Lord of Lightning Read online

  “Soon ... I should leave tonight—as soon as the transmission is finished. There are modifications that have to be made to the system, and of course, more tests.”

  She searched his features for some indication of his feelings. Was he hurting too? Did the thought of leaving her tear him apart? The way it did her? What she saw in his eyes was an icy glimpse of infinity. The depth of his pain was limitless, beyond anything she could imagine.

  “Where will you be going?” It was the only question she could think to ask.

  He shook his head. “My work is highly sensitive, Lise. I’ve told you more than I should have already.”

  “But, you can’t just disappear. Surely there’s an address, a phone number ... I mean—what if I wanted to contact you?”

  “I can’t be contacted.”

  His statement caught her like an elbow to the midsection. It knocked the wind out of her. She rebounded with a brittle burst of laughter and disbelief. “Oh, I see—then you’ll write when you can—or call?”

  He didn’t answer, and Lise suddenly understood what the premonition had meant. He wasn’t going to call. Ever.

  The rocking chair gave a plaintive sound as she stood. “I won’t see you again, will I?”

  “Lise ... my work is consuming. I’m on the brink of a breakthrough, perhaps one of the biggest in modern physics. There’s nothing left over, no time.”

  The air she tried to draw into her lungs took on a sudden, crushing weight. His work, she thought, his life’s work. That was reason enough for any man to sidestep a relationship, she supposed. If that was the real reason.

  She nearly flinched with pain as she looked at him. He’d risen to his full height, and his eyes had crystallized to ice, inured to the hurting. Though it was the last thing Lise wanted at that moment, she found it impossible not to respond to him. His physical size, his presence, everything about him signified boundless strength. And yet the fatal flaw she’d once predicted was there, carved into his gaunt bones. He was a man divided. A man locked in mortal conflict—with himself.

  “Stephen, if you have to leave, I won’t try to stop you. But please, tell me the real reason.”

  Anger flashed through him, galvanizing him. “Your father destroyed your mother’s life—that’s what you said, wasn’t it? That he was a domineering bastard? Well, I’m a domineering bastard too. A woman died because she couldn’t say no to me. I pressured her into a relationship, into marriage, even pregnancy before she was ready. She’s dead, Lise.” He turned away on a harsh sound. “The baby’s dead.”

  “Stephen, don’t you think it’s time—”

  He whirled on her, furious. “To forgive myself? For Lord’s sake, don’t feed me platitudes! It isn’t about forgiving myself. It’s about knowing who I am. It’s about living with the knowledge that I can destroy people with my own selfish urges—that I have that power.”

  “You don’t destroy people—you help them. Look what you did for my students, and for Em.”

  He shook his head wearily. “Your students took me for an alien—or have you forgotten? The whole town did. Maybe they saw something you wouldn’t let yourself see.” He indicated his beard and shaggy lion-gold hair. “Take a look at me, Lise. I am an alien. I don’t belong here in this world—in your world. I’ve been away too long, from people, from life.”

  A wave of longing rocked her as she met his angry gaze. “I know what I see.” She saw a man torn by guilt, but he was still the most wonderful man she’d ever known, the only man she’d ever wanted to give herself to. If he was angry and alienated, he was also capable of warmth and great tenderness. Even now he was beautiful to her eyes—rugged and strong and golden. He was the hero of her childhood daydreams.

  Her heart quickened with the need to persuade him that he was wrong, but she couldn’t bring herself to speak. The future was clearly defined in his unyielding expression. He was going to leave her. He had to leave.

  “Lise, I can’t do it,” he said, his voice hard and aching. “Don’t ask me to try. It will kill us both. I can’t live here with you, and I can’t take you with me.”

  She nodded, her heart twisting. He was pleading with her to understand. Even if he could make peace with himself, even if his work wasn’t an issue, he didn’t believe himself capable of making the adjustment to her life—to small-town life—perhaps even to happiness. He had chosen self-exile. It was his path, his penance.

  She became aware of the rocker creaking behind her. It was still teeter-tottering from her sudden departure, and the anguished sound brought an ache to her throat. What did she do now? Leave? That would be the civilized way to handle it. Make her good-byes, somehow. Leave before her emotions betrayed her.

  “I think I left my shoes”—she jerked a hand toward the bedroom—“in there.”

  Stephen watched her go with a suffocating sense of loss. The dull pain that throbbed at the base of his skull built to splitting proportions, and his hands fisted. He had to restrain himself from putting one of them through the wall.

  She was fumbling into her sandals when he entered the room. He told himself not to speak to her, or touch her. He had no right. He had to let her go.

  A low moan of despair came out of her as she flung the offending sandal aside and then hobbled over to retrieve it.

  “Let me get it,” he offered.

  She pivoted, startled. “No!” She knelt to get the shoe and stayed down on the floor, tucked into a crouch. “Go away, Stephen, please. Don’t make this any harder.”

  “Harder?” He let out a sound riddled with frustration. “Ah, Lise, this is tearing my heart out. It couldn’t be any harder. I don’t want to leave you,” he said raggedly.

  She glanced up at him, disbelieving. “You don’t?”

  “No, I don’t. I feel as though I’m losing part of myself, something irreplaceable, but—”

  “I know, I know,” she said, a throaty break in her voice, “you have to go.” She rose, her dawn-blue eyes swimming with tears.

  They stood apart, staring at each other helplessly, until finally Stephen spoke. “What do we do now?”

  “We say good-bye.”

  “Yes ... but how?”

  A sad smile touched her lips, and then it wavered and broke into something soft and heartbreakingly radiant. “You could make love to me ... one last time.”

  The shock that flared through him was a physical force. But it was her expression that struck at his soul. She was so open, so achingly vulnerable, he couldn’t move for a moment. Every emotion played on her face exquisitely—love, pain, longing. She was risking it all. Lise Anderson was a woman defenseless, naked. There was nowhere for her to hide.

  He took the shoe from her hand, tossed it aside, and dragged her into his arms. As they clung to each other their eyes squeezed shut, and he let out the butchered sound that was locked inside him. His heart felt strangled as he pulled back and kissed her tear-streaked lashes. She had unlocked all the torment inside him. She had laid open the wounds.

  Lovemaking was out of the question. They both knew it would be too painful to bear. And yet they couldn’t part without knowing the raging sweetness again. He touched her face, a question in his eyes, and at her silent nod, he picked her up and carried her to the bed.

  They were lovers stunned and slowed by the immediacy of their responses. Each point of contact was so exquisitely charged that they barely had to touch. When they did come together, it was with a shellburst of longing. Their coupling was graceful and poignant. It was searingly silent. They were made mute by feelings, neither of them able to say the words of love their bodies expressed so eloquently.

  It was the most beautiful, painful interlude of Stephen’s life, and he knew by its end that he would have her with him always. She was indelible, as much an element of life as the breaking dawn. When his world was ice and darkness, she would be there, like the dawn, lighting his way.

  He was gone when Lise awoke the next morning. The first thing she did when sh
e touched her feet to the floor was walk to the storeroom and open the door. The room was empty, and her immediate response was denial. How could he possibly have moved his equipment without waking her? A dozen other questions stormed her mind until she released them all with a sigh of resignation. Stephen Gage wasn’t subject to a normal man’s flaws, or his limitations. Even though he denied it, he had some kind of magic on his side.

  He was gone, however, every trace of him. That couldn’t be denied. Sadness welled up inside her. One lonely tear shimmered, full of heartache as it caught on her lower lash. She felt as empty and abandoned as the room.

  Moments later she stood at the window, staring out at the pristine morning. Sunlight filtered through the treetops, promising a warm and lazy summer day. There was no sign of yesterday’s violence, no sign of a raging magnetic storm. Life in Shady Tree went on, she thought. He had come and gone, leaving the place untouched. Only she had changed.

  A sparrow hawk was perched on the porch railing, its head cocked oddly as it stared at her. There was something so personal about the bird’s scrutiny, Lise was reminded of Em’s claim that the spaceman had brought a dead bird to life. She’d dismissed it then as a figment of the child’s imagination. Now she didn’t know. Now anything seemed possible. Perhaps she and the curious little sparrow hawk had something in common. Perhaps they’d both been touched by lightning.

  She was dressing to leave when she noticed what looked like a paper ID tag on the floor near the storeroom door. Thinking it might have been torn off Stephen’s equipment, she picked it up and read the scrawled numbers. They weren’t in any sequence or combination she recognized, but on the chance that it was something he’d lost or forgotten, she tucked the tag in her purse.

  A short time later, as she drove off in her car, she glanced at her watch and saw that it had stopped. The hands were frozen at midnight. Sadness gripped her again, squeezing her heart. She had forgotten to ask him how he did that—stopped watches. Stopped time. Now she would never have the chance.

  Thirteen

  “THIRTY-SIX BOTTLES OF root beer on the wall! Thirty-six bottles of root beer—”

  The windows of the old school bus rattled with the deafening enthusiasm of Abraham Lincoln’s fifth-grade class. The students were headed for the L.A. Sports Arena that bright summer morning to compete in the Southern California Junior Science Fair. Julie was stationed at the front of the bus, leading the boisterous bunch in song, while Lise sat at the back, keeping a watchful eye on things.

  She winked as Em Baxter glanced over at her from across the aisle. The little girl’s odd behavior recently had forced Lise to set aside her own heartaches. Em had been quiet and listless all week, withdrawing into herself. Lise suspected it had something to do with Stephen’s leaving, but when she’d tried to talk to the child, Em had simply stonewalled. “He’ll come back,” she’d said. “And when he does, I’m going to ask him to show me how to make birds fly.”

  Lise’s smile saddened. Em had such unwavering faith in the “spaceman” that Lise could hardly bear the thought of seeing her disappointed. She still hadn’t found a way to tell Em he wasn’t coming back. At the time she’d simply drawn the child into her arms and hugged her.

  “Twenty-five bottles of root beer on the wall—”

  Her students’ high spirits reclaimed Lise’s attention, and by the time the noisy contingent had arrived at the Sports Arena, everyone’s attention was riveted on setting up their “Train of the Future.” Perhaps because there was so much at stake, the spirit of teamwork prevailed. A common cause does wonders, Lise thought, as she bent over the three-part informational display that would sit behind the railroad pike.

  She felt a tug on the back pocket of her jeans as she mounted a “before” picture of the maglev. “What is it, Em?” she said, not bothering to look behind her. She knew Em’s preferred modus operandi by now.

  “Do you think we’ll win. Miss Anderson?”

  “Yes,” Lise said almost immediately. “I’m sure we will.” She set down the glue and turned to the little girl. Em’s gray eyes were wide with surprise, and Lise realized she’d surprised even herself. Normally she wouldn’t have risked raising the child’s hopes for fear of disappointment, but perhaps it was Em’s own faith that had prompted her. Every so often a strong dose of hope was necessary, she realized. Maybe believing was the only antidote to grim reality.

  She drew Em over to see the display. “This is why I think we should win,” she said, detailing the features that made their maglev project unique among model trains. “And what’s more,” she added moments later, winding up her spiel, “in the real world, a maglev train would require less energy, produce no smog and relieve traffic congestion on the freeways.”

  Em blinked. “I guess we can’t lose, huh?”

  Lise nodded and sent the little girl off to help one of the volunteer mothers who was distributing midmorning juice and snacks. Please don’t let me be wrong, she thought.

  The rest of the morning proceeded in the same spirit of impending triumph. Once Lise’s class had the maglev project set up and operational, she took her students on a tour of the other displays. There were several projects on computers, one on optical illusions, and one called “Motion of the Ocean” that was so brilliantly conceived Lise began to worry she’d overestimated their chances.

  Lunch was a festive affair with an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet, ice-cream cake for dessert, and an ex-NASA astronaut who spoke to the children about the future of space exploration. His talk made Lise think of Stephen, and she was trying to shake off her melancholy mood when Julie rushed up.

  “Lise, it’s Em!”

  Julie was so shaken that Lise sprang to her feet to steady the girl. “What about Em?” she demanded, pulling Julie out of earshot of the children’s table.

  “She felt sick and asked me to take her to the rest room.” Julie let out a moan of near anguish. “She vomited, Lise—blood, I think. She’s in terrible pain!”

  By the time Lise burst into the rest room, she had reached a state of nerves that transcended hysteria. Under other circumstances she might have fallen apart at the sight of Em Baxter’s body crumpled on the restroom floor, but some higher signal in her brain told her to kneel, to take the child’s pulse.

  “Julie, call an ambulance—quickly.” Lise said, pressing her fingers to the carotid artery in Em’s neck. The child’s pulse was faint and thready. She was unconscious, Lise realized. And burning up with fever. Food poisoning? Blood poisoning? Other possibilities assaulted Lise, even more horrific.

  She wouldn’t allow herself to think the thought that flashed into her head. Em would be all right. The child had a spirit as abiding as the Olympic flame. The light in her solemn gray eyes was inextinguishable. Lise had Em’s destiny all mapped out, she realized. She was going to live to be one hundred and two—and maybe even teach school at Abraham Lincoln. She would be all right.

  Lise was oblivious to the siren’s shrieks as she sat next to Em in the ambulance. She held the child’s hand tightly, trying to transfuse her with lifeblood, or vital energy, or whatever intangible thing it was that kept people alive.

  The paramedics hadn’t been able to diagnose the child’s condition except to say that it was critical, so Lise was fighting an invisible enemy. Whatever malaise had gained a foothold in Em’s frail body, it was powerful and insidious. Her pulse was wildly erratic now—racing one moment, barely detectable the next. Despite the ice the paramedics had packed her in, her temperature was soaring.

  “Come on, Em, fight,” Lise whispered.

  Lise had always found it difficult to believe in the intangibles others took for granted, but she did believe in the sanctity of life. Em Baxter was not going to die. Not today. Not this way. The child represented something Lise couldn’t put into words. What had Stephen said about her? She was a mirror to life’s hope, to its—Lise had forgotten the rest of his remark, but it didn’t matter. He’d obviously meant that Em was special in som
eway. That she was protected.

  Lise squeezed the child’s hand and thought she felt an answering pressure. The eerie calmness that had enveloped Lise fled. Her heart started beating wildly. “Em? Emily?” she said, squeezing again. Had the child actually responded? Lise’s own thundering excitement was hampering her ability to discern the subtle feedback she was looking for. She had to calm down!

  “Emily?” Leaning closer, Lise saw a twitch of movement in the child’s mouth. Her lips parted slightly as though she were trying to say something.

  “Dah...”

  “What is it, Em?” Lise searched her memory for a connection as the child murmured the sound again. “What, Em? Your doll? Is that what you want? I have it right here.”

  Grateful she’d remembered to bring the doll with her, Lise tucked it into the curve of the five-year-old’s arm. “There you go, sweetheart.”

  The child stirred slightly, her eyelids quivering.

  “It’s okay, Em,” Lise said as the child’s eyes drooped open for a moment. “You’re going to be okay. Can you hear me? It’s Miss Anderson. I’m with you—”

  A nerve twitched in Em’s cheek. She was struggling to stay conscious. “Is he ... here?” she asked.

  “He?” Lise gripped the child’s hand tighter, realizing who she meant. “No, sweetheart, Stephen had to go away. He was called away, honey. Em?”

  Em’s eyes had drifted shut again. “He’ll come back,” she whispered. “He’ll fix me ... like he fixed Elizabeth.”

  Lise swallowed against something hot and acrid in her throat.

  A moment later the ambulance came to a halt, the back doors swung open to a blinding explosion of neon light, and paramedics swarmed inside. Emily’s hand was torn from hers, and Lise was pushed forcefully aside as the team lifted the little girl’s body to a gurney.

  “Wait! Will she be all right?” Lise cried as they rolled the gurney out of the van. “Please! Let me go with her!”