Chapter 67
CHAPTER
CHARLEY
There’d been no news, no calls. Nineteen days of complete Thad silence. I was still counting; I couldn’t stop, and last night I’d dreamed of the Wall. This time the space beside Thad’s name was filled—with a cross. And I held the knife.
I’d stolen his gate. He’d pushed me, but I was the thief.
Rubbing my eyes, I minimized Firefox. Even my browser’s logo seemed mocking. A warm-blooded fox, circling the globe, as fiery as a gate, as elusive as Nil. His eyes were shrouded, giving nothing away.
I’d spent the last four hours scouring news sites.
I didn’t bother with the Atlanta paper anymore.
I started with Canadian ones, then went international, searching for news of Thad.
But any specific search turned up articles I’d read a thousand times, and my generic searches turned up nothing.
No news of a missing Canadian found anywhere, no word of a naked boy showing up somewhere strange.
The only unusual story I’d found was in yesterday’s edition of Britain’s Daily Mail.
Titled “Rhino Raises Hell in Helsinki,” the article reported the capture of a rare black rhino found charging down the streets of Helsinki.
Local zoos denied responsibility, claiming all their animals were accounted for, and the incident sparked a national outcry demanding investigation into the exotic animal trade.
“People shouldn’t be housing rhinos in their backyard for sport,” argued one Finnish man, whose bakery shop was damaged in the ensuing chaos. “What’s next, tigers?”
Maybe, I thought. But I’m still hoping for a naked person. Over six feet tall, blond, with brilliant blue eyes and a selfless streak a mile wide.
I stared at the flaming fox, wondering what angle I was missing. Then an idea sparked. Bringing up a fresh tab, I typed the word Nil.
A flurry of results appeared. Most were definitions by online dictionaries and encyclopedias, followed by a few businesses that for some inexplicable reason had named themselves Nil.
But one result caught my eye: a personal blog titled Nil Nightmares.
Maintained by a South African man in his late twenties, the blog detailed his eerily familiar account of eleven months on Nil.
He posted links to a private Nil survivor support group, various missing persons sites, and even a few crackpot wormhole theorists.
The comments were scathing. Some questioned the man’s mental health, others urged counseling, still more begged for details to get to Nil themselves.
It was an abyss of information that confirmed my decision to claim amnesia.
Better forgetful than crazy. And Thad was still lost.
With nothing left to search for, I turned off my Mac and climbed into bed.
Even though everything told me Thad was dead, I refused to accept it.
Because even though everything about Nil screamed temporary, Thad and I had always felt permanent.
I kept thinking that perhaps Thad had miscounted his days, or that somehow Nil had granted him immunity, giving him extra time before his clock ran out.
I hoped that any day Thad would show up, flashing his easy grin, flesh and bone, in this world.
But with each day that passed, my hope shrank, collapsing on itself just a little bit more, like the pinpoint black dot of a gate right before it vanished for good.
A soft knock intruded on my thoughts.
“Charley?” Em’s voice. The door creaked open. “You have a phone call.”
I sat up with a jerk. “Who?”
“A girl,” she said, and just like that, my lingering hope died. Instantly, painfully. Irrevocably.
“She swears she’s not a reporter,” Em was saying, “and that you know her.” Em paused.
“Her name is Natalie.”