The Watchers (9 page)

“Uh…beyond the one you just asked?”

“Yes. Is it all right if we just walk for a
while…in silence?”

“Silence?”

“Yes, that thing that happens when two people
don’t talk.”

“I thought that’s what we were doing?”

“I need an official agreement.”

“Silence sounds wonderful,” I answered,
ignoring his sarcasm.

It also sounded too much like a request I
would make. He nodded and went back to watching the heavens. I
listened, and realized we were really walking in silence. There
were no thoughts, just the sound of an occasional car and a stiff
wind, which rustled the tree branches. How was that possible? I
never had a moment free of other people’s thoughts; I even saw
their dreams in mine sometimes. I shook my head – it didn’t matter
as much as the silence.

The silence slipped around my mind like
a warm blanket, and I felt myself relax in response to the quiet.
It was the most relaxed I’d felt in days, months even. The darkness
got thicker as we walked together in that relaxed silence, our arms
almost touching. Clouds rolled in around the mountains and obscured
the sky, making it feel darker and like there was less space
separating us. The street lights kicked on in response, casting
everything into weird shades of pink and orange. The shadows
started to stretch across the road, sheathing the houses in
obscurity, blocking out everything more than ten feet in front of
us. In this encapsulated oblivion, we walked in circles, finding
peace, talking only when we felt moved to do so, his request
freeing something between us. When we eventually reached my street,
having circled the downtown several times, I slowed my pace
slightly, surprised that I was actually enjoying our time together.
There was no pressure, no expectation. We simply
were.

I stopped when we reached my driveway and
took the jacket off, offering it to him. “Thanks for the walk.”

He ignored me. I shook the jacket at him to
get his attention, but his eyes were on the thick woods behind my
house.

“Daniel?”

“I want you to promise me something.”

I was taken aback by his tone. It was
familiar, yet intense. He had thrown aside all the awkwardness
between strangers with that one phrase, making us friends.

“What?”

“Stay out of the woods.”

“Why?”

He didn’t answer. He simply waited, looking
at me seriously, until I agreed. I did so knowing I wouldn’t go
wandering around anyway, not knowing the terrain. I wasn’t
stupid.

“I promise.”

He nodded once then turned with a stiff back
and walked away without another word.

“Hey! You forgot your jacket!” I called after
him.

He didn’t turn back or answer; he just kept
walking, his head bowed against the wind, and the bag in his hand
created a creaking accompaniment to his hasty retreat. I looked at
the woods then to his retreating form, trying to understand. The
jacket felt heavy in my hands as if he had left some of his gravity
with me. The dark trees swayed with the cold wind, adding emphasis
to that gravity. Chills that had nothing to do with the wind went
down my spine. A prickle on the back of my neck told me I was being
watched. Was it the neighbors? Slightly creeped out, I hurried
across the lawn and into the house. I bolted the door behind me,
checking it twice.

Ellen was watching television in the living
room, but I ran up the stairs before she could speak to me. She
would notice the state I was in; she always did. I locked my door
to make sure I had privacy, and headed straight for my window seat
in order to think. I kicked off my shoes and sat down, curling my
knees to my chest against the dark night. As an after-thought, I
threw Daniel’s warm jacket across my knees.

The house groaned and popped again, but it
didn’t bring to mind ghosts of the past. Instead, my thoughts were
on our strange walk together – the way Daniel had brushed aside all
the anger I had been feeling, and the worry in his voice when he
had warned me to stay out of the woods. Even his warning was
secondary to the emotions I was feeling.

I slowly drifted to sleep on my window seat,
not bothering with my nightly routine, too mentally exhausted after
such a long day to care or to move.

Chapter 5

My neck was cramped, and my body sore, from
sleeping on the window seat all night, but when I awoke the next
morning I felt good. Daniel’s jacket was still wrapped around me in
a soft blanket. Unable to stop the first impulse, I lifted it to my
face and smelled it. It smelled good, like cologne and flowers
after a summer storm. I pushed the jacket away and shook my head in
irritation when I realized what I was doing.

I was being stupid.

I knew from long experience I had to be
careful with my emotions. I couldn’t expect too much from his
actions, because he would somehow end up disappointing me. Men
couldn’t be trusted. What my father had done to my mother was proof
of that.

I got ready for school in a haze of fevered
activity, excited, despite my rational thoughts about not getting
involved. I knew I would end up at school early again.

When classes started, my hopes of seeing
Daniel, and my curiosity to know if he would be as kind around the
others as when we were alone, were dashed. The crowd in the gym was
focused around three figures, not four.

“Clare!” Jennifer waved as soon as she saw
me.

“Hey, guys,” I said talking over the hum of
thoughts.

Mark gave me a huge grin as I sat, and
Jennifer scowled.
Does he like
her
?
How could he find her
attractive? I’m, like, ten times prettier!

I kept my eyes on the boy’s locker room as
the others talked, but Daniel didn’t materialize as he had the
night before. I felt depression creep up, the voices and thoughts
of the others swirling steady around my emotions. It was just
because I wanted to give him his jacket back, I told myself
stubbornly. I didn’t want to have to lug it around in my bag all
day and have someone see it. Plus, it was taking up book room.

A thought interrupted my
excuses:
It’s unbelievable. They’ve known
me since we were in diapers, yet they fawn over the new girl and
ignore me. Why can’t they at least act like I exist? Was it so long
ago we were friends?
Images of Jennifer and Michelle
when they were younger materialized in my mind.

I looked down and saw the girl from
yesterday, the one on the fringes of the group, her mousy brown
hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her back was to me, but I knew it
had been her thoughts; the tenor was identical to what I had heard
yesterday. Only her body language, out of all the kids around me,
matched the depressed thoughts. I stared at her in compassionate
empathy, understanding her emotions. I wondered if Ellen had been
right, and the girl was using my parentage as an excuse to hate me.
Another excuse to hate me, I should say. She obviously didn’t like
how easily I was fitting in. The fact Ellen had me at seventeen was
an easy out for that hatred – if she was a staunch religious
nut.

Coach ambled out of his office, trying to
pull down his too small shirt as he walked. With a sharp blast of
his whistle, he called the class to order and told us to find a
partner for tennis again. One of the girls sitting close to me
offered to be my partner, thinking our match would make for a good
story. I agreed, and let her score a couple of shots, so her story
could be more entertaining. With each awkward serve she sent my
way, I found myself longing for my previous partner. He would make
this class into a challenge. He would make the time fly instead of
me noticing every stupid second.

*

“I heard you and Daniel went on a walk last
night,” Alex said, surprising me. I hadn’t heard her thinking about
it. We were at the same bench at lunch, hiding in our little nook
as we ate our salads.

“Where’d you hear that?” I asked
carefully.

“A boy in my math class was driving his dad’s
car last night…he was telling the whole class about it. He said he
saw you two on Reed Street.”

“Does this boy’s dad have a sports car?” I
asked belligerently.

“Yeah, he bought it from Mark’s dad last
fall.”

“I oughta kill him! That ass almost hit me!
What’s his name? Do you have his address?”

“You
were
out with Daniel, then?”

“I wasn’t out, out, with him,” I explained,
“I just ran into him at the pharmacy. He insisted on walking with
me.” For over an hour. In circles. Which was ridiculously fun.

I looked at Alex thoughtfully. She seemed to
know about people; she could figure them out better than I could.
Maybe she understood some of Daniel’s mystery. I couldn’t see the
harm in asking the question burning on my tongue.

“What’s his deal?”

“His deal?”

“Well, he was being nice.”

She started laughing, the force of it
rattling the bench. “Oh, God! Not…not…
NICE!
”

I made a face at her. “I know you’re nice,
but I’m not used to people being so…you know?”

“I know…but King’s Cross isn’t like other
towns. Everyone has their idiosyncrasies and their petty concerns,
but people care about one another here. We’re all ‘nice’. You’ll
see eventually.”

“That was an evasion,” I said.

Would she believe me if I
told her that he was just a good guy?
“He doesn’t have
a deal. He’s just Daniel.”

I accepted her word as truth. “You see a lot
about people, don’t you?” I asked.

She shifted uncomfortably. “I just pay
attention.”

“I don’t lie, you pay attention. We could
fight crime if we wanted to.”

She giggled.

Fight crime! Bah! She’s the evil that walks
the earth. She’s a plague on mortals. She shouldn’t live, she
doesn’t deserve to live. If only I could kill her now!

I jumped, spilling my tray of food.

“What?!” I yelled at Alex.

She looked at me, her laughter fading.
“What?”

“What did you say?”

“I didn’t say anything!”

She was right. The voice I’d heard had been
in my mind. I bent down and started picking up the food I had
spilt, feeling like an idiot for reacting so forcefully.

“I could have sworn I just heard someone call
me fat,” I said in a poor attempt at covering my reaction.

I struggled to keep my eyes on the floor and
not search the hallway. I realized this person, whoever they were,
could still hear me, even though the trail of thought had died
away. I could feel them watching me.

Alex started giggling again. “Who would call
you fat? You’re a bean!”

“Thanks?” I replied dryly.

“Sure.”

My throat felt dry. My body coursed with
adrenaline I was finding hard to control. As calmly as I could
manage I started toward the lunchroom on the pretense of dumping my
food. But the whole way back to the cafeteria I felt that strange
sense of being watched. It was a pervasive feeling not easily
ignored. I scoured the corridor nervously, but it was absolutely,
and oddly, deserted. Perhaps, hearing people’s thoughts all the
time was making me hear voices when there weren’t any. Going crazy
would fit in nicely with my expectations for my life.

I thought about it, silence creeping between
Alex and me. No, the malice I’d felt was way too real. I couldn’t
make that up. And that voice! I felt as if I was hearing it
everywhere. I shivered and followed Alex into the lunchroom, the
thoughts being thrown at me as I entered a distraction from the
fear and hatred I had heard. Not a welcome distraction, but a
distraction all the same.

The rest of the week passed faster than I
thought a week could. I didn’t hear the nasty thoughts again, even
though I started searching for the owner in earnest. I wanted to
understand what they meant, or why whoever it was would hate me so
vehemently. Was I found? Should I run? Twice I lingered in the hall
during lunch with the sole purpose of trying to hear the mystery
voice. The corridor remained empty, my search fruitless. How could
I find what wasn’t there?

Going against our normal policy of absolute
truthfulness, I didn’t tell Ellen about the voice. I tried a couple
of times, but couldn’t bring myself to bring it up. She was hoping
beyond hope this place would work out, and we could stay. She was
searching for a close to her past. It was a search I didn’t want to
interrupt.

I was curious, though, to the point of
obsession. Whoever was having these thoughts knew things about me;
I just wanted to even the playing field. Was it a kid at school? If
not, who was it, and why were they hanging around? Why had they
been at my house? Why were they so serious about killing me?

It didn’t help that Daniel didn’t show up for
the rest of the week. It just increased my worry. I was worried he
had gotten the flu or was otherwise sick, because I had taken his
jacket. The added worry just made me irritable. Would calling him
be too weird? Even to check up on him? How would I get his phone
number? Why was I so worried about a stranger?

On Friday, after a week of trying to downplay
the desire to see him again, even if it was just to argue with him,
I asked Alex if she had heard anything, needing an answer to one of
my questions. No one had given his disappearance a thought,
something I found peculiar and frustrating. Surely, people didn’t
just stop coming to school and no one cared? I had fought against
the impulse to ask her all day, but finally caved in on our way to
chorus.

“He goes on trips with his parents for their
work. He has permission to go whenever he needs to as long as he
keeps up with his homework, which, of course, he does, being the
brilliant child of scientists and all,” Alex explained.