Out of Nowhere, page 14
After Maya pulled herself together and they resumed their trip, she told him about the mirror and how she would see Akotas in the crack, how Akotas told her what she saw would be a hologram. But it seemed to change, so how could that be? And today, he was no longer there.
Pax didn't tell her he thought he saw Akotas wave at him, because he didn't know what it meant. He didn't want to get her hopes up. They had enough trouble dealing with what was in front of them. First, they needed to find Ginny. Then convince her to leave this world and come to Crann. And finally, do something to contain Dradon so he stopped making this world worse, and ensure that he could never affect Crann again.
No big deal, he said to himself, hoping that it would make him feel better. It didn't.
FORTY
While all the people who wanted to help her headed to Doveland, Fred took Ginny in the opposite direction. Ginny had stopped talking, and it delighted Fred because it left him time to think. Plan. Make sure that everything was in place.
He had prepared for this moment for years. He hadn't known exactly what would happen or precisely what he would do, but he had known that someday he would find Dradon's weakness and use it against him. That Dradon's weakness was this woman made it both more delightful and more complicated.
Delightful because until he kidnapped her, Ginny had been excellent company, and he liked her. Fred didn't want to admit that he did, but he had always prided himself on being honest with himself, which made it complicated because he had to use Ginny to get what he wanted. How he would use her wasn't clear, but now that he had done this, he knew it could not be the same between the two of them ever again.
For a moment, Fred wished not only that he could fix his relationship with Ginny, but that she would then help him take over Dradon's empire. In hindsight, Fred thought that might have been the better way. He should have won her over first and then convinced her of the rightness of what he was doing. He could have explained away the fake daughter somehow.
You're fooling yourself, Fred said to himself. Ginny had stopped talking and was either sleeping or pretending to sleep. Either way, she would never forgive him for what he had done, so he would have to use whatever tools he had to keep her in line. Once he figured out why she was so crucial to Dradon and hid her and himself so Dradon couldn't find them, he'd make a deal. The girl for the kingdom. So medieval, Fred thought.
Ginny wasn’t sleeping. She was thinking and listening, hoping to get some insight into the situation. Why would Fred be kidnapping her? Why did he target her in the first place, claiming to have a daughter? And why wait until this day? It had to be to stop her from meeting her mother. The timing was too perfect for it to be anything else.
So what was he trying to keep her from knowing? It was the answer to that question that Ginny wanted. Had her mother finally decided to tell her what she had been keeping from her? Because that much she was sure of—her mother was going to tell her something important. But what?
There had never been a moment in Ginny’s life when she hadn’t felt as if she was different from everyone else. To make herself fit in, she got very good at adapting to circumstances and what other people wanted. She worked hard to please people by being what they expected. She made sure she was always available to be helpful. That should have made her feel good, but often it made her feel fake since she didn’t want to do most of what she did, and a part of her resented she was always the one who had to conform to please others.
In the car with Fred, thinking back on her life, Ginny wanted to give up. She was tired of it all. Maybe it would all go away if she did whatever Fred wanted her to do. What that could be, Ginny couldn’t imagine. Well, she could, but he had shown no signs of being a sexual predator, and although that might have been why he had taken her, she didn’t think so. The more she thought about it, the more she just wanted to wallow in her misery.
But she knew she couldn’t. Miserable or not, she was a fighter. She would use the skills she had to get out of this situation. She’d let Fred believe she was giving in and was doing what he wanted. She’d give him no outward sign of resistance. She’d let him see her worry for her mother, but not her fear of him. She’d practiced her chameleon abilities all her life. They would come in handy now.
So when Fred said they would have to stop for the night, she sighed and said, “Good. I’m exhausted. And hungry. Could we eat?”
She reveled in a quiet satisfaction that he seemed startled by her request. But Fred recovered quickly and asked, “Anything specific you would like?”
“Anything, really. I haven’t eaten since a sandwich at lunchtime.”
“Okay, we’ll find a motel and then get some food.”
“Sounds great,” Ginny said with a grateful smile.
Fred smiled back, thinking that this was going to be more fun than he thought. She was playing him, but that was okay. He’d been playing her the whole time. It seemed fair that she would try to turn the tables on him. He’d go along with the game, but he wouldn’t fall for her act.
She was much more wily than he had thought. But he was much smarter than she knew. He’d win in the end. But in the meantime, he could enjoy himself. Mind games were his favorite. All he needed to do was keep her reasonably happy and safe. He was sure that a dead Ginny would not be of any use to Dradon. But an injured one would be okay.
For what seemed like the hundredth time, his phone vibrated in his jacket pocket. He knew it was Dradon, wanting to know what was going on. Dradon was too smart to fall for his lame reports about Ginny’s safety. And he was sure Dradon had been tracking him the entire time and would know he was moving west. Dradon would be smoking hot angry by now.
Once they stopped, he’d call him back and make up a story about how he and Ginny decided to go away together for the weekend.
“Yes,” he’d say, “She seems to have taken a liking to me.”
Dradon would be pleased, or at least pretend to be, but at least he would calm him down for the night.
And that’s what he did. While Ginny went to the restroom, he guarded the door so no one else could come in. After checking to make sure there was no window where she could escape, Fred made the phone call.
On the other end, Dradon paused and then asked why he had gotten so friendly with the girl.
“You were just supposed to watch her, not get to know her.”
Smiling, Fred answered, “Yes, but it was more effective to do it this way. Now I have control and can bring her to you whenever you wish.”
“I wish,” Dradon shouted over the phone, “for you to bring her to me first thing tomorrow. I want to see your car heading my way.”
“Of course, sir,” Fred answered, making his voice the mix of simpering and calm that he had practiced for so long.
“In the morning,” he said, knowing that was exactly what he would not do. In the morning, Fred's phone and the tracker on his car would go one way, but he and Ginny would go another.
FORTY ONE
At the same time Grace and Valerie pulled into the front of the house, Ceya and Koda landed in the Anders’ backyard. Ava had been standing in the kitchen looking out the window, admiring the blooms on the two dogwoods they had added to the yard last autumn, when she noticed two hawks land in the yard.
How wonderful, she thought. She and Evan had become invested in providing habitat for as many birds and animals as possible on their property, so new bird sightings made her happy. She picked up a bowl of salad she made to prepare for the people coming to the house and glanced back one more time at the hawks, just in time to see them transform into a man and a woman.
Startled, she dropped the bowl, salad spilling out everywhere on the counter, and let out a little screech. Evan, who had been setting the table, turned and saw what had made Ava squeal and rushed to her.
“OMG,” Ava said. “Are these our visitors? Bryan didn’t tell us they would be birds!”
In the yard, Ceya turned to Koda and said, “Oops. Maybe we should have done that in the woods?”
“Too late now,” he said as he waved to the man and woman in the window. “Might as well introduce ourselves.”
Bryan had seen the two birds, too. He had been in the woods by the bunkhouse, waiting. Bryan thought it would be his new friend Pax who would arrive first, and hoped to walk with him in the forest before anything else happened. But once the two birds became people, he realized it wouldn’t work out that way, so he stepped out of the woods and headed towards the arrivals.
Koda saw Bryan coming and stepping in front of Ceya, waited to see who he was, both of them ready to fly away if they were in danger. But Bryan was doing what he always did as he walked. He pulled in his energy so that it didn’t expand out from him, scaring away his forest friends. So, within a few seconds, Koda and Ceya relaxed and waited, all three of them sizing one another up.
Koda and Ceya saw a quiet man with blond hair and blue eyes. a man who blended into his surroundings. They felt at peace with him immediately.
On the other hand, Bryan experienced a moment of jealousy as he looked at the man and the woman. Even as people, they looked like birds. It wasn’t Koda’s straight red hair, Ceya’s soft white curly hair, or what they wore. It was the look in their eyes and the way they perched on their feet as if they would fly away at any moment.
He wished he didn’t look so ordinary. He wished he could fly. Instead, he looked like millions of other people. His only gift was that he saw people in the in-between, and now people from a parallel world. And then he realized how ridiculously he was behaving. His life was filled with magic and love. He stilled the yearning, stuffing it where it wouldn’t bother him, and extended his hand to introduce himself.
Koda, a long-time resident of this world, extended his hand and introduced himself and Ceya. Bryan was filled with questions, but he saw Ava and Evan, joined by Grace and Valerie, watching from the window, and he knew they would want to hear everything too.
By the time they reached the back patio, Hank and Rachel had arrived, and he rushed to embrace Rachel, overflowing with gratitude that she was now his wife. A moment later, Johnny walked around the house after taking Ben to spend the night at their home with his dad and Lex. So there was another round of introductions before Ava asked if they all wanted to eat outside. It didn’t surprise her when everyone answered yes.
Within a few minutes, Evan and Hank had moved the table settings outside, and Grace and Ava brought out the food. As always, there were all kinds of food, minus the salad, but it was Bryan who asked Ceya and Koda if what they had provided was something they could eat.
Ceya looked at the table spread with a variety of offerings and smiled at everyone.
“This looks beautiful, and yes, many things.”
She reached over and held Koda’s hand, and the two of them touched foreheads before turning back to the table and smiling even more before Ceya added, “This is the first time since I came to this world that it feels okay to be here. Thank you.”
Tears came to Grace’s eyes at those words. It was how she always felt when they all got together. They belonged to each other, and that made their own world more filled with peace and love.
Bryan waited as long as he could before asking, “When will Pax be here?”
“Soon,” Koda answered. “If you like, I could check on them?”
“No need,” Johnny said. “They are only a few minutes away.”
Koda took a long look at Johnny before saying anything.
“I understand why Isira sent us here.”
“Isira?” Grace asked.
A quiet settled over the table. The moon had risen, and the stars were becoming visible in the darkening sky. It was as if the universe was pausing between day and night in the same way that they were pausing before learning what they would face together.
“We’ll wait,” Grace said, and everyone understood what she meant.
FORTY TWO
As Johnny had said, they didn’t need to wait long. Watching the camera on the front of their house, Ava saw the car pull up and two people get out.
“Perhaps the two of you should meet them?” She suggested to Ceya and Koda.
Koda added, “Bryan, why not come, too. Pax knows you, too.”
Bryan couldn’t hide his smile. These people trusted him. For some reason, it fed a part of himself that he hadn’t realized had been hungry.
As soon as the three of them left to meet the arrivals, Ava stopped watching the camera, thinking they might need their privacy. Instead, she set two more places and then sat with the rest of her friends, trying to remain calm but feeling a welling of both excitement and worry.
She loved making their house a sanctuary. For a moment, she flashed back to when she ran away from it, believing that Evan wouldn’t love her if he knew what she had been before. It had been such a stupid thing to do, run from people that loved her, but she had let fear drive her instead of reason. Good things came out of that time, though, starting with finding her Uncle Hank. Neither realized that the other existed, but once they found each other, both of them changed. She lost her fear that she wasn’t loved, and Hank learned he wasn’t a wicked man after all.
She smiled across the table at Hank, and he tipped his head, smiled one of his crooked smiles back at her, and then stood as Bryan and the newcomers came around the side of the house.
Grace stepped forward to greet them, extending her hand to Pax, who, having learned the custom, shook hands and then bowed. Turning to the woman with him, Grace opened her arms, and Maya fell into them. The hug surprised no one at the table, having experienced the healing of Grace’s embrace.
“Welcome,” Grace said. “Come sit by me.”
Pax had already moved to the seat beside Bryan and the woman Bryan introduced as his wife Rachel. It was a relief to find that he experienced a sense of peace with Bryan and Rachel.
Did Bryan realize, Pax asked himself, how much like a bird this woman Rachel was? Her red hair was almost the same as Koda’s, and her eyes took in everything. She perched like Koda and Ceya. Pax was happy for his new friend and also faintly jealous because he believed he would never have a love like theirs in his life. He was too different from everyone else. He knew all the women in his clan. None of them were for him.
By then the sun had slipped past the horizon, so they ate under a sliver of a moon. The soft lighting that surrounded the patio gave off enough light to see, but not block out the stars. They all acted as if there was nothing unusual about people from two different worlds, two dimensions, sitting together having dinner.
While they ate, the visitors answered questions about Crann and the people who lived there, and a short version of how Akotas, Isira, and Dradon had fallen from the cliff. The more Bryan heard about Crann, the more he wanted to visit and wondered if it was possible. At one point, Pax leaned in and whispered, “If it is, we would love to have you,” which made Bryan so happy he couldn’t stop smiling.
After they cleared the dishes, Maya asked the question Ceya, Koda, and Pax hoped she would ask.
“Who are you, people?”
It was Ava who answered, smiling as she did.
“We are often asked that question when we meet new friends. And the answer is simple. We are people who can and want to help.”
“Isira sent me here. How did she know?” Pax asked.
“I suspect she might have met some of our friends when she came here years ago. But that was before we all moved to Doveland. So how she knew we would be here to help is a mystery. But our friends knew many things, so it’s possible they knew who we would become before we did.”
“Are they still here? Could we ask them?”
Ava shook her head. “No, they left to go back to their world, or dimension, years ago. But not before making sure some of us met before they left.”
“So you are used to the idea of alternate worlds?” Koda asked.
“We are,” Johnny answered. “And we are used to helping, using any gifts we might have.”
“I can’t do what others here do, but I can tell when people are exhausted,” Grace said. “And all of you are. Maya, we understand you need to find your daughter Ginny, but from what Bryan told us about what is going on, I believe we can assume that Ginny is safe. At least for now.”
“I agree,” Ava said. “Everyone is tired. Hank can take Koda, Ceya, and Pax to the bunkhouse, and Maya can stay with us in the house. Does anyone else want to stay the night?”
Valerie looked at Grace, who answered for the two of them.
“Not us. I need to check on the store, and Valerie probably wants to go home to her husband and son.”
“As much as I want to talk more about your world,” Bryan said, “I understand this isn’t the time. Rachel and I will see you tomorrow.”
What Bryan didn’t say was that he had seen someone from the in-between when they went to meet Maya and Pax. A man had been standing in the parking lot. He needed to see if the man was still there and if he was asking for help.
That left Johnny.
“If you don’t mind,” Johnny said. “I think I’ll stay here.”
“Happy to have you,” Evan said, clapping him on the back.
“You can stay with me,” Hank said, and Johnny nodded. Hank was one reason he had not followed in his father’s footsteps. Johnny loved and looked up to Hank. It would embarrass Hank if he ever said it out loud, but he tried his best to make sure that Hank knew how much he meant to him.
“That’s settled then,” Ava said.
Turning to Maya, she extended her hand, and when Maya took it, she experienced a ripple of hope. Perhaps it was possible to stop Dradon and find Ginny. And even someday, once again experience life as something joyful, without the weight of sadness pressing down on her.
