Page 26 of Sidhe
“Headed back out on the road?” Dave asked as he poured. “Seems to me you’ll just keep ending up here if you do that.”
Nathan knew there was double meaning in the phrase but he wasn’t sure what the guy meant.
“You really think you’ve done some things that make you a murderer or a monster? You wouldn’t be the first. But the weight on those shoulders tells me you don’t want to be what you think you are. Funny thing about that is if you don’t wanna be something, you don’t hafta be. Miracle of choice.”
“And what if I don’t get to choose? Or what if the choices I made mean I don’t get to make another one? What if I’m stuck now and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it?” That’s how Nathan felt—stuck, trapped. “If you knew what I was…” He shook his head. “God, I don’t even know what I am. Or who...”
“It ain’t who we are but what we do that defines us,” Dave said, reaching to steal another fry.
Nathan was about to comment again when he paused. “Did you steal that from a Batman movie?”
“It’s good sentiment,” Dave shrugged.
Nathan laughed, and it felt kind of good, his previous anger dulled.
“You can always choose to do the right thing, Nathan,” Dave went on. “Ya see, you’re not only made of the bad choices ya make, not any more than the most righteous of men is only made of the good ones. Maybe you’ve heard all this before, maybe a million times, but if you’re still not listening…then maybe there’s a deeper problem. Here…” Dave reached up around his neck and pulled off a chain Nathan hadn’t noticed before. The pendant on the end was an engraved circle—a saint medallion. “Now you may not be a religious man, but—”
“Saint Anthony,” Nathan said, recognizing the symbols. “Patron saint of lost things. He’s a popular one.”
A laugh bubbled up from Dave and he nodded. “Yeah, I s’ppose he is. People do hate to lose things. I always liked the whole saint idea, though I don’t reckon I’d call myself Catholic. But the way it works, unlike what some people think, is it’s not about prayingtothe saint, you’re just asking ‘em, see, asking them to praywithyou. I like the community, I guess. Like knowing that even after we’re gone we can do a little good in the world still. I swear every time I’ve asked St. Anthony to pray with me, I have always found what I was looking for.”
“Yeah, probably coz you finally looked in the right place,” Nathan countered. It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate the idea, but it begged too much the question that there was a God above to pray to.
“Well, maybe yes, maybe not, but if it works, it works, I figure. Why don’t you take it,” Dave said, holding the medallion out to Nathan. “Seems you need it more than me right now, and I’m thinking that neck looks a little bare.”
Unconsciously, Nathan reached for his necklace, but of course it wasn’t there. He had left it on the passenger seat next to his phone. Nathan stared at the silver chain and medal in Dave’s outstretched hand. Besides the fact that Nathan didn’t feel right taking anything from this man who was obviously too kind for his own good, Nathan didn’t understand what he could possibly do with help from St. Anthony.
“I didn’t lose anything,” he said.
“Way I see it,” Dave smiled, taking Nathan’s hand and putting the necklace in it whether he wanted to accept the gift or not, “sometimes athingain’t what gets lost.”
Nathan stared down at the medallion as Dave started wiping down the counter that didn’t really look all that dirty. What was he supposed to do with it?
If there was anyone watching out for him…maybe it was Dad. And Mom. Sasha’s parents too. He could imagine praying to them, because he could havefaithin them. He had faith in Jim, Sasha, Alex, and the others. Maybe he didn’t have faith in himself, but they should be enough.
They hadn’t called in two days. But maybe they were still looking for him; he hoped they were still looking for him, because no matter how Nathan looked at it, he knew Dave was right—he was lost. And he didn’t want to be lost anymore.
Even over the music, the sound of an engine pulling up was unmistakable. Nathan almost dropped the medallion as he spun in his stool to stare out the windows. A junker was pulling up, some hideous thing that shouldn’t even be able to run. It was dark, but there was a light on in the cab of the car, and Nathan could see easily the familiar red hair of the driver and the fop of black hair on the person next to him.
“Don’t suppose those belong to you?”
“How…how did they find me…?” Nathan gasped.
From behind Nathan, Dave’s voice sounded softer. “Good things do happen.”
“Not to me.” Nathan wondered how this would play out. Maybe all Sasha wanted to do was hit him again and leave, and Jim just came along to get in a few shots of his own.
Dave sighed. “I wouldn’t really mind your lack of faith, Nathan, if you had some in yourself. It always comes down to choice.Malakcan’t have power over you if you choose them instead.”
Nathan’s eyes widened and he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
But when he tried to spin back around and demand answers, there was a hand over his eyes, holding firm. Even if Nathan had thought to struggle, he wouldn’t have been able to move.
“Don’t give him another chance,” Dave said, but it wasn’t Dave, was it? He sounded strangely far away even though Nathan could feel breath on the side of his face. “It’ll only take a single choice for Malak to take you, one more time where you choose him, and it’ll be over. I know you’ll do the right thing, Nathan. You always have.”
The hand pulled from Nathan’s eyes and he immediately spun the rest of the way around to face Dave and the counter. He shivered at what he saw.
Standing from his stool, Nathan slowly turned in place to look over the entirety of what had once been a diner. It was a diner, with all the things Nathan had seen still there, but they were aged and broken now. The mirror was cracked behind the counter. The jukebox wasn’t playing any music. Everything was dirty and dark and all the lights were off.
