Synesthesia: Chapter Thirty

serial fiction

The night was dark, and my eyes struggled for a moment to adjust after the brightness of the chandeliered dining room. But I could make out the pale curve of the driveway and the solid, muscular outline of the Mustang parked there. Blindly, I took a few fumbling steps toward it.

I didn’t have a plan, just a pit of anger and frustration in my stomach.

This wasn’t how things were supposed to turn out. I’d come out here to make my dreams come true, but instead I was in the middle of this circus. My growing anger began to coalesce and direct itself toward Amber. All of this was her fault: Gas Stove, Jacob, even kidnapping Hoka guy.

Furious, I skirted a lumpy cactus and put another foot down, but it landed in empty space and then continued to fall.

I caught myself before I fell to the ground, but I was shaken. What the hell had I stepped into?

I looked down. The ground here was lower than the rest of the front yard, and it lacked the established grass that comprised most of the lawn. I squatted down to inspect it. Squares of thick sod covered the depression like a patchwork blanket.

I stuck my finger under a corner and lifted.

Even in the dim light from the faraway street lamps, the pale pink of the fabric sticking out of the dirt underneath was clearly visible.

I dropped the sod square and jumped back. From this distance, the shape of the sod-covered area was more obvious. How had I not noticed this before?

It was the shape and size of a human body. A wide human body.

Every hair on my body stood up like the spines on a cactus.

“Zodiac?”

It was Amber’s voice, coming from behind me. I turned and squinted against the bright light silhouetting her skinny frame in the doorway.

“Don’t come out here!” I shouted in a panic. Then, as my brain continued to work through the problem, I thought better of it. “I mean, come here,” I corrected myself. “Please.”

The door closed, and I could hear rather than see Amber walking toward me.

“Where are you?” she asked, her voice coming closer.

I could see her again now as my eyes readjusted to the darkness.

“Just come look at this,” I murmured, hoping Hoka guy wouldn’t be able to hear.

A whiff of annoyed sulfur drifted over to me.

“Yeah, I’m from Arizona. I’ve seen cactuses before,” she said. I could hear the eyeroll in her voice.

Another surge of anger at her welled up in me, but I shoved it back down.

“No, not the cactus,” I whispered. She was right next to me now, and the body-shaped depression was two steps in front of us. “Look down at the ground.”

She walked up to the depression, then kicked a little at the corner of a sod square.

“Yeah?” she asked, the sulfur intensifying. “So what? Are you gonna come back in? Daniel’s asking if we wanna see a movie in his home cinema.”

I felt annoyed right back. “Who the fuck is Daniel?” I asked.

Wet dog for an instant, then the choking, acrid smell of gasoline.

“How do you not know who Daniel is?” she asked. “Whose house do you think you’re at right now?”

That was the final straw for the fury I’d been tamping down.

I hate knowing their names.

“I don’t know or care whose house this is!” I shouted. “I never wanted to be here in the first place!”

In the distance, a dog started barking.

The gasoline grew more pungent, traces of soap floating across it.

“You didn’t want to be here?” Amber asked. “Maybe you’ve forgotten how we met?” She spat the final words like soap out of her mouth.

I felt my skin flush, even though the night was still warm.

Before I could say anything more, she turned and walked back into the house, slamming the door behind her.

I was alone again in the front yard.

Well, almost alone.

It was just me and Roberta.