Elixir

  “You do need a boyfriend.”

  “I don’t need a boyfriend.”

  Rayna raised an eyebrow.

  “I don’t need a boyfriend,” I clarified. “I’m not saying I’m against the idea, but I don’t want someone just to have someone. It has to be the right person.”

  “And Make-Believe-Fantasy-Guy is the right person?”

  Yes! He is! I wanted to shout … but that would have sounded crazy. Still, it felt completely, 100 percent true. The man in my dreams was the right person. He proved it to me every night.

  Of course he did. No matter how real the dreams felt, they were dreams, which meant the man’s personality was a figment of my imagination. Of course he knew me better than anyone else! Why wouldn’t I make him perfect for me? The iris tattoo was an especially nice touch, tying him in with my father and how horribly I missed him. Freud would have had a field day with it.

  Yet no matter how obvious all that was, it didn’t change my feelings. I shut my mouth and let Rayna think she had won the argument. I even told her she could fix me up with someone after I got back from Rio, though I knew no one would match up to the man I’d created in my mind.

  Three days later it was Ben who cornered me. We were at Dalt’s, and I was finishing off a blueberry muffin—grilled, of course—while we played cribbage and I daydreamed.

  “So when the pod people come and steal your body, does it hurt, or are you pretty much unconscious for the whole thing?”

  “Huh?” I asked.

  “I just double-skunked you three times in a row. What’s going on with you?”

  He lifted an eyebrow. He was in detective mode now, and there was no escaping it. I imagined spilling to him the way I had to Rayna, and almost choked. I’d rather die than describe my fantasies to Ben. I’d never hear the end of it.

  Still, I needed to tell him something, and he knew me too well to buy a complete lie.

  I thought about the pictures. I could tell him about the pictures without telling him about the dreams. Ben was like Dad—he ate up anything that smacked of the inexplicable. He’d probably love the picture of the man at St. Vitus’s Cathedral, standing in midair on nothing.

  “You might think I’m crazy … ,” I started.

  “I already think that, so …”

  I took a deep breath, then started to explain. I told him about every picture, including the ones that were completely impossible and seemed to prove the man wasn’t actually in the shots when I snapped them. By the time I finished, Ben’s brow was furrowed, and the concern in his eyes had deepened into alarm.

  He really did think I was crazy. I shouldn’t have told him.

  “Can you stop looking at me like that? I know there’s a logical explanation,” I assured him. “I just don’t know what it is yet, but—”

  “You need to show me those pictures,” Ben said gravely.

  “Um … okay,” I said, though I suddenly wasn’t positive I wanted to share them. “After Rio I figured I’d open them up again and try to—”

  “Now, Clea,” he said. “I really need to see them now.”

  four

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER Ben was in my room, leaning heavily on my desk, one hand twined in his front tuft of hair as he stared at my computer screen. I clicked through each picture, first as I had originally composed it, then with the enlarged view showcasing my fantasy man. Seeing him on the screen was more intense than I’d thought it would be—my heart started pounding so hard I could feel it in my head, and I worried Ben could hear it.

  I glanced toward him to check, but he wasn’t looking at me. His eyes were locked on the screen.

  “Mind if I steer?” he asked tightly, his hand poised over the mouse. I never let anyone else drive my computer and Ben knew it, but at the moment it took all my energy to keep myself together. I nodded, and he took the mouse, clicking through the photos and zooming even closer on the man’s profile, his eyes, his lips.…

  I shuddered. This had to stop. I wasn’t acting like myself at all, and I had no good explanation to give Ben if he asked me why.

  “Clea,” he said.

  I winced, preparing for the most embarrassing conversation of my life, but Ben looked exhausted, like the last ten minutes had utterly drained him. He drew his hand out of his hair, then looked at me apologetically. “I need to show you something downstairs.”

  “You do?” I couldn’t imagine what he would need to show me in my own house, but I followed him down two flights of stairs. Then he turned toward my dad’s studio.

  “Ben … ,” I warned.

  “I know. But we have to go in.”

  I strained against the urge to howl and pull him away as he opened the door. The studio had been my dad’s inner sanctum. For as long as I could remember, the rule was that you either went in with Dad, or you knocked and waited for permission. Time in the studio was a by-invitation-only honor to be shared with Dad, which meant the door had stayed closed for the last year. Entering without him now felt like a desecration.

  “He’d want you to, Clea,” Ben said. “Believe me.”

  For the first time, I felt a little flare of anger toward Ben. Grant Raymond was my dad. Why would Ben know what he’d want better than me? I was about to work up a suitably snarky reply, but Ben’s ghost white face stopped me. Something was very wrong, and for some reason he needed to tell me in the studio. I went in.

  Like Dad’s office, his studio was a maelstrom of loose papers, books, and a spectrum of supplies. Yet while the office drowned in work chaos, the studio exulted in the wilder bedlam of his amusements. Digital photography was king among these, and no less than three large computer monitors rose like islands among the reams of photo paper, extra ink cartridges, and tangles of USB cords. Everywhere sat much-loved and dog-eared tomes of mythology and history from all over the world.

  In the middle of one stack of books I noticed a biography of William Shakespeare, and I felt a pang of heartbreak. I missed my dad so much. I hated to think that even my smallest memories of him were fading, and yet I had almost completely forgotten how passionate he’d become about Shakespeare about six months before he disappeared. Mom had been stunned by it. She had spent years begging Dad to accompany her to the theater. Then all of a sudden he was ravenously devouring everything even remotely Bard-related: plays, sonnets, and volumes of commentary on his works. That was Dad’s way. When he seized on a new topic, he studied it exhaustively.

  Ben opened the closet where Dad kept all his cameras, from his newest digitals to collectors-item Brownies he’d bought on eBay, to long-defunct Polaroid OneSteps he couldn’t bear to throw away. I winced as Ben shifted them around and they clanked together.

  “Be careful,” I said.

  “Sorry. Almost got it.”

  He pushed aside a couple more cameras, then stood on tiptoe and leaned forward to press a spot against the back wall. What was he doing?

  “There,” he said.

  “Where? What are you talking about?”

  He didn’t answer, just grabbed a step stool and carried it to the far wall of the room, which was covered in framed photographs. Many were shots Dad had taken himself, like the eight-by-ten of my big, round, three-month-old smiling face. Others were my handiwork, like the girl with the prosthetic leg breaking the tape on her first cross-country race.

  But as Ben climbed the step stool, I noticed that one of those framed photos had hinged open, popping out slightly from its place on the wall. It was a picture of two decrepit and crumbling vials, half-buried in dirt—the items that had made Dad a rock star with all the New Agers. Entire websites and fan forums were dedicated to these vials: “The Ancient Vials of the Elixir of Life.”

  My father had set up and funded the dig to find the vials, and had gone to Italy to personally supervise the work. When they were actually unearthed, even the mainstream media carried the news. They were, however, quick to add that while the containers were indeed very old, very like their reputed description, and
very archaeologically significant, they were also very empty. No Elixir of Life. Dad wasn’t concerned. He was thrilled with the discovery and must have taken hundreds of pictures of them before turning them over to the Museo Nazionale Romano.

  Now one of those pictures was a gateway to a secret compartment Ben knew all about … but I had no idea even existed. Ben pulled the door open the rest of the way and tugged out a wildly overstuffed folder. He joined me at the long table Dad had used as his work space, pushed clear an area, and thumped the folder down.

  Pictures. The engorged folder held a massive stack of pictures.

  “Why did your dad tell you he hired me?” Ben asked.

  “For your knowledge,” I replied.

  “My knowledge,” he mused. “That’s why your mom hired me. Your dad wasn’t as interested in what I knew. He hired me for what I didn’t know … but still believed.”

  “I have absolutely no idea what that means. What does that mean?”

  Ben took a deep breath and ran his hands through his hair again, grabbing it as if he could pull the right words out of his head. “There are things beyond human understanding,” he said, and I didn’t know if he was trying to quote my father or doing it inadvertently. “Things we have to accept, because we can never explain them. Your dad believed that, and it was important to him that I do too.”

  I knew Dad and Ben both loved all things other-worldly. That was no surprise—I’d rolled my eyes through tons of their late-night conversations. But Ben was saying that Dad required Ben to believe in those things as part of his job, which was weird. “Why?” I asked.

  “So I could protect you,” he said. He opened the folder. “Recognize this?” he asked, nodding to the photo on the top.

  “Of course,” I said. It was the day Mom, Wanda, Rayna, and I had left the hospital almost eighteen years ago. We were in the reception area on the way out: Mom and Wanda in their wheelchairs, newborns Rayna and I in our mothers’ laps.

  “See all the people in the background?” Ben asked.

  I nodded. Dad himself had admitted he’d been too excited to frame the shot properly. The four of us were low in the foreground, with the rest of the picture full of random people.

  “Your dad enlarged the picture to check them out. He said he didn’t know why, he just felt like he needed to do it.”

  Ben flipped to the next picture. It was the same shot, but the strangers in the reception area were larger now, more in focus. I could even see the hallway beyond reception: vague shapes of nurses pushing a stretcher and other figures.

  “See anything familiar?” Ben asked.

  I shook my head. I didn’t, but I could imagine where this was going, and my stomach had balled into a knot of anticipation.

  Ben pursed his lips grimly and flipped to the next image. “How about now?” he asked.

  A wave of dizziness washed over me, and I clutched the counter to steady myself.

  He was there.

  The man from my dreams.

  He was in that back hall, standing by the elevators. The image was grainy, but it was unmistakably him. And though it was almost eighteen years ago, he looked exactly the same as he did in my pictures. Not a day’s difference. He even wore the same thing: a black leather jacket over jeans and a gray T-shirt.

  “Your dad said he couldn’t explain it—there was just something about the guy … something that wasn’t right.”

  I studied the picture. The man was far from my mother and me, but he was looking in our direction, and he didn’t look happy. His back was a little hunched, his hands were sunk deep into his pockets, and his eyes looked like he might have been crying.

  Ben looked at me as if waiting for a response, but I didn’t know what to say.

  “He looks sad,” I finally forced out.

  Ben nodded. “Not the strangest thing for someone at a hospital, but your dad couldn’t shake the idea that the guy wasn’t sad about anyone else, but about you. It was just a feeling, but he believed it, and he told me that for a while, he enlarged and investigated every single picture he took. He figured if his feeling was right, the guy would show up again. It didn’t happen, and your dad said he realized he was being crazy. He had to work, he wanted time with you and your mom … he couldn’t spend every spare hour down here chasing phantoms.”

  Ben glanced at me, knowing I’d normally chide him for the word. This time I didn’t.

  “Grant told me that when you were about four months old, he was working with some JPEGs when he had that feeling again, and …”

  Instead of explaining, Ben simply flipped to the next picture. It was some kind of formal event. Circular tables were laid out in fine linens and china, and Mom wore a black cocktail dress, high heels … and me, strapped to her chest in a Baby Bjorn. I remembered this picture too. Mom loved to tell me how she took me everywhere when I was an infant. She said voters went crazy for the way she proved she could be completely devoted to both her newborn and her career. Sure enough, she was working it in the picture, shaking hands with the vice president of the United States as his wife and I gave each other big, goofy grins.

  Now well aware of what I was really looking for, I gave Mom and myself only a cursory glance before surveying the background. It didn’t take long.

  “There,” I whispered, pointing to a seat several tables away from my mom’s. The image was small, but …

  “Exactly,” Ben said, moving to the next shot, which was of course an enlargement of the very spot I had just identified. The man faced mostly away from the camera. His elbows rested on the table, his right fist balled against his temple. He looked wildly out of place, his leather jacket and jeans standing in stark relief against the gowns and tuxedos of everyone else.

  “Tough to miss in that crowd,” Ben said, echoing what I’d been thinking, “but your dad said he never saw him there. No one did; your dad asked around. Eventually he came to the same conclusion you did, when you took the pictures of your room: The guy was never actually there.”

  “Didn’t seem to be there,” I clarified, “but there has to be some kind of logical explanation. Quantum physics, even—something we don’t really understand.…”

  Ben just shrugged, and flipped through more pictures: pictures of me as a toddler, a child, a tween … always a regular photo followed by an enlargement that featured the same ageless man. “Your dad said he was really worried at first,” Ben continued as he turned over picture after picture, “especially since he had to keep it to himself. He knew your mom would think he was crazy. By the time you were a little kid and nothing horrible had happened, though, he was still pretty confused, but he wasn’t as anxious about it.”

  “Wait,” I said, putting my hand on the pile of pictures. “This one’s mine.”

  It had been my first truly successful print, and I took it on my eighth birthday. We were on Kauai, and all I’d wanted was a horseback ride along the beach at dusk. Mom was thrilled, and as we all rode I’d snapped a perfect shot of Mom, Dad, and Rayna on horseback, silhouetted by the hot pink setting sun.

  “I know,” Ben said. “Your dad told me he wondered if this guy would show up in pictures you took, so every now and then he’d search through your shots. Sure enough …”

  Ben turned to the next picture: an enlargement of the one I knew so well, but centered on the ocean far beyond my mom, Dad, and Rayna. There was an outcropping of rocks in the water. Sitting among their crags and ridges was the man.

  It took an eternity to find my voice. “So this guy, this …” I almost repeated Ben’s “phantom,” but the word stuck in my throat. “He’s been in my pictures forever?”

  Ben nodded. “Pictures of you and pictures you took. Not all of them, but probably a lot more than these. Your dad just found the ones that grabbed him somehow, like the ones from your trip grabbed you.”

  “But all this time … how did I not notice?”

  “Don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t ready for you to notice it.”

  “It?” br />
  Ben rummaged through the volumes in Dad’s jam-packed bookcase, then pulled out a massive tome with a cracked red leather cover and pages soft with wear.

  “What is this?” I asked as it thumped onto the table. The cover had no title, only a large embossed circle.

  “You won’t like it,” Ben warned. “The circle is an ancient symbol of never-ending life. The book is a guide to the spirit world. Your dad thought it might have some answers.”

  I looked at Ben askance, but he just nodded toward the book. I opened it gently. The pages had been hand-bound—they were all slightly different sizes, and the type wasn’t completely straight on the page. The old-style calligraphy was thick and difficult to read, and almost completely overshadowed by the hand-drawn borders and illustrations. I flipped to a bookmarked page, most of which glowed with the image of a rapturously beautiful winged man. His wings were spread wide, and he smiled down protectively at an infant in a basket. There was a small Post-it next to the infant, and Dad had scrawled on it: “Clea???”

  I looked at Ben.

  “Can you make out the heading?” he asked.

  I studied the ornate script.

  “Guardian Angel?” I asked.

  Ben nodded. “That was Grant’s hope, that the man was your guardian angel, protecting you from harm.”

  I smiled, thinking of how protective he had always been in my dreams. “That makes sense,” I mused, then quickly added, “In a this-is-all-insane-and-impossible kind of way.”

  Ben tilted his head noncommittally. “Your dad wasn’t convinced.”

  He nodded back toward the book, and I noticed another bookmark. I flipped to the page and gasped. This one too was filled mainly with an illustration of a winged man, but this man was rendered in shades of red. He had the body of a god, but his face was monstrous, and he leered down at an innocent-looking sleeping woman, his arms spread wide and every muscle taut with coiled rage as he prepared to spring.

  Again Dad had affixed a Post-it to the page, this one near the sleeping woman, but his scrawl was smaller and cowed. “Clea … ?” it wondered.