Valley of the Shadow (20 page)

    Nathan smiled. “Yep. The magic chalk.” Then he looked at his watch. “I think we can spare a few minutes. Why don’t you let me show you something?”

    They went inside the abandoned gas station. Mitch could smell the musty odor of old wood inside the cramped shop. It reminded him of his grandfather’s attic. After countless years of exposure, sand had encrusted the windows, blown in through the broken glass, and dusted the buckled and uneven floorboards. On the walls hung a few rusted tools, a couple of fan belts, some cans of oil, and an assortment of other antique automotive supplies. The place reminded Mitch of something from the Depression era. Out in the dust bowl of Oklahoma.

    Nathan found a clear spot along one of the walls and drew another circle. After a few moments, the chalk line began to smoke as it had before inside the bookstore, the first time Mitch had seen this trick. Nathan punched away the plaster to reveal another shimmering, quivering, luminous window.

    Mitch slipped his sunglasses on and looked inside. A moment later, his eyes widened and he shook his head.

    “That’s . . . that’s not what I think it is…. Is it?”

CONNER STARED AT THE OLD WOMAN,
his mouth open. How would she know who he was? What kind of creepy woman was this? some kind of psychic or a witch? Had she managed to get in contact with her husband while he was in a coma?

    She walked into the room still wagging her finger. “I know exactly who you are.”

    “Y-you do?”

    “You’re that psychiatrist my doctor was talking about. Gonna try to talk me into removing that feeding tube.”

    Conner relaxed. Maybe she was a little nuts, but she didn’t appear to be clairvoyant. “Uhh… ma’am—”

    “Well let me tell you something, mister doctor, I am not gonna do it. You hear me? So you can just get right out of this room. I only want positive thoughts in here. Positive energy. Because my Howard is getting better. Stronger every day. And you’ll see. One day soon, he’s gonna wake up again. Right as rain!”

    Conner smiled and held up his hands. “Mrs. Bristol, I’m not . . . I’m not a doctor. I don’t want to convince you to do anything. I just…” Conner paused. What kind of excuse would he use now? He could try telling her the truth: that her husband was really trapped in a ghostly Interworld, perched on the brink of hell and working in concert with the powers of darkness. Right. “I just… stopped by for a visit. I wanted to stop in and say hello.”

    Mrs. Bristol stopped jabbering and narrowed her eyes. Her finger froze midwag as she stared at him. “Do I know you?”

    “Uhh . . . no, no but I knew your—know your husband, Howard. Know of him, I mean.”

    Mrs. Bristol’s forehead wrinkled further as her brows came together. “Know of him? What do you mean?”

    Conner’s mind raced. He was slipping back into his former mold. “I—I mean, my father knew him. Knew him from way back. Went to school together… uhh, I think. And I wanted to come down and see him. Just maybe say hello is all.”

    Mrs. Bristol’s eyes seemed to light up. “Oh… are you Stewart’s boy? Felix? From Minneapolis?”

    Conner froze, cursing himself silently. How had he gotten himself in this situation again? And how should he answer this one?

    “Yyyyes.” His head came down in a hesitant nod. “Yes . . . I am.”

    And he immediately knew he’d made a mistake. Again.

    Mrs. Bristol patted his arm. “Ohhh . . . it’s so nice to see you. Why, the last time I saw you, you were just a child. That must be more than thirty years ago now. How is your father doing?”

    Conner nodded again. His eyes like a deer’s in the glare of oncoming headlights. “Oh . . . fine. He’s doing fine.”

    She shook her head and clicked her tongue. “But I’m sure he misses your mother these days.”

    “Yes . . . well, it… it was a big loss for him. But at least he still has us—me. And we’re helping him through… this difficult… adjust… ment . . .” Conner knew instantly something had gone wrong.

    Mrs. Bristol’s face was white. Her eyes grew wide and moist. “Oh, dear!” She gasped, her hand over her mouth. “She passed away? Oh, my dear, when did that happen? It wasn’t during her trip, was it? Please tell me she didn’t pass away in Norway.”

    Conner could only offer up a blank stare. Moments creaked by. “Oh . . . you meant my mother. I… I thought you said… y’know . . .
his
mother.”

    Mrs. Bristol stared back at him. Her brow was furrowed again. Then her eyes rolled up. “Felix! You just don’t change, do you?” She slapped his arm and laughed. “Oh, you nearly gave me a heart attack. You wicked boy! You haven’t changed at all.”

    Conner swallowed and did his best to laugh as well. “Uh . . . well, I’m sorry, Mrs. Bristol.… I didn’t mean to… I . . . I didn’t mean to be disrespectful… here.”

    “Nonsense,” she said, dabbing her eyes with a tissue she had produced from somewhere. “Here is where it does the most good, dear. Laughter is strong medicine, you know.”

    Conner breathed a sigh. He’d dodged one bullet. “Yes. Yes it is.”

    Mrs. Bristol took his arm and drew him up to the bedside. She patted down Howard’s hair and left her hand to linger on his forehead. “Howard, dear. Guess who’s here? It’s Felix Grady. You remember? Stewart’s boy.” She glanced at Conner. “Say hello, Felix.”

    Conner hesitated until Mrs. Bristol shook his arm. “Go on.”

    Conner bent stiffly and mumbled, “Uhh . . . hello, H-How… Mr. Bristol.”

    Mrs. Bristol went on talking. “He played the cruelest prank on me. Just cruel. Tried to tell me Anna had passed away on her trip. You remember she was going back to visit her mother’s hometown in Norway.”

    Mrs. Bristol went on talking like that for several minutes. Her hand clutched Conner’s arm so tightly he could not manage to back away. Every so often, she’d have him say something to Howard as well.

    After what felt like a half hour, Conner managed to extricate himself from her grip with the excuse of having to use the bathroom. Which wasn’t untrue at all.

    As he washed his hands in the sink, he stared at himself in the mirror and sighed. What was he doing? Why was he here? He’d come all this way because of a dream and he had no idea what he was supposed to do.

    Conner knew he couldn’t stay in the bathroom forever. He racked his brain for an excuse to leave. Mrs. Bristol would no doubt invite him for dinner. After so many years, she’d never let “Felix” leave without a good home-cooked meal. But he couldn’t do that. That would be far too risky. Maybe he could say he was on a business trip and he could stay only a few minutes. He had to drive to… Ohio… and he had to get there by suppertime. That was it.

    Although, an invitation for lunch could be the perfect opportunity to see the farm. But once there, how would he manage to sneak off and look around?

    He shuddered as he recalled his nightmare and Howard’s zombielike presence. He closed his eyes. Maybe God would present the next step when it was time to take it.

    Conner came out of the bathroom to find Mrs. Bristol waiting for him, clutching her purse. She looked as if she was ready to leave.

    “Now, Felix,” she said, “you do have time to stay for a visit, don’t you.”

    Conner shook his head. “Oh . . . I’m real sorry. But I’ve got this… I’m going for a job interview in Columbus, and I need to get down there today. So I really have to get going.”

    “Job interview? On a weekend?”

    “Well, no. I’m . . . I wanted to drive around and get to know the community a little bit tomorrow. The interview itself is on Monday morning. Bright and earl—”

    “Oh, good! Then you have some time,” she said.

    Conner rubbed his eyes. He was getting nowhere with this woman. “Mrs. Bristol, I’d love to visit—I really would—but I don’t have—”

    “Just stay for some lunch, then.”

    Conner was feeling faint. Something inside him was pounding.
Get out of here. Just make an excuse and leave! You’re good at excuses. Make one and leave.

    She pulled him by the arm, out into the corridor, still talking away. Something about Columbus and how it was only a few hours from there—much closer than Minneapolis. And now he wouldn’t have any excuses for not coming to visit. That is, if he got the job, of course. And by the way, what kind of job was it?

    Conner groaned inwardly. This wasn’t a good idea. He knew it. But there was also a part of him—like a gentle voice—that prodded him onward. Telling him to stay the course and see the farm for himself. As if all his nightmares for the last two months had led him here and he knew he couldn’t go home without at least seeing the place.

    Mrs. Bristol led him out to the parking lot and Conner hoped she wouldn’t notice the Illinois license plates on his car. Which she did. Illinois? Yes, Conner said he’d flown into Chicago from Minneapolis and then rented a car, just so he could stop in to see poor Howard on the way to Columbus. Fair enough.

    Mrs. Bristol clambered into her gray Chevy pickup and pulled the door closed, waving for Conner to follow her in his car. He would stop by the house for lunch and a short visit and then be on his way.

    Conner got into his Mercedes, started it up, and against every natural instinct inside him, followed her.

THE GLOWING PORTAL OF LIGHT
grew still and the images came into focus. Mitch could see a child sitting at a dining room table. In a cavernous, ornate dining room that Mitch recognized right away.

    It was his father’s house. The boy was a younger version of Mitch. He was sitting at the table, hunched forward, head down, hands folded on his lap. Suddenly a voice boomed, causing ripples in the surface of the window.

    “This is what you do with your time?” Mitch’s father moved into view. Tall and broad shouldered, he loomed over the boy, nearly casting a shadow over the entire room. He slid a sheet of paper across the table toward his son.

    Young Mitch glanced at the paper, then up at his father and back down again. Mitch craned his neck for a better view. The vantage point of the image shifted to the table, where Mitch could make out something scrawled on the paper. A picture. A cartoon.

    Walter Kent’s voice sounded again. “Do you care to explain that?”

    The boy said nothing.

    “Mrs. Tompkins said she caught you drawing this during class.”

    Now Mitch recalled the incident. The cartoon was of his Sunday school teacher. Round and stern and always smelling too much like flowers, Mrs. Tompkins ruled the class with an iron fist. She’d always seemed to expect more from Mitch because his father was someone important, and so she would single him out to read verses, call on him first for answers, and critique him more harshly for being wrong. So Mitch found himself quietly building up resentment. Little by little. It started at first as harmless cartoons but then grew into silent impressions to the class while her back was turned. Her bulging eyes and tiny, puckered mouth. He had her down pat.

    Mitch smiled even now as he recalled her growing paranoia brought on by the children’s stifled giggles every time she turned her back on them. He’d taken great delight in driving her crazy.

    But all good things must come to an end.

    One day she caught a glimpse of his artwork. A hippopotamus onto which Mitch had added lipstick and a mop of hair in the same style Mrs. Tompkins wore. It brought out a chorus of snorts and giggles as he showed it around before class one Sunday. He was still proudly showing it off when Mrs. Tompkins entered the room behind him. She snatched the sheet from his hands, looked it over with nothing more than a slight pucker of her mouth. Then she folded it neatly and slipped it into her Bible.

    Mitch recalled vividly the feeling of being caught. Nabbed. Red-handed. His cheeks flushed hot with blood as he took his seat. The class was silent. And that lesson was the longest one he’d ever experienced in his life. Mrs. Tompkins improvised that day, teaching on Numbers 32:23: “Be sure your sin will find you out.”

    Through the window, Mitch could see his father glaring at his son. The boy didn’t look up again.

    “Well?”

    The boy shrugged but said nothing.

    “Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?”

    The boy shrugged again and mumbled something.

    “What?”

    “I didn’t draw it during class,” young Mitch said. “I drew it before.”

    His father blinked, as if in disbelief. “It doesn’t matter when you drew it. The fact is you drew it!”

    Walter Kent grabbed his son by the hand and led him out of the room. Mitch didn’t need to see any more. He knew where they were going. He remembered vividly the beating he’d gotten.

    He turned to Nathan. “So . . . what? You’ve watched my entire life through these windows? Now you think you’re here to help me? You think you understand everything about me?”

    Nathan looked away for a moment. “I know what happened to your mother. The cancer.”

    “That’s none of your business.”

    “And I . . .” Nathan hesitated. “I know what happened with you. What you did to her.”

    Mitch suddenly felt his rage releasing. “I helped her.” He leaned into Nathan’s face. “I put her out of her misery!”

    Nathan didn’t back down, but his voice was soft. “I know you think you meant well. But, Mitch… sometimes you can do the wrong thing with the right motive.”

    Mitch’s jaw tightened. Who was this guy to judge him? What right did he have? It was typical, though, of zealots. Religious fanatics. Everyone else was wicked. But not them. They were saved. They were God’s special children in their little club on their way to heaven while the rest of the world was destined for hell.

    “I suppose God appointed you to be my judge now.”

    “I’m not your judge, Mitch. He just wants me to help you get out of this place. But I want you to know that I don’t think any less of you. We all have things hidden in our pasts. I do as well. The only difference is, my sins were… well, they were erased. Every last one of them.”