Microsoft Word - sk-ss-pdf.doc (10 page)

He released me as I stepped back down to the floor. "The pain is gone, and the wound is healing. The shield is in place. It is safe for you to touch me," he said.

Don't be too sure about that, I thought. But all I said was,

"Can you move to the back seat then?" I wasn't comfortable with trying to sleep that close to him, given the bizarre and well, intimate, direction my thoughts had taken lately. He shook his head and after a little rearranging and shifting, I ended sitting up behind the wheel with the roll of paper towels behind my head as a makeshift pillow, and Caelan was stretched out across the seat with his legs mostly on the floor, pretty much as before, except that now his head pressed against my leg. I didn't like this arrangement, but his reasons for having me stay in the front made sense, and I didn't really want to explain why I wanted him to move to the back.

So, it took awhile, getting used to the weight and warmth of him so near me, but I eventually fell asleep. I guess somehow I'd hoped that the dreams might go away or be less...intense. After all, I'd confronted and survived my worst nightmare in reality. So wasn't that supposed be some kind of really effective and expensive, therapy? If so, it didn't work for me. Darkness rolled in over me, just as it always did. Voices that sounded so familiar called to me with an urgency I could feel but words I couldn't understand. Then, the blackness became thick, 74

Stacey Klemstein

touchable. And I couldn't breathe. There wasn't enough air in the box they'd hidden me in. Fumbling for a way out, I found a handle and used it, cooler air rushing to touch my face but avoiding my lungs. I could feel my chest working so hard that I was panting, but it made no difference. I would die of suffocation surrounded by air.

In the distance came the sound of my name. Someone calling to me over and over. And then suddenly a crushing pain burned up through my ribs.

"Zara, wake up. Wake up, you sleep still." Only then did the darkness around me take on the unreal quality of a dream, or rather a nightmare. The layers of blackness and surreality peeled away, until I could feel the hard ground beneath my back and the weight of someone holding me down. I opened my eyes to see Caelan's face hanging above me, framed by the star-speckled night sky. My elbow stung, feeling scraped raw and my ribs were throbbing, sending little pulses of fire through me.

I closed my eyes, not in sleep this time, but in frustration and fear. "Shit." Tears leaked from beneath my closed lids.

"You were dreaming," he said. I could hear the worry and the wonder in his voice.

"Yes, thank you, Mr. State-the-Obvious." But tears clogged my voice, taking away the effectiveness of that snappish remark. He eased back off of me, then reached down to help me up. I got to my feet, but then the world swirled around me. He grabbed me before I hit the ground again and pulled me closer to him, leaning my body against his while he fished in my pocket. I would have protested, but I knew what he was going for and was grateful to him for thinking of it.

He pressed my inhaler into my hand, and I used it three times in rapid succession, which was against the rules because it was only my own panic triggering the breathing attack, but I didn't 75

The Silver Spoon

care.

Caelan helped me back to the car, a good 30 feet away. I'd almost made it into the street before he stopped me. He settled me in the driver's seat again and closed the door, then went around and climbed in the passenger side.

We sat in silence for a few moments, the only sound my sniffling and the faint wheezing still in my chest.

"I awakened when you began to struggle," he said finally. "I tried to wake you, but it seemed you were...lost." Fresh tears started in my eyes. "Damnit." I looked away from him, out the side window. "I'm so sick of this."

"When I saw that you intended to flee, I pursued you and stopped you only by using physical force. That was not my preference, as you could have been injured."

"I could hear you, but I couldn't wake up. I couldn't stop it. I can never stop it. Not for two whole years. Do you know what that's like?" I turned back to face him, to find him watching me with such concern, something I hadn't seen in so long. At least not without some pity mixed in. I swallowed hard over the lump in my throat, trying to regain my composure. "I have to find out what's really going on with you, with the Observers. All of this started the day you guys arrived here. I have to find out the truth. Or else..."

"Or else you fear that you will go mad," he said quietly.

"Yeah," I said with a half-laugh, half-sob, "that or I'll walk in front of truck one of these nights. That'll finish everything real quickly." So quickly that the idea of doing so deliberately had tickled the back of my brain more than once on nights like this. He remained quiet for a moment, then he turned toward me.

"When did you say these visions began?" I dried my face on the hem of my shirt. "Dreams, not visions." But something about his tone made me look over at him. His head was tilted slightly to one side, as if he were trying to make sense of two conflicting bits of information. "You saw 76

Stacey Klemstein

something, didn't you?"

"It was not intentional." His eyes watched me steadily, waiting for my protest.

"I don't care about that," I said impatiently, at least not in this particular instance. I was hungry for any kind of detail he'd seen that I hadn't.

"The female in your vision...your dream," he amended when I started to interrupt. "She is not one I recognize." I stared at him for a second, waiting for more of a revelation. When nothing else seemed to be forthcoming, I shrugged. "So, we've already established that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of you here hiding."

"But she is Council," he said. The Council was, quite simply, a name for all the head honchos on this supposed research mission. They were the ones who had decided to intervene to help us survive. They were the ones who took the information from the research teams, so likely they were the ones behind whatever devious plot was still under wraps, if there was one.

"How do you know that if you don't know her?" I frowned.

"Have you not seen the Council?" he asked.

"You can't watch the news without seeing what's her face, Amaranta, your spokes...alien. I've seen a couple of the others in magazines, but it's not like they're out posing for a group photos. No source that I've found is even sure of all their names."

"Amaranta, Osric, Faline, Nasra, Brisa, Arae, Tavaris, Valin, Reyhan, and Nevan, of course," he said.

"Nevan?" I sat up straight in my seat. "You never said he was Council." Oh, dear Lord, it was like having the head of a foreign country coming after you. No wonder Caelan had been so insistent about leaving and staying away from hospitals. With that kind of pull–the Council members were treated essentially as foreign dignitaries with all the rank and privileges that entailed–we were lucky to be having this conversation outside of a jail cell. Or for 77

The Silver Spoon

that matter, a cemetery, at least for me. But this only raised more questions. I had no idea why any Observer would want me dead, let alone a Council member. I'd have to add that mystery to the growing list that I hoped to solve before a horrible and gruesome death.

Caelan frowned, a slight downturn to one side of his mouth.

"I thought it to be understood. He appears as all the others do."

"You mean the Council members all look alike?" I thought back to the interviews with Amaranta and the photos of the other Council members I used to have that were now nothing more than gerbil bedding on my living room floor. "They all have silver hair, is that it? I thought that was age."

"That is an unusual characteristic among us to be sure, but not unheard of among our lower ranks. No, it is their height, generally lesser than ours, their paler skin color and–"

"Their eyes," I whispered. That blank silver on silver, no humanity, no warmth. Sometimes, at night, after waking from my dream, I felt like those eyes were burned into the back of my eyelids, so that even when I closed my eyes, they glowed there, watching me.

I shuddered.

"Yes," he said.

"All right, so what? Maybe she's one that you haven't seen yet. Or, maybe they all look so much alike you can't tell them apart."

He raised his eyebrows at me, a look human enough that I understood what he meant. He'd seen them all, knew the differences between them and I needed to give up the ghost on this particular argument.

Fine. I had other bridges to burn. "They're dreams, not literal interpretations, anyway," I pointed out. "Besides, what has any of this got to do with how old I was when the dreams started?" His original question had nearly gotten lost.

78

Stacey Klemstein

He stared at me for a long moment, then in a tone of something close to wonder, he said, "You do not see it, for even in the dream you are lost."

"Don't see what?" I asked, starting to get exasperated.

"Zara." He leaned toward me, and I instinctively mirrored his movement. "You are a child in these dreams." 79

The Silver Spoon

Chapter 7

I almost laughed. "Caelan, it could be anything. A metaphor for my feelings of helplessness in that dream, leftover grief from my parents' death, just some really bad brain wiring. It doesn't really mean anything, literally." Then I heard myself and shook my head. "Good Lord, I'm starting to sound like my shrink." He frowned, not understanding.

"My psychologist. Someone who listens to you talk and then pretends to have all the answers to your problems." I thought about the last time I saw good ol' Dr. Conroy and the look of fright on his face, and I grinned.

Caelan tilted his head at me, a faint smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. "What did you do to him?" He must have caught a glimpse of something in my mind.

"He told me that my dreams were the result of repressed guilt over my parents' death. I told him that while I was still saddened by their death, I would talk about it with him freely because I didn't think that was truly the issue. Then he said," I paused, remembering the flare of frustration that had overtaken me at his next words, "'denial won't help the situation, Zara,' in that clipped tone of his."

"And you..." Caelan prompted.

"I threw an ashtray at his head and walked out." I smiled and shook my head, looking down at my hands folded in my lap. "It was not my most mature moment. But I'd really hoped that he would...I don't know, fix me or something. But he didn't, couldn't, I guess."

"What has made you feel that you need to be repaired?" he asked quietly.

"I don't know. Not sleeping well in a couple years, waking 80

Stacey Klemstein

up, clawing at my own throat, trying to breath. Feeling like there's this big giant cloud of badness hanging over us here, covering us, gradually blocking out the light, and one day, we'll be in total dark, because no one will believe me." I lifted my eyes to stare out the windshield. "It sounds crazy, I know." I looked at him. "And I'm tired of being the crazy one, the defect." He shifted closer on the seat, his eyes meeting mine. "You have not left rational thought, Zara. I believe you are closer to the truth of...something, than many others, including some of my own kind."

"Thanks." His words made me feel a little lighter, like I wasn't quite carrying the entire world on my shoulders. "But no offense, I'm not sure that anyone would hold you up as a paragon of sanity. You know, prophecies, missing memories, other aliens chasing after you..."

We sat in silence for a several moments. Then he said, "When I first saw you, I almost didn't recognize you as the one from the prophecy."

I looked over at him.

"You seemed small and frail...human." He turned his head toward me, eyes glowing in the faint light of the moon. "Not one who could possibly triumph over Nevan, one so strong that it takes many of us to remain safe from him."

I thought I might be offended by what he was saying. But I wasn't sure how to protest.

"But now, you have shown strength beyond that of many. Not simply in your power to touch my mind, but in your resilience." He shifted toward me a little more, his eyes moving along the details of my face, like he was trying to memorize some great work of art or amazing artifact. "You believe that your difference from other humans makes you weak, but it is that which makes you strong. You stand alone not because others have turned away from you, but because you have stepped forward to lead the way." 81

The Silver Spoon

I looked away from him. "Listen, I appreciate your attempt to make me feel better, but..."

He touched me, and I whipped my head around to face him again. His fingers curled around my wrist, hesitantly and then with more certainty when I didn't protest.

"Which is the greater warrior, one who succeeds with an army behind him, or one who goes alone?" he asked quietly.

"Thank you." I still wasn't sure I believed him, but my voice sounded choked even to my own ears. For a second, I felt whole again, like I wasn't on a seesaw trying to keep my balance while standing on one leg. Like for just that one moment, the world was spinning and not me. In that instant, I wanted to curl up next to him and never leave.

The warm comfort of his hand on my arm spiraled upward through the rest of me. It felt so good to be touched out of something other than absolute necessity. People, even my own brother to some degree, had adopted a ginger and reluctant approach to physical contact around me. No hugs, no handshakes, no pats on the back, except when forced by circumstance. Even then it was like they were holding their breath, hoping the little crazy bug wouldn't leap over and nestle in their brains. Drawn by Caelan's alluring heat, I shifted a little closer to him, like a stupid mosquito that should be afraid of the big, buzzing, blue light but somehow wasn't. I watched him blink, watched his eyelids with heavy lashes douse the silver glow in his eyes only to have it spring back to life a second later. The perfect bridge of his nose, the complete lack of freckles, scars, or marks on his face. That full mouth, with a touchable lower lip, now surrounded by a rough field of stubble, the one imperfection, the one bit of humanity about his appearance.