by Avi
There was a slight tapping on the door.
“Yes?”
The door opened. It was Ann. She had her white bathrobe around her.
“I can’t sleep,” she said, leaning against the doorframe.
“Neither can I.”
She made her way to the bed and sat down. After a moment I reached out and took her hand. We stayed that way—not speaking—for what seemed a long time.
“You want me to stay, don’t you?” she said.
“Yes.”
“I keep thinking about what you’ve been saying. Your thoughts. His thoughts. You don’t really know which is which, do you?”
We remained motionless, though in my head I kept wanting her to stay, wanting her.
She gave my hand a squeeze. “I’ve thought about it too,” she said. “It’s what I’d like. But you don’t know for sure whose thought you have, his or your own, do you?”
“No,” I whispered. Pulling back from her, I stared at her dim outline, dark against the dark. Why was I trusting her so much? Who was she, really?
“John,” she said, “he didn’t send me. I came because I wanted to. But you have to be sure, too.” And she went as quietly as she had come, leaving me feeling more alone than I had ever felt before.
28
When I woke the next morning, light was pouring through the window, the dust specks churning slowly through the air like stars in a tiny, golden universe.
Curled over on one side, I lay very still, my eyes open, wondering yet again at all that had happened. Most of all I thought about the night before, when Ann had come to my room, what she had said, what I had thought and said.
Why, I asked myself, had I doubted myself, or let her know I had any doubts? She’d come to my room, and I, like a fool, had been . . . well, stupid.
Quickly, I slung on some clothes and opened the door. Not a sound. Moving softly, I went to her room and knocked on the door. No answer. I knocked again, but still got no reply. Puzzled, I edged the door open and looked in. She was gone.
I went downstairs. On the kitchen table I found a note explaining that she and Martin had gone to the hospital, that she would take Martin to his Scoutmaster’s house and then come back home.
I decided to shower, got dressed, ate breakfast, then returned to the living room, not knowing what else to do but wait for Ann.
I hadn’t sat there for very long when, in the back of my mind—I was almost afraid to think about it—I realized I was concerned about her. If John Proud could do all he had done, he could just as easily harm her, too.
I suddenly remembered what he had told me about her, that he had tried to use her, but that he couldn’t. When she had gone to the cemetery that first time, she had been frightened. She had told me so herself. But she hadn’t seen him.
Why? Why had John Proud chosen me? Was it what Uncle Dave had said, that I had evil in me? . . . What was it in me? I kept asking myself, what was it in me!
The kitchen phone began to ring. I hurried to answer it. “Hello?”
“Is that you, John?” came a voice. It sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
“This is the Fentons’ home,” I said. “Can I help you?”
“It was you I wanted to speak to.”
“Who is this?”
“I’m disappointed. I thought you’d know.”
I knew then: John Proud.
“Now do you know?”
“Yes.”
“Delighted you’ve come. Welcome.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“You don’t have to worry about Nora and Tom. I know you didn’t really want to hurt them. Just wanted them out of the way.”
“That’s not true.”
“As for Ann . . .” He laughed. Then the phone went dead.
Slowly I put the phone down. Even as I did there was a slight squeal of car brakes from the front of the house. Quickly, I moved toward the door, expecting it would be Ann. But before I reached the door I was stopped by a knocking. Ann wouldn’t have knocked.
I stopped right there, not sure which way to move. The knocking came again. Instead of going to the door, I bolted up the steps and into the room where I had slept. From there I peered through the window. In the driveway was a state trooper’s patrol car. I drew my head back quickly.
From below I heard more knocking.
I backed out of the room and stood at the top of the staircase, trying to decide what to do. I had done nothing wrong. But I couldn’t go downstairs and open the door.
I went into another room and pushed the curtain aside a bit. The trooper had moved from the door and was standing on the walkway, just looking at the house. It was the same trooper who had stopped us the day before.
As I watched, he got back into his car, backed out, and drove away.
29
I heard Ann pull into the driveway about eleven. She came in carrying a large shopping bag.
“How’re your folks?” was the first thing I asked.
“Fine, considering. Mom has this big bandage on her head and a black eye you wouldn’t believe. Dad has an arm in a sling. They said to say hello.”
I followed her into the kitchen.
There she busied herself pulling out stuff from the bag—packaged goods, like instant rice and soups, dried fruit. Finally she stopped what she was doing and we looked at each other.
“Hello,” she said, her eyes tentative, shy.
“Hello,” I returned. “You okay?”
“Sort of. You?”
“Pretty good,” I said. But then I stepped forward and kissed her. And we just held each other.
She turned about and went on with what she had been doing.
Right off, I told her about the strange phone call and about the state trooper.
She stood a little straighter, her back to me. “About the accident,” she said. “They were just driving along when someone leaped into the road. Happened real fast. Dad reacted instinctively, trying to avoiding hitting him. Even at that, he said that he had this funny sense that it . . . was you on the road.”
I shook my head.
“He didn’t believe it. Said it must have been in his head because he was thinking about you.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
“Did he ask about the call?”
She paused. “You know, I don’t lie to my parents,” she said. “But I said I had stopped at a store and just lost track of time. He believed me.”
She turned around. Her eyes were swimming in tears.
“I don’t think you should go with me,” I told her.
“Sure,” she snapped, “I’ll drive you up there, tell you where to get out, turn around, and wait patiently to hear from you again, right?”
“Maybe that would be better.”
“And maybe it wouldn’t,” she said bitterly.
“Ann, I don’t know what’s going to happen when I meet up with him. I just don’t know.”
“What do you want to happen?”
“Want?” The word exasperated me. I didn’t know what I wanted anymore.
“Yes, what do you want? Don’t you think you better know that?”
“I . . . I have to get rid of him.”
“Well, what I want is to help you,” she said.
We spent the next hour getting ready. She had a checklist of all the necessary things, from waterproof matches to moleskin for foot blisters to sit pads to the right kinds of food. Around her neck she had a compass and the penny whistle.
I watched her as she filled the backpack, balancing everything just right, putting everything in the proper place. Each time she put something in, she checked it off her list.
I helped her roll up her tent, stuff the sleeping bags into their sacks. She got another pack—it was her mother’s—which wasn’t as big as hers, and used it for my load: the tent and the sleeping bags.
“Isn’t it awfully warm for stuff like this?” I asked.
�
��It can turn cold in a shot. Better to have more. Always.”
She put together hiking clothes for me, a combo from the rest of the family.
“How much food you bringing?”
“Two days’.”
“Do your folks know where we’re going?”
“I told them we were just camping for a couple of days. We should be getting back about the same time they do. No problem. In fact, I think they feel better that we’re going to be out of the house.” She smiled. “Small town.”
By one o’clock we were ready. She had hiking boots on. I didn’t, but then I wasn’t carrying that heavy load. She tried her pack, insisting that she put it on herself. It seemed very heavy to me.
“How heavy?” I asked.
“Forty pounds.”
When we were set and had loaded the car, we made ourselves a lunch.
I couldn’t eat. “You’ll be sorry if you don’t,” she warned. I did the best I could.
“Ready?” she asked, putting her hand on mine. We gave each other a hug and just stood there for a while hanging on to each other.
“Thank you,” I said. She didn’t answer. Instead, the next moment she gave me a full kiss.
“Just promise me one thing,” she said.
“What?”
“I need to know what’s happening. Everything. No matter what or how bad. I have to trust you. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s go.”
We gave each other one more hug and started for the door.
PART FOUR
30
We drove in silence, going slowly up into the wooded hills. The sky overhead was absolutely clear, while on all sides the dark-green forest pushed close. By the side an occasional sprig of Queen Anne’s lace stood tall, while here and there glistening laurel leaves brushed heavily against the hot tar road.
“I would have thought lots of people came here in the summer,” I said. We had seen only a few cars.
“It’s midweek. Weekends can seem crowded. Lots of couples. Kids too, along with mom and dad.”
I had a new thought: “That John Proud, he must have had a wife. What happened to her?”
She glanced at me sharply. “Don’t you know?”
I shook my head.
“He killed her.”
The road spun upward until we hit the crunching gravel of the trailhead parking lot. The area was completely empty.
We parked and pulled our stuff out, locking the car. I put on my backpack, she did the same. Then we attached water bottles to the straps.
I noticed that Ann fussed a lot with the buckles. I wondered if I was acting nervous too. “You okay?” I asked.
She looked up, took a deep breath. “I forgot to give you something,” she said, backing up to me. “The top compartment of my pack. There’s a zip-lock bag with a map. Take it out.”
I did. “I need to show you what the area looks like,” she said.
“Why? We’ll be together, won’t we?”
“Just in case we get separated, or . . . something.”
“You’re right,” I admitted, and unfolded the map. It was covered with details of small lines.
Ann explained: “These red lines show you the rise and fall of the land. The tighter they are, the greater the rise. Green for forest. White is open area. This is Highway 443. County road 315. We’re right between, see? State Game Lands Number 211. St. Anthony’s Wilderness here. Fort Indian town Gap Military Reservation here. Blue Mountain there.”
I nodded, but what I was hearing was Ann’s tension.
“Here’s the boundary to the military. We’ll keep far away from that. The old railway bed. The Appalachian Trail runs right here along the ridge of Stony Mountain, Rausch Creek, Rausch Gap. The Cemetery. Cold Spring. Devil’s Race, and Stony Creek. We’re here, moving there. Get it?” She looked up at me. I saw then that she was upset and was trying to hide it. “You keep the map,” she said. “I know the area. Ready?”
“I think so,” I said, trying to find some way to comfort her.
“Only think?”
“You said be honest.”
She tried to smile. “Good try. I’ll be fine soon as we start.”
“Let’s go then,” I said, and took the lead.
We skirted the main gate and in moments we were marching steadily on the old railroad trail, the overhead trees shielding us from the sun’s hottest rays. Our pace was steady, not too difficult. Despite my intentions, the farther we went, the more I felt myself tightening up, thinking about what we were doing, where we were heading.
“Ann,” I said after a while, “I have to know something.”
Go on.
It took a few moments. “When I met John Proud . . . he said he tried to use you.”
She stopped short.
“Only he said he couldn’t.”
She was staring down the roadway, away from me. “Did he tell you that?”
“Yes. And you told me how strange, frightened you felt when you first went up there. Did you see him?”
Reluctantly—or so it seemed—she turned to face me. There was pain on her face. She shook her head. “It did frighten me,” she said, “like I told you, but I didn’t see anything.”
“How come he couldn’t use you?” I asked. “He did a number on Uncle Dave. For a while anyway. Now me. Why not you?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said softly.
“Okay,” I said, feeling anger, “then why me?”
“I don’t know that either,” she said, sounding sad.
“Want to know what I think?” I said. “It’s not that I look like him—I must be something like he is. Wrong, or bad or . . . evil.”
“You’re not like him,” said Ann quickly. She was looking fiercely right into my face. “The more you allow yourself to think that way, the easier it’s going to be for him. You have to fight, John, you have to.”
“I’ll try,” I said, though I was not at all convinced. Something seemed wrong.
We started on again. But my question still hung in the air: Why me? Why not her? Was I bad and she . . . well, good?
31
As we walked, I began to recognize the sights I had seen the first time. The ruins. The place where Uncle Dave had gotten sick. Finally, after over an hour of trudging, I saw the stone bridge ahead.
“That’s the turnoff, isn’t it?” I said, coming to a halt.
“Yes.” She stopped too.
“I say we go right to the cemetery.”
“Okay,” she said. I started to move, but she paused, reached out a hand to touch me, only to let it drop. “I’m right here with you,” she said.
We reached the bridge, swung down the Appalachian Trail, and then took the right fork to the cemetery.
Silence greeted us. Dazzling spikes of silent white sunlight cut through the interlocking leaves above. Nothing stirred. Nothing seemed alive. The stone that marked the burial place of John Proud was, as it had been before, askew, the slant a mocking gesture that spoke a lie: He was dead, but still he lived.
“It’s not real,” I whispered.
Yet something was there, a coming, a presence. The air itself seemed to grow in weight, settling over me, my shoulders, my arms and legs and hands, pulling me down. There was no place to go but into the earth itself.
Then the idea came to me: It would be so good to lie inside the earth, wrapped about by cool ground. I closed my eyes. I wanted to sink. I wanted to.
“He’s near,” I said, my own voice far.
Ann put out a hand and gripped my arm. As I felt his presence grow, her grip tightened until it hurt. I didn’t want to be hurt. I wanted only to be left alone, to sink. Now her grip seemed to pull me up, bodily, out of the ground, back to my body, my breath, myself.
“Ouch!” I cried, and shoved her hand away.
My cry broke the spell. At once there was noise; the midsummer racket of cicadas filled the air. Tree leaves began to shift. Light soften
ed. Birds darted. I felt sweat trickling down my back.
“What was it?” I asked, feeling very dizzy.
She shook her head. “It was like a dream,” she said. “And you were being pulled away. Did you feel that?”
“Yes.”
“Was it him?”
“I think so.”
“Did you see him?”
“No. Did you?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t want you to leave.”
I let out a long breath, feeling very weak. I pulled the pack off my back and let it fall heavily to the ground. Then I sank down.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
The moment she asked I remembered. “Ann, do I look the way Uncle Dave looked?”
Alarm came to her eyes. “Yes,” she said.
I held out my hand. “Get me out of here,” I cried, my throat feeling increasingly constricted.
She helped me up. Quickly, I slung the backpack on. “Get me to the bridge,” I said. “Don’t let go of me.”
Taking my hand, she held it tightly and moved fast, all but dragging me, constantly looking back at me.
In moments we reached the bridge. I threw off the pack and scrambled down to the swiftly flowing brook. Kneeling, I put my face into the water, running it up into my hair. It was shockingly cold.
I gulped and sat back up, shook my head the way a dog shakes a wet coat of fur. Ann, having left her pack above, was squatting by my side.
“I’m okay,” I said.
Once back to the top of the bridge, I looked around for a place to rest. I was weary. There was a gravel pit a few yards off the roadway. I went there and stretched full out, using my pack as a pillow.
“Can you tell me what happened?” Ann asked as I lay there.
“He was trying to get me,” I said. “That’s his place. It was like he would replace me right there. I can’t do anything there. He’s too powerful.”
She listened.
“It has to be somewhere else,” I said.
“Where?”
“I don’t know,” I said, closing my eyes. “Someplace.” I thought hard. Then I remembered. “Where’s that map?”