“Huh?”
“Your foot,” he said. “Do you need some help?”
My sock was soaked through with blood where my shoe rubbed against what was left of the mark Freddie Horvath had left on me. I hadn’t even noticed.
“Oh.” I felt myself reddening, picked up my shirt. “I did that a while ago. I thought it was gone now.”
“Mind that, then,” he said. “Cheers.”
And he walked off.
I found my way back to the park’s entrance and turned right onto Marylebone Road.
The man with the glasses was waiting for me there.
He stood with his back to the park’s iron fence and watched me while I pulled my soaked T-shirt back over my head. He wasn’t wearing the glasses, though, and I thought it was odd, since we were outside and they seemed to be so dark. But he still had that expression like he knew me, or at least wanted to say something to me.
My stomach knotted. I was convinced that somehow I was being followed for what Conner and I had done.
I gave him another dirty look, turned my chin in the direction of the hotel’s entrance, and jogged past him.
I took off my shoes and socks. I opened the window, peeled out of my wet shirt, and hung it from the casement hinge. I stretched out on the bed.
My cell phone showed I had a missed call, from Conner. It made me feel good to see his name.
He didn’t say hello or anything. “Jack. How the hell is it over there?”
“Hey, Con. I don’t know. I just got here. It’s pretty cool, I guess. Just everything is different. Strange. It’s real easy to get around. I just got in from about an eight mile run through the park. And wait till you see the room they put us in. It’s kind of weird, too.”
“Like what?”
“Well, there’s only one bed.”
“Don’t tell Dana. You know she totally thinks you’re queer, anyway.”
“You didn’t say anything, did you? About what happened to me?”
“Oh, come on, Jack. You know I wouldn’t do that.”
I sighed and sat up on the bed, like I was looking around the room with Conner’s eyes. “And you have to leave the bathroom door open just to get into the shower.”
“Nice. Super gay.”
“And the water tastes like fish.”
Conner laughed.
“But other than that, and all the weird people, I think we’re going to have fun. And I’m going to be there on Monday at the airport when you get here.”
“So, you’re all okay, then, Jack?”
“Con, it feels like someone’s following me.”
There was silence after I said it.
I looked out the window, my wet shirt hanging there, convinced, now, that maybe somebody had heard what I said.
Quit it, Jack.
Conner made a joke out of it. “You? You’d have to pay someone to follow your skinny ass around.”
I thought about that man in the restroom. Gary.
“I feel a little tripped out about things,” I said. I inhaled. “But I think being over here is going to be good for me. You too. I’ve been making myself stay awake so I can get used to it. I’m going to take a shower now and go out and get some dinner.”
“Dude. Don’t get stuck behind the funky doorway. And go out and get a beer.”
We both had fake American IDs from Idaho, like anyone here would know what an Idaho ID card looked like. But we’d heard how easy it was to get served beer here, too.
“Yeah. Sure.” I said it like I didn’t want one, but it actually sounded good. “Oh, and Con? I need you to do something for me, okay?”
“What?”
“I forgot the charger for my cell phone. Stella’s going to want to kill me about that. Can you go to my house and pick it up for me?”
“Damn. You’ve really been losing it, Jack.”
“I know.”
“Well, call me again before your battery runs out.”
“Okay.”
“And Jack? Everything’s okay now. Really.”
Sixteen
I left the television turned on while I took a shower. I still couldn’t figure out how they’d designed this place because there really was no way you could get in or out of the tub with the bathroom door shut, unless you crawled beneath the open glass shower door. And that was too weird to do, I thought. But it was possible to watch a left-handed version of the televised soccer match in the bathroom mirror and take a shower at the same time, so that was kind of cool.
By the time I dressed and got off the phone with Stella, it was dark. Of course she complained about how I forgot the phone charger, and I could hear Wynn in the background repeating, “Remind Jack they’re expecting him and Conner at St. Atticus on Thursday.” But at least I could make an excuse for ending the call quickly, since I wanted to save my battery as long as possible.
I walked east from the hotel that night and stopped at a place near Warren Street called The Prince of Wales, a pub where there were groups of kids who looked about my age, having dinner and drinking beer.
I realized how hungry I was, and how free it felt to be in a place that would actually serve beer to me, so I went inside.
It was a little awkward being there alone, and I had to sit at a long table with a group of noisy young people who laughed and drank beers. I ate a sandwich and chips, then got my nerve up and finally ordered a beer, which, one of the girls down the table explained patiently, had to be specified by name or I’d look like a tourist.
The kids said hello, asked if I was from California because of my shorts, then ignored me after offering generic well wishes for my “holiday.” They left while I was on my second beer and finally feeling relaxed, almost happy, after the long ordeal of just getting here.
I wanted to call Conner and tell him what I was doing, but I dropped my phone on the floor when I tried taking it out of my pocket. I had to practically crawl under the table to get my hands on it. As I looked across the floor, I could see that the man with those purple glasses had come in to the pub and was standing at the bar across from me.
And he was watching me.
I sat up and put my phone in my pocket. As soon as I did, he took the glasses away from his face. I was sure he’d been following me, and now I was trapped. It was like being caught doing everything horrible and wrong I’d ever done, and I couldn’t help thinking that maybe this guy knew about what I did to Freddie Horvath, that maybe he was going to do something even worse to me.
I felt like I was going to throw up.
I pulled some money out and left it beside my plate. When I started sliding out from the bench I’d been sitting on, the man carried his beer over and stood across the table from me.
It was suddenly so quiet.
“Hello.” His voice had a friendly sound to it, an English accent. Then he said, “Mind if I sit down, Jack?”
My heart almost stopped when he said my name.
What could I do?
I felt myself sliding back against the wall, wishing I could somehow sink into it.
The man sat down and placed his beer on the table between us. He smiled at me, as if he expected me to recognize him. But, except for those couple times earlier that day, I’d never seen him before.
“You know me?” I swirled my beer glass around on the table. Clockwise. It was empty.
He glanced over his shoulder at the bar. “Will you have another beer?”
“No.”
Panic choked at me; my heart raced and my throat constricted in an invisible grip. It felt like I was tied down again. I thought about running.
“I only wanted to see if you knew me,” he said. “I didn’t mean to bother you.”
I looked at him. I could see something human in his eyes, not like Freddie’s. Freddie Horvath’s eyes had no caring in them at all.
“I don’t know who you are,” I said. “Why are you following me?”
He took a drink.
I thought I was about to be arres
ted or something.
“I apologize if I’ve been rude,” he said. “I really didn’t intend to scare you.” Then he stuck his hand out across the table and introduced himself. “My name is Henry Hewitt.”
It was like falling from a cliff. I shook his hand.
“But really,” he continued, “you seem frightened of me. I can assure you…”
“How do you know me?” I asked. I stared straight into his eyes and I tried to look like I was ready to fight.
Henry leaned forward. “I’ve known you for a very long time, Jack. Not from here, though. From Marbury. Then I saw you—I finally saw you—at Heathrow today, and I knew it was you.”
And I thought, This must be some kind of weird coincidence—that he knows someone who looks like me from somewhere else.
“I think you’re wrong,” I said. “I’ve never been anywhere called that.”
“Marbury?”
“Yeah. Where is it?”
“You’re sure, then?”
“Yes. You must be thinking of someone else named Jack.”
“You are named Jack.” He said it as though he were asking the question to prove to himself who I was. Or maybe to convince me. And he said, “Jack Whitmore.”
My eyes watered. I stifled a yawn and slapped my hand lightly down on the table. “Look. I’m really tired. I’ve been on an airplane all day. I should leave. I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. Really.”
I started to get up, and Henry pulled his glasses out from the breast pocket on his coat. When I saw the shine of the lens, the light seemed to move and shift inside them.
Henry put the glasses on for just a second, looking at me like he was snapping a picture, then he immediately folded them closed and lay them on the table between us without saying anything.
He emptied his beer.
I glanced at the glasses, and then at the man sitting across from me.
“Take care about looking at your friends there, Jack. I mean, in Marbury.”
“I told you I’ve never been where you’re talking about.”
“Look,” he said, and he leaned forward. “Are you certain you won’t have another glass of beer with me, then?”
I was already buzzing. I wanted to sleep, but there was something that kept me there talking to him.
“No. But thank you, anyway.”
“I’ll just have one more, I think,” Henry said, then spun around in his seat to go to the bar.
I stared at the glasses. There was definitely something odd about them. There was something moving inside them. I could see it, but I was afraid to look. I wanted to touch them, unfold them, but I knew that would be rude. Still, there was something that was so unique and attractive about them—and they just sat there on the table in front of me, as though Henry was tempting me with them.
I looked up at the bar.
And Henry Hewitt was gone.
A full glass of beer sat on the bar in front of the taps, and the bartender stood, his arms locked straight where he leaned against his counter, watching me.
I got up. I felt dizzy. The place seemed suddenly empty. There were two older men sitting in a dark corner near the toilets at back of the pub, but that was all.
I said to the bartender, “The man who ordered the beer. Do you know where he went?”
The bartender raised his chin. “He paid for the pint for you, mate.”
He pushed the beer toward me. It made a slick trail of moisture on the wood of the bar top. Like a snail.
A business card had been pinched down by its corner beneath the glass.
I went to the door and looked both directions along the street, but Henry was nowhere in sight.
I turned back into the pub.
The bartender said, “Do you want the beer?”
I picked the card out from under the glass. It was blank, but someone had scrawled with black ink, in all capital letters that smeared from the condensation: DON’T LOOK FOR ME, JACK. TAKE CARE. MIND WHAT I TOLD YOU. — H.H.
“No, thank you.”
Then I went back to my table, slipped Henry’s glasses into the pocket of my shorts, and walked back to the hotel.
I didn’t get it.
He knew who I was, said he’d known me for a long time. From somewhere called Marbury. But I’d never even heard of that place. He had to be wrong.
He’d followed me around all day. It couldn’t have been an accident that he left those glasses sitting there on my table. It all seemed too intentional, too planned out. But I couldn’t figure out what his messages meant, either. Was this all some kind of perverted joke? Was I on hidden camera or something?
I must be drunk, I thought.
Freddie Horvath did something to my brain.
Sometimes, I know it was just me, but I could almost hear his voice telling me things, trying to scare me.
You haven’t gotten away.
Seventeen
Midnight.
It was cool, so I shut the window. I left the drapes pulled back, then I undressed and got into bed. I lay there looking around the room that almost glowed in the gray moonlight filtered through the uneven, ancient glass of the window.
And in the night, something moved inside my room.
At first, I heard a rolling sound coming from beneath the bed.
Just like Freddie’s bed.
You better see what’s under there, Jack.
Something wooden and small, round—like maybe an empty spool of thread; maybe a nut. It rolled, and I could measure the distance it covered by the sound it made, across the width of the bed. Roll. Then stop. Then three taps; and it rolled back in the opposite direction.
He did something to my brain.
You better look, Jack.
Roll. Three taps. Right across the floor, an equator through the center of my belly.
Silence.
Roll. Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Like someone knocking, but I was certain it was right there on the floor beneath my bed.
I pushed back the covers and turned on the lamp next to me. And I know it was compulsive and dumb, but the first thing I did was to look at my foot to see if I was trapped again. I rubbed my hands around my ankle, and then I bent down to look under the bed.
What are you looking for, Jack? Something to get away with?
Don’t fool yourself, Jack. You haven’t gotten away from anything.
I couldn’t see anything, just black. I reached up and tipped the lamp downward. It hung from the edge of the nightstand, swinging slowly. I lowered myself onto my hands and knees, the side of my face pressed to the floor.
Wood floor.
And I heard something, just a hushed whisper that sounded like someone said “shhhh” or maybe a word, like “soft.” But it was real.
Did something to my brain.
There was nothing there.
Don’t fool yourself.
You haven’t gotten away from anything.
I sat on the floor. I was so tired. I got back into bed and switched off the lamp.
Then I went to sleep.
Part Two
The Strange Boys
Eighteen
I think I never slept as soundly as I did that first night I spent in London. When I woke, I lay there on my back for a few minutes, pressed down into the softness of the bed by the weight of a heavy feathered comforter that seemed to be holding the pieces of me together, and looked out at the perfection of the day on the other side of the window.
The building must have mice, I thought. It didn’t matter, once I fell to sleep I never heard anything at all. I didn’t even dream.
I got up from bed and opened the window.
And later on, after I ate breakfast downstairs and went out for my run, while I fumbled around with putting on clothes so I could get out of the hotel and begin to explore the city, as I shook out the shorts I’d tossed on the floor the night before to see if my cell phone was still alive, Henry Hewitt’s glasses fell right out onto
the folds of the sheets I’d slept in.
I took them up into my hands and sat on the edge of the bed. They were so old and frail, made from such a thin gauge of braided gold wire that had serpentine patterns of black etched into the surface. And the lenses themselves felt so heavy in my hand, like they were polished discs of stone crystal. One of them was chipped on its edge, and unevenly tinted a kind of purple that faded, clear and milky in some spots, and dark as gemstones in others.
THE AMETHYST HOUR.
Quit it, Jack.
I unfolded the glasses and held them up at arm’s length so I could see through them by the light from the window.
And then I heard the rolling sound again, but this time it was louder.
But when I looked through the lenses, something happened that was difficult to understand: I saw a bug—a big one—crawling downward, shiny, wet, black. I lowered the glasses. The rolling noise stopped.
So I thought that the glasses, held at a distance, acted as some sort of telescope. I wanted to find the magnified bug that must have been crawling on my windowpane.
But I’d left the window open.
Still, I thought, there must be a bug there. On the wall, the drapes, maybe.
I got up and went over to the window. I searched everywhere, shook out the drapes, but there was no bug. There had to have been one, I thought, because it was so huge. It couldn’t have just disappeared.
It was there; I saw it.
I sat down again.
I held the glasses up.
I put them on.
You haven’t gotten away from anything, Jack.
I don’t even remember bringing my hands down from my face. Why would I remember it? I wasn’t there anymore.
There was this bug.
The sky domed overhead like a vacant cathedral ceiling, white and hot.
I stood near a wall, watching the bug crawl out of a red-black hole the size of a soft rotten plum, breathing in the thick humid stench, sweet rot, fascinated by the hideous thing. If I grabbed it, the bug would have been bigger than both of my hands together. I’d never seen anything like it, not even in nightmares. I listened to it as it chewed a counterclockwise circle around the meaty rim of the crater it came from, making soft wet clicks. Then two more of the bugs crawled out from the same wet black hole. One of them dropped down next to my foot. I heard it thud onto the ground; and I took a step back.