The Watchers Read online

  I didn’t want him to leave for another reason. He made me feel good. I could argue and laugh with him in the same breath. I’d never known someone I could do that with. It was something that fit my personality perfectly.

  “I promised to help a friend with her new toy today,” he said quickly, his eyes locked on my face.

  Could he see the disappointment on my face? I fixed my expression.

  “Toy?” I asked.

  “She just got a motorcycle. I promised to help her make it even more of a monster on the road.”

  She?

  “You know how to work on cars?” I asked rather than ask about the mysterious “she.”

  He shrugged nonchalantly. “My parents encouraged me from a young age to look at why and how things run. It’s carried over into a lot of things, including cars.”

  “Do you think you could show me some things?” I asked hopefully. “Our car is always breaking down, and it’d be nice to not have to take it to a repair shop all the time. It can get kind of expensive, and if I knew how to fix it...” He gave me a funny look. “What?”

  “The way you talk, it’s like you’re the parent.”

  “I feel like it sometimes. Ellen is wonderful, but she’s impossibly flighty, irresponsible, and forgetful.” I gave a small laugh. “She hasn’t even learned to turn the stove on yet, and we’ve been here a week. But… I look after her. It’s what I do best.”

  He stepped into my space. “You shouldn’t have to do the looking after all the time. It’s not fair.”

  I swallowed heavily at the seriousness of his tone, wondering what he meant. He changed topics, but his intensity didn’t waver, mainly because he was still so close. “And anytime you want to learn about cars, I’d be willing to show you.”

  “What about this weekend?” I asked it quickly, before I lost the nerve.

  “That sounds fine. Tomorrow. I’ll come by around eleven.” He stepped past me into the hallway brushing my shoulder with his, the coat still draped over his arm. “Bye,” he called as he disappeared through the front door.

  “Bye,” I called back, knowing he couldn’t hear me.

  I took a deep breath. Then, for absolutely no reason at all, I started laughing. It was like I’d been bottling up all my emotions, the good feelings that he inspired, to celebrate when no one was around. I sat down at the round breakfast table, clutching my recipe book, laughing to an empty room as the light streamed in through the many windows, illuminating my face. When Ellen came home, I wasn’t sure if it had been ten minutes or ten years, but I knew I’d been changed.

  Chapter 6

  I heard Ellen drop her things by the front door and make her way to the kitchen whistling a happy tune. I could tell that her mood was soaring. Images I assumed correlated to her happiness flashed through my head, but she was flitting from one idea to the next too fast for me to follow. Her good mood made me feel even better in mine. She paused in the doorway when she saw me sitting at the table, grinning stupidly to an empty room, her happy tune ending mid-whistle.

  “What are you doing?” she asked taking off her shoes slowly, her sunny face worried.

  “Sitting at the table.”

  Her eyes narrowed at my response. I recognize that look! She’s met a boy! Wait, can she hear this?

  “Yes, she can,” I said tartly.

  “Well?” she demanded, opening the refrigerator to get a drink.

  “I’m going to call Alex,” I told her.

  “Why?”

  “So you can’t ask me any more questions.”

  Cheater! I’m glad she’s found Alex. Sam wouldn’t raise his kid wrong. A vision of her at the office, at her desk, floated through my head. Sam walked up, and they started talking. No, it was beyond talking, it was flirting. Then the vision changed, and I knew I was witnessing a daydream.

  “Mom! Rated R!” I said to stop her from going any further.

  Her eyes flashed to mine, and she blushed. “I can’t control what I think!”

  “I know, but still…there are some things your children shouldn’t see…”

  She blushed again and undid her hair, so she could hide her face. The light bounced off her brown hair, and I saw the highlights of red that I always coveted.

  “You like him, then? Alex’s dad?”

  Her pale face uncomfortable, she said, “Why don’t you go call Alex?”

  I stood and started out of the kitchen. “I think I will. And I think I’ll invite them both over for dinner next week.”

  She followed me down the hall. “You wouldn’t!” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because…just because.”

  “Mom, you haven’t been on a date since I was born. You like him. Sounds like he likes you. This way it won’t be awkward, and we can disguise it as something else if it goes monumentally wrong.”

  “I don’t know, Clare. I mean, I work for him…I’ve known him since I was little and everything, but if it goes sour, I don’t know if he would be forgiving enough to let me keep my job.”

  I paused on the bottom stair, thinking over her words. I turned and brushed back a strand of hair which had fallen across her face, obscuring her eyes. I knew I was about to cross a boundary, but I didn’t care, it had to be said.

  “That’s not what’s worrying you. I know that you think about my father all the time, but you can’t keep waiting for him to come back. He’s not coming back. You need someone to make you feel like you’re the most important person on the planet. That’s what dating is about. I honestly think Sam would do that for you.”

  “You make me feel important,” she answered.

  “Not in the way you really need.” I touched her face then started back up the stairs. “You only get one shot at this life, Mom, and you might as well live while you’re alive.” I paused again then turned back with a wicked smirk. “Plus, you need to sex up.”

  “Clare! Watch your mouth!”

  I grinned. “How does next Wednesday sound?”

  She stared up at me with wide eyes but didn’t answer. I nodded at the hopeful tenor of her thoughts. “I’ll take that to mean it sounds fine.”

  “Clare?” she called before I could slip away. “I know your father isn’t coming back. I’ve known that for a long time. It’s just that the thought of dating, of letting anyone that close again….” Terrifies me.

  “What’s that thing you’re always telling me?” I asked.

  “Dogs can’t look up?”

  “No, the other thing.”

  She smiled. “If you let fear rule you, you miss the moments of life that count.”

  “Something like that, yeah.”

  She rolled her eyes at me, getting the message, hating I was turning her words back on her.

  “I’m going to order a pizza and watch a scary movie. Come back down after your phone call,” she pointed a finger at me dangerously, “but only if you leave your dating advice upstairs.”

  “Done,” I agreed.

  Alex was ecstatic about the idea of playing cupid, falling in line with my plan immediately. We made all the arrangements then spent some time talking about school. After my phone call, I went downstairs to find the pizza had gotten cold, and Ellen was well into her movie. I took a slice of the cheese and spinach and joined her in the living room where dead bodies and gore were piling up on the TV screen. As I sat, she looked over from where she had cocooned herself in a blanket to ward off any psychopathic, chainsaw wielding murderers who might be nearby.

  “I’m going to go into town tomorrow with Donna, do you want to come? We’re leaving around ten thirty.”

  Donna was an old friend, also the principal of my school, who Ellen had recently started spending girl time with. I knew they were going shopping or something else equally dreadful. I frowned at her. What were the chances of her leaving thirty minutes before I was supposed to meet Daniel? Was it coincidence? I brushed the strange feeling away.

  “No,” I said, not looking at her, “I
have plans.”

  “With Alex?”

  “Um.” Sometimes my superpower didn’t feel too super.

  “Uh-huh,” she said. “Are your plans with this boy I’m not allowed to mention?”

  I turned to her, wanting to explain suddenly. “He’s just a friend, Mom. He’s offered to show me some things about the car, so we don’t have to keep taking it to the mechanic. But that’s all, I swear.”

  Yeah...right. “All right. I’ll have Donna pick me up, so that you and mystery man can have the car to bond over.”

  “You’re awesome.”

  “I know.” She smirked as she started on her fourth slice of pizza, her eyes returning to the gore on the television.

  *

  I sat down in the small wooden chair in the kitchen. Then, I stood again, too full of nervous energy to stay seated for long. I paced the length of the kitchen, checking the clock every five seconds or so, feeling ridiculous. Ellen had left, leaving me to anxiously anticipate Daniel’s arrival by myself. She had teased me before she left, her smug smile spelling payback for inviting Sam over. I sat back down again. Then I stood.

  What would Daniel and I talk about? Would conversation be as easy as it was before? Would he be freaked out I had asked him over so soon? I sat down again. He’d been the one to volunteer teaching me – did that mean he really did want to be my friend? A loud knock came from the front door, and I jumped. I looked at the clock to be sure. He still had fifteen minutes. Was he early? Or was it someone else? I ran down the hall to find out.

  I opened the door, trying to calm my racing heart and hopeful thoughts. Daniel grinned at me, leaning against the door frame casually. He was wearing a pair of jeans with holes in the knees and a simple grey shirt – work clothes. I smiled at him, glad he had come.

  “I was thinking,” he said as soon as he saw me.

  “I’m proud for you.”

  I stepped around him and out onto to the porch, noticing there wasn’t a hint of winter breeze. The sun beating down on the porch actually felt good. The long sleeve shirt and old blue jeans I had thrown on suddenly felt too hot. Had someone stolen winter?

  “I was thinking you owe me for doing this,” Daniel continued.

  “Is it really ‘friend-like’ to extort someone for a favor?”

  “Yes.” He circled around me and opened the screen-door for me. “In return for helping you grasp the mystery of all things car, I’d like to hear you play a song.”

  I stopped walking. “Well, this was nice, glad you could drop by.”

  “Come on! What harm could it do?”

  “Tons.”

  “Please?” He smiled the smile I had seen him use on the girls at school when he was trying to get his way. I crossed my arms defensively.

  “Don’t do that.”

  “Do what?”

  I looked at our brown grass, so I wouldn’t have to look him in the eyes and be tempted to give in.

  “Use your charm smile on me. I don’t like it. I know you’re used to getting your way when you use it, but it won’t work on me.”

  I peeked up at him to see if he had put it away. He had. In its place he wore a funny expression as if I’d caught him doing something bad again. “You’re the first person to notice that.”

  “Yeah, well, stop. You can use it on the others, but not on me.”

  “But asking you to do something doesn’t work either!”

  “Thems the breaks, huh?” I said, swerving around him.

  “Please?” he begged again. He caught up to me and tried to assault me with the green pools of light he called eyes. He wasn’t trying to force me now. He was really asking. “Call it a friendly favor.”

  “You can call it whatever you want, but it’s not going to happen.”

  “Why not?”

  “What if I suck? What if I’m not as good as your expectations? What if you think I’m the worst thing since the 90s?”

  He started laughing at my comparison. “I promise to withhold judgment.”

  “That is impossible to promise.”

  His cocked his head to the side. “Why are you so definitive when it comes to things like that? Like you know what’s possible for people to think or not think?”

  I shifted nervously and looked away. As I did, I spotted a black Audi parked behind the wagon. Eager to change the subject, I pointed at it. “Is that yours?”

  His eyes were sparkling strangely, but he allowed the change of subject with good grace. “Yep. It was a birthday present.”

  “Some birthday present,” I said, impressed.

  I couldn’t imagine being able to buy somebody a whole car for their birthday. Maybe a cup holder if I saved my money.

  “You’re loaded, aren’t you?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he admitted.

  I had thought as much from the hints from others, but his confirmation stung. What did he know about saving every penny just to have food next month? What did he know about picking up the pieces of his life every six months or so, because his mom had lost her job, or simply felt it was time to move on to avoid the unsavory characters of my world? We were too different. He would never understand the chaos of my world. It made me sad.

  He noticed my expression. “You’re not going to judge me for that too, are you? I can’t help it, you know. It’s my parents’ money, not mine.”

  “That’s what rich kids say,” I said. “But no, I won’t judge you for that. I’m done doing that to you.”

  I opened the driver’s side door of the wagon and popped open the hood. In comparison to the sleek Audi, it looked like someone had spat it out of a garbage compactor after running it over with a tractor on ugly day.

  “Thanks.” He looked up at the cloudless sky. “I’ve arranged for there to be pleasant weather for our lesson, but I think we should start if I’m going to get anything through that thick skull of yours.”

  “You arranged the weather? What? Did you have a conversation with God or something?”

  He smiled and leaned forward, his midnight hair splashing across his pale forehead. My fingers twitched with the impulse to brush the hair back so that it wasn’t obscuring his face.

  “Something like that,” he said with a smile that hinted at an inside joke. “You see this here? That’s the alternator and this,” he pointed to another part of the engine, “is the exhaust manifold…”

  He continued listing off parts in a patient voice. I leaned over the opposite side of the car, listening carefully, cataloging everything he was telling me. I didn’t want him to have to tell me twice; a part of me looking for ways to impress him. I focused on remembering and all my worry of not knowing what to say fell away as swiftly as the morning.

  It was one o’clock before we stopped for lunch. Daniel heard my stomach rumbling almost as loudly as our old car and insisted we take a break. I hadn’t been keen to stop, but he had been pushy and stubborn. He sat at our tiny table while I assembled a pasta salad.

  “Are you sure you don’t want anything?” I asked again feeling rude for eating while he wasn’t.

  “I ate a late breakfast.”

  “You’re just afraid I can’t cook, and you’ll end up poisoned.”

  “That, too.”

  I heard a phone beep, and I peeked back at him from where I was draining my pasta. He pulled out his phone and pushed a couple of buttons. The message was not a happy one. His eyes went from playful and happy to shocked and angry in a single push of a button. The blackness circled for one long moment then disappeared as he shut his phone with a snap. I sat down opposite from him with my food. “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  “No…” The sound of the door banging against the wall and quick footsteps down the hall cut off his reluctant reply.

  His reaction was much quicker than mine. He jumped up at the sound, his chair hitting the linoleum floor with a loud bang as he found his feet. The tension rippling through him was palpable, and I realized I was holding my breath. In that instant I underst
ood something about him; I saw a darkness I hadn’t seen before. It was a manifestation of the dark I had seen in his eyes.

  After a second which lasted an eternity, he relaxed and righted the chair he had knocked over. He sat down quickly and fixed his expression as Alex came running into the kitchen. He gave me a cautiously apologetic look, but I ignored it. I was too busy trying to understand his reaction.

  Alex looked surprised when she saw Daniel, but she was too worked up to comment. “It’s terrible! Have you heard?!” she said as she collapsed into the chair next to me.

  “I didn’t know you knew where I lived,” I said.

  “Oh, don’t be silly, everyone knows where you live.” She paused, a thought occurring to her. “I didn’t mean to barge in, I just got excited…”

  “You’re welcome to barge in any time you want.”

  “Thanks.”

  “So, you haven’t heard?” she asked, her blue eyes wide with anxiety.

  “I just did,” Daniel replied holding up his phone.

  “Is someone going to explain?” I asked. The kitchen was silent, her thoughts blocked from my mind. The answers I should have been getting were nowhere to be heard.

  “They just found a body in the woods, off of NC-12,” she said.

  “Like a deer body?” I said hopefully, not wanting her to mean what I thought she meant.

  “No. A man. Ryan Holt.”

  “Was his death strange or something?” I asked, pushing away my food.

  “Well, we have your typical deaths – car accidents, people freezing to death, fires, that kind of thing – but we’ve never had a death like this.”

  “Like what, exactly?”

  I started to hear a murmuring, and I recognized the sound as what had happened when I’d first started developing my gift months ago. The murmuring got stronger, and I heard: It’s too nasty, I shouldn’t tell them. Poor, Mr. Holt! Poor, dear, man! I wonder what his sister and mother are going to do!

  I looked over at Daniel. His eyes were distant, like he wasn’t in the room with us anymore. Could I hear Alex, because he was distracted? If so, then my not being able to hear her was something he did consciously. But how could he unless…unless he was like me? I experienced a moment of panic. Perhaps he was just psychic, or some other kind of weirdness, I didn’t have a name for yet? That could be it…I knew, after all, that anything was possible.