by Michael Rowe
He smoked as he drove. He wasn’t supposed to, but he realized he had been in a state of suppressed anxiety ever since he’d seen Jeremy Parr on the road earlier that morning. His heart was beating like a triphammer and his mind was cloudy with memories he’d been suppressing for a decade—memories that were sharper than he’d ever dreamed possible, given the time that had elapsed since that last terrible night before Jeremy had been sent away and Elliot’s father had beaten him till he bled.
Through the windshield, the town looked as it always did, except for the fact that someone had ripped a hole in the airtight zone of security and comfort he had come to rely on over the last ten years. Suddenly his world, usually as well ordered as a soldier’s sock drawer, seemed dangerously askew.
What Elliot wanted to know was how askew, and why. He had learned as a very young boy that self-examination was called “navel gazing” and that real men didn’t do it. And Elliot was a real man. His entire life— with one notable deviation from the straight and narrow—had been dedicated to being a real man. He had spilled a great deal of sweat and blood to assure that end.
But until Elliot was sure in his own mind that the only thing that was fucking him up about Jeremy Parr’s return to Parr’s Landing was the possibility of bad gossip being stirred up again, he wasn’t going to be at peace in his own mind.
Suddenly Elliot felt as though he were suffocating, as though he were buried alive. The car felt like a coffin with metal sides and no air. He pulled over to the side of the road and half-stepped, half-fell out the door into the cold fall air. He drew in great gasping breaths, filling his lungs with oxygen as though he had just broken the surface of a pit full of quicksand, his lungs full of mud and silt and filthy water.
For a moment, he felt as though he might vomit, but he closed his eyes and concentrated on his breathing until the nausea passed and his mind cleared.
Goddamn you, Jeremy, why the fuck did you have to come back here? Why didn’t you stay away?
Of course there was no answer except for the sound of the wind and the distant squawk of crows circling somewhere high above Spirit Rock. Elliot shaded his eyes and followed the sound of the crows, but he couldn’t see them. He scanned the cliff, looking for the birds, but to no avail. A cloud passed over the sun, shattering the rock face into a diorama of light and shadow. And then something did move up there on the ledge. Even before his eyes caught the blur of motion, his brain registered motion. Something upright, pacing carefully. And then it was gone.
Elliot stared at the spot where he’d seen the shape, then shouted out, “Hello? Is someone up there?” His voice sounded abnormally loud to him in the late-afternoon sunlight. The echo mocked him and, of course, there was no answer. But he had seen it. Something that ought not to have been up there, something entirely out of place, something out of the natural order.
He thought of Thomson’s description of the murder scene at Gyles Point. There’s blood all over the upstairs bedroom, but no body anywhere. He thought of the Indian, Billy Lightning, who had just arrived in town the morning after the murder with (in Elliot’s opinion) a preposterous story and no good reason for being in Parr’s Landing at all. By his own account, madness and death seemed to follow the Indian around.
Elliot privately flattered himself that he had natural-born police instincts, even when he knew he was only burnishing his self-image for the sake of his own ego, but he still felt the hair rise on the back of his neck, and he instinctively reached for the holster of his gun and withdrew it.
And yet there was nothing to see now. No movement, not even a shadow, which is probably what it was to begin with. He shook his head to clear it and rubbed his eyes, then looked again. There was nothing but the cliff’s edge and the daubed smudges of the Indian paintings of the mythical Wendigo of St. Barthélemy. What the fuck had that been up there? And why did he reach for his gun? Elliot McKitrick had rarely been spooked by anything in his life, and never by Bradley Lake or Spirit Rock. Everyone in Parr’s Landing had heard the stories. Those stories were for scaring children and for getting chicks to cuddle up closer. He thought of the years he’d spent out here, swimming, whiling away his summer nights on blankets, in front of bonfires. He’d lost his virginity here when he was fourteen, and yes—he’d even brought Jeremy Parr here that first night when they’d gotten drunk and had . . . well, what had happened, happened.
He pushed that memory down brutally. His head throbbed with the beginnings of a headache that he knew was going to be one for the record books.
Elliot sighed. He re-holstered his gun and walked slowly back to the car. He needed a drink in the worst way. He’d always felt that Parr’s Landing was the beginning and the end of his world, that everything he ever needed was here and his for the asking, but as he turned the ignition, he wondered for the very first time whether Jeremy had been the smart one, the one to leave Parr’s Landing and make a life for himself somewhere where no one knew him, and no one cared who—or what— he was.
He turned the cruiser around and headed for the road back to town, kicking up gravel in the car’s wake that smacked against the metal like the sound of caps exploding. Elliot automatically checked his rearview mirror as he tapped the accelerator. In the mirror, he saw the lake, occluded by dust devils and exhaust from the car.
What he could not see was the shadow moving again, high up on the ridge where he had stared, so long and so hard, trying to identify the source of his sudden and unaccountable sense of dislocation and— though Elliot would never have admitted it, even to himself—fear.
From his perch high up on the ledge, Richard Weal watched the police cruiser drive away towards town. He’d briefly considered killing this one if he’d come too close, but he’d decided to allow him to live—for now. Instead, Weal had remained completely motionless, willing himself into invisibility, not moving a muscle until the policeman had left of his own accord. Lucky for him, Weal thought. Cops are so stupid.
Still, he reasoned, the policeman’s blood might have been useful, and it would certainly have spared Weal the pain he knew was coming. But another killing, now, when he was so close to his destination, would only serve as a dangerous distraction. After leaving a string of bodies between Toronto and Parr’s Landing, it would be a cruel and pathetic ending for him to be caught killing some small-town yokel of a cop at this point.
He’d consulted the sheaf of papers in his hockey bag a thousand time or more. He could practically recite the text by heart. This was the place. This place—here, now. His friend’s voice had never been this clear, this compelling and demanding. And when he closed his eyes, he saw visions of blood and bones and smoke. He saw the path through the caves of rock and stone as though it were lit by torchlight.
Weal’s heart soared with love and pride and yearning. He laid his face reverently against the wall of rock and said, “I’m coming, Father. I’m coming for you now. Tonight, we’ll be together. I swear.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
When the final bell rang, Finn bolted from his seat and ran for the door of the classroom as quickly as he could without looking like a total jackass. He didn’t hear Mrs. Morris tell him to slow down, and he moved too quickly through the halls of the school for either the teachers or the hall monitors to tell him to stop running. Through the swinging front doors he flew, taking the steps three at a time till he hit the pavement, still running.
He had to get to the high school. He had to see the girl. If he didn’t, he would die. It was that simple. She’d been all he was able to think of all afternoon, and he was now sure that he was in love with her. And he didn’t even know her name.
Finn, out of breath, found the girl standing under the same elm tree where she’d sat having lunch an eternity of hours ago. Though out of breath, he still managed to come to a relatively inconspicuous stop not far from where the girl stood. In his mind, he pictured himself as a cartoon figure caught doing whatever he was not supposed to be doing, and whistling innocently with his h
ead in the air. What? Who, me? Not a thing, officer. I just happened to be barrelling down this street at a hundred and fifty miles an hour. Girl? What girl? I’m not following a GIRL!
Finn prayed she hadn’t noticed him, and his prayers were answered again: she clearly hadn’t noticed him. She hadn’t looked up from the sheet of paper she was staring at.
A group of noisily shouting children from the primary school ran past on the other side of the street. Startled by the sound, the girl looked up and saw Finn staring at her.
Here it comes, Finn thought. This is where she looks at me with disgust and says, “Eeew, what do you want, you creepy little kid? Get lost! Stop staring at me, or my boyfriend will put your head through a wall!”
Instead, the girl smiled, and said, “Hi there.” She stood expectantly until Finn realized she was waiting for him to say “hi” back to her.
“Hi,” Finn said. “You new in town?” Feeling stupid, he added, “You must be new in town. I’ve never seen you before.” Then he felt even more stupid, because it made him sound like he knew every girl in town, which he didn’t. Moron, Finn raged to himself. You’re such a goddamn MORON.
“Yeah,” she said. Finn thought she had a beautiful voice. Her cadence was unlike any other he’d heard. He thought this was what Rachel van Helsing might sound like—sophisticated, vaguely foreign. Totally sexy. “I’m new,” she added. “Really new. I just arrived last night. It’s my first day in town.” She walked over to where Finn was standing and put out her hand. “My name is Morgan. Morgan Parr.”
“Wow,” he said. “Parr, just like the town. You sure moved to the right place! Ha ha!”
“Well, I’m staying with my grandmother. Up on the hill. My family sort of named the town, or something, so maybe it’s not so weird?” The girl sounded embarrassed, instead of snooty, maybe even apologetic. Finn was immediately mortified by what he’d said.
“Sorry, I didn’t know. I mean . . . I’m sorry I laughed. I’m not sorry that your last name is Parr. Like I said, everyone in town knows everyone else here, so when someone new comes to town—which they never do— everyone notices. Especially if they’re kids. Which they never are. So . . . welcome, I guess. Where you from?” Stupid, stupid, stupid. You sound like a babbling idiot.
“Toronto,” Morgan said. “My dad . . . well, my dad died a while back, and this is where my mom and dad were from. So we came back. Well, my mother and my uncle came back. I’ve never been here before.” She paused. “You never told me your name.”
“Finnegan,” he said, and then added before she could, “like the dog puppet on Mr. Dressup, on TV.”
“We didn’t have a TV at home,” she said wistfully. “My parents didn’t think it was good for me. I never saw that show. Nice name, though.”
“I hate it.”
“Why? It’s beautiful. It sounds Irish or something.”
“You’re just being nice,” he said. “It sounds like the name of a dog on a television show. Nobody is named ‘Finnegan.’”
“Well, it doesn’t sound like the name of a dog on television to me,” she said. “Besides, try living with a name like ‘Morgan.’ My dad called me ‘Sprite,’ but that just sounded like a soft drink to most people, so we just kept it between us. No one else is allowed to call me anything but ‘Morgan.’” She looked at her watch. “Gee, I have to get home. My grandmother seems to be pretty tough about being on time.” She looked at him quizzically. “Hey, Finn, do you live far from here? Do you want to walk for a bit? I don’t know anyone in town. I could use the company.”
“Sure,” Finn said. Then, daringly, “Can I carry your books for you?”
She laughed. “No, I’m OK with the books. They’re not heavy. But thanks, anyway. I’ll be happy for the company.”
They walked through the streets of Parr’s Landing, with Finn guiding Morgan. Her directional recall, honed by years of living in a busy city led her to suspect that Finn was taking her the long way home, but she didn’t mind. She was less worried about her grandmother’s schedule than she’d let on, since there was an hour and a half yet till dinner and she had no desire to see Adeline before then. Finn seemed interested in her life, and what she had to say. He pointed out local landmarks—the Church of St. Barthélemy and the Martyrs, the Parr’s Landing Library, Harper’s where he got his comic books. Finn never stopped talking. After months in close quarters with only her mother, and occasionally Uncle Jeremy for company, she was happy for the proximity of another young person, especially as she’d been more or less ignored by everyone in her class that day. It was as though she had been marked not only as an outsider, but also as an off-limits outsider. There had been no overt hostility that she could detect, but no warmth, either.
She wondered if this had been some of her grandmother’s doing, though how—or why, for that matter—was a mystery. It would be one thing for Adeline to be able to order her mother and uncle around, but if her scope of influence included not just the administrators of her school, but even her fellow students, her grandmother was in a league of her own.
Finn, on the other hand, seemed eager for her company. Morgan hadn’t had a great deal of experience with boys, but as a lifelong pretty girl, she had been the recipient of crushes before, and was adept at recognizing them. Unlike other girls, however, she didn’t cherish crushes, or collect them as tributes. What she felt for the boys who brought their adoration to her was compassion and empathy. Even at fifteen, she knew that the boys who were drawn to her were putting themselves out on a limb. And here was Finnegan Miller of Parr’s Landing, Ontario walking her home. She had seen Mr. Dressup—of course she had, everyone had—though she would never have admitted this to a boy who was that sensitive about sharing a name with a dog puppet.
He was cute, Morgan thought. It was too bad he was so young. He was going to be a very handsome boy when he was a little older. “So, how old are you, Finn?” Morgan asked as casually as possible. Her fingers trailed along a hedge as she passed, and she didn’t look at him when she asked the question.
“Twelve,” Finn replied. He looked down and kicked a pebble off the sidewalk with the tip of his sneaker. “You?”
“I’m fifteen,” Morgan said lightly. “Just turned.” In spite of her casual tone, she realized how stating her age, and their age difference, had set the parameters of their friendship in a way that disappointed Finn. Morgan hoped that they could still be friends, because so far he’d been the one friendly face in Parr’s Landing, and she could use a friend right about now.
“So, Finn, what’s there to do around here? What do you like to do when you’re not acting as a tour guide for strange girls?” She reached out and punched his shoulder lightly as a way of letting him know that there was no mockery in the question.
“Not much,” Finn said. Morgan sensed a lightening. “We have a movie theatre and two hockey rinks. Well, one hockey rink that’s open, and the old one on Northbridge Road. Nobody uses that one anymore, but nobody’s torn it down, either. Hockey’s pretty important in Parr’s Landing.”
“Do you play? You know, hockey?”
“No, I’m not very good at sports.” He waited for a negative reaction to this admission of failure at one of the entry-level male social rituals in Parr’s Landing, but Morgan seemed nonplussed by it. Maybe not all boys played hockey where she came from. Emboldened by her neutrality on the subject, he went on. “There are a couple of churches besides St. Barthélemy and the Martyrs. In the summer time, people go swimming in Bradley Lake, but it’s too cold now.”
“Is that the lake we passed on the way to school today?”
“It’s the only lake in town, so yeah, probably.”
“Right, over by the cliffs. I can see the cliffs from my house. Well, it’s not my house—the place where we’re staying for a while.”
“I know your house. Everyone in town knows your house. ‘Parr House,’ it’s called. It’s the only house in town with a name. It’s really big. What’s it like living the
re?”
“I don’t know what it’s like living there. I’ve just moved there. It’s big, that’s for sure. But I miss my house in Toronto, and I miss my friends.”
“How many rooms are there?” he asked eagerly, ignoring her reference to her life before her arrival here. “In Parr House, I mean. How many rooms? Thirty? Forty?”
“I don’t know,” she said. She laughed. “Where did you get a number like forty?”
“That’s the number of rooms in Collinwood. You know, the haunted house on Dark Shadows? That TV show with the vampire, Barnabas Collins?”
Morgan laughed. “We didn’t have a TV at home, remember? I told you.” He looked crestfallen, so she added, “I have heard of it, though. Some of the girls at school used to run home every afternoon to watch it right after school when it was still on.”
“We used to get it here on Saturday mornings,” Finn said. “We don’t get much out here, but we used to get that.”
“You like this stuff, don’t you?” Morgan said, amused. “Spooky stuff? Castles and vampires and stuff like that?”
“Yeah,” Finn said defensively. “I do. Is that wrong?”
“No, it’s not wrong.” Morgan said. “Of course it’s not wrong. Why would it be?”
“My parents think it’s weird,” he said, sounding embarrassed, though whether he was embarrassed by his defensiveness or by the fact that he liked horror stuff was unclear. “I don’t know why I like it, I just do. When I grow up I’m going to get out of this crappy little town and move to Hollywood and make movies. Horror movies. I’m going to be an actor, or a director or something. There’s this comic book I read all the time called Tomb of Dracula,” he said excitedly. “I get it at Harper’s Drugs on Main Street. They don’t get a lot of comics but they do get that one. Have you ever heard of it?”
“No, I haven’t,” Morgan said, keeping her amusement to herself, because she could see that his comic books meant a lot to him. She didn’t want to hurt him by seeming to mock something he obviously cared about. “But maybe you could show me sometime. And maybe another time you could come and see the inside of my grandmother’s house, if you like.”