I don’t like it.
“You can mess with time, huh?” he says, rubbing his neck. “Think you could go back about five minutes and warn me about dropping the bucket of horseshoes? I think I might have busted one of my toes.”
“I can fix it,” I say automatically, stepping forward.
He takes a quick step back, puts a hand up to stop me. “With your glory thing? No, thanks. That always makes me want to puke.”
It hurts, him saying that. It makes me feel like a freak.
So he’s decided to go with the old reliable Tucker-the-jerk routine. And what I extra-triple-hate about this is that I know he’s not a jerk, not even a little bit of a jerk, but he’s putting on his jerk hat special for me because I’ve hurt him, and because he wants to keep me at a distance, and because it makes him angry to see me here.
“So you were trying to get back home to California,” he says, putting a heavy emphasis on the words home and California. “And you ended up here. How’d that happen?”
I meet his eyes, and there’s a question in them that’s different from the one he asked.
“Bad luck, I guess,” I answer.
He nods, bends to pick up the scattered horseshoes at his feet, then straightens. “Are you going to stay out here all night?” he asks, the very definition of surly. “Because I have chores to do.”
“Oh, by all means, don’t let me keep you from your chores,” I retort.
“Horse stalls won’t muck themselves.” He grabs a shovel and offers it to me. “Unless it’d make your little heart go pitter-pat to get to work on a real-live working ranch.”
“No, thanks,” I say, stung that he’d treat me like a city slicker after everything. I feel a flash of despair. Then anger. This is not how I imagined it would be, seeing him again. He’s making it difficult on purpose.
Fine, I think. If that’s how he wants it.
“I can go right now,” I say, “but to do that I’ll have to use glory, so you might want to step outside for a minute. I’d hate to make you puke all over your nice boots.”
“Okay,” he says. “Don’t trip on your way out.”
“Oh, I won’t,” I say, because I can’t think of a witty comeback, and I wait until he slips out of the barn before I summon glory and will myself anywhere but here.
6
HOOKING UP
One thing’s for certain: my brother can eat. It’s like he has a hollow leg, and all that food gets crammed in there: four pancakes now, three scrambled eggs, hash browns, a side of wheat toast, three strips of bacon, three links of sausage, and a pitcher of orange juice. I’m feeling kind of sick to my stomach just watching him.
“What?” he says when he catches me staring. “I’m hungry.”
“Clearly.”
“This is good. All I ever get to eat these days is pizza.”
Ah, a Jeffrey tidbit. That’s what this breakfast is all about. Crumbs that he occasionally throws me. Clues. From which I am piecing together a picture of his life.
“Pizza?” I say all nonchalant. “What’s up with pizza?”
“I work at a pizza joint.” He pours more syrup on his final pancake. “That smell gets into everything.” He leans forward like he wants me to sniff him. I do, and sure enough, I get a definite whiff of mozzarella and tomato sauce.
“What do you do there?”
He shrugs. “Run the cash register. Bus tables. Take phone orders. Make pizza, sometimes, if we’re short a cook. Whatever needs to be done. It’s a temporary gig. Until I figure out what I really want to do.”
“I see. Is this pizza joint around here?” I ask slyly. “Maybe I’ll stop in and order something. Give you a big tip.”
“Nuh-uh,” he says. “No way. So. What’s been going on with you?”
I put my chin in my hand and sigh. A lot’s been going on with me. I’m still in a kind of disbelieving shock over seeing Tucker. I’m also still obsessing over the idea that somewhere in the near future I’m going to have to use a sword—me, who’s never particularly thought of myself as the Buffy the Vampire Slayer type. Me, fighting. Possibly for my life, if my vision is any solid indication.
“That good, huh?” Jeffrey says, studying my face.
“It’s complicated.” I consider telling him about my training session yesterday, but I think better of it. Jeffrey has a sore spot when it comes to Dad. Instead I ask, “Do you still have visions?”
His smile vanishes. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
We stare each other down for a minute, me unwilling to let the subject drop so easily, him not wanting to go into it because he’s decided to ignore his visions. He’s not on God’s payroll anymore, is how he feels. Screw the visions. He still feels a pang of bone-deep guilt every time he thinks about his last vision, which didn’t turn out so well.
But deep down he also does want to talk about it.
He finally looks away. “Sometimes,” he admits. “They’re useless, though. They never make sense. They just tell you things you don’t understand.”
“Like what?” I ask. “What do you see?”
He readjusts his baseball cap. His eyes get distant, like he’s seeing his vision happening in front of him. “I see water, lots of it, like a lake or something. I see somebody falling, out of the sky. And I see …” His mouth twists. “Like I said, I don’t want to talk about it. Visions only get you in trouble. Last time I saw myself starting a forest fire. You tell me how that’s any kind of divine message.”
“But you were brave, Jeffrey,” I say. “You proved yourself. You had to decide whether to trust your visions, whether to trust the plan, and you did. You were faithful.”
He shakes his head. “And what did it get me? What did I become?”
A fugitive, he thinks. A high school dropout. A loser.
I reach across the table and put my hand on his. “I’m sorry, Jeffrey. I’m really, really, ridiculously sorry, for everything.”
He pulls his hand away, coughs. “It’s fine, Clara. I don’t blame you.”
This is news, since the last time I checked, he was all about blaming me.
“I blame God,” he says. “If there even is such a thing. Sometimes I feel like we’re all chumps, doing stuff from these visions just because somebody told us to, in the name of a deity we’ve never even met. Maybe the visions have nothing to do with God, and we’re just seeing the future. Maybe we’re all just perpetuating the myth.”
“You can mess with time, huh?” he says, rubbing his neck. “Think you could go back about five minutes and warn me about dropping the bucket of horseshoes? I think I might have busted one of my toes.”
“I can fix it,” I say automatically, stepping forward.
He takes a quick step back, puts a hand up to stop me. “With your glory thing? No, thanks. That always makes me want to puke.”
It hurts, him saying that. It makes me feel like a freak.
So he’s decided to go with the old reliable Tucker-the-jerk routine. And what I extra-triple-hate about this is that I know he’s not a jerk, not even a little bit of a jerk, but he’s putting on his jerk hat special for me because I’ve hurt him, and because he wants to keep me at a distance, and because it makes him angry to see me here.
“So you were trying to get back home to California,” he says, putting a heavy emphasis on the words home and California. “And you ended up here. How’d that happen?”
I meet his eyes, and there’s a question in them that’s different from the one he asked.
“Bad luck, I guess,” I answer.
He nods, bends to pick up the scattered horseshoes at his feet, then straightens. “Are you going to stay out here all night?” he asks, the very definition of surly. “Because I have chores to do.”
“Oh, by all means, don’t let me keep you from your chores,” I retort.
“Horse stalls won’t muck themselves.” He grabs a shovel and offers it to me. “Unless it’d make your little heart go pitter-pat to get to work on a real-live working ranch.”
“No, thanks,” I say, stung that he’d treat me like a city slicker after everything. I feel a flash of despair. Then anger. This is not how I imagined it would be, seeing him again. He’s making it difficult on purpose.
Fine, I think. If that’s how he wants it.
“I can go right now,” I say, “but to do that I’ll have to use glory, so you might want to step outside for a minute. I’d hate to make you puke all over your nice boots.”
“Okay,” he says. “Don’t trip on your way out.”
“Oh, I won’t,” I say, because I can’t think of a witty comeback, and I wait until he slips out of the barn before I summon glory and will myself anywhere but here.
6
HOOKING UP
One thing’s for certain: my brother can eat. It’s like he has a hollow leg, and all that food gets crammed in there: four pancakes now, three scrambled eggs, hash browns, a side of wheat toast, three strips of bacon, three links of sausage, and a pitcher of orange juice. I’m feeling kind of sick to my stomach just watching him.
“What?” he says when he catches me staring. “I’m hungry.”
“Clearly.”
“This is good. All I ever get to eat these days is pizza.”
Ah, a Jeffrey tidbit. That’s what this breakfast is all about. Crumbs that he occasionally throws me. Clues. From which I am piecing together a picture of his life.
“Pizza?” I say all nonchalant. “What’s up with pizza?”
“I work at a pizza joint.” He pours more syrup on his final pancake. “That smell gets into everything.” He leans forward like he wants me to sniff him. I do, and sure enough, I get a definite whiff of mozzarella and tomato sauce.
“What do you do there?”
He shrugs. “Run the cash register. Bus tables. Take phone orders. Make pizza, sometimes, if we’re short a cook. Whatever needs to be done. It’s a temporary gig. Until I figure out what I really want to do.”
“I see. Is this pizza joint around here?” I ask slyly. “Maybe I’ll stop in and order something. Give you a big tip.”
“Nuh-uh,” he says. “No way. So. What’s been going on with you?”
I put my chin in my hand and sigh. A lot’s been going on with me. I’m still in a kind of disbelieving shock over seeing Tucker. I’m also still obsessing over the idea that somewhere in the near future I’m going to have to use a sword—me, who’s never particularly thought of myself as the Buffy the Vampire Slayer type. Me, fighting. Possibly for my life, if my vision is any solid indication.
“That good, huh?” Jeffrey says, studying my face.
“It’s complicated.” I consider telling him about my training session yesterday, but I think better of it. Jeffrey has a sore spot when it comes to Dad. Instead I ask, “Do you still have visions?”
His smile vanishes. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
We stare each other down for a minute, me unwilling to let the subject drop so easily, him not wanting to go into it because he’s decided to ignore his visions. He’s not on God’s payroll anymore, is how he feels. Screw the visions. He still feels a pang of bone-deep guilt every time he thinks about his last vision, which didn’t turn out so well.
But deep down he also does want to talk about it.
He finally looks away. “Sometimes,” he admits. “They’re useless, though. They never make sense. They just tell you things you don’t understand.”
“Like what?” I ask. “What do you see?”
He readjusts his baseball cap. His eyes get distant, like he’s seeing his vision happening in front of him. “I see water, lots of it, like a lake or something. I see somebody falling, out of the sky. And I see …” His mouth twists. “Like I said, I don’t want to talk about it. Visions only get you in trouble. Last time I saw myself starting a forest fire. You tell me how that’s any kind of divine message.”
“But you were brave, Jeffrey,” I say. “You proved yourself. You had to decide whether to trust your visions, whether to trust the plan, and you did. You were faithful.”
He shakes his head. “And what did it get me? What did I become?”
A fugitive, he thinks. A high school dropout. A loser.
I reach across the table and put my hand on his. “I’m sorry, Jeffrey. I’m really, really, ridiculously sorry, for everything.”
He pulls his hand away, coughs. “It’s fine, Clara. I don’t blame you.”
This is news, since the last time I checked, he was all about blaming me.
“I blame God,” he says. “If there even is such a thing. Sometimes I feel like we’re all chumps, doing stuff from these visions just because somebody told us to, in the name of a deity we’ve never even met. Maybe the visions have nothing to do with God, and we’re just seeing the future. Maybe we’re all just perpetuating the myth.”
