The Mostly True Story of Jack (13 page)

“Clayton,” Jack called, “
be careful
.”

“Whatever, loser,” Clayton called back. He turned, ran into the house, and slammed the door.

T
HE NEXT DAY
, J
ACK WENT BACK TO THE PARK AND SAT
down on the bare ground, Clive’s book on his lap and his notebook open at his side. Mr. Perkins, as far as Jack knew, hadn’t left the Avery house. His bike was still on the ground, and the car—the one that, according to Mr. Avery, stank—hadn’t moved from its spot on the street, in front of the Avery house. Jack checked again and again—his office shades at the Exchange were drawn and the lights out, even during business hours. Just the thought of the smirk on the little man’s face made Jack
sweaty and anxious. At the top of the page he had written
WHAT DOES HE KNOW?
Under that he wrote
AND WHAT DOES HE THINK HE KNOWS?
And under that he wrote, in very small letters,
I have absolutely no idea.

Jack sighed and turned the page.

He flipped until he found another page of the Reverend Weihr’s diary.

“
It is my belief
,” Jack read out loud, “
that the Professor used cunning and trickery and convinced Her that the swap of one son for the other would be reversible. I don’t believe that She intended the destruction of either the Magic Child or the Avery boy. But the Magic broke and surged, and both boys were swallowed up. And in that horrible moment when She realized what She had done, Her heart split in two, and She split in two—Her Wickedness and Her Goodness divided into two separate beings. And the consequences, I fear, will span the generations
.

“The Lady bears a single Magic Child for every human generation. Would the Averys be so heartless to perform this swap again in the future? Would they do it forever? And what of the Lady’s children? Her wicked half will sacrifice them, again and again, in order to stay stronger than Her good half. So many lives will be lost if I do not intervene!”

Jack sighed and scratched at his neck. It was getting worse, and he would have liked nothing better than to pull his skin all the way off and shake it out. Or leave it off forever. “I don’t understand any of this,” he said out loud. Though if he was talking about the book, or the bizarre behavior of Mr. Perkins, or the itching, or the
strange hot-and-cold house, Jack wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure about anything anymore.

And this story… Jack wouldn’t say it was
true
. Not
yet
. Still, the idea of a power surge when a magical being was split in half. It didn’t sound entirely implausible. If he were a person who
believed
in magic. Which he
wasn’t
. Still, not too long ago he had read a book about the making of the atom bomb—how a tiny atom could release unthinkable power when split in two. Could the same be true of a creature made of magic? A magic Guardian? Could he
believe
such a thing?

He supposed it was
possible
. If he believed in magic, that is.

Which he—

“Ready, Jack?” a voice said. Jack looked up, startled. Wendy, Anders, and Frankie stood around him, their bodies silhouetted by the wide blue sky.

“Where did you three come from?” Jack asked. “And how did you know I was here?”

Wendy shrugged. “Anders had a feeling. Don’t ask me how—it’s just his thing.” Anders grinned, picked up the skateboard, and handed it to Jack. “Found the one grassy spot, did you?”

“What?” Jack asked. He looked down. He could have sworn that he had only been sitting on bare ground, but now the spot where his body had been was a lush circle of green grass, with a few small violets winking shyly in the shadows. “How did that—um—” Jack stammered.
“Yeah, I guess.” He changed the subject. “Ready for what exactly?” He looked up at Wendy and narrowed his eyes. Given that he didn’t really know what it was like to have friends, Jack didn’t realize until that very moment that he had missed Wendy and that he had been very lonely for the last few days. In truth, he reasoned, he had probably always been lonely—for as long as he could remember—but he’d never really noticed it before.

“You’ve been
avoiding
me.” His voice was tight, accusatory, and it shamed him. He cleared his throat.

Wendy took in a sharp breath. “Have not.”

“I mean, whatever. It’s fine. It’s just that I thought… I mean, at home I don’t have very many…” His voice trailed off. Jack felt his cheeks heat up, and he wanted to slink away.

“Fine,” Wendy said. “I
have
been avoiding you. Happy? And, you know”—she looked at the ground—“I feel bad about it, I really do. Things are weird lately, you know? Plus, my mom is super mad at me. But I’m here now. You ready?” She didn’t look at him straight in the face but took his hand instead, gave a quick, firm tug to pull him to his feet, and started walking without waiting for an answer.

“For what?”

“We wanted to show you something,” she said, tugging his arm again. She didn’t let go of his hand.

Jack tried to swallow, but he found, to his surprise,
that every drop of moisture had been suddenly sucked out of his mouth. Wendy’s hand felt hot and dry against his own cold, clammy palm. There had never, ever in his life been a moment when a girl had thought to take his hand. Even his mother wasn’t a hand-holding sort. Or, if she used to be, she certainly never was with Jack.

After a few steps, Jack felt that the entire universe had somehow compressed into the space between his skin and Wendy’s skin, which, he decided, wasn’t saying much about the capacity of the universe. After fifteen paces, Jack started to panic. How long, he wondered, was this supposed to last? Would he have to hold her hand forever? An uncomfortable trickle of sweat curled down his neck and slipped along the groove of his spine. He wondered whether it was the humidity, though somehow he doubted it.

Finally, he couldn’t stand it. He snatched his hand back and shoved it into his pocket. “I need to tell you something,” he said quickly. “It’s about that book.”

Jack explained Mr. Perkins’s daily bike ride from the Exchange to the mansion down the road, and his infuriatingly self-satisfied smirk. He told them about the arrival of Mr. Avery—that Mr. Perkins didn’t seem to know where he had gone or even how long he was going to be gone
for—
and about the copied pages. But he didn’t tell them about Clayton Avery crying in the backyard. It seemed rude, somehow.

Wendy folded her arms as worry creased deeply into her forehead. Anders puffed his cheeks, let his breath hiss across his teeth, and shook his head.

“That can’t be good,” she said. “You don’t know which pages he copied?”

Jack shrugged. “There’s no way of knowing. He didn’t take anything
out
of the book, if that’s what you’re asking.” He glanced at Wendy and Anders, feeling defensive and ashamed all at once. “I mean, I checked.”

“You’ve read it?” Wendy asked. “The whole thing?”

“No, not all,” Jack said. “Just parts. Some of the handwriting is hard to read, you know? What about you?”

She nodded. “The same. Just parts. Some when I was pretty little, so it gets jumbly in my head. Anders, maybe we should forget about today.” She put her arm around Frankie’s shoulders. “Maybe I should take him home. It’s just that I… I don’t like this. I wouldn’t want… It’s just that we don’t know…” She grimaced.

Frankie rested his head, bad side down, on Wendy’s shoulder. He smiled vaguely at Jack. Or next to Jack. Frankie’s eyes were two different colors, one blue and one brown. Jack wondered why he hadn’t noticed before. Also, with the scars mostly hidden from view, Jack noticed how very, very similar their faces were—as though Wendy was a girl version of Frankie and vice versa. Except Wendy didn’t have mismatched eyes, and Jack wondered vaguely if Frankie had been born that way.

Then Frankie winked. Right at Jack. He raised his eyebrows once, then went back to swaying back and forth with a dreamy expression on his face.

“Hey—” Jack began.

“It’s all right, Wendy,” Anders said soothingly, slipping his hand around Wendy’s free elbow and easing her forward. She released Frankie. “We have some time. He should see the schoolhouse. Frankie will be with us. Jack has Clive’s book right there. Everything will be fine.” He jerked his head toward Jack and Frankie, indicating that they should follow.

“I have notes,” Jack said helpfully, but Anders and Wendy didn’t seem to hear him. Jack trotted faster, trying to keep up.

Jack sneaked a few glances at Frankie, who didn’t glance back. He just hummed and wavered. He hardly seemed to know where he was. And yet he followed Wendy and Anders without being told and didn’t wander off.
What exactly is
wrong
with that kid anyway?
Jack wondered.

Frankie didn’t make eye contact after that, and Jack wondered whether he just imagined the wink.

There were more people outside than there had been on the day that Jack arrived. A few cars whizzed by; heavily laden trucks hauled supplies to the stores on Main Street; there were even some other kids. But no one stopped and said hello to the Schumachers or Anders. Or Jack, for
that matter. In fact, twice Jack noticed someone crossing the street and continuing on their way. The others didn’t mention it, so he didn’t either.

They walked down the road to where the line of grizzled trees separated the eastern edge of the town from the fields. A little way off they could see the old school, a dilapidated building no larger than a garage, almost a mile outside of town. Faded red paint flaked slowly from the graying exterior planks, while the whole structure leaned slightly eastward on its river rock foundation. Raspberry bramble, dotted everywhere with fat pink buds, tangled wildly all around, as though trying to cover it up, like a quilt.

“Is it just me,” Wendy asked, “or does it look different?”

“Roof is lower,” Anders said, adjusting his hat as he appraised the building. “Probably not safe to go in there today.”

Jack hugged his arms to his chest, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.
Don’t be ridiculous
, he told himself.
There’s nothing here that can hurt you.
The ancient structure seemed to swell and retract with each surge of wind, as though it were breathing.

“It was supposed to have been torn down fifty years ago,” Anders explained.

“Why wasn’t it?”

“Honestly, I think people forget that it’s here. My grandpa went to school here. Said that kids would disappear sometimes. Just vanish, like they’d never been
there in the first place. Course, my grandma said that was a bunch of hooey, and she’d never even heard of any of those people. She said it was the corn whiskey talking.”

“Was it?” Jack asked.

Anders shrugged. “
Maybe.
But I doubt it. My grandpa said that some people are more”—he searched for the word—“ ‘
sensitive
.’ That certain people notice the weird stuff when most folks don’t. He said it was like living in a town full of colorblind people and trying to explain the color blue. So, he noticed people vanishing, and noticed that their memories seemed to fade away. No pictures, no funerals, no nothing. It was like they’d never existed. Though, he also, it’s true, loved corn whiskey. So who knows?”

Jack narrowed his eyes and regarded Anders critically. Anders had broad hands that were turned open as he spoke, as though he were praying. His wide, happy face was intent and honest as he told his story. If it were anyone else, Jack would have assumed that it was a trick, one of those where someone tries to get the new kid so scared that he cries or—even better—pees. But Anders, Jack thought, was not that kind of kid.

“So,” Jack said hesitantly, because he did not want to hurt Anders’s feelings. “You really believe that?” He checked himself. “I mean, what do you think?”

Anders shrugged. So did Wendy.

“Folks talk about eruption points, you know? That
there’s… something. Underground. Magic or power or life or whatever. And it sort of bulges up and leaks out.”

“What,” Jack said. “Like a pimple?”

“
No
,” Wendy said derisively. “Not like a
pimple
.”

Anders thought for a minute. “Actually, yeah. Kind of like that. Anyway, it’s not that big of a deal if the stuff leaking out is used for good things—making farms grow or cows give milk or helping the lambs when they’re born. People’ve been using all kinds of charms and tricks for stuff like that since forever. But sometimes good things can get turned around by bad people, you know? Like your skateboard is
good
unless you decide to whack someone on the head with it. Then it’s bad. Do you understand?”

Jack shrugged. “Sort of.” He paused. “So you mean to tell me that you… both of you… believe in—”

“Magic?” Anders said with a grin. “You would, too, Jack, if you lived here.” Anders paused a minute to think that over. “Actually, who knows? Not everyone notices. My grandpa used to say that it ran in families. Like having green eyes or double-jointed thumbs or something.”

Frankie smiled and bent to the ground, picking up a few pebbles, each no bigger than a dime. He walked up to the school. He started to climb the rotting stairs toward the doorless entrance that stood wide open like a surprised mouth. He took the pebble and tossed it inside. They heard it tap on the floor. He turned and looked at
Jack. Or, Jack thought, he looked
near
him. In any case, Jack noticed that Frankie had just pulled something out of his pocket—something round and vaguely shiny—and shoved it back in again. He turned to the schoolhouse and took a step forward.

“Frankie, stop it,” Wendy said, pressing her lips into a thin line.

“I do believe,” Anders said to Jack, “but it’s okay with me if you don’t. Most people don’t. Or, at least they say they don’t.”

Jack shoved his hands into his pockets, thinking of the handmade book in his backpack. “Yeah,” he said, turning his eyes away from Anders and surveying the fields and the sky. “I kind of gathered that. Anyone disappear in there lately?”