Kerim had turned around, seemingly oblivious to what was around him. He ran his hands through his hair in exasperation.
“And that’s when the earthquake stopped. The light and the images vanished,” he said.
A smile crept onto Harry’s face.
“In your vision, I must have traveled into the future!”
Cristal could feel her face burn red. She could not contain her fury any longer. She marched into the room. Everyone turned to look at her with stunned looks on their faces.
“That explains a lot, Harry,” she said, her voice shaking with anger.
Cristal looked straight into his eyes.
“But guess what? This prodigy wants nothing to do with your time traveling theory.”
She whirled around, poking her finger onto Kerim’s shoulder.
“And you,” she said, her voice rising higher.
She looked at her hands briefly realizing that they were beginning to shake.
“I was beginning to trust you. Now I know better. I can’t believe you told them about the light.”
She turned around with full intentions of running out the door, but she stopped. On the shelf, among stacks of books was an 8x10 photo in a silver frame. In the photo, Dr. Saeed was standing on the far right. She recognized the man in the middle as Harry’s father. She had seen his YouTube videos on the Truth Seekers’ discussion forums. But it wasn’t Aaron Doub that caught her eye. It was the woman on the other side of him.
She stepped closer, wondering where she had seen this person that appeared in the picture. Harry and Kerim walked up and stood beside her.
“That’s her,” Cristal managed to say, pointing to the picture.
“Who?” Kerim asked.
“After the earthquake, I looked up into the sky and saw a face. It was her.”
She could feel her heart pounding harder and faster.
“Are you sure?” Dr. Saeed asked.
“I’m positive,” she answered.
Her words seemed to stick in her throat like chalk dust.
Harry grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her towards him. His blue eyes were wide with excitement.
“That’s Bina Schwartz. My mother.”
“Are you serious?” Kerim asked.
“Yes!” he said. “She went missing last year.”
Chapter 13
Kismet
SHE COULDN’T STOP RUNNING. Minutes earlier, she had exited the Physics building, stumbling down the stairs. She could hear Kerim and Harry calling her name as she ran out into the street. The air was heavy and humid and clung to her like a wet bathrobe. It was late in the evening and the sky was an angry purple. The moon was low in the sky, a crescent shape with a burnt orange color.
“Cristal, wait!” Kerim cried out, running toward her.
Something in his voice made her stop and turn to face him.
“Leave me alone.”
He stopped in front of her.
“We need to talk.”
She looked past him to see if Harry was there. He wasn’t. She shifted her eyes back onto Kerim, crossing her arms.
“Okay, explain to me how come when I’m near you, I feel like you are inside my head. And it seems you know what I’m feeling and thinking.”
He took a deep breath and then looked away.
“So, are you going to tell me?”
She stepped closer to him.
“Or are you just going to stand there?”
“Okay, let’s sit,” he said, pointing to a bench a few feet away.
His voice was distant yet soft. His tone didn’t exude its usual confidence.
He walked over, sat down, and placed one arm on the back of the bench. She followed him and sat on the far end of the bench. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to read her mind if she created a larger expanse of space between them. She raised her chin slightly and focused her energy on watching his steel grey eyes.
“So, go ahead.”
He began speaking, but his words were spoken so softly that she couldn’t understand him. She inched closer and closer, straining to hear him. She realized at that moment that if she were to move any closer to him, she might end up in his lap.
He gave her a wicked grin but then tried to cover it up with his hand.
Oh, this guy is driving me nuts!
“Like I said before…I was in the Turkish Army serving as underground intelligence. I was trained to do a lot of things, one being, understanding and reading body language.”
She tried to focus on his words. “I can tell when someone is lying or if they are nervous,” he continued. “I needed this for gathering intelligence for my covert missions. But when I left the Army, the skill was really useful with the ladies, if you know what I mean.”
He made that statement as if it were a fact and nothing more.
She rolled her eyes, then stood up, and said, “Oh, please!”