I got home and Paolo was asleep on the pillow again. Ugh, how utterly impossible was that to bear? No Eric and no distraction. But I had to take charge of this. I took out my yellow sticky notes and I wrote notes in blue ink.
Wake me up if you have to.
Stay.
Come back.
I got to my window, opened it, and stuck the notes on the glass. I settled back down. The exhaustion from the day caught up with me as I flipped through all the new memories in my head and while I didn’t want to face the next day without distraction, I couldn’t overcome the sleep that dragged me under.
I woke up just as thunder boomed. I turned up immediately, heart still pounding like as if I was asleep and I noticed that he was about to shut the window.
“Wait!” I scrambled to sit up. “Talk to me. Stay.”
“Are you not scared?”
“Well, if you meant me harm, you would have done it by now,” and something hit me then. “And that day…I was running in the woods. I felt you there too,”
Silence.
I seriously hoped he wasn’t backing away. “I think I’m dreaming. There’s no danger there. I’ll just wake up before you kill me in the back woods.” I said in my low murmur.
He laughed. “That’s the spirit,” he praised. “Denial’s always better,”
That gave me hope. I smiled. “I ruined the surprise, though. Now you have to come up with something new,”
Silence.
The awkward pauses in conversation seemed misplaced. Since when was it awkward to talk, like a normal person, with the person stalked for nearly a month?
“I would never hurt you,” the sincerity in his voice shocked me like a splash of cold water. I had not been expecting that. He leaned in closer and I tried to control my erratic breathing. “I promise,”
The shock probably came from the realization of my ignorance. I was talking to a stalker like he was a friend dropping by. And I realized, with that promise, as though it might have happened before, how little I cared if he hurt me or not.
“Please stay,” I begged when the rain let up.
For a good portion of the night, I stayed up talking to him. The conversation was so flawless that I was astonished that we hadn’t even spoken about why he was really there.
“School’s…good,” I wanted to stay up longer, all night if I could, but I couldn’t. I shut my eyes and slumped under the sill.
Something touched my shoulder and I curled closer besides the cold and I flung my arm out in its direction.
Night Watcher
She curled up close against the sill, pulling herself up against it. She moaned gently in her sleep and I brushed a few warm curls from her face and she shivered lightly.
I reached around her and shut the windows slightly to ease the cool.
She sighed and then the dog sighed too.
Her fast and hard heartbeat was all over her body, thumping sweetly if not painfully. It made it easier to watch her sleep and be away. “My Selene,”
Ariel
I woke up in the morning alone on the bed with Paolo at his pillow. I rubbed my eyes and remembered it was Sunday. No Eric. And no night watcher until night.
There was nothing left to do but sleep. I shot myself at my pillow, read to comply with my body’s wishes, when I knocked my hand into the diary. I couldn’t help myself and pressed myself further into the story. I still had time before breakfast.
The novel had changed drastically by the time my uncle called me downstairs, somehow sneaking by me. Jack suddenly cared if Sally hurt herself. I shut the diary again.
I longed for someone like Jack. Although he frightened me at first, he was still, somehow, human and caring. Were there only fictional characters that way?
My phone rang, calling me right out of my thoughts. I looked for it all over my bedroom. Who was even calling me on a Sunday? I crawled under the bed, seeing a few shirts under it. Paolo was going to pay if he did this—if I did it, I’d try not to let anyone know that I had. Or blame it on Paolo. If it came to it.
I was halfway under the bed when the phone beeped…behind me. I tried backing out but I was stuck. “Don’t do this,” I muttered out loud.
I tried wiggling myself out. Wham! Paolo jumped right on me and walked along my legs.
“Paolo!” I bellowed after I had hit my head back in shock. Now, he was tickling me with his whiskers on my legs. I jolted, thrashing like a fish. “Paolo!” I half laughed, half cried. “Uncle John!” I screamed. “Help!”
Immediately the door opened. “Paolo! Hang on, honey!” he grabbed my ankles and yanked.
I hit my head one last time and decided to stay flat. It was such a relief to see light. “Oh God!” I wrapped my arms around my astonished uncle. “Thank God; you saved me!”
He held me back, rubbing my head. “I’ll never get over your shenanigans,” he kissed my hair—and I was probably glowing with dust bunnies—and got up. “You look like a duster.” I knew it. He laughed. “What were you doing down there?”
Should I tell him I keep misplacing the phone? I played my fingers through my hair, watching him, devising and measure the plan against him. Was there anyway he could throw money at that problem? Why was I so stingy? I sulked at my curl, drizzled with grey lint. Yet, even when I admitted it, I couldn’t stop it.
The phone rang. I turned up toward the sound on the desk. “Dusting,” I said and jumped up to get it.
My uncle laughed, scooped up Paolo, kissed him and went away, laughing.
I’m glad I amuse you. I thought to myself and turned down to the name on the screen. “Margret,” I pressed the button and lifted the phone to my ear.
“Get on the computer, Kitty, seriously. We’ve been waiting since five.”
What time was it? I turned out the window. I should have known it was dark. I hadn’t made that observation yet.
I was having about seven conversations at once on an instant messenger and I was actually keeping up. It was a fair distraction from the Jack business, anyway.
Seven. Paolo was already snoring on my lap. I was supposed to be nodding off but I was burning my version of the midnight oil.
Queenie67: I’m still pretty nervous about that summer dress.
Margret? Nervous?
Teddy_bear: I liked it.
Teddy_bear: Why are you nervous?
Queenie67: Kitty hasn’t worn it
KittyNora: And why does that make you nervous?
Goddess_of_Lust: Margret, I will pay you a million dollars if I can wear that dress for you
Queenie67: Are you kidding? I’ll pay YOU!
Goddess_of_Lust: Score!
Rey_Bites: Where’s the lingerie, Margo?
Speedy_Gonzales: Shut up, Rey.
Bitch: Really, Rey? Really?
Bitch: Margret’s nervous about her line up for the fashion school and you’re making jokes?
I groaned.
KittyNora: Guys, seriously?
KittyNora: I know you’re laughing.
Queenie67: Yeah.
Queenie67: Me too.
Stranger: okay, we’re sorry.
KittyNora: You too, Gerald?
Stranger: :)
Stranger: force of habit
Goddess_of_Lust: So wait, Margo, do you need a model for the actual show?
Queenie67: I WAS going to ask the other one.
No offense taken.
KittyNora: I’m right here
Queenie67: But if you’re volunteering, Risa…
Goddess_of_Lust: Oh please!
Goddess_of_Lust: Sign me up!
Well that took care of one problem.
Pumpkinpieprincess: Sorry guys
Pumpkinpieprincess: I was making some pizza
Queenie67: You eat so much!
Queenie67: How can you be so little!
Pumpkinpieprincess: :P
Pumpkinpieprincess: ;) it’s a gift
Rey_Bites: I think we were destined to be soul mates
Bitch: I’m going to laugh when Gerald kicks your ass, man
Stranger has signed off. 7: 21 pm
Rey_Bites: shit guys
Rey_Bites: Tully, I’m sorry
Bitch: you’re not sorry
Rey_Bites: that’s the worse part
Rey_Bites: I can’t stop laughing
Rey_Bites: he’s going to kill me
Bitch: Rey, calm down
Bitch: you had it coming
Rey_Bites:
Rey_Bites has signed off. 7: 22 pm
I heard my horrified gasp and then I laughed. It would be funnier when we saw each other again.
Paolo suddenly sat up.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” I began but he ricocheted off my lap and I swung around in the spin-y chair. He leapt into the bed and whimpered at the window.
I stared at him, listening to the beeping behind me.
A pebble hit the window from the darkness of night. I bounced in the seat. Another one. My heart jumped. Where were they coming from? I could only see the dark and not the angle they flew at—that and my vision was just as lazy as I was.
I turned to the computer.
KittyNora: gtg
I signed off before anyone could send a message. I turned off the monitor and I picked a path toward the window and shut the lights off. Inevitably, I stumbled around, banging myself on things that I tried to make out in the snapshot of my bedroom in my head. I fell into bed and, regardless of what it was supposed to feel, the edge of the mattress still hurt me. I crawled toward the source of distraction, lamely catching my hands against my quilts. I saw the same lonely, completely darkened figure against the trunk of the tree. I eagerly opened the window and my smile evolved. “Hi,”
“Hey,” he stepped closer and sat on the branch.
There he was. He was the king of the moon, the god of it. My immortal watcher that seemed to be above sleep and exhaustion and who found it partially amusing to watch me sleep through what I suspected was the entire night.
He made my heart jump just with the thought.
“I kept the light off so you wouldn’t reveal your secret identity,” I teased.
He chuckled lightly. “Everything I do, I do for you,”
I flushed, lowering my eyes. “You speak…funny.”
“Funny how?”
“You sound like a knight talking to a queen…like in a romance novel,” Jack. I thought had gotten over this!
He laughed lightly again. “Refusing loyalty to you is like ignoring your existence.” He whispered. “It’s undeniable.”
I waited, searching the darkness where his face should be, in complete shadow of his hood. I couldn’t find his eyes but I felt them, burning me, true and intense and sincere. “You make me feel like something special,” I accused in a low murmur, rubbing my hands together as I leaned out the sill.
“You’re more than special,” he vowed. “You’re everything.”
I lowered my eyes. “Seriously.”
“Have you been staying away from Eric Garrison?” he changed the subject, a faint glimmer of amusement still left in his voice.
I got up and sat on the window seat, almost on top of the sill. “Let’s not speak of him,”
“Why?” he half demanded. “I think I was clear,”
I turned down and crossed my arms. “It’s complicated,”
He groaned. “The things I have to do to keep you out of trouble,”
I turned to him. I swallowed back. “What have you done?”
Silence.
“Do you really want to know?”
I waited for a moment, not really considering the question. “Sometimes,”
“It’s strange,” he whispered. “But even though you decided to stay, you still hope that it’s all just a nightmare and that you’ll wake up.”
“I always was the hopeful one,” I murmured after the revelation sank in.
There was silence. Silence and thoughts and it was another bubble altogether. There were no voices in the background. There wasn’t anything but us…and Paolo.
He whimpered under my legs on the bed.
I smiled and turned down and turned toward the shadow. “You know, Paolo’s your biggest fan. He gets disappointed when you don’t come,”
“Could have fooled me with all that barking.”
I rubbed the chocolate fur. “He’s just excited, is all.”
“And you?” blush. “Are you excited that I’m here?”
I turned to him. “Perhaps I shouldn’t be so forward, but when you’re here, this place feels safe. Like a bubble around me. I don’t know how much protection one person can be, but it feels like enough,”
I knew there was some eye contact and I tried not to fidget out of it.
“It feels like I’ve known you forever,” I whispered.
Silence.
He chuckled lightly and I blushed at the gentle reprimand. “Do I mesmerize you or are you trying to remember a self-defense move to blind me and push me off the tree?”
I laughed and turned down to Paolo who looked at me when I turned, wagged his tail half-heartedly and turned toward the shadow. “Mesmerize,”
I opened my eyes. I imagined it. I tried to shut them.
Bing.
Why? I opened my eyes again. Light. Whatever. Break.
Bing.
Uh…I groaned. I kept my eyes open. Bing. I sat up in bed and pushed my curls around on my face. I rubbed myself awake. Bing. I turned toward the window. Bing. A pebble! But it was morning! He should have left! I hitched a tickling curl behind my ear and I peered out.
Was he going to show me who he was?
Eric! My heart hit the brakes with a splat. He was below, looking up, eyes burning intense.
I threw the window open.
“Get ready,” he said in a calm voice. “We’re going out,”
I stared then the amusement hit high. I tried to hide it and I ran into my room and I picked some clothes out and I ran into the shower. Please don’t wake up. I scrubbed myself down, fell a couple of times, besides the little scratchy things on the shower floor my uncle bought for me.
I got ready and put lotion on. I pulled my high neck spaghetti strap shirt and threw on my grey square neckline shirt over it that had elbow sleeves. I tugged on some jeans. I brushed through my hair and dried it out with a towel. I brushed my teeth, flossed and rinsed. I ran to my room, threw the laundry at the basket and ran to get my shoes.
I poured Paolo food and water to the brim.
I grabbed my shoes and snuck down stairs. I went into the kitchen and left a sticky note.
Went out for a little while. Sorry. Didn’t want to wake you. Promise to be safe and home soon.
I pasted it on the covert where he got his oatmeal from. I fought Paolo again, who cried, wanting to come along. I stepped out into the cold concrete steps outside the side door. I slipped into my shoes after dusting my feet with my hands and I ran toward Eric who was leaning against his beautiful car, nearly falling face first into the mud.
We hopped in and Eric tried to be quiet pulling out. I had neighbors! I flushed as the thrill ripped through me. What would they think that I was sneaking out just after dawn?!
We ripped down the quiet road in the opposite direction of what I was used to. I turned to him after seeing the green signs on the side of the road: Harborton 3 and another name I didn’t catch.
He turned to me.
We took the long way back behind Ginger. We passed Tarisa’s big estate and continued driving down a dirt road.
It was beautiful. There was a golden field, like there wasn’t rain, like there was sun.
I was shocked nearly breathless by the thought of the sun. While it was cloudy, I had to believe there would be sunlight and if not, could the visits be frequent to see it sometime?
We walked around through the tall grasses until we reached a park that was old and wooden but still, to me, it was like we had found a lost city. The jungle gym that connected to a swing and two tire swings, the sand and wood chip box, the monkey bars. The oak tree with another tire swing across a short field from it all.
Eric continued as though it wasn’t enough. I followed him down near the creek. “So where are you taking me?”
“So curious,”
“Well, I’d like to think that I didn’t run out of my house for nothing,”
He chuckled. “Patience is a virtue,”
“Are you planning to mug me, Eric Garrison?”
“Mug you? And take John’s hard earned cash?”
“Ugh, as if,”
“I don’t see you working, sweetheart,”
“I don’t see you working either,”
He hopped across the stream so easily it looked like he flew. I turned down to it. It had to be a foot wide and while it wasn’t so much to jump, it was how he did it that stunned me. I turned up to him.
He smirked. “I hope you don’t see me working,”
I looked around for dry stones in the clear running waters and when I found them, I merely had to skip across. I wasn’t a showoff but it seemed to annoy him in that aspect too.
“Oh really? I smirked at him.
“Really,” he smirked back.
“I hope they’re getting their money’s worth,”
He looked strained in restrain, amusement and hate in his eyes.
I smiled.
“Look who’s talking, Miss I-have-a-band-wrapped-around-my-finger,”
“Oh, ha, Eric. You should be talking. Your possessions usually go to someone else, your self-esteem seems to depend on how many girls try to jump you, and you’ll pretty much have any girl that will have you,” smiles.
He glared.
“I couldn’t help it,” I giggled. “I’m not apologizing so I’m sorry about that,”
“Has anyone ever told you that dolls look less creepy when they don’t talk?”
“Has anyone ever told you that tramps look bad any way they are!”
“Nice comeback,” he snorted humorlessly.
“Not as nice as your face!” I blurted out. Ugh! I clapped my hands over my face. I was so stupid.
He laughed. “Thanks,”
“It was sarcasm, stupid!” I shrieked.
“Sure,” he continued.
I looked up and he was walking away, into trees…I turned upward and I had not been fooled my first instincts. Eucalyptus. Although it was stupid, I had a favorite tree and that was it. The smell, the look, the feel. It all attracted me.
He turned back to me and I couldn’t deny him though I wanted to. “What?”
“I just like the trees,” I muttered and walked over to him. There, hanging from the tree, there was a huge tire swing. I had never seen a tire so big. And the tree held it? I turned up. There was a contraption that tied it seemingly steady.
There was a noise I didn’t immediately need to recognize. A rattle. I jumped into the swing and nearly fell out but I stood up against it and I shivered.
“What? Oh shit,” Eric got in more calmly than I did and lifted his legs in. “Nice. Rattlesnakes.”
“Snakes?” I panicked. The thought. The thought of…I nearly swooned. I couldn’t handle even the thought. It scared me too much. I could feel the way they rattled their tails. I sank down beside him. “Make it stop!” I clapped my hands over my ears but it wasn’t helping. My heart was mimicking the sound.
“It’s fine,” his voice overwhelmed the noise very softly.
I had overreacted. Great. I turned down to my lap and trembled. The place no longer seemed beautiful. I wanted to go home and sleep.
“They won’t get you,” he promised.
“But…” it was stupid to even begin to explain a phobia. It was an irrational fear, after all. I tried numbing myself out. Eric was right. They couldn’t get me…I could only hope.
“You’re fine,”
“I’m sorry; phobias,” I muttered, holding my legs close under my chin.
He nodded knowingly.
“Do you have any?”
He shook his head with a solemn expression. “I’m a man,”
I rolled my eyes, nearly laughing. “Thanks, Eric,”
“What? You have some, so you must be a girl,”
I liked his logic. I just wished it wasn’t true. I would rather be fearless and a man than scared and girly.
“I’m not afraid of anything,” he answered quietly.
“Could I ask you something?”
He groaned.
Sorry!
“What?”
“How did you end up here, Eric? In Ginger?”
He turned down. “I was raised to be a guardian,”
“Guardian?” I perked up.
He nodded, looking down still. “I don’t know how much you want to know, but this place has an underground society. It’s almost a monarchy, if you can believe it,” he rolled his eyes. “And there’s power. With power comes opposition. I’m supposed to protect the essence of that power,”
Margret was a guardian…Merry was a guardian too. They just didn’t…
“Like an heir?”
He turned up. “Like a throne,”
“There’s no heir?”
He turned down with a deep sigh. “No. It’s been like that for awhile. Here….it’s hard to explain. Let’s say, in theory, that people could do anything and everything they wanted. Time would never run out.”
I nodded mindlessly, waiting for him to go on.
“Because of that, the entire society is at a stand still. No one has kids, no one goes to college. They don’t move forward. So, then, the other communities that do, overall have millions of lives, become more powerful. Without me or another guardian, this society would be taken over by another. People would be killed and enslaved. It’s like an ancient city-state war.”
I had no idea there were other towns like Ginger in the world. So maybe I really wasn’t the only one living among them, in perfection.
“How are you trained?”
He shrugged. “Regular combat. Elemental testing, that sort of thing,” he turned down from looking at the horizon we’d come from. “I was in Alaska about a month ago. Several Fridays ago when I was called down by the band.” He rolled his eyes. “Gretchen said that she thought I would want to come back and we came back because she wanted to,” he groaned.
Several Fridays ago? Like me? A month? Really? It had only been that long? As much as Eric seemed annoyed by the move from Alaska, I found it to be a lucky coincidence. So I was still sort of lucky.
“And that’s it,” he shrugged. He turned to me. “What about you? What was life like before Ginger?”
I turned down to my knees. “Not to good. Long story short: my family doesn’t love me, the future I had planned—ugh, it’s gone, to be frank. I thought my life was a fairytale then everything was over and I found a better life here,” I turned up with a sarcastic smile.
He smiled back easily. “Are you really better here?”
I didn’t even know what to say to that.
“I think I’ve been tamed. Watching you be tamed is a little hard to watch,” he admitted with a little smile. “You’re tough. Always hoping for something else, always looking for the truth and trying to keep the balance between your reality and ours. You just don’t seem to want to go down without a fight. Sort of like a wild horse.” He snorted. “Mustang, like me,”
“Did you just compare me to your car?” but I remembered the way he drove it, the way he changed when he was there.
He laughed. “Anyway,” his eyes locked mine and I felt my face glow. “Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t get away from here. Because of the little doll running around town, people suddenly want love and children and futures. They want fairytales.”
“Then maybe we’re the keys to each other’s freedom. Your freedom depends on my ability to get people to move forward, my freedom depends on your ability to protect the town like before,”
“Go,” he smiled again. “I’m beyond saving,”
There was a quiet slot between us.
“Eric,” I started on another note, diving into a subject that could end the conversations all too easily. “I…I know you’re in the band…”
He sighed and shrugged. “Bound to find out. You are observant when your world is put on pause,”
I ignored the comment.
“I heard you play piano,” he mentioned with a slight grin. “Your uncle mentioned it Saturday night to Gretchen. He also said you weren’t playing it,”
“Great. Well, I forgot how to…long story short…well, when I was a kid, he was the only one who would listen. When he left, I didn’t have a reason to play.” I turned up to him through my lashes.
He smiled and jumped out.
I blinked and realized, as the swing swung softly, that the rattles had disappeared.
“Come on,”
We drove to his big mansion house which was more beautiful, white to the point of gasping. We went through the front door which nearly gave me a heart attack. It was quiet, still, but he led me on as though there was no chance of waking the entire household—there had to be servants involved with the size of the house.
We snuck to the back, near the door that Dylan, Devin, and I had used to get to the garden and he opened double doors of framed glass into a dark room. I stumbled in and stood still. He didn’t open the curtains on the walls and instead hit the switch by the threshold.
There were two silky couches, the kind with the wooden framework that was crafted so beautifully, it was like a throne and they were beside the door, angling the corner and a tangerine cushion that was built around a small coffee table. The rest of the room was basically cluttered with boxes besides the large, shiny black piano covered with a sunset orange afghan in the back with a vase filled with orange roses and a single white candle.
“Go sit over there,” he told me, hinting at the piano.
I stared at him. He didn’t budge. I moved toward it reluctantly, grumbling. I sat on the bench and opened the keys.
The lights went off. “Don’t be scared,”
I covered my mouth.
Something sat beside me.
I turned blindly toward him. “Okay, how is this supposed to help?”
“Well, you obviously think you’ll hit the wrong key if you haven’t even tried to play at home,”
“So observant,” I murmured. “And so?”
“Now, if it’s dark, you can’t beat yourself up because you hit a wrong key.” How’d he get here anyway? It was pitch dark. Again, he was my opposite. I had little grace in daylight and he seemed to be perfect in the dark. “Now, try anything,”
“I can’t. The notes won’t come to me,”
“Anything, a key—at random,”
“My fingers won’t budge,” I complained.
There was a reprimanding note: Bing. “Come on,”
I turned toward where I thought would be down. There was nothing that I could see. I lowered my fingers and felt the smoothness of the piano. I pressed down. Bing. A key. It sounded wrong! I pulled my fingers back. “I just can’t.”
A dramatic piece tore through the silence and simmered down.
I caught my breath and the notes came together into a name: Beethoven’s 9th symphony.
“That was incredible!” I lacked imagination to even think that it could be imitated on the piano.
“People have themes,” he said. “I think that’s mine,”
“Oh yeah, you wish.”
“You’re right. It’s Darren’s,”
“Seriously?” I replayed the song in my head. Darren. I could imagine him doing what he loved best: running. Running all over the world, never stopping. Happy, smiling, practically flying. “What am I?” I ventured.
He chortled. “You remind me of the X-Files theme song,”
I groaned. “Very funny,”
He laughed and played it.
“Quit it,” I nudged his shoulder.
He laughed and stopped. “Come on. Try anything.”
“I can’t,” I muttered moving toward my side of the bench.
“Every song has an owner who’s saying something to one person or audience. I mean, any good song, at least. And instrumental songs like the piano solo ones are much more direct.”
I turned to him. “I think that made it worse,” I whispered.
“So you have a song in mind…”
“Yeah,” I whispered turning to where the keys were under my fingers. “I’ve had it stuck in my head since Winter Break,”
He froze up.
Oh, right. I wasn’t the only one with problems then.
“Try it,”
“Can everyone tell what the song is saying?”
“It’s a secret language, I think,”
How awkward could that get? Especially with intuitive Eric?
“How about a trade?”
I turned to him.
“A personal song for another,”
Jerry’s words flooded back to me. His song!
“One that no one else has heard?” I pressed.
“Why?”
“No one will ever guess this out of me,” I muttered.
“Sure,” he agreed.
I turned to the keys. I was so close to solving one mystery and all it would take was playing something very personal, something musician Eric would understand as though I said it out loud.
“Visualize what you’re saying like a movie in your head and write it on the keys,”
I shut my eyes, fingers aligned God only knew where, and the scene developed before me.
My ballroom dancing in heaven.
Lying on a grassy hill in eternity.
The hostage situation.
The race.
The first glance.
The endless snowfall.
The swinging tire swings.
The red thread.
Everything made sense, was all worth it.
I opened my eyes as the song sifted away into silence.
Stillness.
I felt him turn at the same time I turned to him. “I thought that I was out of space and time and I realized I was blind to what I really had. But now my eyes are open.”
He lit a candle on top of the piano and turned to me and held my gaze.
“And what do you see?”
“I see you…”