Free Figment by Elizabeth Woods Page B

the slick and twisty road. We are driving through the abandoned farm fields that stretch for miles at the base of the hills. I have been here before; I can sense it. “Please, let’s turn around,” I plead with Davis. I can see the hills rising ahead of us. Dread is choking me. We must not drive into the hills. “Turn around!” I yell.
    He isn’t listening, though. He’s staring into the rearview mirror, but the road behind us is empty. “We have to get away,” he says, and even in my dream state, I feel faint surprise that I can hear him. He isn’t garbled the way he was before.
    “Get away from what?” I ask. He is driving too fast. I can sense it. I can feel the looseness of the steering wheel as if my own hands were on it. “Stop. Stop, Davis, go back.”
    But still he does not hear me; he watches the empty road behind us. “They found me. They’ve found me out, Zo.”
    “Who? Who?” I ask over and over. The car hurtles down the road, and inexorably, the hills draw closer and closer. All I can do is watch and wait.
    My eyes flew open, and, for a long moment, I stared into the dark with the sense that my bed was moving. It was the dream, I realized. I groaned and rolled over, pulling the pillow over the back of my neck. My head was throbbing. A different part of the same night. I tried to force my mind back. Why were we on that stretch of road? What was Davis talking about, that they found him? Who found him?
    Unbidden, my mind flew back to the man on the beach, his small, closed face. Davis’s automatic dismissal. Shouldn’t he have been at least a little curious when I told him I thought we were being followed? Shouldn’t he have cared?
    * * *
    My mother found me in the kitchen, my eyes barely open, staring at the incomprehensible European coffeemaker. I heard her footsteps and stiffened automatically. I had nothing to say to her—nothing sincere, that is.
    “It’s the red switch,” my mother said from behind me. “The one at the back.”
    I thumbed it without turning around. The coffeemaker burbled on, and brown droplets started falling into the carafe. I watched it intently as she bustled around behind me, clanking plates and silverware. I could tell there was something she wanted to say. There was nothing I wanted to hear.
    “I thought maybe we’d do a little shopping today, you and me.” Jostling of pans. “We’ve hardly spent any time together here.”
    Her light, casual tone rankled. My fingers tightened on the edge of the counter. The coffee was done. I poured myself a mugful without answering.
    Eggs and toast were steaming on my plate when I turned around. I sat down, cut open one of the yolks, and watched the runny yellow soak into the bread. I set my fork down, got up, poured wheat flakes into a bowl, and sat back down.
    Across the table, my mother watched me over the rim of her teacup. “Covent Garden has some nice shops, I’ve heard.”
    “Really?” I spoke politely, as if to a stranger, and spooned up some cereal. With a pang of cruel pleasure, I watched her flinch.
    “I thought maybe you might want a chain for the . . . the charm Davis gave you?”
    I looked up from my bowl quickly. “What?”
    She twirled her coffee cup in her hands. “A chain. Do you have one?”
    “No,” I said slowly. “No, actually, I don’t.”
    “Well, maybe you should. I’m sure that . . . memento is very special to you.”
    I could feel the core of ice around my heart beginning to crack. Was she maybe, just maybe, starting to come around to the thought of Davis and me together?
    “Zoe.” My mother set her teacup down and reached out her hand. “I know this has been a god-awful summer.”
    I looked at her hand. The skin was soft, wrinkled, splotched here and there with age spots. “The worst.” It felt good to just say it out like that.
    She nodded. “I’m sorry for that.”
    “Me too.” I sighed.
    She turned her hand palm up. “I want to go shopping with my daughter. Just for