Meridian. Part 2

Monte Vista was unremarkable; the snow picked up speed in Alamosa. In Walsenburg, we turned north, heading to Pueblo, but I watched for my stop as instructed. My heartbeat sped up. I watched the miles crawl by, barely seeing more than a thick cottony white.

What I could see were lighted, flashing billboards proclaiming. FIND SALVATION IN REVELATION and FAITH IS A LIFESTYLE FOR ETERNITY. They popped up every few miles. Weird, It felt a little like the Vegas Strip.

We drove into Revelation a full day after I'd gotten on the bus. Revelation. Colorado?

Someone's idea of a joke, right? My school uniform was wrinkled and smudged with G.o.d knows what. My legs hurt from sitting all that time. I wanted a shower. Real sleep.

Someone to tell me this was a mistake. Ha-ha! Anyone?

We climbed down off the bus as fat white snowflakes fell with an icy hush. They covered my hair and stuck in my eyelashes.

14an "Worst snowstorm in a century. Good thing we got here when we did; they're grounding the i fleet until this blows over. Some fools are going to be spending Christmas in small towns *they never wanted to see." The third driver of this trip cackled with mirth as he unloaded our bags. I wondered how he could find pleasure in other people's misery. I didn't ask.

I collected my bags: hefting them, I wondered how they had gained so much weight riding under the bus.

I was supposed to look for a green Land Rover. One I'd know when I saw it. With the flakes falling smaller but faster, I could barely make out the shapes of buses in the lot. White swirled everywhere. No sign of green anything.

Already my fingers and nose had that stiff, unreal feeling of numbness. I'll recognize what when I see it? A person? The Land Rover? Aunt Merry herself?

"Better get inside before you freeze." The driver slapped the luggage bin closed and hocked spit onto a snowdrift before hustling on his way.

All the pa.s.sengers raced inside, seeking light and heat. I stood alone. As always.

15ani *

Chapter 3.

Standing in the bleak alone of Revelation's bus terminal parking lot, I saw no answers, felt no epiphany.

I trudged into the overflowing terminal. Grumpy stranded travelers seemed surprised that it snowed in Colorado right before Christmas. An elderly man in a wheelchair fiddled with the oxygen tube in his nose, and the hair on the back of my neck suddenly stood up. I was swamped with the feeling of holding my breath too long underwater, as if every moment without an inhalation was one closer to full-out panic.

I'd felt this way at the car accident two days ago. My father's voice shouted in my head: "Promise you'll run. Run. Meridian, go!"

I had to get away. I needed to create distance between me and the dying man. Someone, some person was dying, and they'd hurt me. I turned in circles, searching for a safe place, but there was nothing. I wheezed, choking on my breath.

The old guy turned and stared in my direction. But not at me, past me, as if I weren't really standing there. His eyes widened and his hands reached toward me.

A sharp pain shot through my head and rippled down my arm. I started stumbling toward the exit. The man's family bustled around, a toddler threw a tantrum, and still the old man's gaze locked on me until he smiled.

The doors whooshed open and I tripped out into the snow. But I could breathe. The pull lessened and I kept going, backing away one step at a time. When I'd made it several blocks, I knelt and vomited in a curbside garbage can. I tasted blood. I grabbed a handful of what I hoped was clean snow and let it melt in my mouth until I could spit out the taste.

Sweat beaded along my face and arms.

Placing one foot in front of the other, I pushed on until I found a bench in an ATM booth. I sat to gather my strength, closing my eyes against the waves of nausea and pain. An ambulance raced past me with its lights flashing. It stopped at the bus station. I waited until they'd loaded a stretcher into it and then I ambled back to the station. I didn't have another option.

"Meridian. Meridian." Hearing my name being yelled, I turned.

A heavily pregnant woman toddled behind Senora Portalso, waving her hands. I stopped. I'd forgotten the senora.

"I'm Dr. Portalso-Marquez. Thank you so much for helping my mother." She shook my hand and kissed my cheek.

"You're welcome." I cleared my throat, uncomfortable with the senora's scrutiny.

16.

"She wants you to have this." Dr. Portalso-Marquez gestured to the senora, who nodded and ani handed me a fifty-dollar bill.

*"I only gave her forty bucks,"' I said, trying to give the money back.

"Yes, but you shared your food and she wants to make sure you have enough to eat tonight.

Are you okay? You don't look well."

What must they think of me? What must they a.s.sume? "Oh, I'm fine, thanks. I can't -"

"Please. Keep it. We have to get to the hospital -my contractions have started, I think."

That explained the pain etched around her mouth and eyes. "Here's my card. If you need anything, please call me. My mother simply didn't receive the wire transfer before she left.

She refuses to learn English." With a wave of her hand and a sigh. Dr. Portalso-Marquez turned to her mother.

"Thank you." I put the business card in my pocket along with the money. "I'm meeting someone." I needed to explain that I wasn't alone.

Senora Portalso leaned into her daughter and spoke rapidly. The young woman turned back to me and translated. "She wants you to know that she'll see you again." She shrugged, hesitating. "If you're sure you're okay?"

"Bella, bella luz. " Beautiful, beautiful light. The Senora tapped my cheek and the two women moved toward the wall of doors.

I wanted to ask what she knew about light. What did she see? But I kept my mouth shut and watched them walk away.

I stayed behind a post as people shook the snow from their coats and stomped their feet. No one surveyed the bus station like they were searching for a sixteen-year-old they'd never met. Evidently, no one expected me.

I sat for hours, eating Milky Ways and drinking ginger ale. I dredged out the paper Mom had written Auntie's address on: East Meets West 115 North South Road I was torn between wanting to follow Mom's directions and thinking there was no way with this snow that a centurion was going to make it, even in a Land Rover.

An imposing black man marched toward me. I studied my bags, refusing to make eye contact. His vibe was dangerous -contained, in a way that felt protective and intimidating.

"You be needin' a cab, missy?" His thick African accent blew through me with power.

"Huh?" I asked, my gaze snapping to his.

"You be goin' someplace?" he said.

17.

I peered up at the clock. Five hours, eight Milky Ways, ten packages of Doritos, and three ani ginger ales. I shifted against the pillar I'd been holding up with ray back.

*"Maybe." I didn't know if he was the "you'll know it." as in, you'll be asked point-blank, or if this was fate giving my tush a little push. I can sit here and wait, or I can get myself to Auntie's house and demand answers.

He scratched his chin and reached into his coat pocket but didn't take his spellbinding eyes off my face. "I make six trips to and from this place. You be sittin' here that whole time."

He held out a photograph and shoved it under my nose. "My daughter Sofi. She's in Boston.

Stuck in big nor'easter. I hope she not alone like you. I'm Josiah. Where your family?

Where you need to go?"

What a question, Where is my family?

I'd never learned to trust my instincts. Did I even possess instincts? I didn't know if I could trust this man with midnight skin and golden eyes.

I wanted a bed, a shower, and broccoli, a weird thing to crave. I scrounged in my pocket for the paper. Worst-case scenario, he was a serial killer who preyed on stranded travelers with the help of blizzards. At least my death would end this.

"Okay. Sure. One Fifteen North South."

"The big place off Sixty-nine?" he asked.

"I guess."

His brow wrinkled. "You got family there?"

"My aunt." I swallowed.

"I drive you to the turnout, but snow too heavy out there for this little car to make it up the hill."

"You don't drive a Land Rover?" I asked, sure this man was my "you'll know."

His boundless laughter rolled over me as he bent and lifted my bags, "No, missy. An ol'

Subaru. With older chains."

"Oh." I followed him. He was very talkative. He told me about his family, his daughter studying immigration law in Boston. I sat back and listened. I nodded and grunted when it was appropriate. He didn't ask many questions, but his voice seemed to chase the darkness away. We rolled by mounds of snow and plows pa.s.sed us in both directions, I couldn't have said where we were if my life depended on it. And I was too tired to truly care.

"Here we go." He slowed the car to a stop and popped the trunk.

In the far distance, if I used my imagination, I could almost see the glow of lights. The driveway was covered in snowdrifts and icy patches.

"You sure?" I asked, reluctant to leave the heat of the car.

18ani "I'm sure." He climbed out.

*I tucked my scarf around my mouth and shoved my hands into my gloves. I glanced down at my very cute boots and wished I'd known to wear ski clothes. Not that I actually owned any. I wasn't dressed for a long hike in the snow. Don't have a lot of choice, now, do I?

Josiah hesitated at the trunk. "You certain? I can drop you at a motel in town and you can phone your auntie." He seemed reluctant to strand me in the wilderness, in the obscurity of the unknown.

I put on a brave smile. "I'll be okay. Thank you." I held out the fifty dollars the senora had given me.

"Too much. A gift." He gave me a little bow and didn't touch the money.

"Thank you, but please take it." I insisted. "Send it to your daughter for a cab ride. She might need it."'

"Kay." He scribbled on a sc.r.a.p of paper and pressed it into my hand. "You need 'elp, you call me."

"Thank you." I pushed his makeshift card into my pocket and started up the driveway.

I couldn't see a house. There was nothing to make me think this was a good idea. I listened to the gears engage on the old, rusted Subaru and felt more than saw its tail-lights fade away. There was no point in glancing back. But my G.o.d, it required everything I had not to run after him and beg him to drive me all the way home.

19ani *

Chapter 4.

I slogged for ages. A lifetime. Until I finally had to rest, or collapse where I stood.

No stars lit the sky, and there was not enough ambient light to see beyond the fuzziest of shapes in front of me. Was this what blindness felt like? This powerless, sluggish nothingness?

"Aaaaaa-ooowwww." A wolf howled in my ear.

I leapt up, throwing snow every which way, my heart rattling and my breathing labored.

Adrenaline pumped through me.

"Great. Meridian. Fall asleep in the snow. All you need is a d.a.m.n book of matches and you're a fairy tale with a bad ending." I started walking again, towing my bags behind me.

The snow stopped and my visibility improved.

"You did not actually hear a wolf. You're tired. Delirious. And freezing to death. But you did not hear a wolf howl." I trudged on, lifting my knees to my chest, my lungs burning with the exertion.