Glimmer (2 page)

After making sure the coast was clear, we exited the bathroom and went opposite ways down the hall.

I leaned against Avery’s truck, just in front of the snow and leaf pile, took my small notebook out, and began writing down everything I could remember about this new vision.

I’d picked the notebook up when we got back from Portland last summer, expecting to have filled it with lots of visions by now, but there were only two others in there.

Eight-year-old Abigail Dunn had choked on kettle corn at the county fair and needed to be rewound to pre-bite.  Then, Melody “accidentally” bumped into her, knocking the popcorn from her hand so she couldn’t choke herself again.  Abigail was mad about Melody’s clumsiness and set to pitch a fit until Avery offered her the rest of his cotton candy. I don’t know whether it was the sweet treat or the cute boy it came from, but she squeaked out a “thanks!” and ran away to catch up to her older brother without causing a scene.

Twelve-year-old Nick McCanless had an allergic reaction to a bee sting while picking blackberries at the lake and went into anaphylactic shock.  I knew it was going to be hard to rewind someone completely out of a swarm of bees, so that save depended on the foresight to have the cure.  Claire had taken one of her mom’s Epi-pens.  I administered the shot. I’d seen myself do it in the vision so I hoped that meant I knew what I was doing.  The paramedics Mel called ten minutes before Nick was stung showed up right afterwards. 

Those were both in August.  Nothing in September, October, or November, and now it was the week before Christmas break.

It wasn’t like people weren’t still getting hurt, though. There were reports of car accidents on the news. Two congregants at Dad’s church broke their legs while snowboarding and a whole family was stricken with food poisoning at Thanksgiving.  Not to mention this was prime snowmobiling season and some idiot, for as many winters as I could remember, always decided to test out how frozen the lake was and fell through.  It was a matter of when not if, but I had no idea when the “when” was going to be.

Something was up.  And now this thing with my eyes?  I hoped that Benjamin wasn’t involved; that he wasn’t somehow getting all the visions meant for me and not doing anything about them.  I would like to believe that no matter how pompous and jerky, and okay, hot, he was that he wouldn’t stop saving people. As it was, I was going to have to sit out by the lake for the next two months waiting for someone to fall in.

The second he got to me, Avery took my face in his hands. He pushed the sunglasses up with his thumbs and looked at my eyes. “I’m gonna kill him.  What did he do to you?”

“We don’t know that it was Benjamin.” I looked down. Why did I feel the need to stick up for him? Just because he was good looking didn’t mean he was a good person. “Although,” I admitted, “he was in the vision and I wouldn’t put it past him to be messing with my head.  It’s obviously not the first time, but I can’t see him hurting me, not on purpose.”

“Let’s get you home.” Avery opened the door for me and helped me up into the truck. “Come on, Claire, hop in.”

“Actually,” I said when we were all in the truck, “you better take me to the cabin.  Mom might know what to do and...I don’t want to bother my dad with this right now.”

Claire put her arm around my shoulders.  Avery rested his hand on my knee. 

“Whatever you want,” he said, backing out of the parking space and pulverizing what was left of the snow and leaf pile.

The cabin was on the outskirts of the outskirts of Rosedell, in the foothills of Mt. Scott.  We drove through downtown, out past the See-Saw diner and the Hill ranch, until the terrain went from lava rock fields to boulders and pine trees.

It had started to sleet. We passed a sanding truck as we turned off the slick blacktop and onto the gravel road that led to the cabin.  I worried a little about Mom being up here, pregnant and essentially by herself.  An ambulance could get to her, but it would take upwards of twenty minutes; more if the roads hadn’t been sanded yet.

Avery parked in the cut back brush next to Mom’s used silver Legacy wagon and helped me down from the truck, leading me towards the cabin.

He was being super sweet; he must have felt bad about our argument this morning. “I love it that you’re trying to help me, Avery, but I can actually see where I’m going.”

“Sorry.” He chuckled. “Maybe it’s those giant-ass fugly sunglasses.”

I snorted and took them off, handing them back to Claire. “No need to hide my hideousness anymore.”

She rolled her eyes.  “Yes, please, give me back my $400 fugly Italian sunglasses.”

Mom opened the door. “What’s going on? Why aren’t you all in school?” She waddled down the four front steps, coming directly for me. “Are you okay? Your sister?”

Her long red hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail, her complexion a little green around the edges.  She was wearing sweatpants and a ratty old Adams Insurance long sleeve t-shirt.  Not the best she’d ever looked, but who was I to talk?  Bloody eyes, meet barfy face.

I met her outstretched arms with my hands. I held her away from me and widened my eyes. “I had a vision and this happened.”

Mom grabbed my chin and turned my head from side to side. “What the...? What type of vision was it?” She pulled on my hand, backing up the steps. “Wait. Everyone inside.  We can e-mail pictures to Mom.”

“You can get Wi-Fi all the way up here?” Claire asked, impressed. “Mom and Dad had to spend a fortune to get it at the lodge.”

“I wish.  It’s dial-up, but still faster than the ancient set-up the kids’ dad has at the church.”

“They have Wi-Fi now,” I blurted, like it was the grown-up equivalent of saying nanny nanny boo boo.  “They got it in September.  Dad’s doing a whole upgrade on a bunch of stuff. Pastor Morris is helping him since you aren’t there to explain it to him.”

Mom dropped my hand, giving me a “really?” look and opened the cabin door, ushering us inside. 

Avery put a hand on Mom’s shoulder and looked past her.  “Hey, Dad,” he said, and then, “Yeah, you got that right.”

It annoyed me to no end that I couldn’t see or hear Mr. Adams without trying to.  “Got what right?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Nothin,’ Zel.”

“I’ll bet,” I huffed.

There weren’t a lot of places for us to go once we were all inside. Just through the front door on the right was a kitchenette with a two burner stove top, microwave, sink, and mini-fridge.  To the left sat a small round kitchen table pushed up against the wall with two plastic chairs tucked under it. A few more feet into the room was a black leather couch facing a green tweed recliner and a console television.  At the far end of the room under an enormous window, Mom’s computer rested on the desk that used to be in the bedroom that Melody and I share.

I could understand why my mom wanted to live up here. The view was spectacular.  The clouds hung low, softening the jagged boulder and pine tree landscape, making it dream-like.  Through the trees, the bank of a shallow stream was barely visible. Not the worst place in the world to shack up with a ghost if you had to.

Off the main room along the right side were two tiny bedrooms with a bathroom in between.  Mom went into the far bedroom and started rummaging around in the chest of drawers.

She came back out into the room holding a camera in her hand. “Go stand by the window, Zel, in the natural light.”

I did as I was told.  Mom took several pictures, more than I really thought were necessary.

“Okay, now let’s...hey, where’s Melody?” Mom said, looking around like she might have not noticed her almost six-foot tall, platinum blonde daughter sitting on the couch.

I came away from the window and slumped onto the recliner.  “She’s with Aunt Hazel.  Benjamin is supposed to be in Bend, so they’re working on tracking him down.”

My mom raised an eyebrow. “That’s interesting.  Last I heard, your sister wasn’t supposed to be getting involved in any of our sacrilegious activities.  I thought I got a daughter and he got one.”

“Well, you know Melody. She gets what she wants no matter what.  She nagged Dad until he couldn’t take it anymore.” I rolled my bloodshot eyes, “And enough with the bad-mouthing Dad, okay?  It’s like you forget what his job is.”

Mom blushed. “Sorry. You’re right, honey.” She eased herself into the desk chair and turned the computer on. “My hormones are making me catty and mean.”  She flung an arm through the air as if she was swatting at something. “Shut up, Mike!”

I noticed Avery and Claire catch each other’s eye, silently urging the other to diffuse the awkwardness settling over the room.

Claire’s phone rang in her bag. “Oh, thank God,” she muttered. “Melody?  Hey,” she listened, “You’re kidding!” Claire nodded her head.  “We’re at your mom’s.  Yeah, we’ll stay here.” She paused.  “Okay.  See you. Yeah, I’ll explain.”

“What now?” I laid my head on the back of the chair, it was still throbbing dully.

“They caught up to him; to Benjamin.  He was right there in the motel room where they thought he would be.” She sat down across from me on the couch.  “Anyway, his eyes, Zel, it sounds like they’re messed up like yours are.  He and Frank, that’s his Lookout’s name I guess? They’re coming willingly back here with Aunt Hazel and Melody.  Probably within the hour.”

My stomach did a flip-flop.  After so many months of speculation, I was going to be face-to-face with Benjamin again.  I had lots of questions for him, and more than a little bit of pent up anger at his messing up my first solo rewind.  The questions were more important, though.  Like, how?  How was he a Retroact?  Why was his Lookout male and older than him? Grandma Rachel had said that she’d heard of male Lookouts, but there hadn’t been one in ages. Where did he come from? Did he steal the visions from other Retroacts’ minds or have the same visions on his own?

I jammed my thumbs into my temples and pushed as hard as I could.  Argh!  This constant headache was more than annoying. I’d already taken three ibuprofen.  Stressing out trying to remember all the things I wanted to confront Benjamin with wasn’t helping any.

“Come here.” Avery reached out and pulled me over next to him on the couch and started rubbing my neck.  His hands were warm and strong, kneading at my tense muscles.

“Ahhhh,” I moaned, leaning back against him, “I love you and your magic fingers.”

Mom cleared her throat loudly.  I got the hint and sat forward. Avery pretended that he didn’t and continued massaging my shoulders.

Mom cleared her throat again.  “Avery, your dad wants to talk to you.  Let Zellie be.”

He drummed his fingers on my back, kissed the nape of my neck, and then went over to Mom and put a hand on her shoulder to talk to his dad.

I paid no attention to their one-sided conversation, Avery was probably just getting yelled at for the PDA anyway.  Mom and Mr. Adams were more lenient in their regard for our relationship than my dad and Avery’s mom were, but they had to be. Seeing as they were both blissed out adulterers living in sin, and that only one of them was actually physically here, they didn’t have much parental leverage. Still, they didn’t like us being together; not really.

Mr. Adams may have chilled out in a lot of respects, but from what Avery and Mom both said, when it came to me he was still adamant that whatever was happening between his son and me, it couldn’t continue past our twenties.  He carried on believing that the only way Avery would be safe from dying the way I saw him die in my vision was if he was nowhere near me.

I knew Mom agreed with him, but I thought she was holding out hope that Avery and I would eventually fall out of love with each other, preferably within the next year. It wasn’t going to happen.  I loved him.  He loved me.  We were young, yes, but I held his life in my hands and he let me.  Responsibility accepted and granted, thank you very much.

Avery finished talking to his dad.  Turning to me, he crossed his eyes and made a kissy face.  I smiled through the pain shooting up the back of my head.  He walked toward the kitchen, brushing his fingers over my hair as he passed. “Want something to drink? How about you, Claire?”

“Vodka Gimlet,” Claire deadpanned from behind the massive Vogue she was reading.

“There’s pop in the fridge,” Mom said, not bothering to look away from the computer screen.

We were all lounging around staring into space, still waiting for the pictures that Mom was sending to Grandma to attach, when Melody burst through the cabin door.

She ran to me and grabbed my face, scrutinizing my eyes. “Yuck.  You do look as crappy as Ben does.”

“Thanks,” Ben and I said to her in unison.

Everyone turned to look at Benjamin.  Despite his bloodshot eyes, he was still as hot as I remembered.

Tall and lean muscled, he had the front of his red long sleeve t-shirt tucked haphazardly into his jeans, accentuating his flat stomach. Beat up black motorcycle boots adorned his feet.

Benjamin was the opposite of Avery in a lot of ways. Fair to his dark, narrow through the shoulders like a Calvin Klein model as opposed to Avery’s broad athletic build, cocky to Avery’s low key manner. But hot to his hot for sure. Benjamin’s blonde hair had grown since our first meeting and his bangs fell across his forehead into his normally blue eyes.  He flipped his hair back and flashed a smile.

“Please let my gaydar be on the fritz,” Claire said, gulping audibly.  I could not blame a girl.

I got up from the chair and went to him.  Avery followed right behind me. “Hello again, uh, Benjamin?  Ben?”

He winked. “Ben’s good, sweetie.” Avery took my hand. “Frank calls me Benjamin only when I’m being a pain in the ass.”

Frank cleared his throat.  “Hello.” He bowed his head, the beginnings of a bald spot shining through his thick salt and pepper hair.

Mom made her way over to the door.  “Come in.” She gestured to the kitchen chairs. “Pull those over here by the couch, there should be enough seats for everybody.  We’ve got a lot to talk about.” She waved us all into the family room and then sat back down at the computer.  “Finally! I thought these stupid pictures would never attach. I’ve sent photos of Zellie’s eyes to Mom, Aunt Hazel.”