Altruist (The Altruist Series Book 1) (9 page)

I smack his arm. “I wouldn’t have made fun of you!” We sit there, smiling at one another for a moment. “Okay, maybe I would have.” We both laugh again and I open the car door and look at my house, which we have been parked in front of for about ten minutes.

I wave my forearm against the scanner that unlocks our front door and wait for it to recognize me as an inhabitant.  “Mom?” I shout, “Are you home?” I wait for a response but nothing comes. “Guess it’s just you and me, kid.” Asher shrugs. “I texted Willa before I woke you up. She should be here soon.”

Asher nods and I make my way up the stairs with him following close behind. I stop halfway down the hall, directly in front of Sophia’s bedroom. “Here, help me with this,” I say, looking towards the rope that stretches to the ceiling.

“What are we doing?” he asks, but he obliges my request without being given an answer. Together we tug on the rope, awakening the door as the collapsing staircase falls towards us.

“Come on.” I motion for him to follow as I climb the stairs to the attic. Asher reaches the top closely behind me and his gaze scans the dusty room filled with boxes of forgotten times.

“What are we doing up here?” his voice creaks. I had been trying to figure out exactly how I could get his help in this venture without giving him so much information that he freaks out and leaves.

“Asher…” I mutter. “Sit down.” He pulls up a wooden crate as I begin. “Asher, I know a lot of what I’m about to say will sound crazy, but just listen. I told you about those dreams I’ve been having, and you know how you said you thought it was my subconscious trying to work out something in the best way it knew how to?” He nods. “Well I think you’re right—”

“They haven’t stopped?”

“No, actually they’ve become a lot more frequent,” I admit and Asher’s brow sinks in concentration.

The sound of shoes on the wooden staircase fills the dusty attic air and a second later Willa appears, clearly disgruntled about the location of our Fall Break hangout spot. “One of you help me across these beams, and one of you explain why we’re here.” Her eyes dart toward us and, though clearly irritated, she smiles in a way that tells me
of course this is how we’re choosing to spend our much deserved break
.

“Cate was just saying how she’s been having those nightmares a lot a more frequently.”

“That’s just it…” My eyes meet his and then hers. “I’m not convinced they’re nightmares anymore. They’re too real, too filled with detail—things that shouldn’t matter really or even be created if it were just a bad dream.”

“What are you saying?” Willa’s voice seems suddenly serious.

“I don’t know, I really don’t. All I do know is that I have this gut feeling that the dreams, that box my dad found up here, Abel and his family…” I take a deep breath as if not only preparing myself but them as well. “I think they’re all connected in some way.”

“Whoa, wait, what? Why do you think that? I swear, Cate, you and him get in one disagreement or something and now all of a sudden the conspiracies are flying.” She stands up and walks over to the window, but before reaching it she turns and heads straight towards me. “Okay, I need you to help me understand why you’re thinking this, because honestly, they seem like a bunch of weird coincidences and I would much rather be spending my time at the lake than up here.”

“I said I don’t know, Wills! I’m trying to make sense of it just like you are. It’s just the dreams are changing, their focus isn’t always me dying anymore, and, okay, well that box Dad gave me, you know how it has that triangular symbol on it?” She stares back at me, waiting for my big reveal to be unimpressive. “Well that exact same symbol is on a necklace that Abel’s mom wears and, I know this will sound crazy, but it’s also marked on Abel’s back.”

“What? What do you mean ‘marked’?”

“I’m not sure, I think it’s burned into his skin or something.”

Willa sits down on the crate next to Asher, who up until now I had completely forgotten was even in the room with us. Willa nudges his side. “What do you think?”

Asher just sits there, briefly idle before pressing his hands against his knees and lifting his body so that his eyes directly meet mine. Walking over to the same window that Willa failed to reach, he pushes the shutters open and sunlight floods the room. “I think we need to find this connection.”

###

The next few days are filled with loud music and rummaging through boxes, papers and photos—photos of my parents when they were young, photos of the twins bundled in my mom’s arms as she lays in a hospital bed, pictures of their tiny faces paper clipped to their birth certificates accompanied by tiny ink footprints. I remember that day, not a ton obviously, but I do remember. I remember feeling happy, but more than that I remember feeling this great sense of pride that I was their big sister. Flipping through more photos I search for the earliest one I can find of myself, past the ones of a young me riding a bike, petting a puppy, licking an ice cream cone. I find photos from a Christmas morning when I was no more than 4, and then I find what must be the first photo that was taken of me. For a moment I’m disappointed that it’s not neatly clipped to my birth certificate like my siblings’ photos were—my father has always been such a stickler for order. In the photo, my mother is standing in front of a brick building, smiling as she holds me. Seeing her smile makes me smile and I flip the photo to see what is written on its back. My mother, nearly as meticulous as my father, has always written dates and places on the back of photographs. Turning the picture over I read:

Cate

THE MANOR

MARCH 23, 1997

That can’t be right
, I think to myself,
That’s three days after my birthday and Mom clearly doesn’t appear to have just given birth.

Just then I hear Willa call over to Asher and me. “Guys get over here.” Her body is nowhere in sight but I walk towards the general direction of her voice.

“Is it another ‘maybe mouse’ spotting? Because I am not going on another hunt for a figment of your imagin—”

“No, no, I think, I think I may have found something…” her voice trails off. As I approach her, Asher helps move some boxes out of the way so that we can sit beside her and see what she is holding onto so tightly. “Look!” she exclaims, “Look at this book, it has that triangle thing.”

I take the book from her hands and see that she’s right—in the upper left corner, made of the same grey, worn fabric as the rest of the cover, lays a small triangular symbol. Quickly I open the book, but to my dismay, I find the words, if you could call them that, impossible to understand. My expression shifts from delight to despair.

“What’s wrong?” Asher asks.

“I can’t read it. It’s not in English.” I flip eagerly through the pages, desperately searching for something I can understand. “None of it! It’s just filled with more meaningless symbols!” Anger and frustration fuel my tone. “More of the same damn nonsense!”

“Cate…” Willa says, wrapping her arm around my shoulders. “We’ll figure it out. We will, won’t we Asher?” She turns to him for assurance.

“Absolutely. And Cate, it’s not like we’ve spent all week just to come up empty handed. I mean, we found this—”

“I found this,” Willa pipes in.

Asher stares with disapproval at her poor timing, then continues, completely ignoring her statement. “And that means that this wasn’t just some crazy goose chase. I mean, think about it, why would this book with all these crazy symbols, including the most important one being on the cover, even exist? And more importantly, if it ever were to coincidentally exist, why, of all places, would it be in YOUR attic?”

I feel myself begin to calm and thoughts pass clearly through my mind again. “You’re right. We spent all this time looking for the connection, but we already had it.” They stare back at me trying to follow. “It’s the triangle, that’s the connection, the link. It’s always been, we just didn’t see it.”

“Yeah, but what does it mean?” Willa asks.

I meet both of their gazes. “I’m not sure, but I know exactly who to ask.”

###

A single 3-second beep airs through the house, and Maggie walks to the front door to find Eliath and Shoshanna patiently waiting on the front step.

“Oh, hello there…” Maggie smiles. “What brings the two of you down the hill?” She asks glancing up the winding road at the house, barely visible at this distance.

“We can finally be considered ‘moved in’ and wanted to extend an invitation to you and Emzire to come over for dinner in our newly furnished abode,” Eliath offers.

“Oh, absolutely! I would love to see what you’ve done with the place. Katie tells us it’s stunning.” Laughter bellows from inside the home and Shoshanna, standing quietly beside her husband, noticeably peers past Maggie’s shoulder. Maggie meets her gaze and explains, “My husband has a work colleague over…” Eliath and Shoshanna continue to stand there, firm and still. Maggie, not sure what they want, adds, “Would you like to come inside? I’m sure Emzire would love to see you.”

Shoshanna’s mannequin like stance suddenly comes alive at the invitation. “That would be lovely,” she says, and the three walk toward the conversation coming from the living room inside.

“So then, Adam here says, ‘Well that’s why you hired me isn’t it?’” Laughter erupts in the room but is quieted once Maggie reenters with her surprise guests.

“Adam, Miranda, I’d like to introduce you to The Cohens, Eliath and Shoshanna. They just moved into town, and their son, Abel, goes to school with Katie.”

“Oh right,” Miranda starts. “You’re the ones trying to renovate that old house on the hill.”

“Yes, it’s turned out better than we could have hoped for,” Shoshanna states sternly, clearly uncomfortable.
 

Emzire, picking up on the tension, asks Maggie into the kitchen to help him choose another bottle of wine for their guests. “Eliath, Shoshanna,” Emzire says, motioning toward the sofa. “Please sit, make yourselves at home.” Then he follows Maggie through a swinging door.

Adam walks over to the mantle, glancing at the photographs. “Nice to hear you’re settling in.  We wondered when you would make your presence known. We’ve only been in town a few weeks ourselves,” he pauses briefly, his voice is slightly higher than one would expect to accompany his tall, slender frame. Running his fingers through his dark auburn hair, he firmly presses down any hairs that have strayed, then moves his hand towards his inside coat pocket where he extracts a handkerchief. Slowly he absentmindedly begins to wipe whatever invisible residue clings to his hands, as if this is all routine. “I’m not sure if you had heard, but Emzire was gracious enough to offer me a position in his lab. We were hoping to see the two of you soon.” Adam ventures back to the chair Miranda is sitting in and places his hand on her shoulder.

“It wouldn’t have been any fun without any sort of challenge,” Miranda grins. “Yet, again.” Her voice reaches their ears in a sort of a whine, mocking The Cohens’ failed attempts. Her smile is as flawless as the rest of her structure, too perfect, as if she were made seamless on the outside as a disguise for the evil that lies within.  “Oh, how I do enjoy and good fight.”

Shoshanna stands, infuriated by the idea. “Fight? I’m sorry, when exactly was the last time you saw a good ‘fight’? Unless that is, you’re referring to when you and your pathetic husband spectated from up on a hill?”

Miranda stands to meet Shoshanna’s stare and Eliath grabs Shoshanna’s arm, restraining her from ripping the woman’s head off. Eliath, eyes fixed on Adam, softly speaks the words, “Not now, Shoshanna.”