Sage's Eyes (14 page)

“We even found a way to help her on tests,” Danny added.

“She can't take you with her later.”

“Later?” Danny asked. “What later?”

“Life,” I told him.

Peter smiled. “She means we're carrying her on our backs, but when we swim away to follow our own destinies, she'll drown.”

He turned and looked at me with obviously more respect. “You're pretty smart, Sage. I bet you'll be successful no matter what you do.”

“I don't know about myself, but I know you will be, Peter.”

He nodded but not with arrogance. Facts supported predictions. I didn't think I had to be a fortune-teller to read the future for people like him. They were past the point of needing encouragement. They had the requisite self-confidence and, most important, self-respect.

“See you,” I said.

I sauntered over to Ginny to say good night and thank her for inviting me. She looked at the others, took my hand, and walked me to the door.

“Everyone is worried about you, Sage. They think you should get out more and hang out with live people. Unless you're interning for social work or something. Todd is telling them that being around you is like having a chaperone or something. Why don't you come with us to the Doll House? You can let your hair down and show them all. We'll only be there another couple of hours. It's an exciting place.”

“I bet it is. Look, this is my first time out to a real party. My parents are nervous about it and want me home at eleven thirty. My uncle is picking me up any moment.”

“Eleven thirty? Medieval,” she said. “Too bad.”

I watched her return to the others, shrugging her
shoulders, and then I walked out to meet Uncle Wade. He had just driven up. I hurried to his car.

“Surprised none of the boys walked you out,” he said when I got in.

“Most of them will need someone to walk
them
out,” I told him.

“Oh?” He looked at the house and then started to drive away. “Didn't you have a good time?”

“Yes.”

“But?”

I didn't answer.

“Something's troubling you. What is it?” Uncle Wade could read me just as well as my parents could, I thought.

“What if you knew something terrible was happening to someone in your class, something she wouldn't admit to you or anyone else?”

“How would I come to know it? Someone else told me? I saw it?”

“Yes, you saw it. In a way.”

“What way? How can you see something in a way?”

I sensed what he was after, but I wasn't going to start talking about my visions. I was sure my parents were waiting to hear him report something like that. I tried to skate around it. “Sometimes you can just realize something, like when someone is very upset but tries to hide it.”

“I'd be careful about what I did if that's all I had to go on, Sage. One thing I wouldn't want to do is accuse someone of something without real proof. It would only come back on me. It's something someone also
might do to hurt that person, hurt his or her reputation. Would you deliberately do that? Do you want to hurt someone?”

“No,” I said. “Unless he or she deserved it,” I added.

He looked at me suspiciously. “Who decides who deserves it and who doesn't?”

“No one would disagree in this case, I'm sure.”

“Was it something that involved those boys who were carrying on when I dropped you off?”

“No,” I said. “Forget it. You're right. I shouldn't even talk about it.”

“I hope you will always feel that you can talk to me, Sage. I know I'm not here that often, but you can always call me on my cell phone, and if I don't answer, I'll get back to you. I mean it,” he said.

“I know you do. Thank you, Uncle Wade.”

“Well, tell me, then,” he said, smiling to change the mood. “Were you more like fifteen or fifty at the party?”

“Depends on whom you talk to,” I said. “But doesn't it always?” I asked.

He laughed. “You're going to be fine,” he said. “You're going to be just fine.”

Was I?

It wasn't only what I believed was happening to Cassie and the way I discovered it that made me feel different from everyone else tonight. While they were all enjoying a carefree time and forbidden things, I was in deep, serious thought. No wonder I was comfortable with Peter and Danny. There was no risk being with them, nothing to distract me from dark thoughts and
mature concerns. However, I knew that behaving like I did I was risking new friendships. As Ginny had told me, they would think of me as like a chaperone at a dance or something. I understood why and couldn't blame them.

Girls and boys my age who were doing illegal things or things their parents would disapprove of wouldn't want someone like me around. I wondered if I would ever be invited to another party or even just to hang out with them now. It didn't take a fortune-teller to see that they would be afraid I would betray their secrets and get them into trouble. Promising that I wouldn't do that still wouldn't be enough for them to trust me.

“I have to leave tomorrow,” Uncle Wade said, shaking me out of my thoughts.

“So soon?”

“My agent called. I have to go to California and then Hawaii. Poor me, right?” he said, smiling.

“I wish I could go with you.”

“Maybe you will someday. What do you think?” he asked, as if I could either confirm or deny the future right then and there.

“I don't know,” I said. It would always be a mystery to me why my parents and my uncle were immune to my third eye. They were protected in ways most people weren't. Was it simply because I was too close to them, or was it something else? I felt like I had been brought up in a dark maze and was still trying to figure out a way to the light.

I decided to press on to see what else I could learn from Uncle Wade.

“There was one other thing I found in that file
drawer, Uncle Wade. It was a strip of leather, like a bookmark.”

“Oh?”

“There was a word on it, engraved in black.
Belladonna
,” I said.

For a long moment, he was silent, and then he nodded and smiled. “Belladonna was the name of the estate my family owned in Hungary a very long time ago. That strip of leather is probably hundreds of years old. Precious,” he added. “It has the family crest on it, right?”

“Yes.”

“That's it. Something handed down from our grandfathers, most likely.”

“I wonder,” I said, after hearing his explanation, “when my parents will ever tell me . . .”

“Ever tell you what?” he asked.

“Who they are,” I said. “They dole out tidbits about themselves and their families as if every word was solid gold, and if I ask too many questions, which is one or two, my mother takes my head off.” I would never let myself sound so upset about it with anyone else but him.

“Look, Sage, I was thinking about all this, all that you told me you found in that drawer and how you've kept it to yourself all this time. I promise, I didn't say anything to my brother or Felicia,” he added quickly, “but I think you should. I think when they find out someday, maybe because you'll come out and tell them, they will be disappointed that you didn't tell them or ask them anything back when you looked in that drawer.”

“I was
afraid to say anything about it, Uncle Wade. My mother especially often makes me feel like I'm on the verge of doing something terrible. If I told her I snooped in my father's things . . .”

“You said the drawer was open, right? You didn't jimmy it open or something, did you? You're not lying about that, right?”

“No, it was open.”

“So you were curious and looked inside. It's understandable.”

“They told me not to go into my father's office and look at his things. My mother gets very upset when I forget to do something she had told me to do or accidentally do something she didn't want me to do.”

“What's worse?” he asked. “Disobeying that rule or lying to them about it? Lying poisons everything. My father used to say it rusts trust.”

“Not telling her I looked in that cabinet is the only time I've ever really lied to my mother.”

“Well, you'll be able to tell her that. Look, Sage, how can they trust you with things if you don't trust
them
with things? Right?”

I nodded, but it didn't lessen my fear. “Okay,” I said. “Maybe I will tell them.”

“Get off the maybe, Sage. Make a decision, and be firm about it. He who hesitates is lost.”

“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,” I fired back.

He laughed. Then he quickly grew serious again. “This won't make you a fool.”

“Should I do it now, tonight?”

“We don't
want them to think you're doing it because I told you to,” he said. “And if that's your only reason, then you shouldn't do it. Do it when you feel you want to, when you need to for yourself. Okay?”

“Okay. Thanks, Uncle Wade.”

“Like I said, you'll be fine.”

We rode on in silence, a silence I tried to penetrate to see if he really believed what he had said or if he had said it to help himself believe it, but just as with my parents, it was still impossible to probe beyond where he wanted me to go. There was that invisible magnetic wall that kept me outside with my questions unanswered.

My mother didn't lack any questions when we entered the house, however. Both she and my father were waiting for me in the living room.

“Here she is,” Uncle Wade announced, “home safe and sound.”

I saw the way my mother and he looked at each other. Pages could be transcribed from what their eyes said.

“Come in and sit,” my mother told me. “Tell us about your party.”

I sat on the settee. My father was in his favorite easy chair with the thick arms and plush cushions. My mother sat across from me on the matching settee. They had both been drinking their homemade elderberry wine. My father looked relaxed, but my mother looked poised to pounce.

“Well?” she said when I hesitated.

“There were more kids there than I expected,” I began. “Ginny
ordered in pizzas and other food from a restaurant. I thought the music was too loud. The house has speakers in every room. You practically had to shout to be heard even if you were standing right next to someone.”

I saw my father's lips soften into a small smile. He glanced at my mother, but she had her eyes fixed on me as if she could X-ray every word I spoke to see the bones of truth.

“And were there alcoholic drinks?”

“Yes,” I said, “but I didn't drink any. Not everyone did,” I added. That was true. Neither Peter nor Danny nor Cassie had.

“There were drugs, too, weren't there?” she followed.

“I didn't actually see any, but I thought there were some drugs being passed around. Only some of the kids did that.”

“You didn't do any of it?”

“No, absolutely not.”

“Where were her parents?” my father asked.

“In Boston, visiting Ginny's aunt.”

“So the party's still going on?” he asked.

“Yes, but others were leaving soon after me.”

“And the rest?” my mother asked.

“Some were going to a dance club.”

I felt like a spy on my friends. I told the truth, however. Uncle Wade was watching me, and his prediction about lying was still floating in the air between us.

“Did they want you to go, too?”

“Yes.”

“Did you want to go?” she asked. “I know I told you not to, but did you want to?”

I hesitated just a second too long.

“Temptation is the siren that calls you to your downfall.”

“I told them I couldn't go,” I said.

“That's not the same as saying you don't want to go. What kind of dance club permits people your age this late at night anyway? Well?” she demanded.

“It's called the Doll House. One of the boys is friendly with the owner and could get everyone in.”

She looked at my father with that “I told you so” expression on her face.

“She didn't go,” he said. “She didn't make up some lie and cover up her going.”

My mother turned back to me and just stared for a moment until another thought blossomed in her eyes. “Were there any adults at the party during the evening?” she asked.

“No.”

“Did you see anyone outside the house?”

“What?”

“Someone, a man, watching the house?”

“Felicia,” my father said. She looked at him. He had a stern, unyielding look on his face.

She turned back to me again. “You can go to bed,” she said, sitting back.

“Why do you always ask me if I've seen someone watching me, following me? Who is supposed to be doing that?”

“Don't question me,”
she snapped, her consonants and vowels so sharp I thought she might have cut her tongue on the words. “We told you. There are perverts out there, stalkers just waiting for someone as innocent and trusting as you.”

“I'm not innocent and trusting.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I'm not stupid, Mother.”

“You think you know evil when you see it?” she asked, this time with a strange, wry smile. “Are you that familiar with deception, with all the seven deadly sins? Do you think you could survive on your own in the world out there?”

I looked at my uncle, hoping he might say something to support me, but he looked pensive and said nothing.

“No. You're right, Mother.” I rose slowly. “Good night,” I said. “Thank you again, Uncle Wade. Are you leaving early in the morning?”

He nodded.

“You'll be gone before I get up, won't you?” I asked him.

He smiled at my foresight. There was no need to put up a wall to protect himself from something so simple. “I'll be back soon. I promise.”