by Beth Goobie
“Try Mr. Heart Attack!” burst out Gene at the other end. “Are you all right?”
“Headache,” said Meredith, wincing at the loudness of his voice. “I’ve got ten stitches. But the doctor said the wound is just surface.”
“So no concussion?” asked Gene.
“A small one,” said Meredith. “I’ve got this headache that never goes away. But Dr. Boisot said it should clear up in a couple of days. So it’s nothing like Sidney Crosby.”
“When will you be back at school?” asked Gene.
“Thursday, maybe,” said Meredith. “Has Seymour taken over the drums yet?”
“Over my dead body,” growled Gene.
Meredith’s lips wobbled into a smile. “I’m supposed to ask when you can come for dinner,” she said, her heart quickening. “You ordered steak and cheesecake, I hear.”
“I didn’t order it,” protested Gene. “Your aunt asked what I liked best, and that was all I could think of at the time. She was pretty much swamping me in hugs.”
“Well, she should’ve,” Meredith said stoutly. “You’re a hero, y’know.” A warning throb stabbed her skull and she paused, waiting it out. “You maybe saved my life. I know you saved my brain.”
Without warning, she was engulfed by a memory of the assault—lying on her back, Ronnie lifting the rock for the second time, then grunting as she was rammed from behind—and all of a sudden, Meredith was sobbing, tears burning her eyes and her throat choking up as pain swarmed her head.
“Meredith?” asked Gene, his voice sounding a long way off. “Meredith, are you okay?”
The receiver slid from Meredith’s grasp as her aunt lifted it from her hand. “That’s it for now, Gene,” Aunt Sancy said quietly into the phone. “She’s too tuckered out, but thank you for calling. You’re welcome to call again tomorrow, if you’d like.”
Then, hanging up the phone, she sat on the edge of the couch and stroked Meredith’s face, making gentle, soothing sounds until, exhausted, her niece fell asleep.
chapter 18
Two days passed before Meredith’s headache subsided enough to allow visitors. Since Aunt Sancy had returned to work Tuesday morning, this left Meredith alone in the apartment—alone with the nonstop thoughts parading through her mind. As the hours progressed, she began to grow uneasy; solitude had never bothered her before, but now it was definitely creeping her out. Every time she moved, she thought she saw something shift nearby—shadowy and indistinct, there and gone in the corner of her eye. Gradually, this shifting clarified into the image of a hand, fingers outstretched and rising from the floorboards, or clutching a rock and arcing above her head. Then, early Tuesday afternoon, she felt something slap against her butt—the sensation so tangible, it sent her own hands darting across the rear seam of her sweats to discover ...
Nothing! she scolded herself fiercely the fourth time it happened. There’s no one here but me! It’s nothing—nothing!
Nothing or not, however, the disembodied hands continued to come at her—silent, predatory, without explanation. When Aunt Sancy returned Tuesday evening, bringing her steady cheerfulness and chitchat, the shadowy hands retreated, only to reappear Wednesday morning as the roar of her aunt’s Harley faded down the alley. Although Meredith knew these phantasms weren’t real, every time another hand came at her, she found herself jerking back, vivid with alarm. Stupid! she told herself angrily. You’re making this up! It’s the concussion—it’s driving you crazy. Cut it out!
But she couldn’t seem to cut it out. And rather than fading upon command, the hands grew more frequent—even with the TV turned up so loud, Meredith worried one of the Altgelds might desert the downstairs bakery counter and come pounding on the porch door. Finally, curling into a ball, she lay motionless, with her face pressed into the absolute darkness of the couch back. Shadowy hands that didn’t exist, she told herself, couldn’t get at her if she couldn’t see them. And she sure as hell didn’t want to see another of their grasping, reaching forms; if she did, she was certain fear would crash in on her like a second doomsday rock, tearing her open right to the—
Knocking started up at the porch entrance, one hand pounding to be heard over the blare of the TV. The Altgelds! thought Meredith. Shoving herself up off the couch, she turned off the TV and scurried along the hall to the kitchen, where she spotted Dean and Reb pressed to the outer porch door and waving at her through the window glass. With a gasp, Meredith rushed to let them in, the shadowy hands banished in a burst of excited chatter. Ten minutes passed with Dean and Reb admiring the porch paint job, then shedding their coats and sitting down at the table as Meredith plugged in the kettle and got out a box of Girl Guide cookies.
“Have you heard anything from the police yet?” asked Dean, opening a cookie and licking out the frosting. “Have they charged Ronnie and Lana?”
“Yeah,” said Meredith. “Ronnie has a court appearance next Monday. I’m not sure about Lana.”
“Well,” sighed Reb, dunking a cookie into her mug of tea. “At least now you know it wasn’t Seymour. What I can’t figure out is why Ronnie went after you on school property. There must’ve been a hundred witnesses.”
“She’s not very bright,” said Dean. “Her or Lana. And Ronnie’s been suspended for fighting at school before.”
Reb’s face twisted. “I keep thinking about it,” she muttered. “How it could’ve been so much worse. If Gene hadn’t been there—”
“What d’you mean, Gene?” broke in Dean, pointing a half-eaten cookie at her. “You got to Meredith before he did! And I never got to her at all!”
Startled, Meredith homed in on Reb. “You got to me first?” she asked. “I thought Gene ...”
“Gene got there a second after me,” Reb assured her. Hunkered down in her chair, she stared at her tea. “When Ronnie and Lana grabbed you,” she continued almost reluctantly, “Dean went right after them. I was ... slower. But it was Dean and I together who pulled Lana off you, and that left just Ronnie. I was trying to get away from Lana so I could help you, but she was hanging on like the dickens. Then this other guy—I don’t even know his name—ran over and tackled Lana, and I got free. I turned and saw you at the bottom of the hill, just as Ronnie was lifting that rock.”
Here Reb paused, moaning softly. “You were so far away,” she murmured. “And ... well, I was so scared. My brain stopped working and my whole body turned into, like, a junkyard of clunky stuff so I could barely run toward you. I couldn’t even think enough to lift my hands so I could shove Ronnie off, and I just ran straight into her.” Blinking rapidly, Reb glanced at the bandage on Meredith’s forehead, then away. “It was my boobs that took her out, y’know.”
For a long moment, Meredith stared open-mouthed at her friend, and then a shout of laughter broke out of her. Instantly she winced, both hands going to her temples.
“Mere!” gasped Reb. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” groaned Meredith, lowering her hands. “Remind me not to laugh again. But d’you remember—under the willow? Beware the Looby boobs!”
In another long moment of astonishment, the three sat gaping at each other.
“Well, holy tamoly,” grinned Dean, her eyes flicking across Reb’s chest. “Talk about taking up space, Superwoman.”
“Hardly,” said Reb, flushing.
“Oh, yeah,” said Dean. “You qualify, babe.”
“Do you ever!” burst out Meredith. “Super Boobs—you are my brave, brave friend! And you, too,” she added, looking at Dean. “You helped just as much. You two and Gene—together, you probably saved my life. You’re just ...” She pressed her lips together, fighting off another surge of tears. “... the best friends.”
With a gulping sigh, she made it past the urge to cry. Obvious relief on their faces, Reb and Dean refocused once again on dunking cookies into their tea. “Who would’ve thought?” murmured Dean. “A couple of weeks ago, it was just gum wads on your butt. And then, suddenly, there was Ronnie with that rock. In a w
ay, y’know, it is Seymour’s fault. He started the whole thing.”
“You can’t blame Seymour for Ronnie,” objected Reb. “He wasn’t holding the rock.” Silent a moment, she watched the steam rise off the surface of her tea. “Mere,” she said hesitantly. “You said something just before the paramedics got there. About going off a bridge, and a hand—an evil hand.”
A frown creased Meredith’s forehead. “I did?” she asked.
“Yeah,” said Reb. “The evil hand was coming after you because ... oh, something about being proud and wanting power.”
A vague flicker crossed Meredith’s brain. “Are you sure?” she asked, confused. “I don’t remember saying anything like that.”
“Reb,” said Dean, touching her arm. “Maybe we shouldn’t. I—”
Again, something flickered across Meredith’s brain, and then the phantasmal hands were back, or just one of them—holding a rock and outlined in brilliant sunlight as it rose above her head. Without warning, intense pain flashed through the left side of her head and both her hands went up, as if fending something off.
“Oh, my God!” gasped Reb. “Forget I said anything, Mere. Just forget it.”
“No,” said Meredith, staring at her upraised hands. “It’s okay. I think ... I remember now.” Slowly lowering her hands, she shifted her gaze to the empty space between her friends’ faces. Stunned, she felt stunned ... and somehow opened, as if a heaviness that had been inhabiting her brain for days had just dissolved, revealing what lay hidden beneath it. “I guess, y’know,” she said, fumbling through her thoughts, “I’ve been thinking about Ronnie and that rock—well, it was sort of like fate. I mean, I’ve always had a feeling about a hand—a creepy feeling, and it’s always been about just one hand. Because of Gus Polk, of course, and the way he used his hand to draw that map of Polkton. Here we all are, two centuries later, living on top of his arrogant hand. It’s always creeped me out.”
She paused, thinking, then added, “And, well, to be honest, arrogance runs in my family—the whole Polk family, not just Gussie. And not just arrogance, either—like I told you about my dad, sometimes it’s actual evil. Except the evil was more than my dad. Way more. Listen.” Quickly, she explained her familial connections to the drug trade. “So, you see,” Meredith continued, still keeping her gaze between her friends’ concerned faces. “It’s in my Polk genes, really—power and evil. The Polks want power and it makes them do evil things. And I’m sort of like that, too—like Seymour said, I went for the drums because I wanted power.”
“You wanted to have fun!” protested Reb. “That doesn’t make you evil!”
“No,” said Meredith. “But it did have something to do with wanting power. I wanted ... to be at the center of things, and I didn’t wait until Grade 12 to go for it. Even Seymour waited until he was a senior. And like he said, every action causes a reaction. I wanted power, just like a Polk, and Seymour wanted it too, probably just like a Boggs. And we both went for the throne and our paths crossed like Polk Avenue and Boggs Street, right over Gus Polk’s creepy evil hand.
“And then,” she added with a quick breath, “hands started coming after me, but always just one hand at a time—like the hands sticking gum onto my butt, and then Ronnie with that rock. It was like I reached for power with my arrogant Polk hand, and the hand of ...” Meredith hesitated, then blurted, “doom came after me—fate, like I said.”
Obviously taken aback, Dean shifted in her chair. “But Seymour didn’t hit you with the rock,” she objected. “He wasn’t anywhere around when Ronnie came after you.”
For a third time, something flickered across Meredith’s brain. “Ronnie said something,” she faltered, “about getting a hundred bucks for taking me down. As if someone was paying her to go after me.”
The shock that hit her friends’ faces then was enormous, dropping their mouths and bugging their eyes. “She didn’t say who,” Meredith added hastily. “With everything that happened after, I forgot about it until now—when Reb made me think of it.”
“Well, you’d better tell the police!” exploded Reb. “Right away!”
“I will,” promised Meredith. “But what do I tell them? I can’t say it was Seymour, because Ronnie didn’t say that. And if he was involved, I doubt he would’ve talked to her directly. You know how he operates—he would’ve sent a cousin of a friend of a friend ... someone he’s never seen with. And then, too—if he did send her a message through someone, I doubt it had anything to do with bashing in my head with a rock. Probably she was told to rough me up a little.” Pausing, Meredith thought for a moment, then added hesitantly, “And then fate stepped in and turned Ronnie’s hand into the evil hand that I always knew was coming to get me, and she hit me with that rock.”
Wide-eyed, Reb gaped at Meredith. Then, lifting a hand and pointing at Meredith’s forehead, she exclaimed, “But, Mere—Ronnie hit you on the left side! So it was her right hand that she hit you with, not the left. Not the evil left hand of darkness.”
Instantly, Meredith’s hands were at her forehead and fingering the bandage. Left, left, she thought, bewildered. It just wasn’t possible that the bandage was on the left side of her forehead, but there it was. Cautiously, she fingered it again. Why hadn’t she noticed it was the left side?
“Okay,” she mumbled, trying to work her way through an absolute barrage of thought. “Let’s not say left or right. Let’s just say a hand—a hand that reaches for power. A hand that wants. What I mean is—is it evil to reach like that? Is it wrong to want? Because that’s when the trouble starts—when you want something and reach for it. Especially in my family—the Polk side, at least. Look at how they reached, what they wanted. Where it got them ... and me.”
Reb’s gaze flicked across Meredith’s bandage. “Mere,” she murmured, her face troubled. “No Mere, no ...” Then, as if her mind had suddenly opened onto something entirely new, her expression cleared. “The reason Seymour called it wanting power is because that’s the way he thinks,” she declared. “Like Neil Sabom and his daffydildos, right? But really, your sitting behind the drums is about wanting to be alive, isn’t it? Like when you wake up in the morning and everything is gorgeous and glorious, and you want to get up singing and shouting. It’s just wanting to be alive. What’s wrong with that?”
“But it was more than that,” insisted Meredith. “If I’m really honest, I know I wanted to be at the center of things, to be popular and important. I wanted some kind of power—I felt it.”
“Okay,” Reb said reluctantly. “So you wanted to be popular. But you didn’t want to go around selling cocaine or anything like that, did you? I mean, isn’t that just the way life is—a little bit of the bad mixed in with the good? Nobody’s perfect. You’ve just got to try, do your best. Because if you sit around waiting until you’re perfect before you do anything, what does that leave—people like Seymour running everything. And who wants that?”
The room silently waited for Meredith’s reply. Motionless, she sat staring straight ahead; then, from some inner place, a vast breath lifted through her, clearing something out. “Seymour,” she admitted.
Across the table, Dean hunched rigid, face scrunched in confusion as she struggled to absorb everything she was hearing. Finally, with a sigh, she reached across the table and took hold of both Meredith’s hands. “Mere,” she said, her voice wobbling. “This is ... weird. I don’t know what to say here. I—”
She paused for a moment, then forged onward. “I don’t know about the Polk family and creepy ancestral hands,” she said. “How can a ghost’s hand reach out of the past and get at you hundreds of years later?”
“Not a ghost’s hand,” protested Meredith. “I don’t mean Gus Polk was coming after me last Friday after all those years. I mean something bigger, more ... universal. The hand of fate, no ...” She hesitated, thinking about the shadowy hands that had been haunting her over the past two days, and then, finally getting it, blurted, “... reaction! It was the hand of reacti
on that got me in Ronnie’s hand. You both saw it happen. You can’t deny it.”
“Yeah, okay,” Dean agreed reluctantly. “It did. But even if that’s true, Ronnie’s hand wasn’t the only hand there last Friday. There were tons more hands there than just hers. And the other hands were doing their damnedest to help you. You should’ve seen Gene. He saw Ronnie on you and he just ditched that big violin he was carrying—”
“Double bass,” corrected Meredith.
“Double whatever,” said Dean. “He ditched it and took off down the hill toward you. I swear he took a flying leap straight at Ronnie.” Pausing, she blinked back tears. “And then, too, there were the paramedics and the cops, and ... Well, that’s a lot of hands. So maybe you’re right. Maybe some kind of evil Polk destiny-hand did come after you last Friday, trying to take you out just because you wanted something. But if that’s true, it lost out to the twenty or thirty hands—left and right—that were trying to save you.”
“And my boobs!” interrupted Reb.
“Yeah,” said Dean, flashing her a grin. “There’s just no kind of fate anywhere that could win out against Reb’s super boobs.”
Once again open-mouthed, Meredith sat, her gaze shifting between her friends’ earnest faces. Inside her head, it felt as if parts of her brain were rearranging themselves—as if some dark gothic grip that had hold of her for years was finally letting go. Because Reb was right—a person couldn’t sit on her butt forever, waiting for perfection to drop down onto her before she acted. And Deanie was right too—the hands of reaction that had been trying to save her had been at least as numerous as the ones out to get her. In the end, it had probably come in around fifty-fifty. All things considered, those were decent odds. Action, reaction—it was simply part of life. And that was a positive, not a negative.
“Y’know,” she said, breathing deeply. “I’m going to call the cops now.”