The Mostly True Story of Jack (19 page)

She raised her eyebrows and, for one horrible moment,
Mr. Perkins worried that she might laugh. No one laughed at Mr. Avery and got away with it. No one.

“We will not leave this house. We’d rather die. Really, he’s a fool to ask.”

Mr. Perkins gasped. In the grasp of Mabel’s hands, he felt his own start to sweat and shake. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” he whispered. “Or what he’s capable of.”

“My dear man,” Mabel said. “Neither does he. His plans will fail. Indeed, they already have—he just doesn’t know it yet. Now if you please, I’m sure you can see your own way out. My husband and I have much to do.”

Mr. Perkins gathered his many papers and shoved them unceremoniously into his briefcase, shaking the table as he forced the case closed. Even then, there were several paper corners sticking out along the metal edging. He mumbled something intended to sound businesslike and vaguely dangerous but that ended up sounding more like
thank you
, and hurried to the door.

“I notice, lad,” he heard Clive say as he skittered down the hall, “that you hang on to a piece of rawhide. Smart boy. The stories about rawhide aren’t true, of course, but they’re
mostly
true. It isn’t the
thing
itself, but the
belief
in the thing that matters. Your soul is yours as long as you choose to hang on to it. If the rawhide helps you believe, then all’s the better. Just
don’t lose it
.”

J
ACK SAW
W
ENDY
.

He called to her, but she didn’t answer. “I’m over here,” he yelled, but she fell to her knees. He was standing on one side of a clear, flexible wall that bounced back when he pushed it. He pounded, but he couldn’t break it. He saw a woman wearing a dress made of spiderwebs and moss leaning over the girl, her locust wings fluttering in anticipation. He saw her reach her hands into Wendy’s open mouth and pull out…
something
. He saw Wendy’s
body lighten, fade, and blow away like a dried-out husk. Jack screamed.

“
Mom!
” he yelled as he woke, his face dripping with sweat, his breath rattling around in his chest.

Although Jack didn’t remember going to sleep at the Schumacher house, he found himself waking up in a room that he did not recognize. His shirt had finally dried during the night, mostly, and his shorts, too, except for his waistband and the small of his back. He was lying in what he assumed must be Frankie’s room, on one of those guest beds that roll out from the space between the regular bed and the floor. Frankie was asleep, openmouthed and sighing, with the telltale marks of dried-up tears all across his ruined face. Jack sat up.

There was something hovering on the brink of his memory. Something important.

He searched for his shoes, and found them, inexplicably, under the pillow, which explained the nasty crick in his neck. The stone in his pocket warmed and vibrated, forcing him to remember the flared nostrils of Mr. Avery. His bulging eyes. The sick, green light. The words
out of the picture
hanging in the room like a noose. There was no doubt what the old man meant by it.

Why would Mr. Avery want him dead, he wondered. What was he to Mr. Avery?

He glanced over at Frankie, who hiccuped in his sleep. The scars on his face looked new.
What kind of
injury stays like that for four years?
Jack didn’t know. He tiptoed down the stairs and out of the house.

The town was quiet; the streets, empty. Jack breathed a sigh of relief. To his astonishment, he found his skateboard sitting in the grass. Did he bring it with him last night to take Frankie home? He certainly didn’t
remember
doing so. Still, it was quicker than walking. He hopped on, gave one quick kick, and coasted down the road.

He had an idea of where Wendy might have gone. After all, she was the one looking for answers.

Jack sped off toward the schoolhouse.

Anders left the house without his shoes. He thought it wise to do so. The road was wet, the grass waterlogged and sloppy. The muck squished irritatingly between his toes. But the morning was crystal and bright, and things would dry out soon enough. Besides, he needed his feet on the ground.

He cut across the neighbor’s farm to the schoolhouse.

Or where the schoolhouse used to be.

It was gone. Completely gone. No cloud of dust, no pile of shingles, no collapsed frame or siding or ruined walls. There wasn’t even a splinter or a stray nail to show where the school had once stood. Just a perfect rectangle of grass that was short and velvety like a golf course, and a bright, poison green.

Anders stood at the edge, wondering if he should
stand on the grass. He shrugged, and stepped inside the rectangle. It was warm and dry and pleasant. Very pleasant indeed.

He put his hands in his pockets. He leaned back on his heels, wondering if he should stay there all day. In fact, he thought it might be high time for a nap. The green curled around his feet, wound gently around his legs, and hugged him about the waist. There was something he was supposed to be doing—he was pretty sure anyway—but he couldn’t remember what it was. He closed his eyes, tilted his head back to feel the heat of the sun. He saw a spangle of flickering light and a girl standing on the sky, staring up at the windy fields above her head. Anders felt a sudden, sharp shock at the soles of his feet and two hands gripping his shirt and nearly ripping it off.

“
No!
” the voice behind him yelled.
“Not Anders too!”

Anders felt as though he were being pulled in two. Finally, the grip on his legs gave way, and he fell backward, rolling on the gravel. It hurt his elbows and knees, but he didn’t much notice. What he
did
notice was that he was awake.

Also, he noticed that the person kneeling behind him was Jack.

“Are you all right?” Jack asked, staring hard at Anders.

“I saw Wendy,” Anders said, looking back at the rectangle of bright green grass. There was no imprint of his body, no crushed blades where he had been.

“You were
sinking
,” Jack said.

“You’re not listening,” Anders said. “I
saw
Wendy. She’s here… somewhere. Underground I think.”

Jack shook his head. “No,
you
aren’t listening. It was like… quicksand or something. But green. And it was sucking you down. It was up over your waist by the time I yanked you out.”

Jack was panting, and his hands trembled. The rectangle of grass
looked
solid enough, but it had rippled as Anders had sunk lower and lower. And what’s more—when Jack pulled Anders out,
something
had tried to pull him back.

I know what this is
, a voice itched in the back of Jack’s brain. He tried to shrug it off, but it wouldn’t go away. In Clive’s book, there were references to some sort of trap—a snare for souls. But
how
could something take a soul? What do you
do
with a soul anyway?

Anders crouched next to the green rectangle. He inhaled a long, slow sniff and reached his fingers toward the grass, letting them hover less than an inch over the surface. Nothing happened at first. Then, one blade of grass unfurled, stretched, and grabbed on to Anders’s fingertip. Then another. Then, a handprint-sized section of grass bubbled forward, erupting toward the outstretched hand. Anders snatched it away.

“You know,” he said thoughtfully, pressing his fingers to his lips and resting his elbows on his knees, “my
brothers like to catch rabbits. You ever had rabbit stew?” Jack crinkled his brow and shook his head. Anders shrugged. “Can’t say I care for it much, but my brothers like it. Thing is, they’ve got too much to do, with school and sports and the farm. Doesn’t leave much time to hunt, you know? So they started making these snares. And they’re good too—they made this clever design. It never fails. But, it’s not enough to catch
any
rabbit, you see? You want to catch the
fast
rabbits, the
strong
rabbits, the
smart
rabbits. You eat an idiotic rabbit and it doesn’t taste very good, know what I mean?”

“Not at all,” Jack said, growing more worried and confused by the second.

Anders sighed and stood. “In order to catch strong, healthy, clever rabbits, you have to really
know
how those rabbits operate. You have to
want
to catch them. This thing here”—he pointed to where the schoolhouse once was—“it
attracted
Wendy. And us. And other kids like us.
Curious
kids. Do you think that’s on purpose? Do you think that She’s looking for a certain
kind—”

“She?” Jack said, starting to panic. “What are you saying?”

Anders shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned back on his bare heels. He scanned the fields, the road, and the sky. “I guess I’m saying that we need to get out of the open. And we should probably talk to your uncle.”

“But why would we need to get out of the open—” Jack started, but he looked up. A police car sped around the bend and squealed to a stop. Two officers leaped out.

“
Freeze!
” they shouted.

“That’s why,” Anders said grimly.

“T
ARGET SPOTTED,” RASPED THE POLICE TRANSPONDER ON
the desk, “standing on the side of CR 20 with another juvenile male. We won’t need backup. Over.” Mr. Avery sighed loudly and clicked off the sound on the radio. He slumped into his large, comfortable chair. On most days, his chair felt like a throne, and Mr. Avery felt like a king. But not today. Mr. Avery felt quite a few things, but kingly was not among them. He hadn’t slept in days. He wondered if he’d ever sleep again.

“
Horace
,” said the face in the mantel.
“Hooorrrraaaacccee.”

He winced. He hated the name Horace. Even when he was a child, people called him Mr. Avery.

“Horace,” She said again, and Her lips were no longer the color of wood. Nor were Her eyes. Her lips blushed. Her eyes paled to gold, then brightened to a livid, poisonous green. She blinked, smiled, then blinked again before vanishing back into the wood. She was not awake yet. At least, not all the way. But the eyes had been blinking more and more, ever since the boy called Jack arrived. First here in the Retiring Room, then at the Exchange, and even in the grass, and on the walls of the college, and etched in the pavement on the street. Once, an entire cornfield rounded into a face, blinking its eyes and yawning deeply through its wide, sharp-toothed mouth. As though it wanted to swallow every soul alive. He shuddered. The mantel calmed and was just a mantel again. He brought his hands to his face and pressed gently at the eye sockets, trying to press the pain—and Her eyes—away.

The face in the mantel reappeared. She flexed Her cheeks, slid Her eyes from side to side. Her skin remained the color of polished mahogany. Her mother-of-pearl teeth were white as clouds. She smiled. Mr. Avery gasped and whimpered. Her smile was both beautiful and terrible. It could bring a man to his knees, rip his soul from his body, leave him nothing but a dry husk. In fact, it
often did. Mr. Avery gritted his teeth and willed himself from falling apart.

“Clever boy, Horace, dear. Very clever boy. Your brother was clever, too, wasn’t he? Oh, so clever.”

“Not so clever,” Mr. Avery muttered. Mr. Avery could hardly remember his brother’s name, though he had watched the swap occur, long ago, when he was a boy. He remembered the baby in the acorn cradle lying next to his brother—a drippy-nosed child with a penchant for asking annoying questions. His father and the Lady said
yours
and
mine
. The ground shook. The light flashed. Magic surged over his skin like static electricity. And his brother was gone forever. That was how it was
supposed
to happen. Mr. Avery was
supposed
to have two children.
Supposed
to, but didn’t. So much for his cleverness.

“No,” She agreed, Her hair blowing around Her, as though in a wind. As it rippled, he could see corn and wheat and switchgrass, waving toward the horizon and the sky. He nearly wept at the beauty of it. “Not so clever after all.” She closed Her eyes. Vanished. Reappeared. “I have been sleeping, Horace. I dislike sleeping.”

“An unintended consequence.”

“Of your negligence.”

He bowed his head. “Of my negligence,” he said, though to himself he added:
Of my lack of planning. Of my weakness.

“Where is your son?” She asked.

“Not available,” Mr. Avery whispered.

“I’m weak, Horace. I’m cold. This, dear, is your fault. My needs are few. A soul is all. Perhaps two. Perhaps a thousand. And your son. Remember?
Yours. Mine.
That was the deal. That has always been the arrangement. Your father wasn’t this difficult.”

“No,” he whispered. His feet were cold, his hands were cold. Outside, he knew it was hot, but in Her presence his breath clouded out of his open mouth, and his teeth chattered. “I’m sorry, but it is out of the question.”

“Fine,” She said. “Bear your own consequences.”

“There’s a soul waiting for You underground.” Mr. Avery felt it the moment the Schumacher girl fell into the snare. He
always
felt it, like a jolt in the power that flowed from under the ground and into his bones. Or at least it used to. The Magic, thanks to his botched swap, was a mere shadow of what it used to be. Still, when Wendy fell underground, he
felt it
. And though her soul, for the time being, was still intact, he knew he’d feel it—like a kick to the solar plexus—the moment it was ripped away. Already he braced himself.

“A girl,” the Lady sighed. “Girls are
prickly
. Especially that one. I need to be stronger to take her soul. I need to
be
…
awake.
Tell me, dear, where, perchance, is
my
son?”

“Only half Yours.”

“Indeed,” She said. “A mother split in two. Still, I take what’s mine, don’t I, Horace?”