Dark Hope (21 page)

The March wind had turned biting. I pulled the collar of my fleece closer to me and eyed the sun, hanging low on the horizon, as I turned onto the dirty sidewalk.

It was a mere five miles home. I could easily cover that distance before sunset if I ran. Luckily, I didn’t have many books to carry home tonight.

My books.

I groaned. In my haste to get away from Michael, I’d dropped my backpack in the locker bay. I looked at my watch and then again at the sky. The wind surged about me, whipping my hair around my head like a tornado, as if it were daring me to test my luck.

I thought of my homework and my phone, deserted in the school. Grudgingly, I turned back toward the building and began walking.

It seemed to take twice as long to cover the distance back to the school. The wind continued to fight me, seemingly coming from every direction, my hair becoming a nuisance as it flew into my face.

Of course I’d left my hat in the bag. Grimacing, I rummaged in
my jacket pockets for anything to keep my hair out of my way, but I came up empty handed. The wind shrieked, and I dug my hands deeper into the pockets, trying to hurry myself along.

As the school came into view, a lone gray car with tinted windows slinked up to the stop sign in front of me and waited. It didn’t signal. Nor did it pull away, even though there were no cars to stop its progress. As I came closer, the passenger window rolled down.

“I bet you came back for this,” a smooth voice called out from inside the car.

Cautiously, I bent over and peered inside. There on the passenger seat sat my backpack. In the driver’s seat was Lucas.

“Let me give you a ride home,” he said, straining to be heard over the rumble of his engine and the roar of the wind. “You don’t want to be walking home in this weather.”

As if on cue, a crack of lightning shook the sky.

I looked over my shoulder at the massive gray clouds. Resigned, I reached for the door handle and eased myself into the car, asking, “How did you get my bag?”

Lucas slid my backpack down to the floor, at my feet. He smiled, showing a row of perfectly straight, white teeth.

“Would you believe me if I said I saw it when I went back to apologize to Michael?”

My eyes narrowed. “You did no such thing.”

Lucas laughed and shrugged. “There’s no love lost between me and Michael. That doesn’t mean you and I can’t be friends.” He pushed a button, and the window next to me quietly closed back up.

Then, his eyes never leaving mine, he reached across my chest and pulled the seat belt forward, clicking it firmly into place. His gloved hand trailed up the belt to where it had trapped my wayward hair. He fingered it appreciatively.

I froze.

“I have to make sure you’re safe and comfortable, if I’m to see you home,” he said softly, loosening my hair from under the belt. He let the hair cascade through his fingers, brushing my collar away to expose my neck.

My heart was thudding so loud, I was certain he could hear it.

“When the wind caught your hair out there, it was like a corona, you know. The sun caught it for just a moment and it shone. Beautiful.”

I turned to see if I could get the door open, but as I did so, with a steady, practiced hand, he deftly tucked my hair behind my ear and slid his hand down the back of my neck.

Instinctively, I pulled away, but not before I saw and heard the sharp intake of his breath. His hand stopped right over my Mark, tightening his hold.

“What’s this?” he asked sharply.

When I didn’t answer, he firmly gripped the base of my skull and gently pushed my face away, exposing the back of my head. With his other hand, he pushed down the collar of my fleece, giving him a full view of my neck.

I lunged back, pushing him away and swinging for his face. “Get your hands off of me, Lucas.”

He leaned back in his seat, arms and palms up in a declaration of innocence, a bemused expression on his face as he easily deflected my useless blows. But there was a dark glint in his eye and his voice was rough when he next spoke.

“I can see what Michael sees in you now, Hope.” He laughed, a cold, hard sound that made me shudder.

I scrabbled at the seat belt and then the door handle, desperate to get out. I stumbled away from the car, grabbing for my backpack at the last minute. Lucas made no move to stop me, leaving me to run into the falling darkness as the first rain began to come down.

nine

M
y cell phone rang that night, jarring me awake from a fitful sleep.

I looked at the clock glowing beside my bed. Two a.m. I groaned. It was probably a prank call or a wrong number, but it just might be my mother calling from overseas.

I swatted around my nightstand, trying to find the phone amid the tangle of teenage detritus. I knocked over the clock and a vase of flowers my mother’s cleaning lady had placed in a vain effort to “prettify” my room.

There, under a book, I spied the phone, quivering with energy as it rang and rang.

I scrambled to answer it. “Hello?” I croaked. But all I heard was silence. It had rolled to voice mail.

Annoyed, I looked for the number, but it showed up as “not available.” Just then, the phone jumped to life in my hand. Quickly, I pressed the tiny green button.

“Hello?” I demanded again, this time more awake as I sat up, pushing the hair out of my eyes.

“Hope?” The voice on the other end sounded tinny and far away. “Hope, is that you?”

“Who is this?” I stifled a yawn.

There was a long pause. “It’s me. Maria.”

I jolted awake with a rush of adrenaline, words and relief pouring out of me. “Maria? Are you okay? I’ve been so worried. Where are you?”

“I went for my sister, like I told you.”

“Did you find her?”

“I did, but I need your help.”

“What kind of help?”

There was another pause. “She has a broken leg and broken ribs. She cannot walk. I need you to come and get us.”

My heart seemed lodged in my throat. “Where?”

“I’m not sure,” she whispered. “I was by a big … how do you call it?
Camposanto
? You know, with the dead people?”

“A cemetery?”

“Sí, a cemetery. Very old. And we are hiding in a big neighborhood, lots of old houses. But the building we are in, it is not a house. It is like a factory. It is broken. Everything in it is dirty and broken. Other broken houses, too.”

I racked my brain, but being new to Atlanta myself, nothing rang a bell.

“Is there anything else nearby? Any landmark?”

The silence on the other end grew as she thought. In the background, I began to hear the distinct rumbling of a train.

“Maria, is that the MARTA?”

“I don’t know. What is MARTA?” she answered.

“The noise—that machine that I am hearing—is there a train nearby?”

“
Sí
,” she said, lapsing into Spanish in her excitement. “
Muchos trenes cada hora
.”

I heard a noise on the line from somewhere near her.

“I have to go, Hope,” she whispered, a note of panic creeping into her voice. “You will come tonight?”

“I … yes. I will find you tonight. Watch for me. I will have my phone on.”

“You will find us, Hope, I know it.” Her whispered confidence heartened me.

I threw down the phone and went to my computer. A quick search turned up Oakland Cemetery. Apparently it was one of the largest cemeteries in Atlanta and extremely old, dating from before the Civil War. But the neighborhood next to it—Oakland—was far too small to be the place Maria had mentioned. Buried deeper in the text was a mention of a tornado that had ripped through Atlanta and damaged the cemetery. I clicked on that link.

My eyes raced through the text. Bingo. Cabbagetown, a historic district that had grown up around an old mill, was right next to the cemetery and had suffered extensive damage during the tornado, some of it still not repaired. Rail lines—including the MARTA commuter rail—ran along the north of the neighborhood. It had to be the spot. I jotted down the address of the cemetery entrance. It would be enough to navigate my way to the neighborhood.

Not stopping to think how I would find Maria and Jimena amid all the wreckage, I threw on some running pants and my fleece, and I tucked my hair under a baseball cap. I flew down the stairs, stopping in the kitchen to grab Ace bandages, gauze, and ice packs, and then I headed into the garage.

My mom’s car, almost her only self-indulgence, sat waiting for her return. I looked at the industrial clock mounted to the garage wall. Two-thirty. I didn’t have much time. Without thinking twice, I tossed my makeshift medical supplies into the front seat. Then I shimmied past the car to the tool shelf and reached behind the coffee can of nails to where Mom’s spare set of keys hung.

She would never know I’d used it
, I told myself as I wrapped my fingers around the key. But my stomach gave a queasy lurch when I came to the driver’s side door.

I paused, unsure if what I was about to do was such a good idea.

Go
. Henri’s urgent voice whispered in my head. That voice, silent for all this time, was all I needed to prod me on.

Climbing behind the wheel, I scanned the dashboard. It was a lot more complicated than my dad’s, full of bells and whistles I didn’t know how to use.

“Wish me luck,” I said softly to no one, hoping that the weeks that had passed since I’d last gone driving for “emergency preparedness” with my dad hadn’t made me rusty. I turned the key in the ignition, and the engine roared to life. Slowly, I eased the Audi out of the garage, praying that Mrs. Bibeau was not a night owl. I punched the address into my mom’s GPS as I inched out of the driveway, and I accelerated past the neighbors.

I had to get to Maria and her sister before it was too late.

The roads were nearly deserted, my only company the big rigs hauling their freight like the dependable army they were. I sailed through the 400 toll and into downtown, quickly finding the GPS steering me toward unfamiliar territory.

Out of the restaurants, liquor stores, and pawn shops, a clearing spotted with trees and rocks suddenly emerged. Across from it, etched against the night sky, loomed the white granite arches of the Oakland Cemetery.

I pulled the car over and parked. I was close, but in the middle of the city, it wasn’t obvious where Cabbagetown lay. I cursed myself for not bringing a map with me.

I swung one leg out the door and then, with a second thought, opened up the glove compartment.
Good old Mom
, I thought as I spied the flashlight.
Always prepared
. Sliding from the car, I looked around again for any sign of an old factory, but nothing stood out. Maybe I’d notice something from inside the cemetery, I thought. I darted across the street, the slender beam of light from the flashlight my only guide.

The iron jaws of the gate were closed against intruders. I pushed at them, hoping they might be loose, but they just clanged in protest, refusing me entry. Along the brick wall, however, I found a foothold and managed to shimmy up and over. A short jump found me inside the graveyard.

A paved path rose before me, leading straight uphill through row upon row of grave markers and trees. I began to climb the rise, clutching my fleece about me. The monuments seemed to press in on me, a swarming thicket of marble and granite. I tried to ignore them but their eerie forms demanded my attention. These were no simple slabs. Tree trunks, effigies, baby lambs, artfully draped sheets and flags, Roman figures holding emblems of salvation and remembrance: all of them sparkled in the moonlight, the sheen of spent rain lending mystery to the stone, the glance of my flashlight’s beam making them dance. Angels, wings spread over their dead in one last gesture of protection, mingled with the rest. I turned my collar up and continued on.

I broached the crest and gasped. From the top of the hill, I had an uninterrupted view of the cemetery, fields of graves falling away from me and spreading out at my feet like a patchwork quilt of stone. The ghostly fingers of trees, leaves long taken by the
trespasses of winter, reached up into the sky, guiding my gaze to where monumental spires mingled with the skyscrapers of downtown Atlanta.

“A city of the dead,” I whispered in awe. I couldn’t help but feel an intruder.

I turned around, shining my meager light. A solitary train whistle split the night and I wheeled toward it eagerly. There, outlined against the moon, rose two smokestacks.

It took only a few minutes to navigate my way back to the car and then around the block to where Cabbagetown lay nestled into the city. I turned into a narrow street and pulled over. The streets were close, their tidy, plain box houses pressing right to the curb with barely any space between them. I didn’t want to attract attention by driving through. I would be better off on foot, I thought, turning the engine off. The headlights extinguished themselves and the night seemed to settle even deeper into its quiet. In the moonlight, the dark pavement shone, slick from the rain that had swept through the city. I stashed all the medical supplies in my pockets. Then, flashlight in hand, I set out into Cabbagetown.