Time's Daughter (6 page)

“
There aren’t enough homeless people
in Junction Hill to really have a congregation place,” I said
without looking at him. “Your best bet is the Christian soup
kitchen on Fifth Street.”

Once again I tried to leave him behind and this time
he let me.

“
Hey!” Melissa greeted with a smile
but eyed the cameraman behind me warily. “Where you been the last
few days?”

“
Sketching outside,” I said while
pointedly ignoring the entrance the new kid had been
near.

“
Oh. That’s cool.” She started for a
different door and I followed her. “Ashley wants to go to the
movies Friday. We’re going to see a show at nine thirty. I can come
by to get you after work if you want to go. The previews should be
going until like quarter ‘til.”

“
I don’t know. I’ll have to check
with my mom.”

It wasn’t that I needed permission to go. It was
that I’d used up all my spending money from the last paycheck on
photo paper and film for photography class.

Melissa knew why I needed to check and she also knew
that I’d be offended if she offered to pay. “All right,” she said.
“Just let me know Friday at lunch.”

We parted ways in the hallway. My pace was slow. I
was in no hurry to get to class. But Mrs. Lozano had saved me
another discussion with the new kid by forcing him to sit through a
make-up lecture.

In the quiet of the dark room I took my time
printing several photos because I was sans camera guy. My project
was nearing completion, two weeks earlier than it needed to be. I
wasn’t sure what I was going to do during those two weeks. Maybe
I’d start a second project.

CHAPTER FOUR

I managed to get out of the photography studio and into the
drawing room next door without running into Alex. My music buddy,
Stan, was waiting for me with a CD in hand.

“
My musical savior.” I smiled and
bowed from the waist down.

“
It’s got some new Elbow on there
and a little bit of quasi-electronic stuff. I know how you like
that,” Stan said in a strangely mechanical voice.

I tried to ignore the fact that he was obviously
freaked out by the camera. “Awesome. I can’t wait to listen.”

Mrs. Finch cleared her throat. Stan flushed pink and
walked to his own desk. My attention was focused on the typed
insert that Stan had put with the CD. There were some new names
along with some old favorites. The new tunes would get me through
the night of stocking ahead of me.

Forty minutes of drawing a large metal ball, a
bicycle tire, two wooden boxes, a cow’s skull and a plastic cone
had me in a relaxed state. For once it didn’t bother me that the
videographer couldn’t seem to stay still. Even the bell ringing did
little to ruin my calm.

I was apathetic about P.E. until Alex broke away
from talking to Tyler so he could bug me. Apathy turned to
frustration.

His eyes had appeared pleading during the nanosecond
I’d allowed myself to look at him. “You’re not mad at me, are you?
Because I’m
sorry
,” he said. “I didn’t mean to upset
you.”

I continued walking toward an empty spot where I
could wait for class to begin. “I know. It’s fine.”

He lowered his head closer toward mine. “You
sure?”

“
Yeah.” I stepped away because his
proximity was uncomfortable. “Don’t worry about it.”

“
Alex,” Tyler said as if he were
picking him for a team. After another person was called I realized
that he had.

“
I gotta go,” Alex murmured before
dashing to the football star’s side.

Two more names were called and then my own was said.
I looked up in surprise because only a handful of people had been
picked. My uncoordinated self was usually reserved as the last
place pick.

Alex stood upright as though he’d leaned over to
speak to Tyler. Did that explain the change in order? I breathed an
irritated breath through my nose then walked across and took my
spot behind them.

Alex took four steps back so he could stand beside
me. “So where do you work?”

“
Burning Idea,” I said without
looking at him.

“
I’m sorry?”

“
It’s a store,” I said. “A knock off
of Hot Topic.”

“
Oh. You like that kind of
stuff?”

With a typically noncommittal shrug I said, “I
guess.”

The physical education teacher tossed his bag down
at Tyler’s feet. “Okay guys, you get the mesh shirts.”

I groaned but pulled on a red mesh shirt as request.
Alex did the same. He gave a little wave then left me alone. With
the two athletes on the same team flag football team they could
have had a team compromised of ten of me and still won the
match.

Usually physical education class consisted of me
doing whatever I could to avoid effort. The guys made it so I
didn’t have to try. After ten minutes of merely standing off to one
side without a ball nearing me, I’d taken to creating haikus in my
head describing the flora and fauna. As soon as the whistle was
blown, the mesh shirt was tossed down and I was headed to the
locker room to finish out my school day.

* * * *

Felix’s younger brother was snoring against the register when
I walked through the door to Burning Idea with a panting cameraman
in tow. The noise of me setting my backpack on the counter woke
Trey with a start. He wiped drool from his mouth then fixed me with
a grin.

“
When are you going to have dinner
with me?” Trey’s speech was typically nasally.

Dinner sounded good right about then. I hadn’t eaten
anything since the sandwich the night before. My breakfast—a fruit
bar—had been forgotten in my haste to get to school on time. But I
wasn’t hungry enough to agree to a date with Felix’s stoner
brother.

“
We’ve had this discussion,” I
said.

He walked around the counter toward me. “I’m going
to keep asking until I get a better answer.”

“
They say that insanity is doing the
same thing over and over and expecting different results.” I’d
heard it in a movie but hadn’t check to see if it was correct. It
seemed fitting to me.

The guy’s hazy eyes tried to focus on me
unsuccessfully. “What?”

I laughed once—a soft sardonic sound as I shook my
head. “Nothing.”

“
Uh, right,” he said above a cough
he didn’t bother to cover. “I’m out of here.”

“
Enjoy,” I called after his
retreating figure.

As soon as the coast was clear I glided to the
storeroom and put my newest music CD in the stereo to break the
obvious silence in the store. The first song started out with a
bang. I was instantly hooked. Around the store I lugged boxes while
bouncing to the music like the uncoordinated goober I was.

I feigned respectability for a pair of customers.
The girls browsed the t-shirt section for ten minutes. They left
without buying anything and I resumed head-bopping. By seven, I had
the new shipment stocked or stowed and the CD had looped five
times. I settled in behind the counter and read a chapter in the
history textbook in the hope of acing my next quiz.

At a quarter after nine the videographer shuffled
behind me up the hilly street toward home. Everyone who saw the
footage would think I walked with Bigfoot’s gait because of how
loud he was. Without thinking about the camera between us, I turned
around and glared at him.

Headlights blinded me briefly before they cast aside
in a weaving pattern. My eyes widened at the oncoming threat. An
obviously impaired driver was swerving dangerously at the base of
the street.

“
Hey!” The viewfinder permanently
glued to the cameraman’s eye meant he saw nothing but me. I jabbed
at the car behind him. “Watch out!”

The car swerved toward us on a collision course for
the videographer. He hadn’t so much as glanced up.

Judging the speed and distance of the car, I knew I
couldn’t make it to him in time without getting hit myself. My
heart stilled. I threw a hand out in front of me as if it alone
could stop a barreling car.

Somehow the scene went deathly quiet. The roaring of
the car’s engine, the click-clack of a train south of us along with
the crickets and everything else in the vicinity had silenced in an
instant. The only sound I heard was my heartbeat resuming in my
ear.

But that wasn’t the worrying part of the
situation.

No. The
worrisome
part was the hovering red
leaves and motionless dust. Everything on the street except me had
frozen in place.

Time was quite literally stopped.

I slapped my forehead with a heavy groan. “Not
again
.”

Moving a
hundred-and-ninety pound five-foot-ten man lugging a video camera
was much harder than it looked in the movies. Tugging at his legs
had been futile. He wasn’t cognizant enough to move on his own
because along with the rest of the area, his brain was frozen in
time.

Panic made it difficult to come up with a good plan.
How long would the scene remain frozen? This was only the second
time I’d accidentally stopped time and the first had only been for
five seconds. Five seconds weren’t enough to save the camera
guy.

I loosened the guy’s grip on the camera, slid it off
his shoulder and then set it near the building behind us. Next I
did the only thing I could think of—I tipped him until he fell like
a bovine in jeans. I rolled him on his side until he was beside his
camera against the wall. Then I retrieved the camera and set it a
short distance away from him.

It had to look like he’d dropped it. Now the device
was too nicely positioned. I turned it over on its side but didn’t
have the nerve to scuff it any. I did, however, stealthily hit the
off button in the hope when time unfroze, the camera would turn
itself off.

But the videographer’s new spot might not be enough
to save him. I’d have to try to do something about the driver as
well. I stepped around the cameraman’s legs and started toward the
car.

A noxious stench immediately slammed into my nose
once I got the door open. I choked automatically. The interior of
the cabin smelled like a liquor cabinet.

A scruffy beard that hadn’t been shaved in days
coated the pale skin of the man behind the steering wheel. In his
right hand he held a cellular phone. The position of his fingers
and the items on the screen proved he was past the point of being
an impaired driver. His attempt at text messaging while driving
drunk meant he was an idiot as well. I tore the phone from his hand
and belted it in the floorboard in the back.

Now
what?

I positioned his hands on the steering wheel and his
body is such a pose that I hoped momentum from his weight would
turn the wheel when things went back to normal. Filled with worry
and a tiny bit of hope, I returned to where I thought I’d been
standing when I’d hit the theoretical pause button. I took in a
deep breath, held my hands out in front of me once again and
exhaled.

Roaring echoed in the narrow space and instant
later, heralding time was back on course. The car’s headlights
swerved away violently then started on a straighter path.
Unfortunately, though the path was straight, it was aimed at
me.

“
Aeon!” the cameraman
shouted.

I did the only thing I could think of—I ran toward
him and the building beside us. Maybe I could narrowly avoid the
drunkard as he passed by if I kept close to the building. It seemed
like my only option short of stopping time and I wasn’t sure I
could do that again.

The idiot hit the breaks at the last moment. His
vehicle spun in a one hundred and eighty degree angle then slammed
into the building across the street. I let out a ragged breath as
my heart slammed fearfully within my chest.

The cameraman scrambled to his feet and ambled
toward me. “Are you okay?”

“
Yeah.” I stared at the steam coming
from the car’s front end for a moment in disbelief. “Are you?” No
doubt I’d scraped him up when I’d rolled him back to the building.
I might have sprained something too.

“
Me?” He sounded incredulous.
Was
that because he suspected something was awry?
“Yeah, I’m fine.
He was heading for you.”

The camera guy was camera-less. It was the first
time I’d actually seen his face. From the few gray hairs I’d
spotted on his head I’d thought he was in his thirties. Looking at
him now he probably hadn’t been out of film school for all that
long.

His wasn’t a face for movies. He wasn’t what most
people would call handsome but he also wasn’t ugly. Generic would
be the term I’d have applied to his unremarkable features. But his
eyes, as concerned as they looked now, made up for the lack of
looks.

“
He was heading for both of us,” I
said.

He pulled a phone from his front pocket, flipped it
open and dialed three numbers. I didn’t need him to explain to
understand what he’d done.

“
I need to report an accident on…
Aeon, where are we?”

My reply was robotic. “Lower Eagle Drive down by
East Land Shopping Mall.”

“
I need to report an accident on
Lower Eagle Drive down by East Land Shopping Mall. It’s only one
car but you might need to send an ambulance. Thanks.” He shook his
head in disbelief after he’d snapped it shut. “One second I was
following you and the next I was on my butt over there. I don’t
remember a thing. Did he hit me?”

“
I think he grazed you,” I said and
kept my eyes on the ground.