Cryer's Cross

  When the two go off to the waiting room to talk, Hector and old Mr. Greenwood enter Kendall’s room. It’s weird to have them here.

  “Miss Kendall,” Hector says. He holds his cowboy hat in hand. “I’m so sorry for your pain.”

  Kendall nods, saving her voice.

  “How are you?”

  She shrugs. Whispers, “Okay.”

  “This seems strange, doesn’t it? But we are here for good reason. I need to tell you a story about one of my friends.”

  Puzzled, Kendall just looks at them, from one face to the other, wondering what’s up. She nods and points at the chairs, inviting them to sit.

  Once settled, Hector glances tentatively at old Mr. Greenwood, who sits down in the other bedside chair. He presses his lips together in a white line and stares at the floor.

  Hector weaves his fingers together in his lap and gazes into his cupped hands as if he’s searching for the right words to spill forth. And then, after a few false starts, he tells a story from a long time ago. A story about a boy named Piere who was sent to live at the Cryer’s Reform School for Delinquent Boys.

  He tells about the poor conditions there, and the terrible treatment the boys received, how one night this boy Piere had to sleep on his stomach because his back was in shreds, oozing with blood and pus from being whipped by the headmaster. How Piere’s best friend, Samuel, was sent for a whipping the next night, and Piere snuck out to the little white shack to watch through the crack in the door, knowing that if he were caught, he’d be punished again. But not caring. He needed to be there for his friend.

  Piere watched the headmaster, Horace Cryer, bring down the whip again and again on Samuel’s back and thighs as the boy braced himself, back arched, over the whipping desk. He watched Samuel’s welts grow and turn grayish purple, the blood just under the skin, and then exploding red on the next hit when the skin broke, the blood spraying through the air, all over the walls.

  Piere counted, knowing there were only two kinds of beatings from Mr. Cryer. Thirty-five lashes for minor disobedience. One hundred for everything else . . . and sometimes for no reason at all.

  When Mr. Cryer didn’t stop at thirty-five, Piere’s stomach clenched. After several more lashes, the silent Samuel let out a bloodcurdling scream, which only drove Mr. Cryer to bring the whip down harder. Piere watched as Samuel’s elbows slipped off the desk, his chest and cheek smashing against it, beads of blood on his lower lip. He watched his friend’s eyes roll back and close.

  Piere clutched his shirt in agony, tearing his own oozing sores open again, and then he stumbled blindly away, back to his bunk.

  He never saw Samuel again.

  Hector looks up at Kendall. She’s gripping the bed sheets, staring at him. The eerie numbers, thirty-five and one hundred. The whipping desk . . . She tries to say something, chokes, drinks some water and tries again. “That’s a horrible story,” she says. “Is it true?”

  Hector nods. “Yes. I am sorry I had to tell it.”

  “Is that place . . . is that where I was?”

  “Yes.”

  She bites her lip, thinking about Samuel. “You talked about a desk.”

  Hector’s eyes glisten. His face screws up in anger, remorse. He nods. “The whipping desk. All the desks in your classroom came from the reform school. The state brought them over when they opened your school.”

  Kendall just stares.

  “And when Jacián told me what you said when he found you . . . I am not superstitious,” he says, shaking his finger, “but I knew they should have left it there to rot. There was evil there in that place, on those grounds. Evil in the heart of Horace Cryer.”

  Old Mr. Greenwood sits stone-faced, listening like he can hardly bear to hear it, denying nothing.

  “Mr. Cryer beat us all multiple times over that desk,” Hector says. “Many of our friends were murdered by him. We didn’t know what he did with the bodies. We weren’t allowed beyond the gate. But now we know . . . now we know. There are so many crosses.”

  Hector pulls a handkerchief from his coat pocket and mops his face with it, grieving all over again. “You have to understand, we had no one. All of us either orphans or abandoned as hopeless delinquents, like me. Who would listen to us? We never talked about it, never told anyone. We only wanted to forget.” He dabs the corners of his eyes. “Make new lives once we got out.”

  Kendall remains silently horrified as she tries to comprehend. The souls of the dead boys . . . beaten into the desk? Trapped there, angry, their business undone . . . stuck away in storage all these years, only to be set free whenever they found a body to go into? It was impossible. No one would believe it. Yet here she was, with two of the most respected people of Cryer’s Cross, and neither was denying it.

  “We know about the voice,” old Mr. Greenwood says abruptly, surprising everyone. Then he glances at Kendall, measuring her. “If you repeat this, I will deny it. But I have heard the whisper too.”

  Kendall’s eyes spring open wide. “You have?”

  He nods and looks back at the floor, as if he can’t look her in the eye. “I didn’t know where it came from. Didn’t pay attention to that desk in particular as I shoved the desks around.” He wipes his eyes with his hand. “Thirty-five, one hundred, buzzing around my ears, those numbers taunting me. I thought it was me. I thought I was going senile. Post-traumatic stress or something. The voice sounded like . . . like Samuel.”

  “It said things to me in Nico’s voice,” Kendall whispers. “Tiffany and Nico both sat at that desk.”

  “Yes, Jacián told me. We’ve pieced it together,” Hector says. “He said he heard whispers when he touched it too.” Hector looks up, out the open door to the empty hallway. “The sheriff will be coming back soon. He knows of our hunch about the desk, but he doesn’t know what to believe, doesn’t want to commit to a story so unnatural. I don’t blame him—two old coots like us with a crazy hunch. But we’re going to remove that desk. Not to worry.”

  Kendall nods. “Thank you.” She is flooded with relief, so glad she is no longer alone in this.

  “He’s going to ask you what you remember. It’s up to you what you want to say when he asks you questions. But as far as the people of Cryer’s Cross and the national news networks know, we’re all now looking for an elusive kidnapper and murderer.” He pauses, and his voice softens. “Maybe it’s best, for your sake, if it stays that way.”

  Kendall sinks back into the pillows, feeling a little light-headed.

  When the sheriff comes in with Mrs. Fletcher, Hector smiles at Kendall and squeezes her hand.

  “Thank you for visiting, gentlemen,” Mrs. Fletcher says to the men. “It means a lot that you came to see her.”

  Hector tips his hat. “Miss Kendall is a special girl, a good friend to me and my grandchildren,” he says, old eyes shining. “She is like family.” He gets to his feet, and old Mr. Greenwood moves to do the same. Hector looks at him and holds out a hand. “Ready?”

  “I don’t need your help,” Old Mr. Greenwood grumbles.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  She told the sheriff that she didn’t remember anything, only that she felt like she’d been drugged, not in control of her actions. Tests couldn’t confirm any drugs in her body, but the reporters got anonymously tipped off nonetheless.

  She sits in the hospital still, three days later, the small stream of visitors having dissipated. The local TV news is on, and Kendall is watching people arrive for the burial service for Nico and Tiffany. It’s a big deal for southwest Montana. It’d be a big deal anywhere. Maybe seventy or eighty strangers mill around the grave site, those oddities who’d gotten sucked in by the story and feel, in some unexplainable way, connected to the two missing teens. It’s weird to see them. But even weirder to see people she knows and sees every day, standing so solemnly, all dressed up. She sees Nico’s and Tiffany’s extended families up front, the camera invading their grief.

  She sees her own parents, looking older than wh
at she thinks them to be. She sees the Greenwoods and the Shanks arriving with some of the other people of Cryer’s Cross, and she’s struck by how horribly often the little town has had to gather all at once like this over the past five months, stopping everything for another tragedy, then trudging onward with life.

  The caskets hang suspended over the graves in plot sections that have no patriarchs, no matriarchs. Teenagers aren’t supposed to die. Kendall pulls an extra pillow to her chest and hugs it, wondering why on earth she convinced her mother to go to the memorial and leave her here alone during this.

  She sees Hector and the Obregons. Marlena in a black dress, Jacián in a dark suit with a white shirt, no tie. They find seats, and Jacián jiggles his foot up and down as they wait for it to begin. And finally it does.

  A few minutes into it, the TV news anchor cuts in and brings breaking news of something else, a fire downtown or something, and the service is gone. Kendall turns off the TV and stares at the ceiling, remembering Nico in her own private way. His smile, the light in his eyes. How he’d do anything for her, and she for him.

  She thinks about their romance, how it came as a by-product, an experiment in their friendship. Their parents always talked about them being together forever. It was just a given as they grew up.

  She thinks about how she never really felt comfortable calling him her boyfriend until after he was gone. He was in love with her, she knew. But she just loved him. It wasn’t the same. He was such a good person that she knew she should be in love with him. Who wouldn’t? But there was no passion. It was sweet, she realizes now, and that’s all it was. She thinks about what was special with them. How kissing him wasn’t all that important. But loyalty? Loyalty was everything.

  The tears stream down her face for the goodness that Nico was. For the memories she will never forget. For all the times he stood up for her, the only girl in their class, and for all the times she beat him honestly, at soccer or tests or a footrace down to the river. She cries for all the people he won’t get to help, for the diploma he’ll never earn, for his parents and family, who will never be the same again. For the hole in her heart left by the loss of a best friend.

  And then she cries for the way he died. She knows what he went through, and she can only hope he was so under the influence of the possessed souls in the desk that he didn’t know what horror he was doing to himself. She wonders whose voice he heard. Maybe it was Tiffany’s. He’d be the guy to want to save someone in trouble, there’s no doubt about that. She’ll never know the answer to that one.

  It was the OCD that saved her. She knows that. And as much as she hates how it rules and ruins her everyday life, she vows that she will never complain about it again.

  She’s sitting up in a chair, showered and slightly exhausted from the effort, but still wishing she could just bust out of the hospital—when the phone rings. She shuffles over to it and answers, her voice still husky but no longer sore from all the beatings it took.

  “Hello,” she says.

  “Hey.”

  Her stomach twists. “Hey . . . How are you?”

  It’s quiet on the line, and for a minute Kendall thinks Jacián might have hung up. But then he speaks. “I’m fine. I’m . . . I just wondered if you were doing okay. Is this a bad time?”

  “No. I mean, yes, I’m doing okay. No, it’s not a bad time.” She sits down on the edge of the bed. “I saw you on TV, at the memorial service. . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, it wasn’t on for long before they cut to the next tragedy, though. You looked nice.”

  “Thanks. Look, Kendall?” he sounds anxious.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry to bother you. I know this is a tough time for you, with Nico and all, and you probably don’t want to see me. But I’ve just been thinking about you . . . God. All the time. Do you mind if I come up to your room?”

  Kendall blinks. “Where are you?”

  “In the lobby.” He sounds miserable.

  Kendall’s stomach drops to the floor. She swallows hard. “I look . . . pretty terrible. Bruises, scratches . . . I guess you’ve seen that already, though.”

  “If you don’t want me to come up, that’s cool. It was just an impulsive thing. I went for a drive after the service and ended up here. I can go.”

  “No! I mean, please. Come up. I was just, you know, warning you. I’m in four sixteen.”

  There is silence. An intake of breath. And then, “I’m on the way.”

  Kendall hangs up the phone. She dashes to the bathroom and checks her hair, shakes it in front of her face to try to hide the scratches, but it only makes her look worse, so she smoothes it back again. She slips into her robe. A moment later she hears a soft knock on the door.

  She takes a deep breath and opens it.

  He walks in.

  Stands there hesitantly for a minute, still wearing his suit from the memorial service, shirt untucked, black hair disheveled from the wind. He takes her in from toe to head. His eyes land on hers and stay there. And he says softly, “You don’t look terrible.”

  Her stomach flips over, scares her.

  He goes to her, opens his arms, and she wraps hers around his neck, feels the chill of the evening on his jacket.

  They hold each other gently, thoughts rushing through their minds, memories of when he found her. She buries her face in his neck. “Thank you for saving my life,” she says. “That was really scary.” From nowhere and everywhere, the sobs come.

  He runs his hand over her hair and swallows hard. “You did it yourself,” he says. “I don’t know how you did that. How you did what Tiffany and Nico couldn’t do. But you saved yourself,” he murmurs. “You did it. All you.”

  “I would have frozen to death out there without you.”

  He holds her tighter. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers. He presses his lips to her hair.

  Everything inside her body melts.

  She is chocolate in his fist.

  WE

  We scream but the noise is lost. No listeners remain. A sliver of Us is gone, trapped, dormant inside the life. Ancient heat hovers at the edges of Our face, manhandling Us, bumping and shoving, away, away. Perhaps now We will find heat, life anew. We settle. And once again, We wait.

  TWENTY-NINE

  She’s nervous her first day going back to school. She waits by the cold window, fogging it up with her breath, until she sees the truck. Then she kisses her mother and father good-bye. They wave and go back to their newspapers and coffee—a small reward, a luxury for another harvest completed.

  Jacián pushes the door open for her from the inside, and she hops in. He turns the truck around and takes off down the driveway.

  “Where’s Marlena?”

  “She’s been hitching a ride with Eli the past few days. They hung out after the memorial service, and I think maybe they’ve got a little thing going.” He glances sidelong at her.

  She grins. “How cool! Eli’s a sweet guy. That’s perfect.”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know. Little things are overrated if you ask me.”

  “I see.”

  “Yeah, it’s sort of all or nothing with me. Yep.”

  Kendall’s eyes narrow. “I’m feeling an urge to smack you again.”

  “Ooh,” he says. He slows the truck.

  “No! We have to get to school. No time for that now.”

  “Right. My bad.”

  “Please just tell me somebody straightened the desks while I was gone.”

  “Sure. I did.”

  “You did that for me?”

  He looks at her like she’s nuts. “Um . . . no. I’m not that good.”

  “Oh. Ha, ha.” Kendall takes a deep breath and lets it out. “God, I’m nervous to go back in there.”

  Jacián pulls into the parking lot, takes her hand, kisses it, and peers at her through his thick lashes. “You can do it.”

  It’s weird being here again. She walks in and looks around. Turns the wastebask
et, straightens the markers. Opens the curtains and checks the locks, whispering, “All checked and good.”

  Then she looks at the desks.

  They’re all there. Twenty-four of them. She breaks from her usual pattern and goes first to the senior section. Stops at Nico’s place. Jacián watches her quietly.

  “It’s a different desk,” she says.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve never seen this one before.” She draws her fingers across the graffiti carefully, ready to pull back at the first whisper. But nothing happens. It’s just a desk. “I’m glad they replaced it. It would look wrong if there was a hole in this spot.”

  “I mentioned that,” Jacián says. He walks over to her. “It’s from the storage room. I said I thought it would be less conspicuous to the other students if they put a new one here, that you and I would be the only ones who noticed the switch.”

  She nods, deep in thought. She turns, searching his face, his eyes. “Hector says you heard the whispers too.”

  He nods. “I did. I thought it was my mind messing with me. But then I remembered the way you wrapped yourself around the desk whenever you sat there.” He touches her arm. “I held my hand to it for longer than I want to admit. I couldn’t stop. It almost had me too, Kendall.”

  Kendall bites her lip. “Whose voice did you hear?”

  He swallows hard. Touches her face. “Yours.”

  * * *

  After school Jacián and Kendall drive to the church graveyard. Little bits of snow fall to the graying ground. Kendall gets out of the truck and walks slowly to the grave site, Jacián holding back, giving her some space. She stares at the fresh dirt and shudders with cold and memories, memories of his decomposing face that she knows she’ll never forget.

  She fights the demanding thoughts that want to swirl around her head. Instead she forces new ones, remembering the good times with the best friend anybody could ever have. She beckons over her shoulder and reaches for Jacián, threads her arm around his waist. He slips his hand to her shoulder, absently weaving his fingers through her hair as they silently pay their respects together.