The Watcher

Chapter Two



I arrived at the mall tired and sweaty, with my stomach tangled in knots. The parking lot heaved with shoppers scurrying to take advantage of any last-minute back-to-school sales, while mothers pushed shopping carts filled with screaming kids. Even in public, the slightest shadow creeping along the pavement made me jump.

Inside the mall, my friend Heather lounged by the fountain, checking out the crowds. She waved, and just seeing her sent a flood of relief through me. Dressed in black and white, with her blond hair pulled into a sleek ponytail, everything about her looked crisp and fresh. Unlike me.

“Mia.” She rushed to hug me. “It’s so good to see you.”

I swallowed the lump that formed in my throat. I will not cry. “Hi,” was all I could say.

“I know we texted and emailed, but…” She paused, her smile fading. I must have looked worse than I thought. “You’re flushed. Did you run or something?”

“Uh, yeah.” I tried to stay calm, but my voice wavered. “Can I borrow your cell?”

She handed it to me. “Where’s yours?”

“It’s dead. Can you believe I left my charger in Denver?” My hands trembled as I dialed 9-1-1.

A woman’s voice answered, “9-1-1. What is your emergency?”

“I don’t know if it’s an emergency or not,” I began.

“Oh my God.” Heather leaned in. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Really,” I said to Heather and, covering my ear, spoke into the phone. “There’s this old man in the park, and he’s just lying there.”

“Was he breathing?” the woman asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Where exactly is he?”

I gave the man’s location, adding, “I think he’s homeless.”

“Okay, we’ll send a cruiser,” the woman said.

I hung up and handed the phone back to Heather.

“You found a body?” she asked.

Before I could answer, Fiona joined us. “You guys, Dean’s here! He just texted, and he wants to hang out.” Smiling, she bobbed up and down on her toes, which made her seem even taller.

“Now?” Heather asked.

“Yeah.” Fiona’s cell phone chirped. She checked it, her smile growing even brighter. “He’s nearby.”

“Well, it’s about time, I guess,” Heather said as Fiona typed her response. “You’ve been dropping hints all summer. If he didn’t ask you out, I was going to ask him for you.”

“The Dean?” I asked. My mind fuzzy, I strained to catch up. “Dean Wilson? The one you’ve been crazy about all year?”

Fiona turned to me, as though she’d just noticed I was there. “Hey, Mia, how was your summer?” She scanned my sweater and blue sundress. “Cute outfit.”

“Thanks,” I said, checking it for grass.

“You’ve got a twig.” Fiona motioned to the back of her strawberry-blond mane to show me, but when I touched my hair I didn’t feel anything, so she smiled and pulled it out herself. “What happened to you? You look…”

I knew what the next word out of her mouth should have been. She was holding back.

My legs still shook, so I perched on the edge of the fountain and contemplated how to explain what had happened. Part of me was screaming not to speak of it. Ever. As though talking about it would make it real. But it couldn’t be. Could it?

Both my friends were staring at me. My mouth was no doubt hanging open. I needed to say something.

“I–I’m not sure.” I hugged my knees into my chest. “I saw this old man and he wasn’t moving, and then this dog came at me. At least I think it was a dog.” What else could it have been? Remembering its red eyes, the way its form flickered and disappeared, I shuddered.

“Are you okay?” asked Fiona. I’d spaced out again.

I nodded.

“What kind of dog?” Heather asked.

What kind of dog, indeed. “It was huge and black, with a long muzzle, like Anubis.” I knew my reference was strange, but Heather had seen enough Egyptian art at my place to know what I meant.

Fiona sat beside me and smoothed the hem of her denim miniskirt. “Maybe it was a bear.”

Heather was her usual skeptical self. “A bear? In West Seattle?”

“Yeah. I saw this movie last week. It was set in New York after the apocalypse. A bear took over the city and started to eat people.”

“Oh my God, Fiona. Apocalypse? You don’t believe those horror movies you watch, do you?” Heather asked, hands on her hips.

Until this morning, I would have agreed with her. But what I saw could have come from a horror film. Not a bear, though. Something told me this thing was much worse. The memory of it receded, hazy now, as though I were recalling a nightmare.

“Of course I don’t.” Fiona crossed her long, lanky arms, ready to scrap. “How can you be sure it wasn’t a bear? Wild animals are displaced all the time by deforestation.”

“It’s probably a stray.” Heather turned her attention back to me. “What would make it attack you?”

“I wasn’t carrying dog treats, if that’s what you mean.” I meant it as a joke, but there was an edge to my voice. The entire experience had been surreal. How could I ever explain the way that shadow had formed over the old man? “Can we talk about something else?”

No longer paying attention, Fiona played with her hair and glanced around, no doubt looking for Dean.

Heather pulled a large envelope out of her bag and handed it to me. “Here. I found it at a shop in the U district—welcome back.”

“Wow. Thanks,” I said. My hands shook as I opened it, but if Heather noticed, she didn’t say anything.

Inside, on a piece of thin vellum paper, was a black and white design of angel wings, each feather meticulously outlined and shaded. They would fit perfectly between my shoulder blades.

“It’s temporary. Goes on matte, the kind they use in the movies.”

“They’re amazing, Heather,” I said, hugging her. “Thank you.” I’d wanted wings tattooed on my back ever since I first dreamt about them in the tenth grade. But my mom wouldn’t let me get them, not until I was at least eighteen.

“A real tattoo is so permanent,” Heather said.

“That’s the whole point,” I said, remembering the wings in my dream. Huge and white, they shimmered in the darkness. Someone was always trying to steal them. “They’d become a part of me.” No one could take them away.

Fiona turned back to me. “How was Denver?” she asked. “Did you have a nice visit with your dad?”

“All right.” I shrugged. “He worked a lot, as usual.” More like he was avoiding me. I hadn’t been back in over a year, since Mom and I moved away. This was supposed to be our chance to catch up, but I hardly saw him. He couldn’t even make time to drive me to the airport.

“Well, it’s good to have you back,” Fiona said. Her attention kept shifting to some guy in the food court. He had caramel-colored hair. When he turned around and waved, I realized it was Dean. I didn’t remember his hair being so light.

Fiona waved back at him and said, “I should go.”

Heather rolled something cherry-scented on her lips. “Text me if you want to meet up later,” she said. When she finished glossing, she reached an arm around my back and pulled a dead leaf from my long, tangled brown hair. “I brought a brush. Let’s get you tidied up.”

Before I could even think about how many strangers had seen me in this state, she had me back on my feet, hurtling into the crowds.

***

Our next stop, the food court, buzzed like an upset hornet’s nest. It was even shaped like one: circular with at least a dozen vendors along the outside. Inside, a large seating area wrapped itself around a small cluster of palm trees, and a high, Pantheon-shaped glass dome bled direct sunlight on everyone eating below.

Heather rushed off to get herself a smoothie and find us an empty table, but I had no idea what I wanted. I must have walked the perimeter three times before settling on some onion rings and a cola. After I ordered, the woman working the counter gave me a number and told me to wait, so I searched the rotunda for Heather.

Instead, I spotted a tall, broad-shouldered guy with wavy dark hair standing with his back against one of the palm trees. As he scanned the area with a steady, watchful gaze, I noticed his hair, his size, his gray T-shirt and jeans.

The guy from the park!

Instinctively, I ducked behind the garbage station so he couldn’t see me, and wondered what he was doing there. Had he followed me? He was younger than I’d thought, around my age, but that didn’t mean anything. Stalkers didn’t have to be old. In the park, he’d been in shadows. Now, sunlight from the domed ceiling caught the dust particles in the air and bathed him in a golden light—as though he were the Persian sun god Mithra himself—and for a moment, I forgot everything that had happened.

It was one of those rare times where I wished I could paint, just so I could catch the effect of that light playing off his skin. His features belonged in a painting too: straight nose, even jaw, full lips that curled slightly at the edges as though something amused him. Under any other circumstances, I might have found him attractive. That is, if my stomach hadn’t kept turning over from the second I recognized him.

“Excuse me,” a woman’s voice said right behind me. She startled me so badly I jumped. “Number sixty-three?”

I turned. The woman who had taken my order handed me my food on a teal-colored tray.

“I called several times,” she scolded, and shaking her head, walked away.

Wondering if this woman had outed me, I turned back, but the guy was gone. Curiosity outweighing fear, I stepped out from my hiding place. He couldn’t have gone far. Had he run off? Sat down somewhere? Guys that tall usually stood out in crowds, but he had disappeared. When I was sure he wasn’t going to leap out at me from behind one of the palm trees, I went off in search of Heather. I found her sitting at a small table on the other side of the trees.

“What took you so long?” she demanded.

I raised my tray and made an apologetic face. “Had to wait for the onions to grow.”

I was so queasy I didn’t know if I could eat at first, but the onion rings and cola slid right down—the miracle of grease and sugar. I kept looking around in case the guy returned. He had to have gone somewhere. He couldn’t have just disappeared.

“Is everything okay? You’re acting weird,” Heather said.

“I don’t want you to freak out.”

“What do you mean you don’t want me to freak out?” she said. “What kind of opening is that?” Realizing how loud she was getting, she put down her drink and leaned across the table, lowering her voice. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“Well, after the, um, dog chased me…there was this guy staring at me, and I’m not sure, but I think he’s here.”

“You think he’s here?”

“I might have seen him,” I replied.

She sat up, looking around frantically. “Do you think he’s following you?”

“I don’t know,” I said, wishing I hadn’t brought it up. There were plenty of guys my age who wore gray T-shirts and jeans. I could probably count a dozen today in the mall alone. Besides, this guy was taller, well over six feet, and broader in the shoulders.

“What does he look like?” She stood up. “We’ll go to security.”

“No.” Grabbing her arm, I pulled her back down. Now I had her fear to deal with as well as my own. “I can’t even be sure it was him. I think I’m just freaking out.”

“But—”

“Even if it was him, he hasn’t actually done anything, has he? So he was in the park and now he’s here? That’s not a crime,” I said, but I wasn’t sure which one of us needed convincing: me or her.

Taking a long, loud slurp from her almost-empty smoothie, she studied me, no doubt trying to figure out if I was telling the truth. “Okay, but if you see him again?”

“We’ll go right to security,” I promised.