Chapter 2
2
Inside her apartment, Kaley leaned against the door. “Worst day of my life,” she whispered.
As she remembered the smirk on the professor’s face, she allowed herself to imagine returning in triumph. Her new dissertation would be declared as “Groundbreaking new material in the world of folklore.” She envisioned the committee giving her an award. Or pinning a badge on her. Her work would be called “The Best of the Best” and she’d be able to choose where she wanted to teach.
She stepped away from the door and shook her head to clear it. She’d read too many fairy tales. The poor tailor might marry a princess and eventually become king, but in the world of academics, there were no awards for doing your homework correctly.
She looked around her bland apartment. She much preferred Jobi’s colors and artifacts. Did any of the lovely things he owned come from his home country? As for her meager possessions, she’d talk to the building manager about the furniture and get book boxes out of the big green bin downstairs.
As she went to the kitchen, she smiled at Jobi’s joke about being from another planet. “At least I’ll be able to breathe without an oxygen mask.” She wondered if he was writing a sci-fi novel and she was a character in it.
The first thing she needed to do was to call her family. She hoped they wouldn’t be too upset that she wasn’t going to be coming home soon. With her best it-doesn’t-bother-me attitude, she told her grandparents about the professor rejecting her dissertation. “But it’s all right. I have some new plans.”
“That sounds lovely,” her grandmother said. “A break will do you good.”
Her grandfather wasn’t so nice. “Give me the bastard’s name and I’ll introduce him to my shotgun.”
“Stop it!” her grandmother said. “She doesn’t need to hear that, even though I do agree with you.”
Kaley smiled. Was there anything more pleasing than people being on your side?
“So what are you planning to do?” her grandfather asked.
“I’m going with Jobi to see his islands. I’ll be gone all summer.”
There was a long pause and Kaley thought they were going to protest, but then her grandfather said, “Yes, that’s what you need to do.”
He sounded so sad that Kaley almost changed her mind about leaving, but then her grandmother said, “What can I send you?”
Her dear, practical grandmother. “Jobi said there are mountains so send me a box of winter clothes. My UGG boots and the Canada Goose down coat you gave me would be nice.”
“All the catalogs have cashmere sweaters on sale. I’ll order some and have them sent to you.”
Her kindness made Kaley almost start crying again. With the lockdown, she hadn’t seen them in the past year, but she’d talked to them nearly every day. Surely, there was some sort of phone service on Jobi’s islands. She heard a door open and close. “Is that Dad?”
“Hi, K-dell.” Her father, Jeff, took the phone.
Hearing his nickname for her made Kaley swallow repeatedly. How would she deal with not hearing from them for three whole months? “I...”
He heard the tremor in her voice. “What happened?”
“Nothing important,” Kaley said. “Just...” She trailed off.
In the background, she heard her grandfather say angrily, “That SOB teacher turned down Kaley’s paper.”
Her dad came back on the phone. “Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“And she’s going with Jobi,” her grandfather said.
Again, she heard the door open and close, then the sound of birds. Her dad had gone outside.
“So, Jobi wants you to go with him,” Jeff said as though it was something final.
“Yes. I can learn some new stories and write a new paper and—”
“When?” Jeff asked quickly. “Where do you meet? How will you get there? I need to know the exact time you’re leaving and the place.”
“Dad...” He sounded so fierce that she was concerned.
“Sorry,” Jeff said. “I know Jobi well. I know he’ll take care of you, but I have something I want to send to you. I want to make sure it gets there at the right time and place.”
She was hesitant. “He said we’re taking a small plane down to Key West, then we’ll get on—” She stopped herself from adding Jobi’s joke about boarding a spaceship. “Then we’ll fly to his country and stay—” It dawned on her that she had no idea about accommodations. Jobi said there were no “fancy” hotels, but what about small ones? “In a palace,” she said. “Or the king’s house. Jobi is related to the king.”
“He never mentioned that.” Jeff paused. “Okay, honey, you have my blessing, but I want to know when and where you are to leave. You won’t forget to tell me?”
“Of course not.”
“Do me a favor and don’t tell Jobi I asked. Tell him I think you’re a mature young woman who has the wisdom to make her own life decisions.”
Kaley gave a loud laugh at that. Her father still thought of her as a child who needed constant protection. “I’ll tell him that for sure.”
“Call me every day,” he said. “And I’ll call you, too.”
“Dad, it’s only for three months. I’ll be back in the fall.”
For a moment, Jeff was silent, then he spoke in a low voice. “Sure. Just three months. Your grandmother wants to talk to you about colors and what socks she should send. And do you want your red dress? Here, you talk to her.”
Kaley was so puzzled over her father’s attitude that it took a moment before she could understand what her grandmother was asking about clothes and shoes.
When she got off the phone, Kaley realized she was exhausted. It had been a long, traumatic day. She fell across her bed, fully clothed, and went to sleep. When she woke, it was morning, and her mind was full of all she needed to do.
She texted Jobi.
Are we still on for the trip?
She held her breath as she waited for his reply, hoping he hadn’t changed his mind.
Are you packed yet? he replied.
Kaley danced about the room for a few moments, then got busy thinking about what to take. The first item to go in her suitcase was her little photo album. It held a dozen pictures of her family. Her favorite was of her parents holding her. Their heads were together, with Kaley, just a few hours old, in her mother’s arms. The happiness on their faces held no premonition that days later, her mother would die. “She just didn’t wake up,” her father had told her.
Unknown to her family, Kaley had joined every ancestry site there was. She’d sent her DNA sample to all of them. Oddly, on each one, her ancestry had come back partially as “unknown.” There had been long, boring explanations about what that meant, but all Kaley cared about was finding a blood relative on her mother’s side. There were dozens of cousins from her father, but nothing from her mother.
One of her professors used to work with her grandfather building computers. After an introduction, they became friends and she talked to him about her search for her mother. He said that if no one in her mother’s family had sent in their DNA or had never been put in the system for a crime, it wouldn’t be there. “Are you sure her family is in the US? Maybe they’re from some secret part of Russia that no one has explored,” he’d said, teasing.
They laughed together, then he talked about the “old days,” meaning the 1970s, when the professor and Kaley’s grandfather had worked together on the ground floor of the computer world.
She smiled at the memory and then began to choose clothes and shoes to take with her, and she downloaded as many books as possible onto her iPad.
A big part of the reason she’d accompanied Jobi on the long drive to Florida was so she could bombard him with questions about her mother. He’d been there that one year when her parents had been together.
Unfortunately, Jobi’s most frequent answer was “I don’t know.” Back then, he’d been a destitute young man, fresh out of college, so he’d worked on the farm with her grandparents and washed cars for her dad. “Your parents didn’t exactly have time for anyone but each other,” he said to Kaley’s questions.
“But you delivered me,” she said.
“Oh yes. Now that was scary!” He said it all happened so fast that he could hardly remember it.
After so many of his nonanswers, she stopped asking him questions about her mother.
Just because they were leaving soon didn’t mean that Jobi let up on training. In the gym, Kaley bombarded him with questions about his country’s food, religion, transportation, language. She wanted to know everything. She especially wanted to know if there were any animals not known elsewhere in the world.
Jobi smiled. “I’ve been away for so long that I don’t remember any of it.” Once again, she got no real answers about anything.
On the day before they left for Key West, he told her that he’d been in contact with some friends at home and it was agreed that the best place for her to get stories would be on the second island, Selkan. “You’ll have a guide who’ll take you wherever you need to go. And if you don’t find enough there, you can go to the third island.”
“That’s very kind of you.” Every word he said made her more sure that she was doing the right thing.
When he told her the time and place of where they were to meet the plane to take them to Key West, she texted her father. He sent a thumbs-up emoji but no other reply.
Finally, the day came and they were to board a little wind-up puddle jumper of a plane. There was a pilot and Jobi and Kaley. No other passengers.
“This must be expensive,” she said as she buckled herself in. “I think—Oh!”
“What is it?” Jobi was standing.
“I think I saw Dad. He wouldn’t show up, would he? But maybe he wants to say goodbye.” She unbuckled her belt. “I’m going to go look.”
Jobi leaned over her. “Have you ever seen one of these?” He was holding a little tube of steel, about the size of a wooden match. One end of it had a blue light.
“I’ll look at it when I get back.”
Jobi took her left hand, turned her arm, then touched the blue light to the tiny scar on her forearm.
A slight electrical charge went through her. With a dreamy smile, Kaley sat back down. In the next second, she was sound asleep.
“Sir?” the pilot said. “Some man has parked a pickup in front of us. He’s blocking our takeoff.”
“Of course he’s here.” Jobi clamped his teeth together as he threw open the plane door. “Starken-el!” he muttered when he looked outside. Jobi had an idea of what Jeff wanted—and he did not like it.
The pilot looked shocked at Jobi’s foul language. This must be serious.
“I’ll take care of this.” With anger, Jobi went down the stairs to the tarmac.