Cold Fury

I turned on the television and its screen yawned and wiggled.

I flipped on the DVD player, and it whirred weirdly, trying to accommodate the camera plugged into its gut.

Finally I pushed Play on the mini camera, stared at the TV screen, and when it stopped wiggling, I watched someone punch my dad in the head.

I gasped, sucking in air around me, and covered my mouth with both hands at the sight of him reeling onto our big leather couch. He tried to stand but was clearly stunned as a thick man in a plaid suit swung his fist again, cracking my dad’s nose. I heard my mom scream off camera. I watched the man turn and when he did, my breath caught in my throat-I saw that terrifying ski mask. He left my dad and sprang in the direction of my mom’s outburst. My dad struggled to his feet and went after him, and I heard something break, something shatter, and then he came spinning back to the couch, and there was Ski Mask Guy bounding after him, raising a baseball bat high in the air-

And then the screen became a blizzard of pixels.

I was ice from brain to toes.

I could not move or think, breathe, or feel.

All I could do was stare at the tiny crackling black-and-white dots and allow myself to fall into them.

And then, zap! The picture was back, and I jumped, and it was my dad again, slumped on the couch with his nose and mouth streaming blood, his hands tied behind his back. Even with the poor picture, I could tell from the weird angle of his left leg that it was broken. Somewhere far away Lou yelled and a door slammed, and then Harry was barking and my mother was screaming, and I saw every sound, every plea for help register horribly on my dad’s face. His chin dipped onto his chest, and when it grew momentarily quiet, he lifted his head and looked into the camera.

“Sara Jane,” he said in a raspy whisper.

“Dad?” I said. “Daddy?”

“Please. . I pray to God. . that you find this tape,” he said. “There’s no reason you should, I have no hope, except. . except that you’re you, Sara Jane. You may not be aware of it, but there’s something in you that’s. . so strong.” He stopped then, trying to hold back tears, swallowing them, and said, “You were right, I should have told you about the family, about the bakery, and about me. Especially about me. But now there’s no time. . ” And he jerked his head, hearing something I couldn’t. He grimaced, straining against the ropes that bound his hands, and freed them, rubbing his wrists and flexing his fingers. He looked nervously over his shoulder and then started speaking again, faster and more desperate, saying, “They might hear me, he might. . listen carefully, sweetheart. Listen inside my words and behind my words.”

I moved close to the screen.

I touched his face and felt cold glass.

He looked at me and whispered, “Sara Jane. . go to the God of Fire. Go to it, go through it, and discover all of its secrets. The God of Fire, Sara Jane. . are you listening to me? Its secrets will save you. The God of Fire. .”

“God of what? Who were you talking to?” a woman’s voice demanded, high and shrill, asking the question off camera; the poor quality of the audio allowed only that the voice was feminine. Ski Mask Guy lumbered into the frame, his back to the camera, as the voice shrieked, “Who you were talking to? What did you just say?”

Weakly, my father said, “Go to hell.”

Ski Mask Guy yanked him upright, my dad grimacing on broken bones. There was a second or two of imbalance and my dad seized it, twisting and throwing a perfect left hook, fist cracking on jaw, and Ski Mask Guy went into a slow tim-berrr, like a redwood about to fall. But then he found his feet, shook his head, and lunged with both hands. They wrapped around my dad’s neck just as they’d wrapped around mine, and I felt them again, watching my dad try vainly to loosen the punishing death grip.

“Repeat it or you’re dead,” the woman hissed. “Who were you talking to?”

My dad’s face was tightening from lack of oxygen, his eyes wide and bulging, and his fingers dug frantically into Ski Mask Guy’s hands as he uttered a few last words before the tape ran out.

I heard what he said but was unsure what he meant.

Was it an answer to the question-“Who were you talking to?”

Nobody! Nobody! No. .!

Or, so much worse-was it a final plea for mercy?

No, Buddy! No, Buddy! No. .!

The recesses of a troubled brain at rest are terrible places because they have no boundaries-no backward or forward or beginning or end. They are timeless, bottomless pits where a sleeping soul goes to sort out its worries and woes.

The body’s electricity hums at a lower rate while blood flow slackens its pace.

Limbs are immobilized, eyelids flicker.

Whispered clues escape moving lips.

Meanwhile, the subconscious spins like an awful, haunted buzz saw. It turns faster and faster, ripping through the day’s events, shredding forgotten memories, and slicing to bits all hope for the future. Among that splintered debris, it searches for an answer, or if not an answer, resolution, or if not resolution, peace.

Willy was right-somehow I slept.

It was not restful sleep.

I did not wake peacefully or with resolution.

But I did have an answer.

I blinked awake late Saturday afternoon knowing exactly where I was and what had happened. Gray sunlight leaked through the glass windows and Harry had somehow made it to my cot, his head on my chest. I stared at the ceiling, parsing my dream, which had been less a dream than a search through the archives of my brain until I stopped on the day long ago when I rushed into the kitchen of the bakery, excited and upset over my first kiss, and melodramatically threatened to climb inside the oven.

I remembered my dad and grandpa overreacting in a way that seemed silly then, but meaningful now.

I remembered how Uncle Buddy was as confused as I was over their outburst, having no idea what they were talking about.

Then my dream switched to my literature teacher, Ms. Ishikawa.

She was pacing the front of a classroom, relating a subject that should have been boring except that she was always so excited, and her excitement was contagious.

Mandi Fishbaum stopped buffing her nails, Walter J. Thurber moved the hair out of his eyes, Gina stopped whispering, and Doug set aside his laptop as Ms. Ishikawa recounted with great drama the violent, stormy world of the Roman gods.

Jupiter was the king of the gods, the ruler of sky and thunder.

His wife, Juno, was goddess of the Roman Empire.

Together, they produced a misshapen little boy who eventually developed into civilization’s most famous pyromaniac.

Lying on my back, staring at the ceiling, I recalled the name of their son, who would one day become the God of Fire.

It was stamped in capital letters on the door of the bakery oven.

Vulcan.

12

Like a gang of ants frantically breaking down a molasses cookie, my mind went over and over what I now knew-clawing, chewing, and digesting it.