Unfurl (The Ripple Trilogy) Read online

  UNFURL

  Book Three in the Ripple Series

  Cidney Swanson

  For Chris

  Copyright © 2012 by Cidney Swanson

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, character, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 978–0–9835621–4–6

  Chapter One

  * * *

  UNFURL

  · WILL ·

  It was her shoulders I missed most. Lame. I know. Even when we were together, it had been months since she’d worn those little tops girls have with no sleeves. But when I thought of Sam ‘til I could almost feel the ache of her not beside me, I remembered her shoulders. Not hidden and winter–pale. ‘Cause in my memory, in my dreams just before I woke up six thousand miles too far away, I saw Sam’s shoulders. Brown in the sun, arms pumping hard. And I’d see those bones—shoulder blades—and they’d look like tiny wing–buds. Nested, just waiting to unfurl.

  Man, I missed her.

  Chapter Two

  * * *

  CONTINENTAL DRIFT

  · SAM ·

  Just before midnight, I slipped outside. The house had grown intolerably hot. Plus I didn’t think I could face having to fake–smile with my sparkling apple cider flute raised high for the New Year’s count–down.

  I wanted Will.

  I wanted his kiss as the clock turned to midnight. I didn’t want him six–thousand miles away. Did the continents, I wondered, feel lonely for each other as they drifted apart eons ago? My heart hurt to imagine it.

  I tried to think what Will would be doing now. Probably sitting down for breakfast: croissants and coffee thick as mud. I pulled my sweater tighter around my shoulders and tried to find constellations while the countdown to the New Year began. Ten, nine—was that Cassiopeia? Eight, seven, six—that one had to be Orion. Five, four, three—could Will see Orion in France, or were the stars different there? Two—the tears began. One.

  Happy New Year.

  I miss you, Will.

  Chapter Three

  * * *

  GROUND HOG’S EVE

  · SAM ·

  After watching me mope around for the month of January, Sylvia insisted we throw a party.

  “Chrétien needs this,” she said, sitting on the edge of my bed. “You said he was having a hard time making friends.”

  “Christian,” I reminded her. “Gwyn says Chrétien sounded like ‘cretin.’”

  “Right, right.” Sylvia nodded. “Let’s throw Christian a party, so everyone can get to know him.”

  I knew why Syl wanted a party. She hoped to snap me out of my morose state.

  “You want to help him fit in, right?” she asked.

  Boy, did I ever. It wasn’t like I could tell the truth about his sometimes–odd behavior. “This is Christian, he’s from the seventeenth–century, where they had different manners than we have.”

  We’d told everyone he was a French exchange student. I couldn’t go around sharing that he was my personal bodyguard assigned to me by a six–hundred–year–old Frenchman. That his job was to assist in protecting me from Girard Helmann, head of Geneses Corporation. That Helmann was a Neo–Nazi who wanted to kidnap me because I could turn invisible.

  Sylvia smiled at me and reached over to tuck a stray hair behind my ear. “Plus, Sammy, honestly, you need to make a little more of an effort here, sweetie. Your dad’s getting worried.”

  I reached over to hug my step–mom. “I just miss Will,” I said, letting a few tears squeeze out. “But I’ll be fine.”

  She was right, though, about me making an effort. My dad was the reason I’d come back from France instead of disappearing with Will. Dad had lost enough when Mom died.

  “Okay, then,” said Syl, releasing me. “We’re having a Ground Hog’s Eve party next weekend.”

  “Ground Hog’s ‘Eve’?” I laughed as I said it.

  “See? You’re laughing,” she said. “My evil plan is working!”

  We stuffed the kitchen fridge and the fridge in the garage and still had to ask Bridget to store the items Sylvia ordered from the Las Abuelitas Bakery Café. Good thing, too.

  Everyone was turning up for our Ground Hog’s Eve party.

  Gwyn arrived early with her long–suffering mother, Bridget Li, and the bakery goodies. “Next Ground Hog’s Eve, I’m throwing the party for you, Christian. And it’ll be private.”

  As she edged beside him, he flushed.

  “Give me some sugar, sugar,” she said, aiming her cheek toward his lips. “It’s how you say hi in France, right?”

  “Gwyn,” I murmured.

  “What?” she said, collecting her kisses. “Christian doesn’t mind.”

  “Uh–oh,” said Sylvia. “I said ‘Welcome, Chrétien’ when I called in the cake!”

  Gwyn smiled. “Already taken care of.”

  Bridget Li nodded in agreement.

  As Sylvia changed the banner to read “Christian” instead of “Chrétien,” he whispered to me, “I have forgotten. What is your quaint form of ‘Je suis ravi de faire votre connaissance’?” (I’m ravished to make your acquaintance.)

  I sighed. “It’s ‘hello,’” I replied. “Or ‘hey,’ if you’re feeling less formal.”

  Like that would ever happen. I’d given up trying to cure his habit of bowing in the direction of anyone to whom he received an introduction. At least he’d stopped taking women’s hands to kiss the air an inch above them.

  “I shall remember to perform only the most abbreviated form of obeisance,” he said, eyes sad, like it caused him physical pain to give up his deep bows.

  Gwyn was the one who thought to teach Christian a dance step just before guests arrived.

  “Let’s see you dance,” she’d said, arms folded.

  “What manner of dancing?” he asked.

  “Uh, something simple. Peasant–y,” replied Gwyn.

  “A contra–dance,” he said, nodding. “Country–dance, you say in English.”

  He launched into something that looked like it came out of a ballet Sylvia had taken us to see in Fresno.

  “No, no, no, no,” moaned Gwyn. “Please! You don’t want to look like that.” She switched her voice to a low murmur. “Although it would certainly cut down on the female competition if you did.”

  Gwyn showed him something called The Serpent which she said had been big in LA a year ago. “No one will have heard of it here—they’ll think it’s from France.” She never lost a chance to poke fun at our small town even though she loved Las Abs.

  “Start here,” Gwyn said, indicating her ankles, “And snake up a slow roll through your calves, hips, waist, chest—good! That’s really good.” She turned to me. “You better have a fire extinguisher handy, ‘cause that boy is hot.”

  Before anyone else arrived, Gwyn had him doing The Serpent like he’d known it all his life. I stared. It was like he’d turned into rock–star–Christian sending seductive messages with every wave of his body. Which was annoying, because I was growing to care for him, but not in that way. I blinked and shook my head and thankfully, he turned back into just–Christian. I walked away to help Sylvia set drinks outside in coolers, somewhat redundant in February in the central California foothills.

  As people started arriving, introductions became my job although I would have preferred to disappear. The things I do for love of my step–mom. “This is Christian. He’s a cousin of Will and Mickie Baker and while we were in France, our two familie
s cooked up a student–exchange.”

  Smile. Make an effort, I reminded myself, knowing my dad would be watching. I didn’t want him to worry.

  The party was a success. The weather was mild for February, meaning it hovered just above instead of just below freezing. Most of my classmates crowded out on the deck to dance. From inside, I watched my French bodyguard snake–dancing for all he was worth with four or five girls trying to grab a piece of his beef–cake.

  I wiggled fingers at Christian, a tiny wave. He smiled back. Leaning my face against the sliding glass door, I thought of the missing boy I loved. A tear traced the curve of my cheek and I turned aside.

  Gwyn had grabbed the karaoke microphone to do a New Year’s–style countdown to midnight for Ground Hog’s Day. Too late, she realized this prevented her from actually kissing Christian once the clock ticked down. On the stroke of midnight, one of the cheerleaders captured Christian in a lip–lock that looked deadly. Gwyn glared at them, her arms crossed, murderous intent written into her tight, hard mouth.

  I smiled and shook my head. No way was Christian ever going to go out with her, because that would involve him leaving my side. Something he refused to do.

  By two in the morning, everyone had gone home. Dad said clean–up could wait ‘til the sun rose. I fell into bed but I didn’t feel tired. Between the ache that was Will’s absence and the change in time zones from France to California, I hadn’t been sleeping well for a month.

  Plus, Christian’s duties included standing guard over me by night (invisibly) which I seriously dare anyone to be all “whatever” about. It felt weird having him there even if I couldn’t see him. Officially, he slept downstairs in the spare room. He wouldn’t take the guest room on the second floor.

  “It would be unseemly for me to occupy the same floor of the maison as your virgin daughter,” he’d said to my dad.

  Sylvia had pretended to sneeze into her napkin to hide a fit of giggles. My dad had kept a straight face and nodded his agreement. I’d fixed my eyes on a spot on the kitchen ceiling, internally considering my dad’s response should he find out the truth—that Christian spent every night chez moi—in my room.

  Often, as I drifted to sleep after hours of staring out my window, I thought I heard echoes of a song: sad, and in French; or of chanting, in Latin. I hadn’t asked Christian about the sad song, but when I mentioned the chanting, he admitted it was him.

  “I celebrate the hours, after the fashion of a priest,” he said.

  Meaning he prayed seven times a day, including the middle of the night, using a scripted set of Psalms and prayers in Latin. I remembered Sir Walter saying Christian’s ability to hear thoughts exceeded even his own. Maybe it was the same with his ability to “broadcast” his thoughts.

  Christian and I had discussed this ability a few times.

  “You carry the blood of the de Rochefort’s in your veins,” Christian had told me. “As do I. You and I will most likely hear one another’s thoughts from time to time, especially when invisible.”

  “Great,” I’d said.

  “Your ability will strengthen, the more it is exercised,” said Christian.

  I’d nodded, not sure I wanted to grow this particular muscle any bigger. It made for very noisy nights.

  I sighed, rolling over in bed so that I faced my wall instead of the space I knew Christian inhabited invisibly. Maybe I wouldn’t “hear” him as well if I turned away. But every time my mind relaxed, I caught echoes of his song.

  I flipped back around, my legs tangling in covers, and read 4:06 AM on my clock. I considered asking him to maybe keep it down when I felt something icy pass over me. My eyes opened in time for me to see a light–haired man materializing beside me.

  It wasn’t Christian.

  As I drew breath to scream for help, the stranger slapped one hand over my open mouth and jabbed a needle in me with the other hand.

  Excerpted from the personal diary of Girard L’Inferne.

  Circa 1985

  The error, I begin to see, lay not so much in the aims I set for my children in the 1930’s, but rather in the methodology which I employed to gain those ends. Half a century ago, I set my mind to the creation of soldiers who could endure deprivation, who were capable of survival, of self–denial, even. And I thought to ensure their loyalty to me by utilizing methods shown effective. Their loyalty I had—for a time. For an exceptionally long time, by any merely human standards.

  But I see now, as the twentieth century draws to a close, that I merely postponed the time when they would begin to turn against me to gain their own selfish ends. I saw self–serving behavior as a desirable goal. I preserved the lives of those who showed themselves capable of such behavior. And now I reap the bitter fruit as, one by one, they turn from serving me to serving their own desires.

  They even believe me blind to this. But children, your Father sees everything. Have you forgotten this most essential lesson?

  Chapter Four

  * * *

  SALAAM

  · WILL ·

  Putting everything down on paper was Mick’s idea. I think she just got sick of watching me stare off into space all the time.

  “Will, hon,” said my sister, “You’re doing it again.”

  I turned to see what Mick wanted. “What? I’m not doing anything.”

  “Duh. And you need to stop. Now.” She shifted her voice from demanding to pleading. “Get up and exercise, okay?”

  “Someone made running a felony,” I reminded her. She’d been extra cautious the last couple weeks in Paris.

  “Fine. So read a book or a newspaper or something.”

  I rose from the couch and crossed to the table by the window where stacks of books awaited. It wasn’t the first or last time I tried distracting myself with a book. Sir Walter provided me with plenty. But before long, my eyes wouldn’t be on the pages anymore ‘cause I couldn’t stop thinking about Sam.

  Leaning my forehead against a cold pane of glass, I thought about our phone conversation, early this morning.

  Sam had sounded so close. Like she was next door.

  We’d talked a few minutes in a stilted “code,” passing information back and forth. No, Sir Walter hadn’t made any new ‘friends’—code for forming alliances against Helmann. No, we still didn’t know when ‘winter’ might arrive—code for Helmann’s apocalyptic slaughter of humanity.

  No, I didn’t know how I was going to survive on two phone calls a month with the girl who’d taken my heart with her when she left.

  “How’s school going?” I’d asked next, trying to sound caring. When all I really felt was abandoned.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “We’re throwing Christian a party tonight, to help him fit in.”

  “Fitting in’s good,” I said.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Will? I miss you so bad. It’s like a part of me got left back in France.”

  I could hear her sniffling, maybe crying.

  “The best part of me,” she said in a whisper.

  I closed my eyes and it was like I could feel her breath all warm on my face, the way it would feel if she were really here, whispering to me.

  “Close your eyes,” I said. “You’re here with me.” And I described how Paris looked that morning. How the sky went all pink around the edges. How the soaring buildings cast these chocolate–brown shadows along the avenue below me. How the birds were trying to convince spring to show up.

  We were both silent for a minute, listening to one another’s breaths.

  “Thanks,” she said at last, in a voice so sad it cracked my heart into tiny pieces.

  We’d hung up feeling sadder and emptier than ever.

  I pushed back from the pane of glass, sighing deeply.

  “Will,” said my sister.

  “I’m fine.” A complete lie. “Totally fine.”

  She looked at me from under furrowed brows. “I think I know fine when I see it. Fine involves a healthy appetite. And an interest in ba
sketball stats. And telling your sister you’re going to do dangerous things.”

  I dragged my sneaker across the floor, listening to the low squeak it made on the polished wood.

  “How ‘bout you open the book in your hands?” asked my sister.

  I shoved my copy of Chanson de Roland her direction. “You read it. That way you can’t watch me.”

  “It’s in French, dweeb.”

  “Oh. Right.” I reached for the stack of books in English. Ones I’d already tried. Ones that couldn’t hold my interest either these days. I handed her the one on top. “English. Knock yourself out.”

  She pushed the book back across the table towards me. “I’m not the one who needs to snap out of it.” She lowered her voice and muttered. “Plus I don’t need a history book living with the History Channel incarnate.”

  I wasn’t sure if she meant me—for my love of history—or Sir Walter—for his ancient years. But the lowered voice probably indicated she meant him. If she wanted to insult me, she usually spoke louder, so I’d catch it.

  Outside, the midday sky was trying to decide if it wanted to rain or not.

  “That’s it,” Mick said, rising and shoving her arms through jacket sleeves. “Come on. We’re going shopping.”

  I gave her a tired look that said you–don’t–really–expect–me–to–come–along.

  “You’re coming. Get off your lazy derrière, little brother. I can’t speak the language here. I need you.”

  “Derrière’s French,” I said, not moving.

  She growled. “Get up and put on your jacket or I start kicking your derrière out the door.” She waited for me to make a move, which I didn’t. “Please?”

  I grunted and rose, pulling my jacket on just as Sir Walter materialized on our side of the front door.