“I know.”
She straightened, set the journal on the bed, and threw back her hair. She was drop-dead gorgeous. It wasn’t a line.
“Okay then,” she whispered. “You can stay. But don’t be expecting an invitation to New Year’s Eve. We’ll just ride this one out.”
“Fair.” I stood and opened the door for her. She rose, shuffled forward, halted in the doorway. “Did you see Will?”
“Of course. I work with the kid. I brought him over.”
“Guess I can’t hold that against you.” She sauntered out of the room.
• • •
Do you celebrate Christmas? If so, happy thoughts likely consume the affair. Smiling people, lying people. “Oh, that’s what I always wanted.” Hugs and thank-yous and wrapping paper flying through the air.
Maybe there’s a crackling fire on a cold night with Bing Crosby crooning in the background. I imagine jolly isn’t hard to find in such a place.
Consider this scene: a browning Christmas tree, no stand, propped up by piles of phone books and leaning against the basement wall. No decorations. No music. No food.
Add to the mirth six sardined people, none of whom want to be there, and six unwrapped gifts, thrown beneath the tree.
Perhaps, you might think, the Christmas spirit will infuse the night with joy.
“Here.” That’s Jude handing his wife a new toaster.
“Thank you.” There’s tight-lipped Mom. That toaster will join her other one. Therapists make good money, but after Jude discovered Goodwill, he felt no need to spend any on Mom.
Mom reached down and handed Jude a tie. No surprise there. She always gave Jude a tie. She admitted to me that they came from the Dollar Store, a fact that brought me immense pleasure.
This year, however, I almost snatched the tie from his hands.
It was Dad’s tie. Strange what people cling to after relationships end. Lockets. Ties. This paisley beauty hid, untouched, in the back of the linen closet. Every time I went for a towel, I stared at it, crumpled, out of place, but a remnant of Dad nonetheless.
There Jude was, holding the sacred. Maybe Mom couldn’t find anyone to shop for her this year, but no excuse gave her the right.
My anger didn’t make sense; it was a cheap tie worn sparingly by a man who lived only in my memory. But inside I ached, and I wished Dad was beside me. At least I’d hear some Christmas carols and we’d have a tree stand.
“That looks like an old tie.” I hissed. “Where’d you get it?”
Crow stared at me. I didn’t look back.
Jude raised it high in a triumphant display of the gift.
“This transfer, this exchange, is a family matter, Shane. It’s a family secret.”
“No, Jude,” Crow said quietly. “That’s my dad’s tie.”
Jude cleared his throat. “You and Shane are under no compulsion to stay. You and your friend may go crawl beneath the rock you live under.”
So can you.
“Oh, wow, is that for me?” Adele broke in, reached beneath the tree, and retrieved her Macy’s gift certificate. She then handed Crow her present, a gift card for the Book Emporium.
Will watched me the whole time, his twitchy hands eager to produce his present. The longer I gazed at him, the more certain I became: he was not in the same room. Nor was he in the same moment, or with the same people.
His face was filled with regret.
He was captive to a memory.
Finally, I gave the nod, and he shook free from his prison.
“I have something!” Words exploded from his lips, and Mom forced a smile.
“Well, Will. We are waiting with bated breath.” Jude offered his most satisfied smile and folded his hands. “It’s good to see that at least one youth remembers the honored tradition of gifting the parents.”
“Sorry. Never heard of that tradition. We, uh, had our own.” Will turned the CD over in his hands. “Dad and me, well, it was our job to chop down the tree. Just the two of us, wandering among hundreds of them at the tree farm. They were either too tall or too short or too thin near the base and finally . . . finally, he’d say, ‘You go pick, son. I trust you to bring me the best. Nothing but perfection will do.’” Will glanced at our dead pine. “Damn hard to be perfect, you know?” he whispered, slapping the CD a few times. “Damn hard.” He slowly turned and handed his gift to Adele.
“Merry Christmas.”
She stared down at it, expressionless. Will, too, seemed lost in thought, and a strange heaviness descended in the room.
Pop! Adele broke free from her state and leaped onto Will’s lap and hugged him something special. “How did you know? How could you have known?”
Will shrugged and glanced around, keeping his hands high in the air. A good move, based on Jude’s and Crow’s scowls. He glanced around the room, and his gaze landed on me. “I, uh, there’s something I need to do. Say, Addy”—his stare never left me—“you want to go on a walk?”
Adele furrowed her brow. “Yeah, I’ll come. Are you all right?”
“I think I am,” Will said, breaking into a broad smile. “I think I finally am.”
Adele stood, pulled Will to his feet. “Well, this really has been special. She leaned over and gave Crow a hug, while Will walked over to me. “Thanks, Prophet,” he whispered. “For everything. Tell Mr. L that, well, just tell him.”
Suddenly, I knew. Will was heading out on a walkabout of his own that would, indeed, end beside his father. And Addy? He was taking her away in the process.
I burned, not with anger or fear, but envy.
• • •
The two hurried upstairs, where the front door opened and shut.
“Ahem. Crow, here you go.” I grinned. “Hope you like it.”
I tossed her CD across the room; she caught it, examined it, looked at me, and nodded. I knew it was the best she could do.
Nobody spoke for minutes. Crow’s leg bounced, and her mind whirred. Suddenly, she gasped, “That little snake!”
I cleared my throat. “I think Crow and I will go for a walk, too.”
We rose, climbed the stairs, and Crow dashed into her room, came out wild-eyed. “Her bag’s gone.”
“Yeah, I gathered that downstairs.”
Crow bit her lip. “He’s not going to get away with it. He’s a Monster, and he’s not going to get away with it. She doesn’t know. I don’t know why I didn’t tell her but I didn’t, and so she doesn’t know and now look at them.”
“Addy likely heard the same thing you heard. It doesn’t seem to worry her.”
“My sister doesn’t understand.”
Crow ran back into her room and dashed out with a backpack. “I need to go.” She kicked a pile aside, yanked open the closet door, and grabbed her black leather jacket. “See ya, Shane.”
I reached for her arm, then recoiled. “Let me come.”
“You don’t get what’s happening here. There’s no way you could. I’m not getting eggnog. I’m not coming back. Not until I find them. Go back to your nice life.”
I turned my back and slowly slipped my hand into my pocket.
I flipped open the locket and peeked down. A reddish glow, eerie, unnatural.
There was so little time.
“Let me come,” I said quietly.
“You don’t quit.” Crow faced me square, waiting, I think, for me to change my mind.
“Okay, Shane Owen.” She peeked out the front window. “Can we take the car?”
“Maybe. It’s not mine. But that reminds me, I do need something from my cottage.”
The something was, of course, Crow’s notebook on Will. We drove the car back to Hope Home, and the two of us ran up the walk. Mr. Loumans met us in the doorway and shushed the wolf whistles from Eddie and Sean.
“What’s
wrong?” he asked.
I lowered my voice. “Will took off. It was expected.”
Mr. Loumans breathed deeply, as if he’d considered this a plausible outcome of the evening. “What now?”
“I go after him.”
Mr. Loumans thought a moment. “Sure you do. And where does this young lady fit into the sequence?”
“Will left with my sister,” Crow spurted.
Mr. Loumans stepped out into the cold and folded his arms. “For such a night as this, were you not sent?” He shook his head and clasped his hands. “To be a part of such divine interventions must be a thrilling experience. May I ask, is she also—”
“Much more immortal than she’s letting on,” I said.
“Ah. Well, I will trust you know what is best. Keep me abreast of your affairs.” His face grew haggard. “You know, of all the boys, Will has a special place in my heart. He has no place to go. Care for him.”
“I will, sir.” I turned to Crow. “Wait here.” I dashed into my cottage and scooped up the notebook. When I returned to Hope Home’s front door, I found two statues. Neither Crow nor Mr. Loumans appeared to have moved.
I broke the weighty silence. “I do have one request. Odds are they’re heading to the train depot. May we take the Impala and leave it there?”
“Would a man hold back his donkey from the Good Lord? Should I hold back my transport from his workers?”
“Thanks.” I peeked at Crow, who stared in horror at Mr. Loumans. Understanding had clearly taken hold. “I’ll call you soon with word.”
• • •
We turned and dashed toward the idling car. Inside with Crow, I fishtailed out of the driveway.
Crow rubbed her hands up and down her thighs. “Did I follow that correctly? Does the man who owns this car think you’re an angel?”
“He does.”
“And now he believes I’m one, too?” She stuffed the notebook in her pack.
“Possible.”
There was a long silence. “Are you?” Crow asked.
This question, it dawned on me, could solve my dilemma. Perhaps straight from a spirit who stands in the presence of the living God, Crow might accept that the rumor that fueled her anger and this search was bogus. But I was discovering that Shane had reached his quota of mistruths. I could not speak another.
“No, I’m not.”
Crow was no fool. She cast me a sideways glance. “’Cause it would sure explain a lot.”
“Yeah, it would.”
Silently, we sped through the night.
CHAPTER 21
THE THOUGHTS OF C. RAINE
With the catching ends the pleasure of the chase.
Abraham Lincoln
WE WANDERED THE VACANT DEPOT ON CHRISTMAS EVE. It looked every bit the train cemetery.
“Do trains run on Christmas?” I asked, and pounded the side of a rail car.
Crow shook her head. “Don’t know. I really don’t know. But she’s smart. She wouldn’t hitchhike. And there’s no bus service to where we’re going. . . . I taught her to hop a train.”
I turned a complete circle, watching the wind whisk away my breath. I leaned against a nearby boxcar. “Maybe we should let ’em go. They won’t stay gone forever.”
Crow’s gaze burned into me. “You have no idea what’s at stake for her, or what Addy’s been through, or what your little beast has planned.”
“‘My little beast’? Interesting.” I looked off, and then back at her. “And you know his intentions? For certain.”
She nodded.
“Reliable source, then?”
She opened and closed her mouth. “A twisted one, I’ll give you that, but the source didn’t know I was listening.”
“And you find the girls’ bathroom to be a good place to gather information, in general?”
Crow stuck her finger in my chest. “I never told you where I first heard it.”
I raised both my hands. “I was standing outside of the bathroom when Mel and a friend walked out. They talked about it all the way down the hall. I couldn’t find you all day long. Where else would you be hiding out?” I peeked down at her finger. “And for the record, my chest did not initiate this contact.”
Crow pulled back. “You drive a person crazy.”
The train on which I leaned lurched forward, and I stumbled to the ground, my leg slipping onto the track. “Whoa.” I yanked it back. “Almost one-legged Shane. I don’t think Sadie could fix that.”
“There.” Crow pointed into the darkness. Twenty cars up, a silhouetted arm reached out of a boxcar, stretching toward a suit walking alongside the slow-moving train.
Crow cursed. “That would be Will. I hope he falls beneath the tracks.”
“So harsh, Crow.” I paused and brushed snow off my jeans. “What now, you want me to yell and scream?”
“No, he’ll jump in, we’ll miss our chance, and it’ll be too late. For now, we follow.” She flung her pack into a boxcar and jogged alongside the quickening train. I took off after. We sped to a sprint, lined up with the car’s mouth, and leaped. I landed with a thud. Crow landed on top of me.
“Just for the record—”
“Shut up, Shane.” She pushed off me, and in the darkness, I caught a tight grin. Progress.
• • •
North. There are many good times to go north in Minnesota, many good reasons if hunting or ice fishing is your thing.
But they weren’t mine, and with the temperature dropping below zero and the wind rushing in, I felt quite certain that Shane, my shell, was not a cold-weather type of guy. He was probably from New Mexico or Florida or someplace where old folk flee to when their hardy Minnesota years have passed.
I shivered in the corner and marveled at Crow, whose image I will never forget.
She sat cross-legged in the open boxcar mouth, her black leather jacket and jeans providing little more than a windbreak. She neither shivered nor slept. She stared into the night, black hair streaming in the freezing breeze, whipping across her face. Of all the situations in which I saw her, in none was she so alluring as in that pose.
Alluring, but untouchable. Though I sure longed for some body heat.
“You, uh, familiar with expeditions to the Antarctic?” I asked. She did not flinch. “Right. Colonel Jenks and his hand-picked crew headed out, a little too close to winter. The water froze around them. They radioed for help, but the signal never reached a soul.”
“So they ate each other or something,” Crow said. “Are you hungry or what?”
“No, they didn’t, well, yes, a few did eat each other, but that’s not the issue here.”
“You’re cold.”
“Well, the men, the ones who did not eat each other, huddled in very platonic fashion, and the warmth—”
“Kept them alive.”
“Actually, no, they all died, but I bet they stayed a little warmer toward the end there.”
Crow spun around. “You wanted to come!”
“That has nothing to do with the fact that I’m about to lose certain body parts.”
“I might consider your request if you did.”
I had no response to that.
I hunkered down in the corner, my mind drifting into frost-induced sleep. In the frigid morning, I awoke from this dream:
Crow scooted over to where I huddled, unbuttoned my thin flannel jacket, and crawled inside, drawing it back around us. She laid her black leather on top, pressed her face into my chest, and cried. Soft, warm tears soaked through my sweatshirt. Her arms wrapped around me, and mine wrapped around her, and we held each other, our bodies bobbing with the roll of the boxcar.
I opened my eyes to find my jacket buttoned and Crow back on her perch. But I felt warm through and through, except for my chest.
My sweatshirt was d
amp.
The train rumbled on, and I stretched and shuffled next to Crow, swung my legs over the edge.
“Where do you think we’re going?”
She reached into her backpack, grabbed the notebook, and slapped it against my chest. “Page three.”
I opened it and read aloud. Will Kroft, 17 years old. Born in Morneau, Minnesota. His father still pastors a small Baptist church outside of town. Mother flew the coop when he was a kid.
“Will’s a pastor’s kid?” I slapped shut the pages.
“Yeah, and I’m an angel.” Crow rolled her eyes. “But it’s what he told Addy.”
“So you think they’re heading to Morneau?”
She tapped the notebook on my lap. “You should read it. There might be things in there even you don’t know. He’s a weasel. The letter he wrote to Addy at the end is rather brilliant. I copied it word for word while she slept.”
The train rumbled through Cambridge and Grandy. I slowly flipped through the notebook. The front of each page held handwritten accounts of Adele and Will’s interactions; Crow had scrawled her interpretations on the flip side.
“You write well, Crow.”
“I know. Read his letter.”
I paged to the end, scanned the note, and scooted back.
Dear Adele,
Do you remember your dad? The sound of his footsteps heavy on the stairs or the smell of him, a scent which, when it finally disappeared, felt a little like a second death?
I did remember my dad’s footsteps—my real dad’s—his safe footsteps outside our door.
You were young when you lost your dad. That’s no less horrible, but perhaps less costly. Except in your case.
Three years ago today, I began a slow walk south from Morneau, south from the reverend. While he was pointing folks to heaven, I was giving him hell, so I figured it was a decent decision, one both he and I would agree to . . . that is, if we spoke.
Three years have gone by, and it may well be going great for him. But it’s not for me. I was fortunate. Mr. L found me downtown, and if a kid needs a substitute dad, you could not ask for better. But I can’t take it anymore. The moralizing, the lessons. It’s not that I can’t stand Mr. L, it’s that he reminds of what I lost, what I left.