The Light

by D. J. MacHale

  As it turned out, my dad didn't listen to me. He found a flight out of Las Vegas to Hartford, rented a car, and drove directly to the lake that same night. As glad as I was to see him, it made things awkward. Up until he arrived, I felt like part of the Foley family. Once Dad got there, it made me realize I wasn't. Not really. Or maybe it was because Dad was

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  the outsider. He spent some time with the Foleys, offering his support and listening to whatever they had to say. The Foleys were going to have to hear and say the same things over and over again, but at that moment it was all new and it seemed like talking to Dad helped them a little. After some teary good-byes, we got into his rental car and headed home.

  On the drive I was happy that Dad didn't pump me for information. If anything, he offered some.

  "I went to the State Police barracks first," he said. "They pretty much filled me in on what happened. They had some nice things to say about you."

  That was a relief. I didn't feel like telling him the story because I didn't even know what story to tell.

  Dad said, "Apparently, the kid who was driving the boat is a mess. He was racing another boat when the accident happened, but the police don't know of any other boat like that on the lake."

  My stomach twisted. Was this mystery boat an illusion created by Gravedigger? If so, it was further proof that Gravedigger had orchestrated Cooper's death.

  Dad said, "They told me you were the one who put it together and figured out what happened."

  "Sort of," I answered. "Me and Sydney."

  "I'm proud of you, Marsh."

  I shrugged. Dad wanted me to talk, but I wasn't in the mood.

  He said, "I want to be a wise parent and give you the wisdom I gained from going through a tragedy and losing somebody close to me, but you've got as much experience along those lines as I do. I'm sorry."

  "For what?"

  "For not being here, for one. But more because you've had to deal with such tragedy, twice. Jeez, you're so young. It's not fair."

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  Dad didn't know the half of it. I wanted to tell him everything. I wanted to explain about Gravedigger and the illusions and the violent deaths of Reilly and George O. and about how Sydney and I had nearly bought it a couple of times . . . but I couldn't find the words. It all sounded so incredibly, well, incredible. And George O.'s words kept running through my head.

  The more people who know, the more will be in danger.

  I told him everything else, though ... about Cooper's almost-date with Britt, and the Reillys, and George O. giving me his key before he got hit, and finding the pieces of the Galileo in his house. I explained that Sheriff Vrtiak had picked me up for having gone into George O.'s house, and the accident that followed. I told him how Reilly had attacked me to protect his son because I was getting close to the truth, then tried to run Sydney and me down on the lake. I even told him about firing the flare gun that made Reilly lose control of the boat and slam into the seaplane. I told him everything.. . . except about the supernatural force that guided it all.

  After I finished the story, Dad didn't say a word. I think he was in shock.

  "Dad?" I said. "What are you thinking?"

  "Uhh," he muttered, dumbfounded. "I'm thinking my biggest worry in Vegas was that you'd have enough to eat."

  Having Dad home was a huge relief but awkward. I had been on my own, more or less, for the past week. I had had to deal with a lot of stuff and didn't have to answer to anyone. With Dad back in the picture, I wasn't sure what my role was supposed to be. How was he going to react to it all? Was he going to be all guilty for leaving me alone and start hovering over me like a protective parent?

  My answer came when we got back to the house and he saw the smashed window and damaged gutter. He could

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  easily have gone crazy and grounded me and demanded to know what I had been doing.

  "What happened?" he asked.

  "It was an accident," I said. "My fault. I'll get it fixed."

  "Okay," he said.

  And that was it. He didn't press for details. He didn't lecture. Maybe it was because after all that had happened, a little fixable damage was small potatoes. Or maybe he trusted me to do the right thing.

  It was good to have him home.

  There were so many thoughts and emotions running through my head that I had trouble sorting it all out. There was grief over Cooper, sadness for the Foleys, guilt over the deaths of those people at the lake, and most of all, the fear that I might have somehow caused it all. Oddly enough, even with all that confusion bouncing around, I had the first full night's sleep I'd had in a week. It helped that there were no visions, no visits from evil demons, no fear that something was out there waiting to pounce on me. When I woke up, the sun was shining and life seemed close to normal.

  The funeral was the following day because the Foleys didn't want to stretch things out. The big old gray stone church on the Ave was packed. It looked like all of Stony Brook had shown up. I think most of our class from Davis Gregory was there along with their parents. The guys Coop played football with sat together, wearing their red jackets. It reminded me that we hadn't recovered Coop's jacket. That was a shame. The Foleys had many relatives who had flown in from I-didn't-know-where. I had no idea that Cooper knew so many people. Maybe he didn't, but they sure knew him and came by the hundreds to say good-bye.

  Dad and I took seats a few rows behind Coop's family. When Mrs. Foley saw us, she marched back, grabbed me by the hand, and brought us both up to sit with them. I

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  really appreciated it. As Mr. Foley said, I was like their third kid. I was positioned between Dad and Sydney, who had on a black dress that looked fantastic. She never took off her sunglasses. I had on an old blue blazer and a tie I had borrowed from Dad.

  The coffin sat in the center aisle, covered with flowers. I couldn't take my eyes off the thing. It was hard to believe that Cooper was in there. I had to keep telling myself that it wasn't him. It was only his body. The spirit that was Cooper was someplace else. I knew that for sure because he had been looking out for me. I wondered if he was in that church somewhere, checking things out. I knew what he'd be thinking: "Decent turnout. Cool." One guy who didn't turn up was Mikey Russo. With Cooper gone, he was probably off the hook for his part in the counterfeit ticket fiasco. I'd put money on the fact that it was the first thing he thought of when he heard that Cooper was killed. I hoped Sydney was finished with that loser.

  A lot of people got up to speak. Coaches, teachers, even a couple of kids. They tried their best to put on the whole "celebration of life" show, but it was strained. Up near the altar was a big picture of Coop that showed him at his best. He had a big, beaming smile after having just won a race for the school track team. I remembered the moment. I was there. It was the best thing about the service, and the saddest.

  The hardest part of the event was when I got up to speak. I wanted to bail on giving a speech, but that would have been wrong. I don't think anybody would have blamed me, except for Cooper maybe. Since he was probably watching, I didn't want to let him down. Once everybody had said what they had to say, I got up and walked to the podium. I hadn't written anything down. As soon as I got up there, I wished I had. It would have been a lot easier to read from a piece of paper than to keep my head together and actually think.

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  Looking over the sea of sad faces was tough. There had to be hundreds of people there, all with the same pained expression.

  As I looked over the crowd, trying to collect my thoughts, I saw something unexpected. In the back of the church, standing among all the others who couldn't find a seat, was Ennis Mobley, my mom's old assistant. What was he doing there? He didn't know Cooper. Besides, he was supposed to be in Pakistan. I figured he was there to support me and Dad, but why would he fly back from Pakistan for that? Can you get from Pakistan to Connecticut that fast? How would he even have known about Cooper?

  I couldn't
worry about it just then--I had too many people waiting for me to say something. My fear was that I was going to start crying and make an ass of myself, but once I launched, it all came pretty easy.

  "Coop and I have been friends since forever," I began. "I can't remember life without him. I'm going to miss him. We all are. But the thing is, Cooper isn't really gone. Right now he lives on in our memories. I know, that sounds nice and it's a good thing to say at times like this, but the truth is, memories don't last. It's harsh but true. I lost my mother not too long ago and I'm already having trouble remembering little things about her."

  I looked to Dad, who gave me a sad smile.

  "But that's okay. What she left for me, and what Cooper left for us, is more important than that. Cooper taught me how to have fun. He made me laugh at things that most people wouldn't find funny. He taught me to take chances and not be afraid to fail. He taught me not to stress over details but to never accept second best. We visited Trouble Town more times than I can count, and I wouldn't have had it any other way. Does any of this sound familiar?"

  There was a general murmur of agreement throughout

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  the church. I looked to Sydney. She actually had a small smile on her face.

  "I'm a better person for having known Cooper Foley, and that's something that won't change when memories fade. I'm going to make sure of it."

  I looked up toward the ceiling and called out, "And Coop, wherever you are, I'll bet you're listening to all this and thinking you're something special after hearing all the nice things these people have said about you. Right? I don't blame you. And I want to say one more thing. I owe you."

  I meant that in more ways than anybody in that church could understand. I'm sure they thought it was a nice, sentimental touch. What they didn't know was that I was actually talking to Cooper. For real. I was absolutely sure of that. When I sat back down next to Sydney, she grabbed my hand.

  "We both owe him," she whispered. She understood.

  The service ended shortly after and it was a crush to get out of the church. It was time to go to the cemetery, and the Foleys asked Dad and me to sit with them at the final service there. It was an honor we gladly accepted. Dad ducked out the side door of the church to get the car, but I went with the flow toward the front doors. I stepped out into the sun, where most everyone from the service was gathered in the front courtyard, talking and saying good-byes. Everyone but Ennis, that is. I looked everywhere, but he wasn't around. It was so odd. Dad and I had to be the only two people there he knew. Why wouldn't he stick around to talk with us? I figured I'd ask him about it eventually. I couldn't hang out any longer. I had to join Cooper on his final journey. At least in this life.

  Cooper was headed for the same cemetery where we had buried Mom. I hated the place and not just for the obvious reason. It was old. Like Revolutionary War--old. There were

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  tombstones that were so worn with age, you couldn't read the inscriptions. Some were broken in two and repaired with cement. Others were so beaten down by years of sun, rain, and snow that they looked like white, gnarly bones reaching up out of the ground. Why were cemeteries made to look so creepy? I mean, yeah, it's where you bury dead people, but why do people make it so much worse by erecting sorrowful statues of winged angels and mausoleums right out of a horror movie? The fact that so many of the gravestones and statues were ancient and dirty and covered with moss only added to the eerie feel. There wasn't a whole lot of "celebrating life" going on in this place. It was more like: "Let's remind everybody that they're walking over buried dead people." Cemeteries should be a little more inviting, like a park. I mean, the residents didn't care one way or the other, but lots of people visited graves. You'd think they'd want to remember the person for who they were, not be reminded that they're stuck in a creep show. Forever. But that's just me.

  I hadn't been to Mom's grave since the day of her funeral. I couldn't do it, and not because the place gave me the creeps. I didn't go because it made me sad. I had better ways to remember her than staring at a piece of marble with her name carved in it and thinking of her being under the dirt.

  The part of the cemetery with the new graves wasn't anywhere near as creepy, but it was just as sad. The long line of cars that made up Cooper's funeral procession drove over a hill that held the older, spooky section and continued down the other side until we reached an area where the tombstones were new and the flowers were fresh. I guess there weren't a lot of people left to put flowers on graves that were two hundred years old.

  Cooper's casket was already there. Somebody rolled out some fake grass around it to make it a little more attractive,

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  and to cover the dirt that would soon fill the hole that Cooper would be lowered into. All the flowers from the church were there, along with several rows of folding chairs. Not everybody from the church showed up and that was just as well. I did a quick look around to see if maybe Ennis had come, but didn't see him.

  Dad and I sat in the front row with the Foleys. The priest said some prayers that were all sorts of somber. It was torture. At least at the church they had talked about Cooper as an individual. Here the ceremony felt pretty generic, which made it all the more sad. I tried not to listen. I just wanted it to be over. Thankfully, it didn't last long. The priest made an announcement that everybody was invited back to the Foleys' house for some food. Not knowing what else to do, the crowd slowly dispersed.

  Mr. and Mrs. Foley looked lost. They had to be directed to their limousine by a guy in a dark suit who I figured was the funeral home dude. (Why do they call funeral places "homes"? It's not like anybody's living there.) Sydney went up to her mom and gave her a big hug. I know this is a small consolation, but it was looking like this tragedy might actually have mended some fences. I sure hoped so. Mr. Foley nodded to Sydney as if agreeing to something. Sydney gave him a kiss on the cheek, then walked directly over to me.

  "Ride back with me?" she asked.

  I looked to Dad. He shrugged. "F-B-M," he said.

  Sydney looked confused.

  "That means 'fine by me,'" I said.

  Sydney gave Dad a curious look.

  "Sorry," Dad said with a shrug. "Habit."

  "Odd habit," Sydney said.

  "I'll see you guys back at the Foleys'," Dad said, and made his escape.

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  "Don't you want to ride with your parents?" I asked Sydney.

  "I drove myself. The whole ceremony of this thing makes it even worse."

  I knew how she felt.

  "Besides," she added, "if I'm riding in a limo, I want to be going someplace cool."

  That made me laugh. There was more of Cooper in her than I had realized.

  "Let's go for a walk," she said, and moved quickly away from the grave site. I followed without looking back. I wasn't about to stand over the casket and say good-bye. That was way too . . . final. Though going for a walk in a cemetery wasn't much more appealing.

  "I wanted to talk to you alone," she said. "It's going to be crazy back at my house."

  "Well, we're in the right place. To be alone, I mean."

  I was happy to see that Sydney wasn't walking toward Mom's grave. I didn't want to go anywhere near there.

  "How are you doing?" I asked.

  "Okay," she said. "It's all a party now. A really strange party. I think once it's over, we're going to get slammed."

  "That's exactly what's going to happen," I said. "I've been there."

  Sydney gave me a sad smile. She knew.

  I added, "But you're talking with your parents. That's something."

  "Yeah, there's that," she said, keeping her eyes on the ground. "I'm gonna tell 'em about the tattoo."

  "Ooh, risky."

  "Yeah, but they should know what Cooper did for me."

  I chuckled. "Careful. You're going to lose your reputation for being an ice witch."

  "Is that what he called me?" she asked with exaggerated indignation.<
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  "That was one of the nicer things."

  "Such a brat," she said, shaking her head. She wasn't angry at all.

  We walked along in silence. I didn't mind it, in spite of the fact we were in the middle of a freakin' huge graveyard. After a while we found ourselves on the edge of the older part of the cemetery. We rounded an ancient mausoleum to see a small courtyard with a reflecting pool. There were marble benches built around the stone floor and urns filled with colorful, living flowers. It was set at the bottom of a hill that was dotted with graves. On top of the hill was a thick weeping willow tree.

  "Now, this is more like it," I said. "If you gotta hang around this place for eternity, you might as well do it in style."

  Sydney led me to a stone bench and we sat directly across the reflecting pool from the mausoleum.

  "Have you thought about what you're going to tell people?" she asked.

  "Only every waking moment."

  "And?"

  "And I still don't know."

  Sydney kicked at the stone walkway. She seemed nervous.

  "This is your call," she said. "Whatever you want to do is cool. But I think we should let it go."

  I didn't say anything. I wanted her to finish.

  "You said yourself that it might be over. If it is, the worst thing that can happen is we'll never know all that really happened. If it starts again, we'll have to deal, but if it's over, we might cause a lot of people grief by what we have to say."

  "Maybe," I said.

  "My parents are destroyed, Marsh. You of all people

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  should understand that. I'm the only kid they've got left and we finally started to talk. If I tell them about illusions and evil spirits, how do you think they'll react?"