The New World, 8/8

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(See intro for disclaimers)

[THE NEW WORLD, part 8 of 8]
(Second story in "The Disciple" arc)


"My life's not a short story.
 My life's more than pretend.
 My life has its tomorrows...
 Amazing to still be here
 And what a relief."
             "What a Relief", Maury Yeston


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rachel's apartment
The next day
Early afternoon
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Richie felt Rachel's Buzz before he recognized the house she
lived in.  He had only been here once before, and by the time he
picked out the sad beige building from the other dilapidated old
homes, he was almost on top of it.  With a quick wrench of the
steering wheel, he jerked Joe's tan Explorer into a U turn;
whistling to himself, he guided the SUV expertly to the curbside.
It was the middle of the day, and he had his pick of parking
spaces.  Richie screeched to a quick stop right in front of the
house Rachel lived in.  Exuberant and, perhaps, just a little
self satisfied, he bounded out of the borrowed Explorer and up the
sidewalk.

At the front window, Richie saw the curtains twitch, and Rachel
opened the door moments before Richie reached it to knock.  The
look on her face sobered the young man's high spirits a little.
Rachel's eyes were serious and dark circled, and she didn't return
his grin.

Determined to somehow make her smile, Richie let his grin grow
even broader.  "Hi," he called cheerfully.  "Ryan's Expert Moving
Service, reporting for duty.  Guaranteed to get you and your stuff
to the dojo before dinner, with hardly any broken dishes."

Rachel smiled in spite of herself at Richie's patter, but the smile
didn't quite reach her tired eyes.  "Hi," she answered, stepping
back from the door.  "Come on in."  She turned and led the way
into the first of the two rooms; Richie followed her in, looking
around.  The room was stripped of the few belongings and
personal items he had seen before.  Without the touches of colour
from her bright pillows, the place looked bleak and depressing.
On the lopsided vinyl couch sat a green garbage bag, the large,
heavy duty kind, stuffed full and tied shut.  On the floor beside the
sofa were two storage boxes, Rubbermaid ripoffs from a discount
store, each about a foot square.  Richie looked through the open
door into the bedroom, but the only thing he could see was a small
iron bedstand with a thin, bare mattress, stripped of its sheets and
blankets.

"Can I help you pack?" he asked helpfully.  "Clean up?  Anything
need to be done?"

Rachel shook her head.  "No, it's pretty much finished," she
answered.  "I did most of the packing last night and I did the
cleaning today."  She looked around absently and murmured, "It's
sure cleaner than it was when I moved in."

"OK, then," Richie said, clapping his hands together with all the
enthusiasm he was capable of, which was a considerable amount
indeed.  "What goes first?"

"My music," Rachel answered immediately, heading to the two
storage boxes and crouching down beside the nearest one.

"Hey, I can get that!" Richie said quickly.  "Let me!"  He
swooped down on one of the boxes and lifted it up.  It was
heavier than it looked, but he got his arms around it and hoisted it
up with his knee.  "See?  No problem!"  He flashed a grin at her
and bounced out to the curb, deposited the box in the back of the
Ford, and turned back towards the house.  Rachel was in the
doorway, struggling with the other packing box; she had gotten it
up and into her arms, but keeping it there was something else
again.  Richie hustled back to her.  "Got it," he said cheerfully,
wrapping his arms around the smooth plastic.  For a scant
moment, Rachel hung on, and Richie thought Rachel might insist
on wrestling the heavy box to the car herself; but after a brief
hesitation, she let Richie take her load from her.  "Thanks," she
said, smiling, grunting a little as she shifted the weight into Richie's
arms.

It was a minor thing, but as he carted the second box to the
Explorer, Richie began to feel tremendously encouraged by his
victory.  One more little crack in the wall.  He bet he'd have her
laughing in no time.  It was becoming a personal, private little
challenge of his: to convince Rachel that being Immortal didn't
have to suck.  Partly, he guessed he felt kind of sorry for her,
finding out about it the way she did.  Mostly, he hated to see
someone be so unhappy when, really, life could be pretty good if
you just let it.

Together, the two young people carried Rachel's little cube of a
refrigerator out to the truck, one on either side.  It should have
gone in first; Richie had to shift the plastic packing boxes, but
everything fit with room to spare.

"You know, you really won't need this," Richie said, coiling up the
power cord and tucking it into Joe's Ford.  "Mac's fixed a room up
for you on floor that's right below his loft, and he'll let you use his
refrigerator.  It'll be just upstairs."  Behind him, Rachel's face
creased into a stubborn, mulish little scowl that was gone before
the exuberant young redhead turned back around.

"OK," Richie said, full of energy and high spirits, "what next?"

"What next" turned out to be very little.  There was a cardboard
box, only half full, that held a stained hotplate, a few kitchen
utensils, and a random collection of small tools    screwdrivers, a
lightweight hammer, a wrench.  The garbage bag on the sofa
turned out to be full of soft, lumpy things like towels and blankets.
In Rachel's bedroom, there were a half dozen hangers with her
few dresses and nicer clothes, bound together with a twist tie and
covered with another garbage bag; and a heavy canvas duffel bag
in dark green ripcord nylon.  And that was all.  If Richie had
known that Rachel had so little to cart around, he wouldn't have
bothered to borrow Joe's Explorer.  They could have got it all into
the T bird.  Well, maybe not the refrigerator.  Unless they put the
top down.

Richie took the bag of linens out to the Ford, and came back for
the duffel bag.  Rachel took one last look around, but there was
hardly any place that things could be hiding, forgotten: a cabinet, a
couple of drawers, the bathroom.  No, that was it, she had
everything.  Goodbye, and good riddance.

With the box of kitchen things tucked under her arm and her good
clothes in their makeshift garment bag folded over her arm,
Rachel pulled the front door shut and locked it.  Any place that
didn't give her the willies about being attacked and haunted would
have to be an improvement, but still, Rachel would been happier
about leaving if she felt more confident about where she was
going.  Her stomach was turning queasy at the idea of moving into
a building with a man -- an Immortal -- that she didn't know.  Mr
MacLeod's repeated assurances over the phone that she'd have
the only key to her room, and that no one else ever used the third
floor of the dojo for anything, did little to soften the hard knot of
fear in her throat.  Rachel would feel better when she had added
a little more security to the room that was to be hers.  In the box
under her arm was an industrial doorguard, purchased that
morning at an office supply warehouse downtown, with the last of
Rachel's carefully-hoarded money.  She had been waiting on the
sidewalk when they opened the doors at 8:00.

As she rattled the lock to make sure it had latched properly,
Rachel heard the sound of a door slamming somewhere over her
head, and then the clomping of heavy, clumsy feet on metal steps.
Turning, Rachel saw her upstairs neighbor coming down the old
iron stairway at the side of the house that led to the apartment on
the second floor.  She knew him, a little.  Ronald Stone was an
older man, perhaps fifty; his eyes were so guileless and childlike
that it was hard to guess at his age.  He was a big, shy lump of a
man who moved slowly and deliberately, and smiled a lot but
seldom spoke.  Rachel supposed that he was on disability; he
seldom left the house, and the only visitor Rachel had ever seen
was a tall, professional woman in navy blue who came once every
two or three weeks, carrying a clipboard and a notebook.  Rachel
knew social workers when she saw one.  In her younger years,
she had seen too many of them.

"Hello, Mr Stone," she said, forcing a smile that she was too tired
to really feel.  "How are you?"

"I'm OK," the big man said, but he didn't look happy at all.  He
had stopped halfway down the staircase, and he kept his head
ducked down, not meeting Rachel's eyes.  His meaty hands hung
nervously at his chest, thick stubby fingers twisting and fretting
themselves together; and he shuffled, heavily, from foot to foot.
At the curb, Richie slammed down the hatch of the Explorer, and
Ronald Stone startled violently, staring anxiously towards the
young man; as Richie started up the sidewalk, watching curiously,
Stone winced and cringed.

"Did you want something, Mr Stone?" Rachel asked gently, setting
the cardboard box down on the steps and shifting the clothes
folded over her arm.  She had only spoken to the man a few
times, but she had never seen him in such obvious distress.  "Is
anything wrong?"

"You going somewhere?"  The man blurted the words out abruptly
and snatched a quick, apprehensive glance up at Rachel; when he
saw she wasn't going to be mad, he calmed a little and began
looking nervously back and forth between Rachel and Richie.

"This is Richie Ryan, Mr. Stone," Rachel said, nodding her head
towards the redhead and gesturing with the bag folded over her
arms.  "He's a friend of mine.  Richie, Ronald Stone.  He lives
upstairs from me."

"Hi," Richie said, giving the older man his biggest grin.  Stone
ducked his head a few times in Richie's direction and turned back
towards Rachel.

"You leaving?" he repeated.

"Yes, I am," Rachel said, very kindly, very pleasantly.  She shot a
quick, troubled look at Richie.  What in the world ...

"Where are you gonna be living?"  With the words finally out,
Ronald Stone lifted his head and watched Rachel intently.

Rachel blinked at Stone in complete confusion, and realized that
she didn't know the dojo's street address.  "Well, I'm not sure."
She turned to Richie, but the redheaded Immortal didn't offer any
help.  Richie was watching Ronald curiously.

"Oh."  Ronald frowned over her answer for a minute.  "What
about your mail?"

Was that all?  The poor man was worried about her mail?  "I'll file
a change of address at the post office," Rachel replied, with a
reassuring smile.  She shifted her load to one arm and held out her
free hand.  Ronald took it in his own big paw and shook it
clumsily.  "Don't worry about me, Mr. Stone."

"You were real quiet," the big man replied.  "That was nice.  The
door isn't your fault."

Rachel hefted the clothes she carried again.  "Thank you," she
said.  "We'd better be going, while the sun is out.  Goodbye, Mr.
Stone.  I hope you like your next neighbor."

"Bye."

"Nice to meet you," Richie added cheerfully as he picked up the
cardboard box that Rachel had set down on the steps.  The two
young Immortals turned and walked down the sidewalk to the
borrowed SUV.  Richie loaded the last of Rachel's things into the
back, then opened the passenger door and helped Rachel up into
the vehicle.

** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **

The license plate was unreadable; no way to get it from that
angle.  He didn't recognize the Ford, or the redhead, but the boy
was almost certainly the one that Ronald had mentioned once
before.  Rachel was leaving, and he had no idea where she might
be going.  He lowered the binoculars and slipped them into an
oversized pocket.

Later, in another day or two, he would call Ronald again and ask
if Ronald had any news of his "daughter."  He and Ronald had
spoken several times; Ronald, it turned out, was a father himself,
and was very sympathetic to the efforts of Rachel's "father" to
keep up with the "daughter" who refused to speak to him.  With
luck, Rachel would have left a forwarding address.

And if not, no matter.  He knew where she worked.

** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **

"That was weird," Rachel said to Richie as he hoisted himself into
the driver's seat.  "I don't think Mr. Stone's said ten words to me
before today."

"Yeah?  Well, he seems pretty harmless, but it's better if he
doesn't have your address," Richie answered casually as he
shifted gears experimentally.  He shot a quick glance out of the
window.  Ronald Stone was climbing the rusty stairs back up to
his own apartment, slowly and laboriously.

Rachel's eyebrows went up.  "Why does it matter if Mr. Stone
knows where I live?" she asked.

"Because what he doesn't know, nobody can get him to tell,"
Richie explained.  "And don't file a change of address at the post
office, either.  Just give your new address to the opera company
and whoever else you want to have it.  Better safe than sorry," he
continued, and began to whistle softly to himself as he eased the
Explorer into the traffic.

"Oh," Rachel answered weakly.  "I'm... not used to thinking like
that."

"You'll pick it up in no time," Richie said cheerfully, his eyes on
the oncoming cars.

Rachel took a deep breath.  So.  This was what her life was going
to be like from now on.  One big secret, protected by lots and lots
of lies and smaller secrets.

"A whole different life," Rachel said to herself under her breath.
A new world.  A world with rules to learn.  Skills to practice.  A
new person to learn to be.

Years ago, Rachel had begun a new life.  She had gone to
Germany and learned to be a singer.  She had learned new
languages and new disciplines.  How to perform, how to work
with other performers.  New rules of life.  New skills.  Hard
work, study, countless hours of practice.  It had been the
adventure of a lifetime, and Rachel had loved every moment.

And now another life was staring her in the face.

It was true, what Joe had said last night.  Rachel knew the truth.
She knew her options.  It was up to her what to make of this new
world.

Rachel could see the old beige house reflected in the Ford's side
mirror.  She watched the image as it became tinier and tinier, and
finally it disappeared altogether.


++++++++++


"A new world crashes down like thunder
 A new world charging through the air
 A new world just beyond the mountain
 Waiting there, waiting there.

 A new world shattering the silence
 There's a new world I'm afraid to see
 A new world louder every moment
 Come to me, come to me."
             "The New World", Jason Robert Brown


[FINIS]

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