The Temptation Page 4

  “Probably just a raccoon,” she said. “Barrels are pretty full—trash day tomorrow. Shane, you sure you’re okay?”

  I felt her eyes upon me now, and tried to compose myself. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

  “You know, it’s normal to feel jumpy after an accident,” she said. “It’s okay, honey. Deep breaths.”

  I finally settled on the cartoon channel, something light and funny that my mom found gross, and I tried to distract myself from my fears with thoughts of how Travis had helped me after the accident. And the phone call. He’d said he’d find me. It was eerie but I felt, strangely, that the only way I could ever feel safe again would be if Travis were with me. It made no sense, and was all very exciting. I wanted to call my best friend, Kelsey, to tell her what had happened, but my mom was staying very close to me, hovering. Kelsey was the only person I could think of who might not think I was crazy. Then again, she might. I didn’t know, but I did know I had to tell someone. Kelsey and I had been best friends since first grade, and no one had been through more with me than she had, from my parents’ divorce to getting our first periods and training bras, to our first kisses from boys. We shared all our secrets, and had an understanding between us that we’d always be honest with each other, and never judge each other. I needed her now.

  Suddenly, Buddy sprinted from the kitchen to the family room, hackles raised, and began to bark vehemently, spinning in ridiculous little circles as he often did when he grew overly excited about protecting us.

  I froze on the sofa, goose bumps rising all over me, holding my glass of apple juice perfectly still and trying to hear what had upset the dog. I had a ridiculous thought, which was no less scary for being stupid: What if it was the coyote again? The one with the red eyes? What if it had come back to finish what it started?

  “Buddy!” My mother admonished him in her usual way, clapping her hands together to get his attention. “No! Stop it.”

  Buddy ignored her and kept growling, furiously focused on something that seemed to be inside the house with us and not outside at all. He began to nip at the air, growling as though there were a man walking around in here. I’d never seen him do anything remotely like that before.

  “No, Buddy!” my mother demanded. But Buddy didn’t listen. He wasn’t exactly obedient once he started whirling and barking.

  “C’mere, little thing,” I called him gently, fighting the panic rising in my chest, hoping that a little reverse psychology might work on my pooch. He gave me only a passing glance, his ears twitching madly, and went back to his frenzied attack upon the air.

  “Probably just the neighbors coming home,” my mom said with a roll of her eyes, rubbing her temples with her fingertips as though my dog gave her a headache.

  I told her I agreed, but I didn’t really. I had chills. I sensed it, too, whatever it was. Something bad was in the room with us. I knew it at a deep and visceral level, almost like instinct. I felt watched. But I also felt brave. Whatever was happening to me, I was not about to let it win. I was a girl who didn’t back down from a fight when one found me, and I wasn’t about to start now.

  I set the juice glass down on the tray and unwrapped myself from the soft red chenille blanket. Whatever had been in the room receded with my getting up and mentally challenging it. I felt it go. It was so strange.

  I padded over to where Buddy stood, and tried to listen to the outside. I heard nothing. I scooped him up into my arms, hoping to calm him down, but Buddy squirmed to be free. He wriggled out of my hold, jumping to the carpet, and rushed off down the hall, yapping all the way.

  “Have I mentioned lately how much I regret getting that stupid dog?” my mother joked.

  “I’ll see what’s bugging him,” I said, my heart pounding with unspoken dread.

  Mom said, “Let me go put some kibble in his bowl and see if that gets his attention. I swear, he’s going to get us a noise ordinance penalty.”

  I tiptoed down the hall to the darkened door of the guest room, where Buddy was going ballistic. I peeked inside, and felt the malevolent presence again. The curtains were still open from earlier in the day, and through the window I could see the blue-black sky, the charcoal outline of the mountains, and a few twinkling stars. I saw the juniper tree wave and bend in the wind. Nothing unusual. Buddy pawed at the carpet under the window, and growled.

  “What is it, Buddy?” I whispered. “Who’s here?”

  To my horror, I was answered by a faint tapping sound upon the glass of the window. From the outside. Frozen with fear, but not about to be defeated by it, I strained my eyes against the darkness, and saw something moving out there, a dark shadow. It looked sort of like a man. I gasped, and ducked back into the hallway. I thought to call for my mother, but what if it was Travis out there? Hadn’t he said he’d find me? Was he finding me already? Hadn’t I told him I was going home? But why would he be here now?

  A moment later, I sneaked another look, holding the smooth, plastered wall with my hands to steady myself. I saw nothing. For a second, I wondered if I’d maybe just seen a bear. Sometimes they came down to the foothills at night to root through garbage cans, especially on the night before trash day, when everyone’s cans were stuffed with delectable refuse. I inhaled deeply to calm myself, and began to force myself to relax. But then something moved again, just outside the window, and I was pretty sure I saw two angry red eyes shining through the darkness.

  I ducked out of sight again, my heart thundering madly.

  “Mom!” I screamed. “Mom!”

  I heard her stop pouring the kibble into Buddy’s metal dish in the kitchen, and then I heard her come running down the hall. She was soon at my side.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “I think I saw something out there,” I told her, my voice quivering. “Outside the window. A, a . . . a man.” But as I said the word man, my instinct corrected me. Demon, it said. I didn’t know where that word came from, only that there it was, front and center in my mind. A demon was here.

  Mom walked fearlessly into the guest room and looked around. I heard her close the curtains over the window, and she turned on the overhead light in the room. She returned to me, looking unconcerned about things that go bump in the night, but quite concerned about me. Buddy’s barking had stopped, and he followed her, seeming perfectly relaxed and content.

  “There’s nothing there,” Mom said.

  “I swear, it was there. With red eyes.”

  My mother looked at me with pity, and rubbed my upper back. “I think you’ve had a really tough day, Shaney. You should try to rest if you can. Sleep is a great healer.”

  “A what?” I asked, the hair on the back of my neck rising. Was it another coincidence, my mom using the word healer, or was I so delusional that I was starting to see supernatural messages and meanings where there actually weren’t any?

  My mother stared at me like I was crazy. “Shane, why are you acting like this?”

  “I don’t know,” I lied, not wanting to scare her, or to give her any reason to treat me like a lunatic. “I guess I’m just tired.”

  Mom put an arm around me, and steered me toward my bedroom. “You need sleep, pumpkin. That’s all this is. You’ve had a heck of a day. Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get you to bed.”

  I walked with her, and tried to still my mind, but the sense of dread only grew stronger with each step toward my room. This wasn’t over, I realized.

  Whatever it was, it had only just begun.

  Chapter Six

  Sleep did not come easily for me that night. Outside was calm and quiet, but I had an uncanny sense that there was something out there watching the house, and me. My mom stood by the bedside, having just tucked me in like I was a little girl again. I pulled the down comforter in the pink striped duvet cover up over my ears, and asked her to leave my door open, with the hall light on, just as I used to many years before. She bit her lower lip, a concerned look on her face, and told me she loved me before she left the room. B
uddy came prancing in with a tinkle of tags, and used the padded doggy stairs we’d provided for him to join me on the bed. Soon, he was snoring at my feet as though he had not a care in the world.

  I was weary to my marrow, drained and physically tired, but my mind raced a million miles an hour with thoughts of Travis. Silly as it sounded, I missed him. I needed to see him, urgently. It was impossible to explain why. I just did. I thought about his face, his hands, the sunshine smell of him, the masterful way he controlled his horse, his perfect aim with a slingshot. I wondered now why he hadn’t just shot the coyotes with his gun. I wanted to ask him. There were so many questions. But even more than that, I just wanted to be held by him, to feel that incredible safety. I hoped he would find me, that I’d see him again. I thought of his beautiful lips, and imagined what it might be like to kiss them. If his touch was magical, what would his kiss be like?

  I began to criticize myself for being foolish—was I just being a dumb, obsessive girl? There had to be a logical reason for everything that happened. Maybe I’d given him my name and phone number during my delirium. There was no such thing as magic, right? But then, as soon as I thought that, a newly awakened part of me protested. Don’t doubt yourself, it said; what you experienced was magical.

  After a time, to try to drown out my thoughts of Travis, I turned on the iPod stereo on the bedside table, and scrolled through to the Holberg Suite by composer Edvard Grieg, the Sarabande movement; it was a beautiful and soothing piece of music that I hoped would relax me, ground me, bring me back into balance with myself. I lay my head upon a pillow, closed my eyes, and controlled my breathing. I tried not to think of anything but the lush harmonies, the meandering melodies, the way the slow, smooth tones of the orchestra mixed together to create something emotional and sweet, gentle and warm. I was so, so tired. Very, very tired. And in love, most likely, with a complete stranger, who felt like someone I’d known forever. It was stupid! But it was true, too. I began to drift off, with Travis still on the edges of my consciousness, and I fell asleep.

  The music continued to play, and I found myself inside of it, moving through beautiful, spiraling geometric patterns in bright colors, patterns that I intuitively knew and understood were actually three-dimensional visual representations of the music itself. I had never experienced music in this way, and was astonished by what I saw, and how it felt to soar, suspended by the vibrations of the notes, sliding down a bass tone here, rising through a violin passage there. I had a body, just like my regular body, and I was myself, and whole, yet weightless. I knew somehow that I was somewhere important, somewhere I had never been before.

  The music changed now, to Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty, a rich, thick piece full of harp strings gliding atop pleasant bass thrums, a waltz. New colors, new shapes appeared to reflect the light and happy notes.

  Suddenly, I was pulled forward by the music into a shape like a honeycomb, and then was sucked into smaller honeycombs again and again, down smaller and smaller, yet each piece was exactly a copy of the whole. I moved with the sounds, pulled as though someone, or something, was guiding me. I felt the thrill of being on a roller coaster in my belly, and the joy of being without a care or worry. It felt, oddly, very similar to the way I’d felt earlier, when Travis had touched me, and I knew he was there.

  The song changed again, to Debussy’s “Nuages” from Nocturnes. It was a more haunting piece than the others, and the mood of the shapes and colors turned dark as well. I hung there, watching in amazement as the music literally built a world around me, enveloped me, moved me.

  I have something to show you.

  It was Travis’s voice talking to me, with his rural twang. I looked everywhere for him, but could not see him.

  “Where are you?” I asked, happy and surprised to find that I was able to speak.

  Right here. Here with you.

  “But I can’t see you!”

  That’s okay. You feel me, right?

  “Yes. But how?”

  Because I want you to feel me. I want to be near you. I couldn’t wait.

  “Tell me where you are.”

  Far from here, and also here exactly. I can’t stay away from you. I tried.

  “Are you supposed to stay away from me?”

  Probably.

  “Why?”

  Hard to explain. I feel something really powerful for you. I didn’t show it earlier, but it’s amazing, the way you feel to me. Like I’ve known you before. I didn’t know how to handle it.

  “I felt it, too.”

  I don’t know how this is supposed to work, us being attracted to each other like this. I’m not sure it’s allowed, Shane.

  “Allowed? By who?”

  I can show you. I don’t know how to tell you, exactly. But I want you to understand. That’s why I’m here. I want to take you somewhere.

  “Okay.”

  I’ll show you. Can I?

  “Why am I afraid?”

  Because this is strange. It’s new. You have to trust me. Do you trust me?

  “Yes, I think so.”

  Good. Then come with me.

  I felt as though I were being lifted, as though he’d swept me into his arms and held me the way you might carry a person. It was unreal, so strange. So good. It felt incredible just to be in his arms again. I never wanted to leave.

  Just hold on.

  I focused on the space where I felt him, and for a moment, I saw the air shimmer in his shape, as though he were made of lights. I saw that it was Travis. It was him, just made of light.

  “I see you,” I breathed.

  He laughed, and his voice was sweet and kind. Good. That’s good. Let’s go!

  We moved at an incredible speed then, me pulled along by him; we flew, dipped, glided, and stopped in what felt like the middle of a darkened sky, suspended like stars in outer space. We bobbed, weightless, and I felt intense, enormous peace.

  Look. It’s beautiful.

  I turned back and gasped at the sea of blackness around me and the bright blue-and-white sphere floating below: Earth, illuminated like a jewel.

  I looked at Travis inquisitively.

  “Am I dreaming?”

  No.

  “Am I awake?”

  I don’t think so.

  “I don’t understand.”

  You don’t have to.

  Again we flew, this time around the great blue orb, at an electrifying speed, against the rotation. Finally, we slowed down.

  Here. We’re here.

  The music faded out, and I felt myself pulled down toward the planet, and farther, through the atmosphere, down through the sky toward New Mexico and then closer in on the area near Albuquerque. We were still weightless, but I could smell the air, and feel the sun and the breeze. It was summertime here and beautiful.

  Belen, he said. My hometown.

  Down we went, through the bright sunshine of a typical summer day, toward the large parking lot of a grocery store. We slowed down now, and hovered twenty feet above the ground. All around us people parked their cars, pushed their shopping carts, talked with one another, but none of them seemed to see or notice us.

  “What is this?” I whispered, worried that seeing us would scare these people.

  They can’t see or hear us, Shane. We can’t affect anything here, either. It is the past. We can only watch.

  “Like a movie?” I asked, noticing then how old the cars looked, and how dated the clothes everyone wore were.

  Sort of.

  I felt him direct my attention toward the front door of the store, where a handsome man who was maybe in his twenties, wearing cowboy boots and a white baseball cap, was walking out. He had a strong jaw, and he pushed a shopping cart filled with paper towels and diapers. A brown-haired baby sat in the cart’s seat, babbling to himself. Next to the man walked another child, a boy of about six or seven, also with dark hair, dressed like a miniature version of the father. The older boy watched the man attentively, almost fearfully, and it was
now that I noticed the man was angry, but making an effort not to show this to the children. Walking fast, he pushed the cart across the lot, toward a big gray pickup truck, and began to unload the goods into the bed.

  My attention was directed now to a black, extended-cab Chevy pickup with six tires—four of them in the back, the kind that had the rear end jacked up like a stinkbug. Its engine roared as it sped across the lot toward the man and the children, kicking up dust and pebbles, and annoying everyone it passed. The Chevy screeched to a stop in front of them, and the driver revved the engine aggressively while loud, ugly music belched out of the windows. The man in the white baseball hat tried to ignore the ruckus and took the baby out of the cart. Then an arm poked out of the driver’s side window of the Chevy, a shiny black gun in the hand.

  The older boy screamed, “Duck, Daddy!” but it was too late. Several bullets were quickly pumped into the man with the white hat. He looked surprised for a moment, and heartbreakingly used every ounce of strength he had to gently set the baby down on the ground before falling to his knees, clutching his chest, a bewildered look upon his face.

  The Chevy sped off, and people continued on at first, unaware that a man had just been shot, because the ugly music had drowned out the gun noise. I felt sickened, and wanted to turn away.

  “Why are you showing this to me?” I asked.

  It’s the first piece of the puzzle.

  The older boy screamed out, “Daddy! My daddy’s been hurt! My daddy got shot! Help! My daddy’s hurt!”

  The man in the white cap collapsed onto his side, and blood began leaking from his nose and mouth. His body convulsed. His eyes rolled back in his head. The baby stood watching in confusion, but the older boy understood, and tried to revive his father, kneeling next to the man and desperately crying for him not to die, his tiny hands and face covered in his father’s blood.

  A woman with three children of her own rushed to the boys, and picked them up in her arms. The older one protested, but she dragged him away, tears rolling down her own panic-stricken face.

  “Someone call nine-one-one!” she screamed. “There’s a man hurt over here! Oh, these poor babies, these poor, poor babies!”