Timebound(3)
I nodded once in agreement and Mom gave me a reproachful look that suggested I was getting far too friendly with the enemy.
The waitress brought Mom another merlot and refilled our water glasses. I was surprised that she didn’t even glance at the odd medallion as she approached the table—it isn’t something you see every day. The glow turned the water a shimmering baby blue as it streamed from the pitcher. I thought she’d at least look back over her shoulder as she left, the way you do when you’re curious about something but don’t want to seem rude or, in this case, jeopardize your tip. But she headed to the kitchen, stopping only to chat for a moment with Cute Guy with Ponytail.
We had gotten most of the way through our entrees when I accidentally hit another conversational landmine. “Is your hotel nearby?” I asked, thinking perhaps I might be able to finagle a visit somewhere with a nice indoor pool and sauna.
“I’m not at a hotel,” Katherine said. “I bought a house. Not far from your school, actually.”
Mom paused, a forkful of risotto halfway to her mouth. “You… bought… a house.”
“Yes. Connor and I have been camping out there for the past few days, but the movers are finally finished and now we just need to get things organized. Harry pointed me toward a very nice realtor.”
“Harry.” Mom’s mouth tightened and I had a feeling that Dad was going to be on her list for a while. She continued, enunciating each word very precisely—the tone of voice that usually came just before I was grounded. “So you’ve been in town for several weeks, and you didn’t bother to call me, but you did call my ex-husband, who was kind enough to find you a realtor. And keep it a secret.”
“I wasn’t sure how you would react to my decision,” Katherine said. “Harry, on the other hand, likes me. And I asked him, as a special favor, to keep things quiet. I’m sure it’s been tough on him. Secrecy really isn’t in his nature.” I mentally agreed on that point—Dad is a wide-open book in most respects.
“Okay. So you bought a house.” Mom set the fork back down with the risotto still uneaten and pushed her chair from the table. I was worried that we were about to make a dramatic exit, but she just said, “I’m going to the ladies’ room. When I get back, maybe you can tell me exactly who Connor is.”
As soon as Mom was out of earshot, Katherine leaned forward, pushing the glowing blue circle toward me. “They can’t see it, dear. No—that’s not quite right. They see the pendant, but they don’t see it as we do. What color is the light for you? Blue, right?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Of course it’s blue.”
“Not for me. I see a lovely shade of orange. A bit like an orange Creamsicle.”
“It’s blue,” I repeated. I’d never seen anything more vividly blue in my life.
She shrugged. “I don’t understand the physics of it. But I have only known a few dozen people in my lifetime who really see this light, and each of us sees it a bit differently.”
Katherine paused and glanced over her shoulder to see if Mom was headed back, before slipping the medallion into her purse. “We can’t discuss this in any detail right now—there’s so much you need to know.”
The urgent tone of Katherine’s voice was setting off alarm bells in my head. But before I could ask exactly what she thought I needed to know, she reached over and grabbed my hand, holding it between both of hers. “But I do want you to know this, Kate. Those were not panic attacks.”
I blinked, surprised that she knew about the two episodes that had shaken me so badly. The “counselor” Mom had taken me to see back in February, just after the second occasion, called them panic attacks, probably triggered by my move to a new school in the middle of the school year. That didn’t make sense. If I were going to have a panic attack, it would have been during the five months at Roosevelt High, when I was adjusting to metal detectors and security guards after two years in sleepy, middle-of-nowhere Iowa. It also didn’t explain the episode while we were still in Iowa, although I suppose that could have been triggered by sheer boredom.
Both times, I had been gripped by the sudden and powerful sense that something was very, very, horribly wrong, but I couldn’t pinpoint what that something might be. My body kicked into full “fight or flight”—heart pounding, hands shaking—and nothing around me seemed real. During the last attack, I ran out of class and straight to my locker. I called Mom, interrupting a meeting. She was fine. Then I went to Dad’s office. He wasn’t there, and I wasn’t sure of his teaching schedule, so I ran up and down the halls, stopping to peer through the rectangular windows at the door of each classroom. Several raised eyebrows and annoyed stares later, I found him. He was fine, too. I sent a text to my best friend, Charlayne, although I knew she was in class as well, and there was no way she could respond.