The Gingerbread Boy (20 page)

A moment later the girls reached the unimposing rectangular building with its clapboard siding and crooked roof. Its dumpy looks were charming in a peculiar way, from the oblong sign hung at an angle above the doorway to the tiny lights glowing around the windows. They stepped inside and were greeted by a rush of warm air and the aroma of coffee and homemade bread.. It was dark as Joanne led Catherine through a narrow row of weathered tables toward the rear of the restaurant. Joanne pulled two chairs away from a table against the wall and beckoned Catherine.

Catherine crossed her arms and leaned toward Joanne after they took their seats. “Okay Jo,” she said. “What is it you want to show me?”

Joanne clasped her hands together and gestured toward the wall.

“Look there,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll agree. It’s a masterpiece.”

Catherine smiled skeptically, and looked. She had to scan some graffiti for several seconds before she spotted what Joanne was talking about. Then she gasped. Snuggled inside a shakily drawn heart were her name, and Daniel’s.

“He even dated it,” Joanne said. “That was written today, Cath. He’s back. Robin Hood is back.”

Catherine’s throat tightened. She could not speak

“I noticed it when I came out here for lunch today.” Joanne explained, placing her hand on Catherine’s arm. “For all I know, Daniel could have just left – or maybe he wrote it at breakfast. It’s a miracle I spotted it with all that grunge around it. Shows you what an interesting social life I have, huh? Sitting and reading inscriptions on walls in a backwoods restaurant for an hour.” Her voice faltered. “It
is
Daniel’s writing…isn’t it?”

Catherine nodded. It was Daniel’s writing. No doubt. Large, shaky letters. The implications written inside the heart were overwhelming..

Daniel was back.

It took several moments before Catherine’s throat would open up enough to let her speak. “I remember when Daniel first brought me here,” she said as Joanne waved a waitress away. “It was the morning after Cave Pig attacked me at the bar. We sat at this table – this
very same table
…and watched the sunrise.” She reached out to trace over the inscription with a trembling finger. It must have been her imagination – for it felt warm to her touch.

“Now don’t go rushing over to his house,” came Joanne’s voice from a thousand miles away. “No matter what, let
him
come to
you
.”

Catherine pulled away her finger, then found herself scanning the crowd. Somewhere within the cluttered tables of students quietly reading, writing or talking, she almost expected to see Daniel’s smiling face as though he’d been secretly waiting there for her all along.

No such thing happened.

Still, the joy she felt could not be concealed.

Joanne clenched her wrist. “You’re getting all sappy and glowing eyed again,“ she said, grinning. “It’s kind of disgusting, but it’s the you I’m used to.”

PART TWO

A butterfly alit on my shoulder one day.
Upset at the time, I brushed her away
Figuring that butterfly had nothing to say.

It lit on me again in my sleep.
I brushed her away with one finalizing sweep
…Then dreamed of horrors and wicked things in the deep.

If that butterfly should ever alight on me again,
I’d joyfully welcome her back and then
Allow these ruined hearts to mend.

Chapter Twenty

When Catherine opened her front door that morning the sweet smell of rain-washed earth nearly knocked her over. She stood still, gulping in the sweet air, reveling in the sight of tender new leaves sparkling with raindrops.

Maybe, for once, this was going to be a good day.

Regaining her senses, Catherine pressed her books tighter into the crook of her arm and stepped forward, shutting the door softly behind her. She began walking across the porch to the steps when something unusual in her peripheral vision made her stop, something against the porch wall behind her that wasn’t normally there.

Something like
a person.

She turned around, and her free hand went to her mouth.

Leaning peacefully against the siding, his chin tucked into his chest in slumber, his long dark hair framing his face was Daniel.

Catherine froze. She blinked, and stared wordlessly at him as minutes ticked by, as her legs began to quiver, as the blood rushed to her ears. The thudding of a sparrow’s wings as it dipped out from under an eave startled her back to her senses.

Daniel slumbered on.

Catherine took a tiny step forward on rubbery legs, her eyes never once leaving his face.

She took another step, then another, until she was only a few feet from him. She raised her free hand, longing to touch his face to make sure this wasn’t a dream, but her hand trembled maddeningly. She couldn’t touch him. She didn’t dare. A touch might awaken her from this lovely dream, and the vision might fade away like smoke. Then, ever so slowly, his chin still tucked against his chest, Daniel’s eyelids opened, revealing the lovely amber eyes Catherine had come to love.

He said nothing, made no movement. His eyes, focused on Catherine, registered sadness, registered compassion, registered some kind of silent anxiety that Catherine had never seen there before.

She swallowed hard as a warm breeze ruffled a strand of hair across her face.

Daniel raised his arm as if in slow motion, and let it pause near Catherine’s face. His eyes did not leave hers, no smile formed on his mouth. At last he took the flyaway strand of hair between two long, delicate fingers, held it lovingly, as if it were something he had never touched before, and drew it away from her eyes. When at last he spoke, his voice wasn’t much more than a whisper.

“I’m so sorry, Catherine,” he said.

Catherine stared hard at him, her eyes filling, as he added, “Do you hate me?”

Catherine’s lips quivered. Her voice came out a croak. “I’ve been trying.”

“You have every right to.”

She made no reply.

At last Daniel shifted his weight into a straighter position, and looked away. It was then Catherine noticed the dark rings beneath his eyes. Her eyes traveled down the length of him, from the faded green sweatshirt with the arms cut off at the shoulders to his baggy blue jeans and sloppy leather sandals. He was no longer the flamboyantly dressed “Robin Hood,” but an average, down-to-earth young man with a strange loneliness in his eyes. What had happened to him?

Suddenly Catherine’s books toppled to the porch floor. She lunged at him, sandwiched her arms tightly around his waist and pressed against him like steel. She would never let him go… never.

She felt him sigh, felt his arms enfold her as she rested her head against his chest. He reached down to kiss the top of her head. “I don’t deserve you,” he whispered.

“No, you don’t.” Catherine sobbed, “But you’re stuck with me anyway. And I could never hate you, not in a thousand years.” She pulled away from him enough to look him in the eye. “But I need to know…
where
have you been?”

Daniel managed a weak grin. “I have a lot of explaining to do, I know.” He raised his finger to wipe the wetness from her cheeks. “I’ve had what some could call a… a breakdown,” he said, still attempting to dry Catherine’s tears. Suddenly he looked away. Catherine gazed at him soundlessly. She re-tightened her grip around his waist. She yearned for him to continue talking, to continue the explanation for his disappearance. A breakdown? How? Why? What brought it on? She hated herself for hoping it was true, because
even having a breakdown of some sort was better than the alternative Beth had suggested.

Daniel shook his head. “I’ve lost track of things, I’ve gone too fast. I need to pause… I need to escape these invisible rapids that spin me along. It got overwhelming. I needed to take a look at myself, away from myself. It’s like being lost in some huge, dark city, not knowing what road to take to your destination. Too many signs, too many corners, intersections, dead ends. I tried to rise above it, to look down on that city from the sky so things would make sense and the direction become clear.” Daniel looked straight into Catherine’s eyes and she swallowed hard, trying to comprehend what she was hearing.

An
identity crisis? Daniel?
Joanne had once said she thought he was confused. Maybe she’d been right. She pushed back a thousand questions as Daniel continued.

“The band is getting so hot, Catherine, that sometimes it scares me. The responsibility that implies is that we potentially have the power to shape people. We can plant morals and ethics in them or we could corrupt with every word we sing and every note on the guitar. Sometimes it scares me, and I want to run or hide from it all. The responsibility of it all.” He sighed, shrugged a bit. ‘My mom still calls me her Gingerbread Boy, because of my, well, my tendency to sometimes run from problems. Not a great nickname to have, I suppose.”

At that word
nickname
, something inside Catherine quietly sank, as a bittersweet memory from long ago resurfaced. Her legs went weak with the memory.

Nicknames.

She’d had one once, besides Daniel’s silly “fluffy-puppy fixer.” Once, long ago, when her mother was still reasonably “normal” she had called Catherine her “Cinnamon Girl.” And just because Catherine had loved to pour cinnamon all over her toast as a little girl before she went to school. Once, she’d even accidentally dumped the little can of spice all over the floor, then pressed her buttered toast in it. Her mother had looked lovingly down, and called her that name. Her Cinnamon Girl. And she called her that for several more months before she began to … to change. Tears pricked her eyes. Catherine buried her face into Daniel’s chest, pushing aside the memory. She could not go there.

“Are you all right?” Daniel asked.

Catherine took a deep breath, nodded. ”I’m fine. Just getting my bearings.” She looked up at Daniel, and steadied herself, letting the memories wash away. She had to help Daniel. “Don’t give up your dreams. No matter how far off they seem.”

Daniel’s hands slid off of Catherine’s shoulders and he raised them in the air. “Can you imagine what we’re up against? The evil out there is so vast. We’re a band of goldfish swimming in an ocean of barracudas. Sometimes I wonder if our input will matter at all.”

“Daniel!” Catherine said, stunned at his admission, “You’re wrong. It’ll help. Don’t worry about the war, keep your focus on each little battle and win
those.
You’ve got a long time to fight.”

“Time?” Daniel asked, shaking his shaggy head, “I don’t understand time. What I just said is now in the past, when a second ago it was in the future. Time is meaningless.”

Catherine looked at him wide-eyed, frustrated with his remarks. Where was all of this sudden insecurity was coming from?
Something
had gotten to him, something had changed since she last saw him. Then a movement in the window just past him caught her eye, a flick of the drapes, a face pressed against the glass.

Penny.

Just as soon, the face was gone. Catherine put the incident out of her mind. Daniel was
back
. He was here, now, and he was confused and hurting. He needed her. She brushed aside uncomfortable thoughts of the recent moments when she really needed him, and he hadn’t been there like he’d promised. She hadn’t even known where he was.

He leaned next to her on the wooden porch rail. “I’ve got to arrange my priorities” he said, clasping her hands in his. “And the first on my list is you. I’ve spoken with Joey. I know what you’ve been through these past few weeks. I know what Cave Pig did to you, and I know what happened to Hazel. I was so caught up in myself, Catherine,” he stressed, tightening his grip on her hands, “that I forgot about everyone else. Especially you. You’ve been through the wringer… and I wasn’t there. I can’t do anything about that now except pray you can forgive me and promise it’ll never happen again.”

Catherine fought against the stinging in her eyes. Part of her wanted to lie to him, wanted to claim that the last few weeks hadn’t been bad… yet they
had been bad.
And she’d suffered through them without his help.

Yet, apparently, Daniel had been suffering, too.

There was another movement in the window, and Joanne’s bulging-eyed face was pressed against the glass. Soon Penny’s face was next to it. Both roommates were staring at her and Daniel as if they had just flapped their arms and risen three feet off the porch.

Catherine pretended she didn’t notice. If Daniel knew they were being watched, then this conversation might end. She needed to hear his explanations and grievous apologies. There was no doubt in Catherine’s mind that Daniel meant every word he said.

Daniel slowly released her hands, and then reached down toward his feet. “Here,” he said quietly, “I have something for you. It will shock you at first – but there’s an explanation.”

Catherine’s eyebrows drew together as Daniel pulled something small and roundish out of his pocket and held it toward her.

“Don’t panic,” he urged as Catherine backed against the rail. “It’s not real. It’s just a dummy made of cloth. See?”

Catherine gazed in horror at the ghastly object. It was a … a head. A small, brown, plum-sized head with its eyes and lips sewn shut and a tangle of long black hair sewn into its skull.

“Touch it,” Daniel whispered.

Ever so slowly, Catherine reached out to touch the thing. It was cool, dry and repulsive. She pulled her finger away. Over Daniel’s shoulder, she could see Penny and Joanne squint in morbid curiosity.

“Remember when I told you my parents once worked with a tribe of Indians called the Achulas,” Daniel asked, “descendents of the Tivaro tribe, the headhunters? Yes, they really did shrink heads at one time,” he added, raising his eyebrows at Catherine’s expression, “but that was a long time ago. Some anthropologists may disagree, but it’s a custom I’m glad to see eradicated.”