Jack hesitated, then slipped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him. He felt her resist, then tremble and lean into him.
“You’re safe, Weez. He’s gone and I’ve got your back. It’s over.”
Except for the piney blood … if there was any.
“Should I tell the police what he tried to do to me? I thought it didn’t matter once he was gone, but maybe it does.”
Jack took an instant dislike to that idea.
“What would that accomplish? The police are convinced he’s the killer. Putting yourself in the middle of this mess doesn’t help them, and can only hurt you.”
She snuggled closer, like a kitten trying to borrow a little warmth. Man, that felt good.
“You’re right. You’ve been right a lot lately, Jack.”
“Just luck.”
Jack remembered an old saying that went something like, The harder I work, the luckier I get.
Then she asked the question Jack couldn’t answer.
“But who was breaking into his locker?”
So he decided to start the ghost story with Weezy.
“Maybe it was Marcie Kurek, getting even.”
He went on to explain his reasoning, just as he had to Tim.
When he was through, Weezy said, “I believe in a lot of things I can’t prove, Jack, but I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“Not even a little?”
“Well, maybe people leave emanations behind when they die violently, but the whole ghost thing … people reappearing and looking like they did in real life … that’s so bogus.”
“Why?”
“A ghost is supposedly their spirit, so why should it look like their body? And why should it be dressed, for God’s sake? That always makes me laugh. Why would a spirit dress up in clothes?”
Jack had to admit she had a point. It did seem stupid. But he wasn’t backing down.
“Marcie didn’t appear to anyone that we know of—I can’t speak for Toliver, of course—but it answers all the mysteries, Weezy. How else do you explain what happened?”
She was silent a long time, still leaning against him, and Jack sort of wished the moment would go on and on. But then she straightened, pulling away.
“Yeah, it does. But it’s too easy. Something’s missing.”
Uh-oh.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Somehow I think it’s more complicated than that.” She rose and turned to face him. “I’m going to have to do some heavy thinking on this. I don’t need an immediate explanation for everything. But I know there’s one out there. I don’t believe I can know everything—I’m not smart enough and I won’t live long enough—but I’m pretty sure, given sufficient time and intelligence, everything is eventually knowable.”
Jack agreed. But he wanted the ghost story out there, circulating.
“But just for the heck of it, why don’t you ask your friends at school what they think about ghost vengeance?”
“I may just do that.”
Yeah, spread it around.
She stared down at him. “Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll be ready when the news hits tomorrow morning.” She bent and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “You’re a good friend, Jack.”
I try, he thought as goose bumps raised all over his skin.
He watched her walk away, then stared at the lake, watching the ripples reflect the single lighted window in the Lodge up on the rise.
5
“How interesting,” said a woman’s voice.
Jack jumped off the bench and spun to see Mrs. Clevenger and her three-legged dog standing behind him.
“Oh, hi.”
She fixed him with her stare. “You speak a truth while thinking you speak an untruth.”
“Huh?”
She stepped around the edge of the bench and seated herself. She patted the spot next to her.
“Come sit again.”
“Gee, I don’t know…”
“Sit.”
She said it like she was speaking to a dog, but Jack had never heard her tell her dog to sit.
Still …
He sat.
“It is strange how things work in there,” she said, staring east to where the Pine Barrens lay.
“I guess so.”
She glanced at him. “It was not a question. I was not asking you to agree.”
“Ooookay.”
“A girl dies, murdered. She is buried and, in most other places, that would possibly be the end of that.”
“Most other places? You mean most places other than the Pines?”
“And even in the Pines. Most of the Barrens is exactly what it appears to be, but places exist within its million acres where, possibly, the usual laws do not apply.”
“Like where?”
“Places where plants will not grow, where living things will not tread. And where dead things do not rest easy.”
She didn’t use Weezy’s ooh-scary voice, but the effect was more real. Jack felt that spider on his spine again.
“You … you’re talking about the place where Marcie was buried?”
“I am speaking only of possibilities.”
“What’s wrong with it? Why won’t anything grow there? Was the ground poisoned?”
He thought about the pine lights dipping into that dead soil. Did they sterilize it in some annual ritual, or had they been drawn by Marcie?
“That would depend on what you mean by ‘poison.’”
“Weezy says there was a building there once—a big one.”
Mrs. Clevenger looked at him. “And how would she know that?”
“She says the ebony spleenwort is a clue.”
“She is very wise, that one. Yes, a building once existed there, a long, long time ago.”
“What kind of building?”
“Let us call it a temple of sorts. And let us assume that what went on in that building forever changed—one might say tainted—the place where it sat. It is not the earth itself, it is the place. Remove dirt from there and you will find it supports life very well someplace else. Move new fertile soil in and it will become barren—whatever you sow will not germinate, whatever you plant there will die.”
Jack swallowed. This was so weird.
“And if you ‘plant’ something dead there…?”
She shrugged. “Perhaps it will rest easy, perhaps not. Let us assume the poor Kurek girl was buried in such a place. Perhaps she rested quietly and would have continued to do so had not a certain sequence of events been initiated.”
Jack realized what she was talking about.
“Toliver’s attack on Weezy.”
She nodded. “Violence begets violence. Raw fear and lust are potent emotions.”
“Do they attract pine lights?”
She nodded. “You witnessed something few humans ever see.”
How did she know that?
“What are they anyway?”
“They are known to some as lumens, but in essence, they are what they are.”
Thanks for clearing that up, he thought.
“But what did it mean? What were they doing?”
“Who can explain the lumens? They remain mostly isolated and disconnected, but under certain circumstances—the autumnal equinox, for one—they become organized. Something triggered their activity.”
“Weezy—”
“Her pain and terror—perhaps. As I was saying, the Kurek girl might have remained quiet had not her killer attempted violence upon another girl so near to where she lay.”
“She woke up?”
“No, of course not. She is dead. Death is death, but sometimes death is not the end. A remnant became aware, and with that awareness came rage at the one who had so shortened her young life.”
“Wait-wait-wait.” This was too much like the ghost story he’d made up. “He asked about someone being haunted. Are you saying it’s true? That Marcie’s ghost got into Toliver’s locker and left those things for him???
?
“I am saying no such thing. I am saying that if an object exists in one place, it can be moved to another.”
“But something has to transport it.”
She nodded. “I agree.”
“But—”
She gave Jack an intent look. “Sometimes the living help by opening that which is closed.”
It took a moment or two for that to sink in. And when it did, the meaning blasted through Jack like a winter storm.
Was she saying that whatever “residue” of Marcie had awakened had been able to follow him into Toliver’s locker? But how could Mrs. Clevenger know about—?
Oh, crap. Had Walt told her about meeting him in the dead of night? Had she put it all together?
Or did she just … know? She seemed to know all sorts of things. If she knew about his father’s vasectomy becoming recanalized, and knew about him watching the pine lights a couple of nights ago, then she could easily know about his secret trips to Toliver’s locker.
Though she seemed harmless, even benign, this old woman gave him the creeps.
“Wh-who helped?”
She smiled. “Not to worry. I will tell no one.”
Tim had said the sheriff’s office would be looking for whoever had broken into Toliver’s locker. He couldn’t imagine them questioning someone everybody considered crazy, or believing her even if she went to them. Still, you never knew.
“The police—”
“The concerns of the police are of no concern to me. You acted nobly. Weezy is lucky to have such a friend.”
Jack couldn’t help a swell of pride at the compliment.
“So … is it over?”
She nodded. “The Pine Barrens are all about balance. They allow the scales to remain uneven for only so long, then they must be brought back into line. The scales are balanced.”
“Are they? Someone told me something about piney blood on Toliver’s hands.”
“That would be Saree. She is right.”
“Then—”
“It is over.” She rose and leaned on her cane as she looked down at him. “I will leave you now. I know you helped the balance. I have no need to discuss it with anyone else.”
With that she turned and walked slowly away, her dog following in its strange, three-legged gait.
He watched them cross the Quaker Lake bridge and disappear into the shadows of Old Town.
6
He sat a few moments longer, pondering piney blood and thinking about how his collection of secrets was growing: things he’d done that he wasn’t supposed to do, things he knew that he wasn’t supposed to know.
He glanced left and saw a figure approaching. He couldn’t make out the face but no need to: A tall, slim man in a white suit could be only one person.
“Well, well,” Mr. Drexler said, smiling his thin smile as he stopped next to the bench. “Look who’s here, all alone. No friends?”
“All I need. How about you?”
He shook his head. “Friendship is highly overrated. The only difference between a friend and an enemy is that a friend will stab you in the heart rather than the back. The few times I’ve tried friendship I found its attendant duties, social and otherwise, quite burdensome. I much prefer to do without.”
Jack had no idea how to respond to that, so he said nothing.
Mr. Drexler added, “Some people cannot bear being alone. Perhaps because when they are alone there is no one there. You do not appear to mind.”
“Just because I’m alone doesn’t mean I’m lonely.”
He tapped the bench with the tip of his cane. “Excellent response. You’ve got you, and sometimes that’s quite enough.” He waved his cane around. “Quite an entertaining little town you’ve got here, Jack. Murder, suicide, a man named Weird Walt, and you. I shall miss it.”
“You’re leaving?”
“Your powers of deduction are positively Holmesian. I have accomplished my purpose. Time to leave this entertaining little town.”
He kept calling Johnson entertaining. Why?
“Not to worry. Your gardening job is secure until the frost. I came to town merely to reorganize after the sudden departure of a number of members. My work here is done.”
Departure of members? Yeah, departed as in dead. As for work, Jack hadn’t seen him do any work. Hadn’t seen him do much of anything except hang around and have meetings. The card he’d given Jack had said he was an “actuator” for the Ancient Septimus Fraternal Order, but who knew what that meant.
He grinned up at him. “Going to go actuate somewhere else?”
Mr. Drexler’s smile was tight and tolerant. “I suppose one might put it that way. As you can imagine, this Lodge was in severe disarray after the events of August.”
I’ll bet it was, Jack thought.
The mysterious sudden deaths of four local members would tend to disarray things.
“But it’s back on track now. The Order has other tasks for me.”
“Where next?”
“Wherever I am sent.” He twirled his cane. “Good-bye, Jack.”
Jack rose and thrust out his hand. “Nice meeting you. And thanks for the job.”
It hadn’t really been nice meeting him—he was kind of creepy—but he’d treated him well and fairly, despite the fiasco last month, and it seemed like the right thing to say.
Mr. Drexler’s hand was cool and dry as it gripped Jack’s and gave it a firm squeeze.
“Perhaps someday we shall be brothers in the Order.”
“Um, yeah, perhaps.”
Don’t hold your breath.
As Mr. Drexler turned and strolled away, Jack headed home.
He was halfway up Franklin Street when he saw movement to his right and Levi Coffin emerged from the shadows.
Jack hid his surprise. This guy had a habit of seeming to appear out of thin air.
“You following me?”
“Nope,” he said as he fell in step beside Jack.
“Well, you’ve got to be a long way from home.”
“I am.”
“Then how do you get around? Teleport?”
“What’s that?”
Jack couldn’t believe he didn’t know, but explained anyway.
“That’s when you make a thing disappear from one place and appear in another.”
“That’s your talent! You moved those things into Toliver’s locker without openin’ the door!”
“No. Wrong. I don’t have a talent.”
“Then how’d you know about this teleportatin’?”
“Teleporting. And everybody knows.”
“Not everybody. At least not by that word. We call it ‘moving.’”
“‘We’?”
“Yeah, well, never mind that. Came by to tell you some news. I found out whose piney blood Toliver had on his hands.”
“Whose?”
“Marcie Kurek’s.”
“No way. She wasn’t a—”
“Yeah, she was. I never knew. Hardly anybody did, but when news came out she was killed, people who did know started talkin’. Turns out she was Noah Appleton’s little girl. Noah got killed in a huntin’ accident shortly after Marcie was born. Not too long after that her mama took up with this Kurek fellow from Shamong and married him. Left her kinfolk and never looked back. Even let this Kurek fellow adopt Marcie and change her name. That gal may’ve lived in Shamong, but she was born in the Pines, and once a piney, always a piney.”
Jack shook his head. “So Saree was right.”
He now understood what Mrs. C had meant when she insisted the scales were balanced.
“Yeah, her talent held true. And yours … if it ain’t teleportin’, what is it?”
Jack held up his hands, palms out. “Enough. I’m not doing this again.”
“Okay, okay. Have it your way. But I’m a-gonna figger out your talent. I’m a-gonna keep an eye on you, and when I catch you usin’ it, I’ll know.”
Jack didn’t like the idea of anybody watching him, espe
cially a weird piney, but he stayed cool.
“Well, Levi, you’ve got an awfully boring life ahead of you. And what’s with all this ‘talent’ talk? You got some sort of special talent yourself?”
He sensed a wall go up around Levi. He was still right beside him but it felt like he’d teleported ten feet away.
“We ain’t allowed to talk about that.”
There it was again: We.
“What do—?”
“Gotta go,” Levi said, and trotted off toward the shadows.
“Hey, wait!”
“Be seein’ you.”
And then he was gone.
Be seein’ you …
That sounded too much like Be watching you … and that gave Jack the creeps.
And who were the “we” he mentioned, the ones who weren’t allowed to talk about supposed “talents”?
Jack wondered if he’d ever know.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
For readers who wish to know a little more about Weird Walt and the secret behind his odd behavior, I suggest the 2009 reprint of The Touch. The novel’s prequel, “Dat Tay Vao,” is included. Together they offer a glimpse into the gift/curse that rules Walter Erskine’s life.
THE SECRET HISTORY
OF THE WORLD
The preponderance of my work deals with a history of the world that remains undiscovered, unexplored, and unknown to most of humanity. Some of this secret history has been revealed in the Adversary Cycle, some in the Repairman Jack novels, and bits and pieces in other, seemingly unconnected works. Taken together, even these millions of words barely scratch the surface of what has been going on behind the scenes, hidden from the workaday world. I’ve listed them below in the chronological order in which the events in them occur.
Note: “Year Zero” is the end of civilization as we know it; “Year Zero Minus One” is the year preceding it, etc.
THE PAST
“Demonsong” (prehistory)
“Aryans and Absinthe”** (1923–1924)
Black Wind (1926–1945)
The Keep (1941)