"Well, she did, actually." Reginald shrugged. "Just didn't wait for the Council to make it official."
"Uh huh. That's what I thought. On your advice, I'm sure."
"Of course." For a moment, they shared crooked grins. Demetrius' smile faded first and Reginald sighed, reaching out to grasp his arm for a moment. "Out with it, old friend."
"Reggie, what good does it do, all our hard work, organizing the children, finding the orphans and homeless and teaching them to value the things that make them different? What if everyone is like Jane, taken for granted and criticized and taken advantage of, until she's sick and demoralized?
"What if everyone decided to quit their posts, just because they feel underutilized and unappreciated?
"For the sake of secrecy and protecting our lives, we don't send anyone to the big metropolises, where they'd be kept so busy, twenty-four hours a day, and yet no one would notice. How long can our students continue toiling away in drudgery with idiots who don't know how good they have it, who complain about the temperature of their hamburgers as if the world is about to end, when there are others in the world who are lucky to have one meal a day, and yet are happy? What if they all decide to give up? Just walk away? Haven't we failed if we fail in the small areas?"
"You haven't failed, old man." Reginald leaned forward to pat Demetrius on his bald spot. "Let me tell you what we talked about. If Janie comes through like I think she will, this could change everything for all of us. For the better."
* * * *
"That ingrate!" Mrs. Higgs shrieked, almost on the threshold of Lazy Days Spa.
Rufus and Junior burst out in cackles and hiccups and gulping laughter. Jane winced at the blare of sound, but consoled herself that if the two old coots were laughing, they weren't spitting. She glanced at her calendar. Twenty-nine days and counting until she put the closing sign in the window. She wondered if she could arrange for them to take a long vacation, until someone agreed to sign the lease. Even if she wanted to shake the dust of Fendersburg off her feet, that didn't mean she wanted to leave her landlord in the lurch. Arabella Jones was a nice old lady, even when she dressed in leather and studs on the weekends and went to Harley rallies.
"What's wrong?" Jane hurried forward to catch Mrs. Higgs as she staggered into the shop.
"Did you read the paper?"
"A little." The letter to the editor section was the only one Jane had looked at. She wanted to make sure the Trumpet had printed her letter in its entirety, and had already been braced to make a return trip to the editorial offices to reinforce her wishes. To her surprise and delight, the editor hadn't changed a thing, and even put in a little piece about how the letter was delivered. Maybe someone in Fendersburg was taking the Ghost seriously for a change.
Too little, too late.
"What is wrong with that man?" the woman wailed, and sank down on the bench strategically placed in front of the display case with the latest shades of makeup, and the newest wonder-working clarifiers and vanishing creams.
"What man?" Jane bit her lip to keep from grinning.
"The Ghost, of course. Who does he think he is, leaving this town? After all he owes us!"
"What does the Ghost owe us? Has anyone paid him for stopping fires and catching bank robbers and pulling children and cats out of trees?"
"No, but he—"
"What has anyone ever done for him?"
"Why, we..." Mrs. Higgs' angry flush faded into a thoughtful frown. "But we were talking about...no, we didn't do that, either. Surely somebody gave him...and then the mayor...no, I don't remember that being done, either."
"Has anyone ever said thank you?" Jane asked, keeping her voice soft to fight down the angry trembling that still filled her at times and threatened to choke her.
It had taken nearly all day Sunday to write her letter, and she had gone through a long, frustrating list of all the things she had done for Fendersburg without a word of appreciation. The bruises and cuts and burns, the kicks and slaps from nasty brats who didn't want to be rescued. The scratches from cats, the stink of drunks who had puked on her shoes, the smell of smoke and spilled oil and a thousand other unpleasant memories and sensations. In the end, she had ripped up the list instead of including it with the letter. Besides knowing that including the list would double the size of the newspaper if the editor actually printed it, she felt like a whiny brat the more she looked at the list.
"Why should we thank him?" Mrs. Higgs said, but her voice wavered and she didn't sound half as indignant as Jane knew she could. "He's only doing his job, isn't he?"
"Who hired him?" She brought up the fake smile she had learned to wear for her customers when she thought they were vain and ridiculous, but she had to be nice for the sake of her business.
"That's true. Nobody asked him to come here. Let him leave. Good riddance." She started to get up, but her attention snagged on the display of sable cosmetic brushes and the pearl-toned eye shadow in six new shades. Avarice made her eyes gleam and she reached for the nearest box. Jane sighed and heard the cash register ring. One disaster averted. Maybe.
Otis sauntered into the spa half an hour later, just as Mrs. Higgs took her receipt and scurried out with eighty dollars' worth of war paint clutched to her chest.
Jane looked at him and gave him her first genuine smile in nearly three years. Just a little longer, and she would never have to look at him again. Unfortunately, Otis took it as welcome rather than relief. His obnoxious grin widened and his swagger threatened to broadside a semi-truck.
"Hey, there, Janie babe." He leaned his sweaty arms on the glass top of the display case and breathed beer breath in her face. "What's the good news?"
"Did you hear what the Ghost did?" She fluttered her eyelashes at him, getting an instant image of how she could get back some of her own without any effort. If she was lucky, Otis would do it to himself.
"Hear?" He smirked and stood up straight, pulling his shoulders back and thrusting his chest out. Fortunately, he was still in good enough shape not to need to step back to keep his belly from rubbing against the display case. "Honey, I was there."
"Really? What are your plans?"
"Plans?" His smile shortened a notch. "For what?"
"Leaving town. Rufus," she called, pitching her voice and adding a little Ghost oomph to change the acoustics in the shop so everyone out on the sidewalk and across the street could hear. "Isn't the Ghost leaving town? Otis has been hinting for years that he's the Ghost, so, he's leaving town. Right?" She batted her eyelashes at him again.
"So, what's the scoop, Otis?" Rufus said. He leaned against the doorframe but didn't come into the spa. "Why're you leaving town?"
"I'm not leaving town!" Otis staggered back two steps, his head turning, looking back and forth between Jane and Rufus so fast, she thought it might just snap off.
That'd be an improvement.
"So... You're just gonna hang around and watch everybody suffer," Junior drawled as he scooted around to look through the door. "Just sit back and laugh at us poor helpless folk, because you're too high and mighty to help. Kind of makes a fella wonder how you and your daddy made your big bucks in the first place. Y'know?" He actually levered himself to his feet and leaned against the opposite side of the door from Rufus, then turned his head aside to spit with a loud, black-green splat.
"I wouldn't— I didn't—"
"It's right here in the paper. Ghost is retiring." Rufus waved the folded paper at Otis.
"Whoever said that is lying!" He snatched it and unfolded it with shaking hands. His face went from embarrassed red to panicked white to angry red to terrified white in the time it took to read the letter. Jane noticed his gaze tracked back to the opening, italicized paragraph three times.
"Somebody is lying," she said. It took all her self-control not to gloat, not to let years of frustration and disgust creep into her voice and face. "If you didn't deliver that letter to the editor, who did?"
"I didn't— I never said�
��" Otis dropped the paper and staggered toward the door. Rufus and Junior blocked it.
"Are you the Ghost, Otis?" She smiled as sweetly as she could manage and tipped her head to the side, trying to look about fifteen years younger and innocent rather than vacuous. "Please, honey, tell me it's true." She reached out and stroked her fingertips down his bared, sweating arm. His skin felt greasy, and the muscles twitched as if he'd just been zapped with about a thousand volts. "I just adore the Ghost," she added on a whisper, and sidled up next to him. Another step would have them sharing the same space.
As the Ghost, she could do that, but Otis would totally lose his mind and she would have destroyed all the years of work hiding her identity—and ruin her plans to get out of town without anyone catching on at the last moment. Jane depended on Otis' basic sense of self-preservation and terror winning out over ego and lust.
"I ain't the Ghost!" he blurted, and staggered backward. He clutched at the doorway and misjudged. Rufus and Junior leaped out of his way with more agility than Jane ever would have credited to the two oldsters. Otis twisted around on one foot and nearly ran into the bench just in front of her bay window. "I'm not the Ghost. I ain't leaving town. You can't make me!"
People on the street stopped to stare. Since it was the lunch hour, Otis had the biggest audience he had ever played before, even in all his years as a sports hero in high school and college. He never noticed. Face pale and sweating, he ran down the street. Jane made a bet with herself that she would never see Otis darken her door again.
Somewhere out there was a man who was exactly what he said he was, no hinting, no mental games, no bragging, no resting on someone else's reputation. No lies. No pretenses. Somewhere out there was an ordinary guy she could be comfortable with, who would let her be herself. Maybe he was the kind of guy who, if he found out about her special talents, about her former secret identity, he would shrug, think about it a minute, then tell her she was beautiful and ask her what she wanted to do Saturday night.
* * * *
Timmy Higgs got stuck in the tree, chasing his balsa wood plane two days after the letter appeared in the paper. He hung there for nearly half an hour before his mother decided the Ghost really wasn't coming, and called for the fire department. Ginny Piper, Fendersburg's fire chief, laughed about it when she came into the spa that afternoon for her weekly therapeutic massage.
"Kind of nice, you know? Using our equipment and training the way we should." She sighed as Jane rubbed deep into her shoulder muscles. "That kid was actually scared, just hanging there, kicking and starting to blubber. And you know what he told me when we got him down to the ground? He said the Ghost was his friend, and he wanted to know what we did to scare him away. The Ghost has too much sense to be friends with that brat. He kicked me in the ankle when I told him not to climb that tree again." She snorted, opened one eye, and turned her head to look up at Jane. "His mother swatted his bottom before she dragged him away. I bet that's the first time that ever happened. For both of them."
"Probably," Jane agreed. Inside the privacy of her head, she wavered between shrieking and laughter. Timmy thought he was her friend? Not for all the tea in China!
The usual bi-monthly diatribe about vigilantes and the need for a full-scale manhunt for the Ghost ran in the Fendersburg Trumpet a week after the Ghost's resignation letter. Instead of the usual demand for intensive psychiatric evaluation for the Ghost, the letter writer, Marijane Hunter, congratulated the Ghost on finally gaining some perspective and a grasp on reality.
Three days later, her house was burglarized, and she wrote a scathing letter to the editor, blaming the entire town for the Ghost's retirement.
Other than Marijane Hunter being robbed, Jane didn't notice a single change in the crime rate in Fendersburg. She suspected—and Mrs. Tarvish agreed—that someone had struck Marijane specifically because of her letter to the editor. For all she knew, people blamed her vitriolic letters for the Ghost leaving.
The accident rate actually went down, now that people no longer took their safety for granted. Jane would have laughed, except she felt an odd little twinge of guilt. Had she encouraged the people to be careless about their own welfare? Maybe it was good for Fendersburg that she was leaving.
It didn't matter. She reminded herself of that firmly every time she heard someone discussing the Ghost and all the reasons for his leaving Fendersburg. She reminded herself of that every time she crossed a day off her hidden countdown calendar.
Chapter Six
At the three-week mark, Jane took off Saturday night after closing up the spa and headed for Neighborlee. She walked around all day on Sunday, glorying in the quiet, the fall sunshine, the people who smiled at a total stranger and offered advice on where to get the best burger, the best bed & breakfast, and were delighted to tell her how to find apartments for rent and shop space that would come open soon. People were especially friendly, downright pleased and welcoming, when she mentioned that Angela had recommended she look at the Spindelmutter building. From there, people seemed to go out of their way to help her. First, finding the building. It was perfect. A huge picture window and a recessed doorway, old brick, in the middle of the business district, in a long row of quaint, fifties-style buildings.
Four simple phone calls, to a realtor who bent over backwards to help, answered all Jane's questions. She wouldn't be able to take over the building right away. The county building inspector had found major foundation damage that needed to be repaired. The owner was in the middle of gathering estimates and determining what he wanted to do, how extensive he wanted to make the repairs. When the realtor told him that Angela at Divine's Emporium had recommended the location to Jane, the owner declared that of course the repairs to the building wouldn't impact the price at all. He would even sign a paper locking in his asking price before he found out the cost of repairs, and guaranteeing Jane would have first refusal after the renovations had been made. He also offered to throw in a powerwash to freshen up the outside of the building. Fifty years of grime had collected in the brick facing, and he couldn't in all good conscience turn over a grimy building.
"Definitely weird," Katie agreed, when Jane reported on the results of her first foray into resettling to Neighborlee. "But nice."
"It's kind of like what Reggie told me. The place is alive and reaches out to welcome you, if you're wanted, if you've found your place."
"This is your place, then?"
"We'll see. I haven't moved there yet."
For a while, Jane doubted she would be able to move. Reggie and Demetrius called to find out how she was doing, what her plans were, and regular reports on the reactions of the people in Fendersburg. As the weeks crawled by and fall turned into winter, the people wavered slowly back and forth in their reactions. Glad the Ghost was gone, because it meant he wasn't interfering with their lives. Glad the Ghost was letting them grow up and think for themselves. Suddenly, the Ghost's presence, taken for granted, expected to show up and support every little event and prevent every minor catastrophe, and even read the minds of those who came from outside the town to commit crimes was seen as interference with the rights and freedoms of the people of Fendersburg. Then something would happen—someone would make a mistake, cause an accident, take a stupid risk, essentially thumb their nose at the warnings of people who had more common sense—and suddenly everyone was furious with the Ghost for leaving them alone, shirking his duty, and most of them were racing to blame someone for driving the Ghost away.
There was always someone who spoke with an almost homesick fondness for the days when the Ghost was there, showing up within a few seconds of a call for help or the sound of squealing brakes. Girls who had never been within a hundred yards of the Ghost talked about the sound of his voice, the touch of his hand, feeling his arm around them as he carried them away from danger or scolded them for being silly, or praised them for trying to help someone in trouble. Jane wondered how many times she could hear such outright lies in her shop, suc
h hero worship and admiration from airheads, before she became physically ill. As time went on, the worst of the airhead liars got into fights with each other over who the Ghost would have dated and eventually married.
She found some amusement in the torments Otis went through, when several people held onto the broad hints that he had spread through the years that he was the Ghost. The girls who wanted him to prove his secret identity, the people who wanted to fasten lawsuits on him and make him pay for damage to their shops that he, as the Ghost, hadn't prevented.
Her teachers found some amusement at the vagaries and stupidity of the people of Fendersburg, and she was pleased and touched that they were concerned about her feelings, her plans, her progress in getting out of Fendersburg. Jane hadn't told them about her not-quite-official lease to take over the building in Neighborlee. She was afraid to say anything, in case she jinxed herself and her plans. Look what had happened after telling Katie she was going to live in Neighborlee. Everything had slowed down with the process of finding someone to repair the building to come up to code. When the landlord offered to release her from the lease, she had refused. It wasn't like she had a deadline to get out of Fendersburg.
The Council got together, finally, and discussed the things Jane and Reggie had speculated on when she had visited the Sanctum. They agreed that their focus had to shift from finding lost and abandoned and unclaimed children, to finding the next generation, the descendants of the people who had been lost and abandoned but hadn't displayed powers. People who had married others like them and produced children who might just be Gifted, but because they had families and people to protect them, had been able to hide their Gifts.
Other students of the Sanctum were assigned to start doing research. Dig into the records of Neighborlee Children's Home and other facilities that took in the lost children, the ones who had grown up normal, who had been adopted or who had graduated from their foster homes and gone out into the world. Just research. Just finding out what they had done, where they had gone, what they had done with their lives.
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