The Watcher

Chapter Four



The trailhead didn’t seem like much at first—nothing to be frightened of, anyway. Its wooden sign had long since become overgrown by blackberry bushes, obscuring the name, and two giant cedars shrouded a wooden staircase that snaked its way up the hill. At the top of the stairs, the trail opened onto a wide dirt path shaded from the morning sun by a canopy of trees. Their roots, gnarled and knobby, gripped the earth like talons.

As my eyes adjusted to the dim light of the forest, I followed my friends, winding and zig-zagging along a trail that narrowed as the forest thickened. While my friends moved with ease, loose rocks nestled between the roots easily threw me off balance. I had to concentrate on my footing, using their steps as a guide.

Shade loomed everywhere and the threat of shadows lurked behind every tree, but Heather and Fiona didn’t seem to notice.

“Did you manage to change your appointment, Fi?” Heather asked. “So we can run the booth at the team and club fair?”

“No,” Fiona said. “There’s no getting out of it.”

“What’s that?” I said, checking the bushes around us for movement, for sounds.

“It’s new,” Heather said. “All the clubs and sports teams have booths.” She pulled her hair back into an elastic band. “It’s to let everyone know what’s available, kind of a job fair. Fiona and I were going to work it together, but she can’t make it.”

“Wish I could,” Fiona said. “I hate going to the dentist.”

The air cooled and a strange tickle ran down my spine.

“Did it just get colder?” I asked.

“The sea air’s damp. It can seem cold,” Heather said. “Or did you forget that in Denver?”

A shudder crawled along my skin. Droplets of sweat chilled on my brow. What was going on?

“Can you help out with the booth, Mia?” Heather said. “Hand out flyers?”

Looking around, I checked for moving branches in case a wind had brought the cold air, but the trees were perfectly still.

“Mia?”

“Uhh…yeah,” I said. I hadn’t answered her question. “Sure. I’ll help.”

Fiona’s long legs carried her steps ahead of us. She slowed down to let Heather pass, so she could talk to me. “Did you meet any interesting guys in Denver?”

“What?”

“Guys. In Denver,” she repeated slowly, as though I were dense. Her fair skin, also unaffected by the chill, glowed pink with exertion. Was I imagining things?

I stifled a shiver. “Nope. No guys.” Maybe it was nothing.

“That’s too bad.”

Fiona made it sound tragic. Did she think I was pathetic or something? I tried to shrug it off, digging my hands in my pockets to warm them. “I was with Bill a lot,” I said. Bill, my brother, was in his third year at Berkeley. He had come back to work for Dad over the summer, and if it weren’t for him my summer would have completely sucked.

“How ’bout his friends?” Fiona grinned at me suggestively.

“Eww. No. Not computer geeks.” I grimaced.

“You’re never gonna get a boyfriend with that attitude,” said Fiona. “You gotta be open to it.”

I wanted to retaliate and say Does being open mean I have to throw myself at guys the way you do? But I held my tongue. It wasn’t worth fighting over. Besides, after my encounter with Michael in the cafeteria last week, he wouldn’t even look at me. So much for being “open.” It was pointless.

As we continued along the path, the chill subsided. Fiona steered the conversation to the topic of Dean. I resigned myself to listen, all the while staying alert to any more strange sensations. There were none. I must have been freaking out over nothing.

***

The Peak, as they called it, had an unobstructed view of Puget Sound that was worth the climb. Below us, the mid-day sun glinted off the water surrounded by giant evergreens lining the cove. Dozens of boats cruised the harbor and a cool breeze blew in from the ocean, but it was nowhere near the same chill as before.

The hike back was mostly downhill, and the steep declines challenged my balance and coordination. The less experienced one of the group—half-sliding, half-hiking—I soon lagged behind my friends, who chatted happily, not noticing I’d slowed down.

The trickling sounds of the creek grew louder as we approached. The bridge was closed and cordoned off with yellow tape, but ten feet away spanning the creek was an old moss-covered fallen log, its soft bark crumbled with decay. Fiona and Heather practically skipped across it to the other side. I slowed down.

“Hey, guys. Wait up!” I called as they rounded the corner, but they didn’t look back.

Icy prickles spread along my skin like frost forming on glass. I can do this, I thought, until I saw the eight-foot drop to the shallow streambed below. How had Heather and Fiona gotten across so easily? Knowing that thinking about it would only make it worse, I focused on the log, placing one foot carefully in front of the other.

I was halfway across when a crashing of branches rustled the trees in front of me. From behind me came a growl. That dog again—two of them! My back tensed and I almost lost my balance. I had just righted myself when a smoky black canine with glowing red eyes came charging out of the bushes right at me.

I turned on my heel to get back to the other side. But the log shifted and sent me flying. With a scream, I plummeted, landing first on my ankle, then on my tailbone.

Icy cold water soaked my clothes as a white, searing pain shot up my leg. Gasping, I scanned the steep wall of rock and dirt for any signs of danger, expecting to be overrun with snarling, horrible dogs. What were they doing here?

Grabbing a rock from the riverbed, I waited. Listening.

Nothing.

I was alone. My friends hadn’t even noticed I was gone. How long before they came back for me? My ankle throbbed painfully, even in the cold water. I didn’t want to move it but had to. How else would I get out on my own?

I was bracing myself to get up when a tall dark-haired figure approached. As he descended the embankment with giant, graceful strides, I couldn’t believe who it was.

“Are you okay?” Michael asked.

Part of me wondered what he was doing there, on this obscure hiking trail across town, or why he was helping when he’d ignored me at school. But another part, the part that was probably in shock, considered it perfectly normal, as if I’d seen him here every day.

“Something black…” I muttered, in case he saw whatever came at me. I didn’t want to bring up the dog again. What if I’d imagined it?

“Did you hit your head?” he asked, crouching before me.

Of course he didn’t see it, Mia. Black things don’t just come at you. He thinks you’re delusional.

I blinked and shook my head. He seemed to be talking to me through a long dark tunnel. Everything—even the pain—was dim and distant. “My ankle took most of it.”

He knelt in the water, facing me, and said, “I’m going to check it, okay?”

I nodded blankly at the water soaking his jeans. He must be cold. I could no longer feel it myself. I knew on some level that something was wrong in my body, but the messaging was numbed somehow. All I felt was static, like my circuits had overloaded.

Holding my heel, he untied my shoelace and removed my boot. I bit my tongue to avoid crying out. It tasted metallic. When he touched my ankle, pain exploded up my leg.

“Oww!”

“Sorry.” He frowned. “I really do have to check it.”

“I know.”

I braced myself for pain, but his touch was light, gentle, as though he were examining a wounded bird.

“I’m going to check your spine,” he said. The tunnel sensation gone, I could sense how close he was, smell the mint on his breath. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

He leaned toward me and reached around my back to gently feel my bones. As he touched me, he searched my face for any sign of pain, and the tenderness in his eyes made me warm all over.

A few moments later he helped me to my feet, offering me his arm for balance. I gripped it so hard my knuckles turned white, and I could feel the cords of muscles beneath his shirt. But I could stand as long as I put no pressure on my foot. The pain was fierce, and my balance so terrible I teetered on the rocks.

“You’ll never make it up to the trail on your own,” he said. “It’s steep.”

Well, that much was obvious. What was he going to do? Leave me there?

He stepped in closer, and I had that feeling again, like I recognized him from somewhere. It wasn’t from that morning in the park either. I wracked my brain, trying to place him. Had we been to the same party? Hung out in the same café? Perhaps I’d seen his picture somewhere.

“Trust me, okay? I won’t hurt you,” he said, and his voice sounded strange, almost musical, a chord rather than a single note.

Before I could reply, he placed one of my arms around his shoulders, scooped an arm under my legs, and picked me up as though I were weightless. As he carried me up the steep hill, he didn’t seem to notice how close we were, his face inches from mine—too close and yet not close enough.

Not knowing where to look, I gazed over his shoulder and noticed a strange light flickering behind him. Tinged with blue, it flashed and rippled in a flowing motion. What the heck was it? Was I in shock?

When I looked back at Michael’s face, it was alight, as though a beam of sunlight bathed both of us, especially him, in a warm golden hue. Like that day I saw him in the mall, only more brilliant. I gasped.

“Pain?” he asked.

I nodded, not wanting to admit I was hallucinating. He’d think I was crazy. Again.

A warm tingle filled me all the way to my toes. It made me feel open and exposed, as though a million eyes were watching me. Something inside told me to relax, and when I did, it eased not only my fright from earlier but all the pain I didn’t know I had, as if all of my struggles had been seen: the difficulties our family had through the divorce, the strange distance between Dad and me, even my awkwardness around Michael.

My chest tightened and, as I exhaled, the tension released. Everything became warm and floaty and I felt completely accepted and at peace. An image of a lush garden on a hot sunny day flashed in my mind, as vivid as the inside of a dream. It surrounded a primitive house made of mud-brick and plaster. Inside was an open fire pit with a hole in the roof for smoke to escape. The bed, made of straw, was draped in furs. In the corner stood a simple loom, strung with hundreds of cream-colored threads that formed a half-woven cloth. This place, these things, seemed so familiar, as though I was the person who had been working this loom, and I wasn’t alone. Someone else had been there with me.

But as quickly as the images came, they were gone, and I didn’t have a clue what they meant.