"Mikey Russo isn't here, is he?" I asked.
"Why?" she shot back. "Are you checking up on me?"
"No!" I said quickly. "I don't care if he's here. That's your business, not mine. I'm not prying or checking up or anything. Really."
Actually, it was my business, a little. Mikey had nearly pounded me the last time I'd seen him. I had enough problems without having to deal with that creep.
"So you're running around in the rain in the middle of the night just to find a way to talk to Cooper?" she asked as if it were the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard.
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I'm not sure why I answered the way I did. Maybe I was relieved to be speaking to a regular human. Maybe it was being in the familiar comfort of Cooper's house. Or maybe I was so far out of my mind, I couldn't think straight anymore. Whatever the reason, I unloaded on the last person in the world who cared.
"I'm in trouble," I began.
Sydney raised an eyebrow, which was the most interest she'd ever shown in anything having to do with me.
"Why?" she asked sarcastically. "Did you forget the secret password to your Klingon club?"
I ignored the insult.
"I'm seeing things," I said. "Impossible things."
I had her attention. The more I talked, the faster it came out of me.
"None of this is going to sound real. Believe me, that's the problem. My dad's out of town and somebody got into my house last night. I heard them. But when I searched, there was nobody around. Then today I got a call from a student teacher. Frano? You know him?"
"No."
"Well, anyway, he wanted me to pick up some unfinished artwork at school, but when I went there, I saw my cat. My cat was at school! I followed her into an old gym they use for storage, and I know this sounds impossible, but I'm not lying, I saw a character that I created. That I draw. He was there. For real. Then stuff started falling and I nearly got killed for the first time when these big glass windows crashed down. But I escaped, and when I saw Frano, he said he never called me, and the artwork that wasn't finished was suddenly finished! And when I went home, my cat was there. She had never left the house, but I swear it was her at school. Then the phone. I heard a strange voice tell me I had to take a journey on the Morpheus Road, and then my
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character ... Gravedigger? . . . from school? . . . the guy I draw? ... he showed up at my house! There was a Christmas tree and ornaments that exploded with blood, and Grave-digger attacked me again, so I had to get out of there and got on my bike and almost slammed into a car, which was the second time I was nearly killed today, and I know this is all ridiculous, but I feel like the only person who would listen to me and not think I'm crazy is Cooper ... even though I think maybe I am crazy ... but his phone doesn't work and I was hoping you'd call your parents, so I could talk to him."
Once I started, I couldn't stop. When I got it all out, I stood there breathing hard, facing Sydney, who sat on the stairs with no expression. I wasn't sure if she'd feel sorry for me and help me out, or call the police. She blinked once. Twice. Then her face turned hard.
"Get the hell out of here," she commanded.
"Please, Sydney, I know it's crazy but--"
"It's not crazy," she said as she stood up. "It's a joke that isn't funny."
"It's not a joke. I'm dead serious!"
"Cooper put you up to this."
"Cooper? No! I told you I can't even talk to him!" I remembered something. "Wait. There's more. It's not just about Gravedigger." I looked around and saw some junk mail near the door. I lunged for it, then grabbed a pen that was on the table near the door.
"Put that down and leave now!" she ordered. She was pretty calm, considering there was a raving lunatic in her house who was busy . . . raving.
"Wait," I begged. "There's something else. It's like a . . . a . . . symbol. It keeps appearing. In chocolate powder and on the shower door and in pieces of glass." I got down on my knees and began to draw the design with the three swirls.
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"I don't know what this is or how it keeps showing up. I've never seen anything like it."
"That's it! I'm calling Mikey--"
"Call him!" I shouted. "I don't care. Don't you get it? I'm terrified. This isn't a joke or a . . . a . . . prank. I'm scared to death and I don't know what to do!"
I held the drawing of the three rings up to Sydney, hoping it was further proof that I was off my nut and needed help. I wasn't expecting the reaction she gave me. Her eyes opened and her mouth dropped. For the first time in, well, ever as far as I knew, Sydney Foley was thrown. She stared at the crude drawing, unable to speak.
"What?" I asked. "Does this mean something to you?"
Sydney recovered quickly. Her bewilderment turned to anger. No, rage. "Get. . . the hell. . . out!" she snarled at me.
I stumbled to my feet as she stalked toward me, backing me to the door.
"Sydney, please, I have to talk to Cooper--"
"Like you haven't already."
"I haven't, I swear! Not since he left for the lake."
I didn't know whether to be angry or to cry or to drop to my knees and beg her to call her parents.
"Please. Please, Sydney. Help me. I don't have anywhere to go."
"You can go to hell, and take my brother with you," she said as she reached past me and opened the door. Sydney was about to cut me off from the only people I thought could help me. It was the last straw. I hate to admit it, but I started to cry. That's how desperate I was. I had turned into a blubbering two-year-old.
"I'm scared, Sydney. I'm really scared. Please. Just call your parents."
"Go away!" she shouted, and gave me a shove that was surprisingly strong. Or maybe I was surprisingly weak. I
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stumbled out of the door and across the porch, and tumbled down the steps to the grass below. I lay there in a puddle as the rain picked up even harder. I couldn't stop crying. The only hope I had was gone. There was nowhere else for me to go. I don't know how long I lay there. Five minutes? Ten? I didn't have the strength to get up. I didn't want to get up. Where would I go?
I heard the sound of footsteps coming toward me. For all I knew it was Gravedigger coming to impale me with his silver pick. Oddly, the rain stopped falling. I thought maybe it had let up, but it seemed to be falling everywhere else but on me. I turned to look up and saw Sydney standing over me, holding an umbrella.
"This better not be an act," she said.
I wiped my eyes. "I wish it was," I answered.
"You swear to god you haven't been talking to my brother?"
"If I could talk to him, I wouldn't be here."
"Get up," she demanded.
I picked my pathetic self up out of the puddle and stood in front of her, too embarrassed to even look her in the eye.
"I don't think you're clever enough to be lying about this," she said coldly.
"I'm not."
"Only three people in the world have seen this."
"Seen what?" I asked, suddenly intrigued.
"Me, Cooper, and the redneck lowlife who did it."
"I, uh, what are you talking about?"
Sydney turned her back to me. She reached to the waistband of her pajama bottoms and tugged the right side down a few inches. I was too far gone to think of this as anything other than strange.
"Uh, what are you doing?" I asked.
"No, what are you doing? How do you know?"
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"Know what?"
She looked at me over her shoulder and dropped her eyes down as if she wanted me to look. It was dark. I had to bend down to see what she was talking about. I bent at the waist and leaned in close to her. She pulled the waistband farther down on her hip to reveal a small tattoo. It was no bigger than a silver dollar, but the small size didn't make it any less dramatic. Tattooed on Sydney Foley's hip, just above her butt, was the symbol.
The triple swirl.
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Chapter 9
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"It's an ancient Celtic symbol," Sydney explained. "There are a couple of different meanings. I see it as a sign of female power through transition and growth."
I nodded, enjoying the second cup of hot chicken soup in the Foleys' kitchen. Didn't matter that it came out of an envelope. It tasted great.
I asked, "And you believe in that stuff enough to get a tattoo?"
Sydney glared at me. "Who are you to judge? Mister 'May the Force be with you.'"
"The Force is totally plausible," I countered.
I was ready to debate the issue, but it was clear that Sydney had no interest. There was very little about me that interested Sydney . . . except for the fact that I knew about her secret tattoo, which I had no idea was a secret. Or a tattoo. Or had anything to do with her. Or why it had magically appeared to me.
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I shut up and downed more soup.
Sydney let me wear some of Cooper's clothes while my sweats were in the dryer. Coop and I were pretty much the same size, except that his feet were bigger. So I kept my flip-flops but grabbed a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Sydney was nice enough to make the soup. I guess she felt sorry for me.
"Are you calm now?" she asked.
I nodded.
"Then stop the crazy act. Cooper told you about the tattoo, right?"
"He didn't, I swear."
Sydney looked me up and down with disdain. "Right. It magically appeared in a vision."
"In Ovaltine, actually. And glass. And steam."
She gave me a withering stare. "The only reason I'm not tossing you out is I want to know why you and my dog brother are doing this."
I didn't want to get wound up again. I wanted her to believe I was being rational, even though it was all so completely irrational.
"This has nothing to do with Cooper."
"It has to," she said. "How else would you know about the tattoo?"
"I didn't," I argued. "How come Cooper knows about it anyway? You guys don't even talk."
Sydney took a tired breath. "The creep who did it probably hadn't washed his hands in a month. It got infected. It hurt so bad, I couldn't even walk. I needed help and there was no way I could tell my parents. First they'd melt down and then I'd get the lecture about how it wasn't the kind of thing you'd see on a college application. You know . . . four-four GPA, Honor Society, killer SATs . . . Celtic tat. So I told Cooper."
"Coop took care of you?"
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She glared at me. "Yes," she shot back sharply. "Now he's really your hero, isn't he?"
I had to smile. Cooper and Sydney did not get along, but there was no way he wouldn't help somebody who needed it. . . even if it was his ice-cold witch of a sister.
"How come you're always giving Coop such a hard time?" I asked. I knew why Cooper didn't like Sydney. She was rotten to him. But I never heard her side of it.
"You know what?" she asked.
"What?"
"None of your damn business."
Got it. No more questions about Coop.
"How come you're not at the lake?" I asked.
"I'd rather put needles in my eyes. Stuck in a cabin with my parents and the prince? No chance. The only reason they went was to protect Cooper. That's no way to spend a summer. It's out of sight, out of mind . . . for all of us."
I kind of felt bad for Sydney. She seemed angry. At everybody. I wondered where that came from.
"C'mon, be honest," she said. "That story about the grave robber--"
"Gravedigger."
"It's a joke, right? It's something you read in one of your comic books?"
"Graphic novels."
"Whatever. I'm not mad. Just end it, all right?"
I tried to answer as calmly as possible. "I wish I could. I know you don't believe me and I don't blame you. I'm not going to try to convince you. It doesn't matter. All I want to do is talk to a friend. Cooper may not believe it either, but he'll listen."
Sydney looked at me with those steely eyes. I saw what Cooper meant about her staring you down like a cold blooded vampire. But after all I had seen, there was no way
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she could get to me. I stared right back at her. Sydney stood up and went for the kitchen phone. Without a word she punched in a number.
I could breathe again. I was finally going to get through to Cooper. As she dialed, I realized that I hadn't really thought about what I'd say to him. Not exactly, anyway. Mostly I wanted somebody to drive down and pick me up so I could get away from the house until Dad came home. That was my hope. I wanted to spend the rest of the week surrounded by people who cared about me, and then when Dad got home, we could figure out what was happening. If he wanted me to see a shrink, so be it. Whatever it took. I never wanted to see Gravedigger in my house again. Or anywhere else for that matter.
"Hi, it's me," Sydney said into the phone. She listened, then added, "Sydney." (Pause.) "Your daughter!'
She rolled her eyes.
"Put Cooper on," she commanded curtly.
Sydney listened and frowned. Whatever she was hearing, she didn't like it.
"You're kidding?" (Pause. She listened.) "No, I don't mean that literally. Did he say anything?" (Pause. More listening.) "How long?"
I was only hearing one side of the conversation, but based on her reactions, the other side wasn't good.
"Oh, please, it's not like he hasn't done this before," she said with disdain. (Pause. She listened impatiently.) "Fine. I'll call you tomorrow. No, I'll call you."
She moved to hang up the phone. I jumped up, hoping to grab it before she disconnected.
"Wait! Let me talk to them!"
Too late. She killed the call and dropped the phone on the counter.
"Forget it. Cooper took off," she said with a sneer.
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"What do you mean he took off?"
"Who knows? He is such a child. If things don't go exactly the way he wants, he runs away. He always does that."
I remembered back to when we were little. A couple of times Cooper showed up at my door with his backpack full of socks and candy bars. Usually he just had a fight with Sydney and decided to run away. But that was kid stuff and he always wound up back home before dinner. Taking off at our age, and already in trouble with the police, was a whole different thing.
"When was the last time your parents saw him?" I asked.
"I don't know--sometime yesterday--who cares?"
"Did they call the police?"
"No. He's in enough trouble as it is."
"But what if something happened to him?"
"Seaver, he's done this many times before. He disappears for a day so people get all worried, then comes home as if nothing happened. It's all about the drama. He likes being the center of attention, in case you hadn't noticed."
There was nothing good about what I was hearing. Not only was my plan to get help from Cooper crumbling, Cooper himself was having his own adventure and, unlike Sydney, I was worried about him.
"Here," she said. She scribbled something on a scrap of paper and shoved it at me.
"What's this?"
"My parents' number at the lake. Call them tomorrow-- he'll be back by then. Now go home."
"Home?" I repeated with surprise.
"Yeah. You know the place. You live there."
"I ... I can't," I stammered nervously.
"Fine. But you're not staying here," she said as she strode for the back door.
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I flew into a panic. "Sydney, please. Let me stay. I won't bother you. You won't even know I'm here. I'll sleep on the couch."
"Eeyew, no!" She pulled the door open and stood to the side, waiting for me to leave.
"Please! I'll call your parents in the morning and be out of here before you even wake up."
"Look, Seaver," she said coldly. "I don't know what your deal is, but you're giving me the creeps. More than usual."
I was surprised to hear that Sydney thought about me enough to have an opinion, even a
bad one.
"But I'm scared!" I screamed at her.
It must have been the way I said it, because instead of firing back an insult, Sydney fell silent.
"Can't you see that?" I added, on the verge of tears again. "I'm not this good of an actor."
I could see her jaw muscles clench. She may have been a witch, but she was a smart witch. She had to know I was close to the edge.
"I can sleep on the porch," I offered.
She let the door close. "Take your pathetic self upstairs and stay in Cooper's room. If I hear a word out of you, I'll call the police myself, understand?"
"Yes, yes, thanks. You won't hear a thing. Promise."
We stood there, staring at each other.
"Go!" she yelled.
"Right! Thanks. G'night!"
I ran out of the kitchen and didn't stop until I was up the stairs and in Cooper's bedroom. For the first time in hours I felt safe. Knowing there was another person under the same roof gave me the confidence that whatever it was that had been happening, it wouldn't be happening there.
Just in case, I left the light on.
When I lay down on Cooper's bed, I stared up at the
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ceiling, trying to wind down. I had been in that room a thousand times. It should have felt familiar, but oddly, it didn't. Looking around, I understood why. Like me, Cooper had lived in the same bedroom his whole life. Both of our bedroom walls were covered with posters. Batman, Hell boy, Goon. I even had an obscure, retro Green Lantern poster. Hanging from my ceiling by threads were various models I had built over the years. Some were working rockets, others were scale models of fighter jets and WWII vintage bombers. Cooper's room had always been nearly identical to mine, but not anymore. His walls were nearly bare. The colorful posters were gone. Replacing them were a few small pictures he had cut from magazines of bands I'd never heard of. From the threads that used to hold model planes he had hung a colorful tapestry that drooped down and made the place look like something out of the Arabian Nights.