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  Of course, his involvement with my kidnapping severed any potential working relationship. His loss. I cleared my throat and attempted to negotiate my freedom, "So, what is it you want from me? Money? That can be arranged…"

  "This isn’t about money, Kaitlyn." He looked bored of the negotiations already.

  "My blood? They’ve already taken plenty of it."

  He yawned, "We didn’t bring you here to kill you."

  Okay, different tactic. "I would appreciate some information here. There will be people looking for me. My dog needs to be taken care of."

  "You have no pets; and no one will be looking for you." Micah appeared to be well engaged in cleaning his fingernails, and I was getting irritated.

  "I do have a life to get back to, you know."

  He raised his eyebrow at me as if he knew I was fibbing.

  "Well, I do. I have….I have…"

  "Yes?"

  I pulled my shoulders back. "I have plants that need watering."

  He actually laughed.

  Time to up my game. "My father has some very powerful connections in the FBI. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they already found me." I stood up to face him full on and raised my voice, "If you don’t let me go, right now, I will…"

  "Your parents are dead." The bluntness of his statement shocked me into silence. The ‘no pets’ could have been just a good guess, but not this. They knew me well.

  A look of guilt flashed across his eyes , but it was gone before I could be sure. His stony expression resumed its proper place.

  After several deep, calming breaths, I spoke again, "Why am I here?"

  "You are here, Kaitlyn, because you are needed."

  Needed. Hearing that word come from him sent chills down my spine. It was menacing, foreboding, and exciting all at once.

  "Needed, how?" I asked

  "That explanation is best left for others to give."

  I let out an exasperated sigh and started pacing the room. "Well what explanations can you give me? How do you know my name? How did you find me in the middle of an avalanche? When do you plan on letting me leave?"

  He didn’t necessarily address my questions. "Your apartment has been taken care of," he said. "The plants were donated to an elementary school and everything else is in storage. Final bills have been paid and your mail has been put on hold."

  "My, my….what? You were in my apartment?" I stuttered. The skin on the back of my neck prickled and a chill went down my spine. Somehow every single private aspect of my life was attended to by captors I didn’t know. The invasion was more disturbing than the fact that I was kidnapped at all. "What in the hell is going on?"

  He studied my reaction, considered it, and moved on. "I did bring you one thing from home." He reached into his cargo pocket and produced a small, very well-used notebook. "Interesting stuff in here. You might want to take the time to revisit it."

  He set it on a table by the door, and left the room without glancing back. The door swung shut, and three loud beeps echoed through the room. I took a few steps closer until two very distinct words in my handwriting were visible. Dream Log.

  I picked up the book and turned to the door, still closed tight, "You just stay out of my…" I glanced at a pair of used, stained pants lying on top of the pile of clothes on the floor, "…head!"

  Neither the door or the person on the other side responded. I huffed, then returned to my chair, hugging the book tightly to my chest.

  Chapter 5

  Tree Huggers

  There was more blood work, followed by a jaunt on a treadmill long enough to let me know I was in decent shape. Lugging that heavy camera pack around the world apparently did my body good. Guards escorted me back to the ‘white’ room, which now came complete with a barred window, and left me alone. Without even checking to see if the door was locked behind me, I collapsed on the bed. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

  What felt like five minutes later, I was awoken by a rough shake of my shoulder. "Kaitlyn, wake up. Wake up!"

  I turned, eyes not opened to more than a squint, seeing Micah’s blurred face. I groaned, threw a pillow over my head and went back to convincing myself this was all a bad dream. A very long, bad dream.

  He only shook me harder. "Come on, you’ve been sleeping for 12 hours now."

  "And before that I was awake for 72, so let me sleep for another 12," I said through the pillow. "Or better yet – go kidnap someone else. I’ve got no more blood to donate to your cause. Whatever that is."

  "There is food," Micah said.

  That did get my attention. I was starving. Reluctantly, I gave in and got out of the bed, my growling stomach leading the way.

  Micah walked out of the room, motioning for me to follow. We went up a flight of stairs and into a spacious, commercial-looking kitchen. It felt weird to be walking around without guards. It felt weird to be walking around at all, instead of being tethered to a hard, straight back chair. He didn’t give me time to adjust, instead leading me to a small table with two stools and a plate with nothing more than a sandwich and sliced oranges. My stomach growled. It still looked like a feast to me. I dived in, swallowing the food in huge gulps, sputtering a bit after each bite.

  The plate empty, I finally straightened.

  "Won’t you sit down?" he asked, sarcastically cordial as I realized I hadn’t even taken the time to do that.

  I slowly sank into the chair. "Is there any more food?"

  Micah walked over to a refrigerator, almost bare of food, and pulled out the fixings for another sandwich. "Mayo? Mustard?"

  "Yes – both." The more calories I could get my hands on, the better.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off his hands as he made the sandwich. Deeply tanned and wrinkled, they showed evidence of long hours outside. His knuckles were knobby and his palms calloused. For a split second, I had a flash of those hands around my body, caressing me, possessing me fully. A shiver ran its way down my spine.

  "Are you okay?" Micah stood over me with a new plate of food. His eyes had the usual effect. I couldn’t pull myself away, even to take the plate from him. I was still staring and miscalculated the distance. Our hands brushed. A spark jumped from his skin to mine, and the heat traveled straight to my core, warming me.

  "Yes." I cleared my throat and with a monumental effort, and broke our gaze. I set the plate down in front of me slowly, trying to regain my composure. After years of a stubborn resistance to people in general, the alienation caused a simple brush of hands to leave me aching for more skin to skin contact, in any form. Once, I had gone so far as to buy a dress two sizes too big, just so I could go to the old Vietnamese seamstress who owned a shop down the street and feel her hands working the seams of the dress. Paying for a massage did come to mind as a less insane option, but it didn’t have the same effect as the indifferent handling of her gentle pinches, smoothing, and firm tugging I felt through the fabric. Afterwards, I recalled with a growing sickness what I had to do for the intimate contact every human body craved. Yet, I made it an annual tradition. As my wardrobe of perfectly fitted, unused dresses grew, I was able to curb any desire for close contact with a once per year treat.

  Micah would be the undoing of such carefully thought out control. I stared hard at the sandwich, willing myself not to look up at him again, lest my thoughts show on my face. A green, furry spot on the bread came into focus. I grimaced. Distraction achieved. "This bread is moldy."

  He shrugged his shoulders, unconcerned, "The Seven doesn’t have a lot of funding. We take what we can get."

  "The Seven?" I tore off the bad part and studied the rest for any more mold. Satisfied, I finished the sandwich in three bites.

  "The Seven is what we call our organization."

  Before I could question him further, he removed my empty plate, replacing it with a granola bar and juice box. "You can eat this on the way, there’s someone you need to meet." With that he left the kitchen and I had no choice but to follow with my
snack, happy as a preschooler. I was grateful his back was to me instead of those dangerous eyes. Despite myself, I continued staring at his hands, trying to think up some small accident that might cause them to reach out to me again.

  What is wrong with me?

  Micah was like a drug – a very good drug. The kind that prowled the streets of Seattle, enticing young and old, weak and strong. The addiction had no preference in victims so long as they succumbed.

  I shook off the thought. Yes. A very dangerous man, that one. Keep telling yourself that.

  We walked down a long hallway to a double doorway at the end. Micah pushed the doors open and I paused to look at the intricate carvings in the wood. There were a number of Celtic knots looping and weaving their way around the edge of the doors, and the same strange symbol in the center of each.

  "Carved them myself out of reclaimed wood," Micah commented, puffing out his chest and straightening his back. He traced the strange symbol with his finger. "This is the Spiral of Life; it is drawn from a single line with no beginning or end."

  "Hmm." I tried to appear mildly interested, but the last drops of grape juice were good at evading the straw.

  He eventually snapped himself out of it and pushed me forward into the room.

  I looked around, absorbing as much as I could. Floor to ceiling bookshelves lined the walls, most of them sagging under the weight of thousands of books, shoved into every nook and cranny the room had to offer. They covered every available flat surface. Couches, tables, and desks; even the floor had piles of books I had to weave my way past. Topographical maps, oceanography maps, statistical maps, maps of the world, and maps of individual cities throughout the world were strewn over, under, and hanging out from between the books. In the few spaces still available there were globes, microscopes, and jars of what looked like different dirt and water samples. Nothing appeared to be in any sort of order.

  I had taken only a few steps into the room, running my finger over a stacked series of battered, yellowing books. No dust. Much of it had been recently used. Maybe they could curb spending on books and invest in some basic staples of life – like food.

  "So where’s Waldo?" I turned to Micah, who hadn’t moved from the door.

  Micah walked forward and took the now empty juice box and granola bar wrappings from me. I heard someone clear their throat softly from the far end of the room. I glanced back at Micah, unsure. He waved me forward. At Micah’s urging, I walked toward the sound, noting the number of windows in the room as possible escape routes. Navigating my way through the mess, I often found myself at a dead end and had to turn to seek out another path, only to end up at another dead end. Forget this, I'd be caught in the maze before I could find my way to the windows.

  Finally, after circling around an especially tall pile of books, I approached an elderly man sitting on the floor with his legs crossed, taking notes from one of several open books in front of him. He looked up at my approach and stood, brushing dirt off his lap. His long silver hair was tied back at the nape of his neck, and might have been considered dignified if it weren’t for loose, frazzled strands floating about his grungy face. He moved slowly, like a great weight was on him, making him appear older than his face seemed to portray; wrinkles ornamented his eyes, the only flaw on otherwise firm, smooth skin. His assessment of me went twice as quickly as mine of him, and he turned to Micah, still at the entrance of the door, to dismiss him.

  As the most familiar thing to me in this place left, I fought back the urge to protest as an odd feeling of betrayal bubbled up.

  "Don’t worry, I won’t bite," the old man said. His eyes, a dull blue going lucent with age, barely glanced at me, but obviously he didn’t miss a thing. "My name is Cato."

  His name could’ve very well been Einstein, with his scraggly white hair. "I’m Kaitlyn," I replied, not knowing what else to say.

  "I know," he said, winking at me before moving books off a couple of worn, beaten chairs. "Please, have a seat; I’m sure you have many questions."

  "Yeah, sure, lots. Like, ever heard of a computer?" Appropriately, I managed to bump into yet another stack of books, nearly knocking them over. I hurried to steady the stack.

  "Never really trusted them. Besides, so many trees were destroyed to create all these old books – I can’t let them be wasted."

  "Does that same concern for trees perhaps extend toward human life?" I turned from the books to him.

  "I apologize for the sudden manner in which you were taken. You have to understand, it had to happen this way. There was no other choice."

  My eyes flashed. "I don’t think you quite understand. In the past days, I have been starved, sleep-deprived, interrogated, not to mention almost killed!" I paused to take a breath, realizing that I was standing directly in front of the old man shaking my finger at him like I was scolding a three year old. "Why am I here?" My last remark resonated from the walls. An eerie silence followed.

  Cato just stood there staring at the floor, perhaps giving me time to compose myself. Well, at least I had gotten it out of my system. "I am thankful to have been rescued from the mountainside," I said, speaking through gritted teeth, "but then again, I have no reason not to believe your men created the avalanche in the first place. Anyway, I fail to see how this couldn’t have been handled better."

  Cato smiled at me, "You are too impatient, Kaitlyn. You always have been." He watched my reaction. I said nothing, stepped back, and inevitably hit another stack of books. I let this one fall. A piece of loose paper from the top landed on my foot. It was a handwritten letter with a very familiar signature at the bottom.

  "G," I said.

  "What?" He leaned over looking at the paper I held.

  After my parents died, I had occasionally received letters from a man signing them "G." One on my birthday and one on Christmas, at the very least. I’d always ignored them. I looked up at him. "You are my Godfather?"

  About a year ago, the letters began arriving more frequently; once or twice a month. His tone also became more and more pressing as he urged me to make arrangements to visit him or at least write back. I had no intention of writing, calling, or visiting a man who decided to start a relationship once my parents, the only link between us, was gone. Besides, I had suspicions that his urgent matter might have something to do with the large sum of money they left behind. It has been sitting in a bank account, untouched, for 13 years now. Since their loss, I couldn’t bring myself to use it. Bank statements went unopened and I hadn’t yet set up the online access. It just felt wrong that I should benefit from their deaths, and hell if I was going to let anyone else benefit from it, either. I had a sudden, sinking feeling, "Is this about the money?"

  "No," he said, "this isn’t about the money. But yes, I am your Godfather - as I stated in all the letters I sent to you over the years. And that isn’t a G, it is a C, for Cato."

  I suppressed the urge to apologize for the failure to respond to his letters, but stammered out an excuse nonetheless, "I – I – didn’t know…"

  "No need to apologize."

  "I wasn’t —"

  "—These are all letters from your parents to me." He interrupted before I could defend myself. "They spent a lot of time writing about you."

  He handed me a stack of letters held together by a thick rubber band, then leaned over and put his hand over mine. "I am deeply sorry for your loss, they were great people."

  I unfolded the first letter, instantly recognizing my mother’s handwriting. Neat and flowery, she took a lot of pride in her script and always nagged that I should do the same. She was writing about a camping trip; I remembered it well. During this particular trip I had become adept at lighting and maintaining campfires. My father gave me a short lesson, then put me, and me alone, in charge of the fire. We'd no heat or cooking flame for two days, and I could swear my mom was on the verge of strangling him. Once I did figure it out, the pride on his face combined with my mom’s relieved hug was well worth the wait. Her desc
ription of the event was so detailed and well written, I could almost feel the heat on my face from the flames that flickered across her words.

  "How come…" My voice cracked and I cleared my throat as I sat down in a chair. "How come you didn’t just come to see me? There was no need for all of this." I folded the letter as carefully as if they were her last words to me.

  He sat down, too. "I apologize for that. It isn't necessarily easy for me to leave this place. When it became essential to bring you here, we didn’t have the time for explanations. But I want you to know that you were never alone after your parents passed. I’ve always had someone looking after you. Which hasn’t been easy, considering how much you move around."

  "Thank you, I guess…" I trailed off, then sighed. "You still haven’t answered anything."

  "All right then, let’s dive right into the big question then, shall we? Why are you here?" He paused, making it seem half as though he expected me to answer my own question. I hesitantly opened my mouth before he started again with a reassuring smile. "To put it bluntly, I lead a movement whose ultimate goal is to save the earth."