Earthshaker

Chapter 17

Chapter 17We agreed Laurel would stay at my place that night, and Owen would stay with Duke. Cousin Canyon was a two-hour drive away, and we wanted to get an early start the next day.

Not that I was crazy about having company. My apartment wasn't big, and I've never been a fan of overnight guests. Plus, I had a nagging worry in the back of my head, reminding me this woman was little more than a stranger. I liked her, I had a good feeling about her, but I knew she could still turn out to be a threat. Betrayal was always a possibility.

The cherry on top of the sundae was my bottomed-out mood, otherwise known as "sinking fast." I could feel it coming over me on the drive home from Ohiopyle, sliding in like a big, lazy wave. I knew it was going to pull me under, I knew it; nothing I could do but ride it out and hope for a taste of "smooth sailing."

I thought I deserved some "smooth sailing" by then. The truth was, with all the horror and strife I'd been going through, I hadn't experienced an upbeat mood in ages. Not since seven days before, when I'd brought down child killer Ray Long at the Buckhorn Quarry.

To be honest, though, I didn't expect a mood upswing anytime soon. Not with my best friend dead and her killer still at large and my memory playing tricks on me. The best I figured I'd get was one of those dark peaks, the kind of high-energy moods that came with a nasty edge and a big shot of stupid. Angry disguised as happy, if you know what I mean.

So I went into that night expecting utter misery or trouble. I knew it wasn't going to be a slumber party with pillow fights and pizza.

But I could've had worse house guests. At least Laurel didn't piss me off right out of the gate.

As I cooked up a pot of spaghetti in the kitchen, she wandered around my living room like it was a museum. "I love these nested dolls," she said. "Did you get them in Russia?"

"Yeah." I lifted strands of spaghetti from the boiling water with a pasta scoop. Plucked one out and tasted it for consistency. Decided to leave the heat on for another minute. "Three years ago. Amazing trip, especially St. Petersburg."

"And this sphinx statuette," said Laurel. "You got it in Egypt?"

"Five years ago." I pictured her handling the souvenirs on my cluttered book shelves, hoped she wouldn't break anything. They were the only valuables in the place, and they were valuable only to me. Priceless, as far as that goes.

"You've been everywhere, haven't you?" said Laurel. "And you brought something back from each place."

"Almost everywhere." I checked the sauce, dipping in a fingertip and tasting. Sprinkled in a little more garlic powder for good measure.

"It doesn't surprise me," said Laurel.

"Because I run a travel agency?" I said.

Laurel didn't elaborate. I wished she'd just come out and say what was on her mind. She'd been hinting around about knowing me before, but she never said exactly how, when, or where we'd supposedly met.

"So what do you do for a living?" I said. "When you're not busy with mountain range stuff?"

"I'm a florist," said Laurel. "I have my own greenhouse down in Somerset."

I stirred the sauce, then opened the oven to check the garlic bread. Nothing fancy, just regular white bread buttered and doused with garlic salt. "Are you married?"

"Divorced," said Laurel. "Cool Taj Mahal statue, by the way."

"Thanks." I grabbed a pot holder and yanked the tray of garlic bread out of the oven. "So you just lead a normal life, then? Except you have the mind of a mountain range?"

"Sort of," said Laurel. "It's more like I'm part mountain range and part person. Like I'm two people at once."

I turned off the heat on the sauce and pasta. Reached into a corner cupboard for the silver colander. "Can you do things?"

"What kind of things?" said Laurel.

"Unusual things." I put the colander in the sink, then drained the pasta into it. "Things other people can't do."

"Yes," said Laurel...but again, she didn't elaborate. "Hey, you were even in Atlantis? You really have been everywhere."

I realized she was referring to my souvenir snow globe from the Atlantis resort. "I just hope it doesn't sink like the first one did." As soon as I said it, I was surprised at myself for making an actual joke on a down night. Where the hell was the misery? My bipolar psychological clock was never off, so why wasn't I huddled under the covers weeping and cursing by now? Was it just that I liked her?

I scooped heaps of pasta onto plates and ladled sauce on top of it. Then walked the plates out to the dining room table in the corner of the living room. "Dinner's ready."

Laurel took a plate of spaghetti and sat down at the table. "So what about you?"

"What about me?" I headed back to the kitchen for a bottle of wine I'd opened.

"I don't see a ring," said Laurel. "What about a boyfriend?"

"Nope." I came back with the wine and started filling the glasses on the table. "Not right now."

Laurel watched me over her glass as she sipped the wine. "What about family? Sisters, brothers, father, mother?"

It was my turn to be evasive. "How long were you married?" Back out to the kitchen then.

"Twenty years this last time," said Laurel. "Fifty years the time before that. Seventy-two the time before that." She sipped some wine. "Et cetera."

"You're immortal." I brought in the bread on a plate and put it on the table. "Like nymphs and goddesses."

Laurel put down her wine and stared thoughtfully at me. "You have no pictures of family. Why is that?"

I felt like going back to the kitchen, but I didn't have a good reason. "I don't have any." Slowly, I sank into my seat at the table. "I just don't."

Laurel leaned her elbow on the table and rested her chin in her hand. "What is your earliest memory, Gaia?"

I scowled and reached for my fork and soup spoon. "Why do you ask?"

"I'm curious," said Laurel. "Tell me."

As I twirled my fork in my spaghetti, using the soup spoon as a base to keep the spool of pasta tight, I thought about her question. Searched my mind. What was my earliest memory? It didn't line up with "normal" people's earliest memories; I knew that much.

Then again, the woman I was talking to wasn't exactly a normal person, was she? When I thought of it, I decided to tell her. What could it hurt?

"Driving," I said.

"Going for a ride in a car, you mean?" said Laurel.

"No." I shook my head. "I mean driving. Wrecking, actually. I wrecked the car."

"Because you were little, and you got behind the wheel?" said Laurel.

"I was about the same size I am now. I wrecked because something was wrong with me. Plowed the front end right into a utility pole." Finished twirling, I raised the forkful of spaghetti to my mouth and pushed it inside.

"And that's your first memory," said Laurel. "Driving a car. You were old enough to drive a car."

I shrugged and nodded and chewed my spaghetti.

Laurel's frown deepened. "And you don't remember anything that happened before that? Anything from your childhood?"

"No." I knew it was strange, and I had for most of my life. I'd thought about it many times, usually after seeing someone's baby pictures or hearing people reminisce about being kids.

The fact was, I had no memory of my youth. I had no record of it, either. Guess I'd always figured it was some kind of oread nymph amnesia or curse or something.

"Whose car did you wreck?" said Laurel.

"Duke's," I said. "He was in the car with me."

"So Duke has always been around?"

"Yeah." I started twirling more spaghetti. "He's always been there for me."

"Has he ever told you about what happened before?" said Laurel. "Has he ever told you about your childhood?"

"No." I kept twirling spaghetti.

"Would you like to know more?" said Laurel. "I can do a reading."

"What kind of reading?" I said.

"I can touch your mind." Laurel folded her hands on the table, arms bracketing the plate of spaghetti in front of her. "Get a sense of who you are. Impressions of your life."

The way she described it reminded me of how I could "read" rocks and dirt and minerals with a touch. Sounded harmless enough, but I was hesitant. Did I really want this virtual stranger rummaging around in my head?

"Maybe some other time." I put down my fork with the spool of spaghetti I'd spun onto it. "It's been a long day."

"I won't hurt you," said Laurel. "And it goes without saying, whatever I see stays between us."

She seemed sincere, but who knew if I could trust her? I'd already glimpsed how immense her mind was; I was pretty sure she could hurt me bad if she wanted. "Let's eat dinner and hit the hay," I said. "Early start tomorrow."

Laurel leaned forward. "But don't you want to know? Aren't you curious about your life?"

I shrugged. "Not so much these days."

"I doubt you just popped into existence behind the wheel of Duke's car." Laurel moved her hands toward me across the table. "Don't you wonder what happened before that?"

"I might be better off not knowing." I leaned back, thinking about getting up and going away. My dark mood nibbled at the edge of me like a rat, building up the courage to gobble me whole.

"Or you might be better off knowing," said Laurel. "Isn't it worth the risk?"

"I'm not hungry anymore." I got up from the table. "I'm going to bed. Feel free to watch TV or whatever." Even as I walked away, I knew why I was doing it. Knew I was afraid. Whatever lurked in my past, it must have been pretty awful for me to block it out completely. For me to block out how many years? Ten? Fifteen? I didn't even know how old I was.

And then there were my moods. The monstrous melancholy that swamped me every time I felt good for five minutes. What if all that was an echo of some repressed memory...too huge and terrible it overshadowed everything though the memories themselves were repressed? Damn right I was scared.

But I also couldn't help wondering if she might be right. If there might be a way to make the shadows go away. Maybe I'd met Laurel for reasons beyond solving Aggie's murder.

I carried my plate of spaghetti to the kitchen and dumped it in the sink. When I turned around, Laurel was standing in the doorway. "Please." The look on her face was dead serious. "Let me try."

I blew out my breath in frustration. Should've asked Briar to let her stay at his place...except that would've bothered me, too.

Laurel took a step toward me. "If something makes you uncomfortable, tell me to stop, and we're done. Okay? Or just push me away."

"I can't deal with this right now," I said. "My best friend's funeral was this morning, remember?"

"All right, okay." Laurel put her hands up and backed off. "You're right. I'm sorry. It's just..." She shrugged. "You remind me of somebody. You know that."

"Who?" I said. "Who do I remind you of?"

"Someone who disappeared a long time ago," said Laurel. "A friend. A treasured friend. I keep wondering..." She locked eyes with me. "Could you be her?"

"I see." I leaned against the counter and folded my arms over my chest. "So this 'reading' you want to do. It isn't really for my benefit."

"Look," said Laurel. "In many ways, she was my Aggie...and I thought she was gone forever. Wouldn't you want to know, if our positions were reversed?"

Just like that, she had me. Didn't mean I had to like it. "Maybe I wouldn't, if you were always such a pain in the ass." I pushed away from the counter and raked my fingers through my hair. "All right, all right. Just go easy."

"Thank you." Laurel stepped forward and placed her palm against my forehead like she was feeling my temperature. "Thank you so much, Gaia."

"Yeah, yeah." I rolled my eyes. "Glad I made all that spaghetti."

Laurel closed her violet eyes and bowed her head. "Here we go."

I felt nothing but impatience for a long moment. Just wanted to crawl under the covers and be left alone till my sinking feelings let up.

Then, I noticed a tingling in my forehead, like a mild case of pins and needles. It spread out from there, moving to the sides and back of my head, then down to the base of my neck. I frowned, wondering if the tingling was normal; I was still suspicious, especially now that I'd opened myself up to her.

My head felt warm, then hot. I only really started to worry, though, when my vision went black.

"Laurel?" Suddenly, I was totally blind. Couldn't even see a glimmer of light. This didn't strike me as a positive development. "I can't see!"

Laurel didn't answer. Just kept her palm pressed to my forehead. Kept making my head tingle and heat up...and throb. With each fresh pulse, I felt pressure building, felt twinges of pain like the leading edge of a colossal migraine.

"Laurel!" I said. "Stop! It hurts!"

Still, Laurel said nothing. And the tingling and heat and pain continued to build.

I reached up and grabbed her arm, ready to pull her hand away from my forehead. That was when the flashes started.

I saw them with my mind's eye, a rapid-fire barrage of images flickering past in a blur. All that registered was a general impression of light and color and motion and sound, a sense that scenes were hurtling past like cars on a bullet train, too fast to comprehend.

And too fast to bear. My head pounded and swirled and felt like it was going to explode. I couldn't sift through the flood of input, but it was still rushing straight into the pathways of my brain, drowning them in oceans of data.

I cried out. Tried and failed to tear Laurel's hand from my forehead. It was like she was surgically attached.

Then, suddenly, images began to leap out of the storm. Lingering just barely long enough for me to grasp them.

Pyramids gleaming bone-white in the desert sun. A sailing ship in a raging torrent, bucking waves as high as mountains. Three dark-skinned children running for their lives from a lion. A horse-drawn wagon crossing an endless prairie. Eskimos butchering a whale on a glittering ice floe. Japanese lanterns and wind chimes shivering in moonlit gardens. Ancient soldiers riding elephants through a mountain pass. Vast crowds cheering under red flags adorned with the yellow hammer and sickle. A dog chasing a rabbit across a green lawn. A naked man with blond hair reclining by a blazing fireplace. A man I knew.

Just as I realized I recognized him, he was gone. I reached back, trying to hold on to that one vision, but the flood of images continued to pour forward. Started speeding up again, whipping by so fast I couldn't single them out anymore. Nothing but a fathomless blur of speed and barely discerned sensation.

The speed rose to a blistering clip, making my head spin, making me nauseous...and then it ended. Suddenly, the flickering storm of visions stopped dead, leaving only darkness in my mind's eye. Silence and stillness and emptiness.

I felt her hand leave my forehead. "Laurel?" Blindly, I reached for her, grasping at thin air. Then, with a flash of light and color so strong it hurt, my sight burst back to life. Blinking and squinting, I saw Laurel across the kitchen, bent over with her hands on her knees. Heaving from the strain of what she'd just done.

I went to her. "Are you all right?"

When she looked up, I saw her face was pale and soaked with sweat. "Y-yes." She was gasping for breath like she'd just run a marathon. "N-need to...sit down."

"Come on." I took her arm and led her to the couch in the living room.

She collapsed on it. Unselfconsciously threw herself flat on her back. "Guess I...should've ...expected that."

"Expected what?" I frowned down at her.

"You have so much inside," said Laurel. "Too much to handle."

"I do?" I still wasn't sure what it all meant. The visions I'd glimpsed with my mind's eye; did they even belong to me?

"Maybe that's why you've blocked it out," said Laurel. "Because there's just too much to stand."

I dropped to my knees beside her. Too caught up in what was happening to remember my miserable mood. "Am I her? Am I your friend?"

"I thought so. Now I'm not so sure." Laurel wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her arm. "There's something different about you. Not at all like her."

I sat back on my heels. "Who was she? Tell me about her." I touched her shoulder. "Maybe it'll trigger something. Maybe I can help you figure this out."

Laurel shook her head. "Not yet. Not until I know more."

"But why?" I said. "Why not tell me?"

Laurel took a deep, shuddering breath and let it out slowly. "There must have been a reason she disappeared. It could put us all in danger if we're not careful."

"And you have no idea what that reason could have been?" I said.

"It was mostly a blur," said Laurel. "Do you?"

"No." I shook my head and sighed. "Maybe it'll come to me."

"We can try again," said Laurel. "With another reading. But not tonight." She smiled weakly.

I smiled back at her. "No, not tonight."

Laurel reached up and held my hand on her shoulder. "We'll figure this out somehow."

I thought of the blond man who kept reappearing in my visions. The one I'd been making love to; the one who'd called me a betrayer and had said he'd kill me. "I hope you're right."

"I hope you are her, Gaia," said Laurel. "I hope you're my long-lost friend."

"Thanks," I said.

"Because if you're not," said Laurel, "I don't know what you are."