Fallen 2. Torment(8)

spoiled brat. At the turnoff for the Anderson Valley, Daniel forked west and tried again to

hold her hand. "Maybe you'll forgive me in time to enjoy our last few minutes together?"

She wanted to. She really wanted to not be fighting with Daniel right now. But the

fresh mention of there being such a thing as a "last few minutes together," of his leaving

her alone for reasons she couldn't understand and that he always refused to explain--it

made Luce nervous, then terrified, then frustrated all over again. In the roiling sea of new

state, new school, new dangers everywhere, Daniel was the only rock she had to hold on

to. And he was about to leave her? Hadn't she been through enough? Hadn't they both

been through enough?

It was only after they'd passed through the redwoods and come out into a starry,

royal-blue evening that Daniel said something that broke through to her. They'd just

passed a sign that read WELCOME TO MENDOCINO, and Luce was looking west. A

full moon shone down on a cluster of buildings: a lighthouse, several copper water

towers, and rows of well-preserved old wooden houses. Somewhere out beyond all that

was the ocean she could hear but couldn't see.

Daniel pointed east, into a dark, dense forest of redwood and maple trees. "See

that trailer park up ahead?"

She never would have if he hadn't pointed it out, but now Luce squinted to see a

narrow driveway, where a lime-caked wooden placard read in whitewashed letters

MENDOCINO MOBILE HOMES.

"You used to live right there."

"What?" Luce sucked in her breath so quickly, she started to cough. The park

looked sad and lonesome, a dull line of low-ceilinged cookie-cutter boxes set along a

cheap gravel road. "That's awful."

"You lived there before it was a trailer park," Daniel said, easing the car to a stop

by the side of the road. "Before there were mobile homes. Your father in that lifetime

brought your family out from Illinois during the gold rush." He seemed to look inward

somewhere, and sadly shook his head. "Used to be a really nice place."

Luce watched a bald man with a potbelly tug a mangy orange dog on a leash. The

man was wearing a white undershirt and flannel boxers. Luce couldn't picture herself

there at all.

Yet it was so clear to Daniel. "You had a two-room cabin and your mother was a

terrible cook, so the whole place always smelled like cabbage. You had these blue

gingham curtains that I used to part so I could climb through your window at night after

your parents were asleep."

The car idled. Luce closed her eyes and tried to fight back her stupid tears.

Hearing their history from Daniel made it feel both possible and impossible. Hearing it

also made her feel extremely guilty. He'd stuck with her for so long, over so many

lifetimes. She'd forgotten how well he knew her. Better even than she knew herself.

Would Daniel know what she was thinking now? Luce wondered whether, in some ways,

it was easier to be her and to never have remembered Daniel than it was for him to go

through this time and time again.

If he said he had to leave for a few weeks and couldn't explain why ... she would

have to trust him.

20

"What was it like when you first met me?" she asked.

Daniel smiled. "I chopped wood in exchange for meals back then. One night

around dinnertime I was walking past your house. Your mother had the cabbage going,

and it stank so badly I almost skipped your house. But then I saw you through the

window. You were sewing. I couldn't take my eyes off your hands."

Luce looked at her hands, her pale, tapered fingers and small, square palms. She

wondered if they'd always looked the same. Daniel reached for them across the console.

"They're just as soft now as they were then."

Luce shook her head. She loved the story, wanted to hear a thousand more just

like it, but that wasn't what she'd meant. "I want to know about the first time you met

me," she said. "The very first time. What was that like?"

After a long pause, he finally said, "It's getting late. They're expecting you at

Shoreline before midnight." He stepped on the gas, taking a quick left into downtown

Mendocino. In the side mirror, Luce watched the mobile home park grow smaller, darker,

until it disappeared completely. But then, a few seconds later, Daniel parked the car in

front of an empty all-night diner with yellow walls and floor-to-ceiling front windows.

The block was full of quirky, quaint buildings that reminded Luce of a less stuffy

version of the New England coastline near her old New Hampshire prep school, Dover.

The street was paved with uneven cobblestones that glowed yellow in the light from the

streetlamps overhead. At its end, the road seemed to drop straight into the ocean. A