Rob stood up, brushing sand from his hands. "I agree."
It wasn't quite so easy, though, since the van picked that morning to be obstreperous. Rob and Lewis fiddled with the engine but could find nothing wrong, and in the end it started.
"I'll drive for a while," Anna said. She'd been sitting in the driver's seat, starting the engine when Rob told her to. "Just tell me where to go."
"Stay on 101 and we'll head into Washington," Lewis instructed. "But maybe we'd better stop at a McDonald's for breakfast first."
Kaitlyn wasn't sorry to say goodbye to the black basaltic Oregon coast. Gabriel had been edgy and silent all morning and she was beginning to wonder if what she'd done on the beach last night had been a mistake. She knew she would have to catch him sometime and talk it out, and the idea sent humming bees and butterflies into her stomach.
Please let us find the white house soon, she thought. And then, with a twinge, realized that Gabriel had been right. She was expecting a lot of the people in the white house. And what if they couldn't solve all the problems she was bringing them?
Kait shook her head, then turned to look at the dismal, slate-gray day outside.
They passed stands of what Anna said were alder trees, which from a distance looked like big pink clouds. The alder branches were mostly bare, but there were a few reddish leaves hanging on each twig, which gave the stand an overall reddish cast.
By the side of the road were little kiosks which held huge bunches of daffodils, yellow as spring. Signs on the kiosks said $1.00 A BUNCH, but there was no one to take the money. It's the honor system, Kaitlyn thought. She longed for the pure gold of the daffodils, but she knew they couldn't spare the money.
Doesn't matter, she thought. I'll draw instead. She opened her kit and pulled out aureolin yellow, one of her favorite colors. In a few minutes she was drawing, glancing up only occasionally as they crossed a high bridge over the Columbia River. A sign proclaimed:
WELCOME TO WASHINGTON
THE EVERGREEN STATE
"You're home, Anna," Rob said.
"Not yet. It's a long way to Puget Sound if we're sticking to the coast," Anna replied, but Kaitlyn could tell from her voice that she was smiling.
"And we may not get there," Lewis put in. "We may find the white house first."
"Well, it's not here," Gabriel said shortly. "Look at the water."
The left side of the road, which dipped down to the ocean, was lined with large brown rocks and boulders. Nothing like the gray rocks in the dream.
Kaitlyn opened her mouth to say something—and her hand began to cramp.
A sort of itching cramp, a need that had her picking up a pastel stick before she knew what she was doing. She knew what the sensations meant. Her gift was kicking in. Whatever she drew now would be not just a picture but a premonition.
Cool gray and burnt umber, steel and cloud blue. Kaitlyn watched her hand dotting and stroking the colors on, with no idea of what image was forming. All she knew was that it needed a touch of sepia here—and just two round circles of scarlet lake in the center.
When it was finished, she stared at it, feeling a strange creeping between her shoulderblades.
A goat. She'd drawn a goat, of all things. It was standing in what looked like a river of silvery-gray, surrounded by cloudy surrealistic fog. But that wasn't what frightened Kait. It was the eyes.
The goat's eyes were the only dash of color in the drawing. They were the color of burning coals, and they seemed to be looking straight out of the picture at Kaitlyn.
Rob's quiet voice made her jump. "What is it, Kait? And don't say 'nothing' this time—I know there's something wrong."
Mutely Kaitlyn held out the picture to him. He studied it, brows drawing together. His lips were a straight line.
"Do you have any idea what it means?" he asked.
Kaitlyn rubbed pastel dust between her fingers. "No. But then I never do—until it happens. All I know is that somewhere, somehow, I'm going to see that goat."
"Maybe it's symbolic," suggested Lewis, who was leaning over the back of the other bench seat to look.
Kaitlyn shrugged and said, "Maybe." She had a nagging sense of guilt—what good was a gift that gave you this kind of premonition? She had produced the picture; she ought to be able to tell what it meant. Maybe if she concentrated…
She thought about it while they passed beaches of packed sand and mudflats—none of them like the white house terrain—and while they got lunch at a Red Apple Market. But all the concentration brought was a headache and a feeling of wanting to do something, something physical, to let off tension.
"I'll drive now," she said as they left the market.
Rob glanced at her. "Are you sure? You hate driving."
"Yes, but it's only fair," Kaitlyn said. "You've all taken a turn."
Driving the van wasn't as hard as she'd thought it would be. It was less responsive than Joyce's convertible, but the single-lane road was almost deserted and easy to follow.
After a while, though, it began to rain. It started with cat's-paw splatters that made a pleasant sound, but it got worse and worse. Soon it was raining violently—huge sheets that turned the windshield opaque in between sweeps of the wipers. As if someone were throwing buckets of silvery paint against the glass.
"Maybe someone else should drive now," Gabriel said from the bench seat behind Kaitlyn. He'd relinquished the front passenger seat when Kait had taken the wheel—as Kait had suspected he would.
She glanced at Rob, who'd taken the vacated seat. If it had been Rob's suggestion, she might have acquiesced. But Gabriel had a mocking, goading way of saying things that made you want to do just the opposite.
"I'm fine," she said shortly. "I think the rain is easing up."
"She's fine," Rob agreed, giving her one of his slow infectious smiles. "She can cope."
And then, of course, Kaitlyn was stuck with it. Tongue pressed against her front teeth, she peered into the rain and did her best to prove Rob right. The road straightened out and she drove faster, trying to demonstrate casual competence.
When it happened, it happened very suddenly. Later, Kaitlyn would wonder if it might have changed anything if Rob had been driving. But she didn't really think so. Nobody could have coped with what appeared on that narrow road.