His mother had almost fainted when she saw the blood on his shirt, but recovered and was suitably proud when Tim told her and Dad about Jack finding Cody.
He still didn’t understand what it had been about his blood that turned the animal off. Not that he was unhappy about that—no way. Just curious.
Curious about Walt too. Had it been pure coincidence that Cody had come to when Walt touched him, or …
Or what?
You may be needed in the next day or so …
This was all so crazy.
His folks had given him the option of staying home today, but he wanted to go in. Word of the rescue would be spreading through school and he wanted to be there to douse any hero talk. Being a hero meant attention. Neither he nor Weezy wanted that. He wasn’t sure of Weezy’s reasons, but he knew she was self-conscious and probably figured the more people looked at her, the more flaws they’d find. He just wanted to be Jack … just Jack … a kid who could walk the halls and go where he wanted when he wanted without anyone paying much attention.
Yeah. No hero stuff. At least not on the outside. But inside he was feeling pretty damn good. He’d put Mr. Vivino in his place and found a lost child almost given up for dead.
Not bad for a night’s work.
Except for one thing …
“Think we’ll ever see that little pyramid again?”
Weezy closed her eyes and flinched—as if the question had caused physical pain.
He knew the answer, but wondered if Weezy could accept it. He had a wild vision of her at the controls of a backhoe digging up the streets of Old Town in search of the buried city and her pyramid.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Well, then—”
“Okay, yes, I do. It’s gone for good, buried under Old Town. I know that. It makes me want to scream when I think of it lost down there, but it’s better than knowing it’s sitting on a shelf in the Lodge. I want it back like crazy, but I have to accept that it’s gone. At least it wasn’t stolen from us this time … we lost it. There’s a big difference—at least to me—if that makes any sense.”
“It does, kind of.” He looked at her. “You mean that?”
“Yeah … for the moment, anyway. I may feel entirely different by the time we get to school, but right now I see it as sort of a circle: The buried pyramid was uncovered—because of us. And now it’s buried again—because of us. Don’t you feel like a circle has closed?”
A circle closed … Had Weezy too noticed how recent events in their lives seemed to circle the pyramid?
“Yeah, I do. I definitely do.”
Jack felt a surge of relief, followed by a strange peace as they reached the highway.
He figured all the Johnson kids had heard—the word would have spread like the flu through the close-knit community—but the only out-of-town kids who’d know would be those who listened to the morning news on the local radio.
When they reached the highway he glanced right and was surprised to see Mrs. Vivino waiting at the elementary bus stop. Sally stood to the side with a couple of little kids while a group of the other mothers clustered close around her mother. No way they hadn’t heard.
The events at the VFW seemed like they’d happened weeks ago rather than just last night.
To his shock, Mrs. V broke away from the other women and began walking toward him.
“Jack? Can I speak to you?”
Jack stood frozen. What could she have to say to him?
Something about her expression made him want to say “No” and cross the street. But he hung tough.
“You two go ahead,” he said to Weezy and Eddie, as he walked toward Mrs. V.
“I suppose you heard about the videotape,” she said as they drew within a few feet of each other.
Jack nodded, his mouth dry. “Um, yeah. Sorry.”
“I’m glad you found Cody. I’m glad for him, and I’m glad for his parents, and I’m glad because it gives people something to talk about besides that tape.”
“Yeah, well …”
He wanted to say more but felt tongue-tied.
“Do you know who made it?”
Oh jeez. He could feel every muscle in his body tensing. Why was she asking him? She couldn’t suspect, could she? No reason in the world she could. He forced himself to look at her and saw a distorted image of himself reflected in her sunglasses.
“I haven’t heard any rumors or anything.”
“I’m sure that person thought he was doing us a favor, but he invaded our privacy. He stole what was supposed to be just between two people, and made it public.”
Stole? Stole?
“People see one thing, one scene from a marriage and don’t understand. They don’t know what went before. They don’t know what someone was like before … before he lost his son … how when a parent’s worst nightmare becomes a reality, how that can change a person … make him into someone he never was, someone he would never have wanted to be.”
Was she excusing all that violence?
She said, “That videotape changed everything. A family splits, a home will have to be sold, Sally will have to move away from her friends.”
A tear slipped from under her sunglasses and left a glistening trail down her cheek. She wiped it away.
“Everybody loses … except maybe the videotaper, who probably thinks he’s some sort of hero. If you ever meet him, tell him he’s not. Tell him he may have had good intentions, but the road to Hell is paved with those.”
Jack watched in stunned silence as she turned and walked back toward Sally.
She knew. Somehow … she knew.
He wanted to go after her and defend himself, wanted to say that if she was going to let that go on in her house just to keep her marriage together at any cost, fine for her. But what about the cost to Sally? Sally wasn’t being given a choice. Sally had stopped smiling.
But he couldn’t say a word without giving himself away.
Maybe Mr. Vivino had been changed by Tony’s death, or maybe he’d just stopped controlling an awful temper. Jack could only judge the man by his actions, by what he did, and what he’d been doing was wrong.
But what about what I did? he thought.
He’d intruded on a private matter. Was peeping into their life and videotaping it right?
He’d thought so at the time. Now he wasn’t so sure.
But if you saw something wrong, was it ever right to turn away and just mind your own damn business?
On the other hand, had exposure robbed them of the chance of working things out?
Jack shook his whirling head. What had seemed so clearly black and white a few days ago had blurred to gray in the middle. If he could go back in time a week, he wondered, would he do the same thing?
Yeah, he decided, hearing again the smack against Sally’s wet suit, seeing her knocked down. Yeah, he probably would. It would still seem like the right thing to do. But he knew now that doing the right thing didn’t guarantee a rosy outcome. Or a warm fuzzy feeling.
He caught Sally staring at him. He forced a smile and managed to give her a little wave. She waved back.
But she didn’t smile.
2
“Hi, Jack.”
He’d been following Weezy and Eddie onto the bus, lost in thought and feeling glum. He looked and saw Karina, with her engineer’s cap, baggy sweater, and jeans, smiling up at him from a window seat. The aisle seat next to her was empty.
“Oh, hi.”
“Need a seat?” she said, her eyes inviting.
He looked around. “Where’s Cristin?”
“Not feeling so hot.”
He spotted Eddie slipping into an empty seat and Weezy heading for her sophomore friends toward the rear. So he stowed his backpack under the seat and dropped in next to Karina.
“I heard they found Cody last night,” she said.
Swell. She listened to the morning news. Then he realized that if anyone on this bus listened, it would be
Karina.
“Yeah. Great news.”
“What happened? Who found him?”
Okay, play it cool.
“Couple of local kids.”
He hid a smile, wondering at her reaction when she discovered she’d been sitting next to one of those kids and he hadn’t told her. She’d probably think that was pretty cool.
He found he liked the idea of Karina thinking him cool.
He felt a tap on his shoulder and looked up to see Eddie holding out his Rubik’s.
“Okay, boy genius. I give up. You’ve been talking big. Let’s see you deliver.”
Jack took it and turned it over this way and that, saying, “Boy, you really messed it up.”
“Yeah. It’s a gift. I did my part, now you do yours.”
“I’ll have it back to you by the time we get to school.”
Eddie laughed. “Yeah, right.”
Jack looked up at him. “You doubt my Rubik-fu?”
“Hey, if you can straighten that out by school, I’ll carry you from class to class on my back.”
“Deal.”
The driver gave Eddie her no-standing-in-the-aisle line, so he returned to his seat.
Karina stared at the cube. “Can you really straighten that out by school?”
He smiled. “Of course not.”
“Then why … ?”
He pulled his backpack from beneath the seat, unzipped it, and removed a new, unused Rubik’s Cube.
“I’ve been setting him up for this all week.”
Karina slapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh. “You are eeeeevil!”
“A regular dev il in disguise,” he said as he hid the old cube in his backpack.
“Oh that’s so funny! He’s going to totally plotz when he sees it.” She laughed again. “First Cody, now this. Almost makes up for that awfulness at the VFW last night.”
Jack nearly jumped out of his seat. “How’d you hear about that?”
“My dad’s a vet. He was there. I heard him telling my mother.”
Jack realized he’d never met Karina’s father, so he couldn’t have known.
“How do you feel about that?”
She shrugged. “Serves him right.”
Her lack of hesitation surprised Jack. Then he remembered Mrs. V’s words and decided to bounce them off Karina.
“But … someone invaded their privacy.”
“Yeah, true, but he was running for public office. Don’t people have a right to know who they’re voting for? I want to know everything about anybody who’s going to be making decisions that affect me.”
“Everyone’s got a right to privacy.”
She nodded. “Absolutely. But if you want privacy, don’t go public. A man with a secret life shouldn’t step into the spotlight and expect to keep his secrets.”
Jack had a secret life—things he couldn’t talk about to anyone. He vowed then never to run for any sort of public office.
But didn’t everyone have a secret life? Even the animal in the buried town had had a secret life.
“I think it comes down to truth,” she added. “Isn’t the truth important?”
“Very.”
She raised a fist. “Truth.”
“But what is truth?” he asked, just to see how she’d react.
“The truth is.”
He waited. She said no more, simply watched him, smiling.
“That’s it?”
She nodded. “Yep. The truth is. We can twist it every which way with our minds and our words, but that doesn’t change the truth. The truth is what trips you up when you walk around with your eyes closed.”
I like you, Karina Haddon, Jack thought.
“You’re a thinker, aren’t you.”
She frowned. “Been told I think too much.”
He nudged her. “Well, someone’s got to make up for all the people who don’t think at all.”
She leaned against him as she laughed. He liked the feeling and liked the sound. “Thank you! I’ll use that next time I’m accused of thinking too much.”
“Who tells you that?”
Her smile faded. “My father, mostly.”
That rang a familiar bell.
“Wants you to be a bow-head?”
Her jaw dropped. “How do you know?”
“I know someone with the same problem.”
“Really? How does she deal with it?”
He glanced back at Weezy, reading a book.
“She stays herself.”
“Not easy sometimes.”
He nudged her. “Stay you. You’re great just the way you are.”
Instantly sure he’d said too much, he wanted to recall those last words. But then he saw Karina give a secret little fist pump and knew it was okay.
They sat in silence a moment and Jack thought about what Weezy had said.
Don’t you feel that a circle has closed?
Yeah. More than one.
He thought about how complicated his life had become—a series of intersecting circles all leading back to that strange little pyramid.
Was it good or evil, or like what they’d been learning about in chemistry: a catalyst … something that kicked off reactions?
One circle had led to the deaths of a number of Lodge members—one of them a freeholder—but had exposed Steve Brussard’s problems. If Steve was getting help, that was a good thing.
But the death of that freeholder had led Mr. Vivino to run for his spot, and accidentally brought Jack back into the circle of Tony’s family. Jack had thought that had resolved to a good end until talking to Mrs. V this morning. Now he wasn’t so sure.
Another pyramid circle had led them to the Lodge last night. Because of that, Cody Bockman was alive and with his folks this morning. He’d have drowned if Jack and Weezy hadn’t gone looking for the pyramid.
Circles within circles … wheels within wheels … gears in the machinery of his life, turning and turning.
Was that what the pyramid was—a catalyst?
If so, maybe losing it was a good thing.
Or maybe not.
The last couple of months had been pretty interesting.
May you live in interesting times … wasn’t that an old Chinese curse?
But Karina … none of the circles involved her. She was outside the pyramid zone. And that seemed a good thing.
He liked being with her. She was like Weezy in some ways—smart, opinionated, a thinker—but different in others. He liked her slant on things.
May you live in interesting times …
Jack sensed he had more interesting times ahead. He just hoped they weren’t too interesting.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
For readers who wish to know a little more about Weird Walt and the secret behind his odd behavior, I suggest the recent reprint of The Touch. The novel’s prequel, “Dat Tay Vao,” is included. Together they offer a glimpse into the gift/curse that rules Walter Erskine’s life.
A reader’s guide for Jack: Secret Circles is available online at http://tor-forge.com/jacksecretcircles.
THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE WORLD
The preponderance of my work deals with a history of the world that remains undiscovered, unexplored, and unknown to most of humanity. Some of this secret history has been revealed in the Adversary Cycle, some in the Repairman Jack novels, and bits and pieces in other, seemingly unconnected works. Taken together, even these millions of words barely scratch the surface of what has been going on behind the scenes, hidden from the workaday world. I’ve listed these works below in the chronological order in which the events in them occur.
Note: “Year Zero” is the end of civilization as we know it; “Year Zero Minus One” is the year preceding it, etc.
THE PAST
“Demonsong” (prehistory)
“Aryans and Absinthe”** (1923–1924)
Black Wind (1926–1945)
The Keep (1941)
Reborn (Febru
ary–March 1968)
“Dat Tay Vao”*** (March 1968)
Jack: Secret Histories (1983)
Jack: Secret Circles (1983)
YEAR ZERO MINUS THREE
“Faces”* (early summer)
The Tomb (summer)
“The Barrens”* (ends in September)
“A Day in the Life”* (October)
“The Long Way Home”
Legacies (December)
YEAR ZERO MINUS TWO
Conspiracies (April) (includes “Home Repairs”)
“Interlude at Duane’s”** (April)
All the Rage (May) (includes “The Last Rakosh”)
Hosts (June)
The Haunted Air (August)
Gateways (September)
Crisscross (November)
Infernal (December)
YEAR ZERO MINUS ONE
Harbingers (January)
Bloodline (April)
By the Sword (May)
Ground Zero (July)
The Touch (ends in August)
The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling Circus & Oddity Emporium (ends in September)
“Tenants”*
YEAR ZERO
“Pelts”*
Reprisal (ends in February)
Repairman Jack #14 (February)
the last Repairman Jack novel (April)
Nightworld (starts in May)
Reprisal will be back in print before too long. I’m planning a total of fifteen Repairman Jack novels (not counting the young adult titles), ending the Secret History with the publication of a heavily revised Nightworld.
* available in The Barrens and Others
** available in Aftershock & Others
*** available in the 2009 reissue of The Touch
Jack: Secret Circles Page 21