Chaos (Lanie Bross) - Lanie Bross Page 0,21

her.

On the floor next to her bed was a picture frame. When she picked it up, she saw that the glass had been shattered. This, surely, had not been on the ground yesterday. It was a picture of her, Luc, Mom, and Dad in front of a mountain. One of the few family pictures she had. Her mom was giving a thumbs-up to the camera. Luc had Jasmine hefted in his arms. And their father was wearing a floppy hat so big it shaded his face.

Carefully, she took the picture out of the frame and flipped it over.

On the back, in her mother’s neat handwriting, read: Luc, 5, Jasmine, 3. Yosemite National Park.

Her throat squeezed and she felt a sudden ache in her chest. They’d been happy then. She didn’t remember much about their mother, or about the years before she relapsed and disappeared. But her dad had told her they’d been happy, and she believed him.

A tiny flickering noise by the window caught her attention and her body reacted instantly. She tensed up. Had the attackers returned? She grabbed a Disneyland snow globe, one of the last things her mom ever gave her, and crept closer to the window.

But instead of someone trying to get in, she saw a small firefly batting against the window, trying to get out.

“Where did you come from?” she said, setting the snow globe on the floor.

It was dim in the bedroom and the firefly flickered in the half dark. Jasmine couldn’t help but laugh. It pinged against the window and went dark, then lit up and tried again to escape.

“Okay, hold on.” She flipped the window lock and raised the window to let the bug escape. As she stepped back, her shoe kicked something and it hit the wall with a clunk.

She stooped down. A marble. Why the hell was there a marble in her room? It was beautifully colored and reminded her of the handblown Venetian glass her friend Susan’s parents had in their dining room.

No. Not colors. Pictures. Moving images, swirling and dissipating and re-forming. What kind of marble was this? She saw a long, dark tunnel, then when she turned the marble a little, shadowy figures appeared, and then it changed yet again, into a structure that looked exactly like the rotunda at the Palace of Fine Arts.

The rotunda. Luc had said he found her at the rotunda Sunday night.

An idea struck her: if she wanted to remember what had happened this weekend, she had to retrace her steps. She’d start at the Palace of Fine Arts. Maybe something would click.

She didn’t know where the marble had come from, but she knew it was a sign. She slipped it in her pocket, scribbled a quick note to Luc in case he came looking for her, then left the apartment for the bus stop. This time, she didn’t bother with the earbuds.

By the time the bus stopped near the Palace of Fine Arts, an undercurrent of excitement ran through Jasmine. She felt sure she would remember something here, and could start stitching together the hole in her memory.

The smells coming off the bay were sharp: salt and algae, dried seaweed, old driftwood. She’d never noticed how heavy the air was this close to the ocean. Thick with energy and life. She had to push down the urge to change direction and walk toward the shoreline. It was cooler here. A fine mist covered her skin, and when she looked up, she noticed that the sky had turned gray and gloomy. She’d been so wrapped up in her thoughts, she’d missed the rain clouds moving in.

She moved faster, jogging across the nearly empty street to the entrance of the Palace of Fine Arts.

The area had been badly damaged in the earthquake. Yellow police tape hung across the pathway, presumably to keep people away from the debris. Jas looked around. When she saw no one, she slipped under the tape and hurried down the path—now fissured with cracks, some as wide as her finger—toward the rotunda. Awareness sizzled along her spine. There was something here, she could feel it, dancing just out of her consciousness.

Familiar.

Instinctively, she reached to twirl her ring, a nervous habit. Of course, it wasn’t there. She’d gone to look for it at the marina on Friday night …

In a flash, a memory resurfaced:

She knew Luc would kill her for going out again, but she needed that ring. Luc had won it for her at a carnival. One of the