Beyond (31 page)

He had his arms around her and she caved against him with gulping sobs. She could smell him. The musky aftershave had not changed. The faint mechanical tang of the plant still clung to his clothes. She drank in that scent like it was the finest perfume in the world.

“Aimee,” her mother howled and Tom reached for her, bringing them into a tight family hug.

A short while later Aimee stared across the kitchen table at the dazed expressions on her parents’ faces. Her mother’s trembling hands were wrapped around a coffee mug. Her father kept rubbing his face as if to clear his vision.

“What happened, Aim? We had police—so many police.” He spread his hands. “And when they failed we had private investigators.”

“I—” Images of that day flooded her head.
The walk with Ziggy.
The eeriness of the woods.
The sensation of being paralyzed…and then her hands, disappearing before her eyes.

“I took Ziggy for a walk out into the woods.”

“You were always afraid of those woods,” Jennifer mentioned without speaking to anyone in particular.

“Someone grabbed me.” Aimee improvised.
Was it not true? Was she not abducted?

“Dammit.” Tom’s fist pounded the table hard enough to make Jennifer jump.
“I knew it. Who Aimee?
Who?”
His head shook in woe. “I always suspected it was someone from my company.
Extortion.
I kept waiting for a ransom call.”

She felt so bad for the trauma her parents had been through. But would telling them the truth ease their souls, or just damage them all the more? If she were to share her tale she would earn a one-way ticket to a psychiatric ward.

“I never saw them. They put something over my face, and then they hit my head, and I don’t know, maybe they drugged me as well…but I seriously don’t
remember much of what happened, and I didn’t remember where I lived for the longest time. I couldn’t remember my home.”

It was a lame explanation, but the intensity on her father’s face indicated that he believed her.

Having already been fed up by the way the authorities wrote the case off as “just another teenage girl running away” her father was reluctant to even notify the police that she had returned home. After much debate, Jennifer finally convinced them it was the right thing to do. But they would do it tomorrow. Tonight was about celebrating this reunion.

They spent the evening at the kitchen table with her parent's relaying the events of the past five years.
Aimee took the news pretty hard that Ziggy had passed away two years after she disappeared. Every night for those two years, Ziggy tried to escape out the back door and charge to the pond.

From behind a Campbell’s coffee mug, Aimee discreetly studied her mother. Full lips that once opened into a smile capable of winning the world over were now flanked by pronounced grooves. Mischievous
blue-green eyes had become tepid. Fingernails that had always been painted were now
neutral. The fingers trembled as she handed over a plate of donuts. This was not the same woman Aimee had known five years ago. Jennifer no longer talked over her husband and instead, deferred to him. It hurt Aimee to see that. That wasn’t her mom.

But somewhere under this veil of angst a spark had ignited. It started with a furtive smile when Tom recited the saga of the neighbors' chickens getting loose. It was followed by a snorting laugh at the physical description of the first policeman to arrive at their house.

All this time Jennifer kept finding reasons to connect with Aimee’s hand. With each touch, Jennifer’s spark grew brighter. It finally registered with her that her daughter was at her side.

When the clock struck 2am and yawns replaced conversation, Aimee's parents accompanied her upstairs. It was not surprising to find that her room remained untouched. Her old laptop still sat on the white wicker desk. Framed photographs of the pond and Ziggy hung on the wall. Photographs Aimee herself had taken when she aspired to be a photographer. A band program was taped to the closet door and Carrie's pink knit sweater was still folded over the back of her desk chair. Sheesh, her folks could have at least returned it!

The heavy down bedspread on the twin bed looked so appealing, as well the oscillating fan mounted on the window sill. The room was perfect...but it was also the room of a girl. With remorse, Aimee realized she had outgrown it.

"Are you going to be okay here?" Jennifer stepped up behind her and gently rested her hands on Aimee's shoulders.

Aimee spun around and gave her a tight hug, which Jennifer returned along with a sob. Tom joined the embrace.

"I'll be fine," Aimee assured with a smile. "We'll talk more in the morning. You guys need some sleep."

"You're lucky that's a twin bed," Jennifer declared. "Or I would be laying there beside you tonight."

Aimee smiled. "That wouldn't be so bad, Mom."

***

Alone, Aimee sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed with the comforter wrapped around her legs. Staring out the window, she listened to the haunting jingle of wind chimes on the back porch. The backyard was lost under the cloak of night, but the sky...the sky was alive with flickering symbols of distant worlds. Aimee strained to recognize any of the celestial bodies, but they were too far away.

She reached into her tee-shirt and clutched the pendant. Her mother had been eyeing it curiously, but refrained from asking where it came from.

Aimee rubbed the smooth material between her thumb and pointer finger.

Zak.

She stared into that night sky.

Was he okay?

How much time had passed?

For as much as it was a relief to be home and reveling in her parent's warmth, Aimee knew her heart still lingered somewhere beyond the night.

Five years later...

Come back to me, Aimee.

Aimee jerked awake. In that netherworld between sleep and morning, exotic golden eyes watched her from the dark. Usually she resisted stirring so that she could linger with him in her dreams for a little bit longer.
But today was different. Today she was up and alert. She squinted at the bedside clock in her apartment to confirm the date was really here. The magnitude of that notion produced a bout of
nausea.

In the past five years, she had fulfilled her goals. She obtained her five-year industrial engineering degree and was hired immediately by her father's competitor, a car manufacturer that was impressed with her futuristic design concepts. She moved into this south Charlotte apartment eight months ago and she passed through her daily routine, trying to hone in on her engineering skills.

Five years was a long time. She had to be fair to herself and see if there was someone on this planet that might affect her the way that Zak did, but any dates she attempted fell pathetically flat. It was hard to manage a date when the pendant burned a promise against her flesh. As a result she never had a boyfriend and focused solely on her studies.

Her parents had finally healed, and with her off at college they learned to enjoy life together. Even now they were away on a cruise in the Caribbean. The last time she was over their house, she had sat on the back deck with her mother and revealed that she
remembered
more from those missing years. She told her mother that she recalled meeting someone—someone that she’d like to one day
see
again.

Jennifer had probed relentlessly for more information, but Aimee left it at that. Instead, she composed the letter that now sat on the kitchen table for them to discover when they returned. In the letter, she explained that she had to find that missing love. She told them not to cry, and not to search for her. She would be safe and she would see them again one day. They would grieve, but nowhere to the extent of the first time. And nowadays, their bond was stronger than ever. In her letter, she assured them that she loved them, but it was time to fill a gap that the journey of five years ago had created.

***

Aimee showered and pulled on her jeans along with a red and white NC State tee-shirt. With her fist, she rubbed a circle in the steamed mirror and stared at her reflection. Her auburn hair was sleek and long now. She grabbed a scrunchy and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. Long black lashes framed wise
cerulean
eyes. So far she had gotten by without needing glasses, but she still squinted a lot. She had not grown any taller than the five foot seven she had achieved at seventeen, but her body was much more toned from five years of track and field practice.

Aimee dipped into her tee-shirt and watched in the mirror as the pendant flashed like a sparkler on New Year's Eve.

Turning away from the reflection, she grabbed her purse off of the kitchen counter, smiling at the Tak wand secreted behind the cookie jar. With one last
glance cast around the sparsely furnished apartment, she acknowledged that this place was not home. She would not miss it.

Aimee used the light rail and a bus to get to her parent's house. She didn't want to just leave her Jetta in their driveway and alarm them all the more. At the foot of the stairs to the back porch she snapped off a twig of honeysuckle and laid it across the letter on the kitchen table. She glanced up at the butcher-block clock. It was almost noon. She had to hurry.

It was insufferably hot and humid outside. Gnats danced around her head as she hiked the muddy banks of the pond. Over the years, ragweed and tree roots had changed the terrain making it impossible for her father to attack the area with the tractor. He left it to overgrow. Aimee believed it was his subconscious intention to create a barrier.
Do not pass this point.

She cleared the pond and entered the dark realm of the woods on the other side. Immediately, the temperature decreased. The trees had grown so much that not even a flash of sun filtered through their dense limbs. The strange cessation of sound still unsettled her. She had not been back here since the day she left the Horus. That first year she had been tempted on many occasions to camp out in the woods and wait. Maybe Zak would find a way to come back for her. It was a desperate notion. She realized that. Zak was as stubborn as she, and he would want her to fulfill her goals. He would want her to return to him on her own terms, with no qualms.

Even now...
especially
now...the nagging fear that he had moved on tortured her. The notion was a thick worm with gnashing teeth crawling inside her stomach. He was a gorgeous guy. He could have any woman he wanted. Why would he want her?

Aimee stared up, but the canopy of leaves locked her to this world. Maybe the Horus wouldn't even be able to find her under here.

Searching the ground, she swore this was the exact spot she stood on so many years ago, but the landscape had changed. What if right now a beam was pointed twenty or thirty yards away and Zak was up there assuming she did not want him.

Aimee began a desperate pace back and forth. Perspiration dotted her forehead. She had waited so long—so long…and never once had her feelings diminished. There were no doubts. No reservations. She wanted to be with Zak. If he did not come for her...she couldn't even imagine the grief.

Aimee glanced down at her watch.
Twelve twenty-five
. Five minutes late. That was it. He was not coming. He had found someone else on his planet. One of his own
kind
. How stupid was she to believe that he would wait this long for her?

Aimee clutched the pendant with such pressure she thought it might snap. But this was a composite that could withstand the abuse of light speed—surely it could handle the force of her thumb.

Twelve twenty-nine.

Her shoulders slumped. Tears stung her eyes. At least she would be able to collect her letter off the dining room table before her parents discovered it.

Defeated, Aimee began to retreat to the pond, but her toes had fallen asleep
. S
he stumbled over a tree root.
It must have been t
oo much time standing idle.
Attempting
another step
,
the o
pposite
foot failed her.
Her
glance jerked
up
into the tangled veil of foliage,
but there was nothing amiss there
.
Fingers tingling, she
splayed them out before her.
A
hum filled the air—a hum similar to the whir of an oscillating fan. The cavern of pines
bloomed with light
as her fingers began to fade.
They dissolved enough that she
could see through her palm
directly
down to her sneakers.

She smiled.

I’m coming, Zak.

Aimee Patterson’s last act on this planet was to tip her head back and gaze up into the leaves...and beyond.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Maureen A. Miller is the romantic suspense author of ENDLESS NIGHT and the Golden Heart-nominated WIDOW’S TALE. A great fan of the romantic suspense genre, she broke from tradition to share this story because it was a tale that had stuck with her for many years and needed to be shared.
And yes, Maureen played clarinet in the marching band!