The Rift

CHAPTER 2

“I’d like some French toast,” Scout said, and her mother shot her a look as if she’d asked for a shot of pure heroin.

Scout’s mother was terrified of calories. She was making an egg-white omelet and some asparagus. And not much of either.

Mother also didn’t like that her daughter insisted that her name was now Scout. This change had occurred the previous summer when all sorts of strange things had happened in the gated community in North Carolina they’d lived in while Scout’s dad worked in the Research Triangle. Gas explosions, mysterious fires, strange people out and about; it had all been quite unnerving for Mother and she’d been happy to see North Carolina in the rearview mirror. Unfortunately, Tennessee in the windshield didn’t seem much different, with just the Smoky Mountains in front or behind.

At first she’d ignored Scout’s name request, an irresistible force against an immovable object.

The object won, because Scout simply refused to acknowledge her given name, Greer.

It only took her twenty-six days and forcing her mother to watch To Kill a Mockingbird and then leaving it on, playing off the DVR on a constant loop. Every time her mother turned it off, Scout turned it back on. It also didn’t hurt her cause that she had an aunt, a cousin, and a grandmother who were also named Greer and the whole mess got quite confusing at times.

Scout was easier all around was the way her mother finally rationalized it. A phase the seventeen-year-old would grow out of.

But Scout was who she was.

Of course, Scout also knew giving up Greer meant she was the outsider, not of the clan, but she’d never really been inside, so it shouldn’t have bothered her that her mother now called her Scout. She’d wanted it and her mother had given in. Victory.

But the still-child part of Scout kind of wished her mother hadn’t given in. She was wise enough to realize that sometimes people gave in when the fight wasn’t worth it because they simply didn’t care that much.

Awareness was a bitch.

Scout’s hair was now red with blue streaks, since Scout believed change was good. Short and spiked. A lot of kids laughed at it in the new school that first day in January, but Scout had noted the ones who didn’t laugh. Who watched. She knew Nada would have approved. Eggs and ham, or ham and eggs. There was a lot of difference.

She missed Nada. She missed the team. She didn’t even resent that they’d knocked her out to go do whatever they’d gone to go do, although the online newspaper had reported a lab explosion on campus at UNC. Yeah, right, Scout had thought upon reading that. Had Nightstalkers written all over it. The team really needed better cover stories. They’d left without a good-bye or fare-thee-well. Still, she’d understood on a base level that Nightstalkers never said good-bye.

It was too permanent a thing in a business where there were more serious permanent things.

“I’m going riding today,” Scout said, settling in on the bar stool at the perfectly clean granite kitchen bar. “I need the carbs.”

The sun had come up over the Smokies to the southeast an hour and a half ago and Scout was raring to go, way too early for most seventeen-year-old girls, but Scout was anything but normal.

The house was new, but unlike cars, it didn’t have a new house smell. Actually, it smelled pretty much of nothing. No character, no essence. It sat alone at the end of a cul-de-sac in a new, isolated subdivision outside of Knoxville, Tennessee, on the wrong side of the river but the right side of the railroad tracks. Scout often said the latter to irritate her parents, who’d sacrificed distance from Dad’s work for price per square footage. She had no idea which side of the railroad tracks they were on, although she could hear the train coming through, hooting and tooting every so often.

The nearest house was still under construction and it depressed Scout to count the five electrical boxes lined up along the street between their house and that one, because that meant while the houses were large, the lots were small and if this place got fully developed, she’d be able to jump from rooftop to rooftop. Big houses, tiny lots.

And the closest tree was a quarter mile away, as the developer had bought out a dairy farmer’s field and was trying to squeeze every possible nickel out of the real estate. Beyond that tree, huge power lines crossed the river, metal towers on each shoreline holding them up. This was TVA country, Tennessee Valley Authority, and the whole place thrived on power. The Smoky Mountains were to the southeast, but not visible from the front of the house, because rolling hills blocked the view. They could be seen from the roof if one stood on one’s toes; Scout knew this because she’d gone up on the roof one day when no one was home and stood up on her toes.

On the plus side, unlike Senator’s Club in North Carolina, there was no gate. Of course, as far out in the middle of nowhere as they were, it didn’t seem like there was going to be much traffic. No one came to this neighborhood by accident; it was on a bend of the Tennessee River, a thumb of land four miles long by two wide. To get to the other side of the river, where Knoxville was, one had to wind through miles of mostly single-lane roads to a larger road, to Interstate 140 (which ran all of twenty miles from I-40 to Maryville) and cross on the I-140 bridge, or take Alcoa Highway into downtown Knoxville. Traffic on that road (locals called it “I’ll Kill You”) was so bad, one literally took their lives into their hands just trying to merge into the speeding flow of people anxious to get to wherever was so important they were willing to risk their lives for it.

On the upside, the sloping backyard ended at the Tennessee River. And even better, beyond the cul-de-sac, on the other side of the wooden fence, was a huge spread with an old house and a barn and a bunch of cows, and most importantly a stable where Scout’s horse Comanche was housed.

Scout could tell her mother was wavering, glancing at the pantry.

“Please? Comanche gets carbs. I won’t get any lunch and I’m starving.” Scout wasn’t sure if oats were carbs, but Comanche definitely ate better than she did.

“A moment on the lips—” her mother began, but Scout cut that one off at the fridge.

“If you say a lifetime on the hips, I’m gonna scream.” Scout opened the door to the fridge and pulled out the real eggs. Then she opened the bread bin. “Face it, Mother. The food thing is your deal and I don’t float my boat by keeping my lips sealed to real food. That’s yours.”

“It’s everyone’s deal,” her mother said. “This country is in bad shape.”

“Yeah,” Scout muttered, putting the eggs on the bar. “Everyone’s worried a size two is twice as fat as a size zero.”

“What was that, dear?”

“Nothing,” Scout said as she headed for the stairs.

She glanced over her shoulder before she turned the corner on the landing and saw her mother staring into the bread bin as if it contained a snarling possum. Scout sighed and continued the trek to the upper level, thinking of her grandmother, Nana, who couldn’t feed her enough and her mother who wanted her to subsist on air and egg whites. Why the disconnect in subsequent generations? As if a parent had to do opposite their own, and everything skipped one generation, causing never-ending turmoil and misunderstanding.

Scout paused as she wondered what kind of mother she’d be, and decided that Nana-mode wasn’t so bad, but it had produced her mother.

So.

Seemed like a lose-lose all around. Was there a third option?

She bet the Nightstalkers could figure out a third option.

Scout flipped the sign on her door to DO NOT, and walked into her new room. Sometimes she missed her old room in North Carolina with its nice window to the roof where she could climb out and sit in the dark and smoke and watch Nightstalkers parachute out of the sky.

Once at least for the latter.

But this room had its upsides. There was a lovely window seat looking out onto the river and all her books were on built-in shelves. She liked snuggling up on the cushions on the window seat and reading and watching the action on the river. The locals called it Fort Loudoun Lake because there was a dam about twenty miles to the west. But Scout called it the Tennessee River, because the river was here before the dam and it had river barges, and barges didn’t go in circles on a lake. They ended up somewhere on a river. Point A to Point B. On one tug she’d seen Chattanooga, TN painted on the stern, and she knew that was a long way past the dam, downriver, traveling through a lock in that dam and the others. A bunch of dams on the river, each one dropping the level seventy feet. She’d researched it, and on some base, explorer level, it excited her to think one could get on the river in her own backyard and travel over six hundred miles, meandering southwest through Tennessee into Alabama, turning back north, crossing back into Tennessee, past the Shiloh battlefield, and then into Kentucky where the river links up with the Ohio at Paducah. And from there, of course, the Ohio went to the Mississippi and the Mississippi went all the way down to New Orleans and beyond there to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Gulf, the Atlantic, and from there the world.

Sometimes Scout wondered if she ought to consider a career in the merchant marine. Or if the lure of the Mississippi was from all the Twain she’d read.

She’d read all the Twain there was to read.

On the far side of the river, the original rocky side (her house was on the drowned farmland side created when the dam was put up during the early 1940s by the TVA), a barge was anchored, putting in a dock for a house on the cliff. The barge was old and battered and every piece of metal on it was covered with rust, but it had a crane and a pile driver to pound the long wooden poles down into the river bottom, and lately she liked to just sit on her window seat and watch that power in action, listening to the rhythmic thud during the day.

Her mother complained every time it was working and had already called the TVA to complain about the noise.

As if.

Scout likened that to people who bought a house in the flight path of an airport and then complained about the noise of the planes taking off and landing. Speaking of which, while they weren’t on the civilian flight path to Knoxville Airport, only a few miles away as the crow flies, for some reason big military planes flew overhead every day, taking off and landing. She figured the air force just had to take a different runway from the civilians, just like the Nightstalkers hadn’t been able to fit in her old gated community. The military was just different.

Scout liked the river and overall she rated this place better than Senator’s Club, although she missed her window egress and the ability to sit on the roof and smoke. For that, she now climbed under the wood fence and then went down to the riverbank and hid behind a wooden seawall the owner of the barn had put in. It was okay, but she had a feeling once summer really hit, the mosquitoes were going to be a bitch to deal with.

She could smell the French toast, but it was a thin smell because her mother had held back on the sugar and cinnamon, which her nana would have piled on to make the heady aroma of a real, vibrant dish. One that would draw you downstairs, just to be in the presence of its creation.

Scout also liked the new bathroom because a bunch of the plugs were built into the cabinets and drawers so her mother didn’t complain about tangled wires or scummy electric toothbrushes out in the open. If it was hidden in a drawer, her mother was of the “out of sight, out of mind” persuasion, at least when it came to her daughter.

Scout hit the face of her iPad and music came out of the speakers built into the ceilings, which was also a cool feature. The whole house could be controlled by iPad, and not just the music: lights, locks, garage doors…pretty much everything. It was a smart house, according to the real estate brochure. Scout thought it was probably getting smarter than her three-person family and would one day turn on them.

She’d seen a house do that back in North Carolina.

The Nightstalkers had blown it up and then burned it down to ashes.

She didn’t think her mother would be happy if that happened.

Sometimes, though, when she saw her dad at his computer and the Quicken program was open, she had a feeling he wouldn’t be too upset to collect on the insurance.

Scout turned on her toothbrush and stuck it in her mouth, keeping her lips shut so the drool didn’t run down her face. She wanted to be out of here as soon as she wolfed down the skimpy breakfast her mother was preparing. She wandered back to the big window and watched the barge across the river. The crew had just arrived and tied off their skiff and were getting ready for a day’s work. A speedboat roared by, some guy water-skiing behind it in a wet suit, because May was too early, even in Tennessee, plus it was slightly chilly at 7:15 in the a.m. There was a cluster of ducks near their dock and Scout tried to remember what that was called — a gaggle? Or was that geese? — which got her trying to remember the difference between ducks and geese.

Her family had two Sea-Doos on lifts on one side of their dock, but the boatlift was empty. Her dad sat every evening after work with his catalogues and laptop and looked at boats the way her mother went through her yoga attire catalogues and Southern Living magazines. Weird the way everyone wanted different stuff and spent so much time looking—

Scout yelped because her mouth suddenly got hot and her back molar was tingling like she’d lost the filling and hit a nerve. She jerked the toothbrush out of her mouth so quick, she forgot to shut it off, spraying herself and the blue window seat and the window with spittle and toothpaste. Before she hit the off button, it stopped. As did the music and the lights overhead.

Her first thought was she’d have to clean the window and wash the seat cover.

Great. Her mother couldn’t even make French toast without flipping a circuit breaker.

She looked over and the iPad screen was dark, which was weird, because even if the power went out, its battery should keep it on. And then she realized the battery-powered toothbrush wasn’t wired in to a circuit breaker either.

Scout tossed the toothbrush in the sink and went downstairs. Her mother was standing in front of the stove, the French toast sizzling, the lights on.

“What’s up with my room?” Scout asked.

“What do you mean, honey?” Then the range exhaust fan stopped, as did her mother. “Well, that’s weird.”

“Must be the breaker box,” Scout said, even though she doubted her mother knew what one was, never mind where it was.

And she knew it wasn’t the breaker box. One could hope.

Sometimes hope isn’t a good thing.

Then all the lights went off and the two just stood there for a moment staring at each other.

Scout was about to tell her mom she’d check the box in the garage when the fan started with a low whir and the lights flickered, coming back on. Scout realized she still had a dull pain in her molar and went into the downstairs half-bath and turned the light on. She looked in the mirror, opening her mouth wide. There was the faintest golden glow in the tooth, which slowly faded out.

The skin on the back of her neck tingled. Scout ran back upstairs, ignoring her mother. The iPad was on, music was coming out of the speakers, and the lights were bright.

The toothbrush was rattling in the sink, vibrating the water, which was also glowing golden. Scout hit the sink stopper and the water drained out, taking the golden glow with it.

With a trembling hand, Scout picked the brush up and hit the off button.

It shut down.

Scout waited, not sure what to expect but having a feeling it wasn’t going to be good.

Tentatively, she tried the toothbrush. It rattled to life, no golden glow, and shut off when she hit the button.

So far, so nothing.

Which was good. Perhaps.

Scout went to the window and sat on the window seat. She squinched her eyes shut and thought hard: Was the toothbrush new or had it been recovered from her destroyed bathroom in North Carolina, where her curler had been possessed?

She realized there was no way of knowing without asking Cleaner, who’d supervised the reconstruction of the room after the Nightstalkers had taken out the Firefly that had possessed the curler.

Or had they?

She’d been on the porch with Nada. But Moms, she’d been in there and she’d said they done it, and although Scout had only known Moms for a couple of days, Scout knew Moms wasn’t a woman who imagined things or guessed.

If Moms said they got it, they got it.

So what didn’t they get?

And where was it now?

She looked toward the bathroom and mentally traced the flow: gold in toothbrush, into water, down the drain. Drain went to septic tank to drainage field, which was in the backyard.

Her mother called for her and Scout reluctantly went downstairs to get her meager breakfast. It looked like her mother had cut the slices of bread into even thinner slices, which required the skill of a surgeon, but her mother was quite good at paring food down. There was, of course, no maple syrup to drench the French toast in. Scout took the plate and went to the nook table, where her mother was always trying to get the family to eat meals together.

This took Mother by surprise, since Scout always wolfed her food down at the bar or trudged upstairs to her room to eat alone.

“Are you all right, dear?” Her mother had taken to calling her dear, not Scout. A compromise.

“I’m fine,” Scout said. The nook gave a nice view of the yard and the river.

Her mother shouldered the heavy bag of workout gear and whatever else she hauled around to make it through her day. “Enjoy your ride, dear.”

“You, too, Mother.”

Her mother stood in the doorway to the garage, staring at Scout as if she’d grown two heads. “You know, Greer—” she began, and Scout perked up.

“Yes?”

“Nothing, dear.” Her mother shrugged and the door shut behind her.

And then Scout was alone. She took the plate to the sink and washed it.

Then she went to the back door. She wanted to just gear up and go ride Comanche. But then she thought, What would Nada do?

He’d wait and watch. Something strange had happened and it was easy to ignore an anomaly.

Easy was bad.

So Scout waited and watched and then she saw it, thirty minutes after the water had gone down her sink, a golden shimmer in the grass in the backyard. Scout was tempted to walk out there, but that was tempting fate.

So she waited a bit longer and then she saw a translucent snake of golden water surface in the river, and then disappear underneath the muddy surface.

“This isn’t good,” Scout muttered. She went back into the house to her room.

Scout grabbed the Leatherman multitool out of her backpack and went to the air intake grill on the wall. She carefully unscrewed it, making sure not to mark the perfect white paint. A lockbox was set inside. She dialed up the combination and opened it. Inside there were the usual items a normal seventeen-year-old girl would hide, but even more items an abnormal seventeen-year old girl would hide.

Such as some spent shell casings of various sizes she’d scavenged from the fence line of Senator’s Club where the Nightstalkers had destroyed the backhoe — Cleaner’s team was good but not perfect. An empty eggs and ham MRE packet, a tribute to Nada’s willingness to take one for the team. And a postcard from the Little A’Le’Inn, located in Rachel, Nevada, along Highway 375, aka Extraterrestrial Highway. She’d received it just a week after the events in Senator’s Club, her name and address printed on a label.

And the only thing where one would send endearments or “wish you were here” was a phone number. And the words Text in case of emergency. Then someone — she assumed Nada — had scrawled, But it will take a while.

Scout took the card to the window seat and placed it in her lap as she sat down. Something was different. She closed her eyes and focused, and then realized it was the lack of something that had caught her attention. She opened her eyes and saw that the guys on the barge across the river were staring at their pile driver, one scratching his head.

The driver was silent, frozen in mid-movement.

With trembling fingers, she typed in the number on her iPhone, knowing she was initiating something that could have tremendous repercussions.

Then she typed in a message: Nada. Scout. In TN. We have a golden problem.

Scout pressed send and the message shot to the top of her page.

She waited, then realized the odds were low there would be an immediate reply based on Nada’s addendum. She put the phone in her pocket.

Looking up at the sound of a thud, she saw that the pile driver was working again, doing its job.

Then she stared at the river, the water flowing by so slowly, held up by Loudoun Dam downstream, so much so that they called this a lake. And she felt it again, that feeling of trouble having arrived and more trouble coming.

Looking out the window again, she could see a boat was stalled out, about a quarter mile downstream, the driver fussing over the engine.

Yeah. There was a problem.