Angel Fall (2 page)

I
t had taken Alex, Amanda, and Tori months to pack for their trip, but finally everything they owned had been distilled into a collection of suitcases and shipping crates. Their rooms stood empty. It had been an agonizing process. Now it was done, and the only thing left to do was leave.

The family gathered in the living room, if “gathering” was what you could call it. Ellen and Tori were at one end of the couch, Amanda at the other, while Alex slouched by the door. And no one was talking.

Amanda stared down at her shoes. They were new and black and boxy. She had bought them yesterday at the mall. Alex had told her they were ugly, which made her like them even more. Most important, they weren’t what a child would wear. Because she wasn’t a child. Thirteen going on thirty, that’s what the psychologist had said, and he was right.

Amanda glanced at her sister, but a glance was all she could bear. They were completely different, but that didn’t keep them from understanding each other. Their understanding came from many nights of crying—sometimes together, but mostly alone.

It was hard for strangers to believe that Amanda and Tori were related. Tori, with her light skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes, was beautiful. While Amanda had given up the dream of being beautiful. Mirrors do not lie. She looked like their father. Brown hair without a wave or luster in it, a chin too large to be considered delicate. Dark, sensitive eyes often kept averted. Not that she was ugly. She just wasn’t anything at all. At least, that’s the way she viewed herself.

Of course, her mother had told her that with a little effort she could be very pretty. Which made her want to throw up. She hated lies. Amanda had accepted her looks and knew her place within the family. Tori was the doll-like child, her mother’s favorite, while she was the smart one, the lover of books who used to get straight A’s. Used to. Tori was all bubbles and laughter and light, while Amanda was the one who could stare at nothing for hours, drifting in a place where no one else could come. Her therapist had tried to reach that place and had failed. The twilight room of her heart was locked tight.

At the other end of the couch Tori laid her head on her mother’s shoulder—in one way, the youngest Lancaster was very much like her sister. Both were proficient at dancing the family minuet. At nine Tori was an expert at the game that kept them all alive. Each child had an unconscious role to play. Hers was to remain a happy Barbie doll. She hated Barbies, but that didn’t matter. To perform her role, Tori carefully pretended to love her mother’s collection. The game had started out fun, but she had grown tired of it. Not that being tired meant it could end. The game must never end. It had to go on because it made her mother happy. And when her mother was happy, everything was fine.

T
he closing moments in the living room were very painful. Ellen moved down the couch so that she and Tori could be close to Amanda. Which made Amanda hug her corner even more tightly. And then the whispering began.

Alex tried not to hear what his mother was saying, but he couldn’t help it. And the words made him furious. They were the same words he had heard from his earliest childhood, meaningless promises about the wonderful days ahead and how very much she loved them all. Soon Tori was crying. He swore under his breath. He couldn’t stand it when his sisters cried. When they did it late at night, he would slap on his headphones and crank up the volume. He was about to search for the headphones in his backpack, when salvation arrived in the form of a honking wheeze.

Alex got up and opened the front door. Squatting in their driveway was a decrepit rust-red limousine that looked like an escapee from a demolition derby. From bumper to bumper it was battered and bashed as though someone had taken a sledgehammer to it—except for the windows which were shiny and clean and tinted metallic blue.

The wheeze came again from under the hood. Definitely an attempt at a horn. Smirking, Alex turned to his mother. “I think the cab’s here. If the pile of junk on the driveway is what you called for us.” Grabbing their suitcases, he lumbered outside.

The others followed. On the porch they entered the stillness. Everything was so quiet and the air was thick with a smothering blur. For a moment none of them moved. Then slowly, with a tortured scream of metal, the limousine door creaked open and out stepped the driver. In front of them stood a gangling old man in a ragged chauffeur’s uniform.

“You folks ready to travel?”

He was even more decrepit than his car. A shock of white hair stuck out from under a threadbare cap. Plastered beneath his nose was a straggling mustache that made him look like a malnourished walrus. Alex’s smirk widened into a deathly grin. Excellent. Their driver was a homeless bum. Just the sort of derelict to take them to the airport. He loved it because he knew it would drive his mother insane.

“Are you…from Central Cab?” Ellen’s voice quavered as she stared first at the man and then at his vehicle.

“Sure am, lady. Jerry’s all full up. Told me to come and get you. He’s got calls runnin’ out the nose. A lot of cars aren’t startin’ today. ’Course, I don’t have no trouble with ol’ Malleus here.”

“Malleus?” Alex snickered.

“Now, I know we aren’t what you was expectin’…” The man pulled out a set of keys and walked to the trunk. “But this here ol’ boat knows his way to the airport better’n anybody. That’s where this crew’s headin’, aren’t it?” With a metallic shriek, the trunk opened.

Ellen gulped. “Uhh, yes, but…I was thinking…maybe I should drive them myself.”

“Not the day to drive, ma’am. Take my word for it. I know we aren’t pretty, but we’re safe.”

“So those dents must have come from hitting air pockets,” Alex said.

“Half of ’em came from air pockets and the other half just flat-out old age. Sorta like metal wrinkles. That’s what happens when your odometer tops a million.”

Alex glanced at his mother expecting to see her fall apart. But to his shock, she was
smiling
. So was Tori. Even Amanda’s eyes had a twinkle in them.

“Yeah, ol’ Malleus an’ me got some miles on us, but these young people are gonna be safe, ma’am. You kin bet your stars on it. How about it? You want to ride in my ol’ junker?”

“Yeah!” Tori’s tears were gone.

Alex couldn’t believe what he was hearing. She was gonna let them do it—ride with a bum in a car that would fall apart if it ever reached twenty miles an hour. Instantly his rage returned. There you go, just another example of how little she cared about them. Clear proof of how much she wanted them out of her life. Well,
fine
. The sooner they were gone the better.

But in his rage he hadn’t noticed something. While he had been staring at the dents in the car, his mother had been looking into the old man’s eyes, and as she looked, all her fears had vanished. Somehow, beyond words, she knew that her children would be safe with him, safer than anywhere else in the world.

But then Ellen looked at her son and her fear returned. “You…you do think it’s all right, don’t you? I mean…if you’d rather, I could take you myself.”

“Hey, forget it. We’ll be fine.” Utterly disgusted, Alex picked up their luggage and stalked to the trunk. He saw the tears she fought back and didn’t care.

But then the old man approached and spoke gently to Ellen. “Don’t you worry none about your boy, ma’am. You done the best you could, and that’s all that matters. Now, you listen to what I’m sayin’. When all’s said and done, he’s gonna be fine.” Such strange words from a cabby. But when he said them, they brought great comfort. Then the lines in his face crinkled into a smile. “Hey, will you look up at that sky? We got a touch o’ weather comin’. Now you take my advice. Go inside an’ shut your windows an’ doors. Then get a little rest. Nothin’ like sleepin’ with rain on a roof to wash the sorrows away.” The man picked up the remaining luggage and loaded it in the trunk. “All right, now…you lovely ladies climb in the back an’ this young gent can ride shotgun next to me. How’s that for a plan?”

The last moment was the most painful of all as Ellen kissed and hugged each of her children, hugged them as though she might never see them again. When Alex’s turn came he stiffened, but she kissed him anyway. His coldness only deepened when she whispered, “I love you.”

Their eyes didn’t meet because he wouldn’t let them.

The girls climbed into the rear of the limousine, while Alex slid into the front. Then the engine started, and with a creak of loose gears, the old tub rattled out onto the street. Amanda and Tori waved out the back window until their home vanished behind them. Alex stared rigidly ahead. For him, his home had vanished a long time ago.

W
hen they were gone, Ellen Lancaster walked back into her house. As she entered her living room, she broke down in tears. So empty. Just like her soul. The pain was almost overwhelming. And not just in her heart, in her body. It had been growing for months. The terrible secret that she had not told them, because if she had they never would have left. And leaving was for the best. Struggling to her bedroom, Ellen fell onto her bed. Tomorrow the treatments would begin. Paid for by the man she had loved since she was seventeen. The man who had left her. Was it going to rain? She wished it would rain a river that would drown her soul.

F
orty-five minutes to O’Hare, the worst airport in the Western world. Alex slouched on the tattered seat, wishing their walrus of a chauffeur would close the glass partition so he could be completely separated from the passenger compartment. One glance had told him that his sisters were enjoying themselves, enthroned like princesses on the way to a junkyard ball. Tori had discovered an old TV set bolted into the ceiling and was watching cartoons. Amanda had found a paperback novel, just her kind of trash.

Alex examined his surroundings. If anything, the limousine was worse inside than out. He guessed that four thousand years ago the upholstery had been red. What was left was barely visible between long strips of duct tape that kept the whole mess from sliding onto the floor. But that was better than the dashboard, which was a shattered mass that looked as though someone had taken an axe to it. Unquestionably his mother had consigned them to a garbage truck. Alex knew that only a total dork would arrive at the airport in such a wreck.

There was one small consolation, however. As bad as the limousine was, it was better than riding with their mother. Of course, she had talked for days about driving them herself, but he had been firm in his refusal. Like always, getting his way in things that didn’t count. True, Ellen had been hurt (he was trying to think of her as “Ellen” now), but that was good. She deserved to be hurt. While the scales of justice were hardly balanced, retribution had to begin somewhere. He hoped that she was miserable.

In spite of his best efforts he fought a growing lump in his throat, hating himself for allowing the slightest trickle of emotion. Shifting his mind into neutral, he tried to lose all feeling in the trance of the highway. It was odd how smooth the old junk heap ran. Not the slightest bump or rattle. Laying his head back, through half-closed eyes, he watched the liquid blur of trees and buildings.

Blue town.

The town of the tinted window.

A metallic river of speeding shapes that meant nothing.

The trance was almost complete when the driver’s grating voice jarred his eyes open. “Come on, Malleus. Get up there, boy. Don’t let that wind stop you.” Suddenly it was blowing much harder. The old loon was having a difficult time steering the limousine up the ramp onto the tollway. “Ever see such crazy weather? ’Nough wind to carry off the whole dern city. What airline you kids want?”

“American.” Alex intentionally mumbled the word.

“How’s that?”

“I said
American
.”

“That’s what I thought you said. Goin’ a long way, are you?”

Alex groaned. What a stupid question, and if he answered it, it would lead to a hundred more. Only one way to deal with this. Long ago he had discovered that a few well-timed grunts kept old people blathering with no need for him to talk. Staring at the road, he grunted out a half-word that sounded vaguely affirmative. As expected, the driver started to babble.

“Don’t ever fly in planes myself. Too dangerous. Was drivin’ right by when that DC10 crashed in ’78…or was it ’79? Anyway, I said then what I say now. If the good Lord wanted us to fly in planes, He wouldn’t have give us perfectly good cabs. Never fly in a plane when you kin take a cab. It’s a good rule, son, ’specially on a day when the time spirit’s movin’.”

Alex was all ready with another grunt, but the man’s last words strangled it in mid-articulation. He stared at the lined face. “What did you say?”

Dim, whimsical eyes peered back at him. “I said, don’t never fly when you kin take a cab.”

“No. After that. Something about a spirit.”

“Oh, the time spirit. I said he’s movin’. Look up at that drippy, blurry sky. That’s what he does, makes things seem like they’re slowin’ down, when they’re speedin’ up. ’Course usually he’s a little quieter about it. Bet you never heard o’ the time spirit, did you, boy?”

Suddenly everything was clear to Alex. They were being driven to the airport by a certifiable lunatic. Of course, there was no way this idiot could be from the cab company. His mother would have discovered that with a single phone call. Picking them up had been a scam. Alex even knew how it had been pulled off; all it took was listening to a two-way radio. When the pickup order went out from the dispatcher, you raced over and beat the cab to the door. Very likely the real driver had arrived a few minutes after they were gone. Alex wondered if Ellen was worried. Maybe she was trying desperately to find out who had stolen her children. Maybe soon there would be an Amber Alert.

The thought amused him.

“Yeah, nobody talks about the time spirit these days. Can’t blame ’em none. He’s nobody to mess with.”

It occurred to Alex that since he was stuck with a lunatic, he might as well enjoy it. A sarcastic smile twisted the corner of his mouth. “Bet you’ve seen a lot of spirits.”

“More than my share.”

“Hey, you’d better look behind you, ’cause there’s one on your tail right now.”

“
Really
?” The old fool stared in his rearview mirror. “What you talkin’ about, boy? There ain’t nothin’ back there.”

“Oh, he’s there all right. It’s the junkyard spirit, and I think he wants your car.”

As soon as he had said the words, he wished that he hadn’t. There was a long pause, then the old man smiled and turned to look at him. And with that look, everything changed. From being dim and whimsical, his eyes took on a clarity and power that Alex had never seen on any human face.

For an awful moment he couldn’t speak. He couldn’t even breathe.

“You like music, don’t you, son? Why don’t we just stop talkin’ an’ listen to the radio.” He punched a button, and rock music blasted from the dashboard speaker.

After that, the man never said another word until they reached their destination. Alex rode slumped down, staring sullenly out the window, trying to make the blur resettle over his brain. Finally they turned off the Tri-state and headed down the ramp toward the Kennedy. Moments later they arrived.

Outside the terminal their bags were removed from the trunk. Then the old man got a cart and loaded them on it. Amanda and Tori went inside while Alex paid the driver. For some reason, the tip was more generous than he had planned, but still he couldn’t look into the old man’s eyes. Cramming his wallet back in his pocket, he was about to push the cart through the automatic doors when he felt a tap on the shoulder.

“Got a mind to tell you somethin’.”

Alex turned.

“Listen to me, boy. When you don’t know where to go, follow.”

“What?”

“I said,
when you don’t know where to go…follow.
Now, you an’ your sisters have a good trip to England. And don’t forget what I told you about cabs.” With that, he got into his car and drove off. It wasn’t until later that Alex realized he hadn’t mentioned anything about England.