Escaping Fate (11 page)

I simply stared at him. Had all the
girls shared these awful dreams? The connection I felt to them just
kept getting stronger. I hoped that did not mean that I would share
their fate as well. I could try to deny what my grandfather was
telling me, but I knew there was no use. My head sagged. My hands
came up to rub my arms once again. The cold foreboding feeling
refused to give way.

“I’m so sorry, Arra,” he said. “I’m
sorry this is happening to you. I’ll help you with anything you
need. We’ll find some way to stop this. We won’t give up.” He was
crying as he held me. I think I was too.

I didn’t think he believed his words
any more than I did, but I tried to hope there would be a way to
free me. Despair washed over us as we cradled each other. I wished
again that I had never seen Katie’s photo. I wished I had never
left New York and found any of this. Pulling closer to my grandpa,
I knew that in two days none of what I had learned would matter
anyway.

Chapter Thirteen

The rest of the morning was spent
looking through old journals, photo albums, and anything else that
might help me, or at least take my mind off the dreams. I knew how
those would end. I doubted that we would find the key to saving
myself in my grandpa’s book shelves, but I could not stand to sit
idle. In the end, though, the lure of the dreams Katie and I had
shared became too strong to resist. My grandpa was reluctant to let
me see it. Finally, after an endless amount of begging, he handed
over Katie’s diary.

I read, captivated at seeing my own
dreams dictated by another’s hand. The events were exactly the
same, as were the feelings they stirred. Katie described the dreams
in words different than I might have used, but the closeness I felt
to my dead aunt overruled the years between us. Turning the pages
hungrily, I was sorely let down when I reached the end of the
diary. Katie had not finished recording the dreams. They stopped
three days before she died with the happiest comment she had made
in the week prior to her birthday. “Robert is coming home today. I
can’t wait to see him.” And then it ended, the rest of the pages
left empty. Disappointed, I went back to the beginning of the
dreams, hoping for something that might help me.

***

May 28th, 1979

I don’t know if it’s just my
anticipation for having Robert come home from college or what, but
I woke up this morning crying because of this awful dream I had
last night. I think it was a dream of me living in some kind of hut
in the jungle. It was really weird. I was wearing this old time
Spanish looking dress and sleeping on a pallet.

This older man, I guess he was supposed
to be my dad, and I were asleep when a noise woke me up. Someone
was pounding on the door of our tiny house. I didn’t know what was
happening so I just pulled my blankets up and crouched against the
wall. The old man rushed to the door and braced himself against it.
Whoever was trying to get in, he knew they were going to hurt
us.

I was freaking out, yelling at him to
tell me what was going on. I kept asking him what was happening and
what they wanted with us but he just told me to hide over and over
again. He said they’d take me if I didn’t hide. I was so scared I
couldn’t even move. I just kept huddling on my bed and
crying.

When the door started to break, the old
man screamed at me to hide again. He looked so terrified that I
finally got the courage to jump off the bed. I ran for the only
real piece of furniture in the little house. It was a big wooden
cupboard that was just high enough off the ground to let me slip
under it. I curled up on the floor, tucking in every part of me and
tried to shut out the sounds around me. It didn’t work though. I
could still hear the banging, the splintering wood, and the old man
yelling for someone to help us.

Suddenly I heard the door break and the
men outside ran in, demanding the old man give me to them. I had to
cover my mouth to keep them from hearing me crying. The old man
told them to get out of our house but they didn’t listen. They
pushed past him and started ransacking the house. They knocked over
chairs and tossed the bed I had been sleeping in as they searched
for me. I could hear the old man’s voice as they searched, begging
them to leave and threatening to kill them if they didn’t. He was
an old man, though. They just laughed at him and pushed him out of
their way.

He went back to begging then, telling
them I was all he had left. They didn’t care. They kept saying I
belonged to the gods, not him. I had no idea what they were talking
about but they were acting so insane that I knew they were going to
kill me.

I think one of them figured out where I
was then because I saw someone’s feet running toward me. The old
man tried to stop him but someone else hit him with something. I
could hear the bone crack. I screamed when he fell down in front of
me. Blood poured off his face, making me feel like I was going to
puke. I had forgotten the men around me because of the blood, but
they hadn’t forgotten me.

Hands grabbed me and yanked at me. I
screamed as I tried to wriggle out of their grasp but I wasn't
strong enough. It only took a few seconds before they pulled me out
and grabbed my arms and legs. I begged them to let go of
me.

Nobody listened to me.

They threw a bag over my head and
pulled it down until I was completely covered. The dust from the
bag made me cough so hard I couldn’t scream anymore. The last thing
I remembered before waking up in my bed was blinding pain as
someone hit me over the head.

I was so scared after I woke up that I
couldn’t go back to sleep. I was a zombie all day today. I really
hope I get a better night’s sleep tonight. Robert will be home soon
and I don’t want to be a tire grouch for his visit. He loves to
tease me about stuff like that.

Love,

Katie

***

After rereading only the first entry, I
closed the book again. Remembering the fear was too much. Just as
Katie had, when I woke up from the first dream, I had thought it
was simply a nightmare, a vision of me living a different life
entirely. Then the second dream came the next night where I saw
what I again thought was myself being dragged away from the little
town towards the towering city. Then came the washing and
painting.

With every new dream I believed less
and less that I was seeing myself in those nightmares. The feeling
I got from them was no vague fear of the unknown, it was a
pinpointed warning. And there was nothing new in Katie’s account.
She saw exactly what I saw. I had gone over those dreams so many
times trying to figure them out but it was no use. Leaving the book
on the coffee table, I went to look for my grandpa. Maybe he had
found something useful.

Sitting on the floor of his guest room,
my grandpa was staring at photos of his daughter. He had a lot more
than my mom did. Katie on one of the horses she loved so much.
Katie building a sand castle at the beach. Katie graduating from
elementary school. Katie posing with a group of friends. Her
cheerful smile shining bright in every one of them. I wondered what
she looked like during that last week. Did her smile fade just as
her life was about to?

Suddenly my grandpa realized I was
standing behind him and set the photos back down.

“Are you hungry?” I asked. “I could use
a break.”

It didn’t take much to convince him to
abandon the books and go have a sandwich with me in the kitchen. I
knew it was difficult for him to be dragging all of this back up.
No doubt he had search through everything in his house to find some
way to end this, but he wanted to search it all again. I wanted to
believe I would find something in the books, but what could Katie
have known that I didn’t? In the end the headache caused by hours
of reading the looping handwriting convinced us both to
stop.

The meal was simple, turkey and cheese
on wheat bread, but I savored it. Beginning to feel like every move
I made might be my last, I pushed myself to enjoy every second to
the fullest. My grandpa on the other hand ate his sandwich as if he
barely even tasted it. The silent kitchen was abruptly disturbed by
a hesitant knock. My grandpa came back to the present and looked
around the room. He glanced out the kitchen window, looking into
the street. A late model Chevy pickup was parked at the
curb.

“I wonder who that could be,” he
said.

“Oh, shoot,” I exclaimed, “I totally
forgot he was coming.”

“A friend of yours?”

“Yeah. I kind of forgot we made plans
for today,” I admitted. Standing up, I brushed the crumbs from my
sandwich off my pant legs. Hurriedly, I scooped the pictures and
papers I had brought with me off the table and into my backpack.
Shouldering the bag, I turned back to my grandpa and
hesitated.

“Do you want me to tell him you’re not
here?” he asked, looking a little unsure about what he was
proposing.

“No, Grandpa, it’s fine. But would you
call my mom and let her know where I’m going?”

“Where are you going?” he
asked.

“Um.” I hesitated. “Archery lessons.
But please don’t mention that part to her. She’ll have a fit.” I
moved toward the front door.

“Arra,” he said
disapprovingly.

“Grandpa, I’ll be perfectly safe, don’t
worry. Just tell Mom I’m with Tanner Wheeler, okay?”

“Alright, but if she finds out, I’ll
say I didn’t know a thing,” he said, giving in with a smile and a
brief shake of his head.

The knock came again, a little louder.
My grandpa finally opened the door. “Good afternoon, Tanner. How’s
your mother doing?”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Malo. She’s just
fine, sir. Uh, is Arra here?” Tanner asked awkwardly.

This was a new side of Tanner I had not
seen before. So full of confidence the last two times I had seen
him, I watched him fiddle with a stray string on his jeans pocket.
I wanted to laugh at the thought of my sweet old grandpa making
anybody nervous. He was much more like to force cookies on someone
than do anything even close to intimidating. My mood lifted
slightly, just enough to make me glad I had not ditched out on the
date.

“Why yes she is, young man. Come on
in,” my grandpa said. The kind smile he gave Tanner gave no hint
that he thought the young man’s behavior was at all funny. He
pulled the door open a little wider.

Straightening my clothes, I swatted at
few straggling bread crumbs before stepping around the corner.
“Hey, Tanner. Thanks for picking me up.”

“Sure,” he replied. His eyes drifted
towards my grandfather. He didn’t seem to know whether he was
required to stay for a few minutes to be polite, or whether he
could leave without embarrassing himself.

I considered prolonging his
uncertainty, but could not bring myself to do it. “Ready to
go?”

“Yeah,” he said, his expression
changing to one of relief. “It was nice to see you again, Mr.
Malo.”

“You too, Tanner. Tell your mom hello
for me.”

“Don’t forget to call my mom,” I
reminded him.

“Just be careful, or we’ll both be in
trouble with her,” my grandpa said seriously.

I nodded my agreement and headed for
Tanner’s truck.

Chapter Fourteen

The drive out to Tanner’s favorite
archery spot was soothing. Tanner’s earlier nervousness disappeared
as soon as we reached the truck. We talked about our families
easily, and Tanner told me more about Grainer and why it wasn’t
that bad of a place to live. The more I was with him, the less I
cared about whether or not Grainer was as fascinating as I had
thought Manhattan was. When the list of things to do in Grainer ran
out it seemed to fall to me to pick up the conversation.

“So Evan and Jackson didn’t feel like
coming with us today?” I asked.

“They were busy,” Tanner said quickly.
“Chores or something.”

“Both of them?”

“Yeah, I guess. So it’s just the two of
us.” As soon as he had said it, Tanner must have realized that I
might take it too mean he was trying to get me alone with him and
blushed fiercely. Making an effort to backpedal, Tanner only
worsened his predicament. “I mean, no that we have to be alone if
you don’t want to. That’s not what I meant, of course.”

I pretended not to notice his
embarrassment, which proved very easy. “No, it’s fine,” I said. “I
was just teasing. Actually I’d rather not have to listen to Evan
laughing at me again.” Tanner’s easy smile returned as we fell into
a semi comfortable silence.

Pulling up to the meadow where I first
met Tanner I was excited for the chance to spend more time with
him, but the quiet allowed the dreams and photos to creep back in.
I wondered how I was going to make it through the rest of the
afternoon. I could hardly focus on anything but the morning’s
confessions once they took hold of me again. Feeling guilty about
even accepting the invitation considering my current situation, I
still did not want to show my uneasiness to Tanner.

I forced myself to pretend it was a
week earlier, before the dreams, before the photos, and especially
before the stories. The darkness still lingered in my mind, but I
found a small corner free of any other concern where I could focus.
Tanner climbed out the cab and went to the truck bed where he had
the targets and bows stored. I calmed my features and smiled before
climbing out of the pickup as well.