Darkside Sun (16 page)

Chapter 17

I planted myself by the ’79 Camaro Dad and I had assembled from the frame up as I stared at the log cabin Dad had built for two. All of the windows were trimmed with red paint. I’d redone it last summer before heading to Waterloo. The last bit of fun Dad and I had as a family while I still lived at home.

I didn’t want to forget both of us covered in paint when we’d started flicking it at each other, or the laughter that had filled the August day as we’d worked and played. But it seemed distant, like someone else’s memory, one I no longer felt a part of. Would that be my last memory of good times with him?

I tore my gaze from the windows and committed the rest of the house to memory. Wine-red tin covered the roof, which made a soothing pattering sound when it rained. Best sound ever to fall asleep to. The front walk we’d assembled with broken flagstone curved around flowerbeds I’d planted with tulips and daffodils, now bright with red and white and yellow—spring at its finest. I stood there and wanted that feeling back, the sense of home, of belonging. It didn’t come.

“You coming in, Addy, or are you just going to stare at the house all day?” Dad asked from the open doorway. His short hair had begun to gray around the temples, and the rest matched my shade of rich brown. Six feet and built like he worked for a living, his plaid shirt tucked into green work pants, he smiled, but it didn’t go anywhere near those honey-brown eyes. For some reason that made me feel better. If he’d been truly happy, I’d have assumed Asher had messed with his memory.

“Hi, Dad.” Smiling back, I raced along the flagstones, up the two steps to the door, and jumped into his outstretched arms. He pulled me inside and swung me around. No matter how old I got, I was still a kid in his arms, little and safe and loved. Remembering that Asher had never known the safety of a father’s arms shoved the keen edge of a knife in my chest.

Was that why he wouldn’t come home with me? Because he’d seen the memories of my life, my family, and it hurt too much to see the real thing? No. I was overanalyzing. And, I remembered, he’d been here many times before even if I hadn’t seen him. Maybe he was just out hunting Bugmen. I wasn’t one to make everything about me.

Dad let me slide out of his arms. As always, he smelled of the outdoors, fresh air and earth, and under that, his Zest soap. “Who’s your friend?” he asked.

I turned to find Sophia appearing tiny in the open doorway, hunched as if waiting to be told to go away. How often did someone have to be dismissed to expect it like that? Too many times. She dropped her gaze, her streaked bangs sliding down to cover her face with such skill she must have done it to hide a thousand times.

“This is my friend, Sophia. Sophia, this is my Dad, Raymond. Where’s Remy?”

Smiling, uncertain and shy, she stepped across the threshold, her hands wringing together. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Beckett,” she said, then turned to me. “Remy had … um … some stuff to do. He’ll be back when we’re ready to go.”

No way had he gone anywhere. At the ceremony, Asher had mentioned the danger of a wraith finding an unbound guardian, so Remy was probably keeping watch. Was I safe now that Asher had done his taste-test? Either way, better safe than sorry.

Dad held out his hand. She stared at it, stared at me, and I nodded, motioning for her to take it. She did, and they shook, probably the first skin contact she’d had since joining the Machine, and wasn’t that sad.

“Good to meet you, young lady,” he said while she smiled and stared at her fingers. “Are you going off on this big adventure, too?”

I almost asked “what adventure?” before cluing in. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

Sophia shut the door, lingering there. “You have a nice home here, Mr. Beckett.”

While Dad pointed out a few of his favorite pictures of me on the wall next to her, one at the beach and my kindergarten picture before my life ventured into Strangeville, I shook out my fingers, in need of something to do with my hands. How did I start this conversation? How could I tell him good-bye for so long? “Dad, I …”

When nothing more made it out of my mouth, he leaned in and kissed my forehead. “Kettle’s on. This talk’d go over better where we’re all comfy with a steaming mug of hot chocolate in hand, dontcha think?”

Sophia’s eyes grew round and large. Not fear, but wonder. “Hot chocolate?”

My brow took a short elevator ride north. “You’ve never had hot chocolate before? That’s, like, food blasphemy or something.”

“No. I mean, we only have healthy food at the … at the office.”

I almost asked, “What about before?” But if Remy had erased her past, then she might not remember food or drink she’d had before being inducted to the Machine. “You’ll love it. Come in, make yourself at home. I’ll get the chocolate. You like marshmallows?”

She shrugged, grinning like a kid offered a pass to Candy Land. “I don’t know. Will I?”

“I’ve never met anyone who didn’t. Why don’t you take Sophia for a little tour, Dad?”

He gave me a cock-eyed look, as if he knew I wasn’t ready to be alone with him for our inevitable “talk” and wasn’t sure he approved.

“Sure thing.” He went into the living room, guiding my new friend along with a sweep of his arm. “You like fishing, Sophia?”

I sniggered to myself. It was the first thing he asked anyone he met. He always joked that he loved me first and his little boat and fishing rod second.

“I’m not sure I’ve ever done it, so I don’t know,” she said.

She wasn’t
sure
she’d ever done it. She didn’t
know
if she liked marshmallows. How much had she lost? Could she remember anything of her childhood? Had it been good? Horrible? Would Asher eventually take mine from me?

Swallowing hard, I made an abrupt turn from their chatter and went into the kitchen. Maple cabinets lined the log walls. He’d made those, too. He was an electrician by trade and a carpenter by hobby. A large window over the sink let the spring sunshine flood across the green tile floor, warm and bright. The little square table in the corner still held crumbs from his lunch that would have been a sandwich of some sort.

I’d been zombie-staring out the window when the kettle gave a shrill shout and nearly peeled me out of my skin. I turned the burner off and moved the kettle to the center to stop the whistling while my heart had conniptions.

When Dad’s slippers squeaked against the floor behind me, I busied myself gathering mugs from above the sink and then went on to fetch the hot chocolate from the corner cabinet, studiously avoiding his gaze. If our eyes met, it would be time to talk. I so wasn’t ready for this conversation. I didn’t think I’d ever be ready. How could I lie to him? How could I leave him for six whole months and maybe more?

I suddenly realized I’d never live with him again, no matter what happened. When I went off to Waterloo, I knew it was a big step, but the possibility that I might come home while I looked for a job afterward was still there. Now …

“You gonna spend the afternoon staring into that mug?” he asked, his voice tinged with humor and sadness at once.

I sighed and let the mug plunk back to the counter. Still didn’t turn. Brave, that’s me. “Dad, I—”

“Just hold it right there, Addy.” Tender, deep words. “I need to say my piece before you get yourself all twisted into a knot over there.”

I looked at him then, turning slowly, afraid to see the expression that went with his unusually serious tone. His lips curved in a slight smile, and the sun bisecting him made his hair appear even grayer than normal. I didn’t like the thought of him getting old, and that made leaving so much worse.

Would I still be eighteen in body while he shriveled into old age and died? “What do you mean?” I asked, desperate to chase that terrible thought from my head. “And where’s Sophia?”

“She’s in the bathroom. Think she knew we needed to chat. Real nice girl. Now, stop trying to change the subject and put your behind down at the table here so I can recite the speech I spent the night duct-taping together.” Two strides had him at the maple table he’d made himself using Uncle Oliver’s wood shop. He pulled out a chair for me.

I marched over and plopped down, wishing I could hide in one of the cupboards instead. Give me wraiths or Kat or Asher, and I’d have been less twisted up than I was now. “I know what you’re going to say, that this is rash and irresponsible and going to ruin my life, and I’ll pay you back every cent of the tuition money, but—”

He put his finger over my lips, grinning. “Looks like I’m not the only one who’s been rehearsing. Now, hush.”

I laughed without humor. Tired. Terrified. Unwilling to cut the kite string and fly off on my own just yet. “Okay, I’m sorry. I’m listening.”

I tried to picture Asher talking to Dad in a way that wouldn’t have made him angry and throw my sensei out on the lawn, but I just couldn’t do it. Asher wasn’t exactly Mr. Charm, or even Mr. Tolerable-For-Five-Seconds. Except in the chamber. I began to wonder if that softness I’d seen was real or an act to get me to do what he wanted. I had a terrible feeling I wouldn’t be seeing that Asher again, even though I needed him like air.

Dad took a deep inhalation and let it out slowly as he settled into the chair to my left. Stare tractor-beamed to the table, he linked his rough fingers together, tapping the thumbs the way he did when he was nervous.

“I thought I was doing right by you when I steered you away from your hobbies,” he began, appearing about as comfortable as when he tried to talk to me about sex when I was fourteen. He could have spared us both a mortifyingly horrible evening, since I’d probably spend eternity as a virgin. But then, as now, once he set his mind to something, he wouldn’t be deterred. “But that Green fella explained something I’d missed or ignored or was just too dense to get, that this thing you got for old books and stuff wasn’t a hobby or even an interest, but an all-out passion. A dream.” His gaze lifted, radiating pain. “Dad’s aren’t supposed to squash dreams; they’re supposed to help them happen.”

Asher said that? Plug me into the wall and flip my switch, and I wouldn’t have been more shocked. “Dad, you were looking out for my life, so I could take care of myself, so I’d have options like living in the country and stuff and be able to go into a field with a ton of jobs. You were doing right by me.”

“Maybe, but I still shoulda encouraged you more. And I sure as hell shouldn’t have listened to—” He launched out of his seat and started spooning powdered hot chocolate into the mugs as if someone had a stopwatch on him.

“Listened to who, Dad?” I climbed out of my chair, torn between
run
,
hide,
and
demand answers
. “What are you talking about? Someone told you to discourage me from studying anthropology?” My spine locked. “Is that why you got rid of Grandpa’s library? Because someone told you … what?” I shook my head, trying to shake loose an idea that didn’t come.

“That stuff was your mother’s,” he said, so low I barely caught it. “It was all in boxes in the garage when she took off after you were born.”

Oh. I just stood there in a blaze of afternoon sunlight, numb and half brain-dead. Why had I thought they were Grandpa’s? I couldn’t remember Dad ever specifically saying they were his, but Grandpa often sat in that little room and turned pages with me, so I supposed I’d just assumed … But no, they were Mom’s.

Hands locked onto the edge of the granite countertop, Dad stared absently into the cupboard, lost in a memory I wished I could have seen. “I found you out there one day, in the garage. You could barely crawl, but somehow you pulled that box off the shelf, took out one of those old leather-bound things, and hugged it like a teddy. Craziest damn thing I ever saw. How did you even know it was there? And why did you choose that book to pull out? It was always your favorite.”

He shook himself, swallowing hard. “You never played with toys, but you cried after those old things when I tried to take them away like your little heart was breaking. How could I have taken that from you?” It sounded as if he was asking himself more than me, so I just shut up.

I hadn’t remembered that, about finding the books. I’d always thought the library had been there before I was born. “So … she wanted them all back?”

“No.” Fingers tightening to fists, he pressed them against the cupboard door, glaring at them. “She said I shouldn’t let you fill your head with that stuff. Said it would lead you places you shouldn’t go, bad places. I had no idea what the hell she was talking about, but … I believed her. The look on her face that night, I … I believed her, dammit!” His fist came down on the counter. I jumped a mile. I’d never truly seen him angry other than that night on the phone when I’d learned of Mom’s almost-abortion of me.

I wondered for a moment if she’d really been in my room that night when I was seven, in the memory I’d lived while Asher “tasted” my soul. “Why shouldn’t I go there, wherever
there
is? Why would she say that?”

“I don’t know.” He stared into the same cup I’d been gazing into when he came in, and just like me, he wasn’t seeing it.

Where had she gotten the stuff in those boxes? Had I gotten my fascination for anthropology from her? Hell, I hoped not. And why would she have said it with such gusto that Dad had believed her? Did she know about the wraiths? The Machine? Did she know what I would become? Were her books part of it? If so, what did my love of artifacts and old knowledge have to do with anything? Every unanswered question became a nail in my brain, hurting more and more as I tried to pound them into place without success.

Asher had said becoming a guardian was written into my genetic code. Was that because my mother was one? Was that why she thought it would be better if I wasn’t born, because she knew I’d end up part of the Machine, faced with the dangers of hunting wraiths?

Dad cleared his throat. “I felt like such a bastard, but I boxed up all that stuff you loved and took it to a storage locker. You sat in that room and cried for days every time you thought I wasn’t looking, and I just let you, thinking I’d saved you from some terrible future.” Turning to me, sadness raw in his eyes, he said, “But I was wrong. This professor fella can take you places I can’t. You’ve got a career ahead of you doing something you love, so save your speech and go chase your dreams, sweetpea. This old man won’t stand in your way. I’m happy you didn’t end up punching numbers for the rest of your life and resenting me for it because I put weight in the words of someone I shouldn’t have trusted as far as I could throw her. Why did I do that?”