RayAnn reopened her laptop, if just to have some light, and put her feet back on me. She scratched one foot with the other until I reached down and rubbed the arches of her feet through her socks.
"Tired?" I asked her. "We've been chasing around quite a bit, what with three trips to the Lightning Field."
"Nah, I'm good," she said. "I love moments like this."
"Like what?"
"When I feel like I have you all to myself."
I grinned at her, a little perplexed. But then, it did seem that when we were together it was often in a clutter of either people or paperwork—half-written stories and half-finished papers for classes, Claudia hanging over our shoulders, other reporters banging around in the office.
"We spend a lot of time in my dorm room," I noted, then quickly added, "when Stedman isn't there."
"I don't mind Stedman," she said. "He's sincere and likable."
If I'd had any sort of judgmental or selfish roommate when I had my accident, I might not be in college right now. I had to agree, though I noticed a click in her voice.
"I'm sorry," I said, awkwardly. "I feel like I'm always tied up, distracted."
She said nothing, only continued to watch me, and I knew that "tied up" and "distracted" were choices—like everything else in my life. RayAnn's presence simply hadn't changed those choices. A good part of me wanted to go full-throttle ahead into this relationship, but I was poised at the edge of a cliff and couldn't fall into that dive to the water far below. I simply couldn't relax. Right person ... wrong time? How could I make it the right time? Aren't I in charge of my own destiny? If I couldn't get it right with RayAnn, could I expect to fare any better with the New York Times in two years?
"I have dragons to slay," I said.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, it's like you're the fairy princess and I have to slay the dragons before I can truly have you."
In the light of her laptop, I could see her head falling and rising, like she understood me.
"Well. If I'm in it, it has to be a modern-day fairy tale. In other words, the princess gets to fight the dragons, too."
She took my fingers in hers, brought them to her lips, and kissed them. Her devotion wafted up my arm and into my neck, giving me flash images of boa constrictors. I reached my hand into her hair again, trying to ignore this latest scary imagery, but feeling sad.
I said, "But the dragons aren't after the princess."
A bit of shifting light from the Adamses' house revealed the front door opening, and Richardson came through it. Adams remained in the doorway, though they exchanged words as Bo walked backwards to his car. I rolled down the window quickly. We were more than a stone's throw away, but the driveway was far from the house, too. For once, we got a little lucky.
"...can't get away until eleven, probably," Richardson was saying. Then I heard the words "Ali" and "ten" and "right now ... find Justin."
That was it. I didn't bother asking if RayAnn heard something more. My ears had gotten ten times more acute since my accident, and sure enough, as Richardson jumped back into his car, she asked, "Did you get any of that?"
"Ali's arriving in town about ten, but he can't break away from his family until around eleven. Right now he's going to find Justin," I said.
She whistled long, impressed. "He's going to Justin's house?"
We watched as his car came out of the drive. Steepleton would be to his left. The Lightning Field would be a right. He made a right.
SEVENTEEN
AS WE PULLED UP TO THE TRAIL leading to the Lightning Field, RayAnn confirmed that Bo Richardson's car wasn't parked anywhere around.
"Damn. Maybe he decided to go home," I said, frustrated. "Obviously Justin comes first, but I thought I could talk to him, get him to influence Adams..."
"What do you want to do?" RayAnn asked.
Going to either the Richardson or the Burden household was above my level of expertise as a journalist, and I couldn't even fathom it. I thought of calling Claudia for a fast lesson, but I felt too restless.
"We're here. Might as well go see if the boy is back at his home away from home."
There were no cars parked where RayAnn left ours, but as we walked the trail for the fourth time in twenty- four hours, I noticed shiny bits of metal in the little scenes I could take in. There were about ten bikes stashed in the bushes along the way. Word must have gotten out that Justin had come back.
The moon was so bright that I didn't need to hold on to RayAnn's arm, though we had left Lanz in the car. My instincts were telling me to leave him in case somebody else pushed me tonight and he decided to play guard dog and bite. RayAnn didn't appear nervous this time, and I guessed she was getting used to the place.
It took us a long time to navigate the field, but we heard laughter and music coming from down by the water, and near the rock pile we saw fire. Someone had brought two of those flame torches you can buy for summer barbecues, and they were lit on either side, throwing an orange glow onto a couple of faces I could spot. There also appeared to be a bonfire going on closer to the water.
"There's thirteen that I can count," RayAnn told me.
"You see Justin?" I heaved a sigh of relief as I suddenly heard him singing along with music coming from a boom box. Not bitten by a snake ... not super depressed.
We found Justin in the same place we'd left him, but now he was surrounded by six or seven girls. I spotted Taylor Hammond, but not Mary Ellen right off. It was smoky. Cigarettes and marijuana. I didn't let myself cough this time.
"It's the journalism jocks!" Justin said cheerily as we came around the rock and into his view, all signs of his earlier hate for me gone.
"Are you all right?" I asked immediately, finding his face. He was smiling as if the whole thing this afternoon had never happened, but he put a finger to his grin in a secretive way. I gathered he didn't want to hear a load of grief over how he'd interpreted the strange bursts of light, though I had no idea whether he still thought he'd seen his brother. He looked stabilized, which made me wonder if he'd taken his medication or something in lieu of it.
"Meet..." He said maybe six names, and other kids were laughing and talking behind us, down by the bonfire.
"This is my harem," he concluded, with a healthy sweep of his arm.
I heard some eff-yous and sensed some sign language flipped at him, but none of these girls seemed to be moving away. He did look a little like a modern King Solomon, plopped in the middle of this group.
"You guys want chips?" he asked. "We got chips. You want a beer?"
I shook my head and don't know what RayAnn did. This impromptu party was certainly no eye-opener compared to living in a dorm, but I could tell she was uncomfortable.
"Do you want lawn chairs? We have lawn chairs." Justin jumped up and sprang over the rock pile, and we heard him calling, "Kobe! Give up those lawn chairs."
"Why?"
"Because I said to. We have out-of-town guests. Get the fuck up."
"Oh! Are those reporters back?" Mary Ellen's voice rang out. I spotted her shooting up out of a lawn chair that Justin was all but jerking out from under her. She and Kobe followed him as he dragged back two chairs.
Taylor was sitting close to me, and considering all she'd told me at the crime scene last night, I mumbled to her, "Is he behaving himself?"
"Well enough," she said with a sigh. "He's drinking a beer. That we can deal with."
I rolled my eyes, feeling helpless. Mary Ellen scooted around Justin and grabbed my arm, announcing to the harem, "This is Mike. He's blind. But he is very cool. Be nice to him or I will knock you senseless."
"Why?" asked a girl who was smoking with one hand and studying her nails on the other. "When was the last time you saw me be nice to anybody?"
"Last time I kicked your ass."
Unfortunately the girl took Mary Ellen's threat as a challenge. She got up, put her arms around my neck, and stroked the back of my head. It was pure sarcasm. She reminded me
of Julia Stiles in some evil-chick movie role.
"Should I be nice to you?" She had snake eyes, full of bluster.
I felt RayAnn lose it beside me, sink down into a lawn chair, and mutter, "...like an episode of Women Behind Bars."
I turned and found her eyes. In high school RayAnn had spent many a weekend going mountain climbing or hiking or skiing with a crew of a dozen or so homeschooled kids. But she told me she'd found herself at only three or four parties like this in all of her pre-college years. She'd said she preferred being in an outhouse with the door shut to the smell of stale cigarettes and stale brew. I had been at even less. One, I think. We'd been a coupla dorks. But once you get to college, it's all history, I tried to remind myself.
"You're on your own," she said hotly, "si tu vis a rester ici avec ces perdants." If you really must stay here with these creatures.
I didn't feel like I had a choice at the moment. I unwrapped the girl's arms from my neck, realizing I could get her claws in my face next, but I was doing my best to hunt for where Justin was.
Behind me. He shoved the lawn chair into the back of my knees until I sat. The girl sat in my lap. "I don't understand why I should be nice to you," she said, flipping the bird in my face, probably something about Mary Ellen saying I was blind.
She was jerked up so quickly that she screamed. "Ouch! Tear out my hair, why don't you?"
"You want me to?" Justin twisted her arm around until she sat down on the rocks, cussing a blue streak. "Don't be stupid, Deanna. He's got a girlfriend here. He wants you as bad as he wants an STD. He can see, and he just saw what you did in his face. C'mon. Do it in my face."
"Just leave it alone," I suggested to him, seeing that he had probably scared the girl half to death.
Having Justin Creed in your face could be a bit shocking, but to my amazement this Deanna girl put her head on her knee and started crying, rubbing her sore and shocked head. I seemed to remember from high school that the meanest girls are the first to fall out when someone is mean to them.
Justin started explaining his behavior to me, though he rubbed her hair. "Ooops. I'm not watching again. Remember I said the counselors always told me I don't watch people? Not good with the details. Deanna, I only got about six of your hairs wrapped around my fingers! Here ... you want 'em back?"
She gave him a good piece of her mind, until he took both of her cheeks in his hands and kissed her on the forehead. "You're right about everything. You feel better now?"
He crawled back up onto his throne. My next problem was Mary Ellen, who didn't sit in my lap but knelt beside me and threw her arm around me like we were best friends.
"Mike got me to turn over a new leaf!" she announced loudly. "I'm not going to be a bitch anymore."
A thunder of clapping and laughter sounded off, and I realized we were surrounded by at least a dozen people.
"How'd you get her to do that?" Some guy raised a bottle to the moon for a swallow.
I didn't get the impression that these people found Mary Ellen especially mean. It was just one of those funny, mutual punch lines that everyone thinks of at once. Still, I sensed that a part of her wanted to be serious.
"Mike is a great listener. And he asks good questions. He made me realize that I have an evil side. And I don't want to have an evil side. So, I don't have to."
"Ooooh, let's test her out!" I recognized Kobe Lydee's voice and a sound like a steel-toed boot kicking a sneaker sole. He cracked up laughing, but it was way too hard a kick, and Mary Ellen screamed in pain.
I found Justin's face, the balls of his hands to his temples. "Children ... children!" he let go and yelled. "Apologize, Kobe, you moron!"
Kobe simply fell over on his side, howling with laughter at the sky.
"You broke my ankle, fool!"
"Let me see it!" Justin beckoned to her, and she skidded away from me up the rock until her foot was in his lap. "Who threw this party, eh? Who paid for all these refreshments, brought out these lawn chairs stolen from his own backyard, and lit these stinky torches?"
"You did ... you did..." voices chimed.
"Because I can take all my refreshments and buzz on out of here and end this thing as quickly as it started." The mood dropped from a twelve to about a four. "Why did I bring you all out here tonight?"
Nobody answered right away. He was looking down Mary Ellen's sock, asking her to wiggle her toes. He took her word for it that she could, as her foot was in a sneaker.
"It's a bruise," he said, rearranging her jeans back down over her sock and patting her calf. "You'll live."
"But it hurts!"
He stared around at everyone, opening his arms, and she fell into them. Smooth, smooth. Who would have ever thought Chris Creed's brother? These kids were well into whatever brew he had packed away down by the water, were dangerously unstable, but he told them to simmer down and they simply did it. He got what he expected. When he was among this many people, his mania made him seem like the leader, the life of the party. It appeared like a plus instead of a minus.
"I want everyone to have fun, but why are we here? Why do I need my friends around me right now?"
Nobody said anything.
"Hel-lo?" he tried again.
Mary Ellen finally answered. "Because some of us have been seeing lights. Across the field. Out in the woods."
I sensed heads turning, and I turned slowly to find the place that had lit up this afternoon.
"They're all looking at that same spot," RayAnn murmured. "Definitely we're not the only people to have seen it. There's nothing over there now."
"The foundation is still there," Kobe said, nudging me, "of the house where the Jersey Devil was born. The infamous home of Mother Leeds and her thirteenth child..."
"Did you have to bring him?" Justin asked Mary Ellen. "Dude! There is no Jersey Devil, and you are so lucky I'm so unsober. I will break your ankle later."
"I'm entitled to my free speech," Kobe said in a disarming voice. I didn't get the feeling either of them was looking for a fight.
"I saw the light this afternoon, and I have two witnesses." Justin pointed emphatically at RayAnn and me. I felt a lot of eyes on me and heard RayAnn saying "We did see a light."
There were some oooohs and claps of approval, as if we had expertise of some sort. I didn't sense RayAnn bringing out her iPhone for further explanation, and that was a good thing, too. It occurred to me that Justin's friends had come to love him when he was slightly manic like this. His confidence was huge. It gave others confidence, not understanding that he was walking a tightrope.
"You know what I think that light is. Today I was totally positive I saw my brother over there, waving a lantern. I ran over and by the time I got there I was, like, doubting myself. What did you guys see?"
"It ... was weird," I said, and let it be. I felt torn, wanting to show him the frames RayAnn took and explain, but also wanting to protect him from devastation in front of his friends.
"I have good reason to think it is my brother. If my brother comes walking out of those woods tonight, I will need my friends around me, so they can tote me to the hospital when I have my heart attack. If my brother doesn't come walking out of those woods tonight, I will need my friends around me because I will be super depressed, and you can stop me from throwing myself in the water, okay?"
"What makes you think it's your brother?" one girl asked.
I took it some of these people did not have all the in side scoop, because she asked seriously. Nobody who had the inside scoop laughed.
His jaw bobbed a couple times, and out of his mouth finally came "Because I tried quantum thought to bring him here. And then I get these two e-mails, and then people start seeing lights out in the woods. You can say quantum thought is not real all you want. But nobody can argue with how this happened. He's out there. I can feel it."
He gazed at the spot where we'd seen the light, invisible to me now, over my left shoulder and across the field. I rolled my eyes privately.
/> "Can we ... go over there and search around?" the same girl asked.
"If you like water moccasins," Justin said. "I got lucky today, but I'm not trying it again unless we see those lights."
"What's a water moccasin?" RayAnn whispered to me.
"Poisonous snakes. Indigenous to New Jersey," I whispered back. I could tell she was staring at me, but I was staring at Justin.
"I understand there was a torrential downpour yesterday when I was still up at rehab. The field on that side of the woods turns into a swamp, and unless you've got army boots, you're likely to get an ankle full of venom."
"What are you going to do if you see him?" the girl asked. Good question.
Justin said, "If I see my brother, then I will know that quantum thought has worked. In that case, I will wish protection all over myself from the water moccasins, knowing I will receive it, because I got it the first time. I will simply run the hell over there."
I could hear Kobe mumbling under his breath, and this time Justin picked up on it.
"Look. Whoever thinks I'm loony tunes, go the fuck down by the water and get out of my personal space. I'm not kidding. I'm not laying a hand on anybody; just go. I don't want people's doubt mixing up with my belief and tainting it. Not tonight. If you're a doubter, I will be able to single you out if you hang around. And then I will knock the shit out of you."
It took about ten seconds for a couple of jackets to rustle, and maybe four or five people went down by the water, including Kobe. The rest stayed.
"So, what do we have to do now?" the same girl asked.
"Nothing," Justin said. "It's all been done. Just wait. Believe. Have a party. Cavort and—"
Justin didn't get to finish. What was suddenly shining from that spot across the field was a large, very real flashlight, in the hands of a male. A silhouette was moving this way, water moccasins or not. A bunch of girls screamed so loud, I thought Lanz probably went deaf way back at the car.
EIGHTEEN
JUSTIN WAS GOOD TO HIS WORD, rising from the rocks and sprinting to a point about fifty feet closer, but then he stopped dead in his tracks. We all moved to him, and I got locked in a clatter of shoulders, unable to find RayAnn.