Lance looked back to Susan and Ethan. They were sitting on the floor together. Luke had joined them and was playing a game of hot hands with the boy, which he was pretending to lose at terribly, each slap of his hand causing Ethan to squeal in laughter.
“She watches him in Kids’ Group at church on Sundays,” Jacob said. “And she gets the cook at Mama’s to make him Mickey Mouse pancakes when we get breakfast there sometimes. He thinks it’s the funniest damn thing.”
Lance nodded. Said nothing. He wasn’t great with kids, and not great at talking about them either. Grasping for a talking point, he asked, “So how old is he, your son?”
“Just turned six,” he said. “And he’s not my son. I mean, at least not by blood.” Then, briefly, Jacob Morgan’s face dropped, his eyes went unfocused. Sadness seemed to creep in and then out. “He’s my nephew. My half-sister’s kid. She passed away right after he was born.”
Lance kicked himself for accidentally bringing up the topic. “I’m so sorry,” he said.
Jacob’s eyes reignited with life and he smiled. “It’s okay. Little guy is the best thing ever to happen to me.” Then he laughed. “Don’t get me wrong, he can be a complete pain in the butt, but it’s in the best way. You know?”
Lance nodded. What else could he say to that?
“Anyway,” Jacob said, “I didn’t mean to interrupt your evening. Just wanted to say hi and let you know that if you need any help with anything—want to borrow a cup of sugar and all that neighborly stuff—just come on down. It can get a little lonely up here sometimes.”
“Thank you,” Lance said. “I appreciate it.”
Both he and Jacob looked back to Ethan and Susan and Luke, playing on the rough wooden floor. Ethan was demonstrating to Luke how to chop wood properly, setting imaginary pieces of wood and then swinging an invisible axe, making a whooshing sound with his mouth as he did so. Luke pantomimed the action, purposely screwing up and making Ethan laugh and shake his head and say, “No, like this!”
Lance watched the boy make another imaginary swing and then looked back to Jacob. “You know, I think there might be a slice or two of pizza left, if you want to come in and let Ethan play a little longer.”
Jacob looked to his nephew for a moment, then back to Lance. Then Lance watched as the man’s eyes fell over the rest of the house’s interior, the same way Luke and Susan’s had earlier that evening when they’d arrived, as if he were remembering things the way they used to be, like he’d been here before.
“If you’re sure it’s no trouble,” he finally said. “We won’t stay long. Ethan needs to get to bed.”
Then he stepped inside and Lance closed the door, happy he’d convinced the man to stay.
Something inside Lance was sending up signals, picking up something unusual in the air. His senses coming to life and recognizing something that might be important to everything he was here for.
Not about Jacob.
Ethan.
There was something special about the boy.
Susan helped Ethan pick out a slice of pizza, and after some pseudo-protests from Jacob about the sugar and caffeine, the boy sat on his knees in one of the chairs, eating over the opened pizza box and sipping one of the warm sodas like he was at the best party in the world.
Lance sat where he’d been before, as did Susan. But Luke was now leaning against the counter by the sink, arms crossed and watching Jacob and Susan sitting next to each other, chatting like old friends. Which apparently they were, to a certain extent.
Susan wasted no time launching into explaining the relationship to Lance. “Jacob’s parents used to own the hardware store down on South Street,” she said. “I used to go down there with Daddy on the weekends just to see if Jacob was working!” She blushed then, as if she’d forgotten Jacob was capable of hearing. She laughed. “I had the biggest crush on you! And what are you, five, six years older?”
Jacob looked up to the ceiling, apparently doing mental math. Nodded his head. “Yeah, I think that’s about right.”
Susan made a noise that sounded like a squeal and groan. “I was so stupid. I couldn’t have been more than twelve … maybe thirteen at the time.”
Jacob laughed. “I remember you coming in. You always stood over by the paint section, pretending to look at the color sample cards.”
“So you knew I was pretending?”
Jacob shrugged. “You were comically obvious. Like you said, you were young.”
Lance looked to Luke, whose face remained passive, but he was uncrossing and recrossing his arms a lot, clearly not thrilled with what he was hearing.
“I was surprised to see you here.” Susan laughed. “We had no idea who was at the door. We thought you might have been one of those ghost hunters!”
Jacob grinned and shook his head. “I must say, I could say the same thing about you.” Then, “What are you guys up to up here, anyway?”
Lance felt a twinge of panic. Susan was obviously still crushing on Jacob Morgan, and Lance feared this was going to make her open to discussing a lot more with the man than Lance really wanted her to.
Thankfully, Luke was on the same page.
“I used to play ball with Lance here,” he said, uncrossing his arms again and this time shoving his hands into the pockets of jeans. “We ran into each other last night and thought we’d try and catch up some. I haven’t seen him in years.”
Jacob nodded, eyeing Lance. Lance smiled and said, “Yeah, one of those small world moments, I guess.”
Susan caught on, smiled and nodded.
Jacob asked, “And what brings you to Ripton’s Grove, Lance? Why are you here?”
Boy, am I getting tired of that question.
He shrugged. “I heard you had the best meatloaf in the state.”
Susan laughed. Luke smirked. Jacob Morgan gave one of his grins.
That was that. Lance wouldn’t offer more unless provoked. He was getting tired of everyone prying into his business. He was getting tired of all the lies, despite their inevitability.
Jacob’s eyes shifted over to his nephew, the boy had finished his pizza—half the slice sitting upside down in the box—and was gripping his soda can with two hands as he said something to Susan. She laughed and nodded and asked Jacob, “Okay if I take him to the bathroom? He’s just informed me—very politely, I might add—that he has to pee and he doesn’t know where to go.”
This got a chuckle from the group, and Jacob said, “Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“Not at all.”
The two of them walked hand in hand the short way down the hall, and Lance heard the bathroom door open and close and then Susan calling out, “Don’t forget to wash your hands!”
The three men sat alone in the kitchen together, and even though Susan was right down the hall, they might as well have been on a desert island together. Susan had taken all the conversation with her, and the three of them sat there, trying not to look at each other and be forced to make mind-numbing small talk.
Luke didn’t like Jacob Morgan. That much was obvious to Lance. Whether it was insecurity or jealousy or both, Luke was doing his best to try and look unfazed, but Lance read it in his body language easily enough.
Jacob Morgan didn’t seem to care one way or the other about Luke’s presence in the kitchen, as he hadn’t even gone so far as to nod in his direction, or shake his hand, or even offer a hello.
Lance didn’t care about either of the other two men right then, because he was still fascinated with the boy.
He’d felt it as soon as Ethan had rushed across the threshold into Susan’s arms, a sudden, gentle pull, magnetic-like. No, maybe that wasn’t quite right. It was more like an energy, a cold feeling that was also warm at the same time, like a pulsing wave. A crackle of electricity that made the hair on Lance’s arms and the back of his neck tickle with static.
And the longer Ethan had been in the house, the stronger the sensation had become. As Lance had sat across from the boy, trying
to keep his attention focused on the adults and the conversation, he’d been sneaking glance after glance toward Ethan, studying him, and also trying to reach out to him.
Because there was something familiar about the sensation he felt around the boy. Something…
The hallway door opened and closed, and Susan and Ethan returned. Ethan passed the kitchen table and went to Luke. Held out his hands, palms up. “Play?”
Luke smiled and slid down onto the floor, probably happy to have the distraction from his girlfriend getting all googly-eyed over Jacob Morgan, and also, maybe, in an attempt to show Susan that he was perfectly comfortable playing with kids, in an effort to hopefully impress her. Score some points.
“Only a few minutes, Ethan. It’s already past your bedtime.”
Ethan pretended not to hear his uncle, and Jacob rolled his eyes at Susan, who laughed.
“So, Lance, how long you staying? Good while?”
Again with the questions. Why couldn’t Jacob Morgan pull out his phone and stare at Facebook or play Candy Crush like every other well-behaved adult in the country?
“As long as work takes,” Lance said. Then, to flip the cards, “And what do you do for a living? More than chop wood, I take it.”
Jacob Morgan laughed and pointed at Lance. “Good one. Yeah, a little more than that. I still own the hardware store, but I hired a manager to run the place. I share the profit with him. Not a bad gig for either of us, really. I do some farming, some handiwork ’round town for folks, some of the businesses. This and that.”
Susan said, “What he’s not telling you is his parents left him, like, a bazillion dollars.”
Lance suspected Susan meant the words as a joke, but it was instantly obvious it made Jacob uncomfortable. The man nodded, forced a smile. “My parents invested well in some land about a decade before they died,” he said. “It’s certainly helped.” Then he looked to Ethan. “Especially since this little guy came along.
“And on that note, Ethan, it’s time to go.”
Ethan didn’t protest. He simply played one more quick round of hot hands with Luke and then stood up from the floor. “Okay,” he said.
And then Lance sucked in a sharp, quick breath, clenching his teeth and almost doubling over, as if he’d just experienced a pregnancy contraction. It wasn’t so much painful as overwhelming. The room seemed to wobble in and out of focus, the hairs on his arms and neck feeling as though they were standing straight up, like he was part of a load of laundry, fresh out of the dryer.
It was the sensation he’d picked up from Ethan, only intensified ten times over. Maybe a hundred.
And then his vision cleared and the room came back into focus and he saw that all the other adults in the room were standing around like nothing at all had happened. They weren’t even looking at him, wondering what’d gone wrong, why he’d gasped.
And then he saw that all their eyes were locked on to something, all staring in the same direction.
Lance turned his head to follow their gazes.
Ethan stood directly in front of the basement door, staring at the chipped wood, his hand slowly reaching up toward the knob.
Jacob spoke up. “Ethan, no. That’s just a basement, and it’s locked.”
Another blast of electricity made the room wobble in Lance’s vision, but it was weaker this time. Not enough to bother him. Again, the others didn’t seem to notice.
Ethan reached for the knob again, and Jacob was across the room, swooping the boy up into his arms. “Ethan, I said no!”
Ethan instantly burst into a fit of tears and childish screams. “But she’s down there! She’s down there!”
Jacob offered a barrage of rushed apologies and thanks for the pizza and was at the front door in a flash, Luke and Lance and Susan all trailing. Jacob gave a final goodnight and wave and then was gone, switching on the lantern he’d left on the porch, disappearing down the steps and around the side of the house. Ethan’s cries echoed in the night air. “She’s down there! She’s down there!”
The three of them stood in silence at the front door.
Oh my God, Lance thought. He’s like me.
23
Lance floated down the hallway, light as air. Sound was muffled, distorted, as if he were underwater. The walls of the farmhouse closed around him, a vignette in his peripheral vision. He was moving, but his body was on autopilot. He wasn’t even sure he was breathing, but he must be, because as he reached the kitchen, he had enough air in his lungs to whisper the words, “He’s like me,” delivered in a voice of such astonishment, such absolute shock, that both Susan and Luke looked up from where they’d been cleaning up the kitchen table and said together, “What?”
Lance heard them, faintly, soft voices lingering far off in the distance as his head reeled and his mind scrambled and some part of his entire life uprooted and shifted itself with enough force to make his stomach queasy.
There was confusion at first, followed by a fundamental understanding that brought into focus a feeling of happiness and relief strong enough to force an unexpected laugh from Lance’s lips.
I am not alone.
Even though the boy Ethan was only six years old, he was living proof, the first solid piece of evidence Lance had ever encountered that there were others like him. Others who shared his gifts.
There were the Reverend and the Surfer, sure, but they were something different. Lance did not understand the full breadth of their powers and abilities, but he was certain that in this unspoken war, they were on the opposing side.
But the boy … innocent.
Like Lance had been when he’d been young and his mother and he had struggled to keep up and comprehend Lance’s abilities.
Lance had so many questions, was dying to know if Ethan was just like him—the conversations with the dead, the telepathic tendencies, the instant downloads with just a touch of flesh on flesh. Could he control any of it? Could he do more?
He’s six years old, Lance. He had to slow himself down. Ethan was a child. Lance tried to remember being that young, what it’d been like to have the realization that he wasn’t like everybody else. Could see and hear things the rest of the world could not.
It had been confusing.
Terrifying.
If it hadn’t been for his mother, her patience and grace and absolute love for her only son—her protection…
And Lance was swarmed with another thought that made his heart quicken and his breathing intensify with excitement. A thought ripe with possibility.
He replayed the moment of Ethan’s outburst in his head. The way the boy had gone toward the door and reached for the handle. The way Jacob Morgan had at first tried to calmly dissuade his nephew, then rushed to his side to pull him away, as if sensing the tantrum was on its way. Which made a certain level of sense, as parents often knew their children’s habits and tendencies better than any other—and Lance doubted Jacob Morgan and Ethan’s situation would be any different, given it seemed Jacob had been the boy’s guardian for nearly his entire young life.
But what struck Lance as odd was the fact that, despite the suddenness with which Ethan’s tantrum had erupted, the words he’d screamed had been clear as day.
(“She’s down there! She’s down there!”)
Lance, for one, was in on the game. He’d already experienced some sort of supernatural message he was still presuming to have come from Mary Benchley, so he hadn’t question Ethan’s words.
But neither had Jacob Morgan.
Whether the man was taking his nephew’s claims at face value or, more likely, simply playing along in an effort to placate the screaming child, the natural response from most people would have been, Who’s down there? Or maybe, There’s nobody down there, in that soothing parental voice one uses to set a child’s mind at ease.
Jacob Morgan had gone with neither. Had said nothing.
Lance considered this for a long time, standing idly in the kitchen while Susan and Luke continued to stare at
him.
Maybe he knows, Lance thought. Maybe he knows Ethan is special. That’s why he was in such a hurry to get out of here. He recognized the boy slipping into one of his … episodes.
If that was the case, Lance needed to talk to the man. His head was spinning, full of questions.
Lance’s vision cleared and he saw Luke and Susan standing behind the table, waiting.
“Tell me everything you know about that guy,” Lance said, looking at Susan.
“Well,” she said, pulling out a chair to sit. “For starters, he’s on the list you gave me.”
She held up the yellow sheet of legal paper and Lance eyed it. He had forgotten all about it.
And that’s when something else struck him, another shift in the landscape. He’d been trying so hard to figure out why he’d been brought to Ripton’s Grove, ultimately accepting it was because of the potentially unsolved mystery behind the Benchley family murder.
But now he wondered if it had been about the boy from the very beginning.
24
Lance stood and watched as Luke and Susan climbed into the Jeep, gave a final wave, and then started to back down the driveway, the sounds of tires on gravel growing fainter before quieting altogether.
He shut the front door and locked it. Double-checked the windows and the back door. All secure. Though at this point, he wasn’t sure the doors being locked mattered much. Somebody had access to this house. Somebody that wasn’t supposed to. But Lance didn’t allow himself to be concerned with thoughts of intruders right then. He found the odds of somebody entering the house for a third time in twenty-four hours slim, if not completely nonexistent. Especially when on their last visit, they’d assaulted a woman and sent her to the hospital. They had to at least think the police might have taken a bit more of an interest in the place now. Have a deputy swing by a few times during the night to make sure everything was calm and orderly. Lance knew no such thing would happen. This place was a black spot on the town’s map, and it seemed that Sheriff Kruger was keen on keeping it that way.
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