Conjured (25 page)

Slowly, I crept out of the bushes. Out of the shade, the sun pricked my skin. Humidity thickened the air. A few cicadas buzzed, and I heard a lawnmower in the distance.
I need Zach
, I thought. He could keep me free—at least until I figured out what to do. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. All I knew was that I was sick of having things done to me.

With that thought, I sprinted across the yard. Reaching the fence, I threw myself at it and climbed over. I landed in the neighbor’s backyard, also empty.

No one shouted at me. No one chased me. So I kept
running. I leaped over the fence into the next yard. And then the next yard, and the next. I ran through flower gardens and around sheds and play sets. I squeezed through bushes. I scrambled over wood piles. In one yard, I surprised an elderly woman who was kneeling in her garden—I landed in the soft earth of the flowerbed beside her. In another, kids played in a sandbox. But I didn’t slow. The body that the doctors had shaped for me was strong, and I didn’t need to slow. I felt my feet slap the ground and my muscles work and my heart pump and my lungs inflate and deflate, and it felt wonderful to run free after all the visions of ropes and bindings and boxes.

But it didn’t—it couldn’t—last forever.

The string of houses ended in a parking lot for a church. For an instant, I froze, staring at the church, as a memory poured into me. Elsewhere, another time, I’d seen a church beside a graveyard with silver pillars, marble statues, and a woman so still that she might as well have been one of the statues. She’d been wrapped in pale-gray scarves … Was it a real memory? I tried to picture the woman’s face, but she was shrouded in mist.

Shaking myself out of my reverie, I ducked behind a garage. Cars drove by. A sprinkler
click-clicked
as it rotated. On one of the driveways nearby, three boys played basketball. Everything seemed so peaceful and ordinary that it almost lulled me into feeling safe. But I couldn’t trust that feeling. I kept thinking of the woman in mist.

Across the street was the library surrounded by woods.
Creeping around the garage, I hid behind a trimmed hedge. I waited until the road was clear, and then barreled across and plunged between the trees.

Green surrounded me, and I waded through the underbrush and climbed over fallen stone walls as I circled the library. The birds chirped louder, and the leaves rustled—squirrels, I hoped.

Listening to the noises, I thought about the woods in my memory, the one with ancient trees and the homes nestled high in the branches. I still couldn’t remember if I’d been chased through the woods or I’d been one of the ones doing the chasing. Oddly, it felt like both.

Ahead, I saw the rock that Zach had pointed out. Last time, I’d seen a snake on that rock: Victoria, watching me.
Everyone always watches me
, I thought. At home, Aunt Nicki watched over me. At the library, Patti kept her many eyes on me. Between those places, there was Malcolm. Or Lou. Or Victoria, Topher, and Aidan. Every moment of my life that I could remember, I’d been watched.
Except right now
, I thought—and it felt so glorious that I wished I could lose myself in the woods forever.

But the woods were finite, squeezed between streets and subdivisions. In only a few minutes, I spotted Zach’s street through the leaves. Keeping low, I climbed over another old stone wall and then peered out through the bushes at his house.

The lawn was pristine, even sterile. A silver car was in the driveway—Zach’s mother. A black car with tinted windows
was parked down the street—a marshal. I felt my heart thump in my chest, harder than it had when I’d run through all the backyards. I crept backward, away from the road. At least one agent waited on the street. Others could be nearby.

Maybe this is a mistake
, I thought.
Maybe I should run
. But where to? And then what? I didn’t know this world. I didn’t have money, a place to stay, a way to survive, or a way to stay hidden. Unless I used magic and risked losing myself …
Zach will help me
.

Half a block from Zach’s house, the street curved out of sight of the agents. Checking in both directions like Malcolm always did, I darted across and dove behind a white fence. I sprinted through the backyards, keeping as far from the street as possible. Lowering myself over yet another fence, I landed in the bushes behind Zach’s house.

For an instant, I didn’t move.

It wasn’t too late to change my mind. I could sneak back to the WitSec house, let myself back inside, and place myself back under the agency’s protection. Except then it would begin again … the visions and the memory loss and the lies and the fear and the hospital and the bulletin board and the hat and the box.

Gathering my courage, I ran toward the enclosed porch. I ducked my head and hunched my shoulders, as if that would keep me from view. Any second, I expected to hear a shout or a shot. I flung open the screen door and threw myself inside.

Inside, the porch had windows and skylights, far too
many. I darted for the hallway. Inside at last, I leaned against the wall with the photos. My legs shook. My heart pounded.

There were voices in the kitchen.

I heard Zach’s mother, shrill and strained. “I can’t face it again! I can’t!” And I heard Zach reply, soothing and soft, with a lilt to his voice as if he were coaxing a bird to his hand. I couldn’t make out the words.

And then a man shouted, “Enough!”

Glass shattered.

Inching forward, I peeked into the kitchen.

Red wine had spilled on the marble countertop. It ran in a rivulet to the stainless steel sink and dripped in. I knew it wasn’t blood. It wasn’t thick enough. It looked so out of place amid the white tile, the shining brass pots on hooks, and the pristine floor.

I didn’t see Zach.

Zach’s mother was holding the broken stem of a wineglass in one hand.

A man—Zach’s father—stood in the remnants of the shattered glass. Shards crunched under the soles of his polished black shoes. He wore a gray suit that wrinkled as he breathed deeply in and out, then in and out again. His face was flushed. “Not one more word,” he said.

He hadn’t seen me, and neither had she.

“Look out the window.” Her words slurred together, loud and shrill, as if she couldn’t hear the volume of her voice. “Tell me you don’t see them. Day and night! And no one ever gets out of the car. You know they have binoculars trained on
the house. Maybe they’ve bugged the house, the phones. Maybe they’ve talked to our neighbors. I can’t go through this again!”

“Say they’re watching. So what?” his father demanded. “We’ve done nothing wrong. We don’t have anything to hide!”

“Except you.” Zach’s voice, soft. On the floor, he sopped up the spilled wine with a dishrag. One by one, he picked up the shards of glass. “And this.”

His father grabbed his arm and yanked him to his feet. Glass pieces fell out of Zach’s hands onto the floor. They shattered, sounding like hail on the hard tile. “You don’t—”

“Zach?” I said from the doorway.

Releasing Zach, his father spun to face me. He was much broader than Zach and taller by a foot than both of us. His arms weren’t as muscled as Malcolm’s, though, and I saw the curve of a paunch above his belt. The belt must leave red dents in his flesh. “Excuse me?” he said. “Who are you? And what are you doing in my house?”

Zach quickly said, “She’s no one.”

“I’m not no one,” I said.

Zach’s mother’s eyes focused on me, as if the sight of me didn’t compute in her brain. And then she blinked and plastered a bright smile on her face. “Eve! This is unexpected. Did you expect her, Zach? I didn’t expect her.”

“Eve, why are you here?” Zach asked, his voice strained.

Shooting a look at the kitchen window, I stepped into the room. “I thought you could rescue me. But I think … you need rescuing.”

Zach made himself laugh. “Me?”

“You don’t lie,” I reminded him.

His face crumpled as if I’d snipped the puppet strings that had pulled his lips into a smile. “Only about this,” he said softly.

“Zach.” His father’s voice held a warning note.

“You’re with them, aren’t you?” his mother said to me. Her lips had blotches of dark purple-red between the lipstick, as did her gums. The wine bottle near the sink was nearly empty. “Checking up on us. Well, there’s nothing to see here. We’re fine. We’re all fine. Fine, fine, fine!”

“She’s not with them,” his father said. “She’s just a girl.”

“The cars outside … Are they …?” Zach trailed off, but I knew what he was asking. He’d guessed the cars were for me.

“You know why they’re here, why
she’s
here,” Zach’s mother said. She slid to the floor, her back against the marble island in the middle of the kitchen. “Sophie. My poor, sweet Sophie.” She began to cry, ugly heaving sobs that shook her shoulders.

His father’s fists curled. “It’s been nine years! It’s over!”

She raised her head. Makeup smeared under her eyes, looking like black-and-purple bruises. Her eyes looked hollow. “It’s never over! It will never be over. I dream about her. Who she was supposed to be. What she would have been like. All of us, together.”

“Jesus, why won’t you stop?” his father said.

“Because I deserve this pain!” she said. “Because I should be dead, not her. Because life is cruel. Life is brutish, short, and …” She searched for the word. “Short.”

“But it’s not,” Zach said. “It can be magical and—”

“And you, shut up,” his father said. “Don’t you see you’re making it worse? You always make it worse.”

Zach paled.

“Zach.” I held out my hand. “You can take my breath if you want it.” He’d have to walk past his father to reach me. I saw him realize this, calculate the distance. “You don’t need to be powerless.”

His father’s face flushed darker, and he shot a glance at me. “This isn’t what it looks like.” He knelt beside Zach’s mother and began to tend to her. He fetched a paper towel and dabbed it on her lip. Blood had welled in the middle of her bottom lip, just a drop. “She took a nasty spill. Slippery floor.”

“I’d just mopped it,” Zach’s mother agreed.

“And the bruises?” Zach asked. “Are you going to claim the floor made them as well?”

Rising, his father leveled a finger at him. “No more.”

“You’re right,” Zach said. “No more.” In three strides, he brushed past him and crossed to me. He wrapped his hand around mine, fingers laced tight. His hand was slick with sweat.

His father slammed his hand on the counter. “You don’t—”

Zach leaned his forehead against mine, and I exhaled, giving him whatever magic he wanted. Behind us, on the counter, the red wine caught fire.

His parents spun toward the flames. His father shouted for a fire extinguisher. Shrieking, his mother raced from cabinet to cabinet. The fire alarm wailed. His father yanked the
extinguisher off the wall next to the stove and sprayed white mist on the flames. Foam coated the counter and floor.

Zach pulled me away, and hand in hand we walked out of the kitchen. He turned toward the front door, but I tugged his hand and drew him through the hall, past the family photographs, to the back porch. The yard looked empty. We went out onto the patio.

“Should we walk, drive, or fly?” Zach asked, his voice grim but steady.

“Definitely fly,” I said.

“Oh yes, definitely.”

We kissed and rose into the air. Spiraling upward, we reached the level of the roof. I felt Zach’s heart beat fast through his shirt. Mine was thumping too. Entwined, we soared higher.

Quiet wrapped around us. Up here, the cars were only a distant buzz, like cicadas, and the wind smelled like freshly cut lawns. It was more peaceful than I’d imagined, to be untethered from the earth. I felt as if I could cocoon myself in clouds and drift away from all fear. Below, I saw the marshals rush toward Zach’s house, drawn by the shrieking.

“They’re after you, aren’t they?” Zach asked.

“Yes. I … I’m in the witness protection program. But I’m leaving. I left. And they want me back. They want to know what I can’t remember, and I think … I think when they have my memories, they plan to kill me.”

His arms wrapped tighter around me. “I knew you were in danger.”

“I thought they were keeping me safe, but now … I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I know I’m not … from here. And I have these visions. But I don’t know if they’re true, and I don’t know who to trust.”

“Trust me,” Zach said automatically, and then as if he knew he’d spoken too quickly to be believed, he repeated it. “You can trust me.”

Looking into his warm eyes, I wanted to. And then I realized that I had already decided to. By coming to his house, by soaring into the sky with him, I had involved him, and he deserved to know at least as much as I did.

Taking a deep breath, I told him everything as we flew high above the houses and trees: about the agency, about the other worlds, about my visions, about the case. I watched his face as I talked. His cheek twitched. His lips were pressed together. His eyes were open so wide that the skin around them stretched. I didn’t know his expressions the way I knew Malcolm’s. I didn’t know if he believed me, or if he wanted to drop me from the sky now that he’d heard it all.