Scintillate (8 page)

Twelve

D

ad entered his office with a perplexed and wary expression. One hand rattled a few loose coins in his pocket. My newly marred hand was tucked away in the sleeve of my hoodie. Mari and Janelle stood in the doorway with expectant, inquisitive looks on their faces.

“I need to talk privately with my dad. Can you give us a minute?” I said with more grit than I knew I had. The double doors shut us in the office together. I registered the sound of a fly beating itself senseless against the window to get to something he could see but not reach.

Truth could be like that.

“Dad…” Tears gathered in the back of my throat. “You spoke to Mami Tulke.”

The statement versus question tactic worked. I could see from his shocked expression that it was true.

“Have you been eavesdropping?” His face contorted from alarm to stern reproach.

“If I had been, how would I also know what she said?” His office had a separate line. No other phones in the house connected to it.

He stood in shocked silence. His aura flared erratically, changing from a greenish-yellow to a mustard one that I’d come to associate with fear. “There is no sane way to explain this, so I’m just going to say it. I came in here to call Dun, and when I picked up the phone, I
heard
the whole conversation. Like a replay. I felt what you were feeling. I know what Mami Tulke said to you!” My voice rose successively higher, my own disbelief still coursing through me.

“I don’t know what you’re going on about, Cora. What you’re telling me is impossible.”

“I don’t care how impossible it sounds! I am my mother’s daughter. So tell me what that
means
! Tell me what you meant when you said ‘if anyone figures out the truth about her.’ Tell me what it is that you can’t save me from, because freaky things are happening to me, Dad, and I don’t know how to save myself. You’re supposed to protect me.”

His mouth hung open, his face drawn. He spoke slowly and softly, as if I were mentally challenged. “I never said that, sweetheart. You must have imagined it.”

His words came out in a puff of black smoke. The gray-black hovered over his mouth a moment, curled around his lips and throat, then slowly dissipated.

His lie was a cannon shot in the mist.

It struck me in the gut. A condensed ball of yellow rolled from him—like I’d seen in Finn’s aura in the forest, only much larger—floating like a polyp, an enormous cystic secret. He was lying to protect that secret.

I pulled my hand out and shoved the marking in his face. “Am I imagining this?”

He gasped. “You got a tattoo of your mother’s wedding ring? How did you know what it looked like?” Even if I hadn’t been able to see his aura, I could read the conflict in his eyes and the threat of tears in their rims.

My own eyes filled with tears. My mother’s wedding ring? Fresh pain of missing her stabbed at my heart. I’d gone twelve years without knowing the touch of my mother, and now I had to wear an image of her wedding ring on my finger?

“This conversation is over. We will not speak of it again.” My father turned and left me standing alone in the office, beating myself against the glass between us.

Thirteen

I

watched my father eat his breakfast the next morning in the way a scientist observes the mating ritual of sloths. Suddenly, everything he did and how he did it was slow, irritating, and suspicious. I was consumed with questions about myself, about my mother, and now knew that my father, the one person I had trusted above all others, was hiding the answers from me. His idea of keeping me safe was to render me ignorant.

I’d have to find the answers myself.

The clock taunted me. I wanted him to leave so I could have the house to myself and search for clues. School could wait. It was just yearbook day, anyway. “Cora,” Janelle’s voice rang out as I rinsed my plate. “Are you going to let the water run forever? Do you know what a group of villagers in a third-world country would do for a gallon of our water?”

I smacked the faucet handle and dried my hands on my jeans. I watched her and my dad leave for work with the squinty-eyed scrutiny of a CIA operative. I was alone, and I had some sleuthing to do.

I locked the front door, hoping it would alert me if someone came home early. I searched my mother’s name online. Nothing. No people-finding sites had any information on her. Increasingly desperate, I contacted the Missing Persons Bureau within Ireland’s National Police Service. A man answered, and my heart stumbled over itself at the sound of his Irish accent. I’d written out what I wanted to say, which turned out to be a good move because I wondered if I’d be able to speak through my nerves.

“Hello. I’d like to know how I might obtain any information you have on a missing person from twelve years ago. Do you keep files that long? And if so, can I get a copy? The woman was my mother.”

“All right. Let’s take your questions one by one, dear,” the man responded. “We do indeed keep the records on all missing persons. I’ll need the name.”

“Her name was—is—Grace. Grace Sandoval.”

The clicking of his keyboard joined with static from the connection. I took a few deep breaths. Why should I feel so nervous? I was entitled to the information. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. The man grunted. Maybe she had been murdered, and my dad never wanted to tell me. I almost hung up, but brought the phone back to my ear.

“I have no record of a missing person by that name.”

That lent support to Dad’s story that she abandoned us. She didn’t care a whit about my father, about her baby. Me. But it didn’t jibe with Mami Tulke’s phantom voice speaking about not being able to “save” her
.
If my mother had died, why wouldn’t Dad have said so all along? I mumbled my thanks and hung up.

I went to my dad’s bedroom to look for something, anything. An hour’s search turned up nothing, no mysterious cigar boxes in the closet, no secret wall safes behind paintings, nothing. Knowing him, he’d keep anything important at his office or in a safe-deposit box somewhere. Somewhere away from me.

I looked around the entire house, in every drawer, in every cabinet, even bins in the garage. Finally, I stood in the living room, my hands on my hips, staring at the built-in shelves surrounding our fireplace. I realized I had been looking for something hidden in a dark corner but overlooking the things that had been right in front of me my whole life.

When I wanted to hide something private, like my Ireland scrapbook, I hid it with yearbooks, novels, and the old albums I liked to collect. Hidden. But in plain sight.

Dad’s treasure boxes were scattered throughout the house. I flipped one open. Empty. The next one held guitar picks from when he used to play. Another held a pile of glass “jewels” I got at Disneyland. Every treasure box in the house was either empty or filled with frivolous objects. Except for one in the spare bedroom. It was empty, but when I tossed it onto the bed in frustration, I spotted a tiny key taped to the underside.

I ran back to the living room. Up on the highest shelf sat one last box. I’d skipped it in my search because it would require a ladder to reach it. Now I noticed it had a tiny lock on its brass clasp.

I dragged the ladder from the garage and propped it against the wall. It wobbled a bit as I climbed. The treasure box was made of dark wood and hand-painted with vines and tiny flowers. Its edges were scalloped with golden metal and dotted with studs. I took the key from my teeth, stuck it in the lock, and turned. It clicked and sprang open.

When I lifted the lid, I saw it was filled with items. Careful not to drop it, I took the box from its place and climbed down. I squirreled the box in my room and darted back to the living room to put the ladder away in case Dad or Janelle came home. They might not notice the box was missing right away, but they’d sure as heck notice a twelve-foot ladder perched up to the empty space. Every cell in my body was on high alert and pumping with adrenaline as I carried the ladder back to the garage. Then I ran back to my room to find out what treasure Dad had locked away.

Sitting cross-legged on my bed, I lifted the first item from the box: a photograph. I gasped, my body recognizing who it was even though my conscious memory didn’t. The woman’s face was obscured, half-buried in the wild black curls of the little girl on her lap, but I could tell she was laughing. Her arms wrapped protectively…lovingly…around the little girl. One hand rested over the middle of the girl’s chest, right over her heart.

My
heart.

It was me in the picture, without a doubt. The same wild hair, the same big green eyes and spider lashes. I remembered getting in huge trouble for cutting them one day because a boy at the park told me they looked like spider’s legs.

I could’ve stared at that picture all day, but I had to see what else was in the box. I unearthed a leather portfolio bound with a cord. I unraveled it and opened the pouch. Two passports fluttered out alongside a birth certificate.

My birth certificate? The birth date was right, but the name was wrong. I struggled to stay calm, to keep my hands steady as I read.

Daisy Josephina Sandoval

Josephina was Mami Tulke’s first name. But I was born as
Daisy
? My mind flashed back to every birthday, every special occasion when my father gave me daisies. It was my father honoring my real name.

But who sent the bouquet Finn delivered in the hospital?

I flipped open one of the passports—an Irish one. My little-kid face smiled back at me. There was only one stamp, from Ireland to the United States, to San Francisco. The second passport was for me as well, this time under the name Cora, with a picture of me from about two years ago, still wearing braces. I had no idea I had a current passport.

I unfolded a cream piece of paper. A pressed daisy floated onto my jeans from an invitation for my parents’ wedding. It was held at the most famous church in Dublin—Christ Church. A postcard enclosed with the invitation featured a photo of the medieval-looking church. I put the flower and postcard back inside and refolded the paper.

A new thought pinged. Did Dad
take
me from my mother? I heard stories like that all the time. What if he was the one who did the abandoning? Were we in hiding? Why else would he have changed my name?

I tried to calm my racing heart and mind. Other legal-type papers declared my mother missing or deceased.
Deceased.
My head and heart ached. Their marriage was annulled. I set the papers on the bedspread next to me, tears blurring my vision.

At the very bottom of the box lay an envelope. Neat script across the front read
Benito
. I wiped my eyes and opened the letter.

Dearest Benito,

I know you don’t want to hear these words. My dear heart, I don’t blame you. But I can’t let you stop me from saying them. It’s too important. There may come a day when I don’t come home. The more I learn, the more frightened I become. Someone doesn’t want me to continue my research. I wouldn’t be the first to disappear. You know that.

Strange things are happening. My research points to a truth even I have trouble comprehending. Perhaps I should listen and leave Ireland with you. But I’m too close to the truth about myself to stop. If I am right, it could change everything we think we know about what it is to be human. Perhaps I’m too close to the truth about all of us to stop. As a scientist you must understand. No wondrous thing was ever discovered were it not for someone brave enough to seek it.

My biggest concern, and what prompts this letter, is our daughter. Promise me, a vow as sacred as the day we pledged our lives together, that if anything strange should happen, if I do not come home one day, you will take my little, dark Daisy and get out of Ireland immediately. Do not look for me. Trust me, I’ll be as lost as my parents.

The ones who disappear do so forever.

Go to our special place. You must hide what I’ve enclosed. Bury it under the ghost so no one will ever discover it. As badly as I want to expose the truth I believe it holds, I want your safety more. I will find you there if ever I can.

I weep as I write this, but you must do what I ask to keep her safe. Know that I can’t imagine a day when the two of you are not with me. But if that day ever comes, I will keep close the memory of your pure heart. How I could see your spirit the first time we met. You hid nothing from me (not that you could). And you gave me everything. Acceptance. A family. Boundless love that gives without fear of running dry. Ever.

And you gave me Daisy. I will long for the smell of her wild mane. The way her hands curl in her sleep like she’s ready for a fight. The way she is lit up from the inside out. Protect our little treasure, for she truly is rare and special. I love you both.

Yours,

Grace

I read the letter five times. Afterward, I’m sure it was a full ten minutes that I sat staring at nothing. I didn’t know whether to be grateful my father had apparently honored her wishes, or angry that something awful happened to my mother and he ran away.

But she didn’t abandon me.

She loved me.

I couldn’t pretend that the heart-sting I had lived with for so long had miraculously healed. It hurt differently. Cold fear pulsed through me. Regret at so many lost years. Anger that my mother chose some kind of research over her family. Even when she knew she was in danger. What truth could change our views of humanity itself? That’s not something you say lightly. My questions looped endlessly around themselves with no clear answer.

A car passing outside my window reminded me of the time. I hurried to copy the letter on the printer in Dad’s office so I could put all the items back in the treasure box. Then I rushed to get the ladder and replaced the box.

Mari answered her cell on the first ring. I could hear the noise of kids at school in the background.

“I need you.”

“I’m there.”

I peeked out my window when I heard Mari’s car pull up. Dun’s lanky figure unfolded from the passenger side of her little car.

“Hope you don’t mind me coming, too,” he said at the front door.

I fell into his chest for a much-needed hug. His sunny aura wrapped around me, enveloping me in its sweet warmth. “Shut up.”

“Shutting up,” Dun said with a big squeeze.

“I’ve never heard your voice so shaky,” Mari said. “If Cora’s rattled, the whole world must have tilted on its axis. You okay?”

“Not even.” I pulled them into my room and explained everything I’d discovered about my mother.

“You’re telling me,” Dun said, stretched out on my bed with his feet dangling off the end, his long black hair fanned out over my pillow, “that your mom was mixed up in some kind of crazy research,
knew
she was in danger, and
told
your dad to get you out of Ireland? And then he freaking
did
?”

“I’m not telling you that,
she
is,” I said, brandishing the copy of my mother’s letter in the air like exhibit A. “My dad never told me anything. He’s hidden this from me my whole life. I swear, I don’t know which reality is worse: her abandoning us or us abandoning her.”

“Reminder: we don’t know what happened,” Mari pointed out. “Only that she was worried when she wrote the letter and she’s been gone for a long time.”

“Maybe I’ve watched too much television,” Dun said, “but the question ought to be, what is this truth that someone would want to keep secret so badly?” He folded his hands over his chest and stared at the ceiling. “Not to be cold, but I doubt she’s alive. If she was, she would’ve come looking for you just like her letter said. Whatever she was scared would happen—dang girl, it musta happened.”

“What truth could my mother possibly have known that would ‘change everything we think we know of what it is to be human’?”

I stared at the letter again.

No wondrous thing was ever discovered were it not for someone brave enough to seek it.

“Guys, get me out of here. I can’t face my dad anytime soon. I don’t want to hear what he has to say. Everything’s a lie.”

“What will you do?” Mari asked.

“Dig up the truth.”