Chapter 5

Brian’s pocket vibrated. Hours earlier, his everyday life had faded into the background. Now, with a book of hieroglyphics about to be deciphered by a quirky, self-sufficient, amazing dream of a girl, now of all times…

“Wait a sec, Rebecca.” He pulled out the cell phone. One message, from home. And a bar of service. He could call a tow truck now if he wanted.

No way.

He called home. Got the machine. “Hey, it’s me. I found a place to spend the night. Talk to you tomorrow.” Best he could do. His battery light flashed orange in a cabin short on sockets.

Rebecca gaped at him as if he’d invented wireless.

“They do sell smartphones in Nebraska, right?” he said.

She touched the display with a fingertip, snatched her hand away as if she’d burned herself, giggled. “Who would possibly want such a thing?”

“Me.” He wriggled the phone at her.

She shrieked and shrank away.

Her crazy act cracked him up. So realistic he almost believed she’d never seen one before. “My parents worry over nothing. So that was me calling them.”

“You’re sweet, Brian.” She rubbed her shoulder against his.

“You asked whether I had a girlfriend,” he said.

“And?”

“I do now.”

“You do now what?”

“Have a girlfriend.” And who would have thought a single word rolling off his tongue might taste so good?

Rebecca beamed. “You know how being my boyfriend works, Brian?”

“Like maple syrup soaking into pancakes?”

“No, silly.” She flipped the pages of her book to a sketch of a scruffy man dressed in rags. “Like I read a story about gallantry, misdirection, and dreams, and you humor me by listening with rapt attention, whether you think it’s an adult fairy tale or not.”

“Got it.”

“I call this poem ‘The Vagrant.’” She looked down at the open page.

“Sunlight bathes his face from blue skies overhead.

He blinks

and sleep fades from his eyes.

Rising now amid the leaves which formed his bed,

he stands

as morning dew drops dry.”

Rebecca glanced up from the book. “All of my verses have the same meter as the opening stanza. Eleven beats, then two, six, eleven, two and six. The rhythm keeps the words in your head like a favorite song.”

Could be, but hieroglyphics in verse? He couldn’t get past that. She had to be pulling his leg.

Rebecca went for the Academy Award by wetting her finger against her tongue for ease in turning the page, but he refused to buy it. Most likely, she memorized the poem, and the rest was world-class pantomime.

Brian couldn’t resist pulling her chain at least a little bit. “Wait. Teach me how to read some of that.”

She pressed her lips together, shook her head.

“Top secret, huh? You’d have to kill me if you told me?”

She grinned. “Or turn you into a toad, Brian.”

“Nah. Toads eat flies. I’ll stick with bread and cheese.” And anyway, why not indulge in the cool fantasy that Rebecca could read and write a stick-figure language? He leaned his shoulder against hers and listened.

“Kneeling by a brook, he washes shaves and drinks.

Light beard,

blue eyes stare back at him.

Combing long blond hair, ‘adventure’ he now thinks.

‘A day

of magic is my whim.’

“As he walks through town a voice from shadows cries,

‘Go in,

your fortune she will tell.’

‘No.’ The vagrant laughs. ‘The future care not I!’

‘Go in!’

The voice a magic spell.

“Spreading beads apart through candlelight he peers

at her,

a gypsy beckoning.

Turquoise dress, green eyes, gold bracelets, auburn hair.

‘Sit down,

for we must speak of dreams.’”

Simon jumped up and wedged himself between them, purring like he’d eaten Tweety Bird after years of trying. Rebecca dragged her fingers through the cat’s sleek coat. “The fortune-teller sends the beggar away, promising he’ll meet a beautiful maiden.”

A simple tale with a Hollywood finish, but Brian needed more. He’d been pulled into the gypsy’s lair to the point he could smell the candles. “Don’t tell me we’re closing in on the happily ever after already.”

“Not quite yet, Brian. Oracles are vague about the future. The fortune-teller hasn’t told him how things will turn out when he meets this maiden.”

“Great. Bring it on.” Who would have thought a poetry recital could be awesome? A fig bar of a listening experience had magically transformed into two scoops of vanilla fudge in one of those oversized waffle cones with sprinkles melted into the chocolate coating. Whether Rebecca had been reading hieroglyphics—no way—or pretending to be, he was all over this concoction.

She took one of his hands. “First, let’s see what the future holds in store for you, Brian.”

Even better. Not that he wanted to know his future. How boring would life be if he knew the outcome in advance? Still, her hand in his was poetry in its own right, enhancing his sprinkle-cone metaphor by throwing alliteration into the mix—try saying extra ice-cream scoop fast—not to mention the wow factor.

She traced a fingertip along his palm. “This is your lifeline. It’s long, like mine.” She slid her finger sideways. “This other line says you’ll have a great adventure and try to save the world. I hope you’re clever enough to succeed.”

“Me, too. Any suggestions?”

But she released his hand and returned to her story.

Before sending the vagrant away, the gypsy used her magic to tattoo his wrist with the likeness of a red-haired maiden. Thinking the marking would lead him to the love of his life, the vagrant headed off to find his promised one.

At nightfall, he stopped at an inn for shelter. The owner beckoned him inside, having interpreted the tattoo as a sign the vagrant had been chosen to fight a dragon. When the vagrant refused to go along with this ridiculous conclusion, the innkeeper and his cronies locked him in a basement dungeon.

Rebecca turned the page to a sketch on the left of renaissance partiers gathered around a feast. On the right, the vagrant cooled his heels behind bars. “Look at the poor man.”

“Yeah. Tell me more.”

The vagrant relented and agreed to slay the dragon. He soon battled the monster, barely escaped with his life, and ran for the hills. On the way back to town, he stumbled upon the woman of his dreams.

“Ready now to kiss her lips, her nose, her hair.

But no.

She fades with plaintive cries.

Sunlight bathes his face, he smells the morning air.

He blinks.

Away from him she flies.

“‘Has this dove of mine been just another dream?

Good lord,

a fantasy I loved!

Shannon was my moon and stars aflickering.’

Just then,

a beast flies past, above.”

Rebecca shut the book, startling Simon to the floor and pulling Brian out of the story before they’d reached the punch line.

“Hold on, Rebecca. I don’t get it. Did he dream everything, or what?”

“Who can say?” She got off the couch and stretched her arms. “People always think they’re awake, even when they’re sleeping.”

That idea had nothing but downside. Brian teetered at the edge of its slippery slope. “I’d hate to open my eyes and be back on the highway.”

She giggled. “Should I be flattered you’re enjoying my company? You’ve earned a gift!” She fished a coin out of her dress pocket and gave it to him.

Brian rolled it from front to back in his hand. Each side showed the face of some hag whose hair flared out behind her as if caught in the wind.

“Once upon a time, a young man stole a lass’s heart when he appeared at her window and gave her a coin as well as a promise.”

“Is that from another poem?”

She shrugged. “Or a romance. Use this one to buy something, Brian, first chance you get.”

What to buy? He glanced around the cabin. Books, candles, old furniture, the cat. He turned to her, and he knew.

“No, not a kiss,” she said.

“I wasn’t…” Sure he was. The little-sister idea wouldn’t hold him at bay much longer. First, she wasn’t his sister. And second, she was so… Best not to go there. He slipped the coin into his pocket and glanced at the book. “I should jot some of those symbols down and look them up on the Internet.”

“On the…” Rebecca crinkled her forehead, giving the impression she wanted to try her unaware-of-technology joke again. She even reached in her pocket as if going for her little notebook. But she quit the game, motioning to the door, instead. “Come with me. You can’t say you visited Nebraska unless you breathe the night air.”

They headed outside, sat on the step, caught fireflies, chatted. Rebecca wouldn’t answer any questions about herself, steering their talk instead to the local geography. Apparently the sandy hills had been formed by ancient rivers and glaciers. “Or maybe an inland sea,” she said. She pulled a tiny shell out of her pocket. “Look what I found behind the cabin one day.”

“I’ll definitely buy me one of those.” He held up the two-faced coin.

She laughed, they traded, and he became the proud owner of a Sand Hills seashell.

Later, they found a creek and dipped their toes into the rushing water. A shooting star shot over the roof of the cabin. She kissed him then, quick, on the cheek, and he wrapped an arm around her. They sat together on a rock and listened to the crickets until she yawned.

“I’ve got overnight stuff in my car,” he said, “and a sleeping bag.”

“Too far to walk in the dark, Brian.”

They went back inside. Rebecca led him into a tiny room where two simple beds sat a few feet apart from each other. She fished a faded nightgown from a dresser wedged in a corner of the room. “You’ll have to sleep in your clothes unless you want one of these.”

“Ha ha.”

“Turn around, Brian.”

“Wait. I’ll go in the kitchen while you change.”

“The food’s all gone,” she said. “Stay here. I trust you not to look.”

Rebecca must have come straight out of the comic books. Lois Lane would have trusted. Mary Jane would have trusted. Who else? Nobody.

Maintaining her trust became more important than breathing. So he turned. He waited. He dared not to look. He hoped not to blush.

“Now back.”

Although dressed in an ordinary nightgown, Rebecca stole the oxygen out of the room. Her red hair threatened to ignite the simple white fabric into flames.

His heart pounded. Had to be because she’d changed right behind him. Had to be because they stood so close together.

She settled onto the edge of a bed. “I wondered something.”

With head spinning from a bullet blend of desire mixed with emotions less defined, Brian almost didn’t hear her. He collapsed onto the opposite bed. “What?”

“You had an odd look on your face when we met, almost as if you’d seen a ghost. What was wrong?”

He hesitated. That moment he first laid eyes on Rebecca had destiny written all over it. He’d seen her earlier in his dreams! But would she buy a ridiculous story anyone else would laugh off? “You startled me, coming out of nowhere the way you did.”

“I almost had the impression you knew me.” Rebecca leveled him with a razor-sharp stare she must have stolen from his parents. They had B.S. detection down to a science.

He squirmed.

She waited.

He swallowed. “Okay, don’t laugh. I’ve been having nightmares about a girl who looks like you. She’s stranded on a rock in the ocean, and there’s this hangman or whatever after her. A guy with glowing eyes.”

“Oh.” Rebecca broke eye contact. She grabbed a corner of the bedsheet in her hand, bunched it up, released it, then crumpled it again. “Is there an imp in your dream?”

“A what?”

“An imp.” Her voice had gotten edgy, and not in a good way.

“Not unless imps look like tall dudes with glowing eyes.”

Rebecca shut her eyes and worked the sheet in her hand like a stress ball.

Silent vow time. Nix on any dream talk ever again. Brian looked past Rebecca and counted the wall. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen planks. He started in on the floorboards. One, two, three—

“I’m glad we met today.” She’d opened her eyes again. And she was smiling at him. The storm clouds had passed.

He breathed. “Same here.”

Rebecca came off the bed, kissed his cheek, and skipped to an oil lamp hanging from the wall, blowing out the flame. “Sweet dreams, Brian.”

“You, too.” He shut his eyes, but the idea of getting any sleep was ridiculous. Rebecca’s odd mood shift triggered a parade of disturbing images through his mind—the creepy hitchhiker, the wrong-way eclipse, the impossibly shifting road surface, the noose. Some local bully, Abigail, had been punking Rebecca. He clenched his fists.

A better image came waltzing in. A pretty girl coming up behind him on the side of the road. The same girl he’d seen in his dreams. Rebecca. She’d kissed him. Twice.

He opened his fists.

Rebecca had read that story about the vagrant for a good half hour, maybe longer. No one could have memorized so many stanzas. She knew magic. How else could he explain it? And not only because she translated hieroglyphics. Where did the food come from? How about that funhouse mirror in the next room?

Rebecca knew magic. Rebecca was magic. And she liked him. But mysterious storm clouds darkened her mood at times. She needed a hero.

A guy could build his plans around being there for her.

Yeah? What kind of plans? How did a girl living in Nebraska fit in with a guy going to college in Wisconsin? A girl without a phone, or a computer.

He clenched his fists again and tried to fight off reality. Rebecca knew magic, Rebecca was magic, and Rebecca liked him. Almost as much as he’d fallen for her? One could only hope they’d find a way.

Sometime later—minutes? hours?—he opened his eyes.

The room had gone pitch-black. Judging by the steady breathing coming from the other bed, Rebecca had fallen asleep. Hopefully no glowing-eyed man ever messed with her dreams.

Brian closed his eyes again.

More time passed. Dreams became nightmares. An empty gallows. A snarling black cat. Maggots spilling out of the bread and cheese in the kitchen. Brian shot his eyes open. His heart pounded.

A muffled moan came from the next bed.

He was up in an instant.

But Rebecca had simply rolled over in her sleep. The bottom of her sheet slipped to the floor, leaving her legs bare against a chilly draft humming like a harmonica through cracks in the cabin’s window frames.

House-sitting for friends? Squatting? Either way, she’d picked one creepy cabin to stay in.

He pulled the sheet over her again.

A sliver of moonlight sifting through the window revealed a door on the opposite wall. Brian stared at it, demanding himself to man up.

He opened the door and stepped back, fast.

Just a closet. What did he think he’d find on the other side, zombies? He grabbed a blanket from a shelf.

Something rubbed against his ankle. “Huh!”

Simon meowed. The black cat would have blended into the darkened room if not for a pair of bright eyes offering no apology for scaring the daylights out of him.

Brian reached down.

The cat didn’t shy away.

So he lifted the little guy and put him next to Rebecca. “Keep her warm.”

She slept like an angel. A tangle of red hair splaying across the pillow framed her peaceful face.

* * *

Rebecca snuck an eye open again, as she had when Brian covered her with the sheet and blanket and made the clamor with Simon. What wonderful qualities he had, just as she remembered from so long ago. Protectiveness, kindness, gallantry. She lay beneath a blanket and had a purring cat at her side as evidence. And Brian had been quick to console her earlier when Abigail’s tree-noose prank nearly broke her into tears.

Rebecca and Brian had met before, of course, and she’d briefly prayed he remembered—impossible a notion as that might be. She’d been fooled by the dim recognition in his eyes when she approached him and his silly car, only to have her spirits later dashed when he told her about the nightmares. Abigail or Henry had surely planted her image in his mind. Pranks, always pranks, especially from Abigail.

Rebecca gazed down at her hands. She’d balled them into fists yet again.

Good. She clung to the anger like an extra blanket. If in too soft a mood, she’d never be able to leave.

She got up, knelt beside Brian’s bed, and ran her fingers into his hair.

He didn’t stir.

“I’m sorry, but courting can’t be rushed. I have to follow the Witches Code.”

Rebecca hurried out of the cabin.