Trajectories
Wednesday, 3 a.m.
Tomorrow, really this afternoon, would be the day. The day Lucy would carry out her plan involving the Lee-Enfield rifle and revenge. But tonight, her beat-up black Honda Civic is rolling slowly along the deserted street beside the hulking vault of the arena, streetlights casting cones of ghostly illumination over the scene and obscuring the stars.
It is just past three a.m. Bob and I are following in the Subaru, keeping about a block behind her. A red flash signals the Honda’s brakes and then it goes dark as the headlights are killed.
“Turn in here before she sees us,” I say to Bob.
He yanks the steering wheel, and we veer into the empty parking lot of a 7-Eleven. He shuts off the lights. His glasses glint as he turns to me. “What now?”
“We try to see what she’s up to.” I pull up the hood on my maroon zip-up sweatshirt, grasp the handle, and open the car door. As I step out onto the asphalt, I catch his thoughts: Oh, for Christ’s sake, really? This is dangerous. But he shakes his head, gets out, and follows.
Creeping along the sidewalk in my ortho-walking shoes, I keep close to a tall caragana hedge and then dart in and out of shadowy driveways, making my way toward the Civic parked on the opposite side of the street under the silent, dark limbs of an elm tree. A truck roars around the corner, its headlights flashing on the scene. As it passes the Civic, the lights catch a small, dark figure flitting toward the far corner of the arena. I cross the empty street as swiftly as I can manage, a hop-walk, knees creaking.
Bob’s thought plops into my mind. Fuck’s sake. Slow down. We’re going to break something. He lurches across the street behind me.
The thick soles of my shoes tap on concrete and then shush across grass, releasing its summer-green scent. I reach the corner of the building, stop, and peer around just in time to see the silhouetted figure dash from the back corner and across a street-lit parking area. Brushing against the painted concrete wall, I rush to the back corner and squint, trying to catch her movements in the shadows. On the far side of the parking area squats another smaller concrete building: the Curling Center. I remember an article in the local paper about upgrades to its ice plant system, which is likely the reason for the scaffolding standing against one wall. Then I spot movement: a black-clothed figure crawling up the framework of metal piping, like a huge insect, now disappearing over the parapet roof.
Bob huffs up behind me. What is she doing?
She’s climbed to the roof of the curling center. And then the pieces start to click together in my mind—the rifle, the revenge, the arena, and the ceremony that happens here tomorrow. I gasp as dread rolls through me. Then the black shape slides back over the parapet onto the scaffold. Quick! Let’s get out of here.
We get back to the 7-Eleven parking lot just as Lucy’s car door thunks closed and the Civic’s starter motor whirs. We’re both breathing heavily, and my heart is racing. I think I know what she’s planning.
Okay. Now we need to go to the police, Bob.
Strange that this started in the library. On Saturday, I was wandering peacefully between stacks of woody-scented books full of silent stories and ideas that patiently wait to be explored, unlike the racket of thoughts from people that I must constantly block. I relaxed, let down my guard, padded down a nonfiction aisle, scanning call numbers on spines, searching for 635.04, Gardening Naturally. Aphids were infesting my haskap berry bushes, and I wanted to curb them without poisoning the bees and birds. It was the latest gardening problem that Bob and I needed to tackle since returning from our trip to Japan. Just leave your yard in the springtime for a few weeks, and you come back to knee-deep weeds, fenceposts that are falling over, wild tangles of branches that need pruning, and pests that are out of control.
A thought struck my mind like a lightning bolt, making me stumble: Aha! There it is–The Rifleman’s Bible. My head snapped up. In the aisle was a girl, a young woman, maybe nineteen or twenty, wearing a red hoodie, shorts, and runners, her brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. She seemed vaguely familiar, or maybe it was that she reminded me of Bailey, my 16-year-old granddaughter, who was much on my mind back home with her family, meditating in an effort to control the new telepathic powers that she inherited from me and Bob. But this girl in the library was agitated, emitting hot waves of anger. Or was it vengefulness? She bent over and pulled a green hard-cover volume from the shelf, flipping it open. I probed her mind as she scanned the Table of Contents, stopping briefly at Picking Your Cartridge, Rifle Handling, and Sights and Sight-in. There was an urgency in her, a burning drive. She searched along the shelf and pulled out another volume, The Total Gun Manual. She flipped to the back cover and read Hands-on guidance for the first-time gun owner and the seasoned veteran before slipping both books into her backpack, spinning around, and heading out of the aisle.
Forgetting my aphid elimination quest, I followed her. She didn’t stop at either of the self-checkout kiosks but headed straight for the exit. As she rushed past the circulation desk and through the double doors, I scooped what I could from her thoughts: she was worried about getting to work on time, which was at a fast-food restaurant. I caught an image of a frosty glass mug of root beer. In the windowed entrance hall, I stopped and watched her get into a dull and dented black Honda Civic and speed out of the parking lot. Then I slowly retraced my steps back to the stacks.
I returned home with Gardening Naturally and suggested to Bob that we go to A&W for lunch.
“You’re kidding.” He looked at me with a frown. “You never want to eat fast food. Clogs our arteries and makes us fat.” He narrowed his eyes. “What’s up?”
“Okay. You’re right. There’s a girl working there I’m curious about.” I let him into my mind to share what happened at the library. “It seems suspicious to me. She was so agitated and angry. Why would she want those books, and then why did she steal them instead of checking them out?”
“Maybe she doesn’t have a library card.”
“Or maybe she doesn’t want anyone to know about her interest in those books.”
He pondered this for a few seconds, then said, “Okay, let’s go.” I knew he was envisioning a massive burger and fries.
As soon as Bob pulled open the heavy plate-glass door, my nose drew in the smell of deep fryer grease overlaid with grilling meat and root beer. Intoxicating. It’s no wonder people become addicted to fast food. We moved over the tile floor toward the counter, swimming through an effluvium of voices, clinks, and clangs.
There she was, now in uniform–a dark brown polo shirt complete with a logoed ball cap–hefting glass mugs from a tray into a compartment below the counter. Behind her, an open ledge revealed headless figures moving in the kitchen. Another girl, adorned with a headset microphone, was at the take-out window. While Bob perused the flashing menu screen above us, I studied our girl. She grabbed an order from the kitchen shelf, placed it on a tray, and delivered it to a table occupied by a father and three children, all of whom put their phones down when the food arrived. Then she slipped back behind the counter and approached us.
“Ready to order?” She had a sweet voice, a wholesome face with just a hint of make-up, but she wasn’t smiling. Her name tag read “Lucy.”
Bob, grabbing his chance, ordered a double Teen burger, fries, and a large root beer. I stuck to grilled chicken while probing Lucy’s mind. Even though she continued to perform her job tasks, her mind was elsewhere, containing a jumble of thoughts: an assignment for a college course, a lesson plan for a grade four class. Was she studying to be a teacher? Then worry about a girl named Julie, maybe a sister. And underlying that worry, that dark anger and desire for revenge.
“I’ll bring it out to you when it’s ready,” she said after accepting the tap from Bob’s credit card. I marveled at the levels of multitasking in human brains.
Bob took his colossal mug of root beer, and I grabbed two straws. We passed a group of trucker-hatted old guys drinking coffee and complaining about the state of the world nowadays. One of them was a retired teacher who waved at us, but I never liked Ray when I worked with him, and I really didn’t want to know what was in his mind, so I lifted my hand and didn’t stop.
After we sat down, Bob said quietly, “You’re right. Lucy’s seething with anger and revenge. And she does look somehow familiar, but I can’t place her.”
“I think she’s a student at the college, in education, and she’s worried about her sister,” I whispered, then clamped my lips as she came toward our table with a tray.
Again, I probed her mind as she placed the tray on the table and asked if we had everything we needed. On the surface, I detected mundane details about the next order and refilling the condiment dispensers, but underneath, on a deeper level, her mind was working on a plan, a plan for revenge that had something to do with her grandparents’ house, something down in the basement. And then she whisked away.
“Did you get anything?” I whispered to Bob.
“Something to do with her grandparents. I think she’s staying at their place while they’re away on a camping trip.”
“Yes. It’s part of a plan she’s formulating.”
“Oh, and I think I figured out why she looks familiar. Remember last winter at the cross-country ski trails, when we stopped at the rifle range to watch the Biathlon competition?”
I scrolled back in my memory to that crisp, white day in the clean, cold air, watching the lean and agile young skiers whiz over the snow. “Yeah. They didn’t even take off their skis, just got down on their bellies with their rifles and shot. What about it?”
“She was one of them, I’m sure. In the newsletter, there was a picture of her. She won First Place: Lucy Leroux.”
My eyes popped wide. I switched to telepathy. So, she knows how to shoot a rifle.
Well, yeah. A small one, a .22.
Then why would she want those books on rifles that she took from the library?
Maybe she wants to know how to shoot a different one.
I turned to look at Lucy, the innocent-looking young woman behind the counter, with the wholesome face and sweet voice, and then back at Bob. Why?
He raised his eyebrows and shrugged. Maybe we should go to the police.
And tell them what? That she stole books from the library? And that we know she’s thinking of revenge because we’re telepathic? We’d be laughed out of the place.
I wanted to leave it alone. Really, I did. This telepathic power kept dragging us into problems that we didn’t want to deal with. But I couldn’t forget it. And neither could Bob. Was she planning something nefarious? Or was there an innocent explanation? Maybe she simply wanted to practice her shooting. Maybe she belonged to a gun club. But her revenge thoughts were strong, like a gust of hot wind, and I knew she was planning something. So, we went back to A&W the next day, but the only person we recognized was Ray, who shouted out to us, “Hey, you guys are getting to be regulars! Come on over and join us.” I gave him a fake smile and then we took our food to go.
The following day, Monday, we tried later in the afternoon, when the coffee klatch would be gone. Our pulses ticked up when we spotted her Civic parked near the trash bins at the back of the restaurant. We ordered from Lucy again, even though I could feel my arteries clogging up and my hips widening. When I scooped her mind, it was a jumble of worry about Julie, seething anger at a young man who harmed her, and something called a Lee-Enfield in her grandfather’s basement collection. I also learned that she was getting off work in half an hour.
I transmitted to Bob. Do you know what a Lee-Enfield is?
He inhaled deeply and pursed his lips. It’s a rifle, one that was used by soldiers.
That’s when we decided to follow her.
We waited in the Subaru until we saw her emerge from the restaurant, clothed again in her hoodie and shorts. When she turned right out of the parking lot onto the four-lane street, we followed suit. In the stream of busy traffic, it was easy to stay a few vehicles behind, keeping her Civic in view without being conspicuous. Then a stoplight almost caught us, but Bob accelerated through it, staying in the flow behind her.
“Wow. Have you done this before, or did you learn it from all those action shows you watch?’
He huffed out his nose but stared ahead determinedly.
The street narrowed to two lanes, went uphill, and then began to wind as it left the city. The traffic thinned between patches of forest and fenced fields with barns, and when the white pick-up between the Civic and us turned down a lane, Bob slowed. “I can’t stay where she can see us. She’ll know we’re following her.”
We thought we would lose her, but when the asphalt gave way to gravel, we followed the faint dust cloud that her car left behind. The fields disappeared, the road now bordered by thick pine and fir forest, broken by the odd bank of dry rock or a gleaming pond. As Bob curved slowly around a bend, there, up ahead, was the Civic at the side of the road. He braked, backed up around the bend, and pulled onto the shoulder. Do you think she saw us?
I don’t know. Only one way to find out. Softly, I slid out of the car, into the shadow of the trees rising like silent sentinels beside me. Enveloped in their piney scent, I snuck along beside them on the gravel shoulder until I reached the bend in the road and then peered through the evergreen screen of branches.
There she was, a pack slung over her shoulder, at the back of the Honda, closing the trunk with one hand while she held something long in her right. A rifle, I realized with a jolt. She moved to the verge of the road, into a clearing, maybe an access road, where she disappeared. I wanted to go closer, but was afraid she would see me, so I waited.
Soft crunches in the gravel signaled Bob coming up beside me. There’s an old gravel pit in there. We used to drink beer up there when we were kids.
Two cracks split the air and then echoed off the hills. Birds rose in a flapping wave into the bright blue sky, swerving and swooping like smoke in a breeze. Another shot and another.
I turned wide eyes to Bob. Is she practicing?
Sounds like it. The question is, what for?
We decided to go back to A&W the next day, even if it risked raising her suspicions. We needed to know her intentions. She cocked her head slightly when we showed up again, but took our order as before. I delved into her mind, which was working on a problem, figuring out a trajectory, a platform or a vantage point for something she would do tomorrow, Wednesday. And when she dropped off the tray at our table, that’s when I learned she was going to slip out of her grandparents’ house that night at 3 a.m. Our only problem was her starting point. We didn’t know where her grandparents lived. But luckily, their last name was Leroux, and they were still listed in the phone book with an address.
At 3 a.m., when she emerged from a small sixties’ bungalow in the older part of town, we were half a block away in the Subaru, and we followed the old Civic until she stopped at the arena, where I finally pieced together her plan.
Now it is 6:13 a.m., and we are sitting on metal chairs in a sterile room with one high window framing a rectangle of bubbly grey clouds. Across the table sits Constable Singh, who has just tapped the red button on his phone, stated the time and date, and identified himself and us.
“Okay, Bob and Jan, you say you have some information about an impending crime.”
I swallow, clench my butt cheeks. Going to the police was the last thing I wanted to do, but I know what she is planning, even if I don’t know who the target is. We had to take the risk, but I’m not sure how we can give them the relevant details without revealing our telepathic abilities. You start, I transmit to Bob.
He sucks in air and then blurts out, “There’s a girl with a gun who’s going to shoot someone at the Grad ceremony this afternoon.”
Constable Singh blinks as his chin jerks back. “A shooter, at the grad ceremony. How do you know this?”
Bob’s eyes dart to me. Your turn.
Oh, God. Now Singh is staring at me. “Well, I, um, saw her steal some books on rifles from the library.”
The constable frowns. “She stole books from the library. Is that it?”
“Well, no. Of course not. We followed her to an old gravel pit where she practiced shooting her grandfather’s rifle.”
“Followed her. From the library?” Now his eyes pinch. Above them, his turban is precisely and artfully wrapped, the overlapping folds of white cloth in a snug and strong pattern. How does he do it? I can’t even manage to make a scarf look chic.
“No.” I raise my hand to scratch behind my ear. “From A&W. That’s where she works, part-time. But she’s a student at the college, in the education program.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Um, I must have heard her say something about it when she was at the library.”
“And what makes you think she’s going to shoot this gun at the grad ceremony?”
“We followed her again last night. Well, early this morning, really. And she went to the arena, where the ceremony takes place, and she ran around the back to the Curling Center and climbed some scaffolding. She’d get a good view of the grads from there, as they parade into the building, one by one.”
“Have you two been stalking this girl?” His voice is stern, his gaze pinning us.
Bob’s face goes white. “No, no. Just following her.”
My heart races, and I probe the constable’s mind. He’s thinking old crackpots with nothing better to do, blowing up some story to garner attention and excitement. Oh my God, we get all kinds in here. What a waste of time and resources.
Bob sits tall. “We’re not crackpots, and we’re not looking for attention. Far from it. But we know this girl is going to try to shoot someone, a boy who harmed her sister. Her name is Lucy Leroux. She’s a biathlon competitor and a crack shot. She’s borrowed a Lee-Enfield rifle from her grandfather’s collection and she’s going to use it this afternoon to avenge her sister.”
“And just how did you get all this information?” He is oozing suspicion now, wondering what he might charge us with.
The clouds scud across the patch of sky in the window. The forecast says that rain is on the way. Some things, like the weather, you can’t avoid. “We’re telepathic,” I say.
Constable Singh rolls his eyes upward and huffs out a sigh.
It is 3:37 pm, and black-bottomed, grumbling cumulonimbus are advancing over the mountains, like an armada from the west. Bob and I are walking across the grass beside the outdoor gym beside the arena. We’d done a few sets on the push and pull chair, the twister, and the surfer earlier in the day. We’ve been patrolling the area around the building and the parking lot since 8:00 this morning, after Constable Singh shooed us from the police station with a warning against stalking. Over our breakfast, we decided that it was up to us to intervene. We’ve used the washrooms in the arena, one at a time, taken turns resting in the Subaru, and Bob made a run to the coffee shop for sandwiches and tea. No sign of the black Honda. We’ve stopped near the scaffolding at the curling center several times, sending out probes to the roof for Lucy’s thoughts. Nothing yet.
“Maybe she changed her mind, decided against it,” Bob says.
“Maybe,” I reply, but I doubt it. The parking lots and streets around the arena are filling up. At 4:00, in roughly 20 minutes, the graduates are due to march from the high school a block away, along the sidewalk, across the street, and through the parking lot to the back entrance of the arena. Tradition dictates black gowns and hats, alphabetical order, and single file. Inside the arena, the floor seats and stands will be filled with parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and teachers, waiting to watch their sons and daughters cross the stage and receive their diplomas. It is the town’s largest yearly event. “Let’s go stand beside the scaffolding, just in case.”
As we alter our course, heading for the Curling Center, light drains from the world. It is suddenly as dark as last night. Wind whips my hair, then a gust shoves me against Bob. A blinding flash is followed almost immediately by a teeth-rattling crash of thunder. Trees bend and flop in the wind, and the ozone smell and tingle of electricity falls from the sky. Then the angry clouds split open. Rain drills down, and we run–well sort of jog–for the protection of the Subaru that is parked pointing at the Curling Center. My bird-watching binoculars bounce against my chest. Then the rain becomes hail, hammering us, and when we finally manage to close the car doors against the storm, we are soaked through our T-shirts and crowned with patches of melting hailstones. Bob’s glasses are streaked, and water drips off the end of my nose. The Subaru thrums with the barrage of pellets.
Bob starts the engine and turns on the heater; instantly, the windows fog up.
“Turn it off!” I yell over the clatter. “We can’t see the curling building.”
“It’ll just take a sec. Then it’ll clear and we can dry out. We can’t see through the hail anyway.”
He’s right. The fog on the windshield melts away in a few seconds, from the bottom up, but outside is a blur. “Turn on the wipers.” As the blades flap back and forth, sweeping away rain and hail, I put the binoculars to my eyes, straining to view the scaffold and roof, but the strobing blades and now waves of rain obstruct my vision. “I can’t see. Here, you try.”
Bob removes his glasses, puts the binoculars to his eyes, and rolls the focus wheel with his finger.
“They’ll postpone the march, won’t they?” The clock on the dash reads 3:54.
He shrugs in response. The racket of rain begins to diminish, like a song fading out. The light changes to a soft gray. Bob’s chin jerks forward. “I saw something move.”
He drops the binoculars, and we exit the Subaru. We race walk across the pavement, dodging broken branches and puddles. My legs are stiff, and my wet shirt and shorts stick to my skin as I hobble along behind Bob, whose head is thrust forward, fists clenched. The rain stops, and a few rays of sun poke through the cloud cover, casting sparkles on the pooled water.
As we near the building, huffing, I transmit to the roof: Lucy. Lucy, are you up there? No response, but I sense a nervous, electric energy coming from up there. A chorus of whoops emanates from the high school as the grads emerge from the building. Their march has begun. When we reach the bottom of the scaffolding, I try again, projecting my thoughts up to the roof. Lucy. I know you’re up there. Don’t do this.
A response: What the hell is going on? I’m hearing things. Focus, girl. Here he comes.
I’ve connected to Lucy’s mind. You’re not imagining things. I’m down here beside the scaffold, sending you my thoughts.
Bob joins in. I’m here, too, Lucy. We just want to help you. Come down.
Horns honk as the procession of graduates crosses the street and enters the parking lot. Now I can see the front of the line, the rosy-cheeked teenagers in black, mid-calf robes and mortarboard hats with tassels, big kids playing dress-up.
From above, Lucy’s thought: You motherfucker. That was my little sister you raped. Now you die.
Ice shoots through my body. My head jerks up, my eyes on the sloped parapet roof. I catch movement: a pipe, a rifle barrel, pokes over the edge.
No! I scream telepathically. Don’t do it, Lucy. Report him to the police.
Who is this? Who am I hearing? Report him to the police? And then what? Julie will get dragged through a trial and the news, and trolled on the internet, blamed because she got in his car, asked why she didn’t fight harder, why she’s accusing this star of the basketball team who’s on his way to university, and she’s just some poor small-town girl without a father, living in a trailer.
Bob and I exchange a look. He grasps the metal piping of the scaffolding and starts to climb.
I clamp onto Lucy’s mind. This won’t help Julie. And it will ruin your life. Julie will lose you, lose the support she needs from you.
What do you know? I need that bastard to pay.
Bob is just below the rim of the roof. He sends a soft thought to the girl: Just put the rifle down, Lucy. Your sister wouldn’t want this. Think of her and your mum, your grandparents. You’re a bright, strong young woman, you’ll make a great teacher, and you can help your sister take this guy to court.
Cheers and clapping ring out from the bystanders who are all turned toward the procession of graduates, oblivious of the danger nearby.
Lucy, this won’t make it better. It will make it worse. Please, I plead.
My eyes are riveted on the rifle barrel. It wavers, then disappears. I feel a great eruption of grief wash over Lucy. Then sobs wrench her body. I watch as Bob puts his hand over the parapet and grasps hers.
I’m jolted by the rapid drumming of footsteps and turn to see Constable Singh and a female officer, both in flak jackets, running up, breathing hard. His eyes go up to the roof.
“It’s okay,” I say, and let out my breath. “She’s coming down.”
The parking lot is now empty; the grads and their audience are all inside the arena. We watch silently as Bob and Lucy descend the scaffolding. When they reach the bottom, Lucy, in her black hoodie and sweats, gives me a confused look. “You two. From A&W.” She narrows her eyes and shakes her head. “How did you know?” Her face is streaked, her eyes red.
“Never mind,” I say. “It doesn’t matter.”
Singh says sharply, “Where’s the rifle?”
I glance at Bob. On the roof, he tells me.
Part of me wants to lie, to tell the constable there was no rifle, that we were mistaken. I don’t want Lucy to be arrested and charged with a crime. After all, I don’t blame her. What would I do in her situation? Maybe the same thing. But where does that lead? To more violence? I think of Bailey, who is determined to use her new telepathic powers responsibly, for good. Maybe I can learn from her. I nod to Bob.
“On the roof,” he says to Singh, who sends his colleague to retrieve the weapon while he holds Lucy’s arm.
No handcuffs. I am grateful. I look up, past the soaked parking lot, the Curling Center and arena, to the mountains, where the clouds are lifting, spent of their fury. A rainbow, a luminous band of colour, arcs across the sky.
“How did you two know?” he asks, looking from Bob to me. “Tell me the truth this time.”
“We already did,” I say.