The Light (Morpheus Road) (7 page)

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"Tell Foley what I said," he demanded, pointing at me.

"Right," I replied. "'Keep his freakin' mouth shut.' Do I have to drop the
g
in freaking?"

Russo gave me an odd look as if he didn't get what I meant. Idiot.

"Just do it," he commanded, then turned and ran off the porch.

I had come dangerously close to being pounded, but at least one mystery was solved: Mikey Russo was the guy who gave the fake tickets to Coop. For all I knew, Russo had been poking around the house the night before, looking for him. I wouldn't put it past him. Thug. But why didn't he know where Cooper was? Didn't he talk to Sydney? Maybe Sydney was protecting Cooper. She didn't like her brother much, but maybe her heart wasn't cold enough to actually rat him out.

I went back inside, making sure to lock the door in case Russo changed his mind and decided to charge back and injure me. No sooner had I twisted the lock than I

remembered the other mystery. The one that wasn't solved. I ran for the kitchen.

The Ovaltine powder was all over the counter and the floor. The three-ring design was gone. Winston had walked through the chocolate and left kitty footprints everywhere . . . across the counter, on the floor, and into the dining room. I stood staring at the counter, trying to make out the remains of the design. There was nothing. Any sign that it had been there was gone. I questioned whether I had seen it or not. It's easier to think something like that was a trick of the imagination than to believe there were inexplicable forces at work. I stood still, trying to feel for rogue gusts of wind. There was nothing. I stood still for a solid five minutes, waiting. I didn't feel even the hint of a breeze. Whatever the event was, it was over and all there was to show for it was a messy

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kitchen. There was nothing for me to do but clean it up.

Later that morning at work I had trouble focusing and ruined three silver bowls in about ten minutes. Engraving was easy, but you had to concentrate and be precise. Unfortunately, I couldn't and wasn't. Silver bowls weren't cheap. Mistakes got tossed, which didn't make Mr. Santoro too happy. I think I had ruined two bowls the whole time I had worked there. That morning I trashed five. It had to be a record.

"Take a break," Mr. Santoro said, holding back his anger. "Go for a walk. Clear your head."

"Okay, sorry," I said lamely, and went out to Stony Brook Avenue. I grabbed a Coke from the Garden Poultry deli and sat down on a bench in the pocket park next door. My mind wasn't in the moment. All I could think about was the swirling design that appeared in Ovaltine on my kitchen counter . . . and the bag face at the window. I had to force myself to stop obsessing. It wasn't like it was getting me anywhere.

I turned my thoughts to Cooper. Mikey Russo wasn't balanced. If he thought Cooper was going to turn him in to the police, he would hurt him. It wouldn't matter that he was Sydney's brother--Coop would be in trouble.

I didn't want to deal with any of it. Summer wasn't supposed to be so stressful.

My cell phone rang. Only two people called me on the cell. Dad and Cooper. I was hoping it would be Coop so I could tell him about Russo. Besides, I didn't want to deal with my dad. I wouldn't know what to tell him when he asked how things were going.

"Hello?" I said, hoping to hear Coop's happy voice saying, "Hey, Ralph!"

"Is this Marshall Seaver?" came the monotone voice of a guy I didn't recognize.

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"Yeah."

"This is Mr. Frano."

I had no idea who Mr. Frano was. My silence must have made him realize that.

"From school," he added.

Oh. Right. Him. I never thought of Frano as "Mr. Frano." The guy wasn't that much older than I was. The fact that he was calling my cell seemed almost as impossible as the mysterious wind that created a pattern in chocolate on my kitchen counter. Almost.

"Oh, hi," I said.

Frano spoke in his usual flat, emotionless voice. Over the phone it sounded even stranger because you didn't have the visual of the black-wearing art poser.

"I discovered another one of your sketches here," he said, sounding annoyed. "I have to clean out the room, so if you want it, I suggest you come by today or else it'll be tossed."

I was a second away from saying, "Trash it." It wasn't like I needed to save every last sketch I had ever done, but with all that was going on, the idea of going on a simple, mindless mission appealed to me.

"Don't," I said. "I'll be there."

"Fine," Frano said, and hung up without so much as a "Good-bye." Creep.

It wasn't until I was halfway back to work that I realized how strange it was that Frano had called me on the cell phone. How did he get my number?

I put in another hour of work (without ruining a single bowl, I'm relieved to say) and asked Mr. Santoro for some extra time at lunch to do my chore. He had no problem with it. Mr. Santoro was a good guy, though I think he was just as happy to see me gone and not destroying any more expensive bowls.

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I rode my bike over to Davis Gregory High, which was actually pretty close to my house. It was odd to see the parking lot completely empty. It made sense since summer school hadn't started yet, but it was still weird because normally it was jammed. Walking through the empty corridors was just as strange. It was a big school with a lot of students. Even when most everybody was inside a classroom, you could feel the energy of the people in the building.

Not that day. The place was empty. It felt dead.

I walked to the far end of the sprawling complex where the gym, music department, and art department were located. I didn't pass a single person. It made me wonder what Frano was doing there all by himself.

"Hello?" I called when I stepped into the art room. "Mr. Frano?"

No answer. I figured he had gone out for lunch. Assuming he ate like a normal person. The room was shut down for the summer. Chairs were up on worktables, supplies were out of sight, and the art cubbies were empty. I thought I was too late to salvage my sketch and was about to leave when I spotted something on a worktable across the room. A single chair was on the floor, and a large piece of white drawing paper was on the table. I made my way across the room to see that the table was set up as if somebody had been working there. Charcoal pencils lay next to the paper, along with a gum eraser. I recognized the sketch. Sort of. It was one of mine. Gravedigger. The sketch was a big close-up of his face and shoulders, but there were no facial features, only the familiar outline of his skull-like head topped off by the wide-brimmed black hat. I had shaded in his dark suit, but the face had no detail. Oddly, I had no memory of having done the sketch. I guess that wasn't so strange. I had done hundreds of sketches of the G-man. No way I could remember every last one . . . especially the ones that

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weren't finished. Still, this one wasn't coming close to ringing any bells.

Something felt off. There were plenty of details in the sketch, just not in the face. That was the exact opposite of the way I usually worked. I liked to draw the features first, then frame them with the contours of his face. Why had I done this one backward? I'm not sure why, but I sat down to finish the job.

I was reaching for one of the charcoal pencils when I was suddenly tickled by another puff of air. The pencil rolled a few inches away from my fingers. My hand hung there.

A second later, a dark shadow leaped at me. I jumped sideways in surprise and looked to see . . .

. . . Winston, my cat, standing on the worktable across from me. Though it took a second for me to register that it was her, there was no mistake. Winston was a uniquely colored tortoiseshell tabby. That alone wasn't proof, but the cat had on Winston's purple collar and I.D. tag. I saw her name engraved in white letters. It was definitely Winston. What the heck was she doing there? How did she get into the school?

"Winny?" I called tentatively. "C'mere."

Cats don't normally do what you tell them, but Winston was more like a dog. When you asked her to come, her tail would go up with a happy flip and she'd prance over to get a scratch on the head. I expected her to run to me and jump onto my lap. She didn't. With a short meow Winston jumped off the table and ran for the door.

"Hey!" I shouted. "Winny!" I got up and chased after her. The surprise of seeing her made me forget about the moving charcoal pencil. All I could think to do was catch her and get her home. Winston trotted out of the art room and along the corridor just fast enough to stay ahead of me. She must have gotten out of the yard and somehow

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wandered over to the school. Our house was only a few hundred yards away. It wasn't impossible . . . unless you figured in the whole coincidence of it. Then again, I didn't know what she normally did during the day. For all I knew, she hung around at school all the time and was just as surprised to see me as I was to see her.

"Winston!" I shouted. "C'mere! Stop! Sit!" No amount of yelling got through. Every few feet she'd glance back to see if I was still following . . . like it was a game. Whenever she hit an intersection of corridors, she'd sit down with her tail wrapped around her paws. I'd approach her slowly while softly whispering, "Stay there . . . that's good . . . don't move . . . good kitty . . ." But as I was about to grab her, she'd bounce back to her feet and scamper off. Brat. It was making me nuts.

The school was one of those old-fashioned brick structures that probably started out as one building, but as it grew and new wings were added, it became a sprawling mass of interconnected modules. I had gotten lost in the labyrinth more than once. Apparently that wasn't a problem for Winston. She seemed to know exactly where she was going. How odd was that? My cat knew her way around my school better than I did.

She led me deep into the wing that housed the athletic department. The place was an odd mix of the old and the new. The gym was new, but the locker rooms were crusty old. The weight room was modern, but the pool looked like something my grandfather used to swim in.

The door to the boys' locker room was slightly open and Winston scampered for it.

"No!" I shouted. I was afraid she'd find a locker to hide in and I'd never get her. Of course, she didn't listen and shot inside.

There was an outside exit door across the corridor from

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the locker room door. I was about ten yards away when I felt a rush of air. Instantly the locker room door closed and the door to the outside blew open. I stopped short. Doors didn't do that on their own. My logical mind raced for answers. I guess it was possible that Winston had somehow nudged the locker room door closed and maybe the gust of wind had kicked open the door to outside. But gusts of wind happened
outside
of buildings.

The exit called to me. I really wanted to get the hell out of there, but I had to find my cat. So I turned away from the outside door and entered the locker room.

The place was dark and musty smelling. Nothing new there. It was always dark and musty smelling.

"Winston?" I called out.

I saw my cat trot straight past a line of lockers, headed for the showers. That was good. If she went in there, she'd be trapped. I didn't hurry after her. I didn't want her changing her little kitty mind and hiding somewhere else. A few seconds later she skittered around the tile wall and disappeared into the large shower room.

"Gotcha," I said to myself.

I had to be cagey. Cats were fast. If she felt trapped, she could easily turn back and shoot past me. I had to hope that she'd stop in the dead end of the showers and end this dumb game of cat and mouse where ironically, I was the cat. I walked slowly toward the entrance to the showers.

"Winny!" I called in a friendly, singsong voice. "Time to go home."

Before stepping into the shower room, I heard a sound come from inside. It was the soft but unmistakable
creaking
sound of a door opening. That was impossible. There were no doors in the shower. I entered the dark space and waited for my eyes to adjust. Once I could make out detail, I looked

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around the floor of the shower. Winston wasn't there. How could that be?

When my eyes adjusted further, I saw the answer. There was another door in the shower room. When it was closed, you might not even realize it was a door. I had no idea it was there, and I'd taken more than one shower in there. It was covered with the same tiles as the rest of the shower and looked like part of the wall. But it was definitely a door because it was now open. It had swung out a few inches, plenty of room for a naughty cat to squeeze through. I hoped it was a janitor's closet or a storage area for towels . . . a perfect kitty trap. I walked to the door on alert in case Winston suddenly shot out. When I reached the opening, I knelt down and put my hand near the floor.

"C'mon, Winny! Let's go. Who wants a treat?"

Winston didn't take the bait. She was a cat, not a moron. I was going to have to go in after her. I got down on my knees and crawled toward the door, thinking it would be smart to be ready to grab her in case she bolted. I got to the door, reached out, and carefully pulled it open wider. I kept low. No way that cat was getting around me.

Turned out I didn't have to worry. What lay beyond that door wasn't a closet. I was staring into what I can best describe as another world.

And Winston was long gone.