Daniel Hecht - Land of Echoes

When she awoke, the room was dark. She pushed the glow button on her travel alarm to find that it was almost eight o'clock. She'd slept for three hours! Sensing that something was wrong, she scanned the dimly lit room and realized that the darkness was flickering. Adrenaline spiked in her fingertips before she noticed that the strobing effect wasn't coming from the night-lights or the ceiling light in the hall. It came from outside. Again and again, the windows flashed and darkened, a racing heartbeat of light.

She stumbled to one of the south-facing windows, which gave a view down the center of campus, the road and buildings lit at intervals by mercury vapor lamps. A quarter of a mile away, in front of the cafeteria, a different kind of light sparkled: the strobe panel on an ambulance van. As she clutched the windowsill, the boxy truck pulled out and turned away toward the main entrance. Its flasher lit the angles of the administration and classroom buildings in fitful red and white lightning, and then darkness steadied around the school as it accelerated out of the main entrance.

Cree could make out several figures, left behind in a cone of streetlight glow. They stood in a clump, looking after the ambulance: Lynn, no doubt, and a couple of other staff members. Standing apart from them, a motionless figure that could only be Julieta.

Cree felt a lurch in her chest, a twang of alarm and devastation and longing, and couldn't tell if it was her own feeling or something sprung from Julieta, the anguish of a mother seeing her child borne away and gone from the insufficient shelter of her love.

Julieta's office in the admin building was big enough to include a large desk, a low Mission-style coffee table surrounded by four leather chairs, a side table with a chrome coffeemaker on it, a floor-to-ceiling bookcase, a pair of splendid jade plants. Julieta sat behind her desk, her chair swiveled toward one of the west-facing windows. Ghosted in the rectangle of black glass, her features looked painfully lovely, perfect, ruined. When Cree walked in, her face tipped to regard Cree's reflection, but she didn't turn.

"Why didn't you call me?" Cree demanded.

Julieta shook her head. "You needed to rest. I doubt there was anything you could have done."

"What happened?"

"He was eating dinner. He… started stabbing himself in the hand and arm with his knife. It did, I mean. God knows what would have happened if the staff hadn't stopped it."

Another classic symptom, Cree thought with dismay, remembering the awful illustrations among Mason's materials.

Julieta stared out at the night for a long moment. "So soon. I thought we'd have some time. A few days, anyway."

"They're bringing him to the Indian Hospital again?"

"No. This time he's going straight to Ketteridge. It's a private hospital in Gallup, highly regarded for neurological diagnostics and psychiatric treatment."

"Think that's where he'll stay?"

The chair pivoted as Julieta came around, her face hardening. "Not if I have anything to do with it."

"What options are there?"

"I'm not sure. I've got a call in to our attorneys. Technically, he's still enrolled here as a resident student, which could mean I have some limited rights and responsibilities. There are probably some legal gray areas I could exploit. I might preserve access to him during litigation, anyway, or retain some say in medical decision making."

"What do the grandparents want to do?"

Julieta shook her head. "Can't get through-they don't have a regular phone, and cell reception's no good up there. But my guess is they'll want him to come home. I might be able to persuade them to send him back here one more time, but if I can't, I could probably delay his going home by legal means. Give you some time with him."

Cree digested that as she turned to look at Julieta's photo gallery, which covered half of one wall. Nicely framed, most were of class groups, rows of smiling faces of teenagers posing with their teachers. There were four whole-school photos, too, sixty-odd kids and twenty or more faculty and staff, sitting and standing in front of the log hogan at the center of campus. In each of them, Julieta looked radiant with pleasure and pride. Cree spotted Joseph in one group photo, standing next to Julieta, both smiling as if they'd just shared a joke. Nearer the desk was another of Joseph, caught off guard as he turned to look out the side window of his truck: a disturbingly straight-on gaze from a very handsome man.

Over closer to the door, in a separate cluster were half a dozen smaller pictures of horses. Cree recognized Spence from the yin-yang blaze.

"Spence," she said. "Huh. Why'd you name him that?"

The question clearly caught Julieta by surprise, slipping past her defenses. "After Spencer Tracy. I just… I've liked those movies ever since I was a little girl. That whole… style." A choked voice, someone fighting tears.

Another angle of view on Julieta: the little girl, spellbound by the debonair, dashing men and beautiful, clever women and their droll yet passionate romances where everything was fated to work out just right in the end. Cree spent another minute looking at the photos before she turned to face Julieta again. "You think the family would let me near him?"

"Possibly," Julieta said tightly. The angry resolve had taken over again.

"He's a terrific person, isn't he? I really saw that today. He tries to play resentful and rebellious, but he can't hide what he really is. He's decent and respectful. Very smart, yet at the same time so… innocent."

"Yes, he's a very special young man. Which is exactly why I'll fight to make sure he has the opportunities he needs and deserves."

Cree nodded, trying to muster the courage to say what she knew had to be said. "Can I make a suggestion? A frank one?"

" Like-?"

"Like, Julieta-every time you've screwed up in your life, it's been when you've gotten angry and confrontational and self-righteous and proud. When you've held on to what you felt you were owed." Julieta frowned and she tucked her chin, beginning to bristle. Cree's heart was thudding hard in her chest, but she made herself go on: "Don't do it this time, Julieta! Don't get your back up. And don't put Tommy in a tug-of-war over who's in charge of him. He's already torn about five ways. He doesn't need it. Sometimes you have to let go a little."

Outraged, Julieta said through her teeth, "I have 'let go,' Dr. Black. Of all too much."

Her fierceness was intimidating, but Cree pushed back: "Have you really?" She made a gesture toward her, Look at yourself. Where you're at right now.

"What would you suggest?" Julieta said icily. But Cree sensed that behind the hardness was a measure of grudging agreement.

"See what the grandparents say. Roll with it. Encourage them to let me spend time with him, wherever he ends up."

"And if they don't agree?"

"Don't assume that yet. Cross that bridge when we come to it. In the meantime, there's work I can do here."

"Like what?" Julieta's anger was veering toward despondency.

"I can explore your idea that the entity is a revenant of Garrett McCarty. Or that it's some formerly place-anchored entity connected with this location. I can get my colleagues out here and do some physical and historical research."

Julieta spun back to the window. Not that there was anything to see, Cree thought, but the same unwelcome reflections, hovering in their black frame. She stared stonily at nothing for a long time. The armored face broke Cree's heart as much as any outright sorrow would have.

"Nobody knows how you feel about him," Cree said gently. "Nobody will understand why you fight so hard to stay near him. They don't know the story. You'll seem pushy and grasping and arrogant. You'll get their backs up. Right?"