Trying to keep his voice from trembling, he put on his most sincere tones. “The skull carries a terrible curse. Tonight is the only chance we have to return it to where it came from. If we don’t, it will be with us forever.” To his surprise, he realized that all that was the truth. But now it was time for the zinger. “Actually, it will have to stay with you, Mark, since you’re the one who has it now.”
“Are you serious?” squeaked Mark.
“I cannot tell a lie,” lied Charlie.
After a long silence Mark said, “All right. I’ll bring it back. When?”
“Meet me at quarter to midnight,” said Charlie. Then, worried, he asked, “Can you get out?”
“No problem. I do it all the time.”
Knowing that that had to be the truth, and not really surprised, Charlie started to relax.
He had barely put down the phone when it rang again.
“Well?” asked Karen. “How did it go?”
“I think it’s going to be okay,” said Charlie.
“Tell me about it,” said Karen. “I want the details.”
He repeated the conversation he’d had with Mark, and was absurdly pleased when he finished to hear Karen say, “Good work!”
Charlie sat in his room, waiting for the household to settle down. Sleep was out of the question. Fear seemed to flood his being. Even if Mark did bring Yorick back, what was going to happen after that?
At 11:40 he slipped out of his room and crept quietly down the back stairs. Stewbone, who two years before would never have let anyone through the kitchen, lay sleeping as if dead in his corner. Charlie opened the door as silently as possible, then stepped into the backyard.
A light fog had begun to rise. It swirled around Charlie’s feet. Despite the fog he could glimpse the cemetery stones through the hedge.
Charlie wondered if Mark would really be there, or if this was just a setup. He smiled at his own foolishness. “Of course Mark will be there. He’s got Yorick now, so he had to be telling the truth.”
He went to the designated spot, a tall monument anchoring a family plot that he, Mark, and Gilbert had used as home base when they played hide-and-seek here back in second grade.
Time wore on. Charlie paced back and forth. He checked his watch every few seconds, wishing Mark would hurry up. The night was cold and his sneakers were soaked with dew. He might have been tempted to just leave, if not for two things: (1) he was terrified of what Mr. Elives might do if he failed to return the skull, and (2) he had actually grown quite fond of Yorick—something he didn’t want to admit but couldn’t really deny.
After what seemed like hours (but was, in truth, only about five minutes) Mark arrived. He was carrying the box.
“Waiting for me, Eggleston?”
Charlie fought back a half dozen sarcastic remarks. Finally he just said, “Yes. Thanks for coming.”
Mark snorted. “You’re such a—” He broke off, looking startled.
Charlie smiled, realizing that whatever insult Mark had been about to fling at him must not be true. He wondered what it had been. Before he could say anything, he saw a flashlight beam approaching.
“Shhh!” he hissed to Mark, pointing toward the light.
“No need to be quiet for me,” said a familiar voice.
“Karen!” yelped Charlie. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see how this all came out,” she said. “Besides, I thought you might need help.”
“You were right,” said Mark with a sneer. “He needs all the help he can get.”
The fact that since Mark could say this it must be true did nothing to comfort Charlie. He was trying to think of a suitable response when they heard a whistle—three high notes, and one long, low one.
Charlie and Mark looked at each other in surprise.
“Gilbert?” asked Mark.
“You rang?” asked Gilbert, walking toward them out of the mist.
“You shouldn’t be out tonight!” cried Charlie.
Gilbert scowled at him. “Karen told me you and Mark were meeting here. I figured maybe there should be a witness.”
“What did you think I was going to do?” asked Mark angrily. “Kill him?”
“No. But I figured you might whack him around a little.”
“Could you blame me, after what he did to my father?”
“He couldn’t have done anything if your father had been telling the truth to begin with,” said Karen gently.
Mark lifted the box, and for one terrible moment Charlie thought he was going to throw it. Darting forward, he cried, “Mark, wait! I wish . . .” He paused. “I wish . . .”
What did he wish? Whatever he said, it had to be the truth, now that he was back in Yorick’s presence. Digging inside for the deepest truth he could find, he finally said, “I wish this had never gotten started.”
“You wish what had never started?”
Charlie thought for a minute. What had he meant?
It must have been true, whatever it was.
“All of it,” he said at last. “Your father’s project. Me lying about it.” He grimaced. “You beating me up.” He paused again, then added sincerely, “Us being enemies.”
Mark looked at him closely. “Do you mean that? The part about us being enemies?”
“I must,” said Charlie, gesturing toward the box.
“Well, Swamp Boy, do you remember when we started being enemies?”
“Sure—back in second grade, when you got me in so much trouble with that toad thing.”
“That’s your version.”
“What’s yours?” asked Charlie, astonished by this comment.
“We started being enemies when I tried to apologize and you spit on me.”
Charlie’s eyes went wide. “Oh, my god,” he whispered in horror. “I forgot about that.”
“I didn’t.”
“Jeez, Charlie,” said Gilbert, sounding disgusted. “I didn’t know about that.”
Charlie took a deep breath. “I’m really sorry,” he said softly, and truthfully. “It was a creepy thing to do.”
For a minute none of them said anything. Finally Charlie whispered, “I’m sorry about your father, too. I can’t be sorry about the swamp. I love it. But I’m sorry your dad—”
“Shut up,” said Mark. “You talk too much.”
He stepped closer to Charlie, who braced himself, uncertain what Mark was intending to do next. But all he did was open the box. “Here’s your skull,” he said, lifting Yorick out. “Take the darn thing.”
“Who are you calling a thing?” asked Yorick. Charlie could tell by the look in Mark’s eyes that he could hear the words, too.
A smile twitched at the corner of Mark’s mouth. “You know, I thought about keeping him, Charlie. But after half an hour of his babbling I decided if I really wanted revenge on you, the best thing I could do was give him back.”
“Thanks a lot!” said Charlie, meaning two things at once.
As he took the skull from Mark, he felt a calm settle over him. It was only then that he realized how tightly he had been holding himself.
“Well done, gentlemen,” said a voice from the mist.
Charlie yelped and spun round. Then he blinked in surprise. “Ms. Priest? What are you doing here?”
The librarian stepped out of the darkness and the mist. She was wearing a hooded cape. When she pulled back the hood, Charlie saw that she had a crown of daisies circling her head.
“I might ask the same of all of you,” she said, looking in surprise at the group gathered there. “When Mr. Elives asked me to meet you here, Charlie, I expected to find only you and Yorick.”
“Things got complicated,” he said.
She nodded. “It is likely they did so for a reason.”
“What do you mean?” asked Karen.
Ms. Priest reached out and took Yorick from Charlie’s hands. “All four of you have been touched in some way by the skull and the truth it has unleashed on the world,”
she said. “So perhaps you were all meant to be here tonight.”
“Why did Mr. Elives ask me to come to begin with?” asked Charlie.
“Follow me, and you’ll find out,” said Ms. Priest, smiling mysteriously. She handed the skull to Charlie, then turned and walked back into the mist.
He looked at the others, shrugged, and started after her.
He could hear his friends following behind him.
The moonlit cemetery was quiet and still, the only movement that of the clouds overhead, which in turn made the shadows cast by the tombstones shift and change. As they walked on, the mist grew thicker, making it hard for Charlie to recognize where they were. Soon it was swirling around his knees, and then as high as his waist. Though he had played here since he was a small boy, he was totally lost. The stones surrounding them seemed taller—and older—than any he remembered.
Rounding a big willow tree (one Charlie could not recall having ever seen before) they came to the foot of an open grave.
At the far end stood a girl dressed all in white.
“You came!” she said, sounding pleased. Her voice, quiet and soft, seemed to scrape the marrow from Charlie’s bones.
“We came,” said Ms. Priest.
“There are more of you than I expected.”
“There are more than I expected,” replied Ms. Priest.
The girl looked directly at Charlie and said with utter certainly, “You are the Truth Bearer.”
Charlie nodded.
The girl smiled. “Then will you follow me?”
Charlie glanced at Ms. Priest. Her face gave him no clue. He turned his gaze to Yorick.
“I’m game,” said the skull, in a voice only he could hear.
Charlie lifted his eyes to the girl. “I’ll follow,” he said softly.
“Good.” She turned to the others. “This is as far as you can come,” she said, with just a hint of sorrow in her voice. “Charlie must go on alone from here.”
“That’s it?” asked Karen. “We just turn around and go back?”
The girl in white paused. She seemed to be thinking. Finally she said, “No, that’s not all. You have earned the right to ask me a question.”
“Why would we want to do that?” asked Mark. Then he added quickly, “And if that counts, don’t answer!”
The girl laughed. “It doesn’t count. And the reason you would want to do it is because I will give a true answer.”
“You can’t tell us what you don’t know,” said Gilbert.
“You would be surprised at what I know.”
“All right,” said Mark, stepping forward. “I’ll start. What’s going to happen to my father?”
The girl closed her eyes. “He will be sad. He will be happy. He will have great success. He will have painful failure. He will grow old. He will die.”
Mark snorted. “That’s not very useful.”
The girl shrugged. “It’s the absolute truth. If you want more specific answers, ask more specific questions.”
Mark started to speak, but the girl shook her head. “You’ve had your question.”
“But—”
Ms. Priest put a hand on Mark’s shoulder. “You can have truth, or you can have mercy,” she said gently. “Generally you cannot expect both.”
Karen stepped forward. She glanced back at the others. Then, in a quiet voice, as if she was revealing a deep secret, she whispered, “Will I sell a book when I grow up?” Before the girl could answer, Karen added quickly, “I mean, one that I write?”
The girl smiled. “Yes, you will.”
“When?” asked Karen eagerly. “How old will I be?”
The girl shook her head. “One question only.”
Karen nodded, her bald head gleaming in the moonlight, and stepped back.
The white-clad girl turned to Gilbert. “Your turn.”
Gilbert stepped forward, then stood in silence for a long time, looking not at the girl but down into the open grave. Finally he looked up and whispered, “Will I . . . Will I . . .” After a while he shook his head and stepped back. “Never mind,” he said softly.
A silence hung heavy about them, broken only by the distant hoot of an owl.
“You are a wise child,” said the girl. “And now the time has come. Truth Bearer, follow me.”
Without waiting for an answer, she stepped into the grave.
FIFTEEN
Face to Face (to Face)
Charlie gasped, expecting her to fall to the bottom. When she began a slow descent instead, he thought at first that she was floating. He stepped forward to look more closely and realized that the grave had a stairway inside—stairs that led deep into the earth.
He looked back toward Ms. Priest. “You must travel alone now, Charlie,” she said softly. “I came to make the connection, but the journey itself is yours. I will escort your friends to their homes.”
“Is it safe?” asked Karen, looking at Charlie with concern.
“Probably not,” said Ms. Priest. “That doesn’t really matter now. Charlie must do what Charlie must do, and we must let him do it.”
Charlie turned to face her, to face his friends. “It will be all right,” he said, and because he was holding Yorick he was pretty sure that was the truth, though what all right really meant he couldn’t have said. “I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.” He paused, then added, “I’m glad you were here. All of you,” he stressed, looking directly at Mark. He turned back to the grave. “Wish me luck.”
“Luck,” whispered Karen.
“Luck,” echoed Mark.
“Luck, friend,” said Gilbert softly.
Ms. Priest leaned close to his ear and murmured, “I shall wish you courage.” Then she turned and led the others a distance from the grave.
Charlie looked at the girl, who was waiting for him three steps down. “Where are we going?”
“To my home.”
Clutching Yorick tightly, he crouched at the edge of the grave, still afraid to enter. He watched as the girl went several steps deeper into the earth. She paused and turned to face him once more. As she did, a stray bit of moonlight illuminated her face.
To Charlie’s astonishment she was no longer a girl, but a wizened old woman of extraordinary ugliness.
“Who are you?” he whispered, his voice thick with awe.
She smiled. “I am Truth.”
Charlie gasped. The girl’s gentle voice had changed to a harsh croak. He felt, for a moment, as if it might flay the skin from his body. Yet even as she spoke, she changed again, shifting into the form of a middle-aged man.
“I’ve been trying to come back to the world you know for a week now,” he said in a deep voice. “Ever since you took the skull out of the shop. It wasn’t easy, for the world has grown quite hostile to me during the last few years.”
Truth turned and continued into the earth.
Charlie thought about turning himself—turning and running. He knew all too well how dangerous Truth could be.
Several things kept him from fleeing. Curiosity was one part of the mix. A degree of trust in Ms. Priest was another. But more than anything it was the feeling that if he didn’t see this through, didn’t enter the mystery opening before him, he would regret it for the rest of his life.
He put one foot into the grave and started down.
When he had descended several steps he laid his free hand against the earthen wall beside him. It was moist and cool. And solid. Sliding his hand along the wall, he traveled deeper, feeling sandy patches; cool, damp stones; fine, hairlike roots; the blunt ends of thicker roots that had been chopped off; and, once, a wriggling sliminess that made him gasp.
He traveled out of the moonlight, which had been streaming in over his shoulder, then stopped at the edge of a darkness more intense than any he had seen before.
Again he thought about turning back.
“Keep going,” Yorick whispered urgently. “We have to keep going.”
Reluctantly Charlie st
epped into the darkness. No sooner had he done so than he saw a light ahead of him and realized that Truth was carrying a torch.
He wondered where it had come from.
The tunnel stretched on, slanting into the earth like a long throat open to swallow them. He glanced up. The flickering torchlight showed a stony roof, slick with moisture. From far away he could hear the sound of running water.
He shivered, feeling that he was descending into someplace deep and sacred. Then, suddenly, he felt nothing at all—at least, not beneath his fingertips. He extended his hand farther. The wall was gone. At the same time the glow ahead of him began to spread, as if the torch’s light was stretching in all directions. They entered a place where all was mist, a mist so thick Charlie could see no more than a few feet ahead, despite the glow of the torch. Looking carefully, he could just barely make out Truth, who seemed to have taken on the form of a great lumbering beast.
Despite his limited vision, Charlie had a sense that the space they were in was vast and trackless. Were they still beneath the cemetery? Or had they gone someplace else, someplace stranger?
He hurried a few steps closer to Truth. At the same time he realized that the skull had been un-customarily quiet.
“Yorick,” he whispered. “Are you all right?”
“Fine. Just slightly terrified.”
“I know the feeling,” muttered Charlie.
Trying not to think about it, he focused on following Truth.
“Are we almost there?” whispered the skull, after another minute or so.
Charlie assumed Yorick was speaking only to him, so he was startled when Truth answered. “Time is but an illusion. We will get there when we get there.”
“Great,” thought Charlie, directing his words to Yorick and hoping that Truth couldn’t read his mind. “She—he—whatever!—is as annoying as you are!”
They traveled for what seemed like hours, though based on Truth’s last comment, Charlie realized it could have been no time at all.