But what she ended up with pleased her just fine.
“The file said that the foster mother, Lisa Vonnegut, was witnessed shaking me violently. I ended up slicing my chin open on the edge of a table, had to have stitches. CPS investigated and, although Mrs. Vonnegut denied that she had shaken me, it was determined that the risk was too great. They didn’t want to assume liability if something worse happened. End of placement.”
He sat silently for a moment. “You think that you had an Incident, and that’s why you were shaking in Mrs. Vonnegut’s arms?”
She nodded.
“Okay. What about the next Incident?”
Appreciating his matter-of-fact manner, she drank some more juice and then continued, “My next placement was with a couple named Ron and Deena Anders. They had another child they had adopted. Julia. She was a year or two older than me. Once again, things seemed to be going well. Then, shortly before my sixth birthday, Ron and Deena were cooking dinner while Julia and I played in the backyard with a couple of kids in the neighborhood. The report said that Julia just lost it and attacked me, repeatedly ramming my head into the concrete patio. Julia denied it, but the most reliable witnesses on the scene were the few six and seven-year-olds in the yard and my foster parents, who saw it from inside the kitchen. CPS once again intervened. They determined that Julia was a dangerously jealous child and that it wasn’t in anyone’s best interests to keep me there. Placement ended.”
He reached over and covered her hand where it rested on the table. “Is it safe to assume the next Incident occurred when you were nine?”
She hooked her fingers with his. “Yeah. You’re pretty good. It took me until I was fifteen to see the pattern.”
“Well, you’ve never talked about it, and I’m sure you avoided thinking about it as much as possible. Until you look at the linear progression of events, the pattern isn’t very noticeable.”
“Linear progression?” she repeated. One corner of her mouth rose when he grinned sheepishly. “Well, you’re right. I was about nine. This time I was placed with a single foster mother. Allison Palmer. She was younger than many foster parents. Twenty-five, the file said. I remember thinking she looked even younger. She was very nice, and had a lot of experience working with kids. The file said that she had the perfect background for fostering and had taken more than her share of classes needed to qualify. Everyone had high hopes that the placement would work long-term.”
“What happened to disrupt this one?”
“The Incident was more severe. It left me physically scarred, at least long enough for it to be seen by the CPS investigator. It unfortunately happened at a time when Allison was at work. I had come home early from school because I wasn’t feeling well. Being me, I hadn’t actually told anyone at the school. So when the school realized I was unaccounted for, they tried to reach Allison. She was in a meeting at the time and didn’t answer her work phone, so they called the local authorities. By the time they found me at the house, it appeared that I had scalded myself with boiling water.”
“Let me guess. You had a convulsion while boiling water on the stove?”
“No. I really don’t know what happened. I know I wasn’t cooking. There wasn’t any charring in the house. But I had serious burns over more than half my body, and I was unconscious when they found me. There were also several broken things in the room where I was found...a table, a lamp. They suspected I broke the things when I fell.
“At any rate, Allison fought the disruption of my placement far harder than my previous foster parents had. She argued that she’d had no way of knowing that I was home unattended, and that the school hadn’t called her cell number or she would have answered. The burns healed quickly, and I even confessed to having snuck away from school without going to the nurse or notifying a teacher. It didn’t help. The Powers That Be decided that anything resulting in me being physically injured was negligence and cause for removal.”
Amber got to her feet and carried their empty plates to the sink. Gabriel followed her with their glasses. She turned the water on and waited until it ran warm. She used some of the dish soap they had found under the sink and squeezed a bit onto a washcloth as he grabbed the dishtowel. They settled into a comfortable rhythm of washing and drying.
“It was really dumb of me to leave school without telling anyone,” she said, handing him a washed plate.
He didn’t say anything until she glanced at him. Then he held her gaze as he dried and said, “You were so young. And much of your experience with people in positions of authority had resulted in very bad times for you. Why would you have felt comfortable turning to them?”
Handing him the next plate, she gave him a rueful smile. “You’re a pretty handy guy to have around when I’m in the mood to beat myself up.”
“Of course I am.”
She shook her head at him and finished rinsing the glass in her hand. “My next placement was in the home of another married couple. Ken and Holly Jamison. I remember they were Southern Baptists, true Bible Belt folks. By then, I was old enough to realize that my living arrangements were unusual compared to other kids. I had to start at yet another school, where I was the butt of a lot of jokes and the source of plenty of gossip. They had two of their own kids living in the home. It’s safe to say I didn’t make life easy for any of them.”
“No. Not you!”
Rolling her eyes, she handed him the last glass and shut the water off. “Sarcasm is completely unwarranted here.”
“But it’s such an underappreciated form of humor.”
Because she was in complete agreement and she knew he was trying to keep her from dwelling on these terrible memories, she didn’t comment. “A few days before my twelfth birthday, I had my fourth Incident. This one was at the church that the Jamisons attended. Well, in the parking lot.”
Gabriel re-hung the dish towel and took her hand. They walked over to the living room and sat next to each other on the blue sofa. The room was still bathed in soft sunlight even though the clock read 9:56 p.m.
Leaning comfortably into his side, she continued her story. “I don’t remember that Incident, either. All I know is that I was seen leaving the church during the service and they found me convulsing on the ground by the Jamisons’ car. All of the windows of the surrounding cars were broken.”
“Well, if there wasn’t anyone around, your foster family couldn’t have been blamed for causing you harm, right? So, what happened?”
Her thoughts went back to the memories she did have about that particular Incident. The absolute horror on the faces of the parishioners gathering on the church steps as she regained consciousness. Later, the preacher speaking at length with the entire Jamison family while she sat on the front steps of the church, alone. That night, sleeping by herself in the bedroom she usually shared with the Jamisons’ youngest daughter because her parents didn’t want them in the same room. The next day, sitting in the back of Mrs. Harris’ car on her way to the shelter.
Another placement disrupted.
Before answering, she took a deep breath to suppress the anxiety that the flood of memories provoked. Then she took the plunge.
“They were convinced I was possessed by Satan.”
Chapter Nine
Gabriel almost asked her to repeat her answer. She had spoken very quickly as she released her pent-up breath. But he watched as she nervously pulled at the ties to her red plaid pajama pants while she awaited his response, and he knew he had heard her correctly. There was all manner of jokes he could have cracked, but it was easy to see that this confession was a painful one for her.
“Well…I didn’t see that one coming,” he admitted, keeping his tone calm.
She relaxed against him and he knew he had said the right thing. Leaning down, he kissed the top of her head. Her unbound hair smelled faintly of the generic, lightly-fragranced shampoo and conditioner in the bathroom and an underlying scent that was distinctly her own, a scent that made him think of sunlight
and spiced honey. His fingers moved to her hair as he sorted his thoughts. He watched the light coming through the windows glimmer on the strands as they filtered through his fingers. The action gave them both time to process this last Incident.
He supposed it would have shocked Amber to know that he wanted nothing more at that moment than to go and hunt down Ken and Holly Jamison. And he wanted to do much more than explain just how hypocritical and ridiculous their behavior had been. The fact was, the more he considered just what must have taken place when Amber needed them most, the more he really wanted to throttle them both.
“I think I’ll choose to thank the Jamisons for their absurd conclusion,” he said at last, focusing on keeping his voice light.
She turned and caught his gaze. “What?”
“Obviously, if they hadn’t been such moronic, paranoid, narrow-minded idiots, you wouldn’t be sitting here with me. So, yes, I’m going to thank them.”
Her eyebrows rose and then settled into considering lines. “That’s an interesting way to look at it.”
“As Mrs. B always says, all things happen for a reason. It sounds like you ended up better for that placement ending.” When she shrugged agreeably and settled back against his side, he figured at least some of the pain of the memory she had shared had ebbed. “Okay. You thankfully disrupted the placement with the creepy Jamisons. So, now we’re to the Incident that happened about three years ago.”
“Yeah.”
By unspoken agreement, they hadn’t talked about that Incident after that day—not at all until she experienced her recent surge during his confrontation with Michelle. He hadn’t wanted to cause an investigation that might result in her losing her placement with Mrs. B, and he figured the same reasoning applied to Amber’s silence on the matter.
“We were at Stone Mountain Park for the picnic with Mrs. B’s church group,” he recalled. “The sun was about to set, and I managed to convince you to go out with me in one of the Riverboat Marina pedal boats.”
“I still don’t know how you convinced me.”
He grinned over the dry tone of her voice. “I have it on good authority that I can be rather charming when it suits me.”
“Hmm.”
“So, I charmed you into going out onto the water with me. Mrs. B signed the waiver and off we went. About ten minutes in, you started shaking.”
Now she shifted agitatedly. “I don’t really remember what happened after we set out.”
Rubbing her arm, he continued, “I felt you shaking. At first, I thought you were just struggling to keep up with the pedaling. It was tougher than I’d thought, so I started to make a joke about it. Then I looked at you and saw your eyes. They had changed to an almost solid gold color. The pupils were barely visible.”
She shuddered. “Man.”
“I can’t explain why, but I just suddenly knew that we needed to get out of the boat, and we needed to do it fast. I pulled off our life jackets—again, I don’t know why, but I did. Your shaking had gotten much more intense. You didn’t respond when I tried to talk to you. And then I grabbed you and jumped off the boat.”
Gripping his hand, she caught his gaze. She looked embarrassed. “You sure picked a freak of a girlfriend.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
After studying him for another moment and then giving him a small smile of appreciation, she asked, “What do you remember after we went overboard?”
“Not much, actually. I remember hitting the water with you and then I remember getting fished out by the marina lifeguards. I remember Mrs. B getting all over us for having taken off our life vests when we assured her we wouldn’t. We made it seem as though we had been goofing around and fell into the water.”
“That part I remember.”
“And we never mentioned it again before now.”
“Yeah.” She yawned widely.
“Come on,” he said, getting to his feet and helping her up. “It’s way past time to crash.”
As they made their way to the bathroom to brush their teeth, she asked, “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
He shrugged as they reached the bathroom, handing her the travel-size tube of toothpaste they were sharing. “You didn’t want to talk about it, so I didn’t.”
She squeezed some toothpaste on her toothbrush and handed it back to him. “That’s it? Didn’t you think there was something wrong with me?”
“No. I really can’t explain it. I somehow sensed the danger was over when we were fished out of the marina and your eyes looked, well, like they normally do. And,” he admitted, “I didn’t want CPS coming to investigate and taking you away.”
She grunted in response to that as she rinsed.
They finished brushing their teeth. As they left the bathroom, she stopped in the hallway, looking into her bedroom. He could see her wrestling with something. Standing patiently, he waited until her internal battle was over.
After another moment, she sighed and caught his gaze. “Will you come in and keep me company tonight?” Another pause. “I’m worried something might happen,” she finally admitted.
“Of course.”
Her shoulders relaxed at his simple agreement. “Thanks.”
They climbed into the bed after drawing the room-darkening shades. She tugged the quilt over so it only covered her legs, knowing he would never use it. They settled under the sheet in the relative dark on their sides, facing each other.
“So, I imagine you’ve been tested.”
She nodded. “Yeah. The convulsions during a couple of Incidents resulted in me getting all kinds of tests and imaging, especially of my brain. They never picked up anything unusual.”
“Well…maybe you’re psychic or something. You might have telekinetic abilities but don’t use them, so they kind of…blow up. That seems kind of logical. Your body sort of recharges the energy over three years or so and then has to, well, release it.” He was warming to his theory. “And you have some kind of intuition about it, because you always try and remove yourself from the public when an Incident occurs.”
She hadn’t ever thought about it that way before. But he was exactly right. Although she couldn’t say how she felt during the very first Incident, she did remember playing Freeze Tag with Julia just before she turned six and trying to get away from her. And she left the school before the following Incident, walked out of the church for the one after that, and allowed Gabriel to paddle her onto the middle of a huge lake when she otherwise never would have.
“Yeah. That actually might make some sense. So, what can I do about it?”
“We’ll research it when we get home. There’s bound to be someone who can help.”
“I guess.” She sounded uncertain.
“There’s no sense in dwelling on it during our trip,” he reasoned.
“I suppose you’re right.” She leaned across and gave him a quick kiss. “I’ve been waiting for this trip for as long as I can remember. I don’t want to ruin it.”
“Right. So let’s get some sleep. We’ve got a full day ahead of us.”
Amber was happy to comply. And when she did, she slid back into The Dream…
“I know this is a lot to absorb,” Saraqael said. “I am so sorry to have kept it from you.”
She shook her head. She loved him too much and had too little time left to dwell on apologies.
He seemed to understand. Bringing his hand to the side of her face, he said, “I have the scroll with me now. It…well, it involves more than just speaking a few words.”
Puzzled, she crinkled her brow to prompt an explanation.
He cleared his throat, his face filling with color, and held her gaze with quiet intensity. “We must join…in both body and soul.”
She didn’t even have to think it over. Her heart and her mind were as one on the matter.
Finding more strength than she thought she had left, she said simply, “Please.”
Their first three full days in Anchorage we
re filled with walking around and exploring the city. They went on a glacier tour, took their time visiting the Alaska Native Heritage Center and the Museum of History and Art, snapped some pictures in front of the Crossroads of the World Signpost at the Log Cabin Visitor Center and even panned for gold.
On the fourth morning of their trip, they checked out of the Anchorage rental house and made their way by taxi to the airport, where they boarded a forty-five minute flight to Kodiak.
Their downtown Kodiak vacation rental was an apartment in a small complex located a few minutes from the beach and the closest grocery store, so it suited them nicely. It was styled in a country theme with warm colors and oak accents, making them think of home. This rental also had two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen and a living area complete with a treadmill.
“Seriously?” Amber had asked, eyeing the workout equipment balefully. “I don’t even want to look at that thing after all the walking we’ve been doing.”
Gabriel had laughed at her expression, though he was in complete agreement.
The change in their accommodations meant another visit to the grocery store, so they took care of that after settling in and then ate dinner in the apartment. The long-lit days as well as the change in time zone played havoc with their internal clocks, and by the end of their first day in Kodiak, they fell into bed by 8:00 p.m.
Gabriel woke first the next morning. Slightly groggy, he lifted his head and glanced at the clock. It read 7:31, earlier than he would have ever dreamed of waking on a non-school day if he’d had a choice in the matter. Ah, well.
His gaze shifted to Amber. Because her eyes continued to fluctuate in color—something they couldn’t explain, but he still didn’t think was dangerous—he continued to sleep in the same room with her just in case something happened. He found the experience of waking up beside her both foreign and oddly comfortable. The sight of her sleeping now made him smile. She rarely looked as peaceful when she was awake.