Flecks of Gold Read online

  I wandered into the living room and slumped onto our plaid couch without noticing Mom sitting on the recliner. She looked up from her romance novel.

  “Hi, honey, had a hard day?” Her sky-blue eyes scrunched in concern, and she put her book down to come give me a hug. I buried my head in her shoulder, feeling her silky hair against my face and smelling her reassuring scent of oil paint, turpentine, and lavender. Then it occurred to me that she shouldn’t be here.

  I pulled away. “Why are you home?”

  “Um.” She looked away. “Well, it seems I’m not quite cut out for the job.”

  “What? What happened?”

  “I tripped and fell onto a stack of boxes. Everything inside broke.” She shrugged, but her eyes looked miserable.

  “Still, it was an accident. They can’t just fire you.”

  “They didn’t. I decided it was best to resign before I broke anything else.” Her lips curved in a small smile.

  “Oh well, it was a horrible job, anyway. We’ll find something better for you.”

  “Of course we will. With my Mary on the case, anything is possible. Now, enough about me. Let’s talk about you. I want to know everything.”

  I told her about my classes, but I didn’t want to talk about Kelson. By the time I finished, Mom was outraged at the amount of homework I was expected to do. I just laughed. It was nice to have someone on my side.

  I tried to tell Mom about Kelson at dinner, but I couldn’t form the words. Finally, I just asked her if she’d worked on a painting that day. I listened half-heartedly as she told me her plans to paint a desert landscape. Though I couldn’t seem to tell Mom about Kelson, I couldn’t get the thought of him out of my head. I yearned to see him while at the same time I dreaded it. I’d never felt this mixed up before.

  “Tell me about my dad,” I said suddenly. I had no idea what had prompted me. I’d never dared to ask Mom about him before, but I wanted to know what he’d been like. Had she felt the same fog in his presence that I felt around Kelson?

  Mom looked as surprised by my question as I was. She recovered, though, and smiled sadly. “Your dad looked a lot like you. He had dark, wavy hair that he wore to his ears. His eyes and skin were like yours, but his eyes had a little brown at the edges. We met in college. I was trying to lug a huge canvas back to my apartment, but I kept dropping it every few steps. He came to my rescue, helping me with the canvas all the way back to my place. We started talking, and he told me he’d been touring the campus to see if it was right for him. After meeting me, he decided it was. So he enrolled, and we started dating.

  “Your father was a wonderful man, though a little odd at times. It took awhile to get used to him, but he was very sweet. He constantly did things that made me feel special, and he was grateful for the simplest things. I guess his kindness rubbed off because he always made me feel like I was more somehow, like I was worth something.” Her face fell, and I guessed she was thinking of Joe.

  “Five months after we met, we were married and two months after that I got pregnant with you, only . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she looked so sad. I felt sorry that I was making her relive this, but I’d never really heard the whole story. I couldn’t help myself.

  “It sounded like you were both really happy. What happened?”

  “I don’t know.” She sighed and looked up from the table. “I’ve never understood what happened. Two and a half months after we got married, we were living in a basement apartment and going to school. The last day I saw him, it was morning, and I felt really queasy again, though at the time I didn’t know it was because I was pregnant with you. Your father tried to cheer me up by giving me a rose from the bush outside. He promised that he’d cater to my every whim when he got home from classes. Then he gave me a kiss and walked out the door.”

  Mom spoke in a daze. “That was the last time I ever saw him. When I got home that evening, he wasn’t there. I thought he’d decided to study on campus. After ten o’clock I knew something was wrong. It was too soon to call the police, but I didn’t sleep all night. I reported him missing as soon as I could, but the police never found him. I’ve always wondered if maybe something happened to him . . . but, no. He just left. A week later I found out I was pregnant.”

  Her eyes focused again, and she reached for my hand across the card table. “Darling, I want you to know that when I found out I was going to have you, I was so glad. Knowing you were coming, that I would have a bit of him with me still, it kept me going when I just wanted to roll over and quit. Your father may have left me, but he gave me one last gift. You are the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  I was crying, and Mom’s eyes looked suspiciously bright too. “Cuddle?” she asked, holding out her arms. She was sitting on a cheap folding chair that wobbled, and I eyed it dubiously. She grinned, and I decided to chance fate, sitting as delicately as possible in her lap as she hugged me. The chair groaned and popped, and Mom and I held our breaths and then laughed.

  Chapter 3

  The next morning Kelson was waiting for me outside the house. Seeing him, I felt like I was getting brain freeze. My knees went weak, and then, to my utter embarrassment, they gave out, and I plonked to the ground. My head felt dizzy, so I rubbed my temples. It didn’t help. Kelson’s hand touched my shoulder, and I looked up in surprise. The warm fogginess emanated from his touch.

  “Here, let me help you.”

  I put up my arms, and he lifted me as if I were a whiff of cloud. I almost toppled down again in sheer surprise.

  “You’re strong.” I immediately wanted to hit myself; I sounded like a lovesick cow. I must have looked it too because he smiled and shrugged.

  “It was nothing. You’re thin.”

  I am not! Not that I’m fat or anything, but I’m a bit too big in the hips to be called thin. It’s especially hard for someone five feet, ten inches to be waiflike. I let his comment slide, however.

  After he lifted me, he kept my hand and wouldn’t let it go. Each step we took toward the high school seemed to take less and less effort. The sharp contrasts of the landscape became more indistinct, and I thought of the phrase “floating in the clouds.” Did other infatuated people see the world in the same fuzzy focus?

  We reached the school, and I found it difficult to release Kelson’s hand until he dropped mine.

  “Well, see you later,” he said. Then when I didn’t move, he grinned and made a shooing motion. I jerked into a walk. “Think of me,” he said over my shoulder as I stumbled away, and suddenly all I could do was think of Kelson—Kelson’s dark hair, Kelson’s blue eyes, Kelson’s smile.

  The rest of the day was a blur, and the center of the blur was Kelson. The only half-lucid part happened in art. Instead of finishing the skull that we’d started, the teacher said we were free to draw whatever came to mind, no matter how silly or nonsensical. An urge hit me, and I started drawing pieces of something without really being aware of the whole. As I drew, the fog that had been threading in and out of my mind all day started dissipating. I saw streaks of gold at the edge of the paper, and the world came into better focus.

  When the bell rang, I realized that I had been concentrating so much on the little details of my drawing that I wasn’t even sure what it was. Looking down I saw that it was Kelson, only it wasn’t the Kelson I knew. This person was much older. Though his features were no less handsome, his skin was darker, making his ice-blue eyes more poignant. They blazed with coldness and cruelty. I quickly looked away toward his mouth only to see a parody of the triumphant smile I’d spied so often. Now, however, the smile looked grotesque rather than charming. It was the first time I’d ever concentrated totally on the golden edges in my mind while I was drawing rather than on the paper. The result made me shiver. I stuffed the picture into my art cubby and left. My thoughts, which had been sluggish at best, now moved like quicksilver.

  I hurried to my locker, stuffing my homework into my bag, and mashing the papers into a crumpled ball. I j
ust wanted to go home, alone, without having to worry about what I had just drawn and how much it confused me. I didn’t want to see Kelson again until I had time to think.

  But a block away from school I heard rushed footsteps. “Mary Margaret.”

  I felt myself turning. The boy I faced was confident and charming, not the kind of guy I usually talked to, but certainly not sinister. The fog that had cleared seeped back. I shook my head, but it was hard to hold onto the image of my drawing when the handsome young Kelson stood beside me.

  “Did you think of me today?” he asked. I nodded dumbly. Words were beyond me.

  “Good. I am glad things are going so well. Only the finishing touch left, yes?”

  I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I nodded like an idiot. I was probably smiling like one, too.

  He grabbed my hand. “You can never be too careful.” He grinned.

  I couldn’t speak the whole way home.

  “Well, I’ll see you later,” I managed when I reached my door. I wanted to get away so I could think.

  “Are you forgetting that you invited me to come over today?” He leaned in so that the only thing I could think about was his body close to mine. I’d been upset about something, but the fog had obscured my worries. I couldn’t remember why I’d wanted to be alone.

  “Of course not,” I heard myself say. “Come in.”

  Mom wasn’t anywhere in sight. I sighed inwardly, not sure why I was feeling uneasy.

  “Why don’t we sit down?” he asked.

  I sat abruptly, barely catching the couch on my way down. It was as though I didn’t have control over my own movements. I lifted my arm to see if I could. It swung up with no problem, and I watched it in fascination. Kelson sat down close to me, and I immediately forgot about my arm. He took hold of the forgotten limb and lowered it to my lap but didn’t let go.

  “You are quite right, Mary,” he said as if we’d been talking. “We must finish things now. Look at me.” I had been studying his jacket; there was something about it that was strange. The fabric shifted from beat-up cotton to a silkier shininess, and then back again. What was going on? I wanted to keep studying his jacket, but at his words, my gaze shifted to his eyes. I tried to look away, but our eyes locked before I could get a hold of myself. The ice blue of his irises was sharp, piercing, but everything else around the room was becoming fuzzy.

  “You like me, right?” Kelson asked with a little grin. My head bobbed yes. “Do you like me enough to give yourself to me?” His grin became an affected shy smile.

  My neck muscles clenched, and the fog cleared briefly from the shock of his question. “What do you mean?” I managed through the thick muddle in my mind.

  Kelson looked down as if embarrassed, and then his eyes locked with mine again. “I mean, I really like you, Mary Margaret, and I want you to be with me. Will you give yourself to me?” His eyes bored into mine, and I could hardly think. Nothing made sense. I hardly knew this guy, but the romantic fog urged me to acquiesce no matter what the consequences might be.

  My mouth opened to say yes, but something tugged at my memory. I stopped. Thinking rationally was like moving through sludge, but the eyes I was staring into reminded me of the edge of a memory. A picture was overlapping reality, and then I saw a flash of the drawing I had done in art class. It vanished, but the eyes I stared at did not change from the hard, cold eyes I’d drawn. I jerked my gaze away and stood up quickly, bashing my shin into the coffee table.

  “I hardly know you,” I stuttered. It was so hard to speak.

  “Just say it!” he shouted, standing up and grabbing me by the shoulders. My head snapped back to his face, and I saw rage there. He must have seen my fear because he loosened his grip, and his anger vanished.

  “I know you, Mary Margaret. I know you deserve to be with someone who treasures you. If you were mine, all would bow to us. You’d never have to worry about anything. You’d be sought after by millions, have all you ever needed, and never have to live in squalor again.”

  What was he talking about? It was all so strange, and so confusing. The fog drew me to his words, despite their absurdity. Say yes, it whispered. Say yes and let go of all your worries. Why couldn’t I think straight? A knot of annoyance rooted itself firmly in my thoughts, ignoring the fog that tried to push it to the background. Why should I say yes? Who asked him to take my worries away?

  “Why?” I managed to breathe out.

  “You need me, Mary Margaret. You need me to take care of you. Just let go. Let me take care of everything for you so you don’t have to struggle anymore.”

  My annoyance rose. Need him? Ha! Who had been taking care of Mom and me since I learned to read and use a phone? Me. I refused to be categorized as helpless. How dare he waltz in here and ask me to give myself to him after knowing him only three days? What kind of weirdo was he anyway? Of all the kooky people I’d met in my life, and there had been plenty, he was at the top of the list. As my thoughts churned, the fog thinned, then disappeared. The room sharpened, and golden threads wrapped around the edge of my vision. I stood back from Kelson and firmly removed his hands from my arms. “I don’t know what kind of strange fantasy world you’re living in, Kelson, but I think you should leave.”

  Kelson stared at me in disbelief. “But you aren’t even trained!” he blurted. “How did you . . . ?” His eyes narrowed, making them look even more like the eyes from my drawing. I shivered.

  “It doesn’t make a difference. I will have you one way or another. You see, you are much too important a piece to be left here.”

  Piece? What was he talking about? Things were going from bad to worse. What kind of man-curse did Mom and I have on us? If Kelson was anything like Joe, I knew he might be on the verge of getting violent. I had to think. What could I do to get him out of my house? A physical attack probably wasn’t a good idea if I could avoid it.

  “Um, maybe we can talk about this tomorrow at school. I have a lot of homework, you know, and my mom might come home any minute with her boyfriend.”

  Kelson laughed. “You still don’t understand, do you, Mary Margaret? I’m afraid you won’t be doing homework anymore. I must get back to Iberloah, and you, my dear, are coming with me.”

  “You want to take me to Michigan?”

  “Surely even you have guessed what is really going on here. What I really am.”

  “Yes, you’re an insane guy, acting out your delusions.” I could have hit myself. It probably wasn’t smart to enrage him right now.

  “I suppose it would seem that way to you, living in this world,” he mused. His fingers rubbed his chin. “Suppose I just show you—watch closely.”

  He held out his hand, palm up. One second it was empty, but the next instant a globe of bright blue light hovered above his cupped palm. I took a step back and felt the wall pushing against my backpack. I slid sideways, trying to get as far away from Kelson as possible. His light was a trick. It had to be. Had he come to my house earlier and set up something? I looked for a camera, a string, anything, but I saw only the ball of light resting slightly above his hand.

  The funniest part was that in his light I’d seen an image of a blue pattern that looked a lot like the gold webs that were always at the edge of my vision. The pattern had flashed clearly in my mind the instant before he made the ball and now lingered in my thoughts, its duplicate appearing behind my eyes in gold. I twisted slightly, mimicking what he’d done; suddenly, a ball of golden light sprung up in front of my face, and I stared. I couldn’t believe what I’d done. I had felt the energy it took to create the globe of light. It was unnerving, and I quickly undid what I’d done. Kelson’s light was gone now as well, and the room suddenly seemed full of shadow.

  “Very good.” He looked genuinely surprised and maybe a little worried. “You are gifted. I will have to watch myself. Come now, Mary Margaret. It’s time for us to leave.” He extended his hand to me, but I backed into the corner. I was more frightened now than when I’d t
hought Kelson was just your average obsessed stalker. What could he do? Could he make me do things I didn’t want to? He almost had earlier, but I’d stopped him somehow. What if this time I couldn’t stop him?

  “Stay away from me.” My voice shook. I had to get out of the corner, get past him somehow. My eyes flicked to the front door. If I could just get there.

  Kelson caught my look. “Don’t try it. Where would you go? No one knows you. Your mother doesn’t have a boyfriend. In fact, didn’t you come here to get away from Joe?”

  “How did you know his name?” My stomach plummeted.

  “I know a lot of things about you, Mary Margaret. Joe was a crude way to get you to come to me, but effective. Wouldn’t you say?”

  “But, you . . . How? And how did you know we would come here?” My brain refused to process this new and terrible information.

  “How did you come to think of Tucson? You didn’t happen to see an ad on a magazine, did you? I’m glad it didn’t strike you as odd to have a real estate ad on the back of a gossip magazine. I was a little worried it wouldn’t work, but here you are, just as I wished.”

  It didn’t make sense. Nothing he said added up rationally.

  “The path in this place is the most thin,” he continued. “The journey is rough, even for our kind. It would be impossible in Oregon. I suppose it has to do with similarities and symmetries, but I won’t bore you with the details. We need to go.”

  Our kind? I wanted to scream from the absurdity of it all. I had to get away.

  “Come, we’re wasting time.”

  Panic gripped me. Then I heard the door opening. Kelson turned toward the sound.

  I had to warn Mom, but my mouth was too dry. I swallowed hard. But it was too late. She was already in the door, and Kelson moved swift as a cat to intercept her.

  “No! Leave her out of this,” I said.

  “Actually, I had thought to take both of you, anyway,” Kelson said.