by Andrew Smith
There were those two calls yesterday morning.
Henry.
Jack calls.
“It’s bad,” I said.
“Where are you, Jack?”
“On a train. Fuck. I don’t know. I’m on a fucking train somewhere.”
I grabbed a piece of paper and wiped the sweat from my face.
Henry inhaled. He was smoking a cigarette. “Did something happen to Griffin and Ben?”
“I don’t know.”
“To you?”
“Something terrible is going to happen, Henry. I need to talk to you. I feel like I’m going to die.”
“In Marbury?”
“No. Here. I feel like I’m going to die or something. And it’s happening to me here. Right now.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I’m coming back to London. I need to talk to you. Tonight. I can be there at eleven,” I said.
“I know where to go.”
“Yeah.”
Conner thinks you’re crazy, Jack.
Freddie Horvath did something.
My hand shook. My stomach knotted. “I need to know one thing.”
“What?”
“Tell me if it’s real. Tell me if you’re real, Henry.”
He didn’t say anything else.
“Henry? I’m sorry I fucked up.”
I closed the phone.
When we got to Harrogate, Rachel said good-bye to me and Nickie. I was relieved when Conner walked her off, away from us. We sat in the lounge of the station and drank coffee, waiting for the next train to Leeds, where we’d catch another one down to King’s Cross.
She covered my hand with hers. “Now, tell me what’s going on, Jack.”
I rubbed a hand across my eyes. I couldn’t talk.
Nickie sat next to me. I felt her arm slide around my waist.
“Jack?”
I shrugged. “We got into a fight.”
She flashed anger for an instant. “Did Conner hit you?”
“That part of it was an accident. It was my fault.”
“What was it about, then?”
“Nothing,” I said. But I could tell she was disappointed by my lame evasion. “Guy stuff. I wish it didn’t happen. I feel like shit.”
She put her hand on my leg. Suddenly, all I could think about was last night, being with her on the floor.
“I know how close you are. You and Conner will work things out.”
“I don’t know.”
“Jack. I can’t help you if you won’t let me.” I thought she sounded angry, frustrated. I couldn’t fault her for it.
“God, Nickie.” I pulled her into me so tightly and kissed her. I nearly tipped the small table over. I’d forgotten all about the cut on my lip until it hurt my mouth, and I recoiled from the pain. But Nickie held my face and kissed me so softly. And Jack howled inside because I could feel my eyes getting wet.
Jack doesn’t cry.
“I’m sorry if that hurt you,” she said, and I saw her blush. “I’ve been waiting for you to kiss me all day.”
“I’ve been waiting for me to do it, too,” I said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I feel like I’m losing my mind or something. All these things that have been happening to me in the last couple of days. I feel lost, Nickie. And it’s scary.”
“Will you promise me something?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Promise me you’ll tell someone about what happened with that doctor. Talk to somebody, Jack. You need to stop letting this thing hurt you.”
“I know.”
“Will you?”
“God, Nickie. I’m such a fucking failure. I bring this shit on myself.” I sipped my coffee, but it wasn’t what I wanted, wiped my mouth, my puffed lip. “I feel bad about what happened last night. I told myself I wasn’t going to do that.”
Nickie looked down. I sensed she was hurt, and I was sure I’d said the wrong thing, that she didn’t understand what I meant.
“I don’t want to fuck up the lives of people who don’t deserve it. And I’ve never fought with Conner over anything before today.” And then I said, “I don’t want to be like Mike Heath.”
“Then don’t be like him,” she said. “Remember, I told you I believed you were all those things you want to be.”
“I’m scared about stuff I don’t understand.”
She said, “You know what I think about last night, Jack? Last night, being with you, was the best night in my life. Ever.”
“All I want is to be with you,” I lied.
You’re a fucking liar, Jack.
The truth was that she was only most of what I wanted. “I really love you, Nickie.”
“You do?” She smiled.
“Yeah.” I looked at my shaking hands. “See what you did? How could I not be in love with you? And I don’t want to screw up your life. I really don’t.”
I put my arm around her shoulders.
Then she kissed me and whispered, “Jack. I love you.”
“But what happens to us next week when I have to go back home? I wish I could stay. I’m coming right back, Nickie. I promise.”
You’re never coming back, Jack.
Not here. Not Marbury.
Ever.
A chair slid out along the floor from the other side of the table. Conner, looking dejected, pissed-off maybe, sat down and sighed.
Nickie straightened herself and patted his hand. “Did Rachel ask you back, Conner?”
She smiled, already knew the answer.
“She wants to meet me in York for a day before Jack and I have to go home.”
“You’ll have a lovely time there,” she said.
“Yeah,” he answered. He looked at me, I could see him at the edge of my vision, but I kept my eyes fixed on my hand and the stained coffee cup vibrating on the table beside it. Conner cleared his throat. “The train to Leeds is sitting there. We can get on it now.”
We stood up to leave, and Conner pulled my shoulder back so I would look at him. “Come on, Jack,” his voice was low, like he didn’t really want Nickie to hear what he was going to tell me. She caught on, and took a few steps away from us.
“I’m really sorry,” he said. “Especially about hurting you. Please tell me that we’re still friends.”
He held his hand out to me.
“Yeah,” I said.
I took his hand, but I felt dead.
And I felt even worse when I had to say good-bye to Nickie in the Tube station at King’s Cross. She promised to meet us for lunch on Monday. Then she headed off to Hampstead, while Conner and I took a very quiet and lonely ride to Great Portland Street.
It was late when we got back into our hotel room, but there were nearly two hours to go before I’d have to leave to meet Henry.
Conner threw his pack down on the floor. I kicked off my shoes and sat on the bed.
“It seems like we’ve been gone a long time,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“You want to get something to eat?”
“I’m tired, Con.”
He tried to joke, “After last night, I bet you are.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Well, you want a beer, then?”
I shrugged. “Okay. Sure.”
Conner brought two bottles over from the refrigerator and handed one to me. He took off his shoes, sat on the bed, and leaned his shoulders against the headboard.
“Are we ever going to be friends again, or what?”
I sighed, a long exhaled breath. “Conner, we’re still friends. I just feel sick about this. It’s, like, hurting me. I can’t explain it. Like I’m lost, and I don’t know whether I’m really here or there.”
“That’s why it’s a good thing I got rid of them, Jack. Listen to me. You are really here.”
I looked at the beer in my hand. When I swallowed some, it felt like there were needles inside it.
Something’s wrong with you, Jack.
“Don’t you
think that other place really exists?”
“No. You need to forget about it.”
“But there’s something I still needed to do. You shouldn’t have fucking done that, Con. Fuck!”
Jack doesn’t cry.
“I said I was sorry.”
“I’ll get over it. I just feel shitty. Weird.” I emptied my beer. “I’ll get over it. I got no choice. What else can I do, anyway? I’m going to sleep.”
I got into bed and Conner turned out the lights.
Jack watched the clock.
Conner must have been awake the whole time, too, because half an hour later, when I got out of bed and started getting dressed, he asked, “What are you doing?”
“Nothing. I need to go outside for a minute.”
“You want me to come?”
“No.”
And as I was on my way out the door, Conner said, “When are you going to give me a fucking break, Jack?”
Forty-Eight
“I lost the fucking glasses.”
I said it as soon as I sat down. He was holding a beer to his mouth and had another full pint waiting on the table for me. He jerked like he’d been punched when he heard me say it.
Henry took a drink. “How?”
“My friend, Conner. He threw them into the sea.” I pushed my untouched beer across to him. “I don’t want this, Henry. I feel sick. I feel really bad.”
Henry shook his head.
“Your friend didn’t look through them, then?”
“He did. But I don’t think he really knows what’s going on. I don’t think he really understood about, you know, us. And them. At least, maybe not until this morning; but that’s when he got rid of them.”
“But he threw them away? You saw him do that?”
“Yes.”
“Are you certain?”
I didn’t say anything.
Henry shrugged. “I never thought anyone could do that once you’ve been there. He must be very strong.”
“Is there anything I can do to get back there?”
“I wouldn’t know. No.”
My forearms lay flat on the table. I looked at them. I was shaking so bad, just like I was getting shocked again.
Fuck you, Jack.
“It feels like I left part of me there, like there’s something that’s been ripped out of my guts. I’m scared because it’s getting worse. The hole. I feel like it’s really going to kill me.”
“That’s what it’s like.”
“I need to go back.”
“I can’t help you, Jack. I don’t know what to do.”
“Why did you do this to me?” I slapped the table, sounded pathetic. “They said I was your best friend.”
Freddie Horvath did something to my brain and I need to get help.
“Here,” he said, and he pushed my beer back across the table toward me. “You should have some of this.”
I picked up the glass and drank. I could feel the cool slick of the liquid descending into my body. Then it felt like I’d swallowed shards of glass, like I was being ripped apart from the inside.
Fun game.
Henry could see the pain I was in. “I’m very sorry, Jack.”
“Everyone’s saying that to me today. Fuck this place.”
“Will you tell me about Marbury now? Will you tell me what’s happened?”
So I talked about everything I saw there since the first time I fell into Marbury: the boys, how Griffin saved me, Seth, the train, the crucified people, the slaughter on the mountain pass, finding the river in the canyon on the other side. Henry listened, and quietly drank three pints of beer while I told him the story. After that first taste from my glass, I couldn’t take another sip, kept feeling weaker and sicker. And telling him what happened made me want to go back there even more.
I’ve tried to reason it out in my mind countless times, but I never understood what it was, or what combination of things there were, that pulled so hard on me and made me want to go back to that hell. Henry understood, though. But Henry was off the hook, too, because he couldn’t go back. And the more I talked to him about it, the more strongly I became convinced that Jack really was dying here.
I was going to die.
I didn’t say anything to him about seeing Freddie Horvath in Marbury, or how Nickie had looked through the glasses and seen nothing at all. I didn’t want to tell Henry the entire life story of Pathetic Jack. It made me feel somehow guilty, even betrayed, too, that he was supposed to have been my best friend in Marbury, but here, on this side of the lens, I didn’t like him very much at all.
Why did I bother coming to see him? I knew he wasn’t going to be able to help me, but I was desperate. And hopeless.
Henry must have seen that I was fading. Maybe I was only tired, but I had my head down and my eyes were shut. It hurt. He tapped my hand. “You saw the same ghost from Marbury, and he was here? With you?”
“I saw him once. He told me he was scared. But he’s been around here a lot of times. Mostly, he comes before I’m about to go back, he makes noises; and one time he moved stuff around in my room.”
We were the only ones left in The Prince of Wales. The bartender began putting things away, signaling that he wanted to shut down.
Henry said, “There’s a reason for it all, you know? I was there long enough to see that. And every time one of them helps you, a ghost, they get a little weaker, a little harder to see. Have you noticed that at all? But there’s a reason for it.”
I did notice it about Seth, and thought, maybe that was why he wasn’t coming around anymore.
“There’s no reasons for any of this shit. Not here, not there.”
“I believe there are reasons, Jack,” Henry said. “But what do I know?” Then he waved at the bartender, “Can I just have one more, then, please?”
The bartender shrugged, began drawing a pint.
“You know enough to have fucked up my life,” I said.
“I didn’t mean to. There was nothing else I could do, Jack.” Henry sighed. “Look. I didn’t have a choice. There were almost none of us left. You know that, a handful of people and hundreds of times more devils in that entire world. And you weren’t the only one I cared about and trusted. You were quite simply the only one I could find here. When I got captured at the settlement, we had come all that way across the desert. We were trying to find more people—anyone. But everywhere we went, it was only them, devils, chasing us. I knew what they would do to me when they caught me, and then I saw you at Heathrow. You can’t imagine how that made me feel, how it filled me with hope.”
“Hope for what?”
“Balance, maybe. I don’t know,” Henry said. “All things balance out, don’t they? They have to. But Marbury is out of balance. We have to save it, Jack, save those boys. There are things you can take with you, from here to there. There are things about you that can make a difference. I believe that. We have to save what is good.”
“Or else what?”
“Everything tilts first, then everything falls.”
“You know what I believe? I believe you’re full of shit.”
He looked at me, no reaction on his face. “To be honest, it would be a good thing if you were right. But I’ve spent a good part of my life there. You’ll see.”
I put my face in my hands, my elbows resting on the table. “I’ve never felt this bad in my life. Do you think losing the glasses is going to kill me?”
“Mind the gap,” he said.
“What?” I was dizzy, didn’t understand.
“If you do make it back, say that to Ben and Griffin. Mind the gap.”
“Why?”
“I told them you would.”
The gap. I had thought the gap between Marbury and here was disappearing. Now the gap was the only thing that existed, and I was stuck in it.
I winced, a knife in my guts. “When did you get the glasses?”
Henry smiled. “I was as old as you are. Ten years ago, when I was just a boy
. Things were vastly different there at that time. It was just another place, simple and pleasant.”
He leaned forward, trying to get me to look at his face. “I killed a man, Jack.”
“What do you mean?” I bit my lip. Maybe he did know about me. Maybe he was some kind of fucked-up cop, like Conner said he was.
“I was a kid. I was stupid. It was an accident, but I still couldn’t get over it. And nobody ever knew. No one ever found out,” Henry said.
“What happened?”
Henry shrugged and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me,” I said.
“It was just that he…we’d had a fight. I didn’t even know him before that night.”
“What do you know about me?”
He shrugged, shook his head.
“I was sick about it,” he said. “Perhaps a week passed. I remember it was raining. I had been on my way to school, and I’d missed the coach that all my friends had taken. While I waited, there was a woman who’d come up. She wore these glasses, and I was quite transfixed by them. She smiled and took them away from her eyes, and said, ‘You’re Henry Hewitt. You’re there, too.’ Of course, I had no idea what she was talking about, but she placed them in my hands and I stared and stared at them. I looked up, and she was gone. Just like that. At first, it was easy: going back and forth. But then the war, the disease, and everything came to a terrible stop there. What do I know about you? I’ve known you since you were a very young child. We were among the few who’d survived initially. And I knew who your mother and father were, while they were alive.”
“Fuck them.”
He shrugged. “You’ve seen how some people are different on one side. You’re not, I think. That’s why I had to get my glasses into your hands before I couldn’t go back any longer.”
“Even if what you say is true, it doesn’t matter now, anyway,” I said. “There’s nothing I can do. Griffin, Ben, me, we’re all probably dead already.”
“If you were, you wouldn’t be sick like you are right now.”
“Did you get sick, too?”
Henry finished his beer. “Every time I came back. Except for the last time.”
Darkness.
Conner was asleep when I got back.
I hurt so bad I couldn’t stand up straight, couldn’t take a full breath.