The Power of Love kbaa-2 Page 5

  Chapter 5

  "Well, hello, sleepyhead," said the girl sitting on the mall bench.

  Tristan jumped, startled out of deep thought-He had emerged from the darkness about fifteen minutes before and immediately tracked Ivy to her job at Tis the Season. For the last few minutes he'd been trying to piece together the fragments of Ivy's dream and what those pieces meant, but his mind still felt dark and muddled. Lacey laughed at him. "Know what day it is?" "Uh, Monday."

  "Brrtt." She did her obnoxious imitation of a game-show buzzer, then gestured to the seat next to her.

  Tristan sat down. "It's Monday," he insisted. "When I came into the mall, I checked a newspaper, just like you told me to do," "Maybe you should have checked the latest one," Lacey observed. "It's Tuesday, and nearly one o'clock. Ivy should be taking her break soon."

  He looked across the mall toward the shop. Ivy was busy with two customers, a bald old man trying on a Superman cape and a grandmotherly type holding a pink basket and wearing bunny ears. He knew that Tis the Season sold costumes and holiday items — most of which were out of season. But the recent darkness, the two customers in their odd outfits, and the presence of a very large woman carrying a bagel and coffee who had just sat down on Tristan made it all very confusing.

  Lacey patted his arm. "I told you that you were too tired. I warned you."

  "Move over," he grunted. He couldn't feel the woman's weight, but it seemed a little weird having her wide, striped dress flowing over him.

  Lacey slid down a little and said, "I have something to tell you. While you were in the darkness, I've been busy."

  "I already know."

  The Monday paper had caught his attention because of an article on people gathering to pray in Times Square after an image of Barbra Streisand, projected on an electronic billboard, grew a chubby, pink angel body and flitted around.

  "Does this have anything to do with the traffic jams on Forty-second Street?" he asked.

  She dismissed the event with a wave of her hand.

  "I read something about Streisand considering a lawsuit, and how the New York cabbies—" "Barbra should never have said I honked like a goose. Not that I couldn't have used a few more voice lessons—" "Lacey, how are you ever going to complete your mission?"

  "My mission? Today I'm helping you with yours," she said, then sprang up from the bench.

  Tristan shook his head and followed her.

  "I went to the cemetery Sunday to pay a visit to Gregory's mother," Lacey said as they walked along with the shoppers. "While I was there, somebody came by, a tall, thin guy, dark-haired. About forty, I think.

  He left Caroline some flowers."

  "He's been. there before," Tristan said. "I saw him the day we were in the chapel." He remembered watching the visitor from behind, mistaking him for Gregory until he turned around. He could still see the man's face, full of anguish.

  "What's his name?" she asked.

  "I don't know."

  They were heading away from Tis the Season. Tristan looked back longingly at Ivy, but Lacey marched on.

  "We should find out. He might be able to help us."

  "Help us what?" Tristan asked.

  "Figure out what happened the night Caroline died."

  They stopped by the fountain to watch cascades of water fall in pink and blue drops. One day, when nobody was looking, Tristan had made a wish here, a wish that Ivy would be his.

  "I looked up Caroline's address in the phone book," Lacey went on. "Five twenty-eight Willow. Her date of death was written on her tombstone. I came here this morning to check out the shop records for that day." She paused and looked at Tristan expectantly.

  When he didn't say anything, she said, "What an angel you are, Lacey, helping me out like this."

  "What did you find out?" he asked, ignoring her sarcasm.

  '"For one thing, that Lillian and her sister haven't a clue about how to keep business books. But after- a lot of hunting and squinting I did find it: a delivery on May twenty-eighth to a Mrs. Abromaitis on Willow Street — no house number given. I looked it up in the phone book. Guess what? Five thirty Willow."

  "Right next door," Tristan said, his voice a whisper, his mind prickling with fear. "I knew it. Ivy saw something."

  "Looks that way," Lacey agreed. She caught a coin that a woman had tossed toward the fountain and flipped it back at her. The woman stared down at it, then stuck the unlucky penny in a pot of ferns.

  "Ivy saw something at Caroline's," Tristan said, "and it wasn't a suicide."

  "We can't assume that," Lacey replied. "Caroline still could have killed herself, and someone could have been there afterward, taking something or hiding something. I mean, there are a lot of things Ivy could have seen—" "That she shouldn't have," Tristan finished Lacey´s sentence. "I have to reach her, Lacey!"

  "I thought we should check out the house today."

  "I have to warn her now!"

  "I remember how we did a search on Perry Mason," Lacey said. She started pulling Tristan toward the mall exit, but he was intent on heading back to 'Tis the Season, and he was stronger. "Tristan, listen to me! There's nothing you can do to protect Ivy. You and I weren't given that kind of power. The best you can do is combine the powers you do have with someone else and make that person stronger. But you yourself can't stop anyone who wants to harm her."

  Tristan stood still. He had never feared for his own life the way he now feared for Ivy's.

  "As long as she's in a crowd, she's safe," Lacey added. "So let's check out the house and—" "As soon as she gets in her car tonight, she'll be alone," Tristan pointed out. "As soon as she goes for a walk, as soon as she goes up to her music room, she'll be in danger."

  "There are other people at home with her," Lacey pointed out. "She's probably safe there. So let's find out who she has to watch out for and then—" But Lacey was left to talk to herself. Beth and Suzanne had just entered the mall. Spotting them, Tristan turned quickly and began to walk with them. He figured they were meeting Ivy for lunch. This time he would get through.

  Ivy was standing by the shop entrance, and for a moment Tristan forgot she was seeing only the girls.

  When he saw the look of welcome on her face, he hurried toward her, only to find she was now looking past him at Suzanne and Beth. It never got easier — the pain of being close to her, but far away, never seemed to lessen.

  "Now, take your time over lunch," Lillian was saying to the girls. "It's a slow day, so do a little shopping.

  Be sure to take a peek in that new gift shop. I'll bet they don't have glow-in-the-dark wind chimes."

  "Not in the shape of leprechauns and fairies," Beth said. Whenever she came to the shop, she got a look of total wonder on her face. Suzanne had to reach back and pull her out the door.

  Tristan followed the girls through the mall. They stopped at one store window after another, and he began to grow impatient. He wanted Beth to sit down right away and start scribbling in her notebook.

  He thought they'd never get out of the Beautiful You shop, with all those bottles and tubes and little pots of color.

  He began to pace from one side of the store to the other and ran head-on into Lacey. He hadn't realized that she had come along.

  "Chill out, Tristan," Lacey said. "Ivy's safe for now, unless someone runs her through with a nail file."

  Then she wandered off to a corner, as mesmerized as the others by the hundreds of colors— which all looked pretty much like red and pink to him. Tristan wondered whether, if he ever made it to the next realm, some mysteries about girls would be explained.

  Suzanne, now wearing stripes of tester lipstick all the way up her arm, was talking about a wedding in Philadelphia that she was going to that weekend.

  "I wish you were coming with us. Ivy," she said. "I showed my cousin your picture. He's definitely interested, and he's so perfect for you."

  Terrific, thought Tristan.

  "So you decided to go to the lake after all?" Beth
asked. She was trying on a shower cap that looked like a silver mushroom.

  "The lake!" Suzanne said, surprised. "She's staying home, and you're staying with her, Beth."

  Beth frowned. "Suzanne, you know I can't miss my family reunion. I thought she was going to Philly with you."

  Ivy had turned away from both of them.

  "Ivy!" Suzanne commanded.

  "What?" She started sorting through a bin of barrettes and didn't look up.

  "What are you doing this weekend?"

  "Staying home."

  Suzanne raised her perfectly shaped black eyebrows. "Your mother's letting you stay alone?"

  "She thinks that you and Beth will be with me. And I'm counting on you two to cover for me," Ivy added.

  Lacey glanced over at Tristan.

  "I don't know what the big deal is," Ivy went on. "I'd like to have the house to myself for a change. I'll have plenty of time to practice for the festival, and Ella will keep me company."

  "But Ella can't protect you," Tristan protested.

  "I just don't like the idea of you moping around all weekend by yourself," Suzanne said.

  "That house is too big, too lonely," Beth added.

  "Listen to them. Ivy," Tristan urged.

  "I told you both, I won't go to Jumper Lake! I can't!"

  "This is some kind of Tristan thing, isn't it?" Suzanne said.

  "I don't want to talk about it," Ivy replied.

  It was. Tristan remembered the plans they had made the night he died. Ivy had told him how she was going to float in the sunlight in the deepest part of Juniper Lake. "I'll swim in the moonlight, too."

  "The moonlight?" he'd said. "You'd swim in the dark?"

  "With you I would."

  Lacey touched Tristan on the arm. "You've got to get through to her this time."

  He nodded.

  They followed the girls out of the store. Tristan was tempted to slip inside Beth's mind right then, to direct her toward a table where she could take out her writing pad, but he didn't want to give her too many instructions. She might begin to resist.

  Beth stopped suddenly in front of Electronic Wizard, and Tristan followed her eyes to a display of computers inside.

  "Look at her. Look at her!" Suzanne said, nudging Ivy. "You'd think Beth was checking out guys."

  "There's the laptop I want," Beth said.

  Then Lacey came up quickly behind her. Tristan saw that the tips of her fingers had stopped shimmering.

  She gave a swift push. Beth stumbled through the door and looked back in surprise at Suzanne and Ivy.

  They followed Beth inside, with Tristan and Lacey right behind them.

  "Can I help you?" asked a salesman.

  "Uh, I'm just looking," Beth said, blushing. "Can I try out your display models?"

  He flicked his hand in their direction and walked away.

  "You're on, Tristan," Lacey said.

  It didn't take Beth long to find the word-processing program. Tristan had to struggle to keep up with her, to think what her next thought might be, which was the way Lacey had taught him to slip into the minds of others.

  When a writer looked at an empty computer screen, what did she see? Tristan wondered. A movie screen ready to be lit with faces? A night sky with one small star blinking at the top, a universe ready to be written on? Endless possibilities. Love's endless twists and turns — and all love's impossibilities.

  Beth started typing: Impossibilities What did she see when she looked out every night at the lonely black screen of sky? Possibilities. Love's endless twists and turns, and, oh, bitter heart, all love's impossibilities.

  Phew! Tristan thought.

  "Phew!" Beth typed, then squinted at the screen.

  "Stay with her, Tristan," Lacey said. "Keep your focus."

  Back up. Delete word. Oh, bitter heart, Tristan prompted Beth.

  "Oh, bitter heart, lonely heart," Beth typed, then paused.

  They were both stuck, then Tristan saw the connection: You should not stay home alone.

  "You should not stay home alone," Beth typed.

  It's not safe alone, he thought.

  "It's not safe alone," she typed.

  Then, before he could send her a message about anything else, she wrote on: "But is my heart safe alone with him?"

  No,he thought.

  "Yes," Beth replied.

  No!

  "Yes!"

  No!

  "Yes!" Beth frowned.

  Tristan sighed. Of course, she wanted the romance to work out and have the girl who was gazing at the night sky not be lonely anymore. But Tristan wanted to issue a warning. If Ivy was alone with the wrong guy… "What's wrong?" asked Ivy. "I've got that funny feeling again," Beth said. "It's really strange, like there's someone inside my head, saying things."

  "Oh, you writers." Suzanne snorted. Ivy bent down to look at the screen. "'No! Yes! No! Yes!'" she read, then laughed a little sadly. "It sounds like me when I first met Tristan." "It's Tristan," Beth typed quickly.

  Ivy stopped smiling.

  Tristan pressed on, and Beth typed as fast as he thought: "Be careful. Ivy. It's dangerous. Ivy. Don't stay alone. Love you. Tristan."

  Ivy straightened up. "That's not funny, Beth! That's stupid, and mean!"

  Beth stared at the screen, her mouth open in disbelief.

  Suzanne leaned down to read it. "Beth!" she said. "How could you? Ivy, wait!"

  But Ivy was already halfway out of the store. Suzanne ran after her. Beth stared at the screen, her entire body shaking. Tristan slipped out of Beth's mind, exhausted.

  "Would you like to print that out now?" the salesman asked, walking toward her.

  Beth shook her head slowly and keyed in Delete Page. "Not this time," she said with tears in her eyes.

  Every effort Tristan made to reach Ivy that week failed. What was worse, his attempts at warning her had pushed her further away from him and from those who cared for her. She was avoiding Beth, and now Philip too, after the little boy told her his angel said she must not stay alone. Tristan could have tried once more through Will, but he knew Ivy would just build another wall, a higher one.

  Thursday night he headed for Riverstone Rise Cemetery, planning to get some rest, hoping to stave off the dreamless darkness so that he could keep watch over Ivy through the long weekend. On the way to his own grave, Tristan decided to go by Caroline's plot and see if fresh roses had been left there. He thought that Lacey was right: they had to find out who Caroline's visitor was and what he knew about her death.

  Tristan crept along the cemetery road as if he were still flesh and blood, afraid of rousing the peaceful dead. In the moonlight, the white stones made a stark cityscape: obelisks towering like skyscrapers, mausoleums standing as mansions, the low rounded stones and shiny rectangular blocks marking neighborhoods of ordinary people. It was a still and eerie city, the city of the dead— my city, he thought grimly. Then he recognized the stone that marked one corner of the Baines family plot-It was a well-kept plot with some ornate statuary, figures that seemed to watch Tristan as he approached Caroline's grave from behind. When he walked past her marker, he spun around with surprise. Sitting on Caroline's grass, lying back against her stone as if he were lounging in bed, was Eric. His arms and legs were limp, and his head was turned sideways, his cheek flat against the stone. For a moment Tristan wasn't sure if Eric was breathing. Moving closer, he saw that Eric's pale eyes were open, his pupils so dilated they looked as if he had drunk up two pools of night.

  He was breathing softly, and he was mumbling something — something that made sense only to a mind high on drugs. Tristan wondered if Eric was capable of certain actions in this state. Could he stand up, could he walk? With his mind messed up like this, could he do something he'd wish later on that he hadn't done? Materializing his fingers, Tristan ran them across Eric's upturned palm.

  Eric grabbed Tristan's fingers and for a moment Tristan was caught. Then he let his fingers dissolve and pulled himself fr
ee.

  "Been a while," Eric said, flexing the hand that had grabbed hold of Tristan. "Been too long, Caroline, sorry about that. A lot's been going on, a lot more than anybody knows." He laughed quietly and pointed, as if he could see her directly in front of him. "Of course, you know."

  "I don't know," Tristan replied. "What's going on? Tell me."

  Eric cocked his head, and for a moment Tristan thought he had heard the question.

  "Yeah… probably," Eric said, answering some other question. "But it could be, you know, messy. I don't like things… messy."

  Messy? Tristan wondered. What did that mean? Complicated? Bloody?

  Eric sat straight up now, blinking his eyes, attentive to the voice he was hearing in his head. His hair was almost white in the moonlight, and his shadowed eyes stared holes through Tristan.

  "You mean Ivy. Her name's Ivy," Eric said, waving his bony hand in the air. It passed directly through Tristan, chilling him like the touch of a skeleton.

  "Well, what can I do?" Eric said. "You know where I'm at, Caroline. Don't push me! Back off!" He jumped to his feet and stood there, teetering.

  Then he started to laugh low in his throat. "Yeah, yeah," he said. "This weekend everyone's going to the lake but Ivy." Eric smiled as if he'd just heard something funny. "Now, that's not a very nice thing to say!"

  What, in his drug-crazed mind, did he think Caroline had said?

  "Hey!" Eric shouted. "I said don't push me." He took two steps sideways. "Back off, Caroline. I don't want to listen to you anymore. Back off!"

  Eric started running then, stumbling into markers and lurching from side to side, shrieking in a weird, high-pitched voice, "Back off, Caroline! Back off! Back off!"

  Tristan watched him until he disappeared down the road. He tried to imagine the other half of Eric's conversation. What did Eric think Caroline wanted him to do?

  Terrifying thoughts flooded Tristan's mind. Then he calmed himself and, focusing all his energy, called out, "Caroline, are you there?" He called her three times, hoping each time that she'd answerback. But his angel senses had already told him what the silence proved: There was nothing there but a cold body, and its answers were rotting with it.