The Mostly True Story of Jack (24 page)

Jack paced, holding his head. He thought he might be sick. He hadn’t known Wendy long, but the thought of her
vanishing—
all memory, all everything—well, it was more than he could bear. Anders groaned a little. His face had gone quite gray and looked as though it had been twisted into a knot.

“That can’t happen, Clive, it
can’t
. What do I have to do?” Jack said desperately.

“Even the score,” Clive said.

The floor rumbled and shook under their feet. Two vases fell off an end table and an entire bookshelf emptied its contents onto the floor. The walls shivered and quaked while spidery cracks unraveled across the plaster. All around was the sound of wind, and the sound of a woman’s voice calling his name—
Jack, Jack, Jack
.

“But—”

“There is tremendous power, Jack, in the gap between good and evil. Tremendous power indeed.”

Eight cars approached slowly, inching their way down the street. A very tall man walked in front. He mopped his brow with a handkerchief and dabbed at his eyes. Under his feet, the ground bubbled and swelled; it swirled in concentric circles and shimmered like oil.

“I’m going outside,” Clive said. “Your mother’s good half—the Lady’s Other—lives and feeds on joy. All those happy people out there? That happiness is for
Her
. It spills out of us and makes Her strong. The Lady, on the other hand, has kept Herself stronger
in the past
by stealing souls—a deceitful, dirty trick if there ever was one. But effective. Right now, though, She’s very weak. I daresay that’s the only thing that’s thus far saved Wendy—she’s… a prickly girl, if you understand me. In Her current condition, the Lady wouldn’t be able to get that soul if She tried. Wendy will fight Her for it, bless her.”

Jack thought of the two dark bruises under Clayton Avery’s eyes. And that was just for an insult. What would a girl like Wendy do to protect her
soul
? Jack shuddered. Whatever it was, Jack knew it would probably hurt.

“If I can lure the wicked half into the house, we have laid enough traps to pull the two together—or near each other anyway. You have a right, Jack, to face the two of them. They are
both
your mother, you see. But we can’t fix the situation as long as Wendy is trapped in the hall under the hill.” Clive looked at Anders. “Go through the back door. Cut through the field. Follow in Wendy’s footsteps.” He turned to Jack. “
Someone
needs to get her out, Jack.
Someone
needs to save her. But make no mistake, there will be consequences.” And with that, he hurried out the door.

D
EEP UNDERGROUND, IN THAT SWILL OF DRIPPING WATER
and mud and rotting leaves, Clayton Avery made two realizations:

First, he learned that he was not, as he had always believed, stronger than that freak Frankie Schumacher. Although the boy was so easily beaten up in earlier days (Clayton, in fact, had told his friends that beating up Freak Show was just no longer even a challenge), Frankie had handily dodged Clayton’s fists after refusing (
refusing!
) to give him a boost out of the hole (after Clayton
had promised—mostly—to help Frankie out afterward). And then, to add insult to injury, Frankie had launched Clayton into the air and brought him down onto the muddy floor with a sickening thud, and had forced him to march into a long, dark tunnel, presumably to his death.

Second, and probably more disconcerting, Clayton learned that Frankie was a dirty, rotten, lying
faker
. Frankie Schumacher, with his show-offy, ruined face, who dumbly accepted any and all taunts that Clayton could think of, without tears or threats or talk-backs—Silent Frankie Schumacher could talk. The fibbing
sneak
.

“I don’t know why I have to go following a liar—ouch!”

Actually, Clayton was not following anyone. He was leading the way down the tunnel, pushed forward every now and again by a swift kick in the pants by Frankie.

Frankie, on the other hand, ever since his first
Snap out of it!
which he yelled—
yelled!
—right in Clayton’s face, had not stopped talking. He was not, however, talking to Clayton—or anyone else for that matter. Sometimes he yelled at no one in particular—things like, “I’m back! You don’t need her anymore!” Or: “I’ll bet You feel pretty stupid for letting an old man and a little kid trick You like that! Why don’t You swap out me and Wendy, and no one’ll ever know!” But most of the time it was incessant muttering.

And regardless of what you called it, it was, Clayton
felt, incredibly annoying. Clayton wondered if perhaps, after not talking for so many years, Frankie simply didn’t know how people normally did it.

“I want my father,” Clayton whined.

“No, you don’t,” Frankie said, peering into the darkness ahead. “You think you do, but you don’t. Trust me.”

“Why would I trust—ow! No kicking!”

But Frankie didn’t answer.

“
She sewed soul after soul into a quilt as wide as the world
,” Frankie muttered.
“And the quilt kept the Magic safe—mostly. But what the Lady did not know was that a rip had formed along the far hem.”
He ran his hands along the damp wall. “A rip along the far hem,” he said again.

Clayton wanted to club Frankie over the head, use his body as a ladder, and peek out the top of the hole. He wanted his mother. There was dirt in his eyes, dirt in his mouth. And the worst thing—the
worst—
was the buzzing in his ear. A buzzing that had begun the day that the new kid came to stay with the Fitzpatricks and had never left. Except now, the sound had changed. Instead of the ringing of bells, it was a voice that said
Now, now, now!
Clayton nearly wept with aggravation.

“I’m allergic to something down here,” Clayton said, tugging at his ears.

“Magic,” Frankie said, hooking his fingers into a groove on the wall. “The Magic knows you’re down here. Boy oh boy, is your dad in trouble.”

“What?” Clayton asked, but Frankie did not answer.

All Clayton heard was a loud rip, as though someone was tearing a bedsheet from end to end. There was a rush of wind, and the wind smelled like wheat, like pollen, like the milk of raw corn kernels crushed under the thumb.

Clayton felt himself falling again.

And falling.

And falling.

And he felt as though he and Frankie would never stop.

M
R
. P
ERKINS RODE IN THE CAB OF A BULLDOZER NEXT TO A
man named Tim, who wore a gold earring in one ear and a tattoo on his arm with a picture of a pig with a crown of thorns and a halo and a slogan reading M
EAT
I
S
M
URDER
. Tim spent the ride over explaining how he works at the feedlot during the fall to pay the bills and has to wear long sleeves so his boss doesn’t see the tattoo. Mr. Perkins did not care, but nodded politely as he gazed out the window.

He could see Mr. Avery walking behind them, the
ground rippling under his feet, a hankie pressed tightly over his nose. The fumes must be terrible, Mr. Perkins thought, and mopped the sweat from his brow and eyes and cheeks.

The ground under Mr. Avery’s feet seemed to gather, shimmer, and unfurl like cloth. In fact, the more that Mr. Perkins thought it looked like cloth, the more it actually did—an unfolding, many-colored quilt made from thousands upon thousands of silken sections stitched painfully to one another. With each step, he could hear the quilt moan and sigh. And Mr. Perkins thought sadly about the stories his grandmother told him.

She told him
what happened
to the souls stolen by the Lady.

She told him to stay away from the old schoolhouse.

She told him that without a soul there is nothing—no memory, no mourning, no mark upon the green earth to show that you had once been alive. Just a gap. Mr. Perkins shuddered.

The quilt under his employer’s feet shone and glimmered like tears.

Remember us
, moaned each section.

Save us
, cried the stitches.

Mr. Perkins reached into his pocket, grabbed onto his section of rawhide and held on tight.

The sun was high now, and the day was hot—hotter still inside the tight cab, with its barely functioning air
conditioner breathing out a meager amount of cool air. If Mr. Perkins held his hand right up to the vent, it would mostly dry the sweat on his palm—mostly. His left hand gripped harder on the rawhide, though it was sweaty and slicked, and his hand, he knew, would smell of leather for days to come.
No matter
, he thought.
Better to stink than lose a soul.

Tim leaned forward, and rested his fleshy chin against the dashboard, squinting into the sunlight. “Now who in tarnation is standing all over the yard? Are those balloons?”

“No, I’m sure it’s just the foreman and his crew,” Mr. Perkins began, but he did not finish. It wasn’t the foreman on the Fitzpatricks’ lawn, or any kind of crew, either.

Neighbors lounged on blankets and chatted on the porch. Mr. Fitzpatrick filled brightly colored balloons and tied them to the extended wrists of children, who shrieked as their balloon shuddered and bobbed while they ran across the yard. Mrs. Fitzpatrick moved through the growing crowd with a stack of clear plastic cups and a very large pitcher of lemonade. She poured cup after cup but didn’t seem to run out.

This may have struck Mr. Perkins as odd, but he was too busy noticing something else.

“Are they coming from”—his voice was fragile and dry—“they
couldn’t
be coming from the field.”

But they were. The corn opened like curtains and
people poured out. They looked around, blinking, as though astonished to be where they were. They looked in surprise at the red and white checked blankets draped over their right arms and the picnic baskets in their left hands.

One by one, they shrugged, snapped their blankets open, and sat down. They opened their baskets and pulled out large ceramic bowls of potato salad, and Jell-O molds, and green bean casseroles. Dishes passed from blanket to blanket, and people scooped large, glistening mounds onto white paper plates.

Tim turned to Mr. Perkins. “Someone has to call the sheriff. Demolition properties are supposed to be cleared out and vacant. You can’t go around demolishing a town picnic.”

“Indeed,” Mr. Perkins said, and nervously looked behind him. Where his boss had stood just a moment before was now obscured by a large black cloud rising in a large plume over the street. From inside the cloud, a woman’s voice raised itself into a scream.

“Get these people out of here,” roared Mr. Avery. “They’re ruining
everything
.”

J
ACK AND
A
NDERS POUNDED DOWN THE BEATEN TRAIL
through the cornfield. As they ran, Anders noticed that the corn looked worse and worse the closer they got to the schoolhouse. With each step, the green corn paled, browned, and shriveled. The ears went from swollen and ripening to underdeveloped to drooping, sick, and moldy. Anders, like his brothers, his mother and father, and his grandparents going back a thousand years, had a farmer’s heart, and his farmer’s heart broke at the sight of that dying corn. He didn’t stop, however, and ran alongside
Jack until they reached the bright green rectangle of grass where the schoolhouse once stood.

Jack stopped.

Slowly, an outline of the old building began to emerge in the air—just the steps at first, then the sagging roof, then the boarded windows, then the outline of the door.

“Do you see that?” Jack said, pointing.

“Right,” Anders explained. “You see, it’s grass, but it’s not regular grass, if you understand me.” Anders spoke slowly and patiently, as though explaining something complicated to a very young child.

“No, no,” Jack said. “I get it about the grass. It’s not…
regular
. I don’t even know what that word means anymore. But I’m talking about the
air
. That
outline
. Don’t you see it?”

But Anders didn’t see it. “An outline of what?”

“The school. Or the husk of the school. See? There’s the stairs. There’s the roof.” Jack put his hands in his pockets and looked at the ground. “You don’t see it, do you?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.” Anders took a deep breath and rubbed the top of his yellow head. “Things get wobbly on an eruption point. This place is one. Your aunt and uncle’s house sits on another. And down in Henderson’s Gully too. That’s where they pulled out Frankie. I was little, so I don’t remember much of it, but he was fine before it happened, and then he was gone. And he was, you know…
wrecked
.”

“Yeah.” Jack was silent. He thought about Wendy.
When he first saw her, she blocked out the sun and stood over him like some kind of angel. His first friend. “We have to get her out of there.”

At that moment, from the direction of the town, came a high-pitched scream that seemed to hang in the air for a moment before blowing out across the land like wind. A thick black cloud rose over the broad trees and grew. Jack shivered. The back of his neck sweated and itched.
She’s looking for me
, he thought over and over again. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the Portsmouth.

“You do know where you’re going,” Anders said. “Even if you don’t think you do.”

He took Anders’s hand and slammed the Portsmouth onto the ground. Without knowing he would, he opened his mouth and called out to the land, the sky, the darkening, growing cloud. “Wendy!” he shouted.

The ground split, yawned, and pulled them inside.

D
ESPITE THE FACT THAT
C
LAYTON AND
F
RANKIE WERE DEEP
underground, both boys had light enough to see. One wall was made of some sort of flexible resin—and it had light on the other side. Not much, but enough to cast a weak glow into the underground space. And moving around on the other side of the wall was the shadow of a girl.