“That true?” Mr. Ingersoll asked. “That where they all went? There was no accident?”
Ms. Lowell burst into tears. “I can’t. I do not care what happens to me, to us. I can’t. It’s true. Every word Jonah spoke is true. My Patricia, she’s under there.”
I did not stay to hear the rest, but hurried toward the gate as hundreds stood, confused and hollering.
I glanced over my shoulder, catching Dad’s eyes, filled with both hatred and another emotion I scarcely recognized: admiration.
“Where is Stormi? We’ve got two stories, and I for one need to hear her intent!” Mr. Ingersoll’s voice cut through the mayhem.
Where is Stormi? A sinking feeling struck me. Where is Stormi?
Oh, Lord.
I said my first real prayer.
CHAPTER 20
I lumbered home, snatched my gallery keys from the nail in my room, and hopped on my bike. Shouts in the distance made it clear the meeting had not ended, and I tore toward SMX in solitude.
I pulled past the guard tower, and a gust caught me. A loner. On a still night, from nowhere, a renegade wind nearly toppled the bike. It was gone as quickly as it had come.
“The Herald,” I whispered.
Just legend, of course. But we’d seen enough tornadoes in our day to compile quite a body of twister lore. Some folks in town swore they could feel twisters coming in their bones, others looked to their pets for warning over the Tulsa weatherman.
We all treated our superstitions with a twinkle, knowing they were suspect at best. But not the Herald.
A wind born of nothing and heading nowhere. An orphan ghost too strong for the moment. I looked up. Not a cloud. Yet this only cemented the fear in my gut. A Herald had arrived.
A storm was coming.
I doubled my speed, dismounted while still coasting, and threw down my bike against the gallery door. A minute later, I was inside. Ten seconds more, I was in a familiar well-lit hall.
“Stormi? You here?”
“I am.” She sounded frail, dispossessed.
“That you, Jonah? Your voice is a sound for these ears.” An arm stuck out of the cell. Gurney continued. “What they done this for? Ain’t done nothing but for ‘m.”
I jogged toward Stormi, sitting on the floor in Tres’s old cell. Gurney was in the terror hold next on.
“Right back, I can get you out,” I said.
“No.” Stormi held up a hand.
“Yes!” Gurney kicked the bar. “Girl’s gone loco in her brief confinement.”
“Think, Jonah. If you let us out, you become a part of this.
I told them you know nothing. I told them you were seizing while Tres told me what was done. They won’t bother you. Right now, you can move freely.”
“No, I don’t think I can. See, a town meeting turned south. Dad and Cartwright shaded you as an activist on some activist cause. Not a bad cause really; in fact, it was doggone believable. So . . .”
“You spoke up.”
“I spoke up.”
“In front of the entire town.”
I rubbed my forehead, wincing. “Pretty much.”
“Pretty much?” Stormi broke into a wide smile. “Should I make your bed in here, or wait until they arrive? Jonah. You’ve changed.” She reached out her hand. I grasped it. Yep. If there had been any doubt, it no longer lingered. I was messed up in love.
“Don’t mean to interrupt, but it seems I could be let go without doing much additional harm. I didn’t even know what I was doing.”
“That’s good, Mr. Gurney.” Stormi stuck her lips out the bars. I wanted them, but let them move. “You not knowing was a good thing, but my guess is this might be the safest place for us to be. Jonah knows we’re here. It’ll take some time for them to figure out what to do with us. We’ll wait it out, until maybe the storm dies down.”
The storm.
“Stormi. I felt it on the way in. The Herald.”
She stepped back, and then took her place near me. “Strong?”
“Almost took my bike.”
“Sky?”
“Clear.”
She rubbed her hands, and I could see her thinking. “Listen, it’s coming. You need to get your dad to admit to what’s been done. The truth needs to be said. The Herald didn’t find you by accident. Gullary is out of chances, unless your dad—unless the Circle—confesses to what they did.”
“How do I get him to do that? After tonight, he’s not going to turn a listening ear.”
Stormi stroked my cheek. “You are brave. You are changed. You’ll figure it out. I’ve done my part, now finish it.”
“You want me to finish it?”
Stormi gazed at me with eyes filled with pride. “Tres got this one thing wrong. He was waiting on me, when all this time you were the strong one. It’s always been you.”
I felt a smile sneak across my face. I would finish it. Me. Floppicus bendicus. It felt right. According to Tres, Stormi blew in to condemn this town, but now standing free on the outside, I reckoned she had a different purpose all along. She didn’t come to change Gullary. She came to change me.
I straightened. “I guess I best head home. Dad is going to want to talk, I suppose.”
“You sure I can’t be of assistance?” My, Gurney looked pitiful. “Out there?”
“Sorry, Mr. Gurney. I’m sorry you were caught up in this. I’ll be back to check on the both of you.”
I left the way I came, pushing aside the doorstop and letting the door click behind me. It sounded so final, and in truth, I wasn’t certain I would be able to return.
Still, the Herald chose me. I had no choice.
“You came back.”
How dark our living room was.
How emotionless my dad’s words.
I quietly shut the front door. Dad’s outline sat black against the opened, moonlit window. He didn’t turn to address me.
“Where else was I gonna go? This is home.”
His shoulders rose and fell.
“It was a brave statement you made, there, in front of everybody. I give you that. Took some doing for me to get matters back under control.”
“How could you lie?”
“How could I not?” Dad turned, and though his features were barely visible, he struck me as smaller, less imposing. “There are so many things you don’t know.”
I slowly sat down across from him. He was first to wade into the extended silence.
“I loved him, you know, your grandpa. Idolized him in every way, and there was reason to. Things were rough here. It wasn’t safe for families. His family. Your family. It was his job to curb the violence poverty brings.” Dad shook his head, continued speaking into the night. “He had the idea of using the prison in a secondary fashion. What was I to say? I was young. So you can be as mad as you want about whatever you’re angry about. Cause as much trouble as you want for me, but that anger is all misplaced.”
“But you knew about what happened. You said nothing.”
Dad paused. “I don’t know what you expected me to do. The system was in place. It worked. It had never failed. And then it did and it took my daughter and broke me, but I had a responsibility to protect the people of this town. I can’t expect you to understand responsibility. You’re like your mother that way, thinking with your heart instead of your brain.”
I started to rise, pushed up halfway.
“Wait.”
I eased back to a sit, and he continued. “You’re sensitive, Jonah. But you’re not as uninvolved as you think. Your back. Your seizures. I always reckoned those ailments were sent to smite me. A curse for what’d been done on your grandpa’s watch, left undone on mine.”
“My seizures aren’t a curse. They just are.”
“Yeah,” Dad whispered. “But how I hated them, maybe you. I thought they were about me, and for that I’m sorry, Jonah. You deserved better.”
The chain around my gut loosened. Dad had apologized. I couldn’t remember hearing s
uch from him before. Maybe there was hope, hope that the Herald could be silenced. “Why can’t you apologize to everybody now? Like you did to me.”
“Follow the thread if word gets out. The local press. Soon national news, son. We would be the story, and what would happen to us, Jonah? What would happen to our family? To other families living on grief? They would take good parents away from their children over wrongs committed twenty years ago. They would destroy more families. No, we can’t go back.”
Something like fog settled in that room, as Dad’s logic took hold. I tried to find the right and the wrong, but they were muddled, lost in years and hurt.
“But Tres said the storm that took SMX, he said that was a judgment. He said the bus accident that took Gina was another one, stopped by Stormi. If that’s true, I don’t think you can run from this. Dad, I felt the Herald.”
Dad shifted. “When?”
“Tonight. You were at Jake’s. You know there was no wind. Not a trace.”
A crack opened in Dad. I felt his wavering.
“Jonah, I’m not speaking about that superstition. When did you speak with Tres?”
“I brought him food forever; we talked then. A little more when he found Stormi and me, but that has nothing to do with what you need to do right now.”
“I was under the impression that you were out of mind by the time he tracked you down.” Dad hesitated. “At least that’s what Stormi said. You contradict that story?”
The door opened and Cartwright filled the frame. I glanced back to Dad. The crack was filled.
“Yes. I mean no. Old Rick came right after Tres did, and when I came to, Tres was gone. I still don’t know all he said to her.”
Dad leaned forward. “Own up, son. Isn’t it true that you knew all about the SMX incident before you left to find Stormi? You’ve long been planning to take out your anger on me.” His voice sounded strained. “You and Stormi have been waiting for a chance.”
“Don’t turn this!” I softened. “When I left . . . When I left, you were my hero.”
“I’m sorry, but sentiment aside, the boy is clearly part of the scheme.” Cartwright stepped forward. “Partners with Tres from the start. He knows everything, and as long as he shows determined to fill the air with Tres’s lies, for the greater good, he needs to be held. Come with me, Jonah.”
“What lie am I telling?” I glanced at Dad, who fiddled with his lip. “Dad. Please.”
His body slumped. “Do it quickly, Cartwright.”
“No sir, let’s take our time here awhile.”
Our gazes spun toward the door, toward Tres. He looked large, imposing. Safe. “How you doin’, kid?” Tres pushed right by Cartwright and strode to my chair.
“Honestly, I’m not sure. I think my dad is about to throw me in jail, and Stormi’s already there, but aside from that, we’re great.”
“You did good, kid. Stormi did good.” He turned to my Dad, now standing. “Do you really want to add to your legacy by pitchin’ your own son into a cell? Why now? Because he knows a truth you need to speak?”
Silence.
“Nothin’ to say to me? You have me in a prison for years without cause, and you feel no urge to make comment?”
“Tres, it wasn’t that easy, and you know it.”
“Oh, you’re right on that. Let me tell you exactly how hard it was. Sitting in a cell while my daughter screamed not three feet away. Can you imagine hearing that?” Tres turned. “Can you imagine that, Mr. Cartwright?”
Cartwright slumped heavy into the wall, I imagine tilted by the weight of guilt.
“Do you want to know what Evangeline shrieked? Do you want to hear her words?”
“Please, no,” Dad whispered.
“How about you, Cartwright? Care to hear what happened to Alan, what he said? Listen.”
What Dad and Cartwright heard in the next minutes, I do not know. I myself heard nothing. But from the way they tore at their ears—the way Dad slumped from his chair—I reckon it was the stuff of nightmares. A child’s last moments. Chilling.
“Now, the men who done that?” Tres continued. “I have three with me outside. For all we know, they was the ones to take my own girl from this earth. They’s still payin’ for the crime. Still in their cells, if you ask me.” Tres’s presence filled that dark room. “All I want, Mr. Everett, is for you to come clean on what’s been done. Follow me out that door. Do it for the one you loved.”
“Get out,” Dad seethed, his breath heavy.
“This is your last opportunity, Mr. Everett.”
“Get out!” Dad threw himself toward Tres, landing far short and on his knees, where he clawed at the carpet. I’d never seen Dad cry, and I admit that in that moment I wanted to throw myself beside him, grab hold of him, and rock him. I wanted to tell him everything was going to be all right. But I knew it wasn’t.
“Come on, Jonah. I know what you said upon arrival, but this ain’t no longer your home.”
I rose on instinct and followed Tres away from everything I’d known. I didn’t know the destination, but I knew the words were true. That wasn’t my home. My home was with Stormi.
“So, now we get Stormi, right?”
“Now we wait. We see what your dad does. Gullary’s last chance.”
“Last chance?”
We stood across the street for five minutes. I glanced at the trailer, the town, Tres’s face. The strength he’d shown was gone, and in his eyes was a sadness I’d never before witnessed. Tres became the old drifter. Without strength. Without anger.
Without hope.
He hung his head. “I just came from seeing Stormi. She told me the Herald’s been sent. Time’s up.”
“And you left her in there?” I glanced around town, expecting to see some horror slowly advancing through our streets, but my gaze snagged on a small clump of men coming my way. They walked slowly, deliberately, three undertakers moving shoulder to shoulder in the middle of the street.
“These guys again? You brought them?”
“I brought them.”
They reached us, and we stood awkward in the silence. One placed a hand on my back, but the thought of what that hand may have done years ago made me sick, and I jerked away.
“Jonah,” the tall one said soberly.
“How did you three . . . What about Michael Queene? You got away again? Why come back?”
He cleared his throat. “There’s living and there’s living with yourself, and they aren’t the same thing. In the Hive, we’ve been doing the first, but the second has proven elusive. Being back here, well, knowing perhaps there’s a good part for us to play in this story, it’s worth the risk.”
“Part to play? What part?” The thought of Evangeline floated through my mind, tried to form, take shape. I could almost see her laughing—hear her telling me I was her favorite brother—and then she was gone, like so much vapor. “You’ve done enough here. Taken enough.”
The tall one winced, as if struck. “It’s a truth we live with. More confining than prison ever was. But maybe we can help others find their way out.”
He glanced over his shoulder. A row of minivans and pick-ups snaked slowly along Main Street, their beds stacked high with boxes and picture frames, bicycles and small children. Lots of children. Seemed half the population was heading north out of town, but not just the young ones. Ms. Utica’s yellow Jeep, Dr. Only-Doctor-in-Gullary’s white Toyota Corolla—even Gurney’s rusted moped tooled on by. Behind the main procession rolled a bus from the Villa, half filled.
“What’s going on?”
Tres gave the tall undertaker’s shoulder a squeeze and faced me. “Gullary’s Exodus. Lot of innocents in this town. A lot of folks have clean hands and knew nothing of what was done. I brought my own heralds to give warning.”
I couldn’t break free from the straggling vehicles departing. Greasy Jake’s roadster, Ms. P’s station wagon . . .
Ms. P?
I grabbed Tres’ arm.
??
?Ms. P’s getting out? She knew! She knew everything about the red door and probably about Connor and what he was trying to do to Stormi and . . . why’d you tell her?”
Tres pried loose my fingers and patted my cheek as though I was a little child. “Mercy, Jonah. Even in this, look for it. We warned everybody.” He forced a smile and tousled my hair. “Got a safe place you can go? You can come with us; we won’t go far.”
“For how long?”
“Until.”
I thought a moment. Stormi was still here.
“I can’t leave her.”
Tres rolled his eyes. “She’s not your concern anymore. Never was. Her purposes here are done.” He leaned in. “Let. Her. Go.”
I stared at this man, and started to laugh. I do not know where the joy came from, or why it came. Maybe nerves, but I wasn’t anxious. Laughter bubbled up in waves and splashed out of me and over me and maybe I was going crazy, but in that moment I knew exactly my trajectory, and Tres, who knew everything, was clueless.
Finish this.
Wait for me.
“No.”
Tres frowned. “No, what?”
“No, I’m not leaving her. As long as she is here, I’ll be here. Easy as that.”
“Do you have any idea what you’re doing, boy?”
“None whatsoever!” And the cluelessness of love felt positively buoyant. “Don’t worry, Tres. There’s Arthur. I didn’t see them leave. I could stay with him, I think, depending on his parents.”
“So, the boy lived. That’s good,” Tres said. “Hard to find a suitable opponent these days.” He smacked my back. It did not hurt. “So your choice is made. Okay. You find your way to Arthur’s on your own?”
“I’ve lived here all my life. Gullary is my home.”
“Good-bye, Jonah.”
He gazed long at me, a remembering gaze of the uncomfortable kind. The kind you give when you are trying to make a memory.
The four of them walked toward a van parked across the street.
“Tres!” I rubbed my head. “I’m not going to see you again, am I?”