If one of those little flares happens to land on me, my clothes could catch fire. Dozens streak through the interior darkness of the tree. A flickering shower of nascent flames.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I’m lying on a bed of grass. It’s wet, cool against my cheek. The smell of earth—Earth—is a realization that I’m still alive. N2 and O2 in, carbon dioxide out. Breathe, Ruby. Breathe.
Oh, but the horrific odor. Burned hair, singed flesh. Smoke, soot.
I roll over onto my back and look up at the oak, the ancient portal tree—devastated, torn apart by lightning. Its magnificent canopy is a crooked tangle of black limbs. My breath catches in my throat. It cannot possibly mend itself.
My tree is dead.
I’m not.
Though I don’t remember, the door must have opened one last time, and I managed to crawl out before the tree was completely ablaze.
I close my eyes.
Someone is kneeling over me, shaking me. “Ruby!”
“Patrick?”
“It’s me! It’s your dad.”
My tongue feels too big for my mouth. “Dad?” My voice is gravelly, hoarse.
“Oh, thank God you’re alive. You’re alive!” He grips my shoulders. “Where have you been? What happened?”
“Dad?” My cracked lips tear when I speak, and I taste the blood.
“Ruby, can you open your eyes?” He caresses my forehead, my cheeks. “Oh, my baby! I’m so glad you’re alive. Open your eyes.”
“No,” I whisper. “The sun. It hurts.”
“Okay, okay,” he says. I can feel him slide his arms under my body, like he’s trying to scoop me up.
“No!” I scream. “My leg!”
“Okay, okay,” he says again. “Help is right behind me, on the way.”
“Promise me something, Dad.”
“Anything.”
“Promise.”
“Yes, Ruby, I promise.” His silent tears drip onto my dry lips, and I taste the saltiness. Like seawater. Like Universe Nine. Like the Pacific.
“Take me back to California.”
Silence. The wind rustles something nearby. The cornstalks. “Oh, Ruby,” he says.
He misunderstood. “Not to live there,” I say. “To visit Mom’s grave. I want to plant fresh flowers. White impatiens.”
He cries even harder, his tears streaming down my cheeks, finding their way into my ears. “Okay, okay,” he says. “We can do that.”
“Know something? About Mom?”
“What?” Dad says.
“She’s beautiful. So, so pretty.”
A noise gathers in the distance, moves toward us. Voices, panting, barking. I open my eyes and squint through the early morning sunlight. The cornfields sway. People wearing fluorescent-orange shirts break through the tall stalks. Dozens of people. Dogs pull at their leashes.
My eyes seal shut again. They need to stay closed for a long, long time.
“She’s over here!” Dad calls.
“You found her?” It’s Willow’s voice, strained with joy.
“Finally.” This voice sounds irritated, put out. It can only be Kandy.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Linda Bell’s brass nameplate is dangerously close to the edge of her desk. I nudge it back, away from the tug of gravity.
“Are you comfortable?” she asks. “Let’s sit by the window.” She motions to two oversized leather chairs.
I carry my cane, not needing to use it for such a short distance.
“How’s physical therapy going?” Linda asks once we’re settled into our seats.
“I walked ten minutes on the treadmill today,” I say.
“Great.” She follows my gaze out the window. “The mums are beautiful, aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“Though they’re a reminder that it’s autumn, and the weather will be turning cold,” Linda says, leaning forward. Her blond bangs are cut precisely. A straight line, underlining the brim of her hat.
“Not many people wear hats.” In the corner there’s a rack, loaded with feathery, lacy, or jeweled caps. “Older women, mostly.”
She nods. “I like hats, and you like science.”
“Yes.”
“Physics? Chemistry? Biology?”
“All of it.”
We sit in silence. A wall clock ticks. I stare at the mums, orange and yellow.
“Do you remember our session on Friday?”
“Yes.”
“But you don’t remember the hats.”
I glance at the hat rack. Of course I remember them. “I guess not,” I say.
“Have you been sleeping?” Linda asks.
“Yes.”
She waits for me to elaborate, but I don’t.
“Is it hard to motivate in the mornings, to get out of bed?”
“No.”
“I hear you’ve been to Cleveland, and you had a delicious steak dinner.” She says “delicious” like she’s in a commercial for the steakhouse.
“Yes.”
“How’s your appetite?”
“Look, I get it. You want to know if I’m depressed, if I’m sleeping all day, not eating, still interested in the usual stuff.”
Linda smiles. “Well? Are you depressed?”
“My head feels like it’s full of helium.”
“How do you mean?”
“Detached. Floating above my body.”
“How so?”
“Never mind.”
“And how does your leg feel? Does it feel detached, too, or are you getting used to it using it again?”
I tap the cane against my atrophied leg, finally free of its bandages and brace. “I’m lucky I didn’t lose it.”
“That’s a positive attitude.”
She waits again for me to say something. I admire the mums, notice a bowl of chocolates wrapped in silver-and-red foil.
“Ruby, we have a lot of time to talk. As many hours as you want, over the next month, or even year.” She opens her hands, palms up. “What we need to know now, for the police, is whether there’s someone we should be looking for.”
“Nope.”
“Your story …” Her voice trails off. “It’s missing a few pieces.”
“Of course it is. I got struck by lightning. I’m a little messed up. I can’t remember everything.” I cross my arms across my chest.
She sighs. The clock ticks. Outside, a truck backs up—beep, beep, beep.
“You don’t remember where you were? You don’t remember where you slept, or what you ate?”
Yes. But you’re the last person I’d tell. Do you want me to land myself in a mental ward? No thanks! “Sorry,” I say. “It’s all blank. The doctors are calling it post-traumatic amnesia.”
“Is it possible you’re pretending to have memory problems?” she asks.
“Not that I recall.”
She flutters her eyelids, stifling an outright eye roll. “Do you remember where you were going?”
“I was boldly going where no one has gone before.”
“Ruby.” She spits my name out, like it’s a gulp of sour milk. She’s lost her patience, same as last session when I used my “boldly going” line. It’s just so hard to resist.
“How many sessions have we had?” I ask.
“This is our fourth,” she says. “You were in the hospital a week, in a rehab center a week, and you’ve been home for two. Last week you started school again.”
I nod earnestly, like she’s telling me something I don’t already know.
“Please answer my question,” she says. “When you left home on Friday, the twenty-first of August, did you have a destination in mind?”
I shrug. “It’s too bad my digital camera got fried by the lightning. I bet that would’ve provided some clues.”
“Oh? Like what?”