“She is not well. Now go.” She pointed at the door. “I order you or I will call the police.”
The ghostly face. The dim light. The tunnel-like hall. I was back in the dream, and suddenly I remembered. I knew, and I had to get there!
Ryan started to speak but I cut him off.
“Thank you. Your daughter has been very helpful,” I managed.
Ryan glared as I pushed past him and out the door. I nearly fell in my plunge down the stairs. I no longer felt the cold as I stood at the Jeep, impatient for Ryan to speak to Mrs. Goyette, snug his tuque, then pick his way to ground level.
“What the hell—”
“Get me a map, Ryan.”
“That little loony may be—”
“Do you have a goddam map of this province?” I hissed.
Without a word Ryan circled the Jeep and we both got in. He took a map from a holder on the driver’s-side door, and I dug a flashlight from my pack. As I unfolded the province he started the engine, then got out to scrape the windshield.
I located Montreal, then followed the Champlain Bridge across the St. Lawrence and on to 10 East. With a numb finger I traced the route I had taken to Lac Memphrémagog. In my mind’s eye I saw the old church. I saw the grave. I saw the signpost, half covered in snow.
I moved my finger along the highway, estimating driving time. The names wavered in the flashlight beam.
Marieville. St-Grégoire. Ste-Angèle-de-Monnoir.
My heart stopped when I saw it.
Please, God, let us be in time.
I lowered the window and screamed into the wind.
The grating stopped and the door opened. Ryan threw the scraper into the back and slid behind the wheel. He pulled off his gloves and I handed him the map and flashlight. Wordlessly, I pointed to a small dot on the square I’d folded upward. He studied it, his breath like fog in the yellow beam.
“Holy shit.” An ice crystal melted and ran from his lash. He swiped at the eye.
“It makes sense. Ange Gardien. It’s not a person, it’s a place. They’re going to meet at Ange Gardien. It should be about forty-five minutes from here.”
“How did you think of it?” he asked.
I didn’t want to go into the dream. “I remembered the sign from my drive to Lac Memphrémagog. Let’s go.”
“Brennan—”
“Ryan, I’ll say this one more time. I am going to get my sister.” I fought to keep my voice steady. “I am going with or without you. You can take me home or you can take me to Ange Gardien.”
He hesitated, then,
“Fuck!” He got out, flipped his seat forward, and dug around in back. As he slammed the door I saw him drop something into his pocket and yank the zipper. Then he resumed scraping.
In a minute he was back. Without a word he clicked his seat belt, put the Jeep in gear, and accelerated. The wheels spun but we went nowhere. He changed to reverse, then quickly back to first. The car rocked as Ryan shifted from first gear to reverse and back again. The Jeep broke free and we moved slowly up the block.
I said nothing as we crept south on Christophe Colomb, then west on Rachel. At St-Denis Ryan turned south, reversing the route we’d just driven.
Damn! He was taking me home. My blood went cold as I thought of the drive to Ange Gardien.
I closed my eyes and leaned back to prepare myself. You have chains, Brennan. You will put them on and drive as Ryan is doing. Dickhead Ryan.
Silence intruded on my lecture. I opened my eyes to pitch-black. Ice no longer pelted the windshield.
“Where are we?”
“Ville-Marie Tunnel.”
I said nothing. Ryan raced through the tunnel like a starship threading a wormhole in space. When he took the exit for the Champlain Bridge I felt both relief and apprehension.
Yes! Ange Gardien.
Ten light-years later we were crossing the St. Lawrence. The river looked unnaturally dense, the buildings of Île des S?urs black against the predawn sky. Though their scoreboards were out I knew the players. Nortel. Kodak. Honeywell. So normal. So familiar in my world at the end of the second millennium. I wished I were approaching their well-ordered offices instead of the madness that lay ahead.
The atmosphere in the Jeep was tense. Ryan focused on the road and I worked the thumbnail. I stared out the window, avoiding thoughts of what might await us.
We crawled through a cold and forbidding landscape, a vista beamed from a frozen planet. As we moved east the ice increased visibly, robbing the world of texture and hue. Edges were blurred and objects seemed to blend together like parts of a giant plaster sculpture.
Guideposts, signs, and billboards were obliterated, erasing messages and boundaries. Here and there through the darkness wisps of smoke could be seen curling from chimneys, otherwise everything seemed frozen in place. Just over the Richelieu River the road curved, and I saw a beached car, belly-up like a loggerhead turtle. Stalactites hung from the bumpers and tires.
We’d been driving almost two hours when I spotted the sign. It was dawn, and the sky was changing from black to murky gray. Through the ice I could see an arrow and the letters nge Gardi.
“There.”
Ryan released the gas and eased onto the exit. When it ended at a T-intersection he pumped the brake and the Jeep crunched to a stop.
“Which way?”
I grabbed the scraper, got out, and struggled to the sign, slipping once and cracking my knee. As I hacked away, the wind stood my hair on end and drove icy granules into my eyes. Overhead it hissed through branches and rattled power lines with an odd clacking sound.
I chopped at the ice as though demented. Eventually the blade snapped, but I jabbed on until the plastic was completely shattered. Using the wooden handle I scraped and clawed until finally, I could see letters and an arrow.
As I scrambled back to the Jeep something in my left knee felt terribly wrong.
“That way.” I pointed. I didn’t apologize for the scraper.
When Ryan turned, the rear spun out and we swerved wildly. My feet flew forward and I grabbed the armrests.
Ryan regained control and my teeth unclenched.
“There’s no brake on your side.”
“Thanks.”
“This is the Rouville district. There’s an SQ post not far from here. We’ll go there first.”
Though I begrudged the lost time, I didn’t argue. If we walked into a hornet’s nest I knew we might need backup. And, while Ryan’s Jeep was good on ice, it had no radio.
Five minutes later I saw the tower. Or what was left of it. The metal had cracked under the weight of the ice, and beams and girders lay twisted and scattered like parts of a giant Erector set.
Just beyond the collapsed tower, a road took off to the left. Ten yards down I could see Anna’s gingerbread hut.
“It’s here, Ryan! Turn here!”
“We’re doing this my way or not at all.” He continued without slowing.
I was frantic. Any argument.
“It’s getting light. What if they’ve decided to act at dawn?” I thought of Harry, drugged and helpless while zealots lit fires and prayed to their god. Or loosed wild dogs onto sacrificial lambs.
“We’re going to check in first.”
“We could be too late!” My hands trembled. I couldn’t bear it. My sister could be ten yards away. I felt my chest begin to heave and turned my back to him.
A tree decided it.
We hadn’t gone a quarter mile when an enormous pine blocked our way. It had fallen, bringing up a twelve-foot root wad and dragging power lines across the road. We would not be continuing in that direction.
Ryan struck the wheel with the heel of his hand.
“Jesus Christ in a peach tree!”
“It’s pine.” My heart hammered.
He stared at me, unamused. Outside, the wind moaned and threw ice against the windows. I saw Ryan’s jaw muscles bunch, relax, bunch again. Then,
“We do this my way, Br
ennan. If I say wait in the Jeep, that’s where your ass will be. Is that clear?”
I nodded. I would have agreed to anything.
We did an about-face and hung a right at the toppled tower. The road was narrow and littered with trees, some uprooted, others snapped where their trunks had failed. Ryan wove in and out among them. To either side poplars, ashes, and birches formed inverted U’s, their crowns bent toward earth by the burden of ice.
A split-log fence began just beyond the gingerbread shelter. Ryan slowed and crept along it. At several places toppled trees had crushed the rails. Then I spotted the first living thing since Montreal.
The car was nose-down in a gully, wheels spinning, enveloped in a cloud of exhaust. The driver’s door was open and I could see one booted leg planted on the ground.
Ryan braked and shifted to park.
“Stay here.”
I started to object, thought better of it.
He got out and walked to the car. From where I sat the occupant could have been male or female. As Ryan and the driver exchanged words I lowered the window, but I couldn’t make out what was said. Ryan’s breath spurted like jets of mist. In less than a minute he was back in the Jeep.
“Not the most helpful character.”
“What did he say?”
“Oui and non. He lives just up the road, but the cretin wouldn’t notice if Genghis Khan moved in next door.”
We moved on to where the fence ended at a gravel drive. Ryan pulled in and switched off the engine.
Two vans and a half dozen cars were scattered in front of a ramshackle lodge. They looked like rounded humps, frozen hippos in a river of gray. Ice dripped from the eaves and sills of the building and turned the windows milky, eliminating any view of the inside.
Ryan turned to me.
“Now listen. If this is the right place we’re going to be about as welcome as a cottonmouth.” He touched my cheek. “Promise me you’ll stay here.”
“I—”
His fingers slid to my lips.
“Stay here.” His eyes were blindingly blue in the dreary dawn light.
“This is bullshit,” I said into his fingertips.
He withdrew the hand and pointed at me.
“Wait in the car.”
He pulled on gloves and stepped into the storm. When he slammed the door I reached for my mittens. I would wait two minutes.
What happened next comes back as disjointed images, shards of memory fragmented in time. I saw, but my mind did not accept the whole. It collected the memory and stored it away as separate frames.
Ryan had taken a half dozen steps when I heard a pop and his body jerked. His hands flew up and he started to turn. Another pop and another spasm, then he dropped to the ground and lay still.
“Ryan!” I yelled as I threw open the door. When I jumped out pain shot up my leg and my knee buckled. “Andy!” I screamed at his inert form.
Then lightning burst inside my skull and I was engulfed in darkness thicker than the ice.
34
MY NEXT CONSCIOUS SENSATION WAS ALSO OF BLACKNESS. Blackness and pain. I sat up slowly, unable to see any form to the darkness. Fierce pain shot into my head and I thought I would vomit. More pain as I raised my knees and hung my head between them.
In a moment the queasiness passed. I listened. Nothing but the pounding of my own heart. I looked at my hands but they were lost to the darkness. I inhaled. Rotten wood and damp earth. Gingerly, I reached out.
I was sitting on a dirt floor. Behind me and to both sides I could feel a wall of rough, round stones. Six inches above my head my hand met wood.
My breath came in short, rapid gasps as I fought panic.
I was trapped! I had to get out!
Noooooooo!
The scream was in my mind. I hadn’t entirely lost my self-control.
I closed my eyes and tried to control the hyperventilation. Clasping my hands, I tried to concentrate on one thing at a time.
Breathe in. Breathe out. In. Out.
Slowly the panic receded. I got to my knees and stretched a hand straight out in front of me. Nothing. The pain in my left knee brought me to tears, but I crawled forward into the inky void. Two feet. Six. Ten.
As I moved unobstructed my terror receded. A tunnel was better than a stone cage.
I sat back and tried to connect with a functioning portion of my brain. I had no idea where I was, how long I’d been there, or how I’d arrived.
I began to reconstruct.
Harry. The lodge. The car.
Ryan! God, my God, oh, God!
Please, no! Please, please, not Ryan.
My stomach roiled again and a bitter taste rose to my mouth. I swallowed.
Who shot Ryan? Who brought me in here? Where was Harry?
My head pounded and I was becoming stiff with cold. This was no good. I had to do something. I took a deep breath and rolled back to my knees.
Step by throbbing step I crept along the tunnel. I’d lost my gloves, and the frigid clay numbed my hands and jarred my injured patella. The pain kept me focused until I touched the foot.
As I recoiled my head cracked wood and the start of a scream froze in my throat.
Goddam it, Brennan, get ahold of yourself. You are a crime scene professional, not a hysterical onlooker.
I crouched, still paralyzed with dread. Not of the tomblike space, but of the thing with which I shared it. Generations were born and died as I waited for a sign of life. Nothing spoke, nothing moved. I breathed deeply, then inched forward and touched the foot again.
It wore a leather boot, small, with laces like mine. I found its partner and followed the legs upward. The body was lying on its side. Cautiously, I rolled it over and continued my exploration. Hem. Buttons. Scarf. My throat constricted as my fingertips recognized the clothing. Before I touched the face I knew.
But it couldn’t be! It didn’t make sense.
I pulled off the scarf and felt the hair. Yes. Daisy Jeannotte.
Jesus, God! What was going on?
Keep moving! a portion of my brain commanded.
I dragged myself forward on one knee and one hand, bracing a palm against the wall. My fingers touched cobwebs and things I didn’t want to consider. Debris crumbled and trickled to earth as I moved slowly along the tunnel.
After several more feet the gloom lightened almost imperceptibly. My hand struck something and I followed it. Wooden rails. Trestles. When I looked up I could see a faint rectangle of amber light. Steps leading up.
I eased up the stairs, testing for sound at each riser. Three steps brought me to the ceiling. My hands identified the borders of a cover, but when I pushed it didn’t budge.
I pressed my ear to the wood and the barking of dogs sent adrenaline to every part of my being. The sound seemed far off and muffled, but I could tell the animals were excited. A human voice yelled some command, then silence, then the yapping started again.
Directly overhead, no sounds of movement, no voices.
I pressed with my shoulder and the panel shifted slightly, but didn’t give. When I examined the strips of light I could see a shadow at the midpoint of the right side. I tried poking it with my fingertips, but the gap was too narrow. Frustrated, I inserted my fingers farther up and slid them along the crack. Splinters pierced my flesh and tore at my nails, but I could not reach the retaining point. The opening around the edges wasn’t wide enough.
Damn!
I thought of my sister and dogs and Jennifer Cannon. I thought of me and dogs and Jennifer Cannon. My fingers were so cold I could no longer feel them, and I slid them into my pockets. My right knuckle struck something hard and flat. Puzzled, I withdrew the object and held it up to the crack.
The broken scraper blade!
Please!
With a silent prayer, I inserted an edge. The blade fit! Trembling, I wiggled it toward the retaining point. The scraping seemed loud enough to be heard for miles.
I froze and listened. No movement overhead.
Barely breathing, I nudged the shard farther. Inches short of what I hoped was a latch it snagged, popped from my hand, and fell into darkness.
Damn! Damn! Sonofabitch!
I bumped down the stairs on my hands and bum, and seated myself on the ground. Cursing my clumsiness, I began a miniature grid search across the dank clay. Within moments my fingers came down on the broken scraper.
Back up the stairs. By now movement sent searing pain firing up and down my leg. Using both hands I reinserted the blade and pushed up on the latch. No go. I withdrew and repositioned the shard, then swiped it sideways along the crack.
Something clicked. I listened. Silence. I pushed with my shoulder and the trapdoor lifted. Grabbing the panel along its edges, I eased it up, then lowered it quietly to the floor above. Heart racing, I raised my head and peeked around.
The room was lit by a single oil lamp. I could tell it was a pantry of some sort. Shelves lined three walls, some of which held boxes and cans. Stacks of cartons filled the corners ahead and to my left and right. When I looked to my rear a chill far greater than any caused by the weather overcame me.
Dozens of propane tanks lined the wall, their enamel luminous in the soft light. An image flitted through my mind, a wartime propaganda photo of armaments stockpiled in orderly rows. With shaking hands I eased myself down, and perched on the top step.
What could I do to stop them?
I glanced down the steps. A square of yellowish light fell across the cellar floor, just reaching Daisy Jeannotte’s face. I looked at the cold, still features.
“Who are you?” I muttered. “I thought this was your show.”
Total stillness.
I drew a few steadying breaths, then ascended into the pantry. Relief at escaping the tunnel alternated with fear of what I would encounter next.
The pantry opened onto a cavernous kitchen. I hobbled to a door on the far side, pressed my back against the wall, and sifted sounds. The creak of wood. The hiss of wind and ice. The click of frozen branches.
Barely breathing, I eased around the doorjamb and entered a long, dark hall.
The storm sounds faded. I could smell dust and wood smoke and old carpet. I limped forward, supporting myself against the wall. Not a sliver of light penetrated to this part of the house.
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