The Mostly True Story of Jack (17 page)

“What’s going on?” Jack asked, realizing afterward that Frankie wouldn’t respond. Frankie, his body rocking forward and back and his hands fidgeting at his sides, kept his eyes on Jack’s window.

“What?” Jack said. “Oh, you mean the rock? Look. I have it.” Frankie had, Jack noticed, very red eyes.

Frankie shook his head impatiently, stepped back, and brought his hands to the back of his head, screwing up his mouth.

“Frankie, what’s wrong?”

Frankie grunted, kicking at the curb. Finally, taking a deep breath, he squatted down in front of a patch of thin dirt at the edge of the road. With his finger he wrote
Wendy?

“Wendy?” Jack asked. “What about her?” But in reply, Frankie fell forward onto his knees with a guttural cry of pain. He brought his hands to his face and clutched at his scars.

“Frankie, for the love of—what’s happening to you?” Jack asked, alarmed. He leaned down to help Frankie up, and his hand touched the patch of dirt with Wendy’s name on it. The dirt was ice-cold. “What on earth?” he said, wiping his hand across the name, smoothing it away. Instantly, the cold abated and the dirt felt normal again. Frankie fell backward against the curb and groaned.

“I’m going to get my uncle,” Jack said, standing up,
but Frankie grabbed his wrist and shook his head quickly. The silent boy stood, paused for a moment, narrowing his eyes a bit as though thinking, before giving Jack’s arm a quick tug and walking quickly down the darkened street.

“Frankie,” Jack called, “hang on a sec, I’m just going to get my—
Frankie!
Come
on
now.” But Frankie was already halfway down the block. The moon was gone now, and so were most of the stars. On the western edge of the sky, flashes of light, with the occasional bolt, pulsed and flickered. Jack trotted to keep up.

“Is this the way to your house?” he asked. Jack didn’t think so, but kept walking. Frankie said nothing, nor did he acknowledge that Jack had spoken. He continued to walk in sure, long strides.

They walked until they came to the Avery house. The house was dark except for one room on the left-hand side. Light poured out of the windows and pooled strangely on the surrounding grass. But it was like no light that Jack had ever seen. It was cold, and green, and heavy, like metal transformed into light. Jack looked away. Something about the light made him feel ill.

Frankie crossed the yard, grabbing a chair from the patio and positioning it at the side of the house.

“I don’t think we should go over there.” Jack did not move. His skin crawled and itched.

Frankie stopped, turned around, and grabbed Jack by the arm, pulled him toward the chair, and stepped up.
Frankie laid both hands on the wall and looked at Jack expectantly.

“What?” Jack demanded. “You want to push the wall in? That’ll be subtle. Why not just use a hand grenade?” He raised his arms. The rain began.

Of course
, he thought.
Of course it’s raining
.

“Seriously, Frankie. Let’s go. You can sleep at Mabel and Clive’s if you don’t want to go home. Okay? It’s fine with me.”

Frankie shook his head and shoved his hand into Jack’s pocket.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

Frankie smiled and handed Jack the stone and brought both Jack’s hand and the stone to the outside of the house.

“Um, now what?” Jack shook his head, and Frankie stamped his foot impatiently. “Look, Frankie, just show me whatever you want me to see and we can get out of here. Mr. Avery gives me the—oh!” Jack stopped. The stone grew hot. Frankie pressed his hand tightly over Jack’s clenched fist and held it closed, preventing him from dropping the stone. A small door appeared in the siding. As though it had always been there. An old, low door that looked like it was made of barn wood. Jack could have sworn that he had seen something like it before, but for the life of him, he could not remember it.

Frankie reached over, pulled the rope handle, and swung it open.

Inside was a beautiful room. A wide mahogany desk, shining with oil. Paneled walls. Overstuffed leather chairs on delicately curved feet. An intricately carved fireplace with a strangely cold-looking fire emitting an eerie green glow. Jack shuddered.

A tall man leaned back in his leather desk chair, breathed in deeply through his extraordinarily large nose, and brought his fist onto the table with a deafening crash. The four police officers standing opposite him jumped in surprise.

“Perkins!” Mr. Avery roared, and the officers jumped again. Mr. Perkins came in through the door, holding a tray loaded with food, knocking some of its contents onto the ground.

“I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Avery. I just wanted to assemble the sandwiches.”

“Will you quit blubbering about sandwiches!” Mr. Avery bellowed. “Frankly, Perkins, I find your lack of consideration utterly shocking.”

Perkins sniffed. “Well, sir,” he said in a quavering voice. “I’m here now. Shall we begin?”

Mr. Avery grunted. He closed his eyes for a moment before opening them slowly as he inhaled through flared nostrils. He steepled his fingers in front of his face, framing each side, making his eyes look wider, with a strange, cold sheen in the green firelight. He had a sharp chin and prominent cheekbones, which were so pale that they looked like actual bone.

Jack stood outside on that chair, the light, cold rain soaking his T-shirt, shaking uncontrollably. He felt suddenly grateful for the reassurance of Frankie’s hand against his clenched fist, and he couldn’t help but notice that the other boy was shaking too.

After another moment, Mr. Avery spoke.

“Mr. Fitzpatrick was given the option to relinquish the house to us,” Mr. Avery said, his voice booming in the small room. The officers, despite their nightsticks and sidearms, hunched their shoulders and pressed close to one another, like frightened children. “Three times we offered and three times he refused. There is a power in three, and that power is now on our side.”

The officers looked at one another, confusion on their faces.

“You mean the governor?” one officer asked.

Mr. Avery paused. “Sure,” he said, using the same voice that adults often use to lie to children. “Of course. The governor.”

Jack turned to Frankie. “He’s lying, isn’t he?” he said. “He’s talking about magic.” The word stuck like a thorn in the back of his throat. He swallowed. “Isn’t he?”

In response, Frankie squeezed Jack’s hand a little tighter, giving the tiniest of nods. He didn’t take his eyes off the men in the room.

Mr. Perkins cleared his throat. “With all due respect, sir,
he
has been given the correct number.
She
has not. We only asked Mrs. Fitzpatrick once.”

Mr. Avery snorted. “The wife is not our concern. She has nothing to stand in our way.”

“And what of the boy?” one officer said, in a faint hiss of a voice. Jack imagined that this is what a snake would sound like if a snake could talk.

Mr. Avery paused. “The boy is the key. The boy is the reason there will be no swap in this generation. Once the boy is…” He paused. “
Out of the picture.
That’s the moment that the Lady’s Other will be weakened to the point of possible defeat. Grief, love: those are the Other’s weak points, and easy enough to exploit. But simultaneity is key. We must have the boy called Jack in our possession now. Tonight. Without him the plan will fail. Alert your officers—”

Jack dropped the stone. The door disappeared. “What?” he yelled. He looked at Frankie’s astonished, shaking face. “What?” he yelled again. It took Jack a couple of seconds, but he realized with a start that Frankie’s mouth was forming silent words.

Shut up
, the mouth said.

“What was that?” shouted a voice from the house.

“Someone’s out there!” shouted another.

Frankie reached down, grabbed the stone, and shoved it into Jack’s pocket. The sky flashed, split open, and poured down.

“
Run
,” Frankie shouted.

T
HE SCHOOLHOUSE APPEARED, ITS EDGES SHARP AGAINST
the shimmering sky, and Wendy slowed down. Her worn canvas shoes seemed to grow leaden, and the thought of going forward suddenly seemed like a very bad idea indeed. She stopped, shoved her fists into her back pockets, and stared across the field. The uppermost leaves of the corn reflected the unexpectedly vibrant colors of the sky—some patches shone in pale pink, others dark purple, and others in a vivid red.

Underneath, shadows unfurled in every direction and
rippled away from her in waves. It was only July, and the corn was still low. Wendy could see from one end of the field to the other. In a few weeks, it would reach the top of her head, and in a month and a half, the road would look like a tunnel—a very dark tunnel.

She kicked at the gravel in the road, told herself she was being very silly, told herself it was just a stupid, broken old building.

Still, the mystery began in the schoolhouse, and it was never answered. And still, in the end, she had to know.

Wendy stood in front of schoolhouse stairs. They were repaired, rebuilt, repainted, and gleaming.
Who?
Wendy wondered.
And why?
The multicolored sky lit the schoolhouse walls and the land around it with mottled colors that spilled over and around themselves like a quilt.

Suddenly, Wendy felt tired. Very tired. So tired that she knew if she tried to stand for another second, her legs would give out. Slowly, she lowered herself to the ground, but instead of weeds and gravel, she found herself sitting somewhere soft—a chair, where only moments ago there had been none.

She propped her feet up on the schoolhouse stairs and sank deeply into cushions made of feathers and silk. As she sank, she found they gave off an intoxicating smell—flowers or perfume or something else entirely… and she found herself feeling sleepy.

And perhaps she slept and perhaps she did not.

She heard the sound of kids laughing and shouting, the thud of a ball being kicked, the clatter of a metal bucket hitting the gravel yard, the rhythmic chanting of jump rope rhymes with the regular thud of feet. But no one was there. The voices gathered in front of her and seemed to shift this way and that in the sweet-smelling breeze. They echoed across the field. But when she opened her eyes, Wendy could see no one. Just the schoolhouse, so white it seemed to gleam in the high sun. It had become three stories tall, with a bell tower, both narrow and sharp, that rose high in the air as though trying to puncture the sky.

Wendy squinted and shaded her eyes. As she stared, letters started inscribing themselves over the door, as though scripted by an invisible pen.

“
W… E… L…
” Wendy read along.
“Welcome, Wendy.”

“
You musn’t leave me
,” a voice whispered from the softness that surrounded her.
“You musn’t go away like he did.”

Wendy smiled.

“
I belong here
,” she whispered dreamily.
“
Just like Frankie did. And I’ll never, ever leave.”

J
ACK AND
F
RANKIE HELD HANDS AS THEY RAN BLINDLY
through the dark and the rain. Or Jack ran blindly. Frankie, thankfully, seemed to know where he was going.

Four times Jack stared wildly over his shoulder to see if they were followed, and four times he only saw the wet road, the shadowed houses, and the dripping trees. Through the thundering of the rain, they could hear a police siren. Then another. Then another. Howling like wolves and circling near.

They turned onto a road that had houses on one side and a cornfield on the other. Frankie’s footfalls slowed a little as he peered around the side of someone’s garage. He gripped Jack’s hand even tighter and ran behind the first available house. Within seconds, a pair of headlights moved slowly around the nearby corner and oozed down the street. Frankie and Jack darted into the dark nook between the house and the toolshed. They pressed themselves against the sodden bricks, barely daring to breathe.

Jack set his teeth and peered around the far side of the house. The car had pulled over about three houses up, and two men got out. One of them had a cigarette hanging out of the side of his mouth, and it gave a dull glow in the dark rain. Both men stared at the cornfield on the opposite side of the road.

Jack crouched down, tried to keep himself in shadow. The rain poured heavily off the roof of the house and onto his head. He was wetter, he felt, than he had ever been in his life. The men stood staring for what felt like hours, but what was more likely only a few minutes. The man without a cigarette turned to the smoking man and shrugged. The smoking man shrugged, too, and threw his cigarette into the darkness. They both slid back into the car and drove away.

“They’re leaving,” Jack said. Before the words had completely left his mouth, Frankie already started pulling him to the next yard. They moved in short bursts,
from yard to yard, peeking over the side of the houses for more cars. None came.

When they came to the last house on the block, Frankie stopped at the back door, checked the latch, and pushed it open. He jerked his head at Jack in what Jack assumed must be a welcome.

Normally, Jack would have felt profoundly uncomfortable going into someone else’s home. In fact, aside from Clive and Mabel’s, he had never been invited into anyone else’s home for as long as he could remember.

Frankie led him through a cramped mudroom into a wide, clean kitchen. Even in the dark, Jack could tell it was normally sunny and pleasant. And warm and dry. Frankie grabbed a handful of small towels that were hanging over the handle of the stove, and the two of them began drying their faces. The lights flipped on and a woman in a bathrobe stared at them from the doorway. Her cheeks were so pale they were almost white, except for two bright red splotches under each eye. She folded her arms across her chest. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Frankie reached over and grabbed back on to Jack’s hand.