The Eighth Day (5 page)

New Boy was at the door. He was a couple of years younger than Evangeline, with an unruly mop of dark brown hair. He knocked tentatively and peered through the glass
.

Evangeline pressed against the wall
.

The mail flap clicked open, and a folded piece of paper flew into the house, sailing in a graceful arc before landing on the floor
.

Evangeline looked at the bowl in her hands. “Some protection.”

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RILEY HAD TWO RULES
regarding the girl next door. “Number one, don't tell anyone about her.”

“Of course not.” Jax stared up at the window.

“Number two, leave her alone.”

“But—”

“Leave her alone.”

“What if—”

“What's rule number two, Jax?” Riley growled.

“Why'd you point her out to me, then?”

“You'd wonder why I was hooking up a generator to Mrs. Unger's house. And I wanted her to know she shouldn't be afraid of you.”

“Why would she be afraid of me? I just want to meet her.”

“She doesn't want to meet you.” Riley flipped the switches in Mrs. Unger's electric box. “I've lived here for years, and she's never spoken to me.”

Jax's eyebrows shot up. “She's never talked to you, but you're giving her electricity?”

“It's a courtesy. And sometimes, when she feels like it, I get a courtesy thank you. You'll see.” Riley motioned him over. “C'mere, and I'll show you how to do this. That way, if I ever have to be gone on a Grunsday again, you can hook up both houses.”

Riley talked him through the procedure, and they started up the second generator. “They're quieter than I expected,” Jax commented.

“I paid extra to get the quietest on the market. Didn't want to attract attention.”

Jax looked around. “Who would hear it?”

Riley didn't answer. “The gas stove works, and we've got public water, so that works. But the only way to have electricity on Grunsday is to supply your own. The power companies are run by computers, and anything with a computer chip is dead today.”

“Why?”

“Because processing chips measure time, but Grunsday exists on a timeline they don't recognize. Unfortunately, almost everything has a chip these days. That's why we have to keep the old refrigerator from quitting.”

“Ohhhh.” Jax nodded. “And that's why your motorcycle is a piece of junk.”

“Junk? The Honda 350 is a classic!”

A classic piece of junk
. “But wait,” Jax said. “There's
electricity in town. The traffic lights are on, even if they're stuck, and the emergency lights were on in Walmart.”

“That's an afterimage of the light that was there at midnight on Wednesday.” Riley picked up the gasoline can and walked it to the shed. “The lights in Walmart—did you have trouble seeing by them?”

“Actually, yeah.”

“Don't break into a store again. If it's an emergency, there are other ways to get what you need.”

“I thought it was an emergency,” Jax said indignantly. “I'm not a thief.”

“I'm not a thief either,” Riley replied. “But I have stolen when I needed to.”

As much as Jax wanted to hold himself above those ethics, he couldn't. He had a closet full of Walmart goods that proved otherwise.

Riley spent the afternoon working on his bike. Jax kept his eyes on the windows of the house next door. He wanted to ask Riley what the girl did in there all day, but if she refused to talk to Riley, he probably didn't know. So instead, Jax asked a bunch of other questions Riley couldn't or wouldn't answer.

Why hadn't Jax's father told him about this extra day? Did other Aubrey relatives have the same ability?

“Do you
have
other Aubrey relatives?” Riley asked.

Not that he knew of. His father had been an only child, and his Aubrey grandparents had died before he was born. “Why are
you
my guardian?”

“Your dad knew my dad.”

Jax watched Riley check the fluids on his bike. “Your dad's dead, isn't he?”

Riley didn't look up. “My whole family's dead. At least you have cousins.”

“Can I still go live with them?”

“Eventually. I was gonna talk to Crandall's dad about it. We were all so sure you were going to be a Normal. Now . . .” Riley stood and picked up his helmet. “We can't let you go without some training.” He mounted his motorcycle, then paused. “You can come along. If you want to.”

Jax didn't want to go to A.J.'s house, and Riley didn't want to bring him. Jax could see it on his face. “No, I'm gonna ride my bike and look around.”

“Stay within the town limits. It's safe for you here.”

“And it's not safe outside of town?”

Jax watched Riley's expression. He seemed to be mulling over how to answer that question. “Just stay close,” he said finally, turning the ignition and revving the engine. “And leave the girl alone.”

The motorcycle was hardly out of sight before Jax whipped off a note to the mysterious girl and shoved it through
Mrs. Unger's mail flap. Then he spent the rest of the afternoon kicking himself for not waiting until he came up with something less stupid than:

Hi, I'm Jax Aubrey. Maybe we can hang out sometime and have a soda. I'd like to meet you
.

He wondered if she would read the note or just leave it lying by the front door for Mrs. Unger to find. Mrs. Unger would think Jax was nuts.

When it was obvious the girl wasn't going to introduce herself—or even come to a window again—Jax took a bike ride through town. It wasn't as interesting as he'd thought. In fact, it seemed like the extra twenty-four hours were going to be pretty dull. He could ride his bike on the empty roads and wander into stores that had been open at midnight. He also could walk out with anything he wanted and snoop in neighbors' houses.

He wasn't tempted. The fact that he'd searched the Ramirez house while Billy and his family were kinda-sorta there made his skin crawl. And even though he guessed the security cameras at Walmart hadn't been working last Grunsday, Jax still wasn't convinced the police weren't going to pin the burglary on him.

Riley returned in the evening and showed Jax how to disengage the generators. When they shut down the one
at Mrs. Unger's house, Jax found a basket of freshly baked cookies left nearby. “She thanks you with baked goods?” Jax rummaged through the basket to check for a note. There wasn't one.

“Not very often.” Riley sighed glumly. “I guess I have to share them with you now.”

Jax stayed up until midnight to see for himself what happened. A few minutes before twelve, he sat on the front porch with his father's Rolex on his left wrist and Riley's Timex in his right hand.

Riley's watch ticked steadily until exactly twelve o'clock and then stopped.

The Rolex started.

Across the street, a pit bull went berserk, running up and down the length of its fence, barking and growling at Jax. From the dog's perspective, he'd just popped into existence from nowhere.

“You'll get used to it,” Riley said from behind him.

Jax held up both watches. “But they're mechanical watches! There's no computer chips in them!”

Riley shrugged. “Every time-measuring device is affected by relativistic change, and, like the car you saw on the highway, a lot depends on the perspective of the observer.” When Jax's mouth dropped open, Riley grinned. “Einstein's theory of relativity. What, did you think that because I work at a garage, I'm stupid?”

Well, yeah, actually. He had.

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THURSDAY WAS DISTRESSINGLY NORMAL,
full of teachers and classes and work. Jax wondered how he could have an extra twenty-four hours that bored him silly and still be annoyed by a regular day. Either Grunsday should be more exciting, or Thursday should be more satisfying.

When he got home from school, he scoped out the windows of Mrs. Unger's house. If what Riley said was true, the girl wasn't there today. She wasn't
anywhere
today.

A.J.'s truck was parked in front of the house—A.J.'s
old
truck, which, like Riley's motorcycle, had no computerized parts. Hefting a plastic bag of milk and orange juice, Jax went into the house and was greeted with “
Heeeere's
our little Walmart burglar. Went back for more, did ya?”

Jax glared at Riley. “Did you have to tell him?”

“Steal anything I might like?” asked A.J.

“I took canned goods and water and batteries, you jerk. How was I supposed to know Thursday was still
coming?” Jax walked stiffly into the kitchen. He wasn't proud of what he'd done. The refrigerator wheezed when he opened the door to put away the milk and juice. It sounded like it had emphysema.

There were two pizza boxes on the counter. With A.J. in the house, he expected them to be empty, but there were four slices left and Jax grabbed them all, piling them crisscross onto a plate.

Riley came in and broke up the boxes.

“I have more questions for you,” Jax said around a mouthful.

“I'll bet you do. But that'll have to wait until later, if you feel up to it.”

“Why wouldn't I feel up to it?”

“It's tattoo night!” A.J. hauled a leather case into the kitchen and onto the table. He unbuckled it and whirled it around to face Jax. The case was filled with tattoo guns, needles, and bottles of ink.

“You're giving Riley another tattoo? Where?” Riley pretty much had tattoo sleeves up to his armpits.

“No, I'm giving one to you,” said A.J.

When A.J. wasn't driving equipment for a strip-mining company, he worked part time at a tattoo parlor. But that didn't mean Jax wanted the big doofus sticking needles into
his
arm. Just because they shared this weird Grunsday thing didn't mean he liked A.J.—or Riley. “It can't be legal to give me a tattoo,” Jax said.

“It is with the permission of your guardian,” said Riley. “Trust me, Jax. This is traditional. Your first Grunsday. Your first tattoo.”

Jax hesitated. The
idea
of a tattoo was cool, although not the needle part. Jax hated needles. And what would Naomi say, when Jax finally went to live with her? “I'll pass,” he decided and started walking out with his slices of pizza.

Riley stepped into his path and gripped his arm. “Sit down, Jax. You're getting a tattoo.”

Jax shivered and sat down.

He looked at A.J.'s equipment.

He was getting a tattoo.

“I'll have a snake,” he volunteered.

Riley let go.

A.J. burst out laughing. “You can't have a snake!”

“Riley has a snake. And a tiger, and a bunch of other things.”

Riley held up both arms for Jax to see. “These are camouflage. The only reason I have these is so people don't bother to look at this one.” He extended his left hand, and for the first time Jax noticed a family crest in blue, gold, and red ink on the inside of his wrist. It was so well surrounded by other, more interesting tattoos that it practically faded into the background.

For a moment, Jax felt dizzy. “My dad had a tattoo just like that. Except—”

“Yeah, I know. He had your family crest, and this
one's mine. You have to have it, Jax. We all have it.” Riley looked at A.J., who rolled up his shirt sleeve and turned his arm over. He, too, had a crest inked on his wrist. Jax had never noticed that one either, not that he looked at A.J.'s arms that much—or any other part of A.J.

“All Transitioners are marked this way,” Riley continued, “and you're never going to reach your potential without it.”

A.J. leafed through his stencil paper. “Do you have the Aubrey crest for me to copy?”

“Jax has it. Go get your father's dagger, Jax.”

Jax was out of his seat, up the stairs, and into his room before he realized it. Only when he was halfway down the stairs with his father's dagger did he pause. He didn't want to put this in A.J.'s hands, and he wasn't sure he wanted a tattoo.

Instead, he wanted to know what Riley meant by “potential.” He wanted to question how there could be an extra day and scientists not know about it. He wanted to know more about the girl he'd seen in the window of Mrs. Unger's house.

Jax looked at the dagger.

He wanted to know if his father was expecting to die when he signed Jax's custody over to Riley.

“Jax,” hollered Riley. “Bring the dagger.”

Jax ran down the remaining steps, into the kitchen, and handed over the dagger.

Billy would've thought this was the coolest thing ever—hanging out with Riley and getting tattooed. Jax watched A.J. copy the design, then extended his arm for the stencil as if it were someone else's arm. When the tattoo gun came out, he squirmed in his seat, but Riley stood behind him and placed both hands on his shoulders. The machine whirred when A.J. pressed his foot to the pedal, and the needles bit into Jax's arm.

They stung, like little hornets. Jax watched the ink sink into his skin and blinked rapidly. A.J. wiped away tiny droplets of blood. “I feel sick,” Jax whispered.

“Turn your head,” A.J. said.

He did, but the room grew dim.

He heard Riley's voice: “Whoops. There he goes.”

And A.J.'s: “Makes my job easier.”

Then somebody turned out the lights.

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