Chapter Twenty-Four

 

Brian…

A dizzy wave of dread sends me staggering into the dresser, and I drop the phone. How can that be? I took him to the bus stop myself.

No you didn’t! You were in a hurry, and you left when you heard the bus, remember? The Knot shouts and kicks me in the ribs, hard. Then the horrifying vision of glass and blood in the street slams into me for a second punch. There was an accident this morning, but instead of Lucas, it must have been Brian. And the blood…

Shaking uncontrollably, I look at Mom. Her eyes are closed again. I take a breath, trying to remain coherent.

“Mom, that was Space Camp. They said Brian didn’t get there this morning. Did anyone else call? The police or the ambulance? The hospital?”

I remember waiting for the sirens this morning, the ones that never came. If he was in an accident, someone definitely would have called. I pick up the cordless landline buried among the mugs and check the caller ID. The only call to the house in the last three days is from a telemarketer.

“Oh, Vivi, that’s right. If I’m going to the doctor, you’ll need to take him to the bus stop. Wait, is tomorrow Saturday?” She is drifting down into sleep again. Panicked, I grab her shoulders and shake her. “Mom! Brian’s missing. He didn’t get to camp today. Did anyone call?”

She shakes her head quizzically. “Brian? Missing?”

“Mom, you have to wake up. I think there was an accident. We have to call 911. We have to find Brian!”

“Tsk. Brian’s just at camp. Star camp… no, that’s not it. Stargate?”

Stargate?

The word hits like an iron weight, crushing the air out of my lungs.

They took him.

They didn’t invade his dreams or his thoughts, they actually took him.

They’ve got him, and it’s all my fault. I was so focused on Lucas and the pictures all morning, trying to convince myself nothing was really wrong, and they took Brian. Struggling against the darkness closing around me, I gasp for breath, suddenly compelled by every force in the universe to go. Go now.

“I’m going to the bus stop. I’ll be right back. Then we’re calling the police!” I choke out the words, flying through her bedroom door, and running smack into Una. Relieved, I catch my breath.

“They took Brian. Can you get Mom up? I’ll be right back.” The tug under my ribs is practically dragging me out of the house.

Una looks as if she’s been slapped. “They took him? Physically took him? Okay, I’ll try to get some coffee into her. Hurry!”

“Sure, honey, just call before you go? That’s always the polite thing to do.” Mom’s voice calls after me and drifts into oblivion.

I slam through the side gate and leap onto my bike, pedaling furiously to the bus stop. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but something pulls me as hard as the whirlwind that sucks me out of a dreamwalk. I dart across Valley Road, bouncing off the sidewalk at each street until I swing around the corner near the bus stop, the last place I saw Brian—and there, right by the bench under the sign, is Lucas’s truck.

I skid to a wild halt and lean my bike against the rear bumper. Some miracle holds up my legs as I run around to the side of the truck and follow it to—oh God, no—little pieces of the turn signal lens shattered in the street, and on the curb, a thick splash of dried blood the size of a dinner plate. The cold lump of nausea in my stomach turns hot, and before I can take another step, a bitter flood of bile and the remnants of Cinnamon Crunch doubles me over and splatters out all over Lucas’s passenger door.

Bent over and gasping for breath, I avoid looking at the blood—Brian’s? Lucas’s? Whose blood is it? Did Lucas hit Brian with his truck? Where the hell are they?

The window is rolled down, the keys still in the ignition. An unopened bottle of water lies on the passenger seat. I reach in, careful not to lean on my own puke. I don’t care if the water’s been heating up all morning—anything to get the taste out of my mouth.

Under the bottle there’s a faded photograph, so old the edges are curling up. I pick that up too, then swish some hot water around in my mouth and spit it out. I try a tentative swallow. Blue and gold sparks rise up and spiral around my vision, then fall away. Breathe, Vivi. Breathe. As long as I don’t look at the blood, I’ll be okay. I lean against a non-pukey part of the truck and look at the picture.

It’s one of the Bosnia pictures. Not the exact one on Dad’s memorial web page, but like the ones from Una’s, they look like they’re from the same night. Cold twilight illuminates the background, and a half-dozen soldiers stand around the fire, posing for the camera.

My focus goes straight to Dad on the far right, just like in the photo I’ve seen hundreds of times. He’s wearing his jacket—my jacket—with his caduceus pin glinting and a cigar clenched between his teeth. The man next to Dad is tall, with sharp brows slashing across his angular face, the one I only saw for a second and couldn’t capture in the drawing. But here, the light from the camera’s flash shows him plainly. It’s Lucas.

No, it’s an older Lucas, somehow standing in a twenty-year-old photograph. Then it hits me: this isn’t the freak time-travel accident it looks like. This has to be Joseph Wolfsong. And standing next to him, grinning in all his rosy-cheeked, preppy-toothed glory is Jackson Connor.

My head is swimming. I take a few incredulous breaths. How did I miss this? True, I could barely see him in that gloomy castle window, but I didn’t even recognize the man with the cigar—my own father.

I flip the photo over for any information. “S-Bosnia 1995,” it says, with a line of names I don’t know except for the one at the end, Ian Night Hawk. Next to that name is “me”—Lucas’s dad—and the next one, the name assigned to the man I know as Jackson Connor, is “Jim Cooper.”

S-Bosnia 1995. These are the men from the Stargate Project. And that name, Cooper. The one who called all the time, trying to lure Dad back into the project. The Mr. Cooper Mom never met, the one who checked on us after Dad was gone and somehow knew when we moved. The Mr. Cooper who somehow found us in Zia and came here for Brian—who has him right now.

The vibration in my pocket makes me jump out of my skin. I flip open my phone, and relief floods though me. Finally, it’s Lucas! There’s no message though, only a picture. A screen of white with numbers at the bottom. I tilt the phone away from the sun’s glare, realizing it’s the picture he took of the van I hit—yes, the little smudge of red paint is there under the government license plate. The van that was in this very spot, right by the bench, when we came to pick up Brian and… my stomach drops to my knees.

They were here that day to take him. They came back today, and this picture can mean only one thing: the man who calls himself Jackson Connor has both of them in the van, and the blood on the street—

Trembling, I start to text back, then stop. Lucas sent only the picture. No message. If I answer him and the phone makes a noise, what might happen next is something I can’t even think about.

I pour the rest of the warm water over the door. Sheer panic jump-starts my run to the back of Lucas’s truck. I lift my bike over the tailgate and drop it on its side. As I climb into the driver’s seat and turn the key, the blue and gold sparks return, darting just out of sight.

The three minutes to my house feels like half an hour, and the panic only gets worse. I run inside, all the way to Mom’s room. “Mom! They’re both gone!” I yell incoherently. “Lucas and Brian are gone, and Jackson Connor took them!”

She’s propped up with pillows, and Una’s at her side, but Mom’s eyes are closed. Una stands up and sets a fresh cup of coffee down on the nightstand.

“Connor took Brian and Lucas?” Fresh alarm washes across her face.

“That’s not even his name. He’s really Jim Cooper. He followed us here, and he took them. He took them for Stargate.”

Mom stirs fitfully in her sleep and murmurs, “Cooper again? I don’t like him, Ian. Tell him to quit calling.”

“Mom. Wake up!” I shake her shoulder, hard.

She turns away and sighs deeply, pulling the sheet up over her head. Stunned, I’m almost as paralyzed as she is. How can Mom find out Brian has been kidnapped and simply roll over and go back to sleep? This is not some kind of sickness that has a hold of my mother—it’s something else, something deep and terrible. I grip her shoulder, fighting the urge to shake this out of her as hard as I can.

Be still, Vivian. Is this the instinct Dad wants you to listen to? The Knot hisses. Breathe!

Five breaths later, I turn to Una. “What do you think? Should we take her to the doctor?”

She shakes her head, her eyes somber in the lamplight. “This is not the flu, or mono, or even Brian’s African sleeping sickness. Vivi, this is just like Lucas’s mother.” She bends over Mom, straightening the covers. “It’s not a normal sleep. It’s more like a trance. Someone is controlling this.” Her voice is grave, and the relief I felt when she got here pours out of me like sand from an hourglass.

“Someone? A dreamwalker, you mean. Like Jackson Connor!” I sag against the door frame, picturing the ocean rising up and swallowing Lucas’s mother forever. “How much time do we have?”

“It’s hard to say. We had no way to help Lucas’s mother. We didn’t know what was going on. But she stopped talking the night before she died. Your mom’s still talking, so I think she’ll be okay for a while. Summer is fighting hard, and she’s ferocious.” The conviction in her voice pushes hot tears out of my eyes and down my cheeks.

“Lucas sent me this.” I show Una the picture of the van. “There was blood on the sidewalk, and I’m positive they’re in this van. We have to call the police.” I reach for the landline to call 911.

“No police.” Mom struggles to sit up, her eyes straining to open. “It’s not safe.”

“Mom, we have to. We have to find Brian!”

She twists in the sheets, shaking her head vehemently. “No, no—they’ll find us. It will start again. No police. Promise me.” She groans and sinks back into the pillows.

Una and I look at each other, frozen by her words. They’ll find us.

“But they’ve already…” I begin when The Knot rears up. The police, Vivi? Just what are you going to tell them?

The mocking tone sends chills up my spine: “Hello, yes, this is an emergency. My nine-year-old brother was kidnapped this morning, and I know who took him. This guy who’s posing as a real estate broker? He’s really a CIA agent, and he stole my brother to make him into a dream warrior. Yes, that’s right, a dream warrior.”

I throw the phone on the floor, my mind spinning. There’s no way I can call anyone with that.

“Vivi,” Una says, “your mother knows something. Even though she’s barely conscious, she knows. What are we going to tell the police, besides the fact they’re missing? And that government plate, there’s no way to trace it to any one place or person. It might not even belong to that van.”

She’s right. They’ll come over, ask questions we can’t answer, then put out an Amber Alert. That will take at least an hour—while Brian and Lucas are taken even farther away. And Mom is so sure about this. I scrub the tears from my face, and the blue-gold sparks shoot across the inside of my eyes like firecrackers.

“Well then, I’m going. I think I know where Jackson Connor took them. Pacheco Canyon.” The words tumble out before I even realize I’ve decided.

Her face goes still. “Are you sure? We could take Summer to the clinic, and I could go with you.”

“You know they can’t do anything, and we can’t leave her alone.” Fresh tears choke my voice down to a whisper. “You have to protect her, Una. You have to stay here and keep her awake and keep him away. Please.”

“I will, Vivian. Ń dáh . Go.”

I grab my backpack and step out to the garage for some bottled water. I also throw in some beef jerky, a couple of Cokes, and the last of the Macaroonies from our stash. It’s not like I’m hungry, but Brian always is. He’ll want to eat when I find him, and I will find him. I will.

Next stop, my room. I take a deep breath, trying to exhale the terror faster than it can flood my body. It’s 100 degrees out, but I don’t care. I need my Dad. His voice echoes in my head as I slip the jacket on. You’re very strong. You’re going to have to be even stronger now.

“Dad, I’m so scared,” I whisper aloud.

You are the only one who can do this, Vivi.

When I return to the living room, Una gives the jacket a quizzical look.

“My dad’s,” I explain. “It was in a box you brought. Mom said Dad had lent it to a friend before he went to Iraq.”

“He must have lent it to my brother. That jacket was in a box of his things, and I knew it was way too short to be his, so I threw it in with the rest of those clothes. That same day when I met you, I knew it was supposed to come to you. Maybe I should have told you, but I didn’t think it meant anything at the time.”

I shake my head. “I don’t get how you just know stuff.”

“You know a lot of things too, Vivian,” she points out. “You’ve known Jackson Connor was not what he seemed from the beginning. Sometimes the universe tells you, but the hard part is learning to listen. Oh—” she adds, “make sure you take the first-aid kit from the Jeep. You don’t know what’s been going on up there. You might need it.”

Oh, great. Kill my heroic moment with a looming unknown injury. The reality of the situation must be showing on my face, because Una opens her arms and draws me in for a hug.

“Don’t be afraid, Vivian. Doo nénłdzig da. You can do this.”

“Oh, I’m not afraid. I’m terrified. But I’m going.”

Una steps back, her eyes resolute. “Brian first. That nephew of mine is okay, I know it. But first, you have to get Brian out of this nightmare, wherever he is.” A shadow of doubt crosses her face. “What are you going to do once you get to Pacheco Canyon? There’s no cell tower back in those mountains, and if you get into trouble… how are you going to find them?”

“The lights. I’m following the lights. They usually come back with the dreamwalks, but I’ve been seeing them all day. Blue and gold—I think it’s Brian and Lucas.”

Mom’s room is cool, and the overhead light is now blazing. Una has cleared most of the mugs away. “I brought sage to smudge the house. I’ll get some coffee into her and keep her talking, so she doesn’t fall asleep all the way.” She doesn’t explain what she means by “all the way,” but I have a pretty bad idea what it means.

I shove that thought away. She has to wake up. She has to! I hold her soft face, struggling not to start crying again. “Mom, open your eyes. Una’s here, and I’m going to get Brian.”

Her eyelids flutter open. The fog inside them lifts, and they become lucid pools of green. The sleepwalker falls away for one brief moment, and it’s Mom who gives me the faintest smile. “You’re going to roast in that jacket, honey.”

“It’s Dad’s. I need it.”

“I know.” As she drifts down again, Mom clutches my arm like a vise and whispers fiercely, “Vivian. Find Brian. Find him and don’t let go.”

“I will, Mom. I promise.” It’s hard to sound strong when my voice is shaking like this.

 

I head for the freeway in the only vehicle I know how to drive. The Land of Enchantment stretches out gold and green in all directions, ringed with purple-gray mountains stabbing into the sky. The popcorn clouds from this morning are expanding and simmering behind the unsuspecting mountains, threatening to boil over into dark, menacing mushroom shapes by late afternoon and unleash torrential thunderstorms.

In a warehouse parking lot near the entrance to I-25, I take off the jacket and open the map from Lucas’s glove compartment. Mom was right, Dad’s jacket is too warm to wear, but it’s right next to me on the seat with his iPod. I’m by myself, but I can feel them all with me. Brian and Lucas, Mom and Una. Even Elina’s dreamcatcher swaying on the rearview mirror seems to be urging me forward.

I lean back and close my eyes. “So, you guys, which way are we going?”

A dozen amber and blue fireflies dart from my right eye to my left. North to Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and beyond—to whatever waits in Pacheco Canyon.