With an ache in his chest, he set his Crystal Acorn on the platform. He was giving up the treasured totem he’d worn his entire life. The Puddlejumpers murmured, their sadness rippling across the Deep Down like the rustle of dead leaves.
The whole canyon shook as MotherEarth rasped, “Wawaywo—only you can bring back the rain.” Her energy spent, MotherEarth closed her eyes. Cully dabbed her forehead with the moist sponge. Ernie looked to Runnel and Root, but they were too disappointed to look back.
“I’m really sorry, but I have to go,” he said quietly.
He picked up a lantern and started up the winding stair.
Ernie was trudging across the sand of the grotto, wondering if he could even find his way back to the surface, when a tiny hand slipped inside his own. Chop nodded reassuringly, then led him up the roots of the giant oak. He escorted Ernie past the stone hut to a far knoll where there was an entrance to a tunnel. It was rarely used, and the going was difficult along the eroded floor. When the flame died in the lantern, Chop released a few fireflies, and they went up the steep slope in near darkness. And in silence.
There were so many questions Ernie wanted to ask. What happened when I was a baby? Why did you choose me? How did I end up in Chicago? His brain hurt from everything he should have asked when he’d had the chance. Now it was too late because, without MotherEarth’s help, he and Chop couldn’t understand a word each other said. So he started to think about what would happen when he got back to the farm. He couldn’t wait to tell Russ who he really was. Now Russ would have to believe him about the Holsapples. And protect him. Somehow.
He was still daydreaming about it all when the tunnel ended in a snarl of dried brush. Chop found the opening and they slipped into a cave where a drilling rig for an underground pump station rattled loudly. Chop pointed above to the sunlight, then touched Ernie’s heart before disappearing back to the Underneath.
Ernie climbed the rig to the surface. It was twilight now, and he found himself in the middle of the Holsapple wasteland. He clambered out of the pit and took a deep breath. It was bittersweet relief to be in the fresh air again.
He heard the car before he saw it. Ducking behind the derrick, he watched the black Cadillac approach along an access road, then veer across the field until it stopped beside an abandoned mine shaft. Axel popped open the trunk, then Angus reached in to retrieve a sledgehammer, a signpost, and a coil of rope. Ernie watched Axel pound the signpost, DANGER, KEEP OUT, into the ground. Angus tied one end of the rope to the post, then tossed the coil into the hole.
The back doors of the Cadillac swung open and Harvey Holsapple and Dicky Cobb got out. Holsapple supervised as Cobb lifted a lifeless body out of the trunk. He slung it over his shoulder and limped to the mine shaft. Ernie shuddered. Even from a distance there was no doubt it was Joey. Holsapple chortled as Cobb dumped the body down the hole. He said something and they all laughed. They were trying to make it look like Joey had fallen into the mine. Satisfied with their ruse, Holsapple, Cobb, and the twins slunk back to the Cadillac and sped away.
Ernie waited until the car was out of sight before running to the mine. About ten feet down, he saw Joey’s crumpled body. He grabbed the rope and slid to the bottom of the shaft. He rolled her over. Her eyes were closed and her skin was pale. He brushed the dirt from her face and the hair from her eyes.
“Please don’t be dead, please,” he whispered, putting his ear to her heart. He couldn’t hear a thing. He covered his face and tried not to cry. His head ached. It’s all my fault. He wished he could take it all back. He wished he’d never set foot in Holsapple’s house. He wished he’d never left Chicago. Why did this have to happen?
A tiny finger gently tapped his shoulder. He looked up. It was Runnel, with Root right behind her. Before he could speak, they jumped on top of Joey’s chest. Runnel drew back her eyelids to check her pupils. Root put his ear to the girl’s nose, listening. They looked to each other, then to the night sky and wailed, “Hooty-hooooooo!”
The call rang out across the Warbling River plateau and echoed all the way to Kingdom Come.
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
Dearly Departed
A FULL MOON ROSE over the farmhouse as Ernie ran to the porch and looked through the screen door. “Russ? It’s me—I’m back!” he called. “Russ? You home?”
When no one answered, Ernie motioned to the field. Buck, Cully, and Chop led a white-tailed deer out of the wheat, hauling the body of Joey Woodruff on a bed of pine boughs. Root and Runnel took turns hopping up and down on Joey’s chest while Pav, kneeling on the girl’s forehead, squeezed air from a milkweed pod into her nose.
Once they reached the porch, Ernie struggled to lift his blood brother in his arms and carry her inside. The others followed, except Buck and Cully, who hurried back to the field to keep watch for Troggs.
Teetering beneath Joey’s weight, Ernie managed to reach the crib room, which was still a disaster from the twins’ destruction. He laid her lifeless body on the collapsed bed. He thought she looked sad, her T-shirt torn, her body scratched and bruised.
Pav scooted onto the mattress and began mixing pinches of hornet stingers, moth dust, poison ivy root, and a wolverine’s eyetooth from pouches on her belt into a coffee cup. The final ingredient was a dragonfly wing.
Runnel motioned for Ernie’s hand and, without warning, stabbed his thumb with a thorn. Ouch! She pricked Joey’s thumb and pressed the bloody wounds together, then bound them with a shaft of wheat. She met his worried gaze with a reassuring smile, pretending not to notice his trembling hand.
In the kitchen, Root stood atop the stove with a dozen burned matches scattered at his feet. Fire of any kind made Puddlejumpers jittery, and fire from a giant iron contraption, like a stove, made them even more nervous. He struck his last match over the burner, then Chop cranked the gas. The flame surged and both Jumpers vaulted to the top of the fridge for safety. This time the flame held. Chattering excitedly, they jumped onto their jury-rigged ceiling pulley and lowered a kettle onto the burner.
The sheriff’s car sped down the dark two-lane state highway. Tom Dashin checked his rearview mirror. In the backseat, Betty huddled against Russ. They’d been back to the Holsapples’, over to Gram and Gramp’s, the Goetzes’, and into the little town of Circle, but no one had seen Joey since the day before yesterday. No sign of Ernie Banks, either.
Dashin flicked a toggle switch and spoke into the handset of his radio. “Wooden Nickel, keep a car near the Holsapples’. We still think the kid could turn up there. Do you roger that?”
A nasal voice rattled from the speaker. “That’s a ten-four, One Thin Dime.”
Dashin’s gaze fixed curiously on the horizon. He turned to Russ. “Ain’t that a sight?”
Russ looked out his window. The entire valley was dark, except for his farm, which was aglow with what looked like every light in the house.
“You usually leave your place fired up like a Roman candle when you’re not home?” asked the sheriff.
Russ shook his head. Now what?
Dashin turned on his strobe and goosed the accelerator, speeding toward the distant farm. With a smug look to Russ in the mirror, he sang quietly to himself, “Turn out the lights, the party’s over…”
The house was fully lit except for the darkened crib room, where the Snow White lamp, clamped to the headboard, provided a soft glow. Joey’s rooster T-shirt was stretched like a canopy above her head. It captured steam misting from a dozen pots and pans laced with Pav’s most potent herbs. Ernie, his thumb still bound to Joey’s, watched Runnel weave stalks of wheat through Joey’s hair while Pav sprinkled hot water over red and yellow autumn leaves covering the girl’s chest. The two Puddlejumpers were so intent on their work they almost forgot Ernie was there.
In the kitchen, Root stopped funneling water from the faucet to a kettle on the stove. He thought he heard Buck and Cully hooting from the field, but a whistling teapot made it difficult to hear. By the time he got the pot
off the burner, all was quiet. Pav called from the crib room, “Kadudee-ha!” and Root leapt onto the pulley rope, hoisting the pot to the ceiling. Boarding from the top of the fridge, Chop maneuvered the teapot onto a taut clothesline, then piloted a perilous ride through the house. Once the water was on its way, Root hurried outside to check on the scouts.
Ernie cringed as Chop steered the kettle down the clothesline to a crashing stop against the headboard. Working quickly, Pav dipped a bottle cap into the kettle, measuring three capfuls into the cup containing her potion. Stirring, she brought the drink to Joey’s lips and poured the bitter draft down her throat. Chop shook Shawn’s baby rattle over Joey’s belly button as the Puddlejumpers chanted, “Kadudee, mataki, mataki, sadaki.”
Pav blew into Joey’s mouth, filling the girl’s lungs with air, until she collapsed in a near faint. The chanting and the rattle stopped. Runnel gripped Joey’s and Ernie’s bound-together thumbs and snapped the wheat shaft. No one dared take a breath as they waited expectantly. The only sound was the grandfather clock ticking from the hall. A breeze from the window fluttered the T-shirt canopy above Joey’s head, but she remained still as death.
Feeling like he was about to break into a million pieces, Ernie prayed with all his might for Joey to move or blink or breathe. He leaned close and whispered in her ear, “C’mon, Rooster—crow.”
Suddenly her eyelids fluttered like the wings of a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. She took a deep breath and her chest began to rise and fall in a gentle rhythm. Ernie nearly crushed Runnel and Pav in a joyful hug, while Chop pranced along the headboard.
The sheriff’s car sped down the driveway and lurched to a stop by the house, freezing a deer in its headlights. The animal bounded away as the search party hustled onto the porch. When they entered the kitchen, water was boiling on every burner, a milk shake whirred in the blender, the cupboards and fridge were open, and a pulley clothesline dangled from the ceiling.
“Oh my God, Russ. What has that boy done?” said Betty with alarm.
Russ was too shocked to answer, but the sheriff did it for him. “I thought I’d seen everything, but this kid just about beats the band.”
They tracked the clothesline and a trail of mud past discarded milk cartons and numerous spills. Two raccoons asleep on the couch startled awake and scurried out the dog door. When the adults reached the closed door at the end of the hall, Russ shoved it open.
They found Ernie standing self-consciously next to Joey asleep beneath Snow White and the T-shirt canopy. Her body was plastered with wet autumn leaves and her hair dreadlocked with wheat. The pots were still steaming, but there wasn’t a Puddlejumper in sight.
“Well… I found her,” was all Ernie could think to say.
Aghast, Betty rushed to her daughter and stripped the leaves from her body and covered her with a blanket. “Oh, my baby. My poor sweet baby.”
“And she’s gonna be okay,” he reassured the adults.
Russ turned to Ernie, his voice grim. “I just hope you didn’t do anything you’ll regret.”
“I saved her! I mean, not by myself…”
The sheriff grabbed Ernie by the back of the neck. “If you want to press charges, I’ll bust this kid’s britches right here and now.”
“Just get him out of here,” said Betty, trying not to cry.
“But you don’t understand…”
“Send him back to Chicago or whatever godforsaken place he came from.”
“But it was the Holsapples…”
“You just shut your mouth, boy,” fired the sheriff, then turned to Russ. “Any objection if I zip this kid down to the station?”
Russ shook his head.
“But, Russ, I can explain,” Ernie pleaded.
“I’m sorry, Ernie. You need help. More help than I can give.”
Dashin squashed the boy with his pudgy arm. “You heard the man—you just got your ticket punched,” he said, wrestling him toward the door.
Ernie caught the door frame and gripped it tenaciously. “No! Russ, listen, it’s me, Shawn!” cried Ernie. “I’m the Quilt Baby! It was little creatures who took me and the Holsapples are really monsters and they’re trying to kill me!”
Russ stared, shaken by the orphan’s claims.
Dashin pried Ernie’s grip from the door. “You’re the only monster around here, and let go of that damn door!”
“Russ! You gotta believe me. Please! Russ!”
Russ listened, transfixed, as Dashin hauled the ranting boy down the hall. Ernie was growing more hysterical. “Let go of me! This is my house! You can’t do this!”
Distressed by the boy’s fading cries, Russ stared uneasily at Snow White clamped to the headboard, a strange and vivid reminder of his baby kidnapped so long ago. He hadn’t seen it since that terrible night. He turned toward the hall, wanting to call the sheriff back.
“We better call Doc Thorpe right away,” said Betty as she cradled her daughter. But Russ wasn’t listening. His mind was far away, lost in an impossible dream.
“Russ!” said Betty urgently.
“I’m sorry, what?”
Outside, Ernie struggled to break free as Dashin manhandled him into the backseat of the squad car and cuffed his wrist to an overhead bar. “You ain’t going nowhere, so stop your blasted squirming.”
As soon as the sheriff went back inside, Ernie rolled down his window with his free hand and leaned out to shout at the house. “Russ, don’t let him take me! Don’t let him take me, Russ!” When Russ didn’t come to the door or even to the window, tears leaked from Ernie’s eyes but he quickly wiped them away.
Dashin returned with the boy’s suitcase, tossed it onto the seat, and rolled up the window. “Now leave it shut, or I’ll cuff your other wrist, too,” he growled, then slammed the door and got behind the wheel.
Ernie saw the curtains shift in the kitchen window. Russ was watching him with a strange look on his face. Ernie rolled down his window and leaned out as far as the cuffs would allow and shouted, “Russ, please! I can prove it! I can prove it’s all true! I can save the farm! I can make it rain!”
Dashin reached into the back and whacked him, then cuffed his other wrist to the bar. Cursing, he rolled up the window and slammed the transmission into gear. As the sheriff’s car sped up the drive, Russ’ face in the window got smaller and smaller.
Ernie screamed one last time at the top of his lungs, “I’m Shawn Frazier!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Between a Buzzard and a Hawk
AT THE TOP OF THE Frazier driveway, Sheriff Dashin slammed on the brakes, barely avoiding a collision with the black Cadillac as it fishtailed off the highway. Dicky Cobb was at the wheel, with Holsapple riding shotgun and the twins hunkered down in back. The sheriff leaned out his window with a frown. “Better slow down there, Dicky—you almost shaved off my front end.”
Ernie cringed as Holsapple got out of the car and hobbled around to the sheriff’s window. He squinted at the boy handcuffed in the backseat, then, with a forced smile, said, “Evening, Tom—what you got in the backseat?”
“We caught the little bugger,” Dashin declared proudly.
Holsapple pressed his face against the back window to get a closer look at the prisoner. “I always said this boy was bound for trouble.”
Though trembling inside, Ernie stared evenly at the old man. For once in his life he was glad to be in the back of a cop car.
“Where you taking him, sheriff?” asked Holsapple.
“I got a room with his name on it down at the jailhouse.”
Holsapple casually opened the back door. “Why go all the way back into town? We’ll keep him at our place, least till you find Joey,” he proposed.
Dashin turned around in his seat to make eye contact with Holsapple. “Oh, we got Joey. Turns out this kid had her all along,” he reported.
“She’s alive?”
“Oh, yeah. Devil only knows what all he was up to. Once that little girl comes around,
I’m sure she’ll have a tale to tell.”
Holsapple fell silent. “Where is the poor child now?”
“Don’t you worry—she’s back with her mother, and I’m sure Doc Thorpe’s already on the way.”
“Well, that’s a comfort,” said Holsapple, then leaned into the backseat and thrust his face inches from Ernie’s. “I promise you this much, boy—you’re gonna get what’s coming to you.”
Ernie tried to back away but the cuffs wouldn’t let him. Holsapple’s stare felt like daggers piercing his skin. Dashin slid out from behind the wheel, put a hand on Holsapple’s shoulder, and eased him out of the car. “Look, Harvey, I know how you feel,” he said. “But rest assured, this kid’s gonna get what’s coming and a whole lot more.” The sheriff closed the back door. “Well, I’d best be getting on.”
For a moment, Holsapple turned his murderous stare to the sheriff, then he smiled. “You take her easy, Tom.”
“You know I will,” said the sheriff.
Dashin started to get back behind the wheel when a pitiful whimpering sound came from the Caddy. He shined his flashlight into the backseat. Angus and Axel squinted into the bright light. The sheriff noticed a blanketed cage on the seat between them.
“What you got there, boys?” the sheriff asked.
No one said a word until Holsapple replied, “Nothing but a couple of no-good raccoons we trapped.”
Ernie watched from the squad car’s darkened backseat. He hoped it wasn’t Buck and Cully inside the cage, but he had a gut feeling it was.
Dashin flicked off his light. “You got a license for that, Harv?” he joked.
“Yes, sir, I believe I do,” said Holsapple as he returned to the Caddy. “If memory serves me right, I picked it up the same day I paid for your election.”
The sheriff tried to laugh it off. “Sure enough, Harvey. You all have a good night now.”
The Caddy backed onto the highway, then disappeared into the dark.
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