Immortal Light: Wide Awake (6 page)

As she moved forward, it became
evident why the trees just stopped; there was a sheer cliff that
dropped off into a valley. Curiosity carried her toward the cliff’s
edge. Approaching it, she beheld a sea of trees that sprawled out
below. It was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen. As she
looked deeper into the valley, she thought she saw what looked like
a building, but her concentration was interrupted by a noise
somewhere to her right.  Turning toward the sound, she saw a
man standing next to a tree in an almost defensive stance. She
couldn’t see his face because the sun was directly behind him; the
light was so blinding that even her hand shielding her eyes
couldn’t block enough light to make out who he was or if she even
knew him. As she walked toward him, he turned and ran back into the
woods from where Lucy had just come, leaving her with a
gut-wrenching feeling that she needed to follow him; so she started
running. Not being careful of where she stepped, she landed on
various twigs and branches that scratched at the soles of her
feet.

The man was well ahead of her as he weaved in
and out of trees, heading for the clearing. She stumbled and
pin-pricks of pain shot through her feet. As the grove came into
view, she saw him stop in the middle of the clearing, his back
turned to her. She wanted badly to see his face and know who he
was.

With only twenty or so yards
between them, Lucy saw his right arm swing up as he reached around
his body and pulled something from his hip. Focusing not on his
face, but on the object he held in his hand, she was startled to
see that he gripped a long, slender sword that glistened gold in
the sunlight. She started to look from the sword to his face while
she ran towards him, when she felt the sharp pain of a thorn or
broken twig pierce her foot. She shrieked at the sudden
stomach-lurching sensation of falling. She reached out to break her
fall, but felt nothing except the plush carpet of Kat’s bedroom.
Opening her eyes, she looked around and saw only the familiar
furniture she equated with her friend. Sitting next to the bed, she
heard Kat’s frantic voice:

“
Lucy! Are you
alright?”

Lucy rubbed her eyes. “Yeah,
I’m fine, it was just … a dream.
”
Lucy said the words more to convince
herself.
“
It was
so real,
”
she
murmured.

“
What do you
mean, real? Like it happened before, like déjà
vu?
”

“
No, like it was real. I was in
this forest and you know how you’re not supposed to feel and smell
and touch things in dreams?”

“
Yeah.”

“
I could do all of
that.”

Lucy looked down and massaged the foot that
was pierced by the stick. The pain still seemed to be
there.

“
It wasn’t like
a dream, but it was. Then there was this—
”
Lucy stopped.

“
What? There was what?” Kat
asked.

“
A guy. He had a
sword, and I swear it was …
”

Lucy realized that she was simply thinking out
loud. She shook the image from her head and looked at
Kat.

“
Who?” Kat urged her.

“
No one. I thought I knew him, but
I think it was just a figment, you know?”

Kat examined her friend’s face carefully for a
few seconds then stood up.

“
Well, whoever it was, I’m glad
you didn’t hurt yourself falling off the bed.” Kat smiled as she
helped Lucy to her feet.

“
Yeah, me too,” Lucy replied in a
pensive daze.

“
Mmmmmm, I smell breakfast; you
coming?”

Kat’s enthusiasm was usually fairly
contagious, but all of Lucy’s focus was on her dream. Not sure what
to think of it, she followed Kat downstairs.

“
Oh my gosh, Mom, that smells
awesome!” Kat exclaimed as she bounded down the last few steps
toward the kitchen.

Susan Caldwell was busy at the
stove making everything from bacon and scrambled eggs to pancakes.
She even pulled a tray of blueberry muffins out of the oven.
 Lucy looked over the spread. Susan had once been a caterer
while her husband went to law school, but now she just catered for
her family.

“
What’ll you have, Lucy dear?”
Susan called out.

Not feeling too hungry, Lucy grabbed a muffin
and replied, “Just this, for now. I’m not much of a morning
eater.”

Sitting down with a plate full of food, Kat
started in immediately about the night before.

“
I can’t believe you didn’t come
back; what happened? Mark was there waiting for you.” The first
fork-full of pancakes and sausage went into her mouth.

Lucy looked toward Susan, who was
dancing to the soft music coming from the stereo on the counter.
She sighed at the missed opportunity with Mark, but her evening was
a fact of the past and she couldn’t change it.

“
I hit a deer,” Lucy said
softly.

“
What?” Kat said
loudly.

Lucy hushed her with a hand gesture. “I
totaled my car by hitting a deer.”

Kat put down her fork and
finished chewing as fast as she could, then she swallowed hard.
“Your car is totaled—as in, wrecked?
”

Lucy nodded.

Kat was somewhat bewildered.
“So … where is it? Does your dad know?
”

Lucy sighed deeply. It was a long story, but
she had to tell Kat.

“
No, my dad doesn’t know, yet.
It’s at this guy’s house. He said he could fix it and have it back
in the morning.”

“
Some guy, Lucy? Do you even know
this guy? How are you paying for it?”

“
No, I mean …
yes—well, sort of.
”

“
Sort of what?”

“
I sort of know
him, well not him, but I know his brother … sort
of.
”

“
Oh my gosh, Lucy! Who are these
people? You’re lucky to be alive right now!” Kat’s whispers were
getting louder.

“
I didn’t know
what to do. I was out at Sunset Bay and—
”

“
Sunset Bay? What the heck were
you doing out there?”

“
Would you just let me
finish?”

Kat sat up and breathed. “Okay, sorry.
Continue.”

Lucy thought for a moment. “He’s this guy I
met a few months ago at the library, and he was sort of the reason
I hit the deer.”

Kat blinked heavily as the story got more
complex. “Why don’t I know about this guy?”

“
Because I forgot about him until
last night. He was like ten minutes of my first day of work. Not
much to tell.”

Lucy knew it was more than that, but she
couldn’t explain it to Kat, not at the breakfast table with extra
ears in the room.

Kat picked up her fork again. “Well, you’re
going to have to start at the beginning and I don’t even want to
know what you’re going to tell your dad about your car.” She took
another huge bite of her breakfast.

Lucy glanced at the clock and her heart fell
into her stomach; it read 9:38 AM.

No sooner had Kat clamped her teeth around her
pancakes and sausage, than her father, Tom Caldwell, walked through
the front door in his bathrobe and slippers with a mug of hot
coffee and the Sunday paper already open in his hand. He made his
way to the kitchen where the girls were seated and put his mug
down.

Tom Caldwell stood tall and burly. He had one
of those frames that suggested power. He had been raised in
Portland his whole life. He was a city kid and a lawyer.

“
Hey Lucy, you should be more
careful with your keys.” His voice was especially deep in the
morning and the sound of it always demanded attention, but Lucy was
shocked when he pulled out her car keys from his robe pocket and
slid them over to her. “You left them in the door of your
car.”

Lucy picked up what were unmistakably her keys
and stared at them incredulously. She met Kat’s wide-eyed gaze and
they both looked to the living room window.

Lucy rose from the table and
headed out the front door. Kat followed behind. The two of them
just stared in amazement. There, in the driveway, was Lucy’s beige
Cavalier. It was perfect in every way. The ripple in the hood was
gone, the broken grill was fixed, and both headlights were intact.
If she hadn’t said anything, no one would ever have known she had
hit something head on.

Lucy went back into the house, gathered her
things from Kat’s room, and said a quick goodbye to the
Caldwells.

Giving Kat a hug, she whispered, “I’ll tell
you all about it, I promise.”

“
Yeah, you will.”

Kat walked her friend to the door and waved as
Lucy pulled out of the driveway.

It was a few minutes before ten when Lucy
pulled into the driveway of her own home. Her father was outside,
already wiping down his pickup that, by the sight of the bucket and
hose, had just been washed in preparation for the trip to Bandon.
It was somewhere between tradition and neurosis that James, whether
driving across the continental United States or to the next town,
would spend an hour washing the vehicle he would be taking. There
was pride involved, and Lucy never questioned it.

As she stepped from her car and headed to the
front door, James stood with the hand clutching the polishing rag
on his waist while raising his other arm to look at his
watch.

“
You have two minutes to be ready
to go or we leave without you, Goosey.”

“
Ok, I’ll be right down,” Lucy
responded, as she paused to kiss her father on the
cheek.

She turned at the front door
to get another glimpse of her car.
How did
he do it?
was all she could
think.

***

The trip down the Oregon coast was the same as
hundreds of other trips before. Her father hummed to the low sound
of eighties pop music while her mother read an e-book in the
passenger seat. From the back seat, the winding road was as
soothing to Lucy as a gently rocking boat to a sailor.

All Lucy could think about was her car and how
Jack had done what he did. It was amazing. Then there was Benjamin.
His electric green eyes were burned into her subconscious. It was
then that she realized she knew nothing about Benjamin or his
family. Fortunately, she knew someone that probably did.

“
Dad, do you know anybody with the
last name of Raven?”

“
I know a Peter
Raven—he
’
s my
architect for the new downtown building.”

“
Is he new in town?”

“
Yeah, a few years,
why?”

“
Does he live out by Sunset
Bay?”

“
I’m not sure, why?” He was
getting agitated that his daughter was answering his questions with
questions. When Lucy didn’t immediately answer, he pushed, “Why,
Lucy?”

“
I think I met his son, Benjamin,
at the library.  He’s about my age, I think.”

James looked at his daughter in the review
mirror. “I don’t think we’re talking about the same Ravens. Peter
can’t be more than maybe thirty-one or thirty-two years old,
definitely not old enough to have kid in high school.”

Lucy stared out the window. “Does he have any
brothers, then?”

“
He has one that I know of, but
he’s not your age.” James looked at his daughter again and saw the
disappointment on her face.

Lucy put her hand to her cheek as a cushion
from the glass. Catching a glimpse of her father’s face in the
mirror, she saw that he had on what looked like his “boy talk”
face, so she cut in before he could get started.

“
It’s not like that, Daddy. I met
him at work. He’s just new, so I was curious.”

James returned his attention to the road, and
silence reigned for the rest of the trip. The ocean passed by in
long stretches between patches of trees. With her head against the
glass, Lucy closed her eyes, feeling the fatigue of the night
before, and let herself drift off.

***

The forest was as real as it had
been the night before. The smell of the damp foliage and the
sensations of soft greenery beneath her feet were as real as any
living experience. Everything was the same as before. Lucy looked
around the clearing and saw him. He was a silhouette in the bright
glare of the beaming sunlight.

“
Who are you?” she called to
him.

He turned away from her and everything went
black.

***

The unmistakable slam of the truck
door woke Lucy from sleep. She hadn’t realized just how tired she
was. It was as though she hadn’t actually slept the night before.
She looked up to see her parents walking away from the truck into a
family-favorite candy store that only existed in Bandon. James was
addicted to “The World’s Greatest Saltwater Taffy,” and that place
had it.