Sadie gently reached for her needles. I snatched them out of her grasp.
She sighed. “I know what happened, saw your accident with my own eyes. But we don’t use walkabouts to cheat death. We use them to make better on life.”
“I can do both. Send me back and I’ll give you back your knitting stuff. A trade.”
My, how out of my league I now see I was. The arrogance. The folly of playing cat and mouse with Sadie’s knitting may be my single dumbest act. But she was merciful.
“Supposin’ I was to send you back again, when would you—”
“Winter, senior year.”
“Your last year. We’re clear that this is the year of your crash.” Sadie clicked her tongue and gave a knowing nod. “If’n I send you back, I’d have some explainin’ to do.” She exhaled loud and long. “But you are right. The locket’s at yellow. You have some time.” She paused. “But not much. Be still.”
This command made no sense until I tried to move. Muscles no longer obeyed. Inside my chest, there was a vacuum. No heartbeat. No breathing. I sat there every bit the mannequin. Sadie reached over and plucked her knitting from limp hands, and I was released.
She raised her yarn in front of my face, and her eyes flashed. “Some liberties best not to take. Get in back.”
My eyes widened, and I leaped through the door.
And winced.
“Now, there’s a guy back here. I’d say he’s eighteen or nineteen. He’s good looking but, wait, no. You’re not sending me back as a guy? That’s uh, not going to work.”
“It’ll work just fine. While you was frozen up front, I done searched for a young lady, but we’s fresh out of suitables right now. But don’t you fret. Like I said last time, we’ve altered the body.”
“Can’t you alter him to a female?”
Sadie turned somber. “We can only go so far. Here’s a scarf for the trip. It’ll be even colder.”
I eased down onto the cot. “Does he have a name?”
“He did. But I suggest you keep using Shane, for ease. Remember, when red turns black, you’re coming back, this time for good. No argument.”
“Just give me until Mayday. I can make things right.” I peeked over at Shane. “I think.”
For a second time, I joined hands with a corpse.
“Good-bye, Coraline.”
CHAPTER 11
THE THOUGHTS OF C. RAINE
See things from the boy’s point of view.
Sir Alec Baldwin
COLD. I FIRST FELT IT ON MY ANKLES AND WRISTS—a surrounding, aching cold—and I, Shane, opened my eyes.
All was white, and my mind traveled to Mexico.
During my junior year, three disciples and I traveled there for spring break. The others were in it for the guys. They flew thousands of miles to tan their bodies by day, and slowly lose their minds—and then much more—by night.
I kept my skin covered and shielded by black.
After all, I went for the ocean.
The raw power of waves splashing forever toward me, crashing on the rocks, pooling, spraying, caressing. Then leaving—no commitment sought, no damage done, no defilement left.
Chekov said, “The sea has neither meaning nor pity.” I don’t know. I could do an ocean.
A twisted idea? Sure. But Minnesota inclines the soul toward the coasts.
Now snow—that was common as spit. I was born beneath it, raised surrounded by it, expected to shovel it and trudge through it, only to watch it turn dirt black along the roads. White disappeared. Dirtied, defiled, contaminated. Every flake abandoned me when air turned warm. Snow, the ultimate tease.
But today, that did not matter. I spread wide my arms and opened myself up, let the cool flakes fall on my warm tongue. This seesaw of sensation made every chill glorious.
I glanced down to where I stood, my feet atingle in twelve inches of powdery white.
But my neck was warm, toasted by a scarf.
“Thanks, Sadie . . . Oh, no.”
This was not a passing morning voice. My words rumbled husky and low. I cleared my throat and looked myself over. “Seriously?”
I peeked down at my jeans, unzipped my fly, winced, and took a peek.
“Whoa. That’s just not right.”
“Is there a problem, young man?”
I whipped around, hands still clasped on my briefs. Officer Dewey and an unfamiliar cop frowned from inside their squad.
“You lose something?” Dewey chuckled. Totally a Basil thing to say.
“No. I, uh, I found something.”
Dewey nodded. “I certainly hope so. It’s the spot I would have directed you to. It sure appeared as if you were on the way to dropping your drawers. You know there are some rules against that, son?”
I rezipped my pants and tucked in my shirt. “Yeah, I’m good. Just a little cold is all.”
Dewey opened his door and pushed out. I faced him eye to eye. A very cool feeling.
“No jacket.” He circled me one way and then the other. “Do you have someplace to go? Maybe a name, son?” Dewey paused and held out his hand. “I’d like to see some ID.”
“It’s Shane, and I, uh, no to the ID part, but yeah to the someplace-to-go part.” I glanced around. Where am I?
Here, I struck a bit of fortune. Yes, the road looked familiar, but there were no houses. Just snow-covered buildings and a small sign: HOPE HOME FOR BOYS. OPEN DECEMBER 1. The boys home had indeed opened its doors during my senior year. That’s all my memory needed.
• • •
Our neighborhood had fought against Hope Home’s construction. Consensus was the build would transport “troubled and violent youth” into the area. The Monster had, ironically, been one of the project’s most vocal critics.
“The people of this fine community pay plenty in property taxes.” Jude waited for the mumbled agreement to hush, and he peered confidently around the City Council room. “We work hard to see that our standard of living remains unblemished.”
Unblemished. A nasty word—just a side note.
He continued, “We understand the plight of the boys. We feel their pain. And we feel it’s in the best interest of everyone to let the boys run around elsewhere. Perhaps across town in a less-established neighborhood.”
I sat in the back of the council room. I loved the drama, but the sight of Jude made me gag.
“You’d rather see a pack of boys loose in the streets than monitored in a decent home with a curfew?” I called.
Heads turned, and neighbors murmured. Afterward, Councilman Harris told me my comment shifted the direction of debate. It also would end my life as I knew it, but foresight’s never twenty-twenty.
The neighborhood lost. The home was built, completed before Christmas.
• • •
I stared, wide-eyed, at a waiting Officer Dewey. Mayday was five months away.
Basil and Mel were still my friends.
Crow was a living, breathing girl.
Adele was getting cozy with Will Kroft, the most infamous resident of Hope Home.
Do I ever have someplace to go!
I poked over my shoulder. “I’m heading in to apply at the new Hope residence. What do you think?” I stroked Sadie’s gift. “Was the scarf a good interview choice?”
Dewey’s partner spoke up. “Gloves and a coat might’ve served you better.”
Both officers slowly climbed back in the squad car. “Suggestion. Keep your hands off the fly. Makes a bad first impression.” Dewey slapped the outside of the car and pulled away.
I watched their squad car turn out of sight, lifted strong arms to the sky, and shouted. I pumped my fists and hollered again.
Is this primal thing what all guys feel?
I checked my hands, callused and worked. “What did you do, Shane? Wh
en you were living. What did you do?”
Good-looking guy. I bet he did it well.
“Okay, here it starts.” I trudged toward the Hope Home office and jammed my hands in my pockets. My right hand found the locket, my left a crinkled five-dollar bill.
I’m not thirteen anymore, Sadie. This isn’t enough for a gum ball.
• • •
My psychology teacher once erupted on a gender rant. “Females and males are exactly the same. Same, same, same, except for body parts.” I had no information to counter the assertion—our biology dissection schedule didn’t include boy and girl brains.
Yet I’d done a fair amount of thinking, and the idea struck me as wrong. Give a girl and guy the same parents. Feed them the same food. Discipline them equally and throw them into the same school. It didn’t matter. The guy would end up, well, a guy. The reason for this aside you will now see.
I reached the main office and stepped inside. I stomped snow off my shoes and brushed off my jeans. Frozen feet screamed to prickly life. The office was warm and pleasant enough, with plush chairs, nice pictures, and a cute receptionist.
I blinked hard, and she smiled at me over the counter, gently biting her lip and twirling her hair. That lip-biting thing does work.
Her gaze fastened to me, wandered up and down, and I peeked to make sure the fly was upped. Good there.
I straightened and swaggered up to her.
Dammit, Shane. You’ve got to be kidding.
She was pretty. Really pretty. I put her at twenty and wondered where she lived. If she lived there alone.
She’s a girl, you stupid body!
“I’m looking for something to do.” I rested an elbow on the counter and flexed a bicep. Totally posing. I wanted to throw up.
She tongued the inside of her cheek (a squirrelly maneuver with no seductive effect), reached down, and raised a stack of papers to the counter. “I have an opening. New in town?”
“Back after a long absence.”
“What about a place to stay? Here could be good.”
I pulled the papers close to me. “I just need work. This is the application?”
“Yeah, it is. A cottage on site comes with the job, you know.”
I cleared my throat. “So I could live right here.”
“Alone,” she said, her lips curling. “Could be interesting, don’t you think?”
“Family teacher assistant.” I read the job description. “I don’t think this is for me.” I held up my palms. “I think I work with my hands. Repair or maintenance? Got anything like that?”
She reached over the counter and gently took hold of my hands, cradling them in her own. “Oh, I’ll find something to do with these hands.”
Is this double entendre making you sick? To recount it now, yeah, it has a nauseating effect, but I tell you, then I was into it.
“The house needs the position filled soon.” She sat back down. “Mr. Loumans is desperate for some help. We opened early, and the kids are time intensive.”
A place to stay at Hope Home for Boys, a chance to keep an eye on Will, who by now had hooks in Addy? I grabbed a pen and attacked the paperwork.
Name: Shane Owen
Age: I scanned myself and shrugged. Eighteen
Education: Central High School
Home Address:
Work Address:
References:
“These questions get tougher.” I muttered. “I can’t do this.”
The girl stood and looked over my paper. “Those hands of yours will stay unemployed with an application like this. We need to make you even more, well, desirable.” She crossed out eighteen and wrote twenty-one.
“Let me handle you and your app.” She flipped over one of her cards. “Just give me a number where I can reach you.”
My gaze darted. “Well, that depends on when you’re going to call. Could I just check back tomorrow?”
She set down her pen and cocked her head. “You’re kind of a mystery.”
“You have no idea.”
Moments passed, and finally she raised her brows. “Okay, Shane Owen. Tomorrow it is. Wait, are you really still in school?”
“That depends on whether or not I land this job.”
“Love that.” She flipped over her card and slid it across the counter. “Keep my contact. In case something comes up, or if it doesn’t.” She reclined in her roller chair. “Call my cell.”
“Right.” I grabbed the card and backed toward the door. My heel caught on the doormat and I stumbled, regained my footing, and offered an awkward grin.
That girl shook her head, breathed deep, and beamed from ear to ear. “Perfect.”
Tripping makes me perfect? Or my grin is perfect? What are you thinking?
I’m a guy. No wonder I’m suddenly clueless.
I pushed out and pocketed her information. Wind howled around me. The number on the card could well provide me a place for the night. But that seemed way wrong, at least to the Crow part of me.
Where to sleep . . .
“The Shack.”
I trudged toward the bus stop, replaying my stumble, wondering why two minutes with a no-name receptionist now captured my thoughts. But somewhere during the walk, my mind hopped off that track and I dug for my Abe Lincoln.
A fifty would have been much more thoughtful.
Here my mind cleared, focused. Sadie’s warnings aside, there were things to undo by Mayday. A twisted chain of events must be broken. Unlike my first walkabout, the list of those involved was long. Yet, alter the course of a few lives, and links in that chain shattered.
Any links would do.
Busted links mean a prevented accident.
My mind replayed the causes of my demise, and the steps to my survival.
Given: Will had bragged about what he wanted to do to Addy on May 1, prom night.
Given: Only trusting Addy believed it was a rumor, forcing me to take action.
But.
1. If Adele doesn’t date Will from Hope Home, Crow doesn’t need to protect her from him.
2. If Crow doesn’t need to protect her, she won’t need to speed Will away from Addy on the night of the prom.
3. If she doesn’t need to speed him away, she won’t clip the train.
4. And Lifeless will never appear, and Crow won’t vegetate, and she will have zero urge to flirt with female receptionists.
I peeked over my shoulder toward Hope Home, to where Monster Number 2 lived. Working with Will and keeping him far from Addy would truly be . . .
Perfect.
“I really need that job.”
The bus pulled up, and I stepped inside.
This would be a lot easier if I had some help. My plan was complicated; the number of people whose lives I needed to disrupt? Considerable. A stranger in my own past, I needed somebody I could trust, somebody with connections. A confidant, a smooth operator to lend a hand.
Only one person had access to all the players in this drama.
I knew just where to find him.
CHAPTER 12
THE THOUGHTS OF C. RAINE
The belly rules the mind.
Spanish proverb
I STEPPED OFF THE BUS AT THE CORNER OF HENNEPIN AND RACINE across from Crow and Basil’s workplace. A pea-green snowmobile fishtailed to a curbside stop. I glanced from the machine to the corner where, standing not twenty feet before me, was Basil.
“My help,” I whispered.
He paid no attention to either my bus or the snowmobile, his lips moving to the words of the book he read. I’ll come back to Basil, but first a word about winter driving.
Glare ice coated Hennepin Avenue, and cars slid by us sideways and backward.
I stepped back from the curb. Minneapolis drivers were typically a sensible lo
t in winter, so different than out-of-state fools who filled ditches with their spinouts. But all local sensibilities went out the window at Hennepin and Racine. A bewildering mix of mountain bikes, skiers, snowmobiles, and four-wheel drives shared the road with more common fare, making it the most dangerous corner one could stand near.
Which is why Basil loved it.
Why he didn’t mind wearing a sheet of cardboard on his front, and another on his back.
Why he graciously accepted his role as the Shack’s Hennepin and Racine Human Pizza Sign.
The rider of the snowmobile hopped off and hollered in a muffled mix of English, Spanish, and Curse. “Blast you, pizza sign!”
Basil briefly peeked up from his book, cocked his head, and the screamer paused.
Basil sighed. He often did that. The past five years had been good to him. He turned out too smart and too good looking and too, well, just too, to end up a sandwich sign. He knew it. But when cursed with Basil’s luck, you grasp any job that comes your way, even if it’s a whisker above unemployment.
The sled’s engine fell silent, and the rider rounded the front with a full head of steam. Whatever the origin of his anger, there would be no escape for Basil. His piece of frozen ground was the size of a bathroom mat, with a railing behind and a rush-hour skating rink in front. It was a ten-minute ordeal to gently remove the sandwich sign, dodge the cars, and reach the Shack, home of jelly-bean pizza.
The guy was still screaming. I slowed my steps and strained my ears.
“Woman defiler! You’re a predatory pizza sign!”
Sounds like Basil’s been busy again.
Basil’s bad luck ended when it came to girls. It always had. I, above all people, knew this, though peering from inside Shane’s male body, I couldn’t understand any of Basil’s magnetic hold.
I stared at the Shack across the road and let memories flood.
Basil once had a respectable job. With me. Inside. We flirted and washed dishes and flirted—more, I believed, to pass time than to express anything real.
Until one day, Mr. Hovanitz reached around Basil’s shoulder.