The Flight of the Silvers (40 page)

“Are you okay to drive?” she asked him, a half hour later.

“I think so.”

“Okay. I think I’d like to go home.”

“Yeah.”

They left the library in grim silence, without looking back. They didn’t need foresight to know that they wouldn’t return here. They’d already learned more than they wanted to know.

—

The grandfather clock ticked away as the Silvers sat behind the remnants of their supper. Ten elbows rested on the dining room table, ten fists propping five chins. Only Theo sat slouched in his chair. He wished Mia hadn’t told the others about the girl with two watches.

“She’s either a skilled augur herself or a time traveler,” David surmised. “I can’t see how else she’d profess to know about Theo’s potential.”

Amanda peered at David’s plate, still half-filled with boiled peas. The sisters had initially tried to prepare more elaborate vegan dishes for him. He never took more than a few polite bites before returning to his vegetable piles.

“And we’re absolutely sure this woman wasn’t Esis?” Zack asked.

David squinted at Mia. “Describe her in detail.”

“I don’t know. She was thin. Pretty. Short.”

“No,” said David.

“No,” said Amanda. “Esis is not short.”

The cartoonist shrugged in grim surrender. After exploding a deer today, he wasn’t confident in his opinion about anything.

Hannah sat back in her chair and seethed. In the four hours since the death of the fawn, her melancholy had turned into something hard and prickly. She found herself despising everyone at the table for reasons of little merit. She hated David for his stupid vegan diet. She hated Mia for her inexhaustible sweetness. She hated Zack and Amanda for not screwing like rabbits already. She hated Theo for all the usual reasons.

At the moment, she hated the fact that her companions were all brilliant in one way or another, and yet none of them considered the obvious.

“She’s an actress.”

The others glanced up at her with blank expressions. She met their gazes one by one.

“Evan’s messing with us again, only this time by proxy. He hired that woman. Coached her through and through. And now once again we’re all dancing to his tune, wondering if up is down, left is right. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so tragic.”

The clock ticked five more times before David broke the silence.

“That’s a very solid theory.”

Zack nodded. “I’ve been wondering why we haven’t heard from him in a while.”

“I don’t know,” said Mia, her nervous eyes fixed on Theo. “I’m hoping it’s all a lie.”

Hannah peered across the table and was surprised by the tender smile Theo shined at her. He didn’t think she was right at all, but she killed the discussion and he loved her for it.

At five minutes to midnight, Hannah made a drowsy trip to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water. She crossed into the darkened living room and jumped at the shadowy figure in the easy chair.

“Just me,” Theo croaked.

She pressed her chest. “Jesus. You scared the hell out of me.”

“Sorry.”

She turned on the lamp and faced Theo from the sofa. His eyes were dark. He slumped against the cushions as if he were boneless.

“Are you okay? You don’t look good.”

Theo couldn’t help but grin. Hannah never looked better in her snug white tank top and panties, her bed-tousled hair. While the angel on his shoulder plotted a course of emotional reconciliation, the devil in his sweatpants insisted he was a few deft moves away from couch sex.

“I’m okay,” he assured her. “For now.”

“So you think that girl was telling the truth.”

“I know she was. I see it now, clear as day. Right after breakfast, I’m going to get a nosebleed. Then a splitting headache. By noon, I’ll barely know where I am.”

Hannah sat forward. “God, Theo. Are you sure this isn’t some self-fulfilling, psychosomatic thing?”

“Yup.”

“That’s crazy. You were talking about infinite futures at dinner. How can this be so certain?”

“Well, there’s some wiggle room on the nosebleed.”

“This isn’t funny. I’m worried about you.”

“I know. I can see that. I have to say it’s kind of nice, all things considered.”

Hannah shot a hot breath at the floor, then matched his lazy stance.

“I’ve been pretty pathetic, haven’t I? Taking two weeks to get over a one-week fling.”

“Well, I certainly haven’t helped.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I think I’ve been angry just for the sake of being angry. Hell, I got mad at you all over again today when that poor fawn died.”

“How was that my fault? I wasn’t even there.”

“Exactly. I was upset and I needed someone to screw me numb. I’m not like my sister. I can’t just draw on inner strength. I don’t have any.”

“That’s not true.”

“I don’t know. Feels like it. So while I understand your reasons for the breakup, and even agree with them in retrospect, I’m still mad that you took away my crutch.”

Theo struggled to stay noble, even as he ripped the clothes off her mental image.

“I’m sorry I can’t handle the kind of relationship you want, Hannah. Sorry for both of us. I’m looking at you now and I’m thinking about what’s coming. I wish I could screw us both numb.”

The grandfather clock chimed in the midnight hour, heralding the official start of October. By the twelfth echoing ring, Hannah clenched her jaw in tense resolve.

“First thing tomorrow, I’ll go to the pharmacy with Amanda. Get you a ton of painkillers.”

“They won’t help.”

“Well, we’ll try, goddamn it. Just because it’s destined to happen doesn’t mean we can’t fight it.”

Once again, she was surprised by Theo’s thin and tender smile, out of place given the situation.

“Yesterday I had a snapshot premonition of you and me,” he told her. “We were sitting just like this, chatting away at midnight in our sweatpants and underwear.”

“Is that why you came down here?”

“No. This was somewhere else. Some house on an army base. You looked a bit older. My guess is that it’s still a good four years away.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. It’s nice to know there’s at least one future out there where you and I are still alive in four years. Still friends.”

Hannah glumly stared out the window, listening to the owls.

“Friends. Strange word to use for any of us. I can barely separate you guys from Amanda anymore. It’s like you’re all my siblings now. Even you, as screwed up as that sounds.”

The two of them sat in silence for another long moment. Hannah rubbed her eyes.

“You’re a good man, Theo. You’re a good man and I love you and I really hope you’re wrong about tomorrow. You don’t deserve it.”

The augur breathed a long sigh of surrender. It seemed a cruel joke of the universe that the easiest things to predict were the ones that couldn’t be prevented. The pain. The rain. The natural disasters. And yet he couldn’t help but disagree with Hannah’s last sentiment. The girl with two watches had attributed alcohol damage as a primary cause of his neurological crisis. That made it his fault, which strangely made it easier to accept. For once there was justice, there was balance, there was karma in the situation. Theo planned to wield it like an umbrella. Like Hannah’s screwed-up love, he’d carry the blame with him, all the way through the storm.

—

Everything happened as foretold. At 5:02 in the morning, the sky over Nemeth offered ten seconds of warning drizzle before coming down in sheets. Dawn arrived in the form of a hundred lightning flashes.

At 9:20, Theo glanced down at his eggs and noticed a fresh drop of blood, another warning drizzle. He pressed a napkin to his nose, then looked to his troubled friends.

“Shit.”

The pain hit him like a cyclone. His muscles turned to liquid and he fell out of his chair. By the time David carried him to the couch, he’d lost all sense of time and place.

Theo lay on his back, writhing on the cushions like an uneasy dreamer. He was only marginally aware of the conversations that occurred around him, the feminine hands that comforted him in turns. While Mia stroked his fingers with sisterly affection and Amanda tended to him with clinical diligence, it was Hannah’s intimate caress that brought him back to the present. He lifted the damp cloth from his brow and tossed her a bleary stare.

“What time is it . . . ?”

She checked the grandfather clock. “Quarter after one. How you holding up?”

“Worse than anything I ever felt. I wanna . . . I wanna die.”

Hannah squeezed his hand. “Oh, sweetie. Just hang in there. The pain won’t last.”

“It’s not the pain . . .”

“What do you mean?”

Amanda rushed into the room and pulled at Hannah’s shoulder. “Let me look at him.”

“Just a second. We’re talking.” She looked to Theo. “What do you mean? Are you having visions?”

“I’m not just seeing,” he moaned. “I’m feeling. I keep feeling you guys . . . dying. Over and over. I feel Zack’s blood all over me. God. I can smell it.”

He seized Amanda’s arm, his eyes red and cracked. “I can’t take it. You have to knock me out. I don’t care how you do it. Just knock me out. Please.”

Amanda rooted through their pile of store-bought painkillers, then fed him the one with the drowsiest side effects. He gradually drifted off to sleep. Judging by his somnolent moans and cries, it seemed the future followed him there.

The next forty-eight hours passed like weeks for the sympathetic Silvers. By the morning of Sunday, October 3, they were all as pale and unrested as Theo.

They sat around the living room in a dreary daze, watching David jab the fireplace with a metal poker. Hannah cradled Theo’s head in her lap as he twitched in restless half slumber. Nobody thought he was getting better.

Hannah spoke in a hoarse and weary rasp. “We need to do something. He can’t take another day of this.”

“I’ll go to the drugstore,” Zack offered. “See if there’s something else.”

Amanda curled up with Mia on the love seat, absently stroking her hair. “We’ve been there twice. It’s all the same weak stuff. He needs a prescription-strength remedy.”

“We’re back on this,” David complained.

“Yes, we’re back on this. I’ve made up my mind. I’m taking him to Marietta.”

Yesterday, during their umpteenth discussion of Theo’s plight, Mia shared the information that the girl with two watches had given her about the local health fair. Amanda confirmed by phone that it was still going on and that anyone was welcome to bring their untreated ailments.

Even as she’d broached the idea, Mia wasn’t sure it was a good one. David had a stronger opinion on the matter.

“Perhaps you didn’t hear me last time . . .”

Amanda sighed at him. “I heard you, David. I understand your concern. But a health fair isn’t the same as a hospital. There’s no reason to assume it’s being monitored.”

“It’s a place where fugitives are likely to seek treatment. Of course it’s being monitored. You might as well phone the Deps now and tell them you’re coming.”

“David, I’ve worked at these things—”

“On another world.”

“They’re understaffed, overcrowded, and wildly disorganized. Even you wouldn’t be able to find us in that chaos.”

“You’re willing to bet your freedom on this?”

“I am,” said Hannah.

“I am,” said Amanda. She looked at her sister. “You’re not going.”

“Bullshit. You think you can lift him by yourself? Your arms are like pipe cleaners.”

Amanda shook her head. “We can’t carry him in. He’ll have to walk. I can get him there.”

“I’ll go with you,” Mia said. “I know the way.”

“No.”

“Hell, no,” Zack uttered.

David chuckled with bleak derision. “Like lemmings off a cliff.”

“What do you suggest we do instead?” Hannah asked.

“You know what I suggest. We could be there by nightfall.”

She flicked a brusque hand. “Of course. I should’ve guessed. Peter, Peter, Peter. Your magic-bean solution for everything.”

“He may know the nature of Theo’s illness. He may have a cure.”

“Or he could be a trap,” Amanda countered. “Or a Pelletier. Or he might not be there at all. We’re not ready to face the next step, David. Not with Theo like this.”

David threw a pleading look at Zack. “Are you going to help me here? Or are you relishing the thought of a smaller group?”

The cartoonist exhaled from his easy chair, splitting his pity between Theo and David. The boy’s rational insights were consistently drowned out by the emotional concerns of the majority. Clearly he was about to be outvoted again.

Zack looked to Amanda. “For what it’s worth, I agree with him. You’re taking an insane risk for a bunch of pills you might not even get. I mean without ID—”

“I’m bringing a sick man and a fat wad of cash. That’ll be enough.”

“And if they give you a written prescription?”

“They should have samples. I’ll ask for extra. I’ll pay through the nose if I have to.”

Zack shrugged with hopeless uncertainty. “Well, you know that scene better than I do. I’m just telling you where I stand. That said, if I were the one in Theo’s shoes, I wouldn’t want this put to a group vote. It’s his pain and your risk. It should be his decision and yours.”

Amanda leaned back on the couch and looked to Hannah’s lap. In all the hubbub, nobody had noticed until now that Theo was awake. He fixed a dull gaze at the ceiling.

“Did you hear all that?” Amanda asked.

“I heard enough.”

“What do you think?”

He barely had the space for thoughts. Over the last two days, the future had been thrown in a blender and funneled into him. He’d progressed beyond fretting over individual images and now worried about the patterns. Hannah kept suffering at the cruel hands of Evan. Zack kept dying at the tempic hands of Esis. The skyline of San Francisco kept crumbling in a distant cloud of dust.

Between all the flashes and glimpses, Theo detected a hint of a much larger problem, a lingering shade of despair in the minds of his elder selves. It always stayed the same from future to future. The only merciful aspect of his ordeal was that he never stayed in one place long enough to see the true shape of it. Theo didn’t consider himself a particularly strong or brave man. He was willing to take any risk, any detour to avoid the awful thing ahead of him.