The Sign of Seven Trilogy

by Nora Roberts

  Gage looked at the knife, then into Cal’s face. “Blood brothers.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Cool.” Already committed, Fox held out his hand.

  “At midnight,” Cal said. “We should do it at midnight, and we should have some words to say.”

  “We’ll swear an oath,” Gage said. “That we mix our blood, um, three into one? Something like that. In loyalty.”

  “That’s good. Write it down, Cal.”

  Cal dug pencil and paper out of his pack. “We’ll write words down, and say them together. Then we’ll do the cut and put our wrists together. I’ve got Band-Aids for after if we need them.”

  Cal wrote the words with his Number Two pencil on the blue lined paper, crossing out when they changed their minds.

  Fox added more wood to the fire so that the flames crackled as they stood by the Pagan Stone.

  At moments to midnight, they stood, three young boys with faces lit by fire and starlight. At Gage’s nod, they spoke together in voices solemn and achingly young.

  “We were born ten years ago, on the same night, at the same time, in the same year. We are brothers. At the Pagan Stone we swear an oath of loyalty and truth and brotherhood. We mix our blood.”

  Cal sucked in a breath and geared up the courage to run the knife across his wrist first. “Ouch.”

  “We mix our blood.” Fox gritted his teeth as Cal cut his wrist.

  “We mix our blood.” And Gage stood unflinching as the knife drew over his flesh.

  “Three into one, and one for the three.”

  Cal held his arm out. Fox, then Gage pressed their scored wrists down to his. “Brothers in spirit, in mind. Brothers in blood for all time.”

  As they stood, clouds shivered over the fat moon, misted over the bright stars. Their mixed blood dripped and fell onto the burnt ground.

  The wind exploded with a voice like a raging scream. The little campfire spewed up flame in a spearing tower. The three of them were lifted off their feet as if a hand gripped them, tossed them. Light burst as if the stars had shattered.

  As he opened his mouth to shout, Cal felt something shove inside him, hot and strong, to smother his lungs, to squeeze his heart in a stunning agony of pain.

  The light shut off. In the thick dark blew an icy cold that numbed his skin. The sound the wind made now was like an animal, like a monster that only lived inside books. Beneath him the ground shook, heaving him back as he tried to crawl away.

  And something came out of that icy dark, out of that quaking ground. Something huge and horrible.

  Eyes bloodred and full of…hunger. It looked at him. And when it smiled, its teeth glittered like silver swords.

  He thought he died, and that it took him in, in one gulp.

  But when he came to himself again, he could hear his own heart. He could hear the shouts and calls of his friends.

  Blood brothers.

  “Jesus, Jesus, what was that? Did you see?” Fox called out in a voice thin as a reed. “Gage, God, your nose is bleeding.”

  “So’s yours. Something…Cal. God, Cal.”

  Cal lay where he was, flat on his back. He felt the wet warmth of blood on his face. He was too numb to be frightened by it. “I can’t see.” He croaked out a weak whisper. “I can’t see.”

  “Your glasses are broken.” Face filthy with soot and blood, Fox crawled to him. “One of the lenses is cracked. Dude, your mom’s going to kill you.”

  “Broken.” Shaking, Cal reached up to pull off his glasses.

  “Something. Something was here.” Gage gripped Cal’s shoulder. “I felt something happen, after everything went crazy, I felt something happen inside me. Then…did you see it? Did you see that thing?”

  “I saw its eyes,” Fox said, and his teeth chattered. “We need to get out of here. We need to get out.”

  “Where?” Gage demanded. Though his breath still wheezed, he grabbed Cal’s knife from the ground, gripped it. “We don’t know where it went. Was it some kind of bear? Was it—”

  “It wasn’t a bear.” Cal spoke calmly now. “It was what’s been here, in this place, a long time. I can see…I can see it. It looked like a man once, when it wanted. But it wasn’t.”

  “Man, you hit your head.”

  Cal turned his eyes on Fox, and the irises were nearly black. “I can see it, and the other.” He opened the hand of the wrist he’d cut. In the palm was a chunk of a green stone spotted with red. “His.”

  Fox opened his hand, and Gage his. In each was an identical third of the stone. “What is it?” Gage whispered. “Where the hell did it come from?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s ours now. Uh, one into three, three into one. I think we let something out. And something came with it. Something bad. I can see.”

  He closed his eyes a moment, then opened them to look at his friends. “I can see, but not with my glasses. I can see without them. It’s not blurry. I can see without my glasses.”

  “Wait.” Trembling, Gage pulled up his shirt, turned his back.

  “Man, they’re gone.” Fox reached out to touch his fingers to Gage’s unmarred back. “The welts. They’re gone. And…” He held out his wrist where the shallow cut was already healing. “Holy cow, are we like superheroes now?”

  “It’s a demon,” Cal said. “And we let it out.”

  “Shit.” Gage stared off into the dark woods. “Happy goddamn birthday to us.”

  Three

  Hawkins Hollow

  February 2008

  IT WAS COLDER IN HAWKINS HOLLOW, MARYLAND, than it was in Juno, Alaska. Cal liked to know little bits like that, even though at the moment he was in the Hollow where the damp, cold wind blew like a mother and froze his eyeballs.

  His eyeballs were about the only things exposed as he zipped across Main Street from Coffee Talk, with a to-go cup of mochaccino in one gloved hand, to the Bowl-a-Rama.

  Three days a week, he tried for a counter breakfast at Ma’s Pantry a couple doors down, and at least once a week he hit Gino’s for dinner.

  His father believed in supporting the community, the other merchants. Now that his dad was semiretired and Cal oversaw most of the businesses, he tried to follow that Hawkins tradition.

  He shopped the local market even though the chain supermarket a couple miles outside town was cheaper. If he wanted to send a woman flowers, he resisted doing so with a couple of clicks on his computer and hauled himself down to the Flower Pot.

  He had relationships with the local plumber, electrician, painter, the area craftsmen. Whenever possible, he hired for the town from the town.

  Except for his years away at college, he’d always lived in the Hollow. It was his place.

  Every seven years since his tenth birthday, he lived through the nightmare that visited his place. And every seven years, he helped clean up the aftermath.

  He unlocked the front door of the Bowl-a-Rama, relocked it behind him. People tended to walk right in, whatever the posted hours, if the door wasn’t locked.

  He’d once been a little more casual about that, until one fine night while he’d been enjoying some after-hours Strip Bowling with Allysa Kramer, three teenage boys had wandered in, hoping the video arcade was still open.

  Lesson learned.

  He walked by the front desk, the six lanes and ball returns, the shoe rental counter and the grill, turned and jogged up the stairs to the squat second floor that held his (or his father’s if his father was in the mood) office, a closet-sized john, and a mammoth storage area.

  He set the coffee on the desk, stripped off gloves, scarf, watch cap, coat, insulated vest.

  He booted up his computer, put on the satellite radio, then sat down to fuel up on caffeine and get to work.

  The bowling center Cal’s grandfather had opened in the postwar forties had been a tiny, three-lane gathering spot with a couple of pinball machines and counter Cokes. It expanded in the sixties, and again, when Cal’s father took the reins, in the early eighties.
r />   Now, with its six lanes, its video arcade, and its private party room, it was the place to gather in the Hollow.

  Credit to Grandpa, Cal thought as he looked over the party reservations for the next month. But the biggest chunk of credit went to Cal’s father, who’d morphed the lanes into a family center, and had used its success to dip into other areas of business.

  The town bears our name, Jim Hawkins liked to say. Respect the name, respect the town.

  Cal did both. He’d have left long ago otherwise.

  An hour into the work, Cal glanced up at the rap on his doorjamb.

  “Sorry, Cal. Just wanted you to know I was here. Thought I’d go ahead and get that painting done in the rest rooms since you’re not open this morning.”

  “Okay, Bill. Got everything you need?”

  “Sure do.” Bill Turner, five years, two months, and six days sober, cleared his throat. “Wonder if maybe you’d heard anything from Gage.”

  “Not in a couple months now.”

  Tender area, Cal thought when Bill just nodded. Boggy ground.

  “I’ll just get started then.”

  Cal watched as Bill moved away from the doorway. Nothing he could do about it, he told himself. Nothing he was sure he should do.

  Did five years clean and sober make up for all those whacks with a belt, for all those shoves and slaps, all those curses? It wasn’t for him to judge.

  He glanced down at the thin scar that ran diagonally across his wrist. Odd how quickly that small wound had healed, and yet the mark of it remained—the only scar he carried. Odd how so small a thing had catapulted the town and people he knew into seven days of hell every seven years.

  Would Gage come back this summer, as he had every seventh year? Cal couldn’t see ahead, that wasn’t his gift or his burden. But he knew when he, Gage, and Fox turned thirty-one, they would all be together in the Hollow.

  They’d sworn an oath.

  He finished up the morning’s work, and because he couldn’t get his mind off it, composed a quick e-mail to Gage.

  Hey. Where the hell are you? Vegas? Mozambique? Duluth? Heading out to see Fox. There’s a writer coming into the Hollow to do research on the history, the legend, and what they’re calling the anomalies. Probably got it handled, but thought you should know.

  It’s twenty-two degrees with a windchill factor of fifteen. Wish you were here and I wasn’t.

  Cal

  He’d answer eventually, Cal thought as he sent the e-mail, then shut down the computer. Could be in five minutes or in five weeks, but Gage would answer.

  He began to layer on the outer gear again over a long and lanky frame passed down by his father. He’d gotten his outsized feet from dear old Dad, too.

  The dark blond hair that tended to go as it chose was from his mother. He knew that only due to early photos of her, as she’d been a soft, sunny blonde, perfectly groomed, throughout his memory.

  His eyes, a sharp, occasionally stormy gray, had been twenty-twenty since his tenth birthday.

  Even as he zipped up his parka to head outside, he thought that the coat was for comfort only. He hadn’t had so much as a sniffle in over twenty years. No flu, no virus, no hay fever.

  He’d fallen out of an apple tree when he’d been twelve. He’d heard the bone in his arm snap, had felt the breathless pain.

  And he’d felt it knit together again—with more pain—before he’d made it across the lawn to the house to tell his mother.

  So he’d never told her, he thought as he stepped outside into the ugly slap of cold. Why upset her?

  He covered the three blocks to Fox’s office quickly, shooting out waves or calling back greetings to neighbors and friends. But he didn’t stop for conversation. He might not get pneumonia or postnasal drip, but he was freaking tired of winter.

  Gray, ice-crusted snow lay in a dirty ribbon along the curbs, and above, the sky mirrored the brooding color. Some of the houses or businesses had hearts and Valentine wreaths on doors and windows, but they didn’t add a lot of cheer with the bare trees and winter-stripped gardens.

  The Hollow didn’t show to advantage, to Cal’s way of thinking, in February.

  He walked up the short steps to the little covered porch of the old stone townhouse. The plaque beside the door read: FOX B. O’DELL, ATTORNEY AT LAW.

  It was something that always gave Cal a quick jolt and a quick flash of amusement. Even after nearly six years, he couldn’t quite get used to it.

  The long-haired hippie freak was a goddamn lawyer.

  He stepped into the tidy reception area, and there was Alice Hawbaker at the desk. Trim, tidy in her navy suit with its bowed white blouse, her snowcap of hair and no-nonsense bifocals, Mrs. Hawbaker ran the office like a Border collie ran a herd.

  She looked sweet and pretty, and she’d bite your ankle if you didn’t fall in line.

  “Hey, Mrs. Hawbaker. Boy, it is cold out there. Looks like we might get some more snow.” He unwrapped his scarf. “Hope you and Mr. Hawbaker are keeping warm.”

  “Warm enough.”

  He heard something in her voice that had him looking more closely as he pulled off his gloves. When he realized she’d been crying he instinctively stepped to the desk. “Is everything okay? Is—”

  “Everything’s fine. Just fine. Fox is between appointments. He’s in there sulking, so you go right on back.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Mrs. Hawbaker, if there’s anything—”

  “Just go right on back,” she repeated, then made herself busy with her keyboard.

  Beyond the reception area a hallway held a powder room on one side and a library on the other. Straight back, Fox’s office was closed off by a pair of pocket doors. Cal didn’t bother to knock.

  Fox looked up when the doors slid open. He did appear to be sulking as his gilded eyes were broody and his mouth was in full scowl.

  He sat behind his desk, his feet, clad in hiking boots, propped on it. He wore jeans and a flannel shirt open over a white insulated tee. His hair, densely brown, waved around his sharp-featured face.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’ll tell you what’s going on. My administrative assistant just gave me her notice.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Me?” Fox shoved back from the desk and opened the minifridge for a can of Coke. He’d never developed a taste for coffee. “Try we, brother. We camped out at the Pagan Stone one fateful night, and screwed the monkey.”

  Cal dropped into a chair. “She’s quitting because—”

  “Not just quitting. They’re leaving the Hollow, she and Mr. Hawbaker. And yeah, because.” He took a long, greedy drink the way some men might take a pull on a bottle of whiskey. “That’s not the reason she gave me, but that’s the reason. She said they decided to move to Minneapolis to be close to their daughter and grandchildren, and that’s bogus. Why does a woman heading toward seventy, married to a guy older than dirt, pick up and move north? They’ve got another kid lives outside of D.C., and they’ve got strong ties here. I could tell it was bull.”

  “Because of what she said, or because you took a cruise through her head?”

  “First the one, then the other. Don’t start on me.” Fox gestured with the Coke, then slammed it down on his desk. “I don’t poke around for the fun of it. Son of a bitch.”

  “Maybe they’ll change their minds.”

  “They don’t want to go, but they’re afraid to stay. They’re afraid it’ll happen again—which I could tell her it will—and they just don’t want to go through it again. I offered her a raise—like I could afford it—offered her the whole month of July off, letting her know that I knew what was at the bottom of it. But they’re going. She’ll give me until April first. April frickin’ Fools,” he ranted. “To find somebody else, for her to show them the ropes. I don’t know where the damn ropes are, Cal. I don’t know half the stuff she does. She just does it. Anyway.”

  “You’ve got until April, maybe we’ll think of some
thing.”

  “We haven’t thought of the solution to this in twenty years plus.”

  “I meant your office problem. But yeah, I’ve been thinking a lot about the other.” Rising, he walked to Fox’s window, looked out on the quiet side street. “We’ve got to end it. This time we’ve got to end it. Maybe talking to this writer will help. Laying it out to someone objective, someone not involved.”

  “Asking for trouble.”

  “Maybe it is, but trouble’s coming anyway. Five months to go. We’re supposed to meet her at the house.” Cal glanced at his watch. “Forty minutes.”

  “We?” Fox looked blank for a moment. “That’s today? See, see, I didn’t tell Mrs. H, so it didn’t get written down somewhere. I’ve got a deposition in an hour.”

  “Why don’t you use your damn BlackBerry?”

  “Because it doesn’t follow my simple Earth logic. Reschedule the writer. I’m clear after four.”

  “It’s okay, I can handle it. If she wants more, I’ll see about setting up a dinner, so keep tonight open.”

  “Be careful what you say.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m going to. But I’ve been thinking. We’ve been careful about that for a long time. Maybe it’s time to be a little reckless.”

  “You sound like Gage.”

  “Fox…I’ve already started having the dreams again.”

  Fox blew out a breath. “I was hoping that was just me.”

  “When we were seventeen they started about a week before our birthday, then when we were twenty-four, over a month. Now, five months out. Every time it gets stronger. I’m afraid if we don’t find the way, this time could be the last for us, and the town.”

  “Have you talked to Gage?”

  “I just e-mailed him. I didn’t tell him about the dreams. You do it. Find out if he’s having them, too, wherever the hell he is. Get him home, Fox. I think we need him back. I don’t think we can wait until summer this time. I gotta go.”

  “Watch your step with the writer,” Fox called out as Cal started for the door. “Get more than you give.”

  “I can handle it,” Cal repeated.