Sweet Sixteen, Chapter 11 ~ Searching, part 2

Elly took a bus out to a stop nearest the Golden Jade Campground, and walked the rest of the way till she came to the gate.  A tall chain link fence enclosed the trailer park, but the front gate was unlocked.  The sign above it was weathered and unimpressive, making a mockery of its pretentious name.  She shook her head and walked in.

She came to plot 89, but she didn’t need Marie’s printout to tell her she had found the right spot, because Sien’s bike was parked outside the yellow school bus.  That was interesting.  She had been expecting an RV or a trailer home, but Sien’s home was just a little more eccentric than that.  It was fitting, in a way.  Strange home for a strange boy.

The windows were painted over with black, so she couldn’t see inside, but she assumed he must be home if his bike was there.  Elly walked up to the folding glass door, which was not blacked over, and knocked.

When he came to the door his face was a picture of astonishment.  “Eleanor,” he said, folding the door open, “I . . . how . . . ?”

“It’s not important,” said Elly.  She took a step back.  “Come outside.  You and I need to talk.”

“Sien?  Who is it?” a man’s voice asked from inside the bus.  He sounded old and feeble, wheezing as he spoke.

“Um . . . .”  Sien didn’t take his eyes off of Elly.  “A friend.”  He stepped down out of the bus and closed the door behind him.

Elly turned her back on him and walked a few feet away, shoving her hands into her jacket pockets and looking out over the rows of RVs.  “I actually worried about you,” she said.  “On that motorcycle . . . I thought, maybe you could have gotten into an accident.  But no.”

“I . . . I’m sorry I haven’t been at school this week, I—”

“You don’t go to my school, Sien.”  Elly turned around.  “None of the teachers know you, the other students only see you when you’re with me . . . and oh yes, your name isn’t in the system.”

He opened his mouth, but couldn’t seem to find the words.  The consternation on his face spoke for him.

The funny thing is,” she resumed, taking her hands out of her pockets and spreading them helplessly, “I really don’t know whether to be upset with you because you weren’t at school this week, or because you have been for the past month and a half.  So come on, help me out here, Sien — why am I going to be mad at you?”

“I don’t want you to be mad at me.  I don’t . . . I . . . .”

“Then why have you been lying to me?” Elly demanded.  “Why have you been pretending to attend my school?”

He smiled ironically.  “Well.  I can’t afford the tuition.”

Elly uttered a short, surprised laugh, despite herself.

“I was trying to earn money with the job at the repair shop, but who am I kidding.  By the time I make enough, the school year will be over.”

“You’re not interested in Ridgewalter’s academic program, Sien.”

“No.  But it’s a hard charade to keep up.  Sneaking around on campus without faculty or security realizing I don’t belong, staying out of sight while classes are in session—”

“Breaking into lockers.”

He looked up.  “Actually that was easy.”

She raised one eyebrow.

“I can . . . unlock things . . . ” he said slowly.  “Regular locks.  Bolt locks.  Combination locks.  Pretty much anything.”  He smiled.  “I told you it’d be hard to believe.”

“You would be surprised,” Elly remarked dryly.  “Go on.  Though honestly I really don’t care how you did it as why.”

“Well . . . I wanted to meet you.”

Elly shook her head impatiently and met his eyes; “I want to know why you lied to me, Sien.”

He turned away from her gaze, pretending to stare hard at the rows of campers.  “I really don’t know how to say this . . . .”

“Oh please.  You had no trouble being Mr. Smooth Talker when I met you,” Elly scoffed.

“Well I wasn’t trying to tell the truth then, was I?” he snapped.

She regarded him coolly.  “No, I don’t suppose you were.”

“I mean,” he amended miserably, “I meant what I said, I just . . . left out a whole lot.”

“Fill it in.”

He let out a long breath.  “I saw you, just walking along the sidewalk one day.  And I followed you . . . I found out where you lived, and where you went to school.  I, um, well, I watched you for about a month—”

“You stalked me.”

“I guess.  But it’s not what you think; I’m not some kind of pervert.  Really.”

He looked at her beseechingly from those golden brown eyes that had captivated her from the start, turning on the full puppy-dog effect.  “Eleanor, please, can you trust me enough for now to understand that I don’t mean you any harm, or anything bad.  I just don’t know how to tell you everything.”

Elly didn’t know what to say to that, she didn’t know if she believed him when he claimed to be well-intentioned.  She could feel herself wanting to trust Sien and believe whatever explanation he was stumbling to give, but she tried hard to steel herself against it.

You don’t know Sien, she reminded herself forcibly.  Whatever gut feelings or romantic intuitions she thought she had, she didn’t know him.  He could be anyone or anything.  Coming to the trailer park alone was enough of a trusting gesture for now.

“I don’t see why I should trust you,” she said coldly.  “All I know about you right now is that you are not the person you claimed to be.  That doesn’t inspire trust, Sien!”

“I know,” he said miserably, “I just—”

“You just want me to trust you for no sane or logical reason.”

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, clearly at a loss for words.

Elly shook her head, relenting just a little.  “So, this is what I know.  You stalked me for a while, then decided to make contact, as stalkers do, and we hit it off and we dated and we kissed and then you disappeared for almost a week.  Wait, actually—” she held one hand up “—I don’t know how long you were planning on staying away because I had to come find you.”

“I shouldn’t have kissed you, Elly,” he said, pained; the very picture of contrition.  “That’s why I haven’t been coming to see you this week.  Taking you on a date . . . kissing you . . . it’s all wrong.  Terribly wrong.”

Elly laughed involuntarily.  She wasn’t really amused — the chuckle came out strained and nervous — she just couldn’t think of any other response.

“I can’t think of you that way,” Sien was still trying to explain.  “I’m not supposed to be your boyfriend, that isn’t what this is about—”

“Sien!”  She interrupted him sharply.  “What the hell is ‘this’?  And what is it about?  That’s why I came over here, not to listen to you whine about how horrible it was to kiss me!”

His eyes widened.  “It wasn’t horrible,” he denied, “that’s not it at all.”

“Then why hide from me?  Why say it was a terrible mistake?”

“Because you’re not supposed to want to kiss me!  You’re supposed to be the Queen, you can’t want to go on dates and have boyfriends and make out on a Saturday night!”  Sien waved his arms as he ranted, and Elly took a step back.  “It’s against the rules, don’t you see?”

“Rules?  What rules?”  Elly asked in exasperation.  “You’re not making any sense.”

“I . . . I just . . . I mean—”

“Maybe I should just leave.”  She shook her head, turning away.

Sien reached out and grabbed her arm.  “Eleanor please, I’m sorry.”

Elly shook him away.  “Don’t touch me.”  She took a few steps then paused, looking back.  “And don’t call me Eleanor.  My name is Eliasha.”

“Please don’t go,” he said quietly, but didn’t move towards her.

“Why not?” she lowered her voice to match his while losing none of her tension.  “Why shouldn’t I leave?  I am standing in a trailer park with my stalker, who is doing nothing to convince me he isn’t completely and totally insane!”

“Are you afraid of me?”  He seemed hurt.

Elly stared back at him for a moment, then sighed.  “No,” she said, “no I’m not.  Maybe I should be, maybe that would be smart.  But I’m not.  Whatever your intentions are . . . or were . . . .”  She looked away and shook her head, lifting her arms as words failed her.  Maybe it was foolish bravado, maybe it was intuition, but she felt no fear of Sien, strange and suspicious as his behavior was.

“Listen,” he said, “I’m not a ‘stalker.’  That’s the furthest thing from . . . well, that’s not what it’s about.  All my life I’ve been searching for a person, a special person, and I think you’re that person.  But it’s not about me and you, I’m just the searcher.  You have a . . . a destiny that is far bigger, far more important than the two of us.”

“I still don’t understand.  I have a destiny?  That’s more important than me?  What?”

“I—”

“Stop being vague.”  She chopped through the air with one hand.  “Just stop being vague this instant and speak in terms that explain exactly what you are talking about.  Alright?”

He sighed.  “You’ll think I’m crazy.”

“Already do.”

“Okay.  Alright.”  He took a deep breath as if about to plunge into deep water.  “This isn’t the only world that exists.  And I’m not talking about heaven and hell or anything metaphysical like that.  I mean there are other worlds, just as real and concrete as this one, that exist on different plains.  Travel between these worlds is impossible for 99% of all people, so that’s why it’s not common knowledge.  But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.  They do, I know they do.”

He paused, apparently expecting Elly to laugh or scoff, or turn on her heel and desert him there.  But she just asked, “And have you been to any of these worlds?”

“Not me,” he admitted.  “But my father has.  My father is from a different world.”

“I think most kids think that about their parents,” Elly said, but it didn’t come out quite as glib or dismissive as she wanted it to.

“I’m serious.  And you have to believe me, or at least believe that I believe it, before I can explain anything else.”

Elly was silent, looking at the ground, unwilling to share any of her thoughts at the moment.  There was too much racing through her head to even make sense of herself, much less reply to him.

“You see why I’ve been so reluctant,” Sien sighed.  “When I just say it out like this it sounds crazy.  But I believe it, Elly.  My father is from a very different place, a place called Airidan, and that’s what this is all about.”

A thought fell into her mind.  A thing that, like the nesting dolls, she had forgotten the importance of.  And now that she remembered, she knew she had to go home and find it.

“I . . . I have to go home,” she said distractedly, turning away.

“El—”

“No, I mean it,” she waved him off.  “I have to go home.  Can we . . . we’ll have to finish this later.”

“But—”

“Tomorrow.  Don’t come to my school, but after school meet me at the café and, uh, we’ll talk.”

Elly shoved her hands in her pockets and turned her back on him, hastening away.  “I promise to be there.  Right now . . . I just have to go home,” she called without looking back, and didn’t wait around for him to protest.

He didn’t follow.