touch by Melissa Haag Page B

The camera lay on the table.  I ignored it.
    After hanging Clavin’s coat over mine, I led him to my room
and pointed him in the direction of my bed.  I stayed far away from him and he
wearily laid back.  A boy in my bed.  I couldn’t quite process the thought.  A
boy I didn’t really care for.  I still questioned why he was even here as I
watch him pull a quilt over himself.
    Trying to stay in a charitable mindset, I didn’t think about
how I would need to wash my bedding quick before dark… well, I didn’t think
about it much.
    Clavin had barely closed his eyes when his breathing
deepened.  Tired from work, I turned to leave the room and relax on the couch. 
Morik’s voice stopped me.
    “I trust you don’t mind if I use Clavin?”
    I spun around and stared as Clavin sat up.  It was one thing
for me to talk to Morik at school.  Talking to him here made my heart jump in
fear.  I’d brought this unknown creature into my home.  I backed toward the
door another step.  Suddenly, I was very glad no one else was home.
    “How did you know where I was?  Where I would be?”  My voice
remained steadier than my pulse.
    “Since I’ve found you, I’ve never lost track of you.” He
stood and walked toward me.
    I backed out of the doorway and quickly walked to the living
room reminding myself he had plenty of opportunities to hurt me before if that
were his intent.  What did he expect me to do now?
    Trying to calm down, I decided to try treating him as a
guest… without getting too close.
    “How did you find me the first time?”  Nervous, I kept
moving, getting us both a drink of water.  He sat at the table and waited for
me expectantly.  Hesitantly, I joined him.  Sitting across of him, I relaxed a
little and passed him his glass.  Just like at school.  A conversation across
the table.
    “I felt you the moment they bruised you.  Your pain was my
beacon.”  He took a drink of water and then explained.  “I feel every birth and
death in Belinda’s line, but those are weak signals compared to when one of you
is hurt.  It’s because of those faint signals that I lost track of you at
times.”
    I tried to piece to together why he would feel our pain,
birth or death, but couldn’t think of a reason.  “Why do you feel us?”
    “How else would I keep track of all of you throughout the
years?  Especially when you move around so much?  It also helps me know how
many of you are approaching your seventeenth birthday.”
    I thought of the family tree in the back of Belinda’s book. 
Perhaps the dead branches weren’t dead after all, but branches that had moved
away for safety.  They could have made a copy of the book to pass down through
the daughters of their branch.  “Are there others then?  Other descendants of
Belinda?”
    He shook his head sadly.  “The four of you in this house are
the last of her line.  You are the only one of age.”
    “Five you mean.”
    He canted his head to the side as I’d seen him do before
when puzzled.  “No.  Four.  I am not mistaken.”
    The certainty of his tone had me frowning.  Playing with my
half-empty glass, sliding it back and forth on the tabletop, I stared at the
clear water thinking.  Without a doubt, there were five of us in this house or
my mind wasn’t the only one in question.  Maybe, somehow, we’d managed to hide
one of us from him.
    The obvious answer came to me.  Gran and Aunt Danielle. 
Twins.  He’d probably only sensed a single birth since they’d been born so
close together.  And they looked identical.  With Aunt Danielle mostly staying
home, he’d probably never seen both at the same time.
    I glanced back up at him.  He watched me closely and I tried
to keep my expression blank.  They were both gone, but for how long?  I wanted
to get answers, but his presence could jeopardize their secret.
    The biggest question still remained.  Did he pose a threat
to us?  And it wasn’t a question I could just ask him.