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I stormed past the cop car with its flashing lights, and the van where they hid Randy away. Past the social workers in their stylish dresses and fancy heels and evil schemes. I suspect they knew I left. Maybe not. Their concern was Randy and all the wrongs they accused Mrs. Wright of committing. Maybe she was going to lose the boarding house. I felt bad for her. I felt bad for Randy. What could I do to help? Nothing. So, I kept walking. No one said anything to me, except Liona. She was the only one who cared that I was leaving but what could she do? Nothing. I didn’t want anyone chasing me, not even her. I needed to be alone. Far away. I didn’t think about where my feet took me. Toward the sea, like a magnet, because the sea was my refuge. The ocean knew me and was my friend. My only friend.
I stumbled down the woodsy trail that led from the house to the road, and which didn’t follow the driveway where everyone was congregated. The trail veered north a bit. Hedged with wild rhododendrons, salal, and thimbleberries. Shadowing firs soon cloaked me from all sides until I couldn’t see the house. The trail didn’t seem like it had been used for a long time, the path was so overgrown. Twigs scratched at my clothes and I had to slow down and wrestle with sticker bushes which caught my clothes and pulled my hair. Thorns dug into my fingers when I freed myself and I had to fight my way through thick clumps of branches to pass.
Once at the bottom of the hill, I stepped out on the road. Thankfully, no cars passed by because I couldn’t stand to look another person in the eye, stranger or not. I just wanted to be gone. Gone! I turned left and crossed the street, shuffling along as quietly as I knew how, hoping I was invisible to the world.
Mrs. Wright’s boarding home nested in the woods that made up most of Elwood Estates. Not far away, however, were rows of houses lined up along the street. Big fancy houses with fresh paint, manicured gardens and white picket fences. Not a soul stirred in any of the front yards for morning had not yet woken the world. The paper boy had left his trail of newsprint-stuffed-in-plastic bags on everyone’s driveways. I hoped no one ventured outside to pick them up because the sight of me might cause neighbors to be suspicious. Who knows if I could pass as a normal man casually taking a jog, instead of a crazy person running away. If I had known how to use my magic to become invisible this would have been the perfect time.
The corner lot which opened to the beach was within view. The beach meant safety. I jogged across the street past a large red house with a chain link fence. A gate hung open. Out of nowhere, and with a terrifying bark, a big black dog charged at me, snarling and growling and carrying on as if I were a thief. He ran along the fence and then raced through the gate, out of the yard and on to the sidewalk. In a flash, he caught up to me, snapping at my heels. I panicked and pulled my backpack off my back and used it as a buffer to keep him from biting me. I tried to run away but he kept at my shoes and my bag, jumping and snapping. He didn’t let off until someone from the house called him several times. He ceased his assault, snarled at me, and then raced back to his master.
“Sorry!” the man called out to me as he picked up the newspaper on his steps.
I had no breath left to respond. I turned toward the beach again and ran. I jumped over grassy sand dunes and skipped over driftwood logs until the cool hard and wet sand tingled under my feet. I hadn’t thought about where I was going. The only thing I was aware of was my racing heart. I knew if I stopped I’d have an anxiety attack, so I kept running.
When I was sure no one from the boarding home could see me, I eased up and caught my breath. Once I felt the ocean spray on my face my heart slowed, and I calmed down. Once my pulse quieted I could feel the hurt. Losing Annabella was like losing Uncle Jim all over again.
How I wished I could take time back. I’d have tucked my shoe box away in my closet in my room and left it there. I’d have never let anyone see Annabella, or the glowing marble and kept her for myself. Mr. Gravestone would have never touched the box. Randy would have never picked it up off my lap. Annabella would never have flown across the room. I squeezed my eyes shut because I didn’t want to see her pieces scattered all over the carpet. It didn’t help though because the image was burned into my mind.
Right then I heard the crash of a wave and the cool water that tickled my toes woke me up to where I was. Man, how I missed being here alone, listening to the surf. Not another soul stirred, only me and the gulls and constant heartbeat of the breakers against the shoreline. My legs were tired and my breath hot, so I walked even slower. I didn’t need to run anymore. No one followed. No one cared where I was or that my heart was broken. Walking was much easier on my body, but not on my mind because my thoughts drove me to despair. I counted my loses. Uncle Jim. Annabella, and now the social workers were taking my poor friend Randy away from his home and he had no say. Trapped in his body, no one would listen to him.
“I know how it is, Buddy,” I said, wishing he was here to hear me. “I know.”
My life emptied out right there. I gave it to the sea just like the oysters with their scattered shells broken and ground into sand. Like the empty crab skeletons plucked clean by the seagulls, sandpipers and crows. Sand fleas devouring the remains. Remnants of something that could have been. That was, once.
What had I been?
I stumbled when the shoreline grew rocky. I wanted to cry, but I didn’t. I’d keep that kind of feeling inside because I’m not a cry baby. Uncle Jim told me I wasn’t. I could fight just about any emotion if I wanted to. So, I did. The fight kept me going. I walked straight toward the buttes that sheltered Windy Point. Homesickness rumbled inside of me just as hard as the breakers crashing against the rocks. Homesickness was one feeling I could overcome, because I could, and would go home. I’d sneak into my old house and stay there. If Aunt Agnes stayed away.
The walk to Windy Point took a long time. The sun sank low in the sky and when I rounded the Point, soft blue twilight welcomed me. The familiar oyster beds stretched out before me in the distance. I thought I’d venture to my house, but I was tired. I couldn’t walk any farther and there was still about half a mile to go, so I fell onto the wet sand near a pile of driftwood. I made sure I was far enough away from the sea so as not to wake up wet or washed away if the tide came while I was asleep. I constructed a lean-to from some sun-bleached driftwood logs, a fortress which would keep me sheltered from the wind and any snooping transients that sometimes wander to the beach from town. The logs glowed under the starlit sky. So ominous did my little shelter blaze, it reminded me of an abode on the lost world of Tatooine. I pretended I was Anakin Skywalker come home to save my planet.
This was my first night on my own and I amazed myself for being able to get away without anyone following me. No one would find me here cause once I laid down, I was invisible to the road.
I tucked my pack under my head for a pillow. There were holes in my shelter’s roof; long slits of open space where the twists of the logs didn’t match up so that I could see the sky. I watched the clouds curl and turn and float above me until they blocked the stars and eventually massed into dark. I must have dozed because the next time I opened my eyes, a cheerful brown face leaned over and peeked in at me through the doorway. His crooked teeth gleamed white like the moon.
“Tim Lan!”
He crawled into my shelter. “Where’ve you been, Em? Sleeping?” he whispered.
“No. I mean yes.” I sat up. “I must have dozed.”
“Why are you sleeping here? What happened?”
“Oh man, you don’t know!” I said, remembering I had neither told Tim Lan about my uncle, nor had I a chance to say goodbye. I sat up and brushed the sand out of my hair. “I’m sorry. My uncle died. I should have told you.”
“Oh, so sorry.” He sat down next to me. “So sorry.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“You live homeless now? How come?”
“Not homeless. This is home,” I said. “More than any house I’d been in lately.”
“That’s not right. Homelessness is not for young people like you. Maybe old men like me, but not you. Too much future.”
“Well, I don’t think there’s a future for me. Other than this.”
“No, there’s a future for you.”
Not sure what future Tim Lan meant. I hadn’t seen any future in anything that had happened this last month. I ignored that sickly look of sympathy. “Aunt Agnes is selling Uncle Jim’s house.”
He let out a long drawn out moan. Then he shook his head. “You should fight in the courts. They’re stealing your house. Don’t let them do that.”
I scowled. “I think what Aunt Agnes is doing is legal and she has her mind made up. Maybe she already sold the house, I don’t know. I can’t argue with her, though. What’s done is done.” I had heard Uncle Jim say that a lot and now was a fitting time to repeat his words.
“Why not argue?”
I had no good answer except for the fact that I never argued with her, or any of my other relatives for that matter. Except maybe for when I grabbed the muffin tin from Shirley. I shook my head and looked out at the shifting fog, creeping in closer, masking the sea so that there were only me and Tim Lan under a driftwood roof floating in a cloud.
“What happened?”
“Things got bad.” That’s all I could muster to say, but Tim Lan had a special knack at pulling my thoughts out of me. “Something broke.” I wiped my face with my sleeve. Tim Lan leaned in closer.
“You could make new again with your magic, no?”
I shook my head. The idea had occurred to me, but I buried the notion. “No.” I looked him in the eyes because I wanted him to understand. “You can’t replace something like that. Annabella is gone. She was grandma’s and then she belonged to Uncle Jim. How can I replace her without bringing them back? And I can’t do that.”
He was silent for a moment after that, having no idea who Annabella was. He touched my shoulder. “I understand,” he whispered. “Still. Go back.”
I felt sorry for him-trying to convince me of something I knew I couldn’t do. “I’m slow. Aunt Agnes thinks I’m not capable of taking care of myself. I guess I don’t think fast enough, or right enough.”
“Who told you that? You’re a smart boy. Maybe naïve, not dumb though.”
I shrugged my shoulders and shifted in the sand. “I don’t know.”
“You just need help.”
“My uncle helped me. Now there’s no one.”
“There’s me.”
He was serious, I could see the sincerity in his eyes. His smile had straightened, not to a frown, but to a grim sort of expression; the kind Uncle Jim would give me before he included me in on a secret.
“You have a gift. I appreciate your gift. Stay with me,” he said.
I searched his eyes for a long moment before I sat up straight, before I sensed hope of something better happening to me than being tossed around like a rag doll by people who didn’t care about me, or only new me on the surface, or who wanted something from me. “Really?”
“Look.” He took hold of my left hand in both of his and squeezed it. “I’ve seen the magic, right?”
“Yeah. Sometimes there’s magic.”
“Sometimes is all we need. Stay with me and I’ll take care of you.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted anyone to take care of me. I wanted to take care of myself. “I just want to be alone, Tim Lan.”
“You will be alone, but still have a place to sleep. A bed, food. And all of this.” He gestured out to the sea. That’s when I realized that Tim Lan knew me. He knew what was inside of me. Maybe because he felt the same way. He kept shaking my hand and nodding, forcing an unsteady smile out of me. “Okay?” he asked.
“Okay,” I agreed, still not sure what we were agreeing on. “Where at?”
“My house is not much. A shanty. I made it myself. Reef Hollow. Right on the water. Close to the woods. You come with me to Reef Hollow. Okay?”
I looked around me at the cloud covered beach, the vast, dark shoreline illuminated by the moon. Reef Hollow had to be a long walk from here. I’d been there before. A long time ago. Mom and I used to beach comb down that way. We’d find glass floats, sand dollars, and fancy pieces of driftwood and then take them to the Shoreline Trading Post. She’d sell them for beer money. After that she’d get drunk and I’d run away to the cove if the tide was out. Sometimes I had to run away at night. I swallowed the lump that formed in my throat. I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to see that place again.
“Okay?” Tim Lan asked again.
I nodded.
“Let’s go then!” He jumped up, but I didn’t.
I don’t normally argue, but fatigue and doubt glued me to the ground. “Can we wait until morning?”
Tim Lan put his hands on his hips and shook his head. He must have seen how sleepy I was because he fell back down again and lay next to me. “Okay,” he said.
Not much time passed before I fell asleep, I was so tired.
Not too tired to dream, though. In my dreams, I heard the ocean crashing, and the fog rolling in like fog always invades the coast. I walked from the corner lot where I used to stop with Randy and watch the seagulls. We weren’t watching seagulls in my dream. I pushed him there and he sat alone in his wheelchair and laughed and waved goodbye to me. Then in the mist I saw Liona, that cocky stance, her hair brilliant as a policeman’s flashing lights. She tilted her head to the side, waiting for me to change my mind, chewing her gum. In my dream, I considered going back. Maybe I was considering going back in real life too. I wondered if Liona could read my mind while I was dreaming. She kept chewing her gum and held her hand on her hip waiting. I couldn’t move one way or the other as hard as I tried.
I woke still struggling to decide. Go with Tim Lan or return to Liona? The waves splashed and rumbled on the beach, creeping closer, bringing in high tide. I took a deep breath when I realized where I was, that I had been dreaming and that I didn’t have to decide.
I lay there for a little bit going over the vision in my mind. I thought about Liona and how we were just getting to know each other. How maybe she didn’t want me to run away. Maybe I didn’t want to go. Then I thought about Mrs. Wright’s house, and how the social workers rolled Randy away like a criminal into a strange van by the police, and Annabella all broken up in pieces in front of the fireplace. A sick feeling came over me and I turned on my side and closed my eyes to shut the images out. I missed Annabella. My future wasn’t in the boarding home. That part of me was gone, now. Fractured into tiny pieces waiting to be swept away. My future would be with Tim Lan.
Chapter 12
