When She Flew (31 page)

“Why was it so low?” I asked, both of us staring after it from just inside the open door.

“Looking for something,” he said, rubbing his forehead like it hurt.

“For us?” My heart was pounding. I took his hand.

He stared and stared at the place it had disappeared, but it didn’t come back. The world was silent again. Even the pigeons had stopped cooing. His fingers were tight around my hand. It hurt, and I wanted him to let go, but I was quiet.

“Stay inside, now,” he finally said. “We haven’t done our Bible study yet this week.”

“Okay,” I said, because I always say okay to him, but I didn’t want to. If we had to do it, I wanted to do our Bible study beside a creek, or up in our tree. The stories sound better when accompanied by birdsong, the breeze riffling through the trees. It was too quiet inside the apartment, too dead sounding, but I followed him back up the stairs.

We sat on the couch together and took turns reading aloud in the stifling, still heat, our voices bouncing back from the walls and ceiling. Pater read his parts feverishly, like he thought he himself was Moses following the pillar of light by night and the clouds by day. We’d read this part before, but I’ve never understood how you can follow clouds. They’re not like stars, which are constant. Clouds swirl and break apart, re-form and drift. There’s nothing to follow, but I didn’t say so to Pater. His hands were shaking on the page, and when we finished, he got on his knees in front of the couch and prayed for a long, long time, lips forming silent words meant only for God, and when he was through, he opened his eyes and slammed his fist down hard against the Bible.

“What?” I asked, scared, but mad now, too. I didn’t like him this way. I wanted the real Pater back. I wanted my dad. “Why are you doing that?”

“They can’t take you, too. Goddamn it, they just can’t.” He shielded his eyes with his hand, and I realized he was crying, something I’d never seen before. I’d rarely heard him curse, either, but the crying was more frightening, and I regretted speaking sharply. He was thinking about his brother, he had to be. Who else had been taken? We’d left Crystal; we’d left his parents. We’d left everything behind when we left Colorado, and we thought no one would ever find us.

“We’re safe here, Pater,” I said, reaching out to touch his arm. “That big old thing wasn’t looking for us. It went right over us and didn’t care, just kept going. I bet it never comes back. You don’t have to worry, okay? Everything’s going to be fine.”

I wished there was someone else there to talk to him this way, like a parent to a scared child, but there wasn’t. I was the only one, and he’d have hated it even more if I’d run up to the house and told Mark and John that something was wrong with him. He began to cry harder, his body wrenching forward, his mouth open but silent, beaded strings of saliva stretching from his top teeth to his bottom lip. His eyes were squeezed shut. I put my arms around him, saying
“Shhh”
and trying to rock him, but he was rigid and far away, gone from me, gone from this place.

I heard something coming down the driveway and ran to the window. I hoped it was Reverend Rosetta or Michael on his motorcycle. I hoped it was Officer Villareal in her messy car. I hoped it was Moses to lead us away, or Jesus to save us, save us from the dark thing that Pater had become, because I was frightened and I didn’t know how to help him.

Outside, a small dark truck had pulled into the driveway, and then like a miracle, I saw Officer Villareal opening the passenger door.

“Hurry, please!” I yelled, but the window was closed, so I slid it open and yelled again, “Help, Officer Villareal! Help us, please!” like I was a hostage waiting to be freed.

Officer Villareal looked up, her face surprised. She started to run.

“No!” Pater screamed. “Get away from there! Goddamn it! Get away!”

I went back to him, if only to stop him from screaming, but he frightened me with his ranting and shaking. It felt like forever before I heard feet on the stairs, pounding, a bang on our door and shouting. Then Officer Villareal was pushing in, and my heart was filling with love and hope, but then there was a man behind her, the man and the dog, the ones who’d found us behind the tree, and Pater was grabbing me, pulling me to the bedroom, me pulling against him for the first time in my life. He slammed the door, shoved the dresser in front of it like it didn’t weigh anything, even though I was crying and saying, “No, they’re here to help us, Pater. Please let me out.”

Officer Villareal banged on the door, yelling, “Ray, come on, open up! We’re just here to help. Open the door!”

Pater pulled me across the room to the window. From that high we could see the whole pasture, the horses, the goats, and the chicken coop, the peacocks now all standing in the middle of the field, the cocks with tails fanned and brilliant in the sun, the hens gathered together, pecking at the ground but watching the males, waiting to see what they’d do next. I watched Pater, his fingers white against the window frame, trying to pull it open but it wouldn’t budge, and then he was pounding both his palms against the glass, pounding so hard it broke into small pieces that glittered in the sun as they flew out and away, falling to the ground like diamond rain. There was no sound anymore, only the things that glittered: the glass lying in the gravel dirt far below, the peacocks’ plumage in full display, Pater’s eyes, wild, as he turned to me with bloody hands.

I froze, remembering the tree house and how afraid I was before we jumped, Pater first in his camouflage jacket, and then me, and how it was like flying. It wasn’t hard at all, as long as you remembered to tuck and roll at the bottom.

I looked down at the ground again. I looked at Pater. I knew he didn’t want to hurt me, but this thing was happening, and he wouldn’t stop until he thought he had saved me, the way he couldn’t save his brother, the thing that would haunt him the rest of his life, no matter what I did.

“No!” I screamed. “Don’t make me jump! It’s too high!”

“Stick to the plan, goddamn it,” he said. “We have to get out of here!”

His eyes weren’t right; his voice was all wrong and his profanity stung. This was not the Emergency Plan anymore.

“You go first,” I said, crying and choking on my words. “I’ll be right behind you.” I looked him straight in those crazy eyes and lied, even though it was terrible and I’d probably go to hell for it, but it was all I could do. I was too young to fly out that window. I wanted to survive.

32

J
ess rammed her right shoulder against the bedroom door as hard as she could, budging whatever was behind it only a few millimeters.

“Ray,” she yelled, “come on, I’m here to help!” She hit the door again, realizing it was her bad shoulder, and felt something tearing and giving way inside of it. Chris pulled her back.

“Let me,” he said, and managed to shove the door open just enough that they could see Lindy and Ray with his mangled hands at the window.

“No!” Jess yelled. “Lindy, get away from the window! Ray, no!”

She and Chris frantically shoved and pushed at the door, the gap widening but not enough, watching helplessly as Ray tugged at Lindy’s hand. She pulled away from him, falling back as he let go. He turned then, seeing Jess and Chris at the door, and hoisted himself through the jagged edges of glass, crying out in agony as it cut him more. He scrambled until he was squatting on the window ledge, then leapt, arms extended like a paratrooper, and disappeared. A nauseating thud was followed by silence.

Lindy lay on the floor, staring at where he’d been, her mouth open, her eyes unbelieving. She scrambled up and Jess pushed one last time and squeezed through the opening, past the heavy dresser barricading the door. She ran to grab the girl and pull her away from the window. Chris raced to the sill, Larry on his heels, and looked down. “No, don’t get up! Stay down. We’ll get you help!” he yelled, then turned back to Jess. “Son of a bitch is still alive. That must be a twenty-five-foot drop.”

Lindy screamed, “Pater!” then leapt from Jess’s arms and squeezed out through the narrow doorway.

“No, Lindy!” Jess pulled herself back through, tensing at the pain it caused her injured shoulder. “Lindy, wait!”

Chris and Larry pushed past her, and they all charged down the steps, out into the open. Ray was already halfway across the pasture, dragging a leg, holding his thigh with bloodied hands, and Lindy had nearly caught up to him. The peacocks scattered as if a bomb had detonated in their midst, flying up in a spectacular explosion of green and blue. The white dog ran into the fray, barking.

Chris ran after them, Larry like a bullet once in motion. Pain forced Jess to stop at the edge of the pasture, yelling, “Lindy! Ray! Stop!”

Larry caught up to the pair in a flash, grabbing at Ray’s pant leg with his snarling sharp teeth. Lindy screamed and turned to look at Jess. “Make him stop! Please!”

Chris slowed, and turned to Jess.

“Call him off,” Jess said, crying now. “Please. Stop him.”

“Larry, off!” Chris yelled. The dog pulled up, twitchy and anxious, and Ray and Lindy began to run again. Chris turned to Jess, arms raised in question. Jess held her shoulder. Fire burned inside it, a pain unlike anything she’d felt before. Her legs and feet throbbed, her back hurt, and her chest felt ripped apart.

Chris looked from her to Ray and Lindy. Larry whined, watching the two figures in the distance. Mark and John came running from the house.

Jess started to tremble, her blood pressure dropping from pain, from shock, from all of it. She fell to her knees so she wouldn’t hit the ground face-first. Tuck and roll, she remembered from police training, but she couldn’t quite figure out how to tuck.

At the edge of the woods now, Lindy had her arm wrapped around Ray’s waist, supporting him. She turned to look at Jess one last time as they moved into shade, then disappeared into the trees. Straight above them, a thunderous noise and mighty wind swayed the boughs and branches. The helicopter that Jess and Chris had seen at the gas station flew directly over where Ray and Lindy were now hidden among trees, but kept advancing toward the farm. Those on board hadn’t seen the escape, only its aftermath: three men and two dogs in the middle of a pasture, a woman slowly sinking to the earth.

 

 

 

The MAN In the OPEN bay door of the chopper filmed the fainting police officer, thinking it was probably a waste of videotape—although a tabloid might want it. His orders from the network had been to track her and the other police officer without their knowing it, but they only wanted footage of a man with a blond ponytail and beard and an adolescent girl with long dark hair. Problem was, they weren’t here; they weren’t anywhere. No one had seen them, and a lot of people were trying.

When the men below had the woman inside the house, the man asked the pilot to turn around and head back to the city.

“Giving it up?” the pilot asked in his headphones.

“Yeah, we’re never going to find them,” he said. “I don’t think they even exist. They’re phantoms.”

33

J
ess came to on Mark and John’s leather sofa, roused by three worried-looking men and the sensation of fire in her right shoulder. Her eyes filled without her knowing why exactly: the caring faces? The pain? Or the shock of watching Lindy run away, knowing she was out there somewhere with a father who was not in his right mind, and Jess had let it happen?

“I’m taking you to the ER,” Chris said. “Can you stand up yet?”

“Of course I can stand.” She pushed up with her good arm and an ocean wave plowed through her. “Uh,” she said, lying back down.

“Not so fast there, Speedy,” Chris said. “Slowly. Here, roll to your side and get your feet on the floor first.”

Nothing she did was without sharp, jarring pain in her shoulder, without dull nausea and the sense that something was grossly off-kilter in the universe that was her body. In stages, she let Chris and the others help her to her feet, walk her slowly to the truck, and tuck her inside. Even Larry knew to be careful, settling immediately between her and Chris and not moving, just looking at Jess with his melting brown eyes.