Thirteen Days to Midnight

  I had no way of telling Oh what was going on, no way of seeing her off to the bus station where I would have almost certainly enjoyed our first good-bye kiss.

  My head hurt in the strangest way, like a brain freeze after drinking a Slurpee too fast. I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples, which is why I heard them coming in before I saw them. I expected to see Miss Pines gliding through the door with an afternoon cup of coffee retrieved from the teachers’ lounge, but when I opened my eyes again I saw Oh and Milo standing over me.

  “If she catches you guys in here, I’m beyond busted.”

  “You and me both,” said Milo, his lip still fat from the night before.

  “Tell me you did it,” said Oh. A day was coming when I would disappoint her, fail some request she’d made of me. I was happy that day hadn’t come yet.

  “Whoever Lisa is, she’s indestructible. At least she is if it works. I don’t know.”

  But I did know. If the power wanted back inside me this badly, Lisa had to have it.

  “Put your hand out on the desk,” said Oh. “I’ve got something for you.”

  I tentatively moved my hand out, palm up, and she took out a pencil.

  “I don’t think that’s necessary,” I said. “I’m telling you she’s got it.”

  “Only one way to be sure,” said Oh. She put the tip of the pencil against my skin and held it there, looked up into my eyes hopefully. Then she pushed, softly at first then harder, until the sharp tip of the pencil made me wince in pain.

  “Awesome,” said Oh. I expected her to smile brightly with those incredible eyes. But she didn’t. First she looked euphoric, as if some drug had been pumped into her veins, but then, just as suddenly, the anger in her eyes returned, and she glared at me, digging the pencil a little deeper into my hand.

  “Cool it, Oh! That hurts,” I told her, annoyed. Did I just not know her well enough to understand these flashy mood swings that couldn’t be explained?

  She yanked the pencil away, like she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t. Her smile returned, but it was covering up something else she was feeling.

  “I wish I could do that, save someone like you do. It must be an incredible feeling.”

  I was about to tell her no, actually, it hurt like hell and it comes with a lot of emotional baggage, when Miss Pines stepped into the room.

  “Out, both of you.”

  Oh swiftly pulled a folded piece of paper out of her notebook and dropped it in my lap. Her back was to Miss Pines, blocking her view as I hid the paper inside my desk and Milo started chatting up Miss Pines.

  “You ever think about writing a ghost story, Miss Pines? Kids love that sort of thing. It’d be even better if you could do it in 3-D.”

  “Very funny, Mr. Coffin.”

  “No, I’m serious. It’s never been done. All you gotta do is insert a set of 3-D glasses into the back of the book and put some freaky pictures in there that only show the ghost if you use the glasses. It’s a bestseller waiting to happen.”

  Miss Pines seemed to momentarily contemplate how such a ridiculous idea might work, then shooed Oh and Milo out of her room. Oh looked back at me, smiling like she was really going to miss me and wished we could sneak in a better good-bye.

  “Call it Cheese Zombies,” Milo recommended from the hall as the door closed. “That’d be huge! I’m telling you—bestseller!”

  The door clicked shut, and Miss Pines shook her head. “His head is in the clouds, just like yours.”

  “When do I get my phone back?” I asked, dying to text Oh and Milo as they went off into the world without me.

  “Monday, unless you really make me mad, then it’s going to be longer.”

  “Miss Pines! You can’t do that—I need my phone this weekend!”

  “Not my problem.”

  She sat down at her desk and flipped open her laptop. I pulled out my copy of The Once and Future King and had been reading the same sentence for three minutes when Miss Pines sighed heavily.

  “Oh,” said Miss Pines. “That’s terrible.” She shook her head. “Nothing but bad news,” said Miss Pines. “It gets old.”

  “What is it?” I asked, already feeling the dreaded weight of responsibility to help before I even knew what she was talking about.

  “A teenage girl went paragliding in Oceanside, and the wind shifted without any warning at all. She’s out over the ocean. Way out.”

  I touched the folded piece of paper inside my desk. “Is she okay? What happened to her?”

  Miss Pines clicked her mouse, refreshing a screen I couldn’t see. “She landed in the water, about two miles offshore.”

  I didn’t care anymore about whether or not Miss Pines saw the piece of paper Oh had given me. I set my book down and unfolded the crisp white page. It was a printout of the homepage for Yahoo. Oh had a library hour at the end of the day where students could get online and do research with one of four computers. The story had two pictures, one of a paraglider out over the crashing waves of the ocean, the other of Lisa Moss. It was the same picture Oh had sent me. On the margin of the paper Oh had written a note in pencil. This is her. I’ll miss you… Oh.

  My head felt like I’d contracted a permanent case of brain-freeze. The power wanted back in. I wanted this to be over.

  For the remainder of the hour while I tried my best to read, Miss Pines gave me periodic updates on Lisa Moss, mostly because I wouldn’t stop pestering her about it every ten minutes.

  Lisa Moss, the updated story concluded, had experienced a miraculous event. She’d landed in the frigid Pacific Ocean and become hopelessly entangled in her parachute. The waves had pulled Lisa under before a boat could reach her, leaving only the bright red chute lying like a bloodstain on the surface of the water. But when they hauled the lines up and pulled Lisa Moss into the boat, she was alive. Cold, shivering, coughing up saltwater, but alive.

  Miss Pines let me walk up to her desk and see the picture of Lisa and her dad, hugging one another on the Oceanside dock.

  We’d saved a life, me and Oh, and it felt exhilarating. I shook off the doubt I’d felt earlier. Oh was right: We were needed. But something didn’t feel right.

  I closed my eyes, took the power back, and felt the calming relief of its return.

  Miss Pines sighed deeply, looking at her watch and then the door. “I guess that’s good enough. You can go.”

  It was 4:10. Oh’s bus was already gone.

  “Can I please have my phone back?” I pleaded. “Oh’s out of town and it’s the only way I can reach her.”

  “Give me the battery and I’ll give you the phone,” she said.

  There was no way I could risk letting go of the battery. Lisa’s face was on it. My texts to Oh and hers to me were on it. I’d done a lousy job of covering my tracks.

  “See you Monday,” I said, hoisting my backpack onto my shoulder and walking to the door.

  “Stay out of trouble, Jacob.”

  This was one weekend where I intended to do just that.

  EIGHT

  DAYS TO

  MIDNIGHT

  9:00 AM

  SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13TH

  I shuffled down the church house hall on Saturday morning and realized that having Oh gone for the weekend was, in some ways, a welcome relief. There would be no drama today, as far as I could figure, and Sunday would begin with church, float poetically into an afternoon nap at the house, and languish into the evening with my nose in a book.

  “Did you see the paper?” asked Father Tim as I passed by his small study lined with books and painted icons of saints. The Virgin Mary, Peter, John, Luke (my personal favorite, very concise), they all stared down from the walls at the back of Father Tim’s head as he ignored them, staring instead at the news of the present day.

  I looked inside where he was draped in his standard blue robe, drinking a cup of coffee and smoking a cigarette with the paper laid out on the desk. The fire had happened too late to make the morning paper the da
y before, but now it was front page news and so was Oh.

  “Ophelia James, a student at Holy Cross Academy, went back into the burning building and returned with Miss Morgan at her side, who carried a cat.”

  “That’s my girl,” I said, stepping all the way inside the room.

  “How’s it going in that department?” asked Father Tim.

  “Somehow I don’t think you’d be the first person to ask.”

  “Don’t be so sure. I wasn’t always a priest, you know.”

  He looked out over his bifocals and sipped his coffee.

  “Strong or weak?” I asked, eager to change the subject. Father Frank was known for making sinfully weak coffee….

  “Frank’s still asleep,” said Father Tim, and I was off to the kitchen for toast and a big mug. When I returned I sat across from Father Tim and scanned the front page. The picture of Oh was breathtaking. She looked so vibrant, so alive. Nothing like a girl who’d just escaped from a flaming apartment should have looked.

  “I still can’t get over it,” said Father Tim.

  “I know,” I mumbled, not sure what else I could say without sounding like I was trying to cover something up.

  “You know, after you left she stayed around awhile, tried to be helpful. Never did cough, not even once.”

  “I talked to her today,” I covered. “Turns out she wasn’t in there very long, and she never got into the really thick smoke.”

  Father Tim nodded, frowning. “Beautiful and lucky. Fabulous for you. Really, just fabulous.”

  Was he being serious or sarcastic? It was a fine line with a dry-witted priest.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  He took another sip of coffee, nodding over the rim of his cup.

  “How long were you Mr. Fielding’s priest?”

  “Technically I wasn’t his priest at all. We were friends. He didn’t like going to church. Never could quite guilt him into it. But he always loved the school, and the history. I think he was a little afraid of being around a lot of people.”

  “Okay, then, how long were you his friend?”

  “About twenty years, give or take. But he was gone for long stretches. He traveled a lot. In fact he traveled right up until he introduced you to me. Sometimes he was gone for a month, other times five years, and everything in between.”

  “Five years? You’re kidding me.” Where does someone go for five years? A person would have to live a whole different life.

  “A lot of time in Europe and England and New York. Sometimes he came back with an accent, then lost it a few weeks later.”

  “I caught that,” I said, thinking about how it was hard to tell where Mr. Fielding had come from, an international flavor creeping into a word or a phrase a few times a day.

  “I know you weren’t his priest, but did he ever confess to you?”

  Father Tim didn’t answer right away. I knew this was sacred ground, the confessions of the living and the deceased. If it was said in the box, it stayed in the box.

  Finally, Father Tim said, “No. He never confessed anything to me. But then, sometimes a person will share mistakes more openly with a friend than with a priest. You understand what I mean?”

  I felt a black dread bloom in my chest, the presence inside me clawing… not trying to get out, but moving like a cornered animal with its fangs bared in fear. The feeling made me catch my breath so violently I made a terrible sucking sound right in front of Father Tim.

  “Be careful you don’t choke on that toast. I’m a little rusty with the Heimlich.”

  He knew. Father Tim knew, I don’t know, something, and he was playing with me.

  “Is there anything you’re not telling me?” I asked, ready to simply get things out in the open.

  “Well, sure,” said Father Tim. “There are ten thousand secret sins I can’t tell you. Comes with the territory. But if you mean something about Mr. Fielding, then yes, there is something.”

  I braced myself, hoping he’d know, hoping he wouldn’t know, feeling the black cloud in my chest pummeling my guts in search of a place to hide.

  Father Tim opened one of the drawers in his desk and pulled out a can of lighter fluid. For a split second, I have no idea why, I thought he might have plans to set me on fire and see for himself that I wouldn’t die.

  “Here, take this,” he said, handing me the small tin can. “It was Mr. Fielding’s, goes with the Zippo. When it stops lighting, you pull the center part out and pour some of this in there.”

  “That’s it, that’s all you wanted to tell me? That Mr. Fielding left a can of lighter fluid in here?”

  Father Tim leaned on his elbows, staring right into my soul as only a priest can do.

  “Mr. Fielding used to say he thought he might live forever. He was funny that way, always talking about some close call he’d had. Now I’m starting to see another pattern of close calls. One of my parishioners from the neighborhood saw Oh’s accident on the street. They said it was pretty violent, the way it happened. And now Oh just about gets herself killed. I know she’s a great girl, but danger seems to be drawn to her, Jacob. Or she’s drawn to it. And remember, contrary to what Mr. Fielding used to say, no one lives forever.”

  I wanted to say, wanna bet? but I held my tongue. I couldn’t tell if Father Tim knew anything about the power or not the way he danced around the subject so cleverly.

  “Okay, I’ll be careful. I’ll take it slow.”

  “He was a good man, Jacob. Complicated, but good.”

  Father Tim excused himself and went to the kitchen for a fresh cup of coffee. I sat there, staring at Saint Luke, wondering if his life had been as difficult as mine was turning out to be. Whatever had taken up residence inside me had calmed down, as if it knew the threat from outside had vanished.

  When Father Tim came back, I decided to ask him about one more thing.

  “Did you hear about the girl at Oceanside?” I asked, biting into a piece of toast covered in peanut butter and honey.

  “I did. It’s a miracle she’s alive. Things like that keep an old faith ticking.”

  “I never thought of it that way before.”

  “Wait until you’re older. It’s a long journey. Do you realize I’m almost twice as old as Christ was when he died? He’s not the same to me as he was when I was thirty. It’s like I’m old enough now he could be my kid, which is a freakish thought. Faith never stays put. It’s always challenging, always questioning. That’s what makes it real.”

  “You’re a seriously deep thinker, you know that?”

  He shrugged. “I’d love to hear more about this romance of yours.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t want to talk about Oh. She’s… also complicated, but I think I’m figuring her out.”

  “All right, then—but let me at least give you one piece of advice. Take it slow, like I said. And do something special, soon, a date she won’t be able to forget. That’s important.”

  “That’s two pieces of advice. Can we move on?”

  Father Tim waved me ahead.

  “Did you mean what you said the other day, in religion class? About God saving everyone no matter what?”

  “What do you think?”

  I slugged down some coffee, stalling.

  “I hope you were right.”

  Father Tim leaned in over his desk again with his fingers folded together.

  “So do I.”

  I swerved the subject closer to where I wanted it to go.

  “I was wondering about that girl, the one that landed in the ocean. She should have died, you know?”

  “I know.”

  “Why didn’t she? I mean, why her?”

  “I guess it wasn’t her time yet. When it is, she’ll go.”

  “What if she was supposed to die but didn’t? What then?”

  Father Tim leaned back and looked out the window of his study. “Then God changed his mind. He’s unpredictable.”

  No kidding, I thought. If Father Tim
knew what I knew, his faith would be even more complicated. Why would God let a power like this fall into my inexperienced hands?

  “God’s into dangerous moves,” I said, letting my train of thought slip out.

  “I couldn’t have said it better myself,” said Father Tim. “Dangerous moves. I like that. I might have to use it in a sermon.”

  “Consider it yours.”

  I went back to the kitchen to use the house phone and see what Milo was up to, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what Father Tim had said. God hadn’t changed his mind, had he? We’d changed his mind for him, or so it seemed to me.

  But then again… you can’t change God’s mind, can you?

  That got me thinking: maybe those deaths that might have happened were… still out there somewhere. Death didn’t just evaporate into thin air, did it? Maybe it was out there, getting bigger and darker, moving over our heads like a rain cloud about to burst.

  Milo didn’t answer, so I went back to my books, a dreary Saturday floating by. Setting the can of lighter fluid on my puny desk, I picked up The Once and Future King. What Father Tim had said about telling a friend my mistakes made me wonder. Did he know I was holding on to something about the day Mr. Fielding died? Could he see it in my face, the fact that I needed to tell someone? Probably.

  I missed Oh, but that day it hit me just how much I missed Mr. Fielding. Maybe it was the loneliness. Being with Oh and Milo and having something totally outrageous to focus my attention on had been a reliable diversion. But a church house on a Saturday night is a stunningly still place. Mr. Fielding had been good to me. I hadn’t let myself get very close to anyone like that before, and now that he was gone and I’d had a little time to really think about it, I felt the pain and understood the truth. Mr. Fielding was the closest thing to a dad I was ever going to have. I was too old for another chance. I was washed up in the son department. And it couldn’t have happened at a worse time.

  I inhaled deeply, thinking of the smell of pipe tobacco, and somewhere along the way I closed my eyes and slept like the dead.