Eternity (5 page)

Chapter Nine

In the spirit of our playacting, I made plans with Ruth to watch Michael’s football game. As his girlfriend, I had always loyally attended his games, even though I wasn’t much of a sports fan. Michael and I figured we should stick to our usual pattern.

Like many of our classmates, Ruth and I hung around the school library, doing homework and chatting, before the game began. No one wanted to leave campus and chance losing their spot in the school parking lot. The Tillinghast football team was so excellent that it had developed a following way beyond the high school students. Plus, it was better for me to stay away from home. I was afraid that, if I spent too much time with my parents, I’d spill everything or get angry with them over the whole birth parents thing. The school library was definitely the safer option.

Ruth and I left the library early to secure a good seat, and it turned out to be a smart move on our parts. Even though the game wasn’t scheduled to start for nearly an hour, the bleachers were beginning to fill up with students, parents, and townspeople alike. Even so, we managed to nab a spot with a clear view of the field and the sidelines. While I enjoyed watching Michael’s athletic prowess on the field, I loved studying his face after he finished a play, when he thought no one was paying him any attention.

By the time Ruth and I finished our popcorn and drinks—our pathetic substitute for dinner—the stands were full to capacity, and the crowds were ready. I felt the anticipation building in the fans, and found myself getting swept up in their excitement. When Michael ran out onto the field with the rest of the team, I was on my feet right alongside them, cheering loudly.

He looked amazing out there in our school’s navy and white football uniform. It showed off his broad shoulders and sculpted arms and legs, although I was the only one who knew the strength and power contained within his body. Michael literally took my breath away.

I stared as Michael slowed his pace and took his place on the sidelines. An assistant coach came over to his side with a few instructions, and Michael nodded in agreement. Although the helmet hid a large part of his face, I studied him as he waited anxiously for the game to begin. Somehow, he must have sensed my eyes upon him, because he turned to me and smiled.

For a moment, it was only the two of us. No crowds, no announcements, no music. Just Michael and Ellie.

The whistle sounded, shattering our little moment. The next two and a half hours flew by. Even if I tried, I couldn’t have articulated the details of the Tillinghast team’s victories—or Michael’s feats, of which there were many. I became so swept up in the roar of the crowd and the delirium of the triumph that it felt like the game had fast-forwarded right to its successful conclusion.

As soon as the game ended and the players gathered to run off the field together, I felt a compulsion to be with Michael. I couldn’t stop thinking about how amazing he looked on the field.

“I’m heading down to the field, Ruth,” I called to her over the din.

“Come on, Ellie. You’re not going to brave all that,” she yelled back in disbelief, gesturing to the jam-packed bleachers and aisles.

“I need to see him.”

“Why don’t you wait until afterward? Like a normal girlfriend,” she said, taunting me a bit.

I shook my head; waiting wouldn’t do. I couldn’t delay hugging him and telling him how proud I was. Maybe it was my small way of making up to him for all my secret, disloyal thoughts. Who knew? Regardless, Ruth knew better than to argue once my mind was set, so she shrugged in response. Off I went.

The crowd looked a lot worse than it actually was. Pretty quickly, I made my way onto the field and toward the only entrance to the locker room. Coach Samuel, easily identifiable because he wore his usual Tillinghast baseball cap, was talking to a bunch of local reporters near the door, and most of the team congregated nearby. Michael stood next to his teammates.

But he wasn’t alone. Three very pretty junior girls, Missy among them, gathered around him. One girl was giggling too hard at something Michael had said, while another clutched at his bicep. And he was laughing along with them, reveling in all the attention.

I froze. The sight of him being fawned over sickened me. Particularly by the golden blond, nasty Missy, whose actions had caused so many so much pain. It made me feel like the old, awkward Ellie I’d been before I met Michael. Instinctively, I pivoted and headed back onto the field.

I’d almost made it across the field, back toward the bleachers, when I felt a hand on my arm.

“Ellie, where are you going?” It was Michael.

I kept walking. “I couldn’t stand around and watch those girls throw themselves at the football hero Michael Chase.”

Michael turned me toward him. His fair hair was dark with sweat, and his eyes appeared greener against the black smears beneath them. Most of all, he looked genuinely perplexed.

“Missy and her little friends back there? Flirting with you?” I clarified for him, since he seemed so confused.

“Them? Why would you care about them? You know I don’t.”

“You seemed to be enjoying yourself.” I
hated
the way I sounded. On one level, I knew it was absurd to fret over Michael while the world was ticking toward its end. The fact that my feelings were ridiculous didn’t stop me from feeling insecure and jealous.

“Ellie, I can’t stop those girls from flirting with me. And their flirting means nothing to me.” He fixed my gaze. “You know I love only you, don’t you?”

Staring right into his serious expression, I nodded. Michael was right. I knew he was right. I was projecting all my self-doubt about being the Elect One onto Michael. I allowed myself to be enfolded in his arms and surrender to the comfort they offered.

Chapter Ten

Yet, Michael’s arms could not protect me that night. They could not shield me against the terrors of the darkness. Some things I had to face by myself.

Like the dream.

I stood in a dark, cavernous space. The tiled walls bore a damp sheen, and the air smelled wet and moldy. I could hear a slow, steady drip in the background, and it felt like I was in some kind of a subterranean room.

I wasn’t alone. Before me was a man. He was not known to me.

He was ruggedly handsome in a blunt, powerful sort of way. His hair was wavy and black. Even though his face was unlined and his hair bore no streak of gray, he seemed older. Yet his age was hard to define, particularly since he knelt before me with downcast eyes.

“Mercy, Ellspeth. I beg you for mercy,” the man said, although it didn’t sound much like begging to me. His voice sounded strong and confident, like it belonged to someone used to getting his way. “Do you have any mercy in your heart?”

I scoffed at his halfhearted request. “Mercy? Why should I offer you mercy? After all you’ve done to me. After all the evil you’ve inflicted upon others.”

“Please, Ellspeth, it only seems like evil because you don’t understand it. When you are creating a new world, sacrifices must be made. Sacrifices that will eventually yield a greater good.” I knew that he meant his tone to soften me. And I could see that he believed in the veracity of his words. Yet I felt no leniency in my heart, only sadness and determination.

“Like my mother? Was she a necessary sacrifice?”

The man raised his gaze from the floor, and looked up at me. For the first time, I realized that his eyes were a startling, pale blue. Like mine.

His eyes filled with resignation and sadness. “I promised your mother that when this moment came, I would surrender to your decision. If you have no mercy to offer, I must accept your merciless sentence,” he said quietly, never losing my gaze.

I lifted my arms high above my head. I felt something heavy in my hands, but I didn’t know what it was. The room filled with a pure white light, almost like rarefied sunlight. It was the light of judgment.

Then I woke up.

Was the dream a vision of some future event? Was it a remnant of some awful image I’d procured from Ezekiel’s mind? Was I simply imagining the birth father that I’d been thinking about so much lately? What made this dream so different from all the rest?

I didn’t know. The not knowing made the dream incredibly hard to shake.

Chapter Eleven

By the time school rolled around on Monday morning, I was fed up. Fed up with Michael and Ruth always being so preoccupied. Fed up with playacting with everyone around me. Fed up with the disturbing dreams that inundated me every single night. Fed up with the uncertainties that plagued me beneath my self-assured surface. And really, really fed up with waiting, knowing that the end days were upon us.

I needed action. Any kind of action.

As I walked to my locker after the last bell, wondering how to get the action I craved, I noticed a cluster of kids around the main bulletin board. The communal board was covered with advertisements and notices about extracurricular activities and typically didn’t warrant too much attention. I usually walked right past it, along with every other student.

I was curious to see what the small crowd was staring at. As I drew closer, I realized that they were all gathered around a poster announcing the formation of a county-wide committee to raise funds for the earthquake victims. The first meeting was tonight at seven in the school gymnasium.

It seemed the perfect, temporary solution. Normally, I wasn’t much of a joiner. Right now I had energy to burn, and I felt partly responsible for all the tragedy. If I’d better understood my role and known how to stop that first sign, then maybe a lot of suffering could have been avoided. Pitching in wouldn’t offer much, but it was something.

Then I noticed that Missy stood in the small crowd of kids. And she noticed me. If Missy was planning on joining the committee, maybe I’d reconsider.

“More selfless acts for Ellie, I see,” she said, giving me a nasty little grin and a flip of her blond ponytail. I knew—and she knew—that it was a snide reference to the blame I took for her and Piper over the Facebook prank. Her comment was incredibly bold; I guessed she figured that I wasn’t planning on turning her and Piper in at this late stage.

“What on earth would draw
you
to a committee that helped people, Missy? I thought your forte was embarrassment and humiliation. Until I stopped you, anyway.” Tit for tat. If Missy was up for bandying about her malicious deed, so was I. Especially since I didn’t see on Missy’s face even a shred of the gratitude—or remorse—I’d spotted on Piper’s.

“You never know what cute guys might join a committee like that. Like Michael.” Her jibe hurt after the little scene I’d interrupted on Friday night, particularly on the heels of a day without any letters from Michael, even though we’d agreed to stop them for now.

“Or your Zeke,” I goaded her right back. I was in no mood for turning the other cheek. Missy had picked the wrong day to pick a fight with me.

Missy froze. I could almost see the wheels of her cruel mind turning. How did I know about her mysterious boyfriend, the one who disappeared the night of the fall dance? she wondered. Part of me wanted to tell her what had actually happened to her precious Zeke—really, Ezekiel.

Instead of beating me down, as Missy had intended, our exchange emboldened me. I would definitely go to the committee meeting, to make sure that it met its purpose instead of becoming some big pickup scene. I would make it my outlet for action, for now.

Afterward, I suffered through another dinner with my parents, where I discussed trivialities over pasta primavera while thinking about the impending apocalypse. Hiding a secret this big from my parents was painful, and I was sure they could sense something was off. Yet they never questioned me.

I asked to borrow the car after dinner, not knowing how they’d respond, given their environmentalist mission to reduce our carbon footprint. To my surprise, they actually agreed. The committee meeting seemed to merit an exception to their stringent rules about walking everywhere, especially when they learned I’d be going alone. Ruth and Michael were too busy with football and schoolwork.

I pulled into the school parking lot a few minutes before seven, figuring I had plenty of time to make it into the gymnasium before the meeting began. But I hadn’t banked on the main lot being completely full. I wondered whether there was some kind of a scheduled event that I’d missed hearing about. Usually the cars emptied out of school lot by five, unless there was a Friday football game.

The big clock over the gymnasium doors read seven fifteen by the time I’d parked in a remote lot and run across the campus. Hoping to muffle the gymnasium doors’ usual loud creak and sneak into the meeting unnoticed, I opened one of the doors slowly. With no success. The screeching noise announced my entry.

A vast sea of faces turned in my direction. Suddenly, I understood why all those cars were in the lot. Students from all over the county were here to help.

An unfamiliar girl at the podium—presumably the committee organizer—paused when I walked into the room. While she waited for me to sit, she tapped her pencil on the podium and she smoothed her long, light brown hair. I could feel myself blush as I scanned the packed room for an open seat.

The chairs on the floor and the bleachers were nearly at capacity. Among the many unfamiliar kids, I recognized quite a few Tillinghast students. To my astonishment, I even saw Piper and Missy in the crowd. Did Missy have no shame?

Finally, I spied an opening on a bleacher in the far left corner of the room, next to a broad-shouldered guy wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. Scuttling by the rows of chairs and the podium where the organizer resumed her speech, I asked the guy if he could move over to make room for me.

“Like to make a grand entrance, do you?” he whispered with a mischievous smile as he slid over.

I glanced at his face. His hair was chestnut brown and his eyes were dark, almost black. He was handsome in a rough, unfinished sort of way. The flush on my cheeks deepened. They were probably crimson by now. “Sorry about that.”

The guy smiled again. In a deep, husky voice, he said, “Don’t worry. I was happy for the interruption. The organizer, Amanda, goes to my school, and she likes the sound of her own voice way too much.”

I tried to turn my attention to Amanda. But I couldn’t. I found myself staring down at the guy’s wide, calloused hands and strong thighs. There was something compelling about him, something I couldn’t quite describe.

“Told you she drones on,” he said, obviously noticing my drifting concentration.

I couldn’t suppress a giggle, although it seemed so inappropriate under the circumstances. Here we were on the brink of a major catastrophe—one far worse than most people could possibly comprehend, one in which I was destined to play a major role—and I was giggling at some joke made by a strange guy. I covered my mouth. What on earth was I doing?

He reached over and very lightly touched my hand. As if hearing my thoughts, he said, “It’s okay. I’m the only one that heard you laugh.”

The exchange so unnerved me that, when Amanda called for volunteers, I just stuck up my hand. I didn’t even know what I was volunteering for. The guy next to me raised his arm too.

Amanda pointed to us. “Rafe, you’re in. And, you”—she pointed to me—“what’s your name?”

“Ellie. My name is Ellie.”

“Great, we have two volunteers for the event-planning subcommittee. Anybody else?”

Hands had surfaced throughout the crowd, although I noticed that Piper and Missy lowered their arms as soon as they saw that I’d been selected for the subcommittee. It seemed that Missy didn’t mind taunting me for a few minutes in the safety of a crowded hallway but didn’t want to spend too much time with me in a small subcommittee meeting. I smiled at the thought of scaring away the indomitable Missy.

As Amanda worked her way around the room, culling volunteers, the guy turned to me. “Since we’ll be working together, I guess I should properly introduce myself. I’m Rafe. Rafe Gregory.”

He stuck out his hand in greeting.

I almost didn’t take Rafe’s hand. I’d avoided touching anyone other than Michael or Ruth since I’d returned from Boston, because I didn’t want to experience any flashes. Then I thought twice. I’d had a strong reaction to him; and these days, strong reactions unnerved me. Was he really an average high school kid? There was only one way to be certain.

I extended my hand. As we shook, initially I received a very mild flash from him. I saw Rafe as a very small child, maybe three or four, flying a bright red kite. The sky was unbroken cerulean blue, and young Rafe was delighted with the way the red stood out against the sky’s vivid blueness. I wondered what made him think of that image right now.

The scene was quickly replaced with a more intense flash. Through Rafe’s eyes, I watched myself entering the gymnasium. He stared at me as I hunted around for an empty seat, and I felt his pleasure when I noticed the opening next to him. As I sat down, I heard him thinking how cute I was.

I quickly withdrew my hand, even though I kind of liked another guy thinking nice thoughts about me after watching Michael get so much attention from other girls. But honestly, I didn’t need any more information, because I had the answer to my question. Yes, Rafe seemed like an average teenage guy.

Rafe looked at me and smiled. “And you are Ellie—?”

“Ellie Faneuil. I’m Ellie Faneuil.”

“Nice to meet you, Ellie Faneuil. Looks like we’ll be seeing quite a bit of each other.”