excerpt -touching smoke chapter one
“What’s the matter?” Mom honed in on my mood before I even realized I was
chewing anxiously on my thumbnail.
“Nothing.” I quickly wiped the spit off on my jeans
and stuffed my hands into my lap. My torn and bloody thumbnail glared up at me,
a sick mockery of my lie.
“Fallon…” The warning tone was in effect.
“Nothing.”
It was a risk telling Mom when something was wrong.
Her tendency to overreact was legendary. I spent a great deal of time and
effort practicing to lie convincingly.
“Don’t lie to me.” But even practice didn’t help
sometimes.
I gave my head a shake, fixing my attention out the
passenger side window in clear avoidance. Pale sunlight splashed over blooming
treetops. The golden rays spilled through the knotted branches in splinters
that lay broken across the forest floor. Birds flittered from tree-to-tree; I
could hear their elated chirping over the Rust-Bucket’s roaring engine.
“Fallon!” My mom seemed to think that the more she
said my name in that I’m-your-mother-and-you’ll-answer-when-I-ask-you-something
tone, I’d cave.
Usually, it worked. I may have been sixteen, but I
feared my mother’s wrath like nothing else. She knew every one of my buttons
and played them with skilled precision, like a maestro before an audience.
“It’s nothing!” I insisted, already knowing even
before the words were out that she wouldn’t believe me.
“Okay.” Her sigh resounded of feigned remorse, as if
she really didn’t want to have to do it and it hurt her more than it would hurt
me — as if I believed that. Her hand wandered off the steering wheel and inched
towards the radio.
I caved faster than a house of poorly placed cards in
the wind. There was nothing worse than country music, and not just any country
music, the old western kind that only played when you’re in the middle of
nowhere and only two stations worked on the radio: ancient western and some guy
ranting about the end of the world and demons.
Give me the crazy guy any day. Unfortunately, he only
came out at nights, when he knew he could give you nightmares.
“Okay! Fine!” I grabbed her wrist before she could
touch the knob. “I’ll talk!” I would have made a lousy spy. If I were ever
captured, all the bad guy would have to do is threaten me with country music
and I’d sing like a canary.
She didn’t actually smirk — my mother didn’t do that —
but there was a satisfied tilt to her lips as she sat back and waited patiently
for me to begin.
I faltered in my explanation. Every thread I grabbed
proved to be the wrong way to start. My jumbled emotion kept knotting up inside
me like yarn, tying up my tongue, making every attempt to speak impossible. Mom
never interrupted me. Maybe because she knew how hard it was for me to talk
about things I didn’t understand myself. I knew she would sit there, for hours
if she had to, waiting, never breaking my concentration, until I was ready to
speak just so long as I told her, she would wait.
“I had another dream,” I finally said, staring down at
my lap as if the rest of my courage was somehow sitting there, waiting to be
plucked up. But the only thing there was my hands, clenched together between my
jean-clad thighs. Sweat squished between my palms. I wiped them on my jeans.
“What was it about?” she asked, casual with a tense
undertone she was failing miserably to conceal.
Her knuckles blistered white around the steering wheel
and there were slight pinch lines on either side of her lips. She stared with
such fierce determination out the windshield that I half expected there to be
scorch marks on the glass.
Mom was very pretty, much like those old black and
white movie starlets they showed every so often on basic TV. She had beautiful
cinnamon-colored hair that was naturally wavy when she didn’t cut it
pixie-style and it always carried the lingering scent of citrus from her
shampoo. She also had beautiful hooded, viridian-green eyes that seemed to
always be shimmering like sunlight over a lake. Her complexion wasn’t as pale
as mine was, but porcelain, and she was willowy, not gangly like me, but…
graceful, like a dancer. No one ever believed Erin Braeden was my mother. We
were as different as night and day physically. My hair was thicker, curler and
the ripe shade of blackberries and it hung to my waist. It also had a life of
its own, constantly creeping into my eyes when it was down, catching on things,
and when the wind blew through it, the whole thing was one giant birds nest. I
tried cutting it more than once, but it had a maddening way of growing back,
longer and thicker than before. I eventually gave up and kept it in a tight
braid down my back.
“Fallon?”
I averted my gaze. “I don’t remember.”
Liar, liar, pants on fire! But it
was either lie or tell her about Amalie. Lying was safer.
The dreams had begun six months before and I could
never remember more than a few seconds of it. It was always dark with flashes
of light, like someone spinning around-and-around with a camera in a room full
of candles. Every so often, I would see a flicker of a hand holding a pen over
a faded journal, but the image would always dance away too quickly for me to
read what was written. There were only two instances where I actually caught a
glimpse of something tangible and both times, it was a name:
Amalie
Nicolette Dennison
I didn’t know who she was or why she kept popping into
my dreams every night or why I would wake up in the morning, dizzy with the
salty scent of sea breeze hanging thick in the room, but I wished she would
stop. I wasn’t sure my brain could take anymore sleepless nights.
“Where are we going?” I asked, needing a change of
topic.
Thinking about Amalie always creeped me out and I
didn’t like it. I refused to believe that I was some pod for spiritual
communication as I’d heard it once called on a TV show somewhere in Alberta a
few months back. The whole show had been ridiculous. Spirits from the beyond
had better things to do than wander into the minds and dreams of the living.
Besides, Amalie hadn’t left me any subliminal messages or announced the name of
her killer — assuming she was murdered. She just kept trying to make me
nauseous with the spinning and the lights or she was trying to drive me crazy
from lack of sleep.
Honestly though, I blamed the whole thing on my mom.
Would it have killed her to spend one night somewhere that didn’t look haunted?
It was no wonder I was getting crazy dreams. My subconscious was begging for a
hint of normalcy. But Mom wouldn’t see it that way.
“I was thinking we could just drive west for a while,”
she answered, rhythmically tapping her unpainted fingers on the worn leather of
the steering wheel in a way that meant she was in deep thought but was
answering because she believed children should always have an answer when they
ask a question, followed by, “What do you think?”
I thought I would like to head back to Nova Scotia,
rent an apartment and stay there. But that answer would only earn me a deep
sigh, a long speech about firsthand experiences, about how every teenager in
the world would have loved to be in my shoes and how I should enjoy it and
blah, blah, blah. I’d heard it all before.
So, instead, I replied dryly, “West — fun. Nothing
there we haven’t seen a million times before.”
Either she didn’t pick up on my sarcasm — which was
unlikely— or she chose to ignore it, which I was sure of, because nothing ever
passed over her head.
“Actually, there’s a school I called the other day—”
Reflexively, I groaned. “Not another one…” I was
ignored again.
“—they teach Latin and French.”
“Wow! Latin! That should come in handy oh… never!”
She spared me a glower from the corner of her eyes.
“You will like this one and it’s only for a little while!”
Every time our funds began to decrease, Mom would
stuff me in the most heavily guarded private school she could possibly find
while she worked herself silly earning more travel money. She claimed it was a
good opportunity for me to make new friends and learn something new. It also
gave her a chance to do what she needed to get done without having to worry
about leaving me alone in a motel. But what I never confessed to was that I
stopped trying to make new friends after leaving the fourth grade for the sixth
time in one year. I learned everything I needed to know from the mountain of
textbooks, worksheets and notes I carted around with me from all the schools I
had left behind over the years — and there were tons of those. The number was
mindboggling so I never kept count. But she always insisted.
“Can’t we just use the money dad left me?”
I knew it was useless to ask, even before she speared
me with a dark scowl. Mom never touched that money, except to pay for all the
high priced schools she thought I needed. I think it was her way of making it
up to me for missing out so much of my childhood to the open highway. Not that
being stuck behind towering walls and iron gates was any better and I was sure
dad would have told her so as well, had he not died when I was four.
“That money is for you to start your own life one
day.”
One day. I knew my dad would have wanted Mom to use
the money instead of working herself to death, but Mom refused to touch a penny
of it in any way that didn’t involve my education.
“How long are we staying there?” I sighed heavily.
Mom shrugged. “I don’t know yet.” In other words,
until she had enough cash to keep us afloat for a few months. That could be
anywhere from three to six months.
Well, maybe it would be different this time. Maybe
Amalie would behave for once. Maybe she’d go away. I believed that nearly as
much as I believed the sleek, black motorcycle racing to catch our fender was
on its way to rescue me.
The sun gleamed off the rider’s black helmet, and as I
watched, he raised a hand and gave me a two-fingered salute.
My lips twitched, and I raised a hand and waved back
through the side mirror. Deep down, I stifled the mindboggling pulse of
familiarity that warmed my chest. I didn’t know him, yet the pull was
unmistakable, as was the distinct sense of Déjà vu at seeing that exact bike a
few days ago at a gas stop in Nova Scotia, and then again periodically for as
long as I could recall, but always from a distance and always gone when I tried
to get a closer look.
I must have been waving for too long, because my
mother’s voice broke through my train of thought. “Fallon? What are you doing?”
I quickly stuffed my hand back between my thighs.
“Nothing.”
But Mom wasn’t fooled. She took one glance into the
rearview mirror and lost all coloring in her face. She cursed under her breath
and floored the gas pedal.
Somewhere on Highway 1 heading west, four sets of
jagged burn marks mar the asphalt where the Impala had all but ripped through
the concrete. Black smoke billowed, choking the clear sky with the stench of
burnt rubber. The motorcycle screeched, swerving under the attack. But where
most would have shaken a fist and thrown a few curse words, the rider righted
himself, leaned over his handlebars and sped up.
We were doing a hundred, and climbing. The needle
quivered as we accelerated to speeds the Rust-Bucket was not accustomed to; the
Impala groaned and shuddered, but kept pace.
“What’s going on?” I shrieked, partly out of soul
chilling terror, partly to be heard over the clashing roar of two engines
battling, one ours, the other the speeder behind us.
“Get down!” Mom shot back, hunched over the wheel,
eyes narrowed on the road.
I wasn’t given time to follow orders. I was thrown
back into my seat as the acceleration jumped nearly off the radar. I didn’t
even think the Rust-Bucket could go that fast.
“Hold on!”
Jagged gashes scarred the leather dash where I clawed,
forbearing, as I was smashed against the door. My skull ricocheted off the
glass with a sickening thud, sending a burst of light exploding before my eyes.
My spleen slammed into my ribs when mom suddenly hammered down on the brakes.
My heart had already taken shelter into my throat, thrashing like a captured
bird struggling for escape. I would have been panicked, but I was already
having trouble reminding my lungs to breathe and my brain not to explode.
The Rust-Bucket nearly flipped. For a split second,
that’s exactly what I was expecting, and in that second, my heart forgot to
beat. I watched, paralyzed from the brain down, as the car skid as though on
ice, rolling dangerously close to the ditch on the side of the road. The world
seemed to clash, swirling in smears of greens and blues. I might have screamed,
but even that seemed unlikely when I’d forgotten how.
Behind us, the motorcycle screeched, sounding like a
desperate cry before it swerved under the rider’s erratic attempts at trying to
miss the back end of the Impala. I was twisted in my seat before it even
registered that I was no longer frozen. The leather headrest tore under my
nails as I scrambled into the backseat, over duffle bags, blankets and fast
food wrappers to watch with crippling horror as the bike squealed once before
disappearing over the edge, into the ditch.
My soul screamed before the sound tore through the
soft tissues of my esophagus and exploded from my lips. Time screeched to a
halt. Everything froze, except the loud cracking of my heart and the bike,
doing a nosedive over the lip and crashing.
“No!”
“Fallon!” Only when my mother’s blunt nails peeled the
skin on my arm did I realize she’d stopped me from throwing myself out the
door.
I kept screaming. My sanity raged against reality. The
world spun and dipped. Flashed crimson. Everything roared, swallowing the
animal-like howls tearing through my lungs. I felt deranged, completely
unhinged, like someone losing something so utterly precious to them that the
very idea of living was unbearable. It was inconceivable. I wanted to die. I
wanted to throw myself out of the car and dive into the ditch and… and what?
What was wrong with me?
“Fallon? Fallon, calm down!” Although soothing, my
mom’s tone did nothing to calm the hysteria eating me up inside.
“Don’t leave him!” I pleaded, only just then realizing
I was sobbing like my heart would cease beating if I stopped. “Don’t leave him!
Please!”
“We have to go,” she said, still holding on to me as
she used her free hand to maneuver the Impala back onto the road.
“No!” I shrieked, renewing my thrashing, throwing
myself against the door. “Don’t leave him!”
But she didn’t stop, and I was taken away, away from
the other half of me.
About the Author
Airicka Phoenix is the author of TOUCHING SMOKE (Touch Series Book #1) and TORRID, a short story as part of the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Whispered-Beginnings-ebook/dp/B007X5KOHO">Whispered Beginnings: A Clever Fiction Anthology</a>. When she's not hammering away at the keyboard, she can be found banishing pirates or crawling through the attic looking for lost treasure with her kids. She loves baking, gardening and reading. She also likes to travel and take pictures of everything she comes across. When asked, Airicka describes herself as a sarcastic basket case that has an unhealthy addiction to chocolate, old movies and really bad jokes. She loves to laugh, make friends and write. If she could have one wish granted, it would be to spend one day as a fly-on-the-wall inside Stephen King's mind. If she could have two wishes granted, she would ask for a castle dedicated entirely to her overwhelming collection of books.
For more about Airicka, also on how to win giveaways, read author interviews and reviews, visit her website at: http://airickaphoenix.com/Author/?cat=10
You can add Airicka on any/all of her social networks. Making new friends is the highlight of her day!
Airicka Phoenix is the author of TOUCHING SMOKE (Touch Series Book #1) and TORRID, a short story as part of the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Whispered-Beginnings-ebook/dp/B007X5KOHO">Whispered Beginnings: A Clever Fiction Anthology</a>. When she's not hammering away at the keyboard, she can be found banishing pirates or crawling through the attic looking for lost treasure with her kids. She loves baking, gardening and reading. She also likes to travel and take pictures of everything she comes across. When asked, Airicka describes herself as a sarcastic basket case that has an unhealthy addiction to chocolate, old movies and really bad jokes. She loves to laugh, make friends and write. If she could have one wish granted, it would be to spend one day as a fly-on-the-wall inside Stephen King's mind. If she could have two wishes granted, she would ask for a castle dedicated entirely to her overwhelming collection of books.
For more about Airicka, also on how to win giveaways, read author interviews and reviews, visit her website at: http://airickaphoenix.com/Author/?cat=10
You can add Airicka on any/all of her social networks. Making new friends is the highlight of her day!
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