Chapter Twenty-Three

 

I’m not worried. Everything’s fine.

He probably just stopped at the Piggly Wiggly for coffee. Or gas. Probably there’s a line. Or maybe he forgot something at home and had to go back.

I’m not worried, even though it’s been fifteen minutes and there’s still no sign of him. He hasn’t called or texted, and The Knot is curling over itself into a fist, but he said he’s on the way.

Then where is he? The fist tightens, complete.

I ignore it. My eyes are glued to the parking lot entrance as I clutch my phone, willing it to ring. Willing it to OBEY, like it says on my shirt. I’m not actually worried. I’m just anxious to know what he found out. A few more cars pull into the parking lot, but no red truck. I wait a few minutes and call him again. Come on, Lucas, where are you?

The Knot wiggles restlessly. What if he had an accident? He’s a cautious driver when I’m there, but what if he was speeding down the road to get here, and someone pulled out in front of him? What if I’m sitting here all impatient while he’s lying mangled and bleeding in the street at this very moment?

Suddenly I see it. A transparent vision descends, layering over the parking lot: the edge of a street sprinkled with broken glass trailing ominously to a dark bloodstain. Not just a few drops, either. It looks like someone splashed a cup of blood against the curb. The hair on the back of my neck stands on end. Like yesterday’s shape-shifting raven side effect, the gory hallucination tries to take hold of me and drag me under like an ocean wave.

I shake my head furiously, trying to vibrate the vision of blood and glass out of my head. It spins away but still lingers, deep in the shady pockets between the trees. I strain my ears for the sirens I’m sure must be heading this way, but hear only the grinding gears of a big truck out on Valley Road and a rousing chorus of protest from the cicadas. The heat must be making me hallucinate because I hear my name again. But it’s only the traffic and big, buzzing bugs hissing, Viviiiii…

That’s it. I’m out of here. There’s a totally logical reason why he didn’t meet me, like some truck problem or a dead phone, but I’m not waiting another second. I slip onto my bike and take the back way to Una’s, avoiding the truck traffic on Valley Road.

The road behind the Pecan Forest is a trail of uneasy magic. No bloody visions follow me, but heat curtains shimmer under the canopy, and blue-gold dream sparkles dance just out of sight. Up above, little kernels of clouds blaze into popcorn in the brilliant blue sky. Maybe it will rain later, but right now there isn’t even a hint of a breeze. Burnt, oily truck fumes linger in the stillness, and I pedal faster to keep their stifling smell from clinging to me.

By the time I get to Una’s, long tentacles of sweaty hair have escaped my ponytail and wrapped themselves around my neck. The coneflowers by the mailbox nod sleepily in the heat, while the gate wolves look to the sky in a silent, permanent howl.

Lucas’s truck isn’t there.

I hop off and roll my bike under the carport next to Una’s Jeep, and she opens the front door as soon as I ring the bell. Her anxious face only feeds my fear.

“Where’s Lucas? Did he find you? Did you see the picture?” She motions me inside.

“No, he texted that he was on his way, but he didn’t show up at the college. He’s not answering his phone either, so I waited a few minutes and decided to come here.”

“He left more than twenty minutes ago.” Una frowns. “Your face is really red. Go sit under the A/C while I get you some water.”

The living room is a cool and quiet refuge from the blistering furnace outside. Una returns with a huge glass of ice water, and I gulp it down, feeling the icy relief slide down my throat and into my stomach.

Heat stroke defeated, I notice the shoebox on the coffee table. Hundreds of photographs stand vertically in the box, while a dozen or so lay scattered across the table.

“So what happened? Lucas texted me and said he found a picture.”

“He did. He spent an hour going through these, hundreds of them, but he found the one he was looking for. The one Joseph wanted him to see.” Her face clouds over. “A picture of him with your father—and someone who looks like Jackson Connor.”

The room spins, and I clutch my knees, leaning forward in the loveseat.

“Together? Where? When?” I gasp. My thoughts spin out faster than I can reel them in. The Knot tightens, listening.

“I don’t know. It was a group of soldiers in the late ‘90s. The picture is really dark, and I only saw it for a few seconds.” Una sits on the couch. “I’m not even 100 percent sure it was him, but Lucas was positive. He said he had to find you and tore out of here like a bat out of Hell.”

She picks up the loose photos from the table and hands them to me. “My brother took a lot of pictures, but that was the only one with Jackson Connor in it. Or your father.”

I flip through them. Soldiers. Like the men in the second window. The memory I tried to draw but couldn’t. Like dozens of other pictures at home. Like the ones on Dad’s memorial web page.

“These dark ones are from Bosnia, I think. Why would Jackson Connor show up here and not tell us he knew my dad? Even if he didn’t know it was us, which I guess is possible since Mom goes by Hawk, what about your last name? It’s not like there are a lot of people named Wolfsong.”

Her eyes meet mine. “Maybe he doesn’t want us to know who he is.”

My brain tries to squeeze this information into some kind of shape I can recognize. Dad said to trust my instincts. And my instincts have been saying—no, screaming—that Jackson Connor is not what he seems. Ever since he walked into Déjà Vu, he moved too close too soon, bringing nothing but turmoil and doubt into my life.

“But my dad was there last night. I even asked him about Jackson Connor, and he had no idea who that was. He said Connor could be anybody, or nobody.”

He also said there are limits, The Knot points out. And he didn’t know Joseph was missing.

“There’s that,” Una agrees, sitting on the couch. “But what about yesterday? Lucas told me about the raven’s eyes, and how you thought Jackson Connor might be a dreamwalker.” She taps the loose pictures together on the table and slips them back in the box.

“Una, that was terrifying. I almost passed out.” I rub my hands across my face and rest my chin on my hands. “But we decided it was a hallucination, a side effect from staying in the dream too long.”

“That’s what you guys thought yesterday. I thought so too, but now…” She takes both of my hands. Her voice is low and urgent. “Vivi, I think it was a test. You went into that man’s dreams, and somehow he suspected you were there. Maybe he only saw you as a hawk, but you and Lucas got past his defenses, so he had to find out who you were. And that little raven? I think he wanted to see if you recognized those blue eyes from the night before, when he chased you out.”

A dizzy, sick residue from yesterday passes through me like a ghost.

“He was pushing, Una. I felt him. It was like he was pushing me back into that dreamwalk, and for a second, he almost did. But I-I sidestepped him.”

“You’re stronger than he is. I bet he still doesn’t know for sure.” She leans forward and squeezes my hands. “Okay, there are a lot of ‘ifs’ here, Vivian. But if Jackson Connor is a dreamwalker, and if that’s really him in the picture, there’s only one reason he could be here.” Her face goes still.

The missing piece falls into place.

“Oh my God. Stargate.” The word strangles me, and I can barely breathe out the next one. “Brian.”

Wait, wait, wait. Jackson Connor, a CIA thug from the Stargate Project? He’s definitely a phony and a snob, from his expensive haircut down to his designer shoes, but he doesn’t exactly fit the part of the dangerous mastermind of a CIA dream-warrior project—even if I don’t know what that would actually look like. No, it can’t be. If he was in both Bosnia and Stargate—

“But if they’re in that picture together, and they were all in the same project, Dad would definitely have known him or known about him, wouldn’t he?”

“Maybe. Like I said, there’s a lot of ‘ifs.’ I can’t get into the dream world like you guys, so I’m just looking at the things in this world that aren’t adding up.”

“Mom said in these classified projects, people only know their own part,” I remember. “Maybe Jackson Connor was in it but with a different group? That might be why there’s only one picture. Maybe they didn’t really know each other.”

“Could be—and that’s another thing. We can’t wait. We have to talk your mother about this.” Una stands up. “Is she any better today?”

“I thought she was. She got dressed and was acting normal, looking for coffee, but then she—I don’t know—she slipped out of normal. She was taking a nap when we left.” I follow Una to the front door. “I’m worried about her. Even Brian is. He thinks she has African sleeping sickness. Can you come over now? She never wants to go to the doctor, but maybe she’ll listen to both of us.”

“I think I better follow you over there. I’m worried about her too,” she says. “We could be totally wrong about this, but I think we should stay together until we know something for sure. And I wish that nephew of mine would call. It’s been over half an hour.”

I pedal out of the carport into the desert heat. A trifecta of worry—Mom, Brian, Lucas, Mom, Brian, Lucas—is wheeling around in my head all the way to Valley Road. Tumbling right behind it is The Knot, whispering Knew it, knew it, knew it, and everything I’ve wondered about for the last two weeks is rolling into a big, fat, Jackson Connor-shaped lump.

I knew that raven wasn’t a side-effect.

I knew Jackson Connor was a poser from the minute I laid eyes on him, since the day he rolled into town in his luxury Douchemobile. Ironically, it was the same day Dad’s jacket came to me, when I touched the hawk feather for the first time and got slammed with icy-hot lightning. The day someone was watching me, deep in the shadows by the big tree.

Was it him? Why would Jackson Connor be watching me?

Maybe he wasn’t watching you, The Knot chimes in. Maybe he was watching us. Like they watched Lucas’s family.

The man who was watching me was big and muscle-bound, I remind The Knot, much bigger than Jackson Connor. There’s no way that was him. This is crazy. The heat is broiling my thoughts into total nonsense. Just like this morning’s bloody hallucination, which was just some kind of visual… slippage, and not related to Jackson Connor at all.

Una’s picking up some coffee at the Piggly Wiggly, and as soon as we get home, we’ll wake Mom up and figure this out like rational human beings.

 

The house is cool and dark, blinds closed against the sun. Ophelia is scampering around in her cage, squealing for her overdue lunch. “It’s okay, food is on the way,” I call to her, thinking a scoop of hamster chow and maybe a spinach leaf would make her happy.

Then I see the kitchen.

All the cabinets are hanging open. Dishes and glasses are all over the counters, and the water runs in the sink. The freezer door is open too, with small, drippy pools of water on the floor below.

“Mom?” I walk through, closing the cabinets, turning off the water, and throwing a dish towel down on the puddle. “Hold on, Ophelia,” I murmur, heading toward Mom’s room.

Her door is open and the TV is blaring, but she’s asleep. A dozen of her handmade coffee mugs line her dresser and nightstand. Some are brimming with water, others only half full.

“Mom!” I switch the TV off and turn on her light. “Mom, are you okay? What’s going on?”

She opens her eyes and turns toward me. “Vivi! I’m so glad you’re here. I hardly see you anymore…” She trails off and sighs, eyelids fluttering closed again.

I tug on her shoulder, gently. She feels a little warm, like maybe she has a low fever. Brian’s diagnosis of African trippy-something-osis flits across my mind.

“Mom, what’s with all these cups of water?”

Her eyes open and she struggles up onto one elbow. “Oh. I wanted to have a drink near me while I take a nap. You know those are my favorites.” She sweeps her slender arm in the direction of the army of mugs.

“You’ve been sick for a week. You should go to the doctor. Una’s coming over, and we’ll all go. I’m worried about you, and so is Brian.” I rarely play the Brian card. Mom always expects me to be anxious about something, but if he’s the worried one, she pays more attention.

“You want me to go to Doc-In-A-Box?” She groans. That’s what Mom calls the small clinic on the other side of Zia. “I don’t know. Maybe tomorrow. Actually, I feel fine, I’m just really tired. Did you see my phone anywhere? I thought I heard it ringing.”

I dig through the purse on her dresser and retrieve the phone. “One missed call, at ten. There’s a voicemail.” I hold the phone out to her.

“Would you check it for me, sweetie?” Mom gropes around and sips from a mug on her nightstand. I tap the screen.

The call is from the Alamogordo Space Camp. An ugly chill slithers up my back and grabs the back of my hair. I speed-dial her voicemail, listening over the roaring in my ears, and the message sucks all the air out of the universe:

“Good Morning, Mrs. Hawk. This is Janet Lopez, from Alamogordo Space Camp. I’m calling because Brian didn’t come today. I know he was looking forward to today’s experiment, and I just wanted to see if he’s sick, and when we can expect him back. Please call back and let us know. The number is 505-555-2267. That’s 555-CAMP. Thank you.”