Rising (23 page)

“What?
 
What’s that look for?” asked Jeremy.

“We’ve got to go see someone,” said
Gabe.

“Who?”

“His name is Homer, and he lives out on
Canebrake,” I said.

“He could just be a crazy hermit, but I
have a feeling he’s not,” added Gabe.

“O-
kayyy
.
 
Are y’all feeling sick or something?”

Jeremy was leaning back away from us in
his chair.

“I know it sounds weird,” I explained,
“but we were sitting here looking at these websites when Mrs. Fairfax comes up
and says that there was this guy in her class who used to have visions of
shadow people.”

“And demons from other dimensions,”
added Gabe speedily.
 
“Everybody thought
he was insane and didn’t believe him.
 
Now, he lives out on Canebrake Island by himself.”

“There’s no way this is just a
coincidence,” I said, more to Gabe than to Jeremy.

I could feel the excitement leaking
into my voice.

“Geez,” said a groggy voice from the
cubicle next to us.
 
“I thought I was
dreaming about them again.
 
It’s just
y’all.”

All three of us turned to see a sleepy
Ben peering out from the cubicle beside us.
 
He yawned and stretched, scooting his chair out of the enclosure to face
us.
 
His tousled blonde hair was a mess.

“
Who
were you dreaming about again?” asked Gabe soberly.

I could feel the tension in his
voice.
 
His brown eyes darkened.
 
His multi-colored aura shimmered more blue
than any other color.

“Oh, you know, shadowy, creepy guys,”
said Ben casually, stifling another yawn.
 
“I was dreaming about this super cool black giant,
ya
know, and he was about to stab me with this long sword then all of a sudden I
heard Mrs. Fairfax’s voice come out of his mouth saying ‘he was a classmate of
mine.’ Weird, huh?”

Ben was chuckling to himself.
 
None of us laughed.

“Have you been having dreams like this
for a while?” asked Jeremy.

“Uh, yeah, I guess so,” said Ben, “but
that stuff doesn’t really bother me.
 
Now, this hurricane that might be
comin
’?
 
That
bothers me.”

“Why haven’t you told me about this?”
asked Gabe, sounding like a concerned parent.

“Why should I?” asked Ben.
 
“It’s just dreams.
 
I told you before I never pay attention to
stuff like that. It has cut into sleep time though.
 
Besides, I haven’t seen you much lately.
 
You’ve been too busy with your
girl
friend.”

I realized that Ben may not be teasing
about being resentful of me.
 
I made a
mental note to try and be more sensitive to him.
 

“This is unbelievable,” I said, looking
at Gabe.

“Why are y’all
lookin
’
at me like I’m a freak or
somethin
’?” asked Ben.

Gabe’s phone bleeped from his
pocket.
 
It was a text.
 
He pulled it out quickly and read the
message.

“It’s Theresa.
 
She has to go back to Albuquerque.
 
She wants us to meet her after school at the
hotel before she goes to the airport,” he said, glancing from me to
Jeremy.
 
“And, Ben, you’re coming with
us.
 
We’ve
gotta
talk but there’s no time now.”

As if Gabe had a magic wand, the bell
suddenly rang above us.
 
There wasn’t
much talking as we made our way to Mrs. Jaden’s class.
 
Ben didn’t appear rattled at all.
 
He had that same goofy, carefree look like he
always did.
 
I swear, Gabe and I must’ve
looked like zombies as we sat in our desks, completely lost in our own
thoughts.
 
I couldn’t get over it.
 
First Gabe, then Jeremy, now Ben.
 
How many of us were there out there dreaming
about these things?
 
What could it all
mean?
 

I couldn’t even follow what Mrs. Jaden
was doing flitting around in the front of the classroom, pulling out speakers
or something.
 
I was trying to imagine
what this crazy old Homer looked like and what kind of life he led all by
himself on Canebrake Island when I heard Gabe make a sort of gasping noise.
 
I glanced over at him and he was staring
scarily toward the front of the classroom. Then he turned and looked at
me.
 
His face had gone totally white.

“That’s it,” he whispered, pointing to
the front.

I finally tuned in to what Mrs. Jaden
was doing.
 
She was playing some audio
clip that I couldn’t understand at all.
 
Across the board, she had written ‘Beowulf in Old Norse.’
 
I turned back to Gabe with a puzzled look.

“What?”

He seemed completely frustrated with
me.
 
His foot was twitching like 90 miles
a minute.
 
Why was he freaking out?
 
He pulled out his phone and hid it behind his
textbook.
 
In a few seconds, I felt my
phone vibrate in my pocket.
 
I pulled it
out.

Thats the language from woman in my vision.

I listened to the strange, fluid words
coming from the speakers.
 
Mrs. Jaden was
smiling broadly with closed lips, all proud of herself for impressing the class
with these ancient words of the epic poem.
 
The other kids did look impressed.
 
As for Gabe and I, it had a completely different effect—more unanswered
questions.
 
Ugh.
 

Whatever else happened that day in Mrs.
Jaden’s class, I really don’t remember.
 
Nor could I recall any other class for that matter.
 
I wonder if I would’ve paid more attention and
tried to cherish the crazy antics of the teachers, the excitement in the halls
for the upcoming football game, or the quiet camaraderie between friends if I
had known that it would be my last day of high school.
 
Ever.

***

“Old Norse?
 
Why would a Viking be in Cuba?” Jeremy was
asking, leaning forward between our two seats.

“If I knew, I’d definitely tell you,”
said Gabe.

It was the three of us again, heading
back to the Holiday Inn.
 
Gabe had asked
Ben to come along so we could talk to him, but he said he’d just catch up to
Gabe later.
 
I wondered if Ben was in
some sort of denial about the whole thing.
 
There was no telling with Ben.

When we pulled into the parking lot, we
saw Theresa rolling her suitcase to her rental car.
 
Gabe pulled up right next to her then we
hopped out.

“Hi,” she said, “well, they finally
want to talk to me and hear my story.”

“What made them decide that you might
be telling the truth?” I asked.

“Apparently, the university in Brazil
where Dr. Hernandez was working contacted our Anthropology department, wanting
to know if they’d heard from Dr. Malcolm since apparently there was some sort
of disaster throughout the villages in the southern part of Cuba.
 
So, I’m off to try and explain it again.”

Theresa let out a little laugh, but
there was no happiness in it.

“Well, at least you know they’ll listen
this time,” I offered.

“Yes.
 
At least there’s that,” she said dryly.
 
“Well, I copied these for you so that you can look at them more closely
when you have time.
 
Hopefully, they’ll
be of some use to you.”

She handed me a manila envelope, which
I could tell held a copy of each of the pictographs she had shown us before.

“I also tried to find the meaning to
that word ‘
setti
.’ At first I only found references
to this institute that searches for extra terrestrials, but that didn’t seem
right.”

“Yeah, we found that, too,” I said.

“I decided to search foreign
languages.
 
I nearly gave up, but I did
find one translation of the word.
 
The
meaning of ‘
setti
’ was sixth.”

“In what language?” asked Gabe briskly.

“Old Norse,” she replied.

Gabe made a sort of choking sound that
might have been a laugh, but I doubt it.

“Maybe it’s a reference to a sixth
sense,” said Jeremy, his eyes lighting up.

“That was what I thought, too.
 
But I have no idea how it could connect to
these shadow men,” said Theresa, now turning toward Gabe.
 
“Gabriel, I’d like you to have this,” she
said, holding out the velvet pouch with the black stone.
 
“I think it belongs with you.”

“Are you sure?” he asked.
 
“I mean, won’t the university want to see
this?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said.

I could tell she wanted to say
something else, but she didn’t.
 
I
wondered what she meant.
 
It didn’t
matter because they’d recover the old samples?
 
It didn’t matter because they’d start a new excavation and find more
samples?
 
Or, it didn’t matter because
all would be lost soon enough.

“Maybe they’ll take you back to Cuba
and you can dig up more of them,” said Jeremy, sounding somewhat
apologetic.
 
It was strange hearing a
softness to his voice.

      
“Maybe,”
she said quietly.

      
“Thank
you,” said Gabe, taking the pouch.
 
“This
means a lot to me.”

      
“Yes,
I thought it would.
 
Well,” she said,
glancing at her watch, “I don’t want to be late.
 
It takes three hours just to get through
airport security these days, so I’ll wish you all luck.
 
I’ll be watching the news and praying that
the hurricane doesn’t turn in this direction.”

      
She
had an awful look in her eyes, like a mother sending her son off to war.
 
Her aura rippled around her like liquid light
in hues of baby blue.
 
I smiled genuinely
at her, knowing she must feel terrible about what was coming toward us, with no
way to help.
 
I stepped forward and
hugged her.
 
It was strange, hugging a
complete stranger who I knew cared for me so deeply.
 
She squeezed me tightly then finally let go.

“Good luck,” she said in a somber
tone.
 
“I’ll be in touch.”

I wondered if she meant it, or if that
was just one of those things you said in parting to lighten the mood.
 
We watched her get in her car and leave,
zooming onto the Interstate toward the airport.
 
Then finally, we piled back in the Jeep, heading back toward town.
 
I glanced at Gabe.
 
He had that brooding look again with both
hands fixed on the steering wheel and his dark hair blowing crazily in the
wind.
 
I looked out at the passing trees,
hoping that maybe these creatures weren’t as bad as we thought they were, that
maybe our military would find some way to stop them, when Gabe suddenly swerved
off the main road and into an abandoned gas station.
 
I held onto the roll bar above me.
 
Gabe was a crazy driver—fast and
unpredictable.
 
It was amazing that he
hadn’t had an accident yet.
 
He pulled
along the side of the building without any explanation.

“Piss break?” asked Jeremy, popping his
head up front.

Gross.
 
I rolled my eyes.

“No,” said Gabe sternly, pulling out
both of Jeremy’s earphones with the tug of one hand on the dangling cords.
 
“What’s your sixth sense?”

Gabe’s voice was demanding and
exact.
 
It always made me feel a little
nervous when he got this intense.
 
His
aura was very dark blue and swirling in a torrent around him.

“What are you talking about?” asked
Jeremy, a little aggravated.

“You heard me,” said Gabe, “what’s your
other sense?
 
Your power?
 
What can you do that most people can’t
do?
 
You know mine, now I want to know
yours.”