The Soulkeepers

Chapter 4: The Girl Next Door

Chapter 4
The Girl Next Door

Three weeks later, Paris, Illinois…

Jacob busied himself stacking wood in the shape of a pyramid within the brick walls of the Laudners’ fireplace. The house smelled like dust and dried flowers. Building a fire was a welcome distraction but he also hoped the smell of burning oak would improve the stale air.

“That looks mighty professional. Where’d you learn to build a fire like that?” Uncle John said from behind him.

“My dad,” Jacob responded.

“Wouldn’t have thought there’d be much opportunity, growing up in Hawaii and all.”

Jacob glanced toward John as he brought a match toward the kindling and watched the flames lick up the logs. He didn’t respond.

“You can hardly tell you were in an accident anymore. Your hair covers the scar. How’s the one on your chest?”

“Healing,” Jacob said.

“It’s a miracle you didn’t break anything.”

Moving from his place beside the flames to one of the two sage green recliners that faced the fire in the Laudners’ living room, Jacob didn’t respond to John’s comment. While it was true from the outside he didn’t appear injured, on the inside he was damaged. He wasn’t sleeping well and sometimes the memory would come back as vivid as if it was happening all over again. The doctors said his symptoms could happen with a traumatic head injury, but knowing his condition was normal wasn’t much of a comfort.

“I have some people cleaning out the apartment,” John said, sitting down in the other recliner. “The boxes should be here in a week or two.”

“A week or two?”

“Shipping from Hawaii to Illinois isn’t as easy as you might think,” John said.

John was pale with gray hair in a brush cut that reminded Jacob of the airmen at Hickam Air Force Base back home. But he was sure he’d never flown a plane because he had thick black glasses that made his eyes look bigger than they actually were. The sleeves of his red plaid shirt were rolled past his elbows, the tails tucked neatly into his blue jeans, cinched tightly under a black leather belt. He always dressed like that, like a lumberjack.

No one would have guessed Jacob was a blood relative based on appearances. Because his mom was Chinese he had the sort of skin that tanned fast in the sun. His hair was black and too long to make any adult comfortable but too short to be tied back, even if he’d wanted to. If there was any family resemblance at all, it was the eyes. Jacob had his father’s pale green eyes and so did his uncle. His eyes were what seemed familiar to Jacob the day they met and were his only clue that John might be telling the truth about being his father’s brother.

“I just want you to know you are welcome here for as long as it takes to find her. If something has happened. If she’s … passed on, you can stay with us permanently. There’s no reason to worry about that. You’ll always have a home with us,” John said.

All at once Jacob was filled with the desire to throw something; his stomach clenched with his fists. His jaw hardened as he ground his teeth. In his head, he knew he should’ve been thankful to have a place to stay, but everything about this situation seemed wrong. He hated John for suggesting his mother might not be found. More than anything, he wanted to be back on Oahu helping to find her. And, worst of all, he hated what his uncle was about to say. He could feel it coming, those words so often repeated to him after the death of his father, those words he wanted to torch from the air before they could reach his ears.