Ambush

  “You’re not coming in?”

  “He wants to talk to you alone.”

  I shrugged and started to think of all the things I would never accomplish in my life, seeing as this would probably be my last free moment alive.

  I walked in through the large wooden door and signed my name on a piece of paper near the front desk. A lady with a really big nose called an orderly, who promptly marched me to my father’s room.

  We turned down two different halls and walked through three sets of locked doors before we arrived at his room.

  #19.

  The orderly patted me on the back and informed me he would be waiting outside of the door for me if there were any problems.

  I knocked firmly.

  “Come in,” my father’s voice called.

  Pushing open the door, I slipped in. As the door clicked closed behind me, I heard, “Beck.”

  I could see my dad sitting on a chair in the corner of the poorly lit room. He was wearing a blue bathrobe and black slippers over white socks. His gray hair was a mess, and he had the makings of a pretty good beard. He was almost perfectly still; the only motion was his ring finger on his left hand tapping against the wooden arm on the orange chair. He looked at me, and I knew I was in for it. Even in his most troubled stages, he had always tried to not frighten me. Now, he looked like a ghost from Scrooge who had come not only to haunt, but to hurt me.

  “Sit,” he said calmly, never taking his eyes off me.

  I sat down on the edge of his bed.

  “You look good,” I tried.

  My father grunted.

  “I got a B on my math test,” I said, throwing out the one good thing I had done in the last few days.

  “Math’s important,” he replied.

  “The mountains are really green,” I tried. “It’s like they know summer’s coming.”

  “Beck, I didn’t ask you to come so we could talk about the landscape,” he said briskly.

  “Right,” I waved. “You just wanted to hang out with your only child—a little father-son time. I understand. I probably should have brought a ball and mitt so we could play catch.”

  I wasn’t trying to be sarcastic, but the feeling in the room was grim. It was as if we had gathered to talk about the death of someone we loved dearly. I could see the pain in my dad’s eyes, and I knew I needed to do something. I had messed up. I had made a mistake and cost him more money all while he was still in the hospital fighting to get well. I was making his life worse, not better. I figured I needed to just come out with it, take my lumps, and then spend the rest of my days working to repair what I had done.

  “Listen, Dad,” I began. “I know I messed up really bad. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for any of it to happen. It’s not like I went to the field trip thinking, ‘How can I ruin as many things as possible?’”

  My dad kept quiet, silently soaking in my sincere confession.

  “Trouble just seems to find me,” I continued. “Every plant in the area wants to mess me up constantly. I can’t go anywhere. And now I’m grounded. Trust me, if I could do it all over I would have faked sick and just not gone on the field trip.”

  It might not have been the wisest thing to say, but it was honest. I had said my piece, and now it was time to just sit still and appear remorseful.

  My father looked at me and closed his eyes. He opened them back up, and his head bobbled slightly. I could feel the tongue-lashing that was about to happen. I held my hand up in front of my face, as if he were literally about to dump painful words down on me.

  “Beck, you must plant that stone,” he whispered fearlessly.

  I put my hand down and looked around. “What?” I asked, not believing for a moment what I was hearing.

  “The stone,” he said urgently. “You must plant it.”

  “I can’t . . .”

  “You don’t understand,” he interrupted. “You must. None of this will change until that last stone is planted and what needs to happen is finished.”

  “Dad, you can’t be . . .”

  “My mind is slipping,” he said. “The darkness our ancestors have been suffering from since Edward will kill me. There’s only one way, Beck. Where is the stone?”

  “Gone,” I said.

  “That’s a lie!” he hollered. “You would never destroy it, you’re a Pillage.”

  I scooted over on the bed, not liking the way this conversation was going. The words my father was saying scared me not only for him, but for me. I already knew that I was not above the illness affecting him.

  “Where is it?” he asked again.

  “I got rid of it,” I insisted.

  “Find it, Beck,” my father pleaded. “Please, I can’t fight off these dark feelings much longer. You must find it. You must save me. My life is in your hands.”

  “You said I should never trust my hands,” I reminded him.

  “Beck, I’ll perish.”

  I looked around at the dark but comfortable room he was now in. “The doctors are saving you, Dad. It’s just going to take some time.”

  “I don’t have much time,” he said, trembling. “Neither do you.”

  “What’s that mean?” I asked defensively. “What do you mean I don’t have time?”

  “It’s coming to get you,” my father said slowly, while standing up. “It knows you’re out there, and it will wrap itself around your mind until you do as it wishes.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said nervously. “Who?”

  “The same madness that I hid from for years,” my father continued, not sounding like the person I knew he was. “The reason I locked myself up in the top of the manor. The reason every woman in our family has gone mad and every man has died. We did this. It began with Edward, and it has to end with us. You can pretend you are fine, Beck. You can wait it out like I tried to do, but someday soon it will descend upon you like a personal plague. It will wrap its arms around you and smother you until all you love are dead.”

  I stood up and backed away from my dad. He was not well. It made my heart feel like a pressure point that someone was pinching with pliers. This was way too heavy for me. My father had always been off, but now he was scaring the tar out of me. The sickness in his head was out of control and I knew from experience that he was capable of harming me.

  “I should go,” I said.

  “Yes,” my father said almost gleefully. “Go, plant the stone.”

  “I can’t do that,” I pleaded. “It’s gone.”

  “Plant the stone!” my father demanded.

  “Dad . . .”

  My father reached out as if he were going to strike me, stopped himself, and then collapsed back into his chair in a heap of body and bathrobe. I looked down at him and felt nothing but pity and sadness. My family was crumbling. All the strides my father was making to get well had just been set back years.

  “Go,” my dad whispered with his head still buried in his own chest. “This darkness will grow until we are both destroyed, unless you plant that stone.”

  I thought about saying, “I love you,” or, “See you later,” but the mood didn’t call for it. So I backed up and left silently. I walked out of the room, closed the door, and walked down the hall. I had to be buzzed through the locked doors, and when I passed the front desk, the lady with the big nose didn’t even look up.

  Wane was outside with the car still running. I got in and pretended as if nothing were wrong. I had a lot to think about, and the last thing I wanted was Wane asking me endless questions about my father as we drove back to the manor.

  “How is he?” she asked.

  “Fine,” I lied.

  “Good,” Wane said. “I think this place is helping.”

  “Looks that way,” I replied.

  “It’s going to be so nice to have him better,” Wane said softly. “He deserves to be happy.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, knowing what it would take to make that a possibility.

  “Let’s hope he gets well
soon,” she added.

  I buckled my seat belt, leaned back, and began to think of how I was going to retrieve that final stone.

  Chapter 13

  I Should Have Known Better

  No dreams filled my head and I slept remarkably well considering all the things I had happening in my life. It was sort of like my mind shut off and allowed me a good night’s sleep in preparation for all that lay ahead.

  After a breakfast of cinnamon rolls that would make even the Pope consider baked goods a sin, I tried to pretend that all was well with the house and just walk out the door to take the bus.

  “Not so fast,” Millie said, stopping me. “Thomas will take you.”

  “But . . .”

  “Butts are for spanking,” Millie said. “Now sit and wait for Thomas.”

  Thomas drove me to school and lectured me the entire time about the importance of reputation and how it was my responsibility to bring the Pillage name “accolades and not atrocities.”

  I made a mental note to look up accolades in my dictionary when I got home. I had no idea what it meant, but I liked the sound of it.

  Thomas pulled around to the back entrance of Callowbrow. He said something else about virtue and integrity, and I promised him I would do my best to round up some accolades for him. I then hopped out of the car and shut the door respectfully. I hadn’t been back to school since the bus incident, and it suddenly felt too soon. I had the urge to not be anywhere near there at the moment. I turned to flag Thomas down and beg him to take me back home, but he was already gone.

  Wyatt was standing by the back door talking to a girl who looked as if she were trying to get away from him. I stepped up and helped her out.

  “Hey, Wyatt, can I talk to you?”

  “I’m kinda busy,” Wyatt replied.

  “It’s okay,” the girl insisted, “I need to go.” She looked at me as if I had done her a great favor and ran off.

  “What the heck?” Wyatt asked. “I was just about to ask Ashley to prom.”

  “You should thank me, then,” I said. “She was going to say no.”

  “That’s not true,” he said defensively.

  “Actually,” I corrected. “She was going to say, no way.”

  “Whatever,” Wyatt said. “You’re lucky you have Kate to take.”

  “Take where?” I asked, genuinely confused.

  “Prom.”

  “I don’t think we’re going,” I informed him. “Kate’s not really into that kind of stuff. She’s always making fun of proms.”

  “Your loss,” Wyatt said. “There’s going to be a ton of girls there.”

  I stared at Wyatt. “You know people don’t go to prom to pick up girls, right? They take girls there.”

  “Well, maybe it’s time someone shook things up.”

  I laughed at Wyatt and begged him to please stop being so stupid.

  “Whatever,” he said. “Why are you here early?”

  “Thomas drove me,” I told him as I reached out for the back door of the main hall. “I’m not only grounded, but I’m being driven wherever I go.”

  “Sucks to be you,” he observed, stepping into the school with me.

  The second we got into the building we were surrounded by chaos and confusion. Students, faculty, and even a few cops were running around talking and yelling loudly. All over the floor were long strands of crunchy yellow trash. I stopped a tall kid with a short neck to question him.

  “What’s going on here?” I asked.

  “Someone broke into the school,” the kid informed us. “They dumped garbage everywhere.”

  I looked closely at the floor. The yellow stuff wasn’t garbage, it was . . .

  “Uh-oh,” I said mournfully as the no-neck kid walked off.

  This was bad. I could tell that the odd garbage all over was long, dead stalks of dried corn. I had no idea how they had gotten here, but I had a feeling that it had something to do with me.

  “What is it?” Wyatt asked.

  “I’ve got to get out of here,” I insisted. “Listen, if they . . .”

  “Beck!” Principal Wales yelled from down the hallway. “Beck!”

  It was too late. I looked at Principal Wales and thought about running, but I knew eventually I would get caught and things would only be worse. I stood up tall and swallowed like a guilty man in front of a smart jury. He stormed up to me with his stocky arms waving and his thick legs twitching madly. I decided to try a preemptive strike.

  “I didn’t do anything,” I argued. “Nothing at all.”

  “Do anything of what?” Principal Wales demanded, his face red and his neck steaming like a warm sewer top.

  “I have no idea,” I said honestly. “But something must have happened here, and I didn’t do it.”

  “Come with me,” Principal Wales said, grabbing me by my right elbow. “I have something you should see.”

  He led me down the hall into the commons area. There were strands of dried cornstalks everywhere. There was a huge handmade banner on the wall with the prom theme, On the Wings of Love, painted on it.

  “That’s beautiful,” I laughed.

  We stomped across the crunchy yellow kernels and leaves and into the area where the upper-class lockers were.

  “Do you recognize this hall?” he asked in a huff.

  I was suddenly offended. It wasn’t like I was dumb. I knew this hall. I was an upperclassman and my locker was in here.

  “Of course,” I replied, wondering what the heck was going on. “This is where my locker is.”

  Principal Wales walked me up to my locker and let me go. I stared at what used to be my locker. Now it was just a beaten-apart metal hole. The door had been ripped off, and my stuff was strewn all over. The ground was littered with fuzzy yellow strands, and the inside of my locker was covered with dried corn and leaves.

  I let my jaw drop to show my surprise.

  “Well,” Principal Wales said, motioning toward my locker. “How do you explain this?”

  I looked down both directions of the hall. No other locker had been picked on, and people were gathering to see what Principal Wales was going to do to me. Wyatt had followed us and was watching as if something exciting was about to happen.

  “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to explain,” I argued. “You brought me down this hall, asked if I recognized it, and then took me to a spot you know I’ve seen hundreds of times. Are you feeling okay?”

  “Beck,” he said, stamping his fat little feet. “Someone transports an entire field of dry corn into our school, and the only damage is to your locker. Don’t you find that peculiar?”

  “I’m outraged,” I said. “I feel violated.”

  “This is not funny,” Principal Wales pointed out. “Everything in life is not funny.”

  I kinda thought his big face spitting as he spoke was funny, but I had the good sense to keep it to myself.

  “Let me tell you,” he continued. “You’ve been nothing but a distraction and problem. Your family is a bunch of elitists; you blew up our shop shed, destroyed three of our buses, and now this. What can . . . ?”

  Principal Wales continued to list all the many things I had done wrong since I had arrived. I wasn’t surprised to hear I had done so many bad things; what surprised me was that with everything he was bringing up, he made no mention of the dragons I had unleashed on the town about a year ago. No mention of the dragons that had torn apart a lot of his school and wreaked havoc on the entire valley for an afternoon. It seemed as if he should have made some mention about dragons. Sheriff Pax was right about something being off here.

  “And you still owe the lunch lady three dollars for those wieners you wasted,” he finally concluded.

  “I already told you I was doing an experiment,” I defended myself. “Someone told me that if you throw a raw hot dog just right it will come back like a boomerang.”

  A few of the students around us laughed.

  “Beck,” Principal Wales raged. “Stop t
alking and look at this mess. Someone is responsible for this.”

  “Why would I break into my own locker?” I reasoned. “I should be the last person you suspect.”

  “Ha!” he exclaimed. “That’s just your reasoning. You did it to throw us off.”

  “Throw you off from what?”