Ephemeral (The Countenance) (11 page)

A surge of adrenaline pulsates through me.

Even if he won’t admit it, deep down inside, Wesley Parker still loves me.

I haul Wes up the rest of the way to my room and kick the door shut behind us.

“Victory,” I whisper with a sly smile. I have the distinct feeling any alone time we have in the future will be just that, a hard won victory. That’s okay. I’m up for a ninja-worthy battle. I’ll keep a pocketful of throwing stars at the ready. Wesley is definitely worth the fight.

A blue piece of paper sits on the desk that supposedly belongs to me. The note wasn’t there when I left.

I go over and examine the loopy handwriting. A cell phone sits nestled underneath. I pick up the phone and fondle it, let it slip in my hand, still new from the factory.

Laken, Found this. You must have dropped it. - Casper

I stare at it a moment.

“I think I just got a new phone,” I announce. Although, I’m skeptical the memo came from Casper.

“There you go.” He flicks a finger at the note. “Casper was here. She must have come back while you were out. There’s no way she would have gone in that forest.” He falls back on my bed and closes his eyes a moment.

Wes stretches out. He extends his arms as if beckoning me over. Wes is sublime in every way—a perfect work of art. It looks as if he’s reenacting Caravaggio’s agonizing portrait,
The Conversion of St. Paul
.

Wes and I used to comb through old art books from the library. We held to the premise that each painting, sculpture, fresco, was somehow cluing us in on a bigger mystery, one that lurked over our shoulders like a shadow waiting to swallow us when we least expected it. And it did. We were the detectives on the verge of decoding something tremendous and frightening. And now, here we were, locked in our worst nightmare.  

He leans up on his elbows and lingers over me with a heavy gaze as if he weren’t sure what to do with me.

I shudder for a moment. Something about Wes is hauntingly disturbing. It’s like he doesn’t want to talk about what happened in the forest. As if he wished the creatures and all mention of them would simply go away.

Nevertheless, I’m done harping over the fact I saw Casper—that I heard her scream. I’m sure in this delusionary world, she’ll come home safe at some point in the day with armfuls of shopping bags. Maybe the only thing that had Casper running and screaming was a sample sale. And if she did meet up with another unfortunate demise, I probably shouldn’t lose sleep over that either. This is clearly a place where the dead don’t understand their role in that whole circle of life thing. No, this is a place where people scream and fend off demons in the woods because it’s expected of them, where the impossible simply inverts itself and becomes permissible, banal—mediocre even.

The only thing I’d really like to focus on right now is the fact a newly single Wesley Parker is sprawled out on my bed.

Wes glances down at the phone still cradled in my hand. “Who you gonna call?” His cheek slides up on one side.

“Monster-busters.” It comes out maudlin, less enthusiastic than it ever should have to, partially because I happen to wish I could.

I decide to profit off my conflicted feelings over whether or not I really happen to be suffering from the aftereffects of rotten floorboards and call home. I’m ashamed to admit I don’t have Mom or Lacey’s cell memorized, just the house.

There are two good reasons that solidify the fact I’ve never seen this cell phone before. One, I happen to be the owner of a hot pink flip phone complete with enough rhinestone adhesives to outfit a prostitute, and two, I would never have a picture of a Minotaur as my wallpaper.

“What the heck is this about?” I hold it out for Wes to see.

“Asterion—school mascot.”

“Asterion? Let me guess, we’re the Ephemeral Asses? And I thought the Cider Plains Hedgehogs were a blight on our scholastic career.”

How I long for the days I sweltered in misery, afraid I’d never leave that speck on the map—hating anything to do with Cider Plains. Now I would shove us all back in caskets just to have its warm soil covering us like a blanket.

“We’re not the Asses, Laken.” He twists his lips. “We’re the Minotaurs.” He holds up two fingers in a bouncing salute.

I see they’ve indoctrinated him well.

Wes looks at me with his lids half closed, examining, inspecting me as if he were considering his options. “You really hook up with some guy named Tucker?”

I hold out my hands. “I’m damaged goods.” I can easily throw Kresley in his face, but I would never do that. “Do you think less of me?” I say it low, afraid of what his answer might be.

“No. It makes me want to kill him. You said Donovan?”

“I guess you were listening.” It takes all of my strength to drag my eyes off him, punch in the number to the house, and listen as it rings. Lacey is probably in school by now, and Mom is either at the Laundromat or on the way to the diner, but I ache to hear the spiel Mom rattled off in French on our crappy old answering machine. I’d die to hear her voice just one last time. Despite all of our verbal confrontations, all of the name-calling sprees—my parched ears ache for her voice. 

You have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service
.

My mind tramples through the possibilities. Mom lost it. She’s so devastated over my disappearance she hasn’t paid the bills in months.

“What’s going on?” His eyebrows come to life.

“Phone’s disconnected.” It sings from me like the saddest song. Casper’s laptop catches my attention. I head over to the desk and hop on the Internet.

“Now what?” Wes pulls a chair beside me and slips his warm hand over the back of my neck.

“Facebook.” I bet I have tons of
RIPs
and
miss yous
. I didn’t have many close friends, but in a town like Cider Plains, when someone dies, you were automatically grafted into every single family, you were everyone’s best friend—they miss you that much. I experienced this firsthand when Fletch died, Wes, too. I’ll blow Wesley’s world to pieces if I show him his old account. All those pictures we took our last Halloween together, the ones of us kissing down at the lake while we soaked in the last few days of summer. Wes took as many pictures as he did paint them. “I can’t find it.” A few Laken Stewarts pop up—none of them me.

“You’ve got the wrong last name.” Wes leans over and types in Laken Anderson, and there I am—smiling with a fedora pushed low over my head.

“That’s not me,” I whisper in protest. I scroll down.

Shit. I have a history that stretches for months—one that coasts well past my supposed car accident this past summer, one that includes an ex-boyfriend named Miles Richards who I wouldn’t know from a stranger on the street or a wanted picture at the post office.

“Oh my God.” The words stream out of me in a panic. Something is seriously very wrong.

I type in, Lacey Stewart. She begged Mom to let her have an account last June until Mom finally caved. She has a sum total of ten friends because she was instructed to keep it simple, and I know full well I’m one of those ten—but nothing. No Lacey, no Mom, no Tucker Donavan, no Amber Garrett, my best friend at Cider Plains High. I Google the Ridgefield Community Art Colony where Mom holds questionable unemployment as a docent twice a week in addition to her meat and potato grind at the diner, but it’s like it never existed. The webpage, the map, everything is gone. Finally, I look up Cider Plains. I know we’re small, less than a speck of dust on the map, less important than dust in general—and, again, nothing surfaces. Strange. I type in Ridgefield, same thing. I type in Kansas just to be safe. Sure enough, whoever did this didn’t bother to wipe an entire state off the grid.

“So that’s Tucker.” Wes nods into the screen at a picture of me in the arms of Miles Richards.

“No, that’s someone I’ve never met before.”

“Look.” He points to my comment below his.
LOL! I’m going to start calling you Tuck! It’s officially your new name. Tucker Donavan. 

A harsh roll of nausea burns through me. Someone has either gone through a hell of a lot of trouble redefining my life, or I’ve managed to lose every last marble that I have ever owned.

The demonic wallpaper crouches in on me with its horrible echo and I press my palms into my eyes to keep from bawling.

I was sure I was right. I was positive I knew who I was—that I saw Casper head into the forest.

“Come here.” Wes pulls me in, holding me safe in his arms. He massages the back of my neck with his strong hands, presses his lips against my temple, and sends a lightning bolt of pain ripping through me in the process.

“So, a tree house, huh?” I lean in against his chest. It feels safe like this nestled into Wes—nestled in the lie.

“Tree house.”

I push back and catch his gaze.

“What were those things in the forest?”

“Fems.”

“Tell me everything.”

“I won’t tell you.” He gives a devilish grin. “I’ll show you.”

10

Spectators, and Fems, and Counts, Oh My

The Ephemeral library is a monolithic structure that I’m sure rivals any European mid-century church or basilica, at least from the pictures I’ve seen.

A vaulted ceiling stretches up for what feels like miles, gold inlays in the alcoves expand across the facility in leaping fits, flanked below with dark rich mahogany bookshelves that pull out for acres.

A series of stained-glass windows filter in a defused rainbow of light, each with its own intricate mosaic—one of a woman down on her knees before a pack of wolves, one of a man with his face and body comprised of fruits and vegetables, and another of a couple with an infinity symbol above their heads. Misery is etched into their faces, both with downturned smiles. I could stare for hours at what the artist might be trying to convey. The reticent truths veiled in the dull hues, the meanings, the story behind each picture.  

“This place is gorgeous,” I whisper.

“You want to work here?” Wes offers, breezing us through the facility.

“Do I need a job?”

We land in a narrow aisle of bookshelves, free from roving eyes.

“Yes, that would be school canon, number nine.” He pauses to pick up my hand. Wes ignites in a sweet country smile. His cheeks burst to life with color as he interlaces our fingers. “Each student gets a job—usually on campus.” The corners of his lips quiver. “I’m an O.A., Orientation Assistant. Consider this a part of your official orientation.” His brows rise slowly. Wes is seducing me with his words, whether or not he’s aware of it. “I also happen to work here.”

“Where do I sign up?” I bounce on my toes reflexively. The thought of spending all my free time with Wes almost makes up for the fact my entire past may have just blipped itself out of existence. That and the fact my only real friend may currently be residing in the digestive tract of some wild beast that has no classification in any phylum known to man.

What the hell am I saying?

I’m not buying Rycroft or some guy named Miles. No matter how much they tinker with the world, they can’t change what I know.

Wes frowns at me before walking us past rows and rows of massive, long tables. A sprinkling of students gaze off into their laptops. A few are lost in books. The population is sparse in general. It makes me wonder why anyone at all would want to spend the official last day of summer in the library, but here I am, an answer to my own question.

Wes sits me down at a round table in the back and reappears after a few minutes with a small stack of books.
History of our Lineage, Angels through time, Nephilim Today, Book of Knowledge.  

“What’s this?” I pull one forward.

“Some light reading I thought might help jog your memory.” His affect darkens as if he might be serious.

“A study of angels?” I brush my fingers over the dry leather cover.

“Nephilim.”

“Is that what we saw in the woods?”

“No, Laken. That’s what
you
are.” Wes doesn’t smile, laugh, or give any indication he might be teasing. He’s serious as death, unapologetic in every way.