A loving expression warms my face. Psalms, one of the sacred Bible verses that only a Death Talker knows. I give him one more bear hug before heading back to the car.
As I walk over, a black crow feather quivers on the ground in the light breeze.
A wish on a crow feather.
“Hurry up and turn the AC on,” Raelean says as I get in the car. “I’m going to have sweat rings under my titties if you don’t.”
I laugh. She digs the big atlas out from the back seat and cracks it open. “Where to first?”
I flip my visor down to tuck the feather underneath the rubber band and the Polaroid photo I found on the cave floor. The image is pretty dark. My hair and shoulder make up the majority of it. The camera captured a smattering of glowing blue speckles of light, like dust particles. But there’s something more behind the tiny out-of-focus points of light. Right past my shoulder, a fanned blur, like the spreading of a wing.
And a ghostly face of a man floating behind it.
“We’re going to Florida,” I say to Raelean. “But first, I want to swing by Tennessee.”
She watches me eyeing the photo. “Tennessee it is!”
I adjust my rearview mirror before setting the gear in Drive. I swear I can almost see ten-year-old Adaire there, standing next to my old pink pedal bike in the yard.
The faint sound of that bike’s little bell chings goodbye.
EPILOGUE
Stone’s Throw, Florida
Waffle House, Hwy 19
“Johnny?” Janice, the waitress, calls my name—a name I borrowed from a stolen lunch box.
From the rear of the diner, Janice holds her hand high to block the early-morning sun, shocked to see me asleep on the picnic table behind the diner I recently got a job at.
I close my eyes, savoring the last remnants of the dream I was having. She was there again, the green-eyed beauty that haunts my sleep. She’s so real I swear I’ve touched her skin. Tasted her lips. Felt her body firm against mine.
“Are you going to lay there all morning or what?” Janice says as she stubs out her cigarette.
The back of the diner is reminiscent of every other truck stop I’ve ever worked. Discarded metal fixtures huddle desperately together along the dingy back wall. Cigarette butts scatter across on the crumbling pavement like a dead army. And that ever-present foul perfume of a dumpster hangs in the air.
I get up from my makeshift bed, no real answer to give her.
“I told Gordon your aunt was sick and you had to check on her,” Janice says, following me in the rear kitchen door.
“Okay.” I slip the busboy apron over my head.
“Okay? That’s it? That’s the second time this month I’ve caught you sleeping out back, late for your shift.”
“Okay,” I say again, because there’s nothing more to say. I scoop up the gray tub and press my back against the kitchen’s swinging door.
“Dude,” Janice’s harsh whisper causes me to pause. “How about a thank-you for covering for your ass?”
“Thanks.” I push into the diner.
The chatter of patrons and the clank and scrapes on dishes swallows me in.
“Cool tattoo!” The little boy’s squeaky voice an exclamation point among the diner’s low rumbling chatter and the percussion of silverware scraping against plates.
His eyes hunger over the image inked on my forearm. My thanks is a half-grunt sound.
His mother turns her attention to my arm and frowns as her eyes pass over the bloody nails punctured through the crow’s feet, disapproving of the artwork. From the hollow of the crow’s body, I see the sorrowful beautiful eyes of the girl from my dreams.
“Hurry up and finish your milk,” the mom snaps at the boy, and she quickly downs the last of her coffee.
I clear their table in appreciated silence. Disappearing as quickly as I appeared.
It’s been a week or so of this now. Of simply being here; no more gaps of lost time, no more unexplained absences. When I’m not looking for a place to sleep, I’m trying to figure out what happened and why’s it’s stopped.
Darkness falls upon the diner, the summer now fading into fall. I wait in the parking lot next to Janice. The half cigarette hanging from the side of her mouth burns my nose. She counts out a percentage of her tips for me.
“So, do you actually have a place to stay?” Janice asks after getting into her car. Eyes aglimmer as a sly smile pulls at her lips. Hope waits in the air. She could be my age, whatever that is, or a few years older. There’s nothing unappealing about Janice, but nothing remarkable, either. Her offer and intentions clear, though. I’m uninterested in either.
I fold the bills and stow them in my back pocket, then douse her hope. “Yeah. Friend’s couch. See ya tomorrow.” I tuck my hands into the jacket I lifted from the diner’s lost and found and walk away.
I don’t get all the way across the parking lot before I hear a loud swear.
“Shit, shit, shit!”
I lightly glance over my shoulder toward the streetlamp. The silhouette of a young woman swatting at the smoke plumes steaming from underneath her hood. A few more swears fly when she burns her hand popping open the hood.
I duck my head and mind my business when an “Excuse me!” calls from near the car.
