After a lot of stumbling, I reached the tower, glad of one thing—that there was no force field set up by the Beautiful Dead to keep me out. Tonight I didn’t have the energy to battle the wings and the death-heads.
Instead, Hunter had sent the new kid, Lee Stone, to greet me. He stepped out from under the tower without speaking.
I jumped back in shock. “It’s good that I’ve developed nerves of steel,” I told him. “Couldn’t you give me some warning instead of springing out like that?”
“Hunter said to watch out for you,” Lee said. “He knew you’d come.”
“Hunter knows everything,” I replied dryly. “It’s the one thing you can be sure of.”
Up there on the ridge, the stars and moon gave me just enough light to take a closer look at Lee, who was dressed in a dark T-shirt and a jacket I recognized as belonging to Phoenix—most likely the one he was wearing when he was stabbed between the shoulder blades. “Turn around,” I whispered. Sure enough, there was a jagged tear in the leather. I tried to cover up a small gasp and the shudder that ran through me. “Where are the others?” I asked.
“They’re in the barn, holding some kind of meeting.” Lee looked like he still hadn’t gotten used to the idea of coming back from the dead. “They said for me to keep a lookout.”
“Well, here I am. Should we walk down and join them?”
Lee shook his head. “The meeting isn’t for far-siders. It’s some kind of ritual they need to go through.”
“What kind of ritual?” It was the first I’d heard of this. And I started to resent Lee blocking my path down the hill. “I need to talk with Phoenix,” I explained. “It’s personal.”
Lee refused to step aside. “Hunter said no.”
“Oh, well, if the overlord forbids it…” I turned on the sarcasm, even though he didn’t deserve it. “Tell me, Lee. Don’t you object to the absence of free will around here?”
“I’m sorry. That’s the way it is.” He seemed dejected and there was still that edge of confusion in his voice. “Hunter gives the orders.”
“It’s OK. I know.” Closing my eyes for a second, I relented. “Sorry. Sometimes it’s hard to bear.”
“What is?”
“Obeying, keeping secrets, being left out of the loop. Did Hunter say when he would let me talk to Phoenix? If not tonight, then when?”
Lee shook his head. “I have no idea. Sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s not your fault.” For a moment I managed to put myself in Lee’s shoes. “Did they find time to explain things to you?” I asked.
“Some,” he mumbled. “I found out that I wait in line after Arizona, Summer, and Phoenix. Waiting’s a tough task, especially since I know there’s something here on the far side that needs an explanation.”
I nodded. “They have a word—revenant. You’re back here on a temporary basis, with all these crazy powers.”
Lee’s puzzled grin of acknowledgment lifted his face and made me realize for the first time that he was a good-looking guy. “I could zap your mind and wipe your memory clean, isn’t that cool?”
“Yeah, but don’t try it,” I said, quickly moving on. “You have no heartbeat, but you do have superhearing, if that’s any consolation.”
“I heard your car way beyond Turkey Shoot,” he confirmed.
“You’re one of the Beautiful Dead.” I looked directly into his eyes and the conversation slowed as I reached forward to put a sympathetic hand on Lee’s arm. “Don’t worry. It’ll make sense in the end.”
“Aah, sweet!” Arizona said, stepping out of the shadows. “I’m sorry—did I interrupt something?”
I withdrew my hand as if Lee’s arm was red-hot.
“So how come you never told me you had a baby brother?” I challenged. “The same goes for the boyfriend with the muscles, Kyle Keppler.”
Arizona didn’t give me any answers, naturally. She shrugged away my big questions and told me that their ceremony was over and Hunter had given permission for me to go down and see Phoenix.
“Boy, Darina, do you have some explaining to do.” She laughed, turning the tables on me as she led me and Lee through the barn door.
The barn was lit with oil lamps that cast flickering shadows over the walls and floor. Most of the Beautiful Dead were still there, though Hunter was missing, I noticed.
Phoenix sat quietly on the hayloft steps, with Eve and baby Kori. Seeing me, he stood up and came across, took my hand and walked me out into the dark night.
“We need to talk,” we both said in the same instant, then we smiled awkwardly.
He took me toward the house, where he picked up another oil lamp before we walked on along the creek.
“What’s happening?” I asked, hardly recognizing my own quiet, shaking voice. I felt small under the vast sky. Phoenix’s hand was cold as the icy stream. “I told you I loved you and you didn’t tell me back. Why was that?”
He refused to look at me. “You explain it to me, Darina.”
Speak your fear. Get it out in the open. “I need to know—am I losing you? Did you stop loving me?” If he said yes, my world would end. Everything would come crashing down. But still I had to know.
Phoenix let go of my hand and walked a little way ahead. “What makes you say that?”
“You’re blocking me, you’re not sharing. I never felt you keeping me at this distance before.” Hearing him take a deep breath, I caught up with him. “I’ve thought of everything these last two days—maybe there was something I did wrong, I don’t know. Or maybe it’s you, Phoenix. Is this what happens to the Beautiful Dead? When you first come back to the far side you have feelings the way you used to. You still loved me. But gradually, bit by bit, those human feelings fade and you can’t do anything to stop it. Is that what’s happening between us? If it’s true, I can’t bear it, but you have to tell me so that I understand.”
The light flickered over his lovely, smooth face, his eyes shadowed, a small nerve in his forehead jumping. “You think I don’t love you?” he murmured, as if the words were spoken in a foreign language he didn’t understand. The creek ran at our feet, shining silver under the stars.
My heartbeat quickened. There’d been some mistake. Everything was going to be cool.
“This isn’t easy,” Phoenix confessed. “The last time you came, I thought you were the one who seemed different. I couldn’t get through.”
“You didn’t try,” I recalled. “It was you. You weren’t letting me in.”
“Lee arrived. Stuff was happening.”
“You wouldn’t look at me. I was scared.”
“You seemed distant. I read what you were thinking and I saw your mind was all on him.”
I sprang to my own defense. “Lee was in pain. You remember that first journey back from limbo—you said it hurt like hell.”
“He noticed you from the start. He likes you, Darina. I saw inside his head too.”
“You’re blaming me for that!”
“Arizona noticed it too.”
“You talked to her about me? You let her misread the situation and get to you!” Everything wasn’t going to be cool after all. We were splitting apart, flailing our arms like drowning people.
Phoenix dropped the oil lamp and began to run up the hill.
I watched him go. What was he talking about—me, Lee, Arizona, liking, and loving? “This is crazy. I thought you people were Grade A mind readers!” I yelled after him. “Not dropout failures!”
Phoenix had broken free and was picking up speed. I began to follow. “You imagine I have feelings for Lee?” I cried. “How shallow does that make me?”
He stopped running until I came within ten paces. “What am I saying? What am I doing?” he begged through breathless gasps.
“You’re crazy.” My faith was shaking, my trust was being stretched.
“Darina, I thought—I was afraid…”
“Of losing me?” I realized in a flash. “No way, Phoenix.”
He came
slowly toward me. “Every time you go away, I feel I can’t bear it. It rips me apart.”
“Me too.”
Closer and closer under a million stars. “It’s too hard,” he choked out. “Sometimes I think I’ll leave the far side—just give in and go back.”
“Don’t!” I pleaded. I caught hold of the collar of his jacket.
“I think of you back in Ellerton, living your life. All I want is to be with you.”
“Don’t!” My voice broke down completely.
“I don’t want anyone—any other guy—to come near you.”
“I won’t let them,” I promised.
He held me too tight. “I love you and I can’t have you.”
I eased free and took his hand, placing it over my heart. “Don’t speak anymore,” I pleaded.
It was only then that we noticed small yellow flames on the hillside where Phoenix had dropped the lamp. They licked at the dry grass and thornbushes, darting across the ground in quick, flickering fingers.
Then Hunter came running out of the darkness below, taking off his jacket and using it to beat down the fire until it died in a shower of red sparks and a cloud of smoke.
Hunter stood astride the burned patch of ground, arms folded. There was so much anger in his face that I had to take a step back.
“Did you ever see a forest fire take hold?” he asked us tightly. “Do you know how fast it travels?”
“We’re sorry,” I stammered. “I’m sorry. It was my fault.”
Phoenix came and stood between me and Hunter. “Don’t listen to her. It was me—I dropped the lamp.”
“You think I care about the details?” Hunter’s voice stayed calm as he walked slowly toward Phoenix. Still I expected his rage to explode. “There are more important things here. Did I say that you could bring Darina out here?”
Phoenix shook his head. “You said to talk to her in the house, but we needed space so I decided to walk by the stream.”
“You decided?” Hunter turned the phrase around on his tongue. “Since when did you get that kind of choice?”
I was shaking now—he was so still, but the anger burned like those flames, deep inside him.
Phoenix didn’t answer. Power seemed to be seeping from his body.
“Man, I ought to finish this.” Hunter sighed, walking toward Phoenix. “What’s to stop me from zapping you out of here, right back where you belong?”
“No, don’t!” I cried, rushing forward to seize Hunter’s arm, only to find myself swept back as if I weighed no more than a feather. I fell into the warm ashes on the ground. Phoenix made as if to run toward me, but his legs buckled and he fell to the knees.
“I gave the order,” Hunter reminded Phoenix, summoning up a storm of invisible wings to reinforce what he was saying. “Word for word, I told you, ‘Take Darina to the house. Talk to her, find out what her problem is.’ Simple enough, even for you.”
Phoenix got back on his feet, his head raised and chin jutting out, like a condemned man determined to look death in the face. “It turned out it wasn’t her problem, it was mine. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“I told you—spare me the details.” Hunter had never looked so unforgiving. “You overrode the order, came up here, lost control of the situation, and started a fire that could have brought the whole county fire service down on us. So tell me, Phoenix, what is it about this story that should make me want to keep you on the far side?”
“Don’t send him away,” I pleaded. “If you do, I won’t help any of you!”
There was no reaction, except Hunter turned to me with a look of mild curiosity. “You have too high an opinion of your own value, Darina.”
“You need me,” I insisted. “I’m your link to the far side, the only one you can trust.”
“Tell that to Arizona,” he muttered. “I gather she’s still waiting for your so-called help.”
“That’s not fair. Arizona hides things from me.” I changed tactics and now I had Hunter’s full attention. He became extra alert and his eyes stared into mine. “It’s almost like she doesn’t want me to succeed.”
Hunter frowned, then told Phoenix to walk down the hill ahead of us. “Arizona’s future is on the line,” he reminded me. “Her eternal future. So what is she holding back on and why?”
The “what” I could explain on that dark walk under the stars—namely Raven Taylor and Kyle Keppler, but not her reasons. “I don’t understand the way her mind works,” I told him.
He stopped short of the old truck parked forever beside the decaying house. “You’re too simple,” he sighed. “And Arizona’s way too subtle. That’s part of the problem we’re dealing with here.”
“So why the big secrets?” Arizona and I were sitting in the cab of the old truck, staring up at the stars when I challenged her head-on.
Hunter had left us there with strict instructions to engage in some plain talking. I felt pretty sure he was now with Phoenix, handing out the punishment for the fire incident. What if he did zap him back into limbo and I never saw Phoenix again? Hunter was definitely powerful enough to do it. Focus, I told myself. Listen to Arizona’s excuses.
“Which secrets are we talking about here?” As always, she was in control, pushing the question back at me, testing me out.
“Let’s start with Raven. Tell me about him.”
“What’s to tell? He’s nine years old. He likes to sketch in a notebook. Period.”
“Why is he so scared?” I cut through the crap and the winding mind game she was playing.
Arizona drummed the hollow dashboard with the fingers of her right hand. “He thinks the world is a dangerous place for people like him.”
“What do you mean—people like him?”
“People who don’t come out of the womb the same as everyone else, whose brains are wired differently—that’s supposing that there is such a thing as a normal brain, which I doubt.”
“Stop. Don’t go weird and theoretical on me. We’re talking about your brother here. I saw him in your garden. What’s he afraid of?”
Arizona turned her head toward me. “Everything,” she said quietly.
I waited for more.
“Watch me,” she said.
I watched.
Arizona narrowed her eyes and frowned deeply. “What kind of mood am I in right now?”
“Cut it out. Answer my question.”
“I am.” She switched off the frown and replaced it with a smile. “Now, am I happy or sad?”
“Answer the question!”
“The point is, you know—you can read my face, right? Well, my brother can’t do that. He can’t tell you what a smile means, or when you’re about to get mad at him, or if you plan to be kind. His brain can’t work it out. So he plays it safe and decides to suspect everyone all of the time.”
“That’s crazy,” I breathed. The superior, arched-eyebrow look Arizona dealt me made me regret my choice of words. “I mean, what’s that about? Is it an illness?”
“Only if you don’t understand it.” Her tone changed and she was softer. “I never think of my little brother as sick. He’s just the way he is—mad at the world, and who can blame him?”
“But your parents—they’ve decided he needs treatment?”
“Yeah. Ever since Raven was little they’ve taken him to specialist brain doctors in practically every state. He’s been through all the therapies—conventional, alternative, experimental, cutting edge, plain crazy—you name it.”
“And?”
She shrugged. “They each stick another label on him and send him back home. Or they keep him in a hospital, or lately they send him to autism school. And all Raven wants is to be able to draw his sketches and be left alone.”
“Wow.” The picture she’d painted was pretty painful. What must “home” be like with a problem like that going on? “How about your parents? What do they want?”
Arizona’s fingers tapped more slowly against the dash. “For it not to have happe
ned,” she murmured. Then tap-tap—upped the tempo. “Which is why they send him away to school.”
“Raven—is he…lonely?” I tried to get my head around the situation, remembering the dark-haired, dark-eyed, good-looking, terrified kid in the Taylors’ summerhouse.
Her sigh went on for a long time. “Sure,” she admitted. “Now that I’m gone, Raven has no one in the world to root for him. So now you know.” Arizona’s defenses were back up. She hopped out of the truck and headed to the porch, looking up at the dark sky. There was still no sign of Hunter or of Phoenix. “That’s why I came back to the far side. I need Raven to know I would never—never do what they said I did at Hartmann Lake.”
“You mean, you wouldn’t deliberately leave him.” I understood this much at least.
She nodded. “Especially not now.”
I waited on the porch for her to explain. “Why not now?” I had to prompt.
“Now that Dad’s finally filing for divorce.”
The new information slammed into my brain. “So when they split, who will get Raven? Is that what you mean?”
Another nod and the longest of sighs. “Who will even care?” she added, disappearing into the house and closing the door behind her.
Hunter found me alone on the porch.
“I had no idea what kind of problems she was dealing with,” I told him.
“What—Arizona doesn’t come across as a victim?” he asked, smiling without any humor in his eyes. “But with her family history I guess she is.”
“Her parents seemed so together. Her dad teaches music in college, her mom works as a broadcaster in TV.”
“Did you ever meet them?”
“Not before yesterday. And I only saw Allyson Taylor for a couple of seconds—she was on her way to work. Her dad is way older than I thought. They don’t go together as a couple.”
“So your job is to help her brother come through this,” Hunter reminded me. “You have to get some truth into the situation and find a way of communicating it to the boy.”