S. Andrew Swann's Blog, page 17
September 26, 2011
Chapter Three – Part 1
"Cheer up, girl." Macy grabbed Allison by the shoulder, causing her to raise her head. She had been staring at a Butterfinger Blizzard that was slowly turning into soup.
"You aren't still upset about the party?" Macy asked. "Are you?"
Allison shook her head and tired to put a good face on it by eating some of her Blizzard. After a few bites, a subliminal throbbing behind her temples told her that Dairy Queen hadn't been the best of ideas. "Sorry I'm such a lump. I've been in a rotten mood all week."
"Why'd you think I dragged you out to the Mall on a Tuesday?"
Allison set down the melting ice-cream and looked around the food court. On the weekend it'd be filled, but right now it was half-empty. Still, there were the obligatory groups staking out their territory. Here a collection of jocks after football practice, there a collection of black-clad Emo types looking about as troubled and angsty as a Twilight movie. . .
No one she knew from Heights High, which was something of a relief. If she had her way, she'd be moping all by herself, without Macy.
"Thanks for trying." Allison's spoke past Macy, staring off toward the entrance. The sky purpled beyond the glass doors to the food court and she could just make out the neon reflected in the parked cars outside.
I don't want to be here, she thought to herself— and "here" meant more than the mall. It meant Euclid Heights, Heights High, home, everything. . .
Macy said something.
"What?" Allison asked. Her gaze remained fixed on the shadows of the parking lot.
"Would it too much to ask for you to stay on this planet?"
"I was thinking," Allison said. "What?"
"I asked you, what's up with you and David?"
Allison looked down at her hands. "Nothing. . ." She stirred the blizzard with her spoon. It was two thirds full and almost completely melted now. "Why you think there's something up?"
"The fact that he spends more time with me and Ben than he does with you?"
"I haven't been feeling all that great, okay?" Allison made a face at her Blizzard and got up to walk over to the trash cans.
Macy followed her. When Allison chucked the melted mess into the garbage Macy frowned and folded her arms. "Well that's a news flash. The Allie I know wouldn't throw away two bucks worth of Dairy Queen if things were okay."
Allison sighed. "What's between me and David isn't your business."
Macy put an arm around her. "Get real, when'd we start keeping secrets from each other?"
Allison looked up into Macy's face with the intention of telling her to bug off, but the look of concern in her face was too genuine for Allie to do it.
A boy in a pair of shredded jeans pushed past Allison and Macy to reach the trash can behind her. There were half a dozen unoccupied trash receptacles, but for some reason— probably the proximity of two girls— made him decide to use this one to dump his tray of Taco Bell wrappings.
The tray followed the wrappings into the garbage and the guy turned around. He looked at the two of them, smiled, and said, "Hey."
Macy made a disgusted sound.
Allison couldn't bring herself to say anything. He was barely a year older than her, and he had his nose, left eyebrow, and his lower lip pierced. They were just small silver rings, but the thought if it made her shudder.
"You girls wanna party?" He asked.
Next section will be up later today
Minor computer issue (me and my flash drive are not in the same place right now) so the next part of the novel will go up this evening. Apologies for the delay.
September 22, 2011
Chapter Two – Part 2
Allison raced to get to school. She was late for Mr. Counter's class and she desperately needed to deliver this history paper. She was horrendously late. When she got there, she discovered that somehow she had missed the rest of the semester and it was time for finals. She pushed into the classroom and took her seat in front of the class.
Behind the desk sat Chuck Wilson. He wore Counter's white sideburns and tweed coat, but the stare was Chuck's. Allison felt panic when she began to realize that she had been so rushed to get to school that she was only wearing a bra and panties.
"No talking during the exam," Chuck said, gaze fixed on her chest. "If I see anyone peeking, I'll kick you out. Turn your paper over when I tell you, not before."
Allison realized she was the only other one in the room. Even though the voice was Mr. Counter's, the leer was all Chuck's.
"Begin," Chuck/Counter said.
The phone rang.
Allison stirred at the sound, thankful for being drawn out of the dream. She'd reached over and grabbed the phone off the night-stand even before she was fully awake.
She raised the handset to her ear and said a muffled, "Hello?" She was talking into her pillow. She rubbed her eyes and untangled herself from her comforter. In the process she dropped the phone. She had to hunt down the handset in the dark.
Who's calling at this hour?
All she could think of was that it had to be for Mom, and after dropping the handset she'd probably made them hang up.
She saw a green glow peeking out of a wrinkle in her comforter and she fished under it until she uncovered the handset with its glowing buttons.
What'd you expect? she thought at the caller as she looked at her alarm clock. It's four in the morning in bright red glowing numbers.
Allison expected a dial-tone by now, but instead, as she raised the phone to her ear, she heard her mother saying, "— dare you call me here!"
It was for Mom.
There was a man on the other end, he was saying something like, "They're looking for someone out there—"
Allison was torn between a desire for sleep and a morbid curiosity.
"I don't care what they're doing at the Institute. That's been over for a long time. You have no right calling me here."
"Damn it. You mentioned headaches. Don't you think—"
"Good-bye."
Allison heard the phone click, and she could hear the phone slam downstairs. After a pause, a dial-tone began to sound through her phone. She unfroze and scrambled to get it back on the cradle before the line began beeping.
When she heard her mother pound up the steps she pulled the comforter over herself. She shouldn't be listening on other people's phone calls, especially her mother's.
However, with the mention of headaches, she had a sneaking suspicion that she had eavesdropped on a conversation about her. Allison couldn't make heads or tails of the possibility— other than it had ticked off her mother.
Eventually she fell back to sleep.
September 20, 2011
Chapter Two – Part 1
Chuck Wilson felt like shit. He was drunk, damp, and clutching a paper bag containing a forty‑ounce bottle of Colt 45 whose origins were lost in the fog of his memory. Worst of all, his head was throbbing again and the beer was barely able to keep the pain at bay.
He'd been wandering the empty streets of Euclid Heights since he'd left that geek, David Greenbaum's party. David-fucking-Greenbaum. The guy was a high-pitched squealing twip who wouldn't be worth the effort to grind into the pavement.
If it wasn't for the fact he was Allison Boyle's boyfriend.
"What a match."
Chuck shook his head, and the gesture ignited the pain behind his temples. He raised the bottle to his lips and found it empty.
"Fuck!"
He threw the bottle, paper bag and all, at a stop sign. The bottle shattered. Foamy glass flew everywhere, one splinter biting his cheek.
Belatedly, as the sign's gong echoed into the darkness, he looked around for cops. Fortunately, now that the bars were closed, the streets were vacant. No witnesses except for an idling van far down the street from him.
He exhaled in relief and wiped his cheek. His fingers came away beaded with blood.
No cops was good. A tangle with the Euclid Heights Gestapo was something he didn't need. He already had one DUI this year, and had managed to get his car impounded and his license suspended. The cops in this town were really into harassing him.
Now that he was eighteen, once one of the local Nazis got a hold of him he'd be in serious trouble.
"Ah, never happen."
He took a step and bumped into the stop sign.
"Boy am I fucked up," he said to no one in particular.
He staggered back, holding on to the pole. A sliver of glass ground into his middle finger.
"Shit."
He stepped back onto the sidewalk, sucking the wound.
As he stumbled down the darkened street he wondered when, exactly, his life started going to shit. It was a drunk question and it didn't really have an answer. Life and shit had been equivalent terms for as long as he could remember. . .
The headaches and what they brought had only confirmed Chuck's opinion of the universe.
In fact, if there was a God, the only break He'd given Chuck was a girl named Allison Boyle. And, like usual, that had gone balls-up with everything else. He knew four girls who'd go down on him if he just said the word— or at least bought enough beer— and the one turned out to be some uptight ice-bitch.
Chuck thought about the cooler upending and it was almost funny.
Why her?
Chuck stumbled out into the middle of the empty street and yelled at the sky, "Why her, you bastard! Haven't you fucked enough with my head?" His words drifted skyward on a wisp of fog. Above him, a single stoplight flashed on and off, rocking gently on the wind.
I'm asking to get busted, ain't I?
Chuck looked around for cops again. All he saw was empty houses and empty streets. No cars were left on the curb. Euclid Heights ticketed them after three in the morning.
As he glanced around, one of the streetlights fractured into concentric rainbows. He felt a spike drive into his forebrain-
«breathing, heavy rapid breathing.»
Chuck grabbed his temples to try and force the thoughts back.
«warmth. sheets damp with sweat and fresh semen.»
"I don't want to know," he whispered.
«gut hanging over milk-white thighs. slack penis in a bony hand. sense of exhaustion. magazine slipping from left hand.»
Chuck wanted to throw up.
The beer was a refuge, but sometimes it played traitor, making it hard to push such alien thoughts back. Even as he managed to push the other mind out of his own, he knew where it came from. It was a lit window, shades drawn, across the street from him.
Before he'd gathered the pieces of his brain back together, a pickup, the back filled with kids, blared its horn and swerved around him, barely slowing. Chuck jumped back as someone tossed an empty can at him.
He gave the finger to its shrinking taillights. "Shit-eating fuckheads!"
Chuck wanted to gut one of the motherfuckers. Cut one of those fuckheads bad—
He realized that the middle-aged jerk-off was out of his head. Chuck breathed a sigh of relief. That had been a bad one. So bad that it left a sour taste in his mouth. He found himself rubbing his hands on his pants, as if he could wipe away the memory of. . .
"Ignore it," he mumbled. "Forget it. Go home. Sleep it off."
Chuck stumbled off, down the street. He had long ago figured he had gone a little nuts. Voices in your head; that was a sure sign you were psycho. The voices had been in Chuck's skull ever since he was thirteen— nasty, ugly, voices.
Worse than the voices was the fact that Chuck had to believe them. They were always right. And anyone who thought he could see into someone else's melon was a candidate for the nut factory. He'd been trying to shut out the images for years now, and the effort was turning him into a drunk and a half-assed junkie.
In all the time since other minds had began forcing their way into his own, he had found only one reliable way to shut them out. Somehow, for some reason, when he hung around Allison Boyle, the voices shut up.
And she had to be a stuck-up bitch—
Well, she wasn't going to be rid of him that easily.
Chuck staggered home. He was too drunk to notice the van following him.
September 19, 2011
Chapter One – Part 3
When Allison left the bathroom she saw someone had posted a note on the door. It read "Do not disturb," and had a crude cartoon of a cat with its head in a toilet. Allison ripped it off the door and crumpled it up. She would never hear the end of this. She never should have come to this party.
She hoped Macy hadn't left without her. She didn't want to walk home the way she was dressed.
Allison caught up with Macy, next to the nachos in the living-room. Most of the party seemed to have gone, the food mostly untouched.
"Where is everybody?" she asked Macy.
Macy turned around, looking surprised. "Allie, where've you—"
"Bathroom."
"I thought you left. What'd you do, fall in?"
Allison sighed.
"How you feel?" Macy asked.
"Better, I think. I want to go home and lie down."
"Sure thing. Let me get my coat—"
Allison looked at the uneaten food. "What happened to the party?"
Macy shrugged. "I'm not quite sure. Apparently a table full of food upended about the time I was helping you upstairs—"
Allison nodded. She could picture David's reaction, especially now that she saw all the stains on the carpet. The whole costume party was beginning to seem like a less than great idea all around. "Where's David? I should say good-bye."
"I think he's sulking in the kitchen. Is your coat in the bedroom?"
She tossed Macy her nose. "Yeah, and would you put this in my purse?"
"Ah— sure." Macy wrinkled her nose at the blue-stained toilet paper and said, "I ain't even going to ask."
Allison shook her head and started for the kitchen. There were still some people left, chatting quietly. Presumably they were uninvolved with the table incident.
Poor David.
He didn't deserve to have his party collapse around him, even if he could be, at times, what Macy unkindly referred to as a "prime-quality wuss."
She sighed. She didn't like thinking badly about David.
She was weaving past a sheeted ghost, toward the kitchen, when an arm appeared to block her way. She was brought up short and turned to see Chuck Wilson grinning at her.
Oh God.
"Hya, sweetcakes. Wondering where you went to."
Instinctively, she backed away and hugged her arms to herself. Chuck had managed to slip between her and everyone else. His jeans were rolled up over combat boots. He wore a wide leather belt with a brass Marlboro buckle. Hanging off the belt was a chain for his wallet and a sheath for a buck knife. He wore a red flannel lumberjack shirt that was rolled up to the elbows. He chugged the can he held in the hand that wasn't blocking her way.
"Don't want to miss you without a hello."
"Sure," she said. She tried not to appear frightened, even though she knew it was futile. The best she could do was look him in the eyes, and even that felt as if she had to fight invisible weights chained to her neck. "You've said hello."
He was only a foot away from her. She could smell beer and sweat. No one else seemed to notice them. There could have been a half-dozen people in the dining room, but she still felt terribly alone.
Don't let him touch me. Please, don't let him touch me.
Chuck had her cornered by the cooler. She could've ducked under his arm, but that would have meant brushing by him, in a leotard that felt more and more like it was only painted on.
"Come on, sweetcakes. You gotta know I like you."
Please go away.
Chuck bent to get another can out of the cooler. He had to reach across her, backing her into the corner. Allison was on the verge of panicking. Chuck's right hand was on the door frame in front of her, his other was reaching around behind her. Her back was pressed to the wall, and she felt a light switch digging between her shoulder blades. His face couldn't be more than three or four inches from her own. His breath smelled of alcohol.
"You don't know how special you are, sweetcakes."
She could feel his hand rummaging in the cooler. The plastic jostled against her thigh and she felt drops of water splashing against her leg.
"We should get to know each other—"
Chuck was moving his right hand, away from the door frame. She didn't know if he was going use it to touch her hair, grab her shoulder, or help him fish for beer— but it gave her an opening.
As she ducked around Chuck, her back brushed the light switch and the lights in the dining room went out. Someone on the far side of the room distinctly said, "shit," as he tripped over something.
"Where you going?" Chuck said.
Allison felt a tug on the tail of her costume. It felt like the fabric was tied directly to her heart. For a moment she couldn't breathe. She stood there, frozen, until she felt something brush the lower curve of her behind.
The feeling, knowing it was Chuck's hand, made her want to vomit. Pain flowered behind her eyes again, and she could almost see his hand. She screwed her eyes shut and tried to pull away, and this time it felt that the tail was tied directly to the middle of her brain. When she heard it tear, it almost felt as if it was her spinal cord, and not the fabric, that gave way.
However, the fabric was what gave way, and suddenly she was free and in a stumbling run toward the living room.
She turned to face the dining room in time to see someone turn on the lights. Chuck was on the floor. The cooler had upended, drenching him with gallons worth of melted ice and broken beer bottles. In his left hand he held the remains of her costume's tail, as well as about two square feet of her leotard.
She felt a breeze behind her, and her face began to heat up.
She backed away from the scene, grateful that Chuck was the center of attention. She kept backing until she bumped into Macy descending the stairs.
"What the hell happened?" Macy asked.
They were out of sight of the dining room now, but she could hear Chuck yelling, David yelling, everyone else laughing. Her cheeks burned hotter, and she realized that she was crying uncontrollably.
Allison took her jacket from Macy and wrapped it around her waist to cover the hole in the rear of her leotard.
"Allie?"
Allison wiped her eyes and said, "I want to go home."
September 15, 2011
Chapter One – Part 2
Dimly, Allison heard Macy yelling, "Make way, make way— the lady's going to hurl. Move it. Move it."
Macy maneuvered her up the stairs, through a crowd of costumed teenagers. Witches, vampires, spacemen and soldiers blurred into an amorphous mass of sound and color. Allison still had enough mind left for her to be embarrassed at the scene she was making. Then the pain flared again and all she could concentrate on was not falling over.
She barely noticed the crashing sounds behind her.
Macy got her to the bathroom and knelt her over the toilet. Allison blinked at the blue water in the bowl. It rippled into colors that made her eyes hurt as badly as her head. "Alone," she managed to say.
Her nose— whiskers and all— fell into the toilet, splashing blue drops on her face.
"Girl, I don't think—"
"Please. Leave." It took all of Allison's breath to say those two words.
After an eternal pause she heard Macy back up and the door close.
She started hyperventilating into the toilet— deep gasping breaths. She tried to clamp down on the pain by force of will.
She pulled herself upright, one hand clamped on the sink. She swayed and almost fell over. With a shaking hand she pulled open the medicine cabinet, spilling a bag of cotton balls, an open box of Q-tips, and a plastic cup filled with Band-Aids.
She cursed David's parents as she knocked aside antacids, prescription bottles, bunion pads, cough medicine—
Aspirin, Advil, Tylenol, Motrin— please, something.
She managed to find a bottle of generic headache medicine behind a bottle of Peptol Bismol. The Peptol Bismol fell into the sink as she tried to fumble open the child-proof cap on the aspirin.
She accidentally ate part of the cotton batting as she dry-swallowed a handful of pills.
She gagged and sat down on the tile floor. The pain made her dizzy. She leaned her back against the door and closed her eyes. Red flashes shot across the inside of her eyelids in time to her pulse. After a while, she heard a knock on the door.
"How you doing in there, girl?"
"Fine, Macy." Allison spoke while moving as little as possible.
"No 911?"
"No. Go watch Ben put something through his nose."
"You'll be all right?"
"I'll survive. Join the party."
It was a few moments before she heard Macy's steps recede down the stairs. The pain slowly became bearable. That's how she dealt with the headaches; sit still, breathe, wait for the painkiller to kick in.
At least their frequency was diminishing.
She didn't know what was worse, the headaches or Chuck. Both were responsible for her godawful attendance during the start of the school year. Both were something that she wouldn't be able to make anyone understand. She'd been to the doctor twice for these headaches and— supposedly— nothing was wrong.
Her mother thought that the headaches had been psychosomatic, some sort of stress, something that showed that Allison couldn't deal with school.
Something like Chuck.
Allison wouldn't admit that.
That was why she couldn't talk to her mom about Chuck. It would be an admission to her mother that she couldn't handle herself. She never again wanted to hear the condescending tone she'd heard from her mother after the second visit to the doctor, "What's the real problem?"
The question made Allison want to scream.
Since then, Allison had kept her headaches to herself, spending too much of her allowance on Tylenol, Advil, Motrin, even Midol. Unfortunately, that meant over two months she had collected over a dozen unexcused absences on her record that Mom didn't know about. Her teachers, according to school policy, had the right to flunk her for that alone.
Allison still didn't know what she was going to do when report cards came out. Her mother would freak.
"The doctor didn't find anything wrong," Allison said, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Allison sat in David's bathroom long enough to tell four people to go away. None of them was David. Allison didn't know whether or not she was grateful for that. She didn't want to admit that her feelings toward David were changing. They'd been together since they'd started high school. But in the last two years she'd changed, and David had stayed David.
I don't need to be thinking about this.
Allison opened her eyes and found that the light in the bathroom wasn't painful any more. As she pulled herself upright, she saw the mess she'd made of David's parents' bathroom and felt deeply guilty. Band-Aids and Q-tips had scattered all over the floor. Bottles filled the sink and spilled on the ground. Worst was the Peptol Bismol, which had opened to splash thick pink liquid over the sink, mirror, and wall. She looked down on herself and was surprised to find that nothing had splattered her costume.
She pushed the fading headache from her mind as she did her best to repair the damage she'd wrought. Cleaning the mess ended up being easier than figuring out how all this stuff had fit in the medicine cabinet in the first place. She ended by tossing out the Q-tips and the nearly-empty Peptol Bismol bottle to make room for everything else.
She hoped David's parents wouldn't notice.
She finished by cleaning herself up.
Between losing the nose, blue water stains, and smudging from the palm of her hand, she had to wash off the makeup on her face. It took a while to remove the black and yellow stripes. In the end, all that was left of her costume above the neck was a pair of black ears peaking out from her blond hair.
There were red rims around her eyes, but it didn't look like she'd been crying.
She grimaced and fished her nose out of the toilet. She wrapped it in toilet paper and promised herself that she'd disinfect the thing before Halloween came around.
She opened the door and peeked outside. The party was still going on downstairs. She could hear it. It sounded like a lot fewer people though. She caught a glimpse of a clock through a bedroom door. It read eleven-thirty.
I was in there two hours?
"Time flies when you're having fun," she muttered.
September 13, 2011
Chapter One – Part 1
"Please, David. Do something about him." Allison Boyle spoke in a harsh whisper. She hated the pleading sound in her own voice. It had been nearly an hour since Chuck Wilson had crashed the party and it had taken that long for Allison to work up the courage to talk to David.
"Allie," David's voice had a nasal whine to it which was only made worse by the art-deco Darth Vader mask he wore. "I really don't want to start a scene with the guy."
"It's your party," Allison lowered her voice even further, because she saw Chuck weaving in from the kitchen. He was hard to miss. He was at least a year older than everyone else, and wasn't wearing even an attempt at a costume. "You didn't even invite him."
"People show up." David lowered his own voice to a point that was barely audible. "Allie, my folks don't know about the party. If I just ask him to leave. . ." David glanced over his shoulder. Chuck stood by the rear wall of the dining room. He had an arm up to the elbow in the cooler sitting there. He fished out a can of beer, grimaced at the label, and opened it anyway.
". . . he hasn't disrupted anything." David finished.
"He's disrupting me."
"Has he done anything—" David made a helpless gesture with his hand, rustling the black cape he wore. "Anything?" He repeated uncertainly.
Allison wrung the tail of her costume in her hands. "No," she said. Nothing real. "But he scares me."
David exhaled. He sounded relieved. "At times he scares me, too. But he's behaving himself. If I start something with him—" David shook his head. "I know the police would get
involved. If he didn't kill me, my parents would."
Allison nodded and backed away. "I understand," she said.
As usual, David's chivalrous instincts hit him a little belatedly. "Allie, if you really want me to—"
"Never mind."
"If he does start up—"
"Yeah, sure. Thanks, David." Allison backed into the living-room, still wringing her tail.
Why did Chuck have to show up?
She found a safe corner to back into so she could watch everyone else enjoy themselves. She'd been looking forward to this party for weeks. However, right now, she wanted to be anywhere else. Another house, another city, another planet. All because of Chuck Wilson.
She hugged herself and shivered.
She felt disgusted with herself. Chuck had never even done anything to her. Nothing real. Nothing anyone would understand. He had a perfect right to hang around the school yard,
right? If she saw him in the corner of McDonald's or at a movie theater, that was just coincidence, right? There was no rule that said he had to use a different mall.
Whenever she caught him staring at her, she felt hideously naked, but she couldn't get someone arrested for staring at her.
Calm down Allie, she thought to herself, you're going to freak out and give yourself a migraine. If it bothers you that much, you can just leave.
She shook her head. That would be giving in, and she didn't like giving in. She hadn't given in to the headaches, and she wasn't going to give in to Chuck. Besides, she had spent too much time on her tiger costume— even though the leotard that made up most of it made her feel even more naked around Chuck.
Someone tapped her shoulder and she jumped, knocking her fake nose and whiskers askew.
A tall, black Princess Leia looked down on her and asked, "Cat got your tongue?"
"Very funny, Macy." Allison dropped the tail of her costume to straighten her nose. She looked up at Macy, a fair distance since Macy was probably the tallest girl in the entire sophomore class of Euclid Heights High School. "You nearly scared the fur off of me."
"That'd be a show."
"Ha. Ha."
"So why're you wedged in a corner instead of joining the party? You missed Ben putting some candy corn and a can of beer through his nose—"
"I'm not in the mood, Macy."
"Chuck?"
Allison nodded.
"He didn't do—"
Allison put her hand to her forehead and tried to push back the throbbing she felt there. "No. He didn't do anything."
Macy stepped back at Allison's tone. "Sorry."
Allison shook her head. "It isn't your fault." She sighed. "I just got through talking to David."
"Ah-ha."
Allison looked up. "Ah-ha, what?"
"Nothing—"
"You meant something by that."
"Chill, girl." Macy backed up, holding up her hands and smiling.
"Yeah," Allison nodded violently. "You should talk. You go with a guy who puts corn through his nose. Why I—" Allison's voice trailed off with a strangled gurgle.
"Allie?"
Allison felt her breath knocked out by the headache even before the pain hit her. She managed to whisper, "All. . . right," before the first wave of agony ground into her temples. Then her
eyes watered, and colored rings began sprouting from every light source in her field of vision.
"Like hell," Macy said.
Allison could feel an arm groping for her and she grabbed it. "Bathroom," she managed to whisper.
The headache was a hot iron band strapped over her skull, squeezing in time to her pulse. Even as the fire in her skull made her cry, she thanked God that it wasn't one of the bad ones.
September 11, 2011
Prologue – Part 4 – Six Years Ago
"Miss Jessica Mason?"
She turned around, expecting to see a uniform— police, paramedic, or firefighter. But the man talking to her wasn't any of those, at least not to look at him. He was stocky, in his late forties, or early fifties; older than her father. He was balding, and what hair he had was slate gray. The expensive suit he wore had been marred by standing in the snow too long. Abstract salt stains rippled across the legs of his trousers and the lower edge of the black trench-coat he wore. His tie pin was a golden bald eagle.
To Jessica, the eagle looked as if it had been caught in the midst of diving after some small mammal.
"Miss Mason?"
"Who are you?" Jessica asked. They were the first words she'd spoken since her father's clothes had ignited. It made her realize that her mouth tasted like smoke.
The man flipped out his wallet to show her an official-looking ID. "Special Agent Fred Jackson, ASI."
The initials meant nothing to Jessica, and Agent Jackson only held out the ID long enough for her to see his picture and catch the fact that ASI stood for "Agency for. . ." something or other.
As far as Jessica was concerned, that meant this guy was a cop. She felt an urge to run, but there were cops and firemen all over the place. There was really no place to run to. She realized that she wanted to be caught. She had freed herself from her father, permanently, but she had also destroyed her home, and her life, in the process. Her mother was dead, and she had no relatives to turn to.
She looked up at Agent Jackson. He was smiling, trying to project a reassuring manner. In it she thought she saw a hint of the same false sincerity that her dad projected when he wanted something from her.
It took Jessica a few moments to remind herself that her father was dead. She nodded at Agent Jackson because she didn't trust herself to talk.
Agent Jackson obviously knew who she was. He'd probably been watching her watch the fire for a long time. "I'm sorry to come to you at a time like this," Agent Jackson said.
For some reason, that struck Jessica as funny. As if there was any other reason to talk to her. She wasn't anything. The only fact that made her part-way noticeable was the fact she'd torched her only parent and the house she'd lived in. Barely enough to make the news.
Jessica shivered and felt her eyes watering.
"I'm here to help you," he said.
"Yeah right," Jessica responded, sniffing. She was long past anyone's help. If anyone had ever bothered to help her, her father might still be alive. She didn't want any help.
"We want to help you understand what happened here."
Not a cop, a damn social worker. She tried to fix him with a withering glare. The effect was ruined by the tears streaming down her cheeks. "I know why. I just think of daddy and I know why."
Jessica realized, belatedly, that she had just made an indirect admission of arson. She also realized that she didn't care. Agent Jackson, however, looked unsurprised at her outburst. Either he was too dense to read between the lines, or he already knew what Jessica had done. Jessica looked at him and suspected the latter, even though there was no possible way he could have known.
"You know why," Agent Jackson said. "Do you know how?"
Jessica opened her mouth, but no words came out. It wasn't the question she expected. It was also a question to which she had no answer. She remembered her anger. She remembered Daddy's clothing sprouting a dozen jets of flame. She could remember that she had done it—
But she didn't remember what she had done. Her own memory of what happened didn't make any sense. She knew she had set him on fire, but she didn't remember touching him, or even so much as lighting a match.
The fact that this stranger saw so deeply into her own confusion was terrifying.
"We want to help you, Jessica. We know what you're going through."
Jessica was frightened, but she also had an intense desire to understand what this man was offering. The fact he knew so much scared her. But it also meant he probably knew more than she did. She had done something to her father. She was just beginning to understand that it might not have been anything simple or mundane. She had watched her house explode into an inferno in a matter of minutes. She had watched the walls of the living-room spontaneously erupt into rippling sheets of flame.
Maybe understanding exactly what happened was the only way she could prevent it in the future. She looked at the smoking ruin of the house, remembering the power of the flames that had reduced everything to ash.
Maybe understanding exactly what happened would be the only way she could do it again.
Jessica looked up at Agent Jackson. "What do you want?" she asked.
September 8, 2011
Prologue – Part 3 – Six Years Ago
Jessica Mason watched her house burn. The sight rooted her to the spot even though she knew she should run. She only moved when pushed aside by firemen and gawking spectators. The crowd gradually pushed her away from her house until she stood in the snow and could barely feel the heat from the blaze.
She felt invisible. No one knew her. No one connected her to the burning house. If her neighbors knew her or cared about her at all, it was only as a hysterical voice they heard in the night. They probably knew her father, but not her.
No one knew her, no one cared for her, and her father had been the first part of the house to burn. That was probably why she felt safe standing here. That, and the fire had its own power, power to hold her.
She faced a scene of terrifying, potent beauty. The house formed the center of invisible sphere that had folded in from another world. Inside the circle of spectators and fire trucks, the world upended. The blue-gray of snow and moonlight changed into the red-yellow of mirrors and flame. Water coated every surface with ice. Neighboring clapboards, the sidewalk, a telephone pole, all had turned into refracting mirrors. Every icicle held a flame in its heart.
By the time her head had ceased throbbing enough for her to understand what she was seeing, her house was unrecognizable. The walls, where they were still visible through the flames, were black. In less than ten minutes, the house where she had lived for all thirteen years of her life had faded to nothing more than a shadow. And that shadow formed the only barrier between the real world and a force from another universe, a force that Jessica had unleashed.
I did that, she thought.
The pain in her skull confused her thoughts and made her memory of what happened indistinct and hazy. Too much had happened. All she could clearly remember was the fire embracing her father. She remembered him falling to the couch, igniting it. She remembered him calling desperately for help before the fire sucked the air out of his lungs and turned his skin black.
She remembered the same fire burning inside of her brain.
Jessica remembered thinking of all the times in this house that she had called for help, and no one answered. Then the peeling wallpaper had erupted into sheets of fire, and she ran.
As her mental fires receded, the house dissolved. The windows on the top floor were first, folding into the rolling fire with a majestic slowness. The collapse released a million embers to spiral into the sky like negative snowflakes, like something finally set free. . .
That's me, Jessica thought. Free.
Jessica kept watching the fire. She watched well past the point of the fire's death. By the time the flames were gone, and the crowd was reduced to firefighters and police, she was left hugging herself in the cold, waiting to be arrested.
She was paralyzed. Even more so than when her father had come home and the pain had begun in her skull. It was ridiculous. She was finally free of her father, and she couldn't
move. She couldn't even decide between turning herself in to the cops, or just running away into the night.
Now that the crowd was gone, it shouldn't take long for them to figure out that the redheaded teenager with no jacket had something to do with the fire. Jessica hugged herself and shivered.
I don't regret it, she thought. If the cops pick me up, I'll tell them exactly what I did. . .
If I can remember what I did.
After her house had become little more than a heaped pile of smoking ash, rejoining the night-gray world, she felt a hand on her shoulder.
September 6, 2011
Prologue – Part 2 – Eleven Years Ago
Mommy came in and picked Allison up, hushing her. Allison cried into Mommy's shoulder and things spun around to fast for her to understand. Mommy carried her and before Allison knew what was happening, she was out in the cold night air in her pajamas, and Mommy was buckling her into her booster seat in the car.
"No. I don't want to—" but Mommy moved too fast for Allison to make her understand. One moment she was buckling her in, the next Allison was alone in the back seat listening to Mommy throwing things in the trunk.
The inside of the car was packed with stuff too, boxes and suitcases. The box next to Allison's seat was open and on top was the long white coat that Mommy sometimes wore home from work, Allison knew that because a badge with Mommy's face was clipped to the pocket in front, it had a green border and had a lot of words on it Allison couldn't read— though she knew that the big letters P, R, I, was where Mommy worked, and where Daddy worked too. Daddy had a badge too, a red bordered one that clipped to his black uniform.
That made Allison start thinking. She didn't understand what her parents were arguing about, but Daddy had said something about losing his job.
The trunk slammed shut behind her and Allsion heard Daddy's voice, "Don't do this, Carol."
What if it was something Allison had done? Mommy had told her over and over that she was never to talk to anyone about where she lived or who she lived with, not even a policeman. Allison was never to tell anyone who her Daddy was. All Allison was ever supposed to give anyone was Mommy's name and phone number.
Mommy had said very gravely that both Mommy and Daddy could lose their jobs if Allison told. Had she said something wrong to someone? Allison couldn't remember. Did she say something in kindergarten?
"No, I didn't. I didn't."
Mommy was by the driver's door, and Daddy had grabbed her arm.
"Let go of me," she said.
"I didn't plan things like this."
"Did they?"
"What?"
"'Did they?' Did Stone and his cronies at Prometheus encourage you to shack up with me?"
Daddy let Mommy go, looking as if someone had just hit him. "Is that what you think?"
"It's what they do, isn't it? A standing bounty for names on their list?"
"Yes but that's—"
"Your name's on the list, John. You didn't tell me."
"You'd never understand. You've never liked that part of PRI. If I told you. . . Just like you're looking at me now, like
I'm some sort of botched experiment."
"I thought you only cared about company policy—"
"If we got married one of us would have to quit."
"—but what you cared about was the bounty."
"That's not it."
Mommy opened the door and slid into the driver's seat. She started the engine, but Daddy grabbed the door before she pulled it shut. "You know that's not it."
Mommy sounded very sad when she said, "I know. My name's on the list too."
"No, you can't be. I checked."
"I have more than one name, John. I'm listed under one of my foster families."
Everything became silent except for the sound of the engine. Daddy looked as scared as Allison felt, and that made her even more scared.
"You honestly didn't know, did you?" Mommy said. She pulled the door shut, leaving Daddy standing in the driveway staring at them as if he didn't see anything at all. He didn't say anything, didn't move, as the car pulled away. Allison tried to turn her head to see him as they left, but the booster seat kept her from looking out the back.
"Daddy," she sobbed.
"Shh," Mommy said from the driver's seat. "It will be okay, honey."
"I'm sorry!"
"Allie?"
"I take it back. I didn't mean to tell anyone."
"No, this isn't your fault."
"I don't want to leave."
"I know. I don't want to leave either."
"Then why?" Allison dragged out the last syllable until she was out of breath.
"I don't have a choice, because of who Daddy is, who I am, who you are. I want you to be safe, and you can't be safe here."
"It's okay. I won't tell anyone. I'll stay in my room."
"Allison, it really isn't you. Even if I turned back, once Daddy has a chance to think about what I told him, he'd send us away
himself."
"He wouldn't."
"He loves you, and he doesn't want you ending up like the other kids at Prometheus any more than I do." Mommy tried to sound cheerful, but Allison could hear her heart breaking. "Maybe when we're settled, we can figure out a way Daddy can come and join us. He just can't right now."
"Why?"
"Someone has to cover our tracks."
