Circle of Stones. Suzanne Alyssa Andrew

slamming, engines revving. In the distance he can see the coastal mountains. He can smell salt water. He’s still in Vancouver, but in the suburbs. It’s morning. Nik doesn’t know which suburb he’s in or how he got there. He doesn’t realize his boots are missing until he stands. Water droplets trickle down from his still-sodden pants and chill his dirty bare feet. He checks one pants pocket for his wallet, which he still has, and the other for Jennifer’s cellphone, which he doesn’t. The figure on the bridge last night was a clue, but Nik wasn’t fast enough. He couldn’t catch up. He has vague memories of a net and a boat but can’t make any sense of his garbled thoughts. His head aches worse than any hangover he’s ever had. He touches his forehead and looks at his fingers. Dirt. Water. No blood. Nothing gushing.

      He begins to walk. Pavement and pebbles stick to the bottoms of his feet, wears them raw. Then he walks on soft front lawns and bedding plants until he gets to a major street. A car horn blares at him and he steps back, cautioned. He’d started crossing the intersection without waiting for the light. Backing up onto the sidewalk, he blinks and rubs his eyes. He locates east from the location of the murky sun and heads in that direction. It doesn’t take very long for him to find a mall.

      Inside, the polished floors are cool and soothing on his feet. Many of the stores are still closed, their windows darkened like retail caves. The first shoe store he comes across has an oversized red sign and sells sporting goods. Its fluorescent lights make everything green and surreal. Nik examines the items on a sale rack by the door. He picks up then puts down a pink skipping rope, a sparkly green child’s ball, and an oversized catcher’s mitt.

      “Can I help you?”

      The voice startles Nik and he drops the mitt with a clatter. Leaning down to pick it up is difficult, his limbs aching, knees unwilling to bend. He looks up and sees an androgynous clerk wearing an all-white uniform that resembles a karate suit. There’s a halo of something bright around the clerk’s face. Eyes that look like two black pebbles in the middle of a white oval. For a moment Nik thinks the clerk is an angel. But there’s an overwhelming stench of dirty salt water emanating from his still-damp clothes. That seems real enough. He puts his hand on his head again where it throbs. This time he feels a crust of dried blood. This discovery makes him dizzy. He grips a plastic shoe rack and holds steady. Now he can see what he’s looking for. His eyes dance up and down the display twice, three times, four times. He points to a pair of black running shoes with a small white insignia.

      “Size 12?” he asks. The clerk’s oval face bends forward in a nod. Nik sees eyelids open and close around the pebbles. The clerk hovers, then floats away, disappearing down a flight of stairs Nik hadn’t noticed before. Nik sits on a white vinyl bench and fishes a pair of cheap white tube socks out of the basket beside him. They are too small for his feet, but when the clerk returns, he, or she, bares bright, gleaming teeth. Nik understands this forced smile is relief. The clerk is glad Nik is wearing the socks.

      The clerk drops the shoebox at Nik’s feet and then steps back, well out of whiff range. Nik waits for the clerk to say something reassuring or sales-like. Instead the heat vent clicks on, blasting a growling roar. He flips the lid off the box, peers at the shoes inside. The clerk fades out of his periphery.

      Bending forward makes Nik’s head ache. It takes him several minutes to tie the laces. At first the shoes feel like Styrofoam — much lighter than his old boots. Nik lifts his feet up and down, one foot after the other, testing how fast and nimble they might make him. He imagines running after the figure on the bridge. With these shoes he could catch him. Or her.

      “They look ridiculous,” Old Aaron whispers to him.

      “I don’t care,” Nik says out loud.

      “I wouldn’t buy them if I were you,” Old Aaron says. “They’re not cool.”

      “I need these shoes!” Nik says.

      “Don’t waste your money then!” Old Aaron says. “One quick sprint out that door and they’re yours. C’mon, let’s rock ’n’ roll.”

      “I am NOT going to steal them,” Nik says.

      “I didn’t say you were,” says the clerk.

      Nik tries to focus. It takes a minute before his vision clears. He realizes the clerk is a thin woman with short blonde hair.

      “If you buy them you can keep the socks,” she says, stepping back even farther. “Although I’d probably let you keep them either way.”

      Nik can see her eyes now. They’re brown. And fearful. He takes his wallet from his pocket, tries to smile. The clerk retreats to the cash desk and stands behind the cash register, waiting. Nik pays for the shoes out of the Jennifer Fund. He’s shaking and shivering as he keys the PIN number into the handset. He needs these shoes to be able to catch up to Jennifer’s captors. He needs to work faster to find her. He needs to be able to run.

Aaron

      I miss Vancouver. Being high. Or low. Outrageous. Raging. Staying up until dawn and sleeping all day. Saying whatever I wanted, doing whatever, fucking whomever. But the months ago of it already feel like years. Professor Moreland is scrawling her office hours on the dry-erase board in red marker, and I think about once when I was high and Ilana put glitter on my eyelashes and everything I looked at turned into fireworks. An astral sparkle none of the brain-dead idiots here will ever see. I make angry scratches in the dull finish of the writing desk with the end of my pen. I wish I knew where Nik was. I miss him the most.

      I jot Moreland’s numbers down in my new notebook, even though I know I won’t need them. I figure I got at least a C on the first assignment. We were supposed to describe one of the CanLit books we’ve read so far and it only took me a couple of hours. English classes are easy. All you have to do is read books then write about them. It’s not like having to paint or create something, which can take days. Or forever.