The World Without Flags

“There’s nothing to be sorry about.” Franky stands up. He puts a hand on my shoulder, but there’s something noticeably different about it now. Something more gentle, more intimate, and, at the same time, much more menacing. I cringe on the inside, but outwardly I smile a little and look up at him. “See you in the morning,” he says. I feel relieved when he stops touching me and heads toward the door. He opens it, but before he walks out, he turns back to me. “You’ll tell me if you see Eric, right?”

I can’t see his face with the light coming in from the open door, but I can hear something disturbing and dark. A threat? I don’t know. But it’s not good.

“Of course,” I say with a huff, like I can’t wait to get Eric in trouble or something stupid like that.

“Good,” Franky says. Then he steps out the door and shuts it behind him.

After a minute I get up and shake my arms and head to rid me of all the creepy feelings. After I climb up into the loft and collapse in my bed, I think about Franky and his new creepiness and I try to look at the bright side of things. At least now I’m not so sad to leave the Homestead.

38

I dream of a voice. Its far away, but I don’t like it. I’m trying to get away, but the voice is coming from all directions. I start running, but my legs are stuck to the ground.

Then I’m walking. The world around me is burning. My feet hurt and I’m thirsty. I look behind me and I see that the sky is red with flames. I don’t know if I’m dreaming or if this is something that happened to me. As I trudge down the road, I try to think. Am I dreaming? Did this happen? Memory or dream?

Suddenly Artemis is next to me and she takes my hand. She says that I was a cute girl. I don’t really hear her say this, but she’s saying it. I feel her hand in mine. It’s warm and smooth and soft, like always. I don’t remember she’s dead until then. I look up and she turns toward me and frowns. She tells me with her eyes that I can’t keep going like this. I can’t keep walking away. Then she’s gone.

I keep walking. Ashes are falling from the sky. I see shapes in the street and I crawl underneath cars to wait for shuffling feet to pass. I don’t cry. I just hold on to the straps of my backpack and I wait. When there’s no one left, I crawl out from under the car. It’s still night time. A house is on fire. Someone far away is screaming.

No, it’s not screaming. It’s the voice again.

I turn to run, but the voice moves faster. It’s a man’s voice, deep and familiar.

I see a man with bleeding eyes. He’s holding my hands. His hands are so large and strong. He presses a diamond ring into my hand. He does it so firmly, it almost hurts. “You can do it, Birdie,” he tells me. He coughs. “I know you can. Grafton. Write it down, honey.”

The words don’t mean anything to me, but the voice terrifies me. I try to run away, but I don’t know where I am, in the streets, in a house, in my bed. Confused and terrified, I run in nothing, only darkness. Behind me, the voice calls out to me, following me into the darkness. I stumble and fall, twisting into the abyss.

39

I wake up sweating and breathing hard. My t-shirt is stuck to my body because of the sweat. I can’t stop shaking. In the darkness of the loft, I seem lost and falling. I can hear the voice in my mind. After lighting a candle, I scramble out of bed and open up the chest that Eric found for me years ago. All my most precious things are in there.

There’s an old pink backpack in the chest. It’s my oldest belonging. I’ve had it for as long as I can remember. I had it even before that. I open up the zipper and then dump out the junk on the floor. I haven’t opened this in years. I can’t remember the last time I’ve looked at it. I search the material. Some old barrettes. Some stupid magazine cover with the Little Mermaid on it. Then I pick it up. The diamond ring. I try to read the inside, but I can’t, not in this light. I know what it says. All My Love Always. It’s the same ring in my dream. I’m shaking. I continue scrambling through the stuff. I see what I’m looking for. A scrap of paper. I pick it up and bring it to the light, trembling. It’s my handwriting from when I was very young. It says GRAFTON.

The voice from my dream repeats in my head like thunder. “Write it down, honey.”

I sit down, stunned.

I recognize that voice now. Now it’s clear as day.

It’s my father’s voice.

40

There’s not much time to think about the revelation that I haven’t forgotten my own father, that he’s still hidden somewhere in my mind. I don’t have the luxury of time. I can’t just sit around the cabin, thinking, hoping I will remember more of the man I thought I had forgotten. I don’t have time to imagine that there might be more memories inside my head waiting to come out. I don’t have time to ask myself why now? Why are these memories coming back now? I don’t have time for any of that. I have to keep moving.

I have to get Eric far away from the Homestead, and I have to do it tonight.