When I pulled into Aunt Iris’s driveway, the rain had nearly stopped, but the trees were dripping heavily. My headlights shone like two ghostly beams through the ground mist. I parked and walked toward the front steps. I longed for a shower, not to get rid of the mud, but to clean off the touch of my attackers. I longed for my family.
“Anna.”
I jumped a mile.
“Whoa! It’s just me.”
Zack was standing under the covered porch, backlit by the hall light. I stopped at the foot of the steps, and he started down them. “We need to talk and — my God, what happened to you?”
I backed away from him. When he reached toward me, I put up my hands, instinctively shielding my face. He took my wrists, encircling them with his fingers, holding them gently but firmly. “What happened?”
“I met up with some of your friends.”
“Not my friends,” he said.
“Okay. Erika’s. Three of them.”
He turned my hands, examining my scraped palms. “Let’s go inside.”
“I’ll go inside. You go home.”
“Did they knock you down?” He crouched to check my knees.
“Obviously.”
“Did they do anything else?” His voice sounded as thin and tight as mine.
“Just held me there while they delivered their message.”
“Which was?”
“To keep my nose out of Erika’s business.”
He stood up, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.
“Did they have a weapon?”
“A knee in my back, and my hair — that made a nice weapon; they kept yanking on it, then pushing my face in the road.” My voice broke.
“Oh, Anna.”
I stiffened and took a step back. Zack was her friend, just like they were her friends.
“Where did it happen?”
“Near the fire site. On the dirt road.”
“I’ll drive you to a doctor.”
“I don’t need one.”
“You should be checked out,” he insisted, and took a step closer.
I turned sideways. “I’m just a little rattled.”
He laid his hand on my back. As gentle as it was, I winced.
He winced too. “Sorry. I’m sorry. Anna, I am so sorry.”
“Go home. . please. I just need. . a few minutes by myself.” That line had worked the last time.
“Not this time,” he said.
I had no energy left to argue. I turned toward the kitchen entrance, and he followed me. The weather and the trees made it seem like twilight. He searched for the wall switch and flicked it on. “Your aunt’s car is gone,” he observed. “I guess she’s out.”
“She wanders off at different times. I don’t know where.”
“Maybe you should put on some dry clothes. I’ll help you upstairs.”
“No.” I lowered myself onto a wooden chair very gingerly.
“Could you have broken any bones?”
“Everything moves. I’m just bruised.”
He nodded, then began searching the kitchen cabinets. I watched without asking what he was looking for. I felt as if one huge sob was building in my heart.
Returning with a bowl of water and several soft cloths, he pulled a chair close to mine and began to clean the cuts on my arms. I sat still, watching his hands, the way I used to watch my mother’s when I’d had a bad day at dodgeball.
“Did you see the guys who did this to you?”
I shook my head. “Just the backs of them when they were running away. They warned me not to go to the police. They said not to tell anyone. I guess that would include you. They said they would know if I told and they wouldn’t be as friendly next time.”
I stared at his neck rather than his face and saw him swallow hard. He stood up, brought back fresh water, lukewarm, and gently washed my forehead and cheeks. He knelt on the floor in front of me and examined my knees.
“Looks as if you went down on your right one,” he said, wetting a clean cloth and touching it lightly to a large brush burn. I stiffened my leg, fighting the instinct to yank it away.
He glanced up. “I’m going to pinch your calf. Just a few pinches, okay?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever had a guy goose me on the calf,” I replied, trying to joke my way out of the pain.
He did what he said, cleaning the cut and pinching at the same time. “This is how my dad used to do it when I’d come home banged up. The theory is that the pinch sends signals to the brain that help drown out the pain signals from the wound. I thought it was worth a try.”
Zack finished cleaning the other leg, then sat back on his heels. “How do you feel?”
“Okay.”
“Is there a first-aid kit around, something with an antibiotic ointment?”
“I have a kit in the back of my car. I’ll get it later.”
“I’ll get it for you,” he said.
“I’m not helpless.” I sounded angry.
There was a moment of tense silence, then he tapped me on the foot. “If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that you are not helpless.” He rose and rinsed out the rags, washed out the bowl with soap and water, and laid everything on the drain board.
“Why did you go back to the fire site?” he asked when he was done.
“I was looking for the place where my uncle was murdered.”
“The police must have already searched the area,” he replied. “The farm is large, with acres of it leased out to other growers, but I’m sure it’s been searched thoroughly.
When a body is found, everyone starts looking.”
“Have you ever seen a place that has a wall with notches along the top, like the wall of a castle? There’s a door in the wall or some way to get through. There are pathways and a statue of a rabbit. Have you ever seen anything like that?
Outside of Disney World,” I added, aware of how silly it sounded.
Zack shook his head no, then looked at me thoughtfully.
“But you have. You see things the way a psychic does.”
“At night, when I sleep”—I hesitated, but he’d already figured out that something strange was going on inside my head—“I have these things called O.B.E.s, out-of-body experiences.”
Zack sat on the kitchen chair next to mine. “You mean like people who are resuscitated? The ones who say they have floated outside their bodies and watched a medical staff working on them?”
“According to the books I’ve been reading, some people have O.B.E.s even when they’re not dying. Last Wednesday night, I thought that I was dreaming about a fire. Kids were there. I heard them laughing and throwing bottles. Then there were sirens and everyone ran. I heard my uncle’s voice calling to me, telling me to be careful. A few days later, when I came to Wisteria, I found out he was dead and his body had been burned in a fire that same night. When I went to the site, it was the same place I had seen while sleeping.
The night I heard you and Erika talking about me, I was in bed, but somehow, I was there at the fire site, too.”
Zack’s only response was to blink.
“I’ve had three O.B.E.s, each time visiting the fire site. But during the last two, I started out in a different place, the one with the wall and the rabbit, and I’m wondering if that is where my uncle started — if somehow I’ve connected with him and am visiting the place where he was murdered.”
“Have you said anything to the sheriff?”
“No. He’d probably think I’m just a crazy O’Neill. I want to try to find the place first. Do you know anything about—” I was about to mention Audrey’s husband when two cats raced past us and hurled themselves against the screen door.