This choice: Leave Saratoga Falls with Robert. • Go Back...Chapter #48Leavin’ on a (Commuter) Jet Plane by: Nostrum   It sounds like an echo on your ears, distant and muffled. The apartment has blurred into blots of colors, some of which you barely register moving. Your body is unresponsive. Your breathing has slowed almost to a halt. It's as if you were fusing into the sofa, and you became as inanimate as it. It'd be better, your mind conjures the thought, if I were a sofa. That way, I'd have a purpose.
And you feel yourself go. It's easier this way, no?
If only it were that easy. You feel someone grasping your chin. You feel heavy, bound to chains that seem to want to drag you down to the cold and dark earth, and you feel like death has finally caught up to you. Yet, as moments pass, you feel your pain, your anger, your sorrow, struggling to escape, receding like the tide. You feel relaxed, as if a weight had been lifted off you – in fact, you feel as if you could take that weight off you now. Your mind is clearer, your body feels rejuvenated, and your soul no longer languishes.
Frank steps back, and you shake your head in disbelief. "You still with us, Prescott?", he asks.
The blur has gone, and you see things clearly. Robert watches at you in shock, and only mutters a single phrase. "Don't tell me I looked like a dork when you did that to me, Frank."
You laugh. It's a stupid thing, but you feel, for who knows how long, a clarity you thought lost. You register the last question made by Frank. Stay? Or leave?
Your reply is quick, harsh and pained. "Going. The faster, the better."
It didn't take long for you to figure it out. It's been long since you even took out your phone to speak with Caleb, or Keith; it's been forever since you've hanged out with Carson and James and Paul and Jenny. Westside High wasn't exactly a place you longed to be. You'd be with Uncle Scott and Aunt Mary—and Umeko—but it wouldn't be the same. The only people you'll really miss are Taylor and Lucy.
Your mom, disappeared. Your dad, under a mask of your brother, with no chance to save him. And Blackwell could come at any moment to snatch you. You can't return home. You don't even have a home anymore.
The only thing you have is Robert ... and if you stay in Saratoga Falls, even he'll have to be gone. Everyone will think of him as gone, after all. Just like Taylor, you grimly recall, but there's no Scott for him to replace. You want to be with the only family member that remains with you.
Saratoga Falls is cast on a gravely, deathly, heavy shadow, and you feel the desperate need for release. You stand up, scratching your eyes with the palm of your hand.
"Joe?" Frank barks at his brother, as if a drill sergeant. "Go call Dad, tell him we need three tickets outta here, soon as possible. Prescott, you're coming with me to your house to pick up your clothes and anything you need to take. We're leaving as soon as Joe confirms we can leave."
"What about Robert?"
"He'll stay here with Joe."
"Not that", you retort to Frank. "Of course he's staying here. He can't be seen. Which is the problem." You move towards the box, checking the masks until you find a particular one. "We're gonna stop on a thrift store nearby. Get something close to my size."
"Whaddya mean?"
"Well, uh... You said he has to go undercover, no?" You wiggle the mask. "What better than as an entirely different person?"
--
It's hard sifting through your things at your house. The same desolate air of abandonment that you felt at the professor's has settled over yours. Frank insisted that you be quick and pack light, but though you want to be out of the house too, you feel yourself dragging as you know this will be the last time probably that you will ever be inside it. Certainly it will be the last time you will see it the way it was when you and your family lived her. But though it is a struggle, you do get through it, packing not only your things but also Robert's. On the way out, you instinctively grab a family photo from the living room—one where your mom, your dad, Robert and you, evidently younger, posed as a happy family. The photo brought you pain, yes – pain that you wouldn't take a silly photo like this ever again, but you gripped it with a glint of determination. One that Frank surely must have noticed, as he relaxed and flashed a rare smile at you.
As you left, taking all the needed stuff, you stopped and gave one last look at your childhood home. You take out your cell phone and snap one last photo of it in the dimming light.
--
It's the next morning before you are able to leave, taking one of the handful of commuter flights that connect Saratoga Falls to Chicago. Final plans are made the night before. Taylor has to keep Scott's mask, of course, and almost everything else that is magical—all the masks and sigils and the notebooks—will go with you and Robert and Joe to Olympia, Montana, where the Stellae have their base. Joe will accompany you on the flight before returning to Saratoga Falls to rejoin Frank, where they will keep alert for any sign of Blackwell.
If parting from your house was emotional, parting from the last two remaining friends you have is wracking. You don't feel the oppressive pain of loss as strong anymore, but you still feel a tinge of sadness as you see Taylor, out of Scott's mask, and Lucy, standing beside him. You'd love to have them with you as well, but they have their lives to live. Frank and Joe think it will be safe for Lucy to return to her former life—they got rid of the double that the professor put in for her—and they will be on hand for a little while, at least, to keep an eye on her. And Taylor will have to remain as Scott, for perhaps the rest of his life.
Taylor's the first to speak, as he looks at you. "Man ... I wish you guys didn't have to go."
"I agree." You hug Taylor firmly, for a good while, before stepping back. You look at Lucy, who's barely able to contain her emotions. "Lucy? Um..." You find the words hard to say, but you muster the strength to speak them. "Thanks for worrying about me. I...I maybe didn't appreciate them as much." You remain distant; you don't feel as comfortable hugging her, though you wish so desperately that she took the chance. "I'm sorry if I..."
As if she had read your mind—or maybe the emotion in your eyes—she lunges upon you and crushes you with a hug. Not even the awkward boner you get can kill the tender moment, and your brain once again registers that warm feeling of having your mother hug you once again. "Will? I..." She mutters behind her teeth, almost sobbing. "I'm gonna miss you."
You look at the two of them, and you fight your last clashing thoughts as you join their hands. "I hope your relationship gets strong. And...next time we meet?" You sniff, biting your lip. "I wanna hear that you tied the knot, you two."
Both Taylor and Lucy chuckle with tears in their eyes. They hold hands, and as you see them smiling at each other, you feel glad that you never intervened in their relationship. You help Frank and Joe unload your bags as you see them make an awkward farewell wave to your brother. You understand them; it's not easy to see Marc Garner following you, after all, behaving as a pre-teen trying to act a bit more mature. He tries to awkwardly hug Lucy, and though the two hesitate, they finally confound in a hug. Taylor has it rougher, as he's seen Marc, and the resemblance is so uncanny that he has to point how uncomfortable he feels to know that the guy in front of him isn't your schoolmate, but your brother.
As you walk towards the doors to the airport – a small facility – you turn around to see Taylor and Lucy waving you a tender farewell, and you return the gesture in kind. You turn around, only to hear your brother – in Marc's voice – speaking in a rarely sullen voice. "You think we'll ever come back home?"
"Dunno if we'll ever be back again." You turn your back to Saratoga Falls one more time, and sigh. "But we'll find a solution to this. I promise."
Your brother nods, and draws a pained smile. "Don't make promises you can't keep, bro." There's a strange feel of maturity on his words – perhaps because they sound like Marc's. "But I hope we fix this."
The process of stepping through the airplane ran without complications. After you are seated and are waiting to taxi, Joe takes out a sketchboard and a pen. He leans over to murmur to you. "Say, you remember we had a pending talk, right?"
"Yeah", you agree, though confused.
"Good. I think this'll distract you a bit. So here's the first question. What's your name?"
The Sequel: "A Heartfelt Request"  |
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