The Conduit Read online

  Chapter 1

  Long shadows stretched out on the ground as the sun began to set behind the mountains. The competing snores of my brother and sister provided a soundtrack for the drive. I exited the highway and then took Gore Avenue right into the bustling burg that is Gainesboro with its staggering population of 849 residents. Seriously. The hub of the city took up less than a mile and looked like a scene from a Norman Rockwell painting. Red brick buildings lined the street, each decorated with their own colorful awning of choice. Large chain stores hadn’t found this little corner of the world yet. The store owners here manned their own registers and called every customer by name. The most charming aspect of the town was the library. A bright, sunshine-yellow stucco, it stood three stories tall with elaborate, white moldings that had been carved with painstaking detail. Situated on top was a beautiful, Victorian-style clock tower. The ornate building may have looked odd in this minute town if not for the scenery that encompassed it. Gainesboro is nestled in the Appalachian Mountains, completely surrounded by their splendor. And now it would be our home. After a series of break-ins in our otherwise family-friendly neighborhood in Sterling Heights, my Mom made the decision to send me, my twenty-year-old brother, Gabe, and my fifteen-year-old sister, Kendall, to live here with our paternal grandmother. Mom would join us in Hicksville, USA, just as soon as our house sold.

  I turned on Grams’ street and smiled. She had every light in the house on. As if we could miss our target destination. Every year she had a fresh coat of paint applied to her story-and-a-half house to keep it a vibrant robin’s egg blue. Frequent paintings also kept the gingerbread trim and front porch a brilliant white. Since we were little, the upstairs of her house “belonged” to Gabe, Kendall, and me. On our visits, Keni and I shared the room that overlooked the front yard, while Gabe got the back bedroom all to himself. Just last year, Grams relented to our nagging and retired our cartoon character bedding for more grown-up prints. Next on our list was to convince her to get rid of the Snoopy shower curtain in the upstairs bathroom.

  After I gave Gabe a quick shove to wake him, I climbed out of the truck and inhaled the rich mountain air. Hints of pine and wild flowers mingled in the breeze. It smelled like relaxation.

  Gabe rubbed his hands over his face and buzzed head to chase the sleep away and then reached over the seat to shake Keni awake. She fell asleep with her face mashed against the side window. As her heavy lids struggled open, she attempted to untangle her long dancer’s legs from the back seat before her brain had awoken enough for such a task.

  “What? We…here?”

  “Yep,” I answered as I stretched my arms out wide.

  The front door squeaked open as Grams bounded onto the porch. From the neck up, she looked like a typical grandma, her short, wavy, grey hair even worn in the standard old lady ’do. However, instead of a floral print apron or high-waisted pants, our Grams had on a zebra print muumuu she customized to fall just above her knees and a pair of hot-pink wedge heels. We stopped cringing at her choice of attire years ago. Every aspect of her reflected her feistiness, and we adored her for it. In addition to the crazy way she dressed, she lived for fun, and always spoke her mind—often to our chagrin. She, like me, measured in at just over five feet tall and only broke the hundred pound mark by a pound or two.

  “There you are! There you are!” she shouted. “Celeste, pull that truck into the garage. We’ll unload it in the morning. Gabe, Kendall, get your fannies in here and kiss your Grams.”

  They both happily obliged.

  Relieved to have the twelve-hour drive behind me, I took a few minutes to appreciate the beautiful surroundings. Quaint, impeccably-maintained houses lined the street and created a wonderful, small-town ambiance. I meandered to the garage and reached for the handle. Before I could give it a yank, a light appeared in my peripheral vision. I swiveled around to investigate. Above the neighbor’s oak tree flew a glowing ball of light. The unidentified orb couldn’t be a shooting star; it was too low to the ground. But it resembled one. I thought it was a small asteroid about to crash to earth — until it darted from one side to the other. Whatever it was, it was alive. In an elaborate motion, it swooped down and buzzed my head. I squeaked and covered my head with my arms. What the heck was this thing? I’d heard bugs in the South were big, but this was the size of a house cat! It swerved in again, this time close enough to brush against my hair. That garnered a squeal as I lurched to the ground in the fetal position. It whizzed past my head one final time. Then silence. Of course my brother had to pick that moment to appear.

  “Whatcha doin’?” He asked. I actually heard the smirk in his voice.

  “Big mutant lightning bug!” I yelled.

  “Your courageous display must have scared it off, ’cause I don’t see anything,” he snickered. “But if you’re worried it’s going to come back for another vicious attack, I could pull the truck in. You can go hide inside.”

  With my arms still shielding my head, I tossed him the keys and rushed inside.

  “Whoa! Where’s the fire?” Grams asked as I flew in the door.

  “Tennessee bugs are terrifying!” Safely inside, I relaxed and gave my beloved grandma a long awaited squeeze. “Hi, Grams.”

  “Hi, baby. Don’t worry about the bugs here. They might be big as a Volkswagen, but they squish just the same. Now, come grab a plate. I ordered pizza.”

  Grams’ heels clicked against the hardwood floors as I followed her to the living room. The pizza box waited for us on her glass-top coffee table. As soon as Gabe came back in, the three of us kids swarmed the tasty treat. We didn’t bother with the plates but gathered around the box to eat. Mom would never have let us get away with that. Grams just hung back, a safe distance from the feeding frenzy.

  “Want a slice, Grams?” I asked between bites.

  “No thanks, I already ate.”

  “More for us,” Gabe muttered through a mouthful.

  We were well on our way to consuming our individual body weights in the cheesy goodness when Grams rose from her leather recliner. The determined look in her eye should’ve been our first clue something was up, but she lured us into a false sense of security with food. Wiley minx.

  “While you’re busy stuffing your faces and therefore can’t argue, let’s go over some ground rules for while you’re here.”

  Our chewing slowed. Rules? At Grandma’s house? What kind of backward, twisted dimension had we slipped into?

  “First, I am not your maid. As long as you are here, you will pick up after yourselves. Are we clear on that?”

  Kendall didn’t hesitate. Her waist-length pony-tail bobbed as she nodded her agreement with enthusiasm.

  Gabe snorted. “Yeah. Sure, Grams.”

  I swatted at my much bigger, big brother. Then gave him a pointed look as I stated, “It won’t be a problem, Grams.” I got an eyeroll from him in response.

  “Good. Then secondly, you need to know your Grams has a life. Like tonight, I had to skip my Salsa dancing class so I could be here when you arrived.” She waggled her hips to demonstrate.

  I quickly dropped my gaze to the table and tried not to visualize Grams Salsa dancing. Beside me, Gabe gagged on his pizza. The image must have crept in. Poor guy.

  “That means I won’t be here to entertain you. I expect each of you to keep yourselves busy and out of trouble.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me,” Keni declared, her ocean-blue eyes wide and eager like a happy, little puppy. She flipped her annoyingly perfect, golden hair over her shoulder. “I already looked online and found out when auditions for the Community Players production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof are. I would, like, die for the chance to play Maggie the Cat!”

  “Good girl, Kendall.” Grams gushed and my sister beamed. Kendall wasn’t trying to be a suck-up. It came naturally. Grams’ gaze turned disapproving as she focused on Gabe. “What about you, young man? Your mother tells me that you have made no plans to go back to college after your litt
le incident last year.”

  I paused mid-chew. Grams just touched on a taboo topic. One that could make Gabe transform from playful jokester to snorting buffalo in an instant. He had been on a full-ride football scholarship at Michigan State University when our Dad died in an accident a year and a half ago. A few months later, he decided to cope with his mourning by indulging in a little underage drinking. The result was a DUI, the loss of his driver’s license, plus getting kicked out of school. His dreams destroyed, he moved back home. Since then if anyone even inquired about his future plans, he’d snap and yet another tirade would ensue.

  So when Grams mentioned “the unmentionable,” I braced for yet another blow up. To my surprise, he just gave a noncommittal “Not yet.”

  “Do you plan to get a job?” Grams pressed.

  “Don’t know.” Gabe shrugged but didn’t look up from his pizza. I couldn’t tell if the tension in the room had actually reached a palpable level or if I was anxious it was about to.

  Grams pursed her lips, clearly not happy with how this conversation was progressing. “How did you occupy your time back in Michigan?”

  “Sports and stuff.”

  “I see. And did you become a professional athlete with one of those million dollar contracts?”

  “No,” he said with a sarcastic half-grin.

  “Hmmmm. Guess you should probably get a job then, huh?” She raised her eyebrows, daring him to argue. Wisely, he did not.

  “Probably,” he answered.

  “I could talk to Will Burke for you.” Grams grabbed some napkins off the end table and passed them out. “He’s the athletic director at Gainesboro High. He might be able to find a coaching position for you.”

  A spark of genuine interest lit up Gabe’s broad face. “That’d be great, Grams. I’d really like that.”

  I marveled at this turn around. Maybe I wasn’t the only one that needed a fresh start in a new place.

  “As for you.” Grams turned to me with narrow, pondering eyes. Her hands rested on her hips. “I know you have all the grace of a two-legged race horse, so what the heck do you do for fun?”

  Ahh, nothing like the loving banter of family. Just gives me warm fuzzy feelings.

  I pushed a strand of uncooperative brown hair behind my ear. “Until I head off to Rhodes in the fall, my plan is to sketch, veg, and basically give my pre-collegiate brain one last chance to be mush before it’s forced to study and actually learn stuff.”

  Relaxation of any kind had been foreign in my life for a while now. After Dad died, I put my college plans on hold and concentrated on taking care of my family. Mom needed all the help she could get, so it hadn’t really been a choice. With time, things calmed down enough for Mom to begin prodding me to put the focus back on my education and my goal of becoming an art teacher. First up, I wanted to have a nice, relaxing summer. Then rejoin the land of the living as a freshman at Rhodes College in Memphis. I couldn’t wait. Eighteen seemed a good age for my life to finally begin.

  Pleased with how our “orientation speech” had gone, Grams plopped back down in her recliner. “Sounds good to me. You should head up to the clearing. You’ll find plenty to sketch up there.”

  I wiped my face with my napkin to remove the remnants of the pizza slices I killed. “The clearing?”

  Grams kicked up her foot rest and grabbed a gossip magazine off the end table. “Grandpa and I used to take you kids there when you were little, remember? Just outside of town, there’s that walking trail that leads into the mountains. You follow it up and you’ll find a clearing right next to a little brook. It really is lovely. I don’t know why I don’t go up there more often. Ooh, another celebrity bump watch! I love those.”

  Gabe quirked his eyebrow in Grams’ direction and laughed. There was no question as to why Grams didn’t hike anymore. Grandpa was the outdoorsmen, not her. When he passed, so did her hiking days. But I did remember our trips into the mountains and all the amazing things we saw. It would be the perfect place to find inspiration for my drawings.

  “That’s a great idea, Grams.” I admitted. “I’ll definitely check it out.”

  Grams set her magazine in her lap and folded her well-manicured hands over it. Her eyes crinkled with a warm smile as her gaze shifted from Kendall, to Gabe, and finally to me.

  “Kids, I think this is gonna be a pretty unforgettable summer.”