ALLUSIVE AFTERSHOCK (19 page)

I pointed to the bucket
I’d hidden back there. “I found this when I was looking for the candles
earlier.”

“Wow, an honest-to-goodness
little toilet.”

“Well, a bucket and an
old toilet seat. I found the seat part leaning against the wall when I came
back here for privacy. It’s better than nothing, especially now that we can’t
get outside. I’ll wait on the other side. Call me when you’re finished and I’ll
come back and help you back over to the sleeping bag.”

I walked over to the
shelves. Everything was on the floor. I began picking things up and came across
the small bottle of pills. I must have forgotten to put them back in the kit.
Good thing, since the kit was buried under all the dirt. I reached for the
water and realized it was on its side with water spilled out around it. I tried
not to panic when I saw that only about half the gallon remained. I walked back
to the wine barrels and waited for Court, when I remembered his jeans and wondered
if they were buried under the dirt by the stairs too. I walked over to that
general area, spotted one pants leg sticking out and pulled.

I shook out Court’s jeans
as he came hobbling over to me, using a broom as a crutch.

“Hey, you found my
pants. Good. I’d forgotten all about them.”

I smiled. “You found a broom.
Good. We can use it to help dig.”

“Yeah, let’s sit for a
bit first. I need to get some pills in me.” Together we hobbled back to the
sleeping bag. I handed him the pills and showed him the now half-empty
container of water.

“The earthquake?”

“Yeah. I found it on
its side. I don’t know what happened to the cap.” Neither one of us said
anything more about it so I poured an inch of water into the cup. We had a half
a gallon of water and two cans of soup. Our chances of survival seemed awfully
bleak.

I grabbed the candle
and gathered up as many of the supplies that I could and stacked them against
the wall. The two cans of soup, now all dented, would still be okay. There were
two more candles and the can of Sterno. I placed them alongside the soup when my
eyes fell upon the book I had tripped over yesterday.

I turned to walk back
to Court and paused; glancing back at the book, I picked it up. It looked fairly
new and had a thick green cover with a picture of some sort of ruins and some
cows grazing. “Irish Fairy and Folk Tales,” by W.B. Yeats. I shrugged, flipped
it over and read the back cover.

“‘Everyone is a
visionary if you scratch him deep enough. But the Celt is a visionary without
scratching.’ Hmmm … this sounds interesting.” I walked back over to the
sleeping bag and sat on the edge.

Court opened his eyes
and smiled at me. “Find something to keep us amused?”

“Maybe. How about if we
read this together?”

“What is it?”

I held the book in my
lap, sitting cross-legged on Court’s good side, not wanting to take the chance
of brushing up against his burns. “W.B. Yeats, ‘Irish Fairy and Folk Tales.’”

“Ahhh, yes. Yeats. We
were about to study him in English lit, but I guess we won’t get through that
class now. I saw the book on Mr. Montgomery’s book list in the library when I
was there searching for the earthquake books.”

I tugged the book
against my chest as though it was precious. Lowering my gaze to my knees, I quietly
said, “Mr. Montgomery didn’t make it, did he?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Court?”

“Yeah?”

I took a deep breath.
“You don’t think we’re going to get out of here, do you?”

He gave me a sidelong
glance. “Of course we will. I didn’t mean anything by that, about not making it
through English Lit. It was a stupid statement. We will get to go back to
school. You should try to remember, I’m in pain, and not everything I say will
make total sense.”

I knew exactly what he
meant. We were not going to get out of this alive and he knew it.

“How about you sit back
here and read some of that book to me.”

I scooted my bottom up
against the wall and opened the book. Court put his arm around my shoulder and I
held my breath, unable to move. Well, I didn’t want to move. Releasing the air from
my lungs, I sat quietly for several seconds, pretending to focus on the book,
but amazingly, through the odor of smoke, a faint musky scent still lingered on
his clothes and his skin, capturing my attention. He smelled really good, which
was remarkable considering what he’d been through over the past two days. When I
finally started reading, I continued for about an hour until my voice became hoarse.
I glanced at Court. His eyes were closed and his chest rose up and down. He
didn’t stir or make a sound when I stopped reading so I figured he was asleep. My
mouth was dry from reading and I needed some water, but didn’t want to disturb
his sleep so I leaned my head back against the wall and closed my eyes.

I awoke in the dark, the
cellar a completely black mass of cold. Adela’s head lay on my chest and just
the idea of that was enough to send an electric current though my veins, but
having it actually happen was nothing short of a lightning bolt. It was a
little surreal, this whole situation. Not in my wildest dreams had I ever
thought I would have Adela Castielle’s head resting on my chest while she slept
so peacefully.
I must be feeling better, having thoughts like this.

The last thing I
remembered was listening to her sweet voice as she read Yeats. The melodic
sound still resonated in my mind. Somehow, I wound up lying flat on my back
with Adela resting beside me, her head on my chest with the sleeping bag pulled
up loosely over us. The book lay open on the floor next to her.

I thought back to the
time when I first laid eyes on this beautiful creature, then a little girl. I
remembered it like it was yesterday. Max and I saw her the day she and her
family moved in. We sat watching her from up on the hill. We were just entering
into the fourth grade and were both too shy to talk to her then. About a week
later, on the first day of school after summer vacation, I almost got the
chance as she stood in front of me in the lunch line. She had two long, light
brown braids hanging clear down to her waist and a sprinkle of freckles on her
cheeks. I remember the way she smelled like strawberries. I sensed a bit of
fear within her core. It was disturbing and I thought
what could such a beautiful
girl be afraid of?
Fear of being the new girl, maybe
.
I’d opened my
mouth to speak to her when Max appeared beside her, grabbing her hand and
pulling her up to his place in line. Max and I had been close friends, like
brothers, right up until the week before.

I glanced down at Adela
now. The freckles faded over the years. She was beautiful. I reached out and
stroked her hair, a little darker now and not quite as long, but still lovely.
She no longer wore it in two braids, but I’d seen her wear one long one at
times. Right now, her hair hung loosely over her shoulders and I brushed a few
of the renegade strands off her face with my finger.

I smiled remembering
the day last week after the first earthquake when she came to the door with her
hair pulled back into a ponytail. It looked as if she hadn’t even brushed it
before pulling it back and a few strands hung wildly loose down her back. She
must have gotten dressed in a hurry, because her shirt was buttoned all crooked
too. She was even beautiful then. When she came out to the stable later, she’d
redone her hair and changed her top. I wanted to think she had done that for me,
but I knew better. Her heart belonged to Max. That was something I wanted to
change.

She stirred, sat up and
studied me with sleepy eyes. A little line formed between her eyebrows giving
her a sort of dazed and confused expression. She pushed her hair away from her
face and said, “I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“Um … falling asleep on
you.”

I smiled. If she only
knew. “You can fall asleep on me anytime. I liked it.”

She frowned and shook
her head, leaning back against the wall. “Boys.”

“I know. We are
incorrigible, right? But … now that you’re not lying on top of me anymore, I’m
cold.”

“I wasn’t lying on top
of you. I was merely resting my head on you and I didn’t mean to. I simply fell
asleep after I stopped reading. That’s all. Don’t make such a big deal out of
it.”

She reached over and
pulled the sleeping bag up over most of my body, leaving my leg out.

She frowned, picked up
my leg and draped it over her lap. “Your leg should be elevated.” She glanced
at my ankle. “The swelling has gone down some. How are you feeling?”

“Well, you’ll be pleased
to know my leg doesn’t hurt so much anymore. Nothing left there that’s any
worse than a bad sunburn and the blisters on my hand and fingers are smaller. But
the pain in my ankle still comes and goes. At the moment there aren’t any
stabbing shots of fire running over my skin.”

She winced. “That must
be awful, Court. I can’t image the pain you’ve been in. I’ve only burned my
wrist once on my mom’s iron. I had to hold my wrist under the kitchen faucet
for about five minutes before the pain stopped. To have burns like yours, well,
I don’t think I would be able to talk, let alone have a coherent conversation
with anyone. I gotta hand it to you. You have done miraculously well. How did
you manage to get burned so badly anyway?”

“It was stupid. I think
about it constantly. I sat and watched my house burn and when I thought all the
flames had died out I went walking through the charred debris looking for
things.”

“What things?”

“Anything, actually.
Something to hold on to. I spied the silver frame of the picture sticking out
from under an unburned portion of the fireplace mantel and I picked it up. I
stood there wiping the soot off, staring at the picture of my mom and dad—one I
had taken of them when I was ten. We were at the lake, a few months before she
died. Anyway, as I stood among the rubble, trying to hold it together and my
leg began to burn. I guess I had been so engrossed in my grief that I just didn’t
notice my pants on fire until my leg started burning. I bent down and tried to
stop the flames, then the cuff of my shirt caught fire. I turned to run to the
dirt so I could roll to put out the fire when I stepped on a weak board. It snapped
in half and my foot landed on its side, twisting my ankle. I crawled out from
the debris and rolled in the dirt until the flames went out. I kept rolling
down the driveway, I guess. All I could think was that I wanted to get as far
away from the fire as I possibly could, to get away from the piercing pain in
my leg, but it kept coming with me. I gave up when I reached the road. I don’t
really remember much after that, except seeing your beautiful face staring down
at me.”

Adela blushed. She
actually blushed, a lovely rosy color and I reveled at the thought that I caused
it.

“Um … I … You were in
really bad shape.”

“Yeah, but there’s one
thing that keeps eating away at me and I can’t seem to shake it.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, you know if I
had been just a few minutes earlier maybe I could have saved my dad.”

“Or possibly died in
the fire with him,” I added.

“Maybe. But then I
wouldn’t have this ache in my chest from the feeling that I might have been
able to save him.”

“You can’t blame
yourself for your father’s death any more than I can blame myself for not being
with my family. The earthquake took your dad’s life, not you. It’s possible I
may never see my family again, but I know I have to move on whether I find them
or not. I’ll never stop looking, though.”

“I know.” We sat
silently for a moment, then I said, “We have to find a way to get out of here
first, which I’m thinking on.”

“I wonder what time it
is. Do you know how long we were asleep?”

“No. I’m guessing five
or six hours.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Yeah. I could eat.”

“Me too. I’m starving.
I’ll go heat up one of those cans of soup.” I watched Adela walk to the other
side of the cellar. She turned toward me holding up two cans. Her face appeared
like an angel’s in the dim candlelight.

“Which one do you want?
Clam chowder or cream of potato? Max took the other chunky chicken noodle and another
one I can’t remember.”

“Clam chowder sounds
fine.”

“That’s what I was
thinking.”

I heard the match
strike and the sizzle of the Sterno and then I heard some rustling noise from
where Adela was. I could barely make out her backside and she turned and caught
me staring at her bottom and quickly stood holding up a cardboard box. After
she prepared the soup, she blew out the Sterno and walked toward me, carrying
the box like a tray with two bowls of soup on top.

“Look what I found,”
she said, sitting next to me.

“Scrabble.”

“Yeah. How about a game
after we eat? Do you feel up to it?”

“Hmmm … I guess you
haven’t heard.”

“Heard what?” she asked
before taking a spoonful of soup into her mouth.

“Well, I don’t know if you
want to play me at Scrabble. I am the Scrabble champion in the entire town of
Pleasant Ridge, you know.”

“Ha, yeah right. Well,
you haven’t played against me yet. I’m gonna kick your butt.”

“We’ll see about that, Dely.”

She froze and looked at
me.

“What?”

“My dad sometimes
called me that.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I won’t
call you that again if you don’t want me to.”

“No. It’s okay.” She
gave me a half smile and we finished eating. I wasn’t sure if I just made it
into some secret group of special people in Adela’s life or managed to
completely exclude myself.