With a sigh, she put the receiver down. Gently this time. Laundry, dishes, then pack. She’d make airline reservations via the internet.
By eleven that evening, Lia’s apartment sparkled. Well, not really, but it looked cleaner, anyway. She had been able to book a seat on the first flight out in the morning, which meant she’d have to be at the airport before dawn.
Before going to bed, she gathered all her unread newspapers to throw into the apartment complex recycling bins. She really should consider canceling her subscription, but having a newspaper delivered made her feel informed and connected.
Informed, my ass. That only works if you read the darn things.
Huge blue, green and red bins were kept at the bottom of the stairwell. Taking a page out of her sister’s book, she tucked the papers under one arm. After locking the door, she placed her keychain with its accompanying can of mace into her pocket and kept her hand in the pocket. Not that she really worried. She lived in a secure building, a doorman limiting access to residents and their guests. But still, this was New York.
The stairway smelled musty, rather like dirty socks left too long in the quarterback’s locker. She made it all the way down to the first floor before the overhead fluorescent light flickered. It dimmed and brightened eight times, then it went out. As she continued down, she found herself counting the steps. Eight between each landing. Granted, she’d never counted them before, but it struck her as odd. What was it with the number eight today?
She hefted her load of newspapers and prepared to throw them into the big blue bin when she noticed something odd. Every paper in the bin appeared to be folded identically. Not rolled, as if they’d never been opened like hers were. But opened to expose page twenty-three where the horoscopes, a few black and white cartoons, and a large crossword puzzle resided. Lia shifted the top layer to the side. The papers below were all the same, and she had the suspicion that if she searched all the way to the bottom of the bin, she’d not find one paper out of sync.
She dumped her armful on top and turned her back. On impulse, she reached back into the bin and pulled out one of the folded papers. It might not mean anything, but she’d learned never to ignore the signs.
Those cryptic messages sent from who-knows-where had saved her life on more than one occasion. Was it her turn to save someone else? However, after the things Sylvie had said to her in the past, her sister probably didn’t want her help.
Stifling the memory, she trudged back upstairs where she locked the door, undressed and then crawled into bed. The sheets were cool and smelled of fabric softener from their recent romp in the dryer. She fluffed her pillows and tried to relax, clearing her mind and preparing for sleep. Unbidden, thoughts and snippets of past conversations, make that arguments, with her sister kept intruding.
Although eight years older, Sylvie had been her best friend. Even after they’d grown apart, Lia still admired her tall, beautiful, smart sister. Their parents had treated them the same. Although she knew in her heart they worried just a little more about their youngest daughter, Lia, who couldn’t remember to turn in her homework, and who spent more time dreaming than studying. Then came the summer she turned twelve. She began having odd experiences. Her mother and sister wrote it off as imagination, or worse, to the onset of her menstrual cycle. Lia, sensing that there were some things a girl didn’t talk about, began hoarding the impressions to herself. If she were a skeptic, she’d write all those things off as coincidence or happenstance, especially when the clues came in signs. A dead bird on the sidewalk, a dog barking three times right before she heard the same song repeated three times on the radio, or seeing blood dripping from the exhaust of a car.
Lia shuddered.
It had all come to a peak the summer she turned twenty. Lia attended college and her sister worked full time in DC when their parents set off to Italy for their second honeymoon.
The signs that morning came fast and furious. A line of dead flies on the window sill, blood pouring from the water fountain, an icon weeping blood in the local church, the sound of an airplane engine sputtering every time she walked out the door. Lia tried to ignore them, tried not to piece the clues together. She almost convinced herself it was only imagination, that nothing bad lurked over the horizon. The minute her parents’ flight took off, the odd occurrences stopped and Lia sighed in relief. The call came later that evening. Her mom and dad had been robbed and murdered within hours of stepping off the plane.
She could have stopped it.
A headache burned behind her eyes. Lia rolled out of bed and padded to the bathroom after aspirin. She looked at the bedroom clock as she passed. Eight. What? She squinted out the window. Still dark. Shaking her head, she swallowed the tablets and made her way back to bed. She picked up the alarm clock. The display now read three thirty-three. How had she gotten an eight out of that? She put the clock back down and curled up on her side. Somewhere, a cricket chirped. She found herself counting along with the sounds. One, two…the insect fell silent at eight. Although she strained to hear something further, no more chirps broke the silence. Had it died. Or…
Dragging her mind back to the present, she sighed. Morning would come far too early. She had to get some sleep or she’d be useless in helping to find her sister.
When sleep finally took hold, dreams made her toss and turn. The number eight danced through everything—sometimes typewritten and sometimes in fancy script on a door or wall. In one dream, the animated number ran up and down stairs resembling the blocks of a crossword puzzle. She even dreamed of taking a picture of the number, immeasurably pleased with the print. Then the dreams morphed, and she returned to the big pink house where she’d grown up.
Her childhood home, a lovely Victorian painted lady that had been her mother’s pride and joy. After their parent’s death, neither Lia nor Sylvie could bear to live there. Conveniently, Sylvie had an apartment in Washington DC, and Lia wanted as far away from home as possible. But neither of them could bear to sell the house. Instead, they’d hired a reputable management company to take care of the property. The last time Lia had checked, a bed and breakfast had been in residence. In her dream, Lia walked through the house. It looked exactly the same. She began to run through the rooms, frantically looking for something. In the distance, she heard her mother calling her name.
She jumped awake. A shrill beeping notified her that morning had finally arrived. She needed to get moving if she wanted to catch her plane.
Despite the early hour, the airport buzzed with activity. With the new security measures put into place since that fateful September 11th, she found herself singled out for additional security checks. Bored security guards picked through her carry-on bags and had her take their picture with her digital camera. She suffered it all in good grace. As a photo journalist, she’d traveled through war-torn countries where death lurked around every corner and an unattended bag could result in having not only her personal affects, but also her person, shredded by shrapnel. The extra scrutiny was worth the hassle.
All the while, she looked for signs. To her surprise, there were none. No eights, no weirdly folded newspapers. Nothing.
What did that mean? She shuddered. The last time the signs had disappeared, it meant her parents were dead. Was she too late? Unable to follow that thought all the way through to the grim conclusion, she boarded the plane.
Glancing down at her boarding pass, she frowned. Triple eight. She sighed and resisted the urge to sing “They’re back.” The narrow aisle was crowded and no flight attendants were in sight. She made her way all the way to the back of the plane. Before she hit the button to call for assistance, she looked back down at the ticket. The numbers now read B28. Fate’s cruel sense of humor struck again. Hell, the seats didn’t even recline back here.
She hefted her carry-on into the luggage bin and then sank into her seat. Closing her eyes, she fell asleep within minutes. Luckily,