The Mostly True Story of Jack (18 page)

Finally, Jack spoke. “H-hello, Mrs. Schumacher. S-so sorry to wake you up.”

“I,” Mrs. Schumacher said in a voice that was barely louder than a whisper, “have not yet thought of an appropriate punishment, young man.” Jack noticed, with some relief, that her eyes were on Frankie and not on him.
“But make no mistake, something will come to me.” She lifted her chin and looked past them to the darkened doorway to the mudroom. “That goes for you, too, young lady. You think you can hide from your mother, but you can’t.”

Frankie and Jack looked at each other, and then at Mrs. Schumacher. Jack cleared his throat. “Um, Mrs. Schumacher, Wendy isn’t with us.”

“Oh, she’d like me to think so, wouldn’t she?
Wendy! This minute!
”

“No, I mean it.” Jack stepped forward. “I woke up and looked out the window and Frankie was there. I don’t know. Just standing there. I came out to bring him home and we got caught in the rain. I don’t think Wendy was ever with him.” Jack noted that this was not a lie. It wasn’t the whole truth, either, but he had prided himself on never lying before, and he was happy that he didn’t have to start today.

“So where was Wendy in all of this?” Mrs. Schumacher placed her hand on the edge of the counter and leaned toward it. Jack wondered if she was about to fall over.

“Nowhere. She wasn’t anywhere. I just thought—” Mrs. Schumacher pushed past Jack and started hunting around in the mudroom, pulling the coats off their hooks as though Wendy might be hiding behind.

“Wendy,” she said. “Wendy!”

Jack stood shoulder to shoulder with Frankie, feeling
the other boy’s silent sobs crash across his body like waves.

“This is why you were out,” he hissed at Frankie as Mrs. Schumacher tore through the main level of the house. “You thought she was with me, but she wasn’t. And then you thought Mr. Avery… why would Mr.
Avery
know what happened to her?”

Very slowly, Frankie brought his hand to his scars. They looked, Jack noticed, even worse than before—puffier, redder, and slightly weepy, as though they might be infected. Frankie looked directly into Jack’s eyes for a brief moment before squeezing his mismatched eyes shut and letting tears leak out.

“So you don’t think Wendy is… I mean, she couldn’t be…” Jack couldn’t finish. He supposed he should do something, maybe look in the cupboards or under the drapes, but it seemed fairly useless anyway. His hands hung motionless by his sides, his eyes did not blink, and even though his wet clothes made him freezing cold, he couldn’t even shiver.

Mrs. Schumacher ran back into the kitchen, followed closely by a man who Jack assumed must be Frankie and Wendy’s father. He was unshaven and wore a flannel shirt with undershorts and slippers. He stopped in front of the refrigerator, which was covered with papers from school and photographs and shopping lists and coupons from the local grocery store. With trembling hands, Mr. Schumacher removed a photograph of Wendy from its
magnet. The photograph showed Wendy on a soccer field, wearing a green jersey and holding a ball under one arm. She was smiling. What the photograph did not show was the bottom half of Wendy’s body. The cleats were gone, the shin pads were gone. Even the scabbed-up, knobby knees were gone. The upper half of Wendy floated in midair. She was half erased.

“Margaret,” the man said. His voice was heavy and scratchy with sleep. “Oh God, Margaret. Not again.
Not again!
”

Mrs. Schumacher said nothing. She turned away. Jack noticed that her shoulders were shaking. She opened the back door.

Nothing was visible.

Nothing but the rain.

T
HAT NIGHT
, A
NDERS WOKE FROM A TROUBLING DREAM
. His room was dark, its silence rippled by the openmouthed breathing sounds of his two brothers at the other end of the room. In his dream, Wendy sat on a chair that was a chair if you looked at it one way—and a very large hand if you looked at it another. In his dream, Anders himself sat on the steps of the old schoolhouse. He was very small, he noticed. No bigger than a mouse. He jumped up and down and waved his arms, trying to
get Wendy’s attention, but she was soft and dreamy and didn’t notice him.

The steps rumbled and shook. He heard the sound of yawning and was nearly knocked down by the worst morning breath he had ever smelled. Slowly he turned around.

There were two windows on either side of the door. For as long as Anders could remember, the windows had been covered by two large pieces of wood that had been marked with graffiti by kids who had done so on a dare. The boards were gone, the graffiti was gone, and even the windows were gone. Instead, he saw two very large, very sleepy-looking eyes—eyes that were just starting to open. In his dream, Anders took one flying leap off the bottom step and landed hard on the gravel, pitching forward and cutting his knees.

He didn’t stop. He ran to the chair (or was it a hand?) and grabbed Wendy by the shoe.

“Wendy,” he yelled—but even in his dream he knew his yell was no louder than a squeak. “Wendy, you have to get up. We have to get out of here.”

Wendy didn’t hear him—or if she did, she didn’t show it. Instead, she snuggled deeper into the chair. The eyes on the schoolhouse snapped open, and the door no longer looked like a door. It was a very large, red-lipped mouth.

“I’m
awake
!” shouted the mouth.

“Yes,” murmured Wendy. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

And before Anders could shout,
No, actually, it certainly is not
, the chair closed tightly around Wendy and pulled her under the ground. The spot where both chair and girl had been began to ripple and swirl like water, its waves knocking Anders off balance and tumbling him to the ground.

“Wendy,” he whispered, but she was gone.

Anders woke in a tangle of sheets. He sweat and shook. “Come back,” he shouted, but his voice cracked and rasped with sleep. He sat up and noticed his knees. They were sore and bleeding. His hands were scratched too. He flexed his fingers. This sort of thing had happened before—injuries from dreams appearing on his body the following morning. His grandfather suffered from a similar malady (though Anders’s grandmother said it was hogwash). He’d wake with scrapes, bruises, concussions—once, a broken finger. Anders knew that some dreams were dangerous. Some dreams were
real
. Which meant that the eyes in the schoolhouse, the Wendy-snatching chair, the ground swirling like water…

“Oh no,” he said, his heart beating faster and his stomach turning to lead. Wendy wasn’t just gone. She was
gone
. And there wasn’t much time to get her back.

M
R
. P
ERKINS ARRIVED AT THE
F
ITZPATRICK HOUSE VERY
early in the morning, as decided by the group—which is to say that Mr. Avery decided and everyone else knew better than to disagree. The demolition order, tucked in a manila folder in his briefcase, had to be personally delivered. Once the Fitzpatricks had the order, they had six hours to vacate the property. Since time was of the essence, it was crucial to hand over the papers as quickly as possible.

“Catch ’em when they least expect it,” Mr. Avery had told him, leaning his sharp face very close to Mr. Perkins, so close that Mr. Perkins could see the curled hairs in his very large nose. “The boy hasn’t been seen coming back to the house. Let them think we have him. Let ’em
know
that we have the upper hand. They can step aside or they will be crushed. Progress will not be stopped.”

Mr. Perkins paused at the front door. After a rainy and miserable night, the morning was lovely. The road stretching away from the Fitzpatrick residence had been washed so clean by the rain, it looked new. The cornfields beyond were deeply green, and the brightening sky was the kind of blue you only see in paintings.

Mr. Perkins sighed and reached into his pocket for his piece of rawhide. He held it tightly in his fist as he knocked on the door.

The door opened before he could knock three times. Clive Fitzpatrick stood in the doorway, looking unshaven and slightly rumpled, as though he had not slept all night—or if he had, he had slept in his clothes. And from the look of him, on the floor as well.

“Hello, Reginald,” Clive said wearily. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

“Yes, sir,” Mr. Perkins said, feeling suddenly flustered and shy. “I mean, Professor Fitzpatrick. Yes, it has.”

Mr. Perkins had taken Clive Fitzpatrick’s Magical Thinking in Western Literature course before he was forced to withdraw halfway through. Clive—or
Professor Fitzpatrick—had generously refrained from giving Mr. Perkins an F, as most of the other professors would have done. Instead, he listed the course as “Incomplete” and sent young Mr. Perkins a note saying,
Should you ever return, you will surely pass
. He did not sign it.

“Well, boy,” Clive said, turning and padding through the living room. “It wouldn’t do to chat on the threshold. Do close the door behind you. We would be delighted if you would please join us in the kitchen for tea.” Mr. Perkins stood in stunned silence. He had not anticipated an invitation for tea. In fact, Mr. Perkins could hardly remember the last time he was invited for anything. Ordered, yes, but never invited.

“Thank you,” he said quietly, and shut the door behind him.

The Fitzpatricks’ kitchen was one of those bright, pleasant kitchens that face east to catch the morning light. Sunlight streamed through the many windows, spilling across the blue tile countertops, the wide planked floors, the polished tabletop.

Clive had already taken his seat next to Mabel, who looked equally tired and worn out. A very large parrot fluttered down from the top of the refrigerator and landed on the table, between Mabel’s teacup and Clive’s untouched toast. He turned his head and stared at Mr. Perkins with an outraged—and possibly murderous—look in his black button eye. He opened the hook of his beak and let out a squawk that sliced into Mr. Perkins’s
skull and made him wonder if he would ever hear properly again.

“That’ll do, Lancelot,” Mabel said. Mr. Perkins wondered if this was an admonishment or praise.

“Sit,” Mabel said finally. Mr. Perkins sat. “Tea?” she said, pouring tea into a pale blue mug. Mr. Perkins tried to say
thank you
, but he was so overcome that it was little more than a gargle. Mabel rolled her eyes.

“Mr. Perkins,” she said, laying her hands on the table as though to steady herself. She had, he noticed, beautiful hands. “We have had a long and unpleasant evening. I’m sure we don’t have to tell you that our nephew is missing.” She paused and fixed Mr. Perkins with a hard, icy stare. He was suddenly so cold, he thought his skin might crack. Mabel cleared her throat and continued. “Or that your employer has seen fit to cut off our telephone and electricity.
That
was a nice touch.” She sipped her tea and set her cup back onto the saucer in a way that struck Mr. Perkins as being vaguely sinister. “Given that it is more than likely that we are facing a long and unpleasant day, I would appreciate if you could say what you came here to tell us so we can attend to our rather pressing business here.”

“Although,” Clive cut in, “we are very happy to see you.” He gave Mabel a meaningful glance. Mabel sighed.

“Yes, yes,” she said rather quickly. “It is always a pleasure to have former students at our table.” She pressed
her lips together tightly, as though she wanted to add something but thought better of it.

Mr. Perkins felt his eyes suddenly well up and his lower lip start to quiver. It was, by all reckoning, the nicest thing anyone had ever said to him. He cleared his throat.

“Of course, of course,” he said, trying to sound as much like a businessman as he could. “There is always so much to do, isn’t there? Busy, busy, busy, rush, rush, rush.” He cleared his throat again. Clive and Mabel stared back in an embarrassed silence. Mr. Perkins pulled his briefcase to his knees and popped it open. “As you know, Avery Industries has generously offered to build a new road connecting the grain elevator to the town.”

“And which grain elevator would that be, dear?” Mabel asked.

Mr. Perkins swallowed, but his mouth had gone quite dry, and the swallow got stuck in the back of his throat, causing him to choke slightly. He tried to calm it by taking a swig of tea, but ended up burning the entire inside of his mouth instead.

“Well,” he said, wincing, “that would be the grain elevator that will be located on the piece of property where the old schoolhouse sits currently.”

“Ah.” Mabel poured cream into her own mug and sipped her tea. “So your employer is intending to tear down our house to build a road to a structure that has not yet been built.” She laid her cup daintily onto her saucer in a way that struck Mr. Perkins as oddly dangerous.

“Yes, ma’am, yes indeed.”

“And the other houses on the block. Are they slated for demolition as well?”

“Well, no, not currently, ma’am, but as the project—”

Mabel did not let him finish. “So you mean to say that, while the entire block stands in the way of this—I’m certain, very worthwhile—project, your employer has decided that, for now, only
our
house will be taken and destroyed. How, pray tell, will the road function with the other houses in the way? Will the trucks be expected to swerve?” She folded her hands together and laid them in her lap.

Mr. Perkins pulled out paper after paper detailing the project and the legal standing granted by the governor (under duress, of course, but granted all the same) that allowed his employer to take the Fitzpatricks’ home. “You will, of course, be compensated.” Mr. Perkins listened to the whine in his voice and felt ashamed. He cleared his throat. “Amply compensated,” he clarified.

Mabel reached across the table and took hold of Mr. Perkins’s hand in both of her own. Her hands, he noticed again, were warm and strong, and utterly lovely. “My dear Mr. Perkins.”

“Reginald,” Clive corrected.

“Yes. Reginald. You can tell your employer that we care nothing for his paperwork or his signed orders, and you can tell him from me where he can stick them.”