Night Runner (17 page)

“I'm just going to leave these out back,” said Charlie. “Nothing like a good bit of roast squirrel to start the day, eh, Zack?”

“You said it.”

As soon as Charlie disappeared around the edge of the cottage, the rest of us fell quiet. I stood there feeling very foolish because I had no idea what to say, so I just helped Suki climb into her boat, which looked a lot like Charlie's except the motor was newer and less pumpkin-like. I offered her my hand.

“What a gentleman,” she said. Then the boat lurched and she kept herself steady by grabbing my arm. She gave the muscle there a squeeze.

“Wow,” she said.

I was really glad it was dark because I'm sure I lit up like a Christmas candle. Then I helped Luna in. Too bad, her balance was a little better.

Finally Charlie came back. He hopped into his boat and asked the girls where we were going.

“Elephant,” said Suki. Then she and Luna sped off.

“What's Elephant?” I asked, stepping into the boat.

Charlie fired up his motor. “It's an island,” he said. Then he twisted the throttle and we bounced down the lake, chasing the girls.

 

 

Driving down the lake was like navigating through a dark maze. Islands and rocks and buoys were scattered around like they'd just dropped from the sky. Soon the channel opened up, however, and I could see where we were going: a small shadow of an island that looked like it was on fire.

It
was
on fire. Apparently, this was the whole point of an island party. You made a fire so big the rocks practically melted. As we got closer, I could see the boats and the silhouettes of a few people walking around. Woodsmoke hung in the air, mixing with the odours of gasoline and what I later discovered was beer. But the focus was the bonfire. People orbited around it all night, some sitting, some standing. It was strangely alluring. Curls of orange, red and yellow light, and even small flashes of green and blue leapt from the wood, popping and sparking.

Charlie had beer in his boat, which made him as popular as the ice-cream man. He was generous and fun and everyone knew him, so I was considered all right just because of that. I showed up like his sidekick, and if Batman and Robin had followed us in, I doubt anyone would have noticed. We were that cool. Honest.

Luna sat across from me. She seemed to know everyone, too. And when she laughed, I laughed with her. They were real moments. I'd never really understood that word,
real
. As in “Get real.” Or “He was so real.” I understood it that night. I was undead, but I was alive, too. And nervous. This was probably a good thing. It kept me from opening my mouth too often, which would have crushed all my coolness to smithereens.

“So, Charlie's one of your friends?” someone asked me.

I decided that when people spoke to me, I'd just answer honestly. “He's my
only
friend,” I said.

Everyone thought this was funny.

It was much later at this point, and there were only six of us still sitting around the fire: Charlie, Suki, Luna and me, and twins whose
names I've totally forgotten. All I remember was that they had a place on the same shore as Suki and Luna. And one of them had dark hair and the other had bleached his so that the tips were yellow. It was the only way I could tell them apart.

“How did you get to be so . . . ?” Suki held her breath and flexed her arms in a circus-strongman pose. She had downed a few drinks by that time and was speaking very frankly.

“I used to live in a mental ward,” I said. “They have a great fitness room there.”

She thought this was hilarious.

And so the party continued pretty much like that. It was almost perfect. I didn't get to talk to Luna alone, which would have been nice, but we did talk. At one point, she saw my necklace and asked me what it was.

“It's a full moon,” I explained. “It belonged to my father. There's another piece, a gold crescent that fits along one side, but my mother had that part. I've never seen it.”

She was sitting beside me. When she spoke she had this habit of reaching out to touch my arm, as though she needed to get my attention every time she had something to say. It made my insides tumble.

“May I?” she asked.

I didn't know what she meant until she reached around my neck. She undid the necklace clasp at the back and pulled the chain free. For just a second her face was so close I could feel her breath on my cheek. Then she sat back down and held up the necklace for a closer look. Although the moon charm was made of silver, the red and orange flames of the bonfire made it look like burning gold.

“It's beautiful,” she said.

“I think so, too.”

“And you never saw the other part?” she asked.

“No.”

“But your mother had it.”

“She died when I was two,” I said.

“Oh, that's so sad,” she said. But she dragged the “so” out for about five minutes, which I guess meant that it was
soooooooooooooooooooooooooo
sad. Then she asked me how my mother had died.

I wasn't sure what to say. Once, when I was a young kid, I'd asked my father about it, but he never really answered. He just said that sometimes people go away and you never get to see them again. It upset him so much to talk about her that I never asked again after that. I think he would have told me, eventually, if he had lived longer.

“I don't know how she died,” I said.

Charlie was surprised by this. “What do you mean, you don't know?”

“I never got the chance to ask my father again before he was killed.”

“Your father was killed?” The question was asked so quietly, I don't think anyone heard it but me. Luna spoke in a whisper. She cleared her throat. “Someone killed him?” She was louder the second time.

I nodded.

“Do you know who it was?”

I don't remember who asked this question. Everyone was suddenly part of the conversation. I think it must have been one of the twins.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Did they ever catch him?” Suki asked.

I shook my head. “No.”

“You must just want to kill him,” the blond twin said.

I wasn't sure if it was a question. If it was, I didn't answer it. I didn't even want to think about Vrolok.

“If anyone killed our parents, and I got my hands on them, I don't know what I'd do,” Suki said.

This started a conversation between the twins about what they
would do if they caught their parents' killer. It sort of turned into a competition. They carried on for a while, until Luna interrupted.

“You don't know what you'd do,” she said. I can't remember which twin she was speaking to. It might have been both of them. “Until you're really in a situation,” she continued, “you just don't know.”

The blond twin disagreed. “If someone killed my parents, they'd have it coming.”

Both twins seemed to agree on this. But Luna wasn't finished. “Killing is killing. If it's wrong, it's wrong.”

At this point Charlie stood up and heaved another log on the fire. A fountain of sparks exploded into the air. “Enough already,” he said. “If you can't agree to disagree, I'm going to have to start chucking people in the lake.”

And that was the end of it. For a few quiet minutes, we all just stared at the fire.

I thought about what Luna had said. That killing was wrong. I couldn't imagine arguing against it. But a part of me understood what the twins were saying, too. Vrolok
should
pay for what he'd done. Still, if I got my chance and took revenge, would it make me just as bad? I couldn't decide.

When the blond twin got up for another beer, it seemed to wake everyone up. “Anyone else want a drink?” he asked.

“No thanks,” said Luna.

“Come on,” said Suki. “One won't kill you.”

“I don't like it.”

“I don't either,” I said. “It smells like water someone boiled running shoes in.”

Luna smiled when I said this. I'd seen her smile before, but this one was different. I guess I'd just gotten her off the hook, so this smile was just for me.

Not everyone looks better when they smile. Everyone looks worse when they frown, but not everyone is fortunate enough to
have a really good smile. Luna would have given Nurse Ophelia a run for her money. When her lips came together and turned up, her face widened just a bit and her eyes kind of squeezed shut. It was perfect. I guess I must have been staring, because I stopped paying attention to everyone else until Charlie slapped me on the shoulder.

“You get used to it,” he said.

“Used to what?”

“The beer. You get used to it.”

“Apparently, it takes thirty years,” I told him.

He looked at me funny, then nodded over to the dark twin. “You want one?”

The dark twin shook his head without taking his eyes from the fire. He was thinking about something, you could tell.

“What kind of a nutcase kills someone, anyway?” he said to no one in particular. It seemed an odd remark from someone who had just spent the better part of a half hour defending his right to take revenge. I almost told him to go examine his reflection in the lake.

“Luna could tell you about some nutcases,” said Suki. “She used to work with young offenders.”

Luna had her arms folded across her knees. They made a cradle of sorts for her head. She looked ready to fall asleep. “None of them ever killed anybody,” she said.

Charlie took a haul from his beer, then spoke as if he was holding in a burp. “Still, you must have met some headcases.”

Luna shook her head. “Not really. But some of them were pretty rough.”

“Pretty rough?” Suki said. “One of them robbed a bank with a shotgun.”

“Is that true?” asked Charlie.

“Yeah.”

“And your parents let you work with people like that?”

“It was a summer camp, not a mercenary camp,” said Luna. “It was totally safe. And the kids were great.”

“They sound great,” said Charlie. The twins laughed. Charlie clapped me on the back. “Well, we've found the way to her heart, Zack. All you need is a shotgun.”

I think I must have blushed when Charlie said this, like the whole point of the night was to set me up with Luna. I guess in his mind it was.

Suki tried her best to look miffed. “I think it's very brave that my sister worked with young offenders.”

“It's not that big a deal,” said Luna. “They aren't much different from any of us.”

Charlie wasn't buying it. “Has anyone here robbed a bank lately?” he asked.

“That's not what I mean,” said Luna. I could tell she was frustrated. She looked as if she were about to say more. Then she changed her mind.

“I know what you mean,” I said. I hadn't spoken in a while. It seemed to surprise everyone. “I used to live in a mental ward,” I added, and everyone went quiet.

The twins looked at each other and then at Charlie. They laughed. He didn't.

“I thought you were joking about that,” said Suki.

I shook my head. “I was seven when my father died,” I explained. “I got really sick and went into a coma. When I came out of it, I was angry all the time. And there was no one around to look after me. I guess I had nowhere else to go.” I talked a bit about how nice everyone there was. Jacob and Sad Stephen. Even the Chicago Man. “They don't have easy lives either,” I added when I was finished.

Luna was looking at me. She must have understood. I guess the same was probably true for the kids she worked with. Their lives
weren't easy. But you can find a reason to like just about anyone. You just have to do a little digging sometimes.

“You seem pretty normal,” Suki said to me.

“He's anything
but
normal,” said Charlie.

Suki laughed. She had her arms around his waist. It looked very comfortable. She gave him a squeeze.

And that led to a discussion about what “normal” is, which led to families and home life and whatever. I guess that's when I learned that talking in groups is really hard because everyone has to have their turn, and so you don't always get to say what's on your mind, and you have to listen to everyone when you really only want to listen to one person. I kept asking Luna questions about her old job and the kids she worked with, and other things, but with four other people chiming in, I didn't get as much from her as I would have liked.

Then suddenly it was time for everyone to go.

Charlie and I escorted Luna and Suki home, which basically meant we followed them in the boat. Luna and I did the driving because neither of us had been drinking. I'd never driven a motorboat before, but it was a little easier than steering a Ford Mustang at eight hundred miles an hour from the wrong seat. Charlie helped me navigate so I didn't hit a rock or an island, and that was the main thing. As I got close to their dock, I didn't know what to do, so I just cut the engine and we drifted in.