Unclouded Day

  Chapter Six

  The first thing he found was Tabitha’s House, an old ramshackle Victorian-looking house downtown which advertised itself as a bed and breakfast inn. Brian wasn’t fussy, and since there didn’t seem to be anything else nearby he decided it would do well enough. He parked his bike in the little parking lot and trudged up the worn concrete walk to knock on the door.

  It was opened, eventually, by a bald man wearing jeans and cowboy boots. That by itself might not have been so unusual, except that they were dark green fake alligator skin. Real leather was never that shiny, and never that green, either. Brian was looking down at the man’s feet and couldn’t help but notice such a spectacle, but he didn’t comment on the man’s taste in fashion.

  “Can I help you?” the man asked. He sounded friendly enough, in spite of the fake alligator boots, and Brian looked at him and smiled.

  “Yeah, I’d like to rent a room for the night, please,” he said, trying to look as serious as he could.

  A skeptical expression crossed the man’s face, and Brian wished he could have looked a few years older; it would have simplified things so much. But however skeptical the man might be, he apparently decided to err on the side of caution.

  “Of course, sir. We do have a couple of rooms available,” he agreed.

  “How much for one night?” Brian asked.

  “Two hundred dollars, sir,” the man said. Brian almost choked with sticker-shock, but he’d learned long ago from Mama never to show anything on his face that he didn’t want people to see. Therefore he remained cool as a cucumber, and didn’t betray how he really felt. He was tempted to walk away and look for something cheaper, but the thought of the smirk on the man’s face if he did was enough to change his mind. He’d been laughed at way too often for being poor.

  “Sure thing,” he nodded. The man’s eyes opened a little bit in surprise; he’d probably thought the price tag would get rid of a kid without having to go to the trouble and risk of refusing to rent him a room. Most times it probably would have worked, too, Brian thought, trying not to smile. But as it was, he’d offered a price and Brian had agreed, and that put him in an awkward position to weasel out of it. He tried, though.

  “I hate to do this, sir, but since you don’t have a reservation, we’ll have to ask for cash before you can check in. Will that be all right?” he asked.

  “No problem,” Brian agreed, pulling out his billfold and taking out a couple of hundred dollar bills. He took his time about it, making sure the man could see that he had plenty more where that came from.

  The innkeeper took the money, somewhat ungraciously Brian thought, but he offered no more objections and stood aside so Brian could come in.

  Then he led his guest to a bedroom near the back of the house, on the second floor.

  “This is the Tyler Room,” he intoned pompously after opening the door, and Brian wanted to laugh again. The place really wasn’t fancy enough to deserve having all the rooms with their own names. But once again, he kept his thoughts to himself.

  “I hope you’ll find everything in order, sir. If you need fresh towels or if you’d like anything from the kitchen, just push the intercom button by the door and we’ll be glad to bring it to you,” he said. Then he excused himself, leaving Brian alone.

  The room was decent, with polished hardwood floors and a handmade quilt on a big four-poster bed. There was a portrait of President John Tyler on the wall, for whatever reason. Maybe the room was named after him, though Brian couldn’t have guessed why to save his life.

  The window looked out on a street view that wasn’t particularly interesting, and there was a private bathroom. It was nice enough, but Brian had halfway expected golden faucet handles and crystal chandeliers for the price he’d paid.

  Still, he didn’t much care. He could spare the money, and it was a lot better than the hay loft. He’d only have to stay one night, just till he could go visit the nursing home sometime in the morning. In the meantime he enjoyed a hot shower and put on some clean clothes, and after that he felt much better.

  Almost as soon as he finished getting dressed, there came a knock on the door, and a girl’s voice.

  “Room service!” she called cheerfully. Brian was a little bit puzzled; he hadn’t ordered anything, and the girl sounded vaguely familiar for some reason.

  “Come in!” he called.

  She opened the door, and he suddenly found himself confronted with Rachel McCray, standing right there in the doorway with a big smile on her face.

  Brian cursed under his breath. Here he was trying his best to keep secret, and right out of the gate he had to run smack into somebody he knew. Could his luck get any worse?

  “Is anything wrong?” she asked, seeing the shock on his face.

  “Oh, no. . . I just wasn’t expecting to see you, that’s all,” he explained, lamely. She laughed.

  “Oh, that. Yeah, I just work here a little bit now and then on the weekends and after school. It’s a good job. Helps me make a little money, you know. Anyway I was in the kitchen and I saw you coming up here with Mr. Croydon, so I just wanted to come say hi,” she added.

  This could be a problem, Brian thought to himself. If Rachel went home and told somebody where he was, then it might get back to his mother and wreck everything. He thought quickly.

  “Well, hey, come in for a minute if you want to. I needed to ask you something anyway,” he told her.

  “Oh, yeah? What?” she asked, coming into the room and sitting down on the bed.

  “Um. . . this might sound weird, but I need you not to tell anybody you saw me here, okay, Raych? It’s really, really important,” he told her. That piqued her curiosity, and she looked at him with her head cocked to the side, like a bird watching bread crumbs.

  “How come?” she asked simply.

  “It’d be a long story, I’m afraid. Let’s just say I’ve got some things I need to do, alone, and if anybody finds out where I am then they’d drag me home before I could finish,” he said.

  “You mean you ran away from home?” she asked, wide eyed.

  “No, no, nothing like that. I’ll be back home in just a few days. Just got some things to do, first,” he told her hastily. She hesitated, and he could tell that she wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not. That would never do; he had to find a way to get her on his side, no matter what.

  “Raych, listen. If I tell you what’s going on, will you promise me you won’t say anything to anybody?” he pleaded.

  “Brian, I don’t know if I can-“ she started, but he interrupted.

  “Just listen first, before you say anything one way or the other. Will you do that much? Please?” he asked.

  “All right. I’ll listen,” she agreed reluctantly.

  “Brandon is sick, maybe dying,” he told her flatly, getting right to the point.

  “Oh, Brian, I’m so sorry. I heard he was at the hospital but I didn’t know it was that bad,” she said. He had her sympathy, but now came the tricky part.

  “Okay. The reason I’m here is because I heard about something that maybe could save him, but I knew nobody would let me go find it if I told them,” he explained.

  “What are you talking about? Why wouldn’t they? What kind of a something?” she asked. Brian took a deep breath; the next part was even trickier.

  “They say there’s a fountain at the heart of the world, and if you drink from it then all your wishes come true. I think if I find it, then I can save him,” he told her. She looked at him skeptically, like she was trying to figure out if he was joking or not.

  “You’re serious?” she finally asked.

  “I’ve never been more serious in my life. My brother might die if I don’t figure something out; I wouldn’t joke about something like that,” he reminded her.

  “Brian. . . “ she started, but he cut her off again.

  “Listen, I know it sounds crazy, but look h
ere,” he told her, pulling out the amulet and opening it up to show her the pointer.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “It points the way to the Fountain. All I have to do is follow it,” he explained, and read her the verses from the opposite side. Then he quickly told her about finding the amulet and some of the things he’d done with it. He left out the part about Brandon’s eye, and Black Rock, and a few other choice things; she didn’t need to know all that, not by a long shot. He just had to tell her enough so she wouldn’t think he was nuts.

  “You really believe all this?” she finally asked. She still didn’t look convinced; she looked more like a person who has no idea what to think.

  “Yeah, I do. There’s an old lady here in town who’s been to the Fountain herself, a long time ago. I’m supposed to go see her tomorrow morning,” he told her.

  “I don’t know, Brian. It just sounds crazy, you know. Like a fairy tale,” she said, shaking her head.

  “I know it does, but what if it’s not? What if I don’t go, and Brandon dies, and then I have to live the whole rest of my life wondering if he didn’t have to,” he pleaded. It was his last card, and if she didn’t believe him after that then he wasn’t sure what else to say to her. But her face softened when she heard those words, and she was silent for a long time, thinking.

  “I guess I can understand that much, anyway. I’ll tell you what I’ll do, okay? I’ll keep it a secret, but only if you’ll take me with you,” she finally told him.

  “Huh?” he said, too startled to think of anything else to say.

  “You heard what I said. If there’s really such a place as that, and it’s not just a story, then take me with you to find it,” she said, and he could find no trace of anything except sincerity in her eyes. But her attitude mystified him.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Well. . . let’s just say Brandon’s not the only one who needs fixing up,” she said cryptically.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

  “It means I’m sick, Brian,” she told him simply, with a little shrug. He’d heard rumors about this before, of course, but nevertheless he pretended to be surprised. She might not like it if she thought people were gossiping about her.

  “Sick like how?” he asked neutrally.

  “It’s called Batten’s Disease,” she said.

  “I never heard of it before,” he said.

  “No, most people haven’t. It’s a rare genetic thing. But anyway, what happens is that you gradually go blind, and forget how to walk and talk, and then usually you die by the time you’re twenty years old,” she said. Her tone was offhand and matter-of-fact, like she was talking about the weather or a homework assignment, but somehow that only made it seem even more brutal and horrifying. Brian didn’t know what to say.

  “You don’t look sick,” he said, lamely.

  “No, not right now. Not yet. Just my eyes, mostly, and I have to take medicine for seizures. But it gets a little worse all the time, and one of these days it’ll get bad enough that I won’t make it,” she explained.

  “There’s no medicine or anything you could take?” he asked, still in shock.

  “Well. . . sort of. There are some experimental treatments to slow it down for a while, but there’s no way to cure it. I’ve got maybe five or six years left, if I’m lucky,” she said.

  “You’re not scared?” he asked.

  “Yeah, a little. But I know I’ll go to heaven when I die, so I guess it could be worse. Besides, I decided a long time ago I wasn’t going to let it ruin whatever time I do have left,” she said.

  “That’s pretty brave,” he told her.

  “No, it’s really not brave at all. I have to be that way, so I won’t go crazy thinking about it all the time,” she told him.

  “Still sounds pretty brave to me,” he said, and she shrugged.

  “You do whatever you have to do. But I’m not quite as laid back and calm about the whole thing as you seem to think. I’m still snatching at every straw I can get my hands on. Even crazy fairy tales about magic Fountains,” she told him, with a small laugh.

  “I’m not sure I could be that strong,” he told her, humbled.

  “Sure you could, if you had to. I try to remember all the things I love to do, and how much there is to live for. That helps a lot, when I feel like giving up,” she told him.

  There was a long pause.

  “So, can I come with you, then?” she finally asked, catching him off guard again.

  “But how would you do that? I mean, wouldn’t people be looking for you?” he asked.

  “Aren’t they looking for you, too?” she asked, reasonably enough.

  “Well, yeah, I guess you have a point,” he admitted, thinking hard.

  “Can you. . . I mean, are you up to some hard traveling? I don’t know how far it is, and I don’t know what might happen between here and there. I’ve already had to sleep in a barn last night. It’s not much fun,” he pointed out.

  “I can do pretty much anything you can do, as long as I have my glasses and my medicine,” she said. He was still doubtful.

  “Are you sure?” he asked again.

  “Yeah, I’m sure. I can handle whatever I have to, and I won’t gripe and moan about it, either. Like you said before, if I don’t at least try then I’ll always have to wonder what might have happened if I did,” she reminded him.

  “Well, yeah. . . I see what you mean,” he said.

  “So you’ll take me with you?” she repeated again.

  Brian still had serious doubts about the idea, but he had to admit that it would be nice to have somebody to talk to and chew things over with. And, as she herself said, she had an excellent reason not to give up until they found the Fountain.

  “Sure, why not?” he finally agreed.

  “Good!” she smiled, and then glanced at her watch.

  “Got a hot date?” Brian asked, and she laughed.

  “No, but I need to get back to work. I’ve already been up here longer than I should have been, and Mr. Croydon is probably already mad. But I tell you what. Come down to the verandah at supper time and we can talk some more. I’ll take my break and then he can’t say anything,” she told him.

  “Okay, that sounds good,” he agreed.

  “All right, then. Supper’s at six. We’re having steak tips with mushroom gravy, and I think baked potatoes and green beans,” she said.

  “Wow, fancy,” he said dryly, and she laughed again.

  “See you then,” she told him, and then she went back to the kitchen.

  It was only about three o’clock, and Brian still had a few hours to kill before he had to be back for supper. He went to a secondhand store to buy some fresh clothes while he had time, and while he was there he also got a handful of used books to read and a backpack to hold his things. After that he didn’t particularly feel like sitting in the motel room doing nothing, so he decided to take a walk.

  Glenwood was built on a little bluff beside the river, surrounded by patches of flat valley bottomland and boxed in on three sides by steep mountains and rolling hills. The sleepy downtown was good for walking, with a lot of old buildings and historical sites to occupy Brian’s attention.

  Eventually he came to a red brick Methodist church, with the grass neatly clipped and seven steps leading up to the double wooden doors. It was a pretty building, and Brian thoroughly approved of churches that made an effort to be beautiful instead of imitating a warehouse or a doctor’s office.

  He sat down for a little while on the top step to rest and to watch the occasional traffic go by, trying not to let himself think too much. There was no one else nearby, so he quietly shut his eyes for a few minutes to pray for Brandon, and while he was there he added a prayer for Rachel too.

  That done, he felt a little more at peace than he had before, and he left the church in a better mood. It was getting close
to suppertime by then, so he turned his footsteps back toward the hotel.

  The verandah turned out to be a nicer place than he expected. It was full of wicker furniture where guests could sit and relax, and there was a view of a goldfish pond and some woods behind the house. Much better than the view from the Tyler Room, that was for sure.

  He took a seat as far from the other guests as he could, and then slouched back in his chair to wait for Rachel. It wasn’t long before she came outside and spied him sitting there.

  “Hey, stranger. Are you ready to eat?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I think so,” Brian told her.

  “Just one second, then. I’ll be right back,” she answered. She disappeared into the house for a few minutes, and then returned with two glasses of tea and two covered plates on a platter. She put the food on the table and then sat down in a chair beside him and handed him his glass.

  “Whew! Time for a break,” she said.

  “Mmm. . .” Brian said, nodding.

  “So how was your day?” she asked, putting her feet up on an ottoman that sat nearby and making herself comfortable.

  “Oh, it was all right. Just wandered around town a little,” he said.

  “Yeah, dull place,” she agreed.

  “No, it was kinda interesting, actually. I’d never been downtown before,” he said.

  “I guess so. But anyway, I thought of something I need to ask you,” she said.

  “Fire away,” he said.

  “How are we getting around? We can’t just walk all the way to the Fountain, can we?” she asked.

  “No, I’m pretty sure it’s too far for that. I’ve been riding my dirt bike up till now, but that might not work so well with two people,” he said, doubtfully.

  “Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of. But I’ve got an idea, though,” she said.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Well, can you drive?” she asked carefully.

  “Um. . . maybe a little bit, if I had to. Why do you ask?” he asked.

  “Because my sister has a car we might could use, that’s why,” she said.

  “Aw, come on. Your sister would let you borrow her car to go who-knows-where, for who-knows how long, with a boy she barely ever met, when you’re not even old enough to supposed to be driving by yourself?” he asked, skeptically.

  “I wasn’t exactly thinking of asking her first,” she said defensively.

  “You mean you want to steal your sister’s car?” he said, dumbfounded.

  “No, not at all. But she’s out of town for three months and she told me I could use it now and then while she was gone, as long as I was careful with it,” she explained.

  “I’m pretty sure she wasn’t thinking about something like this,” Brian said.

  “I’m sure she wasn’t. But she didn’t say I couldn’t, either. All she told me was to be careful with it,” she said.

  “Don’t you think that’s splitting hairs?” he asked.

  “Maybe it is. But you’re forgetting one thing,” she told him.

  “Which is?” he asked.

  “If we really find the Fountain, and it can really do what you say it can, then I don’t think my sister will be sorry at all that I maybe took the car a little farther than she meant for me to,” she explained.

  “Well. . . yeah, I guess I can see how that might kinda change the way she saw things,” he admitted after a while.

  “Can you drive?” he asked suddenly, thinking about her eyes and her seizures. It didn’t sound like a very safe combination.

  “Yeah, I can drive okay most of the time. I’ve got my learner’s license. Never drove around by myself very much except to go to school or to work sometimes cause you can get a special permit for that, but driving is pretty much the same wherever you go, isn’t it?” she said.

  “I guess so,” he agreed, doubtfully.

  “I could bring the car over in the morning, if that’s what we wanted to do,” she offered.

  “Sure, let’s do it,” he agreed.

  They didn’t talk much longer, because Rachel’s supper break ended and she had to get back to work in the kitchen for another hour or so, and then after that she was expected back home.

  Brian sat for a while longer on the verandah until he finished his tea, and then he went back upstairs to his room to watch TV for a little while before bed. There was nothing on, so he dropped that idea before long.

  He thought about going to bed, and even went so far as to turn his light off and lie down on the mattress. But he found himself restless and full of thoughts, and however hard he tried it was impossible for him to go to sleep.

  As he lay there in the dark quiet, he noticed a quick flash of blue light against the white muslin curtains of his window, quickly cut off. He might not have noticed it at all if he hadn’t been looking the right way, but as it was, his suspicions were aroused. He quietly got up to see what was happening, peering out through the curtains without moving them, and sure enough, down on the street he saw a county patrol car parked in front of the hotel. Mr. Croydon was down there in his fake alligator-skin boots, talking to a cop on the sidewalk. After a few minutes Brian saw the man look up and gesture vaguely toward the Tyler Room.

  That was enough to make Brian’s heart start pounding, and he quickly put his clothes back on and threw everything he had left into his backpack, ready for instant departure should it prove necessary. As soon as that was done, he went back to the window to look outside again. He might be worrying for nothing, but he’d rather be safe than sorry.

  The deputy and the innkeeper were both gone from the sidewalk, and seconds later he heard footfalls on the staircase. The sound of boots against the hardwood floor was unmistakable.

  Brian wasted no more time. His door was locked, but he knew that wouldn’t delay them more than a minute or two if they meant to find him. The innkeeper surely had an extra key, and if Brian tried to leave the room before his adversaries arrived then he was like as not to bump right into their faces. The door was no way out; at least not for now.

  Instead, Brian opened the window as quietly as he could and crawled out onto the roof, then shut it behind him so they might waste a little more time wondering where he was. If he left the window open then that was almost a dead giveaway.

  The roof was a lot higher and a lot steeper than he would have liked, and he crawled gingerly across it to keep from falling or making noise. He had to find a way down as fast as he could.

  He couldn’t immediately think of any way except maybe to shimmy down a drain spout, but he doubted seriously whether the frail aluminum gutter work would hold his weight or not. What if it broke and sent him crashing two stories to the ground? If he didn’t break his neck or a leg, then at the very least he’d make a horrible racket and get himself caught. There had to be a better way than that.

  Next he thought about crawling into one of the other windows to hide somewhere else in the hotel until his pursuers gave up, but he soon rejected that idea, too. The other rooms in the hotel were the first place they’d look when they didn’t find him in his own bed, and there weren’t that many of them to start with. Not to mention the fact that he didn’t know which ones were empty and which ones had guests in them. The last thing he needed was to break into an occupied room and get shot by somebody who thought he was a burglar.

  On the other hand, he couldn’t just stay on the roof, either. He showed up like a fly on an ice cream cone under the glare from the street lights; they’d spot him the second they came back outside.

  He crept slowly and carefully toward the back of the house, hoping the shadows would give him a little more cover while he tried to think of some other solution.

  What he finally found wasn’t ideal, but it worked. The verandah at the back of the house was only a single story, which meant he could jump half the distance onto the verandah roof and then the rest of the way to the ground from there, like a giant staircas
e. Two short jumps was a lot better than a single long one.

  The only thing that worried him about that plan was the noise. If he made a huge thump when he hit the verandah roof, they’d hear it inside the house and know where he was almost instantly.

  He hesitated, not liking the idea, but finally decided it was the best option he could come up with.

  He tried to muffle the sound by lying down on his belly and sliding backwards off the edge of the roof before he let go, but it was harder to hold on than he thought it would be. He slid the last few feet or so, scratching his arms on the gritty shingles and falling heavily onto the roof of the verandah ten feet below. So much for being quiet.

  He wasn’t hurt except for a few scratches from the shingles. He didn’t know if anybody had heard him hit the roof or not, but he dared not hang around to find out. With only the barest nod to keeping quiet, he scrambled to the edge of the roof and jumped the rest of the way down to the grass, being careful not to twist an ankle.

  He immediately took off running, trying to lose himself amongst the side streets as fast as he could. The hotel disappeared behind him pretty quickly, but it didn’t take him long to realize that he could never hope to stay hidden that way for very long. There was almost nobody on the streets, which made him a glaring target. His only friend at the moment was the darkness.

  When he’d made it far enough from the hotel, he took cover behind a hedgerow at the same church where he’d stopped to pray earlier. It was far from an ideal hiding place, but much better than roaming the sidewalks.

  After a while his heart slowed down and he was able to think a little more calmly.

  His mother must have come home and found the note he’d left her, and then called the cops to go round him up and haul him back home. That was the only explanation he could think of for what had happened. It didn’t surprise him; it was exactly the kind of thing he’d been afraid she might do.

  The only thing that puzzled him was how they’d managed to find him so soon, especially in such an obscure little hole-in-the-wall place. The only thing he could come up with was that Mr. Croydon must have said something.

  Looking back, Brian realized that going to the hotel had been a mistake, and a stupid one, too. Fourteen year olds didn’t do stuff like that, and they didn’t usually walk around with fistfuls of hundred dollar bills, either. No wonder the man thought something fishy was going on.

  Brian sat down and pulled his knees up to his chest so he could lay his head down, then let out a long breath. A few more stupid moves like that and he’d end up in juvenile detention for a week or two. Mama wouldn’t hesitate to have him locked up if she thought it was the only way to knock some sense into his thick head. She’d probably use those same exact words, matter of fact. He knew her too well.

  The idea scared him, but not as much as she probably hoped it would. Brian had lived cheek and jowl with fear for an awfully long time. He thought he could probably keep his head down and not get caught, as long as he didn’t do anything else dumb to attract attention to himself.

  But in the meantime they already knew he was somewhere in Glenwood, and that was bad enough. He didn’t dare go back to the hotel to get his bike, and even the thought of sneaking back there long enough to wait for Rachel in the morning was enough to make his blood run cold. What if somebody had overheard their conversation last night and they had a squad car waiting for him the minute he showed up? But on the other hand, there was no way he’d get very far on foot, either.

  He wished he knew where Rachel lived, or even her phone number, but he’d never thought to ask. Now he had no way to get in touch with her when he really needed to. But then again, maybe it was better he didn’t. Calling her at home could make her parents suspicious, too, and that was the last thing they needed.

  He drummed his fingers against his knees, thinking hard. The only thing he could do was try to catch up with Rachel in the morning, no matter how dangerous it seemed. He might be able to go back to the hotel and wait for her, if he could find a place to lay hid while he waited. If anybody had been eavesdropping on their plans last night then he might find himself walking right into a trap, but what choice did he have?

  But surely tonight’s escapade would have changed things, wouldn’t it? They surely wouldn’t expect him to show up at the motel in the morning just like nothing happened, would they? It would either be incredibly brave or incredibly stupid; he couldn’t decide which. Maybe it was both, for that matter.

  He chewed on the idea for a while but couldn’t come up with anything better. He’d just have to try it and hope for the best.

  In the meantime, he decided the hedgerow was probably a safe spot to stay put for a few hours, at least till they gave up looking for him. He could figure out his next move when he was sure the coast was clear.

  His run from the law had left him drained, so he stretched out beside the hedge as comfortably as he could, and did his best to sleep awhile.

  He didn’t have much luck with that, because the roots kept digging into his back most uncomfortably, and the mosquitoes nearly ate him alive. He was able to doze a little in fits and snatches, but that was about all.