Eric sniffled.
“Use this time to think about what you’ve done,” Blackstreet continued. “When you return, I want a written plan from each of you, listing the steps you will take to keep this from happening again. Now get out of here, all of you!
“Except you, Barry. I want to have a few words with you.”
The others shuffled out, Stenson staring hard at Eric.
“Have a seat, Mr. Barry,” Blackstreet said, pointing to a chair in front of his desk. “I’ve . . . we’ve noticed that you’ve been having some, ah, complexion issues.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you sought medical attention?”
“Yes, sir. Yesterday. I have a prescription.”
“It’s just that . . . there have been concerns. Did the doctor say if your condition was contagious?”
“He didn’t say, sir.”
“Well, I guess that doesn’t matter now, for the next week at least.”
“No, sir.”
“Barry, you are one of Bridgewater High’s better students. Does that make you think you’re above the rules?”
I probably should have said something. Instead I did the absolute wrong thing. I smiled.
In two seconds he was on his feet, jabbing a finger at me. “You think this is funny, Barry? Are you listening to me?”
“No, sir. I mean yes, sir. I’m listening. Not funny.”
“Nobody, NOBODY, is above the rules here! Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
He took a deep breath. You could see him trying to control himself. At the same time, something very weird was happening to me.
My heart started pounding against my rib cage, as if it were trying to fight its way out. My skin got hot. For the first time I felt pain, searing pain, on my face and my chest. Suddenly I was the one on my feet. An anger I’d never felt capable of had me completely in its power. And powerful it was. I knew in that second that I was strong enough to snap Blackstreet’s neck like a twig.
Without a word, I moved toward him. His eyes were full of surprise. He raised his hands to protect himself.
“Is there a problem in here?” The voice from the doorway belonged to some teacher who had come to see Blackstreet. What he saw was a kid with bad skin and murder in his eyes.
Somehow control returned. My anger burned hot, but it stayed inside. After an awkward silence, Blackstreet spoke in a choked voice. “No problem.”
He turned to me: “Go home, Barry. This isn’t over.”
I walked out into the sunlight. I felt drained, queasy, the way you feel when you come to after fainting.
I could catch the bus home. Before long, my bad day would turn into Mom’s bad day.
But my bad day wasn’t over yet.
6
Nicholas! Nicholas Barry!” I was almost home from the bus stop when I heard Emma Costello calling my name. Does every neighborhood have a slightly crazy resident? Someone who knows everyone’s business? The one who calls the cops so often for petty stuff that the cops don’t come anymore? In our neighborhood, that’s Emma.
Emma is in her seventies. She pays me ten dollars a week to take care of her yard—mow the grass and weed, trim the bushes twice a year. Before she retired, she taught English at Saint Philomena, Bridgewater’s Catholic school. Emma’s the one who suggested that poem about the woods for me to memorize. Emma is heavy. She dyes her hair bright orange and always wears screaming red lipstick.
Actually, I like her okay. When I call her slightly crazy, I mean she’s a little overboard on a couple of subjects: sin and religion. She’ll call the cops when she thinks people are sinning, never mind if they’re breaking any laws. Back when Mom’s last boyfriend was living with us, she lectured me about Mom’s “shacking up” with Vern. Like there was anything I could do. The other thing Emma is big on is the constant battle between the devil and God.
“Nicholas, do you have a moment?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She had something on her mind. “Are you OK? Something going on?” She looked at me carefully.
Crazy or not, Emma was sharp. I gave her the short version of my school day. She shook her head slowly.
“You be careful with Roger Blackstreet,” she said. “That whole family has a mean streak. His father was worse. Nothing Butch accomplished was ever good enough.”
“I’ll watch out. . . . Did you need something?”
“I don’t want to embarrass you. You know I care about your welfare, and I want to talk to you about your skin.”
Wow. My face seemed to be the topic of conversation wherever I went.
“You’ve been pure?”
“Ma’am?”
“Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, Nicholas.”
“I saw a doctor.”
“Doctors have their place. What did yours say?”
“He gave me some medicine and said to call him if I didn’t get better.”
“That’s good. But he’s a doctor of the body. Have you consulted a doctor of the soul?”
“Ma’am?”
“A priest, Nicholas! A priest!”
“I’m not Catholic.”
“The devil craves the souls of young men like you. He is perfectly capable of afflicting their bodies to meet his ends.”
“I don’t know what . . .”
“Pray, Nicholas! Pray for the Lord’s blessing on your skin. He will hear you!”
At this point, I believed we were in “slightly crazy” territory. “Ma’am, you think my skin problem is a work of the devil?”
“Don’t be smart. I didn’t say that. Just pray. I will too. And take this.”
She reached in her pocket and pulled out a small glass bottle filled with a clear liquid. “This is Lourdes water.”
“Lord’s water?”
“Lourdes. It comes from a very holy place in France. Sick people from all over the world go there, and many have experienced miracles of healing.”
What do I do with it? I wondered. Drink it?
“Keep it with you, Nicholas. And if you feel the presence of the devil, use it to protect yourself.”
I took it from her. “Thanks, Miss Costello.”
I let myself in the house and heard Toby scampering away. In the kitchen I poured a glass of milk and sat down. I had to figure out how I’d explain things to Mom. By the time I heard her car pull up, I’d decided. She was going to be upset no matter how I told her, so I might as well go with the naked truth.
My luck, though. Just as she walked in the kitchen, the phone rang. She answered it.
“Hello. . . . Yes, I’m Nick’s mom.”
As she listened, her expression got darker. She looked at me, and her eyes were tired. They seemed to say, Geez, Nick, don’t I have enough to deal with already?
“OK, Mr. Blackstreet. I will. Thanks.”
She hung up and sighed. “Geez, Nick, don’t I have enough to deal with already?”
“Sorry, Mom. It’s just a week, and I can keep up with my homework by e-mail.”
She shook her head sadly. “You’re not hurt?”
“No. I got punched in the stomach, but I’m OK. There was a bully pushing this kid around and . . . ”
“It doesn’t matter. Mr. Blackstreet said the school has zero tolerance for fighting, period.”
She sighed. “Well, I’m going to sit down for a while.” She filled a water glass from the sink and headed slowly out to the living room. When you work weekends, Friday nights are nothing special.
7
I felt bad. Several layers of bad.
There was my face. I’d stopped looking in the mirror even before I decided to see the doctor. I just wanted to look normal, to be invisible again. I was so tired of being this freak that everyone was either scared of or sorry for. What if this minefield of a face never went away? And even if it did, I’d read enough to know I’d have scars forever.
And the coldness. At the moment it wasn’t so noticeable, just a kind of fro
st coating my skin. But I knew that sooner or later it would come back like an inner Ice Age. It would turn my bones into frozen iron bars that stuck fast to the wet flesh inside of me.
School. In a week I’d have to go back, and a certain two-hundred-pound gorilla and his pet monkey would be waiting for me.
Then there was Mom. She didn’t seem to like her life very much these days. The last time I’d seen her happy was when Vern first moved in. That lasted a couple of months. Then they started arguing. Vern was gone after Christmas, and Mom settled into her old, sad life as if it was what she’d expected all along. I wanted so much for her to feel better. But all I could seem to do was to make her life worse.
And as long as I was having a pity party, I decided I might as well throw in the cat. I believe animals have a special sense about people. They don’t have any thinking to complicate their instincts. And now Toby, who used to beg for my attention, was treating me like sour milk.
What I know about feeling bad is this: I can get away into a book or a place that makes me feel good, like the woods or the library, and distract myself for a while. The other thing that helps is work, and fortunately it was my night to make supper. I opened a bag of salad, heated some rolls, and made some chili cheese Hamburger Helper. Mom wasn’t too talkative, but she ate seconds. After the dishes I went to my room. I got online and did homework until I felt like I could sleep. Sleep, unfortunately, opens the door for dreams.
In my dream, I was walking alone in my woods at night. The moon was not quite full. It was bright enough, though, that I could see the path that sloped down to the well.
The quiet in the woods wasn’t exactly silent. It was more a low hiss, like when you’re between radio stations. Over that was the sound of my footsteps scraping the path and the occasional skittering of some small animal in the brush.
And something else. I had the feeling someone was following me. I kept looking over my shoulder, but nothing was there. Someone was walking when I walked, stopping when I stopped. I tried taking a few fast steps, then stopping suddenly. Once I heard an extra step in the dead leaves.
As I came down the path, though, I heard a new sound. It was faint at first, a kind of murmuring. It grew louder as I got in sight of the well. It was clearly a human sound, like the buzz of conversation. Like something I’d heard before. And then the screaming started.
It was the sound I’d heard in my own chest at the doctor’s, and it was coming from the well. I should have turned and run, but the well was drawing me closer like a magnet. As I continued forward, the moonlight seemed to change color from white to rust. I felt the coldness coming on. And I smelled something that made me gag, like burning meat.
The well was pulling me to its edge, closer and closer. Suddenly I was there, looking into its depths. I saw water. It was far down, but the moon reflected on its surface was the color of blood. As I watched, the screaming and buzzing grew louder and the reflection began to ripple. Suddenly I was looking not at the moon, but at the most hideous face I had ever seen.
Its skin was red, horribly blistered, and scarred. Its nose seemed to have melted into the hole that had once been its mouth. Its eyes glowed a dull gold. They looked into mine as if the creature knew exactly who I was.
I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t move. Not even when I felt cold hands grabbing me from behind. Someone—someone very strong—was lifting me and trying to push me into the well. I grabbed a sharp stone from the crumbling edge of the well and twisted around, striking into the darkness at whatever held me. I pounded it. I could hear shrieks of pain, but I was no match for it. At the last minute I grasped the rim of the well, but it was no use. I felt myself lifted and pushed, and I let go. I screamed as I hit the icy black water.
I woke in what I thought was a cold sweat and turned on the light by my bed. I was cold, no doubt about that. And my T-shirt and shorts were soaking wet. But my right hand was scraped and bleeding. Bits of crumbled stone lay in the scratches. And my clothes—it wasn’t sweat they were drenched in. It was blood.
I took off my wet clothes and put them in a laundry bag in my closet, along with the sheets from my bed. As I put on dry things, I noticed an itching on the skin of my chest. Looking down, I saw the scratchy rash the doctor had noticed in his office. The marks were no longer faint, though. They were fresh and raised, as if they had just been made by a knife or a claw. They weren’t random, either. They looked like writing, like some kind of code.
You wouldn’t have thought I could sleep anymore after that. But I dropped off into that black, black place where people go when they’re completely exhausted. I woke to the sound of thunder and hard rain, and a banging in the distance. The clock by my bed said 9:00 A.M. Mom would have left for work by now.
Was someone at the door? I was only half-awake when I stumbled into the front room. Through the curtain I saw a tall, thin figure in a hooded robe. Hunched against the storm, he rapped at the door. This wasn’t a dream.
8
I opened the door a crack. The storm was making quite a racket. “What do you want?” I shouted.
And the hooded figure shouted back, “I’m Father Remy Moreau!” He said it like RAY-mee. “I’m a friend of Emma Costello’s!”
“What do you want?!”
“I’m here to see Nick Barry!”
I suppose it was risky letting a stranger in, but I did. Father Remy shook himself off, then took off his hood. As he looked at me, his eyes grew wide. “Oh!” he said. “You’re Nick.”
I’d forgotten that I probably looked just as scary, maybe more, than a guy in a hooded robe. I motioned him toward the kitchen.
In a few minutes we were sitting at the kitchen table. Remy—he asked me to drop the “Father”— was very old, bald with a stubbly white beard. He had dark circles under his eyes that made him look tired. But the eyes themselves were black and quick, like a squirrel’s. He seemed like a guy who didn’t miss much.
“I’m a priest,” he said, as if I hadn’t guessed. “I help out at Saint Philomena, saying Mass and teaching religion.”
I was looking at his robe. “Oh, I’m a Franciscan priest,” he said. “This robe is my habit. I don’t usually wear the hood, but the storm . . .”
“You said you were Emma’s friend?”
“Ah, yes. Emma was concerned about your spiritual welfare.”
“Because of my skin.”
Remy looked embarrassed. “Well, your face is . . . startling. But Emma’s a good person, even if sometimes she—” The priest shrugged. “What I did gather was that things might seem a little difficult for you right now. And if you wanted to talk about how you’re feeling, I have a special reason to want to listen.”
He reached into his robe and pulled out an old, tattered book with a brown cover.
“When I was a young priest, long before you were born, I worked in the neighboring parish, Saint Vincent. And I learned about a young man in your, ah, situation. He . . .”
A hard knocking at the front door interrupted his story. On the step were Dr. Farmer and a blonde woman about his age who looked familiar.
“Hi, Nick,” the doctor said. “Sorry to bother you on a weekend, but I . . .” As he looked at me, he couldn’t hide his concern. “I may have some more information on your skin problem. Oh, this is my wife, Tara.”
The woman put out her hand and smiled at me. “So, you’re Nick. You like to hang out at the library, don’t you?”
Bingo. Tara was the librarian at the branch nearby. I’d seen her dozens of times before.
“Yeah,” I said, shaking her hand. “Look, I’ve got a pretty weird visitor. Can you come out to the kitchen?” I made coffee for the doc, tea for Tara, and introduced everybody. Then Remy started his story again.
“I was a priest at Saint Vincent over in Baytown in the sixties,” he began. “And there was a tragedy at Saint Philomena. A young man about Nick’s age, with a serious skin infection. When Emma described Nick, I thought about that young man.
“I learned this all in the week after young Luke took his own life. His father was devastated with guilt. And so, in a way, was I. I was teaching a class at Saint Philomena, and Luke was in it. But I’d never spoken to him except to call on him in class now and then. I should have noticed.”
“How did he die?” Tara asked.
“They found him hanging from a tree in the woods not far from here,” Remy said. “I helped the pastor at Saint Philomena with the funeral Mass and the burial. I don’t think I’ve ever been at a sadder service. The only people there were his father, a couple of cousins, and a girl from his school. The father was deeply troubled, as I’ve said. He’d lost Luke’s older brother in Vietnam just a year before. And the girl was very broken up as well.”
Remy put his hand on the book. “At the cemetery, Luke’s father gave me this—his son’s diary. He was afraid that if he kept it, sooner or later he’d read it. And he didn’t think he could handle that. He may have been right. Two years later I was offering his funeral Mass.
“Eventually I read the diary. It shows how Luke’s depression so separated him from reality that he felt the need to commit his terrible act.
“Luke Todd fell into despair. He couldn’t help himself,” Remy said sadly. “I thought maybe, by serving as a warning, he could help Nick.”
The story Remy was telling seemed pretty out there. I’m not sure I even believed it at the time. But Luke Todd did help me. Just not in the way Remy thought he would.
Skin (Night Fall ™) Page 2