Far Far Away (12 page)

“I’m not mad or anything,” he said, “but … you understand, don’t you?”

Ja, ja
, I said quietly, and kept myself still, craving the covering of the metal leaves.

I slipped away from the school but had no time to contemplate my misdeed because, once beyond the school campus, I saw that something graver was amiss.

Whispers carried in the warm spring air, moving from house to house and street to street, a strange, dark animus wrapped in everyday phrases. On the sidewalk of Main Street, in the aisles of the market, across fences and hedgerows, the whispers met and bred more whispers.

“The baker’s house. Broken into. That’s right, the Swede’s.”

“The Johnson boy. Harold Johnson’s boy.”

“The strange one. The one who hears voices.”

“Last night. Around ten p.m. Broke right into Sten’s house.”

“They say the Johnson boy had been stalking him for months.”

“Botched the job, though, and left behind his shoe!”

“Not just his shoe. His key, too, and his blood.”

“They had him dead to rights.”

“They say his father was behind it.”

“What kind of father would send his boy out to steal?”

And so it went, the fantastic, malevolent whisperings stretching and reconfiguring until at last their shape was one on which the villagers could agree: Jeremy Johnson Johnson had broken into the baker’s house to steal something but had been disrupted by the return of the baker himself. Then the boy had been thoroughly found out by Sheriff Pittswort, but because of the baker’s misplaced kindness, Jeremy had escaped the punishment he deserved—and the citizens were ready to do something about it.

Well, that is how it is. No matter the time, no matter the place, a village will often take a false story into its clenched fist.

I repaired to my belfry and gazed out across the flat plains in the direction from which I had hastened that fateful day after coming upon the traveler who walked endlessly into the wind, the man who told me about a boy who read fairy tales and heard voices and needed protection from …

Suddenly, I had this thought: Perhaps the rumors moving through the town, evil as they were, were a strange gift to me! Only two people might have played out the leading thread of the twisted information: the sheriff and his deputy. So perhaps I was a step closer to identifying the Finder of Occasions.

From the steeple I scanned the town—how small the cars seemed! how harmless the humans!—until I spied a black-and-white patrol car sliding under the railway trestle toward the business district, and I descended to investigate.

It was Deputy McRaven, prowling along Main Street. I followed behind, an easy thing given his lax pace, and when he
turned onto a leafy residential street and pulled up in front of the garage over which he lived, I drew closer still.

The neglected building stood in the shade of a large, overhanging tree. The deputy huffed his way up the outside stairs, unlocked two locks, and pushed open the door. But he did not enter. I was distracted by the short-legged bed, the short-legged desk, and the short-legged chair. The deputy stood studying things, as if to see if everything was exactly as he had left it. He was especially intent on the papers spread across the short-legged desk in the far corner of the room, so I slipped in and, by passing rapidly above the papers, caused them to stir.

One paper fell from the desk.

At this, the deputy stumped hurriedly across the room, picked up the paper (it was nothing, merely an advertising notice), and then did something interesting: he looked around the room one more time and pulled open the lower right-hand drawer. He then lifted aside a false bottom that lay within it and regarded a large envelope hidden below.

That this envelope was safely in place seemed to quell whatever fear had come over him—the apprehension drained at once from his face.

He locked the front door, took a bottle of ale from a small refrigerator, and went back to the desk. He took two long draughts from his bottle, then laid open the large envelope.

Inside lay a packet of photographs that the deputy began shuffling through. One was of a man alone in a car reading a letter. One was of a man and woman embracing behind a building. Another was of a man handing cash to another man in the shadows of the municipal park. The deputy studied each photograph—often they were blurred, as if shot from some distance—before
going on to the next. There were perhaps a dozen, each one evidence, it seemed, of behavior that the pictured villagers would not want known. There was also something that sent a tremor through my ancient soul: an exact copy of the obituary of Zyla Johnson Newgate, the very one that had been posted anonymously to Jeremy’s father.

When the deputy got to the last pictures in the packet, he took out a magnifying glass and held it over the blurry images. There was one of a boy and a girl walking along Main Street, one of a boy and a girl laughing on Main Street, one of a boy and a girl standing on the corner of Main Street and Elm.

Yes, you have doubtless guessed it.

The girl in these photographs was Ginger, and the boy was Jeremy.

The deputy returned the envelope to the bottom of the drawer, twice-locked the door behind him, and clumped back down the steps to his patrol car.

So, who was this Deputy McRaven?

A man who accumulated bits of information about villagers and hid them away, as a miser might money.

A man who was particularly interested in Jeremy and his father.

A man, in other words, who might be the Finder of Occasions.

I waited for Jeremy at the school. When at last the final bell rang, the front doors flew open and the students streamed out amidst a raucous din, Jeremy among them.

Listen, if you will!
I shouted to Jeremy, but the boisterous noise could not be penetrated. This was the last day of school—children waved and shouted and threw papers into the air.

Finally, when he separated from the other students, I drew close and fairly shouted.
Jeremy! It is I, Jacob. Listen, if you will
.

But he had begun to whistle! He was happy, and something in me went out to him. He knew only that his examinations were over and that the summer holiday lay ahead, time he could use to earn money toward saving his bookstore and home.

Jeremy! Listen, if you will!

Still he did not hear me.

No, what finally stopped his whistling were the cold stares from citizens on the street, and the way, when met by Jeremy’s genial nod and smile, these villagers stiffly tipped their chins and turned away.

Jeremy slipped into an alley and rubbed his temple. “What’s going on?”

I have been trying to tell you, Jeremy. Someone has spread word of the clues that led to your door
.

“But Mr. Blix told them it wasn’t me.”

Yes. And so now you have been tried in the court of community opinion
.

After a few seconds, Jeremy said, “Tried and found guilty, from the looks of it.”

I said nothing. I could not disagree. We turned onto Main Street.

“And my punishment?”

One of the oldest
.

He cocked his head quizzically.

Public shunning
.

Barely had I spoken these words than I saw the town banker turning curtly at Jeremy’s approach; two other villagers did the same.

Poor Jeremy lowered his head and bolted for the bookstore. Once inside, he locked the door, scrambled up to his attic, and flopped onto the bed.

His father called from the other room. Jeremy did not answer.

Someone rapped on the front door. Jeremy did not stir.

The telephone rang several times. Jeremy stared at the ceiling and listened to the voices leaving messages.

The first voice said, “Jeremy, this is Norman Harang. I no longer need your gardening services.”

A few minutes later, Eva Tanner said, “Don’t come to do my yard tomorrow or ever after. I think you know why.”

Then Melvin Blood said, “I am calling to inform you that I have found someone else to do my yard work.”

And then as it grew dark, a softer, warmer voice flowed from the answering machine: “Jeremy? Are you in there? It’s me, Ginger. I’m sorry about everything. It’s all so horrible and it’s all my fault.” A pause, then: “Could you please pick up?”

But Jeremy simply turned on his bed and stared at the wall.

Jeremy?

“What?” His voice was snappish.

Perhaps there is a silver lining
.

“And what would that be?”

I think this chapter of your tale has revealed the Finder of Occasions
.

Though I had told Jeremy of the Finder of Occasions—and more than once!—he neither believed it nor feared it as I knew to do. So he said nothing.

I think it is the deputy. He collects information about the villagers that is embarrassing or incriminating so that he might hold it against them. He is the one who sent your mother’s obituary to your father. He has taken photographs of you and Ginger
.

In a sullen voice Jeremy said, “This is not a chapter in a tale, Jacob. It’s my
life
. And even if there is such a thing, what difference does it make if McRaven
is
the big bad Finder of Occasions?” He looked in my direction. “He found his occasion and he used it. Game over.”

I started to disagree, to defend my ideas, to defend myself, to tell him that worse might be coming, and might yet be avoided, but he was in no mood for it.

“Good night, Jacob,” he said.

Well, what could I do?

I said,
Good night, Jeremy
, and departed.

The next day was the first of the summer holiday, the day Jeremy had meant to look for more work.

Instead, he left the closed sign hanging in the window of the Two-Book Bookstore and did not venture out of doors. He sat watching television with his father. They did not just watch
Uncommon Knowledge;
they watched anything that appeared on the screen. They ate popcorn. They drank a sickeningly sweet-smelling fruit beverage made by stirring sugar and water with powder poured from a small packet. When the telephone rang, they did not answer it.

Finally, I could bear no more.

You cannot do this, Jeremy. You cannot do what your father has done—lie down and stay inside and stop living
.

He made no sign of hearing me.

You must listen, Jeremy!
I said.
You need to face the town. Let them know that, yes, you did something wrong but not a large thing and that you intend to make amends and perhaps even learn something from the episode
.

Jeremy sat staring at the television. “What I learned is that you do almost everything right for most of your life and then you screw up one time
—one stinking time!
—and everybody thinks you drip with slime.”

A silence followed this pronouncement, and then Jeremy’s father said, “Who’re you talking to?”

Jeremy’s face flushed. “Oh … myself. I was just thinking how unfair this all is. Well, not unfair, exactly, but not completely fair, either.”

“Yeah,” his father said, “learning that things aren’t always fair is a bad lesson.” His gaze drifted to the window. “Sometimes I think it’s the worst lesson of all.”