Barbara sighed and lay still on her bed when she thought she sensed someone was in the room with her. Barbara often felt that way during the long nights in her prison cell, but still, she lifted her head to look. She couldn't see anything and put her head back on the pillow.
She thought about her son, like so many times before at this time of night. It had been almost twenty years since she last saw him. She knew he had survived. She knew he was in an institution outside of Bushlake, the town they had lived in. Whispering Pines, it was called where he was. She hoped they were taking good care of him and wondered what he looked like now. He had only been a young teenage boy when it happened. He had to be a grown man by now. Had he grown? Did you grow when you were in a coma? Probably.
Barbara shivered when remembering him as a child. He had been such an odd kid. Never spoke much, always stared.
With his sister Bella, it had been easier. Once she came along, Barbara had understood that her son wasn't normal and, as the years had passed, she had grown more and more terrified of him.
But it was all over now. She had done what she needed to, what she had to do to protect Bella and the rest of Bushlake. No one understood that today, but she did. She knew why she had done it, why she had chained him to that tree. Now she was paying the price with life in prison for hurting her son, but at least everyone was safe.
Barbara tried to picture Bella. She had to be a grown woman now too. She hadn't heard from her since she was adopted and guessed she wanted it that way. She had no idea why her mother had done what she did. Barbara was just happy that she got to live her life, free from her past. It wasn't her fault.
Still, Barbara hoped that she would one day look for her real mother and come visit her. It frightened her to think that maybe she would never see her again.
Barbara closed her eyes and tried to not think about it. When she opened her eyes once again, Barbara sensed a presence in her cell, lifted her head, and this time she actually saw something.
It looked like a tall figure, very similar to that of a man, but he didn't really look like a man.
"Who’s there?" she asked and sat up.
The figure didn't move. He was very dark, almost like a shadow. There was a little light coming from the window up under the ceiling, but she couldn't see his features. He was wearing a long trench coat that was moving, even though there was no wind inside the cell. "Who are you? How did you get in here?"
It looked like the man was holding an umbrella. He just stood there for what seemed like an eternity, then finally moved; walking closer to her, he lifted the umbrella just enough for the light to hit parts of his face.
Barbara shuddered.
"G-G-Gubba?"
A smile spread across his face. He leaned over and whispered. "You ain't gonna like where this is going, dear Mother. You ain't gonna like it."
Barbara gasped and pulled back against the wall as her son reached out his hand towards her throat and grabbed her. He held her tight, squeezing all the air out of her. Barbara tried to scream, but couldn't. She stared into the eyes of her son, terrified to the bone till he finally let go with a big grin.
The grin still lingered with her when she opened her eyes, screaming, bathed in sweat inside of her cell.
"Gubba?" she asked, but quickly realized she was alone. Panting, she sat up, catching her breath, reminding herself it was nothing but a dream. Nothing but a nightmare. Gubba was still at Whispering Pines, in a coma, and there was no way he could have come here, even getting inside of her cell. It was simply impossible, no matter how real it felt, no matter how badly her throat hurt. It was just her imagination. Nothing else.
Soon, she calmed down, pushed it back in her mind, and it wasn't until later the next day when a guard asked her about it that she realized her throat was severely bruised, and she had no explanation for it.
That was when panic erupted.
He has found a way to get to me, hasn't he? And this time, I have no way of escaping.
CHAPTER 56
FORT LAUDERDALE, MARCH 2016
"G ubba, get up."
Gubba rubbed his eyes and sat up in his bed. It was still dark outside of the small apartment they had rented in Fort Lauderdale and lived in for the past six years while looking for the girl. Gubba had gotten tired of searching, but E.T. was relentless. She refused to stop. Everything was about that girl and finding her. He still didn't understand why this girl was so important to E.T., why they had to spend all this time looking for her. She was, after all, just a little girl, nothing else.
E.T. looked at his hands. They were still shaking, the fingers still crooked from holding his mother's throat. He hadn't intended to kill her. Not yet. Not like this. But he had been close. Closer than he thought.
"What were you up to, boy?" E.T. said and slapped him across the face. It was a habit of hers that he had yet to get used to.
"Just practicing what you taught me. Getting better at it."
"You visit your dumb mother again?"
He nodded. "This time she saw me and I could touch her."
"You try to strangle her?" E.T. asked and looked at his fingers.
He shrugged and moved his hands.
"This is not the time to play around, Gubba. You know very well that you're just creating a nightmare for her, which can be tough, but you're not really hurting her the way you want to hurt her."
"Yes, I know."
"Now, we have a task, remember? You can have your fun later."
Gubba nodded with a sigh. "Yeah, yeah, find the girl at any cost. But E.T., we've been looking for her for six years. She’s gone from the reservation. I’m sick of looking for her. What's so important about her anyway? Can't we just find someone else to help me get back?"
"What's so important? Didn't you see how strong she was? She threw you out. After I carefully told you how to enter her mind, how to mind control her, she threw you out." She snapped her fingers. "Just like that. She is that strong. Far stronger than either of us."
Gubba grumbled and swung his feet on the tiles. He was sick of hearing about how strong this girl was and how she had defeated him, one little girl. He knew he could defeat her; she had just caught him in a bad moment. Meanwhile, he had spent six years getting stronger, learning loads of tricks and doing stuff E.T. hadn't even been able to. "I can take her at any time, you know that. I am stronger now," he said and rubbed his neck.
"Don't be so sure of yourself,” E.T. said. "She is older now too. She has grown a lot too."
"Hey, I can bend matter now. You never even did that. I can make walls shake. I can shape things and create nightmares worse than anything people can imagine. I can take her down. You know I can," he said and put on his pants while E.T. toasted bread and put out a box of cereal, Gubba's favorite.
"You are, by far, the strongest traveler I have ever met,” E.T. said. "I’ll give you that. But we need her. I know you think we can just find another traveler, but that's only because you don't know how rare they are. This girl can help you get back. You need her. But she is powerful too. And, at your last meeting, she was stronger than you. It's not going to be easy. I hope you're aware of that."
Gubba grumbled. He was sick of hearing about her. He sat down at the kitchen table, pouring cereal in a bowl.
E.T. stared at him, holding a gallon of milk in her hand. "If you only knew how long I have been looking for someone like her."
Gubba leaned back in his chair. "Why? Why have you looked for someone like her?"
E.T. grinned. "I just have. Let's leave it at that." She handed him the milk.
"Well, I, for one, am sick of waiting," he said.
E.T. slapped him across his cheek again. Gubba spat out cereal and milk.
"Ouch," he complained. "What was that for?"
She stood close to him, pointing her finger at him.
"I taught you everything you know. Without me, you'd be nothing but a confused kid in a world you didn't recognize, one of those crazy people locked up
in Whispering Pines, babbling about being in the wrong world, trying to get back. If it wasn't for me, you'd have been locked up for killing those kids. You do as I tell you and I’ll make you stronger and more powerful. I can help you get back there, but remember that, without me, you would be nothing. Nothing, boy."
Gubba touched his cheek that was still burning and stared at E.T. He didn't dare to stand up to her. She was the one who had the money and paid for everything. Where she got it from, he never asked, but she took care of him. Besides, she was right that she was teaching him everything and he wanted to know even more, to get as powerful as ever, maybe the most powerful in all of the worlds. That was his goal. To make everyone tremble with fear when they saw him in their dreams. Once he got that strong, he would get rid of her. But first, she had to help him get back to his old world. She was the only one who knew how.
With a grumble, he returned to his cereal. "Gonna spend all my life looking for this stupid girl. It's not like we're even close to finding her."
E.T. leaned over the table with a big grin. "That's where you're wrong," she said and grabbed her laptop. She opened it and showed him something on the screen. "I was up all night,” she said, "when I stumbled upon this."
Gubba took another spoonful, then looked at the screen and some Facebook profile with a wolf as a profile picture.
Gubba shrugged. "So what?"
E.T. scrolled and found a picture of three girls standing on a dock somewhere. "Look at this picture. Look at the one on the right, don't you recognize her? The one with the long hair. I sure do from the video on YouTube. You should even more. I mean, she is older, but still. I am certain it is her. Six years she has been hiding, keeping under the radar, but this little slip up will cost her dearly. I have found her on Twitter and Instagram as well, using the same name and profile picture, but once you see what other people post about her, tagging her, you'll see it is her."
Gubba took in another spoonful of Sprinkle Spangles, chewed some of it, and looked up at E.T.
"You’ve said that a lot of times, E.T.," he said.
It was true. E.T. had gone through Facebook, searching through the profiles of thousands of girls living in Florida and so many times thought this time it was her.
"Look at it, will you? Look closely at the picture and tell me that isn't her," E.T. said.
Gubba pulled the laptop closer and looked at the girl in the photo. So many times E.T. had been certain like this, telling him this was it, we found her, but every time, it had turned out to be some other little girl.
"Look real close," she urged.
Gubba did. He looked at the young girl's long hair, then at her arm and the bracelet she was wearing. He stopped chewing while going through his memories from the day in the backyard. She had hit him, trying to get away, and it had left a bruise from that very bracelet. He felt his forehead where the bruise had been but was long gone now.
"Hm?" E.T. asked.
Gubba nodded, a smile spreading slowly across his face. E.T. slammed her fist on the table. "Finally, we're getting somewhere. Finally."
CHAPTER 57
FLORIDA KEYS, APRIL 2016
A t thirteen years of age, Anna was on the verge of leaving childhood, yet she still enjoyed her brother's company, especially when they went fishing in the early morning hours on Sundays.
They had lived the past six years in Pelican Key, one of the smallest of the keys, with only fifteen people living there, all of them working on the resort. It was a place you had to take the ferry to from Little Torch Key. They stayed in one of the elevated thatched roof bungalows, right on the beach. Theirs wasn't as nice as the ones for people who paid to stay at the resort, who came there for vacation or to honeymoon; it was smaller and was for the people working at the resort.
Igoshi knew the owner of the resort, Marty, from many years ago when he had worked with Anna's granddad at one of the big hotels in Miami Beach before he lost his job when the hotel closed. Marty had let them stay there while Igoshi worked as a housekeeper. As Anna had grown older, she had started to help out as well, especially since Igoshi was getting older now and needed to sleep more during the day.
But Sundays were their time off from both school and work and she and Lucas usually spent it toes in the water and a rod in their hand. Anna loved the silence of the mornings as the sun quietly snuck back up in the sky.
Lucas had become big too. Still small for his age, but he was eleven now. Under normal circumstances, he would be getting on her nerves by now. But he wasn’t. She loved him more and more every day that passed. She saw their mother in him; he had her eyes.
Since the day in the backyard, she hadn’t seen the Umbrella Man, and she had begun to think that maybe he had given up on her. Igoshi, on the other hand, wasn’t so certain. She didn't like for Anna to go anywhere alone and wanted to know where she was always. It was beginning to get on Anna's nerves, especially since she had made some nice friends at school and she would like to hang out with them. There was even a boy that she kind of liked and he sort of liked her too.
But all of her friends lived on other keys and she couldn't leave the island except by ferry. And Igoshi was certain that the minute they let their guards down, Umbrella Man would find them and strike. Anna didn't understand why she was so worried still after all these years, but it scared her a little and she wondered if there was something Igoshi hadn't told her about him. Anna told her that she managed to beat him off once, and she could do it again.
"You gave him back some of his own medicine," Igoshi would answer every time they had the discussion. "But my guess is, he won't always be surprised by you yelling in his mind. It's because he was new to it; he never had someone speak to him in his head before and you're powerful, but my guess is that the next time we see him, he'll have gotten used to it. He won't let you do this to him twice."
"Next time? You really think he'll be back? After all these years? Don't you think he'll have given up by now?”
"We can't think like that, child. We let our guards down even just a little bit, and he strikes. Be certain that's what he is waiting for."
Anna still didn't understand why this man was so keen on finding her and didn't really share her grandmother's paranoia. She really couldn't see any reason why anyone would want to try and find her after six years. She really wasn't that interesting.
She didn't like to talk to her grandmother about it and tried to avoid it, but she was growing up and beginning to crave more freedom. She needed a life too and couldn't spend the rest of it being afraid. She knew she would have to talk to her grandmother about that, soon, but kept postponing it.
"I've got something," Lucas squealed. He spun the handle and reeled something in. It was big. "Whoa," Lucas exclaimed as he fought it. Anna ran to help and together they wheeled in the biggest tarpon Anna had ever seen.
Lucas laughed and held it up while Anna grabbed her phone to take his picture. Lucas stopped her. "Don't. You know what Nanna says about pictures. They might reveal us and where we are."
Anna rolled her eyes and sighed. She was sick of being careful. She wasn't even allowed to be on any social media but had made a secret Facebook profile, calling herself Wolfie Stuart because wolves were her favorite animals and well…Stuart because she had to create a last name. But this way she could be online with her friends. She used the same name for Instagram and Twitter, well everywhere, and so far it hadn't exactly been a danger to any of them.
“We’ll be fine,” she said and took the picture anyway.
CHAPTER 58
HOLLYWOOD RESERVATION, APRIL 2016
M oving back to the reservation wasn't without problems for Andrew. He had moved back to his childhood home, where both his parents had died and so many bad memories had overwhelmed him. It had thrown him into a depression of some sort, and dealing with all that terrible stuff from his childhood soon took over everything and made it hard for him to even get out of bed.
But then there were the little t
hings that made him realize it wasn't so bad after all. Like the meals planted on his doorstep day after day. There were the smiling faces, the many cousins, aunts, and uncles that came over to chat, just to ask them how they were and if they could help them with anything. There was the sense of being protected that he never sensed before. That the others looked out for them. And especially they looked out for Anna, which he needed more than ever.
When they first returned, he had sat down with Aunt Cora and explained everything. He had been brutally honest. He had told her he didn't believe in those things, about the dreams and the traveling and all, but at the same time, he had to admit he had seen things he couldn’t explain. He couldn't ignore the evidence. He had seen those bruises on Anna and had realized he didn't know how to take proper care of her and embrace whatever it was she was going through. That was why they had come back. He also told her he wasn't pleased with being back, that it scared him. The destitution, the poverty, and especially the drinking among many of the men on the reservation. He told her that he was scared he might end up like his dad.
Part of him did end up like his dad. After losing Julia and moving back, he couldn't find any joy in his work anymore. After months of trying to be interested in his research project, he lost his grant when he failed to provide any progress. That made him sink even deeper into the depression, and suddenly he found himself not being able to leave the house. He didn't go to work for a very long time and soon he was fired from the faculty. It was no surprise to him when it happened, but it did put them in a tough position. So, soon, he found himself out of work and home alone all day, just like his dad. At the same time, he was terrified for Anna. He knew she was in danger; someone had hurt her that day, even though she never told him the truth about it. He had seen the bruises and knew his mother was right, that what she told him in the dream was important. Deep down, he knew, even though he kept telling himself it was just a dream.