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8. LOOKING
(ADRENALINE)
We spent the rest of the afternoon watching an old black-and-white horror flick in the living room of the little red house. There wasn't much in the way of a plot, but the stop motion monster that had come from outer space in what looked like a cardboard box wrapped in aluminum foil was hilarious. Josie and I sat on the little sofa, laughing at the jerky movements of the rather unconvincing alien while Jacob, who was seated on the floor, took full advantage of our distraction by eating all of the microwave popcorn.
Josie drove us back to Forks in the Rabbit that evening, and although I offered to sit in the cramped back seat, Jacob insisted I stay up front. I didn't know how he managed to fold himself into such close quarters.
I dreamed of an angel again that night.
She sat beside me on the floor of the great room in the log chalet, her arm brushing against mine. The only light came from the fire in the fireplace, and the only sound was the crackling of the flames. The forest lay outside the wall of windows that faced out across the Sol Duc River, and the sky above was filled with stars. I looked down at her, mesmerized by the firelight dancing against her perfect porcelain skin. She was so beautiful that I couldn't stop myself.
Placing a finger beneath her chin, I tilted her face up and leaned toward her until the ends of our noses touched. Was I allowed to kiss her, I wondered, here in this strange world, this purgatory where I could have her for a moment, only to lose her when I awoke? The answer came abruptly when instead of feeling the brush of her cold lips against mine, I found myself staring up at the darkened ceiling of my bedroom.
It was like a twisted version of Sleeping Beauty—only I was the sleeper, and kissing the princess woke me, not her.
The next day after school, Jacob began an inventory of the motorcycles, making lists of what parts could be salvaged and what parts would need to be replaced. He seemed eager to start something new now that the Rabbit was finished, and he insisted that he just liked to have a project to work on, but even as he and Josie teased and chatted back and forth, it felt like they were trying not to think about other things. Part of me wanted to ask if anything had changed with Embry, but I was fairly certain I already knew the answer.
In the end Jacob decided the motorcycles were in worse condition than he had hoped, but he refused to let Josie dip into her savings to help pay for parts—that was why I found myself at the local junkyard a couple of days later, following along behind Jacob as he studied the skeletons of old motorcycles that would never run again.
"I have no idea what he's even looking for," I murmured in Josie's ear. We were walking slowly down a narrow path that wound its way between rows of old junk cars. Thirty feet ahead, Jacob had stopped to study something that was propped against the side of an old station wagon.
She shrugged. "We probably won't find anything, but it's worth a shot, right?"
Whatever Jacob had been studying must not have been what he was looking for. Stepping back from the station wagon, he disappeared behind a faded blue minivan.
"Has Quil been around lately?" I asked.
Josie nodded faintly. "He came by yesterday to check out the bikes."
I turned to study the side of her face as we walked, considering my words for a moment before I spoke.
"I'm pretty sure he didn't come by to check out the bikes, Josie. Not just the bikes, anyway."
The corners of her mouth twitched, and she kicked idly at a spark plug, sending it bouncing down the path in front of us.
"Quil likes to think he's a ladies man. He flirts with every girl he meets."
"So you're not the love of his life?" I asked, remembering how Quil's gaze had barely left her that first afternoon I'd visited the twins in the garage.
She smiled. "Every girl is the love of his life."
A few feet ahead, the path narrowed, a rusty old wheel blocking the space on one side. I stopped to let Josie go in front of me, then fell into step beside her again.
"Maybe he's just trying to make you jealous," I joked.
She shook her head. "Not likely. He's our cousin."
"Really?" I asked, surprised.
"Yeah, on Mom's side. I'm not his type, anyway."
"Yes!" Somewhere up ahead in the distance, Jacob had apparently found another motorcycle. Judging by the enthusiasm in his voice, this one must be more promising than the last. I searched the cars ahead, but wherever he was, I couldn't see him. I turned back to Josie.
"I thought you said Quil didn't have a type."
"Oh, he flirts, but I think he likes high maintenance girls. You know—the hair, the nails, the makeup." She paused to wiggle her fingers at me, as if showing off an imaginary manicure.
"I see," I said with mock solemnity.
"Definitely not me. I've got more interesting things to worry about in life than whether my pedicure matches my purse." She grinned.
I vaguely remembered one afternoon the previous spring when Billy and Jacob had come to my house to warn me about . . . I cut the memory off there—it was best not to think about some things. Josie hadn't been with them that day. She'd been playing a game of baseball that afternoon, and they'd decided not to bother her.
"It's hard to play baseball without ruining your nails," I noted, forcing my mind back into the present.
"Hard to throw a decent curve ball with fingernails in the way," she amended. We both laughed.
I could remember her so clearly now, looking back. A pair of loose braids, two scraped knees, and not a care in the world. Climbing trees in the forest behind her house. Running along the paths that led to the tidal pools at First Beach. How many days had we spent on that beach, I wondered? And at the end of every day, she'd asked me to pick a little shell or a tiny pebble, something to remember the day by.
"So, I know about Jake's friends. What about yours?"
"Most of my friends are Jake's friends." She reached up to flick the end of her ponytail back over her shoulder. "Most of the girls at school are too . . . girly. I mean, I talk to a couple of people, but it's not like we sit around and talk about boys all the time or go shopping every weekend. You know what I mean?"
"Yeah, I do." We stepped over a metal pipe that lay across the path. "I mean, there's a group of people I eat lunch with but . . ." But most of them had stopped paying attention to me during those months when I'd zoned out. They hadn't been concerned enough to try to help, and they'd acted surprised to see me when I'd started talking again, like they'd completely forgotten I was even there. "A couple of them are okay, I guess." Lauren certainly wasn't a friend, and I tried to politely avoid Jessica whenever possible, but Angela and Ben were okay. "Mike Newton's a friend, I guess, but I think that's just because he feels guilty."
"Newton . . . He's the guy that tripped you at football tryouts, right?"
"Yeah. Well, I tripped over him. It wasn't his fault." For one brief moment, I let myself remember the feel of the wind in my face, the warmth of muscles stretched to the limit, the blur of the ground flying beneath my feet . . . and then I put the memory away. "But that's life, right?"
"Yeah, that's life." She looked away quietly, her gaze focusing on something in the distance. Suddenly, her eyes brightened and she smiled.
"That's what you need, Edward." She pointed toward the rusted out frame of an old AMC Gremlin that might have been green in its former life. All of the windows were gone, and the interior seats had been removed. It was way past the point where anyone but the most devoted car enthusiast would have given it a second glance.
I laughed. "You guys should make that your next project. Then you wouldn't have to share the Rabbit."
"You're right, but it's more Jake's style than mine, don't you think? And look!" She pointed toward a bush that was growing through a hole in the top. "It even has a sunroof!"
We were laughing, not really paying any attention to the path at our feet, so when Josie's foot caught on the edge of an old muffler and I tried to grab her to keep her from falling, we both went down. For several seconds we stared at each other, each wondering if the other was okay, and then we started laughing again.
"Would you two quit clowning around over there?" Jacob called from somewhere off to the left. The words he used were critical, but there was only excitement in his tone. "I think I hit the jackpot!"
"Should we show him our treasure?" I asked, nodding toward the Gremlin as I brushed myself off and got back to my feet. I reached down to Josie, offering a hand to help her up.
"Heck, no. He'd have no appreciation for such a fine automobile."
We were still laughing as we made our way between old engine blocks and door panels toward the place where Jacob stood waiting, his eyes alight with excitement at his discovery.
. . . . .
I didn't care what anyone might say. This was the most beautiful place I had ever seen. I turned to take in the wildflowers in full bloom, the sound of the babbling brook in the distance. No cultivated garden, no wonder of the modern world could hold a candle to the perfection of this meadow . . . or to the girl sitting cross-legged in front of me, her hands resting in mine. I marveled at the rainbows that bounced off her skin, reflecting onto my palms, my arms, any part of me that was close to her. She reached up to touch my cheek.
"You're overthinking this," she said.
"What am I overthinking?" I asked. I gazed down into her face, trying not to think of the way the last dream had ended.
"You're looking for me," she answered, "but you're overthinking it."
It took all the strength I had to look away, to pull myself from those caramel eyes. It had been so long. I wanted nothing more than to drown in those amber depths. I glanced down to where my thumb was rubbing circles on the back of her left hand. Her skin was like marble. It was smooth, but it held firm beneath the motion of my fingertips.
"But I don't know where to look. I don't know where you are."
She shook her head sadly.
"You don't have to know where I am, Edward. You know where I'll be."
I sighed. "But I don't know—" She silenced me by pressing a finger against my lips. Turning, she leaned back into my arms, the side of her head resting against my chest.
"I love it here," she whispered. "It's always so peaceful, so beautiful."
Leaning forward, I rested my chin on the top of her head. I closed my eyes and breathed in the perfume of her hair. These stolen moments, these memories of a time that had long since gone were the perfect torture. I wanted to stay here forever, but I knew I had to wake up eventually.
Will I ever see you again? I wanted to ask, but I couldn't force the words out of my mouth—I couldn't bear to hear the answer this time—so I let myself stop thinking altogether. Telling myself to enjoy the moment, I wrapped my arms around her cool marble body and held on until the dream faded away.
. . . . .
When I met Jacob and Josie after school on Friday, the dream was still fresh in my memory.
You're overthinking this, she'd said. You know where I'll be.
I let out the breath I'd been holding as I stumbled over her words. The sound seemed overly loud in the relative silence of the garage.
"You okay over there?" Jacob asked from his place on the floor. He was disassembling the Honda, lining up the parts in some sequence I didn't understand.
"Yeah. I was just . . . thinking."
Jacob shot a glance toward his sister, who was standing beside the work table sorting through the parts they'd brought back from the junkyard. They had always shared secret looks, had silent conversations that I wasn't a party to, but over the last couple of weeks, those looks, those secret conversations seemed to have grown more frequent.
"We don't have to hang out here all the time," Josie offered. "We could do something else, if you want. Watch TV, go for a drive, go hiking." A smile teased the corners of her lips. "We could always go cliff diving."
I smiled back, but something she'd said had caught my attention.
You know where I'll be.
Going to the houses in the woods had been a mistake. I'd been testing a theory that the location of the dream had been a clue, that if I had gone to look, I would find her there, waiting, but what if I'd been partially right but misunderstood the details? No one was staying at either house—that was obvious—but what if the place I needed to look was somewhere more personal? Some place only the two of us knew?
You know where I'll be.
I could, of course, be wrong again, but wouldn't this make more sense? If she were waiting for me somewhere, wanting me to find her, wouldn't she be more likely to go to a place that had been special to the two of us, instead of a place she'd lived with the rest of her family?
The meadow. I would never be able to find it again on my own, but what if I enlisted a little help?
"Hiking?" I asked.
Josie looked up from wiping down something she'd picked up from the work table and shrugged.
"Sure. Why not?"
I watched her for a moment, wondering if I was taking this too far . . .
"It's been a while, but I found this place once, in the forest, this little meadow. I don't know if I could find it again."
"Do you know where you started from?" she asked.
"Just below the trailhead where the one-ten ends. I think we headed south most of the way."
She stopped cleaning the part and considered me for a moment. I could tell she was trying not to look down at my ankle, trying not to speculate about just how long it had been since I'd found this meadow. I was sure she was also pondering the implications of the word 'we.'
"We could use a compass," she finally said. "Work in a grid pattern until we find it." She shrugged at my slightly bewildered expression. "I did a lot of hiking last summer with the junior campers. Haven't gotten lost yet." She leaned over to hand whatever she'd been cleaning to Jacob. "What do you think, Jake? Want to help Edward find his meadow?"
We made our plans for Saturday afternoon, and since I was the one who worked at Newton's, I was given the task of picking up the necessary supplies. Mike was surprised when I used my employee discount to buy a topographical map of the Olympic Peninsula, a compass, and a pair of hiking boots.
"Hiking?" he asked.
"Yeah, I'm going with some friends from the rez."
He nodded but didn't comment any further until we were leaving at the end of our shift. As we headed out through the parking lot toward our cars, he reminded me to look out for bears . . . and crazy hikers . . . and Bigfoot.
Jacob and Josie were waiting when I arrived at their house. With the map open on the living room floor, Jacob sprawled beside it with a pencil, and Josie shifting back and forth on the sofa so that she could see over her brother's shoulders, there was no room left for a casual observer, so I retreated to the kitchen to sit with their father. For the next twenty minutes Billy and I made small talk and listened to the twins as they decided how to draw a grid across the map.
"Maybe we'll see the super bear," Jacob joked.
I glanced toward Billy, wondering what he would say, but he laughed.
"Maybe you should take a jar of honey, just in case," he suggested, a wide smile spreading across his face.
"And what happens if we run out of honey?" his son asked.
"Then you'd better be running fast enough to keep up with Edward and me, or you'll be in trouble," Josie laughed from her place on the sofa.
"Sure, sure," Jacob said, rolling his eyes as he folded the map and rose from the floor. "Come on, let's go."
"Have fun," Billy called over his shoulder as we headed out the front door. Maybe I was putting too much thought into it, but it seemed odd that Billy wasn't the least bit concerned about the bear. Some small part of me wondered if he knew something we didn't, but it felt like a strange suspicion to have, so I brushed it aside.
We took my car this time. I drove to the end of the dirt road, parking close to the sign that marked the beginning of the trailhead. I tried not to think about the last time I'd been here or the person who'd been sitting in the passenger's seat then.
Stepping out of the car, I studied the foliage for a moment, trying to recognize the place where we'd entered the ever-changing forest. It was hard, trying to remember and not remember at the same time. After a moment of consideration, I pointed straight ahead.
"Here. It's this way."
Jacob frowned, pulling out the map to study it. I saw his eyes drift back toward the trailhead. He shared a look with Josie, probably wondering why I hadn't been following the marked trail, but Josie just shrugged and pulled a compass out of her pocket. They spent the next few moments showing me how to use my own compass to adjust the map to the right angle, and then we started off along the first line on the grid.
I'd forgotten how difficult the hike had been with my injured ankle. I knew I was slowing us down, but no one said anything. Jacob walked ahead a few steps, leaving Josie and me to ourselves, although he never strayed too far, and even though Josie had given him her compass, I never saw him use it. He seemed to have an instinctive sense of exactly which way we needed to go.
The forest felt different this time. It was late January, earlier in the year than when I had come here before, but even now it was teaming with life. Every now and then, I would catch the chirp of a bird or the rustle of some small creature moving in the branches above. When I'd been here the first time, there had been only silence. The animals had been in hiding.
Jacob whistled as we made our way through the forest. It was a happy, irregular sound, like he was making up the tune as he went. I was surprised to realize that it didn't bother me. Beside me, Josie kept up a cheerful though sporadic conversation, talking about some of her classmates and some of the amusing things that had happened recently at school. Up ahead, I could hear Jacob sharing in our laughter at the story of Quil's latest romantic mishap, when he'd asked out some senior's steady girlfriend. It had taken some fast talking—and an even faster escape—to get him out of that one.
The day may have been dreary and overcast, but it seemed warmer, sunnier with Jacob walking ahead and Josie at my side. My mind wandered as we lapsed into silence again, and I found myself thinking about what had happened on the cliffs the previous weekend, about everything they had told me . . . and about the fact that no one had said a word about it since.
I considered this as we walked. If Embry had gone back to being his old self, surely Jacob or Josie would have said something, so did that mean nothing had changed in the past few days? Had they managed to speak to him, to get some explanation for his bizarre behavior? And what about Billy? Had he decided to do something about the situation . . . or at least told Jacob what was going on? I wanted to know, but I wasn't sure whether I should bring up the subject or just let it go.
"How are things with Embry?" I finally asked.
Jacob slowed his pace, waiting for us to catch up. Beside me, Josie's eyes were focused on the ground.
"No change," Jacob said as we drew even with him. I glanced toward his sister, but she shook her head sadly.
"What about Sam? And Billy?" But I was sure I already knew the answer. I felt horrible for bringing it up now, but I wanted them to know that if they needed anything from me or from my mother, all they needed to do was ask.
"The same," Jacob answered simply, gazing off into the distance. He didn't seem to have anything to add, so we continued through the forest in silence for another moment.
"You can always come and stay at my house," I offered again. "The couch is always open."
"Don't forget the air mattresses for Jacob," Josie added. "All three of them."
And just like that, the mood had shifted, brightened a bit by Josie's laughter. The shadows were still there, though, hiding just out of reach.
Some time later, Josie announced that we had gone about six miles. She showed me the path we had followed on the map. We headed west for a short time, then followed another grid line back. To me, everything looked about the same, and if it hadn't been for Josie's confidence with the compass and Jacob's innate sense of direction, I might have thought we were on the exact same route we had followed in.
The day was fading toward night as we returned to the little gravel parking lot. I was grateful I'd worn extra socks. Even with the double layers of padding, my feet—and my ankle—were killing me. I glanced up at the rapidly darkening sky.
"I slowed us down," I said, thinking aloud.
"No, we just need to get an earlier start." Josie opened the passenger's side door of my car and slid into the seat.
"Maybe we should just do this on Sundays," Jacob suggested from the back.
It would take longer if we only searched on Sundays, but I was already asking enough of them.
"Are you up for another try tomorrow?" Josie asked as I turned the key in the ignition. I rotated my ankle, testing it. It already hurt, and it would hurt more, but I didn't want to lose a day of searching. The meadow could be one hike away.
"Why not?" I answered.
"Maybe we'll see that bear tomorrow," Jacob joked. "I'm kind of disappointed we didn't see it today."
"Well, we did forget to bring the jar of honey," Josie reminded him.
"Oh, I didn't forget," he said. "That's why we brought you."
I knew what was about to happen. I was already leaning out of Josie's way as she spun around in the passenger's seat and reached into the back to smack her brother on the shoulder. They were laughing like fools as I pulled out of the parking area and headed back toward La Push.