“How come no one else has ever seen it?” asked Eve. “You’ve tried to show them?”
“Well, sure I have. I mean, you got a walking statue in your yard, you want to make sure you ain’t crazy, don’t you? I called my girl the first time I ever saw it… Now wait there, I’m getting ahead of myself and startin’ the whole story at the middle. You kids definitely saw that bunny hop?”
“We did,” said Alex.
“Okay then. In my book that makes us friends. And I like to drink tea with my friends. You all find a place to squat out here and I’ll be back in a jiffy. Then at least you’ll have something to eat while I jaw your ear off.”
“You really don’t have to…” It was too late. The back door had already slammed behind her.
“This place is totally creepy,” whispered Eve as they heard rattling coming from inside.
“She seems nice enough,” said Adam in a low voice.
“I know, but I think she might be crazy.”
“Because she sees things no one else can see? What does that make us?”
“I’ve always said you were crazy,” smiled Eve. “But I was talking about the obsessive hoarding.”
“Lots of people keep junk in their houses. You’ve seen that show, right? The hoarding one? This lady might know something that can help us. I mean, she can see them move, right? And she’s really friendly.”
“Too friendly,” muttered Logan.
“What do you mean, ‘too friendly’?” asked Eve.
“I mean we were just walking along and talking about a secret enemy, and what do you know? This old lady comes out and she can see things and she invites us into her crazy house. You don’t think that’s just a little bit suspicious?”
Adam laughed just a little too loud. “Seriously? You think this old lady is some kind of assassin?”
“Shhhh…” Eve considered Logan. “He has a point. This is a pretty weird coincidence, and this place… I mean, seriously, look at those statues.”
“But you can’t just jump to conclusions,” said Adam, softer now. “It’s just as possible that she has the book herself, instead of being some kind of enemy.”
“What do you think, Alex?” asked Dominic. “Get any feelings about her?”
“Not really,” said Alex. “She seems pretty harmless. All this seems more…lost…than evil.”
“Well, I guess it won’t hurt to stay for a little while and find out,” said Eve.
“She’s going to tell us her story anyway,” Adam said.
“Which may not be true,” Logan reminded him.
“Do you think we should eat her food?” asked Eve.
“What? Like, you think she’s going to poison us or something?” asked Adam.
“It’s not impossible,” said Logan.
Dom shook his head. “The message said the Breaker wouldn’t attack us while we’re together but try to split us apart. I think we’re safe for now no matter what.”
Logan looked unconvinced but said nothing.
Eve opened her mouth, but the back door opened before she could say anything. It was probably just as well. More arguing wasn’t going to help. The only way to find out about this lady was to hear her story. Then they would see how she acted. What was it the message had said? A Breaker would try to break them apart. A true sighted one would want unity. That was the only test they had.
The old woman came out the door carefully carrying a wooden tray. She shrugged off Dominic’s helping hands.
“No thanks there, no helpin’. I’ve got this thing just barely balanced. We don’t want to rock the boat. Why didn’t ya’ find a place to sit? I know it’s a bit jumbled, but just bump those things right off the chairs and get comfortable. That’s it.”
She plunked the tray down on a dubious wicker table, revealing a glistening pitcher of iced tea, a mish mash of glasses, and a plate of plain cake donuts. She turned around for a moment until she located a sixth chair, folded up and leaning against the wall under an old tarp. Eve helped her wrestle it loose and set it up next to the tray. She immediately began pouring tea as she talked.
“Ice cold tea is just the thing for a chat. And it helps when you’ve seen somethin’ that don’t quite sit right. I can see your face there, boy,” she nodded at Logan. “You could use a cold one to settle you down. As I’ve said before, it ain’t every day you see a statue move, and it ain’t no shame to be a bit scared by it. I near ‘bout had a heart attack the first time I saw it myself. Help yourselves to the donuts, now. Don’t be shy.”
When no one moved she set down her glass. “I can guess right enough that your mamas and daddies taught you to never take food from strangers. That’s as it should be, though I don’t doubt you’re all big enough now that it don’t make no nevermind. Still, it’s about time for some introductions, isn’t it? I’m Maddie. Maddie Lacross. Lived my first six years down in Alabama and the other sixty-eight right here in this house. So that’s me, and you can give me your names and what for, and then we won’t be strangers no more.”
When they had each told her their names, she picked up the donut plate and shook it at them. Eve couldn’t help but wonder if anything that came from that house could still be edible, but there was no choice but to take one. She saw Adam take a big bite of his. His face told her it wasn’t going to be pleasant. She set her donut aside for the moment and picked up her glass of tea. Tea seemed safer. She saw that though Logan had taken a donut, he wasn’t touching it or his tea. Fortunately, Maddie was too busy munching her own to notice.
“Much better, much better,” she said around a mouthful. “Now I can tell you all I know about walking statues, or hopping is more like, and you can tell me what you think. Don’t worry. It won’t be a long story. Even after all these years, there ain’t much I really know.” She paused for the last bite of donut to go down.
“My first statue made of this here stone was that young girl over there under the maple tree. See her? In between the bird bath there and the family of geese? No? She’s just a bit behind there, but I see her head poking out. Know what? Forget it. It’s just as well. She ain’t exactly properly clothed, if you know what I mean. My son-in-law gave her to me when he asked my Nellie to marry him. Knew I liked to have my yard real pretty. Said this was one of them Greek goddesses. Can’t say as he wasn’t half making fun of me, but I liked her. Even without all her clothes she looks pretty classy, so I just put her up under the arbor there. Well, the arbor’s gone now, but it used to be right over there.”
Eve thought it was time to move her along. “So she started moving?”
“Yep. Coupla times that spring I came out here and found her over by the gate. I figured the girls and their friends were playin’ a trick on me, so I just moved her back and gave them a piece of my mind and never thought anything more about it. Then in June Nellie got married and moved across town. Weren’t more than two months after that my Sam went off to college. That was when I first saw it with my own eyes.
“I was pullin’ up some weeds over by the fence there, and my knees were hurtin’ fierce. I stood up to stretch and there she was, hopping across the yard right toward that side gate. Let me tell you, my eyes about popped out of my head. She stopped just as soon as I saw her, so I went right over and started looking around for strings or wheels or something to show how they were makin’ her move. There wasn’t a thing. Well, I decided to watch and see what would happen. I set myself up there on the porch with a big pot of tea and didn’t take my eyes off of her until it got dark out. She never moved a hair. Finally I figured I must of imagined the whole thing, and I took myself off to bed. But darned if she wasn’t all the way up against the gate when I woke up the next morning.”
“So what did you do?” Adam asked. His donut was now sitting on the arm of his chair.
“I called over Nellie and Steve and told them all about it. Well, I knew they’d think I was crazy, and they didn’t disappoint. Nellie went on and on about how worried she was about me living al
l alone here so soon after my man passed. She always was a sweet girl, but I didn’t want her to be worried. I wanted her to believe me. That Steve was worse, though. He went right along with it like he believed every word. He even set up out there at night to see if he could see her move. I told him it wouldn’t work if he was watching closely, but he did it anyway. Didn’t see nothing, of course. Then they were sure I was loony. Finally I told ‘em I’d been sleeping bad at night, had some nightmares or some such nonsense and probably just dreamed the whole thing. It was a load of you-know-what, but it got rid of ‘em. I never told no one about it since.”
Eve thought Maddie was a lot smarter than her way of talking made her sound. “So where did you get all the other ones?”
“Here and there. I was at the garden store and I seen that moose right there trying to sneak out the door. No one else saw, of course, so I just bought it up without saying anything about it. I started wondering just how many statues were spread about out there moving on their own, all unnoticed. Or maybe noticed just by someone who didn’t want no one to think they were crazy, just like me. Kept my eyes peeled and over the years…” She waved her hand at the yard.
“I wonder what kind of rock they’re made of,” Adam said.
“Volcanic,” said Maddie decidedly. “Few years back, I found a nice professor over at the university. Geologist, he was.” She paused to take a sip of tea, and Eve saw Adam watching her with surprise and respect. She grinned at him. “I’ve seen that X-Files show. I know how it’s done.”
“I took him a coupla small statues, made up a nice story about how someone told me the rock was valuable and I was newly widowed and needing the money. He was a right nice man. Did all kinds of tests on the things, just as a sort of favor. Came back and said that they were just plain ordinary volcanic rock, nothing special, not worth any money, and how he was real sorry about it. I think he figured on my being real disappointed, so he told me how he did actually find a trace mineral in each one. That was just what he called it, a trace mineral, and how the mineral was very rare, but there was so little that no one would be able to get it out of the rock. He just mentioned at the end that sharing that rare mineral probably meant that the rocks came from the same quarry or some such thing, and probably from somewhere near here.”
Maddie sat back and looked at them expectantly. “So. Whatcha think?”
Eve wasn’t sure what she expected them to say.
There was one obvious question, though. Adam asked it. “Have you ever seen a book that looks like this?”
The Book of Sight looked dull and worn in his hands. Maddie leaned forward and peered at it curiously. “Can’t say that I have, no. It looks good and old. There’s lots of old books like that up on the hall shelf. They were my husband’s, but I was never much of a reader, so I never got around to hardly any of them. More of a TV girl myself. Why? This book got something to say about hopping statues?”
“Not really,” said Adam, with impressively convincing casualness. “But it’s full of some strange stories, so I just wondered if maybe…”
“This ain’t no fairy tale, kid. Do I look like Cinderella to you?” This made Maddie laugh so hard she sort of fell back into her chair.
Adam smiled. “I know, I know. But you don’t really look like Fox Mulder either, and yet…” He waved an arm at the yard full of statues.
Maddie chuckled and nodded at him with a twinkle. “That’s so, that’s so. David was it?”
“Adam.”
“Well, Adam, what do you think of my mystery statues?”
“I don’t know. I wonder if there’s any way to figure out where they all came from.”
“Well, I thought of that. Went as far as to ask most of the people selling if they knew where it came from. Most could only tell me where they got it, and that was just another store or whatever. A few couldn’t even remember that much. I never got very far with that.”
“If you could remember where you bought them all, or even some of them, we could do some research to try to find out where the stone came from. There has to be some trail leading back.”
“Or we could follow the trail leading forward,” said Eve. “You know, do what you tried to do with the deer? With more of us working on it, we might be able to follow one far enough to see where they’re trying to go.”
“You think they’re really trying to get somewhere?” asked Adam. “Maybe they’re just moving around randomly.”
“I don’t think so,” said Maddie. They most always head for the gate, or else the fence along that way. When they get going down the street, they always head out west.”
“Towards the mountains,” said Dominic.
“You think they’re trying to get back where they came from?” asked Eve.
“Come on, you guys,” said Adam. “We’re totally getting ahead of ourselves here. We can’t just make guesses. We need to start with where they came from. Find who carved them. Find who dug up the stone. Those people probably know something.”
“Or they just thought they were digging up rocks and making a few bucks turning them into lawn ornaments. I mean, it looks like no one else can see them move.”
“But Maddie saw them. If she could see them, someone else could see them, too.”
“Yeah, like you all,” said Maddie. “If you all can see them, I’m guessing Adam’s right about there being more.”
The kids looked at each other. There was no way to explain that they could see all kinds of things no one else could see, that the only remarkable thing here was that Maddie could see it, too. Eve tried to clear the awkward moment. “Well, that’s true. And why not do both things? I mean, it only makes sense to try everything we can think of if we want to find out what the deal is. There are six of us now, so there’s really no reason not to find out where they came from and where they’re going to.”
Logan snorted softly, but Eve thought she was the only one who heard him. Everyone else was nodding along, apparently not noticing Logan’s scowl. Eve could tell he still didn’t trust Maddie. She was pretty sure he was wrong about that, but she also knew it was time to get out of there. They needed to talk someplace they knew was safe. She looked over at Alex and raised her eyebrows.
As if on cue, Alex’s cell phone buzzed. She looked at it for a minute and seemed to be thinking. “Sorry, guys. It’s my dad. I need to get home. He says you can all come, too. Just a couple of things I need to do. Maddie, I’m sorry. Can we come back tomorrow and work out a plan?”
“Of course, of course. You get going. I guess I been waiting all these years, I can wait one more day.” She led the way through the house, talking all the while. “Those cell phones are quite the thing, aren’t they? How many times would I have loved to be able to get my girls home when I needed them like that? Oh well, life’s always moving on, isn’t it? Guess it goes without saying that it was real good to meet you kids. I have to say it’s nice to finally have some proof I’m not crazy. Not that I ever thought I was, but knowing for sure is lots better. You kids take care now, and I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t worry about the time. Don’t matter when you come, I’ll be here.”
They all thanked her for the tea and donuts, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. As they headed down the front steps, Maddie suddenly grabbed the last arm in line, which happened to be Adam’s.
“Ya’ll just take this guy with you, why don’t you? You can bring him back tomorrow, but this way you can have a good long look at him tonight and see what you think. Maybe find out some more stuff on that internet. Don’t take much guessing that ya’ll will be better at that than I was. Just keep him good and safe in that pack, and I don’t think he’ll take off on you.”
Logan was staring daggers at both Maddie and Adam, but Adam accepted the rabbit and zipped it into his bag carefully. As they walked away, Eve could see Maddie staring thoughtfully after them all the way down the block.
9
The Extra Page
"I can’t believe today of all da
ys your dad needs you at home.”
Logan rolled his eyes. Adam was really smart, but he was a little clueless sometimes. “You don’t need to believe it. She made it up.”
Alex was quick to justify herself. “I didn’t totally make it up. My dad did text me. I just sort of exaggerated what the text said, that’s all. He has something to tell me later, but I figured we needed to get out of there and have a chance to talk things through. This seemed like a good excuse.”
“Believe me, I wasn’t blaming you,” said Logan. “I wanted out of there as soon as possible.”
“You still think we can’t trust Maddie?” said Eve.
“I don’t know,” Logan hated having to explain himself. Things never made as much sense when he said them as when he just thought them. That’s why he usually kept his mouth shut. “I just think… There’s been a lot of stuff happening all at once. And there’s someone really bad around here somewhere, and… I don’t know. I guess I just think none of us knows.”
“And as long as we don’t know we should be careful,” finished Eve. “That actually makes a lot of sense.
Logan felt the knot in his chest loosen ever so slightly. It tightened again as soon as Adam started talking.
“I’m fine with being careful, but I also think we need to check out everything that comes along. We don’t have to totally trust Maddie, but we need to see what’s up with these statues.”
“I thought we were supposed to be trying to find these…whatever they are…that can tell us everything. Oh, and figuring out who is trying to kill us all. Don’t you think that’s enough to keep us busy?”
“Yeah, but we don’t have any idea how to do either of those things. And, you know, if you think Maddie seems suspicious, it only makes sense to work on this with her so we can find out if she’s really this Breaker person. How are we going to know if we just avoid her?”
Logan hated it, but that made sense. That didn’t stop him from replying, “I’m not saying we stay away totally, but just take that rabbit from her without having any idea what it is? It could be dangerous, and you didn’t even think twice.”
The Broken Circle (The Book of Sight 2) Page 11