Nineteen

Sarah thought for a moment. "So . . . what is my destiny?"

"No one knows. That's what makes it so hard. Well, God knows, but he's not telling. I'm not running around like some superhero trying to save the world, but I do believe that if I see something that I have the power to change, then I am a part of that person's destiny."

"So how many times have you done this?" she asked.

"Well . . ." He turned his face away from her. "This is the first."

She laughed. "What? You've never done this before?" She ran around him so that she could look into his face. "I'm your guinea pig? Your test subject? That's just great!"

She walked off from him, her arms folded, looking out over the ocean. "Sarah," he called after her, "It's not like that!"

"Okay," she said. "So then what is it like?"

She almost felt sorry for him, he looked so unhappy, but this was her life he was messing with. What if he was changing her destiny? What if he had already changed it? What if . . . what if he'd been messing with her life for years?

"I work in the library. I'm a librarian, for God's sake." He stopped. "Ha! 'For God's sake!' That's funny. And true, come to think of it." She pulled at his sleeve.

"Continue!"

"Right. Well, I'm a librarian. Can you imagine how boring that can be? I love books, and I love history and, of course, memory, but there's not a lot of excitement. Not that I really want excitement, per se, but . . . No, it's not exitement that I wanted, but the chance to make a difference in someone's life. I had the idea of the Dead Letter Office, and that really didn't work out very well. I kept reading your letters and worrying that instead of making things better, I was making you feel worse, but I couldn't figure out a way to fix it."

"So you came down to try."

"So I came down to try." He looked at her. "I'm sorry, Sarah."

He looked so sad. "No, don't be sorry. It's okay. It just takes some getting used to." Her forehead creased as she thought. "It is . . . is destiny like those time travel stories? Where somebody goes back in time and steps out of the time machine and falls off the path and steps on a butterfly? And the butterfly was, I don't know, destined to be supper for some lizard, and the lizard was--" He opened his mouth to interrupt her, but she held out her hand. "Let me finish, okay? I want to think about this."

They were passing the stone benches at the edge of the public beach, and she dropped onto one of them and squeezed her head between her hands. "It makes my brain hurt!" she said.

She continued. "Okay, so the lizard that would have eaten the butterfly was destined to be eaten by . . . I don't know. Something bigger than a lizard. I know--a monkey! Oh! So the butterfly would have been eaten by the lizard and the lizard would have been eaten by the monkey, and the monkey would have, what, evolved into my grandfather or something? And then I would never have been born." She grinned up at him. "I guess not, huh?"

"No," he laughed, "You can't go back in time and change things. You can't go back in time, period. Or forward, for that matter."

"Oh, so time travel is impossible, but it's okay for angels to come down from Heaven and have dinner with me?"

"What's wrong with that?"

"Ooooh, nothing." She shook her head. "Talk to me some more about destiny. Was it James' destiny to die in that accident? And Gabrielle's destiny to die before she was born?"

"Whatever your destiny is," he said, "you fulfill it. That's the point."

"So . . ." She was squeezing her head again. "So, is it pre-written, is it destined, or do we have free will to make things happen?"

"Both, I think."

"Both? How can it be both?"

"Well, look at it this way. You do have the power to do whatever you want to do, right? You can go to school and learn a trade, you can sit down and write a book, you can train yourself to run a marathon. You can be driving down the street and see a car coming, and rather than step off the sidewalk, you wait until the car drives past. If you do step off the sidewalk and get run over by the car before you get the book written, or before you run the marathon, then that--getting run over--was your destiny, rather than what you had planned on doing."

"But--"

"Don't you see what I mean?" He knelt down in front of her. "If, say, you're destined to write the Great American Novel, but all you do is sit in front of the television set drinking beer and eating potato chips . . . ah. Well, yes, I see what you're asking. If that--writing the book--was your destiny, it doesn't get fulfilled, is that what you mean? That if you're destined to write the book, but step off the curb too soon, then your destiny didn't get fulfilled. Right?"

"Right! Or maybe your destiny was to step off the curb and get run over so that you didn't write the Great American Novel, leaving that slot for someone else who hasn't been born yet."

"Yes, maybe so." He stood up and took her hand and they started walking again.

She looked up at him. "Do you think it was my destiny to meet you?"

"It would have to be, wouldn't it?"

"Do you swear you've never done this before? That I'm the first?"

"I swear."

* * *

They walked to Sarah's house, went inside and fed Dinah and petted her, then took Sarah's car and drove to one of her favorite restaurants, a seafood place on the bay. The tables were wooden picnic tables with paper towel holders bolted to the ends--those were the napkins--and several of the entreés were presented in galvanized steel tubs. They chose things that came on plates, though, and sat outside on the deck, where they watched several boats glide quietly in and pick up to-go orders directly off the dock.

Sarah sat and looked up at the Christmas lights twinkling around the restaurant's windows. She was full of wonderful seafood and slightly tipsy, not only from the Margarita she'd had with dinner, but from the conversation and from being with Zach. She thought this might have been close to a perfect day. Well, she thought suddenly, apart from nearly being choked to death by suggestion this morning. If you discounted that, it had been a wonderful day.

She supposed she should call Cate and be sure that everything went okay at the store, be sure she had made the bank deposit and locked up and fed Sophie, but she was sure she had. Sarah wasn't worried about it. She wasn't worried about much of anything right now, she was feeling very warm and happy and dreamy . . .

She sat up with a start. She had been running her finger around the top of her glass, making it squeak, and smiling across the table at Zach. He was talking about destiny again, but she wasn't really listening to the words, just watching his lips move and enjoying the timbre of his voice. But she thought she saw . . .

Yes! The "windows" of the restaurant didn't actually have glass in them--there were shutters to pull down when the weather was bad or when the restaurant was closed--but they did have screens, so it was a little difficult to see inside. But she was sure that the man striding through the restaurant toward them was the same man who had threatened her at the store this morning.

"Zach!" She reached across the table and caught his wrist. "It's the guy from the store," she said, just as the blond man walked through the door onto the deck.

He didn't say anything, but simply stood over them, oozing menace. Oh, shit, Sarah thought, please, God, don't let anything happen to Zach. Not now.

Zach pushed his chair back and stood. "Yurkemi. I thought it might be you."

Yurkemi, if that was his name, ignored Zach and stared at Sarah. "Your friend at the bookshop said I might find you here."

Sarah's blood went cold. "Did you hurt her?"

"Of course not!" he said, and smiled. "But I did have to get her attention."

This guy might have seen a few too many gangster movies, but he definitely had the menace part down pat. He put his hand on Sarah's shoulder and she cringed away from his touch.

"Yurkemi," Zach said, and Sarah was surprised at the coldness of his voice. "Don't touch her."

"Why not, Zachriel? Is she yours?" Yurkemi smiled, and as he did, he squeezed her shoulder until she cried out in pain, then he lifted his hand, spreading his arms as if in surrender. "Fine, fine, whatever you say!"

The bartender had called over someone who must have been the restaurant manager, and Sarah could see them conferring over the bar. The manager turned and came out to the deck. "Is there a problem here?"

Zach answered him, "No, no problem. This gentleman just came in to say hello, and he's leaving now."

Yurkemi gave them that slow smile again, and Sarah shivered. "Yes, I was just leaving. I'll see you outside, Zachriel." He turned and walked away, and the manager turned to Zach. "Everything okay?" "Yes," Zach answered. "Everything's just fine, thank you."

"Zach!" After the manager walked away, Sarah leaned across the table to Zach and whispered, albeit a stage-whisper. "What are we going to do?"

Zachriel gazed out the window toward the parking lot, where Yurkemi was now standing, his hands in his overcoat pockets, staring back at them. "I don't know. I guess I go out there and find out what he has in mind."

"You can't!"

"Sarah, I can't not. It's like, I don't know, your boss saying he wants to have a meeting with you. You can only avoid it so long."

"Well then, let's avoid it for awhile anyway."

He barked a short laugh. "How?"

"Well, he obviously had to have help to find us, right? He said he found out where we were from Cate, who knew this was one of my favorite restaurants. How come he can't just find you, like you found me?"

"I don't know for sure, but I think it must have to do with the emotional bond--I felt like I knew you before I came, I'd been thinking about you a lot . . . I'm not sure Yurkemi is capable of that kind of emotional bond. Anyway, down here he's just like anyone else. He has to use persuasion to get what he wants, he can't just find me by some kind of mental telepathy."

"Then let's hide from him. Please, Zach."

"But how? We can't exactly just walk away, and he'll see us when we walk to your car."

"I know somebody that works here. I haven't seen her tonight, but she might be here--if she is, maybe she'd let me borrow her car. Let me try, okay?" She was pleading, she knew, but she had a bad feeling about Yurkemi. If they walked out in plain site, who knew what he would do? She didn't think she could bear to lose Zach now, when she had just found him. Well, she supposed he had found her, but the result was the same. She was growing attached to him. Well, worse than that--she supposed she was falling in love with him.

"Sure, give it a try." Zach slumped back in his chair, still looking out the window at Yurkemi in the parking lot.

Sarah got up and walked over to the bartender. "Is Rosemary working tonight?" she asked.

"She's working the late shift. I think she just came in." He inclined his head toward the kitchen.

"Thanks!" she said, and walked through the kitchen door.

She spotted Rosemary, a tall brunette, instantly. She was standing just inside the door, stuffing her order into her back jeans pocket. "Sarah! Hey, how are you?"

"Good. Listen, Rose, I really hate this, but a friend and I are in kind of a jam. Could I ask you an enormous favor?"

"Sure, kiddo. What do you need?" Sarah and Rosemary had met soon after Sarah moved to Sarasota. Trying to meet a few people and establish herself in town, Sarah had taken a ceramics class at the local college, a "community education" class, not for college credit--which turned out to be a good thing, since Sarah was abysmally bad at it. Rosemary, however, was good. So good, in fact, that she had sold a few pieces. She didn't sell enough to support herself yet, though, hence the waitress job.

"I need your car."

Rosemary raised her eyebrows.

"I'll leave you mine," Sarah said. "Please? I'll be careful, and I'll call you and explain everything, okay?"

Rosemary reached into her pocket and produced her keyring. She started to hand the whole thing over, then reconsidered and worked just the car key off the ring. Sarah did the same with her keyring, and they each held out their keys. "You promise you'll call?" Rosemary asked, holding on to the key, waiting for the answer.

"I promise," Sarah said. "Deal?"

"Deal."

* * *

Sarah made a "come on" motion to Zach, and he stood up, dropped some bills on the table, and walked over to her. "Let's hurry," she said, and led him through the kitchen to the restaurant's back door. She opened the door, peered out, and not seeing Yurkemi anywhere around, she sprinted to Rosemary's Taurus, unlocked the door, and slid in. "Come on!" she hissed at Zach. He ran around to the passenger side, opened the door, and got in beside her. "Fasten your seatbelt!" she said, and hit the gas.

* * *

She kept looking in the rearview mirror as she drove; she wasn't sure what she expected to see--Yurkemi flying down the highway behind them? She supposed he could steal a car, but could he drive? Or he could kidnap someone and make them drive.

"Zach?"

"Hm?" Zach was leaning against the passenger door, looking like he might fall asleep. Sarah didn't think he was going to go to sleep, but she figured he was probably pretty unhappy right about now. Things weren't going too well.

"Would Yurkemi hurt anybody? Like Cate, or Rosemary? Or the Grahams?"

"I don't think so. He might pressure them to tell him what he wants to know, but I don't think he would actually hurt them. Although, who knows? He's certainly not the most stable angel I've ever known. He could, I suppose, although I think the only one he wants to hurt is me. I hope he wouldn't hurt anyone else to get to me." He paused, and turned to look at her. "I feel funny running away from him."

"We're not running away! We're just . . . getting some breathing room to figure out what to do."

"So have you figured it out yet?"

"Hey, give me some time. We only stole this car a half hour ago."

She thought that might make him smile, but he just leaned his head against the door again and closed his eyes.

A half hour later, she exclaimed, "Damn!" His eyes flew open and he sat up straight.

"What?!"

"My cell phone." She could visualize it lying in the middle of her desk at the shop. "I forgot it."

"What do you need it for?" he asked.

"I want to call Rosemary, see if everything's okay."

She drove for another fifteen minutes before she saw a rest area with a pay phone. She pulled off the highway and dug in her purse for change. "Just stay here, okay? I'll just be a few minutes." She ran to the phone and dialed the restaurant. "Philippi Creek," the voice on the other end answered. Sarah asked, "May I speak to Rosemary?"

She heard the receiver on the other end clatter onto a hard surface--the bar, she assumed--then the sound of people talking, but she only understood a word here and there. Finally, the phone was picked up, but it wasn't Rosemary. "Who were you waiting for?" the bartender asked. "Rosemary," Sarah said. "Oh yeah. Rosemary!" he shouted, and the receiver clattered again.

Sarah was about to give up when the phone was picked up again. "Hello?" Thank God. Sarah was beginning to fear that Rosemary had been the one who had been kidnapped. "Rosemary?" she asked. "This is Sarah, is everything okay?"

"This isn't Rosemary, hon. This is Norma. Rosemary took off awhile ago."

Shit, shit, shit. "Did she say where she was going?"

"Nope. All I know is, I have to cover her tables, and now I'm covering her phone calls, too."

"I'm sorry, Norma. Thank you," Sarah said, and hung up.

She'd been having a little fantasy of driving Zach to a motel that she knew about, right on the beach, and having a nice, quiet evening, just the two of them. She knew it was a fantasy--for one thing, he didn't seem to be in the mood for anything more than pouting, but this development threw that fantasy out the window.

"We have to go back!" she said when she reached the car. She jerked the door open. "Rosemary's gone, Yurkemi must have taken her! I can't believe I put her in danger like that!"

Zach put his hand on her arm and stopped her from starting the car. "Just wait a second. We can't do anything now--how will we find her? I can't believe Yurkemi would hurt her, he's probably just trying to scare us."

"Well, he's scaring me! We can't just let it go! I made her give me her car, I can't let anything bad happen to her!" Sarah was getting hysterical.

She took a deep breath.

"We can't do anything right now. I don't know how to find her, I wouldn't know where to start. It's late. I think we need to get some sleep. Couldn't we stop someplace, and then head back early in the morning?"

Huh. Maybe he'd been having the same fantasies. She thought about a clean, anonymous hotel room, smooth sheets, the windows open to the sound of the ocean, a room service breakfast in the morning . . .

But no. "Zach, we can't. We have to go back. We have to be sure she's okay."

"All right. You're right. I guess we have to try." He tightened his seat belt. "Let's go, then."

previous | index | next

© 2002 Willa G. Cline