Fare Forward Page 3

  "Look at this!" Emily had screamed in joy earlier that day as I spread large splashes of color on the blank canvas in my grandmother's painting studio. "Look what Gabriella is making!"

  Lily's red hair caught the light as she danced to the music, turning up the volume when no one was looking. We inhaled the scent of the sweet sticks that burned all around us, casting flickering shadows around the room.

  "We're creating magic." Our hands would clench together in the small circle our bodies made. "We'll be best friends, forever—always together." I remember how I looked into their eyes, wanting it to be true.

  "Gabriella, maybe this time you can stay here? Go to school with us instead of so far away?"

  I wanted to; I wondered how I could make time stretch on without an end. I loved them both so much, but there was something about Lily. She was different. I knew that she could really see me. I wanted to test the limits of what I might reveal to her. She would often come and find me seated against the wall, my eyes focused on a pattern of clouds in the sky or the paper on which I was drawing shapes and lines.

  Separate.

  "It's okay, Gabriella," she would say and put her arms around me, "you can tell me what you see." She knew something. She was connected to the deep dark place inside of me. I wanted to tell her, but I couldn't.

  "Maybe next time, Lily," I had said.

  This night, there is an urgency to the voices with my grandfather that I haven't heard before. A tone of fear in their words. I feel like I can't breathe and want to go out onto the roof. I pad over to the small door in the slanted walls of the attic bedroom and push it open. I feel the cold wind as it pulls me out into the night. I bend down and crawl carefully, gripping the safe spots my grandmother had shown me. I reach the little ledge where we would sit for hours together and I see her staring out at the sea. I try to be quiet, I don't want to make any sudden movements that might frighten her.

  "Is that you, Gabriella?" she asks rhetorically. My grandmother turns and smiles at me. She reaches her arm out to make the perfect small space I fit into.

  "I thought you were downstairs, with them," I say.

  "No, silly, let them argue amongst themselves."

  I know she is trying to reassure me. She was the only one who understood. I lean into her safety and pull my nightgown tighter around my legs, not letting the cold late August air in. This is our secret space on the roof of the house, built for those who wait for the ships to return from sea.

  As they look out into time.

  "It's starting to happen when I'm awake. I thought they were dreams but they're not. They're something else, something very real."

  "I know." She wraps her arms over mine as she exhales slowly, preparing herself for whatever I will say. "Tell me, Gabriella. Tell me what you saw this time."

  * * *

  4

  * * *

  I TELL HER OF this night's dreams, some I have seen many times before and some that are new. I describe the sensation of the icy grip of the ocean pulling me down into its inescapable depths, the feeling of my feet walking on a flat-topped mountain under a star-filled night, and the skyline I see of a beautiful city with thousands of lights in its towers before it disappears into darkness. I tell her how I can clearly hear the sound of chanting voices twisted by the rounded walls of a dark cave in a far away place. Even the remarkable green eyes of a stranger and how he looked at me, but mostly what it felt like to be near him.

  "Wait—" My grandmother stops me. We are interrupted as I realize that the voices from the meeting have emerged from the house and into the night. I hear car doors slamming and the familiar sound of tires on the crushed-shell stone of our driveway.

  "Benjamin, stop! When will you be back?" My grandfather's voice sounds uncharacteristically desperate as he says the strangely familiar name, "Benjamin!"

  I feel every muscle in my body tense and turn to look at my grandmother, afraid to ask the question.

  "What's going on? Who is that?"

  She looks at me then smiles, recognizing something in my words but doesn't answer my question.

  "I see so much of myself in you." She squeezes her arms tighter around my small frame.

  I wanted to see it too. What she could see in me.

  "Who are these people? Is Papa in danger?"

  "Shhh, so many questions. I promise you; he will be fine. Please don't worry, Gabriella—not about this." She looks away.

  "Emily and Lily, they . . . they ask me questions. They want to know what happens to me. But I can't tell them that I see things sometimes. What I described to you tonight and so much more. It's as if I know what's going to happen next, even before it happens."

  "You might be able to tell them one day, to trust that they love you and will understand."

  I wanted to talk about it, to try to understand what it was and what it meant. "I know I'm different. We are, right?"

  "Gabriella, there are things that we are each given. This is not something you choose. It's simply a part of who you are. It makes up all the beautiful pieces of you." She turns my face toward her, and behind the encouragement I can see the sadness in her eyes. "I know this is difficult and frightening, but I promise you—it can be wonderful, too. You are connected to so much that has come before and, also, to what will be. As you get older, you will learn how to use this power. It will provide many of the answers you are looking for. Until then, I am here to help you."

  "Sometimes I don't know what's real and what's not."

  "You will know; you'll see. You have already learned so much— how to choose and what to believe."

  I push myself back into her, closer. I know she is telling me things that are important, as if they are in anticipation of what is to come.

  "I'm not sure I understand."

  "You need to live your life, Gabriella. Just live."

  "Those people who were here tonight. Are they trying to warn Papa? Is it his work?"

  "Remember, things are not always what they seem." She points to a star in the night sky. "There will always be light in the darkness, if you know where to look."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Sometimes what seems to be an ending is really a beginning. Promise me that you will remember that. Promise me? And also what I said about finding the love that was made for you."

  She had never spoken to me about that kind of love.

  "Grandma Sophie, I'm only eleven."

  "I know." She smiles.

  I want to tell her that I don't want to go away, so far from this place, as the summer draws to a close. That I worry that she and my grandfather and the magic of Gloucester cease to exist when I am not here. But I fight back the tears, trying not to let my own selfish sadness ruin the last days of our summer together. She presses her arms into me tightly, as if she is transferring something into me: strength, courage, filling me for the future.

  "Can't I stay here with you? Go to school with Emily and Lily? I don't ever want to lose you; I don't want to go back."

  "You won't ever lose me, Gabriella, and you will have so much."

  "How do you know?"

  "It's time to go to sleep now." I notice the white light the moon makes on the ocean, like a path to infinity. "Good-bye, my beautiful child, may all your dreams come true."

  I stop and look back at her and wait for her to speak, to correct her mistake, to say something—to realize.

  "You mean good night right? Not good-bye."

  "Yes, of course, good night."

  She has always given me so much and tonight, I know, she is preparing me for everything ahead. Giving me her blessing as if she had to do it now, as if her words were not a mistake at all.

  As if I was not the one who would run out of time.

  * * *

  5

  * * *

  I LIE IN BED and stare at the ceiling. I try to listen to the sea, the rhythmic pounding of waves on the shore, but instead hear my grandmother's reluctant steps down the staircase. I imagine where s
he is as she carefully holds the banister and walks by framed pictures of the many years of play at this beach, documents of lives well lived. I hear the sounds the house makes along her path, through the main hallway and into the room where my grandfather always stands behind his desk. I go to sit at the top of the stairs and listen, finding comfort in the familiar voice of the architecture, out of sight where I can easily hear their conversation. I have done this many times before because, so often, they were talking about me.

  "It's absurd, Sydney—this has really gone too far."

  "Nonsense. We thought that this was the generation where it would be revealed."

  "You are not an army for God!"

  My grandfather laughs as he exhales slowly. The worn leather chair behind his desk creaks loudly as he spins away from her accusing voice.

  "We are not going to discuss this again, Sophie. It is done."

  "Sydney, for thousands of years the information has remained hidden. Concealed. Others before you understood and made that choice."

  Silence.

  "We have the proof . . . of the connection. Traditional science can no longer provide the answers that will satisfy those who—" My grandfather is cut off by my grandmother.

  "This is not about science or even faith. It's all about money and fame and their own ideas about immortality. One alone. One would be motivation enough, but together they form an irresistible platform on which some of your colleagues' research rests. Einstein understood didn't he, Sydney? Darwin, Newton, and so many before."

  "Sophie, Einstein believed simply that religion would be made more profound by science. Darwin offered evolution—no God, no moral code."

  "Just what Hitler used to justify his actions."

  "Do NOT say that name in this house!"

  "It's true, though, isn't it? In his twisted logic, Hitler used the idea of evolution as justification for the 'master race.'"

  "There are rules in the universe, order, despite what some have been able to do."

  "Order? And rules, Sydney? Enforced by whom?"

  "I don't have the answer."

  "Tell me, why is he back now?"

  "Benjamin?"

  "Yes, there must be a reason—it's not about Gabriella is it?"

  "We made a deal, Sophie. He promised me. If I agreed to keep my proof secret, he would stay away from her, from Gabriella that is. He would allow her to live her life in this world without his intrusions."

  "Don't be absurd, Sydney! He can make no such promise. No one person can stand against the force of fate and the inevitable. If, in fact, they are meant to be together then it will be as it must."

  Were they speaking about me?

  "We learned the same thing fifty years ago, didn't we?"

  I can feel the space between them and close my eyes to soak in the momentary tenderness of her voice. I remembered the story of how they met on a magical night in Jerusalem so many years before.

  "It's too dangerous, Sophie. You of all people know better than anyone. We have control, we can choose! Change our fate."

  "I was with her before, on the roof. She knows, Sydney. She is becoming aware that she has the gift. Things are happening to her, and she wants explanations. She clearly possesses the abilities—and she's the only one I've seen it in. She has been born into this family for a reason. I am convinced of it. It is as Benjamin said."

  I strain to hear everything they are saying. I want to run away but am too afraid to miss any of the shocking information.

  "It does not have to be this way!" The rage in my grandfather's voice frightens me.

  "What has happened to you, Sydney? You've changed, lost your belief. Your desire to pursue the truth at any cost. You've become like the others. Accepting the rules imposed by those who came before, who are guided by fear and uncertainty. That was never you."

  "This is so much bigger than just us, than simply what I might want. You see—"

  "You're a scientist!" My grandmother yells, interrupting. "You've devoted your life to uncovering the mysteries of this world and everything in it. If you've found the connection, the link through the barrier of this world to beyond, then—"

  "I have always aligned myself with the ones who did not believe, who needed irrefutable proof of the existence of something other than what we can touch and see and feel. The search for something beyond this life has never been considered scientific, yet we now have the ability to prove that it is. You see, Sophie, it's all so clear. The answer has been in front of us all along. Doggedly pursued by those who claim that nothing else matters. Nothing but discovering the Truth. Their god is science."

  "You were always one of them."

  "Ironic isn't it," he laughs.

  "When will you decide, Sydney?"

  "Perhaps it's simply enough to know. To finally have the proof that there is so much more beyond this world."

  "That's the question you've been trying to answer your whole life." My grandmother's voice is low.

  "This is the world we live in and must protect," he says.

  "And what about Gabriella?"

  The sound of my name sends chills down my spine.

  "She will be kept safe, Sophie. I have seen to it."

  * * *

  6

  * * *

  AND THEN, A FEW days later, I know my childhood is over.

  The terrifying and powerful ability I have to see things before they happen, shows me. I see the unthinkable: that I would lose one of the few relationships that filled the dark, quiet spaces of my life.

  I can't understand where the beginning will be in this ending.

  The summer is drawing to a close, and Lily, Emily, and I run along the dusk-lit streets, holding hands. My feet hurt, wounded by the new shoes I had insisted were comfortable enough for our last summer adventure together before I need to go back, so far away. I hoped their shining promise would bring the same qualities to my new beginning. Fall, cold and fresh, was ready to wipe away the heat of summer with opportunity and change.

  We are almost home, the last light of day casts a deep orange fire across the beach. We kick through the leaves, breathless and laughing, as we race to see which of us would reach our imaginary finish lines first. We have our new books, sharpened pencils, and paper waiting to be filled. Our days' treasures from the hunt, placed safely in bags that swing around our small frames.

  Endless possibilities lie ahead.

  My perceptions shift when the sounds of our laughter become low echoes in my head, thoughts with sonorous vibrations. It feels as if we are moving in slow motion. Slow, slower. Sound and action twist together, backward, forward, flashing before my eyes. It is that feeling, the one I don't understand, but this time it is a terrifying realization of impending doom. I can feel my body electrify, an immeasurable amount of energy with no place for discharge. The droning sound gets louder—thunderous, deafening, painful—and I reach up to hold my hands on either side of my head. I try desperately to stop it, what I see happening to Lily.

  Just at the moment the last of the day's light slips away and darkness envelopes us, two beams of light come around the corner and shine directly on our moving frames, freezing Lily's beautiful smile in an expression of abandon and joy.

  It is too fast.

  Screeching tires, lights, wind, speed, and combustion as time and energy merge and explode into our space on the sidewalk. I try to scream but I trip and fall to the ground.

  "NO! Lily! No!"

  Does she hear me? Did she hear it too? I pull myself up and turn to look at her, but she is twirling in a dance move we had learned earlier that week. Emily is hunched over, laughing. I try to cry out as the reality of what is about to occur flashes before my eyes. Sometimes vague or unclear, this time I understand the impending horror with perfect clarity as my ability to see into the future tortures me with a vision I don't want but cannot control.

  "NO!!!!!" I scream as I turn around and see the car.

  It rounds the corner too quickly. It lo
ses control.

  I lunge for Lily's beautiful frame as she jumps up to reach a tree's red limb, hair dancing around her head, smiling and unafraid. Right before the car crushes her body, our eyes meet. In the unspoken exchange is an acceptance as she realizes it is too late to escape, and I helplessly submit to the finality of our last childhood moment together.

  * * *

  7

  * * *

  TWELVE YEARS LATER

  GLOUCESTER, MA — AUGUST 2005

  THE PATH TO THE beach never changes.

  The timeless beauty of this place slows my heartbeat and steadies my breathing. I feel calm, energized as my feet push through the deep sand. The sea air fills my lungs and paints circles around my face as it catches my hair in a swirling dance. The wind speaks to me, silent echoes of recognition.

  You are not alone, Gabriella. I am with you.

  I hear my grandmother's words, the ones she whispered into my heart. It is always like this, the connection to her. On this beach path that I have traveled so many times, the sea and wind meet me with open arms, acknowledging my return, a union of flesh and limbs, breath, wind, sand and sea.

  "Yes," I breathe softly.

  The grasses bow in a rhythmic wave of greeting as the water shimmers from the early-morning light.