“Hey, Ice-eee! What’s your problem?” She’d stopped and turned back.
Why does she look so scared, like I’m going to beat her or something?
“I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I… I… didn’t see you. It won’t happen again!”
She was jealous! That had to be it. Hadn’t been that long back she’d been the teacher’s pet, but no more. Maybe she’d enjoy a spin in his Mustang after he finished with Sarah’s old man.
Or… maybe he’d just beat the shit out of her.
Madera Canyon
Shadows. The moon, those prickly pears and ocotillos lining the creek. Too many shadows. Who made this stupid, tiny red boat… an Oompa Loompa? Can’t even move in it. Oops, almost flipped over. The current… it’s taking me… must fight it. Oar is too small. So heavy. Why is it so heavy? It’s just a little piece of board. Not even a handle.
Must find them.
Paddle faster.
Where are they?
There you go, spinning around again. Damn this boat! Not getting anywhere… the current. Pull harder. Keep switching sides.
Let…
Back is hurting.
Let this…
Forget your aching back—pull.
Let this happen. You know you have to find them.
Nothing’s working. Watch out… losing balance. Oompa Loompa boat… too small. Can’t keep this up. So tired. What’s that coming this way? Another boat? Oh, thank God, it’s
them.
There’s Steven. And Faith’s snuggled up to him. And…
Watch out, the current’s taking you! Use your oar! Paddle backward. Hurry. Turn the boat back around.
Faith is looking at… how come they have a nice, big boat? Faith… looking at the moon, then Steven’s chest. Back and forth. Moon. Chest. Moon—chest—moon. Again. Oh, what is she
doing?
Never mind. You’re tipping. Concentrate!
Lane? There he is… with Shae. They both have their feet in the water, dangling in the water. What’s he doing? Is that a plastic baggie? That’s what it is all right. Throwing something in the water.
“Hey, Lane! Over here!” They’re not looking. Didn’t call loud enough. Can’t stand up, can’t wave your arms or you’ll tip over. “HEY! IT’S ME, SYDNEY!”
He’s throwing more stuff in the water. Now Shae’s doing it. They don’t hear you. Faith. All these shadows, the moonlight. They’re passing you. Right next to you. Shout! Shout! Tell them to grab your boat and hang on.
“LANE! LANE, IT’S ME!”
He’s deaf. Doesn’t hear you. He’s talking to Shae… telling her not to throw all the popcorn… to save some for the other fish. I can hear him plain as day, so why can’t he hear me? “LANE, OVER HERE!”
Nothing. Not so much as a glance.
You’re a ghost. Your boat is invisible.
No! That’s impossible. Scream at them! Beat your fist on your boat. Bang it with the oar. He’s lifted his head, turning your direction. Finally! But… but… he just looked right through you. They’re
passing
you, floating right on by. How can that be? You’re in the same current. You should be floating right along with them, but you’re floating
upstream.
Nobody’s looking. They don’t see you. Jump! Swim to them.
“HEY, WAIT!” They still don’t hear you. Stand up. Dive into the water, dive! Swim to their boat. You can do it. No, no, no… dummy… don’t sit back down.
No use. You’re too late. That’s not Shae with him, it’s Sydney. Shae’s on his other side. Sydney’s taken her body back! You’re history. Look, she’s sneering at you. She’s waving. She has Lane and you don’t. You’re not Sydney any more. Not Sydney any more. Not Sydney. Sydney.
“Sydney!” Someone else was calling me. The voice was far away at first, but now it’s up close. Really close. “Sydney?”
It’s a woman, but where is she? Here on the water? In another boat? “Can… can you… see me?” My voice sounds so tiny, tiny and hollow, like it’s coming from a cavern.
“Sydney? Why are you crying?” Someone’s stroking my hair. It’s Faith. “You had a bad dream. It’s over now.”
No, no it’s not over. It’s just beginning
. A new wave of tears flooded my face. It was obvious what had happened. Sydney had given me a sign. She’d rejected me as a partner.
Faith patiently waited for me to collect myself. Only when the tears stopped and my breathing slowed did she urge me to sit up. I wasn’t about to move. Instead I wiped my nose with the back of my hand and sniffed.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“We were on boats moving in opposite directions.” I began slowly. “Lane, Shae, and Steven were with you on your boat. I was… alone. None of you could hear or see me… I was screaming your names.”
“Honey, honey, honey, nothing like that will ever happen. It was just a dream.” Faith continued stroking my hair.
“What if it does?”
“Have you seen the way Lane looks at you? Seriously, I surely hope you feel the same about him, because that man isn’t going anywhere without you, ever. And, as I told you earlier, Steven and I will be here as long as you need us. We aren’t going anywhere either.”
I finally sat up, reaching for a tissue on the nightstand. “Thank you.”
Faith glanced at her watch. “My timing sucks, honey, but I need to go to work.” She hesitated, then sat on the bed instead of heading for the door. “I need you to think about something while I’m gone. Will you do that for me?”
I nodded. With the dream so fresh, I’d have promised her anything just then.
“I want you to see a psychiatrist.”
Except that!
“He’s a friend of Steven’s. I’ve seen him myself. He’s very good at what he does. His specialty is hypnosis. I really think he can help you. Help you to remember. He—” Her words started to run together.
“No way!” I exploded before she finished. The sheets suddenly felt confining. I struggled to get my foot out. She was watching me with her X-ray eyes, clearly seeing more from my reaction than I intended. “Hypnosis is a bunch of hocus-pocus nonsense,” I fumed, freeing my other foot, “a complete waste of time.”
“Then what’s the big deal? It will be one hour out of your life, and if it doesn’t work we move on to something else.”
“Why are we moving onto anything at all? Say it, Faith, tell me I’m becoming a burden. That I can handle, that I can forgive. I can even understand it. But pawning me off on a bunch of doctors so you don’t have to deal with me anymore? That’s a little harsh, don’t you think?”
“As harsh as your reaction just now? I don’t think so. Trying to help you isn’t even close to ‘pawning you off’, and you know it.”
“I thought we had an agreement. No questions, remember?”
“I’m not asking questions.”
“Maybe not directly, but you want a doctor to ask them for you.”
“Nobody will be in the room except you and Dr. Chen, and he’s legally bound to keep whatever you say private. Doctor-patient confidentiality. He’s not going to tell me a thing. Besides, I’d never ask. I only want to see you get some help.” She put a hand on my arm.
I brushed her hand off. “I don’t want to talk about this right now.”
“No, I bet you don’t, but that won’t work on me anymore.” This time she grabbed my arm to stop me from stalking out of the room. “What are you afraid of, Sydney? What are you hiding from?”
“That’s two questions in a row, right after I said I didn’t want to talk about it. I knew we’d arrive at this moment sooner or later.” I kept my voice low. “I’ll be gone before you get home from work.”
What are you saying? You can’t just run off with Sydney’s body, and you can’t jump into anyone else’s. You’re trapped!
“Are you really willing to go that far to hide your secret?”
“Do I have other choices?”
She stood in front of me, blocking my exit. “There are always more choices, Sydney. We have free will, remember?”
My laugh sounded bitter. I no longer cared. Sydney had spoken. The whole assignment was a total flop. “Well, it so happens I’m not governed by the same laws you are. I’ve never experienced free will. That’s… that’s a big part of my problem.”
“You’re wrong. Nobody but you can take away your free will—not even God. Well, maybe He
can
, but he won’t. I sorta see Him as the consummate gentleman, wanting us to choose to love Him. Free will Sydney, that’s what makes us all human. That’s how we’re different from the animals.”
Was she arguing that I couldn’t possibly be human? That’s what it sounded like, since I definitely did
not
have free will. Not human, and not an animal either. What the hell was I, some sort of ghoul?
Nice going, Sydney! I tried to be a friend, and you… you sneered in…
My waterworks turned on, both faucets, and everything went instantly blurry as fresh tears cascaded down my face. I hadn’t planned the effect they’d produce, but that didn’t matter. They worked! Faith was suddenly promising there’d be no doctors, but she was also quick to trade. If there were to be no doctors, then I’d be there when she came home from work. I quickly agreed, because if I wasn’t there, Sydney
would
be. In that case, Faith would be on her own. All I had to do now was figure out how to wake Sydney up and tell her to take over—assuming that’s what I’d decided to do. And there was the problem. Even if I
didn’t
decide to do it, she might be waking up anyway. She might even be awake right now—waving bye-bye.
Seattle
Eliam balled one fist and slammed the steering wheel. Everyone was pissing him off. That had never happened back when he was on RIDs, but then he couldn’t sleep at night. At the same time, he kept falling asleep in class, which was good for the boredom factor, but bad for his social life. They told him he drooled when he was zonked. At least his teachers left him pretty much alone—unless the principal or some other visitor wandered in—but forget his medicine just once and those same laid-back teachers suddenly got a bee up their butts. Then it was detention slip after detention slip.
How could he dare ask questions that weren’t called for, especially when the explanations had already been more than satisfactory for the others in the class? He was deliberately being disruptive, and they weren’t being paid enough to deal with that. Detention slips were always followed by phone calls suggesting it was time to up his dose. His mom always complied—she liked him on Ritalin for the same reasons his teachers did. It was pretty damn hard to get into trouble while sleeping.
Yeah, Ritalin definitely made her life easier, but she never stopped to think what it was doing to him. None of them did. They were all the same when it came to shutting him down.
Screw em’ all!
Once he’d finished rearranging the preacher’s face, those school teachers were next—three women and one man. And after that, maybe Theresa could stand in for his dead mom. Yeah, he could get into doing a number on
her
! She deserved it for being such a bitch all his life.
Sarah Cummings was another matter. She might later turn out to be a bitch, too, but she was his assignment, and he’d just have to wait and see. He’d already discovered a little about her—like what she did when daddy-O wasn’t in her face. She’d sit with a few of her girlfriends beneath a huge Douglas fir at the far side of the church parking lot, talking about whatever. Hey, nothing wrong with that! Put any two or more girls together, and their subject was always guys… guys they wanted, guys they’d already had. She’d be no different. Probably praying someone would come along and snatch her away from her old man, throw her across the saddle and gallop off into the sunset.
How about a Mustang for the horse part? That’d be way cool, as cool as the shades he was wearing.
He peeled into the Mount Zion Baptist Church parking lot in low gear, spinning out on purpose. It had rained during the night and the asphalt was still wet, adding to the squeal of his tires. Just like the movies, except he should have jerked the steering wheel hard to one side soon as the skid began. Well, he’d just have to do it again. Fortunately there weren’t that many cars in the lot, and those that were had been parked up close to the church entrance. Lots of room.
Another little squeal to get going, out onto the street and then a neat U-turn and back into the church lot. This time he ended up doing a complete one-eighty, pointing back at the entrance. Perfect, even to the smell of burnt rubber. This baby rocked!
If Sarah was under that tree, she’d probably smell the rubber. A glance that way would tell. Yeah, she was there on the usual bench, looking in his direction, but… but this time her father was with her.
Shit! That’s a Bible she’s holding… they’re having a friggin’ outdoor Bible class, as taught by Holier-than-thou Cummings himself!
On second thought, this could be the moment for a little “pastoral realignment” even though the time of day wasn’t quite right for that ride off into the sunset. The dashboard clock said 10:45. Time to get out and take a little stroll, give her a better look at who her savior was going to be.
* * *
“Pay attention, Sarah! That’s the second time I’ve had to tell you, and there will
not
be a third.”