Trespassers: a science-fiction novel (16 page)

“
That
’
s my handwriting, but why would I write myself a note like that?
”
It seemed as though she had been asking herself that question for eight months.

He thought, and he drove. The paper stared up at him, trying to tell him something. And he was trying to listen.
“
So, when you wrote this, you knew you were going to lose your memory.
”

She nodded.
“
But how did I know that? How do you know you
’
re going to lose your memory? I mean, could it be some condition that repeats over and over again?
”

“
No, this isn
’
t a natural condition,
”
Jeremy said. The note was finally speaking to him:

They think you
’
re from Nova Scotia. Just go along with it. If anyone detains you and asks you strange questions, stick with that story. But don
’
t mention this note to anyone!

“
There
’
s a lot more here than just memory loss,
”
he said.
“
This sounds like some sort of project
—
an experiment or something. Maybe the government is involved.
”

Somebody will return in about a week and contact you to fill you in on everything and let you know where to go from there.

“
What about this person who
’
s supposed to contact you?
”

She shook her head with a shrug,
“
No one. I haven
’
t heard from anyone.
”

Jeremy was perched on the fence again, and he was eager to jump down on her side. He was looking for any excuse to believe her. He didn
’
t want her to be nuts.

“
I want to show you something,
”
she said, reaching into her backpack. She pulled out a finely crafted wooden box
—
a reddish wood that appeared to be cedar. She opened the lid to reveal square compartments inside, lined with felt and each holding a single wooden cube, like ABC blocks without the letters.

Oh, great
, he thought,
she
’
s nuts
.

“
This was under my bed,
”
she explained.
“
But the weird thing was that I didn
’
t expect it to be there.
”

Jeremy nodded, but didn
’
t understand.

“
When I first got back to the Nathans' home,
”
she said,
“
I began to recognize things. Everything seemed familiar. The surroundings were coming back to me, the layout of the house, everything. And when I went into my room, I knew what was in each drawer. I knew where my socks were. I knew where my shoes were. I knew where my underwear was .
.
.
”

That word
underwear
stuck in Jeremy
’
s mind. He imagined her in her underwear: maybe pink with white stripes .
.
. maybe green silk with lace. He pictured her standing at a drawer full of underwear, holding up one at a time, deciding which to wear. If he was going to have any chance of getting back in this conversation, he would have to put some pants on her and shut that drawer.

“
.
.
. looking around to make sure. But I had no memory of it,
”
she continued. Jeremy knew he had missed some words, but he figured he could catch up.

Sara gestured to the box.
“
So, I opened it. And I had no idea what it was. It was completely unfamiliar.
”

She waited for this to soak in. It didn
’
t.

“
I had recognized everything else,
”
she explained.
“
Why didn
’
t I recognize this?
”

Jeremy began to see the intrigue.

“
It was like this box was being blocked from my memory.
”

Now Sara saw his eyes brighten. He finally got it.

“
Yeah.
”
She nodded.

Jeremy looked down at the box to inspect it more closely. Half of him was gripped by the mystery of it all; the other half didn
’
t want to dive in with both feet, just yet.

“
Is there somewhere private we can go,
”
she asked,
“
so I can show you what these things do?
”

“
Do?
”

“
Yeah,
”
she said, returning the case to her backpack.
“
If I try to explain it, you
’
ll probably think I
’
m .
.
. I don
’
t know .
.
. you
’
ll probably take me back to the hardware store again.
”

“
Yeah, I
’
m sorry about that. I shouldn
’
t have .
.
. I was
—
I probably just got a little scared.
”

“
That
’
s what Mr. Nathan said.
”

“
He knows about all this stuff?
”

“
No,
”
she replied.
“
Actually, what he said was .
.
.
boys get scared of girls
.
”

The awkward silence that followed was quickly broken when Sara dragged a green bag from her backpack. It clinked as if filled with coins.

“
What do you think
’
s in here?
”
she asked.

Jeremy wasn
’
t sure whether he was expected to guess or just wait for the answer.

“
It
’
s filled with gold cubes,
”
she said,
“
twenty-four karat gold. I took one to a jewelry store in the mall and had it tested. They said it was worth about two thousand dollars. So that
’
s how I
’
ve been getting money
—
selling them whenever I need to.
”

Jeremy
’
s truck sat on a patch of hard-packed dirt covered in fallen leaves that was the driveway of the rustic farmhouse where he lived with his parents. The house was surrounded by tall, thick sycamore trees on all sides. It used to be an apple orchard many years ago. Jeremy
’
s parents inherited it long after the last apple tree died off. His father had a plan to turn the land into a summer camp. He had spoken to investors and had drawn up several layouts for the grounds. However, time refused to wait for Jeremy
’
s father, and the plan withered like the apple trees before it. He was a dreamer who never moved past the dreaming phase. He moved from one great plan to the next, fully committed at the start, but never following through.

His dreaming was so infectious that Jeremy and his mother were unable to see the failures. They just saw the dreams. It was a different experience for a newcomer like Sara. Where Sara saw stacks of lumber wasting away under wrinkled tarps, Jeremy saw his father
’
s new porch waiting to be built. Where she saw paint cans stacked against a half-sanded wall, he saw the vibrant sheen of Autumn Plum that his father had so vividly described for the past three years. And where Sara saw a pallet of shingles under Visqueen, Jeremy saw a brand new roof. The house was a monument to all things incomplete
—
and all things dreamed.

Jeremy and his mother had that same selective vision when they looked at Jeremy
’
s father. Where others might see a failure, they chose to see the half-finished dreams as part of his charm.

As Jeremy showed Sara inside, he explained that his parents were out of town. They had gone to the Farm Expo.

“
Yeah,
everybody
’
s
out of town for that,
”
Sara said.
“
Business has been real slow at the store.
”

She quickly got down to it, pulling the case from her backpack and setting it on the coffee table in the living room. She carefully extracted one of the wooden cubes, as if it were filled with dynamite. This little device was known as a quoret (pronounced KWOR-it), but there was no way for Jeremy or Sara to know that. Quorets usually came in a set, and each quoret had a specific purpose.

“
Are you ready?
”
she asked.

“
Ready for what?
”

Her three fingers and thumb fit into a slight indention on each side of the cube, and the edges illuminated.
“
Just watch.
”
She pointed the quoret, and a broad circle of light appeared on the wall, about eight feet in diameter, making Jeremy think this was some type of powerful flashlight. That in itself was pretty neat. But it was about to get a lot neater.

At first, Jeremy thought the light was growing brighter, but then he realized that it wasn
’
t a light at all. Everything inside that circle lost its color and definition, fading until finally the outside broke through. He was seeing the yard, and everything in it: the old wishing well with a rake propped against it, two big sycamore trees, and the woods just beyond them.

Sara shut off the cube, and Jeremy watched the wall seal back together.

“
What do the others do?
”
he asked.

Sara shrugged. When he turned to look her in the eye, she shrugged again, in case he hadn
’
t caught the first one.

“
I only tried two of them.
”
She slid the quoret back into its slot and pointed to the one next to it.
“
That one scared me. So I stopped experimenting.
”

“
Scared you how?
”

“
Do you know that water tower on Euclid?
”

“
Yeah.
”
He knew it well. Everyone knew it. It had been hit by a tornado
—
twisted and crumpled but still standing.
“
My dad was the inspector who signed off on its structural integrity after the tornado.
”

“
That wasn
’
t a tornado,
”
she said.

“
You did that?
”

Sara nodded. Jeremy knelt beside the box to get a better look at the cubes, tucked away in their felt stalls. He noticed that each one had an icon engraved on its tip, probably to indicate what it does. The one Sara just demonstrated bore the mark of two circles displayed at an angle, with one in front of the other.

He feared there was something illegal about how these ended up in Sara
’
s possession. But he believed her story. He believed she didn
’
t have a clue what was going on.

“
We have to try these out,
”
he said.

“
There it is,
”
Web said, pointing out the windshield. They had arrived.

Mindy peered around the seat and got her first look
—
a huge, white patch of ground where heavy machinery crawled between large piles of limestone. The story Web had told was dead on: this place held no mystery. A passerby could take it all in with one quick swoop of the eye.

As New Guy steered the SUV down the dirt path leading to the quarry, Stewart placed another call to George.

“
We
’
re coming
Home
,
”
Stewart said into the phone.