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EXCERPT
A THOUSAND YEARS LATER
Emily Mayhall stared out the window,
determined to ignore the letter. Below her, the Pacific
Ocean sparkled Caribbean-green in the
early afternoon sun. A stiff onshore breeze whipped whitecaps on the waves and
hungry pelicans dove for lunch, while the homeless of Venice Beach worked the
boardwalk. Or at least, what was left of it.
Most of them lived in the block-long
chasm that loomed in the distance; an area once known as Muscle Beach. Her team
had been the first on-scene after that chunk of coastline had vanished. Emily
shivered. It was one thing to chase disasters for a living. It was another when
they happened in your own backyard.
In spite of her intentions, Emily’s gaze
drifted to the registered letter that mocked her from its perch amid the
clutter on the counter. It had been there all week and at the postal store
before that. Sighing, she decided she had suffered long enough. Opening it
couldn’t be worse than imagining what misery it might bring.
Rising from the overstuffed armchair,
she crossed to the counter and lifted the official-looking envelope in the air.
For the umpteenth time, she gazed at it intently, trying to divine the message
within.
As usual, Emily divined nothing.
It grated that she’d thrown away
precious dollars to develop a sensing ability Shalane had insisted she
possessed. That she had listened to the shaman in the first place was part of
the rub. Regaining the self-esteem her mother’s tongue had taken from her was
difficult enough. Avoiding others with the same agenda was harder still. On the
surface, they looked like everyone else.
Emily eyed the letter. If it was a debt
that hadn’t been listed in her already-discharged bankruptcy, the creditor was
up shits creek. That’s what her Canadian friend would say if Emily were to
solicit her advice. Of course, she hadn’t. And couldn’t. Not without giving her
new identity away.
Dismissing the guilt, Emily ripped open
the envelope and searched the solitary sheet of linen for an unpaid balance
due. There were no numbers, just a request to contact the office of Mitchell
Albom Wainwright III Esquire, whose address was in Atlanta, Georgia. The letter
was dated January 11, 2042, more than a month ago. What did Mitchell Albom
Wainwright the Third want?
She folded the paper, stuffed it back in
the envelope, and tossed it on the counter. Outside, the surf broke over the
jetty, sending spray dancing high against the blue sky.
The wave washed inland and surged back toward
the sea, stirring a need in Emily that was palpable. It was a crystal-clear day
and she could think of no better cure for the fear that plagued her. She needed
to run.
Fishing sunglasses and her lone key from
the bottom of her purse, she stopped to hug Ralph. He mewed and blinked sleepy
amber eyes, pretending to be annoyed. His purring told her otherwise. She
planted a kiss on the spot between his cheek and ear.
“Bye, Ralphy. I’m going for a run.”
He yawned and stretched on the back of
the armchair, then set about licking the fur she had mussed. He was OCD like
that, a compulsive washer. The two of them made a fine pair.
Scanning the tiny apartment, Emily dug
beneath papers to retrieve a worn headband. Only a few boxes dotted the floor
of the three rooms. The furniture was gone except for the bed and armchair. The
maintenance guy had promised to take those.
“Back soon, Raf-feller!” Emily called as
she turned the two bottom locks and the deadbolt.
A damp wind greeted her, lifting curls
the color of crimson and gold, and with them, Emily’s spirits. Inhaling deeply,
she savored the briny tang of the ocean air.
An aging gull landed on the railing
beside her, mewing as if greeting an old friend. Another swooped down and
started a ruckus, no doubt sensing a mark in the making. Disappointed when
Emily had nothing for them to eat, they raced to the beach screaming challenges
at one another before continuing the search for a handout.
Smiling at their antics, she braced her
hands on the low stucco wall and leaned against it to rise on tippy-toes,
stretching her calves. A long, high whistle shrilled from the nearby Bottle
Brush tree. Amid its fluffy red blooms, a parrot mimicked Emily’s movements,
yellow head bobbing up and down.
She placed her foot midway up the wall,
leaned into a thigh stretch, and squatted before stretching her abdominal
muscles. The entire warm-up took only a minute, just long enough for more
parrots to join her audience.
“Hello lovelies,” Emily called to the
chattering birds. She zipped her jacket and fixed the headband over ears too
sensitive to endure the Santa Ana winds.
Fingering the Taser in her jacket
pocket, she said a silent prayer she wouldn’t need to use it and dashed down
the three flights of stairs to the street. Turning away from the beach, Emily
jogged a short block to Pacific Avenue and followed it to the park.
She was sweating by the time she entered
the gates, but the cursed letter dogged her, attached to her psyche by a thread
of her own weaving. Determined to outrun it, she increased her pace, counting
to sync her breath to her stride, “One, two, three, four. Five, six, seven,
eight—”
Her toe caught on a lifted corner of
sidewalk. Quick reflexes and cat-like agility kept Emily on her feet, but she
chomped down hard on her bottom lip, drawing blood. Crying out in pain and
frustration that had nothing and everything to do with biting her lip, she ran
even faster.
Though buckled and broken by myriad
quakes, the neighborhood survived, unrepaired by a government that had run out
of money and leadership long ago. Emily spat the blood in the sand beside the
trail.
“Budget cuts, my ass.” It was the
bullshit reason they’d given for firing her. But it was really because Emily
had identified a pattern in the chaos. No sooner had she shared her theory with
her boss than she’d been out on her ass with barely a severance package to show
for her years of service.
But not before Cyclone Charlotte
literally ripped her fiancé from her arms. Emily pressed her tongue against her
jagged lip, not wanting to think about Trey. He had saved her life, but it had
cost him his.
“Think of the government. Think about
Chester. Be mad, goddammit!” Her ex-boss, ex-friend, and one-time lover had
sold Emily out. His betrayal wasn’t limited to her dismissal, either. Chester
made sure Emily would never work again by having her blacklisted.
She zigged around a barrier and caught a
flash of movement. Yanking the Taser from her pocket, Emily dropped to a
crouch, heart thudding. It turned out to be her favorite homeless lady, wearing
layers of warring colors. Emily relaxed.
The grinning Maude waved and threw her
head back in a cackle, revealing gums sporting nary a tooth. Pocketing her
weapon, Emily hailed the leather-faced woman and left the erstwhile actress
with a crumpled dollar bill.
A fresh gust of wind whipped the flags
overhead. They were stacked atop one another and lowered to half-mast. Who had
died? Keeping up with politics was a past-time Emily had never pursued. Or
politicians, either.
“Actors, now, are a different story,”
she muttered to herself, passing the building Caleb MacLaine had reclaimed. She
eyed the Einstein posit emblazoned on the side: “Imagination is More Important
than Knowledge.”
As a scientist, Emily had no trouble
with Einstein’s theories of motion and relativity, or even gravitational waves
and wormholes. But she couldn’t fathom how this maxim could possibly be true.
Seeking knowledge had been her lifelong pursuit.
At the Muscle Beach Chasm, she detoured
through an alley between two mansions. Riotous masses of coastal geraniums and
hot-pink bougainvillea spilled over every surface of the patio to her right.
On her left, coastal oaks trailed
Spanish moss. One had been given a whimsical face, complete with lips and nose.
She waved to the tree-man, grateful Venice Beach had mostly been spared.
Many coastal cities were wiped out
completely, leaving gaping sinkholes and putrid pits of ash and rubble and
dirty saltwater. Chunks of the California coastline had succumbed to the
advancing sea. Nearby Manhattan and Huntington Beaches were both gone, with a
million people lost and presumed dead.
Emily had worked those disasters and
consulted on others. Pre-Charlotte. Pre-Trey. She had participated in
recoveries around the globe, even led a few.
She’d been told she was bossy, but got
the job done, working longer and harder than most of her peers. Until six
months ago when she’d been handed her walking papers. She snorted with disgust.
She’d had her fill of studying disasters anyway.
Which really only meant Emily had lost
her nerve.
She cut across an eerily-vacant Bel Air
Avenue, fingers gripping the Taser in her pocket. Had more of the locals packed
up and left? Many wouldn’t, or couldn’t, in spite of the continued and constant
warnings.
Either they’d fooled themselves into
thinking the worst was over or prayed it wouldn’t happen to them. Shame stung
Emily, knowing she could be counted in their number.
At the precarious shortcut, she slowed
to pick her way through the debris to the beach, then jogged a while in the
shifting sand. All but the ocean and its wildlife faded. Gulls cavorted in the
crashing waves and pelicans dove for an afternoon meal. The salty spray soothed
Emily’s soul. The sun coaxed a smile to her lips.
Then the stench of old death assaulted
her senses and she stumbled and retched. Unable to not look, Emily bit back a
sob for the innocent sea lion rotting on the beach, even as her
rapidly-sorting, cataloging brain compared the reek of old death to the
shambles of her life at the present.
“Shut up, dammit,” she cried in anguish.
Keeping an eye out for obstacles, she
settled into a blistering pace, anxious to escape both life and death. It was
something Emily pondered a lot—escape. Change your name, use cash, stay off the
grid. With a new identity and tricks her mother had perfected, even a novice
could disappear.
So, reeling from Trey’s death and
Shalane’s unwanted advances, Emily had assumed a new identity. One taken from
the ledger in her mother’s box. She had chosen the first name on a long list of
aliases they used over the years, and Ebby Panera became Emily Mayhall.
But she wasn’t her mother and living
this way felt wrong. On New Year’s Eve, alone and lonely, Emily had resolved to
find her true self and to be it no matter what. So far, she hadn’t a clue what
that was.
Unease stirred in the pit of her
stomach. She glanced over both shoulders and detoured inland. Unbidden, a
puzzle she’d been pondering earlier snicked into place. Her mother’s box, the
registered letter, and the recurring dreams were all connected. They had to be.
The day she’d signed for the registered
letter, Emily had tossed it on the counter unopened. But a compulsion to
retrieve her mother’s wooden box from its hiding place had seized her and
wouldn’t let go.
She had fallen asleep leafing through a
remarkably-preserved papyrus tome contained within. Delicate hand-drawings of
dragons, birds, and animals, along with maps of places that no longer existed
filled the pages in a flowing, lacy hand. The language was so cryptic Emily had
yet to discover its origins. Not that she had tried very hard.
Upon falling asleep that night, the
dreams had come in fits and spurts so urgent Emily woke in a sweat. Each time
she had fallen back asleep, the dreams continued.
In every dream, she was a druid
priestess in times gone by, fighting to save the life of one man. A royal who
would be both her destiny and downfall. An unknowing diverter of disasters.
Clearing the last line of beach
cottages, Emily faltered when a curtain of sand pelted her face. Sputtering,
she brushed the grit away, along with the haunting dreams, the box, and the
letter. She would think about those later.
She pounded the boardwalk, lungs
laboring, and avoided the eyes of the few locals who scurried to let her pass.
In the distance, her destination bobbed into view. Battered and shorter than
its original length, the Venice Pier jutted reassuringly into the agitated sea.
Pumping harder, she ignored the pain
that pierced her side and rounded the point. A woman with blond, flyaway hair
appeared in her path. Unable to stop or even slow down, Emily plowed into her,
ears assaulted by a sharp squeal as they tumbled to the ground. Fire shot up
Emily’s forearm as her palms bore the brunt of her fall.
Beneath her groaned a female version of
the Pillsbury Dough Boy, eyes clenched tight. Fear turned Emily’s innards to
liquid and her adrenaline spiked. Leaping to her feet, she dashed away pulling
her hood over her head.
Of all the french-fried luck. The woman
she had bowled over was none other than her stalker, Shalane Carpenter. Shaman,
sorceress, evangelist, creep.
“Come back, you fucking lunatic!”
Shalane screeched after Emily. “Come back here, you—” Wind and distance garbled
the rest.
Emily sped for the cover of the decrepit
pier, praying Shalane hadn’t seen her face. When the path dumped her on the far
side of the jetty, she bent to gulp air, lungs blazing. On legs of rubber, and
guts threatening to hurl, she sidled to a bench and doubled over in pain.
“I think I ruptured something,” she
gasped.
An unkempt veteran leapt from the bench,
accusing eyes frantic beneath black, bushy brows. He backed away quickly,
putting several cracked spans of concrete between them.
If Emily could have laughed, she would
have. Instead she sucked in air and fought to keep from losing her meager
lunch. She collapsed on the seat the homeless man had vacated and tucked
chilled hands beneath sweaty armpits. Soon the fuzziness faded from her sight
and she no longer felt like puking.
When there was still no sign of Shalane,
Emily told herself the run-in was coincidental. The shaman hadn’t known it was
her.
Though far from convinced, a satisfied
sigh escaped Emily’s lips. The jog might have brought her close to discovery,
but it had eased the unbearable tension building in her chest since the dreams
began.
Slouching low, Emily stared at the sea.
Waves broke angry against the reef a hundred yards out, whipped to a frenzy by
yet another storm brewing in the Pacific Ocean. Swells upward of ten feet
slapped the underside of the pier before rushing to the beach. Onlookers
gathered to watch a pair in wetsuits battle the big surf.
Emily dug a fist into her side and
groaned when the letter popped in her head.
“Go away!” she demanded, wishing her
brain would obey.
It wasn’t like Emily had any credit left
to ruin. Not after losing her job and the resultant bankruptcy. She had a
little cash from the sale of her stuff. But come Friday it was official—she
would be out on the street with no job, no home, and nowhere to go.
And now, in spite of all her many
precautions, Emily’s stalker likely knew her whereabouts. She swiveled to
search both ends of the boardwalk. No Shalane.
But her relief was short-lived. The
deeper, primitive ache of destitution twisted Emily’s gut. She wrapped her arms
around her scuffed knees and buried her face, willing the dam not to break. If
it did, the tears might never stop.
“Ahhh-wen.” At
the edge of awareness, a musical voice crooned the name from Emily’s dreams.
Her head jerked up, startling a gull
that was picking through a metal waste can. On a shriek, it took flight and
wheeled toward the sea. Shivers danced along the nape of Emily’s neck. Who else
knew about Awen?
The number of surfers and spectators was
growing, but no likely culprits there. Maybe it was a snatch of a song on the
salt-laced breeze. Or was Emily hearing things, on top of everything else?
“Stay in the moment,” she muttered with
a calm she didn’t feel. “Now is all that matters. Those people are okay. That
gull is okay. That homeless man is okay. Shalane didn’t see you, so you’re
okay, too. Now quit the waterworks and stop freaking.”
In defiance, her mind conjured the aqua
clunker Emily had purchased after the bank repossessed her sexy little coupe.
Tears blurred her vision and Emily rubbed her face briskly in her hands. The
salt-eaten sedan had a large back seat. Which was good, considering her
collision put the kibosh on her plan to seek refuge at the Venice Mission.
Replaying the crash in her head, Emily
had to grin. It’d felt good to deck that sadistic bitch, even if by accident.
Only now she would have to get away from here, money or no money. And as Emily
Mayhall, she didn’t know a soul. Not here or anywhere else.
A long-forgotten scent jolted her
awareness and was gone before Emily could give it a name.
“Ahhh-wen.” More
thought than sound, the druid moniker tickled her inner ear. Baffled, she stood
to search the boardwalk, the beach, and the sea.
A new and different foreboding crept
upon her, more disturbing than Shalane or homelessness. Like molten metal, it
trickled slowly down Emily’s spine and spread through her body, triggering her
instinct to run.
