“He’ll come.”
“Why are you so sure?”
“Because you’re bringing American pie. Honestly, girl, where your brains at?”
I figured I was missing something, but just nodded.
“And don’t tell anyone you’re going, or they’ll tell you not to. We don’t need a fight on our hands, we need a crafty man like Jack. Especially don’t relay any of this to that little sweetheart of yours.”
“He’s not my sweetheart.”
“Oh please, he’s got a shine on you and you on him. I think I know young love when I see it. Just get out of here before we wake up in the morning. Now let’s get back inside. You first.”
I walked back to the kitchen door, kicking dirt off of my boots before heading inside. Lucas was at the work table, drying dishes. Mother had left, so it was just the two of us.
“There you are,” he said, giving me a flash of a smile.
“Here I am,” I said. “Need a hand with those?”
“Yes, actually.” He tossed me a tea towel. How many of these did Jacqueline’s mother own?
I stood next to him and dried the gravy boat.
“Lucas, I need to talk to you.”
“We have already established that we are both here together,” he said, “and that you are capable of speech.”
“Do you always need to be so sarcastic with me?”
He put down the china. “I suppose not. I apologize. Pray tell, what would you care to discuss?”
I side-stepped once toward him so that we were inches apart, the pile of dishes in front of us. “Do you like me, Lucas?”
“Are you asking if I fancy you?”
“Um, yes.”
“You never fail to surprise me with your directness. But yes, I do fancy you. I thought it was obvious.”
“Well, I worry that I’m making it all up in my head.” Boy, do I ever.
He took my hands and held them to his chest, and I could feel his pulse, rapid fire.
“I was not expecting to ever see you again, after you left, and like others I wondered if the telegram about your death was true. And now that you’re back, well…” He trailed off.
“There are so many things I need to tell you,” I said.
“I know. You keep telling me you have to talk to me, and yet we never seem to have time. Let’s take a walk after the meeting.”
Precisely when I was supposed to trot off to some guy’s house at the end of Kentucky. Great timing, this guy. I didn’t know which way was up anymore, but I wanted some time with Lucas.
The meeting started with Mr. Dawkins calling us in to sit down in the living room. Darling closed the curtains. Mr. Dawkins leaned forward into the middle of the group, his leather suspenders pulling against his shoulders. He knew the Attorney General of Kentucky, who would probably be sympathetic to helping us stop Dr. Traver and his thugs.
“But we need to bring him evidence of Traver’s criminal acts.”
“Do we have evidence?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t too stupid a question to pose to the group.
Silence. Why couldn’t I just keep my big mouth shut?
“I saw something,” said Lucille in a quiet voice. “A handwritten note from Dr. Traver to a congregant.” Judging from the others’ reactions, I was the only person in the room who didn’t know this already. A spring in the couch started gouging my leg so I moved over a little to get out of its way.
“What were you doing in his church?” asked Lucas’s dad.
“She’s a spy,” said Darling, coming into the room and sitting next to me. She dried her hands on the towel and folded it up as she spoke. Lucille continued, looking at the ceiling like she was trying to remember the note.
“The esteemed Dr. Traver requests that Mr. Rushman be brought to his spiritual retreat on Black Mountain.”
Well, that sounded ominous enough.
“We reckon that’s where the other missing men disappeared to,” said Mr. Dawkins. “It’s not so much a retreat as a small cabin. We don’t know where on the mountain it’s located, however.”
“What is the plan?” asked Mr. Van Doren.
“Well let’s work that out here. I think a few of us should try to find this cabin and discover whatever we can so that we can bring it to the Attorney General.”
“Black Mountain is a large piece of rugged land, Arnold.”
“Yes. We’re hoping Lucille can learn a more precise location from Dr. Traver’s church office here in town.” Maybe it’s just me, but does this sound far-fetched to anyone else? Anyone?
“It’s too dangerous to just sneak around his cabin,” said Mr. Van Doren, leaning back in his chair. He was the skeptic of the group, I guessed. “We need to find the location and then watch it for a while. If he holds people hostage there, there must be guards or someone keeping watch. We can’t just walk up and find some smoking gun and take that to Frankfort as evidence.”
I liked Mr. Van Doren. If he was all in my mind, he was a smart part of my mind.
We agreed to give Lucille three days to figure out where the spiritual prison was and then another few days to watch the cabin. But Mr. Dawkins and my mother were worried that the longer Mr. Rushman was at the cabin, the more likely he’d be killed there, so time was of the essence. And that meant that I had very little time to find Darling’s cousin and get him back here. I hoped my horse was fast.
We had our assignments, though I was pretty much on light duty preparing food for the others. I wondered if Darling planned it that way, knowing I was about to leave. She looked like a little old lady, but she knew a lot. Or something.
We were silent for half a minute, each of us thinking. I was wondering if I would find the town of Joy. I figured some of the others were steeling themselves for a showdown.
“Let’s go over the plan again,” said Mr. Dawkins.
***
After the meeting the Underground members turned in for their rooms in the rambling farm house. It would be easier for them to leave once the dawn broke. Instead of heading to bed I went to the stable. My horse turned to look at me and without worrying about it I pet his muzzle. He gave me a satisfied huff.
“I thought I’d find you here.” I turned around to see Lucas walking toward me.
“You thinking of running off?”
“No, why?”
“Because that pack is bursting at the seams, like for a trip.”
“You are one astute gentleman. Please don’t tell anyone.”
He stepped closer to me and stood up straight and I was annoyed that he was so much taller than me. I’m tired of being a short guy…oh, wait.
“You have so many secrets, Jac. You should share some of them. I want to know what is going on with you.”
He was close enough to me that I could sense his body heat, smell him. I felt dizzy, but not in an epilepsy way.
“I’m afraid, Lucas, if I tell you everything, that you won’t like me anymore.”
There. I said it. What would he do with it?
“Jacqueline, if you tell me the truth, I will probably like you even more.”
“Okay. Here goes.” I took a deep breath.
And kissed him. His lips were soft, although having never kissed anybody but my mother on the lips, I guess I didn’t really know what to expect. He inhaled sharply because I’d surprised him, so his mouth opened, and then mine did, too, and I could taste him, sweet and earthy. I started to fall over, but he caught me and pulled me up against him. I wanted to fall into the kiss even more. A strange ache filled me, like I wanted to pass through his body. Finally we came up for air.
“You are even more beautiful when you are one inch away,” he said, and he seemed shy all of a sudden. “But I notice you’re not talking if you’re kissing me.”
“Good point. How about one more kiss and then we can talk?”
He obliged me. I wanted so much more from him. I pushed myself away.
“Lucas, I am from another time.”
“You�
��re, what? I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“I’m really Jackson Inman, and I’m from Ohio, and I was in a hospital in 1980, and then I was here when you fell out of the tree. And I bounce back and forth between then and now but I don’t know how or why or what it means or what I’m supposed to do about it.”
“Jacqueline, stop. Why are you doing this to me?”
“I’m not doing anything—”
“Stop it! First you kiss me like a, like a woman of the night, and then you give me this nonsense story? You are too cruel.”
“No, Lucas, it’s true! I told you it was hard to believe. But it’s true.”
“You are impossible.” He turned and started to walk away.
“Wait—”
I grabbed his arm, and he yanked himself out of my grip.
“Don’t lay your hands on me. You embarrass yourself. I’m going to bed.”
He walked away and I cried as I watched him. I pet the horse’s head.
“I’ll see you in a couple of hours,” I told the horse. I wiped my eyes and trudged into the house, glad that everyone else had turned in already. This has to be real or I am a total jerk even to myself. I was so exhausted it was easy to fall asleep.
***
I don’t know how long I’d been conked out for before the shouting woke me, but I heard Lucas’s voice first, followed by loud thumping as he and Mr. Van Doren pounded open people’s bedroom doors.
The house was on fire.
Running out to the upstairs hallway, I saw smoke billowing up the stairwell from the first floor, flames licking along the banister. Darling and Lucas had already wet some towels from a basin in the upstairs vanity, and were holding them over their mouths. I couldn’t see where any of the others were. Darling handed me a wet hand towel and I held it over my face.
“Where is everyone else?” I shouted to Lucas. I hadn’t realized fires were so loud. From downstairs wood popped and snapped, and the dull roar of the blaze grew louder, as if it had a way of turning up a stereo knob.
Where were the others? Maybe they’d gotten out already and it was just the three of us left up here.
Curling around the corner of the wall at the bottom of the stairs, the flames told me our time was short. The smell of burning fabric and wood hit me in a wave of heat. Timbers began snapping under us.
“I don’t know where they are,” he said. Darling took hold of us and pushed us into her bedroom. For the moment we could breathe, but we’d also backed into a corner.
Crashing sounds from below as part of the second floor collapsed into the first. I didn’t need to see it to imagine what those rooms looked like now. I looked out the window to the back yard and fields behind us, and saw that the stables were also fully engulfed. Those poor animals. It could only be Dr. Traver, trying to stop us from turning him in to the authorities. Darling dug in the small closet, pushing aside a crate of winter clothing.
“Help me,” she said, and I took two steps to reach her. On the floor was a crude metal fire escape ladder, bundled up in a roll.
“I peeked in the closet last month,” she said. “I just remembered this was here.”
Lucas had shut the bedroom door to keep the fire out, and he crossed the room to open the window. I hauled the ladder over, setting the grips on the sill and letting it unwind against the side of the house. Smoke poured out from the dining room window below us, but this was our only option.
“Darling, get out of here,” said Lucas, in a low, commanding tone I’d never heard from him before. She nodded, and scrabbled down the metal rungs.
“You next,” he said to me.
“No, you go. Don’t argue with me.”
He stood close to me, and put his hand on my collarbone. I felt the fire under his skin as he pushed me toward the window, and in my field of vision, I could see the smoke forcing its way under the door.
“You’re the one on crutches,” I said.
“You’re the only one who ever notices,” he said, and he kissed me on the cheek. I cannot be wanting to kiss him right now, what the eff, I told myself.
“I’ll be right behind you,” he promised.
I went down the ladder as quickly as I could, jumping to the ground when I had five feet left, because the ladder wasn’t long enough. My relief at reaching dirt ended as soon as it had begun, because when I looked up, I saw her. Mother, about to be overtaken by the fire, staring out into the darkness from her bedroom window looking resolved. Resigned. Something. A fireball exploded from the kitchen, raining down glass and wood splinters onto us, which I tried to avoid by covering myself with my arms. And then Mother was gone.
CHAPTER NINE
I WOKE, FEELING A HEAVY BLANKET over me that reeked of flowers. Detergent. I fumbled on my nightstand for the matches I’d left there and instead my fingers found Object Too Large for Matches. As my eyes adjusted to the dark I saw glowing red numbers: 5:35. I was home, like home home, in my bed. I still smelled the burning farmhouse in my nostrils. My mind retraced my last steps—chased by Prophet Traver’s henchmen, fleeing with the Underground to the farmhouse, plotting against him, running from the intense fire and Mother looking down at me like a ghost from her bedroom window. Mother. My mother. My mother was in the next room, with my Dad. I was Jack. Jack, I was me again. I put my hands on my chest, feeling skin that could only be described as dry, covering ugh, budding chest hair? I bolted out of bed.
I stood in front of the mirror that my father had glued to my closet door. Fumbling for the light switch I clicked it on and looked at myself. A stupid thought about the convenience of electric lights crossed my mind before I took in my image. I wore only a pair of pajama pants. I was older, more mature, with some pointy stubble at my chin. My biceps curved away from what had once been scrawny arms and my Adam’s apple bulged out from my neck. The room smelled like too many substances at once—plastic, vinyl, deodorant—all of them were noxious to me, almost as toxic smelling as the smoke from the house fire. I wanted to breathe in the fresh air from Jacqueline and Lucas’s time and flush all of the junk out of my system.
Without realizing it I sat down on the corner of the bed. Lucas. Jacqueline’s mother, Mr. Van Doren. What had happened to them? None of it had been a hallucination. Those people were real. Was I real then, or now?
I scanned the room again. It was mostly the same as I’d left it, but there was a The Who poster in the corner that shouldn’t have been there, and a small television on my desk I didn’t have before I left. This time around I wasn’t moaning in some hospital bed, stuck in a coma. I was me later in my life. What had I been doing? What year was it?
Oh my God, Lucas. Did he make it out of the house? Mother, looking like she was already a ghost. No. No no no no. What was I supposed to do now? I need to go back and help them. I sat down on the floor, staring at my room and trying to put all of it together. My knees were folded up against my chest, my very different-than-Jacqueline’s chest.
I hate landing into bodies like this, I thought. Even mine. And there were weird things in my room. I found an essay on US history I’d written and learned there was a new President I’d never heard of before. A copy of Rolling Stone. An album from Queen I couldn’t remember owning. Those people in Marion had been through a nightmare. As have I. I was going to help them bring down Dr. Traver and now I’m here. And selfishly all I want to do is kiss Lucas again.
I had wanted to come back here. I’d missed my family, and Sanjay, and Jeannine, my own time. I’d cried myself to sleep knowing even Jeannine didn’t really believe I had gone to and come back from another time. Seeing myself in the mirror now should have made me relieved, but instead another emotion was tugging at me. I needed to undo the tragedy I’d seen. I had to make things right for Lucas, for them, for me.
I tiptoed downstairs, the once-familiar shag carpet tickling my feet, then walked into the kitchen. King saw me from his curled up position in the corner and lumbered up to me, wagging his tail and seeming like a slower vers
ion of himself.
“Hey buddy, how are you?” I asked him, petting him between his haunches where he liked it best. He sniffed me, inspecting me, and then moved in for the full slobber. I gave him a vigorous pet on his chest, his favorite spot.
I checked out the kitchen. New, white appliances greeted me. The black and silver wallpaper had been torn down, replaced with cheery bright yellow paint and white trim. Ivory linoleum with small, light pink diamonds lined the floor; the room looked like Easter had thrown up in here. In the middle of the room, I stared at the appliances, trying to recollect what each of them did.
“Hey, Jack,” said my father, walking in from the garage. He wiped his greasy hands on a work towel. I did a quick comparison and saw that my hands were almost as large as his.
“Hi, Dad,” I said, and clutched at my throat. My voice was a full octave lower than it had been.
“Sore throat? Don’t give it to me!” He poured a mug of coffee from the black coffeemaker, which declared itself Mr. Coffee. Maybe all kitchen appliances had names for themselves.
“I’ll try not to,” I said, massaging my neck, trying to make like I had a crick. Perhaps if I whispered I wouldn’t have to listen to myself as much.
“You’re sure up early,” he said, stirring something marked Half and Half into his cup. Half what and half what, I wasn’t sure.
“School doesn’t start for another ninety minutes.”
“You know,” I said, as casually as I could, “I kind of can’t remember what day it is. Is it Thursday?”
He laughed and turned to face me. He’d grown a little at his waist, but he seemed as strong as ever, and he still wore the same cologne he’d used my whole life. English Leather. And holy shit, I was taller than him now. This was too weird.
“I wish it were, Jack. It’s only Tuesday. Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
“I’ll try not to, Dad.” That awful voice again.
I could smell the house in flames, and hear Mr. Dawkins’s screaming to get everyone out of the house. I didn’t know if any of them other than Darling had made it. My stomach turned itself over inside me. Lucas.
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