursed myself for failing to
notice it earlier. 

“You’ve been coming up
here and just lurking around in the woods, just in case I decide to go for a
run?”

He nodded and then pursed
his lips, as if the oddness of what he’d admitted had only just occurred to
him.  “It hasn’t been that often, just every now and then.  On days when I
thought you might not be in school.”  He looked down at his shoes and seemed to
brace himself for my rejection.

In our times we would
have called him a prophet
.  Michael’s words came back to me and I suddenly felt small.  After all,
if my father was guilty of anything, it was of being over protective.  And
maybe it wasn’t really fair to blame him for everything that had happened to me
in Alabama.  From the time I’d been a little girl, parents had carefully
steered their children away from me, almost unconsciously, as if a force field
surrounded me, making it impossible for them to get close.  I learned to
recognize the look as they drew them across the other side of the playground –
a mix of unabashed gawking, lurid supposition (“are you sure she wasn’t
hurt?”), and schadenfreude.  I’d had no best friend.  I missed out on the My
Pretty Pony birthday parties, had no one to braid my hair and whisper secrets
and giggle about boys with me.  I lived my meager existence, suffering the
normal outrages of transitioning to middle school and high school like every
other teen, I suppose, but with the extra burden of being an outcast, based on
nothing more than the odd fear that parents seemed to harbor that somehow, if
their kids got too close, something bad would happen to them, too.

“I won’t tell Mom,” I
said, and his head jerked up, his eyes full of surprise.  He stopped twisting
his hat, a grin lighting up his face.

“Thank you, Hope.”

I nodded, not sure what
to say next.

My dad was first to break
the silence.  “I got a job, Hope.”

“That’s great, Dad!” My
delight for him was genuine.  It had been years since he’d last had a job.

“I’m night manager at the
Taco Bell.  You know the one, right off campus, near South College?” His voice
was eager, his eyes searching for approval.

I swallowed my
disappointment.  It was a far cry from the engineering job he used to have, but
it was a start.

He continued on,
oblivious to my warring emotions.  “I figured I had more time now, with you
gone.  They didn’t want to hire me at first, said I was over-qualified, but
when I explained everything they changed their minds.  They’re really nice
folks, Hope.  They even let me take home the leftovers,” he said, pulling a
neatly folded bag out of the folds of his coat and thrusting it at me.

“Aw, Dad, you shouldn’t
have.”  I took the paper bag from him, gingerly holding it away from me so as
not to be overwhelmed by the grease.

He beamed again.  “It’s
the new burrito.  I bet you’ll like it.”

“I’ll take it home for
dinner tonight.”

A shadow fell across his
face.  He seemed almost embarrassed and started mangling his hat again.  “You
probably shouldn’t.  Just in case.”

Mom.  I nodded swiftly, patting
the bag.  “I’ll eat it on the way home.”

I kicked some pebbles
with my toe. This was the first time I’d ever had to visit my Dad.  It felt
strange.

“So how is school?” 
“School is okay,” we began at the same time, and then laughed nervously at our
awkwardness.

“School is okay,” I
repeated.  “A lot of the same kind of classes.”  I fumbled around for something
to add, the heat of a blush spreading across my face.  “I ride the bus for
now,” I said.  “Oh, and I made a new friend.  Her dad is a minister, and her
name is Tabitha.” I was grasping now and beginning to babble.

“Great,” Dad said,
straining to smile.  “That’s just great.”

“Dad,” I burst out before
I could stop myself, “Mom told me some things.  Some things about when I was
little.  Why do you think that I am being targeted?”

He blanched and looked
nervously about.

“Mom’s not going to find
out you told me.” I rushed to explain.  “I promise.  I just…you know,
wondered.  Wondered why.”  I tried to keep my expression as neutral as possible
so he did not feel threatened.

He looked at me warily. 
“You really want to know?”

I nodded vigorously. 
“I’m being serious.  I won’t argue or anything.  I just want to know.”

He sighed then, and his
eyes suddenly became very tired.  “Because I hear voices, Hope.”  The words
came slowly at first, but as he continued, they seemed to rush like water
bursting a dam. 

“They started the night
we found you.  Sometimes it’s almost like a buzzing sound in my head.  Other
times, they are whispers.  But if I ignore them, they get louder.”

Before, I would have
asked him if he had tried using anti-psychotic drugs to relieve his symptoms,
but now I just remembered Michael’s words and tried not to let what my Dad had
said startle me too much.  I took a deep breath and asked the question I needed
to ask, even though I didn’t want to.

“What do they say, Dad?”

“They always tell me to
keep you close.  I never wanted to find out what would happen if I didn’t.”

I felt a stab of pity for
him.  How horrible must it be, to be the only one who believed in something so
strange?  To carry the guilt of my disappearance, but not be able to admit it,
not even to yourself?  To fear it might happen again?

“I know how this must
sound,” he said, shrugging. “The only person I ever told was your mother.”  He
laughed, his mouth twisting into a bitter smile.  “She told her lawyer, but in
court, it never stood up.  I’m not crazy.  And I’m smart enough to know not to
talk about it.  And for whatever reason, your mother never pushed it.  Couldn’t
bring herself to drive the knife in, I guess.

But the thing is….”

His voice dropped, and a
sudden burst of wind battled to drown him out.

“What did you say?” I
asked sharply, not sure if I’d really heard him say what I thought.  I locked
eyes with him, willing him to say it.  His whole body sagged with defeat as I
dragged the words out of him.

“They just stopped.”  He
seemed bewildered, lost, his hands falling to his sides as if a puppet master
had suddenly cut the strings. “These last few months, the voices just stopped. 
It’s almost like…it’s time.  But time for what, I don’t know.”

A wave of unease gripped
me.  Michael and my father, both feeling some irresistible force, compelling
one to guard me and the other to let me go.  It couldn’t be all coincidence –
could it?

“They didn’t even say
anything when you tried to leave home.  In fact, it felt like they almost
wanted you to go.”

I looked at my father and
realized, as he stood there alone, the winds whipping about him, that he felt
he’d failed me somehow.