The Grasp of Nighttide (6 page)

When Alice saw Derek in the driver’s seat, she remembered she was getting a ride home.
In this car?
She thought. She secretly pinched her arm. No, it wasn’t a dream. 

 It was hard even sitting inside. Each new detail she observed, the more nervous she became. She fastened her seatbelt very carefully and didn’t even lean on the seat. The last thing she wanted was to disturb the car in any way. 

“How do you like my car?” he asked, enjoying her reaction. 

“Beautiful,” she replied, almost in a whisper. 

Beautiful was not even close−but no other word popped in her mind at the time. 

“Yeah, my baby is one of a kind. I call her ‘Cloud’.” 

Cars like this totally deserve a name
, Alice thought. 
They don’t come cheap!
 

As they started down the narrow road, Alice wondered what she would choose do with a lot of money. From the corner of her eye, she saw Derek looking around, somewhat creeped out. Aware of the surroundings, Alice started to become worried as well. She had no idea what it was like outside at this time of night. The tall trees that stood like bodyguards in the light were now assassins whose shadows were strong enough to grab hold of the car.

“How do you manage to live in a place like this?” 

“You get used to it,” she said, not quite believing her own answer. 

“You certainly are,” he muttered as he continued to look around. 

Alice could not understand how she lived there. There were no street lights the entire way. She was glad to have Derek dropping her off or else it would be just her and the tiny flashlight in her phone.

“So, what’s your profile name on Facebook?” He continued with small talk. “Alicia Reed, or some fancy name like some people use?” 

Alice realized that she was snapping her fingers again and he would’ve misinterpreted it for boredom. 

Alicia Reed?
 Alice knew that the name she’d given him wasn’t her name. God only knew her real name. Socializing had no meaning to Alice. She didn’t even know enough about herself to make any true friends, or any relationship, for that matter. She had only used Google and checked Facebook accounts to search for people named Lance. After going through many profiles of men with that name, Alice stopped her search. It was no use−thanks to her memory.

“Nah, I don’t have an account,” she answered. 

“Too bad.” He snapped his fingers, mockingly. 

The car halted in the driveway. In the moonlight, the house surely looked like a haunted house; the tree’s shadow painted random black lines. Thankfully, she’d never gotten a haunted feeling when inside the house; living so isolated was hard enough already. 

“Thank you,” Alice promptly said, getting out as carefully as she had gotten in. It took her so long that Derek was already out. “I want a closer look at the house. It looks interesting.” 

Alice studied his tone. Genuine enough. Plus, he didn’t try to flirt with Alice or stare at her. On the whole, Alice labeled him ‘safe.’ After all, he did love Anna. A guy already in a relationship could mean no harm. Could he? 

After five steps, Derek stopped following her. When she turned around, he was moving to the front of the garage. 

“Big garage. What do you have here?” 

“Uh, let’s see…tools, a lawnmower and a Vespa. The Vespa’s out of order.” 

“A Vespa?” His eyes gleamed. 

“Out of order,” Alice repeated. “Besides, it isn’t mine.” 

“Well, if it’s abandoned, it’s yours. I can help you get it running.”

Alice sighed.

“Look Alice, I already consider you a friend, OK? My friend Carl knows a Vespa dealer near here. I can get it fixed for you.” 

Carl? The rapper friend, 
Alice thought smiling, and then just as suddenly, her smile vanished. 

“How much will it cost?” Alice asked hesitatingly, biting her lip. 

“I’ll get back to you on that. That person owes Carl. I’ll talk to him for you.” 

Alice still wanted to refuse, but couldn’t. It would be nice if it could be fixed and she knew she couldn’t do it on her own. 

“You owe me a gift,” Derek grinned. 

Alice focused on his face. He looked like a vampire. His skin seemed pale in the moonlight, his dark eyes beamed at her when he flashed the grin. It seemed as if he’d grab her and suck her blood and claim his gift, 
blood
.

“Go on,” Alice got back to what he said. 

“I’ll tell you when I need it.” 

Alice gave him a cold stare. 
What did he mean by that? 
She suddenly felt uncomfortable. 

“Don’t look at me like that. I promise I won’t ask much.” 

“Coffee or soda?” Alice asked, ignoring what he said. She continued to walk towards the door. 

“Soda sounds good.” Derek followed her. 

Soda? 
Alice thought. It was stupid for her to ask him when she didn’t have any. Still going through her head as to what to say next, she opened the door.

“Whoa!” Derek exclaimed when the lights turned on. For a moment, he turned to keep his eyes on Alice, studying her. Alice enjoyed it; it was nice to think that a handsome man might find her attractive. Then he advanced towards Alice, and she turned away. 

"So what do you think?" 

“It’s way better on the inside." Derek said, shifting his attention easily, "but I got to admit, you are very brave to stay here alone. I never knew that….” 

His phone rang. “Can’t believe you get a signal here,” he said in a surprised tone. 

“It’s ‘cuz of the research area,” Alice shrugged. 

“Yes Anna. Was just leaving,” he retreated, signaling Alice that he had to go. Alice watched as he got into Cloud, laughing and talking. 

“See ya,” Derek waved from the window and drove away. The silver car zoomed and vanished around the bend. Both Anna and Derek had been so friendly and 
accepted Alice for who she was.
 They treated her like a 
friend
, AND Derek said he considered her a friend−something she had no memory of having happened in the past. 

It was the first time that night that Alice didn’t feel scared by the wind chime. It was no big deal for a wind chime to sing, she knew that. But there was something to its sound that shook the soul. She heard it every night and oddly, only once a day. She’d scrutinized the tower window from outside and it was shut tight; there had to be another opening there for the wind to come through. But today the sound came like a lullaby lulling her to sleep, yet at the same time it was much like an omen−an indication that the past was coming to her. 

Roads…Dark…Walking alone, running in fact, to something… She didn’t know… She felt she needed to be on time for something...Roads, one after another…...Big roads… Cross roads… Small streets… Multiple lanes... Highways… All silent now. Alice stayed silent too, so as not to alert anyone. Suddenly, two men appeared, crossing the road, laughing, not clearly visible. A truck zoomed down the road at a ghastly speed, one that Alice had never seen before. The next thing she realized is that the men have been knocked down, thrown at a distance…
 

“Dad! Dad!!” Alice ran as fast as her feet could carry her. The man, unrecognizable, lay on the grass to the side of the road. She looked up and saw a girl on the other side of the street, eyes with a devilish gleam and an evil, crooked smile vanquished the innocence in her.
 

“How could you do this?” Alice screamed at her and the girl disappeared into thin air.
 

“Dadddddd!” Alice yelled, falling off the couch. She never slept there at night, nor did she remember falling asleep at all. She looked into the bathroom mirror and splashed water on her already wet face. The unexplained exhaustion didn’t help a bit. 

She got some coffee and headed back to the couch, folding her legs under her, knowing that it had the right amount of sugar. More sweet would do but less didn’t work for Alice. As she did take a sip, it felt neutral; she had forgotten the strange dream. It had something to do with her dad but she couldn’t remember any more of it. 

Alice shuffled through the carton box below the dining table. There was a sense of reality to her dream. She took out a note which she read for the 122
nd
 time. She had memorized it, word for word, but she wanted to confirm. 

Your memory is erased, the past is gone. Embrace the present. You are safe while your identity is hidden, failing which, you will be done for. Ask yourself, and deep inside you know that you face a threat. Take the documents and the money I’ve enclosed. It shall be enough until you get ahold of everything. I know, my daughter, you will manage later on. After your dad died, you were my life. Please, for your own sake, do not look back. Make your life worth living. I don’t have much time to write this well but I’ll let you know all you need to know: 

Stay away from the church because they have holy men with crosses saying that they can help. They can only assure but can’t help. Keep God in your heart. Stay away from churches, every one of them, and the same goes for people involved in paranormal activities 

From now on your name is Alicia Keys from Sabine, Texas, age 20, blood type O+ .The documents are all sorted in case of emergency. 

Love you so much sweetheart. Please forgive me. Take care. 

Love Mom 

‘Ask yourself, and deep inside you know that you face a threat…
’ 
She was right, Alice knew it. She didn’t know how or why. She just knew, and she knew her mom was as real as Lance. But still, it wasn’t an excuse for her mom to abandon her. She was tired of the fits of rage and tears of sorrow over the letter. But coming to the point, her mom had specifically mentioned that her dad had died. But how? Everything she was told didn’t have any proof or explanation, and Alice was helpless and forced to go along with it. 

Her phone rang. “Good morning, Franny.” 

“Could you help me out today and tomorrow?” 

“Sure. I’ll see you in an hour.” 

Franny Parker was the owner of the bookstore in town. Alice had often visited the bookstore to divert her mind. She spoke to Alice the third time she came to the store. They talked about books with animation and passion. Alice knew books though she had not read any during the past two months; though maybe she had read them in the past. Without effort she could discuss their storylines in depth. Alice told Franny the same story she had related to Anna; her family died in an accident and she was on her own now. Franny gave her the opportunity to help her with the store. Not knowing what she had studied, or if she had even passed high school, it was the best offer she could get in this small place.

After a hot shower, Alice wrapped her wet hair with a towel until she could decide what to wear. The closet was organized because there was something to organize. Alice had arrived there with two bags of luggage and a suitcase and she thanked God for that. There were a few casual house wear shirts and 5 jogging pants, 3 PJs, and a bikini-
Which made her confident that she knew to swim. T
-shirts, jeans, party dresses with price tags on, jackets, undergarments, socks and shoes, pumps and a black purse. The laptop looked used but all contents were erased. The thing missing though was makeup and perfume. Alice had somehow adjusted her money in order to buy the lipstick a few days ago, and now it, too, was gone. It looked like a concerned parent packing her kid off for college but in this case, Alice knew her mom had packed her away−for life. 

***** 

Her legs ached as she passed Anna’s home, on the way to the store. The cold made it just more difficult and Alice would certainly rewind the months if she could. Seriously the weather was ten times better when she had arrived there. She wished she had wings because she couldn’t make it there on foot now and if she did, it would be tomorrow. 

A white Ford stopped beside her. Anna. 

“Hey Alice, my car is back. Are you headed to the bookstore?” 

“Yes.” 

“Cool, that’s on my way. Hop in.” 

“So Derek dropped you safe and sound yesterday,” Anna said, once they were on their way. 

Alice couldn’t fathom if it was a statement or a question. Whatever it was, Anna was cool about it. 

“Uh-huh,” Alice shrugged. 

“He told me while he was helping me with the dishes last night. He broke three of them, by the way. He’s lucky that I love him.” She winked at Alice before turning back to the wheel. 

“Broke three?” 

“Back in high school everyone knew about him pretty much, dropping stuff, you know...”Anna stopped, flashing a concerned face. “Did he break something at your place too?” 

“He didn’t touch anything.” 

“Good,” she sighed in relief. “I still imagine if he were on basketball team rather than football, the opponents would surely be happy with Mr. Butterfingers.” 

As Anna left after dropping Alice, Alice saw an old woman looking at her. A round hat covered her hair except for the white strands reaching her shoulder. A green scarf was tightly wrapped around her neck and her jacket looked like the one Mrs. Paul was wearing the other day, but this one would be oversized for skinny Mrs. Paul. The lady kept on looking. 

It’s because I’m staring at her
, Alice thought, looking away
. 
After a minute, she did look over her shoulder, wondering, but she was right, the woman was no longer there. 

The store’s long aisles was a book lover’s paradise. It was what attracted her there in the first place. Books spanned dozens of genres sorted on their respective racks. The store even sold used books, which were in the cellar, but the list of titles and authors were neatly recorded at the counter. Franny mentioned that she had a store room at her house−a short distance from the store−with hundreds of stacked books, numbered and ordered as well if a customer needed any. Plus, on request, she even ordered books from outside. Well, Franny wasn’t the best book dealer around for no reason. 

Franny was talking to her full-time employee Rashi. Rashi’s complexion reminded Alice of mocha latte. Slender but not very tall, Rashi kept her raven-black hair, that curled only slightly, stylishly long. Her long dark lashes set off her dazzling emerald green eyes. Rashi waved at Alice and scurried over for a hug. 

“The story of the thief again,” she whispered. Then she said something in Indian. 

“I mean, it’s funny to listen to that story over and over,” she smoothed the crease of her skirt, smiling only slightly. “She could’ve rather said about something brewing in town. Oh yeah. I heard that Peter Smith is getting divorced because his wife cheated on him. Poor guy, he loved her a lot.” 

Rashi wore the crown of ‘Gossip queen of Castle Pines’. Though gossip was a way of life for most people around, Rashi mastered it. She stored names, ages, relationships, details of people she knew of (or even otherwise) in her brain’s database and connected bits and pieces efficiently. Alice still remembered a guy freaking out when Rashi blurted all she knew about him though he belonged to a neighboring town. He told her, ‘Hey, strange lady stop stalking me!’ and rushed out. 

It was kind of like a quest to her when Alice landed there. She wanted to know all about her but Alice wasn’t ready to give all the details; it was scary for her condition to be known to a town of people. And so Alice had initially made up a sad, fake story of her parents’ death so that she wouldn’t try to dig any deeper. It had worked, and it was also a good thing that she’d made a cover story she could relay also to Anna and Franny−though Alice was sure Franny would’ve heard it from Rashi even before Alice brought it up.

“Good timing dear, I was just telling Rashi about an incident that happened to me,” Franny waved them over. 

Alice had heard the story twice already. The way Franny had chased the thief down the road and once she got a hold on him, pushed his head towards a brick wall and cornered him with his hands behind his back. The thief almost cried to let go, she’d said. Alice didn’t have a hard time believing it because Franny was still strong. Her friendly handshake itself crushed Alice’s hands; Franny could almost kill her with a punch. Even her body frame was about double that of Alice’s. Having very little food and dealing with all the mental stress she was under had drained all the energy from Alice’s bones. Caffeine and a few meals now and then kept her running, but she wasn’t up for a fight even with a kid.

By the time they walked over to Franny, a customer entered. “Get to work girls. I have work to do, too. I’ll be back after lunch.” 

There was a flurry of customers for an hour or so before the place cleared out. Rashi did a check on the book database stored in the computer and updated Alice about the new arrivals. Alice was well aware why Rashi was the most important employee to Franny. Even with her wealth of gossip, she worked efficiently, keeping track of titles and sales, and also many of the customers enjoyed small talk with her. 

Alice saw herself reflected on a big glass window. Her chestnut hair looked a lighter shade; so did her eyes. Her body muffled with images passing from the other side making it look like a hologram until someone’s picture closed in from the other side and stood there merging with hers. 

Derek, 
Alice recognized at once. He waved and smiled. He looked really smart in a black suit and tie. He came inside. 

“Hey, Alice,” he said. “What do you know, it is a small town.” 

“Nice to see you again,” Alice wondered if she meant it. 

“Hey, Derry.”Rashi called from the counter, and he went over to her. The smile still clung to his face like it refused to leave. They were conversing in Hindi. Hindi? Derek knew Hindi? Whatever it was, Alice couldn’t understand. The only words Rashi had taught her was ‘pagal aadmi’ meaning ‘crazy man’. She kept occupied silently, checking shelves for what book she could read next. 

“Alice” he finally included her after five minutes. “Rashi says I can speak in almost the right accent. Do you know Hindi?” 

“Nope.” Alice swapped two cookbooks. “You sounded pretty good while speaking. You didn’t stop to think.” 

“Well, my mom is half Indian and her husband is Indian. There’s only Hindi at her place,” he shrugged. 

“You should work on the grammar part a teeny tiny bit,” Rashi spoke up. “I’ll be back in five minutes.” 

“What are you doing here?” Derek asked, once Rashi had the door shut behind her.

“I help out sometimes.” Alice pointed to the badge on her shirt. 

“Well, that’s great. My aunt runs this place.” He widened his arms in pride. “I was looking to see if she was here. Guess not.” 

Aunt? Mrs. Parker? 

“I see she has a lot of new collections now,” he picked Stephan King’s ‘The Shining’ off the shelf, “I read this... last week.” 

“What is it about then? “Alice’s brow lifted slightly; she folded her arms. “Don’t start saying it is a book on philosophy, it actually is a...” 

A black and white image of a room flashed before her eyes, not a room−more like a library. And there was the same book in Alice’s hand and she was whispering the synopsis… 

“I don’t want to know,” Derek admitted, letting his free hand rest on her shoulder. “I just wanted you to put a good word in about me to Anna and tell her that I am finally taking an interest in novels. I guess there’s no sense in asking you now...”